An Agency Story

Predictability Is the Real Flex - Brolik

• Russel Dubree / Jason Brewer • Episode 172

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You can never underestimate the ability to measure your business. In this episode, Russel sits down with Jason Brewer of Brolik to unpack what 22 years of agency ownership actually teaches you about predictable revenue, leadership, and long-term decision-making. 

Key Takeaways

  • The mindset shift required to invest in growth before results show up
  • How “being your own best client” creates consistency and confidence
  • The difference between chasing momentum and building durability
  • Why empathy and listening are business advantages

Want a more clarity and control for your agency in 2026? An Agency Story has three coaching spots available for 2026. Let’s see if one of those spots is right for you. Click this link to visit AnAgencyStory.com and click “Let’s Talk.”

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, turn 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 Jason Brewer with Brolik with us here today. Thanks so much for joining us today, Jason.

Jason:

Thank you, Russell. Good to be here.

Russel:

Glad to have you. Well kick us off right off the bat. What does Brolik do and who do you do it for?

Jason:

Is a growth marketing agency. We work with mostly service-based organizations, small companies. We're really good at working directly with tightly owned, privately held family run businesses. We're working directly with the owner operators, or the C-level execs, so we're kind of like that growth marketing partner. We get a seat at the table, we like to know about the ins and outs and like the ugly stuff within the business, and that makes us really successful at what we do.

Russel:

Very nice, very nice. Well, I want to dig into all that, but actually I'm really curious and just briefly chatting about this before, but brawl, what does that mean?

Jason:

So brolik means powerful, it means strength. Um, you could also say it means badass, or, you know, it has this kind of like slang, uh, root, uh, that comes from I think the Northeast United States. So when I was, uh, late teens. And just planning to start a business. This was a term that had been used in circles and I knew about it and it was just like unique and one of my buddies was like. What about Brolik? And I'm like, that's a great way to go with it. So we decided to go with Brolik and have never looked back since.

Russel:

I've not heard of this term, but I can imagine just if you were coming across your agency and you had heard this and come like, oh my gosh, I've gotta gotta at least contact these guys'cause.

Jason:

Yeah. Well, every once in a while I'll talk to somebody who like, knows the meaning of it or like has heard the word before, but most of the time not,

Russel:

no, our original agency name was some obscure word. I think it was like a Latin word and I never actually found anyone that knew what that meant. And we eventually had to get rid of it just because it was so hard to pronounce and didn't mean anything to anybody

Jason:

else. Well one good thing is when you have a unique name, like. It's not hard to find you if you can get even close to the spelling. So no domain was widely available for you. Yeah, I'll go with someone mispronouncing the name here and there for something that's unique. I'm down with that.

Russel:

Right on. I wanna hear a lot more about the agency itself and your journey in that. But speaking of young and youthfulness, and I want to hear where Jason got his start in the world. What was young Jason doing? Who did he want to be when he grew up?

Jason:

I guess we'll go back the whole way here. So next week will be 22 years in business for Brawl, uh, for the team. So we've been doing this a long time. We got a really early start, so I think I was 19 going on 20. And I was a film student at Penn State and it was a little slow to get into the major, so I was producing films and I wanted to do more, and I didn't wanna wait. You know, a lot of the better film classes happened like junior, senior year, so I was just kind of sitting there and I needed to do more. So I started talking to some older folks, some seniors at Penn State at the time. They were a couple years older than me, and they saw some of my work. You know, we started walking in like cold calling and walking into businesses in State College, Pennsylvania, and ended up with contracts for like local TV commercials and had three commercials running it on air at once. Started making money and buying equipment and I didn't know any better. And I said, you know, I guess I just need to incorporate and pay taxes. I think that's the next step here. All right.

Russel:

Natural.

Jason:

I did it kind of in a messy way. Um, looking back, I had to clean it up later, but I made it official. I brought some of the guys that were working with me at the time in on the business as partners and out of a college apartment, started running brawl and building sort of. A portfolio of mom and pop businesses that were mostly doing TV commercials. Then my business partner, who I grew up with, who was at Drexel at the time and his roommate started coming in and really working heavily. So we were not just TV commercials, we were producing films, we were doing branding work for clients. We started building some really nice flash sites back in the day, so, oh, yeah. Yeah, building a portfolio of projects at that point. And I mean, that was a long time ago. Now Brach is completely, looks completely different at this point. Yeah. But, uh, that's how we got our start.

Russel:

I love that. Did school get finished in this journey or it was like why bother?

Jason:

Yeah. School got finished. I mean, there were times where I was really focused on my junior senior film projects and like nothing else. And there were times where I was really focused on building Brolik. And so if I got a C instead of a b plus or instead of an A minus, like it wasn't the end of the world in my mind because I was going the entrepreneur route and I didn't need that a, in a class to prove to myself that I could make it in the world because I was already building a business. So I was more just gravitating to the things that I was excited about at the time. I dunno, for some reason the movie

Russel:

Risky Business, I know. Not exactly the same parallels were popping in my head, but you're having this real world business experience while you're hearing about this academic sense, imagine that had to be interesting. I guess I'm just curious, did it, as you were building the business, did it help inform even just some of the classes that you wanted to take? Like, oh, I need to know about finance or something like that? Or was it just more about I just wanna get my degree done and get outta here and focus on my business?

Jason:

The one thing about film, uh, as a major, like I said, is it takes the first couple years you're doing a lot of gen ed classes. You're building up a lot of like one-on-one type classes before you get into the more like technical filmmaking and senior film and things like that. So it takes a while. So I was taking classes based on my interests in certain topics. Some really weird classes actually, but sometimes I was choosing them because I was writing feature screenplays. I was doing research and I wanted to have like. Better context, our understanding of certain topics that I was writing about. So I would take classes based on that. And then as I got later into my junior, senior year, I started taking a lot of business management entrepreneurship classes. If a couple years later, they actually built out an entrepreneurship minor at Penn State, and then actually a major at Penn State, but came after my years there. But I would've gone down that road, I'm sure if it was available at the time. Interesting.

Russel:

I, I hear that a lot more often, that colleges are having entrepreneurial tracks and degree type programs, um, but very fascinating and all right, you got the business going. Things are moving along. It sounds like just how do you look back on this, let's just say the first five years and what you were doing, what was getting formed and, and any big takeaways from that time period?

Jason:

Yeah, the first five years were interesting because we came out of school immediately, you know, rented an office space in Manion outside of Philadelphia, and it was suddenly like, okay, we're spending all day, every day trying to build a book of business, keep clients happy, make money, and we were about six months in, I think. And the recession hit, you know, 2007 housing crisis and all of that. And so we learned very quickly that even if we were doing the right things to build the business, like there were macro trends and changes in the economy that could wipe us out pretty much. So we were really young. We barely had a name for ourselves. We weren't making enough money to survive to begin with, and then the recession hit. So we had to really struggle through. We really got a good understanding of like, we're gonna have to grind. This is gonna build some grit here. And we're, there's not a lot of people raising their hand to help us from the outside. Um, we got a little bit of like family help. And I was lucky enough to have built up sort of a stock portfolio, in my teenage years with help from my grandfather who got me started in trading. And so I was like selling stock to like. Pay for our groceries for my two partners and like to keep us going during that year. That was really tough. Sounds like you're, I

Russel:

mean, obviously doing a lot of tinkering, innovating, which I think is such an important part of the early stage, especially an agency's life process. But coming out of that rougher time periods came, had an epiphany, and that really set the trajectory for the rest of their business. So tell us a little bit about that.

Jason:

Kind of coming out of that, we were able to establish ourselves. We signed, Comcast as a big client in Philadelphia for some work. We signed Everlast, which is the big boxing and MMA, an apparel brand outta New York, and they have a global presence. So at that point, we were able show some logos, some badges on our site and say like. We're not just these 21, 22 year olds, uh, sitting here in a thousand square foot office space. Like we can do some really good work and here's some, uh, proof of that. And so I think at that point, we really were able to focus ourselves in on that like web design, web development path, just at the early stages of the talk about responsive design. Back in, you know, this was probably 2008, 2009. We tried to really be on the forefront of that and built our own CMS and framework for building responsive websites. And there were some pros and cons to that approach. Like I don't think we needed to build our own CMS and we certainly could not support anyone's needs from a product standpoint. Uh, but we had to live and learn through that. So going through some of those years, really focusing in on the web development path. I think 90% of our revenue at one point was web design and development. And then at a certain point, I think probably around 2010, 2011, 2012, I hit a point where I realized like the project based flow of our business was really difficult. We went through another kind of downturn in the market and felt like, you know, a bunch of big projects just slipped through and didn't come to fruition. So we'd have a quarter where we were super busy and didn't have enough people to staff, no projects. And then the next quarter, like the pipeline fell out and then there was nothing and we were barely making payroll. So this up and down nature of it, we kind of just spent some time and decided like, we need a more recurring revenue stream here. And we had been doing a lot of like. Advising on social media, how to build out a page and how to build a following on Facebook, for example. And we were doing a lot of SEO and content support for our clients in sort of an ad hoc fashion. And we said, you know what? Let's integrate it. Let's bring it all together and offer more of an ongoing, marketing, retainer package. So that's what we did. And then. The business sort of was just like on the way up from there because we smoothed out the up and down nature of the project-based business and, and the fixed fee type work. And we got into this recurring revenue, model where we could sign a client and grow with them for 3, 5, 8 plus years, and we'd see that revenue continue to come in for that whole time. It was very predictable, it was very stable, and if our retention was good. So that's what really helped us take off and really build the foundation for bro for the years to come after that. Okay, so

Russel:

I remember these early days of. The up and down cycle of a project-based business and, especially when just don't have a volume of leads. So you definitely live in this feast or famine world. But transitioning to that, from a, web and project creation business to a more recurring style, consistent delivery type business, what were some of the big things you had to go figure out and how did you really transition the logistics or internal side of the delivery and delivery in your company to, to make that transition?

Jason:

Yeah, to build a more recurring revenue model, we had to one, make sure we had a consistent flow of leads and really build the pipeline in a sustainable way. And this is true for many agencies. We rely for so long on like word of mouth referrals, network type leads, and sometimes that can be really good. Sometimes it can just not be enough.

Russel:

Yeah,

Jason:

that's not an option. Like when you're in a recurring revenue business, you need, or just any business, you need a consistent flow of leads and you need to know where they're coming from and you need to know they're gonna be there and that the quality's gonna be there. So if you don't have that, I mean, that's number one. You can't do anything else if you don't have that.

Russel:

Yeah. They're not gonna break you, but they're not gonna make you the way sometimes project is. So you've gotta, you gotta have a more steady engine. That makes a lot of sense.

Jason:

Exactly. So what we did is we said, well, why are we treating ourselves differently than we do our clients? If we were looking into our own business right now, we would be investing more in marketing and advertising. We'd be breaking off a team or a pod to actually serve our own needs from a marketing and advertising standpoint. And we looked at ourselves and we were just like, what the heck are we doing from that day on? This was 2016, I believe. We more than doubled our marketing and advertising budget. We actually created a budget line. We broke it out, we formalized it. Instead of just making decisions randomly when we felt pressure or when we were feeling good and we had a couple extra bucks, we actually structured it, put a team on it, allocated resources, and made it real. It doesn't always work this way, but it was kind of just like. Yeah, what did you think was gonna happen? Like we tripled our lead volume within two months and created a consistent flow of leads that continues to this day. Now we have to nurture it and continue to manage that, but just that change in mindset really did a lot for us.

Russel:

Yeah.

Jason:

I love that. I mean, I, that's something I

Russel:

advocate a lot, right? Be your own best client. Which, you know, I think for a lot of agencies struggle or the cobbler's kid has no shoes aspect and it's easy to, I've got this paying work over here, or I've got this work that I'm not sure where it goes. So I guess maybe just if you could speak to either the discipline it took, or, you know, once you even just had that idea and created that construct, what kept you. Fighting through it to ultimately have the results that

Jason:

you just shared? Well, it's not easy. It's certainly not easy because there's a constant struggle where the first client that you are going to like put off for two weeks because you're too busy is Brawl is us. Yeah. So we have to really hold each other accountable for that. We have to create the cadence. The roles and responsibilities need to be really defined, just like we will with a client. Who's the point of contact? Who's in charge of reporting to the client? Who's the client role? That's me. So I am the one that is saying I need the consistent flow of leads. I'm the person responsible for business development within the agency and. Our marketing teams sort of report to my partner, Matt, from a high level, but report to me as sort of the client and we have a consistent planning meeting every month and we have a reporting mechanisms we would have for our clients with a scorecard and making sure we have all of those pieces and don't slip and just start treating ourselves like half of a client.

Russel:

I love that. And I, I think the, the thought that comes to my mind when you were sharing that right, the no exceptions, that you are truly your own client and in every way, shape and form that you would show up for a client. That you make sure to create same or similar construct for yourself. And, I could see we're just no exceptions. We can really create that attention that says, yeah, we're not gonna push ourselves aside. I

Jason:

don't pretend like it's easy. Like I said, it's, yeah, it's constant work because the bad habits creep in and you start saying, well, we just got this new client, or here's another one over here. This project's calling my attention. You know, we're growing, we need to hire people, we need to recruit. And all of a sudden you're like, oh yeah, we. We're shifting away from the structure all of a sudden, just because the leads are there and it's not a problem right now. It's one of those things you can fall into bad habits again. So you gotta really hold yourselves accountable.

Russel:

Oh yeah. I mean, we were mostly and always stayed in a web focused platform, project-based business. And I think we did our website maybe two or three times in the first two or three years of the business. Just'cause kind of bored sometimes and it's like, well, let's just go redo our website. But then when, when you take the next 15 years of the business, I think we redid it twice. And I think that's honestly one of the bigger mistakes that, I look back and made in the journey was if I could go back now, I would try to figure out a way, if I had to do it this way, but probably your lessons are better is I'd shut down the business for, a month or something like that and make sure that we became our own best client in that way. And I know the results would've been. Pretty significant. If we'd have, instead of our website looking like something we did in a few days that we could cobble together, if it looked like, you know, the best website you could find in

Jason:

the market, there's another way to look at it too. We've had the same problem, you know, the, we had five or six websites in the first 10 years, and then in the last 15 we've had like three, two, or three. So we've run into the same things that we got bigger as we grew and as we got busier. It's not as easy to tinker around and just have set aside time for things like that. But the other thing is, um, when it comes to building your own site or investing in your own marketing, it's easy to be like, oh, let's put our own people on it. Like we need to do the work we do every day, every week, and then we're gonna add this website project in for ourselves. The lesson here is like, you don't have to do it all yourself, but you need to budget for it. You need to allocate resources and time. And that could mean bringing in an outside firm, like even though you could do the work, actually bringing in outside people or a consultant, or another agency partner who can serve you as a client and keep you accountable and keep you on timeline and like, it doesn't have to be that you are stretching your team. Across, you know, multiple domains at once. Yeah. So I think that's another thing that maybe I didn't think about 10, 15 years ago that I see as an option now.

Russel:

And that's

Jason:

always an

Russel:

interesting thought, right? I think in some cases it sounds absurd, right? If I do this, if I make pasta, why would I want to go bring in someone else to make past? Maybe not anything is one concrete linear path, but just being more flexible. Probably the same way you'd show up for a client and say, Hey, this is the thing that needs to happen. What's the best way to execute it? And not be limited in that thought process but maybe what you said there, the most important thing is budgeting for it and mm-hmm. Where you spend that budget obviously is the, can be the dynamic part. Yep. Good takeaway. All right there folks. Well, if you, if we haven't beat it, Jason and I haven't beat it into your heads enough yet. Be your own best client budget for your own marketing and execution of what you do best, what you do for clients, and don't be afraid. And that process to bring in the help you need to do to make sure that happens. Sounds like that really set the track to, evolving from where your business started to more similar to where it is today. Any other big shifts between, uh, when you moved into this model and where we're at today? It's been

Jason:

measured growth, uh, which is nice. Uh, we not trying to double in size year over year. 20, 30% growth can be just the right amount to make sure our quality and our client retention stays really high.'cause we did go through a period where we grew really fast. I think it was 2021, and it wasn't solid growth. It wasn't sustainable growth. We didn't have a good enough foundation. Too much of our team was like green and was in training at one time. And we went through this like. Hockey stick kind of growth moment and then hired some people and then all of a sudden it was like opposite, went straight down. Just a really weird timing and we had to go through a really difficult period where we had to lay off some of our team members, and it was just such a difficult, uh, thing to go through for both sides. I mean, it's really hard to take people in, in a really small business. And tell them like, I'm sorry. Like, financially we cannot keep you. And for them, it's devastating. There's, silver lining in it for some, but for a lot of people it's devastating and it's like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do now? And it's, it's a really hard thing to go through. And, as a business, we just felt like we failed in that moment. Having to work through that, we realized. We can't take our eye off the ball, I guess, and we can't just assume that all clients are good clients just'cause they're there at a certain moment. So we started looking at client health, client stability, and we started measuring things outside of the revenue per month and looked at things like have they renewed more than once and what percentage. Time when they do that, do they become a client for three to five years? And what are the things that ensure that we get through the first year with a client as successfully? And we started thinking a little bit more about retention before, like when we're signing a client, like early on, and uh, built the company a little bit more. Not cautiously, but strategically and deliberately knowing what we knew going through some tough times.

Russel:

It always sucks that we have to learn these lessons through hard trials. And you know, like you said, I mean, just, I'm sure many people even listening to this understand that very few agencies I come across that didn't have to go through a similar type period in their growth journey. But yeah, a very hard thing to go through it. But, uh, that which does not kill us makes it stronger. And it sounds like you definitely came on the other side of that. I love what you said there of, you know. Measuring and not measuring really revenue, right? That's such a lagging indicator and such a downstream metric. But what are the really important ones that ladder up to success? And it sounds like you did the hard work to figure out what those were and if nothing else, you didn't have to feel that pain again, but that's actually made you all the more stronger it sounds

Jason:

like. Yeah, for sure. And just I think about a lot more now, say in the last three or four years is just really. Being clear on the growth versus profitability question, like are we in a growth year or are we like squeezing out profit for the year and like heading into another growth cycle the following year? It's, I think when you try to be both, it's very, very hard because growth is something you need to invest in and it's not gonna show on the bottom line right away, it's actually gonna be negative on the bottom line. Time so that you can break through and get to that next phase. So my partner, Matt and I talk a lot about and often have to remind each other that okay, we're heading into a growth phase here. Um, we have plans to staff up or to increase our marketing budget or whatever it may be. And. That may mean that we, our profit will drop for a period before it goes back up. And I think when companies try to do everything all at once and max everything out, you're pulling in two different directions. So you have to be clear about that. And that's all a conversation we have with our clients a lot where it's like, you know, to grow the first six months, it's gonna be a lot more investment and sweat than it is gonna be return and profit. You have to be patient and you have to build that foundation before you can really, you know, run up the ROI numbers and ROAS numbers. So the growth versus profitability thing, I never used to think about it that way, but being clear on like where you are in the journey and are you headed into a growth cycle? Are you kind of maximizing profit for a time before you head back into another growth cycle? Like where are you, uh, in the journey? Important. That's

Russel:

such a great question. Uh, again, something you want folks to hear at home is the answer is not always growth. Especially probably sometimes if things aren't financially stable, that growth can be gasoline on a fire. But yeah, embrace the cycle and stage that you're in and know. I think you just put it so well that if you want growth to occur, that there's probably something, not probably there is something that you have to innovate or invest in that's actually gonna make or allow that growth to happen. And then just know that, embrace that, and don't expect anywhere near instant results. And then maybe going back to your other lesson, measure the activity that you're doing so that you can be more confident and ensure that it actually will lead to growth.

Jason:

Part of that too is knowing what your leading indicators are, because maybe at the end of the day it is monthly profit as a percentage or something, and you're tracking that. But to track that, well, you have to see. Increase in quality leads per month and to see that you need to see quality sessions on site. So it's like you have to have leading indicators that are showing you, you're headed in the right direction that then turn into more tangible indicators of success, like money in your pocket. So, clients also need to be aware that. It is a process to get to where they want to go and they need to be able to open up and look at some of the things that are showing signs of like successes on its way. Don't cut off your spend too early. Don't give up on a campaign too early. Let an idea, simmer a little bit and let a team get in there and really find their way. And sometimes that takes more than two or three months. You know, sometimes it takes six, sometimes it takes more. Nobody wants to hear that. But from a marketing relationship standpoint, you can put so much effort, time, and money into those first six months. And if you're just a little too impulsive, a little too quick to call it, that's why some of like what could have been really successful, clients just like never make it. Um, and the relationship doesn't, we don't become one of those like five to 10 year. Engagements with us. You know, we never make it out of the first six to eight months, and it's, it's unfortunate.

Russel:

Well, it just hits on another thing that I, that I share a lot is, you know, when you are solving something hard or making a difficult investment, that concept or what you're investing in has no concept of time. That could take months, that could take years sometimes, depending on what that, significant thing is, but you have to give yourself the metrics that are gonna tell you if you're walking down the right path are not necessarily the metrics that tell you did you reach your destination? Maybe is another way to think about that. Yeah, absolutely. Switching gears, going back to the other hard part about running an agency is team and leadership. When you think about as your team grew, what was a big leadership lesson you had to learn?

Jason:

I think with just the topic of leadership, I mean, leadership is so much about. Empathy and just being able to understand different perspectives or if you don't like stopping to consider something you hadn't thought about and really just being able to put your needs aside and put your beliefs aside even, and just listen. That could be from like a, where do we head with the business question, or it could be, is our team happy, like where they're at right now? Like, are they in the right seats? Are they in a position to succeed? Am I giving them the right support and resources? You have to be able to stop and listen and not always be the one doing all the talking and really be able to consider other people's perspectives. And if you're in an organization where people listen and they feel safe. And when you ask them things like, how are you doing? They can actually tell you, you have a good business, you have a good team, you have a good dynamic. And I think that that's one thing I've been really both my partner Matt and I have focused a lot on is making sure we're a safe place. We're a place where people feel good about what they're doing. They have a really solid team around them that they can trust. I think maybe 15 years ago it was a little more like we're a family. You know, we, we eat together, we live together. Well, guess what? I'm in a different phase of life. That can't always be how it is. And, and I'm not sure businesses should be like that, but having each other's backs. Being willing to listen and support each other is huge. And I think a lot of businesses, even if they're doing well financially, uh, behind the scenes are struggling with that. And what happens is client churn, um, employee churn. A lot more like negotiating around salaries and discontent and, uh, people poaching employees. Like if you have a good business where the team feels like the leadership is involved and is listening and is valuing them, then you have a lot less of that.

Russel:

Broaches into, Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, if you're familiar with that, of just, yeah. If safety and security aren't met, then it's a everyone for themselves type environment. Right. And, um, and so yeah, the first place you have to start is, is security and safety to even get to the good stuff. You know, one of the things that I think is really just a key word that you mentioned at, at the beginning of what you're sharing there is empathy and listening, being an important part of empathy. Did that come natural? To you when? When you think of yourself as in your leadership journey or is that something you, you had to develop and polish?

Jason:

No, I think it's very natural for me. I don't think it is for everyone, but I think that it was just something that was always embedded in who I am and being a good listener, being a good counselor, like caring about other people. Just not for what I can get out of it, but just making sure that they are. Cared for. Like I'm very much a nurturing person. I look at my team and I want them to succeed as individuals. I want the business to succeed as well, but I want them to feel good and protected and valued because they will be the best version of themselves. They will do the best work within the business, and they will be happy. It works out for everybody. It is the first

Russel:

part of safety and security that someone, first off has to understand who I am. And then just if you do open your ears and approach it in that way, you're, you're gonna hear, and you're gonna focus on what's important. I think that when I think about my journey, maybe I always had a care as a leader. But I don't know that I knew in my early days of. How that looked in more of a culture sense of, and just write a, just tell people you care and just assume we're all gonna make that work. But that how you really have to, put some structure and some intention behind how that shows up and how that looks in the business. That only learning curve for me.

Jason:

Yeah. Making a consistent part of your diary your week.

Russel:

Yeah. Not getting bogged down when it got busy. Forgetting to say, how are you, I think is one of the things that you shared earlier and, and this, you have to make the time for that. As you're growing, um, like you said, maybe even getting past that day, we're all just shoved in a room and you're all showing up every day, figuring out how to make it work. Um mm-hmm. That eventually doesn't exist in the business anymore.

Jason:

Yeah, especially with how things have changed and how, you know, businesses are now more like hybrid, remote. A lot of them, like, we used to come into the office every day and now it's, it's different, you know, we still have an office, but we have to make time to connect. And schedule time for people to come in and be together. There's different challenges now than there were in say, 2019.

Russel:

That is an exclamation point on that. Intentionality is certainly as important as ever. Great cap on that. One other thing I wanna make sure we, we cover is, I think it was interesting about your journey is, um, this investment mindset approach that it seems like has always come very natural to you, but you started tinkering it sounds like. Using that in unique ways. Just curious about what that looks like and how that's going for you.

Jason:

Yeah, investing, it has always been like a hobby or an interest for me, starting with, you know, trading equities stocks when I was a teenager and building a portfolio. And in more recent years that turned into, okay, I have a marketing agency. I help companies grow. I work with a lot of early stage companies. I help. Establish their brands and figure out how to get traction and like find their first customers and build. So it was natural that I started getting into conversations and this goes back 15 years even, where it's like I'm talking to founders who need our help and they don't have the money to pay us. Totally. So is there some sort of creative structure and so we creative deal structures over the years where sometimes it was like. An equity stake in the business. But that's tough because like if we didn't have a lot of cash, like positive cash flow and money setting aside, you can't just put hundreds of hours into something where no cash is gonna come in the door. So, um, we realized through the first couple times doing this that there needs to be a cash component or we need to be in a much better position financially to be able to invest. And so. In recent years, like we just structured a deal with, a wa Ocean wave energy company called ATARs. You know, they have these turbines for underwater that, harness 24 7 energy from the sea. So this is a connection we've had for a long time and. We decided that in the situation they're in, they're about to go raise another round of funding and they've been around, they're established, and we looked at it as an investment opportunity and we said, yes, we really want to rebrand them and build their new site and get them ready for this next funding round. But we can be a part of that in a different way. So. We worked out a cash plus equity, deal structure and yeah, we'll see how this works out in the future. But, um, either using Brolik sort of as an engine for my partner and I to invest, or for bra to diversify its portfolio by having percentages of other businesses that it owns. It's all positive and I'm learning along the way by doing very modest, angel investing myself on the side. So yes, it's exciting and you know that like you could go oh, for 10, it's very possible and if you have one winner, it could just make up for everything. So it's more still exploratory, I think it always will be, but as we get Brolik into a very stable, sustainable growth path. We get into a really good position, both Matt and I. Have this investor mindset where we're looking for opportunities. The right opportunities.

Russel:

You know, it's, I think, yeah, probably every agency in the early days entertains or has these offers of trade for equity and these business ideas and Right. Hope is not a plan and that's probably one of the times that pull folks into that in the early days. But, you know, getting back to where you're at today, being intentional about it, it sounds like investing in investing and just the learning curve that goes into that seems to be where you're at. So. I'll have to have you on the podcast again here, down the road and see how those investments have hand out. It'll be a lot more exciting if I can come on here and say, yeah, we just had a 20 x return on this. You'll be on how I built this there. Well, very cool. But speaking of down the road, well, you know, last major question for you is just what does the future look like? What's the end game to all these things you're creating?

Jason:

The end game for me is my family at this point. Having three kids now and having my oldest started like entering middle school and you know, I've got a couple in, in grade school as well. 15 years ago it was like I worked all the time. I didn't have much balance at all. And I was very much about just growth and building a company and being successful. And now it's about, my business has purpose. It's like it's for the future, it's for me, it's for my wife, and for my kids. And I don't know where that goes. I don't expect to like try to retire in three years. Like I really enjoy what I do and whatever role I'm in, I can see myself advising and guiding business owners with some slice of my time, even when I'm an older man, so I can see a future where I step back a bit. I don't have any urgency to build it, to sell it in the next three years. I'm not opposed to that either. And I've had plenty of conversations about what that would look like and am I interested and is that in the plans. I've also had just as mu many thoughts about like, would any of my kids be interested in this as a business? Would I push them to even do it or is there a lot of value in kind of starting your own thing? I have a lot of these thoughts, but I'm 42. I do not feel like I'm outta gas or even close to it, but I am my mindset on like why the business is there and what I'm doing it for has changed over the last 10 years for sure.

Russel:

Very natural part of the process, but very cool. Can't wait to see what that shapes out for you. It sounds like you've approached your business with a lot of intention and attention going forward. Sounds all the more in your wheelhouse and I'm sure that's gonna work out really great for you. Well, I'll cap it off here then with officially one last question for you. Are entrepreneurs born or are they

Jason:

made. I gotta say born for sure. There's just something about it where you, you have to have some sort of risk tolerance that I don't think can be taught and sort of this, like you gravitate towards things that do not feel comfortable sometimes and you can't explain it. I think I. I think without the base feel for it, the base like desire, I don't think you can teach that

Russel:

well. I always love a born answer, as folks that have listened to this for a while know, um, so I'll take it. Um, but uh, if people wanna know more about Brolik,

Jason:

where can they go? Definitely check out bra.com. That's B-R-O-L-I-K. You can check us out on LinkedIn. Uh, if you're interested in finding out more, connecting with some of our team members, bro.com/careers. You can certainly check us out.

Russel:

Thank you for sharing that. And thank you so much for all the insights that we ran through today of being your own best client taking the time to embrace where you're at and make a concerted investment in your growth, in your future to the power of empathy and listening and leadership and many, many more. Really appreciate you taking the time to share all that with us today, Jason.

Jason:

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Russell.

Russel:

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 an agency story.com/podcast and follow us on Instagram at an agency story for the latest updates.

Jason:

I don't feel bad, like I don't get embarrassed that easily either. I work from home a lot of days because I've got three young kids. So if I'm going into the office, it's a decent drive in. You know, it's always interesting, like at the end of the day, if I schedule a call around four 30, my 5-year-old, he's definitely got the most energy in the family, and he will find a way to get as close to me as possible. In the most inconvenient moments, I have to just laugh it off because if the door's unlocked, he'll somehow like. Know it and he'll like, go for it and come in and like, stand in the background or stand off to the side and stare at me. He makes it so that I can't take life too seriously. And if I do, he's gonna break it up. His name's Macklin. He's a fun little guy. He is about to turn six this spring. And, uh. So I guess working from home, he's made things interesting at times.

Russel:

I can only imagine. My kids are older and so I've never gotten to really experience working from home with younger children, but I can imagine it would be fun and interesting and everything in between.