Reducing Agency Chaos with Amber De La Garza 

Danyel McLellan [00:00:01]: 

Running an agency can be a lonely proposition, but it doesn’t have to be. We can learn how to be better faster if we learn together. Welcome to Agency Management Institute’s Build a Better Agency podcast presented by White Label iq. Tune in every week for insights on how small to mid sized agencies are surviving and thriving in today’s market. With 25 plus years of experience as both an agency owner and agency consultant, please welcome, welcome your host, Drew Mclellan.  

Hey everybody, Drew McLellan here. You guessed it, another episode of Build a Better Agency. 

We’re going to talk about ourselves in this episode. We’re going to sort of look deep into ourselves and see where we add value and where sometimes completely inadvertently, we get in the way of our own agency’s success and our people success and what we can do a little differently about that. So that’s going to be an interesting conversation, I have no doubt. 

I think that it’s important for us to realize that we are in a moment of great change in our industry. And I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but sometimes when we’ve been doing what we’ve been doing for as long as some of us have been doing it, 20, 30, 40 years, you kind of get into some bad habits, you kind of get into some ruts and you have to be able to be really flexible and you have to be able to sort of pivot with the times. And I think that’s really what the conversation is going to be all about today. 

It’s also one of the things that I love about our presenting sponsor, White Label iq. What I love about them is, is that they will work with agencies in lots of different ways. They understand that there is no right what one right way. And they understand that they have to be sort of fluid and kind of bend with the times. 

And so if you want to, you can have, if you have a couple little jobs piling up, you can just tap into them ad hoc. If you want a fixed fee price to keep your margins safe on a bigger project, they’ll work with you that way too. And even if you need a full time person embedded in your shop, they’ve got FTE programs that’ll bring highly skilled people who are vetted into your agency to bring that continuity and a deeper integration. 

So the bottom line is they come from an agency background, they built this from agency experience, they’ve lived it. And so they know that our life is not cookie cutter and there as a good partner to agencies, they don’t want to be cookie Cutter either they are structured like an agency and they really understand how your business works because it’s the exact same way their business works. And so they’ve designed themselves to be super fluid and flexible, which I love about them. And I know a lot of their clients are super grateful. 

So if you want to learn more about that, head over to white label iq.com/ami, and if nothing else, shoot them a thank you note and let them know that you appreciate them sponsoring this podcast. 

But back to what I was saying about agency owners. I just think sometimes we get into bad habits or we think there’s something everybody at the agency should do, but maybe we don’t do it. I’m just going to suggest maybe timesheets or other things like that. Right. And so I think it’s important for us to sort of be able to look in the mirror and see how we contribute good and bad to the agency’s success. 

And that’s why I invited today’s guest to the show. So Amber De La Garza is a business coach. She speaks very much the same language that we speak at ami. She works with a lot of attorneys and other service industry business owners and professionals and helps them sort of get out of their own way and recognize that sometimes the chaos inside their organization is actually accidentally of their own creation. 

So we’re going to talk today about sort of how do we inadvertently create chaos in our own shop and how do we get out of our own way and be the calm rather than the chaos? 

All right, let’s welcome her to the show. Amber, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us. 

Amber De La Garza [00:04:19]: 

Thanks for having me. I’m looking forward to chatting with you today. 

Drew McLellan [00:04:22]: 

So we, before we hit the record button, we were laughing at our common use of the phrase accidental business owner that my listeners have heard me say that a million times. And it sounds like your clients are of the same ilk. 

Amber De La Garza [00:04:37]: 

Yes, absolutely. I’ve heard it so many times. I purchased domain name some time ago. And then I also did a spinoff podcast like miniseries called Accidental Business Owner because, you know, it’s really business owners that were, you know, really good at something and they thought, one day I bet I can make a business out of it. But didn’t really think, like, what does it take to be a business owner and what are all the other things? And I think that that’s where our work really intersects is helping business owners be better business owners while also giving this, you know, incredible value to the world and whatever their expertise is. 

Drew McLellan [00:05:15]: 

Yeah, we talk a lot about Our work is. Our job is to help our clients run the business of their business better. 

Amber De La Garza [00:05:21]: 

Yes, exact. Exactly. 

Drew McLellan [00:05:23]: 

Yeah, yeah. So tell everybody a little bit about you and your background before I start peppering you with questions. 

Amber De La Garza [00:05:31]: 

Absolutely. So, I mean, it feels like ages ago. My old background was in real estate. I worked in management, various positions. Management trainer in residential real estate for one of the largest real estate brokerages on the West Coast. And one of the last positions I held was a business coach. And that’s really where. Where I’m at now got seated almost 20, 25 years ago. And what I did back then was I had a lot of real estate experience. I went to college for real estate and business management. And so my specialty was teaching successful business owners how to leverage through building a team and business systems. And when I was no longer working there, what resonated with me was the challenge successful business owners have isn’t just about give me this system, give me, you know, give me the team member. It’s how do you lead your team, how do you stay consistent with the system, how do you roll out those systems and keep the team compliant? And taking it even further, it was how people lead themselves with productivity, time management, and that’s where it evolved into the productivity specialist. I’ve really helping business owners with the strategy, but also the mindset and the behavior shift that creates sustainable change, not just band aids in the business. 

Drew McLellan [00:06:55]: 

Well, and I think one of. I think one of the challenges for a lot of business owners is, you know, they’re typically, you know, type A and they’re visionary and they have lots of ideas. And so we’ll hear a lot from agency employees, like at one of our boot camps or something like, well, you know, my boss will go away, they’ll go to a conference or she’ll read a book, and they come back and there’s a new thing and we’re all in on fill in the blank. Whatever the new program system, language, whatever it is, we’re all going to take an assessment and do something different. And, you know, that lasts about a month or two months. And then we go back to the way we used to do it, or we go to the next new book or the next new conference speaker or whatever it is. And so I think part of one of the things that’s so important around leadership is that consistency and being the calm in the storm as opposed to being the cause of the storm. 

Amber De La Garza [00:07:52]: 

Absolutely. And with leadership, we want the people around us to buy into our vision. But if our vision keeps changing and there’s no follow through or there’s not real change because many hard working team members actually do want the change. That’s why they bought in. But that yo yo back and forth, you almost get eye rolls. Oh great. So you know, the business owner, the manager, the leader went on some conference. Just wait till they get back and let’s hear what they have to say. And unfortunately you don’t get the results that you are looking for when that’s the interaction with your team and making changes in the business. 

Drew McLellan [00:08:31]: 

Well, I think a lot of times the team is like, well we’re going to wait this out for the four, six or eight weeks because if it doesn’t stick then I’m not going to invest a lot of time and energy into doing something different if we’re going to just go back to doing the way it was. And so again to your point, you get sort of this yo yo thing and it. And I think sometimes agency owners, even though they want sort of the calm water, actually cause some of the chaos that you know, that they struggle against. 

Amber De La Garza [00:08:59]: 

Yeah, absolutely. And it’s not just coming back with leadership ideas or the next new book or conference topic, but it’s actually how we interact every single day with our team members. When we don’t have consistency in the way that we show up or self leadership or consistency in how the business operates. That same pattern that we’re talking about from that can literally happen over and over again. And you know, then the frustration is well, why am I not getting consistent results? Well, it’s inconsistent input. Right. On all levels in all different situations. 

Drew McLellan [00:09:37]: 

So help the listeners recognize the pattern that they are unconsciously creating or co creating perhaps with others that actually create chaos in their agency. What does that pattern look like? 

Amber De La Garza [00:09:51]: 

Yeah, well, when I first started my business 15 years ago, I like many business owners say yes to all the people and all the things. Right. Like you’re going to pay me for that? Yes, I can do that. Yes. And one of the things I was first tempted with when I specialized in time management and productivity was that I would get business owners that would reach out and say, oh you’ve got to work with my team. My team really needs help. And I’ll be like okay. And I had to learn the hard way. And now I have a absolutely no team policy. I do not work with the team unless I’ve worked with the business owner for some usually longer amount of time and seen consistent change. And so to your point is they think that they’re the problem. I’m not going to change. Now, I can work with a team member and they can make improvements, but I believe it comes from the top down. So if your own brain schedule routines, the way you interact with the business is chaos, you are rippling that chaos through the rest of your agency, your business. And so it always starts with self leadership and how you’re going to show up. And by leading by example as well, then you can get the buy in of someone coming in to talk about productivity and time management. See, full circle moment. I think you narrated this perfectly. Now you have the team member that’s like, wow, I’ve seen big changes in the business owner. I actually do want to talk to that coach. I do want to hear from that speaker. I think that they could help me too. But it starts from the top down. And so if your own self is personally chaotic, guaranteed, you are rippling that through the rest of your business. 

Drew McLellan [00:11:31]: 

So most of us are probably so used to the way we show up. 

Amber De La Garza [00:11:35]: 

Yes. 

Drew McLellan [00:11:36]: 

Right. I mean, that we don’t really recognize the dysfunction in perhaps how we appear to our co workers, clients, vendors, whoever. What can we do to maybe get a more objective view of how we show up and what that does to create either calm or chaos? 

Amber De La Garza [00:11:59]: 

Yeah, it’s like that saying, like a fish that doesn’t know it’s in water. Like, you don’t understand that that is the filter in which the fish sees the rest of the world is through the water that actually distorts how they see out of it. And we don’t know. I mean, I think that having a coach really helps you ask different questions and see things through a different perspective. Because so often when we’re in the weeds or we’re in the day to day, we can’t often always see that there’s beliefs, there’s filters in which we are making decisions and spreading dysfunction. But it starts with us. And so one strategy is I really do believe that people like you and other people that can ask questions to level you out of the symptom. Right. So oftentimes when we’re in our own businesses, we’re in the weeds, but we’re really trying to firefight and put out the symptoms. We’re like, this problem’s happening, this problem’s happening, this problem’s happening. But if we can ask different questions and get a different perspective, you might realize that you’re not ever getting to the root cause of what’s creating that chaos in the business. 

Drew McLellan [00:13:06]: 

All right, so if somebody says, I don’t want to hire a Coach? Yeah, I want to figure this out myself. I’m a self starter. I love to take assessments and I love to learn about myself and all of that. Then what direction would you give them? 

Amber De La Garza [00:13:19]: 

It’s actually quite simple and I’m so glad that you asked that. If you can ask and answer honestly, how am I responsible for this? And then take action on that answer, you can coach yourself because I don’t, I don’t know you intimately. We just met. But for me, when I ask questions of my clients, I’m asking hard questions that they’re not often asking of themselves. Someone does not need a coach if they can ask and answer honestly and then take action on those answers. And the question is simple. When we are experiencing what we consider fires. So you know, that word is just thrown out there is like, I don’t know what happened to my day. I don’t plan my days because I’m just putting out fire after fire and think of it as a team member fire. Something goes wrong with a project. Something goes. You have clients calling you and you are now the professional firefighter in your business. 

Drew McLellan [00:14:16]: 

Right. 

Amber De La Garza [00:14:17]: 

We’re so busy working in our business that we don’t level up and think about how to work on our business. And I want us to think about actually those fires are symptoms just like if I had gone to the doctor. So Drew, if I go to the doctor and I tell the doctor I don’t feel good, I just, I just feel like crap every day. Fix me. Nope, not enough. Not enough to go off of there. 

Drew McLellan [00:14:41]: 

Right. 

Amber De La Garza [00:14:41]: 

And so the doctor is going to ask more and more questions. And if it’s a good doctor, they’re going to look at you, they’re going to care and they’re going to keep asking questions until they can find out what is the root cause. That if I fix that, it’s going to fix my body aches, my headache, my dizzy spells, my what you name off all these symptoms. We don’t want to play whack a mole and just fix those one off symptoms. We want to ideally get to the root cause. And the same thing is for our businesses. So if in any situation you start seeing fires, the first thing is what’s the pattern? What is actually causing those fires? And can you root it back to Oftentimes it’s processes, it’s systems, it could be leadership, it could be miscommunication, the list goes on and on. But if you can see patterns and then ask once you see the pattern, how am I responsible? You’ve given yourself A gift. Because now you’ve taken, if you have, let’s just even numbers. You have 10 fires a day. And that’s reality for a lot of business owners. 

Drew McLellan [00:15:44]: 

Oh gosh, for sure. 

Amber De La Garza [00:15:45]: 

That’s probably a low average, right? So like I put out 10 fires today. If you could ask, how am I responsible? And half of them go back to you, that is a gift. Because now you can do something different that down the road as you make these changes, you have five a day. And I just want to back it up and explain that there are true fires, but we lump them together as if they are all outside influence. So for me, I work from home. I’ve had times where my dog started throwing up. You know what, Outside of maybe I don’t work from home or I don’t have a dog, things happen, right? My son gets sick, I have to go pick him up. That’s a fire. That’s a, that’s a, that’s something that’s outside of my control. But there’s so many things that happen in our business that are the result of decision or indecision. So inaction that we made yesterday, last week, last quarter or last year, that now we’re just putting out the fires because of that, we’re getting the repercussions, the outcomes of those decisions or indecisions. 

Drew McLellan [00:16:51]: 

Do you think there are, in, in your experience, do you think there are two or three decisions that business owners make that consistently cause them the most fires that could be avoided? 

Amber De La Garza [00:17:07]: 

Yeah, man, that’s a hard one to say. Two or three. I’ll give you some top two or three that come to mind. 

Drew McLellan [00:17:13]: 

Okay, okay. 

Amber De La Garza [00:17:14]: 

One is having processes and systems and then compliance, meaning that you, which is what we spoke about earlier is like the follow through and the accountability to those processes and systems. 

Drew McLellan [00:17:26]: 

Okay, wait a second. So you’re saying the processes and systems in an agency that the owner wants everyone else to follow? 

Amber De La Garza [00:17:34]: 

Yeah. 

Drew McLellan [00:17:35]: 

The owner is supposed to follow them too? 

Amber De La Garza [00:17:37]: 

Yes, yes. 

Drew McLellan [00:17:39]: 

Yeah, that’s a novel concept. 

Amber De La Garza [00:17:42]: 

I mean, I have a 15 year old son, right. And so if I’m like, you know what? We’re really going to eat healthier as a family. And then he finds me in the closet eating chocolate chips like, and I’m like, no, no, no, you don’t get chocolate chips because we’re eating healthy as a family. And then they. He sees me eating those chocolate chips. How is that not a mixed message? Like how, how can I expect him to buy in and follow through when I’m not doing the same Thing. 

Drew McLellan [00:18:09]: 

Yeah, yeah. So all of you listening, who do not do your daily timesheets, even though you tell your team how critical it is they do daily timesheets, I want you to rewind like three minutes and just hear what Amber said. Because the message you send your team is, I can remember my mom would say to me sometimes, do as I say, not as I do. And I’d be like, well, yep, that does that. Forget it. I’m not doing that. I’m going to do what you do. And so our employees are the same way. If. If you stand up and tell them how important daily timesheets are to the business, and then when they see the list of people who don’t do the timesheets, your name’s always on the list, then guess what? It’s not that important. And all of a sudden, they’re going to deprioritize it just like you do. And there’s a million examples. But timesheets, as you know, is one of the things I pound on all the time. So I’m just. All right, so that’s number one, following your own systems. 

Amber De La Garza [00:19:02]: 

And I’ll go to number two. But I just want to, like, echo what you were saying and kind of go deeper with that is like, well, then if you don’t do timesheets. So not only is it that we’re giving mixed messages for compliance, but what fires is that starting in the future? 

Drew McLellan [00:19:15]: 

Right. 

Amber De La Garza [00:19:16]: 

So billables need to go out, and you’re scrambling to put your time in there to make sure you’re getting paid for your time. That’s a fire. Because you’re like, oh, I didn’t plan for that. Or maybe there was something else more important, like actually urgent. And now timesheets and billing are going out. And what’s the fire now? Cash flow is affected. Like, you can see how this has this, like, cause and effect all the way down. And another point I would make is just from my own experience. So I work with attorneys, interior designers. They all have to clock their time, too. And we do it because whether they’re flat fee or hourly, the only thing anybody is ever selling is time. It doesn’t matter how you actually charge the client. And so when we’re looking at is the project or the case profitable, and you only have a portion of the data, which is your team and not yours, and you’re often the most expensive cost to any project, or how can you actually make decisions? Well, if the business is suffering, pnl, your profit and loss numbers are suffering, or low and you’re trying to get the root cause. Oh, so the indecision of tracking your time accurately now puts you at this, like, blockade of I can’t go any further and looking into why my P. L. Is not where I want it to be because I didn’t track my time accurately. We’re in the moment, we talk ourselves out of it. We’re like, yeah, I’ll get to it later. I’ll do it, I’ll batch it, I’ll whatever. All that negotiating and now look at all these entry points of fires and pain points that were caused from that one decision that was made. 

Drew McLellan [00:20:52]: 

Yep. Yep. All right, before you give us number two, the decisions we make that cause us most problems, let’s take a quick break and then we’ll come back for that one. Are you tired of juggling multiple tools to manage your agency? Meet Dell Tech Workbook, the all in one solution for marketing and communications agencies. Streamline your projects, resources and finances all in one place. With real time dashboards and reporting, you’ll have full project visibility. You can plan team capacity weeks ahead to avoid bottlenecks and and keep your budgets on track to maximize profitability. It’s perfect for both agencies and in house marketing teams looking to work more efficiently. PCI is a certified Deltec partner offering expert implementation and support to ensure your success. If you’re ready to transform your operations, visit PCI US podcast for a free consultation today. Hey everybody. Just want to remind you before we get back to the show that we have a very engaged Facebook group. It’s a private group just for podcast listeners and agency owners that are in the AMI community. And to find it, if you’re not a member, head over to facebook.comgroupsbabaPodcast. so again, facebook.comgroupsbab podcast. All you have to do is answer a few questions to make sure that you are an actual agency owner or leader and we will let you right in. And you can join over 1700 other agency owners and leaders. And I’m telling you, there’s probably 10 or 15 conversations that are started every day that are going to be of value to you. So come join us. All right, we are back with Amber and we’re talking about how sometimes business owners and leaders actually cause the chaos that they’re trying very hard to work out of their business and, and that sometimes our decisions, lack of decisions, habits, lack of habits, trigger some of that chaos and cause problems for not only ourselves, but the entire team. So before the break, Amber had talked about having processes and systems and not the owner, not following them. So now, Amber, what is mistake number two? What is the decision we make number two, that causes us a lot of fires that we end up having to put out over and over and over. 

Amber De La Garza [00:23:16]: 

Right. So as agency owners and business owners, we’re not zooming out enough. So we’re in the day to day, we’re in the weeds, we’re working in the business, and we’re not zooming out to work on the business or even more. Zoom out another level and be strategic and think about what’s coming. Think about what problems or challenges could be happening and how you can make decisions today to, to minimize those challenges in the business. And I have to be honest with you, while this is a huge one, it is one of the hardest things, in my opinion, that we are asked to do as business owners is to constantly zoom in, zoom out, zoom in, zoom out. 

Drew McLellan [00:23:54]: 

Right. 

Amber De La Garza [00:23:55]: 

And because it takes different ways of thinking, it takes different energy levels, and there is such a draw to being in the business, especially if you’re wearing the, the hat and the badge of honor of I’m the firefighter and I put all the fires out. 

Drew McLellan [00:24:11]: 

Yeah, that feels great to be able to solve all those problems. 

Amber De La Garza [00:24:14]: 

Absolutely. It actually becomes addictive because you get that dopamine hit of like, I’m the problem solver, I can do the things. Which leads me to. And we can come back to two, but leads me to number three. Number three is that you are solving all these challenges. So. And that might seem counterintuitive, but when your team members keep coming to you to solve challenges and you solve them, because of course you know how to. And of course you are the source of truth and all the information. I get that. But now you are empowering. You are taking the power away from team members to solve for themselves. You are taking this opportunity that you’re not giving them the confidence that maybe they need to run a couple scenarios by you, and they say, well, this is how I think we should solve it. And you get to say, I think that’s a great idea. Go forth. And then they do it again and you’re depositing in their confidence to where they’re coming to you less. And now you have a whole workforce that can put out fires when they need to. So. So part of the creation of the fires is you actually putting out the fires and not empowering the team to, to be able to solve them on your behalf. 

Drew McLellan [00:25:20]: 

Yeah. And all of those on the surface seem like such little things, don’t they? Right. Oh, I’ll do my timesheet tomorrow. 

Amber De La Garza [00:25:27]: 

Or. 

Drew McLellan [00:25:28]: 

Oh, I can end run around that process. I’m the owner and it’s after hours. I’m just going to do it. I’m going to go directly. Rather than going through the project manager, I’m going to just go directly to the art director and get this thing changed because it’s only going to take three minutes. It’s fine. Right? Or again, that idea of it’s. You’re right. It’s so easy for us to do what we’re so naturally good at. 

Amber De La Garza [00:25:52]: 

Yeah, we all want to do that. Right. 

Drew McLellan [00:25:54]: 

Most agency owners grew up in an agency and so they’ve been solving these problems for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. It’s like water off a duck’s back to them. And it feels so gratifying to know the answer and solve the problem and you’ve got a stressed out employee who doesn’t know what to do. It reminds me of when your kid’s a toddler and you’re teaching your kid to walk and you’re at the grocery store and the milk’s always in the very far back corner. Right. So you can either scoop the kid up and carry them through the grocery store, or you can endure that 15 minutes of painful toddler walking all the way back to the mill. But if you don’t give your kid enough times to toddler walk, then they don’t really learn how to walk and they sure don’t learn how to run. And our employees are the exact same way. We have to give them opportunities to wobble through things and use us as a safety net to make sure that they don’t fall. But to kind of be a little awkward with how they solve these problems to your point, to gain the confidence of being able to move forward and do it without a blink, like we can, you know, we were the toddler one day, somebody let us wobble through the grocery store and now we have to do the same thing. 

Amber De La Garza [00:27:03]: 

Absolutely. And in the moment, our brains lie to us and tell us that it’s inefficient. No, no, I’m going to do it. I can do it better, I can do it faster. And, and I’m telling you, your brain is lying to you because it’s through the filter of right here, right now. And if you zoom out and think about what is the long term investment in the business, the long term investment means that it needs you to invest in your team members so that they develop. And long term, it’s far more productive to Having your team members be able to, you know, buffer or solve or not come to you with every single challenge. And so the request here is you’re hearing, this is how can you go from short term? I’m right here in the moment. It is true, it’s probably more efficient, but you’re chopping your legs out from underneath you. What is the long term benefit? And that’s building people that are around you that are skilled, confident and totally capable. And you were talking about how we love doing the things that we’re really good at and that like you, many of my clients grew up doing the thing that now they have a business at. And so that is their identity. And I have to share that. This is often what I call it, an identity crisis. And if we don’t actually take the time to re get clarity around how do I best serve the business now? What is my new role? What is my new job description? Like, where do I fit in? It feels like this messy gray area of maybe you’re not in the day to day doing the thing that sells to, that you’re selling to the client and the agency, but you’re not quite fully standing in. I am the business owner. Here are the ways that I best serve the business. And because it feels like the messy middle, we’re going to get pulled into the thing that feels familiar, comfortable, we’re great at, we get that dopamine hit. And of course, isn’t it great that I’m solving all these problems in my business? Ah, take a breath. Because the reason that you built the agency the way you did is because you probably did have at least a glimpse of a different vision of how you interact with the business or you would have stayed a party of one. And so leaning into that and finding that new identity is almost like the kryptonite too, being sucked back in and like, like really getting into the bad habit of this role, which is firefighter. 

Drew McLellan [00:29:30]: 

Well, and I often will say when you step into the business, what that means is no one’s doing the agency owner’s job, no one else but you can do the job. And that means the most important job in terms of running a profitable, sustainable business is being unattended to. And so you know, you’ve, you’ve have an obligation to the people that work for you, to the clients you serve, to run a sustainable business that’s going to be around to provide them with a job or the client support you provide them with. And if you’re not doing it, nobody is. 

Amber De La Garza [00:30:04]: 

Yeah, nobody. 

Drew McLellan [00:30:05]: 

Right Right. Yeah. So I know you have kind of a diagnostic tool, if you will, to help agency owners identify, which I suspect will be insightful, what fires are going to show up next week. So tell us about that. 

Amber De La Garza [00:30:23]: 

Yeah. So when you are looking at the diagnostic question, rather to your point is, you know, how am I responsible for this? And it’s going to reveal. It’s kind of back to what we were talking about earlier is, is this an internal challenge or an external challenge? And then from that, diving deep and the diagnostic is the things that you’ve negotiated away that, you know, this is. The tool is like the things that we know we need to be doing in the business, but we don’t do. Then we’ve told ourselves it’s fine, it’s fine. But that’s the fire that you’re putting out later. So it’s really a simple diagnostic tool of how am I responsible? What is the root cause? That root cause, if unfixed, is going to be the fires that you’re putting out tomorrow, next week, next month, later in the year. 

Drew McLellan [00:31:18]: 

Well, and over and over and over again, Right? 

Amber De La Garza [00:31:20]: 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. 

Drew McLellan [00:31:23]: 

So I think a lot of. I think a lot of owners feel like exactly what we’ve been talking about, like that they are just in constant crisis mode. So if somebody wants to lift themselves up and out of that, what’s the recipe for getting out of crisis mode? 

Amber De La Garza [00:31:43]: 

So the recipe is to pick one thing and focus on fixing that one root cause and getting it to the finish line. So you see positive results. Unfortunately, we get overwhelmed as business owners of not only are the symptoms in multiples, right. Like, we have. We have all these different fires that we’re putting out. We can overwhelm ourselves with like, everything needs to be fixed. So where do I start? I want to start on all of it. We’re very ambitious. It’s a great day. We woke up. We want to conquer the world. 

Drew McLellan [00:32:13]: 

January 1st, we’re gonna. We’re gonna go to the gym, we’re gonna stop smoking, we’re gonna eat healthy, and we’re gonna get taller, right? 

Amber De La Garza [00:32:19]: 

Yes, yes, exactly. Posture’s gonna be better. All is right in the world. Yes. But that is not actually helpful. It’s not helpful to having the consistent change. It’s not helpful to getting a project that probably needs a significant time, investment, energy. I think of it as, you remember the games, like, if you go to like a. Like a carnival and you spray the water and the horses race down the. The lane and that you’re trying to be the first horse, right? And as business owners, we’re like, okay, we’re just gonna spray water all of them and go back and forth and, and, and then maybe all the horses are gonna move. And that’s not what our businesses need where they’re just spraying our energy, spraying our time, spraying, bringing our focus and hoping that we get all the horses to the finish line. The truth is, is that that is actually incredibly inefficient. Here’s why. If you think of our time, energy, attention as a finite resource, very important resource, we want to get an ROI on that. And to get an roi, we gotta deliver the improved process, the improved communication skills, the updated way that we track time and we bill our clients to get it out for cash flow, whatever that is. If you do everything a little bit, then you don’t actually get to launch the solution. And if you don’t launch the solution, then you’re not getting an roi. So just to take this back full circle, fix one thing, get it to the finish line, make it the company’s or agency’s new normal, then pick another one and stack your wins based on that roi. Then choose another. Then choose another. 

Drew McLellan [00:34:03]: 

Yeah, it’s sort of the same concept that in, you know, EOS or any of the other operating systems, it’s like, you know, pick one priority for the quarter, focus on just that, everybody put their energy towards it, get it across, as you say, the finish line, and then look back a year from now and go, wow, we got a lot done because we stayed focused. I think, I think most agency owners are master jugglers as part of what they’ve been good at. Right. You know, you’ve got, usually you have multiple clients, so you’re talking to a banker and then a butcher and a candlestick maker and. Right. You’re used to all of the juggling. But when it comes to being a business owner and being a leader, the juggling doesn’t, to your point, doesn’t really serve the organization because it’s not, it’s nothing progresses with the consistency and speed that you need and want it to. Right? 

Amber De La Garza [00:34:54]: 

Yeah, yeah. And some other strategies to ensure that you have the time to level up and work not just in, but on your business and being strategic. We talked about that being really hard thing to do. One of the reasons it’s so hard is because oftentimes we are over committed. Right. We say yes to all the things and all the opportunities. Our schedules are really full. We’re firefighting. We are just spread so thin that we’ve Actually created a schedule, we’ve created a business. So this environment, right, go back to the fish in water. So this fishbowl that we’re in is not conducive to you being able to go and focus and knock out two to three hours of working on the business to get a process system, something updated or improved upon and then shipped out to the team. It seems, you know, most, most business owners in my experience, and I think to your agency owners, feel like they’re what, spend three hours on improving a system like that. When am I ever going to find that time if it’s not three hours in a row? Right, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. 

Drew McLellan [00:36:08]: 

And you’re right, it does end up becoming nighttimes and weekends. And then, you know, people’s families are suffering and their relationships are suffering and they’re exhausted. You know, probably 10 o’ clock at night is not the most. For most people, some of you may be the exception to the rule, but for Most of you, 10 o’ clock at night is not your most productive, conducive to deep thinking time. And so, you know, we advocate, I’m curious what you have. We advocate for agency owners that they carve out one day a week that is blocked off for heavy lifting. And what we suggest is two half days because they’ll never do a whole day. So two mornings, like, like a Tuesday, Thursday or whatever. And they just tell their team, I will be available right after lunch. And they, and their calendar’s blocked off and it’s sacred time. Just like if they had a client meeting, nobody would schedule over it. Just like if their wife was having surgery, nobody would schedule over it. So just make it sacred time. And now you’ve got, you know, eight hours a week to really do your job. So how do you help your clients? 

Amber De La Garza [00:37:10]: 

Yeah, I, I agree that 8 hours is probably where you want to get to, but the reality is like, like we just joked about of like three hours is how do you start with an hour? Maybe an hour twice. 

Drew McLellan [00:37:21]: 

Yeah, 30 minutes exactly. 

Amber De La Garza [00:37:23]: 

And then 90 minutes twice a day. And it’s kind of like the same analogy again. I don’t think I’ve had so many analogies in an interview ever. You go to the gym and you’re not going to just suddenly, you know, pick up the heaviest weight. You’re going to start and you’re going to build and you’re going to build. And it actually is a muscle to build the self discipline to say, hey, team, I’m not available this time. Whether it’s 30 minutes, 90 minutes or 4 hours. That takes the practice of self discipline. It also takes your ability to. 

Drew McLellan [00:37:57]: 

So. 

Amber De La Garza [00:37:58]: 

Many of us, if we are not training ourselves to focus for any length of time or haven’t gotten intimate with ourselves, to actually ask the questions. What is the best environment to allow me to focus? That’s a great question. Right. And so that might be, how do I mix the type of work I’m doing up in that four hours? It might be I need to take a brisk walk for 10 or 15 minutes to break up the four hours. I prefer to do my four hours at home and then I go into the office the rest of the time. So asking those types of questions to say, not only do we start where we’re at, build from there, but also get curious about, well, what do we need to be able to show up our best for that four hours, twice a week. So it’s a journey is what I find with my clients. But the ultimate goal is you have dedicated time carved out, that you’ve zoomed out. You’re working on the business, not in the business, and certainly holding it sacred, as you said, just as you would any other meeting that you have on your calendar. 

Drew McLellan [00:39:00]: 

And the other benefit of that is back to what we were talking about earlier is if you say to your team, look, unless the building’s on fire, do not interrupt me. My slack is off, my phone is turned over, my email notifications are like, really? You’d have to run into my office or run to my house to get my attention. And don’t do it unless the building’s on fire. Now, for four hours, your team has to solve the fires themselves. They have to figure out what to do. And so it sounds ridiculous. And some of you listening, you’re like, I know all this, I know you know it, but you’re still not doing it. That’s the problem. What Amber and I are telling you is not rocket science, and it’s probably not something you haven’t read in a book or whatever, but the reason why we coach people is because they know it, but they don’t do it. And so even giving your team a few hours of independence where they have to solve problems, what happens is rather than turning to you, they turn to each other. And now they’re co learning and they’re teaching each other and they’re solving problems together. They’re building a tighter team. There’s so many benefits to you being out of the way of them solving their own problems. And it’s amazing. 

Amber De La Garza [00:40:17]: 

Yeah. 

Drew McLellan [00:40:18]: 

And yet we. We don’t give ourselves or them that gift. And so, you know, I’m. I’m hoping that as you’re listening to us talking, you’re like, oh, yeah, I should do that. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. I should do that. Yeah. Yes, you should. And today would be a great day to start. 

Amber De La Garza [00:40:37]: 

Yeah. Simple does not always mean easy. But simple will allow you to be compliant, consistent with the simplicity of whatever strategy that we are sharing. Again, you and I just met. It sounds like we are so much on the same wavelength on so many things, and that comes from so many years of experience of seeing this actually work. Like, this is not. And I’ll speak for myself. Like, this is not fluff. Like, I have goosebumps thinking of client after client, that when the resistance comes down and they’re like, but it’s too simple. Like, that can’t really fix all these fires, these problems, whatever. Okay, then you know what? I have had to tell clients, then prove me wrong. And I have had clients that have been grudgingly just done something to say that they wanted to come back and tell me it didn’t help. And that has not happened yet because their brain, again, is lying to them. To say, like, my problems are so complicated, so big, so many. How can something so simple actually make such an impact? And my rebuttal to that is, do you want Drew and I to give you something super complicated? Like, who has time for that? Like, that’s so counterintuitive. Who has the time energy to do that? And so don’t dismiss simple. And isn’t that such a gift that our biggest pain points, the things that rob us of time with the people we love, the things that matter most to us can have something that seems simple. It is going to be hard. I don’t want to lie about that. This is not. Like, again, simple is not easy. It will be hard. But the simplicity is your friend, and it’s such a gift that it could be that simple to make radical changes in what I call your relationship with your business or your agency. Like, wouldn’t that be amazing that the reason that we actually started our agency or started our business was because we wanted more freedom. We wanted financial freedom, time freedom. We wanted to be our own boss, but we feel like a slave, and all the joy has been sucked out. Let’s go get that back. Let’s go back to that vision, and if it can be simple, like, that’s what I want for all of your listeners. 

Drew McLellan [00:42:42]: 

Yeah. Yeah, me too. You know, it’s interesting. I think just like what was it Mark Twain said? I’m. I’m sorry this isn’t a shorter letter, but I didn’t have time. Right. I think sometimes simple is harder when you have to boil it down to the very basic things. I think that’s actually harder. I think you can write a three page letter that can, that conveys something much easier than you can a four paragraph letter that conveys everything. And I think behavior changes the same thing that if we start small and we start simple, it has exponential impact. So I’m curious as we wrap this up, where would you tell someone to start? What would be the first thing you tell them to do? 

Amber De La Garza [00:43:27]: 

Yeah. Well, ironically, track their time. And that wasn’t. You didn’t pay me to say that. But. And I’m curious what your thoughts are. So I know you’re talking about tracking time for like actual work on, on the, you know, in the business. All of it. 

Drew McLellan [00:43:43]: 

All of it. 

Amber De La Garza [00:43:43]: 

Okay, good. So I wasn’t sure where you stood with that. You know, tracking your time is going to have powerful data that you do not need to get emotional about. It’s going to tell you where you actually spent your time, how much of it. 

Drew McLellan [00:43:56]: 

And by the way, you’re wrong. Whatever, whatever you think it is, you’re wrong. 

Amber De La Garza [00:44:00]: 

Yeah. 

Drew McLellan [00:44:00]: 

I promise you. 

Amber De La Garza [00:44:01]: 

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So I would say definitely tracking your time and then one other one can be as easy as. And I know that no one’s watching us on video, but we do have video going. Is a steno pad. Like, keep a notepad at your desk and keep a list of the fires that you’re putting out. I want you to tell me like, like as if I was going to the doctors and I had my list and I was like, I’m dizzy, I have a headache, I am falling, my ears are ringing. I, I want you to write exactly what all the symptoms, slash fires are that you are coming to you that are being put in your lap on a daily basis. Get them out of your head so that you can start seeing patterns and you can start seeing how many there are. And maybe if you want to do version 2.0, put a dash and the name of the person that brought you the challenge. Because sometimes you might be able to address many fires by really investing in somebody. Or maybe there’s somebody that is, it needs a little more help or needs to be let go. Like that’s a pattern too. Right. 

Drew McLellan [00:45:00]: 

So just could be a lot of things. Yeah. 

Amber De La Garza [00:45:04]: 

So just keep a list so that you can start seeing patterns. And then if you’re willing to ask that question of how am I responsible? Like, what decisions are indecisions? What is the root here? Is it a process? Is it a system? Is it lack of communication? Or just to wrap it all up, is it just that I’m always the one solving the problems? And what would happen if I shut the door for eight hours a week and let them figure it out themselves? 

Drew McLellan [00:45:31]: 

Yeah. Perfect. Perfect way to end the conversation. Amber, if people want to learn more about your work, if they want to follow you, if they want to contact you, what’s the best way for them to do all of those things? 

Amber De La Garza [00:45:41]: 

Yeah. Thank you for asking. Wherever you’re listening to this episode, I also have a podcast called Small Business Straight Talk. So just search up media, social, Small Business Straight Talk. I talk all about time management, productivity, business strategies, bringing back more joy and less stress to being a business owner. And then you can find everything else at amber de la garza.com. that’s D E L A G A R Z A amber de la garza.com. 

Drew McLellan [00:46:07]: 

Awesome. And we will put links to all of that in the show notes for sure. So, Amber, this has been great. I do feel like we’re kindred spirits that we are. We are preaching from the same gospel for sure. So that makes me feel good. I know that somebody else out there is, is in alignment with me, which makes me feel like, well, maybe I’m on. I’m on the right track. 

Amber De La Garza [00:46:27]: 

Right. Truth is truth no matter what domain we’re in. Right. Truth is true. 

Drew McLellan [00:46:31]: 

That’s right. That’s right. So thanks for being with us and sharing your expertise. It was, it was really a great conversation and hopefully people took away two things. One, that it’s not rocket science and they can do it. They can start out simple. And two, they are creating their own chaos if they walk away with those two ideas and those two realizations. You and I have done our job for this episode. 

Amber De La Garza [00:46:55]: 

Thank you. Thanks for having me, Drew. 

Drew McLellan [00:46:57]: 

You bet. Okay, guys, so Amber gave you some homework that I want you to do. Number one, I don’t care if you do it on post it notes. I don’t care if you do it in a Google sheet. I don’t care if you write it on your hand. Start tracking your time. I am telling you, if you track your time for a couple weeks, you are going to be stunned at number one, how much time is wasted on things that you should not be doing at all. Two, the things that you had no idea you were investing that level of time and three, the things that you thought you were spending a lot of time on. Like, you all like, oh, I spend a lot of time on your business. No, you don’t, because you’re too busy putting out fires and doing all the other things. But you don’t know that because our brains tell us what we’re supposed to do and you substitute that for the facts of what you’re actually doing. And it comes in little 15 minute increments. So without writing it down, you’re never going to know. So track your time and then identify some of the areas where some of the. And then I love the idea of tracking the fires and then sort of seeing where your responsibility lies in those fires. How have I either started this fire, how have I thrown gasoline on this fire, how have I taken this fire and spread it out into five fires? You know? And then now you have the very first areas to focus on as you start to carve out 30 minutes a week and then 60 minutes a week. And I’m telling you right now, grab your calendar and start blocking time out for the rest of the year and the first quarter of 2026. Because right now, like, I will be honest, if I look at my calendar this week, there’s no friggin half an hour that I can block off. But next week there’s a half an hour and the week after that there might be an hour. So again, we’re all guilty of this stuff and we’re all going in a million directions. And I know when it’s travel season for the McClellans, things get a little bumpy sometimes, but we can always do a little better. That’s the other thing. Do not strive for perfection. Just buy yourself a little bit of time, a little bit of breathing room, a little bit of thinking room, a little bit of zoom out and zoom back in in time. Even if you give yourself that gift, you’re going to feel the difference. So that’s your homework for this week. All right. Want to thank you for being here. I am super grateful every week that you keep coming back. You know, we’ve been doing this for, gosh, 10 years now, 11 years now together, and I don’t get to keep doing it if you don’t keep coming back. So I will be here next week with another guest to get you thinking the way Amber did, and I hope you will join me as well. All right, see you next week. That’s all. For this episode of AMI’s Build a Better Agency podcast, be sure to visit agencymanagementinstitute.com to learn more about our workshops, online courses and other ways we serve small to midsize agencies. Don’t forget to subscribe today so you don’t miss an episode.