110: Lyn Wineman
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About This Episode
Today, we dive deep into the balance between business and play, with Lyn Wineman, the founder of an advertising agency called KidGlov. Lyn shares the candid challenges faced in maintaining creativity while ensuring profitability, a concern many in the advertising world share. We dive deep into the concept of creative nirvana, envisioning a culture that encourages both creativity and financial growth. Lyn discusses her dreams to foster a work environment where productivity and creativity coexist. Listen as we uncover fresh perspectives and innovative solutions for these common industry challenges together.
About Our Guest
Lyn is a marketing veteran with over 30 years of experience. She now leads a diverse team of passionate and talented professionals to drive growth through strategic branding and marketing communications. She has extensive brand advancement experience. She has been instrumental in marketing and branding efforts for regional and national organizations such as Immanuel, Lincoln Community Foundation, HopeSpoke, St. Monica’s, Regency Shopping Center, MembersOwn Credit Union, Farmers & Merchants Bank, Union Bank, and Bryan Health.
Lyn has been inducted into the Lincoln Chapter of the American Marketing Association Hall of Fame and was recognized as Marketer of the Year. She has been recognized by the Lincoln Journal Star Inspire Salute to Women in Leadership for Excellence in Entrepreneurship. In 2018 Lyn was awarded the Advertising Federation of Lincoln’s silver medal for lifetime achievement.
She is a leader within the community and has served as president of the Lincoln Chapter of the American Marketing Association and Lincoln Midwest Ballet Company Board and has served as a member of the Lincoln/Lancaster County Red Cross Board, Nebraska PRSA Board, and University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications Strategic Planning Committee. In addition to her many accolades, Lyn is a seasoned speaker and an enthusiastic host of KidGlov’s Agency for Change podcast. Learn more about Lyn and Kidglov here
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110-Lyn Wineman
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[00:00:00] Jude Schweppe: Hi there, I'm Jude Schweppe
[00:00:04] Gabe Ratliff: And I'm Gabe Ratliff.
[00:00:05] Jude Schweppe: Welcome to the Artful Experience, where we have conversations with creative entrepreneurs and business owners, giving them as much support and value as we can pack into 60 Minutes.
[00:00:15] Gabe Ratliff: So tell us, what's been keeping you up at night? What's been nagging at you?
[00:00:20] Jude Schweppe: What challenges are you facing in your business that you could use some outside perspective on?
[00:00:25] Gabe Ratliff: Maybe you've got an amazing idea, but you're not sure how to bring it to life. We're here to help.
[00:00:31] Jude Schweppe: You bring the topic and we'll bring the ideas.
[00:00:34] Gabe Ratliff: Our goal is to give you clarity on your chosen topic and some exciting ideas that you can start implementing right away.
[00:00:45] Today, we dive deep into the balance between business and play, with Lyn Wineman, the founder of an advertising agency called KidGlov. Lyn shares the candid challenges faced in maintaining creativity while ensuring profitability, a concern many in the advertising world share. We dive deep into the concept of creative nirvana, envisioning a culture that encourages both creativity and financial growth. Lynn discusses her dreams to foster a work environment where productivity and creativity coexist. Listen as we uncover fresh perspectives and innovative solutions for these common industry challenges together.
[00:01:29] Lyn. Thank you so much for being here on the show. We're so excited to have you on the Artful Experience. How are you doing today?
[00:01:37] Lyn Wineman: I'm fantastic. I've got to admit, though, I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit nervous about doing this whole thing about kind of airing the dirty laundry, uh, in public, so to speak, right?
[00:01:51] Jude Schweppe: Don't worry, we got you. We got
[00:01:53] Lyn Wineman: Okay. Fantastic. Fantastic.
[00:01:55] Gabe Ratliff: This is again, uh, as I shared before, uh, in the email, just to kind of follow up on meeting today, it's about play, right? Like let's play. This isn't about the scary things. It's about getting into them if that comes up, but it's not about this. We don't want this to be scary. Like look at us, we're, we're not scary.
[00:02:15] Um,
[00:02:16] Lyn Wineman: You guys are not scary at all. love that you said that because what I would like to talk about is really the balance I think between business and play so I'm, I'm excited to dive in.
[00:02:29] Gabe Ratliff: now that's exciting.
[00:02:31] Jude Schweppe: So that's the topic, the balance between business and play. Is that what you want to go with? Oh,
[00:02:36] Lyn Wineman: You know what, I think, I think that's kind of the high level topic but I'd really love to go with is, I mean just to dive into it a bit. Deeper is, um, it's really the thought behind being a culture that celebrates and fosters creativity, but that also has. the business structure in place to be a profitable growing business.
[00:03:03] Honestly, I have this little dream. Can I share a dream with you?
[00:03:06] Gabe Ratliff: Mm.
[00:03:07] Jude Schweppe: do. Yeah.
[00:03:08] Lyn Wineman: Being the founder of an advertising agency and having been in advertising my entire career, I have this thing in mind that I call creative nirvana, right? Like I would really love. To figure out how to foster that culture that really allows the creative person to feel confidence and space, but also we need to make money, right?
[00:03:43] So how can, how can we do all of those things? That is my dream.
[00:03:49] Jude Schweppe: So can I, can I just clarify, Lynn, you mean the culture within your company, within your organization?
[00:03:55] Lyn Wineman: I'm really thinking of the culture within our organization, right? I mean, our goal is to to have a place where people find enjoyment at work. So, as we think about the culture, that's the environment within which we do the work. Yeah.
[00:04:12] Jude Schweppe: Okay. And what feels important about this topic for you right now?
[00:04:19] Lyn Wineman: Um, well, for one thing, I've created a firm called Kid Glove. Our entire brand is centered around treating people with great care. And that extends both externally to our clients and internally to our people. But advertising agencies historically are in a space that doesn't necessarily Celebrate work life balance.
[00:04:46] Um, you know, there, there's kind of this, um, I think historically maybe we've even celebrated kind of this churn and burn midnight oil survival of the fittest. Um, and I know I have read enough external research to know that people who are happier. Are more productive, come up with better ideas. Um, and there's a certain point where when you've worked so much during a week, you, you no longer are productive and the creativity is really stunted.
[00:05:25] And so how do I find the balance as a creative business owner? Between developing that great environment, but yet still having productivity and efficiency for my clients. I feel like I used to just be up against other advertising agencies and now I feel like all of a sudden chat has become my competitor as well.
[00:05:49] Jude Schweppe: Okay. Interesting. I would imagine you are not the only advertising owner, advertising agency owner, who's having this, having this conversation in their head. Um, where would you like to get to by the end of this session?
[00:06:05] Lyn Wineman: I'd really love, um, to explore some new, some new ideas for, for making that happen. Some new ideas that, uh, we could implement and try at KidGlove.
[00:06:20] Jude Schweppe: Awesome. So could you explain or describe? What you feel the culture in your organization is like at the moment. So you talked about wanting to get the balance, right? Does the, does it feel out of balance? Does one feel higher than the other in terms of productivity versus creativity?
[00:06:41] Lyn Wineman: Yeah, I feel like, uh, I feel like we're doing it as well as anyone I've ever seen. Right. I feel like we have the best balance of anyone I've ever seen, but yet it doesn't feel like it's quite there. Yet, um, and, you know, some of the things that we struggle with on the advertising agency side, all of our work is custom and most of our business comes from competitive RFP or request for proposal processes, right?
[00:07:15] So we're going in and developing, um, strategies and tactics and we're literally every single time estimating, um, The number of hours from each person that it's going to take to complete that work. And so instantly our pricing model, um, is based on compartmentalizing everybody's hours and making everybody tally their hours.
[00:07:49] Um, so I think that kind of takes away from, from the creative process, but yet on the other side, that's, um, That's something that's very necessary to being able to, um, price and, and gauge where we are in a process. Um, I've even heard of agencies that have said we're tired of doing timesheets, we're just not going to do them anymore, which that is an option.
[00:08:19] But then on the flip side, what happens is then nobody's got a good sense for What people's workloads are so you may not have to do your time sheets, but you may all of a sudden and unexpectedly not realize that you have 50 hours of billable work to complete in a 40 hour work week.
[00:08:40] Jude Schweppe: Okay. What's your gut telling you about this current situation? Okay.
[00:08:47] Lyn Wineman: Um, my gut is telling me that there's got to be a better solution, uh, that we're not there yet. It feels like we ought to be able to use our own creativity to find our way out of this, but yet we haven't quite gotten there yet either.
[00:09:11] Jude Schweppe: So I've, I've got a question for you. If you were to rip up the entire rule book and everything that you have. Learned or been exposed to over a very long career in advertising and working in agencies. And that's also my background, so I can totally relate and sympathize and empathize. So you're ripping up the rule book and going, we are writing a new rule book so that we can do work and life the kid glove way.
[00:09:38] What's the first rule you'd rip up?
[00:09:41] Lyn Wineman: Uh, the first rule I would rip up is, um, the rule of gaining business through RFPs,
[00:09:50] Jude Schweppe: Hey,
[00:09:51] Lyn Wineman: think the root of how we gain the business is, is partially responsible for, um, for the system that we're in. But yet, As a business owner, that does not seem like a very smart idea to rip up the rule book on how you gain business.
[00:10:12] Jude Schweppe: okay. How would you do it if you were not churning out these RFPs on a regular basis?
[00:10:23] Lyn Wineman: Well, I think, you know, I mentioned, um, creative nirvana. I think client nirvana would be finding long term ongoing clients. I mean, um, we've, we're working on some long term strategic planning. And what we've really been talking about is, um, I think we've done an excellent job of. Fostering authentic, open, trusting relationships internally amongst the people on our internal team. And we had an aha moment where we said, you know. Our favorite, favorite clients are not necessarily those from a specific industry or those with a specific budget, um, but those who also are willing to have a trusting, vulnerable, open relationship with us as well. Um, you know, those types of relationships tend to exist.
[00:11:28] In, um, smaller to midsize clients. I think once you get to a to a certain size where there's a lot of corporate bureaucracy and, um, corporate politics, then you've got a marketing director who maybe is a little bit more skittish about being that open or vulnerable or maybe isn't even able to because they're not the ultimate decision maker.
[00:11:59] Jude Schweppe: Would you mind just sort of giving us a run through of your, your current business model lens? So where does the majority of your income come from? Is it sort of project based then move on to the next project just so we've got a, an outline?
[00:12:12] Lyn Wineman: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:12:13] Jude Schweppe: operate.
[00:12:15] Lyn Wineman: Yeah. So, so we, um, we are focused, um, in In the social impacts, um, um, areas, so we handle primarily, uh, nonprofit organizations, social impact movements and purpose driven businesses where generally those who are maybe part of 1 percent of the for the planet or certified B corps, that kind of thing.
[00:12:41] Um, and so. You know, what would you ask me that question again? I started explaining. I lost my way. Just a moment. Yeah.
[00:12:51] Jude Schweppe: No problem. So I'm just trying to get a picture of what your current business model is, so where the majority of your income comes from. So we can have a little think and a noodle about, do we shift the business model? Yeah.
[00:13:02] Lyn Wineman: Got it. Got it. Got it. Um, we have, um, we probably have 10 clients that make up half of our business. Um, and those are clients that we have long standing relationships with. Um, they are, I would say they're all clients. Luckily, that are in that category of. You know, trusting relationships, we've been together for a long time.
[00:13:32] We're truly an extension of their organization. We're not competing for the business over and over. We may have had to compete for it at 1 time, but it's, it's a long standing trusting relationship and then the other half of our business comes is project based.
[00:13:50] Jude Schweppe: Mm hmm.
[00:13:50] Lyn Wineman: Um, and it might be a probably our shortest assignment would be a maybe a 90 day campaign.
[00:13:58] For example, we're working on a grand opening launch right now. We work on end of year campaigns, um, all the way up to say a one and a half to three year rebranding project. Um, we do a lot of large websites as well that might take seven to 12 months to complete.
[00:14:21] Jude Schweppe: Okay. So if I was to say to you, what would a business model look like where you only worked with clients on a long term retained basis? How would that shift things for the business, for the work life balance? For you.
[00:14:39] Lyn Wineman: I think the work-life balance would probably improve. Um, I think that our ability to gain new business might be hindered, right? So I think the, the pro pros and cons yeah.
[00:15:03] Jude Schweppe: So what would a model look like whereby you do this initial project or campaign for somebody and then you are essentially upselling or inviting them into a longer relationship with you? How does that work or how successful is that for you?
[00:15:22] Lyn Wineman: I, you know what I think that would take. So, um, I, I love where you're going with this. I can see where you're going with this. Um, in some cases, I think that could be really beautiful in some cases. In some cases, we tend to work with. Organizations that have somehow raised or been granted or saved. Um, a certain amount of money for a large project.
[00:15:55] And on the other end of that project, there's not budget left. They're not the kind of organization that has ongoing marketing, but. There are some that do or another thought would be if we already know this organization and have expertise in their area. Are there other services maybe on the fringes of marketing that we could offer them to maintain the long term relationship? That's a really interesting idea right there.
[00:16:34] Jude Schweppe: So I'm, I'm, I'm gonna, um, challenge. Because I think one of the things that we do as business owners, particularly when we've, you know, we've been in the game for a long time and we sort of see patterns and we know the way clients operate and we kind of make assumptions. So I just want to push back and it may be that this is absolute fact, but are there any assumptions that you're making about the clients who have a set budget and then that's it?
[00:16:57] Lyn Wineman: Now, I think that's. I think that's very possible. I think, um, I think 1 assumption I have that has served me well, but maybe not serve me. Well, either is, um, um, being a small business owner myself. I'm always extremely respectful of budgets. You know, I, I feel like, um, I feel like the way I handle their investment is a matter of trust.
[00:17:31] Thank Which I think is a good thing. It really builds strong relationships, but I do think that maybe the false narrative that I have is that, um, is that I can't ask for more, right? That it's not disrespectful to ask for more. It's disrespectful to spend more, but maybe it's not disrespectful to ask for more or to explore other ways I can help them.
[00:18:03] You know, by the time usually that we are done with a rebrand or a campaign or a website, Almost always that client is singing our praises. They love working with us. They've, we've demonstrated knowledge, expertise, accountability. So, but then we typically celebrate and say goodbye,
[00:18:29] Jude Schweppe: Mm.
[00:18:30] Lyn Wineman: assume that there's nothing left.
[00:18:32] And that's probably what we should be revisiting.
[00:18:36] Jude Schweppe: Okay. So also, I'd like to just challenge you around the sort of the language you use there, where you talked about, I can't ask them to spend more, as opposed to, I would like to help them more.
[00:18:49] Lyn Wineman: Yeah, that's a really good way to look at it, right?
[00:18:52] Jude Schweppe: I would like to, we'd love to continue helping you because it's not like they're spending money that it's not going to make a return for them.
[00:19:00] You know, if somebody is, has really nailed their marketing and their proposition and their messaging and they're spending with you guys, they're working with you guys, they're making a return on that investment. So it's about, you know, we've just got to know each other now. We love what you guys do. We love the direction that you're heading in and we really want to be a part of that journey.
[00:19:22] So maybe that's a conversation to consider and to sort of have a think about.
[00:19:28] Lyn Wineman: Honestly, I think I want to step out right now and go have that conversation.
[00:19:33] Jude Schweppe: We're done.
[00:19:35] Lyn Wineman: Have you ever had somebody just leave and start doing the work?
[00:19:39] Jude Schweppe: You might be the first.
[00:19:41] Lyn Wineman: that's such a beautiful idea. Yeah.
[00:19:44] Gabe Ratliff: That's the point. Have the insight. Let's go.
[00:19:47] Lyn Wineman: Let's go do it. Yeah.
[00:19:49] Jude Schweppe: Yeah. So let's paint the dream scenario, Lynn, of what we've just sort of unearthed or uncovered. So dream scenario, new client. We're going to take them on this new journey. It's not going to be a three month date. And then, you know what? We were really, really getting on really well, but you know, we're done.
[00:20:10] Lyn Wineman: We're done now.
[00:20:11] Jude Schweppe: we're done now. Thanks so much. Thanks so much. Um, what does the new scenario look like? And who was that dream client?
[00:20:18] Lyn Wineman: Yeah. You know what? I've got to step back just a moment here and say, when we entered into this conversation, which was not that many minutes ago, I did not think we would be solving for culture by talking about how we acquire clients. Find this process to be very, very, very fascinating because you could talk all day long about workloads and.
[00:20:45] Um, workloads and work process and team dynamics and, um, honestly, at the core of it is the way we bring in clients. I find that so fascinating. So, all right. Sorry for that detour there.
[00:20:59] Jude Schweppe: Quite all right.
[00:21:00] Lyn Wineman: Will you ask me the question again?
[00:21:02] Jude Schweppe: I will, of course. So we're going to paint a picture of what this new onboarding process might look like with an ideal client. And then once the initial project is completed, how are we then inviting them to go steady, essentially?
[00:21:18] Lyn Wineman: Right, right, right. So I think, you know what, initially, if we were really going to just dream a little dream,
[00:21:27] Jude Schweppe: Dream a little dream.
[00:21:28] Lyn Wineman: dream a little dream, um, we would really focus on promoting our areas of expertise at KidGlove, which are quite unique, um, we would focus on promoting those areas of expertise to acquire clients in ways other than the Competitive RFPs and then we would do what we do, which is do great work and build relationships.
[00:21:55] But when the initial assignment comes to an end, we would have an eye on this was great, we've helped you, um, you've achieved your results, what can we do, how can we help you more? I like your words, how can we, how can we serve you in new and different ways to make your life better? Yeah. Goodness
[00:22:19] Jude Schweppe: Okay. So are you up for doing a little role play?
[00:22:24] Lyn Wineman: roleplay the two words that strike fear into the hearts of everyone.
[00:22:31] Jude Schweppe: I promise to be kind, Lynn, I promise to be kind. Let's just imagine that I, um, own the kind of company or the kind of organization that you love working with. We've come to you for a branding project. So we want our visual brand. We want you to help us with our proposition and our messaging and really getting clear on who we are.
[00:22:50] We've done this awesome three month project together. Um, we've gone out to have lunch so we can have a review. And I'm about to say. Thank you so much, Lynn. It was great working with you. I'll be sure to tell all of my friends about you and how wonderful Cake Love is. Where would you like to go from there?
[00:23:06] What would you say?
[00:23:09] Lyn Wineman: I think I would say, you know, we've really enjoyed working with you too. Um, and I'm curious, are you finding benefit from the project? And you, of course, would say, well, yes, I am. Well, how else, how else could we help you? What else could we do? Um, that might bring about similar results for you, since we already have a team of people that, you know, and that know you really well as well.
[00:23:39] Jude Schweppe: So then I might
[00:23:41] Lyn Wineman: time to really fine tune that. Yes.
[00:23:44] Jude Schweppe: then I might say, well, you know, we, we've got our product. We've got our service. We've got our beautiful branding. You know, we're so happy with all the work that you guys have done. Um, I guess we have to think about marketing. We have to get ourselves out there and, you know, tell the world about who we are and what we do.
[00:24:00] So I'm not sure is that something that you guys do as well or is it just branding that you
[00:24:04] Lyn Wineman: Yeah, actually, you know, um, some people say that branding without marketing is like a billboard in the dark, you know, it's there, but you don't know what it says. And, uh, we have a whole team of people that are highly experienced and award winning, um, marketers. As well. Why don't we sit down and talk about what it might look like if we helped you expose more people to that great new brand you have,
[00:24:36] Jude Schweppe: I would love to hear more about that. So do you have an idea typically of how it works? Do you sort of work on retainer? Do we work with you for six months or 12 months? What, what is, um, the way that you go about this?
[00:24:48] Lyn Wineman: you know, we can do this. This will have different ways depending on what you're most comfortable with. Some people like to go on a retainer because then it's just consistent and you know that we have time for you. You know what to budget. We're always there as an extension of your team. Others like to start out with a project and then move to a retainer once we have the full plan in place.
[00:25:13] And we'd be happy to start in whichever way you'd be comfortable with.
[00:25:18] Jude Schweppe: Okay, that sounds amazing. So let us imagine That for the final half of the year, going into the final furlong, you would like to start getting more clients onto this ongoing, let's go steady, retainer basis. How many new clients who start with you for a single one off project would you like to recruit or onboard before the end of the year and then have this conversation with them?
[00:25:53] Lyn Wineman: Yeah, honestly, you know, I'd even roll it back a step. I bet I have, um, I bet I have several clients who have ended projects in the last 24 months that I could go back and start with.
[00:26:11] Jude Schweppe: Amazing. Even better.
[00:26:12] Lyn Wineman: the yeah then move to the new clients we would would bring on and and go forward. Um, I even think if I brought on three new clients, you know, three new clients, or brought back three old clients.
[00:26:27] Jude Schweppe: Hmm.
[00:26:28] Lyn Wineman: Um, and incorporated them into our mix between now and the end of the year, that would be plenty to keep the team busy and fulfilled in a very positive way.
[00:26:42] Jude Schweppe: Amazing. Amazing. And what is the impact? Of this new way of thinking and working and bringing on clients going to be on the culture and on your amazing team.
[00:26:54] Lyn Wineman: Well, I think it, um, it makes the work more joyful, um, because we'll have the kind of relationships we're looking for. I think it also could increase our productivity, because if you've ever put together An RF and advertising RFP. It takes nobody realizes how much time it takes. It might easily take 50 to 100 or more hours put together a good proposal.
[00:27:28] And that's Imagine if we could have that time back to work on our existing clients. What a joy that would be. Yeah.
[00:27:39] Jude Schweppe: So let's imagine what, what is that going to facilitate for your business, for your people, for you,
[00:27:46] Lyn Wineman: Yeah, it might. I mean, honestly, if you think about the number of RFPs that we do. Maybe for a month, one a week. I mean, even if we saved 50 hours a week across 20 people, that's, that would be a really good thing. Also, there's just, um, I, by nature, have competition as a strength, so I don't mind going into the arena and competing, but does create a, um, it does create competition.
[00:28:26] Create some tension on the team for the people that don't have that competition gene and sometimes you promise things when you're in competition that probably aren't, don't lead to a healthy culture as well.
[00:28:43] Jude Schweppe: Lynn? What does a healthy culture mean to you?
[00:28:48] Lyn Wineman: Yeah, I think once again, going back, I think it's it's finding joy in the work. Uh, we actually do a quarterly survey and we track how excited are you to come into work on Monday morning and that score and how that score goes up and down is really telling. Right. We, we have a core value. We call, we, we say love is one of our core values, but we define it as, um, being people who are passionate about and love what we do.
[00:29:21] So having more of that would be fantastic
[00:29:25] Jude Schweppe: And, and finding the clients or reconnecting with the clients who have those values, you know, at the core of what they do and at the heart of what they do as well. That's a beautiful relationship.
[00:29:37] Lyn Wineman: Right. Now that sounds like creative nirvana to me. Right.
[00:29:41] Jude Schweppe: Yeah, absolutely. Gabe, I've been talking for 32 minutes. go.
[00:29:49] Gabe Ratliff: I've been a tornado on the keyboard taking
[00:29:52] Lyn Wineman: I know. Amazing. Amazing.
[00:29:54] Gabe Ratliff: have been a tornado. Is it okay if I kind of,
[00:29:57] Lyn Wineman: watching your fingers fly, Gabe. Even on Zoom, I can see it. I'm feeling the heat radiate off of you.
[00:30:04] Gabe Ratliff: and it, it's, it's one of the beautiful things about how Jude and I work. We have this wonderful kind of ping pong that we do of like, cause I'm getting to just sit and listen. Whereas, you know, a lot, if you're, if you're a coach by yourself or a consultant by yourself, right, you don't have those additional.
[00:30:21] Sensors happening, right? You're not those receptors of like, Oh, I heard this, or, you know, Oh, I noticed that body language or whatnot. Right? We recently had a, one of these recordings and, uh, or we, it was actually, uh, uh, uh, one of our clients, she literally was like this on the camera recently in a call because something was just not sitting.
[00:30:44] And we, and I, and I paused us and I was like, Hey, I noticed. Okay. Your body language. And she was like, Oh yeah. And she kind of loosened up all of a sudden, and then we dove into it. And all of a sudden we started to unlock all this interesting stuff. And it was really, it's really cool. You know, so, so all that being said, like, it's great for us to have this because I can, cause we're going to share these notes with you.
[00:31:07] And it's awesome to like, be able to sit with this and hear like what came out through this kind of questioning, but then it also allows us to kind of go back and forth and how, like what we're picking up and what questions we have. Cause, cause some of the original, uh, or initial questions I had is, you know, um, uh, and if it's okay, I'd love to go back and read a few things,
[00:31:27] Lyn Wineman: absolutely.
[00:31:28] Gabe Ratliff: that I thought were awesome, just so that you can hear it.
[00:31:31] Um, but a couple of questions I had is like, you were talking about the, you know, creating this new culture and, and one of the things I, I used to work at a great. Uh, creative company and, uh, I was in media production for years and we got to work with creative people and it was in the, you know, learning development, online education space.
[00:31:53] And one of the things that was kind of a common thing in the trenches is that we were always like we would go do these like work retreats and stuff, but it wouldn't be about like us internally working on the business and us having a voice and being able to say, Hey, I'm in the trenches. You know, you always had to depend on managing up that the managers would be, you know, like speaking on your behalf, right.
[00:32:19] And being there for you and like taking those stories on. And what ended up happening is a lot of times you're, you had the like rumor mill that was exploding. You would, you talked about like that throwing people under the bus culture, right? Just like, how do I stay on top? How do I not get laid off? Like, how do I do this?
[00:32:38] And you know, that's become more common over the last, I would say 10 years, you know, that's gotten really common because of, you know, the tumultuous environment, especially with business over the last five
[00:32:50] Lyn Wineman: Yeah. Yes.
[00:32:52] Gabe Ratliff: um, but you know, startup industries, all this stuff with tech booming, you know, you've got the crypto, you've got the NFT, all this stuff, right?
[00:32:59] You got all this AI, all this new things, and it's just crazy, like money, money, money, money, money. And then, Oh, we got to pull it back. Right. So one of my questions. All now we kind of have that, that we're sitting with is like, what are your, what are your employees want to do? You know, what ideas do they have?
[00:33:13] Like, as far as, this is separate from what we've surfaced, right, and the insights that, that you shared just a moment ago, right? Like your insight was, uh, let me just scroll back up, solving for culture by how you find and onboard and retain your clients. That was what I heard, right? That was your big insight.
[00:33:30] That's kind of the like, ding, ding, ding, ding for the, for the, the session. Um, but separate of that is also like inviting, you know, the opportunity for your employees to kind of speak up and say, what is it that they want? Right. Cause then that you're leaning into their voice and you're giving them an opportunity to feel their own vulnerability and their own building of relationships and how they can do that themselves.
[00:33:52] It's just like an employee owned business, right? It's where they start to feel like, Oh man. I have a voice. I can be a part of this thing. I, you know, they have more ownership. And so that was something I wanted to just ask as a question, but then also invite you into like, what that could look like and creating that space.
[00:34:09] And it's also taking a pause on your business, right? It's taking a pause as a company and saying. Let's look at each other. Look at, let's look at ourselves. Let's look at where we're at right now. Where are we at right now? And then where do we want to be? Where, where's our vision? Where's our, you know, we know the mission, but what's that?
[00:34:28] Our, our, our, our joined vision, right? Our, our unified vision. Um, the other question I had is what if you. You know, blocked that time to get creative and solve for this together, right? To like actually create this space, right? And make it fun, right? Is there a cool place where you are all based where you, excuse me, where you all are based that you could do like a fun, you know, like Meow Wolf is all over the place now, if you're familiar with Meow Wolf.
[00:34:58] So we have one here in Denver. There's, you know, it's Austin. There's obviously Santa Fe, you know, but there, there are other really cool places like that around the U S. And so, you know, maybe that could be, you know, a cool way to sort of like have fun, get loose, right. Get creative and then go, Hey, now let's, let's work.
[00:35:17] Right. Even if it's just a day, right. Just do half day of something fun and then have a half day of like, okay, now let's get deep. With each other right now that we've kind of connected and done this thing that's like active then giving yourself yourself that space to live in the creative right to live in the okay now let's let's work on the creative or have the creative and then now let's work on the culture right.
[00:35:41] So that was something I wanted to just mention and ask some questions to think about.
[00:35:45] Lyn Wineman: yeah, excellent. I, I love that you brought that up because two of those things we're doing, which is what made your invitation to the podcast, like so timely for me. Um, we are in, uh, something we've never done. We're a 13 year old company. We're in the summer slow down, right? Like we intentionally have said, we are going, you know, we're busy enough.
[00:36:12] But we're not going to take too much work. We're going to actively manage how much work we've got in house. So we've got some time to think about this. Roughly 3 weeks ago, I brought our entire creative team and some of our account service team together and we were doing the 1st step of strategic planning.
[00:36:40] And in this meeting, we set forth a goal that we want to achieve in 12 years. So it's a very long term goal and just said, okay, let's just do some high level wondering in order to get to the. This goal, what are the things we need to think about? What are the questions we need to ask? What is the data we need to collect?
[00:37:05] And I kind of. At the, at the beginning of the meeting, actually about halfway through, I was kind of frustrated with the conversation, although being very careful not to let it be known, kind of frustrated with the conversation because I was like, all we're talking about here is culture. All we're talking about is culture.
[00:37:24] And then it only took me about 10 minutes to do the, hey, that is the key. That is the key to hitting this goal. So. I am armed today with knowing that what my team really wants, they don't want a shuffleboard table. They don't want an open bar. They don't, they probably do want unlimited vacation, but that's not the top of their list.
[00:37:54] What they really want. Are these real, open, authentic, collaborative, trusting relationships internally and externally? And so You know, that's what I have been thinking about for three weeks. I've been thinking about, you know, do we blend our teams in different ways? Do we do this? Do we do that? But I, I think today we've gotten to something really important.
[00:38:24] That's at the core of the, of the issue we're trying to solve.
[00:38:32] Gabe Ratliff: What an awesome. I, in that, I just, I want to acknowledge you for recognizing that insight. Right. And you're like, we keep talking about culture. We keep talking about culture. You're
[00:38:41] Lyn Wineman: been talking about culture for a long time. Our name is KidGlove. Our name is KidGlove because, you know, I set forth to have an agency that had a fantastic culture, that people really could enjoy working at, a place where you could have a career and a family kind of a place. And because you two both have been in creative careers, I was so excited to process this with you because I'm guessing you've experienced.
[00:39:09] What I'm talking about.
[00:39:12] Jude Schweppe: Uh huh.
[00:39:14] Gabe Ratliff: Both sides of it.
[00:39:16] Jude Schweppe: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:39:17] Gabe Ratliff: that was what I was speaking to. Right. Cause, cause like, I remember we had. This, this amazing executive team, brilliant guys. This, this company happened to be guys and
[00:39:31] Lyn Wineman: A lot of them are I'm also working against that. Yeah,
[00:39:35] Gabe Ratliff: thank you. Thank you for that. I want to honor you and recognize you for that. So thank you. And you're, and you're doing it in such a purpose driven way and in that industry. Right. So just honoring you for that. The, the thing was though, there's a, there's the dark side of it because you know, the issues, the rumor mill, like all of that stuff, the need to, the feeling of throwing people under the bus comes from the top.
[00:40:08] Lyn Wineman: yeah,
[00:40:09] Gabe Ratliff: that was one of the things I learned that was my third startup that I helped get to acquisition. And that was one of the things I took away. And that was when I said, you know what? I don't want to do this for anybody else anymore. I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to blood, sweat and tears, 70 hours a week, giving all of myself and like take, like not taking care of myself, being in the worst shape of my life for someone else's dream.
[00:40:35] Right. When your dream is beautiful, like your dream with kid glove, the people you bring on the, the clients you support comes from this place about, I want to have a dream culture. I want to have a creative Nirvana for people, which I mean, are you kidding? That's beautiful. Right? Like that's part of our mission.
[00:40:52] We want that. I mean, our company's called artful. So right.
[00:40:56] Lyn Wineman: I love your brand. Yeah,
[00:40:58] Gabe Ratliff: you. I mean, that's the thing, right? Like we want to get to that place. Do you, did I feel like I've been going there for a minute. Yeah.
[00:41:06] Jude Schweppe: No, not at all. I mean, just to speak to my own experience, Lynn, and that is, you know, working with, you know, in agencies in Dublin and in London. I mean, it's, it seems so obvious, but it is so clear when the culture starts with somebody who leads from the heart, who leads from a place of integrity, who leads with authenticity, and who actually delivers on the things that they say.
[00:41:34] Are part of their mission and part of their brands and. You know, not, not to name any names, but, you know, I worked with somebody who was very, very senior, um, sort of on a global level with a very, very well known tech company. I'm not going to name any names. Um, and she said it was the most toxic place I have ever been in and affected her.
[00:41:57] Hugely in terms of her mental health and her wellbeing. And she was like, you can't just plaster posters on a wall telling people to be authentic and show up as the best version of themselves. And this, that and the other, that's not a fucking culture. That is you giving directives and putting sticking plasters while people are burning out left, right and center.
[00:42:21] Um, and you know, just constantly on the, on the hamster wheel of, of chaos. And I think, you know, Gabe and I've talked about this quite a lot on the podcast. We don't have that much in the tank after what we've been through in the last few years. And I think people are really starting to realize that this is no way to operate It's no way to operate.
[00:42:45] The ripple effects of people burning out at work, being super stressed, and coming home and passing that on to their families, is creating another generation of people who are not as well as they could be. And these, this generation has to solve all the problems that we've created for them, you know? So I'm such a, such a believer in, in the vital importance of Creating a space where people can do their job, can feel excited by the work that they do, can feel as though they're making a contribution, they're being of service, they're being of value, they're being validated, and they can go home to their families and love them.
[00:43:30] The best that they possibly can, because that is the ripple effect. So, you know, people like you and other people who own businesses are in positions of leadership. Indirectly, you are solving humongous problems by tackling this. You know, very every day and fundamentally, you know, we spend so much of our lives at work, but that's where it starts.
[00:43:55] That's where the future starts. So I would also like to celebrate you then for, you know, for this being
[00:44:02] Lyn Wineman: thank you for that.
[00:44:03] Jude Schweppe: That's
[00:44:04] Lyn Wineman: Thank you
[00:44:04] Jude Schweppe: to
[00:44:04] Lyn Wineman: that.
[00:44:05] Jude Schweppe: Um,
[00:44:07] Lyn Wineman: I wrote down what you said. I wrote down Hamster Wheel of Chaos,
[00:44:11] Jude Schweppe: yeah.
[00:44:13] Lyn Wineman: because I think that's where we've been. I think that, um, having had this as a goal for quite a while, and honestly I do think we do better than any. Agency I've ever seen, but yet we're not there yet.
[00:44:30] I mean, there's been some frustration on my part wondering if it's even an achievable goal. Like, how can we work so hard at this? But we were working on the symptoms and maybe not the root. Cause and you've maybe helped us get to the root cause and then one little fun fact. I actually looked it up once.
[00:44:52] Most of us will work 90 to 100, 000 hours over the course of our career. So if you can spend. You know, those hours in a productive, enjoyable culture, uplifting culture versus a toxic culture, that does impact lives. It impacts, it has a ripple effect, um, I think in a very big way. You also said something that I like to say too.
[00:45:23] We don't do at KidGlove a lot of what I call the forced fun activities, you know. We do have our share of meetings and retreats, but we don't do, you know, we, we don't go out and do volunteer days together or things like that, because what we like to say is we want to send our people home and let them do the things and be with the people that they really love.
[00:45:51] Yeah.
[00:45:53] Jude Schweppe: I love that. And I just think, I think it would be world changing if more people in leadership positions and owners of company recognize that. Because the connection is It's so obvious and we've, we've got into this hamster wheel of chaos, I think globally, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
[00:46:15] So it really takes people to sort of stop and have these conversations and go, you know, like we say, we can start with one domino. And just if, if you think of the flip side of what you just spoke to Lynn about, somebody spends a hundred thousand hours of their life working. If they are working a hundred thousand hours in an environment.
[00:46:36] that is damaging and toxic and exhausting. What's that doing to them internally? I'm such a believer in the collective energy. What's that doing to the energy that they're sending out to people? You know, I think we, we make things so much more complicated for ourselves than they need to be. We really, really do, and we have very complicated problems to solve in the world, but the solutions are not that complicated.
[00:47:03] We just have to spend the time sitting with them and peeling back the layers. You know, Gabe and I say this all the time. What is the radically simple option here? Um, because there will always be a radically simple option that is probably the best one,
[00:47:19] Lyn Wineman: Yeah. Yeah. I love
[00:47:21] Gabe Ratliff: of us, right? It's usually right in front of us. Like, like coming back again to some of the things that were mentioned earlier, what I heard and took note of is that you were commenting on, Hey, I've already got several clients over the last 24 months. I could reengage with, they already know, like, and trust you.
[00:47:39] They've already paid you. They already know how you work. They already known like first name basis people at the company. Right? So you're not having to start fresh again. And however many that is. And it's also about the other thing I heard you say is that you recognize what is enough. That is so, that's so powerful, right?
[00:47:57] Cause that you're also, you, you said at the very beginning of the conversation that, you know, small and medium sized businesses, you find. They're a better fit because they're not too big. I am in the same boat. I'm the same way about concerts. I'm the same way about, you know, big events. I'm the same way about big companies, not a fan.
[00:48:19] I like intimate. I want, I want to be able to rap with each other. I want to be able to like, talk about, take a moment. Like we did before the recording and Hey, how are you doing? How are things right? It doesn't have to be business, business, business, business, business, because that also makes you feel like you're just a, you know, I went to a big university and that just makes you feel like a number.
[00:48:41] You just feel like you're part of that, that cog of the hamster wheel of chaos. Right. And love that you were speaking just now about celebrating the wins, you know, and I think another thing about that, what I brought up about inviting your employees to be a part of, like, how do we. You know. And the way that we need to evaluate and find where we want to be with this culture is also understanding that you got to kind of, you got to do it.
[00:49:07] You can't just be like, I want this, right? Like we've seen this with the pendulum with people. And I saw this, you know, you get the video games or you get the pool table or the ping pong or the foosball or, you know, the snacks and all this stuff. And we've had all that stuff right. Like, and that was cool.
[00:49:22] But as you said, some people are like, I just want to go home to my kids and my partner. I just want to, you know, I want to be able to like, if I need to work from home and take care of some errands in the midst of my work, let me put on my big girl pants and do that. Or my big boy pants or my big, uh, what have you.
[00:49:39] Right. So it's about finding like, you know, Testing, right? Doing the thing, testing it. Did that work right? Check back in instead of like all or nothing, like we're going to do this. And then, you know, it's just like with the working from home that we've seen, people were like, we'll never work from home. And they're like, what were we thinking?
[00:49:57] We spent millions of dollars on this brick and mortar building. And now we're like, no, you can work from home. And then they're like, Oh yeah, wait, you know, it's like, instead of this all or nothing, it's like, let's test it and see what works. Right. So I wanted to invite that as well. Along with the celebrating the wins, but the also like, Hey, if you're going to like address the culture, then take in the input, test it, right.
[00:50:20] Give it a quarter. See, did we like that? And, and like invite people into that being able to have a voice and say, yeah, uh, I don't know, you know, and, and there's so many opportunities now to do that anonymously. So if that's something that people, you know, some people are just timid, uh, and they don't want to speak up because if there's any feeling of like, I'm not, I'm, I don't, I don't belong.
[00:50:41] I'm not what everybody's saying. Cause if, you know, if five people are like, yes. And then a couple of people are like, I don't know, but they don't want to, they don't want to be ousted right out of the village because they've spoken up and said that didn't actually work for me. But if everybody feels comfortable and there's an anonymous way to do that, that really can be a wonderful experience because then you, you, the leader, right?
[00:51:05] The captain of the ship know where to point the ship you've got all the data, right? And you can sit with, okay. And you're creating that culture because then they feel honored and like they're seen and heard. Um, another exercise I thought maybe is some homework that I would pitch. I don't know if you do this.
[00:51:20] Um, let me know. Let us know if you do. But one of the things that, that I love to do with clients is do a client audit.
[00:51:28] Lyn Wineman: yeah, I have been playing with that idea. We never have. We're exploring it as an idea, but a client audit seems like it would be a really nice bridge. In between the first project and the next things, right? Um, like, uh, and it feels like at that point, we might have enough trust built up. I think sometimes at the beginning of the relationship, it's hard to jump in and start with an audit.
[00:51:59] Like, let's start with a date. And then once we've had a few dates and they're amazing, then let's jump into the audit and explore what else we can do.
[00:52:10] Gabe Ratliff: Well, and I also, when I, when I speak to a client audit, it's also doing a client audit on your existing clients. Right. And like the ones that you want to, and I, that's what, cause I heard what you were saying and I wanted to make sure to make that distinction because this client audit will help you as you're looking back at the clients that you were mentioning earlier about reaching back out to.
[00:52:31] But what I like to do is I keep it super simple, great client, good client, not so good client or
[00:52:39] Lyn Wineman: Love it.
[00:52:40] Gabe Ratliff: You want it. Right. Because, because so what I find a lot is that the great clients are the, uh, the creative nirvana. Right? They're the ones that you've identified. You know what
[00:52:51] Lyn Wineman: only those great clients, you got it. It'd be regardless of the budget, the topic. I mean, we have a client where we promote trauma prevention and, you know, tell some really gut wrenching stories, right? But they're an amazing client. We love Will. We'll be part of their trauma all day long.
[00:53:14] Gabe Ratliff: And then, and then there's the, see, that's awesome that you actually have examples of this, right? Cause then there's the good client and that's usually like, they're good, but maybe they're not retainer. How can we make them a retainer? Or like, maybe they were great. We did the one off let's talk to them cause they were good and they could be great.
[00:53:34] Or maybe they, you know, they were good, but we only did the one project, but they would be great as a retainer client. Right. Cause then you, then there's a way forward of like, they could move into the great space. And then there's the bad client, right? They're the ones that are like, they're like always a pain.
[00:53:51] They're always asking for more, more, more, more, more, more. They don't, you know, they don't want to like. Pay per scope if the scope creeps, which creeps on every project, right? And you talked about the RFP, right? Because if you get into the project, you know, you got to have the fail safes, um, to cover yourself related to that.
[00:54:10] Sometimes those are tough, especially if it's a bigger company. So, you know, that could be like, Hey, maybe if, Hey, if we took them and that we've identified that they're a bad client or they're not so good, if we want to be politically correct, then that gives you the opportunity to go, okay, well, what if we replace them with a great client?
[00:54:31] Lyn Wineman: Sorry, I had to sneeze.
[00:54:32] Gabe Ratliff: No problem.
[00:54:33] Jude Schweppe: quite all right. We thought you, we thought you ditched us.
[00:54:39] Gabe Ratliff: yeah, she's like, okay, you got
[00:54:41] Lyn Wineman: going to do the work.
[00:54:43] Jude Schweppe: Yeah.
[00:54:44] Gabe Ratliff: but yeah, so you, you know, if you're looking at what, as Jude was asking earlier, like what's the impact of these things, right? If you look, if you look at your clients and you go, okay, so we say, so say you identify like three not so good clients and then you've got a couple of good clients and you go, well, how can we take these good clients and make them great?
[00:55:00] Let's get them in a retainer or let's get them into a, what's a six month, 12 month. Like what does that look like? What, what, what do they need? Like, let's just re engage them. Right. And if you say, okay, well, we've got this one, not so good client, but they've been a long term, but there's such a strain on us. Right. And what, what, what you're not like bad clients are also is at least from what I was hearing from you earlier is the, the RFP work that could be looked at in itself as bad client. Right. Because you talked about what was that you said? For it for RFPs a month, 50 to 100 hours, 50 to 100 hours for multiple employees.
[00:55:43] Right. And generally doesn't come back. Right. Like that money isn't like that's not getting
[00:55:50] Lyn Wineman: it's really difficult to rewrite because we do, we do cost account that towards a new client. It takes months to over, it makes, takes months to, um, overcome the cost of doing the RFP
[00:56:06] Gabe Ratliff: Right.
[00:56:07] Lyn Wineman: and that's on the clients that we win, we don't even ever track the clients that the RFPs that you lose, you don't really, Track, but it's your good clients that have to pay for those.
[00:56:18] Jude Schweppe: Yeah, for sure.
[00:56:20] Gabe Ratliff: And if you did track. Right. If you did take, if you did take a minute to track,
[00:56:25] Lyn Wineman: That would probably seal, that would seal this in for sure. I could. I could. I could track it. I do. It is in a trackable place. I'm kind of afraid to track it, to be honest with you. , I think I might get sick if I see that number.
[00:56:41] Gabe Ratliff: but it, wouldn't that be worth it? I mean, it's the same thing. It's the same thing, like with money mindset, right. Of like tracking your finances, what's coming in, what's going out. You know, I had a rough journey with that as especially growing up and. Like just owning up to it, right. And just going, ah, this is where I'm at.
[00:57:00] And so, you know, that's again, like, that's part of why I wanted to bring this up as an exercise for some homework, you know, is to like, Hey, you know, feel the pain, feel the pain, because you know what, if you feel it, then you're also recognizing what your employees are feeling. It's just in a, it's like the frog in the, in the, in the boiling water, right?
[00:57:18] If you're slowly turning it up, it's the same thing, right? Like they're feeling it over time. And if that's what kept coming up in your conversation that you recognize was about culture and you identified today that, Hey, how we find on board and retain clients is directly related to. Our culture, because it's creating this space for all this work.
[00:57:39] And if we lose it, that's gotta be a devastating blow, right? Cause you're thinking, oh, we lost that, that finance, that income, right? We lost that client, that potential great project. We spent all this time, right? So there's a, there's all kinds of things that are occurring. If we like empathize with that process and the people that are going through that work.
[00:58:00] Lyn Wineman: Yeah. Fascinating. Fascinating. Honestly, when you even think about it, um, right now we're at. About a 50 percent close rate, which honestly is really pretty good. So of all the proposals we put out, most of which are RFPs, but not all, um, of all the proposals we put out to new clients, we don't include this on existing clients, um, we win about 50 percent of that work.
[00:58:32] So that's a really good ratio, but it does mean that 50 percent of the time you're sharing the news that you lost. Which also has an impact on perceptions and ego, right? Yeah,
[00:58:46] Jude Schweppe: Yeah. So if you were
[00:58:48] Lyn Wineman: always a bummer when someone has to say, yeah, someone has to say, oh, I just heard the news and we didn't win this one. But we did win this one.
[00:58:59] We didn't win this one, but we did win this one. I mean, when half of the time you're reporting back and saying, gosh, I'm really sorry. We, everybody put time in on this and we didn't win it. Yeah.
[00:59:12] Jude Schweppe: So if you are reducing the amount of the amount, the number of times where you have to go into the team and say, we didn't win it because you are working with people 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years. It's, it just changes so much. It changes so much of the energy of the vibe. Of the mental energy that every time you have to do a new RFP, it's like, Oh, here we go again.
[00:59:34] You know, it's tough going.
[00:59:36] Lyn Wineman: Yeah.
[00:59:37] Gabe Ratliff: I just had a thought about maybe what could be say, like, a year goal. Is to decrease over the next four quarters, your RFPs
[00:59:50] Lyn Wineman: Yeah.
[00:59:50] Gabe Ratliff: are currently, right? So that, that if you're 50%, but you're decreasing how many you're doing and you're increasing the number of, you said you just need three more clients.
[01:00:00] That a retainer, if that's the, so if you've got, that's one goal, but then if you've got, Hey, over the next year, let's w because then you're creating the end of the tunnel for the, your employees, right? For the team, they're going, what? Right? So they're like, I'm here for the next year. Cause you know what that means next summer, right?
[01:00:18] So then you're creating that light at the end of the tunnel. And you're saying, this is where we're going with our vision. We're going to this place where we're no longer doing RFPs. We're only working with long term clients, long term relationships, like repeat work because people have to keep marketing, right?
[01:00:35] They have to keep marketing. I mean, look at, I mean, there are companies like Coca Cola, they've been marketing and advertising for over a hundred years. So
[01:00:46] Lyn Wineman: Yeah.
[01:00:47] Gabe Ratliff: there's, there are companies getting plenty of work, right? It's like, there's plenty of work until they're like, Hey, you know, we want to try something different.
[01:00:55] Jude Schweppe: Let's check in. Let's check in Lynn. How, how are you feeling?
[01:00:59] Lyn Wineman: I'm
[01:01:00] Jude Schweppe: about what we've uncovered?
[01:01:02] Lyn Wineman: I'm feeling excited. I actually feel very lucky in that it's mid afternoon on a Friday. I don't have any more meetings. I really do want to put my head down and do some more journaling thinking data collecting on on what this all might look like.
[01:01:21] Jude Schweppe: Amazing. So is that, is that the action you would like to set yourself? Are there any other actions that you would like to commit to as a result of what we've spoken about today?
[01:01:31] Lyn Wineman: Yeah, I think my first action is really to kind of frame this up for myself. my second action is thinking about how to, how to communicate this to the rest of my team. Because if I just walk in and say, we're not doing any RFPs anymore, they all will think I've gone completely mad. you know, trying to kind of roll back this experience a bit and, and share it with the larger group as well.
[01:02:05] Jude Schweppe: Humble steps,
[01:02:06] Gabe Ratliff: Humble
[01:02:06] Jude Schweppe: humble steps,
[01:02:08] Gabe Ratliff: That's why I shared the, Hey, what if you create, that's a goal. That way there's an understanding that there's going to be, cause it's like anything right in life. I, I, I've been really enjoying this. Um, some pieces by a Shaolin monk recently that have just been resonating. And, uh, one of the things that I love that he speaks to is that nothing in life, nothing in life.
[01:02:32] Happens quickly, unless it's something that's going to have like a massive impact, right? Like the ice age or, you know, anything like that, that was massive and quick, the pandemic, right? It was massive and it was quick, like, as far as it happening and, but the ripple effect is much longer, but he was saying, like, anything you want to do, it's just like with habit building, routine building, like this shift that you want to make, um, You know, with your fitness, with health, like mental health, anything like that.
[01:03:00] Right. Anything you want to do that you that's worth doing takes time. Right. And so I wanted to kind of share that example because I was sitting there and I kept popping up as, as we were just talking about that. And you were talking about like, I can't just drop this and be like, we're going to cut off our FPs. Right. There'd be like, uh, do we need, uh, Uh, do we
[01:03:19] Lyn Wineman: How are we going to make payroll? Yes.
[01:03:21] Gabe Ratliff: yeah, yeah. Do we need to get a straight jacket? Like what's going on? Uh, but you know, like, like being able to set it as far as, uh, what it feels comfortable, but a stretch goal, right. That we can work towards of like, and create that light at the end of the tunnel of like, this is where we're going with the business, but we're going to do it in a way that as you said at the very top, like needs, we need to be profitable.
[01:03:42] But we want to have this culture. I want to have the creative Nirvana and this culture that people are like, where people are clamoring to work for you because you have that culture that they're like, I want that instead of foosball or, you know,
[01:03:57] Lyn Wineman: Powder days. Yeah.
[01:03:59] Gabe Ratliff: right. Yeah. Any of those things that like people tried and maybe that's what cool for their environment.
[01:04:04] But if people are like, I want the creative Nirvana and a really great culture that focuses on me and, and like this. Cumulative vision, sign me up.
[01:04:16] Lyn Wineman: Beautiful. I love it. You guys. Thank you so much.
[01:04:19] Gabe Ratliff: You're so
[01:04:20] Jude Schweppe: Absolute pleasure. Is there anything else we can support you with today before we jump off?
[01:04:26] Lyn Wineman: I think my heart and my head are full, really. I don't think I could take any more.
[01:04:35] Gabe Ratliff: Fantastic.
[01:04:35] Jude Schweppe: that as
[01:04:36] Lyn Wineman: And I mean that in the most positive way.
[01:04:39] Jude Schweppe: Awesome. Well, Lynn, please, will you keep us up to date with how things unfold for you? Pop us an email. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you and learning more about your business and, you know, uncovering stuff for ourselves as well. I think that's one of the things we love about this podcast is we always have insights as well. Um, so we'll check in, see how you're doing, how you're getting on with the humble steps. And thank you so much for joining us.
[01:05:05] Lyn Wineman: Absolutely. My pleasure. Thank you so much. What a gift.
[01:05:08] Jude Schweppe: And that brings us to the end of another episode of the Artful Experience.
[01:05:18] Gabe Ratliff: Whether you're a first time listener or a diehard fan. We want to thank you for being here.
[01:05:23] Jude Schweppe: We hope you enjoyed today's show and got loads of value from the conversation.
[01:05:27] Gabe Ratliff: And Hey, if you're itching for more, don't worry. You can find all the juicy links and show notes for this episode at theartful. co.
[01:05:35] Jude Schweppe: But before you go, we have a little favor to ask. If you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button and leave a rating or review wherever you get your podcast fix and do tune in for our next episode.
[01:05:48] Gabe Ratliff: Your support means the world to us. And it helps us reach even more amazing, artful entrepreneurs out there like you.
[01:05:55] Jude Schweppe: Thanks again for joining us. We appreciate every single one of you
[01:05:59] Gabe Ratliff: until next time. Keep unleashing your creative genius and stay artful.
