The Philosophy, History, And People Behind GroHaus

Our History & Values

Too much marketing makes too little money. This was the common chorus I received during the dozens of interviews I conducted with small business owners during the pandemic. GroHaus had been launched only months prior and had been stalled on the proverbial runway as the world shut down. With a global pandemic trapping everyone inside, an economy on the brink, and an election on the horizon, no one was in the mood to spend money on marketing. But just about every business owner in the world wanted to talk about marketing. Even if they couldn't do anything to better their position today, the optimistic entrepreneurs were desperate to learn what they could expect when the world opened back up.

I began cold-calling entrepreneurs from around the country to pick their brains and get a gauge on how they were planning to handle the challenges of lockdown. At first, the calls were more of a tactic to keep my sanity and feel like I was still moving forward in growing this business.

They'll tell you that's just the ebbs and flows of business, but when you look around, it sure doesn't seem like anyone else is getting tossed around like an inflatable dinghy in the northern seas.

But as time went on, I started treating the calls as market research and asked questions I knew I could only get answered when the business owners I was speaking with knew I had nothing to sell them. What I didn't know at the time was just how impactful these conversations would be to realizing the mission of GroHaus. One evening, with sourdough in the oven, I began looking over my notes from that day's calls. As I flipped through the pages, a common set of pain points emerged.

From those pain points, I developed a set of five foundational principles that not only enhance our client's experience working with us but also make us more effective marketers. They keep us people-focused and inject empathy into all we do.

Principle 5: Speed is Best Practice

In school, we are taught that "haste makes waste." However, this neglects to mention that not all haste is created equal. Productive haste is achieved through deep understanding, skill, and intuition. It is achieved by perfecting systems that allow you to deliver results at scale. At GroHaus, we've spent years honing our operations to deliver your business the results it needs at the quickest pace possible.

You need to stop looking at the numbers (just for a minute) and start thinking about the people—the people you serve and the people who serve them. What makes both of those groups happy, healthy, and successful? What do they fear, hate, and avoid?

Overcoming the empathy gap isn't complicated. It simply requires a humanistic approach to growth. We've helped hundreds of business leaders build sustainable growth in their businesses and escape this vicious cycle once and for all. Schedule a call with us today, and let's get your business back on track.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you..

Principle 3: The only KPI that matters: Revenue

Too many agencies had fallen in love with engagement as the true metric of marketing success; followers, newsletter sign-ups, likes, shares, and subscribers had become a new digital currency traded by agency leaders but worthless to their clients. To them, the only KPI that ever mattered was, "Do I have more money this week than I had last week? And we couldn't agree more.

Principle 4: Empathy for Everyone

The biggest lesson we learned from the Pandemic was just how empathy-deficient we had become as a people. Sure, we had a raucous political environment, and the anonymity of online communities had led to increases in bullying. But the fallout and fear of the pandemic demonstrated how important empathy was going to be in rebuilding our agency in a post-COVID economy. Empathy makes us better stewards of our clients, crafters of their marketing, and citizens of the world.

Principle 2: Teach me what I need and do the rest for me

Business owners need to understand how their marketing works. Not all the nuts and bolts of it, but a clear understanding of what and why is critical. Not only does this give our clients confidence in what we do, but it also allows us to set the right expectations and fosters frank and honest discussions about what's working, what's not, and what we can do to improve our clients' results.

Principle 1: Be Accessible

We believe clear, concise, and consistent communication is key to making your projects with us a success. As a client, you can count on your entire GroHaus team to be at your service whenever you need us. From giving you instant access to our team through our private messaging platform to allowing you to book calls with our leaders whenever you need them. We believe that our dedication to communication is the reason why so many of our clients recommend us to their colleagues.

Since we officially (re)launched our agency in 2021, we have helped hundreds of clients tackle thousands of marketing projects, big and small, from simple flyers to state-of-the-art AI-powered websites. I encourage you to take a look through our service menu found on this site and reach out if you believe we are the right fit to help you take on your next marketing challenge.

It's said that our values and principles determine who we are compatible with as people and professionals. We hope that our values and principles reflect your own. If so, we know you will find a warm and welcoming marketing home at GroHaus.

The feast-and-famine cycle of all businesses is caused by one immutable truth: Your business has an empathy gap.

Think of your empathy gap like this: When you (or whoever) first started your business, those first clients were your whole world. The entire organization would consistently go above and beyond to ensure those customers' experiences were perfect.

Soon, word spread, and business started to boom.

You have just enough clients to keep the lights on, so you tell your team to treat them like gold. Now motivated by fear for their jobs, your team doubles its efforts to ensure everything is perfect for your clients.

And the cycle starts all over again, exhausting your staff, increasing your churn (both in staff and clients), and stalling your growth.

So what's the way out?

Your team couldn't spend nearly as much time with this new batch of clients as they did with the first ones, so you implemented new systems to help manage the increased workload and promised that help was on the way (as soon as you could afford to do so).
But the help you promised never arrives, and soon, morale starts to slip. A team member quits, then a few more, and that's when your clients start noticing.

Emails get missed, concerns go unaddressed, and doing business with you becomes increasingly complicated and annoying. Clients start leaving, and before you know it, you're praying for the phone to ring.

As a business leader, watching your business go through a never-ending cycle of feast and famine is endlessly frustrating. Either you're stuck on the hamster wheel running a million miles an hour or staring at the clock, praying the phone will ring at least once today and not be about your car's extended warranty.

Our Growth Philosophy

Our History & Values

DREW DONALDSON

Founder & CEO

Drew's upbringing was shaped by his father Bob's dual life as a banker and entrepreneur, co-founding Donaldson Greenhouse and Nursery on his 40th birthday. Inspired by his father's success, Drew pursued film at Savannah College of Art & Design, founding Outlier Media. Realizing a need for marketing skills, he earned a master's in business and later excelled in educational marketing at Saint John's University.

After a decade there, Drew shifted to consulting, leveraging LinkedIn and automation to build connections. He then led a multimillion-dollar content pipeline at a finance magazine, before founding GroHaus to help professionals grow. Today, he balances leading GroHaus with family life in Pennsylvania, highlighting the transformative journey of pursuing entrepreneurial dreams.

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