This story is a bit insane.

The year was 2015. It was a Monday late in December, and Christmas was a few days away.

Around 8 a.m., I learned that the man who ran our very small third-party fulfillment center was in the hospital, and things were looking bleak.

In his absence, the operation pretty much fell apart. We had thousands of holiday packages that needed to be shipped, and they were dead in the water.

I looked at my colleague Jordan and said, "We have to go to Illinois."

I called the rest of my small team and said, "Don't come to the office. Go to Laguardia instead. We have to go to Illinois and ship orders."

We arrived at the fulfillment center early that afternoon. It was, to put it mildly, a hot mess.

We spent the rest of the day and the overnight hours picking and packing orders. It sucked. But we made it happen.

This photo was taken around 5 a.m. when we stopped working to rest for a couple of hours.

We were back in the warehouse by 8 a.m. that same day. By late that afternoon, we shipped every package that could be shipped.

My team crushed it, and I couldn't have been more thankful.

Fast forward to today. I now run Hey Frankie.

At Hey Frankie we help clients with paid social, email, SMS, and strategy. We're very growth-focused.

There are lots of other agencies out there that do what we do. That's no secret.

What there aren't, though, are lots of other agencies being led by someone that has built a brand and experienced the highs, as well as the "This sucks so bad, and I never want it to happen again" moments.

Are we perfect? Of course not. Do we like to win? Absolutely.

Feel free to reach out if you own or work for a brand looking for a fresh take on things.

Oh, and the guy who ran the fulfillment center, he survived.

‍