On a Wednesday afternoon in August 2011, I was in Long Island City meeting with a manufacturing company, trying to pitch their Presidents Club event. The pitch was unsuccessful, but it turned out to be an excellent sales lesson. When you are selling a company that is unnamed, unincorporated, and won’t officially exist for another two months, t’s very difficult to convince a new prospective client to hire you.
Thankfully, that immaculate sales pitch is just a footnote to the day, because the true career-defining moment happened in the few minutes that followed. It was then that I was able to connect with the COO of Greenlight Capital, a hedge fund I had worked with for the past several years on their annual Investor Day.
Me: “Dan, have you given any thought to our last conversation? I’m going to be starting my own agency, and I’d love to have Greenlight’s support as a client. I know it’s a leap of faith, but my name is going to be on the door, and you have my word we’ll do right by you. Will you hire us?”
Dan: “Yes. Send me a contract and I’ll sign it.”
That was it. A 45-second conversation that gave me all the reinforcement, justification, and validation I needed. A conversation that Dan probably forgot by dinner time, but that I would remember vividly forever. Two months later, we were named, incorporated, and had our first signed contract from Greenlight Capital. Sequence was off to the races, and we never looked back.
Fourteen years later, so much has changed. We’ve grown tremendously. We’ve carved out a reputation that I’m incredibly proud of. We’ve navigated a business centered on in-person experiences through a global pandemic and shutdown. We’ve stumbled. We’ve been challenged and come up short. We’ve been challenged and risen to the occasion. We’ve had so many incredible employees, past and present, who have made Sequence a better agency. And we’ve had the privilege of working with global brands and clients that, frankly, I never dreamed of having the opportunity to work with.
With all of that, the prevailing source of pride for me is more simple and straightforward. This January will mark Sequence’s 15th year working with Greenlight Capital on their Investor Day. After we launched in October, the first event we ended up producing was a last minute Holiday Party for LinkedIn. This December will mark our 15th year working with LinkedIn on that same event, though these days, it’s slightly larger. This past May, we wrapped the design and production of a Global Forum for The Wharton School, another client that made the jump with us when we started Sequence, and one we’ve worked with consistently ever since.
Fourteen years in, the most meaningful measure of success isn’t head count or balance sheets or agency footprint. It’s trust. The trust of people like Dan, who took a leap before there was a name on the door. The trust of clients like Greenlight, LinkedIn, and Wharton, who stayed with us through every season of change. And the trust of our team, who show up every day to build something that didn’t exist before. That throughline, built one conversation, one event, and one relationship at a time, is what has — and always will — define Sequence.
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