Copper Leaf Creative: Straight talk, not geek speak

Gordon Seirup separates Loveland-based Copper Leaf Creative from the crowd by building a strategic purpose with his clients before building their website.

“My research shows that only 5 percent of website-development agencies are strategically driven,” he said. “Our real goal is not to be a website factory but to impact our clients’ bottom line as they define that over time.”

The benefit of his approach is that once a company becomes his customer, it’s generally his customer for life.

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Another one of Seirup’s value-added offerings is that he’s light on geek speak and heavy on lay-person language. “We like to think of ourselves as talented interpreters of technology,” he said.

Clients come to Copper Leaf Creative from a variety of industries but tend to be in the small- to medium-sized categories because Seirup isn’t looking to scale his business to reach larger companies. He’s more interested in developing long-lasting relationships than he is in expanding the definition of his target market.

The core of Copper Leaf Creative is built on a process of Web development that helps clients pin down their company’s intentions. It starts with a seven-page discovery survey that uncovers the power of their business and then moves into ways they could use a website to get that message out and bring customers in.

Once the website goes live, Copper Leaf Creative starts collecting data to determine how well the finished product bridges the client’s objectives and the website’s success at meeting them. Improving on the concept and delivery becomes the focus after that.

In a time when it’s possible to read a few books, watch some how-to videos and hang a virtual shingle out as a website developer, being competitive in the field can be challenging. Seirup stays steady in how he presents his experience and in how he builds his client base as a way to meet the challenge.

His self-motivation is primarily to just keep showing up and doing the work because some people won’t. “I’m getting business now from some of those people,” he said.  “The more around you are, the more established and better you get.”

Seirup recently made a change in how he runs his business in response to another challenge he was dealing with: staffing.

“Our revenue was growing, but our profit margin wasn’t,” he said, “and at the end of the year, profit will always beat revenue.”

To turn the tide, he reduced his employee base to one person, a business manager, but recognized that he was trying to do too much.

“Our profit margin is going up now, even though our revenue is down,” he said. “I’m also working less.”

Seirup chalked his business sense up to the result of trial and error.

“As boring as it is,” he said, “realizing that you’ll have good days and bad days is really helpful.”