Ep 01: Welcome to the Creative Shit Show!
Co-Hosts Justin Ahrens, Karen Larson, Von Glitschka, and Jamie Saunders open the door for a peek inside the creative shit show that is our life. We love what we do, but it’s not always perfect. In our inaugural episode of the Creative Shit Show, we talk through everything from nightmare clients and entrepreneurial challenges to what we should name our signature Shit Show cocktail. Grab a drink and have a listen.
SHOW NOTES:
Von’s ‘Just Peachy’ Cocktail: 6 oz. all-natural peach nectar, 2 shots of bourbon of your choice, pour over crushed ice, stir and enjoy. (He prefers Maker’s Mark)
Ivy Malik, Sales Coach for Creatives: Instagram account: @ivymalikofficial
Zootopia Sloth Scene: https://youtu.be/4aUC1VZQE1E
ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:
THE CREATIVE SHIT SHOW
EPISODE 1: WELCOME TO THE CREATIVE SHIT SHOW
Justin: Y'all we're here. This is our first episode. Now we've talked about this, how many months this has been us just joking around. It's been more than months, right? Is it about a year?
Karen: More than a year? Yeah, we've been talking about it for a while
Justin: And we're all different parts of the country. And through the magic of zoom we're here together. I'm excited to start this journey with you all. Yeah, Friday afternoon, pre cocktail hour. That's how disciplined we are or I don't know, Von. Oh, Karen's drinking.
Von: This is a peach nectar with a little Maker's Mark in it.
Justin: I'm not the only one that's not drinking right?
Jamie: No, I'm not. I got my energy.
Justin: Yeah. And I have my water with supplements on it because I'm hydrating
Jamie: The next show we need to do a better job coordinating.
Justin: Yeah, that's great. I think this is pretty much, I don't know about you guys, but how my brain is on a Friday by the time I get to. Three o'clock is probably gracious by the time I get to noon or one I'm done. Ready to turn it in, especially the last two years. How do you guys feel on a Friday afternoon?
Jamie: Yeah, probably about the same, I think. I don't like to do meetings after you know about one o'clock on Fridays. I can't think anymore. I need time. Down time, administration time, wrap up.
Karen: I'm usually a little wound-up because it's the weekend. I'm almost like an employee. I am so ready, but like today I had meetings back to back from eight o'clock this morning, but I think because the first one went so well and so smooth that it just kicked off the day.
Von: I'm just trying to get back to feeling normal. So I got COVID over the weekend
Justin: yeah. Oh dear. I was about ready to start making fun of you. And now you have to kick off the show that you have COVID.
Von: No I’m at the end. But it only hit me pretty bad the first day. And then I was starting to feel normal the second day.
Justin: It's just for what it's worth you look, devilishly handsome. Just see.
Karen: He does look good.
Justin: By the way for everyone at home. I don't know if this Von found this on Tik TOK, if you want to reduce the effects of COVID have a Maker's Mark.
I forgot that one. Hey, before we get too much farther, why don't we share with everyone who the heck we are right in we're all over the country and, in different stages of our careers. I'm Justin Ahrens. This is my 22nd year of owning rule 29, and we are a branding agency outside of Chicago.
We also have an office in Omaha and a couple of other teammates in California. And, we are in the brand space, a brand strategy and brand creation, management, et cetera. And I would say for the most part, I still very much. But I have to say I don't love it every day if I was to be honest.
And the last two years have absolutely been challenging from every level you can imagine personally, team-wise navigation. That's probably not anything new for anyone listening or for you guys, but yeah, I'm excited to be here with you. So who wants to jump.
Jamie: I got it. I'm Jamie Saunders.
I'm the co-founder of clear brand strategy along with Karen Larson. Who is also on the show. I have just a little bit of a different story. I actually was in corporate marketing for almost 15 years, and I liked to say that I retired in 2017 from corporate life after my mom passed away at a really young age I always wanted to start my own business and start working for myself.
When you get that perspective, that life is short, it makes everything kind of accelerate. I went ahead and made that dream a reality. I love working independently. I think one of the most fun things about it is that my corporate background informed me. My current client relationships, because we tend to drift towards working with corporate clients.
Having sat in their chair, I really do love commiserating with them. And it does help me, I think, to understand what they're going through every day because corporate marketing is a shit show in and of itself. And every organization is the same. No matter who you talk to.
It's probably one of my most favorite things to do is just help corporate marketers. Cause I know what it feels like to sit in that chair and just feel stuck,
Justin: so I love that. I love that. We get to hear that perspective, both being on the client-side. The creative partner side. So that's awesome.
Jamie: That's fun. It's not every day I have to work with Karen.
Justin: at least none of us have to work with Von on a regular basis. Oh, I'm sorry. Von, were you going to say something?
Von: Eh, I'll let Karen go.
Karen: I've been an independent designer for 30 years, but have been in the business for 40 years, can't even believe I'm saying that. I've worked with corporate clients for years, so I've always been on the other side of the desk from Jamie
so I love getting my head around nice big projects, really breaking it down and helping the client to create a real clear strategy and beautiful design, beautiful content. Yeah, that's what I do. And I also, I am passionate about making art and I love drawing, I love painting.
And so there's a whole mix of that.
Von: My business turns 20 this month. For the last five years, my daughter, Savannah, my oldest daughter has been working with me, although she's on hiatus right now with tendonitis since October. So she's still struggling with that.
But most of the work we do is in a branding context. Usually, it's working with either our own clients or. Agencies will hire us. We're working with one agency right now branding their client. I liked that. I like being able to meet other creatives and develop solutions or explorations to solve their client's problems.
That's usually the context I'm working in. It's fun. Like Justin, there are some days that are better than other days. So I try to keep it positive. It's been hard this week, just because even though I was feeling somewhat normal, I didn't feel like working. I'd rather just go lay down and sleep, but
Jamie: Yeah, I understand.
Justin: That's the worst Von. Let's also be honest. How many times, if you and I called each other or text each other, maybe in the last two years saying we want to do something different. Let's be honest. How many times?
Von: How many times have we done that? More times than I can count.
Justin: Can you guys, do you feel that way sometimes or what.
Karen: I want to chime in because I felt exactly the same way a couple of years ago. Even though I was self-employed for so long, I took a job with a client and it turned into a shit show. It was biggest mistake. I can honestly say I like in my career it was, I'm not an employee.
I'm a consultant. And then when you take a job as an employee, you turn into an employee. It doesn't work. So I was in a place where I was, it took me probably two years to figure it out. I knew I wanted to do what I was doing, because what else am I going to do this? I love what I do. But then I partnered with Jamie and that was the catalyst of oh my God, this is fun.
Again. It's probably the most fun I've had. In my career and I'm going to be 60 this year and that's saying something and I'm not going to go anywhere. So it's exciting. So I think there's, that's a big discussion I think we'll end up having is what are those catalysts to get us out of that shit show mode.
Because it's still a shit show working with Jamie sometimes, but it's more fun.
Jamie: my texts are what she's talking about. Just let's be clear. But like Von, you were
Karen: Von, you were just mentioning how much you enjoy working with the agency. It's probably because you're collaborating with somebody outside of your bubble.
Von: Yeah. They're having to manage the client. So if a client gets unreasonable deal with it, that's probably the area that I need to get better at is well sales and just managing expectations. I do as much as I can to give them a heads up on what to expect, but. I just have very little patience for people who.
Yeah I'm not going to get into anything here. I don't want to name names, but, it's probably frustrating at times.
Jamie: you can tell your clients to listen to our show.
Justin: Yeah. Yeah. Vaughn will solve all your problems will get you fired from every single project and then you won't have to worry about it
Jamie: and then you can rest.
Justin: I think Karen, to your point, There are degrees of shit, showing us right in our business and our careers. It's never going to go away, obviously, you know how you approach it, how you prepare yourself, your perspective on that, and everything. But I love your perspective on the fact that I think in a lot of ways, you.
I've already been exactly where Yvonne and I are. And make some shifts. And you're in this pardon me? This is a compliment. I know what this is to come off. I can only imagine…
You're in the, you're in the second phase of your career, right? Like you're in the next chapter of your career.
Karen: With my age, I'd most people would be in the final chapter of their career, thinking about retirement.
Justin: So
Karen: I guess you can use that.
Justin: Yeah. I can kinda, I guess I could either use that term. I just feel like any shift or new beginning and that's what it is.
Whether it's, you don't know if it's fine. All right. You could be doing something else in a few years. You could be a famous podcast if you're in a few weeks, so that's right. That's right, so what are some of the, yeah, what are some of the current, I don't know, frustrations, challenges, successes that are surrounding, y'all right now.
Jamie: If we're talking about, shifts and trying to get out of like ruts a little bit, I think obviously everybody for the last couple of years has been going through a rut. It's been challenging being apart from everybody. And it's great to have technology like zoom.
I know other ways that you can communicate, but I think one of the things I'm really struggling with is just being away from people. I spent 15 years in an office being surrounded by people, being able to go down the hall and talk to people. And my husband would say, get my word quota out for the day.
But I find. I have to find ways to interact and get up and move around, or else I just find myself sitting at my desk for hours and hours on end. And I can't be good for you, so I think for me, the challenge now is integrating back in to society and planning meetings with clients just, and we just talked about this the other day, just getting back over to see clients and figuring out what everybody's comfort level is with.
Is going to be big for me going forward, but I miss being with people. I think I'm just, I really got to figure out a way to start integrating back into society.
Justin: I totally can. I feel that Jamie, for sure. And I think I'm really grateful for zoom. The fact that I get to see you, lovely people, right? Otherwise. We wouldn't be seeing each other. We would be texting each other. And what do you, how do you feel about things?
Von: I never, I heard they ever did video conferencing before COVID. Broke out. I don't mind it at times it can be surprisingly productive and other times I'm like, it would have been faster just to put this in an email and get it over with, but what I've been struggling with for the last few months or so is just, on one client, the exact same process, I'll use two.
In this case explorations forum, is the same process as with another client I'm working on now. But the previous client like just nothing would be, he just hated everything and he didn't make any sense with his feedback. Derogatory in some sense. And so now moving with a different client, I'm working with I find I'm a little gun shy at times, like okay.
Or they going to hate everything now. So it's and then hearing back from him, he's going, wow, there's a lot of good choices here. It's like the exact same process. I didn't change anything. It's just it's I guess I just expected it. People should be able to recognize the same thing from one client to another.
And they don't. And that's part of my problem, is expecting that. But so I play a lot of head games with myself. If somebody doesn't like something, I take that personally, especially if I think I've provided them with some options. I thought her pretty good, so that's what. Usually, I've had the Savannah to bounce stuff off of now for five years, it's changed the way I work because she's able to look at stuff and give me feedback that otherwise I would have never really heard before. And at first, that was hard to get used to, but now I've depended on it.
Now she's been out of commission since October, so it's a little harder. I feel like I'm going back to the way I used to work, but it seems like I'm not having as much success as I used to. Cause I had quite a few recent clients who are just, I don't know, problem clients and I need to get better at vetting them.
Like I, this last one I'm thinking of, I knew he was going to be a problem client. I just convinced myself that I could get beyond that and it didn't really work out that way. So
Karen: It's that shit show red flag
Jamie: Yeah. Where are the red flags?
Karen: Yeah. So it's that it is that I think we all have to think about what that what's that red flag, those red flight clients we've been in the business long enough to.
To know that we probably shouldn't go there and it's okay to say no, but
Jamie: sometimes, you don't know till you're like knee-deep in it. And then all of a sudden you're like, he thought everything was going along smoothly. And all of a sudden you turn in some work to the client, and it's just, it's to me it gets, a surprise, and all of a sudden you're like, oh no, I don't think we're vibing.
Karen: Yea, like I don't think this is gonna work.
And then you're stuck. Justin what's been going on in your world?
Justin: We're starting to have. People will come back a little bit to the office. We've been fully working from home since March 13th, however long ago. That was two years ago. Yeah. It's crazy to think of that. Isn't it?
Jamie: Yeah. St. Patrick's day.
Justin: Yeah. And I have a mixture of my team. Who's looking forward to it indifferent, I think, and then not super happy about it.
And. I feel it's worth us investing time. W will never be full-time back in the office, we'll be hybrid. I like being flexible like that for sure. And I wouldn't have realized how much I've enjoyed it until I was forced to do it. So that's one of the silver linings, I think, of the last two years.
But, just trying to understand from a leadership standpoint, how to do it and include everyone as much as possible, to be as respectful and clear in communication. And it's just, it's something that keeps me up at night to make sure that we do the right thing.
I don't want to lose a great employee because of something I've communicated poorly. I'm not saying I would, I think about that. So that's, there's that, and then, it just, things have been just a lot more competitive lately. It feels. We've lost some projects. I thought we'd win for sure.
And then we've won some that I thought we had no chance on. And yeah, so those are the kinds of things we're wrestling and maybe that's not much different than normal, but it just feels, I'm not gonna say everything. Certain things feel a lot heavier now than I think maybe they, they should or I want them to be.
But Karen, you said something earlier. I'd love to ask. What are some of the signs you talked about? We all know the red flags, but what are some of the ways that you process them, like when that red flag kind of pops up metaphorically? What are some of those things that you're like no way or yes way or what are some of those things for you?
Karen: I think a lot of the things it's such a gut feeling for me. It's do I want to work with this person is the first question. Is this somebody that I really want to work with personally? Do I get along with them? Do I, am I doing it for the money? These are all questions that I ask myself. Most of.
Most of the clients that Jamie and I are looking at are, or prospects or people that we want for the long haul, and they're not just a one-off, it's more of, we're going to be your corporate marketing department type of relationship. And when you do that, you have to make sure that. It's you get to know the person a little bit.
And for me, if I start feeling I don't know about this person, I can tell this is going to be a shit show, then it just is I start I that right there, I can. And I'm pretty good at reading people, there's also, are they complaining about money? Are they complaining about the budget early on?
And or are they not even complaining? Are they just I don't know how much money I really want to spend on this. Or, you just, I think after so much time, you just get the sense of maybe they're not the right people. But then I think that there's also is this the type of company that I want to work for.
Do I want to help them succeed? Do I want to help them make money? And if anything, I've walked away from clients famous for firing clients. If I have to because I decide. While the relationship was great to start for three or four years, then things have changed. People have changed within the work, the company that I'm working with.
And I'm like, and I don't know if I want to keep making, helping these people make money, and I'll walk away and I'll walk away. Because there's always going to be another client. Always, especially right now, there's this crazy amount of work, but Jamie and I've been talking a lot lately about, how much do we charge?
And this is a future discussion and hopefully, it's a discussion, maybe we do it on our next episode possibly the next couple, What are people charging? What are companies charging? Cause there are the big agencies and there's a small agency and it's really confusing. I know for being in the business for so long, you used to be able to charge a heck of a lot more than you can.
Now, at least that's how I feel. And I'd love to have a discussion about that. So if anything, going back to the original question. In the pre-question too, you asked me about red flags. I think, for me, the biggest question is it's the money question. I'm doing tons of work, but am I charging enough?
That's the question I have in my head, and I think I'm doing okay compared to, not enough people saying no.
Justin: So how many times do you feel like you feel your guts pretty, tuned in these days? Do you know if you were to if four clients were to come to you, do you think one would slip past ya?
Karen: I'm pretty good. I think after all this time, I really out, I really. And I, in fact, the one thing about. This whole zoom thing is that you really can't build that type of relationship. And there's a current client that I have that at first, I thought, oh, he's a pain in the butt. And he wasn't really my client.
He's an extension of somebody else that brought me in, but I'm working more and more with him, and it's not Jamie's client. It's somebody else. And the more we get to know him, The better it's going. So it's we're having just that hard time. And I say, we, I think as everyone is having a hard time building that relationship quicker.
And so I think honestly, probably because of zoom, I will say it is a little bit harder. Like I can go into somebody's office and I can mean you guys have all known me for us. I can be a little bit of a smart ass if I have to, or, and I can tell, I know what, huh, but I can tell if somebody is going to laugh at that or it's going to work.
If they're going to be, if they're going to accept the way I am, it's going to work. And I'm extremely professional when it comes to working, but I'm also good. Call you out a little bit. If you're causing a shit show too. It's really interesting. What do you think Jamie? Cause you've been working with me now for a year.
Jamie: I think what's really interesting is, that Karen and I each have our own little side gigs, so we don't always work on every project together. Although we are doing, we've made a concerted effort now to say, we work better as a team. It's better when we're together, we can bounce things off each other to your point, Von.
Having the preview with somebody internal before you send it to the client is a game-changer. I feel a lot less anxious about work. Karen is very good at negotiating contracts and things. I think I'm getting better at it. But I think what's cool is we're different people. We really are.
We're completely different. Could be even like polar opposites, but then we do things like today where we thought a call was at two o'clock and we both signed on to zoom at one 30 for you. We're both like we're talking and then we're like our, meeting's not till two. Why are we both here? It was like the weirdest thing ever, but so like sometimes we're like, so in sync, but what's cool is.
Karen might have red flags or reservations about a client. And I actually really liked them and we get along really well. And so we just make a decision or vice versa, I'll be like, I don't really think that person really is vibing with me. I might be too much for them. I can be too much.
I know I can. It's like good to own it. And so you just say, Hey, do you mind stepping in and doing the project management on this one, you should be the account lead. And I like having the flexibility cause we both trust each other enough to say, I don't want to work directly with this person.
I think they liked my work, but me and my personality is just not working, and we've done it a couple of times and it doesn't. Being just fine.
Karen: It's so true. Like I'm super detail-oriented. I go in and I break down the concept and sometimes Jamie's just like I don't know what the hell he's talking about. I can't figure this out.
I'm like, let me just talk to them
Jamie: And then spreadsheets...
Karen: then there's oh my God, this person's driving me crazy. I'm saying it. And she's Oh, I can talk to them. No problem.
Jamie: I love that I'll call her, and it's whatever. And we just, I dunno, it's nice to have that. I missed that about having direct reports, to be able to pass off work and work with other people.
And, I don't know how you feel about the Justin, but it's nice to have people that you can at your office that you can say, Hey, you know what? Do you mind taking this client? Talking to this client, because it might not be your favorite thing.
Karen: But I will say before you answer that, Justin, one of the nice things about being solo for so long and finding a partner is that we're equal partners in the level in our career.
We're not like, it's not like we're a junior or somebody is a junior. Does that make sense? Yeah okay.
Justin: now really I really, yeah, I really admire, Karen and Von for I don't admire you yet, Jamie, but I really admire Karen and Von for being on their own for so long, because I think.
I have the opportunity on occasion to delegate or collaborate with some of my teammates. Obviously, there are things that are uniquely mine to own, and I need to own those and do that. And I seem to like those items more and more, but Von, I know specifically for you, we've talked about the fact that, If I was to describe you in some ways you're just a, you're just a craftsman out of the people I know in this world.
You're just, you're so dedicated to the perfection of drawing and how you apply that to illustrator. And again, for anybody not following Von Twitter do right now, especially when he rants on Adobe, it makes me so happy. When you get super, Eyore, Von is what I call you. It's let's I love that, but I know in the past you've just had.
Hard, clients' interactions or chasing money or whatever else. How does that impact you? Is that something that just totally zaps your energy and makes you be like, ah, or how do you like re you know, recalibrate after that?
Von: Puts me in a funk for three or four days where I just feel like
what do they call that imposter syndrome? Now, hold on. I did a course on logo design, but here I can't handle a client who is it's like, why should anybody watch my course? It's that kind of thought.
Karen: I'm shocked. The audience that listens to this is going to be shocked at hearing you talk like that because, in the creative world, you are an illustrator designer.
God. And I can say I've known you forever, it's so to hear your openness and about, and being, so what's the word I'm looking for vulnerable. Thank you. I think it's wonderful because we all feel that, we all. And I questioned the same thing. How can you be in the business for this long and then question yourself and be, have that imposter syndrome?
It's crazy.
Von: Yeah. I think it's pretty normal though. I was listening to, I can't remember. I can't remember her name. I follow her on Instagram. She's a sales expert and a business consultant, and she is making the comment that every single creative she's ever consulted with. And they talked about pricing.
Every single creative she's talked to is pricing themselves too well. And she, you know what she said in some of the examples she gave, it made me realize Pretty sure. Like I would fall into that same camp. I don't consider myself super great in terms of one just sales, just connecting with people and landing a project, let alone I always think about, okay, how much am I going to, am I going to charge for this?
And a lot of times what I do is. I try to understand how big the company is like on the project I'm working on. Now, I did some research on who the company is and who else is in the industry. And luckily on some of those things, you can find annual reports that show their finances.
And so that's what I did on one of these clients is I found. Through their own financial records, how much they make. And that made it easy for me to go this is, if they can't spend this much money on an identity, then they're not even worth working for, and they didn't even blink. That's so that's great.
You can't always do that. But, and then there's the problem client, I was referencing earlier. That was the opposite where I'm like I'll help them out. And I'll give him a price of what I normally would. That didn't help. He still didn't like anything, even though, so I would rather.
I knew I, I totally had the red flag, earmarks were apparent that, okay, this guy is going to be an issue to work with. I should've just said, you know what? I'm like thanks, but no, thanks. And just walk away and focus on a couple of clients I'm working with right now, they're the kind of clients I love working with them.
They're eager. They don't get annoyed when you start asking them all these questions, just to understand their client better. Like they gave me a creative brief. And so I figured, okay, an agency, I'll get all those questions I need. It wasn't super complete. So I followed it up with four questions and asked him, could you ask them these?
And they had no problem with that. And they're like, oh, that's actually a good, those are good questions. And so working with clients like that, who, they, they don't mind. Struggling through a few things, knowing that by doing it, it's going to make everything better. It's I just need to really get better at not trying to convince myself rather than just be honest that I don't think this is as much as I wouldn't mind having the project.
I just don't think it's a good fit.
Justin: And I think you outlined that really the point of the show, right? So Karen, your point, like Von with your experience and roster of great work, to think that you would have some of those challenges to some may just seem that crazy, but in some ways, I feel. Refreshing right.
Because, and the reality, if we're all honest and I'm sure we'll get into this, I think a great episode would be about the mistakes we continually make. There are still things that, how many times, especially the last two years, I'm like, gosh, dang it. I did it again. And I'm in this shitty scenario because I did the same thing over again.
That's right. That's right. I, I hear you, man. I think the. One of the things that are really interesting to me, especially that we have a, we have an advisor team and I remember one of my advisors, I was given to him, our kind of financial outlook and all that sort of thing. And he's just He, I could tell you, you just wanted to say something.
He was like, move around in a seat. And he just was, just really agitated. And so he goes, here's, I'm going to solve all your problems. He started talking about, he, he owns a widget company, that makes widgets. And so I'm like, yeah, let's just make your local price this. And I'm like sometimes we can do a logo in an hour.
Sometimes it takes us three days and. Not one is better than the other. It's just the way the process works. The inspiration comes and we could go to a meeting and think that what we're showing them is the three greatest solutions in the world and they can hate them all. And we're in this weird, next phase process and, it's, we're in a unique.
If we show three directions, this is my, this is something I was telling this advisor the day too, is like, why are people sometimes bummed out about things at work is, do you have a bad culture? Do you have this? Do you have that? And then we're talking about a particular project. And I was like no.
Think about it. We just spent all this time into this project and we gave five examples, and four of those examples are. Some people's hearts are going to be broken or whoever works on that. And that's our business. Like every time we show directions, something is not going to be chosen and hopefully, something will be, it's just a weird business, I think.
Jamie: And that's the same with writing. Every, and I feel like you just, you put yourself out there and it's from your head is the way that I always think of it. I had those thoughts. It's very, I try not to make it personal that it is because I did the research. I had those thoughts. I put them into a concept that I thought would work and then you pass it over to the client and you feel really vulnerable.
It's you're just waiting. And then if they like it, it's like a reflection on you. And if they don't like it, it's a reflection on you. And then you're like, I used to get really upset. Karen knows, first on I would get really upset, but now I've started realizing, okay. It's good to take that feedback and just do better.
A lot of times the feedback does make the writing better. And then when I turned that next draft in there and you nail it, it makes the writing better. So I try to take my ego out of it.
Karen: That's hard. Yeah. That's a conversation I'd love to have because we could go on for an hour.
Yeah. I'd love to talk that conversation as well, because, and I don't know if it's because I've been doing it for so long or what, but I want to please the client, but I don't get emotional anymore. If they don't like something at all, it's weird. It's very odd it, it's business. And maybe it's because I do the art and the art is personal and, and I don't, but I truly.
A focus on the design and the strategy. First of all, it's a process. I truly believe that if you work with the client and build up enough information before you get to that creative phase, you're going to deliver, you're going to be on point. If you're just designing. To design. There's a good chance.
You're not going to be on, you could be wherever. So as long as you go through the stage and do that, all the work you have to do before you do the design and the content, I always say like the content is the cake and the design is the icing on the cake while there's the strategy. That is the first layer.
90% of the time you're going to be on target. I would say if you do all that work because you're like getting in their head that this is a conversation I would love to have because I think that too much emphasis is put on. Justin. You said you had said about your designers getting their feelings hurt.
The one thing I had somebody tell them. And I'm still working with this particular person 30 some years later, he was my first boss. And then I worked for him again when I was younger, but he told me you're not designing this for you. You're designing it for them. It doesn't matter if you like it, it has to fit within their needs.
Justin: Yeah, I'm with you on that. And I think, it's I think sometimes we just make sure I correct that statement and especially if my team's listening, it's really more of disappointment, or frustrating. Versus, and sometimes I think they're hurt or offended based on maybe the client feedback.
Sometimes clients don't know how to give feedback and feedback is the feedback feels real, it feels really harsh or icky, or however, you want to express it. Yeah. Yeah. Like you're talking about direction and seed, they have no idea who did the direction. See, but they said. So that means I suck. So going back to Von's imposter syndrome, that just adds another brick on that statue.
Karen: And I want to, and I have to say for employees, they're dealing with a little bit different situation than the four of us are dealing with because they're, don't ha they don't have the, they're dealing with layers of communication.
They might be thinking, and I hate to say it, Justin, while we got bad information. From Justin. Do you know what I'm saying? Or I know what you mean. Yeah. Yeah.
Justin: So there's all kinds of, I, this would be a great episode as well, just talking about, communication and process and how to take, and it's not a wins or losses type thing.
It's how to manage. Our business, right? This is going to happen every day. We're going to do things. And very seldom is a hundred percent of everything we do check off. Yeah, it's great that I don't have any comments go for it. I'll pay a check and add a zero. That doesn't happen, it probably happens to Von, but it doesn't happen to any of us mere mortals.
And so I think that you really do have COVID look at that reaction. It's so slow. Are you okay over there?
Jamie: He's like ready for a nappy.
Justin: We're going to do a whole episode after our first episode where it's just bond centric, where you're jacked up on caffeine, and you're just going to be, I'm going to have, we're going to throw out a rant about illustrator and we're just going to let you go.
Jamie: And then we'll all react
Von: I’ve calmed down about Illustrator because they don't have an account now. Twitter. So it's not as fun anymore.
Karen: They probably took it down because of you.
Justin: Yeah. You just bombed them.
Von: Although I just got invited by one of their engineers to see something, he hasn't gotten back to me. So I get a sneak peek soon. That's cool. They still haven't fixed the snapping bug though. Assholes. Sorry. I forgot we were recording.
Justin: Make sure when you speak to this gives us an opportunity to put a beep in. I think beeps for swearing are hilarious or we don't, it doesn't matter, but Vaughn, thank you for proving my point. That was so wonderfully easy. It wasn't it. You guys just throw up illustrator.
Jamie: We all have our triggers and eventually we'll figure them out. Next time I'm having a cocktail.
Justin: Yes. And maybe part of our show notes team is we'll share maybe what drinks we have. And if we get really professional, maybe we can start including the recipe or the makeup of thedrink.
Jamie: The shit show cocktail. Someone needs to come up with it. It's brown.
Justin: That works for reasons. I love bourbon, but the way when you said a brown and should show, that sounded just weird to me,
Karen: muddy water.
Jamie: That's going to be something good, right?
Justin: Maybe that's the name of the drink? Muddy water.
Jamie: Hey, that's our homework for the next time.
Justin: That's right. So I'm really excited about exploring a variety of different business things with you all. And for those listening, please give us comments, and ask us questions. We'd love to, dig into subjects that are, challenging for you right now, or share a story.
We'd love to. Share like stories. Cause I think it's really important for us as a community to realize that, to Von's point doesn't matter where Karen's point, doesn't matter how many years you're in the business, we all still do deal with some of the same stuff. And how can we collectively learn from each other and make a better?
Jamie: Great. Von's going to respond. He's slow.
Justin: I was waiting. You know what you know, did you guys see that what's a Disney movie with the DMV and the Sloss of the DMV advance you right now. I'm waiting for you to like slowly respond to that.
That's it. Yes. Yeah.
I love it.
Jamie: I'm looking forward to this. You guys, it's going to be so much fun.