Today we’d like to introduce you to Marc Bethel.
Hi Marc, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My business partner, Matt, and I started CCM (Commonwealth Creative Marketing) in 2010. This came after years working for ad agencies and various marketing departments, where we both loved the work we did but we didn’t enjoy several aspects of it. This included the fact that the large agency model was built on landing 5 to 10 large acounts. And if the agency lost one of those accounts, lay-offs were immanent. I kept finding myself and others I’d enjoyed working with going elsewhere, working together again, then another account would be lost and it became a merry-go-round. Couple that with the fact these larger accounts seems to always have too many hands in the pot so to speak.. which just led to a lot of bureaucratic red tape, stifled creativity, inflated egos and nothing getting done on time due to no fault of our own. That’s when something clicked. We realized that the projects we enjoyed working on the most were always for the smallest of clients. We realized that if we focused on small businesses, we could not only do the work we enjoyed for the types of businesses we enjoyed working with the most, but we could win at volume. If we have 300 clients that aren’t bothersome time-vampires, we can still make a lot of money and grow an agency while supporting ourselves. So that’s what we did. We launched CCM as a digital agency in 2010 and quickly grew as soon as 2011 to support not only web design, hosting and basic SEO, but also printing, graphic design, media buying, PPC and more.
Fast forward to 2026 and we are 16 years into this thing. We have worked with over 2000 clients. We have 400 websites hosted and actively managed as well as clients who may only know us for media buying such as radio or billboard, or from print services. Our team is small, under 5 people. We have a pretty well-oiled machine as I like to call it.
I seem to thrive being my own boss. There was a time when I wasn’t sure that Entrepreneurship would be for me, But I always suspected at least a little bit that it might be. My role as Partner & Production Director at CCM is one that essentially oversees operations. I work directly with our clients but also I direct workflow through our team and make sure all projects are on time, on task and completed to specification. I’m finding that it is rewarding to empower our team members and give them opportunity and encouragement for growth. I constantly tell myself not to be like the many bosses I had over the years in my 20’s, and to actually listen and provide feedback to our team. It’s important to cultivate a winning team atmosphere that puts customer service at the forefront of everything we do. Listening is the #1 key skill to success in our business. Whether that’s listening to our clients and responding to them in helpful ways, or if it’s listening to our team members here at CCM to support each other and our clients together.
Prior to starting CCM, I worked in Radio as an on-air personality, also doing sales and promotions. I worked in customer service, account management and regional management for a print media and distribution company. I worked as a copywriter and SEO specialist for a large digital agency. I worked as a Traffic Manager for several ad agencies where I honed my skills at managing advertising production projects, budgets, daily workflow and relations between creative staff and account reps. I also worked as a Media Buyer in some capacities. These experiences greatly helped prepare me for running our own agency.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Relatively speaking, CCM has been a smooth road. My personal road that led me to forming CCM along with my partner wasn’t always so smooth. There were some bumps along the way, but it shaped me for what led to not only forming CCM, but it also sharpened the skills that it takes to do my job well today.
Some struggles were:
being laid off from jobs
working for a few jerks
not feeling heard when I had good ideas
Some struggles encountered as our agency grows:
learning not to depend on Google so much, as their rolling algorithm fluctuates organic rankings often these days
learning to make hard decisions on where we should set our pricing so that we are fairly rewarded for our hard work and expertise but also being ethical and offering value to our clients.
learning the power of the word “No”. It’s okay to say No sometimes.
more recently, mastering AI SEO to not only get our business to rank well in A.I. Overviews, but our clients as well. As an agency we spent collectively the past 2 years studying and experimenting with ways to influence AI bots and we continue to conduct our own research and hone our skills as the environment evolves.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I think perhaps my most unique trait is that I am both left-brained and right-brained. I have a unique ability to get wildly creative with our clients’ ideas, services, products, brands, you name it.. while also being extremely organized, detail-oriented and cost-conscious. I love being creative and I understand creative minds and personalities well. But I am not a graphic artist per se, myself. I love to come up with stuff through discussions and then lay it all out for our creative director to bring to life – or for him to add his own spin to it. We’re all about team collaboration, and advancing the best ideas. There’s no idea bad enough it can’t be voiced. That’s a rule we have here.
This left/right brain balance I seem to have, allows me to effectively jump from task to task all day long whether it is client communication, Quickbooks, writing copy for an ad or a website, problem-solving and sales, or anything else. Sales is actually a big part of my job and I do not think of myself as a salesman or in a Sales role. To me, it’s all problem-solving. I hear what a client needs, and I help them put together the best possible plan to accomplish their goals on budget. Helping businesses solve their branding or lead-generation problems is truly rewarding to me.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
The most important thing I’ve learned as a business owner is that things always work out for the best and nothing is worth stressing out over to any super serious degree.
Pricing:
- Website pricing for small business – what’s fair? what are the best platforms?
- Logo design pricing – what’s fair? what should be considered?
- Google Ads/PPC Management pricing – what to expect and what to look for
- Media Buying/Placement pricing – understanding the NET-GROSS gap
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ccm-web.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CommonwealthCM
