An Agency Story
An Agency Story
The Toughest Role in an Agency? The One After the Founder - Cro Metrics
Gwen Hammes, Co-CEO of Cro Metrics, shares her journey of taking over leadership, not by replicating the past, but by evolving it. In this episode, Gwen shares what happens when you step into a founder’s shoes and choose to grow the team before the business.
Key Takeaways
- The biggest risk in leadership transitions
- Why growing your people first leads to better client outcomes
- The “micro-step” mindset that unlocks clarity in career growth
- A creative approach to training the team
- How to build a leadership structure that complements, not competes
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where we share real stories of marketing agency owners from around the world. From the excitement of starting up the first big sale, passion, doubt, fear, freedom, and the emotional rollercoaster of growth, hear it all on An Agency Story podcast. An Agency Story podcast is hosted by Russel Dubree, successful agency owner with an eight figure exit turned business coach. Enjoy the next agency story.
Russel:Today's guest didn't just join the business to take the reins from the founder. She made it her mission to grow the company by growing the people. Welcome to An Agency Story podcast. I'm your host Russel. In this episode, we are joined by Gwen Hamus co CEO of Crow Metrics. Gwen didn't build crow metrics from the ground up, but she's shaping its future in a big way from a global career in advertising to redefining leadership with intentionality and empathy, Gwen brings a unique blend of heart hustle and high expectations. We dive deep into what it really means to grow with the team first, how she's intentionally navigating the complexities of transitioning leadership from founder to operator and why she believes resilience and progress, not perfection, drive great agency cultures. Enjoy the story. Welcome to the show today everyone, I have Gwen Hammes with Cro Metrics with us here today. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Gwen.
Gwen:Thanks so much for having me.
Russel:If you don't mind, just kick us off right off the bat, tell us what Cro Metrics does and who do you do it for?
Gwen:As I always say, and this may be an overly simplistic way, but I say we make the internet easier for people to get what they're looking for, right? If you think about consumers that wanna buy socks, like with one of our clients as Bombas, how do we make that an easier situation for them? If you think about, you know, donors trying to donate to causes that are important to them, how do we make that easier? Even something like, um, patients, you know, how do we help them solve kind of their symptoms through some of our healthcare clients, like a forum health?
Russel:Real good, practical examples of what you do. In 2025, I'll take as simplistic as we can get all day, every day. Wonderful way to explain that. We're gonna find out all of things agency life. We have no shortage of great topics that we're gonna talk about today, but I'm interested right in the current moment about young Gwen and, you know, where, where was she coming up in the world? Tell us about Young Gwen.
Gwen:I'm gonna take us way back. I actually went to college as a Spanish major and I got into college and my mom said, nobody is going to pay you to speak Spanish. Get another major.
Russel:Why was that your major? What was the thought process there?
Gwen:I always just, I've loved learning languages and that's still a passion of mine. I say I can, you know, I know enough Portuguese to be dangerous in Rio or Sao Paulo, and I'm currently learning, um, French and Italian. It's just something I think for me, it was less about the actual learning of languages and it was more about the ability to get to know and connect with more people. That's been a thread throughout my life, I'd say, and I think why ending up in originally advertising and now marketing makes a lot of sense for me because it's about getting to know people and I'm a big believer in living in and having worked in Mexico City, I studied abroad in Argentina, like we're more similar than we are different. But getting to know the nuances and what makes people tick and the way language and food and art and history has just such an impact on people's lived experiences, I think, um, is just something that lights me up and fascinates me every day.
Russel:All right. I'm sold. To your point, great through line here. And so yeah you were going on and you were saying how that path was gonna work out for you?
Gwen:I switched my major, um, to a very employable major of economics, which, um, I loved because I was in the more of liberal arts side of things. It was about how the world worked. I think you're sensing a theme here. Um, but I know I didn't wanna become an economist. I like math, I don't love math to the extent I would need to, and I, I knew I wasn't gonna get my PhD. I had a sense it could be marketing, it could be something in, you know, insights, something like that. I studied abroad, my junior of college in Argentina. Since the seasons are flip flopped, um, I basically had the summer, I had December through March where I was down there. My parents, once again, very sage advice, said, if you have a reason to stay, if you can get a job or an internship, you can stay. Otherwise you gotta come back here for three months and, and work before going back for the, the next semester. One of my mentors now still to this day, I met him, he was an expat down there, and he said, hey, I could use, a young student to help us out, but I can't pay you, but if you're willing and interested, I'd love to have you on board. He was, at the time it was called Pragma FCB, so FCB one of the big agencies. He brought me on, worked for him for that summer, and then he hired me outta college in Chicago. And as I say, like, the rest is history. So I was very lucky to have fallen in I think, to the right industry.
Russel:Very cool. You kind of highlighted there and you know, we have a lot of founders on this, but not always. You are not a founder of the agency. I've got some curiosities about that. But before that, I mean, like, when you're navigating your career, obviously you found, you know, this thing you're passionate about, good at and had some good opportunities to there. Where did you think you were trying to take your career, um, from young Gwen to as that progressed?
Gwen:I always say I'm a, I'm a recovering type A personality. Go back to young Gwen, highly type A. I was like, I'm gonna do this. I really wanted to move back abroad, and so every year in my annual, performance review, they'd say, and what are your career goals? I'd say, I'd love to move abroad. Four years later, they knocked on my door, this was early 2000s. They said, we're hiring for an account supervisor in Mexico. I was like, this is perfect. I'm gonna go down to Mexico. I'm gonna do two years, study for the GMAT, have this great experience, get into B School. I was pretty certain at the time, like B-School is about getting to know contacts, maybe creating a business. So I always had kind of this entrepreneurial bone in my body. But as life happens, I ended up meeting my husband down in Mexico City and all of my plans, uh, for, for that part of a, a journey or path went out the window.
Russel:Those darn husbands always ruining plans.
Gwen:I know I made the right decision.
Russel:Sounds like that's worked out. You said changed plans and all that went out the window. Where did you veer to from there?
Gwen:I'm a big believer in, it's not just about like what is the goal, but like how do you feel about it? I always tell my teams like, I wanna wake up every morning excited about what I have. If there's a day or two days, or two weeks or two months when I'm not that's usually the signal for a change. That's always the advice I give to young people. Always check in with yourself, see how you're doing. And To be honest, I was always really excited and really happy about what I was doing. I think the world of advertising for me, because you work on different clients in different categories with different problems to solve in different consumer groups, there is never a dull day. You have to be resilient and you have to be agile and you have to be able to pivot. I've always thrived on that. I am also a big believer in everything happens for the best. And so I think I was meant to, to really build and grow my career in advertising. It really wasn't until probably about a year ago now at this point that I said, hey, maybe there's something else. I've been in the industry, I've gotten to do amazing things. I've had Super Bowl ads. I was like, I think this is my moment to make a pivot, to focus more on where can we drive tangible results. To work for a smaller agency, to go more independent, where I can have my direct fingerprints on it. Um, and I was lucky enough to actually meet Chris Newman, our founder, uh, and he brought me on board to be his co CEO with the goal over time to, to, to him, as I say, he can go into full founder mode, which he doesn't like. He's like, I don't wanna be founder mode. But really, I think focus on what that longer term future is and how our product, um, can really evolve in a, way that just catapults where we're headed and where consumers are headed and where clients and brands are to add value.
Russel:When you came to that realization, that decision, how did you meet Chris, did you have to go through a lot of vetting and other agencies and companies out there before you, you found the right one? What was that process like for you?
Gwen:I think it's one of those things, you don't realize how great of a network you have until you tap into them. It was really me just and in that moment I'm, I'm big into like behavioral science and micro steps. The first thing I did, I was like, all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna tell some people what I'm thinking about and I just put it out there and I just said, hey, I'm thinking about making a move. I'm thinking about making a switch. I'm looking to be more in kind of growth marketing, independent agency, and something smaller than I've been at. By doing that, I, I don't wanna say the rest took care of itself, but it was actually, I got, an outreach from a recruiter and we just started talking and then I met Chris and I met some other people on the team and it was, as you can imagine, a bit of a longer process because it wasn't a, I think for him bringing on a co CEO, this was something he'd never done before. But also for me it was gonna be a big, a big change. It was just nice to really get to know him. Some of the key people, the board, um, get under the business and some of the clients before jumping in feet first.
Russel:First big takeaway from the day, but I liked what you said earlier about, importance of checking in with yourself and really taking the time to process what you're feeling and going through. But the second one there is, put what you want into the universe. That does tend to, it's the law of attraction and all that good stuff that seems to always work out well.
Gwen:I think it's that. Also I just keep, I, I've been talking a lot recently about these micro steps, like, what is that teeny tiny thing that's standing in your way? And so In that case, it was like, just letting people know what's on my mind and what I'm interested in. It's one of those things, it's like a muscle, like the more you do it, the more comfortable it gets, and then the more people are like, oh, you know who you should talk to, you should talk to this person. I don't know, you know, where they are, what they're thinking about, but you find out, your network grows. The connections grow. Some opportunities were able to present themselves in a way that if I had just tried it from the very traditional sense of just reaching out directly to recruiters or keeping it in my orb, probably wouldn't have actually happened.
Russel:I love that. You found this, this gem of an agency, and how long ago was this? Where are we at in the chronology of all this?
Gwen:January, so I just started, I'm, I'm just about, five months in.
Russel:Okay. Just even that process,'cause I, I think there's probably a lot of founders and owners that, that want their Gwen in the world. What was that process that you actually went through to, determine not only for yourself it's a good fit, but that Chris and the agency said, yep, Gwen, we want Gwen in this seat.
Gwen:I think it was a lot. There were multiple pieces, right? I probably spent, I don't know, in total probably 10 hours with Chris. He actually came to Chicago. He had another meeting here, so we grabbed dinner. A lot of the conversations of just like the ease of them and the sharing of ideas, the sharing, kind of like the way that I think about growing the business, the way I think about positioning capabilities. The way I even think about, you know, how I always say like, Cro Metrics is the best kept secret in the digital marketing landscape. We have amazing clients, we're doing great work, but nobody knows about us. How can we get out there? He brought a lot of other people in. cme, We have an advisory board, which is great because we don't have any outside investors, but they truly are there to advise. I had, meetings with two of the board members and um, and it was funny because recently we were, uh, we were doing a people summit. We do a lot of these kind of like in-person people summits every couple months and chris was talking about, he's it was your writing sample that got you the job. I was like, I never did a writing sample. What are you talking about? He said, well, remember Katie's email, she followed up and he said, that counted as your writing sample. She and I probably had like an hour long conversation. She's one of the board members and following up. She was one of the like sales VPs at DHL. She was a, a core person kind of building that business in the, the eighties and nineties. She was like, Hey, just a couple follow up questions, like what was your biggest people problem and how did you solve it? What was, you know, that failure and what did you learn from it? What has been your greatest success? Very innocuous questions, but of, of course, I, I gave, I was beared myself to some of my failures, some of my people problems. The successes are always a little bit easier to write about. It was just an interesting thing because I think Chris was looking for somebody that had a vision that was able to express themselves, that was be able to be persuasive. But in the process, one of the things, this was, as we were getting close to, I'd say a, a mutual decision, he said, well, what scares you? There's two things that scare me. One is I don't know what I don't know. Anytime you're going somewhere new, you're, you're taking a leap, you're taking a risk, you're taking a chance. You have to, again, have the quantitative of like, okay. The clients are lining up where you're headed, line is lining up, you know, all that. But also just like how you feel. The second thing is, which I think it might be more important, is I said, I am the exact opposite of you. He's a mechanical engineer, grew up in Silicon Valley. He's very black and white. He is, one of the most smart and brilliant people you'll meet. I am much more relational. I'm very comfortable in the gray. I said, are, is this gonna, like, would this work out? Do you want somebody like me? He was so self-aware and said, I need somebody like you. He said, I actually, I was interviewing somebody that was like a me, but 10 years earlier in their career and he said, I came to the realization, and I think he said he got some outside perspective saying like, you don't need another, you, you need somebody that can compliment you. And you know, Everybody asks me about this like co CEO thing. They're like, well, how is it going? I'm like, honestly, it's great. I feel like we're on the same page and when we're not, he's a big believer in, um, in strong debate. So I think I've gotten to be, become an even better debater than I had in the past. We always, you know, find a way forward and, and we make progress. It's only been five months, but I think so far so good. I'm really excited about the, the future that we're building.
Russel:I love the, the, the depth that you shared there and, and you know, my own experience. Had a similar process probably a couple times where I think we brought on someone that, call it a key leader into the business. When I really do think about it, it wasn't an overly formal process. We weren't thinking too hard. It was just spending a lot of time with that individual, just understanding how they think, how do they solve problems, do we align on just, how a business should generally function and operate. It's not really ultimately about core tactics or something like that, but there's just alignment in values and thought processes and that just takes a good amount of time of connecting with someone and spending with them to, um, you know, to learn all those things about another person. That sounds like kind of what the process is you went through there.
Gwen:What would you say would be the things you were scared about? Maybe bringing a senior person on?
Russel:I think a different problem might be like, maybe I wasn't scared enough. I don't know. Honestly, I, I, I tend to be a very optimistic, you know, we'll, we'll figure it out type of individual. Run on good vibe so that might be the problem. Wasn't scared enough, uh, in, in those situations. I did learn to trust those instincts and just, hey, is this a good human being? One that's, that's, I know how far that can carry someone. Are they a good human? Maybe that's the fear is if, you know, is there a facade or something that I can't see, um, or something along those lines. I think that would be my ultimate fear is letting someone step in that, when push came to shove, would they uphold the same level of values that, you know, we had when we were starting running and, and growing the company?
Gwen:I always say I'm a big believer in people like to work with people they like. It really just comes down to that core truth. To your point, like if you're honest, if you work hard, if you put the goals and the needs of, you know, the business ahead of ego or personal advantage, I mean, you're, you're usually at least a, a running start ahead of, of maybe where you could be.
Russel:That's the key word there. Ego. I'm afraid of ego because I know ego causes problems. You said it so, so greatly there. Because it, I mean, it, it is, and I talk to, you know, other businesses that are in partnerships, whether they're life partnerships as well, or just business partnerships. It follows so many of the same mechanics, like a real life partnership and you've got to be able to, you know, live and work and do a lot of other things with this other human being to, to make this all, all, all jive and that even imp applies to the rest of the team. So It's such a very human thing we live in this agency world.
Gwen:It's, It really is. It's our greatest asset is our, is our talent and our people. Being able to, to recruit, you know, retain and, and grow, like when you can get those things running, you are, you are just unstoppable.
Russel:I'm curious. You said you haven't been doing this very long, um, or, you know, into it a few months as far as, you know, actual Cro metrics. But what is one thing that you were just able to bring your experience in your thought process and hit the ground running, and what is, what is something you maybe didn't quite expect to encounter, that's been a little new or maybe just a surprise?
Gwen:I think there's a couple things. I was pretty ambitious right when I hit the ground running,'cause I know, you know, we've all, we all know about a hundred days. The big things were, there were a lot of like, um, com, like, organizational foundation pieces that just needed a lot of clarifying and putting a finer point on. Whether it was, you know, I started out saying our, our areas of focus, we're gonna grow our clients, we're gonna grow our talent, and we're gonna grow our metrics. I said in that order'cause when you do what's right for the clients, you open up opportunities for our people and then in turn we grow. I was always a big person, like whenever you put growing the agency first, you are doomed to fail. That is a recipe for disaster because you're not adding value, you're not solving problems, you're not putting the needs of your clients and their businesses ahead of yours. You're definitely not putting your people first. Pretty quickly I did that. Since then, we now have, our longer, five-year plan that's mapped out that we just revealed at our all-hands. But my favorite thing, and I always say this was even like stepping outta my my comfort zone a little bit, is I started a Growing With Gwen series. One of the things, again, as I think about how do you grow people. I'm sure you've had the same situation with your agency. People always say like, I want more training. When you think about it, it's really, you know, it's like that 70% is on the job training, 20% might be more informal training, and it's like 10% is really hardcore training. Our big thing is on the job training. We talk about that a lot. We give people experiences, we give them challenges, and we guide, like have those kind of like guideposts, like this is training you, learning this thing is a new skill and it's even better because it's real and actual. But for kind of some of the informal training, what I've done is I've created a video series called Growing With Gwen. which. My goal is actually to expand it into LinkedIn and making it a bigger thing. But whether it's topics like, and a lot of these are true, you know, they're true to me. They're learnings I've had over my life that help, help me, um, professionally, but also personally. One of the videos was 1% better every day, and that comes from this wellness influencer follower, um, called Kayla Jeter. Just talking about, again, what are those micro steps? What are those little things you can do to help get to where you're trying to go? Another one is, you know, the figuring it out effect, right? I think we all know, like when you have people in talent that can just figure it out, that in just the sense of even trying, they might not get to the right answer, but they're probably gonna get a little bit further than they can. And so again, I probably have about 25 of these videos now that, you know, every couple days I'll post, um, I'll post on our, all agency channel. The last one was actually a fun one. I did one on, uh, Friday before everybody broke for Memorial Day and it was all about the power of daydreaming. We were just at a client last week and we did a kind of a, a FY30 Vision setting, and we actually went outside and we were in the grass. It was all very kind of zen.
Russel:I feel like I need access to these growing with Gwyn videos. Now it's like I want to see this video and, and learn about the power of daydreaming.
Gwen:It's great'cause you never, we never create the space to do that, right? We're always like, heads down, I have these, these key priorities, or I have these fire drills, or I have these, you know, phone calls to make or emails to write. Just creating the space to daydream and how to think about that, um, and how to practice it. Again, just create space I think is a powerful piece.
Russel:Amongst all the other topics. If we kind of take a step back and, you know, I feel like this was a big jump for us in an agency is once you get kind of some of the hurdles of how do we get enough clients in here to do what we wanna do business-wise? We gotta deal with this team and, how do we create a great environment not only for today, but for tomorrow? It seems like any agency that's done that well has made a very intentional, deep seated investment in, in training, which it sounds like, you know, you're, you're going through the process too and in a very unique and, and fun way.
Gwen:Absolutely. I think it's one of those things like I'm a big, I'm a big person. I kind of joke, I'm like, it's probably'cause of my Chicago roots, right? We're very roll up your sleeves, get it done. But I'm like, I'm never gonna ask anybody to do something I'm not willing to do. I take a lot of like accountability, whether it's through these videos, we have like an accelerator program where we have future leaders and we have a whole curriculum and our exec team, we each take different topics. It's funny, actually, I just posted on LinkedIn one of the ones from the other week, which was like, the real meeting doesn't actually happen in the meeting. Again, you're trying to kind of help people see around corners and think more expansively beyond the kind of well defined work that they do. What does it take to actually meet your clients where they are not only as a when they're on their client hat, but like as a person and as somebody that has hopes and dreams and fears and pressure and anxieties and being able, again, in the service industry in which we are to be able to, to serve them and be there for them in ways that go beyond, the, the defined scope of work that we have in place with them.
Russel:I love too, just kinda sharing, that it's more than just learn analytics, learn, better add management or improvement or something like that. That it's more foundational, kind of ethereal things that, um, that just make people think differently and approach problems differently and probably makes it where you don't have to solve some of those more tactical training, aspects that you would otherwise by teaching people to think differently.
Gwen:Yeah. That's the goal. Yeah. Step by step.
Russel:Yeah. One, one day at a time. One step back real quick and, and just to give people a sense of just the, the dynamics that you're dealing with. How many folks work for Cro and are you distributed, hybrid, uh, in person? Just give us a sense of the environment.
Gwen:We have about 50 people. I say we are small yet mighty. Especially if you look at some of the clients, I know I mentioned a few of them before, but we really, we've been able to get some kind of Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 clients, which is tremendous. We are fully remote, um, and we'll never have an office. Our founder lives in Colorado. I'm in Chicago. We have people all spread out across the 50 states. We do think it, it's an advantage, it does have its challenges at times because everything does have to be a intentional connect, right? Even if you're just yuming somebody on Slack, you have to put yourself out there as opposed to the serendipitous connections. We do try to have different types of meetups. We just had our whole company all hands at the beginning of May. We do like IRL Connects for people.
Russel:Very cool. All right, well you just put out a big recruiting ad for a potential talent out there. Company retreats in Cancun. Did you get to wow, your team with all your amazing Spanish?
Gwen:We went to Cancun and there's actually some significance. When Chris Newman Art, our founder, founded the company, he kind of had the idea actually in, um, uh, Eastly Moher. There's kind of like a, an, a connection and he always talks about kind of feet in the sand, right? When you're having hard conversations, when you're building a business, when you're thinking about where to go next, you almost want your feet in the sand because nobody wants to leave. When you're sitting at a table, maybe you got a, michelada in your hand and you're kind of really talking about the things. There was significance on that. Then, um, Hyatt Inclusive Collection's, one of our clients, we actually stayed at the Hyatt Ziva. They were fantastic and amazing, and so we liked the fact we were able to support, um, our client as well doing that. We got about a 95%, uh, attendance rate from everybody. A couple people, you know, there was a wedding, there was somebody, you know, that had a big vacation already planned, but it was great.
Russel:That is really fascinating. Resilience living abroad, I can only imagine. You probably have no shortage of stories of how you sharpen and gain those skills.
Gwen:I did. Speaking of figuring it out, so, um, you know, again, Chris had been kind of going there on years past. They had done small hands there previously and you know, he always, he always jokes that I have like resilience level number six and I totally attribute it to living in Mexico City. I can negotiate my way into anything. I can figure things out. He said, hey, there's this place called Marbella that had full octopus. He's like, it's literally the best octopus of my life. He was like, if somebody can, if, if somebody could figure out how we can get those delivered to us, he's like, it's you. I was kind of like, this is either a test or he really wants the octopus. So I, you know, just Googled the, the restaurant. I called him up and I told him in Spanish, and you know, I'm like, hey, we just want, you know, five of these full octopus, but can you have it delivered and all this stuff. He was like, well, we don't really have delivery, but there's a taxi stand outside. Hold on, let me just go see if they can deliver it to you. He comes back and he's just like, yeah, they can do it. We got connected on WhatsApp. He told me how much it was gonna be. Sure enough, show, the guy shows up in the taxi cab with all the octopus. We pay him in pesos and, uh, and we're on our way. Everybody was very impressed that I was able to convince a local restaurant to, uh, put some octopus in a cab without any commitment of payment before he actually showed up, and it all worked out.
Russel:Speaking of, of resilience, uh, and, you know, just all things what's going on in the world today, um, having to be dynamic and on our toes, that's gotta be something that I imagine is top of your mind of how do you manage the organization? How do you build resilience amongst your team and, and what does that look like in your business?
Gwen:You said it earlier, right? If you think about talent and everybody's saying, how do you get the best talent? I truly believe it's, it's within each of us, right? It's always even funny. We call people talent, but it, it is about their capabilities and their experience and their expertise. My goal is to determine what that is and help them pull it out of them. There's a couple things in, in my approach that I do. The first, which is probably common sense, but it's like, how do we get people to play to their strengths? Sometimes people know what those strengths are, but a lot of times they don't. It's funny because, I'm also a big person on, like, I want, I, I'm always inviting people to raise their hand. Any open roles we have or any, opportunities, we always say, hey, raise your hand if you're interested in this. Let's see how we can make that happen. I want people to feel they can build their careers here. They have opportunities, they have all that kind of stuff. And We were having this conversation in the exec team the other week because it was like people might not even know that they have a strength or that they're interested in doing something to even raise their hand. I had a coach many years ago that kind of had given me a bit of a self-assessment, right? On what are the things I love doing? What are the things I hate doing? What are the things that I, I'd wanna do more of? All of that kind of stuff. I started circulating it around to people to help them come to that, some of those realizations for themselves. It's worked for me over time and it, it was a great way because it's been, really, it's been awesome to see over the last few months how we have been able to give people those opportunities or how somebody that you would never think was interested in even kind of switching into a different department has raised their hand. We've been able to make it happen and they're thriving there. I think that's a big thing where it's like when you can get people, you know, number one, playing to their strengths. Number two, having the ability to raise their hand that gives them the sense that they have a bit more control. Because when we are living in a world where things are changing, you know, almost on a daily basis, whether that's on tariffs or, you know, soon to be taxes or, you know, anything else that's happening with global, uh, geopolitical situations. People wanna have a sense of control because there's so little that they can control in the world around'em. I think that's a big piece that we try to do. The other thing that I brought forward was what I call like the dynamic talent model. When I first started, again, one of my 90 days, uh, was I wanted to do as many meet and greets with people individually as I could. I would get to know them, but I'd always ask two questions, right? Number one, what makes you stay at Cro Metrics? Why have you stuck around? I'm trying to get to like, what's that secret sauce? Number two was, if you had a magic wand, it could change one thing, what would it be? And you know, Just like any agencies in the past, there's been, you know, layoffs and reorgs and things like that. What was clear is people just wanted more like predictability and certainty and stability. Again, coming from the creative agency side of the world, that we used a lot of freelancers for a lot of different ways. I said, hey guys, we can create, call it like these different rings. We have our core FTEs, full-time employees. They're the ones you know, client facing, doing the hard work, tip of the spear leading the capabilities. Then we have our contractor ring, which is really, we have a, a group that are kind of contract to hire. As we do have new roles, if there's not somebody internally, how can they have an opportunity then if they're not, upward, we don't have a good talent mix, we can recruit. Then we have a broader kind of contractor ring, and that's a mix of like nearshore and offshore. As we think about that, the whole point on marketing is it ebbs and flows, right? We'd love to be able to predict it to T. That's one of the hardest things for any of us to do. By having this, these contractor rings, we're able to, as we get more work in, expand that. When we have less work we can shrink it, and have a lot more stability and predictability for our full-time employees so that, they know they have the work. We can be as committed to them as they are to us, and we're able to manage any of those ebbs and flows through that way. That was one of the first things that I, brought forward. We've gotten, good results. We've gotten good feedback from it. I think we're having even more transparent conversations with our contractors, so they're also understanding like, hey, this is working for, for both of us, and let's keep that conversation open. But that's just another kind of tool in our toolbox because again, we talk about how important talent is, and a big piece of it is making them feel like they have some of that security as well.
Russel:It's kinda like you developed your own minor league system within your agency recruitment process, right? There's the big leagues and then there's AAA down to A and just being honest with people about where they fit in that ecosystem and, and navigating'em where the pieces need to fall when they need to fall.
Gwen:I would say like, we don't have it all figured out. But I think the, the intent is I'm also a big like, progress over perfection person. Let's make progress. We optimize consumer experiences. We are constantly testing and learning things for ourselves. Let's test this out. Let's see what the right mix is, let's see what the right levels are, you know, and let's get that feedback from the people involved and then we can continue to, to optimize and go from there. I almost never wanna get it perfect'cause that feels too exact, but how do we just learn and, and continue to ebb and ebb with it?
Russel:I love that approach'cause it, it, it's like this notion like, stop worrying if there's a right answer or a perfect answer. Go down the path, go down the journey, and if you do that intentionally, you're gonna probably still up in a, in a good or better place. It's probably gonna be different than what you could have predicted. But how, how really important. I try to, try to communicate that to folks a lot of, embrace the journey. You just have to embrace the journey,'cause it's too easy to get caught up in the result and that's gonna swing our moods or how whatever you, it's gonna take us down some wrong paths if we, if we get too caught up in the end.
Gwen:I think too, like I love that phrase of embrace the journey, because what that does is it also invites other people in. I'm a big believer, I do not hold, you know, I don't corner the market on good ideas. I kinda put some things out into the world, but I've been really impressed by when people will then come and say like, hey, have you thought about doing it this way? Or, hey, if we're trying to get a little bit better on this thing, have you ever thought about this? Then it's like, I haven't, can you go run with that, like take ownership of it? And again, it's just, It's great to see how people are kind of rising to the occasion in new ways because just of the power of ideas and innovation that exists.
Russel:That makes me think of, I was thinking earlier as you were describing that, um, it's a problem for a lot of agencies where they get in this mode where I think, you know, they only rely on the top what they perceive as 20% of their talent to do 80% of the work. That becomes a very hard cycle to eventually break out of. But, uh, I've always just had this, you know, regardless of what size your business, regardless of what business you're in, whoever can get the most out of all of their team and talent, that's who's gonna succeed in the marketplace. That's the kind of company that can move mountains. That endeavor, while not easy, is extremely important and worthwhile.
Gwen:Totally. That's why I just go always back to the, like, if you wake up in the morning excited about what you're doing, like, we as business owners have a better chance that they're, that if we can get everybody to feel that way, maybe not every day, but you know more, more than that, nine outta 10 days, like we're gonna be in a, we're gonna be in a better place. So what, What do we need to do as leaders to help create that for them?
Russel:There you go. There's a mic drop question right there. Way to put a pin on that conversation. Um, one, One of the things, just kinda curious, um, you know, in stepping into this role, what fears did you have? Taking the reins, I should say, uh, of a founder, uh, can't be an easy task. I just know there's, in so many companies, there's just such a relational tie to a founder. It's kind of like, this is the way mom always did, or dad always did it in a family. What was that like, I guess from that perspective?
Gwen:This goes into like, you don't know what you don't know, and you don't know what you don't know until like the rubber hits the road, right? It's like that first disagreement or that first tension point or that first, um, just difference of opinion. I think that, that was the thing. Kind of going into it, I will say what was helpful, again, is Chris is very self-aware, so he was, I mean, more than I think any, almost anybody I've met in telling me where some of you know, his areas of opportunity were. But I absolutely was, was scared. I've been honest even with our team of like, I would know pretty quickly if this weren't gonna work out, if any idea I had, he said, no, we're not gonna do that. We've always done this this way. Alternatively, he brought me on to help grow the business. Again, he comes from an engineering background. He's exceptional at product, but he's like, I haven't worked for these huge professional service companies. So I also tell people like, I'm here to help grow the business, grow each of you, grow our clients. If I don't or if I can't, I probably won't be around for long term. Now, I'm gonna move heaven and earth to make sure I do. But I think that's been the very positive piece. I mentioned to you before we started, he's uh, he's taking the summer off and I think that's a big vote of confidence to his faith in me and his belief, in my leadership style, also in my, you know, my, my business, uh, decision making abilities so that he can take those three months off. I'm excited for him to come back because as we've we have kind of like three, three ways we're thinking about the business. I'd say the biggest one, which is the longer term, is like, how are we creating our future? How are we thinking about, what is to come or what may come? I told him, I'm like, when you're back, I want you fully focused on that. That's where your mind can, can be thinking about that.'Cause he's very tuned in to everything happening. Not just from a gen, gen AI standpoint, but from a quantum physics and from all of these other parts and pieces that will become our reality in the next five to 10 years.
Russel:When you guys, obviously he's taking the summer off and, and you guys are taking this process slow. Do you have a longer term exit plan ironed out between the two of you or is it just one step at a time, we'll figure it out, going kind back to that iterative mentality?
Gwen:It's definitely one step at a time. He has no, intentions of selling and I, I did not join this to be part of a sale. I joined this to be able to put my fingerprints on something and grow it and take it to the next level. I think we've had some really good progress and traction, you know, and my, my goal would be how do we double it? Not just for ourselves, but how do we grow our headcount? How do we promote from within? As I mentioned before, we have an accelerator program of future leaders. They're, you know, relatively young in their career, but like, I would love to have those opportunities in which they can step in and they can lead, bigger clients that have more for it. So, I mean, it's funny because it's like, yeah, we have like, we think about five to 10 years ahead, but I'm also very focused on let's not get over our skis. We need to, you know, if, I almost think, and he, he and I have talked about like, all right, here are my goals for Cro Metrics, for our team, for our clients in the next three months. Because when you come back, I would love to be able to be like, Chris, here are the things we've done. I also think, you know, the end of December here, here's what are my goals for myself, um, and not myself, but for all of us included. Because I think if we, while I love daydreaming, we also have to be really grounded in reality. The reality is there's a lot of uncertainty that's happening right now and we're hearing it from our clients every day. We're also trying to help them in new and innovative ways through this uncertainty to make sure that we're, you know, we're that valued partner and we're not just business as usual while they're dealing with all this other stuff, but we're able to help them think about like, hey, is consumer behavior is changing? Is their experiences are changing? How do you make sure you're winning more than your fair share, you know, of their mind, of their wallet, of their heart, all of those kinds of things?
Russel:Maybe, as you put it, now more than ever, it is not the time to get too consumed with what the future's gonna look like. Don't get over your skis, as you said. Just really focus on the journey and the present and doing the best you can with, with putting some stakes and goals out in, in front of you. But don't get too consumed with, the long term game here.
Gwen:Exactly. I think that's, you know, that's probably true for everybody, right? You're always in this, um, this like continuum, right? Of like, we need to know where we're going. We need to know how we're getting there. We're not a public company, but I had a client years ago say, how did he say it? It was like, you get the, the benefit of thinking of the long term when you're delivering on the short term. I think that also rings true for me of, I'm in this role to help make sure we're steadily heading in the right direction, and that hopefully is, allowing me to think more long term about this.
Russel:It sounds like it's working out well. Very fabulous. Great insights, great takeaways there, and curious, as we start to wrap things up here, your insight on one last big question for you, Gwen. Are entrepreneurs born or are they made?
Gwen:I love that question. You've obviously hit the nail on the head. It's is it nature or is it nurture? While I can't speak for everybody, I can speak more for myself, I think it was more made. I am a big believer in like my time living in working in Mexico for five years. Seeing entrepreneurship literally every single day, whether it was the, person that had to hit the streets selling candy and gum to make a living to the ladies selling tamales on the corner to just the way I always said, miracles happened every day. There was no time, there was no money, there was, you know, all these roadblocks and they just made things happen. I believe for myself it was more made through those experiences. I don't think if I had that, you know, being a kid growing up in Chicago, an original Spanish major, I probably would've ended up here.
Russel:Wow. Very powerful. When you think about those experiences and, and how your skills and talents and abilities were forged, um, thank you so much for sharing that. If people wanna know more about Cro Metrics, where can they go?
Gwen:You can follow me on LinkedIn, uh, Gwen Hammes. You can follow Cro Metrics or crometrics.com.
Russel:Well, thank you as well, Gwen. So many great takeaways from just the, the power of, you know, for bringing on great talent to spending time with them, to, um, trying to, how, how do we ask these questions of ourselves to get the most out of everyone on our team and uplift them and make them rise to their highest level of achievement. So many great, wonderful insights and takeaways today and really appreciate you taking the time to share those with us.
Gwen:It's been a joy hanging out with you this afternoon. Thank you so much for the time and the conversation.
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Gwen:We have this thing called the Cro Show. We have a number of clients, we have a number of different, um, optimizations and tests that we're running. It's a little bit of, you know, the Price Is Right type of a thing. We have one of our directors, his name is Travis, he used to be a comedian. He is really able to bring that talent through to what, uh, to what he does in terms of putting it on. I witnessed my very first live Cro Show at our all-hands. Whether it was from making people wear funny hats when they were up presenting to, you know, having kind of some of the banter with them. He is one of those guys that I just think at some point we're gonna lose him because he is going to, you know, be the next Bob Barker or the next, uh, Steve Harvey out there running his, his own, I don't know if he'll ever get to be official for Cro Show, but, uh, running his own talk show and, uh, and game show out there.
Russel:What is the basis of the Cro show? Is it just like a, a game, like?
Gwen:Yeah. Basically what it is, is for, um, so part of what we do by making kind of the internet easier for all these people, um, is we're constantly running A/B tests. We're seeing what works and what doesn't. As I always say, it's like we're following the behavior. We're following what people do, not what they say. A lot of times it's like, you know, hey, we ran this test. Was it a winner or was it a loser? People are constantly kind of like guessing on all of these different tests. One of our strategists will get up, they'll talk about it. Travis is really kind of the, the MC of this whole thing to, to make it, uh, lighthearted and fun and engaging. It's fascinating because what you, what you always kind of assume, like, you know, like, we all have good guts when it comes to consumers and marketing and what's gonna work and what doesn't. A lot of times it shows you like consumer behavior is a fascinating thing and, and testing into it, optimizing against it is, is really the way to go to get to better business outcomes.