Mike Black, CEO — Inciting Marketing Solutions

The textbook definition of “incite” is to encourage or stir up (in a violent or unlawful way). Trust us, there’s nothing harmful happening at Inciting Marketing Solutions (IMS), but they are disrupting the way small business marketing is typically done. This is because CEO Mike Black didn’t arrive at running a marketing agency in the usual way.

A Man of Many Interests
While growing up in Denver, Colorado, he began geeking out on technology and started building computers in 1992. Instead of going into computer science, he studied German and Psychology at the University of Colorado, before earning a Master of Social Work at the University of Denver. After working at Denver Public Schools as a School Social Worker for a few years, he moved to Taiwan in 1999.

A Whole New World
As Mike recalls, the move was challenging. Immersing himself in an entirely different culture at the age of 29, he began to understand himself in new ways. Part of this late self-discovery came through one of his favorite jobs: teaching English to four-year-old children. He quickly worked his way into a management role at the small school and helped its Chinese owners and foreign staff understand one another. Here, he began to understand the power of good communication.

Bringing it All Back Home
It was also in Taiwan that Mike met his wife, Sharon, who taught Chinese as a second language. Together, they returned to Denver and, for a couple of years, Mike was a therapist for teens struggling with substance abuse. Sharon started a small Chinese language center called Hong Tu and, to help his wife grow the business, Mike began studying anything and everything to do with marketing. He taught himself small business marketing and discovered that marketing is similar to his work as a therapist because it requires asking questions to uncover the truth.

Marketing Done Differently
Mike quickly realized that his background as a therapist made him a good marketer. He liked interviewing clients and analyzing their answers to discover what his clients and their consumers wanted. In 2013, he started Inciting Marketing Solutions to bring his unique approach to companies who were tired of other marketing companies just not getting it right. For Mike, he knew he could end the cycle of marketing guessing games and deliver research-driven outcomes.

Inciting Marketing
Now, almost 10 years later, IMS is a full-service marketing agency in Broomfield, Colorado that helps small businesses shift their primary lead sources from word-of-mouth and referral-based to fully-optimized, lead-generation marketing systems. Its mission is to give small businesses clarity in their marketing and resolve their most difficult marketing challenges.

IMS’ Core Values include:
Never Be Satisfied – They have a hunger to improve their processes and outcomes.
Joyful Professionalism – They have fun while maintaining work quality.
Collaboration and Teamwork – They collaborate with their clients to bring the best solutions.
“Wow” Service – IMS is in business to solve the clients’ problems. Period. Whatever that takes is what they deliver.

IMS Differentiators:
• We educate small business owners so they make better marketing decisions.
• We have a superior sales process that ensures we are the right fit for your business.
• We partner with you to solve your problem, not just to sell you something.
• We continually learn from our engagements and improve our processes.
• We solve the most perplexing marketing problems of our customers.
• We don’t want to sell you anything. We want you to discover what is right for your business.

To date, IMS has served more than 35 clients across the country. During these engagements, Mike brought his atypical approach and helped each of them gain clarity and grow their businesses. If you want a new approach to marketing, learn more about IMS here.