Sustainable Growth & Remote Culture

Episode 4 February 23, 2022 01:00:31
Sustainable Growth & Remote Culture
The Agency Hour
Sustainable Growth & Remote Culture

Feb 23 2022 | 01:00:31

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Hosted By

Troy Dean Johnny Flash

Show Notes

Johnny Flash & Troy Dean host Josh Eaton, CEO of Reaktiv, a boutique WordPress agency that specialises in complex integrations and custom development. Josh will share his insights on how to grow your agency sustainably and chat about their remote team culture.

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P.S If you would like to watch the recording you can view the episode here: 
The Agency Hour - Ep 4 - Sustainable Growth & Remote Culture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w88f6ynSqQg&list=PLPHlA3d91okkAjSrSPWvyr20q4-BdqIaM&index=4&t=7s
 
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 0 00:00:00 How we measure our project success. The most important thing is the, the, the team happiness and the client happiness. So then gets to like timeline and budget and things like that. So whether we're measuring how the project is successful, if our team isn't happy, that's gonna be bad for our culture. If our team isn't happy, they're probably not gonna do a great job for the client. Speaker 1 00:00:20 If you have a vision for the agency you want to build, then we want to help you build it. Welcome to the agency. Our podcast brought to you by agency Mavericks. Speaker 2 00:00:29 Hey, uh, welcome to the Facebook group here. Welcome to the agency hour. Hey, I'm pretty excited today. We have a very special guest this week who I've been stalking a little bit, uh, recently on the interwebs found them reached out and he's very kindly agreed to come in and have a chat with us about a couple of things. Uh, the, some of the topics we're gonna talk about are building culture amongst your remote team and also sustainable agency growth. They are a WordPress V I P partner. I'm talking about reactive studios, please. Welcome to stage CEO, Josh Eaton. Speaker 0 00:01:01 Hey buddy. How you doing? Doing well? How are you? Speaker 2 00:01:04 I'm good. Did I get that right? Are you CEO or are you president or founder? Both Speaker 0 00:01:09 President CEO depends on which, uh, which form I'm filling out, but yes. Yeah, exactly. That's me. Speaker 2 00:01:17 Uh, for those that dunno, give us the too long, didn't read version. How long you been around, what do you do? Who do you do it for? And what are you doing here? Speaker 0 00:01:23 Yeah, we are a digital agency, uh, design and development, primarily focused on WordPress. Um, we, you mentioned we're a WordPress VIP partner. Um, and we've been around for 10 years, uh, surveying, uh, mid market and enterprise clients in, uh, higher ed media and technology. Speaker 2 00:01:44 Hmm. Higher ed. Um, what were you doing before you started reactive? Speaker 0 00:01:50 Uh, I, uh, I studied accounting. Uh <laugh> and then I, um, I went to work for Deloitte, uh, but in consulting, so, uh, actually passed the CPA exam, uh, and then never spent a day as a professional accountant. I managed to, I managed to get the, the bonus you get for passing the CPA exam there. They were, they were very confused. They were like, why did you management consulting? Um, and, uh, working on technology that, um, you know, really large projects primarily with like budgeting and forecasting, but it wasn't really exciting technology. And I always had done web work on the side mm-hmm <affirmative>. So after, you know, spending all day working on one thing, I'd go home and, you know, work on web projects and things. And it was like, maybe I should make that the stuff I really enjoy doing what I do all day and then not be on the computer at night. Mm. So, uh, uh, my wife and I actually left, uh, left our jobs and took a trip around the world for a year and a half. Um, oh, wow. And it was during that time that I, uh, got more connected in the, uh, WordPress community Um-huh <affirmative>, uh, met the person who became my, my business partner and, uh, yeah, joined up with reactive and, uh, been here ever since. Speaker 2 00:03:13 Were, were you building websites while you were traveling the world? Speaker 0 00:03:17 Uh, a few. Yeah. We primarily took, took that time off. Uh mm-hmm <affirmative> so I'd say mostly building skills in terms of, uh, making connections, uh, learning as much as I could. Um, and then traveling, Speaker 2 00:03:28 Mm, Johnny jump when, jump in whenever you can. Cause you know what I'm like, I think we've lost your audio Johnny. Speaker 3 00:03:35 Oh, it's sorry. I was muted. We, I was saying, uh, pre COVID I'm assuming was all the traveling around, right? Speaker 0 00:03:41 Yeah. Yeah. We're coming up on like the 10 year anniversary of doing that. So wow. Next year it will have been 10 years, so definitely pre COVID. Yeah. So, uh, it's been, we love travel. So, um, this past year has been pretty rough for, for that. Of course Speaker 3 00:03:55 You've been having Disneyland withdrawal, Speaker 0 00:03:57 Right? Josh? Yes. Yes. It's true. Kids are like, when are we going? Maybe never think just added, like in Southern California, just added like pass back. You can get if you're like a local mm-hmm <affirmative>, which, uh, you know, would be great. We'd go during the weekend stuff. So yeah, we're, uh, we're missing that, but, uh, uh, can't wait for our next trip outta the country as well. Speaker 2 00:04:23 Yeah. That should just turn Disneyland into a vaccination hub. Right. I mean, that's the obvious pivot there. Speaker 0 00:04:30 Heard that. Yeah. I heard talk of that, but Speaker 2 00:04:31 Yeah, I dunno, uh, for those that, uh, for those that interested reactive co is the domain name here, it's R a KTV reactive co is where you go check out Josh's work, dude, you've got a client list that is like a dream list of clients that anyone's starting out and be like, oh my God, you've got Intuit, Microsoft, Harvard business school, NBC universal Atlassian. Why? I, I, I mean, I, I, I just have to ask how do you land these clients? Speaker 0 00:04:59 Uh, word of mouth referrals and partnerships? Uh, our VIP partnership has been really great for us, especially we've been partners with them for seven years. And, um, that definitely helped when we were really small, get us, started getting some of these, uh, larger enterprise clients. Um, and we've done really good work over the past 10 years. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and, uh, that's turned into some really great relationships that we've been able to leverage there. Uh, but yeah, I, it, it's a great client list. I'm, I'm really happy and proud of all the, all the work we do and, and who we do it with Speaker 2 00:05:33 Had the VIP partnership come about. I was, I was talking to, um, someone recently from automatic, who we're actually gonna have on the show in the next couple of weeks as a guest, I'm not gonna announce who they are. It'll be a surprise. Uh, but he was saying, you know, what is the perception of V P WordPress VIP from an outsider's point of view? Obviously we've got a lot of agencies here and, and, you know, freelancers and smaller agencies and the perception I think for a long time has been. And I I'm hoping you can correct me on this. And I actually asked Jake, uh, this from when he on the show a couple weeks ago, um, you know, clarify this for me from the looks like, first of all, it's kinda only feels like really exclusive club. You kinda invited part of the cool gang, get to use our platform, which is by the way, lockdown, and you can't use any of your favorite plugins and it's really restrictive. And so from, and by the way, we'll probably give you some leads. Right. That's kinda what it looks. And I know that's a, that's a kinda way of explaining it, but what does the relationship with WordPress at a, at a VIP level actually look like? Speaker 0 00:06:31 Yeah, uh, there's uh, especially among the gold, uh, partners in VIP, there's a lot of collaboration there in terms of making sure that we're, we're serving our shared clients, uh, correctly. Um, some of the things you said around, you know, access to the platform and things like that, um, I don't believe you have to work with, with an agency partner, but it helps. And it's definitely not as locked down as it was in the past. When we, when we started, uh, the partnership, uh, the platform was completely different. They have a, a new environment, uh, that's, uh, much less, much less restrictive. Um, and there's a lot more that you can do on it now. So I think that's really opened up, um, who can, who can run on the platform. Many of our clients are on and many managed, well, Speaker 2 00:07:21 Those sort of leads generally via WordPress, someone who the skillset and the expertise to manage the project and WordPress IP essentially kinda enterprise hosting or managed hosting platform. And then they, they refer the development and design work and implementation to the partners, right? Speaker 0 00:07:42 Yes, exactly. Got Speaker 2 00:07:43 It. Um, so, uh, how a couple of things we were talking about pre-show is sustainable growth as an agency. Yep. And the, the, the thing that I really wanna get stuck into is the people aspect, like, how do you recruit, hire, keep motivated, keep everyone moving in the right direction, build a good culture remotely. And particularly because of COVID now we we've, a lot of us have already done this remotely for years before COVID, but particularly because of COVID, now this is we have to work remotely. So before we get the team stuff, let's maybe talk about the growth angle because money doesn't solve all problems, but it sure us how helps hire people who can help you solve problems and then create new problems. You didn't, you were have you human beings let' Speaker 0 00:08:44 Yeah. A lot to unpack there. Uh, which is good. Cause there, I got a lot to say, <laugh> Speaker 2 00:08:48 Good. Speaker 0 00:08:49 I would say, yeah, both those things, the sustainable agency growth and, and remote culture, uh, like you can't have one without the other. They're completely intertwined it to talk about them together. Uh, let's talk about the revenue models for a little bit. We, we do projects in all kinds of different ways. Um, and in terms of, uh, in terms of sustainable growth, in terms of, uh, uh, you know, keeping your team afloat, whether when going through hard times last year is a great example. Having that recurring revenue base there is really valuable at one point in our, um, history. I think we were at, uh, maybe 70% like, uh, retainers mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so we had, uh, I remember one, we were in like Q4 of one year and I was like, I don't think we have to book a project for the rest of the year. Speaker 0 00:09:41 I was like, we've got this, we've got these retainers coming through. Um, that was really great. We're not there now. We've had a lot more growth in our, uh, larger project work mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so we, um, and just the agency has grown, so that's become a, a smaller part, but, uh, it's still a, a huge part part of, uh, last year was a very challenging year. Like I don't even know if I need to call that out, but, uh, we still had a great year. Um, and it was thanks to our great clients and, uh, partners and our great team, um, that we had all these preexisting relationships. And so, uh, we only had a few new clients through 20, but, um, all our existing clients helped us make it through and grew in, um, from a revenue perspective. So, uh, kind of the ways we structure that is, um, most of our projects are, are fixed bid, but we kind of run the gamut on how we like build the project. Speaker 0 00:10:37 So we've gotten pretty good at estimating those and our project managers are really good at, uh, keeping track of scope, making sure that we're not gonna go over timeline and budget. Um, and pretty much all those products will turn into some type of going work, whether it's a, a fixed fee retainer, an hourly retainer, um, uh, or we even do buckets of hours. Sometimes those are combined, we'll do maintenance under a retainer and then have like a bucket of hours for the next year, like 300 hours for something to like use whenever, uh, whenever needed. And the priority there is different based on, uh, if you're on a retainer, we have you forecast it in. If you're on a bucket of hours, it's something that we're having to, um, you'll have to contact us to figure out what our scheduling is and we'll schedule you in. Speaker 0 00:11:27 So people who need the most priority are on those, like use it or lose it every month, uh, retainers mm-hmm <affirmative>. So having those, uh, set up and we provide a lot of value outside of just straight development hours to, in terms of ongoing monitoring, um, checking performance, accessibility, uh, like <inaudible> um, and so having those really helped in a year, like last year, when, you know, it may not be such a gross year, uh, I'd say how we measure our project success. Um, uh, the most important thing is the, the, the team happiness and the client happiness. So it gets to like timeline and budget and things like that. So whether we're measuring how the project is successful, if our team isn't happy, uh, that's gonna be bad for our culture. If our team isn't happy, they're probably not gonna do a great job for the client. And so, um, the way we make our client happy is by having our, our team, uh, our team be satisfied and happy on the project too. So we do what we to not, not burn people out to not, uh, overload people, the reason focus on that fundamentals in sure. We're hitting timeline and budget because we have a great project management team, great team of engineers and designers to, uh, to keep those projects on track. Speaker 2 00:12:59 I'll get about 8,000 questions. Speaker 3 00:13:02 I was questions too Projects. And about the project managers and stuff, I was just curious, um, are any of them on any kinda like commission or bonus structure, um, or is it just your sales team or I'm just kinda curious. I was, we was having a conversation about this with some other earlier today. And so I was just kind curious, um, how you approached that. Speaker 0 00:13:27 Yeah, our, our project managers aren't, they don't have a, um, they're not tasked with like account management in terms of like growing account necessarily. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, that is primarily on our sales team, uh, for the longest time. That was just me, uh, recently we've hired another salesperson as well. OK. Um, so there's no commission structure there. Uh, mm-hmm <affirmative> our project managers do, uh, they do know to look for those kind of things. So if there's any talk in like a, a meeting where, um, oh, this is something we might like to do in the future, or mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, you know, we have an event coming up or something like that, all that information gets back to our sales team, which then we, um, we'll reach out and try to figure out, you know, whether that means there's another phase or some other work for Speaker 3 00:14:11 Us to OK, Speaker 0 00:14:12 Cool. Push forward on. Speaker 3 00:14:14 Cool. Speaker 2 00:14:16 How do you measure, uh, I wanna come back to the revenue thing for a second. I talk about retainers and maintenance, but how do you measure the happiness of the team and the happiness of the client? Speaker 0 00:14:29 Yeah, one of the ways is, um, well, let's say for clients, um, some of the things we look at are, uh, you know, are, are we hearing, what kind of feedback are we getting? So we're regularly checking in with the client to say, how's everything going? Are we meeting your expectations? And if we're not, uh, that's kinda how we measure that. We don't really use any automated tools for that. I know some people do N test scores and things like that. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, uh, for the kind of work we do, everything's so custom that, um, I've looked into those, but it hasn't, uh, hasn't seemed like a fit. The personal email seems to get, uh, yet a better response for those kind of check-ins. Um, same thing with the team. We have, everyone has regular one on ones with their managers. Uh, we have skip level meetings with, with me, for anyone who's not reporting to. And we're doing a retrospective at the end of every project where we're very candid about how the project went, you know, the good and the bad, what did we learn? All that, all that gets published on our like internal blog. And, uh, so everyone, even people who aren't on the project can kinda get the takeaways of, you know, those projects. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, those are the main ways measure client and, uh, team happiness there. Speaker 2 00:15:45 Do you have a framework for, uh, please? Excuse my lizard brain. I can't help myself. Do you have a framework for the one-on-one meetings that you have with team members or is it pretty loose in organic conversation? Or do you have like an agenda? Speaker 0 00:15:58 Yeah, we, um, I would say it's fairly loose, everyone. Ha we use a sauna, that's our tool. Everyone has a, an as project with their manager and it's laid out, uh, laid out with their, their goals, uh, any issues or, and proposed solutions. So mm-hmm, <affirmative>, if an issue needs to go in there, it needs to have a proposed solution as well. And that's a topic to discuss, uh, agenda items. And then there's a, there's a place for feedback in there. So typically we'll be delivering feedback, a call or something like that, and then recording it in that part of the, uh, the Asana document. But there's, uh, we have that structure, but it is pretty free form as well in terms of, uh, through challenge and, and growth opportunities. Speaker 2 00:16:40 Yeah. And, and, and the, the one on ones I'm curious, I mean, are you not, I'm gonna make an assumption that you're not talking about project work or what happened with this client, or where are you at with this project that you talking about, the development of that individual and their growth within the organization and what they might be challenged with in terms of their own personal growth? Is that, is that a fair assumption? Speaker 0 00:17:02 Yes. Uh, you know, sometimes there is specific project things to talk about, but it's a, it's not a, a one on proceeds, like a developmenting meant it is checking in, checking in on that person, uh, make sure that they have the opportunity to give feedback on things they see. Um, as managers, we are able to give feedback on things we see, um, and, you know, continually feeding back into what their annual goals are, their professional development goals and all that. Love Speaker 2 00:17:38 It, love it. Um, I, I, I do wanna come back and talk more about team in a second, but I just wanna unpack the maintenance, um, and the retainer model for a second. Do you, I, I, I've kind of been advocating for a long time that maintenance in and of itself, if you're just dealing with like a small, medium business and you build a WordPress website and we launch it, that maintenance in and of itself is actually not that valuable because the client kind of expects it. Right. They, I mean, Chrome updates, you don't even know that it's updated, it's just expected. Right. So, yeah. Do do, I mean, do you have clients that are just on straight maintenance or is there something that you add into that maintenance contract to make it more valuable for the, so that don't churn? Like, are you talking to them about strategy or goals or just kinda walk me through that a bit? Speaker 0 00:18:28 Yeah, definitely. Uh, it's heavily customized for each client. So mm-hmm, <affirmative>, some clients will have like an hourly retainer, but they have requests constantly. And so we may call that a maintenance retainer because we're also updating plugins. And the big thing there is like, anyone can update the plugins, it's the testing of those plugins and thinks that's the important part. Um, and so even if we're doing that, uh, some clients are gonna have they're on that retainer because they have a lot of requests every month. Mm-hmm <affirmative> other clients want to know they, they want the peace of mind that their site's gonna be taken care of. Uh, they don't have to worry about being hacked. They don't have to worry about keeping the plugins up to date. They just wanna, they just want it outta their head. And to know that they have a trusted partner taking care of it. Speaker 0 00:19:13 So, um, in some organizations, they have someone internally that can do that. And, but many don't. And so, uh, that's where those kind of meanness retainers are a really good fit mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, and so that is where we have, uh, additional options there where we do everything from, uh, uptime monitoring, uh, performance monitoring, we'll monitor light lighthouse scores on an ongoing basis, uh, and kind of track those. So we can know, um, you know, we might for check the lighthouse score and be like, Hey, look, we did such a great job. The, you know, the score is, you know, 90 something mm-hmm <affirmative> then you a couple months of new features and maintenance. And if you're not consistently checking that you may have implemented something, not paid attention to what's going on there. So continual monitoring there, same thing with accessibility is, uh, you can build an accessible site and then a content editor goes in there and in INAC accessible content and, and you're outta compliance. So, um, those are things that we have, we have tools to automated scans and also we'll do manual checks. Uh, we'll do things like, uh, analytics reporting, uh, and analysis. We'll look at Google analytics every month and produce a report that says, um, you know, here's, here's how the bounce rate changed. Here's where most the traffic came from and kind analyzed that for our clients. Speaker 2 00:20:34 And then you, and then you kind consulting on strategy, or are you just consulting on from a technical layer? This is what we can do from a technical point of view to improve the performance of the website. But Hey, if you wanna publish that blog post, that's entirely up to you, that's got nothing to do with us. We wouldn't do that, but how's your business? Where do you, where do you draw the line there? Speaker 0 00:20:51 Yeah. Primarily tech strategy, web strategy. We don't do a lot of content strategy work or, um, or just like content in general. So just primarily from a, uh, from a tech perspective, from a process perspective, provide insight there, Speaker 3 00:21:22 ING their maintenance, their retainers, their projects, and kinda the value that you're pitching, you know, which it sounds like it's more on the, the customized care than it is like pressing update on the plugins. Right. Speaker 0 00:21:35 Definitely. Yeah. There's, uh, we just, um, I created a site for someone that doesn't have anyone to take care of that, but, uh, we put them on a specific posting plan where they have, um, where they have automated plugin updates with like visual regression set up so that they could, they just weren't a fit for the, for the maintenance retainer. Um, and so that's, that's an example where like, you know, we wanna find the right fit for the client and it just doesn't make sense for, for some clients about, we'll still make sure you're set up in a way that, you know, you're, you're gonna get what you need, and that may not be customized care from us. Um, and you know, that client may come back for a larger project in the future. Um, mm-hmm <affirmative>, uh, but it's, it's, it's not where we're saying, oh, if you don't take care of your, if you don't sign a retainer with us, you're not gonna be able to take care of your site. We know that for many sites, you're just clicking update. So those are the ones that we're not actively going after. It's primarily the ones where, you know, we're gonna be working on things month in and month out. Speaker 2 00:22:40 Mm-hmm <affirmative> sure. And so the, the kinda the bucket of hours model, are there clients who don't, who aren't on a maintenance retainer, because they don't need it because maybe they've got someone internally that can manage that, but they need kinda regular development work. And so they just buy a bucket of hours. Is, do you have clients in that mix? Speaker 0 00:22:57 We do. We do. We like that approach for clients who don't have that regular, maybe not even maintenance, but they know it might be seasonal. It's like they know for the year they're gonna have a few big event mm-hmm <affirmative> and rather than do a contract every time and go through a whole estimation and legal process, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, um, uh, it's usually easier to do, like, maybe <inaudible> to say, Hey, we know for the year, um, you need to let us know X number of weeks ahead of time. So we have lead time to, uh, to resource people for that. And, uh, those will work really well. Sometimes they're paired with a maintenance retainer, uh, our flat fee ones where it's just rather than hours. It's just like, um, this amount per month. And we take care of this bullet, this bulleted list of items, and then, uh, the bucket of hours outside of that, it is, uh, it is a challenge from a, um, like if you're not busy having that mix of, of retainer work, project work, uh, hourly buckets and things, isn't that big of a deal then when you are busy, uh, those, those buckets become, uh, kind of a strain on your, uh, on your forecasting. Speaker 0 00:24:12 So those have to watch out for, uh, cuz if you're, um, if you're, if you're careful or if you don't set expectations up front with clients, you can run into, into issues where, uh, like a retainer. And so that's why we have our set where if you want that priority, you've gotta be the month in month out. That way we're setting that time aside. Otherwise, you know, we've gotta able to schedule Speaker 2 00:24:39 You the conversation where you say, like here's a bucket of ours. Here's how much it is. How do you avoid the conversation with the client goes, all right. So if I divide the amount by the bucket of ours, that's your hourly rate? That's expensive. Speaker 0 00:24:50 Uh, that's a great question. Um, for those buckets of hours, we, uh, clients know our hourly rate, uh, if we're doing a fixed bid project, um, we're usually not sharing an hourly rate as part of that, cause that's not really part of that, that fixed bid. Um, but for those buckets of hours, they, uh, the client does know our hourly rate. Um, and clients will say it's expensive and we walk through, uh, what the value is. So, um, our, uh, we have have plenty of people come in and say, uh, I'm sure anyone who runs an agency is, has had that experience. It costs this much, this is, uh, so expensive. So, uh, we, you know, some of that comes down to making sure you're getting the right leads in and they, um, they have that expectation. Like our, our rates are, uh, are within market. Uh, it doesn't mean people still won't come in and say they're same expensive. Of course. Speaker 2 00:25:50 Yeah. Speaker 0 00:25:51 But I guess over, over the years of having those conversations, it, uh, uh, it, it gets easier and easier. I know once we get to that point where it's like over hourly rate, um, that client might not necessarily be a great fit for us. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Cause I view our agency is bringing a lot more than just an hourly rate. So once it gets to that point, it's like, well, now we're, now we're a commodity. Sure. There's gonna be plenty of people out there at a lower rate. Yeah. But here's what you get when you work. Speaker 2 00:26:18 Yeah. Speaker 0 00:26:19 That's so good. That's so good. Speaker 2 00:26:21 Yeah. One, one question I've got about complexity of scope project. If a project comes in and you are not like, do you ever build like a prototype or like a, like a, not a mock up of a design, but do you ever build like a, a wire frame or like a, like an interactive prototype just as a proof of concept before you actually scope out a project, Speaker 0 00:26:47 Meaning before we've actually sold it or Speaker 2 00:26:49 As like a first phase? Yeah, like a first phase. Yeah. First. Speaker 0 00:26:53 Oh, as a first phase. Um, we have done that. Um, typically our first phase is a, is a discovery phase. So whether it's actually sold as like here, we're signing the contract just for discovery or it's actually just like the first stage in a, in a project that we've given like a, an estimate on, um, it's not typical that we'd actually do like a full prototype, more that we'd prove out specific things that are, um, that we know will be tricky. So if a client comes to us and there's like an integration with another system that they wanna do, mm-hmm, <affirmative> maybe something we haven't done before. Yeah. We've done a lot of API integrations, but there's, you know, thousands and there's Speaker 2 00:27:39 Always that one Speaker 0 00:27:40 <laugh> exactly. So that would be something we would spend extra time on. Uh, so, you know, we may not build like a fully functioning prototype, but we'd like, okay, do we have the authentication working out with all the, all that out? So we try to eliminate any of the assumptions we have from our estimate, uh, or validate those assumptions, uh, and then eliminate any of the additional questions we had. So if there's anything that isn't clear, we wanna make that clear during that phase. So we'll, but, Speaker 2 00:28:11 But let's be clear. You're getting, you're getting paid for this work, right. You're getting paid to validate or eliminate this to somebody. Cause this is the big, this is the, yeah, this is one of the biggest differences between where I see people who are starting out or are, you know, trying to grow and established agencies is that the, you know, with the reputation, the credibility and the social proof that you've got with the clients that you work with and the quality of the leads that you're getting from WordPress and all that kinda stuff is you just wouldn't dream of like doing discovery like this and not getting paid for it. It doesn't make any sense to you as a business owner. It also doesn't make any sense to the client at that level expect. How do you, how do you make that transition? Because I know there are a lot of small agency owners and freelancers starting who are like, I would just wanna prove how much I know and how, what I can do to earn the trust of the client. So they then hire me to build the thing. Speaker 0 00:29:01 Yep. Yeah. Uh, I felt the same way. Uh, when I started out in terms of how am I going, how am I gonna get someone to pay me, to figure out how to do the project? It, it, when you describe it like that, it seems like, yeah, why would someone do that? Um, but there's a lot of value in that because most, most people that are setting up, do a project, uh, with us, they're not, uh, they're not a web person. They're not a developer, they're not a designer. They're in marketing, they're in communications, they're in product. Uh, something like that. They're not that they do day in and day out. So they can say what maybe like the end solution they want is, but they don't know how to get there. And so there's a lot of value in being able to, uh, help a client through that process and, and get them there. One of the things that will, that will frequently say, you know, we have deliverables as part of that discovery project, um, like a tech document design, brief, something like that. And is there valuable documents on their own? So there's, there's value produced during that discovery phase, even if they decided not to move forward with us for the project, they could take those documents to someone else. Speaker 2 00:30:11 Uh, correct. Yep. Speaker 0 00:30:13 That has not happened at this point to us, Speaker 2 00:30:16 You point where you've gone, Hey, great. We've done discovery. You're a lunatic. We don't wanna work with you guys. Cause you're a pain in the arts and we don't want this project, but here its Tatar, Bob, I go find someone else. Speaker 0 00:30:26 So, uh, we've had to happen on, on work we've had by our clients usually doesn't happen at the, at the end of of discovery though. So we haven't, we haven't so much had that exact situation, but we definitely have had, uh, projects where we, where we've had to fire clients, uh, yeah, for, for similar reasons. So, um, that's always a tough conversation to have, but uh, usually ends up being a, a good decision, Speaker 3 00:30:50 Josh. Um, when you're talking about scope and everything, you know, as I talk to agency owners, a lot of, a lot of them struggle with, um, you know, when you were talking about like keeping the projects on and all that, um, doing exactly that because the client holds it up with getting them content or providing feedback that's timely and stuff. What, what you do to kind help that part of the process. Speaker 2 00:31:15 Great question. Speaker 0 00:31:16 Yeah. We, uh, that is a good question. We, um, it really comes down to communication and getting expectations with clients. Um, that's not for proof. It doesn't mean they still won't like most you for months and you wonder, uh, what's going on with the project. But cause that does still happen, but mm-hmm, <affirmative>, um, uh, setting the expectation up front of what the timeline is and being super proactive on our end. So we do everything we can to make sure that if there's gonna be a delay in the project, if there's gonna be a scope overrun, uh, it, it's not gonna be us. It it's gonna be, it's gonna be the client. Um, whether, whether it's something they didn't consider. And that means when we're putting our estimate together, we have to include all of our assumptions. And so if we're saying, we think this project is gonna be, uh, a hundred thousand, we're saying, and we assume this, this, this, this, this. Speaker 0 00:32:07 And so then if any of those assumptions have changed, once we get into the project, um, that's the point where we can make a change order and say, Hey, you know, we assumed this way. It changes our estimate by this much changes the timeline. Um, and that, and it's really easy to say that and get into and get really excited about our project and be like, oh, this is great. And then realize, oh crap, we forgot our assumptions. And so mm-hmm <affirmative>, uh, and if that happens and we didn't, you know, we may have thought something in our, in our head, but we didn't document that with the client it's on us. And so then we, um, it's like, well, you know, we're, we might eat that time, uh, because we want to be a good relationship with that client. Um, yeah, yeah. Through the years, it's more rare and rare that that actually happens though. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, we, it Speaker 3 00:32:52 Really is about, it really is about the expectation and the communication, right? Cause if you set the expectations really well with the client and you communicate throughout the process, then you're not gonna get track expectations, communicating proactive, a of just expectations weren't as clear as we thought they were, or we didn't communicate as well as we thought we could, you know, anytime I get the email, that's like, Hey, what's the status of this? That means I'm not doing a good, good enough job proactively communicating what the status of that is. Right? Speaker 0 00:33:29 Yeah. Yep. Um, we having that kind of communication throughout the relationship and we have many really long term relationships with clients. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, uh, always bring your best, best foot forward. There means that when something does happen on your side, like right now we, uh, we're missing some people on our team for personal emergencies and such. And, uh, we're able to reach out to our clients and say, here's, here's the situation. Um, and because we've been proactive the whole time client relationship, um, our clients are, are okay with that. Uh, you know, if you don't have that, that rapport, that relationship with the client, that's challenging conversation. If you're Speaker 2 00:34:10 That's Speaker 0 00:34:11 That right to fulfill that Speaker 2 00:34:12 It's, it's, it's like it's having like enough, it's it's having enough deposit in the bank of trust. Isn't it like if you think about any relationship in your life, whether it's a professional relationship, whether it's relationship with your partner, friend, family, that any, any conflict in a relationship typically comes down to where people's expectations are not aligned, someone was expecting something they didn't receive, or someone, you know, wasn't expecting something that they got. And usually that comes down to a failure of communication because the, you know, the great myth, the great misunderstanding about communication is the fact that it's actually taking place. You can have a conversation with someone in your head and, and you think that they've heard it, but they haven't. And so I think if you know, what I've learned over the years is that consistency of behavior is the thing that builds trust. Speaker 2 00:35:01 If you think about it, if we were friends and we were hanging out socially on a regular basis, and then all of a sudden, like we started hanging out and you were just like getting blind, smashed drunk, like a couple of weekends in a row, like really punishing yourself. I'll like, dude, are you what's going on? This is not usual behavior. So inconsistency in behavior. There makes me question. Whereas if in a fashion I know what I'm gonna get. So I'm, I'm like, I'm happy for you to babysit my kids, man, because I know you're reliable because I have that trust because you've demonstrated consistency of behavior. It's the same when managing client relationships, if your behavior is consistent and your patterns are consistent, you build up enough trust where then if you do drop the ball, they're more likely to be forgiving of you because you've got enough deposit in the, in the trust bank. Speaker 3 00:35:48 Yeah, absolutely. And if you, if you show up on time and you communicate clearly and you deliver what you said, you were gonna do, you're ahead of 80% of the people out there. Right. I mean, it's the reason that there's just, there's just not that many people that do it, you know, and it's not that they don't intend to. It's just, they, they don't end up doing it. Speaker 0 00:36:07 Yeah. I, when I freelanced, um, before reactive, I, uh, I ran into those same situations where, uh, exactly what, what you said, you know, say what you're going do, and then do that thing. And it's like, it's as simple as that. And I know that I, to that freelancer, it can really hectic as a freelancer trying to manage, you know, you're doing the actual development. Uh, it can be, uh, it could be a challenge. So I, uh, I definitely give people grace on that because I remember doing the same thing when I was freelancer. But then when you're trying to hire freelancers, Speaker 2 00:36:50 Uh, let's pivot into, into talk about team, if you're okay. If we can, can we Speaker 0 00:36:54 Mm-hmm <affirmative> yeah. There was one thing you said about, about conflict that I wanted to, um, yeah. To follow up on, which was, um, it, especially starting out, uh, might wanna avoid conflict, like, oh, the client client comes in and says they have, uh, oh, we, we forgot to add this. We need this budgets budget, proactively conflict. Um, there was a, a study, uh, at one of like the major hotel chains where they, um, they figured their most satisfied customers would be the people who didn't have any issues, but it was actually the people who had an issue. Uh, and then the hotel, uh, the hotel solved that issue in such a good way for them that they were, those were the most highly satisfied and the most loyal customers. And so, wow. I find the same kinda thing with our projects. Like when there is an issue, something was missed, something was broken. It's how you react to that issue. That really makes a difference with that client. Not that oh, it'll free from bugs. Won't to it's the, yeah. It's really that how you react to that conflict. Speaker 2 00:38:07 Yeah. And, and again, you think about the personal relationships in your life, right? The relationships that are the strongest, and that would stand the test of time. Are those relationships that have conflict it's like, think about your spouse. Yeah. Don't tell me, don't tell me there's no conflict with the right. I don't believe that bullshit. I hear any couple that are like, we never fight. I'm like, there's something wrong in that relationship. Right? You gotta have conflict. Cause that's just human behavior. This human human beings want things. And, and, and we'll, we'll fight for what its, we believe in. And there's always conflict in human relationships. It's how you resolve that conflict and how you heal. That actually makes a relationship stronger. So that makes total sense to me that, uh, that, um, that study, um, talking about tea and conflict and you know, how do you, I wanna talk about recruiting in a second and fi finding talent, but, uh, there's a couple of things here. I mean, seriously, I consider all weak and ask questions and I'm just fascinated by this stuff. First of all, how is your role different now to what it was when you were on the tools? Like do you spend, does Josh Eaton spend any time on the tools doing client project work now? Or are you just running the business? How's your role changed? Speaker 0 00:39:17 Yeah. Uh, great question. Uh, it's changed a lot. Um, the first, um, four years I was doing kinda full time development and also running the agency, um, which, you know, two full-time things. How does that work? It's it's four years I, since I've code, which, and so my primary role today, uh, is, uh, vision and strategy sales. Um, and, uh, just like the general running of the agency. We have, uh, an operations manager, principal engineer, uh, who are like on our leadership team, um, along with me. Um, but I am the sole owner and kind of the buck stops at me. So like, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, uh, if there's an issue, if there's, you know, an emergency that bubbles up to me I'll handle that. But I would say day to day, I'm not in the, I may join some meetings, um, with clients and help with overall strategy, uh, approach things that be more in discovery than actual like delivery of the project. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, but more and more I'm primarily on the sales side and, and, uh, account management, uh, internal with the team. Speaker 2 00:40:43 What's the, what's the, I'm make an assumption that moving the, Speaker 4 00:41:04 What do you do internally Speaker 2 00:41:07 Given that you remote team Speaker 4 00:41:09 18 turned upside down how you managed level internally? Speaker 0 00:41:22 Yeah, definitely. We, um, we've always been remote, uh, uh, when we said, um, and so, uh, there, wasn't a huge shift in terms of like how we worked, uh, over the last year, unlike, uh, companies that had brick and mortar offices and things like that. But that doesn't mean that the last wasn't challenging for even people who were used to working remotely, uh, you know, a lot of, a lot of fear, a lot of uncertainty, um, T um, and so there was a lot of understanding. Um, and, you know, we we've said communication again and again, but that's a, that's a big one. So if we come, uh, if we look at like the values of, of reactive, one of them is, is people first it's, it's our, our very first value. And so it's that, you know, when there is something like last year, uh, you know, there maybe there's concern over revenue, there's concern over clients. Speaker 0 00:42:20 We're really looking at people first. How can we take care of the team? How can we, uh, extend them grace so that, um, they can take care of themselves. Uh, and so that kind of guided all of our decisions over the last 18 months. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, which, which really helped. Thankfully we had, uh, processes in place in terms of how to, how to work remote already. Uh, we already had that. So that's kind of having those processes and then continually checking in on those is how we keep everyone moving in the right direction. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, from a culture standpoint, um, we we've had a bunch of new people start recently and a few more starting soon. Uh, we have everyone, uh, you know, one of the things that we miss from being in like offices is like, you don't get like show up the first day and then, you know, everyone's there, you meet them in person. Speaker 0 00:43:09 Uh, many people at our company have never met each other in person, especially if they've joined in the last year when we haven't had like a team retreat. Um, so they, uh, one of the things we set up like a 15 minute check in call with everyone on the team, uh, mm-hmm <affirmative> air team, isn't, isn't, uh, isn't huge so that, you know, that doesn't take a year to get through. Um, but, uh, that's something we instituted that really helps people feel more a part of the team. It's like, there's no agenda for those. It's not, it's not talking about work. It's just like connecting personally mm-hmm <affirmative>. And there's a huge difference between having someone be like a faceless, like, uh, that you talk to every day and actually like having a conversation, you know, outside of work things. And so that's something that really helps. We do weekly, all hands meetings. Um, mm-hmm <affirmative> uh, and, you know, everyone starts a meeting talking about their weekend, talking about what, uh, exciting things they did, which like doesn't seem like a big deal, but it actually really, it really helps cause people are then checking in like, Hey, remember that thing you did? How did yeah. All that kinda stuff. Speaker 2 00:44:17 Yeah, it does. Absolutely. Absolutely. There there's. Some of my I've learned, I've learned so much about my team through those conversations about their personal life that have, you know, and, and again, you're just more likely to go into bat for someone who, you know, like, and trust you can't build that trust unless you build some kind of affinity for the person. Right. And you can't do that unless you get to know them. So the best way is just to, you know, ask them about who they're as a human being what's going on in their life and, and connect with them on that level. Yeah, totally. Speaker 0 00:44:46 And as much as we believe in remote work and love remote work, there's something to be said for getting everyone together in the same room, which we, we couldn't do last year. We're not doing this year. Um, so I can't wait to do that again, but that's always a huge culture building activity that everyone looks forward to. Uh, we fly everyone into a location and, uh, spend, spend the whole week there. So Speaker 2 00:45:10 Stop it. I'm getting <laugh> can't we used to come out, we used to come out San Diego twice a year and run live events for our customers' restrictions lifted and get back out there. I wanna something about values at what point in reactive, when you started reactive at what, how far into this 10 journey did you say? Hmm, I think we need some company values. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:45:39 Uh, this is gonna be embarrassing. Uh, it was probably about five years Speaker 2 00:45:45 Should, um, right. It's it should have been Speaker 0 00:45:45 Sooner Speaker 2 00:45:46 <laugh> course been sooner. It should have been day one. Right. We know that now, like it should have been day one, but, but he here's the thing. Cause, cause I can tell you, right. I, so this is part of what we, part of what we teach and help our agency clients with. But I, I feel huge resistance from agencies cuz they think it's all a bit. Woo, woo. I resisted this stuff for years cuz I was like, this ain't gonna help me get more clients. What are you talking about? Values. Wanna sit around and play and hold the, this is how's this gonna actually to the business. Why did you, why did you go on that journey to instill values in the company? Did you get any help from any coaches or books or podcasts or consultants to help you do that? And what impact has it had having your values articulated, written down and shared across the company? Speaker 0 00:46:35 Yeah, we, um, it, it was probably about five years. It was once we got to around 10 people. That was when, um, before that, uh, I was so heavily involved in, in everything that I, I didn't necessarily need a way to like instill like how I think things should be run without me actually being involved in those, uh, being involved in those, you know, individual things. And so that's where I, where it starts to once the agency starts to grow beyond like, uh, you talk to every single person at the company every day, um, that is where, uh, that's where, that's where that starts to become beneficial. Cause how do you bring someone on and instill in them, you know, all that experience you have with your existing employees, where they kinda learn that through osmosis, um, someone new coming in, how are they, how are they gonna know? What's what's important to us. And so it, it comes down to decision making once, once you're at the point where people are gonna be making decisions. So like if you're one, two people, you know, if you're the owner, you're probably making every decision that has to be made once it get to the point where those decisions need to be made by other people, they need something to guide them. Speaker 2 00:47:49 Yes Speaker 0 00:47:49 Mm-hmm <affirmative> and, and having those values really helps. So that way you get into a tough situation, you, you have a pandemic hit, you have, uh, an angry client, something like that. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, if you, if you wanna give feedback to someone who did something wrong, what do you point to mm-hmm <affirmative> uh, they'll say, well, I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to do exactly this thing. Um, but if you can point to your value, say whatever communication do you see where the communication breakdown was here? Um, you've kinda laid out that. Um, and uh, if you don't define your culture, someone else company is gonna do it for you. Mm-hmm <affirmative> culture, especially a proactive building. That culture are a big part of that. Speaker 2 00:48:40 You help to, you work out your values. Speaker 0 00:48:44 Um, I, I do have a coach, uh, that I've worked with for, uh, about two years now. Uh, mm-hmm meet with him just about a week mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, I had help from him on that. Um, I definitely did some research on my own, like other companies values and kind, kind of tried to do my own. I didn't do like a seminar or anything like that, but try to do my own like process of like sit sheet of paper challenging. It, it was, it was a challenging process. And then when I got to the end, I was like E even some of our, our values. It seems, it seems, uh, you know, common sense. Um, yeah, but every day I can look at those values and refer, think of a decision I had to make that day where those came in handy. Speaker 2 00:49:37 In fact, I think it's the, I think it's sorry, Johnny. I, I think it's the only vehicle that we, I think it's the only device that we have that allows us to make decisions as a collective, rather than every decision having to go through the, the business owner or the person that started the thing. I think it's the only framework that we have to guide that decision making. Sorry, Joan, I OK. You off. Speaker 3 00:50:01 Oh, no, that's OK. I was just gonna say, um, we've got a few questions coming in and I'd love to get them before, outta time here. Totally. If that's OK. Uh, James on Facebook asks, uh, when you have those project debriefs that you were talking about earlier, um, you know, like after a project, how do you action on the bad? Like if something comes outta that, that's like, man, we missed it here. How what's kinda the, I know you had the internal blog that you mentioned, but what's kinda the, how do you action on the bad? Speaker 0 00:50:29 Yeah. Uh, it's, there's definitely not a blame game, but we are candid in terms of like, uh, if there was a communication breakdown, you know, we have developed a culture where people usually own up to it. So there's usually not a situation where people are like, oh yeah, this went wrong. But definitely wasn't my fault. Uh it's usually people are like, yeah, I dropped the ball here, everyone like, oh no, yeah. Kinda ball Speaker 3 00:50:58 That. Something about the culture though, right? I mean when a team member, and this happens on my team too, where someone just like, just own it, they they're, they're upfront about it. They're not trying to point the blame. I, I think that speaks volumes to, you know, the team, the integrity, you know, all of that. And, and it's so important. My team's all remote as well. And so, you know, I think that's the integrity part of a remote team is even more important than when you're all in the same space. Right. Because we have to know, we can count on each other. We have to know when each other's around available, what's going on, who's who's working on what or else, you know, it would fall apart really quickly. Speaker 0 00:51:34 Yeah. Um, so we, we take that, that right up from our, um, we, we actually do it in Asana with like a, a thing and everyone adds in their feedback. We vote on it and those are the ones we talk about. Um, and we, we take all those takeaways and we'll actually turn them into, uh, Asana task in our internal thing. And each one gets an owner. So if there is, if, if there's like a personnel issue and that needs to be dealt with, that's not public, we'll, we'll make that a, a separate task and, and talk to that person. Um, thankfully that's usually not the case. It's usually like a, it's a process breakdown or communication breakdown or, uh, MIS expectation. And so then we're making tasks and putting someone to be an owner for those. So some of the ones, um, I'm trying to think of a good example, but we've had, um, it might be like, we need documentation on this. We need some way to onboard people into our project, better this way, or, you know, we need to do something our client onboarding to make sure expectations are set correctly. It's usually things like that that get, get Speaker 3 00:52:41 Mm-hmm <affirmative>. That's cool. I love it. Uh, another question on Facebook, uh, Josh, how important is having a niche? How would you define your niche? Speaker 0 00:52:51 Um, a really good question. Uh, you can listen to, so <laugh> the standard answer. You haven't got anything planned for the next and a half. Speaker 3 00:53:01 We're dropping all the hards at the, Speaker 0 00:53:05 This is one I have filled with, uh, with a lot. Um, our niche is high end WordPress development, uh, primarily for higher ed technology and, uh, and media companies. Uh, that's still pretty broad mm-hmm <affirmative> so, you know, I would love to say that we have like some like really defined, uh, niche and you'll read everything that says, this is the only way your business can be successful. <laugh> yeah. But then our business has been successful and I know plenty of other agencies who aren't necessarily niched down and they can still be successful. So it's like if you find a really good niche where you can become an expert in that, go into that, because you'll do really well. Um, but I wouldn't be losing sleepover, like, oh, we're winning all these projects, but I haven't defined my niche, not gonna successful. I had to tell myself that I was have to able to that like, okay, over 10 years, maybe we'll find a certain type of client and only projects. Mm-hmm <affirmative> we kind like working on a bunch of different things. That's really Speaker 2 00:54:19 Well's projects that you won't take on, right. Or clients that you won't work with. Right. Yep. Also, I think you have, I think you do have a, so I think the word niche, as we say here in Australia, a niche I think is way overused. And I think people misunderstand it. I don't think a niche is your target audience. You don't have to just service accountants to have a niche. Your niche is high end WordPress development. That in itself is a niche, right? We don't build Squarespace websites for life coaches. We do high end WordPress development for higher ed education technology, media companies. Right? Yep. You don't do, I'm making an assumption. You don't do eCommerce for people who manufacture hoodies. Right. Right. So I think you do have a niche. I think the challenge that we have in this eco, in this kind of ecosystem, which is a bit like an echo chamber in the WordPress space, is that we all have a very similar, like me, your, for me, your niche is the, is the pathway that you carve to help your clients go from where they are now to where they wanna be. Speaker 2 00:55:14 Right. And this is kind of the process that we have. That is your niche. It does it. It's not your target audience. Your target audience can be broad. Right. Adam Silverman, one of our clients works with growth. Mind small business owners. He's got a professional speaker, a vet, a museum, a school it's a really broad cross section, but he basically does the same thing for those clients. And that's his niche. And WordPress is a big part of that. Right. So I think you probably do have a niche. You probably just can't see it because you're in it. I'd look at your business objectively and go dude, compared to what these people are doing, you have a very well defined niche, right? Yeah. I think the problem when people starting out is they have FOMO. They don't wanna say no to anything. They say yes to way too much. And that's what gets trouble. So even having a of what you and don't by osmosis means you then kinda do have a niche. Mm-hmm Speaker 0 00:56:02 That's great point. Speaker 2 00:56:04 Um, I have question about WordPress. That's coming from our team privates, like channel here. Um, joining word. I just wanna clarify this joining WordPress V I P if you manage to get onto that platform is not going to just open up a flood of leads automatically. Right? You, you, you need to invest in that relationship and still, you know, prove your worth. And it's not just a like, well, here we are. We've got the open sign on the door now please just flood us with leads, Speaker 0 00:56:32 Correct? Yeah. Uh, just like any partner relationship, like, uh, we just talked about having a niche. You have to be able to define what kind of projects should be sent to you. So like, uh, which clients are a good fit for you. So if you're struggling to define that having a source of leads, uh, isn't gonna open floodgates necessarily. Uh, so you have be able define that and you have to build relationships with people throughout the company. So it's like you have a, a partner manager, but then there's other people's fruit, full relationship. Both ways. Speaker 2 00:57:19 Yeah. Right. And so, and so, even though the quality of leads that might come through the WordPress V IP ecosystem are gonna be better than if you weren't in that ecosystem. It's still not a tap. You just plug in and turn on, on the leads flat in it's like anything, you gotta build a relationship with the people there so that they go and also you've gotta be referable, right? Yeah. So a lead comes into the WordPress VRP, someone at WordPress, vrrp gotta go, oh, Hey man, we're gonna refer this reactive. Cause I know exactly what those guys do. This is perfect. They want a successful referral because otherwise they're for, to someone who can't do the gig. So you've gotta be referable. And that comes down to actually figuring out what you don't do, what you do do. And kinda starting to specialize a little bit. I can sit here and talk about this for weeks. Literally. Uh, this has been super fun. We are on the hour. I'm respectful of everyone's time. What questions should have we that we didn't, that you wish we did? Speaker 0 00:58:16 We could have talked a little bit more about growth. I think, uh, there's in some circles, growth is, is a bad term. It's oh, we don't wanna grow too fast. We don't wanna grow too large. And other, other circles that's like growth at all costs. And so it's fi there's finding a balance there and mm-hmm, <affirmative>, uh, going back to values. That's where that really, that really comes in. It's like if we're growing too fast and not taking care of our people, that's prob if we're growing too slowly, are there enough opportunities for our people? And so that's something where I, I was really happy when we were five people. I was really happy when we were 10 people. I was really happy when we were 15 people. Uh, but it was really different at each, at each phase. And it was never like, I never had a number in my head like, oh, we, we need to be this many people. Speaker 0 00:59:02 Uh it's. That's part of the sustainable part. It's like, if I'm like, oh, well we have to be, uh, 30 people, then I'm gonna go hire 30 people. And then, well, wait, now I need the work for those people. Now I'm bringing in projects that make everyone happy. And it's a huge cycle of, of trying to figure all that out. Um, and so it's a challenge to do that sustainably and you may make decisions that cost you money or, uh, opportunity costs, uh, in order to make sure you're taking care of your people. That's, what's really important over the years. Speaker 2 00:59:32 Well, at some point we're gonna out, you're get you part two and we can dive into, into that and unpack that more if you're up for it. Speaker 0 00:59:39 Yeah, absolutely. This was a ton of fun. Speaker 2 00:59:41 Awesome. Yeah, this has been awesome. Thank you. So for your time, I really appreciate you're busy man and generosity. So for your, Speaker 0 00:59:56 A great time, thanks for having, thanks, Josh. Speaker 1 00:59:59 Thanks for listening to the agency hour podcast, subscribe at apple podcasts, Spotify pocket, audible, and wherever you like to listen, you can catch all of the agency hour episodes on our YouTube channel at youtube.com/agency Mavericks. Or you can get involved, check out our free digital Mavericks Facebook group, where we broadcast these episodes live for our community every week, along with a ton of free training. We'll see you.

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December 15, 2022 00:55:59
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 Having Money Wins 

On this episode, Mike Mark and Troy Dean discuss overcoming the resistance to conduct sales, building trust with AI and the power of embracing...

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Episode 14

February 25, 2022 00:48:36
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Agency Automations

We have automations for all sorts of communication and tasks these days, but are they still beneficial or could they now be hurting your...

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