Agency Forward

Chris DuBois 0:00
Hey everyone. Today I'm joined by cam. Martinez. Cam is a high level operator strategist, and the embedded leader agencies and teams call when they're ready to get serious about execution. I brought cam on because a lot of agency founders say they need ops help, and I use air quotes in that, but they don't know what great actually looks like. Cam breaks down what separates true operators from task takers, how to build trust quickly, and why clarity and autonomy matter more than micromanagement. In this episode, we discuss what separates an operator from a task taker, why strategy isn't just the visionary's job. What to give an operator so they can move fast and more. No one was asking for another community, but I've made one anyway. So what's different? The dynamic agency community is designed around access, rather than content, access to peers who've done it before, access to experts who've designed solutions, access to resources that have been battle tested, and right now, the price for founding members is only $97 a year. Join today, so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow. You can join at Dynamic agency dot community and now cam Martinez, it's easier than ever to start an agency, but it's only getting harder to stand out and keep it alive. Join me as we explore the strategies agencies are using today to secure a better tomorrow. This is agency forward. What separates an operator from just a task taker. We're

Cam Martinez 1:42
just getting right into it cool, right into it, okay? I would say it's a it's a mix of in, a blend of strategy and execution. Right? Task takers are usually following orders and following rules and attempting to fulfill on whatever project or task is before them, an operator kind of looks at everything holistically and from a 10,000 foot perspective to see the every aspect of the business, from operations to marketing to sales to finance to product to fulfillment to customer success. An operator, from my perspective and my experience, looks at everything and sees how it all ties together, how every system works together, how all the components are attached and combined and flow seamlessly. Does that make sense? Yeah,

Chris DuBois 2:37
I was just on client go, and we're talking about EOS and how the visionary integrator titles get thrown around a lot, but they almost box you too much into a role where everyone assumes the visionary is the one who's going to do the strategy and everything, and then the integrator just executes on that. But really, the best integrators are the ones who, like you just said, can actually create a strategy, can think strategically on their own in order to operationalize everything. Because if we just leave like we're running a business where only the visionary can come up with the great ideas and the strategy. And say, we're probably not going to see every possible avenue that we can, you know, we can go and find, find all of those benefits. I agree. I agree. How do you go about say you were to go into one of these organizations where, traditionally, they have a visionary, you know, who's kind of running the show, and just ideas flow from them, like, how do you kind of insert some strategy to make sure that they are seeing the bigger picture? And you can, you know, actually help them achieve those results, and you're not just taking orders, yeah.

Cam Martinez 3:41
Well, first it's having an understanding of what strategy actually looks like and actually means, and having the skill set and ability to and really the willingness to look at a business for all of its parts, not just the one singular thing you're focused on. So that's, that's, I think, the first step is actually having a willingness to learn what strategy and business looks like, and experimenting with different modalities, I guess, or sets of curriculum out there, there are a lot of different EOS is a great example of a certain type of framework or strategy for moving A business forward in whatever way that looks like. So first, I think it's looking at, you know, does this business actually have a strategy? Does do, does leadership? Does the person in charge actually have a a strategy behind the decisions that they're making? I think this gets conflated a lot, because a lot of people want to go into a business and implement strategy, right? And that's become a really popular thing to it's become a really popular thing to create a business around and kind of get your foot in the door within a business is we need a strategy. You need a plan. You need to have a system to go from A to B. And I think that that is definitely important. That's what a lot of consultants and advisors. And and change management. Type of people do within a business, right? If I were to go into a business and see that they needed something like that, where I would first start is looking at all the different pieces. Are they being tracked? Are they being are we paying attention to these types of things, right? Do we have project management in place? Are we, are we just kind of flying by the seat of our pants, or we do we actually have a way that we're going about things intentionally and deliberately, especially, I see a lot of agencies kind of just throw things together, right? They've taken a course, or they've, they've blocked some YouTube videos, and they have, they've learned a little bit about marketing and content, and have learned how to sell their specific thing. And I think that that hinders a lot of businesses from kind of growing and expanding into a legit operation. So there needs to be some strategy. There needs to be a way in which people are making decisions and taking appropriate action, instead of just, Okay, well, we gotta, like, we've got to throw up our videos on YouTube, and we need to edit them, and they need to look a specific way, or we need to post on LinkedIn today. Or, you know, we need to hire an operations manager because that's what we've been told, or we need to hire a salesperson because that's what we've been told. Not all businesses are the same, not all people are the same, not all strategy is the same. First you got to know what it is that you want and have a clear direction forward.

Chris DuBois 6:37
Yep, yeah, yeah. I gotta echo some of these things, because it's incredibly frustrating for me. Even as a coach, coming into some organizations where they they were doing something that was working, it was great. It would like they were seeing some success. They brought in a coach help with something else, and that coach made recommendations for how they change everything, and they said, Well, we hired the coach. He must know better, and they just do it. It's like, Yeah, but those things that were working that, like, you figured out by just trial and error like that, make you you were working. Why would we stop doing that? And so it actually hurts the business more because they're just following advice blindly and, like, not really thinking through strategically, because they don't have their own actual, like, business strategy set up, and so like to ever credit everything you were just saying. It's like, Yes, I see it very frequently where, if you just had your own decision making framework, right? Like this is how our agency decides any of these things. It's like, we go through these steps, right? If, and then we can't be angry with a result. We can only be angry with our process if we follow the process. That's all that matters. Yeah, I feel like it's it's often missed, right? It's just like nobody thinks about it in that lens. They're just like, looking for the next shiny thing to add into their kit and try following that. So if I were, say, a visionary or just CEO of company, I know I need some operational help. How do I actually find some, like, separate a high level operator from the rest of the back?

Cam Martinez 8:16
Yeah, well, first got to have the budget for it, right? Yeah, that's another, another thing we can touch on. But you know, a lot of people want the high level thinker, the high level strategist, the high level operator, and don't necessarily have the ability or capacity or bandwidth to pay someone who has fine tuned their craft enough to become that. So let's, let's assume, for example, that who we're talking to, there's kind of, you know, there's different stages and phases of business, an early, you know, a younger business, a younger entrepreneur, a younger leader, younger CEO, will realize that they need operational help, usually when things are on fire or hurts bad enough, right? Or things just aren't connected and clicking the way that they thought they would be. And a lot of people don't even know that they need something like this, a lot of agencies especially, let's assume you, you know you're a little seasoned, and you have some maturity under your belt, and you've been through the game a little bit. You dance the dance, and you are in a position where cool, I need a high level operator. I've done this before. I have the budget. I know I need someone by my side that like does these things. And this is, again, just speaking from experience. I'll just speak to myself and how I would hope that an agency would see me or would recognize the level that I want to play at, a level that I like to be involved in a business. And it really it comes down to, it's a lot of nuanced aspects, right? But it's beyond just the the resume and the LinkedIn profile and you. The content that might be seen before having a conversation with a person like me or like a high level operator, you can kind of just feel it. You can kind of just tell or it's in their language. It's in the way that they look at a business. It's in the way that they understand that there are principles to growing and scaling a successful company. Yes, every business is individual and different and unique, and there is a certain process and there are certain systems that can be implemented that can guarantee growth inside of a company. And so if I were having, if I were that visionary, or that CEO, that founder, that person that's that knows that they need someone by their side, COO a general manager, a chief of staff, Chief of growth, whatever you want to call ahead of growth, head of ops. What I would be looking for is, can you do the high level strategy and then implement it as well, right? And here's how I here's what I would be looking for. I would be looking for someone who's kind of like a general contractor, not necessarily someone who's like specialized in something like HubSpot or Salesforce or clay or all these new, cool AI systems and technology that's being created. This person that you're looking for is someone that can speak the language, knows what needs to happen. Can look at the overall aspect of the business and see cool, we're missing this part, or this part isn't as solid as it could be. Then that person brings in an expert, or they hire someone that they know is going to be a solid employee or contract or fulfill to fulfill on that task. High level operators think like a CEO, but also include in the execution. Also include in, you know, the decisions that are made maybe 10 steps down the road. Kind of the person that can be on the outside of the decision making, be on the outside of the the responsibility and, you know, pressure, sometimes that is on the founders shoulders, or is on the CEO shoulders, that high level operator has the ability to see the forest through the tree, so to speak, and put all the pieces together and take the puzzle apart. Go, okay, cool. We're missing these pieces. Put it back together, and now it's a fluid, functioning company. Does that all make sense? Yeah, cool to answer your question.

Chris DuBois 12:23
You did too. Yeah. Cool. So if what would a founder need to give an operator in order to facilitate that, like quickly, right? Knowing that businesses needs to business needs to move fast if we want to stay at the top of our game. How could I equip an operator to get the most bang for my buck?

Cam Martinez 12:44
Yeah, clarity and direction first. For sure number one, and that's going back to how a leader needs to think, is you need to have a direction. You got to know what it is that you want. You got to know what kind of business you're looking to build. You got to know what lane that you you're in, and then you got to be able to give that person clarity and direction and then autonomy to go build it. You got to trust that this person that you've brought in or hire to do the thing that you might not, might not necessarily want to do, or know how to do, or care about doing, will do their job. Well, it's a little bit of cool. This person has the experience. They're seasoned. They are speaking the right language. They're saying all the things I want to hear, get trust that they will implement it. And this is, you know, a lot of this is a fear that a lot of leaders have. Is cool, if you're saying all the right things, you seem to be the right person. How do I know you're actually going to do what it is that I want you to do? You you to do? So if I were in that position, and I were, I were hiring that person, what I would give them first is cool. Here's what it is that I want, here's the type of company I want to build. I want to be in business for the next, you know, not just few years, but 20 years. And here's kind of the level that I want to be on out here. Here's the lane that I want to stay in. Here's the here are the companies in which, you know, I kind of want to be like, or the using other businesses as a point of reference for where it is that I'm going. Well, once someone like me knows that cool, if I know that you want to go from, you know, million to 10, and you want to do it fairly quickly, and, you know, you kind of, you might want an inc 5000 award. You want, like a Best Places to Work award. You want to be recognized for the product that you're building. And you want to, you know, have those milestones and achievements under your belt. Well, now I know you're a specific type of person and a specific type of business, so this all comes back to you kind of got to know yourself. You got to know what it is that you want, and not just be playing by somebody else's rules or following somebody else's guidance and direction. So to I say all that, to say what you need to give this person is clarity and direction that you want to go in so they can execute on it. How

Chris DuBois 14:58
frequently? Okay, I feel like I know the answer based off founders I've talked to. But how frequently do you do you see a founder giving clarity and direction, but then not being able to get out of the way to actually let them run it?

Cam Martinez 15:11
Yeah, often, man, often. It's especially more prevalent with co founders or multiple founders or multiple, you know, cooks in the kitchen, so to speak. That's that's where it becomes even more complex, because it's different people, different personalities, different vision, different wants and needs. Yeah, that happens all the time. It's cool. I know where I want to go, I know what I want, I know what I want to accomplish, what I want to achieve. Now the difficult part is trusting that somebody else will come in and, you know, care for my thing as much as I want them to, like I understand that that's for a lot of people. Their business is their baby, so to speak, right? It's my creative baby. Like I put my heart and soul and effort and energy and sweat and tears and blood into this thing. I want somebody to care about it as much as I do. There are people out there who will take the same care and level of pride and intention and building your business with you, but it's up to you to kind of, you know, you've got to go through the fire a little bit. You've got to stand in that that seat or that position that doesn't have control over everything that doesn't have, you know, the thumb on the pulse of every single decision that's being made, or every single lever that's being pulled. That just requires a level of confidence and certainty and trust in yourself, that you hire the right person, and then your business that it's it can withstand someone who might not be as good as you want them to be. Yeah,

Chris DuBois 16:48
I think there's, there's a large difference between command and control that I think is just often missed. Or like, control when, when we have an inexperienced team, or we got to move very fast. Like, I'm going to control more aspects here. I'm going to actually tell you exactly what I need to do, how I need it done, right? You might not have all of the information that I have, and I don't have the time to share it with you. So we got to work this way. First command where it's like, All right, here's what we need to get done. Go do it like, just this is what the direction I want to move, right? The clarity and direction. Here we go. Let's execute. And so I think one or one of the earlier questions, right? How do we know if we're looking at like a high, high level operator? It's, I think a lot of probably agency founders have worked with people who are probably not at the highest level, and so they've either been burned before, or they just don't know what that high level operator is capable of. And so they're the trust is already a little harder to kind of instill, and where trust is built on predictability, right? If I know if I put $1 in the spending machine, it gives me $2 out, like I'm gonna put a couple more dollars in before I throw $100 bill in there. But once I know it works, I'm gonna keep increasing that rate. And so I think once they get that initial if there's a way to shortcut that predictability up front to like, you know, one we do it within our marketing all the time with like, this is how we hear all the clients that we've been successful with before. Here are testimonials. Here's a guarantee, right? Here are all the things that can help give you like, increase this perceived likelihood of achievement. But yeah, I think that's getting that trust like across the like over the line right from the start. It can be probably the most important piece here, for

Cam Martinez 18:33
sure. Look for someone who comes to you with their ideas and their plan and they're like, somebody's gonna ask them questions, like, Okay, what do you want me to do now? Or, yeah, I created this thing. How do you feel about it? Or, what you know, are you okay with this? It's like, Hey, I did this thing. Here's how it impacted the business. Here are the measurable results. Here's why it's important someone who can, like, do something and then provide the necessary context to help you understand why they made the decision that they did. And that's one of the more important things to look for in

Chris DuBois 19:02
a person. It was perfect. I had to explain command and control. It was drill weekend for the Army last weekend, and so I had a soldier who was just kind of sitting around live. I was, happened to be in the room working on something. I was like, Hey, man, if you need something to do, like, We need someone to go run this task like, and it was something simple, just like, just knock it out. Do whatever you need to. Just let me know when you're done. Let me know when you're done. And he came back a couple times to be like, how do you want this done? And how do you want this I'm like, Hey, man, I don't care. Like, I get I just want it done. So like, whatever you need to do in order to accomplish it. And I kind of explained command and control and the Army's like leadership philosophy to him. He's a brand new soldier. He doesn't know this stuff, but it was just like, once, once we got that through, it was like, then he just kept finding things to do. And he was just like, running with like, he took this disciplined initiative to just go. And I guess that's what I expect from like, a high level operator in a business, like, if you tell them to, like, go do something, and they don't find five other things. They're like, I'm gonna knock this out right after it's like, well, maybe they're not, like, the highest level,

Cam Martinez 20:04
yeah, it's systems thinking, right? And it's like, breaking things down to first principles. It's okay, cool. You want me to like, you want me to set up an email automation system that also includes deciding which email automation system to use, which is usually decided by the level of complexity, complexity we want to implement in the business, right, which then requires us to look at, okay, how many people are on our email list? We've got 300 not 300,000 you might not need this platform with this subscription, like right mail, right? And you don't need a complex system at certain stages of the business, but you got to have somebody by your side who can think in that way, so you're not just making decisions on a whim, so to

Chris DuBois 20:49
speak, right? Have you ever seen organizations where the operator kind of becomes the bottleneck for everything because they're taking on too much?

Cam Martinez 20:59
I've seen examples similar to that, where I'll give one example that that comes to mind. It actually came to mind often when I was looking at the questions that we were going to talk about on the episode. And it was an agency they had, they had just merged with another agency. So two co founders merged their two businesses together. It was kind of a shit show merging. There was each company had like 15 or 20 people on their team, one company's team, the majority of them ended up leaving. A few of them stayed, and then they merged companies. And so now I was two founders, two co CEOs, just because they didn't really know what they're right, what they were doing honestly, or where they were both going, or where they both should have been in that that position. And so it was the two of them. They had a team of 25 and then they had one, one person here, who was kind of the, the intermediary between their inconsistent communication and decision making, and then the rest of the team. And so it was like, we don't really know what we want, but you seem to understand as well enough to be able to communicate to the rest of the team what is it we're looking for. So we're just going to put you in this position between us and the team. So now there's one person kind of translating the the the uncertainty and miscommunication from the people at the top. And what ended up happening was it worked so well that it kind of relieved the responsibility of the owners to lead the company in a certain direction. And so where, when I went into the business, and when I was looking at this, you know, the structure of the org and where certain people were, and what they were, what their roles or responsibilities were, I noticed that right away, where it was like, Okay, you have one person, kind of like, it's like a funnel. Your information is going through this person, and they're responsible for funneling it to everybody else, and that person ended up getting promoted to a president of the company, or something like that, and it just like that continued because they didn't make the change. And so right, if that person leaves, right? And this is a an issue for a lot of companies, is the the risk that a lot of companies are carrying. Either one person has all of the information and know how to do this certain role or this certain task, if they're gone, cool, like there's nobody here to fulfill it, or the person in charge wasn't paying attention enough, or didn't care enough to be able to take it over. And so now it's an empty silo if that person's gone. Now that aspect of our business just doesn't work anymore, and I see that often right where high level operators or people in executive leadership decision making positions carry a lot of the load, and it's not either delegated well enough or dispersed well enough or documented well enough. So if they were to leave now, the business is kind of screwed. So, yeah, I absolutely see that all the time.

Chris DuBois 24:06
So shift gears a bit, because I think this one could be helpful for the audience. Like, what's, what's your system as, like a higher level operator for just getting shit done?

Cam Martinez 24:21
Hmm? I'm naturally a pretty organized person, right? Sometimes it's like organized chaos, like my desk is kind of like, if somebody were walking, I'd be like, What the hell is going on? It's not terrible. But I have certain things in certain places, and I know where everything is, right? So I think it's inherently who I am. It's inherently my nature to just be that way organized and detail oriented. I think it can be learned and it can be a trained skill, and I think anyone can develop that, if they have the willingness and care to do that. But if I'm going to enter into a relationship with a business or a person. Running a business, if a CEO or founder is going to pay me to come in and kind of run their company, that I take a lot of pride in, that I take a lot of responsibility in upholding the level of precision and excellence and whatever else is instilled in that company. And usually what that looks like is I need to have me personally. I need to have my thumb on the pulse of everything. I want to know what is happening in the marketing. I want to know what's happening with sales. I want to know what's happening with client fulfillment. I want to know what's happening with customer success, and I want to know what's happening with customer support, and, you know, product development and design and creation all that. So first I start out kind of, I want to understand how the business works, not just one department or one aspect of it. And I don't need to get too detailed, right? Like, if we're talking about a software here, I don't need to be the person that knows how to, you know, connect all the API systems and then tie it all together through different automation. I don't need to be that level of expert. I just want to know how it all works and be able to speak the language and see how it all connects, so that if something isn't working, I'm kind of like a, you know, a maintenance man in that way, if it were like a machine inside of a manufacturing company, I want to know how the product actually works, so if something breaks, okay, cool. I can just, like, replace the chain, or, like, oil this part of the machine so that it starts to work again. But in terms of system to get actually, like, practical and tangible. Here, instead of, you know, speaking in generalities, I always, I've got to have a project management system for myself. You know, I use Asana personally because it's simple, it's easy. Travel is another great, simple, easy one. If you want to get complex, you know, there's click up and things like that. I'm constantly writing things down my journals over there on the floor, but constantly writing things down. I have my ideas in different places. Currently, most of it lives in chat, G, P, T. They used to live in obsidian. Before that, it was work flowy. So I need a place to document my thoughts. Need a place to kind of work out my thinking around something and ask questions and then give specific answers so I can work things out. But um, Oh, am I still here? Yep, we're good. Okay, cool. And connection unstable message has popped up. So I need to have a place where things live that I know, like, okay, I can revert back to my to do list, or I can it's also just how my brain works, right? Like, I know that cool. I've got to respond to Chris. I know I need to get back to him, so I'm just going to give him a reaction, let him know I saw this. But I have all these other things I need to respond to, respond to, all these messages on LinkedIn or slacks going off, or I have emails I need to respond to, so I'm kind of it's dispersed in a way I don't do well with, like a one system type of thing. I know some people like to do that. I have my apple notes. I've got my running tally of to do lists. I know that I've got to get things done. I know what conversations I need to get back to. I know that. And to sum it all up, instead of getting off track, here, the easiest way I've found to keep track of what it is that I need to do is 8020 rule, what are the three things I need to do every single day to know that I can lay my head down on my pillow at night and know that I did a good job at certain points in my life that was cool. I want to create one piece of content today. I want to have my LinkedIn inbox fully answered and maybe like write a write a LinkedIn collaborative article today, so I know that I'm producing work. I'm putting things out there. I'm getting my work out in the world. At other times it's been like quiet. If I just get these things done, answer my emails, write a piece of content, and follow up with somebody today that I know cool. I'm moving towards an outcome. I'm moving towards a goal that I have, and that keeps it really simple and easy for me to keep track of the things that are important, instead of like a big backlog of all these things that I got to do. It's I know I'm going to do these three things every single day, and if I get to other things, that's just a bonus. So long winded way, that's how I go about it.

Chris DuBois 29:27
Two questions as we wrap up here. The first being, what book do you recommend every agency owner should read?

Cam Martinez 29:37
I have a set of books in my mind that I would absolutely recommend anybody to read, just sorting out in my thinking, Okay, do I want to recommend, like, an operational type book so that business owners can, kind of like, sort out their company, or hit

Chris DuBois 29:51
multiple if you want? Well, I don't know if any listeners actually like, take down the list and say, Oh, I'm gonna go get that book. But like I write them down, and then I go make sure to read them, if I haven't already so

Cam Martinez 30:03
well, anything by lexisne operational physics is a wonderful book. He has a book called designed to scale that's kind of like the magnum opus and Bible for scaling companies for to me, anyway,

so lexisney organizational physics and organizational physics design to scale and then, really anything by 37 signals. They have a few books out there.

Chris DuBois 30:33
Yeah, awesome. I have not heard of organizational physics, so new one on the list to be red pile is ever growing. Last question, Where can people find you?

Cam Martinez 30:48
LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, kencho. Cam, is my handle everywhere, k, e, n, S, H, O. Cam, yeah, reach out and say, what's up? Thanks for having

Chris DuBois 31:02
me. That's the show everyone. You can leave a rating and review, or you can do something that benefits. You click the link in the show notes to subscribe to agency forward on sub stack, you'll get weekly content resources and links from around the internet to help you drive your agency forward. You.

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