Modern Marketing Moves

Justin Levinson (00:00.792)‍

Hey everybody, welcome to the agency side podcast. My name is Justin Levinson and I'm here today with Jonna Eichel. She is part of TCA, the creative agency. They are a leading full service marketing firm that partners with ambitious brands. She was named New York weekly's hardest working CEO, CEO weekly marketing leader of the year for 2022, 23, 24 and 25. So a hardworking CEO.

for sure. Thanks so much for being here, Jonna. Yeah, I'm so excited to talk to you and learn your story and what you guys are doing at TCA. Yeah, let's just get into it. How did you get into this particular space?

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Jahna Eichel (00:32.834)‍

Thanks for having me, Justin. I really appreciate it.

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Jahna Eichel (00:47.608)‍

Yeah, my background is in like strategy, PR, merchandising, all of the, you know, what I would say entry level marketing, girl's dream, right? Like when you're in college, you take sociology, you take business, like if you wanna be in marketing, funny story. When I was 12, I told my dad that I wanted to be an ad man.

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Justin Levinson (01:12.482)‍

Nah.

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Jahna Eichel (01:15.246)‍

And he was like, man, you don't want to do that. That's a stressful job. And then, know, 20 years later, it's the only job that I could imagine ever doing. So yeah, my background in like PR and just the way the brain works when making marketing decisions and making consumer choices kind of spanned into digital in 2017.

When that like in-person handshake PR, I'm gonna use a data term Rolodex of contacts, know kind of became the internet, right? And so that's really the start of the agency way back in the day We used we used to just be called John Eichel consulting And then I opened up the floodgates and created like a full-service digital Agency and it flooded is what is what happened

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Justin Levinson (02:11.5)‍

Yeah, yeah, totally. I'm interested what, maybe you can tell the viewers who might not be familiar with the agency what you guys are doing in full.

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Jahna Eichel (02:25.066)‍

Yeah, so we've kind of invented this out of need, I would say. It didn't come out of thin air. It was essentially a gap in the marketplace that just became more more transparent over time. But we've created this system where essentially I produce my team of experts as an internal marketing department for a brand. So we essentially take over marketing some.

Some of our clients have direct marketing directors, some do not. Oftentimes I act as chief marketing officer as well. And we kind of just engulf our agency and our staff as an internal team. So it just really allows for cohesive marketing strategy. It allows for good communication protocol. It allows for deliverables to just be more advantageous and ROI to be much higher.

because we're not worrying about the like segmented communications, the random overlap or confusion. Like none of that really exists in our philosophy because we're all internal here together. And then we bring that into a brand.

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Justin Levinson (03:44.504)‍

So you feel like you're an extension of the brand. You're kind of working within. Yeah, that's pretty cool. And you're based in Colorado?

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Jahna Eichel (03:48.042)‍

Exactly. Exactly.

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Jahna Eichel (03:54.412)‍

We are. I'm originally from New York City, but we are here in beautiful, mountainous, sunshiny Colorado.

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Justin Levinson (04:01.334)‍

What brought you out of the big city to Colorado?

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Jahna Eichel (04:04.666)‍

My husband and I actually did this on a map. It landed in South Denver Highlands Ranch and then we found Fort Collins and said this is definitely for us and moved here. We had obviously the whole world as our oyster being in digital. My husband's in IT and audio engineering so we could have literally lived on the moon.

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Justin Levinson (04:08.184)‍

really?

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Justin Levinson (04:16.034)‍

You spun a globe and you landed.

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Justin Levinson (04:31.393)‍

Ha

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Jahna Eichel (04:32.223)‍

So, you know, Colorado has great schools, great weather most of the time, 200 days of sunshine, even if there's snow on the ground.

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Justin Levinson (04:41.73)‍

Love it. Is that why you have the soundproofing back there for the audio engineering part of your home?

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Jahna Eichel (04:46.348)‍

This is actually our in-house podcast studio. we're, yeah, I'm in my office right now. We don't, we're one of a very few, I feel like percentage of agencies that actually have an office. We are not digital nomads. We are in a place.

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Justin Levinson (04:58.84)‍

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (05:02.604)‍

That's great. And does your staff all come in office regularly too?

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Jahna Eichel (05:07.444)‍

Yet we have some hybrid and remote workers that are in other states where we have a large footprint, but the majority of our staff is here.

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Justin Levinson (05:14.167)‍

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (05:18.21)‍

That's really cool. And as far as working together, do you feel like coming into office really helps have a collaborative environment for you guys?

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Jahna Eichel (05:29.696)‍

Yeah, for sure. mean, honestly, you know, I think that people can be creative anywhere. But the collaboration of multiple people working on a project in sync, it just doesn't happen remotely. I'm not a proponent of remote work. I don't think it's as effective for at least what we do, for the amount of collaboration and communication internally that our team needs to produce.

difference and a deliverable that matters, we have to be in office.

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Justin Levinson (06:02.784)‍

Yeah. And how many people work for the agency altogether?

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Jahna Eichel (06:07.886)‍

between staff and subs we have 19.

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Justin Levinson (06:13.656)‍

And at one point it started out as just you alone or did you have a partner or how did...

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Jahna Eichel (06:18.092)‍

Trust me by myself, yep, I did not hire my first employee until we had 44 clients. My husband thought I was a nut.

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Justin Levinson (06:25.752)‍

So you must have been pretty busy. That must have been being pulled in a lot of directions. How did you know when it was time to start scaling? Well, I mean, obviously you were really busy and that kind of answered my own question. yeah. What was the first hire? What was the first position that was important to taking a load off?

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Jahna Eichel (06:37.837)‍

Yeah.

I can't do it all, Justin. Jeez.

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Jahna Eichel (06:53.822)‍

My first hire was actually a personal assistant. That was really important because I needed support in order to be as efficient as I could be. You know, there's a lot of like buzzwords, right? Like hustle culture, work-life balance, blah, blah. I'm just really about being a change agent. And so, you know, if I can't produce something effectively, then

I need help. so to answer your question, that's kind of where the hiring kind of began. Like originally it was scheduling and optimizing my own time so that I can be more effective for our clients. And then the next positions just came out of like, you know, the needs of the clients not being something that I felt I can do at a hundred percent. I can do a lot of things, but you know, there are things out of my wheelhouse. so.

I think Elon Musk said it, he said, I didn't go to Harvard, but the people who work for me do. right, like I'm very, you know, I want people to be experts in their chosen fields and to feel passionate about the piece of the puzzle that they're providing to the final finish piece.

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Justin Levinson (08:06.804)‍

Yes, you said you had 44 clients before you made that first hire. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. So you were in a way sort of acting as like a freelancer on your own sort of, and this was when you were doing, was this more positioned in the PR side of things?

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Jahna Eichel (08:20.013)‍

Thank

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Jahna Eichel (08:23.424)‍

More PR, we also had clients that really were dialing in their social media at the time. This was like eight years ago. So it was that like turning point in business where people realized that they could not survive without some digital footprint. You know, the sign on the building just isn't enough. And obviously like we all know that now, but eight years ago, even though it feels like a long time, it's really not that long ago.

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Justin Levinson (08:53.375)‍

Yeah, that's a lot of changes in a short amount of time. So yes, you had the personal assistant first. And so then it was just the two. I'm sorry, was interested in walking through how folks scale. A lot of people that listen may be people that have, be freelancing on their own and not see the vision of how they can scale and be an agency owner themselves. So I'm always interested in how people sort of built

built their machine. So after you have 44 clients, you've got your executive assistant, were you able to sort of start winning more clients then as soon as you got the executive assistant and then were you sort of like, okay, I'm ready to hire again or what was the next person looking like?

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Jahna Eichel (09:40.83)‍

Yeah, it was actually, at that time, it was more about offering more services and getting to that full service scale for me than it was about adding quantity. I never wanted to be, you know, in PR and in that like in-person world, right, of like old, what I call traditional PR or like old school PR. You know, it's not necessarily about how many

accounts you have it's about you know what you're doing for each account and you know how much they need you and and so I wanted to bring that into the agency and so you know it was more about okay well we have you know we're handling social media and PR and you know what we would consider like digital press and you know their their digital visibility and then you know there was a lot of opportunity right for

you know, expert web development and production and search engine optimization and ads and all of the other things that exist in business. so the reason for the scale and the growth in staff was to be able to provide more service to the clients I already have.

Justin Levinson (11:00.086)‍

Yeah, that's crazy. I was looking on your site and I've seen you're doing brand design, web design, SEO, media production, photography, social. So you guys are doing a lot of different things, which is pretty cool. And I'm sure that having that diversity helps win more clients and retain more business because you can offer a lot more terrific services.

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Jahna Eichel (11:19.34)‍

Yeah, 100%. So that was kind of where that catapulted in terms of hiring. It was more about growing this way than this way. I think that a lot of agency owners get lost in quantity sometimes.

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Justin Levinson (11:37.816)‍

Totally. Yeah, that's really fascinating. Yeah, what, I guess maybe you could share some work that you're, is there any like front and center work that you're really proud of or campaigns or anything that you could share with the viewers of like a really big success within your agency?

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Jahna Eichel (12:00.748)‍

Yeah, I mean, we're proud of it. mean, literally every piece of content that we produce, every client that we impact is a win for us. One thing that I say in interviews when we're hiring is the passion has to start with the growth of the client. The impact to the client directly has to be where the passion is. And then

producing the best thing that you can possibly produce for them so that they can grow. Obviously, I'm not like an open heart surgeon or whatever. I'm not like in Doctors Without Borders, like over here saving babies, you know, but the reality is that, you know, a marketing agency can make or break the success of a business and it marketing affects how many people that business hires, how

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Justin Levinson (12:48.066)‍

Yeah.

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Jahna Eichel (12:55.092)‍

they pay their employees, how they promote their employees, how they expand their distribution, how that like, good marketing has such a beautiful impact on so many lives that this like churn and burn, you know, I need a million clients and I need to duplicate my systems and you know, that whole thing is just not for me at least and for my staff, it's not what it's about for us.

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Justin Levinson (13:23.596)‍

Yeah.

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Jahna Eichel (13:24.512)‍

It's really about the client win and it's about the growth that happens for them. And then by that happening, then we get to grow too.

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Justin Levinson (13:34.424)‍

Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool. And what are the different ways you see ROI within your work? For the brand that you're working with, what do those wins look like for them?

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Jahna Eichel (13:56.366)‍

Absolutely. mean at the end of the day like everything comes down to sales and and growth and so if the if our clients are growing and their numbers are Increasing then that's what we want Sometimes marketing efforts as you know, don't necessarily equate dollar for dollar in terms of sales But what they do if they don't equate to that then they equate to visibility, right and at the end of the day

a business has to have an audience. And so that's essentially where the starting line is. And so if the sales haven't come yet, then our clients return on investment is eyes and ears and audience and measurable increase in audience and visibility.

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Justin Levinson (14:44.29)‍

And how does the client, maybe you can share with me how the client, how they come inbound and how, what it sort of looks like internally, you know, if they're coming organically or your, if maybe your marketing is bringing them in internally or how does that look and what does the path sort of look like once you've got a new client on the hook, what your processes look like?

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Jahna Eichel (15:11.126)‍

Yeah, mean, most of our clients are inbound, are organic. We have a really impactful, really high value search engine optimization protocol. We've been leveraging AI since long before the machine learning conversation kind of hit what I call mainstream. We've been using AI since like 2017.

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Justin Levinson (15:39.072)‍

Wow.

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Jahna Eichel (15:39.758)‍

strategically for backlinking and so You know one I think having a really good name helps quite a bit You know people and then people will call and you know, they'll say I googled You know absolute best marketing agency and you guys came up and I'm like, yep exactly I oftentimes also refer to us as like the rescue agency so usually, you know, I don't know if you've ever heard the saying I definitely didn't make it up, but

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Justin Levinson (15:57.57)‍

That's us.

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Jahna Eichel (16:09.486)‍

It's like there's always enough money to do it wrong twice never enough to do it right the first time And so a lot of times we'll get a client that will type into Google something along the lines of like I Got screwed by my last marketing agency. I need someone I can trust And that's really important as well as you know that we're able to like kind of rescue them from the bad guys are eight our industry is weird, know, there's

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Justin Levinson (16:15.372)‍

Yeah.

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Jahna Eichel (16:38.008)‍

There's definitely some smoke and mirror stuff going on and building an agency with integrity is, I think, the best way to grow because people don't leave if they're happy. And so we tend to fish out the folks who are not being taken care of well.

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Justin Levinson (16:59.714)‍

Yeah, and what kind of things do you hear from those people when they have been taken for a ride? What are those complaints like?

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Jahna Eichel (17:07.534)‍

Usually like being locked up, right? So like one of the things that we pride ourselves on is, know, we're at the end of the day, we're work for hire. So whatever we produce, whether it's media, whether it's, you know, collateral, printed collateral, photography, cinematography, commercials, whatever, we are not holding licensing over anybody's head. We've been paid to produce something on the behalf of the client. It lives and dies with the client. They own it. They don't.

We don't have to eke out extra dollars and cents in licensing. just don't. And I know that a lot of companies, that's a large percentage of their profit margins, user license accessibility, but that's just not a game that we play. So that's oftentimes something that we hear.

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Justin Levinson (17:57.719)‍

Yeah.

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Jahna Eichel (18:02.486)‍

you know, I, my license ran out for my images on my billboard and they want $10,000 to me to extend the license and I might as well just start from scratch.

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Justin Levinson (18:14.752)‍

Interesting. That's a great differentiator from your competitors. And so they've come in, you've got the client on the hook and you're going to pursue with them what does the next step look like within your agency? who is their first, maybe you don't have to name names, what's their first point of contact and what does it look like kind of going through the funnel?

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Jahna Eichel (18:41.162)‍

Yeah, it's still me. So when a client comes on board, we have some deep dive sessions, strategy conversations, and really just, I let them really just get me up to speed with, you know, what they love about their company, what they wish was different, what they wish they had done differently, what things that they feel like other marketing agencies haven't done well.

and what their ultimate goals are. One of the questions that I ask usually is like, I was a magician and you controlled the wand, what would you want the next year, two years, three years, five years to look like? questions like that, really, sometimes my staff is like, John, we can't always talk about the 10-year plan. I need to know what to do in an hour. And I'm like, well, the 10-year plan has a lot to do with what we're gonna do in an hour.

And so there's short-term wins like dumping all of your cash flow from a venture capital firm into ads and seeing what happens. And then there's the long-term marketing strategy of making sure that you're incrementally growing strategically and with dignity.

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Justin Levinson (19:54.36)‍

So you're almost a brand therapist to start before getting into the strategy.

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Jahna Eichel (19:57.662)‍

gosh. Sometimes you have for sure. I prefer strategist, but.

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Justin Levinson (20:01.772)‍

Yeah, that's pretty interesting.

Yeah, totally. I mean, you're kind of, you know, you have to kind of look within and see what your vision is and what the client has to look within and what they want and what they see and how they're... What specific type of brands have you been working with? Maybe our viewers would be interested in kind of hearing about that if you're allowed to tell us.

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Jahna Eichel (20:27.564)‍

Yeah, I mean, I'll probably not talk directly about, you know, specific clients. Yeah, so we're industry agnostic is what we describe ourselves as the the relatable aspect that really crosses all of our clients is they're generally the luxury, they're the luxury option in whatever their niche is. So if they're a, you know, a beauty brand, they're likely in the luxury price point.

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Justin Levinson (20:29.972)‍

Yeah, just within which niche maybe if you're comfortable.

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Jahna Eichel (20:56.686)‍

of their vertical. they're architects, they're a high-end architecture firm, et cetera, the beat goes on. So that's generally the similarities between our clients is we don't have any clients who are selling a $10 t-shirt or something like

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Justin Levinson (21:16.768)‍

Yep, so you've got high-end clientele, which I'm sure is better for what it's costing for your services, I'm sure. Are you ever looking to sort of like, I mean, obviously when you're marketing, are, lot of it is the image of the brand and what you're putting out there. Are you ever challenged with

like fixing something opposed to like, are you ever going on the offensive to maybe get ahead of something that's not good or how is that part of your process?

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Jahna Eichel (21:55.342)‍

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, in my PR background, you know, there is a, you know, there is something called crisis management, right? Like there are things that happen in a business or things that happen in the internet, right? And so sometimes you do have to stop the bleeding and, you know, plug the hole of the boat that might be drowning and, you know, here's what I'll, here's what I'll say.

We didn't lose a single client in COVID, not one. Not one client parted ways with us during the whole COVID situation. We actually grew like almost 500%. And one of the reasons why that is is because our clients didn't really feel the tension or the pressure of COVID, right? Like there was already strategy. We were already looking ahead. We were already planned out.

Right? you know, there wasn't, you know, unfortunately, you know, a lot of people lost their businesses in that time. But a lot of that could have been avoided with the right, you know, take a deep breath, figure it out kind of thing, kind of thing. And so, yeah, I mean, sometimes we are, you know, definitely coming in and fixing things, right? And it's really about

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Justin Levinson (23:11.458)‍

How do I?

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Jahna Eichel (23:21.57)‍

the client's resources and their goals. And at the end of the day, we're not the cheapest option. If you get five bids, we're probably the second most expensive. There's probably one other one that's pricier than us. And I think that for us, it makes sense to be a high ticket agency.

and our clients understand it and they appreciate it because they're not necessarily having to piecemeal different firms or freelancers. So it makes sense for them as well. What I'll say there is, again, there's always enough money to do it right, wrong twice and never enough to write the first time. So sometimes people do cut corners and have a...

crappy website that's sandboxed and that nobody sees. you know, they went for, you know, flash and trash, right? Like a really flashy, you know, aesthetically pleasing website that just has absolutely zero functionality. And, you know, the consumer needs to click 15 times before they get to car. You know, like we're not, we're not that society. We're not patient humans anymore. We're not.

You know, we're used to instant gratification. so if your website loads, you know, in 50 seconds, like you're, it's over. Right. Like, so, you know, there are, definitely have had to, you know, mitigate issues, but we really try to at least split our time and the client's resources so that we're working on future growth. Whilst simultaneously fixing problems. Right. And so.

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Justin Levinson (24:44.76)‍

Yeah.

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Jahna Eichel (25:04.278)‍

A lot of mistakes that clients make is not actually hitting every marketing opportunity that's available to them. They'll tend to say, I have a X dollar budget, let me put that all in pay per click advertising. Well, as you know, the minute that that number doesn't work for you anymore, all of the work that you've done and all of the money that you spent literally is

poof gone in the blink of an eye because you have not focused on any organic traffic, any branding expectations, customer loyalty, all of the things that are free, if done well, kind of are missed. And so, you know, we try to at least make rescuing somebody from a problem not be like starting from ground zero.

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Justin Levinson (25:47.543)‍

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (26:03.126)‍

Are most of the clients you work with pretty open to, know, obviously they're paying for your services. Do you find they're pretty open? you get pushback sometimes on the direction you'd like to go?

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Jahna Eichel (26:15.938)‍

Yeah, I I always say like at the end of the day, like their business is their baby, right? And so I'm here to be a good steward of that baby. But I know what I'm doing and my team knows what they're doing. And, you know, usually, you know, not everybody has to be an expert in everything. Just because you own a business doesn't mean you're an expert in getting your name out there. Also, business owners have a hard time talking about themselves sometimes. You know, not every business owner is, you know,

comfortable on camera, not every business owner wants to tell their story all the time. There's a lot of, successful people are successful because they're really good at something. It doesn't have to be marketing, right? And so I forgot what the original question is. I'm just rambling.

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Justin Levinson (27:02.616)‍

Yeah, I've seen people get pushback, but I mean, I get it. It's like you might not, yeah. mean, I'm not a very comfortable person being in front of camera myself. I even get nervous doing stuff like this, but sometimes you have to do it, you know? sometimes it takes some, you know, takes some massaging and saying like, hey, you know, you can do this. Just be yourself and get out there. But it isn't for everybody.

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Jahna Eichel (27:16.952)‍

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (27:31.508)‍

And I can totally understand how that can be for, and I'm sure you've run into other people that are just like, yeah, like I don't want, I'm the face of the company, but I don't really want to be it.

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Jahna Eichel (27:39.978)‍

Yeah, and I you know, there is a balance between like being the face of a business and also letting the business be the face of itself Which sounds weird to say it like that but like the business should be able to carry itself with or without a face But having a face of a brand also is really helpful and impactful to growth especially with the expectations of most consumers and

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Justin Levinson (27:47.896)‍

Yeah.

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Jahna Eichel (28:06.776)‍

wanting to be kind of like in the know, like who owns this? What are they like? What do they do? What's their story? You know, we're not, this isn't like, you know, in New York City, was, don't, you know, it's been, you know, a decade since we've been in Colorado, but you know, you go into a pizzeria and you order a slice at the counter. I'm not like going back there going like, is Antonio back there making, like who's, you know, can I be Facebook friends with the manager, the general manager?

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Justin Levinson (28:28.844)‍

Yeah

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Jahna Eichel (28:35.202)‍

Like that's just not, I don't know if it's a East Coast thing, but like that's not how New Yorkers, I feel like consume product for the most part. Whereas like here in Colorado, we have a brick and mortar business for like the community. It's a music studio. And like every customer that comes in, like they'll come in for the first time, like 10 minutes into their studio session, they're like friending my husband and I on Facebook.

And I'm like, you're cool and everything, but we don't have to be Facebook friends. don't know. Part of me loves it and appreciates the sense of consumer loyalty that we have in this day and age. And part of me is like, it's unnecessary also. You can consume and you can enjoy and you can do cool things without having to be enmeshed in a brand.

So that's why that both and, like, you know, personal brand and, you know, the business kind of have to work, you know, synergistically, but then also separate. But yeah, I mean, as far as the pushback question, mean, some occasionally there's definitely, you know, some, I would say, I would say that, you know, some people call it a bottleneck. I call it a blessing. You know, I am very involved with.

all of our clients and I'm not going to lead them astray. And I might be misinformed. There might be something that they tell me about a relationship that they had with a vendor or a project that they've done in the past that maybe I didn't take into consideration. And so they'll share some perspective that I wasn't privy to, which would then maybe change my approach. But for the most part, our clients trust us to deliver.

And we usually do above and beyond what their expectations are. So yeah, would say that if somebody is like, there's also, we don't also say yes to everybody either. If we're in the discovery phase and like, our standard onboarding protocol.

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Justin Levinson (30:35.212)‍

Mmm, I was gonna ask that. Yeah, sometimes you it's not the right fit.

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Jahna Eichel (30:46.722)‍

doesn't feel right to a client and they're used to doing it this way and they want it this way and they want me to only use like this one CRM and this and that. you know, if they're, you know, usually I will say like if somebody comes in and they're like, we only want to use go high level. I'm like, meh. don't, like that.

Okay, we're probably not the right fit. don't nothing against go high level but like, you know, there are just a lot of opportunity and software and CRMs and platforms and dashboards and databases. And so I really don't like handcuffs. And so if a client is like, here's this hand, and this one, and that one, they're probably not a good fit. And we'll, we'll all likely either refer them to a company, I think we'll take care of them. Or, you know,

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Justin Levinson (31:38.914)‍

Yeah, no, I think that's a great point. It's like sometimes, yeah, you have to say no to work if it's not the right fit. And you also have to have a set value for your work too. And by being one of the more expensive services, I think that's a great thing, because you're stating that this isn't going to be a cheap job. You're going to get a really good ROI on this. I'm super interested in PR.

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Jahna Eichel (31:39.609)‍

Delicately put them down.

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Justin Levinson (32:06.336)‍

And I'm just wondering how you got into that part. Did you go to school for that or how did that become part of your world?

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‍Jahna Eichel (32:14.036)‍

Yeah, I went to school for business communications. I'm 38, so I know that the communications programs and colleges right now are very different than how they were when I was in school. I also did minor in sociology because I was really curious on just how we subconsciously think and consume and live on planet Earth with capitalism.

yeah, i'm really lucky that I was able to kind of like piecemeal my experience together in school so that I could like kind of facilitate like my own life path you know versus like being very You know strictly communications or strictly pr and then my first job was pr based and yeah, it was just an interesting, you know pr is an interesting animal right and it was it was different than it's different now than

how it was then. But you know, was a lot of like product, you know, my first job was like a lot of product launches, making sure everybody in the company understood the product, you know, extensively in, you know, my new detail, making sure that every piece of communication, whether it was a website description, whether it was like, you know, face to face communication about a project was said, you know, exactly.

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Justin Levinson (33:11.704)‍

Yeah.

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Jahna Eichel (33:36.942)‍

like the wording was exactly the way the know branding wanted it to be and and you know really like Controlling a narrative and a communication style for for product launches And then it kind of evolved into just like open communications, you know live event marketing things like that Again that old-school Rolodex, you know kind of situation and then you know Instagram

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Justin Levinson (34:01.622)‍

Yeah.

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Jahna Eichel (34:05.178)‍

And TikTok are not really all that different. It's just a different protocol, a different technology. if we think about it as like, I always say, people will say, I only have 1,000 followers on social media. And I'm like, yeah, but if 1,000 people came in your store right now, what would you do?

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Justin Levinson (34:29.272)‍

Mmm, yeah.

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Jahna Eichel (34:31.008)‍

Right? So it's really social media and digital marketing is not so unsimilar to in-person, you old school PR.

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Justin Levinson (34:41.612)‍

Yeah, that's an interesting way of thinking about it, because that's your captive audience. know, that makes a lot of sense. I was involved in PR in sort of a different way when I was more of a musician, when that was sort of my go-to. I did this thing called Cyber PR, which was like a thing that came out where it was designed for musicians to like be...

part of their own PR strategy. was sort of like, would be, the person who ran the cyber PR was sort of like running the show, but you were sort of pitching yourself in a way. was sort of like, and I got pretty good at pitching myself and selling myself into opportunities and through social media too. Even early on,

getting in touch with PR firms that were connected to the Blue Chacks on social media back when it was like you had to like more earn it opposed to pay for it. So I remember years ago, I was very early to get like a Twitter Blue Check, which speaking of Elon, he stole mine away. And I have the Instagram one and some of those and like, you know, that stuff like

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Jahna Eichel (35:48.312)‍

Sure.

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Jahna Eichel (35:59.918)‍

What did you do? Just kidding.

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Justin Levinson (36:08.28)‍

It doesn't really matter, but there is some sense of like legitimacy that it gives you with your brand. And I definitely think I leveraged opportunities early on just because of things like that. So I ran a lot of different PR campaigns for myself. And I was always interested in how to get people's attention and doing it in really personal way. One success story that I had was

when I was in school, we're about the same vintage. So we were probably in different colleges at the time. But I was in Boston and WERS was like the big college radio station out there. I was studying at Berkeley and one of my roommates was a DJ over there. And he suggested that for the place that I wanted to get my music played in that I write like a personal like note with my CD back when people were doing that. And my one sheet

and to write something personal to the person that was handling that style of music. I just took a piece of paper out, it was very just humble. Everybody who's pitching themselves are like, I'm the next Beatles. I'm inspired by Bob Dylan and blah, blah. And I'm the next this, this, and this, and here are all my accomplishments and blah, blah, And I saw that that strategy wasn't always working for myself.

And I took this guy's advice and I just wrote like, hey, you know, I'm a big fan of WRS. I love the music here and you know, I'm a independent artist. It's just, and I'd just be honored if you just would take a listen and consider me. And even if you don't, I'm still gonna be an avid listener and appreciate you just, you know, taking a listen. Of course, I pre-opened the CD because you wanna make sure, just like you said, like if it's a website, you gotta click 15 times, they're gonna be like,

the way they're gonna buy anything. But if you open up the packaging and all you have to do is slide that CD out and pop it right in, it's gonna be a quicker transition that might get you in there. And you know, it ended up being a success. And I used that strategy also with like Sirius Radio, like 2009. I had a little bit of musical success on their coffee house station. And then of course later I became a recruiter and now I find it even easier to

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Jahna Eichel (38:17.325)‍

Mm-mm.

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Justin Levinson (38:30.616)‍

advocate on the behalf of other people. Essentially, I'm promoting people to agencies and companies. So, you know, I find that it's easier to actually promote other people than yourself in a way, because it's very, you know, it just feels more natural to, you know, I don't know. It's just, so that's my, I know that the interview, we're interviewing you, but I figured I'd just chime in with a little personal story.

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Jahna Eichel (38:44.44)‍

Definitely.

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Jahna Eichel (38:52.618)‍

No, I love it. I love it. You like, you like you did like the manual version of like a website optimization. It's total analog.

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Justin Levinson (39:02.643)‍

Yeah!

Yeah, analog and digital world here. It was the old school way. But back then, I was pretty hip to technology though, even though I was doing things also in manual way. Like back then on MySpace, which I don't wanna date myself here, but there were like, I wanna say that I was sort of getting into AI, I mean, not really AI, but at least a similar vertical back then too.

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Jahna Eichel (39:20.75)‍

I'm out.

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Justin Levinson (39:34.58)‍

because there were these programs where like if you had a music page, you could set up a program that you could put in all the other artists that sounded kind of like you.

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Jahna Eichel (39:46.028)‍

Yep. It was like the original Spotify playlist.

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Justin Levinson (39:50.104)‍

Yeah, well, yeah, when people come to your page, they hear your music instantly. But these particular programs, you could enter the artists in like if you sounded like whatever the Beatles or Ben Folds, whatever you put it all in. And then it would automatically befriend people that were fans of those artists. And because the way it worked, where the minute your page would show up, the music would play, it was really like this quick conversion because people would be like,

fans of a band that sounds just like you, they'd go right to your page and hear music that sounds just like their music that they like, and then they would follow you. And this was also in the early 2000s, really dating myself here. there was a lot of success in that. I found that so fascinating that those tools, I mean, of course now we use that in LinkedIn and email automation and multi-channel campaigns and AI and all that different stuff. It's very similar, but it was pretty...

pretty fun to see how those kind of things convert. They look at your page, they click on your website, they go to iTunes then, or they buy an album. That stuff was really effective, and now you're just doing that on steroids in the modern day world for brands.

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Jahna Eichel (41:03.274)‍

Exactly. So if you looked back at your at your one cheat in those days, would you be embarrassed by your headshot? Or would you be like, Yeah, this was sick.

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Justin Levinson (41:05.557)‍

Yeah, it's pretty crazy stuff.

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Justin Levinson (41:17.472)‍

Yeah, that's a good question. I think it was like, yeah, you you get frozen in that time, you know what I mean? What was like, cool.

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Jahna Eichel (41:26.306)‍

He stood against the wall with one leg up and the guitar.

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Justin Levinson (41:29.624)‍

Yeah, I mean, I definitely was like, too, like, cool faced or like trying to be a sad indie guy or something like that. I don't know what I was doing. But yeah, if I could go back in time, I may I might have tried to make it a little hipper. But yeah, and invested more in branding and, and strategy. A lot of those things you don't think of and I think a lot of people a lot of creative people don't always

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Jahna Eichel (41:36.909)‍

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (41:57.378)‍

think like business people and think that it's a whole package. Like in music, it's like when you see the Rolling Stones and you see that tongue sticking out, it's like, you know that's the Rolling Stones, you know? And that's just, that is somebody like yourself who has a vision that put that, and that makes such a difference, you know? Or the apple for the Beatles or whatever it is, those kinds of things really

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Jahna Eichel (41:59.63)‍

That's it.

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Jahna Eichel (42:10.402)‍

Yep.

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Jahna Eichel (42:20.107)‍

It does.

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Justin Levinson (42:26.69)‍

take the brand to the next level. And a band is a brand, you know, there, it's different, but it's still, it's a business and it's got to be marketed and sold and they sell a product and you know, it's still pretty apples to apples.

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Jahna Eichel (42:30.349)‍

It is.

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Jahna Eichel (42:43.19)‍

It is. Art is a commodity. It might not be a glass or a pen or computer, but it's still creativity is a commodity. And everybody wants to be successful, right? that might not be, it might not necessarily always have to equate to financial success when it's an artist or musician, but success still generally means

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Justin Levinson (42:48.535)‍

Yeah.

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Jahna Eichel (43:10.166)‍

Spotlight. It generally means people know about you. People want to, you know, consume whatever you've created in whatever way that that medium is presented. And so at the end of the day, it's all business. It's all marketing. Dating is marketing, right? Like it's all more, everything in life is, you know, kind of ties back to, you know, the presence and the reaction to it.

‍

Justin Levinson (43:30.455)‍

Yeah.

‍

Justin Levinson (43:40.824)‍

I know we only have a couple more minutes here, but curious what you do outside of work. Anything fun that you like to partake with and your family and all that jazz out in Colorado?

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Jahna Eichel (43:55.182)‍

Yeah, I have two kids and a hubby. We love music. Love going to live shows. We were just at the Sphere for the dead. So that was super fun. We took the kids which we'll probably leave them next time. But they dug it. They thought it was fun. One's almost 13 and one's almost 15. Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (44:04.479)‍

cool.

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Justin Levinson (44:10.188)‍

Yeah. Yeah. However, then.

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Justin Levinson (44:19.48)‍

Cool, awesome, did they enjoy it?

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Jahna Eichel (44:21.664)‍

Yeah, they did. They're musically inclined. My daughter plays drums. My son plays guitar. So they're into shows too, but what we didn't do is we didn't warn them that Dead in Company has like a four and a half hour set. So you just have to keep them fed. And then there's less complaining. Love music, like I said, loves just chilling and spending time. But I actually, I love working.

‍

Justin Levinson (44:27.736)‍

who are.

‍

Justin Levinson (44:35.704)‍

Wow, that is

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Jahna Eichel (44:50.796)‍

Like that, don't, even when I turn off, I'm still, you know, self-development guru, you know, listening to books on tape, you know, podcasts, reading, working on myself. I'm just, I'm really into it.

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Justin Levinson (45:00.248)‍

Mm.

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Justin Levinson (45:05.431)‍

Any particular books or podcasts that you could recommend that you enjoy?

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Jahna Eichel (45:09.838)‍

Oh my gosh, I have so many. One of my favorites is 10X is easier than 2X. I love the EOS model. I have so many, can't even like, have like brain paralysis thinking about my audible list right now. I'm also a little bit woo-woo. really dig like, you know, success, manifestation, universal energy is like positive thinking.

‍

Justin Levinson (45:25.708)‍

Hahaha

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Justin Levinson (45:34.829)‍

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (45:39.116)‍

I can get to that, I like that stuff.

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Jahna Eichel (45:40.014)‍

And yeah, just yeah, everybody always asks me what my hobbies are. I'm like working

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Justin Levinson (45:48.95)‍

Yeah, I'm very similar. Even when I'm like, I'll exercise just and I'll go I'll be exercising just to be like, I'm only doing this because I have to stay alive so I can work. And like trying to learn something.

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Jahna Eichel (45:59.454)‍

Yeah, or like, closing your brain with a gym is nice. Like, just kind of being like zoned into, you know, like cardio or, like, I'll play tennis for fun sometimes. But it's still in my mind, I'm still like going through my to do list or the things I want to accomplish. So

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Justin Levinson (46:20.536)‍

Yeah, no, can totally understand. We are wired similarly. But cool, Johnna, it's really a pleasure speaking with you and hearing more about your story and learning about your agency. yeah, I'm excited to share it with the viewers. And hopefully we can continue to stay in touch and maybe have you on in the future.

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Jahna Eichel (46:43.15)‍

Yeah, I'd love that, Justin. Thank you for having me again. It was fun. And I liked seeing all your guitars back there. I see that hollow body. All right. I am not musically inclined, but I will cheer and holler. See you.

‍

Justin Levinson (46:48.652)‍

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm picking in the grinning back here. Maybe we'll grid you wet one day.

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Justin Levinson (47:00.148)‍

Awesome, I'll always take a fan. Alright, have a good one. Bye.