Show Notes
In this end-of-year episode, Jason Lovoy and host Carrie Rollwagen reflect on the major accomplishments and milestones of 2025 across Infomedia, Uptick, and Tempo. They begin with a rundown of the “good news,” including stronger account management, successful cross-team collaboration, and the standout launch of Tempo—a new offering that allows for rapid website development. The duo also celebrates the success of their shared holiday party, a revamped sales culture, and a string of new babies among team members.
A significant portion of the episode dives into the strategic decision to invest in podcasting and video content. Initially met with skepticism, the decision to build an in-house media studio paid off, helping clients and internal teams alike to grow personal brands and increase visibility on platforms like LinkedIn. They discuss the rising power of short-form video and how these clips are being used for both content marketing and professional development. The episode closes with a forward-looking discussion on AI, innovation, and how all three companies plan to stay agile and collaborative in 2026.
Transcript
Carrie
Welcome to Office hours with Jason Lovoy, a behind the scenes conversation with the CEO of infomedia, uptake and tempo. I’m your host, Carrie Rollwagen, and in each episode, Jason and I sit down for a casual chat about where we are as companies, what you’re thinking as a CEO and where we’re heading next. Not at all weird to read that right now. So maybe we’ll look at the intro for 2026 but so this is gonna be our last podcast of the year. So as you look back at the past year, like 2025 let’s maybe not remember the bad parts, but kind of do an EOS thing, which is like the system we use to run meetings, and they often have us start with good news. So let’s start with good news from 2025
Jason Lovoy
okay, yeah, I like starting with good news, I guess, and Don’t ponder on the negatively. Say that actually we’ve got a lot of positive things going. I think, from the way we started off the year, little rough. Go focusing on the positive. We finished off good, yeah. Or we’re finishing off good, yeah. Like the outlook for the end of the year, final quarter, looks to be going in the positive direction. And as I talked to other business owners, I’m hearing the same, same sort of tone, I would think so. But yeah, I would, I think some of the wins in particular, I think when we think of like as an example, at infomedia, we put a lot of emphasis on our account our account management team that’s reaching out to our clients, and that’s been a huge plus for us. One, we’re continually developing relationships with our clients, but also we’re helping our clients, you know, figure out different things they need, yeah, and which leads to sales and media, which is some of the other things I’m sure we’ll talk about. But whether it’s selling a podcast, a video, other media needs, etc, and uptake
Carrie
has had, kind of had kind of had that structure for a while, and at infomedia, we did sell to those clients, but we didn’t have, like, a structure to make it that we were really investing in.
Jason Lovoy
Sam, we’ve added a new member to our account team,
Carrie
or he’s joined the account team. It’s exciting, yeah,
Jason Lovoy
and yeah. And I think that model in general, has proven very successful, and I think you can see that with I think our clients really appreciate it. Yeah.
Carrie
So it’s also cool to see the two teams working together at uptake and infomedia and Jan tempo, like I know that they have a sales club where they come, they meet together and share ideas, especially
Jason Lovoy
when you hear afterwards, yeah, oh my gosh, that was so great. We had this great lunch and coming back and telling me things that they got from because they got together.
Carrie
Yeah, it is cool because you can feel like you’re in a vacuum. I mean, all of our jobs can feel like that, but I think especially for the sales teams, it’s been cool that they’ve been able to connect with each other, and you learn a little bit, like, different strategies, different ways. If somebody has this objection, like, how do you overcome that? Or are you listening to this podcast? And that’s cool. And so it’s been really cool as infomedia has been building our sales team. We’ve also been able to, like, connect with our account team, connect with upticks account team, and then also Jen is getting into that at tempo as well.
Jason Lovoy
So yeah, cool. No, yeah, very true. And I think, yeah, we just, we get, we put our head down so often and just go, go, go, yeah, that we forget a what we’re not communicating, but also what we can learn from others. So yeah, just think it’s a great way to I’m glad it’s great to see, yeah, everybody trying to do more communication across channels, across departments, yeah, definitely.
Carrie
So yeah, well, I think that’s kind of gotten I think we are continue getting better, continually getting better at that across all the companies. And then obviously, this year, we launched tempo,
Jason Lovoy
yep, which has been great. You know, launching tempo was a need we had, I would say, primarily, and I think we talked about this a little bit on the last podcast, but for uptick, because a lot of our clients need something fast. They need something that looks good, but they don’t necessarily need all the bells and whistles, yeah, and you know, whether it’s a HVAC company or roofing company or dentist practice, it doesn’t really matter, but they need something quick to send their campaigns to, and it just gives us a great option for spinning up a website. Right? That looks good. And quickly so,
Carrie
and I do think almost all the tempo sites have launched within six weeks, unless it was like the client was holding it up for some reason.
Jason Lovoy
Yeah, yeah. They’ve all been in four to six week window, which has been awesome, exceptional. And the ones that we’ve started with our truly under the tempo process, every one of them have had, have had happy clients, yeah? So that’s been great, yeah.
Carrie
So that’s going well, yeah, I would say that’s a huge success. Yeah, yeah. We just had our first joint, like all three companies, holiday party. Oh, yeah. Is that right? Yeah?
Jason Lovoy
Halloween, yeah? And I mean, I didn’t hear any back channel bad news. All I heard was that was so
Carrie
much fun. Yeah, if you didn’t like it, complain louder, because it didn’t get to us, right? Yeah, I
Jason Lovoy
would make a complaint. There was only one variety of orange chips.
Carrie
Or, if you don’t know the inside joke about that, you have to ask me. So don’t
Jason Lovoy
put me in charge of planning a Halloween party. I heard orange Yeah, and orange snack.
Carrie
So yeah, one year Jason got the food we had. Now I’m gonna tell it you don’t test me. We had a, I think you had a crock pot full of like, orange dip, yeah, maybe it was, but then the only thing we had to dip into it were cheese. It was
Jason Lovoy
like, maybe a buffalo chicken dip or something. Yeah, Orange. So poor Matt Doritos.
Carrie
Like, I have a vision in my head of Matt Cross with, like, a sad bowl of dip, like, trying to dip a Cheeto in it, or something. And when We said, Why didn’t you get tortilla chips? You get
Jason Lovoy
tortilla chips? You were like, I just got orange.
Carrie
So yes, this was the food. Was great. I think Robert and Jen did the most work on planning that, if I’m not mistaken, and they did a great job. Then we also had John’s
Jason Lovoy
80th. Yep, this year. Yep, turned 80. Big, big year. Yeah.
Carrie
And we got to launch a little website for that, yep. So John lovoy.com you haven’t looked at it, and they have. It was fun because we got to record all these videos. Kind of did that secretly with John. It was, obviously, wasn’t a secret that we were recording, because he was in this room. It’s pretty obvious, but we said it was for content reasons, and it was at the time. But it was cool, because at that point after we recorded, I was like, these are really good, so can we do something else with them? And it was fun that we got to put them on the site.
Jason Lovoy
I think it’s, yeah, it’s cool that we get to honor him in that way. And, yeah, look forward to some more of that, I guess, and in the future, yeah, definitely.
Carrie
So is that it for good news.
Jason Lovoy
We had the 10 awards. So we, I guess we could mention that several winners on both sides. Carrie, business leader,
Carrie
yeah, it was good. It was exciting. Yeah, I felt like it was really cool, because you could see that the other agencies had submitted a lot, just because the variety of winners with everything else, but we had a lot of people, yeah, did you say we had
Jason Lovoy
Grayson sales? Yeah, I think it was sales. And then
Carrie
we also had Matt Cross, when developer there and
Jason Lovoy
down at uptick. We had lane, yeah. Was marketing director, yes, and Hannah, and then Hannah Grimes production, and all
Carrie
of those, I would say, are super well deserved. And I do think again, we wouldn’t have had as many winners if they hadn’t done a great job. Because usually, usually, all the agencies submit as much as possible. So it is, I think, a competitive award.
Jason Lovoy
No, it is in. The judges were all out of region, and so it was looking through how they judged. It was, it was cool to see that it wasn’t just our like they agreed with the nominations. Yes, very clear.
Carrie
So that’s cool, and it’s always like nice to get together with everybody. And you know how much I love networking, but I do love when there are a lot of our own people at the party, so I can network a little bit and then go back to your safe people. I like that, right? Okay, so that’s a lot of good news.
Jason Lovoy
Would you say all the new babies is weird. Oh, yeah, that’s true. Yes, very good. Seems like we’ve had that’s true. You have Liz. Liz
Carrie
had a baby, yeah? Athanas, his wife had a baby. Yes, those are on the uptick side, for people who don’t know. And then Joey stuckey’s wife had a baby, right? So, yeah, did I get them all? Yeah, there’s a lot of babies for like, fourth quarter, yeah. Is that right? Yeah? Well, yeah, I guess they were, yeah, yeah. So it’s that it, yeah, that is cool. So, and everybody’s healthy, everybody seems happy. I mean, they’re probably sleep deprived at this moment, but happy overall, yeah, I feel like there’s a lull the first couple weeks where there’s like, some sleeping, and then it’s over in the next four years or or longer,
Jason Lovoy
depends on starting on round two, but
Carrie
it sounds like your kids still aren’t sleeping through the No.
Jason Lovoy
Well, for us it was, I won’t get into that. It was like round two, round
Carrie
three. Um, yeah. I mean, honestly, your kids probably aren’t sleeping through the night, but probably because they’re just up there in college, mostly. So I guess half a little different. Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. Thank you for bringing that up. Yeah, yeah, lots of actual, real life news. So that’s exciting. Well, business wise, we talked about some of the like major, the specific things. But are there like trends you’re seeing over the companies that would stand out? Like, or, I guess, like just in general, how are the three companies doing? Tempo is just getting on its feet. Yeah,
Jason Lovoy
you know, tempo is serving the needs right now, just through infomedia and uptick, I don’t think they’ve really had even an opportunity to go out and try to get business outside of of our sphere, spear, spear, yes, but yeah. So it’s been great, and I think as the So, as the process gets even better, they’ll even be more prepared for when they venture out and yeah, I guess, with their own leads, yeah, but yeah, that’s been very successful,
Carrie
and that’s good, yeah, one of the things that you’ve I think we’ve talked a lot about our podcasts, and then also the smaller clips of podcasts, right? So we both sell those infomedia. We typically sell them. We call them creative marketing toolkit. That’s like the name of the product, but the name doesn’t really matter. So we have podcasts and then the smaller clips that we put on social.
Jason Lovoy
No, I think that has been very exciting to see. I think, you know, it took us looking at this studio last year and deciding to invest in it. And I think, oops, I was about to drop Pam’s name, Pam, are you listening? Yeah, you know, Pam probably would have probably question investing in the studio at the time. The
Carrie
reason for the uptake in tempo, that’s because Pam looks at our numbers, right? So it is part of her job
Jason Lovoy
tell us to
Carrie
not spend money, that’s right, yeah, so, and then we’re like, here’s why we’re gonna do it anyway.
Jason Lovoy
But I think afterwards doing her job, she would also come back and say, Hey, that was a good investment, and it’s been fun to see. I mean, utilize
Carrie
So to be fair to Pam, I didn’t get it either like which was ironic a little bit because I did the localist. I like podcasts. Obviously, I’m into it, but we were looking at at the end of last year. I actually think if I’m if I’m right about the timeline, I think you and I were meeting at the end of last year, about this year, and you were like, podcasting, we need to move into it. And I’m like, Jason, why? I was kind of like, who’s gonna buy a podcast? But we had kind of floated it. We had, like, our sales team at infomedia had had these conversations with people, and they had gotten, like, almost up to the finish line, and then not signed. So I was kind of with Pam. I was kind of like, this is not people aren’t biting, yep, and then you’re over here, like, Let’s build a studio, let’s do video. And I was like, what? But I will say that’s a lot of times, our dynamic is that you’re like, This is where the trends are going. You’re meeting with people constantly. You’re hearing what other business owners are saying. Then you tell me the idea, and I’m like, No, I don’t get it, but yeah, like, and then that case, I was kept trying to, like, figure out a way in I do think the studio is a huge part of it, because we didn’t have the studio at that point. But then I went to the creative quarterly, and I kind of threw it out to them, and I was like, Jason, wants to make podcasts happen. I. I don’t get it. Do you have ideas? And they were the ones that were kind of like talking about those smaller clips, and I think that was really a key that unlocked a lot.
Jason Lovoy
No, I think it’s been, been great. And, you know, as we started selling them, you know, they weren’t the first sale, I believe, was probably pretty terrible, not in the output. What the client got was great, yeah, but it was what we sold it for and how much work we were doing, yeah. So
Carrie
you always want to be the first client you get so much. Want to prove we didn’t price it higher.
Jason Lovoy
But yeah, so I think it’s been great. I see that being as we I can tell you many reasons why, but I think it allows us, you know, allows us, allows our clients to stand out. And it’s a I think, especially with AI, yeah, it’s just a great way for folks to stand out. And I think going to 27 I think it’s a great, great product.
Carrie
Still, I think so too, and I do want to shout out the media team at infomedia, because, well, it’s really all of our media team, but they did, I think they’d done a fantastic job with the studio. Totally agree, like everybody, Paul’s in here, that’s why we’re being there. But Paul and Katie both contributed a ton, I think, to Paul making sure everything, the angles are good that we can hear everything Katie like talk working on the design, but like every localist guest is like, this is great. I always have to say I had nothing to do with I was totally against it. I’m just kidding. I don’t say that. But also, because we they were also able to do it on a very small budget. It does not look low budget, but it was low budget. So I think that kind of shows everybody working together, like their team, willing to be creative with like, I think this table used to be in my office. These are like old chains. You know, we were. We pulled things together to make it work. Budget wise, that’s where, like Pam saying, hey, we need to look out for the budget does come in because we don’t. Could have been a lot more expensive. Paul and Katie and Caleb, obviously, like really working together to try to make this look professional, and it is professional, but also be, not be high budget, and then us kind of working out, like giving a lot of time in January to build in the studio. And then, honestly, Jerry bought in extremely quickly,
Jason Lovoy
yes, yeah, no, probably the fastest. Quite honestly, I think Jerry just got it, yeah, and he went at it from a different angle, I think, in how he pitched it, and I think it really connected. Because, you know, what we’re pushing is more or less building your brand. And I don’t mean the brand of infomedia or the brand of uptake, but the brand of Jerry Brown, the brand of Carrie, the brand of lane or whomever it is. It’s like we need to be building our brand, but our clients need to be building the brand. So whether you’re Medicare Advisors or or a another type, if I’m a real estate agent, it’s like, hey, we don’t, oh, I can’t say that. Yeah, let me back up. Let me say this is a great way, like, if I want to be an agent that stands steps out, this would be a way to do that, yeah, but
Carrie
what’s coinciding with every social media platform wanting video? Yes, we’re also in, I hate to even put this in the universe, but in a relative sweet spot where, right now, the videos are the same shape for once. So like infomedia or infomedia reels, those exist, but Instagram reels are relatively the same shape as, like Tiktok, as YouTube shorts, which that launched, I think that launched this year. So that was huge, which I was talking to Matt Robinson, I think about some of Jerry’s videos. And he was saying, like, in a weird way, it’s almost like free retargeting, because their algorithm is so good, and it’s serving up those shorts to people who would be interested. And then also LinkedIn video. You can do videos of different shapes for LinkedIn. But from the research we’ve done, it looks like the vertical is still better, because most people use it on their phones? Yeah, no, I agree. So it’s whereas a lot of times social media is kind of like these platforms all went totally different things at this point. We’re in this moment where they want the same thing in the same shape, and we can create it. It is. Has been cool that way,
Jason Lovoy
yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So I think that’s been great success, and I see more and more uses of it, yeah,
Carrie
and it’s been cool. I kind of want to hear you talk a little bit about how our own team has used it for, like, personal branding, yeah, because both sides of the house have used it a decent amount. Jim, not so much. Yeah, I’m. Doesn’t love to see yourself on video.
Jason Lovoy
Yeah, she can work. Who does you don’t have to? Well, it is funny because, like me personally, it’s like, I preach it, but I’m not the best at doing it. So like doing even this podcast is like me anyway,
Carrie
it is awkward. It is, yeah, it’s a little awkward. You have to get over. I did not invent this phrase, but I talked about my personal branding thing. Like, you have to get over the cringe. Have to get over the cringe mountain. Yeah, it’s cringy. But, I mean, what do you got to do it? Yeah, you do
Jason Lovoy
so, yeah. I mean, so I think lane, Lance, Matt Robinson, Jerry and, yeah, from down, from an uptick, and then I may have missed a few, but yeah, Grayson at infomedia and Taylor, I think we’ve
Carrie
had other people doing it, but everybody you mentioned has, like, really taken, not just, like, taken control of it, you know, like, I think Jerry’s had, like, a lot of success, from what I’ve heard
Jason Lovoy
his videos for whatever reason. I don’t know if it’s content or or his appearance on video, but his videos seem to be resonating, yes, at this point. So I
Carrie
think those are doing great. Grayson uses his really well on LinkedIn. He does. He’s gotten
Jason Lovoy
a few leads out of it. Yeah? Again, just putting yourself out there as the expert, yeah, and utilizing that content on LinkedIn is a great place to put it, but also just in general. So
Carrie
yeah, I like that. I think one of the things he said is he had so many people who didn’t know what he did right, even though we’re telling even though he was, like, using text on LinkedIn to tell them it’s different when you see it in a video.
Jason Lovoy
No, no doubt. And I mean, I would say that for everybody, even like people you interact with on a regular basis, like, yeah, realize that’s what you really did, yeah. And so sometimes video is a way that you can break it down a little bit into, you know, segments like, oh, yeah, I get
Carrie
it, yeah, yeah, exactly. Because also different people scan differently, different people learn differently. So you may see somebody’s LinkedIn a million times and just scroll past their text and their photos, but when they’re actually you know them, and they’re speaking in the thing, you may take a second. So yep, that’s been really cool. And yeah, I’ve been super impressed with, like, Lane and Matt Robinson both, like, really go after it on LinkedIn. Also,
Jason Lovoy
yeah, and, and so that’s probably one of the things we’re pushing on little bit more, is like, hey, in community, yes, you need to be networking out in the community, but also on LinkedIn, Yeah, same kind of way, yeah, you got to get out into the LinkedIn community, yeah. And when I talk about LinkedIn, it’s obviously a little different, a lot different than Facebook and Instagram, etc, because it’s more of a business community, yeah. And for business, you want to be out there in the community, you know, maybe it’s commenting on other people’s posts or etc, but you’re gonna generally get more reaction to your post too, yeah, if you’re out there in the community. So we’re seeing a little bit of that as well.
Carrie
Yeah, it definitely works better hand in hand. Like, I don’t think you can use NET, use LinkedIn, and not be actually, physically networking and it be successful like that would be, I mean, I ignore that when I just when I get people hitting me up who I’ve never met, I never will meet. But if you meet somebody out, I think it is pretty normal to see somebody at like, an event, and then find them on LinkedIn later that day and be like, Oh, hey, good to meet you. And then you’re connected in a way that exchanging business cards, even though I I still think business cards are useful in a lot of time ways, but even if you don’t get to that point, you can usually find them on LinkedIn, and then you’re connected for the future. Okay, it is cool to see all of that working, and it’s also been a lifesaver for infomedia when Alana moved on to have all of that content, because we’re able to still be getting it out and getting it posted. So agreed. So it’s been exciting,
Jason Lovoy
so even Alana gets a shout out.
Carrie
Yeah, well, yeah. Well, she might, she might find it she still comments. I do appreciate, which I appreciate when anybody does, when you like and comment I don’t. I hate when businesses try to force their people to like and comment on their posts, just like weird and gross, but when people at our company do like and comment, it actually doesn’t mean a lot.
Jason Lovoy
I agree and don’t send out emails or texts and hey, go post or comment. But we do notice when you
Carrie
do, yeah, and Alana actually still does. I think that’s sweet of her still give us to the engagement, so we don’t have a ton of time. So I probably want to wrap up ish, but kind of like, what are we i. What do you think is going to matter most in 2026 I mean, there’s things are changing so fast. We don’t really know. But is it? I mean, we’re probably still going to be doubling down on video, working more on that, I would guess, like the companies working together more.
Jason Lovoy
Yeah, I think, yeah, collectively. I mean, it’s still continuing to think, How can we as an organization of companies, yeah, operate better together, and how can we benefit, you know, from that, you know, and we’ve talked about this in the past, I think when we spun off uptick, it was we just kind of went two different directions, because they were very polar opposite, almost. And so they just took off. And never really thought about, Hey, how can we benefit? Really? Yeah, because our clients were at the time, were very different. And anyway, but we’re finding every day, we’re finding we’re looking at it from a different lens. Yeah, so I think that’s been great. So yes, definitely more of that. I think we’ll continue to hear more about AI into an annoying and to an annoying degree, I think to a certain degree, there’s certain things. It’s like, what are words we should avoid? It’s like, in certain communities, probably avoid AI, maybe in the office as much, you know, it’s like, yeah, it’s like, oh my gosh, if I hear another thing on AI, yeah, it’s gonna drive me crazy. But I think we could probably in our office, we could probably talk about more how it’s, don’t leave it as vague as AI. It’s like, what are you doing? What are some tips and tidbits that it’s helping you do?
Carrie
And do feel like we’re kind of giving our getting our heads above water. I feel like, really, even in the past month or so, all three companies have kind of found ways of like, okay, getting our footing a little bit like, here is a way that works for us and that we feel confident in. I do think, and you’ve been pretty consistent on this across the board. I don’t think we’ve wanting to, we are not wanting to use AI as a replacement for creativity. And I do think that’s something that sets you apart from a lot of CEOs. You’re not trying to cut people to save money. I mean, we want to save money, but not by cutting people, right? And we are not trying to replace the creative work with AI. We’re trying to replace the work we don’t like to do primarily and also seeing, can we level up?
Jason Lovoy
Yeah, if you can utilize AI to do some of the things that that we don’t need to be doing, yeah, it allows us to be doing more of the top level things that you’re best at, yeah, which AI is not, you know, yes, is the answer. Allows us to do more and better things, because we get more time, possibly, and time is little. That’s a whole nother subject, because you don’t always get more time. But, yeah,
Carrie
but even we’ve found some products that we’ve been we think we could say we could sell this product and make a really good margin on this product, and frankly, we need more of those. Like we have a lot of things that we charge decently for, but we don’t have much of a markup. So having some things that we could say, like, here’s something we can offer and we can really make more money is helpful. Yeah,
Jason Lovoy
yeah. And we don’t officially have an innovation lab, but, yeah, it’s kind of a but if we had, I mean, I would love for us to continue experimenting with things, because it’s like there’s so much coming at us. Yeah, that we do need to be experimenting. We do need to be listening, but we can’t go after every new toy either. So anyway, I expect more of that. You know, CEOs, business owners, probably marketers, too, are still, you know, we think that everybody’s where we are Yeah, and they’re not. Yeah. There are. They’re still looking they’re still needing us to help tell them where to go or what to do or what they need to be paying attention to. So that’s what I’d kind of hope is that we’re in a position where we can help, at least guide, yeah,
Carrie
and that’s something we’ve all all three companies have been good at, agree, all right, well, this seems like a good place to wrap up. Yeah, I’m gonna awkwardly read the outro. Do it first. I have to find it. So that’s it for this episode of office hours with Jason Lovoy. Remember, like we talked about, the podcasting and social clips are really helpful. So if you have a client you think would be good for that, anybody listening, if you’re a salesperson, sell it. If you’re not, talk to your sales people or your manager, if you’re like, I have an idea, and they can, like, run a. Up the chain too. So thanks for listening. Thank you very much.