Episode Summary

In this episode of the Make Space for More podcast, host Melissa Swink interviews Jen Fietz, founder of Stoke RGA, who shares her journey from finance to marketing and the unique approach her company takes in helping manufacturers grow. They discuss the importance of strategic alignment, the challenges of rebranding, and the process of conducting a growth gap analysis. Tune in to discover the importance of specialized expertise in your area of business and the benefits of seeking an outside perspective when navigating business challenges.

Key Highlights:

• Authentic business growth stems from strategic alignment between marketing efforts and core business objectives.
• Manufacturers need more than traditional marketing tactics; they need a comprehensive growth strategy (including a “growth gap analysis”) that considers the entire business ecosystem.
• Gaining an outside perspective can transform your rebranding journey from daunting to strategic.
• Measuring outcomes, not just implementing ideas, is crucial for sustainable business growth.

About Our Guest: 

Jennifer leads Stoke RGA as a founder, growth architect, and fierce advocate for execution that actually delivers outcomes. A proud woman-owned business leader, she brings strategic clarity, financial rigor, and a deep respect for the manufacturing mindset to everything she does. With a background in corporate finance and years of experience advising mid-market manufacturing companies, she’s known for helping leadership teams cut through complexity, align around what matters, and build momentum that lasts. Raised in a family of manufacturers, Jen understands the pressure to perform—and leads with a sharp focus on outcomes, not ideas. At Stoke RGA, she ensures every initiative is built for impact, grounded in execution, and designed to move the needle.

About Melissa:

Melissa Swink, Founder & CEO of Melissa Swink & Co., has a team of virtual assistants who provide administrative and marketing support for small businesses and non-profits.

Since 2012, Melissa and her team have helped more than 100 businesses grow through the services they offer, and she is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs create profitable, scalable businesses they love.

Her work is all about doing what works (and eliminating what doesn’t) and driving real, measurable results. Visit www.melissaswink.com to learn more! 

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Hi everyone. Welcome to the Make Space for More podcast where we talk strategies for growing and scaling your business in a way that's authentic and aligned for you. I'm your host, Melissa Swink. And in today's episode, I have a very special guest joining me today, Jen Feats of Stoke RGA. She is the founder, a growth architect and fierce advocate for execution that actually delivers outcomes. A proud woman owned business leader.

She brings strategic clarity, financial rigor, and a deep respect for the manufacturing mindset to everything she does. With a background in corporate finance and years of experience advising mid-market manufacturing companies, she's known for helping leadership teams cut through complexity, align around what matters, and build momentum that lasts. Raised in a family of manufacturers, Jen understands the pressure to perform.

and leads with a sharp focus on outcomes, not ideas. Okay, that's super interesting. I wanna make sure we come back to that, Jen, as we start chatting here. At Stoke RGA, she ensures every initiative is built for impact, grounded in execution, and designed to move the needle. Jen, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so excited to have you and to have you share more about your story and just your journey along the way of where you're at in business today.

Of course, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Yes, absolutely. So before we dive into all the business related questions I want to ask you about, because you have a very impressive company that you're leading, just tell us a little bit about you and kind of your background before we get into the nuts and bolts of everything we want to chat about today.

So I have been married for 25 years. live just south of Green Bay, Wisconsin. We have two adult sons. My youngest is in the US Navy. Ironically, last night he surprised us and was at our doorstep after a nine month deployment. So I don't usually get shocked. I'm still actually reeling a little bit from the surprise, the dopamine rush that I had last night. So it's been about two

just shy of the year that we've seen them. I'm busy clearing my schedule for the next few days so I can spend some time with them.

my gosh, that's the best surprise.

Well, we're honored that we made the cut.

Yes, yes of course.

We're still having this conversation today. So, and this could have easily been rescheduled. So I'm so grateful to you.

Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. So yes, and I spend a lot of time golfing and hiking. And I like watching 80s and 90s movies because I think it feels like it was an eternity ago. yeah, I'm I lots of fun things I do on the weekend. I think probably the thing that I'm I've gotten what that I really

Nice.

to Stoke RGA in May. And we can get into to kind of talk in greater detail about what that means, but it really does better reflect the work that we do with manufacturers. It steers us away from a branding kind of marketing focused firm and moves us towards really looking at what do manufacturers need holistically.

to grow their companies. And it's way more than just marketing. It's a lot of things. And so we've made a lot of changes here at our firm to compliment and react to the things that those manufacturers are in desperate need of.

That is so interesting. There's so many things I want to unpack that you just mentioned here, maybe to kind of help to illustrate kind of what all you offer at Stoke RGA, because you're right, it's not just marketing and you have, sounds like a very, what is the word that I'm looking for? A very deep background in manufacturing from your family to the early stages of your career and so on.

So what are some of the services that you offer at RGA or Stoke RGA, I should say.

Yes. So when I started with the firm back in 2019, had spent, I lost my job, found myself without a job in 2016 after spending 20 years in the financial services industry and found myself with the opportunity to go work at a marketing agency with which nobody in their forties would ever think of doing like that is a just out of college kind of job. But I did it. Yes.

Please.

From finance to marketing.

And so, and I had held a variety of marketing and sales roles within the financial services industry, working primarily in 401k administration and auto and home insurance. so what the move to the marketing agency was quite possibly the hardest thing I've ever done in my career. And it moved me from a more slower paced corporate environment.

to a multifaceted, move at the speed of light kind of environment. And so I had to adjust and adapt to assisting a multitude of different kinds of clients. The agency I was at served all types of industries. And after I kind of got my head above water, I started to realize that I brought a unique perspective to the table, which was

I understand what the C-suite actually is looking for because my job was to work with the chiefs, whether it was the CFO or the COO, being able to figure out what marketing and sales programs were going to move the needle within organizations. A traditional agency is an order taker by nature. They take on the requests of customers.

who say I need a new website. I need you to redesign this brochure. And what was being missed was we were never getting to the root problem of why that individual was at the table looking for services. I understand the love language of the C-suite and its growth, its revenue. the table stakes are a great brand and a great website and great brand reputation.

But really at the end of the day, the leadership teams within these companies have a goal. They're trying to reach something and marketing and sales is a big component of that. And if we aren't connecting and aligning all of those initiatives to what that North Star is, then at the end of the day, you have a group of leaders that are looking at specifically the marketing function within their organizations and saying,

I don't really believe in marketing or I'm not sure I want to invest in marketing. And it's because they're working kind of in their own little silo trying to do the things they think might help get to where the overall company goal is. And so when I got to Imaginasium in 2019, I looked at the former owner and I just said, our industry's got it all wrong. We're not speaking the language of the growth language.

Got it.

And so we slowly just started to change the way our agency operated. We weren't a project, we moved out of project-based work and we moved into designing and developing annual growth plans for manufacturers. And I say that very strongly because we can't become experts if we are serving all industries. I actually think that there's an opportunity for us to become very niche within the manufacturing.

environment to where we work with specific sectors of manufacturing, printing and packaging, food and beverage, because we need to have deep expertise in order to help drive growth within our manufacturing environments. the services we offer are we have the Revenue Growth Accelerator, which is a five stage program, and it runs about three years. We design an annual plan, a year one, a three year map, and then

each year are actually designing a growth plan. And we're working with marketing and sales and HR and directors of manufacturing, because if you're driving double digit revenue growth, you're impacting the entire manufacturing facility from HR to the plant floor, they are impacted. And so there needs to be detailed, great alignment across the organization. And what I feel like my, my, get

Yes.

I have great pride when I see the team here take a marketing leader with inside a manufacturer and move them to the table to say, here is the update that the team needs next. Are they ready for this growth in this plant, in this area of manufacturing? Do we have the staffing that's going to support that growth? So I think when you start shifting, and it takes years to shift people's mindsets and get everybody moving in the right direction.

and a lot of alignment, lot of collaboration, a lot of pep talks, if I'm being honest, like you got this, like this is what we said we were gonna do and this is what we're gonna do and this is how we're gonna get it done. Yes, the marketing, the campaigns, all of that stuff happens, but it happens.

Yes

within an actual strategic plan that the leadership team is using as their Bible saying, okay, where are we at? Are we at the next stage? Are we moving in the right direction? And now we're speaking in the language that they wanna hear us speaking in. So our ideal client is, know, three to five years, they say, hey, can you help us build this infrastructure? Now we've identified how things are working. Manufacturers are...

Yes.

One, underserved by the marketing services industry as a whole. And two, they're not typically, the infrastructure that they need is not typically there. They're understaffed in marketing and sales support. And so ideally at the end we say, okay, let's help you build your team so that you can do this on your own now. You're a company that's matured enough to be able to handle operating your growth plans.

That is perfect. That was super helpful for me even to just understand the depths of what you do and what you have to offer because it really is all encompassing. And for sure, manufacturers are in need of this. I would even say that it relates to all businesses to some extent or another, even the smallest businesses, because if you're going to go out and you're going to, say, market your business and you're just focusing on getting more visibility,

getting new eyeballs on your content, your company, and then of course we wanna convert those into sales. If you don't have the capacity to then support those sales, then you're collapsing other parts of your company. You're flooding one area and starving the other, and everybody needs to be on the same page. So I know exactly what you mean now when you say your focus is on outcomes, not just ideas. We don't need ideas for the new website. Like we do.

But that's just, it does not fully encompass what the needs are on the high level. Yes, yes. So when you started working with Imaginesium, what was your role when you first joined the company?

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

I started as a account strategist. I basically was leading and managing accounts. And as I laugh to this day that I've convinced the former owner to, I'd like to try some things differently. And he trusted me thankfully to really take on a brand new account had come in and I wanted under

Okay?

the guys of everything I just described, I wanted to build it in that way. I wanted to work right out of the gate with the leadership team within a printing and packaging company here in Northeast Wisconsin and really support that marketing manager who had a lot on her shoulders. I wanted to help her to be able to be the voice for this growth program.

inside the walls of that manufacturing facility. that takes a lot of weekly collaboration, where are we at with, and it involves all the things that, whether that's building a new customer service portal or,

designing a brand new website or making sure that at that time it was heavy response to COVID related things as it related to the employee base. And so it was just a lot of things going on and being able to lay those out into a roadmap and keep them organized with varying people across their organization and ours to make sure we're continuing to move the needle. was very, very, and our goals are all

That's amazing. Congratulations. That is fantastic. And I love that you stepped into this role and you're like, I see the need. Can you please give me the freedom and the flexibility that I need to serve my customer the way that I really feel that they need to be served? I love that. I love that. So then obviously there was a transition in there from being the account specialist, right? Account specialist.

Thank you. Thank you.

Exactly.

Yes.

all the way to now you are the owner of the company. So there was obviously a process in there as well internally as you continue to grow in the organization.

Exactly. So what we had was a traditionally staffed marketing agency and what we really needed was a staff of strategists, people who can very clearly build strategic plans for manufacturers and to work and kind of

not the traditional account manager role, working in the, okay, where are we at with our outcomes that we've committed to for this year? What's next? What are the adjustments that need to be made so that we continue to point all of our efforts in the right direction? What things do I need to help you with internally? Do we have teams? There's a lot of change management that goes on with something like this. And so there needs to be good in turn, you have to hire people that

have some very unique skills. And so I moved into more of the director of account strategy and started to then build up this infrastructure here at the company to support kind of that annual growth planning mindset. And the other big shift we made was we

we moved to an outside resource model, which I am very transparent with, with everyone that I meet with because

being a smart business owner and at that time I could see that's where I was moving to actually own this business eventually. I want to be able to pull the levers that are needed because while we design these annual plans, they're all to some degree custom and so we need to be able to quickly pull levers to support them in the way they need to be supported in the moments that they need to be supported and so our team is now staffed with highly

Yes.

highly talented strategists who lead these accounts and build out internally. We have some project managers and they actually manage outside resource teams around the world to help us get to get things done. And there was a shift for us in our industry.

during the pandemic when most decided, many people decided they would give it a whirl to run their own businesses and work in the gig economy. Those that weren't good enough didn't make it, but those that are out there, I mean, there are some amazingly talented people out there doing all kinds of things to support our manufacturing sector in the ways that they need to be supported.

Yes, absolutely. And I think that's something that we share in common as well, because I love that both of our companies are able to collaborate with the service providers that we need for the clients. Some clients need more assistance, say with social media, or they might need a web design. They might need a new website design. So then you've got the designers in place, you've got graphic design and so on. You can pull in the people that you need in order to support that client based on

Absolutely.

their unique path and what they need support on. Yes, I love the way that you have structured your team and had this transition. So I wanna dive into you were Imaginasiom and now you're Stoke RGA. So you've gone through a rebrand. I'm just tracking kinda your role here. You started as an account strategist and then you pulled into a lead role. You eventually did purchase the company and you're leading the company.

Exactly.

me.

And then there was a rebrand that happened as well. So, but that was something I think that you and I were chatting a little bit earlier that you knew for a while there a shift needed to happen there.

Yeah, so I just described the changes that we made in, so here's the great thing. I purchased a company, a well-known company that had been around for 35 years at the time.

and well connected. I was able to become well networked and well connected because of that history. Foundationally, know, just a lot of the basic things were in place, which was very nice. But because it was so well known and has been around so long, I could feel two years ago, two and a half, three years ago that

it could be hard for me to get outside of that or out from underneath that kind of branding element because Imaginatium was an amazing design studio. They built some of the most beautiful brands in the state of Wisconsin. And so it was going to be hard for me to get out from underneath that. And so I've known, but it took me going through some mental stages to get myself, to get the courage to actually

to walk away from that brand. Some of the things that were just like very elementary, I felt often that inside the manufacturing environment, it was difficult for people to say the name. So they would not actually say Imaginasia. They wouldn't even say the company name because they were kind of stumbling. If they tried, they stumbled on how to pronounce it. And it had.

Sure.

had more of a playful kind of feel to it because it used to be a branding company. Now, you know, we're putting on hard hats and safety glasses and steel-toed shoes to go into these environments and we're a tough group of ladies here and we're up for the challenge and I wanted that to come across. And so I was very fortunate to hire an amazing agency director and

she, I told her of this idea and she was like, yes, let's go, let's do it. And that was last November and we were rebranded by May. So I needed a cheerleader. I needed somebody to say, yes, it was the right move. And, in, May 14th, we, launched the new brand and it has been the greatest decision I've made because we've been able to now in a greater way, articulate.

my gosh.

our revenue growth accelerator. have a process, we have a system, and it's not, we're not trying to snap that on or attach it to a great legacy brand. We're kind of, we're starting over and taking the opportunity to communicate who the new company is.

my gosh, well, there's so many things I wanna unpack about that process as well, because I know that there are plenty of people like clients that we work with and certainly contacts that I have that they started their company and they became known for something and they became known under their current company name, but they feel like they've outgrown that or they've made some shifts in their offerings to the point where they're like.

I do think a rebrand is necessary. And so, you know, I can certainly resonate with that a bit too, as I was sharing with you earlier where I'm like, gosh, I feel like, I feel like, you know, the company started off this way, but now we've, we've grown and we've expanded our mission so much that now, you know, it feels like maybe we need to step into something new. So you have somebody internally that you work with to kind of be your cheerleader and help you pull this off.

Did you work with any outside companies to kind of help you with the rebrand or did you do it all internally?

No, we did. I think that I would be...

I would be going against what I tell every client, which is it's too hard to rebrand your own company. You need outside perspective. need, you obviously have to have all your key players at the table, but you need somebody to kind of push you and ask you the tough questions and get you to really think deeply because making a decision like this, as I mentioned, is so incredibly scary. Like to make a change like this is like talk about sleepless nights.

And so knowing that you've kind of surrounded yourself with a, we've surrounded ourselves with a branding team, hey, this is what we're thinking of doing. Tell us, tell us we're crazy. And, you know, of course they ask a lot of great questions. And if we would have tried to do it on our own, we wouldn't have arrived where we arrived. Same with the, you know,

Obviously we use outside resources. So now you marry that with a really great digital team who designs our websites for us, not just for us, but for our clients as well. And they really were able to take that brand and take all the changes and move it to the digital space. yeah, was, it's definitely something you cannot do in a silo.

Right, yes, and we're just so close to our businesses that there are blind spots that we can't see. so having that outside mentor and advisor to help guide you through the process and confirm, is this the right decision to make? Because I do want to reiterate that, in this case, Imagineasium, it was 30 plus years that this company name was around and they became very well known for branding.

Mm-hmm.

total.

And so it's like, okay, we don't want to, I don't want to say throw away the credibility of our good name, but that's the risk, you know, to start over and like, who is this? where, how long have you been around? I've never heard of you before. That sort of a thing. So, and then there's also, you and I were talking a little bit earlier, even once that decision is made and the plan and the thought process behind all of it is laid out,

Right. Totally.

No.

there's still just all the things that have to change. All the places that your existing name is on, all the things, those all need to be changed. And so this was no small investment either.

Yeah, so I think you get through the big stuff. You get through the mental hurdle you have to get over. Then you get through, OK, what's the new thing going to be? What is it going to look like? What's it going to feel like? And then you fall deeply into the administrative transition that needs to happen. And there's always surprises. And it's as much work as you think it is. But I think with the right team and the right

Yes.

organization and really great planning on the front end. It went off really way easier than I thought it was going to, if I'm being perfectly honest. So that part.

It sounds like you guys had a great project plan. Like, okay, we have this vision, we know what we're doing, now we need this action plan. And so I think you had said, you even had a checklist, like here's all the things that have our name on it that will need to be changed over and rebranded as well. So just kind of going through piece by piece. Was the website one of the first things that you tackled? I'm just curious.

Yeah.

well, we, yes, we got started with the website immediately, but then we were running, there are certain things you can change prior to your launch date and there's certain things that have to wait until that date hits. And so our team did a good job of running an inventory list first and then saying, okay, what's all the pre-work that can happen? What are the things that can change ahead of time? I mean, just think of every

Sure. Yeah.

software that you own or, know, everything that, that like digitally that has your brand on it has to be documented. And now every company you're working with goes through a different process of being able to adjust that name. Sometimes it's just go and change the company name. Other times it's, I'm sorry, we need to close that, that workspace down and start something new. So it was, so you almost had to reach out and work with every single, every single partnered.

platform to be able to figure out, okay, what's your process? Because we need to go through it. But like I said, my team kind of all of those things. We had a big spreadsheet and it was labeled in the right way. we hit it every Monday morning and said, okay, what's this week's list look like? And everybody had different things that they were responsible for helping get adjusted.

Yes, a very well organized massive project. And you brought up, even the software, that didn't occur to me because you're right, some software it's as easy as just kind of updating your contact info and your name. And then some, you're right, it's like starting over and navigating from former workspace to new workspace. And yeah, lots of logistics involved with all of this. But it sounds like it paid off and you guys are on the other side of it now as you're like.

Yes.

Totally.

We are.

Okay, you're taking breaths of fresh air now.

Yes, yes, we are. Now we're moving into our big promotional phase, which has been really fun because, you know, one thing that an outside team will tell you is you need to do a better job talking about yourself and all the successes. And it's so funny and ironic because that's what we do for our clients. But to do it for ourselves, we struggle just like our clients do, really doing some good self-reflection and using all your success stories to to really promote who you are and what you do.

Yes, absolutely. I think that's a challenge for everybody, being able to, I don't want to say do self-promotion because that's not quite the right thing, but I think you have to be able to articulate how you serve your customers and the wins you've gotten for other customers and do it in a way that feels aligned and authentic and approachable and not boastful where you're turning people off. And so I feel like we struggle to do that for ourselves. And so again, to your point.

Having an external partner to help you with that piece of it is huge.

Absolutely. Yeah, it's great. Again, outside perspective is priceless in my mind. You just need somebody to be able to give you advice on what they see that you're missing. like you said, there's just so many blind spots when you're on the inside.

Yes, yes, absolutely. Jen, you have shared so many wonderful tidbits with us today with even your story and your background of how you got into your role currently. What really has separated and set you apart from your typical marketing agency where really you guys are strategic growth partners and the way that you work with your clients is just so much different and above and beyond.

the average person thinks of when it comes to marketing, but then also the rebrand and sharing the behind the scenes with us of kind of how that idea was born. And then also some glimpses into how you executed on that. That was huge. I want to talk about your growth gap analysis because that's something that you offer to new potential clients. And can you tell us a little bit about what that involves and how we can connect with you if we're interested in doing something like that?

Yeah, absolutely. So as I mentioned, the revenue growth accelerator is a five stage process. And the very first stage is where we work with our clients to collect information on the company, but we also do our own level of research.

where we're collecting all the insights. As I had mentioned earlier, the only way this works is we're starting a relationship. And the only way we can help influence growth is to deeply understand who our clients are. Leading up to starting that process, we do something called the growth gap analysis, which is us collecting some.

a selected group of list of items where we start to see if we can understand where growth is getting hung up. So typically we, you know, there's just some really consistent leading indicators that we can usually pinpoint kind of where the hang up likely is. It could be staffing. It could be

Mm.

communication, there's all kinds of things. we actually send out a little survey and then we schedule a meeting and talk through kind of what could be going on. It also gives us an opportunity and for the.

the potential client to just get to know us a little bit. takes a couple hours of engagement with us. So we talk through kind of what it is where we can see in that early, early stage of just the few things we've collected. And then also we can talk in greater detail about our process. that can, they can connect with us just by simply going to our website and going through the contact us process or getting

selecting to get their their growth blueprint. So very easily found on our website.

Perfect. Yes. And we will definitely include that in the show notes. And just to again, clarify and reiterate, you specialize in working with manufacturers. Any particular niches within manufacturing that you're focused on or...

We can serve any manufacturer honestly. We've got a lot of experience in printing and packaging, food and bev, and metal heavy metal fabrication. But like I said, we're open to looking at any area of the manufacturing sector at this point, but have a lot of case studies available on our website in those sectors that I just mentioned.

Perfect. And you just work with clients in Green Bay, Wisconsin, or I should say Northeast Wisconsin, or are you positioned to work with clients from all over the country?

We can work with clients all over the country. Specifically, we're focusing our outreach efforts to manufacturers in the upper Midwest. So that's where our client base currently lies today. But we're not going to turn anyone away from anywhere in the country. Of course, we want to help you if you're in the manufacturing sector.

Right, yes, exactly. If it's a fit, it's a fit, no matter where you're located, right? I love it, I love it. Jen, thank you so much for all the wisdom and the stories that you've shared just with your personal growth journey and the growth and evolution of the company that you're leading as well. It has been super interesting just to hear more about just overall details and how everything unfolded, some of the glimpses behind the scenes as well.

with the fit. Exactly.

And just want to thank our audience for tuning into this week's episode of Make Space for More. I will be back next week with another fantastic guest. We're doing a series where we're sharing from real people what their journey has been throughout their career and building their businesses. And we're focusing on interviewing people who are actively growing and scaling their companies, again, in ways that are authentic and aligned for them. So.

Be sure to stay tuned for another episode next week of Make Space for More. Have a wonderful day, everyone.

Thank you.