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Our marketers, creators, and leaders start each day with one question in mind:
how can we make a positive impact on the people, organizations,
and communities we touch?
Laser-Focused Strategies.
Whether you're scaling your content machine or redesigning your website, every project is approached through the same lense—let's strengthen your brand and drive profitable revenue.
Unwavering Courage.
After nearly a decade of serving clients with the tenacity it takes to win—we're always ready to take on challenges and deliver results.
Clear Vision & Values.
From the kickoff meeting to launch day, you'll have a dedicated partner in us. Our focused vision and core virtues are infused in everything we do.
Insatiable Appetite to Learn.
We believe in our teams and services—but we never stop pushing the envelope. Owning and operating our own brand gives us the opportunity to test new strategies firsthand.
Explore Some of Our Work
see case studiesMeet the Team
We want to cultivate virtuous leaders who change the world—and they're the ones who make it happen.
Taylor Hartley
/Editor
Which virtue means the most to you?
As a former teacher, I want to make sure I’m always seeking out new knowledge and ways to improve my craft, so Wisdom means the most to me. My hope is to forever be a life-long learner who seeks the advice of those wiser than myself; the day I stop doing that is the day I need to find new people to learn from so I can keep growing.
What is your biggest achievement at Grit?
I’ve really enjoyed polishing neighborhood and city guides for one of our real estate clients. I believe we are giving future residents helpful information when it comes to choosing a place to live. It’s important for me to have purpose in what I do, and helping to educate someone on their prospective home feels like valuable work to me.
What do you like to do outside of work?
I’m a speculative fiction author, which means I’m usually working on some kind of ghost story or epic fantasy novel. I’m also a huge reader, a big fan of the at-home rowing machine, and enjoy the occasional Netflix binge.
Paul Southerland
/President of Growth
Which virtue means the most to you?
Courage is the virtue that means the most to me. Companies benefit enormously when employees are thoughtfully courageous. Being the voice of calculated dissent, a constructive agitator of assumptions, or a challenger of performance standards takes courage–and, as such, Grit and our agency partners benefit greatly!
What is your biggest achievement at Grit?
Leading the acquisition of Betterpet.com and its continued growth under Grit’s ownership. More importantly, applying the business’ growth strategies and processes to our agency partnerships more broadly.
What do you like to do outside of work?
I love spending time with my wife and daughter–especially going on bike rides together. I also enjoy playing tennis and, oddly enough, doing yard work!
René Fielder
/COO, President of
Agency Services
Which virtue means the most to you?
Gratitude is the virtue that means the most to me. I believe it costs nothing to say “thank you” and recognizing the contributions of the team to our goals, both for clients and for our agency, is an important part of our culture.
What is your biggest achievement at Grit?
Developing and scaling our Email Marketing service line, in partnership with our design, project management, and content teams, is something I’m particularly proud of. Email is such an important revenue channel, especially for our e-commerce clients, and it gives me the opportunity to work with automations which I consider to be a marketing secret weapon.
What do you like to do outside of work?
I enjoy baking bread (which includes pizza by the way), painting, gardening, reading, and volunteering in animal rescue organizations as a dog foster parent.
Lucy Whitney
/Digital Marketing Analyst
Which virtue means the most to you?
Courage resonates the most with me because it is a virtue that promotes growth. Since working at Grit, I have learned that having courage to push myself to do things that may be outside my comfort zone and take more initiative is what has allowed me to gain more confidence and skills.
What is your biggest achievement at Grit?
One of my biggest achievements at Grit has been helping to implement a brand new reporting platform that allows us to track performance towards our goals for all clients. By implementing a standard and efficient way of tracking account performance on a weekly basis, the team is able to quickly prioritize strategies at the beginning of the week.
What do you like to do outside of work?
Outside of work, I enjoy playing tennis, skiing, and going to work out classes, but can also be found playing trivia on Wednesdays or trying out new restaurants around Charlotte. I also spend a good bit of time with my new Australian Shepherd puppy.
Kristen Fisher
/Digital Project Manager
Which virtue means the most to you?
Courage is the virtue that means the most to me. Courage has helped give me the strength to conquer goals in my career and personal life. It has also pushed me to learn new skills and to step outside of my comfort zone.
What is your biggest achievement at Grit?
One of my greatest achievements at Grit was helping to launch new tier 1 category pages for our client Gump’s. I worked on the outline and copy for the pages. It felt good to see what you envisioned come to life and to help create a better shopping experience for customers.
What do you like to do outside of work?
When I’m not working, you can find me trying new restaurants in Charlotte, traveling, or watching rom-coms on Netflix. I also love watching college football and during the fall you can find me cheering on the Crimson Tide – Roll Tide!
Ellen Boyette
/Senior Designer
Which virtue means the most to you?
Care is very important to me. People are the ones who make an organization, and they are not robots. I believe caring for individuals supports the entire organization at its core. Success to me is truly connecting and supporting each other in work – and life.
What is your biggest achievement at Grit?
My biggest achievement is the breadth of work and new skills I’ve obtained in my years here. Working on so many different projects and clients, I’ve expanded my knowledge in digital marketing, tech, ecommerce, design, and so much more. I’m excited to keep honing my skills!
What do you like to do outside of work?
Outside of work I like to take on random hobbies (calligraphy, watercolor, DIY house projects), do any kind of dancing, and spend time with my son.
Alex Evans
/Director of Paid Media
Which virtue means the most to you?
The virtue that resonates most with me is perseverance. Hardship, bad news and setbacks are all but guaranteed in life and business, but I’ve always subscribed to the notion that everything is “figureoutable.” The key to overcoming these inevitable hurdles is to persevere. Keep testing, innovating and pushing forward until success is achieved.
What is your biggest achievement at Grit?
The digital landscape is ever changing. During my time here at Grit, Facebook rolled out a major update to their tracking and data collection policies. As the news broke and created a frenzy industry wide, I dug deep into the intricacies of these policy changes and systematically got to work positioning our clients and partners for success.
What do you like to do outside of work?
Outside of work I like to keep busy with several different hobbies that continually challenge me intellectually and physically. Currently I am keen on improving my golf game to consistently break 80 at my home course, but I also am learning some well-known guitar solos, rehabbing a fixer-upper and training my rescue pit bull to be a good boy.
Davis Upton
/SEO Outreach Coordinator
Which virtue means the most to you?
Grit is the virtue that means the most to me because in order to drive performance forward aka growth it takes grit and a willingness to fail in the pursuit of utilizing new ideas.
What is your biggest achievement at Grit?
My biggest achievement at Grit is obtaining links from websites to TodayTix and betterpet. Also, acquiring local experts through my outreach efforts to review Opendoor neighborhood and city guides.
What do you like to do outside of work?
My favorite thing to do outside of work is hanging out with my friends and family. I really enjoy doing outdoor activities such as golf, basketball, fishing, biking, tennis, and disc golf. I also enjoy going to hornets, panthers, charlotte fc, and knights games as well as the white water center!
Alex Johnson
/Founder, CEO
Which virtue means the most to you?
This is a tough one, as I think the power of our virtues is unlocked by completing the full cycle! But, if push comes to shove – I’d be remiss not to say that Grit means the most to me. With 7 years of hard experience as an entrepreneur, its not hard to see why statistics show 50% of new businesses fail within 5 years. I firmly believe that the virtue of grit is the real reason that our business is still growing today. There have been plenty of reasons to throw in the towel, but I believe this business has good to do for all of our stakeholders, and my belief in the purpose and mission pushes me to bring Grit each and every day so that we have our best chance to succeed.
What is your biggest achievement at Grit?
One of my core responsibilities that I’m accountable for is sales and growth. I’m really proud of the fact that despite adverse economic conditions we’ve been able to grow our top line by 25-40% each year for 6 consecutive years & to generate a profit each year.
What do you like to do outside of work?
Outside of work my time is spent with my Family – my wife Carolyn and our two boys – Luke (3) and Sam (7 months). We currently like to explore Charlotte parks, build block castles downstairs, and play with excavators. As you can imagine – that keeps us pretty busy! I’m also involved in leadership with my church, I play league basketball (which I probably take it a little too seriously), and I still enjoy getting out for some golf (past life).
Rylie Brown
/Senior Content Specialist
Which virtue means the most to you?
Courage is the most meaningful virtue to me—in both my professional and personal life. It’s the foundation for growth because you can’t stretch, try new things, or uncover hidden strengths without having the courage to try something in the first place.
What is your biggest achievement at Grit?
My biggest achievement at Grit is definitely proposing the tagline that ignited our campaign for Denny’s franchising website. At the time, I was only a year into my career and felt so energized by the project which only solidified my passion for all things branding!
What do you like to do outside of work?
When I’m not working, you can usually find me hanging out with my dog, working out at the gym, reading a good book, or binging the latest true crime documentary—preferably with an iced coffee in hand.
Allison Williams
/Head of Content
Which virtue means the most to you?
Gratitude is the virtue where I feel most comfortable — like most Southerners, manners were instilled in me from the highchair! — and Courage is where I feel most challenged, but Care is my linchpin. Every pot has a lid, the saying goes. Someone, somewhere needs every piece of content we write, edit, design, or produce. They may use it to make a life decision or simply a day-to-day decision. Or, maybe, it’s an article, blog, email, or social media post that makes you think, smile, or wonder. I care about what we’re creating here and the people who make it possible.
What is your biggest achievement at Grit?
I’m a new addition to Grit, but I’m already proud of our work to help pet families on betterpet and families of all types find a new home on Opendoor!
What do you like to do outside of work?
I’m a parent of two dogs, one cat, and oh yes, two children, so much of my time is spent with them. Teenagers keep you on your toes, and my two are no different with interests from theater to the outdoors. When there’s time, I read, swim, practice yoga, and put together puzzles, a COVID habit I can’t seem to kick!
Shannon Perry
/Marketing & Content Specialist
Which virtue means the most to you?
You truly grow when you experience challenges and discomfort, and when you’re humbled by those you surround yourself with. Choosing to adapt and develop resiliency takes grit.
What is your biggest achievement at Grit?
I’ve developed templates and organized certain areas to promote more efficiency so that we’re able to be more productive as a whole with less stress.
What do you like to do outside of work?
I believe we should leave the world a better place, so I work with a few nonprofits to that end. Also, I have nine cats—so a lot of pet care.
Liz Sims
/VP, Partnership Performance
Which virtue means the most to you?
Courage is the virtue that means the most to me. Having the courage to stand up for what you believe in, both personally and professionally, allows our team to deliver high quality work for Grit and for our partners and a product that they are proud to stand behind.
What is your biggest achievement at Grit?
Growing both our SEO service offering and analytics teams is something that I am proud of during my time at Grit. Additionally, I greatly value my time spent working with clients and helping them drive the performance they are looking for.
What do you like to do outside of work?
Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with friends and family. You can usually find me at a local brewery, enjoying a hike in the NC mountains, at the gym or trying out a new recipe.
Our Culture
Caring for our team means celebrating every win—big or small. From mini golf tournaments to enriching lunch and learns at the office, we always strive to foster individual and collective growth.
Our Core Virtues
We approach every day with the same purpose—to cultivate virtuous leaders who change the world. These core virtues not only inspire, but keep us aspiring for more.
Are You Ready to Make an Impact?
