I'm Blake Hickey.

01 / Where it started

Service, then my own brand.

Service first

My dad ran our family's funeral home and my mom was a flight attendant, so they were always working, and if I wanted new bike parts, I mowed neighbors' yards to earn them. At the funeral home I set up chairs and flowers, ran the music and welcomed families at the door, and a restaurant job taught me to refill a glass without interrupting. People notice care, even when they can't name it.

Then my own brand

The funeral home was mine to take over, but at 17 I told my dad I wanted art school instead. I had been running my clothing line, Voyce Clothing, since freshman year, selling shirts in a local store and out of a suitcase at parties and putting every dollar back into the brand. That taught me what it feels like to spend your own money on marketing. Growing up, we also built our own dirt jumps, and the rule was no dig, no ride. I still work that way.

Then the career, and the focus

I moved to Florida in 2009 for design school, met my wife here and stayed. At BC Surf and Sport I learned the path from product to sale across 18 stores, including a custom shoe for the Vans x BC Surf and Sport collaboration, and Billabong later brought me in to help open its Deerfield Beach store. Over time I narrowed my focus to law firms, medical and dental practices and technology companies.

I'm not a doctor or a lawyer, and I'm not trying to be. I'm a marketer, and I want to be the best one I can be.

02 / How I work

The Double Jaw Method.

Early in my career, I worked for a lot of people who told me how to make a graphic or a video based on what they wanted rather than what their customers wanted. Over hundreds of projects, I kept track of what worked, and a pattern showed up: when you break the work into small pieces and test them, you find the way there.

I turned that pattern into my own method and named it after my double jaw surgery, where both jaws had to move together for anything to work. In one line, I think it through, and then I execute.

• Top jaw, the thinking. Research the buyer, learn what they'd choose instead of you, set the strategy and write the plan before anything gets made.
• Bottom jaw, the action. Build it, launch it, test one piece at a time, measure what brought each inquiry in and keep what works.

I use it for every client, whether you hire Hickey Media, Double Jaw Marketing or me directly, and I teach it in my talks and an upcoming book.

Where Hickey Media started: my first video, from 2018, on planning a marketing video around one objective.

03 / In-house roles

Where I've worked.

05 / The work

Shot and edited by me.

06 / What I shoot on

I bring the kit.

Show proof of life. As more marketing gets made by AI, I joke that every brand should have to show proof of life, so you know there's a human back there. With me there is. I own my cameras and lighting, I show up to the shoot, and I rent extra gear only when a shoot calls for it. As a kid I recorded bike footage over a family tape on my dad's Handycam, and he still hasn't let me forget it, which is why I back up every shoot twice.

09 / In their words

From people I've worked with.

10 / Why I move fast

Why I move fast.

As a kid I did service hours at a nursing home, and one frail older gentleman became my buddy. He told me, "Blake, don't live life with regrets." I never forgot it.

Because I grew up in the funeral home business, I have my own tombstone in the family plot back home. Every year I go back to visit the family I've lost, give thanks and clean off their stones, my grandparents' and my aunts', and then mine. Standing in front of my own name is a good reminder that time is the one thing none of us gets back. So I don't wait. I get after it.

On my wall hangs a piece of wood art I made that says In Progress, with the three words I've written on just about everything since 2006: Embrace, Create, Deliver.

The rhythm, not the balance. My uncle taught me to keep three glasses full: yourself and your spiritual side, your friends and family, and your work. Life doesn't really have a balance so much as a rhythm, and business works the same way, with seasons that call for more channels, more sales or more operations. When you're ready to focus on your marketing, that's where I come in.

11 / My companies

Two focused brands.