At first, the vision was simple: Get paid to do event marketing. Yet Brad soon realized that while everyone wanted their help, no one was willing to pay for it.
This early lesson forced the team to pivot, moving into local business marketing. They started with friends and acquaintances, and slowly grew through word-of-mouth and referrals.
Like many young agencies, Bullhorn said yes to almost everything in the early days. This included opportunities that had little to do with their core work.
Brad still remembers a music festival where they sold beer because the original vendor backed out. So Brad secured a liquor license, rented a U-Haul, and spent the night hauling cases and counting cash.
“It was gross and exhausting,” he recalls. “We learned pretty quickly that’s not what we wanted to do.”
Those scrappy experiences shaped Bullhorn’s culture of accountability and persistence. The team took pride in doing things right and gradually built a reputation that kept new clients coming.
As the company matured, key milestones marked the shift from a side project to a real business. Hiring their first employees gave them the capacity to deliver projects consistently. Then offering benefits signaled to the team that the agency was stable.
For Brad, putting himself on salary was also a major mental shift. It was proof that Bullhorn was a business he could build a life around.
Revenue continued to grow and, in 2017, Bullhorn became a Certified B Corporation (recertifying in 2020 and 2023). These moments gave Brad a greater sense that Bullhorn was becoming a business he could be proud of.
But there was still a catch…
Even as the agency grew, the work of generating new clients remained dependent on personal networks. When referrals slowed, the pipeline dried up.
Eventually, Brad noticed the agency had hit a plateau. Word-of-mouth, while effective, wasn’t enough to sustain growth. The company needed more ways to generate leads.
This realization led Brad to Predictable Profits.
He discovered that, while Bullhorn advised clients on brand positioning, they hadn’t clearly defined their own. Furthermore, their market wasn’t well-defined, their messaging wasn’t actionable, and they lacked a consistent way to engage prospects.
Predictable Profits gave them the framework to “begin at the beginning,” clarifying their ideal customer and how Bullhorn could bring them value.
The next step was turning strategy into action. Before Predictable Profits, Bullhorn would set ambitious goals — revenue targets, marketing initiatives, etc. — but there wasn’t much emphasis on whether they hit or missed them. The team’s day-to-day work was disconnected from the company’s strategic objectives.
“The problem we had is we would set these goals and then everyone’s day-to-day life was totally divorced from those goals,” Brad explains. “Sometimes we hit them, sometimes we didn’t — and no one really knew why. What I’m excited about now is the alignment of effort with vision.”
This shift has been one of the most transformative for Bullhorn. Instead of chasing tasks or reacting to problems, the team is focused on activities that support the company’s growth goals.
Another major change was realizing that Brad and his team didn’t have to figure everything out by themselves.
“For the first 12 years, we really felt like we had to go it alone,” Brad says. “The great thing about Predictable Profits is you realize you don’t have to. It’s like learning to play guitar — you can teach yourself, but if you have a teacher and friends to play with, you learn a lot faster.”
Board of Directors meetings have become a source of insight and acceleration for Brad. Hearing other business owners ask questions and share what’s working often sparks ideas he can apply to Bullhorn.
“I leave every meeting with two or three things we need to start doing right away,” he adds.
This sense of being supported — both by a framework and a peer group — has changed how Brad approaches running the agency.
Perhaps the most profound change has been Brad’s mindset as a founder. Early on, he admits he felt guilty about being ambitious, as though success should just happen.
Predictable Profits helped him reframe ambition as a way to multiply impact. Bullhorn primarily works with service providers. These often include professional and financial firms that, as Brad points out, have a huge impact on communities. Helping these businesses succeed means helping the people who sponsor Little League teams, volunteer in their towns and create local jobs.
Predictable Profits has also helped Brad sharpen his focus as a leader. Instead of spending time on whatever feels most urgent, he now prioritizes what the company needs from him.
“The clarity I’ve gained has been huge,” Brad says. “I spend more time on what matters and let go of the busywork that used to eat up my day. That alone has freed up hours every week.”
This clarity has created space for Brad to think strategically and make decisions with confidence.
Beyond the tools and systems, Brad credits the community at Predictable Profits with keeping him motivated and thinking bigger.
“It feels like a real luxury to have that group to lean on,” he says. “It keeps us testing, improving and thinking bigger.”
For Brad and the Bullhorn team, working with Predictable Profits has served as a reset. It’s redefined how they market themselves, how the team works together and how Brad shows up as a leader.
“There’s still plenty of room for improvement,” Brad says. “But now it feels like we’re building something that doesn’t just rely on me — it runs on systems.”
