Podcast

I want it to be just a casual conversation with Founders CXOs.

I tried to keep the conversation on topic, but very soon I realized how important You talk about design, there is nothing to say about it. So... I mean, second Colleen, I already realized that You follow the flow and there is very little design talk. but it's just as valuable as a conversation. I still try to keep it on topic. Yeah. And I think it's beyond... the value that I had imagined at the beginning.

I thought a way more transactional conversation, a way more simple conversation, but it, I mean, it's just, I'm passionate about, you know, digging in and getting to the core of things. And so on my last interview, we ended up talking about parenting and it was the most interesting, you know, part of the conversation. It has nothing to do with design. However, as designers who care about our clients, we want to make a difference in the life of our clients.

You said this on the podcast with Mauro and it came up in different conversations that you had. You need to intimately understand where the people that you want to help are coming from. Um, And so it's very valuable in that sense. And I don't think these are conversations that are happening in the industry. So I kind of feel Now I feel also this sense of mission to go out and uncover these things and bring this insight out into the light and share it with the design community and with other founders.

Yeah.

So the people that you've been talking to, are they predominantly owners and founders and past clients? Yes.

Pass clients, whether directly or indirectly. Honestly, I had three episodes so far. One is with a client of mine that I've been working with for the past 10 years. Um, And I enjoyed that episode, but it's kind of like the least... It was still good, still lots of insight, but it felt to me like I was there to pull out a testimonial, but that wasn't my goal. But I think that's what the episode ended up looking like and feeling like in the end.

But it just happened that I was the designer on the team there, but the insight is precious from that interview, regardless of who was the designer. Now, this client of mine, we've been working together for 10 years, so they cared about... kind of making it about me. But it was, anyway, it was still a great conversation. Um... Then I met A client of mine that I worked with 10 years ago. We did a brand identity design for a company he was working with at the time.

And then, yeah, here we are 10 years later talking on a podcast about his latest. And that was a very interesting because in his case, they are small bootstrap startups and yeah, design and branding, but really what makes the difference in the beginning is the product. Is your product exceptional? Is it solving the user problem? Is it delighting your users? And so you need to put brand into perspective.

Um, Because brand is at the service of product and you start building brand by with the product and how your product solves the problem, right? So he was at that stage and I really loved that, you know, we didn't talk about, oh, we made this ad, you know, pretty pictures and this is what happened. We did talk about advertising. It was a central part of the conversation too, but... his vision was most about exceptional customer service, exceptional product, and that's how you build a brand that makes a difference.

So that was very interesting.

I think it's funny. I've had a lot of... internal debate about that stuff. I'm assuming this company was more in like the SaaS department, is that correct?

Yes. Yeah.

So when you're in SaaS, Maybe I should say it differently. I used to come from the standpoint that no matter what you do, no matter what your product is, no matter what industry you're in, you come from the brand perspective. That's it. And my wife, she works at a SaaS company and the way that they built it was kind of product first. And I used to have this internal debate about this, like, no, I understand the product's good, but you have to come from this brand perspective.

And I was stuck in my ways there. And I slowly watched... then build their products out and their features out in this way that supported brand. And I came around to that idea that in that industry specifically, that's an acceptable way of building your brand. As long as the product is exceptional. And it serves your people. Without that... Exceptional product. It's not it's not the right thing. And I think the reason that I had that perspective was in all the other industries that I've worked in consumer packaged goods and and service industries.

You know, they lead with their product, but people don't make their buying decisions based on that product. But for some reason in SaaS, it seems to make the most sense. So it's funny to kind of hear that same perspective coming from another person building their products like that.

Yeah, I think it's very clear even more now. Like we have hundreds of examples now, thousands. There is no brand No brand that can ever save a chat GPT rapper today. There are thousands of them. Yeah, I go out there build a bit of strong brand. Good luck with it You're gonna you know, you're already You're already out of money before you even, you know, you could afford it and it would be crazy to spend the money.

Do you have a product that works? Is it different? Does it serve a specific kind of customer? Does it delight them? But if the product, like, At the beginning, most of the heavy lifting for the brand, for a SaaS product, needs to be done by the product itself. Yeah.

I think this...

I interviewed another guy.

I'm sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, I think... If that's the way you're going to do it, That's fine. I think you have to bring... a Heavy dose of brand marketing alongside That excellent product. Right. So if you're going to focus on that, the way that you advertise that, I believe, or market it technically is through brand marketing. Not so much of that transactional buy now, click here, 22% off, buy this feature.

I think you pair that really, really well with brand marketing and then you have a recipe for like marketing. Launch status.

Tell me more about brand marketing the way you see it in this specific for this specific purpose.

It kind of falls in the brand awareness type of marketing where And you see this all the time with the big companies. Nike isn't necessarily constantly selling their shoes or their shirts or their hats or whatever. They're selling themselves from a brand level. We're saying we are for these people over here. And so I like that idea of brand marketing. paired with the product side of things. Because it just gives a nice balance out there in the world.

You can run all the ads that you want or marketing that you want that says, our software has an AI chat bot. Well, all the softwares have AI chatbots now, but why would I choose you? It's not because you look prettier. or you sound better, or you technically are better, but those are the things that most people lean on right out of the gates. Personally, I think you just run brand marketing aside with that product stuff.

So you have some marketing that goes out and says, here's the list of features that we have you can buy from us. But like, give us some good shit. Give me a Super Bowl ad. And it doesn't have to be at the Super Bowl. Just give me one of those ads. Awesome Apple advertisements from the early days that goes, that is for me. That company is for me. And they do these types of things. They have all these features and all these benefits.

Maybe that's just my personal perspective on that thing, but...

I actually agree with you. The problem is If you can afford it. Yeah. And the most companies can't afford it, but that's, I mean, it's a, it's a chicken and egg scenario because you should afford fame is the most important thing. Because there is this, I don't remember who said this, but it's something that I always think about. It's something that I take as... kind of incontrovertible truth that is nothing attracts a crowd better than a crowd.

So, What you were talking about, brand awareness, and what in the era of laser-focused targeting on specific users on whatever platform at whatever time of the day and whatever career position sounds like a big waste of money. It's something that I think companies should begin targeting early on. I think... I think companies should aim for fame and brand awareness. And you really decide what the playing field is.

And you can play in a playing field that is as small as it makes sense for you. So what is the smallest pawn that you can become famous on? And then once you're famous in that pawn, you just start targeting the next. the river and then the sea and then the ocean, right? And hopefully you can go through, you know, you don't burn all your money or, uh, run out of money in the meantime. Uh. But yeah, I think that's-yeah, I think-Companies should aim more and becoming famous in however small a niche makes sensor is affordable to them.

But yeah, now everybody is running their Black Friday deals and running behind short-term gains without thinking about what's actually important to do. So in that sense, I agree with you, brand is really important, yes.

Yeah, yeah. Brand awareness. Why don't you introduce yourself for those of For the audience out there that doesn't know who you are, Well, I don't know who I am.

I wouldn't know what to say.

Perfect. You can say your name and Okay. What you do or like to do. Okay.

Um, Wow, that could be a whole conversation in and of itself.

That's what I'm looking for.

All right, Ryan. Um, Is there a formal three, two, one, go? Or can I just go?

You just go, man. Let it rip.

So... My name is Felice Della Gatta and I am a designer. I like to call myself a designer. I see pride in calling myself a designer. I actually, I even don't feel Worthy of the title. Um, because I have the utmost respect for the design profession, the way I intend it. Yeah. which for me is Right, another profession that I think, and it's probably, could be probably put under the design umbrella, is architecture, right?

Yeah. But having not ever had a formal education, I always felt like a fraud calling myself a designer. But that's who I aspire to be, let's say it that way.

That's who I aspire to be.

Uh, And then another thing that I was... I've always been very proud of is that next to designer, I can say that I'm a freelancer and I've been doing this for 15 years. You've been running a company like you've done even more than I that I You've been to places that I hope I will get to at a certain point in my career. Um... But, you know, I'm still very proud of having had a healthy practice and kept, you know, I had opportunities in my career that I could have never I feel blessed.

It has been a lot of work. And it has been, but you know, I've been honored to work on some projects Amazing stuff. I had a healthy freelance practice. That makes me very proud because it's not something that runs in the family. So I had to figure out everything myself as I went.

So do you feel like the freelancer title? Because I think a lot of people... Maybe not a lot of people. I'm going to speak for myself here. I didn't want the title freelancer. I wanted the title of agency or agency owner, something a little bit bigger than freelancer. And it seems like you're stoked about the freelance title. Tell me about that.

Yeah, let me finish. Yeah, let me finish because that's how I always saw things because Up until recently, Independence, freedom, self-reliance have been the guiding values in my existence, in everything, not only in my professional life. I'll tell a funny anecdote that hasn't necessarily impacted the way I think about things, but I think it's funny. I probably told you when you were in New York, but I went to this-when I was in New York, I was trying to be everywhere and meeting everyone.

So I went to this something I'd never done before and I will never do again. I went to a random kind of business small business meetup. I said, let's go there. Let's see what happens somewhere in somewhere in Subway in Manhattan is Interpol again. I went there and it was one of those loud places where you have to scream in each other's face to say a couple of words. And in that room, like 95% of the people there were unemployed looking for their next position, hoping they will find someone that would hire them there.

And the other 5% were trying to sell you something. I found myself the only person with a job in the whole room. Wow. And when I introduced myself, oh, what do you do? I'm a freelance graphic designer. People were like, oh. Like, oh, I'm sorry. Basically, yeah, right. You're broke. It sounded to them like, oh, long-term unemployment. Right, right, yeah.

That's what it sounded to them.

I had never had this experience. this thing before. So I was kind of shocked. They're like, wow, what the heck? Like you, you, Like I'm the only one with a job in the whole room and everybody's eating me because I'm a freelancer. Anyway, that's just a funny anecdote. Yeah. I understand now why people... White people don't want to call themselves freelancers. Anyway, I had always a lot of pride attached to it.

Recently, my point of view has really shifted a lot. I don't want to be alone anymore. I want to keep it small anymore. Um, I experienced freedom. I experienced self-reliance. Great. I think I'm through that phase. Now I want connection. I want responsibility. I want to become... I'm doing a lot of work with Jose. He's coaching me through a lot of stuff. And I'm realizing that what I want to do in this next phase of my life is I want to be the place where...

Um, opportunities kind of Um, concentrate so that I can then redistribute, you know, whatever good comes out of these opportunities. Like I want to work with people. I want to hire people. I want to collaborate. I want to co-create, um, And if that means that my role into my professional career needs to shift to more of a, you know, going out hunting for opportunities, managing teams, then I'm ready to make the shift because I feel like now I need community more than anything else.

So what does that look like?

Oh, I think I'm done with the freelancer. I think I'm done with the freelancer title. I wore it proudly. It's time I put it into the closet and get into my next... Yeah, into my next step, into my next role.

So what does that look like for your next role? Does that mean that you start something and try to grow it or are you looking to join something else? Tell me about that.

Yeah. I am ready to join The right cause. I've always been ready to join the right cause, but I just never found something that was worth giving up. my independence for it. But I'm way more hope and also my entire life I've always been better at being number two than the leader. I'm way better in a role of support and service rather than front man and leading. I don't know if that will ever change.

I just feel satisfaction into being of service and, you know, being... I like being that thing that never changes. You know that if I'm with you, if we're working together, whatever is happening, whatever is happening, you can turn to your right or your left. I'm going to be there. We're going to get through it. Sure.

You could still do that as a business owner, right? You could hire people above you to, let's say, run the company and you can be in that sort of acts of service role. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm 100%. I would have no problem doing that. So yeah, I guess in its most practical terms, I will rebrand and open an agency that is based on a kind of a collective Uh, kind of structure to begin with and then hopefully at a certain point we can you know hire and I would start hiring instead of hiring them the talent I will start hiring for operations first. so that we can have a big pipeline for the next six months all the time and we just need to worry about getting the work done.

And if that means that I have to step into more again, hunting for clients, creating relationships, I'm ready to do that. I think we talked about that too, that my work as a designer I thought it had peaked, but it's just that I got a little-tired or complacent, right? Because, you know, you build your own frameworks, you build your processes, then you start following them to the D and at a certain point you start, you stop surprising yourself.

But I found that that is as much of a, it's always a function of the kind of projects that I work with, the kind of people that I work with. If you work with people, I've been lucky enough that most of the time it's the case. If you work with people that push you, that, high standards. then you can really grow forever. And I've seen my work grow a lot in the past. few months to Um... So I thought I had peaked.

Probably that's not the case. However, I still think working together with other designers, and I care about design excellence, beautiful designs. I want to work with a team and submit work for awards and, you know, and then party when we get one. I want to, yeah, party with my clients that give us the opportunity to do amazing design work. I really believe in the power for design to change the world and make it a better place.

people. And I want to be a part of that and I want to team up with people that care about the same things and I want us to be rewarded for it and I want us to Yeah, feel our responsibility and also reap the benefits. Of fighting the good fight and keeping our standards high. But how I got there is that I think I can do, I want to do better work than the work I'm able to do by myself. When I look at my work, I'm always disappointed.

I always see the missed opportunities. Like my bar is here and my work is here. And I know that if I work with the right people, we could bring it here so that then I can bring my bar here and then I can be sad about the work again. And then keep going until the day I die without ever being happy for five minutes.

Yeah, it's that leapfrog thing. I... I was hoping for that same thing. during my run at the agency and I found myself being let down and that was the hardest part of being an agency owner Maybe I wasn't the best leader in that situation. I know that I wanted to be. But I've said this many times too. I'm not a designer and I don't know how to... coach a designer, And then the other part of that Failure, in my opinion, was Hiring for the wrong people, like you mentioned, hiring for operations and things like that.

That was a big... Part of where I went wrong, or technically weak, so it was my partner and I, we would go out and find the business We would bring them in and now it's time to have people do that work for us. And so we would go out and we would find these designers and they were all very talented. But what they... What we couldn't do together as a team was take our idea out of our head and and give it to them and then have them create that idea.

And, That was really, really challenging. So we would always butt up against this wall where... Our team would come back with their first iteration on things and it wasn't anywhere close to what we had hoped it was. And then we would give them some advice or some recommendations, some feedback, and then they would come back and it'd be like a little bit closer, but it's not quite there. And so we would have this internal loop that seemed like it went on forever and ever and And then most of the time, We would say, okay, stop working on this because it's now costing us too much money.

We're going to take over. So my partner and I would take over and we would... get the concept or the first design where it needs to be. And our hopes were that they could then take that idea that we have basically given them and now run with it. And it was really hard and it, We never really got there. We never got to that point. It was always the owners. stepping in to redo, redesign, rewrite, rework.

And I am a hundred percent not saying it was all their fault. It was a lot of, of us on our end. Um, Maybe we picked the wrong personality types. Maybe we weren't the best coaches. Maybe we weren't meant to work with the team. You know, there's a lot of variables in there. I will say that our very last client that we had Our team finally started to get into a rhythm and they stepped up and they hit.

It wasn't my favorite work. It wasn't as perfect as I would like. But it was right and it was good. And when I was at the agency and I still think even now in my freelance journey, right, because technically I'm now a freelancer. It doesn't have to be good. It just has to be right. And it has to be right by the client and it has to be right by the client's client or customers, however you want to look at it.

That was the only line that I cared about. If it doesn't meet that, it's not going to be shown. It's not going out there. It just has to be right. And we hit that finally at the end. There was a lot of other circumstances that happened where we decided that the agency was going to be done. But that was... It was one of the sticky points and It was fun. But it was really, really hard, I guess, is what I'm saying there.

Yeah, and I'm not expecting to figure this out. easily or quickly and you know i tried it's not that i haven't tried uh again i've been doing this for 15 years and of course when you start Finding some sort of, you know, start finding your place in the industry. Business start rolling in, you get referrals. the fees goes up. Then your brain says, oh, now I'm going to build a global agency. We're going to be so successful.

Our work is going to be featured everywhere. Then you go out and look for the first Uh, for the first hire and yeah. It's just. It's just so hard. If it was easy, everybody would do it. Because honestly, at least what I found is that the bar is pretty low. And that's true everywhere because it's the definition of mediocrity, mediocrity average. So most service provider, most freelancer out there give mediocre service and do mediocre work.

So I always thought it that way. that it's kind of easy to succeed. if you don't settle for mediocre. which is not to say much, like you don't have to do much, just have to reject mediocrity, do a little more, and you will probably find your place in the industry. So I tried when I started having some traction in my, when I began having traction with my freelance practice to make it an agency. I tried hiring people and, um, I haven't been able to get good work out of that because I had the same thing.

And so my question to you is now like, I felt the same. It has to be right. It doesn't matter what it looks like, but it has to be right. But I think I failed to define what right was. Um... And because... And this gives me a lot of empathy for my clients too. Um... Like, do I even know what writing means for myself? Like, I know when I'm done, when I'm doing a project, I know when I'm done. I know when I'm not going to spend another minute on this.

I know when that moment is. But how do you define it? And in the meantime, while trying to make a profit. When it's just you in front of your screen, Your work is free. You're a slave to yourself, so it doesn't matter. Right. But as soon as a person comes into the picture, responsibility comes into the picture. So my point about operation. is that I had one successful experience. in my life of collaborating with someone.

And he had a complimentary skill to mine. We still work together to this day. I would trust him with my life. I make this person, I want to give a shout out to him, Dimitri Tregov, if you need a Webflow designer, talk to him, contact me, I'll give you the contacts, he's amazing. We've been working together for, I think, eight years or something. And the only thing I regret is not having more work to do together because everybody wants to use WordPress.

I want to use... It was Shopify, whatever it is. But Dimitri is a web flex. And so there are people out there. that can do the job. But in 15 years, I'm at one. Right. And it's probably a money problem. I think it's in a way it's a money problem. It's a problem that you could solve with money because you throw money at it until you find the right person. In a small business like ours, it's not as easy to throw money at hiring.

But that's what BigCom is, invest big money in. So there's a lesson to be taken there. It's not easy for anyone. Why do I think this would be a right time for me to do it? is because I've never had like... Finally, in my life, I'm reaping the benefits of all the work, of all the toiling, of all the late nights, of all the connection, of all the being there for customers and for colleagues and for having had the luck of being involved in certain projects in my life.

So now, after all this time, I feel like... Things are finally ripe for me to reap the benefits of. I finally feel like I have access to a network of people and I feel invincible that we could solve any problem thrown our way. So I'm looking forward now to talk to clients and go deeper. Like, yeah, this is design, but what is it that you want to do when you wake up in the morning? Why do you wake up in the morning and go to work?

How can we make that better? How can we make you closer to realizing your dream through whatever we can do for your business?

Is that a new thing for you? How do I say this? That idea of going... deeper With that client relationship, did you always do that? And you just said, that's the process that I go through. But here's the output that I'm going to give you. Or... Maybe that is the question. Does that make sense?

Yes, I think so. But we skipped one question that I had for you. So how do you... I'll note this and I'll come back to this.

Yes, switch it back. Flip it on me.

Okay, the question is, have I always... try to go deeper with clients. Okay, I noted it down. We'll pick it up from here so we don't forget. My question for you was, so how did you define what right was for you when you did have an agency? If you did at all, like... How did you set the standard or provide guidance, references? I don't know. How did you do that?

Yeah. Gosh, this could be a long answer, Felice.

Yeah, go ahead. We have time.

The short answer is I never defined what's right. And... That's because, just like you said, I don't know how to define it. I don't know what is right. I know what's right. The best way that I can answer this question is through personality types. And I have to attribute a ton of this to my old partner. he taught me Myers-Briggs, and we've spent hundreds of hours drinking whiskey and smoking cigars on our patios together down at the local cigar shop.

Just trying to flesh this stuff out and figure it out. And so when it came to hiring In the early days, we would hire a graphic designer. We would hire a copywriter. We would hire an account person. And as we dug deeper into personality types, We realized there is one group of personalities that tends to align with us a little bit better. And that is the intuitive personality type. An intuitive typically has the ability to bridge the gap between point A and point B and play in that gray area.

The sensor type they are a little bit more linear. It's straight from A to B. So They take orders and they execute on those orders, which. makes them the perfect employee for a lot of things. But in our world, it's all very nuanced. And so we started looking for intuitives and then we would hire intuitives to do this. But when you start to mix in some of these other letters in the Myers-Briggs stack, you start to realize that an intuitive that doesn't have, let's say, the J at the very end, the judging trait, they're a little bit messy.

Well, my partner and I I was an N, he was an N, I was a P, he was a J. And a P person is a very messy, everything lives in our heads, and a J is more like, no, these things live in systems. They live in the computer, we follow them, right? That's very da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Hmm. And so where I'm going with this is that We tried to solve that right problem through personality types. And we're in a small pool here where not everybody is the exact personality type that we were looking for.

But more often than not, the intuitive can get closer to what right is. So when we would hire somebody, we would... go through You know, some SOPs, basically. Here's how the systems work. Here's the expectations of the role. Here's the type of work that we do. You need to review all of this. You need to understand it. We need to ask, you need to ask us questions. We need a response. So we'd have a pretty lengthy process when we would bring somebody on.

But what we found is regardless of the personality type, everyone just did this. They just said yes. They just said yes. Yes. Yeah. Got it. No questions. Got it. Yes. And then we would get in on a project, and then the first thing that showed up was... you know, maybe not quite there and We would try to direct them in feedback to get to write. And so Things that we would say or feedback that we would give would be like, You explained to me how this design connects with this audience group that we have.

have defined in strategy. And early on, a lot of our team members weren't involved in strategy. We viewed strategy or core discovery as something that the leadership does. And that was a mistake on our end. So towards the end, when everything started to kind of smooth out and become fine, very much in flow, we brought our entire team into strategy. So we would pay Copywriters, project managers, designers, ad managers, we would bring them all into the strategy meeting and make them sit through it.

So they heard firsthand from the client, Their goals, their target audience, what their brand looks like and sounds like. And the thought was by the time they got to their design work, they should clearly understand it. But there's still a bridge. There's a translation once again between that work up front and the work that goes out in the world. And... we would always struggle with that part of the translation.

And so, The feedback part of it would always say, tell me how this thing fits with that client. Now tell me how it fits with their goals. How does this fit with what they told us their brand is? And again, we're working with unestablished brands, people in the startup phase, concept phase, idea phase. We are in charge of creating their brand. So not only do you have to tie what you've done to all of the core work that we've done, you now have to explain that to me.

And then I can tell you if that's right or wrong. That was the closest that I got to the idea of right. And... I wish I could go back and fix a couple of things. Um, It would have been hugely beneficial to smooth that process out and not have so much guesswork, but... I guess that's my long way of saying... I don't know what right is, but to me, right just sticks out. There's an example. I have one in town.

Not a client of mine. They are a CPG company. They produce... Low THC drinks. And... They're... Core product is like a Red Bull can sized THC drink. It's a THC cocktail and it's five milligrams. And then they have what they call downshift. Which in my mind says, oh, It is a smaller dose of THC. And it's probably a smaller can, but they have it the reverse way. The downshift is... Three times the size, it's bigger.

And it's a completely different product. It doesn't have, it's not a cocktail. It is like a sparkling water thing. And I just look at that from the outside and I go, that's wrong. That's wrong. All right. Your product team just... completely botched this opportunity to have something that's called shift and then downshift and you you've screwed up the sizes you've screwed up the the flavor profiles are different like there should be there should be no difference and i can just see that but the majority of the world and the and the public they don't see that they don't know they don't really care but that to me is right and wrong it's black and white it's written on the damn can And that is a hard thing for a team member to wrap their head around, right?

if they're the wrong team member.

It's an interesting conversation. One thing I will say about the downshift product naming, The first thing I thought, oh, if this is the regular drink is a low THC drink and it's not called downshift, then I can just drink it normally. But if I drink downshift, then it's such a big, strong drink.

Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Be careful with. Right. That's even more interesting. But my understanding is, yeah. But what I'm understanding is that there is not even THC in this other drink. It's not even like the power of the drink.

It's nothing to do with the drink. The downshift is less THC, but it's a bigger can.

Okay. So, yeah, that doesn't make sense to me as well. The first thing I imagine is, oh, downshift sounds dangerous.

We're going down even further, which means that, well, because we're talking about we, we're getting more high, Yes, right.

Going down, which means it's more THC.

Yeah, that's just another point of this whole thing It's wrong. I don't care who you are. It's all wrong because your perception is different than mine, but it's still wrong in this whole thing. That is a nuance that I can't teach somebody they have to be able to see that themselves because Okay.

Technically, you just disagreed with me on that. You just had a slightly different view on it. The downshift seems like, oh, I'm going to get more high because I drink this thing. I looked at it a little bit more like, well, the size of the can and the name and it's a completely different product. One's a cocktail and one's sparkling water. Well, that doesn't make any sense to me. It's all in the same product family.

And so... You're right. There's a ton of nuance.

I didn't give it more than 10 seconds. I didn't give it more than 10 seconds. Right.

But that right there, though, is something that I can't teach to somebody. They have to realize that. And if you and I were in the room in the branding and product productization of that, that I'm screwing all these words up, the product line, we would be sitting there looking at each other going, this doesn't make sense. We just say don't do this. This is confusing. Nobody... And what does companies do?

They just send that shit out there in the world. It's really kind of weird to me. But that's right and wrong to me. Yes.

I love this conversation, having it especially in the era of AI. I don't care about AI. I don't really want to talk about AI, but it's great how many things we're learning from it. Because AI, go to Chachiviti and ask it to justify anything from genocide to... to, I don't know, yeah, calling a drink, sparkly drink, downshift, it will justify everything. So if you're not able to make up a good reason for yourself, You just ask to achieve it and it will give you a good reason to justify anything that you think and anything that you want to do.

Um, So the point is the The ability to discern What is actually a good idea from what is a bad idea is even is becoming even more precious now that it's so easy to justify everything you don't even need your brain to come to a solution and a justification and how do you develop the ability to know what's right or what's wrong and my opinion is it just expose yourself to a lot of stuff all the time.

It's not easy. But some people have the inclination. I mean, creative people have the inclination for it. And that is probably one of the most, like we dedicate our entire life to input, input, input, input, input, input. And then we do one project a month. Like the output to input ratio is totally biased toward input. Yeah. We dedicate our lives. Well, we probably the last, the last humans to read magazines.

I think designers are the last of our species to have magazine subscriptions just so they can, you know, look to the pages and look at the photos on it. Yeah. So, well, well, You could say that nowadays everybody has a lot more input than output because of social media stuff, but the quality also makes a lot of difference, right? and designers and creative in general. have a more curated their inputs are more curated than the average person that goes toRight, there's two things I wanna say about this.

If you're a company and you want Good, creative, whether that is applied to sales or marketing or product or anything. You have to build that team yourself or go find the right team out there in the world. And there's a lot of noise for those teams out there. I would... venture to say that the The teams that are more quiet are the most creative. The ones that make a lot of noise and they're yapping out there, they're just trying to make a lot of noise and they're not super creative.

But I had a conversation with, With my neighbor Friday afternoon. And I don't know how we got on this topic. But it was about this idea of input and the amount of output that goes out in the world specifically for me. She said something that sparked this thought. This might sound arrogant But I don't give a shit I'm gonna say it. I have already created a whole bunch of brands in my head. They're already there.

They exist. And what I'm doing is I am waiting for the right client to come and get that from me. That's what that is. I don't create shit for people when they come to me. They don't show up and I magically come up. I've already thought about it and I'm like, now is the time to give somebody this thing that I've already created. I know the messaging. I know the visuals. I know the logo. I already know all of this stuff.

this person, can I have that thing? And then I make it for you and I give it to you and off you go. And it's your job to take that and run with it. I don't want these companies. They're not for me. They're created for somebody else. You just have to come get them from me. That's what I'm selling. I'm not selling that I make logos and websites and all that other shit. I'm like, you're buying this idea from me.

And that is a crazy thing to say out loud. And it's a crazy thing to think about when you talk about selling creative as well.

Yeah, that's the first time I ever heard this. in my life. I do have a lot of ideas for brands and stuff, but I have a cemetery of domains that I will never use for anything. Like my Namecheap account is stuffed with domains. I don't know how much I spend on it every year anymore. And a lot of brands that I'm waiting for someone to help make them real, it doesn't. It's not happening for now. It's the first time.

It's very interesting.

Yeah. I think of selling creative like this. There's three ways that you can sell it. You can sell things. You can sell process or you can sell ideas. Things are super easy to sell, right?

Yeah, I was about to say this. I will put them, It's not three things. Three layers and the top layer is ideas. Right. That's the destination.

Right. And what I want to do is I want to sell ideas. But guess what? Ideas is the hardest thing to sell because there's so few people that have the same ideas and they want to be paired with somebody who can make that come to life. And then as we learned core, We were like, okay, we can get out of selling things now. We can sell our process. And we sold our process a lot. So much so that it got to a point where I, after a sales meeting with my partner, I just looked at him and I probably even yelled because I'm a loud person.

I am fucking done selling process. I'm done selling this shit. I'm saying the same thing over and over and it just goes right over their heads. a logo or a visual identity. They don't know the difference between those two things anyways. Um, They don't care.

That's why they hire you. They would have learned it themselves.

Right. And so the differentiator for me, and I haven't maybe brought it to life super well just yet, is... I'm selling ideas. I'm selling the thing that's at the top. And it takes a very certain person or a certain company or a certain company with certain people in it to see that and go like, that's the thing that I'm looking for, which is the reason why I only work with up to four people a year and I live in a town of 120,000.

it seems like that would be really easy to sell. But if you're in a town where these people don't have these same philosophies, you're not going to sell a lot. And so that's a tough thing. But yeah, Ideas is where I live. I have all the ideas in my head. I'm waiting for that person to buy them. When they buy them, now it's time to make those things. And oftentimes... Because I'm not a designer, I need somebody else to help me.

get those things out, right? And that is the biggest struggle. I've been waiting to say this for so long to so many people. Thank you for allowing me to say this, Felice. Please, go ahead. But it's like... That's the struggle of where I'm at in my career. I don't have the technical ability to do I can do it pretty all right. But it does wipe me out. But I'm at that idea zone level. And I just that's what I want to be hired to do.

And it's probably what I'm best at. But if anyone out there is listening and they want some of this work done, I already have it for you. It's on a platter. It's just back here in this buffet. Like we just got to pull it out. It's that simple. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's amazing.

Yes, I can see the problem, the technical barrier. You can never expect to ever be able to do everything that goes into even the most basic campaign, you know, advertising campaign or branding effort. It's just so many moving pieces. Um... And But the thing is, if you sell the idea and you sell it to a client that has the budget, because, you know, let's be honest, it's if you're trying to... send a rocket to the moon and you don't have the money to fix your car, you're not going to make it.

You need budget. So if you're working with a company that has the money, and has the ability to recognize great idea and risk to invest in them because these great ideas are risky. Um, then you're golden, I mean. Then on your side, and you have this, and this is amazing to see, and your creative confidence is inspiring. because then that is also the most important. What we did is clients want process.

They don't care about what process you have as long as you have one because they want to know, oh, you did this before. You can do this again. And this is how we do it. This is how we can... guarantee or we can expect that this project will be successful. So clients just want to know that you have something, you have a plan, right? So that once they look at your portfolio or have heard from other people about you, they know, all right, it's likely that whatever happened with this person, with this project, will happen with my project.

And so process is about reassurance. For us, it makes a world of difference. But for the client, they really don't care what's called, how many steps are in there, as long as you have one. they feel safe. But what we did is we started hiding behind the process. And we took ourselves out of the equation because we are the wild card. Oh, wait, who's going to do the work? Oh, you're a little weird. I'm into Star Trek.

I'm into furries and cosplay. And then you're afraid you might scare clients or... even worse is, oh, then I will have to... If I... champion my own ideas, then I will have to take responsibility for them. So what we did is we totally deflected any kind of responsibility and started selling process and say, oh, this is what I do. I mean, if poop comes out the other side, it's not really my fault because I did this before and it was great.

So, you know, this client had a very nice logo going through this process. If you don't like your logo, oh, don't come to me. This is the process I told you. But I was reading this and I see everybody doing this. And we have this kind of I am with you. I think ideas are the most important thing. and the courage to believe in them and the ability to get people to persuade people to give you the money to make them happen that is the most valuable thing great idea the ability to persuade people to throw money at you so you can make it happen for them Um, I don't believe Team makeup is as important as people make it.

Team makeup is the same as process. Oh, we have rock, you know, ex-rock stars in our team. It's the same as saying we have a super tried and tested process. Hiding, hiding, because what counts is are you going to have an idea that is going to break through? And you don't need 10 people to have a great idea. One person Half an hour in the toilet and they will come up with 10 great ideas 100% Yeah so I was reading this book.

Wow, this is such a confusing and rambling, but let's keep going with it. It's perfect. I was reading this book that I visited Bruno in Ibiza. You know about that, right? Yes, yeah. And Bruno gave me this book. He had a spare copy. I already read it, but it was nice to read it again. George Loyce. Uh... What is it? Damn good advice?

I've heard of it, yeah, but I haven't read it.

I have it, yeah. It's this one. It's a small book full of pictures for kids like us. That's perfect. I love it. And he tells the story Like I'm saying this with passion because it's something that I criticize about myself. I'm shy. I'm scared. I will not champion my idea. I will always prefer sharing responsibility rather than taking the responsibility all on myself. Sometimes I think I have great ideas, but...

And maybe I'm doing a disservice to people in a sense and to myself. Anyway, something I'm striving for, championing my own ideas. And George Lois tells a story about how he was trying to sell a campaign once. I don't know how much of it is true, but anyway, it's a good anecdote. It was trying to sell this idea to someone and the idea sounded crazy. The whole board said, no way we're going to do this.

And Mr. Lewis just climbed on a window and said, if we don't do this, I'm going to jump. I'm going to jump out the window. Wow. Yeah. And then the client was forced to say, all right, we'll run it. Like there was no other way for the line. But who is, I've never met anyone in my entire professional life that would be willing to fight for their ideas so much and to take, level of responsibility because what happens if your idea flops?

Right. So the level of creative confidence that you need, and you need that because we see it every day, client, you know, walking all over our ideas and our beautiful designs and our, you know, Um, groundbreaking ideas, our innovative ideas. I mean, we understand culture. We understand culture. This is what our job is. But, you know, a client has always come to you and saying, oh, this is a little bit too risky.

This is not how we do things. My wife likes blue, you know. Yeah. But are you willing to jump out the window?

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I'm gonna jump out of the window for any fucking idea.

Well, you have a family, a lot of people.

I think George Lewis might have had a sad life, I don't know.

Maybe not, I'm joking, but I'm saying you have a family, please don't do that.

Yeah, yeah.

Would you, theoretically?

It's funny that This part of the conversation is funny to me. Maybe it's just how I'm wired, how I was raised. being said no to for my entire life. I know I have a good idea. If you don't want it... then pound sand. See you later. It does get weird in a paid situation, right? And I have run up against that where you are paid to do something and you have the idea and you present that idea and they don't want to buy that idea.

That is very frustrating to me. And behind closed doors with my old partner, he'll tell you, Yeah, I was a mess. I was a menace.

Why don't they get it? Doing all those things.

But at the same time, I have this thing inside of me that goes, well, it's your loss. It's not my company that is buying something worse than what I presented. So I don't think I would ever jump out of a building even figuratively in that sense. Like I'm not going to – Maybe it comes with experience. And again, my whole life being said no to or that idea is stupid, Kev. Why would you do that? At this point in my life, in my career, I'm like, all right, fine.

Then you don't get that thing. If you didn't get it and you weren't enthusiastic and passionate. Was beating down my door to buy that idea? Then it's not for you and you don't get it fine I'll give you that thing that you want which sucks because it's what everyone else is doing you can have it go ahead and I've worked with a lot of companies who have asked for that and it is also a part of me that will I'll sneak something into that bad idea that is like, ooh, that's a good line, right?

Or that's a good word, or that's a cool design that nobody, you probably don't even see it. Like I sneak it in there somewhere back behind it. It's just a little accent piece or maybe the opacity is set back a little bit so nobody sees it, but there's going to be one person out there that sees it and they go, oh, that's fucking good. That's who I'm doing it for. even though the client wanted the dumb idea or the bad idea.

There's just something about me that can't help but trying to sneak that in. Even if you just bring the font size down just a little bit because they're like, oh, it's too big. I don't like that. You just bring it down a little bit and they look over it and you're like, cool, push that through. And you just get to know that the people looking at this out there in the world, they see it. And maybe not all of them will get it.

Someone's going to say that's right. That's right right there. And that's kind of who I'm doing that for. So maybe that's a...

Long way of saying I'm an asshole. I see myself in this. I think it's kind of my approach to Yeah. But I'm not happy with it. And I'm not willing to settle with it. I want to be... More confident. I want to take more responsibility. I mean, if I know what's right, then I should be... fighting for it. This is what I'm telling myself. Yeah. Will I step on a Windows zeal? Threatening to jump out the window.

I hope one day I will have the courage to do that.

Oh, yeah. I hope you can too. Thank you. Yeah.

Um... Because, yeah, I think what else are we doing here? Clients are paying us. for this. And then if we are meek and shy about our own ideas, how can they believe in our ideas, right? So it's really something that's an internal struggle that you need to solve. I need to solve for myself first. But for now, the way I do it is I accept the challenge. The client doesn't like it. Uh, What's the client feedback?

How can I make something as good as the idea that I think I had? by implementing the client feedback, which makes life a lot harder. And it takes a lot of discipline and self-control.

You know, you asked me a question. In one of the Core Circle Lives, when I presented that identity, your question was, like, what's the...

That is branded in my mind forever. I'll never forget.

Good. I'm glad. Well, that's where I'm going with this.

In a good way. Right. That's where I'm going with this.

Your question was, What's the contingency plan? if they don't like this thing. Right.

And-Will you jump off, that was the question, exactly that, like will you jump out a window if they don't like it?

Yeah, and I remember thinking in that moment, I don't think I had the answer. fully Fully complete in my head. And so maybe I'm answering that question again now. But My answer was then and still is now, it is about the process. And you have a touch point from the moment that they reach out to you or you reach out to them. All the way to the time that you are delivering that first idea and you can plant seeds along the way.

So what I'm saying to you right now is that you don't have to have the courage to go from where you are right now to be jumping up on the windowsill. You start... implementing smaller bits of process. And that might say in your sales meeting or your fit check, I only do two iterations or in my situation I don't do iterations. And it's hard to get that out, but you say that one time in a fit check, maybe that person leaves, maybe they don't, but now you've said it.

And that is a part of that thing. And it builds that confidence, right? It builds that thing like, you're right, I don't do that thing. And then you move to the sales meeting and they want to know more about the process and you walk them through the process and the process does not have iterations in that thing. Now you've said, I don't do it, and it's not here, and you've done that. So you're taking these little tiny baby steps each day.

part of the process as you go through it. And, um, And then The key to putting the seal on that process is when you deliver, you can't deliver the way that you've always delivered. So in my situation now, I create these brand story narrative presentation things, right? And I think through that, How can I leave the biggest mark on them walking away saying, there's no way this thing is wrong? And they have this little bug in their ear from the very first moment that they talked to me that I try not to do it like this.

You don't get this. You don't get this. You don't get this. Right. Right, that's the wrong way to present that information. you but you've planted the seed all the way through and then you kind of lead with it or you end with this beautiful presentation and I'm not going to say mine are the most beautiful but it did get the point across The point is that whole process sandwiched together is how you can leave a mark and sell those ideas.

And then the next phase is how do you bundle that up, represent that to the public saying this is what I do. And that's kind of the phase that I'm in is now how do I take that presentation that you saw that the client saw? How do I make that kind of flashy and customer or fun? lead facing, right? Whether that's out on social media or LinkedIn or front of my website or whatever, because that's not polished enough at least in my mind, to present to the world as a lead gen tactic.

But I guess we're... Just to sum that up, leaving a little bit of a breadcrumb all the way through in each one of those phases of the process is a very powerful thing. Because when you kind of jump on someone, say a bunch of things, then they don't. It's too much for them to take in. But a little bit all the way through the process is a smart way of doing it. I don't know why I told you that story.

I don't remember what the topic was on that we were talking about before. I remember.

I remember.

I have a feeling that you remember.

Yes. You're the remember guy.

I'm the talker. I'm just like, ah.

Oh, don't count on me for remembering things, please. So in this specific instance, I remember. Can we hit pause just a second? I need to let our friend Jose in. Yeah. Just give me just a second.

I'm just going to let it keep recording because I don't think I can pause it. But just go ahead.

Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. This is very rude. I understand. But you guys have a client in this specific in this specific moment.

Go ahead, man. Are we going to do a video call with him?

No, I'm going to let him in. He's here.

Oh, he's downstairs.

That sounds great. Let him in. Just a second. um I'm sorry, this was very rude.

No, it's okay. That's why we use Riverside, so we can cut and edit and... Yeah.

So-The reason why we were talking about this is basically What I'm hearing is you are building You're kind of building that creative confidence for yourself into the way you structure your offer. Yes. So you say there are only two reviews. So we are very sure that we can provide great reviews. creative, great creative solutions, And you get two reviews. You will give us feedback, but we are sure that we'll be so close to define, you know, our idea will be great from the outset.

So we are open to implementing some of your feedback, but it won't be necessary more than a couple of rounds before The idea loses its nature totally and then you will just not be good.

Good and then the way that I The way that I deal with feedback is I always tie it back to core. And so I'm always like, hey, this is what you told me about your customers, what you told me about your brand, this is what you told me about the goals. Tell me how – and I've got to be really honest. fucking clear about this. This only happens in the visual identity zone. It never happens when I do a website.

It never happens when I do a marketing campaign. Mmm. It's happened once in a marketing campaign, but it always happens in the visual identity part of things. And so, um, Living the dream.

Yeah.

Come say hi, dude. Come say hi. You have to, dude.

You have to. This is being recorded live, brother. No, I'm just kidding.

Um, But yeah, I think that's where that little bit of confidence comes from. Yes.

It makes sense. I don't do this. I don't do this. Here's where I come from. I have... the utmost respect for my clients, all of them, whether they respect my work or not. The way I see it is, And that is not the way I see that. I think this is a It's not controversial. Like, we will not exist. I, as a designer, will be out of a job if it wasn't for someone that went out there and risked it all and created something that is creating value for people.

I am very selective with my clients because I've worked in companies that were creating misery at every level of the ladder. So I have a very good example of what not to do, who not to work with. So now I'm very selective with my clients and I have the luck of working with clients that I have the utmost respect for. I would not be here if it wasn't for them. So I am sure that in a sense, They know what they need more than I do.

Like this is what I like to tell myself. That they know what they need more than I do. The best I can do is to... provide them with the best service and the best work that I can and then just put the options on the table and say, this is what we talked about. This is how I think, this is how I see the thing. This is what I think the campaign should sound like, look like, what your brand should sound like, what it should look like.

I kind of stepped back and I said, now... I did my job. What do you think? Um, And It rarely happens nowadays, but I still get it. Clients are very close to the work and probably this is good for them and it's not good for them on the other end. But a lot of time you get feedback on things that will not move the needle. Absolutely, but it's important to them. Make this bigger, make this bigger, make this smaller.

Let's put the logo here. Let's put the text up or down. And you've been looking at the layout. It's been 15 years that you sharp your eye and your taste and you understand typography. But a client will always come and say, please move this around. And you know they won't make... one hair of a difference. So I just Make them happy. Um... And yeah, the place where this comes from is that I have the utmost respect because I think Maybe there's some trauma attached to this, but my boss at the only company I've ever been employed Add.

came to me one day. I think it was in a kind of a fit of, it was a bit bitter for something that happened. So he was not in a good mood. And so he told me like, if you were good, you would have your own company. You wouldn't be here working for me. Um... Wow. That's why if you were any good, then you would have your own company. You wouldn't be here working for me. That's what he said. He wasn't talking to me directly.

He was just... angry about something and talking to himself like you know But it really stuck to me. Um... because He said it very negatively. And I would never say this to anyone. This is not something you should ever say. But there was a layer of truth to it. that entrepreneurship is hard, is risky, There's a lot of reward in it. Um, And for people that do it a certain way, my clients, right, that I like to think that they're ethical, they think about sustainability, they treat their partners fairly.

Again, I have the utmost respect and I go as more of a scholar than I think I can teach them anything. It's just that I can put to their service. I spent all my life doing this, learning about this, seeing the patterns. And so I'm just going to I share with you everything that I know. And then at a certain point, have you ever heard the line, fuck you, pay me?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. It's kind of like, I love you.

I love you.

I love you. I put all my sweat and tears into this. This is the best that I could come up with. And now, you know, if you want to throw it in the trash and go a different way, what can I do? You're free. I love you. I respect you. I'm sure you will do what's best for your business. Yeah.

I mean, I think what you just said is... I think what you just said is... It's really... I admire what you said. Let me just say it that way. It's not that I don't have the utmost respect for For the people that I work with. Sure. No, I understand that. I want to have flesh out my thoughts on this because I do come from a different perspective than you. And The way that I look at it, is your Company or your brand is at an inflection point.

That means that something is not going right. You don't have the team to do it. You need the outside perspective. And that's why you're coming to me. So. If that is the box that we're working in, that's the context. then you don't get to tell me to move this, to make this bigger, to change the font, to change the colors. You came to me to solve this problem. I'm solving it the way that I know how to solve it.

So it is just about that little context box. And what I'm trying to put in the world in this freelance or agency world, I'm trying to tell them, you come to me when you have tried everything else and you like what I do and you're hiring me to do what I do. So when that context is set, We have a very great agency client relationship and I've tried a similar box to what you're talking about. Right. I have the utmost respect.

You should know your business inside and out. You should know everything about it. And then you're just using me as the vessel to create. Right. And what I've found is that I personally don't like that as much because I am an ideas guy. When I'm working on somebody else's thing, My ideas aren't flowing, so I feel like I'm just... I'm just the hand here. I'm just making this thing and I don't like it.

So I have taken this stance on that other perspective where – If you just need something done, I'm not your guy. If you've tried everything and you've failed and you still believe in your company and you like what I do, that's the box that I play in. From the content that I put out there in the world to this conversation right here, I'm trying to tell that to the universe. So Nike, I'm never going to work with Nike.

Nike already has it figured out. They just need... Why didn't Kennedy to make them another ad for their? football or soccer or tennis thing. Right. So I look at the level of service, the price that I charge, the ideas that I give and, There's levels of these businesses that I can help. And then there's at a certain point and above. I can't really help you so much anymore. You've already defined all of your brand attributes and it looks good to me.

It looks right. Like there's nothing I can do to help you anymore. You need production people who can make volume and mass quantities of things. So I find my little niches down in this zone are, It's small and medium-sized businesses and oftentimes even the medium-sized businesses I don't know what I can do for you because I'm going to bring this fresh thing to the table. And it may go against your existing company values and your existing branding.

And if I notice that, if I get into that situation, I'm going to be the first one to say, stop, this isn't the right engagement for us. I'm not the right person for you. It sounds like you are looking for this type of a person and that's not going to be me. And that has gotten me into trouble quite a few times because the small business doesn't have that budget that I'm looking for. Oftentimes, but there are some who do like that do.

Yeah. The two clients that I have right now are small businesses and they have the budget and I'm able to make big shifts and big changes in their company that does align with them because they told me in, in the core process. Right. Um, They just didn't have the ability to make those things. Now they have somebody that can, that is also in alignment with them and their business. And so it's a really small niche of businesses where I think a lot of the People in the world.

I'm just going to say someone like Chris Doe is telling you to just charge more and just punch up and get these bigger clients and just go for it and go, go, go. I'm saying I think you don't have to do that if that doesn't align with your personal values. I don't think I ever want to work for a Nike. I mean, I have this weird dream where I do an advertisement for him or something, but I'd rather do a Nike style advertisement.

For a small business that has huge impact. I understand, yes.

And it's a really nuanced thing. So yeah, a lot of businesses that come to me are probably not the best fit. That's the beauty of working with small businesses, the impact that you can have. And it's why I'm passionate.

about working with small businesses.

Is it easy to make money with small businesses? No, because most of them are broke. Um... But-But there's enough going around, especially for small practices. But anyway, I think I should clarify one thing about what I was saying. Uh... And that is that Yes, the big idea is important for me. I'm very much into the production side of things, and I love it. I love the craft. I love crafting beautiful...

visual solutions, right? And I take pride in it and I enjoy spending my time doing it at the service of a big idea. is way better, more pleasant and more fulfilling than doing it for something you don't believe in. But it's mostly for me about client selection. Um, And so to clarify, my point is yes, I wish I was better at selling the big ideas. Most of my clients trust me with it most of the time.

And then in the operation side of things, although I love doing it, I do understand that most of the time that is not what moves the needle. So into the production side of things and very much, yeah, yeah, let's get this done. Logo bigger, logo bigger. Let's get this done. Let's move on to the important stuff. Yeah. So that is kind of my, the ancillary thing. principle to my approach of respecting my clients' opinion, giving them space to...

And most of the time, I heard you say this, and this is absolutely true, clients feel the responsibility to give you feedback. They do. To find something that could be improved. They feel the responsibility to do it. They feel like they're not doing their job if they don't give you feedback on whatever it is that you present them. I heard some colleagues that seed their work with things to correct so the client can have the satisfaction of saying, oh, do this, do this.

It's probably something that... I might try sometimes. Yeah.

When I do my onboarding with a new client, I've gone through multiple softwares that have client portals in them. It's a tough... That whole software space is a fucking disaster.

When we're done with the goal, I want to hear what is it? What's that app that you were bashing?

Happy to tell you about it.

But the point of the story is that I walk them through their dashboard. Here's how you can upload things. Here's how you can ask questions. You know, here's where past two invoices live and paid all that sort of stuff. But in the onboarding part of it, I have an entire section on feedback where I try to coach them ahead of time what appropriate feedback looks like. I like the idea of going into showing somebody something and saying, here's the areas that I will accept feedback.

That's a smart approach. I do it a little bit more broad and I say what appropriate feedback looks like. Something that is appropriate is like, My brand should... Look and feel warm. And what you presented to me is kind of cold and something else. inappropriate feedback looks like, I don't like the color blue, make the logo bigger. And so I see those, I see them thinking about it ahead of time and it, it's, often works.

It works probably 70 something percent. But what I do realize is the further we go down the process, Let's say I'm engaged for an entire year. They have that right up front when we're doing the visual identity. Well, in six to nine months, when we're down in marketing zone, they forgot all about what appropriate feedback looks like and they move into some weird shit.

That's not something that's particular to you. That's why most agencies do an engagement, then move on to the next one, and they have to keep the pipeline filled all the time or provide new services to the client because losing the consultant stance, it's just a matter of time. Familiarity breeds contempt. So in time, one little thing at a time, your authority will be eroded, eroded, eroded to the point where you become an order taker.

I figured out how to avoid this. I don't know. I never heard. I haven't heard of a successful case before, but I've been working with a client for, I had clients for a long time. I had a regenerative client for six years. Um, In hindsight, I know what I could have done. to make the relationship to make their relationship better, last longer. Uh, But still, there are forces at play that are outside of your control.

Companies change, get restructured, new hires at high level come in, and it's just, it's very, very, very hard to keep the consultant stance. The authority stands for an extended amount of time. It's not particularly to you. I was reading a book that was talking about it. And it's just a matter of time before you become...

Yeah, there's a life cycle and it ends at some point. It's very normal. We had a client at the agency for three years. And... That was... three times longer than any other client that we ever had so I understand that and I actually enjoy a little bit of the turnover right I don't want to stick with somebody forever because I'll be burnt out Finding that right sweet spot has always been a challenge, though.

I'm kind of in this like three month chunk, six to nine month chunk. And if we're really working well together or we really like each other, I would go out to a year. But yeah. It's definitely a tough one to be a part of. Yeah.

I think the solution for me is, and I've never done this because being a one-stop, one-person shop, Um, You don't have much time for business development, but this will be a fundamental part of business development is. You should continually come up with new solution for your clients while you take care of the operations but It's still the Brahma as a one person. Team. I think it is not possible. I've never seen it working.

If you are the person that consults, offers solution, and does the work, you're in trouble. You're going to end up becoming just muscle. But if the operations are taken care of by someone else that is not you, and you could do this behind the curtain, right? But you always have to appear in front of the client as the consultant and not as the guy doing the job. Which is, again, this is something I took pride, it's hard to kind of come to terms with it because I take pride in the fact that I am the operation and I love the work.

but I realized that it doesn't really work. with most clients, you lose authority because you're the one doing the actual work. I guess at a certain point you kind of, borderline are an artist and at that point you're hired for the work that only you can produce I'm not at the level you are probably will never be Um, Yeah, it's a real tough thing to balance between all of those.

And, you know, that's where I'm at right now. It's why when I have the opportunity, I am asking for... C-suite level positions. Even at the fractional level, if I'm hired on as a fractional CMO, to take care of branding and to take care of marketing. I have That little title, right, that sits in the... It's like a little bug sits in the back of their head that... They can't really push me around too much.

They're just like, well, we did hire this person as that fractional CMO. role so like who are we to second guess but to be fair it still sneaks in right it still sneaks in no matter What company? And who the team members are, it sneaks in there because you are the doer of that. And, you know, for one of my clients, I am a fractional CMO. but I'm also the doer of at least the very first round of everything under the marketing umbrella.

So that invites feedback because I'm the doer. That's feedback all the time. Yeah, and the owner of the company still sees me as that CMO role, but the rest of the team sneaks in there and kind of pokes at it a little bit. And I just have to remind them that's not my role. And then it becomes managing people and then you're no longer creative because you're managing people. It's just a whole giant mess, but.

I do like selling packages. That's one of my favorite things. You're going to get strategy. I call it my foundation. Strategy, messaging, visual identity, and your first website. That's my package. That's kind of the thing that I like to sell the most. There's deliverables. It's termed. I get my rate that I'm asking for, and then we're done. And then if you would like more, we can start another engagement from there.

That's kind of the closest to the sweet spot that I can find.

Yes, it's the same for me. And I'm... I do work on a retainer basis for a few clients, but I'm not in love anymore with the model as I used to be. Yeah. Because... I mean, it's a matter of what you want. And if you want to... Relax, like if you think like you've arrived, or you have other things, or you care about work-life balance. stop stop me then Yeah, I like to say this, you know, as a freelancer, there's no work life, there's only Work or life.

It depends on how you use it. So... About where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. So the retainer model is great. If you want to relax, you feel good as to where you are, you want to settle down for a while, then yeah, the retainer model is great. You're going to make a lot of money. And because of the same effect that we're talking about, your job will become easier. over time yeah because as as your job becomes you know just doing whatever you're told and if you position yourself as a consultant in the beginning you are making consultant money doing junior designer work which is wow if you know financially it's like jackpot right yeah yeah uh get get three or four clients like that and you're you know wow like you're styling man you made it right um But it's a model that...

Yeah, I ran for a couple of years and then it made me complacent. It made me lose love for my job and it isolated me. Um, I didn't... In the end, it was a net negative for me. So I'm not in love with the model anymore. I do still do some work in that fashion, but I work with people that are teaching me stuff... teaching me how to, you know, I put my standards even higher. They challenged me to do great design.

So it's in that sense, I will still do it in the right conditions. But in light of what I want to do now, yeah, you need new clients, new projects. things cycling relatively fast. Yeah.

It seems like you're starting to hit this sweet spot. working with Jose a lot more. Like, it seems like that... From what you're saying, it sounds like it's a really nice fit.

Yes, yes. Yeah, we're working a lot with Jose. We're working with the local foundation here in Panama that he's directing right now. We did some client work within the community that you've seen or we will talk about soon because the project is about to wrap up now and so we can talk about it in the community. Jose has recently relaunched Core. I kind of supported him with it. Yeah, we're doing a lot of work together, hopefully more to come.

And hopefully we'll bring a lot into the community in the future.

That's awesome.

Because that's the point of it, really. Yeah.

I think you and I could work together really well, Felice. I think... I've been thinking a lot about it. I mean, Mauro is a great designer. You're a great designer. There's a few other folks in the community that are great. And I've been trying to figure out how... I can be a little bit more collaborative and that, I mean, to be fair, as most freelancers or solopreneurs are, Times it's feast and famine right times are good times are bad and this has been my first year back So it's been a hard thing to do and the bills don't stop coming.

I got to dig out a little bit and get some headspace and some clarity and then hopefully pull it all together and involve some of the fine folks in the community.

Yeah. Yeah, I think I got to the realization pretty late. But I got to the realization that everything, everything in business comes down to lead generation. Yeah. Everything. Everything. And I liked to run my business like that's not the case. You know, you could just wait for a friend to... recommend you, which is how I've been doing it for 15 years has been great. But then Again, for the next phase of my life, it's not enough anymore.

I need to be out there. I need to put my face out there. And the community has been a great push for me and a great inspiration, like you on the podcast and us going live once a week. I've always been... I've never-it just inspired me into finding finally the content format that works for me. And that's how I'm putting content out right now. And I have big expectations. And so, I mean, now I'm all in on lead generation.

This is what I will be focusing on for the entire year. Like I'm creating content now. Something is coming out of it. Like the LinkedIn strategy that I have is working.

Yeah, I want to know about that if you've got some time to just talk through it. Because I've been... I don't know why I did it this way. Maybe because I'm... Instagram is like the thing that I have. I don't Facebook. I didn't do any LinkedIn. Right. So I was like, oh, put it on Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, all this stuff. Right. I'm kind of dovetailing on what you were talking about. The content that fits for me is this.

long-form Podcast conversations that twist and turn and we can uncover a bunch of things, you know, talking head stuff, me telling what the top five. steps for I don't know. It's not my thing. But LinkedIn is one of those areas that I know is probably a great place for lead gen. But every time I go on to LinkedIn, it feels like nothing. Facebook is now to me. It feels like there's just a bunch of starving artists bitching about stuff.

There's this whole segment of folks who are like, oh, I got a new job. Oh, I got fired from a job.

Oh, I got a new job.

And I'm like, what is this fucking place? What is LinkedIn? And so... Hearing you have some success in LinkedIn and posting a few things, I'm curious about what that whole strategy looks like for you.

So we should put it into perspective because this is something that I installed pretty fresh, but the signals are good. And I hope we can come back to another episode in six months and I can tell you, I can give you numbers.

You betcha.

Um, So this thing that you just said about LinkedIn, I see two great things about it. First, your friends are not on LinkedIn. So you're going to go there and put your underwear on your head. Nobody's going to ever know. Right, right, right. And number two is it's very easy to cut through the slop that LinkedIn is flooded with because most content on LinkedIn is just cringe, mediocre. And now all AI regurgitated stuff, It's not this, but it's this, you know, just classic AI phrasing in everything, weird emojis, totally.

So the way I'm seeing it, this is great because here it's very easy to cut through the noise. Um... And I had this instinct for a long time, having wanted to create content on LinkedIn, build a personal brand. With personal brand, just be there, put your face out there all the time so that people can see you all the time. Um Here's what I think. Here's what my strategy boy has done, too. Do great work.

with people that are aligned with who you want to work with. so that they are likely to be connected with people that are similar to them. So other people that you're likely want to work with. Do great work for them, treat them right, give the best service, make the best work. And then number two is be present everywhere all the time so that people don't need to remember you, don't need to know you, they have you in their face all the time.

And this goes back to how can you become famous into a small pond as it is affordable to you. And LinkedIn is great because you can connect with people and your content will be on their feeds if they connect with you. A small percentage of them, of course. of your audience is a good indicator of how many people will see your content and contrary to other platform where people had to follow you on linkedin you can send a connection request and if they accept the connection request there's a opportunity to your content to show on their feed so my strategy is My strategy is threefold.

I use all my connection requests every week. You have around 200 and I get half of them or slightly under half of them accepted every week. Number two, I send a follow-up message to all the people that accept my connection request. And now that I have... content it's easy to you don't have to be cringe like hey this is me I do this if you ever need something yeah I can just I connect to them and I say hey this is what I'm doing on LinkedIn I publish this kind of content I hope you find it useful Uh...

I'm looking forward to staying in touch. Bye. Interesting. And then the third thing is creating content. You need to be on the feed every day. A small percentage of people will see your content. I heard from some people say that people need to see you 11 times on social media before they remember you. All right. Tell me about it. I'm not familiar with the film.

Finish and I'll talk to you about it.

All right. So that's the strategy that I've been applying. my biggest problem has not been Oh, sending connection requests on LinkedIn. I've been doing that for months. Or sending the follow-up message was that, how do I create content? And because, you know, the way you do it is you look around and you say, oh, maybe I should do a carousel talking about what's the difference between brand and branding.

Please, if I see another one of those, I'm going to just cage my eyes out. but But that's what I thought I should be doing. That kind of stuff. Like, oh, here's three steps to differentiate yourselves, et cetera, et cetera. And, um... I just never could bring myself to do it. I can never bring myself to go out there, step on a podium and scream into the void all the great things, all the valuable things that I learned in my career, right?

Um...

That's what I'm doing right now, and I don't like it. Why?

Oh, you're doing it on social media, man?

Yeah, I'm just screaming into the void, into the vast darkness of Instagram, and I don't like it. And I knew that Instagram wasn't the right platform for it, but... I'm doing it for a different reason. I'm doing it for the repetitions. This is my practice zone. And if no one's going to see it on Instagram, great. I can practice. I can throw it out there. I can play with designs. I can play with messaging and frameworks and formats and things like that.

And it's. probably not the right way, but that's what I'm doing. So I'm just saying that I hear you in that department. It's not a fun thing to do.

And really the point is, Does it work? Does it align with your values and does it work? Otherwise, why are you even doing it? If it doesn't align with your values, you've been unethical. And if it's not working, why are you even bothering? Right? Yeah. The solution I found for me is I didn't want to do that. Maybe it would have worked. Maybe I could have joined an engagement pod and become a LinkedIn personality fueled by fake likes and stuff.

And maybe it would have been even kind of efficient. That does not align with my values. I don't even know if it works. I'm not interested because it doesn't align with my values. Um... And the point of does it work? And maybe there's a third thing. Do you enjoy yourself while doing it? Because you can only just fustigate yourself for so long before you're done with it. And I wanted to do something that I enjoyed, that I found fun.

And it didn't take me a long time because I don't want to be a content producer. I don't want to be an influencer. I don't want to be editing videos, creating content, taking selfies with a crew so that I can look like I'm smarter than I am. And you know on LinkedIn, I don't know if you've seen those pieces with some kind of blend. take away. Yeah. Um, just, just, just, just, tangential to business in some way and then there's like super clean and fancy pictures that they added to it.

Like it makes, I don't understand what that does, but it seems to work for some people. So the way I solved it for me, and I had an intuition, And my intuition was that I listened to a lot of-no, I don't listen to a lot of podcasts. I listen to my friends' podcasts. And I listen to some industry podcasts. I noticed that in our industry, there is a lot of navel-gazing. Um, because I understand like why all of us started in this profession because as we were creative, creatives from a young age, and nobody understood us.

We just wanted to lock ourselves into a room and do our thing and nobody to bother us while we were doing it. And if we could make a living, well, otherwise we would have starved. But as long as nobody would bother us and we could do whatever we wanted to do. Um... And I was... the same. I am the same. But, you know, in That's it. Again, I work with my clients. I love my clients. I respect them. I'm curious about them.

And then I noticed that in our industry, nobody's going on there to talk to them. Why? Like we are keeping them out of our conversation. We meet and we talk about the future of design, the future of AI, the value of design, the value of a creative partner, We talk about how much money I make, how much money you make, how much money should the project cost. Nobody is going out there and asking the people that are financing all this, like the people that are making it rain.

Like, what is going on? Like, I could not find anyone Transparently sharing information about what's going on with the clients. What are they thinking? What are they saying? Do they have a designer on the team or do they not have a designer on the team? Did they hire an agency to do their branding or did they hire a freelancer? Are they planning to hire? Are they replacing their designers with AI or are they empowering their designers with AI?

What does a small bootstrap business, What's a small bootstrap business ready to invest in design? And what's a 50 people, 100 people company investing in design each year? What's the size of an engagement for a 100 people company? How many people work in the agencies that they hire? How much money do they spend on their branding? These are questions that any business owner, it's probably public information if you dig deep enough, but any business owner will be happy to talk about.

It's their life. They're proud. They're proud of saying, this is how Mm-hmm. So I thought maybe I could So I thought, let me go out there and ask. I want to learn about these things, me in the first place. So the conversation that I'm having with these people are conversation that I would have anyway. And the value of the conversation will be invaluable even just for me if I had to park it somewhere, take it as a note and just use it to benchmark my own business against whatever is out there.

But by making it public, it becomes public service because first, And I don't know if designers will ever be interested in what I'm putting out. Probably not. Because we don't talk much about design. That's the thing. And it's scary. If you want to sell a logo, it's scary to know that clients don't really care about the logo. They want to hear you talk about different things, like what they care about is slightly deeper than what the logo looks like, what the brand looks like.

So I'm not sure I will have a design crowd listening to the others, though I think it will be very valuable for them because they will learn what language do people use? What are they aspiring to? What are these people that I'm trying to sell to aspiring to? What language do they use? What are their motivations? What are their budgets? But it's also valuable for entrepreneurs themselves because they can listen to the episode and see what other people that are similar in their situation doing.

So I think I hit something that I'm very passionate about. It takes me one hour to record an episode, another hour to edit four or five clips. And then just because I'm a designer and I like to do it, I spend another hour to do a carousel each week. That's as much as the whole thing. takes me so I managed to find a format that works for me I don't do editing it doesn't look my conversation don't look produced at all I just hit record in a zoom call in a Riverside call yeah then spend some time editing the clips and when you publish on social media I had like one post get to 1,000 something.

But it's not about the number. Every time you publish, it's a party because you're talking to someone that's part of an organization. So it's a way of celebrating what they're doing. The people from their organization join in and they like and comment. So even if it doesn't snowball and doesn't become viral, every post that I put out there, it feels good and it feels valuable. And it, you know, hypes people and it's a good, it's a positive, It's a positive thing that you put out into the world rather than, you know, regurgitating stuff with AI and...

So I'm very happy about that and I have big expectation. Actually, since it's kind of working, Um, Um, And now I'm thinking, all right, so what else can I do now? What would I come up with next? Uh, And if my life could be this, like, wow, talking to people and uncovering opportunities this way, yeah, I'm ready, baby. Yeah.

That's the whole reason that I'm doing this podcast, right? It's the whole purpose of it. And I don't... The thing that frustrates me the most about what I'm doing on Instagram is And I've only posted on LinkedIn a couple of times is that. I get other designers that are like, hell yeah, brother.

Way to, way to, you tell them.

I'm like, no, that's not, I don't want you to listen to this. I don't want you to watch my content. That's not what I'm trying to do. But what I haven't been able to successfully figure out and implement is is what you just said. It's getting that It's getting the client side perspective. And to be fair, every sales conversation we ever have had, like that is the piece that the rest of the world needs to see.

They need to see that sales conversation. The problem is if you try to do that Or record it or make content out of a sales conversation. The pressure is on because it is a sales conversation. And what you're doing so beautifully is having that conversation out of a sales conversation situation. That is a really, really awesome, unique experience. positioning tool And I think that you're going to find a lot of success in that.

And it's something that my old business partner at the agency reminds me all the time. Whenever I go to him and I'm Pissed off.

And I'm like, oh, man, the client.

He's like, Kev, you have to think about what else is going on in their business. What is going on? Put yourself on the client side. How much money do they have? How much money is allocated to this versus that? And what do they value? not just not their company values. What do they value out of that relationship? And so, um, He's a really good person to kind of check me in that frustration zone. Like, oh yeah, you're right.

Not every business... Has the ability to rebrand and then the money to push that brand out there in the world that everybody has the money to just invest in your ideas. And so I love having that perspective pushed back on me. And so I'm just saying to you right now that I think what you're doing is. really It's not only smart, it's kind of a beautiful thing to pull that out, put that in front of people and say, This is what the world is saying.

These are the conversations that are being had. You get to watch them now. They're just not in a high-pressure sales scenario. So I really like what you're doing. That's really, really cool. And then the simple framework. You have the conversation. You edit. You put the clips. You do a carousel on that conversation. That post or that topic, like that's it's simple and it's smart. The other takeaway is that connection thing.

I don't think I realized that's how LinkedIn was structured. I think that's really, really cool. I wanted to circle back really fast, if you're okay with it, on that 7-11-4 idea.

Yes, please.

Because it's a huge concept, and I've been trying to figure out how this thing works. But this is a concept by Daniel Priestley. And... He, I think he has, his company is Dent and Dent is like a entrepreneurial company. coaching program, right? It's fantastic. If you haven't looked it up or seen him, But he came up with the 7-11 rule. Or maybe he's repackaging it. I don't know. He's the person that I have in my mind.

I'm going to have to read... read it because I don't remember. But it is seven hours.

In order for somebody to know, like, and trust you, they have to spend seven hours with you or your brand, have 11 interactions or touch points.

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