June 2, 2024 • 31 mins
Company: Bright Marketing
Owners: Jennifer Sutton
Year Started: 2013
Employees: 11-25
When Jennifer Sutton hit a career ceiling in corporate America, she didn’t just quit, she built something better. In this episode, Jennifer shares the serendipitous birth of Bright Marketing, the highs and lows of leadership, and what it really takes to grow a team-driven, scalable agency.
Key Takeaways
- The #1 mistake agency owners make when hiring (and how it leads to internal friction)
- How to avoid partnership pitfalls with clear expectations and structure
- Why confidence is key to scaling your agency culture and leadership
- How Jennifer turned a painful split into strategic clarity
- A practical way to think about “living softly” vs. showing up strong as a founder
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to An Agency Storypodcast where we share real
stories of marketing agencyowners from around the world.
From the excitement of startingup the first big sale, passion,
doubt, fear, freedom, and theemotional rollercoaster of
growth, hear it all on An AgencyStory podcast.
(00:24):
An Agency Story podcast ishosted by Russel Dubree,
successful agency owner with aneight figure exit turned
business coach.
Enjoy the next agency story.
Russel (00:39):
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast.
I'm your host Russel.
In this episode, we're joined byJennifer Sutton, the innovative
founder of bright marketingbased in Greenville, South
Carolina, Jennifer shares herjourney from hitting a glass
ceiling in her corporate careerto founding bright and agency
known for seamlessly integratingthe art and science of
marketing.
Hear about the serendipitousstart of our agency and her
(01:00):
story about sticking out like asore thumb, hanging out with a
client and the nightlife of NewYork.
Discover how Jennifer'sresilience and a partnership
split and unique approach toteam building have driven
Bright's success.
Enjoy the story.
Welcome to the show today,everyone.
I have Jennifer Sutton withBright Marketing with us here
today.
Thank you so much for being onthe show today, Jennifer.
Jennifer (01:21):
Hey, thank you, Russel.
I appreciate being on.
Russel (01:23):
I appreciate having you.
If you don't mind, kick us off.
What does Bright Marketing doand who do you do it for?
Jennifer (01:28):
Bright Marketing is a full service marketing and
advertising agency located inSouth Carolina, but we serve
clients all over.
We were founded with the ideathat we could serve the business
community in a better way.
Meaning, the seamlessintegration between the art and
science of marketing, and reallyuncovering what's really the
friction or what's the problem.
(01:50):
Is it a branding problem?
Is it a marketing problem or isit an advertising problem?
How do we get them unstuck toscale?
Russel (01:58):
Nobody wants to be stuck.
Beautifully put.
Want to certainly learn a lotmore about what you've built
inside your agency, but, beforewe get there, we got to talk
about the time before agencylife.
As I recall, you had a prettyextensive career before you
started your business, but goback even before that, what was
young Jennifer thinking she wasgoing to do with her life?
Jennifer (02:18):
Oh, my goodness.
Young Jennifer, I actually, I'mkind of doing what I went to
school for, which is reallyunusual.
I get that, but I never thoughtI would own my own business.
I call myself a serendipitousentrepreneur.
I found my way into, I'mstarting the agency out of just
the opportunity.
I spent two and a half decadesin agency life, working for
(02:42):
large agencies, working on bigbrands.
I grew up in the agency space,in research design and media
planning and buying, reallyunderstanding the science part
of marketing and all the dataand the analytics to drive, how
to support creative and theirdecisions, how to drive,
decisions for companies.
As I grew up in the agencyworld, I went from, being the
(03:05):
owner of the data into leadingbrand strategies, and really the
integrator or the doc connector,with how to execute and
implement using all assetsavailable.
That was my agency life.
And then I caught theserendipitous moment of, I found
myself hitting literally theglass ceiling where I was at a
(03:25):
point where I was told I wassalary capped and title capped.
I'm like, well, where's my path?
Took a couple of, gigs, offreelance contracts and said,
you know what, maybe I'll dothis for a while.
I left the agency in the summer,and just like the months after,
people are like, oh, you're out.
You're on your own.
They're like, we need your help.
(03:45):
Can you lead strategy?
We need your help.
Can you do this researchproject?
We need your help.
Can you buy this media and runthis media program?
That's where I got my aha momentof, you know what, I could
create an agency that reallybrings the best and brightest in
these different disciplinesunder one roof while I can
create the infrastructure of, tobring stability and, help grow
(04:06):
these individuals.
But also create theinfrastructure and the stability
so that we could go into largercompanies.
I call it the unagency, um, tosupport their needs because we
would then run and own kind ofthe brand, being the police of
the brand.
The client didn't have to dothat.
It's just a lot of work tomanage multiple vendors,
(04:27):
multiple freelancers.
That's why Bright, um, wasinvented.
We've dropped the CO, but, ourname for the first 10 years was
Bright Co.
Because it really stood forconsortium, company, collective,
you know, um, uh, cohort.
It was all like the CO and nowwe've just streamlined and said,
right, we're just Bright.
Russel (04:47):
That works.
I think it especially works inthe agency space.
I want to definitely, backtrackon a couple of things you
mentioned.
You mentioned this, hitting thislevel of frustration and I think
you said kind of glass ceilingand capped, or as you described
it.
It sounds like, I mean, did youjust get fed up one day and
leave not exactly knowing whatyour path was?
I know you mentioned taking on afew kind of side gigs and stuff
like that, but was the path alot more unknown when you left
(05:10):
the company or did you reallyhave an idea that you were going
to end up doing this all, thiswhole thing on your own?
Jennifer (05:15):
No, I, so my father in law passed away the summer of
2013 and while we were in, backin Indiana, back at home, taking
care of, of the estate, all thefamily dealings I had a couple
of, colleagues that reached out.
These were past clients, whowere just giving their, their
condolences and said, hey, haveyou ever thought about going out
(05:36):
on your own?
I was like, you know what?
I was told earlier this yearthat I have no path here, you
know, I'm considering it.
I had two or three of thosephone calls during that week
period.
I was like, you know what?
I don't even know what thatlooks like.
I've never even thought aboutthat.
I honestly thought, when Istarted in the agency world, I
love agency life.
I thought I was, gonna, gonna bea head executive running,
(05:58):
helping to support somebodyelse's brand and somebody else's
business.
Cause I saw how hard it was.
I worked for some startupfounder, agencies that grew,
like I was the 25th employee.
When I left, there were 500people, at one of the agencies I
worked for.
Another agency was, you know,several thousand.
I saw the blood, sweat, andtears.
It was never a dream of mine.
(06:18):
But then you're faced with,okay, I've got four kids.
My youngest is two.
I'm not at home three weeks outof the month, I'm traveling.
What am I doing this for?
Having these conversations withthese colleagues of like, what
does that look like?
They're sending me proposals ofthis is what I need you to do.
It's only 5 hours a week.
Russel (06:38):
So your potential clients are sending you
proposals.
That's something you don't heartoo often as a reverse proposal.
Jennifer (06:43):
That's right, because I didn't know.
I had no clue of what do, what'sthe scope?
What are you guys thinking orwhat, what would you pay me?
and we started looking at thatand I, sat with my husband and
I'm like, oh my gosh, just twoof these, like, they needed me
to start in a couple months, toget my, if I did this.
But it's 15 hours a week andit's 70 percent of my salary of
what I was being paid.
(07:05):
I was working at that time, 90hours a week.
I was already, doing the, doinga lot of the long, the late
nights.
And I'm like, hey, this doesn'tseem right.
My husband's like, when we getback into town, you're going to
put your notice up and we'regoing to take some time.
They don't need you to starttill August or September, that
gives us, four to six weeks.
Let's just get, life back.
You always hear, hey, if youleave the agency, maybe you can
(07:27):
become a consultant and they canbecome one of your clients.
Russel (07:30):
That does happen more frequently than one might think
where someone leaves theircompany and then that becomes
one of their first clients astheir former agency.
Jennifer (07:38):
That's right.
I was not that fortunate.
During that window when I waslike, hey, I'm, you know, I'm a
free agent.
Literally my phone just blew upand that was really unexpected.
By six months later, it waslike, I think I can grow
something and build somethingthat's bigger than me, doing
something that's a little, tosupport a bigger community.
And Bright was born.
Russel (07:57):
When you started looking at, all these things that you
had to set up as you were off onyour own, how much did you
leverage all your other agencyexperience just in terms of just
different processes?
The way you sold and differentthings like that?
Or were you more hey, all theseother places, they're not doing
it right.
This is the way I'm going to dobetter.
What was that balance ofleveraging some of your past
experience?
Jennifer (08:17):
It was probably 80 percent leveraging the
experience and then, creatingprocesses that I had developed
inside the last agency I workedfor as how do we integrate?
How do we dot connect?
But to scale that, that's whatwas one of the reasons that I
was frustrated.
I was the only one that wasassigned to be the integrator,
(08:38):
the dot connector.
How do you bring these teamstogether so that, okay, yes,
we've got a media plan.
But have we mapped out thelanding pages and the user
experience?
What are we going to do when wegenerate the leads?
What happens then?
Who's going to follow up?
How does the PR program, howdoes that support the media plan
and how are we integrating that?
It was, just having all of thoseconversations as a team and the
(09:02):
agency wasn't equipped to scale.
It's a combination of people,but it's a comp and also
processes and a system to dothat.
That's really what I perfectedunder Bright.
Taking these, the proven methodsand disciplines of how to think
through, is it a brandingproblem?
Is it a marketing problem?
Or is it an advertising problem?
Where's the friction?
When you start implementing thesolutions, how do you do it?
(09:24):
It's an integrated force.
That's what we perfected here.
Russel (09:28):
Talk to about that in a little more detail.
I'd say one of the moresignificant challenges in agency
ownership is often, it's oftenstarted by someone that has a
lot of knowledge and experienceabout the work product and the
service that's being offered.
Especially maybe sometimesagency in the early days,
they're not bringing on as nearas experienced talent because
they, you know, can't afford orwhatever.
(09:48):
What specifically did you dowhen you think about how you
downloaded that knowledgetransfer and to get other folks
on the same playing field as youwere?
Jennifer (09:56):
It took me a few years.
Things that I, I think I tookfor granted, of strategic
thinking and how people dothink.
Not everybody thinks in adiagonal way.
The first, four or five yearswhen I was wearing that
functional hat and trying tojust delegate to other hires we
were seeing gaps in our ownservice and friction in our own
(10:17):
delivery and our own execution.
Over the last two or threeyears, I've had these,
epiphanies of, oh my gosh.
I can't just delegate at a toplevel.
I need to, map out at a microlevel, the things that we do,
that are special to us, uniqueto us, or how we go about it.
We started doing that, I thinklike four years ago and then
(10:38):
started going, okay, these arethe processes now.
How do we create systems?
What do we need to automate withtools?
We've perfected that over thelast several years.
It was a lot of tough timesbecause you're bringing on like,
what we, what you think isexperienced agency people that
you can go, hey, I'm going tohand this off.
You know how to do, marketingstrategy and think through.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
(10:58):
And then you get in there andyou start playing oversight.
You're like, whoa, they aren'tdelivering it in the way that I
would expect it to be done orhow it's taught at, Harvard.
The tried and true practices.
I can't take for granted thoseuniquenesses.
A lot of it just came to, Ididn't have the confidence that
these were proven.
I felt like I was being bulliedby my own team.
(11:20):
I was a doormat of, you realizeyou're in the people business.
You're in the people business toserve clients, but also you're
in the people business tocultivate and nurture your team.
But that was one of my lessonslearned of, of how do I stay
strong and true to myself, myfrequency, my energy, to not let
people walk over that?
Russel (11:39):
I love a couple points you shared there.
One, I want to make sure the keyword that gets heard is how long
it took to, as you mentioned,just even come to that
understanding, but even how longthe process is to actually
download.
This is not a, does not soundlike, especially in your case or
other cases I've observed wherethis is a two or three or six
month process, this is a reallya never ending process, but it
(11:59):
actually does take a fair amountof time to, take root and get
good at, you know, this, again,teaching of others.
I also appreciate you, whatyou're sharing there then is
there's nothing like an agencybusiness where your team can
make you go crazy.
Is it me or is it them?
I went through the exact sameprocess and I'm sure like all
things, there's a balance.
We have to realize that weprobably know best, but we have
to also have empathy in how webring others along.
(12:22):
At what point in time, Ibelieve, as you mentioned before
that you brought on a partner orhad a partner in the business,
how long was that into thebusiness and what was the
thought process when you werelooking at bringing on a
partner?
Jennifer (12:33):
We said, what we do differently is that integration
between the art and the scienceand marketing art being, how are
we using data to informcreative?
Within like a, my first year,2014, the agents of community,
they were like, hey, there's areally good creative director,
chief creative officer, camefrom like one of the leading
agencies in the country.
(12:53):
He's out on his own, too.
You guys should team up.
We started working on projectstogether and he was really
leading creative.
Using the creatives that hewanted to bring in.
That control over creative,which was great, when you're
starting to form.
Quality of the work was there,he understood strategy, and it
was this, as we started workingtogether, it was under the, I
(13:15):
guess under the guise of I thinkwe have a shared vision.
We both want Bright to be this,to do this and be this way and
be thought of this way.
Let's work towards that.
He was like, well, we'repartners.
We've got to be almost like,yeah, we're partners, but we
never, like, wrote anythingdown.
It was just a handshake, for thefirst several years.
Then you started going, okay,we're trying to scale.
(13:36):
We're 18 people.
We're 20 people, we're rockingand rolling.
We probably need to make surethat we have our ship buttoned
up.
Russel (13:44):
You started to hint at that, this wasn't going to be a
forever partnership, and we'lldive more into that.
When you think back about, howyou went about the process to
bring on a partner, what wouldyou change or do differently?
Or how would you think aboutthat differently?
Knowing what you know today?
Jennifer (13:58):
A couple of things.
It wasn't until, much later.
We had been working under the,the perception that we were
partners from an external viewand also within our internal
team, we use the word partner.
But from a legal, from adocumentation, it was not
buttoned up, right?
It became, as we started to growand scale, then you could start
(14:22):
sensing, I would hear things inthe market, like in our
community of, well, he's workingon stuff outside of Bright,
under his own LLC.
It became selective.
We would have theseconversations of, why are you
not bringing that under Bright?
Oh, it's too small for Bright,but I'm like, yeah, but that
hurts.
That hurts the team, it hurtsour vision.
(14:42):
We're not going to achieve ourgoals if Bright is the, is the
wife and your LLC is like yourlittle metric mistress.
Cause that's what it felt like.
If I had to go hindsight, Iwould have had the conversations
within like the first year, likethe first month of, hey, are you
really serious about being apartner?
Let's talk about this.
(15:02):
Is it a shared vision?
Truly a shared vision?
What does that look like?
What's the end game?
What are the rules ofengagement?
Is this a 50 50?
Is this a 51 49?
I've invested this much already,to develop the infrastructure,
the insurer, what are youinvesting in?
Is it just time, that you'reinvesting in?
Is it leads?
What is that, investment?
(15:23):
Or is it just, is reduction inthe percentage of ownership?
And then what's the exit?
How do we make decisions?
How do we have conflictresolution?
Those were the conversations wewere having at the latter point,
like seven, eight years into therelationship, which really ended
up going, um, all right.
You need to exit'cause it's,this is not a partnership.
(15:44):
You're getting all the benefitbut without the risk and the
accountability.
Russel (15:48):
We could probably do a multi part episode on just all
things on setting up a goodpartnership, but I think the few
key things that I heard in thereis, have those tough
conversations early and often.
I often think of when I heargood or bad situations and
partnerships.
It's like any relationship.
What are the expectations?
And just being very open andhonest about that.
For the folks listening outthere, get those buy sell
(16:09):
agreements in place.
That's not to help therelationship, but that is, when
anytime we might have to unpackthis thing that, that it's not
left to emotions.
Sounds like you approached thesituation, just very trusting
someone else like me is going tothink and do like me, but again,
goes back to having thoseconversations.
As I understand, I think youshared that the unpacking of
this thing was a long andsomewhat difficult process.
(16:31):
How did you unravel all of this?
Jennifer (16:33):
I don't know.
I'm, still reeling from it, butI'm coming out of that.
It was hard.
You had personalities, they wererelationships that affected our
greater team.
During that, those hardconversations of look, you know,
guy, like we, we're not on thesame page.
You're getting all the positivebenefits of being a partner, but
I'm taking the risk.
I'm financially accountable.
(16:55):
We've got toxicity in our team.
Our culture is being affectedbecause of the way you lead and
you operate.
We had a lot of turnover duringkind of that time.
There was a lot of fear of, ohmy gosh, you know, he's this
great creative officer.
There was that fear of, well, ifwe let go, am I going to lose my
access to my entire creativeteam?
(17:16):
What about keeping our output,the quality output that we've
been delivering?
Can we deliver on that?
Having plan B, plan C, plan D,that you're operating that in
parallels as you're also tryingto exit this relationship, and
trying to keep it positive oflike, look, we just, we're just
not on the same page.
We're still friends.
We still meet once a quarter forcoffee and chat.
(17:39):
It didn't end like as a, thisbitter kind of fight.
It just was like, we probablyshould have had these
conversations a lot earlier.
He just wanted to have gigs andcontrol the gigs.
There became a battle of like,hey, we've got this, these other
great creatives.
I don't know that I don't wantto work with them.
Through the process, as youstart operating like the plan,
the parallel plans of thebackup, the backup to the
(17:59):
backup, it allowed us to broadenour creative community and our
creative access.
It forced us to go into our ownbrand to go, are we able to
deliver on our promise that weset forth when we started?
Russel (18:11):
One, that's good to hear that.
It doesn't sound like could havebeen a very, was a difficult
situation that the way it, youknow, it sounds like it, it
ended not too harshly as some,sometimes those can go a lot
worse.
There's a lot of folks that,one, think the idea of starting
your own business, having yourown thing is really cool and
tend to only think of thebenefits and stuff like that.
But the actual risk involved,all those, some of those things
(18:33):
you mentioned, the pressure, etcetera, some people just aren't
cut out for that.
Especially to walk in asituation of something that's
already established or know justwhat that actually takes to run
and build.
It's just water and oil.
Allah, some people are greatentrepreneurs and some people
are just being great teammembers.
Sound like we had similarsituations where those folks
don't always know exactly whichside of that fence they're on,
(18:53):
as it sounds like this was inyour case.
It sounds like, just knowing whoyou are and you seem very
resilient that, this wasn't theend of you.
This wasn't the end of youragency that which does not kill
you, makes you stronger.
What was that like, coming outof that?
How were you ultimately betteror your agency better coming out
of that entire process?
Jennifer (19:10):
For me personally, I, through self, self reflection
and discovery, I think I foundwho I was as a leader, a
manager.
More confident, kind of what wedeliver as a, as a brand
strategist, even as like thefunction that I perform.
You have to be humble.
Humility is your saving grace tobe able to, to go through that
and really find out truly whoyou are, um, and stand tall.
(19:33):
We're in the people business andwe all are going to battle,
clients, team, people in thecommunity.
You're gonna, engage with reallygreat people, but you're also
going to engage in some assholebehavior.
It's unavoidable.
and some are hidden.
Like you said, there's peoplethat come on to your team and
you think, oh, my gosh, they'regreat.
And then they come in, they'relike, they can't handle the
pressure or they're like, I wantto, as we've heard from some
(19:55):
previous team member like, Iwant to live softly.
What the hell does mean?
What does that mean?
But because you know yourself,you know how we, like, we went
and reflected back on the agencyof who we are.
What is our promise?
Is it different than what it wasbefore?
When we did the exercise, itwasn't.
We just reframed it.
We kind of said, this is abetter way that we can talk
(20:16):
about ourselves.
It lifted all of us up with moreconfidence.
We also stopped apologizing as agreater team.
Our team gave me more confidenceof, you've got to stop
apologizing for the energy andthe frequency that you bring,
you are operating on a highenergy, high frequency.
Don't let other people bringthat down and surround yourself
(20:38):
with people that operate at thatsame frequency.
In agency life, sometimes theycall it the A team versus the C
team.
We need to operate and surroundourselves with 18 players, and
not apologize for going, I don'tthink you're a good fit.
I don't think you're going togel well with our team because
we don't operate that way.
We went through a period of, uh,because of the turnover and the
churn, we were like, let's, weneed to hire people, hire fast.
(21:00):
We got to hire slow.
We got to make sure people fit.
I've got to make sure that Idon't let how I respond to
people, they can't bring myenergy down.
You can only control how yourespond and react to things.
It's a little bit of asuperpower and I feel like that
is something that today, I feelso strong and confident to, to
(21:22):
be able to do that.
I didn't have that power beforein the last like two, three
years.
Russel (21:27):
We all develop at different levels and obviously
you're someone that holdsyourself to a high standard.
Rising up to your high standardand having that confidence,
sounds like a, it's always awork in progress for all of us,
but you got to a good place.
Those are dangerous words youshared there.
That would be like a canary inthe coal mine.
For folks out there, anytimesomeone says hire fast, we need
to take a strong look at whatare we doing and why are we
(21:47):
saying that?
Probably we need to think ofalternative strategies for
whatever we're trying to achievethere.
A couple more questions for you.
Going back to even how youstarted your agency and the kind
of this cap and this glassceiling and correlating that to
what, faces a lot of women inthe workplace.
How do you feel like you've donethat differently when you think
about running your own agency?
Jennifer (22:05):
When we started the agency and we bought our
building, in 2015, that was aweird aha for me.
I was leading boardrooms andcorporate, and agency.
When I even started Bright, itwas like, it's not Sutton
strategies.
It is Bright.
It's bigger than me.
It was always started to be ascalable company.
Not a solopreneur, not at a, agig.
(22:26):
It was literally established togrow and scale.
When we bought the building andhung our shingle out, the amount
of people in the creativecommunity, but also like the
corporate community that I hadbeen operating in for two
decades were like, oh, likeyou're serious.
You're a real agency.
You're a real company.
You're not just trying to be amom, to go home by two to pick
(22:48):
up kids.
I'm like, no.
And I think that's just, thatwas a big, is that what you
think when women start theircompanies?
It's just a way to have a, aworking mom kind of gig
practice?
I guess people were saying itout loud, to me.
That was a, whoa, I didn't evenrealize that was a perspective
out there.
And then really just trying tonormalize those stories.
There's a lot of gender biases.
(23:09):
I've talked to other agencyowners, um, and men run agencies
that we either have gottentheir, their past client or,
their contact went to a anotherbusiness and they hired us.
The language that, andcommentary that I get, that I've
like shocked.
I don't even know how to respondto this.
I can't believe, in all myyears, people that talk this
(23:31):
way, that are so ugly.
When I go and say did they, howdid you respond to stuff like
this?
They were your client for 15years.
And the agency owner's like,they would have never spoken to
me that way.
I've leaned on, the, like, peersand colleagues who, you know,
just to go, how do I respond tothis?
You're a man.
How would you respond to this?
Or you're a female, you'vealready been running your
(23:53):
business for, you know, 10, 10years.
Are you getting the same shit?
They're like, I get that everyday.
It was just interesting of, youtalk to 10 agency owners.
They've never even encounteredthat kind of crap.
You talk to female owners ofagencies and we're getting it
daily.
How do we respond?
How do we show up?
Even trying to, teach our teamof, we don't, we, we'd never, we
(24:13):
never stoop that low.
It's always, we respond infacts.
We respond in kindness.
Again, the only thing that wecan control is how we respond
and react.
We don't even address the ugly.
We don't let it get us down.
The way that our agency isstructured from a business model
perspective, I, being a workingmom in the agency, traditional
agency world.
It was very frustrating to haveto use my PTO for taking a
(24:37):
doctor's appointment or to sitand take my kids to doctor's
appointments.
I've always believed that peopleoperate at that 18 level.
That same frequency level andhave that drive and passion and
professionalism to do their bestwork.
Doesn't matter when and wherethey do it, as long as it, cause
they know when to get it done,how to get it done.
They're self starters andindependent.
(24:57):
We have a work flex environmentof, we're not checking in,
you're not being micromanaged.
We judge based on your output.
Was it done on time, and right?
Is the client happy?
Does the team feel satisfiedworking with you?
Are we gelling?
We've got working moms and dads.
Our office has a playroom andpeople come and, use the space
how they need to use it.
Russel (25:17):
I love that.
Thank you for sharing that.
I always hate to hear thosestories and what you said you
had to encounter there.
It just makes me shake my head.
I'll leave it at that.
I really appreciate thetransparency and honesty and
what you've had to go through asa female entrepreneur.
Even just overcoming stereotypesby what are the underpinnings of
what you said there, just begood, focus on yourself, focus
on what you can do, can helpchange maybe some of those
(25:38):
perceptions over time.
When they don't see what theymight've expected to see for
whatever random weird reasonsthey, coming up with the
expected to see it.
That certainly makes this wholething a lot harder when you got
to go through those things.
Couple more questions.
I may have already said that,but I'm just so fascinated by so
many parts of your story.
What's the big goal?
We talk in, uh, 10 years fromnow or 20 years from now or
(26:00):
lifetime from now.
What is the goals, what you'retrying to achieve with Bright?
Jennifer (26:03):
We're on an aggressive growth, path, so we'd like to be
five X in five years.
That's the path we're on from a,from an end game perspective.
I would love to grow it to apoint where, um, I can either
look at, do I sell it, to, andbe absorbed by another agency or
become an ESOP and sell it tothe employees, that, and let it
(26:23):
live beyond me?
Like I said, it was, I startedit for it to be bigger than me
and to last longer than me.
I hope that, um, gets playedout.
But I'm in my fifties.
I don't know if I want to worktill I'm 70.
If I can hit the five X goals,and then, do another double in
that in 10 years, that would befantastic.
Then we can see where we go.
Does it, go back to theemployees or is there someone
(26:44):
out there that liked to buy it?
Russel (26:45):
I'm sure you will get there.
All the more confident that, andwe'll have you on the podcast a
few years from now to see how itall played out.
The last big question is, areentrepreneurs born or are they
made?
Jennifer (26:56):
Oh, that's a good question.
I'm going to say it's a littlebit of both, cause I was not
born with the mindset of anentrepreneur.
I think I was born with themindset of aggressive work ethic
and, I would say a dreamer, ofable to think big.
But like I said, I alwaysthought it would be thinking big
inside of somebody else's brand.
I think you can learnentrepreneurship, but you've
(27:18):
just got to recognize who youare as a person and what's your
own end game.
Why are you in it?
Is it just for money?
Well, that ain't worth it.
It's too hard to do it just formoney.
If it's for freedom, you mightwant to look at solopreneurship
or just being a, independentcontractor gig where you're not
taking a lot of risk.
A lot of, that responsibility ofothers.
(27:39):
That's the difference of likeentrepreneurship,
solopreneurship or a founder ofsomething.
Are you taking truly a riskbuying property, taking on
employees, owning and beingresponsible for other people?
That is hard work and whetherthat is you feel that, that
drive that or thataccomplishment because it's
yours, you own it, you did it,but you can also accomplish that
(28:02):
by, by coming in and having thatspirit inside of somebody else's
organization and liftingsomebody else up.
I think people can find theirpath in multiple ways.
It doesn't have to be, I got toown everything.
Russel (28:14):
It just speaks to so much success lies in finding
your why.
The what is only so much asimportant as the why, and in
terms of how you can besuccessful.
We don't always need to go downthis entrepreneurial path if it
doesn't fit.
Very great insight there.
If people want to know moreabout Bright, where can they go?
Jennifer (28:30):
They can go to Brightcomarketers.
Com, our website, or you canfind me on LinkedIn.
I'm, Jennifer John Sutton and,all our links are there.
You can look us up or you, ifyou can follow me on Twitter,
I'm very active out there doingtips and tricks on different,
different stuff within themarketing, branding, and
advertising, world.
But, and I'm JJMediaMaven.
Russel (28:52):
I love it.
You said Twitter.
We're not bowing down to thisidea of X.
Jennifer (28:55):
I can't say X yet.
Russel (28:57):
It's going to be, yeah, no, it's going to, we're going
to win this battle.
It's Twitter.
Thank you so much for being onthe show today, Jennifer.
Thank you being so open andhonest about the good parts and
the not so easy parts of yourjourney and what you've gone
through to get to where you'reat today.
It was an absolute pleasuregetting to hear more about your
story.
I'm sure the listeners at homeappreciate it as well.
Jennifer (29:15):
I appreciate you having me on, anytime.
We hope you've enjoyed thisepisode of An Agency Story
podcast where we share realstories of marketing agency
owners from around the world.
Are you interested in being aguest on the show?
Send an email topodcast@performancefaction.com.
(29:37):
An Agency Story is brought toyou by Performance Faction.
Performance Faction offersservices to help agency owners
grow their business to 5 milliondollars and more in revenue.
To learn more, visitperformancefaction.com.
One of our clients, I had to negotiate.
(29:59):
They're in concrete.
Their name is, has sack in it.
So we had, one of the mediaprograms, we did a national
with, I think like, NFL programwhere I had to negotiate, I
think like 12 differentcontracts with different NFL
teams.
Having fun to negotiate that,but we got to meet, team owners,
players, with all that.
Michael Strahan had just leftand he was, before he got into
(30:23):
the, the broadcast game, butthat was the path that he wanted
to go into.
We were looking at him being ourspokesperson through like a
media series of, like a vlog.
A video series that we could,that we could launch on, through
a, like a cable network.
He had just, like I said, justretired from the game and we
went up and met him.
He signed off like just thenicest, the nicest person.
(30:46):
The reason he had an affinityfor the client because it was
home improvement and he wasrenovating a bunch of stuff.
That's a fun, experience of, hetook us all out through, it was
like me and a, a bunch ofmarketing nerds and took us to
all the nightlife of New York.
We were up until like five, sixin the morning and he was just
in his circle.
His circle for, they justcouldn't have been nicer.
We were obviously not in, the,the celebrity kinda look and
(31:10):
feel.
We stuck out like sore thumbs.
We were in business suits, goingto like these bars.
We were so fish outta water.
But he was so pleasant.
I talked to that, the CEO ofthat company, she's now retired
and she said, she was like, Itried, cause he then sent her a
follow up of like signedjerseys, um, that he had framed.
She was like, it is like myprized possession.
(31:30):
I just love it.
She was like, she goes, I stillhave it.
It's hung up in my house.
That's kind of a fun, fun littlestory.
Welcome to An Agency Storypodcast where we share real
stories of marketing agencyowners from around the world.
From the excitement of startingup the first big sale, passion,
doubt, fear, freedom, and theemotional rollercoaster of
growth, hear it all on An AgencyStory podcast.
(00:24):
An Agency Story podcast ishosted by Russel Dubree,
successful agency owner with aneight figure exit turned
business coach.
Enjoy the next agency story.
Russel (00:39):
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast.
I'm your host Russel.
In this episode, we're joined byJennifer Sutton, the innovative
founder of bright marketingbased in Greenville, South
Carolina, Jennifer shares herjourney from hitting a glass
ceiling in her corporate careerto founding bright and agency
known for seamlessly integratingthe art and science of
marketing.
Hear about the serendipitousstart of our agency and her
(01:00):
story about sticking out like asore thumb, hanging out with a
client and the nightlife of NewYork.
Discover how Jennifer'sresilience and a partnership
split and unique approach toteam building have driven
Bright's success.
Enjoy the story.
Welcome to the show today,everyone.
I have Jennifer Sutton withBright Marketing with us here
today.
Thank you so much for being onthe show today, Jennifer.
Jennifer (01:21):
Hey, thank you, Russel.
I appreciate being on.
Russel (01:23):
I appreciate having you.
If you don't mind, kick us off.
What does Bright Marketing doand who do you do it for?
Jennifer (01:28):
Bright Marketing is a full service marketing and
advertising agency located inSouth Carolina, but we serve
clients all over.
We were founded with the ideathat we could serve the business
community in a better way.
Meaning, the seamlessintegration between the art and
science of marketing, and reallyuncovering what's really the
friction or what's the problem.
(01:50):
Is it a branding problem?
Is it a marketing problem or isit an advertising problem?
How do we get them unstuck toscale?
Russel (01:58):
Nobody wants to be stuck.
Beautifully put.
Want to certainly learn a lotmore about what you've built
inside your agency, but, beforewe get there, we got to talk
about the time before agencylife.
As I recall, you had a prettyextensive career before you
started your business, but goback even before that, what was
young Jennifer thinking she wasgoing to do with her life?
Jennifer (02:18):
Oh, my goodness.
Young Jennifer, I actually, I'mkind of doing what I went to
school for, which is reallyunusual.
I get that, but I never thoughtI would own my own business.
I call myself a serendipitousentrepreneur.
I found my way into, I'mstarting the agency out of just
the opportunity.
I spent two and a half decadesin agency life, working for
(02:42):
large agencies, working on bigbrands.
I grew up in the agency space,in research design and media
planning and buying, reallyunderstanding the science part
of marketing and all the dataand the analytics to drive, how
to support creative and theirdecisions, how to drive,
decisions for companies.
As I grew up in the agencyworld, I went from, being the
(03:05):
owner of the data into leadingbrand strategies, and really the
integrator or the doc connector,with how to execute and
implement using all assetsavailable.
That was my agency life.
And then I caught theserendipitous moment of, I found
myself hitting literally theglass ceiling where I was at a
(03:25):
point where I was told I wassalary capped and title capped.
I'm like, well, where's my path?
Took a couple of, gigs, offreelance contracts and said,
you know what, maybe I'll dothis for a while.
I left the agency in the summer,and just like the months after,
people are like, oh, you're out.
You're on your own.
They're like, we need your help.
(03:45):
Can you lead strategy?
We need your help.
Can you do this researchproject?
We need your help.
Can you buy this media and runthis media program?
That's where I got my aha momentof, you know what, I could
create an agency that reallybrings the best and brightest in
these different disciplinesunder one roof while I can
create the infrastructure of, tobring stability and, help grow
(04:06):
these individuals.
But also create theinfrastructure and the stability
so that we could go into largercompanies.
I call it the unagency, um, tosupport their needs because we
would then run and own kind ofthe brand, being the police of
the brand.
The client didn't have to dothat.
It's just a lot of work tomanage multiple vendors,
(04:27):
multiple freelancers.
That's why Bright, um, wasinvented.
We've dropped the CO, but, ourname for the first 10 years was
Bright Co.
Because it really stood forconsortium, company, collective,
you know, um, uh, cohort.
It was all like the CO and nowwe've just streamlined and said,
right, we're just Bright.
Russel (04:47):
That works.
I think it especially works inthe agency space.
I want to definitely, backtrackon a couple of things you
mentioned.
You mentioned this, hitting thislevel of frustration and I think
you said kind of glass ceilingand capped, or as you described
it.
It sounds like, I mean, did youjust get fed up one day and
leave not exactly knowing whatyour path was?
I know you mentioned taking on afew kind of side gigs and stuff
like that, but was the path alot more unknown when you left
(05:10):
the company or did you reallyhave an idea that you were going
to end up doing this all, thiswhole thing on your own?
Jennifer (05:15):
No, I, so my father in law passed away the summer of
2013 and while we were in, backin Indiana, back at home, taking
care of, of the estate, all thefamily dealings I had a couple
of, colleagues that reached out.
These were past clients, whowere just giving their, their
condolences and said, hey, haveyou ever thought about going out
(05:36):
on your own?
I was like, you know what?
I was told earlier this yearthat I have no path here, you
know, I'm considering it.
I had two or three of thosephone calls during that week
period.
I was like, you know what?
I don't even know what thatlooks like.
I've never even thought aboutthat.
I honestly thought, when Istarted in the agency world, I
love agency life.
I thought I was, gonna, gonna bea head executive running,
(05:58):
helping to support somebodyelse's brand and somebody else's
business.
Cause I saw how hard it was.
I worked for some startupfounder, agencies that grew,
like I was the 25th employee.
When I left, there were 500people, at one of the agencies I
worked for.
Another agency was, you know,several thousand.
I saw the blood, sweat, andtears.
It was never a dream of mine.
(06:18):
But then you're faced with,okay, I've got four kids.
My youngest is two.
I'm not at home three weeks outof the month, I'm traveling.
What am I doing this for?
Having these conversations withthese colleagues of like, what
does that look like?
They're sending me proposals ofthis is what I need you to do.
It's only 5 hours a week.
Russel (06:38):
So your potential clients are sending you
proposals.
That's something you don't heartoo often as a reverse proposal.
Jennifer (06:43):
That's right, because I didn't know.
I had no clue of what do, what'sthe scope?
What are you guys thinking orwhat, what would you pay me?
and we started looking at thatand I, sat with my husband and
I'm like, oh my gosh, just twoof these, like, they needed me
to start in a couple months, toget my, if I did this.
But it's 15 hours a week andit's 70 percent of my salary of
what I was being paid.
(07:05):
I was working at that time, 90hours a week.
I was already, doing the, doinga lot of the long, the late
nights.
And I'm like, hey, this doesn'tseem right.
My husband's like, when we getback into town, you're going to
put your notice up and we'regoing to take some time.
They don't need you to starttill August or September, that
gives us, four to six weeks.
Let's just get, life back.
You always hear, hey, if youleave the agency, maybe you can
(07:27):
become a consultant and they canbecome one of your clients.
Russel (07:30):
That does happen more frequently than one might think
where someone leaves theircompany and then that becomes
one of their first clients astheir former agency.
Jennifer (07:38):
That's right.
I was not that fortunate.
During that window when I waslike, hey, I'm, you know, I'm a
free agent.
Literally my phone just blew upand that was really unexpected.
By six months later, it waslike, I think I can grow
something and build somethingthat's bigger than me, doing
something that's a little, tosupport a bigger community.
And Bright was born.
Russel (07:57):
When you started looking at, all these things that you
had to set up as you were off onyour own, how much did you
leverage all your other agencyexperience just in terms of just
different processes?
The way you sold and differentthings like that?
Or were you more hey, all theseother places, they're not doing
it right.
This is the way I'm going to dobetter.
What was that balance ofleveraging some of your past
experience?
Jennifer (08:17):
It was probably 80 percent leveraging the
experience and then, creatingprocesses that I had developed
inside the last agency I workedfor as how do we integrate?
How do we dot connect?
But to scale that, that's whatwas one of the reasons that I
was frustrated.
I was the only one that wasassigned to be the integrator,
(08:38):
the dot connector.
How do you bring these teamstogether so that, okay, yes,
we've got a media plan.
But have we mapped out thelanding pages and the user
experience?
What are we going to do when wegenerate the leads?
What happens then?
Who's going to follow up?
How does the PR program, howdoes that support the media plan
and how are we integrating that?
It was, just having all of thoseconversations as a team and the
(09:02):
agency wasn't equipped to scale.
It's a combination of people,but it's a comp and also
processes and a system to dothat.
That's really what I perfectedunder Bright.
Taking these, the proven methodsand disciplines of how to think
through, is it a brandingproblem?
Is it a marketing problem?
Or is it an advertising problem?
Where's the friction?
When you start implementing thesolutions, how do you do it?
(09:24):
It's an integrated force.
That's what we perfected here.
Russel (09:28):
Talk to about that in a little more detail.
I'd say one of the moresignificant challenges in agency
ownership is often, it's oftenstarted by someone that has a
lot of knowledge and experienceabout the work product and the
service that's being offered.
Especially maybe sometimesagency in the early days,
they're not bringing on as nearas experienced talent because
they, you know, can't afford orwhatever.
(09:48):
What specifically did you dowhen you think about how you
downloaded that knowledgetransfer and to get other folks
on the same playing field as youwere?
Jennifer (09:56):
It took me a few years.
Things that I, I think I tookfor granted, of strategic
thinking and how people dothink.
Not everybody thinks in adiagonal way.
The first, four or five yearswhen I was wearing that
functional hat and trying tojust delegate to other hires we
were seeing gaps in our ownservice and friction in our own
(10:17):
delivery and our own execution.
Over the last two or threeyears, I've had these,
epiphanies of, oh my gosh.
I can't just delegate at a toplevel.
I need to, map out at a microlevel, the things that we do,
that are special to us, uniqueto us, or how we go about it.
We started doing that, I thinklike four years ago and then
(10:38):
started going, okay, these arethe processes now.
How do we create systems?
What do we need to automate withtools?
We've perfected that over thelast several years.
It was a lot of tough timesbecause you're bringing on like,
what we, what you think isexperienced agency people that
you can go, hey, I'm going tohand this off.
You know how to do, marketingstrategy and think through.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
(10:58):
And then you get in there andyou start playing oversight.
You're like, whoa, they aren'tdelivering it in the way that I
would expect it to be done orhow it's taught at, Harvard.
The tried and true practices.
I can't take for granted thoseuniquenesses.
A lot of it just came to, Ididn't have the confidence that
these were proven.
I felt like I was being bulliedby my own team.
(11:20):
I was a doormat of, you realizeyou're in the people business.
You're in the people business toserve clients, but also you're
in the people business tocultivate and nurture your team.
But that was one of my lessonslearned of, of how do I stay
strong and true to myself, myfrequency, my energy, to not let
people walk over that?
Russel (11:39):
I love a couple points you shared there.
One, I want to make sure the keyword that gets heard is how long
it took to, as you mentioned,just even come to that
understanding, but even how longthe process is to actually
download.
This is not a, does not soundlike, especially in your case or
other cases I've observed wherethis is a two or three or six
month process, this is a reallya never ending process, but it
(11:59):
actually does take a fair amountof time to, take root and get
good at, you know, this, again,teaching of others.
I also appreciate you, whatyou're sharing there then is
there's nothing like an agencybusiness where your team can
make you go crazy.
Is it me or is it them?
I went through the exact sameprocess and I'm sure like all
things, there's a balance.
We have to realize that weprobably know best, but we have
to also have empathy in how webring others along.
(12:22):
At what point in time, Ibelieve, as you mentioned before
that you brought on a partner orhad a partner in the business,
how long was that into thebusiness and what was the
thought process when you werelooking at bringing on a
partner?
Jennifer (12:33):
We said, what we do differently is that integration
between the art and the scienceand marketing art being, how are
we using data to informcreative?
Within like a, my first year,2014, the agents of community,
they were like, hey, there's areally good creative director,
chief creative officer, camefrom like one of the leading
agencies in the country.
(12:53):
He's out on his own, too.
You guys should team up.
We started working on projectstogether and he was really
leading creative.
Using the creatives that hewanted to bring in.
That control over creative,which was great, when you're
starting to form.
Quality of the work was there,he understood strategy, and it
was this, as we started workingtogether, it was under the, I
(13:15):
guess under the guise of I thinkwe have a shared vision.
We both want Bright to be this,to do this and be this way and
be thought of this way.
Let's work towards that.
He was like, well, we'repartners.
We've got to be almost like,yeah, we're partners, but we
never, like, wrote anythingdown.
It was just a handshake, for thefirst several years.
Then you started going, okay,we're trying to scale.
(13:36):
We're 18 people.
We're 20 people, we're rockingand rolling.
We probably need to make surethat we have our ship buttoned
up.
Russel (13:44):
You started to hint at that, this wasn't going to be a
forever partnership, and we'lldive more into that.
When you think back about, howyou went about the process to
bring on a partner, what wouldyou change or do differently?
Or how would you think aboutthat differently?
Knowing what you know today?
Jennifer (13:58):
A couple of things.
It wasn't until, much later.
We had been working under the,the perception that we were
partners from an external viewand also within our internal
team, we use the word partner.
But from a legal, from adocumentation, it was not
buttoned up, right?
It became, as we started to growand scale, then you could start
(14:22):
sensing, I would hear things inthe market, like in our
community of, well, he's workingon stuff outside of Bright,
under his own LLC.
It became selective.
We would have theseconversations of, why are you
not bringing that under Bright?
Oh, it's too small for Bright,but I'm like, yeah, but that
hurts.
That hurts the team, it hurtsour vision.
(14:42):
We're not going to achieve ourgoals if Bright is the, is the
wife and your LLC is like yourlittle metric mistress.
Cause that's what it felt like.
If I had to go hindsight, Iwould have had the conversations
within like the first year, likethe first month of, hey, are you
really serious about being apartner?
Let's talk about this.
(15:02):
Is it a shared vision?
Truly a shared vision?
What does that look like?
What's the end game?
What are the rules ofengagement?
Is this a 50 50?
Is this a 51 49?
I've invested this much already,to develop the infrastructure,
the insurer, what are youinvesting in?
Is it just time, that you'reinvesting in?
Is it leads?
What is that, investment?
(15:23):
Or is it just, is reduction inthe percentage of ownership?
And then what's the exit?
How do we make decisions?
How do we have conflictresolution?
Those were the conversations wewere having at the latter point,
like seven, eight years into therelationship, which really ended
up going, um, all right.
You need to exit'cause it's,this is not a partnership.
(15:44):
You're getting all the benefitbut without the risk and the
accountability.
Russel (15:48):
We could probably do a multi part episode on just all
things on setting up a goodpartnership, but I think the few
key things that I heard in thereis, have those tough
conversations early and often.
I often think of when I heargood or bad situations and
partnerships.
It's like any relationship.
What are the expectations?
And just being very open andhonest about that.
For the folks listening outthere, get those buy sell
(16:09):
agreements in place.
That's not to help therelationship, but that is, when
anytime we might have to unpackthis thing that, that it's not
left to emotions.
Sounds like you approached thesituation, just very trusting
someone else like me is going tothink and do like me, but again,
goes back to having thoseconversations.
As I understand, I think youshared that the unpacking of
this thing was a long andsomewhat difficult process.
(16:31):
How did you unravel all of this?
Jennifer (16:33):
I don't know.
I'm, still reeling from it, butI'm coming out of that.
It was hard.
You had personalities, they wererelationships that affected our
greater team.
During that, those hardconversations of look, you know,
guy, like we, we're not on thesame page.
You're getting all the positivebenefits of being a partner, but
I'm taking the risk.
I'm financially accountable.
(16:55):
We've got toxicity in our team.
Our culture is being affectedbecause of the way you lead and
you operate.
We had a lot of turnover duringkind of that time.
There was a lot of fear of, ohmy gosh, you know, he's this
great creative officer.
There was that fear of, well, ifwe let go, am I going to lose my
access to my entire creativeteam?
(17:16):
What about keeping our output,the quality output that we've
been delivering?
Can we deliver on that?
Having plan B, plan C, plan D,that you're operating that in
parallels as you're also tryingto exit this relationship, and
trying to keep it positive oflike, look, we just, we're just
not on the same page.
We're still friends.
We still meet once a quarter forcoffee and chat.
(17:39):
It didn't end like as a, thisbitter kind of fight.
It just was like, we probablyshould have had these
conversations a lot earlier.
He just wanted to have gigs andcontrol the gigs.
There became a battle of like,hey, we've got this, these other
great creatives.
I don't know that I don't wantto work with them.
Through the process, as youstart operating like the plan,
the parallel plans of thebackup, the backup to the
(17:59):
backup, it allowed us to broadenour creative community and our
creative access.
It forced us to go into our ownbrand to go, are we able to
deliver on our promise that weset forth when we started?
Russel (18:11):
One, that's good to hear that.
It doesn't sound like could havebeen a very, was a difficult
situation that the way it, youknow, it sounds like it, it
ended not too harshly as some,sometimes those can go a lot
worse.
There's a lot of folks that,one, think the idea of starting
your own business, having yourown thing is really cool and
tend to only think of thebenefits and stuff like that.
But the actual risk involved,all those, some of those things
(18:33):
you mentioned, the pressure, etcetera, some people just aren't
cut out for that.
Especially to walk in asituation of something that's
already established or know justwhat that actually takes to run
and build.
It's just water and oil.
Allah, some people are greatentrepreneurs and some people
are just being great teammembers.
Sound like we had similarsituations where those folks
don't always know exactly whichside of that fence they're on,
(18:53):
as it sounds like this was inyour case.
It sounds like, just knowing whoyou are and you seem very
resilient that, this wasn't theend of you.
This wasn't the end of youragency that which does not kill
you, makes you stronger.
What was that like, coming outof that?
How were you ultimately betteror your agency better coming out
of that entire process?
Jennifer (19:10):
For me personally, I, through self, self reflection
and discovery, I think I foundwho I was as a leader, a
manager.
More confident, kind of what wedeliver as a, as a brand
strategist, even as like thefunction that I perform.
You have to be humble.
Humility is your saving grace tobe able to, to go through that
and really find out truly whoyou are, um, and stand tall.
(19:33):
We're in the people business andwe all are going to battle,
clients, team, people in thecommunity.
You're gonna, engage with reallygreat people, but you're also
going to engage in some assholebehavior.
It's unavoidable.
and some are hidden.
Like you said, there's peoplethat come on to your team and
you think, oh, my gosh, they'regreat.
And then they come in, they'relike, they can't handle the
pressure or they're like, I wantto, as we've heard from some
(19:55):
previous team member like, Iwant to live softly.
What the hell does mean?
What does that mean?
But because you know yourself,you know how we, like, we went
and reflected back on the agencyof who we are.
What is our promise?
Is it different than what it wasbefore?
When we did the exercise, itwasn't.
We just reframed it.
We kind of said, this is abetter way that we can talk
(20:16):
about ourselves.
It lifted all of us up with moreconfidence.
We also stopped apologizing as agreater team.
Our team gave me more confidenceof, you've got to stop
apologizing for the energy andthe frequency that you bring,
you are operating on a highenergy, high frequency.
Don't let other people bringthat down and surround yourself
(20:38):
with people that operate at thatsame frequency.
In agency life, sometimes theycall it the A team versus the C
team.
We need to operate and surroundourselves with 18 players, and
not apologize for going, I don'tthink you're a good fit.
I don't think you're going togel well with our team because
we don't operate that way.
We went through a period of, uh,because of the turnover and the
churn, we were like, let's, weneed to hire people, hire fast.
(21:00):
We got to hire slow.
We got to make sure people fit.
I've got to make sure that Idon't let how I respond to
people, they can't bring myenergy down.
You can only control how yourespond and react to things.
It's a little bit of asuperpower and I feel like that
is something that today, I feelso strong and confident to, to
(21:22):
be able to do that.
I didn't have that power beforein the last like two, three
years.
Russel (21:27):
We all develop at different levels and obviously
you're someone that holdsyourself to a high standard.
Rising up to your high standardand having that confidence,
sounds like a, it's always awork in progress for all of us,
but you got to a good place.
Those are dangerous words youshared there.
That would be like a canary inthe coal mine.
For folks out there, anytimesomeone says hire fast, we need
to take a strong look at whatare we doing and why are we
(21:47):
saying that?
Probably we need to think ofalternative strategies for
whatever we're trying to achievethere.
A couple more questions for you.
Going back to even how youstarted your agency and the kind
of this cap and this glassceiling and correlating that to
what, faces a lot of women inthe workplace.
How do you feel like you've donethat differently when you think
about running your own agency?
Jennifer (22:05):
When we started the agency and we bought our
building, in 2015, that was aweird aha for me.
I was leading boardrooms andcorporate, and agency.
When I even started Bright, itwas like, it's not Sutton
strategies.
It is Bright.
It's bigger than me.
It was always started to be ascalable company.
Not a solopreneur, not at a, agig.
(22:26):
It was literally established togrow and scale.
When we bought the building andhung our shingle out, the amount
of people in the creativecommunity, but also like the
corporate community that I hadbeen operating in for two
decades were like, oh, likeyou're serious.
You're a real agency.
You're a real company.
You're not just trying to be amom, to go home by two to pick
(22:48):
up kids.
I'm like, no.
And I think that's just, thatwas a big, is that what you
think when women start theircompanies?
It's just a way to have a, aworking mom kind of gig
practice?
I guess people were saying itout loud, to me.
That was a, whoa, I didn't evenrealize that was a perspective
out there.
And then really just trying tonormalize those stories.
There's a lot of gender biases.
(23:09):
I've talked to other agencyowners, um, and men run agencies
that we either have gottentheir, their past client or,
their contact went to a anotherbusiness and they hired us.
The language that, andcommentary that I get, that I've
like shocked.
I don't even know how to respondto this.
I can't believe, in all myyears, people that talk this
(23:31):
way, that are so ugly.
When I go and say did they, howdid you respond to stuff like
this?
They were your client for 15years.
And the agency owner's like,they would have never spoken to
me that way.
I've leaned on, the, like, peersand colleagues who, you know,
just to go, how do I respond tothis?
You're a man.
How would you respond to this?
Or you're a female, you'vealready been running your
(23:53):
business for, you know, 10, 10years.
Are you getting the same shit?
They're like, I get that everyday.
It was just interesting of, youtalk to 10 agency owners.
They've never even encounteredthat kind of crap.
You talk to female owners ofagencies and we're getting it
daily.
How do we respond?
How do we show up?
Even trying to, teach our teamof, we don't, we, we'd never, we
(24:13):
never stoop that low.
It's always, we respond infacts.
We respond in kindness.
Again, the only thing that wecan control is how we respond
and react.
We don't even address the ugly.
We don't let it get us down.
The way that our agency isstructured from a business model
perspective, I, being a workingmom in the agency, traditional
agency world.
It was very frustrating to haveto use my PTO for taking a
(24:37):
doctor's appointment or to sitand take my kids to doctor's
appointments.
I've always believed that peopleoperate at that 18 level.
That same frequency level andhave that drive and passion and
professionalism to do their bestwork.
Doesn't matter when and wherethey do it, as long as it, cause
they know when to get it done,how to get it done.
They're self starters andindependent.
(24:57):
We have a work flex environmentof, we're not checking in,
you're not being micromanaged.
We judge based on your output.
Was it done on time, and right?
Is the client happy?
Does the team feel satisfiedworking with you?
Are we gelling?
We've got working moms and dads.
Our office has a playroom andpeople come and, use the space
how they need to use it.
Russel (25:17):
I love that.
Thank you for sharing that.
I always hate to hear thosestories and what you said you
had to encounter there.
It just makes me shake my head.
I'll leave it at that.
I really appreciate thetransparency and honesty and
what you've had to go through asa female entrepreneur.
Even just overcoming stereotypesby what are the underpinnings of
what you said there, just begood, focus on yourself, focus
on what you can do, can helpchange maybe some of those
(25:38):
perceptions over time.
When they don't see what theymight've expected to see for
whatever random weird reasonsthey, coming up with the
expected to see it.
That certainly makes this wholething a lot harder when you got
to go through those things.
Couple more questions.
I may have already said that,but I'm just so fascinated by so
many parts of your story.
What's the big goal?
We talk in, uh, 10 years fromnow or 20 years from now or
(26:00):
lifetime from now.
What is the goals, what you'retrying to achieve with Bright?
Jennifer (26:03):
We're on an aggressive growth, path, so we'd like to be
five X in five years.
That's the path we're on from a,from an end game perspective.
I would love to grow it to apoint where, um, I can either
look at, do I sell it, to, andbe absorbed by another agency or
become an ESOP and sell it tothe employees, that, and let it
(26:23):
live beyond me?
Like I said, it was, I startedit for it to be bigger than me
and to last longer than me.
I hope that, um, gets playedout.
But I'm in my fifties.
I don't know if I want to worktill I'm 70.
If I can hit the five X goals,and then, do another double in
that in 10 years, that would befantastic.
Then we can see where we go.
Does it, go back to theemployees or is there someone
(26:44):
out there that liked to buy it?
Russel (26:45):
I'm sure you will get there.
All the more confident that, andwe'll have you on the podcast a
few years from now to see how itall played out.
The last big question is, areentrepreneurs born or are they
made?
Jennifer (26:56):
Oh, that's a good question.
I'm going to say it's a littlebit of both, cause I was not
born with the mindset of anentrepreneur.
I think I was born with themindset of aggressive work ethic
and, I would say a dreamer, ofable to think big.
But like I said, I alwaysthought it would be thinking big
inside of somebody else's brand.
I think you can learnentrepreneurship, but you've
(27:18):
just got to recognize who youare as a person and what's your
own end game.
Why are you in it?
Is it just for money?
Well, that ain't worth it.
It's too hard to do it just formoney.
If it's for freedom, you mightwant to look at solopreneurship
or just being a, independentcontractor gig where you're not
taking a lot of risk.
A lot of, that responsibility ofothers.
(27:39):
That's the difference of likeentrepreneurship,
solopreneurship or a founder ofsomething.
Are you taking truly a riskbuying property, taking on
employees, owning and beingresponsible for other people?
That is hard work and whetherthat is you feel that, that
drive that or thataccomplishment because it's
yours, you own it, you did it,but you can also accomplish that
(28:02):
by, by coming in and having thatspirit inside of somebody else's
organization and liftingsomebody else up.
I think people can find theirpath in multiple ways.
It doesn't have to be, I got toown everything.
Russel (28:14):
It just speaks to so much success lies in finding
your why.
The what is only so much asimportant as the why, and in
terms of how you can besuccessful.
We don't always need to go downthis entrepreneurial path if it
doesn't fit.
Very great insight there.
If people want to know moreabout Bright, where can they go?
Jennifer (28:30):
They can go to Brightcomarketers.
Com, our website, or you canfind me on LinkedIn.
I'm, Jennifer John Sutton and,all our links are there.
You can look us up or you, ifyou can follow me on Twitter,
I'm very active out there doingtips and tricks on different,
different stuff within themarketing, branding, and
advertising, world.
But, and I'm JJMediaMaven.
Russel (28:52):
I love it.
You said Twitter.
We're not bowing down to thisidea of X.
Jennifer (28:55):
I can't say X yet.
Russel (28:57):
It's going to be, yeah, no, it's going to, we're going
to win this battle.
It's Twitter.
Thank you so much for being onthe show today, Jennifer.
Thank you being so open andhonest about the good parts and
the not so easy parts of yourjourney and what you've gone
through to get to where you'reat today.
It was an absolute pleasuregetting to hear more about your
story.
I'm sure the listeners at homeappreciate it as well.
Jennifer (29:15):
I appreciate you having me on, anytime.
We hope you've enjoyed thisepisode of An Agency Story
podcast where we share realstories of marketing agency
owners from around the world.
Are you interested in being aguest on the show?
Send an email topodcast@performancefaction.com.
(29:37):
An Agency Story is brought toyou by Performance Faction.
Performance Faction offersservices to help agency owners
grow their business to 5 milliondollars and more in revenue.
To learn more, visitperformancefaction.com.
One of our clients, I had to negotiate.
(29:59):
They're in concrete.
Their name is, has sack in it.
So we had, one of the mediaprograms, we did a national
with, I think like, NFL programwhere I had to negotiate, I
think like 12 differentcontracts with different NFL
teams.
Having fun to negotiate that,but we got to meet, team owners,
players, with all that.
Michael Strahan had just leftand he was, before he got into
(30:23):
the, the broadcast game, butthat was the path that he wanted
to go into.
We were looking at him being ourspokesperson through like a
media series of, like a vlog.
A video series that we could,that we could launch on, through
a, like a cable network.
He had just, like I said, justretired from the game and we
went up and met him.
He signed off like just thenicest, the nicest person.
(30:46):
The reason he had an affinityfor the client because it was
home improvement and he wasrenovating a bunch of stuff.
That's a fun, experience of, hetook us all out through, it was
like me and a, a bunch ofmarketing nerds and took us to
all the nightlife of New York.
We were up until like five, sixin the morning and he was just
in his circle.
His circle for, they justcouldn't have been nicer.
We were obviously not in, the,the celebrity kinda look and
(31:10):
feel.
We stuck out like sore thumbs.
We were in business suits, goingto like these bars.
We were so fish outta water.
But he was so pleasant.
I talked to that, the CEO ofthat company, she's now retired
and she said, she was like, Itried, cause he then sent her a
follow up of like signedjerseys, um, that he had framed.
She was like, it is like myprized possession.
(31:30):
I just love it.
She was like, she goes, I stillhave it.
It's hung up in my house.
That's kind of a fun, fun littlestory.
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