Off the Record: Owning It
What if I told you there was a way to make people actually care about their work beyond just collecting a paycheck? Not through motivational posters or trust falls, but through something much simpler and infinitely more effective.
Most companies keep their employees at arm’s length from the real business. They get a salary, maybe some benefits, and little visibility into how the business actually operates. You? You just work there.
But what happens when you own a piece of the place? Everything changes.
I’ve watched this play out firsthand at Drake Cooper since we became 100% employee-owned in December 2020, and it’s been revelatory in its simplicity. When people own a slice of the pie, they stop acting like tenants and start acting like, well, owners. They care about the bottom line. They notice inefficiencies. They actually invest in whether the business succeeds or fails because their future depends on it.
What Is an ESOP, Anyway?
An Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP, is a long-term financial incentive similar to a retirement account. The owner or founder (in our case, Jamie Cooper) sells their stake in the company to the employees, who all receive stock held in a trust at no cost to them; the company pays for their ownership stake. Employees typically become fully vested within a few years (five for us) and can cash in their value when they leave the company.
Only about 3% of marketing and advertising firms nationally are employee-owned. We were the first creative agency in Idaho to make the transition, and as an independent agency, it’s been a bonus to the already freeing feeling of not having to answer to private equity or holding company overlords.
The No-BS Benefits
People work differently when it’s theirs. Not because they suddenly become different people, but because ownership changes the equation. When your colleague’s success affects your success, you’re going to have very direct conversations about excellence. It’s accountability through shared investment.
Retention becomes natural. People don’t leave places they own. When you have equity in the outcome, jumping ship means leaving money on the table.
Input actually matters. When you own part of the business, your voice carries weight. Leadership still makes the daily operational calls, but when owners speak up with ideas or concerns, people listen. Your perspective matters because your investment matters.
It attracts talent like nothing else. When you can offer ownership, not just employment, you’re suddenly competing for people you’d never get otherwise. We’ve brought in talent from all around the country – people who could work anywhere, but chose to be owners here. More diverse backgrounds, skills, and experience means better ideas and stronger solutions for our clients.
Client relationships deepen. Here’s something we discovered: when everyone has skin in the game, client service becomes personal. It’s not just a job anymore – it’s protecting your investment. Clients feel that difference.
What It Actually Looks Like
Since becoming employee-owned, we’ve seen incremental shifts. People ask better questions in meetings, push back on ideas that don’t serve the business, and think longer-term because they’re planning for their own futures.
We collaborate differently, too. When you’re all owners, the dynamic shifts from “that’s not my job” to “how do we solve this together?” It’s like the difference between house-sitting and home ownership – the level of care is entirely different.
And yes, it means more transparency. Financial performance, strategic decisions, growth plans – owners get to see behind the curtain because they have a stake in what’s behind there. We’ve been doing twice-a-year all-agency financial updates since Bill Drake was running the company, everyone diving into the books and the business, the real numbers, not just the sanitized highlights. Looking back, it makes sense that we’d eventually become an ESOP. The transparency was already in our DNA.
The Long Game Advantage
Employee ownership isn’t just about today’s work; it’s about building something sustainable. When your team has equity, they think in years, not quarters. They build relationships that last. They make decisions that compound over time.
For clients, this means working with people who genuinely care about long-term success, not just hitting this month’s numbers. It means continuity, institutional knowledge, and teams that grow alongside your business.
The Honest Challenges
Look, it’s not all sunshine and equity distributions. The biggest challenge? Financial literacy. You can’t just tell people, “You’re an owner now,” and expect them to understand what that means. You have to invest in education about how the business actually works, what drives profitability, and how their piece of the pie grows. Stuff like profit margins, client retention impact, what EBITDA* means, how stock valuations work, and why everyone’s utilization rate matters to everyone’s bottom line.
And if you’re struggling to turn a profit? Those ownership benefits can take years to materialize. It’s not an instant gratification play. During lean years, you’re asking people to believe in something they can’t see yet— that their equity will eventually pay off. You have to find other ways to keep them invested: transparency about the challenges, honest conversations about the timeline, and making sure they feel like genuine partners in the turnaround, not just employees waiting for a payout.
How have we tried to combat this? We’re constantly talking about it. During our financial reviews, our weekly #soundbites meetings, and every year during our annual Summerfest, when all of our employees are here in Boise on campus for an entire week, we spend real time on it. We’ve brought in our ESOP trustee, had panels, and facilitated discussions. It’s an ongoing investment, not a one-and-done conversation.
The Bottom Line
Employee ownership isn’t about being progressive or checking some corporate responsibility box. It’s about recognizing that the people doing the work probably have valuable insights about how to do it better.
It’s about admitting that when everyone has a real stake in the outcome, the outcome gets better. And it’s about understanding that in a world where good people have choices, ownership is the ultimate way to align interests. We’ve been at this for over four years now, and the results speak for themselves: award-winning work, stronger relationships, record profits, and higher retention.
Turns out, when people own the place, they take care of it.
*EBITDA, which stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization, measures a company’s profitability, focusing on its operating performance. It essentially takes a company’s net income and adds back the expenses for interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.