00:00:00 - Audrey Joy Kwan
We talked about having a ball dropped and then, you know, the team kind of putting their hands up and say, oh, it's, it's not me. It's not me. Right. And kind of stepping away from the responsibility of the ball dropping. I actually look at those as opportunities for team growth. Balls are going to drop and it's a matter of, you know, how you catch the rebound.

00:00:29 - Dana Kadwell
Welcome to Hustle and Gather, a podcast about inspiring the everyday entrepreneur to take the leap. I'm Dana.

00:00:35 - Courtney Hopper
And I'm Courtney.

00:00:36 - Dana Kadwell
And we are two sisters who have started multiple businesses together. And yes, it is as messy as you think because we know that starting a business isn't easy.

00:00:43 - Courtney Hopper
I mean, we've done it four times. And on this show, we talk about the ups and downs and the hustle and the reward at the end of the journey.

00:00:49 - Dana Kadwell
And in this season, we're talking all about the messy middle, you know, when.

00:00:53 - Courtney Hopper
You have to decide to either grow or skip, scale your business or maybe even take a step back.

00:00:58 - Dana Kadwell
And today we are talking with Audrey Joy Kwan about how to scale your business without escalating stress. Audrey owns AJK Consulting, a strategy and leadership consultancy for agency owners who want to grow an agency where they don't feel like an employee and get back more time to do the things that they love. She knows what it takes to build an agency, including supporting an agency owner to sell and exit and consulting for 200 people agencies. She's done it. Audrey and her team have coached and consulted with over 120 marketers, creatives and consultants and have been behind the scenes of multiple seven figure agencies. Audrey knows agency and agency leadership because she has worked in agencies, built agencies, and helped sell an agency across her 20 years in the niche. She has a master's degree in communication specializing in organizational development. All of this to say is she knows what it takes to grow, to lead and to operate a mighty agency. Audrey, welcome to the show.

00:01:49 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Thank you for that wonderful introduction, guys. I'm excited to be here.

00:01:53 - Dana Kadwell
Yeah, we're excited to have you.

00:01:54 - Courtney Hopper
Excited to have you.

00:01:55 - Dana Kadwell
It's really hard to find people who one are inspired by scaling and know how to scale because it's such, such a hard thing to do, especially going from that kind of small business. And you kind of see that growth into deciding like, hey, do I want to be like a huge business? So we're super excited to talk to you today.

00:02:14 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Awesome. And I hear you. I think that the word scale can feel intimidating and I'm sure we'll get into it. But my idea of what scaling means is really understanding what your priorities are for your business and how to get you there. And scaling doesn't always mean ten xing. And I think there's a book that's called ten X. I have read it. And so I gotta say, I love that book. Don't get me wrong, I love that book. And I think for the right person, it's a right fit fit. But scaling doesn't always have to be, you know, ten X. It doesn't need to be that way. And we can get into more of that in our conversations today.

00:02:56 - Dana Kadwell
Yeah, I mean, I think that, like, the ten xing to me was more of a mindset shift. I didn't necessarily love like all the actual, like, practical advice, but it was a mindset, mindset difference of like, okay, shift your mindset to thinking. Like, you don't have to stop thinking small and start thinking large, which I think is helpful in scale. So, yeah, I feel like we're getting out of order here. Let's start with, tell us a little bit about you.

00:03:23 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Yeah.

00:03:23 - Dana Kadwell
And like, what you do.

00:03:24 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Yeah. Oh my gosh. I always say that I grew up in agencies. It didn't, I mean, I look back now and the dots connect. But of course, you know, back then it didn't connect. I actually went to school thinking that I was going to be a lawyer.

00:03:41 - Audrey Joy Kwan
So I grew up from a very traditional asian family and I was given a few choices when I finished high school, and that was doctor, lawyer, engineer, accountant, along those lines. And I thought, okay, great, you know, I'm not an engineer. I'm definitely not an accountant. Numbers are not my favorite thing. I do love people. And so maybe it's lawyer. And so I went into university thinking, yes, let's become a lawyer. I've always wanted to change the world in some way. So the dream that I had then was become a lawyer, work for the government, become a politician, change the world through policy.

00:04:14 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Right. That's what I thought. And, yeah, third year into university I got an internship. So I'm in Canada. And so I received an internship to Ottawa, which is our federal government. And I learned a few things. I learned very much what I didn't like, and I did not like working for the government. I realized that right about four months in the. But what was really cool back then, and I say back then, this is gonna totally age me, I joined a committee that was called e Services. This is back in 2001 called eservices. And it was really the beginning and exploration of digital marketing. And they had brought me into that committee, because guess what? Young person should know about these things. And so I really enjoyed those conversations. I really enjoyed where the future was going in terms of online servicing. And so, yeah, I came back from that internship, wasn't going to quit my degree, but decided to land a couple of gigs, paid and unpaid, that were related to marketing.

00:05:18 - Audrey Joy Kwan
I think that's the best thing I ever did for myself, was like, find an administrative job that had some marketing in it and learn about marketing hands on. So when I finished school, I didn't really have what I would consider a classic, classic marketing degree or business degree. I actually had a poli sci degree with a minor in comms communication. And, yeah, so I got a university and my first jobs were in agencies.

00:05:45 - Audrey Joy Kwan
So I literally grew up in agencies, meaning that I had the role of coordinator, manager, director, you name it. And I did that for a few years before I went client side. Client side means that when you work for an agency, they have clients and you go to the client side and you help them build their marketing teams.

00:06:06 - Audrey Joy Kwan
I literally thought that that was going to be my life, that I would climb this corporate ladder and live that hustle. But in my early thirties, my mom passed away and she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and passed away in three weeks. And so, yeah, and it was one of those extreme, extremely big, life changing moments. It was like a wake up call for me, because I saw her life from a different perspective. She was young, relatively young still. She was 67. And I just never saw her truly live her life, truly do what she wanted to do. And she rarely took vacations. She worked her butt off. And so I saw myself in that, and I saw that what I was doing at that time wasn't truly the difference that I wanted to make. I wanted to make an impact on people's lives and how they run their businesses and how they grow their businesses in a way that is less stressful and allows them to have more joy and more time for themselves.

00:07:17 - Audrey Joy Kwan
So I finished a master's degree in communications. I focused on organizational development, quit my job and started this consultancy. And in the first few years, I was doing a lot of fractional work. And fractional work means that I was coming directly into the agencies and very, very hands on and helping them apply the things that I knew growing up from an agency and building marketing teams. And across the last ten years, I had this business. For ten years, we've sold and exited an agency, and now we coach agency owners and we run a community that's called agency together. Where I. Our sole purpose is to ensure that agencies see each other as collaborators versus competition, and that's what we do in our communities. Wow.

00:08:06 - Dana Kadwell
What? Like a roller coaster. I think the thing that resonates so well is just that kind of wake up call in life. And I think everyone has had some sort of variance of it. But, I mean, one, to lose your mom that quickly, that had to just been so overwhelming. I don't know. Like, I can only imagine it makes you question all the things, like just being told one thing and then having three weeks left.

00:08:32 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Yeah. I was in my thirties, and I feel like that is an age where I should have been, and I hate the word should have, but should have been able to handle what was happening well, but I didn't. I didn't handle what was happening well. And I remember there was a social worker in the hospital, and we all hear this. When someone is nearing the end of their life, this is not a new question or some advice they share with you, and they say to you, now's the time to share the things and ask the things that you really want to know of the person who's passing. It's your final go. And I remember when she asked me that question, I was blank. Like, I didn't know where to start, what I needed to know. And only after she passed did I have the time and space to really understand during that time what I wish I had known. And some of the questions I wish I had asked her that I never did get a chance to ask her, was he, what are some of the things that you wish you had done in your life but didn't do because of fear? That's a core question that I had, and I think because of that question, I asked it of myself. Right. And the answer was, I wanted to start a business that really made an impact in the world, that changed lives in the way that I wanted to change lives. Right. And I think that is really the genesis of the business that I have today.

00:10:01 - Courtney Hopper
I love that.

00:10:02 - Dana Kadwell
Yeah. Powerful. Yeah. And so it's such a powerful question to ask of especially someone at the end of life, but, like, just in general, just to answer that question, like, what are you? Like, what are you? What have you done that you're afraid because you're afraid because the fear is driving that decision?

00:10:20 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Yeah. I think even. And even as we talk about. I know we're talking about growing and scaling a business, I think one of the things that stops someone from growing and scaling a business is that word fear.

00:10:32 - Dana Kadwell
Yeah, it's fear.

00:10:33 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Right. And I think that, you know, as starting a business, there was fear starting it, but I jumped right in. And I think when I think about scaling a business, same thing. Right? There's fear. There's these questions that I think typically entrepreneurs ask themselves, and I see this in typically women entrepreneurs, where they ask themselves, can I handle it? Right? Can I handle scaling this business? And I think that scaling a business has this connotation that has to be, like, crazy busy. It has to be, like working 48 hours in your 24 hours a day. I think that there's that belief, and I will say that when I think of scaling, it is actually doing less so that you can grow more. Right. And I define it. I really define it that way because I want to share with anyone who thinks that scaling is scary. They're really thinking that, hey, it's about adding all these things on. And I'm sharing with you that it's actually not actually deleting things, it's actually streamlining things. And I think there is this sense of focus and comfort that comes when you just look at your business and are able to say, this doesn't make sense anymore for us, and just delete it so that you can focus on the things that make more sense. And I think the principle that I think most of us know is the 80 20 principle, the predator's principle. So scaling is the same thing. It's about doing 80%. Sorry. It's about the 20% of the things that actually make an impact. And getting rid of the 80% of the things don't matter. Yeah.

00:12:04 - Dana Kadwell
Yeah, it was. I was. I went through some business coaching earlier this year, and that was one of the questions. He was like, what is your 20%? Like, basically, what is the 20% that you need to hold on to that that actually impacts your business? You as a leader, as CEO, as a visionary, like in your company, what is that 20%? And it was a really. I mean, I wrote it on my computer. It's still there, actually. It says, what is my 20%? Just to remind me of those things sometimes, because it's. It's easy to fall back into the minutiae of the day. And there's definitely, I think from our perspective, we have done a huge scale where we've hired COO for our companies. And the hardest part of it was really letting go. And it wasn't hard to actually let go. I wanted to let go with every being in fiber in my soul. I was like, I don't want to be doing this. And I know someone could do it better, but there is this really fear in the back of my mind, and I don't think it's fully assuaged either that it's not going to be how I want it.

00:13:02 - Courtney Hopper
It's not going to be.

00:13:04 - Dana Kadwell
Yeah, but there's this kind of fear of, like, okay, like, we got us here. It's our vision. It was our intelligence, it was our ability to read the market and all this stuff. And if you put it in the hands of somebody else, like, are we still going to be successful in 510 years? Like, there's just that it's irrational, and I recognize it's irrational, but there is definitely. That was kind of like, held me back a little bit. Was like, okay, well, how could this person actually replace me in that way? Do you find that to be a lot in your clients?

00:13:35 - Courtney Hopper
I think it's hard, too, because they're going to do things not the way that you would do them.

00:13:40 - Dana Kadwell
Right.

00:13:40 - Courtney Hopper
Like, you've hired this person for their expertise or for their vision or because you think it's going to move the needle forward for you, or maybe it's going to take some things off your plate or whatnot. But then with that, you're also getting rid of that micromanagement piece, right? You're getting rid of that. It may not look exactly how I would do it, and there's going to be bumps along the way. And you're going to have to trust that this person is doing what you hired them to do and has the same care and concern for your business like you do, you know? So it's hard.

00:14:08 - Audrey Joy Kwan
I love this question. I think that when you're hiring at that leadership level, which is a COO, you know, you're not relinquishing control of the vision. The vision is still yours and yours to share, and a CEO's job is to help you get to that vision. Right. I. I think when we think about relinquishing control, we gotta be clear about what control we're giving up. And I think that's, for a lot of leaders, it's less about. And as you're stepping into the CEO role and becoming a leader, it is more about setting that vision and making sure that your leadership team or your team understands what that vision is. And then it's a matter of empowering them to get to your vision. And I think empowering people, you're absolutely right. It's less micromanaging because I think the most effective people will become extremely unaffective if you are always looking over their shoulder. It's almost like setting them up for failure because you don't trust them. Right. And at the same time, I can also understand that it's hard to let go of control. And so my suggestion that I share with my clients is to set up milestones. For example, if you have a vision and this is the dream of where you want to go, it's not going to happen in three months. It's probably going to happen over a course of time. Right? So asking your Coo or asking a person who's leading a department in your business, what are the phases here? Right. You want to see the phases. Phases are milestones. And then what has to happen in those phases to get there? And I think that allows you a measure of control for yourself. And also when you have that roadmap in hand that was developed by someone else, it gives you a sense of security because you kind of know the, even though you have the vision, you know how you're gonna get there. And you're also able to speak into the phases and the milestones rather than looking over that person's shoulder and asking them questions every day about what they're working on, which is not gonna help anyone who's trying to take on a higher level role in your business.

00:16:02 - Dana Kadwell
Yeah, that's so true. I love that. I love the idea of setting faith. Cause I feel like, too, like, we've had a lot of conversation about this person who we've hired, who's super qualified is great, you know, totally door.

00:16:16 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Right.

00:16:16 - Dana Kadwell
But it's such a huge task because there's so many different pieces to it. Like, we have, you know, three active companies that she's over, and I literally just had a conversation the other day very similarly. Like, we just need to just, you know, it's a very much old adage. Like, how do you know if it went by at a time? Like, we just need to get our house in order here and then our house in order here. And it's been. It's been, like, a really interesting. And it has been very freeing. It's been a very freeing experience where I recognize, like, I can go, like, I'm leaving tomorrow for two weeks, and I know I can turn my, like, email off and I know it'll be fine, you know, because there's somebody there that's going to, like, make sure it's fine, so.

00:16:55 - Courtney Hopper
Yeah, because she doesn't trust her sister, obviously, but that's cool.

00:17:00 - Audrey Joy Kwan
No, I think. I think to, you know, I think to come in and say that you have people in your business that you trust. That's a huge win, right? I think, you know, if you can think of back in the day when you were doing it on and wearing your hats, I'm pretty sure you were thinking to yourself, how am I ever going to get out of this? Like, is there anyone that's going to come in and be able to do this for us? And I think if you found someone like you just mentioned your CEO, who you truly trust, that's a huge win. That is like 60% of getting there, literally just finding the right person in the right seat. And I think you're right. The rest of it is learning how to let go. And I think that we can talk about phases and milestones and all those things, but part of it is also understanding that no one's ever going to be you. Like, this is an impossible ask. And I think we expect people to do things exactly like us. But I think if they can get to, like 80% of how you do things, you win, right? Because the other 20% of how they do things might look different. But guess what? It's honoring to how they need to work. And if we are going to come in and tell them they can't work like the 20% that they need to work in, then we're just basically telling them that they can't be doing their jobs like they want to or that we hired them for. Right. And at the end of the day, that's the hard part. It is accepting that no one's ever going to be like you and that they might do the job to 80% of how you would do it and then the rest you got to let go of. Right? And I gotta say this as well. You know, us entrepreneurs, we're a special breed. Right? We're such a special breed.

00:18:37 - Dana Kadwell
Special.

00:18:39 - Audrey Joy Kwan
No, so I. I say that. I say that because, yeah, both of you are probably really scrappy, like I was when you started your business, right? You could wear all those hats, right. You could wear the visionary, the operations, the implementer, and then the minister as well back then, right. You could where all those hats. But I think the reality is when we hire people to oversee our business, those leadership levels, we have to be aware that they might not be able to wear all those hats, because if they did, and if they could, they would probably have their own business. Right? So a lot of us spend too much time, what I call unicorn hunting, when we're trying to find that leadership role in the business. And I think that's how most of us, when we tried to scale is that we think, if only you could find that one person who can replace us. But the reality is when you scale a business, it may not be one person who is going to replace you. It might be two people. It could even be three. Right. And we have to understand that. And I call that understanding your team structure and what is required so that you can truly scale with team. And again, it's not always, and I really believe that unicorn hunting can be disastrous for scaling a business.

00:19:53 - Courtney Hopper
I agree with that.

00:19:54 - Dana Kadwell
I love that. I think that's so, like, I don't know, that's making me, like, really think a lot about honestly sometimes how we hire, because there is this, I don't want to say perception's not the right word, or maybe attitude. When you bring someone into a small business, it's like, well, you're going to have to wear a lot of hats because it's a small business. And there is still some truth to that. But I think it's. And for us, it's always been hard. Like, when we want to hire someone, we're like, hey, we want to do. We want to make their life sustainable. We want to give them a full time salary, we want to pay their benefits. And so there's some financial sense that has to make with it. And so in order to build this opportunity for somebody, they're going to have to wear this hat and this hat and maybe this hat. And I think what we have found, truthfully, I mean, to be super transparent, as we are on this podcast, we have found a lot of failure in that because we are trying to have someone who is great at sales but also has a keen eye for, like, maintenance and can also manage people. And, like, that is a unicorn that is genuinely a unicorn that we never actually and still have not found. And it's like. But it's kind of like mind blowing hearing you say it. That's not logical either, that it does require more people and it's.

00:21:09 - Courtney Hopper
Yeah, yeah, I think a couple of things, like, when you say that, Dana. One, I think when you're like a small business and you have to wear a lot of hats, it's like, can you please clean your own coffee cup? You know, I think that's kind of where it ends. But I also think that it's like you have this vision for making. What? A sustainable life in your mind. Like, it's this full time thing. It's these benefits. It's these, like, I'm like, supporting these kids and blah, blah, blah. Right. Like, that's what it is for you. But there's a lot of people who do not want that. Like, the thought that they might be, want to work 25, 30 hours and make a decent living, they maybe do something on the side. Maybe they're building their own thing, and this just kind of fits in with their niche. I think so many times indana and I get caught up in this all the time of, like, we see life goals one way, right? But there's actually people who want to live their life a million different ways. And it's not about creating the position that fits that way of life. It's about creating the position that fits the business and finding that person that wants to fit that role. You know what I mean?

00:22:06 - Dana Kadwell
Yeah. So I guess my question, Audrey, would be that how when you're looking at scaling, and so we've identified, hey, like, I do want to scale. I want to get out of this messy middle. I'm overwhelmed. I know I can't do it. And even I think, too, as a CEO, when you have so much on your plate, you're not doing anything well, you're just surviving it. And so you can't grow. You don't have vision, all that stuff, and you're ready to move on from that next phase. A lot of conversations we have with people, especially in our industry, which is very seasonal. Right. They're afraid to hire and they're afraid to hire full time. They're afraid to even hire part time. So, like, how am I going to plan on them to be here for this season and to be there for this season? What is your suggestion when someone maybe is dipping their toe into hiring, how they should approach that and what kind of approach they should take to finding that not unicorn, but the right person for that thing to take off their plate.

00:22:57 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Yeah. Let's just address the seasonal question first, and I'll share an example. So I have a client who owns an agency that provides real estate assistance. So they're virtual assistants that support real estate transactions. And that's all her agency does. And her agency is fairly seasonal in the region that she's in because she's really busy during the summer. But guess what? Come winter, people don't move. People don't sell their houses. So guess what happens, right? It dips.

00:23:25 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Right. And so that's a very seasonal business as well. And one of the things that I highly advise if you're trying to scale a seasonal business is to understand your business and the actual revenue it needs for the full year. Not just in that season, right? So if you're thinking about revenue as, oh, wait, like we're going to make all this revenue in summer, so therefore we need to be three people strong in summer and then I can hire some part time and then let them go in the winter.

00:23:51 - Audrey Joy Kwan
If you're trying to build something scalable, it's not sustainable. Because if you're hiring someone to implement the work in a niche market and where you guys are, it's a niche, your service is a niche, right? So therefore you gotta train them up in the ways. And the worst thing you can do is train them up in the ways, which takes time, which takes money, and then come a different season, let them go. Actually, your ROI is affected on that. Your return on investment for that employee is affected by that, right? So instead you want to look at what is the actual revenue you need to make for the full year, to have this full team, and then look at how you're going to make it in the summer, in the busy season.

00:24:24 - Audrey Joy Kwan
And also, here's something else that I advise. Oftentimes we think that in a business, and this might not work in, and I don't know if this would work in your model. Let me just give you an example of what I would advise using this agency does real estate. So if they know that in the wintertime they're going to have a lower season, what they might want to do before they hit that season is to sell what I call drawdown packages.

00:24:48 - Audrey Joy Kwan
So drawdown packages is like another product they can add on that allows people to buy things in bulk. So you can buy bulk number of hours for a very special price to use across the winter. Encouraging people to spend more money in your business and increasing their lifetime value really helps your business thrive through the winter where it's less work.

00:25:10 - Audrey Joy Kwan
So really you're asking people to invest in what they need through the winter and take a promo to do that. So take, they pay less, they buy the package, you increase the revenue line and that pulls up what you have or at least adds to the bottom line what you have to use during the slower season. And in your line of work where it's event based, I can also understand that the winter time could be slower, the wintertime could be slower, like summertime. Everyone gets. I got married in summer. My friends all got married in summer, right? And one thing that I always encourage is not to.

00:25:45 - Audrey Joy Kwan
When you're looking at a business and you want to hire someone, the goal is not to create a whole bunch of new services in your business, but to really look at like what service offering do you have in your business that you could use or apply a different way of making money to? Right. So the example I just gave you is they're not doing anything different. They're still providing real estate transactions to their people, but they just sold the product at the end of summer in a different way to drive more people to buy the thing.

00:26:17 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Right. So you know that, you know, I highly recommend that when you're looking at, and that's an example, but what I really recommend is rather than looking at seasons and who you need, look at the year, look at the amount of money it takes that you need to carry that team and ask yourself how are you going to make that money in your busiest seasons? And then when it comes to the down seasons, what can you provide in your business that keeps that revenue higher? Those are the two things that I would recommend for a seasonal business.

00:26:44 - Courtney Hopper
That's good advice. So what are some of like the pivotal moments or decisions that you have to make when you're doing that transition from being that kind of really deeply involved day to day part. Right. Like before you grow on your team, kind of the beginning here, to having that, like leading a more scalable business?

00:27:01 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Oh, that's a really good question. I think if I were to look at the key things to make a business scalable, I think the first thing is, and I will bang the drum to this thought, it's niching, if you want to build something that's scalable, you need to own a niche.

00:27:22 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Because when you own a niche, you are going to save yourself time and money on many things, including your process systems and your team. And I also like, I believe that when you are building a business, that you should build it to sell. Okay. I'm not saying that everyone should sell their business. That's not what I'm saying. The core belief for me is whenever you're building a business, you should think about building it to sell because it gives you a lot more flexibility in what you want to do with your business. Right. And so one core thing when someone's scaling is I'm a big believer in do you have a niche? Because when you have a niche, you are going to be way more attractive to a buyer in the future.

00:28:07 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Here's why. Right. Number one, you are going to build your thought leadership and have market entry into an industry which someone buying very much want to buy entry into a marketplace. Number two, you've got tight processes and systems. Right. That are in place. And number three, you have a team of specialists, not generalists, and people will generally want to buy those things, right? And so, number one, really, I firmly believe that if you want to scale, niching is important.

00:28:32 - Audrey Joy Kwan
The second thing that I think is really important, any business that wants to scale is thinking along the lines of what I call productized servicing. Have you guys heard of the word privatized servicing? Privatized productized servicing, yeah. So if you think of how you deliver a service, delivering it like a product means having a set number of processes and systems for implementation that you can press repeat on, right. So it's basically prioritizing your service, which is a way of looking at processes and systems, putting them together. So that, I'll give you an example. Let's say, let's use a marketing agency that I work with, right? So they are a niche in H vac.

00:29:14 - Audrey Joy Kwan
I know this is not a pretty niche, by the way. It's not a pretty niche. It's like one of the most boring niche. But I gotta say this too, sometimes the most boring niches are also the most profitable niches. So nonetheless, so nonetheless, they own an H vac agency, right? And so in order for them to prioritize their service, they have to understand what it takes to get a H vac client through onboarding, implementation, and then on monthly retainment.

00:29:36 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Right? And once they have that, they can press repeat on that for every client that comes through the door. That's what we call a productized service product. And then the third thing for scaling is what I call a pod model. A pod model is another way of saying, look, if you are in an industry where you are serving clients, what is one pod that is one collective team. So in an agency model, that might look like you have a strategist, you have an account manager, and you have implementers, right? So that would be a pod model. Right? So I highly recommend that when you're scaling, you understand how many people a pod model can serve in your business.

00:30:20 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Because once you understand that, you can replicate your pods to scale. Right? So simplifies it, right? And the last thing, the last thing is the thing that I think is really important, and it requires owners, business owners, and anyone who is leading others to do, which is work on leadership. So that's the fourth thing. It's work on leadership. And here's why. And I, you know, this is, and I see this all the time, right? So I'm working in agencies, we're building out productized services. All the processes and all the systems in your business do not work without one thing. It's called leadership. And so that's the fourth vehicle. It's leadership. And I think people overlook that a lot when you're thinking about scaling a business.

00:31:12 - Dana Kadwell
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I totally agree. I think that's. I think that's what's been hard, honestly, in a lot of ways for us, is when I think back to, like, our first failures, there was definitely a lot of factors to it. Part of it was not systematizing things that we should systematize and not understanding processes and procedures and just assuming, like, oh, if I just say it to you, then it's fine. Which is not, we all know, does not work. Right. It does not create a standard. It does not create expectations. So, you know, there's definitely that piece of it, but really, what it, the real failure in it all, and I think where we even struggle still somewhat to this day, is, is our leadership style. And, like, finding a person that we. That works for us that can jive with that leadership style. We're very, like, we're not micromanagers at all. We need self starters. We need people that have a large amount of care. And for me personally, like, when I think about who I can manage, and it took years to figure it out, to really dig deep and understand who I was as a manager and who I was even as a person and why I struggle managing people is really comes down to respect. Like, if I respect you, I can manage you well. And if I don't respect you, then I have a really hard time managing you. And a lot of, for me, what comes down to it and where I get so frustrated is lack of responsibility. Like, you know, just even recently, this is something we deal with often, is like, there's a hole somewhere. Like, okay, this isn't getting done. This used to get done. And because we've transitioned job roles and whatnot, this somehow became a hole in whatever process we have. And instead of saying, like, hey, we're not doing this thing, and this person used to do it and am I supposed to do it, or is this someone else's job? Or, how can we fix this whole. It's very much like, well, I wasn't trained on that. That's not in my job description. And it's like, we're not pointing fingers here. This is not about pointing fingers. This is very much about taking ownership of the process that your team has. Right. Because we really do work in that pod model, as you said, process that your team has and understanding where, where the ball is being dropped. But it's okay if it's not a one person's fault. But collectively, we can all agree that somewhere the ball got dropped. Right? Like, picked back up. Yeah. And so there's. There. But I think for a lot of times, as leaders, it's hard to communicate with people like that, and it's hard to figure out how to. How to have those conversations that are productive. And I can't say that we haven't figured out at all. I can. But I can definitely say, like, hey, this is what I value in a employees is what I don't value an employee. This is someone I'm going to have a large amount of success with being their manager. This is someone I'm not going to be successful with being their manager, just based on my own personal, like, you know, personality. Right. I think a lot of people forget that that's. You can learn it, but at the same time, you can't. You can't change who you are 100%.

00:34:02 - Audrey Joy Kwan
You know, let's. Let's talk about what I call leadership philosophy. I think what's really important when you hire someone and you bring them on is to share what your leadership philosophy is. In fact, I believe that's the first thing every leader should do. Dana, you just talked about really knowing the things that you value. For me, it's really important when I bring someone on to a team, my team and my client's team included, is to ensure that the leader has identified what their values are. Some of the values that you mentioned, Dana, it might be transparency or honesty. And so being able to communicate to someone and let them know, hey, look, I just want to talk about your values. And we can talk about your values, too, and better work together. You create an understanding from the get go that can remove, like, six months of pain from trying to figure each other out. Right. And when I say, share your values, oftentimes we think, great, I'll just give this person a list of my values. No, that's not what I'm talking about. Right. Your leadership philosophy looks like this. Like, okay, so one thing that I value is honesty, right. And here's how honesty looks like. For me, it means that when you have a challenge come up, please come to me and let me know what that challenge is. Right. And before you come to me, here's what I would like to see, because I value initiative taking. So please come to me with two or three solutions and identify which solution you think is best and explain to me why. Do you see how clear that is when you bring people. And that's what I highly recommend for every agency owner that I've, you know, trained into being a better leader. It really is. Starts with. It always starts with you, and I think people don't like to hear that sometimes, but it always starts with you. And it's important you understand what your leadership philosophy is. But you communicate that leadership philosophy very clearly, right? Don't just show the value, share how it looks like and what are the boundaries for that value so that people can get on the same page much faster? I think that's, you know, that's the first thing. And then the other thing that you mentioned, we talked about having a ball dropped, and then the team kind of putting their hands up and say, oh, it's not me. It's not me. Right. And kind of stepping away from the responsibility of the ball dropping. I actually look at those as opportunities for team growth. Man, they're the greatest opportunities, because one of the things that we can identify gaps in our business is when balls drop, right? So I always say this to my leaders. Balls are going to drop like really real businesses. They're going to drop, and it's a matter of how you catch the rebound. How are you going to catch the rebound in this situation? The rebound is understanding. Ooh, there was a gap. When a situation like this happens in change management, the gap is actually in change management. So if you can identify that, okay, when we have a change in process or systems, what is the process that we all need to identify for the change? Then that process becomes something that you use over and over again when change happens. A good example is identifying when change happens, who's responsible for leading the change, who's responsible for implementing the change, and then who's responsible for communicating all the change. These are questions you need to ask before you even implement the actual change. And that creates more responsibility in your team members, or I should say accountability. Because oftentimes we think that people just know and have common sense, right, and how to do things. And, you know, this is not our first rodeo in terms of, um, in terms of entrepreneur speak, but here's a speak that we always hear, and it's this, you know, common sense isn't common sense, right? This.

00:37:41 - Dana Kadwell
It doesn't.

00:37:42 - Audrey Joy Kwan
It doesn't exist, right? We all. We all know that, right, as entrepreneurs and people who have led teams. And that's something that stays true and continues to stay true inside the business. Whenever you're looking at dealing with something new, anytime we're dealing with something new in the business, common sense isn't common in a sense, and so balls will drop. And how we look at that as an opportunity is simply looking at what was the gap, and then what do we need to put in that gap for the next time? That's how we all win as a team. And one other thing I just want to talk about is accountability. My perspective of a great team member is this. I firmly believe that everyone wants to do well. I come from that perspective that everyone wants to do well. I think oftentimes people might throw up their hands and be like, oh, okay. It wasn't my responsibility, because they're afraid that if they stepped in and said, shoot, I dropped the ball, that it would make them look bad or less than to their bosses. Right. And I think that a large part of helping your team be able to come to the table and say, my bad, I dropped the ball, which is very important. I think it's important for people to say, my bad, I dropped the ball, because you can only fix something or create something new when someone can own the actual mistake. Ownership of mistakes is very important to me, and I think one way to make sure that the team feels safe to do that is for leaders themselves to own their own mistakes as well. And I think that vulnerability opens up the door for your team to do the same thing. Right. And, you know, I. And the way to do that is literally just tell people, look, I'm human, too. I'm gonna make mistakes. And when you claim a mistake, let them know, I claimed a mistake. This is the mistake. Here's what I'm gonna do differently, right. And it's an opportunity to have a conversation with your team about claiming mistakes and then what to do when you make a mistake. Right. Otherwise, we're all in this, like, cloud of, like, oops, no one makes mistakes here. But come on, we're all human, right? So, you know, so let's. Let's. Let's. Let's bring it up into conversation, because if you don't bring it up into conversation, you try to bury things under the rug. They only come up to haunt you.

00:39:50 - Dana Kadwell
Yeah, I definitely. I totally agree with that. Like, I've. And I've never. I don't like being wrong. I hate being wrong, and I hate being wrong.

00:39:57 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Who loves being wrong? No one. Me too.

00:40:00 - Courtney Hopper
I'm fine with that.

00:40:03 - Dana Kadwell
But I also like, to your point, like, really recognize the value of. I also don't have. I don't have a hard time wearing, bearing the weight of a problem or saying, oh, this is my fault. You know, especially if it allows someone to grow elsewhere, whatnot. But I really love what you said. I think it's very true. And I think when I think back to, like, when we had really great times with employees and we've had rocky times with employees, you know, I think that there is honestly a safety issue. It's where they don't feel safe, and I don't think it's because we aren't good role models for that. I think that anytime you have a lot of change, we've had a lot of change on our team. They don't feel safe to make mistakes because they feel like their job is always a question, like, am I going to have this job next week? And so their fear of, like, oh, well, they let this person go because they weren't living up to whatever the expectation was, which really isn't the case, actually. Every single person we let go is 100% because of honesty and not being truthful and not, like, just not doing. Just not being honest about their job, that they're afraid to say, I did make that mistake, because they're afraid they're going to be on the chopping block next, which is an interesting place for us to be in because we've never actually been in that place before. But we're starting to see exactly what you said, and I think that's a really, really great point, is to foster that really safe culture of mistake making and recognizing, like, if I could just stand in the middle of the office and say, I am only going to fire you, if you bold faced lie to me, that's what's going to happen. Or our sales tank so bad that I can't keep you on as a teammate. Those are the things. Are you a good teammate? Are you toxic? Are you telling the truth? Or are you shirking your responsibility? Those are the thresholds, and I think they seem to have forgotten a little bit of that because I don't know if we've actually cultivated that safe space.

00:41:57 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Yeah, I love what you're saying. I think that it's called psychological safety, and I think cultivating psychological safety is important for a team to do great work. Anytime someone is under a cloud of fear, it's nothing. It puts them in a place where they're looking over their shoulder. And I think when you're looking over a shoulder, it's also hard to take initiative and be creative. Right. So you're thinking to yourself, yeah. You're thinking to yourself, oh, if I made that, if I make one mistake here, it might be my job. Right. And so if they don't want to make the mistake, guess what? They take the safe route. And typically the safe route is not doing anything beyond what is expected of them. At least on paper. Right. At least on paper. And one of the ways that I think helps business owners create more psychological safety for their team members is much like you mentioned, Dana, it is being very clear about what you're looking for in the employee across the year. Right. And when I say across the year, what I mean is I think that there are certain structures that smaller businesses miss that are important and things like work plans. So work plans help a employee understand what is expected of them through the year in terms of their role and in terms of improvement. I think when you can help people understand very clearly what is the results that you're looking for in the position that they have results. We're not talking about tasks, talk about results. Those are two absolutely different things. What are the results we're looking for and ensuring there are checkpoints along the way? Maybe it's every three months. Some people do every six months just to discuss the results. You're looking for the checkpoint and also talking about performance. I think it helps people feel safe because you're giving them an avenue to improve, which is so important as you grow a business. When you're a small business, and it was like maybe you and two other people, I think you're just busy being scrappy or you're busy hustling. But as you start to expand into, like, three people, four people, five people, you really need to think about how do you help the team understand what their actual responsibilities are tied to results. And if you can tie responsibility to the results, you can help them see how to succeed in their job, but also give them a performance plan when they're not succeeding, which allows them to see how they can be a valuable employee to the business. That creates, like, that creates psychological safety. Right. It actually does that. Right. And I think a lot of people, a lot of people are like, when they think about things like applying work plans to the business, they think, oh, well, you know, do we really need that? My thought is, yes, you really need that, because you need, number one, as a business owner, to know what results you want your team to achieve. Number two, you want to have a place where you can talk about those results and make sure that people are headed in the right direction. And number three, you want your team to have that psychological safety piece of knowing that, hey, in this work plan, there are five objectives here with results tied to each objective, you are achieving three, which is great, but there's two here that's not happening. Here's how we improve. I mean, that's safety for someone, right? Being able to be clear about that. And so, you know, that's me and my TED talk on worldwide. Okay.

00:45:25 - Courtney Hopper
Yeah, I love it.

00:45:27 - Dana Kadwell
I think it's great. No, I just, I love this because I think I. That the idea of scaling for people, they like, okay, it sounds like a great idea in theory. And then when you start talking to them, they're like, oh, I have to hire. And then they've had a bad experience in the past, and then they. So they're so afraid to do it again. And I think it's really important to look at why that was a bad experience and recognizing the changes that you can make. And maybe it was because we didn't have a, there wasn't like a safe workplace. Maybe it was because you were leading someone that you really couldn't manage because of personality clashes. Maybe it was about you were trying to find that unicorn, and that is not a real thing. Right. So I love this so much because I feel like this is so empowering. I mean, I feel very empowered. I have like a pages of notes over here of how to really be able to have a success, a successful business with employees, because that's what scaling is, right? You cannot do it by yourself. You have to have bodies and people. And I think it was, someone said to me, it wasn't. I think it was in the ten x book, actually. He said, it's not how, it's who, not how are you going to get there, but who is going to get you there. And that's so true. It's about people. And so I think you have given us so much knowledge today. Like, so amazing.

00:46:42 - Audrey Joy Kwan
I had a lot of fun.

00:46:44 - Courtney Hopper
How can our listeners connect and hear more from you?

00:46:47 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Yeah, we have a community and network called agency together. It's for agency owners. I firmly believe I mentioned this before, that in any industry, agency or not, that it doesn't have to be what I call a dog eat dog world, where one agency gains, another loses. I don't believe that. And so I facilitate a community that is about referrals, connections, and strategic collaborations. If that resonates with you coming over, check agency together out. You can find us@audreyjoyquan.com. agencytogether. And we also talked a lot about work plans day. And if that's something that interests you and you want a template for work plans, come on over to LinkedIn and straight up dm me, that's the best way to do it. I'm pretty active on that channel. If you dm me on LinkedIn and say, hey, love the thought about work plans. I'm happy to shoot over a template for you.

00:47:40 - Dana Kadwell
Well, that's amazing. Thank you so much. And we'll link all those things in the show notes, her LinkedIn page, and the community and all that that she just mentioned. So, yeah. Well, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for your time today.

00:47:53 - Audrey Joy Kwan
Thank you, guys. I had so much fun.

00:48:02 - Courtney Hopper
To learn more about our hustles, visit us on the gram d events at Hebrowski, anthem House and hustleandgather. And if you're interested in learning more about our speaking training, venue, consulting, or our conference coming up, head to our website@hustlingather.com.

00:48:19 - Dana Kadwell
And if you love us and you love this show, we'd be more than honored if you left a rating and a review.

00:48:23 - Courtney Hopper
This podcast is a production of your fluence. I'm Courtney.

00:48:26 - Dana Kadwell
And I'm Dana, and we'll talk with.

00:48:28 - Courtney Hopper
You next time on Hustle and gather.