{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Old Agency Flexes with a Focus on New","description":"Jamie Michelson is President and CEO of SMZ Advertising, a Detroit-based agency that started in 1929, producing and distributing jeweler artwork ad kits. These ad packages, delivered as a monthly subscription service, provided graphics to promote and showcase jewelry and were used in catalogs and newspaper advertisements.  Early advertising, Jamie says, \u201cwas much more informational\u201d than today. As advertising evolved, information had to be packaged with some entertainment and hooks to get people\u2019s attention. The agency adapted and grew through that transitional period. Today, at 92 years old, the still independent, family-owned full-service agency focuses on communications, planning and strategy, research, design, advertising heavily, retail, events, mobile, social, and \u201cmoving our clients\u2019 businesses forward.\u201d Jamie says, \u201cAll that history doesn\u2019t mean we know everything. It teaches you to question everything.\u201d He then describes his agency as \u201ca team of around 40 people\u201d . . . with \u201cnew ideas, new media, new ways of communicating\u201d \u2013 \u201cquietly making noise with purpose\u201d \u2013 to keep the focus on the client. Initially, Jamie wanted no part of his family\u2019s business. A few internships changed his mind. Today two of his sisters run groups of accounts in the agency. Jamie\u2019s third sister, the fourth sibling, went to law school and serves as a federal judge.  In this interview, Jamie discusses in depth the mindsets, tools, attitudes, and strategies SMZ has used to survive so many years and how an agency changes as it is passed down through the generations. Jamie says the first generation, the founders, the creators, tend to stay involved. The second generation had to wrest control from the founders. The transition from second to third generation has been much smoother. The long-term plan is to keep the agency going as a legacy business. Jamie says the agency business can be all-consuming. He has found it important to take time from day-to-day client servicing \u201cto think about the future, the visioning, the structure, the governance, all that.\u201d A second tip he offers is that companies need to codify and write down their values. Driving out to his employees\u2019 homes to deliver packages of information made Jamie aware of some of his employees\u2019 beastly commutes. He says his intention going forward is to be flexible . . . in a number of ways. That flexibility has probably contributed greatly to his agency\u2019s \u201clong life.\u201d Jamie can be reached on his agency\u2019s website at: smz.com, where visitors can find the agency\u2019s blog, and Jamie\u2019s Generation Excellence podcast, which explores generational family businesses. SMZ Advertising is also on all of the social platforms. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Jamie Michelson. He is the President and CEO of SMZ Advertising based in Troy, Michigan. Welcome to the podcast, Jamie. JAMIE: Thank you for having me, Rob. I\u2019m really looking forward to our conversation. ROB: It\u2019s exciting to have you here. Why don\u2019t you start us off with an introduction to SMZ? Tell us about the firm and any key metrics, any key focuses, key verticals. Go for it.  JAMIE: People like to talk about the elevator pitch; our agency is located on the first floor of the building, so it\u2019s more of a \u201cwalk in the door\u201d pitch. I guess I would start with very few things survive 92 years, let alone biologically or in business. It\u2019s something to remember, something to know. At SMZ Advertising, we\u2019re proud of that length of time of operation. I\u2019m proud of our long-term and enduring relationships with our clients. But it\u2019s kind of like all that history doesn\u2019t mean we know everything. It teaches you to question everything. We say we remain an independent, family-owned, creatively driven, full-service \u2013 and we like to go, \u201caccent on the full\u201d \u2013 agency doing work in communications, planning and strategy, research, design, advertising (heavily), retail, events, mobile, social, and more. We\u2019re a team of around 40 people, moving our clients\u2019 businesses and then ours forward. New ideas, new media, new ways of communicating. Our theme for our agency, if you will, our own headline, is what we call \u201cquietly making noise with purpose.\u201d There\u2019s a tension between quiet and noise. Really, it\u2019s about the spotlight shining on our clients and being humble about ourselves and very focused on them. ROB: How does that propagate out to a client campaign? Does that echo into their campaigns, where there\u2019s a \u201cspeak softly and carry a big stick\u201d mentality in that as well? Or do they get to be a little bit more boisterous? JAMIE: There\u2019s all these books out there about filtering through the noise, avoid the noise, ignore the noise. Yet we are trying to make appropriate levels of noise, and strategic noise. I feel that our approach to it \u2013 and this goes back to roots \u2013 I\u2019m part of a third generation of a family business where there\u2019s a strong belief in likeability. You do business with brands you like and people you like. And it\u2019s not namby-pamby likeability; it\u2019s not love or \u201clovemarks,\u201d but it\u2019s just that someone likes you and they might buy what you\u2019re selling. So, we want people to really like the work we\u2019re doing and the brand and the business. Especially with so much choice and so much competition. ROB: We don\u2019t normally jump so quicky to the origin story here, but 92 years is a little bit of something. We are talking about quite a long time ago. We are talking about a Great Depression era business. What is the background here? Was it always something we would call an ad agency, or was it even something different in that regard? JAMIE: It\u2019s a great question. It\u2019s a pretty neat story. Clearly, the world doesn\u2019t look like it did in 1929. We\u2019re faster and global and colorful and we know a lot more. But the origin was a gentleman who was my grandfather and a partner. When you talk to newer agencies, oftentimes it\u2019s a partnership. A couple people have a dream, a vision. One\u2019s a business guy, one\u2019s an artist or creative. Their early work was what we would today call ad kits. It was the artwork for jewelers. Jewelry stores, jewelry retailers around North America. There was no digital way to distribute that. There wasn\u2019t even FedEx to deliver it. It wasn\u2019t even Slicks, for those who go back to those in the early print\/design ways. It was packages that were sent with art that became print, catalogue, even newspaper, and that got them into some jewelers as retailers and the roots of a retail agency. This is a Detroit-based company. It was actually, weirdly, software as a service. It was subscription as a service. These people were buying this package each month so they could promote and showcase jewelry. And along came layaway and credit and these innovations in retail and business that they were a part of, and then moving that into outdoor and radio and the whole explosion of media. ROB: Wow. Thinking about that, how are you distributing what goes into outdoor advertising on potentially a distributed basis? It\u2019s more about a package and a solution than it is about hours and the hour trap. JAMIE: They talked about getting that package out, because it was very calendar-driven, time-driven. Sleeping around the agency on cots and stuff to make the deadlines. Again, what\u2019s old is new. But the idea that in the earlier roots of advertising, stuff was much more informational, and then you started to get into the beginning of having to package that information with some entertainment, some other hooks to get people to pay attention to it. It was really an agency that followed that journey. I think what it says is \u2013 as you talk about COVID years and difficult times the agency\u2019s gone through, there\u2019s certainly some level of resilience in the company that starts in 1929, hits the Great Depression, the stock market crash, world wars, other follow-on wars \u2013 there were pandemics, even, in that 90-some years. You don\u2019t assume, \u201cWe\u2019re going to make it because we\u2019ve been there,\u201d but there\u2019s something woven into \u2013 with brands, we talk about DNA a lot. I think because we\u2019re from Detroit and it\u2019s Motown and whatever, we talk about soul. There\u2019s something in the soul of this agency and its people. It\u2019s hard to describe and find, but it makes us proud of what we did and charging forward. ROB: When in your upbringing did you become distinctly aware of the business and what it was? I don\u2019t know if you knew it as something your grandfather was involved in, or your dad. When did you start to figure out what it was? JAMIE: Agency people, we have this role of you do business with who you do business with. If you have a product, you have a service, you support that. Whether they did some work for Pepsi-Cola bottlers or a potato chip company or a restaurant brand, you\u2019re using those clients\u2019 products. One of the cornerstone accounts of the agency in my childhood years was Big Boy Restaurants in what would\u2019ve been their heyday. There were a lot of Sunday night family dinners at the Big Boy, even to the point of my father and his partner, who are the second generation, owning a Big Boy restaurant. I\u2019d get to be back in the kitchen as a high schooler and experience it close-hand. But with that, I was not running into this business. I grew up around it at the kitchen table and that dinner table at restaurants. \u201cOkay, my grandfather did it, my father did it.\u201d When you\u2019re a teenager, typical is rebellion. You\u2019re going to do the other thing. I wasn\u2019t disinterested, because I understood \u2013 I went and studied finance; I was going to be an investment banker, the whole Wall Street thing. I\u2019m still passionate about business. But I didn\u2019t really want things to do with this business until I experienced it firsthand with some internships and through college years and different parts of the business. Back to that soul thing. It\u2019s definitely in my blood. It\u2019s just absorption. [laughs] So I worked since college at basically three different agencies, independent agencies for the most part. Never client side. A little bit, one weird little thing. But my whole career. That\u2019s what I know, and I\u2019m still fired up about it. ROB: Did you have siblings that also looked to get involved, did get involved, chose to actually rebel? What is that dynamic? JAMIE: I have three sisters, so we have four children in the third generation. Two of my sisters are involved in the business, run groups of accounts, and have been very involved with the agency and each had their own path or track into it. And then my third sister, the fourth sibling, went to law school and to a law firm and is a federal judge. That\u2019s what\u2019s fun. We refer to her as the black sheep. ROB: [laughs] The woman who is a federal judge. JAMIE: [laughs] Exactly. ROB: That sketchy business, right? JAMIE: Yeah. She\u2019s good counsel to the agency because she\u2019s sure learned to ask probing and challenging questions. ROB: I think there\u2019s probably an interesting season here. It\u2019s interesting that you chose to spend some time getting experience in other businesses. Clearly, the agency had to change. The whole firm went in and out of the golden age of advertising, the kind of Mad Men. How has the firm navigated these shifts of adding services, keeping a sense of identity \u2013 that balance of not getting overwhelmed with the shiny and becoming a social media influencer agency exclusively, but also not being mired in \u2013 you\u2019re not just broadcasting car dealerships, either. JAMIE: I think about that all the time, the path. They talk about sins of omission\/commission, those things you didn\u2019t do or you passed on those things you did do. We talk a lot about those decisions we made or moves we made where you do them and then you go, \u201cWe should\u2019ve done this sooner\u201d versus \u201cWhy did we do this at all?\u201d The things that we\u2019ve done were good moves for the most part. Not a lot of giant blowout mistakes, disasters. I remember stringing phone line to plug into a computer to go through modem sounds, to be on AOL, to have earliest of site stuff. Our URL is SMZ.com, so to have a three-letter URL says you were in it early. But not necessarily going on all things digital. A lot of it has been your clients take you, smoothly or kicking and screaming, into some of these new spaces and areas, or you do it the same way with them. I think we\u2019ve been open-minded all the time to experiment and try. It\u2019s always changing, like you said, and there\u2019s going to be that next new thing. Don\u2019t get so enamored with the shiny, but don\u2019t get to the \u201cThis is how we do it\u201d or \u201cIt was better then\u201d or \u201cGod, I wish it would slow down and not change.\u201d I refer to myself \u2013 you gave my formal title, CEO\/President or whatever. I talk about being Chief Agitator. I\u2019ve got to keep the place and myself shaken up a little bit so that we don\u2019t rest and settle. ROB: Was SMZ a longer name at one point? JAMIE: The original company was Simons Michelson Company, SM Co. Simons Michelson Zieve for the gentleman, son-in-law of one of the founders, my father\u2019s partner, second gen. And then that got shortened to SMZ, I think for the poor person who had to answer the phone at the front desk all the time, saying that over and over and over again. [laughs] ROB: What did that transition of you coming into the business \u2013 you had some experience from other places; I guess your dad was in charge. What did that transition of generations look like? JAMIE: The transition from the first generation \u2013 and I\u2019m a big student and have a podcast I do called Generation Excellence where I\u2019m focused on other generational businesses and the follow-ons, G2, G3, G4. Not just because HBO does Succession and it\u2019s super dramatic, but it\u2019s a fertile area. The first generation, they\u2019re the founders, the creators. Those two guys worked, and that\u2019s what they did. They didn\u2019t really retire. They kept involved. The second gen had to wrest control from them a little bit. You\u2019re talking about guys now in their seventies, eighties, whatever it was. The transition from second gen to this third generation was much smoother. I give my father, Jim Michelson, incredible credit because it is a very hard thing to be in that command chair, be the president, running an agency, and then give away both authority and responsibility and not backtrack. Not jump back in, try to fix stuff if you don\u2019t like how it is. You\u2019re giving up control and letting others go make those mistakes you talked about, make those new moves. He did that and really set a model for me that I have memorized. As we figure out whatever\u2019s next after me \u2013 because that\u2019s the plan, the infinite game, keep this going as a legacy business \u2013 to be able to do that that same way. ROB: I interned once upon a time at Chick-fil-A corporate. I was there under the Truett Cathy regime. Truett was there for forever, and then his son Dan comes in, and the window for Dan was much shorter. They\u2019ve transitioned off to the third generation now. It seemed much faster. He seemed very happy to transition it sooner than maybe he did. I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve looked at what they did and what they\u2019re thinking. JAMIE: It\u2019s a multiparty thing. And then you\u2019ve got the people who work for the agency, and they\u2019re watching how this goes. You have the clients. It adds a layer on top of any other business when you add this family dynamic to it. We do have now as a company a formal written policy that next generation family members need to have some successful work experience outside the business, because it is really nice to be able to do what you do not just as a son\/daughter of someone who created a business, but on your own merits. Make your own way. ROB: It\u2019s funny you bring up Succession. I didn\u2019t think about it as you talked about having these four siblings \u2013 JAMIE: It is much less dramatic within our walls and halls. ROB: But also interesting because you have three siblings. Presumably at least some of you have kids. We\u2019re on video; I can see a picture behind you of a couple of fresh faces. JAMIE: Yeah, a couple of young adult daughters working out there in the business world in both geography of where they want to be, areas they want to be in \u2013 my one daughter works out in Portland, Oregon. She\u2019s been five years at Nike. She\u2019s an engineer. She\u2019s very much involved in sourcing, manufacturing product at scale. So different than what a more boutique agency does where everything is bespoke and one-offs and ideas that you can\u2019t touch. For a lot of businesses, a lot of our clients are marketing the invisible. My other daughter is a business consultant, so more in our space at one of the consulting firms as she finishes business school this year. They\u2019re making their way. Again, grew up around it at the dinner table, and they know some things. It\u2019s really helpful to have that perspective of what they\u2019re going through. Use of social media, use of digital tools, how they communicate, remote work \u2013 every bit of those things as a mini focus group, really. ROB: Do you even have maybe some nieces or nephews that are also in that leadership pool for the next generation? JAMIE: Yeah, what they call the \u201ccousins\u2019 consortium\u201d in family business land. The next oldest would be my nephew, who\u2019s 20. He\u2019s in film school. Very talented creative. I think looking to go more out West and be involved in the movie business. It\u2019s still a bit of a journey for him to even join us. So, we have some things to figure out in our transitioning future, which is one of the things that excites me about the coming years of the business part of the business. ROB: Yeah, absolutely. You\u2019ve done some transition, you\u2019ll see some transition. When you think about your history with SMZ, what are some things you think about as lessons you might tell on to the next generation about maybe what you\u2019d do differently or what they should think about? JAMIE: We meet probably not regularly \u2013 you know that old expression, work on the business\/in the business. The agency business can be all-consuming. Your list of things to do can be so filled with serving your clients, and you have to work to take that time to think about the future, the visioning, the structure, the governance, all that. We try to take some time to do that. In a recent meeting, I had a quote up on the screen from Tallulah Bankhead, an old Hollywood actress. She said, \u201cIf I had to live my life again, I\u2019d make the same mistakes, only sooner.\u201d The definite advice I\u2019d give or the thing I\u2019ve learned is, businesses that are longstanding like ours and legacy, when they started out, there wasn\u2019t all this content and advice for startups and podcasts and videos. They were just running a business through the Depression and then going on. The agency definitely had values, and they are woven into the place. It took us a long time. It was really only recently that we codified those values in writing, where they\u2019re on the wall, where they\u2019re on a sheet, where you share them with everybody at the agency and use that more as how we operate, how we hire, how we put that in front of our clients. That\u2019s not a new idea, that businesses are based on their values, and that as good marketers, you don\u2019t just pick the same six buzzword values that every business has. But to do that work, to have them be really true to who you are \u2013 you mentioned Chick-fil-A. They\u2019re a business that I think their values and their approach \u2013 and somewhat controversial sometimes \u2013 are so much a part of how they operate and who they are. ROB: Is there anything in particular that\u2019s happened \u2013 you could argue that for some portion of the firm, the values were intrinsic. A lot of firms starting from scratch, the values may be absent. You\u2019ve seen this need to move the values from intrinsic to explicit. What do you think may have changed in your time there and your time in business \u2013 is that a necessity now? Has something changed? Or is it just a better way that we understand now to make them more explicit? JAMIE: Many of us in business have had the good fortune to go to seminars, webinars, conferences. You go to those and there\u2019s a moment, something hot for a moment, you come back, you bring it up all charged up, and then it fades off.  But I did, a few years ago, attend \u2013 Family Business has a conference called Transitions. They do it once or twice a year. You\u2019re immersed for a few days with other \u2013 these are not all marketing firms. These are just businesses that have that test of time thing to them. The title of their thing was \u201cValues-Based Businesses Are Valuable Businesses.\u201d Example after example was brought up of how these different businesses had used what was true to the values that they were all about to help them not just operate, but grow \u2013 whether it was Bigelow Tea, down to the detail of the person whose name is on the teabag inside the box that packaged your product. Kind of like some of the car manufacturers where there\u2019s someone who signs the engine, or one of the parts inside, or the steelworkers sign the last beam highest up. Just to be much more explicit about it. ROB: Sure. JAMIE: You see people react well to it and be involved in that process. ROB: Yeah, that involvement in the process is so key for ownership, for carrying forward. Earlier, you talked about remote distributed work. How has that played into SMZ at this point? How do you think it plays into SMZ moving forward? October 2021, some folks are never going back to the office. Some people are already back in the office full-time. How are you thinking about that dynamic right now? JAMIE: It\u2019s certainly front, middle, back of mind a lot of the time. I\u2019ll start with our feeling that our physical office we\u2019ve always felt is a competitive advantage. It\u2019s a great box. It\u2019s colorful, it\u2019s alive, it\u2019s well-designed, it\u2019s functional. We like being there. We like working with clients being there. Great. At the same time, we\u2019ve had some creative people who have worked remotely for 15, 20, 30 years and interacting with people at the agency. We\u2019ve had others who have had all kinds of different flexible schedules and been accommodating that and learning from that. So at least for us, it wasn\u2019t a full 180 or whatever, like maybe for many other businesses. We\u2019re so open right now to the idea of how this is going to work, listening to our people, and using it to hire and fill new positions \u2013 which we\u2019re able to do. It\u2019s hard, but hybrid \u2013 my next car will probably be a hybrid. We talk about hybrid a lot in other categories and stuff that mashes together. One of the things that was eye-opening to me was one day I took some packages and delivered them, driveway deliveries, to almost the entire employee list. My wife helped map it out on a map thing. A few of the people I got to, that commute for them, the most outlying spots, the time that they get back if they can have a few of those days where they\u2019re not having to come into the office and can work from home \u2013 that\u2019s life-changing. So, we\u2019re going to embrace it. We went back mid-July to three days in, two days remote, everybody in on Wednesdays, and we had to revert back a little bit to an all-optional in the office mode. So, there\u2019s always somebody in each day, but it\u2019s small groups. ROB: It seems like the most important thing is to have an intentionality about it. Some of that\u2019s going to be aligned to the culture and the place where you are. It seems to me that somebody around Detroit can work virtual for anyone, but they\u2019ve chosen to be there. I think there\u2019s an extent to which if you\u2019re in digital marketing, if you\u2019re in Detroit, you\u2019ve chosen to be there. JAMIE: Correct. ROB: So, giving people more reasons to be there and to enjoy why they\u2019re there is meaningful and life-giving. JAMIE: I\u2019m glad you brought up Detroit. We\u2019re a proud Detroit-based business. That\u2019s our roots, physically in the city for 50-some years in operation. A bunch of clients that are Detroit downtown-based, or the whole city. We love our region. Nationally or internationally, it gets some press reviews that aren\u2019t fair and accurate. It\u2019s a great place to live and work. So, there\u2019s that spirit that people have here about our hometown, and we want to have people from here work here and be connected to here. At the same time, this place is still a community that makes a lot of stuff. Manufactures and builds. Those operations, you can\u2019t do that from your kitchen table. You\u2019ve got to go to those buildings and warehouses. It\u2019s still 30% of people that have this luxury of remote or this tech work, and everybody else has to go to the hospital, go to the school, go to the manufacturing facility, go to the supermarket, do those jobs. That\u2019s going on around us. We\u2019re part of that. We\u2019ll figure it out. The biggest part for me is \u2013 we\u2019re having this meeting right now. It\u2019s virtual. If it were physically in the conference room with a couple clients and you were in there with them, Rob, I might just walk by \u2013 our place is a lot of an aquarium. It\u2019s got a lot of glass boxes. [laughs] You can see in most everywhere. Pretty transparent. You see these meetings going on and you can stick your head in and say hi, and you can see clients and you can see people. That\u2019s the biggest miss for me, those little, quick \u2013 you just don\u2019t know those things are going on. Not to disrupt them or interrupt them, but just to wave. Just to see that that meeting\u2019s going on. It\u2019s actually uplifting. You see those meetings going on and go, \u201cThey don\u2019t need me in there. They\u2019re doing great in there.\u201d [laughs]  ROB: It\u2019s meaningful for you, it\u2019s meaningful for them. It\u2019s meaningful for the client. I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s going to be a client situation \u2013 JAMIE: Clients love getting away and going to the agency. We\u2019ve got a dog running around or somebody\u2019s dog running around. It\u2019s just a different environment. ROB: It\u2019s going to be hard for them to get on a plane to go to an agency. At some scale, yes, but mostly no.  JAMIE: It\u2019s taking a while. It\u2019s really productions or major things that our people are getting on a plane or those people where, again, you have to be somewhere, versus it would be nice to be there. ROB: Jamie, when you think about what\u2019s coming up next for SMZ and for the marketing landscape that you\u2019re in the middle of, what are you excited about? What\u2019s next? JAMIE: We talk about that history and we use that number 92. What got us driven a little bit more a year and a half ago was we embraced a program called EOS, if you\u2019re familiar with it. Entrepreneurial Operating System. We used that. That 100-year milestone is a pretty neat concept\/sound. What are we going to smell like, look like, feel like when we get there? I\u2019m really excited about being this smart, steady, scrappy, creative \u2013 still creative; I think ideas still matter \u2013 growing agency, celebrating that in the right way. Not just \u201cWe made it\u201d and it\u2019s a moment, but that whole year should be something, and that should be a stepping stone to what\u2019s next. So that excites me. I mentioned before, mapping out, going to visit people who work for the agency. That\u2019s what we do for clients. We ask them that question all the time. \u201cWhere are you trying to go? What are you trying to be? How do we get there?\u201d We don\u2019t always do it as well for ourselves as marketing firms. So doing that work and doing that visioning. And when you do that and you have goals and you write it down and say how you\u2019re going to get there, you tend to not only get there, you tend to get there faster and even a little better. The other thing that excites me is I was really caught up or hung up with the trend \u2013 and it was real, and we faced it. Clients were in-housing a lot of stuff. This whole great reshuffle of everything that\u2019s going on from where ships are to where chips are to where people are is upsetting that, too, for in-house operations. I think it\u2019s going to yield opportunity for, as your podcast is for, marketing leadership and marketing firms of all shapes and sizes. They\u2019re like, \u201cI can\u2019t get the people to do this,\u201d so now they\u2019ve got to go back to outsourcing and finding folks to help. We\u2019ll certainly going to be there and do that. I hope I\u2019m right on that. ROB: That\u2019s definitely a tricky wave. Sometimes it\u2019s even very client-specific. I\u2019m usually in Atlanta, and to an extent, the fabled Coca-Cola company is perpetually on one end of the pendulum or the other on in-house, out-of-house. Certainly, macro trends also impact that. JAMIE: Yeah, there\u2019s that whole thing of get closer to the data. I get that. But when you said growing up around agencies, or my sense of it, that concept of being \u2013 we talk about being partnerships or even beyond a partnership with clients, stakeholders and very involved, but still objective outsiders at the same time. That combination can be powerful for client operations. We think we age well with the client relationships. We learn more and we get better. ROB: Jamie, you mentioned a little bit earlier on the digital real estate, but when people want to find you and find SMZ, where should they go to find you? JAMIE: It starts with smz.com, which is our website. That also houses our blog and the podcast I do called Generation Excellence, which is for those who are really interested in that very niche-y space of generational family businesses. And then SMZ Advertising is on all of the social platforms, sharing stories of our people, our clients, our work, a little thought leadership, little bit of our fun and things that we do to stay connected, which is a big effort right now inside of work and outside of work. I guess that would probably be about it. I welcome anyone who wants to reach out to me via the email address on the site, or call me. I\u2019m open to talk about this business. I\u2019m very fortunate to steward a unique and special place, and I want to put my energies against it being successful, but I love helping others. ROB: Definitely. Congratulations on being 92 going on 100 as a firm. That is exciting. JAMIE: For those who can\u2019t see me, the firm\u2019s 92. I\u2019m a little bit younger than that. ROB: [laughs] Yeah. We\u2019ll see what a 100-year-old SMZ looks like. We\u2019ll look forward to that. Jamie, I wish you and the team the best. Thank you for coming on the podcast. JAMIE: I thank you for having me on this. I like that you blend the individual story and the business story, because they are intertwined and interconnected. ROB: In this kind of firm, absolutely. They\u2019re inseparable. JAMIE: Yep. Thanks, Rob. ROB: Thanks, Jamie. Be well. 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":"