Matt Glynn came to be a partner in Performance Marketing “accidentally,” he says, which is to say, a partnership wasn’t quite in his crystal ball when Glynn joined the company.

“As Kevin [Lentz, president] would say, ‘just make things better,’ which is on the board up front. And so at some point I was just trying to make some things better so that over the course of a few years, I ended up getting super invested into the business,” Glynn said. 

When the opportunity came for Glynn to buy in, he jumped.

“I think that my personality and how agencies operate match up well,” Glynn, now COO at both Performance Marketing and Shift Interactive, said. “Pretty loose and casual, not a traditional corporate environment.” 

Glynn is known for that style, and stuck with it as his roles changed over 11 years with Performance Marketing. 

“That’s something I’ve thought about and talked about as I changed roles throughout the company. Do I need to change who I am? Kevin said, ‘No, that is why they like you, and that’s why they follow you, and if you were in a different mindset they may be confused as to what’s going on,’ ” Glynn said.

As a leader among a rapidly growing staff – Shift Interactive, Performance Marketing and Blue Traffic Digital Marketing have a combined 75 employees, and are exploring options to expand or move out of current office space — Glynn prioritizes transparency in decisions and a willingness to push forward with clients and co-workers.

“One thing that people struggle with is being open enough to push the boundaries. I’m very much like, let’s not be status quo,” Glynn said. “I really want people to kind of push the limits a little bit, test their clients, test themselves. We support that.”

Companywide, Glynn and his partners have pushed off a yearlong branding strategy to review the three agencies, all based out of Performance Marketing’s West Des Moines office. The companies’ strategy and insights team launched a series of interviews with stakeholders, and recently offered recommendations to leadership.

“They evaluated the brands all back from the beginning of time, and really pushed us on what we personally feel like the future holds,” Glynn said. “They took all those bits of information to give us four options that are four very different directions to go. … Now we just have to pack our emotions away and get to what makes the most sense.”

Finding the most cohesive way to brand the three companies will help clients see all aspects of services available, Glynn said: “You can get many more services than you ever thought you could.”

The companies have also set out to review all existing handbook policies to see whether the policy matches the needs of current and future employees. 

“We don’t believe anything was super outdated. We’ve mapped out and have a plan to touch everything that we do and everything that we stand for, to make sure that we’re in the right place or making adjustments as needed,” Glynn said. “I don’t think a lot of companies take the chance to look at everything, and I think the result of figuring out what we have been doing right and can just tweak, and what things that we really can add value to team members’ lives … I think we’re going to change a lot for the positive. Nothing was broken, but it’s a chance to stop and say we can make this so much better.”

“We never want – I never want – people to wonder where we’re headed or where we’re going. They can always ask the question. I think that an open-door policy is huge, and there’s nothing I love more than someone who will come in, hang out, talk about work problems or work successes,” Glynn added.