Do You Want to Serve Clients—or Build a Business?

Introduction:This week, David C. Barnett, Kate Morgan, and Sarah Segal tackle a challenge every owner who sells services eventually faces: Clients want to hire you, but you want them to understand they’ll mostly be working with your team. How do you make that clear without scaring them off? For some, it’s a delicate balancing act. For Kate, it’s simple: if a client insists on her personal time, she charges, in her words, “a boatload of cash.” Plus: we dive into another tricky owner decision: how to structure bonus plans that truly drive retention. David is weighing a deferred bonus approach, where payouts happen over several years. It’s a proven way to keep people around, but he wonders: Do you really want employees who’d otherwise leave to stay just for the money? Also, when valued employees get an offer, do you counter-offer? And if they leave, do you tell them they can always come back?

— Loren Feldman

Guests:

Sarah Segal is CEO of Segal Communications.

David C. Barnett helps people buy and sell businesses.

Kate Morgan is CEO of Boston Human Capital Partners.

Producer:

Jess Thoubboron is founder of Blank Word.

Full Episode Transcript:

Loren Feldman:
Welcome David, Kate, and Sarah. It’s great to have all of you here. I want to start today by talking about retaining employees. There’s been a lot said of late about what’s come to be known as job-hugging. As the economy has weakened, employees have been far less eager to jump ship than they were in recent years, especially during the Great Resignation period. And yet, you can’t assume that your best employees are just going to stick around forever. Sarah, you’ve been through this recently. Can you tell us what happened in your situation?

Sarah Segal:
Yeah, I’m happy to share. So my company has only been around for—we’re hitting our eighth year, going into our ninth in January. And so people’s tenure over any period of time is significant. But I had a woman who had started with me as an intern and had been with me for the last four years. She has departed—her last day was last week—for a great new job. And I’m really happy for her, but I’m also really sad for me. I did not expect her to stay on forever, and I knew that at some point it would happen. But you’re never prepared for it, because, well, you never prepare. But you should always be prepared for it.

I live in a really expensive city, and I’m a smaller agency without really big budgets. And we don’t do a lot of tech clients, which give you lots of retainer money. And so I have a cap on what I can offer people. So it was bound to happen, and it happened in a good way. She handled it well. We went out for drinks with the whole team to say goodbye to her. So it was good.

Loren Feldman:
Sarah, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you talked to us, I don’t know, maybe a year or so ago about making a deliberate attempt to make sure you did everything you could to retain long-term employees. Am I remembering that correctly?

Sarah Segal:
Yeah, I mean, I do. And part of it is always looking at my benefits package and making sure that it’s reasonably competitive, because I’m a young team. The most important thing for my space and what I do is that they always have to be learning something. There has to be something that they are learning how to do, because once they stop learning, that’s when they get bored and want to move on and chase other dollars and opportunities.

So it’s like a balance between professional development, making sure that the benefits—not just in terms of the money and the health care, but in terms of worth, work-life balance, is there—and building a community that people want to be a part of, where they’re happy, where there’s no drama, where it’s a good work environment. I think that all those things build into a long-term relationship with employees.

Loren Feldman:
Has this experience made you rethink any of your policies or procedures? Is there anything you think you should do differently going forward?

Sarah Segal:
That’s a good question. I don’t know that I would try to make her stay or counter the offer, because I think that it was also time for her to challenge herself in different ways. I did say, “If you don’t like it, call me up. You can come back.” But it also reinforces the way that I have really tried to manage my business after having some times when I didn’t do things so well.

There are a couple of clients that love her—like, love, love, love, love her. But the clients had understood that she was part of a team. And she was very good about following protocols, of like, not having one-on-one interactions and communications with clients, that everything was brought back into the team alias. And that way, it was never about just one individual having the relationship with the client. It was all about the team.

I had made that mistake a number of years ago, where I had a team member who really was the point of contact for this client. They weren’t a big client, but they were a long-term client, and I actually had to downsize because of the economy changing, client scope, all that kind of good stuff. And I downsized and let her go. And then my client, who I had, let us go and hired her, because the relationship was not really with the agency. It was with that individual. And so I’ve really tried hard not to make that mistake again, and I think I’ve been pretty successful.

Loren Feldman:
How do you avoid that mistake? What do you do differently?

Sarah Segal:
I just keep trying. It’s like reinforced: a client texts you on your phone, say? Answer them in the group chat. A client emails you individually? Add the alias back on. Like, that is your job. I’m paying you to do that. I’m not paying you to have these side conversations. It’s the hit-by-the-bus rule. Like, I need to know what’s going on, so that way, if you get hit by a bus, I’m looped in. I can’t be surprised.

Every once in a while, it comes up where somebody has made an arrangement, and I’ll be like, “Oh, okay, where’s that conversation?” I’ll jump in and explain that we can’t do that. And they’ll be like, “Oh, well, we just talked about it on the phone.” Like, no. If you talk about things like that on the phone, it has to be sent in an email saying, “Hey, thanks so much for the conversation. We discussed this. Looping in the team so we can move forward with this.” That has to be done.

Loren Feldman:
Dave or Kate, are either of you doing anything differently these days to address employee retention?

Kate Morgan:
I’ve been very fortunate. I have two people who have been with me for 13 years. I have more who have been five-plus years. So I really look at it—Sarah’s kind of addressed this—as you have the motivational hygiene theory and making sure that you have a balance of both the intrinsic motivators and the extrinsic. And, yeah, in a professional services environment, it’s really difficult for us to compete, particularly with VC-backed companies when they’re paying 150,000 for internal corporate recruiters. That’s what I’m up against.

So I have to really layer in—because I can’t afford to pay that—I have to layer in things that they grow from and feel like they have purpose and meaning. So that’s really what I’ve been focused on, having that balance. But also, I work very hard on making sure that it works for their families. So even from way back when, when I first started, I would have club trips and I’d always invite the significant others, because that helps to reinforce them to stay on board, as opposed to wanting to jump ship and risk themselves going internal to another company.

Loren Feldman:
How about you, Dave?

David Barnett:
Great question. I mean, I don’t have a big team. I think what I’ve been trying to do, because I’m aware of the kind of investment I need to make in getting people up to the performance level that I need them—I mean, some of my analyst staff really need a year and a half with me before they’re able to execute on the files the way that I want them to.

And I know that I have to make sure that I hire the right person. And so what I’ve been trying to do is not just find people that are qualified, but find people for whom the position is a really great opportunity that I think they’ll find exciting and worthwhile and want to be a part of for a long time, just so that we can have enough of an opportunity to let the relationship blossom and for me to get a positive ROI on investing in their development.

Loren Feldman:
And so far, you’ve found that to be working for you?

David Barnett:
Yeah. I mean, when it doesn’t, I’ll let you know. [Laughter]

Loren Feldman:
Please do.

Kate Morgan:
It is heartbreaking though, Sarah, when you invest so much in somebody and they leave.

Sarah Segal:
I know, but you’d have to be an idiot not to expect people to eventually leave. So I don’t know. I think I’m always kind of just preparing myself for that moment.

Kate Morgan:
Oh yeah, when you get the, “Hey, can we have a one-on-one?” And you’re like, “Oh God, my stomach.”

Sarah Segal:
So I have this thing. If you put time on my calendar, I have to know why you’re putting time on my calendar.

Kate Morgan:
Yes, yes! No surprises.

Sarah Segal:
And so, as soon as somebody puts time on my calendar for just me and them, I’m like, “Ahh.” So that’s what she did. She put time on her calendar, and I messaged her on Slack. I was like, “Do I need to know something?” And she’s like, “I think you know.” [Laughter] She’s like, “I think it’s something that you don’t want to hear.” I’m like, “Oh, no.” I was working at home—I went down to my kitchen. I’m like, “Emily’s leaving. I hope it’s good.”

But the cool thing about it is, it’s a good place. I’m really excited for her. It’s a cool job. It makes me look good in that, I’ve developed people that this fancy company wants to hire. So, yeah, I’m good with it. She did it well, timing-wise, in terms of our staffing. She didn’t leave us in a hole. But I’ve had people do that before.

I had one woman, and I’m sure I lamented about it on this podcast years ago, who went on vacation and then supposedly worked remotely, but really didn’t. And then—this is my favorite one, and this has happened multiple times—I get an employment-verification call before the person’s even told me that they’re leaving. [Laughter] And I’m like, “Who are you verifying for?” And they’ll tell me the name. I’m like, “Oh, interesting.” So I get the employee, I know something’s gonna happen. I called him up. I was like, “What’s going on?” They’re like, “Oh, I was gonna let you know the day that holiday vacation started.” So the day that we’re all on vacation. And I’m like, “So you were going to tell me that you were leaving and that that was going to be your notice, over vacation? So basically making me have to work my entire vacation to find a replacement for you over the holidays?” Like, not well done. That bridge? Very burned.

Loren Feldman:
So, when Sarah was first telling us about this, she mentioned a couple of things. I think she said that she did not try to match the offer, and she also said that she did say: If it doesn’t work out, you can come back. I think there are different schools of thought as to whether those two steps are good ideas. Kate or Dave?

Kate Morgan:
Well, I can tell you, because we deal with this a lot, when we’re making hires for our clients. And we’re talking to the candidates, saying, “Hey, when you give your notice, what do you think they’re going to do?” Because a lot of times, particularly if they’re a highly-valued employee, they will have a counter-offer to try and keep them. So we’re already trying to work with the candidate to mentally prepare them for that and what they’re going to do. In the very beginning of our conversations, we’re really focused in on what their key motivators are, what are those pain points? And we start to pull them out throughout the interview process, because when we get to the end, and they get a counter-offer, most of the time, they’re just slapping a Band-Aid on with money. But the actual reasons why the people want to leave, that won’t change. So when they do accept that counter-offer from their current company, I just say, “Well, in six weeks, they’re going to be miserable again, so let’s go back after them then, if the position is still open.”

Sarah Segal:
I agree with you thoroughly, because, actually, I don’t, as a practice, do a counter-offer. And the reason why is that people shouldn’t be working for me in the first place, if it’s just for the money. Because what my agency offers is experience: cool, cool, cool campaigns, portfolio-worthy stuff. It’s not a job you take because you’re going to get a big paycheck. And I actually say that to people when they’re interviewing with me. I’m like, “If you’re here to rake it in, go to a tech agency. Like 100 percent, go find a tech or a biotech agency and work for them.” Because this job is not for the money. It’s for the experience and the value and all that kind of stuff.

Loren Feldman:
Isn’t that kind of saying to them: You may not want to stay here long-term?

Sarah Segal:
Maybe, but also, there’s a lot of other stuff that I offer besides, like, big paychecks. I mean, I do pay. And I pay at the going rate, but the going rate for PR and lifestyle space is a much different going rate than that in tech. So, you can’t be like, “Oh, I heard so-and-so over at this agency pays their account executives this amount. Why can’t I have that here?” It’s just not the same thing. It’s not apples to apples.

So, I don’t counter it. If they’ve already made up their mind that they want to leave, they want to leave. But asking someone back and saying, “If you want to come back …” I’m not talking about their next job, but down the road. We had this wonderful woman leave, and I was talking to her casually. And I was like, “If you ever start a family, and you don’t want to be in the corporate world anymore, and you still want to keep your foot in the door, let me know. You know, you’re really smart and would be a value even on a part-time basis.”

Loren Feldman:
Dave, how do you think about either matching offers or telling someone, “If it doesn’t work out, you can come back”?

David Barnett:
Well, I’m fortunate I haven’t been in the position very often where I’ve had to make this kind of choice. But I’ve got a similar scenario that I’ve been thinking about, because we’re getting to the end of the year, and so I’ve been doing some reading about different kinds of bonus plans, because I’m thinking for 2026. And one of the ideas that I came across was the idea of a deferred bonus program.

And the idea is that if certain goals are achieved, for example, in 2026, then a bonus is earned, but it’s paid out over a couple of years. And so in order for the person to collect the entire bonus, they then have to be with the company. And the idea behind these plans is that you create these incentives for people to continue to be with you. But when I was thinking about it, I was just like, “Well, then I’m encouraging people who may not be happy with their job to stay here just because of this money,” which reflects the comment we just heard. And so I’m curious to know what Kate and Sarah think of that kind of idea, or if they’ve ever thought of doing something like that.

Sarah Segal:
I would actually ask my HR person if you’re allowed to do that.

Kate Morgan:
Yeah, you can.

Sarah Segal:
You can? Okay.

Kate Morgan:
Yeah, in the U.S. we actually call it a long-term compensation plan. So you actually—and I did this for my head of ops. When I knew I was going to be exiting—or I was planning on exiting—I was trying to figure out: Going and selling my company is probably going to take a little while. I want to make sure that he’s kind of set and I’m not going to lose him, because it would be kind of a little bit of a house of cards.

So it kind of operates like if you offer equity and you have a vesting period, but it’s a little bit more real than options. And the only problem, and I’ll defer back to Dave on this, was I actually had to clean it up when I went to have my exit. So I cashed him out early. Fortunately, he’s remained on with me.

Loren Feldman:
Okay, we should point out that you did not, in fact, go ahead and sell the company, which you’re still running. But why did you have to clean it up? What do you mean by that?

Kate Morgan:
Well, I don’t know. I’ll ask Dave. It just seemed like it was complicating things, because that was one of the pieces. One of the interested parties wanted to know what sort of obligation we had, and so I put it out, and he kind of winced at it. And then when we got closer to an actual real buyer, then I decided to just go ahead and true him up. And that also just helped the flow from looking at the exit holistically.

David Barnett:
You know, the amount due to the employee would be—it’s a liability for the company, no question, because it’s something you may have to pay out. I would almost say that you could bring that to the deal table. In the transaction, you could see if the buyer wanted to assume that liability. Maybe it would mean there’d be an adjustment in the price, but it would put the new owner in the same position you’re in with a little bit of an incentive plan already in place to keep that person around.

Kate Morgan:
Well, not to interrupt, that was actually because I’m having to think back to it, because it’s been almost five years now. But the reason was, we wanted to have retention bonuses. So they were looking at it as a double retention for my head of ops, and that’s why we’re looking at cleaning up. Because I really wanted to make sure that my key folks were going to be adequately compensated and had some golden handcuffs so I could have my earnout at the end.

Sarah Segal:
The way that my industry works is that there’s really only one way up the ladder, and it eventually puts you in a position of VP. And when you become a VP, there’s a responsibility of bringing in new business to that. And so we have a VP, and she gets a baseline salary, and then she gets a percentage added on to her salary for any new business that she brings in annually once she’s met a minimum. And so, the earning potential for her is through the moon if she gets new business and then she continues to build on that over the years.

I have a young team. The average age is probably 25, so I do give out bonuses, and usually I only give out bonuses to people who have been with me for a year. And it’s based on a little mathematical equation I created that is based on profitability, their performance, and a couple of other factors. And they’re modest, but I didn’t get bonuses until I was well into my 40s, if that. So it’s not really meant to be a long-term place to work. We’re a stepping stone. And I’m fine with that.

It keeps my costs down, too, although I have to retrain people over and over again, which is exhausting, but at least I have a layer of people now where I don’t actually have to train people. I do go through the best practices because I like to do that, and I’m always changing it. But, yeah, I have people who train the people who train the people, and we’ve done a lot of video recordings now. So you have to sit there and watch these videos of me or somebody else on the team talking through how to do something. And that’s helped alleviate some of the retraining.

Loren Feldman:
Dave, do you have an existing bonus program?

David Barnett:
This year, we brought in two bonus programs. One is a team bonus, so it’s based on overall performance and some goals for the company. And then my two employees who were with me at the beginning of the year have their own individual bonus plans as well. And then we’ve had a couple of people join us over the course of this year, and they have a different kind of thing.

Whenever I hire someone, I usually create a series of hurdles about their onboarding that sometimes takes a few months for them to complete. And each one has a pay raise attached to it. So the reason I’m kind of thinking about this now and preparing for it is, for next year, I’m going to have to create some kind of program for all four of them. And I’m going to be reassessing what I would have done this year, what seems to work, or have worked or not worked as well. And I’m just trying to explore different ideas.

Loren Feldman:
Kate, what kind of bonus plan do you have?

Kate Morgan:
Yeah, I have a flat $5,000 bonus that we divide up quarterly. So it’s only $1,250 a quarter, but it’s actually used from a punitive perspective.

Loren Feldman:
Wait. You’ve gotta explain that. What’s a punitive bonus?

Kate Morgan:
It’s put out there. If they don’t get that bonus, they’re probably going to be let go. It basically is the rare occasion when I have the type of employee who is particular about what clients they take. Well, I can’t have them being that way. So if they throw a client, they intentionally ignore a particular client because they don’t enjoy working with them, well, I’m not going to give them their bonus. Or I’ll reduce it. In 14 years, I’ve only had to do it three times, but it’s more to make a point.

We also have what we call “supersizing.” So if they go over a certain amount of hours in a quarter, then we’ll give them a point. For every point that they go over, then we’ll give them an extra 100 bucks. At one point, I had one woman, she ended up in one quarter, in a combination with that $1,250, she ended up taking in $6,500 just because she was kind of a workaholic. And it was during Covid, and she was like, “I’ll just work 60 hours. I have nothing else to do.” So we compensated her heavily for that.

Sarah Segal:
Hey, can I ask you a question? You mentioned an employee throwing—I think you used the term—a client. How do you monitor that? I’m very aware of watching how my clients are relating to people on my team and how my team is relating to a client. If I hear too much complaining about a client, I’m like, “Okay, we need to have a conversation about this, because you’re souring the water for the entire team if they hear you, especially if you’re at a higher level, talking badly about a client.” And I’m just curious, how do you make sure that they’re not throwing work out the door?

Kate Morgan:
Yeah, well, it’s all because of our scorecards. So we’re tracking everything that they do. It sounds like we’re micromanaging, but we’re not. It’s just they have to be sourcing. In order to get the lines in the water, we have to see them actually going and trying to recruit people. We have their pipeline reports, so it’s all right there, and that’s where the conversations come.

Loren Feldman:
Kate, I want to go back to that $5,000-a-year bonus that you pay, which I think some would argue is not really a bonus, or potentially not an effective bonus, in the sense that it’s not a reward for performance. It’s something that the employees, clearly, based on what you’ve told us, get used to and expect. They know that if they don’t get it, that’s a bad sign. As you said, it’s kind of a punitive situation, as opposed to a reward for performance. Why did you structure it that way? And do you think it’s been effective?

Kate Morgan:
So I’ll answer first that yes, it’s been very effective, because it really does cue people in if they’re in a danger zone. I tell people when they get hired: Expect this as long as you don’t, you know, do something wrong. So I think it is very effective.

Loren Feldman:
But then it’s not a bonus. It’s just part of their compensation, right?

Kate Morgan:
Yeah, pretty much, pretty much. And I’m super happy with that. And then, I tend to do a lot of just random spot bonuses as well, because ultimately, when you look at the psychology of bonusing folks, it’s more impactful to give people a bonus, a spot bonus, as opposed to giving them just a simple raise. The simple raise, it’s sort of like what we were just discussing with a counter-offer. You give somebody a raise because you think they’re unhappy. They get the raise six weeks later. It does not change the job.

And particularly the last few years, everything’s been so unpredictable with the market. We have high quarters, and then we have had really low quarters. So I’d rather do these spot bonuses, as opposed to having to be forced into giving them raises all the time, like every year. So that’s been sort of my thought process around having to self-police my team so I don’t have to be micromanaging everything. And, yeah, I’ve never gotten any real complaints about it.

Sarah Segal:
So just to be clear, basically, if they meet all of their KPIs for the year, they’re automatically guaranteed this quarterly bonus. When do they find out if they didn’t meet their KPIs and don’t get that? Is it like it at the end of the quarter? Are they given warnings?

Kate Morgan:
We start the conversations right out of the gate, when we start to see things start to slip. I had one guy, he worked for me for about nine months, and he was a bit of a trainwreck. And he legit told us, one of our best clients, he’s like, “I just don’t want to work with him.” I’m like, “Okay, well, you do understand that’s going to impact your bonus, because now you’re not even billing full-time. So when you’re not billing, that means you’re overhead, and I’m not going to have that impede my company’s performance. So therefore it’s going to come off of your bonus. Are you sure you’re taking that stance?” And it worked perfectly, because it forced the conversation, and he was gone, I think, within another three weeks, which was perfect. And I didn’t have to pay the bonus.

Sarah Segal:
Yeah, I was going to ask you whether or not—has it ever not resulted in somebody’s departure? Has anybody made it through to the other side?

Kate Morgan:
No. [Laughter]

Sarah Segal:
Yeah, it’s the same thing with one of those performance review plans. I worked with companies that used to do that all the time. I always hated them because, like, nobody comes out the other side of that stuff.

Kate Morgan:
Well, I will say, because we have performance improvement plans that I put people on, and [with] those, I have salvaged plenty of people. How we actually score people on our performance plans is based on our core values. They’re sort of different from what we look at when we’re tracking their work day-to-day. So it’s that overall: Is this the right employee?

And when we’ve had challenges, it’s usually because there’s something happening outside of work that is taking them out of being a great employee. And it’s in those conversations we get them back on track, and they’re off to the races. They’re like, “Yeah, I was totally disengaged because I had this happening.”

Loren Feldman:
I want to bring up a related issue. Sarah was talking about managing the relationship between employees and clients, and this is actually something that has come up from time to time a little bit on this podcast, but we’ve never really addressed head on. You all have businesses that serve clients. You all are very much involved in finding and enlisting those clients. I’m sure you all deal with clients occasionally who very much would like you to be the point person on all of their work, which I assume creates something of a dilemma for you. How do you scale your business if you have to be doing the client work? How do you guys think about this?

David Barnett:
Well, it’s interesting, because a lot of our business comes to us because I’m on YouTube. And people tune into the channel, and they watch the videos and stuff, and then they say, “Oh, I want to work with this guy.” And so that’s the expectation very much, is that they’re reaching out to us because they want to work with us. And what we have had to do is, we’ve had to very carefully curate and plan someone’s journey about how they interact with the business.

So when they first reach out and send an email or an inquiry, they’re generally not going to get a response back from me. They’re going to get a response back from our office manager, who’s going to answer basic questions and tell them about the different products we have. And then when they decide to move forward with something, we have an email that’s been created specifically to talk about people on the team, so that there’s very much the awareness on the part of the customer that there are other people working here. It’s not just that they’re hiring David for something. And our engagement agreement actually even has the biographies of all the analyst team members, so they can see the different backgrounds and qualifications of the people on the team. But I am still involved in it.

So we have a standing meeting that happens twice a week where we bring up the files. We discuss them all together. We all give feedback and input on each team member’s files. So I am still involved. And, you know, sometimes I’m actually there at the presentation meetings, when we actually deliver the result to the client. And lately, there have been more and more I haven’t been.

And so it’s really about creating that awareness. I think of people like Tony Robbins, right? Tony Robbins goes on stage in front of thousands of people, and everyone knows that he’s a coach. But nobody signs up for a coaching program from his company thinking that they’re going to spend time every week on the phone with Tony Robbins. And so I try to think: How did he get from where he started—which was probably at a place where he was coaching everybody—to where he is now? And there’s that progression where you have to change the way, maybe, that you present yourself to the world and let people understand when they’re hiring you that they will not be dealing with you all the time. That’s the best way I’ve been able to figure out.

Loren Feldman:
Has it worked for you, Dave?

David Barnett:
It seems to be working for me. I will say that the one thing that happens—and it’s funny to hear some of the other people on the call say, “You have to keep CCing the alias email and stuff to bring the conversations together.” What we find sometimes confusing is when the client will reply to the analyst working on their file, and then the client will CC me, and then I have to go and talk to the analyst to figure out which one of us is going to reply. And so, it’s a bit of a learning curve for me, I think, just as much as it is for the way we present ourselves to clients.

Sarah Segal:
To me, that’s a bit of a red flag if somebody CCs me into a conversation. I’m like, “Oof, something happened.” [Laughter]

Kate Morgan:
Like, “Mom’s getting a call.”

David Barnett:
And that’s the learning curve that I’m on. When should I feel that way and when should I know that it’s just because the person is looking for interaction with me?

Loren Feldman:
Kate, has this been an issue for you?

Kate Morgan:
Initially, years ago when I first launched, it was more of a problem. And what we would do is, I would be sort of the face, and then I’d start to introduce the resource, and then, we call it “backing out of the room slowly.” And actually, one of the women on my team, she just had to do this because we were putting her on one solid, dedicated client. And she had to pull herself out of two others. And she actually did a beautiful job, because she was really switching herself out. We had more problems there than people thinking that they’re going to work with me, because if they’re going to work with me, it’s going to cost them a boatload of cash. And they don’t want to necessarily do that. They just want the results.

Loren Feldman:
So you’re establishing that relationship right upfront. They know your involvement based on the prices that you’re quoting to them before they sign the contract, right?

Kate Morgan:
Yeah, and they’ve been referred to us so they already know how we operate. Yeah, it’s just not become such a huge point. I will have clients where they sign, and they were like, just before we sign, “Can we actually talk to the person that’s going to be working for us?” I tend to roll my eyes at that, because it’s like: Okay, well, it’s not like you’re going to be interviewing somebody. They’re going to come on, they’re going to do exactly what I just told you we’re going to do, but if you need to, sure. But that’s why we’re so specific on hiring to core values. So when you work with anybody on my team, there’s not a big swing in how they interact with people.

Loren Feldman:
Sarah, has this been an issue for you?

Sarah Segal:
So, yes and no. I’m very conscious of that, and right now, we have 20 clients, so I obviously can’t be on everything every time. So when I start with any new clients, during even the pitch call, I’ll be like, “So I will generally join every other call, just so I can make sure that I’m adding value to the project.” But I also tell clients I’m looped in on everything. Like I’m on every alias. We have a Monday morning meeting where we go through all of our clients and everything that we’re working on. So, you know right now, it’s to a point where I’m still air-traffic controlling, in terms of knowing what’s going on.

But I do do things where, if I land something for a client, or it’s my relationship that got us something for a client, I generally will have somebody else deliver it to the client. So the client’s going, “Oh, so and so is telling us about this.” Like, they don’t need to hear from me anymore. So the more that my team is providing them with value or good news or connections or ideas, the less they care about whether or not I’m there on a call or involved. I think most of them know that I’m here in the background because I chime in on stuff, too. And I think that most of the businesses we work with get that I’ve got a lot of things that I need to do. But I’m still watching what’s happening.

So I have not had any clients that have been sticky on only wanting to work with me. I have had clients really like working with a particular person on my team. But when we bring new clients in, I’m like, “Listen, I build your team based on the current demands of what we’re doing. So if we’re not doing influencers, I’m going to take so-and-so off your team.” And if we’re doing more social media content creation, I’m going to put more people from that team on your team. We’re not going to just give you a team and say, “There you go.” It’s going to be customized to what the priorities are for your business.

Kate Morgan:
I think clients tend to have less of an issue. I think it’s the founder who ends up having more of an issue of letting go of being in the trenches. I chair an accelerator program, the EOS accelerator program, and talking to people—we do this, and a lot of people start out fractionally, and they’re in it, and they get the dopamine rush because they’re able to work with their clients, see the success that they’re doing for the client, and then they’re going to take that and give it to somebody else.

Sarah Segal:
Delegation is a big issue. It doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO or a junior-level person. I have a couple people on my team where I’m like, “You have people that you can delegate to.” I literally had a conversation with somebody the other day, and I was like, “I can’t have you doing anything admin. You cost me way too much money. Don’t do that. Delegate that.” And my social team, they’re like, “Okay, we’re on the cusp of needing to hire somebody.” I’m like, “That’s great.” I’m like, “You need to sit down and tell me: What are the things that you shouldn’t be doing? Or the things that you’re terrible at? And that’s the person that we’re going to find to hire.”

My whole thing with my team is that if you have somebody underneath you and reporting to you, your whole job is delegating your way out of a job. So that way the person above you is delegating their way out of a job, and so there’s always this kind of flow. And it’s hard with some people. Oh, it’s so hard.

Loren Feldman:
Kate, I heard what you said about the real issue frequently being that the founder just can’t let go of the work, and it’s more of a problem with them than it is with the client. But I have to say, I’ve found this to be a very common complaint among business owners, and I’m wondering how you guys deal with it when you’re on the other side of the equation. I hear from owners all the time saying things like, “You know, when you try to hire a marketing agency, you get the big guns who come out and they pitch you, but the moment you sign on, you’re given an intern.” How do you deal with that when you’re on the other side?

Kate Morgan:
For myself?

Loren Feldman:
Yeah.

Kate Morgan:
I mean, I would anticipate a good business is going to know how to manage their resources appropriately. So I don’t think I’ve been in a situation where I had that worry about getting the intern or the lackey.

Sarah Segal:
That’s one thing that I would recommend if anybody is ever looking at a service agency to do work for them. When you’re on the pitch call with them, ask that question: Who is my team? Are the people on this call my team? They should be able to answer that immediately. I’d be able to say, “These are the people who will be working on your project.” That should be part of the process.

And you can even say, “Listen”—on the pitch in the RFP, when you send it to the company, “I want to know exactly who will be working on my account.” And that way you have visibility into it. Because, honestly, if an agency can give you the same level and quality of services, but have lower-level people doing it, they’re going to do it. Because they’re going to use their heavy hitters on other stuff. So sometimes the work doesn’t need somebody who’s a director and a VP level.

David Barnett:
And you know, people buy process, so you if you can show the client what the process or the tool that’s going to be applied to their situation and how you’ve been able to create somewhat of a systematized methodology of how you’ve trained your staff and that this is either created by you as the founder, or endorsed by you, or whatnot, that gives people great comfort. I mean, people walk into McDonald’s locations they’ve never been in before, and the reason they do that is because they’re already confident they know what the Big Mac is going to taste like, because they believe that the system is robust there for making Big Macs.

Sarah Segal:
Yeah, and you have to do it gradually. Get your client—from my perspective—to trust the person that you’re letting do the work. It doesn’t have to be like, “Hey, so-and-so is going to be your point of contact. And I’m not doing anything anymore.” It can be a gradual transition where you stay with it until you’re like, “You know what? The client kind of loves you, and we’re good to go. And I’m going to just be in the background if you need me.”

Loren Feldman:
Dave, has this been an issue for you much, in terms of dealing with vendors that you hire?

David Barnett:
Geez, no, it hasn’t. I have hired some people who have very clearly presented themselves as sort of solo operators, that they’re the people who are going to be serving me. And that’s exactly how it’s played out. But back to the expectation setting, I think in other circumstances, it was clear when I was getting involved with a vendor that they were a team, and there were other people involved. And I knew that from the outset. That’s kind of the example I’ve been trying to follow in my business of showing people, as soon as they start engaging to hire us, that it isn’t just me. There’s a team here.

Sarah Segal:
So Loren, I hire outside resources as well, and I was having a conversation just yesterday with a technical firm to do some work, a lovely conversation with the lead person. But my question was, “Okay, if we work with you, who’s going to be the person that we’re going to work with?” I asked questions like, “Where are they based? Do you have anybody on the West Coast? Because we’re on the West Coast.”

And I was like, “Do you have anybody who’s a woman?” My whole team is female—not by design, but just happenstance. I’m like, all of a sudden, having some random engineering guy from Poland might be a little bit weird. They just start popping up on calls. So I want to ask the question of: Do I have options, in terms of having a conversation with the person, whoever it is, just to make sure that they’re going to be a right fit for our company vibe? I feel like I can do that if I’m paying them.

Loren Feldman:
And how did they respond?

Sarah Segal:
Well, they responded to say that, it would be somebody, probably in Poland, and that she would put in a request for me to have that option of selecting the right fit. So I will follow up on that, because that’s important. Our calls, our relationships with our clients, is pretty intimate, and I can’t just have some random person who I’ve never met just start joining things. So I need to sit back and reconsider that. So maybe it’s less about having them join the calls and more about just being a resource for us, for the team, and then going from there. But yeah, it’s just something to think about. I have to make sure that whatever I do is not going to be disruptive to my client experience.

Loren Feldman:
All right. Well, since I’m interested in retaining all of your services long-term—

Sarah Segal:
I’d like a bonus. [Laughter]

Loren Feldman:
You’re all getting bonuses this year. But for now, my thanks to David Barnett, Kate Morgan, and Sarah Segal. Thanks for sharing, guys.