Young Entrepreneur Spotlight on CEO Kid Ben Armstrong of 9 Miles Media

I met Ben via Twitter and was so impressed not only by his varied interests and work ethic but also by his faith!  He has a awesome level of professionalism and commands attention by his articulation!  Ben has been in the web design industry for just four years and already he so many accomplishments to be proud of!  Be sure to read every bit of the interview!

Sarah -            I’m here with Ben Armstrong here today and very excited to be talking to him because all of the different areas of business that he’s tackled.  And he has some exciting news, so I’m just going to jump right in and let him introduce a little bit about his story, what he’s doing in his life right now and where you can find him on the web.  So go ahead Ben.

Ben -            Thank you Sarah.  It’s fantastic to speak to you as well.  Well, my whole story begins when I was at the ripe old age of eleven.  I began doing some graphic design type work here in the local North Carolina area, which is where I live.  As I didn’t have many design or business skills and didn’t really plan out my objectives, it wasn’t too terribly effective.  But essentially that led to another thing which led to another as things tends to do and I was able to find a fantastic group of people through social media and social networking sites.

And as a result, I’ve been able to grow a company today to encompass multiple teenagers from across the world that do graphic and web design services for clients from all walks of life, geographic locations and budgets.  So the exciting news that youth mentioned was essentially today we were able to launch our brand new website only just three hours prior to right now when we’re recording.  So that was pretty exciting and worked out well for timing.  But it really has been a fun journey and I’m excited about sharing it with you.

Sarah –       Okay.  So tell us again the site.

Ben -            Sorry, yeah, I guess you need to link.  9milesmedia.com would be the place to go.  And then if you want to learn more about me, you can go to ben-armstrong.com.

Sarah -         Okay.  So nine with the number 9milesmedia –

Ben -            Either way.

Sarah -          Okay, you can do it either way.  That’s good, brilliant that you picked both domains.   Well perfect.  Perfect.  And I, it’s just exciting.  I can’t wait to dive into your website and see more of what you guys have done there because you did have this site before but you’ve done a makeover and extended more services and things like that, correct?

Ben -            Yeah, we’ve made a bit more our own and really kind of refocused and seeing what our values are at this point and what we’re trying to attract.  So I think it’s a big step forward.

Sarah -         That’s great.  Okay.  So you started at eleven and then you progressed from there.  What were the things that influenced you to start your business?

Ben -            I think probably my dad is a very large influence and still absolutely is.  He really kind of influenced me in a fantastic way.  He started multiple businesses when he graduated from college and it really kind of gave me what we like to call the bug; the entrepreneurial spirit.  And I think that it’s just one of those things that is really fantastic, that you can share with a family member is the idea of going out and starting your own companies and paving your own way and really kind of becoming a business person and a professional in your own industry.  So I‘d say that was one really big inspiration and probably the major one.

Sarah -        That’s good.  So is he pretty involved still or not really?  I mean, was he ever really involved in your businesses or did you just kind of watch him?

Ben -            Oh, absolutely.  Yes, he’s been quite involved since the beginning and has a good relationship with all of my team members and we’re able to – when we have a tough question that we’re trying to muddle through or we have this email that we’re just, we have no idea how to write this to this client or express these ideas.  It’s really a fantastic resource to have someone like that with the previous experience.

Sarah -        That’s great.  I love to hear things like! So what do you think are your biggest skills?  What do you think as a young entrepreneur or entrepreneurs in general, what are the most important skills that you feel like you really need to have?

Ben -            I would say a passion for meeting new people.  I absolutely adore the relationships that have been cultivated as a result of the work that I get to do every day.  I think that that is really a large part of it and kind of determines whether or not you could make it in this world because as you and I both know, the business world really revolves around relationships.  They’re big, small and become in all shapes and sizes but they really do kind of influence every aspect.  Because if you can’t relate to someone as a client, if you can’t relate to someone as a team member, it’s very difficult for you to really become someone that that person feels they can trust and then you can work cohesively with.  So I’d say that’s a really big part.  And then probably the next largest thing that is really important is organizational skills along with communication and drive I suppose are huge, influencing factors on your degree of success.

Sarah -        Those are good things.  So what obstacles, looking back because you’ve been really doing some pretty fast work in just three years?  Right, because you’re 14?

Ben -            Well, I’m 15 now but pretty much, yep.  That’s a tough one.  Let’s see, I think probably the biggest obstacles that we face together have been finding quality people who are really willing to jump in head first and take ownership of shared ideas.  I think that finding good people who have real passion for their work, the technical skills and the good communication skills is really an integral part.  There’s many programmers out there who are excellent in their field and then there are many idea people but it can often times be difficult to find the sort of people who excel in both areas.

Sarah -        Right.  And I think something that you said really struck with me that finding people that are passionate about the shared ideas that perhaps they were your ideas and finding someone that’s really passionate about them as well I think is really key to having that business partnership.  Because if you don’t have that, then someone’s going to bail.  So that’s so great.

Ben -            Or someone’s going to want to bail.  I think is the –

Sarah -        Yeah, exactly.  Someone’s going to want to bail I should say.  And I think that’s something that we found too is we’ve had different people that we’ve worked even just in the few months that we started Raising CEO Kids and it’s, there’s some people, I just want to say, you know what, it’s okay if you leave.  And just because you can tell they’re not passionate.  Not that they’re not great people, not that anything else, but you can tell that maybe it’s something that they need to do something else and that’s okay and I think it’s important like you said to have that open communication and build those relationships so that you are on the same page.

Ben -            Absolutely.  I think it really comes down to transparency as a group, outwardly towards those people that you’re working with and for and then also inter team, within yourself, it could really kind of make or break an organization.  So absolutely.

Sarah -        So tell us a little bit about 9milesmedia and what your target market is and you’re a design firm and you said all ends of the spectrum.  So someone’s that really, really tiny could come to you or is it mostly like this level and up?  Does that make sense?  Kind of what’s your benchmark?

Ben -            Oh absolutely, yeah.  I would say that our benchmark is probably about the lowest you’re going to find anywhere.  And let me explain why.  The folks that I get to work with are pretty fantastic in the way that we are all under 18.  We are all, for the most part, none of us have ever met and I think that kind of represents a pretty interesting concept in and of itself and then you take that one step further and you think, okay, we are still living under our parents roof and were going through school and we’re trying to balance other things and then we apply this next level.  And I think that a big influencing part is just that you’re able to provide services at lesser cost because bottom line is your time isn’t quite as valuable at this point, you’re still learning.

Learning is kind of our key word.  Your still – this is an opportunity for learning for anyone who’s interested.  And that’s on both sides of the fence.  All of our clients tell us afterwards, they learned a fantastic amount after we were done with the project because I think that starting out the web can be a very mystifying place.  And just to anyone who’s beginning, it can be really tough.  So what we aim to do is take all of those challenges and really kind of convert them into plain English and go on a learning journey with our clients and make it so that they’re comfortable doing the things that before they weren’t doing on the web.

Sarah -        That’s great.  So what about your age?  Do you feel like it’s been both sides of the story?  Do you feel like it’s been a great thing and also maybe a not so great thing as far as getting the job and not getting the job?  Does that make sense what I’m saying?  Do you feel like you’ve had pros and cons with it or has it always been a really great thing; your age?

Ben -            Well, I would say at this point at least our age has been for the most part a pretty outstanding resource.  We’ve been able to center the values of our entire organization to on providing an excellent learning opportunity to teenagers across the globe.  So I’d say that it really has been pretty valuable in that we can make that our main focus.  And it attracts people to us because we have something unique to offer and we have the story.  I think it’s absolutely true the old marketing advice that stories do sell.  And that can be a really influencing part of your client’s decision making process when they’re looking for someone to partner with in a creative idea or a creative venture.

If they can start to believe in your organization, then they’ll often times realize just how much you’re putting into theirs and helping theirs out and you can really grow together in your relationship.  So that’s kind of the pros of it I suppose.  And then the cons would probably just be when minors are starting companies especially in the US, there’s quite a bit of legalities and hoops to hop through.  And that hasn’t really been an issue for us.  We’ve found that it hasn’t been too hard especially with experience of older adults such as my dad a few other outside business mentors that have really been fantastic resources.

But other than that, it really hasn’t been bad.  I think that it’s often times a hard times for people getting started. They think that they might be discriminated against for their age but I just believe that it’s a pretty outstanding resource.  If you have a special talent at a young age, we’ll you’re just plain more marketable in my opinion.

Sarah -        I think that’s true.  Plus you have – I mean if you start when you’re ten or eleven or 12 and you do that for the next several years before you go to even – I mean, even if you chose to work for someone else which a lot of people are like, I would never work for someone else now.  Even if you chose to, you have a whole bunch of time under your belt with experience that most of these people graduating from college don’t have a few minutes worth.  So that’s just really, really key.  What do you think?  Do you think you’re going to go to college, not going to go to college?  What’s your take on that?

Ben -            Absolutely.  I am definitely planning to attend college and to probably major in business.  I think that especially with the professional environment today is whether some people like it or not, is very much centered around not only your skills and it’s very rapidly evolving and who knows, by the time I enter the “real workforce”, it’s hard to say what the landscape will be then.  But at this point, I’d say that it is still very much focused on qualifications in the academic field.  So I think that that, but not only that, I think that it really gives you a firm foundation for going forward in life.  Because if you can just not bump through college and just not bump through high school, that you can really get a lot of value out of it.

Sarah -        Right.  That’s so true.  And I do think that because you’re, maybe you’re not necessarily going to college to have a specific job per say after you get done, you’re going specifically to learn business and you have all these other skills already and it’s almost like that one more piece that you’re getting that piece of that puzzle for the education that you’re after.  I think that’s really great that you said that.  I forgot to ask one question.  So what is the legal entity of your business?  Were you able to set up and LLC, were you able to set up; how did you do that because you have so many people involved?

Ben -            Right, absolutely.  Currently, we’re a general partnership under North Carolina law with plans of becoming an LLC.  At this point, we found that it hasn’t really been necessary.  It’s been an unnecessary cost, unnecessary hardship.  But at this point, a partnership has worked out just fine with us.  And I recognize though, I’ve been thinking about this recently and discussing with my team.  But the landscape for us especially is very much changing as folks get older and as things change and so we really need to take that into account.  So over the next few years, I anticipate some changes.  But as of yet, the partnership has really worked out well.

Sarah -        That’s good.  Because I think a lot of people that are looking at the business aspect of it, I think that’s a little bit of a scary zone for some people.  That they’re like oh, my goodness, do I have to do this, am I protected, what’s the deal?  Which is why it’s so important like you say to have those trustable relationships in place and lots of transparency and all those things.

Ben -            Well, ask anyone who’s ever has filled out a tax form.  Just, absolutely, it is scary.  And it is hard to understand.  And especially as you’re young, it can be a frightening thing.  But I think that more experience that you get early on, oh man that is just so valuable later down the road.  Envision – you have such a jump on everyone else.  So I think that really is a fantastic resource.

Sarah -        That’s so good.  So tell me about some good surprises starting your own business and maybe some things that you think you figured out that maybe some of your other colleagues, not really colleagues, but you know what people that are your age or friends at school or whatever haven’t quite figured out yet.  What are some good surprises that you gleamed from being in business?

Ben -            Well, I think there’s too many to count really.  I don’t know how to answer that one quite yet.  Let’s see, I think that probably the first one is just, it’s been fantastic.  You realize very, very quickly how little you know once you have the chance to work with a team of outstanding individuals who are really at the top of their game.  You realize just very quickly that, oh, I thought I was an expert at that but no, not really.  And I think that’s been a very powerful statement for me has been the realization that there is a lot of stuff to know out there and it’s impossible to know it all.  But what you do know can be very valuable.  So that was probably the biggest not necessarily surprise but just kind of eye opening experience was working with and collaborating with a team of individuals realizing how it was kind of the speck on the earth effect.

Ben -            In a good way.

Sarah -        It makes you excited.  For me, it makes me excited.  When I find these people, then I’m like, oh my goodness, they are so brilliant.  And it just makes me excited.  It makes want to learn more, work harder and definitely spread the news about them.  So I think that’s probably why you’re so excited about your team because it sounds like you picked a team of people that are just crazy talented and they inspire you and you inspire them and it’s a real great cohesive thing that’s going on.

Ben -            Absolutely.  And then the only other thing I was going to mention there was you kind of think when you’re starting a business or you’re right in the thick of that startup process, it’s a very exciting time.  And we’ve noticed that as our businesses matured that people do definitely change and your business model that worked a year ago or your marketing model that worked a year ago definitely might just not work today or might not work tomorrow.  And so it’s that rapid readjustment that is so necessary in any field and industry that has been eye opening to witness first hand.

Sarah -         That’s an awesome insight that you talked about, that you’re always on the, your thumb is always on the pole as I would say of what’s going on and what needs to change.  And you definitely as an entrepreneur need to be able to have rapid shifts and not have to look at everything completely.  I mean, sometimes you have to make a choice really quickly, don’t you find?

Ben -            Absolutely, yeah.  I come from the background of my father’s also a private pilot; he’s an aircraft salesman by trade.  And as a result, I’m a student pilot currently learning to fly aircraft.  And so that’s been pretty neat experiences to carry over into the business world of if you’re plotting a course and you get a bit off, you have to make a readjustment.  And the sooner you realize it, the less time and energy and fuel you expend.  So I think that has really been tying the knot all together is what I’m trying to say.

Sarah -        Okay, so what approaches do you use to market your business?  I know you’re on social media, but what else do you do?

Ben -            Absolutely what you just mentioned.  Social media is probably one of very, very few ways that we market our business.  We do a bit of direct mail in the areas that we have people all over the world; direct mail type stuff.  But other than that, it is really working with social media.  We just recently crossed the 20,000 follower mark on twitter and have really, that’s been pretty exciting to watch grow and to be a part of that community.  And so now we’re branching out also into things like LinkedIn and into things like Facebook and things that haven’t even been invented yet.  I mean, just a few days ago, Google Buzz came out.  I’m still not quite sure what that is.  But it should be interesting.

Sarah -        I know.  I have a couple – yeah, there’s a couple little messages on my Gmail about it.  I’m like, okay, one more thing.

Ben -            One more thing to check.  But I think that marketing in this century and just in this time especially around the business that we have, we have the capabilities to do quite a bit online without actually spending anything other than your time and your focus.  So I think that’s pretty powerful.  And it really is – if you’re business is in the right industry that people are going to be online looking for it in those sort of places, it really is a perfect fit.

Sarah -       That’s absolutely true.  So is it ninemilemedia that you’re on twitter with or is it Ben Armstrong – which one is it that has the 20,000 followers?

Ben -            @9miles.  So twitter.com/9miles.

Sarah -         Okay. Good.  Well that’s, congratulations!!

Ben -            Thanks.  Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah -        So how do you balance it all?  Because you are obviously very young, you’re in school, you have friends, you have family, you have this great business that’s growing.  How do you do it?

Ben -            Balance, what’s that?

Sarah -         Yeah!

Ben -            I’m kidding of course.  But I think it is very important to have balance in life and business.  I know I couldn’t do what I do without it.  I think the approach that I take to it that I have no idea is the best one yet; I haven’t gotten that far but we’ll see is that I make really clear to myself and then also to others who are on my team what my priorities are and really how my perspective is on what it is that we have to handle.  We’re all a big fan of, okay, put it on a list; we’ll get this done, cross it off.  Okay, cool, I feel better now.  And so I think using technologies to facilitate actually getting things done and being effective with your time and very productive is a big part of it.

But it is difficult, absolutely because sometimes you’ll get home and you’ll go and you’ll work out after school and then you’ll get home and you have to do homework and then you’ll have to be on a conference call, and then you’ll have to do your emails, and then you’ll have to go to sleep and make dinner or eat dinner and then go to bed and wake up the next morning and do it all over again.  And it gets tiring after a while.  But I would say that absolutely, especially in the industry that I’m in, the positives far outweigh the negatives and it really is worth it all the time.

Sarah -         Well, and don’t you think it’s worth it because you’re so passionate about it?

Ben -            Absolutely.  That’s the big driving factor is passion and what you’re able to learn is just boundless.

Sarah -         So true.  Because I know from my own son that has his own business and it’s just beginning to grow and everything.  That’s the only reason he does what he does is because he loves it so much.  I mean, he’ll go for hours and hours and he could work all day long; he could just work until he falls asleep at his computer because he loves it so much.  But when you’re not passionate, it’s just, it’s really hard to do anything.  And so I think you can definitely sense that in your voice and in your tweets and the things that you’re doing, you can sense that you’re very passionate about it.  And I’m assuming that all the people on your team because of what you talked about are very passionate too.

Ben -            I hope so.

Sarah -         Okay.  So just in closing, tell me what advice would you give to other CEO kids from around the world and as well as to parents raising them?  Like what does your dad do really well?  What did your mom do really well?  What did they do to support you in becoming the entrepreneur that you are today?

Ben -            Sure. Absolutely. I’d say there’s probably about four things that come to mind when I’m asked this question.  The first would be, and this is addressed to the entrepreneur.  Don’t go it alone.  It really makes a huge difference when you can get a good team to support you, uphold your values, move things forward.  I’m a firm believe that few if any forces in human affairs are as powerful as shared vision.  And when you can get folks working with you who really are, have that same end goal, have that same focus on the light at the end of the tunnel so to speak, you can really be amazed with what you’re able to get done.

It’s kind of like you have this perpetual feeling that’s similar to what you felt when you were in the startup phase.  And I think that’s a really pretty powerful statement when everyone in your organization can have the same kind of passion and the same kind of drive toward that same shared common goal.  The second thing that I would say is to draw inspiration from those people that have gone before you.  No matter what your industry is, I’ve bet that somebody has done it or somebody has done something similar to it or at least in scale or the general part of the business.  And so I think that it really is a big difference when you can draw inspiration from those who have gone before you.

I think parents can help with this next one.  Really, this has made a big difference and it will depend on obviously on your entrepreneur and who the person is that you’re working with.  But I think that if you can set yourself or parents if you can set your children miniature deadlines and then it will allow, it will have them revitalize themselves with internal projects regular.  Like I know we’re in the service industry and so it’s pretty fantastic when we work for just ourselves again; it’s a great feeling.  And I think then if you’re in the product sales industry, then absolutely, you can just take time to think of your new ideas.  So that’s a big game changer there.

Then the last thing that I would say is just to treat every conversation you have with extreme care.  Most people, the wide majority of people don’t know is that is a conversation is more than just a conversation, an email is more than just an email, a tweet is more than just a tweet.  It is the relationship, it embodies, it is either flatlining, enriching or detracting from the relationship that you have.  So I think that that’s really important to take into consideration and that it’s the next sale or it’s the next learning opportunity or it is the next venture.  So bottom line, you really have to come out from behind yourself and make the conversation real.

Sarah -       That’s brilliant!!  I haven’t had anybody really state that.  So thank you for sharing that because I think with texting the way that it is, its common that a little bit of sloppiness comes into conversations.  And we’ve had that similar conversation at our house of is that what you really meant to say and what do you mean by that?  And learning to be very clear in 140 characters is really key; I think it’s really important.  And I’m just really grateful that you shared that because I think as entrepreneurs and next generation of leaders move forward, that’s something that they’re definitely going to have to master whether it’s digitally or whether it’s via voice or written word; they’re definitely going to need to master that –

Ben -            Absolutely.  And you got to think there are communication means that people haven’t even dreamed up yet, that our children are going to be facing in the future, looking at and having to interact with on a daily basis.  And I look at the amount of services and things like twitter and Facebook and all of these different ways and the standard that is now email that a lot of people are now shifting to like SMS type text messaging and it’s just you have so much information coming at you all the time, I think it can be difficult to prioritize.  So you’re filtering mechanism gets tired sometimes and I think that’s absolutely what we’re going to see over the next few years is just – because it’s not going to go down.  It’s absolutely going to just continue to increase the amount of information.

Sarah -           All right, well Ben, thank you so much.  I just so appreciate your wisdom and definitely you have a crazy amount of opportunity ahead of you because of the skills that you already have in place and because of your passion and because of your ability to be able to put together  a team.  So I commend you on that and just thank you for taking the time to talk other kids that want to be in business or that are in business already.  I just really appreciate your example and you’re doing a great job.

Ben -            Absolutely.  Thank you so much for your role in getting some new entrepreneurs started.  It’s what makes the world go around.  It really is.

Sarah -            Thanks!