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On this episode of The Jeff Crilley Show, Jeff sits down with Jon K., CEO & co-founder of Masterpiece Sites, to talk about what it really takes to help small businesses win online. Jon shares how his agency grew out of a personal setback, including the story of a struggling dessert shop owner he helped after being laid off—an experience that shaped his mission to serve local entrepreneurs....
Jeff Crilley is a former news reporter, who spent more than 25 years in newsrooms across the country. He’s an Emmy Award winning journalist, who decided to make the jump from news in 2008, when he founded his own PR Firm, Real News Public Relations.
Today, the firm has more than 100 clients, and Jeff continues to tell the stories of interesting people he meets along the way.
These are those stories.
Coming up next on the Jeff Crilley Show, you're gonna meet a digital marketing genius. Jon K. Is in the studio. He's the CEO of Masterpiece Sites. His incredible journey just ahead. Many are predicting that the worst is yet to come, which is unfortunate, said one person here. Until now, they've enjoyed the reputation of being the nation's icebox. Watched a burglar in his home this morning by webcam. As a journalist of over twenty five years, stories are what make my world turn. Reporting live from The Dallas Newsroom tonight, Jeff Crilley, Fox four news. But in 2,008, I took the jump from my familiar life and started a PR firm from my home. We're talking about anyone with a camcorder like the one I'm using becomes a television network. We started slowly growing the company, and and we now have over a 100 clients. And we've branched into the world of live digital broadcasting. I now own eight different TV studios and have a huge team. And the stories that I now get to share are sometimes the most important of my life. Life has a funny way of coming around full circle. This is The Jeff Crilley Show. Well, digital marketing is where it's at. I mean, storefronts are great, but as we discovered in during the height of COVID when, you know, storefronts were fading, it's all about your online presence, both your website and social media. So I invited Jon K. In the studio. He is a digital marketing genius. He is the CEO of Masterpiece Sites. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks, Jeff. It's nice to finally be on here. Well, thank you. This is amazing. Well, and we were introduced through a mutual friend and I said, gotta come on my show to talk about your journey. Yes, sir. So tell us about Masterpiece Sites. What is the company? So, Masterpiece Sites, how do I do I start this? Yeah. It started three years ago and the main mission was to help the local community of small businesses. So, throughout time, we've worked with hundreds of customers and we've done a lot of digital work. So, it started with search engines to social media, then on the back end we have the marketing piece connecting the website, building custom websites that are mobile responsive because in 2026, nobody really goes on the computer a lot. Right. So on top of that, we do all the marketing, then we started integrating some PR solutions into the system so that then they can also get on articles, can get on news channels, but also kind of present their their image, their visuals through social media because now video content is king. Sure. So for any business out there, I would highly suggest you start jumping into video content because that is where the audience is living. They're on TikTok, they're on Instagram, they're on Facebook, so and YouTube. So that's what we do. We help optimize all businesses, and we've been doing it for the past three years. Eventually, we are starting to build a back end CRM system and a SaaS software to help even further and retargeting the existing clients and, you know, so on and so forth, I don't want to talk too long about this. Sure, no, that's But the solution is now coming in, building into a new agency called Arvana Branding. So that's coming here shortly, probably take about three months build that entire system out. Perfect. Well, I appreciate you sharing your wisdom. We're gonna pull up your website, I want you to talk about the kinds of clients that you like to work with, mean, we're seeing some of the brands, it looks like there's some restaurants on there, what does an ideal client look like for you? So, I am a foodie and I love food. My first initial target was, of course, restaurateurs. We've worked with several types of restaurants from fried chicken to, you know, Asian food to breakfast spots and while doing so we've started getting a lot of attention from different industries like dental clinics, attorneys, Silicon Valley tech firms and other marketing agencies that really liked our kind of user flow and our UX UI designs and content, they wanted to have us white label their solutions and provide that to them too. So we there's nothing we haven't touched. When it comes to digital, it's like building a house, have to set up a very good foundation first. Yes. You have to be repetitive, you have to work with the customer because it's their baby, it's their brand. Yeah. So, we work with our customer to be a part of their team, they're hiring a team when they hire our agency. So, it's not just, you know, one, two people, we got eight to nine people working on each business' location to get you guys total optimization, total visibility and better PR solutions. So, that's what we've been doing for the past three years and it's been working very awesome. Well, you have a great story that touches my heart. You met somebody and you helped her out it Yes. Changed her That was a crazy moment. That was a very crazy moment. Share that story with us. Okay. So, a long time ago, this was about eight years ago when I first got into this industry. I got laid off from a job due to a very big client loss and after that I had my final paycheck. It was my day for my final paycheck and I took my now wife to go eat Indian food because we like food with flavor, right? And so, after the food I already know automatically like she's gonna want dessert, like she wants something sweet right after she eats a savory meal. So I go on my phone and I type in the keyword dessert, nothing populated just Sonic on an advertisement and this is in Denton. So, if you guys remember Denton eight years ago, there was really nothing there and eventually, I thought of this place that we frequented, it was a Mexican dessert shop in Denton and it was a mile and a half away. So, automatically drove us there. And when I walked in there, we're actually, we go there a lot, so we're normal customers. So, knows us already. So, I walked in there and her face was just not in the proper, I guess, positioning. Yeah, she was depressed. She was very depressed. I don't want to say names of the business or the name of this person because it's their confidential information. Sure. So, that's why I haven't disclosed any information today. Sure. But she, her husband left her with two to three kids and with the business, she never ran a business before and she was about to go bankrupt. I felt very bad for her that day and, you know, I just said, I'm very sorry to hear that, like, that's not every day you hear something like that or something like that happens to somebody and my girlfriend at that time, she nudges me with her elbow and she was like, don't you know digital things, like, why don't you come here and then help her out? So the very next day with her permission, I came with my laptop and I put her on Google maps, I put her on all the search engine listings that were trending, I put her on all the social media profiles that were popular and she didn't even have a logo source file so back then I had to snap a picture and trace every element to make that source file which was very hard. But if you guys don't know what a source file is, this will help you in the future if you wanna shrink it, blow it up for like print material and signage. So, yeah, it was a lot of work but within a two week time period of me completing this task for her, I have the Google My Business app on my phone and every single day there was at least four to five new reviews at five stars ranking her as an elite position for dessert in Denton. Wow. So in two weeks time frame, I get a phone call and she was like, hey, can you please come to my store? And when I went there she handed me cash and I was shocked because I did this just because, you know, I helped my parents too when they asked for help and she asked me for help and she reminded me like of my mom's situation and so that payout got me motivated, that feel good, that feeling of goodness that came into my soul, I felt that and I was just super ecstatic and motivated. So I went out like a politician, I shook hands, I kissed babies, you know, I went all over the place and I just started landing clients on different things. So eventually it went from setting up a good presence on social, on search, to creating a website starting at Wix or Squarespace, those sucked. So So we started moving into WordPress, and then now we do Webflow Shopify. So we've been building these websites for these people, setting up a whole infrastructure, retargeting through Mailchimp, and just doing a lot of stuff for a lot of businesses over time. Of course, there's failures too, but there's a lot of success stories in between, and out of those, like, I just wanted to keep going and I just kept going. It's been eight years now, and three years ago we started Masterpiece sites, now we're moving into Arvana because I wanted to bring more of a luxury feeling to our clients' portfolios. Yes. Because eventually, whether it's now, when you first start your brand, whether it's in between the process of you inside the business operating and showing clients, showcasing these things to your clients, all the way to selling that business, that portfolio piece right there will bring benefit all around. Wow. So, that's what we've been digging into If they're asking about AI, AI cannot do half of the things that we do. Not yet. And it's not going to be until the next ten to fifteen years. So, this is something that we are considering and we have also built fail safe systems for our internal employees and team members so that if AI tends to take their job, we will give them another job as a prompting engineer. So, like, we have created this entire infrastructure that we're going to execute into Arvana Branding Group and that's here shortly, it's coming soon, it's coming very soon. I'm very excited, like so many people are gonna get help. They're gonna make money and it's gonna be super nice. Wow. Well, I love that story and I love your enthusiasm. We're gonna show the client success page off of your website and as we scroll down, I want you to just, if there's anyone that jumps out at you that you'd like to talk about. Yeah, right there, on the top right there, you can start from the top actually, Lotte Global Logistics, they needed a video executed within three to four days. Wow. No other videography company wanted to take that job because the time it takes to record the video, send the team, it's gonna cost a lot of money. Yes. So, we gave them a cost effective solution and created a video for a fortune, I don't even know but they're they're very big in Korea, in South Sure. They're a very big company. And if you go to H Mart, there's a lot of their products in there. On the right, you'll see Exquisite Cafe, they have, this owner has about three locations that I do marketing for and those guys are busy. I literally walked in there to their Fort Worth location and this old lady was like, hey, you, are you in charge of their marketing? And I was like, yes ma'am, how can I help you? Because I thought she was interested, right? Yeah. But she was mad. She was like, why are you doing this? Like, not even two months ago I came here and I could just walk in and have a peaceful breakfast. Now, there's a lion I've got to stand behind, can you please stop? And I was Oh like my goodness. I'm so sorry but I can't stop. You know? Needs to be a slogan on your website. Please stop. Alright. You're We have a a minute or so left, so look into the camera on the left and talk to that person who knows that they probably need your help. So it's 2026, guys. Ever since COVID, everybody's been locked away in their house. They're always on their phone, they're on social media, they're going through your website, looking at your products, your services, your whatever you sell. And I wanna be the guy with a team to kind of promote your image to that audience. And so, if you're looking for a team to provide you a very awesome infrastructure that will do 10 different tasks at a very affordable rate, I believe our team is the right fit, we will work together with you to make sure that you get maximum results. So, you probably heard it from a 100 different marketing agencies but with us, we're very open. So, everything we do, we can show you, we can teach you but in the beginning, like, I believe our team can help for the long term. So, there's a lot of things. So, if you want to call me, please give me a call, go on my website, my phone number is there, you can text me, you can fill out my contact form, looking forward to hearing from you soon and thank you so much Jeff for this opportunity. Love it. We're gonna end with the website which is of course masterpiecesites.com, the great Jon K. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you. You bet, that's it for now. So nice. We'll see you next time.