Jeremy Weisz 15:38
and obviously been ranked among the top 10 places to work in Ohio, what are some things that you do to ingrain? You know, in,
Jeffrey Ryznar 15:47
in create a culture, everybody’s voice is heard. You know, when we were doing when we were in COVID. You know, we discussed how we were going to approach it, we made sure everybody was comfortable, even coming out of COVID. And with the inflation that’s happening, you know, we went to our team, I went to our team members and said, Look, here’s your two options, we can give you two days to work at home. Or I can give you more money. And I can give you all the bumps and pay above and beyond what we normally get each year. And I said the only thing is y’all have to agree on it. Because this is this is what you all are going to be doing. And to their credit, they came back and said, let us just work from home two days a week. And we’ll have a hybrid model, you keep the money invested in our company and help us grow, we don’t need more money, we just want more time. So it’s small things like that, that you don’t assume you know what’s best for them, you don’t assume that you know what their thoughts are and what motivates them, you have them be a part of that decision making process. And I think empathy is the key word that all companies need to embrace moving forward, understanding how it makes that other person feel, and then taking that and then the real equation is taking that and incorporating into is what’s best for the organization as a whole moving forward, while maintaining that understanding of how this will impact those individuals. And trust me, as the more and more we add team members to our organization, the harder that becomes it’s not lost on me that that is a that’s a utopian thought. But it’s very hard to implement. That’s why you know, ideas are praised. But But implementation is worship. So that idea of a culture that embraces each individual and gives them a voice, while also maintaining the growth and expectations of excellence is what we try to achieve every day.
Jeremy Weisz 17:48
When you hire, are you looking strictly local? No, no.
Jeffrey Ryznar 17:55
Now we have people who work for us in Maryland, in Cleveland, on the west in Columbus, Ohio, and our offices are in Youngstown, Ohio. And to put in that perspective, our our, we have team members who live as far as five and a half hours away from our offices. I do not think that being in the office every day is mandatory. I do think though, having an office and exuding that culture virtually, is what is necessary for a group to sustain itself. And so even those individuals who are work at home and virtual, they still come to our office a couple of times a month, because I want them to be feel what that is, and also to be accepted and to be united with those individuals that they’re working with. So it’s it location is non existent. I think now it’s understanding how an individual’s own moral compass and compass of dedication and time management is is important with with earning that trust to work virtually. What do you do to keep
Jeremy Weisz 19:09
the culture and maintain the culture
Jeffrey Ryznar 19:12
remotely. So we we have team member meetings on Tuesdays, and everybody joins. But I think that that’s not enough. So what we do is one day during the week, I know it’s gonna sound cheesy, but we we literally do like game shows. And so we draw contestant and everybody joins. And so we want to play our version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire where an individual can earn two I think it’s a 750 or $1,000 in an Amazon gift card by answering questions and they can poll the audience and they can phone a friend. But those friends are all team members within the organization. We have prices right games where they play and can do virtually, whether it’s the punch of where it’s punch a bunch in their punch. holes, whether it’s Plinko, or they’re assigning someone to hit a pile, for a chance to win same amount of money or trips to Disney World. And then we also have, you know, get to know people. So we do just email scavenger hunts with this individual, you know, lady to lay the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And then the next day, we’ll ask another question about that person and the next day, and people start to guess and try to try to figure out who it is. And it’s a nice way to build that sense of camaraderie and sense of awareness of who you’re working with. So that when we do have those in person meetings, it’s not Oh, you’re Jeff. Okay. It’s more of Hey, Jeff, what’s going on? Great to see you. And it’s not easy. I know it’s not. But it’s something that’s an investment of our time and effort, so that people don’t feel like they’re just a number in a company. And on an island, they have to be made to feel that they’re a part of that wheel. And without them, that wheel doesn’t function the right way. So So those are a couple of things that we do, birthdays are huge. So even if you’re remote, we send you a cake on your birthday, and DoorDash your food, and then you get to pick the food for the office. So everybody who’s in the office still has to eat what that person’s eating. I’m still waiting to see if we can get In and Out Burger over and Ohio because phenomenal. But, but it’s fun. So it’s I know it’s cheesy, and it might sound Elementary. But like I said, the inches that we need are everywhere around us to make a big difference. And those help immensely.
Jeremy Weisz 21:34
Just talk about the evolution of your services when you first started the company, oh, man, I told no.
Jeffrey Ryznar 21:40
i It’s funny, you bring this up because I had someone we’re going to celebrate our 10 year anniversary next January. And I had someone come up to me. It was an article that was done by a local newspaper. When I first came back to Youngstown after I was done with the Cavs and started the agency in 2014. And the Youngstown Vindicator did a story on me. And they asked, What’s my ideal setup. And in the story, I said, I want like four to six clients, and maybe one other person. And that’s where I want to stay. Now all of a sudden, were over 60 clients, we have almost 30 employees and team members, excuse me, we have 30 team members, we’re all across the country. And it wasn’t anything that I had envisioned. And the evolution of that. Someone asked me well, how do you go from what you wanted to? And abandon that to where you are? And my answer? My answer is simple. My grandfather told me that we’re called to serve. We had people asking to work with us, we had team members coming to us wanting to be a part of what we had going on, and willing to wait until we found the right partners that we bring on board to leverage their services. So we never, we never extended outside of our means. That was the most important thing. The growth that we’ve had has been organic. We’ve never put ourselves into a position where, okay, how are we going to do this? Who’s going to like, how are we going to get this done? The client of the partners would come on board, and we would then fill it and figure out, okay, these are this is the team who’s going to service that. And I think that’s helped in growing now there’s been growing pains, and we’re still going through them. We’re still working through processes and trying to perfect them. We’re still trying to make sure no one is too much overworked and have that work life balance. But I think we’ve done a really good job of organically growing, knowing that we’re maintaining the simple idea that we’re here to serve those individuals with honesty and integrity. And if we can’t do that we walk away. And trust me, Jeremy, we’ve walked away from big deals, we’ve walked away from big clients. Because it wasn’t the right time for us, nor did we feel that we can offer the services that they were looking for. And those are hard conversations to have, especially when you look at some of the dollars we walked away from. But the sense of the sense of pride and not putting our team members in a position where they’re gonna be compromised, but also the honesty with those potential customers and clients so that they know. Wow, like they really do have our best interests in mind even to walk away. So it’s that mentality of how we operate I think has helped us grow but it hasn’t come without challenges. Man, I’ll tell you every day, every day there there are opportunities to grow.
Jeremy Weisz 24:26
What type of work did you do at the USFL?
Jeffrey Ryznar 24:29
So the USFL is a client of ours and where their agency of record for the Canton market USFL s. Ri that USFL came back in last year after a hiatus and they became the first spring football Professional Football League to really have a successful full season in like almost 40 years. And so, last year everything was done in Birmingham, Alabama, except for The championship which was hosted at the Hall of Fame here in Kim. And we were chosen as their agency to market advertise and activate. So this year, they decided to branch out to four hubs. And one of those hubs is can. The unique thing about canton in the Hall of Fame though is there is not an Ohio team. So the teams that are playing there are the Pittsburgh Mahler’s, and the New Jersey generals. So it is a very unique dynamic where we don’t have a home team. The market doesn’t have a team that they gravitate towards that has their name on it. But the USFL has entrusted us with not only the marketing and the advertising, but the inn arena activation. So everything from the dance team and the mascot to the giveaways and the activation and Fan Fest is all the responsibility of our team members at 898 Marketing and we just successfully completed our first game this Sunday, which was a doubleheader. So we had two games in one day, we went from 53 degrees and sunny at 9am to 38 degrees and snowing at kickoff. So anything you could possibly imagine that happened at the football game happened this Sunday and we walked away with it’s still with smiles on our faces. So next game is May 7 And we’re continuing to to move forward into to grow the league as the only professional spring football league in the country. So it’s going to be awesome to see how it goes others are trying others are doing it but when you take a look at the firepower of Fox and NBC there that are behind this league and the talent that’s on the field, it’s absolutely an amazing product to watch and be a part of. You have a fan favorite team um yeah, Pittsburgh Mahler’s in New Jersey generals because they’re in our market. But you know, I what I love about it is when all of these teams come we get to talk to some of the players and some of the coaches I love skip Holtz. I’m a diehard Notre Dame fan, so skip Holtz is but his father Lou Holtz is a Hall of Fame and iconic coach of Notre Dame. So I’ve been able to talk with skip when he comes in and coach Holtz has been amazing. You know, Coach Horton of Mahler’s has won, I think, three Super Bowls in his career as a coach. He’s coached for the Steelers and the browns. You know, there are players on the team like Boogie Roberts and Darius Victor, who’s the reigning MVP that called Canton home because they’re the team. They play for the Mahler’s and the generals respectively. So you get to see these individuals and see the passion behind what they do and playing football, it’s a game, but for them, it’s life. And it’s absolutely awesome to take some and correlate some of those elements to from them, and put it into what we’re doing for them to make this league successful. And you become a part of the team. It’s fun, it gives you you know, I know Jeremy, you play basketball, right? Like it’s that camaraderie of a team effort from sports can’t be replicated very easily. So that idea of us finally having that and being a part of it is absolutely amazing.
Jeremy Weisz 28:08
Totally certain bonding. That happens it is team member it is
Jeffrey Ryznar 28:12
and you experience it with other things. I’m not saying it’s just in sports, but you know, when you have you know, I think it happens in like book clubs. I think it happens in when you sit on boards and organizations and community activate activist groups, things like that, that that camaraderie and that unifying element brings everybody together. But when you throw that top petition element into it, where there’s a winner and a loser, and you’ve put all that effort in all that preparation, all that practice and now it’s time to shine. I mean, the adrenaline that just rushes through you is is indescribable, so it’s good to be good to have that back.
Jeremy Weisz 28:52
Another when I was looking at your website, another company you worked with was core Home Fitness. What did you do with them?
Jeffrey Ryznar 28:59
Yes, of core Home Fitness is the number one adjustable dumbbell in the country. And they’ve expanded their reach to more products and they’re competing right with when COVID hit, they’re competing with the peloton, and and the Bowflex is of the world. And they’re kind of this outlier that made a huge splash in the marketplace because of the technology behind their equipment, the affordability of it, and the quality of it. And we had the opportunity to win their business and not only and we win, we won their business prior to COVID. So if you can imagine the change and dynamic that we had to go through, and the uptick in interest and opportunity, once COVID hit, it was through gangbusters. It was it was it was unlike anything I’ve ever seen of any industry. And to not only get through that, but to sustain that and to be featured by consumer consumer business reports to be featured on The Today Show To be featured by products and companies and Beachbody you can see their products on with their with their fitness instructors you know, it’s amazing to see where we help catapult them as a partner and the small bit that we’ve done from a digital perspective and to opening their eyes to what digital offers them from a from a retail perspective and then the PR side of continuing to grow their business with their message has been absolutely phenomenal and you can see our case study of what of our ROI on them and the click through rates and how we develop their creative and their their personas to help drive their digital Strategy on our website at a dynamic marketing.com
Jeremy Weisz 30:37
Cool yeah, if you’re watching the video if you’re listening audio but if you’re watching the video you can see I’m at 898 marketing.com and the portfolio page and this one specifically is the core Home Fitness just to see some of the stuff here and then Greenwood Chevrolet you worked with also
Jeffrey Ryznar 30:54
yeah so what I love about our what I love about our agency is we’re hyperlocal but we’re also national so we can help the H HVAC company like Thompson heating and cooling who’s one of the top producers in Trumbull in Mahoning County all the way to, you know, a USFL and Greenwood Chevrolet is one of those entities at one point. You know, General Motors had one of their largest production facilities outside of Youngstown in a plant called Lordstown. And because of that Greenwood, Chevrolet was one of the largest Chevy dealers in the entire country, especially for their small sedan, the cobalt or the Cavalier or whatever was being built there. And then unfortunately, that plant had to close and it severely altered Greenwood Chevrolet’s approach to the marketplace. You know, they started to see the challenge of life without that plan. And while they had retirees and former individuals, you know that General Motors business was huge for them. And they were looking for a new approach to their marketing and their brand message. And so we entered on the initial level as just helping them with their social media. That was it. That’s all we handled was their content Strategy. And over time, they started to see that content Strategy start to gain momentum and build followers and, and people were saying, oh, yeah, I saw your post, or Yeah, I came in off of that. And so they asked us what else we did. And so then we said, Well, we do a video production. Okay, well, let’s do some web series. So we did what we call the extra mile, which was similar to similar to cartoon or to carpool karaoke. Right. But it was the owner, Greg Greenwood driving around with some of his team members in the car. And we outfitted it with cameras, just like you see on our pool, karaoke, and we, and we filmed it and did web series. And it brought a human element to the auto sales process. All of a sudden, these barriers of salesperson and customer were starting to be broken. And I was coming in because I liked that individual, if they were like me, and you know, someone had tattoos and they looked like me, right? So we found that the the automotive at the Art automotive industry is so focused on incentives to drive it. And we were shifting that focus and that idea with Greenwood to doesn’t matter about the incentive, it matters about the culture that you have, and the team that is going to be helping those customers find the right vehicle for their lifestyle. And slowly but surely, we took over their digital advertising efforts with programmatic and search engine marketing and connected TV, and then all of a sudden took over their entire operations for their two dealerships. And at the time, we took it over, they were they were just outside of the top 10 or inside the top 10. And then now they’ve been the number one selling Chevy dealer for three years in a row new and us in their region. And it has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done professionally. But I have to say, working with Greg Greenwood, as a mentor, and as a friend, and Dave Roberts and Danny Dinoire, and their entire team has helped me be a better person, not only a better business owner, and a better marketer, and it’s awesome when they start to call you friend and they start to text you and start to ask you questions, not about their business, but about your life and congratulate you on things. You know, I celebrated my 40th birthday right before COVID hit. And one of my best presents was a video of our clients who I call our partners, wishing me a happy birthday that was played in our office and like I cry it good, you know, good insurance commercials. I got it right. So when I saw that, I mean it was it was like from if you ever seen the movie Scrooge Niagara Falls Frankie, like it was I was just overwhelmed with joy and emotion that these ended The jewels who our business partners looked at us that way, looked at us in a different light. And one of the biggest honors I’ve ever had was, Greg was being recognized by the American Heart Association as, as like a lifetime achievement award type of deal. And he asked me to do his introductory speech. And that, that really hit home with me about what we do is not just about the ads we create, or the markets that we service or the ideas we create and come up with, but it’s about the relationships we have with these people who they value us as people, not just as marketers for their business. And it’s been that it helped put what we do in a new light. And I’m eternally grateful for the opportunity because that that Greenwood Chevrolet client, was the first thing that catapulted us to a whole new level. And honestly, why I’m sitting here with you, Jeremy. Without them, I don’t know where we would be, because that was the first domino that that has pushed a lot of others to follow. And I’m eternally grateful for them. Yeah, thanks
Jeremy Weisz 36:08
for sharing that story. Once it
Jeffrey Ryznar 36:11
was long winded. I’m sorry, if as long we didn’t
Jeremy Weisz 36:13
know what gave you the idea for extra mile. It’s really interesting, because I don’t know. I was like, Hey, do video we can go to your dealership and film a video and you took a totally separate route. Yeah, yeah. So.
Jeffrey Ryznar 36:28
So they were they were, they were using a slogan or a motto called trust driven. And that’s what they were going with. And so when we looked at what we are being asked to do, we had to come up with a creative name, the auto mile in their market is about is several miles away from them. They’re an isolated dealer who sits off of all of the other street where all the other automotive dealers are. So what we thought of was okay, when we sat and brainstorm creatively, we thought, okay, well, they actually have to drive an extra mile to go to Greenwood. And Greenwood is willing to go the extra mile and do the things that the other dealerships weren’t willing to do in the community or for their customers. So Bill Rusu, who’s our manager of of content and video production? We were sitting there and we’re like, Well, why don’t we just call it the extra mile with Greg Greenwood. And so they literally were driving extra miles. So there’s a literal meaning to the video, there’s a literal meaning to what we’re asking customers to do. But then there’s that other meaning of you can trust Greenwood that will they will go the extra mile for you. And it took off. And all of a sudden people were saying, you know, I love the Greenwood goes the extra mile. I love that they go. And we turn that into a campaign where we didn’t testimonials. We didn’t even feature a car. It was just customers sitting there on a white screen, telling their story. ad libbing about how Greenwood went the extra mile for them. And it just took off. What were you sometimes the best ideas or just just happen?
Jeremy Weisz 38:07
We are what were you filming when you were in the car? So like the Carpool Karaoke? Yes. You know, that’s they’re singing in there. I’m assuming Greg wasn’t singing in the car, what what was the kind of the theme of what you were trying to capture?
Jeffrey Ryznar 38:21
So we grabbed Greg wanted to spend some personal time with these team members who were at his dealership for a long time. And so we outfitted the we outfitted the vehicle. And we chose different vehicles based off of incentives that were there, the inventory levels, what we were trying to move that month, right? So we outfitted it with three cameras inside the vehicle. And then we outfitted it with two on the outside of the vehicle. And then someone was following for beauty shots. And we mapped out where we were going. So we had about six or seven cameras worth of footage that we had to cipher through to create this 62nd 92nd interview. And Greg literally just talked to them like they were his friends. You know, appreciate this. What’s the story that you liked? What’s the challenge? How can we be better? You know, it was really showing customers that the owner of the business was asking his team members, how can we be better? And what do you love about working here? And what do your customers love about us? And so getting that, again, pulling back those layers and seeing an unfiltered view of how they run their dealership, and it’s not just about well, let me go talk to my manager and see if I can make that happen. It’s not I’ll work with you. Let’s let’s let’s see if we can see if we can do for you. It was a really, really interesting take on it and one that we’re excited to start bringing back to Greg X. Greg, Greg asked us what we’re going to do the extra mile again. So if that question comes up that the answer is very soon. We’re right on top of that rose. So, so we’re we’re excited to start bringing that back. So you didn’t make them sing? No, no, cinco, gotcha. No, no offense to Greg, he does a lot of things well, but I’m not gonna put I’m gonna put singing in that category.
Jeremy Weisz 40:19
Um, Jeff, first of all, I have one last question. Before I ask you, I just want to thank you, and point people to check out 898 Marketing.com Check out the website and more episodes of the podcast. My last question is, you mentioned process, you know, as big I’d love to hear about what’s your tech stack look like? You know, maybe think of the software. We use, you know, suite process for documenting processes. What What kind of software is in tech stack?
Jeffrey Ryznar 40:53
Do you use? Yeah, so we ran the gamut of all of the major players that are out there from a from a workflow perspective. And every single one had had something that we needed that it didn’t offer. And so, honestly, Jeremy, we said, Screw it, we’re gonna build our own. And we literally built our own workflow process. We call it bull dance. Jeff Lillibridge, who’s a great friend of mine from the Cavs, who’s a team member of ours right now and heads up our digital team. I talked to him about it. I was like, we’re paying all of this money out every month for these multiple things that don’t do everything we needed to do. And God bless him. He’s like, Well, I can build it. And so we did a, we did a roadmap, we figured it out. And we call it a bull dance because of the guilt of the movie from happy air the scene from Happy Gilmore, where he’s riding the bull field. So that was our workflow. And so we call it bull dance. And it’s our own proprietary workspace where that documents, comments, approvals, file shares, timesheets, new clients billing and invoicing. Everything all within our system. And there’s a it really has, it took a while for our team to adjust to it. It took a while I’m not gonna lie, and Lily. So So if Lily were on the call, you’ll see that we were both named Jeff, we’re both have our follically challenged, we both have facial hair. So we reset then go he’s Lily and I’m really we just cut shortened our last name. So if Lily were on the call, he would tell you probably the hardest thing for him is getting me to use it. Right like and but I appreciate it now, because of how well it has unified our team that are disparate because of our locations that work on several different clients. But at any point when a team member is out and they have a buddy that they assigned for their clients, and for the works being done, that individual could hop right into bull dance and see everything that’s going on and we don’t miss a beat. And so I’m eternally grateful for just vision and foresight to come up with that and, and help us through that.
Jeremy Weisz 43:07
So science, it’s like it’s chat as project management. It’s CRM, it’s every every one place. Yep, that’s awesome.
Jeffrey Ryznar 43:14
We don’t have any built it off a bubble.
Jeremy Weisz 43:16
I mean, that’s how you built it. You had me and Happy Gilmore. I just want to thank you for sharing your journey sharing your knowledge. Jeremy, everyone, you know, check out more episodes and this is some lot of gold gems in there. So Thanks, Jeff.
Jeffrey Ryznar 43:35
The pleasure is all mine. Jeremy, you’re very welcome. And you got a great thing going I can’t believe you asked me to be on it. And I’m very honored to be sitting with you and spending some time here today. Well worth it and I look forward to getting up this morning because of it. So thank you very much, man.
Jeremy Weisz 43:49
You’re a humble guy. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks, everyone.
