Jeffrey Fermin: Transforming marketing industry with New Theory Creative

To break the shackles of a traditional structure in the industry, Jeffrey Fermin, Founder and CEO of New Theory Creative, is exploring new heights in the marketing domain. With a vision to provide a red carpet to the creatives, he states, “Digital marketing will always be the bedrock of what we do. We’ll easily help anyone, and (mostly) everyone finds their place in their respective market.”

Building his career from the scratch

While progressing through his career, nobody encouraged entrepreneurship, so he had to work his way up to explore the domain. He focuses the point by stating, “Everyone was okay with a nice, cushy job, playing it safe, a vacation a year, and doing that over 60 year until you meet your maker — there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I just always felt like since I’m here, I might as well give all this stuff a shot.”

He was not even considering the marketing field as an option while building his career. However, once he entered the world, he paved the way to the top heights.

He adds, “After ten years of doing it, a lot of highs and lows, I have learned enough where I can confidently say I can help market brands in different industries and help them stand out. I’ve done it in the enterprise tech sector and have done everything from b2b, b2c, eCommerce, digital publications, products, services, you name it, I’ve done it.”

He founded New Theory to have control over the projects that his team can work on. He adds, “I know how difficult things are to move the needle, especially when working with teams that don’t understand marketing. Here, we are taking clients that “trust the experts,” and it makes it easy for us to go in, evaluate everything, and get the job done right.”

Learning from the pitfalls along the way

At the dawn of the company, Jeffrey and his team faced a challenging time due to the COVID pandemic. He states, “We started this project in January, and two months in, we had to shut down. We could have easily called it quits early on, but we were very fortunate to have support from the local community, our friends that own a coworking space housed us for a bit and even gave us clients. Though it wasn’t much, we were able to have small contracts to keep us afloat and busy.”

The second learning lesson came in the mode of planning and plotting the game plan carefully and setting it according to the client’s requirements. Though clients have certain financial goals they’re looking to hit, they might not have the understanding of what goes into a marketing and growth plan.

He adds, “My advice for any marketer or business owner is to always take a step back and learn how to explain the importance of things in layman’s terms. I recently read a quote that said, “no one ever tries to help a plumber because they don’t know how to do their job, but for some reason, everyone thinks they can do marketing.” So, just let them know early on that you know what you’re doing and give you the autonomy to help them grow.”

Bringing Change in the industry with New Theory Creative

New Theory is a full-service creative agency. Jeffrey states, “We put a lot of emphasis on the word “creative,” because nearly everyone’s background here is in a creative field. Photographers, video editors, podcasters, and content creators, they’re either on-staff or on-call. Our breadth of knowledge allows us to offer more services. We offer digital marketing services like ad management, content creation, professional photography, website design and development, and more.”

The big picture is to empower creatives. Truth be told, anyone can find millions of marketers online that can work some conversion-rate optimization magic and paint a pretty picture.

He adds, “We want to be able to offer growth, but more importantly, we want to be able to connect the corporate with the creative world. In the corporate settings, I’ve been a part of, higher-ups have shut down the ideas from the creative professionals and don’t let them have a say in execution.”

Jeffery believes that delivering quality services always pays in the longer run. He expresses, “We run New Theory like a (globally-dispersed) ma-and-pa shop. We’ll give you good rates. We’re going to be open and honest with everything. If something is off, we’ll let you know. The agencies I’ve worked within the past have nickel and dimed some of my previous bosses. I remember there was this one in San Fran that charged us $10k and did nothing, literally nothing. With us, you’ll see a return; that’s our guarantee.”

Life as Founder and CEO of the company

Wearing the hat of the CEO of the company, he is fueling the company with everything. He is still doing most of the client work. He adds, “I want to say half of my day is spent doing client work, the other half is split between New Theory tasks and sales. I still have to do all of the invoices, negotiations and handle payments. However, that will be changing that I’m hiring operations and sales team members.”

He is a highly motivated and driven individual and gives constant dose of motivation to his team to grow. He states, “There’s a roof over my head, there’s food on my plate, every day I have to fight to keep those things — while making sure that everyone that works at New Theory is taken care of.  There are employees and clients’ futures on the line, so it’s important for me to remind myself that though failure is possible, we need to work on making it less probable.”

Realizing the importance of work-life balance

In the early years, Jeffrey aimed at being the perfect entrepreneur by indulging in the work all the time. But soon, he realized his fault and understood the importance of balance in his life.

Now he spends time with his family and indulges in social activities while managing all his work. He believes in himself and faces every challenge on the professional and personal front with a never-give-up attitude.

Future roadmap for the company

Jeffrey’s goal for the coming year is to make sure that the company has a dominant place in the South Florida region. Having marketers with a strong creative and technical skillset puts them in a unique position.

He adds, “With all of the NYC and SF-based companies coming to town, we are going to push hard to work with them and provide them with higher-quality work than the usual Miami Ad Agency.  When all that is said and done, the next logical move will be to expand globally. We already have individuals working in Europe, LatAm, and Southeast Asia. It only makes sense that we’re going to try and work around the globe.  Hopefully, we’ll be able to continue pushing the “Digital Nomad” culture and attract better talent that can work on all hours.”