E16: How To Build a Business That Runs Itself | Jerrod Shelton
What if the key to business success was stepping back and letting your team take the reins?
In today’s episode, we discuss the importance of systems in creating a scalable business and finding the right people to run operations smoothly. Learn how to structure your business so that you can focus on growth while your team handles the day-to-day.
Our business expert guest shares his journey of transforming from a hands-on business owner to one who could take a step back and let his team thrive.
📒 Show Notes and Resources 📒
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Kellen Ketchersid
Kellen is a co-founder of Stag Business Coaching, business strategist, and a systems thinker. He leverages his extensive experience in biotech and consulting to empower entrepreneurs to navigate complex challenges with strategic growth solutions.
Albert Gillispie
Albert is a serial entrepreneur, business efficiency expert and co-founder of Stag Business Coaching who has founded several multimillion-dollar companies. With expertise in optimizing operations and innovative systems, he mentors business leaders who want to unlock their business’s full potential.
Jerrod is the CEO at a digital marketing agency that drives innovative, meaningful and proven results, every time. According to Jerrod, they work with companies big and small, profit and non-profit. Some of their most meaningful work has come out of their relationships with Open Door and Grace Campus. Both of those organizations work with the homeless in our community, and they have done HUGE things for their friends on the streets in need. Jerrod offers an incredibly capable video production department, extremely knowledgeable and talented web and design department, as well as SEO, PPC, photography, etc., you name it.
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EPISODE 16 TRANSCRIPTION
Introduction
[00:00:00] Albert Gillispie: Welcome to the business growth masterclass where business growth is made simple. Listen, as we discuss best practices to streamline your operations, increase your profits, and ultimately create healthier and more valuable companies. Today's guest was Jared Shelton, the owner of Creative, a marketing agency based here in Lubbock, Texas.
[00:00:27] Albert Gillispie: And it was a great interview. He had great stories and he's just a fun, creative guy.
[00:00:40] Kellen Ketchersid: Well, Jared is obviously a creative person just in his nature and he wanted to bring kind of an artistic excellence to everything that he does.
[00:00:51] Kellen Ketchersid: And that's what he's passionate about. You can just feel it when he talks about that. Like that's his why, a big part of his why anyway. So I loved that. I love seeing somebody who gets to do the thing they love the most, and then they found a way to let the rest of the business run without them pretty well.
[00:01:10] Kellen Ketchersid: And we talked about that boiling down to the people, you know, the glue guy that we talked about, and then also systems. And really, it's amazing to me how that just is a common theme with everyone we talk to.
[00:01:22] Albert Gillispie: That was my biggest takeaway as well. We have so many business owners that roll their eyes and, you know, fight us tooth and nail on systems.
[00:01:37] Albert Gillispie: Systems and it's so silly and seems so removed from reality, but you have this creative type, you know, who is the ultimate anti-system guy.
[00:01:53] Albert Gillispie: So you would think so, but his business is now scalable. He's able to step out of working in the business and actually work on the business because he is fully embraced how do I develop a standard way of doing everything, document that, teach my people to operate within that, and then tweak it all the time.
[00:02:16] Albert Gillispie: And he really drove that home from this creative perspective that I think business owners really need to hear that because that's such an important thing for a business owner to spend time working on.
[00:02:30] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah. Couldn't agree more.
[00:02:31] Albert Gillispie: All right.
[00:02:33] Albert Gillispie: I think you're going to enjoy this podcast and here we go.
[00:02:42] Albert Gillispie: All right. We are live. Welcome to the podcast, Jared Shelton.
[00:02:46] Jerrod Shelton: Thank you, Albert and Kellen, very, very much. It's great to be here.
[00:02:49] Albert Gillispie: Yeah, we're excited to have you and Kellen's got an icebreaker.
[00:02:58] Kellen Ketchersid: Oh, yeah. Yeah, man. All right. So for our icebreaker question, I would like to ask, what's your go-to snack during the day?
[00:03:05] Jerrod Shelton: Oh, yeah. Almonds.
[00:03:06] Kellen Ketchersid: Almonds. Okay. That's a healthy choice. I like it.
[00:03:10] Jerrod Shelton: What brand? Whatever brand Sam's sells, you know, the low-end. We're not fancy enough to get Costco, but Sam's almonds are worth it.
[00:03:18] Kellen Ketchersid: Sounds like a winner to me. I would go for that. So what's, what's your... This is our first time asking this one. What is your go-to snack?
[00:03:26] Kellen Ketchersid: I rarely snack, so it's, I forget to eat, honestly, a lot of days. Like I'll look up and it's two o'clock and it's like, Oh, I haven't had anything to eat all day.
[00:03:37] Albert Gillispie: I mean, it doesn't have to be during the day, like at night when you're snacking...
[00:03:42] Kellen Ketchersid: The guilty pleasure for me is popcorn. Got to have a bag of popcorn or a stove. I do it on the stove actually, because I think the bag stuff is bad for you.
[00:03:51] Jerrod Shelton: I'll give you that.
[00:03:52] Kellen Ketchersid: Full of phthalates is what I mean. So yeah, there you go. Don't get me started.
[00:03:57] Albert Gillispie: All right.
[00:03:58] Albert Gillispie: How about you, Albert? We crush Chomps, beef jerky. It's like this natural, it doesn't have whatever preservative that most beef jerky has, there's like a venison version that we have a subscription that constantly comes in.
[00:04:14] Jerrod Shelton: Oh, that's cool. Send me a link to that.
[00:04:20] Albert Gillispie: I will. They're delicious and come in the mail, and me and my boys crush those. They're so good.
[00:04:25] Kellen Ketchersid: All right. Awesome. Something for the show notes.
How to Tell a Business's Story
[00:04:27] Albert Gillispie: Noted. Okay. Creative. Yeah. You are the owner of Creative. Tell our listeners, what does Creative do?
[00:04:37] Jerrod Shelton: Good. Creative is a marketing agency, and we exist to keep you focused—keep you focused on your story because your story matters, and we've got to tell the world. Your messaging matters and how that's sent out to the world, whether it's through an email campaign or through a video or video series or a website. We keep you focused on that message.
[00:04:58] Jerrod Shelton: So that's why Creative exists. And when we started, the reason why Creative existed in the beginning was—love creating cool content. Love creating the coolest, most amazing, sick—what, you know, use all the words—dope, epic video you can possibly put together. I love doing that. And then websites—just throwing that video on the website and then using a screenshot or a JPEG or photos that just make that website pop.
[00:05:29] Jerrod Shelton: How do you arrange that to work? Just be so cool. That's why we did what we did in the beginning. It was just making stuff that was so cool and had a blast doing it. I love doing it. And I still love what we're doing today. It's a love in a different way. And it's refining that kind of that passion into people's stories.
[00:05:50] Jerrod Shelton: It's refining that energy into, you know, a marketing message that's more than just a video or more than just a website. But how does that fit into the whole narrative of what this brand is saying or needs to be? Or what's the goals, the vision? And so, yeah, making it all make sense, making it all cohesive.
[00:06:10] Kellen Ketchersid: I love that. That's what we do. Well, that's just so in line with a lot of things that we talk about with our clients too, is telling your story. Being able to put that into visuals and in the video, like on a website or whatever medium you're working in, is a true talent. How do you get a client to—I mean, sometimes people don't even know their story or what they want their story to be to the world.
[00:06:32] Kellen Ketchersid: How do you pull that out of them?
[00:06:33] Jerrod Shelton: Well, sometimes they are running with a certain story, and you know, it needs to go a different direction or could go a different direction. If they don't know their story at all, or they don't have a direction they want to go, then that's a place where probably before marketing happens and before we step in, in the game of content creation and whatnot, that is a building block before that.
[00:06:59] Jerrod Shelton: And so whether it's some marketing strategy, just business strategy that can be helped or pushed with some strategy meetings early on, great. However, I would say a lot of, a lot of times if those people don't have a direction at all, then they do need to talk to a business coach, a business strategist solely and work with them to get their messaging right and figure out where they need to go.
[00:07:25] Jerrod Shelton: I think sometimes we do help craft the story and point it in the right direction. And, and as you know, people have done this for a while, that's—we've really worked to get good at that. When someone though comes and needs more than just kind of a little direction shift, then I think there is another level that some people like Stag Business Coaching can help with for sure.
[00:07:50] Kellen Ketchersid: Cool. I love it. So come to Stag Business Coaching, get your story straight, and then go over to Creative, and let's make it all into some great content. That's very true.
Challenges of Starting a Business
[00:07:59] Albert Gillispie: Awesome. Let me pause there for a second, “story” feels very fluffy and, you know, ambiguous. And what you're describing the story is the brand message—describing the customer, what the customer's problem is, and how this product or service is positioned to help the customer solve their problem. Is that what you mean when you were describing the story?
[00:08:24] Jerrod Shelton: Yes. The story is a lot of that. And sometimes the story is just—and it falls in with that—it's the company's, it's the brand's "why." That's why they do what they do. And, you know, it probably falls into why we do it to solve these problems. And so that goes right in with what you're saying. So I do agree. It's both because it is: what problems are we solving? What value are we creating? And is that solely why we do it? Are there other reasons? Yeah.
[00:08:52] Albert Gillispie: All right. This mental image of Jerrod Shelton as an 18-year-old—it might not be accurate—but as I'm remembering there on the lawn at LCU, I feel like 18-year-old Jerrod, like, permanently had a camera in his hand everywhere he went that was recording and making content.
[00:09:12] Albert Gillispie: Even, like, as a kid, just an attached part of his body. Is that accurate? Am I remembering that right?
[00:09:18] Jerrod Shelton: Yes. Yes. Even if it was just my iPhone, my early years iPhone.
[00:09:23] Albert Gillispie: Oh, you were—you were like the first adopter to the iPhone that I knew.
[00:09:24] Jerrod Shelton: Yeah. I had to jailbreak that first iPhone—actually, it was the second iPhone—to get video on it.
[00:09:33] Jerrod Shelton: Jailbroke it and I could shoot video at 15 frames per second, which was huge for any phone back then. Yeah. But yeah, I loved video. I got into it at the end of high school and, you know, I watched what my dad did and his time spent with United Supermarkets and all the video commercials and, you know, incredibly high-end content they created there in the marketing department. And that's what inspired me. And that's when I saw what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I loved video, I could see that. Just, I don't know—every bit of it, I loved it. I knew I loved advertising and marketing from a young age, I knew that could be my thing.
[00:10:14] Jerrod Shelton: But what my dad did in 2D design and Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop—that wasn't 100 percent me. I still work on those applications every now and then. I just knew there was a different piece to it that I wanted to take and run with, and that ended up being video and websites, essentially digital marketing.
[00:10:38] Kellen Ketchersid: So as you started off in the early stages, what was one of the first hurdles that you ran into when you were getting going?
[00:10:45] Jerrod Shelton: Oh, good question. You know, okay—at the end of college, I was like Iverson, running around with a video camera, loved video. And my then advisor, Dr. Crockett at LCU, said, "I'm going to— you've got electives you need to fill. So let's sign you up for web design." I said, "Okay, Dr. Crockett, this is supposed to be an elective, like an easy class, just put me in something fun, like, I don't know, tennis or something." And she's like, "No, no, no—you need to do web design." I probably fought her on it a couple more times, and she said, "This is what you're doing. You need to do it."
[00:11:17] Jerrod Shelton: And I am so thankful that she did that for me and my career, honestly. I learned a lot in that class—just some simple code and things that really pushed me to be able to develop and design the sites we do today. And yeah, I wouldn’t have had a company website right off the bat when I graduated if it weren’t for that class. For my senior project, I was like, well, I’m going to make my senior project the website for Creative. And yeah, we kept that website for four or five years at least before we redesigned it.
[00:11:49] Jerrod Shelton: So that was a hurdle—getting past the web design piece of it that I didn’t want to do, but it has allowed me to do what we do today.
[00:11:58] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. Getting over that hurdle. What, what is, so. Some of this is self-discovery. What am I good at? What am I naturally good at and enjoy? What's a little bit out of my comfort zone? And maybe I didn't know that I, that I enjoyed. And so what would you say now? What is kind of your sweet spot in the business? What are you uniquely gifted to do?
Finding Your Business Sweet Spot
[00:12:28] Jerrod Shelton: I really still love design, web design, particularly, and I still love to have a camera in my hand or be it to a degree editing, honestly. I realized that I'm not the best editor anymore and I'm not always the best director. I do know I'm really good at that though. And giving direction on, okay, we've got this video, we're 80 percent done with it, or the client thinks it's 95 percent done. Here's, here's 20 percent more though that we can put in that we need to, get this over the line, to get overly into any type of hurdle into the next stage. So I really do enjoy that giving direction on kind of final, whether that's quality control, um, that's just creative vision.
[00:13:13] Kellen Ketchersid: I love the fact that you seem like you don't settle for just good enough. I mean, like I've seen your website and I've seen some that you guys have done. And it's these little details that other people don't do that. I can tell is that extra 20 percent you're talking about that it's like, you could have stopped 20 percent ago, but you, that's what sets you guys apart. And I just really impressed by that.
[00:13:40] Kellen Ketchersid: I'm also curious, like when you're trying to build a culture with that kind of mindset as a leader in your business, what do you, what do you say? How do you build that kind of culture of excellence to kind of go beyond just good enough and to be really on another level and that's always a battle.
[00:13:59] Jerrod Shelton: That's a good question because that's always a battle. You know, there's some things that you can't just beat a dead horse to death. You've got to get it done and know that that is a rock-solid solution and that's going to hit a home run for that project. And then there's some other things where we need to go the extra mile, even though the client thinks it's good, we think it's great. But we still need to push it. And so identifying that and knowing when something needs to be pushed further versus, like, again, just doing more work just to do more work—it's not helping.
[00:14:16] Jerrod Shelton: Yeah, so it really comes down to finding that line of value, finding what their customers are going to find valuable. Or if it's going viral on social and that's the most valuable thing, then how do we push it just past that so that we give it a better chance to have that type of effect?
[00:14:52] Jerrod Shelton: With the team we have and the communication we have in the office, we're really blessed to be at a point where, depending on the season that we're in—Eden and I run the company together, my wife—and again, depending on the season, one of us is going to be out or maybe both of us will be out quite often with four kids and all things going on. It's just not us eight to five every single week. We're in the... It's not that at all. So you gotta have a good team much running back and forth.
[00:15:13] Jerrod Shelton: And so yes, good communication between the team, and I could not do what we do without our team. And Eden has been phenomenal at delegating, managing, and working with our guys to where they know what to do. Each one has their own particular place on our team. They fit as a puzzle piece. Everyone's got a job. Everyone's working to do the best they can at that job. And so I'm just, I'm thankful for our COO, my wife.
[00:15:55] Albert Gillispie: I wanted to ask, what does the business look like today? You have you at the helm, who is kind of this creative visionary person who, you know, you need to be using that creativity at all times because it's the secret sauce to your business. What does the rest of your business look like right now? How many people are on staff, freelance, whatever? What does the business look like today?
Building and Managing a Team
[00:16:24] Jerrod Shelton: Well, the company's been through a little bit of seasons where we've grown, and we've kind of scaled back a little bit. Right now, we’re at eight full-time, and so we're in a little bit of a growth phase right now, and that feels good. That feels nice. Like I said, everyone's got a good place. We've got kind of even departments, which is nice. So, you know, it's not like all of our eggs are in one basket with all of us doing production and no one doing design and web. But yeah, we're very even.
[00:16:57] Albert Gillispie: What are the departments? I'm just trying to think from a typical, prototypical business org chart, like what does a marketing company’s departments look like?
[00:17:09] Jerrod Shelton: Yeah, well, essentially the way it's been for a lot of Creative's history is we've got people doing production, and whether that be photo or video. And then we've got people in the design and web design department. And so now we have those two groups really well defined. I’ve got a couple of people in each, three people in design and web, and then we have one, and y'all know Aaron, and so he's in Parrish, Aaron Parrish.
[00:17:42] Jerrod Shelton: That's right.
[00:17:42] Albert Gillispie: Okay.
[00:17:43] Jerrod Shelton: Yeah, The Parrish. And he is not just sales. He is account executive. He is account manager in a lot of ways. He helps out so much with sales and keeping everyone busy and on time, and he'll go out on production shoots. He'll do that. He'll go to California in another month or two, and they'll shoot a podcast out there and bring it back. So he does do production. He is involved in some web and design when he's working directly with the client, helping the design department do that. A lot of times he is just... he's amazing. He gets a lot of proposals signed and gets the rest of the team out on the job. So we help a lot of people out that way.
[00:18:14] Jerrod Shelton: The way it used to look, the way Creative used to look, is it was me in Aaron's position as owner and lead sales guy, and then also lead on the production shoot, lead on the website design. And it was a lot. I would work 60 or more hours a week. I mean, I think that's an understatement. And while at the time I loved it, it was not, it's not possible with a family, with kids and a wife. So scaling that back has been a tough process and a learning curve that I've had to go through. And some of it's been kind of the hard way because I'll keep trying to push and do it the old way. And whether it's Eden or just something else, something tells me I’ve got to stop trying to have my foot in every door. And it's been a good learning curve. It's been a good thing though.
[00:19:25] Jerrod Shelton: As far as me at the office, I don’t have to be there Monday through Saturday, eight hours or 10 hours a day, and everything still runs. Like I said, good team. It's great. We're blessed.
[00:19:28] Kellen Ketchersid: I heard a basketball coach a few years back. It was when Chris Beard was at Texas Tech and he had Justin Gray playing on the team. And he was like a player that wasn’t really like a specialist at anything, but he was just good at everything. You know, they called him the glue guy. I think of Aaron Parish as like a glue guy. And a lot of businesses, I feel like when they reach the level that you're at, where you've got that team, but you want it to be able to run without you just always having to manage everything. It's like having that glue guy is just so key. And I mean, I’m curious, how would you even... how did you find Aaron? Like, how do you find that glue guy?
The Importance of Having a ‘Glue Guy’
[00:20:06] Jerrod Shelton: Oh, you know, I’d been best friends with Aaron for so long. When, when that position came open, I just knew that needed to be someone... That to be the glue guy, that needed to be someone that I had known for a long time and could trust, and someone I highly respected.
[00:20:24] Kellen Ketchersid: What kind of traits, like what kind of characteristics would, I mean, if somebody is looking for their Aaron, what are you looking for in character traits? Character, right?
[00:20:34] Jerrod Shelton: You’re looking for good character. You’re looking for someone who you can trust. You’re looking for someone who is a hard worker, shoots it straight, is honest, and then just likes to have fun. And like, uh, genuinely, you know, is a good person. And, and Aaron fits those boxes and so many more. We’d been best friends since high school. And through all life’s changes—Aaron got married, had kids, and same with me. And so we were acquaintances. We weren’t like great, great friends like we were in high school and college. And so to be able to connect again and come back in this chapter of our lives, be on the same page, is really, really something special. And that’s pretty cool.
[00:21:12] Kellen Ketchersid: That is awesome. My takeaway is, if you want to have that in your business, you know, find some, like you said, find someone you can trust. And probably somebody who thinks in terms of systems and, you know, building out processes or depending on what scale you’re operating.
[00:21:31] Albert Gillispie: But I think, especially in like the small and medium-sized business space, finding that person who's kind of your, your COO, you know, kind of jack-of-all-trades, managing, holding your teams together. In the small and medium-sized business space, it's a long process. It's not someone that you're going to hire, some MBA straight out of college, that they're going to come in and take over something. But it, but it's this like long dating period where you're like, you, there are no unknowns. You know what their experience is. They've, they've kind of had, you know, a lot of times promoting from within, you know?
[00:22:09] Albert Gillispie: It's building a good path, or, yeah, or someone that you know, and you know their character, and there is that trust. And so that's, that's the dream for most business owners—is how can I, how can I build this team so that I can do what I'm uniquely gifted to do and grow this thing that I'm passionate about? How can I put someone in place who can run that for me? And so we're like, what you've done is incredible. And, and what so many business owners are trying to do. And you're not going to hear this on social media, but it's really hard.
[00:22:49] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. And it takes a lot of care, and a lot of intentionality, and a lot of pursuit of that person. And that's, as a business owner, and someone trying to grow your business, like, finding talent. Like, it's like, I mean, maybe not, not now with the transfer portal, but it's like a good college football coach. Like they're always recruiting. Like, yeah, they're a really good coach, but one of the main things, main parts of their job is recruiting.
[00:23:12] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. And as a business owner, like, you know, you got to do that.
[00:23:21] Kellen Ketchersid: And so much of that is so that you can do what you're best at and use your superpower, as Albert sometimes likes to say. So, I'm curious, what is it that's driving you all the time?
[00:23:33] Kellen Ketchersid: What's your why behind running Creative and what you guys do? That's great.
[00:23:38] Jerrod Shelton: I think it's multiple things because, okay, at Creative, it's still a large part of me. I'm at Creative, right? And I do what I do to support my family. My number one, top priority is my family, always. And so that's what drives me. The other piece of what drives me, kind of more professionally, is it kind of goes back to that first instinct of just creating the coolest stuff—creating the best video, the most inspiring website. Those things are what drive me at the office. And I have so much fun hearing either the client or the client's customers say like, "Man, I was on that website" or "I saw that video at that banquet or that gala." Uh, wait, is it gala or gala? I say either every time.
[00:24:23] Jerrod Shelton: We're in West Texas.
[00:24:30] Kellen Ketchersid: I think you could say gala.
[00:24:32] Jerrod Shelton: I think I say either one.
[00:24:33] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah.
[00:24:34] Jerrod Shelton: That's terrible of me.
[00:24:35] Albert Gillispie: You can cut that part. Just kidding. Nope. It's staying. So, family man. Yeah, you're a dad. How many kids do y'all have?
[00:24:43] Jerrod Shelton: Wait, dad, what are you talking about?
[00:24:44] Albert Gillispie: You're a dad. You are a dad. Yeah, not your dad. Yeah, not your, not your dad. Also, also the marketing creative. Your, your family—how many kids do y'all have?
[00:24:52] Jerrod Shelton: Yeah, four girls.
[00:24:53] Albert Gillispie: Four girls?
[00:24:54] Jerrod Shelton: Yeah, girl dad.
[00:24:55] Albert Gillispie: Yes. So y'all watching like all the Disney princess stuff or what? What are they like?
[00:25:05] Jerrod Shelton: It's a little bit of everything. I'll tell you a soundtrack that y'all should listen to. If you have kids, maybe even more, but anyone should listen to Zombies 2 soundtrack. That is an incredible—Zombies 2. It's a Disney movie. And, uh, when Carson was six or seven, she was obsessed with that movie. And we— that movie is on repeat at our house. And like, I'm telling you, all of the music is fire. Okay. It's hilarious. Like, it's like hilarious, like get pumped up kind of stuff.
[00:25:27] Jerrod Shelton: All of our kids are the same age, so they're probably going to love it. Yeah, Zombies 2.
[00:25:45] Jerrod Shelton: I haven't watched that one.
[00:25:46] Jerrod Shelton: I haven't heard of that one. No. Zombies 1 is okay. It's pretty good. But wow, the second album—wow.
[00:25:52] Jerrod Shelton: Yeah. We— okay. From my earlier career, I DJ'd some. And so I put a DJ light that shoots lasers and other color beams and a strobe, and it's sound activated. And when that movie would play, we'd turn the lights off, and that thing would just throw color, like all stuff, like all around the room. On the big news, it's so cool.
[00:26:09] Jerrod Shelton:
[00:26:13] Albert Gillispie: He's a creative.
[00:26:14] Kellen Ketchersid: I know. And that kind of leads me into what I wanted to ask next, which is what's a, like, funny thing that's happened or like one of the more interesting things that's happened in your creative career here?
[00:26:24] Jerrod Shelton: I don't know why. Okay. Funny. I don't know what. Funny comes to mind. As far as interesting, when you talk about growth and where we are today, how we got to where we are.
[00:26:33] Albert Gillispie: Yeah.
[00:26:34] Jerrod Shelton: Okay. Back in the day, everything was more on a handshake basis, but I might send an email. "Hey, what do you think about this price for this work?" And they'd send me an email, sign off on it. Sometimes I didn't even get that. Well, I learned quickly that wasn't the best way to do it. And so, yeah, we did lose, like, we did this $12,000 production piece for someone, thought they were good for it, thought it was a great idea, and so went all in.
[00:27:00] Jerrod Shelton: We ended up paying a big chunk of that out to an animation studio, and that was—man, six, seven years ago, I feel like. And yeah, I never saw anything from that. So it's hard to—like, we did all that work, and then we also paid a bunch of money to get it done. Early, early years in business, you know, it worked out 97 percent of the time, but that 3 percent of the time it didn't.
[00:27:23] Jerrod Shelton: With moving towards, "Okay, we're going to set up better systems, we're going to have proposals that get signed before we start the work," that was hard for me to overcome because I want to just—oh, someone needs some work done? I'll send them back. "Okay, that'll be this much," and they're like, "Yeah, cool." And on the smaller projects, I mean, there's a little leeway on some things.
[00:27:41] Jerrod Shelton: Yeah.
[00:27:42] Kellen Ketchersid: You can get away with that to a point.
[00:27:43] Jerrod Shelton: Yeah. Going this direction though has helped our team build and develop to where Aaron has the tools he needs to tell and direct the people that work with him and for him. And without it, we couldn't be what we are today. I—so, wow, what was your question?
[00:28:02] Kellen Ketchersid: I totally missed it.
[00:28:03] Kellen Ketchersid: I was just asking something interesting or, you know, one of the more memorable moments from creative.
[00:28:08] Jerrod Shelton: That's a memorable moment.
[00:28:09] Kellen Ketchersid: That is a memorable moment.
[00:28:10] Jerrod Shelton: Okay.
[00:28:12] Albert Gillispie: That is—it is an important lesson because we hear this in our coaching business. Like, this is pushback that we get from a lot of solopreneurs and, you know, early-stage companies is—they're just hard workers. Like, "All right, get out of the way. I got work to do. Like, I'm going to get this done. We're going to make some money." Right? And I don't need all this MBA systems, you know, bull corn. "I got, I got—I don't need this. I'm not going to waste my time doing that." But you hit the nail on the head with that. If you want to create a business that can run without you and thrive without you, you have to implement some of these systems. Like, there are guardrails in place that your entire team knows: before we start, we need X, Y, and Z, and it needs to be signed and in our folder before we start this because that's going to guarantee payment.
[00:29:11] Albert Gillispie: And so all of that has given Aaron the tools to play point guard. Yes, because he knows the system, he knows the game that everyone's playing, he knows the playbook. And without that, you can't step out of being the jack of all trades and do what needs to be done to grow your business. And so, like, I want to pause there because that's such an important lesson for business owners.
[00:29:43] Albert Gillispie: Still learning that—you never stop. It's an ebb and flow of what's too legalistic and what's too lax. As a business owner, you're always fine-tuning that. And that's important work, as frustrating as it is. In the moment, it feels like a waste of time. It really—it gives you the playbook and the tools so that your team can do a good job.
[00:30:08] Albert Gillispie: And so, I mean, I'm sorry you lost $12,000, but the lesson you learned from that is invaluable.
Integrating Faith and Values into Business
[00:30:15] Kellen Ketchersid: And a lot of business owners don't learn that lesson. They'll lose that money and just keep doing the same thing. So kudos to you because it is hard to set up processes and to think, "You know, the way I've just been kind of shooting from the hip with these quotes or whatever, maybe I can't keep doing that if I want to grow this thing."
[00:30:35] Kellen Ketchersid: So many business owners we talk to, they just want to be able to take a vacation, or at least make it to their kid's game, but they aren't able to because all they do is work in the business. So yeah, being able to lift yourself out of that by being a lifelong learner and putting in systems, and bringing in the glue guys like the Aarons.
[00:30:56] Albert Gillispie: I like the glue guy. I'm going to hang on to that one.
[00:31:00] Kellen Ketchersid: All right. I stole it from Chris Beard. I don’t know how people feel about that anymore. This is the second time I’ve said that name. Maybe we should change it up a little bit. I’d like to ask you, like, if somebody’s listening to this and they want to follow this lead you’ve got, what strategy do you think has been the key? Like, what major change or mindset shift have you had as a business owner that really took you to another level?
[00:31:33] Jerrod Shelton: It’s partly the systems and having to get over that and kind of, I don’t know, grieving the way it used to be. Cause it is kind of fun, and you enjoy being the gear and the one that’s helping make everything work. As a solopreneur starting out, that’s kind of fun, and you feel like, "I’m really needed." And you think, "If I pull myself out, it won’t be as good."
[00:32:00] Jerrod Shelton: Figuring out how to make it just as good while being able to pull yourself out—that’s the key thing. The next piece of what has changed for us, and I would say really was a big part of when we hired our glue guy, was a shift where we focused on, okay, everyone’s talking about culture these days, right? But for us, it was our faith. It wasn’t just about having a cool company culture where we like to have fun and we’re family-oriented. It went past that, into talking about life after hours and bringing faith into the office.
[00:32:48] Jerrod Shelton: That’s been a big shift for us. It’s been very rewarding. It’s helped us retain key people, probably helped us get some key people, and it gives us a stronger "why."
[00:33:02] Albert Gillispie: Yeah.
[00:33:03] Jerrod Shelton: And I love that aspect about it. That’s something I didn’t have set up before, but with Eden’s help and the help of some other people, we really have it now. I kind of wouldn’t have ever thought we’d be here—a marketing agency, you know, in that field. It’s not usually filled with people all on the same mission. And that’s been just—it almost makes me emotional thinking about it—that we’re there.
[00:33:33] Albert Gillispie: Model that for me. Model that for our listeners. Practically, what does that look like?
[00:33:38] Jerrod Shelton: Good question. It’s more than just closing out a Monday morning meeting with a prayer. It’s more than someone on the team struggling with something, whether it’s personal, a family sickness or illness, or someone coming to us—meaning me or Eden—and the way we respond to that, the way we deal with it and work with them. It’s just so much different when we’re together, on the same page, and our number one priority is, "How do we get everybody to heaven?" How do we treat each other the way we want to be treated?
[00:34:09] Jerrod Shelton: Making faith such a priority in the business has shaped how we make small decisions, all the way to the big decisions.
[00:34:32] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah, like you said, there’s no stronger "why" than that. It’s awesome to give glory to God and then just see all the cool things that happen in your business because you’ve got that servant leadership mindset, which we know has roots in our faith.
[00:34:48] Kellen Ketchersid: That’s right. I love it.
[00:34:49] Albert Gillispie: Batter up, my turn.
[00:34:50] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah.
[00:34:51] Albert Gillispie: Well, I want to pick apart another thing you mentioned. You have this very creative product and service that you’re giving clients, and you talked about stepping away and allowing your people to run with it. Maybe it's not as good as it would be if you were doing it, but that’s a struggle for a lot of business owners. How do you create a team, especially with this unique service or trade? How do you train your people to be able to come in and deliver as good of a product, if not better, than you could by yourself?
[00:35:33] Jerrod Shelton: Well, it's absolutely a balancing act because I have to realize... sometimes it's easy to have too big of an ego, too much pride in what I think or in my creative abilities. And I have to realize that their work might actually be better than mine. That simple fact should be obvious to everyone. I’m not always right. My creative vision isn't always the best.
[00:36:00] Jerrod Shelton: However, as the business owner or the guy who's been doing this for 10 years, it’s hard to let go. It’s easy to think that I'm pulling my team up, and then I wake up one day and realize I might have been pulling them down. We all have to check ourselves and ask, “Am I seeing this the right way? Am I being prideful or stuck in my ways?” It’s a balancing act. It’s not always one or the other, and we just have to be gracious with everyone we work with. Sometimes there are boundaries and things that need to be done a certain way, but a lot of times we need to take a step back, look at the whole process, and take a few deep breaths before thinking, “I'm the reason why this company is so successful.”
[00:36:54] Jerrod Shelton: No, you've got a bunch of other people who are just as talented. I’m watching the team right now. Like I said, I’m not the best editor, I’m not the best at design, I’m not the best at Photoshop or Illustrator—none of those things anymore.
[00:37:09] Jerrod Shelton: I used to think of myself that way back in the day, to a degree. I've always loved my guys. And, man, I look back at some of the work, and there’s one video that really sticks with me—in a good, fun way. So, Nathan Richardson, you all may know him, he shot and edited this video for an agricultural company, and it was just phenomenal. It was incredible. The editing, he had grown to that point where he was like, “Okay, he’s got this.”
[00:37:38] Jerrod Shelton: When I saw that video after he edited it, we put it out, and within a month or two, that company got bought out by John Deere. Oh dear. Exactly. I still love that video. I still love what Nathan did. I've always respected what other people do at Creative, and I’m just blown away by their talent. I have a fun time thinking about John Deere, that company, and how amazing that time was. We did a few more projects with them after that—good people. And yeah, sometimes you just have to realize that your guys are going to grow, and they’ll become like Nathan, whether fast or slow.
[00:38:24] Albert Gillispie: Yeah.
[00:38:26] Jerrod Shelton: You gotta let them, you gotta let them fly.
[00:38:28] Albert Gillispie: That it's not easy. Like, what you're describing is constant self-work—examining myself, questioning what my ego is saying, what's pride, and what’s real. None of this is easy. None of this is scalable. Working on yourself isn't some scalable thing where there's one little trick, and if everyone knew the secret, it would be easy. Everything you're describing is hard self-work, self-examining. And that's just business. Business is hard. You have to do the things that aren't scalable, and eventually, you've built a team that is scalable. That's amazing. So you've built this team, you have your glue guy. What’s next? What are you excited about for the future of Creative?
Exciting Future Plans for the Business
[00:39:29] Jerrod Shelton: I'm always excited about the next project, the next video. I’m excited about the ongoing video projects and other things we've got going on. I’m really excited about this one sector we’re working with, particularly clinics. There's something we’ve really cracked the code on, and I'm excited to go after that niche and see how far we can take it. As far as videos and building websites—that's scalable to a degree. But I’m really excited to see what we can do in this other market. We might call it something else to a degree—I’m not sure how much we’ll branch it off—but somewhat. And that's what gets me excited, the new thing. That’s totally the entrepreneurial part of it: how do we make this into something way bigger? That vision out in front of me—that's what gets me excited.
[00:40:26] Kellen Ketchersid: Well, I’m getting the idea that this has to stay behind the curtain a little bit, whatever you're referring to. But can you give us an idea of your time horizon? When do you think you’ll be doing some work along these lines, whatever you're referring to?
[00:40:47] Jerrod Shelton: Well, as far as work behind these lines, we’ve got one that we’re doing really well with, and it’s a matter of taking that and seeing how well it adapts to a couple of other companies in similar industries. I think it’ll take at least six months to get those first two, and kind of watch those happen. Then, once that’s settled, I could see that’s when we’ll see the big growth. People talk about scale, 10X, and that’s where if we’re going to see those big results, that’s it.
[00:41:26] Kellen Ketchersid: Well, remember us next year after this 10X growth, and we’ll have you back on the podcast! I think it might be time for our...
[00:41:34] Albert Gillispie: Fire round.
[00:41:34] Kellen Ketchersid: I think it’s time for the fire round.
[00:41:36] Albert Gillispie: Already that time?
[00:41:36] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah. All right, we’ll start out with an easy one. What’s your favorite movie?
[00:41:41] Jerrod Shelton: I can explain later, but The Grinch with Jim Carrey.
[00:41:45] Kellen Ketchersid: What?
[00:41:46] Jerrod Shelton: I’ll have to explain later—you’ll have to give me more time!
[00:41:49] Kellen Ketchersid: Well...
[00:41:49] Albert Gillispie: You know, he’s a creative type, so... yeah. Okay, what’s your favorite book?
[00:41:54] Jerrod Shelton: I think I enjoyed reading the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson.
[00:41:58] Albert Gillispie: Oh yeah, that’s a long one.
[00:42:01] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah, my mother is that reader. I'll have to check it out. She's a big reader. All right. What’s one piece of advice that's common in your industry that you think is bad advice?
[00:42:12] Jerrod Shelton: To always shoot in 24 frames, no matter what. Just because if you’re only shooting cinematic, that’s all you're doing. You're not gonna put it on TV or adapt it for something else. But that’s just not the case with a marketing agency—you’re doing content for all kinds of frame rates. Shooting in something greater than 24 frames lets you slow things down and make B-roll look interesting—just creamy, amazing. That’s what we want.
Now, if you're shooting a strict interview and you just got someone on camera, you can go at 24 frames. But you also miss out on some slow-motion stuff that could happen at the beginning or end when someone’s sitting down, standing up, or saying something.
And I know there’s probably some cinematographers listening to this, thinking, Oh my goodness, you didn’t say 60 frames for an interview. Yeah, probably 30 is fine, but I’m just not a 24-frames guy to the heart. I’m a 60-frames guy, a hundred percent, because we want slow-motion B-roll to look awesome.
[00:43:20] Kellen Ketchersid: Nice and creamy, like you said.
[00:43:22] Jerrod Shelton: Yes. You know what, if you can shoot 120 or 240, that's even better on specific slow shots. But yeah, I’m not a 24-frames-only kind of guy.
[00:43:34] Kellen Ketchersid: I’m suddenly very insecure about whatever our frame rate is for these videos. I don’t even want to look.
[00:43:38] Albert Gillispie: I'm scared to look at it. Okay. And what words of wisdom or quote do you try to live by or has impacted your life?
[00:43:47] Jerrod Shelton: Yeah, yeah. I'm going to go with two. I'm going to go back to Dr. Crockett in college. So I took a...
[00:43:53] Albert Gillispie: Shout out to Kathy Crockett.
[00:43:53] Jerrod Shelton: Shout out big time. So, in one of... I took a couple or multiple classes with her. And one of the themes was "sharpen your sword." Real simple, real easy. We touched on that a lot. And in the early days of business, I thought about that a lot. And so sharpening my sword, not always just editing a video or "how can I get better at editing that video?" or "how can I get better at building a website?" through continuing education.
And so that was... I remember that it would just come back into my mind over and over and over for years, and I'd always think back to her class. Then the other thing—and this also came from my LCU days too—I did a lot of things with John King, video and some photo stuff. And John always... it's a quote everyone knows: "Keep it simple, stupid." KISS.
[00:44:46] Jerrod Shelton: And yeah, when you can, keep it simple. And so those are the two things. And I'm sure you've heard: "Treat everyone the way you'd like to be treated." So there's three for you.
[00:44:55] Jerrod Shelton: There you go. Love it. My dad taught me that one.
[00:44:55] Albert Gillispie: There you go. All right. Well, thank you for being a guest on our podcast. That was, that was fun.
[00:45:05] Albert Gillispie: Yes. And you have great stories, but thank you for being on.
[00:45:05] Jerrod Shelton: Thank y'all very much. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
[00:45:05] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. All right. Thank you guys for listening to that podcast. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know we did. And if you want more where that came from, if you want to continue to learn from business owners, how they grew their business, how they streamlined them and how they increased their profits, go ahead and click the subscribe button.
[00:45:28] Albert Gillispie: And if you are a business owner who feels stuck in your business, that you can't work on it, you can't grow your business, if you feel stuck, go to our website www.stagcoaching.com and in the top right-hand corner, there's "take our free business assessment." In just a few minutes, you can answer some questions and get a free diagnosis on what is wrong with your business, where you're weak, where you're strong, and some of the next steps to improve that.
[00:46:00] Albert Gillispie: So it's a free business assessment. Go to our website and take it. Thank you guys so much for listening, and we'll see you on the next one.
