How I Scaled My Creative Agency To $80M Business

hey in this video I'm going to share my three-step process that was absolutely fundamental and game changing and helping me scale my agency from zero to 80 million dollars and freed me from working inside my business let's jump right into it how are you able to scale something that seems unscalable which is you how do you multiply you and I think what happens is there's this bottleneck that most creative people get into they have a secret sauce a formula that's unbeknownst to them they do things almost instinctively and they don't know how to translate or

transfer this skill to other people you heard me speak about this before that entrepreneurship is really about being a teacher more than anything else how you're able to teach your values your principles your decision making process your creativity to others will determine how successful you are one could argue that Steve Jobs did an excellent job at transferring and teaching because the company is run and has grown dramatically since its departure now right now if you were to pass your company would fall apart instantly you should really be looking at your number two and you should

be teaching him here's how I make decisions Shadow me let's have a conversation afterwards and then you compare what he understands and sees and you try to get him and scaffold him towards how you see things and how you understand things it's how I was able to build up my design studio with many creative directors so from the jump my whole modus operandi was to get other people to do what it is that I was doing so I brought in pretty much raw talent that didn't really know how to do it my way so I

would say okay what is the single simplest thing that I can get you to do that would take a whole bunch of things off my plate well I need you to iterate on ideas I need you to research and as they researched I would give feedback as to what it is I'm looking for if they're designing and ideating I would say okay look here's what you did here I'm gonna tweak some things I'm going to show you what it is that I'm doing so that you can then get there closer faster with less friction and

less wasted energy and when they get to a certain level I look for people who have leadership skills who are anticipating next steps and who want to communicate and be in front of the client those people get promoted to be coming from like a designer to an art director an art director to becoming a creative director with each leveling up I add more things to them now the the way that I'm able to train people and help them to level up and simultaneously free myself from working in the agency is to use this model I

do we do you do it's something that teachers use but it's also applicable in business management now let's break each of them down and you'll see how you can apply them phase one I do this is where you listen and learn to where someone will Shadow you to see how you do things to do it your way they can look over your shoulder or you can sit down with them and do some Hands-On training first off you have to identify a potential candidate to take under your wing Beyond possessing core skills they need to be

driven proactive and to take Direction well and be a good listener if it's a coordinator that you're training to be a project manager or producer they should be organized have an eye for detail so you don't have to stay up at night wondering if they forgot something and to be able to anticipate next steps and have excellent communication skills if you're training a junior designer they should already be proficient with the tools like the Adobe Creative Suite these are easily and effectively learned by watching videos or taking some online courses that's something I simply do

not have the time to teach they should also know design fundamentals typography composition photo compositing and retouching now that you have the right person have them Shadow you watch how you work and to take notes if it's a client situation have them sit on a call you might not even introduce them at this stage so they can just focus on listening in the shadow if you will their primary job is to observe and instruct them not to say anything believe it or not this will actually lower the anxiety afterwards have a review a debrief if

you will where you can answer the questions address what was said versus what was meant outline any key strategies that you were using in your mind to explain the how and the why so here's a specific example hey before we get it too far I just have a really simple ass I'm not here to sell you anything but it would mean a lot to us just to help with algorithm and how it runs to leave a comment right now you can type in what city you're from type in your name type in anything it'll help

other people find this video and if you're truly getting value don't forget to subscribe many years ago Tom was a new graduate from art center and he entered our company as a junior designer he had excellent skills he could illustrate he was well-rounded could do 2D animation and even do 3D he knew his Art and Design history and he was very articulate especially for a designer his hard work and ambitious and so in the I do stage I would sit down next to Tom and watch him work for short periods of time I was looking

for anyways to speed up his workflow to see how he made decisions I would share with him any keyboard shortcuts or ways of working more effectively and efficiently I would also share with him additional resources or references he might not have been aware of including some tricks and tips that would save him some time every once in a blue moon I would have him scoot over so I can work next to him to do a quick Hands-On demo in this way you can see how I actually do things how I organize files and how I'm

able to composite or lay out something more efficiently within a short period of time he already mastered the way I like to work and had become very efficient himself and needed very little input in our direction for me he was ready to join me on calls so I invited him to where I told him again take notes and just focus on listening afterwards he asked me a bunch of questions then I would then ask him a few questions and based on our conversation I knew he was ready for the next step base two we do

this is the hybrid option it's between having your person say nothing and just watching you from them running completely autonomously it's getting the person ready to take the lead to be the main point in person so in this case you want to introduce the person to your client and invite them to ask questions but not feel pressured to and also to prepare for answering any specific project related questions that might come their way and you want to be able to gauge their ability to work with clients their General temperament and how they respond to adversity

and any kind of tricky situations so the example here is this we were designing the main title design for the documentary film dog town to Z boys directed by world famous skater Stacy Peralta Tom was introduced as the art director and the title was important for him to get the respect from the client so think about this when the project was in a really good place after the initial design exploration was approved by Stacy I did the official handoff saying that Tom would be the main point person moving forward now your clients are naturally going

to be concerned as if they're getting passed off to the B Team your job is to reassure the client I'm putting Tom in charge because I trust him he's my right hand person and has been running this project behind the scenes the entire time I want to make sure nothing falls through the cracks and that's why I'm putting Tom in charge if you have any questions whatsoever please do not hesitate to call me I do this two to three times on a few different projects with a few different clients and if you feel really confident

it's time to migrate to the last phase phase three you do and you do the person you're training is now ready to take the point position and should be the initial contact person along with your project manager in this stage they are given autonomy to make decisions in the best interests of the company and the client it's important that you don't get involved because this will undermine their Authority and it'll get them to second-guess themselves also if the clients are aware that you're still involved they'll just go around that person and talk to you directly

circumventing this entire process in the first place to avoid micromanaging my preference is to say to whoever I'm training I'm here if you're stuck but otherwise you don't need to check in with me at all instead set up an optional once a week or even bi-weekly office hour or you're able to answer questions in case they need additional coaching how to deal with things like pricing or any client challenges so they're going to consistently need your training to level up the example again Tom and Stacy Peralta were talking to each other directly they're behaving like

good friends as a good client relationship should it was a comfort level that was established and Tom had built this rapport with Stacy so essentially I was able to get myself out and to manage other things and delegate more jobs and clients to Tom over time the best case scenario for me is when the clients would forget who I was in the first place or they would go out of their way to tell me how much they liked working with Tom saying he's a pleasure to work with now in order for you to be a

good entrepreneur you have to be a great teacher you have to be able to replicate basically clone yourself what you do how you speak to clients and how you problem solve do this the right way and over time people you hire will share your core values otherwise you'll always be stuck at being company of one hope this video helps you to scale your business capture back some of your free time and become a better leader and less of a micro manager this is how you effectively stop working in your business and start working on your

business that's it for me see you in the future [Music]