Meet Levi McClendon of OptSpot in Chandler

Today we’d like to introduce you to Levi McClendon.

Levi, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
In 2007 my best friend since Jr. High, Spencer Brannan, convinced me text message marketing was going to be the next big thing. When he first brought the idea to me, I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about and had never heard of text message marketing. I did some research online and found this type of marketing was being used quite heavily in the European markets and as trends go, this was sure to be adopted in the U.S. soon after.

At the time I owned a mortgage company that was failing quickly due to the mortgage crisis and major economic downturn, so the timing was perfect to jump ship and try something new. I’m a total gadget geek and always had the latest and greatest when it came to technology, mobile phones, PDA’s, pagers, etc., so when the opportunity was there to branch off into this type of industry I was excited to try it and really had nothing to lose.

Spencer was the brainchild behind, what we called, BoomText and I was the operations guy that would make things happen and connect the dots. We made a very good team and within just a few years managed to become the approved vendor for Chick-fil-A and SONIC nationwide along with many other smaller mom and pop restaurants.

I took a very hard beating from the mortgage market crisis and ended up filing for bankruptcy and going through a very difficult divorce during this new exciting venture. Because of my personal issues, I ended up selling my percentage of BoomText to Spencer. Shortly after this Spencer sold BoomText. I became an employee of the new company and had an 18 month contract as part of the deal. So for 18 months I was an employee of a publicly traded company and it was the worst 18 months I experienced in the SMS space. I had no control and watched a new CEO take over and pretty much change everything we did only to try to satisfy shareholders.

On February 1st 2013 my 18 month contract was over and I immediately launched OptSpot. I was super excited to give back to customers the personal relationship model they once had and provide them with service they once knew with BoomText. I knew the space very well, but also knew SMS marketing was not the only thing our customers were looking for. I wanted to offer my customers a SPOT where their customers could easily join or subscribe to a program to track their loyalty & reward them through text messaging. I didn’t want another application for people to download and knew if our services were going to be successful it would need to be fully automated and super easy for customers to join.

Within a year of launching we were able to land about 75 accounts and get the company in the black. We never raised any capital and have always been debt free. My amazing wife, Jenny, worked as a Physician Assistant in the ER and some urgent cares during the startup phase and managed to provide for our combined family of 9 children. I worked from home, so while she was at work I would hold down the fort. Fortunately, she only had to work about 10-12 days out of the home each month and we buckled down to make things work during this time.

After the first year I was able to hire a full time employee who also happened to be my brother-in-law, Jeremy Renken. Jeremy became in charge of all new accounts and front line support for all existing customers. He was a pastor for several years prior, so he was and still is the perfect fit to manage all accounts because of his passion for people. We take customer service extremely serious. After 4 years and acting as the COO of OptSpot, Jeremy still takes front line support calls and if he’s not available, which is very rare, I take them myself. We believe by taking support calls we’ll quickly learn what the issues are and can take care of the root of the problem instead of putting on Band-Aids, therefore reducing the amount of support calls in the future.

OptSpot has been a huge blessing to others and to ourselves. We work remotely and get to spend time with our families as well as be available for our clients whenever they need us. We have hundreds of customers throughout the country and continue to grow mainly by word of mouth. Our ultimate goal is to put God first, our families second, then our customers at OptSpot third. This formula has worked extremely well for us and we truly believe God has continued to bless our efforts and has always provided enough for our families. We’re not getting rich overnight, but the time we get to spend with our families is irreplaceable and there’s truly not enough money in the world to get the young years of our children back, so now’s the time to pour into them as they grow up and OptSpot’s allowed us to do this.

We’ve embraced technology to the fullest, which has enabled us to stay small and nimble, but at the same time provide big time results. We continue to adapt and evolve as a company and commit to offering the best support and service to all of our clients both big and small. We are just touching the tip of the ice berg and know if we continue putting God first, He’ll continue to provide and we’ll continue this journey to a greater destination only He knows.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Anytime you deal with technology, there’s going to be struggles and anytime you own your own business there’s going to be struggles. I always tell people, I love technology when it works, but hate it when it doesn’t. We are all so conditioned to get what we want when we want it. So when customers don’t get what they expect, there’s going to be problems. Along the way there have been glitches, bugs, down servers and more and all you can do is communicate with your customers and be upfront and honest with them and of course fix the problem as soon as possible.

Please tell us about OptSpot.
OptSpot specializes in text message marketing and customer loyalty tracking. We provide our clients with the ability to capture a mobile phone number entered into an iPad at the point of sale of retail stores and then automatically track and market to those customers via text messaging. We automate about 95% of all follow up messages to those who have opted in and customize the messages to each unique client. This service alleviates any extra work a business owner has to do, plus helps bring more customers in more often.

If a patron hasn’t frequented our customer’s place of business in X amount of days, our system will send a text reminder to them with a digital coupon or just a reminder message to come back and see them. Our customers also have access to their database and can send out text message specials anytime they want. These messages work extremely well for slow days due to unforeseen circumstances, like bad weather or traffic. Because text messages are read about 98% of the time, there’s no better way to connect with customers than through a personal text message.

Our ability to customize any campaign for any customer really sets us apart from our competition. We build out their iPad for customer opt in and offer a web-based application completely custom to their business and their brand. We do not build the OptSpot brand but promote and market for the customer. I know everyone touts how good their customer service is, but this for sure is our #1 priority and we offer pretty much 24-7 support. If a customer of ours is working and needs us, we’re available. There’s nothing more frustrating than needing support on an important project and getting no help on the weekends. We realize this and realize our customers pretty much need us 7 days a week, so we make ourselves available for them.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I feel like I have started over. After BoomText was sold and after my 18 month contract I was blessed enough to start over and do things differently. I learned from our initial business to either go big or stay small. The middle ground is not for anyone wanting to own their business and not have their business own them. With BoomText we hired many salespeople and spent lots of time and money on them, but it never really worked out. So now with OptSpot we don’t really have any salespeople. Everything we do we do ourselves and have grown the company at a clip we can handle and most of our business is referral based at this point.

I also know I never want to own a publicly traded company. What a mistake to sell to a company who only cares about the numbers. I’m not saying numbers are bad, but to put them in front of the customer and employees is not good. Building lasting relationships with customers and offering them a service worth the money they are spending will bring results good enough to stay profitable and make everyone happy.

So far so good with OptSpot. It’s not perfect, but it has been an amazing journey thus far. We’re very blessed and are trying to keep to the goal of God first, family second and customers third. I think this is reflected in our business and it seems our customers can relate and love working with us as much as we love working with them.

Pricing:

• – Loyalty tracking only $25/mo (basically like a digital punch card)
• – SMS Marketing Only $25/mo + text message fees (vary on volume)
• – SMS Marketing + Customer Loyalty Tracking $50/mo. Includes 500 subscribers

Contact Info:

• Address: Chandler, AZ
• Website: www.optspot.com
• Phone: 602-920-0094
• Email: levi@optspot.com

Getting in touch: VoyagePhoenix is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.