Kaffeen Espresso | Supercharged Agency New Business & Marketing
A podcast series from Charlotte Ellis Maldari, founder of Kaffeen, a new business and marketing consultancy for creative agencies. In short, Charlotte keeps your studio busy. Each episode, Charlotte interviews an expert in their field, takes listener questions and peruses topics of industry interest. This is a show that’ll inspire you to kick start your agency growth and generally to make creative agency sales and marketing feel more manageable and less grubby.
Kaffeen Espresso | Supercharged Agency New Business & Marketing
Demystifying M&A for Agencies: Value, Emotions, and the Key to Successful Exits with Jonathan Baker, of Punctuation
In this episode of Kaffeen Espresso, we’re joined by Jonathan Baker, head of the M&A practice at Punctuation and a former craft brewery owner. Jonathan shares invaluable insights on firm valuation, the emotional complexities of the M&A process, and why deal terms often matter more than valuation.
As an expert in helping small- to mid-sized marketing services firms navigate acquisitions, Jonathan unpacks what agency owners should focus on to make their businesses sellable and scalable. Whether you’re considering a future sale, planning succession, or just curious about how to increase your agency’s value, this episode is packed with actionable advice.
What You’ll Learn:
- How buyers assess agency value (and what surprises most sellers).
- The critical importance of deal terms over valuation alone.
- Why agency founders need to focus on reducing their reliance on the business.
- The role of inbound marketing in boosting firm value.
- Navigating the emotional toll of selling a business and separating personal identity from the agency.
Resources & Links:
- Visit Punctuation’s website: punctuation.com
- Check out Punctuation’s insights: punctuation.com/insights
P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here are four ways I can help you attract more high-value clients—without the hustle:
📚 Start with my free book
Join 3,000+ service providers and agency owners who’ve downloaded Client Magnet: 97 Proven Strategies and Tactics to Attract New Business and Scale Your Creative Agency Revenue.
(It’s written for agencies, but packed with advice any service provider can use.)
👉 Grab it free: https://kaffeen.co/book
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A done-for-you lead generation system that brings in high-quality leads from LinkedIn—no content, cold calls, or awkward DMs required.
We’ll build it, set it up, and show you how to run it in under 30 minutes a day.
👉 Learn more: https://kaffeen.co/llo
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Hi and welcome to today's episode of the Kaffeen Espresso podcast. today we welcome Jonathan Baker, who's the head of the M& A practice at Punctuation, which is a consultancy specializing in small to mid sized marketing services firms. he's an Emory University graduate and a former craft brewery owner. My husband would have a lot to chat about with you on that front, I'm sure. And Jonathan sheds light on crucial aspects like how buyers determine firm value, the emotional toll. During the M& A process and the significance of deal term terms over valuation. I'm really excited for you to join us as we navigate the intricate world of firm valuation and strategic decision making, which I know are on the minds of a lot of the people listening today who overwhelmingly are agency leaders. So welcome Jonathan.
Jonathan Baker:Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:So I've not met Jonathan before, apart from on our pre chat before we recorded, but I'm a huge fan of his colleague's work over at Punctuation. I've got a couple of David C Baker books knocking around. I don't actually have one on my desktop right now. And He's somebody I followed throughout my career, as well as Blair Enns, who, of course, is his co co host on the Two Bobs podcast, which I'm sure many of our listeners would also be familiar with. So it's an honor to be speaking to somebody over at Punctuation. So can you tell us a bit more about your journey and what led you to your current role at Punctuation, Jonathan? I really want to hear more about the the steer from Craft Brewery into M& A.
Jonathan Baker:Yeah steep left turn. So I started my career doing marketing strategy consulting and then left in 2011 to start a brewery, Monday Night Brewing based in Atlanta. We grew that up. I have two business partners there actually still own it, but I'm not running it. So two business partners running the day to day. And we went through the M& A process. We were approached. A while back at this point, went through the whole process ended up getting left at the altar. But that experience really piqued my interest in MNA and it was a lot more. I think squishy and subjective than I was expecting it to be and I saw an opportunity to jump on board with my father, David C. Baker, to help other agency owners. help navigate the process as well. About five years now ago I pivoted to start to build out and put a little bit more rigor behind our M&A practice at punctuation.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:I have also been through that process, albeit on a very small scale and not within an agency When I left agency world initially, I set up a consumer facing business, probably the first and last time I'll ever do that, definitely a B2B person. It turns out, but yeah I actually sold my firm that I founded like a week before I gave birth to my first child. Talk about a hard deadline, but it was yeah, it was a really interesting process and it helped me to appreciate when I set up my next business, just what metrics are important because I feel like as business owners, if you've not been through that process before, there are certain things we have in mind that we think are going to be important and valuable. And actually when it comes down to it, It's a whole set of other metrics. it's interesting to start another business after having been through it was not a big sell by any stretch of the imagination, but having been through that process and just looking at it through a different lens. Yeah really excited to have this chat today. So taking a step back from before. I guess before your involvement at Punctuation, what inspired Punctuation's focus on independent agencies and how has this shaped your approach? I'm curious because this is also what we tend to focus on here at Kaffeen.
Jonathan Baker:Yeah, it was a pretty honest way in. My father owned an independent agency in the mid 90s and recognized that at the time there really weren't a lot of smart. Voices speaking to the owners of those firms. he wanted to, be that voice. And so starting in the late nineties, started up a practice and wasn't necessarily focused on marketing firms at the beginning, right? You're just trying to take whatever work you can get, but over time was able to narrow focus and now I think is really, well known in the space.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Yeah, absolutely. Very much when I became a marketing director at a agency first time, which was back in 2011, the very beginning of 2011, there were only a couple of names on my radar. people who were supporting agencies that, and who I went along to listen to speak when they came to the UK. So yeah, certainly resonate with the fact that there wasn't a lot of support around early days. But yeah, that's it's interesting to see that you've I guess Tighten the grip on independent agencies. That sounds awful when I say it like that, but really focusing and niching down knowing what your specialism is and being able to lean into that is a massive asset for my clients, when we're helping them to focus on one particular area and speak to the challenges of their clients. So for independent agency owners who are considering M& A, what are the key factors to be M& A ready in your opinion?
Jonathan Baker:It depends on where you're starting from, right? But I would say some of the key things that we help agencies think through is cleaning up your financials and making sure that they're presented in the right way and that you also are separating business and personal to the extent possible.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:That's a challenge.
Jonathan Baker:It can be, because there are tax advantages sometimes to running personal through the business. Positioning is certainly an area of focus because the tighter the positioning, usually the higher the value of the firm, or at least the higher the multiple given a similar size firm. We want agency owners to pay themselves a market rate. That's something that we often have conversations around. And, there's really good reasons why you should start doing that now if you're not. And, I think the last thing I'll mention is just reliance on the founder can be a big concern, particularly for smaller firms. And how have you demonstrated that the firm is not reliant on you? Do you have business development processes in place? Do you have, other people doing some of this work? Cause otherwise you're gonna either scare buyers away or set yourself up for a low ball offer.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Yeah. in the chat prior to this recording talked about, I know I talked about at least that this is really fascinating moment for me when I've spent my entire career working with agencies apart from that blip with the consumer facing business. it's always fascinating to me that the money is In the the imagination of your design team, come from a particular design, particularly design focus background, and the relationships that the senior leaders have and the rapport that they have. And really it, apart from the Macs and the MacBook pros that are sat on desks, that is almost the beginning and the end of it, as far as I can see, like so much of it is wrapped up in who your team is and what the rapport is and how much you're creative team get the client briefs. And I find that a really fascinating thing. Often we talk about the magic that a creative agency brings to a brief. And that being the difference between a successful project or not. when clients typically are coming to me, it's either when they're thinking about growing, or they are thinking about succession planning and how to extricate the lead personality in the business from the business, from their client's perception of that separation you're talking about. I find that is often a real struggle because so much of the ego is tied up in it as well, so who they've been for so long, then trying to remove himself from that to get a good sale price is exceptionally difficult on an emotional and mental health level. What advice would you give to leaders who are transitioning their agencies to maybe management buyout, or maybe they're looking to be acquired. especially those who have kind of founder led branding, as we know many agencies actually, the literal name of the agency Are the surnames of the people who founded it. And that's not an uncommon scenario. Do you have any advice in that situation?
Jonathan Baker:Yeah, I think first there's a misconception that in order to be the most sellable, you need to be the most withdrawn from your firm and that is not the case like we, we don't want the founder completely out of the business. We want the founder focused on the things that a founder should be focused on, which is, the strategic direction of the firm high level financials and business development and sales. Those are usually the main things. And Part of it is just making sure that they are putting systems in place in order to be able to scale the agency. And I think regardless of the industry, scale requires the founders giving up control, right? So that's not unique to marketing services. And buyers are looking for founders who are willing to give up that control. So that They can achieve some scale. You're right about the personal nature of this, right? Like it's your baby in a lot of ways. And I don't necessarily have specific advice there because it really is so dependent on the person and their personality and how much they're, Their self identity might be tied up in the business. Yeah. We try to coach folks, don't tie your personal identity up in the business, right? That's just what you do. But who are you?
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Easier said than done. Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan Baker:What? Get a hobby. I don't know.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Yeah. Absolutely. I'll get a therapist. I've won all the other ones.
Jonathan Baker:Yeah, and we function as therapists throughout the process. That's our role in a lot of ways because there's really no one else that's understands what you're going through and can talk through it with you.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:It's counsel.
Jonathan Baker:Yes.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Okay. And we talked about, you talked in you touched very briefly upon the fact that you should sorry, I'm going to be paraphrasing now, but that you would think about scaling your business. be intentional about it shore up relationships with existing clients and ensure that you're attracting clients. people on an ongoing basis to your firm. Do you have any tips on how to ensure that agencies are building long term value to attract potential buyers aside from potential clients?
Jonathan Baker:A lot of the things that make a business more sellable are the same things that make a business well run. And so if you're building a well run business for the future in all likelihood, you're building a sellable business. So if you go through the thought exercise of, if I went through, if I want this business to be here in a hundred years, what do I need to do now in order to help inch my way towards that? We, you mentioned founder led brands and. We do at times recommend name changes. If you're far enough away from an exit that can make things a little bit easier. And even if it's not, it might be mostly symbolic, but just saying that the founder is not everything and not everything is completely integral to this thing, and it's not going to fall apart if the founder leaves.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:You just mentioned, being far enough out from a potential exit. what stage should people start seeking counsel around this? It doesn't sound like it's when you're ready to retire, It sounds like it's more worthwhile and profitable to be considering this well in advance. You can give me an idea of the timeframe, what that looks like in an ideal scenario.
Jonathan Baker:Yeah, so first you got to recognize that most of these deals involve some sort of earn out and so you're going to be required to stick around for two to three years afterwards, To get the full value. factor that two to three years in and then back up another two to three years. we like working with firms, two or three years away beyond that. the future is a little hard to predict, But two to three years still gives you enough runway to show some positive results. and make decisions that will show up when you start to sell your business.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:one of the things that we did talk about in our conversation in advance was about inbound marketing. I love the inbound marketing strategy that Punctuation itself has, but you talked about it through the sense of your agency clients. can you give me an idea of what kind of role that plays in making an agency more sellable?
Jonathan Baker:Having a strong inbound marketing plan is a signal to buyers that Sales is not reliant on the relationships of the founder, for one. Two, it also makes things and smooths out areas where you might have, slight downturns in revenue. Having an inbound plan in place can help speed up a recovery. And it also just gives buyers confidence that the business is paying off. being well run, that it's process minded, and that there are multiple people have their hands in sales effectively. the more people that have their hands in sales the less risky the investment looks
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Yeah, absolutely. To me, having an inbound marketing strategy feels like an insurance policy. It feels like something that you've got running in the background consistently, and you can always pull the lever of outbound when you need to top up. That's right. it doesn't feel like that from my experience to a lot of people. it's interesting industry to industry and we're increasingly being referred work outside of creative agency world Where people seem a little more open to inbound marketing, in the past, I've heard and it's what I recommend, And it's what we do as well. So I'm not knocking it at all. some people feel like it's desperate to be doing their own marketing, to be talking talking not about themselves, but about themselves. Just going out there and doing stuff. They're like if we were busy, we wouldn't need to do this. So isn't this an indicator that we are not busy enough and need to get more work in. I'm like if we consider the alternative, which is you literally don't have any work and you're having to call people for referrals, What is preferable? Is it not better that you have that as a last resort? I don't know how you've experienced this year, but what I've seen is a lot of people coming to Kaffeen to chat because they've always depended on referrals, and this year referrals have dried up. It's been a big trend from the start of the year. with referrals drying up and new business from existing clients slowing down, people who wouldn't have considered an inbound marketing strategy before reconsidering that. Because they see the benefit of it. Now, this is not really a question, it's just an opportunity for me to rant because the irony is that the best time to start an inbound marketing strategy that actually brings you revenue is like a year ago, right? Or longer. It's a bit like, when's the best time to build a tree, to plant a tree. So yeah, I guess my next question was going to be how do you or how do you recommend effectively balancing inbound and outbound strategies outbound being the levers we pull when we need clients pretty directly and we need to just go and ask for it particularly for high ticket creative services we're not talking here about things that cost a grand we're talking about£40k To millions per project, what does that look like to you? Do you have any recommendations?
Jonathan Baker:Yeah. You hit the nail on the head, but one of the challenges that these are high ticket items. And so outbound. You might get a lead in, but you're not going to be able to convert that lead immediately, at least for any considerable amount of money. The thing about inbound is it allows you to have a conversation and a relationship with a prospect over time. they get to know you, they do their screening as time goes on. And it shortens that sales cycle when they're ready to buy, right? I think that inbound needs to be something that you make a certain amount of time for consistently. And if you're not doing it consistently, it's not going to work. Outbound, you're right, can you can, Spike it up, spike it down like you invest money in it or don't as necessary, but it really needs to be on a strong foundation of inbound cause those outbound folks also are going to hopefully convert to, inbound. When we are doing outbound marketing, we're pushing folks to sign up for our inbound marketing, like our newsletter lists, our podcasts, our books. So it all leads back to building the lists that we own and have some sort of control over.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Yeah, absolutely. do you see any misconceptions around inbound marketing amongst agency owners? And before you answer, I just want to proffer one that I've got. I see two of the most successful tools for inbound for agencies being podcast hosting and writing a book, even a very slim tone, but something that puts your stamp of authority, it makes it easier to get the seal of approval from prospective clients To self select if they decide to work with you, they've already got an idea of your personality, your views, you are less likely to be in a pitch scenario. What I find is that often people think they're not qualified to do either of those things yet. people are paying you to do this thing. And in a specific service with a specific industry. They are paying you to be an expert. So what makes you think that other people with similar needs don't want to hear your expertise as well? that's my beef about the biggest common misconception around inbound marketing that I see. Do you have any other misconceptions that you see amongst agencies when they're approaching inbound marketing?
Jonathan Baker:imposter syndrome is real. Everyone faces it to some degree, but there's a lot of value and expertise to be gained in doing the thing, right? just writing the book, you're going to be learning and becoming an expert, just hosting the podcast. You're going to be talking to really interesting folks like me and learning as you go. those are two very effective tools. One thing that we steer our clients towards are inbound tools that match up well with their personalities because for inbound, in order to be effective. it has to be an ongoing thing and a founder is not going to do an ongoing thing if they hate it. it has to be something like do they like writing, do they like speaking, do they like being in front of large groups, do they like more one on one type scenarios? You can weigh all that to figure out what's the best sum of inbound ideas for a particular personality.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Yeah, absolutely. the reason I mentioned podcast and book is I know book you automatically think actually the way we do it when we work with clients to write a book is to interview them prepare questions and chat through. then the transcript of that conversation becomes almost the first draft that we edit down. a lot of it is around conversation and a lot of agency owners, I find much more inclined to speak than they are to And especially in a contained environment, not on a stage that's not for everybody. But have a kind of direct one to one conversation rather than put pen to paper. So that's typically why we end up going down that route with clients, but completely agree it has to be based on the personality type. Otherwise you're going to avoid it and
Jonathan Baker:The
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:word that keeps coming up for us is consistency. If you're inbound marketing to work, you need to be consistent. You need to consistently be showing up regardless of whether you're feeling like it or not. And, being prepared in advance for the busy times, doing things in batches, et cetera. you mentioned a couple of other things that about imposter syndrome and my next couple of questions we're going to be around The difference between working with US and UK agencies, but before I get into that, because imposter syndrome I can say as a British person is, it is definitely an issue for a lot more people I feel on this small isle than it is in the US. From my experience of working with clients, but also just want to say, I also really admire people who speak up about the impact on, their mental health, Putting themselves outside of their comfort zone, going beyond that imposter syndrome. And I have to say, kudos to DCB, your dad, because that is part of his message. When I listened to him speak and when I read his books, his vulnerability and openness about his experiences in terms of mental health have a massive impact on me. it feels like a more inclusive environment because it's hard to stand up and show up. It's really easy to criticize and a lot of agencies with this constant struggle, because so much of the work that we produce as creative agencies is open to subjective opinions and there's a lot of. Throwing of stones from glass houses, this is the reason that a lot of people in my experience, don't show up, don't create content, don't do the more kind of inbound y, attracting stuff. Because they're like it's about their peers and what their peers are going to think, rather than what their actual clients are going to think.
Jonathan Baker:for
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:me, a big shift Is the focus from what our peers think to caring about our clients, caring about the people that actually give us money thinking about.
Jonathan Baker:You Brits over there don't focus enough on that part.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. I'm reading an amazing book at the moment. That's another business leader recommended actually. It's called The First Rule of Mastery and it's published by the Harvard Business Press, the subtitle is How to Stop Caring About Other People's Opinions. And the whole concept of FOPO. you can take the dust jacket off and you can go on the tube and everyone's Ooh, she's reading something from the Harvard Business Press. But actually it's about, I love that they've published that. It's about the recognition of the fact that the first rule of becoming a leader in your field of becoming better at your job is overcoming this fear of other people's opinions to a healthy degree, not to the megalomaniac degree, but, being able to do the thing and stay in your lane,
Jonathan Baker:And learn as you go.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Yeah, absolutely. So anyhow, moving on to U S and UK dynamics, and I don't want to put you on the spot here, but I'm really fascinated because you work with People on both continents agencies on both continents. And I wanted to hear from your perspective, what the major differences are between the two markets regarding pricing client expectations and business culture beyond the imposter syndrome stuff.
Jonathan Baker:I think one of the most tangible differences we see is that agency principals in the UK don't pay themselves nearly as much as what agency principals in the U. S. pay themselves. And staff salaries are relatively even, but it's just what you pay yourself. About 20 percent is what we've found. I think what drives a lot of the other differences is really the client pool. So in the U. S., you've got a different economy, right? You've got this huge tech sector. I think generally you've got a little bit more acceptance of business risk. And so you've got a really strong startup scene and marketing is always needed for startups. And so in terms of the pool of potential. Buyers of the work, the U. S. has a bit of a leg up. It's also just a larger market. And we see UK firms trying to tap into that market a lot. And I think if you're focused only on the UK, it can be really easy to compete on price or to not, make big bets to not niche down like maybe you should. niching down usually means, You're going to have to find some international clients.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Yep.
Jonathan Baker:So yeah, that's
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:No, I thought about five follow up questions I wanted to ask you, but I didn't want to put you on the spot about the US versus the UK, I am really curious about exploring pricing a bit more. One of the things that I'm conscious of is the difference between, pricing models that reflect the value that the agency provides to the client versus the UK. the majority of agencies I think would say that they've evolved beyond time based billing, but the reality is quite different. they may not be sending timesheets across to clients, but certainly in terms of the internal pricing, they're thinking about how long it's going to take when they quote a client, rather than what value it's likely to bring that client. Can you speak to that Do you have any recommendations
Jonathan Baker:Yeah, You're right that people are still building quotes based on hours, but I don't think that in and of itself is bad. What is bad is if you're not getting paid for all the hours you are putting into A client or a project. we'll see firms building out their estimate, but then giving the client way more hours because they want to be good people or are very bad at estimating. This chronic over servicing of clients can get you in trouble. Even if you have a high hourly rate, the first step is to Make sure you're capturing all the hours that you are saying you're working and make sure that you're estimating correctly And then you can start inching up your hourly rates, and then maybe you start moving to more of a value based pricing model, but that is, light years ahead where most folks need to be, I would say. You really need to be focused on getting paid for the work you're doing first.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:And to me, this is inextricably linked with imposter syndrome and the FOPO, the fear of other people's opinions wanting to please rather than just get the job done. But at least that's what I see when I'm working with people. it's interesting because I think you're not going to solve that problem with just a logical solution. I think it needs to address the emotional side of it as well for the people that is relevant to do you have to do that with your firm much? how do you address that when that comes up?
Jonathan Baker:Yeah, we do all the time. And it is personality specific sometimes if we're getting the right signals, we might give them a real kick in the pants. Sometimes we might be a little bit softer about it and try to use data. a lot of times these business owners actually know this stuff. They just don't necessarily want to believe it or think that there's an easier way to get around it. when they pay us money, they're paying us to tell them stuff they already know, but they just need someone, in authority to solidify it
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Sometimes you just need permission to do it. This is what I found. Okay, great. Then moving on to you, I talked a little bit about your own kind of co podcast that you have between punctuation and when without pitching just blur ends company. I'd be really curious to hear more about this. how has it contributed to your marketing and business development efforts?
Jonathan Baker:The two Bobs podcast is a pretty important kind of leg of the stool in terms of its contribution. But beyond that, Blair and my father just have a really strong personal relationship and respect each other. they would be having those conversations. Maybe they just wouldn't be recorded which is what makes it fun. we'll go on other people's podcasts as well, which is what I'm doing now. you can get access to different markets that way without having to build them yourself in terms of, where it sits, it's probably number two on our marketing tool list with number one being the weekly newsletter and the blog posts that we create out of those newsletters.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:And you talked about the stall and the legs off. what would the third thing be if we're talking about a milking stall?
Jonathan Baker:For us, it's paid media. we use. LinkedIn marketing and some Google marketing as well.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Okay. Not meta ads.
Jonathan Baker:No, we've experimented, but you mentioned B2C and B2B. we haven't had much luck with B2B on Facebook.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:We should chat about that. there's something that I think would work for you. Podcast related, but we'll do that separately. I was curious because I have a couple of. Your dad's books. Do you feel like they're important? what role do they have? Whether they're attracting people initially, or shoring up relationships with potential clients how does it figure?
Jonathan Baker:books are interesting. They have a lot more longevity than, a podcast episode, the fact that you've written a book is sometimes more important than the content My father loves writing and so part of it is really personality based for him, and it's a way for him to structure his thinking. It could be something that he's just really interested in, doesn't necessarily have a firm point of view until he writes about it. it's important, but more of a long tail kind of important and it's not like we're relying on leads from books. They're more of a way to help prop up some of these other other ways of marketing. I
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:had this experience recently where an agency leader wanted to work with me, but he had to convince his other. And we'd done some light working together in advance, but he wanted to move to something that was going to be much more time and financially intensive for the business. he asked me to write a proposal for this piece of work. And then he said and I queued this up in our last board meeting and I gave everybody a copy of your book and I was like, wow, okay. I never even thought of that scenario for us, it's always been, the beginning of that marketing process, it's been a lead magnet effectively, we would call it. yes, it is available commercially to purchase, but for us, it's been something we've given away to people that we'd like to introduce ourselves to and build some goodwill with initially. hopefully it will lead to something. I definitely think that is underlining the point It's the fact you've written something. It's less about the content. Although, it doesn't feel like that when you're writing it, it's not like you're just putting any fluff in it. the fact that you've taken the time to do it, and the fact that it even exists physically is normally like it is that kind of like stamp of authority that you've done it. Even if it's self published or whatever else, you've gone to the lengths to do something. It's interesting the impact it has and not necessarily something that I'd anticipated in advance. what are the most common challenges that independent agencies face in their growth journeys and how do you address them? So I guess I'm thinking about before they even come into contact with you, which would be the, two to three years before they want to retire fully and then two to three years further when they're starting to consult with you about how to make themselves more sellable. are there any other challenges that they face in their growth journeys? And do you have advice on how to address them?
Jonathan Baker:I think the challenges are tied to themselves. And you have to, first get out of your own way. We see a lot of folks that are too focused on building the right culture and not as focused on building the right firm. they can end up accidentally building a poor culture coddling employees or giving them too much grace, letting them stick around for too long, instead of building a team with a specific goal, which is to do great work for clients and make money. And so trying to. Get people into the right mindset of, it's okay to build accountability with your team. It's okay to put structure in place and, require things. we're also okay with firms that are, still clinging to the brick and mortar idea of, in person collaboration, Everyone's going remote, but. I don't think that's the right move for everyone. So we're okay making that a part of how you manage. as long as you are not, consistently writing checks to prop up the business, it can be easy to ignore the financial side of things, particularly if you are a creative you're doing yourself a disservice if you're not educating yourself about the finances of the business, catching something now can mean saving lots of money in the long run. engaging with the parts of the business that you know are important but aren't as fun early on is really important.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:I have a lot of thoughts about this. One of them was, I interviewed somebody recently for the podcast who works, he used to be agency side and he's a strategist who now works directly with clients. He said I don't think that many business leaders, CEOs realize they need to be spending about 70 to 75 percent of their time selling. certainly not the CEOs or managing directors of most design agencies They usually start a business because they want to do more of the creativity, not more of the business stuff. They've had very little exposure to that. They just don't want to be creatively censored anymore. So they start a business and then they're wearing about 30 other hats and they've got even less time for creativity. I do some guest lecturing at universities because so many people are leaving with a degree and saying, I just want to sit at my own practice. I don't want to work for anybody else. I'm aware that they're leaving with zero business skills, like zero understanding of What it takes to attract and win clients for a creative agency. they're going into the world with none of this experience. So we do an intensive session where we give them the advice around that. Part of that is go get at least five years in another agency before you decide to do this. But. my experience is that it's not just about knowing the stuff. It's also about, coming back to identity again. I think so this, for me, this is fascinating. So much of this stuff is tied up with with the ego and the mental and emotional side of it. if you identify as a creative, you naturally, I've seen people avoid the skills that are more business focused. they're not thinking about, they don't have their eyes on the prize I hear what you're talking about with the over catering to your workforce and ending up with further complications, under the guise of creating a great culture. I think that has been a big challenge over the last four years, at least with hosting in the UK. partially because of the great resignation and partially because, you spoke about bricks and mortar versus digital. many employees now have the option of working anywhere because they've got these remote first options. and then there's a generational thing, which I can't really get into because I don't manage anybody of the younger generations, but I hear friends speak to. There's a lot of kind of things have all come together, which make, I think, the industry really right for over catering to staff and losing sight of the bigger mission and goal of the business and what your mission and goal are as an agency leader in terms of what you want your exit to look like. I find that fascinating. And I think there's it's probably Workshop afternoon on how to define like how far you are away from your goal and mission as a business and what you need to do to get back on track. from a culture perspective. So you talked about consistency and you talked about, leaning into the skills that are important. So that you you appreciate and come naturally to you as a business. An agency leader, do you have any other recommendations about being consistent with your agency's marketing efforts, particularly for busy agency leaders, what I hear a lot is we were so busy, we stopped doing that and now we're paying the price for it.
Jonathan Baker:Yeah, I think, the first is practice what you preach. we're telling them to do something consistently, but we have to be doing it ourselves consistently. And then we can speak to how this has helped us through, some of the rougher patches we've had or over time how it builds on each other. When we do our total business reset program, we also do. anonymous interviews of the staff. sometimes we can use staff quotes instead of us saying it to show that consistency matters, Everyone on your team is asking you to spend more time on business development so that we can start getting the right type of clients or projects And that can only happen if you're doing it consistently. And yeah we show don't tell. And then we also. Don't tell with their own staff.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Yeah, interesting. a big thing for us is client listening, listening to not just clients, but prospects and interviewing them independently to understand what they value about the business what challenges they're facing, what they're hoping to address, what their hopes are, dreams are, and fears and challenges, et cetera, and then. I think a lot of people do speak into that in terms of marketing, which makes you come across as some kind of psychic because you're listening to them and then you're repeating things back to them. But but also has the benefit of getting some incredible quotes about the business or a podcast. Objective understanding because it's normally an intermediary having these conversations with clients to understand what is possibly not working that can be course corrected. I personally, I don't know how you find this as a business leader, but I find it really hard getting feedback. But I think it's integral to growth and
Jonathan Baker:It's something you certainly have to get used to. I think most folks who start businesses have confidence or else you wouldn't start the business. it's hard setting that aside intentionally and trying to take feedback to make yourself better. But it's the only way to grow.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Absolutely. Okay. Amazing. I've so enjoyed our chat today, Jonathan. Thank you. I have about 30 sub questions but perhaps for another conversation and really want to thank you for being here. is there any way you want to direct people to who are listening to this, who want to find out more about punctuation?
Jonathan Baker:You can go to our website, punctuation. com. We've got a ton of free content there. You can sign up for our weekly newsletter. You can contact us directly. Bye.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Amazing. I love that you have the dot com for that. I'm currently wrangling over the dot com for my own business.
Jonathan Baker:I get it.
Charlotte Ellis Maldari:Great to speak. Thank you.