Today we’d like to introduce you to Douglas Swift.
Hi Douglas, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I suppose I got to where I am today from somewhere that no one would expect. On April 1, 2013, I was hit by a car as a pedestrian at 45 mph.
I’m told that when the paramedics arrived, they were zipping me up in a body bag when they realized I was breathing before totally closing it. From there, i was air flighted From Fayetteville Arkansas to Springfield Missouri. This is where I would spend one month in a natural coma and another in a medically induced coma:
From there, I was actually awake for my coma for a full month where every day was a repeat like on That movie with Drew Barry more and Adam Sandler, 50 first dates. After about a month of repeating what happened to me day by day, I finally was shocked back to consciousness by a good friend I hadn’t seen in a while visiting me at the hospital…
Although I’m leaving out a lot out of this story; My first full day of memory I remember the neurologist coming into my room in the hospital and telling me through an orange net bed (due to my brain injury to prevent me from falling); that although my back was broken, my neck was fractured, and I had about four or five torn ligaments in my knees; I would ultimately make a full recovery.
However, the most significant injury I had was to my brain.
He informed me that although temporary brain injuries were a mystery in many ways. They were certain that I would make a full recovery after mentally maturing all over again.
He went on to explain that although I may feel normal, I’m really at the mental maturity level of a six-year-old… And then I would be eight… And then I would be nine… And so on.
But just as a seven year old would think, I thought the neurologist doesn’t know what he’s talking about, I’m normal now. And so it began. I literally matured all over again. Which is why I’m so grateful for this entire incident.
You see, I literally repeated the same mistakes, in the same order throughout my life up until that point, all over again, in the same order.
This was a true blessing in disguise though in that I was able to look at who I was before the accident and who I wanted to become, and I created that person.
This went as far as having to relearn social dynamics such as how to tell a joke to how certain things were inappropriate to say in a conversation. There are many instances that I recall Where I would try to say a joke or a statement, and it will come out totally different than how I thought in my head.
While, the neurologist said I’d make a full recovery, he also told me that I would not be ready to go back to school to finish my degree for at least six months to a year. But I have course would not listen, and went back to college five months following the accident. Which in turn led to me dropping out of all my classes after the second class when I realized that my brain wasn’t the same.
I then moved back to Dallas after recovering for a few months in Michigan with my father. I then went to school for a semester at University of North Texas. Where I also was forced to take a medical withdrawal or risk ruining my GPA I built throughout the years.
Finally in the following summer of 2014, I was able to get an A and a B in macro and microeconomics and realized I could go back to school. There is actually a whole other side of the story, but for the sake of time I will not go into that. Long story short, I graduated with honors from University of Michigan – Flint and proceeded to go to law school and Catholic University of America in 2018.
Before leaving for law school however, I had started a business doing online retail arbitrage buying and selling products on Amazon with incredible margins. This was the first taste of entrepreneurial spirit that I got in my adult life. In those few short months, I was able to generate almost half a million in revenue from purchasing products anywhere from $.25 to two dollars and reselling them for full price.
Again, there’s a lot I’m leaving out and why my decisions were made the way they were, but I then continued running my business while doing full-time law school, which was incredibly hard. After a full semester and grueling hours of study and work in DC, I put a lot of thought and prayer into it and I decided that I was going to take my exams as if I was going to stay, and I would then decide whether or not to choose business over law school.
I then did very well on my exams and put further thought and prayer into the decision… And decided that The better choice is for me to focus on my business and maybe later return for law school if I had that desire.
This was the best decision I could’ve ever possibly made in my life. I now run several companies That are doing fairly well. These include the same company as when I left law school was transformed into a marketing consulting firm, a new Amazon business model, and a real estate investment and am a realtor as well.
I am extremely blessed and lucky to be alive, let alone be running several successful businesses. And I make sure to thank God each and every day for the opportunities he’s given me and the ones he’s still putting in front of me. Because I’ll tell you one thing, it’s impossible that this is all because of me. There is certainly someone watching out for me.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I did not realize that this was the next question, or I may have divvied up my answer. But since starting my own business and leaving law school, there have been many trials and tribulations. I can’t tell you how many times that I was worried my business would go under, especially when Covid started. It was amazing, we had lost 50% of our revenue within the first two months of Covid.
But then increased it by over 300% in the next couple of months by way of joining Stonebriar country club. Where I would meet many other entrepreneurs in need of marketing services, and as well as many good friends.
Covid was of course not the only time where I thought my company would fail. I can’t tell you how many times it seemed like there was no way out. But I kept my head down and kept on pressing forward. I think the only thing that got me through those times was my relationship in Christ to be honest.
If it weren’t for the many ‘serendipitous’ encounters that I had throughout the past year, there is no way that I would be where I am today.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
The company started out as an online marketing firm specializing in SEO once I left law school. However, as we continued taking on more and more clients, we kept adding to the services we offered. It began with social media marketing and led to Web development and Google ads.
But, as we continued to adding services and gaining more clients, we began specializing in SEO, to honestly specializing in nothing. All within two months we had lost three of our biggest clients ever, and it seemed like everything was falling apart. But this is whenever I realized that it was time to get focused and then outsource any type of work that we didn’t specialize into others within the profession which I had built relationships.
Now this is when my company found its ground and really started to excel. We now only perform search engine optimization and Google ads ourselves and manage all other aspects of online marketing via our partners that are both reliable and high-quality.
I’d say the number one differentiating factor between my competition and I is the fact that we aren’t some 1800 number that our clients have to call and wait on hold for. Either me or someone from my team will be readily available to answer any questions and come up with strategy to attack any problems the client has. That seems to be the number one factor that the clients a Stonebriar Country Club, the star, or anywhere else to the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex seem to care about. They simply want to have that individual attention which is the reason why they signed up in the first place.
With each individual client, we curate plans specific to what’s best for their business. And because we have so many clients in so many different industries, we’re able to accurately put together a business model that brings them into the online world successfully.
How do you think about luck?
While some may call it luck, I call it Jesus. I can’t tell you the number of times where I didn’t know where the revenue growth would come from when a chance encounter led to the next biggest client. It’s crazy where a conversation can take you to in the world of business. But I can tell you one thing for sure. If it weren’t for these chance encounters, I would not have a business today.
Contact Info:
- Email: douglas.swift@third-partysolutionsllc.com
- Instagram: doswift777
