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Carl Smith, The Bureau - Burnout, AI, and Bullsh*t: What Agency Leaders Need to Hear image

Carl Smith, The Bureau - Burnout, AI, and Bullsh*t: What Agency Leaders Need to Hear

S1 E11 · Escape Velocity - Where Strategy Meets the Unexpected
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27 Plays24 days ago

Carl Smith is more than a leader—he’s a community builder, a mentor, and, as I call him, the “daddy of digital agencies.” In this episode, we dig into everything from the evolution of agency life to the promise and peril of AI, the value (and curse) of ego, and why trust and human connection matter more than ever. Carl shares candid stories from his time running an agency, building the Bureau of Digital, and navigating complex relationships in creative teams. It’s funny, heartfelt, and packed with hard-earned wisdom. If you’re building a business, leading a team, or trying to stay sane in a shifting industry—this one’s for you.

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Transcript

Carl Smith's Journey and Bureau of Digital

00:00:06
Speaker
Hey everybody. I'm excited about this conversation. i'm very happy to have Carl Smith joining today. Carl, I'm going to just let you intro yourself. Hey Tracy. Ooh, am Carl Smith.
00:00:18
Speaker
I was a theater major, ended up in advertising, then started my own shop. And during that time, these two guys named Greg decided to get a bunch of people together. And that became the Bureau. And that's where you and I first met.
00:00:33
Speaker
Many years ago. Trying to figure out what the hell are we doing? We don't know how to run businesses. And today it's, I serve at the pleasure of the community. I think is the easiest way to say it.
00:00:44
Speaker
And but we're pretty big now. 1,500 people, 25,000 alumni. Yeah. yeah And this is now, this is the Bureau of Digital. And just for anybody who's listening, who doesn't know about it,

Bureau of Digital: Community and Leadership Focus

00:00:56
Speaker
check it out.
00:00:56
Speaker
It is a genuinely wonderful community to be a member of. um i am biased, of course, since I was there at the beginning. These are friendships and support systems and learning and fun and growth. And all of that's come out of this community. And I'm eternally thankful for it.
00:01:14
Speaker
I tell everybody, know, the way I define it is we're a member-led, non-solicit community. And the beauty of it is that we're focusing on the human side of leadership. There are a lot of great folks out there teaching all about the business side.

Digital Integration and Process Importance

00:01:28
Speaker
But we gotta remember we're people that were in these flesh shells and we're just, that sounded disgusting. i orange I would make it through another day. These damn meat suits. it's but well That's less disgusting.
00:01:42
Speaker
Listen, you and I have known each other for a long time, but i do have so many questions. This podcast is a great reason to think about what are the, what are all the questions I actually really always wanted to ask Carl, but never thought to.
00:01:53
Speaker
ah When we met, you were running your own agency. And then you transitioned out of that and now you're, as I jokingly referred to

Leading a Community vs. Transactional Business

00:02:00
Speaker
you as like the daddy of digital agencies. Now you're just here leading and nurturing and guiding, but you have such an interesting perspective because you see the agencies from the perspective that agencies are usually saying, hey client, this is great because we have perspective that you don't have.
00:02:19
Speaker
We have this outside perspective. well You now have that perspective. when it comes to agencies. And I wanted to start with with how that has changed your mindset of how you lead, because you're really, you're leading a community now, not a company.
00:02:34
Speaker
Yeah. How has that changed you?

AI's Impact on Industry and Ethics

00:02:38
Speaker
I'd say it's empowered me a lot because it shifted my focus from trying to run a transactional business where I'm offering a service to get compensated and you worry and you aren't always 100% truthful, even though you want to be because you got to make payroll and let's just get through this and all that's gone.
00:03:03
Speaker
Now I have this amazing group of humans that help each other and I just guide it. I really do see myself as more of the guide for the Bureau than anything else. And the beauty is somebody has to leave, it doesn't disrupt the whole ship.
00:03:22
Speaker
20 more people need to come in It doesn't overload the team. but It really is ebb and flow now. And it's about focusing on who's here and what they need and actually being able to spend hours every day trying to find solutions and connect people.

Agency Management Preferences

00:03:37
Speaker
That I thought it'd be fun to do some rapid fire questions. Let's get started to get warmed up. I wanted to, let's see, do some like either or is here for you. Are you ready?
00:03:48
Speaker
I am ready. Let's go. All right. This is either, or if you had to pick one to whatever, in whatever perspective you want to take it, creative services or product. Creative services.
00:04:01
Speaker
Freelancers are full-time employees. Yes. Or be a full-time. Remote or in office? Remote. Retainer or project?
00:04:14
Speaker
Retainer. Flat structure or hierarchy? Flat. That's an easy one. Fixed or flat? Fixed bid or paid discovery? Paid discovery.
00:04:27
Speaker
Value-based pricing or not? Pins. I'm going to do that. Cause we can't find value and the industry has to agree first.
00:04:41
Speaker
Design systems. Do people know what they are or not? No.
00:04:47
Speaker
Would you prefer a client that knows what they want or that they need guidance? Needs guidance.

Convergence of Digital and Traditional Agencies

00:04:52
Speaker
One huge client or 10 small clients? 10 small clients. Retrospectives or just move on?
00:05:00
Speaker
Retrospectives. Progressives. Work-life balance or work-life integration? Work-life integration. Take the risk or play it safe. Take the risk. All right.
00:05:11
Speaker
Good ones. There's some ones i' I know people are going to want to know more about. changed. Some of them have changed. Well, yeah, well. I've on project for a long Yeah, it's it's interesting. You did say

AI's Influence on Client Expectations and Agency Adaptation

00:05:23
Speaker
retainer.
00:05:23
Speaker
Now that everything's matured, do you see as much difference between digital agencies and traditional agencies? And if so, what do you think are the defining differences, good and bad?
00:05:35
Speaker
I think it's really about how we see ourselves now as individual companies, as individuals within a company. You can see over my shoulder here that it says Bureau, not the Bureau of Digital. Yeah.
00:05:46
Speaker
This is the little sneak out of the new branding that's coming out. And we dropped digital. Not everybody's happy about that. I have definitely heard from them. Yeah.
00:05:56
Speaker
But the thing is, it's like you go back to 1901. when electricity was first invented, or was first enabling us to do things like open doors just by getting close to them.
00:06:09
Speaker
And everybody said steam was a perfectly good technology. We don't have to use electricity. were chief electricity officers. There were these people who were gonna help you with your electric transformation. Sound familiar?
00:06:20
Speaker
And then it was just a part of everything. And you only noticed it when it was gone. You don't notice electricity unless it's not working. Otherwise it's perfectly fine. I think digital is going that same way.
00:06:33
Speaker
Yeah. In the late nineties, early two thousands, all the way up until like 2012, 2015, I would say that digital was such a very profoundly different thing because nobody understood the canvas.
00:06:47
Speaker
And if you understood the canvas and you understood how to make it do things, then you had magic. It was a very special And we've ridden so many waves, right? So many waves have changed, like from responsive, mobile, just web standards, go all the back to Jeffrey, right?
00:07:03
Speaker
Yeah. But now, if you are a PR company, you're probably managing social. Social doesn't exist on paper. it exists in the digital world.
00:07:16
Speaker
Do they understand React? Hell no. So I think there's different levels of digital, but I think everybody at some point impacts it. And the other thing is, if you're an architect,
00:07:28
Speaker
You have a creative output. You have a process. You have all these things. Yeah, you may not need to optimize it. Once you get it out there, you might need, you still need to worry about accessibility though.
00:07:39
Speaker
But the thing is, it's about the process more than it is the output. And that's where a human side, we need help. And when we communicate with other flavors of digital, we've learned so much, right? Because they came into it completely differently than we did. So I think it's everything.
00:07:58
Speaker
And it's its own thing as well. Yeah, it's been it's been really interesting watching it mature and real. And I love that

AI's Impact on Agency Roles and Job Relevance

00:08:06
Speaker
you've dropped digital. did Even, yeah, the whole notion of digital always, it was always...
00:08:14
Speaker
creativity and services and communication and marketing or brand or interactivity. We were facilitating things for clients in an in new arenas and as new methodologies became available. But it was still about how and why that client was saying and doing certain things with certain people.
00:08:35
Speaker
What do you what do you think about, we've seen a lot of waves, it's gotten choppier in the last five years. I remember there'd be long periods of time, first big disruption was probably once digital was underway and websites were like, okay, no one's arguing anymore that you need one. And we'd gotten that under our hat. Then the iPhone rolled around and then there was responsive and then there was accessibility. And then there were some different types of frameworks that started to become available. But nothing really was too disruptive the way that ai has been recently and with ai coming off the heels of um whatever web 3.0 and what was the n np whatever's or non-fungible yeah nfts there were a few like big hypes and everyone was like well this is the new next thing and meanwhile ai just shows up and is like forget everything that you thought you knew was coming
00:09:33
Speaker
and It's alarming and it's also exciting. I joke that it's like the best of times and the worst of times because on one hand, it does feel like the beginning again. it feels like the way it was when, at least for me, when I started to get immersed in this, in the world of digital and websites and code and all of that and design back in the late 90s, it was like brand new pioneering environment.
00:09:58
Speaker
And now you've got AI here and it's just completely different. freaking everybody out. So I'd love to just get your two cents on the choppiness and AI's role in the current chop, the current tsunami.
00:10:12
Speaker
Yeah. I think AI is amazing. So I am on that side of ethical AI. Like I do think there's a lot. When we realized that it learned everything from our bad behavior,
00:10:23
Speaker
yeah It's filmmaking. If you feed all of the prejudices into artificial intelligence, it's going to be prejudice. as Yeah. right it's That's what it thinks we want. and but i think we are right at the beginning. I think they're going to be bad actors.
00:10:37
Speaker
Unfortunately, most of them are very powerful, influential governments and different things like that. This is the scary part. When it comes to what we're doing, I think it enables us to be more creative. It enables us to move faster.
00:10:53
Speaker
It enables charlatans. They're going to show up and they're going to throw shit out there and it's going to be horrible and we're going to notice it and some people will go with it. But if we truly treat it as an input and we make sure that that it allows us the ability to create something that is more powerful than we could before. Like you're in the community. So you've seen what JP Holika did with that 30 second spot problem.
00:11:21
Speaker
Yes. Yes. hello ai It took him a hundred hours. You have to realize it's still horrible for carbon. It's about 300 hours. You're destroying the planet. Sorry, JP, I love you. Yeah.
00:11:36
Speaker
But they didn't have to travel anywhere. They didn't have to ship equipment. They didn't have to do all of these other things that in a traditional shoot you would have to do. There's no way they could have recorded all those locations, let alone all the props. It just been ridiculous.
00:11:49
Speaker
Now he says he could do it a third of the time. Right. Once. And the system's going to learn. Let's say just from the Bureau's perspective, the ability to bring a lot of disparate information together...
00:12:03
Speaker
make it cohesive and get it out every week. We have over a thousand conversations in that Bureau Slack. And when we tried over a year ago to use AI, the community pushed back and said, hey, that violates the Bureau because now you're taking a private conversation and sending it off to open AI.
00:12:21
Speaker
Yeah. And so if I'm trying to share something personal about a layoff or maybe

Navigating Agency Partnerships Successfully

00:12:26
Speaker
I'm going through a divorce or maybe this is happening or that's happening, I don't want that shit getting out there. So now...
00:12:33
Speaker
We have a lovely human named Meredith. And Meredith just goes through the document, find and replace, gets rid of anybody's personal information, feeds that more genericized version into ChatGPT.
00:12:46
Speaker
It does its best. She looks at it to remove stuff. And then Lori looks at it fresh. Nobody's seen it. And then it goes out to the community. And you know what? 70% of the people that get that email open it.
00:12:58
Speaker
On average, 88% read it, HubSpot. Okay. according to hubspot
00:13:04
Speaker
Perfect. But then at the same time, we can see every day when Grammarly tries to correct a word that's spelled correctly. And then you tell you, okay, let's do it your way. And then it says, aha, just kidding.
00:13:15
Speaker
Or when suddenly some crazy hallucination shows up, like this stuff's not ready for prime time, but it's better every day. Yeah. And if we don't learn to use it, it is going to make us replaceable and a little irrelevant.
00:13:31
Speaker
I think it it's definitely threatening people who may have gotten a an early toehold into industry by taking jobs that will no longer be needed. Or just the grunt research or like the data migration or just those more of those admin-y type jobs. I think AI is great at replacing. And I do think it's also speeding things up.
00:13:57
Speaker
And what I'm curious about from your perspective is that do you see clients pausing Because they know that the paradigm has shifted. They know that things should, some things should be faster. Some things should be cheaper.
00:14:15
Speaker
But have we reached this problem where now we can't tell clients they can't have the fast, the good, and the cheap? On the golden triangle of things we used to tell them, like, well, you can have fast and good, but it won't be cheap. Or you can have good and whatever. Yeah, I don't think so.
00:14:31
Speaker
Yeah. Because everybody's going the same tools. Yeah. At their disposal. Some people are going to use different ones. Clients are going to realize that their competitors are also moving faster.
00:14:46
Speaker
So it's not just going to be about getting the thing done

Complexity of Value-Based Pricing vs. Hourly Rates

00:14:50
Speaker
and getting the thing out in front of customers. It's ah but going to be about an ongoing race. and Now, as you get to a certain point, other people have caught up with you. You're going to to keep moving forward.
00:15:01
Speaker
It's also part of why I think retainers are more important. Clients are never, except for the bigs, most mid-sized small businesses are not going to invest internally on these tools. And if they do, they're going to be out of date in six months they're going to get tired of it. And so they're going to hire specialists.
00:15:17
Speaker
And so what I think is interesting is you watch how it's coming into our industry And SEO just pounced on yeah You look at Will Reynolds, Dale Bertrand, Rand Fishkin, Mike King, they are crushing because they know match. since the evidence are underris And they love the challenge and they see the results. So this is why they got into it.
00:15:43
Speaker
I think we're all going to still need those kinds of partners. And then we're going to have our agency partners and our agency team that is going to have to be much more adaptive then. favorite things today is Lori.
00:15:57
Speaker
I told her, I was like, Hey, we've got to get all these speaker information, the talk titles, all this kind of stuff. Don't make them work. Just tell them to send us a title and send us some bullets and then we'll share with them.
00:16:08
Speaker
Talk. Or is she in chat? gt GPT. Call it chat. It's easier. And she so went out and somebody said, this is great. And she got excited.
00:16:20
Speaker
She was like, I did it. Look at what I did. And she never, ever in a million years would have tried to write something and send it. She wouldn't had the confidence. So i think it also enables some of the folks that we've always seen as checklist grinders to start easing into some of that creative stuff and rounding themselves out. And as a human, if you accept that it can make you better and allow you to connect with other humans in a more realistic and just loving way, think it's beautiful.
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah. it's It's going to be an an interesting couple of years for sure. i Yeah. but But to your point, the other side of it is think clients...
00:17:02
Speaker
aren't necessarily expecting everything to be faster and cheaper yet because they don't fully understand

Role of Ego in Running an Agency

00:17:06
Speaker
it. Yeah, they will get smarter. I always liked having smart clients because they pushed me. And you know me, I like to have a rationale for every reason, every decision we're doing.
00:17:16
Speaker
um And I back into a lot of them. That's amazing. Let's back into a rationale and get this out of here. So for me, when I start thinking about AI, and not just language models, but all of the different areas that you can help us and do things.
00:17:31
Speaker
That's where I start to think, yeah, certain roles aren't going to be what they were. Video editing is not going to be what it was. I had a great call yesterday with Parallax.
00:17:42
Speaker
And I said, y'all are putting AI in. Is it just a bolt on? What's this going to be? And Imagine now if a project manager didn't have to do all of the Gantt charts. Imagine if they didn't have to do, if they could actually say, you know what, Tim works a little better When he's under pressure, Maria really needs you to let her go the wrong path for a day. And then she's going to come back.
00:18:06
Speaker
What if we could start to see the different personalities, not your Myers-Briggs maybe, but then you can start to assemble teams based on how they're going to work the best together. You can have an outside entity looking at everything going, this worked better in this formation.
00:18:22
Speaker
Yeah, it it really does. i think AI offers an opportunity right now for everything that we, all the

Operational Challenges in Agencies

00:18:29
Speaker
process, all of the structure that we tried to build up or cobble together to get through things that was conformity. But we got to do it this way because we've got to have, you know, something that's our process and not everyone works that well in that process. i do think AI is offering a lot of, a lot more flexibility and a lot more productivity.
00:18:51
Speaker
in different kinds of ways, depending on how you work. So i yeah, I think it's, I think it's exciting as well, especially from a creative perspective, because i think that it allows you to make a lot more progress in your thinking and it's all about how you use it. But I think if you,
00:19:10
Speaker
are using, let's say, ChatGPT to challenge your ideas, to provide different perspectives. It's just a constant brainstorm partner or perplexity to do deeper research. It's just a game changer, I think.
00:19:25
Speaker
Yeah, I totally agree. I think what we'll find is that, to your point, we are human copped.
00:19:35
Speaker
We will ask things differently. We'll look for things differently. We'll flavor our words a little bit differently. We're going to get different results.

Managing Stress and Self-Care Practices

00:19:43
Speaker
Everyone who's just coming in generic is going to up in the middle.
00:19:47
Speaker
And then you're going to be chasing the person who did it a little different. We see it on LinkedIn right now. Somebody gets some crazy response and engagement and the LinkedIn algorithm wakes up and goes, I like you.
00:20:01
Speaker
And then everybody's suddenly chasing that. Let's not chase stuff. Let's be chased. I think that's the key is that we have to bring our own original thought into it while everybody else is just leaning on artificial thought.
00:20:17
Speaker
Yeah. And when the algorithms are determining what is seen as the leader, that is a topic for another conversation. and Problematic for sure.
00:20:28
Speaker
But I do think part of part of what I'm seeing right now, too, and maybe as a byproduct of COVID and going through the lockdowns and now seeing this acceleration happening and just, again, so much turbulence is that speaking of COVID, I...
00:20:41
Speaker
I'm coming off of just a recent infection with COVID, so I do apologize. Sorry, I'm glad you're good. But anyway, yeah I'm feeling alive today for the first time in five days, that's good. But I do think that people are going to start backing away from trying to live at the openings of all these fire hoses and hopefully get back to relationships and relationships.

Advice for Agency Owners: Aligning Work with Passion

00:21:04
Speaker
community and the things that we know are real, that we can have a material impact on that we can have some control or influence over versus the, I feel like it's a front row seat to panic every day if you want it to be.
00:21:22
Speaker
And yeah nobody can last that long in that seat. So it'll be, i do think it'd be very interesting to see where we are in six months, let's say. And I think in a few years, we're going to find a lot more of us being solopreneurs.
00:21:36
Speaker
You know, a lot more of us, I think, are going to end up in in that role. yeah And then community and coming together with humans is going to be so much more important because we're already seeing the cocooning with remote work. And even with folks who are going back into the offices, this enables us to be more self-sufficient,
00:21:58
Speaker
without the need necessarily for the structure of a business. And that I think is going to be the really interesting thing to watch is how does that play out? Because then you're going to have communities as watering holes, places where we all get together, find something and chase it together.
00:22:15
Speaker
so Yeah, it's interesting. During the rapid fire, I asked ah freelancers are full-time employees and you ended up on full-time employees and that,
00:22:26
Speaker
I'm curious about that because being someone who's built agencies and is building one right now, again, um there is this this sense of the team that you're building and the people that you want to be.
00:22:41
Speaker
And of course, people come and go. it's But it's different than bringing people in for projects.

Reflections on Past Agency Experiences

00:22:49
Speaker
and I'd love to just hear a little bit more about what you think about that in the midst of everyone becoming a solopreneur.
00:22:55
Speaker
Yeah. So I wasn't allowed to say both. Yeah. If you look at the way that our engine, we had a small core team. The team was eight people. And the reason those full-time employees were there was because each person had a specific skillset and passion that they could carry forward into a project.
00:23:16
Speaker
So yeah, you do get to that as a solopreneur, you are going to get to that place where you can only do one thing at a time. But... When you have a core team, I've got Lori and Meredith, I know every day i don't have to worry about this thing or that thing because they're doing it.
00:23:31
Speaker
Now, maybe that's connecting up with a different entity in the future, but with freelancers, you have that opportunity to grow and shrink without impacting somebody's life. And that to me is critical.
00:23:44
Speaker
I think it's really important, like just right now with the Bureau's rebranding, it's me and Lori and Meredith. But we've got support from Kathy at Meet Us. We have Bill Kinney over at Focus. We have Wayne Pelletier at Renesad. We've got everybody coming together for this, and then we'll all go back out because we couldn't do it on our own.
00:24:07
Speaker
I think that a similar model is what we're going to see. are You're bringing in these different experts, but you still have solopreneur, small team. I could see either way. Yeah. You still need people that are going be able to help when you get sick.
00:24:21
Speaker
We don't if things happen. Yeah, we were just on our stand-up this morning. Someone was commenting that they'd never felt at as much at ease at being sick because there was a good team member there to shout out to Nicole, who was making sure everything was getting done.

Closing Thoughts: Community and Support Emphasis

00:24:41
Speaker
um Well, that that brings me i people ask you questions all the time, all day long in your role. What are some questions you wish people would ask you that they don't?
00:24:54
Speaker
What's the best way to partner with other agencies? We've done webinars on it. We've done workshops on it. I think what Brian Williams or a Vigit has done, the way they've set up their partnership program is a great model.
00:25:07
Speaker
It's the kind of thing I wish more people would look at. Partnering versus growing, i think is really important. And if you partner with somebody long enough and you do fall in love, sure, merge. do but But that for me, I think is one of the questions.
00:25:21
Speaker
Another one would be, Just when should I fire a client? is can i And we've talked about this before, but I think way back in the, take it all the way back to advertising, take it tree web, take it all way back.
00:25:40
Speaker
The lack of confidence of most creators is stifling. The inability to understand that you have a value. You are not lucky to have your job. You are skilled and people need you. And you need to exchange that talent for cash.
00:25:55
Speaker
And it's got to be a good exchange rate I don't think even today people get it. Some do. And we look at them like they're arrogant. So you think we also have to, we have to realize that some people just need to stand up for themselves and the client does not have control over your life just because they have hired you to do something. If anything, you should have more control over theirs because they came to you with a need. You needed money.
00:26:22
Speaker
They needed skill. Yeah. but We could absorb whatever lawyers have managed to tap into. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. which Which actually leads me to the whole conundrum of value-based pricing versus hourly.
00:26:37
Speaker
And I love the idea of it. And especially with AI now in the mix and the speed of which a lot of stuff can be done, really rethinking how agencies charge for the work that they're going to do. How do you see that playing out right now?
00:26:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's still a hot mess. But I think value-based makes the most sense. It's just that we don't have a real definition. I think I've shared this with you before, but we did research few years back and we had 140 shops thinned in their definition of value-based pricing.
00:27:14
Speaker
I could only get it down to 17 definitions. And I'm like, if we can only get to 17, then we're not going to be able to explain it. I think Dan Maul said, he wrote a book on value-based and he said, you need to win more than you lose.
00:27:29
Speaker
So he's acknowledging you're not going know value. And I think the biggest challenge becomes how do you define value? Is it what you're going to save the client? Okay. Is the client going to be honest with you? Are they going to share that with you? And what if you don't save them that amount of money?
00:27:42
Speaker
Are you going give money back? Because that really feels like the way it should work. The other thing I would say is you can bill hourly with the value-based hour. It's like lawyers charge 700 bucks an hour.
00:27:56
Speaker
Some charge 300 bucks an hour. Why? Because some have more value than others. Yeah. if That's the other thing. it's not You're not locked into one thing, but it's sexy to say, and coaches and consultants love to lean on it.
00:28:08
Speaker
And so i Nick and I, Nick Petrosky at Promethean and I are doing this show called Agency Mythbusters. And we took that on. Does hourly pricing limit profitability?
00:28:20
Speaker
And I convinced him that it does not. But I also think value-based makes a lot of sense. You look at Aaron Draplin, right? Draplin will do a first draft of a logo in the kickoff meeting.
00:28:32
Speaker
Then he puts it in a folder for two weeks because he knows the client's poor little brain can't handle the fact that he just cranked it out. And then he contacts him and he goes, hey, I'm almost done.
00:28:44
Speaker
So value-based for him, absolutely. He is at the top of his craft. If somebody wants to work with you to do something, I would value-based all day long.
00:28:55
Speaker
If it is charging 500 bucks an hour versus or trying to set a set fee. But if they want ah certain outcome and they've asked you if you can do that outcome, that's not value-based.
00:29:08
Speaker
and You're not the value at that point. but So for me, that's really it. And then you've got all these in-betweens, like you can go value based on some parts and time materials. I know it's really about risk. Who's going to assume the risk?
00:29:21
Speaker
Yeah. And how do you determine what success is? If you're like, okay, well what is success? What's the value associated with that success? And then what do we agree, right? is the Would you be willing to pay the 10% of that outcome to get you there, guaranteed, all of that, which is lovely in theory, but I haven't really figured it Working well. um And part of it is because the end destination is changing all the time and a lot of it is subjective.
00:29:49
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. What does, what does success look like when you you're talking about brand or marketing or a website or even a product? but And who's, who's willing to say we can guarantee it when there are so many other factors at play?
00:30:06
Speaker
And the other thing is the market. Okay. We can define it. That's a big problem. But if the market won't support it, if the market says your value-based price is 10 times higher than another shop with an amazing reputation who has done great work for big names, you're out of the game.
00:30:28
Speaker
I don't think that seems really bad. We almost got hired by Amazon. when I was running the engine. And this was a product that they had to get done in a certain timeframe.
00:30:39
Speaker
Okay, check that box. We've got this tenseness of getting done at a certain time. They had to make sure that it worked. It was a new mobile version of a traditional website.
00:30:50
Speaker
And you had to be able to pinch Zoom on mobile because it's fabric and you need to see the texture. So I went back and told the team, and they actually told me, the person in charge of the project said, we will lose $3 million. dollars if we don't get this done in the next six weeks.
00:31:06
Speaker
So I'm back to the team and I said, this is the perfect case for us to try value-based. Know the amount, we know the timing, um and they'll actually be able to see the results. So we went back and I said, we can do that for $300,000. says, 10% of what you're going to save, and we're going to have to work really hard.
00:31:24
Speaker
And the woman in charge actually looked at me. And she said, I am just going to hire some designers and developers and flog them within an inches of load. And won't forget, I replied, thank you.
00:31:36
Speaker
He asked so much for the operation. Or have a nice day. Yeah. I think that's it. It's like, there are times you walk in and you're like, okay, this makes sense. They want us.
00:31:48
Speaker
They have this need. and we can I'll also say it almost always makes sense for e-com. Yeah. we We're perfectly positioned to be able to say, yes, we did improve your conversion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's so many different, when I talk with with clients now, let's say it's a fundraising client.
00:32:05
Speaker
There's a road there, there's a conversation to be had there around being paid based on what you're able to raise above and beyond. And there's a conversation that's not being had around investment.
00:32:20
Speaker
in the effort when there can be that and when it is dollars, that's the outcome. And I think that's an interesting conversation, but again, I think a lot of people are still stuck in the, this is the only way we, we craft these kinds of engagements, you know, and this is the only way we work with partners due to.
00:32:39
Speaker
and I will say some people define value-based as fixed bid with a higher profit margin tacked on. yeah And I think that's, you can totally do that.
00:32:54
Speaker
But yeah, I think the reality is it depends. At the end end of the day the toughest part of all of this is attribution. Can you really show that the work you did made that difference?
00:33:07
Speaker
In some cases, yeah. i mean Now that attribution is a good segue into um the question of, right? well Now that you are in the position you are in to see agencies, it takes ego to start an agency.
00:33:26
Speaker
takes ego to sit it to take those kind of risks. But egos are also very fragile and they can cause people to not see the forest for the trees. um Is there a reoccurring theme there that you have seen that's gotten owners into trouble or has benefited them when it comes to having that unique kind of ego?
00:33:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think, and I'll say when I was running my shop, my ego was up there, boy. like It's still there. We hang out, but ah that it was really there. And i would say that a lot of what we did from the beginning was just me being a force of nature.
00:34:05
Speaker
Just not allowing us not to get that project or not to expand outside of little Jacksonville, Florida, or not to. but We had to do these things. But then later, I think my ego got us in trouble because I would go on firing sprees.
00:34:19
Speaker
You have clients, not my team. I would just go, I don't like the way you said that. That's that badly? Yeah. That far from it. He said, sounding like a weird cartoon character for her.
00:34:31
Speaker
but But I'll also say, just from watching the community, and this is reality television for me, a lot it. But I have seen someone who pretty much...
00:34:42
Speaker
And I will say manhandled because it was manhandling. Manhandled their company up to great heights. And when clients wanted leave or said they weren't getting the right results, would pretty much tell them they needed to keep going and that they hadn't tried hard enough, they hadn't gone long enough, always put it back on them.
00:35:07
Speaker
Eventually, everybody got tired of that. Yeah. And that's the thing, because eventually there was another option. And when that other option came on the scene, was very attractive because it looked nice.
00:35:20
Speaker
Yes. Well, I think... You can have a tremendous ego and be a very nice person. And that's that they aren't opposites. Yeah. yeah But I will say ego early is important because it's a force of nature. It allows you to put on those reality distortion goggles that Steve Jobs used talk about.
00:35:37
Speaker
It's like he has to not believe in what is right now because he's trying to get to something that hasn't been yeah To me, I think we were we're all doing the same thing. the same time, Project Corson's girlfriend famously said, when you look at the world through rose-colored glasses, red flags just look like flags.
00:35:56
Speaker
and And for me, that's the other side of it. You still have to know enough of reality that you don't drive off the cliff. Yeah, in agency, especially in small agency world, there's the joke and that everybody's two payrolls away from going out of business, that it's a short runway to to an outcome in in in a a lot of agencies' realities.
00:36:19
Speaker
What do you think are the red flags that most people miss that you've seen? I would say it's definitely got to do around operations. There are things that are just broken, but if cash flow is good enough, you don't notice them or you refuse to look at them.
00:36:34
Speaker
But I think a lot of when it comes to that, it's because of humans, right? We don't invest near as much on soft skills as we do on hard skills. And the fact that it's called soft skills just bugs the crap out me.
00:36:45
Speaker
I know. There's nothing harder. And where I was at an event with Margaret Lee and she asked the table about 30 people, how many of you have fired somebody for a hard skill? They could not do the thing they were hired to do.
00:36:59
Speaker
And two hand. And she said last year, two hands went up. They said, how many of you fired somebody for a soft skill? They weren't a good team player. They aggravated others. They were constantly a source of negativity.
00:37:12
Speaker
Half the hands in the ring went up. Yeah, we weren't just agencies. These were big in-house teams too. But I think that really becomes a huge part of it is operations is so valuable when you get in the right flow.
00:37:27
Speaker
You can't really scale an agency, but you can optimize it And if you're going to optimize it, it involves having people that feel Daniel Pink drives. it They have to feel that they are empowered.
00:37:41
Speaker
They have to feel that they are in control of their own destiny at some level. And to do that, they have to be good humans without disrupting the ship. So do you think it's one of the problems is just that people tolerate toxicity in the team or that they're just ignoring those realities because it's not a hard skill? It's not a, I can't pinpoint that they're messing up. So we let them stay. is What do you think?
00:38:08
Speaker
I think it's since the pandemic. and For the pandemic, I think we would hire and fire a lot quicker. We weren't worried about talent. We weren't worried about limits of who's available, any of that kind stuff.
00:38:21
Speaker
And we were able to see a lot clearer. But since the pandemic, the ups and the downs and the ups and the downs and the feeling that we were crushing it when really we just got government subsidies.
00:38:33
Speaker
And it's going be like, oh my God, every year is going to be like this. It just makes it a mess to really know anymore. And I think we're all just a little shell-shocked. Yeah. So we don't know when talent's not going to be available again.
00:38:46
Speaker
And then I'll say this too. And saying talent sounds a little, I'm looking down my nose at it, but no, the people who actually create what it is, the back of the house, if you're from the restaurant drunk business, um they have woken up.
00:39:06
Speaker
And they're standing up for themselves. Did you think at earlier how we still don't have a lot of confidence? so It's changed for the next wave. They do have that confidence. They are saying, I'm worth this. And they get mad when it's suddenly not available.
00:39:19
Speaker
I feel like you should have realized you can't get mad and leave and then not be happy. We're not hiring when you come back. You know, so I think that's it. I think it's just whiplash from everybody's looking for a job. Nobody's looking for a job. Everybody's looking for a job. but and So just let 2000 people go. yeah it's I'm amazed at the salaries that people want for junior level or entry level positions now compared to four or five years ago.
00:39:50
Speaker
And it's I don't think inflation has gone has cost of living has not increased that much. Yes, it is bad. It is hard, but it is interesting. And maybe that's because the reality is a lot of people can make it on their own as solopreneurs or as freelancers. And so if they're going to take a full time job somewhere, they want all the perks and all the safety and all of that.
00:40:13
Speaker
But it's been interesting. That's been really choppy over the years as well. Yeah. I think that also gets back to the whole putting a ring on the finger when you find that right person. Yeah. Trying to make them that full-time employee, especially when you realize how much you fraud and scams and all the things that are starting to happen with AI, allowing people to look like they're somebody else, to respond with information they may not have.
00:40:38
Speaker
feel We had a situation at one camp where somebody explained it. There was like a Russian side hustle going on where they were acting like they were Americans. Yeah. And to get, and they were doing the work, but all the money was getting, you know, Russia.
00:40:54
Speaker
And they got contacted by the FBI and said, Hey, we need you to keep doing that because we're trying to track this down. So we need to see each other. But yeah, I think, I think that bodes well for the small teams, the slow growth. Mm-hmm.
00:41:10
Speaker
That was the other thing that while there's this speed element that feels is so present right now with with technology and with just the state of the world, there's also the complete opposite, I feel like, that that really needs to be attended to, which is that slower, more purposeful, more human, like some good things do take time.
00:41:35
Speaker
They do. And I think whether it's building a team or forming a relationship with a client, it's just like any other relationship. And they don't just, they're not transactional, but we are still living in a transactional world of business. so And the work that we do, because it is creative, we also put some of ourselves into it.
00:41:58
Speaker
So we're really involved and engaged in the outcome because we feel like we are part of it. And that means that we're going to have to be able to get upset with each other sometimes.
00:42:08
Speaker
Yeah. Lori and I got into it a little bit yesterday. Doesn't happen often. I apologize because I know who's doing her the favor. But it's one of those things. If she had been a freelancer helping out with back office stuff and with logistics on events and stuff, I might not have been able to be as honest as how it was feeling.
00:42:28
Speaker
She may not have felt empowered to push back. Yeah. you know So it's, I think that's the other side of it is when you are a creative entity, when you're trying to create something, you're not just moving widgets from place to place.
00:42:42
Speaker
You need a team that you can be emotional and vulnerable and angry and all of the things with within reason, but you can't do that necessarily with a patchwork of the teams.
00:42:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. and Some of these, ah here's another question for you ah along these lines. What is the, What are a few of, because I'm sure there's more than one, things that that people keep bringing up as the, we need to solve this problem.
00:43:09
Speaker
And you've just seen it. If you could just send it to the sun and it never comes back again to be discussed because it is just simply like the so the solution is like via communication or whatever.
00:43:20
Speaker
What are a few of those things that you've just seen that are never going to be solved? It's interesting, Brett. I want to say, and that this is a kind of ah adjacent to the question, but if there's a tool out there that already does this, I just want to find the tool that does it the way i want it done.
00:43:40
Speaker
Yeah. Or that that sort of thing. I think that's that's a huge one. it's But in terms of the thing that keeps coming up, if we could just fix this one thing, think you nailed it. It really is.
00:43:51
Speaker
culture and people and everybody's trying to figure out how do we create culture in a distributed world? I think it just creates itself. It's different. It's okay.
00:44:05
Speaker
Let it go. It's either happy person you want to be and attract other happy people. That's a better plan, but it's a great question. I'm not sure I have a really solid answer. Fair.
00:44:15
Speaker
You may have touched upon and the answer to this already with your, the FBI investigation, but what's the weirdest bureau experience you've had?
00:44:29
Speaker
wow. Weird. Fuck or. right so Dealer's choice. Weird. What the hell was that? I've definitely had some of those moments where somebody just showed who they really were in front of the group and nobody knew it oh a reveal it was a little brutal it was one of these situations where somebody in the room defends just like a not ethical idea yeah and i will say
00:45:03
Speaker
As a community grows, these things are going to happen. It doesn't mean that person was necessarily a bad person, but they were in that moment.
00:45:14
Speaker
They were not a human i wanted to hang out with. Yeah. I'll also say we've gone through the whole poaching thing. We've gone through the whole mergers that didn't happen. There's been a lot things.
00:45:28
Speaker
Also say, and it's happened to me personally, and then also at another event, You get seated next to somebody you've had public fights with. Absolutely did not take their shit in a public forum.
00:45:46
Speaker
And now you're sitting next to each other. really That's awkward. And we'll have to be like, Okay. One of us has to say, are we cool? we okay Can we do this? ah do in In another situation though, it was somebody who had been a whistleblower on somebody else at a large corporation and they were not sitting next to each other and neither one knew the other would be in the room.
00:46:16
Speaker
And so we now let people know about three weeks out who's going to be there. Yeah. So we can hopefully avoid that. Yeah. That's a good idea. Those are definitely some of the things.
00:46:28
Speaker
I'll also say having couples together, like human, like personal couples, not business couples. Sometimes that can get to a weird place because like ah we've had husbands and wives, we had wives and wives, we had husbands and husbands and they end up like getting into some sort of a little rift because running a business and having a relationship is really hard.
00:46:53
Speaker
um From what I've seen, we're waiting for it. but My wife worked for our company about nine months, and the day she came in and quit, we all celebrated because we knew she hated this.
00:47:04
Speaker
So I'd say that's it. It's people who have a past that are reunited. And then always you always have some folks who have some sort of substance abuse issues. So you have to be really conscious of it and also try to make sure you're not setting them up to fail. Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:21
Speaker
I think in the early days, we didn't realize that we'd have margarita happy hours at 3 p.m. that are brought into the room and that poor human can't escape. the meaning And then the questions are going to come and then, oh you're not having enough.
00:47:34
Speaker
So I think we got, I was honest, we got a lot smarter about it. Yeah. It that can be difficult. That's a lot to, I'm sure you've learned a lot of lessons along the way about about curating and organizing groups of humans for these intense gatherings and so many logistics.
00:47:52
Speaker
when When we were in Seattle and the pilot who was supposed to pick us up from the found when we were out doing a whale watching, there were three seaplanes that were supposed to come get us. And the third one, the pilot was drunk and they wouldn't let him fly.
00:48:07
Speaker
whole seeing the third ship. A third of the event got stranded on the sound. Luckily, Brett Harned was with them and they managed to get to a place where they could get to a bus, where they could get across the bridge, where they could come back.
00:48:21
Speaker
But I have never, ever, that, my heart, I think they had more fun than we did because we were sitting there at this fancy restaurant worried about them. They were ordering pizzas and taking cases of beer onto this party bus.
00:48:32
Speaker
they We're having an adventure. Yeah. Sometimes it is when the, I'm a big believer that like when things go wrong, that's your best opportunity. It's your best. That's your best opportunity to. Are we going to have an adventure? Yeah. Or what, you know, what's going to happen now that things have gone wrong. Yeah.
00:48:50
Speaker
Because there's nothing more boring than complacency and everything just goes great. Yeah. And that's not life either. If you think it is, then you're in for a rude awakening, I guess.
00:49:02
Speaker
dont It'll happen. Back to what you said about you wished more agencies asked you about how to partner that and they don't. Do you feel like there is advice that you give over and over again from your perspective that just gets ignored?
00:49:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think the main one is that you can't be equal partners going into a partnership. It's going to have to shift from project to project. And you need to basically set up ahead of time and role play.
00:49:31
Speaker
like Say, okay, so I bring in this project and it's got these needs and you're an expert at that and we're an expert at this, but we need to have one project manager. We need to have one account manager.
00:49:43
Speaker
So think once they can understand that and also realize that your best partners, you're not going to have a ton of overlapping services. Sometimes people partner up because one shop had a service, the other one didn't, but all the other shirt services are shared.
00:49:59
Speaker
And then they just can't work together that well. One part of the company, one company needs to be in charge of the financial side and the operation side. But you've got to have a level of trust and and your agreement has to detail this out.
00:50:14
Speaker
Your client cannot feel it. I think they need to know it, but they can't feel it because you can do the whole super friends. We're bringing in the best when it comes to recruitment. We're bringing the best when it comes into fundraising. We're bringing in the best.
00:50:29
Speaker
So we're going to give you the super friends, but you only have to work with us and then we'll take care of everything else. But then you also have to have a plan for everybody did the work, but the client didn't pay.
00:50:41
Speaker
Now, does that mean that the person sitting at the front of the ship is responsible for paying everybody else? Yeah. Let's talk about it before it happens. And I think that's the biggest thing. People don't talk about things before they happen.
00:50:53
Speaker
They just dive into it. Whistling Dixie, as we say here in the South, you are whistling Dixie out her butt hole. Okay. Then you just realize, are oh, there's so many things we did not anticipate. We didn't plan for.
00:51:07
Speaker
So I think if you're going to partner with another agency, I've got these questions. I should share these. I should publish it. But here are like the questions you should ask each other so that you can make sure you get on the same page.
00:51:18
Speaker
One of my favorites is what are the clients you are not willing to work with? What industries? I'm not going work with handguns. I can work with cigarettes. I'm not work with anything that is openly anti-human.
00:51:34
Speaker
yeah ah How does that play out? If you don't do that upfront, what do you see happen? ah What are the negative outcomes that yeah that poor planning in partnering ends up resulting in?
00:51:49
Speaker
You may not be familiar with this, Tracy, but a lot of times when you're working with a client, things go wrong. the just No, not for me, Carl. I know.
00:52:00
Speaker
say think it's not unlike what would happen if it was just one company. Somebody is going to look for somebody to blame. And they're they're not going to look at themselves most of the time. So if it was just your company, a project manager may blame a developer.
00:52:16
Speaker
But now if that developer works in another company that you're partnering with, now your company or shots have been fired And so now you're going to have this little issue that you probably could have talked through. What do we do if the client's late on a deliverable? Oh, we're at the pause close. Oh no, we just hustle and get it done.
00:52:38
Speaker
Or what if the partner is late on the deliverable? Exactly. And how does that impact your financial part of this? and how
00:52:48
Speaker
That's really it. It is just quick to lose trust. Yeah. When you're partnered with somebody and that challenge comes up, you know, there's, I think it was Kevin Hoffman who had the book on kickoff meetings.
00:53:01
Speaker
And he had that question there. What do you think we're going to do to screw this up? I think partnering agencies should have that kickoff and they should ask each other. I think they should dig in and they should share the worst they've ever been and the best they've ever been.
00:53:15
Speaker
And just put it on the table, be vulnerable before you ever get front a client. But people wait to partner until they realize they can't do it on their own. So it's also, they're just looking for who can fill the void.
00:53:26
Speaker
They're not looking for who should they work with. Yeah, I think there it's hard to partner because who do you trust? And how do you avoid getting into that blaming, finger-pointing area that, yeah, and I've been there. And it's who's telling me the truth?
00:53:44
Speaker
Exactly. And when it's a big, complicated project and everybody's pointing fingers at each other, Instead of trying to solve it, honestly. Yeah. You can get into a real bad situation real fast. Real fast. Yeah.
00:54:00
Speaker
Oh, man. Yeah, people are messy. i I feel bad for my therapist, I do. I'm glad you have a therapist because that was my other question is you have to provide so much support for so many people who are going through ah stressful existence. Running agencies is not for the faint of heart.
00:54:19
Speaker
um It is not a predictable, reliable, boring existence, and you have to get into a lot of it, how do you not get so sapped and so just exhausted by it and burned out by it that you're just ready to throw in the towel? Because I would imagine it's exhausting.
00:54:39
Speaker
It is. I've explained it as riding a bronco bull. that is just trying to kick me off. The wild stallion, Carl? From time to time, it turns and it locks eyes with me and goes, I love you.
00:54:52
Speaker
And then it goes back to kicking my ass. And that's what running a community is. But honestly, I'm addicted to it. It's so much fun on the back of the bull. I think there are a few things here. One, sometimes both people in the disagreement or the challenge will reach out to me independently.
00:55:09
Speaker
And one thing I've learned is Nobody knows any of these conversations, not even my most inner circle. I would not share this because somebody sometimes is just not going to realize and they didn't share.
00:55:21
Speaker
I think also have to be very careful not to take a stance, but to be a founding board and to give advice if asked. And I feel that I have information worth giving, but the way that I keep myself fresh is i really don't take it personally.
00:55:40
Speaker
Even if it's a friend in pain, I try to help, and then I lean on the fact that I was able to help, that I was able to say something. I've been way into stoicism for a few years now.
00:55:51
Speaker
This is actually Frankie. Frankie is my memento mori, who reminds me that I could leave life right now. So when I am feeling a certain way or in a certain conversation, I'll ask myself, is this the way I want to be remembered?
00:56:04
Speaker
Is this the last thing I want to have done before I shuffle off? to run a lot and journal a tremendous amount and meditate. I do all the hippie things. And yeah, so all of that really helps. There are times where I just, if we slammed phones down anymore, I would slam my phone down.
00:56:22
Speaker
There are times where I'm just so angry at the way somebody acted or something that somebody did that I have to just give myself a break. I'm lucky. So and the way my days are scheduled, I can take four hours and just be by myself.
00:56:39
Speaker
And if I didn't have that luxury, if I wasn't able to just breathe without outside interference for a while, I think it would be harder. But I also know when I'm getting ready to have a bad call, I schedule it towards the end of the day.
00:56:54
Speaker
Yeah. No, that's going to be the last thing I am capable of doing before I move on. Before we we wrap up this conversation, again, from your perspective, what and everything that you see and are on the front row for these days.
00:57:14
Speaker
If you had to give an agency ah a general bit of advice to all the agencies out there, is there a general bit of advice that you would give at this time of March 2025 with all of the things that are going on? What would your words of wisdom be?
00:57:32
Speaker
Slow down, slow down and think about it. Give yourself a chance. You're not going out of business today. And more than likely you're not going out of business unless you decide to close up. So slow down, think about it and ask yourself before each of these decisions you're looking at, do I want to work at that company?
00:57:51
Speaker
Because ah I see a lot of owners who suddenly they make this quick switch. They see things are getting better and then they're miserable because that wasn't their passion. That wasn't why they started what they did. we just say go slow and make sure you're keeping yourself in mind as well. Just doing everything for your team.
00:58:07
Speaker
That's great. That's great. Anything else on your mind that you want to chat about in particular that I haven't asked you about? I want to thank you. Those early camps, I remember we were, think, in Minneapolis and we were walking down the street and...
00:58:24
Speaker
I was doing really well. The company was doing really well. And you warned me. You actually said, hey, what are you going to do if it doesn't keep going? What are you going to do if it turns?
00:58:36
Speaker
And i you were the first person to break through that ego that I had of everything going so well. And if you hadn't done that, I don't think I would have been as prepared when it did turn.
00:58:47
Speaker
Oh, no. Thank you so much for that. I'm not crying. You're welcome. I've been accused of maybe being... sometimes pessimistic um or an over overly realistic, but I think it's just that I like to look at things from all different angles.
00:59:05
Speaker
And so I never want to take anything at face value. And I think things are complicated and there's a lot of luck at play. There's a lot of timing. There's a lot of things that are outside of our control that can have big influences on our lives. And I don't know that necessarily...
00:59:23
Speaker
Thinking about them ahead of time really can prepare you for it. But I do think not taking things for granted is something that's important because that will make, I think, make you more thoughtful about every decision you make instead of just falling into a, this is how I've always done things because this is how they've always gone. And so I won't consider the complexity that could be the situation.
00:59:51
Speaker
Yeah. People who are stupidly optimistic like me, we need realists in our world. Well, you're not stupidly optimistic, Carl. It's worked out.
01:00:02
Speaker
Yeah. rhythm Or you wouldn't you wouldn't keep going. Yeah. If you could go back to running an agency again, would you? My ego would. My brain would not.
01:00:14
Speaker
That fighting for the next thing with a team. i'm I miss all of the trappings. Work. Yeah.
01:00:24
Speaker
Yeah, there's something, there's something really fun about, there's something really fun about it, but it is very exhausting. Yeah. Yeah. yeah I'll say that in my other relationships, they're much healthier now in agency.
01:00:42
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm actually lucky to be married. The way running that agency was. Yeah. good advice and something for all agency folks to think about there.
01:00:54
Speaker
And I just, again, just want to encourage everyone who has not checked out the Bureau. If they're looking for community and good, straight shooting advice from people who've been through a lot of different situations, I think it's just a great community. And again, it's not every other person is trying to sell you a massage or however are some of those old network. Weird thing that happened at camp.
01:01:19
Speaker
Speaking of. they We had the massage break. That was. Oh, I like that one. But yeah, it's just been it's been great to grow and go through life with friends who share ah trials and tribulations of work.
01:01:33
Speaker
And when work doesn't feel just like a job, it's definitely been a good ride. And I've been glad to be riding alongside of you and a lot of the other members of the Bureau for all these years.
01:01:44
Speaker
Thanks, Tracy. thank you for your wisdom and your stories and your perspective as always. and And until we talk again, thanks for joining. All right.
01:01:55
Speaker
Thanks everybody.