Why Agencies Solve the Wrong Problems: Jess Chan & Rachyl Neidecker, Longplay

Robby Bryant:0:01
Welcome back to the High Ticket AI Systems podcast. Today I am with two guests, Jess Chan and Rachel Nijdecker, who own their agency Longplay, focusing on something that I think a lot of agency owners focus on the second half after they get clients. We'll get all into it. Rachel and Jess, would you guys mind kind of just introducing yourself first off what your roles are? and also how you met, Jess, could you start?

Jess Chan:0:34
Yeah. first off, so excited to be here. Thanks for having us. so I'm just founder and executive chair now of Longplay. Started Longplay seven, almost eight years ago now. before that I was a CMO at an e-commerce brand. And really the story behind Longplay was, you know, I was e you know, a CMO at the time where acquisition was really the focus. No one really talked about email and SMS. It was kind of like a bonus thing that brands did when you know, ads We're scaling so quickly. started long play, we started specializing with just email and SMS and then grew up to retention marketing, lifecycle marketing. And now we're a full consulting firm where our team plugs in as an extension of our clients' teams and also consults as a fractional executive and strategic partner across all areas of the business, which we'll get a little bit deeper into. and then Ashley brought Rach in. think about a year and a half ish into the business when I'm sure as most agencies have owners have experienced, you get to a point where you're growing really, really quickly. there's a lot of revenue in the door, a lot of team members, a lot of clients. but operationally things feel like it's on fire. You feel like you're drowning. there's a thousand different things happening. And so Rage came in as my COO and now is our CEO.

Robby Bryant:1:56
Amazing. That's that's awesome. I'm looking forward to having your experience and your input on the show. Rachel, would you mind introducing yourself?

Rachyl Neidecker:2:05
Yeah, thanks for having us. so Rachel, now CEO and a partner. just made me partner, I think, three, four years ago, Jess. but yeah, been here actually had my seven-year anniversary this past week. So that's crazy, the fact that we've been together seven years. and right, seven years? Right? Yeah.

Jess Chan:2:27
So.

Rachyl Neidecker:2:29
seven year anniversary. Started off as C COO. I was fractional. I actually hired long play because retention, like Jess was saying, was not a very valued thing at the time in e-commerce and I was in e-commerce D2C conversion from B2B to D to C and distress asset correction and management. And I was actually brought in to correct a company and I would needed some support in that area and met Jess and loved Longplay and everything she was doing and her philosophy and just her as a human. So hired Longplay, worked with her, and then we decided we wanted to make that like a permanent thing. So that was seven, six or seven years ago now.

I think it's seven years. So seven years, we're gonna go seven years. and yeah, been really happy ever since and really excited to be kind of expanding our product services. We really found that just focusing on one area of like not just retention, but the humanization is what we call it of like the whole life cycle of what people are experiencing with the brand, especially because everything's online now can really make people feel. disengaged or like the brand isn't very authentic. So the more we can integrate what we're learning retention wise and bottom of funnel and integrate it throughout the entire life cycle of the customer journey, that just benefits the client so much more. And it just increases you know subscription, review purchase, trust. So yeah, that's why we've kind of migrated to that focus and we really enjoy it.

Robby Bryant:4:01
Awesome. Wow. So you've really gone up through the ranks starting as a client now, all the way up to CEO.

Rachyl Neidecker:4:08
So yeah, so I was my before that I was COO a few places fractionally. and then yeah, I was director of ops for a consultancy before that. and then I was in big business prior to that. So yes, I have, I have. I have worked for I was very proud to be promoted this past year.

Jess Chan:4:28
Yeah. And I would say Rach is also underplaying her background. And I think is also one of the areas that a lot of agency owners and also just like entrepreneurs, founders, tend to undervalue in hiring as well as Rach had so much experience before we even worked together. turning around distress assets, she was a CEO of an e-commerce brand. So coming into the agency space was new for her in terms of like working with an agency, but the actual business expertise, which is actually what clients need.

Robby Bryant:4:28
Amazing.

Jess Chan:4:58
she already had over a decade of experience. And so it's been really a cool journey of just learning to partner together. and and you know, long play itself evolving as a business as well.

Robby Bryant:5:10
Amazing. Congratulations to you, Rachel. before we get too into the weeds, Jess, would you mind kind of telling us what your offer is and you know how it's positioned and who are you selling to mostly?

Rachyl Neidecker:5:10
Sweet, thanks. thank you.

Jess Chan:5:22
Yeah. so honestly, I'd say the crux of what we're excellent at as a team and as a as a consulting firm is the diagnostics part of understanding what the actual problems are in a business. And then we've also built out all the capabilities and services needed to actually plug those holes and solve those problems. But the biggest problem we've seen, especially with e-commerce brands, but even more broadly, software companies and agencies, which we've worked with as well. is it's so easy to be doing a lot of activity solving all the wrong problems. there's so many brands that come in that are like, we just need to fix our ads, we just need to, you know, increase our ROA ads and we change, you know, better ads and better targeting and better acquisition. And meanwhile, they're not looking at all the customers are leaking out the bottom of the funnel, like Rachel mentioned. all the ways that they're leaving money on the table by not upselling, not cross-selling, not being strategic in their product development.

Rach has found so many businesses where they're scaling rapidly and they're also still unprofitable, specifically because of their 3PL contract or how their operations are run. So the expertise that Rach and also our broader team brings to the table is hey, let's look at your business as a whole because we know what it takes to run and operate a scalable, sustainable, profitable business. Let's look across all of the business the way that a founder has to, the way that a CEO has to, and help you identify what are the three core issues or areas you're losing revenue profit. customers, know which levers to pull to solve those problems. And then either us, we plug in as an extension of their internal team, we train and support their internal team in doing so, or we're bringing in external vendors to plug those holes. But everything that we're the core of what we do really, really well is finding what the right problems to solve are for businesses.

Robby Bryant:7:10
I understand. So it kinda sounds like you guys are wearing a lot of hats. is it my understanding is that you guys started off very retention focused. Was it always kind of the goal to get into more of a a multi-layered agency that services more areas than just, you know, focusing on retention? Or did you kind of start with the retention and it grew naturally as you as you were seeing what needed to be done to actually retain. I I feel like retain is such a a broad word here. We want to keep clients and keep making money.

Rachyl Neidecker:7:45
Do you want me to take that, Jess? Or So I think what what Jess and I found, the better people We the more experienced team members we brought on, the more they found there wasn't just one problem, right? So people were like, my branding is bad. It's like, well, that's like a one-note thing, right? Or I don't think that our you know product page is converting. That's like a one-note thing. But usually like the problem starts so much farther up or is so much more insidious. And it's those one to two percents across all these places. So it was kind of a natural evolution that Jess and I would point these things out. Our team members that were awesome would. point these things out. The problem maybe like, no, our loyalty isn't working well. I was like, well, actually the reason your loyalty is not working well is is is because of the education bits that don't make sense that you're talking about or these are no longer relevant topics or these are dated things that people don't care about anymore. Or you're not speaking to them like a human, right? Just like basic fundamental things that were pervasive throughout different areas, whether that's operations, vendor management, product and packaging, specifically brain positioning, any kind of acquisition, growth, website. So all those things would be cropping up in all these places and we would fix it at the very end result of the problem. And then we were still having the issue upstream, right? So the goal was is to solve the actual core of the problem, identify it by, you know, results and numbers, which we should be doing, kind of diagnose what the issue is, figure out which of those things had the heaviest weight, meaning how often did they come up. like systemically in their business and fixing those things. And when we started doing that on top of just the deliverables, we were making so much more money for our clients. So it was a pretty natural evolution in my opinion that it was us just doing the right thing and us trying to educate people on the the small ones and two percents. Jess and actually my husband loved that what's that book the hospitality book that you like Jess? Outrageous hospitality

Jess Chan:9:49
man. blinking on the name, but

Rachyl Neidecker:9:52
I read it. So it's they there's a there's a saying that raindrops make oceans. So just that's always in my head. It's like a few raindrops do makes an ocean over time, right? So these small things are actually at scale massive problems. And Jess and I were like, hey, it's we're doing the right thing. It's actually paying off. Let's make this part of our business model. And then I just people kept asking for it and then people kept saying, I want that. So it was a very natural evolution of like what we had been doing. And it was very much so within like our kind of ethical and moral integrity to kind of point it out. Sometimes you piss people off, but at least you're honest. And then they oftentimes we'd you'd be shocked they'd come back like six months later being like, Hey, that was accurate. You want to help us fix this problem? Like the amount of clients that we have that come back is really, really high. So yeah, that's what I would say. Anything you want to add to that, Jess?

Jess Chan:10:46
No, I think I think to to add to that is really about kind of living by the like two of many principles we've found over the years on what it takes to build a scalable, profitable, sustainable business, which is one is listening to your customers and two is solving a problem as a business. And they feel extremely simple. and also with all of the noise with AI and e com and ads and creative and all these different things, it's easy to get to forget those. two basic things, which is is your problem is your business solving a problem for that customer? And the only way to know that is to continuously listen to your customer and allow that to guide the evolution of a business rather than even a broader business plan per se.

Robby Bryant:11:32
Yeah. When you talk about it now, it does sound really basic. Why do you think it is that most agencies put so much focus on their marketing and their sales and often will just leave their, you know, retention and their their follow up to maybe an email chain or text automation?

Jess Chan:11:52
Yeah, I think that's a great question. And honestly, I think a lot of it has to do with the the speed and like the like, for lack of a better word, hype that e-commerce and SaaS kind of grew at over the last ten, fifteen years. And there's so much noise with like business coaches and offerings and you know all these like playbooks. It's like here's how to double your business, or here's how to two X your sales calls and You know, here's the next platform that's gonna completely change your business and automate everything. And very few people actually take the time to look at business over the years and you actually realize, you know, the same hype that we see with, you know, AI now happened with the launch of Shopify, which happened again with the launch of the internet, which happened again with the launch of newspapers. Like it's happened over and over again over the years. And if you actually take a step back, there's actually only like two or three things that have stayed steady with

Robby Bryant:12:40
Right.

Jess Chan:12:52
With business, which is just about, hey, business is a vehicle to solve a problem for another human. And you first need to know which human you are solving for, solving a problem for, how to connect with them, and how to develop a product or solution, whether it's a service or a physical product, that is really good and actually helps solve that problem. and when you have those ingredients, business becomes infinitely easier. But we find that there's a lot of businesses. these days that don't have those core ingredients. And so you need to do a lot more other work to patch that up. Like if you don't have a good product, yeah, you're gonna need to be really, really good at marketing. And there's gonna be constant problems because you never inherently had a good product. if you don't know how to connect with the customers and you don't know who you're selling to, yeah, you're gonna have to do a lot of CRO testing and pull in all these different vendors and burnout of all those different things because you don't know who you're speaking to. and I think it really comes back to what Rach and I always talk about, which is

Robby Bryant:13:46
Mm.

Jess Chan:13:51
Let's just get the few core things right and do it with intention and it really simplifies a lot of the work that can make business really complicated.

Rachyl Neidecker:14:03
I would add to that just too that something that we're constantly talking about, like you, me, Katherine, she's our VP of strategy and marketing, is that Not only is it about making sure that the product is good and how to identify those types of issues, but like are we telling a story that's relevant to people today, like Jess is saying? Because it could have been that you did great last year because a lot of people like, I had a great year last year. This year didn't do so well. And maybe they're not willing to look at, okay, we didn't get as many subscriptions or we had a big drop-off or Like, what are the things that we're constantly reassessing in our flywheel of all these areas of engagement that will make people feel like it's a product that's customized to them? And we're expanding your cohort too. A lot of people come to us and they'll be Yeah, we know our demographic. And then it's like, cool, but you're missing out. Like these other brands are focused on these people for this reason. Maybe we just try, right? So I think a lot of it is.

People will like founders can get, like you were asking, like, why doesn't everyone just do this? I think founders or people can get stuck in the story and the identity of their brand and they're not willing to one adapt, right? And that's always gonna cause problems. Two, they're not willing to maybe look at the ugly truth, which is really hard to do too. It's like, my product in these three areas, my first flagship product is no longer working anymore. but a lot of the companies that adapt, like Jess was saying, are the ones that can continue to generate revenue and reassessing and re-looking at everything, like our best practice with our clients is no matter what, we do a full systemic audit on everything every quarter. So even if things look okay, there could be something dropping off on

Rachyl Neidecker:15:41
You know, a small retention flow, or it could be a problem in social, or we could have an issue with customer service, or the website could be glitching. Like, what are the things that we need to just take a really high-level look at to make sure that there's regular health? And I think that those things, they're hard to do because it takes time, it takes practice. It t like so maybe you outsource or something, but those are things that I think are basic business practices that a lot of people just they think they fixed it and they move on indefinitely, right? Or like they're like, I did branding last year, I don't need to work worry about it.

Or Or the founder doesn't want to do that. And it's like, well, just because someone doesn't want to do it doesn't mean it doesn't need to be done, or maybe there isn't something right, but let's all inspect what we're expecting to be true or false. And I think it's more so being okay with finding bad things and then being okay with deciding we need to fix them. And I think that that does sound fundamentally very simple, but like Jess talks constantly about how like business is so much a part of like especially founders and their identity and like who they are and how they got there. and what that looks like. So I think it's hard to look at yourself and just like that, it's hard to look at your business and to even admit that maybe that was a bad choice or you lost, you know, a quarter million dollars or you know, we shouldn't have spent this money on ads, or we did and it sucked, or people are also very adverse to if they tried it, they don't want to try it again, even if they tried it the first time, maybe the process wasn't right or they didn't have the right foundation. So I think always being ready to reassess everything is really important and not having having pride in your work and knowing you're providing jobs and a good service, like Jess is saying, and not necessarily the pride in like the thing and how it started.

Robby Bryant:17:20
Yeah, 'cause business owners never have egos.

Jess Chan:17:23
It's hard. It gets to and I I always say this is like the grace with having like walk this journey is the same fire that you need. Like there's an audacity to be like, I think I can start a business. Like there's a little there's you need ego for that. and it's so healthy in a lot of ways. Like that's the the and you need that ambition, you need that like ability to do a ton of work very quickly, to be very high functioning, high capacity, like

Robby Bryant:17:24
Yeah.

Jess Chan:17:52
Founders and CEOs are in the position they are for a reason because that's part of their personality. And so they're usually very high functioning, they're usually very ambitious, they can usually overoperate better than most people in multiple different areas. and they usually have very ambitious goals and you know have that ego and that can be very healthy. And also, there's also the dark side of that, which is you can overfunction, you can do more things to solve for things. when the business feels like it's going down, you can start just doing a lot of things to try to as as a way of trying to keep it growing. and it's usually coming from a good place. And the harder part is to be like, okay, wait, like things are changing. I might feel like I'm failing. Is this thing going down? Okay, hold on, like let's slow it down. And instead of doing more, let's try to figure out the two or three things that are the most important and do less but more intentionally. and that's really when you I think that's really when the character of like leadership, and the art of leadership comes up. There's like I always t I always talk about like this principle around there's the journey of being a founder and then an entrepreneur and then a CEO and then like a leader. And they're almost like totally different skill sets. Like a founder is the one who's gonna start the business, an entrepreneur is the one who scales it, a CEO is the one that's gonna be able to lead the team.

Robby Bryant:19:07
yeah.

Jess Chan:19:15
And add that structure and also a leaders that wanna be the one that's able to like really bring it into the long term and stabilize. and there's different growth that a that a person needs at all these different stages.

Robby Bryant:19:26
Yeah, I like that you touched on kind of the duality of ego. Do you feel like throughout those four stages you need a different amount of ego versus humbleness, I guess you could say, depending on which stage you're in?

Jess Chan:19:44
Yeah, and I think I can speak to and also would love Rachel's perspective because she has had so much experience being on the like executive slash team side with people working most closely with the person who are walking that journey and also Rachel's walking the CEO journey now too. So like I think a lot of it is very similar, but I think at the founder stage you need the ego of like I can do it. Like I believe in myself and that's ever that's everything. Like you really need that. and the people who are able to make past the founder stage, which is usually like you have some sort of like functioning business, you're still probably the sole deliverer of keeping the thing running. Like it would a hundred percent die without you. Then an entrepreneur is like, I think I can rally people around this thing, which is like you start to be able to bring in team members or partners or whatever. So now there's a network, you're still kind of like the center of the solar system around it, but you need this ego of like, I think I can do it, but I think I can rally people around it. Like I think I have that like energy.

And then once you get to a CEO, it's like I think I can guide people and provide the structure for other people to do it. Like I think I can lead in that way. And I think I'm personally more in the like stepping into the executive chair is more of like, I think I trust my way of being that I can actually trust to stay out of it and speak on the things that I'm specifically great at and know which parts are not mine, which has been a huge learning curve with Reach. so very, very different.

Like I think that's a great question, Robbie is like very different forms of ego and the things that you like pride yourself on at these different stages in order to navigate a business through all these different th these different times. Rach, what are your thoughts?

Rachyl Neidecker:21:25
And I I mean he's of course always say things so eloquently. I I definitely think the things that I observe, and Justin's very right, there's like different phases. And I think I think for me, when I realized I was functioning like an like a C suite executive was when I felt like I was around people that I did not need I'm around the best people in the room, and that's what I know. And I I need to be able to leverage them and tag them in and empower them and get things out of their way for them. But I know I'm not the best person for every choice. And I think that's really hard because I think there's this this almost like structure. of what people think leadership is and it's every decision is made or every decision is final or every decision is like they're the ones commanding everything and I I think that's just really not what it fundamentally is. I think the most successful businesses would do a great job empowering the people around them. And I think it's it's hard to do. And a lot of what people bring us in for is they're like, look, I don't have time for my family. Like my business is scaled. I'm overwhelmed. I don't have time. Like I'm the one that does all this stuff. And but a lot of things like can be codified. We can leverage AI, we can leverage people, we can get processes in place and get stuff off of people's plates. And that is that is when you are really Is when you're able to be like, okay, I'm letting this go. Okay, this person's in charge of this. Okay, I trust these people to do this. Okay, I have a good enough system and infrastructure to step out of these things. Okay, wholesale is now going on its own. Great. Like, let me back away from that. All right, let me set up Amazon and then I'll have a team check and monitor that. So it's it's a lot more about how do you put the right people around you, in my opinion. And I think that's hard because you have to be able to, like Justice Saying, kind of admit that maybe this is not something I know the most about, or maybe I

Rachyl Neidecker:23:17
I can even say, hey, I'm not the one that I'm gonna defer to somebody else. And there's a ton of not just ego, but trust that takes in in yourself to be judging that the person around you is the right person. Right. And I think that that there's a wisdom and And a lot of peace in that, but I also think there is a lot of ego death that has to happen to be able to maybe not be the one that's, you know, the smartest in the room or appearing to be, right? But asking everyone, pulling the right people in, empowering them and then getting out of the way. I think is when I was like, okay, I feel like I'm I feel like an actual C suite team member at this point. because I've been a part of a lot of teams over the years. And I've done consulting for a long time, even before long play. And I think the blessing in that was I did get to observe a lot of very functional and dysfunctional executive relationships, leadership relationships, large billion-dollar corporate relationships to like small startups. relationships and I think that's one of the things I'm most proud of is even on our hardest days, you know, just Catherine and I would we'll all come together and talk through things and, you know, agree or disagree or agree that the other one is, you know, hey, I can't make this decision. I need you to. What are your thoughts? Where are you coming from from this? So yeah, I think being around people that can not only give you perspective you don't have, but also answers for maybe even character traits that you don't have. is really important as a leader. And I think there's a lot of ego death that that has to take. And I think

Rachyl Neidecker:24:52
from what we've seen, the people that are able to like delegate and trust and try to lean into those things just like we're always able to help them. And the people that really struggle, we've actually unfortunately see a lot seen a lot of their companies not last, you know, years beyond when we've worked with them, you know, and it's just kind of, I think if you're not flexible, going back to the whole agility with your own products, if you're not flexible with your people strategy or your products or your business, you're gonna hit a wall at some point because agility is what Keeps us moving, you know?

Robby Bryant:25:24
Yeah, wow, I I appreciate you both for going down that path with me. I was not expecting to go that direction, but I really appreciate both of your insights. Rachel, I think Jess was right. I think you did kind of downplay some of your accolades when you were introducing yourself. You speak with a lot of competence and a a lot of comprehension of what you're doing. Do you think that being a customer first in this industry has kind of shaped the way you see the industry and you want to serve clients?

Rachyl Neidecker:25:55
Yeah, how would I answer that? So I if my husband is listening to this, he will not like to hear how much I consume. I'm a big buyer. I definitely support the economy more than I should. so I am a continuous consumer of content and specifically like unboxing products, what's new, what's trending, why it's trending. So I think it's just incumbent upon me in the industry that I'm in to do that. So I will call it a workplace obligation to shop. But also it's just something I really like and I enjoy. And I think there is I think it has helped from the perspective of We were all in house, right? Like Jess was in house somewhere. I was in house places. R VP was in house places. I think when you come from a place of you know what you expect, pro good great project management, good reporting up, comprehension around blind spotting, someone that's gonna be telling you the next five problems so you're not having to find out it's a problem because you lost 20 grand and then go fix it, right? Like the goal is that you have a thought partner. So I do think that it probably shaped our business model for all of us and why Jess started what she did and why we approach things the way that we do and why we would rather be honest and transparent and empower people with the facts than make someone feel like, your product's amazing. And then in six months, you know, they didn't put something on their label and then they get sued and it tanks. Right. So there's I do think it has shaped us, all of us. And I also think that just what we constantly are working to see and be ahead of what's out there, what's coming up, what's trending, why it's trending, and what the demands are like direct mail coming back.

That was so weird that that happened, but all of a sudden direct mail was back a couple of years ago and it's you know been doing great. Inserts are now such a thing because of Amazon, right? So like things that were thought to be like so old school come back. and yeah, so I think yes, and I think I think yes, it shaped me.

Rachyl Neidecker:27:54
And I think it's important to always be a constant consumer of whoever your audience is and always be putting yourself in the shoes of your customer and your client because we're all here to, you know, we I think long play specifically cares about being here to make sure we do an excellent job by people, but that's ideally the point is that we're creating a product that people want and they like, like Joe said, and is needed, you know.

Robby Bryant:28:19
Amazing. Yeah. I I think being a consumer is something that a lot of people aren't always considering. especially when it comes to your own industry, your own field. You have to constantly be seeing what the competitors are doing, seeing just using the products so you know what you like about them and what you don't like about them because a lot of people probably feel the same way. guys, I want to jump tracks just a little bit here because I I do want to kind of touch every part of your agency with you guys being an agency that focuses more on retention and, you know, keeping clients and raising profits. I guess you could say the the back half, not necessarily the the marketing and the sales. W what are you doing to attract new clients? What does that look like?

Go ahead, Jess.

Jess Chan:29:06
we yeah, I was gonna say I because I was trying to figure out which direction I wanted to go here. But at a high level, we have actually and I can pull it up as well, but we have essentially a wheel of all the different areas of of a business that we help brands look at. So we have retention lifecycle, we have website, we have acquisition, we l look through their vendors and their tech stack, brand positioning, 3PL operations, and it's really having that bird's eye view with them. So We've grown up through retention lifecycle marketing, mainly because that's a good place to start with the foundations, which is like if you can't figure out why you can't keep your customers everything else, you're kind of building on like a slippery slope. so that was a really good place organically for long play to start from. But like Rach mentioned, as we've grown up from that, the it's really expanded to Well, in order to keep your customers, you know, your retention, your life cycle marketing is already in place. But what's actually off right now is you don't have great customer service. You're not really delivering on the customer relationship, or you are keeping your customers, but you can't quite reach the right people because your brand and positioning in the market is completely off. Like you haven't really adjusted over the last five years with all these different competitors. So you actually do look at that entire bird's eye view while also being able to implement and execute in areas like retention, lifecycle marketing. but in terms of like how we're attracting new customers in the offering, I think it's again, it's very in line with our conversation in the sense where we've completely organ grown through word of mouth and organic and partnerships. over the years we've always like tippy toed around. Like I remember how every like year I'd bring up to Rachel, I'm like, should we do some cold outreach? And then we would go through a whole process and then we would kill the idea. And like a year later I'm like, Should we? because every agency is talking about it, whether it's like, AI or like ads or like cold outreach, there's always some new hype acquisition strategy that everyone is swearing by. And then the next year when, you know, it's the next thing. And I think we've been really lucky to grow from the core, which is, hey, let's make make sure we deliver services so strong that we can just grow completely through word of mouth and referrals. And that was probably the first three to five years of the business.

Jess Chan:31:24
Then the last two-ish years, we've expanded to doing partnerships, which is us delivering such a great job with tech partners and other agency partners that they see the work that we're doing. And there's a natural like collaborative relationship that that comes up where they're like, hey, we want to, we want to refer you to our clients because it actually helps us do a better job and you do a better job. And so it's been very organic that way. and now we're starting to explore things like light paid acquisition, organic social.

But I'm sure you can kind of see from this conversation, like everything Rach and I do strategically is always starts from the core and you know, it's a very gradual expansion outwards. that way rather than slapping on a quick like paid paid ad strategy or let's do some landing page funnel. it's always been about strengthening the the core offering first.

Rachyl Neidecker:32:15
I would add to that, Jess, that the yes, strengthening the core offering, but Jess and I specifically do a lot of and have Given just a lot of free advice and constantly are looking to give value. And one of the things that Jess had said to me, because I came in and I was like, hey, what does your perfect world look like? And she was like, I would love to just give good content away and really empower And like awesome. So it's been a core part of like her writing and what she's done and like her mission over the last few years is that we have been trying to just give people as much kind of context, content information, share our journey, share our story, share what we learned, share things that we find as problems or concerned about. Because if we can pay it forward, eventually it's going to get to somebody that resonates with that, or we can help somebody out and that's going to matter and they might share. But our intention genuinely was if we continue to give good information and have integrity in what we're doing, we'll attract good people. And that's not only paid off for us with the clients that we have now and the amount of trust that they have in us and the sizes that they are, because our customer base ranges from like go to market, like pre-launch all the way up to 600 million.

So like we have a good range of like clients, but they trust us with every part of their business. Like and I we think that's because we've just worked so hard to be transparent and empower in knowledge. So I would say that's another area that we've really intentionally worked on.

Robby Bryant:33:42
Yeah, I think that's a huge part, especially in twenty twenty-six. what a lot of brands are missing are are is the exact thing that you've been touching on this whole time, that personal touch. and with our agency, we're finding exactly what you just said. The more you can give before you I don't want to say ask, but the the more you can give before you take it to the next step, that relationship's gonna carry you so much farther than any messaging on y you know, ads or

Robby Bryant:34:19
Wi can I ask what does the like the pricing model look like for your agency as far as because you just said you work with smaller companies all the way up to to very, very large companies. How do you guys personally work out pricing? What's worked for you?

Rachyl Neidecker:34:37
Yeah, so we have three different tiers. So we have our plug and play team. So that means you'll just get production essentially and like some strategy. We have our channel management, which we man all manage all of our channels. And then am I freezing, Jess? Or is that You're cutting out.

Jess Chan:34:51
No, you're good.

Robby Bryant:34:52
Do you guys see me? We'll we'll cut this part out. Do you guys see me?

Jess Chan:34:55
Yeah. Robbie, you're frozen, but like we can still hear you. It's just your video that's frozen. But I think Riverside navigates all of this stuff usually.

Rachyl Neidecker:35:00
Should I keep should I start?

Robby Bryant:35:04
Yeah, yeah. I think as long as you guys can still hear me it it's recording the video. Yeah, yeah.

Rachyl Neidecker:35:09
Okay, so I should just just keep going.

Jess Chan:35:09
Okay, cool. Yeah, but start restart from the question. So like

Rachyl Neidecker:35:13
Okay. So what I would say is that as far as our pricing structure goes, we have three different tiers that we've kind of been functioning and we have an executive consulting tier, we have a channel management tier.

And then we have a like production like plug and play team tier. So each of those tiers offers different levels of service, different like commitment, thought partnership, analytics, our own custom reporting that we have in-house. we have a research team. So like all of those things come at the different levels of tiers. And it really just depends on what that looks like. In some months, because we're starting with the go-to-market brands, they start off a little bit, maybe the first month is more intense and then it tapers off, then it goes back up again.

So that we can kind of customize a plan so people feel like they're getting the support that they need at each of those phases rather than just like a set like one and done. It's very customized to what we know might work for them, what we're seeing is gaps, problems we know they're gonna run into in the next six to twelve months. And our contracts range from six to twelve months. Does that make sense?

Robby Bryant:36:13
Sure, okay. So yeah, yeah, it does. Thank you. Jess, I'll ask this question to you. So

Jess Chan:36:47
That's a good question. Actually, a really good question for Rachel. I'll answer at the high level, but she's the one usually having these these day-to-day conversations and navigating that with brands. but at a high level, what is we always start off with a discovery call and then a diagnostics and meta-analysis as just part of a process before any client comes to work with us. because we found it's a really important part of just leveling or level setting on the partnership is like do we see business the same way?

Do we have an open way of communicating and are we aligned on the core problems? because the truth is we might see something, but if they're like, hey, we're scaling and we've got AI and we're good and we don't need any help, then like there's absolutely nothing we can do. And so usually by the time a client comes to us, they're already feeling some form of a pain point, whether it's we're scaling, but like acquisition is getting less and less profitable, or we seem to be growing in revenue, but it's, you know, we're we're kind of leaking out the back end and we know this isn't sustainable.

Or the founder's completely burnt out. So there's always something that they're already feeling by the time we even have an open conversation with them, which make which kind of creates that opening for us. so we usually have that discovery call, see what they're experiencing. Then we do a diagnostics and meta-analysis, which is we get their data, we go into all their platforms, essentially see what they're seeing, and also have that third eye, you know, third outsider's perspective.

Then from there, we're able to back into like, hey, here's the problems that you're telling us you're experiencing. Here's the data that we've pulled. We're now able to help you identify the three core issues in the in your business that you're losing revenue, profit, and customers, but also why you're experiencing the problems that you're experiencing. and also here's a roadmap to get from point A, which is where you're at now, to point B, which is where you want to be, whether that's revenue goals or a form of sustainability or a form of stability or a form of profitability. here's how we're gonna get there. Here's all the levers that we're gonna pull. And then here's what working with us would look like to get from point A to point B. so it actually becomes a very organic conversation. I think again it makes it very easy when we're not pitching a package as much as offering a solution to a problem that they've already self-identified that they haven't wanted to help with.

Jess Chan:39:02
Rach, anything you want to add there?

Rachyl Neidecker:39:05
I yes, and it was very well s said obviously. I think the thing that I would say to add on to what Jess was saying is that it really does people come to us with a problem.

And they usually have an idea more around what that problem is. And usually that's like a a quarter of the problem, or it's like just the tip of the iceberg, right? It's that's a problem because it's that is resulted in a financial issue because of 10 other small things that might not have happened to the best of their ability over the last year. So I would say that it does o allow us an open door. It can cause people to be like overwhelmed. And I'm not good at that. Jess is really good at Jess and Catherine are like, okay, we're overwhelming them. I'm like, here's everything that's wrong. Here's everything that we're seeing. So like there's like a finesse that I think we are working, I'm working on with delivering those messages better. but I think in general, people that resonate with us are really ready to hear, okay, there's 20 things wrong. Can you guys force rank them and help us tackle them? Okay, good. Let's do that. Right. And they're okay with it being wrong. so I would just say, yes, it opens a door. And sometimes that door is not as wide as I would like it to be, is probably a good Is that was that politically correct enough, Jess? How did I how did I navigate that one?

Jess Chan:40:20
Yeah.

Jess Chan:40:30
I think that was great.

Rachyl Neidecker:40:37
Eighty percent.

Rachyl Neidecker:40:41
Yeah.

Jess Chan:40:44
Yeah, your audio is still good.

Rachyl Neidecker:40:54
there you are.

Jess Chan:40:55
Yeah.

Robby Bryant:40:57
Maybe. So guys, I wanna end on a a high note here. Would you mind telling me in terms of numbers, visions, dreams, what are you guys looking to achieve and and move into over the next twelve months? Jess, I hear you are looking to step into maybe some different roles.

Jess Chan:41:17
Yeah. So I'm currently founder and executive chair. So that transition has been made and it's been really, really beautiful to just watch Rage step into her power and her leadership. And honestly, I think that was a really big goal and dream of mine in starting long play is can it become an environment and a place where people can bring their best selves and thrive and you know, not just do a great job work wise, but also for that to trickle into. knowing deeper versions of themselves, being being able to have a space to be more authentic and also being in a space where they can just do what they're great at and be celebrated for that, be supported in that as well. And so honestly, I think like Rach just being a great CEO is personally has been selfishly extremely satisfying for me too, in my dream and also just the witnessing her as as a friend and as a partner in doing this together. And then also I think outside of that, it's also allowed me to kind of shift my relationship with long play. I think with a lot of founders, you can get to a point where you kind of hate your own business or just get burnt out by it. And it's been a huge learning curve of like how much do I need to allow myself to step out of the business from an identity standpoint so that I could fall back in love with it. And I found that every time I've detached from long play and let go of certain responsibilities, actually fallen in love with it again and actually had more energy and more creativity. to give back to it which leads to its own growth. So that's been really, really fun.

Robby Bryant:42:50
It's almost like a artist stepping back from a canvas a big mural and finally seeing the whole thing.

Jess Chan:42:57
Exactly. And it's like we I think there's so much guilt associated with it. where you think you need to be like in it and just like working hard and burning yourself out and like serving everybody and keeping the whole thing alive. But the truth is like I'm learning for myself is like the best form of leadership is to be in a pla in be in the state that you want others to be in. And like no one needs a neurotic founder like causing chaos everywhere. the amount of times Rachel's like, hey, love you, just chill out for a second, has been so healing and so healthy for me. And so honestly, I think just being able to relate to long play in this way has already been a dream, to be honest. And then also in that, just having the space to work on other things, writing, creativity, other ideas that actually create this really beautiful ecosystem where what I what I learned from one business actually gets fed back into long play and it's been cool just to have the space and the freedom to do what I love and like be myself and know that a business can still grow that way too.

Robby Bryant:44:02
It's awesome to hear that, you know, I think a lot of people in your shoes when they're stepping away from something that they've worked so hard on for so many years might have a a bit of anxiety or nerves to to see where it goes. But it's really awesome to hear that you're able to step away and feel confident in the the direction it's going and obviously you have a great leader beside you that you can rely on. so that's awesome. Congratulations.

Jess Chan:44:28
Yeah. It's only possible with Rach. You need a good person.

Rachyl Neidecker:44:32
I appreciate that. I I would say that's something I think is really important for people to do when they're coming into a business with the founder and something that like you know, being a founder is hard. And there's like Jess was saying, there's a lot of people that end up hating their creation. And I something I asked her was what do you want it what do you want this to be? And she was like, I want it to be a place where I can we everyone that's here is happy and able to do their job and also able to like live other dreams and to feel fulfilled and to feel calm. And one of the things that she asked me and I told her my goal is just to have this be something that I can like I I've always wanted to kind of have a team where I can go in and rescue good businesses and we've gotten it there. Like we've done we've worked really hard to statiate those goals. I think our goals weren't as numerically driven. Like we you might not want me to say this just but we built an app and she hated it for a minute and now she's back to kind of loving it. But like we did that. Like that was something she wanted to do. It was a goal. We did it and our goals have been a lot less tangible as far as like we need a hundred clients. We need, you know, this much money. We need this much each quarter. And it's been more about we want to accomplish these things and how do we do that? And then okay, what do we also need to do to make sure we take care of our team and we're responsible business owners, right? But it's been a lot more intangible for us in regards to like right now we're really focused on how do we keep our keep our team scaling and what does that look like? And how do we make sure everyone feels fulfilled? And how do like I'm, you know, planning to be a mom. I'm not pregnant, but we have a surrogate. What does that look like? Jess has other things that she wants to do to feed her soul. Like how do we make sure we accommodate that? So it's more about what is the life that we're wanting to live and then run a good business. That's like morally and ethically sound. And a lot of our clients, almost actually all of them right now, have a give back component, a sustainability mission. They're people

Rachyl Neidecker:46:36
we like working with. That was like a big thing we built our business around. So I would say to add to that, like our goals were less while they are still we have KPIs, we have things we need to do for our business. We manage our cash flow very tightly, just always show because that I'm like the cheapest person in the world. but that That's that's a personal problem. Yeah, that's a personal problem. when it comes to our business, I'm very

Robby Bryant:46:51
But you're the biggest spender.

Jess Chan:46:56
That's interest that one no one's ever called that out before. That's wild.

Yeah.

Robby Bryant:47:02
Sure.

Rachyl Neidecker:47:05
I'm very cheap. So what I would say is we made our business about what do we need it to be on top of what we want to do and what our goals we want to meet over time. And I think Jess and I are very okay with slow scaling. I think so many people want those vanity metrics. And Jess and I would rather make sure that we were happy and that we had what we needed each day, than it being like this massive pressure, these vanity metrics, and then we're not profitable, which is so many people around us, right? Like, and we didn't want to be that. And if we're gonna tell people not to be that, we don't want to be that. So we've worked very hard to live by those things. We're not perfect, but I would say that those are things that metrics and goals that we set out when we started working together that we measure success by.

Do you agree with that, Jess?

Robby Bryant:47:57
I I see that this has been an awesome conversation. I I really mean that. I was not expecting some of the avenues that we were we ended up going down. wasn't in my script, but I I really appreciate all of your insights. And I'm not sure how often you guys get to kind of sit back and reflect on your own journeys and your your journey together. but I hope when you do you realize that you guys actually have a really beautiful story and it's resulted in something not only unique but powerful and seems to be providing you as well as many others with the the lives and the work that they want to be doing and want to be living. so just major props to that. it's been awesome having you on the podcast. If anyone wants to dive more into long play or get in contact with either of you, what's the the best route? Where can you guys where can they find you?

Jess Chan:48:51
Yeah, longplaybrands.com. so the best place for links to everything. we're also pretty active on LinkedIn as well. So just Jess Chan and Rachel Neidecker on LinkedIn and then also longplay underscore brands on Instagram and Jess Chan on Instagram as well. but all of that is gonna be linked on our website, which is probably the easiest place.

Robby Bryant:49:12
Amazing. Guys, I genuinely appreciate you getting into the weeds on not only the technical aspects of your business, but also on some of the the theory and philosophy that goes on behind it. That's something that not a lot of people get to hear. And to everyone listening, that's the episode. we will see you on the next one.

Rachyl Neidecker:49:33
Thank you.