As a 6x entrepreneur, 10x agency professional and digital marketer since 1996, Kent Lewis is currently Founder of pdxMindShare, a networking group and online career community.

He speaks internationally, writes for industry publications like Inc. and SmartBrief and is regularly quoted in the media.

Kent was President and Founder of Anvil Media for 22 years, before selling his agency in 2022.

He was also an adjunct professor at Portland State University for 20 years.

Kent was named a Top 40 Under 40, Marketer of the Year by AMA Oregon and a Top 100 Digital Marketing Influencer by BuzzSumo.

Key Moments

[08:06] Struggling with age bias in work.

[11:04] Realized business leader’s intent wasn’t perfect.

[12:50] Realized importance of employee experience for success.

[17:11] Smaller shops target tech market, face competition.

[20:01] Avoided investing initially, then pushed sales and marketing.

[22:09] Overcoming challenges, rebuilding, and finding success.

[26:23] Survive challenges, maintain support, open up.

Find Kent Online

https://pdxmindshare.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kentlewis/

https://twitter.com/kentjlewis

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Transcript Provided By CastMagic.io

Seth [00:00:00]:
Entrepreneur’s Enigma is a podcast for the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, to the wins and the fails that we all face being entrepreneurs, how we learn from adversity. Every week, I talk to a different entrepreneur with a story to tell. I’m Seth Goldstein. Come with me on the journey. This is Entrepreneur’s Enigma. Let’s get started. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Entrepreneur’s Enigma podcast.

Seth [00:00:34]:
I am as always your host with the most. Seth. Oh, man, I’m such a dork. Anyhow, I have a good buddy of mine, Kent Lewis. We met, I think, 2, 3, I don’t know, A bunch of years ago at the Digital Summit in Philadelphia, great guy, real thought leader in this in the digital marketing space. He’s got an old hat when you think about it. He doesn’t look that old, But he’s been doing digital marketing since 1996. So I was 15 when he was getting into this.

Seth [00:01:04]:
And not to make you feel that old camp, but, you know, but he he was adjunct professor at Portland State for 20 years. He ran his company, Anvil Media, for 22 years before selling it and then working for the man a little bit. We’ll discuss how Working for the man is not always that much fun. So and now he’s out back on his own causing trouble. So, Kent, how’s it going, buddy?

Kent [00:01:28]:
It’s good. Thank you so much for having me. Always a pleasure to hang out with this stuff. Yeah. I think that was 2 years ago, but, you know, it might have been

Seth [00:01:34]:
It’s clear. I think it might have it was after the pandemic or after the the the the spike in the pandemic because we’re still in the damn thing. But, yeah, it was like, I think we It was everyone was starting to dust off the cobwebs, and we all went out.

Kent [00:01:47]:
Yeah. Yep.

Seth [00:01:48]:
Yep. Can you talk about the you talked about the metaverse.

Kent [00:01:52]:
That’s why I wonder how was that. So apparently I’m so, you know, that’s a good story in terms of What I’m doing now and looking to do is, find another home for my thought leadership obsession, Speaking and writing as I met you at Digital Summit, I’m writing for, you know, Inc and SmartBrief and other industry publications. And I do that, and I and I love it. I made the mistake of telling the company that acquired my agency that, oh, man. I love this so much. I I pretty much do it for free. And They effectively called me out on that and wanted to see if I’d really do it for free. Turns out I would.

Kent [00:02:28]:
But, You know, the bottom line is that I one of my thought leadership strategies the last decade has been pick a topic that I think is gonna be hot the next year, Research it, write about it, speak about it, get press mentions about it, and then suddenly a thought leader after it takes about 3 to 5 months. And then I typically ride that wave for a year or 2 until it’s no longer, it’s it’s old hat or it crashes and burns like the metaverse and NFTs. Teeth.

Seth [00:02:57]:
Metaverse is what was that? The metaverse was about a year.

Kent [00:03:00]:
Yep.

Seth [00:03:01]:
And then AI came in. It was crypto, then the metaverse, now it’s AI.

Kent [00:03:05]:
Right. Crypto crashed and I had when crypto happened, I started going through the NFT side of marketing and, you know, lightly touching blockchain. Then I went deep into the metaverse The next year, 2, 3 I guess, almost 3 years ago. And then, that started to take a dump when crypto dumped, NFTs dumped, and metaverse followed. Now metaverse is still going. It will continue to evolve. Yeah.

Seth [00:03:26]:
It’s been going on since 2000 with Second Life. I mean, it’s always been there.

Kent [00:03:29]:
Yeah. It’s been there a long time. And but It’ll be, you know, not sexy. It’ll be useful and powerful versus NFTs, which, again, will reinvent, as more useful. The

Seth [00:03:42]:
idea that he always fascinated me, but not in the bored ape kind of way.

Kent [00:03:48]:
Yeah. That was all that was all BS. And there was a speaker

Seth [00:03:52]:
person here. That’s that’s total bullshit. Yeah.

Kent [00:03:53]:
Yeah. There was a speaker at, Digital Summit that presented In parallel with me, there was telling people brands to invest in Bored Ape as a as a strategy. I was like so, like, I’m not an you know, I’m not a financial adviser. I’m like, that’s for damn sure. And that’s why it was still, you know, absolutely hot. And I was that just is a bad idea.

Seth [00:04:13]:
You didn’t know the the cyberpunk ones.

Kent [00:04:15]:
Yeah.

Seth [00:04:15]:
I mean, I’m like, what’s keeping me from this, like, screen shying them and having 1?

Kent [00:04:19]:
Like Right. But right. Nothing. Just it’s bragging. Right? So that’s why until it gets part of business and, like, Financials Blockchain. State.

Seth [00:04:26]:
There’s something there. Yeah. I think there’s something So that’s there.

Kent [00:04:29]:
But, you know, I think if we go back 10 years, I was like, you know, or more. Like, I start maybe 12 years ago talking about video marketing, then it was mobile. That’s so hot, saying.

Seth [00:04:38]:
Video marketing is very big right now.

Kent [00:04:39]:
Yeah. Well, it’s come full circle. And then I I was doing podcasting years ago Mhmm. For about 5 years, I had a show. I was a cohost, and then we just kinda ran out of runway. My my host was like you doing all the production, and He and his wife, basically, they they went bankrupt, and they ripped all the shows off the Internet. And I was like, dude, it could’ve been free. I would’ve stored them.

Kent [00:04:57]:
He’s like, oh, we just didn’t want any trouble. I was like, 5 years of weekly shows gone.

Seth [00:05:02]:
We’re gonna take a quick break, hear from our sponsors, and get right back to the show. I I have so many on the Internet archive. This archive I have, like, Ten shows they’ve done since 2010. And I and I put on it in our in an archive because let them have it. Like, let them have a mystery.

Kent [00:05:18]:
That’s right. That’s right. It’s it’s a part of our culture, and, I think I’m glad you were smart enough to do that. It doesn’t surprise me. But, you know and I would go into mobile, and it was Amazon. It was voice search and etcetera. And so, that’s part of my my journey when I was running my business. I was like, I need to stay up, so I challenge myself.

Kent [00:05:37]:
There are a lot of other, facets to it, but, you know, my journey was the, accidental entrepreneur. I kept getting fired, as an agency guy, and I realized I I didn’t work well for others. And

Seth [00:05:51]:
You have to be well in the sandbox.

Kent [00:05:53]:
No. And and just having proven that yet again after 20 20 plus years is, I worked for another agency for 14 months before we I would say we agreed to part ways. They made the call, but I was a 100% on board with that. Right. Fine. See

Seth [00:06:06]:
you later. Bye.

Kent [00:06:07]:
We’re we’re still absolutely cordial. I send them work. I still have equity in them. They’re they’re definitely turning the ship after a rough year, so that’s good to see. See, this

Seth [00:06:15]:
last year was a weird year. 2020 was a very weird year for a lot of people. Some people rocked it. Some people didn’t rock it. Some people are rocking it now, Now which I am right now, things are picking up now at the end of the year, which is very bizarre because it’s supposed to be dead right now. Yep. I mean, heck, before the podcast, you said you’re off to Maui.

Kent [00:06:32]:
You know, like

Seth [00:06:33]:
Clearly, you’re you’re clearly, you’re not busy right now. You’re gonna have to Maui for a while to tomorrow.

Kent [00:06:39]:
Listen, Seth. Here’s the here’s the best kept secret. I put in the same or more hours than I did when I was getting a paycheck. The only difference is I’m not getting a paycheck. Yep. I I and I I just found out that our benefits may have lapsed. With a family with a family of 4, that’s, that’s not a good thing, especially right before you travel. So we’re that we’re getting that wrapped up Right quick.

Seth [00:06:59]:
You’re getting used

Kent [00:06:59]:
to it,

Seth [00:07:00]:
bring around, getting that stuff together. Yeah.

Kent [00:07:01]:
Getting that. Yeah. Yeah. And, so, but what I would say is, you know, you mentioned I started in In digital 96, I started my marketing career in 94 after graduating with a business degree with a marketing major concentration. I started my career in PR. And, honestly, that was huge in influencing my my career in digital was is 60% SEO. That’s what I know best because digital ads weren’t a thing. Banner ads, I wouldn’t say really counted.

Kent [00:07:30]:
Banner at. And so

Seth [00:07:31]:
banner addicts smacked them up. Yeah. Or it didn’t Yeah. You know what I mean?

Kent [00:07:35]:
Oh, and they have the X10 camera and stuff like that. And so Yeah. Bottom, Bottom line is that I was for 6 years, I was doing SEO before, Go 2 came along with the 1st ad platform, and I was still well, 4 or 5 years, it was 99. But, you know, Adwords was effectively early o two. So I had it I’ve put it old. Yeah. It’s it’s only it’s only 20 something years old. But before that age

Seth [00:08:00]:
and Internet age is old. That’s ancient.

Kent [00:08:02]:
It’s ancient. And the funny thing is I’m not calling you ancient.

Seth [00:08:05]:
Not calling you ancient. No.

Kent [00:08:06]:
It’s it’s, well, I I that’s the other lesson. Having been, You know, I’m between things, and I’m, you know, like I said, looking for that specific role, you know, thought leader at some MarTech brand or whatnot. There’s, you know, being over 50, Persona non grata. And I have other friends that are similarly looking. And once you’re over 50, you’re kinda screwed both in the The business dating world and the and the human dating world is I have a friend that’s, he’s a widower, and he’s, like, I just put 49 on my my dating profiles because I couldn’t Get dates. You know, he’s he’s out.

Seth [00:08:37]:
50 is not that old. I mean, Jared, this looked up. There’s tickets going for 30 seconds to Mars, you know, Jared Letters. And he’s 51.

Kent [00:08:47]:
Yeah. Right?

Seth [00:08:48]:
Damn it. He’s Jared Leto for crying out loud. So, you know, we’re not Jared Leto.

Kent [00:08:52]:
He’s gorgeous. Can’t believe he’s 51. That’s insane to me.

Seth [00:08:55]:
He’s 51, but, I mean, like, come on. He isn’t I mean, he looks damn great for 51.

Kent [00:08:59]:
Yeah. Oh, totally. Well, I think there’s probably some creepy Dracula blood transfusion, something he’s doing to keep keep looking fresh, but it’s working.

Seth [00:09:07]:
It’s working. It’s working. But yeah.

Kent [00:09:09]:
Yeah. Yeah. So I’m so I think for me, I I’ve been on panels on part of this group, entrepreneur organization, EO. So it’s a bunch of business owners around the world. 17,000 some odd business owners. It’s a peer nonprofit. You know, you learn from each other and from experts. But what’s interesting is I have I’ve been on panels where they’re like, I had this vision, and it hit and it hit me, and I had to do this business.

Kent [00:09:30]:
And then they get to me and, like, how’d you do? I was like, Once I got fired from by my boss who was a cofounder of an agency, he brought me in and then he fired me 18 months later. I was like, I clearly. And he believed in me. It was more complicated than that. But my bottom line was maybe I should do something else. Didn’t really want to, Yeah. Didn’t wanna have employees. It’s hard enough for me to just hang a shingle and go out on my own, but I did that in 2000 late 2000.

Kent [00:09:57]:
I didn’t hire employees till late o three. So

Seth [00:09:59]:
Oh, wow.

Kent [00:10:00]:
I had, contract contractors, freelancers, former employees.

Seth [00:10:03]:
How I do it. Yeah.

Kent [00:10:04]:
Yeah. And it worked out great for what it was, and I was Launching a a separate agency in o two that’s now called Thesis, and so that’s 21 years old. And so that’s that’s the only world. Yeah. But, you know, I think the the lesson is I hadn’t worked for somebody else since 2000, Since 2000. No. No. Technically, I did too little consulting stints where I was effectively full time.

Kent [00:10:32]:
I just was more like a contractor. Point is, Let’s call it o two. So for over 20 years, I forgot what it was like to be an employee, but I always cared about my employees. But This my passion now is this, is, is employee experience. So Yeah. You know, in short, I’ve been obsessed with customer experience my whole career. Like, I am gonna be the most responsive. I’m gonna train up my team and hire people that care about clients, And that worked pretty well.

Kent [00:11:00]:
You know? I had

Seth [00:11:01]:
About 20 years in the business. I mean, come on. You know? Seriously.

Kent [00:11:04]:
We we, you know, we had some we had some great clients. We had we won some awards. There Some acknowledgment from from others that that we were doing pretty good. But, it wasn’t until I became an employee March of last year that it just like the matrix. I started to see it all and what it all meant. It meant that I wasn’t, that I was doing my intent was a 100% right, And I got it right most of the time, but I would say when I thought as as a as a business leader and the owner, I thought I was nailing 100%. Well, I would have said Conservatively, modestly 95% right. Well, I’m maybe I was 80% in execution at at Anvil.

Kent [00:11:40]:
But the new co, my new, employer was, you know, firing at, like, 60, 70%. And to me, that was nowhere near the 95% that I would want and

Seth [00:11:52]:
expect. Exactly.

Kent [00:11:54]:
So I after doing that time doing time as an employee and leaving in in late May of this year, I started embarking on the self discovery of, like, what matters to me. And as much as I can happen, though. Yeah.

Seth [00:12:06]:
Right. It doesn’t happen when

Kent [00:12:08]:
Serious naval gazing for 6 months. And what I realized was I still have a passion for communicating digital It’s not the passion I have for the marketing itself as much as the communication to business owners and students, frankly, to help them Build careers or build businesses. That’s my passion. I speak at the 102 to 201 level, and I hand it off to experts like

Seth [00:12:32]:
You’re you’re you’re university here.

Kent [00:12:33]:
Yeah. Yeah. You you can teach 301, 401 to your clients. You know, that’s my that’s my handwork to you, for the chopping of the wood expertise that I don’t have and do not wanna continue to try and keep up. But I do try and stow its step on what’s latest and greatest in read aloud.

Seth [00:12:49]:
Absolutely. Yeah. Take care.

Kent [00:12:50]:
Yeah. But I I do believe that the employee experience is you I realized in just the last 3 months, You can’t even though I heard this back in 07 from this, EO learning event from this guy that was a sales guy, but he’s like Yeah. Corporate culture by design or default. You either have 1st cult of personality or you have a structured culture where people behave consistently whether you’re there as the owner or not. I was like, oh my god. I’m not doing it right. So for o seven so for 12, 13 years, I was engineering a culture that I thought was gonna be more successful, And I realized that it was still very much customer first instead of employee first. So I realized this year, now I’ve built some material around it, presentation, some articles, Is that you can’t have a consistently good customer experience without a really amazing employee experience.

Kent [00:13:39]:
And there’s a bunch of research To to that that it’s it’s logical, but but the reason I mentioned that, it would seem totally intuitive except Fortune 1,000, and this is based on some amazing work Tiffany Bova has done Mhmm. In the end. She has a book called, Experience Mindset. But it’s basically in quarterly financial calls, Wall Street calls, the word employee is typically associated with a an a company problem With missed earnings. They’re literally blending their own people. And so that’s deadly. That’s toxic. So I realized, like, I think We I wanna get to entrepreneurs that have and are building employee base to realize you have to invest every dollar you spend on employee experience generates a return.

Kent [00:14:25]:
Every dollar you spend on customer experience does not directly guarantee returns.

Seth [00:14:29]:
It doesn’t always or it’s pain in the ass to get the return, honestly.

Kent [00:14:31]:
Right. So you do it through your own hands. Ass. Yeah. So that’s

Seth [00:14:35]:
how So so here’s a question for you.

Kent [00:14:37]:
Yeah.

Seth [00:14:38]:
Because you’ve been doing this for 20 some years on your own, In your own sandbox, what is the best thing about being an entrepreneur?

Kent [00:14:48]:
I I would say, honestly, it’s the Cliche, it’s definitely the freedom. Uh-huh. I felt like a caged chicken for 14 months after being a free range chicken. You know, maybe that’s a terrible

Seth [00:15:00]:
growth one. Too.

Kent [00:15:01]:
Yeah. Exactly. I I was running around, and I and I realized I had discipline When I was running the business, I had discipline as employee. I was committed. I’m gonna sell my business. I’m gonna become the best employee they’ve ever had. I’m going to sunset my brand and be okay with it. And I did all of those things.

Kent [00:15:17]:
But when they closed the office and laid me off at the same time, I was like, that was too much. Like, that was too hard.

Seth [00:15:23]:
Hit home.

Kent [00:15:25]:
Yeah. It really hit home for me and it became very emotional. It wasn’t the the deal didn’t matter to me. It was the outcome and how it felt. So I spent the last, you know, 5, 6 months dealing with that. And and I’ve pretty much gone through all the 7 stages or whatever it is.

Seth [00:15:38]:
And it’s kinda the japanie for, what, 20 odd years?

Kent [00:15:40]:
20 something years. Yeah. 20, yeah. 22 years. So I feel like, I was able to hand over now. They kept the clients. They kept a few of the team, the financial success for them and TBD, whether it’s financially successful for me, we’ve got a couple more years of payout.

Seth [00:15:56]:
Here’s hoping. Here’s hoping.

Kent [00:15:57]:
It’s Yeah. And and I just saw just Today, they’re quarterly and and the numbers are looking up, which is great. And I have a bunch of agency friends that I meet with regularly that they’ve had really rough years. Some that you the the the rubber statement around. It was really rough. And so the way I look at it and this was a a why this is a why on the road for all Agency owners in the marketing world. And it the new normal is AI is messing with you and not necessarily in all good ways. Right? Mhmm.

Kent [00:16:29]:
It’s it’s for SEOs in particular, it’s creating a dearth of of mediocre to shitty content Better maybe than handwritten, by people that don’t care, but because the

Seth [00:16:41]:
Save money that way, honestly. You can You you put shit in, you’d shit out, but at least you’re not paying for the shit.

Kent [00:16:46]:
Yeah. You’re getting really affordable shit. And so, but that makes it it’s harder. It makes it harder on copywriters. It makes it harder on, clients like the rankings aren’t there. But what here’s where it’s also interesting is on the prospecting side. A couple of my fellow agency owners are saying, Prospects are not picking up the phone, and they’re not responding to emails like they used to because they’re getting inundated by by automated drip campaigns.

Seth [00:17:08]:
Oh my god. I can’t shut it up. That for another hour. Yeah.

Kent [00:17:11]:
And and here’s another thing that you’re more immune to being a a smaller, leaner shop is, one of my buddies has, I’m gonna have lunch with him today, has a he targets Fortune 1 1000’s building, like, apps and and tools, business tools. You know, he he put transitioned away from web development to app and and product development. And he said, all the big, the big five, the big ten consultancies Have moved down a market as all the tech jobs were lost a year ago. They moved down market from the Fortune 1,000 to Fortune 10,000, And that’s where they played, and they’re getting shut out where these, Accenture and all these guys, Gartner, whoever, they’re coming in and they’re just saying, you know, we’re the AOR. They’re pushing out all the vendors to take everything. And that means they have to go down market. And down market, there’s a bunch of Competitiveness from folks like you that can be lean and lean in an MMO role. We’re not pushin’ a mechanic

Seth [00:18:02]:
around an iceberg. Exactly.

Kent [00:18:04]:
Right. And you’re not you don’t have the overhead that You know, requires some big, costs. So so the future and I told this to my former employer, said a year ago. Said, you wanna do you wanna achieve your goals, which were big volume goals. And that it was of little interest to me, but I was like, I can help you achieve those goals, but the only way that I saw doing it is going the way that I know I never wanted to do, but I knew would work, which is, outsource, offshore, near shore, automate. You know, so COVID shows that you can have a remote workforce. It’s not as fun. It’s it may or may not be more productive if you’re in the creative side.

Kent [00:18:42]:
I don’t know that it’s our product development side. I think there are much greater challenges there. But If you have, like, a senior team that’s very seasoned and independent, but works well together, I think that’s great. Fantastic. But if you’re not using automation, outsourcing, delegation, and streamlining the crap out of everything with technology tools and low code

Seth [00:19:03]:
You’re too bulky at You’re

Kent [00:19:05]:
gonna be too bulky and you’re not gonna grow or you’re gonna have the margins or the the you’re gonna not gonna be able to reduce your risk meaningfully. So I told them this is the way you can do it. I know you’re not gonna wanna do it. Like, yeah, we’re not interested. So instead, they bit the bullet and and took the way that guaranteed lost revenue. You know? They happens. They got some

Seth [00:19:24]:
With that with that in mind, what is the scariest thing about being an entrepreneur? I mean, you’re talking about lost revenue.

Kent [00:19:29]:
I mean Yeah. So I think it’s the feast and Famine. So with the freedom come the the with the reward comes the risk. So the risk Mhmm. That I experienced, at a pinnacle in 2014 After rebuilding my, business in 2013 was, we lost, coincidentally, by and large, Our 5 largest clients within 45 days, which was 25 was 45% of our revenue. So what that meant that all happened in March. So what that meant in 2014 is for 9 months, I didn’t take a salary. Oh.

Kent [00:20:01]:
What I did do is so instead of putting money into the business, we basically were just Puttering along for the rest of that year. And as we gained finally momentum, because we were pedal the metal, we were like, we didn’t hesitate and scratch our head, like, I don’t know. We we dove in and we’re like, you know, sales, full throttle, up the marketing, you know, take care of the team. And so by the end of the year, my other 2 senior execs, I asked to take a pay cut. I made them whole by the end of the year. So they had no

Seth [00:20:29]:
That’s rewarding. Yeah.

Kent [00:20:30]:
Ending up with no sacrifice. At the end of the year, they were square, but I never got even. But I also

Seth [00:20:36]:
back. Yeah.

Kent [00:20:36]:
Out of 22 years, that was By far my worst year in the and only only time I didn’t take a paycheck for more than a month or 2. And it was stressful, But we did it, but the reason why I didn’t even complain I did not complain is because I had 20 other good years. Right? Yeah. Exactly. I had a couple amazing years. So I couldn’t, But I did here’s my lesson is I used that opportunity. I was not a, open books shop. I would say, here’s our revenue per employee.

Kent [00:21:04]:
You know, I just wouldn’t Say, here’s our margin. Here’s how much is in Kent’s bank account. Yeah. So I would use other metrics to show our progress and our success and everything. Nobody ever necessarily asked, but people did assume. So when we had a bad year, I was constantly communicating with them about Not the woe is me. It’s here’s where we’re at. We’re still losing money or we’re breakeven.

Kent [00:21:26]:
We need to get ahead. If you guys ever want raises, which I wanna give you, I need your help. If you ever wanna get these other things you want, you know, I tried to make it about them, not about me. Yeah.

Seth [00:21:35]:
Include them in the process.

Kent [00:21:36]:
Right. And that we were a team. And boy, by golly, We we we came together as a team and we did it. And That’s awesome. Yeah. And so, you know, I’ve had leaner years, but you know, I don’t know about you, but I made, I made half as much, in 2000 from two thousand 20 from 2018 to 2022, I made half as much as I made 10 years earlier, because it was that perfect storm of Clients with money, not a ton of sophistication yet. I was still an early adopter.

Seth [00:22:08]:
Everything came ahead.

Kent [00:22:09]:
Like a Now. It was a perfect storm. So I was just like, bing, bing, bing. So that’s why when I had a rough year a couple years later, I was like, well, I kinda deserve this, I guess, and I’ll weather. And and I did. And I was able to rebuild the business When I sold in 2022, I did it because not because I didn’t love the business or my team or my clients, which was true 10 years early, in 2 2023 in 2013. I was miserable, and I was disconnected from my own industry, my own discipline. So by 2022, I was the best team I’d ever had.

Kent [00:22:38]:
We were tight. Mike, our clients respect us. We’d earn their trust again and brought in some great new clients who didn’t have baggage with us. Expanded our services, but we’re mainly outsourcing. That was kind of a sticking point. And I was reengaged with the community with my industry because I was Picking those, what’s the trend? And I’d stay Mhmm. It’d force

Seth [00:22:57]:
me to came in. Yeah.

Kent [00:22:59]:
Yeah. And so all of those things happened, but I sold for four reasons. I Wanted to, give my team a clear path. You’re only 11 employees. And, you know, how many titles can I give you with 11 people? It was it was part of our credo not to be driven by title, and the team wasn’t complaining per se, but I was worried long term. I had to fix that. We we really needed more services in house to be competitive because we were, you know, organic and paid and social and search and that sort of thing. We outsourced everything else.

Kent [00:23:27]:
So I wanted more in house, to be more competitive. And then I wanted to get my wife out of the operational role because she was good at it, but but didn’t wanna do work for me anymore, and rightly so. Every time most

Seth [00:23:37]:
of my business she wanted her husband and not her boss.

Kent [00:23:41]:
Yeah. I mean, she was, like, 247, you’re my you know, it’s like I feel like you’re bossing me around. I was, like, Can you just cook dinner and just be quiet? No. I’ve never cooked. Aw. No. She’s a she’s a she’s amazing cook, and I do the dishes. That’s Hey.

Seth [00:23:54]:
You know your roles in the kitchen.

Kent [00:23:56]:
I crushed that. And then the last was back to full circle. I just wanna be a thought leader. I wanna speak Yeah. And write and and teach, And I and that’s what got me to for this company to acquire. They called and said, I know you wanna be a thought leader. That’s what we want. That’s what we need.

Kent [00:24:12]:
We’ll take care of your team and your clients, and say they’ve, to their credit, taken exceptional care of our our clients. And The team that’s remaining, I’d like to say, I think they’re taking good care of them. But we move on we move on on our own path parallel paths Yeah. Basically.

Seth [00:24:26]:
So what is the most important thing we carry with you all the time?

Kent [00:24:31]:
I would say what’s interesting is you you you probably have seen this. I think the more employees you have, The bigger the clients, the more likely you already just got constantly kicked around. So I was deeply degraded by my team. You know, I have stars, Like, real emotional scars from things that my team did and said from, you know, 2008 to 2000 13, 14, it was pretty brutal. And so what I carried around, I think there’s I think you need a ideally a 4 legged stool as an entrepreneur. Is that that’s 4 legs?

Seth [00:25:01]:
Is really yeah.

Kent [00:25:02]:
Really good. So for me, the the first leg is you have to take care of yourself first. So Mhmm. So I I’ve I’ve Ever since COVID, I’ve I’ve targeted 7 at least 7 and a half hours of sleep when I was used to get 6 and a half. Oh, yes. Closer to 8. I work out, you know, pretty much every day. And I eat well because of my wife.

Kent [00:25:23]:
Now I go on my own. Yeah. She’s amazing. And then, and then there’s, you know, taking care of and then there’s family. So having a healthy relationship with your Significant other, your your children, your your other family and friends. I’ve been pretty pretty good at that. I could be better. And then there’s the, Then there’s your peer network.

Kent [00:25:43]:
Right? You’re, you know, so I network. I have, as you mentioned earlier, PDX Mindshare, which I started over 20 years ago. It’s just a way for me to help others connect. I love being a connector. Sure. But I found that they were I was their crutch 80% of the time, but that 20% of the crutch, the time when they were my crutch saved me. Absolutely. So Oh, absolutely.

Seth [00:26:00]:
You know, and having the networks worth it.

Kent [00:26:03]:
Right. And that that that also relates to EO Entrepreneur Organization, this other roundtable group of just agency folks on product. Those business owners, we share experiences and and Yeah. And mindset. And so and I guess there’s 1 other you could chalk up the 4th is, like, Spiritual or something else that fills your your your bowl

Seth [00:26:21]:
Yeah. It kinda be purpose. Yeah.

Kent [00:26:23]:
Yeah. So I have had all of those to help me get absolutely Survived the donkey punches in the back of the neck, the kicks and the Jojo’s, that have been so if any one of those, you know, home, work, You know, kind of body and soul Yeah. Whatever. If one of those gets kicked off from under you can still hold up. If you lose 2 of them, then you’re merely in comparison. So I always try to keep at least 2 work 2 to 3 working at a time, and that’s kinda what got me through the hardest times for sure. But having that network then being able to open up to them so that they can help you. You can’t just assume that they know what you’re going through.

Seth [00:26:58]:
No. You can’t assume that at all. Well, Kent, this has been so much fun. I’m so glad I got you on. You know, our friendship, it means so much to me. I’m so glad that we’re friends. And we thank you, you know, to the Digital Summit from connecting us.

Kent [00:27:12]:
Yes. I

Seth [00:27:12]:
think we had that day we talked about Minecraft for a while there about the metaverse.

Kent [00:27:16]:
Oh my gosh. Yeah. I’m a real Wait.

Seth [00:27:18]:
Wait. Wait. I haven’t been in Minecraft for a while, but still yeah. That was Yeah.

Kent [00:27:21]:
No. You were building out some amazing stuff there. That’s It’s true.

Seth [00:27:23]:
Oh, the the the world we have in the indie hall community, you know, south Indiana, Philadelphia. We were the 1 Indiana hall Minecraft server. It is insane what’s in there.

Kent [00:27:33]:
Yeah. You made the whole subway station, didn’t you?

Seth [00:27:35]:
It really did. I didn’t do anything. But I helped improve it.

Kent [00:27:39]:
Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much for having me. And Always a pleasure. Yeah. If anybody wants to connect with me, I think there’s show notes plus I’m probably the number 1 Kent Lewis on LinkedIn. Easy to find from Portland, Oregon.

Seth [00:27:51]:
Pondering something in

Kent [00:27:53]:
I always I always, that’s actually a back alley not far from my house. Odd shot my buddy took with his iPhone, but, and then, you know, you can follow me on Twitter x. I don’t like Twitter x, but I it is a place where I share all my digital knowledge. If you’re interested, Kent.

Seth [00:28:08]:
I’ll I’ll get you a mask on if it’s the last thing I do.

Kent [00:28:12]:
I’m I’m on there. I just don’t use it.

Seth [00:28:14]:
I’ll I’ll get you on there more.

Kent [00:28:16]:
Okay. Sounds good.

Seth [00:28:18]:
Alright. But we will see everyone next time. That was a great show. If you’re enjoying Entrepreneur’s Enigma, please view us in the podcast directory of your choice. Every review helps other podcast listeners find our show. If you’re looking for other podcasts in the marketing space, look no further than The Marketing Podcast Network at marketingpodcasts

Kent [00:28:42]:
.net.

Seth [00:29:02]:
Goldstein Media hopes you’ve enjoyed this episode.