How Leaders Think with Kenny Lange

Mason Cosby [00:00:00]:
And I used to think the core values were crappy and fluffy, if I'm being honest, of, like, things you just post on a wall. But when you really think them out and you document them in my interviews, people are asking me, who are you looking for? And I can show them and say, if this is you, awesome. If it's not, that's okay. We can be friends. But you're not going to work here.

Kenny Lange [00:00:24]:
You welcome to the how Leaders think podcast, the show that transforms you by renewing your mind and giving you new ways to think. I am your host, Kenny Lang, and with me today is the Mason Cosby, not Crosby. He is the founder of scrappy ABM. He specializes in building scrappy ABM programs. See what he did there? He does this by utilizing low budgets that drive high impact, which should be music to your ears if you're an owner. Serving as the marketing lead at numerous boutique bootstrapped business and other B word businesses, Mason has sourced over 4.5 million with an M in the past three years, driving a 15 x ROI. That is a return on investment, in case you didn't know. If you are looking for a no nonsense, practical marketing execution that drives revenue, Mason can provide guidance on practical, low tech ways for growth.

Kenny Lange [00:01:24]:
Welcome to the show, Mason.

Mason Cosby [00:01:26]:
Kenny, thank you for having me. I'm very thankful that I pay you so that I get to be on your podcast, because I am a fun client of. I think I'm a fun client of key. We'll see. Maybe he'll tell me I'm wrong, but I think I have a fun time with Kenny. And I think Kenny has a fun time with me.

Kenny Lange [00:01:46]:
That is very true. It becomes more fun when you bring your daughter onto the sessions because she's pretty opinionated. She's following in her father's footsteps. But she's given us some great tidbits of wisdom on building the business. So I always appreciate her feedback. So tell me. Yeah, there's probably something there. It's just unfiltered, I think, is what I appreciate about her thoughts.

Kenny Lange [00:02:22]:
Well, tell me, Mason, what is on your mind?

Mason Cosby [00:02:26]:
So, this is not a plug for you necessarily, but it is actually what is on my mind. We took, like, two days a couple of weeks back and documented the organization that I'm trying to build. And then very shortly after that, I went and tried to essentially double the size of my organization. So we currently have four people that are working for me, and I am trying to hire four more. So what's on my mind is a lot of okay, it's one thing when you are starting out and you've got a couple of people that work with you that you've already known. But now I'm essentially inviting, for lack of a better word, random people that I have not had a longer standing relationship with. So I have to document, are these the kind of people that I want in the organization that will align longer term, that actually will see value from working with me as well? Because I don't necessarily just want to be someone that looks at how do I get a ton of value out of people, but how do I add value to other people's life? That's a lot of what's in my mind is transitioning into actually building an organization versus a group of good, talented friends that can do stuff together.

Kenny Lange [00:03:39]:
Yeah. Instead of like, hey, we're mercenaries who come together for a task or a project, let's think more like missionaries than mercenaries and sort of be on this mission together to do great work in a particular domain or something like that. So if you're doing that and you've already, in a short period of time, really hit some great revenue targets, you're scaling very quickly, hiring four people and saying, I need four now, not I need four over the next six months. Obviously indicators rapid growth, which can be exciting and terrifying all at the same time because rapid growth has destroyed a lot of companies and put them out of business in some cases. What have you seen in your experience, both working in other agencies and businesses, but serving a lot of other businesses, you get to peek inside how others are working as well to be the current thinking, or maybe just the prevailing wisdom about building the kind of organization that you have in mind or do you have something different than what you've seen in mind for scrappy ABM?

Mason Cosby [00:04:55]:
Yeah, I think I'm hiring a little bit differently than I have seen other people hire and I'm honestly taking a lot of the advice. Are you familiar with Alex Lieberman by chance?

Kenny Lange [00:05:06]:
I heard the name, but not intimately familiar.

Mason Cosby [00:05:10]:
He founded Morning Brew and then he exited morning Brew and has now built a ghost writing firm for executives in like nine months, I think. Or maybe they just hit their one year they scaled to $1.5 million in revenue from zero to 1.5. And what he has said that he contributes a lot to that level of growth is contract to hire roles. So as I'm looking at hiring, there's four people, but those are not four full time roles. Those are four part time contract roles that will, as the needs of the business continue to grow, they will ramp up with me. And I know that some people have actually said you're not going to find top quality talent if you only started part time. Like, you probably need to go all in. And I think in our current environment, after a series of layoffs that a lot of people have seen, I actually think that what I've seen, at least from candidates, is the appreciation of the transparency of, like, I have part time needs, I don't have full time needs.

Mason Cosby [00:06:07]:
But as the business continues to grow, I will have full time needs. And I'm also asking them, I'm not asking them to just up and leave their full time day job. I am saying we will work around your schedule and you can test this out. Like I've actually said to people, we're a seven month old organization. It's okay if we test this out for both sides and you opt out because you're like, you guys are too early. I get that being in an early stage organization is a certain type of person. I'm doing what I can to create a healthy organization and make sure that people are taken care of. But also there's, like, less organizational structure at the moment.

Mason Cosby [00:06:43]:
That's what we're building towards. So a lot of contract to hire and being very open and transparent, for lack of a word of the downsides and the faults, and then saying, we can test this. If this works for everybody, then let's keep going and we can bring you on full time. And based on my projections, it'll probably be full time come September or October.

Kenny Lange [00:07:06]:
Got you. No, that makes a lot of sense. Being able to, for lack of better term, to sort of date one another before you make a more substantial commitment. Right. No one's employment unless you're really the owner is forever. How does this differ? And you mentioned it a little bit of like, you're not going to get top talent. Some people have said to you, are there other things in the marketplace that would run against this sort of thinking, this contract to hire this, let's try things out. And not just a sample one week project in an interview process, but really, like, let's work.

Kenny Lange [00:07:56]:
Let's pretend for a week or two or two months that you were working here. What would that feel like? What are the other downsides that maybe you had said to you or reasons why you feel strongly about going in this direction?

Mason Cosby [00:08:15]:
So again, the downsides are, to some extent, you're not getting their full attention, because again, a lot of people are either already working in full time day jobs, they may be cobbling together a couple of different roles. So there are downsides to that. And I recognize that, which is why a lot of what we've been working through is very clear scope, very clear understanding. And we've simplified the. I heard this phrase, so forgive me for the self interjection, but there's the work that you do, that's the actual tasks, and then there's the work that is managing being at work. So what we're trying to do from an organizational perspective is create very clear systems and processes that actually remove, for a lot of our team members, the work that is managing being at work, so that they can focus on actually doing the work. And as a result, we may not have their full attention. But I'm not requiring at this moment that they be working at work, on working on the being at work part.

Mason Cosby [00:09:15]:
So they just know what they need to do. There's clear lines of communication, there's clear project management, there's clear visibility, and there's clear, very tangible roles and responsibilities that are to accomplish specific things. So then they only have to worry about doing those things versus thinking about what do I need to accomplish. So I've tried to simplify things, which then makes it to where, again, I don't require their full attention, but that is a downside that people have said, which puts more onus on me as an owner and the leadership team that we have to create very clear roles, responsibilities and communication cadences. So chart there isn't the stress over what am I supposed to be doing, because that's where this kind of approach will fall down.

Kenny Lange [00:09:54]:
Got you. It sounds like you would have a bit more. Lack of a better term grace if they were full time to sort of like, we didn't get that right, we can kind of muddy through it. Whereas in this situation, you really need to have a lot more buttoned up on the front end before they engage with you.

Mason Cosby [00:10:14]:
So the quick example is we're a marketing agency, so for a lot of our projects, there's content, there's operations, and there's strategy. So again, our fuller time team is setting the strategy. And out of that strategy, it's like, these are the things that need to be accomplished. So we have a content contractor where it's like, this is the content that we need. Can you go build this content? And then they have very clear goals. So they don't have to worry about this client management. They don't have to worry about necessarily any of the additional management of the work. They know I've got everything that I need.

Mason Cosby [00:10:47]:
I can go and write out this content. And then for the operations side, they've got access to the systems that they need. They know the tasks that need to be accomplished, and they're going and building those things. So again, it's just the upfront side of clarifying what needs to be done versus if they were full time, they would likely be more involved in the client management side, they'd be likely more involved in the actual organization of the projects, and then they could go and execute. So it's not the upfront part of the organization of the client, of the strategy, it's just truly the execution of the operations.

Kenny Lange [00:11:18]:
Got you. As you're saying that it reminded me of, it's not really a spreadsheet, but it kind of looks like that from Dr. Timothy Clark, who wrote the four stages of psychological safety. But one of the things he talks about is the three levels of accountability, and the first level being the task simple unit of work. The process is number two. So group of tasks and then the outcomes. And it sounds like you've been able to take care of a lot of the outcomes, which might be some more of the account management relationship where we headed and everything is right now. The contract to hire allows people to start on the task, or maybe some light process, but they didn't have to dictate and discover all of that.

Kenny Lange [00:12:07]:
That's something you're providing.

Mason Cosby [00:12:10]:
Exactly.

Kenny Lange [00:12:10]:
Which I might even argue that even if they were a full time employee would be of great benefit.

Mason Cosby [00:12:17]:
Yeah, I think it is. And I think that a lot of leaders would benefit by creating that level of clarity. But I also know in an earlier stage organization, when there's just a lot to manage and fewer people to do it, that inevitably when people come on full time again, they'll likely start to take on more of the account management, the client relationships, and truly owning the full experience versus a component of the experience.

Kenny Lange [00:12:42]:
Got you. Now, if people are still of the mind, I'm building an organization, and maybe they are early stage, maybe they're in those first few years, right. That could be really volatile. You can often feel like you're one, as I had a client say to me recently, especially if you're in the SaaS space or it's based around a larger company or something like that, you're one policy change away from going out of business because you're usually building it predicated on maybe more like one horizontal line as opposed to a vertical you specialize in. But what would you say to the leader, the business owner listening, that has gotten maybe some of the same advice you have, which is you've got to go all in, you've got to go full w two employee, 40 hours, benefits, all these things right out of the gate. What are the downsides.org? Why is that thinking unproductive in today's marketplace?

Mason Cosby [00:13:49]:
I didn't do that for myself. I built scrappy ABM as a side hustle, validated that I could actually provide for my family, and then stepped into not okay, I shouldn't ask somebody to fully step into an organization before they've had the opportunity to build into it. So I actually think there's a level which it could be hypothetically hypocritical as you're growing the organization. So I'm not going to ask somebody to do something that I wouldn't have already done for myself.

Kenny Lange [00:14:19]:
Yeah, I had never thought about that. Technically, you were the first contract to hire for ScrappyaBM.

Mason Cosby [00:14:27]:
Yeah.

Kenny Lange [00:14:31]:
As you are thinking about the next four. And if you keep growing at your current rate, it's not going to be long before you're like, I have another four, five slots, whatever it may be, for more contracts to hires than soon. You sort of have this pipeline of both projects and people. And you did mention, and this is not a puff piece for us to just talk about our work together, but certainly there's a reason you and I are talking. You've engaged in my services and so forth. But you're early on, so I'm curious, what are you finding in organizing your thoughts around? Well, I know I need to hire people and I need to build this organization. What are some of the insights that you are starting to get? And maybe there's even things you and I haven't talked about away from the show that are helping you find focus and not suffer from shiny object syndrome or panicking and just meeting the tyranny of the urgent, if you will.

Mason Cosby [00:15:42]:
Yes. Scrap ABM has existed in the ballpark of seven to eight months. There have been four iterations of this organization because there was a lack of clarity and focus of what we're going to do. And very bluntly, the first iteration was I was going to help people sell their ABM services under an umbrella that was going to just provide accounting software and legal and sales, and I was going to sell on other people's behalf and just kind of doing whatever. And that was a horrible idea. So then it was like, okay, I'm going to just sell myself. And there'll be no products, there'll be no services. It's just like, you get the opportunity to work with me, which was also a horrible idea because there was no clarity, there was no repeatability, there was no ability to scale, and it was entirely dependent on me.

Mason Cosby [00:16:26]:
The third version was, I guess we'll build some service models and we can, I don't know, just kind of be in the agency grind. But I think personally, I want to not necessarily be the same agency. I want to recognize that there are pros and cons to the agency model, but I want to do something different. So now we have this fourth iteration, and it's very well documented, it's very well thought through, and it was poured over again with you, in a large sense of like two dedicated days, putting everything else aside and actually coming together. Say, like, who do we want to be? Which then created the fourth iteration that we're now actually hiring to build. So that fourth iteration is a product led service model. So again, we're actually going to document, build processes, and productize everything that we build so that we can get access to it. So the fact that we actually sat down and worked through, who do we want to become? Solidified the direction we all looked at and said, this is a need in the market.

Mason Cosby [00:17:26]:
We validated this need by going out and selling this concept. And now we recognize that because we've sold this concept, we need to hire more people to continue to grow this so chart, we can actually realize the longer term vision that we've set out. So again, by sitting down, truly thinking through it, it organized, clarified specific thoughts. So instead of this wandering and aimless, like, what do I do to make revenue? Making revenue is actually not that difficult. I could go and just sell myself as augmented staff, which, to be clear, that's how I actually got started. I just sold, I'll give you my time and I will do stuff for you. But that doesn't build towards a larger mission. It's just like, I'm going to go do whatever as long as there's enough money in the door that I can keep my lights on.

Mason Cosby [00:18:10]:
And I recognize that a lot of people need to start there. But once you've documented and clarified, now I'm not thinking through anything else. I have three core objectives that are to get accomplished this year. That's it. If I can get those three things done, this year was a success. And by the way, only one of them has anything to do with revenue. And it's actually not even necessarily revenue. It's like a savings goal.

Mason Cosby [00:18:31]:
So as long as these three things get accomplished. We are set up to actually take the next step towards our ten year vision. So it clarifies and becomes a filtering criteria for decision making.

Kenny Lange [00:18:44]:
So I want to drill down more into that because I know I was guilty of this with my agency, which was my first company, of thinking, oh, I just sold this type of project. I need to just go find a person that I can rebuild their time. I need them to be competent, and obviously, I want them to have good character. See what I did there inside track character and competence. Make an appearance on Mason's roadmap. But the notion of, like, if they have solid character and they have a healthy level of competence at the task, okay, I'll just go ahead and hire them to fulfill the project of the day, so to speak. How has your thinking shifted, if at all, now that you have clarified with your leadership team who you want scrappy ABM to be, now that it's clearly not Mason Cosby for hire?

Mason Cosby [00:19:56]:
Yeah.

Kenny Lange [00:19:57]:
How does your perspective change?

Mason Cosby [00:20:00]:
First content guy that I hired was somebody that was just, like, super well versed at doing a variety of content things. And that's kind of how I started out, was doing a variety of content operations and account based marketing things. And again, we have actually got some clients. We've existed for seven months, and some of those clients are still around that have that. But as we move forward, I actually say, based on what we do for our clients, these are the repeatable deliverables that we offer all of our clients based on the packages that we sell. So I need you to be good at these specific things, but not just good at these specific things. I need these things to excite you. So we'll talk about some of the core values.

Mason Cosby [00:20:40]:
One of them is meeting clients where they are. So we meet people where they are. So, again, in that context, scrappy ABM, our first service offering, is not actually account based marketing. It is a foundational program that gets somebody ready to build ABM. So if you just want to go build really fancy and highly complex and very scalable ABM programs, we are not the right fit for you, both on the client side and on the employee side. But if you like the idea of we're going to help meet somebody where they are today, get them ready, and build them into a fuller ABM program, that's where we live. So, again, on both of those fronts, it's actually clarified the role and responsibilities from a deliverable perspective. I don't need you to be good at content, necessarily.

Mason Cosby [00:21:24]:
I need you to be good at really incredible outbound messaging and sales enablement collateral that is 70% of what we're doing. So it's helped to clarify on that front. And then for our clients, we've had a client that has come to us and said we really need support around an SEO project. And I could easily go find somebody chart, could do SEO and sell that project and make some revenue. But it doesn't align with what we are doing longer term. So it's not something I necessarily want to sell. I'm going to say, hey, I've got great partners. Because again, what we end up selling, what we end up delivering, becomes a reputation within the market.

Mason Cosby [00:22:02]:
So as long as we stick to the things that we do and that help us align to the longer term vision, our reputation helps us make sure that we actually accomplish the mission because it creates that virtuous cycle of we work with the right kinds of clients that help us further the mission of what we're trying to accomplish. And as a result of accomplishing that mission for those clients, they tell their friends, we get more clients that help us further the mission. But if we do whatever, it doesn't help us actually accomplish the mission.

Kenny Lange [00:22:28]:
Yeah, some people with the last name of Halligan might call that a flywheel. Sorry. There's all sorts of, we have a HubSpot connection for the audience members listening, so there may be some inside jokes there. One of the things, and I actually just pulled up your roadmap and when for the listener, something that I do with my clients is we build a one page roadmap that helps organize vision, culture, strategy, and then bets for execution at three year, one year and 90 day objectives on that. One of the big discussions that we had with your leadership team was around the emphasis on the crawl stage of ABM, which I think speaks to some of the things you were saying about if you want to build big, complex things, and certainly there are worthwhile big, complex ABM plays for maybe the run stage if we're looking at a crawl, walk run. But can you tell us listening, myself included, what does being very clear on your positioning, and if you don't mind, I'll read your onlyness statement, which is your positioning statement, which is we are the only ABM service provider that delivers step by step programs for the crawl stage of ABM. Now, I think you said it well, is that a lot of the positioning has to do with who do we work with, client side and who do we work with, employee or contractor side? On the employee contractor side, what has having a statement like that done for you in terms of who am I going out into the marketplace looking for and how ABM I interviewing? Maybe a little differently.

Mason Cosby [00:24:23]:
It's really interesting because I've had some conversations with some really influential heavy hitter ABM people, and I'll be very like one of the people I was really struggling not to hire, because she's, like, legitimately one of the top ten people in ABM, and she wanted to come work with us. But as I dug into it, her background is largely managing a team of like, five or six people that are doing ABM. She's had a $500,000 tech stack, so the technology investment was $500,000 a year to run ABM. And granted, her ABM programs generated millions upon millions of dollars. She is radically successful at building an account based marketing program. She is not the right fit for our organization. She was very much so in the run stages. And when I described what we were doing, she said, and she didn't mean this offensively, she goes, wait, that's it.

Mason Cosby [00:25:19]:
Because I described exactly what we're doing. And I was like, that's it. Because that's where a lot of people need help. That's the starting point. And she goes, oh, I get it. I understand why this is valuable. I'm probably not the right fit. And she opted out.

Mason Cosby [00:25:35]:
Even though she loves what we're doing from a high level perspective, even though she is a great person when it comes to account based marketing, she does not want to live in the crawl space. She wants to live where she can generate millions upon millions of dollars in the run stages. But you can't get to running until you've crawled. So it is a great filtering criteria on that front.

Kenny Lange [00:25:57]:
And can you talk a little bit about whether not, and this is an assumption on my part, but talking to somebody who has such a great reputation, someone who is top ten in ABM account based marketing in a second, I've been neglectful to ask you to define what in the heck ABM is, because I'm refraining from it. Right? It's just Russell Brunson's top 100. It's technology. No, I'm just kidding. Mason is going to do a great job of that. But when you have something like that and you get the opportunity to speak to somebody of that caliber, a lot of people would be, I think, rightfully tempted to say, well, how often are you going to get a shot to bring somebody of this skill set, this level of influence in the marketplace? Because especially you start getting really high level team members that could come on to your organization. They're not just bringing their talent, they're bringing their network with them. Right.

Kenny Lange [00:27:08]:
So sort of a net positive effect. Can you talk about the thoughts and emotions of doing that? Because you gave us the tactical right, like they gave you the information you needed to make a sound decision. And actually, she was able to clearly hear that and opt out. And good for her, by the way, for seeing that and saying nothing wrong with what you're doing, but it's not a fit for my goals. And so we aren't aligned. Let's part as friends on the owner side, your side. How do you process through that when you're such a young company getting such a large opportunity to talk to somebody like that?

Mason Cosby [00:27:43]:
Yeah, I mean, something that we've talked about of what's the right fit at the right time. So she inevitably, if, let's say, scrappyabm, just turns into not scrappyabm. I don't know what the rebrand would be, but let's say that we inevitably change the mission and we end up serving full. We run with you, we meet you at the crawl stage, and we grow up with you, and she ends up coming in as a run expert in the crawl walk run stage of ABM. That may happen down the road, but again, from where she is as an individual, she may be a right fit, but it's not the right time. She is honestly too far along at that caliber that it wouldn't make sense. Honestly, I'd have to change the business to make it work for her. And yes, she is incredibly talented, she's incredibly skilled, but to make it work, and it was tempting, I was know we could probably do some.

Mason Cosby [00:28:52]:
There's that element scrappy enterprise, which we make the joke, but that's actually with the second iteration is I did have an enterprise person that built ABM at Gong, and they were on the team, and I was trying to do scrappy enterprise ABM, and it just did not make sense. That was a lesson I learned. I brought on five people that were like, I didn't pay them anything, I'll sell it for you, and then you'll get a 70% cut of anything that I sell to go and execute it. And it didn't contextually make any sense because how would you do enterprise ABM scrappy? Anyway? I give that context. It is super oxy, more just moronic. But anyway, so there's that side of it, and then the other side is that caliber of person is not inexpensive. And we talk a lot about the concept of it's our job to steward the organization and I could have made it work, but full transparency to hire her for 1 hour, I could hire three other people for the same price.

Kenny Lange [00:30:04]:
Yeah.

Mason Cosby [00:30:08]:
We can't share his name because he still works full time for somebody else. But Kenny, you've met him, he's great. He is a very high caliber individual that has helped me think through the strategic program build. I already have that role filled. I could hire another. But what's actually better for the organizational growth and for the clients is to get people that can run with what exists today versus trying to change the business to get a higher caliber person.

Kenny Lange [00:30:34]:
Got you. I've been on a kick of my pop culture quotes, but that's a bold move, cotton. We'll see if that pays off. I'm curious because you brought up something about fit and in the world of system and soul, and what you and the team have been implementing. On one of our first sessions, we talked about fit as an acronym, fit of fuel, impact and timeliness. And it sounds like the timeliness piece was probably the key contributing factor to saying there's not a fit, there's not an alignment this person is fueled by. They enjoy that. Maybe they enjoy the run stage a bit more, but they enjoy that sort of work.

Kenny Lange [00:31:26]:
Could they make significant positive impact? Absolutely. Yeah, they have the track record and all that, but the timeliness for the organization and for her didn't align. And I think that to me, the timeliness piece might be more important than the fuel and the impact. Simply because I've seen the number of mistakes made based on that timeliness piece far outweigh the other two in terms of how much damage it causes when you get that part wrong.

Mason Cosby [00:31:56]:
Yeah.

Kenny Lange [00:31:59]:
So I do want you to define for anybody who's listened this long and has no idea what ABM means. Could you give us a beautiful, simple.

Mason Cosby [00:32:15]:
Could you go first, Kenny?

Kenny Lange [00:32:18]:
It's ABM account based marketing is a joint initiative between sales and marketing to target certain ideal clients and both market and do sales outreach. So it's more of a proactive play towards very specific accounts instead of a generic profile that you attempt to just attract via inbound methodology or random acts of outbound calling and emailing.

Mason Cosby [00:32:58]:
That's it. So, Kenny, I'm glad to hear you've been paying attention.

Kenny Lange [00:33:05]:
I got it. I won.

Mason Cosby [00:33:07]:
You did.

Kenny Lange [00:33:07]:
And I'm going to take my gold star and go home. Actually, I'm already. So I'll just take my gold star. There's technology in there, too.

Mason Cosby [00:33:16]:
But now you ruined it. You ruined it. There's no technology.

Kenny Lange [00:33:20]:
It's there. There can be. I have yet to see. So this is where you and I may debate, and we probably need to move to a different podcast for this. About the role of technology. I will say it is not a technology led play, but it is a heavily enabled, technology enabled play.

Mason Cosby [00:33:42]:
I would partially agree with that. All right.

Kenny Lange [00:33:46]:
You're the one who has ABM on your hat and your shirt, so I'll defer to your expertise.

Mason Cosby [00:33:52]:
So the succinct definition is a b two b growth strategy that aligns marketing and sales, or any set of shared target accounts. So that is the sync definition.

Kenny Lange [00:34:01]:
Better set.

Mason Cosby [00:34:03]:
I've workshopped it a little bit. So what is not included in that is anything from a technology perspective. Because at the end of the day, as long as you think about who are the right fit customers and how do we get in front of those people, where do they live? That's really what matters. So, like, prime example, my actual best ABM program to date has been largely like a micro influencer play. So, like, I wanted to sell account based marketing programs, and I've tried to do that for like, four years. So I built a platform and a profile around building account based marketing programs. And now I get to talk to people that want to build ABM all day long. But what I specifically did is because I built the platform, the program, and I then intentionally connect with my target accounts on LinkedIn, and I join the specific communities where they are already active.

Mason Cosby [00:34:52]:
I get the opportunity to speak and to engage as a peer in communities in which my target accounts live. There's no technology required for that, just the intentionality of what communities I'm going to join. So that's like the most scrappy version, because I ended up sourcing like a million dollars out of a $10 a month community, because I spoke every quarter in that community and then connected one to one with everybody on LinkedIn. And then whenever there was a question, I would engage in those community forums. So again, I just knew my target accounts lived there. They actually used it as a source of truth and information, and I created content that was relevant and timely for that organization.

Kenny Lange [00:35:32]:
Which is incredible. Great ROI on that. So now everybody knows. Just use his definition. He's the one with the embroidered hat. Maybe one day I'll have a cool embroidered hat, but it's coming. Or a big orange hoodie. That's also something we've discussed.

Kenny Lange [00:35:57]:
But I so appreciate you sharing the work that you're doing and trying to build a more missional type of organization, which I think is very important in the space that you occupy of being an agency. Right. Because agencies are sought after because they can help you grow your business. I was talking with another client that is also, he specializes in ecommerce. They're a large ecommerce consultancy and agency and development. And he's developed a real mission around what he's doing. But the funny thing chart we were talking about is agencies are sought after to help with marketing, sales, and customer service. And I was like, that's almost literally everything to build a business.

Kenny Lange [00:36:52]:
It's not just a component of a business. That is, if you can't market, sell, and service a set of customers or clients or whatever your word is, you have no business. And so it can be super meta when we talk about these things, but it can also mean you get very focused on the technical output. And I think that this really restores the human or people centric part of business and what you're going after. So I'm excited that I get to be along for that ride. And also I get to learn more about ABM because I never spent any time learning about it, and I probably need to implement more of it in my business, or any of it, for that matter. With no additional technology, I might add, I'll be scrappy about it. But Mason, if somebody's listening to this and they like what you're saying about the manner in which you're going about building your organization and contract to hire, just sort of working your way into it, even as an owner, and aligning those hires around your specific position, even if they're great people.

Kenny Lange [00:38:06]:
If somebody wanted to get started down the road, what's that first step that they could take in the next 24 hours? That would be low or no cost.

Mason Cosby [00:38:16]:
So for starters, I think the three easiest things you can do is one, take inventory of your current gaps and challenges. I would say for scrap abium, the most important role we're hiring for is the account manager, because our greatest gap is the client relationship management and the project management side. It's like, take inventory of where you currently have gaps. Two would be make sure you have clearly outlined and defined core values. And I used to think the core values were kind of crappy and fluffy, if I'm being honest, of like, things you just kind of post on a wall. But when you really think them out and you document them in my interviews, people are asking me, who are you looking for? And I can show them and say, if this is you, awesome. If it's not, that's okay, we can be friends, but you're not going to work here. And then three is start having some conversations and saying, hey, I don't need a full time person for this.

Mason Cosby [00:39:08]:
But if you're looking for some side income, then this is a great way for you to get started. And I will be honest, I'm looking for somebody that sees the potential that six months down the road, they may want to come work here full time. So I'm not saying it's a guarantee on either side. I'm not asking you to commit to a full time role because that role isn't existing yet. But if you want to get started and instead of doing this long, drawn out interview process that talked about day in the life, if you'd rather just live a day in the life for a couple of months with us, we can see if it's a good fit longer term. But I'm not asking you to quit your job. I'm just asking you to work with us for a little bit to see if it's a good fit.

Kenny Lange [00:39:47]:
Gotcha. That's really helpful. Mason, thank you so much for being a guest and being a client and a friend. But if somebody wanted to also be your friend and maybe learn a bit more about you, scrappy ABM, what you're doing, or just ask you a few follow up questions, where can they learn more about you and connect with you?

Mason Cosby [00:40:10]:
If you google scrappy ABM, my dumb face shows up everywhere. So there's a podcast, there's a website called ScrappyaBM. There's a newsletter that is called scrappyabm. And if you just look up my name on LinkedIn, there's some, like, orange squares around my name. So I'm the only Mason Cosby with orange squares on LinkedIn. So I'm there. The most easy place to reach me is going to be LinkedIn. My inbox has gotten way more busy as of late, which is like a good problem to have.

Mason Cosby [00:40:40]:
So they don't reply up to the first message. Send me a second one. I'm not ignoring you. I just have a lot happening there. So those are the places. And if you want to actually talk about building a scrappy ABM program, you can book a call on scrappyabm.com.

Kenny Lange [00:40:55]:
That would be wonderful. I highly encourage everyone to do that. And also because we have mentioned a lot of the work that we've done recently around your values and the identity statement, or we'll include a link to everything Mason just said, but we'll also include a link to the do it yourself roadmap if you would like to take a run at that and maybe even ask him about his experience with also, he's just a great marketer and could probably help you out with some of the language. I obviously am happy to help you if I can. Thank you so much, Mason. Thank you to those who are listening. If you got value out of this, please like subscribe wherever you consume this, help it get into the eyes and ears of more people. I want to help as many people as I possibly can grow the business and an organization that they love.

Kenny Lange [00:41:50]:
But until next time, change the way you think you'll change the way you lead.

Mason Cosby [00:41:54]:
We'll see you.