Agency Bytes

Featuring: Melanie Balke. The Email Marketers

In episode 165, I sit down with Melanie Balke, founder and CEO of The Email Marketers, an outsourced email marketing department that helps e-commerce brands build deeper customer relationships and grow revenue.

We talk about how her business evolved from freelance work into a full agency built around pods of specialists, and how the scope of retention marketing has expanded well beyond email into SMS, subscriptions, loyalty, and referral programs. Melanie breaks down the real difference between underutilizing email and underoptimizing it, and why SMS engagement often beats email even though it comes with a lot less room for error.

Agency owners will walk away with a sharper view of how to use AI for deeper customer research instead of just faster output, why a simple monthly newsletter can keep you top of mind with B2B prospects, and why protecting a slow morning might matter more than an early one.

Key Bytes

• Underutilized and underoptimized are not the same problem — one means you aren't sending email at all, the other means you're sending it without a strategy behind it.

• SMS can hit open rates near 90%, but that trust is more fragile, so every text either earns the next one or costs you a subscriber.

• Between 2023 and 2024, Melanie's team had to send double the emails to hit the same revenue for the same client with the same offer.

• AI isn't replacing the creative work at The Email Marketers — it's replacing the research that used to be too time-consuming, like mining Reddit and testimonials for the exact language customers use.

• A referral program you set up once and never touch again isn't a referral program, it's a checkbox.

• Most B2B agencies are still underutilizing their own email list, when a simple monthly newsletter is often enough to stay top of mind.

• Melanie doesn't take a call before 11am, and protecting that slow morning is part of how she runs the business, not a luxury she fits in around it.

• If you're on the fence about texting your customers, the real question isn't whether you like getting texts — it's whether you like money.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and introducing Melanie Balke

01:16 From freelancing to building The Email Marketers

02:41 How the pod system runs strategy, copy, design, and delivery

04:19 Why retention now means more than just email

07:18 The real difference between underutilized and underoptimized email

09:10 Email versus SMS: engagement, risk, and where each one wins

15:12 How The Email Marketers uses AI for research and creative

19:58 Melanie's shift from freelancer to founder and her day to day

22:03 What B2B agencies get wrong about their own email marketing

27:01 Rapid fire: books, debunked advice, and protecting a slow morning

This week, my guest is Melanie Balke, Founder & CEO of The Email Marketers, an outsourced email marketing department helping e-commerce brands build deeper customer relationships and grow revenue. Before launching her agency, she led email marketing for one of LA's fastest-growing agencies, was the first marketing hire at Apt2B, and consulted for brands like Mercedes-Benz and SMART.

Melanie Balke is the Founder & CEO of The Email Marketers: Your outsourced email department helping e-commerce brands to build deep relationships with their customers and grow their revenue. Before she started The Email Marketers, she was the Head of Email Marketing for one of LA's fastest-growing agencies and the first marketing hire for Apt2B (acquired), as well as a marketing consultant for conglomerate brands such as Mercedes-Benz and SMART before that.

Contact Melanie on their website or on LinkedIn.

Featuring: David J. Ebner, Content Workshop

In episode 164, I sit down with David J. Ebner, president of Content Workshop, a story-first content marketing agency built for B2B tech brands, and author of Kingmakers.

David and I trace his path from a creative writing MFA to running a content agency, and the moment he realized artistic storytelling and brand storytelling are really the same skill aimed at different outcomes. We get into why even the most technical, sophisticated buyers still respond to story, what agencies get wrong when they lean on AI without understanding what good content actually looks like, and why some of his clients have left for AI tools only to come back once they realized nothing was actually getting produced.

For agency owners, this one's a reminder that content is still fundamentally about earning someone's attention and respecting their time. David makes the case for zagging when every competitor is zigging toward the same AI-flavored sameness, and for treating freelancers and internal team members with the same care you'd give your best client.

Key Bytes

• Storytelling isn't a tactic. It's how humans have always made emotional connections, long before it became a marketing buzzword.

• In every great brand story, the hero is the customer, not the company. Most founders have a hard time getting out of their own way on that one.

• B2B tech buyers are still human. They don't need buzzwords, they need concise, honest content that respects how much they already know.

• Selling on fear, uncertainty, and doubt might close a deal, but it rarely keeps a client. The moment they find a solution that doesn't scare them, they're gone.

• AI doesn't fix bad writing. It just makes bad writing faster, and now you have to already know what good looks like to catch it.

• The agencies producing content that wastes people's time are stealing back the one asset nobody gets returned: attention.

• When every competitor is zigging toward the same AI-flavored sameness, zagging with something genuinely different becomes the actual differentiator.

• In the end, all we really have is how we make people feel, whether that's a client, a freelancer, or a teammate.

Chapters

00:00 Why storytelling matters more than ever in agency marketing

00:58 David's storytelling roots growing up the youngest of five in Ohio

03:34 What Story Brand gets right about the hero's journey

04:58 Where B2B tech brands go wrong telling their story

08:28 The shift from creative writer to strategist and business owner

11:15 David's daily writing habit and why pen and paper still matters

13:46 The real cost of low quality content and AI slop

17:15 Why clients ask if they still need to pay an agency that uses AI

21:23 Zagging when every competitor leans on AI the same way

25:08 Rapid fire on coffee, book recommendations, and Slaughterhouse-Five

David J Ebner is the President of Content Workshop, a story-first content marketing agency serving B2B tech brands, especially in cybersecurity, SaaS, and manufacturing. A former creative writer turned strategist, David leads a team of classically trained storytellers who’ve produced over 30,000 content assets for clients across North America. He’s the author of Kingmakers: A Content Marketing Story and a sought-after speaker on brand voice, narrative content strategy, and the evolving intersection of AI and storytelling.

Contact David on the Content Workshop website, Chatter Agent, or LinkedIn.

Featuring: James Kwon, Figmints

In episode 163, I sit down with James Kwon, founder and CEO of Figmints, a digital creative and marketing agency celebrating its fifteenth year in business.

James and I get into the shift he's making from a pure services agency to a product-driven business, and why he believes agency owners need to build boats, not moats, as AI reshapes the industry. We talk through the acquisition that first pulled him into the M&A world, what he looks for in a deal today, and the story behind Slices, his own pay-for-performance compensation model that ties every dollar of revenue to the work that earned it.

For agency owners, this one's a look at what it actually takes to build a business that doesn't depend entirely on you, through smarter pay structures, disciplined product bets, and acquisitions built on shared values rather than just the numbers.

Key Bytes

• As agency owners, we have to build boats, not moats. The AI tsunami is already here, so playing defense with old tactics isn't a strategy.

• James turned a fifty-thousand-dollar hire into someone earning over one hundred forty thousand a year, just by tying pay directly to the revenue someone brings in and delivers.

• Every dollar Figmints receives gets carved into slices: sales, account management, strategy, fulfillment, operations, and profit. That objectivity ends the "why does she make more than me" conversations.

• Hourly pay incentivizes people to take longer. A model built on outcomes incentivizes people to get faster and better.

• James's first acquisition wasn't a strategic masterplan. It was a friend in decline who trusted him enough to merge, and they're still friends today.

• Love is inefficient. It was designed that way, and you can't use AI to love people efficiently.

• One of Figmints' internal products recently sold for almost nine figures, and that exit is now fueling more acquisitions and more product bets.

• The best dashboards don't just report what happened. They tell you the thing you didn't know to ask about yet.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and introducing James Kwon of Figmints

01:35 James's path from culinary arts and UX design to CVS.com

03:07 Building Figmints and celebrating fifteen years in business

03:33 Why James is shifting from services to products

04:29 Building boats, not moats, in the age of AI

05:45 The first acquisition and what actually made it work

08:50 Using AI to find the right acquisition targets today

14:03 Breaking down Slices, Figmints' pay-for-performance model

21:40 The downsides of Slices and how James manages them

33:48 The best business advice James wishes he'd gotten sooner

James is on a mission to help people thrive through the catalyst of business. As Founder & CEO of Figmints Digital Creative Marketing, James leverages brand storytelling and digital strategies to transform companies from ideas to industry leaders.

His eclectic background in Culinary Arts, Graphic Design, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, and Theology, brings unique insights to every interaction. He's a respected industry voice, having spoken and mentored at platforms like The HubSpot INBOUND Conference, MassChallenge, CIC, MIT, RISD, Venture Cafe, and VMS.

Offstage, James relishes family time with his wife and three kids, church community, and golf buddies. His life is a testament to the magic at the intersection of creativity and technology, nurturing human innovation in the digital landscape.

Learn more on figmints.com

Featuring: Megan Long, Second First

In episode 162, I sit down with Megan Long, founder of Second First, a company built for the COOs, integrators, and right-hand leaders who sit next to agency owners and founders.

Megan and I get into what the second-in-command role actually is, why title matters far less than the ability to run the day-to-day while partnering on vision, and why the "impressive resume" hire so often falls flat. We talk about delegation, why founders keep pulling work back onto their plate even after handing it off, and how two-way communication builds real trust. We also cover what it looks like for a founder to step back, whether that's a weekly report or full autonomy, and how the role evolves as a business scales toward an eventual exit.

If you've ever hired a number two and quietly taken half their job back, this conversation will hit close to home. Megan makes the case that this is one of the most isolating jobs in a company, and that investing in it might be the highest-leverage move an agency owner can make.

Key Bytes

• The second-in-command role isn't about title, it's about who can run the day-to-day while still partnering on where the business is headed.

• The best partnerships aren't built on opposites. They're built on a mostly overlapping Venn diagram, with just a sliver of complementary difference on each side.

• Hiring a "sexy resume" into your number two seat is one of the fastest ways to create friction. That role needs someone who can build the playbook, not someone who needs one already built for them.

• Every founder loves to say "I delegated that." Fewer of them actually let go of the ownership that comes with it.

• If your second-in-command isn't hearing from you, silence reads as failure. Downward communication is what keeps trust intact.

• The real test of whether your business can run without you isn't a weekly report, it's turning the reports off altogether and seeing what happens.

• A second-in-command carries the burden of knowledge with nowhere to put it. That isolation is real, and it deserves the same support founders get from their own peer groups.

• Founders and their number twos are living on two separate islands. The work is building the bridge between them.

Chapters

00:05 Welcome and introducing Megan Long

01:01 Megan's origin story: leading through a tornado and COVID as a COO

03:56 What second-in-command actually means beyond title

06:29 Turning a founder's vision into an operational plan

10:09 Why the best founder-operator partnerships mirror each other

12:18 Why founders struggle to actually delegate

17:06 Building trust through two-way communication

19:17 How the second-in-command role matures over time

21:11 Exit readiness and running the business without the founder

28:26 Rapid fire and where to find Megan

Megan Long is the founder and owner of Second First®, a firm dedicated to the Second-In-Command (COO/Integrator) of entrepreneurial companies. Through national mastermind memberships, one-on-one coaching, and certification programs, Second First® equips right-hand leaders with the confidence, systems, and peer support they need to scale with impact, transforming their partnership with the founder in the process. Megan is also the host of "The Right-Hand Roadmap," the only podcast specifically created for Seconds-In-Command of founder-led small businesses.

An experienced COO and CPA, Megan most recently served as the Second-In-Command of a $10 million IT company. Her leadership has earned recognition including Stevie Woman of the Year, the Nashville Business Journal’s 40 Under 40, the Nashville Emerging Leader Award, and Belmont University’s Top 100 Alumni Entrepreneurs. In addition to her professional work, Megan is also a professional athlete, bringing her discipline and commitment to winning to all aspects of her life.

Contact Megan on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok, take the Second First Assessment here, and tune into the Right Hand Roadmap podcast here.

Featuring: Lynn Juang, Frameworks Consulting

In episode 161, I sit down with Lynn Juang, founder of Frameworks and a strategic partner to founder-led creative agencies working through organizational change.

Lynn walks me through her path from client services in fashion advertising to COO of a multidisciplinary design firm, including the two years she spent guiding that company through the pandemic. We get into why she moved away from the word "fractional" toward what she calls a pop-up business partner model, and she draws a sharp line between a business that looks successful on paper and a company that's actually built to last. We also dig into what happens when founders lose touch with the employee experience and stop being transparent about the realities of running the business.

If you're feeling like your agency has taken on a life of its own, this conversation is a good reminder to slow down, get honest about your foundation, and bring your team along for the ride.

Key Bytes

• A successful business and a healthy company are not the same thing. One can look great from the outside while it's held together with tape on the inside.

• Fractional support can end up feeling like just another commitment. Sometimes what a founder actually needs is someone who shows up for the right time, not a long time.

• Strategic planning isn't only about the deck you end up with. The clarity that comes from the process is often the real value.

• When founders lose touch with what it felt like to be an employee, empathy is usually the first casualty.

• Teams fill in the blanks when they don't have context. Staying quiet about the business doesn't protect people, it just breeds assumptions.

• Business fluency, even without exact numbers, makes people better at their jobs. Understanding the constraints you're working within changes the recommendations you make.

• Makers, managers, mentors, leaders, and visionaries are five different skill sets. Conflating them sets everyone up for misplaced expectations.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and introducing Lynn Juang

00:44 Lynn's path from client services to COO

06:01 How a multidisciplinary design firm shaped her view of agency work

08:08 Why she moved on from the word fractional

09:04 Redefining the role as a pop-up business partner

14:24 The difference between a successful business and a healthy company

19:35 Why the process matters as much as the plan

23:10 What happens when founders lose touch with being an employee

25:31 Building business fluency across the team

28:44 Rapid fire questions and closing thoughts

Lynn Juang is a strategic partner and advisor to founder-led creative agencies and design studios navigating the messy middle of organizational change. A former COO with 20+ years of experience honed from the inside out — from client services to agency leadership — she launched Frameworks to be the sounding board and pop-up business partner that creative leaders rarely have but always need. She helps them cut through the chaos and make better decisions, so they can lead and build healthier, happier creative companies.

Contact Lynn on their website, on LinkedIn, Instagram, and subscribe to the Explore the Midline newsletter.

Featuring: David Shriner-Cahn, Smashing the Plateau

In episode 160, I talk with David Shriner-Cahn, host of the Smashing the Plateau podcast and founder of the Smashing the Plateau community, which helps consultants, coaches, and other expertise-based business owners grow through structured peer partnerships.

We get into why solopreneurs plateau in the first place: underpricing out of fear, spending time on work that doesn't generate profit, and running a business without ever being trained to run one. David breaks down his SMASH framework for setting goals specific enough to act on but not so metric-driven that they choke curiosity, and explains why a trusted group of peers is often the only way to see the blind spots you can't see yourself.

If you've ever hit a ceiling and told yourself a story about why you're fine there, this conversation is a useful mirror. Growing a profitable business isn't complicated, just hard, and you don't have to figure it out alone.

Key Bytes

• Most plateaus don't come from the market. They come from the business owner being the bottleneck.

• Underpricing usually isn't a math problem. It's a confidence problem dressed up as a pricing strategy.

• You can't see what you don't know you don't know. That's what a trusted peer group is for.

• Goals should be specific enough to work toward, but not so metric-driven that they choke curiosity.

• Ninety-day objectives are long enough to matter and short enough to stay real.

• If your renewal conversation only happens once, you've already lost leverage. Build it into the relationship from day one.

• Weekly accountability isn't for everyone, but for solopreneurs, the seven-day cycle just works.

• Every person, team, and organization has gifts. Share them and the world prospers.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and introducing David Shriner-Cahn

00:39 From 28 years as an employee to solo consultant

02:39 How the Smashing the Plateau community took shape

03:53 What counts as an expertise-based business

04:53 Why business owners are usually their own bottleneck

09:03 What you don't know you don't know

11:10 Building the renewal conversation into the relationship

14:08 Turning vague goals into ninety-day objectives

21:18 The five steps of the SMASH framework

24:13 Rapid fire questions and a closing piece of advice

David Shriner-Cahn is the host of the Smashing the Plateau podcast and the founder of the Smashing the Plateau Community, where experienced professionals building expertise-based businesses strengthen their decision-making through structured peer partnerships.

After leaving corporate roles, many accomplished professionals discover that what they miss most isn’t capability — it’s infrastructure: the thinking partners, feedback loops, and shared judgment that help leaders make confident decisions.

Through his podcast and community, David helps expertise-based business owners navigate complex decisions, reconnect with their vision, and build businesses that allow them to do more of what they love and get paid what they’re worth.

Connect with David on LinkedIn or the Smashing the Plateau website.

Featuring: Courtney Spritzer, Entreprenista

In episode 159, I sit down with Courtney Spritzer, co-founder of Social Fly and Entrepreneista, to talk about building a marketing agency from the ground up and knowing when it's time to sell.

Courtney walks through the early days of bootstrapping Social Fly with her business partner Stephanie Carton, the moment they quit their corporate jobs to go all in, and how one networking connection led to their first big clients. She's candid about what it actually took to prepare the agency for a sale years before making the decision, and why owner dependency is one of the biggest threats to a clean exit. We also get into how she built Entrepreneista into a 3,700-plus member community for women founders, and where she sees AI fitting into a business built on human connection.

Agency owners will walk away with a clearer picture of what buyers actually look for, and why building an agency that runs without you might be the smartest move you make.

Key Bytes

• Courtney quit her corporate finance job and gave herself three months to make Social Fly work before she'd have to crawl back and ask for it back.

• The first week in business, she and her co-founder posted an ad on Craigslist and had six interns lined up within days.

• Joining an early-morning networking group led to a bartered office space and an SEO agency partnership that got them ranked number one on Google, which is where their biggest clients came from.

• Selling a business starts years before you decide to sell it. Recurring revenue, diversified clients, a strong brand, and profitability are what buyers actually look for.

• The biggest trap agency owners fall into is building a business that can't run without them.

• Social Fly's exit process, from hiring an M&A advisor to closing, took about ten to eleven months.

• Entrepreneista grew out of a podcast into a private community of over 3,700 women entrepreneurs, with a goal of 5,000 members by the end of the year.

• Courtney's advice for anyone starting out: the decisions you make today shape the life you're living three, five, and ten years from now.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome to Agency Bytes with guest Courtney Spritzer

00:38 The spark behind Social Fly and leaving corporate finance

04:34 Networking her way to Social Fly's first big clients

06:01 Why she launched the Entrepreneista podcast in 2018

07:56 Preparing Social Fly for a sale years before it happened

10:27 Inside the process of selling the agency and avoiding owner dependency

13:20 Building Entrepreneista into a community for women founders

16:05 What keeps members engaged and coming back

18:40 How AI fits into a business built on human connection

24:20 Rapid fire questions and where to find Courtney

Courtney Spritzer is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, author, and community builder with a passion for creating brands and platforms that empower women to lead, grow, and thrive.

In 2012, she co-founded Socialfly, a leading social-first digital and influencer marketing agency. Over the course of a decade, she helped scale the business into an award-winning agency working with Fortune 500 brands and emerging startups, building a powerhouse team and culture along the way. In 2024, Socialfly was acquired.

In 2018, Courtney launched the Entreprenista Podcast to spotlight the stories of inspiring women founders. That passion evolved into Entreprenista Media in 2021, a media platform and community supporting women entrepreneurs at every stage of growth. She now co-leads the continued expansion of The Entreprenista League, a membership-driven community and ecosystem for founders.

As an angel investor, Courtney supports female-led and mission-driven startups aligned with her vision for a more inclusive and equitable business landscape.

She is the co-author of Like, Love, Follow: The Entreprenista’s Guide to Using Social Media to Grow Your Business (2015), a strategic guide for leveraging social platforms to drive business success.

Her work and ventures have been featured in Bloomberg, Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, and The New York Times. She is committed to championing visionary founders and helping build the next generation of impactful, community-driven businesses.

 

Learn more on Courtney’s website.

Featuring: Matt Dean, Dean&Co.

In episode 158, I sit down with Matt Dean, co-founder of Dean & Co., the branding studio he and his wife Jackie built for the commercial real estate industry. Since launching in November 2021, they've grown to a team of fifteen working across seventeen states, with projects like Gasworks, Silo Park, and Austin's Second Street District behind them.

Matt walks through the SCAD dorm-room origin of their partnership, the two years they spent testing other industries before realizing their entire pipeline was already commercial real estate, and the decision to go all in on one vertical instead of hedging with a few. We get into what it actually means to be a "development partner" instead of a vendor, how Dean & Co. vets clients before signing them, and the mechanics of firing a client two months into the business.

Agency owners will walk away with a clearer framework for niching with conviction, having the candor conversations around scope and pricing before they become resentments, and building a culture where the team can carry the client relationship, not just the founder.

Key Bytes

• Your entire pipeline will tell you what your niche already is, long before you're willing to admit it.

• Chasing every industry that looks fun is a side hustle wearing an agency's clothes. Discipline is choosing one thing and staying choosable for it.

• Being vertically integrated but horizontally differentiated means one industry can still hold a hundred different kinds of work.

• The word "vendor" should make the hair on your arm stand up. Partners get invited to the table before the brief exists.

• Firing a $15,000-a-month client two months into the business was the moment the agency's values became real instead of aspirational.

• A referral isn't a consolation prize when you outgrow a client. It's how you let go without burning the relationship down.

• Track record is the only leverage you need to have the money conversation. If your team overdelivers, raising your rate is just math.

• Network from your first day on campus. You won't know for fifteen years which conversation was the one that mattered.

Chapters

00:35 Welcome to Agency Bytes and introducing Matt Dean

01:19 How Matt and Jackie met at SCAD and became a team

03:58 Launching Dean & Co. in November 2021 and setting a goal at 19

05:20 The two years spent testing other industries before niching down

09:05 Discipline versus chasing the dragon

11:57 The pre-development work clients never see, and building a team for the table

14:57 Why "vendor" is the wrong word and "development partner" is the right one

17:05 Do good work with good people: defining the core values

20:56 How Dean & Co. vets a client, and firing a $15,000-a-month client two months in 26:15 Having the money conversation from a position of track record

28:34 Rapid fire: books, gadgets, and advice to 19-year-old Matt

Matt Dean is the Co-Founder and CEO of Dean&Co. Matt has built one of the most in-demand branding studios in commercial real estate, working on projects like Gasworx, Silo Park, Austin’s 2nd Street District, and Mosaic. From launching an agency in 2021 to working across 17 states with 15 team members, Matt and his wife, Jackie, have remained focused on their vision, values, and ideal client profile to successfully build the agency they always envisioned.

We've built an agency that is led by our values, we have scaled in a way that allows us to keep up with the demand while not going over our skis, and our ultimate mission is to work with great clients and to be able to give our employees a great place to work. There are a lot of topics in here, from saying no to clients/projects that don't fit, to truly understanding bandwidth and when to hire, to looking for key indicators that make great team members and clients of the agency.

Connect with Matt on LinkedIn, Dean&Co on LinkedIn, Instagram, or the web.