Business Entrepreneur Andrew Dorko Interview

Andrew Dorko is the founder and CEO of Total Marketing Concepts, a 25,000 sqft call center located in Central Florida. His company uses the latest, custom technology for customer support and sales in over 15 verticals.

1)  What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made building your company?

The biggest mistake I think everyone makes is thinking your timing is off. It’s easy to look at your competitors and see where they are succeeding then comparing yourself and saying, “Man, we’re two years late,” or “we’ve missed the boat!”. Timing affects everyone. It’s never the wrong time to launch a new sales department or hire that right person. For example, you may miss out on that stellar COO that went to a different company, but what you’ll gain is the foresight to see those traits in new people.

2)  How do you deal with failure?

The younger Andrew Dorko, would have taken it personally. Now that I’m older and more experienced, failure doesn’t bother me the slightest. Failure is a necessary obstacle you have to deal with in order to learn how to be successful.

3)  How do you motivate your employees?

We offer our employees room to grow. If they want to make more money, they can. If they want more responsibilities, they can take more on as well. Granted, every request is reviewed to make sure we can accommodate for those positions. For example, in some positions, employees can receive a portion of a closed sale over the phone. This gives everyone the opportunity to come to work each day knowing the sky’s the limit. It makes work interesting and more akin to a career rather than a job.

4)  What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

“Don’t be afraid to fail”. This advice was given to me over 20 years ago and at the time I didn’t understand it. I thought being successful and building a business was about getting it right every time on the first attempt. Unfortunately, this is the real world we live in. You’ll never be perfect all the time. Life throws you challenges. We are human beings and people make mistakes. Employees and leadership alike – sometimes we get it wrong even though a strategy worked out on paper. When you put something into practice and it doesn’t work out, scratch it off, start over and do it again. You can’t be afraid to fail.

5)  What do you wish you knew before starting a business?

It would have been helpful to have known about how hard it is to get a company off the ground and attract clients. There’s no way to predict the degree of difficulty you’ll encounter. It was scary at times.We have our glorious moments now, but you’ll never know the hardships we went through when starting out. You have to go through a lengthy hiring process to find the right people to help you build your company and sales team. Having faith in your company and your process goes a long way.

To learn more about Andrew Dorko please go to his website or be sure to follow him on Twitter.