December 23, 2024 • 33 mins
Company: Two Octobers
Owners: Kris Skavish and Nico Brooks
Year Started: 2010
Employees: 11 – 25
What happens when two analytically minded leaders who swore off entrepreneurship build an agency that challenges everything about traditional leadership? In this episode, Kris Skavish and Nico Brooks of Two Octobers share how they’ve created a people-first marketing agency rooted in empowerment, data discipline, and meaningful work. Learn how they built a strong team culture, became a B Corp, and created a unique apprenticeship program to change hiring from the ground up.
Inside this episode:
- The hiring trap most agency owners fall into and a smarter alternative
- How to avoid burning out your team while still delivering high-value work
- The overlooked benefit of apprenticeships for talent and diversity
- Why autonomy (not hierarchy) builds stronger teams
- The real business impact of becoming a B Corp
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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):
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast.
I'm your host Russel.
In this episode, we are joinedby Chris Skavish and Nico Brooks
co-founders of Two Octobers, aforward thinking marketing
agency based in Denver,Colorado.
Listen, as they share theirjourney from vowing, never to
follow in their entrepreneurialparents' footsteps to building
an agency that brings clarity tothe complex world of marketing
(01:02):
and analytics for businesses ofall sizes.
Learn how they have fostered aunique team culture rooted in
empowerment, analytical rigor,and a drive to make a
difference, including becoming acertified B corporation.
Tune in to hear Chris and Nico'sinspiring story and discover how
two Octobers is transformingmarketing, one data mess at a
time.
(01:22):
Enjoy the story.
Welcome to the show today,everyone.
I have Kris Skavish and NicoBrooks with Two Octobers with us
here today.
Thank you so much for being onthe show today.
Kris (01:31):
It's great to be here.
Nico (01:32):
Thanks for having us.
Russel (01:32):
My pleasure.
Look forward to a greatconversation, but if you don't
mind, start us off.
What does Two Octobers do andwho do you do it for?
Kris (01:39):
Two Octobers demystifies marketing analytics and
performance marketing formarketing teams, uh, ranging
from B2B businesses, nonprofits,universities, B2C, all kinds of
businesses.
We love helping, um, solvecomplex problems and make
marketing teams smarter in theprocess.
Russel (01:59):
I don't think anybody would complain about getting
made smarter.
Sounds like a good business andmodel that you have put
together.
We'll certainly spend a lot moretime talking about all the
amazing things that you'vecreated.
But before we get there, I wantto hear about young Kris and
Nico and what they thought theywanted to be when they grew up.
Kris (02:17):
I was actually raised in a family of entrepreneurs.
My parents started their ownbusiness because they wanted to
work together in.
When I was in high school, theystarted a desktop publishing
business.
This is when, uh, we were movingfrom like typesetting and things
like that.
You could do it on the computerand they could do, um,
interesting things for smallbusinesses.
(02:37):
They did a series of otherbusinesses, um, and, uh, had
various levels of success withthat.
I was like, you know what?
I am never going to be anentrepreneur.
That seems like a lot of work torun your own business.
When I entered the workforce, Istarted out working in
interactive multimedia.
I did various software jobs in,um, startup software companies,
(02:58):
venture backed softwarecompanies in the Denver area.
I did project management andproduct management and things
like that.
I enjoyed that work.
Then I met Nico.
Russel (03:08):
All right, Nico.
What was young Nico thinking?
Nico (03:10):
For a long time, I wanted to be an architect.
I do think it suits mypersonality, but my favorite
uncle was an architect.
I ended up doing, becoming afurniture maker, which was
reasonably related toarchitecture.
Fiddling around with computerswas my hobby so I really came
into marketing sideways.
I actually studied math and didfurniture making.
(03:31):
In the nineties started buildingwebsites and realized that
people needed to be able to findthem.
A few leaps from there to here.
Russel (03:38):
Wow.
In some ways you might saythere's not a correlation, but
you, really sounds like you havea creative plus technical mind
mix and you've found differentavenues to even building
furniture.
I see a lot of parallels thatmakes total sense as to where
you're at today.
At some point along the line,sounds like you guys met.
What is that origin story forTwo Octobers?
How did this come to be?
Kris (03:57):
Why don't you tell that, Nico?
Nico (03:58):
We worked in a job together at a different company.
The company that we were workingfor was called Local Matters and
it was really the, it's sort offunny to say, but it was the
premier provider of digitalplatforms for directory
publishers and directorypublishers were mostly Yellow
Pages companies.
Which is funny to think abouttoday.
(04:18):
We're sort of like Yellow Pages.
That sounds like, isn't thatwhat the dinosaurs used to find
stuff?
But at the time there was aperceived opportunity for Yellow
Pages to play a role in localsearch.
Kris was the, really the productmanager for the platform that
these yellow pages companiesused and I was hired to help
develop search strategies, uh,local search strategies that
(04:39):
they, the yellow pages companiescould, could sell to people.
We worked really closelytogether in complimentary roles.
We had very compatible styles.
I'm sure we'll talk about thismore, but just, just really, I
don't know, the way that wemanage our teams is really
complimentary in terms of reallytrying to get people to like,
have a really collaborativespirit and, and, and, um,
(05:01):
empowering versus controlling,which I think is, is, uh,
continues to be sort of how wesee leading people.
At the same time, uh, thewriting was kind of on the wall
for our clients and we were outthere trying to help them help
businesses, specifically localbusinesses, market themselves.
We were developing thesestrategies and were getting in
(05:23):
front of these yellow pages,executives around the world and
saying, here's how you can helpyour customers get more business
via digital.
They were kind of like, okay, wewant to go to the golf course
and cash in on our 60 percentmargins, which was sort of what
they were used to in the YellowPages biz.
We were developing these greatstrategies for helping local
(05:44):
businesses so reallycomplimentary working style,
huge opportunity in helpingbusinesses market themselves.
At that time, agencies reallymostly served bigger businesses
in digital.
We started 15 years ago and, um,we, we were like, it doesn't,
doesn't have to be that way.
You can provide offerings tosmall and medium businesses and
(06:07):
help them too.
Russel (06:08):
Was there like a happy hour event where, you know, I
don't know, a couple of glassesof wine or something like just
the idea of like, hey, let's godo this together?
What was that very specificmoment where the idea itself
even came up?
Nico (06:18):
I'm going to say two things.
One was that we, so we had a, aclient that owned most of the
Yellow Pages in Europe.
We put together this dog andpony show for them, or I don't
know if it was a dog and ponyshow.
Really it was like, again, theseguys, they were, they had a
very, and they weren't mostlyguys, wore suits and again,
(06:39):
played golf and were used to bigmargins.
That was all going away.
We go to this fancy conferenceroom in London and we'd prepared
this whole presentationexplaining to them how people
are finding local businesses andhow they need to evolve.
It would be like trying toexplain space travel to
kangaroos or something.
They were just like, this soundsreally complicated.
(07:00):
I think back like, we were jazz.
We were excited and, and we justfelt like it was falling on deaf
ears.
I guess that was definitely aformative moment.
The other one that I wouldmention was this company we were
working for was venture backedand we are both very analytical
people and kind of, maybe alittle too honest for the
(07:21):
venture backed world.
We were preparing theseforecasts for the business and,
and our, our CEO was, we weregoing to get in front of our
investors and, and he's sort oflike, this number in the lower
right, could you change that tolike 25 million?
But it's not 25 million.
That's not how spreadsheetswork.
I think it was that sort ofcombination of opportunity and
(07:42):
like this, this is not ourworld.
We like building value forpeople.
We don't like making up numbers.
Russel (07:47):
That's always my joke of just, if I'm faking a phone call
of just 20 million, not enough.
It's a mockery of the, the, someof that venture capital world
you speak to.
Kris (07:55):
Just to add a little bit to that, I think that is also
the origin story of our name.
It was one October that westarted talking about building a
business together, and it wasthe next October that we decided
to go ahead with it.
That's where the, where the namecomes from.
Russel (08:09):
Ah, there you go.
This is what I always love abouta naming story.
You can never actually guesswhat is behind the name, but I
love something that, uh, very,very meaningful and applies to,
to your story.
You started to do a business.
What was your initial offering?
Is that different than how youdescribe what your product and
service is today?
Kris (08:25):
One thing that's really interesting about the initial
days there is that Nico hadworked in an agency before, and
had worked at a software companythat sold software to agencies.
I had never worked at an agencybefore.
Also, the services that westarted offering, which were SEO
and SEM, I had never done thosebefore either.
He taught me all of that stuffand those are the services that
(08:47):
we started with, with customers.
We had a really nice, um, softlanding from our previous
employers who gave us a littlebit of contract work, continuing
to do the product managementkind of stuff that we had been
doing, and that was great.
But we started out with thoseSEM and SEO services through our
contact base, selling those tothem.
(09:08):
There were some lean years, butafter a couple years, we were
able to hire another person,which was fun.
We contracted with a white labelclient, uh, that became, really
a big part of our growth overthe next couple of years.
It's helping them dosophisticated paid search for
their sophisticated clients,while they built out that
(09:28):
digital side of theiradvertising, um, offering.
Russel (09:32):
Beautiful.
You mentioned that hiring thatfirst employee and talking with
you previously, I know, I knowteam and just empowerment and
some of these other things arevery important to you.
Is that how you started out thegate?
Or was that a lesson learnedbecause it was really different
having a team in front of, asbeing an owner, or just tell us
about that journey a little bit?
Kris (09:50):
The journey of, um, what it's like to have, to go from
managing people to owning thecompany and managing employees,
that kind of thing?
Russel (09:57):
You asked the question better than I did.
Very great question.
Kris (10:00):
Managing a team and creating a good environment for
people to work was really a coremotivator of building a business
together.
We had really looked forward tothe time that we could start
hiring people.
We hired somebody first withvery little experience and
helped train them up.
That became a theme throughoutthe whole business is that we
really enjoy hiring people atdifferent stages of their career
(10:22):
journey and, um, helping themacquire skill sets.
Things like helping them acquirethe skills to do the job well.
That has been really a, one ofthe most fulfilling parts I
think about owning the agencyover these years is all of the
people we've been able to workwith and see grow in all of
their individual ways.
That's really fun.
One of the things we've alwaysthought about is, you know, I
(10:44):
have a philosophy that workingat an agency is really exciting
and fun and creative and feedsyour curiosity and your
learning, and it's exhausting,right?
It's grinding.
It's hard to always be workingwith clients.
It's hard to always have to dosomething new.
In our working environment, Ithink it's really important that
we are thinking about how do westructure the company to lessen
(11:05):
the burdens we're putting onpeople.
Every process you look at, isthat process really adding value
or just making it more timeconsuming and difficult to work
with?
How are you making sure to thinkabout, um, I don't know, things
as mundane sounding as work lifebalance?
How do we create systems thatmake sure that people aren't
overworked, that they have, youknow, opportunity for learning
(11:29):
and career growth, uh, anddevelopment in their day to day
job?
Those kinds of things I thinkare really important balance.
It's always been a part of howwe've managed people and
developed policies over time forhow we wanted to run the
business.
Russel (11:42):
We could do some really deep dive in there because I,
there's so many things that youshared that, that stood out,
but, you know, one, I think justeven recognizing upfront, I
think this is maybe sometimesthe experience a lot of folks go
through is sometimes, and thisis natural human behavior.
We think other people will actand behave like us, and when we
make a hire and we find out,well, they don't have as much
experience per se or skills,it's just a completely different
(12:03):
scenario really of being anemployee versus an owner.
There's 20 more things you saidthat I'd love to expand upon,
but I guess just tell me moreabout, even just like in a
specific element or two, whenyou talk about some of this
nuance of creating a great worklife balance environment and
just some of the specific pathswhere some of these questions
you're asking yourself andthought processes have led you
(12:24):
to.
Kris (12:24):
I want to give two examples.
One of them I think is sort ofboring, but I do think it's
unique to us.
Because we're both veryanalytically focused and
sometimes I joke that my happyplace is in a spreadsheet.
We created early on thisresource planning system that
would allow us to, to takedozens of client projects and
what our budget is coming in forthem and how much we want to
(12:46):
allocate to each person and adifferent number for each person
depending on if they're managingpeople or what their skill,
their seniority level is andthings like that.
And do the planning every monthto allocate everybody and see
where people are overloaded andthen, um, switch those projects
to somebody else or talk abouthow, um, work can be delegated
(13:07):
to other people and things likethat.
Our work is very retainer based.
There's no, like, projectplanning, um, because what we
need to do every month isoptimizations.
As long as we're doing thoseoptimizations, we're doing the
job, but that, um, method Ithink has been really useful at
making sure that we're notoverloading people, knowing how
(13:27):
many clients they have to dealwith on a monthly basis.
Being proactive about saying,hey, once you get to sort of
touching 14, 15, 16 differentclients in a month, your head is
going to start to explode.
How do we, uh, share the loadamongst other people and make
that an okay environment foryou?
That's one example.
(13:48):
The other example I think ismore profound.
One of the things that I think,um, really changed our culture
and this happened sort of midwaythrough our journey, is reading
a book called ReinventingOrganizations by Frederick
LaRue.
We had always been progressive,I think, as you can hear in some
of these policies and approachesto how we wanted to have
employees, how we wanted to hiresmart people and let them do
(14:10):
good work without too muchintervention.
But this book really brought usto some ideas that were next
level.
There's a couple concepts inthere.
One of them is around selfmanagement.
The idea that why do we adopt bythis hierarchical, format in
organizations?
Why do we have to behierarchical?
Why can't we assume that we'reworking with adults and human
(14:33):
beings want to do good work?
When you make that assumptionand carry it out through all of
your, um, policies around howyou get work done, it sort of
changes the game, right?
I assume you're here to do agood job, so let me help you do
that and then you will do a goodjob.
And how can I give you moreauthority, responsibility,
authority for making your ownbest decisions without having to
(14:57):
take them through some needlesshierarchy, of your manager and
your manager and your manager?
If you feel like you need atool, to buy a tool to do your
job well, and you've evaluatedother options and you've
consulted with your peers, goahead and do that.
That's a terrific thing to do.
You don't need my approval to dothat.
We've gone through variousstages of really being all in on
(15:18):
trying to apply those things andnot all in on trying to apply
those things, but the concept ofthat still really, really
resonates with how we thinkabout managing people and
letting them do their best work.
Russel (15:31):
Oh, man, that's beautiful.
I'm so glad you shared that.
I adopted a very similarphilosophy and it makes me think
of, and I think a lot of largercompanies and sometimes agencies
as well, they want to solve bymanagement and we get this idea
of management tax which was noteven coined that term, but it
was a, in a previous interviewI'd done.
It's just solve everything byhierarchy and management, but
(15:52):
man, that gets expensive.
What a great approach in, increating armies of one kind of
philosophy that you can be thisautonomous unit and how do we
enable that, how do we createthat environment that allows
that?
What a wonderful takeaway there.
I could talk about that forever,but I'll switch gears for a
minute and I want to talk aboutyour guys's partnership.
Are you guys the yin and yangstyle or are you guys very
(16:12):
complimentary and you've had tokind of work around being
symbiotic in that sense?
What is your partnership dynamiclook like?
Nico (16:18):
I would say we're somewhere in between.
I definitely don't think yin andyang in the sense, like our, our
styles are, I don't know ifthey're similar, but they are
very complimentary.
We're both very analytical.
We're both very resultsoriented.
We connected at our previouscompany because how we manage
people is very similar.
I would advise this to anybodythinking about a partnership is
(16:41):
that this idea that, like, youknow, if you, if you think about
everything the same way, one ofyou is unnecessary, and I think
that's valid, but on the otherhand, if you're too different,
there's going to be stormywaters ahead.
Our worldviews are verycomplimentary.
I'll mention another book thathas been really influential to
us and a lot of organizations,which was Traction and the
(17:01):
Traction Model, which we didn't,we didn't really adopt as an
organization.
When we originally went throughit, we're like, yeah, we already
do most of this stuff.
In a way it was affirming.
There's certainly some things inTraction that I think are super
valuable in terms of a more sortof documented way of doing
things.
But one of the concepts inTraction is the idea that every
(17:22):
organization needs an integratorand a visionary.
The visionary is looking ahead,understanding the market, is
really providing the directionfor the business and the
integrator is making everythingwork.
These are roles, they don't haveto be people.
There are organizations whereboth roles are in the same
(17:42):
person.
That doesn't tend to work aswell, but really that you need
to think about the success of anorganization requires both
ingredients and very, it is verytrue that Kris fits the
integrator role more naturally,and I fit the visionary role
more naturally.
I think just appreciating thatand, like where sometimes I'd be
feeling like, how come she justdoesn't get it?
(18:04):
If only she got it, we'd bedoing better.
But realizing that having her asa check and balance on, on me is
really important, and hopefullyshe feels like I had some more
value in a different way.
I love that model.
I don't know that we need to saymore.
I think that's a great place toleave it as just those two
roles.
We get along great.
(18:24):
We bring different things, butnot too different with this
position.
Russel (18:27):
I liken it to my own partnership experience of
appreciation is important,right?
That helps build empathy whenyou are different and, and maybe
don't approach things the sameway, but if we can appreciate
what the other person brings tothe table, that will, that will
calm our nerves when we want togo right and they want to go
left, but maybe we should goleft.
We didn't use Traction or EOS.
I wish I would have built insome of those elements in my
(18:49):
partnership because that doeshelp create that alignment that
it's not about individual ideas,but we're going to force
ourselves to say what's the bestfor the business and, and then
go carry that forward.
That's two great takeaways.
Another topic that I want tomake sure that we get time to
get to is, uh, and I imagineit's very part and parcel to
your approach to team, but verysimilar to us, you guys are a B
Corp.
Why was that an important thingfor you to become?
(19:11):
Tell us a little bit about thatjourney.
Kris (19:12):
We, uh, became exposed to the concept of B Corp when we
went to a, an event in Coloradothat Nico found.
In the B, B Corp community it'scalled a BLD event, Business
Leadership Day event, and it wasfor people who were already B
Corps and curious about it.
When we went to this day longconference, we were just like,
(19:32):
oh, my gosh, these are ourpeople.
It was other business people.
I like talking about business,but they were talking about
stuff that matters in business.
How do you treat employees andhow do you do right by the
environment?
How are we leaving the world abetter place?
I just hadn't experienced abusiness community like that
before.
It just very much matched ourvalues, um, and a lot of our
(19:56):
practices that were already inplace.
It was a great thing to be ableto, uh, to go through the
certification and just be ableto, to demonstrate publicly I
think what we had felt aboutourselves internally, um, and be
able to sort of prove it to acertain extent.
While becoming certified andafter becoming certified, really
we have been motivated a lot byand encouraged a lot by some of
(20:20):
the other people who are BCorps.
It's really inspiring when youget to know other B Corps, to
hear all the different storiesof how they apply B Corps
principles to different areas oftheir business.
It really just makes you tryharder to be an even better
business.
One of the programs that I thinkwe're most proud of actually
came about after we became a BCorp.
Nico (20:41):
One of the things, when you get B Corp certified, is you
go through this thing, like it'salmost like the S.
A.
T.
or something.
It's just all these differentcategories of questions and
you're rated, like you're sayinghere are our practices and
you're getting scored and youhave to score above a certain
amount to be able to become a BCorp.
One of the areas that we, whenwe looked at ourselves, we were
(21:04):
like, yeah, I don't know, we'renot doing great, was in the
diversity and inclusion andreally the diversity of our
staff.
We were just looking at ourpractices and how can we do
better.
We started doing some of the,like, blind resumes and posting
to different job boards andthings that people had
recommended we do to increaseour reach when we were
(21:25):
recruiting for new employees.
The thing that we ran into isthe fact that our industry is
not very diverse.
It's a zero sum game is that, asan agency, it's fairly common.
You're like, okay, well, wereally need experienced people.
We're not equipped to bring onpeople from scratch and train
them up on everything that wedo.
If you hire experienced peopleand there's bias in the
(21:48):
composition of people in yourfield, then it really is a zero
sum game.
You're just hiring people awayfrom other people.
To really change the game, youhave to change the composition
of people in the field.
We had that in our mind.
We're just tackling that, like,we're struggling with this
problem.
I ended up spending a holidaywith a friend who, is lives in
Switzerland and is very involvedin employment in Switzerland.
(22:11):
She's like, yeah, you guys aretotally doing it wrong and
explained the apprenticeshipsystem to us.
How in Switzerland employers,schools, and the workforce are
all working in conjunction andcoming up with solutions
together.
That was inspiring.
We ended up building a digitalmarketing apprenticeship, which
we ended up certifying throughthe U.
(22:33):
S.
Department of Labor.
It's really an amazing program,uh, and you get a lot of
support.
We got a lot of support at thestate level.
Colorado is a great state forapprenticeship.
We have the Office of the Futureof Work in Colorado that really
exists to help businesses inColorado develop
apprenticeships, support youalong the way.
It's been an amazing journey.
(22:53):
We had this problem becoming BCorp certified.
We did become certified beforewe developed the apprenticeship
program, but the process ofcertification just sort of left
us feeling like we can do more.
That is one of the things that'sso great about the B Corp
community is that it just shiftsyour thinking to, we have this
problem.
How can we solve it in a waythat's good for our community?
(23:15):
That's good for our workers?
That's good for the environment?
And seeing more opportunity thanproblems, which sounds kind of
cliche.
But as Kris said, when you hearthe stories of other B Corps
you're like, you know, together,we can, we can do good stuff.
Russel (23:28):
I love it.
Again, very similar philosophy.
Yes, we can try to hire more,but we really have to solve this
at the root level.
We supported a lot of causesthat did mentorship and tech
programs and different thingslike that.
I always love a root causesolution to any challenges that
we perceive.
I know this isn't always thebest way to, how would I say,
like bring some along, but youknow, generally speaking, it's
(23:49):
important when we have acommunity like this and some
flaws of how powerful it can be,how beneficial it can be, not
only from a businessperspective, but also from all
these other things that we cansolve is, what's in it for me?
If we can answer that a littlebit, if we can just get them in
the circle, then they'll, as youkind of said, this osmosis.
They'll see the bigger pictureand the light.
Can you talk a little bit aboutmore specifically about even
(24:09):
something like thisapprenticeship program and just
the business boardroom benefitsthat, you know, how that's
affected your business?
Kris (24:16):
When we have and employ a diverse team, we can apply
diverse solutions to diverseproblems that reach the diverse
audiences that advertisersreally need to reach.
A really specific example ofthat with our apprentices, so
we've had two apprentices now,and one of them is a native
(24:37):
Spanish speaker.
We haven't had a native Spanishspeaker on our staff prior to
that.
She took a client, um, who, uh,is the Botanic Gardens in Denver
here and said, you know, I thinkwe ought to add a Spanish
campaign to what we're doinghere.
It's not a major focus.
It was not a specific requestfrom the client, and I'm not
(24:58):
sure anybody else working on theaccount would have thought of
that as one of their top five or10 ideas.
That's something that reallyadded value in a very specific
way to that client project.
I think, um, the client isgrateful, and I'm certainly
grateful to having her input onthat.
Russel (25:14):
Perfect example answered very well.
Even just make sense as you werekind of describing that, I feel
like our whole ecosystem as aworld really is, is niching,
niching, niching, niching andhow important and critical is
just the story you shared thatdiversity is, and that is, we
have to be able to understandwhat these niches are and look
like to be able to maximizethese opportunities.
What a great way to go aboutthat.
(25:34):
Congrats on becoming a B Corp.
As you were sharing Nico, I knowthat's a process and it doesn't
just end when you get thecertification, but it is an
ongoing endeavor.
Really appreciate you guys doingthe hard work there.
What is the vision and futurefor Two Octobers?
What are we talking about 10years from now?
Kris (25:49):
I'm so glad that we've got our resident visionary on the
call here.
Russel (25:52):
This is your moment, Nico.
Nico (25:54):
As you know, 10 years in our world is, I mean, it is a
really long time.
I'm going to think more in termsof five years just because, uh,
the amount of change that we'veseen, uh, I, I don't want to
predict.
We've mentioned a number oftimes how analytical we are.
We love spreadsheets.
Where we felt like we have themost success with clients and
(26:14):
the most impact is in bringingdiscipline and skills to bear
against really data problems andhow to get good data and how to
make good use of data.
How to get good data.
We're in a, an exciting butreally challenging time because
we, we're getting data fromeverywhere and at the same time.
(26:35):
We have issues with third partydata versus first party data and
what's allowed via regulationsand what's safe and reasonable.
In issues of consent and what wecan collect and can't collect.
Those add a whole nother layerof challenges.That is just
rolling up your sleeves anddoing the work of figuring
things out and getting dataclean and getting it where in a
(26:56):
place where it's usable.
We love doing that kind ofstuff.
We love cleaning up those kindsof messes and, other people
don't so much.
That is certainly a foundation,but the other part is how to
activate that data in a way.
That's going to make adifference.
We haven't talked about thismuch, but, but one of the things
that we developed along the way,and I do think this complimented
(27:16):
and benefited from theapprenticeship program, is we've
always been very sort ofteaching and knowledge-sharing
oriented, which is part of whatmade it possible for us to
develop the apprenticeshipprogram and why it resonated
with us.
But we ended up adding trainingas a service, uh, about five
years ago, and in many of ourengagements, we combine training
(27:37):
with delivering services.
To try to be a little moreconcise, the, the world ahead
for marketing and for everybodyis scary with the addition of
AI, with all these privacyissues.
Feels like every couple of weekswe hear about another giant data
breach and that kind of stuff.
Responsible use of data isbecoming more and more
important, but then there's thiswhole fear of like, and if I
don't, my business is, may notexist.
(28:00):
Navigating that in the contextof marketing.
How do we collect data?
How do we make use of it?
How do we arrive at actionabledecisions?
It's something that we've alwaysbeen good at.
That really is where our focusis today, specifically as it
pertains to paid media and SEOand marketing analytics in
general, things that we do forour clients.
Certainly that's where ourstrengths are.
(28:20):
We're not a billboard company,so we're probably going to offer
less value there.
But I think that, that future,um, and turning that from a
place of anxiety and fear to,um, helping bigger businesses
figure out how they can turnthat into really a profit center
and a driver of business in thefuture.
Russel (28:40):
I don't know why this was sticking out in my mind as
you were explaining that, butright, I think it was, I think
it was McDonald's that had the 1billion serve.
My correlation to that to youwas, you know, however number
you want to call it, we'll justsay a thousand.
1000 data messes cleaned.
Go from, from data mess to dataclarity and organization and,
and responsibility.
That's a great noble mission tobe on.
Glad you're out there doing thehard work to do that.
(29:01):
As we wrap up here, just onelast big question for each of
you is, are entrepreneurs bornor are they made?
Kris (29:08):
I'm going to have to say, given where I came from, that,
that entrepreneurs are born.
My sister turned into anentrepreneur.
My parents were entrepreneurs.
It just felt like it just waspart of me.
Now, you also have to be madebecause all business owners, uh,
and particularly small businessowners know, you got a lot of
work on yourself, uh, to be abusiness owner.
(29:29):
You got to make yourself, yougot to put the effort into it,
um, day in, day out, uh, to be,to be any good at it, so maybe
it's a little of both.
Russel (29:36):
I love that.
What about you, Nico?
Nico (29:38):
I guess I'm in between two, like I, my parents are
academics really.
Business was kind of a dirtyword in my family growing up.
In that sense, I didn't come byit that way.
I don't know.
I'm sure you feel this.
People say, and I think there'struth to it, there is a little
bit of like, I am not as good atworking for somebody else as I
am working for myself.
I think I was a decent employee,but, but I, I do thrive in, in
(30:02):
being able to make decisions.
For me personally, having Krisas a partner is, is kind of
essential just because if I hadto do all this alone, I, I just
don't think I would enjoy mylife in the same way, but, um, I
do, I do thrive on that.
We also are just the type ofpeople who like wearing a lot of
hats.
For some people that'sstressful.
For us, kind of makes us excitedto get out of bed in the
(30:24):
morning.
Russel (30:24):
You're in your element.
Sounds like it.
Crazy sometimes is the wordpeople throw out there that all
entrepreneurs have to be, but wegotta have a little bit of
Maverick in us to, to pull thisthing off.
That's the beauty of it.
Wonderful thoughts there.
If people want to know moreabout Two Octobers, where can
they go?
Kris (30:38):
Come over to our website, TwoOctobers.com.
Take a look at us on LinkedIn.
Nico does a lot of, uh, postingon YouTube as well.
Some instructional videos aroundhow to use Google Analytics and
Looker Studio better.
Join us over there.
Russel (30:53):
Wonderful tools.
All right, there you go, folks.
No reason not to go check itout.
Thank you so much, uh, to theboth of you for taking the time
to share your wonderful story.
As a fellow B Corp owner, I lovethe mission you're on and just
the, some of the things you talkabout empowerment and self
managing and just so manywonderful, great concepts and
takeaways.
Really appreciate you taking thetime to share that with us
today.
Kris (31:13):
Thank you.
This was fun.
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.
(31:34):
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.
Nico (31:53):
I, don't even know where this originated, but it became
an interview question, pieversus cake.
We ask it of everybody who, sortof in the interview process,
they probably get asked, askedit multiple times.
They have to talk about it ontheir, kind of when they get
introduced to the team.
We've had this and because we'resuch, you know, analytical, um,
(32:13):
freaks, of course we have thiswhole process of analyzing the
data and understanding.
I'm personally team pie and ourteam has been winning
consistently over time.
Won't out Kris, but, uh, we had.
Kris (32:24):
I love cake.
How can you not pick cake?
Nico (32:27):
All right, we won't get into that argument again, but,
um, you know, you can have pieevery meal of the day.
We mostly had a tradition whereOctober 2nd, which just because
we're Two Octobers, October 2nditself isn't actually that
specifically meaningful butbecause we're Two Octobers we do
a little get together with withemployees, former employees
clients and we usually have pie.
(32:48):
One year, one of our employees,she made this layer cake, which
was four layers of cake,different kinds of cake, with
different kinds of pie in it.
I just love the creativity.
It is who we are.
It's creative, but it also tooka lot of engineering and
execution to actually make itwork.
It's hard to come up with fourdifferent kinds of pie and four
different kinds of cake that allgo together perfectly.
(33:10):
That part wasn't best, but, um,I love that image of the four
layer by cake.
Russel (33:14):
Did it taste good?
Kris (33:15):
Some parts of it did.
Nico (33:17):
Yeah, if you had it layer by layer, she was thoughtful
about that.
Kris (33:20):
An apple pie baked inside of a spice cake.
That's a good dessert.
Russel (33:24):
I'm intrigued.
I'd try it.
I follow a guy called ChefReactions and he follows some
really good recipes that peoplemake and they follow some really
weird ones.
I would love for his commentaryon the four layer pie cake.
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):
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast.
I'm your host Russel.
In this episode, we are joinedby Chris Skavish and Nico Brooks
co-founders of Two Octobers, aforward thinking marketing
agency based in Denver,Colorado.
Listen, as they share theirjourney from vowing, never to
follow in their entrepreneurialparents' footsteps to building
an agency that brings clarity tothe complex world of marketing
(01:02):
and analytics for businesses ofall sizes.
Learn how they have fostered aunique team culture rooted in
empowerment, analytical rigor,and a drive to make a
difference, including becoming acertified B corporation.
Tune in to hear Chris and Nico'sinspiring story and discover how
two Octobers is transformingmarketing, one data mess at a
time.
(01:22):
Enjoy the story.
Welcome to the show today,everyone.
I have Kris Skavish and NicoBrooks with Two Octobers with us
here today.
Thank you so much for being onthe show today.
Kris (01:31):
It's great to be here.
Nico (01:32):
Thanks for having us.
Russel (01:32):
My pleasure.
Look forward to a greatconversation, but if you don't
mind, start us off.
What does Two Octobers do andwho do you do it for?
Kris (01:39):
Two Octobers demystifies marketing analytics and
performance marketing formarketing teams, uh, ranging
from B2B businesses, nonprofits,universities, B2C, all kinds of
businesses.
We love helping, um, solvecomplex problems and make
marketing teams smarter in theprocess.
Russel (01:59):
I don't think anybody would complain about getting
made smarter.
Sounds like a good business andmodel that you have put
together.
We'll certainly spend a lot moretime talking about all the
amazing things that you'vecreated.
But before we get there, I wantto hear about young Kris and
Nico and what they thought theywanted to be when they grew up.
Kris (02:17):
I was actually raised in a family of entrepreneurs.
My parents started their ownbusiness because they wanted to
work together in.
When I was in high school, theystarted a desktop publishing
business.
This is when, uh, we were movingfrom like typesetting and things
like that.
You could do it on the computerand they could do, um,
interesting things for smallbusinesses.
(02:37):
They did a series of otherbusinesses, um, and, uh, had
various levels of success withthat.
I was like, you know what?
I am never going to be anentrepreneur.
That seems like a lot of work torun your own business.
When I entered the workforce, Istarted out working in
interactive multimedia.
I did various software jobs in,um, startup software companies,
(02:58):
venture backed softwarecompanies in the Denver area.
I did project management andproduct management and things
like that.
I enjoyed that work.
Then I met Nico.
Russel (03:08):
All right, Nico.
What was young Nico thinking?
Nico (03:10):
For a long time, I wanted to be an architect.
I do think it suits mypersonality, but my favorite
uncle was an architect.
I ended up doing, becoming afurniture maker, which was
reasonably related toarchitecture.
Fiddling around with computerswas my hobby so I really came
into marketing sideways.
I actually studied math and didfurniture making.
(03:31):
In the nineties started buildingwebsites and realized that
people needed to be able to findthem.
A few leaps from there to here.
Russel (03:38):
Wow.
In some ways you might saythere's not a correlation, but
you, really sounds like you havea creative plus technical mind
mix and you've found differentavenues to even building
furniture.
I see a lot of parallels thatmakes total sense as to where
you're at today.
At some point along the line,sounds like you guys met.
What is that origin story forTwo Octobers?
How did this come to be?
Kris (03:57):
Why don't you tell that, Nico?
Nico (03:58):
We worked in a job together at a different company.
The company that we were workingfor was called Local Matters and
it was really the, it's sort offunny to say, but it was the
premier provider of digitalplatforms for directory
publishers and directorypublishers were mostly Yellow
Pages companies.
Which is funny to think abouttoday.
(04:18):
We're sort of like Yellow Pages.
That sounds like, isn't thatwhat the dinosaurs used to find
stuff?
But at the time there was aperceived opportunity for Yellow
Pages to play a role in localsearch.
Kris was the, really the productmanager for the platform that
these yellow pages companiesused and I was hired to help
develop search strategies, uh,local search strategies that
(04:39):
they, the yellow pages companiescould, could sell to people.
We worked really closelytogether in complimentary roles.
We had very compatible styles.
I'm sure we'll talk about thismore, but just, just really, I
don't know, the way that wemanage our teams is really
complimentary in terms of reallytrying to get people to like,
have a really collaborativespirit and, and, and, um,
(05:01):
empowering versus controlling,which I think is, is, uh,
continues to be sort of how wesee leading people.
At the same time, uh, thewriting was kind of on the wall
for our clients and we were outthere trying to help them help
businesses, specifically localbusinesses, market themselves.
We were developing thesestrategies and were getting in
(05:23):
front of these yellow pages,executives around the world and
saying, here's how you can helpyour customers get more business
via digital.
They were kind of like, okay, wewant to go to the golf course
and cash in on our 60 percentmargins, which was sort of what
they were used to in the YellowPages biz.
We were developing these greatstrategies for helping local
(05:44):
businesses so reallycomplimentary working style,
huge opportunity in helpingbusinesses market themselves.
At that time, agencies reallymostly served bigger businesses
in digital.
We started 15 years ago and, um,we, we were like, it doesn't,
doesn't have to be that way.
You can provide offerings tosmall and medium businesses and
(06:07):
help them too.
Russel (06:08):
Was there like a happy hour event where, you know, I
don't know, a couple of glassesof wine or something like just
the idea of like, hey, let's godo this together?
What was that very specificmoment where the idea itself
even came up?
Nico (06:18):
I'm going to say two things.
One was that we, so we had a, aclient that owned most of the
Yellow Pages in Europe.
We put together this dog andpony show for them, or I don't
know if it was a dog and ponyshow.
Really it was like, again, theseguys, they were, they had a
very, and they weren't mostlyguys, wore suits and again,
(06:39):
played golf and were used to bigmargins.
That was all going away.
We go to this fancy conferenceroom in London and we'd prepared
this whole presentationexplaining to them how people
are finding local businesses andhow they need to evolve.
It would be like trying toexplain space travel to
kangaroos or something.
They were just like, this soundsreally complicated.
(07:00):
I think back like, we were jazz.
We were excited and, and we justfelt like it was falling on deaf
ears.
I guess that was definitely aformative moment.
The other one that I wouldmention was this company we were
working for was venture backedand we are both very analytical
people and kind of, maybe alittle too honest for the
(07:21):
venture backed world.
We were preparing theseforecasts for the business and,
and our, our CEO was, we weregoing to get in front of our
investors and, and he's sort oflike, this number in the lower
right, could you change that tolike 25 million?
But it's not 25 million.
That's not how spreadsheetswork.
I think it was that sort ofcombination of opportunity and
(07:42):
like this, this is not ourworld.
We like building value forpeople.
We don't like making up numbers.
Russel (07:47):
That's always my joke of just, if I'm faking a phone call
of just 20 million, not enough.
It's a mockery of the, the, someof that venture capital world
you speak to.
Kris (07:55):
Just to add a little bit to that, I think that is also
the origin story of our name.
It was one October that westarted talking about building a
business together, and it wasthe next October that we decided
to go ahead with it.
That's where the, where the namecomes from.
Russel (08:09):
Ah, there you go.
This is what I always love abouta naming story.
You can never actually guesswhat is behind the name, but I
love something that, uh, very,very meaningful and applies to,
to your story.
You started to do a business.
What was your initial offering?
Is that different than how youdescribe what your product and
service is today?
Kris (08:25):
One thing that's really interesting about the initial
days there is that Nico hadworked in an agency before, and
had worked at a software companythat sold software to agencies.
I had never worked at an agencybefore.
Also, the services that westarted offering, which were SEO
and SEM, I had never done thosebefore either.
He taught me all of that stuffand those are the services that
(08:47):
we started with, with customers.
We had a really nice, um, softlanding from our previous
employers who gave us a littlebit of contract work, continuing
to do the product managementkind of stuff that we had been
doing, and that was great.
But we started out with thoseSEM and SEO services through our
contact base, selling those tothem.
(09:08):
There were some lean years, butafter a couple years, we were
able to hire another person,which was fun.
We contracted with a white labelclient, uh, that became, really
a big part of our growth overthe next couple of years.
It's helping them dosophisticated paid search for
their sophisticated clients,while they built out that
(09:28):
digital side of theiradvertising, um, offering.
Russel (09:32):
Beautiful.
You mentioned that hiring thatfirst employee and talking with
you previously, I know, I knowteam and just empowerment and
some of these other things arevery important to you.
Is that how you started out thegate?
Or was that a lesson learnedbecause it was really different
having a team in front of, asbeing an owner, or just tell us
about that journey a little bit?
Kris (09:50):
The journey of, um, what it's like to have, to go from
managing people to owning thecompany and managing employees,
that kind of thing?
Russel (09:57):
You asked the question better than I did.
Very great question.
Kris (10:00):
Managing a team and creating a good environment for
people to work was really a coremotivator of building a business
together.
We had really looked forward tothe time that we could start
hiring people.
We hired somebody first withvery little experience and
helped train them up.
That became a theme throughoutthe whole business is that we
really enjoy hiring people atdifferent stages of their career
(10:22):
journey and, um, helping themacquire skill sets.
Things like helping them acquirethe skills to do the job well.
That has been really a, one ofthe most fulfilling parts I
think about owning the agencyover these years is all of the
people we've been able to workwith and see grow in all of
their individual ways.
That's really fun.
One of the things we've alwaysthought about is, you know, I
(10:44):
have a philosophy that workingat an agency is really exciting
and fun and creative and feedsyour curiosity and your
learning, and it's exhausting,right?
It's grinding.
It's hard to always be workingwith clients.
It's hard to always have to dosomething new.
In our working environment, Ithink it's really important that
we are thinking about how do westructure the company to lessen
(11:05):
the burdens we're putting onpeople.
Every process you look at, isthat process really adding value
or just making it more timeconsuming and difficult to work
with?
How are you making sure to thinkabout, um, I don't know, things
as mundane sounding as work lifebalance?
How do we create systems thatmake sure that people aren't
overworked, that they have, youknow, opportunity for learning
(11:29):
and career growth, uh, anddevelopment in their day to day
job?
Those kinds of things I thinkare really important balance.
It's always been a part of howwe've managed people and
developed policies over time forhow we wanted to run the
business.
Russel (11:42):
We could do some really deep dive in there because I,
there's so many things that youshared that, that stood out,
but, you know, one, I think justeven recognizing upfront, I
think this is maybe sometimesthe experience a lot of folks go
through is sometimes, and thisis natural human behavior.
We think other people will actand behave like us, and when we
make a hire and we find out,well, they don't have as much
experience per se or skills,it's just a completely different
(12:03):
scenario really of being anemployee versus an owner.
There's 20 more things you saidthat I'd love to expand upon,
but I guess just tell me moreabout, even just like in a
specific element or two, whenyou talk about some of this
nuance of creating a great worklife balance environment and
just some of the specific pathswhere some of these questions
you're asking yourself andthought processes have led you
(12:24):
to.
Kris (12:24):
I want to give two examples.
One of them I think is sort ofboring, but I do think it's
unique to us.
Because we're both veryanalytically focused and
sometimes I joke that my happyplace is in a spreadsheet.
We created early on thisresource planning system that
would allow us to, to takedozens of client projects and
what our budget is coming in forthem and how much we want to
(12:46):
allocate to each person and adifferent number for each person
depending on if they're managingpeople or what their skill,
their seniority level is andthings like that.
And do the planning every monthto allocate everybody and see
where people are overloaded andthen, um, switch those projects
to somebody else or talk abouthow, um, work can be delegated
(13:07):
to other people and things likethat.
Our work is very retainer based.
There's no, like, projectplanning, um, because what we
need to do every month isoptimizations.
As long as we're doing thoseoptimizations, we're doing the
job, but that, um, method Ithink has been really useful at
making sure that we're notoverloading people, knowing how
(13:27):
many clients they have to dealwith on a monthly basis.
Being proactive about saying,hey, once you get to sort of
touching 14, 15, 16 differentclients in a month, your head is
going to start to explode.
How do we, uh, share the loadamongst other people and make
that an okay environment foryou?
That's one example.
(13:48):
The other example I think ismore profound.
One of the things that I think,um, really changed our culture
and this happened sort of midwaythrough our journey, is reading
a book called ReinventingOrganizations by Frederick
LaRue.
We had always been progressive,I think, as you can hear in some
of these policies and approachesto how we wanted to have
employees, how we wanted to hiresmart people and let them do
(14:10):
good work without too muchintervention.
But this book really brought usto some ideas that were next
level.
There's a couple concepts inthere.
One of them is around selfmanagement.
The idea that why do we adopt bythis hierarchical, format in
organizations?
Why do we have to behierarchical?
Why can't we assume that we'reworking with adults and human
(14:33):
beings want to do good work?
When you make that assumptionand carry it out through all of
your, um, policies around howyou get work done, it sort of
changes the game, right?
I assume you're here to do agood job, so let me help you do
that and then you will do a goodjob.
And how can I give you moreauthority, responsibility,
authority for making your ownbest decisions without having to
(14:57):
take them through some needlesshierarchy, of your manager and
your manager and your manager?
If you feel like you need atool, to buy a tool to do your
job well, and you've evaluatedother options and you've
consulted with your peers, goahead and do that.
That's a terrific thing to do.
You don't need my approval to dothat.
We've gone through variousstages of really being all in on
(15:18):
trying to apply those things andnot all in on trying to apply
those things, but the concept ofthat still really, really
resonates with how we thinkabout managing people and
letting them do their best work.
Russel (15:31):
Oh, man, that's beautiful.
I'm so glad you shared that.
I adopted a very similarphilosophy and it makes me think
of, and I think a lot of largercompanies and sometimes agencies
as well, they want to solve bymanagement and we get this idea
of management tax which was noteven coined that term, but it
was a, in a previous interviewI'd done.
It's just solve everything byhierarchy and management, but
(15:52):
man, that gets expensive.
What a great approach in, increating armies of one kind of
philosophy that you can be thisautonomous unit and how do we
enable that, how do we createthat environment that allows
that?
What a wonderful takeaway there.
I could talk about that forever,but I'll switch gears for a
minute and I want to talk aboutyour guys's partnership.
Are you guys the yin and yangstyle or are you guys very
(16:12):
complimentary and you've had tokind of work around being
symbiotic in that sense?
What is your partnership dynamiclook like?
Nico (16:18):
I would say we're somewhere in between.
I definitely don't think yin andyang in the sense, like our, our
styles are, I don't know ifthey're similar, but they are
very complimentary.
We're both very analytical.
We're both very resultsoriented.
We connected at our previouscompany because how we manage
people is very similar.
I would advise this to anybodythinking about a partnership is
(16:41):
that this idea that, like, youknow, if you, if you think about
everything the same way, one ofyou is unnecessary, and I think
that's valid, but on the otherhand, if you're too different,
there's going to be stormywaters ahead.
Our worldviews are verycomplimentary.
I'll mention another book thathas been really influential to
us and a lot of organizations,which was Traction and the
(17:01):
Traction Model, which we didn't,we didn't really adopt as an
organization.
When we originally went throughit, we're like, yeah, we already
do most of this stuff.
In a way it was affirming.
There's certainly some things inTraction that I think are super
valuable in terms of a more sortof documented way of doing
things.
But one of the concepts inTraction is the idea that every
(17:22):
organization needs an integratorand a visionary.
The visionary is looking ahead,understanding the market, is
really providing the directionfor the business and the
integrator is making everythingwork.
These are roles, they don't haveto be people.
There are organizations whereboth roles are in the same
(17:42):
person.
That doesn't tend to work aswell, but really that you need
to think about the success of anorganization requires both
ingredients and very, it is verytrue that Kris fits the
integrator role more naturally,and I fit the visionary role
more naturally.
I think just appreciating thatand, like where sometimes I'd be
feeling like, how come she justdoesn't get it?
(18:04):
If only she got it, we'd bedoing better.
But realizing that having her asa check and balance on, on me is
really important, and hopefullyshe feels like I had some more
value in a different way.
I love that model.
I don't know that we need to saymore.
I think that's a great place toleave it as just those two
roles.
We get along great.
(18:24):
We bring different things, butnot too different with this
position.
Russel (18:27):
I liken it to my own partnership experience of
appreciation is important,right?
That helps build empathy whenyou are different and, and maybe
don't approach things the sameway, but if we can appreciate
what the other person brings tothe table, that will, that will
calm our nerves when we want togo right and they want to go
left, but maybe we should goleft.
We didn't use Traction or EOS.
I wish I would have built insome of those elements in my
(18:49):
partnership because that doeshelp create that alignment that
it's not about individual ideas,but we're going to force
ourselves to say what's the bestfor the business and, and then
go carry that forward.
That's two great takeaways.
Another topic that I want tomake sure that we get time to
get to is, uh, and I imagineit's very part and parcel to
your approach to team, but verysimilar to us, you guys are a B
Corp.
Why was that an important thingfor you to become?
(19:11):
Tell us a little bit about thatjourney.
Kris (19:12):
We, uh, became exposed to the concept of B Corp when we
went to a, an event in Coloradothat Nico found.
In the B, B Corp community it'scalled a BLD event, Business
Leadership Day event, and it wasfor people who were already B
Corps and curious about it.
When we went to this day longconference, we were just like,
(19:32):
oh, my gosh, these are ourpeople.
It was other business people.
I like talking about business,but they were talking about
stuff that matters in business.
How do you treat employees andhow do you do right by the
environment?
How are we leaving the world abetter place?
I just hadn't experienced abusiness community like that
before.
It just very much matched ourvalues, um, and a lot of our
(19:56):
practices that were already inplace.
It was a great thing to be ableto, uh, to go through the
certification and just be ableto, to demonstrate publicly I
think what we had felt aboutourselves internally, um, and be
able to sort of prove it to acertain extent.
While becoming certified andafter becoming certified, really
we have been motivated a lot byand encouraged a lot by some of
(20:20):
the other people who are BCorps.
It's really inspiring when youget to know other B Corps, to
hear all the different storiesof how they apply B Corps
principles to different areas oftheir business.
It really just makes you tryharder to be an even better
business.
One of the programs that I thinkwe're most proud of actually
came about after we became a BCorp.
Nico (20:41):
One of the things, when you get B Corp certified, is you
go through this thing, like it'salmost like the S.
A.
T.
or something.
It's just all these differentcategories of questions and
you're rated, like you're sayinghere are our practices and
you're getting scored and youhave to score above a certain
amount to be able to become a BCorp.
One of the areas that we, whenwe looked at ourselves, we were
(21:04):
like, yeah, I don't know, we'renot doing great, was in the
diversity and inclusion andreally the diversity of our
staff.
We were just looking at ourpractices and how can we do
better.
We started doing some of the,like, blind resumes and posting
to different job boards andthings that people had
recommended we do to increaseour reach when we were
(21:25):
recruiting for new employees.
The thing that we ran into isthe fact that our industry is
not very diverse.
It's a zero sum game is that, asan agency, it's fairly common.
You're like, okay, well, wereally need experienced people.
We're not equipped to bring onpeople from scratch and train
them up on everything that wedo.
If you hire experienced peopleand there's bias in the
(21:48):
composition of people in yourfield, then it really is a zero
sum game.
You're just hiring people awayfrom other people.
To really change the game, youhave to change the composition
of people in the field.
We had that in our mind.
We're just tackling that, like,we're struggling with this
problem.
I ended up spending a holidaywith a friend who, is lives in
Switzerland and is very involvedin employment in Switzerland.
(22:11):
She's like, yeah, you guys aretotally doing it wrong and
explained the apprenticeshipsystem to us.
How in Switzerland employers,schools, and the workforce are
all working in conjunction andcoming up with solutions
together.
That was inspiring.
We ended up building a digitalmarketing apprenticeship, which
we ended up certifying throughthe U.
(22:33):
S.
Department of Labor.
It's really an amazing program,uh, and you get a lot of
support.
We got a lot of support at thestate level.
Colorado is a great state forapprenticeship.
We have the Office of the Futureof Work in Colorado that really
exists to help businesses inColorado develop
apprenticeships, support youalong the way.
It's been an amazing journey.
(22:53):
We had this problem becoming BCorp certified.
We did become certified beforewe developed the apprenticeship
program, but the process ofcertification just sort of left
us feeling like we can do more.
That is one of the things that'sso great about the B Corp
community is that it just shiftsyour thinking to, we have this
problem.
How can we solve it in a waythat's good for our community?
(23:15):
That's good for our workers?
That's good for the environment?
And seeing more opportunity thanproblems, which sounds kind of
cliche.
But as Kris said, when you hearthe stories of other B Corps
you're like, you know, together,we can, we can do good stuff.
Russel (23:28):
I love it.
Again, very similar philosophy.
Yes, we can try to hire more,but we really have to solve this
at the root level.
We supported a lot of causesthat did mentorship and tech
programs and different thingslike that.
I always love a root causesolution to any challenges that
we perceive.
I know this isn't always thebest way to, how would I say,
like bring some along, but youknow, generally speaking, it's
(23:49):
important when we have acommunity like this and some
flaws of how powerful it can be,how beneficial it can be, not
only from a businessperspective, but also from all
these other things that we cansolve is, what's in it for me?
If we can answer that a littlebit, if we can just get them in
the circle, then they'll, as youkind of said, this osmosis.
They'll see the bigger pictureand the light.
Can you talk a little bit aboutmore specifically about even
(24:09):
something like thisapprenticeship program and just
the business boardroom benefitsthat, you know, how that's
affected your business?
Kris (24:16):
When we have and employ a diverse team, we can apply
diverse solutions to diverseproblems that reach the diverse
audiences that advertisersreally need to reach.
A really specific example ofthat with our apprentices, so
we've had two apprentices now,and one of them is a native
(24:37):
Spanish speaker.
We haven't had a native Spanishspeaker on our staff prior to
that.
She took a client, um, who, uh,is the Botanic Gardens in Denver
here and said, you know, I thinkwe ought to add a Spanish
campaign to what we're doinghere.
It's not a major focus.
It was not a specific requestfrom the client, and I'm not
(24:58):
sure anybody else working on theaccount would have thought of
that as one of their top five or10 ideas.
That's something that reallyadded value in a very specific
way to that client project.
I think, um, the client isgrateful, and I'm certainly
grateful to having her input onthat.
Russel (25:14):
Perfect example answered very well.
Even just make sense as you werekind of describing that, I feel
like our whole ecosystem as aworld really is, is niching,
niching, niching, niching andhow important and critical is
just the story you shared thatdiversity is, and that is, we
have to be able to understandwhat these niches are and look
like to be able to maximizethese opportunities.
What a great way to go aboutthat.
(25:34):
Congrats on becoming a B Corp.
As you were sharing Nico, I knowthat's a process and it doesn't
just end when you get thecertification, but it is an
ongoing endeavor.
Really appreciate you guys doingthe hard work there.
What is the vision and futurefor Two Octobers?
What are we talking about 10years from now?
Kris (25:49):
I'm so glad that we've got our resident visionary on the
call here.
Russel (25:52):
This is your moment, Nico.
Nico (25:54):
As you know, 10 years in our world is, I mean, it is a
really long time.
I'm going to think more in termsof five years just because, uh,
the amount of change that we'veseen, uh, I, I don't want to
predict.
We've mentioned a number oftimes how analytical we are.
We love spreadsheets.
Where we felt like we have themost success with clients and
(26:14):
the most impact is in bringingdiscipline and skills to bear
against really data problems andhow to get good data and how to
make good use of data.
How to get good data.
We're in a, an exciting butreally challenging time because
we, we're getting data fromeverywhere and at the same time.
(26:35):
We have issues with third partydata versus first party data and
what's allowed via regulationsand what's safe and reasonable.
In issues of consent and what wecan collect and can't collect.
Those add a whole nother layerof challenges.That is just
rolling up your sleeves anddoing the work of figuring
things out and getting dataclean and getting it where in a
(26:56):
place where it's usable.
We love doing that kind ofstuff.
We love cleaning up those kindsof messes and, other people
don't so much.
That is certainly a foundation,but the other part is how to
activate that data in a way.
That's going to make adifference.
We haven't talked about thismuch, but, but one of the things
that we developed along the way,and I do think this complimented
(27:16):
and benefited from theapprenticeship program, is we've
always been very sort ofteaching and knowledge-sharing
oriented, which is part of whatmade it possible for us to
develop the apprenticeshipprogram and why it resonated
with us.
But we ended up adding trainingas a service, uh, about five
years ago, and in many of ourengagements, we combine training
(27:37):
with delivering services.
To try to be a little moreconcise, the, the world ahead
for marketing and for everybodyis scary with the addition of
AI, with all these privacyissues.
Feels like every couple of weekswe hear about another giant data
breach and that kind of stuff.
Responsible use of data isbecoming more and more
important, but then there's thiswhole fear of like, and if I
don't, my business is, may notexist.
(28:00):
Navigating that in the contextof marketing.
How do we collect data?
How do we make use of it?
How do we arrive at actionabledecisions?
It's something that we've alwaysbeen good at.
That really is where our focusis today, specifically as it
pertains to paid media and SEOand marketing analytics in
general, things that we do forour clients.
Certainly that's where ourstrengths are.
(28:20):
We're not a billboard company,so we're probably going to offer
less value there.
But I think that, that future,um, and turning that from a
place of anxiety and fear to,um, helping bigger businesses
figure out how they can turnthat into really a profit center
and a driver of business in thefuture.
Russel (28:40):
I don't know why this was sticking out in my mind as
you were explaining that, butright, I think it was, I think
it was McDonald's that had the 1billion serve.
My correlation to that to youwas, you know, however number
you want to call it, we'll justsay a thousand.
1000 data messes cleaned.
Go from, from data mess to dataclarity and organization and,
and responsibility.
That's a great noble mission tobe on.
Glad you're out there doing thehard work to do that.
(29:01):
As we wrap up here, just onelast big question for each of
you is, are entrepreneurs bornor are they made?
Kris (29:08):
I'm going to have to say, given where I came from, that,
that entrepreneurs are born.
My sister turned into anentrepreneur.
My parents were entrepreneurs.
It just felt like it just waspart of me.
Now, you also have to be madebecause all business owners, uh,
and particularly small businessowners know, you got a lot of
work on yourself, uh, to be abusiness owner.
(29:29):
You got to make yourself, yougot to put the effort into it,
um, day in, day out, uh, to be,to be any good at it, so maybe
it's a little of both.
Russel (29:36):
I love that.
What about you, Nico?
Nico (29:38):
I guess I'm in between two, like I, my parents are
academics really.
Business was kind of a dirtyword in my family growing up.
In that sense, I didn't come byit that way.
I don't know.
I'm sure you feel this.
People say, and I think there'struth to it, there is a little
bit of like, I am not as good atworking for somebody else as I
am working for myself.
I think I was a decent employee,but, but I, I do thrive in, in
(30:02):
being able to make decisions.
For me personally, having Krisas a partner is, is kind of
essential just because if I hadto do all this alone, I, I just
don't think I would enjoy mylife in the same way, but, um, I
do, I do thrive on that.
We also are just the type ofpeople who like wearing a lot of
hats.
For some people that'sstressful.
For us, kind of makes us excitedto get out of bed in the
(30:24):
morning.
Russel (30:24):
You're in your element.
Sounds like it.
Crazy sometimes is the wordpeople throw out there that all
entrepreneurs have to be, but wegotta have a little bit of
Maverick in us to, to pull thisthing off.
That's the beauty of it.
Wonderful thoughts there.
If people want to know moreabout Two Octobers, where can
they go?
Kris (30:38):
Come over to our website, TwoOctobers.com.
Take a look at us on LinkedIn.
Nico does a lot of, uh, postingon YouTube as well.
Some instructional videos aroundhow to use Google Analytics and
Looker Studio better.
Join us over there.
Russel (30:53):
Wonderful tools.
All right, there you go, folks.
No reason not to go check itout.
Thank you so much, uh, to theboth of you for taking the time
to share your wonderful story.
As a fellow B Corp owner, I lovethe mission you're on and just
the, some of the things you talkabout empowerment and self
managing and just so manywonderful, great concepts and
takeaways.
Really appreciate you taking thetime to share that with us
today.
Kris (31:13):
Thank you.
This was fun.
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.
(31:34):
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.
Nico (31:53):
I, don't even know where this originated, but it became
an interview question, pieversus cake.
We ask it of everybody who, sortof in the interview process,
they probably get asked, askedit multiple times.
They have to talk about it ontheir, kind of when they get
introduced to the team.
We've had this and because we'resuch, you know, analytical, um,
(32:13):
freaks, of course we have thiswhole process of analyzing the
data and understanding.
I'm personally team pie and ourteam has been winning
consistently over time.
Won't out Kris, but, uh, we had.
Kris (32:24):
I love cake.
How can you not pick cake?
Nico (32:27):
All right, we won't get into that argument again, but,
um, you know, you can have pieevery meal of the day.
We mostly had a tradition whereOctober 2nd, which just because
we're Two Octobers, October 2nditself isn't actually that
specifically meaningful butbecause we're Two Octobers we do
a little get together with withemployees, former employees
clients and we usually have pie.
(32:48):
One year, one of our employees,she made this layer cake, which
was four layers of cake,different kinds of cake, with
different kinds of pie in it.
I just love the creativity.
It is who we are.
It's creative, but it also tooka lot of engineering and
execution to actually make itwork.
It's hard to come up with fourdifferent kinds of pie and four
different kinds of cake that allgo together perfectly.
(33:10):
That part wasn't best, but, um,I love that image of the four
layer by cake.
Russel (33:14):
Did it taste good?
Kris (33:15):
Some parts of it did.
Nico (33:17):
Yeah, if you had it layer by layer, she was thoughtful
about that.
Kris (33:20):
An apple pie baked inside of a spice cake.
That's a good dessert.
Russel (33:24):
I'm intrigued.
I'd try it.
I follow a guy called ChefReactions and he follows some
really good recipes that peoplemake and they follow some really
weird ones.
I would love for his commentaryon the four layer pie cake.
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