An Agency Story

When Survival Stops and Vision Starts - Dapper Codes

• Russel Dubree / Kelly Gordon • Episode 159

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Most agency owners don’t realize how long they’ve been operating in survival mode, it becomes default. In this episode, Kelly Gordon of Dapper Codes shares what it really took to move from reacting to everything to leading with intention. You’ll hear the turning points, the mindset shifts, and the cost of staying in “hard mode” too long.

Key Takeaways

  • The unseen impact of staying in survival mode
  • Why hard things take much longer than we expect
  • How positioning evolves over time, not overnight
  • The danger of selling services you shouldn’t
  • What changes when vision finally replaces urgency

Hear details for an agency planning workshop event November 10th and 11th 2025. Visit anagencystory.com to learn more. 

Russel:

Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where owners and experts share the real journey, the early struggles, the breakthrough moments, and everything in between. I'm your host Russel Dubree, former eight figure agency owner, turned Business coach, sold my agency and now helps agency leaders create their ideal business. Every agency has a story, and this is your front row seat. This is an agency story. Welcome to the show today, everyone. I have Kelly Gordon with Dapper Codes here today. Thank you so much for being on the show today. Kelly,

Kelly:

thank you so much for having me. I'm pumped to be here.

Russel:

Good. Well, I'm looking forward to it as well. Straight outta the gate. Tell us what Dapper Codes does and who you do it for.

Kelly:

Absolutely. So these days we are really focusing on white label, SEO for other agencies. That is our big push. Um, where I came from, gosh, way back in the day. Um, 2018, uh, is when I got started. Um, I was outta school for web design and development. That's where I started, moved into marketing obviously before even Facebook ads was a thing. Um, and moved forward. One of the big things that we do still for direct clients, in dapper is messaging, whether that's for organic or for paid. It's all around the messaging. If the messaging and the positioning is not right, it doesn't matter. Nothing's really gonna work. But those are the two main things that we've got going on this days.

Russel:

Uh, and did you just make me feel ancient by referring to 2018 as way back in the day?

Kelly:

Very unintentionally to me, it seems like a long time ago.

Russel:

Uh, I, I get it. It's all, it's all a relative thing. Um, but, uh, fair, fair enough, fair enough. Well, I certainly want to hear more about what you've done in your agency and some of the cool things going on there. But, uh, let's walk back in time real quick and. Well, what were you doing? What inspired you as a youth when you look back and that maybe was formative in the, in the career and path that you eventually took?

Kelly:

Yeah, so, um, when I was, yo, I mean, from before I could walk till kind of mid twenties, I rode horses competitively. Okay. Um, I'm an inventor. For those of you who knows what that means. Um, grew up in pony club and all of that. Hold on.

Russel:

But for those that don't know what that means, what is, what is that? It's basically

Kelly:

the triathlon of the English riding world. So there's cross country, which is jumps outside, and then there's jumps like in a ring, and then there's dressage, which is, if you've seen it, if you haven't looked up, there's a Snoop Dogg thing that he does watching dressage for the first time. So it was Kevin Hart and you should watch it just even if you don't dress

Russel:

dressage. Is that how you say dressage?

Kelly:

D-R-E-S-S-A-G-E. Yeah. Is

Russel:

that like when they do the kind of fancy stepping, like, that is my very layman stuff.

Kelly:

Yeah.

Russel:

Okay. All right. Alright. Alright. Very cool. So,

Kelly:

um, I did that, you know, we didn't have any money, so I, I worked on those farms, uh, forever and my dad was a, a cabinet maker and his thing was he came to, I was like 16, I remember it like it was yesterday. He died in 2019. But he came to me and he said, I don't want you to work with your body. I want you to work with your brain. Pretty much was the sum of this conversation.'Cause he was older at the time. His body was giving out, you know what I mean? Like, that's just one of those things. And he was like, I just don't want this for you. And it was just a, it took me years to figure that out and find a path and like all of that. But I, I mean, I'm just turned 39. I remember that. Crazy like it was yesterday, you know what I mean? Yeah. And

Russel:

being able to, and that really set the path for you to say it did, it's gonna be brain. Yeah.

Kelly:

I wasn't really sure like how to navigate that. I mean, that was, what I had been doing was, had been my whole life for forever. That's what I was gonna do for forever. And with some guidance from him and things like that, I did go, um, got one of those accelerated associate's degrees in web design and development. Actually. Is this

Russel:

from like a code school? Like did you go to like a Yeah, an old fashioned. Okay.

Kelly:

Yeah. Well,

Russel:

I mean real, real quick and I wanna pinpoint on that.'cause I, back when I was an agency, I was a big fan of the code schools. I felt like they were at least attempting to solve a very big market need of don't spend four years, get people kickstarted, grab people from other career fields and get them involved. So I was a big fan of hood schools, but I also. A lot of times saw that the results, especially dependent upon the person, didn't always pan out. What was your experience like in school? Amazing.

Kelly:

The absolute be, I would tell anybody, like I'm very much in the, we don't all need to go to four year universities, right? Those that do, please. Do you know what I mean? Like, go on and do the thing. Lawyers and doctors and all of that kind of stuff, what everyone do, but the vast majority don't. I'm very personally, uh, opinionated in that position. I was homeschooled in middle school. I went to elementary school, um, but homeschooled in middle school. I literally didn't do anything for high school. I have a GED, um, and got that after I left home and there's a lot of things, but sure, got my GED, uh, went to and got an associated degree. Literally, probably at this stage, the best decision I ever made. Period. Um, being able to like get in, I immediately got, um, internships in one of the largest companies in our area. They actually are, became client at one point, uh, in the last little bit for some consulting, which is a really huge full circle moment for all of us. You know what I mean? So like,

Russel:

nice.

Kelly:

I don't think anybody in my graduating class does what I do. So I think, you know, but the same, I think if we go to, you know, the big universities here is the closest one is like Clemson or Walford's down road. If we, um, look at who graduated from what, from there, I think it's probably the same thing, right? Everybody goes their own paths. There's a lot of decisions that are made when you're younger, right? But for me, absolute best decision would recommend it. If you see your, that that's the route that you wanna go, then go to one of those schools. It is not worth going anywhere else.

Russel:

Okay. Now I am curious too, because I've seen it as well, or at least from my own kind of experience in that, that, I mean, you've seen like a hard charger, smart, right? Get it done attitude, and those do succeed, right? It's the exposure to that world that you can just grab that fire and, and take on, and then they're. I don't know if some, maybe some of these schools with their pitching say. Right. I, I've also heard the stories where people show up in those classes and they play video games and, and don't get that experience, but we'll net that out and say, you gotta leverage the opportunity and experience. Right. You gotta

Kelly:

leverage it. You gotta be an adult, you know, find the best program. There's lots of good and bad all over the place. You know what I mean? Yeah. Regardless, but yeah.

Russel:

Which one did you do?

Kelly:

ECPI actually, I heard about that, so I guess they're all over, but there's one here in Greenville.

Russel:

Okay. Good to know. Good to know. As you're kind of, you describing that journey, obviously, and it seems like that's worked out really well for you when you were going through that. Back then, in that time period, I mean, did the path feel certain and confident in that, or were, were you questioning yourself as you were going through this every

Kelly:

day for like 10 years? So it's fine. You know, it's one of those things where you like, you know, you realize like, oh my God, I'm vastly unemployable. Cool. So like, now I have to make this work, One of my best friends has a saying that's like, it's amazing what you can do and you don't have a choice. So a lot of what I did was because I realized, uh, in that I, I financially supported my parents for a long time for lots of reasons. And so I, I ultimately realized I had the internship at that company. They offered me a job, wasn't enough money, especially back in 2008. Um, and it was one of those things where I was like, the only way that I'm gonna make the money that I've gotta make. I was very young then, um, of being able to say, I've gotta go out on my own. I have to figure this out. Mm-hmm. Um, but this was obviously before even podcasts or Facebook groups or coaching or mentor, you know, like literally just had to figure out the hard way and find out what was going on Um, so I, my head of ops now says, you have been doing everything on hard mode for the last 15 years. I'm not sure why. Let's just make this easier, you know? Yeah. You know, it's one of those things, but um, probably having to do with me being on the spectrum and like all that kind of stuff. But ultimately, no, every day for a long time just was like, you just have to put one foot in front of the other. I

Russel:

mean, that's a tough responsibility to carry. And when you look back at that and, and as you're kind of saying, right, there's nothing like a have to and, uh, having your back against the wall. I mean, when you just think, is that how you thrive best, you know, when you maybe look back on it, is it just. Look, I didn't have an option, so I wasn't even, I just wasn't even thinking I was just plowing.

Kelly:

It just was what it was. Even kind of, now, you know, I know that that's what was happening, but I don't see a different route. I don't see a different option. It just is what had to be done.

Russel:

So walk us up to the point of like, when was the official start of your agency? What led to that? And we'll go from there. So

Kelly:

I started freelancing in 2008, um, right outta school and, um, officially created the company in 2015, um, in March of 2015. Um, I had had some on and off jobs. I mean, I was not making enough money the first year, so even in 2015. The first year that I was like a business business. I think the business profit was like$5,000. Like

Russel:

yeah.

Kelly:

It just, that's

Russel:

fair. Yeah.

Kelly:

Like, you know, here we're, but just learned all the things. I was able to pay the bills, I was able to make more than I could have, uh, than I was making when I was a bartender before. I bartended, I, I worked in, in veterinary offices. I was the practice manager of surgery for Specialty Center, during those kind of 2008 to 2015 trying to keep everything paid. But it would just became, it actually was when I was working at that emergency center or that specialty center. There was an ER there too, but the boss was horrible. Like, yeah,

Russel:

that'll be it.

Kelly:

I was 26 7 at the time and I got shingles from the stress and to this day will have flare ups if I get too stressed. Oh my gosh. But like, it never really goes away. Okay.

Russel:

There, there, there's inspiration to not be a bad boss out there. Mm-hmm. Or get rid of bad bosses because to what you're saying, like you're causing lifelong illnesses if you're a bad boss. Yeah. I don't do

Kelly:

that to people. Yeah.'cause in that, in that environment, obviously in lots of digital environments, you get paid ahead of time. Um, in those environments from traditional vines, you get paid at the end. Right? So the last monthly payment I got mine, I think monthly or whatever pay that came in was like my last day and the horrible boss reversed it. Now, I also didn't have the money to go to a lawyer or to do whatever, but that was like what I needed to get. Yeah. Into that next month, paying the bills. It was like right on the first, right? Everything is due, you know, like all that kind of thing. And I mean, he wasn't gonna do anything about it, you know? And I didn't have money to go to a lawyer to do anything about it. So you just have to walk away at that point. But lots of hurdles to get to where we are today.

Russel:

Indeed, indeed. Uh, all that is great is forged through fire. And we're gonna kind of bounce around the chronological aspect or maybe foreshadow some things. But I, I know where you're at today, right? Is not the younger version of yourself, but that you have a very strategic long-term plan in terms of how you're going about this business. How clear was that plan in the early days of your business? Nonexistent. Non-existent. Okay. And that makes sense, right? I, I'm not surprised, but you know, some folks do operate that way.

Kelly:

Absolutely. You know, my view, and obviously this is opinion based on where I came from and like my just subjective being human, that there are moments without having like a clear way to say it. So like. We didn't have any money. The well pump broke. Right. We didn't have water coming. He couldn't, my dad couldn't fix the well pump. There was no running water. You know what I mean? Like I've lived in places Wow. Where there's no heat, where there's no air. I've lived in a place with my parents where they can only afford a one bedroom, so I was sleeping on a couch. Like, so coming from like understanding that, and I'm sure there's lots of people that'll listen to this, that can like relate to that. People always say that like, money buys happiness. It doesn't. But it can buy some comfort, right? Yes. And so like, like you understand that that's a thing, but then when you become more comfortable, you realize that the questions that you can ask yourself or the thought processes that you can have a shift. From, I have to do this thing because I have to pay the bill, I have to do this, I've got this, I've got, you know what I mean? That overshadows, any ability to say, I have a mission in life that I see now that I've come to here is a privilege, right? Mm-hmm. That's based legitimately in finances. Right? And so like being able to get yourself to that point. Mine very few do. Yeah. And then very few understand logically what's happening, yeah. In that moment, or being able to reflectively, say literally I was trying to pay the bills, period, trying to keep the lights on, trying to make sure they didn't take the car, try to, you know, like all of these things, you can't think of a mission, you have a

Russel:

vision

Kelly:

that's to stay safe, right? So the comfort that it buys is not necessarily happiness. It builds for that, but it builds towards the ability to relax. Yeah. And when you relax, you can free up your frontal lobe to think of other things. And then once you start to thinking of other things, at that point you can start forward thinking.

Russel:

Yeah, fascinating. I mean, there's a reason why the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs is survival and security. And it does absolutely change how we look at the world, how we operate. And I think you talk about a real point, and I talk about this with a lot of agency owners, is the survival mindset is great for just that survival. And in my experience and observation a lot of times is once we're out of that, once we get to that level of comfortability that you mentioned. It becomes a little more limiting. The, some of the things that we used in survival mode are counterintuitive to the next phase, but that a big important part of that next phase is becoming more mission driven and, and establishing a purpose

Kelly:

that when we hear the statement, this has only been something in the last few years that I really figured out, is when you hear the whatever it is that says it's not the destination, it's a journey, right? That you become the person. You need to become to do the next thing. That's what that is. And when you don't have the bottom ma ops pyramid, you don't have the security. You cannot think that like there's a wall. Like you're never going to get to that place until you level up. Honestly, financially, right. Coming from somebody's experience that like that's what gets you there. Now, that level of financial security may be different, right? Yeah. Literally, that could be$1,500 a month, literally, right? You'd be really surprised how small that number actually is, but it's consistent, right? Like they need that to come in to be able to even consider what the next step might be.

Russel:

Yeah. Well I remember when I was college and starting out a family and I worked at a bank, and what I always wanted is like I wanted some and I would see bank accounts and I would see how much interest they would earn, and mine was literally$1,500 a month. it's like, will you just loan me? You know, I think it was like at the time was interest rate$250,000 and I won't touch your$250,000. I just want your interest. Mm-hmm. That I can, I can survive here and, and yeah. I totally think of my early agency days of, it'd be hard to start an agency later in life just because of what you can get by on lifewise, income wise. Yeah. Yeah. Our com Yeah. Our creatures of comfort seem become more expensive. Mm-hmm. And that makes that a little more rough. What allowed you to get to that? Kind of past survival mode and transition more into a mission-driven mindset.

Kelly:

Grit, for lack of a better way to put it. Of, of literally just regardless. I follow, um, Andy Ell, if anybody knows who that is. Um, but literally just the ability of the discipline of no matter what's going on, it doesn't matter how you feel, it doesn't matter what's happening. You literally, you get up and you do the things that you have to do every single day. So that you can get to that future state. That could be years from now. I did and woke up and worked seven days a week for forever to the detriment of my health. If you go back and look far enough at pictures, right, like it's a whole thing that nothing else mattered, period. Now, do I recommend that? Not necessarily. However, that was just my path, right? That I just did the thing.

Russel:

Yeah. And hard work is certainly right. We gotta bring hard work to this table. And it sounds like that's no stranger to you. And I think a lot of people aren't afraid of work, but when you think more specifically about like, what did that hard work apply to that you like, okay, once I solved this, this, this was a very helpful thing or important to my sales, my journey. Okay. Yeah. And what, and yeah, I, I mean

Kelly:

what I learned it the hard way obnoxiously. Yeah. Um, there are lots of easier ways to learn that now with YouTube and training and things like that. But there is absolutely a reason when you ask the richest people in the world what was their first job and what was their number one skill they sales. Right. Interesting. And that, to me, understanding that and realizing that that was happening. That I could then say, what's making that happen? I had took a real introspective approach What's making that happen? That's where I got to my messaging and positioning Which, if you guys scroll back far enough on my Facebook or my LinkedIn, you'll see that progression. Of like how that started to come together. Mm-hmm. Um, I frame it what I call part of my triangulation method, which is our creative positioning who I help, how I help, a mechanism of that? And then being able to communicate that in a way that makes sense at the stage. But that's kind of where that originated for me.

Russel:

Yeah, that's becoming more talked about and never at least how much people are living. That notion is varied, but this notion that positioning is important for any business, but specifically for an agency. But I love what you shared there, and in using your Facebook as a reference point of how much that I encourage folks that it's a journey, not a destination, and that it's an evolving thing and that every. Day or however time period goes by that we need to refine it a little bit more and articulate it a little bit more and connect with it just a little bit more. And you said it so perfectly that that's a journey and, but that, that's an important journey to go on.

Kelly:

I think the biggest thing that. An issue now is the idea that everything should be really quick, mm-hmm. I think that just as a culture, right, it's taken me the better part of a decade to really hone in on that message. So literally at this point you post a Facebook message and, and or Facebook post. I do. A lot of the, I mean, probably 80 plus percent of what we've made as a business has come organically, right? Through platforms, through the messaging, and then people inbound. To respond. And the things that I say is the messaging that we do organic regardless of business, regardless of what agency or landscaping coming or whatever, whether it's organic or paid, it really doesn't matter. The messaging is exactly the same. Once it works, it works. One of them is just fueling it. Can you afford the CPLs and CPAs? If so, great.

Russel:

Yeah. I mean, thank you for sharing that. I mean Right. A decade or, or, right. That's what I, I think I often talk a lot about is that solving something really hard, right? They talk about simple is the hardest thing to do in this world. Mm-hmm. But how important getting to simplicity is, and it just takes a fricking long time, and it's not the sexiest messaging in 2025 to say, you know, I don't have the quick hit for you. I don't have, you know, solve this in very quickly. But I think that's a little bit of the platform I'm on is like, let's call a spade a spade here and say, um. What we're got to do is going to take a long time, and it's gonna be hard. It's just what it's, and prep ourselves for that. And so we get less upset or disenfranchised or likely to stop that path because it's not producing those results. So thank you for championing, uh, a uh, I mean it's true through lived experience.

Kelly:

Yeah. It's just true, right? I mean, especially none of us, I mean. In the way that like even AI or anything that's super quick right now, especially in the agency space, anything that seems like it's harder that you have to do for yourself that is literally going to separate the men from the boys as they say in the south, like that's a differentiator. And I think it's also important to note, and I'm sure you probably are similar, interested how you think about this, but um. If you had told me when I started, it would take this long, I would not have started. Yeah. Like I would've been like, you know what, lemme do something else. But arguably to get to the level that I am now, it would've taken the same period of time. Like to become very good at what you do. It just takes time. Yeah. It, it just, it have to experience it, you have to run into all of these different scenarios and do you know, it's that saying that's like, you know, I don't wanna pay you.$500 for 30 minutes. Well, how about the 10 or 15 years that I learned to do that in 30 minutes? You know what I mean? That's what you know. You do something long enough and you're good enough at something that that starts to be what happens.

Russel:

Yeah, it's interesting where the industries, where that's accepted and where it's not. And I feel, you know, right. Doctors and lawyers, like nobody. I mean, insurance is a problem, one of those scenarios. But lawyers, right, we, we just generally accept that we're gonna pay$500 an hour and we're gonna also pay that when they're writing us an email that it's not just for when they're actually giving us advice, but just to read something or look at something. Because we know they went to school but I don't know, I, we gotta find a campaign to give. Marketing in that same genre. I think especially in 2025, it's gotten, it's as complicated as ever today, and it'll be. Exponentially more complicated tomorrow, and it just is gonna take all the more time for people to build the knowledge, experience, and skills to pull this off. So how do we do that?

Kelly:

Interestingly, and this is from experience, there's a couple of factors at play. One. I get on a whole soapbox about bro marketers, okay, don't have to do that today, but that is a whole thing, right? That nothing is quick, nothing is easy, and they're turning through people like crazy and it is causing an issue in the industry and has been for a while. Okay? That's a problem that needs to stop. Probably not going to stop until it's rejected from the. Consumers, which I think is starting to happen. They're sick of that. They understand that things are not quick and fast and easy and cheap. The second piece, which has only been something that I've learned in the last probably couple of years, is if you're in the right room, that happens. So then you say, okay, it's the quality of person or client or company that we are appealing to, and then their belief on how that works. So it's, you know, even the way that I would operate now, which is not even anywhere near some of what our clients do. Like if somebody, if I have a problem, a real problem, and somebody says, I can solve this problem, this is how I would do it. You build trust, you build whatever, and they can do it. And it's five times what somebody else can do, but I know it will be right and it will be within the amount of time that they said that they would do it. I'm gonna pay them for it. I'm not gonna pay money or anything. I'm not gonna pay anybody to Guinea pig. And that's not even to, you know, have any problem with those that are in the level of going out and needing to learn. Y'all need to, I get that. But you don't get to play up here. Not yet. Yeah. And so everyone, consumers, clients, agencies, freelancers, need to understand that there is a difference. So the way that I outline that is there's, uh, three stages to business validation, leverage, and scale. Most starting agency owners, right, are in that validation stage themselves. Everybody wants to charge and play with leverage and scale, but you don't get to do that, not until you've gotten the experience to do that.

Russel:

Very fascinating. I was just jotting down some notes of like, oh, it'd be cool to talk about this, this, and this. So I don't know if we're gonna get to all those, but a quick, I guess one we can get through quickly is this, this notion too that, I don't know where we're at on this, on a scale yet, but Right. That we also have to get our clients to understand we're doing a hard thing, that even if we are good at our product and service, that we also cannot sell. Any, this can be quick at all and you're just gonna have to walk that journey and just being upfront. But the other piece that I maybe hear is, we can dive in a little deeper on is just because you can sell it doesn't mean your product is finished. Or that it doesn't need to be polished, innovated, expanded, whatever, or not even expanded. I don't even say that word. Um, polished and innovated is the words I would use. And I'll

Kelly:

go, I'll go further on that. The biggest thing I say in sales is just because you can sell something doesn't mean you should.

Russel:

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Of course, for them and for

Kelly:

you. Yeah. If for you, somebody's not worth having promise, but as far as them right, maybe that's not the right thing for them, even if you can sell it to'em. It's kind of going back to a little bit of, uh, you know, I think the vast majority of agency owners today are trained or encounter some derivative of Sam Oven's original sales script. Which is what's killing our industry today. Great. For the time I actually respect him incredibly right. For what he did and built. But it's what has led to the bro marketing and the pushy sales, and that just because I can sell something doesn't mean that I should.

Russel:

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Something that is also standing out there is, I don't think, I mean, there are, there are folks out there that are doing this intentionally and just wanna make money. But I think there are a lot of genuine, authentic people out there that are just right. Just always navigating this serve and do the best thing for the client and also continue to make this thing survive. Going back to our, our survival thing. Um, but it seems to me, and just kind of talking through this, that, uh, an important aspect is just a really real. The awareness of where you're at on that journey and that it could be okay to say to clients like, look, we're kind of just figuring this thing out. We're not gonna charge as high as price over here.'cause you know, we're gonna give you a discount for our learning curve here. But just being aware of where we're at on that journey is my product, Polish, refined, et cetera. And being authentically, that's all we

Kelly:

need. Some transparency and some mony will go a long way. Right? And it, it's just one of those always does. It

Russel:

seems like

Kelly:

always does. Right. Crazy. Um. Because again, the size of the clients that those people should be playing with are fine. They just want some help. You know what I mean? They're gonna be real needy. They're gonna need a lot of time. But in that neediness, you're gonna learn a lot of things, so you need that. Right. But it seems like there's a really large group of these agents who owners that aren't. Prepared to do the thing that they say for the client that they say that they can do it for and want to have the superiority, right? Like that just doesn't work in that way. So, so long as you're very transparent and say, you know what, I'm just getting started, right? This is what we can do. This is what we're trying, I'm not sure what hurdles we're gonna run in last time we did it, we did this and this is how we, you know what I mean? Like you'd be really surprised what somebody would do just to get some help.

Russel:

Yeah. Yeah. And especially if that was authentic, like, look, I see this and this and this, but I also know I don't see this, this, and this. That's a, that'd be an interesting sales conversation. And even in this

Kelly:

day and age, it's like, you know, but my mentor does this, this, and this, and I go to these regular calls and I can bring some of these questions. You know what I mean? Like, there's lots of ways that this happens, but

Russel:

yeah,

Kelly:

it just, there's some issues.

Russel:

That's fair. We got some skeletons in our closet. We gotta work out. I wanna get more to, you know, we've been a fascinating conversation, but I wanna get more to, I really like the mission and long-term kind of vision and plan that you have for the business. Um, so I'm sure that will getting a whole conversation into itself. So tell us what that is and we'll go from there.

Kelly:

Absolutely. So you. One of the things that really sticks out to me, um, in life is when we lost everything. Uh, the house, the car, the, all the things, um, his business tanked, all this kind of stuff. When the economy went down it was, if I was who I am today, I could have helped that situation. From a marketing standpoint, from a sales standpoint, I could have, I now have those skills to at least slow it, stop it, change it. That that would not have been the outcome. Um, and one of my biggest missions in life, whether you know, through dapp or whether it's our white label, SEO, or our direct to client, is the spider web effect. When we work with a small client, yes, even in white label, we're dealing with an agency, but they have individual clients, and those individual clients own their business. Same as our direct clients, right? They have families, their employees have families or contractors have families. All of that. If we can help them market their business and push forward how many sales they get, how many conversations they get, how many Outbacks they get, then we get to impact. Lots and lots of lives in ways that we would never have met these, these people, right? But being able to be really honest, be really transparent and say, you may think that that's the right direction. It's not. This is, and this is the right direction because X, Y, and Z. We want to do this so that we can stop these things. So. Again, you same as we talked about in the beginning, you never see a mission. Early on, my mission was, you know, no, don't, don't get kicked out of where you're living. Right? Yeah. Eat some food. Um, but at this point it's how many people can I help? Because I know what that's gonna do to that family.

Russel:

And that's powerful.

Kelly:

Mm-hmm.

Russel:

And needed

Kelly:

trying to do the right thing.

Russel:

Well, I mean, that's why, you know, I, I liked your story and this is why I do what I do, is, uh, you know, that it is that notion and I forget everything. I love this and I forget some days, so when I pay Amazon to do something but the more money we can put in the hands of small businesses, it's gonna have a far better trickle down effect or, spider web effect, as you said, than. Then Yeah. Um, putting it than anything. Yeah. The 90% of my dollar going into Jeff Bezos's pocket.

Kelly:

Right. Going, I mean, we live, um, here pretty much 10 miles, 10 ish miles from the epicenter of, um, Helene in Western North Carolina, you know, and what they've had to do to rebuild and all that kind of stuff. Like we'll just go over there and spend money. Because that's the only thing that matters. You go over there and eat, you go buy something. You do the, you know, because that's how this works. And it's just making sure that, you know, the only thing in life that we really have any power with is our money. I hate that. But it, it just is, it is true. It's not necessarily that I created the roles. I just, you know, understand them at this point. So being able to say, how is it that I can make an impact? It's that. The more money you make, the more impact you can have. But being able to say, you know, I'm gonna use this money to grow these businesses so I can help more businesses.

Russel:

You look at all the causes that we can raise an insane amount of money for overnight just by hearing a story or something along those lines. But that's a small portion of anyone's probably day-to-day dollars. So people are only, what is it? Uh, what's the old saying? We're only using 10% of our brains. We're only using 10% of our wallets when it comes to impact. So maybe a healthy reminder for us out there to leverage more of our wallet in a way that helps everyone. So, alright, well I'm inspired, I'm gonna make sure my wallet does that today. Well, I guess maybe, you know, this is always an interesting question in how we look at this, but if you could just reflect on one nugget of advice that you could go back and give your younger self, what would that be?

Kelly:

Hmm, that's a good one. What's kind of resonating in my mind right now is it doesn't have to be this hard. So I think that there's a part of us that thinks. What we're doing has to be really hard, especially in the beginning.'cause there's a part of you that is going to want to not, you know, obviously as an agency, if you say I'm gonna do this thing, you have to do that thing, right? But especially as a new one, there's this piece where you have to prove yourself and say, I can do this and I can do this, and I can do this and I can do this. And it just compounds in a weird way. That takes a lot more time and bandwidth. We all hear it, focus on one thing and do that one thing really well. That will mean something different to each of you at each of the stages of your journey. But at least think about it. At this stage, we do one thing very, very well and it's allowing a lot of different pieces, not only personally, but professionally to streamline, be easier, having more impact. Uh, for me, I think probably coming from, you know, with the horses and the farm, it's a very tangible work car kind of thing. What we do as agencies or, you know, as my dad said, not working with your body, but working with your brain. It shifts, right? It doesn't have to be hard to be impactful or good. It just has to solve the problem. So, and that problem does not have to be huge. It can be very small, right in size. It could be very impactful, but still very small in size and understanding what it is that you want to do. I see a lot of people trying to do too many things and it's clouding a lot of things. It's clouding the contract, it's clouding the relationship. It's, it's at worst clouding the results. I do this thing. So what we've done to do that is we refer out, Hey, you want this thing? I've made this relationship. I know they do amazing work. You go there for that, and we have a relationship between us where they're not gonna step on our toes and we're not gonna step on their toes, right? Mm-hmm. But we do this one thing very, very well.

Russel:

It's talked about, kinda your position in gurus like David Baker and Blair Enns that you know, that it feels so difficult to send someone somewhere else, right? Especially if we are still in some of that survival mode a little bit that we're taking food off our table and giving'em somewhere else. But one of the things I think is always an important reminder as we go down this positioning piece is when you do that, you're solidifying. Even more so in the mind of that person you're talking about.'cause that's a disconnect to them. A little bit of, oh, now I understand more about what you do because you're sending me somewhere else so I can be a better advocate for you in the world about what you do to do. And I feel like it's a trust, respect

Kelly:

thing, you know? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. You're like, oh wow. Okay. Yeah. We'll do that. Right. I did that recently to, um, somebody outta Athens and the results have been fantastic. We could not have gotten the results that this guy did Right. For, to solve the problem that our client wanted.

Russel:

No,

Kelly:

perfect. We're still do the services well that he hired us for, you know what I mean? But we didn't cloud lots of things. I didn't jumble up my operations. I didn't cause myself lots of stress. I didn't, I just knew that if I sent that person there, that that other company would solve that problem in a really good way.

Russel:

Well it, it's gonna always, I also try to find weird metrics to measure success in the world. And it's, um, start measuring how many people you send away, not how many people you close. And, uh, I'd be curious to see a correlation, uh, over time in that measurement. So, um, well, wonderful conversation. All good things come to an end. So as someone that's been a long time entrepreneur. Are entrepreneurs born or are they made

Kelly:

Both. I'll say both. You tell? Yeah, that I, I think that there are some, I think I was forged because I had to. Now I'm just vastly unemployable. So here we are.

Russel:

You know, I, I don't, I hear that a lot that unemployable and I felt, I remember feeling this, my exact self, and I haven't put it to the tests either, but I don't, what's so funny is I just think the best hired we ever made, certainly in the agency were people that. Had been owners mm-hmm. And weren't anymore. So, uh, maybe that's another, either that's a limiting belief we carry as owners, or we've gotta turn the tables out there in the world to say like, this is who you need and want to hire. I don't know which one's the, I think,

Kelly:

I think for us in, I made a strategic leadership hire really high level for operations early this year. And what they have brought to the table and how we're structuring who we're hiring, you know, all of that kind of stuff. I, in earlier years would have and have hired people who could wear a lot of hats who, um, were in that ownership. They didn't get their business health ground that they had, you know, the knowledge and all of that kind of stuff. As we are growing and scaling that no longer fits. It's too much. They want to do too much. They see too much that it's, this is our process and this is how we do it, and we make sure that each piece has their piece. Um, but I have seen that change within the last maybe six, nine months of how and who is the best fit as we scale. It's been an interesting'cause I would've agreed with you even a year ago.

Russel:

Interesting. I think that's the other thing is it goes back to what we were talking about previously and, and just now is the power of the journey it worked for one doesn't necessarily work for the other, and a belief that was today doesn't work for tomorrow. And we just have to explore and go down that journey. And that's a great takeaway. Well, if people wanna know more about Dapper Codes and that journey that you're on, where can they go?

Kelly:

Go to dapper codes.com. Give us, uh, a look around there and you can find me on, uh, LinkedIn or Facebook if you look me up. Kelly Gordon.

Russel:

Sweet. And do you still do horse stuff?

Kelly:

I don't. I gave it up years ago.

Russel:

Okay. Do you miss it?

Kelly:

I do. Yeah. Yeah.

Russel:

Is that in your future? Again,

Kelly:

hard to say.

Russel:

TBD.

Kelly:

Yeah.

Russel:

Well, thank you, Kelly for taking the time outta your busy schedule to come chat with us today about just the notion of going from survival to mission driven, the power of positioning, the power of being authentic, and so many other great takeaways. Really appreciate you taking the time to share that with us today.

Kelly:

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. This has been a really good conversation. I, I've gone on another podcast, but this has been excellent, so Oh, good. I love it. Well, thank

Russel:

you. That means a lot. I appreciate that. Thank you for listening to an agency story podcast where every story helps you write your own. Subscribe, share, and join us again for more real stories, lessons learned, and breakthroughs ahead. What's next? You'll want to visit anagencystory.com/podcast and follow us on Instagram at an agency story for the latest updates.

Kelly:

I think what, just what I alluded to before of, you know, and I got outta school and you know, went to work for that company and kind of doing the full circle thing, um. To me, that's recent in my mind, but it's incredibly impactful to me to see like, oh wow, look what you can do in 15 years. Like, that company has gone insane and they've rebranded and all that kind of stuff. But one of the CEO of that company, um, his name is Jeff, and he, my, my first day on the internship back in 2008 gave me two books. I was like, what books do I need to read? Okay, whatever. Uh, he gave me two books. Um, I read them both, and because of course I did. And I was like, oh, these are good. Full stop. Right? Just the other day, maybe end of last year, I was like, let me pull these books back out. And so I did. It is by far. By far the best book on branding and messaging I have ever read. And I have read a lot in the last 15 years. So I messaged him and I was like, I thought it was good that day, but I can't even listen to it on audiobook because like you get like three sentences in and you're like, I have to take a note. Like it is that good. It's called Made to Stick. Um, it's by the Heath Brothers.

Russel:

Okay. It is.

Kelly:

Incredible if you're anywhere in branding, positioning, messaging. Um, but it was funny'cause I messaged Jeff and I was like, I, I thought it was good that day, but I just picked it back up and my mind has blown and he just messaged back, you're welcome. So it was just one of those things that, again, that's the journey who I was then wasn't ready for the message.

Russel:

Mm-hmm. Right?

Kelly:

Mm-hmm. And so I had to progress. I had to become somebody else for that then to make sense and work.

Russel:

Hmm. It reminds me that I need to reread more books than I've read in the past. Yeah. That's up. Yeah. Good reminder Made to Stick. Love a good book recommendation. Thanks for sharing that. Absolutely.