Company: Morgan & Co.
Owners: Eric Morgan
Year Started: 1997
Employees: 11 – 25
Welcome to “An Agency Story,” the podcast that delves deep into the lives and careers of agency owners. In this captivating episode, we feature Eric Morgan, the visionary behind Morgan & Co., a New Orleans-based media planning and buying agency that has evolved into a full-service powerhouse over the past 27 years.
In this episode, Eric Morgan shares his journey from the early days of founding Morgan & Co. to its transformation into Rue Advertising, and his philosophy of saying “yes” to clients to provide comprehensive marketing solutions. He discusses the core services his agency offers, the significance of media planning and buying, and the strategic shift towards brand and marketing strategy. Eric’s candid reflections on the challenges and triumphs of running an agency for nearly three decades provide listeners with a wealth of insights and inspiration.
Eric talks about the agency’s growth from a media planning and buying firm to a full-service agency, driven by client demands and his reluctance to say no. He emphasizes the importance of brand and marketing strategy, moving beyond just running ads to understanding the purpose behind a brand’s market presence. He shares the story behind the agency’s name, its evolution to Rue Advertising, and the strategic reasons for this rebranding. The significance of building strong client relationships and understanding their unique needs is a recurring theme throughout the episode. Eric opens up about the challenges of entrepreneurship, from managing finances to navigating industry changes, and how stepping back and reflecting helps him stay grounded. The episode highlights the importance of cultivating a supportive and growth-oriented team culture, including Eric’s initiatives to connect with his team on both professional and personal levels.
Eric’s engaging storytelling includes humorous anecdotes and powerful quotes that capture his journey’s essence. One standout moment is his recounting of an intern who left for lunch and never returned, illustrating the unpredictable and sometimes amusing nature of agency life. Eric’s insightful reflections on navigating business challenges and the importance of giving oneself grace provide valuable lessons for listeners.
Tune in to this episode of “An Agency Story” to gain a deeper understanding of the dynamic world of agency life from Eric Morgan’s perspective. Discover how Morgan & Co. has thrived for 27 years and the exciting future ahead as Rue Advertising. Eric’s journey leaves you contemplating the importance of resilience, adaptability, and a people-first approach in building a successful agency. Join us for this inspiring episode and stay tuned for more stories that uncover the heart and soul of agency life.
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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. Welcome to An Agency Story podcast. I’m your host Russel. In this episode, we’re joined by Eric Morgan, the innovative founder of Morgan and Co based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Eric shares his unique journey from a media planning and buying farm to a full service powerhouse driven by his philosophy of always saying”yes” to clients. Discover how Eric’s commitment to adaptability and client centric growth has shaped Morgan and Co’s success over nearly three decades through building strong client relationships, fosterting a supportive team culture and navigating the ever-changing agency landscape with resilience and creativity. Enjoy the story.
Russel:
Welcome to the show today, everyone. I have Eric Morgan with Morgan Co with us here today. Thank you so much for being here today, Eric.
Eric:
Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity and looking forward to talking a little bit.
Russel:
Absolutely. Well, let’s get to it. Kick us off. What does Morgan Co do and who do you do it for?
Eric:
We’re 27 years old this year, and we started off as a media planning and buying agency. That’s that’s kind of the core of my background. I grew up in a couple of agencies, here in New Orleans, and then over 27 years, as you all, everybody can just attest to, it’s changed. We’re full service, although you don’t see it a lot on our website about the full service side of it was still very heavy media planning buying, but, and the full service came around, even though I’m a media guy, because clients just kept asking for more stuff. I hated saying no for a couple of reasons. I hated telling clients no and, I hope they do okay somewhere else. I wanted to help them. I hated saying no from a revenue standpoint, obviously. We do more full service now, we’re not shooting Superbowl commercials, that’s for sure. But we are doing some creative and some digital, but a lot more brand strategy and more so marketing strategy. Just why? What’s the purpose of this brand going to market? Instead of like, hey, let’s run a bunch of Facebook ads. It’s more of a couple of steps prior to that.
Russel:
And then I say never to make any assumptions about a name and I’ve certainly learned my lesson to that end, but how did you come up with and what’s behind the name?
Eric:
What’s behind the name is really what’s behind the bigger story. I was working at an ad agency here in New Orleans, Fitzgerald. Which at one time was a massive agency. We had, you know, major national brands, but, um, they were being acquired or they were merging. Then the merger turned into acquiring and they, um, and they wanted us to media department to move up to St. Louis. The girl I was dating was like, if you go to St. Louis, I’m not going with you because she lived there at a point. Well, I married the girl, and so I stayed here and another planner buyer in my department stayed as well. We joined forces and we just combined our last name and it was planning and buying. After about eight years, she wanted to move on. I bought her out and I just felt after eight years, we had equity. I just kept the Morgan part of it. I’m Morgan Co, not really an egotistical person, but just felt like it was, it had some street value. Morgan Co is, is, is our name or how we go by and all that fun stuff. But then, you know, enter 2022 and we’re big in the legal marketing. We do a lot of legal marketing. We stumbled into it 15 years ago. We know how to make the phone ring. We know how to grow their cost of the case volume and reduce cost per case. The problem is that they’re the biggest personal injury attorney in the country. Out of Orlando is John Morgan, Morgan and Morgan. So I go to these conferences and I’m speaking at them and we’re exhibiting and you know, we’re networking and we’re getting clients at all. People think we’re Morgan, Morgan and Morgan. It’s too close for comfort so later this year, we’re, we’re rolling, our brand is Roux advertising in the legal space. Two years ago, I, I got Morgan out of the equation. But we were officially going to move a hundred percent to Roux and that’s somewhat probably the worst kept secret right now. I figured I would tell anyway, but we’re Morgan Co. That’s what most people would understand us as if, you know, in this neck of the woods.
Russel:
Not to even go down too far the rabbit hole, but then Roux, as I know it is part of the base of a good gumbo. Your roots are obviously in, in New Orleans. What’s the secret thought behind that name?
Eric:
So one, congratulations as a Texas guy to know what Roux is. Two, you know, one, I owned the URL for a bunch of years. When I said, I got to get Morgan out of the, our legal marketing client world, it was just, I had it, it was natural. There’s a lot of connotation because as I mentioned earlier, we evolved to pre planning and buying and talking about strategy. It’s like, what are the things that, that can substantiate a reasoning or purpose and going to market? What’s that strategy? What space do you want to own? You start thinking about all the things that go into that, which is Roux. All the things that go into it, you know, the celery and bell pepper and stuff like that and onions. It’s an ingredient and it’s a recipe, Roux. It’s a part of a recipe, and it’s not unlike what, what we all do. All the ad agencies out there do. There’s ingredients, there’s steps, there’s this knowledge of when to, you know, turn the flame up, turn the flame down, you know, when to add the andouille sausage or, you know, the chicken, if you’re going to make a gumbo. And it’s like, wow, this grain in New Orleans, it’s just, it’s perfect.
Russel:
There you go. I love it. Good connotation, good story behind it and you know what? You’ve just made me decide what I’m going to have for dinner tonight. I’m going to find not, not new Orleans good Cajun, but I’m going to find the best next alternative here in Dallas to have dinner tonight.
Eric:
Go online and look up, uh, uh, Donald Link. He’s got a couple of restaurants here and he’s from like Lafayette area, which is west of New Orleans, a couple hours. I love some of his restaurants here. I got one of his cookbooks and if you want gumbo, just look for Donald Link gumbo, Google it.
Russel:
I’m on it. We’ll take it straight from the person that probably knows best. So many cool things I imagine to talk about with your agency and your business. But before we get there, you kind of said part of the story, already sounds like a good story. You started the business, got the girl. But going back even before all of that, did, was this a path you thought you were going to go down? What was young Eric anticipating his life was going to look like?
Eric:
I entered college thinking I was going to be in international law. Then halfway through college and didn’t get too deep into my curriculum somebody had mentioned journalism, so I moved to journalism. I finished at a school here in New Orleans called Loyola and they’ve got a great communication program. The media side I got for a project for, one of these national student competitions, teacher threw me in the media team. I did it two years and, presentation and we did fantastic in the competition. It just clicked. In undergraduate and graduate, I aced, the statistics in the accounting classes, although I could not be an accountant at all cause I don’t know it that well. The numbers just click. It just made sense. I’m like, wow, I get to love how people communicate, how to have communication channels. This is, early nineties. How these communication channels shape people, you know, back to the day when people were dog earing the corner of magazines or tearing magazine ads out and putting them on the refrigerator going, I want to buy that or I want to look like that or I want that outfit or whatever. I’m going this is cool, this marketing advertising thing. We get to shape people’s behavior and actions and thoughts. We get to use numbers and pivot tables and all that kind of stuff. I was like, this is great. I kind of fell into it. It was not something I wanted to, you know, I honestly, when I was a kid, I wanted to be an architect, very much numbers still. I love what I’m doing, but I think maybe being an architect would have been more sane, I think. I stumbled into it. It was serendipity. A guy was mentioned in journalism or advertising classes and here I am.
Russel:
Here you are. I think most entrepreneurs would probably agree that, doing what we do is a certain level of insanity. You might be on to something, but it sounds like it’s all turned out really well for you. Going back to when you started the business, what was that like? Was it just kind of, I’ll use the term piss and vinegar, excited adrenaline, or, you know, a lot of times folks, their biggest struggle or pain point’s getting new clients. What were some of the early exciting things and maybe some of the most challenging when you got running in the business?
Eric:
It was exciting. I never grew up thinking I was going to be an entrepreneur or that this was my calling, although there was a streak in there. My dad was a physician, but he also had some, you know, physician related side businesses going on and in and so forth. There was some of that in my household. It was exciting and definitely nerve wracking. Cause it was, you know, everybody can relate to it where every couple of weeks you open up the checkbook and can I pay myself? Just trying to figure it all out and here we are, even with this company, 27 years later, I’m still trying to figure it all out. The excitement of the unknown and the possibility, seeing how other companies were doing things and what I could learn from my peers and sharing stories and go, wow, that’s an interesting idea, an interesting way to do it. Or is there a different way to do it? It was definitely nerve wracking because, I always grew up saying I don’t want to sell anything. I don’t want to be in the sales business because that’s just not my, my, my style. But you’re a business owner, you got to sell and, and I’m not the greatest at it. That’s probably the biggest challenge because I love doing the work and I love, you know, interaction with clients. A new client reaches out and says, hey, I’m curious, what are y’all doing? I got a plan. I got a problem. I need a marketing plan or something. I get fired up. I love it. Let’s go and here’s my ideas. Then, in typical fashion, I see a new, different shiny object and I move on to that new shiny object. Fortunately I’ve got a great team that, can take the ball and run with it. It was exciting. It was nervous. I look back and go, man, what were we thinking on some of these things and how we presented and pitched and so forth.
Russel:
I imagine there’s a good story in there too. What was the first moment where, you mentioned architect or something like that, that you ran into, like, maybe I should have been an architect. Is there anything, a specific moment in time that sticks out for you for that?
Eric:
I don’t think there’s just one. Sometimes I think, throughout the year I think about it, but no. There might have been a period here or there when, I got kids now, but before kids, I’m like, is this my life calling? As a business owner, you hit a wall sometimes. You can get overwhelmed and you know, you have to make sure you got your head screwed on straight. I’m sure that there’s been a time or two over my career. It hadn’t been in a long time, truthfully, cause I’m like, we’ve been onto something for quite a while, but in the early days of, is this it, is this what I want to do? I was like, I really love it, but it’s like, where can I make a living? Can I thrive and prosper and grow? Can I create new opportunities for my staff so that they can grow, professionally, personally, financially? I don’t think there was ever a point where I seriously considered.
Russel:
You weren’t researching architecture, universities?
Eric:
No, I never filled
Russel:
I think you touched on a good point. I talk to a lot of folks on this. I can think back to my own journey. When you talk about this, it’s hitting a wall and I think it, it’s a likens to, and I’ve even started to read more things about why this is. We don’t have to go down that rabbit hole per se, but, but that the agency business is actually a very hard business and it’s the most people businesses of people, businesses. There’s just a lot of complexity when you talk about all things human, but going back to when you think of those moments where you’ve hit those walls, what, what got you out of it? What kind of got you through those? Can you think back and share those for maybe some folks out there that might be in a similar place?
Eric:
For me, it is, it’s been a couple of things. One of them is just, I need to step back mentally, from what’s going on at the moment or the day and realize that, one, I’m not alone. I mean that by, this is just normal of running a business, whether I run a plumbing company or I run, AT&T and, 200 million people lose cell service or whatever. This is just normal. The weight, the stress, the, the impact that it has on everybody’s mental capacity. I should say, not just, from an ownership standpoint, but from the team. They get chewed out by a client or something falls through the cracks or something. For me, the first thing I do is I just step back and I, take a breath. It’s usually over a weekend or so, or, a long evening and just to try and reflect. Make me realize that one, Rome wasn’t built in a day. There’s going to be the ups and downs. There’s just, there is. How am I going to learn from whatever this is that got me in this dark spot, if it is, or got us in a bad spot with a client because we dropped the ball, which fortunately my team’s great and we don’t do that often. Or the client’s just, the unrealistic deadlines or whatever. It’s a lot of reflection. I do also read, I don’t read an enormous amount just because, between work and kids. I read the important stuff and the important stuff sometimes is around business ownership. I’m in a business group that’s, um, like minded people and just leaning on them. It’s reflecting and just realizing that at the end of the day, this is normal, you’re going to have these periods where it’s crazy. It’s out of control. What can we learn? How do we put things in place? That’s a big initiative right now, how do we put things in place that can prevent this from happening again? If it was something that fell through the cracks, went sideways, how do I need to, in my role in this company, where do I need to be? Thinking of others as well, what do they need to be so that this isn’t a common thing?
Russel:
Very insightful and I think you hit on a good thing. This is what I try to often share with folks is just giving yourself grace. You’re doing a hard thing and, taking a step back and while there’s always room for improvement, there’s always places we can be better, do better, et cetera. We just have to give ourselves grace. Having not too long ago, recently visited Rome and knowing a lot more about the history of it, I think, yes, it was built over the course of from early stages to the end was like 1500 years or something along those lines. So there we go. We can’t all quite live that long, but we can also think of our businesses beyond us if we’d like to. That’s very cool. Thank you for sharing that. I’m always curious, a business that’s been around for as long as you have, right? As you’ve alluded to a little bit, you’ve seen, a lot of change, in the world and the marketing world, especially. How have you navigated some of those things that are just, I guess you could say thrust upon you over the years that you have to adapt to?
Eric:
Fortunately I look at it as a good thing that we have to navigate this because I think it can be a competitive edge and a differentiator. I went to a, an event last night and somebody was like, wow, old friends, industry event, old friends, man, what’s changed, in, in these decades? The conversations that we’re having with our clients have changed dramatically in 30 years. We weren’t talking ROI analytics, obviously, ROI or strategy as much. People went to an ad agency, I want to run, I want to run a TV commercial and I want to see my commercial. The level of conversations we’re having these days is more about, I say it business strategy, marketing strategy, brand positioning, which was then applicable, applicable back then, but in very small circles. It was the creative directors that at the full service agency that were talking that. But now I think everybody, to the youngest on the team who might be doing X, Y, or Z, or even social. Somebody’s writing some social content, is talking about the brand and the strategy and the positioning. It’s not just, hey, let’s do a social post, you know? I see that as an opportunity, to come up with some new services, monetize, maybe our thinking and the execution of what we’re doing. Two different fashions, thinking versus execution, but also to just be competitively distinctive, to say, look, we’re going to jump on this. This is important. Strategy is really critical, even if we’re buying ads or writing copy or whatever strategy is really critical. Fortunately, from a how do we, monetize it? We run in a lot of, opportunities where clients like strategy. Yeah, let’s do Facebook next year. I’m like, no, no, that’s not strategy. That’s a tactical execution. Strategy is up the road a little bit. Let’s go back. It helps us differentiate, establish a little bit of what we’re doing, hopefully differently and better. I try to embrace it as much as possible. AI, which we’re not embracing as quickly or, as we should from an execution standpoint. From an internal standpoint, a little bit, but like, how can we use that to, to give us a leg up and maybe even monetize?
Russel:
Very good. I love just, you know, the key things there of just embracing. I think that is very much where, I don’t, I would say the world is moving to, but especially within agency marketing as a service folks is strategy first. That may or may not determine the, the mediums, as you said, whether we use Facebook or not, or different things like that the agencies themselves beyond just the technologies that are being introduced, that is the way the market is moving. I’m really glad you addressed that. One of the things I found unique about your business is also how much it sounds like you’re embraced and involved in the digital world that you still do a lot of more traditional elements to your brand campaigns. How has that been just navigating what seems like maybe to a lot of folks, just two completely different worlds?
Eric:
It is two completely different worlds. The challenging part has been, honestly, hiring for the offline world. Nobody’s coming out of college going, you know, or of ad school going, yeah, I want to do a bunch of TV buys. I can’t wait to buy cable spots. Fortunately we grew up in that world where the, the overwhelming majority was offline. We’re 27 years old. You’re talking 97 and while, some of the big players were in the big agencies and the big clients were fairly deep into the digital world in 1997, there was still a lot of offline world going on. It’s ingrained in our DNA so that’s easy. That’s easy to still have that position. I got some great people. Fantastic person, been here 19 years or no, 18 years and she oversees a lot. She’s the brains of a lot of the offline world and just has great sounding reasoning. But I think if we, if we do the audience analysis and audience segmentation and the nuances of what the strategy is about and the insight, I it paints itself. The picture paints itself of what are we going to say? Who are we going to say it to? How are we going to say it? Where are we going to say it? The chips fall in place. But the hardest part is literally hiring for the office. It’s a serious issue to the point where we’ve had internal conversations and our big mission right now is, building a playbook. We are documenting every step, everything. Before I jumped on, I’m like, no, no, we’re missing three steps in this. Something all the way down to having the Google authenticator on everybody’s phone. They can hurdle through the two factor authentication when they log into, a Facebook account. That way we can actually train people from the ground up from a playbook standpoint to say these are all the steps that it requires you to do to complete successfully in a sequence. That way you can learn to buy cable spots. As not as sexy as that sounds, but.
Russel:
Yeah, it sounds fascinating. Even thinking through that, obviously a playbook and kind of being, being, right, people aren’t going to school for it so you got to become the school yourself. How do you even get people interested in these days and how have you solved who is actually going to do it? Forget how they learn how to do it, what does that look like?
Eric:
We have got to figure out how to peek into their brain because, look, just because you can post online doesn’t mean, you’re going to be a great social media manager. Same thing with the offline world. We’ve got to figure out what goes on through their brain. Do they get the numbers, do they get, in the offline world, the reach and frequency? Creative wear out? Audience segmentation? Are they curious about where it’s all going with OTT and CTV and stuff? They got to have a fire in their belly and their head, a good head on their shoulders. We can teach them the rest and we have, but that’s the underlying thing is like, they’ve got to, one of our core values. Well, there are four core values. Give a shit, be the expert, push boundaries and leave your mark. All right. They’ve got to give a shit about it. If the fire’s in their belly, they get it. They’re going to die on that hill because they’re arguing that this is the right thing to do. I looked at the research, I looked at the insight, it says that if we want to scratch this itch for the customer base, this is how we do it. It’s gotta be that. They’ve got to go up to the microphone and fight for it. We’re trying to constantly interview, change our interview process to see if we can extract that. It’s almost like you’re trying to poke in it, poke a sleeping bear with a stick to go, can I wake him? Can I piss him off? I want to see what’s really in this person.
Russel:
There’s a new interview tactic for the people home. Piss someone off and see what they really care about.
Eric:
It’s part like, how do we give them also, tests, give them a little exercise? We’ve done that before to get an understanding of what their thinking is. Look, at the end of the day, that’s what our clients are hiring us for. They want somebody who understands our industry, has the ideas, has the thoughts, and can think and figure out solution to a problem or a challenge or figure out a way to take advantage of an opportunity in their category, in their space, in the marketplace. That requires a lot of thinking. We just want to make sure that people are just really in tuned and are thinking. That’s the big issue. We do DISC assessments so we see about how they communicate and what they, how they approach things, but it’s getting in their head.
Russel:
I love that. I’m a big believer in the assessment and the interview process, for all the reasons you mentioned. It’s just such a way to see so many nuances about how someone operates, how someone thinks, how someone performs, and even for particular, I always like to leave it as open ended as possible just to see how folks fill in the gaps or don’t fill in the gaps, for those means. And I know that gets some criticism out there in the, at least in the candidate world, but, I stand behind it so much that I, that I don’t care. As I imagined, it’s, it’s probably reinforced itself for you as well. Good takeaway there. 27 years, obviously, you know, no easy task. You don’t have to navigate so much change. It sounds like you’ve done that really well using the keyword embrace. What’s the future look like? You talking another 27 years? Are you building Rome? Are we talking 1, 473 years? what’s the future look like for Morgan Co, or Roux advertising, I should say.
Eric:
This year rolling into more of a Roux brand identity, just to get away from Morgan in that, in our legal space. The future, I think it’s just being more distinctive in what we do and who we do it for. We’ve always been pretty picky about our clients and while we are offering more full service capabilities at the core, it’s we do a lot of media planning and buying. That’s the overwhelming percentage of our income, our revenue. So do more of that and I think expand that, but use that as a catalyst to, to allow us to do marketing strategy, brand strategy, and the analytics that go along with it and creative. But to be very specific in a couple of categories, we’re knee deep in legal, we’re knee deep in, in health care and restaurants and, tourism, hospitality. Not that I wouldn’t turn away a bank, if they came knocking on the door, but that’s not who we’re really pursuing, right this moment. I think it’s staying focused on, on the services we provide, the role we play to grow the brands, and then also, the brands that we want to talk to. We were working on our purpose, writing our purpose and it’s still a very much a work in progress. But one of the things that we’re latching on to is not only the brands, but the people who lead the brands. And I’m talking about the marketing directors and, our clients, our day to day contacts, the people who lead those brands, because that’s, that’s the relationship and that’s the role. We’re there to support them and provide the ideas and the inspiration and the thoughts, and the recommendations so that they can then go and implement and get approval and execute. It’s a continued focus on those individuals is our future and what do they need? And their needs are going to probably dictate a little bit of what we come to the table with.
Russel:
The data shows that the jury is out on all things that is, becoming increasingly important. The most successful agencies growing are, refining who they are working with and essentially what they’re doing for them as well. That is a, an effective combination. Love to hear how you’re doing on that journey. One of the thing that really stood out to me, and it sounds like this was an evolution for you as well. Is this idea of really connecting with your team, not just being about the work they do, but understanding them as people and what I imagine has to be a whole slew of other, thought process velocities on your end and how important that’s been for you, if you wouldn’t mind just speaking a little bit about that?
Eric:
The people are it. I mean, it’s just, they are the work, you know, they’re the work. They do it, they create it. By design, I am not on any client, officially any client work. I sit down on calls. I was on a call a little while this morning, but on our org chart, so to speak, our client assignment chart, I’m not assigned to any client, which is probably a good thing, at this day and age, they’re so important. I’ve got to make sure, and this is part of why, we’re building on a playbook, but part of why, we hire, we, we’re trying to find unique ways to hire the right people. To make sure that,, the culture is solid in the camaraderie and the, get along. We’ve had the issues and, over 27 years and so forth, and it’s constantly a work in progress, but I think the I started this year one on ones where, um, right now I’m doing once a month where I sit down for 45 minutes or so with everybody. They each have a skill development tracker. We could say, what are we gonna work on this year? How is the company going to support you? It’s a certification. Great. Where’s the link? How long do you think it’s gonna take? Give me your timeline. How can the company support or pay for it, obviously. Then also just checking in with them on a personal standpoint. How are you doing? I want to make sure you’re, you’re not on the ledge of any tall buildings right now. We make sure people are getting the support that they need from professionally. They come in every six to eight weeks. We fly or they drive in and we put them up in hotels and, we have, team dinners. We’ll have a planning day once a quarter or just time and it’s a get your head out of your computer. Let’s all just sit, get to get, reacquaint each other in person. We do fun things and we used to have a holiday party but we,..The holidays are so crazy that we moved it. This year we rolled our holiday party to kick off carnival Mardi Gras season, which is the 12th night, which is the beginning of January. For the whole religious kings and all, kings went to, three wise men went to go see the, Jesus and all that fun stuff. We had a Mardi Gras party and we play Mardi Gras music and we had in our driveway, cause we’re in a house here in New Orleans. We had tents cause it was a little wintry weather. Bar, music, food and all that kind of fun stuff. We also, it’s that time of the year in New Orleans, if anybody’s familiar with New Orleans and loves music, the last weekend of April, the first weekend of May is Jazz Fest. We shut down the office on that first Friday of the first weekend of Jazz Fest. We get tickets and everybody goes over there and we, we’ll eat and drink and listen to some music and so forth. Jazz Fest has a great lineup. Some great brands and, yeah, we try to do those things from time to time and just, cut loose, not too crazy, but,, definitely just to blow off some steam.
Russel:
Love it. Thank you for sharing all that. The way you’ve explained it, that culture is so much more than just the fun side. While that certainly is an element, it’s how you’re growing people, how you’re connecting with people, how people are just becoming better all around in your business. Always appreciate someone that is doing that in the world. We certainly need more of that in businesses, particularly big businesses as well. Thank you for fighting the good fight there. I did get to experience the tail end of Jazz Fest last year. I know that’s a really cool thing and celebration you guys have there. I love New Orleans period. To bring it home, my last big question for you, Eric, is are entrepreneurs born or are they made?
Eric:
I think there’s, there’s a level of born. There’s no doubt. When you think about my comment earlier about, you have to open up the book and see, can you pay yourself this week? The girl that I was dating at the time, she’s, when I quit my job, well, when I got laid off, cause I didn’t want to move to St. Louis. She’s like, what did I get? What kind of relationship did I get myself into? I have no money and you know, so I think there’s a level of, of it built into your DNA, that there has to be. I won’t discount that circumstance does play a part into it. But when you think about the, the, the great, amazing entrepreneurs over time that have created and solved the problem, they, there’s something there internally, that just drove them to be there. Trust me, I’m not comparing myself to a Thomas Edison or a Henry Ford.
Russel:
Don’t discount yourself. It’s always that right balance of ambition, opportunity, but that, is someone in there have more skill and again, not to discount or anything like that, but, if we’re all making progress and doing good things, then, that’s all we can do. If people want to know more about Morgan Co, where can they go?
Eric:
They can go to morganandco.com. M O R G A N A N D C O. com. We’re same on Facebook. You can find Eric Morgan on LinkedIn. We have a temporary page, but a more active social, uh, around, uh, rouxadvertising.com and Roux Advertising on LinkedIn and Twitter and all the usual stops.
Russel:
Perfect. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time, to share your story. All amazing 27 years of it, Eric, so many little great nuggets we were able to take away from today. I really appreciate you sharing your story with us.
Eric:
No, this is fantastic. Thanks for the time. I love talking about this kind of stuff.
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.
Eric:
This is part of why, we’re implementing a playbook so that even interns can come in and feel acclimated and so forth. But we had an intern one time, and this was years ago, the intern came in one day and, got them orientated, and said this is what it’s going to look like for the summer and so forth. They left and went to lunch. Great, lunchtime, go grab something to eat, whatever. Well, they came back and this was at a different office. This is years and years ago. We could tell that they were trying to go up the driveway and find a parking spot and the parking lot was a little full. They pulled out. They just never came back. I was like, okay. I was like, we saw that person pull in, right? Cause it’s the house, we can see out the window, and somebody’s pulling in the driveway in the backyard. They just never came back. I felt bad, and I tried to reach out to them. I’m like, you coming back? Cause, the four hours that morning, we saw a little potential, so we’d like to, we’d like to make this work. Ghosted us.
Russel:
Wow. Never heard from again. That’s unique. That is definitely unique.
