The first quarter in business is always a time for negotiations, goal setting and ironing out a vision for the upcoming months. For Andrew Barger, one of Atlanta's local business owners, Q1 has proven to be just that. From expanding businesses throughout Georgia and receiving a regional award for his efforts, Barger has taken Q1 by the horns and seems focused on the months to come. After speaking with Barger on this, it seems there are firm goals in place to make 2022 one of his best years yet.

Typically, the first quarter of a year is one of the hardest times to scale your business. Investors are still contemplating how much money they want to invest in the upcoming months and the holidays have left most businesses playing catch up due to the busy end of year season. However, some businesses find ways to continue their growth despite what market trends would suggest is “safe”. After speaking with Barger, we learned that he was actually able to expand his client base presence by giving them more marketing help in Savannah, Georgia. “Expansion is something that is hard to do any time of the year, but with the right people, anything can be accomplished” said Barger when asked about this decision. As you probably know, Barger has been training business partners internally for the past few months and when someone has undergone thorough training, they are granted a partnership opportunity to help manage more clients in more territory. When clients called Barger to ask about their 2022 growth, the call was answered with a gameplan to grow and it seems they did just that.

After the Savannah expansion was solidified, Barger and partners were invited to a regional networking conference in Atlanta to recognize some of the best leaders in the advertising industry. Barger was given a chance to impact other business owners from around the region by giving a speech on how to scale your business properly while adding employees to your roster. After his speech, due to the momentum he has gained in the Atlanta market on behalf of his clientele, Barger was presented the “Comeback Manager of the Year” award. After giving a humbling speech, he returned back to his Atlanta home office to get back to work on his growth gamplans which will begin in Q2.

It is exciting to see businesses expanding at all during these times, much less in the first three months of the calendar year. Leading from the front, Andrew Barger has set the tone for the Atlanta business atmosphere and seems to be anything but satisfied. Looking for more awards and more expansion, Barger let us know that he has some things “in the works” for Q2 and gave us permission to keep an eye on the vision he plans to put in place in the upcoming months. As the first quarter comes to an end, the anticipation of industry growth in the spring continues to grow. We will loop back to Barger and his partners growth in Q2 and hope to hear more about his momentum!

In such a fast-paced, metropolitan area like Atlanta, Georgia, it’s always exciting to see companies make the extra effort to be involved in their community. There are companies that do not give back to their community, some that rarely do and others that make it a constant part of their team culture. The Atlanta community has always been openly appreciative to all types of involvement in the local community but especially thankful to those companies that go above and beyond all year long.

We got a chance to follow up with some local business owners on their community involvement so far in 2022. One of these owners was Andrew Barger who runs an advertising company in Sandy Springs, Georgia. We noticed that Barger and his colleagues had scheduled and executed multiple charity events in the early months of 2022 and were curious about the culture and planning behind this. After discussing this with Barger, we learned that he and his team have done clothing drives, food drives, Habitat for Humanity and several other charity events in the past. Most recently, Barger and his team joined the Atlanta Community Food Bank to participate in their 2022 “Atlanta Community Food Bank Hunger Walk/Run”.

About fifteen employees and Barger joined this local charity organization on March 6th, 2022. The purpose of the charity was to have as many people donate and participate in a 5K throughout downtown Atlanta to raise awareness for local hunger relief. The streets of Atlanta were flooded with people walking together for this charitable cause, hopefully matching or exceeding the organizations’ 2021 donation of 96,000,000 meals to people in need. This one 5K event has led to countless families being fed all over the metro Atlanta area.

It is exciting to see private companies involved in public charity affairs and we hope to continue seeing this behavior from as many local businesses as possible. As Barger said, “Helping the community has no negative effects. It leads to better team culture, an understanding of the community you work in, and an ongoing relationship between the private and public sectors which can be hard to come by.”

To learn more about The Atlanta Community Food Bank and their ongoing efforts, please visit their website at https://www.acfb.org/