4 Fears I’ve Had As An Agency Owner
10 years in, I’m still not sure I know what I’m doing. On that and other concerns that keep me up at night.
Is there any agency owner who didn’t live with some amount of fear in 2020? From fear for our health and that of our employees to the fear we wouldn’t have enough money in the bank to make payroll, there were any number of reasons, micro or macro, to make an agency owner feel a bit unsettled last year. And though the year may have changed, those fears have not gone much of anywhere.
All this alongside a period of extreme personal loss, I’ve found it a helpful, and incredibly sobering, reminder that what was is isn’t always what will be. It’s also brought many of my great past fears and concerns flooding back to the fore of my mind.
While many of those are but momentary explosions of concern that burn out like rapidly descending fireworks, others end up sitting in my gut for some time, forcing me to reckon with year-old concerns that have never quite gone away.
Many of these might be unique to me, but others may be fears that fellow agency owners (or freelancers) are grappling with in private, sitting in their imposter syndrome believing that nobody is experiencing these challenges.
If that sounds like you, I can guarantee you this: you are not the first to grapple with these feelings. And I know that for a fact, because I’ve probably had them too. To the point where I once explored becoming a licensed mental health practitioner and starting a founder’s therapy service (and I still think this is a great business opportunity if it’s not a claimed space already).
Obviously, that did not pan out.
But I can share with you some of the gnawing questions that have tormented and troubled me over the years. These are the concerns that, ten years in, still force me to confront a lot of discomfort. Some of these I have confronted and figured out strategies to engage with, others still give me a lot of fear.
Am I a good manager? Am I stunting my team’s growth?
As a manager, I have no idea what I’m doing. Truly none. I have a philosophy (People are like pottery. Inside the brick of clay is a form waiting to emerge, and I’m just here to help it take shape.), but little in the way of practical experience.
Having started Digital Natives right out of college, wargaming future concerns over talent retention and career development were far from top of mind. But once we began staffing up I realized that being a friendly face and a generous colleague are not what make for a good manager.
How could I direct my team without controlling them? How do I teach them new skills while still learning those things myself? How can I communicate the information they need without overburdening them with the information they don’t? What’s the line between actionable feedback and nitpicking?
For me the only way to accomplish this is by having complete and total transparency with the team. In our reviews, I always ask them what they want to be when they grow up and if this workplace is helping them get there. I’ll never fool myself into thinking that someone wants to be with us forever (thought it would be great if they would), and I’ll never fool them into thinking I believe that about them. In fact, I hope they go forth and prosper, and spread the good word about our shop elsewhere. Taking this approach means we can be honest with one another about what we both need out of the relationship, and can put our team, and our firm, in a better position for success.
After managing people for six years, I’m still not sure I know how, but I do my best to get better. I’m too uncomfortable with the idea that I might be stunting their career growth not to get better.
And speaking of stunting career growth.
Am I falling behind?
This FOMO-induced question has always hung over my head like a rain cloud. Despite 360* reviews with my team, despite feedback from clients, recognition from peers, and lots of other data points, I am always sitting in my imposter syndrome, concerned that I don’t belong where I am, and that I’m not evolving with my industry.
It’s a tough question to sit with, as it tugs at your self-confidence, self-image, and self-worth, and it does little good for your mental health. But without a clear growth or promotion plan, it can be hard to tell if you’re truly “leveling up.”
There are a lot of affirmations and practices I’ve tried to flip the switch on this self-talk, but I always find myself falling back into a negative feedback loop. I’ve found the only way for me to capture and tame this fear is by laying the facts out in front of me. So twice a year, I sit down and update my resume. There, in one spot, I can see the growth I’ve had not only over the past decade, but specifically over the past six months.
With this laid out in one place, I can sit back and track the incremental progress we typically don’t notice day-to-day. Suddenly, your growth becomes much clearer, and when you feel that self-doubt creeping back up, you can just pull this document up to remind yourself what you’re really made of.
Is this taking over my life?
“But what if it’s an emergency?”
“It’ll only take five minutes, we can still make it to the movie tonight.”
If you run your own business, you’ve said these, or something similar, when a client calls you on a night or weekend. For sure, the first few times it seemed pretty innocuous, especially when it meant keeping a paying client happy.
But what about keeping yourself happy?
If there’s any fear I’ve become better at controlling, it’s this one. The fear that you can’t tame your business, and that it’s actually consuming you. And I did that because I had no choice.
My mantra as an agency owner is that I am not here to serve my business, my business is here to serve me. I am not Seymour, and my business is not Audrey Jr.
Before tackling any outside-normal-hours tasks, I now run through a simple checklist:
- Is this request important for brand reputation? (A client request to stop publishing after a local tragedy occurs on a weekend is important to handle)
- Is this request time sensitive? (A client created a video and wants to get it up on Super Bowl Sunday, that’s okay to tackle)
- Will handling this request take me out of an important personal moment? (I will not step away from a family function for Facebook)
Certainly, I am not perfect at using this system, but it does help me to at least pause before considering if I can truly afford to execute the work. Perhaps these can help you create some boundaries of your own.
Am I mortgaging my future?
As I get older, this is something I think about quite a bit. Many of my peers from university have chosen career paths that started out with six-figure ( or near) salaries. For a while, I could tell myself this was no big deal. More of a dive bar guy than a bottle service baller, I never needed much to be happy. But as my lifestyle goals evolve, as I start to think about a wedding and a home, I’ve started to wonder if the choices I made ten years ago really set me up for success. To be clear, this isn’t about Instagram-envy (I am financially comfortable and want for nothing), but asking myself if I made the right choice for my lifetime goals.
Truth be told, I have no idea on this one. Each year, each month, each contract signing, can make me feel better or worse about this. Again, it’s not about the month-to-month picture, because I know I’m fortunate to have stability and income, but about if I made the right choice for where I want to be in thirty years (and if it’s not, if a sunk cost fallacy is keeping me in it).
The only way I can confront this fear is by continuing to work on a plan for my life, and setting targets and milestones to give me some boundaries to experiment within. I may not know how I’m going to get where I want to go, but I have to have some endpoint in mind. Then I can look at where I am and determine if this road is going to lead me there. If not, I need Waze.
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