We recently connected with Vivienne Wagner and have shared our conversation below.
Vivienne, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Is your team able to work remotely? If so, how have you made it work? What, if any, have been the pitfalls? What have been the non-obvious benefits?
When I first started Houndstooth Media Group, the “Group” was me sitting at my dining room table by myself. I was an accidental business owner and had no plans for a physical office because everything I was providing for my clients was digital.
As the business grew and I brought on people to help, I loved the fact that we all got to work from home. (Living in Southern California, anything that kept me off of the freeways was a good thing!) However, even though we technically were a group now it did feel a little, well, less than legitimate as a company.
Of course this was several years pre-Covid so there hadn’t yet been the big shift to virtual that we’ve seen as of late, so I was definitely in my head a little bit. Perhaps thinking that a lack of a physical office made us look less respectable. It occasionally would feel like we weren’t actually a “grown up” company.
As the years went by, the company really did benefit from being completely virtual. We did not have ridiculous amounts of overhead that is often associated with physical offices, obviously, but I found that we were both more productive and more profitable as a result. My team loved being able to set their own work hours and have flexibility as to where and how they worked. I think we have far less employee turnover than a lot of other companies in our industry.
I suspect much of that is the remote work environment that allows for the flexibility and work-life balance that people are always looking to find, but at Houndstooth we really lean into the idea of building your own economy and doing work that we love. It’s been said that if you want to make a billion dollars, you should help a million people. What we do matters to our clients, so approaching our work by focusing on both the experience we want clients to have, as well as the goals we are trying to achieve allows us to stick to the vision to help our business owner clients reach their clients.
That’s the mindset part. Of course we have clear expectations, deadlines, and systems and processes. We focus very much on communication as well. If that isn’t working, you’re sunk. In addition to those systems and tools, it’s vital to be crystal clear on our company’s core values. The pivots made during the pandemic seem to have wiped away any stigma—real or imagined—of having a virtual company. It works so well for us I couldn’t imagine it any other way.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I often joke that I am an “accidental business owner.” I had been a stay at home mom who started what turned out to be a fairly successful blog back in 2009 or so. As a blogger, it was necessary to learn about things like SEO, organic search traffic, social media, content creation, etc. That season of my life was like going to digital marketing college, I just didn’t know it at the time.
Back in 2013 a friend of mine who is a luxury real estate agent in Los Angeles wanted help writing blog posts for her brokerage. I was happy to help, but in so doing, I noticed that the brokerage was really struggling with their digital marketing. I told them they were “doing it wrong…” (So cheeky, of me, right?!) I told them what they were doing the wrong way and what was the proper way to leverage digital marketing, and to my absolute shock, they hired me to revamp their marketing department.
That is how my business got rolling. For the first six months of my new business it was me at my dining room table 14 to 15 hours a day doing all of the work myself. I knew my stuff, but was definitely not a businessperson.
The more work I did for the brokerage, the more I had individual agents reaching out for help. As the work expanded, so did our client list. I was fortunate to have awesome team members join the team as we needed them.
10 years later, we have a full-service, digital marketing agency. We build WordPress websites, do branding and messaging, social media, account management, SEO, and content, strategy, and even do business and revenue stream development. We still work with luxury real estate agents, but have expanded our clientele to include multiple industries and we serve business owners of all kinds. It’s fun and rewarding work and I’m grateful for my “accidental” business.
Any advice for managing a team?
I think the thought and care you put into the customer journey needs to be applied to a team member’s journey as well. A company’s most important asset is its people. Without good people you won’t have a healthy culture, and without a healthy culture, the end customer can suffer.
As a virtual company it has been challenging to cultivate a company culture. It’s not like we can have those impromptu visits in the breakroom or have a group softball team, you know? So it starts by being really clear on our core values, and then hiring good people who are in alignment with who we are and what we are doing. We interview candidates using core value related questions, definitely focusing on fit first and skill set second. I can teach people a skill or to follow a process… but if their mama didn’t teach them to be kind or have integrity I am certainly not going to be able to do it.
When a new person joins our team, in addition to usual onboarding paperwork, we have a fun “getting to know you” survey that we ask them to fill out. It includes questions about their favorite color, favorite snack, hobbies, etc. but also questions asking things like who are the 3 people they would have on their zombie apocalypse team and why…? It allows us to personalize gifts and get a better understanding of their personality. We are trying to make work fun while we show appreciation.
We also never start a meeting without at least a few minutes of small talk or fun conversation. It’s important to enjoy the people you work with, and you can’t do that if you don’t know them.
As far as managing a team, it’s important to have the right people in the right roles. I don’t want bosses and supervisors, I want leaders who inspire their departments. People don’t leave companies, they leave leadership, so it’s a real priority for me.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
I prefer to think of myself as a relationship builder as opposed to a sales person. I love talking with business owners and being a resource for them. Now keeping in mind that there is a big difference between helping answer a few questions for someone, and giving everything away for free, when I am able to help someone in a small way, they remember it and remember us. Many of our clients are from a longer sales cycle because we took the time to help them first and sell to them second. When they did become a client, they were more sure of our expertise and our ethics, and as a result I think they stay with us longer.
Joey Coleman, Brad Martineau, and Kat Cole have been thought leaders that really inspired my philosophy. Allison Maslan and Gino Wickman have been instrumental in changing the way I build my business and team. In fact, I’ve been mentored by Allison Maslan for the last 7 years in Pinnacle Global Network and that was an absolute game changer for us as a company.
It’s vital that a business owner keeps learning and gets support…. even more so as you grow and scale.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://houndstoothmediagroup.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/houndstoothmg/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/houndstoothmediagroup/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vivienne-wagner/
Image Credits
Stephanie Simpson; Simpson Creative