The Jason and Bart Show

Jason and Bart had a conversation about running an agency and the importance of human resources. They discussed the labor market and the current period as it pertains to HR. They also talked about their experience in New York and waiting in line for pizza. They concluded that conversations about HR come up often, and that the most important resource is people, whether they are clients or employees. They discussed the evolution of the HR industry and the importance of hiring and firing. This conversation is about the current labor market, where people are getting paid high salaries by large companies. Small companies are unable to match the salaries of the larger companies and this has caused low unemployment. However, some of the big companies have had to begin laying off people and those people are finding jobs the next day. Inflation has also been increasing, making it difficult for people to cover their costs. A partner in Europe pointed out that inflation is even higher in their country and employees are asking for raises to counter the costs. **Timestamps** **0:00:02** **Conversation on Human Resources and Agency Management** **0:02:53** **Exploring the Impact of the Pandemic on Labor Costs and Profitability** **0:04:11** **Heading: Navigating the HR Wilderness: Managing Cost and Operating Efficiently in the Post-Pandemic Labor Market** **0:05:47** **Heading: Analysis of the Labor Market and Inflation in the US and Europe** **0:07:16** **Heading: The Impact of Hybrid Work on HR Investment** **0:09:21** **"The Benefits of Investing in Talent Acquisition and Retention"** **0:12:59** **Discussion on Recruiting and Benefits for Growing Companies** **0:16:54** **Heading: Managing a Changing Labor Market in 2021 and Beyond** **0:19:59** **Heading: Hiring and Firing in 2021: A Discussion on Quality Assurance and Employee Leverage** **0:22:04** **Heading: The Challenges of Making Difficult Decisions as a Business Owner** **0:23:36** **Discussion on Investing in People and Resources for Business Success** **Highlights** **And so it is important to invest in your people. Right to your point, you don't like to call them resources. That said, there's a cost to that. There's an emotional cost to it.** **And again, I think there's some residual scar tissue for a lot of owners between sort of the over empathetic owner who really wanted to guide their team through this really difficult time and an employee base that really took advantage of having leverage there for a period of time.** **But, yeah, as we see sort of a changing labor market. This is sometimes hard to say to owners, but patience at this point, if you can, I think is going to be a virtue.** **So would you say that giving them back more time to focus on sales, for example, or bringing in revenue might offset that kind of investment in $80 to $100,000 a year person internally?.** **And you start having those kind of value based conversations around the value that your employees are bringing back as opposed to their cost, and having maybe somebody dedicated to that role internally can reap some benefits for owners.**

Misaligned project budgets: Why clients don't understand the cost, and how to educate them SUMMARY The client may not understand how much a project may cost, and this is because the decision-makers are not the ones interfacing with the agencies. Oftentimes, the client goes off of price without realizing the total cost of ownership. Jason and Bart discuss the importance of experience when estimating the cost of a project. They say that clients often go for the lowest estimate without considering all the work that needs to be done. This can lead to problems down the road. The speakers also mentioned that clients who are not technologists or developers often have no idea what it takes to deliver a digital solution. The importance of delivering value to clients, rather than focusing on the initial project budget. They argue that the initial budget is not as crucial as the lifetime value of the project and that agencies should not put too much weight on it. They advise agencies to put together the most value-intensive program they can and not to worry about the price. They discuss the importance of price when choosing a vendor partner for a project. They mention that while the price is essential, it should not be the only deciding factor. Otherwise, the project may not be successful. TIMESTAMPS 0:00:01  Budgeting for a Project: Clients Not Understanding How Much Stuff Costs 0:02:13  The Arbitrary Nature of Project Budgets 0:04:17  The Importance of Project Budgeting 0:05:47  The Cost of Working with an Agency 0:07:09  Budgeting for Web Development Projects 0:08:46  The Impact of Misaligned Budgets in the Sales Process 0:12:31  The Impact of a Client's Budget on a Freelancer's Decision 0:14:00  The Benefits of Breaking Down a Project's Cost 0:16:11  The Importance of Realistic Expectations in Agency-Client Relationships 0:18:28  The Importance of Comfort in the Sales Process 0:19:48  Kaleidoscope: A New Show on Netflix 0:21:26  Episode #1: What We're Reading and Watching HIGHLIGHTS I'm on a plane for the next couple of days. So I'll knock most of that out, I hope, on the plane. And I'm looking forward to that. That was given to me by one of our developers for Secret Santa. But at the end of the show, we're going to do, like, what we're watching, what we're reading, what we're binging, what we're into, like, what's going on, like kind of pop culture kind of stuff. And again, to reiterate, sorry, but get away from the coldness of the numbers and get into the warmth of the human beings and building the relationship, because that's the best way to sort of thaw that out and get and get to the numbers you want and the numbers you need. That's a defense mechanism for them. It's a way they can maintain control because they've had a bad experience in the past. This all goes into the human experience of this thing, where you get away from numbers and requirements and scope and get into who the client is and who you are and do you align as people, right? If you think it's a million-dollar project and you wind up accepting to do it for a lot less than that, I guarantee your expectations between your team and the client are not going to be aligned the entire way through the actual production process.

Jason and Bart discuss Jason's holiday experiences, including taking a trip around New York City with a partner from work. They then transition into discussing Jason's topic for the day, which he got from a LinkedIn post. The topic is effective communication in the workplace. Jason and Bart discuss the various ways in which communication can break down in the workplace and offer tips for avoiding these communication breakdowns. TIMESTAMPS  0:00:02   Jason and Bart's Professional Conversation for the New Year 0:02:14   Communication on the Team: Promoting Communication 0:04:03   The Use of Tools for Communication in a Remote Work Environment 0:06:49   The Importance of Communication in a Remote Work Environment 0:08:25   The Importance of Communication in the Workplace 0:10:33   The Importance of Good Communication in the Workplace 0:14:02   Leadership in a Remote Environment 0:15:26   Leadership Communication: The Importance of Listening 0:20:14   The Importance of Hiring Employees Who Can Solve Problems 0:21:42   Crowd Favorite CEO Talks Promoting Communication in the Workplace 0:25:08   Hiring for Communication Fit 0:27:05   The Snarky Culture of [Company Name] HIGHLIGHTS  Communication stuff is part of your branding. It's part of your marketing strategy. I think finding communication fit in the hiring process, that's true culture fit. When you really think about it, it's more important than whether you like the same IPA or the same football team or the same whatever, same car, same movies. I'm not always involved in the hiring process for everybody, and in that meeting, I usually share notes with the management team about people about that meeting. Hey, this is what I found out about the onboarding process, what they liked, what they didn't, what we could do better. I think we've got a lot of children of the financial crisis coming into the job market. I think you've got a lot of people who were born after 911 coming into the job market in the next few years as well, which is kind of crazy. I'm hiring my employees to solve those problems. The idea is that they need to or solve my problems. I had this in my head and I looked at it. And I think one of the ways that you can stifle communication as opposed to promoting it is be the know it all leader. Even if you know the answer honestly, it's better for your business sometimes to see if the team can get to the result.

Jason and Bart discuss the end of the year and how it is a time where people are trying to get things done and plan for the future. They also talk about how clients can be fun and how it is a good time to work. HIGHLIGHTS  What's going on with all the spending of the money and what's going on there, right, is that here's the CFO of a cybersecurity company, right?. So this person is not going to be overly nuanced when it comes to the value of web development and system integration work and stuff like that, right. So we have a client in the cybersecurity space who spent a good amount of money, just started with us in July and half a year. They spent multiple six figures with us. You and I think a lot of our clients are corporate clients. And I think what goes on on wall street and what goes on on Main Street are two very different things. And I'm going to kind of challenge you because it is part of what we're talking about, ownership, because that directly relates to our work, the things we develop for clients. And I think that's a lot of what the market is right now. It's so much momentum up and down. There are companies out there who are perfectly good, valid companies, but only because of sentiment they are getting.

Summary/Abstract The Jason and Bart Show discusses the end of the year and how it is a chaotic and pressured time for agencies. They mention how the production team is under pressure to get things done before Christmas. They also talk about how having access to clients is difficult during this time. Timestamps 0:00:03 The Jason and Bart Show: Episode #1 0:02:36 The Challenges of Q4 for Businesses 0:03:58 Forecasting Growth in Q4: A Conversation with an Entrepreneur 0:07:39 Forecasting Business Growth: A High-Level Overview 0:09:02 Forecasting Revenue and Growth for Your Business 0:12:50 The Importance of Financial Literacy in Business 0:14:42 End of Year Planning for Your Business 0:15:53 Delaying Receivables and the Impact on Cash Flow 0:18:05 End of Year Company Reflection 0:19:47 Highlights If you've had a successful year, maybe you're implementing your profit sharing or your bonus program here at the end of the year. This is something else that I think can be leveraged and remind the team that we all don't necessarily work. I think there are opportunities at the end of the year to take stock a little bit. I usually don't burden the team with a big end-of-the-year like finance and Ops report or a health check. Even if we did bill on December 1, I assume most of the receivables will come in January anyway because the due date is December 31. To your point, AP isn't at work the last week of the year. It seems like there's been this trend where a lot of work invoicing receivables have come more weighted, has come due in a more weighted fashion in Q Four than earlier in the year. So this is, of course, feeding the targets of your pipeline for your marketing team, your HR team, your sales teams, your production teams, and your project management teams.

Listen to the Jason and Bart show to learn about agencies and how to be a more successful agency owner. In the episode, Jason talks about his trip to Costa Rica for the Bureau of Digital. He stayed at an all-inclusive resort and talked about the rain, the monkeys, and the raccoons. The conference was good, and he was impressed by the sophistication of the agency owners. The podcast discusses the idea of growth for growth -How growth can be damaging to an organization -The importance of being selective when choosing opportunities to work on -The importance of considering the budget of a project -The importance of who a client is -The pros and cons of working with large clients as a small agency Keypoints  The ownership level is when you need to be most careful about taking on projects that could potentially do more damage than good. You don't want to just be growing for the sake of growth with nothing left over. When taking on a new client, it's important to consider why you're doing so and if the project aligns with your company's goals. Taking on a project just for the sake of money or growth can be detrimental to your team's morale and bottom line. The best way to avoid blowing your goals out of the water when landing a big project is to have a clear and defined process that you can sell to the client. This way, you can avoid stressful and inefficient delivery, and keep your bottom line in check. The balancing act of working with big clients vs smaller clients can be difficult, but it's important to figure out how to leverage the relationship. If you want to grow your business, you need to be intentional about the projects and clients you bring in. Define what growth means to you and your team, and be prepared to handle any disruptions that come from that growth. Growth for growth sake is a topic that is often debated among business owners. Some believe that growth for the sake of growth is a necessary component for success, while others believe that it can be detrimental to a business. #bad #good #Bart #Camp #Jason #agency #growth #CostaRica #agencyowners #BureauofDigital #digitalownercampers

This video discusses the importance of managing receivables and cash flow for businesses in order to ensure that payroll is not in jeopardy. Strategies discussed include having standard expectations of when payments should be made, as well as building relationships with clients in order to make sure payments are received on time. It is emphasized that managing receivables are part of doing business and that sometimes it is worth chasing after a payment. Finally, it is suggested that having systems in place for when payments are delinquent is essential for when the situation arises. Outline Cash flow is a good topic, especially in these crazy times. 0:04 Cash flow and negotiating with clients. 2:41 Why getting paid ahead of time helps keep taxes down. 5:02 How do you know when you’re ready to pay your clients? 6:37 How do you manage delinquency in your business? 10:00 You have to make the call -.11:45  What happens when there’s a delinquent account? 13:53 Current and Money-Based Delinquency Markers. 16:16

Jason Rosenbaum and Bart Mroz spent an afternoon at Universal Studios and instead of riding on the rides, they talked about business. This is the first episode of chatting about agency business.