Business & Professional

BRANDON DELALY:
"We are great friends,

living a dream."

Young owners are taking a
fledgling agency in multi directions.

JOEY MARCUS:
"Don't consider this a

new business. We are a

business."

Alan Hitsky.
Associate Editor

heir business plan was written on
the back of a coupon while sitting
under a bedroom desk.
Their business attire is sport coat, but-
ton-down shirt and blue jeans.
They expect to have eight divisions or
spin-offs within their first five years.
In less than a year, they have helped
more than a dozen small-business clients,
rebuilt and opened an office suite in
downtown Birmingham and hired 23-
year-old friend Danny Gutman as their
director of sales.
They are 24-year-old best friends and
cutting-edge mavericks Joey Marcus and
Brandon Dalaly.
What they have created — and contin-
ue to create on a daily basis — is Direct
Media Concepts LLC, a self-described
"media production powerhouse ... Our
fresh faces and fresh ideas elicit change in
the way advertising, marketing and gener-
al media relations are handled and pre-
sented!"
Marcus and Dalaly grew up in northern
Southfield, graduated together from
Birmingham Groves and attended
Oakland University for a year before
transferring together to Michigan State
University. Gutman, also of Southfield,
attended Yeshivat Akiva and graduated
from Southfield-Lathrup and Eastern
Michigan.

T

What makes their business
different, besides their ages and
moxie?
According to their rapid-fire,
back-and-forth answer:
• "We handle our clients like they
are people!'
•"We cater to small business!'
• "Small budget doesn't matter. We do
the best, and we expect our clients will
work with us for life."
• "We quote a price for the job. There
are no hourly rates. If we bid too low,
well, that's our problem!'
• "We want our clients to know each
other and learn from each other."
• "We deliver quality above everything
else. We meet our deadlines early, so we
have plenty of time to make corrections:'
Marcus, Dalaly and Gutman are the
only full-time employees. Others work
long hours on specific assignments, and
Direct Media Concepts borrows expertise
and freelance employees from area agen-
cies."We have advertising friends who
work on the same car account all year
lone says Marcus. "Here, people work on
a lot of different things."
"A lot of different things" can range
from eight banners in 18 hours for Imige
lifestyle magazine and Donya Events' New
Year's Eve party at the Royal Oak Music
Theatre, to new signs, menus and coupon

Danny Gutman,
Brandon Dalaly
and Joey Marcus

cards for the Intelligent Chicken restau-
rant in Farmington Hills.
Their services range from Web site,
print, sound, video, commercial and pho-
tography designs to consulting for a full •
scale, coordinated media program. "We
are a boutique design company:' says
Marcus.
They recently installed a commercial
printing center in the office for their
clients — "As a business owner, why
should you have to stop what you are
doing to go out and print something?"
asks Dalaly. "We can pick it up and deliver
it, and at a lot lower cost" than copy com-
panies.
Marcus and Dalaly worked in a variety
of areas before starting Direct Media
Concepts. Between them, they have expe-

Staff photos by Angie Bean

rience in the mortgage industry, as a disc
jockey, in video production and editing
and other fields.
-After eight months at Quicken Loans,
Marcus woke up Dalaly in December 2004
to announce, "I just quit. Come on over,
we're starting a company"
Dalaly said their scrawled business plan
showed where the two wanted to be in five
years. "By the end of the conversation," he
said, "we had eight companies drawn up!'
Direct Media Concepts came into being
last April 15, with an office under the desk
in Marcus' Southfield bedroom and the
rest of the floor covered in paper.
Now they have an office and design
space in 400 West Maple in Birmingham,
and they are believed to be the youngest

Brash on page 38

:0A M tZ .6

R;,tti

January 19 • 2006

37