Case Study · Fifth Avenue Brands
How Richard Lorenzen Turned 18 Years of Hustle Into a PR Agency That Runs on Systems.
When Richard Lorenzen founded Fifth Avenue Brands, he was still a student.
In His Own Words
Hear Richard tell it.
He didn't have the advantage of working from a corporate playbook or a template for how to drive sales within an organization. He was just an entrepreneurial kid with an instinct that digital marketing was about to reshape how companies found clients.
Richard was right.
"Digital marketing was kind of in its infancy. It was one of the newer frontiers of marketing. Some of it might have been right time, right place."
The agency launched before LinkedIn even existed. As big shifts in digital unfolded, Fifth Avenue Brands was in the middle of them. Eighteen years later, the agency has served hundreds of clients around the world and been featured in Inc., CNBC, Fox News and more.
Getting to this point, however, came with growing pains.
Starting a business without ever working for one.
In the early days, Fifth Avenue Brands was a full-service digital agency, offering services such as PR, SEO and content marketing. The more business came in, the more the team hustled.
Richard learned everything in real time. He never worked at another company before starting his own. So this meant figuring out systems and processes most people learn on someone else's payroll.
After a few years, he faced a decision — should he niche down or stay spread out over several services?
The agency did its best work in PR, especially with media relations and crisis management for financial services and B2B companies. Recognizing this, Richard cut everything else and went all in.
"We wanted to become the absolute best in our space for the clients we serve. After that, things really started to pick up steam. It became easier to scale and bring on clients, as well as easier to sell, because our target was more defined."
The niche continued to work well. But as the agency grew, new problems surfaced, especially around sales and lead generation.
Richard was now running a 10-person team. He started to feel too deep in daily activities to build the systems the business needed.
The introduction that changed everything.
In 2020, a mutual friend introduced Richard to Charles Gaudet at Predictable Profits.
Richard wasn't really looking to increase revenue. He simply wanted infrastructure or a way to make the agency's processes replicable.
The work with Charlie started with outreach. Fifth Avenue Brands did some cold outreach prior, but it was often inconsistent. With Charlie's help, they built a repeatable system around the process. They then automated several steps.
"Our lead gen easily doubled working with Charlie. It may have even close to tripled."
Ask Richard what piece of Charlie's advice has had the most impact, and he doesn't hesitate.
Consumption drives conversion.
After building their outbound systems, the next step was to accelerate the inbound momentum the agency accumulated through many years of client relationships and referrals. Fifth Avenue Brands leaned into creating content, guided by the idea that the more prospects consumed, the more likely they are to convert.
Learning to lead like a CEO.
The most durable shift has been in how Richard thinks about his own role.
Charlie continues to push him to work on the business rather than in it. This includes asking "who" instead of "how" when new projects arise, relying on scorecards and focusing on his role as CEO rather than inserting himself into everything else.
The team has grown from 10 people to 15. Yet the biggest change is how much his staff can now handle without Richard in the middle of the business.
Which is why, five years in, he still works with Charlie. Richard stresses that he values having someone outside the agency who is objective and available to discuss decisions without an agenda. He also credits Charlie with keeping the agency current on AI.
"Meeting with Charlie is like a therapy session every month."
Richard's family has grown by three kids since working with Predictable Profits. Although he still works hard, the agency no longer runs him. Solid boundaries are in place, and he's clear about where to focus his time.
The seeds keep producing.
Today, 18 years after starting a firm from a laptop in his parents' house, the growing PR agency has a solid team and systems. In fact, the seeds he planted many years ago keep producing. A company he worked with 12 years ago reached out cold recently. They're going to work together again.
"Turns out, being reliable and doing exceptional work remains a solid lead-generation strategy."