Agency Bytes

Ep 035 – Sherri and Reuben Johnson from Fly Media Productions – Two of Two

Featuring: Sherri and Reuben Johnson from Fly Media Productions

In this first-ever two-part episode, Sherri, Reuben, and I talked about how they paved the way into their niche by following a passion that took their marriage to the next level. How implementing EOS lead to a rebrand and informed their overall agency messaging and niche targeting. They shared some of the secret sauce on how they successfully navigate running an agency as a married couple who both have chronic illnesses and ADD. The Fly Duo shared about a few of their side passion projects and how the ambition of eliminating stigma and having sex-positive conversations happen to also be fueling their agency growth. Tune into both episodes to hear the full conversation!

Reuben and Sherri Johnson, affectionately known as the FlyDuo®, are partners in life, love, crime, and everything in between. They are co-founders of Atlanta’s premier award-winning, sex-positive brand agency Fly Media Productions®; co-founders of SexTech n’ Chill™, a handpicked selection of news, products, and experiences thoughtfully curated by the couple for pleasure seekers; and co-hosts of the podcast-style web show The FlyDuo Sex Project™.

In addition to their own projects, Reuben and Sherri currently serve as official ambassadors for The Bureau of Digital and Erika Lust’s “The Porn Conversation”.

Contact the FlyDuo on their websites, FlyMediaProductions.com and ST&C Special Project Website, on LinkedIn for FlyDuo, LinkedIn for FLy Media, Instagram for FlyyMedia, Instagram for ST&C, and on X.

Ep 035 – Sherri and Reuben Johnson, Fly Media Productions – One of Two

Featuring: Sherri and Reuben Johnson from Fly Media Productions

In this first-ever two-part episode, Sherri, Reuben, and I talked about how they paved the way into their niche by following a passion that took their marriage to the next level. How implementing EOS lead to a rebrand and informed their overall agency messaging and niche targeting. They shared some of the secret sauce on how they successfully navigate running an agency as a married couple who both have chronic illnesses and ADD. The Fly Duo shared about a few of their side passion projects and how the ambition of eliminating stigma and having sex-positive conversations happen to also be fueling their agency growth. Tune into both episodes to hear the full conversation!

Reuben and Sherri Johnson, affectionately known as the FlyDuo®, are partners in life, love, crime, and everything in between. They are co-founders of Atlanta’s premier award-winning, sex-positive brand agency Fly Media Productions®; co-founders of SexTech n’ Chill™, a handpicked selection of news, products, and experiences thoughtfully curated by the couple for pleasure seekers; and co-hosts of the podcast-style web show The FlyDuo Sex Project™.

In addition to their own projects, Reuben and Sherri currently serve as official ambassadors for The Bureau of Digital and Erika Lust’s “The Porn Conversation”.

Contact the FlyDuo on their websites, FlyMediaProductions.com and ST&C Special Project Website, on LinkedIn for FlyDuo, LinkedIn for FLy Media, Instagram for FlyyMedia, Instagram for ST&C, and on X.

Ep 034 – Melissa Morris, Agency Authority

Featuring: Melissa Morris, Agency Authority

In this episode, I got to speak to Melissa Morris from Agency Authority where she works with agencies on process and system optimization. Melissa and I talk about how agencies can leverage the proper systems, tools, and processes to grow healthily and use these tools to optimize agency availability and profitability. Melissa shares some of the benchmarks and areas that agency owners and operations managers should watch for in a growth stage in order to avoid some of the pitfalls that come with scaling.

As the founder of Agency Authority, a project management and operations consultancy for agency owners, I use my 10 years of agency experience to help business owners maximize their teams, increase their productivity, and grow their profits. Firmly committed to breaking the ‘long hours and bad pay’ stigma that plagues the agency world, my team and I help business owners and their team members do the work they love without sacrificing client satisfaction, the bottom line, or their own sanity.

Connect with Melissa on their website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.

Ep 033 – Ryan Watson, Upsourced Accounting

Featuring: Ryan Watson, Upsourced Accounting

In this episode, Ryan Watson from Upsourced Accounting delivers an exciting talk about agency numbers, accounting, benchmarking, and things to watch for in agency growth. He and his team are deeply niched as an agency accounting firm and he shares some of their viewpoints on how they help agencies monitor the “right numbers” at the right stage of their lifecycle. These lifecycle stages bring forth the hierarchy of financial needs for agencies and how they differentiate from stage to stage.

Ryan is an experienced operations and finance leader for creative agencies and venture-funded startups. As a partner at Upsourced, he helps scaling agencies build better plans, see the future, and drive profits. Prior to Upsourced, Ryan led operations and finance for a large influencer marketing and ad agency, Ahalogy, where they built the team to over 50 people and $10M in annual AGI before selling to Quotient Technology (NYSE: QUOT) in June 2018.

Connect with Ryan on their website, YouTube Podcast, and blog.

Ep 032 - Chris Puma and Steph Hastings, The Inturnship

Featuring: Chris Puma and Steph Hastings, The Inturnship

For the first time in the history of this podcast, I got to have two guests on board when I spoke to Chris Puma and Steph Hasting of the Inturnship. The Inturnship is their response to the impact of covid on student internships and how they're flipping this part of the industry on its head. Acting as an agency, led by seasoned agency veterans, The Inturnship is pulling in talented interns who are mentored to do real-world client work – for pay. Competing with the “mock-up world” of most ad schools, their teams handle creative assignments ranging from full brand strategy and identity to ongoing social content to interactive websites and content strategy. To date, The Inturnship has a placement rate of nearly 90%, delivering well-trained interns into their first “grown-up” jobs in the industry.

Chris Puma is Associate Creative Director at BASIC/DEPT® the most webby-awarded agency of the past decade. In 2020, he Co-Founded The Inturnship to help create a new process and pipeline for emerging talent. When he’s not working on his own career, or helping others begin theirs, you can find him tending to his indoor plant collection or snowboarding at Mt. Hood.

Steph Hastings is a Senior Web Designer at prAna Living, a small active clothing brand based in Southern California. The right mix of good storytelling and functional design is a beloved daily practice and one that we focus closely on at The Inturnship. When not leading the charge with design projects, Steph is walking her corgi jasper, or hitting the trails for distance runs.

Connect with The Inturnship here.

Ep 031 – Khalil Stultz, Lima Partners

Featuring: Khalil Stultz, Lima Partners

In this episode, I spoke with Khalil Stults from Lima Partners and I Know a Guy about his career path that lead to him discovering his entrepreneurial bug and how he leaned into it. He shares some of his experience in growing a digital marketing agency by 240% after buying into it as an equity partner. He also talks about how he leverages capital through liquidity events for growth strategies. Khalil is an M&A advisor and expert and shared his insights on the ideal DNA of a sellable agency and how to get to that stature. He shares how owners can put their company through the “vacation test” to see how the business will collapse or thrive in their absence, and what those results mean for the growth and possible acquisition of the company.

Khalil Stultz is an Investor | Growth Consultant | Actively Acquiring & Growing Small to Medium-Sized Businesses If You're In Need of an Exit or Expansion...I'm the Guy.

Connect with Khalil on LinkedIn or his website.

Ep 030 – Yolanda M Tucker, Tucker Trained

Featuring: Yolanda M Tucker, Tucker Trained

Does your agency respond to RFPs for business development? If so, you have to dig into this episode where I get to speak to Yolanda Tucker, from Tucker Trained, about how to navigate the ins and outs of procurement, RFPs, and the nuances that can give your agency the edge in these otherwise painful business development efforts. She shares some of her tips on how agency owners can disrupt the RFP process to get ahead and what procurement teams look for in a potential winner of an RFP. Yolanda’s expertise in understanding where to find and how to navigate RFPs, contract negotiation, and procurement processes helps businesses go far beyond winning RFPs and how they can lead to higher revenue and profits. She also shares about the benefits of small business certifications, including women-owned, minority-owned, and veteran-owned, to name a few, that open doors to billions of dollars of business opportunities.

Yolanda M. Tucker has over twenty years of procurement experience as a Contracts Manager in various industries. Yolanda holds an MBA in Business Administration, a second Master’s degree in Acquisition and Contracts, and a Certification of Transportation Regulatory Law from the Florida Coastal School of Law.

Connect with Yolanda on her website.

Ep 029 – Brandon Wetzstein, In8Create

Featuring: Brandon Wetzstein, In8Create

In this episode, Brandon and I talk about how playing with Legos can help explore any topic within a workshop. Brandon talks about how building and reverting back to your childhood playtime can build metaphors to answer prompts. By exploring what creativity means to each person, Serious Play can be implemented in an agency, corporate environment, or any other space, to dig into a business’s challenges. Building strategy and exploring values with Legos allows the process to remove the emotion from the results through a flow state under the facilitation of Brandon's expertise. This process allows the process to get at the nuanced insights from a group of people, without the meeting after the meeting.

Brandon Wetzstein is an energetic founder with a futuristic mindset. He believes that everyone has the capacity to be innovative and creative when given the right tools, support, and environment. He is driven by curiosity, makes a mean chili, and loves a good book that shifts his mindset.

Connect with Brandon on his website and on LinkedIn.