Ep. #1028 - Your Values Define Your Company’s Culture

00:02.22
Frank Keck
Howdy everybody! Welcome back to another awesome episode of Founder Fridays with Frank, where we explore the challenges founders face on any given day. Our goal is to give you ideas and support to help your business grow in a healthy and productive way. I’m your host, Frank Keck. My background: I am the founder and CEO of CoreBuild, where we help build strong leaders and amazing workplace cultures. Many companies are contacting CoreBuild to help them build a culture where their people are engaged and highly productive, and then help them build the leadership skills to continue to grow their people and their businesses. All of that being said, I’m an entrepreneur at heart and so I love working with startups and founders. And I get them. They get me. They’re my peeps. And that’s why I’m excited to bring you Founder Fridays with Frank, just because it’s fun to say too. You’re in for a real treat as the first 4 guests in this series, you likely know pretty well. They’re the host of the Startup Hustle podcast. Last week, I got to sit down with Matt Watson. And you know I just love putting these people in the hot seat, kind of turning it around on them so that you can learn more about them as people and learn more about the awesome businesses that they’ve built.

01:25.50
Frank Keck
But before I tell you who today’s guest is, let’s take a quick moment to thank Full Scale for sponsoring today’s podcast. Go learn how Full Scale helps you build a winning software team quickly and affordably by visiting fullscale.io. And now let’s welcome our second guest. In the 4 part founder Fridays with Frank series the one and only founder and Ceo of Marknology, a full service agency. Mr. Andrew Morgans. Welcome Andrew.

01:56.37
Andrew Morgans
Thank you, Frank. What an introduction! I appreciate it.

02:01.57
Frank Keck
So I’m going to ask you to tell us a little bit about Marknology here in a second. But when I was talking to Matt Watson, it was in my speaker notes that he’s the best-looking of the 4 hosts. But I have in my notes that you are the coolest of all the podcast hosts. How’s that feel to be the coolest?

02:23.45
Andrew Morgans
Well, I am not married so I guess Matt Watson has me beat on that. He locked it in. We’re both redheads. Oh, so we like to give each other a little bit of shit. But coolest, I’ll take the coolest. I think I’m the youngest. Ah, so that that goes for something and I try to hang out with young guys and girls all the time just to keep me even younger. So I’m any congress that moves super fast. You got to be kind of cool. You know to be doing it. So I guess I’ll take it I’ll take the badge.

02:42.94
Frank Keck
Okay.

02:49.46
Frank Keck
Awesome! Awesome Hey tell us a little bit about Marknology and kind of what you guys are doing over there and.

02:57.81
Andrew Morgans
Okay, so martinology is a full service. Ah a full servicevice ecommerce agency. Um, we’ve got you know, definitely our bread and butter is Amazon and um, you know had a had a good hand and I personally had a good hand in in. Um. Launching not maybe not launching but like building the Amazon industry as it stands today. Um, it’s a newer industry and and what the Amazon or marketplace industry I guess because there’s more marketplaces that have popped up even though it started with the Amazon um, we help brands retailers big box retailers. Whoever of all different sizes. Um.

03:24.48
Frank Keck
Right.

03:32.85
Andrew Morgans
Essentially navigate Amazon and you say okay, what does that mean? well everything from photography to like the the images you see whenever you’re on Amazon to um, you know how? well they flow the videos that are there selling the products. Um, you know Seo which is like keyword.

03:50.58
Frank Keck
Right up.

03:51.22
Andrew Morgans
Riddled content. Um, there’s like you know about the brand and the brand story and you know there’s some Amazon pages that have 1 listing and they they look pretty much blank and then there’s others that look like a magazine page and you know we’re more we’re closer to the magazine page type of team meaning we’re just like really helping these brands bring their story and their branding to Amazon. But not just the beautiful stuff we are helping with ops you know so how do you package products to be profitable. Is it a 3 pack is it a 6 pack is it a case pack like how are we doing that. What’s our labeling are we putting qr codes on there that gets them to our social media or what’s our follow up strategies with inserts and um.

04:18.34
Frank Keck
Wow.

04:30.76
Andrew Morgans
You know email follow up. We’re also so that’s like you know the operation side and you got returns and fulfillment and supply chain. You’ve got the branding and the content that gets people to convert once they land on the page and then you have advertising which is a big part of Amazon they’re the I think third largest advertiser now digitally.

04:33.18
Frank Keck
Right.

04:50.50
Andrew Morgans
Um, and there’s all types of real estate on Amazon for for paid media. But on Amazon it is actually one of the first channels where um, ops and organic content like seo and images and assets and things like that and advertising all work together. Um. To make your Amazon store successful and that’s just completely different than most companies. Most retailers have ever dealt with before. Um you know a fortune 500 company definitely has multiple teams. They have a media buying team. They have an organic team. They have you know so those teams um always work together. But on Amazon you need that so we come in.

05:20.77
Frank Keck
Right.

05:27.19
Andrew Morgans
Work side by-side with companies that might have 1 or 2 people in their company doing ecommerce or doing Amazon but it’s just not enough and so we kind of come in and and work side by side with them to lead to lend expertise um, you know extra hands like you know, maybe they’re expanding internationally. Um, we’ve been doing this a long time worked with over three hundred brands probably several hundred million in sales. We’ve ran through um and ultimately like are leading the way in regards to like what are the best. Not just the best practices but ah, you know the most thought.

05:46.64
Frank Keck
Wow.

06:00.29
Andrew Morgans
Most innovative and like you know outside the box strategies toward building brands. Um, you know in a digital landscape. So I know that’s a mouthful but that’s what we do for? That’s what we do with brands on a daily basis like you know that’s what we’re doing day in and day out and have been doing for the last we turned 8 in August um, think.

06:16.74
Frank Keck
That’s very cool and that’s one of those things that you don’t really think about right? You just go to Amazon and there’s all the stuff and you click on it and there’s more stuff and a picture and the story and but I think most most of us don’t really stop and think about okay well who wrote the copy who took the pictures who put the concept together. Ah, come this? yeah.

06:33.54
Andrew Morgans
How do you find that website. How do you find that meme. Do you find that you know that product someone got you there right? someone like optimized the keyword someone did something to make you say yes I want to buy this one. Um and the customers don’t think about it.

06:37.57
Frank Keck
Um, yeah.

06:49.00
Andrew Morgans
Okay, they just trust Amazon really, that’s what Amazon did well for ecommerce. But the the brands the retailers Amazon is a huge huge thing on their mind. Um, whether that’s because they’ve been successful there or they’re struggling and they’ve heard about success there or their competitors are killing it. Um, Amazon is a big. Topic for you know on the non-customer side on the retail side Amazon’s a big big topic and um I was just blessed to see that early.

07:15.68
Frank Keck
Yeah, it’s it’s you know we’re going to talk about culture and leadership today and so what you’re describing really I think ties right in with culture and leadership. You know if you’re going to build a team. Everything has to fit and work together and so you really have to understand those nuances of. You know why do certain people do certain things certain ways and how does it all flow and how does it all fit together. So um, that’s very cool, very cool.

07:40.62
Andrew Morgans
Yeah, thank you We’re having I’m a a lot of fun. Um, you know it’s changed my life changed the life of my family to as far as the business. Um, and we went from a team of like you know me myself and I to. Um, 2 or 3 for a couple of years and then you know most recently I think we just hired our thirty eighth employee um ours team building and leadership and management. It’s a lot of different skills than I’ve had before you know a lot of things I’m moving into and um.

08:02.26
Frank Keck
Congrats.

08:06.10
Frank Keck
Um, right.

08:11.69
Andrew Morgans
What I did then doesn’t work now and you know having to adjust on the fly and trying to keep. Um, we actually like I was very very adamant about um, having a team in Kansas City where we were all together a lot of my competitors or ah, you know or even colleagues I can call them colleagues would.

08:29.82
Frank Keck
Right.

08:29.82
Andrew Morgans
Built their companies around vas and a lot of ah you know just e-commerce is is very much driven on vas um, but I I felt if I was going to build a culture if I was Goingnna have um, a leg up so to speak or to do this thing that’s very collaborative and build brands and not just have like you know. People clicking buttons if I wanted to have real people thinking strategically and collaboratively I needed to do it together. Um, and for the first you know, probably 6 years of our 8 years I did it that way. Um. And then the last two years I’ve expanded our design team and and have employees you know as the pandemic has happened things have changed quite a bit. Um, but I do think starting like that was very impactful on on the culture and company. We’ve built and then now just dealing with the challenges of you know doubling the team and being remote.

09:16.94
Frank Keck
So When did you start thinking about putting the team together because it sounds like you you had a vision of okay here’s what I want this to look like when did you so like was that from the very beginning is it like once you got your trio of me myself and I and you’re like oh crap I’m going to need more people. Maybe I need to start thinking about this was it when stuff started breaking like help us walk through how you put all that together.

09:44.68
Andrew Morgans
So some of it is just like knowing yourself you know? and um I like being part of a team like I’m I’m from a missionary family I’m 4 generation preachers kid I grew up in Africa in the wos in Congo like you know just I grew up differently.

09:54.98
Frank Keck
Wow.

10:00.62
Andrew Morgans
And um, that also made me very close to my family. So actually when I started the business I had been living 7 years away on my own um without family clothes and um I was honestly pioneering this industry when like no one believed in it. So.

10:01.73
Frank Keck
Right.

10:17.55
Andrew Morgans
I couldn’t really get people like you know if you’re doing a website people know about websites if you’re doing programming people know about programming if you’re like writing a book like okay here’s an editor or someone to help you when I was doing Amazon There wasn’t anyone going to school for it. There wasn’t anyone doing it. Um, and there’s so many aspects.

10:26.93
Frank Keck
But.

10:34.00
Andrew Morgans
Selling on Amazon and doing it well so you have to be good at math and the financials of profitability. Um, you have to be able to be good at supply chain and understand logistics and planning and prepping. Um you have to be good at media buying and thinking like a customer and being able to put yourself in their shoes. Got to be good at photography or graphic design you have to be good at writing and sales copy. Um there’s all these different aspects to selling on Amazon it’s not just like be an idea person or a great photographer or whatever and so I really realized that while I was doing those things I wasn’t great at all of those things.

10:55.52
Frank Keck
Right.

11:10.98
Andrew Morgans
And so that immediately made me start thinking team right? and then um was like I can’t do all these things I I like want to focus on what I’m good at and so that that made me think team and then ah the other thing would be like you know whenever I was still a net corporate job building this on the side I made over one $100000 like in Kansas city.

11:17.34
Frank Keck
Right.

11:30.65
Andrew Morgans
Between my day job and my freelancing and as a single guy. It’s a good amount of money, especially a few years back and um I loved it I loved like being able to take care of my friends like if we’re out at the bar or going to a restaurant or being on a date or whatever it was like I just had never came from money and.

11:34.23
Frank Keck
Yeah.

11:49.57
Andrew Morgans
It was something that I’m like wow this is like this is life changing in some ways and um I was like I just didn’t picture myself as being like an Amazon guru on an island like working with a couple of clients like a lot of people have done in the e-commerce space write a course or you know live in Bali or in Thailand and. You know do their thing I just I knew I wouldn’t be happy if my people weren’t taken care of and so I slowed my plan down a little bit to to make sure that happened first.

12:17.91
Frank Keck
That’s that’s really cool Andrew one of the the biggest things about building company culture and building your leadership team and and setting an environment where people can thrive one of the biggest things is to realize that the company culture is a. it’s um it’s a mirror of the culture of the founder right? or the person in charge. So I love that you grew up. Ah as a pk right? Preacher’s kid and a missionary and so with like all this unknown stuff. But at the heart of being a missionary is taking care of other people. And so you come back and you’re like wow, it’s kind of cool to have money I want to take care of my friends hey I want to build a company hey I want to take care of my people right? So I think the culture of marknology started back in your missionary days with your family. Because those are the values that are inherent to you and so you know as we start to put our company together. It’s just like I love your awareness of hey this is who I am right I got to build this around who I am. So I think a lot of times we get caught up in oh well I should be this person right? and to be cool company culture I got to have ice cream machine and a ping-pong table and well not if you don’t play pingpong and you know not if you don’t like ice cream. So I love the fact that you got that self-awareness I think we can all learn from that.

13:35.67
Andrew Morgans
Yeah.

13:42.86
Andrew Morgans
Thank you.

13:44.61
Frank Keck
Right? Founders you’re just you are going to be the the heart and soul of the company as you get started and then to kind of have that vision of hey I can take care of a lot of people here. This is really cool. So I love that.

13:58.13
Andrew Morgans
Yeah, but you know ecommerce like one I needed them and and and they needed me and so it was just like you know as a fit like that and you know I grew up with like you know you’re you’re raised by a tribe in Africa for sure. Ah.

14:09.24
Frank Keck
Right.

14:11.97
Andrew Morgans
And you can You can be raised by a tribe here in the Us too. It’s just like a lot more independent of a culture. Um, but it’s It’s not a or at least in the church culture and I’m not religious now I’m spiritual but I’m not religious. Ah but in the church culture. You become a community or a family and it has nothing to do with blood.

14:21.58
Frank Keck
Right.

14:30.92
Andrew Morgans
Okay, so it’s just you just take care of people. You know for for better or worse. There’s this culture of just like you know you take care of people you look out for people when they need help and um, that’s you know I’m someone that like growing up in a war zone in Congo and things like that trust is a big thing to me and so building that. In order to be able to take on. You know, think about leading this Amazon industry and ecommerce when you know most businesses in the us are resistant to that they were you know when I started eight years ago so I’m like literally doing something that’s kind of a little crazy. Ah, you know at least like I didn’t have a success then. And so the people that were going to like work with me or help me build this had to be like believe in my crazy a little bit and ah you know so I was ah it was not slim pickings but it was definitely like the people closest to me made moves with me first. Um, and so you know we definitely have that culture of like.

15:22.56
Frank Keck
Right.

15:28.40
Andrew Morgans
We’ve done this together and pioneered it. You know I think between me and um, ah my leadership team which is two of my sisters. They they both move from different parts of the country to join me as I started doing it. We’ve got like 60000 hours on Amazon so which is just a ton right? So um.

15:40.43
Frank Keck
Wow.

15:46.38
Andrew Morgans
You know out of that We just started believing in what we’re Doing. We just spent so many hours doing it. It didn’t really matter what other people were saying we believed in it and kind of kind of pushed through so I definitely give some some of that credit to you know the pioneering mentality of my dad going into you know various places of the world and saying hey I’m going to start something from Scratch. So. Um, yes, the culture we have like and then ah you know we’re also just like highly competitive so you mix in this like ah you know like kind of like take care of each other kind of culture. Um, and then you mix in just like winners.

16:13.60
Frank Keck
Um.

16:20.93
Andrew Morgans
Like honestly and different very you know different aspects of their lives but just like built a team of winners that like competing that like taking on hard stuff. Um that like doing the hard stuff and um, it’s pretty cool. What we’ve done.

16:25.79
Frank Keck
Um, right.

16:33.60
Frank Keck
I love that so you’re you’re like the perfect guest. Ah Watson told me I was a guest host I said well I guess that makes you the guest guest right? So you’re my guest guest today but just the perfect guest guest because you just telling your story. It’s like okay that’s a. That story just kind of defines how you you know people are always like how do you build a great company culture. It’s like go go sit down with Andrew for an hour and and just listen to his story and so what I love about that too. 2 other things that you said just to kind of recap how this ties into culture. You talked about. So I got some of my friends together I got my 2 sisters together. So what that tells me is okay so alignment right? and you talked about tribe and you know Ceph go in the ah marketing guru talks about find your tribe right? and I think when we’re building that company. That’s exactly what we have to do. Is find the tribe because those people are going to be interested by similar things like we don’t have to go find 12 people exactly like you or exactly like me but let’s go find people who were aligned from a values perspective from a vision perspective. But then you give them the freedom to be themselves. Right? And then everybody brings something to the table. So I love how you guys have doing have done that and so that alignment would be 1 of the key values of your organization I think the first value I I see in your organization in marketology is love right? Which I don’t you know we don’t really think of that as a marketable.

18:06.42
Frank Keck
Value but it is one that you definitely have to have alignment is the second one and then I love the third one man because it’s like okay I’ve got these 2 and’ve got love and alignment and let’s sing kumbaya kind of right and then it’s like and competitive. So I love that now. It’s like okay that’s just a little bit different that adds the spice right.

18:24.82
Andrew Morgans
Um, yeah.

18:26.70
Frank Keck
Just to kind of keep things different. But I think so a lot of those things So as we bring in people who are going to fit my guess is the people on your team have to kind of be aligned with that right? If you don’t like competition. Probably not going to work very well for you here.

18:40.57
Andrew Morgans
Yeah, that’s exactly.

18:43.49
Frank Keck
If you if you if you don’t really like people you know you don’t have to be you know a religious fanatic or something like that as you but but you do need to have like an interest in people. So I Just’m I’m impressed by how you’ve kind of put some of those things together naturally but you started thinking about this. Based on your your life. History.

19:06.29
Andrew Morgans
Yeah, so I you know what I haven’t shared is like I hit kind of a rock bottom in my life at around 25 I had been in love and with the girl for years. Um, and you know she walked out of my life and I was hitting rock bottom and was starting kind of all over I was by myself I was. Found e-commerce without the lengthing I really had going and um, you know I had always worked at Jobs for the most part I’m generally speaking but just like where my management or my leadership just wasn’t Great. You know and it wasn’t like I was at.

19:31.90
Frank Keck
Um, right.

19:37.73
Andrew Morgans
In the military and had an amazing kernel like you know or something like that I just didn’t really have from restaurants to bars to work in security at the casino or as a painter at UP in the warehouse or wherever I just never really had these great bosses and so I’ve always loved working like I loved to work. Um, how I was raised I Just you know I like working and um, but like working on a team that’s like responsible for me losing. Let’s say like I’m losing based on not my own efforts but based on some people on my team.

20:08.65
Frank Keck
Right.

20:10.81
Andrew Morgans
Or because I have a leader that’s walking us into an ambush. You know that makes no sense like horrible decisions I wanted to build a company that wasn’t ran that way and that you know, um, one of my worst things was like you know you go to a job that you kind of like the job. You don’t hate the job but you have some coworkers there just make you miserable.

20:24.70
Frank Keck
Um, maybe yeah.

20:29.79
Andrew Morgans
And you know, ah whether they’re bad at their jobs or they’re making you carry their weight or they’re just Jerks or whatever the case might be um I just committed to not letting that be possible in our company and so you know, especially at the beginning. Um, we didn’t hire people that like other people didn’t want to work next to.

20:47.38
Frank Keck
Yeah.

20:48.77
Andrew Morgans
You know we just there’s a million. There’s a million fish in the sea. We’ll find somebody else so was kind of group decisions whenever I’d add someone to a department and um, you know obviously tried to make the most inclusive culture we possibly could um and we still commit to that but it was very much so like let go.

21:03.54
Frank Keck
No Jerks right.

21:06.66
Andrew Morgans
Yeah, we don’t want I don’t I don’t care if for’ the best salesman you know you read that in books like you The best salesman on your company. The best producer it didn’t matter I wasn’t hiring for producers I was hiring for people that trusted and had alignment. You know they cared about people they cared about their work. They had a certain level of pride in their work. Um.

21:15.59
Frank Keck
Um, yeah.

21:23.29
Andrew Morgans
And then they were competitive like let’s go get this? um you know and what I could offer with marnology that a lot of companies couldn’t even before the pandemic was um flexibility so simple things like you know Arian Hour is Eleven o’clock um you know we can work from home. We can be flexible like that.

21:32.45
Frank Keck
And yeah.

21:43.10
Andrew Morgans
Um, you know, just simple things like that that can make the quality of life so much better at work for like let’s say you know I took a Gm he had 10 years experience as a gm in restaurants around Kansas City and now he’s running my advertising department. You know going on near 3 and so what mattered to him is you had 2 young girls at home.

21:54.59
Frank Keck
Very cool.

22:00.57
Andrew Morgans
And you know he as if you know anything about restaurants they work twenty four seven you know so I gave them a quality of life. You know it’s like you say some people don’t like ping pong. Some people don’t like fos ball or red bulls or chair massages at work. That’s not culture. You know what’s culture is like I care about you.

22:03.58
Frank Keck
Yeah.

22:11.80
Frank Keck
Um, yeah.

22:18.60
Andrew Morgans
You want to be at your daughter’s recital. Go like you know and um, yeah, that’s kind of like what I tried to give was like what other people what other companies couldn’t give or wouldn’t give Um, that’s before I had capital because I’m bootstrapped.

22:24.35
Frank Keck
That’s really cool.

22:28.74
Frank Keck
Right.

22:34.73
Andrew Morgans
So like before I had capital to offer like you know good salaries or whatever it was what can I give you to like make your life your quality of life better and let’s build you know this business that matters to me together.

22:47.00
Frank Keck
I love that and and again it kind of comes from who you are who like who you are as a person right? and and so I love the flexibility and the loyalty. Reminded me I have a good friend of mine. Um Virginia franise who’s here in the Kansas City area and she has a company and their number one value is don’t be a dick right? and I’m like Virginia you can’t have that as a value and she said well it’s true, but it’s kind of the same thing as you right? which is don’t be a jerk so we don’t you know if you’re a jerk. You can’t work here because that doesn’t fit the culture and and when we hire people that aren’t aligned with us, especially from a values perspective. Those are the people that just don’t fit in right and you maybe can’t put your finger on it. But it’s like oh man, they just don’t fit I’m not sure why. But.

23:28.38
Andrew Morgans
Yet.

23:34.78
Andrew Morgans
They just don’t it’s not a cool factor. It’s not. It’s not anything like that. You know we’ve got um, we’ve got 2 people in their sixty s that work here. We’ve got black white yellow male female like everything you can think of like so it’s not any of that. It’s um.

23:38.10
Frank Keck
No.

23:48.17
Frank Keck
Cool.

23:52.53
Andrew Morgans
You know we’re just it’s a vibe so to speak you know? No, we don’t.

23:56.74
Frank Keck
So I just want to know? do you have anybody named Mark. Okay, so if your name’s Mark I want you to to to ah come go to Mark Knowledge’s website and I want you to go apply for a job but just right I just think we need to have somebody named Mark. Working at marcnology.

24:15.60
Andrew Morgans
I think we were gonna get shirts that said like my name is not Mark like ah ah we hit the mark. We hit the mark. It’s been a lot of fun like honestly and and as a as a team has now expanded to like Latin America and Florida and New York

24:20.51
Frank Keck
Ah, but but we hit the mark.

24:30.00
Frank Keck
Wow.

24:31.94
Andrew Morgans
Individuals in some of those places. Um, you know it’s um, it’s a top concern of mine to create culture and I think it’s got to go a little bit from just like quality of life ah to like you know incentives and like you know, different things I’m trying to get incentives across all the different departments and things like that that might incentivize you know? um.

24:46.58
Frank Keck
Um, right? sure.

24:51.49
Andrew Morgans
Some of the team That’s not here in the Us more right money is a big big driver. So um, just just navigating that you know and another thing is I think a big part of culture that people don’t think about is I fire clients all the time all the time.

25:03.94
Frank Keck
Um, yeah.

25:08.41
Andrew Morgans
And you know at the beginning when it was just me I sucked it up and got stuff done. But as a team has grown um and we have a waiting list and we have like you know we’re like we’re busy as hell. Um, you know we have clients that are Jerks. And I have a no jerk policy from inside the building and outside the building and so I won’t let people be Jerks to the team. Um, which creates this like you know we really are a team when the boss isn’t just collecting a check and he’s like you know someone’s picking on us or not treating us with respect or.

25:26.26
Frank Keck
Yeah.

25:41.48
Andrew Morgans
Be misogynistic or like who knows what you know they know that if they bring that to my attention I’m going to take it very seriously and um, you know that’s a culture I think that’s a culture move as well.

25:52.70
Frank Keck
Absolutely absolutely? Um, so you had mentioned trust and I think that’s one of the things when you fire customers who are Jerks right? that that you’re not aligned with you. Let your people know hey I’m I’m looking out for you and I think that that Builds. Trust. How Ah what are other ways that you build trust with your people that was one of the things you mentioned early on.

26:15.23
Andrew Morgans
Um, I think you need to empower them to be innovative and try new things and take risks at work so you have to empower them to do that and and you know push them to do that and push push push so you have to be pushing a bit and then when they make that mistake is your opportunity. Okay, and so whenever they make that mistake which is almost what you want? Um, That’s your opportunity to um, really come in behind them like help pick up the pieces. Whatever that mistake is like not blasted out. Um you know. Honestly, the big mistakes are not even what I really treat as the learning lessons those are the ones that I think they learn themselves. They don’t need me to say anything. Um, you know if I get constructive with criticism or like learning lessons. It’s on the small stuff. The stuff that doesn’t matter really that’s when I.

26:59.45
Frank Keck
Right.

27:03.76
Andrew Morgans
That’s when I’ll like critique and and do stuff like that. But I think you build trust whenever you show up when someone makes a big mistake. Um, and how you show up when do you show up like pissed off and yelling around and like you know the bosses stress or do you show up like I got this like as if as if it was your toddler that just. You know broke your favorite pitcher and you know you’re going to scream at your Toddler. You’re going to pick pick up the glass and the mess and make them help you know? Yeah, there shouldn’t be leaders like you know they shouldn’t be leaders. So I think that’s you know, um in the face of like.

27:25.99
Frank Keck
So yeah, some people will some people will yeah.

27:37.48
Andrew Morgans
You know mistakes and chaos and stuff like that is kind of like where you build trust. Um, when things are going wrong how you handle it as a leader you know, even if it’s on you and it’s it’s not even one of their mistakes. Um I think you build trust by um, backing up what you say you’re going to do. So if I say we’re going to get raises or if I say we’re going to get this client or I say we’re going to go do these types of things or um, go e and do them you know like that’s the easiest way to get trust is like if you say it do it. So um, I mean I could go on and on I’m honestly in the trust building game like as a. Just for my employees in the culture but like for everyone else out there that knows about marnology that’s looking at an Amazon agency or an e-commerce agency to hire in the wild west that is like an unregulated industry in some ways I um, I’ve been in the trust game for years. That’s why I’ve been putting out.

28:24.65
Frank Keck
Right.

28:31.60
Andrew Morgans
Value and expertise and I’m on this podcast and I do speaking events and I put our story on the website and because I have nothing to hide. We’re good at what we do and this is the team that we’ve built and if you don’t want this team if you want like you know some cutthroat New York guys that are savages and like you know like. You know produce results I don’t mean no disrespect. But if you want that kind of hard nose like guys on your team or whatever. It’s not us and I you know and so I put it out there that like this is the way we do business. Um, so that I try to track the right clients you know that.

28:53.74
Frank Keck
Right.

29:03.53
Frank Keck
You know I think that’s I think that’s everything Andrew because there are people who will say you know what you’re you’re to Kansas City right you’re too midwestern I need somebody in your face. 1 of the one of the first companies I worked with. We’re getting the team together and we do this exercise called a team charter which is where you talk about is we’re going to work together. Let’s talk about what expectations and aspirations we have of 1 another and this was ah ah, an auto plant and so one of the one of the u aw members said well an expectation I have is swearing. And I said what are you talking about and you know out of his mouth came a bunch of swear words and I said I understand what swearing is but how is that an expectation and he said if you don’t swear you don’t mean what you say so I don’t want to have anything to do with you but that was part of their. Team culture right? was you’ve got to be intense. So I think it’s there are people who are like okay that’s kind of place I want to work where people are yelling at me and it’s uncomfortable all the time and there’s clients that like that’s just their style so. That’s what they want but those are probably the people that you’re like hey you know what we’re not your. Not your team because we that’s not how we operate and so I think just that I love how you’re like hey we’re going to be aligned in everything that we do because that then you don’t have to worry about being authentic. You just you just be you? yeah.

30:16.90
Andrew Morgans
Um, but.

30:28.82
Andrew Morgans
Yeah, and that really came out of that low I was talking about when I came of that that self-awareness which is like this is who I am This is what I’m going to be and this is the company I’m going to build and as someone that come from no connections. No real opportunities in that regard. No you know Bootstraps Um, Like. What I had to offer was me like you know that’s what I had to offer and I’m I’m I’m brilliant I’m good at what I do I work hard Maybe harder the most and um, you know, but I’m just a mid I’m a nobody from nowhere Midwest boy you know that just had ah an interesting Upbringing. Um.

30:47.38
Frank Keck
But yeah.

31:04.31
Andrew Morgans
But if you like that if you like that kind of like out of the mud you know tenacious like outside the box creative hardworking you know blue collar in a white collar world kind of person that’s me and if like that’s what you think builds businesses then like I’m your guy you know and and um.

31:17.83
Frank Keck
Awesome I Love that.

31:21.47
Andrew Morgans
So like that’s kind of the message I just wanted to put out and I wanted to be clear and you know I had like the best compliment couple months back I’ll just like brag on the team a little bit but you know you work on all these things you don’t always get validation that it’s working and not working you know and um, we had a big manufacturer come in from. Um. Cincinnati and they flew in which is like and a newer thing for us I’ve had 4 or 5 brands fly in but like you know it feels cool so they’re coming in seeing the office and taking the time to bring their whole team out here which is just another level of client you know and ah.

31:56.23
Andrew Morgans
They had a consultant working for them that was like at like 20 years of p and g and um you know some of those a big company and she was just like you know at the end of the day I think we had like two days together and she’s just like said this to one of ah my sisters and was just like yeah I just got to say like after being with p and g twenty years I’ve been all over the place like. Tons of brands companies, service, providers partners. She’s just like your guys’ culture is just so authentic and um, you know spot on from the moment we were introduced to Drew and we went through the sales process and like you know because I did market share analysis consulting with them before they came on with us and. When they came in they got the proposal to when they landed here and arrived to when they met all the team individually. She’s just like through and through your guys is um, you know culture is is aligned and right on and she said there’s no drop from like the moment they met me to the proposal stage to working with us to me and the team to the visit and that.

32:53.21
Frank Keck
Yeah.

32:53.60
Andrew Morgans
What else can you ask for right? to me. That’s the home run. That’s just like you know if if from my social media to my content and I put out that made them find me to the conversations with me to the handoff to the team to meeting the actual team to seeing our building and our 5 that we’ve got here. Um that compliment to me is worth.

33:12.15
Frank Keck
That is very cool. Yeah yeah I love that because she didn’t have to give you guys that feedback right.

33:13.30
Andrew Morgans
Ah, million dollars you know

33:18.28
Andrew Morgans
Yeah, and you know so you don’t get that all the time and not everyone comes out and visits your your whole team and goes to dinner with you and like you know so not everyone’s getting that whole look. But it’s like you know if someone saw my content on the podcast or on social media and they met me in person and didn’t feel like it was the same.

33:23.42
Frank Keck
Yeah.

33:36.56
Frank Keck
Um, yeah.

33:37.11
Andrew Morgans
Person I would be very disappointed. You know oh the like goal is as a company to be trusted in like whatever you’re putting out there in the world as far as content or a message or a brand or um, your values. Um, for people to say that it’s you know, true through and through.

33:50.50
Frank Keck
So I think one of your one of your top 3 values I always tell people you’ve got to have primary values right? You’re going to have a bunch of them. But you can only focus on 3 at a time and I would say one of your top 3 is being authentic right? And that’s just in everything that you do the way you run your business the way you run your life.

34:09.49
Andrew Morgans
Blue. Okay, oh yes, sir.

34:10.37
Frank Keck
Um, so so I have 2 quick 3 quick questions. The first one is have you ever heard of a concept called the 5 love languages. So I think for those of you that haven’t heard the 5 love love languages. You know one of the things Andrew talked about was everybody’s different and so you have to show appreciation in different ways. Not everybody’s driven by money and so the 5 level languages is a book written that talks about different ways of showing appreciation and so really to to be authentic. You’ve got to show people appreciation in a way that’s meaningful to them right? and I hear a lot of that in your message today too. Um, question number 2 and then I’m gonna have to remember I didn’t write down question number 3 so question number 2 what’s your biggest challenge right now when it comes to building your team.

35:02.20
Andrew Morgans
Well it it comes down to in some ways. Um, there aren’t people that do what we do at a high level in the world. Um, we are like kind of pioneering that and a lot of that comes with just on the job experience and training. Um.

35:08.78
Frank Keck
A.

35:16.55
Andrew Morgans
It’s ah it’s new techniques. It’s new strategy and it’s not to say you can’t bring value like in an experience into this that can help but you just you know? um I went from like you know, being value to maybe like fifty thousand a year to like four hundred thousand a year like you know and so.

35:30.32
Frank Keck
Right.

35:33.99
Andrew Morgans
It’s just been a crazy jump in the last ten years at like what e-commerce is worth out there and so ah building a team around talent in a bootstrap I’m a bootstrap company um takes time you know it takes time to develop that talent and then and to keep it and to keep it and not get it poached out. You know by by a bigger competitor. Um, so you know it’s been honestly the people the people side of it at this point. Um, you know trying to scale the team and be as good as we were when we were a 10 person team at 40 um, you know, taking on more clients and having the people that are now under my managers.

36:01.69
Frank Keck
Right.

36:09.50
Andrew Morgans
Care as much as my managers did you know in the early days when we’re building each other up. Um, so you know I’ve been spending a ton of time and energy and and dollars on scaling and process and all of that I know it’s one of the major challenges. But for me, it’s the people um continuing to find. Ah.

36:29.30
Frank Keck
Right.

36:29.68
Andrew Morgans
Like-minded people as a team gets bigger. Um, where we can stay just as connected and just as plugged in you know in my mind we do very very important work and um, you know so we’ve been the lifeline for businesses like ah during the pandemic keeping them going. Maybe 1 of their biggest channels like you know we um. For businesses that are getting older. We’re bringing them new life and new revenue and um, you know strengthening America’s infrastructure in a lot of ways you want to be as dramatic as that like you know we’re we’re adding we’re taking hundred year old businesses and and keeping them alive ah giving them life and and um, not like.

36:59.50
Frank Keck
Right? giving them new life. Yeah.

37:07.76
Andrew Morgans
That’s a funny pun considering you know we just talked out about religion. Um, but and I want anyone that works here to care about it that much like I I Really you know we can make or break a business and so as their team and I take that responsibility very very seriously and so as we continue to scale the team. Um.

37:15.81
Frank Keck
Right.

37:26.87
Andrew Morgans
Finding people that care as much or um, you know about what they’re doing within the job within the company and and so it’s it’s I Eventually officially I’ve turned into um, people people is everything I care about you know and think about and obsess about.

37:41.18
Frank Keck
I love that and you know one of the biggest challenges today is finding a finding people but be finding the right people and um, finding expert software developers. It doesn’t have to be difficult, especially when you visit fullscale io or you can build a software team quickly and affordably. Use the full scale platform to define your technical needs then see what available developers tuers and leaders are ready to join your team visit fullscale dot io to learn more I I remembered my other question but what you just shared it was it was like um, you’ve given us several tips right? which is really about be. Be me right? and so you kind of learned that when you had that? Um, that wasn’t the right person for you and so she left and ah so so I think my other question was ah and I want you to answer this at the end. So hopefully come back to it. Have you found somebody. That you are more aligned with right? but um, if you could so so keep that in your mind because we’re going to come back to that. But if you could if you could give us a tip Andrew so all the people out in the in the world that are listening to this if you could give them a tip on because you know getting people finding people all that. That is a real challenge if you could just give us like 1 tip on keeping your people. What would that? What would that be what have you found.

39:07.95
Andrew Morgans
I try to give them something that no one else can give them and to me that is um, you know a family number one. That’s not It’s not just 1 thing and and I wouldn’t say just like a family of like anyone can work anywhere from money and etc. But like if they go get the money. I do feel like they’ll be leaving like a family behind. Okay, 1 just making that that 2 and like you have a boss that cares like you know it’s a family like that and then two would be um, you know I personally as the boss tried to continue to find make this job exciting. Okay, so.

39:26.70
Frank Keck
Right.

39:44.53
Andrew Morgans
Have like a lot of younger people working for me. They could be working all types of places I know that once they work here. They can leave and make 40000 more than they were making before they worked here like I know the value that we bring right now with our expertise I know all of that. But for me, it’s um, you know, giving them opportunities to work with like you know to have this 23 year old working with.

39:54.75
Frank Keck
Right.

40:04.19
Andrew Morgans
Fortune 500 company rebranding them and um, you know the ability to come to a conference and potentially speak or um, jumping on a webinar and leading their first webinars on a topic that you know they never thought they were you know, ah efficient or like. Experts experts at but they really are with what they’ve learned here and so I continue to find like um, the clients that I think challenge the team and the projects that are like exciting and fun and like you know instead of just doing monotonous work over and over and over I try to keep what they’re doing like.

40:40.20
Andrew Morgans
So that in the back of their mind. They’re like oh my God I’m growing and I’m learning so much here. That’s what I want. That’s what I want them to be thinking. Um, so that that value is just like I’m not sure I would get these opportunities at another company. Um.

40:42.16
Frank Keck
Cool.

40:50.92
Frank Keck
So What I hear you saying is you continue to invest in your people not just financially but also in them as people and challenging them to grow to develop their skill set so that they’re much more valuable as people after spending time with you. So if they leave they’re going to give up some of that. But you leave people better than you find found them no matter what.

41:13.68
Andrew Morgans
Ah, hundred. That’s my life. That’s my life motto is to leave people better than I found them and um, you know if someone interacts with me and they walk away I want them to feel better for it and if that would be you know if that’s right over my tombstone I’ll be a happy man. Um, but you know I tell my my team all the time we have like. Um, book club on Friday and you know different things where we’re digging into some business books or or mindset mental health books all types of stuff and um and I tell them I’m like I will be extremely disappointed like if you leave here and you know, um, you’re not better than when you came.

41:36.15
Frank Keck
Love it.

41:48.82
Andrew Morgans
And you know you’re a reflection of not just me not just the company but me personally when you leave the way you write emails the way you respond to criticism the way you communicate the way you hold yourself? Um, all these are going to reflect back to me in this business that we’ve built and I want you to be the best version of that.

41:54.60
Frank Keck
Um, yep.

42:08.11
Andrew Morgans
Um, whether you’re with me or not.

42:10.80
Frank Keck
So there you go his tip is he takes it personally invested in his people all right? We’re going to wrap things up Andrew with I call it the 4 fast from frank so it’s 4 quick questions. First thing that comes to your mind just really ah, pointed quick.

42:21.74
Andrew Morgans
Um.

42:25.13
Andrew Morgans
Um, ready paper.

42:26.97
Frank Keck
Answers. Are you ready question number 1 paper or plastic question number 2 to relax. Do you want to be by yourself or with other people your favorite cartoon character and why.

42:35.41
Andrew Morgans
With other people.

42:41.24
Andrew Morgans
G I Joe’s does that count a real American hero I don’t know I just always like yeah Joe’s

42:43.86
Frank Keck
Okay, sure.

42:50.32
Frank Keck
Okay I love that and ah your personal mantra or slogan that you kind of live your life by.

42:56.82
Andrew Morgans
Ah, leave things and people better than I found them.

43:00.88
Frank Keck
I love it. I love it. So I’ll just tell you the answer to number 3 your favorite cartoon character psychologists say that the character that we picked GI Joe and what we like about them all American heroes is how we see ourselves. So, ladies and gentlemen, that was today’s program with a real-life American hero and I think you do fulfill that. And I feel like you’ve left us all better in the last forty minutes than you found us 40 minutes ago.

So I’d like to thank our guest today, Andrew Morgans. We found out a lot of really cool things and got some leadership tips and some values that will help you to put your company ahead. And I just want to leave with one last Frank’s fast and furious leadership tip of the day and I think this? um. This put encapsulates everything that Andrew talked about remember it’s not about you make it about the other person. Thank you so much for joining us today everybody and let’s give another shout-out to today’s episode sponsor.

44:05.49
Frank Keck
You need to hire software engineers testers or leaders? Let full scale help. We have the people in the platform to help you build and manage a team of experts visit fullscale.io. Answer a few questions, we’ll match you up with the right people. As you’ve heard how important that is today. At Full Scale, we specialize in building long-term teams that work only for you. Learn more when you visit fullscale.io. Andrew, thanks again and we’ll listen for your next podcast episode.

44:34.45
Andrew Morgans
Thank you so much.