Agatha Chang is co-founder of GRAIN Group, a 40-person data-driven performance agency. Agatha tells us what Type 2 fun means and why she looks for it in hiring, how a brainstorming session about vodka led to the founding of the agency, the importance of architecting data when delivering reports to clients, why she is the first interviewer for every new hire, why she's built a culture that emphasizes collaboration over bosses, and the true story of the indie rock song Agatha Chang by the Eels.
Agatha Chang is co-founder of GRAIN Group, a 40-person data-driven performance agency. Agatha tells us what Type 2 fun means and why she looks for it in hiring, how a brainstorming session about vodka led to the founding of the agency, the importance of architecting data when delivering reports to clients, why she is the first interviewer for every new hire, why she's built a culture that emphasizes collaboration over bosses, and the true story of the indie rock song Agatha Chang by the Eels.
Winning Now, Winning Later: How Companies Can Succeed in the Short Term While Investing for the Long Term, a book by David M. Cote.
The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value, a book by Frederick Reichheld
David Rodnitzky (David) (00:02): In this episode of Agentic Shift, we talked to Agatha Chang, co-founder of GRAIN Group, a 40-person data-driven performance agency. Agatha tells us what Type 2 fun means and why she looks for it in hiring, how a brainstorming session about vodka led to the founding of the agency, the importance of architecting data when delivering reports to clients, why she is the first interviewer for every new hire, why she's built a culture that emphasizes collaboration over bosses, and the true story of the indie rock song Agatha Chang by the Eels. Enjoy the show.
Agatha, thanks for joining me on Agentic Shift.
Agatha Chang(Agatha)(00:41): Thank you so much for having me. I love talking with you, David.
David (00:45): Yes. The feeling is mutual. Well, let's start by having you tell us a little bit about the origins of the GRAIN Group and how that all came about. What's your founder story?
Agatha (00:54): I love answering that question. I think part of our founder story is that I met my partner, Ben, when we were at universal McCann or UM, and when we were there, there was just so many things that we would sidebar about in terms of like what we would do different, what would make it more interesting. And we just had to take a chance to bet on ourselves. And it was like the right time in our career. We found the right partner in each other, and we had the right opportunity.
So GRAIN really started because Ben had attended a thought leader brain storming with the CMO of Svedka Vodka. Actually he was invited to that because somebody at UM did not want to go. Talk about like seizing the opportunity. And the big guys were like, oh, this is nothing ,Ben, you go. I'm too busy. And Ben went.
And she said, I love everything that you said. I love your brain out of all the other people that were there. And she's like, I'll hire you. And he was like, let me talk to my partner about it. And that was how we started. We're definitely like rule followers. We asked UM if it was okay for take this project, they were like, totally it's nothing. And we just went for it.
David (02:12): Wow. So it all started with brainstorming about vodka.
Agatha (02:15): Brainstorming about vodka. That's really kind of where we started was in spirits. And that actually kind inspired the name. Like grain, we were small, but now I think grain's really evolved into something about really paying attention to all the details. Show up to that meeting, pay attention, do your best. It's just a brainstorm. You just don’t know what's going to happen.
David (02:37): Is it a brainstorm or a grainstorm?
Agatha (02:38): Yes.
David (02:40): That's what you need to have for your clients, grainstorms. You can take that. I'm not trademarking that term. You can take that.
Agatha (02:47): Yeah, we got grianbrain, anything that rhymes, we’re taking it.
David (02:49): So if we just reverse this conversation, if Ben had not gone to that meeting, were you guys thinking already about like, maybe we need to make a leap? Is that where you were? Or was this totally like the butterfly effect that changed the history of your lives in the agency world?
Agatha (03:04): I think the seed was probably always there. I think one of the things, and this really speaks to our culture and our personalities, is that we just did not want to be the people that complained about their jobs or their bosses or their clients. And it's like, oh, this could be better. This could be different. I think we were always looking for a chance to bet on ourselves. And I think that's the most honest answer.
And when she said it, we were like, yep, we're going to do it. But I think the seed was always there, and you've worked in an agency. Everybody's like, oh, I don't know why we do it. This process is so annoying, and personality-wise, I think we were like, we're so done complaining. Either we do it or something else has got to happen.
David (03:44): Yeah. I have a concept that I call, I guess, the virtual circle of agencies, which is basically the life cycle. An agency starts with someone who's at a very large agency being frustrated with the way things are done and just deciding to go and hang up their shingle as they say, and either as consultant or as a full-time agency. And then they start to grow that business.
And then at some point they get to maybe, if successful, a couple hundred people. They may sell to private equity or they sell to a bigger agency. And then five years later, there's this giant agency, and there's someone at that agency who's frustrated with the way the giant agency's doing stuff. And they go and start the next great thing. It's a story of people wanting to do better. But also as agencies get bigger, it's hard to innovate, right?
Agatha (04:29): Yeah. That's something that we think about all the time. We actually wonder to ourselves, is size the thing that prevents protecting this great work or this great culture or this mentality. And if anything, one of the things that we're super protective about is not necessarily size, but really protecting that mentality and how we approach things. And that's why Ben and I stay super involved in all the projects alongside with all of our clients. And we're very thoughtful about hiring and just hiring a similar like mentality. One of the things that we say about people we hire are people who are like really into, I just learned this phrase from somebody on my team, Tyler, who is on business analytics. And he's like, we're a bunch of people that thrive on Type 2 fun. I don’t know if you've ever heard of that.
David (05:16): No, I like all forms of fun, but tell me what Type 2 fun is.
Agatha (05:19): Type two fun. So related to work, but he gave me this example of, if you are running to lose weight, that is not fun. That is work. And there's a lot of people who are working, but Type 2 fun is like that athlete who's trying to shave like 0.25 seconds off of his time to be the fastest runner. And that's Type 2 fun. I was like, yes, that's so us. So that's what we're trying to protect. But yeah, I totally hear you. Having a big agency, the diversity of thinking and mentality is all amazing, but things will change from where you started.
David (05:56): Yeah, I agree because you're agreeing with me. So we both agree. Let me go back to the early days of the business. So when you left universal McCann, you had a guaranteed client in hand. Was there still some fear of going off on your own or did that really make it a lot easier to take the leap?
Agatha (06:12): Absolutely, the fear was very real. I think Ben and I are super conservative in planning our own lives and our own careers. And I think that's been part of the secret of our success and certainly having one client and two founders. It wasn't a huge client to begin with. We were very nervous, but now that's part of our DNA. Like we even approached this similarly with our clients is like we helped them hedge their bets.
So at the same time when we started GRAIN, Ben and I founded another startup. We really wanted to make sure that we had our foot in what we knew very well, but we were still wanting to learn and grow and invest in ourselves and really push the boundaries of who we are. The startup has evolved, but the things that we learned there as founders of a tech startup with development, like managing engineers, like marketing, setting up systems, things that we were good at, things we were not good at, now we shifted all of that to help our clients
David (07:10): Was that other startup agency related?
Agatha (07:13): It was not. So totally not related. It was a marketplace approach. And that's something that we started with my Husband Viva. We started Powhow together. We were running marketing for Powhow, and we're like, Powhow could be one of our clients alongside Svedka, but just making sure that we were super conservative, but we're super ambitious as you can tell.
David (07:36): So in the early days, what mistakes or lessons did you learn on the agency side that you would have done differently?
Agatha (07:44): I feel like some of our days were like our most fruit came from the most fruitful results, whether it's something that we learned from. I think one of the things I would say is, I'm not sure there was anything that I would do differently. We just have sort of this mentality of like, if you've made a mistake, we've made plenty of them. But even our mistakes were some of our best growth moments. I don't know if I could protect myself from my mistakes.
David (08:10): Well, could you name one or two mistakes. Even though you're happy obviously the results of the business, but what's a mistake that you made early on that now you reflect on and say, well, I learned a lot from that, but I'd also do it differently.
Agatha (08:22): Yeah. I mean, I think some of the things that I definitely would approach differently is putting up some better boundaries. I think when we first started, everything was always absolutely we could do it. We could do it. We'll take care of it, which is great when you're starting. But I think as we're running an agency now, as we're going into our 12th year, you're protecting your scope, you're protecting your time, and you're also protecting your value. So in the beginning, it was like, absolutely, I could set up your CRM. I could absolutely review your code. I can totally do it, even though we had like a media scope in place.
In that sense, I think just being a little bit more disciplined. The eagerness is always going to be part of our DNA, but I think just being a little bit more smart about that, it might have just changed a little bit of some of our conversations and relationships.
David (09:13): I think that's a great example of something that is both a mistake and not a mistake, like what you were saying earlier about how you don't regret it. Because I think when you're starting a business and you're starting an agency, you need revenue. And it's hard to say no if someone's throwing an extra $10,000 at you. You're like, well that's three months of rent and why not? But to your point, an expert in everything is an expert at nothing. And as other people who have been on this podcast have said, the worst thing you can do is take on revenue or to do business just because you want the money and then do a bad job and then ruin that relationship and have that person go out and tell 10 other people that you ruined the relationship. So it's the difference between good revenue and bad revenue, I guess.
Agatha (09:51): Right. Or no revenue. I think for us, we had a lot of ability and we were just putting everything out there every day without letting our clients know, Hey, that changes your scope versus not necessarily like, oh, we promised something that we couldn't deliver on.
David (10:08): Right. Most people in the agency world are people who love providing great service. So you want to say yes to everything. You want to be able to satisfy the client to the greatest degree.
Agatha (10:16): Yeah. Wanting to please is something that I would definitely change a little bit. We could probably edit that one, but yeah.
David (10:26): One of the things I would say to clients is partnership means profit on both sides. And so it's not just about the agency bending over backwards to make the client happy. There needs to be a partnership. And that means that the client needs to be respectful of the fact that if they ask the agency to do something and it's not going to be profitable for them, that the agency has the right to say, I wish I could do this for you. I want you to be the happiest person in the world, but I have to pay the rent. So I think it's reasonable.
Agatha (10:53): And it's definitely a skill to learn over time to have those conversations and something that we were maybe too naive or too eager to have in the beginning.
David (11:02): Yeah. I think every agency goes through this. We're all naive in the beginning maybe is the answer. I think your business is a little different than a lot of the performance agencies that I talk to. So what would be the elevator pitch for GRAIN Group today? What's the reason people choose GRAIN Group?
Agatha (11:15): In a nice and tidy way is that we're an uncommon agency. We hire uncommon people. Like I said, our business analytics people, they don't come from media backgrounds, but they're all totally, probably more certified in like Google and Facebook than the media planners working at big agencies. But their backgrounds are going to be in like software engineering. Their backgrounds are going to be from investment banking. They're going to be derivative traders. And part of why we're uncommon is we hire great talent. We hire across different industries. But really that allows us to sit authentically in the intersection of technology.
We have actual software engineers thinking about product, not just developers. So I touched on the business analytics side and then on the e-com or the media driving performance, we think of that as one ecosystem. The one thing that we're most afraid of that we see at agencies is that, sort of, to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That's the one thing that we're most afraid of. And we're always trying to protect ourselves from being that. You don't want to be the search guy and the answer to everything is search.
David (12:26): Wait, that is the answer to everything, though. I'm sorry. Search is the answer to everything.
Agatha (12:29): Search is the answer to everything, yes. So we want to make sure that we're thinking about everything, whether it's like, if you just improve the load time on your website, you might improve your conversion rate by 3%, and that could meet your number. And that's a two-hour fix versus some huge strategy discussion.
And being so uncommon, I think the thing that really validates us is we've had a lot of uncommon results. Like in the agency lifespan, we total exited about $2.5 billion for our brands. Not that an exit is the end goal for a lot of clients, but just something that's measurable. And we did $1.5 billion in the first 10 years. And then from year 10 to 11, we did our $1.5. I think we are definitely learning. We are a good partner for people who are ambitious and trying to have some really tangible goals.
David (13:27): I always think about this sign at the headquarters of Zappos in Las Vegas, where they say we're a service company that happens to sell shoes. It almost sounds like you're saying we're a data company that happens to be an agency. Is that a way you think of yourself? Or am I overreaching there?
Agatha (13:42): Data is absolutely our fuel, and we have people who can look at data and analyze it. That is definitely the fuel behind our clients. And that is also what helps us stay really grounded and pragmatic. That's part of how we build momentum behind our clients, how we build momentum behind their success and their growth because we're looking at the data. Does it validate our hypothesis? What are we changing? What are the new numbers telling us? Not that everything is about the numbers. I think it's still the art and science. What is brand? What is messaging? And then how do we evolve both of them ongoing, but yes, data is absolutely our fuel.
David (14:23): And it sounds like you have a mix of clients. Some of your clients are big CPG brands and some of them, I assume, are startups because they're being acquired and having exits. How do you straddle that as a company that is data focused? The way I often think about bigger companies is they are often confused by data and don't necessarily want it to believe the data. You could say the same thing. I'm rambling here on this, but startups also don't have enough data. They don't know what's going on. Big companies have plenty of data. They don't want to use it. How do you make data relevant to all of your clients?
Agatha (14:56): Yeah. I think a big part of it is staying grounded in what is your end goal. Across all of our clients size wise, the commonality is they do want to be more accountable. And if we start there, then the data starts to make sense. Why am I collecting it? What am I collecting? What are the decisions that we're going to make? I know it sounds like I'm oversimplifying it, but that really comes from having done this so much. And that's our depth that our client relies on us for.
When we start with that, then it very quickly starts to shine a light on this is important. This is noise. This data will help you make this type of decision. What are short term decisions? What are long term decisions? I think one of the things that we try to be super disciplined about and across the board for all of our clients is big clients, they might have data paralysis, small clients is like sometimes they just got to go with their gut. And so what we're trying to help them balance and what we apply is very much, can we just bucket everything? What are the decisions you need to make today and what are the decisions you need to make tomorrow? And all of a sudden, we can start filling those placeholders in for them.
David (16:07): I like to quote a hip-hop song from the ‘90s, Mo Data Mo Problems. I think that's a big problem that people have because it gets overwhelming.
Agatha (16:17): It can be overwhelming, but you also have to make sure that you're making sure that the right person is getting the right data view. So when we're able to sort of segment that for our clients, you have your executive view, you might have your logistics view, you might have your product view, and just breaking it out for people. Then you're sending the right data to that right person.
But if somebody has the overall view, so if like Casey is architecting all of the data, then it's still one seamless story. And then nobody is like, oh, I filtered that differently. Or like, oh, well I'm doing CRM. So I'm looking at this data, but you're looking at this data, but for architecting, from the top, making sure that all the teams are getting one consolidated stream, but the stream is split out for them, that is going to make a really big difference in how they make decisions.
David (17:07): That's a really good point, just creating architecture so that you message the right data to the right person. And you don't just end up with six people trying to interpret data that they shouldn't be interpreting and/or giving six people each taking a hundred percent credit for the sale, which probably happens no matter what, but that's a really great point.
One thing related to data, I guess, and this is for agencies in general, but in-housing is a pretty big topic these days. I feel like bringing your data and analytics in-house would seem to be a pretty big challenge, but how do clients approach that in your experience?
Agatha (17:38): So we work across a lot of Fortune 500 companies that do have inhouse, and a general POV is that I think moving forward, agencies are going to have to evolve in being sort of this hybrid. You're going to have to be able to fit into like an in-house vibe, but still be an external resource. But even we work with Pepsi, we work with their innovation group, they have their whole media setup, but I think they still really appreciate the outside view. Like, Hey, I say you work on 40 other clients. What is that perspective? We're still being able to provide a fresh view on how they're doing things. I think in housing. And I think people are aware of this. The risk is you're just talking to yourself, but they're still going to need that sort of see the broader world, have the right perspective and context.
David (18:29): Yes. Myopia is definitely the biggest risk of in-housing, becomes an echo chamber, but there's also obviously absolute value to inhouse in some instances.
Agatha (18:37): Right. It depends on spend volume, so many different considerations. I think my question around in-housing, and I've never had anyone to ask this, it's just like, does that become a distraction for them? Like now you have to run a media agency versus just creating this most amazing product that you started. Because now I know from running an agency that in itself is a whole different mindset, a whole different level of considerations, like knowing how to hire, how do you innovate in an agency world? What's that next thing we should do? How should we think about this? I always am curious, does that become a distraction? And maybe you're so big. You can build lots of business lines, but it's not like other people are tapping into their media services or know-how. So always curious about that.
David (19:22): I feel like if you bring something in-house, the in-house team is going to have more subject matter expertise on whatever the business is doing, but can never have the subject matter expertise on the channels or the tools because versus an agency which has channel expertise but can never know as much about the company as the in-house people.
And as you said, I mean, with your Pepsi example, you have 40 other clients. So you're getting 40 times the information about whatever it is, the visualization software or the attribution software. And so you have all these data points, but of course at Pepsi, they know that here's our next five releases coming down, the product releases. And we know that Pepsi sells better in Atlanta in November than in January. That's stuff that you can learn, but this is what they do every day. So they're going to have more knowledge there. It always seems to me like a combination of the two is the best answer, but I guess I'm also biased.
Agatha (20:10): Yeah. I think that's why it goes back to saying about like having that hybrid model and the way that we hire is making sure that your growth person probably came from your industry. I was always surprised when I was working on like, I had a finance client at a big agency and I was like, I'm sure most of my planners never took a finance class, not a ding on anybody, but that's how agencies hire, and I think we’re hiring for like CPG and people who have CPG experience. Then that makes it seem like we're like an in-house but outhouse agency.
David (20:43): Yeah. That makes sense. Well, let's talk about hiring because I think that's a good topic. What's your approach to finding the right people? You mentioned just something about having some expertise, but how do you identify the diamonds from the coal in an interview process?
Agatha (20:57): Our interview process actually starts with me and our interview process is very much just us telling them our story and what we're trying to accomplish and just making sure that we're just trying to understand their ambition, things that we're looking for in people that we check. So if it starts with me and then Ben, and then they go down to the subject or the channel or the area that they're focusing on, but along the way that we're really checking, this is what we call at GRAIN. We're looking for that iceberg. We're not looking for a diamond in a rough. We're looking for that iceberg. How deep can you go? How interested are you in getting really deep and knowledgeable?
That's the most important thing for us because our clients, and what you were saying earlier, we're working with CEOs and CMOs. They need to know that you really care through the line the way they care about their product. We just want people who will keep asking those questions. That's just an indicator of passion or commitment, not just something that we're looking for. Skills-wise, we have the confidence that we can train, but what we really care about is that person who's not like, oh, it's good enough. I'm an expert in search. It's like, no, actually, how do you do this? But I don't care if they're just really interested in skiing. Just tell me everything you possibly can about why you're so interested in this. And that makes a big difference for us
David (22:22): So your process is every candidate, you're the screener.
Agatha (22:27): No, I'm not the screener. I think screening is not the right word. I want to make sure that they can talk to a CEO. They could talk to a founder because that's our clients. I want to make sure that they're comfortable and they can have a conversation and that they're not having a conversation about their resume.
David (22:45): How many people do you have on the team right now?
Agatha (22:47): We're still very small, about 40 people right now. I would say everybody they're on a call. All of our clients are sort of C-suite level. They could just very comfortably have a conversation with them.
David (23:02): Wow. I think it's great. The only time I've ever heard something like this is like the Larry and Sergey at Google story where they had to approve every single hire, allegedly up to the point where you were like 5,000 employees and they were still having a hiring committee with the founders yessing and noing.
Agatha (23:19): It's like what you were talking about earlier, how do you protect what your mission is and what your vision and what you're trying to do. For us, we're really still trying to protect the type of service and the type of conversation that we want to have with our clients. But I would definitely not say that I have the final say or I'm the approver, but really just having the opportunity. Culturally, we make sure that people feel like they have access to everybody at the agency, that we are all willing to have conversations with them, that we're all invested in their careers. And we want people to be able to appreciate that and understand the value in that. And not everybody does, to be perfectly honest. And that's great, too.
David (23:59): Your husband and I both worked at a company called Adteractive many years ago, and my boss, Saar Gur, had a great question, I thought, for interviewing. He always said, tell me something that you've done in your life that you're particularly proud of. It sounds very simple, but you know, it forces you to hear what that person really cares about. If the answer is like, oh, well I hit my sales quota by 10% every month. It's like, that's not interesting.
I remember one person who I hired said, I had a friend. She had an illness, and I organized a danceathon that raised $20,000 for her. And I was like, well, that shows a lot of passion. Same lines as what you're saying. I think looking for something outside of just the skills because anyone can get a certificate online these days of search engine marketing or data analytics, but being able to have that either growth mindset or just passion for learning is something that is hard to quantify.
So what about once you've hired someone, what are your core values or promises that you make to the team and what gets people to stay at the company and what do you do to create the right culture?
Agatha (25:01): One of the things that we've been focusing on a lot in hiring, one of the things that we think about on our team because we're hiring high performers, we’re hiring people who are into Type 2 fun. The way that I think about it is that we’re their collaborators. There's not like I'm your boss, but I think that's also part of that interview process where like, can I just have a conversation with you? I'm here to support you. I think we try to maintain a culture of a lot of support. I'm here to make sure you succeed. Whatever it is that you need me to do for you, I will absolutely help you. I think that flips a little bit of like our experience working at big agencies, which is like, what can I do for my boss today? What are they going to ask me for?
I think here we really try to focus on, Hey, I have a lot of experience. I've done a lot. What can I help you with to get through your challenges and managing this particular client or this particular business challenge that they've put in front of you. And then just really being their collaborator when you're working with really amazing, talented, ambitious people, it's very much a collaboration. I give my team this example all the time of like you see all these brands. You have Kim Kardashian SKIMS x Fendi. That's a collaboration. They're amazing on their own, but that collab does something really special. That's what I communicate to my team all the time. This is like Agatha and Courtney collaborating, and we're going to do something cool together.
David (26:27): Hire great people and then get out the way unless they need help.
Agatha (26:32): Yes. Let them shine. Give them a little bit of what you know, but let's see what else we can do together. It really sounds so cheesy, but that togetherness is what's helping GRAIN evolve. It helps us stay relevant. Otherwise, it's still what I was thinking in 2010 when I started.
David (26:49): So I suppose that sometimes for whatever reason, you don't make the right hire and you get someone who just doesn't have the same cultural values and isn't moving at the speed of the rest of the company. Do those people sort of select themselves out? Do they realize and look around and say, you know what, everyone around here is on rocket fuel and I'm on Kool-Aid.
Agatha (27:09): Yeah. And I think we're very sensitive to that too. I think part of it is that you have to know like what everyone brings to the table. Sometimes the sort of our team meetings and what we talk about is like you think about a sports team, not everyone is the A roster, but as long as we're all here to support each other, the ambition doesn't have to be like, I'm the genius of this, but it's sort of like, Hey, I'm very good at this. How about I focus on this? But certainly as everybody else, sometimes it's just not a fit. And these are just conversations that you need to have with people, give them the chance, but people have to decipher themselves what fits well for them.
David (27:50): Are there any leadership books or management books that you've read that have inspired you to create this culture? Or was this something you and Ben just innately learned from other managers or from doing the opposite of other managers?
Agatha (28:03): We have plenty of inspiration. The good thing is that we work with like a lot of great clients. We're always learning from them, but yes, there's some things that we were just like, no, I wanted to be respected this way when I was working at an agency. We just try to make sure that we do that for our team now.
A book that I recently read, one of our clients, David Cote, a global CEO of Honeywell, he wrote a book called Winning Now, Winning Later, and two things that conflict. Your immediate goals and your long-term goals, how do you win at both of them at the same time? And then on top of that, how do you inspire your team to get on the same page as you? So it was some pages I read, some pages I was listening to in the car, but always learning from people. I think just keep an open mind. I think the more we do, the more we realize we don’t know. If you have any books, let me know. We're always trying to stay on top of it.
David (28:58): Well, that sounds like a great book. I don't have that come to mind. I guess the only one that I thought about when you said winning today and winning later was the Loyalty Effect by Fred Reichheld, just the whole concept of net promoter score and just how lifetime value is always more important than an initial sale. But ideally you want to do both. You want to be really good at closing business and you also want to delight customers so that you don't have to keep acquiring new business to keep the business flowing.
Agatha (29:23): I will definitely check that out.
David (29:25): The other one, I think it’s called Loyalty 2.0 or something, but he came up with the concept of net promoter score, and the net promoter score applies both to externally to your customers, but you can also do an internal net promoter score, which is the asking and the one question of, to your employees, how likely would you be to refer your friend to this job? And if they give you a 9 or 10, they're considered net promoter. An 8 is a neutral, and if it’s a 7 or less, they're a detractor. So something that I've used from time to time.
Agatha (29:56): Good framework.
David (29:57): Yeah. I love frameworks. I could have a whole podcast on frameworks. What are your plans for the agency? Do you have big ambitious goals? Is it just keep growing at smart rates? Where do you want to go?
Agatha (30:09): Right now, we’re so focused on helping our clients succeed and our succeed has been because we've been so focused on what we can deliver for our clients. I think we have more abstract ambitions. And for us and for my whole team and for Ben, it's really about how do we elevate agencies and how do we elevate this overall industry culture? How do we celebrate the nerds? How do we get away from the award shows or like the parties? Because we actually have so many powerful tools at our fingertips as digital marketers.
I tell Ben all the time, it's like my superpower. I could just click and launch this whole search campaign and turn on this whole category. I can launch a whole category. I really just think that we have such an opportunity. Our abstract goals is show the value of real discipline in our industry and what that means. Not that everybody is not working hard, it's just like, what does that really disciplined work? What does that do versus okay, yeah. Let's use last year's media plan. Let's update it with a couple of things. I really just want to elevate the conversation. I joke about this all the time with my family. I just want to get to a point where I can say I work in media without somebody saying like, oh, you make the ads? I think having an abstract vision like that actually really helps us moving forward.
David (31:38): I think the concept of celebrate the nerds. I feel like that's got to be some brand somewhere needs to embrace that. You need to get a client of yours to use it or just make that your tagline.
Agatha (31:47): Yeah. Celebrate the nerds.
David (31:49): I love that. I think that's great.
Agatha (31:50): Well, I think our clients celebrate our nerdiness. They're super cool. We want so many celebrity brands, and I always tell my teams like behind every cool kid is the nerd, but that's just us being casual.
David (32:03): And your kids are like, yeah, we just want to meet the celebrity.
Agatha (32:06): Oh yeah. There’s nothing cool about being a nerd.
David (32:10): Until we celebrate them, which is going to be the new catch phrase. I guess the last question I would ask you is what advice do you have for someone starting an agency today? What would you say to someone who's just getting started?
Agatha (32:22): I would really just say like plant the seed, take it step by step, don't plan. Don't envision, don't define success, and just really get started. Start with that one meeting. Start with that one email. I think the hardest thing to do is start. And then what you quickly learn is how do you build momentum behind yourself? Think about it in incremental-ness as opposed to final results. ‘We have an office, we have hundred people.’ Really just think about, take that first step. I just encourage people to do it.
David (32:54): Awesome. That's great advice. And if someone wanted to reach you, what's the best way to connect? Is there a Twitter profile?
Agatha (33:01): We can find me on LinkedIn, and that's the best way to get in touch. That's also probably more updated than our website. And so definitely reach out to me on LinkedIn.
David (33:12): And I just realized I have one more, very important question, which is there is a song called Agatha Chang. I have been told that actually you are connected to that song.
Agatha (33:23): I am, yes, as a friend. So he was writing the song about a girl that he was dating, but he did not want reveal her name. But when I had met him, he had written my name down. This is like one of our first meetings. He had written my name down on a piece of paper. He thought my name would make a great rock song, and I would totally take credit for that, but I will not take credit for the song. But when he was missing that girl, that piece of paper showed up, and that's how he wrote the song.
David (33:52): So it's Agatha Chang by the Eels, right?
Agatha (33:53): Yes.
David (33:55): I'm still waiting for the David Rodnitzky song. I don't think it flows off the tongue and probably doesn't rhyme as well as Agatha Chang. So that may never happen.
Agatha (34:03): We'll have to see. Maybe Ben who's an excellent songwriter and guitarist will write a song about David Rodnitzky
David (34:09): We're looking for a theme song for Agentic Shift, so if he wants to write one.
Agatha (34:13): I will ask Ben to do it. And maybe the title of the song should be celebrate the nerds.
David (34:18): Which would be about me. So that's totally appropriate. I think that was the most important breakthrough we had on this podcast. No, I'm just kidding. I think it's super cool that you have a song named after you and you guys don't have to write a song about me, but even more cool than that.
Agatha (34:32): [crosstalk] there, David.
David (34:33): Well, if it's good, it's going to turn into the theme song of the podcast. I'm committing to that now.
Aside from that, thank you for joining us today. Really interesting. I loved your management approach and the way that you're building the business, and I wish you continued success.
Agatha (34:49): Thank you so much. It was really nice chatting with you.
David (34:56): A new episode of Agentic Shift drops every Wednesday. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform or visit agenticshift.com to see the latest episode.
Links & Resources
Winning Now, Winning Later: How Companies Can Succeed in the Short Term While Investing for the Long Term, a book by David M. Cote.
The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value, a book by Frederick Reichheld