Episode 128 / 2022.03.14
Ryan Irelan, Andrew Welch
On this episode hosted by Ryan Irelan, we talk to industry veteran Joe Rinaldi, founder of That Was Clutch about the business development side of running an agency or consultancy.
Joe talks about how it’s important to be true to yourself and your agency’s strengths, so you don’t turn into a chameleon consultant that ends up with ill-fitting projects. If you do that, you can’t lose.
He goes on to expound on how selling is not the same thing as just closing inbound leads, and you should be driving your company’s growth by selling clients rather than just catching the softballs they throw you.
We also discuss the dangers of evolving into a platypus by virtue of working in an insular manner; instead, talk to your clients, talk to your users.
Ryan: Welcome to devmo fm a podcast dedicated to the tools techniques and technologies used in modern web development I'm Ryand you can find me at Ryand Dot Com and
Andrew: Thanks I'm Andrew Welch from and ny studio one zero seven I
Ryan: I and today our guest is Joe renaldi of that was clutch. Joe is a sales strategist and advisor on good business development for client services. Agencies Joe is also the former vp of business development at Happycog. And he has spent the last several years working with agencies and internal teams on their business development. So I know a lot of people Andrew are listening to this podcast. They're probably independent consultants or maybe in charge of a small agency or somehow involved in helping potential clients and customers understand how? ah. Services can help them. So I think what Joe has to offer even if you're more technical what Joe has to offer in terms of advice and insights and I think just pure motivation I like talking to Joe I think he motivates me um to get out there and stand up for yourself and for your experience and your skill and your talents. Hopefully all of this will apply to anyone that's listening so Joe welcome.
Ryan: Okay. Hello Joe welcome to the podcast and Joe. Yeah, it's good to have you here Joe so you're on an outdoor basketball court in Philadelphia playing a game of pickup basketball your running point.
Joe: Hello Thanks for having me.
Ryan: And you lay down some shaken bake on Lebron James you blow by and you dunk on him now just after you wag your finger at the crowd assembled along the sidelines of the concrete court Lebron turns to you and asks hey Joe after this basketball career is done.
Joe: Ah, wow.
Ryan: I want to get into consulting but I'm afraid of pitching clients and losing business I don't like losing Joe I rarely lose what advice do you have for me.
Joe: I have I have good news I have I have glad tidings that I am of the a strong opinion in client services in particular that you need to sell like you can't lose you have to adopt an attitude of you can't lose because you can't like I get this. Run into the this dilemma with my clients all the time they're sweating or scared of some big pitch that's coming up. They're worried about it. They're like getting in their own heads about it and initially just to calm their nerves I would say like listen like what's the worst that can happen man like you're already not working with them. So the worst that'll happen is like the situation persists like nothing's going to change and truly what that means is like all you can do is win. You can't you have nothing to lose There's nothing that exists already. So if you can't lose if there's nothing to lose then why behave in like an economy of scarcity. Afraid that this lead's going to get away and drive yourself into a panic I think that confidence in sales is it. It sparkles over a lot of stuff and if you can adopt that kind of attitude for. Any 1 of a variety of reasons like it doesn't have to be because you're a narcissistic wacko. It can be for anyone of a variety of reasons but adopting that kind of you know, attitude of all I can do in this scenario essentially is when I really have nothing to lose so I might as well. Just. Be authentic, be myself see what happens.
Andrew: Now that sounds Joe remarkably similar to a speech that I gave a friend of mine in college when he was getting Iy's getting all kind of in his own head about asking a girl out I'm like what do you have to lose. You're already a loser that stays home on Saturday nights like you might as well. Just ask her out. What's the big deal and.
Joe: Yeah.
Andrew: You know what he said he said to me he said do you know what I have to lose I have my pride to to lose. That's what I've got to lose my pride and my self- eseem and and I said man you don't have that either like like who cares, just just just ask her anyway.
Joe: So.
Joe: Ah, yeah, and this scenario you'll be at home on a Saturday and you'll have a better story to tell because you took a swing at this and that's honestly, but that Andrew that is what prevents people from doing this is fear of the unknown. It's just it's a lack of familiarity. It's it's.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: You know most folks that I consult with because I consult with largely agency owners or or practitioners in this field. None of them went to school to learn you know to get an Mba in business or to focus on sales. They're all practitioners who are who are incredibly capable at an incredibly quiet. Isolating craft those people by and large tend not to be like born salespeople so getting into these kinds of conversations where you feel like you're selling and you feel like the stakes are high. There is a it's the the client and vendor dynamic which is fraught.
Andrew: I yeah.
Joe: Compounded with I'm trying to use a muscle that's under exercisesed compounded with just the state of affairs of your business or or other things that are swirling around and you know it's amazing to me when I talk to people about their approach to business development just how many like just how much. Agency and control and autonomy and leverage. They just willingly give away without realizing it and and adopt this posture of you know that the clients out there with you know, brass rings they're handing out and you're swinging by hoping they'll they'll bless you with one. It's It's fascinating and and you know generally speaking. Everybody has a handful of simple things they can do to improve and see a measurable difference in at least your approach I can I can never and I never speak to like. Aiming at outcomes I am I'm from Philadelphia I am a Philadelphia basketball fan as Ryan indicated I believe strongly but like I believe strongly trust the process and and really be process oriented. Not not outcome oriented. You can't control the outcome. The outcome is outside of your hands.
Andrew: Condolences.
Joe: And on top of all of that I think the biggest realization I've had in my time working in client services is something that Mike Montero has said a million times. Nobody went to school to learn how to be a client none of the clients on the client side got training in picking. Digital partners in evaluating potential vendors in managing this process and and even the people that do it quite a bit have shockingly few reps talking to evaluating and picking partners to work with maybe they've done it. You know up to 5 times if you're an agency owner you're. Hopefully you know considering or responding to dozens of leads hundreds of leads like the the amount of experience that we have on this side so far dwarfs clients experience on their side but we don't go into it perceiving. That's the dynamic we go into it perceiving that they're the. The gatekeeper and the key master and and we're hoping to you know, catch their eye.
Ryan: That is a good point that as ah, an agency owner even like an independent consultant. You likely have more reps selling your work and doing that type of interaction than the person that you're so that you're selling to or that you're you're trying to get hired by. Ah.
Joe: Listen you're the they're paying you. You're not paying them. You're they're paying you like obviously you bring something valuable to the table because the money's moving in this direction so like quantifiably by math you can diagnose where a lot of the value resides.
Ryan: Yeah.
Joe: So so I but I yeah that that is fundamentally I think what what people get in their own head about is they perceive this power dynamic and they they kind of back themselves into a dis disadvantageous corner.
Ryan: So You said I know you have the one of your mantras is why I set it up like this is you can't lose and so it's it's not necessarily I mean you can lose the pitch right? You cannot get the job and lose in that sense. But. You're not losing something you already had which is which is your point but you also is it is it Also the case though that you can gain you can win other things from that experience, especially if you're new at pitching and.
Joe: Right.
Joe: Sure and I think I would say that like 1 of the and I find it hard even to stick to this myself because habits are hard to break and I am fundamentally in the habit of evaluating sales from a win-loss perspective but I'm I'm working my best to move away from even. That kind of terminology I think it's helpful if you look instead at each one of these interactions as an opportunity and the opportunity persists along a timeline as long as it persists and sometimes it persists and becomes a paid engagement and you're. Contracted and working with a client and it evolves into that kind of place and sometimes it doesn't and sometimes it doesn't but you reconnect with them. These things are all on a continuum and essentially I think if you adopt that attitude the other powerful thing about that attitude is you can start to adopt a posture of you know the project starts. First time we start talking like this is the project. This is who I am this is what you'll experience. This is what it's like to work with us the project started today now you the client you get to decide if we pass a point where you start paying for the project but the project already started. We're moving in that kind of positive direction. If for some reason. It doesn't move into some kind of contracted. You know, engagement or retainer or project I think one of the dangerous things of if a win lost attitude is like it's over that that that that builds this idea well that then it's over like we pitched up against you know, 5 other agencies. 1 of them. Got it. We lost. That's it. It's over and the other thing I found is like all of those relationships all of those relationships are incredibly valuable like I think that we in client services I think we're obviously going to value our clients and we send some them holiday gifts and things like that like that's a good expression of like how people value their clients. I think there's a lot of like past clients you might value too where you know I made a lot of money with that person for 5 years I worth sending your husband's card to that person all of your near misses. All of the clients that considered you and went in a different direction are incredibly valuable as well. And. Eventually, they're going to need another team eventually, they're going to change jobs and need to hire somebody somebody's gonna ask them for a recommendation I think if you if you don't just look at this as a win losss binary kind of outcome instead. It's the okay, well we're not going to work with them on this project but it's a continuum. So how am I going to. Revisit this person. You know, strategically a couple of times in the next couple of years just to stay in front of them and how am I going to make sure that when the time comes and they're being asked for a recommendation for an agency like mine. You know that they provide 3 recommendations. The agency they chose and the other two that were their favorites and I was one of them.
Joe: Like I think that's part of what you have to you know, understand and adopt in all of this part of my process in working with agencies often is I'll talk to and interview their clients I'll interview past clients And'll and I'll occasionally interview clients that chose a different agency and you know this shocking thing that I've learned too in this whole. You know, no one went to school to learn how to be a client you know realization is they don't have a laundry list of agencies. They want to work with. They're not spending a lot of time you know all dating that list list and finding cool new teams to work with and adding people to their roster It's ah it's a small list to start. The longer they stay on the client side the older that list gets and the less frequently. They update it and when it comes time for we need to find another agency. There's the 5 people they talked to a year ago. There's 1 or 2 others. They might be aware of 1 more. They might get recommended. You're still one of the kind of you know. Inside track folks in that conversation. Despite the fact that they pick somebody else and not for nothing like what I've also diagnosed is if you ask clients I think and this is a gross generalization and I don't have the nate silver math to back this claim up just my gut. Based on what I've heard and and talked to clients about I think if you went and out went out and interviewed clients and asked them how often how frequently has the vendor you've hired or the partner you've hired delivered like fantastic work. They would say no more than 50% of the time 50% of the time or it's been. You know. It's been not great or it's been okay or it's been whatever now to be fair to us on the client services side 1 out of 3 times it was their fault and they just don't realize it so that number 50 s probably higher and inflated than it should be because you know they're the ones that actually screwed that project up that had a bad outcome and and they're blind to. Their responsibility in that but let's just say that it's a fifty fifty split successful and unsuccessful projects. Well if I was one of 5 agencies that they considered they pick somebody else and I stay in touch with them. There's a fifty fifty chance that was a bad experience. They're not going to go back to that agency again. They're going to want to go to somebody in the future. I'm the one that got away or I'm the one that was like the you know miscongeniality of the whole thing runner up and when it comes time to pick somebody there. Sure is hell not going to go back to somebody. They had a bad experience with they're going to pick you know the favorite from the remainder or they're going to add a couple of people to the mix. But you've got to stay connected to them or or keep that kind of. Opportunity alive to to have the opportunity to be the people they reach out to 2 years from now 4 years from now when they get a new job whenever it is that they need to you know, dust off the the rolodex. It's like five index cards deep.
Ryan: So so going like just rewinding a little bit about the um I'm gonna I want to want to get back to the idea of like not losing when you are potentially not getting a gig but you do you've you started that Relationship. You do have a card in their rolodex now because you did pitch a project. Um, and then you can you know you'll maybe be on the list. Perhaps you know I've seen it in the past where you know didn't get the work because the person doing the hiring for that Gig. Um, was obligated to go with big corporation X Um, whether that's because they would they know they will never get in trouble by going with big corporation X or because of something else. So it. It was kind of stacked against you but now that person really likes you. They like your work.
Joe: Right? sure. Sure yep.
Ryan: Perhaps a fan like outside of their own job. They're a fan of the of the the part of the industry you're in and so now you have a card in their rolodex and they might come to you for another very maybe more narrowly scope project.
Joe: Right.
Ryan: Or something that gets you in the door with a project so you're still laying the groundwork So in that sense, you're not losing right because you are creating those connections feels like we're We're kind of coming back to networking in in a sense that.
Joe: Yes, a hundred percent exactly right then that's and like that's what you have to imagine this is more than this is a you know a dating game pass fail kind of situation. No this is networking this is building your rolodex this is. You know, growing your network and and then it's also important to revisit and cultivate your network you know I'd say all the time too that like if you've been doing this for five or ten years then your enemy is not I haven't heard of you your enemy is. I didn't think of you at the time for the thing you would have been great for eight months ago because I just you know didn't think of it or I didn't realize you you know build in that Cms as well or I didn't realize that you'd be interested in this kind of work like that's the enemy for anybody that's been doing this for more than a minute. If. You've been doing it. You know for a little while recency bias is real and you have to make an effort to you know and this is a horrible metaphor because it shows but I'm forty six years old that I would even think of this but like it's like a library card catalog. So there were these things called libraries.
Ryan: Yeah.
Joe: And in libraries they used to have card catalogs with index cards sorted it in them and essentially it's like taking the ind index card in their brain every time they meet somebody. They put a new one in there and it bumps all the ones back and when you reach out to somebody and reconnect and say hello. You're bumping the card back up to the front updating the information on it with the current information. And giving them a better chance to accurately recall you when the time comes and say oh like I didn't realize that you know agency xyzbuilds and drupal as well as wordpress I do know that now and when this person asked for an agency that works in Drupal I can recommend this agency I'm crazy about that. If not for that call two months ago where they told me they'd been working in Drupal for the past three years and I just didn't know it I would never have recommended them because so that they were a wordpress exclusive shop and would have never crossed my mind to recommend them into that product I would love to recommend them because they do great work. It's just my misunderstanding of them. I didn't think of them at the time because those dots didn't connect. That's what would have prevented me from making that recommendation not that they're not great. It's that I just didn't realize they were a fit for that too. So that's part of like cultivating and grooming that network is staying in touch intentionally and and. You know, walking that whole thing forward in ah in ah in an authentic non-swey just like philosophically positive way I mean that's the hard part I think for a lot of folks is is figuring out the emotional trigonometry of how frequently to check out how to check. In how to reconnect like the the blocking and tackling of that I think most people rely on their instincts and they are It's been a while since I talked to you know? Andrew so I'm goingnna reach out to this person. It's been a while concept of Ryan I'm gonna reach out to this person odds are if that's the way that an agency is managing this your. Grossly behind reaching out to that person. You're forgetting and omitting people left and right like we are all of us bad computers. So I suck at remembering to reach out to people and then they suck at like calibrating me accurately into what I do and what I want to do without me giving them the benefit of that. Direction without giving them that information so you know there's a lot of well-intending people out there trying to do the right thing but you know again diagnosing how these things fit together is not easy. So so it's not a surprise when they fail time and time time again. To make this like amazing connection. They could have made if only they knew this person you know was interested in doing that kind of thing and could have like you know connected those dots on their behalf.
Andrew: In ah in a post- epstein world Joe I don't know how I feel about you grooming me but in any event there there are some analogs and again everything I learned I learned in college apparently that I needed to know but I had another friend of mine in college.
Joe: And ah.
Andrew: That his name was Ed and I still remember going to a dance with him not he wasn't my date. Okay, we just went there. We went there together. Yeah and that's fine I'm just clarifying and we watched him.
Joe: Well, your judgment free zone.
Ryan: In.
Andrew: You know the girls were standing over there. The guys were standing over there and we watched him go up to a girl, ask her to dance and she said no and then literally like he walked over to a girl like 3 to five feet from her asked her to dance and she said and you you know he just kept on going down the list and then eventually one of them said yes and. And you know we're all sitting there kind of like making fun of him like oh look at you Dummy. You know you're getting rejected everywhere and then we kind of looked around at each other and we're like ah we're just standing on the sidelines and he's actually out there dancing with somebody you know and I asked him about it I said ed you know doesn't it doesn't bother you when they they reject you and they say no.
Ryan: Ah, yeah.
Joe: Ah.
Andrew: He's like I don't care I don't care about the ones that say no I just need one of them to say yes you know and it's kind of similar with I would imagine landing a a contract with a client like you know don't take it personally, it's not a big deal. Maybe it's not a fit or whatever move on to the next one
Joe: Um, yeah I think that that the best way I can think to help people overcome the fear of that rejection is kind of what Ryan was saying Ryan Ryan you were saying this earlier like even that that. Failure to move forward is a learning experience right? like there is something. There's knowledge to be gained in the interaction. Even if there's not revenue to be gained perhaps because you didn't wind up working on the work but the other part of it that I focus on beyond just you know it's worth it to get your reps in I encourage my clients to. Lose for the right reasons. So again, it's like this clunky win-los language but losing for the right reasons to me is you know at least go out there and put your your vision forward for how you would do it put your your kind of you know all your credentials on the table. All of the the. You know capabilities or or your particular point of view on how you would do the thing and if they reject you for that reason then it's a good thing that they rejected you because they rejected all the good things about you. So like if you go out there and you know take everything you think could be a weakness. And market them as a strength take everything that could be a strength and double down on those things put the best clearest vision of who you are forward really expose them to that like like whatever that is like it could be that um you know our agency is you know, really kooky and we're going to use you know, weird. Filters on our you know Google hangouts and stuff and if they are freaked out by that and they don't want to work with you then they're rejecting you for the right reasons because they're not going to be a great partner. They're not into the special parts of you that are special so part of it is identifying about yourself. You know. What are the magna carta things about you that you would never want to you know betray? What are the most important things about the way you do the things you do how you think about it. Whatever that is and find a way to put that stuff front and center in the process whether it's the way you manage a meeting the things you say. Whatever that is the the follow up. Whatever the hell that is like make sure that that experience is authentic to what you're what is special about you and then again if they decide that somebody else was a better fit then you know everybody wins in that scenario because they're rejecting me for the things they should be excited about and then if they. Pick you or they want to work with you. They're picking you for all the right reasons they're picking you because of they are excited about this crazy ass model you have they are excited because you're in agile shop. They are excited because you're doing things this way. They're excited for the right reason so part of I think the the.
Joe: The trap that people fall into is I want to reduce as much friction in the sales process as possible so that I can increase the likelihood that this is going to be puzzle pieces that fit together and smooth sailing and like I just want to like make sure that everything is like perfectly pinpoint precise for the. For the guests so that when they sit down. It's perfect for them and there's no friction and I think that friction happens at some point you just get to decide when and I would rather have the friction now right now in the sales process right up front experience. Whatever that is you know this is what's weird about us. This is what's different about us. This is what's cool about us like. Get it out there now and then not have it show up on a bad Thursday in the middle of the project when money's changing hands and the stakes are much higher and that friction's going to make an appearance. So I think you know trying to get all that on the table as best you can. You know it's it's a multi-step process part of it is diagnosing. What are those things like what it is about yourself your team. Whatever that you think is special or that you feel strongly about whatever that is and then ensuring that they they say it 3 times I want to say it once and they nodded said it a third second time they nodded again. It a third time they not the third time I know they heard me when I said you know we're a distributed team with developers in Kazakhstan and bivitybop and all these things like they didn't mishear me they heard all of that and they're still excited about us. They're gonna be a great partner. So if then in those cases where you where it doesn't work out. You can you know. Reassure yourself that you know they don't they don't want somebody that's got a multinational distributed team. That's not a that's a bug not a feature to them. They don't they know they're scared of that they don't like the fact that we're a small focused shop. They want a big monolith like cool like then they're better off not we're better broke better off having avoided. This project kind of sold and bought under false pretenses and then realizing halfway through like oh shit like is that really like what just get it all out there and then sleep like a baby knowing that like you know you lost for the right reasons if if in fact, it didn't go your way.
Andrew: And getting back to you can't lose even if you don't get the job in Theory you're getting better at the pitch I mean it's one of the things I tell my kids all the time I'm like I tell them you're going to try something new and you're going to suck at it. Don't get discouraged. This is normal.
Joe: Um, yeah, absolutely.
Andrew: That you try something new. You're not going to be good at it. It's okay, the way you get good at something is by practicing so at at the very least you're going to get that out of it.
Joe: Absolutely and and if you again if you wound up being authentic to who you are and and didn't move forward when and if that client refers something your way they're going to refer the right thing they're not going to refer a lead that's looking for a massive agency when you made it painfully clear. You're a small agency. They're going to refer a small agency with a quirky sensibility. That's an agile shop that bibbitybo all these things like they're going to make a better reference introduction on your behalf because they have a better idea of who you actually are not that you know you're whatever they needed to be whenever you needed it to be it. Not that you're mirroring them or you know there's a lot of things that people. Mean and Ryan I was thinking about this other day I was thinking about like there are pitches that you and I have been on together that one was like authentically 100% this is who we are buy it or don't buy it like just get on board or get out of the way and we've been on pitches where it's been. Ah let's kind of try to. Be a little bit more like the home team here and look a little bit more like them and.
Andrew: So.
Ryan: Yeah I was gonna say the the perils of trying to be the chameleon consultant where you're you're kind of changing based on what you think the client wants the potential client wants or maybe um, you know you you act big because they're big or you act straightway.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Ryan: Because they're straightlaced instead of being yourself but you could get you could get the project. But then you're you're gonna pay as when the project gets further along and you realize like oh we aren't a good match like this is not yeah and then you're not then you actually are losing at that point right? because you're damaging. Not only.
Joe: Um, oh yeah.
Joe: Hundred percent if you wear if you win the pitch because absolutely if you if you win the work. Yeah.
Ryan: You win the work but you're you're actually in like ah in a business and a contractual relationship at that point and you're causing all sorts of damage and.
Joe: Yes, 100% if you win the Nike work because you've wo Nike's to Nike then shame on you like that's an easy move and that's not that's not like being authentic to who you are if you typically wear you know Pumas or whatever and what happens is like. Stakes are so much higher when they're paying for it when they've declared to their peers and managers that they picked you as the partner like this is a stinky cologne that lingers if a project goes south like and and people on the enterprise side and this is another like huge generalization. But it applies in a lot of industries many times on the on the enterprise client side they're trying to to hunker down and and be there for a few years like they're trying to like gain equity and get a promotion and get that office and move around within the organization agency life freelance life. On our end of the equation if somebody's been somewhere for 2 years They're like an o g and a veteran like holy crap two years and then you talk to somebody that works in a fortune 100 and it's like no I've been here for 12 years I've been here for. She's been here for 17 years like and when you're measuring that on that kind of timeline like if you're the author of a. But really like crappy project like that is going to hover over your head like a little raincloud the entire time you work at Enterprise X Y Z so get you know save yourself and them the hell of that by putting your cards on the table letting them make an ah, an informed decision about. Who they're going to partner with and who they're choosing not to partner with because you know heaven forbid heaven forbid it like turns up on the wrong day when you're close to a deliverable and you know they haven't been paying attention to the project that they should have and all of these variables. You know, add up and add up and add up and add up to just you know. Hell in a phone call because you're now dealing with that so again like I get where people feel the urge to make things easy to buy. But all you're really doing is like putting friction in like ah a box. Has like a faulty lock on it and put it up on a shelf and hoping that like it's not going to like open up and fall on you at some point during the process and I feel like more often than not those things come to light more often than not like there is going to be an experience of that later on and again like. Once money's changing hands once? you're up against a deadline once these expectations are set. It's a much more dramatic and traumatic conversation at that point then you know. Okay, we're not gonna we're gonna go with somebody else like you like to wear. Oh yeah, yeah, right? exactly? yeah.
Ryan: You and and then you're not on. You're not in the role of deck anymore. At that point right? because you yeah yeah, and people talk and and in terms of you know people share their bad experiences just as much as they share their good experiences with with ah a consultant so you know yeah, it's it's.
Joe: You're like you're in like they're.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Ryan: Always you know and again I think you can be very complicated too because it can work on but like on both sides there's some projects just don't go Well sometimes the you know, ah the agency or the consultant doesn't have their stuff together Sometimes the the client doesn't have their stuff together or don't realize Actually what it takes to be.
Joe: Yeah.
Ryan: Partner on a project in a way that that will work so it can be very difficult Joe um, 1 thing that I like to ah you know think about is and and I value a lot, especially with with Andrew and I talk to you as well is getting. Like getting a perspective that's not mine because you might think that you're selling really? Well you might think that you have it all dialed in but you have this saying that you can't read the label from inside the jar. Um, and so what does that mean in terms of like selling and like if I'm a.
Joe: Few. Oh.
Ryan: I'm just like an independent consultant I think I got my selling process down like I'm you know I'm selling whatever a couple hundred thousand dollars of of work a year I've I've got it down but um, but maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I'm you know I'm not getting the best projects that are for me and I'm maybe I'm earning too many hours you know doing stuff that I shouldn't be doing.
Joe: This is.
Ryan: But what does it mean when you can't read the label from inside the jar.
Joe: I think like a lot of people have a more acute experience of this when they like level up within their skills because they understand or grow to learn how somebody else does the same thing they do as a practitioner right? So like you go and you. Work with another developer and then you see like they set up their files this way. That's slightly different than yours or they do this slightly differently and then it's like oh like I'm going to you know, pull that into what I do because I get a chance to peek into somebody else's process and I think that because the folks that do this work or run these agencies tend to be practicing developers practicing designers. You know they're. Engaged in that process. They're following people they're they're reading people they're you know watching videos they're learning about all of these elements of their of their craft and they're getting better at it because they're peeking over the hedge and learning from their peers or learning from their managers and. The the logic just applies the same way to the secondary and tertiary parts of your business that are not designing and coding like part of your business is you know, push and payroll part of your business maybe sales part of your business. Maybe all these other you know pain and the as things that are a part of client services that aren't design and dev they aren't the the core of what you do, but the same thing applies like the more you can like benefit from someone's outside opinion or at least peek over the hedge into how they do things the the more options you can consider the more you can kind of you know, borrow and. Steal and and and copy from other folks and I think the the thing that prevents people from doing it most often is it's the thing they like to think about least so like I don't want to think about like how to run payroll. So I don't go and ask like 5 other agencies. What software they use to run payroll. I don't similarly like on my own skill build beyond my own like homegrown idiosyncratic process like and that's the other thing I find too is when I when I go in and I do like a diagnostic on how someone sells. You know how do you kind of apply your effort in all these places. How do you do these things. You know what you find is like they've built. You know they've built a platypus. They've built this like really weirdly evolved thing that's been isolated and hasn't had the benefit of like exposure to other things. And they like hunker down and hunker down hunker down and hunker down and eight years later it's like this is really weird what you're doing here like or this is really like you know your own thing that you end and again like because it's something that they're not as experienced and they're really self-conscious about it too like I don't.
Joe: Know what I don't know about this I don't know what else there is to know and I don't know what I could be doing differently so I think that it winds up becoming this like like a version of like handcuffs kind of where you know I've been doing it this way for a while and I've kind of like gotten better at doing it my way and it's. Stressful thing that I do and I don't want to spend more time talking about it than I have to and I want to code I want to do things that like I like to do I want to mentor my t. Whatever that is I want to like do the things I like to do um you know it's it's eating your vegetables like people don't go out of their way to do that. Typically if they don't enjoy that. So. I think that it's incredibly valuable to have you know peer opinions client opinions like there's a lot of people that you can go to for a perspective on this and and I think people feel isolated but they don't realize how many options they have like go to your clients like interview them. They're your users. Find out from them. You know this project went really great. Cool, really fun to work with you. Glad we're staying in touch. Let me ask you a question like when you were making this decision now that we're boon companions and and have all this like you know positivity flowing what parts of our process if you can remember like six months ago what parts of our process like bumped for you like. What did we do that you would have been like I would have done that differently or like what could we have done better and you know how could we have done that better if you have a good relationship. You know they may give you 1 or 2 kind of lame explanation but they may give you like a little bit of gold like yeah, listen like when you did this 1 thing it freaked out our. 1 team because they misunderstood what you were saying and and jumped to the wrong conclusion. So I'd be really careful about like bringing up a topic like that or phrasing it that way for for those kinds of folks and then similarly like you know we have the benefit of being with the benefit and the drawback of being connected to everyone at all times. So if you're. Have those kind of like little little strings. You can pull on. Um you know, just see if you can talk shop with somebody and find out if they're willing to share. You know what they're doing that works well and I think the other thing that um was kind of a revelation for me when I when I heard it said I mean it's not like you know. Groundbreaking but I remember vividly go into a conference and there was ah, an agency owner named Richard Banfield who used to run a shop called fresh tiled soil and he got obviously like listen there's enough work for everybody. We don't have to be out here competing with 1 another as if there's a limited amount of work and we're all, there's like ah a scarcity here. We're all competing over. He's like if if all we did was pound on our own rolodex is all the business you could ever want is in your existing rolodex you just need to go and like mine. It. There's more opportunity out here than you could ever want. There's plenty and I think because people don't perceive it that way.
Joe: Sales tends to be the thing that they're a little bit more tight lipped about like they see that as like well that's our competitive advantages like we have this cool thing we do in sales where you know we do a backlip at the end and everybody applauds like there is a little bit of like oh I'll tell you everything you want to know about our project management process I'll spill my guts about the way that our Dev team works and I'll share everything about. Know what our like proposal looks like you know we know what you want to like Kiss my wife like what thatll are we talking about here like it's it's amazing. How like people get freaked out about that because they see it as like that's the secret sauce man like there's no way I could I would ever share that with somebody dude I am out here looking at these things.
Ryan: But but rarely that's where the innovation is though right.
Joe: And like 1 of them I try to find an opportunity to break people's hearts and say listen you're not doing anything special like you're not doing anything. Anybody else isn't doing doing the same I went out of my way in the past couple of years to work with other client services organizations outside of digital in the hope.
Ryan: Well, that's part of yeah.
Joe: Please god let there be something that they're doing that we're not doing I worked with a multinational commercial architecture firm here in wrt they're they're like a thing they are an institution and I went in thinking like oh this is gonna be great like think about like the scale of what they do and the complexity of what they do and all the moving parts and like there's gonna be some like. Thing that they can see because they have ultraviolet vision that I can't see that I can like learn from and then same damn things agencies are doing. They're just doing it sometimes with more resources sometimes slightly differently but they have a blog and they have a pitch. And they have marketing and they have outbound and they have they have accounts and they have retainers and they have a client service. They have all the same moving parts. They just have some of the dials dialed up differently some of the dials dialed down differently. But there's no like secret like oo like they do this thing that we've never know. They have a Twitter they have an Instagram like Jesus is doing the same thing.
Ryan: Or or they could be. They could be doing all those things but also doing the thing that you said which is you know connecting and reconnecting with your existing network like doing those right things but attributing the success to the other things like the the more glamorous things and not necessarily like.
Joe: Oh sure. Sure yeah and I would say that like yeah yeah, a hundred percent and you know in the architecture world. It's crazy because they'll like.
Ryan: Hard work of of doing of doing sales of of reaching out to people and sharing your value and how you can help them. So.
Joe: Design the whole thing and then you buy the design like their their life is speculating on like do you want to buy this thing that we made the blueprints for like this work is ready to go. Oh yeah, all the way through baby like all the and like millions of dollars a year spent in this because they do the drawings they do the drawings and then they sell the drawings like.
Ryan: So the oh so it's all spec work. Oh wow.
Joe: Sell the drawings unless you're Frank Geary and you're building houses where the roofs leak because you can get away with it and you're like a visionary if you're anybody else you're selling drawings like architectural renderings is what you're seller at selling in a lot of cases or you know like a mockup but the mockups are not like you know. Hit a button on the Autocad and it just like renders like this is time spent doing that the the the biggest kind of aha moment I had in the relationship side of things was working with traditional full service agencies like historic old school date back to mad men that kind of M O full service. Advertising agencies. They get it. They get the value of client services account services retained relationships and it makes sense like the the old models still perpetuate and they come from a place where their goal was to win the Subaru account and have the Subaru account for 10 years and in those 10 years they ran creative in terms of advertising and marketing and everything for on Subaru's behalf like there's ah, an amount of ownership of that that was like profound when they would have those kind of agency of record relationships. So in order to like. Grab and grow and develop and maintain those relationships if you crack open a full service agency and look inside if there's 60 people working in there 30 of them are in some version of sales 30 of them are account services business development. You know. Strategy whatever that half of the organization is sales half of the organization is delivery. You go to any web shop and it's the the ratio of salespeople to non-salpeople is 18 to 1 25 to one. It's like it's an insane variation on the theme and then. Ah, but our project managers are no no, they're not like our project managers are our client services or our account management people they are but they're like they're not. They're not playing with the full handbook that true like full service account managers play with it is a. It is a amazing ground game that they roll out in that vein and you know and Ryan you and I worked at a place where you know we would often say ourselves like no, no, no, we don't have like account managers and project and we have project managers and they are account manager to client facing and they do a great job if a client you know has a need. They'll. Grab it. They'll bring it back. We'll talk about it. You know and that's great, but that's like that's very reactive. That's very like you know, hoping that something like staying in a position where you might receive some leads and what agencies do is they go in front of the people they work with they pitch the things.
Ryan: Right.
Joe: That they want to do for them. They they they like have a vision for where this needs to go. They lead them into the work that they want to do. They're not just hoping that someone will mention in a meeting that they also want to like re-platform this website over here and I'm going to follow up on that like that's great, but that's like table stake. That's like you know, just. Doing your due diligence and being good at listening when on the full service I've been they are out there like leading and it's it's kind of breathtaking and and terrifying in equal parts.
Ryan: So the full service agencies. Ah wait, let's go to maybe like a independent consultant or a small shop of like 2 to 3 people. Maybe they're all designers or developers but none of them really are like business people right? They just have like. So many people have found themselves in that position. What's something that the big, the full service agencies that that have been around decades. What are they doing that like a smaller shop can do is it something where they are becoming the agency of record for them and they are basically have. Like an not an open tab but they're they hold the account and they do all the work and they're constantly, um, you know, recommending new things that they could do to help their clients versus just doing one and done work and kind of like so letting the ship sail out to sea and.
Joe: Yeah, no.
Joe: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think we can and should steal all the you know moves out of that playbook that we can and then they're not hard like it's not like it's It's some kind of like three dimensional chess they're playing here I think the the quickest and easiest thing that you can do if you're like a single practitioner or you're a small team is kind of realize that the person you're working with wants to once that this engagement with you to reflect positively on them. So how can you make it. Very very easy for them to understand what a positive outcome the 2 of you generated working together so they can bring that to their review with their boss six months from them. So you know if you can figure out a way to document that put it in a nice pdf with your company's logo on it and ship that over to them as a report. As a diagnosis. Ah as a post-mortem as a as a well visit you know, whatever you want to like look at it as if you can diagram for them like here's all the stuff we did together in the course of this project here's you know the hallmarks of it being successful. We came in at budget we came in on time you know we had 3 issues that we figured out immediate whatever like diagram and document the successes in your engagement and make it painfully clear. Give it to them as like a you know this is just me being a good partner reporting what we did really what you're doing is you're giving them their own positive report card to hold up to somebody internally and say look like. We've been working with the small 3 person team for a year and the page site loading is much faster the you know we're seeing you know these numbers trending in the right direction in terms of site traffic. You know where our we're knocking down things out of our tech. Whatever that is whatever the the small wins are like just. Organize them and communicate them and put them in their hands and now it's like ah that was a pretty good project but actually it was a pretty great project because the other thing is you have to realize there are there are in a lot of cases again. This is ah a broad generalization but in a lot of cases. Clients will perceive anything that happens on a computer screen as kind of the same like they're all like website people. So I bring that up because I've seen this a lot with Seo Shops Seo shops do an amazing job tracking exactly how much value they deliver like it's amazing like. This is like all the data all the numbers. It's bonkers and it's like 50 pages of reporting like that's what they make their money isn't like accounting for taking your money and they're great at it. So think about your client though like here I have an Seo shop that I work with and I have a web agency I work with.
Joe: And the Seo shop is giving me like chapter in Verse about how much value they're providing and the web shop I feel like it went well like it didn't like not launch on time I don't know like so it can be I can be the web shop can have a very different role in all of this than you perceive. But.
Ryan: Yeah, even even though the web shop is actually making those nice Seo reports possible right.
Joe: Like it's like they're they're measuring it by pound. It's like they're buying tuna. It's like look at look look at the document I got from these people and all the stuff that we did and all the the dials we moved the numbers we moved and's info that's an infographic in it like holy crap look an infographic like so that's what they expect too. You have to realize like they've seen that. They've seen that artifact they've seen that document that's in their brains. So here you are sending them a 7 bullet bulleted list from your project manager saying like you know this is what we did this week I hope it went well buth- but- bot like I don't know this other people like they gave me this like pretty shiny thing with like color on it and like. And the data is like extrapolate whatever so that is a thing that exists that is part of like how they perceive things sometimes and if you're in that if you're in that universe you're competing with that without realizing it like that's what you're that is that is what you're being graded against. You know it's not accurate, right? like it's vastly different an Seo shop versus a web shop versus a full service agency that's doing your marketing strategy. They're all different things but they're all vendors if nothing else they all wind up in the vendor catalog and then you know look my my marketing agency took me out to dinner. And they came here and did a big presentation on everything we did it for the last year and they pitched all these really cool ideas where we could do next year and they had all this great data about what we accomplished and they're taking our whole team out and they brought whatever the hell you know vr goggles and I bumped into a wall and dip ity all that bullshit like. That was cool and then here's my Seo shop and they gave me like document after document after document that just shows like how we're crushing it. They're crushing everybody's crushing it we couldn't be crushing it more. We're crushing it and then here's the web shop and they sent me like a thank you email and they kind of turned basecamp off while I wasn't paying attention and then like snuck out the door and then like. I guess the project's over like so we can part of what I want people to understand too is our shortcomings especially in web we are a victim of web success like that is part of what we are dealing with now is that this industry started in such a like. Unbalanced way in terms of supply and demand and there was infinite demand and finite supply and generations of agencies never had to sell a thing never had to do outbound never had to do lead gen they just got lead everybody I talked to who has had an agency for more than 5 years They tell me the same thing. Get me in the room and I can sell it get me in the room talking to people and I can make it happen my heart the hard part for me is like we don't have enough leads like give me a lead I can I can nurture the lead I can close the lead I am great at that. But what we need is more leads. It's like no, we do don't need is more leads what you need is to sell.
Joe: Like you need to actually get out there and start selling things and not just wait for the doorbell to ring and hope that it's a project that you want to work on this is something the Greg story who led the Happycog Austin office when Ryan and I worked there scared the hell out of me about this one day. He's like listen all we're getting are higher Ed Rfps in the door do you want to work for a company that just makes higher ed websites in a year it's like no it's like well then we better find a way to do some other things because we're doing enough higher ed work that's attracting a lot of higher ed leads and we're gonna wake up one day and we're gonna be a higher ed shop like and that's like oh hell no. So then how do we start. Reaching out to people manufacturing new conversations getting out there because inbound inbound inbound I think because there is a generation of agency owners that benefited from the rising tide of the industry and we're in this really advantageous position of not having to sell real hard just having to close inbound leads. They never developed. The sharp knives you need to have if you're a full service agency out there competing if you're a Pr and communications company if you're an Seo shop like you're out there on those streets competing and we just didn't have the benefit of like learning those hard lessons we were buoyed by this and then we're like you know we're like people that live in a bubble and don't have the right. You know immune system when they walk outside like I don't know like I thought like I would just walk in and I'd talk about our process and we'd we'd get our sow to be the most accurate to all the granular details of your specification and we'd win the work because we were the rightest like isn't that how we win. We're the most right? So we get the work. It's like. No because Accenture is here to kick your ass like or some you know maniac management consulting firm or some big agency that's going to give the website for free and like they are here for your lunch man. So it's not your fault. It's not people's fault that we didn't learn. Like through trial and error and burn our hands on lots of stoves and develop all these like instinctual survival habits like we were groomed like a hothouse flower like we're little special orchids and now you know what happens over time is you're and I'm going to do a gesture with my hands that people can't see it on podcast. But. The curve of your inbound leads kind of grows alongside your team if you're growing a team in a pleasant way and then it doesn't.
Andrew: So Joe is moving his hands up in a superman-like manner.
Joe: And then there's and then one is going higher and the other one's tailoring kind of tapering off and getting level because your inbound leads grow along with you to a certain point and then they start to level off and then they start to like not fill the cup as much as they used to because of the people that would refer you to work before 1 out of 5 of them now. Left the industry into landscape architect one out of 5 of them now got promoted so high up the food chain. They don't care about the website anymore. 1 of them. You know, made some other move that made them. They went under early retirement and they work at Comcast now and they don't work anymore like they just chill like and then two out of 5 of them are still doing it. And the 5 out of 5 you had four years ago is now 2 out of 5 and you never realized it like so now the inbound lead kind of funnel is is drying up because of things because of life because people just like do their own thing but as you were growing your agency. Your network was growing and you were on the other side of that curve your network was was getting larger and they were growing into more responsibility and the the sin that we all that a lot of agency owners commit or a lot of teams or a lot of like practitioners commit is that they over attribute their success. Their own credentials and qualifications and good work is the best business development look. We were a 3 hree-person shop and we did $30000 projects and did great work and then they referred us and we grew and now we're a 8 ight-person shop and we're doing 75 k projects and now we grew and did better better work and we unlocked more clients and. Now we're a 15 person shop doing 150 k work and part of it is that good work is the best business development because if you suck then the phone stops ringing but part of it is that then I saw this point blank when I was at happycog there was a client that had hired happycog in like 2006 or 7 to work on a small new york based aids nonprofit to do a website redesign and that was probably like a thirty five forty thousand dollars project and then in 2014 maybe 2013 same client same person reaches out again now they're at a global economic think tank foundation. Operating with many more zeros and they want to work together again and my winning when I was the sales guy winning that project that I think at the time was like north of $500000 had a lot more to do with how smart that person was. On the other end and how he grew in his career and went from working at a small nonprofit to working in this amazing institution and he's a badass and I happened to be 1 of the knuckleheads in his rolodex and he reached back out to us and I was fortunate enough to like be in that that that that continuum of unlocking bigger projects and better clients.
Joe: Part of it is. We did good work and we stayed under consideration part of it is that person's amazing. They grew in their career. They got to a position where they could hire us for much better work. It's as much about them as this is about me and maybe more about them than is about me like if he doesn't kick ass and wind up in that job and he's reaching out to us. You know, five years later to do us. Ah, slightly different nonprofits website and it's the same size project with the same kind of budget and my agency's the same kind of agency but because he's awesome and he just like matured like and that's like they don't even be like special just to grow in their careers and gain more authority and gain more maturity and then advance as they advance that tide. Raises and if you're in their little rolodex you benefit from that but someday that tide is going to start to like not not dry up, but it start to slow down because people are leaving the pool. You know they go and get a different job and leave the industry they you know decide to do something else or they're not carrying out the website anymore and that. Ah, thing that had been propelling you forward is now starting to like like just not deliver as much and you've grown your team to be 15 people in that time and now you're much more responsible and exposed and and as that slows down the the the danger is much more acute. So. What you need to do to forestall that is get serious about selling things while the sun is shining so that when things start to dry up. They don't like when this lead when these relationships start to like you know erode as they might in the course of time you have new ones you have you have. Relationships you have retainers you have longstanding you know engagements you have the habit of meeting new people and and getting the message out. You're publishing content. Whatever it is. You're doing like you're doing the things you need to do to replenish and replenish and replenish because it's a wave and when the wave crests and ends it's over. So you need to make sure that you can just like keep perpetuating the wave keep pushing it out.
Andrew: But yeah and I agree with you that people tend to overly attribute their success to themselves and getting back to what we were talking about before I think people also tend to overly attribute their failures to themselves and you know that can make them a little reticent to.
Joe: This is.
Joe: Sure That's exactly the very fair. Yep yep yeah.
Andrew: Go for it and get the pitch and just understand that you know in addition to requiring a good amount of honesty. You also just have to realize a lot of times. It's not about you whether it's just the success or the failure a lot of the times. It's just not about you. And I agree with your manager at Happycog when it's something that I tell people all the time in different contexts is that you become the work that you do. So if you end up taking lots of you know nonprofits or this that or the other thing that's what you're going to get good at that's what you're going to be known for That's what you're going to be doing.
Joe: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, hundred percent
Andrew: And if you want to be doing different stuff. You can consciously change what it is that you're working on. You know if I don't enjoy doing this that or the other thing or if I feel I need more variety well make a conscious effort to diversify what it is that you do and the only other thing I want to add real quick Joe is that you know when you're talking these stories about the. Ah, the web company and the advertising company and the Seo company at least in my experience usually the way it goes with the Seo company is they screw me and they don't even buy me. Dinner is usually kind of how that ends up.
Ryan: Um, Andrew's not a fan of Seo companies I don't think.
Joe: It's It's fair enough fair enough hey you know we all have our own opinions.
Andrew: No, no, there are some very good legitimate Seo companies. The reason I am not a fan is that I am in that space and the amount of snake oil that is out. There is just incredible. It's very similar to the ah the diet pill industry where. A lot of these not all of them but a lot of these companies. They're just running. They've got their mas or their sera subscription and they run the report and they give it to the client and they don't add any kind of value whatsoever.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: As somebody that's spent 5 years as a recruiter I can speak from experience coming from an industry with a lot of bad operators and trying to like figure out how to do things the right way despite the fact that the the industry is pitched in a certain way. So I can relate.
Andrew: So yeah.
Ryan: But Andrew to to Joe's point earlier is that like an Seo company. They show the work. Maybe not necessarily their work as you know someone that you've done and you've done a lot of technical. You've done a lot of technical seo right? You know like the work that is involved making.
Andrew: Oh yeah I didn't say they didn't do an effect edit I didn't say they didn't do an effective job screwing you Ryan I just said that they screwed you? yeah.
Ryan: But they show that work that work.
Joe: Ah, that's right can I tell 1 quick story I know that we're kind of at our time all right? But I think this story would reassure somebody who to Andrew's point maybe beating themselves up too much for a perceived failure right? like I think that's I agree entirely that there's also a lot of like just.
Ryan: Ah, ah yeah, go for it.
Joe: You know how can I kick myself in the nuts hard enough over what I screwed up in that sales conversation I talked to one of my 1 of my clients 1 of their clients right? So I was working with an agency and I'm interviewing clients who had worked with them before and now I'm talking to somebody who had considered them but had gone in another direction. And my agency had connected us because they loved this person. They loved this project and it really killed them. They didn't get a chance to work on it and not for nothing. They'd love to figure out more why they didn't get the work and this person was game to have the conversation we get to talking and and he explained to me you know? so. Why is it. You know in in so many words, why did you choose somebody else like and and or you know how did you? How did you feel about agency x y z compared to the agency you select these like we liked the a that's the agency you're working with. We liked them more. They were our preferred partner but you know what happened. The other people that we wound up working with we we really were struggling with them to figure out elements of their proposal like there were parts of it that we just could not get to the bottom of and we couldn't figure it out and we couldn't figure it out. We had all these conversations with them about like figuring it out and figuring it out and getting more detail and getting more clarity. The point where after like two or three weeks of kind of intensively ping-ponging back and forth with these folks kind of felt like we knew them better and we went with our second choice because we were just kind of more fluent with them and felt like the momentum was flowing in that direction and we didn't go with the people we wanted to work with because of. You know this kind of gravitational pull we had so that's like I mean that's that's terrifying that's terrifying that like the agency that is like to me in there explaining this to me killing themselves that they can't figure out what they did wrong that led to them not working with this client that if you put a gun to their head. They would have said like I think we we're gonna crush this like. Have this like there's no way we're not gonna win this work and then the reason they didn't win the work was because of like Stockholm syndrome like you just wound up like stuck in a room with them long enough that they didn't so they didn't like terrify you anymore and you just kind of like hunkered down like so that's like that is a prime example of like these decisions get made for lots of. Strange reasons and we don't perceive all of them and I also think to Andrew's point I would also in my anecdotal experience say that most agencies I work with jump to the most negative conclusion possibly without data with no news. They they imagine the worst like haven't heard from them in like a week they must hate our guts. They haven't talked out of this email. They must have picked somebody else. They have like everybody I work with has this habit of like lurching into those like just worst case scenario hypotheticals about what's happened and you know it's not always wrong, but it's certainly not always right and you know it's just.
Joe: It's people making complex decisions. They've never made before or only made once or twice and they're motivated by fear bees and dogs and clients can smell fear like that is like what is perpetually a part of this dynamic is like. Fear fear all the way through I wish I wish that most clients picked the agency they felt raised the ceiling the highest it could possibly be raised and the potential of the work. A lot of clients pick the agency that raises the floor as high as it could possibly be without ever falling below it like I just want to lock in the highest floor possible. This thing fails I want it to fail as a c plus not as an f like I just want to fail with a passing grade I don't I would love to pick somebody that could achieve an a that'd be cool I can't afford to take the chance on that weirdo that might achieve an a I need to go with Ryan to your point like no one ever got fired for hiring Ibm I need to go with like I feel safe. Feels secure. They've done this before they've done it 10 times like I feel like you know as we're as bad as it could go. It could only go so bad and these other folks they're a little bit more out there I don't really know what it could be. They scare me too much I'm gonna go in this of the direction. That's part of this process.
Andrew: Yeah Ryan is very experienced at getting the job by being mediocre.
Joe: Fortunately. You know that's his M O and he's ah there you go the border on model.
Ryan: Ah, ah, ah, ah Andrew had to get 1 in I was about to wrap up the podcast and Andrew just he found sat found an opening. You've been holdinged in it in the whole time. Yeah well Joe I hope that Lebron James takes your advice and hopefully listens to this podcast.
Joe: Me too.
Ryan: And perhaps one day we'll see ah King James design and development as one of the next big New York based agencies. Well that about wraps it up for another episode of the dev mode fm podcast if you enjoy the show, please subscribe tell a friend drop us a review.
Joe: I Could only hope.
Ryan: We really appreciate it. It does help us reach more people like you. So for the dev mode fm podcast I'm Ryand and thank you to Joe Ronaldi from that was clutch for being on the show.
Andrew: And I'm Andrew Welch I
Joe: Um, thanks y'all.
Andrew: I'm looking for it all right here we go.
Joe: Um I didn't know the intro he was gonna be no your enemy I wasn't ready for that That was legit us bomb track. Thank you Sorry it really is know your enemy if I was gonna walk up.
Andrew: No bomb track. Know your enemy is another fantastic song that Ryan has no idea what it is but it's a great song.
Joe: And a Phillies game to the plate I'd walk up to know your enemy that was that's my like it's always been my the beginning of that song just crushes and I've been get. It's I'm trying to in my middle age.
Andrew: Nice.
Andrew: Yeah I'm I agree man I'm I'm a fan of the power of anger for sure, look at right? yeah.
Joe: I'm trying to adopt the power of non-angger a little bit I have a playlist on Spotify called like um appropriately like angry music like not inappropriate like I feel like when I started to work out again. At some point my phone was gonna say like looks like you're listening to nine Inch nails we're gonna just.
Andrew: Yeah.
Joe: Like put the ambulance on standby that at your age having not listened to I nails for 10 years and now you're suddenly listening to it like you may be minutes away from some pen of cardiac episodes. So we're gonna dial 9 and 1 and like get ready to press the next one just in case and we're go to like look at the. The band on your watch to make sure that you haven't like caved over and died.
Ryan: Just stick with the myoey cyrus. That's what you should do stick with stick with that. She's mad but she's not she's not gonna give you a heart attack at least at least not in that she always gave me a heart attack at at Acl this year this last year.
Joe: It's part of it is like there's this my kids have but.
Andrew: I Don't know about that.
Andrew: I all right I'm gonna stop the recording before Ryan relates this story.
Joe: Um, that's right.
Ryan: She had um.