Company: Coconspirator
Owners: Shane Needham
Year Started: 2018
Employees: 1 – 10
“An Agency Story” podcast series delves into the journeys of agency founders and leaders, uncovering their unique stories and insights. In this engaging episode, we feature Shane Needham of Coconspirator, who shares his fascinating path from journalism to founding a brand and strategy agency.
Shane begins by detailing Coconspirator’s niche focus on brand strategy for growth brands, white-label strategy for other agencies, and behind-the-scenes work with large enterprises. His journey started with a love for storytelling in journalism, which evolved into a career in advertising, working with major brands like Publix and Home Depot. Shane’s transition from journalism to advertising is a testament to his adaptability and passion for storytelling in various forms.
One of the standout themes in this episode is Shane’s unique approach to founding Coconspirator. He shares candidly about the early days of freelancing and how organic growth, driven by strong industry connections and referrals, led to the formation of his agency. Shane’s reflections on the strategic decision to embrace the agency model, rather than fight it, provide valuable insights for anyone in the industry.
The episode also highlights Shane’s partnerships, formed with trusted colleagues, which have been crucial in scaling the business. He recounts the evolution from a solo venture to a collaborative team effort, emphasizing the importance of trust, complementary skills, and shared vision in business partnerships.
Listeners will find Shane’s anecdotes about the name “Coconspirator” particularly engaging, a term that was coined during a casual, alcohol-inspired brainstorming session. His story underscores the importance of embracing what works and using creativity to carve out a niche in the industry.
The episode is peppered with valuable lessons on maintaining client relationships, the significance of strategic partnerships, and the need for thoughtful growth. Shane’s emphasis on sustainability and deliberate growth over aggressive expansion provides a refreshing perspective on business development.
As the episode wraps up, Shane leaves listeners contemplating the balance between being born with entrepreneurial traits and developing them through experience. His story is a powerful reminder that success often comes from a mix of innate qualities and learned skills.
Tune in to this insightful episode to learn more about Shane Needham’s journey, the innovative strategies behind Coconspirator, and the valuable lessons he has learned along the way. Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned agency professional, Shane’s story offers inspiration and practical advice for navigating the complex world of agency business.
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Show Transcript
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where we share real stories of marketing agency owners from around the world. From the excitement of starting up the first big sale, passion, doubt, fear, freedom, and the emotional rollercoaster of growth, hear it all on An Agency Story podcast. An Agency Story podcast is hosted by Russel Dubree, successful agency owner with an eight figure exit turned business coach. Enjoy the next agency story.
Russel:
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast. I’m your host Russel. In this episode we’re joined by Shane Needham, the founder of Coconspirator based in St. Petersburg, Florida. Shane shares his journey from journalism student to head of a brand and strategy agency, highlighting how his love for storytelling shaped his career. Discover how co-conspirators unique approach of white label strategy, work and consulting for major brands as set them up for success. Listen in for a humorous part about how the agency’s name was inspired during a casual and spirit infused brainstorming session and hear Shane’s insight on sustainable growth and building strong business partnerships. Enjoy this story. Welcome to the show today, everyone. I have Shane Needham with Coconspirator with us here today. Thanks so much for joining us today, Shane.
Shane:
Thanks for having me, Russel. This is great. I really appreciate it.
Russel:
I’m excited to have you and learn more about your agency journey. If you don’t mind, start us off, what does Coconspirator do and who do you do it for?
Shane:
Coconspirator is a primarily brand and strategy agency. Primarily working kind of one of three ways. Growth brands looking to mature or refresh their brand, whether that be visually or through narrative and positioning or all of the above. We work with other agencies. We white label strategy work for other agencies who may not have a full time strategy bench, or maybe need to augment for pitch support and things of that sort. And then we do a lot of behind the scenes work with large enterprise brands, where we’re working with their internal brand team to work better with their agencies or even just help them with some of those internal initiatives that never quite make it to the done list.
Russel:
I’ll be honest and say that I don’t encounter a lot of strategy only agencies and probably even more so agencies that do white label strategy. Very curious about how you evolved to that and how that’s worked out for you. Before we get to all that, let’s go back in time. Where was young Shane headed with his life and we’ll get to where you’ve ended up.
Shane:
There are many, many roads and many forks in many of those roads, so I’ll try to take the clearest path. I actually started as a journalism student, in high school. Gravitated to that level of storytelling. Meandered a bit, as I got out of school and into college journalism. Got into technology as well, and ended up combining them by working for a couple of newspapers here in the southeast as kind of new media director at that time, newspapers were just coming online. Publishing them to say nothing of monetizing them were, big initiatives for them. I had the privilege of working with a couple of newspapers. Mid’04,’05 newspapers still hadn’t quite figured it out. Opportunities were dwindling. I had the opportunity to either continue down that journalism path or, I had some opportunities in the advertising space. I thought, well, advertising always looks good in the movies, right? They always have nice offices, right? I took that path and have been on that ever since. Coming up on kind of 20 years in the business, working in smaller boutique agencies, but also large, consumer retail agencies, working on brands, like Publix and Home Depot and Buffalo Wild Wings and Baskin Robbins. It’s where I’ve spent probably the majority of my career, is in large retail agency.
Russel:
You did a fabulous job of encapsulating what I know is a long career, well done. Going back to, I think mid 2000s, you said you moved away from journalism and the newspaper industry into advertising. Thinking back on that how far were you looking at this, you said the opportunities were dwindling, but the idea that was really a dying industry, cause that was still pretty early on in the whole aspect of where newspapers were headed.
Shane:
Yeah. In the evolution that we’ve seen in that space over the past 20 years, I think that was like that, adolescent period. There was a lot of still figuring things out, from a business perspective. But from my perspective, it was, we were, I was looking at just two different ways of storytelling. Both commercial in some way, but one, obviously journalism, serving, communities with information, and advertising, serving brands in those commercial interests, and telling those stories and connecting with people. I had some of the skills. Throughout my career in the agency side, it’s amazing how many people have come to the industry from a journalism background. It’s not uncommon. It’s a different thing. It’s certainly something that as I transitioned, had to think about things a little differently. There’s no one way of doing things but there’s a lot of standards and practices in journalism. It was just an interesting shift. But to your point, that back then, we didn’t really know where things were going from a journalistic standpoint. I think one of the big things, that I also saw throughout my career is at that same time, my boss, who was a mentor for me, for being an old Southeast, newspaper publisher, he was incredibly technology savvy. He had a good vision of what the internet could do for journalism. But he, announced his retirement. And I knew in that space, in that industry, in that region, I was not likely to get another person that would support me in what I was doing and the ideas that I had. That was the, really the trigger that said, okay, time to move on and go find some other creative people to work with.
Russel:
And as you mentioned, that, was the early, front leading edge of the transition to what you said is this experiment that you’re currently on. How did you start Coconspirator? Just wake up one day and say, I’m doing this or how did that evolve?
Shane:
I wish, very much that I can say this has all been part of a master plan. But it couldn’t be further from the truth. When I left the agency in 2018, I needed a break. I took some time off and I was just going to freelance. Very quickly after I took some time, I started getting some calls from people that I had met, through my engagement. I’ve been heavily engaged in the tech and the startup community here locally. Hey, can you come help us, on a part time basis or consulting basis? Especially those, post revenue but still pre growth stage startups. A lot of them put a lot of time and energy into operations and product and tech, brand was always the thing that we were going to, wait till we needed it, you know? It was an interesting opportunity to go and work with some of these people that I’ve been around for some years. It just evolved. From Shane as freelancer to, oh man, maybe I should start, make this thing a little bit more official. As I thought about it, agency had kind of become a bad word for me. It was certainly a place where I have done some work and learned a lot and I’ll never regret any of that time. But, especially in large agencies, I think there was a lot of operational inefficiencies. There was a lot of walls being put up between the agency and the client and who could engage with the client directly and who couldn’t. It just felt like we were missing some things. When I started to really think about what would become Coconspirator, I was like, I don’t want to be an agency. We’re not an agency. We’re a consultancy, we’re not an agency. We’re a, whatever I called it that week. The more and more, thought about it, the more and more I saw that the answer was actually to lean into agency more and more directly and more deliberately. We were sitting around, a couple of friends, one night having probably more than enough, drinks. We were talking about, hey, at the end of the day, we’re just really well funded con men. We’re trying to take this guy’s money and give it to these people over here. Somebody said mercenary and I thought that was a little on the nose, but then someone said Coconspirators. I was like, that’s the word I was looking for when thinking about what an agency should be and how closely they should work with their clients and their clients business. That’s where it was born just out of that discussion of trying to avoid being or going back to where I had come from. Really what had happened is what I needed to do was go further.
Russel:
I love that. Not the first alcohol inspired agency that I’ve come across.
Shane:
Certainly, probably not the last either.
Russel:
Right. Maybe common amongst a lot of business ideas. Heck when I started my agency, might even, had a beer or two and we were coming up with anything. It’s hard to remember, but I love just the idea there that you just shared of this thing you were fighting but then ultimately embraced. I think there’s a lesson to be learned there. I can even think of multiple times in my own journey where that was the case of this, why fight what is natural and just embrace it and take advantage of it. Did you embrace it early on or is that more of a reflective look back?
Shane:
I think it’s a little bit more reflective. I think that’s a good catch. Thanks for that. I think it is a little reflective, maybe even a little revisionist history if I can go that far. It was very hard for me, no, we’re more of a consulting firm. I tried to beat that, that horse until it was well, well dead. But then, at the end of the day, if it looks like an agency, smells like an agency, acts like an agency, probably an agency. It’s what people understand and anybody in this business knows, if you’re trying to redefine something, you’re going to spend a hell of a lot more time and money doing it or you could just, go with what people already know and recognize. There was some resistance, really as we evolved and became who we are today and, certainly we’ll continue to evolve. I think it is a pretty decent reflection of going, hey, not only do we need to, double down on this, but we just didn’t need to look at it from a different perspective.
Russel:
I’m curious kind of even that evolve piece that you just highlighted. What it just sounds like when I hear you talk about the business today, you’re very comfortable with what you do and what you don’t do and really focused. Is that how you started or were you, like a lot of agencies, where you’re anywhere and everywhere?
Shane:
The first three years, it was just me and and a project manager, who’s still with us today and we wouldn’t be where we are without her. There was a lot of, hey, we’ll take whatever we can get. Fake it till you make it. Have faith and faith will be given unto you, however you want to say it. We did a lot of stuff that now, looking back, it’s oh my gosh, why did we even get involved with that? But all of those things are prologue to experience and understanding and opportunity, right? Everything that you do, is building to what you’ll do tomorrow. I don’t regret it by any stretch. Certainly there are a couple of things like, whew, just glad we survived that. But then three years ago actually three years ago last week, my partners joined me. I have now two, two business partners, both of which I’ve worked at previous agencies with and had very close, personal relationships with. The evolution just in that three years has been amazing because, bringing in people other than yourself does help a little bit with the imposter syndrome. It gives you that confidence to go out and take on some things that maybe you wouldn’t have but really wanted to that has certainly been the case. Having that collaboration, I think most of us in this business work very well when we’re working with others, especially ones we trust and are confident in. There’s not a lot of mad scientists, I think, in this business where they go away into a room by themselves and come out with brilliance. There’s a few of them, but, certainly I think having that, building that community that around the business and around the brand has certainly helped us do some things that we wouldn’t have normally done, but it’s also helped us be confident in saying no to some things that we wouldn’t have said no to before.
Russel:
Let’s go back to that moment three years ago, you said you brought on partners. Is that something you went out and actively sought or was this a, another wine moment of inspiration or how did that actually come to be?
Shane:
This one I think was a little bit more deliberate. I had talked to a few people, just, as I saw the work coming in, and I saw especially the growth that we had in 2020, which was both unexpected, to begin with, cause we weren’t really going after it. But also very surprising given that was quarantine year. That was pandemic year. We grew over a hundred percent year over year that year which was, you know, astounding to come to the realization. That year was certainly a blur for all of us for many reasons. But for us it was just a wake up call. Hey, there’s a lot more opportunity out there, but you can’t do it with two people. It’s just not sustainable. Sustainability on many levels is a big concept that’s important to me. I started to look around and just watch. Even as I was doing social things, even if they were remote or just connecting with people where you could because you had to be a little bit more deliberate about that during that time. I started to see, Ally and Saya, my two business partners, I saw both of them, in certain places within their current profession and their job that look like maybe, were they just having a bad day or were they really starting to look at what’s next? We just started with some conversations around the holidays that year. After the new year, we got real deliberate, sat down and talked about everything from what we want to work on, what we don’t want to work on, what happens when I piss you off and you don’t want to talk to me for a week. All of those things that you talk about, before you enter into something like that. The more and more we talk, the more and more confident, I think the three of us were that this was really going to work well, not only because of the relationship and the trust and the confidence, but also we had a really nice, set of skills, both diverse and complimentary. It’s just a really nice mix of skill set and helps us be able to back each other up very well, depending on the type of project that we’re working on.
Russel:
I always love to hear a good partnership story. As you were explaining that, I’m thinking these are good questions and things to talk about when you’re starting a business. It makes me think back to my partnership. I was young and naive and I didn’t ask any questions. It’s just hey, let’s start a business, go figure it out. Only looking at the upside and the road ahead, but not the difficulties that we might encounter, which would be good advice to go back and give myself. Certainly kudos to you for thinking through those things.
Shane:
I don’t know if partnership was what I was necessarily looking for. I think a lot of it was because we use a lot of outsourced talent or contractors for certain things. I just saw, hey, do you guys, like, I have plenty of work. If you guys wanted to take a break from your day jobs, try something different, I have plenty of work to go around. It was after I think a conversation, maybe two, I believe it was Saya that said that hey, we don’t want to be your freelancers. We want to be your partners, you know? Just because it became very clear at that time that there was a lot of opportunity if we could really commit. It was very clear that there was a lot of confidence and trust amongst the three of us..
Russel:
That even speaks to of whether it be a strategic partnership or just anything kind of surrounding the word partnership doesn’t even have to do with partnering in the business itself of just approach it like you would any relationship. Go on a few dates and then hang out, on the weekend and then maybe you move in together and then you get married or maybe you never get married and that’s okay too. Just follow a good natural relationship flow, which it sounds like you guys did there. Given the unique part that we talked about at the beginning, this aspect of white label strategy, I’m very curious, what does that look like? How did that become a thing you offer?
Shane:
I think a lot of it, started, once the partnership was formed. Each of us have worked in several agencies, both together and separately. We have a lot of connection within the business, especially here in the Southeast. Saya is originally from Chicago. She had some connections up there. I think once people saw that we not only were getting together as partners, but also saw, some of the work that the, that, that Coconspirator had done even prior to that. There was just some interest. We were just having conversations with certain people and certainly one person leads one agency and goes and heads up this other thing in another agency. We had a lot of friends that were doing that at that time, moving around. There was a lot of transition at that time. One of our colleagues from a prior agency is now president of an agency in Atlanta, and she was one of the first to call. We have this pitch opportunity and, we need some help. We just don’t have the bench for it, right now for, compared to everything else that we’ve got going on. That’s how it started. Again, organically, another agency here in the Tampa Bay region, reached out like, had just Googled us and reached out and it was actually an agency owner I’d met at a networking event years before. While we didn’t get to work together right away now and since we’ve worked on probably six or eight projects for them a year. It’s just being able to come in and, our positioning is around being objective third parties. Insiders with an outsider perspective is our tag. I think a lot of agencies appreciate that because we can maybe get to some insights or get to some information or make some recommendations in the strategy space, without being so closely tied to, some of the things that might challenge us, or maybe there’s some interpersonal or political, relationship stuff with, within the clients and the agency side. Some of the agencies we work with really do like that objective.
Russel:
I can totally see the benefit. I have no doubt that in conversations as it relates to strategy, that consciously or subconsciously, there’s thoughts that get shared or don’t get shared based upon what effect they might have on the relationship itself. Or, so many things like you mentioned, politics, et cetera where that could be really beneficial. In some ways, another part of me says, that’s ludicrous, right? This whole agency space is moving towards strategy first, lead with strategy, execution is becoming the commodity. It’s very counterintuitive really to when you think about the notion of agencies outsourcing strategy, which is what they’re supposed to be holding onto.
Shane:
And most of the agencies we work with do have some strategy practice, internally. It’s usually augmenting or extending. We do a lot of pitch support, in that regard. Some of the largest brands we’ve worked on as Coconspirator have come through our agency partners. Unfortunately we can’t, put them on our website and promote them. But we know we’ve worked on them and we know it’s work we like doing.
Russel:
It sounds, like you’ve just got a clear focus on what you do, how you want to operate this business. How are you looking at the future and what does that look like?
Shane:
That’s a good question. Something we’ve been spending a lot of time on, I think just in the past, six months coming into the new year, we have some very clear goals over the next three to five, on how we want to continue to grow, but grow sustainably. Aggressive growth can be incredibly exciting and certainly can be a very lucrative, but it can also be devastating. We’re taking a very thoughtful, deliberate approach to growth. I’ve shifted, just in the past year, to about, a little bit, probably 60 percent business development and 40 percent client work, which is nice. It’s a nice, I like it. It’s a nice change. Sales and business development is not a default mode for me so it’s been a lot of learning. But I’ve also spent a lot of time in and around the community, both locally and the industry. Calling on some of those connections and using some of that network has been very helpful. We’ve been a hundred percent word of mouth or referral based since day one and continue to. We’re doing some outreach to try to help spur some growth or some, at least some awareness. Half of it feels like it doesn’t work, but, you say the same about advertising, right? I think for the future, what we want to do is really continue to, solidify those relationships with our clients. We really do enjoy working with as much of the leadership as possible. One of the things when I left the agency, it was very interesting to me is being able to take this, more senior and experienced talent and apply it to brands who can get the most out of it. Instead of just selling one more widget for, the big international brand, you can literally change, a founder or co founding team’s life with the same work, just at a different scale. We still want to maintain that mix. Working with large agencies, that’s great. We enjoy that too. It scratches that itch, we all come from big agencies, so it’s nice to be around our own people. Continuing to pursue that mix of clients, but, we do want to grow, and that’ll probably be growing the team and growing the roster. But again, we want to just be very deliberate about it and thoughtful.
Russel:
Smartest way to do it. This is a tough business sometimes to grow. You alluded to, and I think especially when you get to a certain size, where, you and your partners are very strong thought leaders, wear many hats, but at some point your ability to, have your fingers on everything in a certain size can become more difficult so that sustainable growth element is very critical, but, love how you’re looking at, it’s about impact. So many great little nuggets there you shared. One of the things that kind of caught my ear there is you mentioned this movement towards sales and said, it doesn’t necessarily come natural to you. Just curious on what you’re doing to get more natural with it, or just how you’re approaching this new aspect to your role.
Shane:
I think primarily is, getting comfortable with some tooling, right? There’s any number of platforms and things that you can use to, to do that, obviously. Here in the advent of really applying AI has been certainly super helpful. In other ways it’s been super not helpful because it just looks and sounds like AI, and that’s not how I want to represent our brand. We’ve done a I feel like a pretty good job curating our brand and its voice and tone. AI writing my outreach emails is something I try to avoid if I’m honest. But automation, certainly some of those things helps, to say nothing of it can be very powerful for prospecting. But I think primarily relying on just continuing to build that connection and community where I can. I’ve joined, I think, three organizations this year and two boards. Just really expanding personal connections. Cause I think those relationships that have brought us the work that we’ve done to date, continue to be positive. The more you work with somebody, the stronger those relationships get, and those people move on. They talk to people. As we all know, word of mouth and a recommendation is probably far more powerful than anything we can do by, sending a cold email or picking up the phone.
Russel:
One of the things, and it sounds like you realize there is, this gets talked a lot about, and I end up working with a lot of folks on this idea of the living by the referral is great. It means you do good work. It means you’ve built some great relationships. When those contacts, clients, prospects are coming to you, they’re already 70, 80, 90 percent of the way there, willing to do business with you. It’s really just solidifying that last few percentage points, but when they’re not coming that way and you’re doing a little more proactive outreach, how important it is to think about nurturing and building those relationships, to bridge that gap. As I heard a term not too long ago called referral reefer, and it basically is just the idea that, agencies still take that referral approach where it’s a conversation and a proposal with someone they don’t have a lot of contact with, and that tends to not work out so well. It sounds like you’re well aware of just the real importance of building and establishing these relationships.
Shane:
I think in, just in the past eight, maybe 10 months, just seeing the just exponential rise in the number of emails I get pitching things to me or the LinkedIn messages to say nothing of the scams. There’s just so much noise out there. If you can’t find a way to connect with somebody more individually or non digitally, I think it’s going to come become increasingly harder to sell something that is not retail or commodity based. You really have to work on those relationships and getting those introductions and when you are introduced to refer, make sure that you’re placing your ass and not necessarily just going in for the kill in the first conversation.
Russel:
Take them on a date. There’s the main takeaway of take them on a date, whether it’s a partner, potential partner, potential client, whatever the case might be. I think you speak to this idea that it’s becoming more evident in my mind, this wall or almost this scar tissue that’s building up around the idea of marketing in terms of what it actually takes to penetrate or to make a connection or to get someone’s ear even in the first place, just grows by the day. Compared to when I hear stories of, folks that were selling 20, 30 years ago that, right? Door to door sales, or just could go knock on doors, call people up and you’re going to get a conversation. And then what can you do with it from there? We don’t have that anymore so much.
Shane:
As more time goes on, as we’ve worked with more clients and that client roster becomes even more diverse, those opportunities start to compound because people see, and talk to other people, and see the work that you’ve been doing. I think just even in the past, 24 months, some of the projects that we’ve completed and clients we’ve worked on, It just increases our confidence in being able to go out and sell it because we’re looking at it, we see happy clients. We see clients, you know who come back more than once and we see them going out of their way to connect us to people who we won’t work with. The other side of that business development piece is just continuing to focus on the quality of the work that we do.
Russel:
That is certainly first and foremost, can’t ever lose sight of that. That will always drive everything forward. A good fundamental reminder there. Very fascinating story. Love the foundational approach and just the confidence and conciseness in how you’re approaching the business. Many great things to take away from there. My last question for you, Shane, is are entrepreneurs born or are they made?
Shane:
I think people are certainly born with some of the ingredients. I think there are certain people who are absolutely not entrepreneurs. Let’s put it that way. But I think everybody has some of the, a lot of people were born with the ingredients. A lot of people go and try to find those things and develop those things and I think that they can be very successful as well. But I do believe that there are some people who just it was just a matter of time opportunity and environment. Those things come together and those ingredients get activated. I guess to answer your question, I would say yes, but there are also people who are absolutely not.
Russel:
I will take it. Another great perspective on the question. If people want to know more about Coconspirator, where can they go?
Shane:
Coconspirator.com. That’s primary. We’re actually just this past week, we got a staging link. We’re redoing our site, updating it, getting some more content out there and, giving it a little bit of a visual overhaul. Because, if we’re a marketing firm, if you’re not doing something with your own brand at least once a year, you’re not doing what you’re supposed to, right?
Russel:
Or the opposite. Not any different in our case was every several years we might touch it, which was a big mistake on our part. But I’m glad to hear you’re not making that same mistake.
Shane:
We try to keep it a little fresh and plus we just enjoy it. It’s an interesting brand. We get a lot of, wait, what is that? What do you do? I think we’ve found some really fun inroads into, how we bring that brand story together. We do enjoy working on it, but yeah, coconspirator.com has all of our information. Certainly LinkedIn. I would say we’re not super, super active on much else in terms of social. It’s just hard to keep up with it all, to your point.
Russel:
No need to play where you don’t want to play. Sounds very in line with your overall approach to business. Thank you so much, Shane, for all the wonderful insights and perspectives and aspects of your story that you’ve shared today. It was certainly a lot to, good nuggets to reflect on, and I appreciate you taking the time to share it.
Shane:
Thank you for having me, Russel. It’s been a pleasure. If I can be of any service, don’t let it, don’t hesitate to let me know.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of An Agency Story podcast where we share real stories of marketing agency owners from around the world. Are you interested in being a guest on the show? Send an email to podcast@performancefaction.com. An Agency Story is brought to you by Performance Faction. Performance Faction offers services to help agency owners grow their business to 5 million dollars and more in revenue. To learn more, visit performancefaction.com.
Shane:
I think we’ve all probably done this to some degree, maybe not to the disastrous result that I did. We were working with a client and we’ve been with them for many years. We’ve noticed a lot of times, long term retainer clients complacency sets in and frustration certainly. We were at that point. The relationship probably needed to be either retooled or given a break. We got an email from a client or something, I can’t remember exactly how it came in, but I responded to my partners in I would say a frustrated mindset and said something that was nowhere near professional. Unfortunately that email got forwarded to my client. But as embarrassing as it was, I didn’t know if he saw it because there were several people on it. I called him directly and just said, hey, you’re going to see something. He goes, I saw it and I, hundred percent agree. And it was just, elating to hear him take it so cordially and generously. He’s like, yeah, you’re right. I would have picked a few different words to express it, but you were not wrong. Maybe we need to sit down and have a conversation. Unfortunately that relationship did end, but we still have a good the engagement ended but we still have a good relationship with them, which is not a, not always the common outcome of that situation.
Russel:
Maybe not a pro tip to, to do something like that, but what that says to me there is that there’s probably some things we should say that we don’t. And that sounds like one of those moments again, as your client said, a few choice words removed, but that you’re really getting to the heart of something. A lesson to be learned on both sides of the equation.
