Why Great Teams Start with Great Culture

Episode Description

🎧 In this episode of the Agency Side Podcast, host Justin Levinson sits down with Shannon Estreller, Director of People at EvolveMKD, to discuss her unique career journey from the entertainment industry to leading people and culture in the agency world.

Shannon shares her insights on building high-performing teams, attracting and retaining top talent, and creating a workplace culture where employees feel supported, valued, and empowered to succeed. She also discusses the importance of trust, communication, leadership, and aligning company values with everyday employee experiences.

The conversation explores what it takes to foster a positive company culture, develop strong leaders, navigate hiring in a competitive market, and build organizations where both people and businesses can thrive.

Tune in for an insightful conversation on leadership, company culture, talent development, and building teams that drive long-term success. 🎙️

Episode Outline & Highlights

[00:28] Shannon's Career Journey from Entertainment to HR

[04:25] Attracting and Retaining Top Talent

[05:21] Unique Benefits and Compensation Packages

[05:48] Marketing Roles and Recruitment Strategies

[08:15] Certifications and Professional Development

[10:41] Handling Difficult Conversations and Building Trust

[12:57] Tools and Systems for HR and Recruitment

[14:44] Hybrid Work Model at Evolve MKD

[15:45] Alternative Recruitment Tools and Strategies

[17:43] Onboarding Process and Continuous Improvement

[22:42] Industry Events and Professional Development

[23:48] Personal Interests and Hobbies

[27:41] Sports and Family Activities

[28:32] Closing Remarks and Episode Wrap-up

Resources & Mentions

  • Predictive Index (PI)
  • LinkedIn
  • BambooHR
  • Pin.com (Penn)
  • Cornell University
  • Foster the Future PR
  • Evolve MKD
  • Live Nation
  • Gilt
  • Emily Henry
  • Abby Jimenez
  • Carley Fortune
  • Every Summer After
  • Fred again
  • Daft Punk
  • Jon Bellion
  • NJ/NY Gotham FC
Why Great Teams Start with Great CultureWhy Great Teams Start with Great Culture

Today's Guest

Shannon Estreller

Director of People

Shannon Estreller is the Director of People at EvolveMKD — an award-winning, 100% female-owned PR and digital marketing agency in New York City specializing in building brand relationships with the audiences that matter most. But her path to HR was anything but traditional. Shannon's career started in music and entertainment, working at Live Nation coordinating tour merchandise for artists. From there, she helped launch Coolhaus in NYC & Miami — an LA-based ice cream truck — as their events manager, overseeing corporate and private events, guerrilla marketing brand activations, and establishing the initial operations of the business. Then she joined Gilt Groupe, where she led their entertainment vertical — partnering with promoters and artists' teams to give Gilt members exclusive access to concert pre-sales and VIP tickets. From there, she moved into experiential marketing and brand activations, managing sponsorship portfolios, mobile tours, field teams and experiential scenic production across industries. What she noticed across all of it was the same gap: companies were moving fast, but no one was proactively building the people infrastructure to support it. There was no in-depth onboarding and no consistent structure for how teams were built or supported. And she kept finding herself stepping into that space — not because it was her job title, but because she genuinely cared about getting it right. Shannon holds a BA in Communications with a minor in Music Industry from the University of Southern California and an advanced certification in Strategic Human Resources Leadership from Cornell University. She is also certified in Predictive Index. Shannon is a champion of low-ego leadership, culture architecture, and the belief that how you support your people is how you grow your business — because people operations isn't a support function. It's the business strategy.

Transcript

Justin Levinson (00:00)

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Agency Side Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Levinson. Our guest today is Shandon Nestreller, Director of People at Evolve MKD, an award-winning PR and digital marketing agency based in New York City. Shannon has built a unique career spanning entertainment, experiential marketing, and people operations. Today she helps lead talent, culture, and employee experience at Evolve MKD. In this episode, we discuss hiring, onboarding, company culture, and what it takes to build teams that thrive. I know you're gonna love it. Let's roll it.

Shannon's so great to have you here today.

Shannon Estreller (00:40)

Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

Justin Levinson (00:42)

Yeah. So wanted to get into your origin story, so the viewers can learn about how you got into this particular world that we're in here.

Shannon Estreller (00:51)

Yeah, so honestly, I I didn't start in HR at all. And I think that's actually what makes me pretty good at my job. I started in music and entertainment at Live Nation, coordinating tour merchandise for for different artist tours. Then I helped launch a small ice cream truck that originated in LA and I launched it here in New York and then Miami. So I oversaw all of the events and operations. Then I moved to Guilt Group.

Where I led their entertainment vertical. So partnering with different, you know, promoter promoters and artist teams to give Gilt members special access to like concert pre-sales or VIP ticket packages. And then I eventually made my way into the agency world where I specifically was in experiential marketing, so managing sponsorship portfolios, mobile tours, and field teams.

at a handful of different agencies and even on the production side as well.

Justin Levinson (01:51)

Cool. I just wanna double click on the Live Nation ⁓ experience for one second. What is what does that involve with the the merchandise? Is it do you have to deal with like making sure that the the performer has their merchandise to sell at at per venues? Or maybe you can explain it. Yeah.

Shannon Estreller (02:06)

So it's everything from picking out what type of t-shirt, like the material they want. So some artists are like, you know, I want more slim cut, or there's like the standard tour tour material t-shirt, or they want it a little softer more material like American apparel brand style. Yeah. And then we go into all the other merch that they want to carry. So if they want tote bags or sunglasses, so sourcing all the different vendors.

Of who's gonna make those sunglasses, how are we gonna brand them, working with our graphic design team to ensure that aligns with their, you know, whether it's their an album they're promoting or whatever that is, and having like the tour dates on the back. So it it's an interesting part of the music sector that I don't think a lot of people are maybe too aware about, where, you know, like what goes on to create the tour merch that shows up at your shows up at the concert.

Justin Levinson (03:04)

Yeah. Well as you can tell I'm big music fan, so I was just had to had to jump into that real quick. Yeah, maybe you can tell us about your your current role and what you're doing over at Evolve K D.

Shannon Estreller (03:13)

Yeah, so I'm currently the director of people here at Evolve MKD. So we are an independently owned and operated female-owned PR and digital marketing agency in New York City. We specialize in building brand relationships with, you know, our clients' brands that, you know, matter most. So for me here, I oversee everything under that char umbrella, you know, recruitment, talent development, culture, and DEI programming. But

What I think my role how I think my role is a little bit different than maybe HR like corporate company. Yeah. Is that, you know, I really try to position myself as a strategic business partner to the leadership team. So it's thinking about everything about how to attract and retain top top talent in a what's a really competitive market right now. How many

Justin Levinson (04:04)

How

many people are on your team?

Shannon Estreller (04:06)

We're about 30, 40 people right now, and that's, you know, full-time employees. We have some summer fellows who've joined us recently. And we have some fractional support as well as consultants and freelancers.

Justin Levinson (04:20)

Very cool. I love that you're thinking about attracting retaining talent. That's always something that's I I find really ⁓ interesting. What ⁓ what do you see as some of the ways to, you know, I guess just for attraction standpoint, maybe what what are some ways that ⁓ you found success in in attracting a good candidates into your pool?

Shannon Estreller (04:38)

Yeah, so you know, we're not a massive holding company. And I can say though that our our benefits, our total rewards package can really I really punch as well above our weight. You know, we've got all the normal stuff like flexible PTO, 401k company match, dental vision, all of that. But then there's a stuff I think you genuinely don't see everywhere, and that's, you know, a twenty thousand dollar family planning and life event benefit.

And that can cover everything from fertility treatments to gender affirming care to pet adoption to a home down payment. We also have a $1,000 annual wellness benefit, which covers anything under medical wellness that maybe your FSA wouldn't cover, in addition to pet insurance or you know, for our parents here, ad hoc childcare. And then recently we rolled out, you know, fully paid reproductive loss leave.

And paid caregiver leave to also supplement what we have paid parental leave to really support everyone in those critical life moments. Yeah.

Justin Levinson (05:42)

Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, that not not everybody's offering those kinds of things. That's that's pretty pretty pretty terrific. Yeah, I'm curious to see like in terms of like just being online, do you guys like market, you know, how you guys is there any other way that you guys like market roles or find ways that people can find you to to apply to roles or get a hold of you?

Shannon Estreller (06:01)

Yeah, so I think our social and digital team do an amazing job with our Instagram. And recently when I have been interviewing candidates, they they comment a lot about how they love seeing our culture come to life. So we'll either do, you know, social media trends, then that's how we'll then, you know, promote open roles, of course, in addition to to using LinkedIn. But I think one of our

biggest recruitment programs is actually our summer fellowship program as well. And this year we partnered with Foster the Future PR to help tap into, you know, students who come from underrepresented backgrounds or, you know, first generation college students.

Justin Levinson (06:44)

That's cool. So this is attracting like young up and comers into your your pool. Have has a lot of people ⁓ converted into like full time employees there through that program?

Shannon Estreller (06:53)

We've had a we've had it for about we're in our third year. We've had a few handful convert to full time opportunities. You know, right now one of them is currently an AE and she's helped training that that new class of fellows this summer.

Justin Levinson (07:08)

Cool. What what kind of tasks do they do when they come into your ecosystem?

Shannon Estreller (07:14)

So everything from, you know, we try not to just focus on all of the admin pieces, but really try to get them that real hands on experience. So they'll get the mentorship, you know, from their manager. Eventually they do start joining the client calls. Everything from, you know, we do a lot being in PR, there are a lot of events as well. So everything from if there's last minute errands or supplies that we need to buy for an event to

helping identify, you know, influencers doing that vetting the the re all of the research and the back end of it. But then all there's also the other type of stuff like recaps, agendas, you know, taking the notes in the meeting, circulating it, doing the monitoring and the clipping. So they're actually doing the work of like an account coordinator.

Justin Levinson (08:02)

That's really cool. Yeah. That's amazing you guys have some conversions over there too. You don't have to go out and look for talent 'cause you're kinda growing it home home based.

Shannon Estreller (08:09)

exactly that's exactly what we're trying to do is home grown home grow the talent ourselves.

Justin Levinson (08:14)

Yeah. I saw that you had like a lot of different certifications for for HR ⁓ on your maybe you can tell me about some of those. I'm always interested in what I the Sherm is a big one, but I was kinda curious which ones do you you've you've done.

Shannon Estreller (08:28)

So I have an advanced certification in strategic HR leadership from Cornell. And then I also recently got certified in predictive index. So predictive index is an assessment that we have any candidate who's going to join the agency or even in the interview process take these assessments. So what it does is it it's two questions. It's so simple, but

It analyzes the candidates or the person's natural tendencies of how they show up in the workplace. So, like how they process information, what type of environment that they would thrive in. And then we use that information both in the hiring process, but also in our talent development. So, for example, we just closed out our spring performance review cycle, and all of our managers got trained on how to use everyone's what we just call them our PI assessments.

PI assessment results, how to deliver, you know, that constructive feedback to then help them grow. And it's very tailored to the individual.

Justin Levinson (09:31)

That's interesting. So it's two questions and it's the the same for every Yes. What what are those questions? Do you know are like

Shannon Estreller (09:39)

Let me try to remember. So it'll ask you how you sort of see yourself, like your self-concept of how people you think people perceive you to show up to work. That makes sense. Like do you operate in you prefer a fast paced environment or do you need tight to take time to to make certain decisions? Do you are you more comfortable talking things out or are you more introverted and you have to

think things through a little bit more before you then, you know, go out and and and share a solution. So it's just a check mark box. You just check these qual these different qualities and that's it. There's a whole science behind it that then generates your your profile results.

Justin Levinson (10:26)

Interesting.

Yeah, I'd be interested in taking that. That's really cool. I imagine that your role also has like challenges too. I mean, you must deal with like, I mean, sometimes people you have to let somebody go, or some, you know, things aren't always coming up roses. How do you personally handle that sometimes? Like, because I know that I know from my my mom actually is she's a a a benefits person. She's like an expert in benefits. She works from the school systems here. And she has to she explains benefits to people. She knows these things.

Like the back of her hand, it's crazy. It's been it's been a godsend for me because whenever I need to like go on the market to sign up for something, or I need to like look at these different plans, my mom's like, this is the one she should take and this is why. And she like she's got it like down cold. But sometimes, like, you know, a benefits plan could change, or like there could be things that aren't always easy to deal with. ⁓ how do you handle some of that struggle that can happen? Thanks for tuning in, folks. This episode is brought to you by Coming Up Creative, a relationship first.

Boutique Creative Recruitment Agency. 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.cominguplc.com and get started today.

Shannon Estreller (11:53)

Sure. So I try to map everything back to our credo here, which is be kind, don't suck. And that is the north star of how I handle everything, because kindness is different than being nice. And kindness does require you to be direct and have those tough conversations. I think the hardest part about my role specifically is holding the balance of being a people advocate.

Justin Levinson (11:59)

Yeah.

Shannon Estreller (12:20)

But also being a business partner. And those two things aren't always in conflict, but sometimes they are. And I have to be able to hold both. You know, people come to me when they're struggling or when they're frustrated or they just have questions and they just want to feel seen. And I for me, I take that very seriously. But I also have to make decisions that are right for the business. And that in itself is also a kindness. Yeah. You know.

The other thing people don't really see is how much of the work that I'm doing is just building trust over time. And so if I'm, you know, rolling out a new program or a policy, I have to show up consistently and be consistent with that and build their trust over time.

Justin Levinson (13:07)

Yeah, you gotta practice what you preach. What kind of tool do in terms of like the hiring side of things, what kind of tools are you guys using?

Shannon Estreller (13:14)

So we use that predictive index assessment. Yeah.

Justin Levinson (13:18)

But I was thinking like an ATS like for a tracking system or things like that.

Shannon Estreller (13:22)

We use LinkedIn. I think it's so hard to get away from that because everyone is on LinkedIn. They there's there's no other real tool to use. We have Bamboo HR, which also, you know, pulls into our ⁓ into our LinkedIn as well. But honestly, for for me, I'm not using a filter the candidates' resume resumes. I'm actually not using it to screen them.

I feel very strongly about personally reviewing every single resume that comes in. You know, we're not it's not thous at least good for me, it's not thousands and thousands of people applying, but it's definitely hundreds that I am, you know, sorting through. And you know, with people using AI now, it om and for their both for their resume or their cover letter, they all kind of sound the same. The output

And so for me it's the auth the authenticity of the person becomes even more important.

Justin Levinson (14:20)

Yeah. Can you smell it a mile away when you see those resumes and you're like, this was totally generated.

Shannon Estreller (14:26)

Absolutely. Specifically because it's not even tailored to the role that they're applying for or just the language of it seems not not human. And so I really have to go beyond, you know, all those tools and really, you know, we the way we do our interview, it's a combo of virtual and also in person.

Justin Levinson (14:32)

Mm.

Yeah.

Shannon Estreller (14:50)

Because not everyone when they are interviewing virtually shows up as that same person in person. Yeah.

Justin Levinson (14:57)

Yeah.

Yeah, it's interesting. and you guys work hybrid or in in office or how's that typically set up?

Shannon Estreller (15:03)

So we're we are hybrids, so we work from home Mondays and Fridays, and we're all in the office together Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and those are our set days.

Justin Levinson (15:12)

That's awesome. It's nice to have that flexibility.

Shannon Estreller (15:15)

It works really well. One, everyone has that flexibility because I think if everyone had the choice, they would probably want to work from home on the Monday and the Friday. And second of all, you would never want to come into an office, you know, especially just given our size, and then no one else is there and then you're just on Zoom with the rest of your team all completely defeats the person the the purpose of, you know, being in person.

Justin Levinson (15:40)

Totally. There's there is one alternative to LinkedIn that I've discovered. I don't know if you've heard of this before, and I'm not sponsored by or or paid at all for for mention mentioning this ⁓ tool, but it's called pin dot com. And it's it's a r it's a really interesting it's like a search engine, so it compiles like data from LinkedIn, but also from like the web. And you basically can feed it a job description.

And I I know this is also going a little bit against what we were just talking about with with the AI and just trusting it, but sometimes it can give you like a step forward, like just like a search would on, you know, it's essentially it's replacing a Boolean search and it will just list people, how it ranks, you know, people out of, you know, 10 and as a fit for the role. And while it's not the everything, like you have to look behind the profile and and obviously there's more nuances there, it's a quick.

you know, it's showing you really quickly a list of people that are that are quite qualified, which is pretty cool. ⁓ and it also helps you with the reach out. So like the copy that it's going to send out to those candidates. And it gives you a lot of opportunity to customize that copy. So it doesn't have like the AI slop with the the slashes and the overly produced like variables that can really jump AI

jump out as AI. So yeah, it's just something that's pretty cool that I found has been a pretty fun tool. And sometimes it's just like LinkedIn can be like it's sometimes it just feels like it's really unfair because it's so expensive. Especially if you're in HR or recruitment. And it just keeps going up and the in mails are more and more money. Yeah. And then the reps are reaching out to you just trying to get you to upgrade and upgrade. And like, I mean, it's really expensive unless you're a corporate, you know, if you have a a hundred licenses on your team, you know, those

Prices are really high for for people, unfortunately. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, sorry, I went off my on my tangent about l LinkedIn. I do love LinkedIn. It's it's an amazing tool, but I'm always sort of like looking for something else at the same time because they kind of they get they make me mad sometimes. Yes.

Shannon Estreller (17:34)

Yeah.

I'm I'll I'll definitely check out Penn.

Justin Levinson (17:50)

Cool. I wanted to touch on onboarding. I know you're talking about people getting into the team. I know it's gonna be really important to get have people have like a clean start with or you know, f a a good start when they jump in and they feel supported. And what's that like for onboarding over at your agency?

Shannon Estreller (18:08)

So we're very intentional about it. We have first of all we have 30, 60, 90 day check-ins with all of our new hires. How that really helps set them up and us for success is that with those check-ins, we can always course correct. So at the 30-day mark, it's really more of a new hire survey. So what did you like about onboarding? What didn't you like about onboarding?

where can we improve it? And honestly, I optimize onboarding for every single new hire every single time. It is not the exact same process as it was for the person before because I'm continuously improving it. For the 60 and 90 day check-ins, they're just simple questions of, you know, where were your challenges? How can we also course correct? Or if like if there is a gap, then we can recognize that early on and get the training and the materials that that person needed or

provide clarity around it. We're also intentionally a bit slower with our onboarding. I know in previous agencies, it's sort of sink or swim. Yeah. Here you are thrown in day one, day two, you're on the calls with the clients, and that's it. For us, you know, day one is actually intentionally slow. Even the first week is intentionally slow. I've had people come up to me and say, Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing? You're doing it.

You know, we're we give a l we give them a lot of material to look through. So there's a lot of time for independent study. We have a lot of admin trainings. We have our orientation that we call how we evolve. So it's essentially how we do everything here to evolve, everything from how you enter your timesheets, request time off to what the expectations are in your role.

We have what we call our job grids or job ladders. So it shows the competencies that we're expecting at every single level from a fellow all the way up to SVP. So that it's all out there on the table on day one. They, you know, we've set our expectations. This is how, you know, we see you contributing in this role.

And then, you know, we have structured client onboarding. So we go one at a time. It's not just throwing them into the deep end. You know, they're multi-sessions. First session is really, what is the historical context of this client? Who are they? What are their products and services? Step two is then, okay, what have we done for them in the past? What are we doing for them now? What is their current scope? How is that possibly going to change in the next six months?

And then, you know, session three is more of a deep dive. Okay, you've got session one and session two under your belt. Come prepare and ask all the questions you want.

Justin Levinson (20:51)

Right. Yeah. So it involves a lot of research. I'm sure you're hoping that some of the people coming in are also doing their research on, you know, before they even get in, that they kind of know your clientele and and, you know, have some understanding of that even before they get into. Yeah. So when you had when you have the onboarding survey, so you're saying you're you're tailoring it differently for as people more hires come on. What have you specifically seen ⁓ as ⁓ suggestions that have turned out to be be beneficial?

Shannon Estreller (21:21)

So one of them was actually the client onboarding process. They wanted more structure around it. They wanted to have multiple sessions because it was too much in one sitting to to digest all of it. So that is actually one of our our biggest changes that we've we've rolled out in the last couple of years is just optimizing that client onboarding process for them.

Justin Levinson (21:43)

Great. So you do you do benefits as well too? Are you involved in that whole whole thing? Four one Ks and all that stuff, or you've

Shannon Estreller (21:50)

Yeah, so I don't personally administer them. It sits with our controller and but and and we have established benefits. So it it's a system that already works. I don't want to break it. But yes, when it comes to thinking about unique perks or benefits that we can offer to the team every year, that is something I am involved in. For example, this summer we're rolling out our new program. It's our summer remote program.

So everyone who has two years of tenure or more can work remotely for July and August.

Justin Levinson (22:25)

Ooh. Yeah. That's pretty cool.

Shannon Estreller (22:27)

It

gives everyone the flexibility that they want, especially during those summer months. You know, a lot of the team is there's heavy travel throughout the year for their clients. So it gives them a nice little break.

Justin Levinson (22:39)

Yeah. Do you guys go to any events? Is there anything that you you like to attend through the through the year? It's like sometimes with like, you know, like PR agency events, like different th things that could be relevant that, you know, people go to.

Shannon Estreller (22:44)

Like HR? Or just

I think the team goes to on the PR side, I know the team goes to a lot of industry events. So, you know, all of our clients are in that consumer health care space. So they go to those like dermatology conferences ⁓ throughout the year and like medical marketing conferences as well.

Justin Levinson (23:08)

Yeah. Are you going to things specifically towards chard throughout the year?

Shannon Estreller (23:13)

I haven't, but I've tried I'm trying to be better about it to be honest. you know, I have a six year old at home with me as well, so balancing both sometimes gets a little bit tricky.

Justin Levinson (23:26)

I have

a seven year old and a three year old. A seven year old is upstairs on vacation. So it's yeah.

Shannon Estreller (23:32)

It's June is a tough month, so it's May. They call it November for a reason.

Justin Levinson (23:36)

Yeah, totally. But with the the certifications and stuff that you have have gotten, you did you was that through like, you know, through Evolve or just that you decided to do these things for yourself?

Shannon Estreller (23:50)

So the Cornell certification, I got that on my own. I did that in my last trimester of being pregnant. So normally most people do it within like a six month period. I just banged it out in three months and I was like, I I have to, I have a hard stop when I'm gonna be able to finish this. But the predictive indexed one, yes, it was it was through through evolve.

Justin Levinson (24:09)

Yeah.

Cool. What kind of things do you like to do outside of work?

Shannon Estreller (24:21)

I joke with my friends and family that I'm now just my daughter's Uber driver. Taking her from event to event, I think her social life and calendar is more filled up than my own. But for myself, you know, I'm really into reading rom-com books. And also specifically ones that have been adapted in into movies or or TV shows. That is sort of how how I unwind, but I'm also, you know, really into

Justin Levinson (24:26)

Ooh yeah.

Cool. ⁓

Shannon Estreller (24:50)

the sauna. I love it so much. It just helps it feels like it really detoxes everything mentally and physically. And I come out there, come out of it feeling like a new person.

Justin Levinson (25:01)

That's cool. For a minute I thought you were thinking of Asana, the program, and I was like, man, I was like, this lady really is into HR. I just love to hang out in Asana and just talk to my team. that's really funny. I also feel like my kids Uber driver between going to dance and piano lessons and it's like eventually like you're like, Man, this is why I don't have any hobbies anymore because

Shannon Estreller (25:25)

Yeah, like this this weekend she had her gymnastics expo, then her her soccer the end of the year soccer game and then she had a play date. Well yeah

Justin Levinson (25:36)

At least for me, I've had a new appreciation for like how I grew up and how my parents showed up for me because I realized how much energy it actually takes. Like my my dad coached my little league team and I just assumed like I we just coached it, you know. But I'm like I coached a softball team and I'm like, this is a thing. Like this is hard to, you know, to show up for that and take that time out of your schedule and give everybody, you know, the attention that they need and just be a good person. It was it's like and you it's

Shannon Estreller (26:06)

And be patient with little kids.

Justin Levinson (26:08)

Yeah, it you know, it's the first year I coached and my daughter Aggie didn't really she didn't wasn't listening to me because I was the coach. And I was like, Aggie, I'm like, you have got to pay attention to me, because if you don't, none of these other girls are gonna pay attention to me. Like, I need you, please, to to show me some respect here. And and this year I decided I wasn't gonna coach, came to all the games and supported, but she did much better having a different coach for that. And I'm a piano player and I also had made the choice like I'm gonna have her

Take lessons from somebody else, not you know, I don't don't wanna have that that pressure I want her to like enjoy enjoy the music and not feel like Yeah, it's just, you know, keep it fun, you know.

Shannon Estreller (26:46)

Yeah. You don't want to be a stage dad.

Justin Levinson (26:49)

Try to be kind and not suck. That's what I wanna try to do. Evidently. Yeah. Out of the romantic comedy stuff that you were into, any specific shout outs, any th books that you like?

Shannon Estreller (27:00)

my gosh. so I read everything that Emily Henry writes and Abby Jimenez and Carly Fortune. I think Carly Fortune's one of her books actually just dropped on Prime last week. It's the book Every Summer After, and the show is every year after. I have not yet watched the show. ⁓ so no spoilers, please. But yeah, that's what I'm excited about watching this summer. So I'll probably binge watch that. Cool. The next time I have time.

Justin Levinson (27:29)

Yeah. Any favorite music that you l like to listen to?

Shannon Estreller (27:32)

Yeah, so recently when Fred again came came and did all of his tours and he did like a set with Daft Punk and he released the whole thing onto YouTube. I loved watching that and listening to that. Same thing. John Bellion came out with or dropped his live performance for from his concert that was at Forest Hill Stadium out in Queens last year. So

watching that live music as well. I don't get to go out to as many concerts as I used to. So now I just have to watch them online.

Justin Levinson (28:11)

No, I'm the same too. I don't get out as much as I used to. Are you a sports person? Do you like any any specific teams?

Shannon Estreller (28:18)

Gosh, this is gonna sound terrible. No, I have not been watching any sports, even though I know the Nick Spon and I should be really happy about it. Pup is going on.

Justin Levinson (28:28)

Yeah,

I'm just just curious. I'm not a huge sports person either. I like I'm a baseball fan, but I did hear about obviously the Knicks winning, which is exciting for them. But I'm not a diehard fan either. Yeah.

Shannon Estreller (28:42)

Yeah.

I recently took my daughter to a Gotham FC game, which is the women's women's professional soccer, and she she really enjoyed watching that.

Justin Levinson (28:51)

Cool. Is she playing soccer too?

Shannon Estreller (28:53)

Yeah, she's playing soccer, so she's getting really into it. So I'm just trying to expose her to a lot more professional women's sports, especially now that I trust that she could sit through a game.

Justin Levinson (29:03)

Yeah,

totally. I'm taking my oldest to see Weird Al in the summer. So that should be pretty pretty funny. She really doesn't want to go, but I'm like, we've gotta do this. Some culture. Yeah, totally. Cool, Shannon. Well, thank you for hopping on and talking to us today and telling us all about what you do. And yeah, thanks for thanks for your time today. Have a good one. All right, you too. Take care. Bye.

Shannon Estreller (29:10)

That that's hilarious.

Thanks so much for having me.

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