{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"No Jerks Allowed: Purpose-Driven Story Slinger","description":"Ashley Logan is the Founder and CEO at Yakkety Yak, a full-service purpose-driven content marketing agency that provides blog writing, social media marketing, video production, and website design and development for brands and organizations that want to make the world a better place.  Ashley says that the agency\u2019s \u201csweet spot\u201d is content creation and storytelling. She believes alignment with the greater good and \u201cgiving back\u201d are two things that are necessary for changing the world. \u201cYou have to be purpose-driven,\u201d Ashley says. \u201cYou have to stand for something.\u201d A writer from age 5, Ashley graduated with an undergraduate degree in creative writing and landed a job selling for a private label candy manufacturer. She was  \u201ca creative person trapped in a corporate world.\u201d As she traveled around \u201cslinging candy,\u201d Ashley saw that widely different companies used the same words talk about themselves in the \u201cdigital space.\u201d She decided she wanted a \u201cbigger ticket\u201d career and moved to commercial real estate.  To appease her creative drive, Ashley volunteered and created content for nonprofit organizations. Social media platforms were just starting to rise. She wondered, \u201cHow could you turn those social media engines into a marketing machine?\u201d In 2012, Ashley finally understood that she needed to combine all of her \u201cpassions for business, storytelling, content, and nonprofit work.\u201d She went back to school to pursue a master\u2019s degree in Journalism in a program renowned for teaching people how to write for target audiences.  Ashley officially launched Yakkety Yak in 2014 and took clients as they came . . . until she realized she could no longer tell stories and work hard for jerks. The agency now maintains a focus on content and storytelling for a far more restricted clientele:  Organizations that \u201cdo good\u201d (nonprofits),  Have, as a component of their organization, the intention of \u201cgiving back\u201d (perhaps a part of the company raises funds to donate to non-profits), or  Are amenable to adding a \u201cdo good\u201d component to their organization (Yakkety Yak works with these organizations that do not yet have a purpose-driven mindset to help them define and build that \u201cpiece\u201d into their company culture).  Ashley thinks it is important for its clients to inform people of their \u201ccontributions to the greater good\u201d by \u201cputting it out there in your story, putting it on your website, weaving it into your social media, holding your teams accountable, and shouting it from the rooftops.\u201d She thinks high quality video will become an increasingly more powerful marketing vehicle. Ashley is working with a designer to \u201crevamp\u201d Yakkety Yak\u2019s office space with improved ventilation and flexible seating and intends to \u201copen the doors\u201d after Memorial Day. Ashley sees \u201cthe new office\u201d as a safe place where \u201cpeople can come and work if they want to escape\u201d and gradually get people back together with flexible hours and a combination of in-person and remote work. She misses the \u201cvibration\u201d that comes from having a \u201cteam all together\u201d but also notes that COVID has done wonders for work-life balance. Ashley is best reached on the agency\u2019s website at yakketyyak.com, where visitors can find links to all of the agency\u2019s social channels. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Rob Kischuk, and I\u2019m excited to be joined today by Ashley Logan. Ashley is the Founder and CEO at Yakkety Yak based in Chicago, Illinois. Welcome to the show, Ashley. ASHLEY: Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me here. ROB: Absolutely. Why don\u2019t you start off by telling us about Yakkety Yak and what makes the firm unique? ASHLEY: Yakkety Yak is a full-service content marketing agency based in Chicago. We do everything from blog writing, social media marketing, video production, website design and development \u2013 basically any mechanism to help our clients tell their stories, we work with them. I guess what makes us unique is that we focus on working with brands and businesses that care about doing good. We\u2019re a totally purpose-driven agency working with brands and businesses that want to make the world a little bit better. ROB: What does that look like when we actually get down to a client? What does a client look like who has this purpose-driven focus? Are there maybe some examples you can share of how they\u2019re getting out in the world? ASHLEY: Absolutely. That can be nonprofit organizations, of course. They fall into that category. We work with many patient-facing organizations like the American Migraine Foundation, the American Brain Foundation, and other brands in that category. But purpose-driven doesn\u2019t have to be nonprofit; it can be an organization whose culture focuses on giving back. They have volunteer events where they donate proceeds to a nonprofit organization. Ultimately, that alignment with a greater good is our sweet spot because one, it helps with storytelling, but also, in this day and age, giving back is such an important part of changing the world, making it a little better. ROB: Finding that sort of specialization and alignment can sometimes be a journey. How did you come to focus on that as a specialty? ASHLEY: That\u2019s such a great question. When I founded the agency back in 2014, we didn\u2019t have the luxury of selecting the types of clients that we worked with. I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve heard this a lot with your guests. We worked with some people that we probably didn\u2019t want to work with. Ultimately it came down to that if we\u2019re going to tell stories and work hard, we don\u2019t want to work with jerks. [laughs] So we didn\u2019t. We stopped working with jerks, and that\u2019s it in a nutshell. Is that terrible? ROB: No. I mean, who wants to work with jerks? I don\u2019t know anybody who says they do. I haven\u2019t heard that strategy yet. I\u2019d be fascinated if we have somebody listening who has a strategy built around working with jerks and charging a premium for it. I\u2019m here for that conversation. ASHLEY: [laughs] I love it. So that\u2019s really what it came down to. We also help businesses who don\u2019t have a purpose-driven mindset to build that into their company culture. Maybe they came to us and wanted to think about \u201cHow do we put our story out there in a way that has more employee retention, that we can attract more visibility from our clients?\u201d We always say you\u2019ve got to be purpose-driven. You\u2019ve got to stand for something. So, we\u2019ve also helped coach our clients into getting into this space, too. ROB: What does that transformation look like? Maybe an example of where a company was starting. The purpose is usually there, much like your own firm; you just have to find your way to it. ASHLEY: That\u2019s exactly it. Just setting the intention, putting it out there in your story, putting it on your website, weaving it into your social media, and holding your teams accountable too, and just shouting it from the rooftops. That\u2019s especially applicable to clients of ours that aren\u2019t necessarily nonprofits but are doing something to give back \u2013 make sure that their employees know about the work they\u2019re doing at an executive level and then down to a grassroots level. A little bit less in COVID time but coordinating fundraising events or teambuilding events around giving back. ROB: It sounds like it would almost pull you towards being involved in \u2013 if an organization didn\u2019t have core values, you might not even be working on marketing. You might be working almost on their internals before they get to the externals. Do you end up getting pulled in that deep? ASHLEY: Sometimes, yes, we do. But I think that primarily our sweet spot is in the content creation and the storytelling. That\u2019s where we really like to be. Certainly, we will help clients define their brand strategy, and that includes core values and messaging. But we definitely like to focus on the story element. ROB: Understood. You talked about not having as much of a focus when you started, but let\u2019s even go a little bit further behind that. What led you to have the sort of audacity to create your own job and create some other jobs along the way? How did you get into that lane? ASHLEY: I love that word. I love the word \u201caudacious.\u201d Let\u2019s see, I\u2019ve been a writer for my whole life, ever since I was in kindergarten, I think. I won a Young Authors contest for a short story I wrote called \u201cCrystal Met the Ogre.\u201d I still have it. Kind of funny. But I\u2019ve been a writer my whole life, and I loved to tell people stories, but I also had a knack for business and trying to create processes and connect people. After I finished my undergrad at University of Tennessee \u2013 I was a creative writing major; I worked at the school paper \u2013 I ended up in a sales position. I wasn\u2019t expecting that I was going to be in sales, but also that I was going to like it so much. I started off working for a candy manufacturer based in Chicago. It was a great experience. I was 22, had half the country as my territory, was flying all over, slinging candy. But I wanted a little bit more of a high-volume sale, and I moved into commercial real estate. Through that experience, I was a creative person trapped in a corporate world and interacting with people at the C level. What I found was that all of these brands and businesses didn\u2019t know how to talk about themselves. They were all innovative. Every single one of them called themselves \u201cinnovative.\u201d All of them called themselves \u201cstreamlined.\u201d I realized it was a problem that in this digital space, people didn\u2019t have the words to differentiate themselves from one another. You could close your eyes and hear across multiple industries and see people using the same exact words to describe themselves, with no differentiation. So that was an observation. In the meantime, I was volunteering for nonprofit organizations in Chicago and helping them with content creation. This was that sweet spot when social media was just starting to go from being that you needed a .edu email address to that anyone could sign up for Facebook at this time. How do you turn those social media engines into a marketing machine? I cut my teeth on that through nonprofit work and ultimately decided that I was onto something and needed to combine all of my passions for business, storytelling, content, and nonprofit work. So I left my career in commercial real estate and went back to school to earn a master\u2019s in journalism from Northwestern University\u2019s Medill School of Journalism. They have a great program for writing for a target audience. I simultaneously founded Yakkety Yak, and the rest is sort of history. ROB: That\u2019s a great upscaling moment on the writing there. I like that. I wonder a little bit \u2013 I\u2019m just going to pull on a thread here that\u2019s a little random, but we\u2019ll see where it goes \u2013 if you don\u2019t mind me asking, what was the candy? Who were you selling to, and what made it desirable for them to buy this candy? ASHLEY: [laughs] It was a private label contract manufacturing. That\u2019s what we pitched. I worked with Cost Plus World Market and Harry & David, and we were doing premium toffees. We would produce it for them under their own private label brand. Coming from Chicago, we\u2019d make the candy and then it would be in like a Harry & David package, for example. They also did those really beautiful Christmas candies, ribbon candies. That was it. No chocolates and no gummies, but pretty much everything else. It was cool. There was a factory. The CEO of the company gave me my first job out of school, tolerated me, trained me in sales. He actually passed away a couple of years ago, and he just made such a positive impact in my life, giving me this opportunity. It was pretty cool getting to walk through the candy factory and make friends with the factory workers and be part of creating something from end to end. ROB: That\u2019s very cool. Those are typically, in my reckoning, pretty high end, nice candies. It\u2019s a creative process. It\u2019s not what it sounds like at first when you say sales. I think we all sometimes miss doing tangible work, something you can put your hands on and something you can see sitting on a shelf. ASHLEY: Yeah, it was cool. And it was fun. It was my first experience in business. We would go to these candy conferences, and I was the youngest by far. I was the only female, interacting at Happy Hour with the good ol\u2019 boys who\u2019d been in the business for 40 years. It was fun. It taught me a lot about how to defend myself. It taught me a lot about how to keep composure as a woman in business and overcome challenges. That experience grew me really well for commercial real estate, which was a little bit more of a cutthroat type of industry. ROB: Right. You went from a boys\u2019 club to a mean boys\u2019 club. ASHLEY: [laughs] I did. ROB: Even trickier. Maybe a little bit gentler in a more creative space. But I think what\u2019s interesting is the through line is, as we all know as an agency owner, you are selling, but it sounds like a common thing across your sales experience is you\u2019re really helping people get what they want \u2013 which is much easier than trying to convince them they need something they\u2019re not aware of. ASHLEY: I think so, yeah. ROB: Very interesting. Ashley, as you reflect on \u2013 you said 2014 was the starting of Yakkety Yak? ASHLEY: I have two dates. 2012 is when I founded the agency and I went back to school, and I had a few very small clients at the time. But 2014 is when I hired my first employee and Yakkety Yak became my full-time job. So I use that as my real date. ROB: Got it. Over the course of that 7+ year time, what are some things you\u2019ve learned that you might do differently if you were starting from scratch? ASHLEY: That\u2019s a great question. My journey has been really interesting. I built the agency from scratch. I had no outside investors. I\u2019m pretty risk positive; I\u2019m comfortable in a space of jumping and leaping to the next level. It doesn\u2019t make me nervous. I don\u2019t spend a lot of time dwelling on mistakes made because I do believe that every experience leads you to the next, and you\u2019ve got to build upon it and take with you the tidbits that help make you stronger. For example, looking at my career trajectory, the candy business, while I knew it wasn\u2019t my life\u2019s passion, that sales experience helped take me to the next level. Any adversity that I faced in commercial real estate, I took that with me to become a founder and CEO and be gutsy as hell. But one thing that stands out for what I would do differently is I think in the area of hiring. I have worn every hat in the agency, and I wish that I\u2019d had more help sooner because that would\u2019ve helped me scale faster. I haven\u2019t mentioned this part yet, but I\u2019ve got three really little kids \u2013 and a COVID baby. It would\u2019ve been great \u2013 when my second son was born, it was 2018; I was 38 weeks pregnant, and I had an employee resign, which meant that I was not going to get any maternity leave. I had my baby on a Tuesday and I was back to work on Monday. If I had built a deeper bench, then I would\u2019ve been able to have a little bit more balance early on. ROB: What do you think it was that prevented you from building up that team? ASHLEY: I think when you\u2019re an agency starting out and you\u2019re competing in a market like Chicago \u2013 we have some major players here. I\u2019m going up against, from a benefits standpoint, a salary standpoint, and a credibility standpoint, some powerhouses. It took a little bit of time to earn some credibility and name recognition. People, I will say, do remember the name Yakkety Yak, so I am proud of that. Recruiting top talent takes time and building up a team and building that referral network where people say \u201cHey, that\u2019s a place where I really want to be and where I want to work.\u201d ROB: Got it. What were your first couple of hires when you went from a team of one to a team of more? ASHLEY: Oh gosh, one of my first hires was \u2013 and he\u2019s still one of my favorite employees; he moved back to California and is doing some really great things right now \u2013 a graphic designer. I had the way with the words, and I was bringing in the business but also doing a lot of the content creation, and Curtis was doing the graphic design elements. And then support from a writing standpoint, so I eventually started to be able to outsource that and build a team. I shouldn\u2019t say outsource; I mean delegate. That\u2019s the word I mean. And finally, 2018 was a breakthrough year for me where I finally was able to build \u2013 we had more than 15 people. Now we\u2019re a team of 20. It\u2019s great to have such amazing talent at the agency now. I wish that I had done that sooner. But when you\u2019re bootstrapping your own business, it\u2019s kind of part of the deal, I think. ROB: Congratulations on that growth. You mentioned a COVID baby, so I\u2019m sort of expecting, by your story, that maybe you did get some maternity leave this time around? ASHLEY: [laughs] I didn\u2019t. Well, lesson learned from the second child, but we were in crisis \u2013 not crisis, but I didn\u2019t think that it would be good for me to have no visibility to my team when we\u2019re all suddenly working remotely and in the middle of a global pandemic. So, I made sure to still be around for internal purposes, but I did remove myself from some client-facing work for a period of time. I had my baby Memorial Day weekend, and by Labor Day my clients were seeing me on the regular again. ROB: Got it. I can definitely see a case for visibility to a team in a time where everybody\u2019s in uncharted territory. ASHLEY: Sure. ROB: Where are you and your team in terms of office? Did you have an office, do you have an office? Are you going to have an office? Are you keeping the same geographic footprint moving forward? How are you thinking about physical space in the context of Yakkety Yak? ASHLEY: That\u2019s such a great question and something that\u2019s so relevant right now. We have this awesome office in a loft building right near the train station, Union Station in Chicago, and it\u2019s great. I love the space. It\u2019s got that brick and timber feel, lots of natural light, open area. But we jammed a lot of people into that space. I\u2019m currently working with a designer, Lauren Ashley Allan. She\u2019s a really awesome up-and-coming designer. We\u2019re revamping and rethinking our space so that it is comfortable for people when we return to work. Flexible seating options is what we\u2019re focusing on, in addition to little booths so that people who are a little more conscious or want more privacy can work in a confined space that has ventilation. The goal is that we\u2019re not going to mandate that the team come back to work, but we are going to open our doors after Memorial Day, and I\u2019ll be there and give people a place that they can come and work if they want to escape and gradually start getting people back together. I think what I\u2019ve been noticing is I miss the vibration, like the good vibes that come from having a team all together. So, we\u2019re putting some thought and intention into how we\u2019re designing the space, and we\u2019ll move forward from there with some flexible hours, combination of remote work and in-person. ROB: Right, but you\u2019re probably not going to have folks moving to Portugal and being fully remote, that you could think of? ASHLEY: I don\u2019t think so. [laughs] ROB: [laughs] It sounds like you\u2019re being very intentional about your space, which is compelling, and it sounds like even within the office environment, you\u2019re really differentiating that work environment. Knowing Chicago, knowing where you are, you have a benefit of accessibility and transit and that urban lifestyle for those who choose it. And obviously, in Chicago, you can get into the city from very, very far out on a train if you want. And then not knowing the specific block you\u2019re on or whatever, during normal times, there\u2019s probably a good vibe, good places to grab lunch together, grab Happy Hour together. It\u2019s not just some nameless office park. ASHLEY: Right, exactly. That camaraderie is just important. I really felt for people \u2013 especially those who are in there, mid to late twenties, single, living by themselves, and stuck at home during COVID. That\u2019s a lot for people. I think that we\u2019ve got a lot of healing to do as a country when it comes to finally starting to emerge back into everyday life. I want to be there and I want to create a safe space for my team to come in and get work done and feel welcome and safe and so we can continue doing the excellent work that we\u2019ve been doing and build off of that energy. ROB: That sounds excellent. How\u2019s your team thinking about that? I know everybody\u2019s all over the spectrum, at least from people I know. Some people would be in a closet together tomorrow and some people are waiting until they get a shot or even longer. What\u2019s the range of what you\u2019re seeing? ASHLEY: A range, you\u2019re exactly right. I\u2019m giving people space to make the decisions on their own for now. We continue to check in on it. I\u2019ve said that in 2021, at this point, we\u2019re probably not going to do a mandate to go back to work. But we will open the doors and encourage people to come in if they want to. The beauty of the transition that\u2019s taken place from a remote workforce standpoint is that now we see that we can work remotely, that if you\u2019ve got to coach your kid\u2019s softball team in the afternoon, you can work from home, and that\u2019s going to be fine. We\u2019re going to be able to connect, and no one\u2019s going to miss anything. I think this has done wonders for the work-life balance, and I hope at least at Yakkety Yak, that\u2019s a trend we\u2019re going to really continue to let permeate our office culture. ROB: I love the intentionality of it. I\u2019m a little bit jealous. I\u2019m a little bit more of a \u201cready, fire, aim\u201d sort of person. Over the course of the past year, the last four people we\u2019ve hired have all been remote, and we\u2019re going to figure it out later. I\u2019m hoping that late fall\/early winter, we\u2019ll get together and visit one of our team who lives down in Chile. It\u2019s completely different. Walking away from the office and loading the furniture into our basement kind of made it real, you know? ASHLEY: How did that feel for you? ROB: I am very comfortable with the change. The thing I don\u2019t like in my basement is there\u2019s no people there. There\u2019s fresh air and light. It\u2019s a little rustic, shall we say. I do miss the getting together, but if part of it means that instead of being in the office and doing little things, we get to do something more pronounced like spending a week in Chile and getting some different gatherings, I\u2019m interested in it. It\u2019s a change of pace for sure. Ashley, when you think about the future of Yakkety Yak, the future of marketing and how you\u2019re working with businesses that give back, what are you excited about in the future that\u2019s coming up? ASHLEY: I couldn\u2019t be more excited about video. We are doing some really, really, really incredible work when it comes to especially the patient space, telling people\u2019s stories about how they\u2019ve been impacted by various health conditions, diseases, disorders. I love using video as a mechanism for storytelling, regardless of the target audience. There are so many cool things now with TikTok and how to use visual elements to show a progression, and people are doing that every day in their homes as amateurs, and how that\u2019s going to translate to professional level videos I think is something that is so cool and something you\u2019re going to see exploding in marketing space over the next 18 months. ROB: One thing I wonder about, if you have an opinion on it, is when I think about audio and the way it\u2019s going, I see a lot more attention going into the sound on versus sound off experience and accommodating people who might be muted. What direction do you see that going? Are we going towards where every video\u2019s going to adapt, or are we going to where we\u2019re assuming that so many people have some sort of Bluetooth headset in that they\u2019re going to have audio on? How is that trending? ASHLEY: That\u2019s a really great question. I\u2019m going to answer it in two parts. One, I think that the pandemic has shown everyone the importance of quality A\/V, like when you can\u2019t hear someone on Zoom or there\u2019s a delay in a recording when you\u2019re watching things virtually. I think that high quality video and audio is something that\u2019s more of a priority than it\u2019s ever been. With that said, I think it depends on the platform. We wouldn\u2019t necessarily, for a virtual fundraiser or virtual event, have all of the text scrolling at the bottom of the experience, but when it comes to ads and what\u2019s happening when people are scrolling through Instagram, I think it\u2019s absolutely vital to have the words there because people are scrolling through Instagram in their beds at night when they\u2019re not necessarily wearing headphones and they don\u2019t want to wake up their partner, or they have babies that they\u2019re feeding and don\u2019t want to scare the babies. That\u2019s my personal experience, but I think it applies across a multitude of scenarios. And people are multitasking, too. They might have one window open or be on a conference call or a Zoom call and scrolling through Instagram. You can\u2019t have that dependence on the audio in those scenarios.  So, when it comes to social media, the text is vital. When it comes to other experiences where you\u2019re holding people\u2019s attention for a little bit longer, then I think you\u2019re okay without it.  ROB: Very, very interesting. Thank you for illuminating the topic. Ashley, when people want to find and connect with you and with Yakkety Yak, where should they go to find you? ASHLEY: Our website is the best spot to find us because you\u2019ve got links there to all of our social media channels. You can find us at yakketyyak.com. The spelling isn\u2019t necessarily intuitive. ROB: How did you choose the spelling of Yakkety Yak? ASHLEY: [laughs] I don\u2019t know. I think it was probably the domain that was available at the time. But it was important that we were Y-A-K and not Y-A-C-K, so we went from there. ROB: Perfect. Ashley, thank you so much for joining the podcast and sharing your experience. I definitely wish you the best as you get that revamped office up and humming and get everybody back working together in person. ASHLEY: Thanks, Rob. I really appreciate your time today. This was fun. ROB: Thank you so much, Ashley. Bye. Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com. ","author_name":"The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast","author_url":"http:\/\/spinutech.com","html":"