How to Grow Your Agency Without Burning Out

Overview:

Sam talks with Business Process Consultant, Entrepreneur, and Agency Founder Marquis Murray. Marquis shares the story of his business getting acquired in 2020 and provides tips for how Agency owners can go about developing the systems and processes necessary for a sustainable and scalable business.

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https://youtu.be/J403x71Kiy0

Resources from Episode 39:

• MarquisMurray.com
• System Builder Academy
• Connect with Marquis on LinkedIn
• Try Motion.io for Free

Episode 39 Transcript:

[00:00:00] Marquis Murray: It's the same problem nomatter if you are a small business or an enterprise business.

[00:00:04] Marquis Murray: I'll be across the screen witha VP, someone high up, and I'm hearing the same problems that the person with threepeople in the organization is having. We all have cracks and if we don't takethe time to document how we work and create those standards, it's not going toscale with us as we grow. And we're gonna have the same issues when we're 2000people that we did when we're two people.

[00:00:25] Intro MusicPlays

[00:00:25] Sam Chlebowski: Happy Thursday everybody, andwelcome back to Designing Growth. Today on the podcast I'm very excited to bejoined by Marquis Murray. With more than 15 years of experience in theindustry, Marquis gained experience in growing and leading successful teams,and his company, ditto, was acquired after just two years in business. Marquisis passionate about eliminating burnout in the workplace, and he knowsfirsthand how the stress and burnout can affect leaders and their teams. Andhe's on a mission to help organizations overcome these challenges so they canfocus on their work.

[00:01:09] Sam Chlebowski: So my first question to you,marquee, is how are you doing today?

[00:01:12] Marquis Murray: I'm doing great. I'm excitedto be here, Sam, and having this chat, so yeah. Can't complain.

[00:01:17] Sam Chlebowski: And normally I would ask youhow did you get to where you are? But I was fortunate because when I waslooking at some of the work that you put out and some of the things that you'redoing, you have this story like everywhere I do think telling your story andbeing able to tell that story in a concise way, makes it a really powerfulthing. Would you agree with that?

[00:01:36] Marquis Murray: I would absolutely agree withthat. Yeah. It was one of the things that I just felt compelled to do. I mean,I have this story and it goes even deeper than what the published version ofthe story will tell you. Again, it was really like, the best, you know,shortest version I can give, but it really gave me a chance to show people whoI am, where I've come from, why I do what I do.

[00:01:57] Marquis Murray: Because when I'm on the. Otherside of the [00:02:00] screen engaged in sales calls,right? People are connecting with me. They want to know how did the businessget started, how did you get to where you're at? And we're really connectingwith people more than we're connecting with brands and services. So yeah, itwas absolutely super important for me to, to share that.

[00:02:13] Marquis Murray: And I don't shy away from,where I came from and how I got here.

[00:02:16] Sam Chlebowski: The power of storytelling,when it comes to. Yourself, your company, your product is really important.It's something that I've seen firsthand was really effective. And it'sinteresting for me to talk to you because we do have a couple of things incommon. I'll start with the first one.

[00:02:32] Sam Chlebowski: I also exited a business thatwas back in 2020, the reason why I bring this up is it was. A really powerfulapproach that we had of being able to tell the story to potential customersabout like why that business existed. We did marketing for mental healthprofessionals and we had a very concise story of like how we got there.

[00:02:50] Sam Chlebowski: Pur CEO and founder, who's nowmy co-founder at Motion.io, built a website for his mother-in-law's mentalhealth, practice in Jacksonville, Florida. While building that website he sawthat all of these therapists had outdated old websites that needed to be,mobile responsive, needed proper SEO.

[00:03:06] Sam Chlebowski: And that story in some waysreally carried us from 250 customers all the way to 5,000. I wanted to sharethat first off, and also congratulate you. That must have been really exciting.

[00:03:18] Marquis Murray: Same to you, Sam! Yeah, itwas, it was very exciting. It was great to feel like I had built something thatsomeone wanted to take interest in and to receive, you know, praise fromfriends, family, and, you know, internet friends was, was really great. Andcustomers and team members obviously. But yeah.

[00:03:34] Marquis Murray: Thanks so much and, andlikewise to you.

[00:03:36] Sam Chlebowski: Thank you. Thank you. Andanother thing that I actually saw we had in common is we are both musicians.You play the bass, is that correct?

[00:03:44] Marquis Murray: I do. I dunno if you can seethe one behind me. I've got three bases usually.

[00:03:50] Sam Chlebowski: Ooh.

[00:03:51] Marquis Murray: My black Rickenbacker is rightbehind me, but I've got my Squire P bass on there right now. And then to myleft, I've got my five-string precision jazz [00:04:00]from Fender.

[00:04:01] Sam Chlebowski: Oh wow, man. You have quitethe lineup there.

[00:04:05] Marquis Murray: I do. I'll take them down fora walk every now and then, so it's great. My Rickenbacker is in the bag rightnow cause I had a gig the other night. But yeah, I love anything bass. I lovemusic. What is it that you play?

[00:04:15] Sam Chlebowski: So a variety of stringedinstruments. I actually have a Bass as well. I have a Fender precision, Ibelieve it is. My primary instrument of choice is the guitar. So I have anacoustic Ibanez and then a Telecaster. It's like a burnt orange telecaster. Ilove it. That's probably my baby.

[00:04:33] Sam Chlebowski: And you're playing gigs too.What kind of shows do you play at? Or like, do you have a band?

[00:04:37] Marquis Murray: I used to play in a Christian Worshipband.

[00:04:40] Marquis Murray: But right now I play mostly atchurch and then I'll get called up to work with different, touring musiciansevery now and then. I don't really go on the road at all anymore, but, um, I'llget called up every now and then for a conference or a one-off show.

[00:04:53] Marquis Murray: I like it better that way. Idon't like leaving home. I like being close to my family, my wife and my kids.But I'll play at church really once a month now, and then just, you know, playaround in my office when I get the chance.

[00:05:03] Sam Chlebowski: Very cool. Yeah.

[00:05:04] Sam Chlebowski: I am all solo. I had somefriends who played music here for a while. They've all moved away, but, I stillplay probably, at least two or three times a week. after the kid goes to bed.Which brings me to my third thing that we have in common is I believe that weare both Dads.

[00:05:19] Marquis Murray: We are, I have two kids. Theyare seven years old, so we, we have twins.

[00:05:22] Sam Chlebowski: Wow.

[00:05:23] Marquis Murray: And, yeah, they areincredible. They are exact opposites, which often throws us for a loop becauseyou, you wonder how does that happen, right? Same environment, same parenting.We have to now discipline differently.

[00:05:37] Marquis Murray: They speak differently, theyhave different interests. they typically will congregate around like Pokemoncards and Minecraft. They, they, they've got that in common at least, buteverything else, they're just so different. But we love it. Wow old is yourkid?

[00:05:48] Sam Chlebowski: He is just about to turn fivemonths.

[00:05:52] Sam Chlebowski: So, I’m still new at this dadthing. Yeah. It has been an adventure and I can tell you getting through thosefirst couple months, [00:06:00] I cannotimagine what it must have been like to have twins and do that at the same time.

[00:06:06] Marquis Murray: I say this often, and I'm soserious when I say it. Like I, I cannot remember Sam. I, I can't, part of mystory that I don't often tell is that I left my corporate job when my kids wereborn, but, the plan was to go back. I ended up taking seven months off to be homewith them and my wife, and so we were there.

[00:06:25] Marquis Murray: I eventually went back to workand started freelancing. But I don't remember. I remember like being in theirnursery sometimes all day. We would sit on this daybed and we would just goback and forth between the daybed and their cribs, and I remember like bathtime cuz they get cranky around that time.

[00:06:42] Marquis Murray: I remember putting them tosleep. But how we spent our days and what was going on at the time, I cannot rememberany of it. It's, it's actually kind of sad sometimes when I really think aboutit cuz I wish that I had those memories. Still, thankfully there arephotographs, but. It must've been really tough.

[00:06:56] Marquis Murray: My brain must've just blockedit all out.

[00:06:58] Sam Chlebowski: They do say that, that it'slike a mechanism to get people to have more kids is you forget some of the likethe super, super hard stuff and you only remember basically when they startsmiling at you onwards.

[00:07:12] Marquis Murray: Right. It's a trap.

[00:07:14] Sam Chlebowski: Oh, I was saying the exactsame thing to my wife the other night. Because yeah, our baby boy, he hasstarted to be really, really cute. Like, you know, cracking up giggling andsmiling,

[00:07:24] Sam Chlebowski: and I'm like, oh wow. This iswhy people immediately want to have another one. this is just so adorable.

[00:07:31] Marquis Murray: And then they get to the agewhere they're seven and they don't want hugs and kisses anymore. They thinkyou're annoying. They don't want to hang out with you, and they have attitudes.And then you're like, Do we want to do this again? Yes, we do.

[00:07:43] Marquis Murray: Um, but yeah, it's just, it'sjust different.

[00:07:46] Marquis Murray: Congrats to you. That'samazing. You're, you're in a great spot right now.

[00:07:48] Sam Chlebowski: Thank you. Thank you. So Iknow that Ditto was acquired what have you been doing since then?

[00:07:55] Marquis Murray: Well, I spent the first couplemonths, um, with that other company helping transition [00:08:00]over clients and getting some systems, updated. I, had taken on a partnerposition as a VP of efficiency, which is really just like the delivery team,overseeing that, doing a lot of the same things that, that I was doing as a C EO, just with a new team.

[00:08:13] Marquis Murray: bit of a new offering, uh, butI left them in the beginning of March. So it was a short, really quickturnaround, I'll say. And I've been working on building out something new. I'mworking on, along with services I'm providing as a business process consultant,I have decided to double down on video content this year.

[00:08:33] Marquis Murray: I'm building out new communityaround operations and systems in Asana. So we've got a circle community, we'vegot some folks in there, and I'm doing events. I'm putting up videos, doing consulting,working with clients, but really the focus is gonna be on education this yearis training people and working with ops minded professionals so that they canwork better with their teams and build the systems.

[00:08:56] Marquis Murray: That their teams need. andyeah, I've just been having a lot of fun with it, doing podcasts like this,running my own podcast, testing things out, and really just taking advantage ofthe, the video, landscape that's out there and the opportunity to reach andmeet new people. it's been very interesting to see, how the content is reallyworking for me.

[00:09:14] Marquis Murray: I was listening to one ofyour, recent podcasts and. Your guest, uh, I think it was Latasha was talkingabout, video and how like a hundred percent of her leads come from YouTube.It's the exact same thing for me. and so it, it's been incredible just to seethe opportunities continue to come in and build authority in that space andreally carve out a niche.

[00:09:32] Marquis Murray: So I'm gonna just ride thatwave for as long as I can, and just continue growing and evolving, as the needschange of our customers.

[00:09:39] Sam Chlebowski: How fun, and I have beenhaving a good time with it as well. You know, aside from the immense amount oflearning that. Needs to happen. It's been like a really cool. Creative outletfor me. And I say, you

[00:09:55] Sam Chlebowski: know, besides the learning,but the learning is just part of the journey. It's just like sometimes I want [00:10:00] to be able to get to like a higher levelof quality faster. Cause I think every day once you start creating YouTubevideos, you start noticing other things that other people are doing, tacticsthey're using, whether it's the filming, whether it's the editing, whether it'sthe audio, and it's like, I want to be at that level of quality, but. It takestime. Like nobody becomes, you know, Mr.Beast, for example, overnight,

[00:10:24] Sam Chlebowski: I was just watching a videoabout thumbnails before this and it's like, man, I've like upleveled mythumbnails a lot, but they're still not as good as they could be. And listeningto some of the things that he was saying, it was like, holy cow, I got a lot ofwork to do.

[00:10:37] Sam Chlebowski: I got a lot of reps to get in.but you know, every day is just a little bit more of an adventure and you learnsomething new every day. What's your experience been like so far?

[00:10:45] Marquis Murray: Yeah. I set out a goal at thebeginning of this year to really grow the YouTube channel and I picked up DarylReeves, Daryl Eves, sorry, his book, the YouTube Formula. And there was a lotof just great stuff in there. It spent a lot of time talking about analyticsand AB testing and thumbnails.

[00:11:03] Marquis Murray: Yes. so much on thumbnails,but my experience has been, That, it's tough, right? And anytime you hearsomeone say, you know, what's the number one way you grow on social? It's aboutbeing consistent. You hear everyone say it right? And I didn't really understandwhat that meant for a really long time.

[00:11:20] Marquis Murray: It's like, why am I just gonnakeep putting out content putting out content without any rhyme or reason? And Idiscovered that the reason why you need to be consistent is not so that you'reshowing up. Every day or every single week. It's so that you can put out yourcontent, review your analytics, really look at the numbers, like when you pullup YouTube and look at the analytics of when people start to drop off.

[00:11:43] Marquis Murray: I was noticing that I had likea three minute intro where I was talking the whole time and then I had a bumperand then I would get into the video, talk a bit more about what I'm gonna say,and then I would get into the content and PE I was losing people. They werefast forwarding, they were dropping off and I thought, why are my [00:12:00] views down?

[00:12:00] Marquis Murray: And so really looking at ithas given me a chance to, because I'm consistent, I have a lot of data to lookat. I can see what the trends are week to week as I'm posting. And I'm reallylike, like I said, diving really deep into it. I have been, and used to be theperson that would. Not wanna be on camera.

[00:12:19] Marquis Murray: Right. My camera roll for thefirst few years of my kids' life was just all them and my wife. I was nowhereto be seen, right? Because I don't wanna be on camera ever. And so I've justhad to like let go of that. I show up now on TikTok. I'm on. Reels on Instagramand Facebook and now, like my marketing manager take care of all that.

[00:12:37] Marquis Murray: So all I have to do is producethe content and they re-share it. And because we're doing so much with the, thepodcast as well, it's kind of like, I can't not be on camera because I'malready so visible.

[00:12:47] Marquis Murray: I'm just trying and hopingthat one day I'm at 103 videos now and Mr. B says, that's the magic number. Andthen after that you start going viral and growing.

[00:12:57] Marquis Murray: So I'm just crossing myfingers and waiting for that, one video that's gonna take me to the next level.But hey, I'm having fun at the same time.

[00:13:03] Sam Chlebowski: It's really cool to talk toyou because you are ahead of where I am, but I can see like some of what you'vehad to go through, like I'm going through now is like kind of figuring it out,getting the reps in and that consistency piece. Yeah, I couldn't agree morewith what you had shared there. It's so huge and.

[00:13:23] Sam Chlebowski: One of the examples you justshared about how you had this long intro was something I noticed literally justlike last week. you know, it was tutorial videos for the motion.io platform,and I'm like, why am I spending four minutes with this intro? this should justbe like, let me show you how it works.

[00:13:38] Sam Chlebowski: Dive in. That's it. And it isa very complex. Way to do marketing. I think much more complex than things likeeven advertising, things like a blog, things like a newsletter, because itseems like with video there's just so many facets, and then that's not eventaking into account short form video, [00:14:00]which is this whole layer on top of that.

[00:14:02] Marquis Murray: Yeah, absolutely. And when Iwas looking at my video I mentioned, I was going on for three minutes,sometimes the second, like the next video, the intro was maybe 20, 30 seconds,and then that was it into the video, right. And then all of a sudden, myretention rate started climbing and it, and it stayed steady for the entirevideo.

[00:14:22] Marquis Murray: So it's incredible what youcan actually see once you get into it. and like you said, I'm looking atvideos. You're, you're looking at videos on YouTube and you're trying to learn.do any of us wanna listen? Does someone drone on. For three minutes and youhave to scrub through it. So yeah, I really started putting myself in the shoesof the person that was searching for my videos.

[00:14:41] Marquis Murray: Right. And I mean, I'm not themarketing guy anymore, but I love marketing and so it's just, I, I could talkabout this forever. I don't know where you want to take this, but Yeah,absolutely. There's been a lot of learning, for sure. And a lot of growth and.I mentioned it was frustrating because I get comments all the time that peopleare asking, why don't you have more subscribers?

[00:15:00] Marquis Murray: Why don't you have more views?I'm on, sales calls and people watch my videos and they're like, oh, I loveyour channel. Uh, you should definitely have more views. And I'm like, yeah,tell your friends, tell your colleagues, right. I have no idea why it's nothitting, but, again, I'm just having fun with it.

[00:15:15] Sam Chlebowski: Yeah, we get a little bitbetter every day. We keep that repetition, you practice, you gotta, you gottakeep practicing. The analytics piece, thankfully that's something that I amvery comfortable in. I have this master spreadsheet that I've created that ittracks like engagement month over month of, social posts.

[00:15:34] Sam Chlebowski: How many engagements, how manynew followers, what's the percentage change from the following month? , andthat's been something, yeah, that's been really, really helpful for me thusfar. Some of the more stylistic stuff, that's where I think I really struggle.

[00:15:47] Marquis Murray: Right. What a great system youhave though, right? Like to be tracking all that stuff and monitoring it. So maybeI'll learn a, a thing or two from you on that front.

[00:15:56] Sam Chlebowski: Yeah, I am obsessed with dataand I don't know, [00:16:00] cause I was neverlike a math or statistics person in school, but for whatever reason, once datastarted having a business application, I am like, whoop, like lasered in so,

[00:16:10] Marquis Murray: have you noticed anything,like connecting it back to like what you do, I guess, full-time, right?

[00:16:15] Marquis Murray: Like have you noticed anycorrelation to video posting viewership, on YouTube or the podcast when it'scompared to new users signing up to the motion platform?

[00:16:26] Sam Chlebowski: Yeah, that's a great question.And things have started to pick up steam. very recently for us, we'd launchedsome like paid advertising, and that was bringing a lot more people. The onething that I noticed is as soon as we started. Turning on these paid ads. So,we’re doing ads on Facebook and Instagram.

[00:16:43] Sam Chlebowski: We had tried them out a coupletimes before. We had tested ads in March, then again February and January. Butduring that time, basically in those first three months of the year, I producedsubstantially more video content, more video podcast episodes, couple tutorialvideos. What I noticed this last time is that when we turned these ads on, theywere incredibly more effective. And I think part of the reason for that isthere's more supporting content. To go along with those ads. So somebody maybesee an ad, they don't click, but then they had to wear a YouTube channel andthey can find out more about the motion platform.

[00:17:19] Sam Chlebowski: So that's one thing that I'vereally noticed that does drive the needle. and then, like you said, we aregetting, people signing up for the platform as well, directly from, uh, in ourYouTube description. So yeah.

[00:17:30] Marquis Murray: Very cool. Who, who's the,who's the platform for. More than anything. I know when we started talking, youknow, I, I've seen those ads, I've seen them all over YouTube.

[00:17:39] Marquis Murray: I have yet to like start afree trial or anything because I'm using Asana as you know, right. A lot of my contentis around Asana, helping customers get started with Asana. And so we're workingwith teams of 20 to 50 people inside of larger organizations. Let's say I, isthis for the. Solopreneur who is, you know, needing, a [00:18:00]way to better organize their own to-dos.

[00:18:02] Marquis Murray: Is this for teams as well?Just curious to know a bit more about the backend

[00:18:06] Sam Chlebowski: So basically the primary usecase is to address some of the problems that we had when we were running our agency.And this is something I've seen you talk about a couple of times where there'sall of these manual ups, there's all of these manual tasks like deeding toupdate statuses, needing to upload something to a project management tool whenit comes to working with a client, if you're using Asana, if you're usingMonday.com, if you're using Trello, if you're using Notion -- those platforms,from my experience, what we've heard from other people is with these platforms,it is really hard to create a functional client layer. That's what motion.iois. Motion.io is a client portal plus workflow automation for all of the forms,files, feedback, action items, and communication you share with clients duringa project. So our primary markets are people like web designers, first andforemost, creative agencies, marketing agencies, anybody who does creative typework, and they interface with the client directly.

[00:19:06] Marquis Murray: Got it. does it host that kindof integration with other platforms?

[00:19:11] Sam Chlebowski: Yeah. So, and you know, onecaveat is we are still in early access, so our platform's completely free touse right now. And we are, you know, adding new features basically every singleweek. So right now we have a form builder.

[00:19:26] Sam Chlebowski: We have a way to getdeliverable feedback, so to leave like pin comments on an image, then, sendfiles, send forms, all of those types of things with a client. What we want todo in the very near future and some of the things that we're talking aboutright now is, we're looking at potential integrations in two differentcategories. We have a Zapier integration where we say, okay, we can integratewith all of these other tools, through Zapier, you know, basically, all of theother project management tools like Asana, Trello, whatever.

[00:19:54] Sam Chlebowski: They all have reallysubstantial Zapier integrations. So that's one. And then the next is like, ifour [00:20:00] customers are using one specificPM tool, let's say it's a sauna, we would then prioritize doing a directintegration into that tool. So you didn't have to fiddle around with Zapier.

[00:20:12] Marquis Murray: That's perfect. Yeah, it, it'sdefinitely on my list to try it.

[00:20:14] Sam Chlebowski: So I did wanna talk too, alittle bit about what you're doing, and I know that your platform and your homeis a sauna. What types of businesses are you working with now that are usingAsana? Where do you think Asana slots in best?

[00:20:28] Marquis Murray: Yeah, that's a good question.I think that anyone can use a sauna. And I say that because I mentioned that Ileft my corporate job, you know, when my kids were born, I had some odd jobshere and there just to kind of, you know, make ends meet. And I was using asauna even before that to organize my life before I had a business to speak of,right?

[00:20:49] Marquis Murray: They have shifted their focuswhere we're working now with more mid-size and enterprise companies and rollingout more features, to suit those businesses needs. So a lot of the companiesthat I will work with, we're really industry agnostic.

[00:21:03] Marquis Murray: our niche is really teams thatare using Asana and need. Process improvement done or need to understand how touse a tool better, and it's probably because of my background in this, but weend up working with a lot of marketing teams. I am meeting with VPs ofmarketing, VPs of ops, directors of marketing.

[00:21:21] Marquis Murray: Rarely do I meet with the CEOif I do. They are an agency owner and they are testing out ClickUp, or maybethey're on Trello and they'll wanna look for another option. So we'll implementit for companies of. 20 people or teams of 20 people. And then as word gets outin one department, they'll refer us to other departments and we'll kind of gothrough the organization that way.

[00:21:48] Marquis Murray: And what's interesting aboutthe tool is like, As soon as I get on the call with them within the first fewminutes of hearing what their problem is, I know exactly what the solution is.And, and that's what's really great about it because I, [00:22:00] I hear it and that's why I can say we're industryagnostic because a lot of people will come out and say, oh, our industry isvery unique, or Our problem is very unique.

[00:22:07] Marquis Murray: And I think, no, it's not.Right. You need visibility into the work that your team is doing. You need tobe able to report on that work. You need a better way to track the status ofwork You need a better way to solve your requests and intakes because requestsare coming at you from emails and Slack messages and WhatsApp businessmessages.

[00:22:28] Marquis Murray: You need a better way to alignyour team on simply. How you work. So if that's documenting your standardoperating procedures or In a lot of cases, I've worked with companies that aregoing through a merger, right? And they have two teams that are used to doingthings completely different. And now we need to set some standards and somebaselines around how we work together.

[00:22:46] Marquis Murray: So, that's what's really niceabout it is the problems are the same. The approaches and the solutions arevery different though, and it's great to see that we can like, take a companyfrom where they're at, confuse, stressed out, burnt out. They have no ideawhere work is. They can't report on anything and bring them to a place wherethere's clarity.

[00:23:04] Marquis Murray: And visibility into their workas well. So, I love having those conversations and I'll be in these sales callssometimes and I have a little grin on my face because they're talking and I'mlike, yeah, can we just fast track this call? I know exactly what you're gonnasay. I've actually taken those words on my website.

[00:23:21] Marquis Murray: Um, I have on the servicespage, like words that have been taken from my sales calls, right? So if youhave this problem, here's a solution. And so you can go down the entire pageand like read something. You're like, yeah, that's me.

[00:23:35] Marquis Murray: And then they would come inand we're like, we don't know what we don't know. Tell us how you can help. Sonow I'm like, here you go. Here's the solution. I know the problem and it's,been incredible, to be able to connect with people that way as well. So, areally long way to say we can work with anybody and everybody as long as youwanna work better, within your team.

[00:23:54] Sam Chlebowski: You answered the question thatI was gonna ask, which was what are the types of problems that you are helping [00:24:00] these businesses solve? And you covered afew of them right there. Like the requests, the intake, the tracking of work. Thatis something that, holy cow, you really see the stress cracks in the foundationonce things start to really pick up. It's like one month you're celebrating -- you'vemade all of these sales, business is great, we have all of this money toreinvest into the company. We're paying people well and we're providing all ofthese jobs. And then those clients start their onboarding and you quicklyrealize that, oh, whoa.

[00:24:36] Sam Chlebowski: We have a lot of work that isgoing on and things are getting lost, and this is not the fault of any one teammember. This is our fault. This is our fault for not setting them up with waysto better track these things with ways to better organize the clientcommunication to Automate the certain parts of the process so they're notspending all day, digging through their email for something.

[00:25:00] Sam Chlebowski: So that was something that Inoticed firsthand.

[00:25:03] Marquis Murray: Yeah, and it's the same nomatter if you are a small business or an enterprise business, think of thebiggest companies in the world, right?

[00:25:12] Marquis Murray: Think of the tech giants thatyou're seeing. Think of it. It doesn't matter who it is, right? I'll be acrossthe screen with one of their VPs, someone high up, and I'm hearing the sameproblems that the person with three people in the organization is having,right? Consistency doesn't scale the same with every single company, right?

[00:25:32] Marquis Murray: We, we have cracks and if wedon't take the time to document how we work and create those standards, it'snot going to scale with us as we grow. And we're gonna have the same issueswhen we're 2000 people that we did when we're two people, in my experience, it,it, it comes from the leadership, right?

[00:25:48] Marquis Murray: Like, it, it's a problem thatstems from the top down. I'm not surprised anymore. I, I was surprised at onepoint that you'd see these larger organizations and you just assume becausethey're in the, in the public eye and you see [00:26:00]them and you use them and you visit their, their venues, right?

[00:26:03] Marquis Murray: That they must have ittogether. How else would they get here? Right? And you realize that there areno. I won't say that there are no strategic goals, but they're fragmented.they're broken. no one's followed up on them. No one's tracking and monitoringthese goals. And then if there are no goals that are relevant to the teams thatare working, it's almost like what are we aiming at?

[00:26:25] Marquis Murray: Why are we doing this? like,how does it matter? How does it connect to the larger vision of theorganization? And aside from just the. Day-to-day, how do we use a tool and howdo we gain visibility? A lot of it is we have these goals that we've just been,either assigned or we've been told by leadership to just figure out.

[00:26:43] Marquis Murray: But how do you do that whenthere's no alignment? And that's why I love this work. I love coming in and,you know, seeing these problems and figuring out a solution for them, becausethen to see the light come on, At the end of it, when, for the first time ateam lead can see that their goals and how they stem down and they can see theprojects internally that need to be worked on, and they can see, who on theirteam, has capacity to take on new work.

[00:27:09] Marquis Murray: And they have a new client inthe onboarding phase and they can say, great, you're gonna be assigned. Wedeploy the template. Everything's assigned for you. Right? Like it changes.Everything, but you gotta know where you're going. it's been really eye-openingto see that and really, um, encouraging for me to know that I'm in the rightplace.

[00:27:26] Marquis Murray: Right. Doing the right workand connecting with the right people.

[00:27:29] Sam Chlebowski: I mean, even looking at yourwebsite, you've worked with some really big names on here. I see. And you know,I, I think it speaks to your expertise and your experience also dealing withsome of those things yourself, because I know that that's what had startedDitto in the first place, is you had a marketing agency, you.

[00:27:50] Sam Chlebowski: Saw that you were workinglate, you were spending all of this time doing all of these tasks that could beautomated. Or if they couldn't be automated, they could at least be [00:28:00] tracked in a better, more streamlined way.

[00:28:02] Marquis Murray: That's right. And yeah, asfounders, you'll often hear it, we are our own ideal client. I know all thesepain points and I can rhyme off marketing copy and problems around what thesepeople are experiencing is because I, I used to experience the same things,right? I, I've been through it. I know what burnout feels like.

[00:28:20] Marquis Murray: I know what it's like to be upat three o'clock in the morning hating yourself because you should havedelegated, you should have documented something. Thing, right? Like almost nextto tears. I know what that feels like. So, having a solution, you know, that onthe backend can solve the problems of my customers.

[00:28:37] Marquis Murray: It's like, it, it changeseverything. And when I had the marketing agency, that's really how I starteddocumenting my processes. it was just me in the beginning doing the service,doing the sales, kind of doing everything, wearing all the hats. If you will.And, eventually I had to start bringing on new team members.

[00:28:52] Marquis Murray: I brought on another socialmedia manager. I brought on a paid media specialist, and every single time Iwas booking meetings with them to do live onboarding. And I was going throughand answering all their questions and it's like I had a checklist, but I wassaying the same things over and over again, and I was just using the checklistto make sure that I covered everything.

[00:29:12] Marquis Murray: And then they would get intotheir day-to-day, into their work, and they were coming back to me askingquestions that I thought they should just know the answer to. I. Right. So togo back to my top down thing, right, like they were asking questions that Ithought they knew the answer to because I hired them as a specialist to do thatwork, but I didn't take the time to create that documentation or that processand provide it to them.

[00:29:33] Marquis Murray: So that was my fault, and itwas really at a share frustration. One day I said, you know what? I'm done withthis. I'm not gonna answer these questions anymore. I'm too busy for this. Iwas so mad at myself, but I like expressed it outwardly that I threw uploom.com and I started recording everything that I did and I said, here you go.

[00:29:53] Marquis Murray: Here's a video. Go and watchthis. And that was really the beginning of like documenting systems in my ownmarketing agency. And it [00:30:00] evolvedfrom there into. Ditto and, you know, systems and processes and now being aconsultant. But I, I finally took the time and I think that's the point, islike I took the time to document it once and for all so that I could actuallyrely on my team and, and scale effectively.

[00:30:16] Sam Chlebowski: Yeah, it's something that.actually, I think it was, Bart Aniston who I believe you've interviewed on yourshow. I spoke with him a while back and he has his marketing agency and we weretalking about some of these, systems and processes and the importance of documentation.

[00:30:34] Sam Chlebowski: Bart actually inspired me. Tostart documenting my own processes right now. And at the time it felt kind offunny just because I'm like, why am I documenting this? It's just me right now.And now I look back, I'm like, oh my God. I'm so thankful that I started doingsome of this stuff when I did. So, Bart, if you're listening to this, thankyou.

[00:30:55] Sam Chlebowski: because yeah, now I have,notion docs for how we publish podcasts, notion docs for how our paid ads areset up and how to, create the UTM parameters for each ad and all of thesethings that I'm gonna be really thank.

[00:31:11] Sam Chlebowski: Full, I feel like, that I haveas soon as we onboard our first employee, so

[00:31:16] Marquis Murray: Yeah. It it's interesting thatyou say that. Yeah. Barts a great guy. We worked together years ago. I'm gonnabe on his podcast again in a, in a few weeks actually.

[00:31:24] Sam Chlebowski: Oh, nice. I'll be sure tocheck that episode out.

[00:31:26] Marquis Murray: When you realize, and I hadthis epiphany, Maybe a year and a half ago, even still, right?

[00:31:31] Marquis Murray: It was a year and a half ago.I had this epiphany where I'm like, it seems so simple and I'm gonna say it.And you're like, yeah, obviously. But a lot of people don't actually practiceit. and understand it. It's, as an entrepreneur, it is not your job in year 2,3, 4, whatever, to keep doing the same things you were doing in year one.

[00:31:49] Marquis Murray: Year one is like, Your setup,it's your foundation. Maybe you're spending your, day on sales calls andbalancing that between what should be documenting and onboarding people. Butit's not your [00:32:00] job to continue doingthose tasks you did when you first started the business. It is your job to takeall the information out of your head.

[00:32:08] Marquis Murray: Put it in a place where yourteam can access it and so that they can continue doing those things so you canfocus on what you're truly gifted in, Whether that is or what, whatever bringsyou joy, right? So if that is sales, great. Focus your day on sales. If that isspeaking or podcast, for me it's podcast and it's making YouTube videos.

[00:32:27] Marquis Murray: If I could spend my whole dayjust doing those two things, I would absolutely spend my time that way. Butagain, it's such a simple concept, but if you really think about it, it's like,my job is to document this so I don't have to do it anymore. That's it. That'swhat we should be focusing on.

[00:32:43] Marquis Murray: But it, it's missed so often,which is why obviously I'm so passionate about this cause I know what the otherside looks like.

[00:32:50] Sam Chlebowski: Yeah, and cause I do agreewith that timeframe. That you laid out like in that first year To say this alittle bit in a different way. I think it's okay to do things that don't scale.It's okay to do those sales calls, even though you're not eventually gonna bethe salesperson.

[00:33:06] Sam Chlebowski: Go talk with customers. Spendextra time with talking to your customers, offer, white glove onboarding, offerextra support, offer this higher level. When you were getting off the ground.and use those learnings from those activities that don't scale to providedocumentation, to create processes that do.

[00:33:26] Sam Chlebowski: And I think if you can dothat, that is the critical piece that's really, really gonna help you, afterthat first year and then onwards throughout your business.

[00:33:36] Sam Chlebowski: Marque, this has beenabsolutely awesome chatting with you, and I feel like I could sit here with youhonestly all day,, I'll have to have you back on to chat some more about thethings that you're doing with your business and of the new things that you'reseeing.

[00:33:49] Marquis Murray: You're very welcome. Andthanks for the opportunity. Yeah. I had a great time. lots of synergies as, asyou said. And so yeah, I'd love to come back whenever it makes sense for you.

[00:33:56] Sam Chlebowski: Amazing. Amazing. So, two lastquestions before we go. First one, if people want to learn more about you andthe work that you're doing, where should they go?

[00:34:04] Marquis Murray: I'm all over LinkedIn. You canfollow along there, but if you go to Marquismurray.com, you can find out allabout what we're doing. There's some incentives on there. I've got a freecommunity for ops minded people at Systembuilderacademy.com. But yeah, pickyour flavor and I'll see you there.

[00:34:20] Sam Chlebowski: Amazing stuff, and we will putlinks in the show notes to all of those things. And then for our final question-- when you're not working Marquis, how do you like to spend your time? What doyou like to do?

[00:34:30] Marquis Murray: My seven year old boys, theykeep me busy. Wit's building Lego, we love playing chess and checkers together.They are avid video game enthusiasts and so we'll be playing Mariocart on the NintendoSwitch or Fortnite. I love hanging out with my kids. I really, really do. If itwas just me, I'd probably be playing bass or out for a walk. Yeah, that's it. Familyis how I wanna spend my time.

[00:34:55] Sam Chlebowski: I love it. I would very muchso agree maybe, once they start getting a little bit older, maybe it's evensoon they can start playing music with you. You got a drummer and then apotential guitarist and you guys got a band.

[00:35:08] Marquis Murray: They already play piano, sowe're like halfway there.

[00:35:11] Sam Chlebowski: No way. That is awesome. Pianois one thing that I wish I would have learned. Just because it's so likefundamental to any other instrument, if you can learn how to play the piano.But maybe I'll try and, uh, you know, see if my son, wants to take pianolessons when he's older, uh, you don't give him a gentle nudge to try it out.

[00:35:29] Marquis Murray: Get him started right now,five, six months. It's a perfect time.

[00:35:34] Sam Chlebowski: Can't sit up, but he can playsome mean keys. Well, cool. Thank you so much, marque was awesome chatting withyou. If you like the content covered in this episode, Go ahead and give us afive star review on Apple or Spotify. Just search for the Designing GrowthPodcast. Click that five-star review button.

[00:35:53] Sam Chlebowski: Don't even have to leave acomment. Just click that button. Thanks again everybody, hope you enjoyed thisepisode. [00:36:00] Until next time, my name isSam Chlebowski, host of the Designing Growth Podcast. Have fun, good luck, andgo crush it. Bye-bye.