Agency Operators: Level Up

Growing a mastermind of Agency Operators, teaching agency operations.

In 16 weeks, I help agency owners Install Operational Excellence through:

1. Getting clarity on your Core Metrics
2. Creating the 6 Foundations
3. Increasing team Capacity (and profitability)

Founder

WKND Digital

Advisor to WKND Digital Leadership & Ecomm Investments

Advisor

Responsible for: 
- Implementing LEAN business systems
- Developing the overall business strategy
- Coaching and mentoring service line leaders
- Overall P&L and service line P&Ls

Chief Operating Officer & Partner

WKND Investments

WKND Investments exists to be the #1 growth vehicle for passionate brand owners.

We are brand owners who have done more than $45M in revenue, and are looking to partner with great DTC e-comm brands to help them scale and exit.

We own a world-class digital marketing agency that manages our investment's core infrastructure.

Co-Founder

Family Gifts Co.

Family Gifts Co. is an 8-Figure DTC E-Commerce brand in the family gifts niche. Our mission is to Bring Families Together, and we do that through our extensive catalog of unique, personalized gifts.

-Responsible for overall marketing strategy, product development, and managing a team of amazing people.

Chief Executive Officer

Vatizam 

Vatizam is a boutique marketing consulting firm that works with 7 and 8 figure brands to grow their businesses through paid advertising.

Aetna

Provide medical, dental, life & disability products to Orlando clients through broker distribution by relationship building, product differentiation, and consultative sales approach.

2012 Results:
o $10,595,000 in medical sales 
o $545,000 in dental sales 
o $455,000 in life / disability sales

Middle Market Account Executive - Central Florida

Provide medical, dental, life & disability products to South Florida clients through broker distribution by relationship building, product differentiation, and consultative sales approach.

2011 Results: 
o $2,725,000 in medical sales 
o $255,000 in dental sales 
o $75,000 in life / disability sales 

2010 Results: 
o $425,000 in dental sales 
o $100,000 in life / disability sales

Middle Market Account Executive - South Florida

• Prospect and qualify potential small business (1-50) clients
• Receive goal of 2 prospect meetings a week by cold calling 100-150 people a day

Sales Intern

Kyle Hunt is an American entrepreneur and business investor, with over 12 years of experience in starting, scaling, buying, and selling 7 and 8 figure E-commerce brands and Agencies. 

According to his wife, he is also "the best husband."

With humble roots in Orlando, FL, Kyle has quickly grown to be one of the most respected names in the Agency space.

He is currently the Founder of Agency Operators: Level Up, which helps $50k-250k/mo. agency owners install operational excellence in their agencies.

He is also the CEO of Family Gifts Co., a multi-8 figure DTC E-commerce brand.

Previously, he was:

Co-Founder of WKND Investments, a company dedicated to investing in the best $5-$30m/yr. USA based DTC e-commerce brands.

CEO of Vatizam, a marketing consulting agency that scales Brands to 7 and 8 figures through funnel optimization & paid traffic.

Kyle Hunt

Twelve years ago, you couldn’t spot me without a drink in my hand.

Six nights a week.
Out with friends.
Partying like the world was ending.
Because that was just “being social,” right?

2 weeks ago, I went out with a big group of guys.
Heavy hitters in my industry.
Drinks everywhere.
Shots going around like candy.

And me?
I had zero urge to join in.

So, what changed?

Simple.
I met my wife.

She never touched alcohol.
(No objection to it, just never wanted it).

Our early dates?
I felt like the odd one out, always ordering a drink while she just smiled and sipped water.
To be honest, it made me pay attention to my habits for the first time.

Over time, things shifted.
One less drink here, one less there.
The wild nights faded.
Now, it’s maybe a drink or two, and only for a real celebration.

Turns out, the right person doesn’t just accept you - they actually make you better, whether you realize it or not.

Wild how someone else’s example can rewrite your own story.

Ever had someone change your life without trying?
Share yours or tag them.

wknd-investments

familygiftsco

JSESSIONID

li_at

Talks about #ecommerce, #marketing, #acquisitions, and #entrepreneurship

8-Figure Agency COO | Helping Ecomm & Digital Marketing Agency Owners Build $5M/yr Self-Managing Profit Machines | Proud Girl Dad | 7-Figure Agency Exit

Stuart Briscar

For the past 20 years I’ve worked with 62 CEOs and business owners on marketing strategy. That’s given me a front-row seat on how to think strategically when building organizations.

A lot of my work has been about helping teams handle change and keep moving. I’ve led restructures, trained people on new standards, and run regular 1:1s with managers to find and clear roadblocks. I’ve also worked with marketing and creative teams to tighten how they communicate so projects stay on track.

I’ve trained specialists to step into account strategy, developed team playbooks and standards to build consistency, and set a simple leadership rhythm with weekly manager check-ins and monthly growth sessions to keep priorities clear. I also built a recognition program that made people’s contributions visible and encouraged participation. Across many roles, I’ve acted as the bridge between strategy and execution.

During a merger, I temporarily managed both teams, aligned them on shared processes, and helped stabilize delivery while maintaining performance. 

At my church, I restructured the staff onboarding process that was spread across five people and reduced it to two, which made everything more consistent. I also created the Leadership Development Plan for our church and trained staff through workshops and 1:1s so everyone used the same language and framework to develop volunteers at every level.

My background in performance psychology and my doctoral work in strategic leadership help me connect how people think with how organizations grow.

Head of Marketing

Blue Burst Media a full-service digital marketing agency that is dedicated to helping businesses achieve their growth goals. Blue Burst Media has over 15 years of experience working with businesses across a variety of industries and a track record of delivering excellent results for our clients.

Our signature service, Digital Growth Teams, offers businesses a cost-effective way to access top marketing talent. Our dedicated teams are made up of senior-level professionals who are committed to helping businesses achieve their marketing goals and drive growth. With Digital Growth Teams, businesses can enjoy the benefits of a dedicated in-house marketing team without the cost and commitment of hiring one.

If you are a sub $10M dtc ecom brand, here's how you scale 50%+ in 2026...

1) have a great product 
2) build a community 
3) target 4x MER 
4) partner with creators to be your creative engine
5) Let Meta be your acquisition engine, TOF on TikTok and YouTube Ads, and Google for the cleanup
6) lock in retention 
7) real customer service
8) have flexible ad budgets
9) Put hero products on Amazon

At $7M...

10) Add in programmatic
11) Add Post Pilot into the mix
12) Upgrade attribution

What else should be on this list?

Stuart Briscar, MS

Marketing leader helping brands scale efficiently and profitably

🚀 BLACK FRIDAY SPECIAL
Take Stuart to Work Day

Try before you hire. 🔍

For one day I’ll step into your world and help solve a real problem:
🧠 marketing confusion
⚡ leadership tension
🧩 team dynamics that feel stuck
⏳ decisions that keep getting delayed

No interview. No pitch deck. Just real work.

What’s included:
🕘 90 minute strategy session
📝 written roadmap afterward
📆 follow up check in a week later

Only 2 Black Friday spots.
After that this offer disappears. ❌

Why?
Because the best way to show what I do is to actually do it.

If you want one of the two spots, DM me with your biggest challenge. 

Let’s get unstuck. 🔓

People have been saying SEO is dead for more than a decade.

It isn't dead. Not then. Not now.

And AI hasn't killed it either.

Yes... it looks different today. You cannot stuff keywords anymore or hide them in white text on a white background. Yes, LLMs can search websites and recommend products. 

But SEO is still alive and working for those who respect it.

LLMs still search the web. Search engines still reward relevance.

Good content still matters.
Backlinks still matter.
Authority still matters.

Stop burying SEO before it takes its last breath. It is not a ghost. It just evolved.

SEO survives because the internet is still built on language. That is something AI does not replace. It magnifies it. The real question is how to write for both humans and machines without losing the human voice.

I once had a client tell me to turn off their best performing ad because the CTR was "too low"

I said: "This ad has the lowest CAC and the highest number of purchases... it doesn't make sense to turn it off"

They followed up with, "well, I just don't like the way the ad looks"

What is your favorite client story? 👇

The Shopify Sidekick is the greatest addition to Shopify in the history of Shopify.

I have been using Shopify for over 10 years and I used to think real-time shipping in Shopify was amazing

And then I thought Cart Drawer included in basic templates was amazing

And then I thought integrating Meta data directly was amazing

But Sidekick is by far greater than all of these combined.

You can literally ask it anything about your data and it will tell you super fast

Want to know your Contribution Margin?

Want to know what percentage of orders happen below your Free Shipping Threshold?

Want to know who your top customers are?

Sidekick can do it almost instantly.

---
If Google Analytics would include something like this with Gemini, it would make GA4 usable again

I might be addicted to learning!

But my favorite part is getting to share what I've learned with other people

I was having a conversation with friend who also teaches and I asked them WHY they enjoy teaching.

They said something along the lines of "I enjoy sharing knowledge with others"

Good answer!

But mine is a little different.

When I am sharing what I have learned, it usually is from a place of "You have got to check this out... this is so cool!"

These are many of the books I read this year... it's actually not even all of them.

And not only am I learning from books, NotebookLM has completely changed the way we can learn things quickly.

If you are not using NotebookLM to learn, you are missing out on an incredible opportunity. It literally 10x how much I am able to learn, and then teach others.

So, we are getting close to the end of the year...

What were some of your favorite books that you read this year?

Look closely at the image below. 

At first you just see an eye. But look again and you’ll notice something else… a maze.

That maze exists in all of us.

Whether we realise it or not, our brains constantly take shortcuts. 

Psychologists call them cognitive biases and every consumer is influenced by them every day. 

We like to believe we make rational choices, yet we often react faster than we reflect.

Dan Ariely says humans are predictably irrational, and the more you look at the psychology, the easier it is to agree with that concept.

Here are some of the ways we are influenced, whether we realize it or not...

→ Loss Aversion
Losing hurts twice as much as winning feels good. That’s why “Don’t miss out” often outperforms “Save today.”

→ Scarcity & FOMO
When something is limited, desire increases. Countdown timers and “Only 3 left” aren’t just tactics, they speak directly to a primal survival system.

→ Anchoring
The first number we see quietly defines what “expensive” or “cheap” means. A high original price makes the discount feel bigger than it really is.

→ Social Proof
We copy others when we’re not sure what to do. Reviews, UGC, and “10,000 people have already joined” tap into our herd wiring.

→ Reciprocity
Give first. Receive later. Free trials and samples activate an ancient rule of social fairness.

For myself, there have been way too many times I purchased something simply because it had over 1,000 5-star reviews. 

Is marketing about manipulation, or is it about understanding the triggers already deep inside of each of us, getting us to do what we already want to do?

Most companies aren't hiring for a culture fit, they're hiring for a vibe fit

They are checking for chemistry when they should be checking for character

They are checking for personality when they should be checking for values

But that's the wrong way to hire for a culture fit.

A person's personality may look great when things are easy, but who are they under pressure?

In your next interview, ask these questions to uncover a person's values and character:

"Think of a time something didn’t go according to plan. How did you adjust?"

"When have you had to make a decision that wasn’t popular? What guided your thinking?"

"What’s a project you’d do differently if you could go back? What did it teach you?"

👉  Leaders, how are you checking for culture fit before you ever hire someone?

90% of the InMail I get is these secret "franchise opportunities"

What in the world is this?

And it's always from a middle-person

The funniest thing ChatGPT has added lately

Industry specific experience in DTC Ecom is overrated.

This is coming from someone who has owned marketing across 12 different industries... beauty, fashion, wellness, home goods, and everything in between.

What I have seen over and over is that the fundamentals always win. 

If you understand the ICP on a deep level
If the product is strong
If the messaging speaks clearly to real desires and real problems... you can adapt to almost any vertical.

The strategies, the acquisition structures, the creative thinking, the testing methodology, and the customer psychology all transfer.

Every industry may have its nuances, but the core levers do not change. 

If you can build trust and guide buying decision, the industry is basically irrelevant.

Specialization might help, but strong fundamentals scale everywhere.

taplio

The Battle

Kyle Hunt

Stuart Briscar

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreKyle Hunt's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreStuart Briscar's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Kyle Hunt

Stuart Briscar

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Kyle Hunt's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreStuart Briscar's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreKyle Hunt's LinkedIn Performance