Darren Avrea:  

We came up with, “More than fast, more than signs.” That was the tagline that we felt really told the story.

Announcer:

Welcome to the podcast, B2B Insights — our take on a podcast series where we dive in and discuss all things B2B marketing. B2B Insights is brought to you by AvreaFoster, one of the most respected brand and digital marketing agencies in the Southwest. At AvreaFoster, we build authentic relationships so brands can grow and prosper. Learn more at avreafoster.com.

Dave Foster:

Welcome to the podcast, B2B insights. I’m Dave Foster, and today I have with us my business partner, Darren Avrea. Welcome, Darren.

Darren Avrea:

Hey, good to be here, Dave; thank you.

Dave:

Oh, absolutely. We kind of have some special insights for you today. We’re talking about all the interesting things that happened to AvreaFoster over its 30-plus-year history, and some of the benchmarks that kind of are important to us and thought we might share with you. 

And so we, you know, we think about the humble beginnings that we had and the changes that happened over those 30-plus years. It’s amazing the things that have happened in technology and how we go to market with our clients, and just all the different things that might be interesting to our listenership. So we wanted to kind of start with the origin of our story, and kind of where Darren and I met some, you know, we say 35 years. Sometimes we say 36 years. We lost track. I always count my daughter’s age as our agency age, because we started the business about six months before my daughter was born. And talk about a motivator— that was something that really kept us going in the beginning days.

Darren:

Talk about motivation, but more than one thing that kept you up at night.

Dave:

Yeah, exactly right — no kidding. But in the beginning, it was interesting. I was with a company that was a commodity futures brokerage firm and a securities firm — back in the day of kind of what they call the Billionaire Boys Club. And it was a crazy time — right out of college and started this company —  and we had an opportunity to hire an ad agency, and that’s where I met you, Darren, for the first time. When you had a previous agency. 

Darren:  

Yep, Avrea/Pugliese.

Dave:

Yeah, that’s right, that’s right, and I’ll never forget that day. It seems like it was yesterday. But, you know, we had a need to expand our business, and you guys came in and pitched the business all those years ago and actually won the business.

Darren: 

Well, you know, it was interesting because we were all young. I mean, you guys were young — younger than me and Pugliese, but so we were all kind of in a weird learning curve. I guess you might say it was probably the ultimate, “ you don’t know what you don’t know,” right, on both sides of the fence there. But actually we had been in business for quite some time, for, you know, 10/15 years, and this was a neat opportunity to see this group of guys that were making some moves, you know, here in Dallas, as well as other markets. So it was kind of an interesting time, kind of an interesting industry, even back in those days — comparatively speaking to now, of course — but it was a good education for me.

Dave:

Absolutely, absolutely. And so we had a great working relationship those years that we worked together as kind of client/agency, and I had that opportunity to sell out of that business and start a new company in the early days of when computerization was something totally new in the agency world. No one really knew about the Apple Mac in those days, and we were doing things the old-fashioned way, by hand.

Darren: 

Now that 30-year-plus thing comes into focus rather.

Dave:

That’s right. I hate to admit it, but I don’t know how we got anything done in those days —  it was a very manual process, a very manual process. So I saw an opportunity to help agencies become technology-literate and adopt the Mac within their environment. And so we switched roles. Avrea/Pugliese became a client of mine, and I helped the agency at the time embrace computerization, and I did that with several agencies in the market. 

And so that was an interesting time. You know, maybe over a couple of years period, and a great work relationship, we made the decision to, “What the heck? Let’s form an agency together.” We had an incredible working relationship and so, you know, we grew to be friends from being partners in the beginning, and that’s the best way to go. But we grew really fast in those young years. We were scrappy. We were young. We, you know, helped mainly B2B companies at the time because we wanted to focus on business to business, even that long ago — companies like Word Publishing, the largest Christian publisher in the United States, [and] Team Bank, a regional bank in the market.

Darren: 

Which is what Team Bank — which is now JPMorgan Chase.

Dave:

So, quite a few changes in that marketplace. We were very fortunate in that we ended up working with Bank One — I think it was Team Bank, then Bank One and then now JPMorgan. But when they were part of Bank One, we picked up Compaq, and I remember it was just a small little project for Compaq. Bank One was doing leasing for Compaq product, and so we grew relationships there at Compaq and then that turned into a huge client for us. IBM, Dell — we had a lot of technology clients back in those days. Even commercial real estate as well, [such as] Trammell Crow, and had some great experiences there. So it was a humble beginning, and we grew fast in those early years because we, you know, focused on our client success, and we were very focused on B2B, even still today.

Darren: 

We learned some lessons, too, back then. Dave said we certainly had the opportunity, and we’re lucky. And in respect of the fact that we were working with several different technology companies, one of the things that companies — I think, even today, you know — you get a little bit centric with a certain industry, and everybody knows about the bust, right? So we did have a lot of technology, a few fringe clients and then, all of a sudden, that taught us a great lesson early on: to diversify. So that was kind of an interesting point in time. I mean, it wasn’t devastating, but it certainly got our attention.

Dave: 

Definitely got our attention. You know, that was in the dot-com boom and then bust. And we had a lot of those dot-com companies that were private equity, private equity-funded. And, you know, not making a dime, but we’re spending a lot of money at that time. And so, yeah, we, you know, it’s interesting all the different cycles that we’ve been through over the 30-plus years. But we, you know, we had a great opportunity to grow the business those first 10 years and an opportunity came around in 2001 to actually join the Omnicom network of agencies, and so we sold the business to Omnicom. 

It was quite an interesting process to go through. [We] learned a lot during that — and our strategy really, at the time, was to grow the business within the Omnicom network, because there were very few — if only one or two — B2B agencies within that huge network. And so it was a great opportunity to get into that network and collaborate with the other Omnicom agencies. And we were grossly successful doing that — even so, scaling a strategy where agency teams integrated together for a client’s benefit, kind of bringing best in class together to collaborate within the marketplace. We called it the Southwest Lunch Club, and we would get together once a month and talk about opportunities in the marketplace where we could, you know, expand our offerings to our clients and that went global. And so that was a great experience.

Darren: 

I mean, you know, when you’re fairly young in the business, and you’re reading Ad Age and Ad Week and everything, and you’re always looking at the national and global agencies and, you know, you kind of are a little curious about it, because that’s kind of out of your world somewhat when you’re a smaller, modest company. So we did, did get a peek inside that world, which was kind of neat along the way. They’re people, too, so it’s not really that, you know, earth-shattering in some ways  once you get in. But just the working environment, where we had our niche within an account, and certainly could see what we were contributing, which was kind of neat, alongside of the major agency and the one that had really more face time than we did with the actual client. But that was a great experience for sure to kind of get, get that opportunity.

Dave: 

Yeah, yeah. You know, you think about the mystique of those global agencies. You know, once we started working with them, we realized that we had just the same kind of intelligence and strategy and offering that they did. They just had a much bigger footprint.

Darren: 

A different machine and they operate differently. You know, we certainly thought, you know, we fit in well. We were so used to doing things so quickly. There was a timeframe, and probably rightly so. Some of these decisions, some of these deliveries, were large, so they probably did take a little more time to think through and make it, make it right.

Dave:

So roll the clock forward 10 years to 2011 and we had an opportunity, because things were changing in the marketplace, and we made the decision to make a run at acquiring the business back out of Omnicom. And that opportunity did transpire itself. It was actually Independence Day, July 4th of 2011, we made the announcement we had closed the deal and reacquired the agency back out of Omnicom.

I think we need to write a book about that someday, because it’s rare that people get to sell their business and then also acquire it back out. We learned a lot through those two transactions, and both were great. The executives at Omnicom were fantastic to work with — some of the smartest people I know, and we gained huge respect for them during those processes.

Darren: 

And we still talk with a lot of the brethren today. You know, of course, you don’t lose friends over anything like that. It was great. We were so appreciative of what we did learn through that experience, and it was some great insight into the advertising world that we didn’t know.

Dave:

So moving from there, you know, you think about those opportunities that we’ve had over the 30 years — really working with some of the most respected and well-known brands in the world, really. Let’s talk a minute about maybe some of those highlights, Darren. You think about the opportunities and challenges that we’ve had, you know, CMOs and executive teams, they move around within organizations and company dynamics change. Clients part ways, they always do but, you know, I can probably count on one hand the number of times that we left a client relationship due to our own making. And ironically, obviously, a lot of those relationships returned to us. And, you know, we moved to the new company when they moved over to that new brand. But, anyway, what is a memorable moment for you from a client perspective?

Darren: 

I think one of the early-on ones that was certainly a very public company: Southwest Airlines. I mean, everyone knew of Southwest Airlines — its uniqueness in the industry, as well as just the leadership. I mean, they kind of walked to a different drummer, sort of thing, or drummed, whatever that phrase is.

Herb Kelleher, and just his leadership and spontaneity and things that, of course, all the other airlines were probably not doing the same way. And it was very successful. As everyone knows, they had their own differentiators, and we kind of were able to, you know, support all of that in various ways. I mean, we had so many different pieces of that marketing work. 

GSD&M was the major agency. We were a support agency that worked there,  but we had unique projects, too — everything from designing, at the time, the drink coupon books to — before 9/11 — we were able to market things within the gate areas, at the airport, at Love Field, which was also around the country, for different sponsorships that that they would have, whether it was the NFL or the hockey leagues or whatever. So that was kind of just a very visible sort of event in itself in each gate area for Southwest, which was great at the time. It was [a] real fun exercise working with, of course, the people at Southwest. Everybody’s in a good mood at Southwest, you know, they’re always doing well. It’s like to have a birthday party every day. It seemed like when we’d go over to have a meeting, and they’re all just, you know — it’s not that work wasn’t important, but it’s like work is fun and it made it fun for us. We had a great opportunity. It was back during the day when the internet was kind of taking on a salesmanship role. They had their initial website, which was very modest and it was just pretty much for brand, not a whole lot of information. We had the opportunity to go in and work with them to actually do that sale of a ticket online and really decrease the amount of steps it took to purchase a ticket.

It was really quite the day when you look back on it now, as far as just how rudimentary everything was, but it was very successful, really kind of leapfrogged them ahead, you know, with that regard of a purchase of a ticket, and worked out well for us.

Other things along the way: Actually, our real job for Southwest was to handle a lot of their loyalty program, which was they would partner with automotive rental cars, hotels, credit cards and we would market to all the customer base of all those organizations, you know, under the Southwest brand, and pulling them in to use Southwest and become members of the Southwest frequent flyer Rapid Rewards club. So, great memories. Gosh, we worked with Southwest well over a decade, and it was, it was really a memorable event, [and the] people we dealt with.

Dave: 

I’ll never forget the, you know, the website at the time was built by committee, like a lot of those websites were back in those days. And I remember it was a ticket counter. When you typed in Southwest.com, you ended up on what looked like a ticket counter, yeah. And they had a little brochure and a little rack, and you had to click on the brochure to open the brochure to see the flight schedule. I mean, that’s how rudimentary it was when we came on the scene.

Darren: 

And it had a photograph of Herb behind it, like sitting on the wall.

Dave: 

This was early days, this was back in, what, the 1990s. There were not the technologies that we have today. There were not the strategies that we have today. And I can remember, you know, our goal was to reduce the number of steps it took — to your point — about how many clicks it took to buy a ticket. And, at the time, you couldn’t even buy a ticket on American Airlines and so everybody was racing to be able to do this. And I remember our test bed for actually acquiring a ticket in a certain number of seconds was the head of marketing’s father in a Midwest town on dial-up. And if he could not buy that ticket within that certain amount of time on dial-up, we went back to the drawing board. 

And so, you know, you roll the clock today to all the testing strategies that we have today on website development, it’s, it’s just kind of almost laughable in terms of, that was our, that was our benchmark. And so we’ve learned a lot since then. And of course, yeah, just the great relationships with Herb Kelleher and all the different executive teams there. What a great, great company. One that stands out for me is probably Dell in those days, when we had a lot of technology clients. We, through relationships, started working with Dell and, again, had a lot of technology clients at the time. But I guess probably one of the most memorable branding projects was Dell came to us and said, “Hey, look, we’ve got this global brand that’s very well known, that has become very bifurcated, if you will, or dissected across different business units. And we’re challenged that we’re eroding the brand in the marketplace globally. Help us out.” And so that was quite an undertaking — to take a global brand, do an audit across all different constituents, and come up with a cohesive way to kind of bring it all back together.

Darren: 

Anyone that’s ever worked with companies that have a pretty large national or global brand floating around: You have so many entities that use that, especially the brand look and feel, and you’ve got brand guidelines that sometimes people, you know, don’t necessarily abide by. And that was, that was the problem. I mean, they were using all different variations of the word Dell, you know. And it was, they were so busy and so successful. They were moving so fast. Nobody could stop and, you know, wrangle all that together. And that was kind of our assignment, was to say, whoops, you know, we need to bring everybody back to the well, the Dell well, so that everybody’s again, using the same thing. And following the guidelines, the rules.

Another one that was a great account for us during those times, that really dealt with what we just talked about with Dell, was you have an entity that was really large, which was Trammell Crow company at the time — certainly the largest developer in the United States. I wouldn’t say it was a problem. It was just some issues. As normally happens, everybody’s moving quickly. Everybody’s trying to do the best and, in the spirit of getting work out the door and putting promotional materials together in a quick way, and it was difficult to abide sometimes by the guidelines. 

So we had that same assignment — working with Crow to kind of make sure that we stayed the course and had it all looking consistent throughout. Now, what also happened at the time? There was some economic downturn. Crow, being the largest developer, wasn’t doing a whole lot of developing from a particular point in time going forward. And so we helped to kind of pivot and, from a strategic perspective, highlight a little bit more the profile that they had with regard to being a service business instead of just [being] known as a developer. So we kind of increased the exposure of the brokerage side, the service side in general. So we had to, you know, kind of expand the brand to accommodate that and to kind of share that space with the development side. So that was kind of an interesting assignment from a larger brand perspective. 

Then, a few years after that, Trammel Crow company was acquired by CBRE. So that was another sort of way to define and to deliver the Trammell Crow brand as it rolled into CBRE. So, over a decade, we pretty much had some three major brand sort of pivots, I guess you might say, and refinements to tell that story and to make sure that they fit into place. So that was an exciting experience for us over all those years. Great company. Of course, everybody knows of that company. And how many people have come and gone from that company and started their own companies. You know, it’s an unbelievable story. 

Dave:

Definitely. One that’s impactful for me was Omni Hotels and Resorts. We had that business for goodness, like, seven or eight years, and really drove impactful marketing for Omni. An incredibly well-run company, even to this day, [and] built some of the most beautiful hotels and resorts in the world, really, and have a strong brand — and we had an impact on that brand. It was interesting that when you think about a hospitality brand like that, it is truly B2B, because they were big in meetings and conventions. And so we helped them grow that business. While we had it, they also acquired resort properties, and so we helped them get into that as well, too. And so talk about really, an exciting and cool time in their growth history, when we were involved opening different properties in Nashville and just really all over the country.

Darren: 

A lot of legacy properties around the country.

Dave:

So anyway, just kind of cool, high-profile, exciting campaigns that we did for them. 

Darren: 

Another interesting assignment for us was FASTSIGNS. Sure, everyone’s heard of that company. They’ve been around a long time, and they’ve always been known, or at least they thought they were, and I think they were correct in, you know, that’s where you went to get your posters done. You know, the soccer moms would get all their things, you know, implemented there, which is great, and certainly continues to this day to be that. But where they were wanting to grow and grow was on the business side and actually have a little bit more of a business personality aligned with the other side of the business. So that’s where our B2B sort of finesse came in. And we were fortunate to join forces with them and help them with that effort — you know, go from that soccer mom to more of a corporate spin on a certain amount of their work, so that they were recognized in that corporate world and all those opportunities that could come to them via that understanding. 

So we were working with, how do we define that? We’re not going to change the name from FASTSIGNS. That was understood. I mean, that was the mandate. It was not going to change. So how are we going to, you know, reacquaint people, especially the business community, into the fact that they were moving beyond just what they were known for. And so we came up with all different types of taglines, you know, and different kindS of statements and this and that. And  what can you say in very few words, as you know, to really reclaim that, or to say something that would take them somewhere else. We came up with, “More than fast, more than signs.” That was the tagline that we, we felt really told the story. All of a sudden, you know, they kind of went from getting it quick. I mean, that’s a great thing, but in the business world, you know, you want to, want to make sure you do it right and you have some strategy and some thinking through some kind of a way to get to A to Z in a different way than you would to do a birthday party, so to speak. 

“More than fast, more than signs”, okay that’s, again, everybody thinks of a poster, you know, or a banner they were able to now, through the business community, come in and do like work that an ad agency would do, right? They would come in and kind of give you signage, give you things that would work, you know, for your marketing campaigns — outbound or internal. So it was, it was a great experience. They’ve got over 3,000 franchisees. It’s a huge company, and they’re incredible. And I think we helped at least kickstart that thinking and push them into that, that new market, which I think really took off and, today, of course, is very successful — continuing to be.

Dave: 

I’ll never forget the pitch for that business. We were up against, I think, five or six different agencies, and we know we came in with that, “More than fast, more than signs and pitched that in the, in the room with the executive team. And it was interesting because, when we won the business, they said, you know, that was right under our nose, and we didn’t, yeah, it was just too obvious because we could not change the name, you’re right. We could not change FASTSIGNS the name, but we could do anything else. And so that was a great way to message that. So these are just a few of the, you know, interesting things that have happened to the agency with our clients over the years.

And we’re so proud of our existing clients that we have, you know, we were able to do some really exciting work in the health tech space and healthcare, you know, in continuing in commercial real estate, in AI, new clients that we have that are pioneering in the, you know, AI space, and so we’re just proud of all the different clients that we’ve had all these years, and still have and maintain a lot of those relationships.

So we talk about inflection points in our clients’ history, and we love coming into a client when they are going through an inflection point — whether that’s a merger or an acquisition, or something’s happening, a change in leadership, something like that. So we thought we might just talk a minute about the transformations that we have gone through. We firmly believe that we need to reinvent the agency about every seven years. Our marketplace is changing so dramatically and so quickly and has so over those 30 years. You know, when you think about it, when we started the business, Darren, there was no mobile device. A mobile device did not exist. Oh, my goodness. How did we get anything done? Computerization, you know, of ad agencies was really in its infancy. There was no internet when we started.

Darren: 

Well, and I know when you were the guy that came in and helped, you know, the other agency that we had, I thought the computer was merely an option. And I said, you know, I think I’m going to stay here on the drafting table and send my type out, you know, to a typesetting company. Little did I know that, you know, that was such a tidal wave for those industries, you know, all of a sudden it was definitely the ultimate game-changer — at least in our industry. 

Dave:

Well, like I mentioned there, you know, there was no internet. Interesting fact is, Compaq was one of our clients, as we’ve mentioned, and we were the first vendor to email with Compaq. I mean, think about that. So I guess we were kind of somewhat cutting-edge, maybe bleeding-edge, in those early days and trying to bring technology into our business and into our industry. 

You know, it goes without saying that there’s been a lot of changes during that 30- plus-year history, and there’s going to continue to be going forward — even at a faster rate. You know, when we kind of started out, traditional advertising was, you know, the standard print, TV, radio, direct mail, collateral, a whole lot of collateral. And I’d say that kind of those first 10 years was all traditional advertising. The second 10 was really the birth of the internet and the impact websites and web development had on the business and the industry, and we really raced to that, and, you know, to keen understanding that it’s the biggest marketing tool, especially in B2B. 

And then really the third decade, you know, is the rapid growth of digital channels and automation. And now, of course, you know, artificial intelligence and where that’s going to take us in terms of doing things quicker, faster, more efficiently, analytics and data analysis, just, you know, all the new things that are happening in our business. So all of that disruption was a good thing. It kept us on our toes and made sure that we were out in front of the market.

Darren: 

You know, it’s interesting, too, Dave, when just the span of time — as people do from time to time, you know, talk about your grandparents or whatever — that you know guys, they didn’t have cars, and then all of a sudden they’ve seen somebody step on the moon, and all those sort of kind of decades that go by, ours is somewhat similar from a different perspective. In some ways. I look at it as though, you know, there’s still a baseline of creative thinking and all those sorts of things that are — it’s interesting to bring that history into even today. I think there’s an appreciation for that. There’s things that never go away. You know, an idea is an idea in some ways, and I think even some blends even now that go back to a little bit more old-school thinking. You know, it really sets things apart in this digital-centric world, which is kind of an interesting way to look at marketing products and services. It’s kind of a, it’s kind of neat to have seen a different way to do things and blended in the way they’re done now, and how those two marry or not.

Dave:

You know, if somebody asked us how we made the transformation to a full-service digital agency, I think that might be kind of interesting. You know, initially, we partnered with digital experts and web developers to kind of support our clients’ needs. And that was very tough. It was a tough thing to do, you know, it’s kind of like you can’t freelance client service, and you can’t freelance certain things in your business, and that was one of the things that we really struggled with. And so,  over time, we recognized the importance of kind of owning that digital process and providing us kind of a seamless view across all brand touchpoints, no matter what type of media or medium that you were using. And, so to meet those needs, we brought everything in-house and created that kind of fully integrated approach to digital marketing. And today, I’m very proud that we offer that full suite, you know, in-house. It’s that connected tissue that enables us to go from brand to web development to digital strategy to digital marketing and market and then also, obviously, you know, employee communications. It’s helped us and enabled us to be able to do that much more efficiently. And our clients see that, and they understand that that’s an important part of efficiency and, you know, truly affecting their bottom line. Let’s talk a second about kind of our brand process, you know, you think about those four things that I just mentioned, and, you know, kind of gets you up in the morning, Darren, about our brand-building process?

Darren:  

Yeah, what gets me up in the morning to think about the brand-building process? Dave, you know, those first 10 years even going into the second 10 years, you know, we kind of evolved. I’d say we were truly a brand agency early on, but we were also pretty much a design firm, you know, back during the print days and all those sorts of things. So not a whole lot of agencies, you know, work from the standpoint of media planning and buying and all those sort of things. Everything was pretty much weighted toward the creative, which tied right into the brand – a lot of times were a full-service agency. So we were actually complementing brands along the way. You know, we were abiding by their brand standards. You know, with IBM and some of these companies where we had the knowledge base of what a brand should be, and all that sort of thing. But we were working under the guidelines of others. 

As we’ve grown and become agencies of record, agency of record for companies, you’re almost, you know, you have a new sort of connection than we did in years past. Where we have a lot more access to C-level people, people really making decisions, people that are the company. And so that allows us to become part of the company, you know, almost like part of the family. So what you do when you wake up in the morning, you do think that, you know, you’ve got this overall understanding of everything that needs to tie together in that brand. You’re not just doing the one-offs, and you’re not just the freelancer anymore, so to speak. You are the ones that are guiding it and owning it. So I think to have a process in place, you know, is vital, of course, and that’s what we’ve kind of evolved into is that conscious effort, you know — you’re retained by somebody. You should be and are paid for thinking about it all day long and every day. So, so I think everything that we put in, you know, is so focused, and so it has that thread that goes through everything, the continuity and all the understanding of how it does tie together into the universe of their brand has been a great thing for us, and I think that’s what’s made us successful. And, frankly, we’ve had these relationships longer term sometimes than others only because we have been so focused on that understanding.

Dave: 

I’ll probably put our brand process up against anybody’s, you know. We’ve really, over the course of our history, honed that process over time and today. It represents thousands and really, thousands of hours of testing and usage. You know, we truly say that we dig deeper than any other agency, and it’s interesting, not to say anything negative about any other agency, and that’s not the point here, but we do sometimes come in second place. It just happens when we pitch business, especially brand work. But it’s amazing how many clients come back to us after they have maybe failed with that agency that they selected, because we do truly dig deeper. It’s not surface level branding. I mean, it really does get into the DNA of a business and gets to the heart of their purpose and their meaning in the marketplace, and how that all translates itself, through their marketing. So, we’ve had some great success there. When we think about our longevity, what does that mean? You know, I think it’s a lot about our people, and the caring attitude that we have about our people. Our values actually have caring as one of the core tenants. We have courage to lead. Be curious, all in, be intentional and caring. And a lot of companies are afraid of using that word, but we’re not. We truly care for our team and believe in the service profit chain. You know, you keep your people happy, they keep the clients happy, and that equals profits. So anyway, I think that’s probably what has helped our longevity is just staying focused on our people. 

Dave: 

So we’ve covered a lot of ground today, just kind of wrapping things up. Maybe we answer the question, do you have any advice for those two young entrepreneurs who started AvreaFoster 30 plus years ago? I’ll take a stab. Maybe, try not to lose so much sleep over the small things. That’s easy to say, well, I don’t know, sometimes still losing sleep. But you’re supposed to sweat the small things. You know, that’s an important part of obviously, growing a business over time, and if you don’t pay attention to those small things, that’s what gets you in trouble. But just don’t try to lose much sleep over it. I think probably listen well. You know, sometimes people talk so much you can’t hear what they’re saying. And so, I’ve learned over the years just to make sure that you listen really well. You can do your job much better, and you can understand from an empathetic perspective what others are saying, and just be able to deliver for your clients better when you listen well. So those are my two.

Darren: 

Absolutely, totally buy into this as well. I think what’s really been great for us again, when you can reflect back over your career and just over, the environment you’ve been in, whatever it is, and in life in general. Relationships are keen relationships, not only certainly there that have borne work for us, but also relationships that continue because of those introductions. I think people like to work with people, of course, that they like and that they understand and they get along with – the other relationship piece, as far as defining it for us the one thing that really sticks out is you have a great working relationship with someone, and because it seems like now, more than ever, it’s pretty transitional and people move around, we’ve been very fortunate to have people that have come to us, that have gone to other places, and then get in touch with us to go there at their new place. That’s just, I guess that’s kind of a reflection of those understandings and relationships. So I would say that would be my big thing, just over all these years, and how great to spend all the people that you meet, no matter what you do, just going through life, you meet a lot of people that are genuine relationships that you’ve developed, you know you can’t beat them, and it’s been a great ride. 

Dave: 

Well, we hope this has given you a small glimpse into a 35 year history of our agency, and we just appreciate the opportunities that we’ve been given over all these years, not only with our clients, but with our coworkers as well too. Thanks for listening.

Announcer:  

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