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Steve Parker, Jr. brings extensive digital marketing and business experience as CEO and co-founder of Levelwing. He is an industry leader, trendsetter, and occasional provocateur.

In this episode of Chats with Chip, Steve discusses his recent video Uncommon Transparency, and how internal and external transparency will benefit all agency relationships. He explores his own experiences and why he chose to produce a series of videos examining Levelwing’s values.

The discussion will provide agency owners a lot of food for though in how they interact with clients and their own teams.

QUOTES

• Steve: “We had to find those tent poles that we believed in, and said, these are the things that are going to hold us up via good weather or bad weather and in the world of our business, which always has its ups and downs. And so those three things that we settled upon were transparency, fundamentals, and setting expectations, or in other words, really good communication, internally and externally.”
• Chip: “If you think about transparency, from an agency perspective, it’s a thread that runs through the entirety to the business, particularly for anyone in the digital portion of marketing, because transparency has to do with the techniques that you’re using and how consumers or audiences are seeing that transparency, how you’re being transparent with your own teams, how you’re being transparent with clients, or with partners.”
• Steve: “To steal from Jeff Adelson-Yan’s words, he would say you’re either transparent or you’re not, there’s no sort of in between.”
• Chip: “This is not something that’s just cropped up, it’s something that has been part of the business model of agencies, particularly those who engage on the advertising and creative side, for a long time. And it’s how money is made.”

RESOURCES

• Levelwing
• Uncommon Transparency short film
• Steve on LinkedIn | Twitter
• Catch Me If You Can
• American Greed

ABOUT STEVE PARKER

Steve Parker, Jr. is the CEO and Co-Founder of Levelwing, an independent digital marketing agency specializing in analytics, media, creative and social. Levelwing was born in New York City and today operates in New York, Charleston (HQ) and San Francisco, serving some of the world’s most recognizable brands.

Parker has led the company since it was founded and he has produced record-setting and award-winning advertising campaigns on the largest global stages including cultural moments such as the Super Bowl and the Olympic Games. He has also been a part of the leadership team that has garnered recognition for the agency’s growth, including four consecutive years on the Inc. 500|5000 list of Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America.

[read the transcript]

About Chip Griffin

Chip Griffin is the Founder & CEO of the Small Agency Growth Alliance (SAGA) and a longtime agency owner and executive. He helps PR and marketing communications agencies build better businesses. Full bio