Building Culture, Leading Change: Amy Baril’s Agency Playbook

Episode Description

🎧 In this episode of the podcast, host Justin Levinson sits down with Amy Baril, CEO of Two Tango Collaborative, to explore her journey from media into agency leadership and the experiences that shaped her path.

Amy shares her perspective on building a strong agency culture, adapting to an ever-evolving marketing landscape, and what it takes to lead with clarity and purpose. She dives into the importance of human-centered marketing, meaningful community engagement, and how authentic connections drive long-term success.

The conversation also touches on navigating industry change, balancing technology with authenticity, and how leaders can stay grounded while embracing innovation. Tune in for a thoughtful discussion on leadership, culture, and the future of modern marketing. 🎙️

Episode Outline & Highlights

[01:09] Amy’s Career Journey: From Virginia Commonwealth to CEO

[02:28] Agency vs Client Side: Key Differences and Insights

[05:12] Leadership Lessons: Building a Strong Team and Culture

[08:32] Creating a Best Place to Work: Culture and Values

[09:39] Community Engagement and Giving Back

[11:14] Humans Before Brands: The Philosophy Behind Rebranding

[12:38] Working Remotely and Talent Acquisition Strategies

[15:11] The Rapid Evolution of Media and Digital Strategies

[16:51] Balancing AI and Human Creativity

[18:29] Tools and Innovation: Finding the Right Fit

[22:50] Agency Wins: Case Study of the Virginia DMV Project

[25:31] Winning New Business: Strategies and Secrets

[28:01] Future Plans and Staying Relevant

Resources & Mentions

  • AI tools (general use)
  • Suno AI (music generation)
  • Social media platforms
  • Streaming / digital platforms (e.g., Hulu, programmatic media)
  • United Way
  • Feed More
  • James River cleanup
  • Virginia DMV
  • Human-centered marketing (“Humans before brands”)
  • Client vs. agency-side experience
  • AI + human balance
  • Talent sourcing via word-of-mouth & culture fit
  • Good Will Hunting
  • The West Wing
  • Dave Matthews
  • Elliott Smith
  • The Beatles
  • The Beach Boys
  • Yola
  • Sammy Rae & The Friends
  • No specific book titles mentioned — Amy notes she reads mystery/detective novels for escapism
Building Culture, Leading Change: Amy Baril’s Agency PlaybookBuilding Culture, Leading Change: Amy Baril’s Agency Playbook

Today's Guest

Amy Baril

President & CEO

Amy Baril has spent her career by seeking innovative solutions and delivering results for clients, which includes award-winning campaigns for Sherwin-Williams, Audi, and NASDAQ. Now, as the president and CEO of Two Tango Collaborative, she fosters the innovative thinking among her team that she has always been known for. Amy brings a fresh perspective to people-first leadership and paving the way for anyone looking to build an agency around culture. Amy has managed the teams of Two Tango Collaborative for over nine years and along with leading her team, she supports client relations and overall campaign strategies.

Transcript

Justin Levinson (00:10)

Hey folks, welcome to the Agency Side Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Levinson. Today I'm joined by Amy Baril, President and CEO of Two Tango Collaborative. Amy has built her career around delivering innovative solutions and award-winning campaigns for clients like Sherwin-Williams, Audi, and Nasdaq. She spent more than nine years leading the team at Two Tango Collaborative, where she focuses on people-first leadership, strong client relationships, and building a culture that encourages bold creative thinking. Thank you so much for being here today, Amy.

Amy Baril (00:39)

Thanks, Justin, for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Justin Levinson (00:43)

Yeah. The first thing I always like to get into is just the origin story. yeah, maybe you can tell us, ⁓ you know, how you got into marketing and advertising.

Amy Baril (00:51)

So I went to Virginia Commonwealth University, Go Rams, here in Richmond, Virginia, and I got my degree in mass communications and public relations. Had no idea what I wanted to do and sent my resume out to so many people. It's when we faxed resumes and received a call back from Circuit City. don't know if you remember Circuit City, Fox, Electronics, and they said, would you like to come and be an assistant media buyer? And I said, absolutely. What is that?

Justin Levinson (01:12)

Yeah, I do.

Amy Baril (01:21)

And so went in and I unbeknownst to me, I was the director of ad sales at my newspaper on my college campus. So I was already in media and I got trained up there. was a fantastic program. And then I got a call to move over to the Martin agency and worked there for a couple of years, loved it, learned a ton. Then I got a random headhunter call to go down to an agency in McKinney, which is in North Carolina. They're fabulous.

And I stayed there 11 years and I grew up and learned a ton. I felt like I had done all I could do there. So I decided I would go to the dark side and I would go on the client side of things and went over to Blue Cross Blue Shield, North Carolina. And it was actually right at the beginning of the Affordable Care Act. That was head spinning. I learned so much. I learned things I loved. learned things I didn't love about being on the client side.

And then I, you know, I had moved down to Raleigh for all those things and I missed my hometown. And so my husband and I decided to move back to Richmond and I opened up just my own consultancy and worked for myself for a good while. Got a random, another random phone call. Always pick up the phone. ⁓ Got another random phone call from, from, ⁓

Justin Levinson (02:39)

I love that.

Amy Baril (02:43)

an agency called NDP, which is our former name of Tutango, that they needed some help on the national media front. And I had a lot of great experience with that. So they hired me as a consultant. I worked with them for four or five months and they asked me if I wanted to join them. And I said, absolutely not. I loved being my own boss, ⁓ but they talked me into it. Such great people. So I joined the team.

and was a media director and I just moved up. I mean, I just kept working hard and I love the people. So it was an easy job to really love going in every day. And then, you know, our CEO decided he was ready to move on to other things and looked at me and said, I think you should take the reins. And I said, I think you're crazy. But I took the position and it has been the best job. And it's something that I'm very proud of certainly, but it also has been just the best gig I've ever had.

Justin Levinson (03:39)

Yeah, that's interesting. And you, you have a very unique experience being both having the client side and the agency side experience. I do love your, uh, your, uh, tip there to take the call because I, you know, I always talk to people if a recruiter makes a phone call and calls to you about, calls you about an opportunity. Um, it's always worth taking the phone call and listening because you just never know. A lot of times recruiters are reaching out to people who are not looking for something new.

busy in their own job and they like what they're doing, but they're so busy, they might not be aware of what else is out there. So when you take those phone calls, ⁓ sometimes it can be really life-changing, which it seems like happened to you.

Amy Baril (04:18)

It's also a really great way to kind of do your own report card because what have you done? What have you done in the last year? You know, it's your resume builder. You know, what have you been proud of? What have you not been proud of? What's been hard? So it really kind of keeps you moving forward.

Justin Levinson (04:35)

Definitely. keeps you sharp to taking a meeting, talking to somebody and sort of it's in a way it's can be like an interview. you're, you know, it's, definitely good practice because some people it's like, you know, they don't take the call, but then they need to take the call and they're not, they don't have the practice and the reps in to answer those questions. so, yeah, that's, that's really great that you encourage shaking the call. appreciate that. What did you notice as the biggest difference, I guess, from having agency side and client side experience?

Amy Baril (05:02)

there's actually not as many differences as you think there would be. I think there's this misnomer that if you go client side, it's gonna be easier. It's gonna be less stressful. You're gonna have all this time on your hands. that couldn't be further from the truth. I think what it really taught me is to understand what clients are going through day in and day out. I'm a big fan of believing in, you have no idea what someone went through the minute they walked in the door.

what kind of meeting they came out of, what kind of situation they were in. So have an open mind. ⁓ It taught me how important it is to have relationship building skills because even at on the client side, you are constantly negotiating for what you want. You're constantly trying to fight for what your team needs, you know, what you believe in, what you think is going to move the business forward. And that may not be the same thing that someone else across the table.

is looking to do. there are lot of similarities to it. think it definitely taught me a lot. It taught me that I don't love being in the politics of things. So I'm happy to help bolster, you know, lift people up and try to get them through what they need to get through. But the day to day of it can be a real grind.

Justin Levinson (06:20)

Yeah. lot of people I speak to are always, they say the exact same thing. if I moved, you know, client side, it's going to be easy. The hours are going to be better, you know, and there's always. Yeah. I mean, it's not, it's not always that way. And a lot of people on the agency side miss out on really great opportunities because they have in their mind, I'm only going to move for a client side position. And I'm always encouraging people like, Hey, you know, again, like you said, take the call because you could keep moving your career up on the agency side.

not waiting necessarily for the client side. Not that that's a bad thing, but there's a way to sort of move your career forward either way. So obviously your path has taken you to the CEO position now. What's been the transition like now in this sort of top leadership position?

Amy Baril (07:06)

I think the biggest transition points were realizing I don't have to do everything. I don't have to be the person that does every single thing and in charge of every single thing. The best thing that I did was have and hire people that are way smarter than me to be on my leadership team and to be at the agency. Without them, I wouldn't be here. No way. They are brilliant.

They are able to challenge me, challenge one another. At the end of the day, I'm making the call. I'm making the decision. But it has been really interesting as a growth opportunity for me to let go and let people do their jobs. And they're phenomenal at it. So why wouldn't you?

Justin Levinson (07:50)

Yeah.

Amy Baril (07:52)

Did you ever watch the show West Wing?

Justin Levinson (07:55)

I have not actually, I definitely have heard of it, but I don't think I've watched it.

Amy Baril (07:58)

Well, it's based on the presidency. Jeff Bartlett is the president. he basically says, I surround myself with smart people. And I think I've just gravitated towards that. I surround myself with smart people. I may not know all the answers, but I certainly have amazing people around me that can help me find the way.

Justin Levinson (08:17)

I love that. And you guys have been featured as like best place to work, you know, by adage. I mean, you can tell us about like your, you know, how, how you've built that culture and what that kind of looks like.

Amy Baril (08:31)

Yeah, I think it really is grounded in, you know, treat others as you want to be treated. I think I've always been someone that believes in being on a team and being a team player. I've also always believed that you never know, like I said before, what someone's going through. So have an open mind. I believe that clear is kind. So when you're having a challenge, just be a straight shooter.

but you can certainly be kind about it. There's no need to get ugly. There's no need to raise your voice. I think it's really important to allow people to recharge. I think it's really important to invest in people and to give them developmental opportunities. We do a lot out in the community as well. So they get to break free from the day to day being in the office. And I think just practicing those things has helped other people feel like.

It's a great place to work. I mean, we have an average tenure in the double digits of folks that work with us. So we're doing something right. Yeah. But we try to really walk the walk and talk the talk of a collaborative spirit.

Justin Levinson (09:34)

Yeah. What is the kind of stuff in the community that you're doing just out of curiosity?

Amy Baril (09:38)

We've done everything from like James River cleanup to feed more where you go and you create meals for elementary school kids to we literally just worked with the United Way this past two days ago and put together packets for underprivileged kids in elementary schools. So we have a great team that loves to be able to give back and anytime we can support it, we will.

Justin Levinson (10:03)

Yeah, that's amazing. you guys do that as a team? you get together and all of a volunteer for a, for a day or whatever.

Amy Baril (10:09)

That's exactly right.

Justin Levinson (10:11)

That's really cool. That's really cool. I haven't heard a lot of agencies that are doing something that's so, you know, giving back to the community like that. really liked that. Cool. just kind of getting into like the culture and stuff. I had, I read that you had, I think it was on a post or something I'd seen. ⁓ You had mentioned like humans before brands. And I was kind of interested in, ⁓ if you could elaborate. Sure. To what, that actually means.

Amy Baril (10:30)

Hm.

Justin Levinson (10:38)

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Amy Baril (11:13)

So I'm going to give you a little bit of a long-winded story if that's okay. We rebranded three years ago. So it was about the time when I took over. It was started as we just wanted a new logo and we very quickly got to the point where we like, you know what, if we're going to do this, let's do it right. And we dug in and we got into our mission, our vision, all that good stuff. And at the end of the day, what kept bubbling up was the people that work at

Justin Levinson (11:16)

Yeah, please.

Amy Baril (11:41)

to Tango are just different. The way they work together, we don't work in silos. I know a lot of people say that, but we literally do not work in silos. Our creative, our media, our strategy teams all work together hand in hand. We believe that's the same way that you should be working with your clients side by side. We don't get in front of them. We don't linger behind them. We're with them every step of the way.

We also have a different approach, I think, where we truly believe that when you're trying to do great work, you have to put the human at the center of the work. And I mean, like, who are you trying to reach? What are their behaviors? What are their attitudes? What are they about? I don't even care about the brand at that point. I dare say as a CEO of an ad agency, it's truly about what is that beautiful insight that's going to allow us to then connect with them.

and allow us to be able to build out great stories for the brand to be able to move them forward. So that's a lot of where the humans before brands came. It also came from our culture. Everything I just told you where we put our people first. We don't want people burning out. We don't want them to get frustrated and overwhelmed. You know, we're a business, so we got to work hard, but we do everything we can to pave the way so that it's an enjoyable experience.

Justin Levinson (13:04)

Yeah. And are you guys working remote remotely too? Is it a hybrid or how does that work?

Amy Baril (13:10)

We're hybrid. have a couple folks that live outside of Richmond. And so we do everything we can to make sure they feel well connected. We also are hybrid. we're at least two days in a week, two days in the office. And the other day's up to you. And we have folks that want to be in, you know, they actually enjoy, we have a beautiful space. So they enjoy coming into the office.

We also ask if there's things where we're like, hey, we got this great brainstorm we're going to be doing, or we have a client presentation where we really feel like it's more impactful to have everyone together. We ask folks to come in. ⁓ But again, we actually like each other. Yeah. It's kind of cool that, you know, people come in more often than not, I would say these days.

Justin Levinson (13:57)

Yeah. How do you typically, ⁓ find talent?

Amy Baril (14:01)

It's not easy and we're willing to look anywhere for talent because I, again, it's about the person. I haven't had, I guess we haven't hired anyone, gosh, in probably two years. The last few folks that we've been able to come join us have been word of mouth. know, it's been people, somebody knows somebody. And you know, they know they're a phenomenal person to work with. I'm a big person that goes with my gut.

I get a good connection with someone right away or I kind of get that spidey sense that tells me. It may not be the best fit, but we also have a lot of people talk to you when they come into the agency to make sure that we're getting all angles and all kind of insights into how someone may be a good partner for us for the future.

Justin Levinson (14:48)

Yeah. Well, it seems you might not need to be doing as much of that because the retention is so high. Everyone's staying for so long. That's a great, great thing. Cool. Well, the next sort of subject I'm interested in getting into about the industry, and this is something that I feel like you might be able to tell us about is just like with your experiences, the evolution of media and maybe how as someone who's been in this industry for quite some time, what strategies have you seen that have sort of changed?

Amy Baril (15:15)

I am blown away at how things have changed and quite frankly, how rapidly they've changed. I also am a person that believes in history. So I think history repeats itself. So I think some things end up coming back, but the evolution is obviously digital. You know, when the worldwide web, the series of tubes, the internets all came, it definitely kind of blew open in a great way, different ways for us to connect with folks.

as did social media, and now it's AI. But I would say at the end of it, it's still about understanding who are you trying to reach? You know, we can sit there and say, yeah, you should be on Hulu or you should do some programmatic buy, or you should, you know, follow them throughout this journey. And that's true, but you also have to understand what are their value systems? What do they believe in? What do they really care about? You got about less than eight seconds to connect with them.

So being able to connect with the goldfish, so to speak, is really important. So I think it's going to continue to change. I think it's going to be something that people, think, are becoming more more aware of their data and starting to shut down certain things. So again, we have to stay on top of what are the other ways and opportunities for us to create an experience with them to tell our stories.

Justin Levinson (16:35)

Yeah. ⁓ I think I would seen something too as well. Maybe it a, it was a post that you had highlighted, ⁓ a project that was all like handmade, hand drawn, handwritten, hand played music. I don't know if I'm getting this right, but I think I've seen something and how, guess the thing I'm getting to is like, you see as, as, ⁓ you know, like human things becoming a more value now?

Amy Baril (17:00)

I so. I think, you know, we use AI, we use it for tools to be able to help us be more efficient at things. But at the end of the day, we believe in that human factor. We believe in the art and the science of things. I think that people are aware when someone is, something is inauthentic. And I think when you remove the human element completely, you are in danger of losing that authenticity. So I think there's a balance.

And I think you have to understand and be thoughtful about the tools that you're using, make sure you're using them correctly and use what's right for you and what's right for your client. That may not be everybody.

Justin Levinson (17:41)

Yeah, how do you find out what like tools are going to be successful for you?

Amy Baril (17:45)

It's so overwhelming. It's trial and error. It's, you know, we, we tend to, we also have, we ask our, our staff all the time. Like we work with them and say, Hey, what are the top five things that you're seeing right now in the AI world? Some people don't want to know. And you know what? That's okay. That's fine. If that's, we have, we have one person at our agency that is like, if you mentioned AI, he is cranky pants and that's okay. That's, that's totally acceptable because.

That's the reality of the world we're living in. And I think you need to hear all points of view to be able to figure out what do you really want to move forward with. Yeah. It's a lot of research. It's a lot of trial and error. It's a lot of what I would call superpowers. We also have some folks that love, you know, kind of learning and testing and figuring out stuff. So it's tapping into those talents and seeing what you find.

Justin Levinson (18:38)

That's cool. That's sort of a group effort. Um, finding the tools that are, that are going to be a fit. I get hit up all the time. Uh, agency leaders always looking to find AI innovation people. This has been like the top need I've had in like the last, I don't know, last six months or so people are just like the AI innovation person. And I'm like, well, I need to know like the problem that you're trying to fix to find the person who can fix the problem. And they don't know the problem that they want to fix. it's like, exactly. Um,

Amy Baril (19:04)

they need it.

Justin Levinson (19:08)

So yeah, it's interesting how, how it's playing out in the industry, you know? Um, and I do understand why people don't, you know, aren't as connected to it or open to it. Um, I mean, as somebody who's an artist, I'm like a songwriter, uh, you know, some of this, the new Suno AI, I don't know you're familiar with it, where you kind of can prompt and get like musical compositions. It's like a little bit.

It's disheartening in a little bit, because sometimes it feels like something that I value so much has sort of been devalued with when you have a prompt, you can be like, make a 60 sound, 60 sounding surf rock song within this time signature and this beep beats per minute with this instrumentation and push a button and then it cranks out and you're like, wow, this is pretty incredible. So I understand the, the person within your agency that might be a little cranky about it.

Amy Baril (19:57)

Well, I'm a huge music lover as well. So, and I love concerts and I love ⁓ seeing bands, artists, and I am, I, of all kinds, I'm open to anything. And so I, I kind of equate AI to that as well. It's like when the music industry was not all orchestrated and technology didn't auto tune everybody and all that good stuff, you know, and then you would go to a concert and you would hear them and it was like, whoa.

Not at all what I was expecting. And then on the flip side of that, you're pleasantly surprised when you have an artist that can sing their heart out or create all their own music and you're just blown away. I also had a good friend of mine, he runs the Paragraph Project down in Durham and he equated AI to that scene in Good Will Hunting.

when Robin Williams and Matt Damon are sitting on the bench and Robin Williams is talking about how you could probably tell me every single fact there is about Michelangelo. You could tell me what his technique is. You could tell me all of his great pieces of work, but you could never tell me what it's like to sit in the Sistine Chapel and look up and see a masterpiece. It's like that. I think there's a balance. You know, I really do. And I just hope we don't lose sight of

the true human centered approach to things, because I think that's important.

Justin Levinson (21:22)

Totally. I didn't know about West Wing, I do know Good Will Hunting. I do know that movie. That was a great movie. Actually, I love the film scoring in that too. I Elliot Smith did a lot of music for that. Definitely a big fan. Do you think that there is a benefit to being an independent agency right now opposed to like a big holding company?

Amy Baril (21:41)

I do. feel for what the industry is going through right now with all the holding companies and what's happening and the consolidation and what that means for the workforce. I'm certainly hopeful that all the folks that have had their life changed from all of the consolidation end up landing on their feet. I know there's always opportunities to streamline things. You we have to do that as an independent agency, but it is.

refreshing to be able to make decisions and not have to answer to 10, 20 different outsiders. I think there is plenty of opportunity for us to be able to continue to, you know, win new business and, and grow client relationships. There's plenty of work out there. You just got to find it, which is, is a whole nother podcast, I'm sure. But you know, I think there's a lot of great talent out there and we certainly are.

ones that from time to time, because we're an independent agency and we're only 26 people, we have a great bench of freelancers that we use from time to time. so the market has just opened up for us. So that's a benefit. And luckily we have a good reputation out there. So folks actually want to work with us. So, you know, if and when we can, we absolutely support them any way we can.

Justin Levinson (23:04)

That's amazing. yeah, I think like great creative resource management is key in this new environment. Having that, you know, bench of freelance talent that is, you know, that can meet the demands and are, yeah, are dependable. I think that's a lot of, there's a new model out there, which I think is a lean, mean, you know, staff, full timers, and then a wide bench for when, ⁓ and it just helps with the budgeting and being able to handle the work or not go broke when the work's not coming in, you know?

Amy Baril (23:32)

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And it's, you know, that's that's what you have to look at.

Justin Levinson (23:36)

Yeah, yeah, that's pretty, that's really interesting. Any, like any big wins or successes that you think that, you know, have come to the agency as of late that you'd be interested in?

Amy Baril (23:47)

I'm

going to share one. got to share one for you. So it's actually some work. It was a win in terms of growing a current client. And I have crypt notes because if I got this wrong, that would be a problem. So the Virginia DMV, know, hold your horses, the DMV, you can do great work. I'm telling you, they are phenomenal clients. And the city of Richmond needed a way to make drivers feel the danger of speeding.

especially in school zones where if you even go five miles per hour over the limit, it could be deadly. So we literally partnered with physicists and transportation engineers to translate speed into something universal, which was height. And we created a speed ladder, a five story installation showing the equivalent fall height of someone at different speeds. we literally had, and this, I'm telling you,

seen it, it freaked me out. A professional climber brought to each level the impacts that it would have to their life, making the dangers of speeding not just comprehensible, but it truly, you felt it at the core. You watched this person go up and five stories is no joke. It toured the city and it ended up getting global attention. We ended up getting press from like 10 different countries. The client was thrilled, ⁓ but it was a way to take something like, do you really, and again,

going back to that human connection, how do you help someone understand that impact of what speed is? And you just kind of flipped it on its head and came up with something different, which was really cool.

Justin Levinson (25:25)

That is really cool. How did you guys think of finding these physicists and people to collaborate with? How did that come to be?

Amy Baril (25:33)

So it was actually some research that the clients had and when we were digging through all of our stuff, we're like, nugget, this is interesting. Okay. That's an interesting parallel to try to explain how that works. And from there, the creative and strategy team just kind of unpacked it and lo and behold.

Justin Levinson (25:53)

brilliant.

And so you're making even more inroads with that client for future opportunities. Yeah.

Amy Baril (26:00)

They're been thrilled.

Justin Levinson (26:02)

Do you have any strategies for winning? I mean, obviously creating great work wins new work, but is there any other sort of like, you have any secret sauce if you're willing to share it?

Amy Baril (26:11)

literally just watching one of your podcasts and I can't remember who I was watching and he said there is no secret sauce and I agree with him.

Justin Levinson (26:19)

I was trying to get it.

Amy Baril (26:21)

I know, I know, I know. And I've talked to people about it because I would love to know it. We have, so we don't have a dedicated person for new business. We spread it across a few people at the agency. I'm one of them. And we've all kind of naturally gravitated to different roles. So I'm usually more of a long game, trying to build some relationships, get in front of people, get our name out there. I've got someone who is amazing at just hitting people up on LinkedIn.

Justin Levinson (26:25)

Yeah.

Amy Baril (26:50)

talking to them, getting, you know, doing more of the cold call type of new business work. But he has such, he's got such a great expertise at it. I've got someone who is amazing at talking about what Tutango is. And so she goes out on speaking engagements, gets in front of various panels. We obviously have a PR partner that helps us and that's been tremendous in terms of getting our name out there. So, I mean, there's no, I mean, a lot of our growth has been.

you know, organic word of mouth, which has been great. But we also do the tried and true answering RFPs, you know, and, and doing all that hard work. So if you ever find out what that secret sauce is.

Justin Levinson (27:35)

I think you got it. think it's the-

Amy Baril (27:36)

Please

feel free to let me know.

Justin Levinson (27:39)

I love the, you know, it sounds like you've got it coming from a lot of places, you know, you have like organic, you're going to these panels with, you know, you've got everybody kind of utilizing their strengths to, uh, you know, and creating good work. And I think that, you know, I think that is the key. And I, I do agree. is no, um, there's no secret sauce in there. Um, but it's just, yeah, I mean, I think time in the game and just doing good work, you know, um,

And the other stuff is just like mechanical. yeah, I mean, a multi-channel campaign for reaching out or cold emails and cold calling. Like that's a skill for sure. Not everybody has it, but yeah, it sounds like you guys are doing great.

Amy Baril (28:15)

Someone tell me once they were like get famous. I'm like, okay

Justin Levinson (28:20)

That's a tough one. Do you guys have any big plans for the rest of the year or any things that you guys are trying to achieve?

Amy Baril (28:29)

You know, we are, like I said, we rebranded three years ago. And so we're looking at what's our 2.0. You know, does it still hold water? You know, we came out with, you know, humans before brands. And then all of a sudden everyone started talking about the human centric approach and da da da da da. So we're like, we knew it. We were there. We got it. But it's also just, you know, keeping ourselves fresh.

What does the market need? What are they looking for? And does it align with what we're true about in our DNA? So that's been our focus right now.

Justin Levinson (29:05)

love it. I guess, ⁓ you know, for the final topic here is what keeps you sane? What do you like to do for fun outside of work?

Amy Baril (29:14)

love, like I said, I love music, love music, friends and family, and I love reading and, you know, hanging out with my husband and my daughter. I mean, just a good sense of humor. You have to have a good sense of humor in what we do in this field. So I think, you know, just finding ways to have fun and laugh a lot are always what I'm going to go for.

Justin Levinson (29:35)

What type of music in particular do you listen to your favorite artists?

Amy Baril (29:39)

So my favorite artist is Dave Batyus. Cool. Big fan. So he, you probably know this, was Charlottesville, which is about less than an hour away from Richmond. But I saw, I was in college when he would play frat parties. Cool. So just kind of grew up with him. But I love all different kinds of music. Love it all.

Justin Levinson (29:58)

That's cool. Yeah. I've never seen Dave Matthews live, but I have some of the tapes when I was in school and enjoyed them. My dad owned a music store. Yeah. Back when CDs and tapes were like, was really CDs were just kind of coming onto the scene, but people were buying, actually buying tangible things. unpacking them.

Amy Baril (30:20)

reading all the insides in it and the lyrics and everything about what happened to go into the music.

Justin Levinson (30:26)

Yeah. I mean, that was the thing, like going to the mall and waiting for the FYE store, you know, and buying that CD and holding it and putting it in the car, or not being able put it in the car because it wasn't, maybe we didn't have a car stereo. You still had the tape deck and you had to bring it home or the skipping, uh, you know, disc man. remember those things where they were. But, um, anyway, I remember like a lot. I remember Dave Matthews was selling a lot of, uh, discs in my dad's store. And, uh, well.

Amy Baril (30:52)

What's your favorite band?

Justin Levinson (30:55)

I mean, I, I'm a huge fan of like sixties, like rock and roll, like, and pop music. So I'm, love the beach boys. They're one of my favorites. And I really love the Beatles. course. And I'm Paul McCartney solo stuff. And as far as like.

Amy Baril (31:13)

Putting all the highlights of my husband and me. He plays the keys and he's in a garage band and they're, they're doing a ton of Beatles and they're doing all Simon and. Love thought. Yep.

Justin Levinson (31:15)

Alright cool

Yeah, I love all that, all that stuff. I'm like, like some newer music, but I'm kind of out of touch with it. seems like it's just, there's almost too much of it to find a, it's not like back in the day where we're all sort of looking at the same music. You know what I mean? Like I think I was watching weird, a weird Al ⁓ thing recently where he was saying that like, he was having trouble doing parodies because like in the nineties we're all watching MTV. all, that we are, you know, we all know the same hits, but now we don't even darn even like.

hits like everybody's kind of like listening to their own niche or sub niche. So yeah.

Amy Baril (31:59)

two artists for you so that you don't get overwhelmed. Okay, so one is Yola. If you haven't listened to her, she's phenomenal. And the other is Sammy Ray and Friends. Both of those, you, I just, I say that to you because of who you really got. They've been really fun to watch and listen to.

Justin Levinson (32:02)

Please, yeah.

OK.

Cool, I'll definitely go back and listen to that. Are there any books that you are reading that you like?

Amy Baril (32:27)

I am just a junkie mystery reader. do it for escapism. couldn't even tell you, I knew you were going to ask me, but I just read and I forgot to bring it. I can't tell you what it is, but I love a good detective story and just try to escape and chill out on a Sunday and read a book.

Justin Levinson (32:46)

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I believe that you're a reader, so we don't need the title, but I totally get it. Cool. Awesome. Well, Amy, thanks so much for being on and chatting with us and offering value to the community. It's been a real pleasure to speak with you today.

Amy Baril (33:01)

Thanks for having me. It's been a lot of fun.

Justin Levinson (33:03)

Awesome. Have a great rest of your weekend weekend.

Amy Baril (33:04)

Okay, great. Bye. Bye.

Agency Side host Justin Levison

Agency Side host and the creative matchmaker extraordinaire at Coming Up Creative. Connecting top talent with leading agencies by day, uncovering industry secrets by night (well, whenever we record).

Justin Levinson

Entrepreneur & Podcaster