Olympia Lambert knows the best business partnerships are all about relationships. As The Mixx's Sales & Marketing Director, Olympia is the primary agency point of contact for all new and existing clients. She prides herself on being there for her accounts every step of the way — from initial ideation until final project handoff. With more than 20 years’ marketing experience in client services and account management, she has an extensive background in branding and identity including overarching brand positioning, as well as campaign messaging, strategy and creative production.

During our first Meet the Mixx team spotlight, Olympia shared everything from how she left her small town in Florida to pursue big city dreams, to how she’s building client relationships as a Mixxer.

Q: How did you get to where you are today? What’s your story?

A: Well, I started in Central Florida growing up in a little small town north of Tampa. I always wanted to dream big and I always wanted to move up north. I finally got my dream come true of following the New England Patriots and New Kids On The Block by choosing to go to college at Boston University.

I did my degree in Communications (journalism, specifically). Immediately after my final exam, I started working at WGBH, a PBS station, for over eight years and closed captioning for the hearing impaired–basically working for the National Center for Accessible Media. It was a great learning experience and I worked on David Letterman, all the CBS programming, MTV, you name it. I did it all, but I wanted to be in New York. So, I cashed in my 401k, quit my job, rented a Ryder truck in the snowstorm, moved to Brooklyn, and had no job. One day I walked into a Tribeca gallery and the guy asked, “are you looking for a job?” I'm like, “yeah” So I started working there.

I started in the art world there, and at the same time, I eventually moved into the mortgage industry and started doing business development during the heyday before the crash. I’d worked in art then for about seven years or so then transitioned gradually out of the art world because I knew that I had done my time. I certainly did a lot of curation work, which was amazing, and I worked with artists. I had a whole blog. I was one of the better art reviewers online in the early stages of online blogs for art, but I really wanted to be able to pay my bills and actually have a financial future.

So, I left that and began working in architecture and digital marketing. From there, I moved to my packaging design agency and eventually ended up at The Mixx. That’s my journey of how I came from a small town to the biggest of the big.

Q: Tell me a bit more about the marketing work you did prior to joining The Mixx.

A: I worked for a creative design agency that specializes in packaging design, specifically for wine and spirits and beauty and cosmetics. I actually had four roles in one. I did business development, I did account management, I did strategy and I also did ideation. I was coming up with the ideas for designs of things like Beyonce's new perfume bottle and Enrique Iglesias. We did a lot of celebrity projects, and basically our creative lead would then design them according to my idea. So it was always a lot of fun, but I always felt very constricted because we only did packaging and I wanted to go further in marketing to other areas.

Q: “Relationships” is one of The Mixx’s core values. What does it mean to have a truly successful client relationship?

A: I think the best examples of a successful client relationship is a returning customer, and one that really understands everything their agency just did to support them.

Sometimes we have clients come back to us and refer us along to different divisions of business. That's one of the things we pride ourselves on is not doing something as a one-off. Our thinking is along the lines of: we're here for you, we understand your business objectives, and we can really go beyond what an initial brief is. We do a great job building relationships founded on trust so that clients keep coming back for more beyond that initial proposal.

We have over ten years of experience with multiple clients. In fact, since I've been here we've built out a whole wine and spirits wing of business. When I started we didn't have that. It's about building trust and also building education amongst the teams for new industries that they can expand inside of.

Q: What does The Mixx get right about client relationships and how do we differentiate ourselves in the market? 

A: One of the things that The Mixx really gets right with client relationships is integrating ourselves as part of [the clients’] teams. We operate like an external hire–like hiring a marketing manager or a creative team member inside your company. We like to not think of that breakdown as agency and client, but we're really part of the team and the process throughout. I think that is part of what we do so well.

We also do a great job of understanding our clients’ objectives and pain points. You know, what's keeping them up at night; what are they worried about? We try to determine how we can plug in to help solve those problems so they can sleep easy and have peace of mind. I think that's really how we have developed these key relationships and continue to grow. On top of that, creative and strategy lies at the core of everything we do, even if it’s something as simple as designing a brochure. We're always taking the overarching vision into account rather than looking at our work in silos.

Q: The Mixx is known for its ability to integrate a sense of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging into client projects. In fact, the company believes in diversity as a business strategy; what does that mean?

A: I think what diversity means to us is not just diversity of team; it is basically understanding that diversity is not just the right thing to do, but that it makes good business sense. You know, when you are reaching out to audiences from all walks of life, you're going to see a return on investment. Also, if your company is currently not doing anything in the space, you're going to get noticed more than anything right now. I think that to us, purpose-based marketing initiatives that really are truly inclusive are the way of the future.

Over the past two years, since COVID hit, there's been a huge moment of progress made. We still have a long way to go, but I think companies are really starting to take notice and they keep coming to us based on these objectives of trying to expand to new audiences that they may not have even considered.

In some cases, even women audiences are considered diverse to some companies who have really marketed to the white male audience for many years. It's really understanding there's new generations, there's new consumer habits, and there's new perspectives. If a company is not understanding that, they're gonna go by the wayside.