4 Things To Stop Doing RIGHT NOW

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This is a rare post for me…

If you’ve been reading here for a while (we are getting close to 100 issues) you know that I am rarely dogmatic. Everything is situational - everything depends on circumstances. There actually aren’t very many rules that aren’t breakable or many rules may not apply to you.

I am a big believer in framework thinking - recognizing the circumstances and understanding how that fits into where you want to go… Playbooks aren’t full of tactics, but rather ways to make decision making easier.

In any given circumstance, there’s probably 5 perfectly great ways to solve a problem, 10 really good ways, 20 good, 40 acceptable…you get the idea. There is no RIGHT way…there just the way that is the most right for you at that particular moment. (By the way, a great consultant or coach understands that and helps you discover that - they probably don’t shortcut your learning by presenting you with the “right” solution…but that is a story for another day.)

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4 Things To Stop Doing RIGHT NOW

1. Filling In The Gaps For Your Team: Damn…this is a hard one. As the founder, you have more insight and perspective than anyone else on your team. You know different stuff, think about stuff differently & apply a different rubric to situations than your team does. It is the reason why you are a founder. When your team delivers things that don’t express what you envision or directed, there is a real temptation to say the 5 words that will eventually kill your agency → “Never mind, I’ll do it…” And you jump in and do the work that you wished your team would have known to do. When your team delivers work that isn’t up to your standards there are a few things to remember:
   It’s your failure because you didn’t give them enough clarity.
   It’s your fault because you didn’t give them the right models to follow or resources to succeed.
   If you do the work, you’ve sent a message that simultaneously says “Your work isn’t good enough - and I am not going to tell you why.” AND “It’s OK that your work is that way, I’ll fix it for you - and I am not going to tell you how to improve.”
   I talk to founders regularly that complain that their team isn’t delivering up to expectations. After we unpack a few things, it almost always turns out that the team doesn’t have clarity about what the founder wants/expects and that the founder just enables that lack of clarity by filling in the gaps. THIS IS A GROWTH BLOCKER THAT CREATES ONGOING DIFFICULTY, FRICTION AND MISERY. Stop it right now.

2. Selling without Process: OK - you have some kind of process - you have a deck, or an offer sheet or something and you have a pitch that you use. That isn’t a process. Even if you are the only one who ever does sales, you need a process and minimally that needs these things:
   A target client definition (ICP, whatever…).
   A set of outcomes that your prospect can expect.
   An understanding of what information you need in order to know if you can help this prospect.
   A definition of stages of interest/alignment (often expressed by sales stages or sales meeting goals) and a definition of what means the prospect moves to the next stage.
   A contract that defines the terms of your engagement.
   A way to codify everything that you have promised and what your team responsibilities are.
   There is a ton more, but if you don’t have these things, you are creating opportunities for lost sales, pro fit sales & team confusion.

3. Having NO IDEA How To Market Yourself: I primarily work with agencies that are in the marketing space (but also work with dev, rev ops, and some other agency types that don’t really live in a clear “get more or new clients” way for their clients…). It is always stunning to me when they can’t apply their own skillsets to themselves. You need a way to get new clients and referral/organic growth isn’t leaning into your strengths…so you have to stop trusting that growth is going to happen & become an active participant in growth. Minimally, you need to have a way to get in front of your market and present yourself/your team as expert. In terms of difficulty of execution, here are the things that you need to know how to do:
   Ask for referrals
   Create relevant content
   Create relationships with peers
   Create relationships with strategically aligned non-competitive providers
   Create a way to introduce yourself to strangers who fit your idea of a great client (cold outreach)
   Create content suitable for a bigger audience (podcasts, writing, speaking…)
   Create profitable ads

4. Thinking That Your Clients Are Invested In Your Success: Unless they have written you a check to invest in your agency (which happens), they are invested in their success. You may have great relationships with the people that work at your clients, and they might be rooting for you, but the client organization that hired your agency has no feelings. If it is in the best interest of your client, they will move on from working with you. You have to remember that your relationship with your client is that of peers and that the relationship is, at the core of it, a transactional one. You must stop thinking:
   This client needs me/us.
   They will never fire us.
   No one will be able to help them the way that we do.
   All client/agency relationships are terminal. They will end. And think of every touch point as a moment where you are either pushing that day further away or inviting it closer. You have to approach your personal relationships at the client as just that - personal. (I am still friendly with people that fired my agency 20 years ago…) But treat your client relationships as a delicate dance of value created and value expected. When those things are out of whack, the relationship, regardless of how much Bob loves you, is going to break. Remember that…

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Tim’s Tools

(Note: This section isn’t “Tim is a tool.” Though if you were tithing that you wouldn’t be the first…) These are tools that I use every day to get through my day. Some of these may be affiliate links (Beehiiv ain’t free you know…though using that link, you can get 30 days free and 20% off the next 3 months…)

Payroll & Finances

• Gusto: Makes payroll, insurance, 401k, onboarding, contractor payments and more REALLY easy - I’ve been using Gusto since 2013, I think)

• Mercury: Business banking made stupid simple, and they have invoicing & bill pay built in. And if you keep cash lying around in your business acct, they have a very attractive credit card option. (They have personal bank accounts, too.)

• Quickbooks: This is the software that everyone loves to hate. But I used others (Freshbooks, Xero & some other thing I can’t remember) and Quickbooks is the lingua franca of the SMB world. Hate on it all you want, but it will make your choice of bookkeeping and tax partners as broad as it can possibly be.

Marketing/Outreach/CRM

• HubSpot: Great CRM and robust eco-system. Though pricing makes it hard for me to recommend this other than starter bundles.

• Copper: In a surprise twist, Copper has become my every day driver. It is build right on top of Google Workspace, so set up is a snap and it sneakily capable (and it is cheap.)

• Apollo: Some people think that Apollo has lost its edge - but it is, IMHO, THE BEST VALUE IN THE GTM ECOSYSTEM. You get an extraordinary amount of functionality, a healthy dose of AI to help you get moving faster all at a reasonable price.

• Clay: Clay is kind of magic - it combines the familiarity of Google Sheets with cool AI agents who can do tons of stuff. It can get complicated quickly, but if you put in the effort to master it, it will become a great tool in your GTM arsenal.

• Instantly.ai: I really like Instantly - it is simple, has a faster interface than Apollo, but they’ve changed their pricing and it Apollo is still a better value, even if Instantly might be a better tool in 12 months. Plus they’ve just tied themselves together with Clay in some way (I haven’t investigated this carefully yet, though.)

• Aware: LinkedIn commenting is a hack that is INCREDIBLY effective in building your visibility. Aware is THE BEST TOOL for this (and it’s publishing capabilities are top notch, too)

• GetSales: This is a new entrant in the LinkedIn automation tool stack - it definitely has some rough edges, but it have a real focus on safety, and you can control multiple LinkedIn accounts from 1 interface.

Content

• Descript: This tool is amazing. Edit videos - duplicate your voice - use AI to make your stream of consciousness rand make sense - it also has a built in doodad for multi-location podcast capture → I love this tool.

• ChatGPT: The OG AI suits me really well - just remember that AI is content collaborator, not a content creator. If you aren’t editing AI slop, everybody knows. Use it to accelerate your writing, not replace your writing.

• WisprFlow: This is basically a very good speech to text app that formats things really well - I am a terrible typist so I use dictation regularly. Love this app (and its free…).

• Canva: I am a graphical idiot and Canva allows me to make things that don’t suck too badly.

What other tools might you want recommendations for?

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