Culture Is Your Secret Weapon featuring Mike Sullivan

Mike Sullivan (0:00)

The richer the culture, the more durable the brand. It's impossible for a competitor to steal that because it's from the inside out. We don't always have to be smooth, but do we understand what we're putting into the environment? We're an advertising agency, so there's a whole lot of activity. There's a lot of unpredictability. There's a constant change. You're trying to stay on trend. You're trying to bring in new ideas. There's a ton of work going through the agency, so it is a high-velocity environment. And so what we want to do is we want to create systems that counsel our own clients. When they're trying to build brands, you've got to stand for something. And if you stand for something, that means that you stand against something else.

SPEAKER_2 (0:39)

Welcome to the Culture From the Heart Podcast on the From the Heart Business Network. In a business world where employees and customers crave authenticity and trust, hosts Larry Levine and Darrell Amy are on a mission to find and showcase heart-centered executives and the companies they lead.

You are about to hear an inspiring conversation with a visionary leader that's bringing heart into the workplace, empowering employees, serving their clients, and uplifting communities, all to create true success. This is Culture From the Heart. The movement starts here. Let's begin.

Darrell Amy (1:19)

Welcome to Culture From the Heart. I'm your co-host Darrell Amy here today with Larry Levine, and we're joined in the studio by Mike Sullivan. He's the president and CEO of the LOOMIS Agency, a Dallas-based challenger brand advertising agency, and he's also the co-author of The Voice of the Underdog, how challenger brands create distinction by thinking customer culture first. Hey Mike, welcome to Culture From the Heart. It's great to have you here.

Mike Sullivan (1:46)

Yeah. Thank you, Darrell. It's great to be here. I appreciate the opportunity.

Larry Levine (1:50)

It's our pleasure and have a great time, Mike Sullivan.

Darrell Amy (1:53)

No doubt. This is going to be fun. As we kick it off, you know the question we ask every executive on this show, and that is, what does Culture From the Heart mean to you?

Mike Sullivan (2:02)

Yeah. Larry or Darrell, I would say Culture From the Heart from my perspective is an honest culture.

Leaders can say all sorts of things about culture. We can have neat slogans on the wall, but it's really how you behave. It's how you lead. It's what you do. It's not what you say. And so I would say that, you know, for me, I wanted to create the kind of place where people can do their very best work. And holding that as an aspiration, I had to get real clear on my values, start there and build out. But I would sort of put a button on it. I'd say it's an honest culture. It reflects your intentionality. And it's really good to be super deliberate and super intentional about what it is you're trying to create. So something like that. That's how I kind of characterize it.

Larry Levine (2:58)

I like it. I like the words that's kind of rising to the surface, honesty, intentionality, values. So as we land on values, I'd be curious, Mike, if you'd be open to sharing some of your corporate values at The LOOMIS Agency.

Mike Sullivan (3:12)

Oh, absolutely. And by the way, we've actually codified this in a book here at the agency. That's another thing that I would say. It's not written, it's not real. That's a little book that I hold up at all of our company meetings. It contains our values, it contains our purpose, it contains our vision, it creates, it contains language around the way we treat one another, phrases we like to use.

I jokingly call it like, welcome to the cult, you know, but it's a good cult, you know.

It's, you know, drink the Kool-Aid a little bit, you know. Some of the values we really appreciate are transparency and transparency, it costs something, you know. When you're honest about what's going on, when you're clear about what's going on, it means that you share. You know, I've been accused sometimes of oversharing. I don't think that's possible, you know. We invite people into the organization who appreciate transparency. And I find that when we're communicating, communicating frequently, you create a more sort of settled atmosphere.

Another value would be communication, you know. One of the sort of my hero leaders from back in the day was a guy named Kip Tindell, who was the founder of the Container Store, you know, sort of a legendary regional retailer. And he had a great phrase. He said, communication is leadership. You know, the idea that you need to over communicate. And so that we are on the side of transparency, communication. And of course, there's things like integrity. There's collaboration. There's also hard work, you know. There's nothing soft about culture, you know. Culture can be really high performance. We have a high performance, high velocity culture. And again, we've recruited people who appreciate that, want that and help us maintain that.