Episode 8: Building Your Brand Experience Through Play and Exploration w/ Wills Francis

My guest on today’s podcast is Wills Francis. Wills is the founder and partner of Former Colleagues, a comprehensive and immersive multi-disciplinary brand experience, communication, and idea practice that partners with ambitious, established brands that want to explore ideas and creative concepts outside of their status quo. What’s unique about Wills is his innate desire and need to engage the creative aspects of his identity. In today’s episode Wills talks about his experience working in a job, not utilizing his creativity to its full potential, and how it was beginning to slowly dull his soul. He talks about how the support of his wife, and the need to feed his creativity led him to creating Former Colleagues with his business partner. He also shares about his journey to have confidence in himself, and to daily battle the head trash that inevitably comes for everyone on the journey of self-employment. In this episode Wills speaks to entrepreneurs directly and provides insight and wisdom in how to develop the identity of your organization, business, product, etc, and how that is critical to its success, but also involves play and exploration of self. And be sure to listen to the end as Wills explains what achieving success looks like for him, and I will give you a spoiler, it has nothing to do with income. I had a blast having this conversation and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. So with that introduction I hope you enjoy today’s episode of the Self-Employment Success Podcast with Wills Francis.

TRANSCRIPT

leland_gross_cfp (00:04.495)

all right welcome will experiences to the self employment success podcast how would be here we are laughing a little bit because before i hit recorded we kind of we're just doing the podcast because what wills does is fascinating and so we are already kind of diving into it so we had to force ourselves to record so we'll run it all back but will to get started tell us a little bit about who you are and what your business is and what you do and we kind of where it stands today sure so

yeah my name is willes francis found our partner at a firm called former colleagues that i started about three years ago and the way that we understand ourselves at least as a multi disciplinary brand experience practice and so our real sweet spot is helping organizations dig really deep into like their personal truth shape their identities and kind of explore new modes of creative expression

um speak to not only their brand but connect with their audiences in really powerful ways so like in the broadest sense we're kind of playing in a number of different worlds whether it's like design or or web development or corporate strategy or videography like all these are kind of tools in our tool belt but the thread and what we're really trying to do is pull all these worlds together and help help brands really communicate and think about their brand out

the context of like images video colors even like language into more of like an experiential concept so in the sense that you know every time that person interact with your brand you're creating that brain experience and so we really help organizations to think through what that experience is and what should be and so we do that across like a super wide range organizations and an industry

rees and even kind of product categories so like even right now we're doing a ton of work with like a commercial office equipment manufacturer or like a high growth technology firm or a series of restaurants or even like our own self initiated projects but yeah like the thread is trying to help folks think about brand in more comprehensive terms and think about brand more creatively than what is our website and what is our logo look like

leland_gross_cfp (02:34.835)

so that kind of let's just kind of branch into a lot of different interesting world as we work with our clients yeah i mean i can imagine that that is fascinating and when i think of brand as ignorant as it is it's like websitebeas that's kind of what when i started just what i did first i was like how do i communicate what i do but you're right like in my own journey i've had to think through like i don't just serve anybody who can fugmeorlkewho do i like serving who am i good at serving and when

how do how do i attract them and be like when like you said any time they're interacting with peace link i want them to be having a very specific type of experience and that involves a lot of like soul searching on me and hard work to say like how do i do what is that and how do i do it and that's just like for me not my skill said well it's like so interesting because

leland_gross_cfp (03:34.355)

like the part that's fascinating for us is like digging into the psychology of where like every time that you interact with peeling for instance like there is some mental connection that's happening and some of that might be happening with like what your web experience is some of that might be happening with what your website looks like but more often than not it's in your case like it has to do with the interaction with you or like losing this podcast or you know reading some of your content on like din or whatever it might be

and so all of those things kind of contribute to your brand experience so um we're trying to dig into those details in the most thoughtful way possible and um and make sure that all of these interactions are kind of lining up and pointing in the same direction so that's why i say we kind of play in so many different worlds depending on what the client needs and kind of what their what their situation is and what that customer journey or what that use our journey or experiential journey needs to look

um because we have to be thinking about all those things at once so that's that's when the fun comes in yeah man it's so interesting so how did you find your way into this world like how did you get started in

this space because it's it's

in many ways nitch it's men like also so like you said there's so many disciplines to it like there had to have been a journey to kind of get you there so what did that look like so i was a you know

leland_gross_cfp (05:11.555)

i was a college student that really didn't know what i was truly interested in and bit like there were all these kind of ideas that i wanted to kind of explore like i was i was into literature i was really into um into architecture i was really into even like the concept of brand even though not i couldn't really um maybe articulated in that way in those days um but i wanted to

enter some field where creativity was kind of the driving for behind what the daily work look like an excuse me and so when i was a h i ended up in turning and then ended up working at this firm called rule twenty nine in chicago and it's a creative practice a branding studio got mentor by an increincredible creative director named justin arens and and that was really where i cut it

and so many of these disciplines he's built a really high performing firm but a firm that we all had like a lot of freedom to kind of um explore different disciplines engaged with a lot of different types of client projects and so i learned a ton through those couple years of working there and at the time actually met my creative producer who was also working the same firm sky bob davidson and so when it was time for me to leave the firm bob actually left the firm around the same time

different reasons and and so i kind of wanted to pursue other things i kind of moved back home and uh i kind of involved in the real state development world working for my dad for a number of years but the thing that kind of brought me back was i still had that kind of creative itch that i wanted to scratch and m and so bob and i always kept in touch and so we we linked up and started working on a couple projects together and then it was just clear

at our approach was very similar in the types of projects that we wanted to take on and we also had i think the right amount of really like emphasis on thy concept versus deep experience and one kind of discipline so i think that's one thing that has served us well is that

leland_gross_cfp (07:35.835)

we're very conceptual thinkers and that that allows us to develop ideas and concepts and you know avenues for organizations to kind of use this brand experience mindset even though we're not necessarily like web developers ere not necessarily like videographers or photographers or any of these things but we're kind of bridging all of those disciplines and fields of study together but starting with the concept and

understanding just enough about enough different types of worlds that we can kind of link those together and at least bring the team together from there to make it happen so that's kind of my cutting ground in the in the rue twenty nine space doing kind of the brand development world and then moving on to what we do now is brant experience so okay so you get out of college and start kind of working and like you said cutting your teeth getting experience in this world

and then eventually have kind of a change of direction move home working essentially a different field real estate development with your dad but you're ceeping in touch with bob and you guys are doing some kind of side thing so it wasn't full time at that point it was kind of just like we're doing projects along the way until you guys decided all right we're going to we're like minded we have the same vision and we're gonna now do this so what

is that like going from okay i've got this you know solid stable job with my dad and i'm doing this thing that also makes money but it's my passion to like all right we're sorry dad we're jumping ship and we're going all in on this it was definitely a leap in so many different ways i mean i think for me it was my dad's an incredible entreprenorham self and so

i think he saw the change happening in me and me wanting to at least give whatever this was a shot and like even back then like it was like well i don't really know what i'm jumping ship to go do you know it was like a very kind of nebulous world that i wanted to explore obviously getting back into kind of the brandon creative space but yeah it was certainly a leap i mean i we were lucky enough to have

leland_gross_cfp (10:05.615)

a couple relationships with folks early on so we kind of got got our feet wet with some some solid projects and a lot of folks that we're still working with today and what's great is my partner bob lives in chicago and so you know we kind of are able to tap in to both virginia beach and chicago market and so even now like the majority of our clients are in chicago because um you know that's kind of where my career started that's where bob lives and um but yeah i mean i think the biggest change

an evolution of that was you know and this is what i tell other entrepreneurs that are making the journey or considering it is like at some point you have to start doing some version of what you want to do you know and and my wife is an incredible support system for me i mean she was she was the one that was more competent than i was that i should make the leave you know and but i think

what has what i've learned is

leland_gross_cfp (11:12.415)

having the confidence that at least you can start to figure it out step by step was crucial and um and having confidence in yourself that you know this was like a big one for me

leland_gross_cfp (11:29.995)

like having confidence that i could choose myself to do this work you know like i didn't have to wait to be hired for a position like this that i wanted to kind of create like having confidence that i could choose myself to do this work least start to figure out how to get down the road of doing this type of thing and so that's been you know that's a whole other story is like trying to be true to doing what we set out to do and explore really creative work and do it on the

so we want totally that i think that's just a really profound piece that i'm sure like you said is a whole other journey of itself come into the place of feeling confident confident enough to to bet on yourself and say like i can do this like i can choose myself to do this work and even if i don't have you know a through z already

like figured out buttoned up nice i've got a banc and and i'm confident enough that i can figure out devenyand i think that that is a paralysis point for so many people have like i want to do this but i don't have it all figured out or i you know they're insecure that if they don't have all the external stuff in place they won't be able to succeed and really it's it's the oppose

and if you are confident that you can do the external stuff you can figure out and we'll fall into place and you'll make it happen and but there is just a piece when you're going out on your own and you're saying i'm leaving a benefits package and stability and a salary you have to have that come to jesus moment of like i can do this and i like i speak to a lot of folks like you and i that are doing this and it's like

i believe strongly that like you said like the external stuff that is almost like the second battle of the day like the first battle the day is like getting your head space and in the right getting the right head space to um to not be just paralyzed by fear self doubt you know ambiguity you know like there's you know there's days where it feels like it's like a barrage

leland_gross_cfp (13:59.875)

things that i'm fighting and i think that's so natural you know there's an antreprenor that i know that doesn't go through that and yeah you know there's folks out there that are like true killers like you know like you know three these like salesman types that are just like oh i'm doing like there is nothing standing my way more power to but like my journey has been totally one of uh you know a constant process of

pushing like a little bit beyond what i think i can do and like what's what's hat's comfortable and m and yeah getting through those like demons and the fight in your head first just in bring your best work to the table and like you cash flow and leads and all that stuff will happen but like you got to conquer up here first you'll figure out how to pay self employment tax it's fine like you need to figure out how to believe in yourself read

i call that head trash ah you're just like nobody else is thinking about you but you're the one walking along your alongside yourself during the day being like no one's gonna this isn't no one's going to bet on you or like you don't have what it takes or no one's going to pay that price for you and and it's such a soul journey to be like i'm going to keep pushing through i'm gonna keep like almost waging war

war is a great rat my mind and in my heart to be like i can do this especially when

so many times especially in the earlier years you don't have like a whole team of people who like all your systems in place like you and i we i mean we work at the same co working space and so we're like by ourselves most of the day so there's just yea so much room for those thoughts to come in and i love just that thought of like the external stuff is the second battle first battle is every day saying like i can do this and pushing yourself truly like beyond what you think you can do it

leland_gross_cfp (16:06.235)

which then is when like the magic happens when you're this is so fun i can't believe i did that like i can't believe like i was able to go this far like i pushed that limit or just gets me asked as you can tell because i'm like sitting up in my chair like right that's awesome so i had a question and oh it was going back to you it was a really small comment yah

but you mentioned just like my wife has been like my biggest support system and i find that that ends up being one way or another like rarely is it like my wife is my spouse is like about what i'm doing it's typically like either this is really stressful on our marriage first for all the unknown for all the risk that's being taken or like they're my biggest fan and cheer leader and we can get through this so what has that looked like for you and your spouse

yeah

yeah my wife all is she's an incredible person but

you know i think

leland_gross_cfp (17:18.815)

my experience is mostly like in the creative world i think this is true for anyone who has something they want to go and do like whether it's financial advising or whether it's um you know shooting a documentary or you know starting business whatever it is like if if the person that knows you best sees you when you're not doing that or at least not moving towards that they can see like the slow death start to happen you know and like and i

that term like specifically because like it really felt like there was a very real part of myself in the way that my brain works that was like not being utilized and like slowly dying and so she saw that happening even like more clearly probably than i did and so even from like the initial conversations of like you know like i think what i'm doing now is not what i should be doing long term and she picked up on that immediately

and you know of course there's a lot of late nights there's a lot of like working over time there's a lot of you know coming home and being frustrated and you know the pep talk you know the need for petto never seems to end but you know she's she's been so instrumental in being like a sounding board for me like being even like an advisor for how i approach projects and like

approach um you know situations with my clients that i'm like working through or whatever it might be interestingly enough like we do a lot of naming projects we name products or well name new organizations we're naming cafe in portland right now and and she's so good at naming so like i like you know rip off like twenty five names that were working on and she's and she's like what about this and it's like the best one on the list so like there's things like that that she she's very good at

but i think in general the most powerful piece that i'm able to enjoy as you know as a husband is that she is a hunderd percent committed to division and like hunderd percent committed to me pushing forward towards reaching you know what the ultimate success point is going to be for us you know not that i really know what that is quite yet but like

leland_gross_cfp (19:48.635)

she's always the one who keep going you can't give up now like i'm so proud of you're doing great and so i don't think i would be doing this if it wasn't for her and that's the truth like i don't think i would be strong enough mentally to to push through that's the truth so yeah i mean that's amazing and truly i feel like your spouse will either be like the gas on the fire or

they like wet blanket on the fire just because like it i mean it's such obviously such an intimate and powerful relationship that i mean you guys are one and so like you have to be on board your spouse has to be on board with the vision or else it's just not going to work and i've experienced that with lindy as well similarly like this is a small ide lindy named piece like like i was like a like a like greek words and way to in the weeds

but yeah just having that person you can come home at the end of the day after a day of battling your head trap who can like be a sounding board can commiserate with you can celebrate with you can help you like you know i'm a total verbal processor and like wordvomitor and she's like you know have youthought about this or like that's awesome and which is amazing because obviously like she doesn't have any finance degree so like sometimes i'm

speaking greek to her but she knows the vision of like what i want and how i care for my clients and what i want them to experience she knows me and my strength and is a mirror she's seeing the side of me that i can't see of myself because when we look in a mirror hey we're not always we're not we're never actually seeing ourselves because we're flipped but then like i'm not seeing my side or my back or anything like that i think that's true of our strength of our weaknesses of our personality of of our souls like your

your spouse and the people closest to you can see the angles of you that you can't see of yourself right and i think that's what's profound about ally seeing in you the like your your soul is slowly dying here and i like what you said earlier about you know at some point you have to do what you're passionate about and a couple of weeks ago i had someone on the podcast who was saying that like

leland_gross_cfp (22:17.235)

yeah take vacation do all this stuff people want to have a life outside of work but so many people are just at work kind of dead in their eyes just doing work to get by to pay their bills and it's like you know the people on their death bed who say you know i wish i didn't spend as much time in the office like probably didn't have fulfilling work and to do something you're passionate about to have a spouse who can be there cheering you on and pushing you

and have like the mental fortitude to get through the mental blocks of that it's just real like i appreciate this conversation because it's just so like real because you do see the people on linked in an instagram who are like i'm doing awesome like you probably woke up insecure today and it's like you know like if you or i were working like great corporate jobs you know like there is a very real like ego thing

you have to get over and like you know our wives are so you know it's just like such a testament to the type of people that they are like they're obviously not like worried about like will is leland or wills like a v p of whatever way now you know it's like they're doing what they want to like the way that they were designed you know like they're doing the work that they were designed to do and like and that is what they should be doing they care more about like the flourishing of our souls

and like yes as people then whatever like status or pay check or you know and obviously we want like at the end of the day i would love to have a great pay check as well of course but i want not at the expense of you know doing what i'm passionate about or you know coming alive the way that i want to feel drawn to so going back to your business and just the like comprehensive brand

experience you know

leland_gross_cfp (24:21.815)

i'm curious selfishly what kind of advice would you have or like for someone who is in that process which i think that process is probably an ongoing process i feel like even just as i've been in my business i feel like the experience has changed i've changed and grown and yeah i guess like how would you lead someone through that what advice would you have for someone when there

running a brand and ning and experience well i think there's two things

leland_gross_cfp (24:59.975)

ah the first is that

is the realization that

leland_gross_cfp (25:09.295)

and i don't even know if this is helpful but like to me this is such an important piece of it like it has a translation to like a smaller business but like every major organization in the world is thinking about brand experience like target is thinking about it cococoal is thinking about an apple is thinking about it and the my reason for saying that is like this thing has an impact on like how a brand is perceived in the world and like on a smaller scale

um as if you're you know small organization or you know you're working kind of a nice local field or whatever it might be um don't negate the opportunity to do things a little bit differently and think about that comprehensive vision of like what is like what is the experience at i want to deliver people like so often we get stuck in the weeds of of um the operations doing the work like why i need like

three marketing pieces and then like i'm done you know i think when you when you kind of realize like like on a micro scale like organizations are thinking about this i need to be thinking about this and at least a thoughtful way even if i can't spend the money that target or or cokcol or any of the other brands are spending i can still think about what is like what are the different touch points that i can establish you know like how can i invite people into an experience where

um they feel cared for were now i feel like it's it's representing what i want to deliver to people and yeah just if a little bit on getting creative about what those things could be because i do events in a in a unique or interesting way can i explore video can my website do different things rather than just be like a couple of images and a video on you know on a website and so that's the first thing the second thing is

leland_gross_cfp (27:11.355)

don't be afraid to lean into your unique ness as um as an organization number one but also like you as as a leader if you're kind of like the leadership rolling your own brand like try to explore ways to highlight celebrate play with your uniqueness as an individual kind of what you bring to those experiences i think a lot of times and i fall

this too like you get so professional and you get so kind of locked into i need to present myself this way because i've seen other successful people do it this way and i want to be this way with my clients or my audience or whatever it might be and i think there's so much room to um to play to differentiate yourself kind of draw from the uniqueness of yourself that and that is ultimately what connects with people is like m particularly on like a smal

is in a scale where you often you're the person that engaging with folks is like you know what is what is kind of interesting corky unique memorable about me that can be brought to the conversation and i can kind of used to separate myself from the multitudes of other people that you know are trying to look like you know they're trying to look like each other you know and then this in this crowded space so those are the two things that i would recommend

and m and give yourself time to to idiate explore try things um this elepment of like play is a huge thing that we work through ith our clients is like injecting injecting communications with a sense of playfulness and fun and like personality that that it's kind of hard to hard to find in a lot of these more structured corporate environments gosh there's just so much you guys are gonna see pecelykino

holly i mean i'm just especially in my field like financial plaining people expect like a mahogany desk like suit jacket and that is something i'm trying to do different where i'm like i just like that's i hate that i feel dumb when i'm sitting across a mahogany table from someone in a suit and tie i'm like clearly you're a god and i'm an idiot so i don't want that to be the experience but there's just so much there of like

leland_gross_cfp (29:39.895)

i love the idea of playing and experimenting and just realizing like you can grow and change and this can grow and change with you

because i'm not naturally that way i'm naturally like i need to have it figured out and build it and work it systematized and obviously things like processes are good but i just love that idea of like every living thing grows and changes like trees plants humans rocks they're not alive they don't grow and change it's gonna say the same and your business organization is a living thing and so it's going to grow it's going to change

you can kind of play with it you can think about you know who it is who you are bring that out which probably just also makes it more natural for you like like natural for the entrepreneur to be like all right this is my brand doing it my way and it's high lighting my works and personality so i don't feel like i need to button up the tie and talk differently and walk differently and know out my chest so funny like even a lot

of our engagement s kind of start with a really in depth and it can get heated like this depth workshop where we dig into the brand and we dig into the leadership team we dig into their strategy and like

and like ultimately like what were we try to get to is like we try to strip away like stop talking like business talk like stop talking to me like i'm a client you know stop talking to me like you know like you you're you're having a conversation with a forbes editor you know like um try to get to like the heart the narrative like the reason for being and that is so hard to get to it like that's where the magic is it's like

leland_gross_cfp (31:43.915)

i talk about like when we lead our clients through some type of like brand building workshop or like you know discovery process like the first question that we ask usually is like why are we doing this not why are we doing this brand building exercise but like why are you guys spending sixty hours a week doing this job you know like why is it this you guys are obviously smart you're obviously educated you're obviously could do

literally anything in the world you want to do so why are we doing this like why are we delivering this technology why are we building this piece of office furniture why are we starting this cafe why are we you know we work with this artist called david walls hoskins and we're kind of doing this fun exercise even now of like why this work like why why produce your art in this way and in this medium what is it about

the work that you're creating that um that is true to you you know like and so to your point it's like how do we get back to the personal motivations that are driving your work and how do we figure out how to talk about those and how to bring those to life in new and interesting ways and that's you know as humans were like so wired to put up the this is what i want people to you know

on the mask on the mask and that's really fun is like to get into the real stuff with our clients gosh which is also like i see why that would get heated like that's so vulnerable to like take off the masks and back to like who am i why am i doing this and to feel like i feel like in your process there has to come a point where they get to the realization of like we've left that we left the original joy of

why i did this behind and we want to come back to high lighting that somewhere along the way we we started figuring out we need to do this out of that the other or like you said another professional and doing the same thing has found the secret sauce and so we're doing their thing and we've lost our own was an identity in the mix that's completely vulnerable yeah you know especially to me and the like they often don't know me you know that's goin to share their deepest darkest like

leland_gross_cfp (34:13.755)

heart motivations but yeah i think that's a necessary step to any kind of you know development of what a brand is an act interact totally that i mean this just so profound i see now why it's so much more like why you're going beyond just like web development and fond but like into this is a whole experience this is this is identity work like you know

your identity as an entrepreneur what you want the identity of this business to be i mean like that is revolutionary and i think probably like i think i said this earlier like freeze up the entrepreneur to lie almost get past a lot of the head trash because some of the headtrashes i need to act a certain way i need to look a certain way and so like coming to be like who are you what do you hoping to accomplish why are we doing this and to help them

kind of get to a place where they can explore like you're shepherding them through like exploring these things to ultimately get to a place where the their business is more then and therefore it's more free and fun just more enjoyable as in in order to run a business that is you and like true to you that's awesome that's powerful powerful work and it's so fun i mean it's like the best that's like what i love about it is it's

there's so much variety and there's so many different possibilities to explore with our clients and um

and yeah i think that's like what keeps me coming back to it is like the way we work with one client and like the things that we on earth with them are like completely different than someone else and um in that variety is for like the way that i i need to kind of work throughout the you know from day to day that's that's really it's intoxicating you know is that like variety in the change i can only imagine how we're warning us to see some of the

leland_gross_cfp (36:25.535)

s go from like death to life that experience and i'm i'm struck by in that like the variety everyone is different like you probably have to have some wisdom and self control to say like i can't put my own opinion on there i'm sure you're like in situations were like i would do it this way you're like i get excited about this part of your business or but my job isn't to do that my job is to like listen to you make this about you and carry out

like your dreams so like you almost have to step outside yourself when you're working like right who is this person i feel that in my own job like i obviously have my own opinions on you know should you say for our kids college or things like that but my job is not to impress my beliefs on my job is to hear like what you want out of life and structure your finances to do that and there's something about that that is so

un and takes like a level of the ability to step outside yourself and say like all right le one side who is this person how do i care for this person it's totally like caring deeply for someone and i think even to your point to like in your case like you bring a strategic perspective that is crucial to that

you know to that puzzle like um you know you're able to see you're able to see goals and desires and

leland_gross_cfp (38:09.115)

and priorities but like but you approach the you approach solving those and meeting those goals through the lens of you know the strategy you know and like that's how your brain works is like okay i see is goal outcome that we want to deliver here's how we're going to get there and you know connecting connecting reality to outcome your your job is building the strategy to get there think um that

is that is the sweet spot is like when when those three things are so aligned and you as the guide kind of taking people through that journey where you can line each of those up in a really powerful way and that's i mean that's an incredible skill you i appreciate that i feel like honestly that three point thing is probably exactly what you're doing too but you're also helping people like if i'm seeing the goal and creating the strategy you're like helping them discover the goal as we

like you're kind of unearthing that they're kind of like a wanderer who kind of got off and you're like i don't even really know where i want to go at this point and you're kind of helping them establish that and then helping them say like all right you're at point a you're we've we've learned through discovery you're trying to get to point b and here's the hundred ways you can do that but for you the smoothest path is going to be along this road rate here even like in the case

we were the company called fellas brands and they their office equipment manufacturer do desk tables shredders a lot of really interesting office products and capabilities but what's fun with them is like now we're kind of involved even from like the product concept is where they're like hey we have this idea for this thing

and we want to figure out how to talk about it you know like we want to we want to name it you know we want to we want to assign it like an identity and we want to we want to kind of position in the market place and in a really compelling way help us figure out how to talk about it he us figure out help us connect like the pain points that we built this thing for and how to talk about in the market place and so you know if there's ever like building a strategy to get

leland_gross_cfp (40:39.015)

it's that and that stuff is really fun too because it's like very specific you know it's like it's like a very specific product that serves a very specific purpose and and being able to kind of help craft that in russian from like we have this idea like it's going to be yeah it's like goin be launched in like eight months and like how are we going to get there i really fun that's awesome so on your journey

through self employment through you honestly doing your own brand identity what surprised you the most how hard it is ah i mean it's incredibly hard and like the in what ways there's obviously like you know like any business like cashfolike what is more like what is harder to figure out the cash flow at times but like um i think for me the biggest

ah i think the hardest part shout out this american life glass iron glass talks about this gap between your taste as a purely from like the creative the create role that i play often like there's a gap between your taste and your ability to execute on that taste and so

what he talks about is how like

you have you have incredible taste of like what good is you know as for good creative like for for good output you have a great taste for that right your ability to paint the picture that you can see in your head or you know make the thing that you know that it should be and can be and will be there's a gap there and so the work of any creative person is like trying to close that gap between your taste

leland_gross_cfp (42:43.875)

and your ability to execute wait now i have this inverted so your taste is up here and your your capability to execute on that taste is and so the hard thing for me is like building processes and building teams and building capabilities to where we can close that gap aster between like i can see what it needs to be like i can see what this brand where they

to go and like the comprehensiveness of like what this could be you know like and then but like executing on that is such a team effort and such like a pulling in so many different stake holders um h and that's just really hard to do and it takes time to um to build yeah build the teams that can help me kind of achieve that goal how to communicate myself enough to get that idea signed off on by

client all those things are are really really challenging that closing the gap idea is the big one for me yea and i don't expect it to close any time soon but like if it ever will it's like yeah because even i feel like once you get close the taste will change like bar will move yeah all ight because we're always especially as a creative like always your mind is always creating and is always inspiring

differently right so i'm like you're closing this gap and then you'll get close to that and then it'll like yes your mind will be like unlock the next level like the next avatar i mean for instance like we we came up with this amazing concept for one of our clients for how to explain a really complex idea and in the concept is like beautiful and like but now we're in like the challenge of trying to figure ut how

pull it off and it's so frustrating because like you can see it you know like you can see how it needs to come together and how elegant and beautiful and like simple and all that it's going to be but like this is you know any artist or any kind of creative person knows getting from brain to real life is really really hard and i feel like that is what i'm fighting now is like closing that gap vision taste and an execution it's hard was there

leland_gross_cfp (45:13.195)

low point for you on the journey so far

leland_gross_cfp (45:19.275)

yeah i mean just moments of sheer frustration working at four a m and you know

leland_gross_cfp (45:31.115)

you know like the frustration of just you know not growing up and not making the process that i should have made six months earlier you know and like that would have probably gotten me out of this situation right now

leland_gross_cfp (45:46.535)

you know i'm like the type of person that like i just pull it all on myself and like you know i'm historically like not the best at m delegating and all that just because i care so much about it you know and like i wanted to be again i wanted to be like at that level that it should be um and so just yeah just being an idiot and taking on too much or just being an entree

yeah yeah yeah that's been that's been some really like frustrating times where i'm just like why do i put myself in this situation where you know i'm i'm working yeah i'm like swimming against the tide feels like sometimes with taking on too much and and and not planning in the way that i should you know that that is like a home

podcast itself be like its six novel six books of like you know how you delegate when you know the like level ef of perfection you desire like you know the quality you desire you have the taste and systems in place and plaining like man yea the best when it's figured out in the worst when you're in that place but it's just honestly

that i'm very real growing i mean it's like you know shout out city of virginia beach maybe sharing too much here like you know like i didn't submit the like business property tax for one you know and so they hit me with the you know the average of my industry or whatever and i'm like that's a lot of eras that number and yeah and just like having to deal with that i'm just like why do i do this you know thank you

um i'm not gonna disclose your name in the and the treasurer's office but thanks for helping me figure that out but you know it's like examples like that where it's just um yeah it's just feeling like what the phrase i keep coming back to is like just not growing up and building the process that i need to be building now so it will save me in three months you know in a year or whatever it's so hard so this is a podcast about success

leland_gross_cfp (48:16.375)

yeah but if you pull anybody on the side of the road and say you know what is success you're going to get different answers it means different things diferent people so how would you define success for yourself and how will you know if or when you achieve it that's a great question i think i think there's two parts of it for us like we intentionally don't work with a ton of clients we work with

you know about five clients but like we're so embedded in their organizations at this point like um and the reason for that is there's a couple reasons why we we really want to understand them like almost better than they understand themselves like we want to be able to see through those facades and like we really want to understand the business in the world that they're playing in and all of that and so just by means of you know capacity if we're to do that and we believe

that's the way that created partners should work with our clients then we're only gonnawrk with a handful of them that they really trust us and which takes us to that the first point i think success in our context is like that we that we have such a report with our clients and that they they trust that we know them so well and that

that we are thinking beyond project scope that we're thinking beyond you know even beyond like you know the problem hat we're trying to solve right now that we're thinking down the road of like where do you need to be that we can have a seat at the highest tables of that organization to um to pitch ideas to to make suggestions for their corporate strategy to help them kind of approach

the next year three years five years in a more uh in a more kind of brand focused way like if we can and we're getting there with a couple of our clients but like that to me is where that's when success you know you reach that success threshold is like when you have such a strong connection and trust with your client that like you can pitch them on ideas that even aren't even warranted and they hear them they consider them we talk about them

leland_gross_cfp (50:46.935)

try to explore them that's like when those moments happen like that's not like man we're we're in there now like this is this is what we should be doing because you just get out of like the r f p you know like we're a contractor that's working for you for this content you know this duration we really want to get to that place where we're at the table with our clients and like helping them approach the future in

a thoughtful way the second second thing for us is having the freedom and again kind of goes back to m like the personality thing is like we really want the freedom to explore like self initiated projects you know we want and my partner bob is like working on this golf app right now which is like

and awesome project have to share a little bit about in the coming months but you know he's a big golfer and this was like a passion project that he really wanted to explore building an ap like a phone app and building like the social element into it and and that's like a great example of like we should be exploring that and even if it's not paying you know like

in the same way were we're working with we're doing some work for this this whiskey keep in a prohibition are building in weedin illinois called suburban and it's in the lower level it's called suburban do you get the took me a minute you had to tell me there was a pun there but this you know this is like just another like fun thing you know it's like we're building this

this amersive in space where you know so the members only whiskey bar in like the lower in like the basement area of which was up until i think like i don't know i need to check my dates on this but like this was like a dry city for like two hundred years but but yeah so we're able to think through the entire experience of this space in a really thoughtful way and you know again these are not like paying projects

leland_gross_cfp (53:14.275)

these are just fun because we want to push the boundary of like like how can we build the experience of like walking into an elevator and like going down to this this lower level of a space and like the entire thing just feels like you're in this prohibition are like um seller you like bourbon seller you know and like stuff like that is so fun that we want the freedom to be able to do that something i'm struck by with you

like that's so cool is none of those answers were like when i make enough money to do when i like i mean literally the second one is like we want to be free to do these unpaid like do these things that are just passion like we're passionate about and not worry about like the money piece but even like you know when when we have so many clients you're like when we have less clients and we know them like we have such a deep relationship with them that we can anticipate their needs before they do

like when we're freed up to explore creativity how we want even if it's not paying us like to do self initiated projects and like that's our that's real success there cause that's successive the mind and the heart and and so often people feel like success is so tied to you know when we can have enough money that we can like work part time or we can you know

so often even if it's i want to be able to make the money that I'm then free to do something else money comes in at some point and i just love that your answer was so earnest and there wasn't even a thought of money in it was just like this is what success is to me it is to know my clients so well that i can anticipate their needs come to them with ideas and to be free to just explore creativity as a creative

on whatever project i want that's awesome me and i could talk to you for days me too i mean it's just like there has been so much good stuff here and what you do is powerful and fascinating and you're so well spoken about it so thank you so much for being on the podcast really enjoyed it