Customer Spotlight:
D’nelle Dowis
On the value of consistent, long-term professional relationships
As the Founder of Berry Interesting Productions, D’nelle Dowis has carved out a successful and unique business that serves its clients in a powerful way.
“I’ve always been a DIY kind of person. I’ve never liked handing off something to somebody else that I didn’t at least understand myself.”
And she’s done it by not only knowing how to hire and manage the right people for the right jobs, but also by learning how to do things for herself.
As D’nelle explains, “I’ve always been a DIY kind of person. I’ve never liked handing off something to somebody else that I didn’t at least understand myself.”
With that foundation, which was ingrained in her at a young age while watching her parents run a remodeling contracting company, Berry Interesting Productions has been an extremely rewarding venture for her for well over a decade.
The Birth of Berry Interesting Productions
Berry Interesting Productions was launched over 15 years ago as a web design firm. Today, D’nelle proudly offers reliable and trustworthy digital support for all things Internet-related, including:
- WordPress development
- Website maintenance
- Marketing strategy implementation
And their target market is unique, as you’ll learn. Not only does Berry Interesting support business owners, but they work with all kinds of artists, creators, and marketers to help them authentically communicate their brand to the world.
Above all, D’nelle values mindful decision-making, strategic planning, responsive support, and compassionate communication.
But it doesn’t end there. As she says, “We also value as many dog snuggles as we can get.”
With her team of seven, including Kimberly (who recently appeared on the game show “Jeopardy!”) the future of the business is brighter than ever.
Beyond the professional, effective digital and web services Berry Interesting offers, they also branch into Live Music Production. Backed by over 20 years of on-the-road touring experience, Berry Interesting LIVE provides clients with:
- Site stage management
- Production management
- Back-line tech support
- Merchandise management services to live music events throughout the world
With her team of seven, including Kimberly (who recently appeared on the game show “Jeopardy!”) the future of the business is brighter than ever.
And it’s been a slow and steady climb of learning, gaining experience, and surrounding herself with the right people that has taken D’nelle into the success she enjoys today.
Carving Out a Path Toward Success
As D’nelle explains, life began to set her up from the very beginning to flourish in website development and project management.
“I’m not someone who’s just going to go out and find a web developer and be fine with that. I want to know what they’re doing. And that curiosity began when I was in college. I thought that I was going to be a journalist and was going to go into QA copy editing and typesetting for newspapers. But that industry was basically up-ended in the 1990’s.”
Then, in the early 2000’s when the Internet began to take over, D’nelle was in college and began to see how important it was soon going to be to be able to design and create websites.
Coming out of college, she was hired by a small newspaper in Franklin, TN as a beat reporter. The newspaper, called The Williamson Herald, was founded as a response to Gannett Media buying out so many of the local papers in Tennessee.
“I still don’t pretend to know the full, actual story behind the formation of The Williamson Herald,” D’nelle explains. “I’m sure that it had a lot to do with money. But there were three businessmen who got together and decided they wanted a true hometown newspaper. Gannett has already purchased the newspaper that was here, and we wanted to start their own. They even hired the editor of the original local newspaper away from Gannett.”
“…I ended up being the person that was talking with the web development agency about what it was that we wanted in terms of functionality, and what we were looking to do with email marketing.”
Due to the work she had done in college with journalism and in the media department, the paper decided to hire her as a local beat reporter. It was at this time that she realized that she was one of only two people at the paper who had an understanding of the Internet and what it could be for the paper.
“I was also the only person who had enough time in my day to really pay close attention to what was happening with the Internet at that time. The other person was doing all of the design and layout for the paper. She was pretty much maxed out.”
When it finally came to the point for the newspaper to get a website, because so many of the surrounding papers had already done so, they hired a local web design agency. And that is what really ended up launching D’nelle’s eventual career.
“Our typesetter and designer was so maxed out with work that she just didn’t have the time to pay attention to the actual build of our website. So by default, I ended up being the person that was talking with the web development agency about what it was that we wanted in terms of functionality, and what we were looking to do with email marketing.”
This became a crash course for her on how a consumer interacts with a web development agency. But beyond that, with her DIY mindset, she began to learn web development herself. In fact, the agency was even willing to teach her how to do it.
And it was then that she began to learn WordPress.
Using WordPress To Drive a Business
From day one after discovering WordPress, D’nelle says she was completely “smitten” by the platform.
“I couldn’t believe how easy it was as a user to interact with it and impact change on the front end without actually knowing how to be a true developer. Then, it allowed me to sort of backfill the bit of developer knowledge I had. So I really started to work with it myself.”
Her first paid WordPress development job was for an artisanal soap maker in Nashville. She told the client that she would create an e-commerce site for $300. By the time she was finished with the job, she estimates that she earned about $1.25 an hour.
But it was all a part of her learning curve toward building Berry Interesting Productions into what it is today.
D’nelle explains that her company was officially founded in 2006. And as the daughter of two tenacious business owners, she had a great understanding at a young age of what it takes to run an independent business.
More than 15 years later, that understanding has translated into experience.
“…Then, it allowed me to sort of backfill the bit of developer knowledge I had. So I really started to work with it myself.”
Solving Problems For Clients
It’s never easy to find a reliable partner to outsourcer any aspect of a person’s business. And when it comes to the challenging creative/tech hybrid that building websites occupies, it’s even more difficult.
D’nelle solves this problem by providing a reliable, long-term presence that takes care of all the website basics such as software and content updates. But she also provides insightful and intelligent advice to her clients.
“We got started in web development because we saw a serious lack of options for clients looking for a long-term relationship, and we stuck with it because we witnessed so many creative agencies come and go, often leaving our clients in a lurch and urgently looking for a replacement partner.”
Berry Interesting focuses first on ongoing support; new development is fun, and we take on plenty of it, but it’s always with our clients’ long-term success in mind.
“There are plenty of problems a website owner will encounter – finding a trustworthy source of advice and support shouldn’t be one of them.
The Rewards Of Running Berry Interesting Productions
D’nelle says that, hands down, the relationships and partnerships they have with their clients is the most rewarding part of running her business.
“My favorite example is a client we have called Novo Fitness Studio. When Covid lockdowns began, Novo (like the rest of us) was extremely nervous about the future of their brick-and-mortar, in-person fitness business. Within weeks of the start of lockdowns, while they worked on recording their classes in their empty studio space, we built them an on-demand video portal and worked together to populate it with new and original video classes led by their instructors.”
“Knowing that we had a part in keeping their business profitable while also supporting the wider community … is by far the most rewarding work we’ve ever done.”
They were able to act so quickly and efficiently on this idea because they already had an ongoing, long-term relationship with the client. D’nelle and her team already knew the client’s website inside and out, and had established a full understanding of their business needs.
“Knowing that we had a part in keeping their business profitable while also supporting the wider community they work so hard to build is by far the most rewarding work we’ve ever done.”
Goals for the Next Five Years
D’nelle and her team are working hard to grow their support client roster in order to hire their developer, Marissa, full time.
Although the company had long resisted the idea of having employees (other than owners), Covid taught them how important long-term relationships are. And not just with their clients, but with everybody who works on their behalf.
“The institutional knowledge that can be built up by creating consistency on the human front (to compliment our extremely strong organizational infrastructure already in place) is our next big challenge, but we’re excited to meet it!
The Obstacles Ahead
Historically, all of Berry Interesting’s clients have come via word of mouth – trusted recommendations from colleagues and friends who intimately knew Berry Interesting would be a consistent and trustworthy place for all website needs.
This means that, on the road ahead, marketing to the outside world is one of the biggest challenges D’nelle sees coming.
As she explains, “While Covid showed the cracks in our word of mouth approach (we lost about 40% of our revenue) we also found ourselves with a desire to focus on earning smaller clients where we could make a bigger, more fundamental impact to their business operations.”
“…we also found ourselves with a desire to focus on earning smaller clients where we could make a bigger”
D’nelle’s WordPress Toolset
The tools we use are often equally important as the knowledge and experience we have.
For the core of our ongoing website support services, before doing anything fancy or fun, D’nelle and her team rely heavily on iThemes Sync and iThemes Security.
“Without those two tools, the rest of our services become less reliable. Sync helps us stay organized and keep communications with clients super clear. The Sync reporting helps bring visibility to the specific actions we’re taking to keep their site safe. Security compliments that by doing work on our behalf 24/7, like blocking malicious login attempts or notifying us of security concerns that need our attention.”
Her other favorite tools include:
- Advanced Custom Fields Pro (for extending WordPress beyond the basics)
- Stream (for keeping track of how and when a site is used, and by whom)
- Yoast SEO (absolutely key for dialing in SERP and social link presentation)
- Gravity Forms (the core plugin is what she prefers for anything beyond the bare-bones basic contact forms. They also use extensions and other tools like Gravity View for complex and interactive functionalities)
How iThemes Has Changed Life In D’nelle’s World
D’nelle says that without iThemes, her business may not even exist.
They started out their development work using iThemes Builder. And in that way, iThemes has been key to the origin and ongoing success of Berry Interesting Productions.
The iThemes Sync tool is what enabled D’nelle to confidently focus on the business’ recurring revenue.
“And iThemes Security helps us to actually sleep at night,” she says.
But even beyond that, they’ve been consistently encouraged and inspired by the work that Cory Miller does within the larger WordPress community.
“Cory’s WordCamp talks are a must-attend for us, and the Post Status community keeps us connected to the WordPress community. And we couldn’t fully answer this question without noting that iThemes is how we met Nathan Ingram. His insight into WordPress-based-business development has helped us hone our onboarding processes and create support packages that work well for both us and our clients.”
She also tells us that watching iThemes change and grow as a company has given them the confidence to keep growing and changing as well.
“I deeply value consistent, long-term professional relationships, and iThemes has been a shining example of how to do that while growing and changing.”
And we’re sure that Berry Interesting Productions will continue to change and grow for years to come.
“I deeply value consistent, long-term professional relationships, and iThemes has been a shining example…”
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