The Spark
The Spark
Podcast Description
Overview
The Creative Assembly Podcast amplifies Nashville's creative voices, showcasing diverse talents and fostering growth through shared journeys. By exploring the unique experiences and stories of the city’s agency owners, innovators, and creators, the podcast inspires connection and collaboration, reflecting Nashville’s rich creative culture.
Mission Statement
Our mission is to amplify Nashville’s diverse creative voices, foster growth through shared journeys, and inspire a city that thrives on collaboration.
Creative Assembly Podcast is more than a platform—it’s a gathering place for stories that uplift and connect Nashville’s creative heartbeat. Together, we celebrate what makes our city unique, cultivating a vibrant community where creativity thrives.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast focuses on themes such as creative entrepreneurship, leadership struggles, and the dynamics of the agency world, with episodes like Lauren Reed discussing sustainable business practices and Drew McLellan exploring the operational challenges in agency management, aiming to inspire collaboration and connection within the Nashville creative community.
The Spark Podcast amplifies Nashville’s creative voices, showcasing diverse talents and fostering growth through shared journeys. By exploring the unique experiences and stories of the city’s agency owners, innovators, and creators, the podcast inspires connection and collaboration, reflecting Nashville’s rich creative culture.
Mission Statement
Our mission is to amplify Nashville’s diverse creative voices, foster growth through shared journeys, and inspire a city that thrives on collaboration.
The Spark Podcast is more than a platform—it’s a gathering place for stories that uplift and connect Nashville’s creative heartbeat. Together, we celebrate what makes our city unique, cultivating a vibrant community where creativity thrives.
What does it take to build a digital marketing agency from a $500 website to a million-dollar business, and then reinvent it for the AI era?
In this episode of The Spark, Mark Scrivner sits down with Michael Epps Utley, CEO of GoEpps, a Nashville-based digital marketing firm. Recorded at the Creative Assembly studio in East Nashville, Michael traces the origins of his business philosophy back to his father’s systems-thinking approach and shares how that inheritance has shaped everything from how he builds products to how he evaluates partnerships.
Michael and Mark cover the real state of SEO in an AI-dominated search landscape, why “SEO is dead” is a fundamental misread of the market, the business case for human-in-the-loop AI, how to maximize content ROI through post-production strategy, and the one mindset shift that separates agencies that grow from those that stall. Whether you’re building an agency, navigating AI adoption, or looking to sharpen your content strategy, this conversation delivers the kind of grounded, earned perspective that only comes from 14 years in the trenches.
Episode Highlights: 01:56 – Michael traces his journey from a creative writing degree to founding GoEpps 07:00 – The systems-thinking philosophy his father built — and why Michael has spent his life trying to replicate it 11:46 – GoEpps launches AEO: a dashboard for tracking AI search results across competitors 14:24 – “It’s not gonna replace SEO, but it might replace Google” — Michael’s take on the AI search landscape 21:56 – The $783 moment: how a single instinctual phone call closed GoEpps’s first million-dollar year 26:15 – How resilience through recessions, a Nashville tornado, and a global pandemic shaped the business 29:07 – What great partnerships are actually built on: demonstrated behavior vs. delivered information 36:11 – Why the biggest missed opportunity in video isn’t production — it’s post-production strategy 44:37 – “The answer is go” — Michael’s core advice for agency owners and entrepreneurs at any stage
Learn More & Connect:
Show Notes + Resources: https://creativeassembly.agency/ca-podcast/ Connect With Michael Epps Utley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-epps-utley/ | https://www.goepps.com/ Connect with Mark Scrivner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markscrivner | https://snapshot.agency/health Our Sponsor – Snapshot: https://snapshot.agency/health Follow The Spark: https://creativeassembly.agency/ca-podcast/ #TheSparkPodcast #CreativeAssembly #DigitalMarketing #SEO #AgencyGrowth #AIMarketing #ContentStrategy #Entrepreneurship
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