Owen Garrity: Inside the Journey of Scaling Without Investors

Owen Garrity  00:00 

I firmly believe that the CEO is the biggest threat to the business. The ugly reality is, if you want to scale a business, you have to sacrifice something, because there's ultimately people who are willing to do that. Most likely you are not the best at what you do, and so operate that way, right? Have that always be chasing, always be the challenge or brand, regardless of where you are in the journey. I've always believed that we pursued a incredibly client centric business model, that the rest would work itself out. The only regrets I have are actually when I've said no, because ultimately I've usually lost that whole business you. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:43 

Welcome to another episode of Better Business, Better Life. I'm your host, Debra Chantry-Taylor, and I'm passionate about helping entrepreneurs lead their ideal life by creating a better business. I started this show to bring entrepreneurs onto the podcast to share their journeys, the highs and the lows that go on in business, because business doesn't always grow in a straight line, and there are definitely ups and downs, and there are times when the wheels fall off too. So today's guest was a professional photographer at the age of 15, he decided early on in his career that he wanted to create an UN agency. And what I mean by that he was disillusioned with the Way agencies worked and wanted to create an UN agency. He's now grown that UN agency from one to 50 people without any and outside investment or help, and today he's going to share with you how focusing on growth should be about filling the funnel, putting more in at the top, rather than looking at the bottom. Owen Garrity is the founder and lead creative of FPW media. Welcome to the show, Owen. So welcome to the show, Owen, it's great to have you here this morning. Debra, thank you so much for having me on absolute pleasure. Hey, look, I'm really excited to have a chat to you, because we did a quick chat before the podcast, and your story is quite interesting in terms of how you have turned the whole agency world on its head. So but you weren't. You weren't. You weren't an agency owner in the beginning, tell me a little bit about your your journey to get to where you are today. 

Owen Garrity  02:06 

Yeah, there were many years actually where I said I never wanted to be in the agency world at all. So it's funny how things work out. But I had a really non traditional upbringing, and I started doing photography professionally when I was about 15, and so by the time I was out of high school, I was already working with a bunch of larger brands. And so I was in rooms with their agencies and working, in some cases, directly for their agencies. And saw an opportunity that there was a way to do things differently. I think agencies in general have a relatively poor reputation. Mostly is it's earned, right? It's it's righteous that they have a poor reputation, because, for the most part, it is a less, less than optimal experience for the client. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  02:53 

And so photography, I'm gonna have to explore that a little bit. So I'm a photographer, an amateur photographer myself, but what was it that you loved about having, you know, picking up a camera. 

Owen Garrity  03:02 

So when I was about 1110, 11, I got into a summer camp that one of the components was darkroom photography, black and white, darkroom photography. So I'm only 35 so I'm probably one of the last people to actually get that experience, you know, at a young age, relatively and so that's how I learned to shoot. Was going out in the day, you know, shooting a roll of film, bringing it back and waiting for it to develop in the dark room, and that whole process of having to be so incredibly intentional about what you're putting it in frame. I just immediately wanted to do that. I went home and asked my parents to buy me a camera, and they were a little bit, you know, like, what? And then, from then on, I had a camera everywhere I went, and annoyed everybody in my family and perfect strangers to take their picture. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  03:54 

Awesome. And my father was actually a professional photographer. He used to do wedding photographs, and I remember being in that, in the dark room with him, and kind of seeing him and kind of seeing him do it. And it was interesting, because obviously, these days, with digital cameras, we can, we can shoot 100 shots, and hopefully one of them will be okay. Whereas, as you said, you had to be super intentional back then, because you even had to apply filters on the camera. And so therefore you would sometimes take two or three shots on the same frame in order to create a filter effect. Whereas now we've got but iPhones that do better job. Absolutely. 

Owen Garrity  04:23 

It's quite wild how much it's changed. And I think in some ways it's too bad, right, that you know, people who are of the younger generations really won't get that delayed gratification experience of, did I even get the shot right? You know, immediately, and I'm guilty of it just as much as anybody else. I'll take a bazillion photos and then just pick one. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  04:42 

Yeah, fair enough. Okay, so now you have an agency. How many people you got in the agency? Now just under 50. I'm just under 50, and you went from being a one man band to being 50 people without taking on board any kind of investment. So you've pretty much bootstrapped it and built it from the ground up. Is that right? 

Owen Garrity  05:00 

Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, we didn't have any outside partners. We've had a couple of lines of credit along the way, from a financing perspective, but we've done it all ourselves. We've, we've rolled our profits back into the business and bootstrapped it from start to finish. Wonderful. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  05:15 

So that must have been a hell of a journey, because, I mean, having built a couple of businesses myself, it's not, quite the beautiful S curve that we get taught right where everything just goes smoothly and everything's great, it is a little bit more challenging than that. So would you like to share some of the stories, and also you talked about the fact that you didn't want to be a traditional agency, so I'd love to hear what you have created. 

Owen Garrity  05:36 

I remember one of the really things that stands out to me, was when we first got our first commercial space. So in the beginning it was just me out of my apartment and then out of a garage, you know, you can use slowly, it was a tiny room, and then it was a slightly bigger, tiny room. But eventually it got to the point where we needed a commercial space. So we found about 3500 square feet of warehouse space that was, you know, affordable ish, but we, I had probably four and a half months of rent of a 12 month lease when we moved in. So it was, you know, a couple of desks, and that's about it, right? Some cameras. And so it was, you know, you could, it was an echo, hello, hello, hello, right? It was, it was kind of comical in how bootstrapped it was. And I remember sitting in the warehouse the first day after everybody that, you know, friends and family, had helped me kind of get moved in, done some painting, done some things. And I was looking around, and I was like, whoa. I better make this work, because I it's got to work, right? And so then from that next day, it was just that mentality of like, this is going to work. And, you know, it did, but it was definitely a very twisty, twisty road along the way. You know how we eventually got into more of the true full agency works. We started just photo and video, and so it was just that. And the goal was never to become a full agency in the beginning, right in the very beginning, it was like, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna do the photo and video really well. We're gonna integrate with agencies. We're gonna do all that well. As we got more into, like I talked about earlier, as we got more into working with these other agencies, it started to become obvious that their our clients, were not being served well, right? Like we had video clients, we had photo clients, and they weren't being served well by their traditional agency. And so we started to raise our hand and say, we can help you with that. So one of the very first projects, you know, we had a client who was really happy with the shoot we had done, and they needed some promotional graphics to go along with it. And they said, do you guys do design too? And I said, Yeah, absolutely. We'd never done as a design project professionally, like, I knew how to use stuff and so forth. But it was, it was that, it was that, just that mentality of, like, Yeah, we're gonna say yes, and then we're going to go figure it out. And we just continually did that as we built the business. And so that, you know, we went outside to hire contractors or to people we knew that could help us out on a per project basis. And so we were able to scale quickly without adding a whole lot of headcount. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  08:20 

It's an interesting thing, because I think, you know in the beginning, but I remember doing that, I actually had a had an Event Centre in Auckland, and you talked about having your four and a half months set up a 12 month lease. I actually signed up to a three year lease, and literally had no money in the bank and thought, but I knew I was getting, like, four months free rent. So I had four months in order to basically take this empty space, create an event space out of it, and make money from it. And it's amazing how that pressure can be good and bad, but it certainly gives you the impetus to kind of go, right, well, I've got to make this work, because this is what I've got to do. There was nothing else left to do. But we do tend to say yes to a lot of things in the beginning that maybe we shouldn't say yes to. I'm wondering if that happened at all in the business, because, yeah, it's great to say yes, we can do that and we'll find somebody. But was, was there ever a time when you went too wide? 

Owen Garrity  09:07 

You know, as far as on the client side, I actually don't have very many regrets. As far as saying yes, the only regrets I have are actually when I've said no, because ultimately, I've usually lost that whole business. The one time I said no because I thought we were a little too far out of our too far over our skis, so to speak, we then actually lost the majority of that business. What I would say, though, is that I've said yes to people internally about things along the way that I've regretted. Right? I've let people run with too much rope or not enough. And so really, the saying yes to things I shouldn't have has all been internal and not so much external. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  09:47 

And again, that's an interesting sort of concept, isn't it, because I know that a lot of business owners listening in will say that they've probably done the same thing. They've given somebody too much leeway, not been very clear about what they expect of them, let them. Kind of just run with it and then realise it wasn't a great idea. Is there any sort of specific examples you could share around that where perhaps you because I think it always comes back to us as a leaders, is that we haven't been clear about what the boundaries are and what we expect, and then we get disappointed when people don't do what we imagine that they should do. 

Owen Garrity  10:16 

I think the biggest thing for me that when as I look back is that I should have trusted my gut in a lot of situations that I didn't right. I knew that somebody was wrong for the organisation, or that the way that they were pulling things was not what I wanted to see. And when you're a young leader or just a newly promoted leader, right, maybe it can look at all different sorts of ways. I think you tend to look externally and to undervalue your own intuition and to undervalue what you think is correct at the expense of good decision making, right. And I, whenever I've gone off and looked back and been man, I really messed that up, it's always been because I didn't go with what I thought the first right answer was. I reconsidered, or I talked myself out of something that I should have otherwise done. And so as I've matured in the business, it's, you know, refocusing on what do I actually think is the right thing to do here and why? And ultimately, if that then turns out to be wrong, it's a lot easier to live with than going with the crowd or consensus. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  11:24 

I think that happens a lot in life, doesn't it? We still have this thing about we look, we the comparison, comparison thing for joy. You know, you look around and kind of go, Well, that's what I have to do, or that's what you should do. And people often will tell you, you need to do this, you should do this and and actually, it's about what works for you and what works for your business. But I'm really keen to understand, how did you get the clarity on what you wanted to build, and how did you bring the team on board with what you want to build? 

Owen Garrity  11:48 

I'd love to say that I had some sort of plan that I was executing, but I think within the first year and a half, the business eclipsed my plan, right? I did have a plan in the beginning, but it so quickly was assumed by the reality of what was actually happening. And so since then, I have to say that it's really been about a couple of things. One is putting the client first. Absolutely, I've always believed that we pursued a incredibly client, client centric business model that the rest would work itself out. The next is, there's, there's almost no problem that growing top line can't get you out of, right? Unless you're just so grossly inefficient, any sort of problem really you can just grow out of. And so rather than being so focused on into the weeds, why is something not working, prioritising growth, and then prioritising what really matters, right, which is the client experience, and then, and then number three, trying to bring people in that have skills that I don't have, right? Being very, very honest and realistic about what am I not good at and what should I not be doing? And those combinations have been really just the guiding playbook, right? It's been less about, oh, I want to get to this specific point. It's more I want to grow this business, and so I'm going to be like water flow with the least resistance, while keeping those three things top of mind. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  13:24 

It's interesting that last point you make, we call it delegate and elevate in Eos, and it's something that often entrepreneurs struggle with, right? Because we do do everything in the beginning, but we have to, I think we have to recognise that there are some things that we are just shit at, and the sooner we get rid of those things, the better, because that's when we kind of mess things up. But there's all sorts also some things that we might be good at, but we don't necessarily enjoy, and it's not the stuff that really makes our heart sing, and in some respects, that can be almost as dangerous, because if you keep doing that stuff, you're not doing the stuff that really adds the most value to the business. You know, your unique ability, the stuff that really adds the top line revenue to the business, rather than a lot of the stuff that's in the weeds. Have you ever found yourself doing that stuff? Because while I'm good at it, so I might as well do it absolutely. 

Owen Garrity  14:10 

I think throughout the years, it's kind of, I found cyclical, right? Like as you grow, you start to delegate, but then if things go sideways, the immediate reaction is to jump in and to pull it back. And so I've repeated that cycle many times, unfortunately, because it's hard not to. And so, you know, really, I think what I've found is just trying to see the forest through the trees of how much, how much risk Am I willing to take, so that, you know, you don't let things fall off the cliff, but at the same time you're you're not over correcting. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  14:46 

I've said this to a few people. It's that sometimes you have to let people make mistakes, and if they're not going to be big mistakes, it can be the best learning for them, rather than you telling them what they should do or might do if they make the mistake. There's a there's usually a really good learning. From it. So it's like, how much you would want to do with something that was really major was going to cost you a major client or or cost you millions of dollars. But sometimes it's just worthwhile letting go and letting people find their own way through absolutely when you just said that you know you've done it, it's a cyclical thing a few times now, do you have any kind of red flags now that you recognise when you know that you're going into that, you know, bringing it all back in again. Is there anything that, really, you can see that there's a trigger for you? 

Owen Garrity  15:27 

Most of them actually kind of go in line with what you said, of like, it's also about, what do you enjoy doing, right? And I think that my red flag is that when I start to become less satisfied with the day to day, it means that I am taking things back, right? That I am bringing things closer, that maybe are not the highest and best use of my time, either because I feel like I have to, or because I just am doing something I shouldn't be doing, and that that served as a pretty good barometer, right? Because I firmly believe that, you know, the the CEO is, especially at a founder run business, is the biggest threat to the business, right? Because if I if I get burnt out, or if I disengage like the the impact of that is so far reaching and can be really detrimental, right? So it's making sure that you're really having those check in points and being very cognizant of your day to day, because it will tell you a lot. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  16:27 

Because, I mean, whilst culture sits with everyone in the organisation, it really is the founder who is the guiding light for all of that. And if you're not on your A game, and if you're not the one that is positive, motivated, inspiring, that's going to start to trickle down throughout the whole organisation, 

Owen Garrity  16:41 

yeah, and to be totally honest, like, I'm really good at the vision culture. I'm really good at this is our growth story. This is what we're going to go do. We're going to be amazing from a client services perspective. I am not that good at celebrating internally, right? I am not that good at saying, Wow, we did such a good job here, right? I am very problem motivated. I am very growth motivated. But, you know, I have a hard time stopping and saying, Yeah, let's, let's take a round of applause for ourselves here. So, constant struggle there. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:19 

And I think that's of most visionaries. To be fair, we are very, very good, because we're self critical as well as critical of others, but we are very sort of, but we're always looking for the problems we can kind of solve, rather than actually celebrating the wins. And I see it so regularly. It's like, come on, the scorecard is a classic one. Writers like that. As soon as the read, it's jumping in there and wanting to get it solved. But what about when we hit green? Shouldn't we be going, Yeah, that's awesome. Team. Well done. 
 

Owen Garrity  17:41 

And we forget to do that a lot. I thought, I think most of us just say, what's next?  

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:46 

Let's go, Yeah, I want go back to something you said a moment ago about, you know, increasing the top line revenue can actually solve most of the problems around growth. And it is interesting, because what tends to happen, particularly when times are a bit tough, people kind of get really into the weeds around, where can we save money? And I'm the exact opposite. I always say, how do we grow the top line? Because, as you said, unless you're completely unprofitable or completely inefficient, then, in reality, it's bringing more money in is the easier thing, because the little sense that you save are not going to necessarily make a big difference, but getting a brand new client that's worth hundreds of 1000s of dollars makes a big difference in the business. 

Owen Garrity  18:20 

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that it's sort of, especially if you listen to like people online, right? Who are, you know, business coaches or whatnot. Is, I think people try to overthink it, right? Where, you know, obviously EOS relatively familiar with that. It really is a very simple system and process at the end of the day. Well, there's a reason for that. I mean, business as a whole while incredibly complex. In some ways, is incredibly simple. In others, it's a funnel right, comes in at the top and it gets skinny, and then smaller amounts come out at the bottom. And so as long as you have that shape right, as long as you put more in at the top, more is going to come out of the bottom. And so what I found is that it's so easy for leaders to get so focused on, how do I save this little thing here or that little thing there? And it's like, no, I don't want you to think about that at all. We can get there. But right now I want you to think about is, how do we get more up here? Right? Because our system is efficient enough that we will still get more at the bottom. And so I just think that most businesses, especially on the smaller side, lose sight of that very quickly, to their detriment, right? Like I know other people have started companies around the same time I did, and they're still a lot smaller because they haven't prioritised that way of thinking of the growth is what brings opportunity. If you're not growing, you're dying, right? As a business.
 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  19:46 

And so just embracing that and institutionalising that becomes really important, and you've got to bring your team on the journey with that too. Because what we tend to forget as visionaries is that these people that they haven't run a business, they're not familiar with the way a business works, and simplifying it down. And I use the final concept a lot. It's like It is that simple business is a game. I. Say it's a game, it's a game. It's got some rules. We know how to play, we know how to score goals, but we just need to make sure that we're continually sort of feeding that funnel, so that we get the bottom line output from it well. 

Owen Garrity  20:09 

And I think it's really important for everybody's people as well, right? Of like, the only way that I can offer somebody a new divisional head or a new director title is that we've grown right, like most likely, unless there's attrition or something like that, they're not going to necessarily step out of their direct line, unless there's this outsized opportunity, right? And so to be an organisation that can offer people a lot of upward mobility, you have to be an organisation that grows right. And so, you know, I would argue that that is the way to really, ultimately, take care of your people, is give them the opportunity to be successful and to be have the growth path that they want, be part of that growth, and have the and rise up to what they're particularly great at and what they love doing as well. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  20:50 

Okay, so I'm going to ask you, because, I mean, it sounds like things have been going really well, and that's absolutely fantastic, but I mean, what's been the biggest mistake? Been the biggest mistake that you've made in the business that you would caution others about? 

Owen Garrity  21:06 

I would say that my biggest mistakes that I've made have all been around either hiring or not firing, that, you know, the biggest things that have taken us off course as an organisation is, you know, I've made hires that I look back and I'm like, wow, I that was just really detrimental. It took set that whole area back, or I should have recognised that this wasn't working sooner and acted sooner. But I wanted, I wanted to believe that this person was going to succeed. And I'm only talking about people at the higher level, right? Because at our size, I'm only involved really in the hiring and firing up the people at the very high level. But, you know, I made those type of mistakes over the years that if I could take those back, I definitely would, I mean, learn stuff from him. But there's, you know, there's definitely a few, and then I think the other one just, is that going back to that, celebrating the win, right, like I as of today, I don't our culture is not where I want it to be, like it is. It is externally. It is from a work product perspective, but from a day to day perspective, it's still not. And I just continually struggle to take the visionary mindset and package it in a way that non, you know, people with different mindsets or different backgrounds can really understand and latch on to and build from and, you know, maybe if I talk to you in a year, I'll, I'll be like, yeah, we've got it, but I think it's always a work in progress, but it's, you know, not getting that right is, is really detrimental, and you lose good people over the years if you don't have that right. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  22:39 

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we talk about right people, right seats, but it is interesting. So I'm sitting here kind of nodding because I've been through this myself. I've made some terrible hires over the times I've been in business, and I guess I've learned a little bit now about I'm not actually the person who should be doing the initial interviewing, and really I'm there at the end to sort of make sure that they that they're the right person. But what have you learned? Like, what have you What would you change? Or have you changed? I suppose, when you are now looking at employing senior leaders, 

Owen Garrity  23:06 

I suppose, when you are now looking at employing senior leaders, I would say in general, really thinking beyond the resume. So it's, I think, very easy to get resume blind, because you have this acute need, and you see somebody, or somebody comes and they talk to you and they say all the right things. They have the skill set, but you don't probe from a cultural alignment perspective. You don't probe from a works work style perspective, right? And so what we found is that we've been a lot more successful taking people who have varied backgrounds, maybe on paper, aren't perfectly qualified for the role, but have the right mindset, are bought into what we want to do as an organisation, are excited about what we do, right? I think that's so easily forgotten is like, you need people who are excited about building things, because a lot of people, and there's nothing wrong with this, want to go to a job every day and have it be relatively the same. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  23:59 

Stability. Stability stability is really important for some people, but not for me. 

Owen Garrity  24:04 

Yeah, we don't offer that right in any of our positions really. There. It's going to be very varied every single day, but trying to find people that are really stimulated by that has been the big differentiator for us. Interested. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  24:17 

Do you have any do you have a coach or a mentor? Do you work with somebody that sort of challenges your ideas, or is it somebody internally that 

Owen Garrity  24:23 

does that for you? I definitely have tried to surround myself with people internally who are comfortable, challenging and comfortable, you know, providing that different set of opinions, I think, you know, in addition to that, over the years, I've worked with different CEO coaches. I've worked with different people I respect in the business world. I have kind of an informal board. I'll call it, you know, people I call to run things by. They don't have any actual operational control in the business, but, you know, function as a de facto board. So I get those varied opinions. So. I've sourced that from a lot of different, different places. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  25:02 

It's just interesting, because I always say it's nice to have people you can bounce things around. Because it's great when you've got somebody in the business who is prepared to do that. And obviously we build healthy leadership teams that they will do that, but they are still in the same environment as you. And sometimes having somebody for a different environment can be really helpful just to to see Yeah, above the trees rather than seeing the woods. 

Owen Garrity  25:22 

Yeah, and I can't speak that highly enough. I mean, you know, we've, we've also done really well by, you know, having great, like, legal partners who kind of go on beyond just that, right? Like, I talked to our lawyer way more than I need to, but she provides that backstop, you know, right? Of like, what do you think about this, because she sees so many different people's businesses, you know, our accounting firm, one of the principles over there to say, you know, serves that same, same type of relationship as well. So having leaning on the partners externally too, that are at a high level to help you gauge decisions has been, has been really helpful as well. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  26:00 

Fantastic. Now, in a fast growing company, as you said, the there's a real danger that the wheels can fall off because you are moving at such a fast pace that maybe everybody isn't keeping up with you. How do you keep the team up to speed? How? I mean, I like, I always use analogies of cars, but you know, how do you make sure that you take the car in for a pit stop and make sure it's performing the best that it can? How do you do that with your team? 

Owen Garrity  26:21 

Yeah, well, I love the I love the car analogy. My thing is, always, I'm fine with a wheel and wheel falling off. We just can't have more than one, right? Like a wheel can be off at any given time, because that's just the reality. If you want to grow fast, right? That's how it works. But we need at least three on the car to keep us going down the road, and so, you know, we've developed some different, different internal tactics. We have a internal company newsletter, which, for a company of our size, is kind of unique, right? Usually you do that, but you're a lot larger, and so we found that helpful. Our whole tech stack is relatively communicative, right? There's a lot of information that's accessible to a lot of people, but I would say that that's also one of our biggest challenges on an ongoing basis. You know, we're in the middle of some level of reorganisation right now, and we're struggling to keep up with communication, right? Like to get ahead of it, to make sure that the people that are affected are told, are bought in or consulted, and you know, we don't, we don't always get it right. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  27:29 

It's a challenge. But you meet regularly with your leadership team, and I'm guessing they meet regularly with their team. So I mean, I know one of the agencies I work with over in Auckland, they have like, a pod structure, and so they've got people who are working together in cross functional pods that they're meeting on a regular basis. What kind of kind of structure do you have to keep that alive outside of the technology? 

Owen Garrity  27:46 

Yeah, so we have a Monday morning meeting with the leadership group as a whole, and then we have an executive leadership group that's the one step above that that also meets on a weekly basis. That's my senior executives, the VP level. And then each team has a regularly scheduled meeting right on all team stand up where they're discussing the pertinence of what's going on and and, you know, we we want to make sure that everybody can answer some really basic questions of like, what's important right now? What should I be working on? What does success look like? And just really unifying about at least at the very basic level, do we? Are we all moving in the same direction? Or, to use a sports analogy, if we're on a field, are we all playing the same sport? Because I think every business is especially an owner or senior executive has experienced this feeling where it's like, yeah, we're all in the field, but we're playing, somebody's playing rugby, somebody's playing American football, and somebody's playing hockey, right? So it's like, you know. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  28:49 

Yeah, so okay, that's, that's another thing come to mind for me. So this whole senior leadership team versus leadership team, because I've had this when I've worked with companies that are growing and in the beginning, their leadership team, and I use that in in quotes, because it's certainly other terminology. Is is really an operational team in terms of its why there's lots of people on there, and it's really getting into the weeds of the day to day operations. And I always see over time, they realise that really a senior leadership team is more like an internal board. It's a bunch of people who are representing major functions, but they're looking for the greater good of the business and the long term viability and sustainability of the business. Can you give me a little bit of an you know, what do you see the difference between your senior or your executive leadership versus your leadership team?’ 

Owen Garrity  29:29 

Yeah, so just that you hit the nail on the head, which is the executive leadership team needs to have a vested interest in the overall performance of of the company, where the next level down should be focused on primarily their area. Now we take that a little bit step further. Of we really try to instil in everybody that if you see something outside of your area, and you are a senior person, you need to address it. It's not that's not my area. I'm not concerned about that. If you know it's not what we're. Trying to do, you need to jump in and fix it if you're there. But I think it also has to do with, you know, aligning compensation, right? Making sure that the incentive structure is set up, that the senior level, it's the entire company performance, where at, you know, the lower levels, that it's a little bit more tied to what is directly in those people's control. Perfect. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  30:21 

I love it. Okay, another question before you know, going off on a tangent, but you've, we've talked about some of the challenges you've had, what's been the biggest success you've had, and why do you think it was a success? 

Owen Garrity  30:32 

It's hard for me to pick one thing, I guess, but I would say that's good. Yeah. Well, like I said, we, we escaped my initial plan in one year and a half, right? So everything since then is has been a success in a lot of ways, but I would say that the biggest successes that I hold close are, you know, having whole divisions that I didn't envision, right, like, having whole areas of the business that have been created because somebody came to me and said, there's an opportunity here to do something, and I was able to trust them to go and execute and obviously with help and all that. But to see the business outstrip just my individual vision is probably by far the most fulfilling part. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:23 

That is awesome, so that, but you mentioned the word Trust, and I suppose that's probably come over years of working with people, but you know, you want to have a leadership team that you can trust, and who is thinking of the bigger picture that can actually go, Hey, what about this? Where's opportunity this work can do? How have you built trust? Because it's hard, it's hard to let go, right? As a visionary, it really is. I mean, it's you have a vision, you know what you want to achieve, and some of us can be a little bit control freakish. So it's like, you know, what do you do? Have you managed to build trust? And so you actually can let go and let them run with it, yeah, at least for me. 

Owen Garrity  31:52 

And I wish I had a more complex answer, but it's just reps, right? It's really just seeing how people perform with different inputs over and over again, and being able to give them your opinion and your coaching to a point where you have this level of confidence that they're just going to get it done right, and in many ways, when you start to see them do it in a way that you wouldn't have considered, but is more effective that the outcome, right? Like we, we are very outcome based as an organisation. We don't try really hard not to get too caught up in the how. But it's, it's, you know, because at the end of the day, it's what is the most efficient way from A to B. And so it's all we care about, is the did we get to B? And so when you start to see people that you're working with get to be faster or easier or better than you would have that's where it's really easy to start trusting, but at the same time, you know it's trust but verify, right? It's always be auditing, checking back in, making sure that you know things don't, don't fall through the cracks. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  32:56 

And I agree with you. It is about reps. I mean, at the end of the day, it's so the more that the team can work together. The more the team is able to explore things together, and the more they deal with issues together, the more the trust kind of goes so the sooner you can start to get those that communication, those conversations, those things going, the better, which means you can build the reps up much more quickly, and then it's easier to let go. But for some people, it's hard, it's hard to share. So I mean, I don't know, do you share out of interest? Do you share your revenue with your team and your profitability and the high level numbers, yeah, so it depends on what level. 

Owen Garrity  33:25 

So we at the executive level, it's open book. So if you're an executive, you you see everything. There is, no I see this. You don't see that. And then, and then it, it, it goes down from there. So if I am just a entry level team member, I am going to see numbers at least twice a year that are percentages against budget. I'm going to see we're X off from budget. I'm going to learn a little bit about the level of profitability, but we're going to talk about them in percentages, right? We're not going to talk about them in hard numbers. Now we are going to talk about them in number ranges. So like, you're going to have an idea, relatively speaking, but you're not going to know the exact numbers. And then as you go up the management level, you're going to be given more and more information, right? So, you know, really trying to make sure that the information is in line with what people need to do their job effectively, and are also able to process and understand, yeah, and that makes sense, because I know a lot of people have owners really are nervous about sharing numbers, but I think if you don't share the numbers, people don't understand. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  34:32 

You've got to bring them on the journey to understand how a business operates. And let's face it, business has to be profitable to operate, so no, but, and I love that earlier on, you spoke about it isn't just it isn't about profitability just for the owner, but it's about being able to grow the business, reinvest so you can actually then create a better pathway for people going forward. Yeah. 

Owen Garrity  34:55 

And you know, one of my executives on the operational. Side, I think, I can't remember exactly what she said, but it's, you know, we try to share the numbers with the level of context. So, like, we're willing to share almost anything, as long as we believe that the individual, the job, that job, has the context to do good with the numbers, right? And what we found is that, you know, if, if I'm an entry level person who just started I don't have the context to understand the full numbers, right? That that's actually more distracting for me than than helpful. But as as the context builds, you know, we're able to share more and more. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  35:33 

I love it. Tony, that's really good. Okay, great. So what's next? Where, where? You know, it's division. Re Where do you see yourself going in the future? Yeah. 

Owen Garrity  35:42 

So I have a couple of strategic acquisitions, you know, that are bouncing around in the in the head. So hopefully we see one or two of those come to fruition. Outside of that. You know, it's new service offerings, leaning, leaning, continue to lean really heavily into AI and AI adjacent services. We're starting to do a lot of consulting in that space, where we're helping clients implement AI more effectively into their tech stack, which is a little bit outside the normal sort of marketing agency realm. It's it sort of ventures into the consulting realm, but because so much of that is then used for marketing and sales operations, it's kind of a really natural fit. So continuing to lean in there, build out that as a service offering, and then, you know, just continue to expand the overall industries that we serve. Right every time we kind of open a new vertical or business sector, we try to really make sure that we have the staff that understands that industry and so forth. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  36:46 

So I've got a couple industries that we want to bring online that we maybe don't have the level of penetration in right now that I'd like tell me about your your personal life, because often, as founders, we can get obsessed a little bit with our work, and therefore we don't necessarily have time for the other passions and time for the other things like our family and our Health and our hobbies, what does your personal life look like? Do you have a good balance? And when I say balance, I don't mean equal. I mean, does it work for you? 

Owen Garrity  37:06 

I mean, it works. Do I have a good balance? No. I think I have this belief that the ugly reality is, if you want to scale a business, you have to sacrifice something. And so that means that you have to over prioritise work, in my view, because there's ultimately people who are willing to do that, so you have to out compete them at the end of the day. That doesn't mean that I'm miserable, by any means, but I would say that, you know, in general, you have to make be willing to make that level of sacrifice, at least for a certain period of time. But, but for me, the balance comes from making certain amount of time sacred, right? That, you know, after about 7pm before I go to bed, that's that's time that the phone's off. I'm just talking to my wife. We're checking in on how the day went. We're doing that I'm very lucky in the fact that I'm married to somebody who's also very driven and understands that as a concept, and so she's very supportive in me pursuing, you know what? What really feeds me so that that's really helpful, that gives me that ability to do that, and then it's also just making sure that you're taking care of yourself, right? If you're going to perform try to really outperform at the office, you have to make time to do your saunas and cold plunge and eat well and work out and, you know, do all sleep, right? Sleep, and then, you know, have fun. But at the end of the day, I turned my passion into the job. So I don't, you know, I don't feel like, oh, I have to go have four hobbies, right? Like, I feel very, very stimulated and fulfilled in what I do. And so for me, it's not like I have to have all these outside interests. I have a few, you know, I like to golf, like to garden, like to walk, you know, take walks in the woods, do that kind of stuff. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:57 

But then they're all, they're all hobbies and things that's great. And I suppose I mean, what I'm hearing you say is that you know you are you're making time with your your family. You are making time because we have to be healthy. Like said, sleep is one of the most important things. But also, the more physically and mentally fit you are, the easier business becomes, because you can just deal with things a whole lot better. I noticed on your LinkedIn profile, I got a picture of some mountains. Is that actually you in front of the mountains? Or what's the significance of the mountains? 

Owen Garrity  39:21 

Yeah, that was, I was out in Montana for a RED camera seminar, and there I was on a break, sitting on top of this SUV, and somebody, unbeknownst to me, snapped this photo. And I just loved it, because it was just, you know, out in the elements, and looks fantastic. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  39:41 

I have to say, I'm a bit of a mountain girl, and I love being out in nature, so it looks really amazing. Okay, I'm sure we could talk for hours. It sounds to me like you're really enjoying your business. Sounds like you've got some some really good things going on there. I'm guessing, if I asked the question, Would you do it all again? It would be a resounding yes, absolutely, yeah. But what, in terms of people listening? In because, you know, the growth of a business is not all smooth sailing, and there's definitely things that happen along the way that makes it challenging. I think we've all had moments where we've gone, what, what the hell am I doing, and is it time for me to give it up? And then we've all had the joyous moments where we've secured that bit, secured that big client, that big deal, or just got into a new market, mergers and acquisitions, those really fun times. But what would be the three kind of top tips or tools you would give to the listeners listening in who are perhaps building a business? 

Owen Garrity  40:26 

So number one is make sure that you are taking care of your client, right, or your customer, or whoever it is. And I think that it sounds overly simplistic, but truly, my experience has been that if you do that, everything else works itself out, right? Like, if you are actually taking because so many people don't, so many businesses don't either because they don't want to, they don't understand their customer, they don't understand the client, or their ego gets in the way, right? I see a lot of, especially in our industry, a lot of egos get in the way of of actually serving the client. And so if you can put that first and foremost, it's gonna everything else is gonna work itself out. Right. Number two is, don't let your ego get in the way. Right? Most likely you are not the best at what you do. You might be good, but you're not the best, and so operate that way, right? Have that always be chasing, always be the challenge or brand, regardless of where you are in the journey, because that that continues to keep things moving in the right way, so to speak, right? And then, and then lastly is, or at least for me, is just have that growth mindset right, like, believe that you are running a business that is going to continue to grow. Because I think so many people will tell you, Oh, that you should do this. You should do that. You should whatever. But try to cut through that noise and say, no, no, I am capable of growing this business. I have the skill set, or I will find the skill set, or I will hire the skill set, but I am going to make it true, right? That just that visioning of where you want to go. Because, again, it's just a momentum thing. Like, if every single day you're just working towards that goal, it's going to happen. And clarity creates confidence. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:08 

creates confidence. If you're really clear about where you're going, then everything else tends to fall in place. I mean, I don't believe you write something down, it just happens. But if you're really clear about that's where you're headed, you just start to work with the things you can control and lo and behold, the focus gets you to where you need to go in the end. Yeah, great. Hey, that's really, really helpful. I've really enjoyed talking with you. I'm really excited about your journey. I can't wait to see how it kind of continues to grow over the next few years. Thank you so much for your time, Owen. We're going to make sure we've got your details in the notes of the podcast, so if you want to get in contact with Owen, I'm sure he'd be happy to have a chat to have a chat to you. Is there any kind of last parting words you'd like to share? 

Owen Garrity  42:46 

Last parting words? I would say is, listen to yourself right at the end of the day. As a senior executive or a business owner, everybody's going to tell you their way, but do it your way. I love it. 

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:58 

I'm just going to share one very last quick story for me, it's been interesting. I have a couple of businesses, and one of them is my EOS practice. And the EOS practice, we're always told, you know, you need to work people in your backyard. You don't want to travel to visit clients. You should be working just and I, I used to live in Auckland. I've just moved to Melbourne. What I've actually realised is I love to travel. And so for me, I don't want to work in my backyard. I actually want to travel. I enjoy it. I enjoy the process of, you know, actually travelling and then meet going to new places, and so I've had to just go, Yeah, that might be what most people want to do, but it isn't what I want to do, and that's okay, absolutely. Well, keep up the good work. Owen. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. Thank you for sharing your journey. 

Owen Garrity  43:36 

Really appreciate it. Thank you so much.