Business Coaching Case Study: Mountain Mojo Group

Mountain Mojo Group is a full-service digital marketing agency based in Flagstaff, Arizona. Their agency serves clients across various industries, from hardware retailers like Ace Hardware to healthcare providers like plastic surgeons and university athletic programs. Mojo was founded in 2016 by Austin Leggett, and Rand Jenkins, whose vision is to redefine the workspace for marketers, Flagstaff residents, artists, and locally owned businesses that are also community-centric. After three years of rollercoaster revenue and team growth, Austin and Rand decided to see if a business coach could help take their business to the next level.

The Client Before Leader’s Cut Coaching

The tipping point that pushed the Mojo co-founders into the search for a business coach was the desire to ensure that they were both on the same page with the future of the business, the prioritization of team and revenue growth, and the desire to evolve their company’s culture.

While they had a very loose vision, mission, and decent organic business culture, there weren’t specific processes and procedures for consistency in place. So you might have thought they would need a team of consultants to guide them into a new phase of their business journey.

That is when they met me, professional business coach, Ken Kilday, while at a regional networking event that happened to be in my backyard of Sedona. During an initial conversation, team Mojo learned about my business coaching services, understood my experience with corporate problem solving, and felt some immediate chemistry and an alignment of core values.

Collectively we met the three criteria for working together:

1. Having a beer together (chemistry/values)
2. The skillset for the problem they’re trying to solve (corporate background)
3. The desire to change

Along with the additional guidance of their fellow agency owners (Digital Mastermind Group), Rand and Austin learned some crucial tools (EOS and GGOB), which I then guided them through to tackle the task of defining a culture while building a structured, thriving business!

Identifying The Problem

Mojo’s biggest challenge was also their greatest strength in that they were two creative leaders that hired team members and grew the business based on creativity. And suppose you’ve ever worked professionally with a creative. In that case, there is a decent chance that they were also a little less than organized, far from consistent, and not focused on systematization.

So you can say that their genius for producing industry-changing ideas was at odds with a system that could deliver consistent, predictable, and repeatable results. Along with the lack of organization, the business principles and core values had yet to be clearly defined.

Therefore, Mojo struggled to set proper expectations with potential new hires and found some misalignment based on unique situations with new hires. In other words, Mojo hired talented people that struggled to fit into the culture.

Another recurring issue was conflict among team members lacking resolution. When there was a resolution, such as it was, it lacked structure, thereby leaving the issue unresolved, resulting in more tension and unrest within the team.

The Leader’s Cut Solution

When we began working together, it required meeting with the firm’s principals and each team member to establish a common language and a new way to communicate among different personalities and positions.

Next, the team received a Talent Dynamics assessment to take before their annual retreat. We worked through each team member’s strengths and blind spots, complementary skill sets, and how the team is a powerhouse when a bond of trust is present.

The team was then able to ask questions confidently and bravely discuss their issues and issues with one another that had previously been left unresolved. This exercise is the first step out onto ‘the skinny branch’ of vulnerability (a reminder that every team member has the space at Mojo to be open and honest).

After this exercise, the words describing Mojo’s core values began to bubble up, sharing their examples of company culture and their ability to answer the challenging question I posed, ‘what problem is your business solving?’.

Mountain Mojo Group After Leader’s Cut Coaching

Mojo was all in after their first encounter produced tangible results. Next, they signed up for coaching consisting of weekly principal sessions, monthly team member sessions, quarterly full-day meetings, and annual off-site retreats.

We built the agendas for these meetings using leadership feedback and team input by working together. As a result, every session fosters accountability with action items, affirmed goals, and sharper skills. Although we began by implementing EOS through a series of meetings, Mojo transitioned with the release of the flexible, robust, and expansive Making the Cut™ organizational framework. At this writing, we are more than two years into our engagement, have seen revenue and profits double against a 20% decrease in staffing without burdening utilization rates, and are more proficient at hiring the right people (culture) into the right seat that delivers actual results. By their own account, the most important outcome has been solidifying an innovative, issue-crushing culture that can outthink and out-process any problem either in their industry or business. We continue to meet weekly with the founders, monthly with group leaders, and monthly with the other team members. We also co-facilitate quarterly meetings and the annual offsite.

Coaching To Take Your Business To The Next Level

Rand says, “Ken’s high business acumen allowed him to quickly gain knowledge of the marketing industry, the structure of marketing companies, their relationships with marketing clients, and the types of personalities that succeed in agency life.” Using a deep library of resources and real-world experience, I have coached these marketing agency clients, gaining leadership buy-in followed by team buy-in and a legacy of solid company culture. But, of course, the beauty of the method is that it translates to almost any company or industry.

Are you ready to explore how Business Coaching can take your business to a new level, give you time back in your day, and help you tap into the joy of being a business owner again? Then start with a Meet & Greet to see if there’s chemistry, know-how, and commitment to coaching. Do you know you’re ready to kick the tires? Then the complimentary Breakthrough Strategy Session is for you. So you roll up your sleeves, and Ken will roll out the red carpet, demonstrating a coaching experience that will leave you with all the information you need to decide.