Kelly Reynolds

Welcome to the Get your act together podcast. Well, let me start again. Welcome to the Get your act together podcast. I'm your host, Kelly Reynolds. And today we have another episode of our agency series. And I am welcoming to the podcast. Mary's are gearing up start gearing consulting. Hi, Mary, how are you? Hi, Kelly, how are you doing? I'm good. So happy to have you here. Can you introduce yourself and a little bit about your business? Yes,

 

Mary Zargarian

I am Mary Zargarian. I am the CEO and agency owner for Zargarian and consulting. And what we do is help individuals, teams and organizations leverage the systems that they are investing in to the fullest so that way they can improve communication and collaboration, just overall effectiveness towards what they're trying to achieve.

 

Kelly Reynolds

Awesome. Those these are things I love so so first off, why are you an agency? Why did you go that route instead of another? You know, of the millions of other ways you could have gone?

 

Mary Zargarian

Yes, I'm actually when I started my business, I was a solopreneur. I was actually a solopreneur heading into this year, just doing things being a great service provider in OBM. To my clients in about February. I was getting it was a good thing. I was getting a lot of inquiries, and a lot of coaches because that was the niche that we were serving at that time. A lot of coaches coming to us saying like we need the help. And being a people pleaser, myself. But I couldn't turn people away. I felt horrible. I was like we can help so many people if I just had the right team. And that was the moment where I realized it's time. It was always part of the conversation. My husband and I are always talking about my vision for this business. It was always a long term thought I had. And it just organically happened. It felt like overnight this year, which is really great. I love leading a team. I love mentoring and helping others. So having an agency just felt natural.

 

Kelly Reynolds

That's great. Yeah, I think that I think that's the most intentional answer I've ever gotten on when I asked that question, because so many people were like, I don't know, I had too much work. You said that. But you had that idea that it was going to get there someday?

 

Mary Zargarian

Yes. Yeah. It just got there a lot faster than I thought it did. I thought it would.

 

Kelly Reynolds

Yeah. Why did you want to be an agency though? Like, especially since it was more of an intentional decision for you like, what about it appealed to, when I started my business, actually, oh, my goodness, back in 2018. I started it by being a coach and a coach for women, I spent a lot of time in my business was a side business. For a while while I was in corporate spent a lot of time focusing on how I help women truly understand where their power and authority and desires were with what they do professionally and how that married really well with what they wanted to do with their own personal lives. And I love being able to do that. Now, as an agency owner, we're not just doing that for the businesses that we support, but we're doing it for our own internal team and being able to have my team, they're great business owners themselves. But now they get to be intrapreneurs. And really thrive in an environment where we're sharing best practices. We're communicating and supporting each other. Now they don't feel like they have to be the only person with all of the answers for their for our clients. They have a whole support network behind the scenes that we tap into. So I think leadership, I know a lot of people don't naturally gravitate to that. For me, it feels good to be able to mentor and share experiences and be like, That's a great question. Let's figure that out together.

 

Kelly Reynolds

Yeah, I love that part of it as well. I love helping my team because I have a team of contractors. So I love helping them build their businesses as well, like encouraging them sharing resources, that kind of thing. So yeah, I love that, that. I think some people that go into agency, they shy away from agency because they are scared of the leadership management part. And you instead are running toward agency, because right because of that part, 

 

Mary Zargarian

I love that part. And I really enjoyed that. When I was in corporate. I was a director on the team. I was in training and development. And so I naturally that was what I did every single day for others. But within my team, I would work cross functionally with about 20 different individuals to get the work done that we were doing and they weren't direct reports of mine, but I really enjoyed the process of like leading by mentoring coaching at getting to know who they are and what motivates them and being able to help play that up more and I I feel like we had a different level of respect and trust because I wasn't their direct manager. Now I know that in an agency, we do lead, we do direct work. But it's been really rewarding to see that. See that process open up.

 

Kelly Reynolds

Yeah, I mean, totally. And I think that you probably have a little bit more of an easier time. Maybe, I guess I should ask this. Do you have an easier time giving away that work? Coming from being a solopreneur? I'm going to an agency. Is it harder or easier for you? Do you think to let go of the work since you do love that leadership part?

 

Mary Zargarian

That's a great question, I will share that there have been different stages of this process this year, where I have been able to fully like step out and celebrate that. And where I've, honestly, I've inserted myself back in probably more than I should have. So it's, it's I know, it's a learning process, especially with a new agency and a new team. But that's also because we went through a rebrand to this summer, we've shifted our offers a little bit from what we originally started doing at the beginning of the year. So it's a learning process for both of us. And now we're again at the stage where I say, okay, great, like we've been to in a box for a while on this, I'm going to step back and let you truly shine as the point of contact. I'm here if you need me. So it's, it's an ebb and flow. It's not black or white, you can't just say, Okay, today, I'm stepping out, and I get to be out of all your client work. So we're just taking it day by day.

 

Kelly Reynolds

Yeah, I think that's kind of how businesses, right, like, you can make all the plans of the world. And then, you know, life happens, like COVID happens in the whole world was for some of you, again, we're just little things like your, your kids sick, and your life gets thrown into a you know, a whole thing. So yeah, it is day by day, right? It just says like, it just says, Yeah. So tell me about what you offer, since you just mentioned like you changing up your offers, because I love talking offers. What do you do? Like what would someone hire you for?

 

Mary Zargarian

Right now we're focusing on four main systems as far as like, what we're promoting that we can do for people click up Asana, dubsado, and coaching.com, which is one that's little less familiar in the online space. But it's I mean, it's so great for any individual coach or any coach who's going to be bringing on a team of coaches. So building out their own agency model. It's a system that I implemented early on in my business, and just, I fallen in love with it.

 

Kelly Reynolds

I know only writing notes right now. I'm like, I don't know that one. I know the others. And I don't use it. I don't happen to use those three, but like the coaching.com. I don't know that button. So

 

Mary Zargarian

Yes. And so what we do is we help any individual, again, individual team or organization because we do have a number of like nonprofits, so a little bit of a larger client group. We help them with implementation, training, help them design or redesign how they're leveraging their systems. Because I like to say that right now, everybody feels a little burned out and crispy. We're hearing that a lot. Yes, yeah, matter what you do. Yeah, we, I mean, we've been there, ourselves. And I like to say that we don't necessarily have a work load problem, we might have a workflow problem. And so we really try to dig in with our clients to understand what their processes look like, what systems are they using? And a lot of times I have clients say, Oh, well, we don't really help systems. And I was like, no, no, you do have systems, they might not be software applications or other things. But you're getting work done, somehow. So let's talk through what that looks like and how we can help support that a little differently. Yeah, so

 

Kelly Reynolds

we're systems, you just might be a mess. But you have you have a way of doing something, which is what a system really is. Yes. Yeah. So sometimes you're like, No, No, yours are a mess. Let me help you fix them.

 

Mary Zargarian

And sometimes they're analog, we were operating our businesses in a digital space, but sometimes the systems can be like I do a checklist every morning and I make sure I go through my checklist. Let's find let's talk through that. How is that working for you? What can be improved? And is there a way for us to automate that or delegate that I say delegate to resources but you can delegate to a project management tool to a VA whoever the whatever that looks like

 

Kelly Reynolds

Yeah, I think that there are certain types of people that come off that are very come off a corporate especially that are very analog. I am very digital like teamwork pm or to my projects runs my life, but I still have I'm going to be around if you're on the YouTube channel because my book literally every morning like I write everything down because it goes into my brain better. But that is really annoying to my assistant. Because she can't see that so it's that has become even for me who was very digital who's built a whole business, it can be very hard to meld things when you have to share with things with other people, you know. And I'm

 

Mary Zargarian

I’m the same way like we use all of the systems for ourselves, our clients were in I don't know how many different workspaces and email inboxes throughout the week. But in order for me to make sense of where is everybody best served with my focus and attention today, or this week, I write it all down. And now I've moved to a digital planner, it's still technology, but it's the same act, I'm writing out, what are my focus areas? What do I need to do for each client? What Where does my team need my support, and I'm writing that out and checking it all through the week.

 

Kelly Reynolds

There's, there's nothing in the world just like taking a pen and making a checkmark next to something like there's like it doesn't, I can click off the same task and teamwork. And it doesn't have the same effect of like, Yes, I'm done. Like, oops, it does it for me. I'm much more if I outside of the screen, there are lots of messes of things, because I'm working on some new things. So there's like a whiteboard, or a big huge sheet of paper as I map things out. And it's all has to be written first. It's like how my brain thinks. So that can be hard, though, when you're trying to delegate to a team, especially if it's a newer team. So you're being it you are coming in and helping people say, Okay, let's pull those things out. Let's get these organized. Let's get them into clickup. Asana. Yeah, and that's a huge help, because a lot of people who aren't absurds don't know how to do that.

 

Mary Zargarian

Yes, and it's overwhelming for anyone who doesn't use a system like that. It's overwhelming to think about, oh, my gosh, I have to go into a system. And it's going to tell me that I have 100 things that need my attention. And I need to do and where do I get started? So we just take it, like, step by step we meet our clients where they're at today. And we show them like, you don't have to, like take in the whole cake. On day one, like let's just take a bite, see how that feels, test it out for a while and then move on from there.

 

Kelly Reynolds

Yeah, that sounds awesome. And so needed. Alright, so let's get into your agency. How is your team structured? How is your agency structured? Is it contractors as employees? Are there a lot of levels are there, you know, only a few levels? How is it working?

 

Mary Zargarian

Yes, right now, my whole team, and they're all contractors, everybody is primarily across the US, except I have one team member who's in the Philippines. And they all have a very specific, like specialty, whether that's a system or a process. They all have a unique background. So some of them are certified in what they do. And some of them were like, I'm not certified, but I have like years of experience doing what I do. And so depending on the client need the project, I pull each of them in, that suits their strengths and also suits where they know that they want to grow. And they've communicated that to me. Because again, I'm I'm big on like growing them. And honestly, I've gotten feedback from them that they appreciate that the most is that I give them opportunities to grow and stretch, not for like they're doing the same thing every single day. And so the contractors, I have a digital marketing strategist. So we pull her in to do marketing audits for our current clients. She does my social media management for me as well. We have had a couple of VAs that we will plug into different client workspaces to help either support them in the meantime until we have somebody hired within their own team. Or they just contract through us for like that full operational model. We have OBM's. We have people certified in different systems, again, that we support. So it's a little bit of a mixed group, but they're all contractors today. I do have a vision of this being like a national brand one day and being able to have employees and leadership offsides all of those things, but in due time,

 

Kelly Reynolds

I love it. No, I love it. I love that you have this very this great vision like you even knew you wanted an agency before you had an agency which is very rare. I feel like so I love this vision. I love it. And I love that you're so clear on it. You're like, no, we'll have this one day. So are you who is managing this whole team? Is it you? Or do you have someone else that's managing the team day to day.

 

Mary Zargarian

I do have a director of operations and she helps me with all of the internal projects like our onboarding process, checking in with the team and making sure like she's all about like Team empowerment and onboarding and hiring. But more of the day to day like checking in on the project work it how's it going? What kinds of communications do we need to send out regularly to the clients? That's me still interfacing with the team. Now. That's a responsibility that eventually I know I will transition off the plate But now because, again, we've had so much change in so many new things happening this year. I'm still involved in that process. Yeah.

 

Kelly Reynolds

I mean, you've had a lot of change, branding and all this kind of stuff. So yeah, I think some people want to give away all the work so quickly. Sometimes you have to be in the work to see how it's working so that you can build that business, right? Like, you want to see how everything works, and how the different people work. And I think you kind of need to be in the trenches to know what's going on. And what's best for your business. Before you can say like, Alright, I'm out, like, you guys can run this out. Yeah, I think some people want to skip that part. Like, oh, I just want to start this and let everyone else run it, I'm going to the beach, like, it thinks it's important to know what's going on. 

 

Mary Zargarian

Well, in the spring to when I hired two of my team members, I heard them primarily to act as OBM. And be like that ongoing point of contact for clients. But honestly, I, I said, you know, what we're gonna take this low, is going to be a lot more work for me in the short term, but I know it's going to set them up for more success, and then turn me down the roll down the road. So we're tripping over our words, sometimes this morning. And so we were two in the box for a good two to three months, with clients. And then it was an Okay, great, we're gonna have this next quarterly strategy meeting with the client. And from there, I'm going to back out and you let me know if you need to pull me back in if it was too, too much, too soon. But over those three months, it was a gradual watch me and how I lead and how I interact with the clients how I ask questions, and honestly push back in some cases, and then the next month, it was a hey, I'd like you to go ahead and like, do that I will be there as your support. And then in the third month, it's like, Okay, do you want me to be part of these weekly meetings with you? If not, do you want me to at least review like the follow-up notes? Like, how do you want me to be there to support you? And then from there, you've got this, I'm here if you need me.

 

Kelly Reynolds

Yeah, and I love that kind of, you're teaching them how to lead as well. Yes, I find that not as much of my own hires. But sometimes people will come whenever we're hiring for either for a client or for ourselves. And they say, Well, I want to be the leader, I want to be an OBM, I want to be the leader. They have no experience leading, but they really want is a higher rate. But they haven't had that kind of experience yet. And I think that some people will come into my agency and be like, I want to be here. And I think that coming here, you're gonna help me learn things like that. So I love that you're teaching your team as well, like, they're going to come out of your team. Someday, somebody will leave someday, and they will be a better business person, they will be a better leader. And that I think is an excellent thing for you as a leader of the business.

 

Mary Zargarian

Yes. And that's something. Yes. And that's something like I learned. That's, experience that I gained, incorporate, you know, how you always talk about, like, what worked well, and what didn't work? Well, this is one of those things that I saw that didn't work well for people is, I'm not going to hire for strong talent or skills, because I don't want to hire someone smarter than me. I don't want to mentor and coach them, because then they'll just take all of that information and turn around and leave it in my opinion. I'm like, No, I'm going to share anything and everything that I've ever experienced, or that you want to learn. Because if anything, it's building more the sounds silly, but it is building more like loyalty into the brand of what we're hosting. But this business

 

Kelly Reynolds

Totally agree. Yeah, if they're happy, and you're taking care of them, and they really like working here, and you're giving them opportunities to learn and grow. They're not going to want to leave. Right? They're happy, right?

 

Mary Zargarian

They're happy, they're happy, and why not continue that. And again, my long term vision is, at some point, I would love to get to a point where I'm converting these team members that have been doing so well and growing along with me into employees and have them be the leaders that we can build out teams do what we need to as like the next evolution of this agency, but I'm investing in them. So hopefully, they they see that benefit. Yeah.

 

Kelly Reynolds

And you're also learning as an agency owner, if they if these people do leave the next iteration of these people. When you are ready for those, you know how to do these things, you know, how to train them, you know, how to bring them up into leadership. So I mean, you're learning as they are learning, this kind of grand experiment, right?

 

Mary Zargarian

Yeah. And I tell them, I'm like, we're figuring this out together as we go. I'm not going to have all the answers. But I can tell you, I always communicate my vision. Like here's where I imagined that will be in six months, in a year in what's possible, but I can't do it myself. So this is where I need to. Yeah, this is just where I need you.

 

Kelly Reynolds

Yeah. I feel like all of this business thing, everyone, everyone puts in their marketing that they know what they're doing. And that they'll tell you everything is great, right? And then behind the scenes, everyone's like, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm making this up. It's just an experiment.

 

Mary Zargarian

And we're so good at helping our clients do it. But yeah, yeah, if you peel back the layers, and I tell my team, I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna give you access into a different part of the system now that we use internally. It's not. It's nowhere as pretty as what we put together for our clients. 

 

Kelly Reynolds

Yep. So it's a couple of shoes, right? Like the cable, whatever the domain is, I can ever get out. Yeah, like, right now, if you looked at my office, you'd be like, seriously, you're the systems and like, all about like, organization, like, my life is a disaster. And apart from the screen that you see here, yeah, because we're experimenting, and we're always pulling our clients, all that kind of stuff forward, making sure clients are taken care of. And I am a people pleaser, to a point. But I ended up like, oh, no, I'll take care of all that. And then I pushed myself off. The other thing that my, if you look at my teamwork, right now, there are late tasks, and they're all my own tasks because all the clients stuff is on time. Right? Like, that's just how I feel like we ended up sometimes. 

 

Mary Zargarian

Yes, because, anyway, well, and that's why I really enjoy working with my Director of Operations, because all of those things that I'm overdue on, like she's keeping tabs on that she's like, Mary, this is three weeks overdue. I guess it's an internal project. But is this something I can take off your plate and just get it done? Yes.

 

Kelly Reynolds

Thank you. Yes, right. I'm, yeah, that's where I am. Excellent. I've given client work away at this point, that was where I've come to after six and a half years, my own stuff is so much harder, because we don't have for our clients, we build up these beautiful, like spreadsheets and hubs and dashboards, everything. And we have that here. But it's all mine. And that is the hardest part of giving things away for me is giving my own stuff away, which I can and that I think is realizing that makes me a lot makes me understand our clients so much more, because then they're like, I'm not giving it away. I'm like, Yeah, I get it. I can't get away either. But we're gonna we're gonna do this. So letting them know that yeah, we understand that it's hard. But we've got to keep keep going. We can't grow. Yeah. Okay, so. So the nitty gritty of it, like how to how many people do you have on your team? 

 

Mary Zargarian

Seven.

 

Kelly Reynolds

Is that including you? 

 

Mary Zargarian

That does include me. So there are seven of us.

 

Kelly Reynolds

So how would you pay them? Is it you don't have to give me real numbers. If you don't want to like, is it hourly, as a percentage? Are your clients on retainer getting percentage or hourly? You know, that kind of thing? How does that work?

 

Mary Zargarian

We saw I learned early on that I wore retainer clients specifically not project clients, but retainer clients I didn't like time tracking. So this is something that we experimented with by changing it to here's the monthly rate. And that does vary based on how complex their business model their team is. And then for my team members, we I've contracted with them depending on their experience as well, like they get paid per client per month. And so we have a flat like a flat rate. Yeah. Some of them are tracking their time just to so we can keep track of it and be like this client really is pulling a lot more of our capacity than we thought. Right? We don't start tracking it until we're getting a sense that it's a problem. Okay. Then with Project clients, it is hourly, we are tracking their time, hourly, I paid my team members an hourly rates for project work, because it's based on deliverables. And so if we happen to get a project out faster, we're I mean, we're monitoring that process. But yes, retainer clients is a monthly per client support rate. And then project clients is an hourly rate based on what we've projected the level of effort and amount of time that project needs.

 

Kelly Reynolds

Yeah, that makes sense. I always find it easier to do flat rate to flat rate for client and, and sub because if you have, I think this is where a lot of people get into trouble with their agencies when they ended up making no money is that they, the client, they charged a flat, whatever, $1,000. And then they have the VA, let's say on an hourly retainer, and then they just eat through that whole thing. And that whole $1,000 comes in one hand and goes right back out and like they never actually make any money from clients. So yeah, I think that the flat rate just makes because you know what you're working with you have a cap if you're not going over that. If you are there's a discussion about it. makes much more sense to me. 

 

Mary Zargarian

Correct. Now, where that varies a little bit is if that client all of a sudden comes to us It says, we're working with you on OBM work. But we need a VA or a tech VA or a social media manager. Now those are roles that we have a talent pool that we've already screened. And we have ready and available. And VAs, I would do just like I would do for my own team as they do run an hourly timesheet. So those are conversations we have with the client and with the team member on, what's the maximum? What's the threshold for, hey, when you hit 10 or 20 hours for the month? Let us know. So we can gauge what we need to do for the remainder of the month? Like do we need to add on more hours and talk to the client about doing so? Or do we need to go ahead and just scale back the expectation to what we can deliver this month.

 

Kelly Reynolds

And like having like a clear, this is what we're going to deliver? Right? It's clear scope for this thing. And then if that scope changes, like if you just had an OBM working, and you need to add a VA that's a different service difference. Yep. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, it's a change. And I think some people just kind of wrap it all in like, oh, we'll just add them in. And I'm like, well, then how are you gonna pay all these people?

 

Mary Zargarian

Or they expect the OBM to just do it? Or Can't you just do it? All? Right, have those conversations. So

 

Kelly Reynolds

yeah, I've seen a lot of job postings, and I'm looking through and I'm like, Okay, this is a va, a tech VA and OBM. They're totally a DOO, and they're their strategy work like you can no one is doing data entry, and strategy work. And like, you know, installing software, like all of those things are different people. Like it's not just one person. 

 

Mary Zargarian

Yes, yeah. Yes. And so one thing, going back to our earlier part of the conversation about offers, one thing that we've changed is, when we have especially solo entrepreneurs come to us and say we want to hire an OBM, and they don't have a team, a team in place today,

 

Kelly Reynolds

that's me like that. That's, that's potential like, sign, like who's doing any of the work? And, you know, I know we've been there. Because the OBM is a manager, it's only a business manager. So who are they managing? If there's no team? And I think that that's a lot of times people just coming in, they have their own business, right? They came from corporate, and they're coming in, they're like, Okay, this is what somebody told me, I need, I need to know via, yes.

 

Mary Zargarian

Or they've had a VA before. And they're like, Well, I was expecting the VA to have more input into the process. Yes. And then she would run things. Yes. Right. Right. Yes. And so they think, Okay, well, if I just hire an OBM, there'll be a thought partner for me, they'll run things and be able to take direction and just do all the work. And we've had to have those boundary-setting conversations, we've had to part ways with certain clients, because we just had had to be honest, like we, yeah, we couldn't, we can do everything, capabilities, skill-wise. But that's not what we're here to do. That's not the impact and the value, we feel we can bring our clients. And so that's why we added that add-on service. And we're very clear that this is an additional service. If you want administrative support. Now we can help our clients hire that within their own teams. Or we say You know what, we'll handle everything within our team. But here's the addition there. Here's the addendum to your current contract.

 

Kelly Reynolds
So I can add on to whatever you already have. So you have a retainer with the OPM, and then you can have an add on of whatever attack the VA, whatever you need. Yeah, I think that yeah, there's no way to just wrap it all into one position. Easily. I have struggled this over the years, I have operations clients that have been with me for 1000 years. And we have a blended rate, but it's hourly. So if they want to do some crazy work, and we have the capacity, then they just end up paying more. So that was the thing, like we didn't have as much scope. Strict scope, but we had hourly, so we could adjust that kind of budget easily. But even still, it gets. It's a lot. It's a lot to put all the things into one thing. So yeah, I don't I don't blame me for splitting it all up.

 

Mary Zargarian

It is and then they no fault of the clients at all. They just get used to that being like, Okay, well, Mary, we'll just do it. She'll handle it for me.

 

Kelly Reynolds
And of course, you're a people pleaser. You do it now, a second time while you're under your breath, like Murmur, murmur. And then the third time you're like, This is ridiculous. But like, Yes, I did the exact same thing. 

 

Mary Zargarian

But we've enabled that behavior, right. We didn't have that early conversation of this is what we do, and this is what we don't do. And so we've had to have difficult conversations like that, amidst onboarding and training my new team members admits like rebranding and changing our model up a bit like it's been an interesting few months. I wouldn't change anything. If anything we've like, gone through all of these experiences in a very short amount of time because we're meant to learn something from it. We're meant to be doing it right differently. Yes.

 

Kelly Reynolds
Yeah. Because, well, in the beginning, you don't know you're a people pleaser. You're just really excited someone's paying you if you're not in an office. So I didn't know I thought, I thought I was mean, I was on Wall Street, I thought I was mean. And then everyone's like, Oh, maybe you should stop doing all this work. Like I thought I was really good with my boundaries because I worked. I only answered emails from nine to four. And I thought, Alright, I'm a rock star at this. And then I would just say yes to everything else. Like, between those hours, I was like, Yes, I'll do all of these things. Like, the things that I like, just things that weren't my greatest HR and things that were not that I'm not like, I mean, corporate HR, that's very different model than ROA. Reynolds will be HR role much Chillar. We don't have rubrics, and there isn't legality to the way with 200 employees. It's a different world. So yeah, so you get swept in? And you say yes. And then you have to kind of come back. And I think it's easier if you have if you have turnover, a client wise, like if you're doing projects, and then the next one, you can say this is how it's going to be but having those conversations, have you found with retainer clients, like, how are they taking those conversations when you're like, Okay, we need to put the brakes on this. How are you? How do you handle it? Do you have those retainer clients that you've had to have those conversations with? Because you want to continue working with them? Yeah, still with us? 

 

Mary Zargarian

Yes, there's all the right conversation. Still the right conversations that they are hard and difficult conversations, but they're still the right ones in order for us to move forward. And so I honestly, it took me weeks to mentally prepare myself, I had my talking points. I'm like, Okay, this is a project, like I have a background and leadership and training development in corporate HR, but it's very different. When it's me representing my business, my team, I'm very protective of my team. And so it took me a while to get to the point where I'm like, Okay, I'm going to do it. Today's the day I'm talking to this one client today, most of the conversations went really well. And, yes, there were a couple where it's, it didn't either, it felt good in the moment, but then it just went back into old ways after that, and we ended up just having to part ways. And so that it's just, it's business. And if you don't set the boundaries for yourself, you're just going to end up, like you said, the next time it happens, you're gonna like grunt and grind your teeth. Or it may get to a point where you start resenting that relationship and that engagement and you start, like avoiding, um, I see that email, but I'm gonna pretend like I don't then just like respond to it tomorrow.

 

Kelly Reynolds
If you see that email in your inbox, and you get real angry, and you haven't even opened it yet, like, they could be wishing you like, hope you having a great day. And you're like, I hate that person. Like, as soon as you see that name, and you're like, Okay, I found that it was very hard for me to put those boundaries on myself when I was like, No, you're not going to do this work anymore. But it was much easier to do it when I was taking care of my team, like you were saying, like you protect your team. Like, as soon as someone was mean to Gwen, oh, this, this ends now. Like, they could have been mean, or pushy with me for months. And I would have been like, Okay, well, you know, this is what's growing our businesses like, but as soon as they were mean, again, forget it.

 

Mary Zargarian

Yes. And I try to take every decision in my business, when I know it's going to have to be a difficult conversation and picture. It's either one of my team members, or even like, I was having this conversation with my husband last night, I'm very protective of my husband and my son. And so if anybody does anything, and I don't agree with like, that mom comes out in me. And so, yes, these conversations, you can do it in a way that doesn't feel ugly, and gross and icky. Like, there's a great way to approach difficult conversations in business. without it feeling like you're attacking another person without it feeling like it's about a person. It's just about the relationship and the work. And so I'm very mindful of those interactions when we're having them.

 

Kelly Reynolds
Yeah. And I think that's also part of this great experiment, this learning is that like, every time you deal with someone, and you're like, Okay, we're not going to do that again. And then the next time you have that kind of built into start, because sometimes we don't know, in the beginning, what we need to do. And then as we progressively go, Man, I should have said that in the beginning, and then the next time, you know, and then you say it the next time, or you make that boundary, and it's learning and the uncomfortable conversations are totally necessary. It's how we're going to figure it out.

 

Mary Zargarian

Right? Yes, yes. And if you don't like those uncomfortable conversations, then maybe an agency isn't the right model for you right now. Because you're going to have to have those either with your team members with your clients at some point. No.

 

Kelly Reynolds
Yeah. I mean, it's true, right? Like, if you're going to be managing people and put any 10 people in a room, someone's going to say something, the other one or whatever, whatever it is, when you bring people together, there is going to be uncomfortable conversations, or things you have to manage So, yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the biggest things when people come to me, and they're asking if they should start an agency. And I often ask, if they just want to make more money? If there's something else they could do instead, yes, would like, do you just want to do VIP days? Like, do you want to work less and make more money? Like, maybe it's just VIP days instead? And do you want to manage people? Because if you want to, if those are my two questions, usually to think about, do you really want an agency? Or do you just want to make more money more class? Right? You're gonna have to talk to people, like, you're gonna have a team, you're gonna want to talk to him once in a while. And you're gonna want to like to do that, because you're gonna do it up forever. If everything goes well.

 

Mary Zargarian

And it's not just about communicating, like work, being able to delegate or like assigned tasks, it's the follow up. What kind of conversations are you having with people when they don't get that task done? When it's overdue, when they are avoiding having that conversation with you about why it's overdue? I don't know if you hear my dog shaking in the background. But yeah, it's working with people leading people. It's more than just like managing tasks. 

 

Kelly Reynolds
Yes. Right. Like, it's not just like creating a task list and teamwork and making sure people get it done. Like, it's more than that. It's the people skills that you need to have that leadership or that are so important. Because that's I think that leadership in our culture, developing that in your agency is how you end up getting so many other better things like having a really great team that doesn't want to leave that they want to stay. So like, that is so important. And I think some people don't want to do that part. And I'm like, the that's like, the whole thing of it is, is making the glue, right? It keeps everyone together. That's how you keep expenses down as he keeps her turnover down. Like all those things you want to do. It comes back to that leadership, and managing that team, not just the tasks, but the people skills the every day working together. You know, what do you do when someone goes to? And you're like, I haven't heard from you in four days, like all of those little things, how are you going to handle those things?

 

Mary Zargarian

That's the leadership there that I think is important, and people are terrified of, but it's totally learnable. If you want to learn? Yes. And it's one of those things like I don't think well, they you hear about natural born leaders, but I honestly don't think people are, it doesn't come natural. For most people, it's something you're going to have to practice. And unfortunately, I You say this in HR, like, you're gonna have to pick up some bruises along the way, either a bruised ego or like physically bruising yourself because you're just like hitting your knee against the table or like, Why is this still happening? Like, there's going to be some experiences where you just unfortunately have to go through and experience that a number of times before you realize what your natural leadership inclination is.

 

Kelly Reynolds
Yeah, and those people that are like, Oh, I've been through it all, I can get through anything. That's because they went through it all. They have all those experiences they can get on. You know, I was saying to Brian, my husband the other day, I have we are in the 90s. Well, I don't know where we are when we're recording this podcast, but I'm in the mid 90s are right around there. For a podcast, the first 30 I wanted to throw up every single time I gone. Like, I didn't like doing this. And I thought it was a great idea. But I didn't like and as soon as I did, I don't know, 30 of them or so I started to be like, Okay, now I'm okay. But I had to go through the wanting to throw up all the time to get to the part where I didn't want to throw up all you need that experience to move forward?

 

Mary Zargarian

Yes, yeah. Yes. Yes, no, I mean, five years, not even five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years. So when my husband and I first met, like it was in a work environment, and we just laughed, because I would have to get up and leave the company meetings. If I would get up there. It looks like I was physically going to like fall over early on myself in front of a roomful of hundreds of people and to go from there to now doing what I do every day. And honestly, one of my goals for next year is like, I want to be up on stages. Like I want to get back in rooms with people and be up on a stage and be able to speak to people about different things. Like either motivation, wise business, whatever. Who am I? From before, I would have been like, Are you kidding me? But it's exciting to see that growth and evolution?

 

Kelly Reynolds
Yeah. Yeah, I think there's like we did a whole thing last fall with Well, I did, like four months of being uncomfortable. It was like the end of the year and I was like, I want to get things done. I'm gonna on purpose be uncomfortable all the time. And once I was uncomfortable, I was not avoiding being uncomfortable. So the decisions were a lot easier to make. It was much more like this is a better decision monetarily, this is a better decision for my family, instead of that's a scary decision. I don't want to do it. And I did a whole bunch of things including one of them was getting on a paddleboard. I am scared to swim. I can bear I can swim a little but I grew up on a horse. I don't know how to swim well and I live at the beach, which is ridiculous. And I was I'd wanted to paddleboard forever. And getting on that paddle board was massively incredible. I thought I was gonna cry. Luckily, my friend Shawn took care of me. And now I think I got off that day and I think I went home and bought a paddleboard, like I was like I'm in I'm so excited. But sometimes you have to get past that crazy wanting to throw up scary. I'm going to shake my way through this to get to the other side where you're like, Oh, this is awesome. Right? Like it was all afternoon yesterday, I was on a paddleboard and I can barely move my arms, right? My hands, of course. But yeah, like that, that kind of, oh, I'm never going to do this. I'm never going to be on stage. I'm never going to start a podcast, those things are in your head. Because most of the time, we're just scared and it's uncomfortable, and we don't want to be uncomfortable. And once you get over that, then you're like, oh, oh, this is so much easier. And now you're on stages and talking when you couldn't even stand up at a meeting before. So that I am always amazed at what you can get over if you just were a little uncomfortable once in a while.

 

Mary Zargarian

Yes, yes. And I always there's a quote that I heard recently, it's Courage isn't the absence of fear. Courage is seeing the fear and being able to do the thing anyways. Right? It's like it's, in order for us to learn and grow. Unfortunately, you're gonna have to do something that's new or different. Maybe you're doing the same process that you've always done or the same routine, but you're going to switch it up a little bit or maybe now it's at a different scale. And so that's the only way we learn to grow. You don't learn by doing the same thing, right and then go day.

 

Kelly Reynolds
And what is Denise Duffield Thomas she's the children are you know who I'm talking about? I got her book. She always says like, new level, new devil different devil, but I can never get an idiom, right. Level new devil. Yeah, there we go. So like, you think you've got it all. And then you hit this next thing. You're like, oh, I don't have to do this again. It's just constant learning. Yeah, yeah. I love her. She's, I think of her little Australian voice in my head. Sometimes when I'm, when I'm like, This is too much. She's like, chill out. Just do it. Like

 

Mary Zargarian

she's one of the people. I have the book. But I had the Audible, the audiobook for, listen, hear her? And I was like, Okay, I need the book now. But yes, I hear her voice in my head. Yeah,

 

Kelly Reynolds
she like chilling me out. So we were talking about a lot of that leadership here. So how do you look for team members? How do you choose them? How do you onboard them? Yes. How do you do all that?

 

Mary Zargarian

Well, honestly, I don't do a lot of pursuing people to be team members, right? I only I don't want to have to convince someone why this is the right model for them and what they're doing in their business. And understanding that being part of a team being part of an agency isn't for everybody, like not everybody leaves like a nine to five because they want to go work for somebody else. Even as a contractor, that's okay. So everyone that is on my team has approached me, because I've been very vocal in saying like, Oh, this is part of the plan, or this is a current role that we're hiring for. And they've come in through that way. Now, I would say one person on my team in particular, that wasn't the case. She and I like she actually messaged me and celebrated the fact that I was announcing, hey, I hired an Operations Assistant. And this is what we're doing. We're going from me to like a team. And this is happening, people actually messaged me on Instagram, and I was like, Oh, this is really great. And I was like, You know what? Because we were connected before when I was a coach. I'm just like, I've been paying attention to what you're doing. Do you want to just have a coffee chat, like get on Zoom? And just, I just want to check in how are things going for you and what you're doing in your business. And after that, it was like, Hey, I'm gonna send you a contract. You're doing this with me, I need you on the team. So that was the only case where it didn't start off as a conversation of let me review your application and why do you think you'd be a good fit? It was more of a I've been paying attention to what you're doing and I think we can do some amazing work together.

 

Mary Zargarian

That's amazing. Yeah, like you see how people are and you can? Yeah, because it's hard when you are taking applications and you meet a person I don't like to give seven interviews because seriously shoot me like no one has like I know that there's companies out there that do like all these but like, I'm not that kind of level. This is not a million-dollar position, usually out here. So when you first meet someone, and they're really good an interview, they are not always as good on Yeah, in real life. Sometimes they really interview well and sometimes interview terribly It's not indicative. So I think if you have people in your orbit that you know, and you're like, oh, no, I know what she's like in real life. Like that she's a real person. She's nice. She looks out for whatever the thing is. I think that's so handy. 

 

Mary Zargarian

Yes, yes, it is. And that's because when I was a coach, I was networking like crazy when I was coaching in my business as a side hustle like, and honestly, I wasn't that successful as a coach, I was I was successful as far as like, the relationships I was building. But I wasn't signing high-ticket clients as a coach and doing this. But I still I mean, I did it for years. And I enjoyed it. Because I was getting to meet people understanding their stories, understanding more about myself and who I was as a leader, as a mom, as a wife. And those relationships now are what I consider the foundation of what I've been able to do successfully as this agency owner.

 

Kelly Reynolds
Yeah. So what do you look for when you're hiring? Is it? Are you looking for a strict skill? Because we're you're trying to fit the clickup tech role? Is it more fit culturally? Or what do you look for?

 

Mary Zargarian

Definitely culture fit. And that's something you can't get an application or a resume or anything? Yes, to some degree, I'm looking for experience, but I'm looking for not those key word experiences. Because I have my own like perspective. And we could talk for an hour on recruiting in the corporate world. Yeah. I'm looking for someone who has shown a history of trying new things, and kind of putting themselves out there. It's hard, it's hard for me to be able to translate that to like a to one of my team members and say, as you're screening applications look for these qualities, because it's not, yeah, it's more of an art form than a science. But when I was doing career development in my corporate career, like, I'm looking for somebody who's shown initiative and an aptitude to want to grow, like if I can figure out what that secret sauce is, and bottle it up, like I can build a process for it. But you can't. I mean, that's a lot of feel.

 

Kelly Reynolds
It is a lot of guts. Yeah, thank you. Because I, I am not traditional HR, I don't have Rubik's, and lots of like, crazy stuff. I don't you don't I mean, like, there's a lot of very strict HR, they have very corporate ways to do it. And my brain doesn't work that way. And I feel very much that it's much more about gut on my side, like, yes, I want them to, you know, know, things or whatever. But yes, it's so much more about do I think you're going to fit in here kind of do. Do I think that you're going to want to work hard. Do you have ambition? Maybe not so much ambition, that you are going to leave in four minutes. But ambition that you want to grow here? Yes, maybe you don't like to market and you don't really want to do a lot like you don't you want to grow your business. But being on an agency is pretty sweet. When you're not having to work on so much marketing works coming to you. That's pretty cool. But wanting to grow is like that's the gut

 

Mary Zargarian

I think it is. And so, to your question about what our onboarding process really looks like, we have an application. Some of it is yeah, tell us about your experience. But more, it's more questions about, hey, take a look at our social media profile and make a recommendation like what's one thing that you think we can do better? And why? Right, I want to see that they're thinking about business, in the sense that's relevant, relevant to the role that they're applying for right? Then from the application, they get an invitation to do, it's my interview. I don't know if you've heard of my interview.com. But they can do video interviews, where I myself or one of my team members will actually be on a video and say, Hey, here's the question. We're big on team culture. So what's your perspective? What's the most important quality of a team member? And then it's recorded video, and then they get a couple of minutes to record themselves, they can rerecord if they don't like how that went. But it's basically a back and forth interview. But in the recorded process, I

 

Kelly Reynolds
have never heard of this. This is fascinating. 

 

Mary Zargarian

That way, you're not on Zoom for 50 hours in a month, because you're trying to fill a position. You have this library of recorded interviews that you can screen. And then from there, we may do a case study depending on what type of role we're hiring for. Or just jump right into, like a panel interview with me and a team member.

 

Kelly Reynolds
I love it. That's very interesting. Yeah, my interview.com you said right. Yes, yes. Yeah, I think that's what I love the fact they can be recorded like they get real nervous. Or like they can play a little bit like, because video is hard for a lot of people. I will say like right now you No, we're recording this, but we're live conversation totally fine. Me standing in front of 500 people telling them what I know, by me recording a video for 40 seconds or whatever it is took me two hours last week, I couldn't get it out. I was all nervous. It's so hard even for me, after all these millions of hours, I feel like a recording. So I think that I'm always interested to see how people like video recording. But that is more of like a question and answer. So it's not Yes. Me standing in front of a camera trying to say something interesting. That's much interesting. Yeah, like, that's cool.

 

Mary Zargarian

Yes, it it's a great process. And it's one that we've started using for our clients too, because our clients don't want. Like, if they're going to be hiring a tech VA, they don't want to have to do 10 interviews, we want to be able to screen them for us to be able to personally flag like here, the two candidates that we think you should take a look at. And they take a look at it and say great, I'm gonna meet with Kelly.

 

Kelly Reynolds
Yeah, that's very cool. I'm gonna totally check this out. All right. So I know we're, we're running late in this hour. So what advice would you have for someone who is thinking of starting an agency? Now that you have kind of gone through this past year of starting up? What would you tell them as they're starting this 

 

Mary Zargarian

Be clear on what your vision is, right? You don't have to have like a long term vision like me where I'm like, okay, I can see into the future where like, we're sitting on a beach in Australia, and I have my team running the show. For me, I love it. But be clear on like what you want in the short term, and then be honest with yourself about the amount of work that you're still going to have to be involved in as you go. Like, just because you have people on your team doesn't mean you're fully stepped out of that client work. I mean, you can, but be very thoughtful on the process for how you're building team culture, how you're onboarding and training them, the kind of support that you want to offer your clients. And it's always going to end up being a little bit more work than you thought it would be. But it's for all the right reasons. If this is truly what you want to do. I love that

 

Kelly Reynolds
I preach intention of being intentional, making intentional decisions all the time. So I love that. What do you think is the hardest part of running an agency?

 

Mary Zargarian

I feel like the mother, and it's not the hardest part. I enjoy it. It's just like I said, I'm very protective of my team. And so I think it's it's wanting to make sure that they're all taken care of. Like we had one client leave us recently. And I was like, Oh, what am I going to do for her that team member? And like, I got to like? Yes. And so it's now me feeling like I went from being a mother to one to like a mother.

 

Kelly Reynolds
I totally understand that. Like, I have grown women working. But still like I'm very protective of them. I want to make sure they're okay. Yeah, totally. Yeah, what? Okay, last question, what are the thing like, what's the thing you love most about running your agency?

 

Mary Zargarian

I love that I get to do everything that I did in my corporate career. But now for myself. And for my team. I love that we have the flexibility to make the decisions, call the shots. And also the ability to say, Well, that didn't quite work out the way that we wanted to let's let's pivot and try something new together. And so I like not being in business by myself anymore. Like, it was good. It was good. Don't get me wrong. But all of the things to grow. This agency and this team have been so worth it. Because now I do feel like I have a team who's got my back.

 

Kelly Reynolds
Yeah. And it's not so lonely.

 

Mary Zargarian

It's not so lonely. It's nice to be able to be on Slack. And someone's like sending a picture of what they're doing today. And you're like, Oh, we're actually a team. This feels good.

 

Kelly Reynolds
Or just venting a little when your kid drives you crazy. And they're like, Oh, mine has been driving me crazy, too. And you're like, Okay, I'm not alone in the world.

 

Mary Zargarian

How many cups of coffee Have you all had today?

 

Kelly Reynolds
Slack is a wonderful, wonderful. Very, thank you so much for being here with me today. Where can everyone find you?

 

Mary Zargarian

We you can go to the ZARGARIAN.org. We're also on Instagram, LinkedIn as teams are Zargarian.

Kelly Reynolds
Alright, and I will put all that in the show notes so that everyone can find Mary. Thank you so much, Mary. I would this was a great conversation about leadership. Wonderful. Thank you for having me. And I will see all of you next week.