In a delightful and insightful conversation with John Chan and Jennifer Lo, the dynamic duo behind the 2X Growth Agency, we explore the complexities of running a growth-focused marketing agency, navigating the challenges of working closely with a partner, and the invaluable lessons learned along the way.
Their agency, specializing in ad creative production primarily for e-commerce and software companies, represents a mastery over not just the digital marketing space but also internal dynamics and growth management.
John started as a UX designer, building websites with the coding skills he learned in high school. That led to the venture where Jenn joined, and they began their journey together. Next came a software product company and a brief stint as consultants.
Their agency, 2X, was born when the decided that media buying and running advertising campaigns was a more effective use of their skills. Now they leverage their diverse skills to market for ecommerce and SAAS companies. They also own their own ecommerce brands which they market with the same skills.
Their origin story isn’t just about business growth; it’s about personal growth, mutual support, and evolving together both as individuals and professionals.
John and Jenn didn’t start out with a plan to work together long-term. She came in to help with a project and one thing gradually led to another and she never left. Their relationship followed a similar path. She describes it as “growing up together” over a 10-year period of constant change and adjustment.
John describes how Jenn would step in and roll up her sleeves when they faced a setback that upset John significantly. Jenn talks about the adjustments she had to make in all areas of the relationship when John found out he has ADHD, while also noting that it allowed her to understand John much better.
As 2X expanded, John and Jennifer faced the critical task of delegation, a challenge familiar to many growing businesses but intensified in a family-operated agency. They learned the importance of trusting their team, understanding that delegation doesn’t just mean passing off tasks but empowering others to make decisions and take ownership. This shift in mindset was crucial for their capacity management and the agency’s overall growth.
One of the most poignant insights they shared was the evolution of their roles within the agency. Moving from doing the bulk of the work themselves to stepping into more strategic and managerial roles required a thoughtful approach to hiring and team management. They embraced the concept that bringing on team members meant finding people who could perform certain roles even better than they could, a testament to their leadership and vision for the agency.
We all agreed that joining a family business, or creating one, is going to come with challenges that can’t be avoided. Family roles and work roles are going to conflict at times and owners have to navigate those situations. Remembering the value that the family relationships bring helps with that. So do mentorship, networking, and getting professional guidance when appropriate.
You can listen to the audio-only version at https://kuderconsultinggroup.com/podcast/business-became-family-with-john-and-jenn-chan/ or download it from any of the major podcast channels.
Their business website is https://2x.agency/
Connect with John on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtcchan/ , Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jtcchan/, Twitter https://twitter.com/jtcchan
Connect with Jenn Lo at linkedin.com/in/jennifertklo or https://twitter.com/jennlo_
John and Connie: Hi, and welcome to another episode of Celebrating Small Family Businesses. Today, we are celebrating, not separating, celebrating John and Jen Chan from Vancouver, British Columbia. Hi, John. Hi, Jen.
John and Jenn: Hello. Hello there.
John and Connie: So, we connected through a wonderful service called Podmatch. I’d love to give them a little shout out. I’m glad we got connected. So, how, tell me a little bit about your business and your origin story. How did it get started?
John and Jenn: So I’ll take this one. I think we’ve been working on this company. So we run a marketing agency called 2X and we’ve been running it since 2016 or so, starting off as a conversion rate optimization agency. So if you’re not familiar with conversion rate optimization agency, we’re basically a design consultants.
Where we’ll do redesigns and it will measure for for improvements and that started in 2016 But this is actually our second company. Um, the first time we started working together was a software company back in 2013 So almost, you know 10, 11 years ago at this point where, um, we wrote and sold software.
And so we had a productivity app that I was practicing and learning how to code on the side. And, uh, she brought, she joined in to help support me with that project and it became a company. And, um, and yeah, we’ve been running the agencies since, and, uh, that’s kind of like our background.
John and Connie: Cool. Alright. And, and, did you guys, was that your first meeting when, when Jen joined you, uh, to, to build the software?
John and Jenn: No, actually we met at a conference in 20. 2011, right? It’s 2010, 2011. Cause it’s like right at the cusp of like December of 2011. Um, yeah, we met at a conference and we were pretty much both the youngest people there and just clicked and, you know, in ways that we just kind of connected and then it just kind of became that afterwards.
We didn’t start working together until 2013. So it was a couple of years. I was still on my last year in college. University. So that was that was that
John and Connie: Wonderful. Wonderful. So, conversion rate optimization, you, you can explain that, right? Sure. I
John and Jenn: We started as an
optimization agency. We’re currently a advertising agency. So we run ads for e commerce and SAAS businesses, um, software businesses, mostly on the e commerce side, because we also have a Bought e commerce stores ourselves or e commerce businesses ourselves. We have two brands under our own name Um and run it for that as well so a little bit on the venture side a little bit on the agency side for client servicing, but Um, john can probably tell you more about what is the end goal of the whole entire business Uh, he’s probably going to be more adequate to actually give you the whole spiel
John and Connie: Okay. Okay. Well, what I’m hearing is that you’re Wow. Leverage. You don’t sleep a lot.
John and Jenn: No, fortunately you see these eye bags are like right out there It’s um, she picked it right away.
John and Connie: That’s that’s her. Um, so you.. Conversion rate optimization is kind of like fine tuning the, the ad. So you’ve, you’ve got that experience on the back end and then you come into now you’re running ads and you’re also eating your own cooking by. Running your own brands and, and testing and, and refining on your own, you know, like spending your own money to do, to back up what you’re doing for other people.
That’s awesome.
John and Jenn: Absolutely You hit the nail on the head.
John and Connie: Awesome. I hit the nail on the head. You hear that? Yeah, there you go. Impressive. So, uh, I, I, one of the questions we like to ask is, what’s a, unique proposition or, , what, what’s kind of sets you guys apart in your industry? I might have just said it, but I want to hear you say it.
John and Jenn: Of course. Yeah, I mean, if you look at the career history, so I’ll start there and I’ll kind of explain the work that we do, what’s unique about the way we do things. In my case, I had basically three major arcs in my career. I started off as a user experience designer, so I came from a design background. I dropped out of school.
Um, but I learned how to code in high school and then that became sort of like the, the backbone for the foundational skill sets around if I make a webpage, who are the people behind the webpage that I’m servicing. And I, like, I was some skills that, um, I did that at a university for about four, four and a half years working at university, not studying there.
So I, so I did a for, for a while and that sort of led into the conversion optimization agency. Um, but part of the reason why we started a software company was because. In 2012 or so I joined, , in our industry, a well known software company called Basecamp or 37 signals. They rebranded. Um, and so what they do is they sell project management software and they invented a, uh, programming language.
And so through working with them, I got to see how they ran a remote company, , firsthand, cause they wrote and published a lot of work around that. , and they wrote and sold their own software. And so being able to see those types of things, it, it really You know, I learned a lot from them, but I also kind of rubbed off on me.
And so when I came back here, um, they’re based in Chicago. When I came back to Vancouver and growing the software company, it kind of got us like through a period where we learned a lot more about technical skills of the development side of products. Um, but towards the end of that company, we started realizing and thinking to ourselves, At least incorrectly so, initially, where we thought we weren’t good at marketing because we were able to sell a product that people generally loved. We’re good at design. We’re able to write software, but we couldn’t figure out the distribution of that software. And so, you know, throughout the years, we’ve always believed in teaching what we needed to learn.
And so initially, we, we, Dipped into consulting by leveraging the skill sets that we already had. But over the course of the years, we realized that media buying and running advertising campaigns was a more effective way of approaching it. And as you get into the question of what makes us unique, very few people have that kind of history of being a designer and then we get into a technical sort of skillset and then layering that on top of marketing.
And so our consumers that we serve when we run ads, they go through the entire Can you see an ad? You click on the link. There’s an experience of what happens when you get to the website or the landing page all the way through the checkout. And we can think about that entire life cycle of the journey and later, how does the advertising campaign bleed into the messaging on the website to the checkout experience of how they consume the product in order for them to come back?
And I would say that most shops, understandably so, are supposed to be specializing in each of those segments in those areas, but very few would be able to tie it all together. And also have the ability to have analytics, um, measure from point A to point B, um, from start to finish, um, with the recognition that sometimes data can be wrong.
There’s a lot of nuance behind the technical side of it, where if you’re not a developer, it hard, it’s hard to do that type of work as a marketer.
John and Connie: Dang. That, that’s a lot. I, I understand. Actually, I, I could quickly show my ignorance. Uh, yeah, , like, attribution , of sales, of, , where it came, there’s, there’s different ways of attribution from, you know, first click and last click and in between and, and all that stuff. And, and yeah, tracking all that is an , somewhat inexact science because of the different platforms and because people are people, right?
John and Jenn: you hit the nail on the head again because it’s, it’s, it’s a very hard problem because there are technical barriers to it and there’s also platform barriers to it. So for example, if you’re on advertising on meta, um, it used to be that was very easy for, um, meta to track what happens on the consumer side all the way to purchase.
Um, but with Apple coming with. Better consumer privacy protection settings. What does it actually mean for the advertiser? And so when you’re reading numbers in your advertising campaign in determining how do you set budgets or to diagnose if a particular ad creative or ad campaign is, is it on the ad creative side of things, or is it on the landing page of side of things, and then the measurement is not fully accurate, how do you know which one to look at versus which ones do you ignore?
Right. And so if you layer that on top of the statistics behind it and say, this one is statistically significant, this one is not, this way you can run an experiment to get to the point of, um, be able to interpret it. This one you cannot. Um, those are all, uh, tools that are, are available to us, um, because we come from that kind of background to think about things technically, and also being versed in analytics and math.
John and Connie: Okay, yeah, I think probably the, the average marketing, small marketing firm is, is more, just more focused on, you know, how much budget we’ll get, we’ll get you, you know, we’ll run the ads for this long and we’ll spend your budget and good luck.
John and Jenn: Right. It’s like, we’ll get and get our ROI. We know we spend this money and we can get this return back. Um, but how does it exactly play out? And, and again, it’s always, the devil’s always in the details. Right. And how do you, uh, uh, prioritize certain budgets versus others? For marketing efforts towards one efforts for the other.
Um, You know, that’s the kind of thing that we’ve developed over the years that we now recognize that is a very unique strength to us, especially if we’re tasked to audit another brand or another agency’s ad accounts. We usually find a lot of issues where it’s like, yeah, they’re not supposed to know that, and neither are you.
And therefore we can do something about it.
Jenn Lo: The other thing it’s like, I can add is probably, um, John, you can probably speak a lot more into is, um, What kind of going back to what you were saying, I was like, what kind of distinguish between us versus others in the industry, um, of When we actually go and look at a client or potential client or even our clients right now We don’t often talk about having profitable skip profitable and scalable ads And what does that really mean john probably have a better better better way to explain that than I do So maybe you can actually talk
John and Jenn: sure I mean, it’s one of those things where it’s tables big for any marketing campaign You have to make sure it’s profitable and I think I see not always I see sometimes people approach marketing You Um, from the perspective of just wearing a marketing hat, whereas realistically you should be wearing a finance hat, right?
And so marketing and finance, they both work hand in hand from both from a finance, uh, planning side of things, but also being able to read a P and L. So if you know that, you know, the unique economics of an ad campaign, is it be profitable? What does that look like in terms of the profile of the business, in terms of your EBIT and your net margins?
Um, is the company profitable? If you can think about strategic options for do you fundraise or not? Are you looking to sell the business or not? There are different levers that are available to you from a marketing perspective that I talk a little bit less about because I think I understand that most intuitively understand that.
But to Jen’s point, it’s, it’s not just dollar in dollar out and making sure it’s profitable. We should, you know, always track it down to the, uh, the unique economics and see what the overall strategy of the company is.
Jenn Lo: And I think that’s the biggest piece of what just just separates us as a business to others that is in the industry that is doing similar services to us and why people why clients choose us over the others just because we do ask those tough questions and like hey um not just looking at your ad creative not just looking at your ad account how much are you trying to sell spend?
How much are you trying to let go? What is the end goal of the company at the like next 6 months, next 12 months? What is the margins and net things that you’re trying to actually reach? We look at all those things to think about how should we go about putting a plan together for the next 6 to 12 months of working together.
John and Connie: Wow. Okay. Yeah, you’re, you are heads and tails, over above everything else that we’ve, we’ve done. We’ve talked to and other companies. Yeah. Wow. Good job. So, shifting slightly to, yeah, I mean I’m geeking out here, but Exactly. We need to get out of here. We are talking about family. So, um, what do you love most about working with family?
John and Jenn: I have lots to say, but why don’t you start?
Jenn Lo: I think it’s a tough one. Cause I’m like, I, I didn’t really start, start loving it in the first place. I actually didn’t want to work with him. Um, I worked with him initially just because of, okay, I know he was struggling with something. I know I’m good at that to actually be able to support that.
Um, my personality is very much of a very supportive role, um, throughout my entire life. Anyways, so I support anywhere and anyone that is around me. So When he is asking, when he asked, I was like, yeah, of course I can do that for you. And I’m here for the long run anyway. So I’m like, okay, I’m going to be here.
And it was supposedly temporary. Then it became a serious afterwards. I’m like, okay, well, since I’m here already, let’s just go with it. Um, so it’s just going through this rollercoaster. And I just went on this board of train, thinking I was going to get off. The next stop, but no, it just kept going. Uh, what I kind of loved about working with him over years, I think we started working together when we were in the 20s, right?
So mid 20s, uh, through the next like 10 years of working together, we grew together as a Individuals and as partners and as lovers and as like now we’re married, right? So there’s a lot of growing up that we were doing together, and I think it’s quite interesting and it’s not I don’t think a lot of couples that have worked together and is in business together have gone through that as well.
So, that’s like part of the actuality of our story. Uh, of where, how we grow up together and now going into business throughout that 10 years. Uh, lots and lots of things have changed. Personality have changed. Our mindset have changed. Our habits and like, things that we, do have changed, our perspectives have changed over time as well. And learning from this, I think learning from him, he’s taught me a lot throughout that 10 years. I mean, I learned a lot from her too, so that’s not, it’s not, it’s not always what
John and Connie: Smart boy! It’s a two way, it’s definitely a two-way street.
John and Jenn: For me.
John and Connie: my
John and Jenn: No, I’d actually love to expand on that because I think um, I also want to hear from Jen first because You know for me i’ve always thought about this and and it’s come up in past podcast interviews as well But I think for me what I loved about working with her It’s it’s not for the faint of heart as you must, you know Hear from now from all the different families that you’ve interviewed Working with families can be very complex and the power dynamics and you’re dealing with finances.
You can see a lot of issues with conflicts But I think one of the guiding principles in the way that we’ve worked together and we’ve always looked at, you know, Is it a good idea to start a business with your girlfriend and and mix finances? The litmus test has always been around. Um, not how well we when things are working Well, of course, there’s gonna be trials and tribulations in any business, but it’s how well did we fight?
And so when I think about, you know, when things are going bad or when things aren’t going really as well, she’s always been my rock. And, and, and to have someone to have that level of empathy and understanding of like, Oh, we just got screwed over in a business deal. Or we just had this really bad interaction with certain thing.
She felt firsthand was like, Oh, I know exactly what that means. And to see me being in a depressive state and for her to just roll up her sleeves and get back to work, like it’s just, it’s, it’s hard to express the kind of, um, loyalty and strength that you have in, in one another that, um, You cannot find, uh, in anywhere else because, you know, in most cases, it’s, it’s supposed to be transactional.
You’re business partners, you know, you have your personal life and then you have your business life separated. The downside is also that it’s mixed to in her case, you know, when she needs personal boundaries outside of business, right? Those are the kinds of things that I’m sure you hear a lot about where those things can be mixed in.
Um, there’s, there’s other downsides. I’ll speak a little bit of that as well with, you know, power dynamics, for example, right? Whenever you get into like, let’s say performance issues or, or fights, you can’t just easily break up. You can’t easily just tell the other person and fire the other person. Those things should always be an option available to you, but navigating those challenges are very, very challenging, right?
How much it is, is it my fault? How much is it her fault? It gets really personal really quickly that you can’t have with an employee or regular business partner. Um, And so I think all of those things, you know, built into like us growing up together and learning through a lot of things together as, as, as you look back in the years, every year, there’s still challenges, but every year it gets better and you can’t, but help be optimistic about, you know, we’re in our thirties right now, but you can’t, but help be optimistic about what’s to come for us.
And at least for me, that’s how I feel about it. And I joke with her, like, you know, cause every time we get into any type of new business or start a new thing, she’s always like the one that’s bearing a lot of the workload. And I’m always the one that’s. You know, dealing with all the fun aspect of, of starting something new or taking a new thing on.
And, um, but I always joke, it’s like, you’re coming with me on this one, right? It’s so, it’s so it’s because for me, it’s like, you know, it’s easy for me to bring her on. Um, but then there’s, you know, real challenges of, of should I do it? Because it’s our strength and weaknesses. And how does that actually play out with, you know, what is the advantage of running this particular business as a couple versus keeping it separate?
Yeah,
John and Connie: Wow. You guys are such deep thinkers. I mean, yes, I, I, I, I was getting choked up there. So what you were saying about, you know, the, you know, the rock and, and knowing that she’s there, uh, totally, I, I totally experienced that. And, you know, in our case, it was my family business that Connie was, you know, Connie moved, you know, We moved on to a family property.
We live next door to my parents out in the country. And, you know, I worked at the business, you know, all the time. And then Connie would come to work at the office some. And, you know, it’s I just, thank God she was there, because, you know, you guys don’t have the two generation dynamics, I don’t think, from what I’m hearing.
I, you know, I had the, I was the son that, you know, waiting for permission to grow up, as I call it. And, um, and there were, yeah, there’s been, there was several times when Connie was the, she had the objectivity to say, Whoa, this doesn’t make sense. And, and, you know, she would, and she would go to bat for her position, you know, her belief there that this was right for the company and the family even, as a, an in law that, you know, didn’t have that blood stake and it was. Even as his dad was standing there blustering. But we’ve got to do something! And it’s kind of like, oh no, we don’t. You know? You need to stop.
Now I’m talking about our story. But yes, I can completely relate. And what you said about the different dynamics. Sometimes that’s what’s Well, I think it’s what scares some people about family businesses. Like if they’re going, you know, either going to start one or maybe go to work for another family’s business, that, you know, how are those dynamics going to play out?
How is it going to impact them? Because , ultimately for the family business owners, it comes down to, We have to prioritize something, and usually, you know, the family is going to last longer than the business. I mean, worst case scenario and best case scenario, right? And so , there’s times when you just have to prioritize the family, and if there’s a performance shortfall or something, you know, weakness in somewhere, yeah, you don’t just replace that person like they would in corporate, right?
You make do. You figure it out. You communicate. You share, you rebalance the load, even if it’s a little unbalanced. That’s worth it for the rest of everything.
John and Jenn: Absolutely. And I think that’s, that’s, that’s, this is why I would say that family businesses is not for the faint of heart, because in, in, in a very broad, like generalization, it’s bad advice to start a company with family members or lovers, because again, it’s, it’s, Because generally speaking, um, most people aren’t going to be prepared or able to manage or deal with the conflicts that come up because they’re so complicated, right?
And they’re so like intricate and, and there’s like the aspect of betrayal and loyalty and whatever that’s all mixed in, they’re the basis of great dramas for a reason. You know what I mean? And, but the thing is like, you know, at the same time though, but when it works, Oh my God, it really is beautiful.
And, and when it works, it’s like, you know, we get to go and like travel and vacations together and we bring our work together and, you know, you know, having long walks at the park and we’re talking about business and we’re at the sauna and we’re like, I’m talking about this new thing. It’s like, because it’s so integrated.
Right. Like when it works, it’s, it’s beautiful, but it’s, it’s one of those things where it, you have to be a long term thinker right from day one. There’s no, there’s no, there’s no second option. Right. And so if you’re committed for better and for worse, right. Because for us, it’s like, we got into it almost by accident.
It wasn’t a very thought through answer. Right. Which is, yeah, I’m refraining from joking about how she moved into it because we would never had the talk about like moving in together. I just woke up one day and she just had more clothes at our place. And I’m just like, wait a second. I think she infiltrated the house.
You know what I mean? And so sometimes I even joke around, even married where it’s like, this is the best sleepover ever, right? It’s like, you just haven’t left, but in business it’s always been like that too. And again, you can’t recommend that to someone because that’s not a good idea.
John and Connie: Well, you couldn’t plan that. No. That, that, because it happened organically, that, you know, I think that’s what makes it work. You learned it, you know, by inches rather than, okay, we’re going to make a plan and tomorrow we’re going to do this thing, you know, it was as gradual. So you just felt your way into it and your communication evolved along with it.
And I think that’s such a big key. There’s a communication. We’re not trained, right? We’re not trained for those challenges.
John and Jenn: Because you can’t be, there’s nothing in school or in regular life that can prepare you for those types of dynamics. But here’s the fun part that, you know, I think right now I’m coming to terms with that. Um, I’m realizing that we’re actually a lot less alone than we realize because every now and then, you know, we’re, this is like 10 year of us working together.
We’re starting to meet more and more other couples, especially people that have been around this longer than we have. And next thing you know, we’re like talking about, yeah, we’re having this fight over this really silly thing. And then they’re like, ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Uh, you young kids, let me tell you about the time I fired my wife from her job, you know, and it’s just like, man, it’s like, We realize that a lot of those dynamics that is on one hand, very unique to us, but just like, you know, on a broad level, just, just like entrepreneurship, forget about working in a family business.
You start realizing that as lonely as it was, you’re actually not alone. There’s other people that have been through very similar or even worse situations that you have. And I find solace in that. And that’s why, you know, as part of this, this conversation. preamble to this interview, I got so excited because it’s whenever I see that kind of dynamics, I know you two have a lot of really wonderful stories that we just don’t even have a chance to hear.
Because you guys have been in this game longer than we have. And you know exactly where we’re coming from. And that’s why it’s like, to your point, you know, you choked up because it’s like, you felt that because we went through that for the first time. And it won’t be our last, right?
John and Connie: Right? Exactly. Yeah, what I was trying to remember before, you talked about fighting fair. You know, and that’s, that’s actually a phrase I was, I want to build a product around at some point. So, we do , consulting, a blend of consulting and coaching for family businesses because that’s where we come from.
And we’re not trained, but, but knowing how to. To have a constructive disagreement, that’s a, you know, that’s a skill. It’s a skill set, and it’s something you have to practice. But it’s based on some, some understandings. Like, you know, like, I know if we disagree, she’s not going to pack her bag and leave.
John and Jenn: Yeah.
John and Connie: Thought about it once or twice, but I didn’t. You know, there was, earlier in my, in my career, this was something we had to learn. You know, I had to learn. When it, that it was okay to, that it was going to be safe to argue and it wasn’t going to be. Well, and he’s an only child, too. So he doesn’t understand the joy of going up and smacking your brother just to hear him cry. Okay? That was more fun. But he didn’t
John and Jenn: Things you can do in a family business that you can’t do in a regular employment. You can’t just like walk up and smack my, uh,
John and Connie: Exactly! You know? Sexual harassment is a thing. But it just, you know, for him to have to learn. How to play a game with somebody else, and not like his parents, who would either let him win or beat the crap out of him. You know, he had to figure out that with me, he was safe. He could get in my face and go, and I’d go, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and that’s kind of a metaphor. And we were fine.
John and Jenn: Yeah,
John and Connie: That’s kind of a metaphor for, for, for other things too, you know, but, but it’s, uh, The, the other thing that you said about the isolation, I really want to touch on that, because I, I think that’s, you know, part of why we’re doing this is for outreach to other family businesses to listen to family, and hear what you just said, which is that, You know, the number one rule in my family business with my father was don’t talk about the business to anybody outside the family.
You don’t, you don’t talk about it. It’s our business. It was because it’s, because it’s family, so it’s, there’s a more personal sense to it. And so it is isolating. I think, to some degree, we all feel like our problems are unique. You know, they’re bigger than, you know, other people don’t feel it the same as, or whatever.
Nobody else has done it just like we have. But in the family business, yeah, I think, just like you said, they are unique to us in that they’re us, but at the same time, there’s common themes that are so common that we just don’t hear about because people are a little leery about talking about it. Now his dad had no problems going and sitting at a bar someplace and telling his accountant and his lawyer all this stuff, but, you know, it was different where he, you know, he didn’t find a mentor or a coach that could, you know, work his way through this.
And that’s what we’re trying to do, is we’re trying to save people from all the crap that we went through and making all the mistakes we did, and we made them all
John and Jenn: right. And I think that’s hugely important because I realized that for us, I think we’re lucky. And in that sense that I think, you know, even when we’re young, we had a few guidings, like guardrails, in terms of like values and principles that I think like saved us from from, you know, disaster in a lot of different scenarios.
But you know, one of which I talked about, you know, And again, these things were because I think we’re lucky that we just happened to have that. And so for all the trials and tribulations and some of the lessons, if we didn’t have those, it could be disastrous. And, and a lot of waste of time, a lot of wasted effort, a lot of wasted, you know, uh, money really just to, to get, get ourselves going.
And so to have that dedication towards serving that particular. area of practice. I think it’s really important. I’m glad you guys are doing that. And even doing this podcast, because even some of the topics that we’re talking about today, it’s hard to share that in a regular, you know, different episode or different podcast environment, because they wouldn’t have known to ask, or they wouldn’t have known to pick up on that, or that right there.
That’s really important. I can, let’s, let’s, let’s expand on that. And I think, you know, to my point earlier around You know why I love these type of impromptu conversations around these type of things because it’s like when you when you ask me that it’s like oh man like like it just comes up and and But you’re right.
It doesn’t get told. It’s hard. It’s hard for those things to be told because in most regular conversations, having a conversation with an accountant or a lawyer, it’s not going to come up, right? It’s like, you can talk about like, oh, I’m having issues with this, but it’s just, there’s certain dynamics and nuances.
It’s really hard to capture.
John and Connie: Yeah, they haven’t had that experience and they’re, they’re going to kind of back off. They don’t, they don’t really want to talk about it. They want to be your friend, but they don’t want to, they’re not qualified to really give advice. Is it, have you got a therapist? Something like that.
John and Jenn: the professional setting of like, okay, well, it’s your accountant, it’s your lawyer. Say it’s all about the business. Like, what’s the business problems? How can I help you solve it? Um, I think John came about this. Um, a podcaster with some part and Andrew, Andrew Wilkinson, and they talked about it this phenomenon phenomenon about, um, having people around you that you can be vulnerable with.
And then. The circle the more successful you are the more that you need to be very selective to your circle And who you can actually share those type of information with how you said it was like hey We don’t if we’re a family business We don’t talk about our family business outside of family or whatever it is or share it with other people I think there’s a bit of a what I kind of liked about how they shared it was Um, there is always going to be that five people around you that you can be very vulnerable with because they can, they will not judge you.
They will not actually be like, , make you, they will not be, , what’s that word? Judgmental. Yeah, they won’t actually be malicious with you or anything like that. They are actually there for you. So you can actually share anything with them for that particular purpose. And then anything outside of that is like, oh, just the acquaintances that’s like, okay, it’s like might be business acquaintances or like anything that is like could be friends.
You could actually share some information, not all the information. Then you have the wide circles, like, hey, absolutely nothing about that. That they would not hear inside stories about your, what is going on in your business, how your business is doing, how much are you making, how you’re charging, blah, blah, blah.
Those are all All the other things guys, I think that’s actually quite helpful in terms of how we go about thinking of our next step for ourselves as well as we grow our business as we become more successful as we grow our wealth and our riches. Um, and As our business grow bigger and bigger, because there is a way that we need to actually cipher and filter through the people that we are around with a lot.
And kind of like poker, you got to like read the people around you. It was like, Hey, what are they here for? Where are they not here
John and Connie: Exactly. And reevaluate on a, on a regular basis. Do I still need this person in my life? Because, you know, especially at our age, we’ve cycled through a lot. And, uh, and then we have a hardcore group that, that no matter what.
John and Jenn: there’s an interesting dynamic about being in a family business that I want to touch on because I think when we talk about being in business and having a circle of friends that are close to you that you can share anything with is hugely valuable, but one of the things that comes up with family business specifically, especially if you have scenarios where you’re sharing with your friends, like, for example, I can talk about my business with my friends, but if I’m having partner issues or the person that I’m combating with is my wife, Yeah.
It becomes an ethics issue because after you talk to a friend or you talk to somebody else, they still know and they have to interact with them. And so that dynamic is something that comes up in family because like, it’s not about gossiping. It’s about working through problems. And in the absence of that, if a third party sort of person that can sort of, um, you know, that’s what I can see, for example, being a coach or, uh, even a therapist.
Helpful with is because you have that arm’s length sort of like, um, way to solve that particular problem, but it comes up with family where your friends, when you can’t share that or talk about it in a way without the other person being impartial, because they still have to interact with the family member afterwards when your family friends, they’re still interacting with them.
And so it just, it just adds to that layer of, um, and again, going back to being lucky, it adds to a layer of complexity about running a family business. But being lucky aspect of it is that. I think we’ve had multiple instances where we’ve had friends not take sides. That they know that there’s a second half to the story when they hear the other person complain and have that dumped on them.
They know that their job as a friend is to like, Yeah, John was being mean to you and he shouldn’t have said those things. He said that in anger and all those type of things. That must be really hard. How did it all come out? And then come talk to me afterwards, completely normal and be like, Hey, what’s going on in your world?
And what’s, what’s happening? That, and then it’s like, you know, how do you have friends like that? And when you have someone like that, again, it just, you know, touches our heart. But at the same time, it’s, it’s one of those things where it was. It was tricky and hard to navigate, especially early on when, um, when I was uncomfortable with her going to our friends or, you know, if, if I didn’t do that on the other side, how do we navigate doing that in an ethical manner?
Like that’s, that’s a very family business specific sort of like trait that it’s, it’s hard to talk about or come across and know what the right or wrong answer is. For sure.
John and Connie: Yeah, we’ve had some of that because I don’t have a lot of filters. who knew? And he might have a few more than I do. So, you know, might. So we’ve had to negotiate that because I’ve had to either apologize or say, you know, it is who I am. You know, suck it up.
John and Jenn: Yeah. But again, it’s one of those things that just adds a layer of complexity as you navigate that kind of relationship. It’s not just the two of you or the three of you or the family, like the family unit. It’s, it’s the extended circles around it and having them like, how do you integrate them or not integrate them with the part of your life?
It’s, yeah, it just adds another layer of complexity.
John and Connie: Right? And we are all born into family businesses, if you think about it. You know, all of your, your views on money and relationships came from your, your parents. And how they view it. Well then, how do they view it out, you know, their parents. And then, so it’s generational. So that’s another thing that, you know, being aware of that, you know, is, is this mine?
Is it still relevant at this point?
If it’s not, then update, move it out and bring in something new. And that’s been another hard thing to, to get past sometimes.
John and Jenn: for sure, for sure.
John and Connie: Yeah, we, we met, we had a mentor back in the day that, um, was, was a leadership development program. And, and he, he was, you know, trying to up level people’s thinking. And so his, his thing was, If you’re, if you’ve got a roof over your head and you’re, and you’re eating regularly, you’re running a successful business, okay?
You’ve got cash flow in and cash flow out and, and, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re managing resources, you’re running a business. And if you think of it like that, you’re not as small or ignorant or whatever as you think you know you’re it’s it’s everything else is just a matter of scale after that you know and and wow what a he was a wise man so that’s the that’s part of what that is about and yeah the um so why don’t we go on to this one well i think we’ve um is there anything that you know now that you wish you’d known when you started about being in business together
John and Jenn: I do, but I’m not going to start. Jen, you go first. If you need, if you need time, I can go first, but I just don’t want to hijack the mic. Yes. I wish, I think, I think I wish, uh, can I say it wrong? Of course, you can say anything you
John and Connie: we can always edit if, if, we can always edit it out if you’re not happy. Mm
John and Jenn: you want. It’s fine. Um, I think I wish I’ve known that he had ADHD before we started a business together, but then he wouldn’t have known himself as well because he got diagnosed quite late.
Uh, so I think that. was probably the biggest barrier and challenge to how we work together and how we need to adapt to working together because I’m very much of a doer and like executioner and like just get out of my way and like okay well tell me what I need to do what is the angle you need to actually get to and like I’ll get it all done for you. Traits of ADHD kind of In that way, it makes it a little bit more complicated when I have to work with him. He overthinks a lot. He takes a long time to actually go and execute things. He might actually procrastinate a lot. There’s like a lot of things that just is a barrier to getting him to the end destination of what he needs to do.
Great thing about it. Is that he is a starter of any type of great ideas. He’s a good thinker. He’s a good ideation person He knows how to go with very dealing with chaos at a very Split of a second of like trying to problem solve a lot of things very creative um, that’s great that that’s the great thing about him and his his his uh situation It takes a lot of time and effort for us to kind of find that mold of like, okay That piece of Puzzle together to kind of like, how do we actually work with that and how do we come across?
Come together with our strengths and weaknesses and like okay if your weakness is ADHD, how can I actually fit my pieces so then I can actually I can fit perfectly with your ADHD in that way. That’s a lot of Adoption that needed to be happening throughout the last 10 years We’re like not not even last like five five six years of like diagnosing him and then now have to go like Okay, now I know you had this scenario or the situation now I have to go and deal with it How do I deal with it?
I have to also talk to him and communicate with him very differently from how I’ve communicating with Communicated with him before because it wasn’t working. You know, why don’t you get it? And it’s just like now I know a lot more about ADHD and I know a lot more about what he’s going through I can Slowly become more empathetic of how he’s going through things and I was like, okay, what are you trying to really do?
Help me go through your thought process Go through that for me, and then let me simplify it for you. Um, it’s probably the biggest thing I would say I, I wished I knew much sooner than it is, uh, after.
John and Connie: Okay. In programming lingo, I think what I’m hearing is that you’re, you’re more of um, a sequential program and he’s multi threaded. Sure. Absolutely! Mm
John and Jenn: I was gonna say, if you’re familiar with, um, I think this is the teaching in the U. S. where it’s, um, we’re the classic visionary versus integrator. Right. So it’s like the, I’m the person that’s thinking, looking ahead. And she’s the one that has to deal with a lot of the, the thing gets get thrown back to her.
And I think she’s being delicate about it, but I think to her point in the work, she was mostly coming from, you can sort of hear the, the, the, the stress and agony of like having to deal with me because I actually realized that halfway through it and, and in being self aware about, Oh, those things aren’t natural and it is
chaotic and problematic for someone who has to do with all the mess that I created in a sense, right? But to her point about being great with problem solving, you know For example coming into this interview without necessarily to read all the questions in advance and and thriving on that kind of thing Um, it just meant that uh, we really did have to rely on our strengths and weaknesses like every family or any business partner Um, that was us As our own maturity, as we grew and learn about one another, um, it’s one of those things.
And, um, so I’m, I thought she was gonna talk about something else, but I thought that’s, that’s a great example because it’s true is, is, um, as you think about any type of like, you know, trait that we have with each other, how do you integrate with one another? And how do you make sure that whatever, you know, personal ticks or, you know, aspect of it
doesn’t cause a lot of stress on the other side. Um, I think for me, one of the things that I kind of wish I learned earlier on, um, relates to that, but it’s around being respectful about our differences. I think when we first started working early on, um, I talk fast, I think fast, I do a lot of different things.
I also had a few years ahead of her in my career, um, because I was like, The writing was on the wall, right? I dropped out of school. I had three different career shifts within a course of 12 years, right? It’s like,
John and Connie: Read the room.
John and Jenn: It’s like, no hints at all along the way, right? It’s not like I was dropping it at her just to pick up the slack.
But, but the broader point was like, um, Because I had the dynamic going into the initial working relationship, it meant that, um, you know, the first company I was building incorrectly. So I kept being the smartest person in the room. And I say that with quotes because I wasn’t right. It’s, it’s, and even if I was technically smart, there’s a lot of aspects about business that you cannot lead with that.
And I know that now, right. And it was through a painful process of, you know, a lot of, a lot of late nights and a lot of fights, but over the course of the years. As you know, she learned about my traits and learned about our strengths and weaknesses. I learned to be respectful about the skills that says she brought to the table that weren’t directly based on technical skills of being a coder or being a designer of those type of things because she didn’t have that background, nor is she supposed to.
And where that plays out really well, especially in the current business that we have today is our different perspectives in thinking about we’re advertising to a wide breadth of people. people, right? If I talk too fast and that rubs people in the wrong way or sends it, that’s a certain preference. She balances out really well.
If I have a certain trait about thinking about things in a certain way, she provides a counterpoint to that very well. When we’re selling products, if I’m not the end consumer, because you know, I’m a male demographic focusing on these type of products and I understand messaging from these type of messages, she’ll look at things from a very subtle level and be like, Hey, notice that.
Yeah. That’s really important and that will completely overlook and so being respectful of the other person’s strengthening weaknesses and helping them encourage and flourishing that I think that’s hugely valuable and it’s one of the things that we haven’t gotten to like multi generational, you know, running a business as a family in that sense.
Um, but it makes me think a lot about, you know, whether if our kids work in this business or not. You know, hopefully not, maybe they’re only doing their own thing to explore, but helping them encourage and flourish in their own way that are unique to them, I think is something that I, I, I wish more people recognize and hear about. That we took many years of very painful conversations and late nights to get past, which I’m glad we got past now. Um, but it’s one of those things where it was very easy to overlook. Right.
John and Connie: Exactly. I couldn’t say it any better. Wow. Yeah, we can relate. Yeah, because I’m dyslexic. So I look at the world entirely different than he does and he’s a perfectionist. They don’t necessarily go together.
John and Jenn: Yes. Works when it
John and Connie: Well, and even Even to go to the labels of strengths and weaknesses, you have to tread lightly.
Because, you know, what’s um, what can seem like a weakness can actually be a strength. You know, it’s kind of situational. Like you said, you know, in a chaotic situation, um, you know, she’s, to be able to figure a way through much faster than I am. I know for spatial relationships, that’s a different kind of chaos.
But like, when we were younger, we were going to pack a car full of stuff to go on a trip. I’d look at the pile of stuff and I’d look at the car and I’d say, You’re going to have to take some stuff back. It’s not going. And she’d look at it and say, Oh yeah, it’ll fit. And she was always right. Always right. And those kind of things, you know, I just had to learn to appreciate and not fight. He still fights, but I just ignore him.
John and Jenn: Once in a while. It’ll come around.
John and Connie: There was a book but ago, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, and that really helped me level up on that scale. It was an early day, but it helped. Appreciating the differences.
John and Jenn: Oh, for sure.
And I think for us, it’s, it’s again, hard in a, uh, family setting, because even if you recognize the strengths and weaknesses of a regular business partner, it gets personal. And so when you see the other person’s weaknesses, to not fault them, take them to a fault and to associate that with things outside of your life, it’s, it’s, that’s another can of worms too.
But it’s because it’s, it’s one of those things where, again, Um, having strengths and weaknesses is an important trait of any leadership or any position in business. But in a family setting is to not, um, appreciate the person’s strength and not, you know, taking the role or fighting over it or that kind of thing is one aspect of it that would come up.
But the other aspect of it is on the weakness side that you don’t, um, take it on that person personally. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, there’s an element of that, that it’s very easy because like you said, When you’re done at work, next thing you know, you’re going on a road trip and you have to pack the car and to carry that emotion or that, or that mental understanding of the other person and separating that within that environment.
And then going back to work the next day afterwards, it’s like,
tough
John and Connie: It is. It is tough. I love what, you know, you said at the beginning, it’s not for the faint of heart, and it’s not. It’s not. But, you know, it’s, there’s that, I come from an investing side, so you know, there’s risk and reward. The
John and Jenn: yes,
John and Connie: more reward, there’s more risk. It’s gonna happen.
John and Jenn: Absolutely when it works.
John and Connie: And when it works, it’s amazing.
John and Jenn: Yes.
John and Connie: Wow. Um, do you guys, you don’t have any other employees, do you? Is it just the two of you, or do you have a team?
John and Jenn: We have employees, we have a team, , that are, we have, that are based all over the world right now, , it didn’t used to be that way, we used to have more, uh, employees co located in Vancouver, , but the pandemic sort of, like, shifted that, and so, um, we’re, we’re a mix, mix of part time staff, , and one full time staff and a bunch of contractors, it’s easier in the agency world to, to fluctuate based on demand and, , your sales velocity to manage fulfillment in a contract and setting.
And so we’ve got the infrastructure now that we didn’t have before. Um, and so in terms of roles now, we’re still. Both handling account management and fulfillment. So we’re still involved with the day to day operations of the business. And I lean more on the sales side and she’s more on the marketing side of the business.
And, um, when we first talked about, you know, the operations of the business that we bought and owned. Um, and so like 80 percent of the time, it’s still most on the agency. The 20 percent time is on the venture and we have a general manager effectively that takes care of operations of those businesses that we meet with a regular basis, um, to make sure that things are still running smoothly.
So that’s our current setup right now.
John and Connie: Nice. Cool. Is there, is there anything in particular that you’ve learned from one of your employees that’s
John and Jenn: Oh, lots. I mean, so I think I’ll talk about the hiring process and I think that might be true for any general business, not just for family business. , I think the thing about hiring and, and leadership really, , is that, you know, any great hire should be better at you in their respective roles. And for an agency, it’s a little bit harder because in the, , when you’re selling a service and you’re selling labor effectively, um, You have to be bringing, you’re basically arbitraging talent.
And so what it means is that generally for a marketing agency, you’re bringing in more junior and intermediate employees and then finding ways to make sure that they incentivize to stay with you medium to long term. And so in terms of me learning from my employees, I think, you know, for me, it’s about, , knowing how to step away and delegate and be, uh, so I talked about earlier, you teach what you need to learn.
Um, um, I think the staff and the team has helped me, um, articulate a lot of the functional processes that we’re doing that we’ve internalized that we otherwise would not have been able to. And so seeing them do better in each of the respective roles than what we would have done individually. Um, that’s, that’s always really rewarding.
Any business owner can say that, uh, can, can, can understand and appreciate that. Um, and so I think that’s, um, maybe it should be more specific. One thing that I learned from them, but I think. You know, broadly, you know, very general sense. Um, that’s been my experience bringing people in and having them seeing them thrive in our environment because primarily we’ve been hiring people that are earlier into careers has been really rewarding and very fulfilling for me.
And, um, maybe I’ll come back to like a more specific lesson or thing that I learned from them, but Jenn, you have anything? I think I’m going to build upon just the delegation part. I think indirectly you’ve kind of learned how to delegate more. And I think when we started the business, it’s just us, just you and I, right?
So it’s, it was more so that like, okay, we can bring on everything and anything that we can actually do. We always believe that we can actually go through with it. Um, Make things happen. Um as we grow as a company as we grow as a team We slowly had to learn how to delegate Parts of the business and parts of the task parts of the projects to other people and it’s really hard It’s it’s it’s a growing It’s like a growing up process to as a business owner to now switching to be being being leadership and being management um in time in that like You need to have a you need to let go and know how to let go when to let go of like okay It’s okay You need to put this piece to that person and trust in that person that they can actually go and fulfill whatever they need to do um now our Now that our team Um have worked with us for quite a bit of time now up to a year to three years now uh Some team members have now know the dynamics between him and I and know exactly when to just like, Hey, do not involve John or like let John know that no, you cannot do this.
Let me take care of it and then teach him how to actually delegate and be okay. It’s like, no, I don’t need you to do this. I just need you to make a decision when I give you two, two options. You choose one, please kind of thing. Um, I think that’s that helped him a lot in terms of, Yeah. Being aware of his, uh, leadership role and how he can actually be improving his leadership at that time, uh, for, for being delegating that way.
But it’s also to be more self aware for him of his ADHD is because he wants to, like, he, he wants, he knows he needs to be a better leader, but he doesn’t quite know exactly how to actually let go of certain things and prioritizing what to let go and what not to let go. Um, I think the team right now have, found a really good soft spot to know exactly where to involve him and when not to involve him.
They know when to ask me for things and they know when to ask Jenn for it because John’s not going to respond. John’s not going to respond for like days. So, I think that part have helped and as for me, I’ve learned really quickly to delegate and I was like, I can’t do everything I’ve always been the one that’s doing like operations and marketing and like, you know All the tasks that needs to be done for the agent, uh for the for the clients themselves as well for execution so now That I have a lot more help,
I’m like, okay, I’m really trusting to actually just let them go through it when they are stuck. I know I need to be a backup for it, but I’m like, okay, but I’m not going to give you all the silver spoon and put everything into the instructions. Like, can you go and figure it out for me? I’m not going to give you the instruction for it.
How about you give me a proposal of one to two different options and then let me out the rest or, or evaluate what your options were. Um, That never been that that never been something I’ve done previously either. I also had to go through a piece a lesson to kind of let go and like trust the team to kind of figure out some things.
And the biggest shift is because my mental capacity was like just over the top 110 percent already. I can’t. I can’t stuff more things in there. Like I really need to actually lower my mental capacity and that’s the biggest mental shift for myself. It’s like, Nope, I’m not going to try to solve this problem.
I’m going to tell them these are the results and these are the things that I’m trying to solve. Can you go and figure it out for me and then come back with some options? Uh, that, that’s the growing part of how we’re dealing with the team and how the team is actually dealing with us at the moment.
John and Connie: So much
John and Jenn: Well said.
John and Connie: Yes, so much there. Wow. So, on one level, I heard so much you said about early in that about delegation would also apply to a founder, trying to navigate the early parts of succession because there’s, you know, very similar thought processes. You know, they’ve, they’ve been doing it. They know how to do it.
They know they can do it their certain way and they have to learn to trust. And, and part of that trust is knowing that people are going to make mistakes and we have to be, you have to be okay with that too. And they got to make their mistakes in order for them to learn. Cause you’re, you know, you’re, that’s part of them, how, how they recover from the mistakes is then what, how you learn to trust them more.
And, and the other thing you were talking about, uh, reminded me of, uh, have you heard of, uh, Dale Carnegie?
John and Jenn: Yes.
John and Connie: one of
John and Jenn: Do. Mm-Hmm,
John and Connie: techniques that he published in his book so many years ago was, you know, when somebody comes to him with a problem, he, you know, if it’s not, “Okay, tell me your problem and I’ll fix it for you.”
It’s no, , if you’re going to come to me with a problem, here’s a form you fill out. What’s the problem? What do you think? Uh, what are some several possible solutions and what do you think is the best possible solution and why? And you bring that to me filled out and we’ll talk. And you kind of described that process in your, you know, in how you learn to delegate.
Ha
John and Jenn: But we should systemize it though, because we actually never thought about it that way. That was all like organic in the way we, I actually systemized, I read a book that actually clearly. But it is very, very similar. And I think it’s very important to us, a young company that started as a startup to grow into a next phase of their company and the next phase of the company, if you are only thinking about, okay, well, we’re, we’re the best of what we do and we, we we’re holding on everything so tightly and not really sharing the, the responsibilities and the tasks and everything that, that the roles, um, you’ll always be just the two of you and your business won’t grow. You really want it. That that’s totally fine. If you actually want to grow a business just for the two of you, and there’s a lifestyle business that way, but if you have bigger ambition to actually grow a business and grow it bigger, uh, with better, with, with more team members.
And as. As a higher, higher, a bigger company, then you need to think about changing of the roles and how you’re going to actually have passed down the baton to somebody else to actually go through. No, I’m not going to do with finances anymore. Hey, Grace, can you take this on? And like, you know, you just need to meet with me once a month, every two weeks to actually go through all the P& L and all the things.
Therefore, I can actually go back to my CEO to actually talk about those finances, the high level stuff. But now you’re shifting your role very differently from where you started. Five six seven years ago to now you’re okay. Now you’re a different stage of company You have to you need to be able to actually shift that mindset As you grow as a team as you grow as a company and the team Team members that you hire on board also need to know that is the end goal.
That is the like north star We’re trying to get to
John and Connie: too. You know, this is, this is where, you know, sharing that, this is our, you know, direction. And, and, you know, someday you, you, we may sell and you may be working for somebody else or, you know, whatever, that’s, that’s huge. I, I was also thinking that, you know, sometimes people grow a business like that and they find themselves in a role where they miss doing the work.
They miss those early days. And so they actually sell the company and then go start another one and start over small so they can get their hands dirty again. And that’s okay too, right?
John and Jenn: For sure
John and Connie: They do it with a lot more money in their pocket, usually, so they can even enjoy, enjoy those early days much more without having to sweat the little stuff.
John and Jenn: I’m retired, now what do I do? Let’s
go find some work
John and Connie: There you go. This has been wonderful. It has been. So, um, my last question is always, you know, where can people contact you? I think I need to modify that a little, a little bit into who should contact you, like what type of business, and then where should they find you?
John and Jenn: for sure. And I appreciate that plug. Um, so you can find us at 2X.Agency. That’s the website URL. So the HTTPS, uh, two X dot agency. Um, you’ll find our agency site and you’ll learn about our different services, primarily in ad creative production. So if you’re creating video ads or what’s called UGC ads where users generated content ads, We primarily work with e commerce and software companies, as Jenn alluded to earlier.
But in some cases we might have some B2B software companies that are looking for lead generation efforts. So if you’re looking for, um, more customers or more leads, um, generally they’re good to have a discussion with us. Um, they generally need to be, uh, A bit further along where they have existing sales and existing customers.
So we can have data to look at to know how to improve whatever metrics and systems that they have. Um, but that’s the place to find us. Um, you know, personally you can connect with us on Twitter and LinkedIn. So, you know, I’m John Chan on LinkedIn. There’s a lot of us on there, but if you look for that under two X you’ll probably find me.
Um, and on Twitter I’m at J T C C H A N. I’m sure these will be links in the show notes that I’ll send over to you as well. Um, but I think that’s the best way to reach out to me. For me, for myself, it’s LinkedIn as well. Jennifer Lo. Um, Jennifer. Yeah. I think it’s Jennifer Lo. Um, and then, uh, on Twitter, uh, Jenn Lo underscore with two Ns.
So you can probably reach me there. No,
John and Connie: that and get it in the show notes. Yeah. This has been so much fun. I’m so glad we did this. Thank you! I want
John and Jenn: thank you for having us on.
John and Connie: I wanna go to Vancouver now and have dinner.
John and Jenn: Yes. Well, next time we’re in Tampa, we also can actually come over
John and Connie: Oh yes, if you come to Tampa, please let us know. Yeah, we would love to see you anytime.
John and Jenn: Thank you for having us.
John and Connie: let’s stay in touch.
John and Jenn: Absolutely. For sure.
