Meet Jeremy Knauff | Founder of Spartan Media

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jeremy Knauff and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jeremy, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I grew up in poverty and was determined not to stay that way. Even more important, I was determined to make sure my future family never experienced poverty either. So I shortly after getting out of the Marine Corps at 22 years old, I started my first business.

As a young man still serving, I realized that because of my background, I didn’t yet have the knowledge to run a business, so I began to read voraciously on the subject. I remember cramming piles of books into my sea bag before my last deployment so that I could educate myself during the little downtime we had. This was long before the internet was what it is today, so these books were my only source of information while I was floating around the Mediterranean Sea and popping in and out of various countries in the area.

I figured that I could learn enough between what I learned from the books, along with a fair amount of trial and error, to build a successful business that would not only change my financial situation, but also create jobs and add value in my community, so I set out on a mission to do exactly that.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I started my first business shortly after getting out of the Marine Corps, but to be completely honest, I sucked at sales so it failed miserably inside of six months. So I took that L, got a job, and regrouped while planning for my next launch. It took a few years before my finances were stable enough to start my next company, a full service digital marketing firm, which I then ran successfully until 2013, when I was blindsided by a health crisis that nearly killed me. I spent two years on my death bed as my business withered away to nothing. During that time, I also burned through all of our savings just trying to stay alive.

Now I was in my 40s, with no business, no savings, and no prospects — plus, I was still fighting a debilitating disease with no end in sight. But I pushed through. Every second of that journey has been brutal, as I had to overcome the challenges of entrepreneurship and the disease I’m batting all at the same time.

Once I dragged myself from my deathbed and restarted my business, I encountered another challenge. Since I had been gone from the world for two years, I had essentially become a ghost. With no current clients, case studies, or examples, I was perceived no differently than some rando on Fiverr. Not exactly a good place to be, especially this late in life. But like Marines always do, I chose to adapt, improvise, and overcome. So I rolled up my sleeves and got to work on rebuilding my personal brand and putting both myself and my company back on the map. My first step was to begin writing articles that educated readers while demonstrating my expertise, and then leveraged these articles to pitch myself as a guest on several podcasts, I was quickly building a lot of social proof here, which I then leveraged to reenforce my pitches to the media. I secured several features as well as a few columns where I would have the opportunity to share my knowledge and bolster my credibility. This was where things started to really take off.

I continued to run Spartan Media as a full service digital marketing firm, with a specialization in search engine optimization, and was even cited by Search Engine Journal as one of the top 120 SEO professionals in the world. But I continued to leverage public relations to expand my impact. This led to multiple opportunities and rapidly growing revenue, both of which piled up until I eventually realized that this is something that every entrepreneur needed.

That’s when I pivoted my firm to focus entirely on public relations.

Since then, we’ve landed thousands of placements for clients, elevating their status, expanding their reach, and creating new opportunities. That has enabled them to serve exponentially more clients. The ripple effect from this is incalculable, but clearly significant.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I’d have to say that Stone Mountain is probably one of my favorite places to go in Atlanta. It’s an easy hike to the top, and the views are gorgeous.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are so many people who played a role in my success. I’ll start with my father. While this may seem counterintuitive since I grew up poor, I saw his work ethic first hand, every single day. You see, he was a firefighter, and because they weren’t paid very well back then, most had a second job. His was in construction, and on the days he wasn’t working at the fire station, he would be on a job site somewhere. And often, because my family couldn’t afford a babysitter, I got dragged around with him. This gave me an opportunity to learn a lot about construction, but also problem solving, collaboration, and the value of a strong work ethic.

Later, when I was about 14 years old and got my first “real” job that wasn’t yard work for my neighbors. I started as a bagger at Winn-Dixie, where I met Bruce LaRocca, who was the manager at the time. Unfortunately, the world lost this man to cancer a few years ago, but during his life, he impacted so many people in a positive way. Bruce was the kind of leader who truly cared about his team, and always looked out for them, but he also had incredibly high standards and always pushed people to be better, both at work in their personal lives. His character serves as inspiration for me still to this day.

Not long after that, I sat through a 13 hour bus ride before eventually running off the bus to plant my feet firmly and precisely on top of a set of painted yellow footprints while being screamed at from a mob of drill instructors at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island. After completing boot camp and school of infantry, I was sent to my unit, where I met Eric James, who ended up being my first squad leader. Eric was the epitome of leadership and he always had a positive mindset. We often called him Sergeant Elias, a reference to Willem Dafoe’s character in the movie, Platoon. I clearly remember a particular incident when we were on a patrol and I got separated from my squad in a heavily wooded area. I eventually found my way back to our patrol base, and when I reconnected with my squad, rather than throw me under the bus, which would have been warranted, Eric took the heat for my mistake to protect me from higher ups, while making sure my mistake would never happen again. He was always doing things like this for the men in his squad.

About two years in, we had a change of command as our current commanding officer was promoted and we received a new captain. Following the change of command ceremony, our new commanding officer, Anthony Henderson, who I had not yet met, called me into his office and immediately gave me a task. What he wanted me to do would have been significantly less effective than how I was already doing that task, and without thinking, I told him exactly that, and why. He paused, for what seemed like an eternity, before simply saying, “OK, lance corporal, it sounds like you have it under control. Keep doing it your way.” Most people in a position of power are incapable of that kind of response because they see it as a challenge to their authority. Over the next two years, I witnessed this man inspire, guide, elevate countless Marines on a level I’ve never seen before, and as a result, every one of them would still enthusiastically follow him into battle anywhere, anytime.

Website: https://spartanmedia.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremyknauff/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyknauff/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeremyKnauff

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeremy.l.knauff

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWgWjD1pAOPtjmjOjXdjC2Q?sub_confirmation=1

Image Credits
Christopher Garofalo for stage photos