A Requiem for an Agency

WUT. Yep. It’s been a crazy two months!

About two months ago, as some major contracts were wrapping up, Stylesmith “the agency” found itself at a crossroads. Do we keep going on a skeleton budget and skeleton staff? Keep pushing through another “famine” to get to the “feast”?

I started Stylesmith in 2009. Mostly by accident, my work with bloggers and with this very blog, had lead to a few social media contracts and that work grew organically over the next couple of years. In 2012 I landed a client with a retainer big enough to afford me a staff and, as we grew more, in 2013, an office.

It’s never been easy, but it’s been fun. I loved running a business, doing some really fun work, really pushing my boundaries creatively and sometimes humanly. I’ve employed some amazing individuals, many of which remain incredible friends, nay, family.

But, it’s taken it’s toll on me, and this year, with some tough losses both personally and professionally, the weight of running a business, things like doing taxes, payroll, pushing for new business, all started to weigh too heavily on me. I just wanted to do good work, and empower my incredible staff, and instead I was doing paperwork.

So, after a moment of clarity, and the support of the best team I’ve ever had, I decided it was time to move on. We had rented a house in Palm Springs for Coachella weekend and took Stylesmith “the agency” out in style, whilst concurrently working on our resumes and applying for jobs. We know how to partay. Hagop managed to creepily snap the above pic of me “partying away”.

So, a resume, and a job. Something I hadn’t considered for over a decade! I immediately went to the website of a social media agency I’d been admiring from afar, McBeard. They had an Account Director position available and I just thought, that would be pretty perfect.

By the end of the weekend I had my first interview. Three more interviews/meetings later, whilst I was up in Portland (I figured if it was bad news there’d be lots of beer, and if it was good news, there’d be lots of beer) I was offered the job, and I started the following week.

That was a little under two months ago, and so far, it was the smartest decision I could have made. I’m working on a great account, with a great team. In such a short time I’ve really felt a part of the company, in a really meaningful way. A lot of the confidence I had lost in running my own company is returning, and having my experience and expertise valued has been incredibly validating.

So what happens to Stylesmith? Well, I’ll always be Stylesmith, and this blog, where the whole thing began almost a decade ago, isn’t going anywhere! In fact, I’m hoping I’ll be much better at blogging much more frequently now. But no promises just yet!

As a sort of goodbye to Stylesmith “the agency” I wanted to share some of the work that I was most proud of in it’s last few months, so I’ll leave you with that, and next time I’m back I’ll be able to share all the fun stuff from 2016 so far :)

UNIQLO “Cold Weather” Highlights for Social Media
Shot and Styled by Me. Modeled by Caitly Balthazar.