We’re back and better than ever and with a new name. Welcome to The Anti Agency Podcast: Stories of Doing Business Differently. With our new approach we’ll be focusing on stories from within and from guests about the tactics, strategies and disruptive ideas that can help you grow or start your own businesses more efficiently and successfully.
This week we get caught up on where we are at as an agency, the upcoming Anti Agency book launch and summit, and what’s coming up next!
Transcript:
Hello, and welcome to season three episode One of what is now called the anti-agency podcast stories of doing business differently.
So, our first two seasons, we did the podcast under the socialistic name and a lot has happened since we wrapped up last season. It’s been a couple months since we had an episode, but we’re ready to kind of jump back into it and get things going.
So, I’m excited to basically see how this goes, this approach. Lot to discuss a little bit today. We’ll be having some awesome guests in the pipeline. Most of the time I like to talk to other folks instead of just me being on camera babbling to everybody. But that being said, I do think that I have lots of interesting things to share and, and hopefully you feel that way.
So just a little bit of a recap of kind of things that have happened and, and a little bit about why we’re rebranding the podcast. I’ve been writing a book over the past year called the, it’s called anti agency, a realistic path to a million-dollar business. It’s a real book with a real publisher. So, I’m really excited about this and it’s been a labor of love. I really wanted to capture what I was, what I’ve been able to do in building this agency. It’s still a little bit of, it’s still surreal to me that this has happened and where’re at where we’re at.
You know, I always felt like I was wired to do my own thing, but I never, I guess I never really, I never really imagined it getting to a point getting to this point, like the whole, I mean, that million dollar, you know achievement was, you know, kind of like a huge thing, you know, I’d been chasing it for a while and when it became a possibility, that’s all I could think about is just, you know, it just felt like if I could hit that level, then I’ve made it, you know?
And we did, we did it about, I want to say three or four months ago. So even though the book is coming out in a couple weeks, you know, we’re a little bit above that amount, but it’s still, it was incredible and we celebrated and it’s just, it’s crazy to think that we’re there and I, over the course of the past year and putting this book together, I just, I wanted to create something that captured, what did I do? How did I do it? Cause I do think it was very different. You know, I went into it with very little resources. I didn’t have any investment money, or a ton of money tucked away to kind of, you know, get things started. But there’s a series of things that I did that kind of allowed just a regular person to build a business and be able to transition from a traditional job into doing their own thing and to do it comfortably without, you know risking, you know, too much.
And I know a lot of people that might be listening, or you know, a lot of a lot of you have, you know, kids and families and responsibilities and, you know, having that steady paycheck and benefits is kind of a necessity. So, it’s really hard to even think about the being able to kind of break free from a traditional work environment to go off and do your own thing. And I just wanted to create a blueprint, a book that said, like, here’s how I did it. And here’s how you can. And I think there’s some really great stuff in that book that can really help people kind of do that if that’s how you’re wired and you know if you are, you know if you’re that square peg in a round hole and you’re in a job and you just feel like you want to do your own thing.
And my calling card, my reason for everything that I’ve done around this is around a very simple core value, which is freedom. I just wanted the freedom to do and what I wanted and to live my life under my terms, I didn’t want to be stuck in a commute for a couple hours a day. And I didn’t want to sit behind a desk for eight or nine hours a day or sit in a bunch of meetings being unproductive and all of these things that just got in the way of building something and feeling empowered and, you know, feeling like if I want to go get a massage at 2:00 PM on a Thursday, I’m going to go do that. And so, freedom was everything to me. And that’s what this book is about. It’s about chasing your freedom and about giving you a path to get there, regardless of what your situation is.
And it’s been a really interesting journey. Like I said, the book’s done, but I’m kind of coordinating a summit. That’s going to happen June 14th and I’m coordinating like an official book launch. That’s going to be coincide with that. And I’m going to talk about all these things like my journey to doing the book and how I did that and all of these things that I’ve been able to do and why they’ve happened the way that they’ve happened. Now, I love being very transparent about these things and, you know, my hope is that people hear these things or see these things and find value in them. But that was the whole idea was like, now once this book kind of got going, then I was like, wow. I wonder if there’s something here. I wonder if there’s a movement here. Because you know, I’ve got an incredible team.
Joanna, doing a shout out to Joanna, who’s my kind of director of operations director of client services. She runs the business and I’m out of the service side of things, which is a good thing, but it opens up my time to do these sorts of things. Cause I love helping people. And I love talking about what I’ve done and just being helpful to others authentically. That’s what this book is about. That’s what this upcoming Summit’s about. And that’s what I want this podcast to be about Moving forward is just disruptive stories that people can share about how they built a business and a specific thing that was unique to them that they did. And I hope that people can find value in these episodes a little bit more so than what we’ve done in the past, and I’m going to bring it to you an authentically. I’m always very transparent and honest about what we’ve done and what’s worked and what hasn’t. And I hope that the guests that we bring out can bring that to the table as well.
Again, it’s really about bringing value. You know, I don’t, this book has nothing to do with making money. I have no naive ideas about this being some massive best seller and making tons of money. Quite frankly, I don’t know how anybody makes money on books, unless you are like a celebrity in that world. I mean, the margins are like razor thin. So, it’s not about that. In fact, I’m donating 15% of book proceeds to the domestic services of Snohomish County, kind of the area that we live. I just want to help people. I just want to get those books in the hand of people to hopefully help them, you know, navigate an entrepreneurial path that’s a little bit more efficient than mine was. You know, I hope that my stories and the things that I’ve learned can help people kind of not only take the leap but do it and find success maybe more quickly than I did. So that’s really the go.
So, our agency’s doing very well. We have an incredible team. I’m so excited to, it’s taken time to kind of build that, you know, we’ve got most of it right. But it’s taken some time to really kind of putting a bow on it. And the team we have right now is like, we are locked and loaded. And I think one of the things I’m even more excited about is now that we’re kind of on the other side of the pandemic is now as a, you know, as a remote business, you know, I think ones that be reach this level of success need to have that once a year retreat, where you get together and you actually spend time with the people instead of just seeing them over a screen. I think that’s one of the most incredible things. We’ve built this business virtually, and there’s people that have been on my team for quite some time that I haven’t met. And to me, that’s like, wait, well, we got to fix that.
So really excited about, you know, a lot of the things that are coming up. We’ve got some great guests lined up from a variety of different businesses. I know the podcast and the book, it says anti agency, but that’s really just a moniker. I mean, we’ll be talking to all kinds of different business owners, probably more so service based than product-based businesses. But, you know, at the end of the day, it’s about people that have interesting stories, or they have value to share. So, you know, we create a pretty high bar and who we bring out, we want to make sure that they have something to offer an audience. And I’m really excited about some of the guests we have lined up and what that’s going to look like.
We’ll stick with probably in every other week schedule, I think every week is just daunting. I don’t know that I have enough interesting things to say to warrant every week schedule. I always am a big believer in quality over quantity. So, I won’t change that unless I feel like there’s just so much to be said, or I have so many guests to have come on. We’ll kind of stick with that kind of schedule. We’re also shifting to doing not only the podcast in a traditional podcast environment, but as you, if you’re watching this on YouTube, we’re going to put them on YouTube too. I don’t know. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t, but we’ll give it a shot.
But you know, I’m really looking forward to kind of not only also using this as a, it’s very cathartic for me as a, as a business owner to have this channel, to just kind of talk about what I’m going through and what I’m feeling. And you know, certainly I’m going to the priority is to provide value, but you know, as a business owner, your kind of on an island when you’re in your own, when you’re running a virtual agency. So, this is a way to try to connect with others. So, you know, I hope if you’re listening that you find value in this and you know, I want to try to make them more interactive. So, you know, if there are things that you’ve really enjoyed or, or you have ideas, or if there’s, you know, you know, somebody who’d be a great guess, whatever the case may be like, let me know, you know, email me, reach out on social media. You know, I’ve just, I’ve created some, I’ve created a Facebook page and a Facebook group for this anti agency movement. So would love if you’re listening to kind of check those out. We’ll have those in the show notes.
But yeah, that’s kind of where things are at. As far as the state of the business, you know, we’re continuing to grow and you know, the agency game is interesting. I think there’s definitely a shift towards more and more businesses wanting to work with agencies that specialize whether it’s by industry or by marketing function. So, you know, I think generalist agencies are having a bit of more challenge because of that. Certainly, the ones that are massive you know, don’t feel it as much as some of the smaller ones, but definitely seeing that. And it’s a different world, right? I think the pandemic really kind of threw gasoline on the virtual working fire, I think that if you’re a business and you are not committing to a virtual workforce, you’re going to lose some people. I think people have a different perspective on how they want to live their lives. And it’s tricky. I know a lot of people that work at places that are trying to bring people back in, and it’s a really interesting dynamic.
I’m glad that we have been able to build a thriving business in a remote environment. Certainly there are businesses that you can’t have that and some that need to have some sort of mix, but I think a lot of businesses are not, I think they’re just a little naive about what’s going to be doable moving forward, and it can be frustrating to see businesses that have made more money, have demonstrated, you know, demonstrated more success around, you know, increase in revenue, increase in profit margins, increase in productivity. It’s clear if you hire the right people and you manage it appropriately, it can be very successful.
But a lot of businesses just can’t get out of their own way. They feel like they need people, they need butts and seats. They need to justify those, the rent that they’re paying on those long leases, or they have to, a lot of times it’s a power, it’s a control thing they need, you know, they want to see you, you know, in the office, in that seat, you know, behind that computer. And I am very grateful to live a life where I’m not having to deal with those commutes and I’m not having to deal with really all of those things that just get in the way of getting shit done and living your best life. So, I’m very grateful. And my way of giving back is to find ways to connect with people that don’t have that yet want it, and just need a little bit of help kind of navigating that. That’s I think the role that I’ll be playing moving forward.
So, I’m excited to use the book and the podcast and the platforms that I have to share that with you. I’m a closet introvert, but I need to kind of push myself to do these sorts of things and make myself available and use social media more personally to share my story. So, if you’re listening, thank you, lots more to come. Like I said follow us www.socialistics.com, www.jasonyormak.com. Our Facebook pages, group, social media, all that good stuff. Thank you for listening and we will catch you in a couple weeks with episode two. Thanks.
