Getting Real with Angela Pointon — 11outof11

Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing, but you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective, and really well done? I think docsa Talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent, and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxa talent for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have Talk to Docs of Talent and you won't be disappointed. Go to docsatant.com Bill G Again, that's doxatant.com Bill G One more time. Doxatalent.com Bill G Check it out. Today we're talking to another entrepreneur about the growth of their business. It's another of our accelerator stage companies. We're talking about the development of that business and about their leadership. Listen in. Hi everyone, my name is Bill Gallagher. I'm the host of the show and Scaling Coach in the San Francisco Bay Area. Every week we bring a couple of three of these podcast episodes to you. We record them live that go out on video and then we bring the audio to all of the podcasting platforms out there that we can know and find. It's all about how to grow and scale your business and that and more. You'll find hundreds of episodes now at our website, scalingcoach.com or wherever you get your podcast content. The show notes always have all the background on our guests and their tools and ideas and links and things like that that we talk about. Find all that and more@scalingcoach.com this show is sponsored by the Bay Area Entrepreneurs Organization chapters. We've got three chapters of the EO organization in the Bay Area and those EO members are connected to other EO members around the world. Over 14,000 now. But among the three chapters, it's a peer led organization of entrepreneurs helping entrepreneurs learning and growing together. It's fun, it's interesting, it's supportive, it's all that. Entrepreneurs have faced unique challenges that not everybody else gets and when we come together to learn and support each other through it, it's just a experience. So that's the EO organization and one of the programs within that is the Accelerator program which we have one of in the Bay Area that I launched some years ago and we're joined today by a guest from that program. But if you'd like information or to apply for membership in EO, you'll go to eonetwork.org again, it's eonetwork.org for information about the EO network and everything you want to know about that. So I'm joined by Angela Pointon, who's going to talk to us about the growth of her business. She's just outside of the Philadelphia area in a town. Who. His name I can't reproduce. Say it again.

Ardmore.

Ardmore.

Correct.

Funny that that's a struggle for me. Who. Anyway, or maybe it's just more remembering it. Right. Anyway, it's not easy of this thing. So Angela's got a marketing agency. We've got a lot of those in that. And of course we need a lot of them because you need one for every company. And in lots of different rooms, we're going to find out what's unique about her and growing her business and how she's benefited and which of the tools she's using and all of that and more. So welcome to show Angela.

Thanks, Phil. It's fun to be here.

Thank you. So you started this business how long ago?

It's been about four years this coming summer.

Yeah. And the name 11 out of 11, what does that refer to? What's the reference there?

Yeah. So I went to school for marketing and started in internal marketing departments, but then only lasted maybe a year or two right out of college and started working in the agency world. And what I found in the agency world was oftentimes people were so busy, you know, kind of the knock against agency life as they work you almost to death. And people were so busy that whenever a new client came on, it was kind of like, okay. And they would give the client the team that had the least amount of work, which, relatively speaking, everybody had a lot of work. But the client always got the. The team who had the least amount of work. And I found starting 11 out of 11, I wanted to do things differently. And we could talk about that a little bit. But ultimately the name goes to trying to do better than those other agencies and score higher than a 10 out of 10.

Take it to 11. One of my favorite clips ever. From there you go. But these go to 11. In fact, we've been talking about how we want all of our work to go to 11. We don't want just settle for level 10 with things. We want to take it a little bit further, be a little bit cooler and. And there's a kind of a playfulness with that that is not appreciated by everyone. An irreverence, a snarkiness even. I don't know that's not for everyone, but I like it. If I had queued up here, I would play these. Go to 11 clip for you.

There you go. People can do that on their phones.

No, if you have. If you don't know the clip, you should play it.

So.

Or maybe I have it here too. Hang on, let's see if I have that.

This is a top to, you know, what we use on stage. But it's very, very special because if you can see, yeah, the numbers all go to 11. Look right across the board. 11.

11.

Most of the amps go up to 10. Exactly.

Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?

Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not 10. You see, most, most blokes, you're going to be playing at 10. You're on 10 here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up. You're on 10 on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?

I don't know.

Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?

Put it up to 11.

Exactly one louder.

Why don't you just make 10 louder and make 10 be the top number and make that a little loud.

These go to 11.

These go to 11. So talk about what's different about the firm. What's different or unique about your work? It's hard to differentiate, right? Sometimes people say there's actually not a lot, but what? I don't know. What. Can you share?

Yeah, sure. So, like I said, it's about four years old. What we do specifically is content marketing. There's a gazillion different avenues of marketing, but we decided to focus on content. And what that really means is we become the ghost authors for our clients and take the brunt of the work authoring content like blog posts, email campaigns, ebooks, white papers, nurture sequences, social media posts, all those things that just are time consuming and often, you know, kind of get pushed to the wayside. You put out a blog post in January, you're eager to go with the new year, and then it's really hard to keep up with the such things from a business model perspective. When I started the agency, I also wanted to do things differently from a setup and structure perspective. So everyone that works at the agency is a subcontractor to 11 out of 11 got about 55 different team members. We have nine core team members that work with our clients every day. But then our creative team is, you know, our biggest team is our writing Team, of course, but we also have design team members, website developers, email marketing experts. We use a tool called HubSpot for all of our clients marketing. So we have HubSpot experts on our team as well. But that gives that flexibility in a client coming on board and not getting the team that just happens to be available. We can pull the resources together to try and build the best team for the client, whether that's industry expertise or whether that's specific niche expertise from a marketing discipline that is needed there. So it gives the client, in my opinion, the best team of resources that are the experts in what they need rather than just who's got some extra time on their plate.

Interesting. What do you feel like has been your sort of biggest break or luckiest thing so far in. In developing the business?

One of my biggest breakthroughs, I would say, and where I think we've been quote, unquote lucky. I've always felt that client agency relationships can be tenuous. Right. Like, look at that, men, right? There's like people walking out of conference rooms on each other and all that stuff. I know it's a TV show, but those stereotypes are somewhat true.

They're based on something.

They're based on something. I really did not like that part, that negative feeling or the animosity sometimes that's going on when people are discussing ideas on how to grow brands or grow businesses. I really love building strong relationships with people. And I know that sounds corny, but honestly, that's been like the luckiest thing. If I had to pick something about 11 out of 11 is building those deep relationships with the entrepreneurs that we work with. And being the voice of the brand, you kind of have to have that relationship and that trust. But it also, from a business perspective, for me, it causes less attrition, you know, when you have strong relationships with people. You know, we've worked with some of the clients since day one of starting the agency. And that part is meaningful to me as a person as much as it is meaningful to me as a business person.

So if that's what you've gotten lucky with and where you've been fortunate, what do you think has been your biggest mistake or regret? What have you screwed up so far?

Yeah, I am just by nature a very analytical person. I really love thinking and making decisions based on things. And I think despite that, one thing that I do is judge situations constantly, but judge them very quickly. And sometimes I'll be talking with a prospect. You know, in eo you talk about sales a lot and work on those Things. And one thing that I've uncovered is sometimes I judge a prospect too quickly, like, ah, this isn't a good fit, or this person doesn't really know what they want to buy or. And some of those things may be true, but I have to remind myself that I'm the guide and I'm there to help them, even if they do business with somebody else. Right. So I think one of my personal unlucky unluckies that I've been working on is judging situations of opportunity too quickly.

Yeah, it's funny how that happens with situations with people with.

Yeah, you think, you think with time you're gonna get better. Like, oh, well, you know, in the early days, you end up wasting time, right? Because you don't really know. And everything is glass half full and I'm gonna make something awesome out of nothing. And I think that as you get older, at least for me, I am striving to be less naive. But sometimes I go too far, you know, and I'm like, oh, this isn't gonna work out and I should keep that open mind a little bit.

I think, you know, I do that just as much as any other human being, maybe more so. I think if you. If you're smart or think you're smart, you will do it. You'll lean into that a little bit more. But I also love those surprise reality shows and clips and things that, you know, where somebody comes up and they're really sort of unassuming or whatever and they seem like they're kind of a sad sight and then they like belt out this amazing song or they do whatever they. And I. And so I've learned that, yes, people like, you can pick out an awful lot and they will be true to some of those appearance stereotypes and things like that. There, There'll be some substantial alignment there, but there's a whole world of something that's missing, right. That is interesting and rich and that kind of thing. And those are some of the more entertaining surprises. I know that, like, just about myself, right? I know that I look a certain way and I act a certain way and then. But there's a whole world of stuff that. That, see, that is like out of sync with that appearance. And that's actually kind of fun to let that fly sometimes. Right. And so the same must be for other people, that there are real beautiful and surprising things about them. But it's a challenge. I think we struggle with that, like our whole life. And I'm sure some of our listeners do that. The main thing I know. Is that. Is that now with time. Oh, there's something more here. What is it that I'm missing? What is it that I don't yet see?

Yeah. And I think to your point, it's really cool when people open up to you, you know, even if it is in the sales conversation or business conversation, when you start learning the human aspects of people they're willing to share, that's where the relationship starts and it starts getting cool. So long as you're not learning offensive things. Right. You know, but when you're learning. And I think, honestly, like, now that people are working from home even more, just picking out things in the background of their zoom room is super cool. Like, hey, so you got a guitar back there? Tell me about that. You know, what, you taking lessons right now? You know, those sorts of things have been fun to play around with, to try and build those relationships and get at people's what they're thinking a little bit more.

That's the drawback, I think, with some of the, like, fake background stuff, we use green screen backgrounds. We as the green screen backgrounds. We're doing slides and graphics in doing things. But most of the time, you know, that's just the. The back side of my office behind me. It's a real. People are like, is that real? And if I go grab one of the books, you'll see that it is. But I think that. And. And not everybody is fortunate enough to do that. Many people's home office became their garage or a closet or a corner that wasn't so photogenic. And so they've done and relied on some of those tools. But if you can get and appreciate the world. One of the things that most connected me to a client more than anything else was who was using a background. As I said, tell me about where you're actually sitting. And she said that she was, in fact, in a closet where she'd been working for months during the early stages of the pandemic. And she'd been in a very, very, very small, like, studio apartment with her partner for months, and they'd both been working from home in this t place, and she's working in this closet. And I was like, oh, my God. I had such appreciation and empathy for her humanity. It didn't diminish her in any way in my world. It actually enhanced her character, in my view, that she worked that way. Now she's since moved into a bigger, nicer place, and she doesn't have to do that anymore. But, you know, the. The. Where the TV and the bookshelves are behind me at one point was bunk beds when my kids were young. Right. My kids are grown and out living on their own in the world today. But. But at what point that was a bunk bed. And if I'd been doing this, like so many of us are, the kids would have come in and jumped on my lap while I was talking to people, and that would have been a very real kind of thing. Like, getting some reality into it makes, I think, a big difference. That's beautiful that you said that.

I hope we never lose that. It is precious.

Yes. So you talked about challenge in processes and mistakes or regrets in that before. Say more about that. What process specifically? What. What aspect of it were you challenged by?

Yeah. So ironically, at our EOA in Philadelphia, we just had Execution Day. Processes are not my favorite. Processes are not my favorite thing at all. I love a good process, but I don't love working on a process. And when we were in our early years, and I think people can pro. Hopefully this is not unique to us. I don't think it is. We just kind of winged it, and we were like, whatever, you know, and it kind of worked for this client. Maybe we'll try something different for the next client engagement. Maybe we'll try this, or. Nothing was documented, Nothing was consistent, and it certainly became more obvious as the more people came on board and I was doing less of the client work directly and those sorts of things. Now, thankfully, we have a member of our team who is, you know, her name might as well be Process. She's amazing, and she does like it, and she appreciates the value of it. And thank goodness, because I feel like we're a good complement to one another. She can document. She can bounce it off of me. I could say, yeah, that looks good, or maybe we should insert this, or, you know, we make a good team in that way. But it was something that I was like, process schmassia. Like, we'll work on it when we need it. And don't you know that you need it before you've got it documented? Execution day, in all honesty, was painful for me because it is not my core skill set. You know, people who have that obsession or like to work on that. I imagine that day is like the best day. But for me, it was very challenging. I will say I got a lot out of it, of course. A lot of value in realizing some weaknesses from a process perspective or, you know, even processes that I only own. No other team member touches it. But I know as we scale and Grow. There will be more things, more people engaged in things that I just do on my own right now. And so to learn the lesson, I think it's getting those things down before you need to roll it out to anyone else so you have time to marinate on it, you know, optimize it. I don't think that part is ever done before. You gotta bring someone on and say, here's what I did, you know, kind of figure it out. Instead, it's, here's what I did, here's my documentation on it. I'm open to improvements. Give it a whirl.

Let's talk about execution and about the process for a minute before we move into some of the other stuff, because I think it is really useful. We all tackle it from different places. Many of us, the visionary founder types in the business, love creating things, but we don't necessarily love operating them over time and refining them and that kind of thing. I love processing, not using process, but having process and designing process. I don't love tweaking process and that kind of thing, but I love doing it. I find that, like, what you said is gold there, that, like, you found somebody who loves process. You can't scale the business if you don't lean into process and get good at people and all the other decisions. But if you don't do that, it's just you doing random things again and again and again, and that's expensive and not profitable. It doesn't scale at all, which is fine if you're going to be a craftsperson for the rest of your life doing certain kinds of artwork or whatever. But. But if you want to grow and scale the business, then one of those things that you have to learn to do and work with is process. And if it's not in your nature to do it, you have to understand it enough that you can then hire a person and let them do the job to do it. But I always love kind of the mapping. You probably saw a video in your. In your session there, how to draw toast. And then you probably worked on mapping out some processes. Did you map one of your own or did you do one of the group or did you do something arbitrary?

I did our hiring process, which currently, yeah, currently I am 80% of it is me. You know, we have a recruiter on the front end and we have somebody who interviews some. A candidate that is kind of almost past the finish line as the last step. And that was very helpful. I love the toast video, which I think people can just Google. It was a Great video. Yeah, yeah. But I think one for me, what caused me to get serious about it was realizing that I had pulled some people into the business. There were team members who were trying to emulate things that I did and the lack of documentation wasn't fair to them. You know, how can you expect somebody to execute something well if they're trying to figure it out and read your mind, that's really not a fair situation to put them in. I would want to be put in that situation. And the likelihood of success is diminished because you're putting them in that situation. So for me it was kind of like I can do better. Right. Even though this is not something I'm passionate about, I can help out, you know, Lauren or Michelle or whomever it is by jotting down. Now we have more sophisticated tools, but at the time, jotting down at least the steps.

Right. In your. So in. In the world of execution, it's not just the process of course, but the whole system of regular cadence of meetings that we use to run the business well. And then the practice of creating priorities that align to some long term things, deciding what those are and narrowing down to a few things so that we don't just do random things well and. And then having the right kinds of display of priority status and KPIs and things like that, that's visible. So those three main disciplines is kind of core to it. And then there's the optimizing process. But that represents a set of tools within the overall process of managing the business. And I'm not a great execution person and I often suffered in terms of running a business. But when I embraced and put all those things into the business, it allowed me to disconnect it, let do their jobs. And I managed for the first time in my career to go away for a whole month at a critical point in my life when my kids were in that sort of not little kids and not big kids and they wanted to travel with us and do things. And I got a whole month with my family in Italy as a result of implementing those good execution habits. And of course that led to leaving that work and then being able to be a full time coach eventually. So discovery, disengage from the business in that way. So it's just a huge opportunity. I think it's great and it's great when you recognize like how I hate this part of it, like I struggle with this. That's useful insight to know that there's a. It's not that you have to let that go like you know, you'll hate that forever, but knowing that about yourself is powerful. Right?

That's a good motivator. I like your trip to Italy. I can visualize it and see the benefits of, of something that is grueling. You know, for me, I have a.

Years, like for more than a week. And even that was a struggle. But then I work and I was like, boom, okay, we went. But it took me, you know, 10 months.

Well, that's not that long, I don't think. I mean, it probably was a painful 10 months, but hey, you spent a month in Italy, so there's the reward at the end. Yes, for me it would be. I grew up with four really close friends and one of them moved to New Zealand maybe 10 years ago. And we've always talked about, hey, we should go. Well, if you're going to go to New Zealand, you're not going for a weekend. You know, that's a commitment by the time you get adjusted to the time zone and stuff. And that would be, you know, it's funny how you mentioned a trip, but that would be the motivator for me to be like, okay, if I'm going to be able to do this, I have to be able to step away. And if I am able to step away, that means all this stuff is documented. Everybody's clear on the goals, the KPIs, everything that you just mentioned. So having a tangible at the end, I don't think is a bad thing.

Nice. So in getting ready for the show, you said the most valuable one for you so far, you just did the execution day. So we'll see how that goes over time. But up to now, it's been the cash, tools and the power of one in particular. Talk about what was your business like before you learned about the power of one. What did you learn and how are things today?

Yes. So Cash day was my first day, meaning first, you know, full day program as an EOA member. And I was very green. It happened right after I became a member. So I was just like, okay, books the day and here we go. No idea what was going to be in store. First of all, our trainer is phenomenal.

Shout out, shout out to your trainer. Who's your trainer?

Kim. She's awesome.

Kim.

And yes, she's. And Cash day for me, I found 100% of it valuable. But the most valuable piece was the power of one sheet. And the reason why it was valuable to me was I didn't really know where to start the business. About three years old at that point. I didn't really know where to start. From a pricing perspective. There was marketing agents can be all over the freaking place. There's people in their garage charging a hundred dollars to do something, and there's Madison Avenue advertising agencies charging hundreds and hundreds of thousand dollars for like large brands. Right. So when you're finding your niche, pricing is a big factor in determining where you fall on that cycle.

For sure. Yep.

So I kind of just like closed my eyes, then picked. Right. And as I. As time went on, I realized, throw a dart. Exactly. And of course, when you're new, you go low. Right. Because it just seems easier. And so the goal, of course, was raising for me, what ended up being was raising our average monthly retainer rate. So I figured through that tool, if we could raise our average monthly retainer. Retainer rate by a certain percentage with every client that I signed, pretty soon our overall average retainer rate for the entire agency would be climbing up. Right. And I measured that every single month for the past year. Because it really was about a year ago that we had Cash Day. Oh. Which means we have it coming up, which is exciting and we success. I mean, I did better than I ever did set out goals to do because as I started doing it, I was like, well, this is easy. You know, signing a new client, they don't really know nor care what the other clients paid for the service. So just our price is this. Not that it was egregious. As I mentioned, it was really low when we first started things out, so it was appropriate to be offering the services at that price point. But it gave me the mechanism, the courage, the reasoning, the goals for, you know, validating the price that I was starting to price for the services. And I am slowed down with that a little bit because I'm really happy with where we're at right now. But we'll see what happens after this year's Cash Day.

After the next one.

Yeah. Right. I'm sure there'll be another lever to push. Right. And in the right direction. But it was just so eye opening going to through.

I can promise you, recurring revenue is in the next Cash day.

Great. Wonderful.

Because I'm working on it right now.

Nice.

Can't wait. Yeah, I mean, it was, like I said, the entire day was wonderful. But that tool was so simple. I love simple. I'm a big fan of simple. That tool was so simple to just take the emotion out of it, if anything else, and just have it be about pure switching of numbers around and seeing what it could do.

So what can you brag about or what's a superpower that you have? Or maybe it's both.

I think one of the strengths and I give all credit to the team, I personally don't care that they're not full time employees. They're still our team and they deserve all this credit. I think that we, they are extremely good at systems and you were talking about like the critical pieces of process execution, cadences, systems. Not that we're rigid, but we are set on expectations in our engagements and what we are going to do. Whether it is a weekly meeting for a client or a monthly meeting for a client. Here is what is expected of you. Here is what is expected of us. Of course, 11 out of 11 trying to always over deliver on that. But you know, some people will critique marketing firms from being for being cloudy or you know, full of confusion and I never know how things are performing and I hate that stuff and I hate that reputation. And so for me clear expectations, clear monitoring. I mentioned we use HubSpot so we set up analytical dashboards for everybody. We all have access to them real time. That kind of clarity and cadence and I'm going to call it rigidness because it is to a point I think is a superpower and makes our relationships with our clients stickier and more valuable.

And what's your personal superpower?

Empathy. I think, you know, we talked about this a little bit in the beginning. I really do have a passion for learning about different people. I'm not particularly extroverted, would call myself an introvert, but I really love the one on one dialogue with people. Put me in a room of 300 and I have no idea what to do. But in working with people one on one I really enjoy learning about the situations, what their challenges are, what they're super happy about and building on that.

See that's another useful insight. I think as leaders you may notice like if you put me in front of a thousand people, I'm, I really, I know how to like take the stage or do whatever, that kind of thing and one on one I can be pretty good. The small group I have to develop strategies and practices and disciplines around because it's not a natural space for me. And certainly being part of the team versus having a specific role, not comfortable for me. Right. So it doesn't mean I can't do it. I have to have an approach and a strategy so I know these things about myself. Other people are like I never want to take the stage. Some people are like I only want to be one on one or I only, you know, knowing and understanding yourself I think is really useful as you grow and develop.

Yeah, yeah, I've been working on that a lot this year actually. Like being more mindful, I guess you could call it. And I think what you're observing about yourself is, you know, you feel a certain way in certain situations, whether it's a business situation or even could be like at a party or something like that. And I was observing and being like, why do I feel this way? What does this say about me? What does this mean? Where do I not feel this way? Like if I was on stage in front of a thousand people, like you just said I wouldn't be able to go to sleep that night. I would be so amped up on, you know, endorphins and whatever. I would be up until 5am and then I would crash because I don't know how to calm down from that situation. It's just so stimulating to me. But you know, my heart goes out to all the extroverts in the world for the what they've gone through the past year. I, you know, this is the best year of my life. Like I'm so happy. So, yeah, I mean that observation about getting to know who you are and where you thrive and the situations you thrive and coping mechanisms for, like in order for me to be successful in this situation, I know I'm going to have to do X or have X prepared ahead of time is hugely valuable.

Yes. Yeah. Developing strategies and approaches for things that are in our nature and then being able to just acknowledge them. You know, I am so distractible that I have forgotten my own family members names in the middle of talking to someone else. Right. It's like, of course I know who they are and I know their name, but in that moment I'm so not present. My brain is so off in some other place that I'm like, I can't speak their name in that moment. Like I'm blocked and yet. And if I try to play it off, like pretend it's not going on, it just gets weirder and it gets harder. But if I say, I don't know, I'm really distracted right now, I can't even remember my own brother, family, sister, wife's name. Right. Then in that next moment it all comes back. Yeah, there's something just about acknowledging what's going on that's real. Like, oh, I just got distracted by something over on the stage. Right. Like you could lose your crap in front of a thousand people on stage, but if you just actually have enough room for your own humanity, go. Oh, wow, I lost it. Excuse me, everyone. People are like right along with you for the ride, right?

Totally. Everybody loves a humble person, right?

Yeah.

And if you don't try to glaze over something that you're doing, it's. It's almost always better. Love that.

So what's a quirk or bad habit that you have? What do you feel like is weakness, bad habit, oddity about you?

Yeah, we already talked about. Well, no, this is good, right? Hey, we just talked about me having humility. We already talked about my analytical weirdness. I think a quirk about me would probably be that I am not a natural. I'm not naturally comfortable in a leadership role. And I have had to work on that a lot. I'm still working. I don't think I'll ever be done working on that. I think people think there are natural born leaders. Maybe there are. How would we ever know? I think that more so there are people that have to develop leadership skills. That is one thing that I sponge from EO in our accountability groups. Love. Just, I think through dialogue you can learn some of that. Right. As you're talking about business situations with other colleagues and what they're working on, you can pick up on things that are nuanced that they're doing that are good skills to adopt. It could be. You know, oftentimes we seem, our group seems to talk about people a lot and hiring challenges. And so listening to people talk about somebody that's not in the right seat or somebody that they're thinking about hiring and they just want that person to be better than they are and they're just like hoping that it all works out. Right. You can like hear leadership things in dialogue. And that's how I've tried to learn and compensate for something that does not come naturally to me. And I hope I'm doing an okay job at it. I'm really trying, but I think that's considering I'm a business owner. It's kind of a quirky thing to have a fault about.

Yeah, look, it does. You know, we all have whatever it is, like just knowing what it is gives you and being able to say it gives you some room, gives you some, you know, capacity. So if you're chronically late or if you struggle to listen or if you talk too much or whatever it is. Right. We've all got our things. Any of those things make a big difference?

I'm not chronically late. I will tell you that.

Yes. So I want to talk in just a second about your big goals, that kind of thing. And I think I have that video for you too for our viewers. So we'll see about that. But before we do that, let me remind everyone watching, listening that our show is sponsored by the Bay Area Entrepreneurs Organization Chapters EO Network. Known as EO around the World. It's a member led organization where entrepreneurs connect with each other, learn, grow, have some fun, support each other through not only the business, their leadership, but also integrating all that with their regular life and all the challenges of regular life. It's pretty comprehensive organization. We've got three chapters around the Bay Area and of course we have many chapters around the world. You're doing a program there with the Philadelphia area chapter. One of my dear friends also in our coaching organization is from that chapter John Ratliff who heads up our coaching group. And we share a lot of stories from John's background. But you know, we've got all these chapters around the world and they are just a terrific support. It's a member led organization. So unlike some, it's an extraordinary value in the kinds of things that you get from it. But also it's very much a carry your own bag like you have to actually participate in and contribute and take leadership positions and engage in some way. It's not just buy it and use it kind of a thing. So anyway, we've got these things, they're terrific. I suggest you look into it. I've been member for over 21 years through multiple companies and I just think the world of it. I'm a lifer at this point and I'm proud to have them as a sponsor. So if you'd like more information or to apply for membership go to eonetwork.org it's right there on the screen and of course it's all in the show notes that kind of thing as well. Eonetwork.org is the place to go get more information on it. So what are you working on? Where are you trying to take it to now?

Ironically, working on our own marketing is something that we're going to be concentrating on cobblers, kids have no shoes kind of thing. I guess we, we do a decent job at our own content creation. We put out an email and a new blog post once a week for us and I'll get nerdy on you a minute here without going too deep but for us we are in a incredibly competitive landscape. Marketing firms know how to optimize for marketing keywords. Let's you know Cut to the chase. So we do have a niche of working with smaller size organizations. We do have the niche of concentrating on content marketing. We're identifying other niches. We really like clients who are running on some sort of operating system, whether it's scaling up or something like that, and who are really geared toward growth. So we are making affiliations like today's show and working on some other relationships that help align 11 out of 11 with the types of clients that we like working with. So that's something we're concentrating on probably for the entire summer and through the end of the year for 2021.

And do you have a BHAG yet? Have you done that work?

You know, my BHAG is a little bit fuzzy. I would say that from a I know there's like a personal life BHAG some people do, and a business BHAG some people do. And, and where I am, and I'm a year into this and where I am still fuzzy, just to be vulnerable and honest is not having a BHAG that's assigned to a number. To me, like picking a number is easier, but I get it that you can get to the number and then what? Right? So visualizing what that BHAG look and feels like in a more qualitative way is something I'll continue to work on. It's a challenge for sure.

11 out of 11 is clearly a number and a target and there's value in having some specificity for it. A financial BHAG is not particularly useful or powerful in the greatest sense. A purpose centered one is better. So if you look at something declaring a specific mountaintop 10 years or longer. So here's a couple hacks for you. One is have it be about purpose and impact. So think about that and then have your BHAG be associated with that in some way. The financial rewards will come along with it. And then think 10 years or more in the future. Or better yet, think about what do I when do I exit this business? Do I sell it? Is it bought out? Do I close it? Do I retire in this business? Like how long am I going to run this business? And then what kind of impact, size, character, quality, whatever. But get as specific as you can what I like to be able to say about it at the end. And that's your key to creating a powerful bhag. And then all of your decisions about five years, three years, one year next quarter this month become a lot clearer against that long term lens of I want to have that kind of impact. So I'm going to make different decisions about the possible options in front of me in the next little bit than I would if I had a different kind of a bhag. Right directions.

I love that. I feel like that will grow clearer over time. You know, not to try to take the easy route out, but I feel very blessed to be on this journey that I'm on. I didn't expect to be on this journey that I'm on. And I'm very open, which I think for people who feel that way, you know, some can call it meandering, but I think for people that feel that way, having that beacon, the beacon is just not clear yet. Like, I'm in the fog, but I'm like, wherever I go is pretty cool because this is awesome. But I think over time, it'll get clearer.

Yeah. Here's the other thing is it's. It's really up to you. So it's not gonna just the clouds will part and you will see 11 written across the sky. It is that you will consider all the different things and you'll declare a mountaintop for yourself. You'll describe it, you'll pick it, and that's a game to play for a period of time. But it really is up to you to declare and choose whatever you want.

One loud.

Why don't you just make 10 louder and make 10 be the top number and make that a little louder.

These go to 11.

Awesome.

11. Yes. Our companies, our meetings, anything else to settle for? Level 10? We want to keep taking them further. That's the whole point of scaling up. We're not limited by any particular approach. We want to hit four main things, four decision areas across the business. We've got a 4D meeting that we do. We've got the profit power of one cash flow tools. You've touched on so many great things. What do you think is your biggest thing or biggest challenge in the next year?

Biggest challenge in the next year, I feel like for so many people is hiring and staffing now. For us, it looks a little different, but generally speaking, it's the same dilemma. People are very different. I think even more so perhaps where we are right now. People have moved away from their jobs now. Jobs are maybe considering pulling them back in. People have a taste for what remote work was like. Honestly, that was the big thing for us. That was appealing to work from just about anywhere. We didn't care as long as you were relatively close to our time zone. That presents a challenge for us now that's kind of all over the place, isn't it? It's continuing to get to your point, more defined about who we are so we can attract the right people with the right skill sets, of course, but also with people who are embracing the vision and really want to be part of the crew here at 11 out of 11. I don't know that the people problems ever go away with regard to like building team of great people. No, they never do. They never do. I think it's got some unique challenges this year, just how this has all impacted people's both personal and career life.

Yes, that's a great place to leave it. 11 out of 11 is the company name Angela Pointon. 11 out of 11 Angela, thanks so much for joining us today on the show. Remind our listeners that all these shows and more are@scalingcoach.com or wherever you get your podcast content. We love having you back. We love when you give us a review and rate us that kind of thing there. But if you subscribe then you'll get them every week and not miss a one and and it'll be right there for you. So if you want to drop us a note, send an email to info scalingcoach.com find all the rest@scalingcoach.com but the email is info scalingcoach.com thank you Lucy Summers, who's producing the show in the background behind, before, during and after all of our shows. Keeping it ready, making it easy to do my job. Big thanks to Vern Harnish, author and creator of the Scaling Up Framework, and to Albert Burge at Podfly Productions who edits the audio on our show. I Couldena writes up our show notes and Tim McGowan proofreads them before they get all pushed out to the world and share that with everyone. Thanks again everyone for listening. Keep Scaling Up. Are you ready to turn your goals into daily wins? You should check out our Scoreboard software. Powered by Align, it's the official software for Scaling up. With Scoreboard, you'll get an AI driven coach for priorities and KPIs and it'll help keep your team focused on what matters most. With Align, you can track your goals in real time and you'll even see results on the go. With their mobile app. You can rest easy knowing that Align has world class onboarding and support to set your team up for success. This is really more than just software, it's what I actually use to manage growth in our Scaling up client teams. Unlock clarity and results with Scoreboard by Aligned. To try it now, go to aligntoday.com Bill G. One more time. Aligntoday.com Bill G. That's aligntoday.com Bill G. Check it out and try it now.