How To Scale Digital Agencies Without Burnout With Frankie Fihn

As business leaders, we can often find ourselves trapped in a role where everything depends on us. In this episode, I sit down with Frankie Fihn, who shares his journey from the early days of scrambling to keep up with client demands to building three successful digital marketing agencies. Frankie opens up about the challenges of scaling a service-based business and the common pitfall of becoming the product yourself, leading to burnout. We dive into his unique strategies for transitioning from custom services to standardized solutions that can scale without draining your time and energy. Frankie also reveals how building processes and empowering your team through delegation can be the key to freedom. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the demands of running a service-based business, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help you regain control, build systems, and lead your business toward sustainable growth.


Connect with Frankie Fihn:
 
If you’re ready to take control of your business and avoid the burnout trap, connect with Frankie Fihn. Grab his book, Beyond the Agency Box, or join his Facebook community, where you’ll find high-level insights and strategies to scale your business sustainably. 


Books Mentioned:

• Beyond the Agency Box by Frankie Fihn 

Join the New Catalytic Leadership Community

Check out our new online membership site, with new resources by Dr. William Attaway and his team added weekly: https://checkout.catalyticleadership.net/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Frankie's Journey
• 7:00 The Agency Owner's Prison
• 14:00 Scaling Through Systems
• 18:00 Delegating for Freedom
• 24:00 Building a Team-Centered Culture
• 31:31 Continuous Improvement and Leadership Growth

Transcript

Dr. William Attaway: 0:00

I'm so excited today to have Frankie Finn on the podcast. Frankie has built three different agencies, up to 100 plus clients, worked with thousands of people and has been on stages with some of the biggest names in numerous industries. He's also written a bestselling book, beyond the Agency Box the phoneless, meetingless digital marketing agency that creates lifetime happy clients without Facebook ads, webinars, google or SEO. He's also a connoisseur of dad jokes. Frankie, I'm glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show man.

Frankie Fihn: 0:39

Well, thank you, William, for throwing in that dad joke bit. That's probably the most important part there.

Dr. William Attaway: 0:52

As a lifelong connoisseur myself, I always appreciate it when I find someone who also appreciates really, I think, the pinnacle of humor, yeah totally Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive.

Intro/Outro: 1:05

Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway: 1:14

I'd love to start with you sharing a bit of your story with our listeners, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started around your journey and your development as a leader.

Frankie Fihn: 1:26

How did you get started? You know it's funny because it's a thing. It's become a thing in the last like five, 10 years where people want to be like travel the world, work on my laptop, do anything, and I've been in that world for like 20 years but I never woke up one day and said this is what I wanted to do. I was. It was 2007. And a lot of you guys remember the financial crisis of 2008,. My hometown of Windsor, ontario, canada, um, which is like five minutes from Detroit, so it's like Detroit without all the gunshots you can still hear them.

Frankie Fihn: 1:55

but you know, like, close enough not to get hit, but like basically everybody you know growing up, you know, works for Ford, general motors or Chrysler or a supplier of Ford, General Motors or Chrysler or like a business that depends on them. And around 2007, the whole recession started a year before that and Ford, I remember, general Motors announced one day they closed the plant, laid 10,000 people off in a day and all of a sudden, like I always dreamed of being an entrepreneur but like, but I kind of always fell back on the job, the J-O-B, and it was kind of just taken from me. Like it was like you know, I remember actually going to a hiring fair and there were like 50 people there and every single job was like a commission only, like you know, sell insurance, sell investments and I realized, if I'm going to have to sell something, I'm going to sell my own thing.

Frankie Fihn: 2:48

Didn't sell investments and I realized if I'm gonna have to sell something, I'm gonna sell my own thing. Didn't really know what I wanted to sell and a friend of mine just happenstance called me up on the phone and said hey, I wrote a real estate course and we're gonna sell it on the internet and I kind of laughed. I was like we I was like dude, you're gonna, you're selling your own fucking real estate course.

Intro/Outro: 2:58

And he was like yeah, but I'm not any good with computers and I'm like.

Frankie Fihn: 3:00

I've never built a website, I've never sold anything online.

Intro/Outro: 3:03

I know how to fix the computer, but I'm like like that's about it and he's like, yeah, but you can figure it out, I can't figure it out.

Frankie Fihn: 3:08

And then he hung up the phone on me and I remember after like three days. I was like well, what else do you have? And so we ended up building this thing, you know, for the real estate courts, and I had to, kind of in the process, self teach myself SEO. It was like you know how do you get people to a website? I was like you know.

Frankie Fihn: 3:25

I kind of self-taught that and I remember one day somebody came along and I don't remember the exact amount, but they offered to buy the website from me for orders of magnitude more than I was making. It wasn't like a crazy amount, but it was like you know, four or five grand or something like that, and we were making, you know, a couple hundred bucks a month in course sales, and I hadn't really figured everything out and we sold it and I didn't really know what I was going to do after that and somebody reached out to me and said you know that.

Frankie Fihn: 3:49

SEO thing you did for somebody else, Can you do it for me? And so I ended up in this world of starting this whole digital marketing agency. But it's not like I woke up one day and said this is what I want to do and then, as you know, it often leads you. As you know, like it often leads you as you grow and you scale the thing and you start hiring people and building a team.

Dr. William Attaway: 4:06

You're in a leadership role and it's often a big adjustment because it's not like I woke up one day and said I want to be a leader, I want to step up and do things.

Frankie Fihn: 4:15

It was almost like you know you're just trying to keep up with the workload and the things that you have and you start bringing in people and, like most people, I knew very, very, very, very little about that and never read any books and didn't even really have good models. A lot of the places I had worked for as an employee had really bad systems and scales, so, like I learned to do it all the wrong way. Just, you know modeling, all the, you know the factories and stuff I had done, but I never woke up one day and said, hey, I want to be this like digital entrepreneur and travels the world and stuff like that.

Frankie Fihn: 4:43

It was really almost like my plan B was taken from me and I was kind of just thrust into it. And now I had to suddenly figure out a way to make it work.

Dr. William Attaway: 4:51

Wow, and marketing agency space? It's a pretty unique world. You actually described it in your book as one of the hardest businesses to scale. Yeah, why did you describe it that way?

Frankie Fihn: 5:04

Well, a lot of the best stuff I learned.

Frankie Fihn: 5:08

I actually learned, because I want to say, like, somewhere around, like 2015, 2016, somewhere in there, I started getting invited to the best attorney masterminds in the world and it was kind of like a dear friend of mine who owns like an industry association. They wanted somebody to come in and talk to them about their SEO, but they were afraid that if they brought somebody in and by then I had already like moved on from my first agency and I didn't do SEO anymore, and so that was why they wanted me, because they're like everybody else is going to try and sell us something but you we

Frankie Fihn: 5:38

can just ask for this sort of unvarnished truth.

Frankie Fihn: 5:41

And what I realized when I was sitting there listening to their problems and them talking about scaling, it was like it was literally identical that growing a law firm and growing a marketing agency have more in common than they do differences and the common, unique challenge I realized, anytime you do like a service business where you are essentially the deliverable, it is very, very, very easy to build a prison. It's very, very easy for you to become the deliverable for every is very, very, very easy to build a prison. It's very, very easy for you to become the deliverable for every client. You have to want access to you, for you to be the name and face of the company and, as a result, like all of a sudden, the biggest constraint in the business is you and your time and your attention and how much people want it and so like. It's a beautiful business model in that it's probably one of the easiest in the world to get started, like literally you just need a laptop and some Internet, and like a little bit of grit.

Frankie Fihn: 6:28

But the flip side of that is when you actually go to scale it it's like, compare that to like, say, like a software business where you're just sort of copying and pasting the same deliverable and the software is the deliverable. I think about people who are building, like AI chat bots right now. It's like the chatbot is the heavy lifting. Or, you know, you think about, like you know, mcdonald's that has, like you know, this franchise like precision, but our business model, like it absolutely can be scaled, and I hear all the time from people who say, oh, the marketing agency doesn't scale. But it's really, really tricky and it's very, very easy for you to become the product and, as a result, for it, like you know, just present all sorts of challenges for, like you know, when you want to make it bigger and hit that next sort of level.

Dr. William Attaway: 7:13

And I would think, if you're at the I call it, being at the center of the spotter web, where everything connects to you, right, everything crosses your desk, that feels like a very fast path eventually to burnout.

Frankie Fihn: 7:25

Yeah, that's a fact.

Dr. William Attaway: 7:27

But yeah, so for folks listening that are like oh, that's me, you just described me. Yeah, like that's, that's what I've built. I've built that prison. Yeah, now what? What do they do now?

Frankie Fihn: 7:43

Well, you know, um, there's obviously like more than one way to be successful, so I don't want to say like this is the answer, but I'll tell you guys, what's worked for us is is one of the things I described in the book is the difference between what I would call custom and customization, and they sound very similar, but they they create a dramatic difference in experience. And custom is when you're solving a brand new problem every time for somebody.

Frankie Fihn: 8:06

So in the beginning, basically anybody who showed up with a credit card and said you know, can you do paid ads? Can you do? Can you make a website for me, Do you?

Intro/Outro: 8:14

do SEO Like?

Frankie Fihn: 8:14

the answer was always yes, and so I did anything and everything that paid me, but what I didn't realize is there's a hidden metric in it the energy required to fulfill on it.

Frankie Fihn: 8:23

And each time I did it, I was solving a new problem, so I had to find new freelancers and things like that, and ultimately what I came to realize is that customization is like when you think about McDonald's. When McDonald's first scale, they only had burgers. In fact, even the fries and the Coke came later. But when McDonald's was first established it was like literally just a burger, and so they would customize it for you. Like, if you said, can I, can you hold the onions, cause I don't like onions, I'm sure they would. If you say, can I get an extra pickle, they'd probably give you an extra pickle. But if you came in and said like, can you make me pizza or do you guys do catering, they would probably say no. And so one of the hardest things to do when you, when you first start like scaling it, is the discipline to say no and make yourself about one type of person where you solve one problem.

Frankie Fihn: 9:06

So the first thing is, I think, a lot of people have issues scaling because it's a structure issue, and then and then the, the. The second thing is, once you have one thing that you're doing over and over, like burgers, once you become you can begin to build like a factory of burgers where you can start to map out like these are the processes and sequences and bring in good people to help you with that.

Intro/Outro: 9:28

So when you're on like the verge of burnout.

Frankie Fihn: 9:30

It's like it's usually only a few places. Either you're literally just doing too much stuff or you're too involved in the burger making when it's actually done, and and for me, like I'm sure a lot of leaders can relate to this. I had a really hard time letting go, because I just felt like nobody did it like me and it was never done.

Frankie Fihn: 9:46

It's easier to do it myself and all the kind of platitudes people say. And it wasn't until I started mapping out. This is how I believe it should be done, the right way, and then it's like we can bring in people to do it my way, because we have a step-by-step of instructions and sometimes it's hard to do because you're you're you're like fighting fires in the moment and it slows you down to like map out a process or whatever.

Frankie Fihn: 10:09

but like it buys you back so much time later and so you have to kind of have the discipline, like, yeah, this thing might take me twice as long now to do it and to document it at the same time, but almost always like it's. It's really just like. More than anything it's a structure issue.

Frankie Fihn: 10:23

Either you're doing too many things on the front end, You're a little bit of everything to everybody or on the backend side of it on the actual fulfillment you're way too involved in the burger making, and then, as a result, you become the bottleneck in the whole thing and you and like no-transcript that so many people have created.

Dr. William Attaway: 11:08

Did you know this going in or did you learn this the hard way? This idea of the structure, the systems, the importance of delegating Is this something you just intuitively knew?

Frankie Fihn: 11:18

No, this was totally baptism by fire. In fact, I can actually remember like I had a part-time factory job and I remember at the start of the shift everybody would be sitting in the break room and then, like, the supervisor of the shift would come in and he'd go. You know who knows how to work the Volkswagen Line A? And then you know, six people would put up their hand and he'd pick one of them. You go over and do that one and I remember when I was new I knew nothing, so my hand didn't go up for anything because you know I legitimately didn't know anything.

Frankie Fihn: 11:47

But I remember like uh, in hindsight, it was like it was one of the most disorganized operations I've ever seen, because, like you didn't know what you were going to do in advance and so so, like, for actually the first like five years. This is how I ran my company when we ended up having like at some point, like 35, 40 virtual assistants and rather than having a schedule and repeat tasks and training and materials, they would just come to me every morning like a supervisor in the break room. But what?

Frankie Fihn: 12:13

do you want me to do today, boss?

Intro/Outro: 12:14

And it was actually exhausting because we have 40 people, even if it only takes you two minutes to instruct each person.

Frankie Fihn: 12:20

Like you, spend like almost two hours two, three minutes a person. Like you, spend two, three hours just delegating and that was like. Every day was like that for me and it wasn't really like my big breakthrough, like I said, was probably around 2016.

Frankie Fihn: 12:41

Started, you know, like like one of the things that, like you know, you mentioned, like in my book, I have a thing called the five stages of agency growth and it describes the journey of going from a single solo freelancer to then hiring a small team, but you're still kind of doing the fulfillment of the work to the event then eventually become like a full time manager where you don't touch any of the day to day but you lead a team. Then eventually you have like a CEO and you have almost like a corporate-y feel, but at the same time, like often like that's when the quality of your brand slips. And then you know where you either get to the level, even past that, where you're like franchising or building multiple agencies or whatever it is you want to do. And, to be honest with you, I remember, like when I was sitting with some of the top lawyer stuff and some of the top masterminds, they brought in a guy, one of Dan Kennedy's guys, who was talking about the five stages of growing a law firm and he described the journey you go through in a service business and it was a giant aha for me because everything he was describing, even though he's describing it for attorneys, I'm like, oh, this is like 97% the same.

Frankie Fihn: 13:41

And so, even though I get all the credit for bringing it, the truth is there's people that me that were smarter than me and figured it out, and that's when it's, you know, started getting into things like leadership and reading, you know, books, like the e-myth of how do you build, like systematic processes, and things like that. But I think, I think I honestly did like a terrible job of it for like 10 years. So, like, like, a lot of times people look at this and feel like, oh, like, like. I have people say to me like now, like, oh, you're a natural on video, and I can remember in 2007 when my friend, matt and I were recording videos and he said why don't you do the videos? You?

Frankie Fihn: 14:09

know, all this stuff as well as I do. I'm like I'm no good on video You're better than me and I tried doing a video or two. You know, had an outtake or two and thought I'll never get this, and I'm just not a video person. It's funny now I got like thousands and thousands of videos on the internet, but I can remember, you know, not being able to do that, and so I think it's like it's all.

Frankie Fihn: 14:28

That's my way of saying it's an acquired skill, like I don't think you wake up one day and you're just mad at, magically, an awesome leader. It's like it's practice, it's study, it's it's it's a lot that goes into it. And I think it's like, as you know, it's like it's an ever evolving process. Like you don't ever feel like you fully arrived and you're complete, and now all the boxes are checked and we never have to do anything ever again. The opposite is, you're always looking for that next 1% thing. You can grow day by day and then a lot of those things compound over time, but for me it definitely did not come naturally. The opposite.

Frankie Fihn: 15:05

I feel like I did this badly for 10 years and there was nobody who can tell me I was doing it like poorly for like 10 years, because a lot of the stuff that you know is available in our space now, like books and courses and training and masterminds and communities like they may have existed, but I didn't know of any of them back then.

Frankie Fihn: 15:17

So I kind of like felt like I was just taking arrows to the chest trying to find a path through the forest and you know, kind of digging out our own path. But eventually, when you do figure it out, like the one real positive is like when you get your ass kicked, learning a lesson for like seven years by the time you figure it out. You never forget it, like you never, ever, ever forget it because you're like, you're like I spent like 2000 days in a row doing this wrong. And when I finally figured it out, like look, you know you're hanging on, wow, that's so true.

Dr. William Attaway: 15:47

Those are the lessons right, the ones that stick. So, thinking about your journey and hearing so much of where you have been, what does it look like now? Like what does your leadership look like these days?

Frankie Fihn: 16:00

So with the team that we have and like actually leading people like does your leadership look like these days? So so with the team that we have and like actually leading people, like I said I never really even conceptualized myself as a leader.

Frankie Fihn: 16:07

It's like one of those things you're just. You're just trying to hire help to get work off your plate, one of the things that, like, I wrote about in my book an idea I called the, the, the, the more beach, less laptop sort of lifestyle. And what's amazing to me is my team operates the same way.

Intro/Outro: 16:24

So I can remember like years ago again. I did all this badly, but they told me, like you want to get people for 40 hours a week.

Frankie Fihn: 16:29

I didn't know how to do that with remote workers, so I had all this like time tracking software and I like could measure, like when they logged into work and were they staying on point and all those things. And one of the things that's changed is is like as a leader, like I just talked to people about outcomes, I'm like, listen, you don't need to spend 40 hours in front of the screen to make me happy as a boss. I just want these things done and I want them done the way I want them.

Intro/Outro: 16:53

But if you want to do that at three in the morning. If you want to do that, you know whatever and as long as we're like we have open lines of communication about it, like you, have total freedom and autonomy to do what you want, and it's kind of amazing.

Frankie Fihn: 17:05

I see, like now, like some of my virtual assistants in the Philippines, for example, like they travel around the Philippines and they go from like vacation space, and I think that's amazing because they're able to, you know, create outcomes, but not like be tied to um. You know create outcomes, but not like be tied to um. You know constantly doing stuff, and it that's part of it for me is like I want my team to have a good life too, like it's uh and and then as far as like you know how we I mean, I'm not saying, we have it all figured out, but we we have a pretty good life setup like I live right over, right over there is the ocean out my window and, uh, you know, we have a lot of help to hear in person and a lot of it.

Frankie Fihn: 17:44

I think uh originally when I looked at leadership, it was I looked at it like people work for me and like I like I always kind of felt like um as a boss you sort of own somebody like you know, like I have that sense of like you, you're my employee, you do what I say when I say I'm going to do it, and I look at it as the opposite. I, in many ways, I feel owned by my employees now where it's like I want them to best succeed, I want them to be able to do what's most possible I want to give, put them in the best position to win, and and it's changed the game because you, you see it way more as a kind of service rather than and you know, one of the things I remember changing for me is I joined a like a, or I hired a mentor like years ago, and it was one of the big mistakes.

Intro/Outro: 18:33

I made. So I I don't know.

Frankie Fihn: 18:34

I think I invested like 15 or 20 grand or something that night. The guy literally bailed on me right after and, uh, I ended up with a cool community out of it, Cause there were other people that had invested with this person. Um, but one of the things that I found most interesting is that at that point, like I had a bunch of clients and whenever clients made requests of me, I kind of just felt like I couldn't say no because it was like you're paying me, so how can I say no to requests?

Frankie Fihn: 19:01

And I remember this guy just didn't feel that way like he, just like I just sent him like 15 or 20 grand and he wouldn't even return my phone, you know, like messages or whatever, like when are we going to do something, kind of thing. But it showed me something that, like you know, just because you're paying somebody, you don't own them, right, like he really did adopt that mentality and so I've always kind of like taken that away where we're now. You know, like I don't look at employees like property, the opposite, I see them as autonomous people and it shows up in little ways, Like I don't know if any of you guys have read never lose a customer again by Joey Coleman, but I think all of the principles, go into hiring and like a lot of the things he talks about in that book are little unexpected extras.

Frankie Fihn: 19:36

So I think like sometimes I'll give them a little bonus for work well done or like one of my guys loves to read books, so I buy them like a new book every like two, three weeks and you know just little things that show like I actually care.

Frankie Fihn: 19:49

I want you to succeed, but I think the longer I do this, the more I see it as, like you, you are in service to your team and you're setting them up to best win, and then what ends up happening is a lot of the culture at least things that you're trying to create fall into place, because people actually like working with you. They have fun doing it. It's like it's not a high stress environment Everybody's expected to perform but it's like I know we have a really casual laid back kind of you know whatever work culture is, but like you know that that's what works for us. I'm not saying that that's the right solution for everybody in every situation, but like that's kind of how it's evolved for us.

Dr. William Attaway: 20:23

You know, you just described in a very clear and practical way a strong, strong pillar or component of what I call catalytic leadership.

Intro/Outro: 20:34

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway: 20:35

Which is that you don't see yourself as the one being served. You are the one who is serving, you are the one who is investing in your team, and you do that by knowing them, by seeing them and by hearing them. I think listening is one of the most underutilized skills in a leader's tool bag. What you just described there I mean down to you know, he's a reader, so I buy him books, you know. I mean things like that, knowing those kind of things about your team. When they know that you know those things, they feel seen, they feel known. Yeah, and when somebody feels known, seen and heard, they lean in, going to run down the street for another few bucks because they feel like they're being invested in in a place and with a team that cares about them. I love the way you describe that.

Frankie Fihn: 21:29

Yeah, well, I'm glad. I mean I'm not surprised. I mean you've been teaching people for 30 years and I've been doing this 20. So I'm not surprised we independently came to some of the same conclusions, but you're totally right. It's like it's uh, you realize, the longer you do it, the more your team succeeds, the more you succeed, right? Because like yes they do all the little extras for you. They do the little extra things for the clients. They'll go above and beyond and go the extra mile.

Frankie Fihn: 21:54

Like a little thing, like I don't demand my team ever to message me back on weekends, but they do, you know yes, and it's not because, it's not because, uh, you know, like I'll crack the whip and go.

Intro/Outro: 22:05

Where are you on saturday?

Frankie Fihn: 22:06

it's more it's more just because, like we like each other, we really do, and right, we all want it to work and we all have these kind of like you know not that I expect you to finish it on saturday, but like they always get back to me and things like that on a weekend.

Dr. William Attaway: 22:21

I love that model, I love that culture and I think you either have a culture you've created on purpose in your company or you have a culture you didn't mean to create. Most often it's not healthy and yours is so intentionally built and designed and curated and curated, and I'm confident that you are passionate about protecting that and not allowing somebody to take that and drive that into a ditch. That is not your idea.

Frankie Fihn: 22:48

Yeah, and it's certainly a big part of that. You know, I learned over the years that you know, hiring to me is is really like I think about, like I watched, like you know, stupid cooking shows and one of those is Gordon Ramsay has Hell's Kitchen. It's this dramatic thing where he swears lots and all that. But I look at it as he's actually hiring a chef for his restaurants. It's a hiring process. He's figured out how to turn it into content and monetize it.

Frankie Fihn: 23:19

But at the end of the day what he's doing as a hiring process. What he creates is a series of what I would call battle tests to see like can you recreate menu items? Can you? And there are things an actual chef would have to know how to do how do you perform in service? And, as you know, like you know so much of that is like when you bring somebody new into your team.

Intro/Outro: 23:41

It's like what? Like what most people do are, just, like you know, job interviews and.

Frankie Fihn: 23:45

I don't know about you, but I was always one of those people who ace job interviews, but I was never built to be an employee, so I'd always get hired, but then I'd make for a shitty employee because it's not meant to be one. That's funny. But I always feel like job interviews like can bring you the wrong people and, as we're, the more you um, you like, you set up a series of battle tests, the more you like kind of protect what you're describing where you you want because you know ultimately like um, I want people who are performers, but I also like, like it's a laid-back, casual work environment on purpose.

Frankie Fihn: 24:19

Right, like we're, we're, we laugh, we have a good time. Everybody's expected to get things done, but nobody's there cracking the whip going and I don't want people. I need to crack the whip with either right.

Dr. William Attaway: 24:34

Exactly, exactly, because then you have a whole different culture, right, and it demands something very different of you.

Frankie Fihn: 24:42

Yeah, yeah, I can actually think about it. In my former life at Ford, I eventually worked my way up after like I don't know, four or five, six months, something like that, as a floor supervisor. So I was middle management and it's a totally different thing when it was like it was one of the most toxic work environments I've ever seen, because everybody was negative about everything and it was a very like blame-centered culture, so like ultimately, like you know, things weren't working and everybody pointed the finger so often you'd have to like document things you did and why you did them.

Frankie Fihn: 25:12

Because you knew at friday's meeting you were gonna have to cover your ass and explain why you did this why are you doing that and no, and there was very little collaboration towards the end goal. But the actual worst part of it for me was I had no say in the team I had.

Frankie Fihn: 25:26

I like just you know, like you just inherited this kind of like team, team of misfits, and you got to try and, you know, get to the end goal. That's where I think when, when you're not parents your own thing, you're not bound by just having this team of you know, like some of my guys, like it was, you know, like like being real, like they were, like raging alcoholics, and in most work environments you probably get fired for that, but in a big, powerful union like you, uh, you don't, you just get paid time off for it and uh and so, like you know, you have a guy who's like driving a forklift truck and you're like is that that guy drunk today?

Frankie Fihn: 25:59

I need to find out. And you're still responsible for you know production and outputs and you're still going to have to go into a meeting and get yelled at about the numbers.

Intro/Outro: 26:09

And I just say that because, like you know, sometimes seeing how, bad it can be.

Frankie Fihn: 26:13

Gives you an example of also, like what's possible, where you say, hey, I'm not, going to have just random people on my team, I'm not. Just. Where you say, hey, I'm not going to have just random people on my team.

Frankie Fihn: 26:23

I'm not just going to have crazy people. I'm not going to have this angry blah, blah, blah. We are going to get things done. We are going to solve problems. It is going to be collaborative. We're going to have open lines of communication. Everybody's going to talk to everybody else. With respect, and it sounds like really basic, but a lot of times, as you know, it's more just the basics done well than it is any like sort of magic technique or whatever.

Dr. William Attaway: 26:47

So true, so true, frankie. Your business needs you to lead, and your team and your clients needs you to lead at a higher level today than was true two, three, four years ago, and that same thing is going to be true two, three, four years from now. How do you stay on top of your game? How do you level up with the new leadership skills that you're going to need and your team is going to need you to have for the years to come?

Frankie Fihn: 28:49

You know it's such a good question, but like I think some of us and I'm sure this is the same for you Like I'm literally just built that way, like where I have to like continuously improve, like it's funny, like I've had people say to me um, I'm bored and I'm like if I sit down for five minutes like. I'll have a hundred ideas and then I, and then I'll have a bunch of things I want to do and not be bored.

Frankie Fihn: 29:10

So I don't necessarily know what the future holds, but I know that like continuous self-development is going to be part of it, and what ends up happening is, when you're built that way, like it's pretty normal to also have like a team that's built that way Because, like you know, I kind of joke with my team.

Intro/Outro: 29:28

But I'm like man, like I'm going to have a new idea about how we can make this better, like every five minutes.

Frankie Fihn: 29:32

So like if that's not your kind of environment, like you're probably not going to want to come in the door Right. But at the same time like, if you like, the challenge of figuring out new stuff and moving forwards and opportunities for advancement and those kinds of things. So I don't necessarily have like a plan of action for it Cause for me.

Intro/Outro: 29:49

I like it's. It's a thing.

Frankie Fihn: 29:50

I can't even turn off if I want to turn off, but it's like a like you you know, we read books, we go to conferences, we talk to people. I'm always collaborating about big ideas and having conversations like I don't even know how to turn it off this at this point. The one thing I will say that it's made challenging is, you know, I have friends and family and stuff in the north. They're still in, like you know, the nine to five kind of job world and stuff.

Frankie Fihn: 30:13

I find them harder and harder to relate to as time goes on, so like I've really kept up my network of people like, such as yourself, that, like you know, you know, just don't have a normal kind of traditional kind of life. But I I don't necessarily have a good answer for that, other than just like I don't even know how to turn that off so it's going to happen one way or another.

Dr. William Attaway: 30:32

It's only a question. Of you know where it's going I think that's a fantastic superpower, frankly, you know yeah it's a blessing and a curse, though.

Frankie Fihn: 30:40

I saw karen height posted about how she said I sat down and made a decision. I was going to take it easier, and then I thought of a new project, and now I'm not taking.

Dr. William Attaway: 30:52

Hey, every blessing has a shadow side to it, right? Every good thing has that shadow side, and it's learning how to navigate that. It's so, so true. You are a continual learner and we've been talking about that most of this conversation. Is there a book or a podcast that you have read or listened to that you think, oh man, this is something that, if you haven't read this or listened to this, this would be worth checking out?

Frankie Fihn: 31:18

Yeah, I actually took it off the shelf because I knew you were going to ask me that question. This baby right, here is one. I'd like to revisit. It's by Dusan Dukovic, it's called Straight Line Leadership leadership and it's it's one of those things that, like it's it's probably more reminder than necessarily like it'll blow your mind, but there's so many like good little gems in there that remind me of like you know, like, and one of the things he talks about in there that's always been big for me.

Dr. William Attaway: 31:48

He talks about your internal stance, like the place you're coming from, and he talks about the idea like place you're coming from. And he talks about the idea like say for example, every january 1st people make new year's resolutions they're going to make more money.

Intro/Outro: 31:58

They're going to lose more they're going to lose weight.

Frankie Fihn: 32:00

They're going to find that partner and the vast majority of those people like don't see those through and and by february 1st, have abandoned them and given up on those and he talks a lot about like know the place you're coming from has a lot to do with whether you succeed in the external action. I mean you know for me. I try to remind myself of like what kind of?

Intro/Outro: 32:20

commitment and things are really required like you know, like using the exercise one as an example.

Frankie Fihn: 32:25

I started exercising again, like six months ago, and I've kept it up.

Intro/Outro: 32:28

But but one of the things you have to commit to is you realize that for like two, three weeks.

Frankie Fihn: 32:31

You're going to be really, really sore and you're not going to want to do it.

Intro/Outro: 32:34

And so like can I keep?

Frankie Fihn: 32:35

it up.

Intro/Outro: 32:37

Can I can.

Frankie Fihn: 32:37

I stay committed through that process. And uh you know, this book has been really helpful with lots of those little things about just getting my internal stance right so that the external things fall into place, cause most people know you've got to diet and exercise. It's a totally different thing to then go do it in action, and a lot of times it's the place they're coming from not the actual thing they're doing, and I see this with agency owners.

Frankie Fihn: 33:00

I have conversations on the daily about people who message a stranger and are expecting them to stand on their chair and hurl their credit card at them, and then are disappointed when they don't. And it's really just an uncalibrated internal stance, and so straight line leadership for me is always like. I probably read it every six months and, you know, always always like pick up something kind of new in it.

Dr. William Attaway: 33:20

That's a super high recommendation, and I haven't read this book, so I'm about to, so thank you for that.

Frankie Fihn: 33:25

I think you'll like it.

Dr. William Attaway: 33:26

Frankie, this has been as every conversation I've had with you. This has been enlightening, and I this has been as every conversation I've had with you. This has been enlightening, and I always walk away having learned something. I so appreciate your generosity in sharing some insights and wisdom from your journey so far, and I know the best days are still to come for you. This is fun for me too, just so you know. I know folks are going to want to stay connected to you and continue to learn from you and more about what you do.

Frankie Fihn: 33:55

What is the best way for them to do that? Two ways, so I'd say the two best ways. We got a book over here you can find on Amazon, called Beyond the Agency Box and, to be honest, even though I wrote it for agency owners, if you run any sort of service, expertise, kind of business, everything in here would apply to you, even though obviously I wrote it for agency owners, because that's what I did for, like you know, 20 years.

Intro/Outro: 34:15

But having said that, it's really like I said, a lot of the best stuff.

Frankie Fihn: 34:20

I really learned from attorneys and then figured out how to adapt them to the agency space, which is why they work so well. And then, if you guys are on Facebook as well, I have a Facebook community called Beyond Agency Profits Agency Lifestyle Design and we're. I think it's a really cool place. I've been. I've been really intentional about keeping high level people such as yourself in there, so a lot of Facebook groups after five minutes become like you know, spam groups were or or.

Frankie Fihn: 34:46

They just kind of disappear into the night. But I've intentionally cultivated it to be a place where, basically, like all the cool kids hang out and discuss the you know what's working.

Dr. William Attaway: 34:55

And I can attest to both of those. I can attest to the value of the book. That is something that has benefited me and my business already after having read it, and some of the insights in there are things that our team has applied, and the Facebook group is something I see value in every time I log in there, and the Facebook group is something I see value in every time I log in there, and so thank you for again, your generosity, not just today, but in an ongoing way of sharing what you're learning for the benefit of other people.

Frankie Fihn: 35:21

Well, I appreciate that, my man. You know it's funny. For me it's probably the easiest thing in the world to have empathy for people who were just you five or ten years ago. When I first started this, I think the first six to 12 months I was sleeping on my girlfriend's couch and I think anybody who starts a new venture has what I would call the anti cheerleader. For me it was the father-in-law, like when are you going to get a real job?

Frankie Fihn: 35:42

And, like always, condescendingly refer to it as my little side hustle and you know, being able to like give back to people who are essentially me from before, as you can relate to, I'm sure figuring out your own leadership journey. It's not like you probably imagined I would ever be showing this to someone else. You're probably just struggling with your own stuff and then eventually you realize this can actually be useful to someone else.

Dr. William Attaway: 36:07

Yeah, exactly right, man, Frankie. Thanks, this has been a great conversation and I'm so grateful for you.

Frankie Fihn: 36:12

Man Appreciate you, my dude.

Dr. William Attaway: 36:14

Thanks for joining me for this episode today. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out.

Dr. William Attaway: 36:50

My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.