This happened late last year, and I'm obfuscating some details just to be safe and not break rule 8.
I had been working at a marketing agency for the last 8ish years and, during that time, became one of the company’s pillars. Department head, handle strategy creation for all of our clients, manage our in-house and remote teams, hands-on for our big clients, and just the whole nine yards.
About 4ish months before I got canned, the owner told me he wanted to pivot the agency's business model. “That’s a huge change, but alright. Let's talk about it.” He wants the focus to be on an individual industry so we can productize our services, scale the business more effectively, and reach higher ARRs by being more efficient. To make it happen, he wants me to see what strategies, playbooks, etc. are out there that we could use as a guide during the transition.
I find some solid case studies, check out some legitimate thought leaders on the topic, see what other similar agencies are doing/have done, and discover that there is an opportunity for us to niche down. We had enough clients in a few different industries that we could pivot the model and build around them.
I sent the recommendations to my boss on a Friday and figured we’d have a kick-off conversation the following week. Nothing major or concrete, just something where we’d have informal talks about what industries we want to target, what services we want to provide, how we’re going to handle our existing clients, etc. Just loosely and slowly creating our new business plan & model.
That whole next week, nothing. Straight ghosted. I tried to chalk it up to them just being busy and not able to talk, but they also have shiny object syndrome. I’ve gone through situations like this before with them where they’d buy some super expensive training course that’s going to “change everything”, they complete it, and then nothing would actually change. They’ve dropped $20k+ on these courses multiple times, and private coaching with “marketing gurus”, with literally nothing to show for it.
(If you work in digital marketing, you know the type of people I’m talking about.)
So, I’m thinking the same thing is happening again, and we’re going to miss out on a solid opportunity to make a genuinely good decision for everyone at the company. But, I stay patient and decided to give it another week.
More ghosting. This time, I call them, I send emails, I even stopped them in the hall, and they deflected or flat out ignored me each time. I should have just let it go, but it was a genuinely good idea and I could feel the momentum behind it evaporating.
I’m stubborn, and I say screw it. I decided to make a prototype to get something going and start collecting data so that if they do come around, we can have some info to help us make better decisions.
Some background, I’ve made dozens of prototypes during my time at the agency to test new ideas and strategies. I told my boss about all of them, and they approved them all to the point that I had blanket approval. So, I had no reason to think this would be any different. (We also don’t have any non-competes in place or company policies about moonlighting, so it’s 100% above board.)
As usual, I built the prototype on my own time, with my own money, and not once did it crossover into business hours. It took me a couple of weeks, but I finished it, published it, and then let it sit to collect data.
3 months later, I get pulled into a video call with my boss, and I was fired within 10 seconds. They found the prototype and felt like I had been working on it during company time. They reasoned that it was too well put together for it to have been built during off hours. When I tried to explain what it was and worked on it, they didn’t want to hear it and shut me down. The whole call was maybe 5 minutes long.
8 years. Hundreds of millions of dollars generated for our clients. Tens of millions made for the agency. It all meant absolutely nothing to them.
Companies don’t care about you. It doesn’t matter how big of an impact you have, they can and will get rid of you in an instant if they want to. I got fired for wanting to help and doing it too well. If it happened to me, it can happen to you too.
Do what's right for you. Put yourself first because that's exactly what they're going to do to you. Keep looking for better opportunities and take them when they come along. Being loyal to a company that would replace you in a heartbeat is not a good way to live. Take it from me.
TLDR: Boss wants to make a huge company-altering decision. They give no direction, ghost when I want to meet, I build a prototype to collect data, they find it, and fire me without asking about it. 8 years ended in 5 minutes. Fuck company loyalty.