Today we’d like to introduce you to Erynn Laflamme
Hi Erynn, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
If you had told me I would have been an entrepreneur, I wouldn’t have believed you. Sure, growing up I used to buy candy from Costco and sell it door-to-door to make extra cash. I had a lemonade stand. And my cheer team and Girl Scouts required me to cookies and car wash tickets in order to win giant teddy bears and the latest mp3 players. So sales and talking to people became very natural to me at an early age… but as I got older, I learned that sales specifically, was a little too much pressure.
My first experience with this was when I got a job at 16 at the State Farm Insurance agent’s office. What started as an internship quickly progressed into a marketing role where I’d design collateral, attend events, develop referral incentive programs and go to local car dealerships and apartments to build relationships, throw pizza parties, and subtly encourage them to hand my agent’s business card out when a new customer needed some car or rental insurance. I liked networking and building relationships and trust for our office.
By 18, I was licensed to sell all State Farm Bank products- car loans, credit cards, you name it. And even though I was making commission + hourly as a high school senior, I quickly realized money isn’t everything. Sales doesn’t sleep… and insurance calls are things people only want to take after work. So I didn’t sleep either! As I applied to college, I knew sales was definitely not the career path I wanted to follow, but wasn’t quite ready to declare a major.
I went to Kennesaw State University, juggling a variety of jobs in the process- I stayed at State Farm for about a year into college, then threw my hat in customer service, operating the customer service support line for a credit card company. I was an IT recruiter for a time. And I was a bartender. I was very passionate about choosing a career I loved for my future- so trying them all was my goal. At the end of the day, I looked back fondly at my time at State Farm and decided to peruse a major in communications, specifically public relations.
Upon graduation, I landed my first role at a small marketing agency in Buckhead where I was responsible for handling the agency’s marketing and managing their new business development program… a fancy word for sales in the marketing agency world. Knowing sales ultimately wasn’t the career I wanted, I found myself as a digital marketing coordinator at Winmo about a year later. This is really where my career took off. Under the leadership of the phenomenal CMO and marketing maven, Jennifer Hopkins, I really started finding my place in marketing, specifically in the organic content marketing world. Being responsible for the holding company and 2 of its subsidiaries marketing tactics, I got a firm understanding of how to build marketing content that can be leveraged across organic paid channels. More importantly, I learned how to use content marketing as a means of driving revenue. Jenn inspired me to want to become a CMO myself, making that the new career path I thought I wanted.
After years of growing into a content director, I wanted to further develop my skills and took on a new role as the Marketing Director at FLS Transportation, an international 3PL. FLS was exciting and challenging as the company was transitioning from an old school brokerage to a modern, tech driven leader in the space. We oversaw multiple acquisitions, aligned marketing with sales, and built out the infrastructure for our marketing department- new tech, new people, new branding… new everything. In this process, we had a lot of third parties assisting us and I keep coming across the same problem. No one understood our industry…. nor did they put in the effort to. They didn’t read the industry trades or listen to industry podcasts. We were constantly catching them up, and the work they did reflected so. I thought “if only I could find someone who really tried to understand our industry.”
A few years into my FLS career, my mom got sick with cancer and I was trying to juggle work, getting her to chemo and my own life. Shortly after that began, COVID-19 hit. The work from home model gave me a lot of flexibility… and it also opened my eyes to what it might be like to do that… forever. By May of 2020 the company mandated us to come back in the office and I found myself taking on freelance clients. By October that same year, I had enough clients to feel comfortable putting in my notice and doing this full time.
I was just freelancing… and had no idea it would grow into a full on content marketing agency. But four years later, we have a team and office in Canton, GA. At Ethic, we help B2B companies have their content engine run on autopilot. We do everything from SEO-focused blogs and social media to lead-gen content like ebooks and webinars. But where we’re different is we’re truly dedicated to being an extension of your team. We haven’t forgotten the “why” behind how we got started and are passionate about delivering content that drives revenue for our customers.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Rarely is an entrepreneurial journey smooth. But I will say, I feel pretty blessed.
2020 was a pretty solid year for growth. Starting my freelance practice full-time in November, the COVID spending hesitancy had passed and SaaS businesses were booming with work from home becoming more prevelant. More revenue resulted in “growth at all costs” and therefor, there was tons of demand for content marketing.
Of course, 2022, this mindset really started to change with the economy. “Growth at all costs” soon became “same growth with less resources” so while a lot of companies did layoffs, they still needed their content engine running, continuing the need for my services.
All through this time, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out growth plans. Do I want to stay a freelancer? Do I want to bring someone on and scale this to something more? I ultimately decided that I want to build something bigger than myself… something that runs itself without me. I got more serious about my positioning and messaging and began doing some sales efforts to grow it.
But in 2023 I was met with personal hurdles with the passing of my mom after a long battle with cancer. This didn’t slow the growth of the company, but rather paused it as I grieved a significant loss of the best person I’ve ever known.
But by 2024, I was full steam ahead and had to hire my first full-time employee who’s crushing it. That’s where we stand today. It’s an extremely exciting time. The challenge now is, learning how to build processes, take on more of a leadership rather than executor role and challenging myself to learn more business-growth skillsets. I know marketing. That’s my passion… now I am both humbled and excited to be learning completely new skillsets as a business leader.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Ethic Agency?
Ethic is a content marketing agency. We excel in content that cuts through the noise… we’re not using ChatGPT to write your blogs. We’re all-in on getting to know your ideal customers, their pain points, the news they’re reading and developing content that solves their problems, educates them on the state of the industry and ultimately drives trust, interest and demand for your company’s products and services
The people we work with are:
1. Executives who don’t have a marketing department. They know it’s important, but they don’t know how to manage a marketer. And they don’t want to do the marketing!
2. Marketing leaders who need their content engine up and running. They want content that adds value to ICPs, is SEO optimized and can be leveraged for demand generation.
What makes us different is the relationship we have with our clients. We do the basics- quick turn arounds, timely communication, meeting deadlines. But where we kick it up a notch is how we go above and beyond to understand your industry, your company, and your customers so we can develop content that resonates and adds value to them.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ethicagency.com
- Instagram: @ethicagencyatl
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ethicagencyatl
Image Credits
Tyler Anderson at Souther Photo Co
