Unlocking agency potential by asking “So What?”

Agency Leadership Podcast

Agencies sometimes find themselves mired in micromanagement, worried about the wrong things, or presenting ill-considered solutions to clients.

Much of this can be avoided by asking “So What?” more often.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the importance of that one question and how it can lead to more effective decision-making for agency owners. They highlight the need to challenge assumptions, manage time wisely, and empower team members to think critically.

Through practical examples, they explain how this simple question can uncover inefficiencies and drive better outcomes in client interactions and internal processes. The discussion also covers the benefits of asking team members for their input to foster growth and confidence.

Key takeaways

• Gini Dietrich: “If it’s not working, then why are we still doing it? Let’s change the process.”
• Chip Griffin: “You’ve got to make sure that you’re investing your time, your team’s time wisely. And you have to make sure that what you’re putting out to clients, to prospects, to others, actually makes a difference.”
• Gini Dietrich: “As owners, we tend to overanalyze, we tend to be perfectionists, and I like to say, don’t let perfect get in the way of being finished. These are things that we have to learn to let go of so that we can grow and scale our businesses.”
• Chip Griffin: “Parents are not running around with 30 year old kids on a bike and still holding the seat. At some point you’ve got to let go. Do the same thing with your team members. Don’t hold their seat.”

Related

• SAGA Newsletter: You need to ask “So what?” more
• Letting go as an agency owner
• Building trust and letting your team shine
• Micromanage your way to agency failure

View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: So what?

Did I, did I not use the question the right way there?

I guess that sort of implied, who cares that you’re Gini Dietrich, whatever.

Gini Dietrich: I was not expecting that. That’s one of your better segues. I like it.

Chip Griffin: Thank you. Thank you. I try, you know, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But I love the look of surprise on your face when I said it.

Gini Dietrich: I was like, well,

screw you too.

Chip Griffin: Apparently you forgot what the topic of the show was going to be.

Gini Dietrich: I just wasn’t expecting that. Yeah, so we’re going to be discussing. The topic of the show is…

Chip Griffin: the topic of today’s show is the question, so what? And it doesn’t have to be asked in the same nasty way that I just did it. It can be done much more politely and intelligently.

And actually, I I’m advocating that you ask yourself that question more than you ask other people. You should ask other people that question as well, but you should start by directing that to yourself often, very often.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. So your, your LinkedIn newsletter, a couple of weeks ago, spoke to this and I was like, this is really good.

Let’s talk about this. and one of the things you said is you used to have a t shirt that says don’t sweat the small stuff and on the back it said everything is small. It’s all small stuff.

Chip Griffin: It’s all small stuff.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think that, you know, that that kind of advice for agency owners is really good because I think that we tend to sweat the small stuff.

I think we tend to overanalyze. I think we tend to try to be perfectionist and you know, I like to say, don’t let perfect get in the way of being finished. Like, like these are the things that I think we have to learn to let go of so that we can grow and scale our businesses.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I think that it, you know, we do a lot of things that we don’t need to do.

And if we asked ourselves, so what, we would stop doing it. I think we worry about a lot of things that we don’t need to worry about. And so if we ask ourselves, so what, we would stop worrying about it. So I think there are huge benefits to asking this before we make a decision, before we spend time doing something, before we create a piece of content or a pitch. We need to understand why this matters.

And if we don’t understand that, then we need to hit pause and figure out why or if it does matter. And then if it does matter, we need to make sure that the level of effort we’re putting in is commensurate with the returns that we’re getting. Because too often, we spend time micromanaging our team because we haven’t asked ourselves, What happens if we don’t do this?

That’s the so what question there. What happens if I don’t give this correction, or get approval, or insist on approving this before it goes out, or insist on being copied on it, or whatever. But it’s true of a lot of other things. I mean, the proposals we put together for clients. We’ll put together slide after slide that, that looks good, sounds good, but what does it actually do?

What does it accomplish? Even bigger, what are the tactics that we’re proposing going to accomplish? Is it just, is it just ticking the boxes because it’s what the prospect said to us, or is it actually going to move the needle on what they’re actually looking for? So what helps us if we ask it all the time, every day?

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, I have a really good example of that. Probably about a month ago, we were in a meeting and we were going through the agency’s analytics and the social media referral traffic to our website has taken a steep decline, like almost off the edge. And so I said, like, help me understand what’s going on here.

Has our strategy changed? Have we stopped posting? Like, what’s happening here? No, no, no, nothing’s changed. And I said, okay, so. We’re still posting to all of the social networks. We’re still, are we still doing it that, you know, we’re not just like posting it once and having it go to everything. We’re like personalizing it, customizing it to each network.

Yeah. So it’s just dropped off. And what does that tell us? And there was a lot of hemming and hawing. I said, have we thought about not doing that? And it was like the gasps. They were like, what? And I said, if it’s not doing anything and we’re spending time on it, nobody likes to post to social media. Like, so why are we doing it?

And it, it took a couple of meetings for them to finally go, okay, actually, that makes a lot of sense. So We’re still not quite there, I think, because we’re still doing some of it, but we’re starting to scale back and do be really smart about where and how we’re using the social networks versus just posting all content to all places all the time.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I think agencies in general are better at asking these questions when it comes to work being done for clients, as you described. If you’re out pitching someone’s story, you ask, you know, what is the, so what are this, why does this matter to the reporter that I’m pitching it to? And if there, if there isn’t a good hook in there, if there isn’t real news, we tell our, our clients, you know, most of the time, that’s not going to make news that nobody’s interested in that.

They don’t, they don’t care that we opened, you know, location number 73, but there’s nothing special about it. It’s not, you know, it’s just, it’s just another store opening. Who cares? We’re happy to tell the client that, or maybe not happy to tell, but we do tell the client that. But we need to be looking at all of our activities in that same way and not simply say, you know, that we’re just going to keep charging forward on this because it’s what feels right.

It’s what we’ve always done. It’s we need to ask that so what question.

Gini Dietrich: It’s what we’ve always done is usually the one, right?

Chip Griffin: I hate that answer. Anytime I go into an organization agency or otherwise and ask why they’re doing something and I hear, well, it’s the way, we’ve always done it. I just, my head explodes.

That is the dumbest answer anyone can ever give.

Gini Dietrich: That is the dumbest answer. I totally agree with that. Yes.

Chip Griffin: Come up with a better answer.

Gini Dietrich: If it’s not working, then why are we still doing it? Let’s change the process.

Chip Griffin: Even if it is working, tell me why, you know, it’s if you’ve always done it, you can say, well, we’ve always done it because and then give some kind of answer.

But if it’s, if it’s simply because we’ve always done it that way, that is dumb. It’s frankly, one of the reasons why it’s always, there are benefits to bringing in new team members. Now, we always get frustrated. Oh, we had a longtime team member decided to go work somewhere else. Oh, she’s all the knowledge of that.

Yeah, sure. But you’re bringing in someone else who’s got a fresh perspective. And those people will be asking why and so on. And it allows you to look critically at what you’re doing and how you’re doing it to figure out Is that really the best use of time? And I think when it comes to time, owner’s time is the most valuable thing.

We talk about this all the time. There’s, you cannot go out and buy more of your time. You cannot put more hours in the day. It is the most limited resource that your agency has, and it should be the most valuable resource. So every moment of every day that you’re doing something, you should be asking, so what?

What am, what am I accomplishing by spending this 15, 30, 60 minutes on this task, and if you can’t answer that at all, stop until you can. And once you can answer that question, figure out, is that actually worth it? Am I getting the appropriate value for the amount of time that I’m putting in? Because I guarantee you, for many owners who are listening to us right now, I would say a minimum of 20 to 30 percent of their time wouldn’t pass the so what test.

Minimum. Probably more.

Gini Dietrich: Easily.

Chip Griffin: But let’s, if you could, if I went to an agency owner and said, you can have 20 percent of your time back. Every one of them would jump up and down and say, absolutely. So even if we’re being conservative, 20 percent of your time can be spent differently by asking, so what?

Wouldn’t that be valuable to you? Yeah. And you’ll also be happier usually because if you discard the stuff. That doesn’t matter is the stuff that frustrates you the most. Micromanaging that employee, doing this menial administrative work. All of these things are the things that owners complain about all the time.

And when you ask, so what? You realize if it goes undone, it’s probably not going to make a big difference. Or if you take that 60 minute task and devote only 15 minutes to it. It’s not going to make a big difference. You’ve got to make sure that you’re investing your time, your team’s time wisely. And you have to make sure that what you’re actually putting out to clients, to prospects, to others, actually makes a difference.

Gini Dietrich: So we’ve talked about this before, and every quarter I like to do this for myself, and I like to have my clients do it too, but it’s the three lists, right? What am I doing right now that only I can do? What am I doing right now that can be delegated? And what am I doing right now that absolutely, positively should not be on my list?

So you make those three lists. So the absolutely, positively should not be on your list. If you’ve already made that list and you have already asked yourself, so what, that needs to be delegated immediately. Your middle list, same thing. Like if it’s, if it’s stuff you, you are doing, but you can’t delegate because you don’t have the right team member or the right person or whatever it has to be, you have to ask yourself, so what.

To find out should it should I be looking to hire somebody to do that or does it actually need to be done. When you focus on the first list Which is things that are on your list that only you should do And you really believe that then I think this process of going through that list and saying so what every single one of those items is going to help you decide Okay, that actually truly is true.

Only I can do this Or it can be delegated, or it doesn’t need to be done at all. So it can be moved to one, one of the other lists, or not at all. but asking your, when you’re creating those lists every quarter, ask yourself, So what, so what, so what, to see if you can move it to a different list. Because you, I mean, to your point, you can come up, you can probably save 20 percent of your time, and then more.

Just by going through that process with yourself every quarter.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, because I mean, some of those things where you go through it and it’s on your list and you say, so what, and it, it really does make a big difference that you’re spending that time on it. And it is going to have an impact by you doing it, you know, then you need to ask yourself, is that really the best way to solve the problem? Right? Because, I mean, let’s say for example, that, you know, you do have to rewrite something that your team has done because it’s just, it’s not up to par and, and it’s not good enough for the client. Not good enough for you, not that perfectionist thing, but good enough for the client for what they need.

And so if you do have to spend a fair bit of time to get it there, then you need to, to reevaluate. And, and the so what is, yes, you need to do that for now, but the so what should also be well, how do we solve this problem for the future? How do we make it so that I’m getting material that comes to me or doesn’t even come to me, right?

But if it’s coming to me, I can give it a cursory look, give it a thumbs up, maybe make one small suggestion and be done with it. If you’re having to do a lot of rewriting, if you’re having to do a lot of micromanagement, figure out how to solve that. Do you need to have additional training? Do you need a different team member?

Do you need to assign it to a different person on the team? I mean, there are lots of different ways that you can solve problems, but you don’t get to them if you’re not asking questions. And so what is the good first question, but you do need to ask those other follow up questions. Why are we doing it?

Is this the right way to do it? Is this the most efficient? I mean, really, management is all about asking questions. Managers don’t have to have answers, they have to have questions. And if you start with so what as your first question, it’ll generally put you on the right path.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I think, you know, when you talk about managing team members, one of my favorite questions to ask is, what do you think?

And usually we know the answer, right? And it’s really easy for us to say, well, you should do this, this, this. but I like to say, what do you think? Because first of all, it forces the colleague to come to me with solutions, not just the problem. So then they don’t come to me with the problem, expecting me to solve it.

They come to me with the problem and they have solutions and they’ve thought through it. So when you say, well, what do you think it forces them, and it makes, it puts them on the defense a little bit and they get like, flustered the first few times you do it because, or I love it when they, when someone will say, well, I wouldn’t be asking you if I knew. And I’m like, okay, like, let’s think through, I want you to think about, like, why are we doing this?

What do you think we should do next time? What do you think is the right approach? And just keep asking them questions to get them there, because A, it takes you out of the equation. It allows you not to micromanage and it teaches them, it coaches them to think through things like this and ask themselves, so what?

More effectively, so that you can run a more effective organization.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and it helps, frankly, to build their confidence so that, so that they can get to those answers themselves more quickly, more easily in the future, because they’ve, they’ve seen they can do it, they’ve seen what the process is. And, you know, one of the variations I like to use there, someone gets stuck is, well, you know, what would you have done if I wasn’t available today?

Yeah. What would you have done if I was out of the office for the next week? Just tell me how you would have handled this if that were the case. Because that then takes them out of that. that comfort zone of, well, you know, I can always come to you, I’ll just wait a day or what, you know, give them that, that window that’s long enough that they would have to handle it themselves.

Gini Dietrich: They would have to do it. Yeah, that’s a good one.

Chip Griffin: And, and usually that helps people unfreeze and give them something. It may not be the right thing. You may still need to help them course correct or whatever, but it helps to get you, because you really, you want your team to have that confidence. You want them to figure out what the right process is to follow, because they need to be more independent.

If you have to do everything, that is the biggest thing that will hold you back as an agency, a small agency becoming a mid sized agency, or a small agency becoming even just a slightly bigger agency. You can’t be involved in everything. And so you need to ask those questions. You need to get your team to be asking that, so what question as well.

And sometimes you just need to ask them directly, bluntly. Not like I did at the start of this show, not in that tone of voice, at least, but you just need to say, so what? And, and I’ve done this with, with junior team members all the time who come to me with, you know, some idea for a blog post or a report or something that, you know, some kind of thing.

And, and it’ll sound cool that you can, we can pull these different data points together and do this and that. And I’m like, okay, but so what? Why, why would anybody read this? Why would at the end of that, what would they think about us, our organization, you know, so what? And it really does help them to rethink how they’re looking at it because now they’re thinking about how a consumer would take that marketing tactic or that piece of content and how they might act based upon that.

And that’s really what the goal is. The goal is not the content itself. It’s not the flyer, the brochure, the email or whatever. It’s the action that someone takes or the feeling that they have after they consume it.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. And one of the, I think one of the other big challenges that agency owners have, at least in my experience with working with them is that, and my own experience as well, is that we tend to micromanage.

So we say, okay, well, an employee wants to send an email to a CEO, and we don’t feel like the email is enough information.

So instead of coaching them through, this is how you speak to an executive versus a marketing director. This is how you speak to a CEO versus a marketing specialist or communication specialist. instead of that, we tend to just rewrite it for them. And so then what happens the next time is the employee comes and says, Hey, I need to send an email to the CEO.

Can you tell me what to say? And so now they’re putting all of the work on you because you’ve micromanaged the process. So instead of that, You have to say, I want you to think through what the difference is between this email that you’ve written and one that should go to an executive and why you think it should change so that they start to think about it themselves.

And they may not get there the first or second time, but that’s okay. That’s your job. Your job is to coach them through it and mentor them to be able to do it. It’s not your job to rewrite the email for them. And then because the next time they’re just not going to do it. So to your point earlier, which is like, they’re going to provide, how are you going to find the, how are you going to get people to provide the right kind of content up front versus you having to spend your time editing.

That’s how you’ll get there. That’s how you’ll do it. You’ll say, you’ll ask them questions. It’s the, what do you think? It’s the, so what? It’s the, how would you, or you know, helping them think through, but asking questions so that you can get them to think about it on their own.

Chip Griffin: And we have to leave room for our team and others to make mistakes.

Gini Dietrich: To make mistakes. Absolutely.

Chip Griffin: We cannot be of the mindset that yes, that no mistake is tolerable. And sometimes we have to allow our teams to do things that we know may not work out because they’ll learn from it. And so. You know, I always encourage using the so what to ask sort of so what what’s the worst thing that could happen here?

And I don’t mean the you know, let’s follow it to the most hysterical conclusion. But you know, let’s think about you know If you’re teaching a kid to ride a bike At some point you take the hand off the seat and they have to pedal for themselves. And could something bad happen? Sure. They can fall open most likely they fall off They skin a knee or an arm or something like that.

They cry, you know,

yep

Maybe, maybe like in a teeny tiny percentage of the time they break an arm, you know, or something like that. I mean, it’s still, it’s not great. You don’t want to encourage it, but you know, you got to accept that those kinds of things happen. Now, if you’re the kind of person sits here and says, well, they could also, they could start pedaling faster than I can catch up with them.

And then go right in the middle of traffic and a bus can run them over. Okay, fine. If that’s your mindset, if you want to follow everything to what the absolute worst imaginable thing that you could follow the thread to get to, I can’t help you. But if you ask yourself the, so what, and your conclusion is they might fall off and scrape themselves, it makes it a much more reasonable thing.

And that’s why parents are not running around with 30 year old kids on a bike and they’re still holding the seat. Right. I mean, at some point you got to let go. We’ve got to do the same thing with our team members. Don’t hold their seat.

Gini Dietrich: I love that. That’s the perfect analogy. Perfect analogy. Don’t hold their bike seat. I love it.

Chip Griffin: And they will make mistakes and clients will complain, but you know what? It is 99. 9999999 percent of the time not fatal. It does not end the relationship. People screw up all the time. Sane people realize that people screw up all the time. If you have a client who’s not going to allow a minor mistake, and they’re going to blow up, you don’t want them as a client anyway, because it’s only going to get worse from there.

Gini Dietrich: That’s right. And, if they make a mistake, and the client points it out, they will never make that mistake again.

Chip Griffin: Well, they better not. My rule with team members is I’m fine with you making a mistake. As long as you don’t make the exact same mistake, the exact same way a second time. Just learn from it.

That’s all I want. I don’t want you to be perfect. I just want you to learn from your mistakes.

Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. I think that’s very fair.

Chip Griffin: If we have to keep going back to the same thing over and over again, now we’ve got a problem. Now the so what answer is an irritating one for me.

Gini Dietrich: So what happens if I fire you?

Chip Griffin: And we all know I enjoy doing that.

Gini Dietrich: You do enjoy doing that.

Chip Griffin: Don’t make me have fun. So anyway, hopefully you will now, after listening to this podcast, ask yourself, so what, many times during the day. I mean, don’t just sit there at your desk and say, so what, so what, so what, so what. That would be kind of weird.

But ask yourself that question more than once a day, and I bet you will find some interesting answers.

Gini Dietrich: Put it on a post it note, attach it to your computer, remind yourself, do it.

Chip Griffin: And then, you know, if you’ve got a podcast and a co host, just snap at her sometime. So what? See what happens. Hopefully it goes better for you than it did for me.

Anyway, on that note, I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And it depends.