Innovate & Thrive: CEO Insights

Speaker 1: [Music] something that we started doing when we decided to grow was to say no more often and in a way knowing who we weren't and what we didn't do was a strategy to help us figure out what we do and who we do it for more I'm Melanie bar welcome back to the Sheil it podcast your go-to place to empower you to live the life and business that you crave I'm here to talk about everything from Having the courage to make life and career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation I'm here to celebrate your wins and navigate through your challenges I live in the city now but I grew up in a town of a thousand people I've navigated major life leaps a senior level corporate career worked in professional sports and now as a successful entrepreneur who loves business technology family and making meaning connections with you and the Sheil it Community I also love a good workout and dose of self-care magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so turn up the audio open your favorite Notes app grab your favorite drink and here we go welcome back to the Sheila podcast thank you for joining us Caitlyn as CEO of Argus you drive the vision and growth of the agency tell us about Argus and about its Mission yeah Argus is a branding and behavior change agency which means it's very similar to a regular marketing and advertising agency except we don't sell any products or Goods we say we sell good not Goods because we really focus on Behavior change and influencing behaviors so if you think about the truth campaign in terms of anti-smoking and how much influence that had over especially younger people not starting to smoke so we look at stopping behaviors starting behaviors changing behaviors and we're often working with clients that work with underserved or underprivileged communities so we also focus on making sure that we're really listening to the audience going to meet them where they are and when we do branding we also want to make sure that Equity lens is brought to the branding we do so everything we do is based in Social marketing which is looking at Behavior change through marketing and communication and Are there specific campaigns that you're working on right now that are at the Forefront of what you're doing something that we're doing that is really at the Forefront is around problem gambling and gambling in general we have been working on gambling and understanding what it means for people to become addicted or to have addictions with gambling or to have it be a problem in their lives especially now when suddenly sports betting is everywhere it is something that when we started working with different organizations five years ago almost no one had heard of it no one had heard of the fact that gambling could be a problem and as we started doing research and uncovering especially someone who has had addictions with alcohol or drug use realizing they they started gambling and it was that same itch that they were scratching and realizing that it took over their lives and could have such devastating consequences and so it can be very fun just like having a drink of wine can be very fun it can be very social it is not a problem in and of itself but certainly can be for some people and so our work around gambling and saying let's talk about the risks let's normalize the conversation that this can be a problem for some people and now that sports betting has become so ubiquitous and youth and kids have such access to it we're starting to see that normalization of that conversation happening which was not the case a few years ago and I've had close friends who have been impacted by gambling and online gambling and then I would also think that Tech would play a role in that as we are just so used to getting everything so fast and such easy access like you mentioned absolutely and we're seeing that with youth as well we also do a lot of work around mental health and especially youth right now there's so many conversations around the epidemic of loneliness around this being a more anxious generation and kind of starting to understand how technology plays a role in that in both expanding your viewpoint but also very much isolating you and trying to figure out how do you reach youth to have them understand proactive steps you can take to improve your mental health or how you can talk about it how talking to your friends can really be incredibly helpful how do you reach youth without using technology or if you're going to use it in a way that doesn't contribute to the problem youth mental health and mental health in general is another place we spend a lot of time working so interesting and so important I have 10-year-old Twins and I'm constantly saying if I take away your device it's not a punishment it's actually really good for your brain my son is a little bit more drunk to it than my daughter and is with twins it's you see them both growing up at the exact same time I tell him you make friends by conversation and he's great he's in athletics and so he has a pretty good balance I think but I had to say to him you make friends by having conversations not just by playing a game together which is so interesting to think that I had to say that absolutely I have two boys ages five and seven even though I've been working at Argus for a 11 years I took over as coo and then CEO five years ago and the company has grown so much but I view things through a different lens now that I have children and seeing that the impact of what we're doing will hopefully impact how people talk about it what kind of conversations happen and hopefully will make the world a little bit better for them and it does give me a different sense of purpose in how I talk about my job at home and how they see that what I'm trying to do is make a difference for good share with us how your early experiences at Smithsonian Enterprises shaped your approach to marketing and the way you work with clients Smithsonian Enterprises was my first job in marketing before that I worked as a Administrative Assistant for a giant real estate company and what I really learned there was that I needed to show my interest and put my time and energy behind the opportunities where I really wanted to get to that next place that next level and going through that at my first job where I had 12 different bosses really prepared me to work in a big company at Smithsonian and one thing that I loved about working at Smithsonian that I didn't realize until I didn't have it at my next job was that every day I could no matter how good or bad my day was the mission mattered to me all of the work that I was doing and all of the clients that I was helping to grow were bringing money to fund the museums and the educational services and that made a really big difference for me and when I then didn't have that as much and I found myself working with clients or being in a meeting where I was presenting all these Solutions and campaigns to a client that I fundamentally could not get behind in terms of their values and what they were doing there was a specific time where I was sitting in a room and I just thought to myself why am I doing this I in the specific l i fundamentally don't agree with their values and what they're doing I not in alignment and so when I moved I was looking for one thing and one thing only and that was an agency that aligned with my values of wanting to make sure that the hard work I was putting in I want the outcome to be something I'm proud of and something that I can feel good about at the end of the day and so finding Argus was really magical for me in terms of aligning my wanting to do hard work wanting to succeed and grow something and also wanting to make sure that the outcome was positive for the world and it's so great that you trusted your instincts to make the leap to do something different and you're right when you love what you do and you're passionate about it there is those few pieces where you have to do things but it's so much easier yes you are always going to have a bad day you're always going to have clients who are really tough or clients that are completely unfair that is always going to be the case and so if you can ground yourself in thinking what is the ultimate outcome that we are looking for here what we say to ourselves is who wins when we succeed and that is how we figure out who to work with our clients we want the audiences to to win when we succeed at our campaigns so if it's one or two more people understanding that there is a helpl line for gambling if there's one or two people who are talking to their friends about mental health or something around disabilities or understand that there's a community health center near them who can really help them with what their needs are we've done our job what strategies have you implemented at Argus that you believe contribute to its growth and success in a competitive marketing landscape something that we started doing when we decided to grow was to say no more often and in a way knowing who we weren't and what we didn't do was a strategy to help us figure out what we do and who we do it for more this took a lot of discipline because when you are looking to grow a company and that is a goal saying no to incoming money is really tough but I knew that the people that I was bringing on board were on board with the mission and the vision of the company nobody was going to work at Argus unless they were aligned with the idea of working with organizations that close gaps around Equity with health wealth climate culture and education and so there's a bit of a contract you have if you are going to put that stake in the ground that you are going to live by that as you move forward so the first

Speaker 1: to saying no it's so smart because when people look at you it's hard for a company to try to be everything to everyone and from a marketing perspective you can easily look at what you're doing now and say oh okay I understand the missions that they're getting behind exactly saying no and you said this earlier but trusting your gut when it comes to clients and people knowing when something's not going well to pull the plug and say hey this isn't the right person we're not aligned in our values this isn't the right client we're not going in the same direction obviously you want to give time and Grace for things to change and to have the conversations but there's a point at which you know this isn't going to work out and that's not good for for you and it's not good for me either and so let's move on from that and I do think that the first one or two times that we said no it was a little bit of hold your nose and jump in and hope for the best but then it worked and okay we can do that again and building on you have those instincts to start with but then you build experiences that make you trust your gut more and more and that was very key to allow myself the ability to fail sometimes and then see where I succeeded and where I didn't and trusting your gut is so key cuz think of all the times when you didn't and we've all been through that you're right it's like a muscle the more you do it the more confident you get interesting instincts and now that we've grown more we have a senior team and we have people who have been here in the new Argus for a while transferring that to other people and say okay now it's time for you to trust your gut I would do this one way but my way is not the only right way to do it and also there's often 10 right ways to do something and so you have to do it and then make it right answer as opposed to trying to spend so much time thinking about what is the exact right thing to do the idea of behavior change marketing there aren't that many agencies that do this there there are some certainly but there aren't that many there are times where we are figuring out how to do something that maybe hasn't been done before something new like problem gambling and so we have to take the time to really be intentional and also know that this is marketing we can change it we can do it again this is not brain surgery this is something where Act trial and error to a certain extent is important that's why we do testing things are digital now there's a lot you can do to optimize along the way managing client relationships is crucial in what you do tell us about your approach to building and maintaining strong relationships with clients especially when managing complex communication challenges one thing that I say to any account person that we're hiring is most often we are not working with CMOS we are working with someone in an organiz ation an executive director of a nonprofit someone who used to be a nurse but is now taken over the operations as well and somehow because they're under staff got thrown into marketing as well there are so many people who we work with who marketing is not their expertise but they are experts in their organization in their line of work and so more than a big Ad Agency that works with big Brands we have to really bring our clients along in the process and not assume that they know about marketing and advertising but also Al understand that they are bringing a different perspective that we need to know as well and we need to be very open to the fact that the client may actually know better because they are the experts they on Mental Health but this is a partnership we are the experts in the marketing in Social Marketing in Behavior change in branding but we are Partners when it comes to this project and I think that is where we have built the strongest relationships and I expect the same from our clients for them to be honest and straightforward and direct with us because again when it's working well it's working really well and that's where I want to build from I love how you've flipped the thought process to where you're looking at the issue and marketing from there instead of taking maybe a traditional marketing approach it's been very important for us because what we want to do the purpose of Argus is to bring world-class talent to World bettering organizations so often you see nonprofits or public health campaigns where the creative just Falls flat they spend so much time the messaging is right the intent is right but it's like a Dusty pamphlet in a doctor's office that no one picks up and so our goal is to find people who worked at World Class agencies and bring them here and have them do the Creative for this so that when you're driving down the highway and you see the billboard it gets your attention the same way that DraftKings would or Dunkin Donuts would and so to do that we really needed to understand the issue and get people to care about that especially after the pandemic there's so many people who want purpose in their life now more than ever and they say I am an expert I have all this experience let me use it for good I think the more we all get into Tech the more purpose we're all looking for because we lose that human connection to a certain degree people are working from home people aren't connecting and then we wonder why there's an epidemic of loneliness we are in person we're hybrid but we're in person 3 days a week and we're really upfront about that as a growing company we want people to understand the DNA of who we are not just what we do and so to do that you have to be with people you have to get to know them you have to be with the clients you have to be with our audiences I'm not going to have someone Zoom a Recovery Center into a Recovery Center focus group you need to be there you need to be there and you need to be humble and you need to be thoughtful and you need to take in the experience as much as the words on the paper and so we really try to hire for people who are willing to put that time and effort in and who then benefit from it themselves and you touch on growing your teams how are you building a sustainable company culture and what do you look for in team members when going through the growth one of the best things that we have done is we hired someone who is now our head of people but really she started as my executive coach she did recruiting and she was my coach I met her and decided I really needed during this phase of growth to have someone who I could talk through how I was feeling growth isn't easy change is not easy sometimes the outcome is fun but the actual process can feel messy and scary and frustrating and so after working with this woman for a while I said to her would you be willing to come in full-time here and she said honestly I thought you'd never asked I've been waiting for you to say this so she does our HR and she does our recruiting but really importantly during all of this change every single person in our agency has executive success coaching with her at least once a month and that is the time for people to say say hey I thought I knew the process this has changed completely or I'm really frustrated I can't seem to communicate this and so we've opened that door and there are times where I know we've opened that door and I as a leader have to be really open to hearing things that in a in another company I would never have to listen to which is humbling but it also has changed our culture because when we say we want people to grow here we mean it when we say we can have difficult conversations we mean it that is so great because we all need someone to talk to that's not our family member that's not a co-worker so smart that you've implemented that strategy it has been incredibly successful and it also it makes people more willing to have conversations with each other I truly believe in bernee Brown's clear as kind and the other part of that which is unclear is unkind but if you are going to have a clear as kind philosophy and if you are going to ask other people to be that way as well it's not easy to receive that feedback it isn't always easy to receive hard feedback even when you know it comes from a good place and so if we can really focus on that being part of the culture and that with that also comes support with that also comes an outlet if you need to vent about it for a second if it also comes with the support of how to get there it's a lot easier to have those expectations because we're all doing it together and also feedback goes every which direction here it certainly comes back to me as well and we all want to be seen and heard and we're so much more vested in our work when we're that way in the workplace something that I feel like we've lost as a culture is the fact that when you're working 40 hours a week or more those are the people who you're with the most and you don't need to bring every single aspect of yourself to work I understand that people have different levers that they want to pull or how much they want to share that is totally fine but there should be a sense of safety and growth and opportunity and camaraderie and having the people at work be a pleasant aspect to your day-to-day and we have people who have become good friends and I do think that the purposeful work and the ability to openly talk to each other and give feedback and understand that we're all working towards the same thing has been really wonderful for being able to get through the harder times where the change has been messy because certainly there have been times where I look around and think oh my gosh what am I doing and I de to do this it's a testament to your leadership though thank you magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one way that you make sure to find and live your joy as the company has grown and I've become a little bit more out of the work and more not in the day-to-day of the work as much I make sure that each week I'm diving in and solving a problem with staff because I love doing that that is where I feel like I can bring my magic is in solving problems and really sitting in it with whoever I'm talking to because in that you can see them grow I think that being a mom and being a CEO something I've realized is that when my I look at my kids I think you're so wonderful and you are learning and growing you're doing all of these amazing things and they look at me and they're like you're my mom you feed me dinner you put me to bed you make sure that you drive me to practice on time and that's okay that is the relationship and so I've really been able to take that and look at with my staff too I just want them to know I'm going to be here every day I'm going to be here when something's tough for you I'm here to problem solve with you you don't need to look at me and think oh I love being here every day you're not going to love being here every day but I love running this company and I love seeing people grow I love seeing someone who's been here for five or seven years completely change and be able to do something totally new it it is magical to see that and so that is where I get the joy here is really having people who stay and grow and bring their whole selves to work and that is where I find so much satisfaction in being here such good advice and I love how you're relating that thought process with the kids to employees because as long as you're doing the best for the company that's going to be a win they might not love every conversation or every interaction but you being there for them is going to make a huge impact in change like just like it just like it is as a parent it changes your perspective you realize realiz that how you receive Joy is different than it used to be seeing the magic of your kids growing and learning something new is magical in and of itself thank you for joining us today sharing all of your wisdom introducing us to Argus and for all of the incredible impact that you're making in the world please share with us how and where we can find you our website is think argus.com and you can find us on LinkedIn and on Instagram at think Argus thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our shetit website or at shiled on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave