Logan Lyles (00:02.306)
When you shift your agency's focus and operating model, it can have a ripple effect throughout the business and your team. Welcome back to the Agency Builders podcast. My name's Logan Lyles. In today's conversation with Linda Hafstad, partner and CEO of Ekte Media, we'll be discussing how their agency evolved, found their niche, and what that's meant for the makeup of their team. We're going to be discussing the benefits and the challenges of running a lean team that includes working with a small pool of vetted contractors that work

closely with the agency. How do you run this model effectively? What are the pitfalls? And what about this model can you apply to your own agency? Before we get into all of that though, Linda, thank you so much for joining us on the show today.

Linda Hafstad (00:43.512)
Thank you for having me.

Logan Lyles (00:45.281)
Absolutely. Well, I always like to start out with a story and we're talking a little bit about the evolution of your agency, what the model is today and what other agency owners can learn from that. What was kind of the pivotal point in your journey where you realize, hey, we need to or want to make a change in the model and the focus for your agency at EKTA.

Linda Hafstad (01:09.196)
Yeah, I would say that we started off how a lot of other agencies start out. It's creating this done for you environment where it's like, no, we can do everything and marketers are kind of put into this box of like jack of all trades. And we tried to fall into that. I think that it left us feeling a little bit like we were trying to dominate a market that was like

really oversaturated. I'd say the moment where we decided to make the biggest pivot is where we cut our services to basically two offerings. And we started off social media was our biggest thing. We did brand design, web design, all of those different things kind of built really long-term clients. But we started to understand that

marketing and ad dollars are essentially useless if the foundation isn't laid properly. So whenever we would take on like social media contracts, marketing management type of contracts, we realized that our efforts kind of looked bad or weren't performing as well because people didn't convert when they went to the website or the brand didn't look credible. So it was after one project where we were running ads where we decided

that the ads were sending tens of thousands of people to the website for that client every month and they just weren't converting at the level that we needed them to. So we reevaluated and looked at the conversion rates on the site and they were extremely low. So we said, Hey, can you trust us with redesigning this website and putting the brand in a better spot to get conversions? And once we did that website and continued running ads, the conversion rates

actually genuinely tripled. So that was our data-based decision maker of, okay, we're going to focus more on laying really strong foundations. So that's how we became the agency that focuses just on brand and websites, laying strong foundations for other agencies to come in and make those efforts work.

Logan Lyles (03:26.574)
I love that example. Anytime we can talk about three, four, five X, the results that we were driving for a client. means that there's something going on. There is a there there and you guys found what that was. And it was the foundational brand work that you did for that client instead of just jumping into, you know, the, the typical tactics. It's one of the things we say at business builders at our agency, you know, marketing is all about planning, producing and promoting, but oftentimes

people come to us as an agency and they want to produce more content or they want to promote a certain thing, but they don't have the right plan in place. Right. And they, the other foundational elements of that are the brand and the messaging foundation that they need for the other parts of marketing really to be effective. So you guys had this, it sounds like this was kind of isolated to one client. You kind of said, Hey, trust us. We're going to do this. What was it then like to say,

Hey, we're gonna now shift the model to do this for the rest of our clients, because I'm sure it didn't happen completely overnight. What was that process like?

Linda Hafstad (04:34.176)
I'll say that I kind of had this feeling essentially the whole time working in this space. Like every time I would bring on a social media client, whether it was a business or a macro influencer, it was the first thing that we would touch was social media branding, which is kind of what I built a name for myself with. It's creating a credible profile and a theme that the content is going to hold and that

All kind of starts with design and that builds into the strategy. So I would say it's a common thing across the board. If you're not focusing on having a consistent design style, then the brand can't be recognized. Like we want people to see when somebody makes a post and it has a certain style, if that brand sticks with that style, they become recognized just off of a first glance the next time they post and they know what to expect. So.

It definitely wasn't isolated just to that one client. think that client was a turning point in making us realize that we were actually hurting ourselves trying to run ads when where we were sending them wasn't bringing in money. It was like we had done the whole process in reverse and that client like there's still a client of ours. They trust everything we say now because of us. But I feel like we lost the money by doing it.

reversed. So now our biggest focus is if they come in with ads and a need for advertising, a need for social media, I'll take a look and like I work more on the consulting side. My team does the branding and design and I'll say, look, I think that your foundation is laid really nicely. And then I'll probably send them off to one of our partners if they are set up properly. If not.

That's where I come in and I say, look, if you're planning on spending $10,000 a month in ad spend, and it's not working for you with your current agency, even though they've done a good job, if you've hired three agencies and you've churned each one of them, could the problem actually be out of their control? Can we look at that first? And then your efforts can be successful. So that's where we made the huge pivot.

Logan Lyles (06:59.189)
Yeah. Tell me a little bit about how those conversations often go for you. I I've had similar ones with, clients or prospective clients coming in the door, thinking that they want one thing from our agency and saying, hold on time out. need to back up or we need to look at the foundation. what are some things that you recommend maybe to other agencies listening to this into how to tactfully have that conversation?

Right. Because there are some clients who might come in and say, all they hear is you're saying, they're saying, I have a problem. It's the agency. you're saying, no, it's kind of you, not you necessarily, but it's on your side. What's your recommendations for how to navigate that with different sorts of prospective clients that are coming in the door.

Linda Hafstad (07:47.896)
I'll start off by saying I love agency owners, but 90 % of agency owners are the problem. It's a very rare case for a client to actually be the problem. So it can be a scenario where like that client that we ran ads for, they came to us burned by multiple agencies. And that was kind of like a conversation it started off with.

Hey, like every single client we've worked with has been burned in the past. And that's the truth. Every single client has been hurt by an agency. So there's a lack of trust to begin with when you're walking into those conversations. If a client has the money to spend on an agency, they've probably already done it and they've probably been hurt if they're coming to you. So that's a main factor to consider. You don't want to jump directly into sales. It becomes more about, okay,

What were the challenges that you faced with that agency to see if this is a suitable client for you or to see how you can make a better solution for them than the last one. So I had a conversation. I think it was actually yesterday. It was with a potential client who came to us, who we've been speaking with for a few months. They've been on the verge of a rebrand for a while.

And a lot of the time, social media and people coming to agencies for social media is driven by other people telling them that they need to focus on social media. So much of the time, almost every scenario I've dealt with has been a brand that says, look, like our competitors are doing this on social media. Our advisors told us we need to focus on social media. And it's usually...

Those conversations start out with me educating them on how complex making that decision actually is. On average, if you want to hire a good social media agency, you're paying around $5,000 a month. It's a big decision to make and that's for organic content that doesn't drive sales. That's not even ad spend. So this client came to us saying, hey, our competitors are all like blowing up in the area. This is a property management business.

Linda Hafstad (10:16.984)
and they're posting like influencers in their different properties like they're so hip and their brands are so fresh and I had to clarify to them like your properties are way out of the price range of somebody who's sitting there all day scrolling through Instagram. You need to position yourself more as the four seasons of this whole property rental landscape in this area maybe focus

on the experiences people get, focus on how the brand feels. And that made them really kind of shift their perspective out of, wait, why am I focusing so much on my competitors instead of just looking at us and looking at what we could be doing without all of the noise? Because if you start focusing on everyone else, you become like everyone else. So that's kind of how the brand conversation starts. They need to figure out.

their differentiating factors and their strategy before they invest in marketing.

Logan Lyles (11:18.983)
Yeah, I love that example of the conversation that you just shared there, Linda, because it's, kind of sales one on one and whether you're an agency owner listening to this, who's still running sales, which happens a lot. would say the majority of our community members here at agency builders, the, the owner, the founder is still involved in sales, either a hundred percent or to some degree. And sometimes we can just forget to ask those questions so that we can set ourselves up to educate the client. They come.

And they say, I've got budget and this is what I need. Right. And sometimes we can get too focused on that budget that is there in, in front of us, quote unquote, for the taking. And we forget to ask those questions of, that really what you need? What led you here? What makes you think you need that? Right. because one, you could get yourself in a situation where you're trying to solve the same problem as the last three agencies. And you're not going to be able to do it because you're doing the same thing as, as what they were doing. Cause you haven't called that time out.

And also you're not setting yourself up to be that strategic advisor. If you don't ask those questions on the front end, like you just recommended there, Linda, well, let's talk a little bit about how operationally this shift then change things for you guys. I want to get to some of the things about how you guys blend having full-time employees with a close pool of contractors, those sorts of things. But tell me a little bit about how the operational.

Linda Hafstad (12:27.266)
Yeah.

Logan Lyles (12:45.147)
model within the agency has shifted as we get into that part of the conversation.

Linda Hafstad (12:50.518)
Yeah. so we've kind of always operated on a pretty lean model. I, for a while had a set team that worked in house and that was because we had long-term projects for marketing management that required that team. One thing I will say is while going with a project model rather than a retainer model can

make revenue more inconsistent. Going with a subscription model requires a lot more heads. It requires a lot more of a reduction to your profit margins. You're really going home with nothing at the end of the day and you're fighting constantly to keep these people on subscriptions. Not because you're doing what's best for the client, but because you're trying to keep everyone solid on your payroll. And that's

a big thing for us. So we made a big shift into having our key players and it took a very long time to narrow down our team to the people who are actually like aligned with the way that we think, aligned with the way that we do things. And I'm really, really happy with it. The way that we structure our operations is we have what we call a collective model.

which means that we have interviewed, vetted very high quality. I'd say you can kind of call them freelancers, but at the end of the day, they're on call within our system with emails with us in our Slack. And we keep them up to date and have meetings with them for projects that they would be the best fit for. So every change we've made when it comes to sales, when it comes to

Pricing when it comes to what we offer our operations has all been to provide the best client experience and it's caused us to have a 100 % retention rate, which is almost unheard of as an agency. It's because clients we had two years ago are still with us. They have different needs. They come to us for everyone. They refer all of their friends, all of other business owners they know because

Linda Hafstad (15:11.33)
We're not trying to sell them stuff constantly to keep our payroll on check. We're giving them the exact solution that they need. We're actually there for them as a partner resource and we don't have to price things so far out of reach for them to survive.

Logan Lyles (15:28.637)
So you guys have moved to, sounds like exclusively a project based model in the way that you price and package everything for all your client engagements, is that right?

Linda Hafstad (15:39.298)
For the most part, yes. One of our strategies that I actually recommend if people are in the branding web design space is we offer consulting, but only after those projects. It's not like we offer consulting right off the bat to people unless they really don't know what they need. And we offer website hosting and management, which website hosting and management is a subscription model for us.

It doesn't require a ton of resources. It just means that we maintain and we update the sites that we build. keep them very high quality and it takes weight off of the clients, but it's a very cheap subscription for them. So it's not even noticeable, but they have peace of mind. They have people to go to.

Logan Lyles (16:29.213)
I love that. Jay, one of our co-hosts of the community here and the founder of both agency builders and business builders in our agency at business builders. Several years ago, he had some folks recommending to him looking at, you know, our website hosting and management services and saying, Hey, this is costing you money. It's not a big revenue driver. You need to just nix it right. Everyone with an accounting mind was kind of encouraging him that way. Instead we looked at, okay, what are some ways we can tweak this to make this profitable?

and grow this and today, you know, it's not the lion's share of our business by any stretch, but it is a portion that is consistently profitable and adding to both our top line and bottom line because it can be that way to stay sticky with a client. It's an ongoing need. If you set it up the right way, it can be, you know, kind of low lift for you as an agency. And it can keep that relationship door in the lines of communication open with the client that could have other needs.

where you wouldn't otherwise have a reason to be in front of them, to continue to service them. And so I think it's a, it is a strategy for a lot of agencies out there that if they're not thinking about that, it could be a way to kind of raise their floor just a little bit when it comes to, from a revenue perspective and their client portfolio as well. You were talking, go ahead, Linda. Yeah.

Linda Hafstad (17:34.7)
Yeah.

Linda Hafstad (17:51.077)
I think there's like a very strategic approach to take with that. So instead of just right off the bat offering website management, a lot of people will manage and host websites that they didn't build. So they don't know the ins and outs of the website and they can't redesign things when needed. We host everything, we pay for the hosting. They just pay us a very small retainer to like do upkeep all of that stuff, but

Logan Lyles (17:55.377)
Okay.

Linda Hafstad (18:18.36)
Every time we build a website, we offer website management for 50 % off for the first three months after it goes live. That gives that client an opportunity to be in control of the decision of whether they want to stick with it or not. And it also allows them to have any changes or anything they need made to the site within a three month period because things change. yeah, I mean,

There are lot of ways to go about those things. It's a client retention practice for sure. I just think at the end of the day, it should never be about the agency and the profit margins because clients can see through that. It should really be about providing continuous value through the cycle so that they come to you with the next company they start, which is not uncommon.

Logan Lyles (19:10.557)
Yeah, absolutely. For any of those, those of us who have been living agency life for any time, we we've had those relationships where, know, a client came to trust us when they were in this position and then they got a promotion or they moved to a different company or they moved to a third company. Right. And you've been able to continue that relationship as they've changed jobs, which I think is a growth strategy for you as an agency and all the more reason to make sure that you're delivering value.

you're creating a great client experience throughout it because people don't stay in jobs for 10, 20 years like they used to, right? It's two to three years oftentimes. You see someone who's been with the same company for five years and you're like, wow, that's an eternity for today. Linda, we were talking a little bit earlier about, I think what you referred to as kind of bringing on your on-call freelancers. Talk to us a little bit about how you vet folks to come into that role.

What does onboarding look like there versus folks who have been exclusively either they have partner kind of your typical contractor relationships or only FTEs this is kind of in between those what advice would you give for folks in vetting this sort of role bringing them into the fold and in this way and managing them as kind of an extended part of your team?

Linda Hafstad (20:35.02)
They need to be treated as if they are an employee. I think that the benefit for them is much larger than the benefit for the agency. In terms of vetting, I always choose to go to my contacts first, to actually find people that they've worked with, that they've been happy with, and other agency owners, they're not competition.

It's a saturated space. Everybody has a different niche. Like you can go to people to get feedback or get employees that they no longer need. And I found some of my best people through that. So getting referrals, getting it straight from the source, especially from agency owners who have worked with these people before. And then getting in contact with them knowing that.

hey, this person told me about you, I'd love to talk. There needs to be meetings before someone is brought onto your team. We look at their portfolios to see kind of where they would fit. We pick our team members for each project based off of their unique capabilities. So say we have five brand designers, we would pick the one that is the best fit for a specific design style and project rather than just

placing random projects on random people. And that's where it becomes effective. But they sign contracts with us, they sign NDAs with us, they have their own emails, they have their own Slack profiles that don't go away, whether they're working on a project or not. So they feel as if they're a part of the team. Consistent communication is really important with those people when projects aren't current.

And also culture alignment. This may be more specific to our case because we're a very culture focused company and value based. If we have a, anyone from a freelancer to a full-time employee, they need to hold integrity as a number one value. And that needs to be the first thing that gets talked about in an interview. And it's not about like, yeah, no, like integrity is big to me. It's

Linda Hafstad (22:55.52)
What does integrity mean to you? Because our definitions may be different. What does holding yourself to a high standard and taking pride in your work mean to you? It's all about understanding the person. And then if they're a good fit, we have a culture deck where they understand how we work. They understand the value of working with us, which value for a freelancer with us is that they set their own schedule.

We actually at the agency don't have business hours necessarily. We allow everyone to work wherever they want as long as we get the deliverables in time and they communicate when they're spoken to. And it works extremely well. It really helps creatives not feel tied down, which is horrible for creative output.

Logan Lyles (23:45.595)
Yeah, it can just be soul crushing. I'm sure that anybody listening to this who's been in a creative role, which even if you're an agency owner, you're probably one who started in dabbling in some creative area, whether that was website design or graphic design or video or social media. And now you're the owner and you can relate to that with that creative inside you as well. I just want to encourage people for what you said there, Linda, about vetting for integrity, values alignment, those sorts of things.

Sometimes asking story-based questions can really kind of help you suss that out in the interview process. As Linda, you were, you were saying kind of not just listening for is integrity important to you, right? Who's going to say no to that? Right. what's your definition? I liked that question. Tell me about a time where you had to make a hard choice to do the right thing for a client. Right. Tell me about a time when you had to, hold yourself accountable when something went wrong.

Linda Hafstad (24:27.606)
What is your definition for that word?

Logan Lyles (24:44.401)
What did you do about it? How did you handle it? Right. And you want to hear kind of some of those things of taking ownership. Maybe they're explaining it, but they're definitely not, you know, consistently saying, well, this person and this timeline and this process and this client, right. Cause guess what? If they're coming into your agency and doing that work, it's likely going to be your process and your client and this situation, everything like that. one thing that was coming to mind earlier as you were talking, Linda, about, you know, not really having.

Set business hours. You've got a distributed team. And on top of that, you've got a team that is made up of a lot of on-call freelancers as we've been talking about it today. what are some of the operational challenges or maybe some of the things that you're like, Ooh, I didn't think about that. And you guys have needed to tweak how you operationalize all this and kind of still keep the train on the tracks, even with some broader guardrails, if you will.

Linda Hafstad (25:40.312)
I mean, that's an ongoing effort at all times. would say our operations significantly improved like tenfold when we changed the services that we offer. When you're a marketing management company and you have consistent deliverables on a timeline, they're either not going to be like extremely high quality because you're in a rush to constantly deliver, or it's going to be really hard to organize. So

Logan Lyles (25:42.543)
I bet.

Linda Hafstad (26:08.874)
With a project model, we use a software called Bonsai, which is really cool. It basically gives the client their own portal to go in, see all of their billing, their contracts, their folders. And it has on our end, all of the project management with all of the deadlines and statuses of each of the deliverables. So that's one way that we track things. But at the end of the day, like, I hate to say it.

because I'm a big people and employee first person, but we have churned a lot of employees purely because I can't stand the feeling of chasing after people. When I feel like I have to chase after somebody for a deliverable, when it's very clearly outlined when they're hired that you need to take pride in your own work, you have the freedom to work whenever you want, wherever you want. If you want to go to Spain for a month, go ahead, but...

If you don't answer in a reasonable period of time and you aren't delivering on time, those privileges are useless. Like you're, you're kind of taking advantage of my trust and that's not a good integrity move on my part or not on my part, on their part. so I'd say chasing after people can become an operational challenge if you don't make expectations very clear and you can't get attached to people.

The biggest problem I had is I held onto people for too long because I had so much faith that they would change. And at the end of the day, if you see it like three times, that's when you have to say like, look, let's have a come to God conversation. And if that doesn't work, then the relationship can continue, but not within the agency. It's not gonna work for your clients.

Logan Lyles (27:56.827)
Yeah. Yeah. I think two good things that you said there. One, the relationship continue outside of the agency. We can kind of, you know, have these two be bifurcated a little bit. And two, the word that you said there that I always come back to with any sort of interpersonal conflict, whether that's a team member, a family member, a client, it's all about expectations. When expectations are misaligned or they're not clear, they end up being unmet.

Oftentimes. so that clarity on the expectation front, you know, you guys use bonsai to organize client information, deliverables, project management. I'm sure that when you're onboarding these, these freelancers, there's an expectation here. You can work whenever, wherever that sort of stuff, but here's the turnaround time expectation. Here's how we expect you to communicate on your tasks as you're completing them, those sorts of things. And when you have that, it's still not a fun come to Jesus meeting when you have to have it, but

It's a lot and it's also a little bit easier when it's not, man, I should have said this three months ago. It is, I'm just calling back to what we agreed to before. Right.

Linda Hafstad (28:55.223)
You have to.

Linda Hafstad (29:06.946)
I think one way to also have them take more pride and responsibility in their work, feeling like they're operating as their own company within yours, like turning them into entrepreneurs in a way, is with our freelancers that we use, we scope the project to them. They tell us how much they will charge us for that. We don't tell them.

how much we will pay them for that. We say, how much is this project worth to you? And we will pay their rate that they feel is fair, which allows them to know that they have gotten what it's worth. They are not being undercut in any way. They're responsible to do what they need to do. And in terms of communication, I forgot to bring this up, but a friend of mine had something really valuable in her culture deck where

I read it and I was like, my God, I need to add this to mine. People who you have to chase after, and this is like, I repeat it because it's so common. I've dealt with it with so many people. They will come to you with like two days later or a day later and say, hey, I'm so sorry. had like, I was super sick. I had food poisoning. Or it's always like some kind of emergency. She put in her culture deck, emergencies are expected.

So is communication. It takes two seconds to send a message saying, hey, I'm not feeling really well today. Can I get back to you tomorrow? And that will remove all possible resentment. It will remove any kind of fear that the agency owner may feel of like, my God, are they ghosting me? So I think that's super, super important to consider.

Logan Lyles (30:56.773)
Yeah, absolutely. I think that, you know, it goes back to what we were saying earlier about expectations when those are clear upfront, then it makes that tough conversation later a little bit easier when there's communication. You know, I just like that line. Emergencies are expected. So is communication. Again, I I'm looking for a way to kind of rephrase that. like, no, it's there's a reason you wanted to pull that into your deck. I like that.

And the last thing I'll say before we get into our final segment with our rapid fire questions, as we always do here on the podcast, what Linda was saying there earlier, I just want to encourage anybody listening to this, who's not yet a part of our agency builders community, those sort of conversations Linda was talking about where you say, Hey, I've got someone who has some more opening, you know, some more availability. They've been working with us for a while, or I'm looking for someone with.

this specialty, do you know anyone? I've seen those exact sort of conversations happening on Slack Week In and Week Out over the last five, six weeks since I've been in the community here at Agency Builder. So if you're not yet a part of that and you're looking for that place to tap people, find referrals, find great talent, it is a great place to find exactly that. So hit me up on LinkedIn and let me know that you heard about the community on the podcast and you'd like to join and I can get you that invite.

All right, Linda, with that out of the way, I just had to call that out for folks because it's just so timely and what you said there. We're going to hit you with our five rapid fire round of questions. Are you ready for me?

Linda Hafstad (32:29.222)
As much as I can be,

Logan Lyles (32:30.32)
Ready or not, here we go. number one, what's one book that you are often recommending to other agency owners and your peers in the agency space?

Linda Hafstad (32:42.21)
was actually just telling my business partner about this book. I got it from a study I participated in recently. I read the whole book on the three hour flight to LA like two weeks ago. It's called the Predictable Profits Playbook and it is incredible if you're looking at a way to, especially in a creative field, differentiate yourself while also looking at...

not using pricing as a competition point and getting those higher paying clients. So I really, really love that book.

Logan Lyles (33:14.26)
Interesting. I think a lot of our listeners are going to enjoy that one. That is not one I've heard of before or has been recommended by previous guests. So thanks for adding to our growing stack of book recommendations. All right, Linda, number two, what's the next challenge in challenge that you and your team at Ekte are focused on tackling this quarter?

Linda Hafstad (33:36.888)
Right now we have a big focus placed on kind of shifting our niche a little bit into creative companies who have the budget to have like very strong identities and showcase their projects. So our biggest shift is moving away from the recommendations that

like all of the other agency owners have given to me. And I think I focused way too much on like what everybody else was doing, what everybody else had to say, just like I advise against for my clients. But we're shifting away from cold email, shifting away from all the mass outreach and really focusing on relationship building and those long-term clients.

Logan Lyles (34:28.148)
Gotcha. Awesome. Well, number three, you alluded to one tool you guys use earlier in the conversation. So you could harken back to that one or add another one to our list. number three on our list, Linda, is what's a tool you've been recommending to friends and agency peers? This could be an app on your phone, a Chrome extension, a piece of your tech stack in the agency. Anything is fair game here.

Linda Hafstad (34:50.352)
I'm not sure if this is available on other platforms because we exclusively design on web flow, but for the web design space, we've been using a tool called ClickUp or not ClickUp, MarkUp, sorry, MarkUp. And it basically allows somebody to go into a website design and actually add comments on very specific elements. So it's not like Figma where

Logan Lyles (35:05.109)
Okay, yeah.

Linda Hafstad (35:19.286)
You can do that on the Figma version, but this is actually on the developed site and can be adjusted after it goes live. And they can add little comments on like specific buttons on specific areas of, Hey, can we change this to this? And we've loved it. It's been super, super valuable. Markup.

Logan Lyles (35:38.282)
Okay, that's really cool. Markup. I love that. It's kind of similar to maybe like frame.io for giving video feedback, right? Where you can pick the timestamp, you can leave the comments, makes that so much more seamless as far as client feedback. I can see that how that'd be super valuable on the web development side as well. I think there's a lot of our community members who are going to find that one useful. All right, number four, Linda. go for it.

Linda Hafstad (36:00.076)
It's kind of like, sorry. It's kind of like, like you have frame, you have Figma where you can add all those comments. It's kind of like posting a YouTube video and being able to add a comment on a specific timestamp after it's live, which is really useful for website management in this case. And then having that change made in real time. It's truly incredible.

Logan Lyles (36:25.088)
Yeah, that's awesome. Awesome. Number four on our list. If you could ask one question of all your peers in the agency builders community, what do you think you would use that one question on Linda?

Linda Hafstad (36:36.716)
Hmm.

Linda Hafstad (36:43.186)
I don't know.

Linda Hafstad (36:47.916)
I'd probably ask where they're finding the relationships to shift from kind of the agency model to affirm an enterprise model. And like, if that's even possible to do without having a pre-existing enterprise network.

Logan Lyles (37:09.652)
Yeah, cool. All right. Number five, we always want to end on a positive note. We're all about community. The tagline for agency filters is collaboration over competition. with that theme in mind, number five on our list, Linda, who's one person you want to thank or mention that's helped you in your own journey as an agency leader?

Linda Hafstad (37:31.01)
I'd say the person who has made the biggest impact, his name is Derek Shaw. He owns a company called Green Lizard Consulting, which is another consulting firm, but he is someone who paid more attention to the way that I think and the way that I deliver than how many notches I had on my belt when I was first starting out. And I literally just sent him a birthday gift the other day to his house, like,

We haven't worked together in a while, but keeping up that relationship has been super important because he's brought so many clients, so much value to everything that we're doing. So having a person like that is something everyone should really, really put focus into.

Logan Lyles (38:17.576)
I could not agree more. Well, Linda, this has been fantastic. I think there's a lot to learn from your agency's journey from pivoting from doing everything to really focusing on the work that you guys enjoy the most. And we're finding the most repeatable shifting to more project based as well as the transition to

more on-call freelancers. And I really loved that line in working with your team. If you took nothing else away from this conversation, remember that line from Linda's friend. Emergencies are expected. So is communication. Maybe you can use that with your team at the right moment this week. Linda, if anybody listening to this is not yet connected with you and wants to do that from a peer to peer perspective, pick your brain, add you to their network. What would be the best way for them to reach out and stay connected with you?

Linda Hafstad (39:05.342)
I would say LinkedIn for sure. My LinkedIn is just my name, Linda Hofstad. I am building a really fantastic community there and I welcome anyone who would like to join it.

Logan Lyles (39:17.482)
I love it. All right. Well, Linda, thank you so much for being our guest on the agency builders podcast today. This was a fantastic conversation.

Linda Hafstad (39:25.432)
Thank you for having me, it's been great.