Episode 495 Agency Chat With Ryan Waterbury Preparing For 2025

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Show Summary

This podcast features Rob Cairns and Ryan Waterbury discussing year-end business planning for 2025. They emphasize the importance of long-term goal setting over resolutions, reviewing past performance, and improving processes such as client communication and standard operating procedures (SOPs). The conversation also covers financial evaluation, including software subscriptions and billing strategies, and the value of proactive client communication regarding holiday closures and project timelines. Finally, the speakers stress the significance of taking time off for rest and rejuvenation.

Show Transcript

Hey everybody, Rob Cairns here coming to you today from an undisclosed bunker in the middle of nowhere. Here with my monthly co-host, Mr. Ryan Waterbury. Hey Ryan. How you doing, Rob?

Nuts about just kind of hiding. You know how that is, don’t you? In the web design.

I I’ve been doing my fair share of that. It’s It’s called nose to the grindstone. Don’t bother me.

Yeah. Well, I’m on site of clients today and holidays at the time of this recorder coming up and I wanted to get this in. So, there you there you go. So, today we thought about what you got to do to prep for um 2025. as 2024 comes to an end. And I should tell you, I’m not a big fan of uh doing resolutions. So, the worst thing business owners can do is resolutions. I prefer to sit down and set long-term goals for each quarter and then break them down into smaller short-term goals. And and by the way, I also mesh my personal goals in with that because as a business owner, they go hand in hand. How do you feel about that whole goal set? resolution process.

I I am on the same same track and I don’t set res set resolutions at all, personal or professional. Uh I’m a firm believer in planning and uh you know, you you touched on something right there where I’ve been bitching and complaining all fall because my planning for 2024 had work lined up through quarter two. quarter three and then none at four except my regular holiday marketing work which actually exploded on top of everything else. Uh just work slid into the fall which is the season where I like to take at least a month off like can’t really take a month off as a solo business owner but I don’t uh I don’t uh en enjoy the other seasons like that. My uh my office staff are purebred hunting dogs and that’s our time and this year we just didn’t get enough time. So that’s uh that’s definitely a goal that I have for next year and it already started the planning. It started 3 months ago, four months ago and if you haven’t started planning for 2025 to make things work uh the way that you want them to, you’re probably a little behind. But it’s not too late.

Yeah. I agree with you and I think planning is a big part of it. But I also like to do coming out of 2024 and it’s kind of if I get there this year because we’re now into political season in Canada and you know what that does to me. So um the uh the problem is I like to take a look back at and say, “Okay, what works? What doesn’t work? Um which clients did I get rid of? Why I got rid of those clients? What was wrong? What red flag came up after the fact and I kind of like to an analyze the whole year and say, “Okay, what what’s happening? What do we need to do?” If you remember last year at this point, I increased all my prices. Um I’m I’m not regretting doing that 100% at all. Um it didn’t hurt me. And now I’m just kind of working ahead and saying, “Okay, what I’m trying to re-evaluate 2024 and say what worked and didn’t work.”

Exactly. And I do that that same thing. I look at what software am I using and what am I paying for?

Uh are my websites optimized across servers appropriately because I did let go of some clients that um were problematic that um you know and I I did so for probably some of the same reasons that you did. They just were not a good fit for me and my business and didn’t fit my processes. One of the things that uh really I’ve been doing it in in uh small fashion for the past few years, but working in strategic partnerships with a uh content marketing agency and also a uh pure um graphic and web designer where we’ve kind of partnered to uh take on some larger projects. So that’s come into planning and I had good SOPs for my own processes. But when you start working with other people, uh obviously we all have our own processes, ways to work that’s something that I’m, you know, we are wrapping up our last project for the year that launched uh last night.

Um after some changes and a couple more this morning, but things were good, but there were some questions that came up that for me, I just think they’re obvious and you know, they’re not if you don’t do the do the particular type of work every day. So, it just reminded me that I need to look at my SOPs, not only for myself, but also working with vendors and clients and tighten those up a bit.

I know you and I had have talked on other, you know, podcasts about tightening up our terms and conditions. That’s something that, you know, I’m not done. I’ll never be done, but I think we firmed up those things. You know, look at your TNC’s. Are they still are your base is still covered? Um, SOPs. I, you know, just some basic things like image cropping and resolution or, you know, e-commerce versus hero sections. And what it really is prompting me to do is build my content schedule and and talk about some of these things in a blog as you know I’m redoing my SOPs. Um but the biggest one for me you know is is planning work and I try and plan the work for spring and that’s what I really talked about you know a few minutes ago where I said I started that a few months ago and I started lining up the queue you know when I worked for a uh Fortune 100 printing company, one of the the largest in North America, you know, we talked about the I worked in in a technical sales role when I was managing a department as part of my job and we really broke down the sales process and how long it takes and it’s a six month to a year process with some of those um corporate contracts where yeah,

they’re planning out you know um six months year. I mean it used to be three to five years but now when we moved into the digital ages you know even in the early 2000s you know you still have to plan out and corporate entities and even small to midsize businesses they are planning big expenditures you know marketing changes you know new uh website and infrastructure changes well in advance of of the year. So getting in front of that uh early uh helps you secure some of those contracts and line up your gear so you’re not scrambling and and looking for work. Um, that’s that’s one of my biggest goals for next year is to schedule things appropriately, work them in a process, if things go off the rails, come back into into the process and and realign schedules.

Yeah, I I agree with you. And I think one of the things you got to do as we look to new head is communicate with your clients. So, I t I touched on this earlier this week and a quick podcast and said, “How many business owners haven’t told their clients what their holiday hours are at this point?” Like, I know I shut down on the 23rd of December. I’m basically down probably from the 21st, but reality the 23rd. I don’t reopen till January 2nd. Um, and I and I’ve already communicated that once and I will send out a reminder this week and again next week. So, if my clients choose not to subscribe to their client newsletter, that’s on them because I’m I’m at the point where I know I’m gone, so I’m gone. And there’s a couple exceptions, but I’m basically out. And we need to communicate that. The other thing we need to do going in is is set realistic time frames because I find with clients, everything everybody wants everything come January one because the new budget year for most companies kicks in. Unless you’re a government in Canada, that’s end of March, early April. But generally, it’s Most people use the calendar year and people got to realize you can’t have everything all at once. You just got to communicate proper timelines, appropriateness and so on.

Yeah, that’s one of the things that um I’ve worked with a lot of clients and you know some that approach that red flag level and it wasn’t it turned out not to be a red flag. It was communication and managing expectations and you know

coming back to here’s what we can do within this timeline when they want it now and set reasonable goals and uh you know working with some serial entrepreneurs that have a lot of pokers in the fire. They drop the ball occasionally and and uh yeah generally they’re good clients but when they drop the ball they’ve dropped it because they’ve been sitting on something for you know too long and then it’s hot. So you know managing expectations and you know, communicating on everything going on that here are the schedules here here’s what we can do if you can’t meet these deadlines and then rewrite it, but do it within reason. And uh so client management uh is something that I’m continually working on and and uh it it helps manage schedules, manage expectations, and in the end, I’m happier, the client’s happier, we get things launched. Um, I I’m going to say on time, but nothing is ever on time. I don’t think I’ve ever I’ve never met uh one of the the initial deadlines for a launch. I think once and that was because it it was intended to be, hey, we have an event coming up that we got a slot in we didn’t think it was going to happen. We need this site spun up. Great. That happened. But everything else, nope. Uh it’s it’s always, you know, a week or two or a day or two behind. And that’s okay as long as you manage those expectations and you adjust your schedule where everybody’s happy. So those are that’s my big goal is next year client management in order to meet tighter deadlines. And when I say tighter deadlines, I don’t want to be a couple of months over over the goal mark. I’d like to be, you know, a couple of days or a week out unless there’s a major change and then, you know, No, that’s something else. That’s a project edition or major halt. So,

no, I I agree with it. The other thing I always do at this time of year, it’s interesting. In December, every year, I take all my clients, and you and I both know I have a pile of uh security care plan clients. And do you know, I send each one an individual email with what the renewal dates are the following year. So that if they’ve misplaced their contracts, they can’t find stuff, they all have renewal dates and I’ve reminded them. Now, interesting enough, I have very few renewals in January. It’s just the way it works. The bulk of them start February and then they go depending on where right through the year. So, it’s just kind of it’s just kind of really interesting. But then they then again they’ve been communicated with and reminded and very rarely does a client come back to me and say, “Hey, I forgot my renewal date.” Well, my standard answer was, “Did you look at your on track, but that’s, you know, another story. I think you’re sometimes better to overcommunicate than to undercommunicate. So,

yeah, that was one thing. Uh, you know, as my client list, uh, and roster has grown, uh, I I was better about, you know, one-on-one communications and checking in. And that’s also uh, one of my goals for next year is to check in on my clients on a more regular basis. I have a couple of invoices out right now. uh that, you know, I would be happy if they closed today, but I need to reach out and just do the uh check-in with those clients to see what’s going on and and remind them that, hey, uh you have these one-off invoices. Uh but unlike you, I don’t I don’t do annual um because for me, that’s uh you know, that comes chasing around a big ticket item and then people forget and you know, so I do monthly because uh One of the things that uh another colleague reminded me of, he said, “Do you even think about paying your Netflix bill every month or your Amazon Prime bill, you know, those monthly things when you break it down to a monthly subscription?” And this is just philosophically, it made sense. And I really don’t think about it. You know, my uh my internet bill uh to power my business, it just comes out every month and I don’t think about it. So, that was one one of those decisions I made. I had ly plans and annual plans at one point, but I sat down in one of the December sessions and I said, I have two pl two two clients on the annual plan and one on the quarterly plan at this point. I I’m going to roll them over to monthly because it’s more of a pain in the butt, mainly because one of my annual clients missed it every year and I would have to go chase a big bill and it wasn’t working for me. So,

the this is that time where you want to you want to look at your SOPs and your and even your billing and even the tools, you know, what you’re paying for and take a look and evaluate and and see, you know, financially, are you paying for things that you shouldn’t? Are are the things that you’re paying for working for you? I I’m going to I’m going to pay for ClickUp for another year. I was hoping not to uh because Fluent Boards, I picked that up. Uh I like the Fluent products, but there they’re a little behind in their development, so they’re not there yet. And that’s fine. So, I’m I’ve been, you know, doing those things and evaluating what am I paying for? Is this

is it worthwhile? Does it help me save time? Does it help me uh improve my client’s experience with working with me?

Those are just the general questions. And every, this isn’t, you know, something that’s specific to our industry. Every business should take a look uh at what you’re doing at the end of the year and see am I making money the right way? Am I spending time the right way? Is the business still working for me? So,

yeah. And it’s funny you mentioned annual plans and I haven’t told you this, but I’ll make the announcement here and now. I’m about to offer some monthly plans. Believe it or not, um I don’t know. I’m not going to post the rates, but I’m basically gonna say if you want to pay monthly, contact me and we can have a chat because I think I’m I’m going to offer that option, but I’m not getting rid of the annual plans. I prefer the annual billing. That’s just me, so it works for me. So, but uh it’s like everything else, you just keep re-evaluating. Um what else do you uh look at going into the new year?

I you know, over the years it’s been are my processes working and

uh you know, I I’ve been doing this as a, you know, kind of a side side biz for a long time until I incorporated in 2016, then fully left, you know, doing my consulting uh gig in 2019. And so my process has changed every year because I was shuffling on how much time I was putting into the business. I had pretty much set what I was doing in throughout the year in 2019 and I had a really good model. I had some staff, things were working great. 2020 absolutely blew that up. And every year I’ve gotten back a little bit incrementally and and change some things. But each year I change less and less as I dial in on on, you know, what I’m doing. And I’m I feel pretty comfortable this year going into the following year. Uh for the first time since 2019 that I’ve got a good plan. I think the services that my agency is offering are solid. Um, I I like the the uh clients that I’m working with. We’ve shuffled out the the clients that haven’t worked. I like the colleagues that I’m working with. And now it’s down to are are the tools I’m paying for working for me and do they work for my colleagues? And just little things like that, just SOPs. And now it’s long-term planning where we, you know, we talked about planning out the quarters, but I’m looking at, you know, the following year, 5 years, you know, planning some more sustainable things like am I putting enough money in my retirement account?

Uh do I I you know, I took a couple of um deposit checks, you know, for 10 20 grand uh this fall and they said, “Oh s***, do I have enough in my, you know, slush account to cover the taxes when it they come due in January?” Oh yeah.

So the the planning things are are starting to look a little bit different on you know the financial side where uh you know I’ve been doing this for a while. I think I’ve I’ve got a good product and service now I got to look at sustainable and and growing it. So conversations that I’m having now in 2025 are uh coming into are way different than the ones that I had in 2016 2017 and was just figuring out how to to build the agency in a viable method.

Yeah. So true. I I I think we’re going to keep this kind of short, but I think we’ve given some people some ideas on what to do to get ready for next year. I think I think what it comes down to is planning and looking back and re-evaluating, right? If you were going to name three things. And I just want to take time to wish you and everybody else out there a happy holidays, merry Christmas, happy new year, happy Hanukkah if you celebrate and enjoy your time and make sure you take some time off and recharge for the new year because I think that’s really important too.

Absolutely. And you know that’s one thing that I wanted to mention. I’m closed the same same thing you are the last two weeks of the year because I think it’s really important that you enjoy time with friends and family and enjoy the holiday season however you choose but unplug. Definitely unplug.

Yeah. You must have uh drugged your two office staff because I haven’t heard a word from them today which

surprisingly We’re we’re getting a nice little Alberta Clipper and we have singledigit Fahrenheit highs right now. So

Oh yeah,

it is very cold and they are surprisingly quiet for not having a run this morning.

I’m thankful for that.

Ryan, thanks so much and we will talk to you in the new year. Have a great day, my friend. Be well.

You too.