Chapter 1: What are the core values that drive employee retention?
There's a ton of videos about how to start a business, and that was the video I shot Sunday. But today I'm getting comments, dozens and dozens of comments about how do you actually run it or operate it over time? So today I thought I would shoot a video answering some of those questions. So I'm going to show you exactly what what Raji was talking about.
There's lots of videos on starting a business, but not enough videos on managing and growing it. For example, the agency model only works if you're able to hire, train, motivate, and retain high-quality employees. True. How do you exactly motivate them? How do you retain them once they're at a senior position, could start their own agency, or join the competition?
What systems do you need to put in place to make sure you're able to identify a top performer and promote them? How do you build a company culture that makes the company last for 1,000 years? That's one of my tropes that I use Because I really, really want my company to outlive me. And it's like super important to me.
Like the worst thing, I would feel like a failure in business if my company didn't outlive me. Because it would mean that my system wasn't better than me as an operator. At what point do you start giving out equity to senior positions? All right. So this is tricky because there's a lot of ways to run a business, right? But there's only a few ways to start a business.
And this is why I think there's so much content around starting a business. Because you start cold calling, you sell before you build it, and you're off to the races. Almost all billionaires who are self-made sold an idea like Virgin Air, for example, didn't own anything, just started calling people and saying, hey, would you value having your own private plane?
And then he went and networked and cold called like crazy and then got the planes and then basically subleased them out and everybody wins. Like that's a very common start a business trope, but or motif, if you will, theme, if you will.
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Chapter 2: How do you motivate and retain high-performing employees?
And The question of like, when do you give equity to a senior employee? Well, at my Amazon guy, I haven't given equity to anybody and you don't have to, but you hear a lot of people talk about it, especially in SAS. And this is usually a retention methodology. The problem with it is like, because I'm such a transparent business owner, I can't do that to my employees.
And some of you don't follow this quite yet. I'm going to break it down. But basically, equity is fake. And what happens in these SaaS companies is that they give out a half percentage point of equity when you join, but then they do two, three, four rounds of funding, and all of a sudden your half point is now 1 10th of a point or 1 20th of a point.
And what you thought was gonna be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars ends up being 20K, 30K. And you started with a startup salary, making 50% less than what you could have at corporate world, and you actually come out behind. And so those people who have been burned by equity divisions, and by the way, I'm one of them, know better.
And so if I were to start giving out equity, I don't think it would attract new talent that's smart, first of all. It would retain talent that doesn't know better.
And I have a competitor agency that's recruited over 30 employees from my Amazon guy and is giving those guys equity, like almost all of them, which makes me scratch my head, actually, because if you're giving everybody equity, then what's it actually worth? Nothing.
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Chapter 3: What systems can identify and promote top performers?
It's worth nothing. And this particular competitor, which I'm not going to name, but it won't be hard for you to figure it out if you see the LinkedIn organizations of how many employees are from my Amazon guy. By the way, there's about three or four agencies that have 30 plus MAG employees. And if you go look at their model, they are using private equity and are operating at a loss
three years into their business. So what the hell are they going to even sell with zero EBITDA giving out equity? I do not know. And neither do those employees. And sometime in the next one to two years, they will realize that when either one of two things happens.
Either the company goes under because they are not profitable and they're not going to get another funding round because why the hell would anybody fund a non-profitable agency? I was profitable day one. I was doing 70% net margins my first year. And... they're probably going to go under.
Or two, they do sell, but because the equity has been so, I don't know what the right term is for it, but basically there's so many diluted, is the right term, diluted. Their equity is so diluted, it's worth nothing. And it's just, it's really scummy. And so I can't do that to my people. So that's why I'm anti-give out equity. I would rather just give people their base salaries.
Like inflation is crazy. The world is crazy. Let me pay for your bread and milk today. I don't need you to feel enslaved to the idea that you're gonna get a payout someday. I'm gonna give you the payout as best I can today. Now, I'm not gonna claim I'm the highest paying agency and that's not the point.
But I am going to claim I give sizable, livable wages, and I give people the tools they need to succeed. Now, I don't have great retention of employees as compared to other industries. For example, you could talk about any industry, let's say SaaS, they're going to have a higher retention rate than
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Chapter 4: Why is equity not always the best retention strategy?
because they they have engineers they pay good salaries they have a culture they have the ability maybe even to have some equity plays that they use but basically you could name any other industry and they're going to have a higher retention rate as a baseline versus retaining agency talent and and there's a lot of reasons for that but the biggest one is generally burnout and
People in agencies burn out all the time. Why? Because the agency model is built around having you service multiple accounts to give maximum value at all times. Whereas in a corporate world, you only give max value one out of 10 days. And some people might challenge that. But if you really think about it, like most of the work you do in corporate world is bullshit work, right?
You're water coolie talk. You're doing political bullshit. You're going around talking about nothing with everybody, joining every other Friday frat party after work. And very little work is actually done. And in most companies, there's usually three to five employees that actually are valuable and hold it all together. And these are... I don't know what the right term is, but keystone.
They're keystone employees. And if they leave, you're totally boned. But by and large, the average employee leaving the corporate world has almost no impact on the business. Now... In the agency world, you're working nonstop. There is no breathing. It is a marathon at all times. And one of the questions that Raji was asking about in his comment on my last video was about retaining employees.
And the key here is to help the employees self-regulate and prevent sprinting. Because in an agency, you must continue running the marathon. There's opportunities to take a break and get a drink, but you have to get back into the race quickly because you can't sprint. You can't sprint to catch up. You'll over-inundate and break the system.
So it's very important to have the ability to self-regulate a marathon run. But despite all of that, despite offering some of the best training in the world for Amazon agencies, despite having... I believe it's good culture. It's polarizing. So you'll hear polarizing viewpoints from exiting employees on good or bad.
That's normal, by the way, and probably a good thing, in my opinion, because I'm going to polarize and attract a subset of culture that... I like, and I'm going to push away the culture that I don't like. And there's trade-offs to doing this, of course. But if you don't do this, then you don't have a culture, right?
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Chapter 5: How does burnout differ between agency and corporate environments?
Like culture must be polarizing to be effective and culture is top down. So if I don't live the culture, then nobody else is going to. So once you structurally agree with that, then it's a question of how do you retain employees as long as possible? And quite frankly, the average retention rate in the agency world is about one and a half to two years.
Gary Vee, one of the most famous agency owners, is well on records saying that when he first started his agency, every expert ever told him that. And he looked them in the eyes and said, well, at my agency, it's going to be five to 10 years. And he talks about culture relentlessly.
He talks about how he takes care of his employees and that a lot of his job is, quite frankly, like Wendy Rhodes type counseling. And for those that don't know who Wendy Rhodes is, she's from Billions Therapist. So he's doing therapy work. And I'm pretty good at that, to be honest. I'm very good at holding people accountable.
I started a health culture at my Amazon guide, and we've helped dozens and dozens of people lose hundreds, if not thousands of pounds overall. Five people have cured their diabetes. Three people have helped with their thyroid issues. I've gotten a couple of people to start testosterone replacement therapy, just on and on and on.
And this is a culture where I'm taking care of my people and I don't have to give people money to do that. It's part of like a maintenance package, if you will. It's health therapy in a sense. Now, granted, I do run some health campaigns. I did have like a month where I paid for dental work.
I had a month where I paid for a blood drive where we had blood tests run just to help people get data and do things they wouldn't normally do to get them started. And people were getting their teeth extracted. People were getting their first blood draws in five plus years. It was just really, really good and effective.
So I am putting money where my mouth is, but at the same time, it's more important that I just show how I'm working on my health. I lost 65 pounds. I started TRT. Here are the things that I'm doing. Here's pictures and videos of me working out and you can do it too. And then I encourage my other leaders to do it.
And my other leaders have improved their lives, stopped smoking, gone hiking, and then they show their videos and pictures, and that culture catches on. So to answer the retention question, you have to take care of your employees, treat them so well they don't want to leave, and you have to invest in them. Now, that sounds like common sense.
It almost sounds like a platitude, but the effectiveness of this cannot be understated. Like, I can pay people a livable wage, but they might leave at any point in time to get a 10 or a 15% raise. And if I convince them that their health will be better without me saying this, but by showing this, that their health will be better at my company, they might not take that 10 or 15% raise.
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Chapter 6: What role does company culture play in employee retention?
I was able to meet up with Jan Powell a little bit more than some of the other leaders like Ken's over in Canada, Francisco's in Mexico. Uh, we did have a Mexico summit, Francisco and I've been able to meet up, you know, in Mexico and, and, and over, over other countries.
And he's visiting the U S and, you know, there is that, but, uh, I haven't seen Ken since I met up with him in Japan, 16 months ago.
Um,
That's not ideal, right? So prior to that, I was doing really good every 90 days. Today, I'm falling short on that. But I am sending Noah Wickham to conferences. He is, you know, trying to fill in my gaps there as VP of sales and marketing and This is the seat that I was holding. I've given him the torch. I still meet with him every day. I give him lots of feedback.
I tell him why I would do something the way I do it. I trained him how to do the content. I trained him how every piece of content could be as simple as what did the customer ask, read their question, answer it, and give value. Like anybody trying to create content in 2026, if you just answer questions, that's like, look at this video.
I just made, I'm 42 minutes into this video, riffing on one comment off of a YouTube video that I previously shot, right? Now, I'm obviously extraordinarily passionate about this topic. And I can't 42 minute riff on every topic. But the point is, is that if you invest in your top performers and you'll know who they are without a system, in my opinion, you'll just know it's in your gut.
You can just see it. Why? Because they're hungry AF and they come to you and ask for more and they do really good work. And the clients like them or your customers like them, your employees like them. And maybe they're rough around the edges and you got to polish them, but they're a diamond in the rough at the very least.
And I don't even know what the next level up above from that is, but I'm really good at finding diamonds in the rough. Like that's just my stick. and I call it Moneyball, by the way, just like the Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill movie, where they take people who are very talented, but need to be played on the roster a very particular way.
Some might even say peculiar, where you take a guy who used to be a pitcher or a catcher, and you put them on first base because they can't throw the ball anymore. but they can catch and they get on base. That is my favorite thing about running a company, is taking people, and by the way, there are so many Moneyball concepts out there in the world. Ender's Game, another one.
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