Creative Context
Creative Context blends professional advice with a friendly, down-to-earth approach, making it a valuable resource for anyone navigating the complex relationship between clients and creative professionals. Through stories and practical tips, the podcast helps both sides understand each other’s perspectives and work toward more successful outcomes.
Creative Context
Growing Creative Business While Maintaining Quality
In this episode, co-hosts Douglas Duvall of Motif Media and Eric Wing of Darby Digital dive into the challenges of maintaining quality while growing a business sustainably. They share personal experiences of overextension, discuss strategies for responsible scaling, and explore the importance of pricing, client management, and avoiding burnout.
Video Version https://youtu.be/_pWUEzSqDdY
Maintaining Quality While Growing (0:00)
Lessons Learned from Past Mistakes (4:22)
Balancing Workload and Client Management (8:35)
Pricing Strategy and Client Relationships (9:56)
Identifying Signs of Quality Slippage (18:29)
The Impact of Ghosting and Client Behavior (21:48)
The Role of Contracts in Business Stability (26:46)
Final Thoughts on Sustainable Growth (34:42)
Personal Updates and Future Plans (38:05)
📌 Topics Covered:
Sustainable business growth, pricing strategies, team management, client relationships, burnout prevention, contract importance, quality control, workload management, business scaling, financial planning
📢 Key Takeaways:
Controlled growth, pricing optimization, team capacity, client communication, financial awareness, avoiding overextension, responsible scaling, quality maintenance, contract protection, workload balance
🚀 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell for more insights into the world of creative professionals and those who work with them!
🔗 Connect with Us:
Douglas Duvall
motifmedia.com for high-end video production.
Eric Wing
withdarby.com for digital marketing and web development services.
There's only so many hours in the day to coach somebody. When they are at capacity, they raise their price and then that becomes a new sort of chapter in their business evolution All the people that were working with them at the previous rate. When they drop off and they're bringing in new clients, all those new clients are coming in at that new rate. That is a really responsible way to grow. Maybe you're three times, four times more profitable than you were before and you still have your same team. You're now creating a little bit of a bucket of cash flow to hire that next person.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of Creative Context. Today we're going to talk about maintaining quality while you grow and all the things that kind of tie into that. Um, you know I've personally struggled with this the last three years. Is, motif is a new company and we're trying to grow, we're trying to get to a certain place, and last year would probably be a great example of biting off more than we could chew, um, and this year being a little more intentional with growth and controlled with growth, um, so this is very close to me right now. Uh, curious to hear your thoughts on this eric, where you're a little more established and obviously you're still. You know you're either growing or you're dying right, so you're still. You know you're either growing or you're dying, right, so you're obviously still doing it too. Yeah, but you're a little more. You're a little further down the road than myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so. I think a few years, you know. This topic's actually quite close to me also because over the 17 or whatever, however long it's been, I've seen all sides of it. I really, at this point, feel like I've experienced all the ups and all the downs of trying to grow this agency and I think probably the largest lesson I learned was the lesson of burnout and because when you are trying to scale, there's just so many aspects to it. But I guess the angle to look at right now would be scaling responsibly is what I call it now where you know your numbers, you know what you can afford for payroll or for contractors or for whatever, while maintaining that profit margin.
Speaker 1:Because not so long ago, in a distant day of 2019, we were, prior to last year, at the height of the business. It was a banner year for us. I was hiring left and right, but I was so caught up in the day-to-day that I wasn't so focused on scaling responsibly, and what I mean by that is I had so many people reporting to me directly. I didn't put sort of those like mid-tier supervisors in place or for direct reports, and so what happened was we weren't saying yes to everything, we were to say anything small jobs, big jobs, everything and it was just like a vacuum cleaner for projects. And it was just not the best way of going about that because we were bleeding profitability left and right, because I saw it as, oh, I'm growing the team, we can say yes to everything now, but that's not really. And loose, um, you know.
Speaker 1:And so, uh, the the opposite of that is, um, like I said, understanding, you know, establishing a budget, uh, operating budget, payroll budget, operating all the different budgets within the business, and then having that sort of dictate, the, the growth. In a way, if your business can handle five projects at a time and maintain profitability and a high standard of quality, then you would know that sixth project is going to compromise you somewhere. It's going to be in profitability, it's going to be in team burnout, your own burnout, et cetera. And, yeah, you're not going to burn out from one project over your capacity, but it's the long burn of it. When we reached 2019, I had been sprinting that way for about nine years by that point, so it was just a cumulative effect. And so, yeah, I guess, just to kind of launch us into the topic, I'll sort of bring it to that point. But yeah, I call it responsibly laying the planks or responsibly growing based on your numbers.
Speaker 2:It's a real thing. I was actually. I literally just had this conversation with my two team members before we got on this.
Speaker 2:One of them before I got on this podcast, because it's just weird.
Speaker 2:You came up with this idea for this episode because I don't want my people to get burned out. The two jobs I left are because I was overworked, overworked, uh, underappreciated and pushed to my limits and I realized I don't have to be here and I don't have to take this, so do see you later. Um, so, yeah, I mean, I and I think last year uh, you know Paul would probably attest to this because he was the only person on my team at the time is we took on too much Like fast and loose is the best way to describe it, just to get you know income any way, shape or form, and we were both burning it at all ends. We were both burning it at all ends. Um, and losing a big client towards the end of the year was like a wake-up call, like, all right, we're taking on too much stuff because we lost something that was a real something, we, someone we actually probably made money on. Uh, because we took, we're just taking on too much smaller stuff or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the bleeding, the bleeding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great way to put it and I think, just kind of now, you know, eight, nine, ten months later we're starting to get like our heads above water, I guess, like back to normal, like back to like stasis. So it the ripple effects. Like you said, it's a slow burn and when it catches up with you it really kicks you in the the no flies like it really it really kicks you between the legs yeah, yeah, punching below the belt, yeah but, you know, sometimes that destroys the company.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, straight up. So if you, if, if you can bounce back from it, it makes you that much better. And you know, all right, let's not do that again. You know, let's say no, let's walk away from the things that aren't right for us and, you know, brick by brick, let's build towards the things that make sense for us, and I think we've been a lot better about that. The last, this, basically 2025.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, saying no, um, sticking to our numbers, like sticking to our prices, and if it's not a fit for the person, it's, they're not fit for us. Yeah, yeah, and it's, it's easy. I think it's just like everything we talk about. I say this too much. It's easier said than done, that's true, to sit there and say no to something like oh, this is a good, this would be a good job, but it's just not, it isn't right, it isn't the right fit and that one job could screw things up. It could lead to the bleed or lead to the burnout, lead to that person leaving, or like someone on your team leaving, or becoming frustrated and unhappy to be at the here and so on. Um, so I, I do periodically, not not to the point of being annoying, but maybe every six weeks, two, eight weeks, I check in like how's the workload, what's what's the biggest?
Speaker 2:like what's the thing you like doing the most, what's the thing you hate doing where? Where are you getting stuck? You know, I try to. I just ask a couple questions, sometimes over slack, sometimes on a phone call, and just to get a sense of where they're at yep, yep, that's good, that's good, it's good, it's good management Something that you said, but it comes to mind.
Speaker 1:It brings to mind this idea of, uh, I think, when you mentioned the, you know, sticking to your pricing the, going back to this idea of, like, responsible growth, um, you know when, when, in early career so anyone that's listening now who may be there in the first year or two of business, you, you are going to be tempted to take on a ton of work, uh, especially if you've jumped the corporate ship or whatever, and you're just this is your gig now and your scarcity is a real thing. You're not sure how you're going to pay your bills. You don't have like recurring revenue yet or something like that. So, um, I I don't encourage taking on way more than you can handle, but I do encourage you taking on to your, to your absolutely finding your max right, because, because, if you start saying no to things too early, uh, it could limit your growth. Um, but, and also those early days, you need opportunity to create portfolio, you need opportunities to create reviews and testimonials and like, you need like sometimes that's the payment in those, in those really early days. But I think, as you get along, um, sticking to like understanding what the pricing threshold is for your service within your market and then establishing a foothold there with your pricing. Then when, if you've established that with if you're a solopreneur, maybe you can handle four projects at a time. If you have a contractor or a teammate, maybe you can handle double the capacity or whatever once you establish what that is and you keep your pricing the same, then you know when it's time to raise your prices. That's the beauty of that. And now you're actually you're. You're making more profit per new, uh, new gig instead of competing on price and the the you know the profitability actually goes down because you're trying to bring in more work.
Speaker 1:So you know, we work with a lot of attorneys, um, uh, coaches, things like that, and that's their model.
Speaker 1:When they reach because they can only work with you know, there's only so many hours in the day to coach somebody, so when they are at capacity, they raise their price and then they start, and then that becomes a new sort of chapter in their business evolution, where maybe they raise their price by $50 per hour Well, all the people that were working with them at the previous rate.
Speaker 1:When they drop off and they're bringing in new clients. All those new clients are coming in at that new rate and that is a really responsible way to grow as well. And then when you have now maybe you're three times, four times more profitable than you were before and you still have your same team you're now creating a little bit of a bucket of cash flow to hire that next person, right, and that's how you just kind of like chip away at it and the quicker that your prospecting and marketing brings in new opportunities and you apply a model like I just outlined or something similar. That's a sustainable way to grow the business. One model, one example of how to do that.
Speaker 2:And like you said, earlier.
Speaker 1:It's easier said than done. We're in the midst of this is front of mind, because we're in the midst of doing just that. We tend to be middle market in terms of our pricing and we want to be more like higher, like upper market with our pricing. But you have to do a lot of digging within the business to find out what that means. If you're charging X percent more per hour or per project, can, can? Does the quality match up to that?
Speaker 2:That's the next trick right, yeah, yeah, that is. That's a tough thing with videos when you buy off more than you can chew. You know you're you're trying to leave that shoot a little a little faster than you probably should. You're trying to get that shoot a little a little faster than you probably should. You're trying to get that edit done a little quicker than it should probably be done. You know, like it's like little things that start to chip away at what you you're building yourself on. Yeah, and to go back to pricing for a second, like we went and we discussed it on this on here on a couple episodes last year well, the last two years, kind of, we went through upping our prices and then upping our prices again because effectively there were some clients we had where we were essentially financing their work because we weren't. It was at a point beyond like losing money, like you know what I mean. We were just like we weren't. It was at a point beyond like losing money, like you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:We were just like we weren't making money at all yeah uh, burning money so effectively you're financing somebody's productions, yeah, and you know, and the accountant gave me like the took me to school, if you will, and I'm like, okay, all right. So I had to have some awkward conversations and most the biggest conversation I had to have with a client I didn't want to lose their friend and he's like, yeah, absolutely, you know, like he didn't even think about it and um, so he probably knew we were under charging and maybe a lesson in life was like, well, he's going to figure it out eventually and he's going to ask me for more. So I I don't blame him for coming to me saying you should be charging me more, or I'm not saying that at all, but I feel like he knew, like he was getting a deal and he's like eventually he's going to realize he's yeah, not charging me enough, uh.
Speaker 2:but yeah, it all worked out out in the end, because the people that want to work with you will probably want to continue to work with you even if prices go up 30% or 40% In some cases we were really undercharging.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same here. Something I don't talk a lot about on this show is we have a whole IT division as well. We do not like remote desktop desktop type stuff, but more like website hosting, domain registrations, website security, maintenance and like malware removal like that that type of stuff and we're way under charging on that because you know, once you have someone on the server, it's really hands off and that's there's, I don't know something, something crazy happens and their site gets hacked or something like that. But we were reviewing this recently because we just consolidated servers and we have people because it's so, just to give you an example, it's so hands off that we had people we still do on our server from like 2008 and they were paying $65 a year for their website hosting $65 a year. To put that in perspective, most companies charge about three times that or four or five times more than that per year because you have security like the SSL certificate and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:That should be per month.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it should be per month. They're just hanging on the server all these years, you know, and so so, yeah, there's something else that we we, we bounce around on in our conversations is like looking in your business for, uh, where, where in the where's the bleeding happening in the business? Uh, or where is their money being left on the table? Because you can go back to the person that's paying $65 a year. You can go back and say, hey, listen, we have to increase you to 125. And that is still very reasonable. And we've just doubled, or almost doubled, our revenue from that one account. So we're not going to do that. We've just been bringing people in at higher rates and those other sites, they'll just be grandfathered. There's always money to be, found in the business.
Speaker 1:We're so focused on sprinting forward to take a minute and look back and say maybe we can make some changes. That's sometimes hard to do, especially, we both have small teams and so everyone's sprinting.
Speaker 2:When I really exposed, when it really became clear we were undercharging, is when the team started to grow. So when it was just me we were undercharging is when the team started to grow, so when it was just me. It's sweat equity, it's all coming in like the you know. I mean like all the money's coming into its motifs and it's not. You know, the payroll isn't as big of a um, unnaturally, the payroll isn't as big of a burden and that sort of thing. Yeah, when you start bringing in salaries right, that's when things are really going to start to become clear you're, you're under.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big time so that that I mean it. It caught up with us eventually, right? So what's sort of your test or gut check when you're like feeling, okay, things have things that might be starting to slip, like we need to kind of course, correct here?
Speaker 1:yeah, the first thing that I, the first thing that I notice is we have we have a thing where we don't want our clients following up with us. That's the big one. Like we stay out ahead of them, we're following up with them. So when I, when I see a client starting to kind of like poke it's, poke themselves up in inboxes and phone calls, it's usually a little bit of an indication that they're not feeling heard, seen, they need some attention, and that's usually a little bit of a clue for me Because that's kind of subtle.
Speaker 1:But a more direct thing would be too many revisions on a website design, too many revisions on anything graphic design based. We're in the midst of it right now. We have a client who we're designing three new service pages as well as a lead magnet, and I think I quoted one week to do the pages and I think it's just a few days to design the lead magnet. We're going into the second week now and the client had some more edits waiting for me in my inbox today and so what that tells me is I didn't take the time to have a thorough enough briefing kickoff prior to this project because we've been spitting things over to him and he's been just tossing it right back with all sorts of bullet points, and so when I reflect on that, I'm like, well, what's going on here? Because this is a client we've been working with for over five years and they're one of our top five clients and, um, and I think I can boil it down to that. So, uh, you know, if a client cause we always, we sort of like market ourselves as being you bring us in so that you don't need to worry about all the stuff that we do, right, like you, just you just get it right off your mind. We have status calls and if we're doing our work, then you don't even have to think about the stuff we're doing and you reap the benefits of our work. That's the whole thing.
Speaker 1:But when you have a client that has to spend hours revising things and sending things back and requesting phone calls, those are some really big red flags for me, especially on accounts. I don't directly manage, but I get CC'd on something. Those are the signs I see that we're going too fast and it's generally because we're going too fast. That's the thing and that's very much what's happening in this particular instance that I've been referencing. It's going way too fast Between the three of us. Each of us had a vacation in this mix. We're on this vacation rotation if will, and like the stuff got lost. So yeah, but you know how? About on your side? What are some? What are some signs that quality might be slipping a little bit?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean it's usually around clients right, tears to your point, client kind of voicing concern about x, y or z, and where I'd push back on that and it's in your case. I see what you're saying like this you know something got lost in the equation. We're moving too fast. This person usually doesn't come back with this type of there's a track record, right. This person doesn't come back with that. It's to this extent or whatever.
Speaker 2:I would push back on that a little bit, saying you know, sometimes clients are a little more, for whatever reason, they're paying more attention to this at this moment and they might have more feedback than usual. Like it's hard to know. That's the direct thing for a client, like from a video perspective, not your perspective, yeah, um, and then the other thing it's I guess this isn't a quality thing but more of a client thing is like when there's no, we're getting nothing back, we're checking in, we're checking in or at like what, what is the holdup? What's going on like why aren't we getting any sort of feedback? Because to me that's like okay, maybe they hate it and they just don't. There's no sort of I don't, they don't know how to communicate it or they're just ghosting us and moving on to the next thing. Or I don't know they don't know how to communicate it or they're just ghosting us and moving on to the next thing or I don't know.
Speaker 2:So I guess it's. I guess it is usually around the client, um, but I see it myself in the edit, you know, or the shoot or the, uh, whatever it is. I'm just like, ooh, yeah, we were, we were, you know, rushing in this thing here, we need to do this again, or whatever, um, yeah, so it's a little more like looking at the art side of it, you know, like the, the product itself, and sometimes that's just subjective and the client it's probably not going to notice it. Um, chances are. But I just see it, you know, beginning to not be what it could be. Yeah, but yeah, the, the client ghosting phenomenon is it's become more and more of a thing over the last. You know, even before motif like that was a thing. Like you know, motifs been around three years, so like. But I've seen that just become more and more relevant over the last six years, probably seven years, of like, the ghosting side of thing.
Speaker 1:I just I don't know if you've noticed this at all, but no, not not the ghosting, uh uh. It's super interesting to me, though, from a sociology standpoint. Have you noticed any patterns in, like the age groups of the people that are doing the ghosting?
Speaker 2:it's actually a generation you wouldn't expect, like a probably the generation older than us okay, the boom like boomer generation, yeah, yeah that is surprising because if it were a younger generation, that has become part of the culture.
Speaker 1:I think, like dating apps, for example, you always see like headlines on, like, whether it's Buzzfeed or like whatever it just about like that toxic dating culture of like conversation is better than a tough conversation.
Speaker 2:essentially, yeah.
Speaker 1:Or like the younger generations, and like their relationship to confrontation is generations, and like their relationship to confrontation is very poor, basically, and because of this, like cancer, not cancer. Maybe you have to edit that one out. Um, because of this cancel nature of uh, digital interaction that people have, you know, primarily through social, where you just if you're tired of someone, you just block them, right. Or if you're on a dating app and you don't want to tell the person you're not interested, you just you just ghost them. You know, and and. But for the boomers, I'm not sure how to explain that one away, but um, yeah, it's probably what you said.
Speaker 1:It's probably still based in confrontation in some way and they find that, like your feelings will be hurt, maybe for them not ever getting back to you, but maybe they. They figure it's the lesser of the evils and if they were to give you the feedback it would be more, I don't know, devastating in some way to receive that information or something yeah, it's so.
Speaker 2:It's both the two instances I'm thinking about. Both of them have done it before, so I guess it's not out of character. But it's like now it's gotten to the point where it's like, all right, it's beyond you being busy, like we're all busy. There's no, you know, there's no excuse for something to be pushed into 18, 21, 23 days, like there's no reason for it to get to that point in my mind, uh, in this day and age, yeah, you're not, and that's no offense thing. But like you're not running a country, like we're not doing, we're not doing rocket science, right what's the saying?
Speaker 1:there's a saying that I love that yeah, yeah, we're not doing rocket science. The saying is um, if you really want to do something, you make the time, if you don't, you make an excuse. And I think that's very much what's happening in your situation. I'm trying to think. The last time we were ghosted by a client, it's not like a humble brag or anything, it's just like, I think, because of the way that our fee structure is set up, it keeps people paying attention, so they do have to come back around. We have a lot of automatic payments that go through every month and our contracts kind of put us in a position where we require a 30-day notice. So, even if they do ghost us, there's still stuff on the table. You know there's, there's still stuff on the table that they they don't in the back of their mind. They want to make sure is like cleaned up and they're not going to be charged or they're not going to be on the hook for anything.
Speaker 1:And I think I'm not saying that like our contracts are. We're not. I'm not comparing mine with yours, and but the nature of our work is different too. Um, if someone's coming to us to do a website, then maybe they've given us five grand or seven grand up front to do this thing and for them to ghost us is quite risky. Um, we have, we have had close calls towards the end of a project where they owe us that second installment, the final installment and, uh, if the, if the project went over schedule or whatever, we've had a little bit of pushback at that time where they they communicate, but it's like super spart, sporadic, like maybe weeks go by before they check in or something.
Speaker 1:Um, but on the marketing services side, it's hard. It's hard to ghost. I mean, it's easy to ghost us, but people tend not and I think it's because we're going to tag their credit card every month. Not, okay, I should clarify we're not. If someone goes, if someone just disappears, we're not going to keep charging them, but, uh, we're going to charge them up to the point where the contract ends, right, and we'll keep, we'll keep doing the work as well. I learned this valuable lesson not to go all over the place, but this might be helpful for some people. Listening is I was sometimes I do fractional, uh, cmo work, so like fractional chief marketing officer work, and when I do this, work.
Speaker 2:Sorry to interrupt. You define what that is. I feel like people don't know what that is yeah.
Speaker 1:So it would be like you know, a startup or corporation may have a c, a c-suite for a chief marketing officer and it's it's like. It's like what the CFO does, but on the marketing side, you set the strategy, you manage the team, et cetera. Now, on the fractional component of it, you, uh, you go in and it's usually I'm a stop, I'm a stop gapap, meaning like their current CMO on vacation or maternity leave was the last time I did this or they fired the person, the person quit and they didn't have time to find a replacement. So I'll come in, I'll keep the things moving forward. Usually not create new initiatives, but just keep the existing ones and sometimes help them source my replacement. Basically, but just keep the existing ones and sometimes help them source my replacement.
Speaker 1:Basically, and I was in this position at one point for a really cool, um, uh bike company that does, uh, they do tours in italy every year. They high, high revenue company and, um, they, I was interfacing between them and their SEO vendor and I identified their SEO vendor was actually subpar, not doing the things that should be done, et cetera. But my error was telling the CEO this, because then she's like cancel them, just cancel it. We're not going to handle them anymore. And I'm like, well, let's check the contract. And the contract had something like eight more months on it and long story short, and now I've actually adopted this in my business, that SEO company. So the cycle company stopped paying them. The invoices kept coming, the work kept going, the reports kept coming, the communication completely dead, nobody was talking to anybody. But they fulfilled their side of the contract and so at the end of eight months it was something like eight months times, was it like three grand a month they came knocking with an attorney's letter saying listen, we're going to take you to court. You didn't fulfill your side of the agreement. And they won the case. They got all their money. They got even some extra for damages.
Speaker 1:I don't know, lawyers have a way of getting even more money out of people. So that was a really big eye-opener for me when it comes to like because at that time and even right now we have some older accounts that are not even on a contract, they're just month to month with us before we really instituted contracts for everything that we do. But that was really kind of like a jumpstart for me because I saw the power of the contract, because a lot of times, like for our projects, it would cost more to enforce the contract than it would to just let the client off the hook, and so that's maybe a whole other topic for another time. But yeah, when it comes to like when clients disappear, they don't want to pay, they want to stop whatever. I think it's important, regardless of what stage of the business people are, is to make sure that there's some sort of safety net and, generally speaking, that's a contract right, because legally binding. It's just how business is done and it can really protect if the client does ghost you right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's a good story. That's important. Yeah, no, that's a good point. Yeah, maybe I just fire off some invoices and get some people's attention.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean we can have a whole conversation about, like the word choices I've come to using, like that gets action. Um, you know, it's not threats, it's not mean, it's just like reminding people what they agreed to. Yeah, to the point yeah, yeah, yeah and I'm just saying I'm of that CMO stuff.
Speaker 2:Do you do the fractional I've? Heard that term thrown around a lot. I knew what it was. I guess I just wanted to hear from you, from the horse's mouth, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's pretty demanding. I have one that just seems to be in perpetuity that we do for a roofing company and um and, but it's a little bit different because they're they're not really demanding at all and it's more or less just overseeing their um, their vendors right because I speak the language.
Speaker 1:Right. That's the other side. A lot of businesses don't speak the language of their vendors and if I can come in and and bridge that gap, but to answer your question, I like to have one legitimate cmo gig going at a time because, um it, if, if I'm not careful, it can become a part-time job right it can, actually it can become quite demanding so I enjoy it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could see where that really would suck your time away.
Speaker 1:Especially with like a startup, oh, big time. Because with startups there's really no boundaries and so it can get, Because they're like I'm working fucking 26 hours a day.
Speaker 2:What are you doing? Like let's go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like listen man, I don't have. I haven't replaced water with coffee like you have. You know we've done some work with startups and it's fun, the culture is fun and like helping them get to like the funding stage is. What I really enjoy is to like prepare prepare the founders for, like you know, their pitch decks to angel investors or you know vcs or vcs or something like that. But but yeah, it's oftentimes if you do a good job, they want to hire you and I can't make what I make as a business owner, as a CMO, unless it's like a Fortune 100 company or something and they're going to give me multiple six digits. But yeah, it's fun. It's fun to dip in and out of a business and honestly, I think I prefer to do it for the stop stop gaps.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, maternity, paternity leaves, like you know, couldn't find someone in time before the existing one gave their two weeks notice, stuff like that All right.
Speaker 2:So, as we kind of wrap up this episode, final thoughts on how to sort of of let's put a bow on this about maintaining your quality and keeping things at a sustainable growth yeah, I think it's understanding the business and there are many you know you, you and I we know we know Mr Barbarita, right Like there are people out there.
Speaker 1:There's fractional CFOs as well, and I would recommend that, as a first step, speak with somebody who can look at the business, look from the numbers standpoint and help you generate more from what you've got now, but also create that clarity through budgets, cash flow transparency, all this stuff, because it's so easy to just say, okay, well, we have money in the bank, we have some decent cash flow, let's just keep going. That's literally what I have done, and when you stop and you take a look, you see that you've been bleeding. Now, for us, it was something like $10,000 in just like payment processing fees that we could have easily avoided right Like there's that kind of stuff that.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah, I recommend kind of like taking a step back, evaluating how money is coming in and out of the business and then set the prices and then increase those prices when demand reaches your, your capacity, because then you can continue to work with five people but make maybe two-thirds more by just working. You know what I mean. That's our goal. I think that's the goal of most creative pros is to have the ability to do the work we love without having to be stretched too thin or to complicate the business unnecessarily by hiring a lot of people.
Speaker 1:If you're just hiring people so you can make more money, you're going to find out like what you said, doug, you're going to find out the hard way that it's so expensive to hire people because you also have things like payroll tax. Payroll tax is the same cost as hiring a full-time employee. If you can hire a full-time employee, you could take the payroll tax that you pay and hire another person with just that tax that you're paying. That's how crazy it is. So, yeah, those are some of my takeaway notes on that.
Speaker 2:I think what you said is the way to go. I mean, I don't have much to add to it, just like, if you're going to start hiring people, just be really aware of the true cost. Don't take on that. Like you said, if five clients is the perfect number for you, if you add six and seven, it's going to mess the whole thing up One way or another. Maybe for a few months it's great and eventually something is going to give somewhere, whether it's your team, whether it's the finances or everything you know. Quality.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I think Eric laid it out pretty succinct there. Cool, what's going on? I know you've got a. I think you're taking an actual vacation here.
Speaker 1:Speaking of quality of life, yeah, it's been a bit since I've taken an actual vacation and not a work-cation. I do travel quite a bit, but usually I have my laptop and my phone on and operating the whole time. I'm away and sneaking away to do vacation things when I can, but this time going to Oregon visiting a buddy, a hiking buddy from here in the Northeast. We actually met on top of a mountain like four or five years ago and spent the day hiking the rest of that day together, and now we're good friends. And he moved back out to Oregon and so I'm going out there four or five years ago and, uh, spent the day hiking the rest of that day together, and now we're good friends. And he moved back out to oregon and, uh, so I'm going out there, we're gonna do a little city time, little music festival action, a little bit of mount hood area hiking. It's gonna be should be really great. Looking forward to it, awesome yeah yeah, what about you?
Speaker 2:nothing too much we're. We've got some good projects coming up in august. I'm looking forward to um. I re-watched tron legacy.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you remember this came out 2010, so it's already 15 years old.
Speaker 2:Crazy. Uh. Daft punk did this. The soundtrack, you know, jeff bridges is in it. Obviously, the kid from friday night lights is, so I don't know. I feel like it was an underrated movie. I mean, the original tron is pretty, does not? The time did not treat the original tron well, if you recall. I can't remember when that came out, but it did. Did not age well, sometime in the 80s, I'm guessing. Yeah, but Tron Legacy was really good, and the reason why is there's a third movie to the trilogy coming out.
Speaker 1:So you're refreshing yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's called Ares or something and I guess the Nine Inch N inch nails is gonna do the soundtrack. I think jeff bridges is in it. Um, jared leto's in it. I hope jared leto doesn't it up honestly, but yeah, he was awesome in dollars dallas buyers club.
Speaker 1:I thought he was really good in that he's either phenomenal or you just like what.
Speaker 2:What are you doing? He was good. I liked him in the the blade runner sequel too. That was kind of cool, but he has I mean, he has a smaller part in that. I mean, uh, that's kind of it from a content perspective and, um, so we're gonna take a week. We're gonna take a week break from the pod. Um, this will come out on the 6th and then we'll get back to it mid-august. For those that have listened thus far, motifmediacom if you're looking for video production, podcast production um, my name is douglas duvall, uh, co-owner of motif and my co-host here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, eric Wang, owner of Darby Digital, located in Porter Square, cambridge, and web development. We're starting to develop AI, do some AI development as well, and consulting, but the core of what we do is really centered around digital marketing and generating opportunities for businesses. So you can find out more at withdarbycom.
Speaker 2:Well, really appreciate you guys sticking around this far and we'll catch you in a couple of weeks. Thank you you.
