Terrance Pratt is the CEO of Culture Loupe, a creative marketing company headquartered in Chicago. Culture Loupe leverages an in-culture lens to help brands connect with their target consumers through strategic storytelling and branded content creation.
What is your mission for giving to those who don’t have brand marketing and advertising guidance?
I give back to those who don’t have brand marketing guidance through mentorship, idea exchange, and resource sharing. Some people need information, some need access, and others need resources, so I show up in the best way that I can.
Two tips for growing client trust as an entrepreneur.
The first way to build trust as an entrepreneur is to be excellent. To me, that means delivering a quality product on time and on budget. The second tip is to be consistent. Consistency in your services, communication, and understanding of the client’s needs.
Describe being a creative entrepreneur.
The marketplace is constantly evolving, so creative entrepreneurship is staying connected to trends and trying to predict where culture and technology are moving. In the pandemic for instance, we made some investments into building our streaming and live production capacity, because we understood the shift that was coming.
The other part of creative entrepreneurship is staying nimble and keeping smart people around you. You’re only as strong as the team you cultivate.
What were the two high points of your year?
The team is growing, the business is growing, and I’m learning at the speed of light. So the whole year has been a high point. There are a lot of emotional swings in business, so to keep from going crazy I treat my highs and lows the same.
What have you done to elevate yourself and your business?
The first thing is to study! I’m constantly reading, researching, and discussing business thoughts and concepts with my friends and colleagues who are experiencing or have experienced similar business challenges.
Secondly, is bringing team members on to help me solve problems, give me bandwidth back, and keep me from making decisions in a silo.
What did you learn about yourself that taught you something new?
I learned that I’m better for the business when I’m working on it and not in it. Culture Loupe didn’t start to grow until I got out of the minutia.
How do you see yourself incorporating AI in three ways that will make you a different and more successful brand?
First is by leveraging new AI CRM tools to manage the company processes. AI has revolutionized the CRM game and simplified processes like Asana, Trello, and Salesforce.
Secondly, ChatGPT pro allows you to create GPT’s that really serve as an added research team. I encourage my team to use AI to solve as many problems as possible. I think AI still requires a level of human input, but it gives you a great head start.
Lastly, an area I’m keeping my eye on is design. We’re already using AI to build out moodboards and storyboards, but I think as the design functions of AI improve, we’ll have a lot more success with content creation.
How did you listen to people with a new ear for value sharing?
I attend a yearly business retreat of entrepreneurial friends who have built 7+ figure businesses. We dive deep into each other’s business processes and problems, and we come out of the retreat with fresh insights and ideas on a path forward. These retreats have helped me see blind spots in both my business and personality that were blocking my success.
Where did you travel that made you appreciate culture more?
Everywhere I travel makes me appreciate culture more. I think the true value of traveling is understanding cultural values, beliefs, traditions, etc. My wife and I went to a meditation and yoga retreat in Uluwatu, Bali that helped me recharge and reconnect. My work is already culture-driven, so the main thing is staying healthy enough to tap in.
How will the world see you differently in the new year?
I have no clue how the world will see me differently. As a matter of fact, I’ve found that caring too much about how the world sees me makes me lose focus on what’s important, which is doing the work. I stay focused on the work and the people we serve. If I show up consistently, excellently, and with integrity, my hope is that that’s how the world will see me.
Name three podcasts that you listen to that you would recommend to others and why.
Stephen Houraghan – Brand Master Podcast
Matt Bodnar – The Science of Success
Reid Hoffman – Masters of Scale
I find that growing or scaling a business has a lot to do with leadership, team building, and company culture. I focus a lot more now on building soft skills, whereas early on, I dedicated most of my time to learning new hard skills. I listen to thought leaders and brand builders to get new perspectives on growth and problem-solving.
How does faith give you courage and strength?
My faith helps me understand that regardless of how lonely the journey feels, God is by my side and that I have a purpose that is unique to me. God put me here with unique gifts that are designed to solve problems in the world at this very moment.
I also have faith that if I do what is required of me, I will be rewarded for my efforts, even though I don’t know when or where the reward is coming from.
Two books you would recommend.
Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir and the Science of Storytelling by Will Storr.
