[00:00:00] Voice Over: Nashville is alive with music. Sure. But creativity also thrives in our art, marketing, technology, food, and in every corner of our community. On Creative Assemblies, the Spark Podcast, our mission is to amplify Nashville’s diverse creative voices, foster growth through shared journeys, and inspire a city that thrives on collaboration.

[00:00:22] Voice Over: Each episode will take a deep dive into the lives and passions of Nashville’s most innovative minds. We’ll explore their creative processes, the challenges they face, and power of collaboration. Along with so much more, welcome to the Spark Podcast, brought to you by Snapshot, a digital agency on a mission to serve with heart, execute with excellence, and build something bigger together.

[00:00:46] Voice Over: And now here’s the spark.

[00:00:48] Mark Scrivner: Thanks for joining us today on the Spark Podcast. I’m super excited about today’s episode. I get to share it with one of my good friends, Lauren Reed Williams with, Reed Public [00:01:00] Relations. Really excited to have her. You on the show, Lauren? This is gonna be a great episode and can’t wait to hear about your journey.

[00:01:07] Mark Scrivner: Lauren, why don’t you just, tell the audience just a little bit about you and, and what got you started in this, journey.

[00:01:14] Lauren Reed: Absolutely. Thanks Mark. I am super excited to be here as well in your beautiful podcast studio. I actually am one of the few people who at age 18, I declared PR as my major and.

[00:01:28] Lauren Reed: 24 years later, I’m still in it. So my journey to public relations, I have always, and I didn’t, I couldn’t have articulated this at, 18 years old, freshman in college, but I always have loved the psychology behind. Getting in public relations and, what does it take for a brand or for an organization or a coalition to get their message and then for people to take action, I love really digging into the consumer, the end [00:02:00] user, a business’s audience to figure out what do they need to hear, and then how can we make it mutually beneficial.

[00:02:06] Lauren Reed: So that is what initially drew me to the industry and. I think it’s been a good fit. I, so I majored in pr. I started at. An agency two days outta college entry level. I was their fourth employee. Wow. We grew to about 40 employees. I stayed there eight years and then I started Reed, so I literally have spent the past, 24 years immersed in.

[00:02:32] Lauren Reed: The PR and marketing industry, which, is, blended together over the years. feel like everything is marketing communications these days. But that was my journey to pr.

[00:02:42] Mark Scrivner: Wow.

[00:02:42] Lauren Reed: Specifically

[00:02:43] Mark Scrivner: everybody comes from somewhere. And with that, that your first PR agency, who was it that you worked with?

[00:02:50] Lauren Reed: Yeah, it was an agency called Perus out of Louisville. Okay. Yeah. And actually, Perus, as I knew it is no longer in existence, but a wonderful [00:03:00] former colleague of mine who I actually helped hire, took it over in Alabama and is now running a very successful. Paired is 2.0 in Birmingham, Alabama.

[00:03:10] Mark Scrivner: Oh, that’s awesome. And Lauren, one thing that I’ve just known about you, just since we’ve we’ve worked together and known each other is that, I don’t think you ever come across as like the smartest person in the room. You’re always out there looking for people that can, you can surround yourself with Yeah.

[00:03:26] Mark Scrivner: To help you. And you’ve always had really good like mentors along the way. Absolutely. Maybe if you could lean into just a couple people that have made a big impact in your journey.

[00:03:37] Lauren Reed: Yeah, absolutely. You’re correct in that. I definitely have always. I know what I don’t know, and I know I wanna surround myself with people.

[00:03:48] Lauren Reed: So when I, my first job I had wonderful bosses who I learned so much from when I left to start Reed, I actually didn’t know I was starting Reed. I just knew, I [00:04:00] was gonna freelance for a little while, while I looked for a new job. I had hit a point of pretty extreme burnout. And there were some other things going on at the agency that prompted me to put in my notice without a job in place, which for those who know me, is shocking because I am such a planner.

[00:04:16] Lauren Reed: I’m actually for an entrepreneur. I’m not a huge risk taker. I’m pretty conservative when it comes to that. A day after, and this actually is gonna lead into how I met you, a day after I left, a woman who I’d been close with, Hannah Paramore. It was Hannah Paramore at the time. It’s Hannah Paramore Breen.

[00:04:34] Lauren Reed: Now, I had gotten to know her because my agency I was working with had the public relations account for the City of Gatlinburg and her agency, Paramore Digital, had the digital and web. Work. And she heard I had left and reached out and said, Hey, can you come to my office? And I’m oh my gosh, Hannah’s gonna offer me a job.

[00:04:55] Lauren Reed: This is gonna be great, or she’s gonna help me find a job. And then when I met with [00:05:00] her, she said, you are not getting a job. You are a business owner if I’ve ever seen one. Wow. And she said, you’re starting a PR agency. And I know you’ve met Hannah and her. So picture 29-year-old Lauren who has this hero worship, for this woman running this amazing agency.

[00:05:15] Lauren Reed: And I’m just yes ma’am. Wow. Okay. And I needed to hear someone else say it. ’cause I didn’t believe in myself enough to do it. It hadn’t even crossed my mind Yeah. To start an agency. And so with that, she said, here’s my banker, here’s my CPA. Here’s an attorney, name of an attorney to help you get, everything set up.

[00:05:37] Lauren Reed: And by the way, I wanna be your first client and hired me on the spot right there. So that was, a day after I’d left. And then I had a couple other clients quickly sign on. But another thing Hannah said to me that day was, you need to get your revenue. For your first year, a minimum of a quarter of a million dollars because there’s this program called Catalyst through [00:06:00] Entrepreneur, entrepreneurs Organization, and you have to be in that.

[00:06:04] Lauren Reed: So I was okay, your one goal set and I think I made it by $20.

[00:06:10] Mark Scrivner: That’s unbelievable that Hannah just, she. Help give you the confidence. And that’s for a lot of agency owners or a lot of people in business. It just takes that one person that tells you you can go do this.

[00:06:25] Mark Scrivner: For it to be possible.

[00:06:26] Lauren Reed: Yeah, absolutely. So that then moves on to how we met. And so I qualified for Catalyst. I started it when my business was right at the year. Mark. It couldn’t have been better timing by then. I had one employee, I think one employee, yeah. We were still in, a little coworking space, but I joined Catalyst and a perk of that program is you get a mentor with eo and I was lucky enough to be assigned to you, mark.

[00:06:56] Lauren Reed: Oh

[00:06:56] Mark Scrivner: man. Thank you. I think I’ve always told you this. I think I [00:07:00] learned. More from you than I gave to you, but, I don’t think so. I appreciate you, you saying that,

[00:07:05] Lauren Reed: but what I felt like I got from our mentoring sessions, was you were always just so open. About everything. Like I remember both of us pulling our p and ls out and you showing me certain things to look at and me, I always felt like I could come to you with the full outlook of my business and you would provide feedback, not judgment, but feedback.

[00:07:28] Lauren Reed: And I remember a lot of situations. by the time we started working together, I’m like a half a million dollar agency. We’re still super small and that first big hire or decisions seem so much heavier at that size. Yeah. And I always appreciated having you as a sounding board.

[00:07:46] Mark Scrivner: Wow. Thank you for saying that. I think it’s so important for a mentor mentee relationship to be that open with each other. Yeah. And I’ve always just approached it of. Hey, anything that you need, [00:08:00] I want to share it with anybody I mentor. And so I really appreciate you pointing that out.

[00:08:04] Mark Scrivner: And of course, if you’re an agency owner out there and you’re listening to this podcast, be looking for a mentor Absolutely. Somebody to help you out. Like Hannah, you were super lucky. And gosh, when we launched our business, in 2010 it was like, hopefully someday we will be.

[00:08:20] Mark Scrivner: Comparable to a Paramore ’cause I’m just so impressed with what Hannah and the team over there had done over the years. Yeah. Yeah. Lauren, let me ask you, just as you got into Catalyst, you’re starting to move up now you’re doing some decent revenue, you’re hiring a few people. You’ve had an incredible journey.

[00:08:38] Mark Scrivner: And I guess with that, tell us about some of the highs that have stuck with you along the way. Maybe Yeah. Things that stood out. And then maybe afterwards we’ll go to maybe just a low point. Yeah.

[00:08:49] Lauren Reed: I’ve

[00:08:50] Mark Scrivner: had ’em because we all, we all, we all have ’em in this world. ‘

[00:08:53] Lauren Reed: em, I’ve had ’em. I always joke, my business has a guardian angel.

[00:08:56] Lauren Reed: We’ll talk about that when we get to the low points. ’cause there have been some experiences where I’m [00:09:00] like, how did we get through that? So a hype, let’s see. There have been so many highs. Yeah. My favorite moment is always when you land the big account, and then it’s of course followed by the, oh crap, we gotta staff the big account.

[00:09:15] Lauren Reed: But before that thought crosses you

[00:09:18] Mark Scrivner: landed? Yeah,

[00:09:19] Lauren Reed: we landed it, we did this. I don’t think it’s any one big moment, but it’s accumulation of a hundred small moments. It’s sitting around. The kitchen in our office with my team and I’m getting chills now and thinking how, wow. I started this company from my kitchen table out of desperation, not even knowing I was starting a company.

[00:09:40] Lauren Reed: And look at all of these relationships that have formed, right? It’s driving downtown, through downtown when family’s in town on a Friday night and being oh yeah, that’s our client. And oh, we opened that restaurant and that, and Nashville in 2012 is very different than Nashville in 2025.

[00:09:57] Lauren Reed: So even though we have grown [00:10:00] beyond Nashville, probably 60% of our clients are not local at this point. But to see the hand we’ve had and the role we’ve gotten to play and it’s been a privilege to be so involved in so much of Nashville’s growth over the years. I moved here when I was 10, so I’m very passionate about this city.

[00:10:17] Mark Scrivner: Wow. And starting it at such a young age and really being what they say all the time is you an accidental agency owner. You landed your first client and it’s oh man, now I gotta go hire my first person. And oh, now I have a little company. And

[00:10:31] Lauren Reed: yeah. How do

[00:10:32] Mark Scrivner: we build on this? And

[00:10:33] Lauren Reed: then all of a sudden you look around one day and there’s 15 mouths to feed.

[00:10:37] Mark Scrivner: Yeah. But maybe share with the audience, if you don’t mind, share, maybe. Yeah. One of the lower points, and it doesn’t have to be specific, but maybe Yeah. A point where we all go through, yeah. That are oh man, you question. Am I the right person? It’s almost that imposter syndrome of always, I started this company and always should I even be here?

[00:10:59] Mark Scrivner: Was there a [00:11:00] low point that kind of sticks out to you and maybe help us as an audience, how’d you get through it?

[00:11:06] Lauren Reed: Yeah, so as I mentioned a moment ago, I. The low points have always reinforced for me that I’m aligned with my path and I’m supposed to be running this business. ’cause I can think, I can count a handful of times where I’m wow, that should have taken us down, from a senior employee many years ago, stealing.

[00:11:28] Lauren Reed: Finding out that, someone you were close to had been stealing from your company to, the pandemic, I can’t, I’m not alone in that, but, we were heavily consumer focused at the time and we lost 40% of our revenue in two weeks, and we had just moved into our brand new office space.

[00:11:45] Lauren Reed: I had signed a 10 year lease on, I have visions of bankruptcy dancing through my head. March, let’s say 20th of 2020. let’s go with that one because I think we can all relate to, but it’s not specific to COVID. It’s a huge [00:12:00] revenue loss. I think we’ve all been in a situation where maybe we were a little over leveraged with one client. I always try to no client more than 20% of our revenue. And, we dance above it and we dance below it. But, you’re never gonna turn down the work either. you can’t say, oh, I’m sorry, you’re getting too big.

[00:12:16] Lauren Reed: So we all are there at times. But we were too heavy in consumer, we were doing water, parks, hotels, restaurants, all the fun. Fluffy, very meaningful, but the more fun work that my team was gravitating to, and the consumer work for us always is higher in the summer. It just, it always is.

[00:12:37] Lauren Reed: So we were really heavy consumer and then, the lockdowns happen and I remember one day just sitting there, my phone just kept ringing and I’m I just want to hit, ignore. I cannot have another contract pause. And I, I didn’t, I. That’s the only time I can say I didn’t know if my agency would make it through.

[00:12:59] Lauren Reed: [00:13:00] So

[00:13:00] Mark Scrivner: how’d you get through it?

[00:13:02] Lauren Reed: I think, this story, we, I was sitting there that same night, ’cause I can’t go to sleep with this major problem. I’m a little, neurotic that as most business owners are. But I was sitting there and we had just gotten a call from our largest longtime client.

[00:13:16] Lauren Reed: We’d had, since the agency was a few months old, and I’m okay, our typical clients don’t need us right now. This is all gonna be over in a few weeks. Ha. And I’m sure April will be fine, but right now our clients don’t need us. And, the ones who were calling us, not to put us on pause, but to ask for help was our B2B clients.

[00:13:41] Lauren Reed: And so I just got to thinking. Who, what industry or who needs us right now that might have a budget that has a lot of communicating to do, but they wouldn’t already have an existing relationship. And actually, again, through Entrepreneurs Organization, there’s a guy in [00:14:00] my forum named Blanding Beatty, and he ran a senior living, a series of senior living operators.

[00:14:05] Lauren Reed: And I thought of him and I was like, senior living. So I got on LinkedIn, I drafted a pitch and it wasn’t a sales pitch, we all saw on the news, senior living facilities are going under lockdown. Families can’t get in to see their loved ones. And it was a really stressful situation for all, especially these senior living operators, the management who had no need for a PR firm before.

[00:14:29] Lauren Reed: And they did not know how to communicate this. And then when the illness, when COVID started hitting the facilities. So I drafted a, Hey, I know you’re going through a lot right now. You have a lot on your plate managing communications. I run a PR agency. I’ve got some extra time right now if you wanna brainstorm.

[00:14:49] Lauren Reed: 2020 ended up being our best year. Wow. At that point we grew. Maybe we maybe only grew by 10% that year, but we lost a lot. So [00:15:00] we recouped a senior living, saved our agency that year. We ended up with clients across the us. It was really dark work. We were. We were the ones managing death counts and reporting it into the media from the County Health Department and things like that.

[00:15:16] Lauren Reed: It was dark, depressing work. Gosh. But when you’re a business owner, all you care about is making payroll.

[00:15:24] Mark Scrivner: Yeah. I was gonna, your story gave me goosebumps. ’cause, remembering back at that time, ev and you’re right, every agency owner went through it and we, a majority of our business was video and yeah, when the, lockdown happened, nobody wanted you on site.

[00:15:39] Mark Scrivner: So our video business kind of went away and that was about 40% of our revenue too. So I know we shared in some, how do we get through, how do this together, this, but, but man, just hearing that again, just brings back, and I remember walking, around the block as we were on lockdown, we couldn’t even come into the office and it was like, [00:16:00] am I even gonna make it through?

[00:16:01] Mark Scrivner: Yeah. And so that is powerful. But as a CEO, you have to do what it takes. And you did and you thrived. And it was, I hear this from a lot of people. It was their very best year. I think 2020 was not our best year, but 2021 was our best year. Yeah. Ever. ’cause it really came back for us as we pivoted the agency.

[00:16:23] Lauren Reed: I would say it forced us all to really focus too. We still have. Senior living clients, we met that during that timeframe, who then pivoted us to just marketing and pr. But for me, it goes back to yes, there’s highs and lows, but I would say that low. Actually has been converted to a high for me because I’ll tell you the anxiety around making payroll or worrying about the big unknown, what could happen to take us down, it did happen and we got through it.

[00:16:54] Lauren Reed: So I would say it just created a much healthier relationship. A he detachment to my [00:17:00] business. I didn’t live in constant fear of losing it. I don’t live in constant fear of losing it anymore.

[00:17:05] Mark Scrivner: Yeah. Yeah. You’ve mentioned, catalyst and EO a couple times. Yeah. And, and we’re in EO together and, I would just love to hear maybe just the impact that EO Oh has had on your journey.

[00:17:16] Mark Scrivner: Maybe, gosh, just one little nugget of a story that, yeah. Stands out beyond just the, beyond just the COVID. Oh, I know what it’s,

[00:17:24] Lauren Reed: yeah, absolutely. EO is certainly. If someone, gunned ahead, one best thing you’ve done for my business, it’s joint eo. I wouldn’t even hesitate. So I, I’m a huge fan for many reasons.

[00:17:36] Lauren Reed: But for me, probably my favorite EO benefit is their Global Learning and Events Global Explore Explorations. I attended Global Speakers Academy, in 2019 and no. 2021. I’m I was pregnant at the time so I should remember this. 2021, fall of 2021. And that is where [00:18:00] they, really train you.

[00:18:01] Lauren Reed: You take one week to develop your signature talk, and prepare you to then, be a certified member speaker. After the week, you still have to. I, the words, not audition, but qualify, you have to make a video of your signature talk, send it into a panel, who’s gonna critique and, you either pass or you don’t.

[00:18:18] Lauren Reed: Not everyone passes. But I would say public speaking is something I’ve always done a lot of. I’ve naturally just found myself on stages without really trying. I’m not someone who’s ever seeking the attention, but I do love sharing what I’ve learned. And my experiences within entrepreneurship and the PR and marketing industries.

[00:18:41] Lauren Reed: But that week really shifted something for me, and I will say it’s the most profound experience of my career. Wow. Having to get up within, there’s 40 EO members from across the world, and you are there five minutes and it’s all of a sudden, okay, you come up, give me, [00:19:00] gimme three sentences on X, Y, z, and you’re.

[00:19:02] Lauren Reed: So if you have any fear, and I’ve never had fear over public speaking, but I always wanna make sure I’m providing the most value. And what I really learned that way that week was how to make sure any presentation and not just presentation, any potential new client pitch or phone call, or even just a conversation, how to make sure I’m adding the most value for the person receiving the message.

[00:19:26] Lauren Reed: And I, I just, I recommend Global Speakers Academy so much.

[00:19:30] Mark Scrivner: Wow. Yeah. I’m actually

[00:19:31] Lauren Reed: headed to Montreal, on Sunday to speak at the Women of Yale Global Summit.

[00:19:37] Mark Scrivner: That’s amazing. Lord. An opportunity,

[00:19:38] Lauren Reed: That came from that program.

[00:19:40] Mark Scrivner: Wow. That is just incredible. I’m so proud of you. Oh, thank you. What. Let me ask you this, in this world today, starting an agency is easier than it’s ever been.

[00:19:51] Mark Scrivner: Just you need a laptop, right? You need some relationships. You now have a biz, like how you started. Yeah. it’s, I think even gotten easier [00:20:00] today than it probably was back then. What do you think is a common misconception of. Like starting an agency, running an agency from me being the solo founder.

[00:20:12] Lauren Reed: Yeah. That you’re your own boss.

[00:20:16] Mark Scrivner: Yeah.

[00:20:17] Lauren Reed: I have a lot of bosses just look at my client list.

[00:20:20] Mark Scrivner: That’s a great point. Yeah.

[00:20:21] Lauren Reed: I would get friends, you get to go run in the middle of the day or whatever you want. It’s yeah, it’s not easier just ’cause you are the boss.

[00:20:29] Lauren Reed: And luckily I had parents who were entrepreneurs, so I saw what it took to be a business owner and I said I never would because I. I only saw the instability of it, in my childhood. So I was very determined to do it differently. But I would say the biggest misconception is probably that it’s easy.

[00:20:49] Lauren Reed: Yeah. I’m guilty of having a job in an agency and reporting to owners and thinking in my head I would do this better or. If I were the boss, I’d do this. Or it would be easy. I had a lot of moments those first [00:21:00] few years, especially once I had a handful of employees where I understood my former bosses in a way I did not before.

[00:21:06] Mark Scrivner: Yeah,

[00:21:07] Lauren Reed: so

[00:21:07] Mark Scrivner: That’s a good point. Yeah. Over the years, you and I, we’ve shared resources, other agency partnerships that we’ve had, and, I know you approach, agency collaboration just ’cause you do, what you do really well. And so there are other things your clients are gonna ask for and you have to pull in other people.

[00:21:25] Mark Scrivner: Tell me, tell us a little bit about just some of the better agency collaboration. How do you approach it? Yeah. who have been some of the better partners, maybe, or maybe not who, but what have been some of the characteristics of those agencies as you collaborate?

[00:21:41] Lauren Reed: I think it’s just alignment and core values.

[00:21:44] Lauren Reed: We’ve turned down opportunities with other partners because they wanna white label. And in this day and age, how is white labeling even a thing? Anyone can Google, and my Instagram will come up and it says, founding partner of Reed, but yet I’m white labeled under x, y, Z agency.

[00:21:59] Lauren Reed: That’s a good point. It [00:22:00] feels, deceiving. So for us it’s aligned core values. For at Reed client service is everything because again, PR agencies are a dime a dozen and what we do, it’s not rocket science mark, there’s no proprietary code or anything that. We have to excel with our service.

[00:22:19] Lauren Reed: We have to excel with our commitment and our duty and responsibility and, coming through with what we say we will do. So that to me. The hard thing is, I found this when I interview people, but also with other agencies. Inherently PR people are really good at selling what they do

[00:22:40] Mark Scrivner: very good.

[00:22:41] Lauren Reed: So it’s okay, how do they live what they preach? Do they walk the walk? We’ve been so fortunate being part of the public relations global network that I’ve gotten to know other agencies very well. And if there’s ever I have a need in a different market, down in Texas, I know exactly, [00:23:00] who’s aligned with me.

[00:23:00] Lauren Reed: We’ve done a lot of work with other agencies. But yeah, it’s really, can they meet the client service and can I put ’em on the phone with my client, there have been some creative agencies where it’s I’m sure they’re brilliant, but I try to picture putting ’em on the phone with a very corporate client of mine on a Zoom call.

[00:23:16] Lauren Reed: ’cause again, I want full transparency. I don’t design websites. I’m not gonna pretend to someone. I do. I’m gonna say, here’s someone who’s amazing. I want you to meet them. Can they show up as the read level of service that we provide?

[00:23:30] Mark Scrivner: That leads me into the next question, which is a lot of times people think, culture, it’s gonna be about kegs of beer or snacks in the kitchen or what happy hours that we’re gonna throw.

[00:23:41] Mark Scrivner: But it sounds to me culture to you all is gonna be doing what you say you’re gonna do. Yeah. Providing incredible service, building those relationships with your clients, which I also think PR people are very good at is building that endearing relationship with people.

[00:23:58] Mark Scrivner: I know I’ve, you have [00:24:00] done a great job with that over the years, but, how have you, beyond those things, how do you, how have you built and even preserve the culture at Reed PR over the years?

[00:24:11] Lauren Reed: Yeah, it’s, it’s always a work in progress because the fabric of your culture changes anytime someone new comes in or someone new leaves.

[00:24:19] Lauren Reed: Your culture is only what it is at any given day, right? that team sitting around the table and are they living it? You can want your culture to be one thing, but if you’re not living it day in and day out, so we, there’s a few ways that we really focus on culture. And it starts with our core values.

[00:24:38] Lauren Reed: So from, as simple as integrating our core values into every staff meeting, meaning that, we keep all of our client, we track all of our client kudos. emails, Hey, amazing placement. Here’s why. Whatever. Anytime a client sends feedback that, it’s gonna go into a pot.

[00:24:53] Lauren Reed: And we read them all out loud every Monday morning to start the week, and then we draw and we tie it to a core [00:25:00] value. And then we, we draw that week, and I don’t even know what our gift is these days. I think it’s lunch on the company or something. Okay. It’s a small enough gift that we can do it every week.

[00:25:09] Lauren Reed: But it’s more a constant reinforcement of, oh, this client said this, and it ties back to celebrate the wins. Or. Results oriented or, straightforward. That’s one of ours. Be straightforward. say what you mean and mean what you say. Be clear, clear as kind, all of that.

[00:25:26] Lauren Reed: But, so that’s one little way. But then as far as culture and benefits, I realized a couple years ago that the benefits we had were probably what I would’ve wanted. Yeah. And so we did a survey to the whole team. An anonymous survey, what benefits do you value the most, and all of this.

[00:25:46] Lauren Reed: So obviously the healthcare, the things you have to do, the retirement accounts, the healthcare. But we have a lot of, it’s we were trying to offer so much they don’t care about the happy hours. we don’t need to do a happy hour for every new person [00:26:00] when they, or every time someone leaves, we can do a champagne toast and say goodbye.

[00:26:04] Lauren Reed: Wouldn’t we rather put that budget towards bigger things or things that are more meaningful? So we started a workaway program because my team wants to travel. And so every year, and I think they can do it every other year. I’m saying a lot of, I think, which we’ll get to because i’m not the one in charge anymore.

[00:26:23] Lauren Reed: But every year or every other year, we give them a $3,000 stipend and say, go work from anywhere in the world. work Nashville hours. So I’ve had people work in London, I’ve had people work, Italy, it, Europe is where people tend to go.

[00:26:38] Mark Scrivner: That’s incredible. And work

[00:26:39] Lauren Reed: for a month. And what that does is, I believe it exposes them to different cultures, makes them a better employee, but it also, there is a sense of gratitude.

[00:26:49] Lauren Reed: How cool is it that I get to work at a place that not only is letting me go work but they’re giving me money to do it. And there’s stipulations. You have to be in good standing. You can’t be on a performance improvement [00:27:00] plan or anything that. But so we try to do different benefits that really speak to what our company, who’s employed once and what they would use.

[00:27:09] Lauren Reed: And we got that idea from our media profile and agency in Toronto who we’re partners with.

[00:27:15] Mark Scrivner: Wow. That’s, that’s unbelievable. I really hope, a couple things that I picked up from you there that I hope the audience keys into is, one, the recognition of the wins, which I I know you’re big on and it’s how many days do we just focus on that one problem that happened with the client, right? And it’s in the agency world, there’s. Usually that one problem and there’s this client that’s, yelling, but, but you miss the 500 great things that you did to focus on that one thing that really, you can fix pretty easily. Most of the time.

[00:27:49] Mark Scrivner: But, like just having some sort of cadence where you do it for the Read PR team, that just keeps everybody motivated. That’s incredible.

[00:27:59] Lauren Reed: Thank you. And yeah, [00:28:00] there’s always gonna be problems. Our job is literally solving problems. So I’ve also tried to pivot that and reframe with my team,

[00:28:08] Lauren Reed: a client’s upset or, okay our job is to solve problems, so let’s just very matter of factly deal with this, and let’s try to take all the emotion out of it, right?

[00:28:16] Mark Scrivner: Yeah. The other thing that I picked up on was just even sending out the survey, and what I’ve seen over the years, you’ve seen it too, I’m sure, is that, 50% of the people are gonna be demotivated by some new cultural thing you do.

[00:28:30] Mark Scrivner: Just the happy hours, 50% of the people want to get home to their families. I am that

[00:28:35] Lauren Reed: 50%. Yeah. I am the introverted person who’s why are we having so many happy hours?

[00:28:40] Mark Scrivner: Yeah. Yeah. And it demotivates you. Yeah. But anyway, so that, those are a couple great, nuggets.

[00:28:46] Mark Scrivner: Good takeaways, so appreciate it. What, if you could go back and give your younger self or maybe a new agency owner that’s starting out a word of advice, what would that be?

[00:28:59] Lauren Reed: [00:29:00] So this is advice somebody gave me and I can’t remember who. And I’m sure I’ve heard it a lot. It’s always run your businesses if you’re going to sell it.

[00:29:10] Lauren Reed: And that was always my goal. About a year or two in, I went to New York and I did a workshop with, Rick Gould, who, there’s a lot of Rick’s out there, agency experts with, the benchmarks of what it takes to run a profitable agency, a sustainable, profitable agency. And I was fortunate that I had p and l access at my prior agency because I ran our Nashville office.

[00:29:35] Lauren Reed: So I knew what it took. I knew, what revenue we needed. I knew staffing ratios and all of that. But I printed that out and I had it on my desk and I don’t even need it anymore ’cause I have the ratios memorized. When I hired A-C-F-O-I gave them to her. I’m our staffing can never get above this.

[00:29:51] Lauren Reed: That has to include insurance. Our office lease should never be above this percentage compared to revenue. And so I have just always run my business [00:30:00] in a way that I wasn’t dreaming of selling. Even three years ago, if you asked me if I would ever sell, I would be no, this is my baby.

[00:30:06] Lauren Reed: But things change quickly. But, running it like you’re going to sell it because. If you run it like you wanna sell it, you probably won’t want to sell it Totally. ’cause you won’t have a lot of the issues that seem to plague agencies like cash flow or, things like that. So I just always tried to run the agency where, it was just healthy.

[00:30:28] Lauren Reed: I knew what those benchmarks should be.

[00:30:30] Mark Scrivner: Yeah, that’s a great piece of advice too, because a lot of agency owners that I see and talk to, they’re just running a job really. They, run an agency that is like slightly profitable, some unprofitable, some break even, and it’s like you just have a job versus it’s too much

[00:30:48] Lauren Reed: stress to not make money doing it.

[00:30:50] Mark Scrivner: Yeah. You and it, and sometimes people feel bad about oh, I shouldn’t be making profit so

[00:30:56] Lauren Reed: much more than my employees, or this or [00:31:00] that. Yeah, no I struggled with, I always knew we needed healthy profit margins. But I came to it from, having a father whose company failed.

[00:31:10] Lauren Reed: So I definitely came to it with a, businesses can fail. I’ve learned over the years, it’s like what you just said. Some people are just running their agencies. There are a lot of graphic designers, PR people running agencies, and they’re just graphic designers who happen to run a business.

[00:31:29] Lauren Reed: I’m an, I’ve learned, I’m an entrepreneur and so are you, mark, what we happen to be selling is marketing PR, video. I would advise anyone just starting out or smaller agencies to really look at what you’re doing as a sustainable business and make it serve you versus you serving your business.

[00:31:50] Mark Scrivner: Great point. And I know Lauren, you’re such a giver too, and I hope if there’s a PR agency that’s out there listening to this podcast, that, if you have a question [00:32:00] about Oh yeah. The, the what, the metrics that you’re talking about. Yeah, absolutely. Like they could just reach out to you and you’d share with them, so to help ’em get better.

[00:32:08] Mark Scrivner: Lauren, like I’ve just watched your journey and it’s been very impressive over the years and now let’s get into the last part of your journey, not necessarily where you’re gonna end up, but just, what has been the evolution of read PR and where have you evolved to what’s next?

[00:32:25] Lauren Reed: It’s, it’s been a ride. And I’m not at the end of the ride yet, but I certainly am way less necessary at my agency, which is a great thing. It’s somewhere I’d hoped to be for a long time. I have three women who were recently promoted to partners. They’re longtime employees of mine. Two of them started as interns right outta college.

[00:32:48] Lauren Reed: So about two years ago. I started training them, they showed promise and they showed the desire to help run the business. [00:33:00] And so we started we jokingly called it CEO school. And I spent the past two years really letting them model, everything I’m doing sit in shadow, if I had a,

[00:33:11] Lauren Reed: phone call with Brittany, our CFO, they would get on it, after a year or so, they had access to all of the books, every piece of financial data within the company, including what I make. And, I went back and forth on that. But at the end of the day, they had expressed interest in buying in.

[00:33:27] Lauren Reed: They need to know everything. And they also, it, someone said to me. If you’re worried about making too much, but they’re wanting to be an agency owner, don’t you think that’s motivating to them? And I’m oh, that’s a good point.

[00:33:38] Mark Scrivner: So Lauren, now you’ve got three people that you trust and a lot of times you hear this working on your business versus in your business.

[00:33:46] Mark Scrivner: And a lot of people have no idea what that really means. Or how to get there. And it sounds like you figured it out by being open, transparent. Pulling them into every meaningful [00:34:00] meeting that it took to get you out of the weeds. And I think there’s a lot of agency owners, myself included in the past that have tried to hang on a little too tight and it just, you’ll never grow the people that are gonna get you where you’re at today.

[00:34:15] Mark Scrivner: And so now you’ve allowed them to. To take over, buy into the company and be a bigger part of where re PR is going.

[00:34:26] Lauren Reed: Yeah, no, that’s absolutely right. But it was a process. There are days when I’m sure if they were sitting here they’d say the same thing, they were tears and I didn’t know if I wanted it.

[00:34:36] Lauren Reed: And they didn’t know if they wanted it. It was a hard two years to get to where we were. But, Q1 of this year, I actually took a sabbatical, a 90 day sabbatical. I did not work in the business at all. I didn’t log into QuickBooks. I let them run the company, and we had our best quarter ever.

[00:34:55] Mark Scrivner: Really?

[00:34:56] Mark Scrivner: Which is humbling. It’s amazing. It’s amazing. Yeah. But

[00:34:59] Lauren Reed: it’s [00:35:00] humbling, oh. I really am not as necessary. And it’s we all hope to get to that point. And then you get there and it’s what do I do now?

[00:35:08] Mark Scrivner: A three month sabbatical. Now, how did you come up with that, Lauren? Because that’s just unbelievable that you were able to take that time off and step away.

[00:35:18] Mark Scrivner: Yeah.

[00:35:18] Lauren Reed: So two years ago when we started this process, I initially planned to take it in Q1 of 2024. As we got closer, I just, in my gut, wasn’t ready. There was just some uncertainty on certain things and, some relationships, some employees, and I was like, I can’t leave right now, in your gut.

[00:35:36] Lauren Reed: So we took the rest of the year to prepare about six months, into 2024. I stepped back but was still available. I let them kind of trial, run it, I had co-founded another organization I was spending a lot of time on, and I was still meeting with all of them regularly. I still had some clients of my own, although towards fall, I let go of [00:36:00] any clients that I was on.

[00:36:01] Lauren Reed: So to really set up to truly take some time off. And what led to it honestly is I was just so burnt out after, at that point, 20 years in the agency world, I was just so burnt out and. you we’re in Nashville’s a hot market. You always get phone calls of people who wanna be in Nashville.

[00:36:20] Lauren Reed: Can we buy your agency? So we have a Nashville location, and I was ready just to walk away, be take it, sell it to the highest bidder and walk away. And while at the same time I had a senior leadership team who, who was interested in buying it from me, and I always knew in my heart that would be the option I had the most peace with.

[00:36:39] Lauren Reed: But I also knew that would be the most difficult option because number one, I had to train them, for it. Number two, there was probably gonna be a little owner financing and can I truly, I had to ask myself, can I truly own the business still, or them, finance it and not worry about how it’s doing.

[00:36:57] Lauren Reed: So I thought I’m, this is a [00:37:00] trial run. I took the 90 days with the intention of really figuring out what I wanted to do with the business and, it just. It validated that I’ve got the right team who wants to take it.

[00:37:11] Mark Scrivner: Yeah. They say that selling to, your team is usually always a better option just because the, it can carry on.

[00:37:21] Mark Scrivner: Plus you’ve made, you’ve made the next generation of, agency owners and, hopefully they create. Wealth for their families as well. Yeah. And so you’ve, and you’ve got an amazing team, thank you. Who I know you’re feeling super comfortable with. Yeah. Taking read PR to the next level.

[00:37:39] Mark Scrivner: Sure. You’re for sure global speaking, in in EO and other organizations. You started another venture. Yes. Wealth of a woman. Yes. Talking to that, and then what are you gonna leverage from that? What’s next beyond just wealth of a woman? Tell us a little bit about that though.

[00:37:55] Lauren Reed: Sure. So Wealth of a Woman is something I founded, co-founded with [00:38:00] Theresa JW Bailey, who is a. Longtime, dear friend of mine, client of mine, and I’ve been a client of hers, she’s a wealth manager. So something we both have had a lot of discussions about over the years was just women and the relationship with money.

[00:38:14] Lauren Reed: Entrepreneurs and their relationship with money. Yes. But specifically women and I personally have, suffered a lot of anxiety around money, even when. My balance sheet looked fine. So I was finding out, I was having fears that didn’t match my current reality. And Theresa was working with a lot of entrepreneurial women and seeing the same thing.

[00:38:35] Lauren Reed: And we just started talking about, let’s do something about this. It ended up being, this was last spring, about a year ago. And 2024 was the 50 year anniversary of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which gave women the right. Only 50 years ago, they have bank accounts in their own name, not bank accounts, credit in their own name.

[00:38:55] Lauren Reed: So if you look at that for thousands and thousands of years, [00:39:00] women have been disempowered with finances. And then 1974, finally we’re allowed to get credit in our own name. That what if I, a woman wanted to start a business, or you had to get permission, essentially in the form of a co-signer from your husband or father.

[00:39:13] Lauren Reed: But. There was a study that came out a couple years ago at that really I felt this is an issue and it was by McKinsey and that by 2030 women are going to ho hold the majority of the wealth. In the nation. So it’s okay, whoa, we just got empowered with money and now we’re gonna have all this money coming to women.

[00:39:34] Lauren Reed: And there’s various reasons why it’s coming to women. Women live longer, all of those things. But it’s are we equipped to deal with this? So we created a six module, completely free online course to help women create healthier relationships with money. And we have women across the country going through it right now.

[00:39:54] Mark Scrivner: Yeah, that man. And I know we’ve had some folks from Snapshot come join [00:40:00] Wealth of Woman when you did the kickoff. Yes.

[00:40:02] Lauren Reed: Awesome. You guys did a great video for us.

[00:40:03] Mark Scrivner: Thank you. And they were blown away by what you guys are doing. So what, Lauren, is there anything that maybe I didn’t ask or that, you’d want to share that you think could help out the audience?

[00:40:17] Lauren Reed: No, I am so passionate about, reducing burnout among agency owners, taking the steps to creating a business that serves you, rather than you serving your business. And yes, we should all serve our businesses and be servant leaders for our employees and all of these things, but I think we’ve also all found ourselves in a, why are we doing this moment?

[00:40:36] Lauren Reed: It’s the greatest privilege and honor to run a business and be able to use that to build the life you want. So I am always happy to have those conversations.

[00:40:45] Mark Scrivner: I love helping other agency owners and I know you do as well. And that’s why we’re doing this podcast is hopefully.

[00:40:53] Mark Scrivner: Like we can inspire some Nashville agency owners to, to do better, to get better or to, just [00:41:00] know they’re on the right track, and hear from other agency owners their stories and really appreciate you sharing it. And I think even before the, episode when we were talking, you mentioned that, hey, this may be another area I lean into is coaching and consulting other agencies on, just the burnout or.

[00:41:21] Mark Scrivner: Absolutely. Other areas. So talk a little bit of that. Yeah,

[00:41:23] Lauren Reed: thank you, for asking that. You never wanna be salesy. I, a few years ago I was doing. I had a handful of business coaching clients and I loved it. I loved it so much. But what I realized is when I’m so in the weeds with Reed, I can’t be worrying about another agency’s p and l too or another, company’s p and l.

[00:41:40] Lauren Reed: Like I needed to really fully be committed. So I actually just decided a few weeks ago, I spoke at a global conference on, my experience with sabbatical and I have decided I am going to start consulting, coaching, strategic planning again, but very specific to. Professional services [00:42:00] agencies, it’s not limited to, PR marketing, but professional services agencies who want to really get out of the weeds and have an actual step-by-step action plan.

[00:42:12] Lauren Reed: So with that, we do a lot of things, but really the core of it is the exact steps and formula I took to get my team ready for me to take 90 days off and figure out a succession plan.

[00:42:22] Mark Scrivner: And teach others that it’s possible and how to do it. Yeah. And how to plan for it. ’cause it sounded like you, you planned for a few years.

[00:42:29] Mark Scrivner: Two years. Yeah. Two

[00:42:30] Lauren Reed: years.

[00:42:31] Mark Scrivner: So that’s amazing. Lauren, thank you so much for being on the Spark Podcast. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Appreciate you sharing your story. And I just, I really appreciate your friendship. Same. You’ve, done amazing. And, I look forward to continuing to watch your journey and, thank you for, to the audience for joining us today.

[00:42:50] Mark Scrivner: Really appreciate you being a part of it. If you have any questions or comments, please drop ’em in, the comments section and we’ll get back with you on the answers. Thanks. Have a great day, [00:43:00] and the spark out.

[00:43:02] Voice Over: And that’s a wrap on this episode of the Spark from Creative Assembly. Thanks for spending time with us and exploring the minds shaping Nashville’s creative future.

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[00:43:33] Voice Over: Thanks again for tuning in. Until next time, stay creative, stay curious, and keep that spark.