What's Next? With Lacey

What's Next: Account Manager in Advertising

Lacey Season 1 Episode 13

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Forget the Mad Men days of smoky boardrooms and cutthroat competition. In this episode of What's Next? with Lacey, we dive into the dynamic world of digital advertising with Danny, a young Account Manager at Walmart Connect.

Danny's professional journey took him from a college internship at MSNBC to working at an ad agency and finally to the cutting edge of retail e-commerce at Walmart. He'll share his insights on the fast-paced world of online advertising, the unique challenges and rewards of working for a retail giant, and how his past experiences shaped his career path.

Tune in for:

  • Danny's unique journey through the ever-evolving world of advertising
  • How the e-commerce landscape is changing the advertising game
  • Valuable advice for anyone considering a career in advertising
  • Insights into the exciting world of Walmart Connect

Whether you're a seasoned marketer or just starting out, this episode is packed with practical tips and advice on navigating the world of advertising.

Episode Credits:

Host & Producer - Lacey Dikkers
Editor & Mixer - Sean Nelson Taylor
Cover Art - Andrea Tamayo


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Hosted, Edited and Produced by Lacey Dikkers.
Cover Art by Andrea Tamayo.

Hi everyone, welcome back to What's Next with Lacey.

I chat with the wonderful Danny this week about all things advertising.

I thought I knew a lot about this space, but boy was I wrong.

We touch on how he has grown in the field, the decisions he made regarding what types of advertising he wanted to focus on.

We touch on advertising agencies, the work you do there, the skills you learn and so much more.

He has an insane amount of info and advice about this space, so I hope you learn as much as I did.

As always, remember to share this podcast with anyone who might be interested and follow me on TikTok and Instagram for more What's Next content.

If this episode sounds better than usual, that is because the incredibly talented Sean Taylor edited this episode for me this week.

He is doing me an absolute solid and I am so incredibly grateful for his time.

Anyway, I think it's time to dive in, so please enjoy my conversation with Danny.

Danny, welcome to What's Next.

Lacey, thank you very much.

Happy to be here.

Yay.

I never know what to say in response to that.

To be like, "Great, I'm glad you're not sad to be here."

Yeah.

Has anyone ever started off by saying, "Yeah, you know what?

I'm a little bit sad to be on a podcast right now."

No, they haven't yet, but I would not be surprised if someone did respond that way.

I'm glad that it wasn't me.

Good.

I know.

When someone does respond that way, again, I don't know what I'm going to say to them, I'm going to be like, "Well, then why are you here?

Just leave if you don't want me."

Yeah, right?

Like, what's the whole point of being here?

Exactly.

Exactly.

All right.

We have a lot to dig into.

I want to hear everything.

Do you feel like a lot of people want to go into advertising?

Yeah.

So, I feel like a big part about just advertising is everyone will always say it when they're in the field where they get into it.

It's just such a large umbrella.

There's so many different avenues to get into and to start out at.

And for me, even coming out of college and getting into the working world, I knew I wanted to be in that media space, but I didn't know exactly where.

For me, I went to a small liberal arts school, so it wasn't like I had a major that was specified for media relations or getting into a specific kind of job.

It was just communications and global studies.

So, it was a very generalized major, double major.

And from there, it was kind of just deciding what I wanted to do post college.

And I just knew I wanted to be within that space.

Yeah.

So, kind of getting into it from there, I would say, yeah, most people when they get into it, you can go to a lot of different places.

I think the big three that people look at are agencies where you kind of work for these specific groups who basically work with a ton of different brands or publishers.

And I would say probably the majority of people getting into media, that's where they kind of end up at.

But then, you can obviously work with different standard publishers off the bat if you want to work for Conde Nast or different specific brands, like maybe in Beauty.

I know people who work in L'Oreal and a couple different other brands like that.

So, it kind of just depends on what you want to focus on from the get-go.

But I would say there's just so many different points you can get to right off the bat.

Yeah.

It's very kind of cool to learn about, at least when I started, and even seeing all the people that I've gotten to make connections with and worked with, just seeing kind of how they got into it and where they're at now.

Yeah, I know.

Because it is such a large field and there's so many avenues, I feel like people do like it and that they can work on something that they're interested in, like fashion, like beauty.

What do you do now?

What is your role now?

And what are your responsibilities now?

I work at Walmart Connect.

What that is, is basically Walmart's digital entity, which works in the e-commerce, advertising, marketing space for everything that's on Walmart.com.

So, basically, how I kind of describe it to people as an equivalent is saying, "Hey, have you seen what Amazon's doing?"

We're basically building that out for Walmart.

So, we're building our own setup.

Instead of using third-party vendor sellers, we are actually building it out from within.

We have our own kind of self-service that we will give to different publishers and suppliers.

Specifically, me, I work for a specific publisher and supplier, being Unilever, and basically all their brands, all their entities.

I don't know if you know Unilever at all.

Toiletries, right?

Yes.

So, yes, they are in that field.

But even when I got to Walmart and started working under Unilever, I kind of was wondering, "Okay, I know a bunch of their brands, but I don't know their whole portfolio."

So, for me, checking out the portfolio, you're right.

There's toiletries, like, "Duh."

All of the different ice cream products, like, you know, Breyers, Klondike maybe.

I'm not specifically on the actual food side of it, but you know, like Q-Tips, for example.

There you go.

It's just all these random, different consumer products.

I did not know this.

And the way you can see is if you look on the back of products, it'll have the big U on it.

That's Unilever, basically, because they own, I would say, between 100, 120 brands easily.

I had no idea.

Is it kind of like Pochter and Gamble in that way?

Yes, literally, just like P&G.

And they're basically on another pod, but kind of the same idea.

They have a ton of different brands and, you know, it's a ton of different fields where it's like, you know, toiletries, like some food products.

What is a publisher and what's a supplier

So, basically, I use both, but we can just stick with the supplier.

Supplier would be Unilever.

We use Unilever.

I use we, but working with Unilever, they're our supplier.

Walmart probably has, I want to say, anywhere between like 20 to 30, 40 different suppliers, just, you know, bigger ones, some smaller ones.

But in terms of like, main suppliers that have multiple brands that are selling at Walmart, they have, yeah, probably around that many.

And we'll have different pods working on each supplier themselves.

For us at Unilever, we are one of the biggest suppliers, coincidentally with P&G.

Just in terms of business we generate and the amount of brands that we operate on as a team, I would say us and P&G just have the most brands that we focus on across the board.

So for us, we have probably about 12, I think, total team members just on our specific kind of supplier.

P&G is pretty similar.

I would say out of the 12 of us, a third of each of us work as a different role in total.

And then we have one team lead who kind of operates as our de facto boss in that sense.

Are you like the only team working on the advertising for Unilever?

Are you just specifically doing it with how they connect to Walmart?

So it's just Walmart's piece of it.

They'll give us however much they want to spend with us during the year, and we'll just do it through Walmart.

They'll also be running on Amazon or Target or Macy's, things like that.

The goal is for us to get the most of their yearly revenue towards Walmart.

I see.

Obviously, we'll never have the confirmed numbers, but we like to think that we're in that space of being their number one seller.

So you're working on the ad campaigns for Unilever at Walmart.

Yes, you got it.

Yeah, pretty much.

Onsite, basically, Walmart.com, that's the standard for what we kind of operate as where ads are going to be running.

But we can run offsite on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, any kind of social media we can run on.

We can also run dynamically with our own DSP, which means that we can run just all over the internet that redirects back to Walmart.

So we can do that as well.

And then anything else like influencer events, different in-store events, and live stream events.

We've done a couple in the past just for one of our in-home brands.

I don't know if you know 7th Generation.

No, I didn't.

It's just like a soap and paper towel, things like that, like all those different kind of household chemical products.

Basically, with that is we had like an influencer speak on Walmart.com for like an hour.

And right below her and what we sponsored her with were all these 7th generation products.

We run things like that.

And it can be obviously influencer based.

But again, it's such a wide variety for whatever the supplier wants to run and how they want to position their brand.

If they want to do standard running, they could do that on site.

And they can do some of these splashier campaigns if they want to really kind of make an impact.

Gosh, that's very cool.

So it really is just like a little bit of everything.

So then in your role as an account manager, are you overseeing all these different forms of advertising or are you focused on one specific medium?

I'm focused on all of them.

It just depends on what they want to execute.

In terms of my role as an account manager, we have two other account managers that I work alongside.

And just because there's probably anywhere between during the year if they want to run, I would say we've probably done executions for 60 to 80 brands in a year.

So it depends on how much money they want to use and some brands like Dove or any of our ice cream brands, like anything that they want to really put a lot of money behind, Q-tips, things like that.

They'll obviously put a lot more money into it.

So we'll run a lot more campaigns for those brands, but we break it up by category amongst the three of us.

So we have baby categories, one, a lot of baby brands we have.

So that is one of our account managers.

Beauty is another one.

And then food and other consumable items is a fourth that we are kind of all splitting up right now, but we'll probably get another higher in at some point.

And then I'm specifically on personal care, which is all of our different kind of like, you know, body wash, soap, hair brands, things like that.

So I'll do all of our executions for those brands that they want to run.

So anything across the personal care portfolio is what I'd be handling.

This is so wild to think of like ad campaigns for like Q-tips.

Yeah.

And it's funny because, you know, everyone thinks like, Oh, Q-tips are just a generic product.

And it's like, well, actually it's a brand.

Yeah.

So it's like Q-tips operates in its own space, but like there's no other brands that they're just Q-tips.

Right.

Exactly.

That's so crazy to me.

And you kind of forget it because it just becomes in your everyday vernacular.

Yeah.

And so then you're like, well, yeah, no shoe is a brand and no shoe has to have advertising that has this budget behind it.

And it does all these things and all these products.

It's so funny how that just kind of like comes as part of your like everyday life.


It is cool.


Yeah.


No, even like across other brands when I was, you know, growing up and realizing that it's, you know, not the same, like bounty, it's like a sign of bounty.


It's a paper towel.


So it's like, you just got to operate in the space where it's like, Oh, I'm so used to this one brand.


I didn't realize it was, you know, kind of cornering the market in that respect.


Yeah, exactly.


It's so wild on the note of campaigns though.


Are you only working on like one campaign from start to finish and then you see it from, you see it through and then you work on another campaign or is it done many different things at one time?


I would say in an ideal world, I'd like to definitely be working, you know, in a slower pace so you can pay more attention to some of the campaigns.


But no, I would say during the year, it can fluctuate anywhere between, you know, two to three to four campaigns at one time on a slow period to anywhere between, you know, 15 to 25 to 30 campaigns.


And even like right now, per se, like it just happens to be a very busy time of year, just because our fiscal year is one month forward from the calendar year.


So we start February one for the new year for fiscal year 2020.


Yeah, 2020 power.


So there we go in terms of when we start the year.


So this month specifically for February has been a lot in terms of getting things off the ground and moving for us, like right now.


And for me specifically, I would probably say within the next like few weeks, there will be like 19 to 20 different campaigns that will be live and running that we've like actually had to get off the ground like from the start of February.


That is incredibly busy.


How creative are you in this job?


Are you handling that side of things or are you handling more the back end business side of things?


I think it's interesting because each I would say each team might operate slightly differently for how some of their roles go.


And what I love about working at Connect is the way the team breaks up, it's three kinds of roles, mainly where you have campaign managers, account managers, and partner managers.


And you can view it like a funnel where it starts with the campaign manager, and it was actually a job that I used to work before I'd moved to account manager.


And they're the ones who kind of do the initial planning, check audience sizes of who they can reach online, see, you know, what space we have the availability we have to run certain campaigns, and they'll actually build out the plan.


Account managers are kind of the quarterback of the operation, kind of going from campaign manager to partner manager directly talking to the supplier to make sure that everything is kind of coming together.


And one of my biggest facets that you kind of are alluding to is that we have to be pretty in the know with what creative we're running and how we're operating.


So for me, I would say that's a big part of my job where we decide, okay, does this fit within the parameters of what we can run on Connect and what we can run on Walmart.com just because there's a lot of rules and regulations for how they want certain ads and certain initiatives, especially bigger splash your ones that would be like a homepage takeover, like some of those big agencies, suzy on walmart.com, like those are some of the most high impact ads that we run.


So those have to go through a lot of different approvals, a lot of different processes to actually get it in a good place and approved to be able to say, okay, this can be on walmart.com.


And it suits the theme, the color, and it fits in the price range.


Like that's all like different assets that kind of like have to really come together.


So for me, that's a big part of it.


And again, it can be across the board.


So onsite initiatives, that's pretty easy.


You know, you just have to really kind of figure out, all right, make sure the copy adds up, make sure there's obviously, you know, no language that wouldn't pass, you know, even though that rarely happens.


There were a couple tries to slip in like an F word.


We have had it before where it wasn't obviously a curse word.


It was they like obviously kind of bleeped out the curse word, but it was obviously in writing, but it was kind of just like a dash.


And I believe it was like the F word or the mighty, the something like that.


And they bleeped it out.


But like our actual approval team said like, no, we can't do that.


And I was like, all right, I tried to fight for them.


But I mean, that's something that, you know, it'll just never get passed.


It's just something they can't do.


So normally, that's not a big issue.


Some of the problems just rely on the themes.


That's a big thing that they try and focus on for creative, at least is that a lot of themes kind of have to go hand in hand with what they're trying to put forward.


So we have like a thematic calendar that we can say like, okay, we're at this point of the year right now.


And for us right now, I would say we're kind of just focusing more towards winter.


It's kind of, I don't want to say like a dead period, but like we just left New Year.


Obviously, that was a big like, you know, New Year, New You, a lot of initiatives are doing that across a bunch of brands.


So now that we're in February, it's kind of gearing up towards just the next big point of time where you could say like, all right, this is good point of the year.


So like, I would say in March, it's definitely going to shift towards like, you know, spring, spring around the corner.


So you'll see a lot of pinks, purples, light blues, all covering across walmart.com across all different kinds of ads, just because again, they want everything to kind of be in sync, no matter what the products really are like you have your own messaging, you have your own products, but they want walmart.com to seem like it's one entity that you're shopping at.


And that it all feels like you're in one area, even on site, like you're at a store almost, but it's on the web.


So I think they're trying to kind of make that a big push for themselves.


How much are you dealing with Unilever as a client in terms of obviously you're trying to drive traffic to Walmart, but it's for this product that's under the client.


Yeah.


So then are you working on all the Unilever on that?


Are you more responsible to Walmart?


How does that work in terms of getting them to walmart.com for us?


I would say it starts at where we're running the ads.


So if we're running onsite, even if we're running offsite, the goal is to drive conversions and then the ideal KPI, which is just in terms of the primary objective, that's to get a purchase and a return for whatever we're selling.


So the idea is our goal is ROAS, which is return on ad spend.


And that's our primary driver for how we measure success.


And for us, how we kind of do that is we'll put these ads up, whether they be, you know, again, social onsite could be anywhere onsite.


We'll target different people.


Some of our targeting can be like past purchases of this product.


They'll get targeted.


We can say people who are likely to purchase that product.


We can target them.


We can target competitive purchasers.


So they buy competitive brands.


We can target those people, people who search certain words, we can target them.


So there's all these different tactics that we can run.


And that's how we kind of reach those certain audience members and how we can reach those audience pools.


And when you do that, the goal is to get those relevant people to then click on those ads and it drives them to certain landing page.


So this might be what we call a shelf page, which is basically just you click on an ad and it'll drive to a customized page of all the different items that Unilever wants to sell for a brand.


So I just, I use dove because everyone, you know, knows stuff, but you know, let's say it's a dove initiative and it's like, Oh, I'm looking for dove body wash and we're running a dove body wash campaign.


You'll see an ad you'll click on it.


It'll go to this shelf page, which is again, customized viewing experience of all these different dove body wash items.


So then you'll be looking through something like, okay, these are all the ones I want.


And most likely at that point, you're hoping that someone will click and buy it.


And basically what we can do is on the back end, we can see, okay, how many people have bought X amount of products, which products were the most successful, which drove the most return on ad spend.


And we can say like, okay, you know, after this initiative, we decided that, you know, the cherry blossom flavored dove body wash was like the highest seller as an example.


And we'll say, okay, let's, you know, focus on items like this and new items they might want to create.


Let's say like, Hey, you know, expand on this, make this in like 64 ounce, make this in, you know, smaller carry on sizes, just because we know it works and we can recommend that to Unilever.


And we can say like, well, you know, obviously we can't convince them to do it.


We can give them more recommendations.


And we have seen the past them actually kind of take that and say, okay, now we want to run certain initiatives, primarily just around this certain product and products that we are now making different kind of variety out of.


It's, it's interesting.


So I would say in terms of dealing with Unilever, we definitely do have a pretty good, you know, stream of communication, we technically go through an agency and that's more of just the breakdown of how it works within media ad sales, especially within the digital space.


Normally it's the supplier you have the agency, you work for the supplier, and then you have the seller who would be us being Walmart.


So normally the seller works with the agency as kind of, you know, nothing against the agency.


I worked in agency for like five or six years, but they're the mouthpiece of the supplier and they're supposed to give you all the information you need.


But because Unilever does so much business with us, we speak directly with them.


We will have direct conversations with them without the agency with the agency.


And it's more so that it's more of a collaborative effort versus, you know, going from A to B to C back, C, B to A.


We definitely deal pretty closely with Unilever across the board.


And I would say we are definitely also in their ear with a lot of different, you know, ideology for how to approach certain kind of brand amplification and also potential new product rollout.


Well, you've got the data that makes sense.


Yeah.


For your specific role, and I guess as the campaign manager beforehand, what generally tends to be the hours for a job like this?


I know you were saying earlier that you're going through a busy period now, but generally speaking.


Yeah.


So for me, I would say normally, you know, work-life balance, specifically Connect, I would say outside of, you know, the day-to-day, you know, the work itself, working at Connect has been awesome because I think they really value giving that work-life balance, which a lot of companies, you know, tend to struggle to do.


And, you know, even working in my past life at an agency, which I was, you know, there for four or five years, it's just a different experience.


Agencies are a place where you're really kind of, you know, grinding your teeth, gaining a ton of like valuable experience, but that's the place where you're working, you know, 12 hour days could go longer.


You could be there till past midnight going, you know, six days a week, even seven if it's super busy.


So that's like the high pace, really intense kind of introduction to media.


And I think after you get past that, something like Connect and even, you know, specifically my job now working at Connect, it definitely gives you a lot more of a U-based schedule.


Yeah.


You can kind of set up your day-to-day for how you want to operate.


And it's not to say that, of course, it doesn't have its busy moments like now, but you can definitely balance it in a way where you can attack each week how you want to attack it as opposed to saying like, okay, you know, my Tuesday might be busy, my Wednesday might be busy.


It's saying like, okay, I know my week's going to stack up with Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I'm going to get, you know, the first 20 items done.


And then, you know, back half the week, I can focus on some of like the longer term projects that aren't as immediate.


So I would say in terms of work-life balance, it's been excellent.


You know, I've been a big fan of it.


And it's been nice because I haven't really worked with anyone there who's really had an issue with anything like that.


And it's great, you know, I think everyone gets along really well together.


The company morale, the atmosphere is great.


So yeah, I would say just that it's in terms of work-life, A plus A plus A plus.


That's a good grade for sure.


Yeah.


I do want to dig in slightly to your agency experience.


Yeah, sure.


Firstly, it does seem to be that that is the most common thing that people who want to go into advertising across all of these areas underneath advertising that they do go to.


Why is that?


It's just that because you're exposed to a lot.


Like what is the draw to go to an agency first in advertising?


I would say it's just because A, they are looking to hire young people out of school, out of college, who don't necessarily have the experience in media, but are willing to put in the hours and the time to gain that experience.


And I think going in anyone who really joins an agency or most people who do, because if you join it and you didn't really know what you're kind of signing up for, it can be a rude awakening.


And I know people at agencies who kind of join in were like, this isn't for me after a couple months.


You have to go know going in.


And I immediately did just because I knew people who had worked at specific agencies and even the agency I worked at in the past, as far as agencies go, they were great.


But it was intense.


I think it's pretty cut throat in terms of the turnover and in terms of kind of like career growth, it's not necessarily the easiest thing to do.


And I think it's just because there's so many people and so many different kinds of brands.


The pace is just so, so, so fast.


And you end up kind of like, again, always feeling like you're going a hundred miles an hour.


And, you know, for me, right out of college, it was, it was great.


You know, I did it for almost five years right through COVID.


But after, you know, a few years and especially during COVID, it just kind of wore me down.


Again, it's great.


I'm so thankful for the time that I had there.


I wouldn't have been able to get the role I had now had I not gotten the experience I did at the agency.


Do you think that it is a prerequisite before going into a brand to have this agency experience?


I think it's not necessarily a must, like not a certain prerequisite, but I would say a lot of people who have kind of stayed in media and kind of have gone forward through the process and, you know, have been doing it for a decade.


Plus, I always find that they started at an agency.


And I think it is super hard.


I know most people who leave and including myself, I don't see myself ever going back even to like a higher up role.


I know people who have, they haven't stayed that long.


And I know people who've been there from the time I joined to the time I left.


Yeah.


But I would say it's a certain point in your life where for most people that I've worked with, it's where you go to learn and where you decide like, okay, I've learned all this information.


Is this something that I want to do for at least the foreseeable future?


Can I see myself doing this five, 10 years down the line, not in the same capacity, but within the same realm?


Like I can use these tools at any point in time across multiple different jobs, but is it something I want to do or do I want to change career paths?


And I would say, you know, the majority of people who are in it, they stick with it.


Like I know people who of course left, but in terms of, you know, the people who I'm still friends with and one of my, you know, best friends who we worked at the agency from like the first year we got there and coincidentally, she now works at Walmart with me.


So we've been very good friends through that.


And again, the relationships you build through the agency are great too, because I think the socialization aspect of it, it's a lot of getting taken out by clients because you know, you're working through a bunch of clients.


So that's a big piece of it.


But in terms of work life, in terms of compensation, in terms of, you know, all the other things that people want to know in terms of like PTO, it's not the cushiest job.


But I would say I definitely don't regret ever working at the agency.


I'm grateful for what it's given me.


With that in mind, what were your responsibilities?


What did you learn while at the agency?


Yeah.


So for me, I started at funny enough, it was in my eyes, a very fun way to get into it.


But it was Stoli vodka.


And Fnatic sports are my two first brands.


So I started as an assistant digital planner on both those accounts.


And I thought it was going to be the greatest, it was going to be so much fun, to fun accounts.


And you know, it was definitely interesting getting into it.


Even I had a little bit of an awakening myself realizing like, okay, it's not exactly what I thought it would be.


But you know, working as an assistant, it was great, you learn the ins and outs.


And especially for me, you could start out in an agency like that at a bunch of different places.


Like I did digital, but you could do linear, which is TV, you could do out of home, which is the everything you see like on the streets, billboards, everything like that.


You can do specific social activation, you can do influencer activation.


So it's like split up or an agency.


Oh, yeah, the medium.


Oh, yeah, she's very split up.


I would say specifically at agencies as well, your teams for a brand can kind of go across, I want to say like, five or six different teams, like I was kind of just mentioning, you'll have, you know, a brand team, you'll have a digital activation team, you'll have a TV team, you'll have the out of home team, the influencer team, social team, a search team for everything kind of search based online.


So you'll have a ton of different people working on these on this brand or this business.


But the idea with that is there's so many cooks in the kitchen.


And you know, there's so many moving pieces.


It's like, all right, this team will have this budget, but oh, no, wait, we're shifting, you know, X amount to digital or TV.


So there's constant change.


And it's not like there's friction between teams.


But there's a lot of like, no, there's this, like I have the right information back and forth.


So it's, it's a lot of synapses firing.


That's how I kind of view it.


It's like a giant brain and everyone's kind of working out at an agency.


But you learn a lot, I would say for me, you learn the simplicities of media math, which go from how to work with certain rates and how to calculate different kinds of CPMs, which are basically just the rates that we use online, and basically how to kind of work with a the supplier themselves, like kind of communicate with them, but also how you can plan for certain campaigns for your supplier, because in an agency, you're not like working with for instance, just Walmart, you're working with a Walmart, you're working with like Roku for connected TV, you're working with, like I said, Conde Nast or something discovery, things like that, where you want to be in that space for forgetting that audience, different kind of cooking websites, like refinery, like 29, whatever, you know, things like that.


So basically, you're trying to plan and figure out what works best for your brand.


And it can be a lot just because again, it's such a big space, you don't really know every single time when you get new business coming in what you want to run, you really figure out what works best, how each platform works.


And then from there, what I feel like people do is they'll make connections, which was a big thing for me too, you'll make connections through these people that you're working with across media, like that's the nice thing about the agency is you come into contact with so many different people, it's different companies, different jobs, different kind of pillars of, you know, advertising and media that you can then decide like, okay, I really like what this person's doing, like, I want to learn more, and you'll talk to them, you know, you'll make that connection, you'll say like, Hey, you know what, I'm ready to lead the agency, I kind of want to go ahead into connected TV, or I want to head to Walmart, or I want to head to a different, like dynamic ad serving platform, things like that.


So I would say you learn a ton, obviously, just across the board in terms of how to operate within the media space, and you learn all the terminology, all the different kinds of nuances of it.


But you make those connections, which was really big as well.


Why do the suppliers use agencies?


Do they not have in house advertising team?


So most of them don't, just because for one reason or another, it's that they don't have those connections with everyone else in the space.


So these agencies are the ones where you come in.


And a lot of the times the teams you join, it might be directly in your team or across, you know, that whole, I guess, pod, if you're in digital activation, if there's like 50, 60 people who work across digital activation on different brands, you can ask all these different people.


And it's like, we can reach out, we can connect.


And there's like almost like a rolodex of different contacts you can have.


That I would say is why it's not really in house, just because, A, I think the ability to connect with different platforms within the digital space is a big part of it.


And also you want to have that, you know, other voice in the room.


People do have in house, you know, agencies or specific kind of ad groups that they'll use, but you're not really getting much variety.


You'll have a lot of people who are going to say, let's just run the same thing at work last time.


Let's do it again.


And it's like, why not?


You hire agencies because they'll give you that opinion that you didn't think of.


And that's kind of why it's there.


It's like, let's try something new.


Like we can, we can give you X, we can give you Y, we can get you certain rates that you wouldn't be able to get through us and it'll give you a better return overall.


So it's just to say like they, they, they'll hire agencies to make in their eyes and in the agency's eyes, it makes their lives easier.


Yeah.


Yeah.


That makes sense.


What do you think overall in your professional life so far are the skills that you use most on a daily basis?


Yeah, that's a good question.


Uh, I would say skills that I use most.


Um, I mean, it's funny, but the ability to multitask, I would say has just gotten fundamentally so much better just overall, you know, I feel like I was so one dimensional when I got into the working world, you know, just focusing on one aspect of certain things, you know, you're, you're leaving college, you're focused on like one subject going here or there, you know, just the classic rigmarole of like a to B.


But at this point, it's just, you know, second nature for being able to kind of just handle a bunch of different items, uh, whether it be, you know, connecting with our supplier each day about certain metrics, certain data they need reaching out about certain items we have need for an upcoming campaign, putting together certain data measurements for our quarterly calls, quarterly presentations that we will show to our supplier.


Like those are just things I'll set up and kind of, you know, have those ready to go at a certain point during the day, whenever we need them each week, just as a second age, so I had multitasking for sure.


And then I would also say, you know, in terms of media, just being able to kind of understand how to position a client's initiative in the best light in a pretty quick manner, as opposed to kind of not really understanding how, you know, certain aspects of a campaign might work.


It's just saying like, all right, we have a new piece of business come in.


All right.


I know exactly how this would work.


You're familiarity with different audiences, different tactics, uh, different strategies that you've used in the past.


It's in your tool bag to be able to say like, now I know exactly how this will work.


This will be perfect for it.


So just in terms of crafting and kind of owning in on what you can do for the supplier itself, it comes a long way with the experience for sure.


That's awesome.


I now want to dig into your like journey to advertising.


We touched upon it a little bit earlier, but what did draw you to this space?


Yeah.


So I've always been someone who just really loved the idea of connecting with people within business.


I always thought it was like a fun piece of it.


I never was a huge numbers person like ever.


I was terrible at math to be quite frank with everyone.


I never was a big math person in any sense, the mean easily my worst subject growing up for me to just brutal.

So I knew going into college itself, like I was going to find a major that, you know, really kind of explored the social sciences more so than that.

And I initially thought I wanted to be in news, actually, I thought that was a fun environment, at least from the outside looking in.

I thought that would be a very fun environment.

That'd be really great to get into.

I enjoyed writing.

I thought writing articles would be a lot of fun and just the idea of, you know, being around current events.

Like that was something that really intrigued me a lot.

So that was, you know, where I first looked and I interned at actually pixel, Evan in New York City.

Yeah.

Shout out picks.

Yeah.

My first internship between my sophomore and junior year, or I should say summered.

Yeah.

I don't know if that is the right look.

I said that to you the other day.

I did.

That's like the most pretentious British term ever.

I wish it was Americanized because I love it and I'll never forget it.

It's so good.

So, so yeah, I ended up interning at pixel 11 and long story short, it was a good experience, but it just, it wasn't what I expected news wasn't really what I wanted to be in, but I was able to get a glimpse of how they started to outsource some of the advertising through the new station itself.

So I didn't really technically work with it, but I talked to people there and they said, yeah, it's a good part of it.

They seem to like what they were doing.

And I thought like, oh, okay, that's cool.

I still like the idea of news, but like, I don't know if I want to really be involved in a newsroom.

It just, again, seemed a little bit just hectic, a little bit too toxic.

You got to be a certain type of person to really be into it.

It just wasn't for me.

But after talking to the people who kind of dealt with like the picks kind of advertising side of things, again, it was very small, but I still really liked the idea of being closer to news, still kind of really being involved in it, but I knew I didn't really want to be directly in a newsroom.

So the next year I looked towards getting maybe an internship kind of at a news platform, maybe so, and working behind the scenes, maybe within advertising marketing.

So I ended up through a couple of people that I knew who had worked this internship in the past.

I actually interned at MSNBC.

So I did that before my senior year of college and I worked in their marketing department and I thought it was great.

It was a really good time.

I learned so much and it really helped me kind of understand how advertising marketing.

So yeah, I really got that first taste of kind of marketing advertising when I worked at MSNBC and it was great.

I love the people there thought I really wanted to work there when I graduated and I stayed in contact with all those people.

And it was a good network because you had like MSNBC, you had CNBC, you had people who walked worked on some of the shows there like the Morning Joe, things like that.

What was the difference between the type of advertising there and specifically in this news world versus the work you're doing now?

For us, it was a nice little mix of both.

So I was doing some of the, all right, we have these ad birds coming in.

How do we want to position them on msnbc.com or who do we want to work with?

And it was cool to see because most of these brands were very big, generic brands, but things you'd see all the time.

It could be like Advil, Home Depot, things like that that were just big executions, but we're just standard like linear video, things like that.

And then we also worked on where we would position some of MSNBC's shows where would they be kind of like put out?

Would they be running on MSNBC if we were doing different shows that they were going to run in like a preview for a trailer for like when did we put that in and we would schedule those at certain points of the day on MSNBC, the channel itself.

So we would do that.

And again, it could be a wide variety of shows that they had, like the Kramer show about like finance, if they wanted to have a special interview that was coming up, we did the Olympics for instance, was that summer.

So that was a lot of promotion just on NBC.

So we did some Olympic stuff.

So there's like kind of seeing that and positioning their different properties on their own channel was very cool to see.

So it was more internal as opposed to external, but I really did like that idea of like promotion and seeing how many people we could get to actually view these different trailers or ads.


So I found that really interesting.


I thought I'd be going back to that after I graduated.


When I stayed in contact with all of them, there was a bunch of people again at MSNBC, but also I got to know people on like CNBC, some of the shows.


So after kind of like graduating, I thought like, Oh, make my way back.


As you can imagine, it's very popular place to be.


So, you know, I, it just didn't end up happening.


There was just not a lot of openings and it ended up being, I had to shift my sights towards somewhere else.


So after kind of talking to a bunch of people who had been in my shoes, it was more so like, obviously a lot of people will say like, use the alumni connections that you have, use different like connections that you have with people you might know who have been through it.


But I feel like my biggest kind of resource was people that I had known who graduated within the last like two, three years who had just gotten in.


Because at least for the media side of things, like it wasn't like I, you had to talk to someone who had been, you know, in a company for a while and who was like a higher up at a certain company.


It was like you needed someone who had been through that very recently and knew kind of where to look and who to talk to who was still there.


So it was interesting because normally in my mind, it was like, let's go find, you know, someone else.


Yeah, of course.


But it was, it was pretty much just friends and acquaintances, which was awesome.


So I ended up getting a couple interviews at different agencies, I got to offer a couple roles at a couple different ones.


And I ended up at Horizon Media, which again, love Horizon.


That's how I just kind of got into it.


And yeah, at that point, you know, I had had more of a clear understanding of how where I wanted to be.


So I knew that I was going to find myself at in a situation like being in an agency.


So I knew I wanted to kind of learn about that, get involved in the ad world and see exactly where it would take me specifically digital advertising, because I thought that would be the fastest growing platform, which inevitably kind of has been, you know, seven or eight years.


So that's kind of how I got into it.


And for me, it was definitely not the smoothest go off the bat.


It was an adjustment, of course.


Yeah, no, I just knew I wanted to stick with it.


And that's kind of how I just, you know, made my way and kept going.


So that's amazing that you really used your internships to figure out what you wanted to do.


It was fun, because for me, like, you know, going into it, it really was just a general interest.


You know, for me, it was like, okay, I like the news, like, I want to go check it out.


So I, again, just applied to a bunch of different internships in the news stations.


And thankfully, takes 11 had the spot.


So yeah, it's funny how it all kind of comes back to it.


I'm glad that I was able to use those experiences.


Yeah, it goes to show the importance of interning to kind of figure out your path and create this network as you as you so rightly tell.


Yeah, and that's a that's the biggest thing too, is a lot of people will obviously just say that internships are great because you get the experience.


And like, true, the experience is great.


And you can use that to say like, look what I've done.


But half of it is saying like, well, now I know I don't like that.


Yeah, I know I don't want to be here.


And it just helps you understand what you really truly like and don't like within the working world.


And that's kind of what I discovered as well.


Yeah, yeah, absolutely.


And the environments you want to be in and things like that.


Well, exactly.


Like with the newsroom.


I mean, that is a it's a tough space to be in.


You kind of already spoke about this, but did you use any resources at university to help you kind of either once you figured out you want to do advertising to help you down that path or to even find your internships?


Like what recesses resources if any, did you use while at college?


Yeah, so there were definitely resources that I used, even St.


Lawrence University, where I ended up studying, we'd have a great alumni network, for sure.


Like, that's one of the things that they really kind of spoke about that we should use.


And I definitely did even from when I went to school there, I was able to connect with a bunch of older alumni who either were from my town or in the area.


So you get pretty, you know, acclimated with that side of the alumni network pretty quickly.


So there was definitely points in time where I talked with certain people at different junctures, whether it be, you know, interning, whatnot, and trying to help help me get where I did get to.


And one of the bigger ones for me that I remember was helpful was for that MSNBC internship.


That was definitely, you know, through someone who had gone to my university, I was able to connect with who coincidentally had been in my town.


So like, that was kind of just the first stepping stone to say like, there's someone you can connect with.


Yeah.


So yeah, I would definitely say it plays a role, just like, you know, across the board, there's, there's not just one way to go about it.


No, for sure.


Yeah, you want to make sure to use every one of your people that you know, like, you know, make sure you can talk to them and, and really just stay engaged just across the board, because what I've experienced is you'll find opportunity in like the strangest places, strangest places, and, you know, even some of the how I got to Walmart, just in terms of, you know, the job now, like I knew I was looking and I actually ended up, you know, it was between Walmart and another company.


And it's I'll say it was it was Pinterest.


So I actually ended up was going to be a Pinterest, but I ended up going through the interview processes at the same time, and it was like right during COVID.


So the process itself was like three or four months long, like it was just way longer than normal, just because you couldn't be in person.


It was 20, 20, 21, right, right, being 2021.


So it was not even a year after COVID.


Yeah, yeah, it had just started kind of getting back into the hiring process.


And I was very done with being at the agency.


So it just took a while.


And it came down to both Pinterest and Walmart.


And I remember I was so engaged in Pinterest at first before going to Walmart, because it was one of my good friends sisters who I know pretty well, she was at Pinterest.


So I knew her really, I was talking to her throughout the whole process.


And you know, that was definitely my first choice, or off the bat to go there.


And I was like, if this works out, I'm fully going to Pinterest.


Yeah, Walmart's cool.


But I started that process second.


And I said, you know what, I want to make sure I keep all my options open.


So let's do that.


Yeah.


And it was through an ex coworker who actually reached out and said, like, Hey, I don't know if you guys are looking to leave.


I'm not even working at this company.


This is through a friend who said like, Hey, we got a couple openings at Connect, if you're interested at all, we need people with your experience to potentially look there.


And I said, Sure, you know, let's go through the process, you know, and I'll keep my back pocket, whatever happens happens, but that like flyer of an opportunity just like happened within itself.


So long story short, I ended up not getting the Pinterest job.


But you know, I was kind of like taken aback saying like, Oh, I had gone through all these interview trials and a couple presentations and I just fell short to someone else who was an internal hire.


So those things happen, whatever happens totally.


So for me, I was like, All right, well, you know what, let me pursue the Walmart job.


You know, it might not have been my first choice.


But you know, I think it's got a good culture.


And at that point, connect was still relatively new.


They had just become connect and kind of formulated their own in house digital arm back in 2018.


So this was 2021.


So it was still relatively new.


So they were still kind of building out a broader work base just across the board.


So I said, you know, this seems fun.


It'll be interesting to see.


I didn't know a ton of people who worked there, but the people who did work there seemed you know, like they knew what they were doing.


And it seemed like a good opportunity.


So I said, you know, even if it's not what I wanted to do right off the bat, let's see what happened.


And we're almost three years later.


And I, I think I am so grateful that I didn't get the opportunity of interest because Walmart has been nothing short of, you know, everything I've wanted.


That is such like a good story to hear.


Because sometimes you do just have to leave it up to fate.

Yeah, oh, totally.

And just like, see what opportunities present themselves.

And like things will work out.

I mean, my mom always says that you should leave a little bit of space for serendipity.

Oh yeah, that's, that's a great saying.

Yeah, it's true.

Really.

It's true.

I mean, you, you obviously need to keep pursuing, you know, the job hunt and different opportunities, but like you truly have no idea what's going to come out from what connection, what random, you know, spot or random corner, like you've no idea what's going to come.

So I really like that story.
Well, you have given us so much excellent advice so far, but I want to continue on your advice.

Absolutely.

What advice do you have for someone who specifically wants to go into digital advertising?

Yeah.

So again, there's not necessarily like a standard playbook to go about it.

You know, I personally would say the most beneficial thing you can do if you, if you really want to get into it and you know you want to do it, I think without question, you should go into an agency.

I think so without a doubt.

And that's not to say that your entire time working at certain agencies will be the best.

You can actually jump around if you like, there's so many different agencies out there and I feel like there is a good amount of opportunity and it's come back a lot after COVID.

So I think there's a lot of opportunity that was there back when I started.

It's definitely back up to where it was.

And there's a bunch of different agencies to look at.


And if you don't like what you're doing at a certain agency at a certain point, you can leave and go somewhere else.


But I will say that the level of experience you get and getting kind of thrown into it and literally saying like, you're almost on your own.


You have to figure it out.


It goes a long way.


And in the moment, there were a bunch of stressful times, especially in the first year when I was there where I was really adjusting.


It didn't help that I didn't have, I probably had one of the worst supervisors I've ever had working for just coincidentally in my first eight to 10 months there.


So it definitely didn't help, but I'm so glad that I stuck it out because it got a lot better, a lot, a lot better.


There were a good couple of years, two, three years there, which I loved.


And I learned so much across the board, so much more than I ever thought I would.


And I think at this position at Walmart now, when I had started three years ago, I really kind of felt like I had not enough experience when I got into it.


I said, I don't have the experience for this.


Most of my team is at least four or five years old in me.


So I didn't really feel like I was ready for it.


I definitely had that false sense of identity of like, am I really able to do this?


Imposter syndrome.


Imposter syndrome.


Yeah, thank you.


Really, I don't know if this is me, but after kind of realizing, after getting into it after a few months and understanding, and it's like, no, I have this experience.


Everything is coming to me pretty quickly, pretty naturally.


It's just because an agency, the way I'll say it is, you're always kind of running on a treadmill at like nine to 10, right?


So you're like sprinting a lot.


And it can be like- Yeah.


I was expecting you to come out with like five, four, nine to 10.


No, the agency.


And look, it can be like a seven or an eight, two, certain points of the day.


Still very fast.


Yeah, it's very fast.


Like it is.


It's very fast paced.


And it's intense, but I will say it's almost a training, you know?


And then you get into this other job where you gained all this experience, and you're constantly between like four and seven.


And you're like, this is nothing because it's like, not that what you're doing isn't as important or isn't as deep or tedious.


It's just that you're doing so many different things at an agency.


There's so many fires you have to deal with at an agency that you have to put out.


It's constantly like you're, whether you like it or not, you're constantly being reactionary versus proactive.


And it's like, that's just what agency life is.


But I would say my biggest takeaway from this and what I really highly say is if you're really looking to get into it, definitely get into something that is connected with an agency or at an agency or similar to just an agency.


Just because, again, while it may not be the most comfortable position for sure, and I'll only be the first to admit it, it's not the highest paying job at all, but it's something that you really get paid in experience.


And honestly, social connections, you'll have a blast.


You'll have so much fun off the clock with the people you work with, the clients you work with, going out to different work events.


That's what you get paid into is because you'll be doing such a vast amount of networking outside the office.


It's crazy.


You'll be doing at least three or four nights a week.


It's great.


And even now, like I said, it's getting back to normal post-COVID.


So I definitely recommend it.


And it's not for everyone, but I would say if you're just interested in trying to find your feet in it and you're willing to really cut your teeth, agency life.


That's the space to be in.


Yeah, that's the space to check it out.


What's the best career decision you've ever made?


I'll stick with the agency piece of it, I guess.


So basically for me, yeah, because we haven't really talked about this piece of it yet, but towards the end of my time working at Connect, or sorry, working at Horizon, basically, it was again, like winter 2020, it was literally three years ago at this point.


It was probably around now.


I had started interviewing just because at this point in time, my business and brand I had been on was, it was just a health and pharmaceutical brand that ended up just leaving the agency.


They just took their business in house, went somewhere else and it happens.


It wasn't just because of anything we had done.


But basically that meant that I had to find a different job in Horizon.


And it's not like you get fired, but it's like you have to interview with different other teams and try and find your place.


At that point, I had been around the block a few times.


It had been over three years, I was ready to get promoted.


And there just wasn't a ton of promotion opportunities.


So I ended up getting somewhat of a promotion where I went from just digital to digital and social.


So I worked in a space like that.


And I worked at a different branch of Horizon, just called Next.


And it was just a tough experience for me for that year.


I had been in the grind of it and it was a mix of COVID and the way that companies adapted to working styles in COVID.


I would say it was very tough.


Working in agency during COVID wouldn't be a recommendation for me, that's for sure.


Just because I feel like a lot of different teams have the ability at an agency to take advantage of you just from always having access to your laptops.


And I'm not saying it's everyone.


It's just the ability of you can always be online.


I think that's something that you have to be wary of at an agency.


So I remember being in this position on this brand that I wasn't a huge fan of.


And the team itself wasn't a great environment and nothing wrong with them.


They're all really great people.


It just really wasn't working.


And I think there was a lot of friction throughout the team.


And I was at a point after I was about seven or eight months into it and no one was really hiring and I was already ready to go.


So I'd started interviewing.


That's when I had really started to look at it.


It was Pinterest, Walmart, they did another job at a different digital brand.


It was like a boutique agency or something.


I was just looking around and I remember saying to myself, I'm just at the end of my rope.


I was so fried.


I wasn't in a great mental space just because again, it was like everyone was COVID.


The working environment wasn't great.


And I never met my team in person because I'd get a new brand.


The work just wasn't clicking.


The environment wasn't great.


It just didn't feel like anyone was really getting along.


So I was only looking for jobs.


And I remember it was a month before I had, I was still probably, God, I want to say I'd only gone through my preliminary interviews or in my second interviews.


I hadn't even gotten my final interviews across Pinterest and Connect.


So this was like, I want to say like maybe three years ago to the day almost, or maybe like the beginning of March.


It was actually coincidentally.


So I had pretty much completely just focused on getting these new jobs and to just kind of speed it up too.


I ended up just dropping everything I was doing at Horizon.


So I ended up just dropping everything I was doing there and really just focused on getting these jobs.


So obviously my work slipped a bit and I just was at the point where I didn't really care.


I was like, you know what?


It's this point where I'm not getting along with most of these people.


It's not really going well.


And I'm just so adamant on finding this job and making sure I'm putting all my effort into finding this next role.


And I had a meeting with my director who I'll be honest with you.


I still talk to you to this day.


He's a great guy.


Had never met him in person yet still.


Oh my gosh.


But he's a great guy, really good guy.


And he was just tripped and he said, like, what's going on?


Clearly, you're not involved as much.


You're clearly not where you should be work wise.


And I was like, yeah, I'll be honest with you.


Like, I just feel like I'm at my end at this company.


It's been great.


And I just feel like it's just not really working as much for me.


And he's like, look, I understand it.


I get it.


And he just was like, I'll just be honest with you.


You're looking for a new job.


And I said, I'll just be candid.


I am.


Like, I want to be upfront with you.


I like you.


I'm just going to tell you I'm looking for your job.


He's like, well, I appreciate it.


Really understand it.


But within the next few weeks, if we don't see a turnaround, we're going to have to let you go.


That's pretty much how the conversation went.


So I looked at him and I said, yeah, I understand.


I get it.


So I came into this crossroads with myself where I still had another four weeks, at least, of interviewing at these other places.


So I had to decide, is it worth it to continue to just find what I want to do and just get through it and risk losing the job I have now?


And I said to myself, yeah.


It's at this point where I literally am almost waking up every day being I loathe doing this.


There's not one thing.


It's just the whole setup of I'm so done with it.


I'm ready to move on just for a bunch of different reasons.


And I said, you know what?


Just push for it.


Just take the chance and just if you get let go, you get let go, you got a couple opportunities you might be able to get.


I felt like I'd be able to get one of them.


And thankfully, I did.


Three and a half weeks later, I was very close to having that next call.


And I fortunately got the offer from Connect.


And I would say that was probably the biggest, at least risk for mine that I took in the working world, just because I just remember vividly thinking like there were a couple of nights over that span when I was like, this this could be it.


Yeah.


I could get fired tomorrow.


And we'll see.


So I would just say, yeah, just going for it.


That is an excellent story and excellent, excellent advice to recognize that to be able to recognize that in yourself is like honestly really inspiring and be able to like draw that limit for yourself and draw that line for yourself and be able to be like, I'm clearly not okay.


I'm clearly not enjoying myself because at the end of the day, I feel like so many people are so worried.


It's more like about like trusting yourself in your capabilities in what you know what you want for yourself and like in that like gut feeling and taking those risks.


So I think that's a great story in just like having faith in yourself.


Yeah, you know, I think the one question I asked myself just was like, what am I trying to save, you know, right now?


What is the what is the point?


Like, you know, if they don't work out and I end up kind of turning back into the job and, you know, really involving myself in it again, what what's there for me?


Yeah, it was just, you know, it made it a little less scary just because I knew I didn't want to be there.


Yeah.


So yeah, I was just being honest with myself.


Because also at the end of the day, like this is what you are doing.


And especially at an agency, like you said, like for so many hours in a day, at some point, you do have to enjoy the actual work you're doing.


Oh, yeah.


And so indeed, if these jobs hadn't worked out for you, you would have still been looking.


You would have been trying to find something else like you knew your time there was up.


And so to indeed just like take that leap and go for it.


Well done.


Well, thank you very much.


I appreciate that.


Yeah.


So I love that story.


Everyone who's questioning it, go, go for it.


Trust yourself.


Yeah.


Like you're good enough to get that job.


So go for it.


Absolutely.


Absolutely.


Well, that is unfortunately all we have time for.


But I so appreciate you coming on.


No, thank you very much.


One more final question that I always wrap up my podcast with.


Okay.


For you, Danny, what's next?


What's next?


It might be kind of boring, but I'll be honest with you.


I love where Connect's at, what they're doing.


There's a lot of cool, fun things that are going to be rolling out within the next couple of months.


If anyone's looking to buy anything online for a real low price.


Check out Walmart, especially Q2, Q3.


There's going to be some very cool things that are coming down the line.


So check it out.


And yeah, you won't be disappointed.


But for me, yeah, I think, I think I'm definitely looking forward to seeing where my kind of role expands and where Walmart's going to go.


Just as a company as a whole.


So definitely looking forward to that.


And, you know, hopefully the ship stays moving on.


Yeah, absolutely.


That's amazing.


We'll definitely keep out for the...


We'll definitely keep an eye out for those products coming up.


Sweet deals.


Yeah.


So sweet deals.


All right.


Thank you.


Awesome.


Thank you, Lacey.


Appreciate it.


That's it for this week's episode of What's Next.


Thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Danny.


If you enjoyed it, please leave a review wherever you are listening and make sure to share it with anyone else who might be interested.


See you next time.


Bye.