Business Spotlight: Element Eleven LLC

Owners: Dan Bennett and Daniel Mayfield

Founded: February 2007

Address: 512 Pepper Hill, Nixa, MO 65714

Phone: (417) 724-9427

Fax: (417) 724-9436

Web: www.elementeleven.com

Email: dan@elementeleven.com

Services/Products: Graphic design, product packaging, collateral materials, Web design, media buying and corporate identity

Employees: 2

Dan Bennett and Daniel Mayfield were never big into chemistry, but their home-based business has a distinctive scientific flair – beginning with its name.

Element Eleven LLC is a year-old full-service advertising agency creatively named after sodium – the 11th element on the periodic table. Known better as part of the compound sodium chloride (NaCl), aka salt, sodium is never found free in nature. It’s always in a compound – always in a relationship with another element.

Therein lies the connection to business.

The Nixa duo identifies three business areas that reflect the scientific element No. 11: chemistry with their clients, various creative elements they provide and a bit of spiritual connection to being salt.

Mixing compounds

Bennett and Mayfield first got mixed up about seven years ago at First Baptist Church in Ozark.

Bennett graduated from Missouri State University in 1996 with a business degree. He worked for Graif Design and then became a partner in the agency WDT Marketing, prior to the founding of Element Eleven.

Mayfield is a 2000 MSU business grad who wrote software for Willow Brook Foods.

In February 2007, the pair formed Element Eleven, which operates on a 60/40 split between print work and Web design.

“We have marketing and business backgrounds but also some creative, edgy ideas,” says Bennett, whose home serves as company headquarters.

Mayfield adds, “We have that organized side of our brain, but we also play musical instruments. I’m very mathematical in some things but creative and musical in others.”

That combination has taken the two-man agency’s work far and wide.

The Motorola Employees Credit Union in Chicago hired the duo to design posters, and check inserts and direct-mail pieces, and they’ve created a Web site for Secret Keeper Girl, which strives to teach purity to youth.

Beyond Secret Keeper Girl, one of 12 Element Eleven clients, the business partners have secured other faith-based organizations, including Ridgecrest Baptist Church in Springfield. Bennett and Mayfield have designed posters, bulletins and logos to help the church convey its message.

Covered up

Now Element Eleven’s handiwork is traveling the globe wrapped around Askinosie Chocolate bars.

Chocolatier Shawn Askinosie, who recently shipped an order to Sweden, says the Element Eleven-designed candy bar wrappers, packaging and Web site are spot-on reflections of his business.

“One of the things I tell people as I travel the country talking about chocolate and starting my own business, is that to have a successful product or marketing campaign, the packaging needs to be a true reflection of who you are – not who the marketing person is,” he says.

“I first met Dan (Bennett) when I had a little business called the Ticket Center. He did what became a very successful campaign for us. He went on to do everything – print, brochures, a Web site for a not-for-profit I co-founded called Lost and Found.

“What you have is a guy from Nixa, Missouri, who has implemented a design that we worked on together that truly reflects who (Askinosie Chocolate is) as a company. I think that’s a gift that Dan has, and he had limitless patience with me.”

The next challenge for Element Eleven is managing growth. Company revenues, which Bennett would not disclose, have tripled in the last six months.

The duo is considering hiring two people and finding a new location, which will bring new challenges.

“We will probably need a full-time graphic designer in six months,” Bennett says. “From there, we’ll need an account rep to help us manage and bring in work.”

At this point, they’re just experimenting.