In this episode of D2Z, Gen Z entrepreneur Brandon Amoroso, founder and president of Electriq, engages in a dynamic conversation with Brennan Tobin, the founder of Odd Duck, a fractional growth marketing group and full-service performance marketing agency. Together, they explore the intricate world of entrepreneurship, marketing, and agency pricing strategies.
This episode offers invaluable insights into the intricate dynamics of agency pricing, client relationships, and leadership approaches in the entrepreneurial landscape. If you're seeking to navigate the multifaceted world of agency services or gain fresh perspectives on growth marketing, this podcast is a must-listen. Tune in to discover actionable takeaways and strategies to enhance your entrepreneurial journey.
Brennan Tobin
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brennan-tobin-a5716b133/
Brandon Amoroso:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonamoroso/
Web - https://brandonamoroso.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bamoroso11/
In this episode of D2Z, Gen Z entrepreneur Brandon Amoroso, founder and president of Electriq, engages in a dynamic conversation with Brennan Tobin, the founder of Odd Duck, a fractional growth marketing group and full-service performance marketing agency. Together, they explore the intricate world of entrepreneurship, marketing, and agency pricing strategies.
This episode offers invaluable insights into the intricate dynamics of agency pricing, client relationships, and leadership approaches in the entrepreneurial landscape. If you're seeking to navigate the multifaceted world of agency services or gain fresh perspectives on growth marketing, this podcast is a must-listen. Tune in to discover actionable takeaways and strategies to enhance your entrepreneurial journey.
Brennan Tobin
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brennan-tobin-a5716b133/
Brandon Amoroso:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonamoroso/
Web - https://brandonamoroso.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bamoroso11/
I'm Brandon Amoroso and this is the D2Z podcast building and growing your business from a Gen Z perspective. Hey, everyone.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning in to D2Z, a podcast about using the Gen Z mindset to grow your business. I'm Gen Z entrepreneur Brandon Amoroso, founder and president of Retention as a Service Agency Electric, and today I'm talking with Brendan Tobin, the founder of Odd Duck, which is a fractional growth marketing group and full service performance marketing agency. Thanks for coming on, Happy to have you.
Speaker 1:Dude, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:So before we jump into things, can you give everybody just a quick background on yourself?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, definitely. So you said it well. Founder of Odd Duck full service performance marketing agency and fractional growth marketing group. My background is in growth marketing. I've spent the past few years doing that, working with brands like Jetcom, burr of Energy, BCG, digital Ventures, before launching my own thing and working with some awesome brands like Josie Marin, hippo, education, rivet some really cool brands. So that's a little bit about me. I have focused on acquisition, but I've touched all things from CRO to Retention and just building on a team that absolutely crushes across all those different verticals.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. And what is your background up until starting Odd Duck?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it has been performance marketing. So I focused on acquisition for growth. So that's been it, with probably a greatest focus on paid social. But I've also touched a lot of paid search in CRO and retention. But a lot of my retention has actually come from you I feel like videos you would put out with Electric and so I learned from the absolute best on that regard.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm flattered. I'll take it Some affirmation on a Friday heading into the weekend. Dude, start the Friday off right, Like going from working at a pretty sizable company to sort of shooting off and starting your own thing. What are some of the and yeah, obviously you're still early on for you, but what are some of the things that you didn't necessarily expect that you've run into along the way?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 1:There's a bunch, I think.
Speaker 1:So I've been kind of fortunate enough, for I've had both the brand experience and the agency side experience, so I felt like there's a lot of different things that I've been able to touch, which has helped me a lot, but some of the things that I maybe didn't expect, I think going into it, I just I think how important those client touch points are has been a huge thing.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, when you're on a growth right, you, having seen so many companies, were like this is what's absolutely best for the company, this is what we need to be working on right now, and obviously it's our duty to make sure we effectively communicate that and share that. But sometimes teams are still like, yes, we hear you, but at the same time we think this is what's best and at the end of the day, it's their brand and so kind of balancing that hey, this is what we know is work, this is what we've seen has worked, with clients telling you we hear you, let's definitely put it on the road map, but we view priorities as different. Just kind of making sure that we balance that to ensure the best possible growth has been definitely a new learning experience for me, so that's been super fun to learn how to handle.
Speaker 2:Having clients, I feel like, is half the battle. Yeah, especially when you're coming from the outside, there's sort of an art to getting your point across and getting things done, but not stepping on any toes either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially on the, because I'm on the actual fractional growth side of things where it's hey, we work directly with you. We're not an agency in the traditional sense where we're just doing media buying and possibly just sharing creative recommendations and then we meet once a week and we're on our way and we'll see you next week. Maybe you'll get an email with reporting. That's not what we do, so there's a lot more balancing with that. But curious to learn at some point too, about what that looked like at Electric, because I feel like you guys are building out so much on their attention side of things that there's got to be, especially with creative stuff, people just saying, hey, this is not exactly what we're looking for at this very moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing with Electric, when dealing with clients and managing expectations, is just that first week of onboarding it was probably the most crucial with any of our relationships and setting it up for success. Because if you have a bad first week it's very challenging to try and course correct. But if you set it off in a good direction to start and everybody's aligned around objectives and goals and how we're going to accomplish them, those are by far our better relationships.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a nice thing about, I feel, like traditional agencies. The scope is so fleshed out where it's like from the start, it's like the role is so well defined, whereas on fractional growth it's like every company is going to look different and everything's going to be. What was turnkey for someone else isn't going to be the same thing you experience for the next brand. So, yeah, there's probably it's a lot easier to find scope, I feel like. But cool man, that's great.
Speaker 2:How are you and when you're typically doing engagements, have you thought about what sort of pricing framework that you want to deploy? Because I was making shit up for the longest time, like oh yeah, this sounds good, like whatever, I try to do it based off of hours and I try to do it based off of ROI and at the end of the day, it was sort of like how much do I think I can get this person to pay for what we're going to provide to them, which is the reality?
Speaker 1:It's tough. I feel like I've gone through a few learning cycles with it where actually, funny enough, I just cut two clients pretty much because I was like the pricing doesn't make sense. They were like, hey, we want to do this on hours and they were pretty early on and they were saying we can pay you this much and just give us four hours of your time a week. But it was kind of like hey, for what I envision for you, this is not enough time. The actual amount of work that's going to have to go into this to accomplish the things that I view are the best things for your business. I just can't set out to do it in four hours a week and I was like this just doesn't work as an arrangement. So, yeah, I definitely want to move away from some of the time stuff. That's where I've been, where I've grown up my clients doing that on a time basis. I think what's tough is, you're right, there's different values. We just did an incrementality test for a brand and we were like, hey, we just found a third of your budget is not incremental. We're going to repurpose this and put this in a different spot and it's going to help you grow. Probably goes to. I think we put an estimate at 42% 45% year over year, just from this reallocated spend, and so it was kind of like well, we just paid for ourself many times over. So that's the first two months that we've done this. So I think I'm still trying to figure that out a little bit.
Speaker 1:Where it's like, how do we define the value, especially because so many different brands are different, right, I had a referral the other day where someone came in and was like, can you do this for this much money? And I was like I just don't think so and I just cut a brand that did another thing. But even for a brand where I was like, OK, sweet, I view this as worth my time. I go and see the amount of output that we give them in such a short amount of time, it's like, shoot man, maybe I'm not charging enough, but yeah, I'm still figuring that out. I think it's got to be on scope. I think every company is going to be so different, right. Like I think larger clients are going to have a lot more opportunity. Where it's like you can come in and change some things and it's pretty massive ROI's because they are just playing with such massive numbers and the value to them is so much greater than, hey, you go in with a smaller brand they're pretty net, new, Maybe you grow some stuff, but at the same time, it's like their numbers that they're playing with are just so much smaller. So I'm just kind of figuring it out right.
Speaker 1:I'd love to work with every brand that I honestly find value in. That, I think, is like, hey, I like the people or I like the vision, but, yeah, still trying to figure out how to do that. Yeah, and it's been talked to you because it was at a point where I was like, oh man, look at this, this thing is growing like crazy. We're doing such awesome work. I was like I'm not. My per hour rate is probably not where it should be. So, trying to figure it out, trying to get to a place where it's scalable and it's defined on scope, so we'll see. But I'm sure with the conversations, like you, I'll learn how to do it better and better and get some of those learnings.
Speaker 2:I think the most interesting part of it and there's some movie, I think it maybe is like War Dogs or something, but they bid on a contract and they bid way too low and, yeah, that happened.
Speaker 1:Jonah Hill's in the hallway screwing, pounding the lockers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've definitely had that feeling before, Because if it takes them an hour to say yes, you're like, oh well, I mean I probably could have gotten a couple extra $1,000 out of that engagement, and so that was a long process for sure.
Speaker 1:I had it happen on a phone call where I was talking to someone. We said the pitch I give this rate. And I'm thinking, oh man, this will be the highest rate possible. And they're like, yeah, let me give you a call back, like let me just talk with finance. I got a call 10 minutes later. They're like done and I was just dang it. But I was so happy, I was just so happy to have landed it and I was like this is going to be great. I was still so excited. So I didn't have my Jonah Hale on the hallway moment. I was probably more miles heller in that moment. But yeah, I was pretty happy with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the process of being comfortable with saying some of those numbers took a little bit as well too, because it feels like pretty extreme, especially for me. Like when I was in college I'd be like, oh yeah, you're going to pay me X amount per month. There's just sort of a crazy swing because it went from pretty much nothing to a lot very quickly. And being comfortable with that and also being able to present and have the confidence to say oh yeah, like I'm actually worth this amount, was a challenge.
Speaker 2:But on the flip side, I had some clients that said no early on because we were no-transcript To cheeto. So like they're getting quotes for you know wild amounts of money for like Shopify, migrations or you know whatever it may be, and we're coming in you know 20, 30% lower than Then the next lowest competitor and so in their eyes are like well, what's wrong with you know this company? Here? Are we getting like the yeah, the cheap, shitty service? So we had to start adding in like additional profit margin for no reason other than like had to get the clients comfortable of being able to work with us, which is ridiculous but, you know, worked out in our favor obviously.
Speaker 1:It was like the Peloton story. I don't know if you've heard this, but I'm pretty sure with Peloton Kind of early on they like price the bike with like it's probably still way too overpriced for what it was, but they like price the bike that I think was more in line with kind of the market. And then I don't know, I don't know what the catalyst of it was, but they ended up just pricing it way and it just went gang busters like they were like whoa, this is like this crazy new product and innovation, and it's, you know, basically a bike with an iPad on it.
Speaker 1:I do have one, though, so I can't even talk Negatively, but at the same time, it worked on you once they change the price.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it. Once they changed the price they were like this is Peloton, this is no longer. You know the bike with the iPad, this is its own thing. So I'm curious, if you do you, because the thing that I'm so interested in right now with agencies is Do you put your pricing on your website? And I'm pretty sure electric does it right? Because the thing is that how do you price it again where it's you know? You get a client where you know they're not price sensitive and they said we just need somebody who has a killer work product Versus you know a company that you know maybe, like I mentioned earlier, is a Bit earlier and they're like, hey, we just need someone who can do this cheaply, like pricing matters. So how have you kind of structured pricing up front with clients? Is there anything you saw with hey, certain size clients, we're gonna pitch them at this or you know, we're gonna start here and see where that goes. How have you kind of navigated up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, like your question is, in terms of pricing, how we navigate to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, have you been up front with it? Have you been Like how much you said? Because if you, you know you're like hey, we do. You know I'll use arbitrary numbers if it's like, hey, we do, 10k for you know, monthly, but then you get a, you know a massive company that comes along and they're like everybody else is at 50, like yeah, like, don't how do you?
Speaker 2:how do you?
Speaker 1:avoid your Jonah Hill in the all-way moment.
Speaker 2:Look like you, because sometimes we would overbid too. So it's like it's not a science, it's sort of just like feeling out the. You're just sort of feeling out the client and you do some you know background research around who they are, you know if they are, if they're a client who is Like a public company, for example, or things like that there's, there's clear indicators or signs of you know where we should be from a price standpoint. And then One of the things that I like to do is sort of provide you know three plans. So if you're good, better, best style Proposal structure, and so you can sort of you can anchor them into the one that you actually want them to choose based off of the way that you price, or have you know cost efficiencies when you make it to the to the final plan.
Speaker 2:Thanks, but it's not like there's some science to it. I actually I've, and I've tried in the past to just get them to tell me, like, what the budget is, because that would actually be so much easier. They're like yeah, we have ten grand a month for you. Okay, well, let me now like come back to the team and divvy up how we're going to allocate that ten grand versus I'm just making shit up over here, $10,000, and then let's put some deliverables against it. It would make things a lot simpler if they're like you know we have $10,000 a month for you and then I can go back and, you know, tinker and provide deliverables that are going to be able to, you know, showcase an ROI for them.
Speaker 2:But there's this idea from a lot of the clients that Know if we tell you what the budget is, then you're just going to take all of it, which I can see that side of things as well too. But for me, I always preferred when clients would work with us on like the good or better plan, not the best, because I'd rather work with somebody for a year at a lower per month cost than like work with somebody for six months at a higher per month cost. And Especially with retention and like emailness and miss marketing, it's not like you just flip a switch and within a week you know All these magical things happen. So I'd much prefer, you know, let's have a less like a reduced engagement that allows us to work together longer, versus you know, let's throw the kitchen sink at it and then have a bunch of swings and, you know, not a lot of client. You know Not sustainability like client security, so I prefer the lower engagements which might sound counterintuitive, but I don't want to price them out of being able to work with us.
Speaker 1:Definitely do you pack that up the price. Or is it like Do you think that, like hey, if you're doing that best engagement, there's like a certain level of Screw me that the client's gonna have for you. If it's like, hey, something goes wrong, it's like this is the best of the best and this is what you have like, whereas, like, if you're on that like good or better plan, maybe they're like, yeah, this is this. Is it like? How much do you think is price sensitivity versus just expectations of quality? Yeah, obviously electric has.
Speaker 2:They have a high quality of work, but obviously Obviously, you know, top tier, number one, number one in the world. Yeah, there's expectations that come with it, for sure, and and we didn't have. And a lot of it doesn't even have to do with the actual work product. A lot of it has to do with the way that you like, engage with the client, do meetings, like you know, presentation materials, stuff like that, and we didn't have that to begin with and so we would, you know, start an engagement. Then there's just a level of expectation like, oh, we should have an account manager. This is the way that we're used to working with other agencies and you don't have it yet we're still paying you the same amount. So we had to adjust and transition into sort of up-leveling, not our work product but our, like, intra-client facing materials, the way that we handle meetings, proposals, things like that. I feel like that's where more of the expectations were not necessarily, like you know, the results, because the results were there. It was more about the way that we engaged with the client on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.
Speaker 2:What is the report? The reports look nice. It might sound stupid but, like you know, it matters. And I look at some of our early proposals or some of our early reporting decks and I'm just like I can't even believe that anybody worked with us Like this shit is just objectively not good. And then, looking at it now, it looks, you know, light years better, and especially when we got acquired by drinks. They have a team of, you know, very senior creatives and so they, you know, took our proposals and audits and whatnot and took it to an even greater level that we would not have been able to do because they had, you know, making materials for Fortune 500 companies for the last like 10 years. And I know from your background, and at least from my, you know, my other friends who work in that world, you know you guys love your slide decks. So nuts dude.
Speaker 1:Nuts. Yeah, I was literally going to say this is the thing you know. It's so funny. When I went to BCG digital ventures which very different from traditional consulting, right Like we actually like, went and built and did like hands-on execution and reporting and all these things we basically were an agency before you know larger clients or did venture builds, where we built from scratch for larger clients and and one of the things that I learned I feel like going into it, I was like I kind of already had what I felt like were my marketing and strategy chops, like so much so I kind of launched that. I don't know if you remember, but launched an ed tech like business for a little while.
Speaker 1:That got to like 200 users and one B2B partnership before realizing no money in education, but when I was at BCG I was like, oh yeah, I'm kind of hoping to learn a lot more of these like marketing skills and, you know, see as much as I can. So that was my goal. I just wanted to grow as many businesses as possible and probably like the most valuable skill that I learned because, you know, I did already have a lot of these marketing and strategy jobs and, you know, obviously continue to grow a lot but the most valuable skill really was like how you presented things, like it didn't just matter, like what you said, but how it looked like really did matter, and like how you spoke about it really did matter. And it's a weird thing to say, but you know, again, it's like this idea of buying, like what does it look like? And I don't know, even with startups, you can kind of relate to it a lot. Right, like an idea isn't always, you know, the most novel thing, but how it's executed is really what matters.
Speaker 1:And I think it's probably the same thing of like how you present things where it's like hey, look like I can go to a client and say like hey, we, you know, we've, we just took you from, you know, like a one row as to like a 2.45 on new customer acquisition, and you know that's before considering that's first purchase. Like you know, you can say that thing in passing and it's like fantastic. But it's like you know, you kind of immortalize it when you have, you know, proper reporting and it's like, hey, look at what we did for you this week. It's in writing. Here's how it looks. Presented, it's like it's kind of just that like icing on the cake, like like I'm on top of, like, like they're I'm in very good hands, like someone is taking care of me. You know, I feel like that's where, yeah, it really does matter, those touch points, you know, just like how you make someone know they're in good hands. It's like you can do the greatest work in the world, but if you don't show it, it's not as important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's all about framing.
Speaker 2:You know, presentation you can put lipstick on a pig For sure.
Speaker 2:And like, the one of the biggest learning lessons for me was when we started bringing on new team members, even if they knew what they were doing, if they weren't able to properly communicate that to the client or present it in a way with like authority, then the client would be like you know, this person's a big fan of you. You know, this person doesn't know what they're talking about, even though they could be saying exactly the right things. Versus I could get out there and just start lying like literally saying blatantly false shit. As long as I did it in a way that was confident and made it seem like you know, I knew what I was talking about, they'd actually prefer that versus the other way, which is, you know, sort of questioning your own, like when you're saying something, you're like sort of posing it as a question. You're not necessarily, uh, asserting yourself as the expert in that particular subject matter, which is ultimately what you're being paid for is to be the expert in that particular domain. Um, yeah, so there's like very unfortunate reality.
Speaker 1:But, like, once you do get that duo of hey, you have this absolute, you know killer on the you know the digital marketing side, and they have strong interpersonal skills and and you know that that's also something that could be learned. Uh, I feel like that's where you get just incredible talent, because it's hey, this person can do this and like they can get that buy in from you or they can showcase it to you in the way that you know really resonates.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what are you most excited for? Uh, you know, going into uh, going into next year. When it comes to, next year.
Speaker 1:Honestly, just growth.
Speaker 1:I feel like what I'm most excited for is is putting myself out there in a way that's different from I mean, like I feel like I've done really awesome stuff in kind of the the different like W2 rules that I've had, you know. Like you know, won this award of DCG you know, verb energy grew crazy during my time there Uh, and and and. So I think the most thing I'm excited for is now that it's kind of like my own is to just kind of showcase hey, look at what we did Right, like obviously, like I think there is never a 19,. Uh, but you know, I think I'm just most excited for for the team to kind of show like hey, look at what like we did. Like this is just like solely odd duck like came in and we like, working with these teams, like we were able to like find this exponential growth and kind of showcase that to the public. I feel like where we're doing such awesome stuff right now, um, and just being able to make that visible and be like hey, like we're doing things differently, we're shaking things up, like take a look, um, I think that's what I'm really excited for Just to kind of like one obviously get those results, but to uh, to the point of like showcasing them how you put it out there, just being in a position where it's like, look, we're doing things differently and it works, um, so I think that's what I'm really excited for, especially right now.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah, just growth in general too, outside of that, right, I feel like I'm I'm so early in this, uh, having done it again, have been doing this for years, but you know, doing this officially for myself, full time, um, in building a team, I feel like I'm just really excited to grow, put together a team, you know, put together a team that's different than I feel like a lot of agency models and um have incredible like people, benefits and stuff. Um, I feel like I'm just super excited for Everything that comes with that, like that growth. Um, obviously, I think there's things that are a bit terrifying about it. I'm sure, early on in a lot of trick, there was probably a point where you were like, holy shit, like those things like going up and up and up, and now there's like a lot of responsibilities, um, but yeah, it's it's.
Speaker 1:it's an exciting time, yeah.
Speaker 2:Uh, there was definitely a lot of, a lot of those moments, for sure, um, but I think you know, once you are further along with it and um, I think you're going to be able to do that, and I think that's the best thing about it, and I think that's the best thing about it, and it's very hard to go back Like I don't think you'd, at least for me, I wouldn't be able to go do the standard nine to five.
Speaker 1:Um, also I'd be. I'd be the worst employee ever. Just terrible, Really. That's the spirit, dude.
Speaker 2:Uh, you can do anything, but why do you say that? Um, I don't know, but I guess it depends on the, on the business, um, and the way that is structured. It just feels like at least I actually have never had, you know, a job post, post college, like all all myself was just internships, but for my internships there was just a bunch of scenarios where they're just doing shit the wrong way, objectively, like could very could very easily make you know, this process way more efficient, or, you know, do this thing in a way better fashion than the way that they're currently doing it, but they just don't want to change, or they just don't really give a shit, what you have to say, because you know you haven't been there for 15, 20 years or whatever, um, and in 20 years I want to be, you know, sailing around the world on my, on my yacht, helping advise a bunch of other startups, not, you know, just having like, not just having like achieved the uh, you know, whatever the next, like promotion, um, and I feel like there's a lot of politicking as well too. Like some of my friends who work at very large companies, half of their day is just spent like.
Speaker 2:You know, how are we navigating our way through this organization? Not necessarily. How are we putting forth, like our best work product or best work effort? Um, and you see it all the time, I mean even with like I'll use Disney as an example, like you know, bob Iger comes back and he, he, shit cans everybody, like everybody's gone. Um, that's crazy to me, like not having that level of control of, like your own destiny, um is, is is scary, but yeah, I think dude, I'm going to put you in the house for one second.
Speaker 1:How do you then create so like? Obviously you now see this like you know very unfortunate reality of uh, you know the the working world. How did you, during your time in electric, make sure that that wasn't the case for the people that were working under you?
Speaker 2:I mean for sure, if you asked, like you know, like one or two people, I'm sure they would say exactly what I just said Like that's just the reality. You can't be, you can't be perfect, for you know, for everybody it's not going to work out for everyone, especially when you start growing um and have like enough team members. It's not the right fit for for everybody, Um. But I think for me it was like I knew the type of, or I know the type of manager that I am, or the way that I would want to be handled if I was a team member, um, and it's, it's very much so, uh, not micromanaging, like the exact opposite. And some people actually don't like that. Some people are like, what am I supposed to do?
Speaker 2:Like you know you need to you need to tell me, like, from nine to five, do X, y and Z. I'm like, no, uh, you know, here's the goal, but like you sort of figure out how to get us there. Um, so a lot of it came down to hiring the right people. That would fit into that, because if I hired somebody who wanted more structure, then they'd probably hate it and be like, oh, you know, brandon is a terrible manager. He's not good at setting, you know, clear, like guidelines for what I should be doing, uh, on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:Uh, so I think a lot of it was that, um, and not, and just like not over complicating things, like treating it, I would say treating it like a friendship, but also not treating it so it's like, so corporate and like there, there, there should be some overlap, like I feel like when we were at our our our peak, it was when we were able to, you know, go out to dinner together, like you know, do team events, like bond outside of just the office and realize that everybody has a personal life and their own goals, both professionally and personally, and just having open and honest conversations with team members around what they're looking to accomplish.
Speaker 2:And then the last thing would be taking feedback and actually doing something with it, versus just, you know, a lot of businesses.
Speaker 2:They'll be like oh yeah, you can submit this or that, but you know it's not going anywhere. And so we had every team member submit three things that we're not doing, that we should be doing, and then I put together this like massive slide deck with each item that had been submitted and then talk through each one and like how we were addressing them or how we weren't addressing them or how maybe we were addressing it differently, or like when we did it very early on, we didn't have like all the benefits yet that you would expect at like a larger business. And so talk through, you know, in four months, this is when we're onboarding with, like this CEO provider, et cetera, et cetera, and some of them were ridiculous like you know, pay off all my college debt but most of them were very, very helpful in helping craft like electric and what we were all going to be doing together. It's not like I was just sitting there, you know, directing everybody, like you know chess pieces on a board. It was much more of a group, a group effort.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, that makes a ton of sense. I also appreciate the radical candor. I feel like it is hard once. It's like once you get to a size of an organization where they're certain I mean you can't always be everything for everybody, right I feel like they're so I appreciate the radical candor around that. Yeah, it reminds me of something Mark Loury would say. He found a jet and then, you know, sold it, the Walmart and a bunch of other startups, yeah, so I know a startup that he sold to diaperscom, sold to Amazon.
Speaker 1:He, his like style was hey, we're going to hire the right people. Like you know, he, I think he called it like I don't remember he had an app man that like was like smart, passionate, optimistic, you know, empathetic stuff like that. And he's like if I hire the right people and there's literally things that he would look at on a resume and be like I know that this person was in this role for a long time and they did good work and so I know that they can do good stuff here that's a good fit. If he is, his way of going was I'm going to hire the right people, I'm going to give the direction and if I've hired the right people. They should be able to craft it themselves Right.
Speaker 1:Like they. They have the autonomy to go and build this because I know that they're the right person for the job. There's no reason to like micromanage this person or get them in the different spot. But, yeah, it's probably a leadership style too, where there is certain people where it's like I think Steve Jobs is probably like hey, this is my vision, it needs to be implemented to a certain T and to do that, like there's going to be a certain level of micromanaging that happens. So, yeah, it's an interesting take different leadership styles. But cool to hear that you took the feedback too of the people that are working there, cause, yeah, maybe someday when you're before you're sailing around the world, man, you'll be, you'll be working for someone else and you'll be like that I treated people right.
Speaker 2:No, fingers crossed no, but we'll see. Never say never, all right, never say never.
Speaker 1:Never say never.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for coming on. This was fun. Before we wrap things up here, can you let everybody know, like where they can, where they can find you, your business, online?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so so we're actually finishing up the website right now, so it might be a post thing if that's okay. But you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm Brendan Tobin, happy to connect. You'll, you know, always happen to have a conversation, provide as much value as I can to anybody. So, yeah, feel free to feel free to reach out, and sorry, I don't have the link just yet, but by the time this episode drops I definitely will, and you can find it on my personal profile, so thanks again for having me now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll put in the show notes. I think you know, in my perspective, working with an agency that's just starting like yours, is actually a great time because you still have the A team. Like when you go work with the agency that has 200, 300, 400 people, like the A team has sold and is gone or they're just like sort of there and they're the face but they're not really, you know, in the weeds and that's actually that's how we got like all of our clients as we took, you know, the clients that were not ginormous to some of the larger folks but were tremendously, you know, impactful for our business and they got our A team and so, like one never, never anybody comes to me who's like oh, you know, how do we choose or select an agency? It was like a sweet spot of where you know you still have the A team in place. But yeah, that's my yeah come by, you'll be more than happy with me.
Speaker 2:That's my pitch for adduct.
Speaker 1:Thanks, man, I appreciate it. Yeah, it's all I'm hoping to always give it A team players. That's like, yeah, I feel like I'd rather teach somebody how to do the presenting and teach somebody the interpersonal skills with clients, but just make sure that they're an absolute killer on all things growth. But yeah, yeah, definitely come work with me and you know love to connect and, if not, love to provide value anyway again, yeah, man, thanks again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, we can do this episode in another year or two and we'll see how some of your answers change. Yeah, sounds good, awesome. Well, as always, this is Brandon Amarosa. You can find me at BrandonAmarosacom and electricmarketingcom, and we'll see you next time.