How To Build a High-Trust Marketing Agency

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Growth plus Exit podcast where owners of privately held middle market companies talk about founding, scaling and exiting their businesses successfully. Learn how to maximize and monetize your business on your own terms. Let's get started.

Speaker C: Good morning everyone. Susan Carney, your host for the Growth Plus Exit podcast, which is where middle market business owners and CEOs talk about finding, scaling and sometimes exiting their businesses. The episode today is brought to you by Newport llc, which is a cadre of, uh, business founders, owners and experienced C suite executives who help, um, uh, business owners build more valuable businesses, exit them on their own terms in the way that they'd like to for themselves and their teams and their communities. Uh, for example, we helped the owner of a professional services company polish up the business as he scaled it and then exit at a 13x multiple to EBITDA, which was life, ah, changing for him and his team and a great success and a lot of fun. You can learn more about us@newportllc.com. um, today I'm excited to be talking with Ari Paratinsky, Aries, ah, and entrepreneur and a growth expert. We'll learn more about, uh, what that means in his life to being a growth expert as we talk today. He's the founder and CEO at Steady Growth Partners. So welcome Ari. It's great to have you this morning.

Speaker A: Thank you, Susan. It's great to be here. I'm excited.

Speaker C: Yeah, this is going to be fun. Um, I want to start this morning by learning a little bit about your professional background. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got where you are today? And in particular, uh, is there a common thread or a purpose that runs through the course of your career?

Speaker A: I'll start there and say authenticity for sure. Um, uh, and then we'll back up. Um, we'll start about 10 years ago, which is when I got into the world of marketing. Um, I started off my career kind of ping ponging, figuring out where I want to be, working at a freight forwarder, shipping company and then working at a plastics manufacturer. Um, and I just happened to have, uh, found and met this CEO who was starting his agency here in New York. And the energy and the excitement that was just palpable in the office was, it was just undeniable and it was just something that I was very much drawn to and thought, hey, I got to work here. Um, and they felt the same. So I started at that agency about 10 years ago knowing really very little about what I do now, what we were doing then, which is paid media, advertising, paid Search and paid social. And I learned everything that I know at that position. I was there for um, overall it was about seven years. I did take a break in the middle to lead marketing at a legal tech startup after uh, a fundraising round, a $50 million round, uh, a series A, which was fun and stressful. But the, the, the, the um, the direction was really starting at this company that didn't have much of a presence, that was working with a lot of very, very small businesses kind of just walking up and down the central avenue, the main avenue here and um, on Long island and just kind of knocking on doors. And it was a fun experience and it was, it was, it was exhilarating. And then as we started to get better, better at what we did and as we started to publish case studies we started to get bigger and bigger and bigger clients and the business started to grow and it was all fun and it was great. But as the business grows and me being one of the first employees at the, at the company started to move a little bit more away from the work that was being produced and the end client and started to feel more managerial, uh, which I don't really love. Um, and that was one of the reasons why in year four five I, I stepped away and I took this position to run a marketing department for this legal startup which was very high, fast paced and it was high anxiety and it was we have to hit our numbers at all costs. And I learned a lot in that position that I was in for about eight months that I then brought back to the agency. And there was this kind of interesting juxtaposition of the agency valuing the relationship between the individuals in the company and how that translated into the relationships that were developed with the clients because it really was a people services business. And then the bulldozer, I'll call it, um, mentality of the startup which was we don't really see the person or the human that's doing the work, just hit the numbers, it doesn't really matter. And ultimately that showed up in like an environment and it made a massive difference. Although they did do a really good job at uh, certain pieces. So like the sales department which kind of, you know, fits with that type of mentality. So I learned a lot about what is positive about that type of work environment and that mentality, what is negative and comparing that to what is positive and potentially negative about the opposite or on the other side of the spectrum type of mentality. And I then came back to the agency, I brought a lot about what I learned at that, um, legal tech startup and re built the sales and marketing department for the agency itself. Continued to grow that, and then at a certain point turned around and said, I can probably just do this by myself, for myself and create an environment and a lifestyle that I want. Now that I've been doing this for long enough, now that I've built the confident to know that nobody actually knows what they're doing and we, uh, can all just figure it out. Um, and I stepped away about three years ago, three and a half years ago, started my own agency. And from there, uh, I've grown, um, steadily. Um, there's the name and uh, it's been really fun. And now I'm the one who creates the environment. I'm the one who chooses together as a team. We choose the type of clients we want to work with that match with who we are as an agency and who we are, are and like kind of how we want to behave. So that's kind of the progression of where I am now. I know there's, it's a lot of. I mentioned a bunch of like, kind of, you know, feelings and um, mentality of how you deliver internally between each other, but how you deliver to clients. And um, I would say, like, to me that was the biggest piece of why I decided to go out on my own. Because I really wanted to own that and control that and build a life and an agency environment that, um, I was proud of and that I would enjoy going to and, and working with in every day.

Speaker C: Yeah, but that's a risk, isn't it? Taking that leap away from someone giving you a paycheck to having to build your own business and find your colleagues and find your clients. How did you manage yourself?

Speaker A: I don't think it's a risk. I don't think that's a risk.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker A: I think it's less. I think it's less of a risk to, to stay in an agency. Well, really, in any business. In any business where you ultimately don't have the control to make the decisions. Because, I mean. Well, I'm not sure what the exact number is, but I think it's up to maybe 120,000, 125,000 tech workers that have been laid off this year due to AI advancements. So, I mean, you tell me, Susan, which one is riskier?

Speaker C: I've been on both sides of that, and I would say both. Managing the risk is the thing. Right. Doing your due diligence, thinking it through, really understanding for sure and planning for it. But I love your Attitude.

Speaker A: Ah, yeah, for sure. I. I will say I'm, um, um, I'm being bit, um, I'm being a little bit snarky in my response. You know, the truth is, I didn't just leave with nothing lined up, with no, um, with no leads, with no clients while I was at the agency, while I was building up my own personal network, and while I was building up what I was getting really good at, just naturally, a lot of friends, a lot of people that I knew started to reach out. Can you help me? Do you have any advice on this? I, you know, uh, we need some direction. So over time, on the side of what I was doing in the agency, I had all these contacts, I had all these kind of, like, consulting engagements that were going on. Um, and that was part of one of the ways I mitigated the risk and said, like, okay, you know, there, there seems to be something here that I can, you know, build off of.

Speaker C: Yeah, great way to transition. And so you mentioned authenticity. Tell me a little bit about what authenticity means to you and why it's important in what you do.

Speaker A: Sure. So I think, um, I think it's. I think it's Apple, who just released a new ad campaign. And the commercial, the TV commercial is a woman walking down the street with an Apple watch. And there's all this chatter about health. This person saying, you know, if you eat this type of nut, it'll. It'll raise your. Your heart rate. And then, you know, she gets on, uh, the train and someone else is saying, you know, if you, if you don't take 10,000 steps a day, you'll. You'll reduce your. You'll increase your risk for cardio. And it's just all these different. All this noise, this health noise. And the point of the ad campaign is to say, we are your trusted source. Because there's so much chatter and there's so much noise that it becomes so difficult to discern what's real and what's not. But the reason why there's so much noise is because that has become the medium for people to market themselves, for people to get out there and get in front of people, whether it's what they're saying is true, accurate, even real. And it's become so important for me to be authentic in the way that while it's okay to put yourself out there and get yourself out there, also know what you don't know and convey what you don't know and be authentic in the way of building a relationship that works for both sides so we're in the people services business. We do marketing services, we run paid ads for our clients and. But we're in the. I mean, we're in the trust business. That's what we're in. So while there's so much noise out there, I feel the only real way to build a meaningful relationship with clients that will trust you with their business and the growth of their business and allow us to do our jobs properly is for us to say, I don't know more often, and do it in a way that's confident and do it in a way that is real and, uh, in a way that we can say, I don't know, but I will know. So let me follow up with you and let me look into that and let me take your perspective and build it into what we're doing. And I think this idea of the influencer has morphed into the business influencer in the very niche and specific area that, you know, wherever you are in a business. And I just feel like authenticity, especially with everything being produced by non humans, just rings so much louder in this environment, and it always has. But I just feel leaning into it even more means so much more now. And I'm not. I'm not letting go of it. I'm just not going to let go of the idea that you must be authentic in order to really build those relationships that are required to build what you want to build and have the life that you want to have. So. So that's where I. That's the position that I come at it from.

Speaker C: Yeah, that makes sense to me. And I imagine that your clients and prospects and partners get, uh, their own confidence from that. You know, in my experience in business, the more straightforward and honest you are, the more you tell it like it is, the more you own things, uh, the more people do trust you. And so that's probably one of the important foundations of your success.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's one of the things I actually learned from the previous agency that I was working at. Um, there was a CEO there named Isaac, Isaac Rudansky. I'll call him out. He's a great friend of mine. And one of the things that I learned in the way that he approached relationships with clients was this rule that when you start a call, when you start a review call, when you want to talk about numbers and metrics, you always start with first. What has gone wrong since we last spoke? Here's the bad news first. Here's what we missed on. Here's where we gave you our hypothesis of what was going to happen and we were incorrect. Then from there you continue on and go through the metrics, the strategy updates, the optimizations, and how we're fixing things. I think part of why that's so powerful is if you don't start with what's wrong. There's a, there's many clients will. We're a third party, third party, third party partner. So when you hire a marketing agency, there's always that. Are they, do they have their, our best interests in mind? Are they delivering on what they are supposed to? So when you have these conversations with clients, if you don't bring to the front of the call or the conversation, here's what's wrong. The whole time they're going to be looking through the lens of what is wrong, what is, did they do something wrong? Did we do something wrong, what's bad and how can we make it better. And if you bring it to the front of the call, it then creates that calm that we don't have to micromanage, we don't have to think and analyze. This is a trusted partner. They're telling us very openly and honestly, here's where there were missteps or mistakes. And the truth is that there's nothing wrong with that. That is what's supposed to happen when you experiment. That's what's supposed to happen when you grow a business. You're supposed to have those and make those mistakes. I, uh, was actually reading an article in the Wall Street Journal recently that talked about the interview process and how interviewers are, uh, kind of when a candidate seems too perfect, their brain looks for something wrong. And, and they. There was an experiment run where interviewees sitting across the table would at the beginning of the interview accidentally spill their cup of water or spill something on themselves. And those particular interviews or interviewees shared much better than, uh, others that seemed on paper and in person almost perfect because there was that, that, that aspect of the brain that looks for something that's wrong was served. Okay, so this person's a little bit awkward, they're nervous, they knock the cup of water over. Okay? If everything else is perfect, that's the thing that's wrong. Something has to, it can't be right. Too good to be true. It can't be too good to be true. So I think that blends into the idea of authenticity. Now you don't have to go and make m up something that's wrong or knock the cup of water over on purpose, but I think that will naturally happen if you have that type of relationship. And also if my team knows that that's the relationships that we develop with our clients, they are going to handle and manage the work that we're doing through that lens, which is they're not going to cover up issues, mistakes, you know, things that were done wrong. Uh, we're going to bring the client into that so we can get that perspective and we're going to work operationally as an actual team. So I think that's a lot of what drives and what's behind or how we approach that aspect of authenticity and being wrong.

Speaker C: Great. I really like that. Um, I can imagine you retain your clients and expand them over the long term because of that bond and that relationship. So um, thinking about uh, the business that you started several years ago, what are some of the challenges you faced growing the business as a first time entrepreneur? And um, what have you learned from them that our, that our listeners might um, be able to take in and um, keep them from solving problems themselves?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good question. I would say the biggest challenge is. Well the biggest challenge is getting hiring right. And it's not just the right people, it's also the right timing. So for example we, we signed uh, at the end of, or uh, toward the end of last year we signed a, a big client, a very big client that we had to immediately staff for. And it was a big stress in the way that we knew we wanted to uh, service this client. We had the know how and ability to be able to do it. We just needed the resources to be able to do it. And the, the push and pull, the constant push and pull on the marketing agency side of growing the business, projecting how that growth looks and bringing on the right employees for that growth is always a challenge. But I think what happens very often is, and like the, the ping pong thought process back and forth of as I build this team, how do I change or be flexible in the type of service delivery and process as opposed to keeping very rigid so then I can create a almost productized delivery. And having that flexibility is a big part of that flexibility of the resources to be able to do that. So how do you actually go ahead and do that and how do you project out? Especially when you're early on in growing an agency, a brand, how do you project out what your needs are going to be? And I think if you sell a product, if you have an E Comm site and you're starting to look at the sales numbers and you understand what the projected growth might be based on that. Okay, so it becomes a little bit easier because the roles are defined, because you're delivering, you're selling a product, the product delivery is defined. But when you're a marketing agency and the landscape is continuously changing, the service delivery changes. So that definitely was a very big challenge. And then the idea of understanding, okay, so forget about headcount and how many employees are bringing on, what type of employee and what type of team member do you want to have that can create and continue to build the environment that I want to m manage and I want to be delivered to the client. And that becomes very difficult as you grow and as you scale. And um, it's a challenge early on, but it continues to be a challenge as you scale. And I think as far as I'm concerned, the most important job of a CEO or a leader of a business is actually building that team in a way that they can remove themselves from the work daily. And that's where the, that's where the magic starts to happen and that's where you start to step away. Not my. And I hate the idea of micromanaging. So those challenges kind of all blend in one to, you know, point back to the, to the leader, to the CEO, to the person running the company to say, how are you going to solve this issue so that you can continue to grow the business as opposed to managing those teams? So I think a lot of times some of that challenge leads to businesses growing headcount and then saying, well, this uh, isn't working and my team's not doing what I need them to do. So I'm continuously still being in the work. And I think it all comes down to training and really giving over the um, the method, the methodologies and the philosophy behind why you do what you do as opposed to this is what we do and this is how we do it. I think the why is what really builds that, that environment. So definitely hiring, but also what happens after you hire. How do you train, how do you give over that philosophy and how do you get everyone on the same page in a way that allows you to grow and be, and be flexible? Now I'll say one thing which is I knew that this was a challenge because I came from the agenc. So one of the ways that we approached this challenge early on was as we were growing and bringing on full time team members, we also did a lot of work at building out an expert network that would allow us Flex to be able to add on platforms that might be a little bit more niche like Pinterest or Reddit. Um, and allow us to augment the team with part time workers that have been vetted and are part of our expert network. So there are solutions that you can, when you're in the people services business, you can, you can bring in to, you know, kind of stopgap any of those resource challenges. But definitely resourcing has been the biggest challenge for sure.

Speaker C: Yeah. I mean for professional services companies there's always, you know, sitting on a fence between having a little bit of capacity on the bench, which is expensive, but then you have people when you need them, versus hiring in real time and are you able to find the talent? Um, so that's, you know, as a traditional problem everyone has to solve. But I'm really quite interested in the point that you just made, which I completely agree with, which is the first step in kind of changing your leadership style as an owner of a scaling business, um, is getting out of the work and instead of becoming a doer, becoming an empowerer of your team. It's a tough. For many owners, it's one of the hardest transitions that they make because, uh, at first there might be, uh, failures or people do things different ways and you would do them. I'm wondering if you went through that, that step where it was very difficult for you, um, and how you managed yourself as a leader so that you got to the point where you can empower rather than doing all the things.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a great question. Um, well, the first step is, I mean, for me it wasn't all that hard. Um, but hire people that are smarter than you, hire people that are better than you at the service that you're delivering. Um, and if you do that and you go out and find people that are really, really good at what you deliver and you find high quality people, it allows you to take a step back and not, uh, micromanage. Only if you create the environment that your employees are not afraid to make a mistake. They should be terrified to make the same mistake twice, but they should be totally okay with making a mistake once, a bunch of mistakes once. And I think that my team, through the experience of working with me, understands that mentality and understands that we have that approach. And it goes back to the same mentality of when a employee is new and they're joining calls with clients and we're talking to clients in the way that we talk to clients, it becomes evident that that's just who we are. As a personality of a business and who I am and what my expectations are, and my expectations aren't to have robots as employees. It's to have human beings and people and, and if they're not making any mistakes, that means that we're not trying enough new things and that we're not expanding our knowledge and experience. And I just, I hate the idea of micromanaging. Uh, I mean, hey, my whole career I've been a personality hire, right. So I'm here to help. I'm here to empower. I'm here to drive the team to deliver the work as opposed to delivering the work myself. Now, yes, I did a decade of delivering the work, so I understand what's necessary for high quality work, and that's definitely a precursor to being able, uh, to resource and hire. But that, that aspect of employees really understanding your, like the, the, the business philosophy or the team philosophy, I think that does a lot more than, um, SOPs or, you know, how we, you know, how we deliver the end work. And truthfully, I've, I've been able to really take a step back and create more of that environment now that we have a great team. And now that My team owns 100% of the client relationships, of course I'm involved. But, um, I think it just comes through that osmosis of the employees really drinking that up and realizing, hey, this is. This, like, we have responsibility and we're expected to deliver on things, and it just naturally empowers those employees. It naturally empowers the team. Uh, so I think a lot of that is, is. Is necessary. And I think, I think there's a component of consistency. So if, and I'm sure there's a lot of employees that have had experiences with volatile leadership and they don't really know how leadership's going to respond to the same thing that happened three weeks ago or so. Responses are different. Expectations become murky. M. Set expectations properly create intention and allow consistency to show your team how we operate and why we operate that way. And that's really it. I don't really think it's overly complicated.

Speaker C: Yeah. So having empowered your team, how do you hold them accountable? This is a big challenge in many businesses as they grow.

Speaker A: Yes. Um, so the way I hold them accountable is first to make it very clear that they need to hold themselves accountable. So the same way that we hold ourselves accountable to our clients, my team needs to be held accountable internally. So they need to hold themselves accountable and come to me with certain issues or anything that, you know, comes up on the other side. If I'm setting the roadmap for our company. And there are certain aspects that obviously have to be delivered by the internal team as opposed to me. We're very close knit group. We are constantly on slack. We're constantly, even though we're remote work, we're constantly on calls. Uh, and it's almost like there's no room to like get through without doing what you need to do because there's, the rest of the team is involved and I'm involved. And I mean holding the team accountable is just as simple as, as that which is, did you do what you needed to do, did you do what you were asked to do or not? I mean we use a, we use a project management platform called ClickUp and we have a process built in which is very, very simple and everyone involved has visibility over it and we can run the reports, we can do our daily calls to make sure that nothing is outstanding for too long. We run it in a way that tries to strip away any complexity so that we can get to the root of what we're delivering. And holding the team accountable becomes just a natural process of how the team delivers because that's what they're coming to our internal meetings with. Here's what's um, on my plate, here's what I need help with, here's what I delivered early, here's what I'm going to be delivering, but I'm late on and here's why. And we have that natural process and I think in the way that we structure and I structure the leadership, um, I'm there to support as opposed to um, pressure and push. But there's so like, when I'm there to support, I just, the conversation is different. It's like, hey man, we need to deliver on this. But I'm struggling. Can you help me out with this type of, you know, analysis and. Absolutely. Sure, let's do it. I love getting involved in the work and, and when that happens, I feel like I'm empowering even more. And I feel like I'm, you know, getting back into the work and getting a lot of energy from it. So yeah, I don't know, I'm not sure how other businesses do this honestly. Um, but that's how we approach accountability. Um, it's not really something we talk about too often. It's just part of the natural flow of how we deliver and just keep each other accountable.

Speaker C: Thanks for that. I'm sure that'll be helpful to some of the folks who listen to this podcast. Um, let's turn a little bit now and talk about you a little, uh, personally rather than professionally. Tell Me, um, where were you raised and what was your upbringing like?

Speaker A: Sure. Um, so I was raised in New York, um, in, uh, a town called, or county called Rockland county, which is. It's about 40 minutes north of Manhattan, um, on a nice quiet dead end street with a fruit as the name, you know. And it was, it was a nice. It was a great childhood. Um, it was, it was, it was calm, it was relaxing. It was, um. It was. I think it set the. I think it set the foundation for me, uh, in a way that it provided the ability to have confidence. I think there was. I had three siblings. My parents were always present. We were, we kind of had this, like, I had this weirdly ideal childhood. Like I. My wife used to joke when we first met. She's like, so. But like, what. What was. What happened? What bad thing happened in your childhood? Like, where was I? Where's the trauma? Like, can you help me? We need to find the trauma. There must be, and there just wasn't. And I think that, uh, in the way that I grew up, there were a lot of value set. I grew up Jewish and I grew up in a religious household. And it was part of the fabric of how we ebbed, ebbed and flowed in life that there was always this central value that we rotated around. Whether it was, you know, work or community, responsibilities or whatever it was. It was always this kind of this pull back to we run our lives in a certain way. And there's values that are non negotiable. And I think a lot of the idea of non negotiables and the idea of that type of finding what works in your life around those values really set the path for me to say, there's always a way to take control and, and create the life that you want if you're willing to do the work for it. And I think ultimately that was. I maybe didn't know it at the time, but that was the beginning of this, like, feeling and like, burning inside of. I. I want to be able to create the life where I have to create the life that works for me so that I don't lose the ability to lean into whatever values it is that I will have when I, you know, get older and build my own family. Um, so while there was no trauma that I can look back and say, well, that's, that's why I am the way I am today. I think it's a beautiful thing. And I think that the family environment that I was in is very much the reason, um, you know, why I am who I am today and why I'm, you know, doing what I'm doing in the way that I'm doing it today. So, um, yeah, when you say the

Speaker C: way I'm doing it today, what do you mean?

Speaker A: With intention, with intentionality. I think that, um, we live in capitalist usa, where it's very easy to get caught up in the rat race of what actually is important. And if you're starting a business, well, why are you starting the business if not to scale it to the moon? Um, and I think for me, part of why I wanted to start my own business wasn't just the push based on the experience that I had and the confidence in it, but it was the understanding that I have children, I have a family, I have two little girls, and we're going to have another baby this summer. And I want to be able to build my work around my life in a way that allows me to enjoy my life, lean into the things that really bring me happiness and lasting content. And the only way for me at least to do that was to lean into what I knew I could do, but do it in a way that I add the control to build that lifestyle. So as an employee, there's always that aspect of you're on someone else's clock and you have expectations or there are expectations set that you need to be responsive at any time. And as you grow in that business, that becomes even more, um, extreme. And I wanted to be able to be on my own clock and I wanted to also convey to the team that they're. While there's a nine to five mentality, it's really produce the work mentality and fill your cup first, otherwise nothing else actually works and the quality of the work doesn't show and nobody's happy. And there's always, there's always just been, at least in the agency world, this idea of chaos. There's. In a people services business where there's a lot of different layers and components, it's very easy for the sales team to promise something that the delivery team can't deliver on. Or, you know, it makes it impossible to deliver on timelines. And I think that it was. I was just, I. I was so sick of that type of grind, and my team seemed to be very sick of that type of grind before they came to work with us. And the way in which we build the agency, like you mentioned before, we retain clients for a very long time. We're not looking to take on 20 new clients a month. We don't want to have a high Churn. We want to be able to build deep relationships, and that allows us to fill our own cups and spend time with our families and spend time outside of the office while delivering, when we're in the office in a way that we wouldn't really be able to deliver if there was this high pressure, high anxiety environment constantly. And that's a lot of. You know, when you, when I talk about, uh, my childhood, there was always this feeling of calm but seriousness. You know, you don't have to conflate this idea of. You don't have to do the George Costanza of looking upset at your computer for people to think that you're working. You can just deliver in a light way but still take it seriously. And that's like the. Everything comes out of, comes out of that. We take our work very seriously, but we're light and fun with ourselves. And as long as we're delivering, we are enjoying our lives. And we are, you know, we're, we're spending time with the people that we want to. I mean, yesterday. What's today? Thursday. Yesterday I took my mom to a matinee Broadway show, which is a two o' clock show on a Wednesday afternoon. I mean, does it get better than that, right? I don't. I don't think so. So, yeah, so to be able to do that. And like, I was just texting her this morning. She was, she said, she, she texted me. She's like, hey, um, I'm. I'm still smiling from yesterday. And I responded, I said, you know, Ma, that's, that's the whole point of life. What are we doing all of this if not to be able to do things like that? So, um, I think that's what I mean by my way. And again, it really does bleed into the way in which we speak to our clients and the way in which we're able to develop those relationships. And it only does because we really find joy in those relationships. And we're able to find joy in those relationships because it's not a source of stress for us. It's actually a source of enjoyment because we're delivering good work. We're creating the environment that allows us to do that without this, like, manufactured chaos and really fills out the circle of what a full, you know, happy life, successful life looks like. And I don't think in this, like, in this day and age, there's a reason not to strive for that. Um, as far as I'm concerned, obviously everyone has their own goals, but that's what I mean by the way I want to do things.

Speaker C: It's interesting. There's so much talk about, and has been for years about, uh, work life balance, spending time at work, spending time at home, and how you kind of put the right things on your plate and all that. And uh, it seems to me like you've turned that upside down. It's not a matter of work life balance. It's a matter of having a life that you bring intentionality and authenticity to. And I, I really like, I appreciate the way that you've taken your own self awareness and determination to have a life you want and pulled it into the value system and the culture of your business.

Speaker A: Yeah, I, I, I agree and I think work life balance is important. But I, I think if you, if you approach and you come at it from the angle that, that I, I don't think it's really much of a conversation because work, work isn't this constant source of stress. So when there's a slack that comes through at night, it's similar to a text from a friend coming through. And there isn't this, this pressure that you feel immediately, I must get back to this person right away or I, I, you know what, uh, my, my slack is pinging. What went wrong? What did I do wrong? It's different. It's, we're just like, we're just getting things done and whether that happens at home or not, and there's the understanding of, you know, okay, you don't have to respond to this message right away, but very often it is responded to right away and there's that, you know, feeling an environment there. And I, I think, I think that's awesome. And I think that, that, that definitely, it definitely, it definitely says a lot to me now. There's nothing wrong with stress. Just to clarify, there's nothing wrong with having stress drive you. Um, but I read that distinction of stress, which is stress that comes internally, like internally from your own company, your own team, your own leadership, and stress that comes from like the delivery to a client and the actual work that's being delivered, or the stress that's um, coming from yourself to deliver that work. So there's nothing wrong. And when you take your work seriously, you should have some level of stress that I'm doing this correctly, that I'm doing this to the best of my ability. But I think the way in which you handle that stress, the way in which you interpret that stress really determines if that's positive stress or negative stress. And I think those have a massive impact on your ability to Deliver and your just overall happiness and satisfaction with life. So just to clarify, there's, there's, there's. This is not a Kumbaya, uh, type of. Yeah, we're, we're in business. And that's fine to have stress, but understand the source of it and what the purpose of that stress is. And I think that's a huge distinction.

Speaker C: Yeah, I do too. Um, speaking of which, you have a busy life. You have two girls, another baby on the way, married, have other family, have your business, and so on. I'm wondering if there are any life hacks or daily rituals you've developed to help you stay organized and on track, um, and have contributed to your success.

Speaker A: Sure. Hack is not the right term I would use for anything that contributes to long term success. Um, to quote Warren Buffett, nobody wants a get rich, slow scheme. But if you follow Warren Buffett and you look at how rich he is and the progression of where that happened, the vast majority of his wealth was developed after the age of 65. And I think the idea of a hack or a quick tip doesn't really work because the whole idea is whatever you're doing, make it consistent. So for me, there are certain components that I build into my life. So a morning, a morning ritual. So we, funny enough, we started this podcast later than we wanted to because I had a chaotic morning with the kids at home. But that's only half the story. I had a chaotic morning with my kids at home, but it was a non negotiable that I have to go to the gym and get some of that exercise in before I start work. So while technically I could have been on time to this podcast even with the chaos that happened at home, if I didn't take that me time. But I did because it's not something that I look at as if I have time. I'll take care of myself. I flip that upside down, which is if I don't take care of myself, I won't be able to take care of anybody else. And my family, my clients, my employees, uh, and that to me makes whatever it is that you have to do to take care of yourself a non negotiable. So I think it becomes unique for every person. But for me, a non negotiable is taking time in the morning for myself before I get into the office. And for me right now, that's, that's the gym. Now I'm sure, I'm sure there's a bunch of listeners and you probably know, uh, of heard of James Claire, maybe Read his book Atomic Habits. And I, uh, love these types of books because a lot of it is so stupidly simple that you just need someone to remind you of it. And I think there's, there's two powerful things that came out of that book for me that changed the way I approach the life hack style or non negotiables that are important to me, which is you have to do something that's, you have to be consistent. You have to be consistent as opposed to being um, as opposed to like, consistency beats intensity. So whatever it is that you look at and say, I need to do this in order to be my best self. If it's something difficult like exercising or it's something that requires some sort of effort every single day, the first thing you need to do is you need to break it down into an embarrassingly simple habit to do. Embarrassingly simple. So for me, when I started going back to the gym and I knew that was something that I needed to do to take care of myself in order to take care of anyone else, I started by, I'm going to go to the gym one time a week for 10 minutes, but I'm going to go that same day, that same 10 minutes, no matter what. And it's like, yeah, but that's not going to deliver any fitness results. So what are you doing that for? But that comes later. It's not about the fitness results, it's not even about the results at all. It's about the act itself. It's about that habit and the idea of breaking things down into that simply like extremely stupid, embarrassing level of, uh, simplicity. Just, you almost can't fail. You just can't. So that is something that. And now it's an everyday thing that I do. And over time it progressed into now I go every single morning. And now it's become like, I don't. I'll sometimes put on my gym clothes in the morning and then realize like, oh, today's my rest day. But like that's just what I do. It's just how. And then the other piece that James talks about that really resonated with me was this idea of identity. And a lot of people struggle with identity or kind of feel like we're just grinding and we're just working. And it's like you go to work, you eat, you sleep, you wake up, you go back to work. And I think the part of identity and the way that James Clear speaks about it is you decide the identity of the person that you want to be. So let's Take the gym for example. That's a non negotiable. If you want to do that, if you want to be a person who goes to the gym, because that's who you want to be, then act like the person who goes to the gym every day. Don't go to the gym every day, but act the other things around that. So what does your schedule look like or what are you, like what are you eating or think? When you make a decision, is this the decision that a person who goes to the gym makes? Right. Is this a path or is this something that somebody goes to the gym every day does? And you start to internally build that identity of uh, who you want to be. And if you match that with the very, very, very simple, small goal of making it just consistent in the easiest possible way, over time m those things start to match and you turn around and you, you, you are the person that you want it to be based on the identity thought process, based on the identity like decision matrix and that daily or, you know, consistent habit. So I don't know about a hack, but I think at least for me it's the absolute non negotiable that maybe you could negotiate. But you are the one who's deciding that this is a non negotiable. And um, I think that provides you internally with, at least for me, a lot of confidence and it allows you to say, okay, well, what else did I think was hard or what I wanted to do but have always been pushing off or you know, just not feeling like I can be consistent? And how do I strip that down really to the most basic of basic to make it really, really, really simple? Um, so yes, not, it's not a, um, it's not a fun answer, but that's the truth. It's just consistency.

Speaker C: Yep. Yep. Thank you for that. Like it very, very much. Um, last question. Um, what, what is the one piece of advice you would give to your peers, something that you know where you want to save them? Learning a tough lesson because you've already learned it the hard way.

Speaker A: Um, so just to clarify, you mean peers, like on in the agency world, like what kind of the folks who

Speaker C: listen to this podcast, Owners of private companies that are looking to grow and scale?

Speaker A: Um, yeah, I think know the goal. It sounds like a silly response, but know the goal. And I'm saying that because of the hundreds, probably at this point, thousands of conversations that I've had with small to middle market business owners and because we're a, uh, growth marketing agency, we always start with okay, so, like, what's the goal here? Where do we want to be? And, Susan, you fall out of your chair if I tell you the percentage of business owners that responded with a blank stare. And part of that is like, I don't understand your question, Ari. We want to grow. Okay? Uh, but that's not a goal. That's just, you know, you just want to grow. So I think if you start with really understanding the goal, and I mean really, really, really understanding the goal, everything else starts to fall into place through that lens and through that vision. And, like, that's, to me, the simplest, easiest advice to give, which is if you can, if you ask yourself, or if someone asks you what. What is your goal? And you can't answer with, well, here's my goal in the next week, here's my goal in the next month, here's my goal in the next 90 days, six months, and a year, then you don't really have a goal. And it becomes difficult. If you're in a business where there's this constant grind and there's this constant, um, push just to work, you need to be able to take that step away. You need to be able to take that. Um, famously, Bill Gates used to take. I think it was. I'm actually not going to misspeak. I don't know exactly how long, but he used to take a good amount of time in his private lake house with just books, no technology, just for thinking. And a lot of some of the big projects came out of, like at, uh, Microsoft came out of those times that he made available to think. So you really have to think about what is your end game here? What is your goal, and how does everything else fall into place to really get you there? Um, yeah, I really think that's as simple as it sounds. The best, most powerful advice I can give, really, based on a lot of conversations that I've had where it was very difficult for the business owner to actually answer that question.

Speaker C: Yeah, it doesn't surprise me. I've seen that look too. That for sure.

Speaker A: Um, I do think one of the things. I do think one of the reasons I think it becomes difficult for businesses to actually land on those things is because, like, you were asking before about accountability. Because then you have to be accountable to it. And not only do you have to be accountable to it, that means that the whole company is looking to you to push them to be able to deliver and to create the environment that everyone can actually deliver on those goals. So it takes a serious person to be able to really do that. Um, but. But that's. I mean, that's the mechanism. That's actually how you, you know, grow. And especially if you're going for some sort of exit. Um, there. There you go. Like, that's. I mean, that. That's really everything.

Speaker C: Yeah. Well, my dad used to tell me when I was young that if you don't know what station you want to get to, why are you getting on a train?

Speaker A: True.

Speaker C: Right?

Speaker A: That's great. I love that. There you go. Yeah. Well, what are you doing? Oh, I like that. I like that. I like that. I like that imagery.

Speaker C: Yeah. My dad was a great coach for me. All right, well, um, this is the Growth plus Exit podcast, and I'm talking to Ari Paratinsky, who's the CEO, founder of Steady Growth Partners. Um, and it's been a pleasure to talk to you. Where, um, can people learn more about you and your work?

Speaker A: Yeah, um, first off, it was a pleasure. Susan, thank you so much. Uh, I very much enjoyed the. The conversation. Anyone, um, who'd like to. To learn a little bit more about us, you can head to our website, which is tristeadygrowth.com. you can find me on. On LinkedIn. Um, Susan, hopefully, I'm, uh, sure you'll. You'll share some links in the bottom of the, uh, the show notes. Um, but, uh, but yeah, come say hi. Come check us out. Um, reach out if you have any questions. If, uh, you're looking for some help on growth marketing, paid ads, any kind of, you know, attribution or reporting clarity, um, yeah, we're happy to consult and, uh, be a team.

Speaker C: All right, thanks so much, and have a great day.

Speaker B: Thank you for listening to the Growth plus Exit podcast, sponsored by Newport, a unique national business advisory firm. If you enjoy this show, be sure to share like and subscribe for future episodes.

Speaker A: It.