We Never Set Out to Build an Agency (And That’s Why It Works)

Here’s something that’ll blow your mind about the marketing industry: the best agencies are often built by people who never worked at agencies. I know this because I’ve spent 15 years proving it, and frankly, I’m getting a little tired of pretending it’s not obvious.

When I started Red Branch Media in 2010, I had zero agency experience. None. Zilch. And thank God for that, because if I’d known how agencies were “supposed” to work, I probably would have built something as soul-crushing and ineffective as everyone else.

The Beautiful Accident

The origin story of Red Branch Media reads like a case study in “what happens when you don’t know better.” I’d been head of marketing and CMO at multiple companies, but I was ready to go freelance. Not because I had to (no dramatic layoff story here), but because I wanted the freedom to work differently and hang out with my adorable young boys (they’re not so young anymore 😩…)

What started as solo freelancing quickly snowballed into something bigger. I hired a good friend to manage social media (he’s now our managing partner). My then-husband jumped in to handle web development (and now he’s a partner at the Branch, also my ex.) And then something magical happened…I kept finding these brilliant people from completely non-marketing backgrounds.

Athletes. Retail workers. Artists. Restaurant managers. Data analysts. Video editors. Writers. Non-profit operations folks. People who looked at marketing problems through completely different lenses because they’d never been told there was a “right” way to think about them.

Here’s the thing: I have ADHD like a mofo, and I needed a team that would help pen that energy in without stamping it out entirely. Traditional marketing thinking wasn’t going to cut it. I needed people who could see around corners, who brought fresh perspectives, who weren’t constrained by “how we’ve always done it.” I always say the stuff that makes our agency cool is/are/were IDK, literally the bumpers we built to keep me in my lane.

Why Ignorance Was Our Secret Weapon

That diverse, non-agency team became our superpower. While traditional agencies were hiring from the same talent pools with the same training and the same limitations, we were building something entirely different.

Our innovations came directly from that outside perspective: pods (because why shouldn’t clients work directly with specialized teams?), membership models (because retainers are stupid), transparent time tracking (because trust shouldn’t be a luxury), our extensive template library (because efficiency shouldn’t be a secret), and internal tech solutions that actually solve real problems.

I didn’t know I was supposed to:

• Lock clients into long-term contracts (mutual trust works better)
• Hold their data hostage with proprietary systems (ethical nightmare and like, rude?)
• Fragment their marketing across multiple vendors (comprehensive beats piecemeal every damn time)
• Treat team members like interchangeable resources (humans aren’t spreadsheet line items)
• Hire only from traditional marketing backgrounds (diversity of thought wins every time)

Breaking Rules We Didn’t Know Existed

The traditional agency model is built on information asymmetry and dependency. You know what I built instead? A company that treats clients like intelligent humans who deserve transparency, integration, and results.

Take our team structure. We don’t have the typical agency hierarchy because nobody on our founding team came from agencies. Instead, we built pods around client needs and team strengths. It’s like making a seating chart for an event.

Or consider how we approach problems. When a retail manager looks at B2B marketing challenges, they bring insights about customer experience that MBAs miss. When an artist tackles content strategy, they see visual storytelling opportunities that traditional copywriters overlook.

The ADHD Advantage

Here’s something most agencies won’t tell you: marketing requires the kind of rapid-fire, multi-dimensional thinking that neurotypical brains often struggle with. You need to hold fifteen variables in your head while staying creative, strategic, and tactical at the same time.

My ADHD brain does this naturally, and I built a team that complements rather than constrains that energy. We over-communicate (because clarity matters). We use templates and systems (because structure enables creativity). We build in “bumpers” (because busy brains need support, not judgment).

The Results Speak for Themselves

Fifteen years later, we’ve worked with 200+ B2B tech companies with an awesome client retention rate. We’ve become the go-to agency for HR tech specifically because we understand that industry inside and out, not because we’re generalists trying to be everything to everyone.

But here’s the thing that really gets me excited: we’re still breaking rules we didn’t know existed. While other agencies are either terrified of AI or throwing it at everything without strategy, we’re approaching it the same way we approached everything else…what actually works best for our clients?

Why This Matters to You

If you’re running a B2B company (especially in HR tech), you’ve dealt with enough agencies to know the drill. The dog and pony show presentations, the junior-level execution after senior-level pitches, the mysterious black box billing, the fragmented strategies that somehow never quite gel together.

That’s not how marketing actually works. Marketing is comprehensive, integrated, and strategic. It requires deep industry knowledge, consistent execution, and transparent partnership. It requires treating you like the intelligent business leader you are, not like a walking budget.

The accidental genius of Red Branch Media isn’t that we set out to revolutionize the agency model. It’s that we built it from scratch with people who never learned it was broken in the first place. We just hired brilliant humans from everywhere and let them solve problems their way.

And after 15 years of proving this approach works? I’m not about to start following someone else’s playbook now.

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This article was originally published on LinkedIn if you want to check it out there too!