Growth heroes: Building a business where creativity thrives

This article is a part of our Risk + Reward series. Capital One Business and Inc. partnered to survey 314 business leaders in November of 2024 to explore the factors that affect how they weigh business risks and rewards in navigating modern business landscapes. View our key findings and other articles in this series.

It’s a given that a marketing agency needs creativity to thrive. Lisa Larson-Kelley is founder and CEO of Quantious, a Nyack, New York-based marketing firm that helps clients, including business-to-business (B2B) tech companies, improve their marketing capabilities. She believes creativity matters for every business, regardless of industry. Between rapid-fire technological advancements, increased global competition, and customers’ shrinking attention spans, business owners must think fast and innovate often or risk falling behind.

Larson-Kelley says her company’s recent back-to-back Inc. 5000 honors for exponential revenue growth would not have been possible without company creativity. Here are three ways she improved results and company culture for her clients.

Genius ideas don’t happen on demand. A business leader can improve the odds of them occurring, though. To spark creativity across a remote team, Larson-Kelley schedules frequent 15-minute optional events, like group puzzle work. Employees can join these events for a work break or spontaneous chat. Earlier this year, the firm started a new pilot program, Clarity Mode, which allows employees to choose six days every month to focus on independent work or other ways to foster productivity. For example, should they wish to take a long hike to get the creative juices flowing, that’s fine by Larson-Kelley.

“The only way to really get creative is to clear everything else away so you can play with ideas,” she says, noting that employees can use their clarity time in half- or full-day increments.

Innovative technology can also give companies a collaboration edge. Recently, Larson-Kelley used her Capital One Venture X Business card to purchase virtual reality (VR) headsets and smart glasses for the entire staff. 

“The purchase is a way to encourage hands-on exploration of the emerging tech we’re using with our clients every day. This tech is shaping the future of marketing. So, you can think about VR theoretically, or you can actually have the equipment and try it out,” she explains.

Last year, when a client wanted to celebrate its expansion into the U.S. with a brand activation that included a food truck, Quantious replicated the physical space in the virtual world. Teammates across the country worked together to identify the best location for the truck and perfect details of the experience.

Larson-Kelley often uses the rewards she earns from technology investments to invest in her team, too. Every nine months, she pays to fly employees to an in-person experience that fosters relationships and ignites creativity. “We’ve used the rewards to completely cover the cost of travel. This year, we are going to Puerto Rico,” she says.

One way to innovate is to change your approach. Sometimes, tackling an old problem in a new way can uncover novel solutions. One of the most effective recent changes Larson-Kelley made is to the firm’s creative process. Rather than delivering an aspect of marketing in a vacuum, such as writing marketing copy, the firm has created steps to evaluate a client’s entire marketing effort and identify roadblocks.

This holistic process enables Quantious to deliver value beyond what clients expect. For example, when a client needed sales enablement content, the team first devised a secret shopper exercise to understand and improve customer experience, which bolstered marketing content performance in turn.

To turn your processes into a competitive advantage, Larson-Kelley says it’s helpful to get an outside perspective and focus on how your team can go above and beyond for customers.

“Marketing’s always shifting. You’ve got to innovate and adapt. You’ve got to step back and see that whole picture, and you’ve got to be willing to blow things up sometimes and rebuild in a better way,” she explains.

Looking ahead, Larson-Kelley wants her firm to be the place marketing teams consult when they need to understand and overcome challenges. “We want to be the first company that they think of,” she says. “Creativity is the only way that we’re going to be able to get there.”