Audacious - Nifty Method Marketing & Events

Company:  Nifty Method Marketing & Events
Owners: Lindsay Martin-Bilbrey
Year Started: 2016
Employees: 26-50 (Medium)

On this episode, we have Lindsay Martin-Bilbrey, CEO of Nifty Method, a full-service boutique agency passionately focused on events and customer experiences based out of New York City. 

Lindsay’s story is certainly one of setting one’s sights on a path and going full speed ahead. In this episode, Lindsay shares the significance of building a community and getting feedback from clients to make the whole process less stressful. 

She also touches upon the evolving nature of live events and the need to adapt to changing trends. We also explore the concept of hybrid working and its impact on marketing, emphasizing the importance of not shying away from the biggest struggles facing the business in order to move forward. We’ve even got tales of hot dogs and alcohol in this one.  

Enjoy the story.

Transcript

0:02

Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where we share real stories of marketing agency owners from around the world. From the excitement of starting up the first big sale, passion, doubt, fear, freedom, and the emotional rollercoaster of growth, hear it all on An Agency Story podcast. An Agency Story podcast is hosted by Russel Dubree, successful agency owner with an eight figure exit turned business coach. Enjoy the next agency story.

Russel: 0:38

Welcome to An Agency Story podcast, I'm your host Russel. On this episode, we have Lindsay Martin-Bilbrey CEO of Nifty Method. A full service boutique agency, passionately focused on events and customer experiences based out of New York city. Lindsay's story is certainly one of setting one's sights on a path and going full speed ahead. In this episode, Lindsay shares the significance of building a community and getting feedback from clients to make this whole process a lot less stressful. She also touches upon the evolving nature of live events and the need to adapt to changing trends. We explore the concept of hybrid working and its impact on marketing and how you shouldn't shy away from your biggest struggles facing the business in order to move forward. We've even got tales of hotdogs and alcohol in this one. Enjoy the story. Welcome to the show today, everyone. I have Lindsay Martin-Bilbrey with Nifty Method. Thank you so much for joining us today, Lindsay.

Lindsay: 1:30

Thanks for having me here.

Russel: 1:31

Start us off with a quick overview. What does Nifty Method do and who do you do it for?

Lindsay: 1:35

Nifty Method is a marketing creative events and strategy agency. What that looks like is, we help bring to life all those crazy ideas you have, from an experiential marketing and a live events perspective. We do it for a little bit of everyone. We've worked with startups all the way to the Fortune 100, in every industry that you might've seen from association, government, and corporate, which is a lot of fun and breaks us to a lot of cool places around the world.

Russel: 1:57

Just for perspective, as a slight unique type of agency, what's something recently you worked on or did that brings it to life for us?

Lindsay: 2:04

Something we did recently... we helped a startup CPG brand, a consumer good. We helped them with their startup marketing, live events, campaign, go to market. We helped them with their brand identity and figuring out who they wanted to be from a social media perspective, recommended and did taste testings. That's one of them. On the other hand, we're doing straight marketing campaigns where we've got a interesting software client that works with clients worldwide, who are helping build community. We were in all their paid advertising and lead from a strategy perspective, how they should better talk to it because people sell to people, which is what builds community. It's very different audiences. One is very B2B and one is very B2C, but they're all a lot of fun.

Russel: 2:44

Fascinating. That certainly brings it home a lot more, and you had me at taste tests. I was talking to an agency owner the other day and they actually traded a website for free hot dogs from a hot dog vendor. I was like, man, I could live in that world if that's how I was getting paid for my work.

Lindsay: 2:57

This particular client, it went very well with my gin. I'll say that much for them. They were alcohol adjacent. We always like those clients because it makes for the best tasting parties.

Russel: 3:05

Pays to drink. Let's go back in time for a second. Were you born with this entrepreneurial itch? What were your plans in high school and college?

Lindsay: 3:11

My plans in high school and college were to be adult. An adult in my mind was, having a nine to five, being home, doing the things. I was going to get married and have kids and not travel all around the world, which is what I did for a lot of high school because I was that weird kid. I never wanted to own my own business, but I did want to be in charge, which is probably how I ended up owning my business. I got a degree in political science with the idea that I was going to go to law school and save the world. I was a lobbyist for a while. I kept coming back to live events because I had grown up doing that, and here I am, running a live events agency, not practicing law. It's okay, but I get a lot of contracts towards me and it served me well.

Russel: 3:49

I'm sure that certainly helps a lot. My history degree doesn't necessarily enter into a lot of things agency life or even now per se. What was the ultimate transition like from getting out of that into the actual agency life?

Lindsay: 4:02

It was actually more personal circumstances. I met and married in the tail end of college a graphic designer, who at that time worked for a defense contractor. I graduated around the time after 9/11 had happened. Everyone was incredibly security conscious. We moved 10 times in 12 years, which is great for his career, but it was terrible. Made me look incredibly flaky on paper. I got a great network and we lived in every time zone the United States had to offer pretty much, with the exception of Hawaii, which I feel like I missed out on. That's what led me in, I was doing a bunch of freelance work and I was basically running an agency anyways. I just decided to incorporate to get the tax break.

Russel: 4:39

All right. It sounds like a pure practical reason, wasn't like this passion or this longing.

Lindsay: 4:43

Definitely for the tax break.

Russel: 4:45

What were the early days like? Tell us what you're thinking, doing at the time to get up and running.

Lindsay: 4:49

In the early days, a lot of it was by accident, although most of my career is by accident. When I went into it, I was freelancing for a couple of other agencies where I had plugged in, was helping run some turnaround programs. Because I always have a foot in live events and marketing, it makes me an interesting person to have on staff. I'm air quoting my friends on staff. When I was doing a lot of that, I was working with two clients in particular who were like, we want to work with what you do because the three agencies we have on retainer don't do what you do, and we like you. I was like, I'm pretty sure my non-compete with the agencies say I can't do that. The attorney on one of the client staff goes, oh, no, we checked. You're good. I went, oh, okay then. I was very lucky that I had a parachute and started with a couple of contracts that I came into it. At that point in time, I wanted to make enough money to pay for child care and to keep my frequent flyer status. It migrated as we grew over the next two or three years, was basically to keep a couple of months of payroll in the bank to keep my frequent flyer status and continue to pay for child care. We ebb and flowed a lot and I wouldn't say I had a business plan per se, but I definitely had goals, and I think that's important as a new agency owner. You should know what's important and exactly what you're hunting for, otherwise it becomes less fun.

Russel: 6:06

Free hot dogs, alcohol adjacent taste testings or airline miles, whatever the case is. To your point, you got to have goals. Was it no looking back? Do you miss this thing called law, or even maybe back in the early days? Did it seem like you were walking away from something or does it just, this is all good stuff?

Lindsay: 6:21

In the early days it never seemed like I was looking back. It felt like I had momentum and I think that's one of the things that keep us going in that first 2 to 3 years. The pandemic I think for us was the real turning point at that point in time. I had like a staff of 25 and we had clients all over the place, and the majority of our business at that point, we were much more a live events company than we were a live events agency. Then we were a marketing agency. We always worked with marketing, but we basically on March 20th, the bottom fell out and everybody went, whoops. What are we going to do now? If we hadn't had marketing as a backup and that strategy know how, we would have been like many of our other counterparts in the industry. Completely screwed and bankrupt. We were able to adapt and pivot everybody's favorite word very quickly. I think my desire to go back in house didn't happen until last year, when the level of burnout at the head of my agency. At that point in time, we had gone through multiple transitions with who we were as a brand, the clients that we were continuing to serve. A lot of the core tenants of who we are. Nifty Method hadn't changed, but we had a lot of turnover because one client was, I think, net 270 at one point. You just roll with the punches.

Russel: 7:28

Net 270.

Lindsay: 7:30

Yeah.

Russel: 7:30

That's not an option when you're in QuickBooks, I don't think, by default.

Lindsay: 7:33

Yeah, and so you just made it happen. That, for me, I was getting calls from headhunters and I was like, I could go back in-house, and then I would make it to these final rounds of interviews that these business had called me to come and be their head of events, head of marketing, head of sales. The CEO would always ask to meet with me before I took the job, which is extremely complimentary. They'd be like, are you sure you could take orders from someone else? I was like, I just went through 22 rounds of interviews and six background checks. You don't think I'm serious? They're like, but you've built these businesses, you've built this agency, you've built this brand. Don't you want to keep it? I was like, friends, the grass is not always greener, but it made me confront some difficult conversations of, do I want to leave? Does this make me happy long term? I guess the answer ultimately was yes, because I didn't fight them when they were like, maybe this isn't the right fit. I was like, baby, you're right. There's a lot of conversations with therapy and wine, cause here I am, still running my agency,

Russel: 8:23

Therapy and wine certainly solves a lot of problems.

Lindsay: 8:25

I promise, dear agency friends, don't drink the alcohol. But drink the alcohol. Dry January is good, I promise.

Russel: 8:31

That's become a theme in a episode or two, I would say at this point, the benefits of alcohol. I just want a quick segue because what an interesting trial to go through, to put it in both hands. Do I want this? Do I not want this, and get put to the test. Did you have to sit down and think hard about that or was it as you were describing, was it just a natural reaction?

Lindsay: 8:48

It was interesting because at that point in time too, live events was opening back up. Going back to that theme of community, for me, that was one of the things that, as an agency owner, looking around and seeing everyone else who had gone out that I'd come up with, many of us are running the companies we all used to work for, or, we're leading some of the innovations in the field, both in marketing and events, and a lot of the live shows were there. I had the chance, when I was grappling with some of these questions, to go out on the road and be with these people rather than just having a zoom call. Though it's great, but sit down and have those hallway conversations, or have those kind of soul searching conversations at 2AM that you're like, is this what I need to be doing? Help me. Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi, I don't know. Have the village weigh in. I think that, for me, it was both a gradual understanding over two or three weeks, no, I think it's the right fit for me to stay where I am and keep doing what I'm doing and fighting the good fight. But it did help to have the rest of my community, the people that I value from a professional and personal perspective, to weigh in and be like, I think you'd get there and three months later you would regret it. That was good feedback to hear because it had that external mirror, holding it up that I wasn't just sitting there inside my own head going, this is the right choice. That was a good reminder.

Russel: 10:00

Another pro tip, it pays to get feedback, pays to have a community. Obviously, in having an agency, one of the things that makes that whole process feel a lot less stressful is the ability to get clients. You mentioned earlier how you got some of your first few clients, how has your approach to getting clients evolved over the years to what you're doing today?

Lindsay: 10:16

I'm incredibly lucky where I would say 99 percent of our clients are referral. For us, the number one Nifty rule is no assholes. Don't be one, don't work for them. That applies the way that we sell and we keep clients. For us, if you don't come with a good reference or somebody inside the network doesn't send you to us, then we are more suspicious of you, which is entitled in this day and age to say things like that, and I get that. We keep up a social media presence, but it's not the driver of our success. We are partners of Salesforce, HubSpot, Oracle, all of those. We keep up that network, but it is not the primary driver for us. It's the personal relationships that we put into place, that's what brings us business. That's how we get clients. We signed three new ones just in the last couple of weeks, and every single one of them came in through a friend of a friend, like the six degrees of Kevin Bacon, we like to joke. It was inside that network of humans that we've cultivated over the last 10, 20 years that allows us to do good work, but also work with good people.

Russel: 11:14

There's how you get your clients and then what you offer, how has that actually evolved over time as well in terms of your service offering itself?

Lindsay: 11:20

Live events is what makes me happy. It's the lifeblood, but the definition of what is a live event and why is a live event has changed quite a bit over even the last 10, 20 years. For our agency, it wasn't very difficult to pivot to virtual events because that's a live stream and we've been doing those since 2009. We started with just live events, and that includes trade shows, board meetings, annual conference, user conference. Then, because I came up at the same time like social media and marketing and CRM automation was all coming in. I was always the youngest person in the room. I was like, you can learn the Tweeter. You can learn the Salesforce. Go make good choices. That's what we did. I learned it. I got certified, and I kept those going because it was fascinating to me the way that you could make that revenue operations life cycle more successful and more effective at the same time, while also making the customer experience, which is the whole reason we have live events, in my opinion, better, brighter, for the better good. People come to places where they like to succeed, whether you realize it or not. You're choosing to attend and having that automation, CRM and social, was a crucial element and feeding all of that together. For us, it was a trifecta. It was more of a natural progression of offering a full suite of the omnichannel, which to us, that's where do you find them? How do you land them? How do you keep them?

Russel: 12:34

I'm curious, there's something caught my ear there, in terms of different groups I'm a part of or heard about and know about, right? How hard it is these days when it comes to all things events to, I guess if nothing else that people compare to pre pandemic. I think you hinted at it, that people are a little more selective with their time and what events they're willing to do these days. How has that affected you, that notion, and/or how do you see that evolving in the future?

Lindsay: 12:55

It's actually been a really interesting pendulum swing. I have both sides of it, I see the marketing and the sales humans who are making deliberate choices about what shows we're attending and where we're placing our advertising and our sponsorship dollars. Then I work with the actual humans who put the shows on, and both sides have a fervor to get back together in person, every single one of them would be like, yes, we do more business in person. But with shrinking budgets, it's becoming less of a conversation of, is it in person versus virtual and more of a conversation of that hybrid working reality that I think everyone's struggling with, whether it's I need to go back to the office three days a week. Events, marketing, sales, customer experience is all tied up into that human experience. I think hybrid is going to be the path forward and the most successful brands that you see leading the charge or stemming the bleeding are the ones that had already had a strategy in place around hybrid or have been able to adapt quicker to the new world order of how humans are having to allocate budget dollars, whether they're a five person agency or a 500 million person conglomerate. I don't know if that answers your question, but it hasn't had necessarily a massive effect because we serve both masters, the big and the small. For a lot of my counterparts who have much more niche businesses, it definitely has taken a toll because they put a lot of eggs into one basket and there isn't one basket anymore. It's a foot in both camps of both virtual and in person.

Russel: 14:17

That would make a lot of sense because it seems hybrid has been the biggest struggle. Therefore, if you solve the biggest struggle, then you probably on the other side of that have achieved something that has a good ROI. Thank you for sharing that. You were hitting earlier, pandemic, everyone's got their pandemic story in different ways, and you mentioned the magic word of all things, pandemic pivot. It's always been fascinating to see how people have done that, especially in your case. I recall you mentioned a story of having a particular client that you had to come through for in a big way, but it was a pivotal moment for you, if you don't mind sharing what that is.

Lindsay: 14:46

As a live events agency, we no longer could do in person, that adaption for us. April was tough, but by mid April, we went, wait a second, we are equipped to do this. We put out there and we started doing a lot of the education for what virtual could look like for your user conferences in particular. At that point in time, we had several software companies that we were working with and advising to and one of our kind of six degrees of Kevin Bacon got around to a very large software company that was trying to launch its user conference for the first time in 2020, which, that's a big undertaking, whether it's in person, hybrid or at home, right? They didn't have anybody on staff who was doing any virtual, and our name got brought up. We were able to help them not only meet their initial goal of 3,000 people, they exceeded it. They had almost 10,000 registrants and built a community. We got on airplanes, which was a real win for us, and went and filmed at studios all across the United States. We filmed with people in Hong Kong. We filmed with people in Ireland. We dropship kits all around the world. This community of humans, they were working in human resources so this was a community in particular, that was feeling a lot of stress and panic because they were trying to keep up both people's spirits from a performance management perspective, but also just hiring, right? You couldn't get enough people and they were working with these large companies like Amazon, FedEx. The supply chain issues that faced all of us in those early days, the pandemic. It was fascinating to see how that community came together. I was meeting with people on their executive team and we were leading filming sessions where they had never even met each other because they had a brand new executive team. I was hanging out and filming with the CEO in Denver, and there was a brand new COO that has been hired in Philly, and we were bringing them together. The brand new COO of LinkedIn was coming in with this brand new CEO of this company we were working with. They were in the same room virtually, having conversations about leading in this difficult time. It was fabulous to watch all these HR leaders from around the world both embrace the message, but blow up the chat, find the spaces where they could create their own hallway conversations when the hallways were in their own homes. It was good to watch and to participate in and to be in. It was a good boon, both for my agency team, because it was us helping do what we love to do, which is create great customer experience, but it was also a good way to see how hybrid or virtual isn't going to be the end of this. We're going to meet up no matter how we have to meet up, even when technology doesn't want us to or seems like a barrier. Those conversations you're craving will still happen. That was a powerful peak for us in 2020, where there were a lot of valleys.

Russel: 17:14

Like the beginning of this call, Zoom trying to be a barrier to our conversation and then we got it figured out. You make that sound just like something that happens every Monday, but I can't even imagine all the logistics and little pieces that had to go into that. As you even mentioned, a small token back then of jumping on an airplane, which, I remember all the hesitation back then when that first started being allowed to be a thing again. It sounds like it all turned out well. You mentioned a couple of things at this point that could be the answer to this question, but I'll ask it either way, has there been a turning point for you mentally whether you're on the right path? What does that look like? Is that still in your future? You tell me.

Lindsay: 17:44

What started for us in 2020 as a transition of business service and truthfully, I would say it happened actually in fall of 2019. I got on an airplane, not knowing the destination for this business, mentorship camp with a bunch of other executives. They said, bring a passport and a bag. We were like, cool.

Russel: 18:00

That sounds fun.

Lindsay: 18:00

It was. I knew a bunch of people, I knew about half the plane. There were 80 of us and we ended up in Italy of all places. It rained the entire time, but it was a great way to focus on where I wanted to go. I made all these grand plans and then 2020 happened and every single one of those grand plans went the wrong direction. I think that was at the end of 2020. I went, cool. We didn't do any of this and yet we're still here and here's what we learned. That kind of helps take the plans we made in 2019 and 2020, formulated it into what we're doing now, which is embracing both personal events and professional events. As the marketplace has continued to adapt, we're trying to diversify cash flow. For us, that has been not just growing the agency, but growing the agency as part of a larger hospitality brand. We made a pretty big life transition where we moved headquarters to Brenham, Texas, where they make the Blue Bell ice cream. We still have an office in Brooklyn because I can't get away from having decent Chinese food, but I split my time in between those two so that we can continue to grow the hospitality brand. We have everything but a venue. That allows us to meet brands and people where they are and continuing creating those experiences. We're going to be going through some fairly large, visible transitions with the brand where Nifty Method becomes part of the whole in a much more recognizable way in the next probably 6 to 12 months. That's exciting. 2020 wasn't the end. It was more of a jumping off point where we went, cool, that didn't work either. Let's try this instead. It helped us figure out that we aren't supposed to put all of those eggs in one basket. Marketing creative events and strategy still is the core of who we are, but we needed to widen the aperture a little bit and embrace all these other elements of us that we were already doing, but we just hadn't packaged and put a name to, and maybe weren't selling as effectively as we could have from an agency perspective.

Russel: 19:44

If nothing else, my takeaway from this episode is, among many good tidbits, is hungry. You're making me hungry now. Blue Bell. I didn't know Blue Bell ice cream was in Brigham, Texas. Where's Brigham, Texas for the folks at home.

Lindsay: 19:54

Brigham, Texas, we are right in the middle between Houston and Austin. I can literally, cause this is how we chose this place my friends is, could I get to the airport in an hour or less? The answer is yes. And College Station. I have three American Airline, not hubs, cause IH is a United hub, but I was still able to do that. And they have a Starbucks, who knew? And Bluebell. Lots of great benefits.

Russel: 20:14

Sounds like you're all set. Close to your goal of maintaining your airline status and all kinds of things. You found the perfect spot. Obviously, lots to be proud of, lots of successes at this point. What excites you the most when you think about running your agency today?

Lindsay: 20:26

The idea of, not necessarily AI, but adaptation. AI seems to be dominating a lot of conversations I'm in. The bigger conversation that we aren't necessarily embracing is the fact that we're learning to adapt, no matter what life is sending at us, whether it's the machines or the market or something else. I think that's what makes it so exciting from an agency perspective. Most of us, when we start an agency, we go, okay, this is definitely what we're going to do. I saw another successful agency run like this, and so you use the blueprint of their success to put yours into action. Along the way you learn a lot about what you like and what you hate and being a part of those groups and adapting, no matter what, just to keep surviving. That to me has been, I think, a good lesson for us. That's what I'm looking forward, towards the end of this year and beyond is, how can we can continue to adapt and what will that be for our blueprint as we move forward?

Russel: 21:21

Very deep, insightful thought there. If you think about it, the last 25 years, humans have never in the history of the world had to adapt faster and more quickly to more things coming at them then we have the last five years to boot, if you even go back 10, 15, 20 years or whatever. Last big question. Very curious your opinion on this. Are entrepreneurs born or are they made?

Lindsay: 21:39

I think entrepreneurs are made, but I think that there are certain people who will always lean towards the forge, or will seek the forge out. It's interesting, when I look at a lot of my cohort, my people that I run with, I go, there's a lot of similarities there in what makes us that, but the circumstances of their lives, it's all been very different to what brought us to that decision point. I have one friend, I just have one, Will, he's the only one I can think of who's, this is what I'm going to do. Everyone else, they started out with a plan and the plan had to change for one reason or another. For that instance, I don't think they're born. I think they're made into it by circumstances and choice. You don't do this because somebody else says you should, you do this because you want to do this and you stick with it, because you recognize you have no other choice in your own life, because it makes you happy or it frustrates the hell out of you and you have to continue proving yourself right, that you were going to make it this way, if that makes sense.

Russel: 22:34

Makes perfect sense. Great answer. If people want to know more about Nifty Method, where can they go?

Lindsay: 22:39

They can go to NiftyMethod.com or find me on LinkedIn. We used to have an actual presence on the Instagram, but then I stopped posting because it was just webinars. We were doing education. Hit us up on the Twitter, hit us up on the on the LinkedIn, find me at Lindsey Martin-Bilbrey CMP or Nifty Method, or you can find us on the website where you can see all things.

Russel: 22:59

There you have it folks. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Lindsay. It is absolute pleasure. So many curiosities satisfied in terms of the way the world's headed, how market is going to work in particular, this big question of hybrid. Thank you for sharing all those details today.

Lindsay: 23:12

Thanks, Russel. I appreciate you having me on.

23:17

We hope you've enjoyed this episode of An Agency Story podcast where we share real stories of marketing agency owners from around the world. Are you interested in being a guest on the show? Send an email to podcast@performancefaction.com. An Agency Story is brought to you by Performance Faction. Performance Faction offers services to help agency owners grow their business to 5 million dollars and more in revenue. To learn more, visit performancefaction.com.

Lindsay: 23:52

I've made the Harvard business review, not because of something cool, but because I was brought on as the event planner to help them lead a massive rebrand. I was working with a client and four months after that, we completely rebranded the name of not only the company, but we rebranded the name of their big user conference. I say the royal we, it was part of this organization I was working with at the time. Only they forgot to do any intellectual property research like the USPTO, they didn't check who actually owned the trademark. They checked the URL, but not the trademark for the three things they were doing from a tagline and the actual name of the new conference. When they launched it, we went completely dark because this was in the olden days back in 2012, 2013.

Russel: 24:38

A long time ago.

Lindsay: 24:39

A long time ago. We went completely dark. There was no hybrid. There was no virtual. For this big, huge, massive announcement, what had been live streamed up until that point, everything went dark. Then we came back online and we had completely turned the convention center, all the branding on stage. Penn Jillette was our speaker to announce the name. Immediately we started trending on Twitter because in the same industry as this company that had rebranded was a competitor who had not only the same tagline but the same conference name and a very successful merchandising line. A huge community of humans who were livid that this particular organization had the audacity to take and steal the name in such a public way. It was three days of extreme PR crisis negotiation. We lived through all of that and then three years later when I was working with this new client, that's when all of this came about and I discovered that all of that ended up in HBR as a what you shouldn't do when rebranding case study. I've made the Harvard business review, not because of something cool, but because I was brought on as the event planner to help them lead a massive rebrand. They were like, what's your biggest failure? I'm like, funny, you should ask, let me tell you about the time the book that I love to read from a circulation perspective made fun of me and the brand that completely failed to do any IP research before they rebranded, which is what ultimately brought us down. It was a real good moment.

Russel: 26:03

Wow. That's a school of hard knocks. We've all had those little oopsies and moments. The naming process is hard enough as it is. Why do we want to complicate it by checking?

Lindsay: 26:12

I'm like this with my IP lawyer. Russ Riddle laughs at me every time I'm like, what about this? What about this? We're currently in a case with Monster. We have a Monster Farms and so we've got a whole thing going on with monster energy drink and I'm like, on one hand, it's cool that we're getting, in a lawsuit with Monster Energy Drink, whether or not we could use that particular shade of green, no one tells you this in the agency owner's book, that this is what's going to happen, that USPTO will take up all of your time and all of your professional lawyering money.

Russel: 26:38

There goes your lawyer experience and come full circle.