5 key traits for a successful creative with Jamie Roberts

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Agency Management Institute community, where you’ll learn how to grow and scale your business, attract and retain the best talent, make more money and keep more of what you make. The Build A Better Agency podcast presented by White Label IQ is packed with insights on how small to mid-size agencies survive and thrive in today’s market. Bringing his 25 plus years of experience as both an agency owner and agency consultant, please welcome your host, Drew McLellan.

Drew McLellan:

Hey, everybody, Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute. Guess what, it’s another episode of Build A Better Agency. It occurs to me that I greet you the exact same way every episode, like you’re surprised that I’m bringing you another episode. Which I suspect given that you subscribe and you know it’s a brand new episode, that seems silly, but it’s habit. Anyway, I’ve got a great new episode for you. You are going to love this episode. This is somebody I’ve been wanting to bring to you for a while, but our schedules kept getting in the way of each other but we finally got it together today. So super excited to tell you a little bit about her and what she does because I think you’re going to find it fascinating. But before that, of course, I have other things to tell you.

One is we are now a few weeks out from the Build A Better Agency Summit. It was magic. It was so amazing to bring everybody together. The speakers absolutely crushed it. The content was remarkable, but even more than the content, and it was remarkable. But even more than the content was just the energy. All of these agency owners and leaders coming together in this spirit of community and collaboration and really falling over themselves to share what they know with each other. It was just so lovely in every way. I just can’t tell you, it was just joyful for me to be there and to just see everybody and all of the hugging and all of the love and all of the support that agency owners have for each other. It’s just the way I think it should be, and it’s really what AMI is all about.

Is creating this community where folks that you think of as your competitors are actually your greatest and most important secret weapon. Just it was really great. But, anyway, the reason I’m telling you all of that is for some of you, of course, you were there and you know that it was awesome, but for many of you, you missed it and we missed you. I know it’s the tail end of a pandemic, and I know a lot of you weren’t ready to travel. But I’m hoping that by May of 2022 that’s going to change. I want to let you know that tickets are already up on the website. We are selling registrations for the Build A Better Agency Summit 2022, which is going to be May 24th and 25th. If you’re an AMI member… Family day, which was awesome panel discussions, and then we all had dinner together.

If you’re a member, you are welcome to join us on Monday the 23rd for that. It’s going to be spectacular. I am working on the speaker docket now, but I promise you that we are going to have the same quality of speaker, the same quality of content and the same quality of community and connection. We are already about a third sold out, so we invited the folks who were there to grab tickets before we publicly announced it. We have kept the event at 300 people. We’ve already sold about 100 tickets. So please don’t wait. I know it’s going to sell out and I don’t want you to miss it. Head over to agencymanagementinstitute.com and then right in the upper left corner of the nav, you’re going to see BaBA Summit. Click there and you can register today.

By the way, the price just keeps going up, so grab your ticket now while you’re going to get it for several hundred dollars less than if you keep waiting. We’d love to have you join us, and I promise it’s going to be the same magic that it was this time. I absolutely promise that. The other thing I want to tell you about is, for many of you, you struggle with trying to decide if you want to niche, and if you do want to niche, what is the right niche? In working with some agency owners doing some coaching with them, I knew I needed a tool. They were stuck, so one night we were coaching together for two days. So one of the night after the first day, I was frustrated that I couldn’t help them think through the process of evaluating the niches better.

I hadn’t done as good a job as I wanted to. I actually created a tool, which is now on the website and available for all of you. Just go to agencymanagementinstitute.com/, and then this is all one word, nichecriteria, N-I-C-H-E, and then the word criteria, C-R-I-T-E-R-I-A. All you have to do is download it, it’s absolutely free. I think it will help you logically think through what makes sense for your agency, so it’s worth a try, so give that a spin. All right, let me tell you about our guest. Jamie Roberts has been a creative in agencies, large and small. She grew up on the art side of the business, and along the way in her career she realized that she actually had this gift, this ability to, with some thoughtful questions and some observations, to really figure out that all creatives are not wired the same.

And that there are some really unique nuances in every creative that dictate how they work and where they’re going to work best, the role that they’re going to serve best, the agency they should be at. She had all of this insight and realized that she could actually help agencies find the right creatives or understand the creatives that they already have. So she created a company called Rock That Creative Job, and now she helps agency owners really assess the talent on their team, find the right creative if they’re hiring. She also helps creatives find the right job. She’s just using her innate insights and a methodology that she’s developed to understand creatives at a completely different level, and it’s very unique.

When she was telling me about it, I got super excited because I think it’s going to be really valuable for you to hear her talk about it and for you to view the world through her lens as you think about your own team. I’m excited about this conversation. She also has a great passion for the work, and I think you are going to feel that coming through. Without further ado, I want to introduce you to Jamie Roberts and I want to jump right into the conversation, so let’s do it. Jamie, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us.

Jamie Roberts:

Thank you. I’m so excited to be here.

Drew McLellan:

Like I said, in the intro, we’re going to talk about the creative product that comes out of an agency and how you work with agency folks to help find the right people, fine tune the right people, get better creative. Talk a little bit about how you came to have this secret wealth of knowledge?

Jamie Roberts:

Yes, okay. If I can start from the beginning, it will probably give a little bit more context on who I am and why I’m super excited about this. Essentially, I always really wanted to go into some type of creative space ever since I was a kid. But I also really found myself from a very young age studying people, and so I felt like… even on the playground when I was a kid, it was I would just hang back and watch people and understand just the dynamics between them and how groups worked and how people worked individually. How teachers worked with the students and it was I always felt like I was like doing this little subject experimental like, “Day 43, subject is agitated when asked to leave the monkey bars.”

It was like I was always watching people. That paired with my love for design and art and creative took me through a little bit of a circuitous route in college, going through art education, fine art. I ended up in advertising because I realized that is the perfect marriage of those two things. Because what you’re developing, you really have to get into someone’s mind and understand what motivates them, drives them, makes them take action. I thought, “Oh my gosh, this is like the two things I’ve been most interested in, and now here they are together.”

Drew McLellan:

Serendipitous.

Jamie Roberts:

Yes, absolutely. That felt just super aligned and it took me six years to get out of college because I just decided I was going to take all the classes. I was going to take all the art classes, all the design classes, psychology. I just really wanted all of that to mesh together. Fast forward to where I am now, I spent 20 years in the advertising industry in a variety of roles. I started out as a designer and moved really quickly into people management within the first three years. I was asked to take on different assignments helping people with their work, helping creatives, junior level creatives, get better at what they’re doing. Helping them navigate the world of working professional, a lot of interns, things like that. I really I wasn’t sure what I was doing at that point, but I knew that I knew people and I knew how they interacted and I knew what made them tick.

I used that to just guide myself through this variety of creative management positions, and moving through art direction, creative direction, and eventually head of creative. What I really noticed at a certain point was I was so excited about other people’s career paths more than my own, and I was really interested in what made a certain environment successful for a certain person. That led me to where I am right now because COVID hit, layoffs happened, and I just took a pause and really assessed like, “What do I really enjoy about where I am right now?” It was like this intersection of helping people, being able to help creatives understand how to approach the work, how to sell themselves, how to get the right fit, how to have the right conversations with their employers or potential employers so that they both understand the expectations of the roles.

Also, just helping them understand that not every place is for everyone. I think that’s so important because there’s nothing worse than being in a role where you’re struggling, your manager is struggling, and you don’t really know what to do about it. Because there’s a dynamic there and you can’t really figure it out. I launched the coaching business that I have based on that. Through that, as I’m coaching people, I’m coaching them in interviewing and just having conversations about promotions, moving up, and this point in time, it was really interesting launching this during COVID because there was so many people who had gotten laid off unexpectedly. They’re starting over after 10 years, they have interviewed, and you’re like, “I don’t even have a portfolio. I don’t even know where to go from here.”

Like, “What do people want to see? How do I talk to people? I thought I would have this job forever, and now the world has changed.” Especially, with agencies, losing clients, gaining clients, having successes where you never thought you would have them, and now you have to pull the team in. It was just everybody was just really reactive, so I thought I felt like I could just provide this value for people. By speaking with my coaching clients, a lot of times I would get them at the point where they needed to practice for an interview. They needed help understanding, “Okay, well, what do I say? How do I talk about my work? This is what I’m going for.” I’m speaking with them and I’m reading the job description, and I’m thinking, “This person is going to hate this job.”

This person is not going to like this at all, but it’s at the end of the road where like it’s not really, at that point, my role to say, “You shouldn’t apply for this.” It’s like we’re down the road on that. They’re coming to me because they got an interview, they want to be ready, or they’re on the second round and they really want to nail it and-

Drew McLellan:

And they need a job.

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah, and they need a job and I’m thinking, “Why would you apply for that?” They’re excited about it and I’m thinking, “You’re not going to like this,” based on just the interactions and the conversations I’m having with them, how they work, how they think. It’s like this environment is going to eat you alive, or you’re going to be super bored and you’re going to wonder why you’re there in three months. But there was, obviously, there was a little bit of a frenzy when people are laid off and they don’t know what’s going on. But I thought, “Okay, so if we back up to how I approach building creative teams, I always had this method of these kinds of five core traits that create a successful creative.”

I would use them very informally in interviews. I did a lot of interviewing for my own team, a lot of building my own teams, but I also was pulled into other panel interviews. I noticed along the way I’m looking for different things. I’m looking for things that other people aren’t looking for in these interview panels and things that are deceiving. A lot of people interview great personality, “Oh, they’re great. They’re a culture fit. They’re great.” But how do they do the work? How do they execute the work? How do they think? That’s something that I feel like can be hidden and it doesn’t come out until later when you really you’re stuck and you have a deadline and then you have someone who can’t function in the role, in the way you thought they could.

So going through that process and experiencing it myself and realizing like, “Oh, I think I should formalize this.” I think it made sense to me to want to share this and to be able to share this with people who are hiring so they know what to look for, and I can help them evaluate talent in a way that’s a little more in depth than just the general skills assessments. Because those give you the… they all point to the same thing like, “Oh, this person’s imaginative, they’re creative, they’re innovative.” It’s like, “Well, we know that.”

Drew McLellan:

Well, and in theory, everybody applying to this job should check those boxes.

Jamie Roberts:

Exactly, exactly.

Drew McLellan:

How do I find the right one for me and my team and my clients?

Jamie Roberts:

That’s exactly right, and every environment is different and the environment and the client. It’s like those two things you’re creating Venn diagram and it has to really fit together. After having those experience with coaching clients and really thinking about my own experience over the last 20 years of doing this, it’s like, “Okay, I feel like I want to formalize this and I want to offer it to people to help them figure out how they can get the best fit.” Because knowing how someone thinks, how they process, how they communicate, how they ideate before you get them into those scenarios, you’re just going to fast track so much of your business because you’re not trying to struggle through the initial rounds of, “Okay, well, how are you going to brainstorm? Oh, how are you with this type of client?” You can ask someone that, but in an interview it’s often hidden. The person will say what you want them to say.

Drew McLellan:

Right, we all know the right answer to the question, right?

Jamie Roberts:

Exactly, exactly. It’s always like, “Oh, I’m great at that. Oh, yeah, I’ve done that before.” It’s like, “Okay, well, who doesn’t say that in an interview. The goal is to get the job.” My approach has always been to look for these core things, but as I clicked down a notch, what I realized was the key to this was that there’s a spectrum for each of these traits. Understanding it’s not about, “Do these people match the criteria for these five things?” They should, they really should. There might be an area that may need a little mentorship or a little holding if it’s someone that’s more junior, but it’s really about how the person expresses these traits, and there’s a spectrum there.

What that leads you to is there’s a place for everybody, and I really believe that there’s no bad creatives, there’s just bad fits. Everyone has like some super skill and it could be hidden because they just keep trying to cram themselves in a role that isn’t the right thing for them and how they think. I feel like that’s so hidden because creative recruiting is hard. It really is.

Drew McLellan:

It is, well, and a lot of times the people recruiting may or may not be creative themselves. Depending on the role there, especially, if they’re looking for a creative director, it’s probably an agency owner who may or may not have a creative bent.

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah, absolutely. There’s plenty of marketing agencies out there who are run by people who are marketers and have come up in the marketing world and they’re hiring the creative teams and they’ve never done the job. So how do they know what to look for? Or if you’re working with a recruiting agency and you have an external recruiter who is recruiting for all sorts of roles. They don’t know that deep dive. They don’t know what it’s like to be in it, and so the guidance they’re giving you is what they know but they’ve never experienced it and they’ve never… It’s only as good as what they’ve read essentially. I’m coming from a position of like I’ve experienced it, I’ve seen the struggles, I’ve seen the successes, and I’ve understood this model to be something that’s worked for me and it has worked for people on my team as they build teams.

I’ve helped other people build their teams, and it’s like, “Okay, look for these things and think about how this person expresses this.” What I’ve found is a lot of people aren’t able to suss that out, and so that’s when I thought I feel like the talent evaluations, I can provide that evaluation. It’s not like a quiz or you send the person a survey and then you get the five core strengths or whatever. You have to figure out what that means for your organization. This allows you to really dive into how that person is going to react to negative client feedback, how they’re going to handle fire drills and things that come up, and are they a reliable person? Are they able to pivot? All the things that you need, and not everyone can do.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, absolutely. Let’s talk about the five traits. If I’m an agency owner and I’m listening to the podcast, I’m thinking, “Okay, well, whether I hire you or not, what should I be looking for?” The first trait is adaptability, so talk a little bit about that. What does that look like? How does it manifest itself? What questions or what signs should I be looking for to suss out if they really are adaptive?

Jamie Roberts:

Adaptability, essentially, that’s just responding willingly to the demands of the moment. That’s how we interpret it. It’s just how do you change course? There’s a lot of people that say, “Oh, yeah, I’m totally adaptable.” It’s like, “Okay, great.” And you’ve seen that. But what I’m digging into is the spectrum of that. For adaptability, it’s really are you responsive or are you deliberative? I can give you an example of that from my own experience. I hired this creative writer for a role to work with a client. In those meetings, the client was the type of person that was like, okay, we’ll give you the feedback on the fly and then say, “What about if we did this?” And, “What do you think about this?”

It was like, they fancied themselves as a creative as well. They liked the back and forth and okay, great. Well, this isn’t what they do, but they feel like this is the fun part of interacting with us, so we’re just going to go with it. Well, this person was amazing, had a great portfolio, great personality just really easy fit in the team. But when we got them in the room, I realized that this person is more deliberative. When the client is saying, “Well, what do you think about this?” Like, “I don’t know about this headline, what if it’s more snappy?” Or kind of the vague general things that they would ask you, and the team was sort of expected to come up with, “Okay, well, what about if we change it to this?” Or they wanted to see things on the fly and this person didn’t engage at all.

It was like, oh, okay. Are they freaked out? Like what’s happening here? So that happened a couple of times and then you get the client feedback of, “I haven’t really gotten to know your new writer and they seem like they’re great, but we haven’t really understood like how they fit in.” It’s like, okay, that’s like code for who is this person, and why are they here, and why am I paying for them. It’s like, okay. At that point I really thought, all right, I need to figure out because this person is clearly adaptable when we’re all together working on these projects, but it’s more of a timeline. They’re deliberative. If they were a responsive person in that adaptability, like core trait, they will be someone who would be comfortable [crosstalk 00:22:02]-

Drew McLellan:

Pivot on a dime. Right.

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah. They’re able to pivot because what would happen was they would take all of this information away and they would go back and they would come up with a hundred ideas and they were amazing, but it was like they needed to process it. They were not someone who could do that in the room and so therefore great fit, wrong environment. They were just, okay, so that’s not the client that they should be working on. What we did was we just said, okay, we need to pivot them to someone else. We need to move… Figuring out what the client needs and who fits with that need. It was really interesting having these kinds of experiences because it’s like, oh, it’s not about the trait, it’s about how it’s expressed.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, interesting.

Jamie Roberts:

… and the environment that it’s in. So then you know that, and you know that person is… they’re still generating great work. It’s not someone you need to let go, but it’s just not the right fit for what the client and team need is. It’s very interesting.

Drew McLellan:

Or you learn to… I think sometimes we have expectations. We think everybody’s going to show up the way we show up.

Jamie Roberts:

Totally.

Drew McLellan:

Right? If they are more deliberate and I’m more responsive, part of my role as a supervisor, let’s say I’m a creative director and they’re like a senior art director or something else, I just need to know the kind of work and the kind of clients maybe they are a better fit for inside my environment. Right?

Jamie Roberts:

Exactly.

Drew McLellan:

So, yeah. So-

Jamie Roberts:

That’s exactly right.

Drew McLellan:

In the interview process, how would you find out if this person is more deliberate or more reactive?

Jamie Roberts:

It’s interesting because how I have sassed that out is it’s not the general interview questions, like tell me about a time when. Because everybody knows those. Everybody knows the answers to those. They make things up. It doesn’t make sense. It just sounds good. Really it’s more about getting that person talking and knowing what to look for. I’ve gotten really good at getting that person talking, and it’s not necessarily tell me a story about your work with XYZ client, or tell me about this project. It’s really getting to know them and understanding how they think and just relating to them on their level. That’s something that I’ve…

Drew McLellan:

Okay, so I’m going to put you on the spot.

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah.

Drew McLellan:

Am I more deliberate or reactive? Talk to me.

Jamie Roberts:

Okay. Let’s see. How would I ask you? I think-

Drew McLellan:

I’m a writer by background, if that helps.

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah. I feel like you may have started out being more deliberative and then you, you seem more responsive now, but because I feel like you’re a thinker. You’re definitely someone who’s like introspective, goes in depth. But by nature of your role, you’ve moved into the more responsive place. But I mean, this is without me asking you questions. This is like my quick read on you.

Drew McLellan:

Right. This is you with a crystal ball.

Jamie Roberts:

Totally.

Drew McLellan:

But if I was a job candidate, how would know that?

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah. Well essentially I would have a dialogue about your work. Then we would talk about like, “Okay, well, tell me about your experience. What was college like for you? And do you have those crazy projects that you stayed up all night for, or…? Those types of things where it’s life scenarios, because that’s going to influence how you think. It’s not just like how I approach this project is the only time we think this way. It’s just how you think about everything. So really understanding that, but then turning it into… flipping it inside out and saying, “Okay, well, how does that apply to creative?” That’s what I’ve been able to try and figure out through the series of questions. There’s no set exam that I give someone.

Drew McLellan:

Right. Yeah, I know you don’t have a list of questions right? Yeah.

Jamie Roberts:

Exactly. But it’s more about, “Tell me about this.” Like, “Oh yeah, you did this job, or you worked for…” A lot of times people will have extra things on their resume or in their portfolio or their websites. I start to dig into those and then pull it back into the creative, and you can see the patterns emerge. Because how they’re thinking about how they volunteered for something, how they love wind surfing, that goes back into how they approach work or how they react with clients. Just asking questions like, “Oh yeah. Did you ever have… I had this one professor that made us do these crazy things and it was just, I just really didn’t like it. Does that person agree with you or not?”

Are they, “Oh, no, that was great. I loved the all nighters.” Or, “I really loved the dialogue in the room and the critiques. That used to energize me.” So just sort of pulling it out in different ways and then pushing it back into the conversation about the creative. It helps you figure out really how that person thinks, so that way you’re not surprised when you get them in the room with that client, and you’re like why haven’t they said anything in 25 minutes? So yeah.

Drew McLellan:

You’re right. I’m quite reactive. But…

Jamie Roberts:

I figured. I figured.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Right. The second trait is curiosity. Talk to us a little bit about that.

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah. Curiosity is… That’s an interesting one. Because that really is like…

Drew McLellan:

Because every agency thinks every employee should be curious, right?

Jamie Roberts:

Right. Of course.

Drew McLellan:

But I suspect we are not all curious in the same way.

Jamie Roberts:

No, no, absolutely. You’re generating new creative concepts, you’re improving things, but… There’s the abstraction of curiosity and then there’s the analytical approach to it. Those two things are… You’re abstractly curious, which means you like a lot of different things, you a lot of new things, a wide variety of stuff to just sort of inspire you. You’re always looking for the new thing, the new gadget, the whatever trend it is, you’re on TikTok, you’re looking at all… And then you have the analytical, which is interestingly enough, where I’ve sort of placed myself on all of these things too right?

Drew McLellan:

Right. Of course, you have [crosstalk 00:28:08].

Jamie Roberts:

I’ve done these self-assessment for several years. Analytical it’s more about the deep dive into what you’re doing. It’s like you are super curious, but you’re just drive in into this thing really hard because you really… You’re pulling outside information in, but it really is more of a focused approach. And it’s like for me, a lot of times, I have a left brain right brain split. I’ll have a spreadsheet of all of my creative concepts. It’s more of an analytical approach than just this collage effect that maybe abstraction would have. That’s just sort of a visual way of explaining it. But so making sure that you have someone…

If your organization really thrives on what is new and different and interesting, and you’re always trying to innovate for your clients, you really want someone who’s more of abstractly curious. If your clients are more of like this is our brand, we need to match this. We need to go deep. You need an analytically curious person.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah more of a B2B model. Yeah.

Jamie Roberts:

Yes.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Jamie Roberts:

Yes. Exactly. I mean, you can have someone whose portfolio it’s like, “Oh my God, it’s great.” They seem this amazingly creative person, but if they’re squashed into the analytical sort of curious nature, they’re going to feel stifled. They’re going to feel unhappy. You’re going to feel unhappy. You’re not going to know why, because they’re a great creative person and they turn out awesome work. Why isn’t it working out here? But just understanding that and so having that knowledge just helps you realize, “Okay, is this the right fit? Do I need to sort of guide them? How do I approach this?”

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. All right. The third one is agility. Again, we would think all creatives need to be agile. They need to be able to move around very quickly, so what’s the spectrum there?

Jamie Roberts:

The spectrum there is so you’re agile. I think if you’re working in creative you are expected to be agile. Not everyone is in the beginning. [crosstalk 00:30:23]

Drew McLellan:

No. Especially kids right out of school right?

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah. It takes you five house to do a logo when you’re like… You still don’t know what you’re doing. The spectrum, there is people versus process. This is a really interesting one that I’ve experienced. Does someone… When they’re asked to pivot, because it’s… What you’re doing is you’re navigating really large quantities of information, and you need to stay focused on what’s important at any given time. That’s how we define agility. Do you go to the person or the process? Is your natural inclination to say, the client’s made changes. We have to adjust the brief, we have to do these things. You’re going to the process, you’re changing the things, or are you thinking, “Okay, who’s involved in this? I need to have a conversation with this person. I need to connect with this person.”

You’re more focused on the people involved. A lot of times if you’re one or the other, most people are, they’re thinking about who they need to call, who they need to contact, how you can pull this together, or you’re thinking about the, how do we actually iron it out and do the work. In an environment where it’s a more collaborative environment, and you’re just focusing on the process. What happens is you end up alienating yourself from the people around you who are trying to solve this thing. And you’re like, “I’m going to go to my desk and figure out how we can update the brief and we can do these things.”

And you’re not part of that and I’ve seen that happen, and people think, “Well, what happened to that person? Why are they not part of this conversation?” “They should be talking to so-and-so. We should be figuring this thing out.” But that’s not how they think, because they’re worried about, “Okay, well, A to B to C to D is this, so we need to figure that out.” It is a little more analytical to go to the process. What happens is the process people tend to ignore the people, people.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, right.

Jamie Roberts:

And the people, people sometimes tend to ignore the process.

Drew McLellan:

The process right.

Jamie Roberts:

Are like, “Hooray, we figured it out, it’s awesome,” but who’s going to do it? What’s the plan to get it done? What are the action items that came out of this conversation and all the discussions we’ve had with other affected stakeholders or parties. You’re just like, “Taadaa! We’re done and it’s magical.” It’s like well no, that’s not how that works. You can’t just have the big thought and then go away and assume it’s just going to materialize. Knowing with agility what someone goes to is just going to help you as a manager and a business owner figure out where the hole might be. It’s not necessarily that that person always is going to alienate themselves or always is going to forget something. But you know that person is going to the people, so you need to have your eye on the process so that doesn’t get lost right?

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Jamie Roberts:

If the person is going to the process, you need to make sure that the stakeholders are involved in the conversations were had, because that person is already figuring out the map to like, “Okay, well we need to go back. We need to redo this copy. We need to update the site.” It’s like, no, no, we need to tell everyone this. You might have to be the communicator in that case. Just knowing these things, it’s just going to help you move things along more smoothly because you know how that person thinks.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Well, and again, it’s about roles, right? On a biz dev team or something like that, you would sort of assign the role who’s the keeper of the process versus who’s the cheerleader of the team, for example.

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah, totally.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Jamie Roberts:

As long as yeah, you know that those people are good at that, because a lot of times it’s just sort of, whoever’s been there, whoever falls into the role, whoever is an extroverted person. I feel the extroverts and introverts get bucketed. And its like…

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Not always that. Yeah. As we’re talking and then I want to take a break, but as we’re talking, I’m thinking, I know that your business model is helping agency owners find the right creative talent. But I also have to think that if I have a creative on staff that is doing good work, but I can’t quite understand them or whatever, you coming in and helping me sort of put them on the proverbial psychology couch and understand them better would allow us to work better, to get better work, to make them stick around longer, which is so critical right now with retention being on top of everybody’s mind.

Jamie Roberts:

Oh my God. Absolutely. Yeah. I think that’s such an emotional thing because if you have someone and you really them and you’re trying to figure out how to… The organization’s changing and you’re trying to figure out how they fit into sort of new things, new clients, new culture, this just allows you to dig deeper and also have those conversations so you guys have the same expectations. It feels better than just throwing darts and being like, “Are you good at this? Maybe I’ll put you here. Maybe this is your client.” That feels stressful. It doesn’t feel great when you have a tenured person or someone who’s been super loyal, and you’re like, well, maybe I’ll just shove you over here. You’re guessing. It doesn’t feel good for either party. Being able to that conversation with someone in the role is really successful because they have been in the organization and they’ve-

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, you have context. Yeah.

Jamie Roberts:

[crosstalk 00:35:37]. Yeah, exactly. I get a lot more information, so I can really help you figure that out, even deeper, you know?

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. All right. Let’s take a quick break and then we’re going to come back about and talk about the fourth trait. I’m really sorry to interrupt the show because I know that you are into it, but I promise we’ll get right back to it. But I couldn’t miss this opportunity to tell you about a workshop that we’re teaching to build and nurture your agency sales funnel. This is a workshop that I teach with Stephen Woessner and it is sort of the next step after you read our book, Sell with Authority. This is all about building a new business machine that works every day to attract right fit clients, right to your front door. This workshop is a little different than some of our workshops. This is much more a hands-on workshop. There’s a lot of homework that you’re going to actually do in the workshop, because we want you to leave the two days with a completed marketing and sales plan.

I’m talking tactics, I’m talking timetable, I’m talking, who’s going to do what at your agency. You are going to leave with it, built out and ready to implement the very next week. We know that if we taught you how to do it, but we didn’t make you do it in the workshop, by the time you got back to the office and all the craziness that waits for you there, it would never get done. That’s why we built this workshop this way and it’s been very well received, and in fact, it’s backed by popular demand. This workshop is January 20th and 21st in Orlando, Florida on beautiful Disney Property. If you are ready to kick off the new year, being serious about biz dev and really sort of separating out prospects who aren’t that good for you, or aren’t going to be profitable for the ones that are going to love you, stay with you and help you make money, come to the workshop, let us show you how, all right? Let’s get back to the show.

All right, we’re back. Jamie and I are talking about the fact that every creative is not created the same and that when you understand sort of how they’re wired and what makes them tick, you can obviously help them be more successful in your organization. In the interview process, you can find the one that’s the right fit for your shop and sort of the style of your shop. Then if you already have somebody on staff the better you can understand them, the more successful they’re going to be, the more successful the agency is going to be. This has been fascinating so far so, all right, so you’ve got adaptability right. On the spectrum of curiosity, abstract or analytical… In fairness for the listeners, you and I have actually had several lengthy conversations so you’re not really doing this like Houdini pulling something out of a hat.

Jamie Roberts:

Right.

Drew McLellan:

I don’t want to turn this into a parlor tricks. I know it’s a skill that you have, but you also have sort of an innate sense of people so I’m curious. On the curiosity that spectrum was abstract or analytical.

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah. For you, I feel like you are more abstract. I feel like you’re forced to be analytical as a business owner, what you do. But I feel there is a lot of abstraction in the way that you think. You’re pulling from a lot of different areas. Just the way that you approach what you do tells me that you’re up here, but you have to get into the weeds. You have to get into the analytical otherwise nothing happens.

Drew McLellan:

I do, but I don’t like it. You’re correct. I like a lot of different stimulus at all times. And I really believe as a writer, the more I can know about a million different things, it’s like that random fact will serve me someday, so I’m just going to tuck that away in my mental file cabinet, because I’m going to find it someday. Yeah.

Jamie Roberts:

Totally. Yeah.

Drew McLellan:

Okay. So on agility it’s people or process.

Jamie Roberts:

Oh, I feel you’re people. You’re people. Yeah. That’s easy read for me.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, I know.

Jamie Roberts:

The first 30 seconds of our first conversation it’s like that’s where you go.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah I know. Process is not my gift for sure. Yeah. All right. The fourth T trait for a successful creative is confidence.

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah. This one is a super interesting one. Honestly, one of the ones that is really important in an agency environment, because it’s likely you’re going to put someone in front of your client. It’s not as important in an in-house, people are a little more hidden. They can slowly develop the confidence and not be thrown into the deep end of the pool. But if you’re looking for someone who’s going to represent your organization, this is the one that you really should focus on. The ends of the spectrum here are very interesting. I have a little bit of experience with this one directly, with someone that directly reported to me. It’s collaborative or independent.

Drew McLellan:

Tell us about that.

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah. I had a designer who was absolutely, amazingly talented, like talented in every possible way, just mind-blowingly talented and this person knew it and they were just, they were great at talking about their work. They were great at explaining to their ideas and just coming up with new ideas and executing it. It was like end to end, they were awesome. What they struggled with was, so they were independently confident, essentially. They knew they were good. They knew they were talented and they had the confidence and so interviewing, showing work.

They were great. Where they struggled was on the collaborative end of the spectrum. The collaborative end is more around defending your work, working in a group, critiques, group discussions, things like that, where you need to show up as confident there, so that you can represent your organization or your team. If you’re collaboratively confident, you’re confident about the broader spectrum. If you’re independently confident, you’re confident about yourself and your work, but not necessarily enough to defend it.

What that led to with my designer was, this person needed someone above them to be able to speak about the work, when there was a bottleneck. What we learned was, “Okay, this person is great.” The way they would talk to you one-on-one was just amazing. Their brain would just work so fast, it was like, “Wow, you are so good at this. You’re just cruising along.” But then when you get them in front of a client, or even a project manager, which was interesting, it was like, they didn’t know how to talk about the work or defend their decisions in a group environment. They felt just self-conscious. They felt a little uncomfortable.

Drew McLellan:

Interesting.

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah, it was really interesting because it’s like, “Well, one-on-one you’re great.” It’s like you know you’re great. But then when-

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. It’s like the ability to whisper versus shout.

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah, yeah.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, interesting.

Jamie Roberts:

It was really interesting. What that meant was, “Okay, well, this person, we just need to make sure that there’s an art director above them, or a senior designer or someone who is able to vocalize those things and can also help them.” It’s not that they were not great at their job. It was just realizing you need someone above them. This can’t be the only person. This can’t be your go-to person for account managers and clients. You need someone else there. At some point, this person may move to the collaboratively confident space, but they may not.

There are some people who just, they just don’t feel comfortable there and they’re creative geniuses, but they’re just never going to feel comfortable there and so trying to force them into a role, where they need to present work in front of multiple people, they need to defend things, they need to have uncomfortable conversations with account managers, whatever it is, they’re going to be upset and they’re going to be upset all the time. That’s what I found this person would, there was some crying. There was some crying, and so it’s like, no one wants to see that.

Drew McLellan:

We don’t need to cry in a client meeting.

Jamie Roberts:

No, we do not.

Drew McLellan:

There’s no crying in client meetings. Yeah.

Jamie Roberts:

No, there is no. There should be no crying ever. That’s no one’s goal to have their employees crying. Once I realized…

Drew McLellan:

I know a couple of agency owners, but we don’t have to go there. I’m just kidding. Just kidding. Those of you who are listening, I’m not talking about you.

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah, it was just really like, “Okay, now I understand.” That experience was 10 years ago, and so it really made me think, “All right, I see what’s going on here. It’s not confidence. It’s not just confidence.” There’s the spectrum, and so understanding that just helps you place the person-

Drew McLellan:

In the right role.

Jamie Roberts:

… and you know what you’re going to get.

Drew McLellan:

Well, it’s interesting as you’ve been going through these, I’ve been asking myself, do people shift from one to the other? But this how they’re hardwired.

Jamie Roberts:

It is. It kind of is. I think when they shift is like, if you bring someone in that’s junior level.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, sure, because they’re maturing into it, yeah.

Jamie Roberts:

Yes, exactly. But the thing is, once you know these things, if you bring someone in that’s very adaptable and responsive and abstractly curious and goes to people with agility, but is not collaboratively confident, it’s like, “Okay, so that’s the area that you just have to pay attention to.” It just helps you figure out, “This is where I maybe have to do a little more handholding, a little more mentorship, or put them with someone who they can learn from.” Then they may blossom out of that. Or they just may feel comfortable where they are, and they’re fine having the other person speak for them. But it really helps you understand how they think and how they develop their work.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. All right. Before we get to the last one, am I independent or collaborative?

Jamie Roberts:

I think you’re collaborative. I think you’re collaboratively confident because we’re doing this, so like…

Drew McLellan:

That’s right. I guess that’s showing me we’re doing this on the cuff, right? Yeah.

Jamie Roberts:

Exactly, exactly.

Drew McLellan:

All right. The last one is a big one, commitment.

Jamie Roberts:

Oh yeah. That’s a really interesting one. I think that one is so… Commitment is your aspiration to have mastery in the creative field that you’re in, right?

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, yeah.

Jamie Roberts:

And your willingness to continue to improve your skills, your abilities over time. Essentially, do you want to do this job or are you just a barista, maybe you’re going to check out the world of design or writing? Maybe you’re going to bounce to something else in two months.

Drew McLellan:

Well, I think a lot of employers are seeing that right now. Some of this is COVID related, right?

Jamie Roberts:

Oh, totally.

Drew McLellan:

But it probably was an underlying trait and COVID just magnified it.

Jamie Roberts:

Oh yeah, definitely. It really smoked it out. It was just like hey… People… You sit back and you’re like, “You know what, I’m not committed to this. I don’t like it. I haven’t liked it for a long time and I’m going to find something else,” which is a benefit for everyone, even though it’s difficult, but at the same time, you do have people who are committed and then you’re not struggling with someone who you’re trying to keep interested in what you’re doing, so the spectrum of broad and deep. This actually helps you as an employer, figure out if this person is looking for some type of career trajectory that you’re able to provide.

For smaller agencies, there might not be the junior, senior lead, art director, associate credit director or credit… There might not be that career path for them. Knowing that going in that in six months, the person is going to be like, “What’s next? Where am I going now?”

Drew McLellan:

If you don’t have that trajectory of career, but there’s somebody who has a deep commitment, then you have to find other ways to give them prizes to win, to keep getting better, even if it’s not a title or something else, but it’s new challenges for them. Because for them, part of the commitment, from what I’m understanding you saying is, I want to keep getting better.

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Broad would be essentially looking beyond your single area of expertise. If you’re coming in as a designer and it’s like, “Maybe I want to move to UX.” I mean…

Drew McLellan:

Or photography or…

Jamie Roberts:

Or photography or I love illustration and I feel like that’s a skill I want to push forward. I want to go that route. I’ve seen designers that move into writing spaces, because they realize that they’re great at that. Or they move into writing phases and then they’re like, “You know what, I feel like I want to go into something totally different,” and then they just… They’re trying to learn a really broad range of things. Then you have someone who wants to just absolutely be the best graphic designer that they can possibly be or the best copywriter, or they want to go to every conference, they want to take every course, they want to learn every… They want to watch every tutorial.

I’ve definitely had those people on my team that’s like every free minute, they’re just learning new tools and learning new tips and sharing it with their friends. They can’t get enough of what they do and they’re happy there. The flip side of having that person who’s happy where they are is that, you are not going to move them up because they don’t want to take on direct reports. They want to do what they do, and so how are you going to keep them interested without moving them up? If you’re an organization where you can provide promotions, that’s usually the goal for people is to move to the next one.

Drew McLellan:

Well, normally that’s where they make more money and find the blank. It’s also about, how do you reward them and make them feel good about the fact that they’re not changing their title or their role or whatever, right?

Jamie Roberts:

Right.

Drew McLellan:

That they just are the subject matter expert.

Jamie Roberts:

Yes. That’s exactly it.

Drew McLellan:

How many times have we seen people promote somebody out of their excellence into a place where they’re mediocre?

Jamie Roberts:

Oh my god, it’s so sad. It’s so sad. It hurts to see that because you’re like, “Oh no, no, no, no, no,” because they don’t know what to do. That person is great and they want to keep them and they feel like, “Well, now what if I just made you a manager?” That person has no interest in being a manager.

Drew McLellan:

But they also may not even realize that.

Jamie Roberts:

Right.

Drew McLellan:

They think that’s how they grow in their career and how they make more money and that’s what they’re supposed to do. It’s like, you go to college and then you get married and you have a house, and then you have a baby. It’s like there’s this trajectory that we’ve all been told, this is the life that you live and professionally we’ve been told that too.

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I do remember in college, I remember very clearly, the professor my senior year was like, “This is the essential… If you’re a graphic designer, this is the direction you’re going to go.” It was like, I remember writing that down and being like, “I want to do every one of these roles.” It was like, that was my goal. Okay, I’m here. I’m going to go here and I’m going to go here and I’m going to… It was like, when I got to the end, it was like, “Okay-

Drew McLellan:

Now what?

Jamie Roberts:

… cool. What am I doing now? I guess I’ll do this somewhere else. I’ll do it somewhere else again.” It was like, and that led me to where I am now, where it’s like, maybe I do something different, but I use my knowledge and experience of that, and actually bring it forward and help people who are still doing that. So just merging those worlds, but you’re totally right about that trajectory of like, this is how it works. It’s really not how it works for everyone. That broad and deep commitment spectrum really helps you figure out before you bring someone in, if you’re going to be able to retain them, because-

Drew McLellan:

Well, think about-

Jamie Roberts:

… it’s hard.

Drew McLellan:

… all the pressure of that would take off of an agency owner if they have this talented writer, who’s a great writer. Owner’s worried about losing them, thinks they have to promote them, but either doesn’t have the room, the space, the money. The writer doesn’t, really shouldn’t be promoted anyway. It just takes so much pressure off if you were like, “Oh, I just have to make them a better writer. I need to invest in sending them to a workshop or a class or a thing, and show them that I just want to help them keep getting better.”

Jamie Roberts:

Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Knowing is half the battle, right? Once you know what to do, then you can do it. Then you don’t have to spend time trying to figure out, is this the thing? Is this the thing? Then that person is more and more disinterested, because they’ve hit the end of where they are in their current position, and they’re not getting what they need to feel successful. It just makes it easier for both parties to understand that.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. This is fascinating, because I think about the conversations I have with agency owners every day and the struggles they have with their team. So much of it is, they don’t have the context of how to understand.

Jamie Roberts:

Totally.

Drew McLellan:

They’re inside the bottle, the expression, you can’t see the outside of the label accurately if you’re inside the beer bottle. They’re inside the bottle with this person. They’ve known them for a while, or they’re a complete stranger and they’re interviewing. In either case the agency owner is ill-equipped to figure out all of these things, which I think is part of the gift that you offer is that, you have this very unique lens that you can look at somebody and say, “Oh, here are the levers to pull.”

Jamie Roberts:

Totally. Totally. This is what will light this person up

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, and keep them around for a long time, and let them do their best work.

Jamie Roberts:

Yes. That’s the goal. Nobody is in this space because it’s like, “We’re going to make a bazillion dollars.” It’s like, “We love what we do and absolutely want do.”

Drew McLellan:

Right, this is a calling. This is not about getting rich.

Jamie Roberts:

No. No, it definitely isn’t. Having gone through that myself and experiencing all of these things with my own career trajectory, and then helping other people do that, it’s like, “Oh yeah, I can spot this pretty quickly.” Just having the conversations with people, it’s very natural because I’ve had to do this on my own team. When you have a team and it’s like, someone doesn’t understand how to lead this other person and you just have to provide the context, well, no it’s because they do this and they want this and then they go, and then it solves it. It’s like, okay. I always felt like I’m providing the x-ray vision of, “Well, this is where you need to take that person, and this is what they want.” It’s so much easier and it…

Drew McLellan:

I was going to say just simplifies everything.

Jamie Roberts:

Yes. Yes. There’s so much less stress, because that’s the hardest part is, you’re trying to work.

Drew McLellan:

People management.

Jamie Roberts:

Yes. It’s the hardest part.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. This is awesome. Okay. Am I my broad or deep?

Jamie Roberts:

Oh, you’re broad.

Drew McLellan:

Oh, my gosh.

Jamie Roberts:

Oh, I mean come on now. Come on now.

Drew McLellan:

You guys are listening and you can’t see her expression, but she just looked at me like I was a more like, “Oh my god, you’re broad.”

Jamie Roberts:

I mean please, because I know you started out as a writer and now you’re on a podcast, so clearly that tells me that you are just like, “I’m just going to do the same thing.” Yeah. That’s a given.

Drew McLellan:

You’re five for five. That’s impressive. Yeah, nicely done. By the way, I did not warn you that I was going to do that. We did not talk about it.

Jamie Roberts:

No.

Drew McLellan:

I actually didn’t decide it until you were talking about it, then I was like, “Oh, I wonder which one I am?” I was like, “Oh, I’m going to see what Jamie thinks.”

Jamie Roberts:

Totally. That’s the natural inclination where someone does a test, you’re like, “What’s my score?”

Drew McLellan:

That’s right. Am I unicorn or a tiger? Right. Yeah.

Jamie Roberts:

Totally. Evidently. That’s exactly right. Yeah. It’s… Oh, go ahead.

Drew McLellan:

This is fascinating. I feel like we just have scratched the surface and I know you have a whole methodology around how you do this. If people want to learn more about your work, if they want to follow you, if they want to connect with you, if they want to reach out and talk to you about a creative that they have on their team, or if they’re in the process of hiring, how do people connect with you?

Jamie Roberts:

Well, essentially you can go to my website. I have all my information there. It’s rockthatcreativejob.com. There’s a button at the top that says employer, click that. The entire page is for you. It’ll tell you the overview of all of this. You can either set up a call with me. We can do a zoom call or we can just, email back and forth, whatever you have time for. I’m trying to make it super easy for people to just say, “Okay, you know what, this sounds good. I want to just set up a call,” and then we’ll just chat about this for a little bit, and we can figure out where to go from there.

Just getting started is sometimes the hard part, and you don’t need to have everything pulled together. If you just want to give me your thoughts on like, “I don’t know if I need this, but maybe this is where we could work on this. I’m not really sure.” I can just give you my two cents and it’s a free conversation, and I’m not going to charge you for any of that. Just, I want to make sure that we’re both starting out at the same point, and the expectations of what’s going to happen are laid out so that we both feel really good about what’s going to happen, and how I can help you.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I just got to tell you, I don’t even remember how we first met. Did you just send me an email? Is that how we started?

Jamie Roberts:

Yes. Well, I spoke with… Oh, the Unconference, I spoke…

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

Jamie Roberts:

I was there and then networked with a few people and then someone gave me your name and said, “You have to talk to this person because this is just a great person for you to bounce ideas off of,” and so there we are.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Actually, that’s how it started. We just started talking about your business and I was like, “Oh my god, you have to come on the podcast and talk about this.” Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all of this.

Jamie Roberts:

Oh, thank you.

Drew McLellan:

This is such good and important information for people to have. The insights that you have and the ability, I think sometimes… I know you have a methodology, but I also think you have an instinct about this work.

Jamie Roberts:

I do.

Drew McLellan:

It comes from the years of you being inside the business and doing the work and supervising people. But you bring both the methodology and the instinct. You bring both the qualitative and the quantitative together, and I think that’s what makes you uniquely qualified to do this work.

Jamie Roberts:

Yeah. I definitely have a strong intuition and I’ve been told by people that like, “You’re the everyone whisper. You can figure out…” Someone said that to me a few years ago and I was like, “Oh, okay. That’s loaded.”

Drew McLellan:

That’s a lot of pressure.

Jamie Roberts:

Exactly. I’m like, “Oh, all right.” I’m like I better be good… But it just it’s so natural to me just talking with someone it’s like, “Okay, I know exactly what you like, what you don’t like, what’s going to help you.” Being able to develop this model and use it to help people figure out how to run their business more efficiently, how to help the creatives that work for them, and making the creatives happier and more successful in their work, because that’s what they want. Everyone wants to do the best work possible. That’s the goal, and so being able to use this to get that result is, I’m so excited about it.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, I was going to say it’s a shame you don’t have any passion around this.

Jamie Roberts:

I know. It’s just the thing I do on the side.

Drew McLellan:

This has been awesome. Thank you. Thanks so much for being on the show-

Jamie Roberts:

Thank you.

Drew McLellan:

… and sharing everything. It was a great conversation and I know-

Jamie Roberts:

It was super fun.

Drew McLellan:

… we could probably go on for another four hours, but people have work to do so we have to stop.

Jamie Roberts:

They do. I understand. Yeah.

Drew McLellan:

All right, sorry. We’re wrapping this up, I’m sorry people. All right. Let me wrap it up. Many thanks to Jamie for being on the show. This does wrap up another episode of Build a Better Agency and I am so glad you were here for this. I know that you are thinking about people. I know that as she was describing people, first of all, you were checking out your own scores I know that. But you were also thinking about the people on your team and you were trying to figure it out.

That curiosity, that understanding that everyone is not cut out of the same mold, I think is the start of being a better owner, of being a better boss, of being a better leader is recognizing that at the end of the day, the more we understand about our people, the more we can help them do what they want to do best, that serves everybody. It serves the agency. It serves our employees. It serves our clients. I strongly encourage you to head over to Jamie’s website and find out more about what she does, but just let all this ruminate in your head a little bit.

Hopefully you got some insights into some folks on your team, as well as you were listening, but I’d love to hear how you put this into play, how you use this to your advantage, because I’m always about bringing you folks who can give you really practical, tangible counsel and things that you can put into play. We absolutely did that today. I am so grateful to you that you hung out with us today. I know how busy you are. I know I say this pretty much in every episode, but I want you to know that I get how crazy your life is and that you, even if you’ve listened to us at four times the speed, which several people tell me that they do, that doesn’t hurt my feelings at all.

I’m happy you’re consuming the content and that you find it valuable. It’s a privilege to hang out with you every week. I don’t take that for granted. Before I let you go, a huge shout out to our friends at White Label IQ, as you know, they are the presenting sponsor and have been for a couple of years. What they do is, they do white label design, dev and PPC for agencies and many AMI agencies swear by them. You can learn more about them and get a special… some free hours actually of their work, if you go to whitelabeliq.com/ami. Check them out and if you go make sure you tell them that you love the podcast, okay? Thank you so much for listening.

I promise I’ll be back with a great guest next week as well, and we will get you thinking about your business in a different way. In the meantime, you guys know how to track me down. I’m on all the socials. You can email me. You can send me a carrier pigeon. I promise I will answer as quickly as I can, and I’ll be back next week to talk to you again. Thanks for listening. That’s a wrap for this week’s episode of Build a Better Agency. Visit agencymanagementinstitute.com to check out our workshops, coaching packages, and all the other ways we serve agencies just like yours. Thanks for listening.