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In this episode of Grow and Convert Deep Dives, we discuss a philosophy we have about managing remote workers (or workers in general): How to manage by outcomes instead of outputs. Oftentimes in our work, we come across other companies that have goals that don't move the needle, don't motivate employees, and cause more harm than good. We think this approach does the opposite.
We discuss how we think about goals, creating a great work culture, and how to effectively manage remote workers.
We share our thoughts and ideas on how to grow a business.
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So today's episode, we started off
initially wanting to just talk about the
principles of remote work
is what we called it.
And just like the ideas and, and kind
of the operating systems and principles that
we use running a remote agency.
Cuz we've been remote since pre covid.
We started off remote
Benji's in San Diego.
I'm in the Bay Area.
If you don't know anything
about California geography,
that's like five states
in the East coast, .
It's like a lot.
It's like, well that's pretty far.
Um, and uh, and the whole team is scattered
throughout the US and we have people in
Europe and uh, internationally.
So there's just no chance
we will ever not be remote.
It's not a remote because of Covid come
to the office Tuesday and Thursday stuff
and we had all these things
to discuss about that.
And while we were discussing
right before we hit record, um,
what we're gonna try is talking about
one specific aspect of running a remote
company because otherwise the discussion
can devolve into just like this whole
debate about should a company
be remote versus that.
And we don't want to get into
that. Everyone's talked about that.
I think everyone, anyone who follows
us knows where we stand on this.
We're obviously running
a fully remote company.
We've done that before Covid, so
we're obviously on the remote side,
but let's deep dive, um, as per what
we call this video series and podcast, um,
into this one aspect, which is the first
bullet point that of Benji's notes that he
sent me this morning
about recording this.
And the bullet point says
outcomes over outputs.
And the idea behind that, is managing
that a traditional company,
including the majority in office, they
sort of manage people by like the immediate
output of what that person does.
Like you're working from nine to five
or whatever you're like in your seat from
this time to that time.
And if you're not, you're
green and whatever.
And we don't do that.
We do it over outcomes.
So why don't you explain and
we can, we can dive in after that.
What made you type that
as the first thing?
Yeah, it's just something that I've
noticed throughout my career that almost
everyone who's managed me was
more focused on just little tasks.
So at the end of every week, having
to send over just like a list of the small
things that you've gotten done for the
week or I don't know, when I was in, uh,
an in-person business, just judging
whether you're doing your work by whether
you're in the office or whether you're
there from nine to five or working from,
I don't know, the last company
I worked for, I had to be there for,
I was working like 12 to 15 hour days.
And what I realized just being an employee
in that position is most of that time
was wasted.
And I know there's so many people who've
been in person jobs who go to work and
they have to like, pretend to look busy
even just because they've done all their
work or, or they're just like exhausted
or tired or something else is going on in
their life and they're just not motivated
to work that day and they just have to
sit in front of a computer and look busy.
And so I think when we
started this business,
I just thought it was important to approach
things in a completely different way
because I understood that having
been an employee before,
I understood that not all your eight
hour day is spent doing focused work that
actually moves the business forward.
And I started questioning is that
even the best way to manage people?
Like if someone can do their work in
three to five hours a day or even less
sometimes, is it really important to make
them work eight hours a day just for the
sake of being there and making it look
like they're they're doing work or like
getting their salary.
And so yeah, that's, that's just kind
of what was going on in my mind at that time.
Yeah, I think that it
comes from this culture,
this whole like output
and be at your seat.
I I I wonder if this comes
from the culture of like,
well there's a few thoughts I have.
One is this fear driven management that
you just have this mentality that everyone
is out to cheat you, including your employees
and they're trying to take advantage.
And there's this whole thing of like,
well what, what do people say on my,
on the clock? You can't
do that on my time.
If you're like the owner,
you can't do that on my time.
Don't like be calling your kids' doctor's
office or whatever on my time or
something like this. Um, and,
and that's just, that's just gross.
Like who I, I don't know.
Like I, I don't even know how
to justify not us not doing that.
Like why, why do you treat
your employees like that?
I don't get it. And then, um, the second
one I think is more innocent that that
one's more accusatory.
Like these managers
are being heavy handed.
Yeah. The second one is like.
I almost think it's just
a lack of organization.
Like I think if you asked a lot of managers
and all like, Okay, do it by outcomes,
they'd be like, Well, how,
like, what are the outcomes?
Like, they haven't, they haven't thought
through that for all of their roles.
They, they don't, they wouldn't
even know what to do, you know?
Whereas ours is very well defined.
It, it starts with having the right
goals and, and the right outcomes.
You have, you have to really look
at your business and try to decide what,
what's really gonna move the needle versus
what is that busy work that you just
make people do, because it seems
like it's moving things forward.
And so I think at the very beginning,
we have a very set process and a very set
service. And so if you think about what
we need to deliver to clients and then work
backwards from there in terms of what's
actually important for people on our team
to do on a daily or weekly basis, I
think then there's only a few things that
actually matter.
And then people are focusing, their most
time on doing those things that actually
move the, the business forward or get
results for clients rather than just trying
to look busy.
Okay. So this is actually interesting,
and I think this would be most useful,
is trying to dive into
us as a case study.
And then I wanna play devil's
advocate and say that we may be,
because what you said, productized
service, it has a set process.
It may be easier for us to do this.
So let me play devil's advocate and say
that for some other organizations and other
departments and other roles
that they would hire for our,
it may be really hard for the hiring
person to, to be able to know the outcomes.
That would be like a good amount
of, like, production from the role.
That's essentially what we're saying
as I have a frog in my throat, is,
is like we're saying,
if you know the level of,
So what we're saying by outcome is if
you know the level of production that's like,
good for a role, then you don't need to
make sure that person's in their seat eight
hours a day.
You're making sure they're in their seat
eight hours a day because you don't really
know what the hell they're supposed
to do or what they would produce.
And so you're like, well, you know, as
long as they're working from nine to five
or, or you know, we're a startup,
we're like a hardcore culture.
So as long as they're working
from nine to nine, then you know,
they must be doing a good job.
And so, so let's talk about how,
what are our outcomes specifically?
I think you are talking about, and I'm
talking about one or maybe two or roles,
the writer, strategist track.
Yeah. We also have, you know, like
a paid ad specialist, amethyst,
that's different. We also have project
manager, Alyse that's different, et cetera.
We also have graphic designer,
um, but we're gonna talk about like,
the main bulk of it.
So we have this track, um, and
it has these kind of two tiers,
writers and content strategists, and
they're obviously content marketing.
They're obviously the ones that
are doing the day-to-day work.
That's literally the work output for our
clients producing these blog posts, right?
And picking the keywords,
doing the analysis.
And all strategists have
to go through writers.
So we talk about, about that.
So let's look at that strategist role.
They're like doing all the
communication with the client.
They're basically running the account,
what traditional agencies would call an
account manager. Um, but this is, they're
also the one thinking behind everything,
picking the keywords, you
know, analyzing the results.
And then either they're writing the pieces
themselves or they're editing the pieces
that a writer is working with them.
My argument, my devil's advocate argument
of why it's easier for us to do it over
outcomes is that is a
set repeatable process.
Like what is the variability
in their role?
The variability is like, you know,
client questions or like, you know,
maybe some piece doesn't work, or, Oh,
the analytics is broken for this client and
we need to fix it or whatever.
And then they reach out
to us or whoever and,
and we sort of collaborate
and fix it, but the actual,
the outcome is known from the beginning.
When we hire, we know that we are promising
end number of pieces on a given account
per month. They have to get those done.
We know that there's a monthly call.
We know we have a set analytics
process to measure stuff from it.
So those are our outputs.
And then we know from having a variety
of strategists how much time one account
with all those responsibilities takes,
and we know it by knowing how many accounts,
some of our, you know, I guess
best or full time-ish strategies.
And we have this flexible arrangement.
So you can, you can take only
one account, you can take a bunch.
We know that like a full-time, like
serious load is like four accounts.
No one, we wouldn't, no one would
do more than that unless, I don't know,
they were like a magician.
And so, so like we know that, My devil's
advocate argument is say instead you are
the CEO of a startup that's growing.
You raised, I don't know, a like
post Seed, Series A kind of thing.
You're the founder, ceo, you're like
a developer or the product person, whatever.
And as part of raising that
you need to hire a cmo.
Let's talk about marketing.
Since we're marketers, people
are listening to marketers,
that person doesn't know anything
about what the CMO should be doing.
How, how the heck am I, are they
supposed to manage by outcomes?
I mean that, that's a really loaded
question cuz that's really broad.
This, the CMO can be in charge
of a lot of different stuff, but I,
but I think it's about
setting incremental goals.
Like the fir the first thing the CMO is
gonna have to do is test and see if there's
product market fit.
So can, can you bring in
leads that turn into revenue?
If not, there's something
wrong in the business.
It's either a product problem, it's
either problem with a service or the,
the messaging is way off the way that
you're positioning the business is way off.
And so step one would just be, figure
out a way to get leads to come in that
understand the value prop of what
we do and can potentially turn into
Customers. Let me ask it a different
way, but if you are the CEO that's not a
marketer, let's say they're
like, they're doing that,
they're making progress on it.
How do you know if they're doing it fast
enough or how do you know if they can do
that? Plus startups and
Google ads or whatever.
Or if that's too much time,
you know what I mean?
Like, so I guess the devil's advocate
if they were there would be like,
what if they just do that?
But they do it slowly, Um, because they're
slacking half the time because they're
Not working much as they could.
I I I, I do think it's, it's really
difficult for CMOs who are not,
or sorry for CEOs who are non marketers
to manage marketers cuz they just, But
Here, here's another example though
was we've talked to clients like this.
The head of marketing take that CMO often
they're like, Oh, I'm not an SEO person.
You know, so I've like hired this
agent, I've tried this SEO person,
or I'm not a paid ad specialist.
So they hire a paid ad specialist.
This is still within marketing
now the CMO or whatever,
head of marketing hiring this person.
And they still don't know, you
know, how much output there is.
Actually, that's very analogous.
I don't wanna, you know,
put amethyst in this.
But I imagine she wouldn't mind, like
you and I aren't Google ad specialists.
Sure. She's not in that traditional
content strategist role.
So we don't know how,
how much output there is.
But she has the same flexible work schedule
as all everyone else on our team.
Like, we don't know when she's
sitting at her computer or not.
And frankly, we don't care
Well I think you just start
with reasonable lead goals.
Like, even, even with her, it's a,
yeah, we're not gonna get into the minute
details in terms of like, how many changes
are you making in the AdWords account
per week or something like that.
Those are like real, those
are goals that people set for,
for like the people on their team.
Really. It makes no,
yes, it makes no sense
How many changes being
in an ad account per
Week. Yeah, I I used to have crazy
metrics that I was held accountable.
Like what is the email unsubscribe rate
for every email you're sending out and it
has to be go what?
Yes. Like crazy stuff like that Is the
bounce rate on your site going up or down,
like stuff like that. That's
what I had they used to report on.
And that's what I mean,
you get two into the weeds.
And so in, in the case of a paid
ads person set some realistic or,
or even low level goal that the person
needs to hit for the amount of leads that
they're getting and then just
try to improve that over time.
And so can we just hit
this baseline goal?
Yeah. And then can we keep
improving from there?
And then, then you get into the weeds
in terms of like, let's set some lead number.
So can we generate five leads per month?
Yeah. And then if you're not able to
do that, why, just understand why, what,
what's going wrong?
Yeah. And then just try to incrementally
improve from there.
And I think if you approach it that way
instead of trying to get so into the weeds
on managing the person, I, I think one,
it allows a lot more creativity for the
person in the role because they can figure
out a bunch of different ways that they
can try to attack the problem.
Yeah. Uh, and, and yeah, I I just
think that relationship becomes,
we're we're focused, we're all focused
on the same metric and let's do everything
that we can and collaborate
to hit that one goal.
Okay. Okay. So, so now, now I think
we're getting somewhere, um, to,
to go back to this question then of like,
I just wanna keep this devil's advocate I
think is really interesting. So someone's
like, Yeah, but like what if but what if
they're, so we set a lead
goal, like you said,
five leads a month or whatever
and like what if they're slacking?
How do I know? Like, we don't hit it.
We don't hit it. And I think
that happened with us and, and,
and Amethyst and a bunch of things.
Cause paid ads works like
that where you're like,
let's test this channel and then we come
back and we have this like, call, right?
This regularly occurring call and
she's like, Well, like this didn't,
it didn't work. And then
the suspicious kind of like,
let's just say what it is like kind
of Jack assy employer or whatever right?
That we're hypothetically saying would
be like, well what if she just didn't work
hard enough? I think
there's a compromise.
Like first thing when you said five
leads a month, you set that kind of goal.
I think the first mistake that you see
this kind of heavy handed management do is
that's like set in stone and if
they don't hit it, it's like bad.
And we don't do that
cuz we, there's okay,
maybe the first principle I'm kind of
gravitating towards is first thing you need a
baseline of trust that your employees
are not trying to cheat you.
That they're not bad, that they're good
and they're trying hard and they're working
hard. And I think we start
from that then maybe like,
could we be taken advantage
of because of that may maybe,
and maybe this is because our team is
small enough to where we kind of like know
people well enough or whatever, right?
We're not talking about managing a three
30,000 person like mega corporation.
Right. That's not where our
expertise is in, but whatever.
So, but you, you need that.
If you, if you, you want to run
a company this way, this like,
what I'm just gonna come
out and say is the,
the new modern way of running a comp
fully remote, flexible, not like, like if,
if the employee wants to go to the gym
at, you know, 1:00 PM they can, Right?
And if they need to drop their
kids off at whatever time they can,
like that kind of thing.
If you wanna do it that way,
you, you can't do the old method.
So first thing is you set,
like, you make a good point.
You need to have some like
goal, even if you are not the,
Cause I started this off saying
like, well if, you know,
the CMO hires a paid a specialist,
they don't know paid ads.
We were in the kind in that position.
Um, well, but like first of all, you
need to know something enough to know what,
what you hiring for.
So you're like, I'm not a paid
ad expert, but I, you know,
we know that our company right now gets
40 demo requests a month and we're not
doing paid ads. So we know that one more
demo request a month from a full-time paid
ads person is not good.
We know that 400 is not realistic.
Like you can be reasonable enough
to pick some reasonable goal, right?
That's first things first.
So you pick some reasonable goal.
Then I think what I'm saying is if you
wanna manage by outcome and not the person's
like day to day output, then the
next step is principle is first.
Like you need to have some baseline
trust in them so that you can do this.
Not have hitting these arbitrary like
result outputs is like good or bad.
Where even if they don't hit
it, you trust them that the,
the relationship is let's now
work together to figure out why.
And it's not like you are bad and you
didn't perform because you didn't hit this
like, arbitrary result number.
That's baseline.
And that has happened with us now with
this and we're not like, that's bad.
We're like, oh, maybe this channel doesn't
work, maybe this ad thing didn't work.
Like let's figure it out.
Yeah. If you don't have any
comments, I'll keep going, but go
Ahead. Yeah, you, you can keep going.
So then the second step I think, I think
there has to be some reasonableness to
know if they're working
hard or not, right?
So now I'm gonna get
into compromises, uh,
from our approach in the
traditional approach.
I think one compromise is well, like
even though we're completely flexible,
we have just a logical common sense thing
of like if they're in the US and the vast
majority of our team is, and even Europe,
like are they generally
around during work hours?
Like we don't monitor that.
So I know I, this is a compromise.
I I want to do this delicately.
We not like, oh, this person's not green.
Like I'm not gonna name names,
but there are I think just awesome,
well first of all, I think kind
of all of our team is awesome,
but star employees are grow and convert
that are generally not green on Slack at
most times. like kinda,
I can confidently say I have
no clue when people are online.
I mean there there's times where
I'll ping someone and yeah,
they might not be there, but I usually
get a, a response in a reasonable time.
And I think that's, that's generally
what you should just look for.
So that's what they don't, they
don't need it be on online,
but because you have asynchronous
communication, you're not,
you're not in an office all
day, but if you need something,
can you just get ahold of someone?
Can they respond within a few hours?
I don't know. A day even.
Yeah.
That if, if not then, then there's
probably an issue if they're not exactly.
A couple days. That's
what I'm going with.
Yeah. That was my like compromise
to the green thing is like we,
we should admit it's not like we're like,
so whatever that we're just like, yeah,
you know, like we've sent something to
an employee and they respond next month and
we're totally fine with that.
Like, no, that would be re ridiculous.
Like, you need to move
Faster than that. And there, and there's
certain things that are more important
than others. So for example, if you have
a client send an email, that's important.
Yeah. Getting a response back
to the client, someone external is,
is really important.
So it's, it's more important for the
person to respond quickly to the client then
maybe something that's internal facing,
like where there's not a hard deadline or
someone's gonna get upset from
It. Yeah. Some long term
project or something and.
Talk about systems soon in the video,
I'm gonna ask you to like check time cuz I
talk too much. But, um, we'll
talk about systems and,
and processes and Trello and all, but
like, that was gonna be my first compromise.
Sorry, first compromise.
So like, we're, we're, we're doing
this from the perspective of the devil's
advocate who's like,
No, no, if you do this,
their employees are gonna
cheat you and take advantage.
So one, have some baseline of trust.
If you don't have any level of
trust, first of all, screw you like,
like you're like a bad
manager or employer, right?
If you're just like mistrusting everyone.
But second is like, if you don't
have a baseline of trust, like you,
you're this is not gonna work for you.
Um, second, yes, there's a
compromise of reasonableness.
Like are they generally responsive,
available, whatever.
Then here comes the big one.
So we'll take this scenario.
You set some lead goal in this hypothetical
paid, paid ads, uh, type role, right?
And you're like some manage marketing
person who's not like the expert.
You can't go into Google ads and
see everything and figure it out.
This last one is say things
are not going well.
Like you're not hitting
results, metrics, whatever.
Why? Because if you are, and they
are, this is probably not an issue.
You're just like happy with them.
If you're not, can they like have a smart
discussion with you about why that's like
the biggest thing?
Because if they're just, if the
employee's like not hitting or like,
or the results didn't happen, we're saying
first don't approach that as like they
must have been slacking off
because then you are the idiot.
But second, like in that discussion,
the good employees, oh,
they can analyze the shit
out of what happened in there.
They will be like, here's what
I tested, here's what happened.
I think it's this, I
think that's happening.
Like your rockstar employee
comes to that meeting being like,
I know this and I'm just explaining to
you everything I know and the bad employees,
cause I can't think of a better word,
would just be totally clueless and deer in
headlights. And they're like, I don't
know, I did the thing you told me and that's
it. And that's, that's the biggest check.
The other stuff I said trust,
you know, generally responsive.
That's just like ticket to entry.
That's like baseline stuff, right?
It's like basic stuff.
Yeah. But the big one is like, how
smart is that post-mortem discussion?
No, I, I agree.
I think it's similar to what we were
talking about in the hiring writer's video.
Yeah. It's, it's how can you give feedback
and can the person show improvement
after that? Or is it just more the same?
Yeah. And, and the people that can
come back and show improvement even,
even if they don't have the
answer on that, that call.
So even if you talk to them and you're,
you're trying to figure
out what's going on.
I don't know. There, there's
certain roles where the,
the owners or whoever the manager is,
might have more experience than the person in
that role and they're able
to identify the problem.
But I think after you've identified
the problem and have kind of gone through
what's going wrong, can that person
show an improvement going forward and take
initiative? I think that's what will
separate the good people versus the bad.
Yeah. Yeah.
So then, so if we continue that
scenario, you, you, you know,
you set some hypothetical and, and we're
gonna use this scenario because we assume
that whoever's listening is smart enough
to then extrapolate to whatever the
analogy is, to whatever situation
they're actually in.
Well, but
I I, I think to maybe
make this more concrete,
it'd be better just to share
our outcomes over outputs.
Like what, what is the difference between
what we're talking about in our own
outcomes versus outputs?
So like,
You mean for your and
mind's role inside or, or
For No, I just think for paid
Or
Something. No, I, I think for just writers
and strategists, like the difference
In mind, well as using the paid role
because the writers and strategists I was
thinking was almost cheating
because it's so,
It's not cheating. Cause we, we,
we had to figure that out though.
I think someone managing a writer strategist
like you, we started from zero.
We had to kind of figure it out.
I think the difference would be
like output on the writing side.
You need to write 2000 words.
Why is that important?
Right? Like that, that's a metric
that people, But, but again, like this,
this is the, the difference in
terms of how we think about it.
I think, yeah, I
Guess I'm assuming that that is so
ludicrous that I wasn't even going there.
But you're like, you,
you make this point.
Like some people would do that.
Like
It's, when you have a, like a writing
team, this is how people do it.
It's like, oh, you, you
have a 2000 word minimum.
You have, you have to, I don't
know, publish on x day per month.
You need to produce four blog posts.
These, these are the kind of goals
that people set for their team.
And well, to
Be fair, the last one, we have
that right because we have a set.
So our baseline is three articles
a month to our client.
So if, well what's interesting
is the writer, we decide beforehand,
like the strategist is like,
well I have two articles.
And they're like, Yeah, I'll do both.
And then they're committing
to it themselves.
Um, but that's because our, our writer
roles are typically it also, it's not.
But I guess what I'm getting
at is, is that to grow a blog,
some of these metrics or things that
people think are important or not.
Like, I guess where I'm going is like,
you don't need a 2000 word blog post every
single time in order to grow your traffic,
or you don't need to publish on every
Tuesday, which is another goal that some
People have,
Oh God, to, to grow your blog, or you
don't need to have four blog posts going live
per month to grow your blog.
Like those are outputs that
people think are important.
Yeah. But that don't necessarily
move the needle.
And so it's more about having the right
strategy and having outputs that match map
to that strategy than it is having these
arbitrary goals that people think are
important because you just
need to have that consistency,
or you need to have a
certain number of words,
or you need to have some metric
that, that's always in line.
That I think that's the difference in,
in the way of thinking about this then how
most people think about
like goal setting.
And I think, yeah, the goal setting,
if you're trying to grow a blog, it's like,
okay, what are, what are, if, if you
take like a high level concept like that,
what are the things that are
really gonna move the needles?
Like for us, it's can we, how many
page one rankings can we generate?
How many, uh, rankings and position
one through three can we generate?
And then if you back or, and then
how many conversions can we generate?
So there's really, it breaks down
to only a few things that are important.
One is the strategy, right?
Are we picking the right ideas?
Two, are the articles written in a
way that are gonna get us those rankings
regardless of how long they are
or anything else that goes in there.
Like, I, I think that's more
of where I'm going with this is,
is if you think of your business
like that and you work backwards,
like what are the things that are important
to just get your clients the results or
move the business forward?
Yeah. Or get your blog traffic up,
and then you work back from that.
And there's, and I think there's all
these things that people think are important
that are not important.
Yeah. Like all, all those little metrics
that people track, and it's just like,
none of that stuff actually moves the
needle and it stresses your team out trying
to hit these arbitrary
goals all the time.
And there's only probably three to five
things that will actually make a difference
on the business or in
a client relationship.
Yeah. I think a way to summarize what
you're saying is almost like there's this
sneaky back door for outputs
to take takeover,
which is management says of a business
was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We're doing it by outcomes.
We're setting these KPIs
or OKRs or whatever, Right?
But, but, well, I guess
there's two ways to say it.
One, they just don't know
what the right OKR is.
Like they're just doing
a bad job of setting it.
But two, it's almost like because
of that, they, they then come,
come back again and, and they,
they label it like, no , no.
We're, we are managing by outcome.
But what it, but their
metrics are actually, no,
it's these little like output things.
Like you take, like the thing that drives
me crazy is that what you said is bounce
rate on the website.
I guess because I'm, you know,
I've done the CRO side for so long,
is it's just like bounce rate is this
effing random metric that people care about.
Because Google decided to put it like
smack front and center in like some of these
analytics reports.
And we've all been using that.
It's, it's not front and center in GA
four, thank goodness, as far as I can tell.
But like, and so everyone's like,
Well, the bounce rate, the bounce rate,
and you're just like, the bounce
rate does not pay the bills.
Like the only thing you really
care about is leads and sales.
Like just first, like get
that into your head, right?
And, and the only reason you're
thinking bounce rate is well,
you're like doing this
line of chain of thinking.
Well, the boundaries, they bounce and
then if they don't bounce and they bounce
less, then they'll, some
fraction of them will buy.
And you're like, Well, in the end
all we're talking about is buying.
And so the bounce rate
is just this dumb metric.
So it's like, when you're setting
these outcomes, first of all,
like be really self-critical,
are these really the outcomes?
And am I just using this outcomes idea
to find a back door into micromanagement?
Well,
I don't think that most people
approach it from a, like negative.
I don't, I don't know
what the right word is,
but I I don't think they
mean to necessarily.
Yeah. They
Just don't know.
Like, Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I, I think, I think it stems from
just not figuring out the right problems to
solve. Yeah. So when, when you
start a business even, or when you,
when you're just getting started, there's
all these things that you think are
important that are just not important.
And I think the difference between setting
up a good management style versus not,
I think is figuring out what's important
and what's actually gonna move the
needles. What are those key
problems that you need to solve?
And focusing on solving those and just
letting all the other minute problems go
away. And I think that that's really
the difference because if you, bri,
if you just look at your business and
break down the key problems that you have to
solve going forward.
And everyone's focused on
solving those key problems.
Everyone's aligned on moving
the business forward versus I,
I've been in so many organizations that
have teams that are siloed because they all
have different goals and then they're
all competing against each other.
So like the sales team has a sales call
goal and the marketing team has a lead
goal. Instead of just saying, Look, the
goal for the organization this quarter,
this year is to hit this revenue number.
Yeah.
You guys both work together to
figure out how, how this is done.
I don't care how this happens,
I don't care if it's paid,
I don't care if it's content, I
don't care if it's outbound sales.
I don't care what what way you do this.
Yeah. Just get this done.
And I feel like
They're not fighting with each other.
They're not fighting.
But I, I, I, almost every single business
that I've been in, there's politics,
there's, um, just misalignment in terms
of the different teams because they,
they have their own goals
and things that just don't,
their goals don't even map to the things
that move that big needle like that.
Let's, let's say you needed to hit
a million dollars in revenue this year or
something like that. The marketing
team's goal might be, I don't know,
generate like a hundred leads and then
get this bounce rate down and then like get
it a thousand
Visitors. I think while you're saying
this, a bunch of really specific examples
came up and I think listing them would
be useful for, for, for the folks listening.
So that one, let's continue that.
The real goal is this revenue number.
So just hypothetical, like whatever
you said, 10 million or something, right?
Or 10 million extra
in the planning stage.
They're like, they do,
you're, you're right.
They do an innocent mistake.
They do an innocent thing, which
is like, well, to get 10 million,
we know our average deal size is 10,000
and, and I'm not gonna be able to do this
math on the fly, unfortunately.
So like, we need to close this many
leads because our conversion and they work
their way backwards. So this many SQLs,
this many mql, so therefore we need,
you know, a thousand leads
a quarter or something.
Like that's all
Bullshit. You just don't, you
don't know what you don't know.
I I, it's the same,
Let me continue the example
to illustrate this.
That's very common. Marketing starts,
okay, they find some ad channel or SEO thing
and they're like, Oh, um, we found
this channel that gets way fewer leads,
but it's attracting these mega enterprise
deals that are worth a lot more.
But then they're like, someone's like,
But your goal is a thousand leads.
You're not gonna hit that.
And they're like, Oh shit,
we're not gonna hit that.
We better figure out how to do it.
. That is ridiculous
and backwards.
And another example that's kind of like
that, that we literally face in our work
with clients is client hires us.
If you hire, grow and convert,
you want leads from content.
Cuz that's what we do.
So client hires us, they know that
we start publishing our blog posts,
they start ranking, they bring in
the leads, Everyone seems to be happy.
Client then says, Hey,
you know what guys?
Management has held me accountable
to traffic on the blog as well.
So could you also produce some posts
that are not bottom of the funnel,
that are not big lead generating
just to get extra traffic to satisfy.
Like, we've done that.
But really that is a backwards
way of doing it.
And that's another example, and I'll
give you a third example from my life in the
CRO world is there's this team of someone
on the client side and growth rock,
my CRO agency that some executive is
like, they're in charge of conversion rate.
Conversion rate needs to go up.
Really what we should call
it is revenue optimization.
Cuz we don't really care about conversion
rate, we care about more revenue.
Why? Because if you found some ad channel
or some whatever thing that got you a
really low conversion rate, but it was
profitable, Like you could put in $1 and get
a bunch out and you got
a bunch of revenue from it,
that could bring conversion
rate way down.
If you got covered, if some PR agency
got you covered in New York Times wire cutter
and a bunch of people were clicking into
your gizmo gadget thing for consumers and
it got a bunch of revenue, but conversion
rate went way down, that's still good.
But we're in charge of conversion rate.
And so they're like, well the
conversion rate looks down.
You're like, Yeah, because the SEO team
is killing it and we're ranking for a bunch
of this top of the funnel stuff.
The conversion rate is down,
but revenue is up, it's backwards.
These are backwards goals.
And then you can't do what we're
talking about in the, in this video,
which is managed by outcomes.
Because then there's this like collision
during one-on-ones during reviews where
you're like, Well, you
didn't hit your thing.
What are you guys doing?
You're like, I'm smarter than your
goal is what the employee wants to say.
Cuz I'm actually hitting, I'm
doing the more important thing.
Um, so
Well, I I, yeah, no, I, I agree.
And I think, I think the main problem
is that people assume that they know the path
to hit the goal when
in actuality you don't,
you don't know until you
start getting into it.
So trying to work backwards from the
number and then just hypothetically come up
with random things that
you think make sense.
Yeah.
It like never, it never
works out the way you think.
It's the same, it's the same problem when
you try to create all these processes in
your business. Like when we first got
started and we tried to create an employee
manual that shared everything
that you need to do to,
to run an account on the agency when
we were, when it was our first account.
Like we didn't, we didn't know
how to run an account yet.
We had to try it.
You have to do trial and error to figure
out what works and what doesn't work.
And only when you figure out
a repeatable process that works,
can you then make this
a legitimate process.
And I think it's the same
thing when it's goal setting.
When you're setting this high level goal,
you need to test a bunch of different
things to figure out what's
gonna help you hit that goal.
And when you start to find
things that work, then,
then you can build and some numbers
around it and you can say, Okay,
now we have a general sense
of how to do this, this,
so let's make this our goal and let's
try to incrementally improve that going
forward. But I think the problem is even
going all the way back to your question at
the very beginning on just
the CMO stuff like this,
like hit even create some high level goal
like that and then try to hit that again.
And then you have to figure out
why it worked or why it didn't work.
Double down on the things that are working
and then stop doing the things that
aren't working and then test new things.
And I think that's just how you have to
think about growing the business or growing
a department and managing people.
Because I, I think too many people try
to break down the goal into these small
little details.
And that's where you lose
sight of the main goal.
And then it creates friction
in the company.
People are doing the wrong things
that aren't gonna move the needle.
And I think just from every
single business I've been in,
like that is a huge problem.
Like they're just not, they're not letting
the team do what they think is needed to
hit the goal. Like the manager is trying
to orchestrate what needs to happen and
they might be pushing people in the complete
opposite direction of what actually
needs to be done.
Yeah. I think, I think u under this, what
we're concluding is there's usually not a
lot of debate about the top goal.
And in particular like our channel,
our podcast, our field is marketing.
So in marketing, like no one disagrees
that more revenue is good,
like more mql like the top line goals.
It's hard to mess that up.
In the end, marketing
is driving business.
So what you're essentially saying is
stay there as much as possible because when
you then try to upper handed conclude,
and I'm resisting the urge to make some
analogy about like communism versus
free market, but it's like when you try to
upper handedly conclude, like from the
central government, like we need x you know,
bales of corn to feed the people.
You're like, let the market decide.
Like, it's like, like let the people,
And then the other beside benefit of this
that came to mind where you were speaking
of it is how much better of a life is
that for the work life?
Is that for the employee where you
have, like who, who is like, you know,
I'm looking for a job where the management
controls every decision of what I do in
my job. I really am just
looking to be micromanaged.
Whereas like if you're like, I have
a marketing job and literally they give me
like, you know, some budget or guidelines,
whatever, and I just have to hit this
and I can be creative and I can pivot
and I can think of other ways to do it.
Like that's literally where like people
are like begging for jobs like that.
And so it also makes your team a lot
more autonomous and independent and creative
and it gives them more ownership.
So that, that is is, um,
I, I agree. Now, now that you say that
I, I know I wrote down a whole list of
principles that I think
are important, but I think,
I think this is just the
number one thing because if,
if you're focused on the business like
this, so even just for our own business,
like is the business growing?
Are the clients getting good results?
Are we hiring great people?
Pretty much that's all the business
breaks down to in terms of like, are we,
are we running a healthy business or not?
Yeah. And like all the other little
things aren't really important.
And so to go back to what you're saying
on the lifestyle and like what it does for
your employees, it's like, yeah, all
the things that you think matter don't
anymore. So it's like, is this
person showing up to work late?
Okay. Like what difference does
that matter if all those things are,
are moving in the right direction?
Like, like are the clients
getting good results?
Okay, if this person didn't
respond in four hours,
does it really matter if all the
results for that client are going up?
And
Sometimes the answer is yes.
So we have this situation happening in
the last couple weeks where there's a client
where we're getting stellar results,
but there's some other things the client is
worried about.
You and I felt like we actually needed
some faster response times and more
acknowledgement of that despite our baseline
results being absolutely outstanding
for them.
Hey, it's Devesh.
We had, uh, our previous
recording cut off.
We had a technical issue where we realized
afterwards that it just stopped right
here. So I'm recording this as a follow
up to complete the thought specifically
where it cut off.
We were talking about there was a situation
where we had to respond faster and,
and that was a minor point
just to conclude that thought.
The answer is we simply have
that conversation and say, Hey,
in this case we need to respond
faster because of xyz.
But the larger point that
we were making remains true,
which is the vast majority of the
time, this kind of, but in seat,
you must be online.
Green status is not as important
as results, at least for our business.
And that's something that we also wanted
to say in the parts that got cut off,
is we're telling these stories from our
experience because that's all we can do.
And of course there are businesses where
being on call, et cetera, is important.
Just what comes to mind is if you're working
the night shift of a 24 7 IT services
business, then yes, literally your job
is to respond to tickets in the hours that
you're working. And so that matters.
But for a lot of companies, especially
product type companies,
being in that seat at that
time is not that important.
Finally, the bigger point that
got cut off towards the end,
the last different point we were making
was about tools specifically to have this
outcomes, not output type work philosophy
or operational system work.
We think it's really important
to have the right tools in place,
specifically tools that allow for asynchronous
communication and some sort of
asynchronous viewing
of the status of things.
So here's what we mean,
and I'm gonna be specific.
The number one tool we use for that
in our content workflow is Trello.
So we use Trello, we use Slack
as well, and I'll explain them.
But what Trello allows us and
Trello for those that don't know,
is a Kanban board type
project management system.
So a bunch of other things
do the same thing.
Asana has a Kanban more.
Basically all kinds of, um, project
management systems have that,
but that is as opposed to what, as opposed
to a bunch of disparate emails flying
back and forth.
And in fact, in that recording I mentioned
this latest book from Cal Newport and I
reached back and grabbed it called,
uh, A World Without Email,
where he actually happens to.
I ended up finding my name in it, and
it was, and I was like, Why am I in this?
And turns out many years ago when he was
Research, doing research with a book,
I responded to something in his email list
mentioning, that I run and that at that
time my AB testing agency off of Trello,
a project management system.
And we don't exchange a bunch of emails.
Why does that matter?
Because emails are just quick back and
forth communications that are completely
disorganized. Trello lets you see the
status of everything without having to ping
people. What I mean is the Kanban board,
Each card in our case is the content
agency is an article, and then the columns
that they move through are the different
status steps of the article.
Kicked off, outlining, writing,
editing, client review, promoting.
So things that normally require pinging
everyone to figure stuff out is things
like, well, how, what
is the status of this?
What's going on here?
What's happening here?
That requires either email or Slack
or some kind of instant messaging, right?
Teams, whatever that if, if that's the
culture of communication and that's how you
manage information and who's working
on what at in your company, then yeah,
it's kind of important to have everyone
in their seat at the same time and everyone
green status at the same time.
Because the way you work is by
just quickly asking questions, Hey,
what's the status of this?
And what's happening here?
But if you use some kind of
asynchronous tool, like a Trello,
it doesn't have to be Trello,
but if you use a tool like that,
then people can work on
their own time specifically.
You don't have to ping anyone
and say, What's the status of this?
You see it on the Trello board,
Okay, this one's in editing,
this one is handed off to me.
You can add people's, like little
avatar, you can add people to a card.
You tag them and say over to
you, it's ready for another pass.
That kind of thing, right?
So then you work when you want.
So a writer writes it,
the writer could be, and,
and we have team members that
are like, Hey, I'm in Korea.
We like literally have this
when we're recording this.
One of our team members, uh,
key team members is in Korea.
He's like working there and,
and living there for a little bit.
And so he can be on Korea time and tag
someone at 3:00 AM US time Pacific or East
Coast and say, Hey, this is ready.
And that's fine.
And there's no expectation of responding
immediately as opposed to a Slack message.
Things will get lost, It's organized,
and I could come back at any time,
come back three days later
and, and I do that.
So there's stuff after this video that's
on my to-do list that is editing things
that I've been tagged on two
weeks ago because I'm so behind.
Apologies to the team .
And so two weeks ago.
And so I get there and the
conversation just resumes.
And so that's one key thing we did.
Another thing we're doing is using,
um, one of our clients tools,
GeekBot actually via Slack to ask,
um, the daily standup questions.
We we're not a development agency.
So daily standup questions, usually in
the dev agencies, they ask three questions.
What'd you do yesterday?
What are you doing today?
And what are the obstacles,
um, or challenges you're facing?
And they do that sort of every day.
We're doing it on a weekly basis, and
it's a different three questions about,
you know, what accounts, uh, is there
any issues with any accounts you're doing?
How are you doing, et cetera,
just to keep tabs on everyone, uh,
including emotionally.
How are they doing mentally,
How are they doing?
How is the team doing?
So, that allows us, and
that's done via Slack.
It's again asynchronous.
So Geekbot, the bot just asks everyone
Monday morning their time at around,
I think 9:00 AM those three
questions and you respond to it.
Most people respond on Monday morning.
Some people take till Tuesday, Wednesday,
and it gets posted on a particular
channel. And so we can see like, how are
people doing and, respond, say, Oh, that
Account is having an issue.
Okay, let me look into it.
We also have another thing
in Slack, just a system.
No, no tool there.
Where for each of our client
accounts, everyone, um,
the strategists give a weekly update
on Monday of just the key metrics.
It's really fast for them,
you know, 10, 15 minutes.
It allows, it, it keeps
everyone on this,
weekly rhythm of checking the metrics
and making sure that nothing goes wrong.
That was learned by hard
experience years ago.
We didn't do that. And sometimes
we would notice that for weeks,
some analytics thing was
broken or whatever, and
We were thinking we should have checked
that weeks ago and we would've been able to
fix that earlier. So those are the tools.
We use Trello and Slack primarily.
And, but in general, the specific tools
don't matter so much as what we wanted to
get across is the idea that our systems
of communication are asynchronous and that
allows, it supports, let's say our, you
don't have to be online at this specific
time. It's not about being at work
for eight hours on Monday through Friday.
It allows it to be outcome driven.
We can see on Trello are the pieces
that you're supposed to do done.
We can see on Slack weekly updates.
What's happening Are, are the
ideas coming at the right time?
Are the results moving up?
Are the rankings moving up?
Are conversions happening?
And if that stuff is happening for us
and the dynamics and the details of our
business, it doesn't really matter
when they're working outside of obvious
exceptions. You make the
client call, like we said,
respond to the clients
at a timely manner.
Those are sort of obvious.
So hope that helps.