From Stuck Revenue to Scalable $5M Growth in One Year | 091

If I could help you solve one problem on today's episode, what would that be?

How do I get my business to $5 million? That's the problem.

What do you do when your agency is successful but stuck? Caitlin Koppel, along with her business partner Holly, built Full Swing PR into a $1.2 million business, and now she's ready to break through to the next level. I'm noticing a problem in lead gen. Yeah. There's a, a very simple framework in this. If you imagine a teeter-totter, is Caitlin in sales mode? Or in delivering them?

No, I'm switching back and forth. And I think that division of attention is hard.

What we have to do is put a line right here and you are only allowed to hang out on this side of the line.

I just had an idea.

Yes.

Okay. What if I just—

That's fantastic. Because now what you've done, you've taken the part that you're required to do of the delivery. You have turned it into sales.

Yes.

Let's fast forward at 5 times these numbers. So we're at 10 clients right now. So at 50 clients, If I have a goal of bringing in 3 new clients in this month, then 3 months earlier, I'm going to need a—

I love this and it feels a lot more fun to me too.

Kaitlyn, if I could help you solve one problem on today's episode, what would that be?

How do I get my business to $5 million?

Okay.

That's the problem. I mean, I didn't know how to get it to $1 million and we did that, but we've kind of been hanging out there and I'm ready to like figure out How to get to the next one.

So how many years have you been in business?

6 years. It'll be 7 in February.

Okay. And so what did the first few years look like? And then what are the last few years?

Growth beyond my wildest dreams. I think my dreams were kind of small. Um, I had a 2-year-old when I started full swing at my kitchen counter in 2019. I had kind of had a parting of ways with my last agency job, which really was my only agency job. I'd worked in PR and communications for quite some time and started out as a journalist. Um, but I really just wanted to be kind of a scrappy freelancer and have more time with my son Tolly. Um, and so I was not looking to scale at all. And then in 2020, well, first of all, in 2019, I made more money than I thought I could ever make. Again, small dreams. Uh, we did $136,000 our first year. Um, so that was a lot more than I had made at my last job. Straight to 6 figures. Yeah, it was amazing. And I think around that time, I learned the stat that only 2% of women-owned businesses ever scale to 7 figures, and it just kind of pissed me off.

Yeah.

And I was like, I can do this. Like, this is my new feminist challenge to try to hit this number. And I know a lot more now, obviously, but I think, um, while it's all great to make $1 million, you can also spend $900,000, and that's not really a viable business. And so there's been a lot of cash flow hiccups along the way, and, um, it's been a really awesome journey. I mean, I really fell in love with the business of entrepreneurship and the idea of building things and serving clients. So I have no regrets, but I think it's been an interesting 6 years and I'm ready to take it to the next level.

Yeah, so year 1 was a little over $100,000.

Yeah.

What was year 2?

Year 2 was $356,000. And that's largely because of Holly Conti, who's my business partner. She's based in Syracuse, New York. And Holly and I had worked together previously at an agency. And just really liked each other. And she was kind of moonlighting from her day job, helping me out. She was pregnant, but all of this, you know, happening, me not being able to offer healthcare, like she still wanted to come on as an employee. So in February 2020, before the world completely changed, she joined the fun. And I spoke at Alt Summit that year and we came back and on the plane when we landed in Boise was like when the lockdown started happening. And we were like, whoa, like what are we doing? You know, and everything was on the line, but we were able to grow through COVID. And I think, I think what was so amazing about that was no one cares where their publicist is based anymore. There was no more like concern of like, oh, do I need someone in New York or LA? Caitlin lives where? Boise, Idaho? What's that about? You know, so like we had the receipts by the end of 2020 with top-tier national placements that it no longer mattered and we were able to grow from there. So we went from $350,000 to the next year, $656,000.

Okay. And the year after that was when you hit $1 million?

Yes.

Okay.

So less than 4 years.

I mean, that's pretty amazing.

Thanks. High five.

I love it. So, and then you've been at that million mark for the last couple of years?

We have. Yes.

And then one thing that, you know, I always assumed is that the more money you made in business, the more profit you made.

I agree. I think I didn't study enough math.

Well, if it makes you feel better, Kit has had some seasons of lots of profit and then like right now we're coming out of a season of almost no profit as we've reinvested very, very heavily. So even at, you know, tens or almost, we're almost $50 million in revenue and, you know, can still do the time where we're like, ooh, 4% profit, 3%, like that, that's got to change. So it happens to all of us at different times, but it sounds like that's where you're at now where profits are low, revenue is somewhat stagnant, and you've got to figure out what's next.

Absolutely.

Okay. Before we dive into that, I just want to understand a little bit more about full swing and how, like, how you think about PR.

Yeah.

And, uh, maybe we'll start there and then we'll dive into, like, you know, any creators listening, how they should think about PR.

Yes. So I think one of the magical things about my story, for better or worse, is that I never took a PR class in college, never took a business class in college, and really only worked for a creative agency for about a year and a half, and yet have managed to do this thing. And I actually think that it's kind of a superpower because clients often come to us because they're fed up with PR and they feel like it hasn't worked and they don't like necessarily the typical agency relationship, and I think my background in political consulting on the communication side has really been beneficial in that I'm obsessed with figuring out what their win is and getting to that win. And oftentimes with the folks that historically have been our clients, they are small business owners. I mean, they have a team of some sort, but they are absolutely needing to make payroll every month and they're needing to get beyond the one-on-one coffees and networking lunches and really grow their business through PR. So that's where we have focused. And trying to think about, okay, everybody wants PR. It's kind of the junk food, if you will. But sometimes what they need is actually strategic visibility coaching. And so I think a lot of kind of our secret sauce has been getting deeply to know their sales funnel and creating a visibility funnel that complements the sales funnel and gives them strategic activities to do at every step of their buyer's journey, if that makes sense.

Yeah, that does. Do you have a favorite case study or story from a client?

Yeah, I mean, I think like what is so magical and you'll get this and probably lot of your audience as well, is like, we pitch people on podcasts, we pitch them on newsletters, and when someone is on the right podcast, it does not matter if that podcast reaches less than 10,000 people a month because that can lead to six-figure deals. And we had a client out of Boston that's a learning and development firm that works mostly with construction companies, and she had at least two, um, of those big deals come through, and she was like barely a million-dollar business, so it was huge for her, you know. And it's so cool to see folks, um, really win through PR. And that's what I like about it. And I think, you know, when I started out, we were really only targeting women-owned businesses and underrepresented communities. And that's broadened to some degree now, but I think that's often who finds us. And it's so fun to see like different people make money. I love it.

Yeah. Oh, that's great.

Yeah.

And then before we dive or jump up to the board, uh, what are some things that creators should think about as it relates to PR if they're like just starting to dabble in this space.

I think that, um, it's really important for creators to not just be obsessed with social media follower counts. We have had, we've worked with at least two pretty prominent creators and it's been interesting to see how they make money from their social media lists or how they don't make money from their social media followers. Um, and so I think, you know, obviously don't sleep on email marketing, even our clients that are not creators. Get so much benefit out of that. Um, but I think just remembering that like you're building a business, you're not just building an audience. And I loved what you said recently at the, I think it was you at the KIT conference about, are you building, um, just a following or are you truly being a thought leader in your space? Yeah. You can remind me exactly what you said, but I thought that was compelling.

Yeah. Something that I talk about a lot is building an audience rather than a crowd.

Yeah.

And so a crowd is just a lot of people.

Yeah.

You know, Um, whereas an audience is the right people paying attention.

Mm-hmm.

And so it makes a big difference. Okay, let's jump up on the board and map out the business and where we're going from there.

Let's do it.

Okay, so now let's map out what revenue has looked at like over time and get a feel for what it's gonna take to get to $5 million.

All right.

Okay, so what year was it that you started?

Time machine, 2019. In 2019, $136K.

And then 2020, the big year.

$656,000.

$136,000.

Or sorry, no, $350,000.

That went to—

I just am— what is time? That's what COVID taught us.

Yes, exactly. $350,000.

Yep, and then $650,000.

And that went to $650,000. And then 2022 was $1.1 million, just under $1.1 million, I believe.

And then I think we went, we almost, it was basically the same. It was a little bit less than $1.1 million and then we were $1.2 million in '24.

And then 2025, we'll do a trend of what we're up to. 2024, basically the same?

Yeah.

And then what are you on track for, for 2025?

About the same. Yeah.

All right. So having this and then we'll have the dashed line because that's not set yet.

TBD.

So is it 1.2, right in that ballpark?

Yep.

Okay, so that's where we're at right now. And now it's like, all right, how do we go and almost 5x that number?

Yeah.

And we'll get into that in a moment. Give me a breakdown of the, like, the product offerings that you have right now.

Sure, so for the most part, we work with clients in one of two ways. One is the Authority Builder package. Each package is customized to what they need most, but more or less, I can give you a sense of what each one looks like. So at the Authority Builder level, they are getting consistent media relations. In order to know what to pitch them, what to pitch journalists about, we do a deep dive kickoff to start the engagement where we really get to know how they make money in their business, who their target clients are. For the most part, they're professional services companies. Sometimes we have authors that use that package as well, so they're really interested in selling books, so we want to know who the target reader is for their book. And at that level, they're getting a monthly call, they're getting media prep as needed for any appearances that they might have. And we're helping them refine their positioning a little bit. I think sometimes people come in with a sense of what their key messages are and it's a little too generic. So we add some spice.

Sounds good. Yeah. And what's the price point on that?

That's $5,000 a month for 6 months. And sometimes people renew. We wanted that to be, sort of targeted at an endpoint. You know, 6 months is long enough to see PR work and sometimes achieve the goal that you had. If that was a book launch, for example, or a new product or service, it gives you kind of that sprint to get where you're going. Then the bulk of our clients really until this year have been part of the premium retainer, which is $10,000 a month. And at that level we really become—

What do you call it? It's just premium?

We've been calling it rocket ship retainer, but by the time that this airs it will be— called premium retainer, unless we can think of something better on this episode, which I'm open to. So the premium retainer, you essentially get a dedicated team within Full Swing servicing everything that you could ever need as it relates to PR and strategic visibility. You get fractional CMO consulting support, you get the media relations piece, we're on your Slack channel with your team, you're getting constantly pitched. And then we're also really building out your visibility funnel to make sure that you are engaging with potential clients through email marketing. We generally get our people set up on Kit. Many of them have never done email marketing before or they've done it really badly and they've had, you know, something that's very full of graphics and not really like a letter format from the CEO. And so usually people really like it and it feels really good to them because we're able to show like, This is just how you talk to your prospects about how you solve problems, which then makes them wanna work with you, it turns out. So that, and then we also help inform their social media strategy. In part because we wanna make sure they're amplifying their media wins and their email newsletter and getting people off the social profiles.

And this is at $10,000 a month?

Correct, yep. And all of our publicists have at least 10 years of experience. So they get a dedicated senior publicist, they get a strategy lead, that's myself, Holly, or our head of PR who also owned her own agency prior to joining us, and a project manager.

Okay, I like it.

Yep.

And then of that $1.1 million, what's the breakdown between these two packages as far as like number of clients?

The breakdown right now, we have 4.

Okay.

And we have about 6 right now.

Okay, should I put that?

And that is inverse of what it has been historically, which is kind of interesting. Okay.

And then, yeah, then that makes sense. And that puts you right at that $80,000 a month, which is the magic. $83,333 equates to $1 million.

Yeah. And that's tough because if you, if your operating expenses with a staff team are hovering around $70,000, it doesn't give you a lot of wiggle room.

Right. That makes sense. That's always the thing that I thought, oh, when I have a million-dollar business, I'm going to have so much profit. And then it is wildly expensive to run a business.

Turns out.

Yep.

Yeah.

Okay. So when we fast forward and that $5 million a year business, what, like, how do you imagine this working differently?

So I think that Holly and myself are completely out of the business in terms of the day-to-day operations. Okay. I think that we are still involved in selling.

Mm-hmm.

Um, I think that we're involved in our own strategic visibility to keep our pipeline full for the agency. And I think selectively we are involved whether that's speaking about strategic visibility to different teams or at conferences or whether we're, you know, a client needs something special and we are a special guest star for that moment. But we are basically out of the day-to-day and that the thing runs itself.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

A great goal.

Yeah.

Now you were telling me before we started recording that you wanna pursue this creator strategy and run much more of a creator business.

Yeah.

Like what's, tell me, tell me about that.

So I'll tell you what motivates that. I think that I love creators. I love the space. I'm kind of a creator groupie and I think that everything you all say is right and that every business is a creator business. I also think that Full Swing probably is not forever. And I think it's important as the founder to set myself up for whatever the next chapter is. And without a strong personal brand and some kind of list that is my own, uh, I feel like I would be leaving money and opportunity on the table for myself.

And you also obviously deeply understand PR and reputation and all that, which is very similar to the creator aspects of it.

Yeah.

Yeah. That makes sense. So maybe we could list out some of the challenges that you're having in the business that are keeping you stuck at that $1 million mark?

Sure. So I think it's getting sucked back into the day-to-day. I think it is a sense of uncertainty about how to right-size our team. Nobody likes to lay people off, and the few times that we've had to do that have felt really, really bad on a human level, and I think can make you feel like Am I an irresponsible leader, right? And like, how do you invest in people in a way that is sustainable and also holds them accountable to the growth goals of the organization and keeps the business healthy? Because there's been many times that we have cut our own pay, many times, to keep everybody else afloat. And you can't do that after a certain point.

Right, that makes sense. So, okay, so pulled in the day-to-day, right size in the team, what else?

And I think that we also have struggled with a lead generation machine, if you will. And part of that is related to number 1, right? Like, because most of our leads come from my network and to some extent Holly's network. And I think that takes time. You have to cultivate those relationships. And when you are doing strategic visibility well and you're showing up on podcasts and you're doing thought leadership, it does help keep you top of mind for your network for sure. But if you are gone for a quarter because you're distracted by a really intense client, it can really fall apart. So, yeah.

Yep. Any other challenges? I've got room there.

I think cash flow. We've definitely had some moments where people don't pay us, and that's hard, and you pull every lever that you can to keep things moving. We didn't have a traditional business line of credit until this year. Yeah.

Early on. When building Kit, I was offered lines of credit or that sort of thing. I was like, I don't need that and all that. And then when I needed it, I went to get it and they're like, oh.

Yeah.

That's something that you can only get when you don't need it. It's the hardest thing. Because if you try to go get it and you actually need the money, the bank's going to be like, ah, nope. We don't feel good about loaning you this money or making it available. But when you don't need the money at all, they're like, oh, of course. Like, would you like a $100,000 line of credit? Would you like more? Yeah. And so you have to get that lined up when you don't need it.

Mm-hmm.

So that if you ever do need it, it's there for you.

Totally.

All right. So cash flow is an issue. Any other challenges?

I'm sure there are, but we only have so long. Okay.

So when I'm looking at these, these challenges combined with this packaging and pricing, and then where revenue is at and where it's trending, I'm thinking about really the team and like the roles and responsibilities.

Mm-hmm.

And so maybe talk about that. You know, we— there's two owners in the business.

Yes.

You and Holly.

Yep.

Why don't you write your names up here and then we'll do a line down between them and we'll kind of break down some of the responsibilities. Here we go.

Like that?

Yeah. And so what are the things that each of you are taking on?

Yes. So I'm going to write the client-related stuff first.

Is this— Okay. PR, copywriting, crisis. Ooh, that's fun. Lead generation, envisioning. Okay.

Maybe we'll start there.

Yeah, that sounds good.

That sound good?

And then for Holly. All right, so you've got strategy and integration.

I'm going to just say digital. Like we're not a digital agency, but I think because of the needs that we've seen with our target audience, there has just been no real effort at digital marketing and PR is so much more effective when it's paired with email marketing and some social support and Holly is very good I'm really good at that. By people, I'm going to say, because we used to joke that like I brought the dad energy. I like to say daddy energy and Holly would bring like the mom energy. But I think Holly's actually far more scary than me.

Yeah.

If you really get down to it. But we were—

I mean, let's be honest, that's the mom energy.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

If you make dad upset, it's like, all right, that's not good. But then—

I think she's much more like I have this, you know, I think I am more naturally inclined to be more of a solopreneur. Not that I don't like people. I like to mentor people. However, if it feels like they're struggling to like be adults and get things done, I'm just like, I don't got time for this.

Right.

You know, whereas Holly's like deeply interested in connecting and like maintaining this relationship in a way that like I think I sometimes struggle with as an Enneagram 8, a.k.a. 8-hole, if anyone follows that. Okay. And then details, finance, like she is much more like fine-tooth comb and I'm just like, show me the numbers, let me make a decision. And that's been kind of our dynamic. And she actually really likes this piece. And I think like we've struggled a little bit because she's very much a co-visionary. I think she's a very good integrator, but I think that that title can feel diminishing and is not at all my intent or a reflection of like what she is capable of because we love co-visioning together. I think this is just often what it ends up looking like.

How you break down. Okay, that makes sense. The reason that I wanted to go to that and list it out.

I'll do one more. PM. She also will like, if we're lacking on a project manager, she steps in. On that side, on the client side.

That makes sense.

Yep.

Okay, so, 'cause there's a couple challenges that I was noticing here. You know, first the most acute one is cash flow, right?

Yes.

And so then you're like, okay, who's responsible for what in that and what problems do you have?

Yeah.

And it, like, I'm noticing a problem in lead gen.

Yeah. Right?

And so that typically falls to you, right?

Yeah, I would say like it's more just my natural way of being in the world is to, I would love to not ever look at my computer during the day and just go chat with people. Yeah. That sounds great to me.

And so then it's like, okay, what's the team doing? What's the day-to-day operations that is preventing you from driving business?

I guess I should put new business here.

Yeah.

There's a reason it's at the end, and I'm going to put that here too. I think often they come through me and then we close them together.

Okay.

Yeah. If that—

Yeah. So you've got new business for both of you. Okay. This is where I'm struggling. Yeah. Because I think about, you know, I come from so much of the technical world.

Yeah.

And you might have two people set out to start a company.

Yeah.

Or they were, you know, running it together. Like one might be the business and marketing founder, the other might be the technical founder.

Yeah.

There's a very distinct separate side.

I would make her the technical founder any day. Yeah. Because she's had way more agency experience, frankly, than I have.

But I, I think part of the challenge is that the roles aren't clear. Yes. Right. So if there's not enough clients coming in, whose fault is that?

Mine.

Well, you just wrote down that it's both of you.

Yes.

And so.

But I think it, I feel it's my fault.

It's ultimately yours.

Okay. Yeah.

And so then, like if you're getting pulled away from driving new business to write copy and to handle other things. Yeah. Whose fault is that?

Holly's. She's not here so we can say it.

Yeah, exactly. But like, that's a fairly aggressive way of saying it. But what I mean is.

Yeah, but like the team, there's clearly a breakdown.

Like clear division of roles and responsibilities. And so, because you're not going to be able to drive a ton of new business if you're constantly jumping in to do copywriting or be the crisis PR person for this, you know, high-need client. There's a very simple framework in this that you see people run into. And it's basically when, if you imagine a teeter-totter or a seesaw, I said that, I said teeter-totter in the UK. A couple months ago and they were like, I'm sorry, what word did you just say? And then I drew it and they're like, that's a seesaw.

Oh, that's funny because I feel like teeter-totter sounds British.

Yeah, I don't know.

Teeter-totter.

So you can end up in these two things, right, where it's like sales and then delivery. Yep.

This is exactly what's happening. I love this.

And so what you end up doing is, I don't know in our seesaw, teeter-totter, which is which.

Yeah.

But it's basically you end up in this, this thing where you're like, I can do one at a time.

Totally. Yeah.

And so is Kaitlyn in sales mode or in delivery mode?

No, I'm switching back and forth and I think that division of attention is hard.

Yeah. Because if you were to imagine a sales flywheel, yes. Then what you're doing is you're saying this week or this month, I'm gonna run this flywheel. It's gonna build up momentum. Like it's gonna start hard, but it's gonna be really good. but then next month I'm gonna let that coast and then I'm gonna come over here and we're gonna focus on delivering and you're gonna come back and your flywheel will be at a dead stop.

Yes.

And so what we have to do, I believe, is put a line right here and you are only allowed to hang out on this side of the line.

Okay.

And now that's not to say that I was just realizing like, now what is this? People are gonna be like, is this a dude? I'm going to shade this in just because it's fun.

You put some kids on there.

Yeah, there we go. There's a spot to sit there and a spot to sit there. It's not to say that for your entire team, they're like, oh, I'd love to ask Kaitlyn for ideas on, like, she's going to know how we should serve this client the best. I'd love to ask you.

I love idea generation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so it's not that they can't ask you.

Yeah.

It's that you have to standardize Yes. The format, the time that you're available for that. Right. So you having office hours. Yeah, exactly.

Yes.

Right. That's where they can bring you a client or you say, hey, for these, for these delivery things, like these are the constraints that I'm working within.

Mm-hmm.

Because over here you've done a great job of packaging and productizing the service.

Mm-hmm.

And so now what I want you to do is to productize You're a service, like the offering that you have to the rest of your team.

I'm a product.

You are a product.

A very valuable product.

Absolutely. And so then, you know, you're putting constraints on that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. Because what we do in productized services, uh-huh, is we take something that's entirely bespoke.

Yeah.

You know, I used to do this in web design, right? Where it's like every project is totally unique and it's like, yeah, you know, the custom proposal and all of that. And that's really hard to scale. That's going to get stuck at the $1 million a year mark or something like that. Um, and then you say, you know, you hear about productized services, like, all right, we need to standardize more of this.

Mm-hmm.

And so it really breaks down into, into two parts. It's the same things of like sales and delivery.

Yeah.

And so you, you productize sales by saying, here are our packages, here's who we serve, uh, here's how you can buy it. And then we productize delivery. You know, through saying, all right, here's the time commitment, here's our team structure, like here's how we standardize all of that. And so what I'm really looking for, like, I think you've done a good job of productizing both of those. Well then what I'm looking for is for you to stay on one side of the line.

Yeah.

And to productize how you interact with the rest of your team.

That sounds fun.

Or put constraints on it.

Yeah. And then it seems like there's also sometimes a tension. Maybe we don't need to get into this, but between delivery, capturing those results, and using them to fuel that part.

Yeah.

Because that's basically our flywheel to some degree.

Right, so as you're going through closing, the flywheel would be closing clients, delivering great value, showcasing those results.

That value, talking about it in the world and to prospects.

Yeah, in order to bring that back. And that could be a way where once a month you're having a meeting where Collectively, the whole team is working through, all right, what are the wins that we're going to showcase? But if we had to put constraints on you and your time and the way you interact with the team, what would those be?

I think my ideal day does not involve looking at Slack constantly and responding to emails constantly, and I think there's still too much of that.

So how do we frame it as a constraint?

Like being at a desk versus being in the world, or tell me more.

Well, like, Caitlin is only allowed to check Slack at noon and 4:00 PM.

Love it.

Right? That would be, I don't know if that's the right thing.

Okay.

But you're just saying like, this is like the rudest thing, but also totally necessary where, you know, it's like, not my problem.

Yes.

And not in a like, I don't care about you or all of that.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, I care about you so much. That I'm trying to make money To support your job. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right? And so we're just going to say get off Slack. Not 100%, but right? And so you're creating some healthy distance between the team in that format.

And I think anything that truly needs my attention, a tag is not enough. You know what I mean? Like it needs to get into Asana, our project management software. Or be brought to the office hours of which you speak.

Yeah. So office hours.

Yeah.

Is another constraint because your expertise matters. Right. And you want to, I believe that if you said, you know what, I have nothing to do with delivery at all.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm not available to help you with that. The quality of your product would decline.

Yes.

And so you have to say, you know, constraints.

Yeah.

Quality of the product cannot go down.

Correct.

That is a non-negotiable here.

Yeah.

And so, uh, but also protecting your time is a non-negotiable.

Yeah.

And so then we say like, all right, office hours, or then someone's coming to you with a pitch and, and they're saying, okay, here's what we think we were going to do for the client. And you could say, that's good, but I would also do these things.

Yeah.

And so do you think Like how many hours a week? What does office hours look like? Is it an hour a day, Monday, Wednesday, Friday?

I think that would be fine.

Is it a 3-hour block?

Yeah, I mean, I think sometimes there are deeper, I could see potentially like one client needing a deeper dive. And so perhaps one block is 2 hours and the other 2 are 1. But yeah, I think.

And is this, Are you still going to be getting on calls with clients?

Well, this is the, this is the question, right? So I think if I could spend my time doing the visibility blueprint workshops and potentially like client kickoffs, and then we do something called executive debriefs for folks at this level who every quarter we get their C-suite and us together and we make sure that we understand the fundamentals of their business strategy because If PR is focusing solely on, you know, one state where they do business and that's what they wanted 6 months ago, but now they've moved into another state, like we need to know that, right? And so it's just a matter of not being so siloed from those business objectives is really important to us. So I would say I would need to join at this moment at least kickoffs and the quarterly debriefs.

Okay.

But those could be structured in a way, I would hope, that we could have a day full of debriefs, right? So that it's not just bleeding into like every day.

Okay. And so you're going to have structure around the client debriefs so that it's not taking all of your time.

Correct.

Let's fast forward. So at 5 times these numbers, so we're at 10 clients right now. Um, so at 50 clients, quarterly, so kickoff calls and then quarterly debriefs.

Well, this is not forever. This is for now.

Yes. Okay. Yeah. So, but when does that, you being involved in the client debriefs, change?

That's a great question. I think that when you mentioned earlier that if I was to remove myself and Holly to remove herself entirely from client delivery, the quality would suffer. And so we need systems in place that ensure that that doesn't happen. And once that's happening and someone is accountable for those results who is just as good as we are. And I think we have, we have that person. I think we maybe just need to empower her to own that and also be able to have the revenue to have the team to support that.

Yeah, you end up in this chicken and egg situation where it costs a lot to hire and train and develop the right people, but you need more clients. And so you just have to make sure that you're moving towards it.

Yeah.

Is there any concern that you could put on around the type of, like, you'll do client debriefs for only a certain type of client or, I'm trying to think of how we get—

And I don't know, maybe they don't need me on this the more I think about it. I think what they need is, as I mentioned with this package, there's a strategy lead. There are 3 of us who are capable of being strategy leads, so maybe it's just Holly or Noelle is the person who's the other one.

So I don't want to create a scenario where a client feels like They had this great relationship with you. They were so excited and then they signed up and Caitlin—

And I think that happens already.

I've never heard of her again.

Yeah. She's off flying airplanes.

Yes.

Yes.

A great pastime, which I fully endorse. So there's a big difference between the amount of time you actually spend and the perception of the time you spend. And so I would be looking for what are the things—

Oh, I just had an idea.

Yes.

Okay, what if I just made a video of like, hey, I reviewed your executive debrief? Maybe that wouldn't feel the same. Or I could go see them in person and build it into a whole networking trip because I love to travel. I'm very happy to be on a plane, whether I'm flying it or not, in a different city. So like maybe that's a way that, you know, like I could have coffee, lunch, dinner, whatever with a client in said city, but also build enough activities around it that it's a new business trip.

I like this a lot because now what you've done is you've taken the part that you're required to do of the delivery.

Yep.

And then you have turned it into sales.

Yes.

And that's fantastic.

Yeah.

Because then you could say, hey, I'm hosting a dinner.

Yes.

That I'd love to invite you.

Yes. And then they're giving testimonials about how great it is to work with you.

One thing, when I host a dinner with creators, we always talk about, okay, what's the exact right ratio of existing kit customers Or like a customer or something like that to new. Because if you go 100% existing customers, you're like, well, we could have at least gotten a few new businesses in there. But if you go 100% new business, people are like, so what does Kit do?

Yeah.

And so my favorite is when it's like 50/50 or yeah, 30% existing, 70%, uh, potential business.

Yeah.

Because I was at a dinner, uh, with, uh, Greg Eisenberg, who has a very popular AI podcast.

Yeah.

And all of that. We're in Miami and I think that 2 people at the dinner were customers, him and one other, and then 5 or 6 people weren't. Someone asked about what Kit does and I explained and he goes, hey, can I, can I pitch it for you? And I was like, yes. And he's like, okay, so Kit is for people who are serious about email. Yeah. And then he starts diving into his business, his agency.

Yeah.

And it's like the best pitch ever.

Mm-hmm.

And so for you, if you say, hey, I'm gonna do, you know, I'm coming to New York, I'm coming to wherever the client is.

Yeah.

I host this dinner. I'd love to take you out. Is there any other business owners that you'd love to invite? I'm going to invite some more as well.

Yep.

And then people feel like, oh, I'm getting Kaitlyn's time.

And then you get some attorney who has been working with you for years to explain PR, and it actually ends up being way better than maybe you can do yourself. I love that. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

We work with a lot of law firms, so that's why I said attorney.

We got to write this idea down.

Dinner. Should I just do a plate? I don't know if that really looks like a plate.

Maybe write the word dinner.

Dinner equals yum.

But I think it's such an important thing because— and so I just want to reiterate this— of we took something that exists on the delivery side and we moved it to sales. And that That feels really, really good.

And it feels a lot more fun to me too.

Yeah. So, like the things—

And I think fun is important. Like when I started Full Swing, fun was actually one of my values, even though I was one person.

And now look how far we've gone.

I know, right?

Okay, so what are some of the other constraints that we would want to put in? Or maybe a different question, are there other ways that we can move requirements of your time on delivery over to sales?

So one thing that I am really passionate about is I love getting mail, like actual old school snail mail.

Okay.

I think I think it's really fun.

Yeah.

And I think that anything you can do to add like moments of delight to your clients' lives can just be awesome and like remembering some special day. So one thing I've been wanting us to implement, which we have not successfully done yet, is that every time there is like a really game-changing placement or even a relatively small podcast appearance, but it brings in a 6-figure deal for this client, that they get a personal note or like a spa gift card or I don't know, whatever's like special for them, you know, or a donation to a nonprofit of their choice. You know, whatever resonates for this particular client. I think that would be really cool to do.

Yeah, I like that.

And systematize.

I was in Ryan Holiday's office a couple years ago, and he has this amazing bookstore, and his office is up above the bookstore. And I walked in and he had all of these, you know, he's written a ton of books, all that, but he had all of his like New York Times placements and these big PR, like all this stuff framed in his office. And I realized, like, I don't have any of that. You know? And, but you could do that where, you know, you send them the framed placement. Because I was thinking back to the, like, the very first newspaper article about me in, like, the Idaho Statesman. Right? And I was like, I still have that somewhere. And I went and dug it out and, you know, it was a little more tattered and worn than before, but I was like, at some point I'm going to wish that this was framed and I should, you know. But if I had a PR team and they were like framed it for me and sent that to me, that would be a really good thing.

Okay. Well, if Kit needs PR, I guarantee you I'll frame it all. Bring it over.

Yeah. But that framed placement with the handwritten note.

Totally.

You know, you're spending what, $100, $200 to send that out?

Yeah. And I think it just feels good to everyone. You know, like we all want to be to feel like we're the most important person in the room, you know? And I think that's just a way to do that across the miles.

Okay, I like that. Okay. Anything else come to mind?

Well, I mean, this is maybe out of left field, but we, I'm hosting a river trip on the main salmon. I love the Salmon River. It's like my special place and I love being in nature without cell service.

Part of why you get a pilot's license so you can fly yourself in the backcountry.

Yeah, so I can fly myself there. Exactly. That's the idea. So September 5th through 10th, we're hosting the first ever Full Swing Flotilla. And it's basically America's only off-grid personal branding retreat. And so I'm excited about it because I love this outfitter that we're partnering with, Canyons. I've done 2 trips with them. The river's my special place. I'm excited to share it with aligned people. But I also think there's something really powerful about clearing out all the noise and really getting in touch with like, what you're put on this earth to do. Because I think that factors into how effective you can be at PR. Right. So I don't know how that fits in other than my instinct was to offer every client a free trip.

Okay.

I kind of got shut down 'cause they're not cheap, you know? Yeah, how much do they cost? The trip is $2,600.

Okay.

And full swings cut is a small portion of that. This is much more of like a, community builder, maybe a pipeline thing, maybe a move towards something later in the future. But I think that it's, there's something about it that's special and compelling to me. And I think that the people that you float the river with become lifelong friends. And so I don't know, I don't know what you think, but maybe there's something.

I think you should write down river trip.

River trip.

And then, you know, you should do it no matter what, whether you're paying for it or the client is paying for it.

Yeah.

Because also that's not that expensive relative, you know, for a business owner who's like, I want to do it anyway.

Yeah.

And if I do yours, it's tax deductible because this is, you know, this is a business expense.

Yeah.

And then if you fly your plane there, then the plane is tax deductible. The whole thing is.

Totally.

These are really our ideas for how do we bring you further out of delivery and do sales in a way that's really, really fun for you. And all 3 of those are really fun ideas.

Yeah. Yeah.

I like that. Okay. So now one thing that you brought up earlier was wanting to go into the creator side of the business.

Yes.

And build, uh, build all of that, you know, build your own brand. Um, you've got, you know, a client list, you've got 5,000 people on your email list now.

Yeah.

Um, but really scaling that up.

Yes.

Why is that important or exciting to you?

Well, I think I believe you when you say every business is a creator business.

Yeah.

And I think that all founders should be thinking about how they're also creators because at some point this chapter ends, you know what I mean? I mean, maybe not, but I don't see myself doing much of anything for 20 years.

Right.

So other than floating the river and flying a plane maybe. But like, I think that there's, you know, I can take full swing to some point and then at some point, it will exist in another form, whatever that looks like. And so I want to set myself up to have the freedom to do what I want to do and be who I am in the world. And I think when you have a list and an audience and you're delivering value to that audience in any number of ways, you have that optionality built into your life.

Yeah, I think that makes sense. And I'm obviously the biggest advocate for building a creator style business. When you first brought it up, my reaction was like, I don't think you do it.

Yeah.

Now.

Yeah.

And the reason is because a lot of people say like, okay, I'm doing this agency business. Actually used to happen in the software world all the time.

Uh-huh.

Where every like product and dev agency was like, but we wanna start a SaaS company.

Yes.

And you would watch them burn huge amounts of money.

Yes.

And then ultimately like never get that other business off the ground. And so I see this with of, you know, agency businesses where they're saying, okay, we want to, this is great, we've productized a portion of it, but really we want to be, you know, selling digital products or doing some thing. And they end up trading a very high average revenue for product for like a very, very low one. And that can be so hard.

Yes. The math needs to math. And this is great math when it works.

The $10,000 a month. You know, that, that kind of thing.

Yeah.

And so what I would think about is building the creator side of the business.

Mm-hmm.

Really as the byproduct.

Mm-hmm.

And so there's this idea I first heard from Jason Fried talking about selling your byproducts. Mm-hmm. And so what the example that he gave was talking about sawdust.

Okay.

Because, uh, you know, sawdust was every sawmill created huge amounts of sawdust.

Uh-huh.

It's a huge pain, not only because it piles up everywhere and creates this problem, but it's also very, very flammable. And so it can actually, you know, you get some static electricity, you create a spark, you burn the whole place down, right? And what they ended up like, so, you know, they're paying huge amounts of money to truck all of this boxed away and dispose of it. Well, then they go and invent fiberboard. And so, you know, any mid-grade cabinet that you buy is made of MDF, medium-density fiberboard. Which is taking all that sawdust and compressing it together, adding glue, and now selling it as a product.

Okay.

And so when I think about everything you're doing here, the hosted dinners, framing the placements, the river trips, all of that, that content is an amazing byproduct of that. And so it's not like, I don't think you should go out and pursue the creator business as the primary thing right now. Because you have a lead gen issue, you have a cash flow issue, you know, you've got how you're spending your time day to day. And the last thing we need is like, you know what you should do?

Yeah.

Like go be a, like go in the podcast studio next door and be a full-time creator and make all this content.

Yeah.

Like that's not a good use of time right now. But documenting your journey, sharing what you've learned, uh, and creating content on the side of pursuing going all in on sales. I think that makes a ton of sense.

Okay.

How's that land?

I think it sounds, it sounds great. I guess I don't know entirely like what capturing that content looks like and where to share it because it's not necessarily of interest to our target audience, but maybe I'm missing something.

If you were following your business, if, if, so if we step into your client, totally an ideal client, Maybe first tell me a little bit about who they might be and then second, like what type of content would they find interesting?

Yes, so I think this is, maybe we should add this as a challenge is that is our ideal client. We use ICA, ideal client avatar, because I think you're right, there are certain clients that we've worked with over the years that probably would be interested in that piece because they're interested in scaling and have many of the same challenges, so seeing how Someone they know, like, and trust is addressing those challenges openly and vulnerably would probably would be interesting. But then I think of like the CMO at this large credit union in New York and I'm like, are they going to care? I don't know. Do you know what I mean? Because people have different problems.

Right. Well, I bet the CMO at the large credit union scrolls Instagram like the rest of us do.

Yes.

That's one thing that so many people have in common. You, the content that you you make might not be about in the trenches of what decision do I make, that sort of thing. But the gap between I'm not making any content and something is actually—

Is better than nothing. Yeah. I hear that.

You can make that leap. And so even if you had like a weekly client win that you just shared, okay, so let's say—

And then we interview them.

I'm even thinking—

Or I just describe it.

So you know how on Instagram, like a lot of people do the like 5 seconds of B-roll and then commentary on top of it?

Yes.

And that often performs better than the 60-second reel.

Uh-huh.

What if every time you sent out a frame placement, you packaged it up yourself or— That's fun.

But almost like the opposite of an unboxing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so then you're just like, oh, I'm so excited. You know, you like put it in the box, it's their thing, you package it up and it's a little clip of, you know, it being sent off. And you wait to post it until after the client, you know, like you want them to have their surprise and everything. But what that tells me is, okay, one, Kaitlyn's agency gets placements and placements that are worthy of framing.

Yeah.

Right?

I like that. I want, I don't know how I'm out of room.

Write it in there somewhere.

Right?

But, but frame-worthy placements or some version of that I think is really interesting. And then the content is not tangential or unrelated at all. It's like quite good. And then, you know, you can choose in the description on Instagram, you know, or wherever you're posting it, do you want to get into how you got the placement? Or you can see what works, but it just gives you an opportunity to—

Test multiple.

To rave about the client and all that. And then the other thing is sometimes you see people or PR firms that are like, we got this placement and you're like, yeah, but that's lame. It's this idea of like frame-worthy placement.

And sometimes I think you need to explain why it's not lame, right? Because you might not have heard of it, but if it brought in money for them, That's pretty cool.

And being placed in the right industry and that sort of thing. The audience versus crowd idea again. Something like that could be really, really interesting.

Cool.

Another version is you can have people, like Dan Martell does a good job of this with his coaching business where I think it's every Wednesday he has, in his process, he has a bunch of clients submit testimonial videos. And so every Wednesday he posts 3 or 4 of those. On his Instagram stories.

Yeah.

Which the clients like it 'cause they're like, I got to be on Dan Martell's Instagram stories.

Yeah. Big following. Yeah.

You know, and, and then he gets to showcase the wins and then is like, DM me coach. And yeah, you know, and so that's getting him more clients, right? So there's a nice flywheel there, but this is a flywheel in itself.

Yeah.

Right. Because people are saying like, oh, I want to get wins in places like that.

Oh, cool.

I like it. All right. So if we take a step back and look at the challenges that we have, of the day-to-day operations. How do we get the right team, the right size of team in place? Lead gen, that's a big one. Cash flow.

Yeah.

And then the ideal client. I'm looking at this and the 3 things that I most want you to have.

Mm-hmm.

Like I guess first you have to have the ideal client and get, get more clear on that. Um, so I'd spend time there. But the other 3 things is I really want you to have clear roles and responsibilities. Yeah. I think that there's too much overlap between you and Holly.

Yeah.

And I wonder if you need to go into different hats.

Mm-hmm.

Right. And so maybe as the board of directors for the business, yeah. As the owners, yeah. You have one type of meeting where you're doing a lot of the idea generation, the strategy, you know, like that kind of thing.

Yeah.

And then you say, okay, cool, that was great. And now we're gonna step into our operational roles.

Yeah.

And you are the chief revenue officer. Yeah. Like go close business. And Holly is the COO or the, like, whatever that role ends up being. And it's all about, you know, delivery and—

Yeah.

Um, then the next thing that I want you to have is very clear metrics.

Okay.

And so you're, you're very aligned on a weekly basis. You're looking at what does the pipeline look like?

Yeah.

Um, are you closing deals? Uh, and then your success metrics around delivery, like how happy are your clients?

Yep.

All of that. And then the last thing is a very clear system around, uh, sales and lead gen.

Yes.

So whether you do that as a linear process, mm-hmm, or we figure out, you know, here's how we're doing a flywheel, how we're closing the loop.

Uh-huh.

But the metrics that you're tracking every single week and you are absolutely on it so that you know, basically we're never gonna get into this seesaw, yeah, teeter-totter situation again. And we're gonna have the revenue that, that keeps climbing because lead gen is dialed in.

Do you think that having 4x what you want your budget to be in your pipeline is a good idea?

Well, you'd wanna look at what your close rate is.

Yes.

Right. So that'd be one of the metrics.

Yeah.

That you have to definitely have to track. The nice thing is if you track everything else, yeah. Close rate just automatically calculates itself.

Yeah. Yeah.

And you really have to watch for the deals that get pushed from June to July.

Mm-hmm. Right?

In this process, you're going to have a pipeline review meeting.

Okay.

It might just be with you.

Yeah, so how do you, what do you think, or how do you think about that? If someone says they meet with us in May and they decide they're actually not going to be ready for PR until September.

Yeah, and you can, so then you move them in your pipeline to September.

Okay, but they still count, like if they end up Signing, do they still count as a close or do we build in some sort of thing for how long it takes? I mean, I think—

You also, so in your metrics, you're going to want to track average time to close.

Yes. Okay.

So close percentage, average time to close, and then you'll get a sense of like, okay, if I have a goal of bringing in 3 new clients in this month, then okay, 3 months earlier, I'm going to need a pipeline That looks like 9 clients. Um, and going from there.

Yep. That all makes sense.

And so then, and the nice thing is a lot of these sales systems are well-defined. Um, you know, there's people who specialize in sales who can say like these things that matter.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, that pipeline review meeting is gonna be really important. You could have, uh, you know, your owner's meeting.

Yep.

Between you and Holly where you each present either to the whole company or, you know, just to each other on the metrics that you own.

Yeah. Yeah.

And you know, Holly is great at sales and new business, but like you own that.

Yeah.

So she's providing ideas and accountability to you. Yeah. And then you're great at delivery, but that's not your role. And so she's—

and other people can do it. Right. As long as we can pay them. Yes.

And so then you're, instead of saying like, we're all in this together on all of it, like we know that you are, right? But in this it's like, no, no, no. We're not owners, we're CRO, COO right now.

Yeah, yeah. I like that. I think that's a helpful framing. And it doesn't have to be forever, but like we have to get out of this cycle. And then you know what's really great about that? Yeah.

Is that then you can hire people to do those jobs and they're clearly defined and you can know is this person performing?

Yeah.

And they might tweak your pipeline review process, or they, they might make other changes.

Yeah.

But you're not telling them like, all right, you're in charge now. You're saying, run this system, here's what works.

Love it.

Beautiful. All right, let's sit down and recap the show.

Okay.

All right, so we have covered a lot of material. I'm curious, what are some of your biggest takeaways?

Whew, there were so many. I mean, I really like the seesaw teeter-totter metaphor between sales and delivery, and I think that really captures where a lot of the challenges are coming from. Um, and I love that we were able to come up with some really concrete ideas to kind of get out of that teeter-totter cycle. So I think that's going to be super helpful.

Yep, I think that's going to help so much.

Yeah.

And then if you can explain that metaphor to the team, yes, then people will immediately get like, oh, that's what's happening.

Yeah.

And then you're saying it's not that I don't want to dive in and help you with this client.

Totally.

It's that I'm making the business. I— yeah.

Yeah.

This like default to generosity, like I'll come build right alongside you is actually the problem.

Yeah.

Yeah. That makes sense. I think one of my takeaways is that there's a way to do the outward-facing creator-style content in a way that really serves the business.

Totally.

So like the, you know, the framework placements, you know, or, or how, however you decide to showcase those wins. In a really interesting way that feels organic. Like, I think what most people would do is they say, you know what, we need, we need more testimonials.

Yeah.

And so let's hire a graphic designer who will take our testimonial and put it in an Instagram graphic.

Yeah.

With their photo and nice typography. And you're like, that's the most boring corporate thing ever. But if you're, you know, the video of you framing.

Yeah.

And mailing off their placement, like, that feels authentic. And it's so much better than a testimonial. And so there's a way that you basically, you can do creator-style content without having to go off and be like, I'm a creator now and I'm pursuing that at the expense of running the agency.

Yes. I think that's always been sort of the tension is like, there's this interest in the creator side, but also this is the thing that feeds us. And it's, it's the thing that if we do grow it to 5 million or when we grow it to 5 million, gives us more street cred to go out into the world.

Yeah.

You know, in this other way. So I like it. Yeah. Yeah.

And then on the path to $5 million, your business model is correct, right? Like oftentimes people come in and it's all these bespoke projects, all these one-off things that they're doing, and you're like, oh my, if you scale that, like, yeah, that's going to be— it's never going to work.

Yeah.

In this case, like your pricing and packaging makes sense. You've got the recurring offerings. Like, I think there's, there's obviously still more to streamline, but I feel like the fundamentals are really solid.

Oh, thanks.

And it's ultimately a lead gen problem.

Yes. Yeah. Which is from the teeter-totter.

Yep, exactly. Any other takeaways?

Uh, well, it just sounds like a lot more fun. I just feel like my days will be more fulfilling. You know, I really struggle with the constant division of attention. I think it feels hard to just like really get in the zone with, um, outreach to prospects and then like go back and write some social copy because no one else did it, you know, like that's not a good feeling. So, yeah.

And I think this is something that I'm working on a lot right now. You know, we have Get Off Slack and the office hours as the two things. And so having information come to you, um, like I'm the worst at reading all the channels in Slack and doing all these things when instead I need to have a separate to-do list and I need to be working through that. And then if something's really important, someone will call me.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think that's great.

And then probably my last, and might be my favorite takeaway, because I was really hung up on this, on the delivery and how do we make these clients feel special.

Yeah.

You know, and because you, the last thing you want is this feeling of like, okay, I sold to them, I've had this great experience, and I was like, bye.

Yeah, you know, good luck.

And so, yeah, that idea of the client hosted dinner.

Yeah.

Or hosting the dinner with a client, you know, and, and turning that from a delivery task into a sales task, especially because you love it. Some people would be like, oh, now, now I went from having to get on a call to now I have to get on a plane. Like, this is the worst. And you're like, no, no, this is the best.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I think that, that— I think that's really good.

Fun. Thank you so much.

So I'd love to just hear how you're feeling when you came in, uh, versus how you're feeling now.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's always fun to like get to work with like one of your heroes, and not to be cheesy, but I just think you're so cool, and I'm I'm a student pilot, and so I followed your aviation journey. And I think it's awesome that you're from Idaho and I'm from Idaho, and we're kind of like these unlikely entrepreneurs maybe in some ways.

Building our businesses.

Yeah, so I think it's always fun to have that interaction, especially when it's so close to home. And yeah, I mean, you've done the thing and then some. And so I think it just can feel intimidating even if you've done something impressive, which I do feel like we have. It's, it can feel like, oh my gosh, where do we go from here? So I really appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks for coming on. And just going back to the stat that you were sharing earlier about how few women-owned businesses get to the 7 figures, and so you've done that and you've done it consistently, right? It wasn't a like we touched it barely and then dipped below. It's like, no, I've consistently hit that number, uh, and then you've got all the frameworks to scale from there. So it's really exciting.

Thanks.

Now where should people go to follow you, or if they're interested in hiring a PR firm.

Yeah, thank you. So fullswingpr.com, we have our visibility scorecard, which is a great place to start. We also are still taking folks down the river. So September 5th through 10th, if that resonated with you and you want to get aligned with your personal brand and have a great time with some really incredible people, we can take a few more along on our trip.

Sounds good.

So yeah. Awesome. And then we're on LinkedIn and Instagram as well.

Perfect. Thanks so much for coming on.

Thank you.

If you enjoyed this episode, go to YouTube and search The Nathan Barry Show, then hit subscribe and make sure to like the video and drop a comment. I'd love to hear what some of your favorite parts of the video were, and also just who else you think we should have on the show. Thank you so much for listening.