Brad Weaver is the red-headed, tattooed guy sporting a t-shirt and ripped jeans that confidently saunters into your office to take a client meeting. Breathe! Take a moment to consider that there is more to the man than meets the eye! That said, Brad Weaver is the Chief Experience Officer at Nine Labs; a creative Swiss Army knife, who’s an expert across a variety of creative disciplines including user experience design, product development, content strategy, user interface design, pricing strategy, branding and marketing. Over the last 18 years Brad has worked with such brands as IHG, AT&T, Coca-Cola, NATO, Bank of America, The PGA, MTV, Disney, UPS and Verizon.
Make no mistake, Brad’s professional life has not always been a bed of roses. After walking away from his background in political science and law, Brad founded Suckerpunch, a web and interactive agency, while concurrently enduring cubicle culture at Verizon Wireless. As a business owner, Brad struggled with the administrative side of things, particularly with pricing his work. After narrowly avoiding bankruptcy, and conducting extensive research, he realized that there just wasn’t an industry validated resource available that would give him a practical, tried-and-true pricing strategy specifically tailored for creative businesses. So, to totally understate the process – he fumbled around in the dark, and by trial and error came up with strategies that worked for him. Over time he began to share his insights with friends, who after adopting his strategies found a measure of success. Eventually, this led to him doing an ‘organized talk’ on the subject, which morphed into a ‘whole other thing’. The ultimate tangible result being the Creative Truth, a book authored by Brad that details the right way to start, and build a profitable design or creative business, sprinkled with Brad’s personal anecdotes.
Personally and professionally, making connections – meeting and getting to know people, who they are, what they do and how he can help them – is really important to Brad. He is genuinely interested in what they’re doing. Brad shares that relationships and their long term impact make for a more meaningful life experience, than wandering through life focused on making a name for one’s self, or minimizing risk. He’s recognized the freedom of walking in his own skin, and embracing the life he’s been gifted with. With Brad Weaver, what you see is what you get, he is approachable, and engaged (present in the moment). We’ve all heard about that mythical beast that will (without malice) tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth … Hmm, we’ve just had occasion to stumble upon such a creature!
Brad makes no room for the mundane, he chooses to embrace life and make the most of the journey. He’s an easy-going, high energy and adventurous guy who indulges in rock/mountain climbing. He is a skateboarder, and an enthusiastic world traveler, who in true Anthony Bourdain style is willing to try any new food at least once. Brad admits to being a creative first, and a businessman second. Who better than a peer who continues to thrive amidst the vagaries of creative entrepreneurship to approach for advice on achieving and maintaining your own creative truth?
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Join Brad on October 26 as he conducts an all-day Workshop that will teach you how to Get Control of Your Pricing and Sales Pipeline in One Day for Revolve Conference at Sterling Hall.
Revolve Conference embraces, promotes and seeks to foster the interdependence between the Design, Business, and Marketing disciplines. The event features the gathering of disruptive thought leaders, talented speakers and trailblazers from around the country to share road-tested insights over three days.
Attendees can customize their personal agenda by choosing hands-on workshops on October 26, or keynotes and breakout sessions on October 27 & 28 with an aim to improve their craft, collaborate with industry peers, and learn cutting edge trends and best practices in a relatively short time.
