Ep 03: Playing Nice With Others
In this episode, Co-Hosts Karen Larson, Von Glitschka, Justin Ahrens, and Jamie Saunders discuss the power of playing nice with others. We tackle tough subjects like client disappointment and toxic co-workers, and share our go-to tips for dealing with even the most impossible situations. Get your popcorn ready, it’s about to get juicy.
SHOW NOTES:
Scott Hull, Art Rep: https://scotthull.com
Carlos Segura Working Agreement: https://www.honeycopy.com/copywritingblog/working-agreement
Amazing article about Carlos Segura’s Working Agreement: https://www.honeycopy.com/copywritingblog/working-agreement
Savannah Glitschka, Glitschka Studios: https://www.glitschkastudios.com/about and https://www.instagram.com/savannahfaerie/
Michael Janda on Client Red Flags: http://michaeljanda.com or https://www.booklets.io/b/client-red-flags-part-1-morejanda
Laura Hoskins: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurahoskins/
ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:
The Creative Shit Show
Episode 3: Playing Nice With Others
Karen: Hi, I'm Karen Larson. And I'm here with Jamie Sanders, Von Glitschka, and Justin Ahrens. I know for me, collaboration has become everything after being self-employed for so long. About a year and a half ago, Jamie Saunders and I started collaborating regularly. For me, it's been a game-changer. So today, that's what we're going to talk about collaboration.
I hope everybody gets a lot out of it. So let's get started.
Justin, I know you own a firm of 18 people or so, and I'm wondering how you guys manage collaboration. How does it work externally and internally for your team?
Justin: Yeah, that's great; that's a great question. When I think of collaborations. I often don't think about the internal part of it, we have a process, and we have ways we do that and share ideas and all that sort of thing. But, so I'm going to take the sort of collaborating with people outside of your organization because I think for us, it's one of, what's one of our exciting moments of collaboration.
Cause we often get to work with each other. Not that we don't enjoy it, but when you get to work, maybe with someone like Von, when I get, when we get to work, when we get to work with someone else. It's just fun because there's a different voice.
There are different talents, and you get to have this moment where you get them; I don't know, it just feels like you get to get out of your normal little bit and work with someone. And I think one of the key, one of the key parts of our collaborating with someone else if you're going to work with someone like Von, for example, then like really work with them.
Meaning that you have to go all-in and try. Right? Do what you would do with someone else, meaning, create a creative brief and outline that and do all those things, but then trust that person to bring. They're game for you. And that's one of the things the times when our collaboration hasn't gone well; we've either chosen someone that maybe wasn't a good match for the project.
So that's on us.
Karen: Yeah. And I'd like to talk about that. I'd like to ultimately talk about how we find matches.
Justin: Yeah, no, we absolutely should do that. And I think the second part is really is, where we micromanage someone? Cause a lot of times someone like checks up on, or a photographer or something, a videographer like you are choosing them based on past work.
And sometimes I think we get into this trap of saying, I want what you did for XYZ organization. And that's unfortunate. Because you might be missing out, or I think you are missing out on something that's just as magical but it's unique for that project. So I was always trying to make sure that if it's me leading it, or one of my other teammates be like, let's trust them, give them space to do their thing.
Karen: Yeah, that's great. I think that you made a point about being able to; you don't want to box them. You are hiring them for their entire vision. And that's so important. And I don't think, sometimes I think that people forget that. Jamie, what about you? How does collaboration fit into your world?
Jamie: I think what's always interesting to me is having the unique perspective of having sat on their side of the table and now sitting on the other side of the table. I didn't even know I missed it. So when I left corporate life, one of the things I started to miss was just the interaction, the hallway conversations, the break room conversations, the random ideas that can pop into your head as you're like interacting with people from all over the company, the country and internationally. It was just that I miss that like vibe, but then, that's the other part of my job that I found really hard to leave behind.
And honestly, it's probably what kept me there a long time was just the responsibility to the outside collaborators. I had the privilege of working with Von or with Justin professionally and Karen professionally at Neenah before I left there.
So I feel like. I loved that. I loved being on projects with creative people and infusing your thoughts and energy into my day. And then we did posters together. Justin, there's a book together there was, Von. I don't even know if you remember this, but we used to sponsor your podcast a long time ago at Neenah.
And I love that because you would send me things and I could look at creative things. So even though I'm not a designer, I love being with designers. I and I figured out, like when I was at Neenah, that these are my people, that you get me. And I remember to Von we were at HOW Design Live in Chicago.
I don't know if you remember this or not, but we were hanging out late at night one night, there was a big crowd of us. We found a couch and everybody was just kinda like vibing. And I said, I just, I don't know why you guys hang out with me. I said, I'm not a creative. And you said, but you are in your own way you, you communicate, you create, you get us and we understand you and that's it. That's why we're all like together. So to me, it really cemented that, that feeling, that I was also collaborating, that it wasn't just like me getting excited about working with you guys.
Maybe there was like a mutual feeling. Of being allowed to do what you do and having a sponsor per se, to help you, do what you wanted or create what you wanted to create.
Karen: that was the best, so good.
Justin: But don't you think that's the magic when it's reciprocated on both sides? That's when collaboration really hits.
Karen: It's rocket fuel.
Jamie: Absolutely. It's so much fun. And then now it's here I am years later, decades later. Here we are doing the show together and having a great time together, but it feels good to collaborate with you guys and bounce things off of you.
And you miss that sometimes when you're alone in your office, having just those people who understand what you've been through in that history together, I don't know how you feel about that, Von?
Von: Yeah, I missed for the last two years. So I'm glad they're going to go back to a couple of the events I've normally gone to live or doing it again, then share. So I'm looking forward to that. The virtual thing was okay to try it, but it just, it was never the same. The part I enjoyed the most was just hanging out with people.
Talking about what we're doing here. So that's always the funniest part.
Justin: Von, you've talked to many, learn what people can do, sorry, in person, like you learn, you just learn so much more, you connect so much harder, like in person, yeah.
Von: I agree with that. That's why, I think it was you, Jamie, they're saying that you were originally thinking of teaching and then your son laughed at that fact.
And it's I taught for seven years here, locally in the college. And it was okay. But it's I like the way I'm able to teach now where. It's not live audience, obviously, but. It's I've engaged with a lot more people doing it that way then doing it, live in person.
Especially the last time I spoke or last time I taught was that George Fox University in his right before COVID broke out. And so I made the mistake of telling the students you don't have to log in if you don't want to. So guess how many showed up and I'm going okay. That was the wrong way to handle it.
Jamie: No collaboration.
Justin: What about we've all collaborated with you at one time or another, what do you look for or hope or what's present when you have successful collaborations?
Von: I think you touched on a big one is, there's been times where if it's. If it's a project that's coming through Scott Hull, let's say, and they're interested in having me work with their team on whatever the project is.
It's always frustrating for me where, like Scott says they want to see. Do you have any examples of have you illustrated a turtle before or whatever? And I just happened to have I've done every other animal. You could think of just no turtle, but yet it's like they can't see beyond.
I it's just weird. It's and most of them are creative directors, but that's only a title because they can't seem to see the potential sometimes. So I guess I like it when they can look at a body of work and they go, okay. He knows what he's doing. Just give me the right information and just trust me to deliver.
Some results that you might be expecting, but also unexpected results. And when there's a few clients that come to mind, when I think of that, who they're used to me doing that. So they're fun to work with because that's what they do. They trust me to have their best interest. Heart. I'm not just going to do whatever.
I think just looks cool. I'm smart enough to know they have a target audience that it has to, specifically apply to that. And that's the, so it's nice when they trust me. And my, and I think we might've talked about this a while back, not today, but I'm not that great. I can see earmarks. It could be potential problems, but I tend to, I don't know.
I don't want to immediately think somebody is going to be a pain in the butt to work with. So I give him the benefit of the doubt to that, that. Probably an error on my part and it's come back to bit me like two or three times or last few years. And I'm hyper sensitive to it now. So if somebody, I just had somebody contact me of their day this is what we want.
It's like some crappy little napkin drawn. I'm like going. Yeah here's a local. Here's a local screen printer, go to them, have them do it. I don't do this. It's you wouldn't want to pay me. And it's stupid anyway, so I don't want to work. I don't say that
there's a really good work agreement. Carlos Sigora has it. And if you go to a site, you can download it and it's just no bullshit, really truncated. If you can agree to this, then we can work together. If not bye.
Jamie: I saw that on LinkedIn, I think that's been making the rounds lately. People have had it.
Karen: I think that part of collaboration is all about built on trust. And without that trust between all of the different collaborators, it's just gonna fall apart. So I think that. I've been a, I've been super fortunate over the years to be able to work with corporations as an outside consultant.
And Justin, you were commenting on how, having that outside influence come in and really, Bring a different point of view and a different energy. And I think that type of collaboration for whether it's corporations or other studios and things like that is really wonderful. And there's a reason why corporations.
Go outside and hire external creative to maybe redesign their logo, even if they have a internal marketing department or redesign things. Because internally, first of all, they have all sorts of other things going on and they've got so much tunnel vision about what's going on internally.
The internal designers have a real hard time being able to work with leadership and work with the decision-makers to come up with those types of things. So bringing in and collaborating with external people is really super beneficial. But I think that internally, and I know I've mentioned this to you guys, maybe not on the podcast, but outside of the podcast, I have a fascination with how teams work together. Internal collaboration fascinates me. It lifts people. It builds trust. And a lot of times what happens is things come out of that, that you don't realize these people were capable of doing that unless you give them the opportunity. So for example, if you do an a, if there's a video project that comes into the studio, And you put your team together, somebody saying, oh, I've been doing this type of stuff outside, and you don't even realize it unless you get, they get put on that team.
Justin: I agree. You know what, as you're talking here, I have a question for you as well about what particularly interests you about groups. Is it for you to help understand how to work with them?
That sort of thing. But before you answer that, I think just before I forget, I want to share, I think one, another part of collaboration that's really powerful is the energy it brings. Because I can't tell you how excited I am to see what ever our collaborative is going to be. To that project.
Like the first, I feel bad sometimes because the first presentation of the first draft or whatever that they're sharing, we're so excited. Like maybe we're almost too excited, we're setting it up to fail because and at the same time, It's a, such a huge bomber when, cause it's not a, it's not a guarantee, right?
No one bats a thousand. If I could tell you how many times Vaughn sent us something, I'm like, oh, this is my attitude.
Karen: My attitude about that is cause I do a lot of experience in creative departments and I am that outside collaborator and I always set it up. I'm not sure if I'm hitting the mark, let's talk about I don't like to go in with a hundred percent solution. I like to go in with, this is what I'm thinking.
And I like to talk about, I like to collaborate as a, a discussion. I like to have that discussion drives what we're ultimately going to do. I don't feel like just like Jamie and I working together. I don't feel like it's my job to come up with the solution.
I feel like it's the team's job. That's what I love about collaborating.
Jamie: One of the things that I liked when I was, sitting in that marcomm chair was when I would get included in the process. So it was like, not just I always liked when I felt heard, is what I'm getting at.
So someone would come in, we'd do this big pitch meeting. And I would gather, I would be responsible internally to gather, I don't know, four or five, other of my coworkers to come in and tell our story and tell who our customer is and tell what we're trying to accomplish.
Karen: You guys are the experts.
Jamie: Exactly. So we're telling our story to a creative that comes in, and then. We tell that we do it two or three times, right? Cause you gotta pitch it out to a couple of different agencies and then you could always tell the people who listened, and you could always tell the people who paid attention.
So that's what I tell my students, that I'm mentoring at SCAD is as you're putting together this pitch deck, and you're putting together this presentation deck, any tidbit that you got from that meeting should go into this deck. I heard you when you said, I, I listened about your client is, this right?
And let go. Subtle confirmations, but your presentation should be very engaging and not just one-sided. You're not just showing your work, so don't just do a pitch deck. That's just a bunch of your work because no one cares. Don't waste our time. Come in and tell me that you heard me, so rather than going on a rant. We would always pick the firm, and there's usually only one. It was so weird who would actually get it. And then the work would be better because you felt like they were taking ownership of it.
And I love that now when Karen and I meet with clients, it's just part of the vernacular. We say all the time WE should think about it.
And we don't mean we, me and Karen, we mean we as a group, we as the company, because you're involved now as part of the team and it's not, it's genuine. It's not even forced. We just do it. And it's like something that we never even talked about.
Karen: We just say it. And Justin it's if you, if me as a freelance designer, which I don't consider myself a freelance designer, but I play the role of a freelance designer with a couple different design agencies that I've had relationships with her for a long time. It's never me. I'm going to bring you the solution. I don't get anything out of that. I honestly don't.
I if I was coming into Rule29, I would come in and say, I want to talk to you as a team, figure out what the best solution is. Maybe I'm not the right person to do this. Maybe you, I can just help your internal people get to where we need to be, because I true. I truly believe that again. It's back to that discussion and the brainstorming.
And I know on another episode, I talked about figuring out so many things before it gets into the design stage.
Justin: no, and I think that's one of the things I really admire about you. I think you're great at understanding, process and what's in front of you and how people are working together.
I think that's a gift that you have. Developed through your freelance years and now in your new chapter leading your organization with Jamie. I think that's pretty fantastic. I think that's also a really great way to. When it comes to collaborating is to understand your internal team and process how that works and making sure that I think if you're the project lead, another really important responsibility is to, for lack of a better term protect that collaborator, that you're working with to make sure that they are very aware of the process and how it works, but also making sure that you are an advocate.
So for example, Karen if you sent or Jamie sent a copy of whatever it was to us. And we were to me and I was sharing with my team, it's really easy for people to pick and poke at something.
They don't know the parameters that we're given. And so I think it's another important part of collaboration is making sure that, you pick the right person for the job, you trust them and what they're doing. And then you also. Bring them through your internal process and culture to make sure that the project has the greatest chance.
Von: One thing that kind of popped into my head was Savannah has been working with me going on five years now. And when she first started working with me, I'm used to, I was used to work in on my own. So I knew on certain days, Okay. I'm not going to be doing a lot of design. I'm doing mostly just concept and trying to work out what we're going to do or how we're going to do it.
And I'm working through the thinking part of it basically. And so when Savannah, I knew she was going to be working on a project, I would give her the basic information. And she looked at me like deer in the headlights. What do I do? I go this is the part in art school. They don't teach you a whole lot out.
You have to struggle with it. Now you have to start working with these ideas and see what you come up with. And she'd always come back with one or two little things and I go, okay, you need to. Keep playing with it. And she kept pushing back saying, I think it'd be better if we both brainstorm on this.
And I was like going, and I'm thinking to myself for the last 15 years you just struggle with it. That's what she kept saying. She kept pushing back. And so finally I realized she processes things a little differently, but it does work well when we collaborate like that and we start bouncing things off each other because we worked on last year.
Branded a dating website that's for hunters and fishermen. And we had to come up with ideas and it was in the process of talking. I'm going, we're just writing down different things. Okay. Cupid, falling in love. And then Savannah. Oh, what if we did a Deere Cupid and then I drew out a deer Cupid, and then she came up with an error part about it.
And that ultimately became part of the new identity we came up with or the identity we came up with. And, but yeah, I think it's good. Not to think. It's always going to work one way. It, so it always seems when it becomes ideation, You're always dealing with. Getting to what's called a gamma level of thinking where ideas are formed, but that is hard to do on your own.
But when you're collaborating with other people and you're both addressing it, somebody might say some that doesn't even make anything trigger on them, but it triggers on the other person. And then they say something and then that triggers on you. And then that's when you start popping into that level and you start.
Like hitting on all cylinders and that's when it becomes fun.
Karen: Yep.
Jamie: Totally agree. Yeah. That is fun. And I think too, when you're trying to decide. You get to a certain stage in your practice where you're like, maybe your business is really good and you'd better bring in another person.
And they're not trying to bring them in full time and you're, but you do need help. And then you, and we know a lot of people in the industry, so you've got to make sure that you can find somebody, where they're going to be happy. You're still going to be profitable.
And you realize that. Part of collaboration. Like we keep talking about is letting know, when you've been working for yourself for a long time, you're used to
You do the work, you make the money, and it goes in your account, but then you start to wonder, am I limiting myself by not allowing other people to come in and help me out.
And maybe if I allow those people to come and help me out with the things that I'm not as interested in, but they really have passion for. It frees you up to start doing creative collaboration somewhere else.
And it took me a while to figure this out, but, trusting somebody enough to bring them in, to collaborate as one thing, but also having them come in and help you do the work.
And then you're passing that work through to the client As part of your company, man that's
Karen: like the ultimate
Jamie: Respect as a business owner. I just didn't know how that would make me feel. It's emotional to bring somebody else in and ask them to write something for you or do something for you and then turn it back over to the client.
Karen: But that's what you've been doing for 20 years. So weird.
Jamie: Yeah. Respect to you because it's been a journey for me to let go, but once I do, it's like great stuff is happening,
Justin: and again, I think that's the that's a part of trusting that partner.
And having a process to pick the right person and to match all that. But I think that. Collaborating even internally, right? So to Von, to your point, you're a two-person army, you and your daughter, I'm doing all the work. I think in the point, my career is in right now, like one of my greatest joys collaborating is actually seeing all those classes.
On my team and they, have something in my mind and they'll come and show me their ideas. I'm blown away. And that's like super inspiring for me right there. Like they're literally. And that actually it's part of collaborative caring you're talking about earlier. Like it brings us energy, it brings us light.
It brings us excitement, especially when someone. Does something better than what you could imagine, often if you guys work, if you work together, it's going to be better than what you could do, in my opinion for doing it. So I think that's really one of those moments in our work that is just really just life-giving and joyful and cool.
And we shouldn't avoid the fact that sometimes it goes wrong. It could be life-sucking, but you still learn from it.
Karen: But we know that we know we can't do it all. We, I know I don't, I'm not a writer, I'm not a programmer. I can program a little bit, I can't do everything and I don't want to do everything.
So you have to, and you really, you cannot scale without some collaboration, you cannot scale in your business and, You ha over all of the years that I've worked, I've always had collaborators. I've had writers, I've had programmers, I've had photographers. It creates, it takes a team to build and deliver.
But one thing we haven't talked about too much is the collaboration that we have with our clients. And it's a collaboration that we have with our clients. Drives everything.
I find the collaboration with clients, the most fascinating thing. Granted, there are pain in the ass clients. But if you build those relationships, you can trust the fact that they're going to pay you. You can trust. It's all about building relationships and trusting. In my opinion,
Jamie: you have all had that client though. Like I started my business and I was like, okay, I'm ready.
I got this thing. And somebody was like, Hey. Yeah, I can't use you, but I've got this client of a client, kind of person. And I'm like, okay. And they're like I'm going to pass you off to them. And I had one conversation with them and I thought, okay, this is going to be so easy. I'm just going to write their, Google. It was like, literally about SEO, just writing some Google copy for them to be found on Google, updating some of their keywords, doing the blurb there about us, whatever.
And it was just, it was so odd and I can never get them to respond to me. And it just got so bizarre to the point where I literally had to go back to the person who referred me to them and say, maybe it's me, like what's happening here.
I don't understand. And he said, oh, he's just busy. And I literally. I'm not going to tell you how much it was. It's shameful, but I ate that. Like I ate it, and I never ended up delivering to that person and they never ended up calling me back. And it has haunted me for five years now.
Like it's just out there it's just what did I do? Did you do it? Did I do it? Like, where did we go? And I realized the biggest thing was in the beginning of. We just didn't bond. We didn't connect and we didn't collaborate. And I feel like it was just like a side thing that he barely wanted to do.
And they brought me in to just do something. And then. They didn't have the courage to tell me why it wasn't working or I don't know. It was,
Karen: I think they probably didn't even understand what they asked you to do. And then they were busy in it, obviously. We'll never know. We'll never know.
Jamie: Have you ever had that before? Have you guys ever done? It's so weird that one client that just kinda like stiffs you?
Justin: Yeah, we have a couple clients, believe it or not, that have prepaid us last year and now have not, it's been like four or five, six months and they have gotten back to us. And so I have this. Cash in the bank and we even started some of the job and I'm just like I feel like we should finish the job over there. They ghost me.
Jamie: I guess
Karen: I had a client that happened to me, a couple of years ago, it was an attorney, and he paid me 50% upfront, and it was a good chunk, a really good chunk. And he just would not communicate. And finally I just gave up. It's and it's not like I'm going to return as money.
I tried and tried for months. I think I tried for a year to communicate with them.
Von: There's a great guy on Instagram. I follow he spoke at a conference right before COVID broke. That's where I first met him. His name's Michael John but he just, I think this was yesterday or no, this morning he posted nine client red flags, and almost all of these are.
Hit the top 10 list for me, but his second one client doesn't respond to communication. As soon as the client goes cold, it's it never fails. It's always, something's going to go haywire. And it frustrates me because I don't purposely avoid I'll follow up after a couple of days and just say, Hey, I'm falling out.
But if they still don't respond, then. Then I know something's not meeting whatever expectation they have, but they're not telling me anything so
Jamie: deep, dark feeling.
Von: I know, it really depresses me because that is the number one sign. Now that I know something was going to just go off rails and I'm going to end up hating the whole thing.
Jamie: You have to have that experience though, right? It sets you up for the next so that you are like, I don't do that again. I won't be
Von: but I keep doing it. So that's the part that's my Achilles heel.
Jamie: Yeah. And I love you Von.
Karen: I think that it's all about how do we not take it personally, and that's, I feel like I closed with this last time.
I think that, these things happen and you're not going to connect and be able to collaborate with everybody.
Jamie: I like everyone to like me, that I know
Karen: Jamie does have that problem where I'm just.
Jamie: Yeah. Karen's like screw it. And I'm like, no I don't. Why, like now,
Justin: Have you guys ever collaborated with someone that may be you don't get along with? Because I have a collaborative to an illustrator that I didn't necessarily really like our interaction. Like I didn't jive with them like personally, but the job turned out great. Now we never use them again. Cause it wasn't, it just didn't feel like we connected, but the client was happy and all that sort of thing.
And we would have used them had we'd done more work in that style, but if you ever had one where you guys didn't really jive with them, but yet it turned out.
Karen: Yeah. I've worked with writers over the years and again. We have to remind ourselves we are in business. This is not some emotional fine artsy thing that we're doing,
Jamie: and this is what I get every day. Just so we're all aware. Tough love environment at clever and strategy.
Karen: It's not always going to be perfect, what ultimately are we fulfilling what the client needs and are we getting a paycheck from it?
Why do creatives have to feel fluffy and warm and fuzzy? I'm curious about that.
Justin: Like, why do we need to feel that? Whoa, Is that an episode we're talking about? Are we answering?
Karen: Yeah, I think, no, I think that's going to be our next episode. Why do we have to, that would be a good one. Yeah. Why do we, why as creatives do we think we need confirmation all the time. Don't get me wrong. we all need every employee , whether they're creative or not, but creatives tend to need more.
What's the word I'm looking for?
Justin: We want affirmation. We want to have confirmation that the job we did that
Karen: but there's a difference between the affirmation or if we fulfilled the job. You might not have loved the design they picked, but did it fill their needs?
Justin: Yeah. It's getting to this because I think there's a nuance to it. Yeah.
Karen: Yeah.
Jamie: Like one thing I figured out today is just, one, there's a million different types of collaboration, whether it's internal, external, Bringing in new partners, researching people, bringing in people that you've never worked with before, there's ongoing, partnerships and vendors that you trust.
Collaboration can just mean so many different things, in the business space, it, when you know it, like you feel it when you feel it and something just clicks and you. And you make some cool stuff like there's no, I think that's why it hurts so bad when it doesn't work, because it feels so good when it does honestly you feel it's, it is, it's like a high, you get excited and then I want to do it again.
Von: This is the way I've thought about it over the years. And I agree that when I think. I'm clicking and things are, the ideas are coming out, but they don't like anything, but they can't really explain to me what they want or where they want to go or why it's not working. And I feel a disconnect there.
It's I, it always makes me bummed out for a few days after the fact when things come to an end. But as long as I know. I delivered ideas that could definitely work whether or not they liked them or not. I'm okay with that. What I'm not okay with is if I deliver something that I don't think is as strong as it could be, but for whatever reason, they love it and they're going to use it.
That's great. I still feel more of a failure in that regard.
Karen: And why do you deliver it?
Von: It's because that's what they wanted and they like it, but I don't think it's half as good as like another direction or whatever.
Karen: My friend, Laura Hoskins, her philosophy about delivering design is, give them what they want and then give them what you think they need.
Von: I think that's a good approach. I tried to do that, but,
Karen: but what they want might not be your favorite,
Von: not necessarily a favorite, just they've provided me all the information you needed. I don't know. It's I'm okay. If I feel like I delivered to the level that I expect of myself.
And even if they don't like anything, I'm okay with that. But I don't like it when they decide to go in a direction or they change something that's really not needed. They changed it and now they like it and they're satisfied with it. And they think I provided what they wanted, but I still feel like a failure.
That's the part that it's head games. It's like an internal conversation I have with myself when it comes to design. And it's those are the things where I'm like, this could have been so much better, but it's like, they didn't.
Jamie: Let me dig around in that brain. Von's brain is fascinating to me. I would love to just crawl around in there. I know, I think there's so much
Karen: I know, I think there's so much more we can talk about let's talk about, a lot of this in future episodes because we could, as we all know, go on for forever. Justin, what was your takeaway?
Justin: Oh man, there's some good stuff in here. I think what I was reminded of today, my, my takeaway was just how energizing and wonderfully positive collaborating with the right people are. It's just such a gift, a wonderful part of our business. So that inspired me to do more.
Von, How about you?
Von: If it wasn't for collaboration, I wouldn't get half the work I do. Working with other people is why I enjoy my job.
Karen: Yeah, that's great.
Jamie: Hey you guys are taking all the good answers. I promised myself. I wouldn't just be like what they said, but honestly, it is, it's why we do what we do.
And I love people. I'm a people person and it's any chance I can have to try to bring in another idea or another creative. That gets me really excited. One, because I feel like it's not only helping me, but it helps them too, we can do stuff together and continue to help each other grow and change our business and help the clients.
Karen: And for me, it's about the fact that collaboration is a process and you want to find the right people, but you also have to learn to work together, respect each other, trust each other. And build ongoing relationships. So it's not just a one timer.
Jamie: So that's why I'm going to make some shit with you guys. Like I keep thinking about how do we make it?
Justin: Yeah we're doing that right now. This is the podcast, but now we can make other stuff.
Karen: I know I am loving this. You guys. Okay. Till next time,
Justin: next time.
Jamie: Oh, Von. We love you.