The Agency Journey - Growing from 0-8 with Nikki Lindgren, Managing Partner of Pennock

In this week’s podcast, Yiuwin Tsang talks once again to Nikki Lindgren and discusses the path of growth her agency Pennock has taken, seeing them grow from 0 to 8 people. 

Nikki shares her early experiences as well as her learnings from creating successful business growth and team culture. 

Listen to the podcast to learn:

• How to scale direct-to-consumer businesses 
• Starting an agency by identifying gaps for clients that aren’t already being fulfilled 
• How to create a culture of curiosity in marketing teams
• How to successfully structure a team in a digital marketing agency
• Building a high-performing team in a fast-paced agency environment
• Remote work culture and flexible scheduling.
• Prioritising team well-being in business growth

About Nikki Lindgren

Nikki Lindgren is a leader in scaling DTC businesses to grow their customer acquisition and revenue through marketing strategies that combine talent, automation, and tools to drive upwards of +65% month-over-month growth for her clients.

As the founder and managing partner of Pennock, Nikki has managed over $100 million in digital media ranging from high-growth tech startups to established household brands. She advises her clients on how to utilize their strategic advantages to drive marketing initiatives that generate impressive ROAS.

Her experience spans search engine marketing, pay-per-click, paid social, display advertising, remarketing/intent-based marketing programs, performance marketing, mobile/video marketing, organic search, app store optimisation, native advertising, and influencer/blogger relationships. 

Transcript

Disclaimer: The following transcript is the output of an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.   Every possible effort has been made to transcribe accurately. However, neither Beautiful Business nor The Wow Company shall be liable for any inaccuracies, errors, or omissions.

Yiuwin Tsang  
Hello and welcome to the Beautiful Business Podcast. We believe beautiful businesses are led with purpose by people who care, guided by a clear strategy and soulfully grown. This week, we're joined by Nikki Lindgren. Nikki is a leader in scaling direct to consumer businesses to grow their customer acquisition and revenue through marketing strategies combined talent, automation, and the tools to drive upwards of 65% plus month on month growth for clients. As a founder and Managing Partner of Pennock, Nikki has managed over $100 million in digital media ranging from high growth tech startups to established household brands. Nikki is deeply passionate about style, self expression, and wellness rituals, and that she started her career as a member of the founding e commerce team at cost plus World Market achieving incredible half a million dollars revenue during their launch month, Nikki spent time with the agency delivery agent working with entertainment brands, including the Rolling Stones, The New York Knicks and HBOs Game of Thrones. The agency grew tenfold during her four years in a panic. She's committed to helping ecommerce brands reach their full potential. Hope you enjoy the interview. Nikki, let's start off with you given us a bit of background to you, and what life was like before you started Pennock.

Nikki Lindgren  
Yeah, oh, man. Well, my history of you know, employment has really been in direct to consumer all through either in house or agency side. And my first role was in house and I was part of the founding e commerce team at a established brick and mortar company called world market. And so being able to take off the ground, the first ecommerce experience they had was really awesome. And I got to learn way more about marketing for E commerce than I ever imagined. And that really dovetailed into going into the agency side and then back in house. So I kind of flip flopped for a while and got this good feeling of what a relationship between an agency and a brand should look like, and what types of gaps agencies should be trying to fill for brands. And so as we formed Pennock, we're really trying to show up as an extension of our clients and the needs that they have. So I think, yeah, truly kind of filling their gaps is what we're trying to do within, you know, our scope of work, obviously, there are times when my team members will come to me and say, like, Hey, I'm gonna start doing this. I'm like, well, we can do that. But like, let me go back and talk to the client, because that's severely outside of what we said we would do for the client. So happy to do it. But let's just make sure we're fairly compensated.

Yiuwin Tsang  
Yes, always the challenge of an agency. business really is, especially when you've got such a caring and diligent teams that they want to go over and above, which is fine. But you kind of want them to go over and above the agency in turn for the client, if that kind of makes sense. But no, it's an interesting challenge to kind of face up to when you've got team members that just want to kind of, you know, blow the socks off your clients, which isn't a bad thing at all. I have some questions about the time that you had previous to stomach panic, and it relates to growing your business from you to having eight employees, which is what how many have at the moment? Did you kind of get any points of guidance from the previous roles that you were in? Was there anything that you thought, well, you know, what if I start, when I start my agency, when I start my business, I would love it to be a bit like this? Or I definitely do not want it to be a bit like that. Was there any kind of guidance that you got when you look back on your time before you start a pen?

Nikki Lindgren  
Yeah, that's a good question. I think because I process things is like, there are lots of opportunities, someone could have done this or that differently. And it would have been better, I would reflect on I can remember clearly talking to agencies when I was in house. And I really felt like they were not prepared for the conversations, they were prepared to like read off sheets, or they were prepared to read numbers on a dashboard. But they didn't really seem like they know what was going on with my business as I was an in house team member at a brand. And that just really irked me. And so while I you know, we see it now, agency side, but like, there, I wasn't really trying to be like gotcha moments, but I was almost pushing buttons to be like, how deeply invested in my brand success are you and like, how much do you really know what's going on? And those were the things that really frustrated me is when I felt like we were paying great money to these agencies to do work. And I felt like they weren't giving us the time or the insights and the level of care that we deserved. And so I think as starting the agency, it was really important for us to both show up as caring deeply about our clients like being actively involved like we do. Monday, sound bites to the clients, we do Friday recaps to the clients like we're always making them feel like we know what's going on with their business. And we're really diligent. And I think that that was a main need of mine forming the agency. Having led many parts of marketing before I had a hard time actually knowing which landing in my team should go into. And so early on in the agency life, we were doing email marketing, we were doing even organic social. And it was because I truly had led those teams in the past, but with a really small in house team, like you really can't be good at everything. So it was over the trial and errors, the short term clients that we had in those disciplines that I was like, we cannot be a full service agency. Like that's not what a boutique marketing agency can offer. And when prospects were coming to me saying, like, I'm so relieved, you just do paid media and SEO? Because if you said you did more I would question you was when I kind of knew we found our stride in terms of service offerings.

Yiuwin Tsang  
That's interesting as well, I guess from from your time in house, as you say, the frustration that you must have when you're paying somebody, as you say, a good retain array, or whatever it might be. And I think this is something which plays on my mind as well to make sure that within my business, and certainly people we speak to that you're not just getting stuff done. It sounds counterintuitive to the agency world, but it's not just time and materials, you add more to it. And sometimes that more is, is that level of care. It's that level of diligence. It's that level of giving a crap really and you know, in understanding what's happening in your clients market, what's happening on a local level, or a national level on an international level and all these different factors. But that surely must come from the culture that you create within your own team that there needs to be a natural level of curiosity, almost, you know, they want to know your team want to know what's going on. You know, they don't want to be right. I've done five PPC campaigns and I've optimised my pages done for the day, turn the light off, and off they go. They've got more to it than more invested. I think you use the word invested. How'd you do that? How'd you get that in your team? How do you structure it? Yeah,

Nikki Lindgren  
I think it all kind of starts with the leading questions. So let's say we had an intern over the summer. And she came in and she was like reading reports and kind of giving us summaries of insights for particular clients. And like, you know, week one through four, she was like, impressions are up. And you know, the question that her manager will ask is like, why is that? She's like, well, we're spending more. Okay, well, that makes sense, right? So it's like, okay, first give me like what you see, literally the numbers. And then now let's try to have you start to understand why that would be. So I think it's more of as a newer person, like an intern came into the team, helping them educate themselves in this space along the way. So like, at this point, now, we don't have team members who are like, impressions are up, right? They're like, hey, impressions are up, because CPM is down. And CPM is down because we tweak this audience. And so like, there's a lot of the lies that someone might ask after that, that come along with it. And vice versa. If performance is going poorly, they're going to not just say, well, CPMs up and we'd be like, what are you going to do about it? Right? So they've got the solutions. And I think, training the team to think through not only identifying the problem, but coming up with the solution is really what we're game at doing. Because the account manager who is also very knowledgeable about the platforms and the way media works, wants to look at a suggestion and say yes or no, right. And like, obviously, for newer employees, like an intern who's new to the space, they're going to say a lot more than that. But ideally, every team member has a solution. And it's a good solution.

Yiuwin Tsang  
As I say, it's like there's a degree of pride in your work as well. I feel like you know, you want to be the best, or you want to be good at what you do. And like with so many skills, and so many professions that are out there. What separates the great from the good is this level of curiosity. It's an obsession, probably the wrong word. But it's just, as you say, looking beyond the numbers, especially in paid media, I remember, goodness me I was in publishing years ago, when real time bidding first came about, or race to the bottom was we called it from a publishing perspective. And it just changed everything. And then there was this real dichotomy in agency worlds. So obviously, clients kind of came through agencies and came to our publishing titles, and we'll buy inventory that way. And it was really interesting. It felt like there was this split this dichotomy within the agencies, where you had people that would pitch the ideas and the, you know, the very kind of visual very kind of creative and things. And then we had this new breed that popped up that was pitched via spreadsheets, and it was this real separation between the two. And you could see the teams that did really well were the ones that could blend that together who could look beyond the numbers, and then interpret it into, you know, what the future might hold or what the numbers actually mean in terms of performance in terms of patterns and things like this. And in order to do that in order to bring that out from your So I guess it's going to be partly in terms of your recruitment processes, interview selection in terms of, I guess, your training and your development as well. But I'd be really interested in know, how do you kind of structure the team at panic now? And now the up to eight? I mean, how does it work? Because you need somebody who's really good at the numbers, you need somebody who's really good at the creative, but I suppose it's how do those kinds of minds meet? And how does that work?

Nikki Lindgren  
Yeah, and with a small team, I'm not gonna lie, it's been a challenge. And so we've actually reordered about six months ago, and it was actually, at first glance, my I'm in a mastermind, and the guy who runs it, you know, helps all sorts of agencies. And when I told him what I was doing, he was like, oh, no, that's the worst idea ever. And so I was really in need of convincing him, it was not a bad play. And I finally got him over to my lane. And we implemented and things are looking great. So let me explain the setup now. So we have account managers who are responsible for the health and goals of the client. So just really in charge of the relationship, the strategy and making sure everyone's needs are met. And then we have the marketing operations team. And so those are the ones who are actually doing the day to day optimizations, flagging the manager for what to do blah, blah, blah. So though, the operations team is now managed by an individual who used to be an operating team member in the past herself, so she manages all of the operation side, they work one to one with a manager, client facing they are client facing, they're dedicated to accounts are not like rotating, and whoever's available picks up the thing to do, but the responsibility of their growth and well being and like knowledge is all maintained by one individual now. And so I think while it adds more layers of complexity, because people have to speak to an operations manager, who oversees the operations team, and gets just a smarter way for a small team to communicate, and communication was never really our problem. So moving into this new model has actually been well received by everybody. And I think the operations team has learned a lot more than they did when they worked directly with account managers as their supervisors.

Yiuwin Tsang  
Oh, yeah, that's really interesting. So just to cut that off again. So you've got an operations manager, you've got the service delivery team. And it sounds like there's a number one, having somebody who's worked in the role leading a team makes so much sense, but explain that that interaction between the operations manager and the client side, because I think that's probably where powerful relationships to kind of get going, because you see how destructive it can be, if you've got a defensive client side, and you've got a defensive, you know, operations delivery side, and the fingers have been pointed, I'm sure you've seen it in previous organisations who work for where it's almost kind of like, people just basically trying to save their own skins really, and have that relationship working together. Again, I've seen it before when it's incredible, when client tide and delivery side are working hand in hand in lockstep, that whole kind of like, greater than the sum of its parts really comes through, and it becomes incredibly powerful. So how do you make that work?

Nikki Lindgren  
Well, I think one, the team is the same as it was prior to this reorg. So there are some like spiderweb lanes, let's just say that are still kind of intertwined. So let me just kind of like describe by how we set up our time. So every Monday, the team internally sync, so the account manager is meeting with the operations manager, as well as the operator who is on that account. So we're probably severely wasting hours and just getting the teams to align. But it's really important for the reasons you just mentioned. So the teams just really kind of share and approve and exchange and like make the plan of action as to like, how important is that to do today versus two weeks from now. And so the synergy is still exist, it's just the account manager is no longer responsible for the individual doing the work. So if the account managers like, Hey, I expected this to be done by now she's either gonna go to the individual and or her manager, right. So there's just that fineness. The other thing we realised that our agency is when we had account managers responsible for operators, there were always instances in which they were on separate accounts. So the operator for one manager would also have two accounts with this other manager. And so then the actual manager of her growth and well being was like, I don't know what she's doing over there. I don't know if it takes five hours or 25 hours, and I just don't feel like I have full control over her time.

Yiuwin Tsang  
I guess it goes both ways really doesn't it indicates kind of, like, from a manager's perspective, having that responsibility and not having a shared or, you know, taken away. That level of clarity is really useful, but also from the operators perspective as well, to have that clarity to have that kind of line management, that accountability and allowing these connections of trust to come up because I think having a set up so that as you said, I think you described the spider's web. I think it was lovely or having kind of like overlaying kind of teams I think is important from a visibility perspective from a collaboration perspective, from a learning perspective. Avoiding silos is important. But at the same time keeping clear lines of reporting at the same time is really important as well. And I feel like that is a really important part of your culture, I suppose, you know, allowing that collaboration allowing that interaction between teams between accounts, so you don't waste any learning, you know, a client on one side is, oh, my goodness, have you tried this? It really worked and it spreads across. That's a wonderful thing. But as you say, having the structure in place and it sounds like real clarity in reporting lines is what's really moving forward for you. Is that fair to say?

Nikki Lindgren  
Yeah, that is fair to say the other thing that we've trained our team on that I think has helped us really well is everyone's acting like their own, you know, executive decision maker. And so if someone on the operations team sees something, and says it, and it's six hours later, no one's responded. They're gonna, like bark louder, and wave their hands more to say, like, Hey, this is a real problem, where, you know, at times, it hasn't gone as well were, you know, a team member will be like, well, I flag them. And I'm like, you've got to like, wave your arms really loud. Like, I want you to drive that just because you loved it over the fence doesn't mean it's going to be heard in a timely manner. So everyone's gotten really more aggressive with their ability to just say, this is important, like, we need to move, and this is what I want to do. If I don't hear back from you in a few hours. I'm gonna do it. And that's usually like, it sounds harsh, but it's not like I think everyone receives it really well, because everyone's very trained in what's going to move the needle. And so usually, it's, you know, an hour later. Thank you. Sorry, I've been tied up doing this thing. I'm absolutely on board and glad you made that decision.

Yiuwin Tsang  
Yeah, that's interesting. And it keeps the pace as well, at high kind of pace. It keeps it quite dynamic, as you say, if things take a long time to turn over if decisions take a long time to prove that even just a culture, I'm not going to come on a culture and a moment, culturally, if feels dodgy in that kind of way. And maybe that would suit some people. But in the fast paced agency environment, you kind of need that dynamism, I think is super long. I'm not shoehorn this question, because I think there's a really important one. When we set up this interview, Nick, and we talked about how in order to recruit and going from zero to eight, obviously, recruiting people, renumeration compensation is always going to be a topic to talk with new candidates about and when we spoke, we said there's always somebody who can pay more, there always will be somebody who can pay a bigger salary that you can, how do you compete? A Pennock? How do you get the people because when we talk about your team, we talk about the way they work. We talk about the structures that you have and the way that they engage with each other. Sounds like you've got an absolutely cracking team over there. So how did you build it? What did you do to overcome that salary? Question, at least? Yeah,

Nikki Lindgren  
so in our interview process, we're pretty transparent about the ways in which we operate here, meaning, you know, the individual has a lot of control over how they spend their time when they make decisions, blah, blah, blah. So like, it's very much a, you've got this collective group that's really going to support you, but like, you're in the driver's seat of your work. And I think that people respond to that really well. I think the other thing, you know, people have come to us saying is, I get to do this piece of it in my current agency, or in my in house role, but you've kind of exploded it to say, I get to do these other parts. And that really excites me, because I can figure out, I think a bigger agency is an example, when you join, you're going to be a social paid marketer, or you're going to be like a Google paid marketer or programmatic or whatever. And you kind of stay in that lane and service clients only in that area, and our team is assigned to account. So if the client is doing best on programmatic on tick tock, and on Google, then that's what the team is going to do, we're not going to bring in a tick tock person to just do tick tock for that account. So the team really gets to be experienced and specialised everywhere. So they like that too. I think on the flip side, since we haven't paid as well, we've been kind of looking for unicorn candidates who are maybe overlooked, right? Like they're not typically the first ones agencies are going to go for but like they said something or the way they're thinking about something just stands out a little bit more to us, because like, everything's trainable, right? Like you can go watch endless hours of courses and become really good at our area of discipline. So we look for mindset, too, and just where can we go and take these people. And an example of this comes forward. About a year ago, a team member left us and she had been with us for a year and a half. And she said, I'm so thankful for this opportunity, because I know you took a chance on me and I have learned more than I could imagine having been here and so just really grateful for this opportunity. She left she went to her next agency and she came back so I think you know, that's a good sign of keeping really a great culture that someone is willing to leave see if the grass is greener than to be like just kidding. I want to come back. So that's sort of the how we'd like to set up and how people feel here is that they learn Um, so quickly and you know, if they get poached by a handful of our team members have left for a bigger local agency. And I'm like, great, we're the training grounds for that agency. And that, you know, that also feels really good. And that we can train people so well that they're extremely desirable.

Yiuwin Tsang  
That's such a graceful way of looking at it, I get really cross when people lunch members of my team, like I don't like it. But I wish I could take your same outlook on life as you didn't make it when that happens. And you're right, it's such a compliment for somebody looking and take somebody on, you know, from your team just shows, you know, the development and the growth that you've enabled with the time that they've had. And again, just picking a little bit, some of the things that you said there about competing, as I said, there'll always be somebody there who can offer a bigger salary always be somebody out there who can offer a pool table and sweet machines in their fancy we work office, or maybe not anymore, there's lots of these things. And it's so it's these kind of non financial benefits have come through, you mentioned, the ability to learn in different areas, whereas in a larger agency, you probably will specialise very, very quickly into a niche. And then, who knows, you know, tick tock might fall off a cliff, and then you've got to start all over again. So offering that breadth of learning is so powerful as well. Another key part has to be and we talked about a lot already, it's around the culture. And it's not the easiest thing to put into a job ad, is it to say this is our culture? And it's tricky to do. But I mean, how would you describe the culture? And how would you put it into words? Yeah, I

Nikki Lindgren  
think the main thing we're after is an accountable team that really takes you know, pride in what they're doing. And whether they have an appointment, they have a child home sick, or whatever it is, they're going to get the work done within the week, right. So we do generally, we're all we're fully remote. So everyone's working from wherever they are, these days, everyone's here in the US. So they're working their local nine to five, and most of us are mothers. So a lot of the culture is having that flexibility. So if you need to be gone every day, from two to three to pick your kids up from school, then that employee might be works five to six, instead of logging off at five, right. So we're however works best for you. We've aligned like client hours, client call hours to be certain days of the week within certain windows. So it makes sense for every time zone. And we also like to offer the flexibility of like more paid time off. So we have 14 paid holidays, we have four additional days off where we're just closed down one Friday per quarter, we're trying to increase that to two Fridays per quarter, and hopefully, monthly. So I think there's a room in there where we want to have these moments to be with ourselves to reflect on our lives, maybe even our work, whatever, but just not be at the office. So I think like that is something that speaks to people who do well in remote setups and want to have a little bit more flexibility with how they manage their work day in their life. So the people who respond best to that are going to like what we're doing, we are not in a super margin rich part of marketing. So it has been the sad reality as it comes to pay. But we're very transparent about that. So in the first conversation, we're talking about salary ranges and stuff, just so that candidates who are really desiring something different or not continuing to spend time talking to us because we don't want to waste people's time as we don't.

Yiuwin Tsang  
Yeah, of course, of course, having a conversation about salary expectations is probably a whole nother conversation thereafter, you know, for a whole nother episode of podcast. But when we spoke, we talked a lot about your focus on team well being and I suppose that feeds back into that flexibility, a huge amount of it is comes down to that flexibility as an employer so that people can balance that somebody said to me, there's no such thing as work life balance, there's just work in the life and that too much of the same things. And I kind of get where they're coming from because you can't get away from either of them. And when one overtakes the other one, then you that's where the imbalance comes from, what kind of impact you think is had on the growth of your business have that kind of focus on Team wellbeing? Do you think it's been like a positive impact? Do you think it's kind of like held you back in any sort of way? I mean, what's your interpretation been of that focus, because when I hear you speak, and I hear about the way you speak with your team and the pride that you have, and the way that you know, as you say, they seem to be the envy of other agencies around, you know, I'd be very interested to know what kind of impact has it had to have that focus on Well, being on that kind of culture?

Nikki Lindgren  
That's a good question. The well being I think, really comes down to everything to me kind of especially talking to you about business like centralises around business. So to me like the well being is being able to know when it's a priority or not a priority. Are we watching something and we can take action next week. So today, you can work a six hour day instead of an eight hour day fine, like their agency life creates a lot of fire drills, right. So how do we really identify what is a fire and what isn't? And I feel like my first two years of agency life running Pennock Everything was a fire a client emailed us and we didn't get back to them for an hour and a half, what were we doing right? Like, it has to be immediate. But now we're really kind of recognising our value more, we're feeling more confident in what we're doing. And we're able to give things to clients in a more relaxed manner when it can be right. And I think that that comes through with what's important to people as individuals, you know, writing new ad copy today on something that has had a 5%, click through rate drop. Sure, that could help but 5% is not a big percentage, if you're looking at a 1% click through rate to begin with, right, or five percentage drop point. So we're trying to identify like, what has to be done today? Versus like, can you go to movie early or go see Taylor Swift concert or whatever, right? So I think it's just really putting everything into perspective. And like, we aren't doing open heart surgery or anything. And the clients business is not, you know, flaming, so let's just approach it that way. And then the final point of it is, we make the calls, right? So if the operations person is like, you know, Nikki, I don't think we need to do this right now. They're going to just straight up, say, Nikki and team like, this isn't necessary. Right now. Everything's looking really good. I'll do a thorough check next Tuesday. But like, I really don't have to do this today. And I trust that they're not just trying to push buttons with me and annoy me, they really know the business better than I do.

Yiuwin Tsang  
That's fabulous. I'm picking up so many wonderful 10s of phrases by the end of the interview Nikki? Is it a fire? Or is it a fire drill? Oh, my goodness, that's great. That one is absolutely superb. And I love it. Because we've come across that before where you think, Oh, my goodness, this has happened, the client is gonna go crazy. And sometimes that really not bothered in the slightest, and they're more bothered that you brought it up with them, then they are about the thing happening. And that's, you know, the worst possible place to be. And I fully get you when you say, how does that focus in on business when it comes to well being because if you are able to run your business, that sort of way, where you do have this autonomy, where you have this responsibility where people can make decisions matter, it means being part of that team is enjoyable, it's pleasurable, it means taking time out, you don't feel guilty about it either. Because you've taken all that responsibility and accountability that things aren't going to burst into flames. If you go and see that Taylor Swift concert, you know, things are going to be alright. And it's having this culture of responsibility, which is so powerful. What do you think has been your biggest lesson, Nicky, in terms of growing this business getting to eight? What's been the biggest learning for you? What's had the most impact? This

Nikki Lindgren  
one? I mean, it's there's so many layers to this onion, but I think the reality for me is starting the business knowing, you know, I'm a paid marketer myself, I do SEO myself. So I knew it all so well, that every new hire, I was just like you log in, you do the same stuff I do, you get your paid marketer. And so it was during those first two years where I'd be putting together processes, but they would be haphazard, they wouldn't be well followed, I wouldn't be checking in on them. And so it was just sort of the clients were happy, but like it was a free for all behind the scenes of like, what you do when and how. And I just ended up being frustrated all the time, because I just felt like we were not following the protocol like I wanted because the protocol was super grey, there wasn't a lot of depth or clarity to it. So we have really systematised everything now to the point where I think I could take two months off and the business would sustain. Like, they don't need me now, which is the greatest compliment of any situation. But I think it's because doing the things you don't want to do, like eat the frog, I think is the same, right? Like I have to start my day eating the frog because that's the most mission critical thing for the success of the business. And putting those SOPs in place. How often do we do this activity and that activity and making sure they come to everyone's you know, board of work every single day in our internal system was really important to spend a lot of time finessing. And a reflection I have is I had this employee early on who was young but wonderful and knew the lane super well. She just didn't have enough guidance. And so eventually, she left the company. And I'm always like had we had better systems in place, she would have been amazing, like the things she would be doing if she were still with the company. But the unfortunate thing was I wasn't ready for her. I didn't have the setup that she would have flourished. And so in hindsight, you know, you always wish you would have done something faster. But it's been a process and it's probably been the most important one is to really put together that book of operations that the team can easily follow. 

Yiuwin Tsang  
Oh my goodness, Nikki, I just bought a workshop earlier this week all about getting your business to run without you. And this is just this is magic, as you say to be able to take two months off and for things not to burst into flames is it must be such a wonderful feeling and also for your own well being As well Nikki for you and to take time out, spend time with family to do stuff. And even if you don't do it, knowing that you could do it if you wanted to must be a great place to be absolutely wonderful place to be. And then last question, if you want to start all over again, if you were in a go right back to when you first launched, what would you do differently? Oh,

Nikki Lindgren  
man. I mean, I think the cheesiest answer is probably not like I probably I needed all those mistakes, and those, you know, things to happen to get me to where I am. So like, to some extent, nothing. But I've talked to, you know, I've mentioned before, I'm in a mastermind, and the guy who leads it, he's like, okay, so you sell your business tomorrow, what will you go do and I'm like, the same damn thing. Like, this is what I love. So I will just start another agency, because this is the lane I want to be in. So what I would have done differently, niche sooner, we didn't niche fast enough, I was reluctant to do it. Because it's like paid media as paid media, I can help any kind of brand doesn't matter. Clients really want to hear that, you know, their lane really, really well. So that's probably the real answer. And then niche services to as I had stated to you at a different point, we were doing email marketing and you know, organic social for a while. And so just realising that that wasn't a smart move faster, probably would have been good. And then of course, SOPs like we needed those as soon as we started hiring, and we delayed them for about 16 months or something before we even put them on paper.

Yiuwin Tsang  
And did those SOPs sound incredible, you know, that could be a business in itself. Nicky, you could you know, publish those.

Nikki Lindgren  
 If you do, what, when I have enough free time, we'll get moving over there.

Yiuwin Tsang  
And for all, as you say, it's interesting again, for the other things you might have done differently niching into sector and then niching into services. You hear that from a lot of farmers who've gone on to do amazing things as well that learning to say no faster, which kind of ties into what you're saying that around, you know, niching in would have made a big difference. Yeah,

Nikki Lindgren  
I think the feeling I had was it was so counterintuitive to grow to potentially say no to a client who made an app for parents versus getting that extra couple $1,000 A month it was just like, you know, you have payroll, you have expenses, it was just hard to say no to and you know, we would have been fine. We would have made it till the next client came along. But I wanted the money today to cover things that the business needed. 

Yiuwin Tsang  
Thank you for taking the time to listen to this week's podcast. And a big thank you to Nikki Lindgren from Pennock for joining us. Thank you for joining us for this week's Beautiful Business Podcast. If you're dedicated to building a Beautiful Business, check out wowco.uk/beautifulbusiness.