Would You Rather Risk Losing a Client or an Employee?

Introduction:

This week, Sarah Segal, Jaci Russo, and Lena McGuire tackle a question many service business owners face: Which is the bigger risk—an employee who feels overburdened or a client who feels neglected? The discussion begins with Sarah explaining why she’s had to reestablish boundaries with some clients who were texting and calling her employees after hours and bypassing the systems her agency has put in place. Sarah wants her team to be able to disconnect at the end of the day, and she wants clients communicating with the entire team assigned to their account—not developing overly close relationships with individual employees. In her view, protecting employees from burnout ultimately leads to better service for clients.

Jaci approaches the challenge very differently. Her creative staff rarely communicate directly with clients. Instead, account managers serve as the sole point of contact, much like restaurant servers relaying orders between diners and the kitchen. The goal is to protect specialists from interruptions, keep them focused on their work, and ensure that client communication remains clear and consistent. The result is a lively conversation about competing priorities, client expectations, employee well-being, and the hidden risks that can emerge when clients become too dependent on individual employees. Plus: Have you ever had an employee leave and take clients with them?

— Loren Feldman

Guests:

Lena McGuire is CEO of Spóca Kitchen & Bath.

Jaci Russo is CEO of BrandRusso.

Sarah Segal is CEO of Segal Communications.

Producer:

Jess Thoubboron is founder of Blank Word.

Full Episode Transcript:

Loren Feldman:
Welcome Lena, Jaci, and Sarah. It’s great to have all of you here. Sarah, I gather you’ve been having some issues managing your relationships with your clients, but especially between your employees and your clients. Can you tell us about it?

Sarah Segal:
I wouldn’t say it was issues, but I think I let loose of the reins. So when I first started my business, I actually started with a partner, and I had worked with her at an agency prior to working together. And I always remember her telling me that we have to train our clients. And what she meant by that was that you have to provide guardrails and boundaries for your clients. Otherwise, they’re just going to call you at any given hour and expect you to be at their beck and call at any given time. And, while, yeah, that would be nice to be able to provide that, I also have to be careful about providing my team and myself time to get our energy back, refresh, reboot, have a little bit of time away from our screens.

And so, over the last couple of months—I want to say maybe a year—I’ve been relaxing it a little bit, and it just started having an impact on my team. Like literally, there were emails and comms coming in from clients at all given hours. And it wasn’t just one client. It was a number of clients. So I had to do a little bit of a reset on that.

Loren Feldman:
Do you know that the clients who were sending those off-hours messages expected an immediate reply?

Sarah Segal:
I don’t think anybody expects an immediate reply when they send you an email at 9 o’clock at night. That said, people are on their phones. Even if my employee—or myself—when I go to bed, I look at my phone once before I go to bed. And if I have an email from a client at 9 o’clock or 10 o’clock at night, it just puts you in a different mindset.

We send out an email, a welcome email, to all of our new clients, and I actually just worked on revising it this week. And it goes through everything. It goes through who’s around if you have an emergency on the weekends, our hours of operations. It goes through details of how to work best with us. And I just made it a little bit more clear, because I think that it’s fair for me to say, “Hey, client, do you mind just scheduling that to send in the morning, as opposed to hitting send if you’re working at 8 or 9 o’clock at night?” Because we’re not not going to see it. And it’s a better relationship for us, and it’s a better work-life balance for my team—if they can just hit schedule-send instead of hitting send at that moment.

Loren Feldman:
In talking about this with your employees, did you get the sense that when they do get the off-hour message, they do feel some urgency to respond quickly? Or was it more a sense that sometimes the message, if it’s asking for something to be redone or additional work, it’s just an upsetting message to get right before bed, to use your example, or both? Are both concerns?

Sarah Segal:
They’re people pleasers. I mean, we’re in the service industry. We want to make everybody happy, and I get that. But when I onboard a new team member, part of our onboarding process is, “What’s really important is that you are able to log off at the end of the day and have a mental break from the demands of our business.” And they need to do their part, in terms of giving themselves time, but also like providing the client with an emergency contact if they’re off the grid.

But also, our clients need to be respectful that we’re not going to do our best work if we’re trying to do stuff for you 24/7. And I’m not going to be able to keep people if I expect them, so I think that there was just—a client started emailing later, and then the team just wanted to make sure that everyone’s happy, so they were responding. And I just had to remind everybody that, if it’s not an emergency, we don’t respond. And at the same time, I reminded a lot of our clients, “Hey, if you would be so kind as to schedule-send, it will help me prevent my team from burning out.”

Loren Feldman:
Jaci, you run a service business. Has this been an issue for you?

Jaci Russo:
It has, to a point. I think that we’re in very different industries. Sarah is in a more, I think, touchy—I think there’s more touch, more client touches than we have. Also, because in the B2B space, it’s a lot more Monday through Friday, eight to five. It’s not as many after-hours events, and so I think there’s a different level of client-agency interaction.

Loren Feldman:
Wait, aren’t you both B2B businesses?

Jaci Russo:
I mean, I’m 100-percent B2B with a couple of very small baby exceptions occasionally. I thought Sarah was more B2C.

Sarah Segal:
Well, no, I think that he means in terms of what we do. Like, I’m a service provider to businesses, so Siegel Communications is a B2B company.

Jaci Russo:
Yes. But your clients are…?

Sarah Segal:
B2C, mostly. We have a diversity of clients, but yeah, 80 percent are B2C.

Jaci Russo:
Yeah, and my clients are 90 percent B2B.

Sarah Segal:
But it’s still a B2B business.

Jaci Russo:
Yeah, our companies are both selling businesses that sell to other businesses, but the businesses that we work with, who they sell to, their end customer for us is other businesses. For Sarah, her customers sell primarily to people.

Sarah Segal:
Right.

Loren Feldman:
So, your suggestion is that that may create a greater sense of urgency?

Jaci Russo:
For her people, yes.

Sarah Segal:
Oh, 100 percent. Loren, we had two crises, one on Sunday and one on Monday, and they were all public-facing. I doubt that that is being seen at Brand Russo.

Jaci Russo:
Correct. So that’s part of it. I think also, part of it is, if we do have a time-sensitive after-hours crisis, it’s always PR-related. [Laughter] Everything Sarah does is PR. We will have it maybe once a year, there’s a PR thing.

And so, for example, we have a client who had an employee who was at a trade show when he was arrested during the show by SWAT. We had to deal with that. Luckily, it was during office hours. We had a client whose chairman of the board was arrested: after hours DUI. But we didn’t have to deal with it until 8 am the next day. So it’s just a very different schedule of timing, and so that’s part of it. Part of it is also, I encourage my people to turn off their notifications at 5 o’clock.

Sarah Segal:
Ooh, that’s dangerous. We can’t do that.

Jaci Russo:
Yeah. Again, different businesses.

Sarah Segal:
Yeah.

Loren Feldman:
Has that been a problem ever, Jaci? Has an emergency message not been responded to as a result of that ever?

Jaci Russo:
Not that I know of.

Loren Feldman:
Sarah, I keep coming back to the language you used in an email that you sent to us before we recorded this, in which you said that you had to remind two of your clients that they shouldn’t be bugging your team in the evenings and on weekends.

Sarah Segal:
I didn’t use the word “bugging,” but yes—

Loren Feldman:
You did use that. That’s exactly—

Sarah Segal:
I did?!!!

Loren Feldman:
You did. That’s the word you used. Now—

Jaci Russo:
Among friends. She wasn’t using it publicly, Loren.

Loren Feldman:
Exactly. I was about to say that. I assume you don’t use that term—

Sarah Segal:
Loren, I’m well-known in my office for saying something very candidly. I’m from Boston. Like, I can’t help it. And then I’ll say it to a team member, and I’m like, “But say it nicely.” [Laughter]

Loren Feldman:
Well, I admire your being candid. But even the language you used here to start with, you said you had to create guardrails and boundaries. It sounds a little bit like setting up the potential for having to scold clients, which is a place that I think a lot of businesses would not want to be.

Sarah Segal:
Oh, I don’t care. I don’t care. Honestly, we don’t work with people that don’t respect that. There has to be balance, and if a client doesn’t respect that, then that’s not a client that we want to work with. So I don’t scold them. I just set them up for success, and just be like: “If you are doing this to my team, they’re going to burn out. And they’re not going to deliver the level, the quality of work that you need. With that said, if the house is burning down, have me on speed dial.” I will answer the phone, but you know, there need to be boundaries.

And it’s not bugging, necessarily. I mean, we have a social media team, and there are some requirements of being a social media manager, in that there’s an influencer who posts something and asks for a request to collab. You kind of have to accept that collab on a Sunday at three. That’s part of your job. Or you have to go and cover an event that your client is doing, so you can post it on social. I mean, there are nuances to every role, but if it’s something that’s not timely, then don’t send it at 8 o’clock at night. Just don’t.

Loren Feldman:
And you’re willing to lose a client over that?

Sarah Segal:
I’ve never lost a client over that. I think clients respect that. I think that clients look at you and go, “You know what, you run a business that has integrity.” And again, as I said, crisis communications is a whole different thing. You kind of have to be available for that. I think that—what is it, the Olsen twins? They’re like, “No is a full sentence, and you’re allowed to use that word: no.” And I think that if you constantly say yes to clients, they’re not going to respect your opinion as much.

Lena McGuire:
And there’s also something to be said for setting expectations and boundaries, which I think is appropriate. I don’t think it’s scolding a client. I think it’s training them so that they understand what the boundaries are and that the expectations are that if you cross the lines of those boundaries, these are the results you’re going to receive. In my business, I work with remodeling clients, and of course, they work all day, and then they come home at night, and they’re scrolling. They want to send me all their ideas, but they can send it anytime they want. I have my notifications off, because I stop work at five. The expectation is: I will respond to you tomorrow morning after 9 am. So they know that, and they can keep sending things. It’s basically a brain dump, but they know that they can’t get me.

But there are instances where we’re trying to do something, a contractor is on the job, and something happens. They have a direct phone number. There is somebody who they can contact. If I’m not available, I have somebody else who takes that. So it’s kind of a call crisis number that they can use. But that’s the expectation. We know that something might happen, therefore we have processes that you can follow to get a human being immediately. But that’s part of the expectations being set, so that they know what the boundaries are. So I’m 100 percent with Sarah. Setting the boundaries is very important for everybody’s well-being.

Sarah Segal:
Well, I want to add to that. And it wasn’t just about timing, Loren. It’s also about how they communicate. Because what inevitably happens with almost every client is they click with somebody on the team, and they will call them one-off and discuss something that really the whole team should be aware of. And then that puts the burden on, well, one team member could then have to wrap all that information up and distribute it to the whole team.

And while it’s flattering for that team member to be loved and beloved by a client, it just adds to their plate unnecessarily. Because we set up aliases, email aliases, for every one of our clients, where we say at the start, “Feel free to send an email to so and so on my team, but please always copy the alias, so the whole team can stay up to speed with what’s going on.”

But I have a hit-by-a-bus rule. And it’s like I need everybody to be on the same page, and if clients are calling or texting or one-offing my teammate, A) my team gets off the same page. And B) it adds work unnecessarily to one of my team member’s plates. “If a client calls you, you have to email the entire team alias: ‘Hey, a response to the client reconfirming everything they said.” So a client calls up and says, “I want you guys to show up at 3 o’clock instead of 2 o’clock.” My team will get off the call and then respond back to the client and the whole team, and say, “Hi, client, thanks for the call, just to confirm you want us to show up at X time.” You know, it’s stupid work. It adds stupid work to us.

Loren Feldman:
So, Sarah, just to make sure I understand your use of the alias, what you’re asking your clients to do is to copy an email that goes to everybody at your company?

Sarah Segal:
No, everybody on their team.

Loren Feldman:
Everybody on the team that’s serving the client, as opposed to just emailing the account manager or the main person that they work with.

Sarah Segal:
So, like, say you were my client, Loren. I would create a 21Hat@Segal Communications [alias] and say you’re like, “Hey, Sarah, I need to move the meeting,” you would email me, but you just add the CC of 21 Hats, and that way everybody sees it.

Loren Feldman:
So, if it’s just a matter of copying, why couldn’t the burden be on your employee to forward it to that alias when the email comes in?

Sarah Segal:
Well, no, I’m not talking about the emails, but they do. What they do is they reply back to the email, and they add the alias, and they’ll say, “adding the alias,” so everybody’s looped in. But what I’m talking about more is phone calls and texts.

Loren Feldman:
I see. Again, though, it’s a question of where the burden falls. You don’t want them to talk to you by phone or by text, because you can’t add an alias?

Sarah Segal:
No, but we do. We have group texts. And we have a lot of clients that are in industries that mean that our clients are kind of always on the go, and we get that. And when we kick off with a client, we say: What’s the best way to communicate with you? Do you want us to create a Slack channel? Do you want everything to go over email? Do you want to create a text group?

And those people that have a text group have a text group. And we’re happy to make that, but that doesn’t mean that—if you decide you don’t want that, fine, but it doesn’t mean that you’re texting my team. You’ve got to be consistent, because you’re basically causing us extra work that we shouldn’t be doing.

Loren Feldman:
But isn’t that the same as the situation you described with the email? If somebody sends a text just to your employee, the employee can respond to the text by roping in the rest of the team.

Sarah Segal:
No, you can’t do that on a text.

Loren Feldman:
You can start a new thread. You’re right, but okay.

Sarah Segal:
So, what they do is they get the text, and then they respond. They’ll usually respond via the text and resolve whatever it is, and then send an email to the team, and to the client, “Hey, just confirming your blah blah blah.” You know, it just adds an administrative—like, if that client really wants to do that, I mean, they can go ahead and do that. But it takes away our allocations to the real work that we should be doing. If they want to add admin work for us, by all means. If you want to waste your dollars that way, but that’s not what I’m here to do.

Loren Feldman:
It just seems like it sets up another potential friction point with a client. Jaci, how do you handle this?

Jaci Russo:
I think the exact opposite. And I was just sitting here trying to decide: Is there a good way? Is there a bad way? Is there a wrong way? And I think it’s just a different way, but it is significantly different. My people talk about feeling like they’re drowning in emails and notifications and stuff, and so we try to—and I’m going to kind of give some insight into literally the layout of our building, because it’ll help to understand when I start to talk about sides. So, our building, which is about 8,500 square feet, is almost divided in half. And to get to the creative team, who we lovingly refer to as the talent—even though I think everybody on the team is talented—you have to walk down the big hall and get greeted by Mary at the front desk. Once she has cleared you, you go through the double-glass doors into the creative waiting room, then through the double-glass doors into the creative space where the talent works. That is how much we insulate and protect them from the outside world.

Because every minute they spend not designing, writing, programming, developing, editing is a wasted minute, and we don’t bill for time, so it’s not like that. It’s more about focus, concentration. I just want them to sit down at their desk, blinders on, and get their shit done. And that’s all they want to do, too. They don’t want to talk to people. They don’t want to know anybody’s story. [Laughter] They don’t want to hear anybody’s thoughts about anything. They, for sure, don’t want anybody’s feedback on the work they just created.

We used to have a big open workspace. All those same people were all the way on the left side of the building. You still had to go through doors to get to them, but it was an open workspace, and that was too much togetherness—even though it was all of them not talking to each other with their headphones on. It was too much togetherness!

So we gutted the right side of the building and built them all their own offices. They’re small, they’re like, I don’t know, six by seven, and they have no ceilings. You know, so it’s like eight-foot-tall ceilings, but the room is 14 feet tall, or whatever. And so, in the windows—because they all have windows into each other, windows that face each other—there are LED lights with a color-coded system. You’re allowed to talk to them when the light is green. [Laughter]

Sarah Segal:
Nooooo!

Jaci Russo:
Oh, yes. Yes, my friend.

Sarah Segal:
I love that. But those are designers, though.

Jaci Russo:
Yes!

Sarah Segal:
That’s a little bit different. But what about your account managers?

Jaci Russo:
Hold on, we’ll get to them. That’s a different group in the building. But if the light is red, don’t even. And if it’s like shades of yellow, blue, and green, you can inquire if it’s necessary. But that’s how much they just don’t want to deal with anything. So they for sure don’t want to know every time a client has a thought. On the other side of the building is my team. My team is what Sarah called account managers, what we call brand developers. They are the people the clients interact with. Period. Full stop.

And so Molly, who’s our president of client success, she’s been elevated up through the ranks in the almost 10 years she’s been here. And so she is the point of contact for, I don’t know, probably seven, eight clients. And so, client talks to Molly, Molly disseminates, asks questions, determines, and then shares with the appropriate people what they need to know, when they need to know it, the way they need to know it. And then when they’ve done their work, they send it back to Molly. She reviews it. She makes sure it’s right. It goes to proofing and whoever else for whatever else, but it doesn’t go to the client until Molly sends it to the client. She’s the point of contact.

Sarah Segal:
Question for you.

Jaci Russo:
Yes, please.

Sarah Segal:
How senior is Molly?

Jaci Russo:
I mean, in age of like the calendar, she’s 54.

Sarah Segal:
Yeah, so she’s been doing this for a while, right?

Jaci Russo:
Oh gosh, yeah. She’s been here, I think, almost 10 years.

Sarah Segal:
So, yes, I see that the model that you have works in theory, for your industry. But for my business, we have clients that aren’t just PR. We have clients that are PR, influencers, social media, and events, and those are four different groups within my company with four different levels of expertise. So if that person existed that had all of that skill-set, that could be the one point of contact for a client that taps into all of our groups. That would be an amazing fix, but that’s kind of a unicorn in my industry.

Jaci Russo:
Well, we went with the theory that nobody knows everything all the time, and so Molly does spend some time saying, “I’m not sure. Let me check with the team on that,” or, “Ooh, that’s a great question, let me get the team’s view.” And so she doesn’t always know everything. And even if she does know, she probably isn’t going to say it immediately, because she wants to take a beat to do some research, look it up. Does this match what they told us last time? And so we really have worked into our training: No rapid fire responses, be thoughtful in how you reply.

Sarah Segal:
So, where you’re a little bit more, and I’m going to align this with a restaurant. Your account manager is more like a serve. They’re going to the table, they’re talking to the people, they’re getting what they want. And they’re going back to the kitchen, your team, and they’re creating that.

Jaci Russo:
Correct!

Sarah Segal:
That’s not how we operate. We sell ourselves as: We are in the kitchen with you, developing the recipes. And so it’s just a different service model, where it’s important for my team to be all looped in. Because I believe that there has to be that kind of one-on-one dialog to create the hooks and creativity that are needed for what we particularly do.

Jaci Russo:
Well, we use the restaurant analogy too, all the time. And so our theory is, if the waitstaff and the maitre d and the client and the kitchen staff are all together in the kitchen, that’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen, and all of a sudden everybody has opinions on how much salt should be in this dish. So we prefer to keep them at the table, and we serve them.

And we have front of the house, back of the house. I’m in charge of the front-of-house team. Michael’s in charge of the back-of-the-house team. And so the brand developers are coordinating between the table and the kitchen, and we want to know about allergies. We want to know about food profile preferences. We want to know about taste. We want to know about budget. We want to know all that. But the team in the back? I just want them cooking.

Sarah Segal:
Yeah, I see where you are with that, but it’s just very different models, and we couldn’t be successful with that model. I think it works well for a little bit more of the advertising space, but like, what about PR? Like, is your account manager also relaying the PR needs for your client?

Jaci Russo:
Yeah, she tells Vivian, who’s our PR coordinator, what the client needs. Really, we try to be proactive about it, so Vivian goes to Molly and says, “This is what I’ve come up with for this client for the next quarter.” Molly pitches it. Vivian will be on the call to answer questions, and then Vivian goes away again to go do the work.

Sarah Segal:
Okay, so they do join the calls, then.

Jaci Russo:
But maybe once a quarter. Maybe.

Sarah Segal:
Wow.

Jaci Russo:
Probably twice a year, tops.

Loren Feldman:
And Jaci, Molly is the point person for literally every client?

Jaci Russo:
No, no, no, she has a roster of seven or eight clients. And then Jackson has a roster of clients, and Mary has a roster of clients. So, no, the brand developers are their own—just like waiters at a restaurant, they have their own section of tables.

Loren Feldman:
Got it.

Lena McGuire:
Yeah, and that’s very similar to how I work, too. We have project coordinators, so you know, not every person is an expert in tile or flooring or cabinetry or countertop. So we have different specialists, but the project coordinator is the one that makes sure that all the information is gathered, all of the qualifications are there, that all the preferences are made, and that it’s one person in contact. And it works well.

And then we have a meeting where everybody gets together, so that we have a handoff meeting, so when it goes to construction, everybody is on the same page, and each person is contributing their part to it. But it’s all functions of little parts that everybody’s working together on as the team, and then the coordinator is the person who is basically the head of that particular project. And I found that one person can handle comfortably, if they are experienced, five to seven projects simultaneously. Once you get past seven, you need to have a second project coordinator.

Jaci Russo:
Right.

Sarah Segal:
Are your brand managers and project coordinators—do they actually do any of the work, or are they really—

Lena McGuire:
No, their work is holding it together.

Jaci Russo:
Yeah, me too. Their job is holding it together.

Sarah Segal:
It’s a different model.

Jaci Russo:
It’s a different model.

Lena McGuire:
It is. They tend to be people persons. So they are the front end. Jaci is talking about the front end vs. the back end. And my business, I run the front end, and my virtual assistant, Sarah, runs the back end. And my clients know: If this is a back-end question, you call Sarah. If this is a front-end question, you call me. So, we’re separating it into production versus design, so everybody has the expectations.

And I’m telling you, I’ve been working on that. I made the switch a few years ago. My clients love it. Sarah gives me in our Friday morning meeting, she catches me up: “Oh yeah, I spoke to this client, that client, the other client.” And if it’s something important, she calls me right away. But usually, it just waits until Friday, because she’s already dealt with it. Because it’s an issue that she can handle. She has the authority and the permission and the credit card to deal with it.

Sarah Segal:
I mean, I think that’s super interesting. We do have some clients where not all the team is on a client call, and there is some distribution on a call. But going back to the comms stuff, the team needs to be up to date with what’s going on. I mean, yeah, we could probably have that one person, but I always worry, what happens if your project manager—do you have duplication of services, Jaci and Lena? What happens if Molly is out sick? Like, she’s gone into the hospital, and she’s going to be there with Ebola for three weeks.

Jaci Russo:
Okay, hi! That’s real specific and awful. Let’s not say Molly’s in the hospital with Ebola. How about she goes on vacation to Germany for two weeks, which she did last year? How about we do that?

Sarah Segal:
Okay, okay. But that was planned. I’m talking about unplanned.

Jaci Russo:
Oh, unplanned. I mean, yeah, you know, she had cancer a couple years ago. She has had unplanned things. And we use Basecamp as our project management system. And so every single thing is tracked in there. Jackson or Mary, or any of the team, or me, any of us, can log in to any client, any project, see exactly where it is, see the notes, see recordings of calls, meetings, see transcripts, and pick up right where we left off. It’s all documented.

Lena McGuire:
So I work in DesignFiles, which helps me get the project from start to finish, but it’s lacking in communication. So that’s why I started with this new—well, I call it project management, but that’s the new software I was talking about a few podcast [episodes] ago that’s very difficult to learn. But the idea is that all communication goes through that and all the project stuff, so it’s combining everything into one place. And then anybody on the team can log into that, including my trades. They have a spot where they can see their section of it, so that if I upload a new drawing, or if we have a new product that we’re substituting, they can see in real time what’s going on. So this software that connects everybody, that’s really a wonderful tool to have.

Loren Feldman:
Listening to this conversation, it occurs to me—and correct me if I’m wrong about this—but it seems to me that this is, to some extent, an issue of what you see as the bigger risk. Is the bigger risk a client feeling neglected or an employee feeling burdened? Jaci, does that framing make sense to you? And which do you see as the bigger risk?

Jaci Russo:
Well, so for us, this is how we’ve done it for 25 years, and it came out of me working at agencies before I started this company. And we did it a different way, and I never liked that way. And so I built this model because I thought this was the best of all the versions I had been experienced with. I mean, I did freelance media buying for seven agencies for a year, almost two years, and so I got the inside scoop on how a lot of agencies work. And I had been a client of an agency, when I was an in-house marketing director for a regional company. And so, using all of that, plus, when I started, man, I read every book anybody had ever written on running an agency.

And so we weren’t big enough to do the thing I really love, which is that each client has its own room. And so when you’re working on that client, all the team works out of that room. And that’s when you have Dell and Delta as two of your clients. You can do that. We don’t have those clients, and so for us, this was the model that made the most sense for how I wanted the experience to feel, how I wanted the communication to be shared, and what I thought was the best use of time. And this was before recorded calls and transcripts. It’s so much even better now, because instead of having four or five people on a call, those four or five people can go watch that call, read that call in fast time, hit the highlights of that call, or just know what Molly says is important from the call.

Loren Feldman:
But which do you see as the bigger risk: a client feeling neglected or an employee feeling burdened?

Jaci Russo:
In my 25 years, the only thing I’ve heard consistently is, in my system, an employee feeling burdened. Clients don’t complain. Clients feel like they have a person that they love. And we move people around sometimes. You don’t have the same person for 10 years straight. One of our longest clients, 15 years, they’re on probably their fifth brand developer, because fresh blood, fresh ideas. It’s good to keep things fresh, you know?

And so I try to think about moving them every three, four, five years, so it doesn’t get too stagnant. But my people still say they feel burdened. And it’s interesting. They said it before we went to a four-day work week. They say it now that we have a four-day work week. They say it when they have three clients. They say it when they have six clients. So I’m inclined to believe they grumble. [Laughter]

Loren Feldman:
Sarah, how would you answer that question? Which do you see as the bigger risk?

Sarah Segal:
Unhappy clients or unhappy team?

Loren Feldman:
Yeah.

Sarah Segal:
Unhappy team.

Loren Feldman:
It’s interesting to me, because, even just on this podcast, we know there are businesses that take a very different approach. William Vanderbloemen has spoken here—his firm does executive recruiting—they have what William calls a policy of radical responsiveness. And they test that in potential employees. When somebody comes in and interviews and then goes home, they call and thank them for coming in—or text them, I don’t know how they do it, but they reach out—and they expect an immediate response. And if they don’t get it, they don’t hire the person. At least, that’s what William has told us here. So, there are businesses that are clearly choosing to err on the side of making the client happy. I’m hearing that less here. I wonder if anybody has a reaction to that.

Sarah Segal:
I have a reaction to that. I mean, like, honestly, then they’re just not the client for you. I would say this to kids when they come out of college, and they’re looking for their first job. You should be interviewing them as much as they’re interviewing you. Because you don’t want to go somewhere where it’s not going to meet the values that you cherish, and that you’ve built.

And we do the same thing. Sometimes, I pass on clients. They can wave dollar signs any which way they want, but sometimes they’re just—I don’t think I can be successful for them for whatever reason, but we’re not transactional. What we do is a relationship. We’re building your brand. We’re helping you communicate it to the outside world. And so we have to be able to speak the same language. And if you don’t understand the language of me saying, “Hey, I need to be able to make sure that my team is spending their time wisely to benefit your work,” and they don’t agree with that, then they’re not a client for us. That’s all.

Loren Feldman:
Jaci, do you ever get a comment from a client like, “Can we cut out the middleman here? We want to talk directly with the people who are doing the work.”

Jaci Russo:
I do hear that maybe once or twice a year with a new client, but we do a pretty good job, I think, of educating them on how the system is set up and why the system works this way. And we don’t hear it very often, really, at all. And so, now when I do hear it is if there is some pushback from the client on some campaign, and so Molly, before the client even asks, Molly will say, “I’ll tell you what. I’m going to bring in Michael and Jonathan and Christa, who created all this, and I’m going to have them join our call tomorrow. And let’s all talk about what we’re hearing, versus what you’re saying, and make sure we get on the same page.” And so we’ll do that kind of thing.

And again, like I told Sarah, that happens once, maybe twice a year. And I think a lot of the reason why we don’t have as many of those challenges is because we start with a strategic brand plan. And so, just like where Lena starts with the blueprint, everybody’s working off of the same vision and plan. Now we’re all just executing it. So it’s not as much of us going to a table to take an order and saying, “Okay, now who are you? What do you want?” Instead, it’s saying, “Okay, we developed this cookbook together. You’ve approved this cookbook. We’re starting on page three.” “Yeah? Great, let’s go.”

Loren Feldman:
Have any of you ever had an employee leave and take clients with them?

Sarah Segal:
Oooh, I have a good answer to that. But I’ll let other folks go first.

Jaci Russo:
I have not. I’ve had three, four—I think, in 25 years, I’ve had four people leave to go work directly for clients with my support and encouragement. And I’ve had one or two—I’m gonna say two—go and work for another agency. So that’s six who theoretically could have taken clients with them, I guess. I haven’t had anybody leave and go work freelance that I can think of, so yeah. And so of those six and the others, no, I haven’t had anybody take a client, knock wood.

Loren Feldman:
Do you think your system has protected you to some extent?

Jaci Russo:
No, because the people who went to go work for other agencies, those two were direct points for clients. And the ones who went to go work for clients had direct relationships with clients. And so, yeah, at any point, any of those could have conceivably turned to the rest of the roster and said, “Come on, let’s take a trip.” And so, either they didn’t ask or the clients didn’t say yes, because we have not had that happen.

Loren Feldman:
Sarah?

Sarah Segal:
So in my contracts with clients now, there is a provision that says they cannot steal my staff. Period. In California, where I am located, I cannot restrict people from opportunity. So I can tell my clients, “No, no.” But I can’t tell my team to do anything in particular. But in 2023 we had a bit of a downturn, and I had to lay off three very talented people, and one of those people was beloved by one of our clients. They had a relationship that extended beyond the to-dos of the company and was a lot more intimate—not more intimate in terms of like, “Hey, how are you doing?” Friendly, like non-work related stuff.

And so, when I let her go, the client then said, “Hey, yeah, we’ve decided to go a different direction, and we’re gonna do something different with our communication needs.” And then, like, a week later, hired her. And I never faulted her for—obviously, I wanted her to take a role, because I couldn’t afford to have her anymore. But it pissed me off, where I was like, “That’s never going to happen again.” I want my clients to have good relationships with my team, but we’re not like having lunch and being buddy buddy with our clients. It’s not what we’re doing, because if the relationship becomes too friendly, it becomes a risk for me.

Loren Feldman:
That seems like a real point of tension, because you want your employee to establish strong relationships with your clients so that they—

Sarah Segal:
Professional relationships.

Loren Feldman:
Sure, but strong relationships, and yet it sounds like to some extent, you want them to hold back a little bit and not get too close.

Sarah Segal:
They shouldn’t be texting them, like, emojis. There’s a limit, right? And I think you all understand that there’s a difference between a professional relationship and a relationship. We should be having a professional relationship with our clients.

Loren Feldman:
Are you suggesting romantic relationships?

Sarah Segal:
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I’m just saying that there’s a sense of, “Okay, well, this is a client, and I’m gonna have a client relationship with them.” Period. And not be like hanging out and going to the movies and dinner. And I’m not saying intimate. I’m just saying, more of a coworker-friend relationship, as opposed to, “I am providing a service to you, and we have a good professional relationship.”

Loren Feldman:
Jaci, would you be happy or sad if Molly went to the movies with someone from one of your clients?

Jaci Russo:
Well, she wouldn’t, because she’s got a husband and seven kids. She’s busy, and also we don’t live in the same towns as our clients. So that would be hard. Now, they travel to us. We have one client that, for the past I think it’s seven straight years, they’ve done their executive leadership annual retreat in Lafayette. And so they have people travel from Los Angeles, San Francisco, D.C., Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta, and they all meet here and do their annual retreat here. And I think they do it here partly because of us, and a lot because it’s a low cost of living, and they can eat and drink really well for very little money compared to the big markets they live in.

Sarah Segal:
But if your clients lived next door, would you care if Molly was like hanging out after hours with—

Jaci Russo:
See, none of my people are like that. They’re older. So maybe that’s part of it, but even Jackson, who’s in his late 20s, he would not. I can’t even get him to go to a networking thing here in town. But my point is, when that client comes in, there is after-hours eating and drinking and going out, but it’s a group. It’s not like Molly and their CEO.

Sarah Segal:
I understand it’s not your reality, but I’m saying, iin this scenario, where—maybe it’s not Molly. Maybe you hired Jane, and Jane is like, “Oh, let’s go get happy hour.”

Jaci Russo:
Yeah, no, I did have that happen once. I had a copywriter who fancied herself to be a brand developer, and I think she was trying to work her way into that role, and so she went to New Orleans for a meeting with the client. And then they went to dinner, and then she had too much to drink, and then she slept over at the client’s condo. And we shut that shit down.

Sarah Segal:
Yeah.

Jaci Russo:
Like, she’s calling me from the bathtub, from the bathroom, freaking out. [Laughter] I was like, “Well, then you’re the one who shouldn’t have drunk so much. Like, I don’t know what to tell you. You made poor choices.” And that was her last week with us. So, yes, if I did hire someone who did not have the common sense to have good boundaries, they would be retrained and then released, because we are a boundaries place.

Loren Feldman:
We need to wrap this up, but one last question for all of you. Do any of you have the sense that one system or the other is better for a founder who is thinking about eventually stepping away from running the business? Does either system put you in a better position to turn the day-to-day operations over to someone else?

Jaci Russo:
I think mine does, because I’m making sure I’m out of every system. I don’t have a roster of clients. I’m not doing the graphic design, thank goodness. I mean, no one would pay for that. They would make me pay them to use it. And so, you know, slowly but surely, I’ve removed myself from every day-to-day work that we do for clients. And so when it’s time to transition this place, people won’t notice I’m not here.

Lena McGuire:
I agree with Jaci. The same thing, because right now people expect me to do all the design work, but I have other designers that I work with. And they give me some of the concepts, and we work together, and I still do the presenting. But I am building the business to be much more like Jaci, so that I can step away. I don’t want to have my face as the face of the business. I go by my company name, not my own name, so that they are introduced to the people they’ll be working with. And that’s just going to make it easier to transition as I get closer to retiring.

Sarah Segal:
So I think there’s an assumption that, like, I’m on every call, which is not the case. There’s a team for each client, and they’re who’s on the call. So yeah, I can transition and walk away, because there’s not going to be any change. And the benefit of having more than one person lead a client is that I like my team members to feel like they have a partner in crime. So that way, if there is something that needs to be done and they have a personal emergency or they have some other priority that they need to do, somebody is out on the same path as them. And they’re not burdened with the keeper of all the knowledge. And I feel like the creativity on these calls, when we have that dialog, and when we’re in the kitchen with the client, I think that that’s what people hire us for.

And so, while I admire the idea of an account manager, I don’t know that—first of all, that person doesn’t exist who would have the knowledge that would be necessary. And I never want to say to a client, “Oh well, thank you for that request on the thing that you want to do. I’m going to go back to the team and discuss it.” Because I actually really love hearing things. I think I don’t want anybody to ever have to play operator, and that’s how I see that.

Loren Feldman:
Well, it sounds to me like all three of you firmly believe that you are doing things in a way that is right for your business, and that’s the right answer. [Laughter] So, thank you all for sharing and comparing notes. My thanks to Lena McGuire, Jaci Russo, and Sarah Segal, and a special thanks to our sponsor. This episode was brought to you by Grasshopper Bank. Thanks for listening, everyone.