When A Referral Goes Wrong with Anya Parker-Lentz

Dusti Arab

Hello, everybody and welcome back to Referral Worthy. Today I am here with Anya Parker-Lentz who is the CEO and founder of Landau Agency, which is a social media consultancy. They are phenomenal. She is literally the only social media person I recommend on a regular basis. So like, that is about the highest praise that I can give. Because social media people are like, who I like to come in and fire first. But now I do that, so I can bring it on. Yeah.

Anya Parker-Lentz  

Thank you. Yeah, so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Dusti  

Of course. So I usually kick things off by asking people about their origin story. And you are the youngest person I’ve had on here for sure. And so even though you have not hit 30 yet, your story is so incredible to me. So tell me, tell me about how you got started in social media? How did Landau agency come into being?

Anya

Well, I sort of start from the beginning of being like a Tumblr kid, and being you know, part of the I think first generation that really has impeccable fluency on social media, and specifically Instagram, like, that was the platform we were using in middle school. So it was at that extremely formative years. And I just sort of grew up in the world of it, and I was in a band with my sister, still am. But I was in a band with my sister since high school. And so I’ve been running around social media accounts, and you know, like, kind of humbly grew my account from zero to 4000, with no, you know, prior experience. I was in high school, you know, like Instagram is just starting out, we’re just kind of learning what good content is, and figuring out our own rhythms, and doing that for ourselves. I ended up going to college to get a degree in physics – completely different. But I like to say that the data background and you know, all of the sort of experimentation tactics were what I took with me from that. And after college, I ended up really not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, besides knowing that I wanted to play music, and I wanted to create my own thing, you know, whatever that thing was, whatever that path that I wanted to follow was. And so I had three different jobs. So I was working as a physics researcher in a lab. I was working at a nonprofit, basically being the right hand man for this nonprofit that the CEO, the founder of a nonprofit that hosts large scale fundraising events for humanitarian crises. And they’re hosted at Carnegie Hall, they’re like, massive, massive productions. And I ended up being his person, like, I was doing everything. I was, you know, the kid in the office, I was 22 at that point, but I was, you know, I was the one with all the technical skills. And so I learned a lot of things really quickly, I was running their social media channels, I was designing their website, like, I was doing everything for them.

Dusti  

Okay, that’s so interesting. So you were like, the right hand woman really early on?

Anya  

Yeah, very early on, it was a very small organization. And I proved myself quickly and showed that I could handle a lot of moving pieces at once. And you know, I grew up with a real estate agent mother. So I was trained in being able to speak to all different kinds of people from a very young age too, and I think that was really what propelled me forward so much was the people skills. And then the third thing that I was doing was social media management. There were a few people that I was freelancing for, because of this experience that I had built with my own account when I was in college, I was a sorority president and before being the sorority president, I was running their social media channels. So I was having, I was getting all this experience and you know, experimenting with all my data processing and things like that. So I ended up pursuing all three of these things at the same time until the pandemic hit. And you know, in person lab and in person events don’t really mesh with that. So I ended up, you know, the one thing that existed was my freelance social media work, which I decided to really take seriously. One of my freelance clients was like, I will help you build this business. She was kind of just starting out in the business coaching space. So she was gonna, you know, use me as her model and success story and I and I was such a willing participant. I was like, “This is amazing, I’m totally getting, you know, masterclass and running a business and running a business in this space with, you know, already kind of knowing that my ideal client was personality brands was, you know, people who are just doing too busy doing important stuff, to be spending time on their own social media channels, but that people are devoted and love them and want to follow them. So that ended up being the avenue that I pursued. And you know, I was getting viral videos all over the place.” So these things kind of all just fell into place. And I started Landau in 20, technically, I started it in 2019, but 2020 was really when I took off because of the pandemic, right?

Dusti  

It’s funny how you’re like, “Well, this is what’s left.” That worked out okay for you, though. 

Anya  

Yeah, well, I loved it. I mean, I was loving all of the things that I was doing. And it was sort of like, what’s going to hit that tipping point of being the more meaningful thing that I’m doing?

Dusti  

What do you find most meaningful about social media?

Anya  

I think that it is an avenue of connection that we don’t get anywhere else. I can be friends with you from across the country and have connections through you. And we’re following each other and what we do. Half of my best friends are scattered across the US and you know, world, and I would never be in contact with them otherwise. I think that it expands our ability to have community. And I think that, you know, while so many people, well, social media can be a toxic place, like so can the town square be a toxic place, right? Like you can, you’re like, none of us had a great time in our high school classrooms. I’m sure we were getting bullied in person too, you know, like, there’s always going to be shitty culture in various places. And as long as we’re seeking out the positive aspects of the platform, I think that social media is just a way to form community. That’s really what it comes down to. 

Dusti  

I love that. Well, and I love hearing your perspective in particular on this because you are right on that millennial/Gen Z line. And so I never feel like, I mean, sometimes I feel a little old around you, but mostly I’m like, mostly, I feel like you really code switch, like you’re you’re so good at code switching, and still seeing trends. And like, especially as they’re coming up through social media. But I completely agree on the community aspect. Like, I mean, almost all of my best friends at this point, I have either met because of social media, or some initial contact was made there or whatever. I mean, you and I are a great example of that. We met via Hillary, who I knew for 10 years online before we actually met in person and we went straight to sharing a hotel room together.

Anya  

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it’s not, it doesn’t have to be this stranger danger thing, because you can build trust, like you really can build trust online with people. And as far as the Gen Z/millennial thing, whenever I’m with millennials, they always call me Gen Z. And then whenever I’m with Gen Z, they call me millennial. So I do sort of always feel like an odd one out. But I like that I have the language for both. And the references.

Dusti  

Yeah, it’s true. I mean being able to access all of the references and being able to float through those spaces. I mean, it really comes back to what you said about being just excellent socially, and I’m sure having your mother there as an example. Like not just of communicating with lots of different kinds of people, but already having exposure to a strong female entrepreneur. I mean, that’s, that’s like…

Anya  

Well, my whole family is like, we’re all matriarchs, and my grandmother, I’m wearing two of her rings right now. She passed away two years ago, she was an entrepreneur, too. And she was one of two business women in her hometown, like taking the train into New York city every day and in a sea of men, you know, so we’re full of matriarchs and entrepreneurs at that.

Dusti  

That’s so badass. Okay, so Anya, for you, I mean, you basically like, college business, like you went, it all just kind of flowed and was pretty seamless for you, which I love. I think that’s so cool. So I’m curious for you, because I know you do like a fair bit of hiring and outsourcing yourself at this point. What makes somebody referral worthy to you?

Anya  

Someone is referral worthy to me when I’ve done good work with them. I usually have to have experience with them before, having seen their work, and that they can hold their own with the people that I work with and that they add something more. I’m not bringing in people just because they are, you know, necessarily really great at this one skill. They’re also really personable, they’re really fun to talk to, they’re ideally like someone that you actually want to be in a room with. So if we have to get on a call together, they’re a fun person to be with. And yeah, I think, what else? I have a, we’re gonna get to this in a bit, but I have my exciting news story of what makes someone very much not referral worthy. So maybe I’m a little bit stuck in that at the moment. But yeah, I think someone doing great work, being in integrity, you know, striving for the same level of excellence as me, and if there’s a way for me to be able to see that, you know, I feel like you just know certain things, like you know, who you want to refer, because you’ve just had enough experience where they’re doing the right thing every time. And, you know, they’re gonna keep doing the right thing for your people. Right?

Dusti  

Right. Okay, so this episode is going to be a little bit different, because we don’t usually focus on what makes people not worthy of our referrals. However, Anya and I have had, we have the benefit of shared clients on a handful of projects now, and we just had something in a launch go seriously sideways. And Anya, I would love for you to tell us about this experience, because I think there are so many great learning points here, just across the board.

Anya  

So I’ll keep it you know, vague enough, because I don’t want to put anyone’s business in a bad way. Like, I think that, I want to be respectful of that, and not like put too much drama out in the world. But the kind of basics of the story is that I brought on a contractor for a project who I’d worked with before, who I trusted, you know, who fit all the categories of what I had just described, which is, you know, they’re great to be around, they add something to the room, they’re someone that I enjoy hanging out with, and has produced great work for me before. And, you know, there was a project that we worked on together, and I don’t know if it’s because it, you know, there was just a level of comfort with me where this contractor didn’t feel like they need to kind of keep staying at that level, or whether it was like, they just had bad life circumstances in that moment. Like, there’s so many things that could have gone into it. But essentially, they showed up to the project with, I’m gonna say severely lacking in people and equipment for what they had promised for the project. And they continued to reassure me that this is fine, it was going to work out, the reason why these things weren’t together is because this XYZ. I was given really, you know, confident explanations of all these things. So even through me seeing what was going wrong, I was reassured the whole time that, “No, no, it’s okay. Like, you have nothing to worry about.” So I’m sitting here thinking, okay, great, awesome, improvise great love that, like, we don’t have something the way that we wanted it, because of whatever, like, awesome, we’re here. Now you’re gonna make it work. I don’t need to know anything else. 

Dusti  

Totally. Right. And like, and I think it’s also important to note that this was a fairly quick turnaround project, like for something for something that involves video. Anya does a lot in video, obviously, working in social media. So this particular project had, I mean, there were like, a fair number of moving parts. We had to get these three main videos, plus some extra B roll stuff, plus some social media stuff. And it was a pretty quick timeline that we had, just for a lot of different reasons.

Anya  

And I think, to that point, then I would hope, you know, another great referral worthy trait of a contractor, I would hope would be also discernment and being able to tell me if they can’t handle something beforehand. You know, if I say, “Hey, this is what we’re going for, we have this many weeks.” I need to like, so far, I had been able to trust this person and saying, “Yeah, absolutely no problem.” And, you know, for them, I keep looking back at it, there’s really nothing I could have done that differently. And there are things that I will do differently next time. But there’s nothing in this scenario that I could have done.

Dusti  

Oh, totally. Yeah, well, and I agree, which is part of why I think this is such a good story to share with people because, from all outside views, this should have gone off without a hitch.

Anya  

Yeah, exactly. Like there was so much reassurance on the front end and it wasn’t until we were delivered this this product that the deliverables that we were supposed to be given, these video deliverables, just were like so missing the mark of what I had asked for, and what I had very explicitly shown and said, “Hey, this is what we need, can you recreate this exact vibe?” And I got a resounding “Yes, no problem.” So here I am thinking, I solved a problem, amazing, my client is going to be happy. But no, and so, you know, I ended up taking over the project. And even though I was really on as an agent, and sort of, like really just giving, I was essentially giving this person a referral, and, you know, showing up on set to make sure that everything went swiftly, but I was not a producer. I was not meant to be in any of these managerial roles, which I ended up, basically taking the project file, having this contractor, you know, hire a few extra people to do some of the technical work that I couldn’t do. And then I took it on and ended up zhushing and doing my own thing to it to make it good. And ended up having to cut one of the angles, like, there was so much, there’s so much work that had to be done. I stayed up till five in the morning one of the nights because I was like, I just have to get it done. And I’m like, when someone reflected back to me after, I was like, “Oh, well, I’m working with them on all these projects. What should I, you know, what should I do?” And she reflects back to me, and she’s like, “I know you’re in the heat of it because it’s really hard to find people you trust. And I know you’re dreading finding someone new. But if you can, if I came to you and said, ‘Hey, I have a contractor who not only dropped the ball, kept reassuring that it was going to be okay, and then basically within like a week of the project delivery made you do the rest of the work. And then told you that they don’t strive for excellence, and they’re satisfied with ‘I don’t hate it’ as an answer from clients.’” Like that was such a, that this mentor of mine had put that back to me. And I was like, “Oh, yeah, right, that is definitely not the kind of person that I want to work with.” And for all the people that I had this contract on referrals for, it is now an opportunity for me to, unfortunately, I have to speak to a lot of them. But it becomes an opportunity for me to really show my integrity again and say, “Listen, I had this bad experience. I’m going to be replacing them for this project.” And I think that that will end up making, you know, even though it’s an unfortunate thing that I have to do, I think that makes me look more in integrity for those other projects.

Dusti  

I completely agree. Well, and actually, it’s funny you mentioned that specifically because yeah, I mean, for me, there’s no question. Like, if you fuck up to that extent on a project, I’m not saying it’s unforgivable, but it’s definitely 

Anya  

But you’re not being invited back. Like, there’s no absolutely no reason to be invited back. Like no. We can be friends, we can move past it, we can, you know, it’s fixed, we can move, but I do not need to give you business. And speaking to like, you know, the referral perspective of, you know, having given a referral, I think one of the things that I really wanted to bring up today was the fact that I gave a referral that crumbled. Um, I wanted to make sure that my word in my referral does not end with “Oh, yeah, here’s this person. Ope, sorry, they fucked up.” Okay. Am I allowed to curse? Like, “Oh, sorry, they messed up, like, What a bummer.” You know? Like, that’ an absolutely, we’re not where I would leave a project. You know, I refuse to. I really, I refuse to have a referral screw up. So I was fortunate that I could take over this project. But I think no matter what, I probably would have done whatever it took. And I think that is something that’s important. And referrals too. it’s like, when you are referring someone you are vouching for them. And you know, you might have to come to terms with, if they do royally screw up, what do you do? How, what is your role? What are you kind of promising within yourself? What’s within your skill level? You know, maybe if it would have cost me 10 grand to redo the project, I probably wouldn’t have taken on that expense on my own. But I had the technical skills to do part of it. SoI ended up fixing a lot on my own.

Dusti  

Yeah. And as as someone who brought you in on a project, because that is the case for this one, like we’ve been, you know, we both been there for, oh you’re coming up on a year on this project. So I just think that this whole experience, just for me, I actually had a conversation with somebody else that I referred you to last week, when we were still in the heat of this. And I specifically told her I’m like, “Anya’s the only person who I refer for this kind of work. And right now is just reiterating why for me because she is in the middle of a total shitstorm that should not be hers to deal with right now. And she’s fixing it. And not only does it reflect well on her, it reflects well on everybody else around her.” Because, I mean, if those videos weren’t good for this project, I mean, my ass is on the line for those numbers ultimately, too.

Anya  

And that’s so I would never like just for you, for everyone involved, like it would just never, I would never have, like, left it there. That just wouldn’t be, that’s not, it wasn’t even an option. It was like, my goal the whole time was, “Okay, cool. How are we going to make it right?” And unfortunately, this contractor kept trying to save face, instead of just making it right. And I was like, “The only thing that will save face is making it right, I promise you, I promise you like that, like, there’s no amount of like, sweet talk in whatever that’s going to make this better than just giving them something that they love.”

Dusti  

Right? Right. And

Anya  

It’s gonna be different, it’s gonna have to be different, but it can still be something that they’re proud of. 

Dusti  

Totally, I 100% agree. I’m involved in a project right now, where we’re not finding the numbers yet that like that we wanted to, that I said we should be able to, and it’s happening for a lot of reasons that, ultimately, I will accept responsibility for like a good portion of it. Because normally these things work. So I mean, this is the difference between sales and marketing is like sales, you pretty much directly point to whether or not something’s working. With marketing, there’s so many more variables, I feel like and figuring out exactly what to do in order to navigate that project in a way where I feel like I can, you know, even if it doesn’t end in the way that we want it to, with them getting the kinds of numbers that I do believe that they should be getting, I still want to be able to leave that project in integrity. And like, I feel like there’s just so much nuance here. But like ultimately, it always comes back to integrity for me.

Anya  

Yeah,and everyone has a different line, right? Like everyone has a different line there. They’re willing to go, maybe a different version of me would have refused staying up till 5am but would work all working hours, you know. Like, there’s different ways to deal with it. Of course, not all of it has to be “I’m just going to grind the midnight oil” that just happens to be how I love, like knocking out a project. I’m like, I don’t want to sit through this for the next three days. Right? I need to finish it because I need everyone to look at it. But yeah, it’s like how and with you wrapping up this project, like you’re gonna find your lines of like, what are you comfortable with leaving them with and keeping them prepared, but not you know, over exerting yourself? 

Dusti  

Right. Oh my gosh, Anya, this was such an incredible conversation. Thank you so much for being willing to, like get vulnerable and go into the details of this. I really do think the way you handled the entire thing really speaks to your credit and the type of person you are. And if people are interested in learning more about you and seeing some hilarious viral videos that you’ve put together, where can they find you?

Anya  

They can find me at Landau Agency on all platforms, Landau dot agency. We try to keep it really simple and yeah, come find us.

Dusti  

Fabulous. Thank you everybody so much for listening in.