The Pitfalls and Perks of Small Agency Life

Hello and welcome, fellow Awsomologists, to Awsomology. I’m Sue.

And I’m Ben. And in this episode, we’re talking about the pitfalls and perks of working in a small marketing agency.

And I’m particularly excited because we kept secrets from each other.

We sure did.

And which is not normally something I’m able to do.

So no neither one of us knows what the other has on their lists. Right. And we’re going to learn here in real time, and then we will get to compare how similar or how different they are.

Mhmm. Spoiler alert.

Oh, spoilers.

Well, spoiler speaking of not keeping secrets from you, Sue, I imagine that, we’ll see. We’ll maybe gut check ourselves at the end here. I imagine that most, if not all, of what we’re gonna share today will probably be applicable to small marketing teams Yes. Of darn near any kind. Not so much just Right. An agency like ours.

But, And I would We’ll see. I would dare say that it would apply to many small teams Right.

That are similar to ours, not even just in marketing.

Right. Yep. Valid.

Because our team is, and this is true, human.

Right. Yeah.

Well Last I checked.

Last I checked, I mean, there there are a couple people I wanna see if there’s, like, cyborg going on under there. Just saying. Pretty good. In in the best way possible.

Good way. Yeah. I I check I always check for body snatcher eggs. Right. Every Monday morning.

That’s my That’s why you get here early.

Yeah. I get here early, check for body snatcher eggs.

And Yeah.

So far so good. Everything’s good.

Right.

So here’s how it’s going to work. We each brought one pitfall because we don’t wanna dwell on the negative for too long.

Right.

And so we’re gonna get those out of the way just to get started.

Correct. And then we’re gonna reveal our top five perks of working at a small agency like exclamation.

One at a time, starting at five and ending with one. And Although mine are really in no particular order.

Are we okay. But this is a top five list.

So I mean yeah.

Okay.

In there Again, you can’t keep secrets.

Right. You could’ve just not told me.

Well, see, here’s the here’s the thing. I did read our notes in that we were gonna do this, in order like that, but I really, really struggled to put them in any kind of, like, meaningful order. So Okay. We’ll see. Maybe it’ll feel natural as we go along.

That’s a it’s a pretty big big leap to assume the minor in meaningful order.

Right.

They’re in order. Yeah. Certainly.

But meaningful Got it. Up to the in the eye of the beholder Yeah.

As they say.

I’m so excited to see how many of ours are exactly the same, if not Yeah. Similar in What if oh, it’d be so dope if they were just Like, perfect.

Down the line. That would yeah. Perfect.

Dope. And, also, maybe quickest episode ever if that’s how it shakes out.

Okay. So we don’t want it that way. Alright.

That’s alright. Let’s start. Let’s let’s go. Right? Herged.

So why don’t you kick us off? Give us your pitfall.

Alright. First well, first and only pitfall. I’m sure we could think of more. But like you said, we don’t wanna dwell on the negative. So, the first one is the hat juggle. Oh. Small team, many hats.

Whether you’re the strategist, the copywriter, the designer, social media manager, everything else, and doing all of that before lunch.

Yeah.

We’re constantly wearing multiple hats, which, I mean, let’s face it. Like, can be super overwhelming. The workload attached with all those roles can be overwhelming, those roles individually. And then on top of it, shift from them moment to moment, hour to hour, minute to minute. Right?

Right. Especially because we have some pretty great people on the team.

And some of those role shifts, I think we realize, if I could do this full time, it would be a lot better. Mhmm. Results would be pretty amazing.

Yeah. I think that’s the biggest my biggest fear about it.

I mean, like, burnout is real.

You know, like, confusion or, like, not feeling like you’re getting anything done, I think, is is real for sure.

But that that feeling of, like, am I even good at any of this Yes.

Is probably the, like, biggest risk of the hat juggle because, like, you’re just moving so quickly and shifting from thing to thing. And I suppose part of it is less about what you’re doing and the fact that you’re juggling a bunch of responsibilities, but more just about that pace and how you’re probably not taking time to, like, look back on the work that you did and realize some of it was good or maybe all of it was good or what the results were and stuff. So with the hat juggle comes, I think, an environment where you don’t get to analyze your work. You don’t get to, you know, really understand and appreciate how good it is or or how bad it is and learn from it.

Right? Right. So that’s probably the biggest risk with the hat juggle. And it’s necessary. Right?

With the small team, like, there’s there is just no way around it. Like, you’re gonna be doing different things. You’re gonna be doing some things that maybe you didn’t go to school for or, you know, are outside of your comfort zone.

But how do you get comfortable with the level of that while also being an expert in something and and getting really good at something too? That’s maybe the challenge.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s an interesting choice because I don’t wanna spoil it. But when we get to the perks, I have Oh, okay.

Sort of a parallel Cool.

Sort of thing there.

Thanks.

And, actually, what I chose for our pitfall is it sort of, blends into what you’re talking about, which is our ambition outpacing our capacity.

So we sometimes struggle to do everything we want to do, including some of the experimentation, some of the analysis, some of those things Right.

That could show us if we’re succeeding or failing Yeah. Because we have to stay focused on efficiency.

And we don’t have the along with not necessarily taking the time, like you’re pointing out, like, stopping to see I did a good job. Yeah. There are some things I should change. Whatever the answer is, we don’t necessarily, right now, have space built in for, quote, unquote, failure.

So we don’t have we don’t give ourselves the permission to try something that might be stupid. Yeah. Not stupid isn’t the right word, but something that we you know, that is our I don’t know. Name the marketing baby what is it? Baby puppy monkey? Yeah.

Monkey I can’t remember. Monkey baby monkey puppy baby? I don’t know what it was. Do you remember that commercial, though?

Mhmm. No? Okay. So gosh. I don’t know how many years ago it is. And I can’t even remember the brand, but it was just such a weird commercial.

Mhmm. And it was some weird hybrid of a baby and a puppy and a monkey.

Well, we’re gonna have to find that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So that’s clearly very weird and stupid Yeah.

And deliberately so.

Right.

You know? Yeah. So things like that, you know, you can take a big shot and it can really fall short.

Mhmm.

But we don’t we don’t have tolerance built in for taking a big shot.

Yeah. I’ll push back a little bit in that, like, we we do we have speaking just of our team. Now this might not be everybody’s experience, but we have made some space for, like, trying some new things or doing things that are, you know, maybe a bit unproven. I mean, the podcast.

Right? Like, I mean, we started this once upon a time, like, knowing that it was a space we needed to be in and it was a, you know, emerging channel to share content and stuff, but we didn’t really know, like, as the payoff there and, you know, and our audience has grown over time. So, like, now after years of doing this, you know, we are able to confidently say, like, yeah. This is something we need to be doing, should be doing.

But I think once upon a time, even for us who are really bought into it, from the beginning, like, we we didn’t know for sure. Like, is this is this really what we should be doing? You know? So, and then there’s, like, you know, some events and stuff that we’ve done.

And even, I would say, some some campaigns, whether it’s a quick social media campaign. Like, we we’ve done some stuff that I think is in that, like, test experimental Mhmm. Sort of phase. But you’re yeah.

I think what I’m saying is not to, like, disprove what you’re saying. I think Yeah. It goes along with exactly what you’re saying where, like, when we do those things, we gotta be, like, super intentional because we only have so much time for it.

Right. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And even, I think, the things that you point out and I agree with you. There there are things we it’s not that we aren’t experimenting at all.

Right.

It is that we can’t experiment with something that we think will fail.

Yeah.

You know?

And we can’t do it saying this could go either way. We have to go in to any of those experiments saying, you know, we have this research or this confidence or, you know, we have these other maybe examples or Mhmm.

Whatever, that it will succeed.

Yeah. And, And the price we pay there is possibly, like, not making time to do something that’s truly totally original or Right. You know, that’s gonna catch people by surprise and things like that. Monkey puppy. Like, exactly.

I can’t believe you missed that commercial.

So weird. Yeah. So weird. Okay.

Maybe I’ll find it. We’ll share it with us so people can Right. See.

I think I’m saying it right.

I don’t think I’ll offend the baby monkey puppy Yeah.

If I’m not. K.

So you’re feeling okay about pitfalls?

I feel you know what?

It went very fast.

Yeah. I feel great about it, though.

Me too.

I think it’s all true.

Yeah. Awesome. Okay.

Challenge listener. Think of your pitfalls.

And I’m sure that the two that we mentioned are, something that you’re probably experiencing, but we probably could’ve made a whole episode about them. Probably. But we’re not gonna go there. We’re gonna shift to the, to the perks. Yay. Ready for my first one?

I am.

It is I just couldn’t think of a better title. So it’s Wicked Agility.

You like that? Is that good? Is that cool?

It’s Wicked Good.

Wicked Good Agility.

Well, you’re gonna park your car.

Yeah. I park it.

Wicked. Right.

So yeah. I mean, hey. The fact is smaller teams can pivot more quickly, generally. Right?

Less red tape, less approval, less chain of command, all of the things that can slow a team down, and probably faster implementation of some things.

Not to go right back into pitfalls or anything, but a smaller team, less resources also probably means slower implementation of some things. If you’ve got a big team, you know, big enough where somebody on that team owns your CRM, like, you can probably implement a CRM quicker and new tools and ways to use a CRM way quicker.

Josh, what’s on your mind?

Yeah. Right.

But our team, you know, that’s a shared duty, thinking of that one specifically, but a lot of things are shared. Right? So good news is we can choose to do things quicker, and we can maybe dive into implementing those things quicker. But a full deep implementation that’s fully owned by someone might not always be possible depending on the size of your team. But, I do think that the and I’m certainly biased because we have a small team, but I I do like the ability for us to, like, just try a thing and just dive into it, you know, because we don’t have to cut through any of the crap that can slow us down to try those things. You know?

Yeah.

That that moment when we realize that we’re the only thing that blocks us from what we wanna do Yeah.

Is sometimes really, really sort of a cool moment where you go, oh, yeah.

Right.

Actually.

Yeah. Let’s just do it.

Why don’t we do that?

Yeah. For sure. Lots of cool opportunity to test there. And I think that’s, again, not to always bring it back to the negative or the pitfalls, but I suppose the challenge with this one is, yeah, just like you can quickly try new things.

Mhmm.

A challenge that I would say I have and we probably have as a team and many do is to also very quickly bail on things that just aren’t working. You know? So, like, some of this stuff that we try, it is kind of a test, and we’re pretty aware going in that it’s a test. And something that we we struggle with is to identify quickly, like, yep.

Okay. That’s the thing that Yeah. We don’t have time for. We can’t do it really well.

We don’t have the resources for it. The results aren’t there, whatever. So, like, rip cord. Let’s go, you know, onto the next thing that we wanna try.

Yeah. The there there is some persistence of hope that we have with those things. And I think it goes sort of hand in hand with that feeling of, wanting to make sure we’re being thorough, wanting to make sure we’re being iterative. Yeah.

What did we do? What are the, you know, what are the circumstances, outside circumstances, inside circumstances? Did we not do it well enough? Did we not do enough?

Yeah. You know? And I think that’s maybe that’s where I feel myself getting bogged down. Like, oh, I can see ten things that we could have done differently.

So let’s do let’s do those one at a a time now.

I I will say, though, to your previous point about how, like, we’ve gotta kind of vet things out before we try because we’ve got limited resources and all that stuff. I think that that helps contribute to the hope that we have for some things. It’s like, well, like, this should work.

And Right.

We chose this thing because we thought it would.

And we also know that the flip side of, like, bailing on things too soon is marketers and I think business people in general, particularly for marketing efforts, don’t give things a try for long enough when they do it.

You know? Like, it’s why, like, when we when we sign agreements with people or when we try to do campaigns, like, we’re always encouraging, like, more time. Like, make sure that you’re giving yourself enough time to see the results or to see whether the end result might still be, like, yep. That didn’t work.

Right.

But, like, make sure that you remove the variable variable that it didn’t work because you didn’t give enough time.

You know?

So, so I think that’s part of it too why we kinda get I don’t wanna say stuck, but to move us along. That’s I think that’s why we get stuck on some things because we wanna make sure that we’ve given it the time to prove right or wrong. Yes or no. Worked or didn’t. You know?

We sometime again, we don’t wanna dwell on the negative.

Yeah.

But I think it would be really interesting to talk about the things that we are that have not worked and we are just so positive, there’s a version of the multiverse where they should be working. Yeah. That that would be an interesting conversation. I there’s one in particular that is on my mind that I’m like, should work. Should work. Everything about it tells me it should work.

Oh, let’s take that offline.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So he since I spoiled it already Oh, boy.

What was your what was your pitfall?

Wicked agility.

No. Your pitfall.

Oh, my pitfall.

Sorry. Sorry.

Not my first perk.

Not your first perk.

It was the hat juggle.

K.

So my first perk, perk number five, by the way Yeah.

Said the person who ordered these Right.

Is lean team equals skill building.

So, yes, we juggle a lot of hats.

Yeah.

Yes.

There can be pitfall there’s certainly a pitfall Yeah. In that.

And it also means that things that we, as individuals, have never done sometimes just get the opportunity to learn to do it. Right.

I don’t think, although my my relationship with Google is incredibly strained, I don’t think I can really tell you there’s a time I would say, yeah.

Either you or I or we gave it to somebody on the team, and they just weren’t able to do the thing entirely.

So, yes, that does we can turn that into a pitfall by all of a sudden, oh, we’re good at everything, and we can do all of the things. And you just learn to do the thing, and you’ll be fine.

Right.

That can be a problem. But because we have fewer people, our people know how to do more things.

Mhmm. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

And I definitely see that. I suppose some of this comes with attitude and maybe how much tolerance your business has for it. But I definitely see that as as much as, like, you know, the hat juggle was my pitfall.

Mhmm.

I I see the positive in it. I see the perk in it more. And I’m sure that has something to do with the shape of our business currently, the kind of teams that I’ve worked on historically, like, throughout my whole career. Like, I’ve never been a part of a the big corporation that has a digital marketing department that has eighty people in it by itself. That’s this one little facet of marketing. Right? Yeah.

So I’m I’m sure I’m a little biased.

But Yeah.

And I I do want you to know, because part of our part of the whole podcast ethos here is that I deal with some of my trauma with you.

I wrote that even though Yeah.

There are times I take something on and go, damn it. I hate Google. Yeah. Damn it. I hate this. I hate not knowing how to do it.

I hate that every I think everybody hates that feeling Yeah.

Where even if you like to if you say you’re a lifelong learner and not to I I just crapped on saying that, but you get the idea. Yeah. You you say that you’re that person and you like new challenges and whatever. That moment, when you realize, oh, I like new challenges, but I like when new challenges work.

Yeah.

Not when I can’t figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. That’s my dark night of the soul is when that when that kind of stuff happens.

Are you okay? I’m glad we can be here for you.

And listen. One more thing.

It is Do you wanna lie down?

I kinda do. Yeah. It is so much worse even though I appreciate it when I can come to you and go, I can’t figure this out. Yeah.

And you go, oh, no. It’s just here. Oh, yeah. Oh, no. Oh.

Yep. I get it.

Just yeah. Yeah. But I appreciate it when it’s done.

Right. Yes. Yeah.

And that is better than you walking into someone’s office and being, I don’t know.

Yeah. Oh, I’ll figure it out.

Meanwhile, you’re like, crap. I committed to figuring this out. Okay.

Ready for number two, number four, number four? Number four.

Backwards.

Collaboration and cross skills. So we got tight relationships, and a broader skill set, I think, because we’re able to work so closely with each other. And I guess this is playing in the ears, and, you know, still in the category of the hat juggle. You know, we we train each other.

We learn from each other. We share good and bad with each other. You know? Like, we’re able to offload things quickly to others that, can help us get something done.

Or when we get stumped, we can walk in and say, I can’t figure this thing out. Right?

So instead I I think that the best part of all of that is it’s, like, almost impossible for us to be siloed.

Mhmm.

Right? Like, there’s just nobody on our team that I mean, I think of people on our team that have, like, the clear specialty that they have. You know, Kylie’s our illustrator. Pam’s our, you know, main web person.

You know? And lots of times feels like they’re the only people doing that kind of stuff. But we do have other people on the team that can support, can do work similar enough to it, you know, to keep things moving forward and stuff. So, it’s almost impossible for anyone to just own their thing and tuck themselves in the corner and not work with anyone else.

Like, it just that just won’t work on our team.

Right.

You know? So that’s, I think, the the best part of the collaboration, the cross skills, and all of that. So and I really think it applies to everything.

Strategy, tactical stuff, all of it. You know?

I’m can can you see the excited look on my face? I’m so excited.

My number four is collaboration slash ideation Hey.

Look at that.

With the whole team.

Cool.

And so not only am I agreeing with you Yeah. I want to extrapolate that. You point out, you know, it applies to a lot of different things.

And, the thing we haven’t talked about yet is the internal workings of the team. So when we’re thinking about what is a guideline we think we should set for this thing or what is a I’m thinking of the the the the, the guideline that we set for business development time. Right? And the and it also circles back to this idea that we can implement some of these things relatively quickly. So we had a conversation.

If people are going out and being a part of this is for the listeners.

Yeah.

You lived it.

If people are going out and being a part of different organizations and volunteering in ways during the working day Mhmm.

That we think could benefit the business, then, they should be paid Sure. To do that. And we should talk about what it looks like that we don’t you don’t have to punch out and punch back in. And we should talk about how that can work on the team and what’s a reasonable amount of time Yeah. That we can do it. Yeah. And we were able to talk to the whole team, present something like that to them, get pretty quick buy in.

Right.

You know? It’s just one example, but there are a lot of those things. You know, the whole, accountable teams thing. And when we’ve the stuff that we’ve worked on with with inclusive teams.

You know, like, all of that all of those kinds of things, the whole team can be a part of because we’re small enough Right.

That we don’t have to say, oh, no.

Don’t, you know, don’t let the illustrators Yeah.

Or, you know, don’t let the web design department they don’t have to be a part of that. Right. That’s this department over here. It everybody can just be a part of it.

Mhmm.

Yeah. And I think that, I think that helps us build something kind of really special Yeah. Because people feel bought into those things.

Right. Yeah. And, hey, if you’re, on a big team and hearing this and feeling a little jealous, you should be. Just kidding. Yeah.

No.

Hopefully sucks to suck.

No. Hopefully, inside that big, you know, behemoth organization that has different, you know, departments and stuff, each of those teams are doing similar kind of work and having their own little, you know, into that individuality.

And then as a greater whole, everybody’s a little bit better because everybody’s working on their own thing. You know? I think those are the healthy organizations where regardless of the size of your team, like, you’re working on stuff and trying new things and learning together in a way that feels small, feels a bit more intimate, and, you know, you feel connected with your team and then the whole organization is better because of it. So but we also know that that that is harder in bigger organizations.

You know, that stuff might be happening, but how much, like, sharing and are you actually creating the, you know, high tide lift all boats sort of scenario? Or are you just kinda, like, worried about your own ship? You know what I mean? So Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think, one of the ways probably the closest parallel that I can draw is thinking about, you know, in the credit union industry and the branch model where it’s really easy for branches to do great things, especially if they’re separated by a little bit of distance Right.

Right. And have great ideas. But then that not necessarily I mean, it does good things for that branch and for that community.

Mhmm.

But if you can’t find a way to push that back, you know, push that power back into the organization and have people collaborating, then you really you run a risk. We’re not talking about pitfalls. But Yeah. You run this risk of that, of that red headed stepchild Right.

Feeling. Like, nobody listens to us. Nobody cares what we’re doing. We’re doing great things, and nobody talks about it.

Yeah. You know?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And I and, like, I because I it’s no big secret to you.

But having come from a branch years ago Mhmm.

Like, that’s that’s the feeling. Yeah. You know? And no need for it.

Right. Yep.

Yeah. It’s like, it’s like solar energy. You wanna push power back to the grid.

Right. Yeah. Perfect analogy.

Thank you. Alright.

Because I thought of it, like, two minutes ago, and I’m like, I gotta get Gotta sneak that into Gotta get that one in there.

Yeah.

Ready for my number three?

Number three.

Alright. Closer to the mission, period.

So with smaller team, you just have a clearer line of sight to the impact of the work that you’re doing, growing your brand, driving results.

And, yeah, you’re just kinda like you’re not a cog in the big machine. You know?

I think it’s just inevitable.

And I suppose I can see on a small team where maybe you don’t get this as well, but it it feels almost impossible for you to not see the connection to the work that you’re doing when you’re on a small team.

Right.

You know? Because either you’re closer to the leadership that’s in charge of sharing those kind of things, the results and the impact, or you’re directly working with the clients in a way that maybe you wouldn’t in, you know, part of a bigger organization. So yeah.

And and I think that is really powerful, you know, to as much as a big organization might be awesome about communicating mission, vision, values, and living it and breathing it in their culture and all of those things, like, to see the like, where the rubber meets the road and, you know, to see the real stuff happening out in the world. You might just not be able to avoid being disconnected from it in a bigger organization, you know, directly.

Right. You might get lots of great results, lots of great stories, and all of that, but you might still be a bit disconnected. And I think a small team, we’ve got the advantage of lots of times really directly interacting with it. So big perk for me.

It’s funny you should say.

Oh, no. Are you serious?

I mean, not quite. It’s this one I think is they’re close. Okay. These. Yeah. So my number three is we, and that is you and I, not just the team, but you and I can have relationships with our clients, which is I think it’s different than any vendor relationship I’m in.

Mhmm. Sure.

Where lot of great companies. We have a lot of great partners.

Right.

But I think everybody can resonate with this vendor relationship where you have your regular representative, right, who is, like, the, customer service level.

And then every fifth call, some manager is on. Hops on and is there in a there long enough to say, well, I don’t know if you’ve heard about this new innovation, and I’m not sure if Chad here has told you that we’re doing this. If that’d be something you’d be interested in, let’s, you know, let’s set up a call, and you get that once or twice a year. And Yeah.

And we’re not at the point first of all, I wanna draw a line in the sand and say I don’t ever wanna be that person. Yeah.

Second of all, we’re not at a point where we have to completely disengage in that way.

Mhmm.

And, there’s a perk to that.

Now we’ll grow Right. And it will become unmanageable Right.

To think that every client will at least know one of us.

Right.

But at this point, we’re in this sweet spot where, you know, we can see them. We can see their faces. We can talk to them. Yeah. We can have you know, one of my favorite things that we can do is we can collaborate with them in the moment, in real time, not in a way that is I don’t know if you saw this new product that we’re doing, but in in a way that they say, hey. This is, like, this is literally what’s on my mind in this moment.

Yeah.

And we can collaborate right then.

Mhmm.

Which is a great feeling because that’s what we’re here to do, you know, to to help people with what is keeping them awake at night Right.

If we can.

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. That’ll be a challenge for us and us and a challenge, I think, for every small team is, you know, as you do grow, how do you keep that same spirit?

Mhmm. Because, yeah, it’ll hit the point where it’s unmanageable. And and I do think that there is a way where, you know, top level leadership of an organization can stay engaged in a, like, real authentic way and stuff, and not just be the pop in salesperson every couple months or six months or whatever, once a year, or when they see you at a conference or whatever. We’ve here I go.

Those are some experiences I’ve had.

Or how do you, like, intentionally stay out of it, you know, which is also a solution, I think.

Like, don’t don’t try to, like, you know, leverage your way into in between you and the person at your company that actually has the relationship with the client. Like Right. Stay out of it. You know? You’ll be invited in to have the handshake and stuff when the time is right, but, like, you’ve got good people in place to take care of those relationships.

So trust them to do it Yeah.

And stay out of the way. You know?

Yeah. I I the only real life ex experience I have here is from retail. Mhmm. You know, working working in a, working in a store where we had really strict rules. The specific example I can give you is a really strict rule around returns, and I worked in a shoe store.

Mhmm.

And you could not return worn shoes.

Yeah.

And that was the rule. And when we would do it, we would get in trouble. Yeah. And I had an experience where the district manager was there that day, and a customer was spicy about it.

And, you know, I was apologetic. I was as helpful as I could possibly be, and he literally walked up in between me and the counter and said, I am so sorry. Let me absolutely take care of that for you. And, You’ve told me this story before.

And like, that kind of that clearly, I, you know, I was probably twenty two when that happened.

So that clearly stuck with me Yeah.

As, like, I never ever wanna be that person Yeah. To say, oh, this person doesn’t know what they’re doing. Yeah.

Let me make this right for you.

Yeah. When it was literally what you told us we had to do. Yeah. Right. So That’s the wrong way to do it, I think, is what I’m trying to tell you.

Yeah. Yeah. I’m gonna share an example of a coffee shop I was in. Big brand. And, Gosh.

I wonder what that could be.

There’s a couple of them.

And, I get a specific kind of brew every time I go to this coffee shop. It’s what I like. I actually like the taste of it. It’s Mhmm. Exactly what I want.

So are you getting a vente? Are you getting a Grande?

And, clearly, like, district leadership or bigger leadership was in or whatever and back behind the counter helping out when they were in between whatever they were working on.

And, I asked for what I like and they said, have you tried this other one? I’m like, yeah. I’ve tried it before but I like this one. It’s just my favorite.

And then immediately dives into, like, this deep dive education on why the other one is something I really have to try. And at the end of the day, what was a bit confusing to me was like, at the end of the day, what he was essentially selling me on was another kind of drip coffee that, like, would result in no more money for them. Right.

Or anything.

And I suppose maybe the argument is he was trying to educate me and just make sure that I’m getting, you know, really what what I would like best or whatever. But I did say I’ve tried it before.

I did say Yeah.

I actually like this one. This is why I get it every time.

So I felt like I was, like, this demo of, like, here’s how we need to educate our customers.

Right.

Right. You know, where the bean comes from, blah, blah, blah, all this crap. And I was like, dude and and especially, like, I went in there because I had, like, forty five minutes to kill between appointments, and it didn’t make sense for me to, like, get home or back to the office or anywhere else. I would’ve just been wasting time driving around.

So it, like, was even worse for me. Like, not only did you give me this education that I did not want, did not ask for, but, like, you’re actually wasting the time that I came here to save. Right. So, like, yeah, it’s it’s funny how how that stuff can just really kill an experience when those people probably thought they were doing the right thing. Like, right?

Like, your your dude Yeah.

Stepping in between you. Oh, let me make that right for you. Like, in the moment, they’re like, oh, I’m gonna save the day when really it’s like, oh, shit. I just went against the thing that I told them not to do. Yeah. Anyway.

Yeah. Yeah. That yeah. That is disappointing.

Yeah.

Why do that? I I let me ask you a question. Yeah.

Do you have you ever said to someone, because you know me and, you know, this is probably definitely something that I have done in my life.

Listen, man. I’m in sales.

This thing you’re doing, you don’t have to do it.

Yeah. Have I ever said that to anyone? I mean, maybe some verse some version of it for sure.

Not the way I’m saying it? Yeah. Yeah.

I think and maybe in my the nature in my nature, the way I would say it would be like, I get it. Yeah.

Like I get it.

A little tongue in cheek like, I get what you’re doing. I get it. Without having to call it out as sales and stuff. Yeah.

K. Okay. Clearly things for me to work on. Right. That’s all. Right.

We’re all we’re all working on something.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Are we ready to move on to number two?

Yes.

Alright. My number two is creative freedom. So Ah.

Fewer layers of approval, a more flexible structure, just really allows us to, like, try stuff that at least we’ve never done before.

Mhmm.

And maybe based on what we’re seeing and observing in our market or our industry or whatever, it hasn’t been done before either.

So, yeah, just less approval. And, oh, really, at the end, like, the benefit is it allows us to be more authentic. Allows us to try the things we wanna try.

Allows us to be the most real version of ourselves for our audience or for the client that we’re working, Mhmm.

Their work for. You know? So I think it like, a freshness is the, like, outcome of that. You know?

Like, we can just we can do stuff that just feels fresher.

Maybe I just have spring on the mind. I don’t know.

That could be. Yeah. Uh-huh.

Listen. I am not as you as you well know, I am not in the habit of sucking up to you.

So that is not what this is. But I have got I have got to say that probably the best thing you ever did, for my career, for my for every sort of every facet around what it takes for me to like what I’m doing and, was to give me creative freedom when early on, when we were developing a brand voice and we were, you know, doing some of those things. And I wanted to, I wanted to express it in a way that was drastically different.

Mhmm. Yeah.

And I continue, you know, with now both brands that we’re working on, wanting to just, just express things in a different way in a, more why am I trying to sell it to you when I’m trying to do? But that Yeah. In in this more personable, colloquial way.

And when you when you allowed me to see that, you were gonna let it happen, You were going to, even endorse some of it. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like, because there is a difference between saying, yeah. Well, if that’s what you think you should do Yeah. And saying, no. That’s awesome. Do that.

Right. Yeah.

So that yeah.

And I’ve got your back. Right?

Like Yeah.

That’s maybe Right. The most valuable part of it is to know that you got somebody standing behind you saying, like, yep. Yeah. You’re doing the right thing.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So Well, thanks for sharing that. That’s awesome. And I hope it’s something I never lose.

I think it’s really important. In the in the line of work that we do, like, some level of that has to exist. Otherwise, like, talk about soul suck.

Like, I mean, to not be able to make your own decisions or try things in that free way Mhmm.

I mean, you’re gonna run out of gas real quick.

Yeah. Is it harder to do that in design than it was for writing? Because you’re a designer.

Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. We should maybe ask people that are doing it a bit more often than I am these days. Because honestly, anything else anything that I’m doing nowadays when it comes to design is pretty safe or pretty structured. You know, maybe, like, touching up something that already exists or it’s it’s but, I mean, really, the only design most of the design that I’m doing nowadays is, like, volunteer stuff. Mhmm. You know?

So that’s a great question for some of the people that are, like, really trying the new things Yeah. For our clients and for ourselves and stuff.

But I think I could put myself in their shoes, and, you know, I’ve been there in the past and stuff. And I I don’t know that I can say it’s any harder, because, like, you were maybe creating something that people would be reading or hearing in a different way for the first time. Like, I think designers are doing the same thing.

It’s just maybe stuff that people are seeing Mhmm.

For the first time. And I suppose maybe just maybe the the bigger issue or challenge with all that now is just the amount of content that lives in the world today and the amount of advertising that we see every day where, you know, once upon a time, it was, like, sexy to break design rules intentionally. And now it’s like, are there design rules anymore? I mean, there are for sure. And, actually, the only way that breaking them works is to know that they exist.

But, yeah, you just that it’s almost like the gloves are off with all of that stuff. Voice, brand voice, writing, and design, whether it’s visual or whatever.

So So I hate to correct you.

Oh, god. But my specific question was, technically, is it harder to allow a designer creative freedom than a writer? Because I and listen. We’re writing a book, and you do a fine job. But I what the way I experience it on the other side is to is, very often that I say, to the person who is doing writing. So when Scott is doing writing Mhmm.

I can be, extremely appointed Yeah.

In my feedback and give extremely granular, sometimes pedantic feedback.

But I do admit to him when I’m being pedantic. Yeah. Yeah.

But for the design folks, I don’t I I don’t give them as specific feedback.

I allow them maybe more creative freedom.

Yeah.

I think it’s two things. One, as much as I love you, Sue, and it’s part of who you are and your love of control of the things that you own.

What? Yep. I have a love of control. Yep. First time I’m hearing it.

And the, like, the time and care and precision that’s gone into our voice. The other thing Mhmm. Too is I think, our design style, our guidelines and stuff, while they’re in place and have been developed, there’s just more freedom baked into that. Like, the our look and feel has more flexibility than maybe our voice.

And I don’t think I’m just justifying what you’re saying and and experiencing. I think it’s true. Like, our our look and feel is pretty flexible. We’ve got a color scheme to stay in, and we’ve got this new, you know, mixed media sort of, like, umbrella for how things look and stuff, but that’s saying a whole lot.

Whereas our voice is pretty tight.

Yeah. So Okay. I don’t know.

And you love control.

So there’s that too. Love control. Yeah. There’s a right amount of control in all of it.

Yeah. Yeah. Did you share your number two yet?

I didn’t yet. We haven’t gotten there yet. That’s my fault. My bad.

All good.

My number two is the close relationships on our team.

Mhmm.

So there’s just six of us. Yeah. And, some of us at least two of us have been trying to schedule coffee for three months.

And Trying. Not had an opportunity to do it. But Yeah. Others of us, the design team works all in the same office. They, for better or for worse, they have an opportunity to have conversations that, you know, just proximity.

Right.

And to share, their real lives.

And and we do as a team too Mhmm.

Have those conversations despite the fact that we’ve been trying for three months to schedule coffee and haven’t done it.

You’re you’re drinking coffee right now.

I but you’re not. And you can see how it’s not working.

So I do but I do believe even, even for you and I, we just we have the benefit of being able to have much closer relationships with Yeah.

The folks on the team and For sure.

You know? Yeah. And I think we make I think we do a good job of making space for it.

Yeah. Definitely.

Like, for real time set aside for it.

And it’s a part of our conversations when we’re thinking about, like, ways we wanna improve as a team. Like, there’s a genuine care for each other that I think comes out every time that we have the opportunity for that feedback. And we’re pretty fortunate. We got some pretty awesome humans on our team too, because I can also see where those relationships with not quite the right personality mix and things like that could also be pretty sucky on a small team too.

So Yeah. We’re lucky we got some great folks.

Yeah. I mean, I’ve I’ve definitely been on teams where, I don’t think I ever maybe I felt this way, but where other people on the team said, I’m not here to make friends.

Yeah. Just here to work.

Just here to work. You know, which is also not untrue.

Yeah. For sure.

You know, we don’t pay people. This isn’t RuPaul’s best friends race, Ed.

Yeah. We don’t pay people to make friends. But when you have to have that attitude, that to me, is a signal there’s a problem Mhmm. In relationships.

So Yeah.

No doubt.

Ready for number one? Ready for number one. So excited.

Alright. My number one is a stronger voice at the table. So in a small company, we get our ideas and opinions carrying more weight. And I think that’s oh, gosh. I think Sue might have something similar.

So excited.

And this, I think, is not a blanket statement for all small teams. I can see a team of two where one person gets the weight in the decision and the other one doesn’t. You know?

One person who likes control. Right. Yeah.

Well Oh.

Sorry. Yeah.

Like to meet somebody like that someday? Yeah.

They sound nice.

But, I mean, really, on our team, of course, decisions need to be made, and we’ve made it really clear as to who makes which decisions, which I think helps our environment and our culture where everyone has a voice, because everyone gets to speak up. And at the end of the day, someone’s gonna make the decision. We know who that is.

Mhmm.

But, really, when we’re having an open discussion, my voice carries as much weight as the person that started a year ago. You know? And, that’s a beautiful thing and definitely something that I don’t think every team has.

Yeah.

Yeah. So my number one, extremely similar. Thinking about the same thing. The whole team gets to build the business. Yeah. So exactly what you’re saying.

Right.

People we open up conversations. We, we make some decisions collaboratively.

Mhmm.

And and I think I don’t wanna keep patting ourselves on the back, but I think that we also do a good job of balancing to not put all of the onus, all of the responsibility on the team. So the decisions that, need to not be so, you know, the whole team decision. Yeah. We handle. Yeah. And so, it’s not it doesn’t become a so far, it has not become a misbalance where we decide to do something, you and I make a decision, and then the team’s like, what? We all everybody gets to decide like, it hasn’t turned into anything weird like that.

Right.

So Yeah. And I think it I definitely made this my number one because of where we are in the business and because we’re building this thing. And it gives me as, someone who supervises the team the opportunity to tell them, you know, when we’re coaching or when we’re working through something, to have, you know, this really frank discussion of, like, think about the business in ten years and think about the people at the table right now.

Mhmm.

And the picture that I have is that there’s no reason that everybody here right now is not in a top level position Right.

At that point. Right. So it benefits us to be able to collaborate well. It benefits us for everyone to be able to have power.

Mhmm. You know? Yeah. And decision making. And also not just the power and the ability to make decisions, but then the experience of what the outcome is of the decision.

Because it’s not always gonna be good. We’re not even as a team, we’re not always going to make a good collaborative decision.

Yeah.

So that I think is it certainly is because I made it my number one. Yeah. To me, the best. Yeah. The best perk of having that small team.

For sure. Yep. I love that. Yeah. And I think it speaks to some of the stuff that we’ve been saying already about an environment like that allowing us to be, like, the most authentic version of ourselves as individuals and the most authentic version of ourselves as a collective, as a company. Right?

Because there’s there’s ownership. It it’s like the thing when you say you wanna run your team as its own business or, you know, you want people to feel like an ownership in the company. Like, this is a big factor in that.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think very often, people will say that, uh-huh, and it is not with the follow through of actually giving them that ownership.

Right. Yeah.

It is with this feeling of, well, why, you know, why aren’t you working seventy hours a week like I am?

And why aren’t you Right.

You know?

Yeah.

It’s still, like, good to know.

Call in on your day off?

Yeah.

That’s not what ownership is. Right. Right.

For sure. Yeah. You can own that as long as I approve it.

Or Yeah. Yeah.

You can own that as long as you’re working as much as I am or whatever. Yeah. Gross.

Yeah.

Alright. Well, hey. I think, like, three of our five were kind of, like, in the same spot, not only, like, super similar, but in the same spot. And I think the others were at least closely related.

Right. So Right. And we at least didn’t disagree on any of them.

Right. Yeah.

Which I think now listen. If it bleeds, it leads. And that would’ve made better content.

But Yeah.

Do you think I think people probably are. Every time we agree on something, do you think somebody should make a drinking game is what should happen?

Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, we’d have a lot of intoxicated people. Probably not the best revenge.

Maybe not. Maybe not.

Yeah.

Yeah. I was going into the episode, I was a little concerned that, like, the either the pitfalls would just kinda be, like, reframes of perks, and the perks would be reframes of pitfalls. You know? And I like, we made some connections for sure, but I think there were, like, genuinely two separate categories of things, which I liked.

Yeah. Yeah. Well This is fun. It’s I mean, listen. We are three-dimensional people, and we live with nuance.

Yeah. And, I think we a lot of it comes with this undercurrent of understanding that the things that we love about something, there’s work to get there. Mhmm. There is there maybe is some dark underbelly that got us to that point Mhmm.

That somebody could call it pitfall. But Yeah. You know, that’s what makes us well rounded.

That’s right.

Well, that was extremely fun. And we appreciate you, listener, for being here with us as we, you know, got a chance not only to talk about perks and pitfalls, but, and we didn’t mention this at the top. So much fun to be back in the studio.

I it it has been I don’t know how long it’s been since we’ve actually recorded First time in a while.

Yeah.

Here in, with our real mics. Yeah. And that’s always fun to look at because we can’t schedule coffee.

And then Yeah.

It’s it’s always fun to do that. Yeah.

You can always learn more about us at our website, exclamation cuso dot com. And you can catch all of the episodes of Osmology on your favorite podcast app.

Thank you, Sue. Thank you, friends, for tuning in. Be awesome.

We’ll see you next time.

The Awsmology podcast is a production of Exclamation Services. Executive producers are myself, Ben Bauer, and my friend, Suzanne Campbell.

Thanks to Kylie Ganther for our show artwork, Scott Seager for booking our guests, and Alex Westerhausen for social media support.