For more than ten years, the team at QC Exclusive has been producing stories and highlighting the community in Charlotte through their magazine, website, and social media. Over the last six months they have shifted some of their content to be more of a resource to help those in need. J.P. and Brett sat down to discuss their personal and professional journey over the past year. I opened up the conversation and asked how are you doing? After a few laughs, Brett kicked it off:
“I’ve been good. Doing good, I’m being optimistic. I have two little kids at home. It’s been a challenge to say the least to manage both impact from Covid on the business, while simultaneously trying to navigate our kids with school, childcare and all of that stuff. I do a lot of business development. Usually, I go out and meet advertisers and try to get partnerships, the personal interaction is a big piece. I’m a social animal so it’s hard for me to not interact with people. I’m blessed that our company, my family, and everyone is healthy but it’s all about perspective. I’m just trying to keep that positivity both with the business and personally. So, I’m good, thanks for asking.”
J.P. “A lot of my friends have children and I feel for them, it’s a lot of work right now. The thing I’ve had a hard time dealing with is with my parents. They are moving here and I’m trying to see them as much as possible, and it’s troubling because of their age I worry about them with this. Other than that, just working hard and making the best out of the situation. The last six months has been tough for everyone. I do feel good that we have been trying to make the most of this as a company. We have spent a lot of time promoting as many Charlotte businesses as we can. That was our goal from the very beginning in mid-March. We were focusing on stories that could promote businesses in our community, in particular the niches like restaurants and retail that need it the most right now, as well as those that have supported us over the years.”
Brett: “We have a responsibility to promote the community and that responsibility has grown over the last six months. We have been reaching out and just seeing how we can help. J.P., Sunny, and our editorial team, have been instrumental. They’ve been great handling the outreach with others and seeing what’s going on and how we can help. That’s been a big thing for us and that’s really put things in perspective because there are people still really, really hurting out there.”
J.P: “If you don’t have that flexibility where you can’t switch and work from home it’s a really tough time right now and it weighs on a lot of people who can’t do that and have to rely on something being open.”
How have you seen the community aspect of your work change?
Brett: “We have been looking to ramp up our social and digital presence for awhile and this has positively fed into that because we have put more emphasis on it. We can react, learn about people that need help, and put messages of support and awareness out there to the community.”
J.P: “We focused a lot more on the industries that needed the support. The home and design industries are doing relatively well right now along with the real-estate business. So, we have kept promoting those industries but dedicated more pages for other industries including restaurants, retail, and art galleries. We’ve also invested in promoting our community online.”
Brett: “Individual, personal care, personal wellness, was something we focused on too. What you can do to feel good. You’re at home for 6 weeks and we thought about how we could provide that content to help people.”
J.P: “Putting out that content was new for us and it was kinda cool. The topics were fun and it was enjoyable to talk to people about what they are doing with their time and how they are being productive, tips on being physically healthy, and how to stay mentally healthy.”
What was your biggest struggle as a company that you had to overcome?
Brett: “J.P. was dialed in from the beginning with the whole news cycle and everything that was happening. He reacts quicker than I do and he was really good about anticipating what it might do for us. Production, distribution, etc. That was something that was challenging and we had to pivot. It was a challenge but it gave us an opportunity to show how nimble we could be.”
J.P: “It gave us an opportunity to reevaluate what we had been doing for so long. All of a sudden you get tossed this giant curveball and everything changes. I feel like it was a good way to reassess our business and we did it quickly. Throughout the process we relied on each other. It’s good to know that we, our team, have each others back.”
Any big takeaways from these times that you can take with you for days and years to come?
Brett: “Take this as an opportunity because it’s a complete unknown. This is what we do now. We have this time on our hands that we didn’t think we were going to have. So you can either sit and pout or you can roll up your sleeves and at the end of the day, that's where we've always shined, in times of struggle. I think it's been a good reminder of who we are and how we got here in the first place more than a takeaway. The response has been positive from the community. Everyone is going through this stuff. People naturally don’t want to show vulnerability, or that they are having a hard time because they want to protect their image and want people to have confidence in them. You combine that with people not talking to each other and not seeing each other, due to quarantine and Covid, it takes just reaching out to someone to see if they’re okay and that goes a long way.”
J.P: “There are so many people supporting each other. You can see that the community has come together even more to help one another. We’re pretty lucky to live in Charlotte. There are a lot of good people here who have each others backs and when you have that, the city thrives.”
