Episode Transcript
Monica Pitts 1:14
Hello, again, and welcome back to marketing with purpose. My name is Monica Pitts. And I am I guess I'm your co host today, because I also have with me my trusty sidekick, Stacy brockmeyer. Say hi, Stacy. Hey, friends. Now if you guys have been following along this last year, you know that meet create has been through kind of a journey to reorganize our company. So that way, it really meets our values, both as a team and as individuals. And so we transition to a four day workweek after testing it out in May, right? We started in May, Stacey. Yeah, the beginning of summer, last year, and when he 23. But to do that, that was not just like, Oh, hey, we're just gonna do this, right? Because there was a lot of work that had to go behind the scenes for that to happen. Like, we had to literally change the way we did almost everything so that we could get stuff done faster.
Yeah, it was definitely years in the making. Yeah, cuz we weren't taking a pay cut. That was not it? No, no, no pay cut. So we had to be it. Okay, so let's take a step back. Because there's a number of things that go into web design, right? You have the physical design, you have the development of the site, but then you also have the management of the site. And so then then you have like the sales, and the all the administrative tasks that go with running a business. And I feel like we first started by adjusting the way that we sold things. Would you agree, Stacy? That was years and years ago. So when we first had kids, we said we're not going to go to all the networking events, not doing it. So that was the first process. I would say we changed on our road here.
And then when it came down to it, once again, we're looking at all the things that are sticky all the things that take a lot of time but things that suck our energy that that are not feeling good, you know, right anymore. We were still holding on to that process. And one day I went to Stacey and I was like it account service. It's not right, like the way that we are taking people through this process. It's not right. It can't be read. I don't know how to change it. I don't know what it looks like. But it just it can't be right. You know.
You're on mission and you just need more people to know about it. And whether you're brand new to marketing or a seasoned pro, we are all looking for answers to make marketing decisions with purpose. I'm Monica Pitts, a techie crafty business owner, mom and aerial dancer who solves communication challenges through technology. This podcast is all about digging in and going digital. I'll share my marketing know how and business experience from almost 20 years of misadventures. I'll be your backup dancer. So you can stop doubting, and get moving towards marketing with purpose.
Yes, absolutely. And then we really honed in on how are we going to build people? How are we going to make this easy, not make it a surprise for us or for them.
Stacy Brockmeier 3:13
So I always tell people, I never want to have another conversation about an invoice that they weren't expecting again. So we always tell them upfront, what things are going to cost. So
Monica Pitts 3:25
that I think was the second thing that we really nailed down was because I mean, cuz Stacey did a lot of work on that for like, multiple years, figuring out exactly how to build people and what that cycle looks like and how to do it efficiently. And effectively. That was like a huge cornerstone of any business, but especially ours too.
Stacy Brockmeier 3:48
Yeah, and I think the I mean, the biggest thing was we went from billing people on a range two, billing them just like this is the cost like, it's not up, it's not down, like as long as the scope of work remains the same. This is how much it's gonna cost,
Monica Pitts 4:04
which period that was kind of scary. Because it was very scary, because sometimes it takes you longer than you think it's going to take, but we just had to take a deep breath and realize that most of the time, we're not like under estimating things. We're pretty accurate. And, and just go for it. And our our clients responded super favorably I feel like to that change.
Stacy Brockmeier 4:28
Yeah, I feel like it allows them to make a decision quick, quickly, more quickly than they used to. Because, I mean, sometimes when we estimate it on a range and you're estimating for a bigger project, it can be
Monica Pitts 4:40
a couple $1,000 or one
Stacy Brockmeier 4:43
or sometimes like double, ya know, like the bottom to the top is double. And so I think people are more able to easily make a decision because they know exactly what they're getting into. Yeah, and I think we have to realize that sometimes it goes over and sometimes it goes under budget that is, and it just comes out in the wash.
Monica Pitts 5:05
Well, and I feel like to it, it just people, when we used to tell them that there was a bracket, they would latch on to the smaller number. And then we would have to have all these conversations with them. When we build them, and it was closer to the higher number, even if it wasn't the highest number, because they felt like it should be the lower one. It felt like they wanted to have what they wanted. And they wanted it at the lowest price that they saw. And so it led to more billing conversations that we didn't want to have. That's not how you have a great relationship with your clients. By haggling over numbers. I don't, I just don't feel like that's a good relationship builder myself.
Stacy Brockmeier 5:46
No, and it was almost like a false hope for them. You know, like, that was the number that if everything went absolutely perfectly. We live in the real world, how many things go absolutely perfectly in any situation, that was the number that it would come to. And that was often not a realistic number.
Monica Pitts 6:06
So that was like the second thing that we changed both like the cycle of billing people and how we build people for our services. And then we went through and we changed how we build websites, really, like we developed new ways to get our job done faster by every single moment that we had free time investing in our company. And that was like, what, because we sat down one day, and we were like, You know what? It doesn't make any sense that Tyler, who's our lead developer has to do all of this. This hat like he's so smart. He builds things that our clients can completely administer on their own, why aren't we building something for ourselves that we can administer on our own. It's like we had built it all out for the clients to use. We hadn't built it out for ourselves to be able to do it without Tyler. And so that was I think that was huge. And we were totally cool with all of those changes. Does that make sense? Stacey, like we looked at them all. And we were like, these are challenges. This doesn't make sense. But we held on to our process the entire time, like the process that we use, and the timeline that we use to build out websites. And then when it came down to it, once again, we're looking at all the things that are sticky, all the things that take a lot of time the things that suck our energy that that are not feeling good, you know, right anymore. We were still holding on to that process. And one day I went to Stacey and I was like it account service. It's not right, like the way that we are taking people through this process. It's not right, it can't be right. I don't know how to change it. I don't know what it looks like. But it just it can't be right, you know. And Stacey, you were in the same spot? Didn't you feel the same way?
Stacy Brockmeier 7:55
Yeah, I definitely felt the same way. It was just like
Monica Pitts 7:59
we were getting to the end of these projects, and everybody was exhausted. And it didn't matter how small they were.
Stacy Brockmeier 8:05
Well, and it just wasn't our team that was exhausted, the client was exhausted, you know, they had been on this journey with us for 12 or 16 weeks, which is three or four months, that's the majority of a year. And it just mean to take them from their normal job, because most of the time we work with someone in on a team who does their primary role is not marketing or is not doing this website. So it's an added task for them. And to make them focus on it for three to four months out of a year. It's just exhausting for them and for us.
Monica Pitts 8:41
And we did it that way at first. And it worked really well for a really long time. Having people make small decisions along the way. But then we kept noticing that people were getting stuck, their energy level was getting low. And then it would take like and their interest in the project would get low. And they would change their mind about what they wanted halfway through the project because nobody remembered. And so then we just added more and more and more red tape for ourselves and for our clients to make sure that everybody was on the same page. And it just like felt like it hurt at the end sometimes.
Stacy Brockmeier 9:21
Well, I think it's so sad when you get to the end of this project that everybody's worked hundreds of hours on. And nobody's excited about it. You know, like you're excited for it to be over. But you're not excited for it to be like launched and out into the world.
Monica Pitts 9:37
Yeah, well, because we we talked we've talked so many times about giving our clients the Joanna Gaines experience like at the end with the big reveal, and you walk into the fully staged house and it's perfect. And they're in as little pieces of you all over and everybody's just like super pumped, right? And we tried to create that but You know, by creating basically more red tape for ourselves. So we would have every detail perfect. And then in the end, it still felt a little flat, honestly. Yeah. And so once we started feeling that way, and we realized it was taking us a bunch of time, then we had to go back to this one core process that had stayed in place the entire time, we had been running the company.
Stacy Brockmeier 10:25
And like 16 and a half to 17 years.
Monica Pitts 10:29
And but yeah, figure out what what we could do different.
Stacy Brockmeier 10:35
Scary talk about scary.
Monica Pitts 10:39
So what what did we come up with Stacey?
Stacy Brockmeier 10:43
I mean, ultimately, the biggest thing was to shorten it, make it short, how can we figure that out, which was scary on many levels, because when you shorten a process, that means that you're scheduling less projects at one time. And so for us, like if someone flaked out, we would have this big hole in our calendar,
Monica Pitts 11:06
which is our livelihood, online, meaning like a client,
Stacy Brockmeier 11:09
meaning the client decided that it wasn't the right time to build a website usually is that what it worked out to be? It wasn't, there's never anything bad. But sometimes things happen in other people's lives, that just make them decide that it's not the right time for them. And so that was like, I think my biggest concern into shortening the process was what do we do if someone cancels,
Monica Pitts 11:30
but I remember sitting in my office, and I was like, Stacey, I just I literally can't even remember what because my my job is the art director is I don't like I come in at certain key points in the process, to maintain quality control and make sure that everything is getting done correctly. And by the time I'm done looking over the pages, like that's already been a couple months, and I can't even remember what's in the site anymore, even though I was in the creative meeting. And we understood that it would be hard for our staff to remember. And so we were adding extra meetings. And it was hard for clients to remember. And so we felt like like first and foremost, we felt like, we are really good at getting stuff done efficiently. And if we could do it quickly, then everyone could remember what they were supposed to remember. And we could have less meetings and less red tape and get it done, like
Stacy Brockmeier 12:29
fast. And everyone's still excited about it at the end. Yeah.
Monica Pitts 12:34
And we still remember what it's supposed to be at the end. Yeah.
Stacy Brockmeier 12:42
So the first thing that I did when looking at it was I literally pulled out a Word document, and started to put together a flowchart of how it could work or what like what questions we needed to answer for ourselves, to know if someone even fit into this process.
Monica Pitts 12:59
Because not everyone fits into this process. Let's be real. There's some really big websites, where there's a lot of stuff that goes into them. And they can't just happen in a few weeks, because our process went from three to 400. Our projects, yeah, our process went from three to four months to how many
Stacy Brockmeier 13:20
weeks, three to five weeks, depending on the project. So on a normal project that doesn't have hundreds of hours of programming, we get them done in three to five weeks.
Monica Pitts 13:33
And but there's still, like we just said, there's those five to 600 hour projects that they're just not happening in that timeframe. Yet,
Stacy Brockmeier 13:42
they're usually more like six months. And to be honest, they take a lot longer to even plan to get there. So they may take four weeks to even get all the planning done.
Monica Pitts 13:52
Yeah, there's just so many components to those in so much testing time. And yeah, I can't even imagine that would that'd be a bad plan. Bad plan.
Stacy Brockmeier 14:01
What was super fun in the very beginning, once we decided that shortening the process was the right answer is I had like three clients who I knew would take the leap with us. And I went to them and I was like, Hey, would you consider doing this in this like, new process with us? And they're like, absolutely, that sounds amazing. You mean, I only have to focus on the site for three weeks, and then it's going to be launched and I don't have to think about it anymore. And they totally were so as just as excited as I was about it. And so they got to be your guinea pigs. It was awesome. Yeah.
Monica Pitts 14:41
So if you're going to test out a new process, do it on people that you know and like already, and then if it can be it can be okay. But okay, so you started with the spreadsheet, or the flowchart I'm sorry, you flowchart and then you imagine the process you picked people that you thought could fit into the process well, and then how did it go from there?
Stacy Brockmeier 15:06
I think just deciding the biggest part was we have these phases for our projects. So we have roughs. We have page layouts, we have meetings that correspond with them, we have programming, and just deciding what happens when in order to make the process go smoothly. So and it wasn't perfect the first time, or the first five times. And so we've kind of tweaked it since then. But deciding that it was okay for the roughs to be designed, revised, and sent to the client in the same week, you know, it was okay, because we designed for one day, we have an art director review for that's due the next day, we have the client, or the revisions from our team the next day, and then that fourth day, they're sent off to the client. And so just understanding how those things can be scheduled. And really, to be honest, writing up guidelines for our team. So we wrote up guidelines, like if you're building a template this week, it needs to be the first thing that you do on Monday. So that way, the person who's doing the page layouts can get the pages in the site by Wednesday, so that they can be reviewed and revised on Thursday, you know, so I think it was just deciding when and how things could be scheduled to make it the most condensed, timely process without having pieces that weren't done in order. Because I think that's also very important in our business is that if you're not doing things in a proper order, it can make the person who's doing the job hard.
Monica Pitts 16:45
It can make it hard for them. Well, but there is one key thing that this hinges around, and that's the clients providing their content, their pictures and words that they are submitting words to us. They have to do it before we start working on the site. So we used to give them a runway of like a month to a month and a half to get that stuff into us. And now it's like, okay, well, you hand it to us, and we go and we get it done as fast as possible.
Stacy Brockmeier 17:17
Yeah, so usually we schedule a project to kick off, and then there's a couple weeks for them to get their stuff together or for us to interview them and write their content. And then we hit the ground running as soon as that stuff is completed. So it's a much shorter timeframe to get all the content together, for sure. Okay,
Monica Pitts 17:38
so we've been doing it for a little while. How's it going?
Stacy Brockmeier 17:41
Yeah, we've been doing it for like nine or so months. It's awesome. Like, I cannot I don't even know how else to describe it other than the fact that our staff has been super happy. Our clients are super happy every time I tell somebody, I mean, like just last night, I was at basketball practice with my seven year old and I was with one of our clients. And so I was talking to him. And I was like, Hey, we built your site, you know, like, close to 10 years ago, if not more like it was forever. They have a really old site, their poor site has lived its life, it is done. It's ready to be rebuilt. And I was like, I can have it done in three weeks. And he's like, Are you kidding me? Like that's so much faster than last time. And he's like, I'm ready. Like, let's just do it because they realize that that like short turnaround means that they don't have to be taken away from their job for, you know, hours a week, every week for months. That makes sense. So I think that's been super exciting that our clients are excited about it. And it's a huge selling point, to be honest that people like to know that it can be done quickly. But I mean, projects, I think probably in the last eight or so months, we've probably only had one or two projects go over budget. Now keep in mind we they were not build any more because they went over budget, it was just that they did go over budget, but we just had so few not get done in the timeframe that we allotted. So from a business perspective, from a excitement, perspective, client perspective, staff perspective, it's awesome. Yay.
Monica Pitts 19:23
So friends, we're sharing this with you, because sometimes doing the same way that you've always sometimes doing things the same way that you've always done them. That's what I that's how I meant to say that isn't necessarily the right way. And we had looked at all the other pieces in our business and like tweaked them and made them better and more efficient. But when it came down to being able to work less and still provide a quality project, we had to literally go back to something that was at the core and the very beginning of our business and reevaluate it. So If you're in that position, it's okay. Like, as long as it still fulfills your goals and it meets your goals and your core values now. It's, you can change, you can totally change. It's I, it's all right.
Stacy Brockmeier 20:18
Well, and I think the other thing is like, we just made it better, you know, we knew this thing worked. And we weren't afraid to make it better. And I think that's like our whole mantra for the last few years is like, let's just make it better. Well, and
Monica Pitts 20:30
we have way less revisions on our sites. Now.
Stacy Brockmeier 20:34
That was a big motivator, because we had I mean, even internally, yes, move on turning, we review and revise sites internally. So clients never even see that part where we are revising it, based on our own feedback. And to be honest, that was something that pushed our projects over budget was our own, like desire to have this quality product that our client, like didn't even see those revisions. Like they didn't even know that that was a thing that existed. And now we just don't have that anymore. Because it's done. Quickly. It's done right the first time, everybody remembers what's going on. Yeah,
Monica Pitts 21:14
because you can get lost in a project as you're working through it. And if it had been three weeks, someone would forget to do part of it, we would go back to the documentation, and we'd be like, Oh, my gosh, you forgot to do XY and Z and nobody caught it. And so that's what would end up pushing everything over budget is, you just didn't catch it. And, you know, that's not doing anybody service that as well.
Stacy Brockmeier 21:38
And I think it's when you do the same thing over and over and over again, which to be honest, we do the same things on repeat. And because websites are, even if it's a different topic, often it's built similarly. And so you can't remember if that was the site, or the last site that you did that on.
Monica Pitts 21:59
So if you can get it done more efficiently and faster, it's awesome. I feel like it's awesome. That's awesome way to go. Any advice you want to give people Stacy who are like, maybe stuck in a spot, they're feeling uncomfortable, they know they need to change something. And maybe they're not sure where to look? Or maybe their tummy hurts a little bit when they're thinking about it.
Stacy Brockmeier 22:25
I think I mean, so our mantra is to work smarter, not harder. And we always say if something feels hard or time consuming or repetitive or frustrating, there's likely a better way. And so I would start with those tasks that you're doing over and over and over again, that feel frustrating, that feel like they're super time consuming, and see what it might take to make those even though they might be the smallest task. But what can make it better?
Monica Pitts 22:54
Well, and then the other piece is being able to let go of things that maybe you've been there forever. And hey, we've got an episode coming up about that. saying no, in a nice way. And feeling okay about it. No to yourself sometimes. Sometimes you sometimes that's the hardest. No, it is. Well, friends, thank you so much for hanging out with Stacy and I today as we talk through our journey as may creators. If you enjoyed this podcast or if you learned a thing or two, feel free to subscribe. We have new episodes coming at you every single week. And we would be honored to be in your inbox announcing the thing that we are talking about. So you can head on over to make reit.com That's ma y ecreat.com to get the show notes or to subscribe and get an email whenever podcasts dropped. So thank you so much for listening and until next time, go for it and mark it with purpose.
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