Catalytic Leadership

Tired of Founder Bottlenecks? Try These Sellable Agency Systems

• Dr. William Attaway • Season 3 • Episode 109

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If you're scaling your agency but still stuck in the center of everything — decisions, operations, delivery — it's costing you more than time. It’s capping your growth, draining your team, and blocking your ability to build something truly sellable.

In this episode, I’m joined by Jordan Calderon, two-time exit founder and President of StratDev, a top 100 U.S. digital marketing firm that’s generated over $150 million in tracked client revenue. He’s also the founder of My Virtual Desk and someone who’s turned down 11 acquisition offers because he knew he could scale further.

We talk about how to build systems that scale without you, create operational clarity, avoid burnout, and make your business not just profitable, but sellable. You’ll hear how Jordan thinks about AI, team retention, hiring and firing, and what it really takes to create sellable agency systems that unlock optionality and freedom at scale.

If you’ve ever asked, “How do I get out of the day-to-day?”  this is the episode for you.


⏱ Chapter Breakdown

00:03 — Meet Jordan Calderon: Founder, Strategist, 2X Exit Leader
 01:22 — From Econ Class Dropout to Serial Entrepreneur
 05:44 — Building and Selling His First E-Com Business
 07:56 — What Buyers Actually Want in a Sellable Agency
 11:07 — Learning Marketing by Doing (and YouTube)
 13:20 — Turning Down 11 Acquisition Offers (and Why)
 16:10 — Hard Lessons: Hiring Slow, Firing Fast
 18:05 — Building a Team That Performs (and Stays)
 21:58 — Who StratDev Serves and Why
 23:53 — The Daily Practice That Keeps Him Leveling Up
 28:30 — AI Integration and What Agencies Must Prepare For
 31:15 — The Future Agency Model: Execution vs. Operator


📚 Books Mentioned

  • How to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital by Nathan Latka



To learn more about Jordan’s work, connect with him at jordancalderon.me — where you’ll find his LinkedIn, Twitter, and business insights.


Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.

Connect with Dr. William Attaway:

Dr. William Attaway:

I'm so excited today to have Jordan Calderon on the podcast. Jordan is a two-time exit founder, the president of StratDev, a top 100 US marketing firm, and a guy who believes in growing businesses the right way, not the loudest way. He's built a national college apparel company, scaled a digital agency that has generated over $150 million in tracked client revenue and has spoken at TEDx. He's turned down acquisition offers for his current company and started a wine brand along the way. Today, he's going to share the highs, the lows and the real strategies behind scaling companies and how you can grow smarter with the right mindset. Jordan, I'm so glad you're here, man. Thanks for being on the show.

Jordan Calderon:

Thank you so much, dr Attaway, and remind me, if I ever change career direction here and become a boxer, that I need to hire you as my ring announcer. That was phenomenal.

Dr. William Attaway:

I'll keep that in mind.

Intro:

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway:

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

Jordan Calderon:

started and a Justin Bieber looking hairdo going into my first economics class as an economics major, and so you know that class was about 90 minutes long and the first minute I had the biggest smile on my face, really, really excited to learn about economics. Right, I had just earlier had a knack for business. I like the idea of business. I really thought, and due to my father's kind of I don't want to use the word grooming, but for lack of better right pushing me into the direction of working in a company, growing and climbing up the corporate ladder within that company, economics just made a lot of sense, right, and so very, very excited, thinking, okay, well, let's see how it goes. And by that 90th and last minute of the class, I had that frown turned upside down, realizing holy crap, and nothing against UC, santa Barbara or really any public university, but I found out very quickly that they teach it in a very theoretical sense, one that is not applicable or really practical, right, I remember there was one economics class that I took that there were no numbers on that chalkboard, less of the date that the professor wrote on that, and so it just didn't feel like I could actually do something with that, and I, you know, it took 90 minutes for me to come to that conclusion. So what did I do? I ran back to my dorm room. I looked up what was hot, what was popping, and back in 2017, dropshipping was to be able to really kind of start my own career. I didn't want to wait the four years. Let's do something now.

Jordan Calderon:

And so I tried my hand at dropshipping. Dr Attaway, I think it was a company called Axiom Apparel we found some Alibaba $10 watches and belts and sunglasses to look cool and you know, be your best man, it was like a high value man back in you know 2017 kind of thing. So did that I don't know put maybe $500 into it and it went down in burning flames. I ran through the 500 bucks. I got maybe one purchase that was my like best friends, but didn't turn into anything further than that. But I learned a lot of lessons right. This is my first time really trying to build a real business and you know that $500 turned into me trying again and avoiding some of the failures that I had or lessons that I had learned right in that first time. And so I tried my hand again, created a completely different dropshipping company and I ended up failing again. And then I took those lessons and then I turned it into another business, another e-commerce dropshipping business, and I failed again. And the fourth time I said, okay, you know what? Dropshipping isn't maybe for me, but I've learned a lot of things on Shopify. I've learned how to run advertisements. I've learned how to market something a little bit right. What can I do that I have a really good passion with, that I can kind of maximize my chances of succeeding with.

Jordan Calderon:

And so at that time, being a freshman at a party school as you see, santa Barbara well, you know what. What about the people? What do the kids want, right? And so I started asking a lot of my friends. I said, hey, what is something that you want out of college that you don't have? And I remember I was in a brainstorming session with a couple of my friends and they all came to the conclusion you know what I want? College apparel that represents me, that represents the school, not just with the university lettering established 1972 or whatever it is right but rather something that speaks to the culture, speaks to the students of those organizations.

Jordan Calderon:

And so that ended up in accepting a company called College Cloud, in which we worked with fraternities, sororities, clubs and organizations across school campuses to create custom designs, slapped it on a t-shirt and then sent it out to that club or organization as a whole. So, for example, you are a sorority doing bid day and your sorority is really well known for you know pink bows and things like that. We can make a design that encapsulates that vision that you want. Put that on a t-shirt. Now everyone has a matching t-shirt for bid day, right? Or there's a dance club, you know, at ASU. At ASU they want, end of the year they have a dance tournament. They want all the same hats and sweatshirts and hoodies and things like that to all have the same swag. We can go out and create that for them and put their personal spin to it and then, working sometimes with universities as well, to go ahead and create that for them and put their personal spin to it. And then, working sometimes with universities as well, to go ahead and make, you know, football day t-shirts and things of that nature that really speak to the students rather than keeping I like to call it college corporate style designs here.

Jordan Calderon:

So that ended up taking off and over the course of my college career I grew that to a pretty healthy number, before I ended up selling that company to a company called Greek House in 2021 with Luke McGurran and Karthik Shanadi, and so with that, I had learned a lot of leadership skills. I ended up building an ambassador brand of 300 individuals across the United States that trusted me for their paycheck, and so I would hop on calls, with all these 300 people being the same age as them, learning, hey, okay, you're looking at me like I'm the boss. How do I act like a boss? And so it was a phenomenal, honestly learning lesson that I did get some success out of. That really, I think, kickstarted my entrepreneurial journey and that, you know, incepted a lot of confidence in me to go build a lot of other businesses, where now I am, you know, the solely sworn leader of a lot of different businesses, and that has been a blessing in itself as well.

Dr. William Attaway:

Love that. I love the genesis of your story. You know I mean coming into the academic environment and recognizing so quickly what I'm looking for is actually something a little bit different. That's fascinating. I think it's so important for the leaders who are listening to recognize that. You know, despite the best efforts of so many, there's not a one size fits all to this. There's not a one path that fits everybody. You created a new path based on your wiring, so you've sold two companies.

Jordan Calderon:

Jordan, that's right, yep.

Dr. William Attaway:

What is something that, as the leaders who are listening are thinking about what it would be like to sell their company. What is something that people don't normally think about when they are exiting or getting ready to exit?

Jordan Calderon:

Yeah, yeah, that's a phenomenal built the business the way that I want to, and now I want to go sell the business. You're going to find that you've probably built it in a way that makes it very hard to assume for somebody else, because you built it around you right and so you want to sell that business. But instead that mindset should be, before you decide to get to that point, how to build a sellable business, to then go and sell that business, right, and so that information and advice turned into with both of my companies before I sold those companies Right, I knew in the back of my mind OK, I'm getting close to that 11th hour. Right now, start to think about what do buyers really care about? And so buyers care about a couple of things, right. They care about seeing growth. They care about seeing really strong SOPs or standard operating procedures in businesses, having clean accounting, having a team that is not going to run and leave the second, that a new management comes in, things like this.

Jordan Calderon:

And so it's a big checklist, right, and you want to go through this checklist to make sure that you are building that sellable business and that, when the time comes and you hit that 11th hour right. You are prepared. That in turn, maximizes your valuation that you have for the business as well, so you usually get some more money out of it too. Right, because it makes it really easy for the buyer to come in. Both times that I sold my businesses, the same comment was passed by the new management, which is wow, jordan, you made it really easy to assume this business. You have all your SHIT together, right, and so it was a very enjoyable experience in both those occurrences because of my ability to build that sellable business. So something that I learned, I guess, in real time, but has been highly applicable and helpful in both those situations.

Dr. William Attaway:

I think that's very practical information, because I watch too many founders create a business that is centered around them. That's right when they're at the center of the spider web and everything connects to them. You can't sell that because you can't sell yourself.

Jordan Calderon:

Exactly. It's an extension of you, right, and so you want to be able to fully separate yourself too. I guess probably the biggest thing on that checklist is how do you remove yourself right? Founder led sales, founder led operations exactly Marketing, whatever it is and so buyers get very scared when you are part of the business because they can't buy you Right. So totally Great.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's it. So how did you get from college apparel to marketing?

Jordan Calderon:

Yeah, great question. I, through many sleepless nights in college, taught myself marketing to market this college apparel company. I mean, there was a period of time every single day, till three, four in the morning, I'd be on YouTube, watching YouTube videos of how to run a Facebook ad, how to create an SEO blog, how to X, y and Z, to the point where my girlfriend at the time was like get the hell back to bed, what are you doing here, right, where's my boyfriend? And so, with that, I learned a lot of things and grew the business and fully bootstrapped that business to get to the point where we're able to go ahead and sell. And so when I did sell that business, I really thought to myself wow, what should I do next? Cause I knew that I wanted to build another business, but where could I provide a lot of value?

Jordan Calderon:

I've always been a value first type of entrepreneur, right? I don't want to sell something that, uh, it doesn't have any value. I don't want to create a SaaS company that the reason why we're growing in revenue is because people forget to cancel, right? I want people to actually want to use the product or service. And so I thought again, thought to myself how can I be of value? And I looked at my own company that I had just sold and saw it more or less as a case study, saying, wow, I was able to do this for my company, I want to do this for other companies. So that was the inception of StratDev, which is a full service digital marketing firm in the United States, that it was started because of YouTube videos and my understanding of marketing because of it. It's been a very fun journey but, regardless, that was a transition between the two.

Dr. William Attaway:

And you've built your agency into a pretty significant size, to the point where people have been making acquisition offers that you have turned down. Can you share a little bit about that and why you would turn down what I'm guessing were probably some decent offers?

Jordan Calderon:

They were, they were, and you know, back at 24 years old, in 2023, when I got 11 letters of intent from 11 unique entities to buy StratDev, I was very much thinking to myself yeah, some of these are pretty nice but hard to turn down.

Jordan Calderon:

And you ask a really good question why did I turn those down? And the reason why was not a financial decision, but rather more or less a bet on myself, where I looked internally and said do I think? Well, I asked myself a couple of things. The first thing that I asked is do I think that I am at my end, where I could not grow this business more? I asked myself do I think that I am over it?

Jordan Calderon:

Personally, emotionally, right, I think that a lot of entrepreneurs have like a like a peak productivity, uh period in their business, and once you exhaust that, it becomes a lot harder to grow and scale because your heart's just not and it kind of comes like an estranged child in a certain sense to you. And so do I wake up every single day? And am I still excited to build StratDev? And the answer was no's and yes's. In terms of no, I was not at my peak. Yes, I'm still excited to wake up every single day. And so at that point I realized, okay, you know what, let me continue to build this because I think I can build it higher.

Jordan Calderon:

And now, looking retrospectively, you know, as this was two years ago. Right, I'm like, oh yeah, I made the right decision. I was very, very, very happy. We've been able to grow a little over 2x since that point in terms of headcount, in terms of revenue, as well as in terms of EBITDA numbers, which is how a lot of digital marketing firms are you know the valuation is built off of. So I've been able to go and increase the value of that business and I'm happy, looking retrospectively, even from a financial decision and standpoint, that I said no to those offers because I would have been significantly worse off if I had assuming that I did nothing after and that you know that wasn't the next Tesla or Google or whatever. That is Right, so yeah.

Dr. William Attaway:

You know, as more and more people have started to listen to the show and continue to give us feedback on what resonates the most, one of the things that really pops in the feedback that we get is when somebody shares their story, just like what you're doing and can share. You know, hey, this was this was something that I didn't know, that I learned along the way as you were building your agency. Can you think of something like that that you know? I wish I had known this at the beginning, but it's something that I learned along the way and now you can't unsee it once. You see it, yeah.

Jordan Calderon:

Yeah, yeah, um, there are so many things that come to mind right now. I mean, I can tell you that I've built these businesses. Learning by doing everything is usually I get from step one and I put a foot ahead and I get to step two, and then I try to just take a step three and then, oh, that's not the right decision. Oh, that's not the right decision. Oh, that's not the right decision. Then I find that path and then I get to step four, and so I continuously learn these things and when I turn my head back I realize, holy crap, I've learned a lot of lessons along the way. A couple of them that just really stand out is hire slowly, fire quick. A teammate that is not a good fit for your business is so much more expensive in terms of opportunity costs or even direct loss of revenue by keeping them on rather than firing that individual. As a founder, I've had to make very difficult decisions and fire some individuals that, from a personal perspective, I would not have wanted to fire, just from being friends with these people, and I've definitely shed some tears just speaking honestly here. But it's the right thing for the business and it ultimately ends up being the right thing. For them as well. There's one individual that comes to mind without speaking their name thing. For them as well. There's one individual that comes to mind without speaking their name. You know, there was a commission incentive. They were a really good friend of mine and they were not able to close or hit those KPIs as they were expected to, and so they were not making too much money. Stratdev was also not making as much as they thought and was investing more into that relationship than we were getting out of that and, as a result, both of us were in a situation of wow, we are worse off now because of this, and so he ended up. You know, we made the mutual decision to leave, and now he's making a lot more and is very, very happy. So it all works out at the end of the day. Now we are too. So there's that.

Jordan Calderon:

Another thing that comes to mind is really caring about your team. I think that we're B2B service and I think that you can draw a very direct parallel in terms of if your team is happy, and because your team is really your business, then your customers will be happy as well. Right, happy team equals happy customers, but this is also true with software companies. This is also true with team members that don't exactly touch or directly client facing. In a lot of ways, having a happy team is the backbone of your business. I mean, that's why unions exist, right, we've seen how, if everybody turns against a business, how weak that business actually is. If everybody at you know Apple on the factory machines decides to stop working tomorrow, that business goes down to pretty much zero in value. Right, and so it really is the team.

Jordan Calderon:

I have never really had a real job where I've had an employee or had a boss and I was an employee state. But I've heard just from friends I'm a younger guy, right, a lot of my friends are in their entry level jobs or getting promoted or getting fired or moving to the next step, right, they're in that kind of inflection point of their career and I hear so many stories of, oh, my boss was an a-hole here or I didn't like how the company did this and that, and so I don't just hear those stories saying, oh, wow, that sucks, and then I go off and do my own thing with my businesses, but I absorb it like a sponge, right, hearing okay, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that, do the opposite of that, and so that in turn, has really built a high level of awareness for the happiness of my team. I care about team culture. That is, I think, my number one responsibility as a president of the company. We take very good care of our customers. I give bonuses out all the time like it's candy and it makes people feel really good.

Jordan Calderon:

The result of that is that our team very rarely leaves. There is, at least to my knowledge, not been any one that has left my company ever because they did not enjoy working at the company, but because you know it's the next step in their career, or they want a career change, or it's a personal reason, right, and you know, even looking at Glassdoor which I didn't even know that people were reviewing us on just a couple of months ago we have a 4.9 star on Glassdoor and, I think, close to 100% CEO approval rating, which is awesome. Didn't even ask for that, none solicited. But it turns into great performance for our customers too. That's why we're able to do such a good job, because our team actually likes us and therefore has vested interest in our customers too, which makes and builds a really good company as a whole. So those are two things that I'll leave the audience members to ponder and think about. Don't forget about the team and also fire quickly if it's not the right fit for your team.

Dr. William Attaway:

I love that and it's such a great piece of advice, both, but the latter in particular. So often we think by well, we'll give them another chance, well, we'll just hang on a little bit longer, well, we'll just hope. Hope's a terrible strategy and you're holding that person back from a better fit, and so often the owners and founders do not think about that, but you are holding them back and you are holding the rest of your team back from the synergy and the performance that you could be achieving when you have somebody who is the right fit for that seat on the bus.

Jordan Calderon:

I love that you shared that. Yeah, that's right, and it kind of goes back to the age-old saying you're only as fast as your slowest team member, or something along the lines of that. I mean, it's super true, right? It might sound cheesy, but I've seen it time and time and time again. So we want to make sure that everybody's moving as fast as possible and there's a good camaraderie in between as well.

Dr. William Attaway:

So StratDev is full stack marketing. Where do you focus? Who's your ideal client?

Jordan Calderon:

Yeah, yeah. So we love our tech startup companies. So think of tech-enabled digital services, digital products, digital software, saas companies, things like that. Usually we see a really good traction and track record with customers that already have a little bit of traction, so they're not starting at zero. Call it anywhere between a million dollars in ARR all the way up to anywhere between 20 and 50 million dollars in ARR, depending on how quickly they build out their marketing team. We don't usually work with bigger and when we build companies at that point we usually don't work past that, and the reason why is because they graduate us. In a certain sense, it's the best feeling. It's bittersweet, but it's good for them and that's what matters. But that's really where our sweet spot is, and we've been able to um hit our targets 94 of the time with customers that fit those parameters remarkable, uh, marketing is not magic, but that's as close to a number as magic, I think and this is why you're a top 100 firm right, yeah because you produce results for the clients consistently and predictably.

Jordan Calderon:

It's also a level of being relatively exclusive. We're in the blessed position of being able to say no more than yes with our customers, and so you know, if we're taking everybody on, then we are not able to protect those numbers. But that's not the case. I love that.

Dr. William Attaway:

Thank you, jordan. As you have continued to grow StratDev, you know you've had to grow as a leader. You're not the same leader you were five years ago and five years from now, your team and your clients are going to need you to lead at an even higher level. How do you stay on top of your game personally? How do you level up with those new leadership skills that they're going to need you to have?

Jordan Calderon:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm a young founder and I think young founders are highly susceptible to making mistakes, and I am not immune myself either. I make a lot of mistakes. I also believe that death on earth is when you personally don't grow right. When you turn 30 years old and then you look back, it's like I haven't changed a bit since I was 20. Yeah, that's not living personally, um and so, and so you know, as a busy founder, I need to or I found that I need to carve out some time, uh, to be able to actually think and reflect and become, as you said, a better leader, right? And so what I personally do is in the morning. I'm a morning shower guy. I was called weird a couple of days ago being a morning shower guy, not a night shower guy, but I don't know. Hopefully your audience is a morning shower people.

Dr. William Attaway:

I'm a morning shower guy. I'll just Amazing, there we go.

Jordan Calderon:

That's the buy-in that I needed here. Hour guy, I'll just amazing, there we go. That's the buy in that I needed here. Anyways, in the mornings I take very long showers. I'm talking anywhere between like 20 and 25 minute showers. The reason why is because it's it's my time. It's my time to self reflect. I also like the warm water feeling and the little massage on my back that the water pressure gives me. But it's my time to think about a couple of things.

Jordan Calderon:

And I go through this exercise every single morning where I think what happened yesterday, or is there anything that I could have done better? How do I come better today and how do I learn from those lessons? So it's not making these big, grandiose changes. It's not like you know.

Jordan Calderon:

Some people, you know, get really drunk on a Saturday and then on a Sunday morning have this big epiphany I got to go change my whole life, right, I'm never going to drink again. It's not that type of mindset mentality, but rather just inching small little piece by piece by piece by piece by piece over the course of a long period of time. And so on my birthdays I take a one hour shower because I don't just look at what happens the day before and how I can be better the day before. But I look at, okay, last year at this same time, 365 days ago who was I and how have I changed? And it's my self-reflection time and it's to the point where my hands get pruney. But I come out of that shower feeling really good, because I'm like, holy crap, I was an idiot just a year ago and I've learned so much. And every single year I have the same epiphany Dr Attaway, it's, it's, it's. It's actually quite funny, but it shows me that I am growing and a lot of people rely on me.

Jordan Calderon:

I think I'm blessed to say that. You know, I have the team size that I do. And I look back and I feel very privileged to be able to put food on, you know, 50, 60, 70 people's tables at any given time. That's a crazy thing to say. That's a crazy thing to say, but there's a responsibility that comes behind that too. So a lot of the things I think about during this time are leadership capabilities. Right? Oh, should I have been nicer to that person? Or, oh, should I have responded to somebody's complaint in some better way, right? So life is just a big learning lesson. There's no, really good rule book, but being aware is always the first good step of making the second step, which is change.

Dr. William Attaway:

Well said. And growth only happens on the other side of change. So, as you continue to learn, as you continue to grow, is there a book that's made a big difference in your journey that you'd recommend to the leaders who are listening?

Jordan Calderon:

Yeah, yeah, you know I'm not much of a book guide, dr Attaway, and so I don't have an amazing leadership book for you. But I will recommend how to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital by Nathan Latka, which has a lot of really unique, interesting lessons, very practical. You can go and start it tomorrow and take that information that you learned. But essentially that book goes through just ways to essentially leverage the capitalist system, not just in monetary ways, but just ways as a whole, and I don't want to spoil it for everybody, but I highly recommend it. I recommend that a hundred times over. I should absolutely be getting commissioned at this point, but it is a phenomenal read if somebody wants to start taking action today in terms of just how to leverage just society, the capitalist society that we live in. It's a very interesting, unique and practical take I have not read that.

Dr. William Attaway:

I'm going to check it out. Thanks for that.

Jordan Calderon:

Yeah, yeah, I see there's a lot of books behind you, so we can add one more.

Dr. William Attaway:

One more. That's right, there's always room for one more. So think about your company, think about the business that you've built, and I want you to think about this question If I could magically fix one big problem in your business right now, if I could wave a wand and solve it, what would you want that problem to be?

Jordan Calderon:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, making sure that we have the ability to pivot as fast as our customers want us to pivot. So, right now, the digital marketing world AI is this really big, scary monster under the beds, and we do our best to be AI adaptive. We don't want to be AI resilient, because I think that we're just trying to push away a problem if we decide to take that stance. A lot of marketing agencies are, and I don't fully agree with that. But be AI adaptive and AI aware.

Jordan Calderon:

We actually hired a full-time individual to their main role is to look at all of these different AI automation companies software companies, agent companies, gen AI as well that are coming out to do two things One, look at how we can leverage that internally as a company, and then, secondly, how we can leverage that for our customers, where we try to stay ahead of the curve. The thing is, though, there is a new software or LLM or agent company coming out like every three seconds. So, even with this full-time resource, we still feel so ahead of the curve and need to be better, because our customers expect that excellence and we hold ourselves to very high standards as well, but it's just the market moving really, really, really quickly. So now I say that because I don't know if I fully and just being candid, have an answer at this very moment, but it is very top of mind for us. It is a main discussion and line item for the agenda of our leadership conversations and something that we definitely got to figure out.

Dr. William Attaway:

Well, and I think you're spot on. I mean, I'm speaking at two different agency events next month, and both of them are centered around this idea of a new model for agencies, thinking that things are going to shift because of AI. Things are going to move and if we don't get ahead of that, or at least keep up with it, extinction is not far off.

Jordan Calderon:

To flip the script a little bit, I'm curious how do you feel that agencies are going to evolve, call it, in the next five years? How is that model going to change?

Dr. William Attaway:

I think that personally, from the clients that I work with, there's got to be a shift from a race to the bottom, trying to go keep the lowest price, the fastest offerings, to a much more human-centric approach where you are hiring an agency executive who is going to come alongside you as a growth partner, who's going to come alongside you and help you think strategically almost like what I do as an executive coach for my clients, but from a marketing perspective right, whereas I'm going to come alongside and help you with leadership and mindset and productivity. I think an agency that makes this shift is going to come alongside and say we want to help you and come alongside you and walk with you and provide a place where you're going to get the expertise that you need, but it's going to be more of as a consultant than as just another ad agency. Does that make sense?

Jordan Calderon:

No, totally, and I actually hold a very similar stance in the sense that that race to the bottom, does that make sense? So companies and agencies that are on the executionary side of things will just be outpriced and outperformed at the same time, too. And so, to your point, right, you say growth partner I like to use the word operator right, it's essentially agencies. Will be that operator to run a team of AI agents or to run a team of automations and frameworks? Right, but somebody needs to be steering that ship, right, and I think that that would be you know agencies, or some very you know smart consultants like you that are ahead of the curve and teaching your customers that as well. So, very good, yeah, no, I very much agree.

Dr. William Attaway:

Jordan, I could talk to you for another hour about all of these different topics, because I think there's so much synergy and you have so much insight from your journey so far, and I know that your best days are still ahead of you. You know you are young and there's so much ahead, and I can't wait to see where you're going to go from here.

Jordan Calderon:

I appreciate that very much. Thank you so much. Fingers crossed as well. I think I have some cool, fun things. You know, I'm also in a transition where I am building another company, which is my Virtual Desk. It's a virtual assistant staffing recruiting company with a little bit of twist. We're building something called my Virtual Desk AI, which is essentially an assistant for the assistants that we place, which allows them to make fewer mistakes, higher output and, from our early testing, seeing a 3x productivity increase with those individuals. So it's like hiring three people for the price of one, but that price is about a fifth of the cost, is what it'd be in the United States. So you know, to your point right, it's getting as much done, high productivity, low cost, and we're definitely leaning into that in the virtual assistant world. So building that as well too. You know, maybe we hop back on this conversation.

Dr. William Attaway:

I was just thinking.

Jordan Calderon:

Yeah, two or three years down the line and you know, the conversation might be very different as well.

Dr. William Attaway:

I would love that. That would be fantastic man. Absolutely, absolutely I know folks are going to want to connect with you and learn more about you and continue to learn from you and all about StratDev. What's the best way for them to do that?

Jordan Calderon:

Yeah, absolutely. Go and check out my personal site, jordancalderonme. There's all of my links there. There's my personal Instagram if you want to see the cool foods that I'm eating all around the world. I have my LinkedIn there as well. If you'd like to follow me on a professional level, I share all of my cool insights with the customers that we work with personal lessons that I've learned as well. I'm highly transparent as well. I don't just talk about successes I think that that's doing a disservice to entrepreneurs but also talking about the failures, and, trust me, I have a lot more failures than successes. So, yeah, how's all my information there? Twitter as well. I just got on Twitter. I think I have like seven followers. Maybe the audience number will be eight and nine. Please do follow me. But the audience number will be eight and nine. Please do follow me. But, yeah, we have all of it there. So wwwjordancalderonme.

Dr. William Attaway:

And we'll have those links in the show notes Lovely Jordan, thank you Appreciate your time, your generosity today and sharing from your journey.

Jordan Calderon:

Absolutely Pleasure is mine, and thank you as well for this lovely conversation here.

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