Arlen: 0:03

Welcome to the agency health podcast, where we dig deeper into key agency health topics, the what, why, and how mining actionable insights to build a better firm. This episode is part of a mini series on beginning with the end in mind, as we'll find building for your exit from the start helps create a thriving agency that delivers great value for you. Your team and your clients. On this episode, I'm talking to Shaun Tyndall of Inclined about playing the long game well. Few agencies reach the 25 year milestone. Shaun and his team have developed a few ways to keep a good thing going. Shaun started Inclined right out of college and the agency has reinvented itself multiple times since. Shaun has valuable insights to share. about beginning with the end in mind, exit options and legacy, and how his enthusiasm remains strong. So Shaun, you've, you've hit a pretty big milestone this year, 25 years with Inclined. And I, I don't think a lot of agencies reach that milestone. So it's something to be really proud of. And I think you have a very interesting story, that journey from, from the beginning. And, and I know this miniseries that. We're in the middle of right now is, is focusing on beginning with the end in mind, but I, I imagine that 25 years ago, you didn't imagine where you would be in 25 years, you probably weren't thinking that far ahead. I know I don't tend to think 25 years ahead, but it'd be great to hear a little bit about the genesis of Inclined, any key inflection points on that journey, if you can, can summarize that for us, how, how it all got started.

Shaun: 1:47

Well, I think that it starts with probably some of the folks that I grew up around, I grew up around a few family friends or friends of our family that had their own businesses that were generational businesses, they sort of planted that entrepreneurial seed, I guess, at a young age. You know, by the time I was 16, I was treating an Adobe Photoshop license for a website that I could build for somebody to give myself a chance to have the tools that I needed to kind of follow my passion and on the internet building websites or doing something that related to some new technology there. And I was probably in the mid nineties, 95, 96 or so. You know, I pursued computer science into the university of Delaware, where out of the first, the dorm that I was in was a bunch of guys. There was like 24 guys and eight of us had our own business by the first semester. And it was dot com boom time, 98, 99. And I started sort of finding success, found a few small clients building just little website projects, static websites here and there, found some folks within the. university or connections I made through college that, you know, maybe were more creative and more capable than I was in some ways. So being able to build a few relationships and have them contract or help execute some projects led to, you know, facilitated my college career, I guess, in the right way without having to work anywhere else. And, you know, at a point, and I think I, I did a, a portfolio of sites for an obituary service. 16 or 20 websites that covered the country that paid me more than my parents made that year. Wow. While I was in college. So, you know, that kind of like dot com boom opportunity slash success led to, you know, the brand of Incline being established because I was sort of inclined to do things like inclined to solve problems for people. Customers, but really mainly a focus around digital marketing and websites specifically, because I really didn't want to get into the it world and listen to people complain about things being broken all the time. I like to be creative and like to help kind of nurture and grow businesses. And I felt like I couldn't do it by myself. I couldn't, I didn't have the capital to. Or maybe the wherewithal at that point in my life to kind of, like, organize a business, I think, in the right way, I sort of looked at my capabilities as a business and services that I could provide, and, uh, my parents encouraged me to kind of establish a real, you know, an LLC, and then it turned into a corporation, hired my first employees, effectively, I think, a year or two out of college. And kind of been on a run from there, mainly focused around content management solutions, initially with cold fusion, then with open source things like Drupal and WordPress, and just tried to surround myself with really kind of awesome people, find fun clients to work on that keep me interested in what I'm doing. In the projects or I guess in the work, and I would say I've learned on the fly for the past 25 years and probably continue to learn that today.

Arlen: 4:52

Yeah, it's, it's really interesting. It sounds like you, you started Inclined not because you were aiming to, to build some, Substantial business that lasted 25 years, but because you enjoyed what you were doing, you saw that you could add value and earn money there, and, and, you know, you, you pretty organically came into that taking one step at a time, rather than a bigger plan or ambition. Is that accurate?

Shaun: 5:20

I mean, I would say at some point in my college career, there was a philosophy class or something that was like, define success and what you and where you wanna go. And that kind of me to realize that, you know, the folks that I looked up to or that were mentors of mine or that. You know, I wanted to have independence. I wanted to have flexibility and I wanted to effectively invest in something that if there was risk, it was my risk. It wasn't other people's risk. It wasn't felt like the only way, the only path for me to go, you know, I was the first college graduate in my family. And so it was like the right path for me to take to maximize my capabilities or the connections that I had growing up in kind of a rural area. I would say because of the connections or mentors that I had when I was younger, being that, you know, in a lot of cases, second or third generation business owners, family businesses, in my mind, and really kind of still today, what I'm building or investing in is a family business and that family, you know, I have three children, if one of them is interested or any of them are interested in the company, that's what I want to create the opportunity for. Okay. But if none of them are interested, then my family is the staff that have worked with me for over 10 plus years in a lot of cases and creating a situation where. You know, they can take ownership or find success with inclined and take it beyond me. If that makes sense.

Arlen: 6:46

Right. Right.

Shaun: 6:47

That's my, I don't know if there's an exit, but there's a fault in that direction. I'll put it that way.

Arlen: 6:52

Yeah. And that longterm philosophical approach to building wealth. It sounds like you, you had that in mind at the beginning you, you had in mind what you could see from people you look up to that were successful and that long, even multigenerational arc. that, that powered their success. How, how do you define a healthy agency? You know, what are the characteristics of, of an agency that make it one in which you thrive and, and one that you, you want to be running for 25 years?

Shaun: 7:25

I, you know, there's obviously financial health. You know, the, the company has to be sustainable financially. I think number one, but there's sort of a component to that where it has to be sustainable for the people who are involved in it. So the things I've learned over those 25 years are, you know, the 60 or 70 hour work weeks I put in when I was 18, 19, 20 years old, or it's not, it's not sustainable. So finding a model that. allows whether it's my participation or any of the folks that work with me at Inclined, every role we have in the company has to be sustainable. And the clients have to have, like, see the value that we're creating for them. And, and the clients play a role as well. They have to find or see that what we're doing for them is creating them success. So if we're creating success for them, they'll reinvest in us. We're executing or accomplishing that in a sustainable way. So it. makes it something that it can have that longer time arc to it. It's not, there were so many companies in that dot com boom era time when I was getting started that were firing up and crashing out and I, I couldn't afford to crash out. Like, that's in the, in reality, I didn't have, or I didn't want to have a backup plan. So, everything we kind of have crafted since then, or even when we've pivoted or made small adjustments to the, to the business, it's always been aimed at making it sustainable for the long term. Because I think that's, that honestly creates the most value in a company, a company that's, You know, based on technology, that's a short term technology or fad or whatever you want to call it is not really valuable in my opinion.

Arlen: 9:06

Yeah, and one thing you shared with me in a previous conversation where some of the things that you have done over the years to help escape some of that feast or famine cycle so many agencies experience and I hear you alluding to that a bit in that approach to sustainability and and building everything in terms of. The value that you're creating for your team members and them working in roles that they enjoy and they're not burning themselves out, the value you're creating for clients and making sure that that is a great return on the investment they're making with you. How, how has that played out in terms of your strategy for, you know, sustainable, steady revenue and profitability over time?

Shaun: 9:49

It starts with. I learned a lot early on that wasn't sustainable. You know, the certain, you know, whether it's sales practices or. Contracting practices or other things that really didn't make customers happy in some way and wouldn't lead to them coming back and hiring me again in some situation. Uh, and to me, you know, the healthiest, easiest thing you can do is to continue to do business with an existing client. They're the cheapest acquisition. You could make and everything is sort of in our case built around finding ways to help our clients consistently find success and adapt and adjust to that success. So, you know, whether it's when they on board with us and execute a project, everything is leading toward the relationship that we're building. The type of support we can provide to them setting up a mentality with the client that there's continuous improvement going on in every aspect of what we're doing, whether it's the code and the applications that we're managing for them, or whether it's the the measurement of the performance of their digital marketing. Those are all things aimed at. Continuously and iteratively improving, which makes them a sustainable client for us and demonstrates our value at every iteration. Like we accomplished this, this created value for you. It created revenue for you. It created less friction for your customers, whatever that value creation was. We try to build our relationships around that, which has led to us working with clients for, I don't know, a number of our larger clients who have worked with us for more than 10 years. And it also leads to like a positive relationship where when a client, you know, a marketing director or an IT director might leave one organization, they kind of take us to the next organization that they go work with, and we roll those same practices out because they understand that how we're setting everything up is aimed at, Helping them be successful, helping them reduce chaos or fires or weekend and night kind of work. Like we're looking for sustainable Monday through Friday, normal business hour kind of opportunities and activities that just constantly lead to layers and layers of success, which It isn't always the case. You know, you know, we sometimes find hurdles and sometimes find issues that arise from that. But the general approach has worked in that way for a long time.

Arlen: 12:09

Yeah. And what I'm hearing there is you, you come to understand what's really important to them. What does success mean for them? What are those metrics that it's not just a, uh, a milestone or a project, but the business metrics that over the long term help them be sustainable. And then you figure out how can we add value to those things and contribute to their success year after year towards those KPIs. Exactly. Yeah. It makes, makes a lot of sense. I know that having 25 years, someone who's earlier in their journey, let's say they're just starting an agency or they're a couple years in their experience might be a little bit different. And I don't know, How much visibility you have into other agencies today and how they're developing. But do you think the playbook that you've used to build this 25 year success, does it feel like it's still relevant today? You know, do you feel like if you started an agency today, you'd take a very similar approach or, or is some of that 25 year success or a meaningful part of that built on the era in which you began?

Shaun: 13:18

I think that if I started today, It would be scary because the world is so much more complicated than it was 25 years ago. Like I've been able to grow in an industry that really started out with some pretty simplistic technology and some pretty simplistic expectations from the customer side. And has become much more complicated. And so I honestly, even, you know, we were probably more of a quote unquote full service agency 20 years ago, you know, that we could facilitate, you know, we had graphic designers to do branding and, and a lot of the services that we really don't even offer today because we found our. Niche that is successful for us and our skillset that's successful. And that's probably the first thing I'd start with is if I started today, would that be, because there are so many, and I think I've answered this question for a few different startup agency owners through discord channels or Slack channels that I participate in that you really. Have to focus on something and grow from there. You know, if you're a Shopify agency and grow from that technology base or problem you're solving base and grow out because it's really, really difficult to compete today, I mean, it's also the type of client you're trying to target. I mean, we've honed our client profile quite a bit from where we used to serve everybody for any kind of website they wanted to build to we declined most of the opportunities we get today because they just don't fit our key client profile. So like that. That's the hardest part, I think, today that I've learned or that we've, you know, evolved to.

Arlen: 14:56

So that, that focus, I mean, you started, like you said, in a different era, simpler era in some ways, and have been able to grow into the complexity of the market today. But if you were to start over, you would pick something pretty focused, pretty narrow, whether it be a technology or a problem set within a vertical, and be really good at that, and then branch out from that point of strength.

Shaun: 15:17

Yeah, exactly. And I would probably do it mostly through. You know, a loose connection of partnerships of other folks that could compliment my capabilities and I'd grow it that way. I don't think that the agency model today is really very distributed. It's not as, at least in where we are, how we operate it. You know, when we started, we had an office building. We had, everybody was in one place and it's a much different ecosystem today.

Arlen: 15:43

Yeah. I know with this sustainability focused model, a lot of your work is for the same customers year after year. I think it's a pretty high percentage of your revenue, right? Overall is for.

Shaun: 15:54

Yeah. Yeah. It's probably. 70 or 80 percent of our revenue is from existing customers.

Arlen: 15:59

So what, what do you do to qualify those few new customers that you add, because you are pretty focused now, are there, are there any things you've found really help you to determine in your case, is this client going to be a great match for us longterm as part of that? Sustainable portfolio.

Shaun: 16:16

It starts with a sector. I mean, there are certain sectors that we focus on today that we feel like are customers that we can grow with today. It second to that is complexity. Like there has to be a need for an agency like ours. I mean, there has to be a level of complexity to what they're doing that, you know, you can't just solve at Squarespace or, you know, more simple solution out there and. Usually it's the sort of size of their marketing and I. T. team. There is a size that's too big for us. Like we're, we just aren't a big enough agency to serve certain organizations. And there's a size that's kind of too small for us where, you know, they aren't going to be able to execute or utilize our services in an efficient way. And, you know, we do creative services, technical services, and analytical services. Some of our clients use us for one or two, some uses for all, you know, there's a certain way we operate. works well with, you know, and again, probably the last qualifier is that a certain technology set. So, you know, because we primarily are utilizing open source tools, you know, a client that comes to us with a proprietary platform, unless they're looking to migrate away from that, we're not going to work with. So it's a pretty tight set of, Requirements. Typically, there's only two or three sectors that we're really looking to do business in at this point, or add clients. And I would say, and until we may grow a little bit, that's we were really too small for a lot of opportunities we get. And then the other part is like. We may get opportunities and that fit two or three of those requirements, but there's always one requirement that's weird, that doesn't fit us. So that's why we only expect to add one, two, three new customers a year. Maybe we might lose one, two or three customers a year. It's kind of the way it goes.

Arlen: 17:57

And you mentioned your size and the trade offs there. being being smaller, their advantages to that their disadvantages. Tell me, tell me how you think about the size of your agency. 25 years in and where you are now and and how you make those decisions about growth.

Shaun: 18:12

You know, we're roughly 15 full time folks. And then we add two or three contractors, depending on projects that we have going on. We're probably as big as we've ever been right now. And there's just a hurdle between operating a 10 to 15 person operation. And then above that North of 15 staff, you, you know, I would think it's like the pizza problem or there's, there's some reference out there, but there's a certain size where we tend to. It honestly operates somewhat, we talk about operating somewhat like a law firm where we have attorneys and associates and, you know, certain clients are paired with certain attorneys and associates because There's knowledge and skill set that matches and we work to kind of operate that way. So when it comes to scaling up for us, we would have to add a whole kind of set of people together, an attorney and a couple of associates and a paralegal, a

Arlen: 19:05

whole team to

Shaun: 19:07

grow to that next level. And that's really the way we've always kind of grown. or reduced our size. You know, when we were, when I was a one man band, it didn't quite work until I added two or three people. I needed creative and technical help because I could sell and I could do it. You know, I could do a bunch, but it wasn't really great at the creative side. It wasn't really great at the technical side, but you need to serve the customer. You need a project plan. You need to do the invoicing. You have to do all the administrative stuff that operates that business. That three person team works great. You know, that's where I started. And then getting to that six or nine person team, getting to that 12 person team, like We've always kind of scaled in that mindset and it's, it's worked well, you know, I have to want to grow, I have to want to take the time to do the hiring and do that and I'm more honestly interested in a lot of cases in the technology that our clients are using or automations or other types of ways to grow or become more profitable than I am adding more people and having more customers because that isn't, you know, we don't, I don't like selling widgets like we do a lot of custom stuff. We do a lot of. Things that are really intricate for clients. So the size of the business has always been one I've wanted to be, that's, that's manageable.

Arlen: 20:16

And, and I think that's part of why you're still doing this 25 years in, right? Because you know what you enjoy, the part of this that you enjoy, which is still being able to touch the relationships with the client, still being able to have some involvement in the strategy and what's happening. Uh, and that keeps it interesting because the problems are, are changing. You mentioned one of the key qualifiers for clients being that they have complex business and technical problems. You're, you're not wanting to work with clients just because they're willing to give you their money, right? You, you want that complex problem to be there because then you know. It's probably going to be a sustainable long term relationship. You can add a lot of value to that, that more complex problem, which in turn feeds your interest in the business and the 25 year streak. Yep.

Shaun: 21:04

There's always something new around the corner that I, I get interested in and I'm gonna grow or, or not necessarily grow, but learn and, and, yeah. Help our clients learn, you know, like each iteration in the 25 years, you can look at it like, Oh, look, it was cross browser compatibility and then it was mobile and then it was, you know, or e commerce and then mobile and then, you know, AI and learning how those things affect digital marketing and how they can be applied to our clients and help them be successful or even our own business has always been really what my interest is in.

Arlen: 21:36

So you talked a little bit about beginning with the end in mind earlier in the conversation, but let's dig into that a little bit more. How have your thoughts on what an exit strategy could be for you evolved over the years? I know you're, you're playing the long game. Yeah. Where, where do you stand now? And how, how has that shifted?

Shaun: 21:55

I, we've had offers, I've had folks offer to buy the company. And at those points, you know, in 06, 07, or in 2012 or 13, I've had different moments and I don't think I was really ready to even think about it at that point because I was. 20 something or I was in my low 30s. I'll be 44 in a week or two. I still feel young. I still feel like what would I do if I exit it? I don't have like a next. This is always what I wanted to do. So there's a certain part of what we do or what I do that I still can't envision. A different

Arlen: 22:29

life after the agency, what would it be

Shaun: 22:32

that I can, I mean, I certainly enjoy traveling and I enjoy a lot of things, but I still need to put my hands on puzzles and solve puzzles, help businesses. Like that's just what I do. But I would say at this point we are better planning with some of our, some of the folks that might help are my retirement planning or our accounting. look at, you know, okay, what is the net? What does the next 20 years look like? And what are the options in that case? So my mindset hasn't necessarily shifted. I still think, you know, there's probably a number of paths for Incline to take in the future, in the next five years, 10 years or so. It's definitely a more competitive landscape every year that goes by. But I also think there's a big space for people that solve problems and help companies solve problems. And you're not just going to get replaced tomorrow with what we're doing. So, you know, I, and until you pose the question, I don't really think about it that much. I don't, I like it's, it's too far away for me to worry about it too much. I hope one of my, I have some really smart, talented kids, and I hope that what I've started, it may not be the same business. It may not be exactly what we do, but I, Incline the brand, the idea behind it is not necessarily that, that we just do one thing. Like we are able to adapt and explore and change over time. So what this business is in 20 years might not be a service business as relates to. Digital marketing might be something different. You never know.

Arlen: 23:56

Solving complex business problems is more the core interest for you. It seems like,

Shaun: 24:01

yeah,

Arlen: 24:02

so that, that could be, could be one of your kids taking it on. You mentioned also, it could be the, the team that you have, maybe some people in your team, 10 years down the line or whenever. You're looking to begin more of a transition, you know, there, there might be someone who's really interested in, in taking that on as well.

Shaun: 24:20

Yeah, we've, we've talked to a few of our clients are ESOPs or have done that conversion. You know, those are things that have come across the radar, just haven't felt like they're the right time yet or the staff isn't quite, we've been a young staff for a long time, you know. That's the other factor here. Like our team was average age was like 23, you know, 10 years ago or something. Like our staff is maturing, you know, they're having children and like some of those factors start to play into how we help them, you know, have a career and find success with us, I want to take care of everybody that's been part of this in the way, not just my family, but all the families that we're connected to. So. We'll see how that turns out. It's, you never know, you never know.

Arlen: 25:01

And just drawing on your own experience and thinking about your, your personality, what do you think might make someone a good match for playing the long game? The way you have, are, are there things that might be good markers for someone who, who would really enjoy playing the long game. Maybe they feel some pressure to build and sell, but why would they do that? You know, maybe they're actually a better match for making this a career.

Shaun: 25:27

I mean, if you're like me and you don't know what you would do after this, I think that's a good indication. Good marker. You know, that's a good marker. Like if you feel like this is the only trick you have in your bag, you know, you got to maximize this one trick for quite a while. I think that's, I think that's one way to look at it. I would say, I, you know, probably plenty of folks who are more skilled or smarter than I will, I am, that probably would have found a way to exit Incline and still continue to do what I'm doing in the right way and be a little bit more successful. Maybe even one of the markers is that you're not looking for that stress and that anxiety and that pressure, you know, that, you know, there's a work life balance that I have that I think is pretty dang good

Arlen: 26:04

and probably pretty uncommon as well.

Shaun: 26:07

Yeah. I mean, I have a, a mile trail around my property. I can go walk anytime I can hang out with my kids anytime my staff has the flexibility to travel and do things like we have a, we have a certain marker. That's probably someone that's looking to enjoy life and be successful, but to find that right balance, I mean, we're not chasing the next dollar so hard because it's not in the end. I don't think it's about the dollars and there's a lot of experiences and relationships that we've built along the way that. Are really valuable. Yeah.

Arlen: 26:39

Oh, that makes sense. And, and I think that core thing, your personal interest in the work you do for your clients plays probably a big role in that as well, that you're, you're not getting bored of that. As long as you're focused on those more complex problems, they evolve, they change. You mentioned. The different eras on the web and, and, you know, now that you're of AI at the moment and there will be a new one, you know, things keep changing. And so, because you're interested in the work with the clients, not just building the business, uh, I think that, that helps. People who are like that, who enjoy that, may also find playing the long game really rewarding and valuable. So, thinking about what, what's ahead for you now, in, in the next few years, do you see any, any changes in, in your strategy on the horizon, any changes in, in the focus of Inclined, any, any new evolutions? We, we just mentioned AI. Are there things that are really impacting the kind of work, the kind of clients, the approach you take?

Shaun: 27:35

Yeah, I mean, I would say AI is probably the most impactful thing that we are embracing and or learning about, I guess, whether it's how we, you know, uh, my sales processes have changed using AI because I can, I can draft a project plan in GitHub and I can have an AI right out. So timeline budget into a document that I can share with a customer that takes me hours less time

Arlen: 27:59

now,

Shaun: 28:00

um, to iterate on, you know, when I do collaborative clients on project briefs, things like that, I think we're probably getting into a little bit more marketing automations or other types of automations that leverage, whether it's a or not. I think that's probably where we are growing slightly, finding ways to help our clients sort of measure and iterate more iteratively and quickly using automations, or just serve health care clients as an example where, you know, serving them. their healthcare system, their employees in their digital marketing needs, finding ways to collaborate, discuss, capture, execute that those types of problems to help streamline business operations are, it's weird because it's like we primarily build websites, right? But that website experience connects all those people together. And it then leads us down the path of finding ways to automate the activities that occur from some of those engagements or. You know, I literally just had a request come across my desk earlier today that was, how can I get this AI bot access to all of my content on this website? And so helping those APIs get connected and collaborating with other vendors to help solve those problems for clients is kind of where we're probably headed. A lot of what we do, like, you know, the simplistic website stuff is, it's just easy today. It's the, it's the more complicated business operation automations that I think is where we thrive.

Arlen: 29:27

Yeah. And that's interesting about the way you're positioned because you have this portfolio of clients you work with for the most part over many years, and you are always focused on the more complex problems with them so you can continue to grow and, And iterate with their needs. I, I know a lot of agencies seem to struggle with this idea of retainer revenue. And if, if they're used to, you know, projects and, and maybe some Staffog as well. These things, you know, build something, rebuild something. And when they stopped to think about, okay, what value could we provide that is more ongoing? How can we turn this into an ongoing revenue stream? You also mentioned that for you, an ideal client has the right size of team internally too. So you're not too small, not too big. What advice might you have for how an agency can think about that retainer side, that long term relationship beyond the build, the rebuild in, in the web and product space? How, how do you find those opportunities that lead to that ongoing stream of, of value add for the client?

Shaun: 30:31

I mean, it starts with the philosophy of continuous improvement. If you have a client that's hiring you for a project and that's it, you're a bad match, right? You, when you bring a client in the door and you have the conversation to introduce your agency, it starts with setting an expectation that Project is a project, but that's one bit of a larger product management that you're doing, or one bit of a bigger picture, and that bigger picture could be as simple as, I need to do security updates on this application. That's a very simple value add that occurs by the agency, but when you look at the other opportunities, once you have that relationship. And you're able to identify that, I don't know, this client has peaks and valleys in their traffic of their website, or they have different types of audiences they're serving and how you can help them be more successful within that region. That's where it really starts. I don't, we literally don't do project based work while off projects. Yeah, yeah. We quit that when we realized that there was no future in it. You know, the client is there and they're gone and, and it doesn't help your business succeed. And you, we really don't get the chance to help them in the right way. You know, we did the project for you, but that's not the best way to use our skills and our, our experience. And I think most of the, most of the clients today, it kind of had that expectation, at least that walk in our door. Maybe that's just weird, but. I don't, most people don't come to us and say, we just want a project done. Most people kind of understand today that there's more complexity to accessibility compliance or other things that have to be maintained or supported or ideated beyond the initial activity that's going on.

Arlen: 32:13

So I'm hearing two, two main themes there though. One is. Positioning from the beginning. And I think as you point out, most people want this. They recognize the need for ongoing value. So positioning yourself as a, a long term partner that's there to help them achieve their success. You're, you're not interested in a one off engagement to kind of give them a little boost. You want to be there to help them long term. So that, that frames in the whole conversation to begin with. They have that expectation from the beginning, even if you start with a project, right? But. You know, that's just a piece of it. And then the other thing, which you mentioned earlier as well is, is really understanding what are those business metrics? What are those things that are critical, foundational to their success and figuring out how you can contribute to that in an ongoing way. And that combination of positioning and focus on business value, long term business value leads you to the opportunities to add value for them in, in a retainer relationship. And,

Shaun: 33:11

and I think in our case, the retainer relationship is, everything is as transparent and as fair as we can make it. Our retainer relationships are dollar based. So you're just spending dollars and the retainer is there to hold resources for you. It's not a retainer relationship that you use three hours or you lose them every month, whatever that might be. And that fairness in that relationship or that retainer arrangement creates a level of, like, reciprocal respect and or trust that, you know, we'll scale up or down your retainer anytime we have a, our relationship says every three months we evaluate whether you're using those resources or not. And it's up to us as like a man, a product manager, portfolio manager for you to ideate for you. What are, what could we do that would help? And here are ideas and this is how you could use your time and money. So we're here to provide that value all the time and it makes us work for it. I mean, that's part of, I don't know, that's part of the excitement of our agency is we kind of create that pressure within the groups that work together to, to create the fun ideas. And

Arlen: 34:14

you're not waiting to take their order. You're, you're, you're there to serve if they have a need they bring up, but you're also looking out for our best interests proactively. Yeah. And, and can you just explain. Exactly how that structure works. So you mentioned that it's dollars and it's to hold those resources. Can you just explain how your retainer structure works there?

Shaun: 34:33

Uh, we do an estimation on resources that the client that we believe the client will need, um, to start the relationship. It's a dollar value. monthly, quarterly, annually, however they want to pay it. We manage it basically monthly. Um, our commitment is having an account coordinator managing those dollars versus the backlog of activity toward your project. And we invoice those dollars.

Arlen: 35:00

You invoice against that dollar, dollar amount with just time and materials, essentially. Just time and materials.

Shaun: 35:05

And we, we, part of the deal is, you know, every thing, it depends on the client, but every, basically every three months, every quarter. We look at usage historically, and we make sure that that usage makes sense against their dollar value. And we adjust accordingly or the client could come to us. We, we, you know, we work with nonprofits, so clients can come to us and say, my grant wasn't funded. I need to scale back for the next year until I get another grant. And that's part of that trust building and relationship building that we provide is, you know, we're here to scale up and scale down. We have clients that have been in business for a long time or have been in business in different ways where. They have to have that flexibility to scale up and scale down. And that allows us to maintain that relationship in the long term, build trust. They have confidence they can come to us at any time and say, Oh, well, I need, you know, like the end of the year, we have a campaign we need to execute by December 15th, um, we have money available. Let's go do it. So we're just matching resources up against that. And really, we become a resource management focus group.

Arlen: 36:02

Yeah. So you talk to the client. You identify the business value, the ways that you can help them succeed and succeed more. And then you attach a budget to that, that you both agree on, this is going to work for them. You feel like it will allow you to add the value that they want. And you're reassessing that, you know, every three months, roughly. Uh, is that right? So that budget is, is really set on that cadence, but it's for the month. And then your team is billing against that budget. So if, if you're not putting the time in, you're not charging them, but they've pre approved that budget.

Shaun: 36:37

And I've like, we have a couple of folks on the team, like me, I act as a senior advisor and I typically have. A six to eight month roadmap for a client of what we think your recommendations of what we think they should be doing and accomplishing. And that's anything from, Hey, your content management system is going to need an update because Drupal version X or WordPress version X has an update to this is functionality or new features that we think would be stickier for your client. In this particular user experience, or these are reports that we think we need to generate for you to help you communicate to your boss, the value of these things. And so we're always trying to help give our. Marketing teams that we work with, like, honestly, stuff they can't execute internally to help justify their budgets and value, which then helps us be successful.

Arlen: 37:23

That, that makes a lot of sense. And, and do you find that there's a minimum level of engagement that really works for you and the team then? If it's smaller than that, then it becomes difficult to plan out the, the resourcing, the team's time.

Shaun: 37:37

Yeah, we, I mean, we have three levels of client that we work with. The retainer level tends to, you know, this is most of our clients and, or I would say it's most of our revenue because they're key customers that need the resourcing at the lower levels. We have less frequent meetings and we have, you know, more automations involved or less expectation setting happening, but it allows us to take a customer and say, okay, well, you're at our lowest level of relationship. We might meet with you once a year. We don't necessarily maintain a roadmap for you, but. We have a relationship and then in that relationship, we're able to propose, Hey, for the next year, this is what we think you need to consider, which then sets the queue of, okay, well, in three months, we have a project that we can execute. So that portfolio of eighty, ninety, a hundred customers, whatever it is, kind of always has a certain amount of resourcing needed, and then we can. You know, we have to deal with the surprise occasionally, but

Arlen: 38:32

sure. But overall, you can plan, plan those longer roadmaps and, and organize so that your team is not seeing a lot of up and down in demand throughout the year. Yeah. Amazing. I, I think that's, that's a great model and clearly it's, it's working well for you. Is there anything you're looking forward to, Shaun, in 2025, if we're coming to the end of the year? I think it's been a pretty great year for you and the team. What about 2025?

Shaun: 38:58

I don't know. I, I, as part of my December process typically is to sit down and like get some quiet time to set plans and expectations for the following year. We, we do have like, we have quarterly team meetings where we capture feedback from the staff and survey certain information. So we have information to feedback on. We usually set five or so goals for the year, some financial, some not, just. Hey, we want to win an RFP in this sector or whatever that might be. And I think we're, we're looking to automate more of our process when it comes to resource management and the ability to hire specialists on the fly more efficiently through resourcing services like Upwork or whatever it might be out there. So that we can more quickly forecast and identify those situations where it probably would be more profitable for us to bring in a external resource to accomplish something rather than using one of our internal resources. Because we are bumping up against a size where our internal resources really know our clients.

Arlen: 39:58

Yeah.

Shaun: 39:59

And so when sometimes our clients bring us a surprise or we get an opportunity to do a project that we didn't expect, it's tough to use our internal resources right now. Just from us until we add, we have some hiring plans, but until we add a few more internal people that we feel like we can onboard successfully, I think that's what I'm looking forward to is like we've, we've accomplished some automations recently that are really surprised me and I can see the, I should see a lot of opportunity in the next year.

Arlen: 40:25

I'm excited to see how that plays out, how those, those wins can impact the team, the strain it sounds like, as well as the profitability of the business. Yeah. Amazing. Well, 25 years, it's, it's a great run. Sounds like you're, you're maybe somewhere between a half of the way and two thirds of the way into that run probably. And it's still a lot of, a lot of years ahead of you solving interesting business problems for your clients, Shaun. And I'm excited that we've had the chance to, to chat and explore one great way to, to run an agency beginning with that end in mind, right? You don't have to build something big in 5 years, 10 years and sell. You can build a business that you really enjoy, that adds a lot of value for you, for your team, and that, that keeps life interesting over the long haul.

Shaun: 41:13

Thank you Arlan for the time. It's, it's funny that these moments are the times when I actually get to reflect and think. Right. And so I appreciate the, the conversation because it's, it's valuing sometimes you get to think about what you've accomplished. And I'm not a person who looks backwards very often. I'm always looking forward. So 25 years is like, it's gone by very quickly.

Arlen: 41:31

Yeah. Amazing. Well, thanks for your time today and we'll look forward to the next chat. Awesome.

Shaun: 41:36

Thank you so much.

Arlen: 41:38

Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Agency Health Podcast. You'll find key takeaways and links for this episode in the show notes. If you found this episode valuable, consider subscribing and sharing. Take care and be well.