Benji Does benefits from owner’s career journey

By Tom Blodgett
Mail |
Twitter: @sp_blodgett

Chris Benjamin has moved around a lot in his life — as a child, as a member of the U.S. Air Force and in his post-military career.

But all those experiences and the variety of skills he has picked up along the way have informed what he wants and does not want in life and led him to create his own company, Benji Does.

The name seems open ended — what exactly is it that Benji does? — but it fits with the various things he can do. Still, Benjamin can explain it best.

“I tell everybody that I’m an interim small business marketing partner,” he said. “I’m not here forever. When you get bigger, you should wear shoes that fit you. You should be in a different place, and I’ll help you find that agency. I’ll help you find that group of agencies that help flesh out your business so it can grow and do better.”

He likens himself to Dick Van Dyke’s Bert in the one-man band scene from the movie “Mary Poppins.” For companies just getting their feet wet in marketing, he can do it all.

“I do just about anything you can think of creatively,” he said. “But I focus on business.”

It has been a long path to get there.

Born in Kansas, he moved with his family for his dad’s work to Arizona, Oklahoma, Colorado and back to Arizona, where he graduated from Red Mountain High School in Mesa. He said he was not much of a student, and he joined the Air Force after high school.

There, he bounced around a bit finding his fit, from explosive ordinance disposal to intelligence and finally to transportation. He did seven and a half years but decided that was not really for him.

He came home to Arizona and did construction for a few months before going back to school at the Art Institute of Phoenix on the GI Bill.

He had taken some Advanced Placement Art classes at Red Mountain, and a teacher used his portfolio without Benjamin’s knowledge to get him accepted at five colleges’ art programs. But his family did not have the money for him to go.

Still, he had the “art chops,” as he said.

“It followed me,” Benjamin said. “I couldn’t avoid it. Even when I was in the military, I wound up designing coins and T-shirts and flags and posters. It just happened. And you show them you can do something outside of the career field, suddenly you become ‘that guy.’ And it followed me anywhere I went.”

At the Art Institute, he worried about what was next in his career, but he also found it was right for him while doing an internship at Tempe design firm Mindspace.

“I remember a few times … driving home laughing because I got to do the thing I wanted to do, and I really enjoyed it,” he said. “I did. I just fit right in. And it’s what I was supposed to do.”

Out of school, he got jobs first at Synergy Home Care in Gilbert, and he ended up for a while being a one-man marketing department.

“I just found myself doing a lot of things that I wasn’t supposed to be doing,” he said.” I was supposed to be doing graphic design, but then I started doing website development, and I started making graphics. Then we started doing videos and mass email and social media. And then suddenly I’m managing everybody’s social media and managing everybody’s microsites.”

Benjamin’s next job was at Arizona Autism, which allowed him to start Benji Does on the side, and taught him much about lowering anxiety by answering clarifying questions.

“You answered so many questions for them before (and event) happens,” he said. “Nothing is worse than showing up with anxiety to the thing that’s supposed to help you. So that’s what I want to do for these businesses. I want them to be able to say who they are, what they do, who they do it for, why, all those things.”

His training in military intelligence also taught him that.

“You’re going to show up, tell them who you are tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them, ask for questions, give them your contact information and go away,” he said.

Finally, Benjamin went out on his own last November, selling his house at the “cartoon money” he could get and putting it into the business. Arizona Autism remains a client. Since the summer, he said, it has been taking off. And he foresees more growth in the future.

“I just want to bring value,” he said. “I want them to keep me around until they outgrow me. That’s the goal. I want them to outgrow me. But I’d also like to grow into that thing they never have to leave, too.”

Tom Blodgett can be reached at tblodgett@iniusa.org and found on Twitter at @sp_blodgett.

Tom Blodgett
Senior News Editor | Gilbert
@sp_blodgett

tblodgett@iniusa.org

Meet Tom
Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.

Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.

Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism. 

Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.  

Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).