You’ve built BTR Media into a 9-figure business with a 95%+ client retention rate — without chasing growth for growth’s sake. What has been the hardest part of scaling while staying true to your people-first and relationship-first philosophy? You describe BTR as the “Ritz-Carlton of Amazon Advertising.” What does that look like in practice, both for your clients and your team? You’re passionate about helping others overcome limiting beliefs. What’s one limiting belief you personally had to break through as a founder, and how did it change the way you lead today? The future of retail media: With retail media growing across Amazon, Walmart, and Instacart, where do you see the biggest white space opportunities for brands to stand out in the next 2–3 years? What are you most excited about right now — for yourself, your clients, and for the retail media industry as a whole? What’s one message you’d like to leave our listeners with today?

Fail Fast, Move Faster: Competing in the AI Commerce Gold Rush (Destaney Wishon, CEO and Co-Founder of BTR Media)

The CPG View

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** The CPG View

## Participants

- **Interviewer** (None)
- **Destiny Wishon** (Better Media)

## Transcript

Welcome to this week's episode of the CPG View, the number one CPG information source for global omnichannel leaders. Destiny, thank you so much for joining this week's episode of the CPG View. I know we've been trying to do this here for a while and I think we're probably two very busy people. I just wanted to say thank you so much for joining and before we get started, would you mind introducing yourself and the company you're with? Yeah, of course. So Destiny Wishon, CEO of Better Media. I have been doing this for quite a few years at this point.

But really deep diving expertise on retail media, educating the community and just doing everything we can to be an incredible agency. Awesome. Congrats and we've got a lot of things to talk through here so we won't waste any time. So you've built Better Media into a nine figure business with nearly 100% client retention rate which is incredibly impressive. Without really chasing the classic growth for growth sake, what's been the hardest part of scaling while staying trained?

What's been the hardest part of being true to your people first and relationship first philosophy that I've also heard from others is something you embrace? Yeah, of course. Not quite nine figures in full transparency, but definitely a lot of growth over the last few years. And I would say one of the most difficult things has been learning to consistently say no.

Whether it's to shiny objects or to my time and energy or even from a client perspective, having to be the one to say, I don't think this is in your best interest. One of our core values is leading with trust and transparency. And in order to do that, you have to be very candid and say no to a lot of things. And that was hard because in the beginning, you see every opportunity and you're like, I want to jump on that. I could crush that. But you learn as an entrepreneur that your time is incredibly limited and so is your teams.

Yeah, that's a great point. It is interesting how saying no, the longer you go throughout your career is actually a skill. And because unintentionally, they don't intend to be distractions, but things you can get white noise of things around you and you don't actually have time to focus on what matters. And I think that's a lot of what you and I learned in college, I don't remember that they taught this in grade school, but definitely in college, the kind of the 80-20 principle.

You get to a point in your career, I've found where really harnessing that is an unlock. And I wish NBA programs and even just junior leaders today could talk about this more is that 80-20 principle is really so key because not everything that can be measured really matters.

I love that. Awesome. What you've described, I think I read this or maybe I heard you on a podcast, I'm not really sure, as a bit of the Ritz Carlton of adve...

Fail Fast, Move Faster: Competing in the AI Commerce Gold Rush (Destaney Wishon, CEO and Co-Founder of BTR Media)

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
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Fail Fast, Move Faster: Competing in the AI Commerce Gold Rush (Destaney Wishon, CEO and Co-Founder of BTR Media)

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.