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43. Build a Support Dream Team with Abby Hobbs
8 Plays3 months ago
In this episode, Abby Hobbs joins Mallory to share what it's like to support small business owners from a project and account management perspective.
Abby works with the hosts of this show in a professional capacity and shares insights into the phases all teams go through and what makes supporting team members want to stay with you! Both Mallory and Abby also share mistakes they've made and how they remedied them. Make sure to tune in to hear this personal episode and apply learnings to your own dream team!
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- How excelling at written communication can help eliminate meetings.
- Why establishing and following clear boundaries heads off issues.
- How mistakes can actually deepen relationships with clients.
- Ways to keep awesome support team members.
- A framework to help you make decisions for business and life.
For more inspiration, subscribe to Unbound Turnarounds on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!
LINKS:
- Connect with Nicole
- Connect with Mallory
- Connect with Abby: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abbyhobbsindy/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Unbound Turnarounds
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Unbound Turnarounds, a podcast all about the challenges women business owners think about constantly, but rarely voice. We're Nicole and Mallory, entrepreneurs, friends, and co-founders of Business Unbound. Our mission is simple, make business feel better. And that starts with honest conversations about the ups, downs, and turnarounds of entrepreneurship.
Season Four Recap and Guest Introduction
00:00:26
Speaker
So whether you're just starting out or you've been your own boss for years, tune in for stories, insights, and strategies that actually make work work for life. All right, welcome back to Unbound Turnarounds. We have arrived
00:00:44
Speaker
at the end of season four, which is all about different types of support entrepreneurs can utilize in running their companies. And today we have a fun season closer because our guest is someone both Nicole and I have worked with for many years. So you're kind of going to get a little peek behind the curtain of what it's like to work with us. And hopefully she only says good things, right? So I'm excited to welcome my colleague, my friend, my fellow freelancer and entrepreneur, Abby Hobbs to the podcast.
00:01:13
Speaker
Abby's life revolves around a set of core values that shape who she is in life and business, family, perseverance, morality, honesty, health, and achievement.
Abby's Journey to Entrepreneurship
00:01:23
Speaker
Hailing from a farm in Tipton, Indiana, she studied business and marketing at Purdue and discovered a passion for fostering success in the business world. She took this passion to exact target and sales force and focused her career on recruiting and leadership development.
00:01:37
Speaker
And then when the time came to start a family, Abby shifted her professional focus to propelling other entrepreneurs and businesses to success with her very first client being Nicole and Creative Quarterback, just like me. Her diverse experience with companies of all sizes has equipped her with a unique perspective and essential skills such as project management, problem solving, and continuous improvement.
00:02:01
Speaker
And when working with clients, she prioritizes trustworthiness, self-awareness, and the ability to learn from mistakes.
00:02:08
Speaker
This freelance lifestyle allows Abby to keep her focus on her husband and her three sons.
Balancing Freelance and Family Life
00:02:13
Speaker
And Abby also finds fulfillment in daily exercise, time in nature, volunteering with her church and her children's schools, and contributing to the community that has shaped her. Through the years, Abby has been an amazing partner to myself, and I want to thank you for all of that support and partnership in the past, and also for being here today. So, Abby, welcome to the show.
00:02:36
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for that warm welcome. It's amazing to be here with you. And I've had a lot of fun listening to the podcast so far and just am honored to get to be a part of it today. Perfect. All right. Well, let's get started and talk about what it was like when Nicole first brought you on because you were already past colleagues and friends. And I know sometimes people are nervous about working with people they know. So what was that conversation and experience like for you guys?
00:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, great, great question started at the beginning. I have reflected on the conversation that Nicole and I had to start working together many times. And I laugh about it because it's one of those moments that you don't realize how life shaping it is at that very time until you start reflecting back on it. So rewind almost 10 years ago now, I had a newborn at home, like three, four weeks old.
Joining Creative Quarterback
00:03:31
Speaker
And Nicole and I were just catching up as friends on the phone. I'd been out on leave and we were just chatting. And she had started this side hustle at the time of creative quarterback. And I was just learning about it just as a friend. Like, how's it going? You know, how's this life and this struggle going? And she was like, it's going really well, maybe too well, because I'm overwhelmed. Like, it's a lot.
00:03:57
Speaker
And I am a person that, you know, like you see somebody that needs help and you're like, well, I mean, if there's anything I can do to help, to be honest, like did not expect her to take me up on that. But as you've gotten to know Nicole, she's right away. Well, if you're sure, like if you mean it, yeah, I could, I could use like another me.
00:04:20
Speaker
Are you interested? Well, I'm living on like two hours of sleep at night right now and I don't know up or down, but let's talk about it. So it would happen like extremely organically. I went, when we started a family, as you mentioned up on the top, I had planned to go and be a stay at home mom. And I am a person of faith and I believe strongly that God recognized that there was a need I was going to have
00:04:48
Speaker
before I realized it myself.
Building a Sustainable Business Model
00:04:51
Speaker
And he positioned this opportunity for me to still stay plugged in in a professional way while starting and growing our family. And so again, it happened extremely organically. I right away jumped into doing some things for Nicole that would just free up some brain space for her. And then as I got a little bit more
00:05:12
Speaker
ground behind me with a newborn at home, we spent some time together really planning what was this going to look like and how was I going to integrate into the business with her. Yeah. Were there any conversations about, is this going to wreck our friendship or what happens when there's a disagreement or anything like that to set the stage?
00:05:36
Speaker
Yeah, I'm trying to kind of think back to that. I remember some initial conversations. Nicole and I both love being in nature. And so I remember going and sitting outside on like a summer day. And we just spent kind of an afternoon, maybe even a full day doing some business planning. And it was getting really clear on the processes and the roles that we were going to have. But it was almost
00:06:01
Speaker
I have to say, it felt almost like playing house a little bit. Like we were creating our own thing. Like it was just, it could be whatever we wanted it to be. And Nicole had obviously already put a lot of sweat and tears into building the business at that point, but we really came along together because we knew that we were going to have more people join. And we wanted to set up some really clear expectations about what it looked like to be a freelancer with Creative Quarterback.
00:06:29
Speaker
And one of those things early on was a core value of life comes first. And so we just created this business around how it needed to work within our lives. And so I think that that was a big piece of her understanding what my life currently looks like. She doesn't have children and I don't have the same things that draw her. And so just getting a clear understanding of how
00:06:53
Speaker
how we needed business to work within our lives was really important upfront. But you know, Nicole and I had worked together for a little over five years previously and had worked on projects with just the two of us in our corporate world. And so I think we just had a really clear understanding of the grace that we showed one another when we worked together corporate and that that would just naturally flow into this new adventure together.
Mallory's Addition to the Team
00:07:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I think that history probably was key, and you kind of knew how each other would respect one another. You knew your morals, how you worked, and I think that probably led to a lot of the success. But I'm curious, because you said at that time,
00:07:41
Speaker
You were setting up for other freelancers to join and that's exactly what happened. And then you had several and then fast forward a couple years later is when I came into the fold. And I'm curious because I don't think we've ever talked about this, you and I.
00:07:59
Speaker
What was that like for you when I came in? Was it like, oh God, there's another type A coming into what's going to happen? What was the experience like when you had, you know, you have the entrepreneur Nicole, you're like her right hand person, you know, you're functioning, you're thriving, and then you throw another person, not just a freelancer, but another person into the mix who's meant to be part of that like business team. What was that experience like?
00:08:26
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like I can go so many different directions with this. I will say upfront that I personally have always approached my career and my decisions about the roles that I take and the jobs I take based upon the people that I surround myself with.
00:08:41
Speaker
who can I best serve? Who can I best learn from? And who can I work well with? And I am fortunately had already figured that out with working with Nicole in the corporate world. And I had worked with some folks that Nicole had brought on as freelancers and that was going well. So then when she brought up bringing now into the picture, I had already like a really high level of trust that Nicole
00:09:08
Speaker
wouldn't bring somebody in that we wouldn't, you know, jive with and get along with well. And she, I remember vividly her saying like, she's like, gonna be your best friend. Like she was, you know, Nicole was like, I'm telling you, like, she's our people. That's like the phrase that Nicole, like, she's our people. And so I already had that kind of groundwork laid. I also knew again, coming back to life comes first, that there was a need for
00:09:37
Speaker
some additional relief for Nicole. And I had pretty clear boundaries on what my role would be within Creative Quarterback at the amount of time that I was willing to give Nicole. I felt a little bad sometimes upfront when starting to work with Nicole about like, gosh,
00:09:57
Speaker
I don't know if I can take on this other client or, you know, this is becoming too much because I've, you know, I've got a little one at home or I've, you know, later on would be three. And Nicole Berry early on helped me and gave me so much freedom when she said, Hey, I don't, you don't have to explain this to me. Your kids are like your other clients. You know, like you're a freelancer for me, just like our design freelancers or web freelancers.
00:10:24
Speaker
They don't dedicate 100% of their work hours to create a quarterback as a client. I don't expect you to either. You're a freelancer. I'm a client of yours and your children are your other clients. And that was so freeing for me whenever trying to figure out how I was going to juggle those together.
Team Development and Efficiency
00:10:41
Speaker
So when it came to the time as a business that we were like, Hey, we've got something here. Like our clients are really happy. We have more business than what we can handle. We need some operational excellence to come in.
00:10:54
Speaker
I mean, I really welcomed it with open arms because I also knew that you weren't coming in to do my job, right? Like I had a clear role. Nicole had a clear role and you were coming in with a clear role. And so it felt just like it was going to be a relief. I will also say that
00:11:17
Speaker
So I have a background in HR and spent a lot of years doing leadership development and leadership training. And one of the things that I would teach about was the formation of a new team and knowing that there are stages of a new team coming together. You're gonna come together, you're gonna form. Everything's gonna be like this honeymoon stage of like, oh yeah, this is all great. We love each other. Then there's some expected storming that's going to happen. Like you have to get to know each other and there's going to be
00:11:46
Speaker
Mistakes and there's going to be toe stepped on and oh, I thought I did that or I thought you did that and
00:11:52
Speaker
And again, the expectation is like it's going to happen. So let's move through it quickly and let's be open about it with each other when those moments happen. And then you can get to the point of norming, like what is normal interaction and work look like. And then you go to truly performing, which we can talk about that later, but I feel like we've been at that point for a while. And it's just that expectation of knowing you're going to go through those rough times, but then you're going to get together and move fast through those and jive well.
00:12:21
Speaker
Yeah, that was sort of what happened, because there was another role we were feeling at the same time, and that didn't work out. But I remember part of the conversation was really having clear guidelines on what responsibilities each person was going to have. And so that storming was really then trying to make all four of us work together. And we realized that that fourth person, it didn't quite fit. And then we shifted. And so that really was the storm before we could get to the norming piece of it. So I do recall that.
00:12:50
Speaker
as well. Now, the three of us are kind of... Nicole, you and I are considered creative quarterback staff in quotes. We're still freelancers, but we're kind of running the company, even though we do have other freelancers who help us execute on our campaigns. But I feel like the three of us got to a place of mastery or performing, as you said. And it really feels like we can deliver
00:13:18
Speaker
just like, this kind of sounds bad, but like almost an autopilot, like it just happens. It feels, it's efficient. That's a better word. It feels really efficient. Everybody knows what they need to do and when they need to do it. And the communication between us, whenever I send an email to either of you, whether it's external from our project management system or in the system itself, it's always answered, even if it's just like, hey, I got it.
00:13:46
Speaker
And it's the same way I communicate with you. And so there's just a level of communication that happens there that I think lends to this mastery. I mean, you've certainly been amazing to work with. You're extremely reliable, like I said, the follow through, and then the human first, that compassion approach, right? At times, it really has felt like a dream team. But we work virtually, and we all live far away from each other now.
00:14:13
Speaker
So why do you think, for other people listening, if they're trying to get that with their support team members, why do you think it works so well?
00:14:21
Speaker
Yes. So completely echo everything that you're saying. And I would say it goes back to those setting super clear expectations on the front end. I remember that when Nicole and I very first started working together and granted this has been 10 years ago, so I was still, you know, I had had some corporate experience, but was still, you know, five, six, seven years into my career. So early ish. And I remember learning from her on effective
00:14:51
Speaker
written communication. And that sounds really elementary and something that if you're at a certain level of your career, well, of course they're good. I mean, I work with clients now that are successful executives that I mean, are at the peak of, and I'm like, how many times am I going to have to reread this email to understand what
00:15:17
Speaker
the heck you're talking about. So Nicole and I, I remember in the beginning, we set the expectation that we weren't going to do calls. Nicole doesn't like doing meetings. She, if you're an avid listener of the podcast, she has an energy symbol and it takes a lot of her energy to do it, to do meetings.
00:15:36
Speaker
I again, rewind 10 years ago, had young children at my feet and just it was too stressful to think about trying to schedule a meeting into that with clients. And so we set the expectation that we were going to be written really, really, really great at being written communicators.
00:15:54
Speaker
And it also is great because then you can always go back to that written communication and reference. And the number of times that I go back to a message that the three of us have sent to one another, I mean, we'll go back years and be able to see within our project management system exactly what happened because we outlined it so well. And again, we set that same expectation with the clients of like, hey, we take feedback from you in written communication form. I'm not going to hop on a call and
00:16:23
Speaker
and us talk about it unless there's extreme circumstances, but we can talk about that later. But I mean, it's so few and far between, but it's all in that written communication style. And so I did some training on that with Nicole whenever we first started about the efficient use of molding and bullet points and next steps and action items at the end of the message, which again, like sounds
00:16:49
Speaker
Am I going through English 101 again? But we did the same thing for freelancers. Whenever we went onboard them, that's part of my role is when we do bring on a new freelancer is onboarding them on to how we work together. And part of that is your expected style of communication. And I think that's the secret sauce and the fact that to your point, Matt,
00:17:15
Speaker
If you send me a message and I know that I can't give it time until today's Friday when we're recording, but until Monday, I'm gonna respond and say like, hey, I see this, I'm gonna get back to you early next week. It takes 15 seconds.
00:17:30
Speaker
But the amount of mental brain space that that releases, because you know that somebody saw it and they're working on it, I view it as common courtesy. And we, as a creative quarterback team, that's how we work together. But we all too often see that that's not the norm. But I think that it's what's made us work together so well, is that amount of communication.
Asynchronous Work Benefits
00:17:56
Speaker
And I think, again, we work across multiple time zones and make it work.
00:18:00
Speaker
too. And we rarely are working at the same time. Nicole tends to like to work at night. I don't do that as much as I used to. I might pop in the middle of the day. But again, that's where because we don't revolve work around when we can schedule a meeting time together, it keeps things going. And that has been usually successful for us.
00:18:26
Speaker
I hope entrepreneurs listening. I really hope, I mean, yes, I agree with all of that. But I really hope they take away that you don't have to have so many meetings. You get to make this choice as the business owner. You don't have to have, now, in some cases, that doesn't work.
00:18:46
Speaker
maybe it doesn't work for you, maybe it doesn't work for the project you're working on, or there's too many hands in the pot. I don't know. But I think it's safe to say most people could probably cut down on meetings, especially the ones where you're the one driving it. Nicole would have had to be the one saying, we need weekly meetings.
00:19:03
Speaker
And instead, we did Friday recap emails. And they were very detailed. We had the project management system, but then everything was documented in that Friday recap email instead of a weekly check-in. So you can get creative here when you're supporting, when you have support members supporting you. You don't have to have a meeting with them every week. Well, you don't have to have an internal team meeting. And you also can set an expectation with your clients too. I think that
00:19:32
Speaker
One, I mean, we'll talk about her in a little bit, but one of the many things I admire about Nicole so much is that she has the courage to set boundaries and to say, you know, if a client doesn't want to work within the process that we've built, that's okay. And, you know, she has a mindset of abundance.
00:19:54
Speaker
And we have fired clients before that we were clear about the way that we work. We're clear about how many rounds of feedback we'll take, about how we take the feedback, the timeline, all the things.
00:20:11
Speaker
95% of the time, it works well. But I can think of a couple that we ended up having to part ways. And I would venture to say that they would still say very kind things about us as a business, but it just wasn't working. They were not playing within the boundaries that we had set. And we always framed it up that we can move a lot faster and more efficiently because we don't
00:20:36
Speaker
work around when we can schedule meetings with you as a client. We understand that you have multiple time zones, we're dealing with multiple time zones, and we will work more efficiently if we're not trying to have weekly strategy calls with you. And so I would be encouraging of that too, is that you can set those boundaries with your client.
00:20:56
Speaker
and they'll be respectful most of the time they have been respectful with us. And set the boundaries and then you have to follow them. Don't wave her. That's the key. She's very strong about withholding them and so are you, I think. Because if you're wishy-washy, then they think, it's not a real boundary. It's not like a black line. It's more gray. I will say that probably the deepest client relationship
00:21:21
Speaker
that I have right now with one of our clients and probably potentially ranked up there with all clients that we worked with over the last 10 years. I have spoken with her one time on the phone and I think I've been working with her in particular for three or four years. And we have a wonderful rapport and a lot of trust there.
00:21:45
Speaker
Yeah, and so to clarify, we actually do put our clients in our project management system. They have different projects, so they're not seeing the internal work, all the craziness, right? How the sausage gets made. Yeah, they don't see that, I do. But they have their own projects that are very clearly, in like capital letters, client-facing
00:22:05
Speaker
and then their client name. So we do put them in as part of Abby's onboarding with clients as she does train them on how to use the system. Now we use Teamwork, so it's a really easy to use project management system. I know something like ClickUp maybe would be, that would probably be a hindrance to getting people on board. But Asana, Teamwork, Basecamp maybe, those are simple enough that you really can, if it's a long enough partnership, it can be worth it if you want to get creative on how you communicate with your clients.
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah, totally. It's not any different. I mean, they're getting their emails to them. It's just like an email in their inbox, but it really helps keep things together. And again, I go back to, especially if you're building a long lasting client relationship with them, you know, we go back and reference things that we did years ago with the client because we have it all housed in one place and in one system.
00:22:58
Speaker
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Resources for Entrepreneurs
00:23:07
Speaker
Or learn how to implement the insights from this show in your existing business with our complimentary guide, Five Ways to Make Business Feel Better. Packed with practical tools and solutions, these resources draw from our collective 15 plus years of entrepreneurship and work with more than 100 clients.
00:23:28
Speaker
visit unboundboss.com to grab your freebies. It's time to make work, work for life. Okay, so let's talk about Nicole. So she's not on today. We could talk about Nicole. Well, you have been working with Nicole coming up on 10 years. Did you realize that's coming next year? Well, not the only, but one of the main reasons I do is because we started working together when my first gorn
00:23:58
Speaker
son was four weeks old. And so I do remember his age. And so that helps me remember how long I've been with Nicole. So the spring of 2025, her company, you guys, her company will be 10 years when you started pretty much at the beginning. So it'll be almost 10 years. Now I would like to hear what she's done in that time to keep you wanting to partner with her as a freelancer, because I want entrepreneurs to hear some of the ways
00:24:28
Speaker
to treat people because it's an investment in your time and money, getting new people on all the time, right? And so if you get a good support person, how do you keep them? What is Nicole done to do that for you? Yeah, absolutely.
00:24:44
Speaker
frame this up in, like you just said, as far as entrepreneurs with new freelancers that maybe don't have a long foundation or history together. I can speak for hours about the life that Nicole and the friendship that Nicole and I had prior to coming and working together and the amount of trust and compassion and all the things that were built because of that. But I do still think that it's possible to bring on someone that you don't have a relationship with previously
00:25:14
Speaker
and make it a really successful one that makes entrepreneurs and freelancers want to continue to work together. So specifically for Nicole, she definitely is a, she's a people first, life first kind of a person. She is so open to flexibility and she's very agile in, she's seen me through three children
00:25:43
Speaker
building a house, just lots of changes in my life and hasn't batted an eye at what that might do, what impact that might have on her business.
00:25:56
Speaker
there's this level of trust there that I'm gonna get done what I need to get done. And she does not micromanage how or when that happens. Again, we set up a process and a system on the front end, very clear about what expectations are, you're going to do this, I'm going to do this. And as long as I'm fulfilling those milestones,
00:26:23
Speaker
she could care less. Like when that happens, if I'm doing it from a beach, if I'm doing it from a baseball game, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't matter. So that flexibility and that trust is super important. Nicole also is super plugged in to
00:26:40
Speaker
things going on in your life. And that's what matters the most to her. I still remember when Mallory and I went to visit Nicole to do one of our initial kind of business planning sessions when Mallory joined, she brought us out to her home in Bozeman, planned this. I mean, she and I worked together to plan this amazing retreat where she spoiled us rotten. And then we leave the retreat and she's like, I'm just noticing that
00:27:07
Speaker
You two young moms, you just don't spend enough time and prioritize yourself enough. I'm going to implement a monthly be well stipend where I just want you to go and spend some money on pampering yourself every month. She's done that now for six, seven years, something like that. It's above and beyond. It's above and beyond. But also to your point in the question,
00:27:36
Speaker
When you think about the investment that that is for her to do that, I do not take that lightly. They are funds out of the business for her to do that. It's a big deal every month. I feel recognized. I feel like she sees me as a person and not just somebody that's doing client work for her. I'm loyal to her, not just because of that one thing, but think about if you had to replace me or you. The amount of money and the turnover and the
00:28:06
Speaker
you know, the friction that goes along with that with a client. So it's kind of like as a business owner, if you find good people, treat them well and recognize them and understand what's going on in their lives in order to keep them.
00:28:22
Speaker
Yeah, and you don't even have to spend that much money.
Nicole's Supportive Leadership
00:28:26
Speaker
It can be. It could just be a coffee every month where you send them a gift card from Starbucks every month or a handwritten note every quarter. I mean, there's so many things that don't have to cost that much. That's why I said it's above and beyond. It still blows my mind. I've never heard of anyone else doing it in a freelance entrepreneur space, but it goes a long way.
00:28:51
Speaker
Not even just that, but people who are, you know, it's giving us recovery. It's giving us space. It's allowing us to then be better when we come back to work, right? Because we take that afternoon or we take that evening to ourselves. I would never, I wouldn't have done 90% of the things I've done. Facials, pedicures, massages, without it.
00:29:13
Speaker
No, hands down. I will also say too that Nicole is so generous in sharing successes as well. Again, it's not just about showering with frivolous things, but when a client renews or when a client has a really big win that they share with us, Nicole is very open and very free with, to your point,
00:29:39
Speaker
Just like verbal recognition too of like knowing hey, this is you like this is you guys like you you know, and so just being really free and open with but the recognition is really important and I think that And we'll talk about this I think later on but i've never been afraid to make a mistake, you know with nicole she just
00:30:02
Speaker
sets it up really well with her folks that like, of course the business matters. Of course clients matter. At the end of the day, we are all humans. Our clients are, we are. And so let's just take a breath. And this is not, we're not doing brain surgery here. Like we are all human and it will be okay. And we will get to the other side of this. And so that perspective is usually important too.
00:30:29
Speaker
Yeah, the psychological safety. And it makes you make less mistakes because you're not afraid to make mistakes. And she does do that. Actually, both of you do. And actually, let's get into that right now, some mistakes. So I think I've been working with you guys. I think I was two years later. So let's say it's coming up on eight years. There have been mistakes. Yes, it's not brain surgery. Nobody's dying. But there's actual mistakes that have happened that have impacted deliverables, right? We've all made them.
00:30:56
Speaker
Most recently, it cost the business a couple thousand dollars. So it's like, whatever. But it felt gross. I under-quoted a campaign because I just misinterpreted an email when we had to make a change last minute. And Nicole, because she just felt ethically it wasn't right to pass that on to the client, we misquoted it. So she had to cover those funds from the business. And it still feels gross.
00:31:21
Speaker
But yeah, she's not shaming me. She's like, we're all humans. It actually shows that you're human, thank you, because you don't hardly ever make mistakes. Her response is so gracious what I'm wanting to hide under the desk. But I think how I approach it is one of the company values is raise red flags early. So you don't hide it, you just own it. I own it. And I apologize and I put in place
00:31:47
Speaker
These are the ways where I'm going to try to avoid this happening again. So that's how I come at it from a freelancer. I know you've had a couple, there's one that's probably sticking in your mind, but I've always respected, and you can get into that if you want. I have respected how both you and Nicole approached mistakes with clients, with each other, to the person who makes the mistake and the team.
00:32:10
Speaker
Can you share some of the ways that we've managed those mistakes with clients and feel free to get into or not get into anything that's coming to mind? Sure. Valerie's like, do you want to be triggered today? I know. Trauma. At a very high level, the one
00:32:28
Speaker
The big one that we're dancing around here, it's been five or six years ago now. We manage a lot of direct mail campaigns that go out. It was holidays, so we're talking five or six days ahead of Christmas that we were sending out client holiday gifts for a very loyal client. One of our first clients, we built the program around them, so lots of history there.
00:32:52
Speaker
We now make it a very firm practice that once a mailing list comes over from a client We don't touch it like it is absolutely final mailing list being like who these kids are going to I Thought that I was being helpful and would kind of clean up the list whenever it was being sent over and I got in a bad trap of a sort and expand all not happening in Excel and I
00:33:18
Speaker
all of these hundreds of holiday kits went out to a mismatched name and address. So it would be like, I would have received Mallory's gift to my home address, but it was addressed to Mallory. And it had their names on it. It had their names on it. I mean, talk about like, I am actually feeling sick for my stomach. Now thinking about it, it was when I, you know, it was one of those, it was like, surely not, like sure, no, this could not have, and I was, you know, again, because of a project management system,
00:33:48
Speaker
I went back and saw all these original files and sure enough, it was, it was completely my dad. But I remember making the phone call to Nicole and we had to move quickly because there still was an opportunity to try and like save some of them from being delivered and that type of thing before it happened. Our client was the one that recognized it before me, which, you know, you hate that that is how, but I don't know how we would have known. But anyway, the client was the one that brought it up.
00:34:16
Speaker
That was, again, I think one of two times I ever spoke to that client on the phone, and she was amazing. She was not upset. It was like, hey, not a big deal. This looks like something has gone wrong here. And so I immediately, before calling Nicole, was trying to figure out, how are we going to solve this?
00:34:38
Speaker
So I knew I had to act quickly. We needed to be able to have to try to stop some of these from getting delivered if we could. But I think I even called you before I called Nicole to say, Hey, can we get in touch with our fulfillment house to try to get some of these stops? Like what are our options here? And so I think that that is such a key, you know, piece of professional professionalism is you don't just come to the business owner with
00:35:06
Speaker
Got this big problem. It's on fire. What do I do? But here are some solutions that I've thought through on how we can fix this right now. And then I also came to it with I know that we have a client relationship to mend here as well. So here are some thoughts I have around like how we can make sure that the client relationship stays strong through all of this as well.
00:35:29
Speaker
And again no shock to what we've already been talking about. Nicole was extremely, you know, she's unflappable in many ways when it comes to business type, you know, issues. And it was very much a, okay, like, yep.
00:35:45
Speaker
This sucks, but here's what we're going to do. Here's how we can figure it out. So we worked together and it honestly ended up being, we worked with the CEO even because we had a relationship with him to let him know what was going on. And he came back at the end and was like,
00:36:01
Speaker
It ended up being an opportunity to build a further relationship with our clients and show, because it looked like a mistake on their end, right? We're their partners, so it looked like the company made the mistake, but we came through and got creative with the solution to make fun of ourselves for making a mistake, and they loved it. Our client was like, it was an opportunity to show how we handle whatever mistakes are made.
00:36:29
Speaker
It really ended up it was smoothed over. I will say that You know as a freelancer there i'm obviously looking at this of like, how is this costing the business
Learning from Mistakes
00:36:38
Speaker
too? Like what because we went You know and we spent some extra money to like send an extra gift to each one of the clients and we obviously sent i'm sorry gifts to the client that we were working with and i'm like just to change like all of this that's
00:36:54
Speaker
that's a cost for the business. And so I offered up to Nicole, as you know, I want to find a way to help with this, like this was my mistake.
00:37:05
Speaker
She, it was not anything that she would have required me to do, but I ended up working some extra hours on another side project that she had just to try and honestly make myself feel better about like contributing to the solution in some way as well. So that's kind of a long way around it, but there's just a lot of grace that was shown all the way around.
00:37:31
Speaker
I think the establishment of the relationship in that instance prior to was key. Obviously, we can't control that client's reaction, but she wasn't phased.
00:37:47
Speaker
Nicole could have easily like been like, okay, we got away with one. Like she's not upset, you know, but then that follow through. And I think kind of what you're saying is the way you handle a mistake almost can make the relationship stronger and better because it happened.
00:38:05
Speaker
which is a weird way to look at it, but it's almost like, oh, I'm grateful that this happened because it shows me how important I am to you as a, you know, a client and how you handle things and how your morals are, right? Oh, no, it's totally a character thing. Absolutely. I mean, we, yeah, we could have
00:38:27
Speaker
We could have fought them on that. The mailing list that they sent to us wasn't right in the beginning and that's why I was messing with it. There were problems with the list and that's why I was changing it. We could have dug our heels and like, well, sure, but that's because you messed up in the beginning. That is icky. That's where because of the way that Creative Quarterback approaches
00:38:51
Speaker
issues in this kind of nowadays old school, like customers always write type of a situation. I have a really high standard for when I deal with customer service or other clients that work for me in other settings where it's like, come on, like do the right thing here because it'll come back. Like I'll be a more loyal client to you. I will sing your praises in the world of social media today. Like
00:39:18
Speaker
it just does not pay off to not go above and beyond and to your point have the opportunity to have these really strong relationship building moments. Yeah. And I've learned from Nicole and use those in my business when I've made mistakes with clients and it just feels more authentic to me and it feels like the way I want to run my company and want to
00:39:43
Speaker
It helps me sleep at night because I feel like I'm doing the right thing when I make mistakes. So I think she is teaching us all.
The Mastery, Freedom, Legacy Framework
00:39:52
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and I think too that it can't, it shouldn't go underestimated the value of saying, and again, in our written communication, clearly, I am sorry. We messed up.
00:40:06
Speaker
Like in the clarity around that and then even you know Mallory does a lot of our hospitality for our clients that we work with and We have packages and kits built around. I'm sorry like we messed up and so and it's you know, and of course I do my work as the relationship owner to Mitigate that but then they get a surprise something in the mail, you know a few days later that reiterates again like
00:40:34
Speaker
We messed up and I'm sorry, we made your life harder and please accept our apologies. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's great. So we're going to shift focus just slightly and talk about how it's hard to say no as a freelancer. You say no, maybe to a prospective client, which feels really hard. No to exceeding an established scope of work. No to working outside your normal established work hours, especially if there's like an emergency, you know, nothing.
00:41:05
Speaker
Nothing is really probably that big an emergency in our world, but let's put it in quotes. And the list really goes on from there, right? Now, there's a framework that was introduced to you that you had mentioned to me previous to the show. And it's really helped you in making decisions. And I wanted to see if you're willing to share that with us kind of as our last concept of the call today.
00:41:27
Speaker
Yes, thank you. So there is a concept that's actually called career truth. And it was, it was introduced to me a couple of years ago. And it's a way that you approach decisions with your career and kind of owning your career and the path in which it's going. So there are three different components of the framework, mastery, freedom and legacy. So mastery is all about the, like your skill level and your competencies that you have. So when I think about
00:41:57
Speaker
a new project i might want to take on or a different roller different client i think about that in relationship to my level of mastery. Is this an area or skill that i want to develop more within like what what would i learn from working with this with this kind of with this project and master is something that you know throughout our life if you think about it and kind of like.
00:42:20
Speaker
Bar graph or excuse me like a line graph you want to be going up into the right like we always want to be learning but there are gonna be certain times in your life that you're not learning as much like when you're right out of college you're first starting your new job like you're you better be like
00:42:35
Speaker
really up and to the right but then there are times frankly you know especially even a few years ago whenever you're kind of like focus on other things and you might plateau a little bit in your mastery because you have other stuff going on kind of in your life and then you might take on a new role and really go learning more.
00:42:53
Speaker
So that's mastery. And then you think about it also from a freedom component. So freedom is all about the choices that you have within your life as it relates to your career. So I choose that I want to work part time. I choose that I want to work from home. Mallory, you have a situation that you have needed to relocate with your husband's job a lot.
00:43:17
Speaker
kind of a choice that, you know, that you made as a family. But again, yet, like that was a choice that you made. And so when you approach these decisions, not as like, well, I'm forced into this situation, or I have to, it's about the freedom that you have to make these choices. And so at different times in your life, you have more freedom than other to make different choices about your career.
00:43:39
Speaker
when I'm 55 and an empty nester and I'm not paying for kids to go through college and like I can be a lot more free with the choices I make about my career. Whereas now like my freedom is pretty limited like I have three little ones at home and financial responsibilities and so I have to be more particular about the type of work that I choose to do.
00:44:04
Speaker
And then the last component is all about your legacy. And that's about the number of people that you positively impact throughout your life. And so early on in your career, you're being impacted a lot. Like, you know, Nicole is a mentor to me and she has like, I would hope that I'm a part of her legacy. And as you get further along in your career, the thought is like, who am I impacting? Like, how many people can I impact
00:44:34
Speaker
when I'm done with my time on this earth because that at the end of the day, at least in my opinion, is the definition of success. How many people were you able to positively impact? When I think about clients I want to take on, projects I want to do, when considering it through that framework of what can I learn, how can I contribute my skills, how does this work within the choices and freedoms that I have within my life, and then lastly,
00:45:04
Speaker
who can I most positively impact and am I going to be making an impact by doing this work is the way that I go about making those decisions.
00:45:13
Speaker
It makes so much sense, and it's really beautiful, the last piece especially. As you're talking, I'm thinking of things of how that affects my life, and thinking about the freedom piece is like, yeah, we're in different seasons. Yes, both of us have more limited time to work, so that kind of limits our freedom.
00:45:34
Speaker
I don't want to homeschool and so my kids are, I'm geographically kind of not free, but that's a season of life I'm in. But that legacy piece is really powerful and beautiful. And I think that is super helpful to think about.
00:45:49
Speaker
What, cause as entrepreneurs, you can make a lot of these choices, but why are you making them? And if you have, if you just have some kind of framework to guide you and help you, it feels a little bit more aligned and authentic and not so hard to make those choices. Totally. If there's some sort of, yes, like an equation or something just to help me. I mean, it's a more sophisticated, like pros and cons list, right? Like pros and cons related to like these different areas of your career. And you're exactly right about
00:46:19
Speaker
the seasons we all have different seasons and i think that there for me when i was introduced this couple of years ago it was the freedom that i gained in the perspective of i'm making a choice to.
00:46:34
Speaker
focus on my family and also my career. And I think that we as women so oftentimes get into this, can we have it all rat race? And it's my perspective is no, not all at once, but you're making that choice. You know, like I stopped working in the corporate world when if I would have stayed, you know, you spend time thinking like,
00:46:59
Speaker
who knows what title I would have had or where I would have gone or all those things. Sometimes you can allow that to get to you, but it's like, you know what? The time with my children is a small window in season and it's fleeting. I can make the choice that in a later season to focus more again on me and on my career and having impact in that way. But for me right now, my legacy is about my children. That perspective has been hugely helpful for me.
00:47:29
Speaker
You know, it's so easy to look at something and think that would have been so beautiful, wonderful. And like, what about all the hardships that life would have caused as well, right? We have to remember that. Grass isn't always greener.
Reflections and Conclusion
00:47:42
Speaker
Anyway, Abby, as I've said, it's been such a joy to partner with you and get to know you over these eight years and become friends. And so I appreciate all your support through that time and also coming on today and kind of sharing what it's like to work with Nicole and I both. So thank you for that and thank you for being here.
00:48:00
Speaker
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. And I hope that the listeners can take some nuggets from our conversation and just continue to learn and listen from Mallory and Nicole because they're the best. All right. Well, thanks again, Abby, for being here. And thank you guys for listening. We'll see you next time. Take care.
00:48:20
Speaker
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