Meetings Don’t Have to Suck-2 - CourtneyR.dev's 2nd Brain

Meetings Don’t Have to Suck ![rw-book-cover](https://img.youtube.com/vi/pO_4ixp8s9Q/maxresdefault.jpg) 🔗 **Source:** [Meetings Don’t Have to Suck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO_4ixp8s9Q#transcript) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: [eos-meeting-agenda, agency-management, sales-mentality, tyranny-of-the-urgent, freelance-networking] > author: Kurt & Toby > source: Agency Action > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO_4ixp8s9Q > date created: {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} {{time:HH:mm}} > --- > # 🏷️ Title: Meetings Don't Have to Suck > ## 🧭 Table of Contents > - [📝 Summary](#-summary) > - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) > - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) > - [📚 References](#-references) > - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) > - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) > - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) > - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) > - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) > - [❓ Questions](#-questions) > - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) > - [💡 Implications](#-implications) > - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) > - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) > - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) > - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) > - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) > - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) > ## 📝 Summary > - Two agency owners, Kurt and Toby, unpack why they've historically hated meetings and how Toby is rolling out an EOS-style (Entrepreneurial Operating System) meeting agenda across his team: fixed time slot, fixed structure, hard stop, ranked issues list, and a running accountability list of to-dos. > - It matters because both hosts run small agencies where meeting time is billable/opportunity cost, and unstructured meetings were producing status confusion (different team members reporting a project as "great" vs. "off the rails") and eroding trust in recurring 1:1s and standups. > - Key stakeholders: agency owners and their ops/SEO/project-management teams; by extension, freelance clients who request recurring check-in calls; a hypothetical solo freelancer trying to build a client base from zero. > - Risks and tradeoffs discussed: a rigid, issue-first agenda can let two people dominate the whole meeting on one topic; pure 1:1-only meeting structures (Kurt's dealership/Suzuki model) can hide problems that only surface when the full team compares notes together; "well poisoning" by chronically negative employees is hard to detect early and expensive to leave unaddressed. > - Bottom line: a written, repeatable agenda with a triage mechanism for tangents, plus explicit issue-ranking and to-do ownership, is what converts a meeting from "information exchange nobody asked for" into "action tied to a decision." > ## 📖 Main Content > The episode opens with Kurt admitting he dislikes attending and running meetings, which sends him into researching what makes a meeting good. He lands on EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System), a business-consultancy methodology with its own prescribed meeting agenda and philosophy, and Toby says he is actively rolling that agenda out across every recurring meeting at his agency (the Mighty Mo) — starting with his weekly meetings with ops and SEO, and between ops and project management. > The EOS format, as the hosts describe it: same day and time every week, a recommended 90-minute block (adjustable), an identical agenda every time, and — critically — the meeting always ends on time. Toby singles out chronic overrun as one of his core reasons for disliking meetings ("Ah, really? Now I'm late for the next meeting"). After running his first two EOS-format meetings, he reports getting through more material in less time than the old format typically took, even without allocating extra time to introduce the new template. > Kurt frames the EOS agenda's core value as pre-defining "important" before the meeting starts, then ranking issues by that definition, so meeting time is spent solving the top-ranked issue rather than merely reporting status. He also raises an open problem the format doesn't fully solve: nothing stops two people from monopolizing the entire meeting on a single high-priority issue, since EOS's rule is "work the top issue until it's resolved or time runs out." > Kurt contrasts this with his own management background at Suzuki, where he ran a 1:1-heavy model: dedicated meetings with specific individuals for specific work items (an e-learning module with one person, a service-manual edit with another) rather than pulling the whole team into narrow-scope discussions. Team-wide meetings, in his model, exist to broadcast what every stakeholder is doing — sprint/Gantt-style status — while the granular work happens in 1:1s. > Toby pushes back with a concrete failure mode of the pure-1:1 model: he's recently gotten conflicting status reports on the same project from different team members in separate 1:1 conversations ("it's going great" vs. "it's going off the rails"), and believes a shared team meeting would have surfaced that discrepancy immediately. Kurt concedes the point using his own Lifter LMS example — a live product announcement in a team meeting drew immediate stakeholder feedback ("we wanted X, Y, Z too") that reshaped the final feature — while noting that off-topic-but-real feedback threads move to a side channel (Slack) rather than consuming the whole meeting. > Toby extends this into a specific mechanic he used in his first EOS meetings: when a tangent surfaces mid-discussion, he acknowledges it, parks it at the bottom of the issues list, and only returns to it if time remains — otherwise it's handled another way. He connects this to a broader triage failure most businesses have: "perceived emergencies push everything down" with no formal mechanism to check whether the emergency actually outranks existing priorities. He credits a short book, *Tyranny of the Urgent*, read for an unspecified prior study program (circa 2007–2008), for reframing this: businesses that succeed protect time for what's important rather than reactively serving whatever feels urgent — the origin, he says, of a time-blocking practice he and Kurt had discussed in a prior episode. > A second accountability mechanic in the EOS format: each issue discussion converts into an owned to-do with a roughly week-to-week-or-per-cadence deadline, written down and visible to the whole group; if it isn't done by the next meeting, it re-enters the meeting as an issue. Toby names this as filling a gap his team previously had — commitments made in meetings sometimes got lost with no forcing function to catch it. > The conversation pivots to a related failure mode: negative or disengaged team members ("well poisoning") who can erode team morale quickly, sometimes invisibly, and the risk that a single badly-run rollout of a new process can permanently sour a team on it. Kurt shares an anecdote about an employee at a client company who volunteers unprompted complaints about the business to an outside contractor (Kurt himself), and the hosts agree this kind of chronic negativity likely does measurable damage even when it's hard to quantify. > The second half of the episode is a hypothetical exercise: if dropped into an unfamiliar city with $200, a laptop, and no ability to use prior contacts or their real name, how would Kurt and Toby (as freelance WordPress developers) find work from zero? Their answers converge on: find city/county-subsidized small-business or economic-development programs (free enrollment as a "student" gets you into a room with other founders who need websites); use free-to-cheap first jobs to "break the ice" and build referral relationships, including with nominal competitors; show up consistently and specifically at any venue with the right people and energy (co-working spaces, gyms, meetups, libraries with WiFi); do targeted homework on attendees before events; be a "good host" by connecting other people at events, at no cost to yourself; and build relationships by transacting as a customer first (buying a coffee, a bike tube) to open a natural, low-pressure conversation. > Both hosts land hard on a sales-before-marketing sequencing: build a minimal, credible offer only once you have a live prospect asking for it (a website mocked up after a conversation, not before), and prioritize revenue-generating conversations over branding, tooling experimentation, or "vibe coding" side projects. Toby explicitly contrasts this with the temptation to chase "the top of everything" (new AI tools, new page builders) when the actual leverage for most agencies is a small, boring WordPress plugin stack executed consistently and paired with a strong sales mentality. > ### 🗒️ Notes > - EOS meeting mechanics named on the show: fixed weekly slot, ~90-minute default, identical agenda each time, hard stop, pre-ranked issues list, tangent-parking, and a persistent to-do/accountability list reviewed each meeting. > - EOS does not, per Kurt, solve for two people monopolizing an entire meeting on one high-priority issue — an acknowledged open gap in the format as they're using it. > - Kurt's Suzuki-era rule of thumb: narrow-scope work items get a dedicated 1:1 meeting with the specific stakeholder; team meetings are for status/education, not detailed problem-solving. > - Counter-case from Toby: 1:1-siloed status reporting produced contradictory answers about the same project's health from different team members — a failure the team-meeting format is structurally better at catching. > - Lifter LMS example (Toby, customer-service team member) — Chris Badgett unveiled the in-development "events add-on" in a team meeting; Brian (developer) and Toby debated scope live, then moved details to Slack; the shipped feature matched the feedback surfaced in that meeting. > - "Perceived emergencies push everything down" — named as a triage gap most businesses lack tooling for; *Tyranny of the Urgent* (short book, read circa 2007–2008 for an unnamed required-reading program) is credited as the source that reframed this for Kurt and, indirectly, seeded a time-blocking habit referenced from a prior episode. > - To-do accountability loop: issue discussion → owned to-do → deadline (roughly weekly/meeting-cadence) → reviewed next meeting as done/not-done → not-done reopens as an issue. > - "Well poisoning": a single chronically negative employee, per Kurt and Toby, can measurably (if hard to quantify) damage morale and even client-facing service quality; the hosts note this is hard to catch early because new hires naturally cycle through a competence/confidence ramp that can look similar on the surface. > - Toby: "one bad experience as you roll something out internally can ruin it forever" — process-change adoption risk tied to first-run execution quality, not just the process design itself. > - Freelance-from-zero mechanics named: subsidized economic-development/small-business programs as a client and peer-network source; competitor referrals for out-of-niche work; co-working-space front-desk staff as connectors; "buy something small first" to open a relationship (explicitly borrowed from *American Pickers*-style dealmaking); do-the-website-after-the-conversation, not before. > - Explicit sales-vs-marketing framing: sales/revenue-first sequencing, marketing and tooling experimentation deferred until there's a live customer relationship to build around; named as a callback to a "marketing vs. sales" disagreement from the prior week's episode. > - Toby's closing point: a small, standard WordPress plugin stack is sufficient to run "an entirely profitable agency" — framed as a corrective to distraction-by-tooling (page builders, AI experimentation) rather than a technical claim about plugin choice. > ## 📚 References > - [EOS Worldwide — Entrepreneurial Operating System](https://www.eosworldwide.com/) — the methodology and meeting-agenda template Toby is rolling out (named directly in the transcript; not independently verified against this exact URL). > - *Tyranny of the Urgent*, Charles E. Hummel — short book Toby credits for reframing urgent-vs-important triage and time-blocking. > - [Lifter LMS](https://lifterlms.com/) — Chris Badget[t], cited by Kurt as a model for well-run team meetings and as the source of the events-add-on example. > - Mañana [agency name as transcribed; exact spelling unconfirmed from audio] — Kurt's agency. > - tmigtm.com [as transcribed; likely "TMI-GTM.com"] — Toby's agency, "the Mighty Mo." > ## 🗣️ Paraphrase > - Kurt didn't set out to research meeting design — he set out to stop hating meetings, and that search led him to EOS's specific, repeatable agenda template as one candidate answer, which Toby is now testing live across his team's recurring meetings with early positive signal (shorter meetings, more covered) after only two runs. > - Both hosts converge on a shared diagnosis for why meetings fail — no agenda, unclear purpose, wrong attendees, no ending discipline, no accountability trail — and on a shared prescription that isn't really about tooling: pick a structure, protect it from scope creep with a parking mechanism, and force every discussion to end in an owned commitment. > ## 📰 Newsletter > Tired of meetings that run long, wander off-topic, and evaporate into nothing by next week? This episode of Agency Action has Kurt and Toby field-testing the EOS meeting agenda live — same slot, same structure, hard stop, ranked issues, and a to-do list that actually gets checked next time. Bonus: a fun "drop me in a new city with $200" thought experiment on rebuilding a freelance client base from zero, heavy on relationship-first, sales-before-marketing thinking. Recommended if you run — or dread — a recurring team meeting. > ## ✅ Action Items > Most standard action-item categories in this template (DevRel, OSPO, WPCC, FAIR) don't map cleanly to this episode's content, which is general small-agency operations rather than open-source or WordPress-project governance. The categories below are the ones the transcript actually supports. > #### WordPress — Community > - Maintainers: the EOS-style fixed-agenda-plus-issues-list-plus-accountability-loop format discussed here is a reusable template for any recurring maintainer sync (roadmap clinics, release-team standups) — worth trialing on a small recurring meeting to see if it reduces overrun and improves follow-through on action items. > #### General agency/business operations (outside standard taxonomy) > - Pilot a fixed-agenda, hard-stop meeting format (EOS-style or equivalent) on one recurring internal meeting; track whether issues get resolved faster and whether to-dos get closed by the next cycle. > - Build a lightweight parking-list mechanic for tangents in any standing meeting, so real-but-off-topic items get captured without derailing the agenda. > - If running or considering client check-in calls, audit whether they're solving something a client portal/status page couldn't — per Toby's point that many recurring client meetings are an "emotional security blanket" better addressed by proactive, self-serve status transparency. > ## 🧪 Hypotheses > - H1: Adding a hard time-stop and a pre-ranked issues list to a recurring meeting reduces total meeting time while increasing the number of resolved issues per meeting. > - H2: Meetings run purely as 1:1s between a manager and individual contributors under-surface cross-functional status discrepancies compared to a shared team meeting covering the same work. > - H3: A visible, reviewed-every-cycle to-do/accountability list increases the rate at which meeting-generated commitments are completed by the next meeting, relative to commitments made without such a list. > - H4: For early-stage freelancers/agencies, revenue generated through direct relationship-building (in-person networking, competitor referrals, subsidized small-business programs) outweighs revenue attributable to marketing/branding investment in the first months of operation. > - H5: A single consistently negative team member measurably reduces team morale or client-facing service quality over time, independent of that person's individual output quality. > ### 📊 Methodology > - H1: A/B or before/after comparison of the same recurring meeting series (EOS-style agenda vs. prior ad hoc format), tracking meeting duration, number of issues resolved, and participant-reported satisfaction over 8–12 weeks. > - H2: Compare status accuracy (self-reported vs. independently verified project state) collected via 1:1s only vs. collected via a shared team meeting, across matched teams or alternating formats on the same team. > - H3: Track completion rate of meeting-generated to-dos with vs. without a persistent, reviewed accountability list, controlled for task type and owner. > - H4: Time-series revenue attribution study for early-stage freelancers, comparing revenue sourced from direct relationship channels vs. paid/organic marketing channels in the first 90 days. > - H5: Team-morale survey (e.g., eNPS or a validated short instrument) correlated with presence/tenure of a chronically negative team member, controlled for team size and workload. > ### ❓ Questions > - What specific triage rule resolves the case Kurt raised — two people legitimately needing the entire meeting for one top-priority issue — without either derailing the group agenda or starving the issue of needed time? > - How does the EOS format's fixed 90-minute default scale down for smaller teams (2 people, as in Toby's first two runs) versus larger cross-functional groups? > - What's the actual failure rate of "emotional security blanket" client check-in calls when replaced by proactive self-serve status tooling — does client anxiety measurably drop, or does it surface elsewhere? > - Is there a reliable early-warning signal for "well poisoning" that's distinguishable from normal new-hire ramp-up friction? > ### 🔮 Future Research > - A structured comparison of EOS's Level 10 meeting format against other named meeting operating systems (e.g., Scrum standups, Amazon's narrative-memo meetings) on time-to-resolution and follow-through metrics. > - Longitudinal tracking of Toby's team-meeting rollout at the Mighty Mo to see whether the early positive signal (two meetings) holds past the "discipline decay" risk both hosts flagged. > ### 💡 Implications > - For practice: teams frustrated by long, low-output meetings have a low-cost experiment available (fixed agenda + hard stop + parking list + accountability review) that doesn't require new tooling to trial. > - For policy/governance in maintainer or community teams: the same mechanics could reduce volunteer burnout tied to open-ended, poorly bounded recurring calls. > - For freelance/agency education: the "drop into a new city" exercise implies most practical go-to-market advice for solo freelancers is relationship-sequencing advice, not marketing-channel advice — a useful framing for mentorship or onboarding content aimed at new freelancers. > ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment > - Reading level estimate: conversational spoken-word transcript; approximate Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level ~6–8 (short average sentence length once filler and false starts are normalized, informal vocabulary, minimal subordinate-clause density). Note this is an estimate from a raw transcript, not a cleaned written text. > #### 👀 Visual learners > - Present: none — audio-only podcast transcript, no diagrams, charts, or visual aids. > - Improve: a one-page visual of the EOS meeting agenda flow (issue list → rank → discuss → to-do → next-meeting review) would make the core structural claim far more scannable. > #### 🔊 Aural learners > - Present: this is a native audio/podcast format — well served by design. > - Improve: chapter markers at the two clear topic breaks (meetings segment, freelance-from-zero segment) would help aural learners navigate on replay. > #### 🗣️ Verbal learners > - Present: concrete anecdotes (Suzuki, Lifter LMS, the bike-shop example) function as informal analogies throughout. > - Improve: a short glossary of named terms (EOS, "well poisoning," "tyranny of the urgent") would help verbal learners anchor unfamiliar jargon introduced conversationally. > #### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners > - Present: the episode implicitly offers a testable template (the EOS agenda) that a listener could try immediately. > - Improve: an explicit step-by-step checklist for running one's first EOS-format meeting, extracted from the conversation, would convert this into a usable lab exercise. > #### 🧠 Logical learners > - Present: Kurt and Toby build several explicit cause-effect chains (no agenda → overrun → late for next meeting → resentment of meetings). > - Improve: a simple decision tree for "1:1 vs. team meeting" based on the scope-of-impact question Kurt and Toby debate would formalize their implicit heuristic. > #### 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social learners > - Present: the whole episode is a two-person dialogue model, useful as a discussion-prompt format. > - Improve: discussion questions derived from the "well poisoning" segment could seed a peer support-group or mastermind conversation. > #### 🧘‍♀️ Solitary learners > - Present: none explicitly — no reflection prompts or self-assessment offered in the source. > - Improve: a short self-audit ("does your last recurring meeting have a written agenda? does it end on time? do to-dos get reviewed?") would give solitary learners a self-paced entry point. > #### 🌿 Naturalistic learners > - Present: not applicable to this content. > - Improve: not applicable. > ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment > This assessment covers the transcript as a text artifact, not a rendered video player. > #### Screen reader semantics > - Present: this note's own heading structure gives the transcript navigable landmarks it lacks in raw form. > - Improve: if published as an Obsidian note, keep heading hierarchy intact (already applied here) so a screen reader user can jump by section. > #### Keyboard navigation > - Not applicable to a transcript/note; applies to the video player, not assessed here. > #### Contrast and readability > - Not applicable to plain-text transcript content. > #### Text resizing and reflow > - Not applicable to plain-text transcript content. > #### Media and captions > - Present: a transcript exists, which functions as an accessible alternative to the audio/video. > - Improve: no timestamps are present in the source transcript, so this note cannot offer deep-linked, timestamped citations (see Transcript Mode note below) — the original video should carry accurate closed captions and, ideally, a timestamped transcript for that purpose. > #### Forms and interactions > - Not applicable — no interactive elements in this content. > #### Standards reference > - Primary gap relative to WCAG 2.2 AA: absence of timestamps in the source transcript limits deep-link accessibility (1.2.x media-alternative criteria) for anyone trying to verify or navigate to a specific claim in the original video. > ### 🌍 DEIB Assessment > #### Cultural breadth > - Present: examples are drawn from a narrow set of US small-business contexts (car dealerships, Suzuki corporate, a Kansas/New Mexico economic-development framing). > - Improve: the freelance-from-zero advice (subsidized small-business programs, co-working spaces) assumes US-style municipal/county economic-development infrastructure; equivalent advice for other regulatory or economic contexts is absent. > #### Inclusive language > - Present: informal but not exclusionary language throughout; no notable jargon barriers beyond business-consultancy terms (EOS) that are defined in context. > - Improve: a brief inline definition of "EOS" on first use would help listeners unfamiliar with the consultancy space. > #### Neurodiversity support > - Present: the episode's own subject matter (structured agendas, hard stops, written accountability) is itself a neurodiversity-friendly meeting practice, even though it isn't framed that way. > - Improve: explicitly naming the accessibility/neurodiversity benefit of predictable, agenda-bound meetings would strengthen the pitch for adopting the format. > #### Representation > - Present: two male hosts, generalist small-business examples; no notable diversity of speaker identity within this episode. > - Improve: broader speaker representation in future episodes covering the same topic would diversify perspective on team dynamics like "well poisoning." > #### Psychological safety > - Present: the "well poisoning" segment discusses identifying and ultimately terminating chronically negative employees without addressing root-cause support (e.g., burnout, misalignment, management failure) before jumping to "liquidate." > - Improve: pairing the well-poisoning discussion with a root-cause diagnostic step (is this a fit problem, a burnout problem, or a management problem?) before termination would improve psychological safety for the broader team and fairness to the individual involved. > ### ✅ Logical Validity > #### Strong reasoning > - Kurt's argument for scoped 1:1 meetings (Suzuki example) is a clear causal/analogical argument: matching meeting composition to the actual stakeholders of a decision reduces wasted attendee time — directly addresses his own earlier complaint about being in rooms "for two people and a dude." > - Toby's counter-example (conflicting project-status reports across 1:1s) is inductive reasoning from a specific recent pattern to a general claim about the limits of 1:1-only structures — reasonably strong because it's a falsifiable, recent, first-hand observation rather than a hypothetical. > #### Fallacies > - Toby's dad's advice ("join the priciest gym and show up every day" as a marketing plan) is offered and half-endorsed ("there's a lot of logic to that") on the strength of a single anecdote — a hasty generalization; no evidence is offered that gym-based networking outperforms other venues for lead generation specifically. Fix: frame it as one illustrative example of "go where people with resources gather," not as a validated tactic. > - The "billion-dollar WordPress boss" thought experiment reasons from a hypothetical, resource-constrained scenario to general freelance-acquisition advice; useful as illustration but risks false-analogy if generalized directly to real freelancers who typically retain some prior network. Fix: the hosts partly self-correct by grounding tactics in things they've actually done (Hutchinson, Kansas example), which strengthens the analogy. > #### Tone of voice > - Casual, self-deprecating, conversational; frequent hedging ("I think," "I don't know") signals genuine uncertainty rather than overclaiming, which is a credibility strength for an advice-format podcast. > ### 🛡️ DARVO Analysis > Not applicable — this episode contains no accusation, denial, or victim/offender dynamic to analyze. It is a two-host advice conversation without an adversarial or accountability-dispute structure. > ## 🎯 Conclusion > The core, testable claim of this episode is narrow and practical: a fixed-time, fixed-agenda, hard-stop meeting format with a ranked issues list and a reviewed accountability trail measurably improves recurring meetings, at least on the two-meeting sample size Toby reports. The unresolved tension the hosts surface themselves — team-wide meetings catch cross-functional status gaps that 1:1-only structures miss, but a rigid issues-first agenda can still let one topic swallow the whole meeting — is the most useful open question for anyone adopting this format. Practical next step for readers: pick one recurring meeting, write a fixed agenda with a parking mechanism for tangents, add a to-do list reviewed at the start of the next meeting, and track whether it changes duration and follow-through before rolling it out further. > ## 🔄 Refactor Appendix — Meetings Don't Have to Suck > > Density: 2–5 Literature atoms (H3), 0–3 Permanent candidates (H4). > > This source is a fresh transcript, not a pre-highlighted Readwise export — no `rw_{id}` highlight IDs exist yet, so quotes below are direct verbatim transcript excerpts rather than Readwise-anchored highlights. > ### 📚 Literature Atoms (H3) > #### EOS meetings pair a fixed agenda with a hard stop > > [!quote] > > "same time every week... same agenda every meeting and it always ends on time." > **Context & use**: > - Toby describing the EOS meeting template he's rolling out at the Mighty Mo. > - Matters because chronic overrun is named as one of the specific reasons meetings are hated; a hard stop directly targets that complaint. > **Tags**: #xref >  > #### Team meetings catch status gaps 1:1s hide > > [!quote] > > "I'm getting different answers from different people. Oh, it's going great... The next guy is like, no, it's going off the rails." > **Context & use**: > - Toby's counter-example to Kurt's 1:1-heavy Suzuki model. > - Matters because it's the strongest concrete evidence in the episode against relying solely on individual check-ins for status visibility. > **Tags**: #xref >  > #### Perceived urgency crowds out actual priority without triage > > [!quote] > > "perceived emergencies push everything down but there's no... great triage system to say... let's think about where this emergency fits amongst our other priorities." > **Context & use**: > - Toby, connecting the meeting-agenda discussion to *Tyranny of the Urgent* and time-blocking. > - Matters as the conceptual bridge between meeting hygiene and broader prioritization discipline. > **Tags**: #xref #addendum >  > ### 🧠 Permanent Candidates (H4) > #### Meeting structure should match decision scope, not team size > **Claim** (one sentence, in Courtney's voice): A recurring meeting's attendee list and agenda should be sized to the actual scope of the decision being made, not to organizational hierarchy or habit — narrow decisions get a 1:1, cross-functional status needs a shared room, and the two failure modes (irrelevant attendees vs. hidden status gaps) are two sides of the same sizing mistake. > **Evidence pointer**: [[#EOS meetings pair a fixed agenda with a hard stop]], [[#Team meetings catch status gaps 1:1s hide]] > **Scope & conditions**: > - Holds when: the team has enough shared context to make "scope of decision" legible in advance (i.e., someone can actually pre-rank what's important, as EOS requires). > - Breaks when: status itself is contested or unknown — in that case a 1:1-only structure can silently diverge (per Toby's example) and only a shared venue surfaces the conflict. > **Links**: > - [[Tyranny of the Urgent]] — because extends (urgent/important triage is the upstream discipline this meeting-sizing rule depends on) > - [[EOS meeting agenda]] — because applies-in (the specific operational template tested in this episode) >  > ### ✏️ Fleeting Queue > - [F1] Look into EOS's Level 10 meeting template directly (primary source, not secondhand via this podcast) to compare against the version Kurt and Toby describe — https://www.eosworldwide.com/ #xref > - [F2] Track whether Toby reports back on this podcast in future episodes about whether the EOS rollout holds past the first few meetings (discipline-decay risk both hosts flagged) #xref > ### → Things 3 (max 2 actions) > - [ ] Pilot a fixed-agenda, hard-stop format on one recurring meeting for two cycles and compare duration/resolved-issues to the prior format — meeting-hygiene experiment #things > - [ ] Read *Tyranny of the Urgent* (Charles Hummel) as a short primer on urgent-vs-important triage referenced in this episode — reading backlog #things > --- > ## Full Transcript > [00:00] Well, here we are again, folks. Welcome [00:01] to another agency action show. I'm here [00:04] with Toby Kines. My name is Kurt. Toby, [00:07] talk to me about uh meetings and how [00:09] much you love having meetings. I've [00:11] realized um I really don't like having [00:13] meetings and going to meetings and [00:15] holding them. But then it got me [00:16] thinking like what would a good meeting [00:18] look like? And there's a whole like [00:20] there are business consultancies and [00:22] whole like a whole vertical of business [00:24] consultancies that are focused almost [00:26] exclusively on this topic. Um, and I was [00:29] looking into one that's called EOS and [00:31] um, there are others and I'm sure [00:33] they're all fine in their own ways, but [00:35] specifically I was looking at it from a [00:37] meeting management standpoint and like [00:39] what is a great meeting? How do you have [00:40] a meeting where people leave the meeting [00:42] and go, "Thank you. I'm glad we had that [00:44] meeting." Even if you know in the book [00:47] and the the philosophy of EOS that [00:49] they're like, you want people to say [00:50] it's a great meeting, but I'm not aiming [00:52] for great. I'm aiming like great in the [00:54] context of business meetings because [00:56] nobody really wants to be in them. [00:59] >> Um but and so then I got into it and I [01:01] actually so EOS has a its own meeting [01:04] agenda template and philosophy and I [01:06] actually implemented I'm imple [01:08] implementing this agenda at the mighty [01:10] mo for any recurring meeting. So this is [01:11] like weekly meetings between me and my [01:13] operations team between me and my SEO [01:16] team between operations team and project [01:18] management team like we're implementing [01:19] that we're rolling it out. We had our [01:21] first two today and I got to say it's I [01:25] felt way better about the meeting the [01:28] meeting these two meetings today than I [01:29] have about any previous one. And I think [01:31] part of the philosophy behind the EOS [01:33] thing is that uh every meeting has its [01:36] same time every week. It's they [01:38] recommend 90 minutes but um you know you [01:40] can decide that I guess but uh same [01:43] agenda every meeting and it always ends [01:45] on time. And this is like a problem. [01:47] This is part of why I hate meetings is [01:49] because they're always going over and [01:50] I'm always like, "Ah, really?" Like [01:52] again, now I'm late for the next [01:53] meeting. And so I did two today. And [01:57] even though we didn't even plan enough [01:59] time because like I was like, "I want to [02:01] share this meeting template idea with [02:02] you." Um the so the meetings were [02:04] actually like in in context of that way [02:06] shorter than they would have otherwise [02:08] been and we still I felt like got [02:10] through way more than we otherwise would [02:12] have historically. So, wanted to ask [02:15] you, Kurt, what are some reasons [02:16] meetings suck in your experience? [02:20] >> I think in general, [02:23] when you say agenda, that that to me is [02:25] like that's the lynch pin. That's that's [02:27] the thing. Um, I've worked with a ton, [02:31] you know, I have that corporate [02:32] experience and I've worked for a lot of [02:33] car dealerships and a lot of car [02:35] dealerships aren't run by people that [02:37] are leadership experts. They're run by [02:39] people that are car enthusiasts. And so [02:41] I know what bad meetings look like. Uh [02:43] I've also had the privilege of I know [02:46] this this everyone's going to think this [02:47] guy owes me money. Chris Badget at [02:49] Lifter LMS, I go to his meetings. He's [02:51] like a master at running a good meeting. [02:53] Um it's interactive. You know, what are [02:56] our wins? What are our losses? What what [02:58] are our key points? What are our focus [03:00] points? And you know, what do we pin to [03:02] talk about later? You know, one-on-one [03:03] or something like that. I think one of [03:05] the things that I hate about meetings is [03:09] when you're in a room with 10 people and [03:11] it seems like the meeting is for two [03:13] people and a dude, you know, and you're [03:15] sitting there like an idiot. Like I [03:16] don't even know why I'm here. Like that [03:18] for me is like these are not meetings I [03:20] need to be in. [03:21] >> Yeah. I think even with the EOS [03:23] template, it doesn't solve that specific [03:26] problem. [03:27] Um what it does solve, however, is is [03:30] let's work on the most important stuff. [03:32] let's first define how do we define [03:34] importance. So there's a lot of like [03:36] pre-work you do um just to define from [03:39] from the business standpoint what's [03:40] important and then when you get to these [03:42] meetings you go like okay we now have [03:44] the context for how do we define [03:45] important which are these items and then [03:47] you rank them by the order of importance [03:49] to the business and um and and the idea [03:53] is like you're not spending a lot of [03:55] time like talking about what you're [03:56] doing but like solving the issues but I [03:59] could still see a scenario where two [04:00] people are going back and forth on a [04:02] specific issue for a long period of [04:04] time. It could be the whole meeting [04:05] frankly because the way that EOS sets it [04:07] up is like you have your most important [04:09] thing first and you don't stop until [04:11] either that issues done or the time for [04:13] the meeting's done and and so you could [04:15] potentially have two people talking the [04:17] whole meeting and I yeah I don't know [04:19] how you solved that. [04:20] >> So so in those instances um and and I'll [04:23] drive this back to my work at Suzuki, [04:25] right? I was in charge of a group of six [04:27] people that did all the publications and [04:28] training for Suzuki. If I was concerned, [04:31] if my number one priority was an [04:34] e-learning module uh being done by [04:36] Michelle, uh me and Michelle would book [04:39] a room and have a meeting, right? Like [04:40] like that would be the meeting and [04:42] here's my agenda for the meeting with [04:43] Michelle. I wouldn't bring, you know, [04:46] Bill, Tristan, and Ron into the meeting [04:47] with Michelle to talk about the [04:49] e-learning module, right? Um if there [04:51] was a uh something that had to be edited [04:53] for a service manual, uh I would meet [04:56] with Ron one-on-one, but I wouldn't [04:57] bring in again the whole team, right? [04:59] for those and that's why the agenda [05:00] thing is so important because if I'm [05:02] going to have a group meeting right what [05:04] are the what are the top most important [05:07] things that affect the group and then [05:09] boom boom boom so I think when we have a [05:12] team meeting and again I'm going to [05:13] drive back to the lifter LMS example [05:15] when we have a team meeting it's really [05:18] to educate the team as to what all of [05:20] the stakeholders are actively doing or [05:22] or the process or the progress of things [05:24] and so we'll take a look at like you [05:26] know the the flowchart for sprints or [05:28] the Gant chart or whatever you want to [05:29] call it, right? So, development's [05:31] working on this, sales is working on [05:33] this, da da da da da, customer service [05:36] is knocking it out of the park with [05:37] these five things. Here's three new [05:39] testimonials, sales is good, here's the [05:41] the, you know, the bundles we sold this [05:43] week. And then all of the details get [05:46] handled in individual meetings for [05:48] development with those individual [05:50] stakeholders. I think I'm just guessing [05:53] here maybe and from experience like that [05:57] I've seen at the Mighty M where that [05:59] model potentially has a shortcoming that [06:01] would need to be addressed is often [06:03] times the issues surface in these [06:05] conversations with the team that the [06:08] issues even though they're really [06:09] important wouldn't otherwise surface. [06:11] I'll give you an example. Um, recently [06:14] I've been having these like one-off [06:16] conversations with people on my team, [06:18] like about a specific pro project and [06:20] asking questions about how it's going. [06:22] And I'm getting different answers from [06:24] different people. Oh, it's going great. [06:25] Going great. The next guy is like, no, [06:26] it's going off the rails. And I'm like, [06:30] um, I think if we had had a team meeting [06:32] that would have surfaced and like, hey, [06:33] how's it going? Going great. Sucks. Like [06:35] it' be like going off the rails. Like [06:37] like maybe [06:38] >> I don't know. Yeah, I had to do a lot of [06:41] leg work to get there. Yeah, I I do see [06:43] your point. If we again using Lifter as [06:45] the example because that's, you know, my [06:47] my most recent experience. Um, Lifter [06:49] just came out with the events add-on, [06:52] right? So, you can do live Zoom events [06:53] or inerson events attached to your [06:56] website. And during one of those team [06:58] meetings, Chris unveiled to the rest of [07:01] us underlings that, you know, the this [07:03] events add-on was going to come out. Now [07:05] I work on the customer service team and [07:06] so I'm responsible to like show it to [07:08] people, you know, teach people how to [07:10] use it and all that kind of stuff, but [07:11] it was still in development. And Brian, [07:13] the developer, was like, "Yeah, the [07:14] events thing's kind of cool. It's going [07:15] to XYZ." And I was like, "Whoa, whoa, [07:17] whoa, hold on." Like the feedback we've [07:18] gotten from stakeholders already is that [07:20] we wanted to do X, Y, and Z in addition [07:22] to what you just said. And then he goes, [07:24] "Oh, that's a good idea." Right? But [07:26] then we took that discussion to Slack [07:29] for some details between him and I. And [07:31] when they released the events package, [07:33] it did exactly what I wanted it to do [07:34] and Brian knocked it out of the park. So [07:36] to your point, there there are things [07:38] that come up, you know, through the [07:40] agenda and through sharing things with [07:41] the team. There are things there there's [07:44] elements that come up, but we don't [07:46] absorb the meeting with those things. We [07:48] give the opportunity for fine-tuning [07:50] outside that meeting. [07:51] >> Yeah. I I also think one thing I noticed [07:53] today in my two meetings that use the [07:55] new EOS format. I noticed because I was [07:58] in charge of leading the meetings and we [08:00] have a firm schedule uh firm agenda and [08:02] we have places to put things that like [08:05] and this is just me and one other person [08:07] in both meetings and I noticed they were [08:09] either them or I were bringing up things [08:11] that were tangential to what we were [08:13] currently dealing with. Like we're [08:14] talking about an issue and they say, [08:16] "Well, what about this?" And it's like I [08:17] can see how it relates. And it was [08:19] really nice to be able to say like, [08:20] "Thank you for sharing that. I'm going [08:22] to put that at the bottom of the issues [08:24] list and if we have time later today, [08:25] we'll get to it. Otherwise, we'll deal [08:27] with it a different way." [08:28] >> It's like our show notes. [laughter] [08:30] >> Yeah, it is. Yeah. [08:32] >> Well, we'll drive these uh these crappy [08:34] notes down to the bottom and if we run [08:35] out of time, we'll talk about it. [08:36] >> And I think the reality is is that like [08:38] those tangential things probably weren't [08:41] as important like first of all uh and [08:43] probably they're, you know, they don't [08:45] deserve to be injected at the top. And [08:47] we notice this all the time like in our [08:49] company that like perceived emergencies [08:51] push everything down but there's no like [08:53] we don't currently have like a great [08:55] triage system to say like slow down [08:57] let's think about where this emergency [08:59] fits amongst our other priorities. And I [09:02] think like this meeting agenda handles [09:04] that for meetings. It doesn't handle it [09:06] for our business necessarily but like [09:07] that happens at meetings all the time [09:09] where someone brings something up and in [09:10] my view derails the whole conversation [09:12] of whatever was being brought up or [09:14] conversed about. That's so important [09:16] from a business perspective. Um I was [09:19] doing some um study I I I don't want to [09:23] get why right but but one of the [09:24] required readings for this study that I [09:26] was in and I'm going back like I think [09:28] it was 2007 or 8 um was a little tiny [09:32] book. It was like the size of a [09:33] pamphlet. Little tiny thing and it was [09:35] called Tyranny of the Urgent. Uh I mean [09:37] you could sit on the toilet and read it [09:39] like you boom done. Um Tyranny of the [09:41] Urgent. The messaging in that book was [09:43] so strong. I was like, "This answers so [09:46] many things I've dealt with [09:47] professionally in my life." Like, you [09:50] are so busy putting out fires and [09:52] dealing with everyone else's emergencies [09:54] that you never get to address what's [09:56] important. And when you look at people [09:57] that really build successful, you know, [09:59] enterprises, these are people that have [10:01] the ability to go that that's a [10:04] distraction. You know, I got to focus on [10:05] what's important. I know that you think [10:07] that's important, but that's a [10:08] distraction for the overall goal. And um [10:11] that book Tyranny of the Urgent really [10:13] helped me to kind of refocus that that's [10:16] where the time blocking idea came from [10:17] that you and I discussed weeks ago. It's [10:19] like time blocking is for the important [10:21] stuff and then the urgent stuff I kind [10:24] of fill in where I can. Yeah. And it it [10:26] takes real discipline to um to to slow [10:29] down and re reposition, you know, to [10:31] file that urgent thing wherever it [10:33] belongs. Maybe it's not actually urgent. [10:35] That takes a lot of like a lot of [10:36] discipline like from whoever's whether [10:38] you're project manager, business owner, [10:40] whatever. There's another thing here [10:42] that is related that this new meeting [10:45] agenda did for me and it added [10:47] transparent accountability. Uh first it [10:49] clear calls out the issues transparently [10:51] and we discuss them transparently. Then [10:52] like there's a clear to-do list coming [10:55] out of these. So okay, we address the [10:56] issue it converts conversationally. What [10:59] are the to-dos that came out of that [11:01] discussion and who's going to own those [11:02] to-dos? And the the thought is that like [11:05] these are week max to-dos like so you're [11:08] going to have them done by the next week [11:09] or the next month whatever your cadence [11:10] is for meetings. [11:11] >> Yeah. [11:11] >> Um and then you transparently you write [11:13] those down and say by the next meeting [11:14] you're going to do these things and [11:16] every and everyone sees it everyone [11:18] commits to the next meeting at the top [11:19] of the meeting. We we don't start with [11:21] that but it's in there as like a done or [11:23] not done. If it's not done then it [11:25] becomes an issue to converse about and [11:26] so it adds this accountability layer [11:28] that we were lacking in our at the [11:31] mighty mo I would say like from a [11:33] meeting to meeting you know people would [11:34] promise things and sometimes they get [11:36] lost sometimes not you know [11:38] >> well I think one of the things that [11:40] you're hitting on here is like the the [11:42] difference between like two elements of [11:44] a meeting some people treat meetings [11:46] like they're an exchange of information [11:48] right like we're just meeting and we're [11:50] exchanging information so everybody [11:51] knows what's going on and then there's [11:53] the idea that we're having a meeting [11:55] because action is tied to the meeting. [11:58] And what you described is action is tied [12:01] to the meeting. And that to me is is [12:03] like the only reason to really have [12:04] meetings. Um we're very proactive at [12:07] Manana about disclosing um status of a [12:10] project or things like that to clients. [12:12] We're we're very um outgoing in that [12:14] way. So we don't get a lot of like, hey, [12:16] we should meet and have a you know [12:17] discuss the status of my project. Um, so [12:20] when I get like Zoom requests from [12:22] clients, I'm very protective of my time [12:25] because I'm like, hey, you know, we [12:27] factored in like 10 or 12 or 15 meetings [12:30] into your project. Like I factored that [12:32] in when I bid the job and you want now [12:33] you want to meet every Tuesday at 3. [12:35] Okay, why do you want to meet every [12:37] Tuesday at 3? Like you have access to [12:39] you have access to the client portal. [12:41] You you know what the milestones are. [12:42] You know that we're ahead of schedule. [12:44] You know that we're under budget. We [12:46] have all of your assets. what do you [12:47] want to meet every Tuesday at 3:00 for? [12:49] And then you find out that it's just [12:51] some kind of weird like emotional [12:53] security blanket for them. Well, if [12:55] you've got some weird emotional security [12:57] blanket and and you're not happy with [12:58] the tools we've already provided, we can [13:01] do this, but it's going to be at an [13:02] added cost. [13:03] >> I wonder too like, you know, so you [13:04] counted for 12 meetings. um if there was [13:08] more formality about or more description [13:10] because I'm sure they're formal but like [13:11] it's like if we communicated why we [13:14] chose 12 meetings and what's on the [13:16] agenda for each meeting like if that [13:18] would alleviate some of the anxiety that [13:21] yeah like say we have a place for your [13:23] concerns they're here they're on January [13:26] 12th you know like or July 13th you know [13:29] um we're thank you for sending that I've [13:31] added it to the list you know that's [13:32] what I wonder um well it's one way like [13:35] a I think that this thing I'm doing now [13:38] is going to be helpful for our team. Um, [13:40] >> yeah. [13:40] >> I also think like [13:43] having this formal agenda and the way [13:45] that we're going to be doing it, like I [13:47] can't tell you how many times I've shown [13:48] up to meetings and just been frustrated [13:50] because there's no agenda and like it's [13:52] not even clear to me why why we're [13:54] there, what we're going to talk about [13:55] almost every time, frankly, internally. [13:58] Um and and I think this agenda, let's [14:00] just say it'll help me, but also like it [14:02] forces all the attend or the at least [14:04] the leader of the meeting to show up [14:06] prepared. I wish you the best of luck [14:08] with this. The hard part is managing it [14:09] and keeping it right because um just [14:12] like everything else that we do, you [14:14] assign it a process and then if you get [14:17] weak or lax or um you know on the [14:20] process and and it starts to lose its [14:22] form, uh it can morph real quickly on [14:25] you. So it just it takes discipline to [14:27] maintain these things and your [14:29] >> and the personalities of your people [14:31] group kind of infect the way that the [14:34] outcome happens. [14:35] >> Yeah. And I think one cool thing I've [14:37] been reading about, you know, we're [14:39] considering going some hybrid EOS and [14:42] hiring an imple. [14:44] um part of the their bigger picture is [14:47] like how do you know you have the right [14:49] people at the company in and even if you [14:52] have the right people are they in the [14:53] right position and role at the company [14:56] um and so like when I hear the language [14:58] you use and I don't know if this right [15:00] but like infected there are people at [15:01] companies that poison the well for [15:04] everybody and they can po they can do [15:06] that quickly and I think like part of [15:08] our job as like owners of agencies is to [15:11] like figure out ways to find those [15:13] people fret them and you know fire them [15:16] you know you know get them out as soon [15:17] as possible um if they exist and I I [15:20] think like there's degrees of this too [15:22] and this is what makes it hard that like [15:24] for example a new employee takes a while [15:26] to ramp up and you don't know if they're [15:28] let's say they're slow to get to where [15:30] they need to get you don't know if [15:32] they're if they have the talent and [15:33] ability for another three months [15:36] >> I think the well poisoning is like that [15:38] where you have to like really it's hard [15:40] but you got to figure it out [15:42] >> it comes with a certain [15:44] comfort level, right? Um it falls into [15:46] like those whole four stages of [15:48] competency and things like that, right? [15:49] But when they first start, they're [15:51] they're still getting their feet on the [15:52] ground. They're still getting a [15:53] foundation, but once they feel like [15:55] they've got a foundation, then they [15:57] start growing opinions, right? And those [15:59] opinions are like, "Toby's an idiot. He [16:01] doesn't know what he's doing. These [16:02] meetings suck." Right? And then all they [16:04] do is repeat that to two or three [16:06] people. Next thing you know, you got [16:07] nine people that aren't happy. And [16:09] you're going, "What happened a year ago? [16:10] Everything was going great." you know, [16:12] and it's and then you have to do some [16:14] root cause analysis and then uh [16:16] unfortunately liquidate somebody. [16:18] >> And part of part part of this too is [16:19] like the how you roll it out is [16:21] important particularly with the bigger [16:22] team probably. But like um [16:26] one bad experience as you roll something [16:29] out internally can ruin it forever. Like [16:32] you know, let's say the fir you have a [16:34] meeting and like you did it wrong or [16:36] something and there's somebody in there [16:38] says this sucked. I'm never doing this [16:39] again. And yeah, then you run into this [16:41] thing and you go, is it a poisoning of [16:43] the well or is it just like this human [16:45] tendency to be like, "That sucked. I'm [16:47] never doing that again." You know, [16:48] there's a [16:49] >> there's a company I work with, by the [16:51] way, along the poisoning. Um there's a [16:53] guy who's been there forever. Every time [16:55] I talk to him, he's like, "God, I hate [16:57] working here. This sucks. Such and such [16:59] of the company." And I don't even work [17:00] there. He's telling me like all the [17:01] things he hates about the company, you [17:03] know? Um and he's been there forever. [17:06] And like I I I don't know for sure, but [17:08] like I can't I believe that he's [17:10] probably like hurt the business [17:12] significantly. Just this one guy and [17:15] he's still there. [17:15] >> I think back to my corporate experience [17:17] and how many times did I share cubicle [17:19] space with people that hated being there [17:20] every day, you know, and it just drags [17:23] you down. It affects your productivity. [17:25] It affects the way you deal with [17:26] clients, customers, co-workers, [17:28] everything. The way you deal with [17:29] vendors. Um, yeah. And it's amazing [17:33] because there's that little switch in [17:35] our own brains where we can change our [17:36] perspective or our perception of [17:38] something and we can see it from a [17:39] completely different p. The facts don't [17:41] change, but our reaction to those facts [17:43] changes and then all of a sudden [17:45] everything's better. And it's like it's [17:47] so hard to pinpoint how the human brain [17:51] can do that, right? But like you wish [17:53] there was a magic switch you could hit [17:54] externally for other people to go, man, [17:56] stop being so negative, you know, see [17:58] the positive here. like you got a job, [18:00] you have a house, you drove a car to [18:01] work today, like you're ahead of you're [18:03] ahead of the rest of the planet. Um, [18:05] people just struggle with trying to see [18:08] the positive in things. [18:09] >> Let's transition to another topic here [18:11] that's uh not at all related. Um, [18:14] >> if if you're tired of running a [18:15] business, [laughter] [18:18] >> hypothetically, [clears throat] we and [18:20] you can listen to last week's episode [18:22] that for the the conversation that [18:23] spurred this, but the question from last [18:25] week was basically like, uh, hey, I'm [18:28] having [clears throat] a lot of trouble [18:29] finding work. I'm a freelance [18:31] uh, you know, I'm an unemployed [18:33] freelance developer. That was kind of [18:34] the question. How do I find work? Let's [18:36] let's be generous and say that's what it [18:38] was. [18:39] >> Yes. [18:41] >> Um, and then we got to talk after the [18:42] show. So, I'm going to pitch this [18:44] question. Um, pretend you were on [18:46] Billiondollar WordPress Boss, which is a [18:49] new show we're inventing for Discovery [18:51] Network. [18:52] >> It's Matt Matt Matt's going to produce [18:55] it. It's going to be great. Um, and and [18:58] it's called Billiondollar WordPress [18:59] Boss. [19:00] >> And the idea is like we set you in the [19:03] middle of a city somewhere that where [19:05] you know nobody and you have to use [19:06] another name and you can't call on your [19:08] former resources and all that. Um, and [19:10] the question is like, uh, how do you get [19:12] leads? How do you get sales? Where do [19:14] you start, Kurt? [19:15] >> I loved that. We This is so much fun for [19:18] me cuz like just just the thinking of [19:19] it, right? Like that whole billionaire [19:21] boss show that I think Discovery did. I [19:24] think Discovery um, with Grant Cardone [19:26] and a bunch of people, they drop these [19:27] people off in a city with nothing, like [19:30] a piece of junk used car and a hundred [19:32] bucks, right? And then you have to build [19:34] a million-dollar business in 90 days or [19:36] something. Um, so yeah, let's say you [19:39] don't even have you don't even have [19:41] access to the internet. You got a laptop [19:42] in your backpack. You got let's say you [19:44] got 200 bucks and you're starting from [19:46] scratch. Dude, I it's such a fun [19:49] challenge because you and I are so used [19:51] to the agency world and dealing with all [19:52] the bells and whistles of things. Like [19:54] if you could start from scratch again, [19:56] from a clean slate, like boom. Like I [19:59] immediately I immediately would find the [20:03] whatever the economic development office [20:05] was for that area. In Hudchinson, they [20:07] call it Startup Hutch. Um in [20:10] Albuquerque, it was the South Valley [20:12] Economic Development Center. But there's [20:14] always some kind of like city or county [20:18] subsidized organization that helps [20:20] people launch new businesses. And those [20:23] people always need startup websites. And [20:26] so that gets your foot in the door. That [20:28] helps you break the ice. Um people that [20:31] uh that that old show American Pickers [20:34] or whatever where they would go to [20:35] people's junkyards and and and he would [20:37] that one star would say, "Oh, you got to [20:39] break the ice. Buy something small." And [20:40] then you can work on getting better [20:42] deals on bigger things. Right? It's like [20:44] that I think in the web space. I'm going [20:46] to get in with one of these [20:47] organizations. I'm going to get a couple [20:49] of startup packages going. I'm going to [20:51] launch them quickly at super affordable [20:53] rates. I'm going to break the ice and [20:54] then I'm going to start asking who do [20:56] you know that I should know so I can get [20:58] better jobs. [20:59] >> Yeah. I think one thing that you brought [21:01] up that's kind of universal is like you [21:03] got to build relationships first of all. [21:05] And I think one thing to keep in mind is [21:08] just show up to the thing. Choose the [21:10] room you want to be in. Whether it's BNI [21:12] or, you know, a local meetup or [21:13] whatever. Uh could be the library you [21:15] show up to every day, but like go [21:17] somewhere where there are people with [21:19] money to spend or or that have [21:21] relationships. It could be the gym, [21:22] frankly. Uh my dad once told me like he [21:25] goes, "You should just join the priciest [21:27] gym in Minneapolis and show up every [21:29] day. That'd be your your your whole [21:31] marketing plan." Like [laughter] [21:33] I'm like there's a lot of logic to that. [21:36] Um and so part of it just show up [21:38] regularly. You got to keep showing up. [21:40] People, you know, there's this human [21:41] thing where you show up, people trust [21:43] you. It doesn't matter if you're [21:44] trustworthy or not. Like, oh, you've [21:45] been here 10 times in a row. I trust [21:47] you. Like, it's just a very human thing. [21:49] Um, uh, get clear. So, you're there, [21:52] you're talking to people. I think like [21:54] get clear about what you do in specific [21:57] so they can help you. You need to give [21:59] them something to bite onto that they [22:01] can maybe hire you or maybe introduce [22:03] you. And also, the thing to be specific [22:05] about might be, hey, I'm a freelancer [22:08] who does WordPress work and I need help [22:10] finding people who want to hire me. Like [22:12] that could be the conversation. You [22:13] don't have to like sugarcoat it all the [22:15] time. [22:15] >> You you're you're scratching the surface [22:17] of one that that everyone says I'm [22:20] crazy. Everyone says I'm wrong. Uh like [22:22] for instance, I got the Hutchinson [22:23] Kansas. I immediately looked up who else [22:26] thinks there an agency in town. And and [22:28] you would think Hutchinson small, [22:29] there's no agencies. Well, do a Google [22:30] search. All of a sudden there's [22:31] agencies. Um I met these people in in [22:34] one case. I went to their office and [22:36] said, "Hey, I just want to introduce [22:37] myself. You and I are in the same [22:38] space." Um, because what you find out [22:40] is, like you just said, get clear on [22:43] what you offer. Get clear on what you [22:45] do. I just got a referral two weeks ago [22:48] from my competition in town because they [22:51] messaged me on Facebook and said, "Hey, [22:53] Kurt, I got this lady that wants this [22:55] e-commerce website. It's more [22:56] complicated than what we like to work [22:57] on. Can we just refer her to you?" Yeah, [23:00] I'll take it. [23:00] >> Yeah. Also, like as you're looking at [23:02] places, like I would look at where as I [23:05] go to places. So you have to kind of go [23:06] to understand it and maybe you can [23:08] figure out some clues from people, but [23:10] you want to go where the energy is. Like [23:12] there are places that are boring and [23:14] lame and nobody ever shares business. [23:15] But if you go to a place that you know [23:17] it almost right away, like you go in [23:19] there, you start talking to people and [23:21] stuff is happening and like somehow you [23:23] got to figure out where those places [23:25] are. The energy is good. Um I joined it. [23:30] So, this sounds very self- serving and [23:32] and [23:33] >> yeah, [23:34] >> so I'm thinking about how I would do it. [23:36] Like Kansas has, you know, counties and [23:38] cities like everywhere else, but each of [23:40] these cities and counties has programs, [23:44] leadership programs or business [23:45] development programs or things like [23:47] that. And I found that, you know, a you [23:49] could sign up and be a free student, [23:51] right? Because they're subsidized. So, [23:52] you could take the course and become a [23:54] free student. What What are you going to [23:56] do? Well, you're going to be in a room [23:57] with 11 other people that are launching [23:59] a business and you know how to make [24:01] websites for startups. Like, so that's [24:03] one right there. And you're going to get [24:04] to know those people because you're [24:05] going to be in class with them, you [24:06] know, once a week for 12 weeks or [24:08] something silly, right? So, so there's [24:10] that. Um, there's a leadership cohort in [24:12] the county that I'm in. And so, uh, [24:15] bunch of people get together and meet [24:16] and they're from all over the place, the [24:19] different levels of executive leadership [24:21] to, you know, aators there. Um, I just I [24:25] I think about it's such a cool idea, [24:27] right? Go to a city. You don't know [24:29] anybody. You can't use your real name. [24:30] You can't use your contact list. You got [24:32] 200 bucks. What do you do? Right? Well, [24:34] you go to where the internet is. Go to [24:36] the coffee shop. Go to the library. Go [24:38] to those places, connect to the web, and [24:40] and start doing stuff. Um, get active on [24:44] social. make sure that you, you know, [24:46] use some like local SEO talent, you [24:48] know, to kind of drive things to what [24:49] you're working on and that you're new in [24:50] town and that you're uh feverishly [24:53] actively uh looking for work. Um I'm not [24:56] saying beg for work. I'm just saying [24:57] make sure people know you're available. [24:59] >> Yeah. And I think anytime you go [25:01] somewhere these days, you usually know [25:02] who else is going to be there. Like [25:04] there's usually an attendee list. Like [25:05] if you do meetup.com or something like [25:07] that, you can usually get a good sense [25:08] of who's going to be there. do your [25:10] research on them, you know, like figure [25:12] out who they are on LinkedIn and you [25:14] know, it's not easy. It takes some time, [25:16] but like, and I'm not saying get creepy, [25:18] but like come prepared to talk with [25:20] topics that might be of interest to [25:22] them. Like you're going to an event with [25:23] a lot of startup people, maybe look up [25:25] some recent startupy articles on some [25:28] startup website that, you know, some [25:30] news site. Um, similarly, you're at the [25:33] meeting and if somebody's um looking to [25:36] be connected in a similar way, connect [25:38] them with someone else at the meeting. [25:40] This costs nothing. I just talked to [25:42] him. Hey, you should meet each other. [25:43] Like, be a good host even though you're [25:45] a guest there. You know, you can you can [25:47] you can make a lot of friends just by [25:50] helping people. [25:51] >> I think it's fun to um make a customer [25:55] by being a customer. Like go in and and [25:58] you know, you got those $200 to spend, [26:00] right? So, you go in and you buy the [26:02] coffee. Uh, I'm in the bicycling. You [26:04] know, maybe I'm going to go and buy a [26:05] bicycle tube at the bike shop. But [26:07] that's going to create um a I'm doing [26:09] business with them. I'm breaking that [26:11] ice. I'm going to create a relationship. [26:12] I'm going to have a conversation. I'm [26:14] not just going to buy the tube. Right? [26:15] I'm going to be like, "Hey, it's a [26:16] really nice store. How long has it been [26:18] here? You know, how many bikes do you [26:19] guys sell every month? Oh, this is so [26:20] cool. I didn't even know that this was [26:21] here." Right? You're having this [26:23] conversation. That conversation is going [26:25] to build um equity in your relationship. [26:28] And so they might not need a new [26:29] website, but you know what? They do [26:31] business with 25 other people in town [26:34] and somebody's going to want something [26:36] done and hopefully you're the name at [26:37] the tip of their tongue. [26:38] >> Yeah. I also think like co-working [26:40] spaces, like throw that that on the list [26:42] of places you might go. Um, specifically [26:45] talk to the front desk people at [26:47] co-working spaces. They know everybody [26:49] there. They they're connectors usually. [26:51] Um, maybe ask them for a job, like, you [26:54] know, tell them what's up. Tell them you [26:56] need work. And um a lot I think if you [26:59] find the right place and right people [27:00] like people want to help I think but you [27:03] got to ask and you got to be specific. [27:04] >> You you got to get involved right? So I [27:08] think that that is you know and that's [27:09] something that AI can't do for you. AI [27:11] can't replace you. People want the [27:13] relationship. They want that you know [27:15] human in the loop experience. And so you [27:18] know I I really drive back and I look at [27:21] like where did the success of Mñana Nas [27:23] really come from? It didn't come from [27:25] Facebook ads. It didn't come from fancy [27:27] tricks and stuff. It came from uh [27:29] networking, shaking hands, going to [27:31] meetings, getting on podcasts. Um, you [27:34] know, again, I'veorked with a lot of [27:36] people that would say that, you know, [27:38] that's my competition, but I usually get [27:40] work from the relationships that should [27:42] be with my competition because we have [27:44] niches. We we have niches that are [27:46] different than each other. So, we're [27:47] able to share and refer work back and [27:49] forth. [27:50] >> Yeah. I I my experience has been like [27:52] that it's almost like less of a you [27:57] don't it's not complex like getting work [28:00] is about human relationships and we're [28:02] all have a certain level of talent and [28:04] ability at human relationships and I [28:06] think like the more you lean into that [28:08] and this is where last week we got uh we [28:11] were yelling about marketing verse sales [28:13] like I mean the one thing we're hitting [28:15] on 100% here is we are in a sales [28:18] mentality when with all this We're [28:20] saying how do we sell? We're not saying [28:21] how do we get our brand out there? How [28:23] do we market? Like the sales mentality, [28:26] I think, is everything. And it's [28:28] probably where businesses fail and [28:30] succeed just generally speaking. Like if [28:32] you take the organization as a whole, [28:34] how big of a sales mentality do they [28:36] have? You know, it's probably it'd be an [28:38] interesting study like to see like let's [28:41] take every 20 person organization in the [28:43] country and rate them on a sales how big [28:46] a sales uh personality do they have? And [28:48] I'm not talking about what they do. Like [28:50] they could they could be a a fix it shop [28:53] for your local automobile, you know, [28:54] like but how big of are they do they [28:56] because sales people have an urgency [28:58] about them that is it's a magnet. [29:01] >> Yeah. I think you hit something very um [29:05] important and I don't want to glaze over [29:07] it. Sales is like that's the first [29:09] thing. A lot of people say, "Oh, I'm [29:11] going to build a website and I'm going [29:12] to this and I'm going to market that and [29:13] I'm going to do the other thing." And [29:14] and we get all excited about all these [29:16] distractions, but distractions don't put [29:17] a dime in your bank account. To me, like [29:20] again, if I'm dropped off in a city with [29:22] $200 in my pocket and a laptop, right? [29:25] My number one goal is how many people [29:27] can I meet? How quickly can I meet them? [29:29] How many conversations can I have? And [29:31] which of those conversations is going to [29:33] lead to conversion? Each of those [29:34] conversations, I'm going to be [29:36] identifying a need and supplying a [29:38] solution. And if someone says, "Hey, [29:40] that sounds like something I need." Or, [29:41] "Hey, you need to talk to my nephew." [29:43] Or, "You need to whatever." I'm going to [29:44] follow that up. Like the number one [29:45] thing is sales and revenue. See, I'm [29:47] getting excited. I can hear it in my own [29:49] voice. So, the number one thing is [29:50] revenue. As soon as I get that little [29:52] bit of revenue, Toby, well, well, now I [29:54] can go, "Okay, I've got revenue. Now, I [29:56] can think about how would I market this [29:59] and scale it and increase it and [30:01] continue my sales." [30:02] >> Yeah, maybe. I I don't even go there. I [30:04] just go, "Let's go get [30:05] >> I just keep selling." [laughter] [30:07] the one thing you brought up that's [30:08] really uh as we're as I'm thinking back [30:12] through this conversation today about [30:13] the uh billion-dollar WordPress [30:16] billionaire whatever um we haven't [30:18] talked about marketing at all like that [30:20] what didn't even occur to us as a thing [30:22] to do [30:23] >> no which [30:24] >> uh instead we [30:27] didn't mention websites we didn't [30:28] mention like colors or logo and because [30:31] when I think about this you've dropped [30:33] somewhere you need work and this is this [30:35] person who maybe it's you listening and [30:37] you're like, "Ah, I can't find work." [30:39] Um, this is how I approach. I go, I find [30:42] I would find the people and I hear [30:44] someone say, "Hey, I really need a [30:47] WordPress uh Woo Commerce site. Do you [30:50] do that?" I would, you know, because I [30:51] have that skill set, I say, "Yes, I do." [30:54] "Do you have a website?" "Yes, I do, but [30:56] um let me email it to you later." [30:59] >> [laughter] [30:59] >> And now that I have their info, I have [31:01] their contact info, I have what they [31:03] need, I run home, I build a WooCommerce [31:06] marketing site. I say, "Here's my [31:07] website, um, and it's exactly what they [31:10] need. It looks professional, you know, [31:12] like I I wouldn't overthink the [31:13] marketing piece until I have someone to [31:15] sell to." Yeah, I'm um 100% I don't know [31:18] why I'm so focused on revenue lately [31:20] because things have grown pretty decent, [31:21] but um my last few lives and shows have [31:25] really been based on like revenue. like [31:27] we've got to get back to being focused [31:29] on sales and revenue and all of this all [31:32] of this other stuff like I'm hearing I'm [31:36] seeing a ton from people in our space [31:38] Toby with I'm going to vibe code this [31:40] and I'm making these tools and these [31:41] plugins and this and I'm experimenting [31:43] with this page builder and I'm doing and [31:44] it's like okay that's great that you [31:46] want to be at the threshold of [31:48] advancement in our space like that's [31:50] great if you want to be at the top of [31:51] everything that's wonderful but I don't [31:54] think the message today is driven to [31:55] those people. I think the message today [31:58] is like don't waste time getting [32:00] distracted by all these superfluous [32:01] activities. WordPress by itself out of [32:04] the box with like five or six key [32:06] plugins. You can run an entirely [32:09] profitable agency off of that and just [32:11] get going. Just just create revenue, [32:13] build projects, and get going. And you [32:15] can always get to this other stuff when [32:17] time comes. [32:18] >> Thank you. That's a great way to segue [32:20] to the ending of our show here. Uh Kurt, [32:23] how can people get in touch with you? [32:24] Well, you can reach me at LinkedIn. I'm [32:26] the only Kurt Vonan on LinkedIn. I [32:28] encourage you to connect. Uh for [32:30] business, uh we are mñana noms and mñana [32:33] noms is the call sign for all of our [32:35] socials and our.com. Toby, you [32:37] >> I am on LinkedIn Toby and the last name [32:39] is C R Y NS. You can find me at [32:41] themo.com. That's tmi gtm.com [32:47] where we do WordPress stuff and SEO [32:50] stuff. So, um thanks everyone for [32:52] joining us today. always like to have [32:54] you. Please like, send us emails, [32:56] comments on any wherever you're watching [32:58] or listening. Send us a comment if you [32:59] have a question or an idea for a new [33:01] show. Uh look forward to seeing you next [33:02] week. [33:03] >> Awesome. This is a fun one. Well, here we are again, folks. Welcome to another agency action show. I'm here with Toby Kines. My name is Kurt. Toby, talk to me about uh meetings and how much you love having meetings. I've realized um I really don't like having meetings and going to meetings and holding them. But then it got me thinking like what would a good meeting look like? And there's a whole like there are business consultancies and whole like a whole vertical of business consultancies that are focused almost exclusively on this topic. Um, and I was looking into one that's called EOS and um, there are others and I'm sure they're all fine in their own ways, but specifically I was looking at it from a meeting management standpoint and like what is a great meeting? How do you have a meeting where people leave the meeting and go, "Thank you. I'm glad we had that meeting." Even if you know in the book and the the philosophy of EOS that they're like, you want people to say it's a great meeting, but I'm not aiming for great. I'm aiming like great in the context of business meetings because nobody really wants to be in them. >> Um but and so then I got into it and I actually so EOS has a its own meeting agenda template and philosophy and I actually implemented I'm imple implementing this agenda at the mighty mo for any recurring meeting. So this is like weekly meetings between me and my operations team between me and my SEO team between operations team and project management team like we're implementing that we're rolling it out. We had our first two today and I got to say it's I felt way better about the meeting the meeting these two meetings today than I have about any previous one. And I think part of the philosophy behind the EOS thing is that uh every meeting has its same time every week. It's they recommend 90 minutes but um you know you can decide that I guess but uh same agenda every meeting and it always ends on time. And this is like a problem. This is part of why I hate meetings is because they're always going over and I'm always like, "Ah, really?" Like again, now I'm late for the next meeting. And so I did two today. And even though we didn't even plan enough time because like I was like, "I want to share this meeting template idea with you." Um the so the meetings were actually like in in context of that way shorter than they would have otherwise been and we still I felt like got through way more than we otherwise would have historically. So, wanted to ask you, Kurt, what are some reasons meetings suck in your experience? >> I think in general, when you say agenda, that that to me is like that's the lynch pin. That's that's the thing. Um, I've worked with a ton, you know, I have that corporate experience and I've worked for a lot of car dealerships and a lot of car dealerships aren't run by people that are leadership experts. They're run by people that are car enthusiasts. And so I know what bad meetings look like. Uh I've also had the privilege of I know this this everyone's going to think this guy owes me money. Chris Badget at Lifter LMS, I go to his meetings. He's like a master at running a good meeting. Um it's interactive. You know, what are our wins? What are our losses? What what are our key points? What are our focus points? And you know, what do we pin to talk about later? You know, one-on-one or something like that. I think one of the things that I hate about meetings is when you're in a room with 10 people and it seems like the meeting is for two people and a dude, you know, and you're sitting there like an idiot. Like I don't even know why I'm here. Like that for me is like these are not meetings I need to be in. >> Yeah. I think even with the EOS template, it doesn't solve that specific problem. Um what it does solve, however, is is let's work on the most important stuff. let's first define how do we define importance. So there's a lot of like pre-work you do um just to define from from the business standpoint what's important and then when you get to these meetings you go like okay we now have the context for how do we define important which are these items and then you rank them by the order of importance to the business and um and and the idea is like you're not spending a lot of time like talking about what you're doing but like solving the issues but I could still see a scenario where two people are going back and forth on a specific issue for a long period of time. It could be the whole meeting frankly because the way that EOS sets it up is like you have your most important thing first and you don't stop until either that issues done or the time for the meeting's done and and so you could potentially have two people talking the whole meeting and I yeah I don't know how you solved that. >> So so in those instances um and and I'll drive this back to my work at Suzuki, right? I was in charge of a group of six people that did all the publications and training for Suzuki. If I was concerned, if my number one priority was an e-learning module uh being done by Michelle, uh me and Michelle would book a room and have a meeting, right? Like like that would be the meeting and here's my agenda for the meeting with Michelle. I wouldn't bring, you know, Bill, Tristan, and Ron into the meeting with Michelle to talk about the e-learning module, right? Um if there was a uh something that had to be edited for a service manual, uh I would meet with Ron one-on-one, but I wouldn't bring in again the whole team, right? for those and that's why the agenda thing is so important because if I'm going to have a group meeting right what are the what are the top most important things that affect the group and then boom boom boom so I think when we have a team meeting and again I'm going to drive back to the lifter LMS example when we have a team meeting it's really to educate the team as to what all of the stakeholders are actively doing or or the process or the progress of things and so we'll take a look at like you know the the flowchart for sprints or the Gant chart or whatever you want to call it, right? So, development's working on this, sales is working on this, da da da da da, customer service is knocking it out of the park with these five things. Here's three new testimonials, sales is good, here's the the, you know, the bundles we sold this week. And then all of the details get handled in individual meetings for development with those individual stakeholders. I think I'm just guessing here maybe and from experience like that I've seen at the Mighty M where that model potentially has a shortcoming that would need to be addressed is often times the issues surface in these conversations with the team that the issues even though they're really important wouldn't otherwise surface. I'll give you an example. Um, recently I've been having these like one-off conversations with people on my team, like about a specific pro project and asking questions about how it's going. And I'm getting different answers from different people. Oh, it's going great. Going great. The next guy is like, no, it's going off the rails. And I'm like, um, I think if we had had a team meeting that would have surfaced and like, hey, how's it going? Going great. Sucks. Like it' be like going off the rails. Like like maybe >> I don't know. Yeah, I had to do a lot of leg work to get there. Yeah, I I do see your point. If we again using Lifter as the example because that's, you know, my my most recent experience. Um, Lifter just came out with the events add-on, right? So, you can do live Zoom events or inerson events attached to your website. And during one of those team meetings, Chris unveiled to the rest of us underlings that, you know, the this events add-on was going to come out. Now I work on the customer service team and so I'm responsible to like show it to people, you know, teach people how to use it and all that kind of stuff, but it was still in development. And Brian, the developer, was like, "Yeah, the events thing's kind of cool. It's going to XYZ." And I was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on." Like the feedback we've gotten from stakeholders already is that we wanted to do X, Y, and Z in addition to what you just said. And then he goes, "Oh, that's a good idea." Right? But then we took that discussion to Slack for some details between him and I. And when they released the events package, it did exactly what I wanted it to do and Brian knocked it out of the park. So to your point, there there are things that come up, you know, through the agenda and through sharing things with the team. There are things there there's elements that come up, but we don't absorb the meeting with those things. We give the opportunity for fine-tuning outside that meeting. >> Yeah. I I also think one thing I noticed today in my two meetings that use the new EOS format. I noticed because I was in charge of leading the meetings and we have a firm schedule uh firm agenda and we have places to put things that like and this is just me and one other person in both meetings and I noticed they were either them or I were bringing up things that were tangential to what we were currently dealing with. Like we're talking about an issue and they say, "Well, what about this?" And it's like I can see how it relates. And it was really nice to be able to say like, "Thank you for sharing that. I'm going to put that at the bottom of the issues list and if we have time later today, we'll get to it. Otherwise, we'll deal with it a different way." >> It's like our show notes. [laughter] >> Yeah, it is. Yeah. >> Well, we'll drive these uh these crappy notes down to the bottom and if we run out of time, we'll talk about it. >> And I think the reality is is that like those tangential things probably weren't as important like first of all uh and probably they're, you know, they don't deserve to be injected at the top. And we notice this all the time like in our company that like perceived emergencies push everything down but there's no like we don't currently have like a great triage system to say like slow down let's think about where this emergency fits amongst our other priorities. And I think like this meeting agenda handles that for meetings. It doesn't handle it for our business necessarily but like that happens at meetings all the time where someone brings something up and in my view derails the whole conversation of whatever was being brought up or conversed about. That's so important from a business perspective. Um I was doing some um study I I I don't want to get why right but but one of the required readings for this study that I was in and I'm going back like I think it was 2007 or 8 um was a little tiny book. It was like the size of a pamphlet. Little tiny thing and it was called Tyranny of the Urgent. Uh I mean you could sit on the toilet and read it like you boom done. Um Tyranny of the Urgent. The messaging in that book was so strong. I was like, "This answers so many things I've dealt with professionally in my life." Like, you are so busy putting out fires and dealing with everyone else's emergencies that you never get to address what's important. And when you look at people that really build successful, you know, enterprises, these are people that have the ability to go that that's a distraction. You know, I got to focus on what's important. I know that you think that's important, but that's a distraction for the overall goal. And um that book Tyranny of the Urgent really helped me to kind of refocus that that's where the time blocking idea came from that you and I discussed weeks ago. It's like time blocking is for the important stuff and then the urgent stuff I kind of fill in where I can. Yeah. And it it takes real discipline to um to to slow down and re reposition, you know, to file that urgent thing wherever it belongs. Maybe it's not actually urgent. That takes a lot of like a lot of discipline like from whoever's whether you're project manager, business owner, whatever. There's another thing here that is related that this new meeting agenda did for me and it added transparent accountability. Uh first it clear calls out the issues transparently and we discuss them transparently. Then like there's a clear to-do list coming out of these. So okay, we address the issue it converts conversationally. What are the to-dos that came out of that discussion and who's going to own those to-dos? And the the thought is that like these are week max to-dos like so you're going to have them done by the next week or the next month whatever your cadence is for meetings. >> Yeah. >> Um and then you transparently you write those down and say by the next meeting you're going to do these things and every and everyone sees it everyone commits to the next meeting at the top of the meeting. We we don't start with that but it's in there as like a done or not done. If it's not done then it becomes an issue to converse about and so it adds this accountability layer that we were lacking in our at the mighty mo I would say like from a meeting to meeting you know people would promise things and sometimes they get lost sometimes not you know >> well I think one of the things that you're hitting on here is like the the difference between like two elements of a meeting some people treat meetings like they're an exchange of information right like we're just meeting and we're exchanging information so everybody knows what's going on and then there's the idea that we're having a meeting because action is tied to the meeting. And what you described is action is tied to the meeting. And that to me is is like the only reason to really have meetings. Um we're very proactive at Manana about disclosing um status of a project or things like that to clients. We're we're very um outgoing in that way. So we don't get a lot of like, hey, we should meet and have a you know discuss the status of my project. Um, so when I get like Zoom requests from clients, I'm very protective of my time because I'm like, hey, you know, we factored in like 10 or 12 or 15 meetings into your project. Like I factored that in when I bid the job and you want now you want to meet every Tuesday at 3. Okay, why do you want to meet every Tuesday at 3? Like you have access to you have access to the client portal. You you know what the milestones are. You know that we're ahead of schedule. You know that we're under budget. We have all of your assets. what do you want to meet every Tuesday at 3:00 for? And then you find out that it's just some kind of weird like emotional security blanket for them. Well, if you've got some weird emotional security blanket and and you're not happy with the tools we've already provided, we can do this, but it's going to be at an added cost. >> I wonder too like, you know, so you counted for 12 meetings. um if there was more formality about or more description because I'm sure they're formal but like it's like if we communicated why we chose 12 meetings and what's on the agenda for each meeting like if that would alleviate some of the anxiety that yeah like say we have a place for your concerns they're here they're on January 12th you know like or July 13th you know um we're thank you for sending that I've added it to the list you know that's what I wonder um well it's one way like a I think that this thing I'm doing now is going to be helpful for our team. Um, >> yeah. >> I also think like having this formal agenda and the way that we're going to be doing it, like I can't tell you how many times I've shown up to meetings and just been frustrated because there's no agenda and like it's not even clear to me why why we're there, what we're going to talk about almost every time, frankly, internally. Um and and I think this agenda, let's just say it'll help me, but also like it forces all the attend or the at least the leader of the meeting to show up prepared. I wish you the best of luck with this. The hard part is managing it and keeping it right because um just like everything else that we do, you assign it a process and then if you get weak or lax or um you know on the process and and it starts to lose its form, uh it can morph real quickly on you. So it just it takes discipline to maintain these things and your >> and the personalities of your people group kind of infect the way that the outcome happens. >> Yeah. And I think one cool thing I've been reading about, you know, we're considering going some hybrid EOS and hiring an imple. um part of the their bigger picture is like how do you know you have the right people at the company in and even if you have the right people are they in the right position and role at the company um and so like when I hear the language you use and I don't know if this right but like infected there are people at companies that poison the well for everybody and they can po they can do that quickly and I think like part of our job as like owners of agencies is to like figure out ways to find those people fret them and you know fire them you know you know get them out as soon as possible um if they exist and I I think like there's degrees of this too and this is what makes it hard that like for example a new employee takes a while to ramp up and you don't know if they're let's say they're slow to get to where they need to get you don't know if they're if they have the talent and ability for another three months >> I think the well poisoning is like that where you have to like really it's hard but you got to figure it out >> it comes with a certain comfort level, right? Um it falls into like those whole four stages of competency and things like that, right? But when they first start, they're they're still getting their feet on the ground. They're still getting a foundation, but once they feel like they've got a foundation, then they start growing opinions, right? And those opinions are like, "Toby's an idiot. He doesn't know what he's doing. These meetings suck." Right? And then all they do is repeat that to two or three people. Next thing you know, you got nine people that aren't happy. And you're going, "What happened a year ago? Everything was going great." you know, and it's and then you have to do some root cause analysis and then uh unfortunately liquidate somebody. >> And part of part part of this too is like the how you roll it out is important particularly with the bigger team probably. But like um one bad experience as you roll something out internally can ruin it forever. Like you know, let's say the fir you have a meeting and like you did it wrong or something and there's somebody in there says this sucked. I'm never doing this again. And yeah, then you run into this thing and you go, is it a poisoning of the well or is it just like this human tendency to be like, "That sucked. I'm never doing that again." You know, there's a >> there's a company I work with, by the way, along the poisoning. Um there's a guy who's been there forever. Every time I talk to him, he's like, "God, I hate working here. This sucks. Such and such of the company." And I don't even work there. He's telling me like all the things he hates about the company, you know? Um and he's been there forever. And like I I I don't know for sure, but like I can't I believe that he's probably like hurt the business significantly. Just this one guy and he's still there. >> I think back to my corporate experience and how many times did I share cubicle space with people that hated being there every day, you know, and it just drags you down. It affects your productivity. It affects the way you deal with clients, customers, co-workers, everything. The way you deal with vendors. Um, yeah. And it's amazing because there's that little switch in our own brains where we can change our perspective or our perception of something and we can see it from a completely different p. The facts don't change, but our reaction to those facts changes and then all of a sudden everything's better. And it's like it's so hard to pinpoint how the human brain can do that, right? But like you wish there was a magic switch you could hit externally for other people to go, man, stop being so negative, you know, see the positive here. like you got a job, you have a house, you drove a car to work today, like you're ahead of you're ahead of the rest of the planet. Um, people just struggle with trying to see the positive in things. >> Let's transition to another topic here that's uh not at all related. Um, >> if if you're tired of running a business, [laughter] >> hypothetically, [clears throat] we and you can listen to last week's episode that for the the conversation that spurred this, but the question from last week was basically like, uh, hey, I'm having [clears throat] a lot of trouble finding work. I'm a freelance uh, you know, I'm an unemployed freelance developer. That was kind of the question. How do I find work? Let's let's be generous and say that's what it was. >> Yes. >> Um, and then we got to talk after the show. So, I'm going to pitch this question. Um, pretend you were on Billiondollar WordPress Boss, which is a new show we're inventing for Discovery Network. >> It's Matt Matt Matt's going to produce it. It's going to be great. Um, and and it's called Billiondollar WordPress Boss. >> And the idea is like we set you in the middle of a city somewhere that where you know nobody and you have to use another name and you can't call on your former resources and all that. Um, and the question is like, uh, how do you get leads? How do you get sales? Where do you start, Kurt? >> I loved that. We This is so much fun for me cuz like just just the thinking of it, right? Like that whole billionaire boss show that I think Discovery did. I think Discovery um, with Grant Cardone and a bunch of people, they drop these people off in a city with nothing, like a piece of junk used car and a hundred bucks, right? And then you have to build a million-dollar business in 90 days or something. Um, so yeah, let's say you don't even have you don't even have access to the internet. You got a laptop in your backpack. You got let's say you got 200 bucks and you're starting from scratch. Dude, I it's such a fun challenge because you and I are so used to the agency world and dealing with all the bells and whistles of things. Like if you could start from scratch again, from a clean slate, like boom. Like I immediately I immediately would find the whatever the economic development office was for that area. In Hudchinson, they call it Startup Hutch. Um in Albuquerque, it was the South Valley Economic Development Center. But there's always some kind of like city or county subsidized organization that helps people launch new businesses. And those people always need startup websites. And so that gets your foot in the door. That helps you break the ice. Um people that uh that that old show American Pickers or whatever where they would go to people's junkyards and and and he would that one star would say, "Oh, you got to break the ice. Buy something small." And then you can work on getting better deals on bigger things. Right? It's like that I think in the web space. I'm going to get in with one of these organizations. I'm going to get a couple of startup packages going. I'm going to launch them quickly at super affordable rates. I'm going to break the ice and then I'm going to start asking who do you know that I should know so I can get better jobs. >> Yeah. I think one thing that you brought up that's kind of universal is like you got to build relationships first of all. And I think one thing to keep in mind is just show up to the thing. Choose the room you want to be in. Whether it's BNI or, you know, a local meetup or whatever. Uh could be the library you show up to every day, but like go somewhere where there are people with money to spend or or that have relationships. It could be the gym, frankly. Uh my dad once told me like he goes, "You should just join the priciest gym in Minneapolis and show up every day. That'd be your your your whole marketing plan." Like [laughter] I'm like there's a lot of logic to that. Um and so part of it just show up regularly. You got to keep showing up. People, you know, there's this human thing where you show up, people trust you. It doesn't matter if you're trustworthy or not. Like, oh, you've been here 10 times in a row. I trust you. Like, it's just a very human thing. Um, uh, get clear. So, you're there, you're talking to people. I think like get clear about what you do in specific so they can help you. You need to give them something to bite onto that they can maybe hire you or maybe introduce you. And also, the thing to be specific about might be, hey, I'm a freelancer who does WordPress work and I need help finding people who want to hire me. Like that could be the conversation. You don't have to like sugarcoat it all the time. >> You you're you're scratching the surface of one that that everyone says I'm crazy. Everyone says I'm wrong. Uh like for instance, I got the Hutchinson Kansas. I immediately looked up who else thinks there an agency in town. And and you would think Hutchinson small, there's no agencies. Well, do a Google search. All of a sudden there's agencies. Um I met these people in in one case. I went to their office and said, "Hey, I just want to introduce myself. You and I are in the same space." Um, because what you find out is, like you just said, get clear on what you offer. Get clear on what you do. I just got a referral two weeks ago from my competition in town because they messaged me on Facebook and said, "Hey, Kurt, I got this lady that wants this e-commerce website. It's more complicated than what we like to work on. Can we just refer her to you?" Yeah, I'll take it. >> Yeah. Also, like as you're looking at places, like I would look at where as I go to places. So you have to kind of go to understand it and maybe you can figure out some clues from people, but you want to go where the energy is. Like there are places that are boring and lame and nobody ever shares business. But if you go to a place that you know it almost right away, like you go in there, you start talking to people and stuff is happening and like somehow you got to figure out where those places are. The energy is good. Um I joined it. So, this sounds very self- serving and and >> yeah, >> so I'm thinking about how I would do it. Like Kansas has, you know, counties and cities like everywhere else, but each of these cities and counties has programs, leadership programs or business development programs or things like that. And I found that, you know, a you could sign up and be a free student, right? Because they're subsidized. So, you could take the course and become a free student. What What are you going to do? Well, you're going to be in a room with 11 other people that are launching a business and you know how to make websites for startups. Like, so that's one right there. And you're going to get to know those people because you're going to be in class with them, you know, once a week for 12 weeks or something silly, right? So, so there's that. Um, there's a leadership cohort in the county that I'm in. And so, uh, bunch of people get together and meet and they're from all over the place, the different levels of executive leadership to, you know, aators there. Um, I just I I think about it's such a cool idea, right? Go to a city. You don't know anybody. You can't use your real name. You can't use your contact list. You got 200 bucks. What do you do? Right? Well, you go to where the internet is. Go to the coffee shop. Go to the library. Go to those places, connect to the web, and and start doing stuff. Um, get active on social. make sure that you, you know, use some like local SEO talent, you know, to kind of drive things to what you're working on and that you're new in town and that you're uh feverishly actively uh looking for work. Um I'm not saying beg for work. I'm just saying make sure people know you're available. >> Yeah. And I think anytime you go somewhere these days, you usually know who else is going to be there. Like there's usually an attendee list. Like if you do meetup.com or something like that, you can usually get a good sense of who's going to be there. do your research on them, you know, like figure out who they are on LinkedIn and you know, it's not easy. It takes some time, but like, and I'm not saying get creepy, but like come prepared to talk with topics that might be of interest to them. Like you're going to an event with a lot of startup people, maybe look up some recent startupy articles on some startup website that, you know, some news site. Um, similarly, you're at the meeting and if somebody's um looking to be connected in a similar way, connect them with someone else at the meeting. This costs nothing. I just talked to him. Hey, you should meet each other. Like, be a good host even though you're a guest there. You know, you can you can you can make a lot of friends just by helping people. >> I think it's fun to um make a customer by being a customer. Like go in and and you know, you got those $200 to spend, right? So, you go in and you buy the coffee. Uh, I'm in the bicycling. You know, maybe I'm going to go and buy a bicycle tube at the bike shop. But that's going to create um a I'm doing business with them. I'm breaking that ice. I'm going to create a relationship. I'm going to have a conversation. I'm not just going to buy the tube. Right? I'm going to be like, "Hey, it's a really nice store. How long has it been here? You know, how many bikes do you guys sell every month? Oh, this is so cool. I didn't even know that this was here." Right? You're having this conversation. That conversation is going to build um equity in your relationship. And so they might not need a new website, but you know what? They do business with 25 other people in town and somebody's going to want something done and hopefully you're the name at the tip of their tongue. >> Yeah. I also think like co-working spaces, like throw that that on the list of places you might go. Um, specifically talk to the front desk people at co-working spaces. They know everybody there. They they're connectors usually. Um, maybe ask them for a job, like, you know, tell them what's up. Tell them you need work. And um a lot I think if you find the right place and right people like people want to help I think but you got to ask and you got to be specific. >> You you got to get involved right? So I think that that is you know and that's something that AI can't do for you. AI can't replace you. People want the relationship. They want that you know human in the loop experience. And so you know I I really drive back and I look at like where did the success of Mñana Nas really come from? It didn't come from Facebook ads. It didn't come from fancy tricks and stuff. It came from uh networking, shaking hands, going to meetings, getting on podcasts. Um, you know, again, I'veorked with a lot of people that would say that, you know, that's my competition, but I usually get work from the relationships that should be with my competition because we have niches. We we have niches that are different than each other. So, we're able to share and refer work back and forth. >> Yeah. I I my experience has been like that it's almost like less of a you don't it's not complex like getting work is about human relationships and we're all have a certain level of talent and ability at human relationships and I think like the more you lean into that and this is where last week we got uh we were yelling about marketing verse sales like I mean the one thing we're hitting on 100% here is we are in a sales mentality when with all this We're saying how do we sell? We're not saying how do we get our brand out there? How do we market? Like the sales mentality, I think, is everything. And it's probably where businesses fail and succeed just generally speaking. Like if you take the organization as a whole, how big of a sales mentality do they have? You know, it's probably it'd be an interesting study like to see like let's take every 20 person organization in the country and rate them on a sales how big a sales uh personality do they have? And I'm not talking about what they do. Like they could they could be a a fix it shop for your local automobile, you know, like but how big of are they do they because sales people have an urgency about them that is it's a magnet. >> Yeah. I think you hit something very um important and I don't want to glaze over it. Sales is like that's the first thing. A lot of people say, "Oh, I'm going to build a website and I'm going to this and I'm going to market that and I'm going to do the other thing." And and we get all excited about all these distractions, but distractions don't put a dime in your bank account. To me, like again, if I'm dropped off in a city with $200 in my pocket and a laptop, right? My number one goal is how many people can I meet? How quickly can I meet them? How many conversations can I have? And which of those conversations is going to lead to conversion? Each of those conversations, I'm going to be identifying a need and supplying a solution. And if someone says, "Hey, that sounds like something I need." Or, "Hey, you need to talk to my nephew." Or, "You need to whatever." I'm going to follow that up. Like the number one thing is sales and revenue. See, I'm getting excited. I can hear it in my own voice. So, the number one thing is revenue. As soon as I get that little bit of revenue, Toby, well, well, now I can go, "Okay, I've got revenue. Now, I can think about how would I market this and scale it and increase it and continue my sales." >> Yeah, maybe. I I don't even go there. I just go, "Let's go get >> I just keep selling." [laughter] the one thing you brought up that's really uh as we're as I'm thinking back through this conversation today about the uh billion-dollar WordPress billionaire whatever um we haven't talked about marketing at all like that what didn't even occur to us as a thing to do >> no which >> uh instead we didn't mention websites we didn't mention like colors or logo and because when I think about this you've dropped somewhere you need work and this is this person who maybe it's you listening and you're like, "Ah, I can't find work." Um, this is how I approach. I go, I find I would find the people and I hear someone say, "Hey, I really need a WordPress uh Woo Commerce site. Do you do that?" I would, you know, because I have that skill set, I say, "Yes, I do." "Do you have a website?" "Yes, I do, but um let me email it to you later." >> [laughter] >> And now that I have their info, I have their contact info, I have what they need, I run home, I build a WooCommerce marketing site. I say, "Here's my website, um, and it's exactly what they need. It looks professional, you know, like I I wouldn't overthink the marketing piece until I have someone to sell to." Yeah, I'm um 100% I don't know why I'm so focused on revenue lately because things have grown pretty decent, but um my last few lives and shows have really been based on like revenue. like we've got to get back to being focused on sales and revenue and all of this all of this other stuff like I'm hearing I'm seeing a ton from people in our space Toby with I'm going to vibe code this and I'm making these tools and these plugins and this and I'm experimenting with this page builder and I'm doing and it's like okay that's great that you want to be at the threshold of advancement in our space like that's great if you want to be at the top of everything that's wonderful but I don't think the message today is driven to those people. I think the message today is like don't waste time getting distracted by all these superfluous activities. WordPress by itself out of the box with like five or six key plugins. You can run an entirely profitable agency off of that and just get going. Just just create revenue, build projects, and get going. And you can always get to this other stuff when time comes. >> Thank you. That's a great way to segue to the ending of our show here. Uh Kurt, how can people get in touch with you? Well, you can reach me at LinkedIn. I'm the only Kurt Vonan on LinkedIn. I encourage you to connect. Uh for business, uh we are mñana noms and mñana noms is the call sign for all of our socials and our.com. Toby, you >> I am on LinkedIn Toby and the last name is C R Y NS. You can find me at themo.com. That's tmi gtm.com where we do WordPress stuff and SEO stuff. So, um thanks everyone for joining us today. always like to have you. Please like, send us emails, comments on any wherever you're watching or listening. Send us a comment if you have a question or an idea for a new show. Uh look forward to seeing you next week. >> Awesome. This is a fun one., Meetings Don’t Have to Suck, YouTube, 01kzrjgw3g6s71wjr5nze1shef.