Does Direct Mail Marketing Still Work? | Jeff Kruszyna

PROFITABLE TALKS...

On this episode of The Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim sits down with Jeff Kruszyna, co-founder of JMK Victory, a full-service direct mail fundraising company serving political campaigns, nonprofits, and mission-driven organizations.

Jeff shares why direct mail is far from dead—and how physical marketing can cut through the noise of today’s overcrowded digital landscape. From the psychology of opening an envelope to the measurable ROI of donor campaigns, Jeff breaks down the art and science behind direct mail fundraising.

But this conversation goes deeper than marketing.

Jeff opens up about how 9/11 reshaped his life and career, leading him from computer science into politics and purpose-driven work. He also shares the journey of launching his business after 20+ years in the industry, the lessons learned in entrepreneurship, and how faith informs his leadership and decision-making.

This episode is a powerful blend of business strategy, personal conviction, and practical insight for anyone building a mission-driven brand.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

•  Physical mail creates stronger recall and engagement than digital clutter 
•  Mail-acquired donors often give more and stay longer 
•  Chasing small opportunities can block bigger growth 
•  Scaling requires trust, authority, and letting go of control 
•  Clarity and accountability drive growth 
•  Being upfront about values helps people self-select 
•  Jeff’s journey began with a defining moment on 9/11

Join our community of creative entrepreneurs and get a free copy of our No-BS Guide To Making Your Creative Business Actually Profitable delivered straight to your inbox. We’ll share smart, simple tips to help you keep more of what you earn—no boring accountant talk, we promise.  
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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.09)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Yonkers, New York. I don't know why, I just love that name, Yonkers. I don't know what its origin story is, but it's awesome. Thank you for listening. Joining me today, Jeff Kresentka. give it to me again, Jeff. I fumbled.

Jeff (00:28.035)
It's all right, it's a crujina.

Christian Brim (00:32.686)
Jeff Krujina with JMK Victory. Welcome to the show.

Jeff (00:38.166)
Thank you for having me, Christian. Looking forward to a good conversation today.

Christian Brim (00:41.848)
Hopefully Randy will edit all of those out. Maybe he won't, maybe he finds it humorous and leaves it in. I trust Randy explicitly. anyway, Jeff, tell us what is JMK victory?

Jeff (00:52.438)
Good.

Jeff (00:58.284)
Sure, so it's a full service kind of soup to nuts direct mail fundraising company. I like to say, know, think about the physical mail you're getting in your mailbox, asking for you to support anything from political campaigns, nonprofits, charitable organizations, know, 501C3 and C4 nonprofit organizations.

Patriot economy type businesses, anything kind of pro-America in theme, but good old fashioned postal mail. So we do everything from the, you my bread and butter is the creative. the actual copy and, and create graphics that go into everything from the outside of the envelope to the, the, story that's told within the pages inside that envelope to a call to action.

which is support a worthy cause, whether that's a political campaign or a nonprofit or a for-profit patriotic business. And then everything on the back end of that. what's called the caging, which is just the processing of all those checks and credit cards and contributions and all the analytics that go into it. So everything is measured down to the penny.

So that's where the of the art and science of direct marketing and direct mail fundraising specifically kind of are attached there. So I know exactly down to really down to exactly the penny, whether or not each campaign, so each time we send out a mailing, whether it's to acquire new donors or to cultivate those existing donors to have them upgrade or become sustainable givers monthly.

givers, we can measure everything down to the minute detail on the analytics front. But yeah, so good old fashioned postal mail. And we do everything and we also can offer services that are a la carte. So if you only need the print production or the audience building as far as who we're targeting in the mail.

Jeff (03:19.401)
or just the creative component, the art and the copywriting. We offer those as standalone offerings in addition to the kind of all-encompassing, run a fundraising program for you type approach.

Christian Brim (03:36.911)
Do you I'm sitting here looking through trying to find this is where I need a show producer we had an episode with a OG of direct marketing and I cannot remember his name But it was a fascinating show talking about like he was one of the original financial newsletter producers a la Kiplinger

And at one point they were bigger than Kiplinger. and, how that has changed and how it has not changed over his tenure. I personally think that, physical marketing, is, is something that is not emphasized enough with, with businesses. because we've,

been distracted for the last 25 years with digital. And there's always something new and there's always something changing. But I think when you can put something physical in someone's it lands differently. You get different level of engagement. And you stand out more because you're not lost in the digital weeds.

Do you do the printing or is that something that you subcontract up?

Jeff (05:07.866)
So we subcontracted out. We have a production manager on our team that works with a whole host of different print shops all across the country to make sure we're getting the best pricing and turnaround time. yeah, so I would echo everything you said and definitely we'll use that in our marketing because yes, physical mail is, yeah, it's...

Everyone likes to say it's been dying. I've been told that my entire 20 plus year career, all to say it's not. It is, as my business partner likes to say, appointment viewing of that physical, tangible thing that you're getting in the mailbox you have to do something with, whether that's you're gonna put it down on your kitchen counter, you're gonna go have your morning cup of coffee and go through your mail.

you can definitely remember when you get a piece of mail versus how many emails you have or now even text messages were the latest, greatest thing as far as fundraising. And I'm a big proponent of you should be fundraising and speaking to your donors across all channels. But it's a lot harder to an email that you got from three days ago than it is to find a direct mail letter that you got in the mail three days ago. You're gonna remember

either the color of the envelope, who it was from, something about it that stood out. that's, the crux of my job is, as folks are checking their mail, you only have a handful of seconds for them to like, what am I gonna do with this? Like, am I gonna actually open it and read it or am I gonna toss it? And that's the beauty of the art and science of everything from the weight of the paper to the color of the envelope to

what fonts you select or the kind of addressing the stamps that you use, like all of that goes into the kind of science of the marketing of it. And then the art of the storytelling, whether you're a political campaign or a nonprofit, making that one-to-one connection between the person who we're ghostwriting on behalf of, so the organization.

Jeff (07:29.439)
figurehead or political candidate, and then that individual donor, making them feel like it's a one-to-one communication, even though we are obviously mailing hundreds of thousands of pieces of mail.

Christian Brim (07:46.317)
Yeah, I'm old enough to remember when people didn't like junk mail, cause it was in their mailbox and they were looking for something that, you know, was actually sent to them personally. And now it's kind of come back. It's gone full circle where like people are actually excited to get something in the, in the mail, even if it wasn't the, you know, a card from grandmother. and, and I think the allure of digital over the last 25 years, and, I think it's accelerating with AI.

is the the I put this in air quotes the cost like it's cheap right and and it doesn't cost anything to send emails but and I'm not bagging on email marketing I mean email marketing works but there there's an allure to the cheapness of the digital tools that that I think hides the value of something physical that's just

Jeff (08:22.877)
Sure. Sure.

Christian Brim (08:45.89)
my opinion.

Jeff (08:47.336)
Sure, yeah. mean, yeah, there's certainly the, yeah, again, the barrier to entry for direct mail stops a lot of folks, but my counter to that is always the lifetime value of a donor you're getting, you're acquiring through physical mail is far superior and far higher. And those donors give not only more, more often and longer term than your traditional email

acquired donor.

Christian Brim (09:19.8)
So what's your origin story? How did you end up with this in this space and how did you come up with the name?

Jeff (09:29.117)
Sure. So the origin story, I'm originally from New York. So when you you shout it out, Yonkers, I know where that is. I'm from Long Island, so south of and east of New York City. Yonkers is a little bit north just outside the city. But anyhow, my origin story was I was a college student on campus and it happened to be

you know, that Tuesday morning that all of us remember where we were, September 11th, 2001. At the time I was thinking, you know, I was a declared computer science major, go, you know, thought I knew better and thought I was gonna go into a career of tech, work for Microsoft or some, you know, big Silicon Valley company. But the Lord had a different plan for me. And after...

Christian Brim (10:01.965)
Mmm.

Jeff (10:23.395)
after witnessing on repeat watching from the student activity center, the second plane hitting the second tower, something kind of stirred inside of me to change my focus and really start paying attention to world events, what was happening, not just war on terror obviously was front of mind for everyone, every one of us as Americans, but also being 45 minutes from ground zero.

of, yeah, I still vividly can remember hearing the helicopters bringing folks to the University Hospital because they had the biggest burn unit nearby. all those sort of, that experience of that day and the days after, the kind of spirit of September 12th where we were all unified as Americans and we're going to go kick the terrorist butt.

that really kind of galvanized me. got way, yeah, I switched my major from computer science to political science, got engaged with Young America's Foundation. That's still a client to this day where they were kind of the precursor to what a lot of folks know of what the great work that Turning Point USA is doing too. And we work with them as well, but getting young folks involved politically on the right side. So on the Republican,

America first side of politics. from there, I got my first job in direct mail fundraising in the DC area where I've been ever since. And JMK victory. Yes, JMK are my initials and my son's initials. So Jeffrey Michael Crujina and my son, Jonathan Mitchell Crujina. But I also like to commonly say, Jesus mighty King because

Christian Brim (11:59.65)
Instagram.

Jeff (12:21.166)
and we're filming this the day after Easter Sunday. So the victory on the cross is really the victory we should all have that kind of frame of reference to. But in general, we work on political campaigns and the victory, whether it's on the primary election or general election, that's owed to that. ultimately, we're doing this for a greater purpose.

So that was sort of the origins of the JMK victory name and coming from a college student in New York on 9-11 to now a 25 year career in Republican campaigns and direct mail fundraising specifically.

Christian Brim (13:08.686)
So when did you make the transition? And I don't want to breeze past that. I do want to come back to it. But I want to get a couple of more questions out first. So at what point did you start your business?

Jeff (13:25.254)
So we launched actually almost exactly three years ago to the day after. So my business partner and I both had long careers at larger agencies and finally got to a point where we had been talking about it for years on and off of when's the right time, we're going to do this. And about three years ago, pulled the trigger and yeah.

formed our company and haven't looked back since because ultimately we wanted to be able to serve the kind of clients but with the kind of boutique mindset of, know, we're one big family, we're joining your campaign, we're intimately involved in advising, even if it's beyond just the scope of our bread and butter of direct mail, to be helping with the messaging, whether you're a nonprofit.

or for profit or a campaign. But yeah, so we've been in business for about almost exactly three years now as JMK Victory. But yeah, that's in a nutshell what we've been up to.

Christian Brim (14:39.928)
So what was it that galvanized you to? It sure is, it couldn't have been COVID. I mean, like if my math is right, you're doing this right at the tail end of COVID. Like what galvanized you to to say that, okay, now's the time.

Jeff (14:55.343)
Sure. I mean, a couple of things. One, I was about to turn 40. So if you can do math, I'm a little bit older than 40 now. But really, was this, if not now, then when? if we were just to, I mean, both of us independently, Joel and myself, having worked at bigger agencies like

Christian Brim (15:12.343)
Mmm.

Jeff (15:21.817)
yeah, it would have been easier just to kind of ride it out into retirement as executives at bigger agencies. But really, was being able to pick and choose and really the ability to say no to some clients that don't align with us, with our vision for our company and the sort of clients that...

Christian Brim (15:37.486)
Mmm.

Jeff (15:48.283)
When you're a bigger agency, you kind of have to hold your nose here and there and you got to feed the beast. And too many of those over the course of each of us having 20 plus year careers in direct mail and direct marketing finally was enough. yeah, coming up to my 40th birthday was no better time than then.

Christian Brim (15:56.002)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (16:16.14)
I love that. did you guys work at the same agency?

Jeff (16:19.482)
So we did overlap for about five or six years and then my business partner went off to work at another agency right before we launched together. yeah, we have a kind of symbiotic relationship where we compliment each other and most importantly, the idea of being equally yoked of we're in alignment on not just our

know, business core competencies and where our strengths and weaknesses complement each other, but also kind of long-term vision for the kind of company that we're looking to build and the kind of folks that we're looking to bring on onto our team. you know, above that, you know, the great clients that we look to serve and are serving right now, because, we're...

we are in the heat of a you know midterm elections so we do have quite a quite a few political campaigns we're working on

Christian Brim (17:22.388)
Yeah, it tends to be chicken or feathers if you're in that industry for sure. So approximately how big were these agencies that you worked for?

Jeff (17:34.713)
I mean, both were, you know, 80 to 100 folks, you know, and we're, yeah, we're quite substantial and we're, you know, we're right around that, you know, 10 person lean, mean fighting machine size right now. So that's, you know, not too much bigger than where we are now is where we want to kind of stay and intentionally. But yeah, so coming from, you know, 100 plus person.

Christian Brim (17:40.653)
Okay.

Jeff (18:03.456)
agency back to a smaller shop is definitely took some getting used to, especially the early days of not having a full blown accounting team and back office to do all the things. you're the chief cook and bottle washer of the company, which I think serves us well of we know how to do all the things, but we also know

the best use of our time at the higher level is more intentional on the creative strategy and less on the knowing how to send an invoice and QuickBooks.

Christian Brim (18:42.222)
Yeah, think, you know, talking to a lot of entrepreneurs that are starting out or recently in, I think that's the most common shock is all of the things that there are to do, all the things that you have to know that, you know, especially if you worked with a larger organization that you had other people to do those things for you, you knew they happened, but you didn't know how or who. So.

My question would be if you were going to go back three years and tell 40 year old Jeff, you need to look out for this. This is going to be your biggest thing you don't know or the biggest challenge you're going to face in the next three years. What would you say?

Jeff (19:33.26)
Well, I mean, I think a lot of the ones that I did know going into it are the, you know, not having those kind of support teams out there. I think the bigger one would be, you know, what is the best use of your time? Not necessarily like, and I'm definitely a people pleaser, so I have a hard time saying no, so over committing and that kind of strain of on time.

Christian Brim (19:50.638)
Hmm.

Jeff (20:03.297)
would be the biggest kind of, you know, I think improvement that I've learned and, you know, now having a business coach and all that of like, okay, like, you know, back to, you know, what we were saying as far as what clients to say no to, but also what projects to say no to because yes, we can do all the things under the sun. You know, maybe the best use of our time isn't doing this, you know, one-off freelance project at all. As I, as I like to, you know, poke fun at.

you know, and my business partner and I have this sort of relationship of, you know, chasing nickels when we could be chasing, you know, bigger six and seven figure, you know, accounts. And, you know, saying no, think, I mean, to some degree, you know, we needed to keep the lights on in the early days. So a lot of these kind of one off or smaller projects. And we do like

Christian Brim (20:40.431)
bigger six and seven figure accounts. saying no, think.

Christian Brim (20:53.688)
Yeah.

Jeff (20:59.455)
working with smaller campaigns and smaller nonprofits and watching them grow over time. So that is super fulfilling. But I'd say a lot of these, you know, one-off things that are outside of our kind of core competencies, if we could have avoided more of that, that would have freed us up to do more intentional outreach to more of our ideal.

clients.

Christian Brim (21:30.23)
Yeah, you also hit on another very common theme with entrepreneurs starting out and one I fell victim to is trying to be everything to everyone. And when you're starting out, there is that fear of failure that like, I've got to take the job. I've got to take the work because to your point, you got to keep the lights on. I think the quicker you can get to the ideal

client and understand you as an individual, what is the highest and best use of your time, where you produce the most value. The quicker you get to that point, the more successful you're going to be. It sounds like you were a lot quicker on that learning curve than I was. Which segues into my next question. Thank you for teeing that up very nicely.

It sounds like you've got, so you said political campaigns, nonprofits, slash charity, and then for-profit businesses. Is there any further refinement you perceive that you need to make to narrow your scope further?

Jeff (22:49.463)
Not necessarily. think it's more so as we look to scale and build our team where Jeff and Joel aren't necessarily the one in the weeds on every account, even though I do like to have my pulse on because all the clients know who I am and who Joel is. And I like the ability to, when they call, I can pick up and I know exactly

what's going on in their program because I've had a hand in it. But as we look to scale, I think it's more intentional in the caliber of individuals that we're bringing on because the clients that we work with are wonderful. especially on the campaign side, come November, some will win, some will lose.

And that's natural. So we're going to, you know, probably not win every race that we're involved in, especially, you know, going into a historically bad for our side because we've got, you know, President Trump in the White House. So our side is probably, you know, not probably we're we're facing headwinds and we're trying to, you know, counter that. But all to say, not really, you know, in terms of being more selective, I think we're we're more so

Christian Brim (24:00.228)
is probably, yeah, not probably, we're facing it.

Jeff (24:15.603)
you know, looking to build out full-fledged programs versus doing a lot more of the a la carte services. Although, you know, for their right campaign or right cause, you know, we were passionate about all the issues that we write about and we work on. So we can certainly be convinced otherwise. But it's, I think, being more discerning on who we're, you know, as you were talking.

One of the things that popped in my head, as far as the delegating and the Dan Sullivan's great book, Who Not How, is to make sure that you're getting the best use, the highest productivity of your time and delegating all the rest. So whether that's Dan Sullivan or one of the dozens and dozens of self-help or business coaches out there that preach some version of that, of the art of delegation is important and trusting that you've trained.

the folks that you're delegating to to do it up to standards.

Christian Brim (25:19.648)
Yeah, I find and it certainly wasn't my case but I find that's usually the very first Entrepreneurial inflection point that you arrive at I did not coin that phrase. That was my friend Drew Goodman son And it's that you realize that you're capped by your own time and energy but like usually time

And so the company can't grow beyond you if you don't delegate. But that poses a problem for all entrepreneurs because you're turning loose of something very important or you wouldn't have been doing it in the first place. And the thing that I found in my own experience is

I found two concepts very helpful. One is Patrick Alincione's five dysfunctions of a team. And the foundation of all teamwork is trust. And I thought I had trust in my organization, but here's how that played out. We didn't actually have trust. And so

we stalled because there wasn't trust. And the way it looked was I didn't trust the members of the team that they were going to do what they said they were going to do in the timeframe that I gave them. And they didn't trust me that I wasn't going to, you know, metal.

or change my mind and change directions. And in reality, we were both correct. But the way that manifested itself is that we didn't function very well as a team. And so we had to go back and rebuild that trust. And one of the key concepts, the other thing that I came upon during this time was

Christian Brim (27:41.327)
I can see his face. can't remember his name. I hate this. where's my producer? it was this idea of, deputizing rather than delegate me. And, and the difference is that the deputy shows up on site at a crime scene. They are the sheriff. They have the full authority of the sheriff. They, they can make the decision and suffer the consequences. Right.

Jeff (27:57.684)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (28:11.81)
And that was a difficult concept for me to embrace because if you just delegate without authority, you run into a lot of problems. You still become the bottleneck, right? But obviously, if you're going to delegate with authority saying you speak in my name, you have the power to make these decisions. You have to have a lot of trust like that. You can't have somebody there that you think is going to go off the rails or

not act in a way consistent with what you're doing. But here's the key thing for me. I had to get over my own hubris, my own ego to understand that the right answer didn't mean the same answer that I would come up with. It wasn't the way that I would have made that decision or worked that problem. There are multiple ways to do it.

Jeff (28:50.547)
.

Jeff (29:00.903)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (29:10.122)
It was my way is not the only way. and, you know, that that was took some getting over on my part.

Jeff (29:20.018)
Yeah, I mean, I think we're still in that stage too. I do like the deputizing versus delegating. That is a key differentiator there because, yeah, ultimately if you're just, you know, have a bunch of middlemen that, you know, where the client and, know, I've seen it by being at bigger agencies where either you are the decider or you're not. the client, especially long standing clients that have relationships with the founding,

founders of the company know it. Whether you're able to make the decision or you gotta go back and run it up the flagpole, so to speak. So that is definitely a spot where we're in year three where we've got a lean team that we do all the things all together at this point. generally clients are hearing either directly from me or Joel

or some combination, still to this day, hopefully there will come a point where, yes, we can deputize some folks to be able to be the face of the company toward our clients while we're still in the grind of the day-to-day right now.

Christian Brim (30:38.638)
day to day right now. Yeah, and your illustration was great because like what happens then if you just have a order taker in between you and the decision maker is that the decision maker eventually always gets struck back in, right? And you become the bottleneck. I remember when I promoted Chelsea to head of client service and I actually woke up

in the middle of the night after I did that. And I'm like, I just promoted a 27 year old, she may have been 26 years to be in charge of all client service. I woke up in a cold sweat and I'm like, what the hell did I just do? But I knew she was the right person. She didn't have all of the experience yet, but I knew she was the right person. But the first time that she told a client something that they did not want to hear, and they were like, well, I want to talk to Christian.

her response was, well, that's fine. This is my decision. He's going to tell you the same thing. And being okay with that, here's the hardest part of deputizing, is that those people that you deputize are going to make mistakes. And being okay with owning that mistake, because you're still responsible, right? But

being able to say, you're free to make your own decisions means you're going to be free to make mistakes. being okay with that as the founder and the owner is a tough hurdle to get over. But once you get past it and you get to that point where like the conversations I have with Chelsea now are more of

This is a situation that I don't have any experience in. This is what I think I'm going to do. Do you have any experience share on that? Not even advice. Like, have you encountered something similar in the past? And, you know, I only know she's coming to me when she's got a problem that she can't, she hasn't experienced or she really is wrestling with can't figure out a path forward.

Christian Brim (32:57.452)
And that's a very different dynamic than did you do X, Y, and Z. That's just the accountability piece, right? The deputization piece is, okay, you're making those decisions.

Jeff (33:13.009)
Right. Yeah, that is definitely where I want to get to, you know, with folks on our team or future employees to where they feel like, yeah, they're invested and whether or not, they're, you on paper, you know, a shareholder or equity, have an equity stake in the company, everyone needs to have that. Like this is your company because

Like while yes, the logo on your shirt or on your business card says one thing, like, you know, to our client, you you are the face and you are, you know, JMK victory to them. So good or bad. I think the bigger lesson that I've learned is, is, you know, and having some really great, you know, mentors and bosses along the way.

to where, to your point, like when I messed up or when someone messes up, making sure that your leader has your back, not to throw you under the bus or be like, oh, well, they don't know what they're talking about. Right, right. So avoiding that and yeah, I've seen it both ways. having that,

Christian Brim (34:20.736)
Let me come fix this for you. Right.

Jeff (34:32.93)
either mentor or manager, owner, whatever, kind of knowing that they're in your corner, even though things went sideways is all important. ultimately, the old joke of or phrase where it's like people don't leave companies, they leave managers is very true. And I've certainly seen it where folks love the company I used to work for.

and the clients we serve, but really, you know, had a hard time with the manager and decided to leave because of it. And you hate to see that. you know, lessons learned along the way for Joel and myself. You know, we haven't come to that inflection point yet, but, you know, making sure that we're engaged and to a point where, yes, the people that we're employing and working with, like we consider them family.

knowing what's going on in their lives is important because ultimately, if you've had issues with a kid or a spouse or you're coming into work in the wrong frame of mind, the whole fallacy of work-life balance, it's all one and the same. You're the same person. What's happening at home will affect your work performance.

you know, understanding that point too is critical. And same thing, you know, working with clients of, of, you know, being, you know, knowing, you know, what they're, to the extent you can know, like, and developing those relationships of knowing when their birthdays or anniversaries and things are, and knowing, you know, what, what's going on for them on a personal level too. It's ultimately everything we do is, is relationship based, you know.

And yes, we happen to do direct mail fundraising.

Christian Brim (36:34.862)
I have a comment and then I have a, not a correction, but a difference of opinion. So the first is that the...

I lost it. know the second one. the, the, the, no, I know the first one. The first one is you said, you know, like you treat this company as your own. I think that's a fallacy that I shared and a lot of entrepreneurs share. and, it causes a lot of frustration because the expectation is that you're going to treat this the same way that I do. And that's not ever going to happen because if they had that same mindset, they'd have their own business. Right.

And, and you, your employees are never going to think like you do. they're never going to take the risks. They're never going to be as sold. as you are, they're never, that's just, it's a common, common frustration among entrepreneurs. get them a, why don't, why don't they, why don't they think about this this way? They just don't and they won't. So, you know, quit trying my, my, my

contradiction you said you treat your team like family and I said that for a long time until I realized that that's not a good comparison because you will not fire family. Well, maybe you would I don't know in the sense that like you can't get rid of family just because they misbehave right you sure you can draw boundaries and all that other stuff, but there's still your family right and and so that

Jeff (38:02.297)
you

Christian Brim (38:12.684)
that analogy didn't really work for me. I think team is the right analogy because if you think about a sports team, it's performance based. It's not that I don't care about you, but you're here to perform a function. And if you don't perform that function, it doesn't mean I don't like you. It just means you can't be here. And that was a very difficult thing for me to do because I held on to a lot of employees for a long time that I shouldn't have because I cared about them.

Jeff (38:22.041)
Mm.

Christian Brim (38:42.21)
because there was that personal connection and had that family mindset. But I had to make the shift of like, well, I still love you, but you're this is not your home because you're not doing the job. And that was hard.

Jeff (38:59.372)
Yeah, I mean, we haven't gotten to that point yet with anyone. And I know myself, having been a manager and a senior leader, having to have hard conversations. Yeah, that's not my favorite. I don't think it's anyone's favorite, but.

Christian Brim (39:17.066)
No, if it was your favorite, you'd be a psychopath. it's, yeah.

Jeff (39:20.462)
Yeah, agreed for sure. So yeah, that is definitely a know, Thanksgiving may be a little different if you have to fire a sibling or a spouse or a child.

Christian Brim (39:31.554)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (39:35.319)
Yeah, I my brother was my partner for 10 years and three years before he left. I knew he needed to go and and I couldn't fire him. He eventually quit like I never fired him right. But but you know, that's that's the difference between the family and the team. Okay, so I want to end with this conversation and I don't end with it because I think it's less important. I just think it's distinctly different you.

are obviously very comfortable with your faith and your business I for a long time was very timid about that. I I felt like Religion and politics were two conversations that didn't have a place in the workplace like, you know, I wasn't Not being a christian when I was at work

But I was very careful to draw that line until about 18 months ago and something shifted in me that I decided that like I wasn't going to try and separate those things. And I'm just curious how that how that worked out for you. Did you have any did you have any reservations about it? Did you have any problems with it? Like what what did that work out for you?

Jeff (41:00.814)
I mean, not as much just because of the nature of the kind of clients we serve or political and Christian in focus. But I'd say, you know, my involvement in C12, which I'm a big proponent of, which is a Christian business owner roundtable, you know, where you meet locally once a month. But it's all, you know, the underpinning of it in the C12, 12 disciples, see for Christian kind of thing.

is that we're just stewards of what God has entrusted us to lead. So these companies, the real CEO of all these companies is God, and we're just here kind of managing it and stewarding all the blessings that he's given to us. so having worked and been in C12 groups for a number of years, that was, I always love those monthly meetings because it was like, okay, we're gonna...

we're gonna do a business topic, whether it's transition planning, anything, hiring, firing, things that every company has to do, but from a biblical viewpoint and using scripture and stories right out of the Bible and how that kind of translates into different areas of business.

I was probably the only one in that, here locally, I'm in the DC metro area, so there's a lot of government contractors and folks like that. But as far as working in politics and working with Christian ministries where I'm like, okay, well, by virtue of the clients that we work with, we're in alignment because if I didn't believe these things, I couldn't actually produce the creative that...

coincides and raises money for these worthy causes. So, I don't think I had necessarily as much hesitation or any reservation or hesitation as far as, even in starting my own company of being very kind of outwardly like, hey, this is who I am. I'm Mr. Republican. I'm also a strong believer Christian. And that informs

Jeff (43:25.535)
business practices and who we work with and how we steward finances and just how we run our company day to day, whether that's, if that's for you or not, this is who we are. So folks can self-select out on the front end.

Christian Brim (43:45.571)
Yeah, and I think, I mean, to be honest with you, from a secular standpoint, that's still good advice. Like being who you are, being upfront about who you are, eliminates any surprises or ambiguity. Like, you know, the more clear you can be, this is who we are, what we do, why we do it, the more people will self-select and say, well, they're not for me.

which saves you time, saves you energy, and ultimately makes you more productive. thank you for sharing that. How do people find out more about JMK victory if they want to learn more?

Jeff (44:26.316)
Sure, so the easiest is go to jmkvictory.com is our website. On all the social medias, I'm sure we'll link in the show notes, but beyond that, because as we all learned at the beginning, crujina is a mouthful to say.

Christian Brim (44:48.238)
The thing about Polish words and Eastern words in general is there aren't enough vowels. It's just like... Yes.

Jeff (44:54.719)
Yes, a whole lot of consonants, yeah. So I have GetJeffK.com as a very easy to find website and happy to offer a 30 minute strategy session with anyone of your listeners that wants to learn more about who I am, what we do. If we want to talk about politics or sports, I'm a big Green Bay Packers fan and love me some pickleball so we can talk about pretty much anything.

And yeah, so either jmkvictory.com or getjeffk.com are the two easiest ways to find me. And if you want to attempt spelling my, know, Krugina, I'm pretty sure I'm the only Jeff Krugina out there in the Google verse. So I'm on all the social media, is happy to, you know, connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter X, whatever, what have you.

Christian Brim (45:48.106)
Love it. Listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you've heard, hit that little envelope and shoot us a message and I'll get rid of Jeff. Until next time, ta-ta for now.

Jeff (46:03.307)
Yeah.

Thank you.