Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Leading With Values
355 Plays3 years ago
In business, your values are one of the only things that won’t lie to you. They anchor you, define your integrity, and outlast the low moments that tell you it’s all crumbling and the high moments that can get you chasing things you didn’t care about yesterday. Your values are sometimes your harshest critic and, as such, are often your truest friend. Your values are also often your greatest opportunity to spread your influence as they can still be present in all the meetings that you can’t be in, all the conversations between employees you’re not privy to, and can be the glimpse of what kind of company your customers are looking to work with without them ever picking up the phone or shaking your hand.
Drew Harden knows what it is to start and grow a business. Over the last 15 years, he and his partner have taken Blue Compass from a two-man web design firm to an award winning digital agency. But after a major win that effectively required that they double the size of the firm immediately, Drew began to recognize that the power of his own personality wasn’t enough to fuel a great company culture. They needed values, ideas that defined what was important, what they wanted to be for their customers, and the way they treated each other in the process.
Join us this week as we talk to Drew about digital marketing, values, and what can happen when your passion outweighs your fear. Plus, how to deal with employees who are acting outside your values, the power of a supportive spouse, and the possibility of working without stress.
You can learn more about Drew at drewharden.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Uncommon Life Project
00:00:02
Speaker
Everyone dreams about living an uncommon life, but how we define that dream is very different for each of us. And for most, it's a lifelong pursuit. Welcome to the Uncommon Life Project podcast. We're going to introduce you to people who are living that life or enjoying the journey to get there. We're going to also give you some tools, tricks, and tips for starting or accelerating your own efforts to live an uncommon life.
00:00:27
Speaker
A life worth celebrating and savoring. Please welcome your hosts, Brian Dewhurst and Philip Ramsey.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello, everybody. This is Phillip Ramsey. You are tuning in to the Uncommon Life Project, where I'm your host, Phillip Ramsey. And Aaron Kramer. Aaron Kramer. Gotta love it. You know him. You love him. So do I. Welcome to the show. We have an amazing guest for you today. But if it's your first time tuning in, we're grateful that you've taken your time and you want to hang out with us. What would you say to our newest listeners, Aaron Kramer? What would you say? Well, you know, you're going to get
00:01:01
Speaker
the uncommon path that people are going to take. I hope we inspire you to really tap into yours. There you go. I don't know. You couldn't have done it better myself. I don't know. I'm new at this. All right. You're a veteran at this point. Okay. So here's our guest
Drew Harden's Entrepreneurial Journey
00:01:17
Speaker
that we have. His name is Drew Hardin. He is the owner
00:01:21
Speaker
of Blue Compass and has become one of the Midwest's leading digital marketing agency. He's a published author and led projects for clients like Spalding, Napa Auto Parts, and NFL, if you know anything about it. Super grateful to have him on the show. He is an uncommon kindred spirit. We've already had lunch. I felt like we could have been there for days. Drew Hardin, welcome to the show, man. Thanks a lot, guys. Good to be here.
00:01:47
Speaker
Yeah, man. So let's talk about this. Has this always been something you've done or is this like how new has Blue Compass been for your career path? Blue Compass has been around for 15 years this September. So I've been doing it for 15 years and I started Blue Compass a couple of years out of college. And so, um, yeah, I've been doing a long time.
00:02:09
Speaker
That's really cool that you've done it for so long. I remember when I was first out of college, no idea what I wanted to do. So did you study this stuff in college? You know, a little bit here and there, but most of what I learned was on an internship. So I got an internship at a video production company when I was 19 and just learned a lot about serving clients about the agency model. Um, I was a designer and animator back then. And so yeah, I learned pretty young.
00:02:38
Speaker
So good. I got so many questions. Go ahead. I'm honestly sitting here just like being a sponge ready to take it in because I know nothing about the digital world. I tell every, I remember being on the phone with somebody and helped us and I was struggling to get through something because when it comes to digital, like with Tronics, they're like, it's okay. Old people struggle with this. I'm like, I'm a millennial. So like, I'm excited. So hopefully my questions help our listeners that also don't know anything about digital stuff.
00:03:08
Speaker
So how long have you owned Blue Compass? It's been 15 years. 15 years. You started with by yourself or were you with a partner? Nope. Nope. With a co-founder. So his name's Kerry and he and I are still partners together. He and I worked together two years before we started Blue Compass and we just hit it off really well.
00:03:28
Speaker
And I knew I couldn't do this on my own. I mean, when I had the idea for Blue Compass, I was 25, I was really young, but I was smart enough to know I didn't really know anything.
Overcoming Challenges in Blue Compass
00:03:40
Speaker
And I could do some decent designs, but that was about it. Drew, I want to step back for a second here. You at 25, 25 years old.
00:03:51
Speaker
I was at 25 pretty like stubborn and thought I was like the man of the world for you to be able to be like, I can't do this all by myself. I need help. Right.
00:04:00
Speaker
Dude, awesome. Well, that was the only skill I had was to understand that I wasn't fantastic. And so yeah, I identified Kerry and I knew that he, he's my age, but he had more experience back then with proposals, with interacting with clients, with putting together web projects and got along with them real well. And my wife actually worked at the same place too. So the three of us all had a great relationship.
00:04:27
Speaker
And she really encouraged me to do this. She's always been so supportive. And so I asked Carrie one day, hey, are you interested in maybe going off and starting our own business and we would be able to focus on digital the full time and give
00:04:43
Speaker
clients a clear direction when it comes to their digital presence. And he said, no, his wife was pregnant with their first kid. And he's like, this is a good job. And I thought, you know, that's probably a reasonable response. And my wife was actually pregnant at the time with our first child. And so, you know, I thought about that, but I just really wanted to do
Growth Strategies During Economic Downturns
00:05:04
Speaker
it. And that's the only thing I had going for me. I was passionate and I wasn't going to say no.
00:05:09
Speaker
So I kept asking him and finally he said, all right, let's give it a try. And so we ended up just quitting our jobs. And it wasn't a real smart way to start a business. We didn't have much of a business plan. We never had any funding. I mean, it was just us. And we didn't have anyone wiser telling us what to do or not to do it.
00:05:32
Speaker
We didn't have any clients when we quit. It probably wasn't the smartest thing, but we've been really blessed. It taught me that when your passion outweighs your fear, you can really do some wonderful things. I think that's the one thing I had going for me. I just wanted to do it so bad I didn't care. I didn't care about any of the red flags.
00:05:54
Speaker
Right, and your passion sold your wife and Carrie, and basically Carrie's wife, because let's be honest, you go together. Yeah. So you have a Tom Cruise moment, you grab the goldfish, and you're like, we're out of here. Yes. How did that go? Like, pretty easy? I mean... Well, um...
00:06:10
Speaker
Yeah, it, it went pretty well for the most part. Um, we got off on our own. We were just working from our homes at first. We were just building websites. And, um, you know, that was, so that was 2007, 2008. And you know, the economy really started to go down about that time. And I think that was actually a blessing for us because people were maybe a little more willing to take a risk on two young guys who might be less expensive than another big agency somewhere.
00:06:39
Speaker
And so I think it was good. And, uh, we just started getting some clients here or there and, uh, building some websites. And then in early 2008, we did well enough that we were able to get a real small office and, you know, slowly, slowly over time, we were able to hire more people. We got some, some great clients, um, had, we started working with Spalding Sports Equipment, which is one of the clients we work with today. Still started working with Ruon transportation, another client that we work with today.
00:07:09
Speaker
Great, great clients, very thankful for them. And yeah, just kept doing our thing. And we ended up hiring a person here, a person there, and moved into a bigger office. And we kind of added digital marketing to our skill set and started doing things like search engine optimization, getting websites to rank higher, and started learning a lot about Google. And that's still really one of our differentiators. And especially back then, this is like 2010,
00:07:38
Speaker
I think that really set us apart for sure especially around here. There weren't a lot of people focusing on search engine optimization and Yeah, continue to grow and I mean like right now it's kind of a household SEO SEO But like back then what like you can do what now and you can get in front of people like this is amazing Yeah, yeah so like what would be one of the things drew like you feel like I know every business owner has it like
00:08:04
Speaker
The first couple of years are like, oh my gosh, this was like the bump in the road that like was a defining moment.
Impact of Major Client Acquisitions
00:08:11
Speaker
Did you guys have a defining moment? Like, yeah, I think so. You know, and one of the things that happened early on, things went well and we were growing at a steady pace. And then in 2012, um,
00:08:27
Speaker
we got a really, really huge client. We got a huge account. So we were offered an RFP or a request for a proposal and we and about a dozen other companies went for this huge, huge website project with this massive, massive company. And it came down to us and one other company. And at the time we only had eight people on our team. I mean, we were small. This other company had like a thousand
00:08:52
Speaker
employees. I mean it was really big. I think they were based out of Michigan or another state. The David and Goliath. David and Goliath for sure. And we knew that they were slicker, more well-funded, and I remember we had a pitch meeting where we went into pitch for this client and there was a snafu with the scheduling and we were supposed to show up at
00:09:17
Speaker
one o'clock, but we thought it was 1.30. Oh, man. We showed up a half an hour early. You have just described every nightmare I've had. Yeah, right. Well, we showed up at one, but we meant to show up a half an hour early. Right. And you're on. And we're on immediately. They had
00:09:36
Speaker
people from all over this organization from different locations. They had people remotely who were supposed to connect, but the connection wasn't working, so they couldn't get on it. And I got a call from my wife right before we got in that my son was going into the emergency room, like right before I stepped up to talk. The wheels are coming off. Yeah, it's like everything was going wrong. But we were just really genuine and honest, and we said, hey,
00:10:03
Speaker
You know, we're not the biggest, but we will give this everything we got. We will be so determined and we are going to make this a project success. So somehow we ended up getting the project. So that was wonderful. And now you got to level up. Yeah, exactly. So we have to staff up. Right. So we grew from about eight employees to 16 almost overnight. Wow. And
00:10:26
Speaker
So that was great and also an issue because yeah, you know before that I always thought the power of my personality was enough to fuel a great company culture and it maybe was because we were smaller but after we did that, you know, I started noticing a little drama a little gossip popping up and I had never really seen that before we always had such a great culture. Yeah, and I realized, you know
00:10:51
Speaker
We have to come up with a plan. We have to be very, very purposeful if we're going to have a great company culture. And so we ended up developing some values that we still have today. We are positive. We grow our expertise. We support one another. We give clients our best and we reject drama and gossip. So we have those five values and we started really living by them. And I realized that as the president of the company, my number one purpose is to make those values known.
00:11:21
Speaker
to live them out myself and to help our team members do the same. And if we can do that, that creates a wonderful work environment, atmosphere, company culture in which people can flourish and grow. People aren't looking over their shoulders, concerned that someone else is gonna take their credit. People are able to focus all their energies on doing some great creative work, taking some creative risks. And when we have that environment where we're having fun, where people really care, where if you stay past 5 p.m.,
00:11:51
Speaker
your coworker will say, can I help you with that? I mean, if we can create an environment like that, it's going to be a great place to work. We're going to enjoy it. We're going to be able to do the very best for our clients. And so I think that was, that was a tough time, but a turning point. Like you said, yeah, that's awesome. Cause I don't, you know, my wife were just talking about,
00:12:10
Speaker
like they're something very similar here like she's going around and she works in an education system and one of these smaller schools and how they're just so like happy and everything like that and you know there's some of these bigger school districts it's just the complete opposite right and how like size can totally change it and yeah how you just pretty much like
00:12:30
Speaker
Like, oh, we're not, you know, my wife's not crazy. Like it's something like you, you like saw it change as you just doubled overnight. Yeah. But the difference is you're a good leader and like you put things on play right away to make sure that like it didn't get bad. Yeah. Right. Or you saw something that potentially could have gotten out of control. Yeah. Because you saw inkling like, wait, we haven't had gossip or drama before. Like, Oh, I had to lead it different. And I think that's what I got excited about in our lunch is the leadership that drew possesses is,
00:13:00
Speaker
really high. And I just, I think that's really the way I get out on this stuff. And so, so let's talk through, let's say there's a team member that isn't following one of the five core pillars as I don't know if you call them that, but that's what I'm going to call them. That sounds good. How do you address that? And like, cause there's obviously, you know, and it's usually the, your favorite employee that ends up or your favorite
00:13:24
Speaker
Athlete that you're coaching is the one who steps out of Allen first like yeah How do you address that or maybe you can't speak to
Hiring for Cultural Alignment
00:13:30
Speaker
that? I don't know. I'm sure you will so I'm sure I will too if one of your team members is out of line and going against your values and
00:13:40
Speaker
That's very serious. You have to address it and you have to address it as soon as you can. And, you know, the first thing you do is try to hire people that believe your values. I mean, that's the number one thing that you can do. And when I say believe your values, I mean, believe those values that your company, uh, possesses and believes in your mission and your vision as an organization. That's the number one thing to look for when you hire someone.
00:14:05
Speaker
And if you look at the resume and they're an all-star, but you interview them and get some red flags, then they're probably not right for you. But if you look at their resume and they're lacking a couple things, but they absolutely gel with you and your team and they believe your values and they're excited about your mission, then I would probably hire that person because you can teach skills, but you can't teach personality. And that's really important. So that's the first step, getting the right people on the team.
00:14:33
Speaker
And then, you know, no one's perfect. There's always gonna be someone who falls, myself included. I'm not perfect. And am I always positive? No, sometimes I don't do the best job at that. Have a rough day. Sometimes I have a rough day. So, you know, we all have team members who fall short. And I think, you know, we need to have grace and be forgiving and realize that everyone is gonna have a bad day. But if it continues to happen, I mean, it is very serious. And so for us, you know, if someone is gossiping,
00:15:02
Speaker
I mean, that's a really serious thing. And one bad apple spoils the bunch. It's absolutely true. And we take that really seriously. And I know there's some organizations that are... They say it, but they don't believe it. They say it, but they don't believe it. Absolutely. And it's very difficult to have a hard conversation with someone. It's really difficult to
00:15:23
Speaker
fire someone or let someone go, release them to other opportunities, but sometimes those things need to happen. And I think the first thing an employer owes the employee is great communication. So if someone is not following the values of stepping out of line, it has to be addressed and it has to be communicated. And at Blue Compass, we have one-on-ones with everyone. And so everyone has a one-on-one with their manager,
00:15:52
Speaker
a couple times a month. And that's a time in which we say, how are you doing? How's everything going?
00:15:59
Speaker
What's your biggest struggle right now? What are you excited about? How can I serve you? Exactly. How can I serve you? And then if we have any feedback, it's a great time to give it. And so some organizations, it's like a review once a year, but it's almost like a little mini review every couple times a month. So that communication is so important. No one should ever be surprised if they get fired. I mean, it has to be really, really clear. And so if you're stepping out of line,
00:16:29
Speaker
you know, I need to have that conversation with you and we need to work through it together. And the sooner the better. The sooner the better. And this is what, it's interesting that you keep talking about this because that's what I'm finding. And there's a lot of people who, it's just so uncommon, dare I say it, in this culture to be like, hey, this is something I saw. I just want to talk through this with you.
00:16:48
Speaker
And it's right away, it sometimes feels like in their face because there's not a lot of people who ask that. But I find so much comfort when somebody is just quickly addressing it of like, hey, there's a couple of different perspectives that could happen. This is one perspective that I hope isn't it, but I'd love to hear your side of things because I'm maybe painting a picture that isn't true. And maybe some other people in the team are doing the same. And so isn't that something else where you can really, hey, I just saw this last week. I just love to talk through this. There is some comfort in that.
00:17:17
Speaker
and like, clear communication is friendly communication. I think it's so good. That's why we've gotten lost, I feel like, is in the fact that like,
00:17:25
Speaker
The definition of good communication. Like good communication is not easy. That means some difficult things can be talked, need to be talked about. Well, not all the time, but like if we're going to be good communicators, like you can't hide your feelings. Like you got to like actually say what's real. Yeah. Feelings are real and you can't like completely just, you know, sugar coat it to the point where like it's lost this communication.
00:17:50
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and a friend of mine, Tom Clegg, says that dysfunction dwells in the conversations that aren't had. And leaders need to be comfortable being uncomfortable. I don't like having tough conversations. It's difficult, but we need to be able to be comfortable having an uncomfortable conversation. Right. And my big thing is I'm
00:18:14
Speaker
If we can get through this better, we're going to be better. But if we can't get through it, then we shouldn't have been friends in the first place. So let's just talk about it. You know, let's just get this out in the open or like try to figure out if this is maybe not the best culture fit at this company. Let's try to figure that out. But I think, especially when you first hire somebody, Hey, these are the core pillars. Like, please be honest with yourself. If these aren't valuable to you, like just move on. It's not a good fit. Yeah. Cause we live these out daily in that book that I've been jockeying about. And I told you before this dare to lead by Bryn Brown.
00:18:43
Speaker
She talks about values that are written on the wall But not followed is the worst thing that you can do like don't do it then just don't have any company values yeah, don't just put it on a piece of paper and throw it on the you know boardroom and Expect people to follow if you're not asking people to hold you accountable to those pillars, too
00:19:02
Speaker
And so it's interesting, sorry, I feel like I'm talking too much, but I had our executive assistant, she's awesome. She wrote something the other day, we have a sauna, which is our task-oriented, what's going on, who's doing what. And she wrote something, she's like, Phillip, I think you're avoiding this task. And I was like, oh my gosh, you're right. Like, I'll get it done today. Like, how awesome is it to be able to be held accountable to something that you're holding at a high regard? It like raises all ships.
00:19:30
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and it's, I like what you said there because it doesn't have to be the boss or the manager or the writer saying it to someone. It can be vice versa and that's really powerful. And if you're a good leader, you can self reflect and say, wow, you're right. I appreciate your perspective.
00:19:47
Speaker
But it takes, you said a good leader, but that's to me the purest of the peers that leaders can do. You see a lot of leaders, you know they're good leaders, but the greats, or when someone's like, dude, you're not doing this, and it's like, you're right. Because otherwise what happens is like, don't worry about what I'm doing, get your job done. It's like, okay, well.
00:20:10
Speaker
Sorry. Right, because at the end of the day, we all have bad days. She called me out and she was 100% right, and I was like, oh my gosh, you're right, thanks. I needed that, you know? Okay, so let's go back to Blue Compass, because obviously you're a rock star leader. So you and Carrie, over the last 15 years, how has that relationship been being partners? And is it 50-50? Let's talk through that. It is 50-50, and I think that whenever there's
00:20:37
Speaker
two or more partners. There's opportunities, but there's a lot of opportunities for issues as well. Misteps. Just like a marriage, I mean, you have to communicate with one another. You have to be on the same page. You have to be open and honest. And thankfully, Carrie's pretty fantastic, and we've gotten along wonderfully these past 15 years. You know, sometimes we've had ups and downs, but
00:21:01
Speaker
We're friends overall. And when I see Kerry in the office, I get a smile on my face because I like him and he likes me. And we're friends. We appreciate each other. And I'm thankful that I've gone on this journey with him.
00:21:14
Speaker
And so if you do have a partner, I just think that's so important. I do, I do. It seems like I do. Yeah. So, so it's been really good. He's been really great. But yeah, I mean, when we started out, I mean, both of us didn't know a lot, but I think we've complimented each other over the years. And as time has gone on, one of the things I'm really thankful for in Carrie is he has no ego. He doesn't have to be taking the credit. He's very comfortable.
00:21:44
Speaker
with the credit going to someone else. And so if, I don't know, if someone's gonna come in and interview us and be on TV or in an article or something like that. Or a podcast. Or a podcast, yeah. He's very comfortable saying, hey, you do that, you be the face of the company.
00:22:02
Speaker
And he just, he doesn't care. He just has such a great attitude about it. It's really cool. So I hope that I don't have an ego either. That's so important. I have to be the face of them. Yeah, but it's worked really well. So we've just kind of naturally gotten into our own focuses.
00:22:19
Speaker
He focuses a little bit more on new business than I do. He focuses a bit more on the financials than I do. I've gravitated more towards the company culture and maybe top of the funnel, making people aware of Blue Compass, that sort of thing. So it's been good. It's been interesting, though. I will say that if you start an organization
00:22:41
Speaker
Over the years as it grows and changes, it's fascinating because I used to do everything. I mean, I did design, I did animation, I did legal, I did project management, I did everything.
00:22:54
Speaker
over the years, my role has really changed. And so I think, you know, you have to be a confident leader and not be threatened as your role changes and as things get different. For both parties, for both partners. Yeah, absolutely. So I got to ask this, since you're into the culture on your side of the company, you hear it so often, like, I want to be like Google, I want to be like this, like these workplaces.
Building a Unique Company Culture
00:23:14
Speaker
Yeah. Like every workplace is different. Yeah. You know, it's like, how do you differentiate and how do you break down to make your culture and buy your pillars and stuff like that?
00:23:24
Speaker
making your own culture instead of like let's be like google you know. Yeah well again i think that your values should drive what your culture is like and what the work environment is like and.
00:23:37
Speaker
I think the culture often reflects, uh, the leaders and the founders as well. So it's a good question. It's totally fine to look at Google or someplace like that and be inspired by it. But I think if you ever try to imitate anything exactly, I mean, you're going to be a carbon copy of it. So it's important to understand what makes you unique, what your values and you miss your mission are and let that kind of become what your culture is. Um, I think, you know, for us, I think laughter is one of the most healthy metrics of,
00:24:04
Speaker
an office, and we have a lot of laughter in our office. And so we always want to be a place that allows pranks that people can laugh at any moment. Is it April 1st today? It is. It is. We are recording this on April Fool's Day, so keep going. So this is like our Christmas at Blue Compass. But that's really important for us to have a fun atmosphere where people can joke with one another.
00:24:33
Speaker
We're pretty big believers in small talk, in getting to know one another. And I've read books before that say, when you get in a meeting, you gotta be real exact and quick and you gotta move and you can't let these things linger on and everything. And there's certainly some merit to that. But I'm a big believer in when we get in meetings,
00:24:55
Speaker
Or if we're just standing around, I have no problem with people small talking and chatting and laughing, telling stories and asking how the weekend was and stuff like that. That builds relationships. And if we can like our team members, we care about our team members, if we can actually develop friendships in the office, then we are going to be more committed to not letting each other down.
00:25:18
Speaker
Yeah, that five o'clock. Hey, I'll help you with that if you want to be. Yeah. Yeah. How many people do you have working for you now at Blue Compass? We have, uh, 30, 31, 32. Wow. Around there. Yeah. That's awesome, man. It's very cool. Okay. So what would you say your biggest takeaway is on running a business for 15 years for somebody who's like maybe still in the agency type of feel and like, look
Mindset Shift for Business Success
00:25:42
Speaker
at that goldfish. Like I want to do what Drew did. I want to take that goldfish. I want to do my own thing.
00:25:47
Speaker
I think that, I mean, there's so many lessons. It's difficult to say one lesson, but maybe, you know, the one that's coming to the top of my head is that you are what you think. You become what is in your mind, and your thought life is so vitally important. You gotta stay positive.
00:26:08
Speaker
There's so many negative thoughts that you can have. When we started Blue Compass, I remember thinking, for years, I thought, when is this going to fall apart? When is this going to fall apart? When's this hanger going to fall out of the sky? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Because I was like, man, we have to make all this payroll every single. Oh, gosh. I mean, that's, wow. Daunting. How are we going to do this? I don't know if the numbers work. When is this going to fall apart? But then I finally realized, I'm not playing to win.
00:26:37
Speaker
I'm playing not to lose. The Iowa Hawkeyes. Yeah, just kidding. So I decided years ago, you know what? If this whole place falls apart, if we fail, if we file bankruptcy, I resolved to feel nothing but gratitude for the incredible journey that I had and how much I learned here. I'm thankful.
00:27:02
Speaker
And after I resolved to do that, it really helped. Gosh, that's good. And I don't have, do I have stress and worries? I do sometimes, but not a lot. I've gotten to the place and I've worked really hard at it. You know, one of my goals is to never have stress. I have stress every now and again, of course, but I'm getting there, I'm working on it. And I think that really helped me. Yeah, that's good. All right, I wanna ask you about the silent partners.
00:27:29
Speaker
Carries wife and your wife. Yeah, let's talk about that because it sounds like your wife was in the business. So yeah, there's that so tell me This I guess maybe the compliment that they provided you in your endeavors the support they gave you Because I'll tip my hand a little bit over the last. I don't know how many episodes we've had there is always the silent partner Yes, say that like yeah
00:27:53
Speaker
That never really gets a lot of credibility, but really without them, you couldn't be here. Correct. So talk about your wife, talk about Carrie's wife and what they've had to do to make this decision. Well, both of them have been wonderful and very supportive. And, um, my wife, I mean, it was, you know, over 20 years ago now that, uh, I had the idea for Blue Compass, but she was always so supportive and she just really encouraged me to start it. And she worked in Blue Compass for years too, very critical in our beginnings.
00:28:23
Speaker
And I tell you, you know, the first eight, 10 years, um, I worked so many hours and I worked like crazy, uh, way too much. And, you know, I'm blessed now where I don't have to work, you know, a million hours every week. And I'm doing podcasts on a Friday afternoon. That's right. And that's, and it's wonderful, but never once, I mean, and we, you know, for those 10 years, we have two young sons. Um, I would, you know, after they'd go to bed,
00:28:51
Speaker
You know, on weekdays I'd come back to the office and I'd work on weekends, pretty much every weekend. Never once did she say, you need to work less, this is bad, I can't believe you're doing this. Always supportive. Wow, that's wonderful. Incredibly, incredibly supportive. And I'm so thankful for that and I tell her that. And, you know, she has a job, she's a VP at a large agency based out in New York. And, you know, sometimes she's,
00:29:19
Speaker
work in a ton of hours and I will never ever complain about that. I want to be as supportive to her as she was to me. And so, oh, incredibly thankful. I could never have done it without her. How'd that transition go from her working at a different agency than Blue Compass?
00:29:38
Speaker
from her, yeah, going to another agency. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, um, it was, it was difficult because we worked together, you know, I mean, we met as interns, we worked together for probably 10 years. Everyone was always like, how could you work with your spouse? Like I could never do that, but she's my best friend. Yeah. I'm one of those people on my other. No, I could work with my wife.
00:29:58
Speaker
Well most people say that and that's understandable but that's always what we did and it always worked for us. And it just got to the point where blue compass was growing and big enough that it made sense for her to step away and she was working a lot of hours in Iowa too and it was just too much. So it was difficult but it was the right thing to do.
00:30:19
Speaker
But it's been wonderful, you know, she's worked at a couple places and to see her take the Blue Compass culture and our methodology to these organizations and, you know, and she's worked, gosh, for big corporations and some corporations have great culture, but oftentimes corporations struggle when it comes to company culture and there's
00:30:42
Speaker
Just, it's been cool to see her bring some of her, our methodology and our cultural beliefs to these organizations. And she's a really great leader and she's done a great job with those who report to her. That's cool. That's super cool.
00:31:00
Speaker
It's cool to see, like I mentioned before, like, you know, it's you mentioned big corporations, like it's hard because you hear you're a great leader, but you're leading 38 people, right? With 30, 32, about in the 30s range. Like you can still go have time to go see every one of those. But like, imagine like,
00:31:19
Speaker
making sure your leadership falls down so many tiers where you can't even remember everybody's names and working for you. And how difficult that would be. Yeah, it gets more difficult as more people join your team, that's for sure. But there's still ways to do it. Absolutely. And so if you are leading a team of 100 or 200, whatever it is,
00:31:40
Speaker
It's so important to ensure that your leadership team and those who report to you, you know, all the managers have got to believe this stuff and then they have to be so purposeful about, you know,
00:31:53
Speaker
ensuring the rest of the team has a great experience. So it's one person can't do it all. Everyone has to be on board. Yeah, that's awesome. So true. And I think that you'd probably instill the 31 people that you have now to understand the culture enough to say if they had a team of eight each, let's just say sure that they would know how to spot something that wasn't the five core pillars and be able to address those things.
00:32:19
Speaker
which would then also create this culture. And I think it's interesting, I had a really good, interesting, he was a president of Yeruan transportation for a while. Steve Chapman, I worked at ITA Group and he was such an amazing man, amazing leader. And I remember he would know everybody's name, like into the point where like I saw him five years after he retired.
00:32:41
Speaker
And he was at Panera Bread. He was sitting down talking to somebody. He stopped his conversation, looked up and was like, Philip Ramsey, how are you? And I'm like, unbelievable. Like, and it wasn't just like he knew me. I was not special. But I feel like he would have known anybody at ITA Group that walked in there by name, looked him straight in the eye. So impressive.
00:33:00
Speaker
So impressive. So impressive, yeah. I barely know your name when I turn around after shaking your hand. Like, wait, what's your name again? So I could learn a lot from that. I think it's so powerful. Oh, absolutely. Well, everyone says, oh, I'm not going to remember names.
00:33:14
Speaker
And, but the thing is, you know, think about your favorite TV show. You probably know all the characters names, you know, every title of the episode, you know, many seasons, like we remember what we care about. And so this key to remembering people's names is just passionately caring about them. And it's not easy to do, but we can all do it. Right. I agree. I agree. Okay. So how many children do you have?
00:33:35
Speaker
Two. Two children, two boys. Two boys, Ethan and Chase, yeah. How old? Ethan is 14, Chase is 11. Okay. What's the number one core value that you want your children to have? Oh, that's a great question. Well, I think the values that I've shared are very applicable, not even in the workplace, but you know, life elsewhere as well. And so I hope that
00:33:56
Speaker
You know, I want them to be positive. I want them to support each other. I want them to give people their best. I want them to grow, grow their expertise and get better. Right. And, uh, not, not cause trauma or gossip, obviously as well. Don't punch your brother. Yeah. I love that. Cause like, I've been like telling people lately, like when I like analyze, like the people that are successful. Cause I'm, I'm not successful yet. I'm still trying to work on that route. Define success. Yeah. Maybe. But like.
00:34:24
Speaker
you know like you see these people that are doing great and it is the people that bring their values like they do that work home life everywhere they go they follow their values you know because you see guys that are like killing at work you're like oh they're great and they go home you're kind of like
00:34:41
Speaker
What do you mean you're going to end divorce? Why are your kids hate you? It's like, oh, you're not even following your core values. You're telling all your coworkers to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, like you said, Phillip, I mean, what is success is, and I think our society generally thinks it's having a good title and making a lot of money. Right.
00:34:58
Speaker
Is that part of success? Yeah, it can be, but there's so many aspects like our family life. Do you have a great marriage? Do you have great kids? Do you have a great relationship? I mean, there's so many aspects. Do you have friendships? How's your faith? There's so many things that we could use to define success. So I don't think it's just how much money you make.
00:35:18
Speaker
No. And it's always easy to say like, Oh, the grass is always greener. Oh, I wish I had this. I wish I had that. But honestly, like it's never really as satisfying. Like I wanted a motorcycle one time. Like this is a long time ago. I just wanted one. I always wanted one. And I told people like, if I could take a pill to not want a motorcycle, I'd take the pill.
00:35:36
Speaker
Guess what I got? A motorcycle. Guess who sold it three months later? Philip Ramsey. Why? Because it was like, oh, it kind of scared me too. Uh, but anyway, uh, there just, it just didn't satisfy me, right? Like there's this part of, I think all of us that we think there's something material that's going to satisfy us. And at the end of the day, it just doesn't work that way. You know?
00:35:59
Speaker
So it's sad to see how many people like actually go there and keep chasing it. Like chasing that thing that's going to be satisfying the next dollar. If I get another pay raise or I make this much money. If I do buy, if I live in this kind of house, if I drive this kind of car, but when like you're doing it, maybe you're doing it more purposely. If you don't know if you are or not, like it's the, instead of chasing something, just live your life to your core values and put that first and chase your core values and everything you do. And then like happiness.
00:36:28
Speaker
Ultimately just is there and you're happy. You don't need it in a bigger house. You don't need all these things, right? You know to look for happiness. Yeah Well, yeah, I think happiness is overrated actually I think joy is different than happiness and I want to be someone who has joy, which is like a deep seated I don't know Appreciation yeah, right gratefulness gratefulness.
Future Plans for Blue Compass
00:36:51
Speaker
Yeah. I mean I want to be happy. I think we all want to be happy and it's good to be happy, right? I
00:36:54
Speaker
I'll tell you this though, if you find a person that's 100% happy, they're masking something. Versus I think it's one of the most trustworthy things that somebody like Drew could walk in the office and be like, hey, I'm having a rough day. And people seeing that and like, huh, okay, so when he's happy, he really is joyful. Does that make sense? But when he's not, we'll know it too. And there is something comforting in that as well.
00:37:19
Speaker
Well, I mean, I guess you like, I mean, yeah, you guys make a good point because it's, you can't be happy all the time. No. We're like, we're humans. Right. You got to be sad at times because sad things happen. You gotta be mad at times because there's just that like cycle of emotion that you have to like process through. Right. So if you're always stuck at happy, it's like, yeah, like something's broken. Yeah. Well, sometimes it's, it's very appropriate to be sad or be angry. And you know, I don't think we want to focus on being only those, but no.
00:37:44
Speaker
You gotta get through it. It's like the whole like, you know, working through the emotion, not getting stuck in the anger. You're like working like, okay, I'm mad. Why you work through it? And then you work through the process and you end up back to being happy, but you got to go through the other emotions. Right. So Drew blue compass, what's the future for blue compass? I'm like a huge fan, by the way. Love you. Love your show kind of thing. Thanks. I'll pay you after. Um, you know, we're just passionate about growing. Um,
00:38:11
Speaker
We've never said, oh, we want to have 100 employees. We want to grow to 1,000 or anything like that. I don't know that that's success necessarily. But I do know that the more we can grow, the more we can offer opportunities to our team.
00:38:27
Speaker
and to our clients. To impact others. To impact others, that's right. So we're very, I mean, we want to grow our development team. We want to have more capabilities when it comes to development. We want to grow our digital marketing team. And we're in the process of doing both of those things. We want to grow our design team. I'd like to add a video department. We don't have that right now. We want to continue to grow our expertise so we can better serve our clients. And then I think that brings great opportunities to our team as well.
00:38:54
Speaker
So that's a pretty general answer, but I think that's our mentality. You just want to go impact other people, whether it be clients or employees. That's good. Okay. So how can our listeners hear more about you and then like, how can we help Blue Compass? What can we do to help you guys?
00:39:10
Speaker
Spread the word, if anyone is looking for a clear digital direction, send in Blue Compass's way. Yeah, it's just bluecompass.com. And, you know, we do, we give clients a clear digital direction. We spend each and every day just getting more qualified visitors to come to our clients' websites and then getting them to convert on those websites. So we're really good at that. We're really good at building purposeful websites that help
00:39:36
Speaker
our clients accomplish their goals. And yeah, beside that, like I mentioned, search engine optimization, social media marketing, content marketing, online ads.
00:39:47
Speaker
We use all those tools to help our clients meet their goals. So that's what we're all about. If you go to drewhardin.com, that's D-R-E-W-H-A-R-D-E-N. There's a little more information about me. I have a number of speaking gigs and everything that happen. And hey, cool podcast like this. And so I list those out there and you can see where I'm gonna speak next. And yeah. That's good. Awesome.
00:40:14
Speaker
Well, thank you for your time, man. I just love what you're doing, how you're doing it, probably more importantly. And honestly, like it, it takes an uncommon to know an uncommon and you are definitely that. And so keep inspiring other people and keep like leading out of example and vulnerability. I think that would be a word that I, I see when I see you. So closing thoughts, Aaron Kramer, everyone. Yeah. I thought we're going to get into this digital thing. That's more into the way of like the culture and I love it. And I love the fact that like,
00:40:43
Speaker
It's sad that it is uncommon, but that you're the uncommon leader in the fact that you lead by example, and your core values in your personal life and in your professional life are the same, and you're doing it trueheartedly. You're not faking it. It's in your DNA. Yeah, and so you're causing an amazing workplace for your employees that they enjoy. So when someone calls in, you're not going to get
00:41:09
Speaker
Can I help you? Can I help you? I think that's awesome, man. I'm excited for you. Thank you. I hope we can help.
00:41:18
Speaker
Yeah. Clothing thought for you. Come on, Drew. No, I appreciate the time. I would, anyone who's listening, I would encourage them to think about, you know, how can you be a blessing to those around you? How can you make your workplace culture better? Whether you're remote, whether you're in office. And I think one of the first things is just listening to people, communicating with them and just being positive. That's good. Awesome.
00:41:41
Speaker
Well, with that, you've been listening to the Uncommon Life Project. I've been your host, Philip Ramsey. Aaron Kramer. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, go be uncommon and impact somebody positively. Thanks. That's all for this episode of the Uncommon Life Project, brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit uncommonwealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.