Hi everyone and welcome back to Type A Unhinged. I'm Nate. And I'm Di. And we're here to talk
to you today about the art of saying no and letting go. I think at one point, Di, every
founder, every leader hits a wall. You're the visionary, you're the lead salesman, probably
the head of product, and somehow also the person that fixes the broken printer. My point
is, is it's like just not sustainable, right? And today, we're talking about the hardest
part of really scaling your business, which is scaling yourself.
Yep. As Type As, we are control enthusiasts, to say kindly. The idea of letting go is basically
a personal nightmare sometimes. But you can't be in every meeting, right? You can't approve
every single ad, and you physically cannot scale if every decision.
Does that sound like an overloo to you?
Follow-up on that one.
I think that's the kind of thing we're talking about.
I think that's exactly right.
I think that's what we're talking about.
Seriously.
We got so many questions.
I think we did.
Yeah.
That's what I wanted.
Yeah.
Yeah, we did a dozen questions.
Yeah.
We did a dozen questions.
strategic surrender. This brings us to the core problem, operator to orchestrator shift. An
operator is the person in the trenches pulling each of the levers. If you want to think of it
like an orchestra, you are playing every instrument. But an orchestrator is on the podium
or the conductor, you're conducting the symphony, you're not playing every instrument. And that's
basically the marketer's version of scaling. So we're breaking this down into three different
segments. The first segment is the data-driven art of letting go. Then we'll talk about cloning
your brain. And finally, the growth paradox. So starting off with data-driven art of letting go.
Basically, as a performance marketer, Nate, letting go, the only way you know how is with
dashboards and ruthless prioritization. Am I right? You are so right, Di. You know,
one thing I've learned as I've grown in my professional career is that my philosophy
very much was inspect what you expect. But I think what you realize as you gain more responsibility
or you climb up the ladder in your roles and you're responsible for more, that the reality
is there's just not enough hours in the day to be that way. And I think the only way to solve that
is by building a system of data that really you can trust in. And it lets you inspect the outcomes
versus just the process.
Right. And that can be, in my opinion, one of the hardest parts. However,
if you really identify, I guess, your North Star KPIs and you find a way to make sure you can keep
your eye on the outcome, how those KPIs are doing, you create great dashboards, you put the data in
front of your team in an organized way where they can create their own reports or really dive into
and you suddenly get the system where you can start to let go a little bit. Speaking of which,
that actually reminds me of a time when I put myself and what I like to say in
the chat, which is, you know, when I first started in one of my roles recently, we had, like most
companies do, SharePoint. And on one of my days after training, you know, I didn't have a ton to
work on right away. I was just kind of exploring. I found basically all of these apps that came in
our suite that we were already paying for that weren't necessarily being used. And I'm sure you're
going to recognize which ones I'm going to call out because they are still to this day my favorite.
I have a guess.
You may.
Power BI.
Ah, yes, that is definitely it. I would say Power BI and also Power Automate. If you guys haven't
checked those out, you have to at least look them up. And there are alternatives, right? I think any
software like them are great. Power BI is the first one. It's basically a data visualization
software. We hadn't put any reports in there and I started playing around with it and just realized
it's like Excel on steroids. Especially once you have the data on the back end, you can just
drag and drop fields in and build whatever report you want.
Type A dream.
Right? So I know. And then all of the graphics you can add and the data bars and the conditional
formatting. I mean, literally type A dream. So as you can imagine, people dug these reports. So here
I am helping people make reports with the data we have. Then I discovered Power Automate. I'm
automating things like, I actually, I can't even remember the last time I made a OneNote page
manually if it was for a recurring meeting. And I'm talking like template in there. I'm talking about
pulling product launch dates out of our server, grabbing lists from SharePoint, ready to go for
the meeting with zero effort, right? I should say prepaid effort. Anyway. So anyway, I feel like I'm
doing really great. I'm coming up with these solves for issues. I even built an app with
Microsoft Power Apps for our returns team. And then suddenly I realized I was becoming the
bottleneck myself, right? I wasn't spreading the knowledge. I was so passionate about these really
big things that I was helping people solve all these problems, but not necessarily teaching them
how to do it. And so all of a sudden I have this backlog. I'm not getting to my own tasks and I'm
just helping, I'm kind of playing every instrument as you say, right? And so eventually I had to turn
my mindset into, instead of saying like, consider it done when I got a request, hey, why don't you
grab 15 minutes on my calendar and I'll teach you how. And really the hard part was, is like I just
said, these are still my favorite apps today. So if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, I'm
going to do this, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this. So of course, I want to be in them every day and building cool stuff. But really, I had to, I guess embrace the art of saying no teaching others and let them flourish doing so.
It's hard to let go the things that you really enjoy doing.
I know. I still get it. But really what's cool though is as you see the other people flourish,
like when I see cool things other people make, it's so fun to geek out with them and have them
show you how they did it. And I think that's really cool. And I think that's really cool.
think it just took me getting to the point you know where you have to let go be okay with that
and then that moment happens before you realize like yeah that was the right choice different
sort of reward i suspect later this will play into the growth paradox too but i don't want to
give it away anyway this is a pretty good segue i think into segment two cloning your brain while
i'm building dashboards uh to scale our performance marketing area dies out there building systems to
scale our brand voice and vision i mean what goods uh uh add with good creative if the copy
sounds like a robot wrote it right and not in a good way anyway die tell us how you're building
our brand voice and vision so the first thing that comes to mind when you say that is uh you
need a brand bible right it's kind of your creative playbook uh the first thing that i wanted to do
when i started at our day jobs was to create a
brand
guide i could not believe that they had gone for i want to say 10 years
maybe less maybe more like seven without one i mean it seemed kind of insane to me like
the designers maybe knew what the hex colors were and what font to use but beyond that nobody like
knew anything and it was just kind of a little bit of a mess so setting that brand guide that's
not just colors and fonts right it's what should the photography look like right who
should be using what should be using what should be using what should be using what should be
using who is our customer persona that we're trying to target or personas maybe you have more
than one who uh who are you trying to talk to what does the voice of the brand sound like every
copywriter kind of had their own voice their own flair that they were putting on it and then when
you start to stitch everything together between social posts emails subject lines home page ad
copy um sms text messages it starts to sound like a whole bunch of different people and it's like who
is that brand who is that brand who is that brand who is that brand who is that brand who is that brand
who is that brand who is that brand it's hard to fall in love with a brand and relate to them
if their personality is changing all the time right in multiple personality disorder yes you need
consistency so with the brand guide the voice and tone is part of that as i said and taking that a
step further is not just like making sure that everybody on your copy team is writing the same
but as they start to use ai tools that ai is sounding the same too so some key points there
would be you know you're cloning your brain
into the ai tool you're saying here's what we sound like here's what we shouldn't be saying like
maybe use lots of emojis maybe you never swear maybe you're really edgy in your tone and then
providing a ton a ton ton ton of examples so that it can learn how it should sound and course
correcting it um whenever it gets a little bit off track yep providing feedback you do the same
thing with people right so photo shoots is a good example of that um
cloning your brain or cloning developing the eye is um one thing that i've done a few times with
different folks along the way uh and that's another thing like you mentioned nate hard to
let go i love being on those photo shoots and producing and directing but if i'm there for
six hours twice a week that's a lot of time that i could be spending doing something else
that's more valuable to the business um that i have other expertise in so and how many times
have i asked you like how's your day going how's your day going how's your day going how's your day
going and your response is on the shoot like it's all the time you know spring or early summer day
in minnesota it's it's hard to get those good weather days and if you're outside during them
doing something you like oh even better but i digress so developing that eye uh that alone can
be difficult right whenever you're trying to show somebody this could apply to graphic design web
design too right what's your brand look like um and one thing that i do for that is make sure that
i am showing people and then i'm watching them do it and then i'm coaching them on it so uh the i'm
doing it myself they're watching there's the do i i'm showing them i'm going step by step here's
what i'm looking for when we take a shot i point things out on the screen here's why i would what
i would give direction on um maybe you need to change the lighting maybe you need to move some
things into the screen with graphic design it could be something
or on the typography right and then uh you coach so the coaching piece is them actually doing all
of those things and telling you what they're doing and why they're doing it and why they're making
those decisions the communication is very important whenever you're trying to clone your
brain right you can't just show and then be like okay good luck um same thing i'm sure as you're
teaching people power automate you can't just be like here's a video have fun like there's going
to be bumps that they hit along the way right and it's important that they're able to communicate
what they're seeing
and why they're doing what they're doing and you can course correct if need be so do show coach
and i just want to say i love that do show coach it's worked time and time again and the goal
really though with with all of that is empowering your team right you're empowering them on the
creative side it's just to make sure that they're they're working within a framework but still have
that ability to be creative and i would say the same holds true for data i mean when you play with
data you're looking for trends and you're looking for things that are going to help you and you're
looking for things that are going to help you and you're looking for things that are going to help you
and part of that is being creative right you're not just doing xyz and output you're done so um
setting that framework is key so people can still be creative you're not stifling that
and that helps make it scalable and making sure that you're consistent and on brand
so with that let's talk about the growth paradox we're talking about people growing and learning
a little bit throughout the first couple of segments here
and to grow your business you have to grow your people but when you really truly grow your people
they might end up outgrowing their role they might even leave for a better opportunity
and you have to learn to be okay with that and it's tough
it's so tough it just feels inefficient to be honest like i don't know how else to put it other
than you invest all this time into somebody you feel like things are finally going to work out
smoothly things are great and then they leave and then it comes and they leave yeah but i think
also like the alternative is a stagnant team and or a like a bottlenecked business and those aren't
great right so i think it's hard but it's important to remember a great leader makes more
leaders and after you've done that you do see the positives in it too it is it does get easier to
look past the the feeling of inefficiency really
i think it ties back to even my example of where i was kind of interrupt myself right you get to this
point suddenly where you're able to like geek out with how other people are succeeding or flourishing
with that you see people leave or i guess another example is like how many of our marketing team
members come in join our amazon team learn a ton fresh out of college about our crazy big amazon
business and then after a couple of years they go flourish they open their own amazon shop or they
go to a larger company
and then after a little while you grab like coffee with them or something and you hear about all the
fun things they're doing and and it's just my point is is it gets easier to see the other side
of that as well but it is an art like it is an art to learn i still cry sometimes when those
good people leave because you've developed you know absolutely a friendship usually with them
you know you're you're helping them and they're helping you at the same time just as much
and there's one gal that comes to mind particularly that was one of the hardest for me and i hope we
get to have her on sometime but she had been hired i feel like as a temp during one of our busy seasons
to help out with like merchandising the website and i barely interacted with her and within like
a couple of years she was managing our crm team and also trying to take on lifestyle like she was
a freaking rock star whatever you gave to her she just figured it out and like
somehow managed to add it to her plate um and when she left i told her that she would be dumb for
not taking the opportunity like i was to that point like so happy for her but so sad for me
and for us um and still getting to like chat with her and see like what she's done since then is
is so rewarding and so fun to like just follow their journeys too i just
and eventually you get to the point where like they're helping and
inspire you too like they keep helping you it's just in different ways hey we're working on this
tool have you ever tried them before what were the goods and the bad like they become a peer and
yeah yes yes for sure i suppose we should probably uh maybe end on you know what is the one
like actionable takeaway that if if somebody is fast forwarding through this whole episode
and they're like what's the one thing i need to know what would what would you say nate
um
i think coming definitely from the performance marketing perspective or pov i would say one
acknowledge the fact that letting go is hard especially for a type a i think you know the
first step is just yep it's hard but then two identify the most important pieces and build a
great system of data and reports to help you make sure you can keep an eye on them but remember
you're determining the route not building the pathway any longer
and so by identifying
these north star metrics that you can help watch it and ensure that your team is going in the right
direction you no longer yep feel like you have to always you can't manage it if you can't measure it
absolutely write that down we should write that down one i think my big takeaway yeah
i think my big takeaway would be um thinking about the cloning and the growth piece
kind of taking that a step further in if you
aren't able to say no and delegate it and let go then you're not going to grow either so if you
can't manage to clone your brain and train somebody else then it's it's delegate and elevate right so
if you're able to do that then you're able to elevate into the next new big project because now
you freed up some of your plate and it's like just open white space opportunity for you to find
something new to help yourself and your company grow
so that would be my big takeaway it helps you a lot too i love that
all right i have um an off-the-cuff question for you if that's okay
i'm nervous now that's a long pause
what no no it's not that crazy what is one task that you know you should be delegating
but just having immediately right now one thing
yeah like what's what's one thing that you i mean probably should have delegated but but still
still do probably customer repeat rate reporting and tracking um definitely
takes up too much time because of some of the systems we have and the way i have to access that
data it takes a while and part of the reason here's my excuse right coming out with my excuses
right away
is that it does take a while and we run super lean and so i feel bad offloading that to somebody
right now for sure how about you nate
probably the best example i have is every week in the marketing area we come up with a
cost of sale report or like a row loss report and we send it out and my team i have done much
better lately my team has done much better lately and i've been able to do a lot of things
that it really is okay to sell being a business when and i don't know why but for me personally
from my experience like i've had to keep my customer base up and running for a long time
because i've been able to get up and running and doing all the work that i'm supposed to be
doing and having a lot of times i've had to give up some of the tasks that i'm supposed to be
able to do or keep planning my business because you know the apps that i've been able to use
are so much more expensive than that and shot only on a day to day basis so yeah it's it's
a little bit of a success for me and also like i said earlier i think one thing that's really
important is that i'm not there to sit and wait and wait until i'm able to go to work or i'm
trying and i'm trying to get into the job and i'm constantly trying to find someone that's
that, it made me think more about some of the things that I'm trying to do right now is figure
out ways to make email design more efficient, whether it be using AI tools or for the design
itself or using AI tools to help us reduce our sends by using like send time AI, things like
that. And if I did that, it would allow the person who would probably take on the repeat rate percent
and everything to have more free time. And then they would be able to combine that data with the
loyalty data and think a lot more strategically. So thank you, because that made me move that piece
of the puzzle up to the top of my list so I can make the rest of it happen.
What I was going to say is, so like, I would say our cost of sale or ROAS report is probably a
great example to the question. However, on kind of on the flip side, one thing that I still
am very involved in that should just be delegated, but I do it because I love it so much is on our
Amazon side of the business, trying to figure out the best way to optimize a listing for search
results and driving sales. Like my team is all in on that. But I definitely could spend less time
helping them in that. But I love nerding out with should we test this AI model or that? Or should we
just use a completely alternative solution altogether? How are we going to do this the
best and fastest way possible? I mean, you die, you know, we do
75% of our yearly sales in two or three months of the year. So when it's go time,
it's freaking go time. And I just like, thrive off of that. But that's more of an example of
I could definitely delegate that 100%. But I just love being I would argue that because you're a
part of it, still, you come up with other ideas of other things to test. And then that gets you
out of those weeds again, and back into developing something new. And so I almost feel like it's a
different episode that we should add to our list of how important it is for us to be able to
keep a project on your desk, even when you're at a higher level. Okay, right now.
I love that. I'm adding it to the list.
Well, I hope that you guys got something out of today. I really want to thank you for joining us.
And as always, stay type A. And a little unhinged. Until next time, guys.
Bye.