About 456 Growth
456 Growth is an agency that helps growing brands define and reach target markets through proven influencer and internet marketing strategies. Co-Founders Dan Albert, Robert Bocchicchio, and Austin Cohen teamed up to combine 20+ years in influencer marketing and turn it into an agency that revolutionizes how brands approach influencer marketing. 456 Growth consists of three separate entities:
- 456 Growth Media which helps brands scale through data-driven insights
- 456 Growth Talent which represents a growing number of social media personalities
- 456 Growth Investments which invests in high-growth startups and industry disruptors
As the social media landscape continues to evolve rapidly, 456 Growth aims to establish itself as a pioneer in working with influencers to ensure businesses can effectively scale and work seamlessly with strategic partners.
Why Lumanu?
Before Lumanu, the Co-Founders at 456 Growth worked at agencies with inefficient and outdated payment processes. Their teams relied on paper checks as their go-to payment method. Between making sure the team sent the checks to the correct addresses and that the recipient received the check – they would either get lost in the mail, never arrive, or arrive a year later.
Eventually, the agencies would graduate from paper checks to wire transfers, which proved to come with its own headaches and costs. The agencies were responsible for collecting their talents’ bank account information and facilitating sensitive W-9 collection over email. The cycle of collecting the creator’s banking details, ensuring that the details were correct, and managing and storing W-9 forms became time-consuming and frustrating for the team.
As Founder Dan Albert put it, “the process of making the payments, the ownership of communicating with the source the payment was going to, and the security of transferring sensitive proprietary information were all massive headaches for us. Without Lumanu, we could not have scaled our influencer program.”
How Lumanu streamlined operations
Today, 456 Growth uses Lumanu to pay creators, talent agencies, and talent managers across their businesses. The hassle of outdated and traditional payment methods kept them from growing their talent roster and deepening their relationships with existing creators. Transitioning to Lumanu to issue payments allowed them to scale their monthly transactions by 67%.
With Lumanu, their team can pay multiple creators instantly, seamlessly, and see all their transactions in one simple dashboard. Lumanu’s all-in-one payments solution takes care of all the end-of-the-year tax filing, including managing W-9 forms and issuing 1099s – freeing up their time to focus on more critical initiatives and winning new business from brands. Since they made the transition, 456 growth now works with dozens of new creators on the media buying side, allowing them to scale their creator business.
Lumanu’s EarlyPay feature has also been a major asset for their talent. Now more than ever, creators need their money faster than traditional net-30 or 60 payment terms to pay for personal expenses or reinvest back into their creator business. EarlyPay allows 456 Growth and its creators to access the funds from a brand or client in just a few business days without waiting weeks and sometimes months for payment.
What 456 Growth Has to Say
“I do not doubt that by this time next year, we will double, if not triple, the number of weekly payments we make. Scalability is huge for us, and ever since we transitioned to Lumanu, we’ve been able to place more ownership on our creators to do the tasks that were once a huge headache for our agency.” Dan Albert, Co-Founder of 456 Growth.