How a MAYOR Serves the People with Megan Brittain

Megan Brittain: It is really putting the people first. It's not about what you and I like as marketers and what we're going to be excited to read about later. I mean, that's fun, but at the end of the day, it's about what the people want. 

Chris Hill: Welcome to We Build This Brand, the podcast where we talk to the creators and collaborators behind brands and help bring you valuable insights that you can use in growing your own business.

And today we're in Nashville, Tennessee.

Today I'm talking to Megan Britton, She's the Director of Account Management at THE MAYOR. And no, I'm not talking about an elected official here in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm talking about the agency. The agency that's worked with Consumer Cellular, and a bunch of other really great brands in the area. So, it was a great conversation.

Really loved talking to her about the challenges of, you know, being a mother and being the director of account management for a small business and helping it grow. We talked about branding and how do you brand something as unique as THE MAYOR and what that brand has meant not only to their clients, but also to their employees and to their team.

This was a fantastic conversation and one that I'm very glad we had the opportunity to. Record today. So join me as I talk to Megan Britton here in Nashville, Tennessee, about THE MAYOR.

Well, Megan, welcome to We Built This Brand. It's good to have you on. 

Megan Brittain: Thank you. It's good to be here. 

Chris Hill: Excited to talk to you today about THE MAYOR and everything that you do there. So if you could like tell me how this even got started, because I was looking everything up, doing my normal research online, I noticed that you had been at THE MAYOR's since its inception.

You're not a founder, but you're one of the early, I guess, founding members of the company. So we'd just love to hear. That origin story. 

Megan Brittain: What is really fascinating about that is Tom Hamling reached out to me. We were old work buddies from many years ago at a former agency. I knew he was in Nashville. I had been in Nashville and he reached out to just meet for coffee.

And I was in the middle of moving at the time, and I'm like, "I don't have time for this." I also was pregnant with baby number two. So all I could think of was I'm busy, but I knew when Tom Hamling reached out, there was like going to be something good with that. And we pretty early on, he said, I'm starting an agency here in Nashville.

We bonded over kind of the excitement around the creative community here in Nashville and any ways that we can add to and elevate that here is something that we really both cared about. And I went home and I was like, "Shit. Am I going to do this?" So pretty soon we turned, when we turned on our website, I was seven months pregnant.

So not just like a lit-, like I was like 

Chris Hill: Showing 

Megan Brittain: very pregnant. Yes. Probably in hindsight, I'm like, this feels crazy. But personally, it was important to me to do some things I was excited to do for my career, and I didn't want to wait. Like, when you're excited, like, and you're feeling that, like, this, the timing felt like it couldn't be worse, but actually it couldn't be better.

And then we turn on our website December of '22, thinking we would have kind of a slow roll into building this thing, and then pretty soon some clients start calling our way. We get a few projects, and two years later, we're an agency of eight full-time employees and growing. Couple retainer clients, couple project clients, and it's been awesome.

Chris Hill: Wow. So where were you before THE MAYOR? 

Megan Brittain: My career, I actually grew up in Texas. So that's really where my career started. And so I was at a small branding and design firm right out of college. Built some early foundations of my love of just like building just like great brands from the start, whether it's interesting brand stories or foundation stories or whatever that may be. That was ingrained early, early on. I moved from that to GSD&M. So an amazing shop in Austin. 

Chris Hill: We've actually interviewed someone over there. I did. 

Megan Brittain: I saw that. I shouldn't even call it a shop. It's a great and large, well established agency.

And I did a lot of growing up there. Feel like my career worked under some incredible account directors and awesome creatives. And I think that really is like, this is where kind of I'm supposed to be in this industry and working with all these different exciting brands, working at an agency life.

I was like, I got the bug. You know, I was there for a good amount of time and then wanted to shake things up. I moved to New York and worked at Ogilvy on the Ikea account there. So learned a ton, learned what big, big, big agencies. are like. Pros and cons for that. For me personally, I think it's a great fit for a lot of people, but I learned a ton.

And left New York, came to Nashville, worked at an agency here in Nashville, GS&F. Did another, I feel like my next chapter of growing up there. That agency really gave me the runway to find out who I was as an account person. As a marketing leader and did a lot and kind of a next batch of growing up at GS&F and worked on throughout that entire kind of career span, worked on a lot of food, got a, you know, working on Popeye's, I have a big soft spot for QSR and working on any kind of food brands, worked on some fashion, retail, nonprofits. All that.

Chris Hill: So you've got a lot of experience and you're bringing all that, you met Tom, who's the founder of THE MAYOR, maybe THE MAYOR, if you will. 

Megan Brittain: He would cringe at you calling him THE MAYOR. He's far too humble for that. 

Chris Hill: What brought about that name, THE MAYOR, to begin with? 

Megan Brittain: Where did that come from? Yeah, well, I mean, it kind of, I'm going to lead into our positioning a little bit too, because it's just so, it's good and so tight.

It's the mayor's job to serve the people. It's the mayor's job to serve their community. When you're in an industry that, for brands, nobody cares. Really, nobody cares about advertising. Nobody cares as brands what you have to say. I mean, they do and they don't. And so it's THE MAYOR's job to serve the people.

It's our job to bring work to the people that they're going to love for these brands. And when you create that brand love and you create work that people love, that's where really the magic is. That's where work is going to make culture. That's where brands are going to make money. And so that is where, like, this idea of being THE MAYOR came about.

We're not the president. Like, that's like way too out here, and that's kind of arguably out of touch, where THE MAYOR is really in touch with what the people need day to day. 

Chris Hill: I'm very in tune with that approach, if you will. Our, our company outside of the podcast is HumblePod, and we have a very similar approach of just wanting to be like helping our clients shine and helping them be the thing that's being focused on and not us.

So that's really cool. I like that thought, that humility that you bring to the space. 

Megan Brittain: And really it's when we talk about creative for the people, It is really putting the people first. It's not about what you and I like as marketers and what we're going to be excited to read about later. I mean, that's fun, but at the end of the day, it's about what the people want.

It's not necessarily what our client's friend's neighbor thinks. If they're our audience, then that's what, you know, we need to be grounded in. And one of the things we say at THE MAYOR is, like, nobody cares. Like, we actually have that in neon in our office. Nobody cares. And it's important to remember that we are, we love and care so much about this industry that actually like makes things that people don't care about.

And that's what a cool challenge. 

Chris Hill: Yeah. Cause it can definitely be, I can see that because advertising needs to happen. It's a work that needs to happen. And what do you want to do with advertising? Most of the time, skip it. Ignore it. Not care about it. 

Megan Brittain: My four year old's just learned. He's like, that's a commercial.

Uh, and I said, well, mommy makes those. What?

Chris Hill: All of them? 

Megan Brittain: All of them. Yeah. 

Chris Hill: So in making, in making commercials and making things people do care about, I was looking at your website. Y'all have worked at least in the past on some very big brands and some very well known campaigns that people have come to care about because of the way they've been positioned.

What is maybe one of those in your mind that stands out as one that you maybe you worked on and had some involvement in? 

Megan Brittain: We have an incredible crew at THE MAYOR. One of the things on our website, we say we're a group of seasoned pros who are also like nice people who just are out to make some of the best work.

And so there's some incredible things on the website, The Chicken Wars, you know, that for Popeyes. That was, while it was started with a tweet, it took months and months of social listening. And I was actually on, I was actually not on Popeyes when that happened. I was on Popeyes when they first, that agency first won the digital business.

So seeing where it started and where such the opportunity was with them. It was a really interesting journey, but for that, it took, you know, when you have these brand moments that happen in culture, it's not, it's a little luck, it's a little lightning in the bottle, but it's all the preparation that comes around that, and really making sure you know your audience, so when that moment comes to pounce, you are prepared to do so in a way that makes sense to them.

Chris Hill: And when you say that it started with a tweet. I'm really curious about the challenge behind that. Was that an intentional play to get a chicken war started? It just happened. It was organic. And then you capitalize on the organic nature of it. 

Megan Brittain: I think it was probably not being as close to it as maybe our team was.

I think it was probably more of an organic opportunity that then sparked many things, that I think still, sometimes still people talk about chicken war. That is a case study that is, I, again, someone who was kind of a part of that team in a very early time period, and I'd since left and, but always kind of watched from afar as like, how's Popeye's doing?

It was really kind of an impressive thing to watch. I think some other things that you see on our reel that some of the team has worked on in the past, I mean, really to this, we have some great work out the gate as THE MAYOR. We launched our first work with Famous Footwear, and that was an incredible back to school campaign that 

Chris Hill: Cute ads, by the way.

I've seen them. They're awesome. 

Megan Brittain: They're so good. And we have some holiday work coming out. Well, it's running now under the same campaign. And our challenge there was for retail and for retail within Famous Footwear and that competitive set, a lot of it was looking the same. And we wanted to show a ton of shoes.

Because they had a very strong lineup for back to school. And then also capitalize on these really authentic moments that matter to our target audience. So that back to school time frame for millennial moms is, it kind of pulls at your heart. Where's your kid going to sit at the first day of school in the cafeteria?

I was a new kid a lot growing up. So that just immediately is like, tears. The first rough cut. The other is the little badass girl who's beating a boy on Hot Wheels. We all remember Hot Wheels. And you still get these awesome shoe moments in this very like, memorable, cool way. And I mean, out the gate, being able to do that with a client.

And is with such a young agency, really proud of. And then also some Consumer Cellular work. Our half car with NASCAR is crushing it. That was supposed to be just a brand activation. And we basically took one RTB and just went all in. We're like, what if we cut a car in half? And then we announced a sponsorship with that.

And then all of a sudden now it's a TV spot and there's going to be a lot more to come with the, with the half car in the 2025 season. 

Chris Hill: That's really neat. I also noticed y'all look like you'd have worked with Ted Danson on some stuff. And I remember seeing those spots and it's fascinating stuff. 

Megan Brittain: Yeah, that's one way that THE MAYOR has grown with that relationship with that client is being able to take on that brand TV work too.

It's a really. Consumer Cellular is in a really interesting category that is becoming increasingly competitive, where you have your big three wireless providers. Yes, like you kind of think you're chasing them, but then you've got your other brands like a Mint Mobile and all of kind of those smaller companies that are just chipping away at our very price conscious audience.

But Consumer Cellular has a really interesting positioning. And with Ted Danson in our corner, it's fun. It's a fun challenge. 

Chris Hill: One thing I noticed about those ads, and I don't know how much this plays into how you all think about creating ads, but the videography, I can't explain it, but like, it's well shot in a way that like, it's well graded.

It doesn't look like your normal commercial ad. If that makes any sense. 

Megan Brittain: Really? Okay. 

Chris Hill: I can't, I can't explain it, especially the one where he's in the air on the lift and they're up at the cell tower, which I'm from Knoxville and we have Sharp's Ridge. I don't know if you're familiar with this or not, but it's this giant cell tower.

So I'm thinking of imagining him up there, and it's like 1500 feet in the air. It's insane. It's probably not that high, but it's ridiculous. And I just think about that as I'm watching this thing, but the way it's shot, it just something about it. I didn't know if like that was an choice or if you said, we're going to go with this video team.

Or how that worked, but this, it definitely makes a difference. 

Megan Brittain: Yeah. And you're asking an account person to comment on production quality things. So forgive all creative partners for cringing, but it is where we thrive on. Tom and the creative team will say there's gonna really three parts to bring a great idea to life.

First hard part is coming up with the idea, then it's making it, then it's actually executing it. That detail throughout the entire process is really important and choosing the right production partners, oh my gosh. And our head of production is the best in the biz. So I will make that statement. 

Chris Hill: Yeah, there's definitely a consistency because it's not just Consumer Cellular.

It's the what'd you say? I'm sorry. Famous Footwear. Thank you. For some reason, Smart Shoes came to mind. Famous Footwear. Thank you. They're even in the look of those ads. Very well done. I think very well thought out, and I don't know why that stood out to me. I think it's just you see so many commercials and they have a certain sheen to them.

And this stylistically just to me stood out. 

Megan Brittain: And it's important that things feel to us, and I don't know if this is what you're gravitating to, but us being a small agency, and we're an independent agency, so we can leverage whatever partners we want. And so one, that's just a huge advantage. Two is we can also be nimble. And as an account person, I also say like, we don't budget shame our clients. Like, just tell me how much money you have. Like, it's just keep it like, let's be direct about those kind of conversations, and then we can come up with some incredible, like creative solutions to be sure you still get the quality output that your brand deserves.

So whether you're able to put millions of dollars against a production, which happens, or you're able to put tens of thousands against a production, it's important that we're keeping, again, our end audience in mind. What are they going to resonate to? People see that. Like, people notice if something feels not right when they're looking at something, and that just kind of puts your spidey senses up against a brand.

And whether it's for the messaging, how we execute, it's important for us to be thoughtful about that throughout the entire way. 

Chris Hill: There's nothing worse than going in and saying, what's your budget? And someone going, uh, I don't know, uh, maybe, uh, yeah. Like just that uncertainty is always difficult.

It's a 

Megan Brittain: race to the bottom. If you're for during like an RFP process, for example, and it's like, well, just tell me what it costs you. And well, it's like, we can be cheap and slow. We can be more expensive and fast. We could be, there's all those different, not just we as in THE MAYOR, but any agency. And so pretty quickly you get kind of a race to the bottom, and I think sometimes that's where your partnerships might start, you're kind of starting off on a really tough foot. Because then what's going to happen is in year two, your agency is going to come back and say, actually, like, we need more. And it's really tough once you get past year one to get more money. 

Chris Hill: So, as Director of Account Management, you do a lot of different things, right?

Tell me a little bit more about what your role entails at THE MAYOR. 

Megan Brittain: I manage lead client relationships and also help grow and evolve our business operations. That's a big part of kind of being at THE MAYOR from the start. It's also what got me really excited. So I can be a true account person in the way I want to be, and then also use kind of my, the business side of my brain.

But all in short, like, The whole purpose of my role at THE MAYOR is to clear a path for great work. So if that's helping us work more efficiently, or if it's continuing to build client relationships, we're building trust to bring great ideas forward, execute, sell in great work, all of those things, making sure that our strategy team has what they need.

Yeah, that's like, it's clear a path for great work. Create a space that that can happen. So whether that's through honest conversations is talking about budgets up front. It's making sure everyone feels heard when it comes to feedback or needs or challenges. It's just kind of creating that space to land, I think is really important.

But all of that, like that's day to day. So that, yeah, I'm looking at spreadsheets around budgets. I'm looking at, um, I get to do, you know, internal, exciting, creative reviews. I get to dig into stakeholder interviews with our strategists. Every day looks a little different, but all in the purpose of how am I creating space for great work.

Chris Hill: And I would imagine that's something you've been passionate about for a long time. 

Megan Brittain: I kind of, it's an interesting thing. Account people are like, we're generalists. So there's not, you know, you have your PR people that they're specialists here, your media people, et cetera. But account people by nature are generalists.

And I think I've maybe always been that way. I went to liberal arts college. So like just in You know, that's a generalist like dream with a business degree. So even from the start, I never really got super specific with a career path or a skill set until I found my way into marketing, found my way into advertising.

And actually it was in an interview at a former agency very early in my career. Someone said an account person's job is to be the second best in the room and everything. And your competitive side is like, "What the hell? I should be the best at things." But really what that means is you're setting your team up for success, but you know about a discipline well enough to be able to represent it well to your clients, or represent it well to other team members.

Your job is to bring people together, and so I think there's a lot of things in my life that kind of like led me maybe to that. And then that relationship building and all that is just, I found that I'm like good at it. So get excited about the things you're good at. Pro tip. 

Chris Hill: That's awesome. 

Megan Brittain: Yeah. 

Chris Hill: Running a business, I'm somewhat of a generalist myself. I have found in other roles like finding myself gravitating towards the operational side and all that. So I see what you're getting at. 

Megan Brittain: There's parts in your career for an account person that you might be more of a project manager for a little while. Like that's just what's needed or maybe an elevated way to even say that as you're thinking through operate- how are you operationalizing a client ask? Then you are a relationships person. Maybe that's a big part in your career where, okay, people are doing the project management things. Now I need to build relationships to my creative team, my media partners, clients. And then another part is you might really be just like deep into the strategy.

Not so, you know, sometimes from like an audience perspective, but also the business strategy. Someone has to represent that in the building for the agency side. And often that falls on your account team to be sure everyone has what they need and understands the business. Because if you've got to understand your clients, if you're going to sell angry work, you can have a great idea and it doesn't match what the, all the needs are.

Then it's just a great idea that goes nowhere. 

Chris Hill: Yeah. It takes a lot to get there. 

Megan Brittain: Yeah, it does. 

Chris Hill: So going back to THE MAYOR itself, you mentioned that at one point right before we started recording that it was kind of like one of your favorite brands in and of itself. So how is that? Tell me, tell me what makes THE MAYOR so special in that regard.

Megan Brittain: I mean, when building a brand, if you can't be obsessed about your own brand, like that's like another hot take, not even a hot take. Be obsessed with your own brand. It's an honest take. From the start. So when Tom and I talked about, he was starting an agency, wanted me to join him, and I'm like, great, I'm in, I'm taking this leap.

And then he's like, okay, now I'm ready to tell you the name. And in my heart, I'm like, please don't hate this. What if I hate the name? This is a crossroads. When he said THE MAYOR, everything just made sense. And so there's this, you know, the positioning with "Creative for the People" is so on point from our design.

We partnered with some great designers to really build out our brand, even how we launched and then how we've already iterated on that. But just to the core from, you know, we don't have like our values etched in stone yet, or maybe they won't be, I don't know. But we're still trying to find some of those things that make us, us.

But man, it's even looking back two years later, A lot of the guts and the intention is still there. And I think that's what's so good and exciting. Even some things that haven't been down on paper yet. And a lot of that comes with the people you hire. And the clients, the partners we've brought on. Our team of THE MAYORs are awesome.

They're pros. They're seasoned. They love what we're here to do just as much as anybody else. You know, me being here from the start and maybe just as much as Tom who'd been dreaming about it for however long he'd been dreaming about it. And then finding client partners who kind of allow us to do that together is also a big thing.

Chris Hill: Now, I noticed you said our team of THE MAYORs. Of 

Megan Brittain: THE MAYORs. 

Chris Hill: Please tell me more. 

Megan Brittain: Well, I mean... 

Chris Hill: Why is it THE MAYORs? Like what makes everyone a MAYOR? 

Megan Brittain: We're all mayors. Yeah. That's something that just started. I don't think that was a, maybe it was a conscious decision when it came to the name. I don't know, but we had our first like meeting of THE MAYORs or MAYOR Summit earlier this year where there's a couple of us here.

There's a couple in Austin, and now we have someone in New Orleans getting everybody together. And I just like, we just started saying that really with branding too. It's like, if it's easy and if it's just something that just like gets some traction, then why fight it? 

Chris Hill: You're the first agency I've, whose website I've been to and you're selling merch for your own brand.

I was really impressed by that. 

Megan Brittain: The merch is, it's a hot topic at the minute. 

Chris Hill: How so? 

Megan Brittain: Well, because we love our branding so much that it took a while for us to have like hats, because who knew, everyone has very specific preferences about hats. And so it is this like everyone who talks to us and like gets merch from it is like a running joke now on like what's the next thing we're going to make because the branding is cool so we want to wear it but at the same time it's like everyone has some preferences on size of head.

Chris Hill: Oh yeah that does make a difference. 

Megan Brittain: I mean it's a big, it's a big thing. 

Chris Hill: Yeah. 

Megan Brittain: I mean we've had meetings about it. 

Chris Hill: I bought some hats last year for some stuff we were doing and went through that whole thing. I'm like, man, I never knew how much went into just buying some logoed hats. 

Megan Brittain: Yeah, 

Chris Hill: it's tough. 

Megan Brittain: It's a thing. 

So some of us have bowed out of certain, I'm like, I will go to bat for this. But then when it comes to like, is it a hoodie? Is it a zip up hoodie? Is it a crew hoodie? Everyone has a, has thoughts. 

Chris Hill: And what base brand of hoodie are you going to buy? Because it needs to be a certain level of comfort. Is it going to be Gildan or is it going to be, yeah.

Megan Brittain: These are the things that just like, I, one day I want to look back on with THE MAYOR, and like, I still, it brings me so much joy to laugh and make fun of ourselves about it, but I want to look back and like, remember the days when we couldn't decide on the kind of hat we were going to buy, and we had to do custom orders for certain people, and it's just like, it's special.

It's a special time for us, yeah. 

Chris Hill: It's a fun and exciting time because you're still kind of in the inception of the brand, and you don't have a lot of heavy brand equity in that you're new, so people are still figuring out what you all do, what your reputation is going to be. I did find it very cool that like you all have a great history.

And the way you bring that history in and add that to your brand equity to say, "Hey, look at these things that we've done," like Farmer's Insurance and Avocados From Mexico and things like that, like really bring a lot of brand equity to the table based on past work, but you're still building that new reputation for THE MAYOR.

So it's a challenge. 

Megan Brittain: It is a weird feeling sometimes to be like, we are new as THE MAYOR. But as individuals, we're awesome. And we're accomplished. And so it's really this interesting juxtaposition of like, THE MAYOR's new, but it's also not like, in a cute way, you know, where it's like, Oh, that's cute. Like, I mean, it was for a little bit like when we got a coffee maker, yay.

But at the same time, it's when you hire THE MAYOR, We're not brand new to the industry. That's why some of that work is up on the website from previous agencies and all that. This team wasn't just like a side credit on those things. I mean, everyone had a very heavy hand in things that are on there, and over time, like we'll build our mayor book, if you will.

That's also just been an interesting feeling because sometimes we'll get like new biz opportunity or even old relationships will come our way and still kind of talk to us like we're new, which we are, we have things to figure out. The part I don't ever have to worry about at my job. is I know the work is going to be great.

The rest of then being a part of a new agency is figuring out how to operationalize things or figuring out a billing system or those kind of things. But I don't lose sleep over is THE MAYOR going to deliver? I don't lose sleep over that. I don't actually worry about a lot with THE MAYOR, but the other things around it on we have an employee handbook now, like that's a really big deal.

Like we have things that we are making policies as we grow as a company that are exciting, but we will always deliver. It's a weird thing to show up for. It's like, we're going to be awesome. Not right about that. I just need other people to know that we, we can deliver, and I might be personally sending you your invoices and doing your billing right now.

Chris Hill: Yeah. But you've, you've got that awesome team behind you. You've got that expertise, you've got that knowledge. It's you've got that band of people that know what they're doing that can bring that to the table, which is awesome. 

Megan Brittain: We're so lucky. I think there's a little bit of luck in there cause it was just right timing for people.

And there's also just that prepared experience that we've all had in different ways. 

And I can't speak for everyone's career paths and growth, but I never thought I would start an agency. You probably could have asked me several years ago and I'd be like, that's cool for other people, but doing it with the right people at the right time, even if it meant turning on a, like seven months pregnant with a second child.

So with a toddler at home too, maybe that feels crazy, but so much of my career and the people I've surrounded myself with have probably prepared me for this exact moment. 

Chris Hill: And it speaks a lot too, to the person who brought you on, knowing you're a mom already, you're going to be a mom again, have another child.

And he still was like. Now's the time and you're coming with me. 

Megan Brittain: Starting THE MAYOR while I was seven months pregnant is a big part of our origin story, whether we, it was intentional that way or not. But it's important to us because it's important to me as someone who has two kids, and I love my job, and I have this ambition to build this company now and to not have to put that on hold and to build something that allowed for other parents to have that same space. For example, I think a lot of new parents or especially new moms could maybe relate, but my availability might not be as much as others, but that doesn't mean my voice is, doesn't matter.

Like, I still should have a seat at the table, and I think what's hard is we're constantly, as a parent, and especially in a creative industry or an industry where you're responding to clients needs, etc. All that gets kind of put to the, being accessible kind of is the currency. And it's hard to keep up with that.

When I've got to run out the door to, we talked about this before, I got to run out the door for daycare pickup, but I want to say something about this thing because I care about it. For THE MAYOR, it mattered to us from the start to make sure there's a space for parents, new moms, people who have similar things outside of their career.

You can also, this career could be everything to you. And that is also awesome. But if you need to make other things work or we just want to build a space to do that. I didn't realize how much I would be talking about THE MAYOR starting when I was seven months pregnant until we're two years later. And it feels crazy.

Don't recommend it for everybody, but it is a little bit of a badge. I think that we all secretly carry is like, this is a company that allowed for that. And that's cool. As you grow and kind of, you want to protect the, who you are. I think that's one of the things that. We care about. 

Chris Hill: Yeah. My wife likes to joke that we had two kids at once because I started my business and my son was born right about the same time, and so I can definitely identify with that because in some ways I don't know if I had my son first, if I would have been that gung ho about starting another business because my focus would have been on something else. But the freedoms that's allowed me and everything is, you know, immense compared to the other options.

But I can definitely see how like, making that space for parents and things. I think we often get too obsessed with always being available all the time, and quite often, I hear back from clients when I obsess or worry about it too much of like, "Hey, you didn't have to get back to me that quickly. I knew you had something like, get back to me when you wake up."

Like, don't respond at midnight. 

Megan Brittain: It's hard. 

Chris Hill: Yeah. 

Megan Brittain: And we were all kind of raised in the career of, you know, you have a laptop that comes home with you. 

Chris Hill: Right. 

Megan Brittain: Your email's on your phone, and now texting is a big part of communicating within a business sense too. So we feel so available in that the optimist in me says that's, like, it gives us flexibility to then make the life we want and the work, the relationship with our jobs that we want.

It allows you to kind of check in with people in an easy way. Also, you don't have to be available to all people at all times. And not everything is an emergency in the way that it feels that way. And it's very important to me as an account person. I had an awesome boss one time who said, she said that the account team, you know, our job is to own the momentum.

And so if we are freaking out, Everyone's going to freak out. If we're calm, at least that's like a calm voice in the room. Or something that's like, okay, let's give us focus. Let's focus on, let's not worry about all these things. Let's maybe focus on this issue here. Being able to have a space that like, it's important for an account person to do that, but I think all of us, as you're building your company, it's like, how accessible do we want to be? How do we want to function? And I think companies too, and especially agencies, when you're new, you feel like you have to be all things to all people. And you have to be ready to go and at in a moment's notice because your business relies on it.

That pressure is real, but if you just go back to for THE MAYOR, we go back to where we started. Creative for the People. We are here to make work that people love. We want to work with clients that have that same ambition. We know we are not for everybody. Kind of setting those boundaries, if you will, that feels like a harsh word, but setting the space for like how you want to your cadence.

All of that's really important. And so all of a sudden you're not operating out of fear. You're now operating of here's how we think is the best way to function for your brand. Truly, if you go back to that and you remove all that, I'm afraid if I don't respond to this text, I'm afraid if like, if you start with that, that's where we've all been.

We don't want to be like afraid of clients anymore. We don't want to be afraid of each other or afraid of failing. It's like, just, be who you set out to be, and you will probably be okay. And that's, there's a lot of peace in that. 

Chris Hill: Yeah. I think often we think of culture fit as only being for the team and the employees.

We don't often think about how those clients fit within it. It's something that we're starting to think about more and more as we work with bigger clients, more prominent names, and things like that of like, "Oh, we're platforming these people," or, "Oh, how are they treating our team? How are they treating my people, and how do I think about how that's going to impact everybody else?"

So that's great wisdom. 

Megan Brittain: Saying no is so powerful, and THE MAYOR, we've said no a lot more than we thought we would in the first two years, and it's kind of like, that's a, not a humble brag, like that's a brag. And it's, the lesson in that is you're confident in who you are. And this applies to anything in life, really.

And especially like, I think a lot in my career path too. It's, you're confident in who you are. It's okay that I'm not for you. We are confident in who we want to work with, and what happens is that gives you the space to do more of what you love. Work with clients who are, like, more clients who are a good fit for you and for each other than being bogged down by maybe even team members who aren't here for you, or we're not all on the same page, or whatever that is.

A "no" gives you space for so many great like yeses. It was an early lesson for us, and it's a thing we're really proud of. And when we tell other kind of startup agencies, we turn down a lot of RFPs. If you're asking for too much free work up front, or the way you want to operationalize your relationship with this agency, we might not be for you.

And that's okay. There's someone great for them, and that's, I think is, I think a lot of indies are kind of picking up on that right now. And I think thensooner you learn that personally, professionally, or from building a business, the better. 

Chris Hill: Yeah. I always try to lead with, I'm here to see if we're a fit and if we work together, if we fit together, cause yeah, there's times where it just doesn't work, and it's okay.

And you just go, "All right, have fun". Go off and they do their own thing and you're good. 

Um, so what are you looking forward to at THE MAYOR in the coming year? Or what, maybe even more meta level, like what are some things that are on your mind in developments in the industry that you're looking forward to?

Megan Brittain: THE MAYOR is already exceeded where I thought we would be in our first couple of years. It's wild. Did I think we would be at a company of eight full time employees by year two? I, there's a lot of the things I didn't think we would, where we would be. So I think there's a lot of just like, how are we leveling up in our growth and our size of full, of like people?

We've grown actually really carefully, and we've been really smart about the, what we take on as overhead, and what we, and I hate calling people overhead, but what we take on as overhead versus how we leverage people from a freelance perspective, et cetera. We've been really smart about that in a way that I know we will continue to protect that allows us some flexibility to make decisions on how we grow in the next level.

So our next challenge in next chapter is really what happens when we go from 10 to 15? Can we still protect kind of who we set out to be? Are we still making creative for the people? And we will be. But how, when it's not just me and Tom day to day, we now have more me's and more Tom's um, and more of our people.

That's, I think, what I, the challenge I'm really looking forward to seeing how we grow. We have a handful of awesome clients and looking for then what's that kind of who our next client partners will be is also really fun to dream about. 

Chris Hill: Well, one thing we always like to ask at the end of these episodes is what brand do you most admire right now?

Megan Brittain: I really have been impressed in, over the several years, and this is a little bit of a theme of kind of with me and where I'm at in my life. Frida is an incredible brand. Frida Mom. Frida Babies. They create products for mothers going through pregnancy and postpartum and then incredible products for, like, for newborns, etc.

And it's a company built by moms for moms, and it's some of the, this isn't the sexiest or the most timely response, but what I have been so excited to watch how they have a lot against them. There's a lot of stigma or censorship around what you can and can't show. Pregnancy and postpartum, pregnancy loss, all of those things are very taboo, or you can't show certain things, but there are things that a lot of birthing people go through. Frida, they have developed the best products there are. I mean, that is truly a gift. Every baby shower I go to, I'm like, okay, I might get you something for your baby. I'm going to get you the postpartum recovery kit. That's what I will do. Because it is so special in that time in a woman's life is very, it's just, you are kicked off your rocker, and they have met their audience where they need to be.

Their tone is incredible. It is very honest. I don't even want to use the word "edgy," but like an outsider looking in would say like it's "edgy," but it's actually like, no, this is what happens to people's bodies. It's, it's an awesome brand. Like I have such a crush on them and everything that they do is, they are putting conversation about what happens around childbirth and the, during that time.

They really put a lot of that on the map in a time that I think a lot of people needed it. And it was far too, these are things and products that should have been available to people for many, many years. And Frida said, no, we're doing that now. It's cool. 

Chris Hill: That's neat. Being the father of two and having seen my wife go through two pregnancies and all that, I feel like I've seen some Frida stuff. I need to go and verify if it's the same brand I'm thinking about. 

Megan Brittain: Probably. Yeah. 

Chris Hill: Probably. 

Megan Brittain: You probably have. And you probably have some things, you know, this is not cool. Yeah, so you guys can cut this out, but the nose sucker. So the thing that you hold up to kids nose and then you like 

Chris Hill: Not cool?

I have to use this all the time, I know. 

Megan Brittain: It's disgusting. I actually don't use it, but it's like, it's, the products are brilliant, and the branding is smart. And so you're not seeing a lot of work from them in kind of mainstream media, especially around the postpartum stuff. Look, it's like, it's kind of gross that what happens to your body, but it's not gross in a negative way.

It's just like not something you usually see on TV and during daytime TV or whatever. You might have seen some things around, maybe not because you're not a birthing person. 

Chris Hill: I'm not. I'm not, but I have definitely spent plenty of time around them. 

Megan Brittain: Yeah. Yeah. 

Chris Hill: All right. Well, Megan, where can people learn more about you?

Where can people connect with you and where can they learn more and connect with THE MAYOR? 

Megan Brittain: Oh, themayor.com. We're very proud. We own that. 

Chris Hill: Congratulations. 

Megan Brittain: Thank you. themayor.com. And there's always good stuff coming from us on LinkedIn or our Instagram. I think our Instagram is themayornashville, something like that.

You get close enough, you'll get that. Or you get THE MAYOR of Nashville. 

Chris Hill: Yeah. 

Megan Brittain: Which is also fun. Like we really want him to follow us. 

Chris Hill: Yeah, you should. 

Megan Brittain: Yeah. 

Chris Hill: You should. 

Megan Brittain: Yeah. So that's it. 

Chris Hill: Awesome. Well, Megan, thank you so much. It's been a great conversation.

Megan Brittain: I've enjoyed it.

Chris Hill: Yeah. All right.

And that's it from the Pantheon of podcasts that we have available. If you enjoyed this episode of us on the road, be sure to share this episode with your friends so that we can continue to go on the road and build this brand.