If you’re familiar with our podcast, Test. Learn. Grow., you already know host Myles Biggs, and we’re eagerly looking forward to what he’ll bring us this year. But an exciting bit of info we can share right away—drum roll, please—Myles is bringing on a co-host! Frequent 2021 podcast guest Allyn Reynolds will be joining Myles each week as they welcome new guests and dig into trending marketing topics. Read on to get to know both Allyn and Myles a bit more.
Rather listen than read? Myles and Allyn also touch on the whos and what’s of future podcast episodes, as well as the things they’re looking forward to in this first full year of Test. Learn. Grow.
Who is Allyn Reynolds?
Allyn likes to describe herself as a 90-year-old person living in a 25-year-old’s body. As her family and friends often joke with her about, she has an early dinnertime, an early bedtime, and an early wake-up time—usually 4:45 in the morning! Prepping for early retirement-home living aside, a driving force in Allyn’s life is creating. She devotes her free time to things like making stained glass, flameworking jewelry beads and creating her own jewelry, and writing, with an end goal of one day publishing her own book. (This is not the energy of a 90-year-old!)
The journey to marketer
Prior to coming to Level Agency, Allyn’s desire to connect with students and make an impact, along with a deep love of books, led her to teach high school English, both in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas. This led, in a very roundabout way, to meeting Level partner and president Patrick Patterson.
Around this same time, Allyn came across a book that really shaped how she thinks about her life. “Range,” by David Epstein, discusses accumulating different skillsets and being able to put yourself in different situations, rather than just very narrowly focusing on one thing. It makes the case that generalists, as opposed to specialists, will have the greatest tools for success.
So, through many conversations with Patrick and the new life view presented in “Range,” Allyn joined the team at Level—but not only as a marketer. She’s also a curriculum developer, a reader, an artist, a creator. As Allyn explains, “There’s so many things to my personality that I bring to the table, and so I just want to keep nurturing that. It’s not just any one thing. The more experiences we have, the more valuable we can be to clients and also the more valuable we are to our loved ones and to ourselves.”
The Swiss Army Knife of Level
Myles began his marketing career as a sophomore in college through an internship with a family-owned company. As many interns do, Myles found his job duties encompassed… everything. From assembling sample boards in the factory, accompanying salespeople on the road, and working internally on marketing campaigns, he learned a broad range of things during his time there. He joined the company full time as a marketing assistant post-college and worked his way up to the director of marketing. After the company became vertically integrated with several other companies and during his tenure as director of marketing, Myles was able to gain experience in a number of industries: housing, transportation, retail and wholesale cabinets—even a brewery. Eventually, this led to a promotion to general manager of the parent company, a manufacturing facility, where he added even more general business knowledge to his already wide breadth of marketing acumen.
His role as general manager taught him something—he wanted to return to marketing, but in a role that allowed him to focus on many aspects instead of a position with a narrow focus. Enter the agency life, which, with multiple clients, offered Myles the variety he was looking for. He joined us as the Director of Strategic Projects, where he tackles many things, such as our Test. Learn. Grow. podcast, and Allyn has dubbed him the Swiss Army Knife of Level. (We’re still trying to get that one to stick.)
A look ahead
With Allyn’s teaching background and Myles’ comprehensive marketing background, their two different perspectives often lead to greater insights when co-hosting the podcast, and they both look forward to expanding on that further in 2022. So, what can we expect from Test. Learn. Grow. in the year ahead?
- More client features! We welcomed FinListics to the podcast in 2021, and we have a full lineup of clients joining us in 2022. We look forward to hearing about their businesses and their goals and strategies.
- Because they balance each other out well, Myles will be bringing us new marketing topics, while Allyn will have some human perspective training topics to share. For example, she’ll be sitting down with Jordan Grace, Level’s data engineer, and digging into some foundational data trainings they’ve been working on.
- We’ll also highlight other Level employees and the work they are doing, as well as some marketing companies that we partner with to help our clients.
We can’t wait to share these episodes with you, so please tune in wherever you get your podcasts. Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to the show so that you never miss us!
For more information on what we do here at Level, be sure to visit Level.Agency or drop us a line and let us know how we can help!
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