Dive into the story of a former radio host-turned-agency CEO, Shawnda Huffman, as she shares her relentless journey from craving connection to leading an award-winning creative communications agency. Discover the blend of fierceness and compassion that fuels 2D Agency’s rise in the marketing landscape. Get ready for an episode packed with insights on overcoming fears, embracing the power of PR, and the significance of humility in celebrating achievements.
Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast.
- Shawnda’s childhood quest for connection.
- The transition from radio to marketing.
- Building Tuuti Agency and its milestones.
- The role of introversion in leadership.
- Embracing the “award-winning” accolade.
Resources:
Connect with Shawnda Huffman:
Connect with our hosts:
Quotables:
- 20:22 – I am a true believer on learning from failure, even though I hate it. As much as I hate when it happens, I’m like, okay, well what do we learn from this? How could we, how could we get better? And so and so, yeah, like I think with, whenever I share that, because to people that meet me who are in my life, they’re like, really? You don’t seem afraid of anything. And I’m like, I think it’s my fear of control. Like to me, I will not allow fear to control me. I won’t allow anything to control me. So for me, I categorize that the same. So even though I am afraid, I’m not gonna allow it to control my destiny and kind of what I do.
- 18:21 – Josh: What do you think is the difference between, you know, you who went through that stuff and we’ll call it came out on top, versus someone who let’s just say went through a very similar experience and wanted to be successful and didn’t, like what would you identify as something that you did or traits or whatever it is that kinda led to your success based on that trauma?
Shawnda: I think my number one trait is relentlessness. And I think some people, like, they get, they’re really surprised when I say the scariest part of my scariest part of my day is waking up in the morning. I’m afraid of everything, but I refuse to allow fear to control me. - 19:60 – Josh: And the quote that I think I came up with is the, your fear of regret should be bigger than your fear of failure. And I, and I think that’s kind of what you were saying is.
Shawnda: Oh yeah
Josh: Should be worried about not trying it more than you should, like whatever the end result is. And, and I think that’s kind of what you’re highlighting.
Shawnda: Yeah. I mean, it, it’s kind of cliche to say because I mean, you hear that all the time, but it’s so true and it’s something to live by. Like I, me, like, even though I am so afraid, I’m afraid to fail, but I’m also knowing that failure is absolutely necessary to become better and get stronger and learn from it. Right? I’m, I am a true believer on learning from failure, even though I hate it. As much as I hate when it happens - 35:20 – Sometimes people just deplete me and I need to take like a five day rest. But I also like, I’m okay. Like, people were also surprised because I’m so loud. I’m like, I’m like the megaphone of the business, but really I have to like pump myself up to do those types of things. I’m not just like naturally waking up going, yeah, let’s conquer the world. I have to like go okay. Like, just kind of like a transformer, just kind of, you know, work myself into the day. But I’m just not naturally like that. I call it, again, going back to my childhood, is it trauma response? I don’t know. I have no idea.
- 43:43 – So Kaylee is like the master of like grassroots, like if you have, because I think people get, give you, they have a kind of a negative undertone when it comes to pr. They think it’s just media coverage and it’s not, I mean it’s like, it’s, it’s polarizing campaigns to grab attention for your business and then obviously that free advertising, free media comes, comes along if your message is right.