July 27, 2025 • 39 mins
The Secret to a Smarter, Stronger Team? Build a Learning Culture
What if the best agency investment isn’t more tech or tighter processes, but more learning? In this episode, Dylan Steven of 118Group shares how embedding education and autonomy into his team’s DNA has elevated their work and strengthened their connection. He unpacks how letting go of control actually led to better outcomes and why systems should support people, not restrict them.
Inside this episode:
- How a team book club turned into a powerful cultural cornerstone
- The subtle difference between structure and rigidity and why it matters
- The one shift that helped Dylan take a real vacation without disruption
- The journey of building autonomy without losing consistency
- Dylan and Russel make the case for shorter books.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to An Agency Storypodcast where we share real
stories of marketing agencyowners from around the world.
From the excitement of startingup the first big sale, passion,
doubt, fear, freedom, and theemotional rollercoaster of
growth, hear it all on An AgencyStory podcast.
(00:24):
An Agency Story podcast ishosted by Russel Dubree,
successful agency owner with aneight figure exit turned
business coach.
Enjoy the next agency story.
Russel (00:41):
What if learning wasn't just a personal habit, but the
cornerstone of your agencysuccess?
Welcome to An Agency Storypodcast.
I'm your host Russel.
In this episode, I'm joined byDylan Steven, founder of 118
Group, an agency that craftswebsites for nonprofits and an
agency that's just asintentional about how it works
as what it creates.
(01:02):
We dive into Dylan's philosophyon building a culture of
continuous learning, wherethings like team book clubs and
deep conversations aren't perks,they're the norm.
You'll hear how his commitmentto curiosity has shaped both the
agency's growth and the way histeam shows up every day.
If you're looking forinspiration on how to grow an
agency that's both productiveand human, this episode delivers
(01:24):
in spades.
Enjoy the story.
Welcome to the show today,everyone.
I have Dylan Steven with118Group with us here today.
Thank you so much for joiningthe show today, Dylan.
Dylan (01:34):
Thank you, Russel.
Glad to be here.
Russel (01:36):
Glad to have you.
Get right to it.
Tell us what 118Group does andwho do you do it for?
Dylan (01:41):
That is a great question and it took me a long time to
really put that together.
I'm glad I can say it succinctlyhere.
We build WordPress websites fornonprofits is ultimately our,
our whole game.
Russel (01:51):
It's not some three minute long spiel or something?
Dylan (01:54):
I don't know who said it, but, um, I think they, the quote
was, simplicity is the ultimatesophistication, and so I try and
use that for a lot of things.
Having a simple way to describewhat you do in, in, you know, a
phrase, um, is super powerful.
Conversations I have with peoplelike you, it's, it's, you know,
it's pretty easy to pinpointexactly what it is we do.
Hopefully you later have a, youknow, what they call that
(02:17):
Rolodex moment where you'relike, oh, websites, nonprofits,
Dylan.
It's just, you know, creatingsome of those associations.
So, uh, It's harder to do thatwhen you have a three minute
long pitch.
Russel (02:26):
It seems so counterintuitive, this idea that
simple is the hardest thing todo, but I think that is so true.
It reminds me of that, the otherquote I'm sorry if I had more
time, I'd have written you ashorter letter, and how hard
that is to really do.
Dylan (02:40):
A hundred percent, yeah.
Russel (02:41):
I'm glad you've done that hard work to get to
simplicity and I, I candefinitely see where that
resonates.
I'm really fascinated to get inthe conversation today and hear
a lot more about what you'vedone with your agency, but
before we get there, I'd love tojust hear a little bit about
young Dylan and how he wascoming up in the world.
Dylan (02:55):
It's a pretty circuitous route to where I got today, and
I'm sure if you asked me when Iwas younger if this is what I
would be doing.
I probably didn't know what Iwas be, I would be doing, but
this might not have been on theshortlist.
I, uh, basically grew up on CapeCod, Massachusetts, uh, for most
of my life.
Went to a military academy for ayear, um, for college, outta
(03:17):
school, Norwich and Vermont.
Spent a year there, learned alot learned a lot about, myself
in the process and thentransferred to a, a more private
school in, uh, Washington, DC,American.
Spent some time there and thenrealized ultimately I just don't
know what I want at this point,and I'm spending, uh, I'm
spending a lot of money on theexploration stage when, uh, I
(03:37):
figured that could probably bedone for much less.
I decided to leave school forwhat I, I sold it to my parents
as a, uh, like a semester off,uh, which is how I got that
through, that stamp of approval.
But, ultimately ended up know,still on my semester off now.
Russel (03:52):
Are they still waiting or are they like, Dylan, when
are you going back to college?
You promised?
Dylan (03:55):
No, they're done.
They like, shut down my email.
They've sent me my transcripts.
It's pretty much done overthere.
But I've, I've decided to traveland figured we can explore, you
know, what we want to do andwhat interests us, um, you know,
by traveling.
A little cheaper than a$60,000 ayear private school education,
or, private college education.
Did that, learned a lot.
Came home.
Eventually found myself, um,scooping cookies for a local
(04:19):
bakery.
When, um, the owner came andsaid, hey, I need a new website.
You know, You're the youngestperson in this room by far.
Uh, Is this something you cando?
Uh, That was basically the barwas, you know how old?
Russel (04:31):
The name of the game day is simplicity.
I think you did a great jobthere.
When you think about thatrequest, I mean, is there
something you can tie back toyour, your desires, your
experience, your, just who youwere as a person that says, this
is why I took that opportunityand, and jumped on it because
that, that seems like a veryinteresting way to start.
Dylan (04:48):
A lot of big things come from a combination of
inspiration and desperation.
Desperation was the fact that,you know, I was 20, something
scooping cookies in a bakery,still living at my parents'
house.
Here was this opportunity to, tolearn something and do
something.
You know, and it was a brandthat, you know, The cookie brand
that I was working for, it wasin Whole Foods stores around the
(05:09):
state.
You know, it was, It had somepresence so I could build a bit
of a resume and build somestreet cred if I was able to
successfully work with thisbusiness.
That opportunity was just toogood.
I was like, all right, I caneither continue to do this or I
can explore what this routelooks like.
It turned out it, it was areally good use of my skillset.
Russel (05:27):
Inspiration meets desperation.
It makes me think of my ownjourney.
I mean, that was, That wasreally how I started my, my
agency.
I'd spent some time in the AirForce, got out, was trying to
figure out where I was gonna fitin in the world based upon prior
plans.
And I didn't know anythingabout, you know, internet, web
space marketing as well.
I guess I too had an inspirationmeets desperation moment.
Dylan (05:47):
It's a good cocktail.
Russel (05:47):
That does sound like a good, cocktail at a bar, but
you're having a moment, so youjust go and have a, uh, have a
double shot of, inspirationmeets desperation.
If there's any bartenders outthere listening, we just give us
a nod here.
I don't know if I missed inthere, just like, what, when,
when did it all become official?
When would you say like, I'm abusiness now and I'm making this
official leap?
Dylan (06:06):
Basically, when I decided to stop, doing the scooping work
at this bakery.
I literally spent all dayscooping cookies and then at
night I was trying to build thiswebsite that had like a whole
e-commerce, fulfillment, complexshipping, uh, set up and, and
just trying to reinvigorate abrand that had kind lost its way
online.
Once I basically had enough workafter that project with other
(06:29):
clients that I was introduced tovia this business.
You know, I was working with theowner.
She was like, I love what you'redoing.
I know these other people and itwas literally on Main Street.
I walked down Main Street tomeet some of these other small
business owners.
It was really like local, smallscale start.
Once I had enough work therewhere I was like, look, I can't
be scooping cookies during theday.
I need to like focus here.
(06:50):
I stepped away from, you know,that position and just basically
tried to sustain myself entirelyon, uh, this new kind of work,
which was a combination of webbranding and then also video.
I saw the power, the, theutility of video and, I kept
getting asked, do you do videos?
Can we incorporate video intothe website?
Then I bought some equipment forvideo and started doing some of
(07:12):
that stuff on the side.
uh, It was kind of a, you know,a moment where I was like, all
right, I'm going to only dothis.
It was kind of a leap of faith.
That's basically when I waslike, all right, I'm taking this
very seriously now because, um,you know, I, I can't afford to
play around with it anymore.
Russel (07:26):
I guess it's fortunate for you, probably, I'm guessing
the scoop or, uh, cookiescooping was not a high income
bar to overcome per se, so youdidn't, you didn't have to spend
too much time on that front.
I mean, Obviously, you know,you're going back and you'd
spent a lot of time trying tofind yourself.
Did you have the, the, the kindof real time realizations like,
oh, I found it, or was it justan evolution and this is more
(07:47):
hindsight but like how consciousof a thought was that for you?
Dylan (07:50):
Not very conscious.
It's an ongoing journey, right?
It's like I'm still, I'm stillworking on it.
I'm still trying to figure out,um, you know, life introduces
new events and new chapters andwe're forced to figure out how
we fit into those new chapters.
I'm getting ready to have myfirst kid in uh, a few months.
Russel (08:05):
Oh, nice.
Congratulations.
Dylan (08:07):
Thank you.
And I'm already, you know,finding a new version of myself
in that context, right?
Okay, who am I as a father?
How do I balance that?
What do I wanna be, you know,like how do I want, what values
do I wanna stand for?
And so I don't know if I've evercome to a, I have myself, you
know, figured out moment, but Icertainly, I look back to like
who I was coming outta highschool and early college days
(08:29):
and I'm like, wow.
There was a lot of fog there,you know?
And now it's like, it's a littleless foggy, you know?
I have a, a, a clearer sense ofthe road.
Russel (08:36):
I wish, honestly, as a society we could more embrace
this idea that 18 is not, is notthe age that we're all gonna
naturally have this figured out.
Some maybe will, some maybewon't.
But if we all can embrace this,this period of discovery, and
not just try to go down thefactory path of college to
either immediately to youremployment for life or whatever
that case is.
(08:56):
Spend some time findingyourself.
Dylan (08:58):
A gap year, like, you know, should be required.
It's like before, before kids,take on this, the, these loans
and this debt that they don'treally understand, you know,
they, they can't reallyunderstand the implications of
that and what that looks likelong term.
It's like, take a gap year.
That's my biggest piece ofadvice when I'm talking to young
people who are in high schooland are not, like, don't have a
clear path.
They haven't wanted to be adoctor since they were six years
(09:19):
old.
They weren't dressing up withlike stethoscopes and, and like
white, you know, white coats orwanted to be like a, a zoologist
or a veterinarian, right?
There's so many avenues, there'sso many paths that people can
take that they don't even knowexists.
Take a year off and get out ofyour hometown travel, go to
different countries, see howdifferent people think and work
in different cultures.
(09:40):
You'd be surprised by like theversion of you that comes back
from that.
That's my advice to anybody inthat, at that kind of position
in their life where they're kindof young and figuring out what
the next step looks like.
Take a year off.
Russel (09:51):
I think that's great advice.
I don't know how many youngfolks listen to the show that
are, that are in that phase, butif you imagine there's a lot of
parents of young folks so, um,per Dylan's advice, mandatory
gap year.
I know you're well read and, andwell learned, and I want to, I
want to dive more into that.
It makes me think, there's abook called Range out there and
it's really great at embracingthis concept of how important,
(10:13):
um, really the jack of alltrades mindset is.
You're picking up perspective,experiences, all kinds of things
that you can bring into yourpattern recognition for whatever
your core expertise is and thatthey actually find people that
specialize too early, too young,um, often lead to burnout.
They don't, you know, really getto anything significant level.
They don't really evenappreciate the thing they're
(10:33):
doing anymore, even if it maybeis even lucrative for them.
Have you come across that book?
Dylan (10:37):
I think I've sampled that book and it, it always brings up
an interesting tension for mebecause on the business side, on
the business strategy side, Ibelieve greatly in the power of
specialization and positioningand narrowing your focus, right?
Picking a lane.
That's like been a hugeevolution for us is like instead
of being the jack of all trades,like we do web design, SEO, pay
per click, social media, foreverybody, all businesses.
(11:00):
Moving from that to like a morenarrow lens, I think is a
critical move on the businessside.
But from a personal perspective,the range and the jack of all
trades experience that I, thatyou bring to the table and
you're, as you're evolving, Ithink is super useful across,
you know, what you bring to abusiness.
There's that, that tensionbetween specializing from a from
(11:20):
an agency strategy perspective,which, you know, if we're trying
to make this relevant to, toyour show, you know, that
specialization being like acritical, in my opinion, a
critical focal point and like ajunction for people, and that
also that kind of, that jack ofall trades personal perspective
and how, the differentphilosophies for the different
levels of zoom, really.
I don't know.
Does that resonate with you atall?
Russel (11:40):
Absolutely.
It makes me think of, we talkedabout this a lot in our
business.
We called it the T-shapedconcept.
We didn't coin that by anymeans.
I can't even remember where itoriginated from.
But this idea that you as aperson, your knowledge is this,
the shape of a T and thehorizontal is the breadth of
experience and the, and the, thevertical portion is the depth.
We were always big and, and,and, right, you need both.
(12:01):
Kind of along the lines of whatyou're saying and, but, but yes,
ultimately, I'd probably be morein the camp of start general,
and, and there's a lot of valuein that.
I always think of like, very fewagencies start out extremely
specialized in position, and Ithink that's a good natural
journey that they go on because,um, it helps them, it gives them
a lot more of that depth ofexperience or that breadth of
experience when they do decideto specialize that they can
(12:23):
bring it all, bring it all home.
Dylan (12:25):
A hundred percent.
The agencies are extensions ofthe owners, right?
They are literally birthed fromthe owners.
Russel (12:30):
It's a child.
Dylan (12:31):
It's a child, right?
It's like you can't take theowner out of the agency.
You know, and Obviously you tryto get to a point where there's
more separation between theowner and the actual agency, um,
but in that way, yeah.
I think most agencies, unlessthe owner has had prior
experience, you know, they've,they've been in other agencies
or they've, this is their secondor third agency they're starting
and they're like, I know exactlywhat my market is and exactly my
(12:52):
positioning and where, how Iwanna like, you know, set myself
up.
Most agencies are gonna gothrough a, we do mostly
everything for anybody who willsay yes and who will take us on
and will do let us do the work.
And I agree.
I think that, that's where youlearn.
Those are the trenches, right?
Russel (13:07):
Those are the trenches.
Dylan (13:08):
Those are the trenches where you kind of really get
this, like you get the, thissucks moment or you get the,
wow, this is, this works moment.
Ideally you use that to make astrategic, you know, shift at
some point.
That's the goal, at least Ithink.
So I agree.
Russel (13:21):
I love that.
Just traveling down the line,line of, and you, you shared,
you, you're about to be a, a newfather, which obviously just a
huge life moment and a huge lifechanging moment that you, you
can and can't expect and whatthat will look like.
But my wife always, and I,always talk about that our
children will be somethingbecause us, because of us or in
spite of us, and we don't alwaysknow what it's gonna be.
(13:42):
And It makes me even think backto the correlation of our agency
as well, or, or our business isgonna be something because of
us, or it's gonna be somethingin, in spite of us.
Dylan (13:50):
Interesting.
That's an interesting one.
Russel (13:52):
What is your agency because of you, and, or maybe
more interestingly, what is youragency in spite of you?
Dylan (13:57):
Oof, man.
Because of me, you know, I, myagency reflects a lot of my
values, right?
Just from, uh, how I like towork and, you know, what I
believe in and how I extend thatto my team and the clients we
work with.
There's a direct tie, um, tothat.
And then I think, uh, What is myagency in spite of me?
It's probably, um, more wellorganized than, you know, than I
(14:21):
would than it would be if I, ifit were birthed directly from
me, right?
Fortunately, I've surroundedmyself with incredible team
members who, um, like systemsand like processes, and I'm
someone who likes to like throwpaint on the wall and, and see
what's see what comes out of it.
And so, my agency, in spite ofme, is a very kind of focused,
(14:42):
organized, or, uh, organization,is maybe my answer to that.
Russel (14:45):
All right.
I like this.
Yeah, I mean, It makes totalsense, right?
If you're, If you're a littlebit more kind of off the cuff,
uh, ad hoc that your agency willhave to be more organized.
If it's gonna survive and live,uh, that's a, that's a great,
man.
and I, And I know I threw atough question there, and I, I
will say, you pulled that offbrilliantly.
Dylan (15:02):
Too kind.
Russel (15:02):
But I, I think that so many people have to resonate
with it.
I know that's kind of evensomewhat the entrepreneurial,
not, I don't wanna say typical,but maybe, prevalent, I guess
you could say is right, we'revisionaries and thinkers and
we're always far forward and,and then, yeah, the agency has
to be organized.
Dylan (15:17):
Agreed.
It's a constant tension betweenthe entrepreneur and the
operator, which I think, um, youknow, I, I remember reading, um,
the E-Myth a long time ago,which was foundational to me at
some point.
The idea of, you know, sometimesyou have this op, you have this
owner who spends too much timein the operation, delivery,
stage or role and not enoughtime in the kind of like
(15:39):
strategy, vision side.
It's a tough little place to be.
you know, we're Owners are stilloperators, right?
They're still picking up thephone, dealing with client
issues, dealing with a billingissue that a client might have,
like an invoice that didn't gothrough.
I mean like really granularstuff.
Then also they're trying tolike, look at the, they'll
separate the forest from thetrees and look at the, the
vision and where we're going andwhat our strategy is.
(16:00):
It's a constant tension betweenthose two, um, and sometimes
we're better at one thing versusthe other.
There are some owners who areexcellent operators and, they
are the best operators of theiragency and maybe they're
neglecting a little bit of theentrepreneurial side and taking
risks and, uh, exploring newavenues and, and looking long
term.
And then you have someentrepreneurs who are, you know,
(16:21):
and I've worked with some ofthese people on the client side
when we were working more withsmall businesses, who are
disasters from an operatorperspective.
I No organization.
No real kind of, uh,administrative skills that know,
companies require.
You need to know yourself.
You need to find out where youland on that, that vision, and
then supplement your, your gaps.
Ideally with a team, right?
Which is what I've tried to do,is like I'm, you know, is bring
(16:42):
in people who are reallyorganized and, you know, really
detail oriented to supplementmy, my operation gaps, um, so I
can focus more on the, theentrepreneurial side.
Russel (16:52):
We need an entrepreneurial gap year
apparently as well.
At some point in your business,you gotta take a gap year.
Dylan (16:57):
Or a gap month.
Russel (16:58):
Gap something.
Dylan (16:59):
Gap summer, you know, is like, see what happens.
Roll the dice.
I think that's a super good kindof stress test, uh, for an
organization.
I just took two weeks off, uh,to travel with my wife ahead of
having a, a child before whenwe, like you said, I have no
idea what fatherhood looks like.
I have no idea what life lookslike post birth.
I'm kind of naming it, you know,PB and we'll see, we'll see like
(17:20):
how things change at that point.
We figured while we can, let'sgo on a little trip.
I was gone for two weeks andhonestly I was resentful with
how little was required of me.
I was like, I kept checking myemail and checking my inbox and
checking my Slack and beinglike, there's gotta be a
problem.
I gotta jump into I'm, I need tobe useful here.
My team was just, you know,autonomous, right?
(17:40):
A small party was like, it'salmost like I can imagine when
your kid leaves the nest.
It's like, well, I'm kind of,what do I do?
I'm, I'm not like, as criticalto this organization as I
thought I was.
It's both a really good thing,but it's also kind of a moment
of like, oh, okay.
That's different.
I used to be the only thing thatmattered, you know?
Russel (17:58):
Oh gosh.
I always thought of parentingand managing people as so
similar, but I've never reallyeven thought about parenting and
running a business as the samething.
You're bringing up all kinds ofideas on that front.
Obviously you've had somesuccess down this route, and I
get the sense that, you know,very, maybe early on, or you can
tell me otherwise, that you havetried to treat this business
with a, with a lifestylecentered approach to some
(18:20):
degree.
When you think back on justwhat, was there something key
you did or, or something thatreally sticks out that maybe
allowed you to have that twoweek vacation where your agency
kid didn't quite need you asmuch as you'd hoped?
Or maybe you're super proud of?
However you wanna look at that.
Dylan (18:34):
I didn't even realize I was building a lifestyle
business, uh, for a while.
I didn't even know the termlifestyle business until a few
years into the whole, uh, into,into operating, and then when
it, I found out what it was, Iwas like, yeah, that's, that's
basically what I want.
I think you need to decide whatyou want your relationship with
work to be like.
Do you want work to take up ahuge portion of your life and
(18:55):
neglect a lot of other thingsthat you could find interested
in?
Or do you want work to, to fitin neatly into, uh, a more of a
canvas of interests and desiresand opportunities?
Part of that, like this is birthfor me thing is like, I'm
someone who really valuesflexibility and freedom.
I didn't really even realizethat until I was in a military
(19:16):
academy and you, I hadabsolutely none of it, and I was
like, wow.
This is not who I am.
This is not what I want.
I'm someone who needs to be,needs to have that flexibility
and that freedom to figure outday to day like what my life is
gonna look like.
The military idea wasn't gonnawork, like a corporate ladder
wasn't gonna work.
This business has been birthedlargely from that desire to be
(19:37):
flexible and have freedom and beable to take time off and, and
work from anywhere.
And, um, I think the biggestthing I've done to set that up
is to, uh, provide completeautonomy to my team.
They are totally, you know, evenfrom, everything from invoicing
clients, to scoping work andproviding quotes to firing
clients.
I hand over the keys to thecastle.
(19:57):
I think.
The biggest mistake a lot ofpeople make is hire great people
and then like, hand them ascript or hand them a process or
a system.
You hire great people so theycan bring their greatness to the
table.
You don't hire'em so you cansmother'em in, bureaucracy and
rules.
And that's another wholeconversation point, is that
tension between systems,processes and kind of creation
and how, like you, there's adelicate balance between the
(20:19):
two.
But to answer your questionabout how I set up a business
that provides me withflexibility, it is largely down,
comes down to the autonomy Iprovide, the autonomy and trust
I've put in my team to, uh, getthe job done.
Obviously you gotta hire goodpeople for that to work.
It's, you know, those twothings.
Russel (20:34):
Very curious there.
I mean, Did you start with thatmethodologies, or would that,
did that become an evolution oflike where you were, where
you're trying to meddle too muchor a helicopter agency owner,
um, or something along thoselines to actually bring, come to
that realization?
Dylan (20:47):
More parallels to parenting, huh?
I definitely did not start withthis kind of, uh, I thought that
Businesses to be successful,businesses needed to be very
rigid.
From the outside, again, withoutgoing to, like, without much
experience in the, the, thebusiness world, I thought that
um, you know, you needed to havea lot of control.
You need to have a lot of, youknow, systems, processes.
Again, I do think those thingsare important, but it's the
(21:08):
level of them that I thinkpeople can kind of get wrong
sometimes.
We used to track every minutethat people, you know, worked
what they tracked, what theyworked on.
I used to have complete accessto every inbox, reviewing every
email that went out.
It was, you know, Sauron's allseeing eye.
For my Lord of the Rings fansout there.
And then I just realized like,I'm spending, I'm spending so
much time doing this, andthey're spending so much time
(21:30):
just complying to what I'masking them to do.
It's like, how much time are welosing, like just with this
machinery that, uh, could bebetter spent, you know, val, on
value creation for the peoplethat trust us with the work.
That was a gradual realizationand then that, you know, I just
was continued to be proven rightby my team that these are the
right moves over time and nowit's, now it's my personal
(21:51):
philosophy.
Russel (21:52):
Do you, again, trying to kind of decide, and I, I'm, I
probably know the answer.
Everything's in evolution.
There's rather these definingmoments per se.
But I think that sometimesevolution, the hard part of it
can be is reversing a trend orum, you know, breaking habits
and things of, of kind of thestandard operating procedure.
When you think back, how did,how did you break those, those
habits?
I mean, that was, That's somereal rigidity that you're
(22:12):
talking about there.
Dylan (22:13):
That's a good question.
Like you said, everything kindof, it's all kind of, you know,
fuzzy.
There's not a lot of concrete,right?
It's just like, you know, day today in and like seeing, having
experiences with my team day today and like subtly nudging me
one way or the other.
I can say that like I was justtired of being on the hook for
everything, right?
Being responsible for everyurgent page.
Every time it's like Saturdayand like someone's website is
(22:34):
down and like, I'm like, youknow, hiking with my wife or
something, and now I'm stressingabout this, that, or the other
thing.
Every conversation with a clientabout their website, just like
wanting to be less involved,ultimately led me, it's like,
okay, I can either do less workor I can empower my team to take
over more of that work.
I think just probably a coupleof burnout experiences.
I I don't know if you've everexperienced the, uh, the, the
(22:56):
burnout cycles where you'relike, you just get deep into a
burnout and it's like, how am Iever gonna get out of this?
Then somehow you find a way.
But I think a couple of burnoutsessions, I was like, hey.
I don't wanna be the, the, the,the base on which everything
else is built.
I'd rather, you know, pullmyself out as much as possible,
provide value where I canprovide value, and then give
everyone else an opportunity toshine.
Russel (23:17):
I'm sure I've brought this up on the show before, um,
the idea that the, the formulafor change is that your
dissatisfaction has to begreater than your resistance to
change or the status quo.
You had that moment it soundslike, and that force said no
more, not enough.
I'm gonna recap.
I was taking notes as you werekind of explaining this, and I
think some really great pointsthat you made is one, starting
off, what do you prioritize?
(23:38):
If you prioritize money, you'regonna chase money.
But if you prioritize a sense ofwellbeing in your life and your
overall goals, that, that'simportant.
Complete autonomy, ultimately,whether you can start there or
not, but giving that to yourteam.
Focus, do the hard thing offiguring out how to hire good
people, but then give them theautonomy to be successful and,
um, avoid rigidity.
(23:59):
Find that balance of philosophyand methodology and approach and
process.
The pendulum probably shouldn'tbe too far in either direction.
And then last but not least,probably in that vein of when,
if it's not taking us in thedirection, how can we recognize
the burnout in ourselves?
Take a step back, take a gapyear, take a something, um, so
that we can come back with, withfresh eyes, fresh perspective,
(24:20):
and change the status quo.
Dylan (24:21):
Hundred percent.
Wow.
You just outlined my next bookor my first book.
Russel (24:24):
There we go.
It is funny.
I really want to be on thisnotion more, right?
Books, I feel like this is theway content is going.
We need to normalize books beinglike 15 pages.
To your point, simplicity.
There's so many books I read outthere that's like, man, the
first 20% when they were justreally fleshing out their
concept.
That's so good.
And then the next 80% was themfeeling like they had to meet,
had to meet a, a page threshold.
Dylan (24:45):
That's funny.
It's like, there are some bookswhere, like, from front cover,
from like first page to the lastpage I'm in.
I can think of a couple likeDeep Work by, you know, Cal
Newport's books.
I feel like he layers in a lotof nuance over time that, you
know, is very valuable.
Daniel Pink, I feel like writesbooks that, um, I can, I can
sink my teeth into for a longtime.
(25:05):
Same with anything really.
Coming from, the, Blair Ennsand, and, uh, some of the Win
Without Pitching people, butthere are also a lot of books
where, yeah, I completely agree.
I get like 20 pages in.
I'm like, I get it.
I've got it.
This is the message, and thenit's, it's like 120 pages of
filler, right?
People feel like if they'regonna charge.
X, Y, or Z for a book, um, youknow, they need to fill it with
(25:27):
a certain amount of stuff, and Ithink that that's like pricing
and philosophies around value.
I don't know if you ever read,uh, Pricing Creativity by, uh,
Blair Enns, but it's a PDF.
It's not very long.
It's like a PDF.
He charged$60 for it, for, forlike a, you know, which, and
his, his point was there is alot of value in this book that
is not related to its length.
(25:48):
That was a learning lesson forme too.
It's like, what, how do we pricethings?
How do we value things?
Do clients pay for time orscope, or do they pay for
results?
Getting back to your comment.
I completely agree.
I think, uh, you know, there area lot of books that could be,
you know, TLDR could be probablya series of tweets even, but,
uh, but yeah.
Russel (26:04):
My favorite is a book where, honestly, the title
really probably tells me about95%.
Do you have a title book thatcomes to your mind that's like,
hey, I got about all the valuefrom the title itself?
Dylan (26:14):
Yes.
Profit First.
I don't know if you ever readthat by, uh.
Russel (26:17):
I have, yep.
Dylan (26:17):
Mike Michalowicz.
In the first 30 pages Iunderstood, and it reframed my
perspective on profit and, andoperating a cash, uh, based
business.
That was huge for me.
I got it in the title, you know,like, like you said, uh, a
couple of his other books.
No offense to Mike Michalowicz,but um, you know, probably could
have been half as long and justas valuable.
Russel (26:39):
Mine is called The Gap and The Gain.
You might need one more sentenceto really get it.
But, uh, the idea that, um,probably not think this, I
always call this like the curseof ambitious people, but that we
tend to focus on the gap betweenwhere we're at and the goal.
We don't focus on the gain.
So We might be 90% towards ourgoal and we've, we just zero in
on that 10%, but rather thanwhat the, the getting 90% of the
(27:01):
way there, that's pretty darngood.
Dylan (27:02):
Can you be ambitious and be happy?
it's a tough tension.
I think people, entrepreneursand agency owners, uh, you know,
running an agency is hard.
It's like winning in this game,there's a lot of agencies, the
material is complicated.
It's always evolving, you know,technology, trends, culture,
it's always moving forward.
It's a hard game to be in.
If you're gonna succeed in it,you, you almost have to be the
(27:23):
gap.
People who pay attention to thegap, and, and you can be
miserable that way.
But you can't run a successfulbusiness if you're, if you're
miserable either.
So it's like how do you leveragethat attention to the gap?
How do you give it some space,but also be satisfied with the
work you've done in such a wayas to keep you motivated and
keep you interested and keep youin the game overall, because if
you, if you wake up every dayand you're just, you know,
(27:45):
pissed about what you're notdoing right.
It's a real hard reality to to,to trudge through.
Russel (27:49):
Oh, that's terrible.
Honestly, I think to your point,you can't get anywhere if that's
where your reality is.
Screw any business goals aboutgrowth.
Make your goal about how to getyour mind right, because I think
it's gonna make it even worse ifyou, if you go down a path of
trying to grow and you're gonnabe more frustrated, get your
mind right, uh, I think is sokey to this.
Man.
There's so, so many topics.
I want to go down with you,.
I think obviously a, a anotherkeystone from our conversation
(28:12):
is just, you're well read.
You've clearly spent a lot oftime learning and educating
yourself, which I think is sohuge.
The hard knocks is already gonnateach everyone a lot, but we
have to compound that with somuch other learning.
I think that is so critical, in,in this hard business as, as you
said.
Was that natural to you earlyon?
Why has that been important toyou?
I'll even ask, load the questioneven further a little bit.
(28:34):
I know you've got some coolthings where you bring the team
along that journey as well.
I'd love to just hear about yourculture and philosophy around
the learning process.
Dylan (28:41):
To your point about the importance of, of books, I mean,
um, I can plot on a chart, youknow, the key moments in
118Group's history.
I can relate it directly withone or two books, right, that I
read that changed my perspectiveon certain things.
I could draw that graph for you,like a, almost like a Candy Land
board game where it's like, andthen he gets, he reads this book
(29:03):
and he takes the ladder shortcutand now he's, you know, further
along the journey.
It's indisputable to me, thevalue in that.
You read the right books at theright time, uh, and it can
completely reframe your entireperspective.
Another question around like,has that always been part of me?
Yeah.
I mean, I've always liked tolearn.
I've always been a learner.
I've always been curious.
And I think that that's, likeyou said, a huge part of it.
You learn a lot while doing thework, but if you're not, like
(29:26):
you said, supplementing it withother ideas coming from other
places, then you're missing outon a huge part of the, the
equation.
um, I really love it, I, I, Irun a book club with my team.
Right now we're reading a bookcalled Scrum, um, you know, and
there's, it's two factors there.
It helps us learn, you know, andevolve.
But also for a remote team, likewe're completely distributed, we
(29:46):
rarely see each other in person.
It's a reason to get together,chat about some material, some
ideas that isn't just likeclient work and stuff we're
turning around or like, how'sthe weather, you know, where you
are, right?
It gives us opportunities to diginto something that connects us
a little more.
They love it.
They look forward to thosemeetings'cause we, we kind of
like sit back, relax, have a cupof coffee or, or if we're doing
(30:08):
it late, it's a beer or a glassof wine and we're chatting
about, you know, we start, wemight start talking about the
book and then we veer off tolike how a client relationship
connects to the book.
It's a really good culturaltool.
I don't have a whole lot ofthose in my tool belt.
I'd like to have more, uh, butthe book club is one of them.
Russel (30:22):
Man, I love that.
If I could go back in an agency,just from hearing you talk about
that right now, I would start abook club, hands down.
I would do that.
That's awesome.
And just some, I mean, So manythings you share, it just
naturally creates a culture oflearning, but just all of the
conversation that happens in anagency about clients, right?
If we can apply that to thingswe're learning and reading,
that's like, I don't know,that's like, that's like super
(30:43):
nitro power juice.
Dylan (30:44):
A hundred percent.
It's hard because with, I don'tknow if you've had this
experience, but with a veryremote, uh, distributed, I like
to call it distributed'causeit's less sad sounding than
remote, but with like adistributed team, uh, it's hard
for spontaneity.
If you're having a meeting, it'slike, well, what's the agenda?
What are the topics?
We have 30 minutes, we gotta runthrough this, that, or the other
thing.
It's hard to create space for,uh, for some of that new stuff.
(31:08):
Some of that spontaneousdiscussion or ideas or sharing
of concepts or philosophies andso you need to create space for
that.
At least me personally, I do.
If every one of my meetings withmy team is like, follow some
strict agenda, you know, I'llthrow myself out of like, you
know, a four story window.
Again, it's a tool.
It's just a format that, uh, youknow, is pretty straightforward.
(31:28):
Everybody either has been in abook club or know, pretty much
gets what a book club is about.
You assign, you talk about, youassign some reading chapters,
you get together, you chat aboutit, you underline some stuff.
It solves a couple differentproblems in a, in a distributed
team, you know, kind of style.
Russel (31:42):
I think it just culturally speaks to, when we go
back to hiring, that's what,that's the kind of things that
invite the type of people thatyou're probably gonna want to
hire as the people that areinterested in that.
They're not just showing up forthe job as a transaction, but
they want to be enriched, notjust transactionally in, in
their bank accounts, but theywant to be enriched in the mind.
That's such a good way to, to dothat.
I guess I'll give myself alittle credit.
(32:03):
We had a concept we calledLifeblue University, where once
a week we would, um, we wouldhave like a lunch and learn
session.
We'd talk about some businessytype stuff, but we'd also just
talk, bring in a guest speakerthat talked about, somebody
that, actually was an artcollector of homeless signs and
they just came and talked aboutthat experience.
People just loved, loved justgetting enriched.
I don't know another way to putit.
Dylan (32:22):
I love that idea also of bringing in like, just, you
know, an outsider to come andchat with your team about, what
they're interested in or whattheir field is, or what their
industry is or whatever.
That's gotta be veryinteresting.
I'd love to at some point pickyour brain on that a little bit
more.
Russel (32:36):
Absolutely.
Pick away.
We will have to wrap up for theday, otherwise we could do it on
here, but, uh, we'll we willmake that a segment for part two
down the road.
A couple more questions to roundthings out.
One, I'd just kinda love to hearhow you're looking at the future
of the business.
What are your long-term goalsand plans?
We'll start there.
Dylan (32:51):
There's like kind of the, the answer that's a little like
woo woo, which is, um, you know,my, my goals for 118Group, um,
you know, I'm, my headlights ofthe car, you know, that's
looking at the road right now,it's like the farthest out it's
looking is, as long as my, asI'm doing work that is
meaningful to me and that isrewarding and like you said,
that I'm enriching myself and myteam through our experiences and
(33:15):
the projects we're working on.
Then I'm on the right path.
As long as my headlights, I cansee that far, you know, far
ahead.
In terms of the more concretearea, you know, we, um, we just
acquired an AI chat bot pluginfor WordPress that we're trying
to learn.
We're trying to learn how to runa, a software agency and not
just a service-based agency.
Which is a whole different ballgame, you know, like developing
(33:35):
a software product, um, wherewe're, you know, like we have
smaller customers, smaller one,you know, subscriber bases.
Trying to like, continue tolearn in that way by injecting
some, like, new challenges.
That's huge.
and Then our goal is to, is towork with, you know, bigger and
bigger brands on the nonprofitside, right?
I'd rather do three projects ayear that are like high ticket
value than do 10 smallerprojects a year.
(33:57):
But to do that, you really haveto establish yourself in the
industry and, and develop thoseright relationships.
We're just on that journey ofputting ourselves in front of
bigger nonprofits that valuewhat we do and uh, and then
being able to focus our effortson a handful of clients instead
of, you know, servicing 10 to 15a year, uh, which, you know,
fragments your team, fragmentsyour attention.
(34:19):
It's harder to do good work whenyou split it up across, you
know, 15 different projects.
And we've seen that trend,right?
We've started to get work onfewer and fewer projects that
have higher and higher value,and we see ourselves doing
better and better work.
It's a real positive cycle,right?
Because then you launch aproject, you've done really an
ex, excellent job.
You've got a, an, um, an, a teammember or a, a client that will
(34:40):
kind of support you throughoutthe future.
Then you have a portfolio piece.
It's all part of that kind ofnarrowing our vision that I, I'm
starting to take to just abouteverything now.
Russel (34:48):
Awesome man.
Man with a plan.
Sounds amazing.
Can't wait to hear how thatlooks like in the future.
We might have to have you on forround two to talk about that.
Dylan (34:56):
Thank you.
I'd love to.
Russel (34:57):
Last big question for you, Dylan.
Are entrepreneurs born or arethey made?
Dylan (35:01):
I think they're made.
I think entrepreneurs come inmany different flavors and
styles.
There's a lot of different waysto be an entrepreneur.
You can be an introvertedentrepr, introverted
entrepreneur.
You can be very out, you know,outgoing.
You can be very organized.
You can be very disorganized.
You can be very charismatic.
You can not be very charismatic.
I've worked with a lot ofbusinesses.
I've seen every differentversion of an entrepreneur.
(35:21):
I think they're made over timerather than born.
I don't know.
What is your typical take onthat?
Russel (35:26):
Oh man, I, I just always just listen to that question.
The type of answer that I'vealways resonated with is, sure,
I think there's some naturalcharacteristics that make
someone more willing to justtake the kicks in the, between
the legs that come with being anentrepreneur and, and being able
to brush those off and, andwhatever.
But I also think there's peoplethat are completely risk averse
(35:47):
that they just are way better atpreparation, uh, than the other
folks.
Ultimately, whatever set ofcharacteristics make us natural.
I've always just reallyidentified with the, the good
ones are made.
I kind of say, it doesn't matterwhether you're born or made, if
we're talking here today, you'reprobably made because otherwise
you'd be doing something else.
Dylan (36:06):
It's hard to ignore the role like luck and life plays
and everything, right?
If I had zigged rather thanzagged, you know, maybe I
would've found myself in acareer instead of kind of a, a,
you know, running a business,right?
I think there's probably a lotof entrepreneurs who are in some
larger corporation who are, whotreat their roles in an
entrepreneurial way, but they'renot technically, you know,
running their own business, butthey're running their own team.
(36:28):
It's hard to, to slice and dicethat.
But, um, I think luck and, andjust the, the, the kind of, the,
the, the waves of life play ahuge role in that as well.
Russel (36:36):
Absolutely.
Great thought there.
I have the craziest zig and zagstory I think you can have from
a business perspective, but I'llhave to share that another day.
If you wanna know more about118Group, where can they go?
Dylan (36:46):
The best place to go is our website, 118Group.com.
If you wanna follow me, it'sjust, it's the two first name
guy.
Dylan Steven,D-Y-L-A-N-S-T-E-V-E-N on
LinkedIn.
I'm typically trying to sharesome of my, you know, some of
the work we do and I'm alwayslooking for, uh, for new
inspiration on there.
Those would be the two bestplaces to find me.
Russel (37:05):
Another simple way to remember you, the two first name
guy.
Great moniker.
Wonderful conversation today,Dylan.
I mean, Just so many greatinsights.
We unlocked all these newthoughts on my end about the
relationship of parenting andrunning a business and all the
similarities there, and justabout the importance and the
idea of simplicity, how to builda lifestyle business.
If you didn't take somethingaway from, for the folks at home
(37:26):
today, uh, re-listen becausethere were a lot of great
nuggets.
All in all wanna say, just thankyou so much for taking the time
to share that with us, Dylan.
Dylan (37:33):
Thank you Russel.
You've been, uh, a wonderfulhost
we hope you've enjoyed thisepisode of An Agency Story
podcast where we share realstories of marketing agency
owners from around the world.
Are you interested in being aguest on the show?
Send an email topodcast@performancefaction.com.
(37:55):
An Agency Story is brought toyou by Performance Faction.
Performance Faction offersservices to help agency owners
grow their business to 5 milliondollars and more in revenue.
To learn more, visitperformancefaction.com.
I think you asked, asked about like, you know, when were
(38:17):
these moments where you just,you made bigger decisions, like
what were the, the focal pointsor like, can you map any focal
points that kind of changed yourperspective along your career?
When I found myself, uh, gettingstuck in meetings with, a
psychic medium who was lookingfor my work, um, who was
charging more than I was, um,you know, was charging 250 bucks
an hour, I think I realized Ineed to, I need that, that was a
(38:41):
pause in a, in a moment ofself-reflection for me.
When I was getting out, chargedby a psychic medium, I realized
I need to, to make some changes.
Russel (38:47):
That could be a real wake up call.
Dylan (38:49):
It was a wake up call.
I was like, wow, okay.
And also that taught me aboutthe, taught me a lot about the,
uh, the perception of value.
How important that is, uh, interms of how, how people spend
their money and what they spendtheir money on and how much
they'll spend.
That was an interesting learningmoment for me.
Russel (39:05):
Wow.
Now my real question was, didyou use their services in the
process somewhere?
Dylan (39:09):
I can't afford their services.
That's the thing.
Russel (39:11):
The trade wouldn't work out at that point in time.
Welcome to An Agency Storypodcast where we share real
stories of marketing agencyowners from around the world.
From the excitement of startingup the first big sale, passion,
doubt, fear, freedom, and theemotional rollercoaster of
growth, hear it all on An AgencyStory podcast.
(00:24):
An Agency Story podcast ishosted by Russel Dubree,
successful agency owner with aneight figure exit turned
business coach.
Enjoy the next agency story.
Russel (00:41):
What if learning wasn't just a personal habit, but the
cornerstone of your agencysuccess?
Welcome to An Agency Storypodcast.
I'm your host Russel.
In this episode, I'm joined byDylan Steven, founder of 118
Group, an agency that craftswebsites for nonprofits and an
agency that's just asintentional about how it works
as what it creates.
(01:02):
We dive into Dylan's philosophyon building a culture of
continuous learning, wherethings like team book clubs and
deep conversations aren't perks,they're the norm.
You'll hear how his commitmentto curiosity has shaped both the
agency's growth and the way histeam shows up every day.
If you're looking forinspiration on how to grow an
agency that's both productiveand human, this episode delivers
(01:24):
in spades.
Enjoy the story.
Welcome to the show today,everyone.
I have Dylan Steven with118Group with us here today.
Thank you so much for joiningthe show today, Dylan.
Dylan (01:34):
Thank you, Russel.
Glad to be here.
Russel (01:36):
Glad to have you.
Get right to it.
Tell us what 118Group does andwho do you do it for?
Dylan (01:41):
That is a great question and it took me a long time to
really put that together.
I'm glad I can say it succinctlyhere.
We build WordPress websites fornonprofits is ultimately our,
our whole game.
Russel (01:51):
It's not some three minute long spiel or something?
Dylan (01:54):
I don't know who said it, but, um, I think they, the quote
was, simplicity is the ultimatesophistication, and so I try and
use that for a lot of things.
Having a simple way to describewhat you do in, in, you know, a
phrase, um, is super powerful.
Conversations I have with peoplelike you, it's, it's, you know,
it's pretty easy to pinpointexactly what it is we do.
Hopefully you later have a, youknow, what they call that
(02:17):
Rolodex moment where you'relike, oh, websites, nonprofits,
Dylan.
It's just, you know, creatingsome of those associations.
So, uh, It's harder to do thatwhen you have a three minute
long pitch.
Russel (02:26):
It seems so counterintuitive, this idea that
simple is the hardest thing todo, but I think that is so true.
It reminds me of that, the otherquote I'm sorry if I had more
time, I'd have written you ashorter letter, and how hard
that is to really do.
Dylan (02:40):
A hundred percent, yeah.
Russel (02:41):
I'm glad you've done that hard work to get to
simplicity and I, I candefinitely see where that
resonates.
I'm really fascinated to get inthe conversation today and hear
a lot more about what you'vedone with your agency, but
before we get there, I'd love tojust hear a little bit about
young Dylan and how he wascoming up in the world.
Dylan (02:55):
It's a pretty circuitous route to where I got today, and
I'm sure if you asked me when Iwas younger if this is what I
would be doing.
I probably didn't know what Iwas be, I would be doing, but
this might not have been on theshortlist.
I, uh, basically grew up on CapeCod, Massachusetts, uh, for most
of my life.
Went to a military academy for ayear, um, for college, outta
(03:17):
school, Norwich and Vermont.
Spent a year there, learned alot learned a lot about, myself
in the process and thentransferred to a, a more private
school in, uh, Washington, DC,American.
Spent some time there and thenrealized ultimately I just don't
know what I want at this point,and I'm spending, uh, I'm
spending a lot of money on theexploration stage when, uh, I
(03:37):
figured that could probably bedone for much less.
I decided to leave school forwhat I, I sold it to my parents
as a, uh, like a semester off,uh, which is how I got that
through, that stamp of approval.
But, ultimately ended up know,still on my semester off now.
Russel (03:52):
Are they still waiting or are they like, Dylan, when
are you going back to college?
You promised?
Dylan (03:55):
No, they're done.
They like, shut down my email.
They've sent me my transcripts.
It's pretty much done overthere.
But I've, I've decided to traveland figured we can explore, you
know, what we want to do andwhat interests us, um, you know,
by traveling.
A little cheaper than a$60,000 ayear private school education,
or, private college education.
Did that, learned a lot.
Came home.
Eventually found myself, um,scooping cookies for a local
(04:19):
bakery.
When, um, the owner came andsaid, hey, I need a new website.
You know, You're the youngestperson in this room by far.
Uh, Is this something you cando?
Uh, That was basically the barwas, you know how old?
Russel (04:31):
The name of the game day is simplicity.
I think you did a great jobthere.
When you think about thatrequest, I mean, is there
something you can tie back toyour, your desires, your
experience, your, just who youwere as a person that says, this
is why I took that opportunityand, and jumped on it because
that, that seems like a veryinteresting way to start.
Dylan (04:48):
A lot of big things come from a combination of
inspiration and desperation.
Desperation was the fact that,you know, I was 20, something
scooping cookies in a bakery,still living at my parents'
house.
Here was this opportunity to, tolearn something and do
something.
You know, and it was a brandthat, you know, The cookie brand
that I was working for, it wasin Whole Foods stores around the
(05:09):
state.
You know, it was, It had somepresence so I could build a bit
of a resume and build somestreet cred if I was able to
successfully work with thisbusiness.
That opportunity was just toogood.
I was like, all right, I caneither continue to do this or I
can explore what this routelooks like.
It turned out it, it was areally good use of my skillset.
Russel (05:27):
Inspiration meets desperation.
It makes me think of my ownjourney.
I mean, that was, That wasreally how I started my, my
agency.
I'd spent some time in the AirForce, got out, was trying to
figure out where I was gonna fitin in the world based upon prior
plans.
And I didn't know anythingabout, you know, internet, web
space marketing as well.
I guess I too had an inspirationmeets desperation moment.
Dylan (05:47):
It's a good cocktail.
Russel (05:47):
That does sound like a good, cocktail at a bar, but
you're having a moment, so youjust go and have a, uh, have a
double shot of, inspirationmeets desperation.
If there's any bartenders outthere listening, we just give us
a nod here.
I don't know if I missed inthere, just like, what, when,
when did it all become official?
When would you say like, I'm abusiness now and I'm making this
official leap?
Dylan (06:06):
Basically, when I decided to stop, doing the scooping work
at this bakery.
I literally spent all dayscooping cookies and then at
night I was trying to build thiswebsite that had like a whole
e-commerce, fulfillment, complexshipping, uh, set up and, and
just trying to reinvigorate abrand that had kind lost its way
online.
Once I basically had enough workafter that project with other
(06:29):
clients that I was introduced tovia this business.
You know, I was working with theowner.
She was like, I love what you'redoing.
I know these other people and itwas literally on Main Street.
I walked down Main Street tomeet some of these other small
business owners.
It was really like local, smallscale start.
Once I had enough work therewhere I was like, look, I can't
be scooping cookies during theday.
I need to like focus here.
(06:50):
I stepped away from, you know,that position and just basically
tried to sustain myself entirelyon, uh, this new kind of work,
which was a combination of webbranding and then also video.
I saw the power, the, theutility of video and, I kept
getting asked, do you do videos?
Can we incorporate video intothe website?
Then I bought some equipment forvideo and started doing some of
(07:12):
that stuff on the side.
uh, It was kind of a, you know,a moment where I was like, all
right, I'm going to only dothis.
It was kind of a leap of faith.
That's basically when I waslike, all right, I'm taking this
very seriously now because, um,you know, I, I can't afford to
play around with it anymore.
Russel (07:26):
I guess it's fortunate for you, probably, I'm guessing
the scoop or, uh, cookiescooping was not a high income
bar to overcome per se, so youdidn't, you didn't have to spend
too much time on that front.
I mean, Obviously, you know,you're going back and you'd
spent a lot of time trying tofind yourself.
Did you have the, the, the kindof real time realizations like,
oh, I found it, or was it justan evolution and this is more
(07:47):
hindsight but like how consciousof a thought was that for you?
Dylan (07:50):
Not very conscious.
It's an ongoing journey, right?
It's like I'm still, I'm stillworking on it.
I'm still trying to figure out,um, you know, life introduces
new events and new chapters andwe're forced to figure out how
we fit into those new chapters.
I'm getting ready to have myfirst kid in uh, a few months.
Russel (08:05):
Oh, nice.
Congratulations.
Dylan (08:07):
Thank you.
And I'm already, you know,finding a new version of myself
in that context, right?
Okay, who am I as a father?
How do I balance that?
What do I wanna be, you know,like how do I want, what values
do I wanna stand for?
And so I don't know if I've evercome to a, I have myself, you
know, figured out moment, but Icertainly, I look back to like
who I was coming outta highschool and early college days
(08:29):
and I'm like, wow.
There was a lot of fog there,you know?
And now it's like, it's a littleless foggy, you know?
I have a, a, a clearer sense ofthe road.
Russel (08:36):
I wish, honestly, as a society we could more embrace
this idea that 18 is not, is notthe age that we're all gonna
naturally have this figured out.
Some maybe will, some maybewon't.
But if we all can embrace this,this period of discovery, and
not just try to go down thefactory path of college to
either immediately to youremployment for life or whatever
that case is.
(08:56):
Spend some time findingyourself.
Dylan (08:58):
A gap year, like, you know, should be required.
It's like before, before kids,take on this, the, these loans
and this debt that they don'treally understand, you know,
they, they can't reallyunderstand the implications of
that and what that looks likelong term.
It's like, take a gap year.
That's my biggest piece ofadvice when I'm talking to young
people who are in high schooland are not, like, don't have a
clear path.
They haven't wanted to be adoctor since they were six years
(09:19):
old.
They weren't dressing up withlike stethoscopes and, and like
white, you know, white coats orwanted to be like a, a zoologist
or a veterinarian, right?
There's so many avenues, there'sso many paths that people can
take that they don't even knowexists.
Take a year off and get out ofyour hometown travel, go to
different countries, see howdifferent people think and work
in different cultures.
(09:40):
You'd be surprised by like theversion of you that comes back
from that.
That's my advice to anybody inthat, at that kind of position
in their life where they're kindof young and figuring out what
the next step looks like.
Take a year off.
Russel (09:51):
I think that's great advice.
I don't know how many youngfolks listen to the show that
are, that are in that phase, butif you imagine there's a lot of
parents of young folks so, um,per Dylan's advice, mandatory
gap year.
I know you're well read and, andwell learned, and I want to, I
want to dive more into that.
It makes me think, there's abook called Range out there and
it's really great at embracingthis concept of how important,
(10:13):
um, really the jack of alltrades mindset is.
You're picking up perspective,experiences, all kinds of things
that you can bring into yourpattern recognition for whatever
your core expertise is and thatthey actually find people that
specialize too early, too young,um, often lead to burnout.
They don't, you know, really getto anything significant level.
They don't really evenappreciate the thing they're
(10:33):
doing anymore, even if it maybeis even lucrative for them.
Have you come across that book?
Dylan (10:37):
I think I've sampled that book and it, it always brings up
an interesting tension for mebecause on the business side, on
the business strategy side, Ibelieve greatly in the power of
specialization and positioningand narrowing your focus, right?
Picking a lane.
That's like been a hugeevolution for us is like instead
of being the jack of all trades,like we do web design, SEO, pay
per click, social media, foreverybody, all businesses.
(11:00):
Moving from that to like a morenarrow lens, I think is a
critical move on the businessside.
But from a personal perspective,the range and the jack of all
trades experience that I, thatyou bring to the table and
you're, as you're evolving, Ithink is super useful across,
you know, what you bring to abusiness.
There's that, that tensionbetween specializing from a from
(11:20):
an agency strategy perspective,which, you know, if we're trying
to make this relevant to, toyour show, you know, that
specialization being like acritical, in my opinion, a
critical focal point and like ajunction for people, and that
also that kind of, that jack ofall trades personal perspective
and how, the differentphilosophies for the different
levels of zoom, really.
I don't know.
Does that resonate with you atall?
Russel (11:40):
Absolutely.
It makes me think of, we talkedabout this a lot in our
business.
We called it the T-shapedconcept.
We didn't coin that by anymeans.
I can't even remember where itoriginated from.
But this idea that you as aperson, your knowledge is this,
the shape of a T and thehorizontal is the breadth of
experience and the, and the, thevertical portion is the depth.
We were always big and, and,and, right, you need both.
(12:01):
Kind of along the lines of whatyou're saying and, but, but yes,
ultimately, I'd probably be morein the camp of start general,
and, and there's a lot of valuein that.
I always think of like, very fewagencies start out extremely
specialized in position, and Ithink that's a good natural
journey that they go on because,um, it helps them, it gives them
a lot more of that depth ofexperience or that breadth of
experience when they do decideto specialize that they can
(12:23):
bring it all, bring it all home.
Dylan (12:25):
A hundred percent.
The agencies are extensions ofthe owners, right?
They are literally birthed fromthe owners.
Russel (12:30):
It's a child.
Dylan (12:31):
It's a child, right?
It's like you can't take theowner out of the agency.
You know, and Obviously you tryto get to a point where there's
more separation between theowner and the actual agency, um,
but in that way, yeah.
I think most agencies, unlessthe owner has had prior
experience, you know, they've,they've been in other agencies
or they've, this is their secondor third agency they're starting
and they're like, I know exactlywhat my market is and exactly my
(12:52):
positioning and where, how Iwanna like, you know, set myself
up.
Most agencies are gonna gothrough a, we do mostly
everything for anybody who willsay yes and who will take us on
and will do let us do the work.
And I agree.
I think that, that's where youlearn.
Those are the trenches, right?
Russel (13:07):
Those are the trenches.
Dylan (13:08):
Those are the trenches where you kind of really get
this, like you get the, thissucks moment or you get the,
wow, this is, this works moment.
Ideally you use that to make astrategic, you know, shift at
some point.
That's the goal, at least Ithink.
So I agree.
Russel (13:21):
I love that.
Just traveling down the line,line of, and you, you shared,
you, you're about to be a, a newfather, which obviously just a
huge life moment and a huge lifechanging moment that you, you
can and can't expect and whatthat will look like.
But my wife always, and I,always talk about that our
children will be somethingbecause us, because of us or in
spite of us, and we don't alwaysknow what it's gonna be.
(13:42):
And It makes me even think backto the correlation of our agency
as well, or, or our business isgonna be something because of
us, or it's gonna be somethingin, in spite of us.
Dylan (13:50):
Interesting.
That's an interesting one.
Russel (13:52):
What is your agency because of you, and, or maybe
more interestingly, what is youragency in spite of you?
Dylan (13:57):
Oof, man.
Because of me, you know, I, myagency reflects a lot of my
values, right?
Just from, uh, how I like towork and, you know, what I
believe in and how I extend thatto my team and the clients we
work with.
There's a direct tie, um, tothat.
And then I think, uh, What is myagency in spite of me?
It's probably, um, more wellorganized than, you know, than I
(14:21):
would than it would be if I, ifit were birthed directly from
me, right?
Fortunately, I've surroundedmyself with incredible team
members who, um, like systemsand like processes, and I'm
someone who likes to like throwpaint on the wall and, and see
what's see what comes out of it.
And so, my agency, in spite ofme, is a very kind of focused,
(14:42):
organized, or, uh, organization,is maybe my answer to that.
Russel (14:45):
All right.
I like this.
Yeah, I mean, It makes totalsense, right?
If you're, If you're a littlebit more kind of off the cuff,
uh, ad hoc that your agency willhave to be more organized.
If it's gonna survive and live,uh, that's a, that's a great,
man.
and I, And I know I threw atough question there, and I, I
will say, you pulled that offbrilliantly.
Dylan (15:02):
Too kind.
Russel (15:02):
But I, I think that so many people have to resonate
with it.
I know that's kind of evensomewhat the entrepreneurial,
not, I don't wanna say typical,but maybe, prevalent, I guess
you could say is right, we'revisionaries and thinkers and
we're always far forward and,and then, yeah, the agency has
to be organized.
Dylan (15:17):
Agreed.
It's a constant tension betweenthe entrepreneur and the
operator, which I think, um, youknow, I, I remember reading, um,
the E-Myth a long time ago,which was foundational to me at
some point.
The idea of, you know, sometimesyou have this op, you have this
owner who spends too much timein the operation, delivery,
stage or role and not enoughtime in the kind of like
(15:39):
strategy, vision side.
It's a tough little place to be.
you know, we're Owners are stilloperators, right?
They're still picking up thephone, dealing with client
issues, dealing with a billingissue that a client might have,
like an invoice that didn't gothrough.
I mean like really granularstuff.
Then also they're trying tolike, look at the, they'll
separate the forest from thetrees and look at the, the
vision and where we're going andwhat our strategy is.
(16:00):
It's a constant tension betweenthose two, um, and sometimes
we're better at one thing versusthe other.
There are some owners who areexcellent operators and, they
are the best operators of theiragency and maybe they're
neglecting a little bit of theentrepreneurial side and taking
risks and, uh, exploring newavenues and, and looking long
term.
And then you have someentrepreneurs who are, you know,
(16:21):
and I've worked with some ofthese people on the client side
when we were working more withsmall businesses, who are
disasters from an operatorperspective.
I No organization.
No real kind of, uh,administrative skills that know,
companies require.
You need to know yourself.
You need to find out where youland on that, that vision, and
then supplement your, your gaps.
Ideally with a team, right?
Which is what I've tried to do,is like I'm, you know, is bring
(16:42):
in people who are reallyorganized and, you know, really
detail oriented to supplementmy, my operation gaps, um, so I
can focus more on the, theentrepreneurial side.
Russel (16:52):
We need an entrepreneurial gap year
apparently as well.
At some point in your business,you gotta take a gap year.
Dylan (16:57):
Or a gap month.
Russel (16:58):
Gap something.
Dylan (16:59):
Gap summer, you know, is like, see what happens.
Roll the dice.
I think that's a super good kindof stress test, uh, for an
organization.
I just took two weeks off, uh,to travel with my wife ahead of
having a, a child before whenwe, like you said, I have no
idea what fatherhood looks like.
I have no idea what life lookslike post birth.
I'm kind of naming it, you know,PB and we'll see, we'll see like
(17:20):
how things change at that point.
We figured while we can, let'sgo on a little trip.
I was gone for two weeks andhonestly I was resentful with
how little was required of me.
I was like, I kept checking myemail and checking my inbox and
checking my Slack and beinglike, there's gotta be a
problem.
I gotta jump into I'm, I need tobe useful here.
My team was just, you know,autonomous, right?
(17:40):
A small party was like, it'salmost like I can imagine when
your kid leaves the nest.
It's like, well, I'm kind of,what do I do?
I'm, I'm not like, as criticalto this organization as I
thought I was.
It's both a really good thing,but it's also kind of a moment
of like, oh, okay.
That's different.
I used to be the only thing thatmattered, you know?
Russel (17:58):
Oh gosh.
I always thought of parentingand managing people as so
similar, but I've never reallyeven thought about parenting and
running a business as the samething.
You're bringing up all kinds ofideas on that front.
Obviously you've had somesuccess down this route, and I
get the sense that, you know,very, maybe early on, or you can
tell me otherwise, that you havetried to treat this business
with a, with a lifestylecentered approach to some
(18:20):
degree.
When you think back on justwhat, was there something key
you did or, or something thatreally sticks out that maybe
allowed you to have that twoweek vacation where your agency
kid didn't quite need you asmuch as you'd hoped?
Or maybe you're super proud of?
However you wanna look at that.
Dylan (18:34):
I didn't even realize I was building a lifestyle
business, uh, for a while.
I didn't even know the termlifestyle business until a few
years into the whole, uh, into,into operating, and then when
it, I found out what it was, Iwas like, yeah, that's, that's
basically what I want.
I think you need to decide whatyou want your relationship with
work to be like.
Do you want work to take up ahuge portion of your life and
(18:55):
neglect a lot of other thingsthat you could find interested
in?
Or do you want work to, to fitin neatly into, uh, a more of a
canvas of interests and desiresand opportunities?
Part of that, like this is birthfor me thing is like, I'm
someone who really valuesflexibility and freedom.
I didn't really even realizethat until I was in a military
(19:16):
academy and you, I hadabsolutely none of it, and I was
like, wow.
This is not who I am.
This is not what I want.
I'm someone who needs to be,needs to have that flexibility
and that freedom to figure outday to day like what my life is
gonna look like.
The military idea wasn't gonnawork, like a corporate ladder
wasn't gonna work.
This business has been birthedlargely from that desire to be
(19:37):
flexible and have freedom and beable to take time off and, and
work from anywhere.
And, um, I think the biggestthing I've done to set that up
is to, uh, provide completeautonomy to my team.
They are totally, you know, evenfrom, everything from invoicing
clients, to scoping work andproviding quotes to firing
clients.
I hand over the keys to thecastle.
(19:57):
I think.
The biggest mistake a lot ofpeople make is hire great people
and then like, hand them ascript or hand them a process or
a system.
You hire great people so theycan bring their greatness to the
table.
You don't hire'em so you cansmother'em in, bureaucracy and
rules.
And that's another wholeconversation point, is that
tension between systems,processes and kind of creation
and how, like you, there's adelicate balance between the
(20:19):
two.
But to answer your questionabout how I set up a business
that provides me withflexibility, it is largely down,
comes down to the autonomy Iprovide, the autonomy and trust
I've put in my team to, uh, getthe job done.
Obviously you gotta hire goodpeople for that to work.
It's, you know, those twothings.
Russel (20:34):
Very curious there.
I mean, Did you start with thatmethodologies, or would that,
did that become an evolution oflike where you were, where
you're trying to meddle too muchor a helicopter agency owner,
um, or something along thoselines to actually bring, come to
that realization?
Dylan (20:47):
More parallels to parenting, huh?
I definitely did not start withthis kind of, uh, I thought that
Businesses to be successful,businesses needed to be very
rigid.
From the outside, again, withoutgoing to, like, without much
experience in the, the, thebusiness world, I thought that
um, you know, you needed to havea lot of control.
You need to have a lot of, youknow, systems, processes.
Again, I do think those thingsare important, but it's the
(21:08):
level of them that I thinkpeople can kind of get wrong
sometimes.
We used to track every minutethat people, you know, worked
what they tracked, what theyworked on.
I used to have complete accessto every inbox, reviewing every
email that went out.
It was, you know, Sauron's allseeing eye.
For my Lord of the Rings fansout there.
And then I just realized like,I'm spending, I'm spending so
much time doing this, andthey're spending so much time
(21:30):
just complying to what I'masking them to do.
It's like, how much time are welosing, like just with this
machinery that, uh, could bebetter spent, you know, val, on
value creation for the peoplethat trust us with the work.
That was a gradual realizationand then that, you know, I just
was continued to be proven rightby my team that these are the
right moves over time and nowit's, now it's my personal
(21:51):
philosophy.
Russel (21:52):
Do you, again, trying to kind of decide, and I, I'm, I
probably know the answer.
Everything's in evolution.
There's rather these definingmoments per se.
But I think that sometimesevolution, the hard part of it
can be is reversing a trend orum, you know, breaking habits
and things of, of kind of thestandard operating procedure.
When you think back, how did,how did you break those, those
habits?
I mean, that was, That's somereal rigidity that you're
(22:12):
talking about there.
Dylan (22:13):
That's a good question.
Like you said, everything kindof, it's all kind of, you know,
fuzzy.
There's not a lot of concrete,right?
It's just like, you know, day today in and like seeing, having
experiences with my team day today and like subtly nudging me
one way or the other.
I can say that like I was justtired of being on the hook for
everything, right?
Being responsible for everyurgent page.
Every time it's like Saturdayand like someone's website is
(22:34):
down and like, I'm like, youknow, hiking with my wife or
something, and now I'm stressingabout this, that, or the other
thing.
Every conversation with a clientabout their website, just like
wanting to be less involved,ultimately led me, it's like,
okay, I can either do less workor I can empower my team to take
over more of that work.
I think just probably a coupleof burnout experiences.
I I don't know if you've everexperienced the, uh, the, the
(22:56):
burnout cycles where you'relike, you just get deep into a
burnout and it's like, how am Iever gonna get out of this?
Then somehow you find a way.
But I think a couple of burnoutsessions, I was like, hey.
I don't wanna be the, the, the,the base on which everything
else is built.
I'd rather, you know, pullmyself out as much as possible,
provide value where I canprovide value, and then give
everyone else an opportunity toshine.
Russel (23:17):
I'm sure I've brought this up on the show before, um,
the idea that the, the formulafor change is that your
dissatisfaction has to begreater than your resistance to
change or the status quo.
You had that moment it soundslike, and that force said no
more, not enough.
I'm gonna recap.
I was taking notes as you werekind of explaining this, and I
think some really great pointsthat you made is one, starting
off, what do you prioritize?
(23:38):
If you prioritize money, you'regonna chase money.
But if you prioritize a sense ofwellbeing in your life and your
overall goals, that, that'simportant.
Complete autonomy, ultimately,whether you can start there or
not, but giving that to yourteam.
Focus, do the hard thing offiguring out how to hire good
people, but then give them theautonomy to be successful and,
um, avoid rigidity.
(23:59):
Find that balance of philosophyand methodology and approach and
process.
The pendulum probably shouldn'tbe too far in either direction.
And then last but not least,probably in that vein of when,
if it's not taking us in thedirection, how can we recognize
the burnout in ourselves?
Take a step back, take a gapyear, take a something, um, so
that we can come back with, withfresh eyes, fresh perspective,
(24:20):
and change the status quo.
Dylan (24:21):
Hundred percent.
Wow.
You just outlined my next bookor my first book.
Russel (24:24):
There we go.
It is funny.
I really want to be on thisnotion more, right?
Books, I feel like this is theway content is going.
We need to normalize books beinglike 15 pages.
To your point, simplicity.
There's so many books I read outthere that's like, man, the
first 20% when they were justreally fleshing out their
concept.
That's so good.
And then the next 80% was themfeeling like they had to meet,
had to meet a, a page threshold.
Dylan (24:45):
That's funny.
It's like, there are some bookswhere, like, from front cover,
from like first page to the lastpage I'm in.
I can think of a couple likeDeep Work by, you know, Cal
Newport's books.
I feel like he layers in a lotof nuance over time that, you
know, is very valuable.
Daniel Pink, I feel like writesbooks that, um, I can, I can
sink my teeth into for a longtime.
(25:05):
Same with anything really.
Coming from, the, Blair Ennsand, and, uh, some of the Win
Without Pitching people, butthere are also a lot of books
where, yeah, I completely agree.
I get like 20 pages in.
I'm like, I get it.
I've got it.
This is the message, and thenit's, it's like 120 pages of
filler, right?
People feel like if they'regonna charge.
X, Y, or Z for a book, um, youknow, they need to fill it with
(25:27):
a certain amount of stuff, and Ithink that that's like pricing
and philosophies around value.
I don't know if you ever read,uh, Pricing Creativity by, uh,
Blair Enns, but it's a PDF.
It's not very long.
It's like a PDF.
He charged$60 for it, for, forlike a, you know, which, and
his, his point was there is alot of value in this book that
is not related to its length.
(25:48):
That was a learning lesson forme too.
It's like, what, how do we pricethings?
How do we value things?
Do clients pay for time orscope, or do they pay for
results?
Getting back to your comment.
I completely agree.
I think, uh, you know, there area lot of books that could be,
you know, TLDR could be probablya series of tweets even, but,
uh, but yeah.
Russel (26:04):
My favorite is a book where, honestly, the title
really probably tells me about95%.
Do you have a title book thatcomes to your mind that's like,
hey, I got about all the valuefrom the title itself?
Dylan (26:14):
Yes.
Profit First.
I don't know if you ever readthat by, uh.
Russel (26:17):
I have, yep.
Dylan (26:17):
Mike Michalowicz.
In the first 30 pages Iunderstood, and it reframed my
perspective on profit and, andoperating a cash, uh, based
business.
That was huge for me.
I got it in the title, you know,like, like you said, uh, a
couple of his other books.
No offense to Mike Michalowicz,but um, you know, probably could
have been half as long and justas valuable.
Russel (26:39):
Mine is called The Gap and The Gain.
You might need one more sentenceto really get it.
But, uh, the idea that, um,probably not think this, I
always call this like the curseof ambitious people, but that we
tend to focus on the gap betweenwhere we're at and the goal.
We don't focus on the gain.
So We might be 90% towards ourgoal and we've, we just zero in
on that 10%, but rather thanwhat the, the getting 90% of the
(27:01):
way there, that's pretty darngood.
Dylan (27:02):
Can you be ambitious and be happy?
it's a tough tension.
I think people, entrepreneursand agency owners, uh, you know,
running an agency is hard.
It's like winning in this game,there's a lot of agencies, the
material is complicated.
It's always evolving, you know,technology, trends, culture,
it's always moving forward.
It's a hard game to be in.
If you're gonna succeed in it,you, you almost have to be the
(27:23):
gap.
People who pay attention to thegap, and, and you can be
miserable that way.
But you can't run a successfulbusiness if you're, if you're
miserable either.
So it's like how do you leveragethat attention to the gap?
How do you give it some space,but also be satisfied with the
work you've done in such a wayas to keep you motivated and
keep you interested and keep youin the game overall, because if
you, if you wake up every dayand you're just, you know,
(27:45):
pissed about what you're notdoing right.
It's a real hard reality to to,to trudge through.
Russel (27:49):
Oh, that's terrible.
Honestly, I think to your point,you can't get anywhere if that's
where your reality is.
Screw any business goals aboutgrowth.
Make your goal about how to getyour mind right, because I think
it's gonna make it even worse ifyou, if you go down a path of
trying to grow and you're gonnabe more frustrated, get your
mind right, uh, I think is sokey to this.
Man.
There's so, so many topics.
I want to go down with you,.
I think obviously a, a anotherkeystone from our conversation
(28:12):
is just, you're well read.
You've clearly spent a lot oftime learning and educating
yourself, which I think is sohuge.
The hard knocks is already gonnateach everyone a lot, but we
have to compound that with somuch other learning.
I think that is so critical, in,in this hard business as, as you
said.
Was that natural to you earlyon?
Why has that been important toyou?
I'll even ask, load the questioneven further a little bit.
(28:34):
I know you've got some coolthings where you bring the team
along that journey as well.
I'd love to just hear about yourculture and philosophy around
the learning process.
Dylan (28:41):
To your point about the importance of, of books, I mean,
um, I can plot on a chart, youknow, the key moments in
118Group's history.
I can relate it directly withone or two books, right, that I
read that changed my perspectiveon certain things.
I could draw that graph for you,like a, almost like a Candy Land
board game where it's like, andthen he gets, he reads this book
(29:03):
and he takes the ladder shortcutand now he's, you know, further
along the journey.
It's indisputable to me, thevalue in that.
You read the right books at theright time, uh, and it can
completely reframe your entireperspective.
Another question around like,has that always been part of me?
Yeah.
I mean, I've always liked tolearn.
I've always been a learner.
I've always been curious.
And I think that that's, likeyou said, a huge part of it.
You learn a lot while doing thework, but if you're not, like
(29:26):
you said, supplementing it withother ideas coming from other
places, then you're missing outon a huge part of the, the
equation.
um, I really love it, I, I, Irun a book club with my team.
Right now we're reading a bookcalled Scrum, um, you know, and
there's, it's two factors there.
It helps us learn, you know, andevolve.
But also for a remote team, likewe're completely distributed, we
(29:46):
rarely see each other in person.
It's a reason to get together,chat about some material, some
ideas that isn't just likeclient work and stuff we're
turning around or like, how'sthe weather, you know, where you
are, right?
It gives us opportunities to diginto something that connects us
a little more.
They love it.
They look forward to thosemeetings'cause we, we kind of
like sit back, relax, have a cupof coffee or, or if we're doing
(30:08):
it late, it's a beer or a glassof wine and we're chatting
about, you know, we start, wemight start talking about the
book and then we veer off tolike how a client relationship
connects to the book.
It's a really good culturaltool.
I don't have a whole lot ofthose in my tool belt.
I'd like to have more, uh, butthe book club is one of them.
Russel (30:22):
Man, I love that.
If I could go back in an agency,just from hearing you talk about
that right now, I would start abook club, hands down.
I would do that.
That's awesome.
And just some, I mean, So manythings you share, it just
naturally creates a culture oflearning, but just all of the
conversation that happens in anagency about clients, right?
If we can apply that to thingswe're learning and reading,
that's like, I don't know,that's like, that's like super
(30:43):
nitro power juice.
Dylan (30:44):
A hundred percent.
It's hard because with, I don'tknow if you've had this
experience, but with a veryremote, uh, distributed, I like
to call it distributed'causeit's less sad sounding than
remote, but with like adistributed team, uh, it's hard
for spontaneity.
If you're having a meeting, it'slike, well, what's the agenda?
What are the topics?
We have 30 minutes, we gotta runthrough this, that, or the other
thing.
It's hard to create space for,uh, for some of that new stuff.
(31:08):
Some of that spontaneousdiscussion or ideas or sharing
of concepts or philosophies andso you need to create space for
that.
At least me personally, I do.
If every one of my meetings withmy team is like, follow some
strict agenda, you know, I'llthrow myself out of like, you
know, a four story window.
Again, it's a tool.
It's just a format that, uh, youknow, is pretty straightforward.
(31:28):
Everybody either has been in abook club or know, pretty much
gets what a book club is about.
You assign, you talk about, youassign some reading chapters,
you get together, you chat aboutit, you underline some stuff.
It solves a couple differentproblems in a, in a distributed
team, you know, kind of style.
Russel (31:42):
I think it just culturally speaks to, when we go
back to hiring, that's what,that's the kind of things that
invite the type of people thatyou're probably gonna want to
hire as the people that areinterested in that.
They're not just showing up forthe job as a transaction, but
they want to be enriched, notjust transactionally in, in
their bank accounts, but theywant to be enriched in the mind.
That's such a good way to, to dothat.
I guess I'll give myself alittle credit.
(32:03):
We had a concept we calledLifeblue University, where once
a week we would, um, we wouldhave like a lunch and learn
session.
We'd talk about some businessytype stuff, but we'd also just
talk, bring in a guest speakerthat talked about, somebody
that, actually was an artcollector of homeless signs and
they just came and talked aboutthat experience.
People just loved, loved justgetting enriched.
I don't know another way to putit.
Dylan (32:22):
I love that idea also of bringing in like, just, you
know, an outsider to come andchat with your team about, what
they're interested in or whattheir field is, or what their
industry is or whatever.
That's gotta be veryinteresting.
I'd love to at some point pickyour brain on that a little bit
more.
Russel (32:36):
Absolutely.
Pick away.
We will have to wrap up for theday, otherwise we could do it on
here, but, uh, we'll we willmake that a segment for part two
down the road.
A couple more questions to roundthings out.
One, I'd just kinda love to hearhow you're looking at the future
of the business.
What are your long-term goalsand plans?
We'll start there.
Dylan (32:51):
There's like kind of the, the answer that's a little like
woo woo, which is, um, you know,my, my goals for 118Group, um,
you know, I'm, my headlights ofthe car, you know, that's
looking at the road right now,it's like the farthest out it's
looking is, as long as my, asI'm doing work that is
meaningful to me and that isrewarding and like you said,
that I'm enriching myself and myteam through our experiences and
(33:15):
the projects we're working on.
Then I'm on the right path.
As long as my headlights, I cansee that far, you know, far
ahead.
In terms of the more concretearea, you know, we, um, we just
acquired an AI chat bot pluginfor WordPress that we're trying
to learn.
We're trying to learn how to runa, a software agency and not
just a service-based agency.
Which is a whole different ballgame, you know, like developing
(33:35):
a software product, um, wherewe're, you know, like we have
smaller customers, smaller one,you know, subscriber bases.
Trying to like, continue tolearn in that way by injecting
some, like, new challenges.
That's huge.
and Then our goal is to, is towork with, you know, bigger and
bigger brands on the nonprofitside, right?
I'd rather do three projects ayear that are like high ticket
value than do 10 smallerprojects a year.
(33:57):
But to do that, you really haveto establish yourself in the
industry and, and develop thoseright relationships.
We're just on that journey ofputting ourselves in front of
bigger nonprofits that valuewhat we do and uh, and then
being able to focus our effortson a handful of clients instead
of, you know, servicing 10 to 15a year, uh, which, you know,
fragments your team, fragmentsyour attention.
(34:19):
It's harder to do good work whenyou split it up across, you
know, 15 different projects.
And we've seen that trend,right?
We've started to get work onfewer and fewer projects that
have higher and higher value,and we see ourselves doing
better and better work.
It's a real positive cycle,right?
Because then you launch aproject, you've done really an
ex, excellent job.
You've got a, an, um, an, a teammember or a, a client that will
(34:40):
kind of support you throughoutthe future.
Then you have a portfolio piece.
It's all part of that kind ofnarrowing our vision that I, I'm
starting to take to just abouteverything now.
Russel (34:48):
Awesome man.
Man with a plan.
Sounds amazing.
Can't wait to hear how thatlooks like in the future.
We might have to have you on forround two to talk about that.
Dylan (34:56):
Thank you.
I'd love to.
Russel (34:57):
Last big question for you, Dylan.
Are entrepreneurs born or arethey made?
Dylan (35:01):
I think they're made.
I think entrepreneurs come inmany different flavors and
styles.
There's a lot of different waysto be an entrepreneur.
You can be an introvertedentrepr, introverted
entrepreneur.
You can be very out, you know,outgoing.
You can be very organized.
You can be very disorganized.
You can be very charismatic.
You can not be very charismatic.
I've worked with a lot ofbusinesses.
I've seen every differentversion of an entrepreneur.
(35:21):
I think they're made over timerather than born.
I don't know.
What is your typical take onthat?
Russel (35:26):
Oh man, I, I just always just listen to that question.
The type of answer that I'vealways resonated with is, sure,
I think there's some naturalcharacteristics that make
someone more willing to justtake the kicks in the, between
the legs that come with being anentrepreneur and, and being able
to brush those off and, andwhatever.
But I also think there's peoplethat are completely risk averse
(35:47):
that they just are way better atpreparation, uh, than the other
folks.
Ultimately, whatever set ofcharacteristics make us natural.
I've always just reallyidentified with the, the good
ones are made.
I kind of say, it doesn't matterwhether you're born or made, if
we're talking here today, you'reprobably made because otherwise
you'd be doing something else.
Dylan (36:06):
It's hard to ignore the role like luck and life plays
and everything, right?
If I had zigged rather thanzagged, you know, maybe I
would've found myself in acareer instead of kind of a, a,
you know, running a business,right?
I think there's probably a lotof entrepreneurs who are in some
larger corporation who are, whotreat their roles in an
entrepreneurial way, but they'renot technically, you know,
running their own business, butthey're running their own team.
(36:28):
It's hard to, to slice and dicethat.
But, um, I think luck and, andjust the, the, the kind of, the,
the, the waves of life play ahuge role in that as well.
Russel (36:36):
Absolutely.
Great thought there.
I have the craziest zig and zagstory I think you can have from
a business perspective, but I'llhave to share that another day.
If you wanna know more about118Group, where can they go?
Dylan (36:46):
The best place to go is our website, 118Group.com.
If you wanna follow me, it'sjust, it's the two first name
guy.
Dylan Steven,D-Y-L-A-N-S-T-E-V-E-N on
LinkedIn.
I'm typically trying to sharesome of my, you know, some of
the work we do and I'm alwayslooking for, uh, for new
inspiration on there.
Those would be the two bestplaces to find me.
Russel (37:05):
Another simple way to remember you, the two first name
guy.
Great moniker.
Wonderful conversation today,Dylan.
I mean, Just so many greatinsights.
We unlocked all these newthoughts on my end about the
relationship of parenting andrunning a business and all the
similarities there, and justabout the importance and the
idea of simplicity, how to builda lifestyle business.
If you didn't take somethingaway from, for the folks at home
(37:26):
today, uh, re-listen becausethere were a lot of great
nuggets.
All in all wanna say, just thankyou so much for taking the time
to share that with us, Dylan.
Dylan (37:33):
Thank you Russel.
You've been, uh, a wonderfulhost
we hope you've enjoyed thisepisode of An Agency Story
podcast where we share realstories of marketing agency
owners from around the world.
Are you interested in being aguest on the show?
Send an email topodcast@performancefaction.com.
(37:55):
An Agency Story is brought toyou by Performance Faction.
Performance Faction offersservices to help agency owners
grow their business to 5 milliondollars and more in revenue.
To learn more, visitperformancefaction.com.
I think you asked, asked about like, you know, when were
(38:17):
these moments where you just,you made bigger decisions, like
what were the, the focal pointsor like, can you map any focal
points that kind of changed yourperspective along your career?
When I found myself, uh, gettingstuck in meetings with, a
psychic medium who was lookingfor my work, um, who was
charging more than I was, um,you know, was charging 250 bucks
an hour, I think I realized Ineed to, I need that, that was a
(38:41):
pause in a, in a moment ofself-reflection for me.
When I was getting out, chargedby a psychic medium, I realized
I need to, to make some changes.
Russel (38:47):
That could be a real wake up call.
Dylan (38:49):
It was a wake up call.
I was like, wow, okay.
And also that taught me aboutthe, taught me a lot about the,
uh, the perception of value.
How important that is, uh, interms of how, how people spend
their money and what they spendtheir money on and how much
they'll spend.
That was an interesting learningmoment for me.
Russel (39:05):
Wow.
Now my real question was, didyou use their services in the
process somewhere?
Dylan (39:09):
I can't afford their services.
That's the thing.
Russel (39:11):
The trade wouldn't work out at that point in time.
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