September 14, 2025 • 46 mins
What happens when a 14-year-old builds an agency and later finds himself running a burrito shop on the side? In this episode, Doug Logan of Inovat shares his journey from teenage entrepreneur to seasoned agency owner, offering candid lessons on leadership, letting go, and staying in love with the work.
Key Takeaways
- Why imposter syndrome never fully disappears and how to manage it
- The hidden cost of holding on to too many hats as a founder
- Gaining leverage in new business conversations
- How in the world Doug started a burrito side hustle
Details for an agency planning workshop event November 10th and 11th 2025.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Russel (00:01):
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where owners and
experts share the real journey,the early struggles, the
breakthrough moments, andeverything in between.
I'm your host Russel Dubree,former eight figure agency owner
turned business coach, sold myagency and now helps agency
leaders create their idealbusiness.
Every agency has a story, andthis is your front row seat.
(00:23):
This is An Agency Story.
Welcome to the show today,everyone.
I have Doug Logan with Innovatehere today.
Welcome to the show today, Doug.
Doug (00:37):
Thanks for having me.
Russel (00:39):
I'm glad you were here and I mean, coming off a pretty
prestigious awards.
You are the Bureau member of themonth.
Yeah.
I'm honored to be
Doug (00:50):
in your presence there.
Oh, you were a runner up onthat, I think too, right?
Not to.
Cast shame.
Uh,
Russel (00:57):
or the, the pain, Doug, the pain, that's too soon.
We, we can't, we can't talkabout that.
Um, no.
Is that, I mean, obviouslyyou're, you're a pretty active
member of the bureau.
How long you been part of it?
How's that helping yourbusiness?
How, how you enjoying theBureau, Doug?
Doug (01:12):
You know, I love the bureau.
I just actually recommended itto someone I was talking with,
uh, yesterday.
I don't know if it'll be a goodfit for her or not, but we'll
see.
I.
You know, fairly active in, in acouple different communities.
But the Bureau has a specialplace, I think, because it, it
(01:33):
really allows me to kind ofconnect with my peers, and I
think if you're vulnerable, thenpeople will be vulnerable with
you.
So some of the conversationsthat you see and you can react
to, I mean, you just kind offeel connected and understood.
Right.
Yeah, so I think probably like alot of others I kind of joined
(01:56):
over, um, COVID, you know, thedark ages, whatever that was.
Oh,
Russel (02:01):
okay.
So you've been around a
Doug (02:02):
while then.
Yeah, yeah.
And uh, and just kind of stuckwith it and I've been to a
couple in-person events andyeah, most recently, I guess in
the last month I hosted yourwebinar and another webinar.
Um, and I guess that's what youhave to do.
So if you're looking for thatmagic formula to get the, uh,
employee of the month.
By employee.
(02:22):
I mean, um, I pay to, to workthere.
Uh, uh, you gotta host somewebinars and one of'em in a
pinch, uh, for sure, because Ithink yours, I think was in a
pinch.
Yeah.
You must have gotten some bonuspoints for that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was like a, uh, less than24 hour notice type thing, so,
um, I can't, uh, can't praise itenough.
(02:45):
It's immensely helpful.
Highly collaborative and I'vemade business from it too.
You know, people have passed meleads or vice versa.
I'm working on, on one tomorrowthat I'm super excited about.
That was referred to me bysomeone else in the bureau.
So that's not the intention ofthe bureau.
(03:05):
Um, the intention is
Russel (03:07):
good disclaimer.
Yeah.
Doug (03:09):
Don't go in there and start selling.
Um.
It'll come naturally.
So,
Russel (03:13):
And just for the folks at home, right.
The, the Bureau is an onlinecommunity, digital agencies, all
different types of roles anddigital agencies from owners to
project managers and all kindsof great content community
in-person events, that's myfavorite part of the bureau.
That's really where I think alot of the magic happens.
So yeah.
Great, great community.
But, uh, well, I guess we shouldtalk more about you and your
(03:35):
agency and your story.
So maybe kick us off here andtell us what Innovate does and
who you do it for.
Doug (03:42):
Yeah, so Innovate is we call ourselves a small and
mighty digital agency and wework with founder-led brands.
So we've kind of focused in onthat over the last year or so,
and that's our sweet spot.
It took us some time to get tothat.
About one as as
Russel (04:00):
it does, as it should.
Doug (04:03):
Yeah.
Russel (04:04):
Yeah.
I was asking this a questionrecently and, and, um, it's a
new question I'm kind of curiousabout is could we start out as
an agency with, you know, beingwell positioned and knowing
exactly kinda what we wanna doas a service or do we all have
to go through this little bit ofmuck and mire too?
Find our groove, if you will.
Doug (04:23):
Uh, I mean, I guess that's a really good question.
I know that there's a lot ofreally great successful agencies
out there that were kind of likespinoffs.
And I think probably in thatconsideration it would probably
work where you get a couple of,like the, the chief creative
officers from, you know, one ofthe bigs and then they spin off
and they're like, I'm tired of.
(04:45):
Doing this, I'm just gonna walkaway and take some of this
business and take some of thebest creative talent and start
my own shop.
And they get to launch withamazing clients right off the
bat.
And they're in that case.
I, I think they stand the bestchance to be well positioned
from the very beginning, youknow?
Yeah.
So, but otherwise, no.
(05:07):
I think you, you gotta put inyour time, right?
Yeah.
You gotta kind of go through itand go through the pain.
And the pain is really your ownself-inflicted pain.
Right.
I mean, we're our own worstenemies for sure.
Uh, and we, we just kind oftorment ourselves on making
decisions or not makingdecisions, which is also still a
(05:28):
decision.
Yeah.
So true, so true.
Russel (05:33):
As you're just kinda sharing that, right.
It it made me think of Right.
'cause so many people started anagency that were in the agency
world, but someone out therenot, this isn't gonna be me,
could make like a, a family treeof agencies and Right.
All the trickle down.
Right.
Bigger agencies obviously aregonna created, spawned a lot of
more agencies than others.
But I bet that would be aninteresting, I bet that'd be an
(05:53):
interesting tree.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Agency Family tree.
All right.
Somebody can create that, notme.
All right, well back to yourstory again.
I wanna hear about young Doug.
I know a lot more about olderDoug, but what was young Doug
doing in life?
Where was he headed?
We'll see if he got there ornot.
Doug (06:11):
Yeah, I think so.
I was a nerd.
I still am.
For a period of my life, I hadthe.
I guess the privilege, if youwill, of being homeschooled for
a couple of years.
And that happened to likecoincide with the early days of
the internet.
(06:32):
So I still remember what my AOLInstant Messenger handle was.
Oh boy.
Um, yeah, I had MySpace andGeoCities and Strong Bat, all of
those great things.
So I had that benefit of beingable to.
Really kind of controlled my ownschedule.
And I started to innovateunofficially when I was 14.
(06:56):
Uh, I had actually went to somekind of networking event, um, as
a 14-year-old, maybe I was 13.
Wow.
Uh, my mom had to drive me.
I met a printer, uh, someonewho, you know, they printed
letterhead and all that kind ofstuff, and I built him a flash
website.
He printed my first businesscard.
(07:18):
It was an exchange.
My mom had to drive me to allthe meetings.
But I had my, my first businesscard when I was 14.
Russel (07:24):
Oh my gosh.
You might be, you're, this mightbe an official record.
I think you might be theyoungest agency owner I've ever
had on the show.
Doug (07:30):
Yeah.
I mean officially then startedinnovate right outta high
school.
So I went to art school.
For a day, uh, an open house, aliteral day.
It was a two day open house.
I made it the first day, uh, andI was like, this is dumb.
And they're not teaching meanything that, I don't know,
(07:51):
like a typical millennial.
I just assumed that I knew morethan the professor, and, and it
wasn't focused on, it wasmultimedia.
That's what they didn't knowwhat to call the web at that
time, so it was multimedia.
So that was the course and Imade it through the first day
and I was like, I'm not goingback.
I know more than they're gonnateach me.
(08:14):
And I just started innovateright then and formalized it.
LLC had some business partnersand we're still in business 20
some years later.
And that school, that artschool, they're no longer a
business.
So I don't know how that works.
Maybe the millennial me wasright.
I don't know.
(08:35):
But what was the art school?
Um.
It was a private, like a smallerart school.
Okay.
It's called like Bradley, andthen it got bought up by the
original ai, the Art Institutewas a thing and then that Okay.
Yeah.
You know, there was artinstitutes all over the country
and then I don't know what theydid, um, but they, they all
collapsed,
Russel (08:55):
did all the artists, because I know the one in Dallas
is no longer around on either,so the, I think they've all
collapsed.
Doug (09:00):
Yeah.
Okay.
I didn't know that.
I'm pretty sure that they,they're all gone, but I don't
know.
I'm sure I can Google it.
Russel (09:06):
They were specifically like way overpriced for what
they were teaching and educatingfolks on.
So I'm not surprised the marketdid not support the art
institutes.
Yeah.
My, my apologies if anyone outthere listening holds the art
institutes in, in dear regard,but not surprised now that
you're sharing this.
Doug (09:24):
Yeah,
Russel (09:25):
I mean, clearly.
It shaped you.
This, you going back to beinghomeschooled.
So I mean, are you net prohomeschooling or where, where do
you fall and how much thatshaped you in, in your approach
to the world?
Doug (09:36):
Um, no, I think, uh, I'm definitely not, like my kids
are, are both going to publicschool.
Uh, and I, I went fromhomeschooled to small private
school and I'm, I'm also not proprivate schools.
When I went from homeschool toprivate schools, I went from a,
a class size of.
One to a class size of like 24.
(09:58):
Um, that was a rush, right?
I mean, that, that was a 2400%
Russel (10:02):
increase.
Doug (10:03):
Yeah.
And, and it was, uh, you know,socially it opened me up.
It forced me to make friends anddo all these things that like, I
just, I was just too busy beinga nerd, and now all of a sudden
I had to be somewhat popular.
And so that was.
An interesting combination forsure.
(10:25):
I was definitely, I got someindependence from being
homeschooled and the privateschool let me kind of flourish a
bit.
And then I, I mean, I was veryactive.
I said I started my businessafter high school, but
technically my senior year Iwas, I missed more days my
(10:45):
senior year than the, uh.
The dropout kid, all of thembeing excused because my dad was
working for a company, um, atthe time, and they were our
first client.
And so I was going on trips andwhen we started, it wasn't just
the web, right?
We were doing brochures and DVDsand, and everything.
(11:06):
So we were doing photography andvideo and there was all these
places that we had to go forphoto shoots and video shoots
and, you know, all of that.
And so I was, I missed.
Yeah, a lot of, uh, my senioryear of high school, which, uh.
I still graduated with honorsand everything.
Yeah.
Some of my teachers really hatedme because of that.
Russel (11:28):
Dang, we want to fail this kid, but I guess we gotta,
we gotta pass them.
yeah, I mean, Obviously indifferent strokes for different
folks, but I do see, I mean,from someone that has no clue
about homeschool or anythinglike that, but.
This notion that, I mean, we,we've kind of proven a little
bit in this country that theeducation system has got some
room for improvement.
Um, but that just, if you're afast learner and if you pick up
(11:51):
things that you know, school is,it's gonna hold you back, not
carry you forward, perhaps.
What a journey.
All right, man.
So I thought I started agencyyoung and right.
I think I was 24, 25.
So you got me beat by a lot.
And I remember being veryinsecure about not being taken
seriously from my age.
What was that like for you?
Was that a thing for you?
(12:12):
I mean, I still think thathappens for
Doug (12:14):
me then.
Uh, no.
Absolutely.
I, uh, oh gosh.
Yeah, I remember.
I remember that being.
An issue early on and it wasalways easier to be on a phone
call.
Right.
Because we didn't have been onvideo, zoom and stuff like that
at that point.
Yeah.
Got,
Russel (12:34):
yep.
Doug (12:34):
So it was always easier to kind of pitch via phone.
But I remember, I mean, we wouldpitch some big accounts and we
won some big accounts and thatwas always intimidating.
Uh, I think in some ways though.
I mean, it helped, you know, itshowed that we're young and
hungry and mature and could dothe work.
(12:55):
I don't miss that, but I think,you're always in this life gonna
feel like you're, you're notquite right or a good fit.
And I think, I don't think thatthat feeling goes away.
I think we just manage itdifferently.
And I think it's just a mindset,right?
So you just learn to not listento that voice, right.
We have no lack of negativethoughts flying through our mind
(13:24):
at any given moment.
We have to the truth, we have tobe consciously thinking positive
things.
Yeah.
And that's so, so crucial in anykind of role, but especially as
an agency owner.
Russel (13:35):
So true.
I do try to share that so muchand, and I think that is what I
am also gracious about, aboutbeing young, is I was, uh, too
young and dumb to not just beanything positive and everything
is all up and, you know, rosesand we're just even on a bad
day.
Well, that's all right.
Let's go on.
Keep moving.
Uh, because I, I don't know that40, 40, whatever, how old am I?
(13:56):
How old am I?
What year is this?
44.
44-year-old me.
Um.
Would be able to approach it inthe same way that I did back
then.
And I gotta imagine too, whatyou're saying that, well, we
thought of as an impostersyndrome to be walking in the
room and talking at the stakesthat we were talking at with
these folks.
It was almost like they might'veexpected worse.
And then it was far more, it waslike under promise, over deliver
(14:18):
kind of thing.
And in terms of what they mighthave expected.
So it could have been asuperpower more so than my young
self might've recognized.
Doug (14:26):
Yeah.
Well, we tend to remember theaccounts that we've.
And the projects that went welland start to forget the ones
that didn't go so well or theones that we didn't win.
There are a couple that, thatstill hurt from time to time,
but that that's getting, uh.
(14:46):
Fewer and far between, I guess.
Russel (14:48):
I don't if you have any like, young, embarrassing
moments of just like, what was Ithinking?
But, uh, one in particular, and,and this is an account I wish
they hadn't signed with thisbecause they were like one of
the.
Few only clients ever that weactually kind of got a tiff with
in the end.
but, uh, they showed up on a daythat was like a dress up day for
us, and I was wearing like jeanshorts and a cutoff t-shirt and
(15:10):
a big mullet wig.
And we're just sitting at ameeting, uh, you know, trying to
close this business and like,yep, you showed up on dress up
day and, and, uh, you wanna, youwanna sign on for this project?
And thinking back it's like,man, that was, uh, again,
another interesting thing Ithink you'd only do when you're
young.
Doug (15:28):
I think we had one that we didn't win that was for a, a
pretty big tire company and theywere, I think Korean based.
And so we went into this pitchand it was an hour long and it
had, that had a massively longboardroom and it was, uh.
(15:51):
One of those boardroom tablesthat were 30 seats of the tiny
tv.
It's like in the movies, like inthe eighties Movie
Russel (15:57):
business movies or something.
Yeah.
Doug (15:59):
This TV all the way at the one end, all the executives at
that end, the plug to plug intothe TV was all the way at the
other end and we, we had stayedup and drove through the night,
got a hotel for like five or sixof us.
There was someone.
(16:20):
At that time we had noautomotive experience, so this
was before we worked withFerrari and we came into this
pitch and I brought probablybecause I wanted someone older.
I brought someone who was, wasolder and was a writer who had
done a lot of work with like BMWand a couple other notable
(16:41):
brands, and we left entirely toolate from the office.
The night before and hit asnowstorm.
And this was before there werelike really goods.
Like you didn't have GoogleMaps.
It was either you printed out,you know, MapQuest.
Russel (17:01):
Uh yep.
Doug (17:03):
Once someone on the team had like one of the very first
GPSs and I remember it was wrongand we ended up.
Like 45 minutes away when wethought we had arrived, you
know?
So we didn't actually get intothe hotel until like 3:00 AM or
something and
Russel (17:20):
oh my gosh, this
Doug (17:20):
is years and years ago, right?
So obviously we bounce back, weget up the next morning, we get
to this presentation and youknow where the agency before us
was, was running over and wefinally got in.
And at that time I had this sortof warring.
Two creatives without one of'embeing clearly the creative
(17:41):
director.
They were really good at workingtogether, but they just
basically, we ended up goinginto an hour presentation with a
hundred page hand drawn, sort oflike sketched out idea of what
we wanted to do for this clientwith some really, really awesome
ideas.
And I'm like, how are wepossibly gonna get through a
(18:02):
hundred pages of hand-drawn?
Illustrations and in thisformat, in this presentation
also with five or six people,one whom I've only ever spoken
with but never actually workedwith.
And half the room apparentlydidn't even speak English.
(18:25):
Because they were all fromKorea.
Um, the only things that we gotaccomplished was that we had
technical problems.
We were unable.
I could get about two slides inand then the connection between
my laptop and the.
TV would disconnect and I'd haveto plug it back in and start all
over again.
So by the third time that thathappened, we made a, I made an
(18:48):
exact decision to try to changelaptops while that happened.
This writer whom, I'd only evermet over the phone, tries to
fill the awkwardness and starttalking about his background and
story.
So that goes over.
I don't even know because I'msleep deprived.
I'm just trying to fix thetechnical problem.
We probably got 20 slides intothis a hundred slide, you know,
(19:10):
presentation.
One of the designers, uh, had inhis bio how, hi, him and his
band had actually been on MTV.
So the only thing that actuallygot accomplished in the whole
thing was one of the executivespointed at this guy and he goes,
you, MTV.
(19:30):
Yes.
And that was it.
Russel (19:33):
Oh my God.
Needless
Doug (19:34):
to say, we did not win that account.
Russel (19:36):
Yeah.
Doug (19:37):
Uh, I don't know that anybody actually won that
account.
And, um, well, that's good toknow, at least.
Yeah.
We learned, we learned a lot ofwhat not to do, but that, you
know, those pitches, those earlypitches where you're, I think
I've, I've absolutely lost someof that because that, a little
bit of that, you know, impostersyndrome is good because you,
(19:57):
you strive to do better.
You feel like you over prepare
Russel (20:01):
and over
Doug (20:01):
Yeah.
Overcompensate and can be a goodway.
I can, I can totally see that.
So now I find myself 20 plusyears later realizing that like
I can't just go in with a 10page document and expect I'm
gonna win this and that I don'tactually need to put in the work
for someone new.
(20:24):
So that's, you know.
I've gotten, I guess, a littlelazy in my older age, and that's
a conscious effort to try toturn that around and really not
just want the work, but work forthe work.
Russel (20:37):
Well, it's such a tough topic, I feel like, in our space
and Right, and I know certainlyin the earlier days, right, no
one was saying not to do specwork, so you would do whatever
it took, you do all these kindof extra things to land a
project.
Then we went through this eraof, that is bad.
That is horrible.
You should never, ever do that.
And now I think now maybe we'rein a happy medium where, you
(20:58):
know, yes, we should feel someobligation to contribute to our
potential client's understandingof our ability to help them
solve their solution orwhatever.
But we wanna manage that, I feellike is now the approach.
We can't just do it because theytell us to do it or something
along those lines.
But, um, it's been aninteresting dichotomy, I feel
like, over the couple decadeshere of how this notion is how
(21:20):
much should we work for thework?
Doug (21:22):
Yeah, I think there's ways of doing it without giving away
everything.
I mean, I, I mentioned that, youknow, I've got a big
presentation tomorrow for aclient that I'm really hoping
that we land and we haverelevant work, we've, and all of
that.
So we could just go in with thiscase study and this case study,
(21:42):
and this is how we're gonnaapproach it.
And I know for a fact thatthat's how they.
That's what they're asking for,right?
This is our third call withthis, uh, this prospect.
And so at the end of the secondcall where we didn't talk about
numbers at all.
The expectation is that we'regonna come back with now a
formal proposal with that alignsto their budget, which is
(22:07):
healthy, which is great.
I mean, it was potentially up tothree times the number that I
had in my mind, which is thatdoesn't happen very often.
Uh, and we, yeah.
You know, so the expectation ishow we're gonna work through
that budget, what's the timelinegonna be?
What are the actualdeliverables?
And that's sort of theexpectation.
(22:30):
But we are, right before thiscall, I was just on with our
creative director and goingthrough.
Just some creative explorationsand just how we could push them
a little bit further withoutreally giving away everything.
They could obviously take it andrun with it and steal it and
(22:51):
have somebody else do it.
I think that's happened to usmaybe once or twice.
Yeah.
In the last 20 years.
And if that happens, then.
They weren't a great client,right?
Because do you really wanna bethe agency that that won the
work because you were half theprice and they give you the
other agency's idea and say,Hey, here's their ideas.
(23:14):
Go do that.
Right?
Um, yeah.
Russel (23:17):
Yeah, not, not what you wanna be known for.
Um, yeah, I mean, we were in thesame boat.
I think we would always just tryto find that happy medium of
like, let's do something, let'sdo something unique that we're
not just doing a canned pitch orsomething like that.
Help put together some ideas andsome strategy.
Um, and.
Compliment that at times withvisuals.
Not necessarily comps oranything along those lines, but
just visual representations ofsome of those ideas and
(23:40):
strategies.
And I always talk a lot aboutthat.
Our clients, they're not expertsin any of these spaces
oftentimes and.
We've gotta do some of that workto make these concepts, make
these ideas, help them see thisthing that we're gonna do for
them in a lot simpler terms thanany writing on a piece of paper
or anything like that.
So to that point, that takeswork to say something simply in
(24:03):
a way that's meaningful and isgonna resonate.
Doug (24:05):
Going back to the starter of this question, which is the
idea of winning the work withoutpitching the work, right.
The reality is, is that ifeveryone agreed to that, every
agency out there and, and wewere all playing from the same,
you know, deck of cards or fromthe same, if we all agreed to
(24:28):
that and all play, if that waslike, this is the basis for
being an agency owner is thatyou don't pitch work, and we all
signed that and everyone didthat, then I think.
That's great, but it only takesone person to be like, Nope, I'm
not doing that, and I'm gonnapitch it.
And they get a huge upper handbecause when it comes down to
it, Russell, I know you don'thave an agency anymore, but if
(24:50):
it was you and me trying to winthe business, I don't have to
beat you 100% to beat you 80%.
I just have to be 1% better thanyou.
That's it.
And putting in that little bitof extra Right.
Can make the difference.
51 to 49.
Boom.
(25:10):
I, Doug had a beard.
Russell did.
There you go.
You know
Russel (25:15):
it's a beard every time.
I knew it.
Damn.
In his beard.
Doug (25:19):
Yeah.
Russel (25:21):
Yeah, it's so true.
That would be an interestingworld.
I hope, I hope someday AI getsto the point where we could put
in a scenario like that and justplay out this idea of if every
agency agreed to this, whatwould the market look like?
That would be an interestingscenario.
I would love to see thatscenario run.
Let's, uh, I want to just getback to your journey and, and
we'll know whether, I'm surethere's way more great stories
than we could ever get to all of'em, but, going back to kind
(25:43):
that factor, and I dunno if youwere this way, but it kind of
started out all piss andvinegar, right?
I said, nothing can knock youdown.
When was like the first, I don'tknow, wake up call or where you
just realized, you know what, Igotta do something differently
here.
We've gotta shift this thing Ordid that happen?
Doug (25:59):
I think there's, there's definitely times looking back
where.
Change either happened to us orbecause of us.
And I'd love to say that I haveled the change in most of those
cases and for the better, but Ican't say that to be true.
(26:23):
I think that we went through, Imean, we bought this office and
hadn't paid top dollar for it.
In 2008, and for your listenersthat maybe don't know, that's
when the housing marketcollapsed.
Russel (26:37):
Yeah.
Doug (26:37):
And this was a house, this was a house that we converted
into an office.
Uh, so you know, that was arough time and we made it
through.
Obviously we've seen a recessionor two and whatever it is that
we're in right now.
So change happens and it doescause you to think about.
(27:00):
Where you are and what you wantto do and where you see yourself
in the next year or or so.
And I think, you know, we'vedone some diversification over
the years to try to steadyourselves.
You know, we've got some rentalproperties.
We, we started a, a burrito.
A mini burrito empire.
(27:20):
I would say we've got twolocations.
That was about 10 years ago.
Hold on.
A what?
Russel (27:24):
A mini burrito empire.
Doug (27:26):
Well, there's two locations, so I don't know that
it's quite, I hold on.
It's a chain.
You can just say it's
Russel (27:30):
a, it's a burrito food stand.
Either way.
I'm, I'm just very curiousabout, but put it, go down your
to story and we'll come back tothe burrito thing.
Yeah.
Um, but I gotta know more aboutthis.
Doug (27:39):
So, you know, as entrepreneurs we typically, a
lot of times.
We have visions, we, we wanna goout and do it.
And then sometimes you realizeonce you started something that
maybe you don't wanna, you don'twant to be doing it anymore.
The burrito, uh, shop.
I think what was interestingabout that I was really excited
(28:00):
about it, was an idea that I hadand we had other people to, to
run it.
So I, I'm, you know, a partowner of it and when it got.
Not even a year old.
I think I started to get tiredof it already.
You know, it was pretty early onthat I was like, I loved the
idea, but I don't love doingthis.
I don't see myself running aburrito empire, you know?
(28:23):
But the reality was that like wehad started it, it was doing
well.
Um, we eventually expanded.
We have a second location, andnow we're still managing it.
I'm spending.
Very little time on it.
We have a really experiencedoperator, and that's our, uh,
(28:46):
director of operations that'soverseeing both locations now
and has been focusing heavily onthe culture of the training and,
and we're seeing all of thatimprove because it's, it's
really hard, in the agency, I'mvery much involved in shaping
(29:06):
the culture.
I'm controlled, working with allof our employees, working with
all of our clients.
I mean, I really shape theculture.
I'm probably largely responsiblefor it, at the burrito shop.
It's very hard to lead whenyou're not there, and so that.
That had to move on to someoneelse.
(29:28):
So that took some time for us toget to that point and pass that
mantle on.
But I'm really happy that wedid.
But we're in a season right nowof just reinvesting back into
that person and into bothlocations so that we can, and
hopefully see some growth to it.
But it's, it's really made merealize that.
(29:50):
My love is absolutely theagency.
I love what I do.
You know, I joke that this is myday job and that's my side
hustle.
And, um, I don't know that, Imean, I guess it's a side
hustle.
I'm only spending about an houra week on it.
Currently it's costing me money.
So it's a not a good sidehustle.
It's hobby.
Hobby.
(30:10):
It's expensive.
Russel (30:11):
It's like a, you could, you could get in all kinds of
hobbies that cost you a lot ofmoney and you spend a couple
hours a week on, but, so, yeah.
And what's it called?
Doug (30:20):
It's called Good Burrito, so.
Okay.
And where one
Russel (30:23):
part, I don't know if you ever mentioned a city or
anything, but where can onepartake in
Doug (30:26):
good burrito?
Yeah.
So the original one is not even.
A mile from my office here, uh,in Elizabethtown, so it's closer
to the square.
We're a little bit further outof town.
I can walk there in a matter ofminutes, so I don't know that
I've measured it, but it's,might not even be a half mile.
The second one is about 15, 20minutes away.
(30:49):
Headed, uh, closer to Lancaster,which is in a town called
Manheim, and it's, uh, rightnext to a hotel.
So very different dynamicsbetween, you know, small
downtown with a community kindof supporting and behind it to
one that's now, we've got aMcDonald's beside us, a Taco
(31:11):
Bell just moved in recentlyMm-hmm..
It's a very, very differentcompetitive landscape right off
a highway.
It's very challenging.
It's very different.
I don't know if we would'veshould have done that.
We recently turned down a thirdlocation.
I can't disclose exactly thename of it.
That's okay.
But it was in a rather largeamusement park and we just, we
(31:35):
really couldn't.
Make the numbers work.
Yeah.
It was just astronomical.
Wow.
It would've been, it would'vebeen the best of times and the
worst of times for sure.
Russel (31:46):
Uh, I get it.
I mean, I mean, right.
It, I always tell it's, look,it's hard enough to run one
business in any capacity in hardto run two businesses in any
capacity.
But sounds like you've, you'vefound a good place for where
you're at.
And one of the more interestingI've heard of all kinds of side
hustles coming off of agencyownership, but that's gonna be
in more unique territory aswell.
Doug, you're just proving out tobe an interesting man all the
(32:08):
way around from bureau member ofthe month to burrito owner to
starting an agency as a veryyoung buck.
Very fascinating.
Uh, I mean, you've been at thisa long time.
Clearly you love the work you'redoing.
How are you looking at thefuture of this?
What's the long-term game planfor you?
Doug (32:26):
You know, I, I think I've been at it long enough that I, I
get all the ads for retirementbecause I think that they, they
don't necessarily look a ar a ARA A RP card is on the
Russel (32:37):
horizon.
Doug (32:38):
Well, they're actually a client of ours, so that makes it
even more interesting.
That might have something to dowith why I get targeted for, uh,
retirement ads, but I'm not abig believer in retirement.
I'm a big believer intransitioning into something.
I don't know.
There's a number in my mind towalk away from the breeder shop
(32:59):
where I would be, happy, butthere's not a number on the
agency.
Mm-hmm.
And I think that really justkind of comes down to that A, I
find fulfillment in the work.
I find fulfillment in the peoplethat I do the work with and the
people I do the work for.
And so.
What that looks like is, youknow, getting to some point,
(33:24):
getting to a place where I canstill be involved, but I don't
have to be tied to this office.
You know, maybe Doug's workingfrom Italy for three months
outta the year, whatever.
And um, yeah, I think that.
(33:44):
That's the plan right now.
And I'm, you know, I'm in myearly forties now, um, and so,
you know, retirement is stilltechnically 20 years or more
away, so maybe it'll change inthat time and I'll change my
scripts.
But as it stands, I just, I lovewhat I do and I know people that
have retired and they workharder than they did when they
(34:06):
were working.
They're just not.
Making any money for it, andthat doesn't make sense to me.
Russel (34:12):
Very cool.
Uh, I mean, it's such a, abreath of fresh air right.
To, to hear someone kinda speakof, of being in that place.
And I think that's a little bitof a nirvana state to be there.
And so kudos to you for all thework that you've done to be able
to, to be in that place and Iknow when I was younger I was
thinking like, okay, 65 andthat's when I'm gonna.
Do everything I wanna do inlife.
(34:32):
'cause I'm gonna retire.
I'm like, I think I'm in thesame boat now.
Like, I'll never retire.
I don't know what I'll be doing,you know, until the day I die,
but I know it won't, there willnever be this true notion of
retirement.
So I don't know if, if this isour generation and we're just
thinking of the worlddifferently than the previous
generations.
We seem to be looking at thisvery differently, or maybe it's
just this type of work we'redoing.
Right.
If I was working in a factory,yes, I would absolutely be
(34:55):
eyeing, knowing that someday myold body couldn't handle that.
And that's how folks thought ofa job.
I, I'm just, yeah.
Uh, I'm, I'm sitting here juststream of consciousness
thinking, why is this a newthought process and, and our
younger generations,
Doug (35:09):
I think the most physically exerting aspect of my
job is that I've moved my officeto the third floor.
Right?
So I've gotta go up two flightsof stairs.
Yeah.
Uh, but mentally to stay freshand to stay top of mind.
I mean, I've got a 16-year-oldson.
I just taught to drive stick,you know?
(35:29):
Mm.
Russel (35:30):
And you're driving, teaching someone a young person
to drive is hard enough.
And you've introduced a verytough element there.
I'm proud of you.
Courageous man.
Doug (35:38):
And then I have a one and a half year old daughter.
Second wife.
So I'm definitely.
Reliving a lot of, you know, 20years ago, whatever.
So there's, that keeps youyoung.
It keeps you Oh yeah.
Alive.
She's gonna be graduating highschool when I'm like retirement
age.
That's gonna be interesting,right?
(35:58):
Like, I'm, I'm like of similarage with my kids' friends now,
um, like my son, but.
I'm gonna be the old, old dad.
Russel (36:08):
Yeah.
Is that your grandpa over there?
No, that's my dad.
Doug (36:11):
Yep.
Russel (36:12):
You get a chance to really see how all your ideas
and thoughts worked out and thenyou can, you have a better, you
can ab test a lot better than ifthey were closer together.
You don't quite know howeverything's gonna pan out.
I guess maybe one last majorquestion for you is.
Obviously you've done reallywell in this business and you
know, got to a good place justwhere you're at work-wise and
(36:33):
how you're looking at thefuture.
So maybe an agency owner outthere that's maybe still up and
coming or struggling a littlebit, like what's just some words
of advice or wisdom, or maybeeven you're giving this to your
younger self, but what would youthrow out there?
Is it only one bit of advice?
You can give as much advice aswe want.
I, I guess depending on how longthat goes, how much makes the
(36:54):
cut.
But yeah, you share whatever youwanna share, man.
Doug (36:57):
I mean, I think there's been two, I'll say two themes in
my life that took longer thanthey should have to learn.
Learn.
The first lesson was giving up.
The hats to other people, right?
So I, I talk about this a lotand we work with, with founders
a lot and family businesses andthey typically, when you start
(37:22):
your agency, you start yourcompany, whatever you're doing,
you started it with theintention of doing usually one
thing really well, like you,that was the thing that you
love, that you couldn't stopthinking about and you do really
well.
And then you realize.
Quickly that you have to do awhole lot of other things that
you didn't sign up for, but youdid.
(37:42):
You just didn't read thatcontract.
Well, and I remember early onthinking that I was the creative
director and it took a long timefor me to give it up and be
like, I.
That was your thing.
Yeah.
I was like, I'm not, why am Ifighting someone who all they do
is design and they're clearlygifted at it?
Like, I'm not gonna be the bestdesigner.
(38:04):
That's not my calling.
That's not who I am.
And so I learned to give that upand I, I learned to give up
other things as time goes on andon.
And.
Now I'm probably too far on theother side where I'm, I'd be
willing to give up a whole lotmore.
Right.
Somebody
Russel (38:19):
please take this.
Yeah,
Doug (38:20):
yeah.
Just take this off my plate.
So I think that's a good, I meanthat took a long time to learn
that lesson and, and part ofthat too is also shows you in
that process when you give upsomething to someone else, they
get better out of it.
They get better out it, you getbetter out it too, because you
don't how much.
(38:40):
You don't communicate or howwell you are at getting somebody
else on the same page, you know,you don't realize that until you
actually do that.
The other thing that I don't getright is probably the difference
between working on the businessand in the business and really
kind of prioritizing that.
(39:01):
It's very easy when you're busyto get stuck.
Working in the business andgetting this stuff done, and
then you realize, oh, we justlost this, or that just
happened, or whatever, andyou're just so close to it.
You don't see it coming, and youdon't see that you need to do a
pivot or change your positioninglike what you said earlier,
right?
Mm-hmm.
Because you're not focusing orspending time working on the
(39:22):
business, and that also includesyou as the leader.
I mean, it's taken me years andyears to realize that.
I need a therapist both for mymind and my body.
Like those are very importantthings to keep me moving and
going in the right direction.
And I am the leader of theagency and recently, more so now
(39:42):
than ever before, I'm the faceof the agency.
So that I have to reallyprioritize my mental and
physical health that's part ofthat working on instead of just
in'cause.
You can get really, reallysucked into just doing the work
and yeah, and never come up andsee the light of day.
Russel (40:00):
So true.
Yeah.
Great advice.
I mean, it's almost like, youknow, over time, um, we give
same things, new labels, and Ialways thought like, that's
stupid.
Like why are we just renamingthings?
But I kind of understand it justin the sense that we need to
hear different words that,because otherwise things become
white noise.
And we know, we hear thisworking on the business, not in
the business thing.
(40:21):
And I think it's like, yeah,yeah, yeah, I know I need to do
it, but.
I will just probably jump on thesoapbox and just say, yeah, how
important that is.
I mean, in almost any agency,until you get to really big,
which most agencies aren't, thatyou are the driver of that
agency.
Your mindset, your wellbeing,someone, the bigger it gets
certainly has to be standing atthe top of the ship, not
underneath the deck.
(40:42):
Making sure it doesn't run intothings.
That is really important workand the more you can make time
for that.
Carve that out the results willcome.
Um, so great reminder for folks.
Thank you for sharing that.
All right, Doug, last bigquestion for you.
Are entrepreneurs born or arethey made?
Doug (41:03):
I think it's a bit of both.
I probably fit into the nurturecategory.
I learned a lot from my dad,mostly what not to do.
Probably one of the big thingsthat he, that I learned
secondhand from him was I sawhim get kind of screwed over a
couple times just because hetook somebody at a handshake and
mm-hmm.
Didn't get it in writing.
(41:24):
And there's value in ahandshake, but at some point you
gotta get it in writing.
Yeah.
Or you're gonna get screwedover.
And that's just the nature ofbusiness.
You don't want it to come downto a contract.
You really don't.
And we've, you know, in 20 yearswe've only had that happen like
once or twice, and we've been onthe winning side.
(41:44):
But unfortunately, some peoplejust can't be trusted.
And so I think entrepreneurs aremade, I think it's a byproduct
of the environment you can growup in and.
Then I think we're made,especially agency owners, I
think we're made every day.
Some days more than others.
Some days more than others.
I mean, it's, you know, it's,it's a rollercoaster.
(42:06):
I can't remember too many timeswhere the rollercoaster was flat
for a very long period.
Maybe a couple weeks here orthere but then it's either.
We're slammed with business andjust have to get as many people
to jump on that crazy ride withus, uh, to get the work done, or
we gotta start kicking peopleoff and hope that they don't,
(42:28):
you know.
Break their neck on the falldown.
It's never an easy ride.
I don't know why we chose it,but it's a fun one.
So
Russel (42:35):
It's fun.
I think it's great hands on workand we all have our reasons for
being in it, but, uh, that's agreat answer.
It's very good.
Why we do this thing we do sowell.
If people wanna know more aboutInnovate, where can they go?
Doug (42:49):
Yeah, so Innovate, it's spelled I-N-O-V-A t.com.
It looks like Inova, which ishow my dad still pronounces it
to this day.
You can check us out there.
You can find me on LinkedIn.
If you just look for DouglasLogan I'll probably be up there
towards the top and.
(43:10):
Or find me join the bureau andfind me in the slacks there,
right?
Yeah.
There you go.
Russel (43:15):
We know you'll be there representing the bureau very
well maybe hosting an event ortwo.
And so yeah.
Thank you so much, Doug.
Really another greatconversation.
Some really grounded perspectiveborn outta the years of
experience and probably just asmuch as how not to do things, as
how to do things.
But appreciate you taking thetime to share all that insight
with us here today.
Doug (43:34):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Russel (43:38):
Thank you for listening to An Agency Story podcast where
every story helps you write yourown, subscribe, share, and join
us again for more real stories,lessons learned, and
breakthroughs ahead.
What's next?
You'll want to visit anagencystory.com/podcast and
follow us on Instagram at@anagencystory for the latest
updates.
Doug (44:00):
The one that I always kind of go back to is that my
business partner and I, at onepoint we probably looked more
similar than we do now.
Currently.
He's a bit skinnier.
I'm a bit heavier.
I have a beard.
He does not.
But we were working for Ferrari,uh, and I remember going to
(44:21):
their headquarters in NorthAmerica here outside of New York
City.
I remember waiting in theconference room and this little
Italian guy kinda walks past theconference room and he stops and
looks in at me and Nick, uh, andwe're sitting there and he just
stares at us and the entireconference room is filled with
(44:43):
the whole marketing team andthey're all facing us.
They don't see him at thisparticular moment, but then he
talks up and he goes, you, you,you guys see you, you guys, you
guys brothers.
And I'm like, and nobody says aword.
He just, from outside theconference room, everyone shuts
down and stops talking.
I had no idea who this guy was.
(45:04):
And that's what he says.
You, you guys, you guys arebrothers.
And I'm like, I look at him, I'mlike, no.
Nope, not brothers.
He's like.
Cousins.
You cousins?
No, we're not cousins.
No, not not cousins.
And he goes, business partners.
Business partners.
I'm like, yeah, you got me.
(45:25):
You got me, bud.
You know?
And he is like, I knew it.
And he walks away and I justlook at everyone else in the
room and I'm just like, what?
Who is that?
And they're like, yeah, that'sthe president.
I'm like, oh.
I guess he gets to do that then.
Yeah.
That's funny.
Oh man.
Never met him again after that.
Uh, so yeah.
(45:45):
Couldn't even tell you.
Maybe that
Russel (45:46):
does happen.
Maybe a business partners morphinto the same look somehow, some
mannerisms or something likethat.
That's funny.
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where owners and
experts share the real journey,the early struggles, the
breakthrough moments, andeverything in between.
I'm your host Russel Dubree,former eight figure agency owner
turned business coach, sold myagency and now helps agency
leaders create their idealbusiness.
Every agency has a story, andthis is your front row seat.
(00:23):
This is An Agency Story.
Welcome to the show today,everyone.
I have Doug Logan with Innovatehere today.
Welcome to the show today, Doug.
Doug (00:37):
Thanks for having me.
Russel (00:39):
I'm glad you were here and I mean, coming off a pretty
prestigious awards.
You are the Bureau member of themonth.
Yeah.
I'm honored to be
Doug (00:50):
in your presence there.
Oh, you were a runner up onthat, I think too, right?
Not to.
Cast shame.
Uh,
Russel (00:57):
or the, the pain, Doug, the pain, that's too soon.
We, we can't, we can't talkabout that.
Um, no.
Is that, I mean, obviouslyyou're, you're a pretty active
member of the bureau.
How long you been part of it?
How's that helping yourbusiness?
How, how you enjoying theBureau, Doug?
Doug (01:12):
You know, I love the bureau.
I just actually recommended itto someone I was talking with,
uh, yesterday.
I don't know if it'll be a goodfit for her or not, but we'll
see.
I.
You know, fairly active in, in acouple different communities.
But the Bureau has a specialplace, I think, because it, it
(01:33):
really allows me to kind ofconnect with my peers, and I
think if you're vulnerable, thenpeople will be vulnerable with
you.
So some of the conversationsthat you see and you can react
to, I mean, you just kind offeel connected and understood.
Right.
Yeah, so I think probably like alot of others I kind of joined
(01:56):
over, um, COVID, you know, thedark ages, whatever that was.
Oh,
Russel (02:01):
okay.
So you've been around a
Doug (02:02):
while then.
Yeah, yeah.
And uh, and just kind of stuckwith it and I've been to a
couple in-person events andyeah, most recently, I guess in
the last month I hosted yourwebinar and another webinar.
Um, and I guess that's what youhave to do.
So if you're looking for thatmagic formula to get the, uh,
employee of the month.
By employee.
(02:22):
I mean, um, I pay to, to workthere.
Uh, uh, you gotta host somewebinars and one of'em in a
pinch, uh, for sure, because Ithink yours, I think was in a
pinch.
Yeah.
You must have gotten some bonuspoints for that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was like a, uh, less than24 hour notice type thing, so,
um, I can't, uh, can't praise itenough.
(02:45):
It's immensely helpful.
Highly collaborative and I'vemade business from it too.
You know, people have passed meleads or vice versa.
I'm working on, on one tomorrowthat I'm super excited about.
That was referred to me bysomeone else in the bureau.
So that's not the intention ofthe bureau.
(03:05):
Um, the intention is
Russel (03:07):
good disclaimer.
Yeah.
Doug (03:09):
Don't go in there and start selling.
Um.
It'll come naturally.
So,
Russel (03:13):
And just for the folks at home, right.
The, the Bureau is an onlinecommunity, digital agencies, all
different types of roles anddigital agencies from owners to
project managers and all kindsof great content community
in-person events, that's myfavorite part of the bureau.
That's really where I think alot of the magic happens.
So yeah.
Great, great community.
But, uh, well, I guess we shouldtalk more about you and your
(03:35):
agency and your story.
So maybe kick us off here andtell us what Innovate does and
who you do it for.
Doug (03:42):
Yeah, so Innovate is we call ourselves a small and
mighty digital agency and wework with founder-led brands.
So we've kind of focused in onthat over the last year or so,
and that's our sweet spot.
It took us some time to get tothat.
About one as as
Russel (04:00):
it does, as it should.
Doug (04:03):
Yeah.
Russel (04:04):
Yeah.
I was asking this a questionrecently and, and, um, it's a
new question I'm kind of curiousabout is could we start out as
an agency with, you know, beingwell positioned and knowing
exactly kinda what we wanna doas a service or do we all have
to go through this little bit ofmuck and mire too?
Find our groove, if you will.
Doug (04:23):
Uh, I mean, I guess that's a really good question.
I know that there's a lot ofreally great successful agencies
out there that were kind of likespinoffs.
And I think probably in thatconsideration it would probably
work where you get a couple of,like the, the chief creative
officers from, you know, one ofthe bigs and then they spin off
and they're like, I'm tired of.
(04:45):
Doing this, I'm just gonna walkaway and take some of this
business and take some of thebest creative talent and start
my own shop.
And they get to launch withamazing clients right off the
bat.
And they're in that case.
I, I think they stand the bestchance to be well positioned
from the very beginning, youknow?
Yeah.
So, but otherwise, no.
(05:07):
I think you, you gotta put inyour time, right?
Yeah.
You gotta kind of go through itand go through the pain.
And the pain is really your ownself-inflicted pain.
Right.
I mean, we're our own worstenemies for sure.
Uh, and we, we just kind oftorment ourselves on making
decisions or not makingdecisions, which is also still a
(05:28):
decision.
Yeah.
So true, so true.
Russel (05:33):
As you're just kinda sharing that, right.
It it made me think of Right.
'cause so many people started anagency that were in the agency
world, but someone out therenot, this isn't gonna be me,
could make like a, a family treeof agencies and Right.
All the trickle down.
Right.
Bigger agencies obviously aregonna created, spawned a lot of
more agencies than others.
But I bet that would be aninteresting, I bet that'd be an
(05:53):
interesting tree.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Agency Family tree.
All right.
Somebody can create that, notme.
All right, well back to yourstory again.
I wanna hear about young Doug.
I know a lot more about olderDoug, but what was young Doug
doing in life?
Where was he headed?
We'll see if he got there ornot.
Doug (06:11):
Yeah, I think so.
I was a nerd.
I still am.
For a period of my life, I hadthe.
I guess the privilege, if youwill, of being homeschooled for
a couple of years.
And that happened to likecoincide with the early days of
the internet.
(06:32):
So I still remember what my AOLInstant Messenger handle was.
Oh boy.
Um, yeah, I had MySpace andGeoCities and Strong Bat, all of
those great things.
So I had that benefit of beingable to.
Really kind of controlled my ownschedule.
And I started to innovateunofficially when I was 14.
(06:56):
Uh, I had actually went to somekind of networking event, um, as
a 14-year-old, maybe I was 13.
Wow.
Uh, my mom had to drive me.
I met a printer, uh, someonewho, you know, they printed
letterhead and all that kind ofstuff, and I built him a flash
website.
He printed my first businesscard.
(07:18):
It was an exchange.
My mom had to drive me to allthe meetings.
But I had my, my first businesscard when I was 14.
Russel (07:24):
Oh my gosh.
You might be, you're, this mightbe an official record.
I think you might be theyoungest agency owner I've ever
had on the show.
Doug (07:30):
Yeah.
I mean officially then startedinnovate right outta high
school.
So I went to art school.
For a day, uh, an open house, aliteral day.
It was a two day open house.
I made it the first day, uh, andI was like, this is dumb.
And they're not teaching meanything that, I don't know,
(07:51):
like a typical millennial.
I just assumed that I knew morethan the professor, and, and it
wasn't focused on, it wasmultimedia.
That's what they didn't knowwhat to call the web at that
time, so it was multimedia.
So that was the course and Imade it through the first day
and I was like, I'm not goingback.
I know more than they're gonnateach me.
(08:14):
And I just started innovateright then and formalized it.
LLC had some business partnersand we're still in business 20
some years later.
And that school, that artschool, they're no longer a
business.
So I don't know how that works.
Maybe the millennial me wasright.
I don't know.
(08:35):
But what was the art school?
Um.
It was a private, like a smallerart school.
Okay.
It's called like Bradley, andthen it got bought up by the
original ai, the Art Institutewas a thing and then that Okay.
Yeah.
You know, there was artinstitutes all over the country
and then I don't know what theydid, um, but they, they all
collapsed,
Russel (08:55):
did all the artists, because I know the one in Dallas
is no longer around on either,so the, I think they've all
collapsed.
Doug (09:00):
Yeah.
Okay.
I didn't know that.
I'm pretty sure that they,they're all gone, but I don't
know.
I'm sure I can Google it.
Russel (09:06):
They were specifically like way overpriced for what
they were teaching and educatingfolks on.
So I'm not surprised the marketdid not support the art
institutes.
Yeah.
My, my apologies if anyone outthere listening holds the art
institutes in, in dear regard,but not surprised now that
you're sharing this.
Doug (09:24):
Yeah,
Russel (09:25):
I mean, clearly.
It shaped you.
This, you going back to beinghomeschooled.
So I mean, are you net prohomeschooling or where, where do
you fall and how much thatshaped you in, in your approach
to the world?
Doug (09:36):
Um, no, I think, uh, I'm definitely not, like my kids
are, are both going to publicschool.
Uh, and I, I went fromhomeschooled to small private
school and I'm, I'm also not proprivate schools.
When I went from homeschool toprivate schools, I went from a,
a class size of.
One to a class size of like 24.
(09:58):
Um, that was a rush, right?
I mean, that, that was a 2400%
Russel (10:02):
increase.
Doug (10:03):
Yeah.
And, and it was, uh, you know,socially it opened me up.
It forced me to make friends anddo all these things that like, I
just, I was just too busy beinga nerd, and now all of a sudden
I had to be somewhat popular.
And so that was.
An interesting combination forsure.
(10:25):
I was definitely, I got someindependence from being
homeschooled and the privateschool let me kind of flourish a
bit.
And then I, I mean, I was veryactive.
I said I started my businessafter high school, but
technically my senior year Iwas, I missed more days my
(10:45):
senior year than the, uh.
The dropout kid, all of thembeing excused because my dad was
working for a company, um, atthe time, and they were our
first client.
And so I was going on trips andwhen we started, it wasn't just
the web, right?
We were doing brochures and DVDsand, and everything.
(11:06):
So we were doing photography andvideo and there was all these
places that we had to go forphoto shoots and video shoots
and, you know, all of that.
And so I was, I missed.
Yeah, a lot of, uh, my senioryear of high school, which, uh.
I still graduated with honorsand everything.
Yeah.
Some of my teachers really hatedme because of that.
Russel (11:28):
Dang, we want to fail this kid, but I guess we gotta,
we gotta pass them.
yeah, I mean, Obviously indifferent strokes for different
folks, but I do see, I mean,from someone that has no clue
about homeschool or anythinglike that, but.
This notion that, I mean, we,we've kind of proven a little
bit in this country that theeducation system has got some
room for improvement.
Um, but that just, if you're afast learner and if you pick up
(11:51):
things that you know, school is,it's gonna hold you back, not
carry you forward, perhaps.
What a journey.
All right, man.
So I thought I started agencyyoung and right.
I think I was 24, 25.
So you got me beat by a lot.
And I remember being veryinsecure about not being taken
seriously from my age.
What was that like for you?
Was that a thing for you?
(12:12):
I mean, I still think thathappens for
Doug (12:14):
me then.
Uh, no.
Absolutely.
I, uh, oh gosh.
Yeah, I remember.
I remember that being.
An issue early on and it wasalways easier to be on a phone
call.
Right.
Because we didn't have been onvideo, zoom and stuff like that
at that point.
Yeah.
Got,
Russel (12:34):
yep.
Doug (12:34):
So it was always easier to kind of pitch via phone.
But I remember, I mean, we wouldpitch some big accounts and we
won some big accounts and thatwas always intimidating.
Uh, I think in some ways though.
I mean, it helped, you know, itshowed that we're young and
hungry and mature and could dothe work.
(12:55):
I don't miss that, but I think,you're always in this life gonna
feel like you're, you're notquite right or a good fit.
And I think, I don't think thatthat feeling goes away.
I think we just manage itdifferently.
And I think it's just a mindset,right?
So you just learn to not listento that voice, right.
We have no lack of negativethoughts flying through our mind
(13:24):
at any given moment.
We have to the truth, we have tobe consciously thinking positive
things.
Yeah.
And that's so, so crucial in anykind of role, but especially as
an agency owner.
Russel (13:35):
So true.
I do try to share that so muchand, and I think that is what I
am also gracious about, aboutbeing young, is I was, uh, too
young and dumb to not just beanything positive and everything
is all up and, you know, rosesand we're just even on a bad
day.
Well, that's all right.
Let's go on.
Keep moving.
Uh, because I, I don't know that40, 40, whatever, how old am I?
(13:56):
How old am I?
What year is this?
44.
44-year-old me.
Um.
Would be able to approach it inthe same way that I did back
then.
And I gotta imagine too, whatyou're saying that, well, we
thought of as an impostersyndrome to be walking in the
room and talking at the stakesthat we were talking at with
these folks.
It was almost like they might'veexpected worse.
And then it was far more, it waslike under promise, over deliver
(14:18):
kind of thing.
And in terms of what they mighthave expected.
So it could have been asuperpower more so than my young
self might've recognized.
Doug (14:26):
Yeah.
Well, we tend to remember theaccounts that we've.
And the projects that went welland start to forget the ones
that didn't go so well or theones that we didn't win.
There are a couple that, thatstill hurt from time to time,
but that that's getting, uh.
(14:46):
Fewer and far between, I guess.
Russel (14:48):
I don't if you have any like, young, embarrassing
moments of just like, what was Ithinking?
But, uh, one in particular, and,and this is an account I wish
they hadn't signed with thisbecause they were like one of
the.
Few only clients ever that weactually kind of got a tiff with
in the end.
but, uh, they showed up on a daythat was like a dress up day for
us, and I was wearing like jeanshorts and a cutoff t-shirt and
(15:10):
a big mullet wig.
And we're just sitting at ameeting, uh, you know, trying to
close this business and like,yep, you showed up on dress up
day and, and, uh, you wanna, youwanna sign on for this project?
And thinking back it's like,man, that was, uh, again,
another interesting thing Ithink you'd only do when you're
young.
Doug (15:28):
I think we had one that we didn't win that was for a, a
pretty big tire company and theywere, I think Korean based.
And so we went into this pitchand it was an hour long and it
had, that had a massively longboardroom and it was, uh.
(15:51):
One of those boardroom tablesthat were 30 seats of the tiny
tv.
It's like in the movies, like inthe eighties Movie
Russel (15:57):
business movies or something.
Yeah.
Doug (15:59):
This TV all the way at the one end, all the executives at
that end, the plug to plug intothe TV was all the way at the
other end and we, we had stayedup and drove through the night,
got a hotel for like five or sixof us.
There was someone.
(16:20):
At that time we had noautomotive experience, so this
was before we worked withFerrari and we came into this
pitch and I brought probablybecause I wanted someone older.
I brought someone who was, wasolder and was a writer who had
done a lot of work with like BMWand a couple other notable
(16:41):
brands, and we left entirely toolate from the office.
The night before and hit asnowstorm.
And this was before there werelike really goods.
Like you didn't have GoogleMaps.
It was either you printed out,you know, MapQuest.
Russel (17:01):
Uh yep.
Doug (17:03):
Once someone on the team had like one of the very first
GPSs and I remember it was wrongand we ended up.
Like 45 minutes away when wethought we had arrived, you
know?
So we didn't actually get intothe hotel until like 3:00 AM or
something and
Russel (17:20):
oh my gosh, this
Doug (17:20):
is years and years ago, right?
So obviously we bounce back, weget up the next morning, we get
to this presentation and youknow where the agency before us
was, was running over and wefinally got in.
And at that time I had this sortof warring.
Two creatives without one of'embeing clearly the creative
(17:41):
director.
They were really good at workingtogether, but they just
basically, we ended up goinginto an hour presentation with a
hundred page hand drawn, sort oflike sketched out idea of what
we wanted to do for this clientwith some really, really awesome
ideas.
And I'm like, how are wepossibly gonna get through a
(18:02):
hundred pages of hand-drawn?
Illustrations and in thisformat, in this presentation
also with five or six people,one whom I've only ever spoken
with but never actually workedwith.
And half the room apparentlydidn't even speak English.
(18:25):
Because they were all fromKorea.
Um, the only things that we gotaccomplished was that we had
technical problems.
We were unable.
I could get about two slides inand then the connection between
my laptop and the.
TV would disconnect and I'd haveto plug it back in and start all
over again.
So by the third time that thathappened, we made a, I made an
(18:48):
exact decision to try to changelaptops while that happened.
This writer whom, I'd only evermet over the phone, tries to
fill the awkwardness and starttalking about his background and
story.
So that goes over.
I don't even know because I'msleep deprived.
I'm just trying to fix thetechnical problem.
We probably got 20 slides intothis a hundred slide, you know,
(19:10):
presentation.
One of the designers, uh, had inhis bio how, hi, him and his
band had actually been on MTV.
So the only thing that actuallygot accomplished in the whole
thing was one of the executivespointed at this guy and he goes,
you, MTV.
(19:30):
Yes.
And that was it.
Russel (19:33):
Oh my God.
Needless
Doug (19:34):
to say, we did not win that account.
Russel (19:36):
Yeah.
Doug (19:37):
Uh, I don't know that anybody actually won that
account.
And, um, well, that's good toknow, at least.
Yeah.
We learned, we learned a lot ofwhat not to do, but that, you
know, those pitches, those earlypitches where you're, I think
I've, I've absolutely lost someof that because that, a little
bit of that, you know, impostersyndrome is good because you,
(19:57):
you strive to do better.
You feel like you over prepare
Russel (20:01):
and over
Doug (20:01):
Yeah.
Overcompensate and can be a goodway.
I can, I can totally see that.
So now I find myself 20 plusyears later realizing that like
I can't just go in with a 10page document and expect I'm
gonna win this and that I don'tactually need to put in the work
for someone new.
(20:24):
So that's, you know.
I've gotten, I guess, a littlelazy in my older age, and that's
a conscious effort to try toturn that around and really not
just want the work, but work forthe work.
Russel (20:37):
Well, it's such a tough topic, I feel like, in our space
and Right, and I know certainlyin the earlier days, right, no
one was saying not to do specwork, so you would do whatever
it took, you do all these kindof extra things to land a
project.
Then we went through this eraof, that is bad.
That is horrible.
You should never, ever do that.
And now I think now maybe we'rein a happy medium where, you
(20:58):
know, yes, we should feel someobligation to contribute to our
potential client's understandingof our ability to help them
solve their solution orwhatever.
But we wanna manage that, I feellike is now the approach.
We can't just do it because theytell us to do it or something
along those lines.
But, um, it's been aninteresting dichotomy, I feel
like, over the couple decadeshere of how this notion is how
(21:20):
much should we work for thework?
Doug (21:22):
Yeah, I think there's ways of doing it without giving away
everything.
I mean, I, I mentioned that, youknow, I've got a big
presentation tomorrow for aclient that I'm really hoping
that we land and we haverelevant work, we've, and all of
that.
So we could just go in with thiscase study and this case study,
(21:42):
and this is how we're gonnaapproach it.
And I know for a fact thatthat's how they.
That's what they're asking for,right?
This is our third call withthis, uh, this prospect.
And so at the end of the secondcall where we didn't talk about
numbers at all.
The expectation is that we'regonna come back with now a
formal proposal with that alignsto their budget, which is
(22:07):
healthy, which is great.
I mean, it was potentially up tothree times the number that I
had in my mind, which is thatdoesn't happen very often.
Uh, and we, yeah.
You know, so the expectation ishow we're gonna work through
that budget, what's the timelinegonna be?
What are the actualdeliverables?
And that's sort of theexpectation.
(22:30):
But we are, right before thiscall, I was just on with our
creative director and goingthrough.
Just some creative explorationsand just how we could push them
a little bit further withoutreally giving away everything.
They could obviously take it andrun with it and steal it and
(22:51):
have somebody else do it.
I think that's happened to usmaybe once or twice.
Yeah.
In the last 20 years.
And if that happens, then.
They weren't a great client,right?
Because do you really wanna bethe agency that that won the
work because you were half theprice and they give you the
other agency's idea and say,Hey, here's their ideas.
(23:14):
Go do that.
Right?
Um, yeah.
Russel (23:17):
Yeah, not, not what you wanna be known for.
Um, yeah, I mean, we were in thesame boat.
I think we would always just tryto find that happy medium of
like, let's do something, let'sdo something unique that we're
not just doing a canned pitch orsomething like that.
Help put together some ideas andsome strategy.
Um, and.
Compliment that at times withvisuals.
Not necessarily comps oranything along those lines, but
just visual representations ofsome of those ideas and
(23:40):
strategies.
And I always talk a lot aboutthat.
Our clients, they're not expertsin any of these spaces
oftentimes and.
We've gotta do some of that workto make these concepts, make
these ideas, help them see thisthing that we're gonna do for
them in a lot simpler terms thanany writing on a piece of paper
or anything like that.
So to that point, that takeswork to say something simply in
(24:03):
a way that's meaningful and isgonna resonate.
Doug (24:05):
Going back to the starter of this question, which is the
idea of winning the work withoutpitching the work, right.
The reality is, is that ifeveryone agreed to that, every
agency out there and, and wewere all playing from the same,
you know, deck of cards or fromthe same, if we all agreed to
(24:28):
that and all play, if that waslike, this is the basis for
being an agency owner is thatyou don't pitch work, and we all
signed that and everyone didthat, then I think.
That's great, but it only takesone person to be like, Nope, I'm
not doing that, and I'm gonnapitch it.
And they get a huge upper handbecause when it comes down to
it, Russell, I know you don'thave an agency anymore, but if
(24:50):
it was you and me trying to winthe business, I don't have to
beat you 100% to beat you 80%.
I just have to be 1% better thanyou.
That's it.
And putting in that little bitof extra Right.
Can make the difference.
51 to 49.
Boom.
(25:10):
I, Doug had a beard.
Russell did.
There you go.
You know
Russel (25:15):
it's a beard every time.
I knew it.
Damn.
In his beard.
Doug (25:19):
Yeah.
Russel (25:21):
Yeah, it's so true.
That would be an interestingworld.
I hope, I hope someday AI getsto the point where we could put
in a scenario like that and justplay out this idea of if every
agency agreed to this, whatwould the market look like?
That would be an interestingscenario.
I would love to see thatscenario run.
Let's, uh, I want to just getback to your journey and, and
we'll know whether, I'm surethere's way more great stories
than we could ever get to all of'em, but, going back to kind
(25:43):
that factor, and I dunno if youwere this way, but it kind of
started out all piss andvinegar, right?
I said, nothing can knock youdown.
When was like the first, I don'tknow, wake up call or where you
just realized, you know what, Igotta do something differently
here.
We've gotta shift this thing Ordid that happen?
Doug (25:59):
I think there's, there's definitely times looking back
where.
Change either happened to us orbecause of us.
And I'd love to say that I haveled the change in most of those
cases and for the better, but Ican't say that to be true.
(26:23):
I think that we went through, Imean, we bought this office and
hadn't paid top dollar for it.
In 2008, and for your listenersthat maybe don't know, that's
when the housing marketcollapsed.
Russel (26:37):
Yeah.
Doug (26:37):
And this was a house, this was a house that we converted
into an office.
Uh, so you know, that was arough time and we made it
through.
Obviously we've seen a recessionor two and whatever it is that
we're in right now.
So change happens and it doescause you to think about.
(27:00):
Where you are and what you wantto do and where you see yourself
in the next year or or so.
And I think, you know, we'vedone some diversification over
the years to try to steadyourselves.
You know, we've got some rentalproperties.
We, we started a, a burrito.
A mini burrito empire.
(27:20):
I would say we've got twolocations.
That was about 10 years ago.
Hold on.
A what?
Russel (27:24):
A mini burrito empire.
Doug (27:26):
Well, there's two locations, so I don't know that
it's quite, I hold on.
It's a chain.
You can just say it's
Russel (27:30):
a, it's a burrito food stand.
Either way.
I'm, I'm just very curiousabout, but put it, go down your
to story and we'll come back tothe burrito thing.
Yeah.
Um, but I gotta know more aboutthis.
Doug (27:39):
So, you know, as entrepreneurs we typically, a
lot of times.
We have visions, we, we wanna goout and do it.
And then sometimes you realizeonce you started something that
maybe you don't wanna, you don'twant to be doing it anymore.
The burrito, uh, shop.
I think what was interestingabout that I was really excited
(28:00):
about it, was an idea that I hadand we had other people to, to
run it.
So I, I'm, you know, a partowner of it and when it got.
Not even a year old.
I think I started to get tiredof it already.
You know, it was pretty early onthat I was like, I loved the
idea, but I don't love doingthis.
I don't see myself running aburrito empire, you know?
(28:23):
But the reality was that like wehad started it, it was doing
well.
Um, we eventually expanded.
We have a second location, andnow we're still managing it.
I'm spending.
Very little time on it.
We have a really experiencedoperator, and that's our, uh,
(28:46):
director of operations that'soverseeing both locations now
and has been focusing heavily onthe culture of the training and,
and we're seeing all of thatimprove because it's, it's
really hard, in the agency, I'mvery much involved in shaping
(29:06):
the culture.
I'm controlled, working with allof our employees, working with
all of our clients.
I mean, I really shape theculture.
I'm probably largely responsiblefor it, at the burrito shop.
It's very hard to lead whenyou're not there, and so that.
That had to move on to someoneelse.
(29:28):
So that took some time for us toget to that point and pass that
mantle on.
But I'm really happy that wedid.
But we're in a season right nowof just reinvesting back into
that person and into bothlocations so that we can, and
hopefully see some growth to it.
But it's, it's really made merealize that.
(29:50):
My love is absolutely theagency.
I love what I do.
You know, I joke that this is myday job and that's my side
hustle.
And, um, I don't know that, Imean, I guess it's a side
hustle.
I'm only spending about an houra week on it.
Currently it's costing me money.
So it's a not a good sidehustle.
It's hobby.
Hobby.
(30:10):
It's expensive.
Russel (30:11):
It's like a, you could, you could get in all kinds of
hobbies that cost you a lot ofmoney and you spend a couple
hours a week on, but, so, yeah.
And what's it called?
Doug (30:20):
It's called Good Burrito, so.
Okay.
And where one
Russel (30:23):
part, I don't know if you ever mentioned a city or
anything, but where can onepartake in
Doug (30:26):
good burrito?
Yeah.
So the original one is not even.
A mile from my office here, uh,in Elizabethtown, so it's closer
to the square.
We're a little bit further outof town.
I can walk there in a matter ofminutes, so I don't know that
I've measured it, but it's,might not even be a half mile.
The second one is about 15, 20minutes away.
(30:49):
Headed, uh, closer to Lancaster,which is in a town called
Manheim, and it's, uh, rightnext to a hotel.
So very different dynamicsbetween, you know, small
downtown with a community kindof supporting and behind it to
one that's now, we've got aMcDonald's beside us, a Taco
(31:11):
Bell just moved in recentlyMm-hmm..
It's a very, very differentcompetitive landscape right off
a highway.
It's very challenging.
It's very different.
I don't know if we would'veshould have done that.
We recently turned down a thirdlocation.
I can't disclose exactly thename of it.
That's okay.
But it was in a rather largeamusement park and we just, we
(31:35):
really couldn't.
Make the numbers work.
Yeah.
It was just astronomical.
Wow.
It would've been, it would'vebeen the best of times and the
worst of times for sure.
Russel (31:46):
Uh, I get it.
I mean, I mean, right.
It, I always tell it's, look,it's hard enough to run one
business in any capacity in hardto run two businesses in any
capacity.
But sounds like you've, you'vefound a good place for where
you're at.
And one of the more interestingI've heard of all kinds of side
hustles coming off of agencyownership, but that's gonna be
in more unique territory aswell.
Doug, you're just proving out tobe an interesting man all the
(32:08):
way around from bureau member ofthe month to burrito owner to
starting an agency as a veryyoung buck.
Very fascinating.
Uh, I mean, you've been at thisa long time.
Clearly you love the work you'redoing.
How are you looking at thefuture of this?
What's the long-term game planfor you?
Doug (32:26):
You know, I, I think I've been at it long enough that I, I
get all the ads for retirementbecause I think that they, they
don't necessarily look a ar a ARA A RP card is on the
Russel (32:37):
horizon.
Doug (32:38):
Well, they're actually a client of ours, so that makes it
even more interesting.
That might have something to dowith why I get targeted for, uh,
retirement ads, but I'm not abig believer in retirement.
I'm a big believer intransitioning into something.
I don't know.
There's a number in my mind towalk away from the breeder shop
(32:59):
where I would be, happy, butthere's not a number on the
agency.
Mm-hmm.
And I think that really justkind of comes down to that A, I
find fulfillment in the work.
I find fulfillment in the peoplethat I do the work with and the
people I do the work for.
And so.
What that looks like is, youknow, getting to some point,
(33:24):
getting to a place where I canstill be involved, but I don't
have to be tied to this office.
You know, maybe Doug's workingfrom Italy for three months
outta the year, whatever.
And um, yeah, I think that.
(33:44):
That's the plan right now.
And I'm, you know, I'm in myearly forties now, um, and so,
you know, retirement is stilltechnically 20 years or more
away, so maybe it'll change inthat time and I'll change my
scripts.
But as it stands, I just, I lovewhat I do and I know people that
have retired and they workharder than they did when they
(34:06):
were working.
They're just not.
Making any money for it, andthat doesn't make sense to me.
Russel (34:12):
Very cool.
Uh, I mean, it's such a, abreath of fresh air right.
To, to hear someone kinda speakof, of being in that place.
And I think that's a little bitof a nirvana state to be there.
And so kudos to you for all thework that you've done to be able
to, to be in that place and Iknow when I was younger I was
thinking like, okay, 65 andthat's when I'm gonna.
Do everything I wanna do inlife.
(34:32):
'cause I'm gonna retire.
I'm like, I think I'm in thesame boat now.
Like, I'll never retire.
I don't know what I'll be doing,you know, until the day I die,
but I know it won't, there willnever be this true notion of
retirement.
So I don't know if, if this isour generation and we're just
thinking of the worlddifferently than the previous
generations.
We seem to be looking at thisvery differently, or maybe it's
just this type of work we'redoing.
Right.
If I was working in a factory,yes, I would absolutely be
(34:55):
eyeing, knowing that someday myold body couldn't handle that.
And that's how folks thought ofa job.
I, I'm just, yeah.
Uh, I'm, I'm sitting here juststream of consciousness
thinking, why is this a newthought process and, and our
younger generations,
Doug (35:09):
I think the most physically exerting aspect of my
job is that I've moved my officeto the third floor.
Right?
So I've gotta go up two flightsof stairs.
Yeah.
Uh, but mentally to stay freshand to stay top of mind.
I mean, I've got a 16-year-oldson.
I just taught to drive stick,you know?
(35:29):
Mm.
Russel (35:30):
And you're driving, teaching someone a young person
to drive is hard enough.
And you've introduced a verytough element there.
I'm proud of you.
Courageous man.
Doug (35:38):
And then I have a one and a half year old daughter.
Second wife.
So I'm definitely.
Reliving a lot of, you know, 20years ago, whatever.
So there's, that keeps youyoung.
It keeps you Oh yeah.
Alive.
She's gonna be graduating highschool when I'm like retirement
age.
That's gonna be interesting,right?
(35:58):
Like, I'm, I'm like of similarage with my kids' friends now,
um, like my son, but.
I'm gonna be the old, old dad.
Russel (36:08):
Yeah.
Is that your grandpa over there?
No, that's my dad.
Doug (36:11):
Yep.
Russel (36:12):
You get a chance to really see how all your ideas
and thoughts worked out and thenyou can, you have a better, you
can ab test a lot better than ifthey were closer together.
You don't quite know howeverything's gonna pan out.
I guess maybe one last majorquestion for you is.
Obviously you've done reallywell in this business and you
know, got to a good place justwhere you're at work-wise and
(36:33):
how you're looking at thefuture.
So maybe an agency owner outthere that's maybe still up and
coming or struggling a littlebit, like what's just some words
of advice or wisdom, or maybeeven you're giving this to your
younger self, but what would youthrow out there?
Is it only one bit of advice?
You can give as much advice aswe want.
I, I guess depending on how longthat goes, how much makes the
(36:54):
cut.
But yeah, you share whatever youwanna share, man.
Doug (36:57):
I mean, I think there's been two, I'll say two themes in
my life that took longer thanthey should have to learn.
Learn.
The first lesson was giving up.
The hats to other people, right?
So I, I talk about this a lotand we work with, with founders
a lot and family businesses andthey typically, when you start
(37:22):
your agency, you start yourcompany, whatever you're doing,
you started it with theintention of doing usually one
thing really well, like you,that was the thing that you
love, that you couldn't stopthinking about and you do really
well.
And then you realize.
Quickly that you have to do awhole lot of other things that
you didn't sign up for, but youdid.
(37:42):
You just didn't read thatcontract.
Well, and I remember early onthinking that I was the creative
director and it took a long timefor me to give it up and be
like, I.
That was your thing.
Yeah.
I was like, I'm not, why am Ifighting someone who all they do
is design and they're clearlygifted at it?
Like, I'm not gonna be the bestdesigner.
(38:04):
That's not my calling.
That's not who I am.
And so I learned to give that upand I, I learned to give up
other things as time goes on andon.
And.
Now I'm probably too far on theother side where I'm, I'd be
willing to give up a whole lotmore.
Right.
Somebody
Russel (38:19):
please take this.
Yeah,
Doug (38:20):
yeah.
Just take this off my plate.
So I think that's a good, I meanthat took a long time to learn
that lesson and, and part ofthat too is also shows you in
that process when you give upsomething to someone else, they
get better out of it.
They get better out it, you getbetter out it too, because you
don't how much.
(38:40):
You don't communicate or howwell you are at getting somebody
else on the same page, you know,you don't realize that until you
actually do that.
The other thing that I don't getright is probably the difference
between working on the businessand in the business and really
kind of prioritizing that.
(39:01):
It's very easy when you're busyto get stuck.
Working in the business andgetting this stuff done, and
then you realize, oh, we justlost this, or that just
happened, or whatever, andyou're just so close to it.
You don't see it coming, and youdon't see that you need to do a
pivot or change your positioninglike what you said earlier,
right?
Mm-hmm.
Because you're not focusing orspending time working on the
(39:22):
business, and that also includesyou as the leader.
I mean, it's taken me years andyears to realize that.
I need a therapist both for mymind and my body.
Like those are very importantthings to keep me moving and
going in the right direction.
And I am the leader of theagency and recently, more so now
(39:42):
than ever before, I'm the faceof the agency.
So that I have to reallyprioritize my mental and
physical health that's part ofthat working on instead of just
in'cause.
You can get really, reallysucked into just doing the work
and yeah, and never come up andsee the light of day.
Russel (40:00):
So true.
Yeah.
Great advice.
I mean, it's almost like, youknow, over time, um, we give
same things, new labels, and Ialways thought like, that's
stupid.
Like why are we just renamingthings?
But I kind of understand it justin the sense that we need to
hear different words that,because otherwise things become
white noise.
And we know, we hear thisworking on the business, not in
the business thing.
(40:21):
And I think it's like, yeah,yeah, yeah, I know I need to do
it, but.
I will just probably jump on thesoapbox and just say, yeah, how
important that is.
I mean, in almost any agency,until you get to really big,
which most agencies aren't, thatyou are the driver of that
agency.
Your mindset, your wellbeing,someone, the bigger it gets
certainly has to be standing atthe top of the ship, not
underneath the deck.
(40:42):
Making sure it doesn't run intothings.
That is really important workand the more you can make time
for that.
Carve that out the results willcome.
Um, so great reminder for folks.
Thank you for sharing that.
All right, Doug, last bigquestion for you.
Are entrepreneurs born or arethey made?
Doug (41:03):
I think it's a bit of both.
I probably fit into the nurturecategory.
I learned a lot from my dad,mostly what not to do.
Probably one of the big thingsthat he, that I learned
secondhand from him was I sawhim get kind of screwed over a
couple times just because hetook somebody at a handshake and
mm-hmm.
Didn't get it in writing.
(41:24):
And there's value in ahandshake, but at some point you
gotta get it in writing.
Yeah.
Or you're gonna get screwedover.
And that's just the nature ofbusiness.
You don't want it to come downto a contract.
You really don't.
And we've, you know, in 20 yearswe've only had that happen like
once or twice, and we've been onthe winning side.
(41:44):
But unfortunately, some peoplejust can't be trusted.
And so I think entrepreneurs aremade, I think it's a byproduct
of the environment you can growup in and.
Then I think we're made,especially agency owners, I
think we're made every day.
Some days more than others.
Some days more than others.
I mean, it's, you know, it's,it's a rollercoaster.
(42:06):
I can't remember too many timeswhere the rollercoaster was flat
for a very long period.
Maybe a couple weeks here orthere but then it's either.
We're slammed with business andjust have to get as many people
to jump on that crazy ride withus, uh, to get the work done, or
we gotta start kicking peopleoff and hope that they don't,
(42:28):
you know.
Break their neck on the falldown.
It's never an easy ride.
I don't know why we chose it,but it's a fun one.
So
Russel (42:35):
It's fun.
I think it's great hands on workand we all have our reasons for
being in it, but, uh, that's agreat answer.
It's very good.
Why we do this thing we do sowell.
If people wanna know more aboutInnovate, where can they go?
Doug (42:49):
Yeah, so Innovate, it's spelled I-N-O-V-A t.com.
It looks like Inova, which ishow my dad still pronounces it
to this day.
You can check us out there.
You can find me on LinkedIn.
If you just look for DouglasLogan I'll probably be up there
towards the top and.
(43:10):
Or find me join the bureau andfind me in the slacks there,
right?
Yeah.
There you go.
Russel (43:15):
We know you'll be there representing the bureau very
well maybe hosting an event ortwo.
And so yeah.
Thank you so much, Doug.
Really another greatconversation.
Some really grounded perspectiveborn outta the years of
experience and probably just asmuch as how not to do things, as
how to do things.
But appreciate you taking thetime to share all that insight
with us here today.
Doug (43:34):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Russel (43:38):
Thank you for listening to An Agency Story podcast where
every story helps you write yourown, subscribe, share, and join
us again for more real stories,lessons learned, and
breakthroughs ahead.
What's next?
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Doug (44:00):
The one that I always kind of go back to is that my
business partner and I, at onepoint we probably looked more
similar than we do now.
Currently.
He's a bit skinnier.
I'm a bit heavier.
I have a beard.
He does not.
But we were working for Ferrari,uh, and I remember going to
(44:21):
their headquarters in NorthAmerica here outside of New York
City.
I remember waiting in theconference room and this little
Italian guy kinda walks past theconference room and he stops and
looks in at me and Nick, uh, andwe're sitting there and he just
stares at us and the entireconference room is filled with
(44:43):
the whole marketing team andthey're all facing us.
They don't see him at thisparticular moment, but then he
talks up and he goes, you, you,you guys see you, you guys, you
guys brothers.
And I'm like, and nobody says aword.
He just, from outside theconference room, everyone shuts
down and stops talking.
I had no idea who this guy was.
(45:04):
And that's what he says.
You, you guys, you guys arebrothers.
And I'm like, I look at him, I'mlike, no.
Nope, not brothers.
He's like.
Cousins.
You cousins?
No, we're not cousins.
No, not not cousins.
And he goes, business partners.
Business partners.
I'm like, yeah, you got me.
(45:25):
You got me, bud.
You know?
And he is like, I knew it.
And he walks away and I justlook at everyone else in the
room and I'm just like, what?
Who is that?
And they're like, yeah, that'sthe president.
I'm like, oh.
I guess he gets to do that then.
Yeah.
That's funny.
Oh man.
Never met him again after that.
Uh, so yeah.
(45:45):
Couldn't even tell you.
Maybe that
Russel (45:46):
does happen.
Maybe a business partners morphinto the same look somehow, some
mannerisms or something likethat.
That's funny.
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