IAM1166- Digital Strategist Builds and Redesigns Websites on WordPress

Brett Snyder is the founder and CEO of Knucklepuck. Brett built Knucklepuck with a holistic digital philosophy, assembling a team of experts in SEO, Paid Media, Content Marketing, and Web Development. Knucklepuck believes that having this depth of expertise on each account uniquely positions Knucklepuck to adapt to clients’ evolving business. Brett started Knucklepuck with a vision to focus on 2 things: work-life balance and client relationship management.

• CEO Hack: Accountability through quarterly check-ins
• CEO Nugget: Regrets are unprofessional. If you don't like your circumstances, change them
• CEO Defined: Decision maker

Website: https://www.knucklepuckmedia.com/

https://www.knucklepuckmedia.com/about/team/brett-snyder/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brettasnyder/

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00:27 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:54 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Brett Snyder of KnucklePuck. Brett, it's great to have you on the show.

01:02 -Brett Snyder

Yeah, thanks for having me, Gresh. I'm excited to be here.

01:05 –  Gresham Harkless

Yeah, super excited to have you on as well too. And we had some great conversations before I hit the record button. So super excited about hearing about all the awesome things that you're doing. And before we jump into that, I want to read a little bit more about Brett so you can hear about some of those awesome things. Brett started KnucklePuck with a vision to focus on 2 things, work-life balance and client relationship management. Brett launched the company offering SEO services and soon built the paid media department from the ground up. After acquiring a WordPress development shop, Brett decided to start Knuckle Puck Media knuckle puck. Brett, great to have you on the show. You're ready to speak to the I AM CEO community.

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01:37 – Brett Snyder

Let's get it going.

01:38 -Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to wind the clock a little bit here, a little bit more on how you got started, and what to call your CEO story.

01:46 – Brett Snyder

Yeah. So I think what's really interesting is I never set out to be a CEO. I never set out to be an entrepreneur or run a business. I think that's not an uncommon thread. I think what I really wanted to do is I really wanted to make sure that I could do the best work that I knew I was capable of. And so I was really fortunate. I came out of college in 2009. So I had an internship in 2008 running Google Ads, what was then Google AdWords campaigns for Speedo during the Summer Olympics. And so I got a really in-depth understanding of how powerful these digital channels can be to help these businesses reach tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people and make millions of dollars worth of sales.

So I really got hooked into that world right away. I got my first job out of college at an SEO firm in Philadelphia called Seir Interactive. They've gone on to be 1 of the most well-known, well-respected agencies on Earth. They have worked with some of the biggest companies, but have also kind of adhered to a very intentional growth plan for what they want to stand for. And that was one of the things that really stuck with me throughout my time at Seir. I really had a chance to work with their founder over there, working side by side. It was the eighth person. They've got 200 plus, I think, at this point, are coming up on that number. And so it was really interesting to see the growth early on.

When I moved to Atlanta, when my now wife got into law school down there, I took a job at an agency called Nebo where I was much more involved in management and understanding how to talk to the C-suite, understanding how to manage a team, how to sell this work to clients, how to evaluate whether it's being successful and to iterate and make those changes. And during both of those experiences, which I'm super, super grateful for, you know, I learned the nuts and bolts of digital marketing and SEO in particular, and then I learned how to manage a company and manage a team. But there were always some things that I felt for me personally that I wanted to put more attention towards.

And there are the 2 things that you mentioned at the top, you know, with work-life balance and with being able to have really strong relationships with our clients. And so I started KnucklePuck not out of an overwhelming desire to run a business, but out of a need to support my marketing habit and wanting to be able to work with clients who understood that they have to believe that these channels are gonna work for them before they hire an agency.

I've had these dev calls where I've walked in and they say, sell me on why I need this. And I said like, I shouldn't be here if this is where you're at. We want people who understand that it's valuable but are looking for the right partner to make that happen. We really lean on this idea of being an extension of your team. And that was always what drove me in my previous experiences and something that was kind of the underlying foundation of why I started Knuckle Buck.

04:26 – Gresham Harkless

I know you touched a little bit on how you work with your clients. Could you take us through a little bit more about that, how that process works what you feel might be your secret sauce, and what you feel kind of sets you apart or makes you unique?

04:36 – Brett Snyder

Yeah, I think as far as our services, ours are really interesting because we kind of have 2 business models. We have our 2 primary departments that are tied to those business models. We have marketing, which is like I said, I'm an SEO by training. I started doing SEO freelance consulting when I saved up $20, 000. That was my seed investment into Knuckle Puck when I started it and decided to go out on my own. But that line of business is primarily driven based on retainer. And as a result of that, it's priced based on the hours that are necessary to go into this retainer. A lot of that is rolling monthly recurring. We have the retainer that resets at the beginning of the month.

Our web dev business, because we're producing a product, we're building a website. Now that's a very different model where we actually go through a very in-depth, we call discovery before we take on any project. It's an upfront consulting effort, and we give you a line item scope of the elements for your new website and the pricing associated with it. So if we need to reduce scope, if we need to phase things out, if we need to compress for timeline, we're not talking in abstracts about, oh, well, like, let's just extend front end phase 1 by 2 weeks. Like, no, let's choose not to do items 6, 7, 14, 15, and 22. Right? Let's put those to phase 2 because that's going to take more time and more money than we have for these particular circumstances.

And so those would be the kind of marketing dev or the 2 primary businesses. And we have directors that lead each one of those. We embrace very much a consolidated team. We do an all-hands meeting every Friday. We have exec meetings where we're having a lot of conversations back and forth. But as far as the actual delivery of those services, I've always believed in subject matter experts. And so even our SEO and our paid media, 2 kinds of 2 channels inside digital, there's a lot of agencies that may have 1 person or especially a lot of in-house folks that are asked to wear a lot of hats where you're the SEO and the paid. And I can tell you, I tried to do paid.

I think you maybe gave me a little more credit than I deserved on the intro when you said I built our paid media team. I actually hired a woman named Maura Miller, who now is running our marketing team, to come in and actually stand up paid because there was specified expertise that was required for somebody to build that out.

I understood the business of it. I understood how to sell it. But when it came down to like doing the best possible Google ads optimization how you structure a Facebook advertising campaign or how you make sure you're capturing the right information, I didn't have that expertise. I didn't have my 10, 000 hours in paid media. And so I really looked for people that could leave that forward for me and that could embrace the vision that we have, but also empower them to leverage the expertise that I don't possess. Let me capture it and try to push it forward from there.

07:15 – Gresham Harkless

Appreciate that. And so I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple Book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

07:27 -Brett Snyder

So I think when I look at this, one of our core values, and probably the most important of our core values from a tactical practical perspective is accountability. And so one of the things that I started doing a couple of years ago that is not uncommon, you know, I do a strategic plan presentation. I get up in front of the whole company at the beginning of the year. And I say, here's my plan for the year. But 1 of the things I started to do a couple of years ago and was really impactful this year is going through and doing quarterly check-ins. So I take our 1 year look ahead. I present this on the second day back.

I don't make people sit through 2 hours of me on January 2nd, but on January 3rd, you better bring your stadium cushion because we need the whole year. And 1 of the things that we really look at is now I started doing a quarterly check-in. And so I come in at the end of Q1, end of Q2, end of Q3, And I say, here are the goals that I outlined for the company at the beginning of the year. How am I doing on these? Giving people a chance to understand, I want to model that level of accountability. And it's great when you can go out there and say, yeah, we have this goal for a revenue number and we're like 54% of the way there. You know, 1 of our goals was to have 50% of our clients using multiple services.

And we are 50% exactly this year. But it also gives me a chance to kind of speak to some of the decision-making that I have and to try to hold myself accountable and model that for my team. And so 1 of the things that I put in our strategic plan this year was that I wanted to make a very explicit effort towards embracing some diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at KnucklePuck. And it's something I think that we have a lot of good intent, but it's something where I wanted to put something more tangible out there. And so I put it in our strategic plan and I presented it at the beginning of the year and everybody was very excited about it. And then we got to the end of June and the year was crazy.

We've had a lot of things going on. We had the first 5 goals and had a lot of progress for it but I got to our DEI goal and I had nothing. And I had to, I had, could go up to the team and I could say, oh, well, like I've made these phone calls or I've had these conversations, which I did. You know, I had some things and notes scribbled in, but for 6 months of a 12-month strategic plan, this was not growth. This was not a success. And it was actually probably the most important part of the entire check-in because I was able to tell people, look, I don't have anything for you yet, but this is my reminder.

This is my accountability measure because I need to know that I can step up and I can in 3 months when I do this again, I can't come in and say, I have nothing for you. I have all year, I haven't missed it yet, but I thought this would take me 12 months and now I've left myself 6. And so right away, there were a couple of people on the team who volunteered to help me with this. We've had weekly meetings throughout the last probably 6 weeks to work on having a diversity statement that we really feel embodies what we're trying to move forward.

But, you know, that kind of accountability and that self-accountability and trying to model that for the team. I think it's been something that has been really, really successful for me from a leadership perspective, but also for me personally, to know that I don't have to have everything right all the time. And if I mess up or if I fail to pursue something, then I can also ask for help. If I can normalize that behavior at my level, then hopefully that will encourage more and more people at every level of the organization to do the same.

10:38 – Gresham Harkless

I wanted to ask you now for what I call CEO Nugget. And then the CEO nugget could be a word of wisdom or piece of advice. It might be around digital marketing or It might be something you would tell your younger business off if you happened to be a time machine.

10:49 – Brett Snyder

Yeah, so I've been watching a lot of the Bond movies lately and got back into the recent ones, not the old school and there Judy Dench's character, M who leads MI6, leads the whole unit, probably the best character in that entire franchise outside of Sean Connery, best acting pick. But she had a line that I really thought was interesting in the context of business where she was asked, do you have any regrets? And she said, no, regrets are unprofessional. And especially in the context of a spy agency, of course, you don't think about all the things that have happened. But I also thought it was very apt from a business perspective because you don't have a time machine, right?

Like I tend not to even entertain that question of what would you do differently? Because I can't. And I made the best decision I could at the time. And then if I didn't like that or something had changed, I had to make new decisions. And so one example of that is when I started KnucklePuck, I started on my own, bootstrapped it. After about a year and a half, I took on investors. I gave up my majority stake in the company to take on these investors. At the time, it was the best decision I could make. My financial liability is completely gone. I had a $4 million pro forma, and I looked at being able to have a company 3 times the size I could build on my own meant that I would still make the same amount of money.

And so I made the decision, to have a really successful growth over the course of the company. But then I realized that I didn't feel that I was having the right representation in the company based on my contributions. Now, I could have sat there and I could have regretted that and I could have shaken my fist at the sky, but I realized that I have agency, as we all do in terms of what we choose to do with our time and how we choose to dedicate ourselves. And so, regrets are unprofessional, but If you don't like your circumstances, change them. Find ways to be able to improve your circumstances. Understand that you bring value to the equation.

And now that value may not be equal to how somebody else views it. But my job at that point, when I felt that I wanted to have my majority stake back and that I deserved it, I went and I made that case and I negotiated and eventually got to a point where I'm back to 80% ownership of KnucklePuck. Still have a tremendous relationship with my partners. It's one where they're still involved. I wanted to keep them involved, But for me to remain committed and to put forth the emotional mental energy, and physical energy required to run a successful business, I couldn't do that for 30%. For me personally, the way that I work, I knew that I was not going to be able to sustain the energy required to do that at 30%.

And so I couldn't change what decision I made in 2015, but I could change the decisions I made in 2019. And in 2020, when we signed the deal that, you know, re-renegotiated our cap structure here, but put me in a position now where going through everything with COVID, going through everything else, I knew that I had assumed that accountability. I had taken what I wanted for it, and now it's my responsibility and mine largely alone. That was the dynamic I wanted. That was the dynamic that kept me motivated, inspired, focused, and able to drive this company through a challenging year for planet Earth, you know, and now through what I would consider to be a really, really impressive recovery, you know, in 2021.

14:03 – Gresham Harkless:

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And so That brings me to my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. Brett, what does being a CEO mean to you?

14:14 – Brett Snyder

I thought a lot about this. It's when you think I'd have my answer kind of locked and loaded and prepared, but I think it's kind of the nature of the job that it isn't one thing. You know, the CEO's job isn't one thing. And I think the CEO's job is to make the best decision for people who can't necessarily make that decision for themselves. An example of that is that I just announced recently to our team that we are not going to be renewing our office lease. We will be a fully remote company indefinitely as of November. Personally, not what I wanted. I'm an in-office person.

I love having people around, but looking at what the team needed and looking at what, you know, people were actually going to need to be successful and happy and get that work-life balance that I talked about. And office wasn't it? And nobody else was going to make that decision. Nobody else is able to make the decision to say, I'm going to take the office off the table. I'm going to take that budget and put it back into other areas. I'm going to redeploy that elsewhere. That only can come, that could only have come from me.

15:11 – Gresham Harkless

Brett, truly appreciate that definition and that perspective. And I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

15:26 – Brett Snyder

Yeah, I would say we're trying to be kind of an open book here, I kind of preach authenticity and I love being able to engage with people if they have follow-up questions. I'd say I've done a number of podcasts, but I can say Gresh, for yours, I said this to you beforehand, I've been involved in every step of yours, all the different add-on pieces, because I think you've done a really nice job in cultivating a great community. So if anybody has any questions or wants to talk a little bit more about different parts of the story or even ask for advice. You know, my email is Brett at knuckle puck media.com Brett with 2 T's and our website is knuckle puck media.com. I haven't been able to get knucklepuck.com to sell it to me yet. So if you need to reach us, you can get me on my email or reach out to our website.

16:05 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. And we'll definitely have the links and information in the show notes and definitely have to have you back on the show to talk more about, you know, all the awesome growth and the journey that you've been on and how everything's going. But truly appreciate you, my friend, for hopping in all the kind of words as well, too. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:20 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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