926 Lacey Bridges:

Wings of Inspired Business Podcast EP 926 – Host Melinda Wittstock Interviews Lacey Bridges

Melinda Wittstock:

Coming up on Wings of Inspired Business:

Lacey Bridges:

If we’re doing something even as small as like a $15,000 event, we try to commit to practicing what we preach by seeking out opportunities to collaborate with fellow and support fellow small female business owners. We just did a sip and fit event for this for also for Good American and we did like a customization station with embroidery and rather than hiring like a big company or working with something like that, we found a small business that’s female owned and so just connecting with them and feeling that I think also further pushes your reach. We hired a Sommelier for the wine bar, and we found someone that worked at like a local female restaurant, female sommelier, and then her small micro influence content that she has is going to further spread that we’re actually doing what we say we’re going to do.

Melinda Wittstock:

Look closely at just about any successful business and more often than not they value building lasting relationships over mere gradually fade music here transactions. When you focus on authentic human connection with your customers and vendors, your value to them multiplies and they become your best evangelists. Today Lacey Bridges talks about the power of experiential marketing and how the magical experiences she creates for brands like Good American and Savage X Fenty drive long tail earned media while helping other female-founded local businesses.

PAUSE no words from 5-8 seconds…with music full

Melinda Wittstock:

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, (Start to fade music GRADUALLY under my voice – here) epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m all about paying it forward as a five-time serial entrepreneur, so I started this podcast to catalyze an ecosystem where women entrepreneurs mentor, promote, buy from, and invest in each other. Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together and lift as we climb.

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who has mastered the art of human connection and experiential storytelling to transform and boost brand loyalty. Lacey Bridges is the CEO and Founder of the Los Angeles agency Black Flamingo, and today she shares why in our digital but disconnected world, authentic human-to-human experiences create the emotional bond with a brand that transcends the transactional and creates customers for life. Lacey talks about how she created game-changing events for Good American, TopGolf and many others, plus how even small businesses and startups can master these techniques on a small budget.

Melinda Wittstock:

Lacey will be here in a start music GRADUALLY under my voice moment, and first:

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Helping women build wealth and make their purpose driven impact on the world through entrepreneurship has always been a mission close to my heart. That’s why eight years ago, I started this podcast to help women succeed as entrepreneurs. Over the years, I’ve driven more than $10 million in sales to the women I’ve featured on this show, and this year I’m taking my investment in female founders to a whole new fade music after 2-3 seconds level as a venture partner of the new firm Zero Limits Capital, where we’re dedicated to investing in highly scalable seed stage startups founded by women and diverse teams – a mission more important than ever as the Trump administration cracks down on anything and everything DEI. We’re looking for innovators with exciting new applications of AI, Blockchain and other emerging technologies that make a social and sustainable impact to change the world. Is this you? If it is, take a moment and tell us about your opportunity at bit.ly/ZLCintake – that’s bit.dot.ly/ZLCintake – capital ZLC lowercase intake. And because I know from 20-plus years of experience raising venture capital, I’m opening up my schedule to help female founders nail their investment strategies and pitch decks at the earliest stages of their companies. Email me at melinda@wingspodcast.com if you’re interested in a consult. That’s melinda@wingspodcast.com.

fade music after 2-3 seconds

Melinda Wittstock:

What makes you really love a brand? Stay loyal to a brand? More than quality, price, mission alignment and customer service, chances are something about it makes you feel special, included, cared for, appreciated. Maybe you even have a story you tell often about a positive interaction with a brand.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yet, too many businesses fall into the trap of being purely transactional, their necessary focus on the bottom line blinding them to the longer-term value building that comes with investing time, effort and money in creating loyal communities. Now an increasing number of brands are looking to experiential marketing as their answer—whether creating bespoke events or popups that engage their customers and get people talking about their experiences long past the event itself.

Melinda Wittstock:

Lacey Bridges of the experiential agency Black Flamingo says the magic happens when human connection meets brand storytelling. She says “loyalty is a two-way street” so in a minute you’ll hear how much effort she puts into every tiny detail of each experience, and why she brings in local female-founded businesses into each event so everyone wins.

Melinda Wittstock:

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Lacey Bridges and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

[INTERVIEW]

Melinda Wittstock:

Lacey, welcome to Wings.

Lacey Bridges:

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Melinda Wittstock:

I’m interested in experiential marketing. For people who are unfamiliar with that, tell me, what is it? What do you do?

Lacey Bridges:

Experiential marketing is just that, it’s the experience. And I think that experience kind of transcends. It’s the human-to-human contact you get in a physical space, but it’s also that human to human contact you can feel through digital content and what we kind of consume throughout our day.

Melinda Wittstock:

We know. This is so interesting to me because I think as marketing has moved more and more digital, especially now with AI, everybody thinks they can kind of do it remotely. People, however, are feeling really kind of disconnected and kind of almost unmoored, and I think increasingly craving meaningful human connection. So is this one of the reasons why experiential marketing is. Is. Is sticky? Do you know what I mean? Right?

Lacey Bridges:

For that alone, it is. And I think what people are craving is that human-to-human contact. And I think you can achieve that in different ways. So, we do a lot of events which leads to, you know, inevitably human to human contact. And I think that you can also achieve that through content. So, to your point where everyone’s so inundated with all of this AI and you know where everything is heading, you can still kind of bring it back. And so even through, like content creation. So, if we’re doing a campaign where I think we differentiate ourselves and are able to help our clients is finding authentic stories.

Lacey Bridges:

People are so bombarded with content, but I think over time they become discern, discerning about what they engage with, and they can easily spot what’s authentic and differentiate between what’s genuine and what’s not. And loyalty is a two-way street. And so, people expect brands to be transparent and loyal back to them. And so, whether it’s content or an event, I think for us everything always comes back to the story and how you tell that story. And I think that storytelling is often underestimated and that every detail counts. And so where I think we strive is paying attention to the smallest detail and having that hold as much weight as whatever the overarching concept or theme is. So, at an event, for instance, it’s, you know, you always have the big moment, the performance, the product launch. But what’s the journey someone takes from the moment they enter the event to the moment they leave? And what are all those small details you can add that just makes people feel like.

Lacey Bridges:

Makes people feel something, you know, and so where I think that you can make something feel successful is making people leave with a feeling.

Melinda Wittstock:

This is so important, whatever kind of marketing you’re doing, right, to touch people on an emotional level where they feel like a, a trusted connection. Tell me, set the scene for me. Describe like an event, like maybe something recent you’ve done for a client. Like what was it, what made it special? What did you actually do?

Lacey Bridges:

One of the biggest events we did was for a company called Good American. And it was one of the most like emotionally touching events that we were able to do. We set up their open casting is what it’s called, and we go across the country and Good American does this amazing thing where they cast their model from the general public. They want to give that opportunity, you know, to practice what they preach Good Americans based on not one size fits all. And that every consumer should have the opportunity to go into a store and have something that fits them. So, they do that. One of the ways they do that is this annual open casting that they do. And so, we went across three different cities and popped up and let’s, you know, the entire world essentially come.

Lacey Bridges:

Like we had people that traveled in from Europe and the Dominican Republic. All over the world people resonated with that campaign that they did. And if they just put the campaign out and showed a couple models that were different sizes or ethnicities, I don’t think it would resonate as strongly if they weren’t having that human interaction. And so, one of the ways we did that was we recreated the Good American store by having a pop-up store and allowing the attendees to try on how amazing all their clothes fit every body type. But then you know, that transcended into we were doing live headshots on the spot like, and we had professional studio photographers and lighting and these opportunities that maybe not the everyday person gets to have. So just having that one-on-one time with a photographer that makes them feel comfortable and gives them those just something as simple as a headshot. Not maybe they don’t get casted, but they’re going to leave that event with a feeling like they are a model, and they could be a model and it doesn’t have to be a one size fits all for them. And then in addition to that we would always, in each city we would have these talk panels with the heads, you know, with Emma and everyone that is the head and CEO of Good American as well as like the HR vice president was there and they’re content creators and their social media and so they truly felt, seen, heard and represented which was the tagline of the campaign.

Lacey Bridges:

And so, making sure that we, as an agency and as marketers didn’t just make a fun tagline. It’s easy to put seen, heard, represented in marketing content. How do you make sure, though, that when these people leave, they actually felt seen, heard, and represented? And it goes back to my point of details matter. So, one of the places we were in was in New York in January. It’s freezing, and we weren’t asked to do this, but in the moment, we pivoted and went and bought blankets and gloves, and we were serving hot chocolate because there were girls in line outside. They were sitting in line for hours. And I think that if we wouldn’t have done that, it wouldn’t have mattered as much once they finally got inside and had that chance with the photographer or to attend a talk panel. You have to make every single detail make people feel like you care, you know, and then when we got to Los Angeles, it started raining.

Lacey Bridges:

And so, you know, we sent people out to buy umbrellas and coats. And again, that’s not something I think we have to do, but those are those small details that matter. And then once you get inside, one of the things we did was this beautiful, like, mirror installation that had positive affirmations on every mirror. And then once the person left, that mirror experience, we handed on, like, a small, compact mirror that had those same taglines on it. So, it’s all those little details, like, are people going to be the most excited that they walked into an event and heard Ashley Graham speak on a talk panel? Yes. You know, she’s one of the top, you know, 10 models in the world. If you’re an aspiring model, meeting someone like that that is very likely to be your hero is going to give you a feeling that you’re going to leave with and probably remember for the rest of your life. But I think to further cement that feeling of joy and being seen, it’s all those small details.

Lacey Bridges:

How can we leave the person with feeling more than they knew they were expecting? You know, And I think that’s where you truly strive is and where I think the biggest opportunity is for people when you’re trying to create a brand or promote your brand is, yes, there is this huge moment. And, you know, every media outlet posted about Ashley Graham coming because, again, she’s that a list celebrity. But in the same token, on those same talk panels, we would find someone that was local to each city. So, in Nashville or New York or Los Angeles. So, like, in Los Angeles, we had a stylist named Carla Welch come. And so, I think making sure when you’re in each city as well, what’s the detail that that city and the people attending feel, feel that you’ve recognized them and who they care about. And so not just having the same talk panel even through all three cities. I think that’s also really important because people resonate with different consumers.

Lacey Bridges:

In Nashville, we had someone that was, you know, she was born and raised in Nashville and was a health and wellness expert and coach. And so, the attendees in Nashville are going to feel much more connected to someone born and raised in their city versus in Los Angeles. A celebrity stylist is someone they’re going to be more excited about and probably remember even more. And then just those little moments you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Can let people leave with, you know, how inspiring. Lacey, I, you know, just hearing you talk about it, I can visualize that I’m wrapped up in the story and I’m understanding that there’s such an authenticity, the connection between the brand’s mission and what it stands for and then the realization of that, but also the empathy of just really understanding customers. You know, I’m amazed that every brand doesn’t do this.

Lacey Bridges:

You know, it’s. It’s a, it’s not a small fee, I will say that.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, it sounds like it’s a kind of a major production. Like just out of curiosity, what kind of budget does something like that actually entail? That’s like a lot of work that you’re doing.

Lacey Bridges:

That was a lot of work. That was, you know, it. The activation itself spanned over two months. We planned ahead for six months. So, you know, it was an eight-month project from start to finish. The immense amount of planning to accommodate 2,000 people in different cities on any given moment takes a lot. It definitely reaches the seven figures once everything’s all said and done. And I think the way and where I think Good American truly is a phenomenal brand that knows who their consumer is they do just that they actually go through.

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Melinda Wittstock:

And we’re back with Lacey Bridges, experiential marketing maven and the CEO and founder of the LA-based agency Black Flamingo.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]

Lacey Bridges:

And it’s not who you think your consumer is. They’re doing the work to truly dive into each city and understand the target audience. I think that’s one thing people often miss too when they’re trying to create experiential marketing is it’s who they think the consumer is or who they think the attendee should be. When. If you do the work ahead of time and truly dive into like who is that person you’re trying to reach and who are they actually, you know, reading their books or listening to their podcasts or watching their Instagram content. Truly diving into who those people are is where you can truly succeed and leave those lasting impressions.

Melinda Wittstock:

It makes total sense. Now, obviously a lot of brands establishing themselves couldn’t necessarily afford a seven-figure campaign. Is, is there a way to do something like this? Like say for a startup that’s really trying to stand out and all the noise. You know, it’s so hard to do, right? And because they’re trying to do their TikTok and their Instagram reels and their ‘this’ and their ‘that’ and like maybe they’re on Pinterest or maybe they’re here or there. LinkedIn is important.

Melinda Wittstock:

They got all that stuff going on. Maybe they’re advertising on podcasts. They’ve got stuff right. And, and, but they want to stand out. Is, is there a way to do this on a smaller scale as well?

Lacey Bridges:

Absolutely. And I think it goes back to the same concept. So, if we’re doing something even as small as like a $15,000 event, we try to commit to practicing what we preach by seeking out opportunities to collaborate with fellow and support fellow small female business owners. So, whether it’s partnering on projects or what we source or who we promote or who we hire, finding that other person that is in the same boat as you and you guys can kind of promote each other. So, if we, you know, we just did a sip and fit event for this for also for Good American and the activation. So, for the, we did like a little, you know, customization station with embroidery and rather than hiring like a big company or working with something like that, we found a small business that’s female owned and so just connecting with them and feeling that I think also further pushes your reach. And then if, you know, we hired a Sommelier for the wine bar and we found someone that worked at like a local female restaurant, female sommelier, and then her small micro influence content that she has is going to further spread that we’re actually doing what we say we’re going to do. And so, when we go to Atlanta or we go to these different cities, we always make sure that we find local businesses to work with.

Lacey Bridges:

You know, it’s something simple like doing custom cookie. You know, it’s something we’ve all seen at events a hundred times where you see a cookie with the brand’s like logo or shape of their product. And there’s tons of national companies that do that. So, we just did a seven-city tour for Savage X Fenty and in every city they wanted the same thing. It would have been a lot less work for us to just pick one company that’s national and could just go on this little national tour with us, but we chose not to. In every city, the vendors that we would work with that would bring something as simple as like a pop-up cart, we would find someone local and female owned. The caterer we would use, we would use someone every time that was local. And we would try to find people that were active on social media.

Lacey Bridges:

So, we know that we grow our own business through social media and all of our clients are heavily using social media to grow their businesses. So, we go out and we look for people and it’s not about their follower count, it’s just you can tell that they’re putting the work into their content. And so, then those are the people that we would hire. So rather than doing a seven city, you know, it was all across the US from New York to Atlanta to Detroit to back to Los Angeles. Every single time we did an event, we made sure we found someone that is almost like a local hero to their fellow, you know, consumers. So, if you use someone that’s just like this national brand, it’s still going to give you the end result that the client asked for. Right. The consumer is going to end up with this branded cookie in their hand.

Lacey Bridges:

But the way that you can truly make that more impactful is, you know, there’s this amazing woman in Atlanta who’s like a cancer survivor and like, you know, we get to know her story, we get to know her promotions and like how we can truly. And that’s where that storytelling comes in. Right. So it’s what’s her story and how do we in turn promote her and make sure that we really are practicing what we preach?

Melinda Wittstock:

Ah, that’s amazing. And so, are there any particular types of companies? Like obviously it makes sense for fashion or cosmetics or like physical product. Does it work for other types of brands as well?

Lacey Bridges:

I think absolutely. Like another way we’ve done that is when we’re creating. So, we did a back-to-school campaign for a retailer and again, that is a physical product. But back to school it’s easy to just promote like, okay, buy X amount of shoes as your kids go back to school. Well, what we did instead was we went and found teachers at underprivileged schools and told their story. And so I think that producing content that identifies people that we want to hear and that’s, I think the difference is like, you know, people get so inundated with all the content and media and so if you are able to produce something that resonates with them by something that simple, like we went and interviewed teachers and had them tell us about their students and how their daily lives are impacted by different things that are happening in the environment or with AI, like whatever that may be, and then trying to give them resources, whatever our capability is, if we can give them resources in return, and then those are the things that truly resonate. Because if you go through and you find this local hero at the local school, that everyone in the community, you know, lifts up on this platform because of what they’re doing and maybe people don’t know, so you get to share their story and let people know. That’s that feeling that you want people to have.

Lacey Bridges:

So now when someone’s walking away from that company, it’s not cool they put that a list celebrity on, you know, because not everyone can do that. So instead of trying to just get that a list celebrity that has that global or national reach, who’s the person that has the biggest reach within your own community and partnering with them and finding ways that you can lift each other up. And more importantly, it’s, you know, when a consumer walks away and they feel something, that is the deepest, best result you can get from marketing, because that lasts.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, 100 per cent. I just think of all the potential viral moments for social media that you create from these events as well. Like, there’s probably a long tail that’s measurable after the fact. Like, you think of all the kind of happy people, like going back to what you did for good American. Right. How many people walk away from that and they, they have selfies, and they post about it and they post about their experience and they become influencers for you.

Lacey Bridges:

Exactly, yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. So. So tell me about that long tail and how that, I mean, do you put a lot of effort into just making sure that that happens as well as part of this, or does it just kind of happen organically?

Lacey Bridges:

No, absolutely. I think that’s the one thing I can confidently say I am obsessed with, is how is this going to make people post? So, for us specifically, that’s how all of our clients judge it. So, one of our other biggest clients is TopGolf. And they use this program and platform that calculates the earned media value. And so, our success is based off this earned media value that people see. And so if you want people to post, it’s just this obsessive trait of mine of like putting myself like every time before an event launches, if an event starts at 6pm I tell everyone the event starts at 5pm I spend the last, that hour before the event starts walking through the event and just rechecking what the consumer journey is and how they’re going to feel going through it. And as we plan the event, I constantly am putting myself walking through that journey. And what would make me post, you know, what would make me put something on my story or feed and what are all those additional moments we can create and that, you know, it all goes back to that.

Lacey Bridges:

There’s the big moment. So, you know, at. During the Good American process, the ultimate moment each attendee had was they had this chance to speak to someone about getting casted. But if you go through what everyone posted, no one posted about the moment they had with the judges. They posted about that journey they had about, you know, writing their own affirmation on that mirror installation. We spoke about having their own headshot taken, how, you know, talking with the girls in line. Like, you know, we would do something as simple as put music outside just so and, you know, cultivating those relationships. And then on my team, I have a couple girls on my team who are just absolutely fantastic and sending them out into the line to hand out water bottles.

Lacey Bridges:

And it’s, again, it’s not that transaction. Like, do we have to hand out water bottles? No. And then taking it a step further as they hand out the water bottles, engaging with people and, like, chatting with them and just making people feel good and so those moments and, you know, it’s just like all those little, like, so with, like, Good American, for instance, we would hand everyone these printed maps, and it had like a little checkbox for each thing. So seen, heard, represented. And on the map it would show, like, this is where you’re seeing, which is the map. How are you heard? And we would. We actually created this video confessional. We learned.

Lacey Bridges:

This was the second year we had done it. We learned the last year, what attendees wanted the most was to just tell their story, because everyone has these incredibly unique stories and these incredible moments they’ve gone through in their life that they want to share. So, we created like a soundproof booth that they could go in and record their story that we then had coded to their each. And each attendee had a unique code. And so, everything they wanted to say and make sure people heard would get recorded and uploaded to their individual registration code. And that soundproof booth, I think, just gave people the opportunity to talk about themselves and whatever their story is. You know, mothers and daughters went in together. It was just incredible.

Lacey Bridges:

And Then so you’re heard and then represented by making sure that everyone was able to attend. You know, there was no age limit. Well, outside of, you know, you had to be 18. But outside of that, like, we had some like, fabulous older women show up. So, you know, no matter age, you know, gender, you know, weight, size, ethnicity, anything like that, everyone got to come and have this experience and have their headshots and have that confessional moment. And I mean, the amazing thing with Good American is that it makes it very easy is then having that pop up shop because their clothes are literally meant for every body type. And they’ve created, they’ve put the effort and time into creating a product assortment that does fit everybody.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, that’s amazing. So, Lacey, go back in time. What was the impetus or what was the, what was the spark, I guess, that gave you the idea for Black Flamingo to begin with?

Lacey Bridges:

It honestly happened by accident. I never aspired to be an entrepreneur. In fact, it always terrified me. And not because of the pressure to succeed, because the weight of being responsible for other people’s livelihoods. It kind of became inevitable for me that this was going to happen when I realized that unless I built something of my own, I wouldn’t ever truly have control over how the people who work for me were affected by the decisions that are always made at a high level. I’ve worked at these really massive companies, and I’ve had the extreme fortune of having amazing bosses and mentors. And it wasn’t for the lack of that. But I just never really had control about, like, the decisions I could make.

Lacey Bridges:

All the amazing team members would always work for me. So, I wanted to create an environment. And I know as cheesy as it sounds, it’s like if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. And so, while saying that is kind of old and dated, it still remains, like, at the core of what I strive to achieve every day. Like, what’s the question I keep coming back to is how do we work together as a team to ensure everyone continues to love what they do? And I don’t think I could have created the environment I’ve created for my team if I hadn’t made this jump. And, you know, I often have people, like, kind of laugh at me that that’s all I’ve strived to do, is just make people happy.

Lacey Bridges:

Because obviously being an entrepreneur is much more. There is the weight of, you know, income and being profitable, but at the end of the day, to me, success is not based on how much money we made that year. And I truly believe this. It’s at the end of the year; did we all have fun? Like, do we all can still like working with each other? And if I’m able to do that, like, I just feel good and I feel happy, and hopefully everyone that works for me kind of leaves with the same feeling. And it’s infectious.

Melinda Wittstock:

I can hear your voice as you’re describing that. Right. And, and I, I, I can completely see how you put these events together, because if they’re infused with joy and fun and all that kind of stuff, it’s magnetic. People want to be around that. Like, there’s enough bad stuff in the world, you know?

Lacey Bridges:

Yes, exactly. Right.

Melinda Wittstock:

But like, that for being an entrepreneur, like, often people go into entrepreneurship because they, they’ve had some sort of other, like a challenge or a problem or a tragedy or something in their lives that they’ve overcome. And so, in overcoming that, they can help someone else also overcome it. Right. That, that’s a common. Or they, they’re just passionate about solving some big problem with the world, like climate change or something like that. And, and, and, and you’re talking about something I think that’s intrinsic to it as well, is it’s, it’s control. Not in a control freak thing, but like setting your own destiny, like deciding what kind of life you want to lead and setting the conditions that you can live that life. Do you know what I mean? And, and, and, and with the people that you want to live it with.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. That’s exactly. Innovation for being an entrepreneur.

Lacey Bridges:

I really enjoy it. And the, actually, I mean, Black Flamingo came from a fun idea. So, I’d always gravitated towards flamingos because the flamingos are the symbol that the parties arrived. They have like, a joyous meaning behind them. And so, it just kind of seemed like the perfect name.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. I was going to ask you about the name. Why. And why Black Flamingo? I mean, is it almost like a black sheep or. But it’s a flamingo.

Lacey Bridges:

It’s nothing quite as meaningful as that. Uh, my aesthetic, like, if you ever meet me, I basically 99% of the time have all black clothing on, just like a minimal aesthetic. And I, It’s a weird thing. I just love the color black, and it just was kind of a natural thing. I don’t know how it popped into my head one day, like I was trying, I was playing with the word flamingo, and I put the word black in front of it, and it just. It seemed perfect for me and my team.

Lacey Bridges:

And black. I mean, it’s just like an aesthetic and a vibe, and so that’s what I went with.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, you’ve attracted some pretty major clients, right, in, like, these. These big campaigns. Tell me about your origin, like, how you got this going. Like, how did you get your first client? How did you get your first event? Because I imagine the success of these now speak for themselves and you attract more people just because you have a track record. But at the very beginning, right, that can be hard, hard to explain. Like, I’m going to do this experiential marketing thing, and you’re trying to paint the picture for that. So, tell me about the early days. What was it like getting going? What were the challenges?

Lacey Bridges:

Black Flamingo started as a consulting agency. Originally, it was just me and one employee, and we were doing a lot of consulting jobs. It became what it is now of an experiential agency in the last two and a half years. And I’m really fortunate. I actually really, truly mean what I say when I care about the people that work for me. And I try my best to be a really good leader and teach everyone around me. And so, I was very fortunate in the fact that my first two clients had actually worked for me.

Lacey Bridges:

I had an amazing career in the corporate world where I was very fortunate. And I always had really large teams, you know, working with me or for me. And so, the first two clients we got were actually from former employees had gone out and succeeded on their own. And as they went onto those paths, I was always really supportive and, you know, helping them with resumes or being a reference call or whatever I could do, because I genuinely mean it. And, you know, the universe always provides and gives back. And both of those people happen to be in positions where they could recommend me to their boss.

Lacey Bridges:

And I got really lucky. You know, it’s…

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, it sounds like you’ve always invested in your relationships and maintaining them. A lot of people forget to do that.

Lacey Bridges:

Exactly. I had a boss once teach me to, like, treat everyone the same and, like, never view anything as transactional. And I think the more I’ve gone through just life in general, I’ve truly valued that advice and really tried to embody it. And so, whoever it is, you know, I think a lot of people only talk to like an executive somewhere and they forget about. And you treat an executive differently maybe, than you treat their assistant. And if you treat everyone with the same respect that you want yourself, eventually that assistant’s probably going to be a director, you know, and if you were kind to them and disrespectful at any level of their career and you genuinely mean it, I, you know, it can’t be like a fake interaction where you’re just pretending to be nice to someone because they might eventually succeed. It ends up working out for you. I’ve had people tell me, love it, honestly.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah.

Lacey Bridges:

Yeah. I’ve had people tell me my whole career that I’m too nice and you have to be more cutthroat. And I have fought against that advice my entire career. And I, you know, that’s honestly, like the greatest joy for me with doing this is like, proving that wrong, that you can just be a nice person and succeed.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh.

Lacey Bridges:

Oh.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s just music to my ears. I love that. I mean, I think women in business really have a chance to recreate business because it’s not like, you know, like, men have really controlled it and set the rules of it and kind of what works for them, right? And as women get more successful and plentiful in entrepreneurship and really succeed, we’re different. We can be different, right? We can change the rules.

Melinda Wittstock:

I really appreciate you doing that because it sounds to me like you’re coming at this from a place of abundance where everyone can win, you know?

Lacey Bridges:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

Does that resonate with you? Because this is kind of how it’s coming across to me that you have this. There’s this joy in. In your voice and what you do, but it’s. It’s literally an abundance. Like you’re helping all these other people, not just your client, in helping all these other people and all these young, small, you know, maybe solo entrepreneur businesses around and connecting all these people. It’s helping your client, but it’s also like the ripple effects of that. It’s abundance.

Lacey Bridges:

That’s what I strive to do. I definitely think we can rewrite the rules. I think that one way I try to strive to create our own success is just creating like an equal level playing field. The experience I had is, you know, I’ve never been a girly girl and so I always gravitated towards male dominated industries. And what I’ve always found and what I found with other, you know, women in higher positions is we always have to work harder to have the same thing heard. So, if you’re sitting in a room of men, executives and everyone in else in the room and you tend to be the only female, what someone in the same position as you can say like a two-sentence pitch, right? And that two-sentence pitch will get approved. Whereas for me I would have to give a four-hour presentation with all of the facts and data to get the same approval. And I’ve constantly found that struggle throughout it. And so, it did in turn me into a better, you know, entrepreneur and it made me set up for, to be in a position of strength and just always outwork everyone.

Lacey Bridges:

But I do think that there’s that sense where it’s if you are a female in business, you have to outwork your male counterparts. And so, I think as we continue to strive and we all continue, continue to grow as FEMA female entrepreneurs, females in business is just kind of create like leveling the playing field so that it’s not so much work for us to be heard with the same information as our male counterparts.

Melinda Wittstock:

Ah yes, so true. Like it’s interesting with, with my venture capital hat on because I’m a venture partner and an entrepreneur in residence in a new fund that, that, that you know, invests in women founded seed stage companies, you know, mostly in that tech space. And you know, it’s interesting because when we look at the data, women on average return $0.60 more on every dollar invested than men.

Lacey Bridges:

And that does not surprise me.

Melinda Wittstock:

And it’s because we have to and often we, you know and I think of my experience with all my five, five startups all kind of in the, mostly in the tech space it’s hard to get funding, you know, and you need venture funding. You, you have to be, you have to have done more or achieved more. You get judged more on your past performance than your future potential. There’s all these sorts of things and yet the numbers show that, that we do better and in, in because we have to like we do better with less, we’re more capital efficient. So, there’s just you know, different approaches or whatever and, and you know, it’s interesting. So how to turn that adversity into. Into a plus, you know, I guess that’s the goal, what we have to do.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, paint the picture for me of where you’re going in your future, where you want the company to be in like five years, 10 years. How do you scale up, I guess, from where you are or what’s your vision?

Lacey Bridges:

My vision right now is I have a core set team that are all, for the most part, women. My core team is made up predominantly of fellow women. And so, I just want to lift them all up and get them to the point where the goal is for them to not need me anymore. And so right now, you know, we’re still a very young company, and it’s still very heavily led and operated, you know, by me. And the only way that I ever see that, see us getting to a higher level or becoming a bigger company is if those around me are able to grow themselves. I’m constantly encouraging everyone on my team to, you know, take classes or talk to me or reach out to me and, or fellow, you know, contacts that I have. Like, how can we all kind of grow together so we can get to the point where the. We can scale and to scale, I need everyone around me to be as knowledgeable and as efficient as I am. And so, if I just continue to teach up, I think that’s how we get there. And we continue to hire more and more strong females and just strong creatives in general and just build that team up and support each other and make it so that it’s possible for us to all keep scaling up.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s beautiful. So, I can think of a lot of people listening to this podcast right now thinking about their businesses and thinking about how do I want to stand out and all the noise thinking, God, I really want to work with this Lacey woman. What’s the best way? Like, tell me about your process. Like your ideal clip clients and, and who you’re looking for to work with, but also, what’s the best way for them to work with you?

Lacey Bridges:

My, I. I mean, I love all my clients. One of my clients specifically, I tend to have the most fun working with. He. He’s been in a couple different roles since I’ve met him, and he’s just, he’s so fun to work with because he’s so creative. Like, I love working with people that are as passionate about storytelling as I am. I think a lot of times clients get, you know, companies get too big, and they overthink so many things that it kind of put, like, kind of strangles us and what we can do. And those moments that I was, you know, was talking about earlier, that we’re trying to create where people leave with that feeling.

Lacey Bridges:

And if you don’t allow us to kind of do what we do best and create that feeling, it just kind of stops us from being able to truly reach the success we want to reach for our clients. We always try to act like we’re just like an extension of their team. Like, we never want it to feel like we’re an agency. We always want it to feel like for those months or whatever, that we’re working together, that we’re all on the same team, and we’re all trying to do everything we can to make this the best possible event or campaign. And so, my one client that I do genuinely have the most fun working with is because he’s the most creative and he works for a very massive company. And he’s not afraid to kind of, for lack of a better way to say it, kind of stick it to his boss and be like, okay, you’re gonna…

Lacey Bridges:

If I’ll accept getting in trouble, but just wait till the end. Like, let us let get through the event and see what the reaction is. And he basically risks his job every time we do an event together because we always push the boundaries so hard. But every event I’ve done with him, every single time we post the recap video, there’s a hundred comments of people saying it’s the best event they’ve ever gone to. And so, like, not being afraid to push the boundaries and even push your superiors with respect, of course, and within. You know, you’re right. That you’re able to. But just pushing the boundaries and, like, people that, like, want to just level up and, like, really connect with people in an authentic way is what I personally am always looking for, of who to work with and continue to strive to just let us do our job in the best way we can for you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. Yes. That’s an interesting thing with all agencies and all marketing, like, where you have clients that are actually willing to really trust you, you know?

Lacey Bridges:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah.

Lacey Bridges:

He’s the only one that truly trusts us.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, yeah. Because that can be difficult because people hire agencies and then just, like, don’t follow the advice.

Lacey Bridges:

Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. I mean, you know, and that can be incredibly frustrating for anybody. Right. Because, like, you know, but, you know, they don’t. So, like, do you go through a pretty significant qualification process with potential clients just to figure that out, like, because I. I imagine that has to work for your work to really shine.

Lacey Bridges:

I try to just put on different hats each time. So, whoever the client is, I always do, like, an exploratory call. You know, we discuss with each other if we think we’re the right fit for each other, and sometimes we’re just not. And then, as you know, as we continue to go through, I just do my best to kind of adapt. And I was retail marketing director for a very large footwear chain for a very large. For eight years. And during my time there, you’re not really ever focused on your own brand because you’re always selling other people’s brands.

Lacey Bridges:

So, it became second nature to me to have an agency because every day I was working on, you know, Nike or Adidas or Puma, New Balance. So, every day I was basically putting a different hat on, like, who do I need to be to work with Nike versus who you need to be to work with, like, a Vans. Very different, you know, consumers. And so, it just kind of, like, trained me to be adaptable. So, some clients prefer to only talk on the phone. Some clients prefer only text and, like, how they all need the information presented to them.

Lacey Bridges:

We always try to be as nimble as possible. People hire agencies to make their lives easier. So, what we do is, what I do with each client is I deep dive, talk to the people we’re talking to, and then we get on an internal call, and it’s like, okay, this is what they need from us. So how can we adapt to be the best agency support staff that they’ve ever worked with? And I think going in with that lens has allowed us to, for the most part, all of our clients have always been repeat clients and just kind of allowed us to continue to work in a happy way where we’re both leaving the project, like, you know, content with each other.

Melinda Wittstock:

Amazing. So, what’s the best way, Lacey, for people to find you and. And work with you? If they’re like, okay, like, this is perfect for me. I want to. I want to do this. I want to work with Black Flamingo. What’s the best way to reach out?

Lacey Bridges:

I think finding us on Instagram is probably the easiest and quickest way to see some of the work we’ve done and to reach out and contact us.

Melinda Wittstock:

Amazing. Well, I’ll make sure I have all of that in the show notes and thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Lacey Bridges:

Thank you again so much for having me. I really enjoy talking with you.

[INTERVIEW ENDS]

Melinda Wittstock:

Lacey Bridges is the CEO and founder of the experiential marketing agency, Black Flamingo.

Melinda Wittstock:

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Melinda Wittstock:

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