Today we’d like to introduce you to James Higbee.
Hi James, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
When I finished high school, I was already in the grip of a devastating addiction—one that turned my world upside down. I stumbled into college, hoping for a fresh start, but instead, it amplified the chaos, pulling me deeper into the abyss. Rehab became my lifeline, but I walked out against medical advice, and the years that followed were a harrowing blur: relapses, more treatment centers, and rock bottom after rock bottom.
Desperate for change, I fled to Los Angeles, chasing the myth that a new skyline could rewrite my story. It didn’t. I lost my job, my savings, my dignity—and eventually, my home. Homeless on the streets of LA, I scraped by with a telemarketing gig that paid just enough to survive. Nights were spent scaling the fire escape of the office building to crash on the rooftop, until I could finally afford a dingy motel room. But even in that darkness, a spark ignited. I’d trek miles to the public library, devouring free online courses in social media marketing and coding, teaching myself skills that felt like distant dreams.
Those late-night lessons paid off. I landed a role at a scrappy tech startup, where I honed my hustle. Emboldened, I launched my own marketing agency—and to my surprise, it took off, carving out moderate success amid the grind. But life, as it often does, had other plans. I returned to Jacksonville, my roots calling me home, only to watch the business evaporate in a brutal market shift. Renting a cramped room off Moncrief Road, I pivoted to the local call center world, clawing my way back from square one.
That’s when opportunity knocked—literally. I crashed with a friend in St. Augustine and joined one of the biggest digital marketing firms of the era. My commute? A 5 a.m. alarm, a multi-mile walk, and a gauntlet of buses just to clock in. But I thrived. Within months, I shattered records, becoming the top international salesperson—outpacing over 400 agents worldwide. One cold call changed everything: I closed a deal with a visionary entrepreneur who, instead of walking away, offered me a game-changing proposition. He wanted me as his very first hire at a fledgling firm focused on data intelligence and lead generation.
We built that company from the ground up, scaling it exponentially over six relentless years through innovation, grit, and unbreakable partnership. The payoff? A blockbuster acquisition that validated every scar and sleepless night. Today, I’m the founder of Shepherd Consulting, a powerhouse in lead generation and outsourced agent solutions, empowering businesses to connect, convert, and conquer. My journey wasn’t linear—it was forged in fire—but it’s proof that the lowest lows can fuel the highest highs. And I’m just getting started.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No, not by a long shot—it’s been a rugged, winding path riddled with detours that tested every ounce of my resolve. But those very struggles? They’re the forge that shaped me into the entrepreneur I am today.
The darkest chapter was my battle with addiction right out of high school. It spiraled through college and beyond, leading to multiple rehab stints, rock bottoms that left me isolated and broken, and eventually, homelessness on the streets of Los Angeles. Surviving that meant nights on a rooftop fire escape, scraping by on a telemarketing job while the world spun on without me. It wasn’t just financial ruin; it was a complete unraveling of my identity, forcing me to rebuild from literal scraps—self-teaching coding and marketing at the library just to feel like I had a shot.
Even after clawing my way up—launching a marketing agency that hit moderate success only to watch it crumble when I returned to Jacksonville—the hits kept coming. The market dried up overnight, leaving me in a rundown rental off Moncrief Road, pivoting to call center gigs that paid the bills but barely fed the soul. And that brutal commute to my big digital marketing role? Waking at 5 a.m. for miles on foot and a bus marathon—it was a daily grind that could’ve broken anyone, yet it honed my unbreakable work ethic.
Through it all, the biggest struggle wasn’t the external chaos; it was the internal one—doubting if I’d ever outrun my past or if failure was just my default setting. But leaning into that discomfort, partnering with the right people, and treating every setback as fuel? That’s what propelled us to scale a data firm to acquisition and launch Shepherd Consulting. Smooth roads don’t build champions; the potholes do. And I wouldn’t trade mine for anything.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Shepherd Consulting isn’t just a business—it’s the culmination of my hard-won grit and a 137-year family legacy of Jacksonville entrepreneurship, starting with my great-great-grandfather’s firm, Foland and Higbee, back in 1888. The family company is a Jacksonville-based powerhouse focused in the property management sector. While I am not affiliated with the company, I did learn a lot of my business sense from spending time in the office with my father as a young child.
What do we specialize in? Lead acquisition is our secret sauce—we deliver real-time leads for instant engagement, high-quality aged leads to stretch your budget further, and live transfers that hand your team warm, ready-to-close prospects on a silver platter. Our call center management dives deep: optimizing dialers for peak efficiency, rewriting scripts that actually convert, scrubbing and tracking leads to skyrocket ROI, and ensuring seamless handoffs from dial to deal. Then there’s phone number remediation, where we scrub those pesky “spam likely” flags, register with carriers for crystal-clear compliance, and boost answer rates so your calls actually connect. And our sales consulting? It’s the strategic war room—innovative playbooks tailored to crush competition and fuel exponential growth.
We’re known for results that speak louder than promises: transforming underperforming campaigns into seven-figure successes, all while keeping everything compliant and scalable. But what truly sets us apart is that Jacksonville-rooted edge—fifth-generation local know-how fused with nationwide reach, delivered by a team (including my loyal German Shepherd, Liberty, who keeps the vibes fierce) that’s battled through the trenches. Unlike cookie-cutter agencies churning out generic leads, we craft bespoke strategies that anticipate your blind spots, leveraging decades of hands-on wins to deliver measurable, outsized ROI. No fluff, just firepower.
Brand-wise, I’m most proud of our unshakeable commitment to empowerment—rooted in that bold, competitive Duval County spirit that says, “Attack the day, own the market.” We’ve scaled operations from startup scrambles to acquisition-level beasts, and every client win feels like paying forward the resilience that pulled me from rooftops to boardrooms. It’s not just about numbers; it’s about building legacies, one optimized call at a time.
To our readers: If you’re tired of leads that ghost you, calls that flop, or growth that stalls, know this—Shepherd Consulting is your unfair advantage. We don’t just fill pipelines; we ignite them. Let’s chat, strategize, and seize those opportunities together. Your next breakthrough? It’s closer than you think.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
Resilience—hands down. It’s the unbreakable thread that’s woven through every chapter of my story, from the ashes of addiction and homelessness to scaling companies that others deemed impossible. You see, success isn’t about avoiding the storms; it’s about learning to dance in the downpour, turning each lightning strike into fuel for the fire.
Think back to those LA nights on a rooftop fire escape, cold-calling leads while the city lights mocked my circumstances. Or the 5 a.m. treks through Jacksonville’s pre-dawn chill, buses be damned, just to out-hustle 400 agents and claim the top spot. When my first agency tanked, or when market shifts left me scraping by in a Moncrief room, resilience whispered that rock bottom isn’t a destination—it’s a launchpad. It pushed me to self-teach coding in library corners, to cold-call my way into a partnership that birthed an acquisition, and now, to build Shepherd Consulting into a revenue engine for industries that demand precision under pressure.
What sets that grit apart? It’s not blind stubbornness; it’s adaptive tenacity—the kind that honors your scars but doesn’t let them define you. It’s why our clients trust us to scrub “spam” flags and deliver live transfers that close deals on the spot: because we’ve remade chaos into clarity, time and again. And as I steer Shepherd forward, rooted in that 137-year Duval legacy, resilience reminds me that the real wins come not from perfection, but from persisting with purpose. If there’s one takeaway, it’s this: Whatever your battlefield, cultivate that inner steel. It’ll carry you further than talent alone ever could.
Pricing:
- Determined by campaign
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.904shepherdconsulting.com/
- Instagram: @904shepherdconsulting
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61575115842259
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdhigbee/
