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All right.
Welcome back to Agency Journey.

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This is Gray MacKenzie from ZenPilot.

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And this week I have the privilege
of bringing on my friend

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Anne Shenton who is the co-founder
CEO of Ascend Strategy and Design.

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They are HubSpot

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Diamond and Advanced CMC Implementation
Certified Solutions Partner.

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And welcome to the podcast.

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Thank you. Gray
It's a privilege to be here.

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I'm I'm super excited
for this conversation.

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I put out something on LinkedIn
about wanting to talk to a great agency

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to implement. Really.

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I don't think when

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I put that out there that I even knew
that you had implemented.

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Yeah, but that's part
of the conversation that I want to have.

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So before we get to iOS, though,
can you give us the profile of Ascend

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and these OC all the Ascend
or do you call it Ascend

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strategy and design every time?

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We absolutely do

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not call it a certain
strategy and design every time.

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You know, that would be a tough pill
to swallow for everybody.

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A mouthful. Yeah.

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So ascend is great.

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Quick profile.

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We are a HubSpot diamond tiered partner.

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We've been around since October of 2015,

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so we just had our seven year
anniversary.

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We specialize in HubSpot, CMC builds

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and marketing hub
implementations and retainers.

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So that's sort of our
our bread and butter right now.

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And you came from a

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you were at a marketing role in-house
before starting an agency, right?

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That's right.

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And there
there actually is some overlap there. So

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I started, you know, obviously
my first real job out of grad

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school was a marketing director role
for a managed services provider.

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So an IT company
and as you know, time went on.

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I built
out the website for this company.

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I started doing marketing
for this company

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and the leadership said, you know,
this is working really well for us.

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Why don't
we try to sell it to our clients?

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And so that's what ended up happening.

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So I started building websites

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and then later on that expanded into,
you know, more of the inbound

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offerings like social media marketing,
email marketing and the like.

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And eventually it got to the point
where, you know, I started to realize

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if we were going to be
bringing on a higher caliber of client

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that we would need to brand ourselves
separately from the IT side.

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Because, you know, if you really looking
for high quality marketing work,

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you're not going to go to an ad company,
you know, and vice versa.

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Your your high quality i.t needs
are not going to be sent to your agency

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because that would be a disaster.

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So we started ascend as a division
of this company back in 2015.

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There were, you know,

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some acquisitions, ownership changes
that happened in 2020

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and I'm really proud to say that me
and a couple of other of my colleagues

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were able to buy out the division
and we own it outright now.

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So that's awesome. Graduations.
Thank you.

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This kind of strange question,
but that's what I specialize in,

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so that's good.

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What were websites
and were you excited to build websites?

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Is that what you wanted to do
or was that just,

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hey, this is an easier
sell in the market?

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This is what the market is asking for
right now?

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That's a really good question.

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I honestly I would have to say
it's the former.

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I really loved it.

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And, you know, it's funny,

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I when when I was the one building
the websites, though,

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they did not look great,
but they performed very well.

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You know, I'm a marketer by background,
so I know messaging.

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I know SEO,

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I know

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you know, the technical nuts and bolts
of getting a website up and running.

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So even though they don't necessarily
look all that great, they performed

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well.

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And at the end of the day,
that's what mattered most to the client.

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Of course, now, of course, you know,
we're a much more sophisticated agency.

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We made a really good looking websites

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in addition to being high performing.

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So, you know, you don't have
to sacrifice one for the other.

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But absolutely, I love it.

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I still you know,
I'm trying to get to the point,

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as you advise Gray to sort of
get out of the day to day.

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But I still love to get in there

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and tinker around
with the technical side of things.

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Yeah, well, that's leading us

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into some of the easy conversation

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and kind of where do you see
like reading The Visionary then agree?

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We can talk about that in a second.

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Yeah.

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And Ascend website though
it's beautiful ascend send you

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com is the URL obviously
you've put a lot of work into it

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but I remember I don't remember
the first time that I saw your website,

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but I feel like it was probably 2017,
2018, like

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four or five years ago.

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And it's always had strong design
like it has always.

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Yeah, the brand has looked really clean
from the outside.

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Yeah.

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But as a startup.

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No, no.

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Okay.

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That's a testament to our visionary
who is Stephen Carter.

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He's the other co-founder of Ascend,
and he has a really superior design

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acumen and definitely brings that side

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of the up to the table to light.

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So yeah, well,
so that this is a transition

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I was going to make is clean
from the outside like the inside.

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And let's talk about

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some of the some of the journey
that you've been through.

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When did you find out about iOS
and then what was that then?

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Hey, here's how were and what's been
what's

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been the approach to implementation,
I guess is the first question.

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Yeah.

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So I think that like a lot of things,
you know, you start to hear about it

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and several different places and then,
you know, over time it just becomes this

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bug in your ear that you think, Gosh,
I need to look into this more deeply.

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So one of the places I saw
it was the HubSpot

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Solutions Partner Facebook group.

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There are a lot of folks
talking about iOS

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even having it on their website,
you know, things like that.

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And then I read a book by Clover Higgins

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that's like a happy and healthy

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digital agency,
I think was the name of the book.

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It's a really quick read, good read,
and it talked about,

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you know, how great iOS was.

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And so between
some of those different rumblings,

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you know, I picked up traction.

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This was close

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to the time that we were looking at, you
know, transitioning over to ownership.

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And so I knew that
if we were going to be taking this

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on, that we needed to build it
the right way.

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And it was transformational.

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I mean, it really simplified
a lot of things for us,

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helped us prioritize, you know,

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set a clear vision,

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just all all sorts of really wonderful
things

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have come about
as a result of implementing iOS.

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Have you self implemented it
or did you work with an employer?

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We have self implemented.

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I think I saw that you may have started
working with an implementer recently.

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I think that's probably something
we will do at some point,

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but so far it's it's worked out
well to self implement.

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We use a software called Nightly
IO to help us sort of manage

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all of the efforts in iOS
and that's been really helpful

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to just help us keep tabs on everything.

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Of course
we're Zen pilot fans and clicker fans,

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so we also manage a lot of our day
to day, you know, rocks,

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issues and things like that
and cook up as well.

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Yeah, that that might actually be
one thing that's helpful for folks

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to go into the 90.

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You know,
we often use this tension of like

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and APM tools
don't have all the iOS specific tools

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that a 90 or iOS one
or one of the other platforms has.

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But then if we put everything
inside those tools,

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then how do we have our tasks
and all of the taboos

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that come out of meetings,
how those lined up

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back in our project manager tool,
how do you handle that?

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I'm glad you asked.

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So we actually struggled with that
a bit as well.

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So essentially what we do
is it's a bit of a hybrid approach.

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We we track our issues

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and meetings and notes
and things like that.

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And 90 we track our, you know, overall

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revenue goals and metrics
and all of that and 90.

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But anything that is an action
item goes and click up.

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So if there's something that we need to
do, we put it in, click up.

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So the, you know,
we make sure that that it gets

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it gets done.

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All in the. Lawsuit.

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That's right.

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Quick helps. It doesn't exist.

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That's great.

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What so the self-employed mentation

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offering you'll find folks
are also deviating from some pieces

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and say hey this piece this didn't
really feel like it worked for us.

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Is it?

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You're laughing already?

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Is there

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is there anything that you feel like,
Hey, we've put our own spin on this

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from iOS either to your benefit
or to your detriment?

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That is a really good question.

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I think it's more
not necessarily that we are not

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or that we have deviated more
so that we are not

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leveraging the full iOS toolbox.

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There's there's more that we need to do.

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You know,
I think we're answering the questions.

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You know, we have our values,
we have our issues list,

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We we have our KPIs, all of that.

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But there are, you know,

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questions of

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process and measurement
and and other things like that

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that we still have a ways
to go to get to get a better handle on.

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So sure, that makes sense.

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What you mentioned culture there.

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Well, how has that evolved?

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And like, what's the relationship
between that culture evolution

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or development and the iOS
implementation at the same time?

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Yeah, but

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so that's one of the things I think
really spoke to me when I read Traction

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was that there was such a focus on

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clearly defining your purpose statement,

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clearly defining your core values,
and then,

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you know, building
your team based off of a fit

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between your core values and basically
their capacity to do the job.

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You know, the right
people right seats mentality.

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And because of that, you know,

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it gives you a scorecard, right,
Or a checklist, I should say,

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where that
when you are evaluating a candidate,

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you basically go down
the list of your values and say, okay,

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they meet all of these

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and they get it, they want it,
and they have the capacity to do the job

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and just sort of
streamlining and simplifying

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that has made hiring decisions
much more clear.

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So on that side, you know,
we're we're hiring the right people

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for the right seats.

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That's,
of course, a big part of building

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a good culture is just having
the right people in place.

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And then the other aspect of that,
of course, is the working environment

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and making sure
that we live these values every day

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and then making sure that we're
all aligned and believe in the vision.

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And so again, that's another aspect of
values is like it forces you to

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set a clear vision, define

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the path to get there and get the team
members on the same page.

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So, you know,
we get the team together every quarter

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and we go through our,
you know, quarterly performance.

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We go through, okay, how
are we measuring up to our annual goals?

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Are we on track to hit in revenues?

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Are we on track to hit,
you know, our monthly

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recurring revenue goals,
our project revenue goals, all of that?

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We're really transparent
about all of that because,

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you know, we want buy in from the team.

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We want them to understand

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where we're trying to go
and how we're going to get there.

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And then, you know, more.

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The long term piece is looking at,

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okay, well,
where are we going to be in ten years?

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Or, you know, I love the three year
picture, too, because it's sort of

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you can see it.

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You can really see it happening,
but it's far enough away that it

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00:12:29,648 --> 00:12:31,016
still seems exciting. And,

241
00:12:32,551 --> 00:12:33,853
you know, just

242
00:12:33,853 --> 00:12:36,756
really being able to see like what
what this is going to look like

243
00:12:36,756 --> 00:12:40,793
and in the short amount of time,
how much larger we're going to be,

244
00:12:40,793 --> 00:12:43,629
you know, how what better opportunities
we're going to have,

245
00:12:43,929 --> 00:12:45,097
how much more valuable

246
00:12:45,097 --> 00:12:48,434
we're going to be to our clients,
you know, in the marketplace

247
00:12:49,635 --> 00:12:51,871
really helps our team get excited.

248
00:12:51,871 --> 00:12:52,938
So, yeah.

249
00:12:53,973 --> 00:12:58,210
So your core values among about page
right now, I'm going to stay humble,

250
00:12:58,210 --> 00:13:02,381
work hard, play hard people over
profit, quality over quantity.

251
00:13:02,748 --> 00:13:03,783
But that's total aside.

252
00:13:03,783 --> 00:13:07,520
By the way, I often find that
when you ask people what question like

253
00:13:08,354 --> 00:13:09,421
how are you screening people out?

254
00:13:09,421 --> 00:13:10,589
And I'm going to lead into that question

255
00:13:10,589 --> 00:13:13,959
for you, screening people and screening
people out in the recruiting process,

256
00:13:14,426 --> 00:13:15,961
I find often the

257
00:13:18,097 --> 00:13:18,864
the specific

258
00:13:18,864 --> 00:13:22,201
values they reference line up
showing later in their order.

259
00:13:22,835 --> 00:13:25,171
So quality over
quantity is your fifth one.

260
00:13:25,171 --> 00:13:26,071
I don't know why that is.

261
00:13:26,071 --> 00:13:31,443
I think maybe sometimes we pick
so easy ones early on

262
00:13:31,443 --> 00:13:33,245
and then you get a lot of reported
moments like, Oh, well,

263
00:13:33,245 --> 00:13:35,381
what's our what's our fourth one,
What's our fifth and what's our third?

264
00:13:35,414 --> 00:13:36,182
Whatever?

265
00:13:36,215 --> 00:13:39,785
Yeah, maybe they're ones where, hey,
not there's a lot more people

266
00:13:39,785 --> 00:13:41,353
wouldn't fit this.

267
00:13:41,353 --> 00:13:45,291
So quality over quantity,

268
00:13:45,291 --> 00:13:48,427
you know, maybe there's, there's a way,
there's,

269
00:13:48,427 --> 00:13:50,162
there's certainly ways to screen
people up.

270
00:13:50,162 --> 00:13:50,596
Okay.

271
00:13:50,596 --> 00:13:53,833
But how do you screen for that
in the recruiting process?

272
00:13:53,833 --> 00:13:56,035
And then is there
one or two of those values

273
00:13:56,468 --> 00:13:58,270
where you eliminate
more people than other ones,

274
00:13:58,270 --> 00:13:59,505
or is that not the case?

275
00:13:59,505 --> 00:14:02,074
And it's you know, there's
even distribution over those five.

276
00:14:02,474 --> 00:14:03,242
Sure.

277
00:14:03,242 --> 00:14:06,045
So just to clarify, vary
asking how we screen out

278
00:14:06,278 --> 00:14:09,715
for all values or just that specific
value of quality of all.

279
00:14:09,715 --> 00:14:10,683
Malibu's right.

280
00:14:10,683 --> 00:14:13,018
What I'm interviewing
for a job at Ascend.

281
00:14:13,185 --> 00:14:16,488
What are you asking me or what
are you looking for that says our base?

282
00:14:16,488 --> 00:14:18,424
Definitely not a fit to be here.

283
00:14:18,424 --> 00:14:21,327
Or Yeah, I would have to say the really,

284
00:14:21,327 --> 00:14:25,231
the number one is our number one
value, which is stay humble.

285
00:14:26,398 --> 00:14:30,002
And of course we evaluate across
all of the values.

286
00:14:30,002 --> 00:14:31,203
You know, we,

287
00:14:31,203 --> 00:14:34,907
we look for work ethic,
we look for people that have

288
00:14:34,907 --> 00:14:37,977
interests outside of work
because we're going to have to spend

289
00:14:37,977 --> 00:14:38,777
all this time with them.

290
00:14:38,777 --> 00:14:41,580
Like we want to hang out with people
that are kind of fun, you know,

291
00:14:43,015 --> 00:14:47,019
people over profit,
just not in a for the paycheck.

292
00:14:47,119 --> 00:14:48,587
Basically, we compensate.

293
00:14:48,587 --> 00:14:51,857
Well, but that's we're
we're here for a bigger purpose

294
00:14:52,358 --> 00:14:54,393
and quality over quantity.

295
00:14:54,393 --> 00:14:57,663
You know just looking at the work
that they've done and,

296
00:14:57,663 --> 00:15:00,633
you know,
making sure that it's it's up to snuff.

297
00:15:00,633 --> 00:15:03,969
It's it's top notch
whether that's writing samples code,

298
00:15:05,671 --> 00:15:08,374
you know, references, things like that.

299
00:15:08,374 --> 00:15:10,476
But just to go back to stay humble,
you know,

300
00:15:10,476 --> 00:15:12,811
that's that's probably the biggest one
that we screen on.

301
00:15:13,212 --> 00:15:13,946
And add

302
00:15:15,381 --> 00:15:17,783
red flags like as as far as like

303
00:15:18,183 --> 00:15:21,153
sort of weeding people out

304
00:15:21,787 --> 00:15:22,922
hence of blame

305
00:15:22,922 --> 00:15:26,058
like, well,
I can't do my job because of X, Y and Z.

306
00:15:26,058 --> 00:15:28,727
These people are in my way
like things like that.

307
00:15:30,496 --> 00:15:32,665
A lot of self-talk.

308
00:15:32,665 --> 00:15:33,933
I'm so great because of X, Y,

309
00:15:33,933 --> 00:15:36,001
z and I understand
that you need to do that

310
00:15:36,001 --> 00:15:38,070
to a certain extent in a job interview.

311
00:15:38,070 --> 00:15:41,173
But I found that there, you know,
there's a way to present that

312
00:15:41,173 --> 00:15:44,843
in such a way where, you know,
you can demonstrate your,

313
00:15:46,478 --> 00:15:49,114
your capabilities without bragging.

314
00:15:49,481 --> 00:15:51,583
And there's there's a line there.

315
00:15:51,583 --> 00:15:52,518
And, you know, if

316
00:15:52,518 --> 00:15:55,721
if that line is crossed,
then they're probably not going to be

317
00:15:55,888 --> 00:15:56,956
a good fit for us.

318
00:15:56,956 --> 00:16:00,059
And we're very much
a collaborative environment

319
00:16:00,059 --> 00:16:03,495
where we're the kind of place where,
you know, we have each other's back.

320
00:16:04,596 --> 00:16:06,966
There's not a lot of shifting blame.

321
00:16:07,533 --> 00:16:11,337
There's really no shifting blame
among the team or to our clients.

322
00:16:11,704 --> 00:16:15,708
So we just want to make sure that
we keep that intact in the long haul.

323
00:16:16,442 --> 00:16:17,109
Yeah.

324
00:16:17,743 --> 00:16:21,714
How do you how do those of these values
play out in the day to day?

325
00:16:21,747 --> 00:16:23,415
Not necessarily
like so you've got a team of people

326
00:16:23,415 --> 00:16:27,186
who exemplify this is
how do you keep promoting those values

327
00:16:27,319 --> 00:16:28,921
to build
the culture that you're trying to build?

328
00:16:28,921 --> 00:16:32,591
Is that, you know, a monthly
all hands that we have or

329
00:16:32,591 --> 00:16:35,027
I mean, tagging people and celebrating
on a weekly basis, What are

330
00:16:35,761 --> 00:16:39,098
what are you doing to promote
those values when the current team.

331
00:16:39,832 --> 00:16:44,403
Yeah, so a few different
things that we do We have

332
00:16:45,571 --> 00:16:47,072
we have a weekly stand up,

333
00:16:47,072 --> 00:16:50,943
a very short meeting
just celebrating wins.

334
00:16:50,943 --> 00:16:53,912
You know housekeeping items

335
00:16:53,912 --> 00:16:56,148
and just a chance
for us to all get together

336
00:16:56,181 --> 00:16:59,351
on one zoom and look each other
in the eye for a little bit.

337
00:16:59,351 --> 00:17:01,954
Every week we use Slack.

338
00:17:01,954 --> 00:17:07,059
And so we have
we use the the Hey Taco rewards system

339
00:17:07,059 --> 00:17:10,429
and Slack where you give each other
little taco emojis.

340
00:17:10,429 --> 00:17:14,733
And those can actually be redeemed
for real rewards

341
00:17:14,733 --> 00:17:17,703
like a day off or Amazon
gift card or lunch, etc..

342
00:17:17,703 --> 00:17:20,773
And so we really make use of that

343
00:17:20,806 --> 00:17:23,575
to get people recognition
for their hard work.

344
00:17:24,810 --> 00:17:27,880
We're very intentional
about our get togethers,

345
00:17:27,880 --> 00:17:31,016
whether those are virtual or in person.

346
00:17:31,316 --> 00:17:33,585
We have two in person
get together as a year.

347
00:17:33,585 --> 00:17:38,690
We have one that's here in our office,
our physical office,

348
00:17:39,258 --> 00:17:42,694
which only a couple of us
actually work in here in South Georgia.

349
00:17:43,462 --> 00:17:45,697
But we bring the team down and,

350
00:17:46,231 --> 00:17:49,268
you know, have sort of a working week
here,

351
00:17:49,268 --> 00:17:51,270
but we're all in the same place
together,

352
00:17:51,270 --> 00:17:54,440
mixed in with a few fun activities
and dinners and things like that.

353
00:17:54,840 --> 00:17:57,409
And then we also have an annual retreat.

354
00:17:57,409 --> 00:17:58,444
We call it the hang out.

355
00:17:58,444 --> 00:18:00,546
We actually just got back
from that last week.

356
00:18:00,813 --> 00:18:04,016
We went down to Orlando,
we went to Epcot for a day.

357
00:18:04,349 --> 00:18:07,119
We, you know, hung out by the pool.

358
00:18:07,119 --> 00:18:08,187
We went to Topgolf.

359
00:18:08,187 --> 00:18:10,923
It was honestly the time of my life.

360
00:18:10,923 --> 00:18:12,991
It was it was a really good time.

361
00:18:12,991 --> 00:18:15,828
And I think it's a benefit of having,
you know,

362
00:18:16,195 --> 00:18:18,997
not heavy overhead costs

363
00:18:18,997 --> 00:18:22,000
with having a physical facility
is that you're able to take some of that

364
00:18:23,502 --> 00:18:24,603
money and put it

365
00:18:24,603 --> 00:18:27,139
towards a really cool experience
like that.

366
00:18:27,773 --> 00:18:29,441
That that is awesome.

367
00:18:29,441 --> 00:18:30,075
I think

368
00:18:31,543 --> 00:18:35,047
having to go also as a
like his lifestyle,

369
00:18:35,581 --> 00:18:37,316
it's funny
how some of those simple things

370
00:18:37,316 --> 00:18:41,253
like I think having a mix of both,
having a really impactful

371
00:18:41,253 --> 00:18:44,523
onsite and a high emotional intensity

372
00:18:45,691 --> 00:18:48,127
get togethers are really important.

373
00:18:48,127 --> 00:18:50,229
And I also think
having the simple block intact

374
00:18:50,229 --> 00:18:52,831
and then we've got a weekly setup up
and we do this weird thing

375
00:18:52,831 --> 00:18:55,067
and so it looks really strange
from the outside,

376
00:18:55,067 --> 00:18:57,936
but on the inside
it's super fun and it's part of

377
00:18:57,936 --> 00:18:59,071
part of building culture.

378
00:18:59,071 --> 00:19:01,406
That's awesome. Absolutely. Thanks.

379
00:19:01,406 --> 00:19:05,177
How do you as you think about the impact
of implementing iOS

380
00:19:05,177 --> 00:19:10,082
and your on your journey there,
how do you quantify that?

381
00:19:10,082 --> 00:19:12,751
Or if you know you're telling somebody

382
00:19:12,751 --> 00:19:16,588
at inbound next year, hey, here's here's
why this is a great decision.

383
00:19:16,588 --> 00:19:17,589
Is it?

384
00:19:17,823 --> 00:19:20,759
Hey, we started measuring numbers
with these consistent scorecards

385
00:19:20,759 --> 00:19:22,995
and what we hadn't done before
and we started all of a sudden hitting,

386
00:19:23,262 --> 00:19:25,430
you know, revenue
goals, profit goals, whatever that is.

387
00:19:26,131 --> 00:19:26,999
Or is it

388
00:19:28,200 --> 00:19:29,334
more on the cultural front?

389
00:19:29,334 --> 00:19:31,703
What are the ways
that you quantify the impact of U.S.?

390
00:19:33,405 --> 00:19:35,007
I think they go hand in hand.

391
00:19:35,007 --> 00:19:36,008
Gray.

392
00:19:36,041 --> 00:19:37,142
I think, you know, again,

393
00:19:37,142 --> 00:19:39,344
if you have the right people,
the right culture in place,

394
00:19:40,112 --> 00:19:41,847
folks will do good work.

395
00:19:41,847 --> 00:19:44,850
And as a result,
you'll hit your numbers.

396
00:19:46,084 --> 00:19:48,921
But the scorecard has to be there.

397
00:19:48,954 --> 00:19:50,556
I mean,

398
00:19:51,323 --> 00:19:54,726
you know, I think I think
back to the time before we implemented

399
00:19:54,726 --> 00:19:58,530
iOS and we had an annual revenue
goal every year,

400
00:19:59,097 --> 00:20:01,500
but there was no backing that out.

401
00:20:01,533 --> 00:20:04,169
You know, it was just like, well,
we we think we can have this.

402
00:20:04,703 --> 00:20:08,073
And what iOS really brings into play is,
you know, the,

403
00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:11,376
the quarterly structure, the,
the rock structure

404
00:20:11,643 --> 00:20:15,013
and then just breaking
each of these pieces down.

405
00:20:15,480 --> 00:20:16,682
You know, it's like that analogy

406
00:20:16,682 --> 00:20:20,552
with the jar that you, you know,
fill it up with rocks and then sand and

407
00:20:21,954 --> 00:20:24,456
it's that kind of thing is just

408
00:20:24,456 --> 00:20:28,627
breaking it down into digestible chunks
so that we know,

409
00:20:28,627 --> 00:20:30,996
okay,
if this is our annual revenue goal,

410
00:20:30,996 --> 00:20:33,131
this is where
we have to get this quarter.

411
00:20:33,131 --> 00:20:35,234
If we have to get here this quarter,
this is how many

412
00:20:36,001 --> 00:20:37,336
clients we need to bring on.

413
00:20:37,336 --> 00:20:39,404
If we need
to break on this many clients,

414
00:20:39,404 --> 00:20:41,073
then we need to have this many sales

415
00:20:41,073 --> 00:20:44,710
meetings a week, you know,
or this many proposals are out the door.

416
00:20:45,010 --> 00:20:47,913
So it really helped, you know,

417
00:20:47,913 --> 00:20:51,483
distill that down into manageable chunks

418
00:20:51,483 --> 00:20:54,953
that can give
you really a playbook to get there.

419
00:20:55,587 --> 00:20:57,556
Yeah, And make sense.

420
00:20:57,556 --> 00:20:59,625
I get three questions for you
as we wrap up,

421
00:20:59,658 --> 00:21:03,328
and two of them are short
and silly through my require of it.

422
00:21:05,030 --> 00:21:07,332
What's
the weirdest number on your scorecard?

423
00:21:07,633 --> 00:21:10,269
Is there anything
that would surprise us?

424
00:21:10,335 --> 00:21:11,470
Why It is number one, the.

425
00:21:11,470 --> 00:21:13,639
Number metric measurable, right?

426
00:21:13,672 --> 00:21:14,573
So. Right.

427
00:21:15,507 --> 00:21:19,511
Well, I don't know the weird one,
but maybe unusual.

428
00:21:20,112 --> 00:21:22,381
An employee NPS score.

429
00:21:22,381 --> 00:21:22,614
Yeah.

430
00:21:22,614 --> 00:21:27,286
So you know
typically NPS or client facing stuff

431
00:21:28,053 --> 00:21:30,589
but we we do a biannual

432
00:21:31,323 --> 00:21:34,559
or probably eventually move
into a quarterly employee NPS

433
00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:37,095
that's been really helpful
to get a gauge on

434
00:21:37,095 --> 00:21:39,731
you know where we can do
better of leaders,

435
00:21:40,198 --> 00:21:43,268
how we can improve our work environment
for our employees.

436
00:21:44,036 --> 00:21:45,337
That's a great one.

437
00:21:45,537 --> 00:21:47,639
You've already given us
some tour recommendations.

438
00:21:47,839 --> 00:21:51,176
You mentioned 90 Cook up Slack.

439
00:21:51,176 --> 00:21:55,747
Hey, Taco Bell,
are there any other lesser

440
00:21:55,747 --> 00:21:58,850
known tools
that are like these in the Ansett?

441
00:21:58,850 --> 00:22:04,122
Shannon Or the send secret secret tool
that you're loving right now?

442
00:22:04,956 --> 00:22:08,193
Yeah, this one is really simple,
but I love it.

443
00:22:08,193 --> 00:22:12,698
It's called Slick Plan
and I use it to build out

444
00:22:13,231 --> 00:22:16,702
a flow charts
and site architecture diagrams.

445
00:22:17,402 --> 00:22:21,373
I found that a lot of these tools
are just like way more complicated

446
00:22:21,373 --> 00:22:24,943
than what I need and this one's really
simple, straightforward.

447
00:22:25,477 --> 00:22:27,312
You just plug it in
and you're good to go.

448
00:22:27,312 --> 00:22:29,514
I really like that tool and awesome.

449
00:22:30,182 --> 00:22:32,951
The third one is looking forward.

450
00:22:34,820 --> 00:22:35,854
We're wrapping, you know,

451
00:22:35,854 --> 00:22:38,590
here in Q4 of 22, we're recording this.

452
00:22:40,258 --> 00:22:42,494
What's the big,
you know, yeah, this three year

453
00:22:42,494 --> 00:22:45,497
is in the running towards, but
what are the priorities in the next six,

454
00:22:45,497 --> 00:22:47,999
12 months
that you're running for for Ascend.

455
00:22:48,800 --> 00:22:49,634
Yeah.

456
00:22:50,602 --> 00:22:50,836
Yeah.

457
00:22:50,836 --> 00:22:56,007
One is just maintaining our,
our diamond tier status in HubSpot,

458
00:22:56,041 --> 00:22:59,811
making sure that we escalate forward
into early

459
00:22:59,811 --> 00:23:03,115
at some point
over the next couple of years.

460
00:23:03,115 --> 00:23:05,584
So that's that's been a big push for us.

461
00:23:07,052 --> 00:23:09,821
Another big push, as you know,

462
00:23:09,821 --> 00:23:13,492
we have a formalized employee
onboarding plan,

463
00:23:13,925 --> 00:23:18,563
but we want to build that out
into more of a full fledged development

464
00:23:19,097 --> 00:23:22,534
plan or,
you know, offering for our employees.

465
00:23:22,868 --> 00:23:24,369
So they're always improving

466
00:23:24,369 --> 00:23:27,773
or learning
and sort of have a place to go for that.

467
00:23:28,340 --> 00:23:33,211
And then I think a lot of agencies
are going through this right now, too.

468
00:23:33,211 --> 00:23:38,116
But or maybe it's just at the point
where we are in our maturation,

469
00:23:39,217 --> 00:23:39,718
but looking

470
00:23:39,718 --> 00:23:43,789
to standardize our offerings
and make those,

471
00:23:43,789 --> 00:23:47,959
you know, more packaged up and easier
for prospects and clients to understand.

472
00:23:48,427 --> 00:23:49,561
Yeah, that's awesome.

473
00:23:49,561 --> 00:23:51,663
All three of those make a lot of sense.

474
00:23:51,663 --> 00:23:53,465
Well, that's been super fun.

475
00:23:53,465 --> 00:23:55,734
I mentioned it before.

476
00:23:55,734 --> 00:23:58,270
Is there anywhere else that we should
point people in to follow you?

477
00:23:59,671 --> 00:24:00,705
I love LinkedIn.

478
00:24:00,705 --> 00:24:02,641
I post, you know, a few times a week.

479
00:24:02,641 --> 00:24:06,611
So yeah, feel
free to connect with me on LinkedIn.

480
00:24:06,645 --> 00:24:10,816
I always love to connect
with other agency owners and employees.

481
00:24:10,816 --> 00:24:12,350
So awesome.

482
00:24:12,350 --> 00:24:14,519
Well, make sure that is in the show
notes here.

483
00:24:14,953 --> 00:24:17,088
Thanks so much
for joining us on the agency journey.

484
00:24:17,088 --> 00:24:18,957
Yeah,
thank you. Great. It was a pleasure.