You built a business people trust. Strangers still pick the other guy.
It's 9:40 at night. You're at the kitchen table finishing a quote for a lead who'll probably go with whoever's cheapest.
Your work is better. Your reviews say so. Online, you look the same as the guy who undercuts you by 30%.
You've got an SEO company, an ads person, and somebody who posts on social when they remember. Each one sends a report. None of them can tell you where last month's jobs came from.
And nobody has ever told you what you should actually be spending.
If that's you, keep reading. This page is about the guy who used to sell you the problem.
I used to sell you the problem.
Before I built anything, I sold advertising to business owners like you.
At Verizon Yellow Pages I finished as the number one White Pages salesman in the company. At the St. Petersburg Times I doubled my territory in a year. I once sold a single insurance agency a quarter of a million dollars in ads.
I was good at it. I knew the pitch, because I gave it.
Here's what I learned on that side of the table: the people selling you exposure get paid whether your phone rings or not.
Then my dad's welding shop needed customers and had no budget. So I filled out a free online directory listing for him. No ad. No contract.
The phone rang.
That's when it clicked. When a business shows up where people are already looking, it doesn't have to keep renting their attention. It owns it.
I've built on that idea ever since.
Right, but early.
A few years later I hit bottom in San Diego. No money, no car, living in the back of my dad's shop. I biked to the public library, rebuilt his website from scratch on a library computer, and his phone rang again.
So I came home to Florida, printed cards offering "Five Optimized Listings," and knocked on every door along US-27 in Clermont.
I signed zero clients.
Nobody was looking at Google Maps yet. A few years later, everybody was.
In January 2011 I started Chess Club Media. I became the SEO guy in Clermont and Lake County, joined the Chamber, co-founded the local Young Professionals group, and built for the same owners whose doors I'd knocked on.
Since then the work has taken me to Seattle, Dubai, Nairobi and Stockholm. 150+ clients in 7+ countries. The tools change every couple of years.
The lesson hasn't: get found, get chosen, get called.
Now we answer for all of it.
Most owners we meet have been sold a stack. An SEO company, an ads person, a social poster, a web designer. Every one of them owns a piece. Nobody owns the result.
Chess Club Media is accountable to you for the full stack.
I lead the strategy on every account. When a job calls for specialists, we bring in people we trust, and we answer for their work. You never manage a vendor again.
We build what you own first and treat ads as one channel feeding it. Turn the ads off and the machine still runs.
Twelve months from quitting. Then #1 in Florida.
Terry Brown sells church insurance. When he found us, he was twelve months from quitting a business he'd run for thirty years. He'd already tried two other "experts."
We rebuilt all of it. A new website. SEO to page one for "church insurance quotes" and the Florida local 3-pack. Meta and Google ads. An e-book in his voice. Video and audio. A lead funnel that sent every lead straight to his phone: 441 in a single year.
He became his carrier's #1 producer in Florida, three years running.
“I was 12 months from quitting my business of 30 years. Now, I am excited about working again. I have been the company's top producer in Florida the last three years in a row. If not for our partnership I would have sold my agency.”
“Within a few months, our website was on the top of the first page of Google searches for words we cared about. We can draw a clear line from Mikel's efforts to our rapid growth.”
“He developed an individualized web based & mobile advertising campaign for me that is the number one source of referrals for my counseling practice.”
“Putting it simply, Mikel has no peer in the area in terms of creativity, understanding the need for an overall strategy and, perhaps most importantly, how to implement that creative strategy in a way that achieves the agreed-upon goals.”
“Mikel knows the ins and outs of online marketing to insure that we appeared on the first page of Google searches.”
Same lesson, bigger boards.
“I have been working together with Mikel on a number of projects and I would describe him as a universal soldier of marketing.”
- Brass TacksSEATTLE
- +47% revenue year over year. A Seattle Times Sunday cover and three KING 5 news segments.
- USA Memory ChampionshipU.S.
- 3× competitors registered.
- KashaKENYA AND RWANDA
- About 6× return on ad spend and 8× blog traffic. The company reported 936% growth that year.
- Mondo RideNAIROBI
- About 150% more rides while cutting marketing spend.
- VenturePortSTOCKHOLM
- Interim CMO. 150+ beta sign-ups and EU press on a near-zero budget.
The standards we hold ourselves to.
What the sales floor taught me.
My degree gave me the framework. The sales floor gave me the scars. Here's what stuck.
- 01"A business doesn't think it's expensive."My first sales manager told me that, and it took years to understand. Marketing is only expensive when it doesn't come back. That's why we start with your number, not a package.
- 02Make the call anyway.The top rep on my first team kept dialing on Friday afternoons after everyone else went home. He'd leave with three deals. Most days are hard. The work that wins is the work you do anyway.
- 03Listen first.My best close in direct mail started with one question: "What's your experience been so far?" Then I stopped talking. I still open every call that way.
- 04Own it. Don't rent it.A free listing beat a paid ad for my dad's shop. Everything we build starts there.
- 05If it's boring, I'm not done.Your marketing should look as good as your work.
“He's an absolute beast, one of those Jedi strategy minded people who can see around corners. Mikel really helped me to 10x everything: 10x traffic on my blog, basically 10x sales, from my processes to my SEO to my funnels to how I close, convert, and attract new leads. I cannot recommend his services enough.”
On the record.
- IN THE PRESS
- FOX Business / FOX News RadioQuartz AfricaSeattle Times Sunday front cover, client Brass TacksKING 5 Seattle three news segments, client Brass Tacks
- RECOGNITION & SPEAKING
- South Lake Chamber of Commerce "Most Innovative Social Media Marketing" and featured speakerWeWork featured speaker and official LinkedIn Community AdvisorNairobi Garage recognized as a "leading digital marketing agency" in East Africa and featured speakerThe Nehemiah Project invited speaker for entrepreneurial trainingLake Technical College, Lake-Sumter State College Entrepreneurial Institute, Lake Union Key Club (Seattle) featured speaker and workshop leaderWits University (South Africa) hosted the Study Abroad MBA program for a live Q&AUSF Alumni Magazine featured articleU.S. Chamber of Commerce recognized for the eBook "The Chamber Made Me Famous""The Blueprint" by Brennan Dunn featured as an example of great copywriting
- CERTIFICATIONS
- Anthropic · Claude 101, Claude Code 101, Claude Platform 101Google Ads · Search, Search Professional, Display, Apps, AI-Powered ShoppingLinkedIn Marketing · Strategy, Advertising Fundamentals, Content & Creative Design, Marketing InsiderMeta Blueprint · Marketing API, Facebook Pixel
- ADVISORY BOARDS
- Pig On The Pond Scholarship Fund & Community Festival · Clermont Elementary School · Lake Tech Digital Design College · USA Memory Championship · Mondo Ride · Audidio
- AUTHOR
- "Link in Bio: Three Words That Shook the Stormy Seas" · "Mike's LinkedIn Profile Workbook" (AppSumo)
- EDUCATION
- University of South Florida Honors College, B.A., cum laude
Asked on most first calls.
Book an hour with Mikel.
Four quick answers, then pick a time. You leave with a plan either way.
