Stephanie Spicer on Brands & the Future

Justin Levinson (00:00)‍

Hey everybody. Welcome to the agency side podcast. I'm your host Justin Levinson. And today I'm here with Stephanie Spicer, president of Lucquire, a proudly independent agency that's been shaping brands since 1984. Stephanie spent over a decade helping lead the agency's growth and creative vision, guiding both B2B and B2C brands to success. We'll dig into her path to the president seat, her leadership style, and how they stay competitive in the changing industry. Thanks so much for being here today, Stephanie.

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Stephanie Spicer (00:27)

Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited.

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Justin Levinson (00:29)‍

Yeah, so just to get into it, maybe you can tell us a little bit about what you guys do for the folks that might not be familiar with your agency.

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Stephanie Spicer (00:36)‍

Yeah,

so we are a full service agency, meaning we do everything from marketing strategy and brand strategy, really helping people figure out how you execute across paid, earned, marketing channels. And we're strategy first, meaning that we look at your business objectives and we help you understand what is the right thing to do for your business, the most effective and efficient way possible.

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Justin Levinson (01:00)‍

Awesome. Cool. And in terms of like how you got into the industry, maybe you can give us a little bit about your background.

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Stephanie Spicer (01:07)‍

Sure, sure. actually, sadly, I actually hate admitting this. I did not want to go into advertising. I wanted to go into management consulting, which you look at the headlines today. I'm actually super glad that I didn't. yeah, I was hardcore into management consulting. Unfortunately, I was not hardcore into studying in school. And so my grades were not quite good enough. And my senior year, I took a class, an advertising class, and I fell in love with it.

I loved the way you really have to understand what makes people tick, how you have to understand the best way to influence them. And it just, felt like a great combination of business and creativity. And I went and I got a job in New York, which was fun and exciting and crazy at the same time. And here I am 20 plus years later. I won't say exactly how many the plus is. You just have to, 10 young minutes, 20 plus.

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Justin Levinson (02:00)‍

Cool. And so you went to New York. Were you from North Carolina first or where did you come from?

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Stephanie Spicer (02:05)‍

I grew up in Virginia.

moved to New York because everyone was like, if you want to ban advertising, that's where you have to go. Because I think back then, again, 20 plus years ago, the pool was a little bit more focused on hold co-agencies. It was less independent focused than it is today. And so that's really where you had to kind of cut your teeth.

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Justin Levinson (02:23)‍

Yeah, and what was your entrance into the industry? Like, what was your first gig?

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Stephanie Spicer (02:27)‍

So I started actually at the ad council. Have you heard of the ad council? So they partner, it's a nonprofit organization that partners with agencies. So you've heard of like Smokey the Bear or Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Donk, like those campaigns from the 60s. They partner with nonprofits and with the big Madison Avenue hold co-agencies to come up with nonprofit campaigns that kind of go out to the world with donated media.

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Justin Levinson (02:31)‍

I'm not familiar, actually.

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Stephanie Spicer (02:53)‍

So I started there. I did that for about a year and it was great, right? You're doing a good, like working on a good cause. But at the same time, I also got to see how a bunch of different agencies worked. partnered with like six or seven agencies in my time there. So I was able to get a little bit of a peek behind the curtain and see what I wanted to do and what I didn't want to do. But then I moved over agency side. I went to Faconum building, which I think right now is FCB. It's changed a hundred times since then. And my first real account there was Oreo, which was a great place to start.

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Justin Levinson (03:22)‍

That's awesome. And so you have some, some really like big agency experience too. You saw that you worked at Gray as well.

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Stephanie Spicer (03:32)‍

Yeah, I was like great for the majority of my time in New York.

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Justin Levinson (03:35)‍

awesome. Cool. And so you've always been on the account side. drew you to that side of things? You kind of see yourself as like a relationship driven person or?

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Stephanie Spicer (03:44)‍

So it's actually funny, when I got to Luke where I was here for about three years and I started the strategy team. So I actually started our strategy practice. I actually should have gone into account planning or whatever, whatever you want to call it, different agencies call it different things. And I went to do that about three or four years into my tenure at the agency side. And they were like, yeah, you have to start from the beginning. And I was like, excuse me, what? They're like, yeah, you have to go back to making $30,000 a year.

in New York City and I was like, I'm not, I'm not going to do that. What I really get passionate about in the industry is it again, it's the strategy, it's understanding people, it's understanding what makes them tick, it's understanding what's the right thing to do. You could do a hundred things, a thousand things. What's the right thing to do? So while I was account management, my passion, I was the nerd.

it, you know, it was when I was in AAE digging through the 100 page research decks and finding like the one stat that was going to change the business. Like that was what I was passionate about. And so when I came down to Lukewire, it's a smaller agency, so it was a lot more flexible and I was able to start a strategy team. And now we have three people on that strategy team. It's nice to see it have grown and changed. But yeah, I my passion is really about the business, the connectivity of business and creativity.

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Justin Levinson (05:02)‍

Yeah. What's been your strategy in building your strategic team?

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Stephanie Spicer (05:07)‍

Well, strategy from like a hiring standpoint or... Smart, passionate. Those are the two things that... and kind, right? Where you've got some southern roots, so you gotta be smart, passionate, and kind.

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Justin Levinson (05:09)‍

Yeah, putting people together,

That's awesome. You guys work in like a remote setup or you guys come into an office or how does that look?

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Stephanie Spicer (05:26)‍

We are remote first. So, Louquire has been based in Charlotte its entire 41 year history. But what we found is that Charlotte is not a hotbed of marketing talent. So, really easy to get certain roles because there are plenty of people here doing marketing, but other roles like creative media, analytics, some of those are harder to find in the Charlotte market. And so, when the pandemic hit, everybody scattered.

really started hiring then outside of the Charlotte market and realized it works. It works really well. And so we were able to broaden where we were looking for talent. And now it really is about hiring the best possible person for the role and for the culture of the agency, which has been such a godsend. So we do have, we don't call it an office because we don't want anyone to think that they have to come into it, but we call it a den.

We do have a location here in Charlotte that people can come into when they're in town. I probably go in like once a week, but two thirds of our talent base is here in Charlotte. Everyone else is everywhere from California to Florida to New Hampshire. So we're, we're spread out quite a bit.

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Justin Levinson (06:35)‍

That's cool. And do you leverage freelance talent or are you sort of full-time people out there too?

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Stephanie Spicer (06:40)‍

Primarily full-time. will tap into freelancers occasionally, but we try to do it as little as possible. Our culture is our secret sauce, right? I mean, I think we're not the only agency to say that, and that's harder to do when you have a big freelance.

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Justin Levinson (06:54)‍

Yeah, that's really cool. I love, um, I love the model that you, that you folks have. mean, it's just, you know, it's kind of like the new thing and the new agency model when the pandemic happened, everybody sort of went, they scattered. But then it was also, it was an opportunity because yeah, can meet people from all over the world who can bring a lot of different things to the table, which is really cool. Awesome. Maybe, uh, I'd be curious to learn some more about, you know, some of the exciting campaigns and stuff you, you guys have been working on. And also was.

not to change the subject again, but I just want to mention that I had seen on your site that you, while we're talking about building a team, that 2024 in Adweek, you were the fastest growing agency. Also number 23 on the top women led agencies and number 17 midsize agencies. that's a lot of kudos. Seems like you guys are doing the right things over there.

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Stephanie Spicer (07:40)‍

Yeah, it was amazing to be recognized for that because, yeah, there was a big shift in our strategy and how we think about ourselves as an agency, how do we go to market as an agency, and there's been a lot of change over the past few years. We're a 41-year-old agency, but in a lot of ways, we acted like a startup starting in 2020, 2021. A lot of things were different, and it's been incredible. And that award was just a nice recognition for the work that the team.

has accomplished.

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Justin Levinson (08:11)‍

Yeah, great job. And yeah, I'd love to be very interested in some campaigns that maybe have excited you the most over your tenure.

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Stephanie Spicer (08:20)‍

Well, one of my favorites is actually the Visit North Carolina campaign. I don't know if you read anything about it on the site, but actually just won our first, it was the first time we applied, but it was also the first time we won EFE award, which are you familiar with that?

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Justin Levinson (08:33)‍

I am, yeah, congrats, that's awesome.

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Stephanie Spicer (08:35)‍

Thank you, thank you. I mean, listen, I told you I'm all about business and creativity and FE is right, the ultimate mark of something that's effective. Yeah. And so to me, it was just, and we knew that. So that's work that we'd done for Visit North Carolina. We've worked with them for, gosh, close to 15 years at this point. But I'm so proud of the work because it took something that was inherently true about the state, but also inherently different about the state.

and then married it with something that consumers actually want. And that's a hard thing to do, especially when you think about a state. There's so many different places that you can visit. There's so many different subtractions, types of trips that you can take. So really pulling that together with one strategy and ultimately one campaign, which is called For Real, visit North Carolina. It's all about authenticity. Have you been to North Carolina before?

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Justin Levinson (09:26)‍

I haven't spent too much time there, but I looked at going to college at UNC. I didn't end up going there, but I went there with my family and I enjoy it. It's beautiful place.

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Stephanie Spicer (09:35)‍

It's very beautiful. And I think what's so different about it, you you compare our cities to a New York City or a Miami, or you compare our beaches to a Myrtle beach, or you compare our mountains to a Gatlinburg. We're very authentic is the right word. Yeah. And in a time when things are going towards AI and they're going towards deep fakes and their authenticity is something that people are craving.

And so it was just so natural for us to lean into it and the campaign, the performance of the campaign, we got a 310 to one ROI. Wow. And I was just, you know, for me, that's so meaningful to tip because essentially what we're doing is we're driving tax revenue for the state. Right. So that means that we can invest those funds in other things. So it's just really, really nice because it's an effective marketing campaign.

It plays into what people really want, but then also it ultimately does good for the state as well. So it's a win on every front.

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Justin Levinson (10:34)‍

Yeah, no, I totally can see that. Yeah. When you're really passionate about something that's doing good and it's so much better and you get an award at the end. That's amazing. How does it, how does it, maybe just for folks who don't know, or actually I'm not really sure. How does the process go with, with applying to get the award or how does the whole thing work? Yeah. Thanks for tuning in folks. This episode is brought to you by Coming Up Creative, a relationship first boutique creative recruitment agency.

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Stephanie Spicer (10:53)‍

The Avia Award.

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Justin Levinson (11:03)‍

We disrupt the creative ecosystem by running sophisticated multi-channel campaigns with custom video and voice outreach that actually gets responses. We actively market the agencies and brands we represent to help them stand out to today's industry's top talent, all backed by real human connection and AI-powered targeting. If you're ready for a modern recruitment approach, visit www.comingupllc.com and get started today.

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Stephanie Spicer (11:28)‍

Yeah. So there's a reason that we have not applied before. It is a long application process. I don't even remember how many pages the final submission was, but pages and pages and pages. And essentially, because it's about effectiveness, you need to be able to state the metrics that you started out trying to achieve, ultimately how you achieved them. They want to see it multiple different ways. So it's not, it's nothing that you could fake if you wanted to. And then, I mean, we were up against.

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Justin Levinson (11:53)‍

Yeah.

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Stephanie Spicer (11:56)‍

some of the biggest brands in the world. So it was exciting to kind of see the winners list and to kind of go down and say, huge brand, huge brand, huge brand, visit North Carolina, huge brand, huge brand.

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Justin Levinson (12:07)‍

That's amazing. That's really cool.

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Stephanie Spicer (12:08)‍

But yeah, it was a labor of love for the team to even put the submission together.

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Justin Levinson (12:12)‍

cool. I forget is FE Awards a do you go to the ceremony or is this sort of just like a virtual announcement?

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Stephanie Spicer (12:18)‍

No, there is a ceremony. He did not go ultimately because there are so many people that touched the account. mean, we have like 30 people internally that touched it. And then obviously there's a ton on the client side as well. And so we decided instead to hold a joint celebration here in Charlotte.

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Justin Levinson (12:35)‍

That's cool. That's collaborative. You know, you guys all put your hands in it and instead of just sending one person as a rep, know, get yourself at home. That's cool.

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Stephanie Spicer (12:43)‍

And

you said the magic word, right? Collaborative. Like none of these things happen in a vacuum. Not a single person can do all of the things. And what the project manager does is just as important as what the creative does is just as important as what the client does. Like we all have to be. So yeah, exactly that. was like, I'm not going to send two or three people to New York when so many people were the masterminds behind this.

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Justin Levinson (13:05)‍

I love it. do you, are there a lot of agent or, agency events that you like to go to? Do do you travel and go to different things?

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Stephanie Spicer (13:11)‍

I do try to go to conferences. There's a handful throughout the year that I think are important. Really for me, it's about learning. There is this industry is changing so fast. It's not even funny. Right. It's changing from a big picture standpoint, but it's also changing within disciplines and within channels. And so if you don't stay on the pulse of what's changing, you are so screwed. I try to go to a few of them every year.

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Justin Levinson (13:37)‍

Yeah. Are there any particular that you like that you think would be beneficial for people in the agency world to attend?

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Stephanie Spicer (13:43)‍

Yeah, I mean, I've had some good luck at Mirren. I've learned a lot of great stuff at that conference every year. We typically go to the small agency awards as well, just to understand kind of what other competitors in our space are doing and playing against. I have not gone to South by Southwest yet or can or anything that is broader like that. I would like to. It's just sometimes hard to get away from all of them.

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Justin Levinson (14:10)‍

Yeah, no, there's a lot of them. I'm always curious because I've been looking to attend more events this year. have two little kids, attending events is a challenge and it's a bargaining. It's an agreement. have to... A negotiation I have to take place in to see if... But we are thinking about getting a family van where we can all travel together to some of these events. we'll see. I have a six and a half year old and a three year old, two girls. they keep us pretty busy.

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Stephanie Spicer (14:31)‍

Aw, older your kids.

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Justin Levinson (14:40)‍

I think they probably would both be better marketers for the company than I would be. Maybe they'd be our number one lead generation tools to bring them to a event.

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Stephanie Spicer (14:49)‍

That's right. That's can put a puppy in there. You'll be great.

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Justin Levinson (14:52)‍

Yeah, right. I was thinking about going to Adweek in New York. That was something that I know is coming up in October that I haven't attended before.

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Stephanie Spicer (14:58)‍

Yeah, that's a good one. went to that one last year, though I have to say I was dreadfully ill most of the

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Justin Levinson (15:03)‍

Really?

That's not fun to be in New York City and not feeling well.

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Stephanie Spicer (15:06)‍

No,

it was for sure not, but it is a good conference and they do a ton of different sessions that you could pop into.

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Justin Levinson (15:13)‍

That's cool. Yes. I'm always intrigued by that. Cool. So I guess maybe you could tell us, I know you just told me about how things are changing rapidly in this space and it's hard to keep up with it. And I know, yeah, I'm always seeing all these new tools and new things that are happening and it's pretty wild. Obviously you've been in the game for a minute at this company, you've been working there for Lucre for almost 13 years. Is how long you've been there?

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Stephanie Spicer (15:38)‍

Almost 14.

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Justin Levinson (15:39)‍

14 years, that's amazing. when you, from where you first started there into like what you're seeing now, what is like the tech stack? Is it a lot different? What is it feeling like? is it kind of feeling like the, like dial up to, to high speed internet or how's that? how's that feeling?

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Stephanie Spicer (15:55)‍

I think that's a good analogy. I think that's good analogy I've heard also, just desktop publishing in general going from that to that. mean, I think...

The pace of change isn't going to stop. It's only going to get more complex. And so I think the thing that I have to keep in the front of my mind and that I'm telling the team all the time to keep in the front of their mind is it's not the shiny objects, right? It's about understanding which of these new tools has the potential to really move the business. Also get in there and play around because I think until it's hard to even understand what some of these tools can do until you start actually playing with them.

But I think the difference between where the tech stock was two years ago to today is night and day. think in another two years, it's going to be night and day all over again. Here's the good news. Our clients are even more bewildered by what's happening than we are, right? Because they've got their own set of priorities and all they're hearing is from the top. You need to be using AI. You need to be using AI, but they don't know where to start either. ⁓

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Justin Levinson (16:55)‍

Yeah.

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Stephanie Spicer (16:57)‍

We have to work with them. have to partner with them to help them understand what are the right tools for them and to bring them along in the journey. So we're all in it together.

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Justin Levinson (17:04)‍

Are there any tools in particular that you found have been a real return on investment for your company, whether it's a creative tool or a collaborative tool or anything of that sort?

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Stephanie Spicer (17:15)‍

I mean, honestly for us, LLMs, just, GPT has been, and yes, there's a ton of different interfaces that you can put on top and different companies are packaging it different ways, but there's not really any LLM understanding how to use it, understanding how not to use it. That is going to be the game changer. It's the humanity, right? It's the ability to understand what's good and what's not good.

So it's gonna return stuff to you all day long. You've got to be able to really parse through what's crap and what's going to be usable.

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Justin Levinson (17:50)‍

Yeah, it's getting pretty wild. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, like you said, there's always like a new shiny object that they're saying that, this is the key, you know, and you can spend all day, all week, all months trying it, learning it, and then finding you might not get the return on it. And then you could have done all these other things. Yeah. It's, it's pretty, it's kind of noisy. You know, I'm a musician, obviously that's something I'm, I'm always interested in it.

was playing with Suno recently. don't know if you're familiar with, with that AI tool, but it's, it's pretty wild. It's just like you, you know, and I've, for some folks who might've been playing it with Friar, I don't, I don't want feel like I'm just like discovering this for the first time. So I some people have been messing with this probably for, for a minute, but you know, you can prompt into it and tell it like, you know, you can play something simple on a guitar and be like, I want this to sound in the style of like sixties surf music with like a lead guitar player playing in the second verse. then.

I want you to create the bridge and then I want the ending to be, you know, a fade out and I want it at this BPM and I want, you know, you know, a Farfisa organ from 1970, whatever, you know what I mean? You can give it all these prompts and you play it and it's like, wow. mean, like it's pretty amazing. I this isn't a music related conversation, but you know, there is an element of like, you know, the human AI than human, which I think seems to be like that.

formula that we hear about all the time that does seem really interesting because, know, when you get that it's pretty incredible, but what inspires me is being able to take that music, then chop up the stems, put them into like logic or pro tools or something, and then adding like another level of your own creative on top of that. So it's like, I had an idea, sped me up. And that, you know, that's sort of like the workflow that I've been kind of experimenting with. And yeah, I mean, if you just let it do its thing, like the tarpsoles are really cheesy. It's like, you're like, this is terrible. And it's so formulaic and so.

Like it's a lick that you've heard a million times and it doesn't have that like that spark, but you know, if you put your own twist on it, kind of makes it, know, humanizes it and makes it cool.

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Stephanie Spicer (19:51)‍

Well, without the humanity to your point, it's cheesy. And I think if you think of it as another tool, right, just another tool in your musician toolbox, you can do so much more with it versus if you think of it as like either or, it's either me or it's not. It's going to be like, what can you do with this now that you're empowered with this?

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Justin Levinson (20:12)‍

100%. I even think of it a lot in my copy and outreach. It's like, anybody can make a multi-channel campaign and pepper it out to a gazillion people now. mean, you could easily go to like, can find data scrape, you can use clay, you can use like any sort of lem list, any sort of, you can spackle like the entire planet with, with whatever you want. But you know, it doesn't like in sales, at least for

for me, really like, copywriting is so important because it has to be human, has to sound like how you actually sound like in your tone. You know, I've definitely written things in AI, sent them to clients and they've been like, you didn't really write that, did you? I'm like, no, didn't because they know, they know how I sound, you know, they know like my abbreviations and all that stuff. And yes, you can have a fixer AI bot in your email that is going to mimic how you sound and it'll get close. But you know, we all know like with our friends and our family, like how they

you know, the space in between what they're saying and how they vibe, you know, that's, that's what makes to me music, the most inspiring thing, because it's like really convincing music has those like natural breaks in it. Like just like in our conversation when there's like a, spot and, know, you kind of feel that's what makes it human. You can't really like emulate that yet, you know? And I think that that's just with all creative. It's like, there's still that element that, you know,

Yeah, and people are yearning for that, to be able to be like a human connection.

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Stephanie Spicer (21:40)‍

Right, right. And they're going to, they're going to want it more and more. Our chief creative officer calls, you know, I don't know if you've heard the term sea of sameness, but we've used it forever in advertising to refer to the fact that everything kind of looks the same. He's calling it the tsunami of sameness, right? Because if everybody is using the same tools and everybody is using the same, we have to, so what happens then when you have that tsunami of sameness is the idea, right? The big idea becomes more important than it has been maybe in the history of ever.

because you need something that's going to stand out from the rest of the schlock.

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Justin Levinson (22:13)‍

Yeah, that's a great tsunami of sameness. I haven't actually heard that before. That's pretty spot on.

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Stephanie Spicer (22:19)‍

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it really is going to be because to your point, anybody can do it. Anybody can put 100,000 ads into the world and paper everything and everybody is right. I it's that that I saw that people see between 6,000 and 10,000 ads a day.

How are you processing that? So unless your ad has an idea that stands out, right, that connects with the consumer, it's not going to do anything. So I think the opportunity that it unlocks is for us to return a little bit more to that big idea thinking that we've abandoned for performance marketing for so long, right? And really, what is the thing that's going to get consumers an attention in the way that you want to get their attention?

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Justin Levinson (22:43)‍

Yeah.

Yeah. I love that. How do you guys, I guess, how do you get new business in? How does that sort of funnel work for you? Is it based a lot on kind of the work that you have already put in your reputation? And obviously you have awards and accolades and things that I'm sure bring clients in inbound naturally. But do you also have a strategy for outbound reach out and to kind of breaking into new territories?

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Stephanie Spicer (23:25)‍

We do some outbound, not a ton, because we find that we tend to have more success by just putting our work into the world in the right places. So there's very, there are strategies around where we're putting our work and how it goes. We are starting to think a little bit more about outbound. You know, you've heard the term that Cobbler's children have no shoes. It's like we spend all of our time thinking about how to put our clients brands into the world. And then we're like, wait, and we've got a brand too. And it's really great. We want to tell our story.

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Justin Levinson (23:46)‍

Yeah.

Yeah.

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Stephanie Spicer (23:56)‍

But it is, it's about, and this is the same for our clients, you have limited resources. Where can you put your resources and how can your resources show up in a way that is going to be the most impactful that it possibly can be?

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Justin Levinson (24:12)‍

Yeah.

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Stephanie Spicer (24:14)‍

Yeah. Six thousand

to ten thousand ounces out there a day. Yeah. a new way.

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Justin Levinson (24:19)‍

I guess outside of work, kind of things do you like to do just personally? Any hobbies?

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Stephanie Spicer (24:24)‍

Yeah, I am obsessed with traveling. I like to go as many places as I possibly can. I also have children though, so that limits how much and how frequently we're able to go places. Yeah, so that's my, up all of my money, if not all of my time.

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Justin Levinson (24:35)‍

Yeah.

Totally. Do you have any secrets for success in lifestyle things? Do you enjoy reading? Are you an avid book reader? Or yoga or anything cool like that that keeps your sanity outside of the busyness of agency life?

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Stephanie Spicer (24:57)‍

Reading is definitely probably my, that's my me time. That's my guilty pleasure. And I'd love to be like, I'm constantly reading business books and making myself smarter, but no, mean, it's the same smut that everybody else reads. Totally. And then yoga also to your point, that is, I wish I could meditate. That is something that if you have any tricks or tips on how to meditate, I would love to learn how to do that, but I am terrible at

Justin Levinson (25:19)‍

Hmm. do actually, I do have it. I'm not a, I'm I'm a wired pretty tight kind of guy. So I'm, I need that kind of thing. and I'm also really boring. So I don't have other vices to calm me down on the weekends or stuff like that. So I have moved into a little bit of meditation. and I would say the best way to get into it. I use insight timer and I'm not sponsored by,

this app or anything like that. don't pay me, but it is especially great because there's a lot of free, you know, meditations that they give you. And I like to use them at night, like for going to bed to just sort of like have them playing in the background. And they're actually really good for children too. So sometimes instead of a bedtime story, like a wind down with the meditation. And sometimes they do, they tell like nice stories of just like, you know, it's an owl in a forest and it's very safe and kind and there's beautiful.

fairies and like, just kind of like meanders on, but eventually you just kind of, the kids kind of just drift off. But there are good ones too, that are just, you know, just kind of like letting go of the day or kind of like gratitude or, you know, some of the basic affirmations and things. And yeah, I, I think it's, it could be a little bit helpful to kind of like just let go because you know, for me, if I don't do that thing, I'm thinking about work all the time. I'm like, Oh, if I got this client, Oh, there's like this man that needs to get his household or like, Oh man, like.

this deal is going south at like 11 and this is when I should be falling asleep and wow, now I'm really upset and I'm thinking, you know, so I'm always like trying to find a way to like, just, you know, or even just putting down the phone because that can be, you know, that there's so much, tsunami of sameness or just things that are agitating. You know what I mean? That like, whatever it can be, sometimes it feels designed to get you worked up or to feel.

like you're missing something or feel like you're not as good as, or you are like in a more chaotic situation than you actually might be. There's so many different paths that I think it can take you on on the internet. Sometimes I'm like, man, like what did I just do with this? Like I just lost an hour. Like I didn't create anything. I didn't do anything better. I'm just like a little bit more sweaty and upset about things and nothing around me is actually wrong, you know? So I don't know. That's my...

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Stephanie Spicer (27:30)‍

Stressed, yeah, absolutely. So do you meditate every night then?

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Justin Levinson (27:35)‍

I have been doing it for like, I don't know, probably since like, I don't know, like I would say probably right around the pandemic, I think was when it sort of like anxiety levels kind of rose and I was like, I'm going to start doing this. yeah, I mean, pretty much every night I've fallen asleep to some meditation, is insight, insight timer. And like, I think the key is, like,

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Stephanie Spicer (27:53)‍

Hey, I'm gonna Insight.

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Justin Levinson (27:59)‍

time and like if you if you told me to like sit down and just be quiet and like observe what's around me or something like I don't think I'm at that level of meditation like I think I'm like as far as people who are into meditation I'm a total fraud but but as far as

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Stephanie Spicer (28:13)‍

And

we all have imposter syndrome, so that's fine. You can have it for meditation too, it's great.

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Justin Levinson (28:17)‍

But it's like the, it's like the beginner's entry. And I think that's kind of where I'm going to stay. So, yeah, I, I enjoy it. Maybe it could be something that you would enjoy as well.

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Stephanie Spicer (28:26)‍

Yeah, thank you. I'll look into it for sure.

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Justin Levinson (28:28)‍

are there any, other things on the horizon for you guys coming up? Any kind of like, obviously there's five things that you can't talk about, but, are there things that you can talk about that are kind of coming up?

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Stephanie Spicer (28:38)‍

I mean, I think, you know, we're just continuing to evolve as it relates to what we're bringing forward to clients, especially when you kind of think about that, the gap between what the tools can do and what people can do. And we're really trying to fill that gap for clients and help them. We use the term navigate the gray, which means just figuring out what's the right way to go.

And so we're going to continue to evolve the tools and the offerings that we have in that space to help clients really figure out like what is best and right for where I am right now to get to where I want to go.

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Justin Levinson (29:18)‍

I love it. Yeah. So I guess, you know, if folks who are listening, I want to check you guys out and see some of your work and dig in a little deeper. Where can listeners find more information about you?

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Stephanie Spicer (29:30)‍

Yeah. So just go to lukewire.com. L-U-Q-U-I-R-E. Not at all intuitive. It's a French last name, but yeah, our work is there. You can reach out to us at any time. I'd love to hear from you.

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Justin Levinson (29:42)‍

Cool, Stephanie. Well, I really appreciate you being on the pod today and speaking with us and offering some insights to the agencies community. Yeah, maybe we can have you back on again in the future for a part two.

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Stephanie Spicer (29:53)‍

I love it. We could do a little guided meditation together.

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Justin Levinson (29:56)‍

Awesome.

We'll begin with an insight timer moment of Zen before we lead into our chaotic lives.

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Stephanie Spicer (30:01)‍

You'll have a sponsorship by that point, so it'll be perfect.

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Justin Levinson (30:03)‍

Totally,

totally. Awesome, Stephanie. Well, have a great rest of your week and appreciate it.

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Stephanie Spicer (30:08)‍

Thanks, Justin. You too. Take care. Bye bye.

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Justin Levinson (30:10)‍

Bye.

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