Company: Simple Social Marketing Agency
Owners: Arianne Hutcherson
Year Started: 2018
Employees: 11 – 25
“An Agency Story” is a compelling podcast series hosted by Russel Dubree, a former agency owner turned business coach, sharing the real-life tales of marketing agency owners. This series dives deep into the narratives of these entrepreneurs, exploring the highs and lows of agency life—from initial startup excitement to the challenges of growth and the personal stories that define their journeys.
In the episode titled “Candor,” listeners are introduced to Arianne Hutcherson, President and Senior Creative Director of Simple Social, a vibrant digital marketing agency based in Fort Myers, Florida. Starting as a freelancer in SEO writing, Arianne’s story unfolds through her evolution into an agency owner driven by a desire to bolster her community and provide sustainable employment.
This episode explores the motivations behind starting and running a marketing agency, the pressures of being a primary income source for employees, and the balance of work and personal life. Arianne shares insights into transitioning from freelance work to founding her own agency, the roles creativity and flexibility play in her life, and the importance of community and family support in her success.
Arianne’s candid discussion offers unique insights into the challenges of agency life, including setting up a business with no prior experience and working alongside her husband. Her story is peppered with humorous anecdotes, such as her office’s proximity to water in Florida and light-hearted exchanges with clients about vacation time. One powerful quote from Arianne encapsulates her ethos: “We dreamt of this and didn’t know it was possible five years ago,” highlighting the realization of her entrepreneurial dreams against all odds.
This episode of “An Agency Story” not only showcases the entrepreneurial spirit of Arianne Hutcherson but also leaves listeners contemplating the balance between professional ambitions and personal life. Tune in to “Candor” to hear more about how Arianne and her team navigate the complex world of digital marketing while fostering a nurturing work environment. Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned professional, this episode offers valuable lessons and encouragement to pursue your dreams with resilience and creativity.
You can listen to this episode of An Agency Story on your favorite podcast app:
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Show Transcript
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:
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast. I’m your host Russel. This week’s episode features Arianne Hutcherson, president and senior creative director for simple social marketing agency. A full service agency based in Fort Myers, Florida. Arianne’s journey began as a freelancer doing SEO writing in 2013, which eventually led to her work for a nonprofit where she gained experience wearing all the marketing and promotion hats. Arianne would then decide to start her own agency motivated by her desire to provide jobs and strengthen the community as she finds fulfillment and providing additional incomes for families. Despite the many challenges and experiencing the pressure as being an income source for her team Arianne and the agency have accomplished their initial goal of doing a job they love that provides for their loved ones. Enjoy the story. Welcome to the show today, everyone. I have Arianne Hutcherson with Simple Social. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Arianne.
Arianne:
Of course. Thank you so much for having me.
Russel:
My pleasure. If you don’t mind, start us off with a quick overview. What does Simple Social do and who do you do it for?
Arianne:
We are a digital marketing agency in Southwest Florida. We have clients that are mostly businesses, but we also work with nonprofits and a few personal brands as well to do everything from social media, website, digital ads, videos, photography, all of the above.
Russel:
Being in Texas and from the Midwest, I assume your office is on the beach, right? If you’re in, you’re in Southwest Florida, or am I wrong about that?
Arianne:
We are only about two blocks from water, but it’s not technically a beach. It’s the Caloosahatchee river that flows and does end up connecting to the ocean, but we’re a little bit further from the beach, but still close enough to go for the day. It’s a great place to be, I’m not going to lie.
Russel:
I can only imagine. What were you doing before Simple Social was a twinkle in your eye? What was young Arianne thinking what she’s going to do with her life?
Arianne:
It’s funny you ask it in that way, because I remember having such a hard time when people would ask me what I wanted to do with my life when I was 18, 19. I changed my major in college so many different times, but I remember I couldn’t pinpoint a job description that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I remember telling people I wanted to help people. I wanted to use creativity. I didn’t want every one day to be the same as another. It’s funny to look back on that now, because I can check all of those boxes. Prior to this, I remember getting my first exposure in digital marketing, getting hired as an SEO blog writer. At first, it all seemed like Chinese for me. Even though I had taken marketing classes in college as part of my business degree, learning about keyword density and different things like that was also new to me. Got my first exposure doing that, ended up working for a large nonprofit where I was overseeing different video projects, a graphic design team. Got exposure to all different applications of marketing in that role which was exciting. Then moved on to do some freelancing where I got experience with social media management, branding, more types of copywriting. It’s cool to look back and see how each of those different things played a different role in preparing me for what I do now.
Russel:
You mentioned there, as I understand, the foray into freelancing was what eventually led you starting your business. But going back to that point, what made you even decide to leave the corporate world and go out on your own?
Arianne:
My husband and I were in a unique season where we were both transitioning from full time jobs working for other people. He was starting a non profit, I was planning to freelance but after about six months of doing that we were looking at things and realizing we weren’t going to get to where we wanted to be, to have the flexibility for me to have time with my kids and things like that. I remember thinking, I’ve seen a peek behind the curtains of how agencies are run or at least social media management. To me, that seems fairly simple. I think I could do that. Started doing the math on if we were to get some of our own clients instead of me working for agencies, that there was so much more potential there. Little did I know how far that could take us. It was scary stepping into that. We had never run a business before, never owned a business, so getting that off the ground from scratch was interesting. But we’re very blessed because we have a great network of people where we live. We’ve both grown up here so we know so many talented people and it wouldn’t have come together the way that it has over the last few years without that incredible network of people and friends and family believing in us. We’re very thankful for that.
Russel:
It’s very important. A couple of key things you said there, want to focus on. One, I do hear that often a lot that people start their own business because of this draw towards flexibility autonomy. But for some, they find out real quick that it’s actually more inflexible having your own business and kind of being in charge of everything. What was that experience like for you when you started jumping into this?
Arianne:
It’s been a journey. When we started, it was just me and so there wasn’t anyone to delegate to. I probably lean naturally towards being a people pleaser, so even learning how to have proper work life balance when you’re starting things out and you are the company. It’s definitely been exciting as we’ve grown and been able to hire people over the last few years and now have a full time team of about eight or nine people. We’re thankful to be able to delegate things. Sometimes leaving and taking time off and things like that can still be hard, but we trust our team implicitly and are so thankful that it’s a team now and it’s not just me. I’m definitely thankful that’s the reality now versus when we first got started.
Russel:
Something else that kind of caught wind there, did you start the business effectively with your husband? You might be one of the first, that I can think of, husband, wife duos that business that I’ve talked to have on the show. What’s that like?
Arianne:
We started together. Honestly, the idea came from a night that we were having one of those deep conversations about our futures and what is this going to look like? I had also previously worked in insurance and he was trying to get a nonprofit off the ground, speaking in schools about mental health, which is a great thing to do, but not the most profitable career choice in the world. We were having this come to Jesus moment and trying to figure out what the next six months to a year was going to look like. I remember him saying, the way things are looking right now, either you need to get a real job or I need to get a real job. It’s funny to look back on that, but at the time we felt like our backs were up against the wall. We had this idea of starting a marketing company, at the time we were thinking social media management. We weren’t even envisioning a full scale marketing agency yet and started brainstorming business owners we know that might be willing to take a chance on us. We got some advice from people, made sure they didn’t think we were crazy, and started putting those feelers out and taking that step to start it. He’s definitely been a huge part of it and we balance each other out very well because I have more of the creative lean and the marketing experience, but he is great with strategy and sales. Where I lean people pleaser, he doesn’t have a hard time with being direct and helping with contracts, and that side is very needed in order to grow business successfully as well. We’ve been thankful to work together and learned a lot about working with each other and being married and keeping those work life balances intact as well. It’s definitely a journey. We’re not perfect, but we do our best to prioritize our relationship and also work together.
Russel:
I love it. To the extent that it doesn’t cause a fight, what’s the best part and the worst part about running a business with your husband?
Arianne:
I think the best part is there’s moments where we have to literally step back and be like, we dreamt of this and didn’t know it was possible five years ago. Cause sometimes when you’re in it, you are focused on the challenges and difficult parts, but when you take a step back and realize that you’re actually living a life that you’ve always dreamt of, it’s exciting and helps ground you and reprioritize things. It’s the possibilities that it creates for us as a family, us as a couple. The hardest part is, we’ve been married almost 15 years. Any of us, whether you’ve been married five months or 15 years, we know our spouse’s weaknesses. Sometimes that’s probably the hard part, not getting frustrated with those little weaknesses that you see coming through in work and running a business. What’s helped us is definitely staying in our own lanes. We do obviously collaborate, but the day to day work that we’re doing and the way that we’re spending our time is very different. That helps because he’s able to fully own the things that he does, and I can do my thing over here and not get frustrated if he’s not doing his things exactly the way I would want him to do them.
Russel:
I can imagine how some of those conversations can go. I always wonder what it’d be like to have a business partner that you could throw off a little of the decorum and be a little more brass tacks with it. Whether that’s good or bad or not, I don’t know.
Arianne:
I think we should have Will on the show when we do that too and put him in the hot seat with me.
Russel:
Not a bad idea. That was a very good answer. I don’t think that should cause any grief at home by any means. You mentioned before we jumped on the show here, getting ready to take a vacation, trust your team. What has been the biggest lesson you’ve learned as you’ve grown a team and what that whole process looks like?
Arianne:
I think that I’ve been on a journey of letting go of control. Honestly, I think that’s huge as an entrepreneur or someone who started a business from nothing. I also, I don’t know if you are into the Enneagram at all or personality type things, but I’m an Enneagram two, which is a helper. One of our deadly sins, if you will, is the need to be needed or even the belief that things are going to fall apart without us. Not in a prideful sense, in the sense that we are so passionate about the role that we play and about helping others that we even subconsciously believe that it’s all going to fall apart if we don’t do what we do when we do it. I think for me, the biggest lesson has been truly trusting the team, not internally within myself, but also communicating to them that I trust them and communicating good expectations with clients. One thing that sounds extra that I’m doing for my vacation, but it’s giving me complete peace is I’m actually leaving my normal phone with one of our employees because nature of marketing. I know any anyone who’s listening to this who works in marketing knows, as much as you try to keep things to email, things like that, there’s texts that happen. There’s urgent things that come up. There’s phone calls that happen. Knowing that those things are going to be happening, I am leaving my phone with a team member who’s going to be monitoring that for work text calls, and will be able to handle it with the team without me even knowing it’s happening. I have a different phone I’m taking on vacation with me that doesn’t have social media on it, doesn’t have email, and it has a separate phone number so our family can reach us if anything is happening with kids or things like that. But we’ll truly be able to disconnect, which is a huge blessing. I think it’s needed. Things aren’t going to fall apart in the business. Sometimes it’s good to ask the question, what’s the worst thing that could happen in the seven days that I’m gone. Even play out those scenarios and realize that there’s very few things that could happen in that seven days that are going to sink the ship, but it’s worth it for our marriage, for mental health, for our family. There’s a selling pitch for vacation. If you’re listening to this and you haven’t taken a vacation in a while, here’s your sign.
Russel:
I thought anybody lives in Florida is on constant vacation. That’s not the case.
Arianne:
We should be.
Russel:
That sounds like the 2023 version of a trust fall, handing your phone to your team. There you go. I like that. How many business owners out there could and would be willing to do that? That’d be an interesting experiment.
Arianne:
Definitely. It’s worth it. Try it and you’ll love it. Trust me.
Russel:
Then you mentioned the Enneagram. I am a big fan of the Enneagram. I work with all my clients on that, and I think it’s so important to know how you operate, how people around you operate and even knowing how my business partner operated, it gave me such more calm, right? The things that probably not going to change so do I want to accept them or do I want to be upset about them? Have you found even beyond knowing yourself that having that understanding maybe from your employee side has helped you over time as well?
Arianne:
Absolutely. Some of our employees, we know their Enneagram type. Some of them we don’t. We do as part of their onboarding have them take Myers Briggs. I don’t think we’ve forced Enneagram onto them yet. We probably should, because I do think it’s super helpful, but it’s definitely helpful going back to being business partners with my husband, he’s Enneagram seven. So you combine Enneagram seven with an entrepreneur and you’ve got a rocket ship that isn’t necessarily going in a straight line, but it is going. It’s good because we balance each other out in that sense too, where he has these great ideas and then sometimes I’m practical and okay, so what’s our first step to accomplishing this goal? It’s fun, but his wing is eight, which helps. Going back to the contracts, the role he has to play sometimes, that’s very helpful when sometimes you need a strong decision maker or strong presence in a meeting. In a pitch meeting, I remember when we got our first opportunity to pitch the biggest retainer that we had ever had an opportunity to pitch. I was so thankful that he was in the room wearing his blazer with the packet and there to go over that. I could be there smiling and answering questions, but not have to do some of the harder things for me that are more in his gift set. Thankful for that.
Russel:
I could talk about Enneagram all day, so I’m gonna ask one last question. What I also know about the number two, they call the notion of helper’s revenge. Basically the notion that you help to the point of, I don’t know if it’s like more exhaustion or like where then you helping too much or something along those lines. Do you ever find that either when working with clients or even with your team? Does that ever come up?
Arianne:
Absolutely. I think that it’s so funny that helpers need to be needed, but then if we feel relied on too much or too much responsibility, we can definitely become resentful. I feel that on a work level at times, I feel that on a personal level at times with even parenting and family. When I’m feeling that way, I know that I need a break. So in addition to vacations, I try hard to make sure I have one full day off per week where I’m not checking my email, I’m not dabbling. Hearing their texts will still come through, but as far as it’s in my power, I try to do that. Then there’s been times too, where I’ve asked myself the question as I’m going about what I’m doing and maybe we’re scheduling a video shoot or I’m handing something off to another team member and I’m planning on being there for the video shoot. I’ll sometimes step back and be like, do I actually need to be there? Or is it actually better for my team if they get the opportunity to rise up to the occasion? I think that’s something that twos can probably fall into as well. It’s in our desire to help and to make it easy for everyone else, sometimes we can take away growth or learning opportunities for our team to be able to rise to the occasion to do something. Sometimes us even completely removing ourself from the picture is the best opportunity for them to do that.
Russel:
What a great subject you bring up, and I won’t ask any more Enneagram questions, I promise. I talk to a lot of agency owners about that notion that, when we’re starting the agency, we get to fail so fast because we have to do it all. We have to experience all these things. We learn what works and what doesn’t work. And then when we start to bring on a team, we’re afraid to let them fail but sometimes that’s the best way to learn. Navigating that balance of when to let them strike out on their own and maybe makes a few mistakes versus stopping it at the door, so to speak. Any tips or tricks or hacks that you’ve experienced in that thought process to keep from always maybe being overbearing in that sense?
Arianne:
I was always taught that the best way to train someone is say, is this process: I do it, you watch, I do it, you help, you do it, I help, you do it, I watch. Not that can be broken down to an exact science, but I think that’s a great model because I can look back at times where I think I’ve thrown someone into the deep end because I didn’t know how to delegate responsibilities and tasks, I’ve not given enough direction. But then there’s also been times where I’ve handed something off, but held on to it, and when there’s not clarity about who’s owning it and who’s doing what, those are the situations where things are more likely to fall through the cracks versus when you can give clear direction. One tool that we use is Asana for project management. I’m sure everyone listening to this has a project management system, but one of the things that I love about that is it makes it very clear when you’re handing something off to someone, makes it easy to bring it back up in conversation or add a comment, say, hey, where’s this at? It provides that clarity in a written form as well. That’s been helpful for our team as we’ve grown pretty quickly the last few years.
Russel:
I love that. I don’t know that I could repeat that whole phrase you did, but I understand the sentiment carried through. So people listen, they can go back and rewind and pick that up, cause I do think that is such a great sentiment. It’s even interesting, talking to other agencies in this case, similar things we got to. We had a different, similar type framework was observe, understand, participate, demonstrate. But I think it’s the same sentiment that you mentioned. That was very helpful to understand that we don’t start with, here’s everything, demonstrate and then be upset when, why does it not go the way we planned? Obviously you’ve gotten the business to a successful point. To the point you’re going on vacation, leaving your phone with your team. What does the future look like? What are you trying to accomplish with Simple Social?
Arianne:
Whenever someone asks us about our greater why, we come back to we love creating jobs. A lot of the people that we’ve hired are our friends, people that we’ve known prior to starting the business, and a lot of them it’s providing supplemental income because in addition to our full time team, we have another about 20 to 25 people that will contract or freelance with us under our umbrella. We’re so thankful for that. It gives us a great adaptability and availability when clients reach out with requests, which is fun. We love providing income, whether it’s part time for someone or full time. Then also we love being a part of the community and we know when we’re helping businesses and nonprofits that we’re making our community stronger, and it’s not Southwest Florida. We do have clients in the Atlanta area, a few other places around the country that we know that those businesses also are impacting families, whether it’s through employment or some of them are schools, some of them are churches. Knowing that our impact with these businesses and nonprofits is also impacting others, that’s our greatest why when we remind ourselves why we do what we do.
Russel:
Create more jobs. Nobody’s going to say that’s a bad thing. As we start to wrap up, a couple more questions I have to know. One, what’s something what’s been most successful for you that you’ve solved in terms of getting new clients? I know that can often be one of the toughest things for a lot of agencies, especially if they’re trying to grow at all. What has been successful for you in that realm?
Arianne:
I’m going to give you two answers. The first one is more philosophical, I would say utter and complete authenticity and transparency to the point where probably too much transparency at times. Going back to the first big pitch that we got to do, I remember Going to that initial meeting and this general manager looking me in the eye and asking me all these direct questions. How many employees do you have? What’s your largest paying retainer currently? All these things that make you squirm in your seat, because people don’t generally go at it that directly in those kind of meetings. When I’m put on the spot, I’m going to tell the truth because you either tell the truth or you try to make yourself seem different than you are. This was back when we were very small and I didn’t have a great answer to my largest paying current client. I think it was$700 at the time. I went with complete honesty, and I think that he saw something in us that he knew he could trust. I think that there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors in the agency world, but we’ve found that being very truthful and authentic and people of integrity has got gotten us a long way. That would be my philosophical answer. My more practical answer is I think that our proposal system, we struggled with for a long time. When you have a lead that’s warm, you don’t want to take several days to get them a proposal. Back when we were doing them from scratch, it was very challenging. We came across Proposify. I’m sure there’s lots of other great systems out there, but basically having the ability to create a library of our different services, what it includes, our pricing, have nice, pretty cover pages, portfolio pages, things that are 80 percent done. Then you have to drag in the different services that you’re proposing, send it off to them. That was a huge tool in helping us scale, get proposals out more quickly. And because it’s internet based, it’ll notify you when someone’s viewing the proposal or different things like that. That’s been a practical tool in helping us grow and land clients.
Russel:
Transparency. I think that’s such a great trait. Last big question for you, Arianne, are entrepreneurs born or are they made?
Arianne:
That’s a tough one. I thought about it, but I am going to say they’re made. I don’t necessarily have a lot of supported evidence for that, but other than being a fan of the Enneagram is knowing like how much childhood and different experiences growing up shape us and I think that entrepreneurs are very resilient. We find ways around problems. I think that, in my opinion, most of that comes from experiences that we have and how we’re shaped and molded and the resilience from childhood and different things we go through. I’m going to go with made.
Russel:
That sounds good enough evidence to me. Thank you for sharing that. If people want to know more about Simple Social, where can they go?
Arianne:
Our website, simplesocial.com. We used to be simplesocial.online. Upgraded to the dot com last year.
Russel:
There you go.
Arianne:
That was something other agency owners will appreciate, when you can get that dot com. That’s the best place to find information about who we are, where we are, what we do.
Russel:
Go to the newly purchased, simplesocial.com. Did you have to buy it from someone? It was like to get enough scratch to actually purchase it.
Arianne:
It was, yeah, it was not the cheapest URL we’ve ever bought in our lives, but definitely worth it. No regrets.
Russel:
There you go. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Arianne, is great to hear your story. Thank you for staying true to your word, being transparent and sharing so many different parts of your journey. Truly a pleasure having you on the show today.
Arianne:
Thanks for having me.
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.
Arianne:
We talked about vacation and how it can be hard to get away earlier. I had an interesting experience with that today, actually. I was meeting with one of our largest clients. It was me and four of the executive managers going over things that are coming up. I was letting them know that our team was going to be there this coming Monday for a video shoot and that they were going to be handling the approval process because I was going to be out of the office. I was going to move on to my next bullet point, but one of the guys in the room who I’ve been working with for about two and a half years now, we have a great rapport. He jokes around with me all the time and he’s the kind of guy that can’t let things slide. He has to give you a hard time if he sees an opportunity. We have a running joke that he thinks I take vacation all the time and must be nice to have my life. He didn’t let it slide when I said I was going to be out of the office, right? He was like wait. Are you taking another vacation? I was like, yes. He said, Arianne, how many vacations is that since I’ve known you? I haven’t been on a single one in that entire time. And I looked back at him and I said, that sounds like a you problem, not a me problem. Everyone in the room laughed so hard. He had to admit I had him on that one that it wasn’t my issue that he hasn’t been on vacation in two and a half years. I was proud of myself because being a natural people pleaser, I’ve come a long way and the anxiety about that.
Russel:
I’m proud of you. Sometimes as owner, you got to stand your ground and sounds like you did there. That’s a him problem.
Arianne:
Exactly.
