Ep 129 - Natasha Golinsky, On Purpose Projects – Mindset Matters: The Key to Entrepreneurial Success
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Featuring: Natasha Golinsky, On Purpose Projects
In episode 129, I talk with Natasha Golinski, founder of On Purpose Projects, a custom web and e-commerce dev agency. Natasha is a three-time Canada Women of Influence nominee, a mom of three, and a breast cancer survivor—and she’s built her business around the belief that mindset is everything.
We dig into how she went from “accidental agency owner” to leading a zero-meeting, all-contractor team for over a decade, and why journaling, EFT (tapping), and surrounding yourself with the right people are critical to surviving the entrepreneurial rollercoaster. Natasha also shares how a cancer diagnosis forced her to hire ops support—and ultimately led to one of her agency’s biggest months ever.
This episode is a masterclass in grit, leadership, and the mental game of entrepreneurship.
Key Bytes
• Mindset is the job. Natasha starts most days with journaling and EFT to reset anxiety and focus.
• Zero meetings, high loyalty. A culture of respect, gratitude, and no drama keeps her contractor team thriving.
• Protect your people. Leadership means absorbing the stress and passing the praise.
• Say no early. Guardrails in discovery protect the team from toxic clients.
• Crisis as catalyst. Cancer forced Natasha to let go of ops—and it unlocked growth.
• Community matters. No one is self-made—surround yourself with peers who lift you up.
• Focus sharpens delivery. On Purpose Projects does dev only—like a food truck that just serves crepes.Chapters
00:00 Welcome & Natasha’s background
02:12 Accidental agency beginnings
04:45 Mindset, marketing, and money: her founder lane
07:30 Morning pages & EFT as daily reset tools
11:05 Cancer diagnosis, hiring ops, and a breakthrough month
15:20 Building loyalty in a zero-meeting contractor culture
20:22 Client red flags & protecting your team
23:50 Why no one is self-made: the role of community
26:30 Rapid-fire fun: karaoke, first impressions, food truck metaphor
28:55 Closing thoughts
Natasha Golinsky is the founder of an award-winning web development and ecommerce agency, a three-time nominee for the Canada Women of Influence® Award, and a tireless champion of female agency owners. Natasha’s also a mom of three and a breast cancer survivor who brings grit, heart, and a deep sense of purpose to everything she does. I’m thrilled to dig into her journey, her mission, and the lessons she’s learned along the way. Natasha, welcome to the show.
Award-winning web development & ecommerce agency founder | Champion & connector of female agency owners | 3x nominee Canada Women of Influence® Award | Breast Cancer Butt-Kicker | Mom x 3
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Steve / Agency Outsight (00:03.384)
Welcome to Agency Bites. I'm your host, Steve Guberman from Agency Outsite, where I coach agency owners to build the business of their dreams. This week on Agency Bites, I'm joined by Natasha Golinski, a powerhouse in the agency world. She's the founder of an award-winning web development and e-commerce agency, a three-time nominee for the Canada Women of Influence Award, and a tireless champion of female agency owners. Natasha is also a mom of three and a breast cancer survivor who brings grit, heart, and a deep sense of purpose to everything she does.
I'm thrilled to dig into her journey, her mission, and the lessons she's learned along the way. Natasha, welcome to the show.
Natasha (00:37.879)
Thanks for having me Steve, so excited.
Steve / Agency Outsight (00:39.958)
Yeah, I'm excited to dig in. You and I first kind of crossed paths recently through the Bureau of Digital. All praise to the Bureau. Hail Bureau. There you go. And I just the way that you represented yourself, my heart was instantly attracted to your energy and the things that you've been doing. And so I just think there's so much value.
Natasha (00:46.743)
Yeah.
Natasha (00:50.495)
Let's do a high five to the Bureau.
Steve / Agency Outsight (01:05.822)
in your mindset and the work that you've done. And so I'm excited to share that with everybody.
Natasha (01:10.529)
Well, happy to share. Anything I can use for our agency people, I'm all over it.
Steve / Agency Outsight (01:15.47)
So talk about you, your kind of evolution into agency life and the agency that you run.
Natasha (01:22.711)
Yeah, I'm like the Jason Swank, quintessential accidental agency owner. was a... Some people are not. Some people are like, yes, this is what I wanted to do. I quit my job to start an agency. And I was like, okay. I was not, but yeah, I was a management consultant in the nonprofit sector. And I had a client who was like, can you find someone to build a website or fix my website? And I was like, yeah, sure. And it went to Upwork and I got a guy from Bangladesh for like $10 an hour. And I had no idea what I was doing. I was like...
Steve / Agency Outsight (01:27.662)
Aren't we all though? Come on.
Natasha (01:51.239)
whatever, right? Didn't know. Anyway, so we did the guy's website. Turned out really nice thanks to my guy still on my team 10 years later. And then he's like, can you do my colleague has a thing? And it was like, we did that site. And then it kind of just sort of evolved. And I to date have never built a website. And I run a web development agency, which is very ironic, I realize. anyway, so it just kind of evolved like that. And so yeah, 10 years later, we're a custom dev team. So we
or a full stack, custom dev, all we do is build stuff, amazing web stuff, web apps, websites, Shopify apps, whatever. And everyone is full stack. Everyone is, I don't know what anybody does on my team, to be honest with you. I have no idea. I'm not a programmer. I just love building beautiful stuff. I do not know to do that. No, but what I do know is how to get the right people on the bus is what I know.
Steve / Agency Outsight (02:41.774)
So you don't know how the sausage is made, but you're selling it and they're making it. I love that.
Natasha (02:50.355)
And I was in a previous life, was a recruiter. So I have hired and fired many, many, people in my life. So I understand profiling and strength assessments and building right teams and tough skills, hard skills and all of that. So yeah, I've been really grateful. I've had more or less the same team since day one. The guy who did my logo, like pre, pre, pre client, you know, was still on the team now doing design for us. yeah, I just, I just love.
I think there's so much drama in the web world. I think there's so much drama and smoke and mirrors and people do it so badly and hurt their clients that I'm like, was kind of on a mission. My soapbox is like, your website done right. Like with the underlying theme, like there's a lot of people who don't do it right. So yeah, we're here to like ride that scalable experience, right?
Steve / Agency Outsight (03:37.944)
You have a line on your website. think it says something like, if you think hiring a professional is wrong, try hiring an amateur. And I love that. I've seen that a few times, but that resonated with me recently.
Natasha (03:43.604)
So.
So good. So good. Yeah, if you think it's expensive to hire a pro, wait till you hire an amateur. And then you gotta hire them, do it three times and yeah. I'm, that's, there's nothing more to say other than that.
Steve / Agency Outsight (03:58.574)
But that says a lot about you. So you are, you know, the orchestrator of bringing this magical team together, talent, people smarter than you that know their craft really well. And you, you know, set them off and trust them to do their job. You know, and in their micromanaging, their code or anything like that. Cause even if you want to, you can't. So you do your job, stay in your lane and 10 years in what, what is your lane, as the founder. Yeah.
Natasha (04:07.165)
Yeah.
Natasha (04:15.712)
I can't, I wouldn't have a clue.
Natasha (04:21.707)
My lane now is mindset for me, money, marketing. That's my lane. It depends on the day. Generally, it's like mindset, marketing, money. I might start my day with my morning mindset set up, and then I kind of make sure my team is sort of on track checking with my project manager, and then my day is marketing, and I do the money as we go. But yeah, but before, like pre-
Steve / Agency Outsight (04:27.959)
In that order.
Natasha (04:51.233)
pre-cancer, I was doing all the management too. And that now is thankfully off my plate, which is a huge gift.
Steve / Agency Outsight (04:58.584)
So life-changing events, pivotal events, personally and professionally, and coming through that, that's shifted how you show up for work. The mindset thing's been there for a long time,
Natasha (05:09.802)
100%. Yeah, that's been a piece. I think for every entrepreneur, like I was interviewed on this other podcast a month ago and they were like, what's the key to like, because I've been running a business since I was 13. Like I've never had a job. I've always been self-employed. And I'm like, it's a mind fuck. The whole thing about being an entrepreneur is just a mind fuck. Like mechanics and money, anybody can learn that. But if you can't stay in the game,
Steve / Agency Outsight (05:22.04)
Wow.
Natasha (05:36.287)
like be resourceful and be gritty and like here are these stats, right? Like this many people want out of business and this many people want out of business and five years and 10 years and two years and whatever it is. It's like, I really don't believe like it's a question of run out of resources or it's like, no, you got to get your shit together and you got to be tough and you got to figure it out and you got to get scrappy and you got to be resourceful and you got to like keep your head in the game. like, so I don't know. I think everything about being entrepreneurs in your head. I think everything.
Steve / Agency Outsight (06:03.342)
I agree. I had a call with a guy the other day and he had never heard of the phrase imposter syndrome. And I was like, what rock? What? How? How'd you get out from underneath that rock? But like for me, I could close, you know, sign on a new client. And in the very next thought process, I'm like, why me? What am I? How am I going to help them? I don't know anything about. And it's crazy how that and I've coached over 100 agencies at this point. And I still get that. And I and I have friends that are coaches and they say the same thing. And so
Natasha (06:08.161)
really?
Natasha (06:13.911)
That's good.
Natasha (06:27.415)
Ha ha ha.
Steve / Agency Outsight (06:33.802)
Yeah, it is mindset. what's your magic pill? What's your secret sauce? Yeah, yeah, what's your process?
Natasha (06:33.845)
Yeah, totally.
Natasha (06:39.617)
For mindset? Yeah. Well, I usually wake up very anxious. I don't know if that's common. I'm sure that's common for most people. You wake up and you're kind of strung out already and nothing's even happened yet.
I'm not one of those people who like lies around in bed, drinking her coffee, like la-di-da. I'm like, let's get, ooh. Like I really struggle to like start from a place of centeredness. So like what I do when I start my days, once everybody's out the door, kids are gone, partner's gone, everybody's gone. I'm like, okay. So I like sit down and I usually like, I don't know if you've ever read the book, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. But her whole thing is she's like, do your morning pages. Like empty your mind, write it out.
And so she does it three pages longhand, but I can't write longhand because I can't read my own writing. But it's like, I do it, I write a thousand words. I try to write at least a thousand words in this journal software that I have. I'm like, doesn't work. So I just kind of like dump my brain out and what I'm struggling with, what's stressing me out, what beliefs I'm stuck on. And I just kind of journal it out. And usually by the end of it, I'm like, okay, I kind of find a solution. I kind of talk to myself to be like, okay, this is really bothering me. Well, why does that bother you? And then...
what tell me why does that bother you and what if and I can kind of like mind hack myself a little bit so I do that and then on whatever I found my issue was that day I do a lot of like I love EFT I don't know if you know anything about EFT but it's like the emotional freedom technique of like tapping on pressure points to like manage emotions and grief and trauma. It's the same thing yeah it's the same thing it's just called EFT like emotional freedom technique is the tapping so like for example let's imagine that I
Steve / Agency Outsight (08:06.542)
So I've heard of tapping. don't think I've heard of it referred. Yeah.
Natasha (08:17.707)
have a lot of fear about losing a client or something. And I'm like, my God, my God, how am gonna have the money? How am I gonna make payroll? How am gonna know I'm a failure? I'm gonna be out of business, it is all going to hell, like the whole thing. I'd be like, hey, let's do some EFT on anxiety. And then usually after 10, 12 minutes, you're like.
Okay, I got this. I can handle this. I'm tough, I got this. So I do EFT, like I tried, like it helps, for me it helps me a lot. Like I've tried a lot of modalities for mindset management, but for me EFT has like really, really helped. And then like as I'm brushing my teeth, as I'm making breakfast, as I'm getting dressed, I listen to like really like wealth mindset kind of audios. So I love that. I have certain people that I love that really resonate with me. So I like do that kind of just in my filler.
Like if I sit and have a snack, I just kind of listen to something or, and then if I feel like I'm getting stuck in my work day, if I'm feeling I'm being triggered by something, I usually will like stop, take a breath, walk away, think like, go back to my journal sometimes. Being around amazing people, like you gotta be around people, like shout out to pieces like the Bureau and other communities like.
If you're not around people who lift you up, you will not make it. And I'm saying that from experience, like I said, I've been in the business my entire career. Entrepreneurship is not a one-man show. It's a crew. It's an entourage. It's having that community to be like, guys, hey, I don't know. What do I say? How do I handle this? What's the paperwork I need here? Whatever it is, you need people who are in the same boat as you. I would say those are my... And then fitness stuff, I try to move every day.
Like I have a walking treadmill under my desk, which really helps you kind of like stay calm. It depends what I'm doing, but if I really have to think, I stop walking because I get confused. But it's just, like movement really helps removing toxic people. If you have a client who's like toxic, like get them off your roster as fast as possible. It's protecting yourself, like not using a lot of social media. Like I personally don't use social media at all.
Steve / Agency Outsight (09:57.774)
Bless your coordination to be able to do that.
Natasha (10:21.903)
I just can't. It stresses me out. I don't know if I'm too sensitive. I don't know, but I just can't. It just gets in my head. It makes me sad. And I'm like, I don't need that. So I don't. so yeah, so that's sort some of my mindset stuff that really helps me stay focused, right? Because it's a crazy world. It's a noisy, noisy world. And anything can take you off your game. And it's like, no.
Steve / Agency Outsight (10:21.922)
that.
Steve / Agency Outsight (10:42.626)
Yeah. And so you've got to protect yourself. And I love that you have these tools, this process with the journaling mind hack. you doing like the five whys or?
Natasha (10:45.077)
Yeah.
Natasha (10:52.023)
That's a great one. Five Y's is so good. Yeah, I love that. I love it. I don't do it in that format, but that's what I'm doing. Like, I'm really scared about whatever. And then, like I remember when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I had to make a hire. I had to make a very expensive hire.
Steve / Agency Outsight (10:55.298)
Yeah. Yeah.
Natasha (11:09.771)
to like come in and be my ops person, because I was going to be out and I was diagnosed and then six weeks later I was going in for surgery. So like I had a bilateral mastectomy and like, so I'm like, I need someone to do my job or I got a team, I've got clients, I've got responsibilities, I've got projects that are underway. Like I cannot just be like, sorry guys, like I'm out. So I brought someone in terrified, terrified, because this was going to be a very big hire. And I'm like, how am going to pay me, pay her, pay my team?
pay my bills, pay whatever, and be dealing with cancer and not be working. Like how am gonna possibly make payroll? How am gonna do this? I was so scared. then I remember. Yeah.
Steve / Agency Outsight (11:48.984)
And you can't bring that fear and stress into you're about to battle the biggest fight of your life and recover. So yeah, you had a massive.
Natasha (11:56.791)
Scared and I'm a one-income household like I have three kids, but it's just me and there's no one else to be like calling the husband Sorry, honey, like can ya it's just me. It's just me. So I was like okay, this is interesting and But I remember I did so much mindset work around that like so much work like
And it's still a continuous process, but it's like, okay, like, no, it's gonna be okay. Like the money's gonna come in. Don't worry about it. Like it's gonna, you're gonna make it. and it turned, and it was fine. I like made her payroll. I made everyone else's. I didn't have to lay anybody off. I paid myself. I saved a bunch of money. I paid off a bunch of debt. Like, you know, it was, but it was all in your head. Cause the other side could have been like, this is it. We're done. Like it could have been so easy to be like, give up.
Like chemo makes you want to like, don't know if anybody's been through chemo, but it's like, it just, it just messes with your head, right? You're just like, you feel so awful. You're so dragged out. You're feeling so bad. And it's like the mindset required to like stay focused. Cause what I did was I did one week was like my chemo week and I was kind of like managing things on Slack from my bed. And then the week, second week of after chemo, you generally have chemo like in cycles, right? So you have one week of chemo and then have a week to recover and then you go back.
And so my non-chemo week, I'd be back and I'd be working and I'd be kind of feeling fine and feeling good. But then boom, you're back down again. And then, so she and I would do FaceTime and I'd be like, ugh, like talking to her. But she would run things and we got through it. like I said, May was my second biggest month of my career, like one month out of chemo. So yeah, it was a crazy, it was a crazy ride, but.
Steve / Agency Outsight (13:28.088)
amazing.
Natasha (13:32.959)
It teaches you a lot about leadership, you know, and it's like, especially as an agency owner, like your team is everything. Like your community for yourself, for your internal, like your own people is key for you. But then you've got to have a team. Like the one thing I learned is like as an entrepreneur, like you have to be positioned to be supported.
Do you know what I mean? So I had a really strong team. got a really good team. like they just ran it and they knew I was out. Right. And they just handled it. And then my home team, my kids and my partner and my mom and my family and my medical team and friends and you know, that illusion that you can do it alone, I think is the entrepreneur myth. Self-made. I hate that word. There's no such thing. There's no such thing. There's no such thing. No one's.
Steve / Agency Outsight (14:19.938)
No, no, nobody's done it themselves. I fully agree with you. Yeah. So the, so you had to make the decision, bring in an ops person. They're still, they're still there. You're in a new lane because you're not doing all these things that you were doing prior to that. So this diagnosis forced your hand to get things off your plate, bring in somebody, trust them to do ops for you. and so you had your biggest month in 10 years, which is amazing. I hope that trajectory keeps going for you. What, how do you.
Natasha (14:31.893)
Yep. Yep.
Natasha (14:45.729)
Yeah. Me too.
Steve / Agency Outsight (14:49.844)
What are some, I guess, hacks, tricks, thoughts on taking that mindset and putting it into action as opposed to it just being mindset and bring your team into it activities to connect with your team over those things.
Natasha (14:58.913)
Mmm.
That's such a great question. so like, how do I keep like the high vibe going? Is that what you're asking me?
Steve / Agency Outsight (15:09.1)
Yeah, I mean, so the day to day is great and you know, the daily process is great, but like, how do you put them into action and, and activities to bring your team into the same energy that you're operating at?
Natasha (15:20.279)
Okay got it got it okay that's a great question I've never been asked that. Okay let me think. I only hire people who are very high vibe happy people. Number one. If someone's grumpy they're not gonna stay on the team.
Steve / Agency Outsight (15:31.31)
Mm-hmm.
Natasha (15:37.811)
I am very appreciative. My entire team, run a hundred percent contractor team, so I zero employees. So how you keep contractors is you create an incredible job for them and they want to stay, they don't want to leave you, right? So I'm so grateful and considerate and respectful of my team and what they need and what they want and why they're here. We do a lot of emojis like
fun emojis on things like, hey, this is done. And we have like, you know, like the person dancing, you know, like, and so we just make it really, we try to make it fun. We try to make it like a high vibe place to be. And if something goes wrong, it's like, hey, what happened? How do we fix this? Really like, there's never finger pointing like, what happened? It's like, no, hey, like me as a leader, how did I contribute to this problem? Like, how do we fix this so it doesn't happen again?
Every time we have a client who gives us a testimonial I always share with the team like way to go guys like they don't see that right? They don't usually see that side Yeah, I just think like there's a zero tolerance on drama I've never had that happen on the team I've never had drawn or like finger pointing and I think that starts with the leader, right? I think that starts with the leader like if you're a high vibe leader and you're collaborative and warm and grateful You're gonna attract people like that, right? Like you're gonna attract people who are in that same
So think it comes back to what we were talking about. think it starts with you. Like one thing I've learned as an entrepreneur is like, and as a human being, is like you attract what you are.
Right? So it's like our, like I was saying with mindset, like as being a part of my job description, it's like legit, that's part of my job description. Because it's like who I am is going to attract other people. So it's like, how can I be an even better version of me to attract better clients, better colleagues, better, not better, like not better. That's not the right word, but like,
Steve / Agency Outsight (17:33.558)
on culture and people that connect with the same values that you connect with. And yeah. Yeah.
Natasha (17:35.485)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's not better. It's not better. I hate to say better, but it's like, like more. Yeah, just like it's just such an exciting thing to think like, OK, as I become more, whatever I can draw in a different level of things that I'm looking for. And so it actually is part of my job description to make sure that I am that magnetic person.
who people want to work with and want to work for. And you know, like, I think that's very important. Like, I can't bring drama and chaos to my work team. Like, I someone on my team, they're like, I didn't even know you had cancer. And I'm like, And I'm back six months later. They're like, I didn't even know you were gone. I'm like, okay, awesome.
Steve / Agency Outsight (18:25.166)
Wow.
Natasha (18:26.391)
Because I think we probably like posted on slack or something, but I don't think they saw it and We didn't really do a formal like okay. Hey, like this is happening. It was more like hey This is she's coming in to help me. I'm going through this right now like and I didn't really make it a thing And then like sickness that they're like, oh
Steve / Agency Outsight (18:43.374)
So everybody's a remote contractor. Do you all get together for team huddles? Have you ever gotten together all in person? Wow.
Natasha (18:49.683)
No, we're like actually like a zero meeting system. I run a zero meeting system. So we don't do huddles. We don't really do calls. We're very much a slack team. But that being said, want to one of the things I want to change now going forward, now that I can work more on the business and work in marketing as opposed to just keeping everything running is definitely setting up more of that like team togetherness.
But until now, like I run a dev team and people always think that's so weird that we have a zero meeting system and I've never met any of them. And I have a guy who works 10 minutes away from where I live and I've never really met him. And people think that's really weird. But I'm like, you're not used to working with web developers. Web developers are not the most social people in They don't really care.
Steve / Agency Outsight (19:23.886)
Wow.
Steve / Agency Outsight (19:30.126)
Yeah. Yeah, they're introverts. They want to be huddled with their keyboards with headphones on and yeah.
Natasha (19:36.203)
Yeah. So I think that all depends because I know for me, like I work with all my colleagues or run agencies and they're all like, they do a lot of like team time and stuff like that. And I never do, I never have. And it works. I've had the same people, like I said, and I've never had anybody quit. But again, it just depends on the culture of your people, right? Because if you're a bunch of web developers who are very like introverted and they don't really want to talk to you anyway.
you
Steve / Agency Outsight (20:05.134)
Talk about the clients that you work with. And I think that the energy that I get and some of the things that you've mentioned are how you set the stage from the door and how you kind of say own the relationship, manage the relationship and expectations and the kind of clients that you work with. How do you handle all that?
Natasha (20:22.975)
Yeah. Let's make sure I understand your question. So it's like, how do I set the tone with my clients? OK. So I am good or bad, I am very, very strict with clients and the projects we're going to take. Like 10 years in, if I even sense drama or sense a red flag, I'm like, no. It's just like a hard no. I'm like,
No, I'm not. I'm not. Life is too short. Like, I know what I said that pre-cancer and I'm not saying that as a dramatic like life's too short. Live your dream. Like that's not what I'm saying. It's like it is not worth it to lose sleep over a client. Like I'm like I would rather not have the money and have some mental peace than have your money and deal with your drama. So we work typically on bigger builds. Our average website I would say build project is usually starts around 20,000.
And we're like, like I said, full-stack teams, we do a lot of custom. So a lot of integrations, a lot of custom functionality, a lot of Shopify plus where it's doing something and it's all this like web apps. So we do like bigger builds. And again, we don't do design. We're just purely the tech. We purely do the depth. And so when I'm doing discovery and talking to someone, if I kind of don't like them, I'm like, I'm going to have to work with you. I'm like...
If I don't like you or I feel like you're not giving me the respect I deserve and you're not following my system, we're going to have some problems. I just don't. So I know the framework that I've built that works. So I feel like if have a client who tries to not follow my framework or they give me any attitude, it's like a no. It's like a hard no. I'm like, no.
I just can't, because then it's going to trickle into my team and I don't want my team to deal with that. Like if my team is now stuck in these like chaos, like we had this client, I guess it was last year, was kind of like while I was going through my cancer stuff, it was like just chaos, just didn't end. It was just a constantly something was wrong. All so much scope drama and so much, and the whole team is just fried, right? They're just like, when is this over? And so,
Natasha (22:37.919)
And that was sort of just sort of a client we'd inherited by accident. Like we hadn't, I scoped it myself, but someone has like brought us in white label to do this job. Anyway, but no, my number one priority with my team is to protect my team, protect my people. Everybody's healthy. Everybody's healthy. Everybody's okay. Everybody's balanced. Everybody's paced. Everybody's doing work they like to do as much as possible. Like, yeah.
Steve / Agency Outsight (23:01.934)
It sounds like you have established over the 10 years, of probably the most emotionally intelligent agencies I've, and mature agencies that I've encountered because you're protecting the most important thing, which is your people and the energy around the entire team. And so not letting clients infiltrate that. It sounds like if there's a sword that needs to be fallen on, you're the one that does it as the leader. And when there's applause or
praise that needs to be delivered, you're handing it down to the team and letting them take it. That's how leadership works.
Natasha (23:33.463)
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, my people, because also too in my case, because I'm not a programmer and I can't jump in, something I do teaching a lot, I get brought on our webinars a lot to teach about is like team, like virtual teams. And I taught for the bureau, I taught this webinar, right, for the bureau. And it was like how to create reliable, amazing, loyal virtual contractor teams. And that's what I was talking about. And I was talking about, especially in the game of virtual contractors, when there's no benefits, there's no contract.
There's no nothing. You have to earn that loyalty. And I would say it's the same with employees, because employees can quit, right? But you have to earn that loyalty. They don't owe you anything. They could walk and not tell you. There's nothing there to hold them. And usually as an agency, they're freelancers making less money. They could be making triple as a freelancer out on the open market. So for them to make less money working in the agency structure, which makes sense because we're doing like
a huge lift of their job, like all the admin, all the money, all the marketing, all the everything. But you have to earn that support. Like you said, emotional intelligence, but it's like, if I can't create a work environment where people wanna stay, I can't jump in. So I think to me, maybe that's why I'm a little more attentive to everybody, because it's like, I can't code. Like, I can't do it.
I would have to literally hire someone else to do it. So I think like me protecting them and creating like a place that they want to work and they never want to leave is A is to protect me. Like I couldn't do it without them. But also it's like, it's karma, right? Like you treat your team really well and they're going to like come show up for you. And I might go with them.
Steve / Agency Outsight (25:25.72)
Yeah, it goes full circle. You're building something you want to thrive so that you can thrive. And in turn, they all get to thrive. And so you have to protect the entire team. yeah, seems like you're doing it beautifully. Yeah.
Natasha (25:36.971)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, just, my number one thing is loyalty. Like if you want loyal people on your team, like how do you show up for them? Like number one, it's, a circle. Like you said, it's a circle. It's like, if you want loyalty and you want to like stop churn on your team, well, how do you show up for them? Like you said, do you follow yourself for your team? Like, do you protect them? Like emotionally, like financially, all these things. And it's, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Steve / Agency Outsight (25:45.175)
Exactly.
Steve / Agency Outsight (26:05.068)
I love it. I'm going to switch gears and jump into a couple of random questions, but I'm super grateful for everything you've shared with us on how you've built this team of loyal contractors and continue to grow your team and the business and the trajectory you're on, as well as being able to shift things off your plate as a result of what you've battled through. And so I admire everything that you've been able to accomplish. So thank you for sharing it. These are totally random. The first is what's your go-to karaoke song?
Natasha (26:09.559)
Sure.
Natasha (26:28.983)
Thank you. Sure.
Oh my God, I hate karaoke. Karaoke is so dumb. I don't understand why people like karaoke. What would it be? I don't even know. Anything by like, you probably don't know the band, but anything by Great Big Sea. They're a Canadian band. they're, I love Great Big Sea. They're an East Coast band. You might know them. They're from Newfoundland.
Steve / Agency Outsight (26:36.008)
Hahaha!
Steve / Agency Outsight (26:54.04)
I've heard of them, yeah. I can't name any songs, but I've definitely heard of them. Yep. Yep.
Natasha (26:57.803)
They're so fun. They're like folksy, but yeah, don't mean to think by them, but I hate karaoke. I'd never go, but.
Steve / Agency Outsight (27:04.086)
Maybe one day we'll get you on at a bureau event. What's something that people often misunderstand about you?
Natasha (27:06.219)
Ha ha ha ha!
Natasha (27:11.113)
Most people think I'm very cold when they meet me. Because I have that Eastern European, like, bitch face. And because I'm very direct and I'm very, like, take no shit, people think I'm very cold and unapproachable and intimidating. I've heard that so many times in my life that they're just like, ooh. But once they get to know me, five seconds in, they're like, OK, no. You know? But like, I've heard that so many times in my life. Like, I didn't want to talk to you. I thought you'd be mad. And I'm like,
Steve / Agency Outsight (27:29.422)
Wow.
Natasha (27:40.823)
I blame the Ukrainian face, that's all what I answer.
Steve / Agency Outsight (27:45.454)
Highly misunderstood. And then finally, if your agency were a food truck, what kind of food would it serve and why?
Natasha (27:52.863)
my god, okay, such a fun question. Okay, let me think. I love food trucks. What would we be? We would probably be... I imagine we'd probably be one of those, what are they called? They're like those wraps? Crepe pieces. We'd be like a crepe food truck. Yeah, I think so. Because I think it'd be like, crepes are pretty predictable. You can't really mess it up. So we'd be like, okay.
Steve / Agency Outsight (27:56.686)
Mm-hmm.
Steve / Agency Outsight (28:09.422)
Like a gyro.
Steve / Agency Outsight (28:14.85)
Why?
Natasha (28:22.389)
All different types of crepes, but we only do crepes. So like for us, like we only do dev, but we do Shopify, WordPress, Webflow, React, custom. But it's all the crepes. You can have a sweet crepe or a savory crepe or like whatever.
Steve / Agency Outsight (28:37.954)
I love it. So on purpose crepes. Fun fact, I didn't know what a savory crepe was until like a year ago. My fiance took me to this place and she's like, you want sweeter savory? I don't know what you mean by that. And she's like, it was like chicken and something. And I just never even knew that was a thing. So yeah.
Natasha (28:53.655)
It's a thing. It's a thing. I don't really like those ones, but it's a thing.
Steve / Agency Outsight (28:57.474)
Yeah, Natasha, thank you so, so much for just your openness, your heart, your journey, like sharing it all with us. Very grateful for your time and just everything. So thank you.
Natasha (29:07.713)
Well, thank you for what you're doing to support agency owners. I'm a huge fan. So thank you for having me.
Steve / Agency Outsight (29:11.758)
It means the world. Thank you.