Designing for Uncertainty: Blended Teams, Business Value, and UX Careers

In this episode of UX Leadership by Design, Mark Baldino sits down with Sara Fortier, CEO and founder of Outwitly, a UX talent solutions firm that evolved from a UX consultancy into a staffing partner for UX, research, and service design teams.

Sara shares her journey from agency consulting to UX staffing, explaining how shifting market dynamics, including digital transformation, AI disruption, and the rise of the blended workforce, led to her firm’s transformation. She and Mark discuss the traits that make contract designers successful, how leaders can better manage mixed teams, and the growing pressure for design teams to align with business outcomes.

Sara also offers practical advice for designers at every level—on building trust, navigating uncertainty, and developing the soft skills and business fluency necessary for long-term career success.

Key Takeaways

• Pivoting with Purpose: Outwitly’s shift from UX consulting to staffing wasn’t just reactive—it was strategic. Sara shares how market demand, revenue signals, and hard-earned confidence drove the transition.
• Blended Teams Work—With the Right Talent: Contract designers can provide speed, flexibility, and specialization—but only when they bring seniority, stakeholder savvy, and initiative. Soft skills are non-negotiable.
• Leadership Is Getting Pulled in Every Direction: Today’s UX leaders are balancing emotional support for their teams, pressure from execs on AI, and increasing demands to prove business value—all while staying current themselves.
• Designers Must Embrace Business Fluency: Career longevity increasingly depends on understanding how design impacts revenue, costs, and KPIs. Designers need to connect their work to strategic business drivers.
• Trust Is Built Through the Basics: Responding to emails, sending updates, raising risks early—these are simple but critical practices that build stakeholder trust and create long-term credibility.
• Relationships = Resilience: Strong networks and internal relationship-building help designers navigate layoffs, transitions, and career pivots. Build trust across teams, not just within design.

Chapters

00:00 – Intro & Guest Welcome

01:30 – From Industrial Design to UX Leadership

05:15 – The Pivot to UX Staffing

09:45 – What’s Driving the Rise in Contract UX Talent?

12:40 – What Makes a Great Contractor?

15:40 – The Pressure on Design Leaders

21:30 – Career Longevity in UX: Advice for Designers

Resources & Links

• Connect with Sara on LinkedIn

• Connect with Mark on LinkedIn
• Fuzzy Math - B2B & Enterprise UX Design Consultancy

Transcript

Mark Baldino (00:06.094)
Hello and welcome to UX Leadership by Design. I'm Mark Baldino, your host. I'm also a co-founder of Fuzzy Math. Fuzzy Math is the user experience design consultancy that brings consumer-grade UX to business applications for B2B and enterprise tools. Today, I speak with Sarah Fortier, who is the CEO and founder of Outwitly, a UX talent solutions partner. Sarah started as a consultant and then opened up a consultancy that provided UX services not dissimilar to

what we do here at FuzzyMath. But in 2021, Sarah started helping her clients locate and place talent. Somebody came and asked her to do this, and she noticed this was kind of a growing trend. And then over time, that became the sole focus of her business. And it's not an easy transition to shift the focus or to niche down your consultancy or any business. But Sarah made the tough and, as she says, the right decision to make that change. And so we talk about why contractors and blended workforces

benefit organizations, especially during times of uncertainty or instability. And then we talk about the crazy amount of things design leaders are being asked to focus on and solve coming from bunch of different directions. And then what the folks that she actually places in those organizations, that contract help. What do they need to do to be successful? And then finally, just some skills that Sarah discusses that all designers need to work on to have a long and meaningful career. So I enjoy the conversation a lot. I trust you as well.

If you enjoyed this episode, please like and or subscribe, please share it with the folks in your network, and thank you as always for listening to the UX Leadership by Design.

Mark Baldino (00:01.506)
Sarah, welcome to the podcast.

Sara Fortier (00:03.628)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Mark Baldino (00:05.56)
Yeah, it's my pleasure. I'm always interested in talking to fellow agency owners and super excited about this conversation. I've only had maybe one or two on the podcast, so we'll probably be talking a little bit of shop here. But it would be wonderful if you could give the audience kind of a sense of your background and how you got to where you are and kind of the agency out with you that you're running now.

Sara Fortier (00:17.272)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (00:29.24)
Yeah, yeah, sure. So I started out Whitley in 2016 and we do UX and service design and actually now staffing, which we'll get into, but prior to that was doing mainly consulting. before I started out Whitley, I actually going way back did a bachelor of industrial design. So the design of 3D products.

Mark Baldino (00:38.03)
Thank

Sara Fortier (00:52.376)
and then did a master's and that's in the master's really fell in love with the idea of the design process and how you could apply it to business problems and getting more into the services design side of things. And wasn't quite sure I wanted to do industrial design, but knew that I loved design in general. And then quickly from there moved into UX design and moved out to Silicon Valley, did UX work there.

which was great training, because you kind of have to move fast and learn fast. And so did that for four years, then I moved back to Canada. And that's when I started out Whitley. So yeah, and then so we do, like I said, we used to do consulting and we still do it somewhat, but now have made this pivot towards talent solutions and staff augmentation specifically for UX design, UX research and service design roles.

Mark Baldino (01:45.206)
Awesome. People ask me this question all the time. What's behind the name?

Sara Fortier (01:51.188)
yes, I know. I get asked this question so much and so many people will call it out whitely and I'm like, man, in hindsight, would I have called it that? But it is out witly. yeah, the thought behind the name is when I was thinking of a name, I thought, what is a word that represents like thinking differently, challenging the status quo, solving problems and out wit was one of the words that I liked. So to out wit a challenge.

Mark Baldino (01:52.654)
Thank

Mark Baldino (01:59.243)
Yeah

Sara Fortier (02:20.534)
And then I put the asterisk, so there's a little asterisk in our logo. And that for me represents a wild card. Like in a Boolean search, you use an asterisk for anything, right? So it was to outwit any problem, any challenge. And then the L-Y also, when I was Googling how to name your business, it said add a modifier because it would be easier to copyright things, get domain names, social media handles. So.

Mark Baldino (02:22.924)
the audience for just a minute.

Sara Fortier (02:49.58)
That's the L-Y.

Mark Baldino (02:51.214)
Right on. I like the story. Thanks for sharing it. We went through the naming process and it takes a long time and it's kind of hard. And then you tire something. And I mean, I've been happy with fuzzy math, but it's, you never realize we started in 2009, you're 2016, you're living with it for many, many, many years. But that's great. it sounds like started as kind of pure consulting and then you're kind of now in the talent space.

Sara Fortier (03:09.527)
Yeah.

Mark Baldino (03:20.14)
Was that a natural shift over time and how much of like, is it your core focus now?

Sara Fortier (03:25.802)
Yeah, yeah, so interesting. feel like consulting is in my blood and my parents are consultants in a totally different industry. Acoustic consulting, actually. Yeah. And kind of, you know, out of school went into consulting. you know, worked for various consulting firms, both for industrial design and then in UX. And just felt like it's a core part of my identity is like to

Mark Baldino (03:34.355)
interesting.

Sara Fortier (03:53.528)
provide that customer service and think of, you know, understand the challenges and all the things that we do in consulting. So, Outwoodly started very much in that vein. And then in 2020 started to ask my clients more often like, hey, could you come and work for us full time for six months? And I was like, no, I love all of you. And I thank you so much for this offer, but we have other clients, like there's no way I could dedicate full time to one.

But I have a friend and so, you know, I've had just so many amazing connections throughout my career and it's about at the last five years, I guess it started to grow a lot more on that side of things. And then just this past year, we sort of decided more formally to make that pivot into talent and staffing.

Mark Baldino (04:41.838)
Right. I've had this conversation with agency owners before or with people who advise agency owners around how niche to be, how focused to be, when to make that transition. And that's a really hard decision, I think, as a business owner to make that. Like, okay, we're going to formally do this. Because you of saw what the

Sara Fortier (04:55.393)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (05:01.208)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (05:04.994)
Yeah.

Mark Baldino (05:07.022)
market was telling you, but you were kind of had to feed in both sides and we're just like, we got to go into this. Like what was that? What was that catalyst actually make that push?

Sara Fortier (05:15.232)
You know, I knew it in 2021 and I was like, wanted to do it. And it took me four years to get up the courage to do it. So yeah, like you said, and, it's funny because when I was just doing the consulting, I knew this concept of niching down, right? And I was like, what's the industry I want to niche down? I'm like, all the industries are so interesting and I can do all the industries, know, I'm new insurance and finance and healthcare and government. Why do I have to niche on a topic? You know? so I was never able to niche.

Mark Baldino (05:21.208)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (05:44.824)
on, we did a lot of government. maybe that and a lot of like insurance and healthcare. we would maybe focus on that a little bit more, but I was never wanting to really niche on that industry. And then 2021, I've been presented to my team, like that, that the staffing thing could blow up and it could be a really good thing for our business. But outwardly to the market and to our clients, I still couldn't do it because I didn't want to get that

Mark Baldino (05:55.146)
Yep.

Sara Fortier (06:13.528)
One, I was afraid that it would mean less work on another side of things like that the work on the consulting side, what if that went away? Would it be fine if we just went all in on staffing? You kind of have to take a chance and a risk to follow your gut when you're doing that niching down. then anyway, I guess I did a lot of what as entrepreneurs we have to do, which is like a lot of internal work.

to basically like, you're gonna be okay. You can find your way through it. If you come up against a challenge, like you've done it before, you'll be able to get over it again, you know? So I think between 2021 and 2025, was a lot of internal work to get me to the point to feel really confident about like, this is our direction. This is what we're gonna announce to the world and this is what we're doing. So, it took a while.

Mark Baldino (06:40.878)
Thank you.

Mark Baldino (07:06.03)
Well, congratulations on doing it. do think a lot of people, everyone, not everyone, most people struggle with change and especially when you're tying your revenue streams and you're starting to shift those. But obviously you saw market potential and are capitalizing on it and that's fantastic. What do you think that shift and maybe it doesn't, but do you think it says anything about like, I mean, this is UX leadership by design. So like, do you think it says anything broader about kind of where...

UX and design is as an industry or what you're seeing from people who lead UX teams that you were able to make this pivot or that's kind of where you saw as maybe the future for your agency.

Sara Fortier (07:44.152)
Yeah, and I mean, yeah, and I guess actually, just to go back, there was another indicator around making that niche sort of jump, which was revenue. Like when you really looked at the numbers, it was very clear that we should follow that path. So that was there, but I still had to make the courage, the jump there. But yeah, to your next question, I think the industry since 2020, which is interesting that that was the time where I started to get more requests.

like the last five years has been super interesting for us, right? Because there's been COVID. So there's a little dip in COVID, like everyone panicked. And then all of a sudden everyone needed digital transformation. So then the requests and the need for UX just blew up and services. And so the requests then from our clients were like, we need someone like who can be dedicated to work on this and we need someone quick and who also has like the skills and expertise and experience, right? So looking for more senior professionals.

But we're not quite sure if this is going to continue, are we going to need these people full-time, like long-term. So I feel like there was a bit of a boom with the contractor piece because of this digital transformation, but not knowing the long-term need for it. And then there was like tech layoffs and you know, so I do think that the, also the, is,

that mass exodus that happened in COVID when people realized what matters in life and a lot of people quit their jobs. so they wanted to have more flexibility, be their own boss. That's the word. Yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah. And so they...

Mark Baldino (09:25.742)
Great resignation, is that the?

you're filming. It took me a second.

Sara Fortier (09:36.035)
A lot of people wanted to leave their full-time jobs and were interested in this contractor life. And then at the same time, there were requests for that type of thing, right? So I think that helped with that shift. And then now what we're also seeing is that, well, AI has come for us. so businesses are afraid to add to their permanent head count. So they use contractors as a bridge there. So with staffing, that also still works in our favor.

Mark Baldino (10:04.878)
Yeah, 100%. So a lot of instability in the broader market over the past several years and that's definitely come down to tech and then come down to design. having a more flexible team, having less permanent numbers on the P &L for businesses is kind of attractive. Do you place and advise, like what are you seeing as like

Sara Fortier (10:19.841)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (10:24.759)
Yeah.

Mark Baldino (10:33.166)
some of the challenges if somebody's leading a team that is fractional or has a blended workforce model, like what are some of the things you're helping your clients with? Because it's different than I'm gonna grow and scale this team on my own or I'm gonna hire entry-level folks and I'm gonna upskill them and they'll be my employees. It's kind of a different model for folks.

Sara Fortier (10:52.472)
Yeah, and I think there's a lot of maybe misconceptions or if they've maybe not had great success in using the funded workforce model before where you could, you know, if you don't place the right people and what we define for us as right people is people who are excellent communicators, people who are stakeholder savvy, people who can ramp up really quick, people who are self starters and take initiative, but you have, that's the kind of contract.

contractor that thrives in those environments. And if you're building a blended team that where you're bringing in contingent resources, but maybe they don't have that skills, those soft skills, then I think you can get people who, where you feel like you're paying them a lot of money because you do pay them more because they're on contract and they're not really contributing enough or they're not part of the culture.

Mark Baldino (11:37.39)
Thanks guys.

Sara Fortier (11:44.854)
especially if they're like remote resources. So I think it's really looking for the right soft skills in those individuals who are gonna come in. And also really the success is better, I think, when they're senior resources versus like junior or intermediate. So they've had a lot of time in their career in different industries, sectors, and they're able to do that ramp up really quick and like get the lay of the land, navigate the organization.

Mark Baldino (11:46.894)
Thanks.

Sara Fortier (12:14.89)
and start actually contributing and adding value right away.

Mark Baldino (12:19.342)
Okay, so you're helping kind of de-risk the process. A, you're vetting these folks. Maybe they're coming through your network or people you know, but you're kind of vetting them for those set of soft skills that you think could make them successful in a blended workforce and a contractor model. And then maybe this isn't part of the model, but I'm kind of curious. Are you hands-on after your project? Yeah, I don't actually know if it exists. Sorry, it's more of an open question.

Sara Fortier (12:24.001)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (12:34.187)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (12:42.902)
Yeah, right. So you asked about the advisory piece.

No, for sure we do that. And so there's sort of like this placement after care and that's not really what we call it, but it's.

Mark Baldino (12:53.742)
Sometimes we call our design work design therapy or therapy by design. So after care is all good.

Sara Fortier (12:58.88)
Yeah, yeah. And on both sides. like, you know, if we if we were placing, let's say, five UX designers in an organization, we actually have a senior level coach who's like a design leader in their own right that we pair them with. they have, you know, depending on the structure, they might have like a monthly slack check in or a coaching call or something like that we

Mark Baldino (13:10.446)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (13:27.704)
make sure that they're properly onboarded. You know, we check in with them weekly in the beginning and then it moves to monthly and then maybe a quarterly if they're like really long-term contracts and they're senior and they don't really need you to be touching, you know, annoying them that often. And then on the client side, we always have sort of monthly check-ins with clients and it's up to them like how often do they actually want to check in. But, and what surprised me actually is that what I found was

that those calls were not so much just standard account management calls that you would see on the recruiting, like IT general recruiting side of things, which is basically run through the resource and then be like, how is this person performing? And instead it really was that design therapy, you know, because I think design leaders are stuck in the middle of a tough time. You know, they've got to carry the emotional baggage of the people that are under them who are worried about their jobs and the security.

Mark Baldino (14:01.294)
Thank

Thank

Sara Fortier (14:24.824)
and who are just fighting to keep up with design tickets and the work, but then also have to like upscale on everything AI and how it's going to fit into their workflows. And then the design leaders themselves are getting pressure from their VPs or, you know, they're the C-suite to be like, what are you guys doing with AI? Where can that replace or, you know, enhance what you're doing potentially?

and the proving the value and that falls to the director, the director of UX who has to get their teams to report on metrics now and things like that. So being on those calls with them and chatting with them about that and like how can you do that? And so it's actually not advising them as much on the team aspect, but more just they have no one else to talk to you about this stuff.

Mark Baldino (15:07.502)
Okay.

Mark Baldino (15:14.67)
Sure. I mean, it probably goes back to some of the consulting work you all were doing and falls back into that. It is interesting that it's not checks and balances of how the resource is doing, but like, here's my organizational challenges. Here's the challenges my team is having. I what is that? I I think you're right. We are designed, it sits in really interesting ecosystem or overlap. In departments, which is really exciting, but in times of uncertainty,

Sara Fortier (15:18.295)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (15:25.463)
Right.

Sara Fortier (15:39.981)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (15:44.726)
Yeah.

Mark Baldino (15:44.76)
which I think we are and have been for a number of years. It seems like at some point, we're going to get a good foundation underneath us, but it doesn't feel like it's there yet. Like that becomes kind of a shaky center and people are being very, very responsive. mean, what do you think that says about either the state of design or like, what do think it means for designers in those spaces or managers, leaders in those spaces? Like what do they need to be doing to mitigate these challenges that we're facing?

Sara Fortier (15:51.512)
I'm

Sara Fortier (16:14.88)
Yeah, I think it goes back to who is a designer at their core. And usually the people who are drawn to this industry are people who are creatively minded, who care about humans, and they maybe aren't trained or haven't learned where or think about the business side of things. And likely if you've been elevated to a director level position, you are thinking about those things.

Mark Baldino (16:15.854)
Thanks.

Sara Fortier (16:41.4)
But I think it now our industry is being called to really look at that and say, are you contributing to the business making money? Because that is the reality of business. And actually as agency owners, we know that, right? And so it's interesting to have my perspective as a business owner now caring about the P &L, caring about, okay, every dollar we spend on a subscription, what are we getting back?

But I think all designers need to really care about what is this contribution to the business side and really having a lot of empathy for your stakeholders and not just for the users. not like, you can always be optimistic and you can get up on your high horse about how the experience should be better. And it could be like this and envisioning and all this stuff that we're really great at. But if you do it without the business context, I think.

especially now you're going to get shut down. So I feel that design leaders, well, one, they should already be thinking like that, but they need to help their teams start to realize that as well.

Mark Baldino (17:51.47)
Yeah, 100%. And it is an interesting shift, I think, as design consultants, that's kind of part of the job right now, either because some of the more tactical things are going to start to be made more efficient by AI and AI. Right. shift where designers are spending their time and energy. You mentioned empathy, which is key, and understanding the stakeholders around you.

Sara Fortier (18:08.184)
analysis or yeah, typing.

Sara Fortier (18:17.698)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Baldino (18:21.006)
What other advice do you have for designers or design strategists to, I don't know, to start to build the skillset and muscle memory of talking about things like revenue or how a change or a design or a feature can contribute to the top or bottom line for a business? Do have any more advice for folks who are maybe in that space? They're being asked to like, hey, you got to think about the business. That's me, right?

Sara Fortier (18:48.192)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a few things. One is that you need to educate yourself. And it's so tough right now. It's like, there's so much to educate ourselves on, like, okay, now you're going to spend your evenings learning about AI. And now I'm telling you actually spend also AI plus learning about numbers. But, you know, even reading really boring annual reports that your company puts out. like, let's say if you work for a company that's large enough that they put out

Mark Baldino (18:51.47)
Thank you.

Mark Baldino (19:05.749)
Great.

Sara Fortier (19:16.514)
public annual reports in there. There's like strategic drivers for the business. And I think actually just paying attention is really boring stuff. And I think that for me earlier in my career, I was like, my God, I cannot be bothered to read this long PDF. But now it's the stuff I really pay attention to. So if there's a town hall where your leaders are talking about what's important for the business, start to pay attention and learn like, what do those things mean, right? And then

connect what you're doing to those strategic drivers for the business in presentations as you try to defend a design decision. So I think there's organic ways that you can just sort of bring it up once you educate yourself a little bit more of what your company is carrying out. And then if there's people that you can get to know and be friends with like business analysts and, I can't think of the name.

Mark Baldino (20:10.69)
Good. Have a special guest.

Sara Fortier (20:13.08)
But if there's business analysts or people who are specialized in data analysis in your company that you can start to get at some numbers, you know, like how many calls do we get or how long is this process traditionally? Is it three weeks? Could we get it down to, you know, a one day process if it was really streamlined? So trying to dig through the numbers that usually you can't find yourself and you need to ask people to help you find.

Mark Baldino (20:41.836)
then in the process, you're reaching across the aisle or you're building bridges. It sounds like it's a lot of trust building and making connections with people. And I don't think as a designer, early in my career, I was asked to do that or required to. Maybe I benefited. I tell my team that I don't do UI design anymore, thankful for my clients. But early on in my career, I spent a year and all I was doing was wireframing.

Sara Fortier (20:49.462)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (20:57.409)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (21:05.57)
Right.

Mark Baldino (21:11.096)
just page after page after page. didn't get to talk to users. I didn't get to talk to barely even stakeholders of the different environments. And I was just cranking out wireframes. And there's something about that that was really, really good for me to work on that sort of tactical skill. But I feel like we're asking designers earlier in the career for number of reasons to be a little bit more strategic, to build trust within an organization, to empathize with stakeholders, to build bridges. I mean, do you feel like you're seeing the same thing in the market?

Sara Fortier (21:16.631)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (21:23.489)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (21:27.371)
Yeah

Sara Fortier (21:41.004)
Yeah, and I talk about the same concept to my team and to anyone who will listen about building trust and how do you build trust with stakeholders. And I think maybe it's the how that people, like I do feel that for me, so much of it came naturally and probably anyone who is in consulting, it comes naturally. But when I really started to like look at what are the things that I'm doing to build that trust, so much of it is,

really simple when you break it down. It's like, I respond to emails in a timely manner. I send project updates on a weekly basis. If I say there's going to be a schedule, I'm going to tell you if we're meeting the schedule or if we're off the schedule and why or what we can do to mitigate it. I'm going to tell you upfront if there's an issue. And that part does come with experience where you need to learn the red flags and when to...

bring up a red flag and where I think trust breaks down is when you're not doing those things. So you don't bring up that there could be some risks with recruiting them, it could push out the schedule or you don't follow up when you say you're gonna follow up. And these are really basic kind of project management-y trust building things, but they're really important, especially establishing that in the first eight weeks of you engaging sets the tone for the next several years to come about.

what who you are and what you're gonna contribute and that they can trust you and rely on you.

Mark Baldino (23:12.846)
percent, a hundred percent. You've had a few kind of career transitions and obviously you're now a business owner, which is, I like to say designer first, a business owner, then a salesperson. And now I'm like, I do a lot of marketing. I love the podcast. I do master classes. I really like it, but it is a lot of like, it's a different hustle than it is a design. But like, what's your advice or maybe some advice for folks who are early, mid in their career?

they want to have, like a lot of people have exited the job market, admitted the space, the design space. And that is very, it's sad because like a lot of really talented people either are looking for work or after a period of a long time have decided to move to another career. And that's a bummer. But there are people who are, you know, still in the game and want to be in the game. And, you know, what is some advice for people who want to have career longevity, specifically who may be kind of an individual contributor or not?

Sara Fortier (23:46.711)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (23:59.489)
Yeah.

Mark Baldino (24:13.198)
and they're been in design for years and they're looking at something like leadership within an organization. Givany, I I keep asking you for advice, but I feel like you're in the space of helping grow designers and place designers and you work with design leaders to know what they need. So like, what do you think for some folks who looking for some career longevity?

Sara Fortier (24:18.306)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (24:30.198)
Yeah, so and again, I guess this comes with having been around for a little while that in the beginning, I wouldn't have thought of these things. So maybe this will help more junior folks. But what I was gonna say is, the trust building that we just talked about, do that no brainer, wherever you can build relationships also. And I think I didn't really understand

you know, the spinning around your network and is your net worth. But now I really do get that because the people that I knew 10 years ago are now in positions to hire us as a client. And care about the relationships because that contributes to your longevity, right? So if you get laid off, but you have a really great network, you're more likely to be able to go through someone that you know, to a new company. Or if you're also really

careful about building relationships internally at your company and you kind of spread your tentacles, I guess, out more than just your department, but you try to get to know stakeholders and decision makers in other departments. Any opportunity to get to speak up in a meeting, you should speak up, get them know your voice. Because I think the more that you can show that you're valuable in different ways will help you navigate and move up in your career.

So if someone in a VP of product starts to get to know you, or if you're in a really big organization, there's multiple VPs of products over different service areas. But they kind of catch your work in meetings. One, because you focused on your craft, which I think is the other piece of it that you can't forget. Like you just have to be good. You have to try really hard. You have to keep challenging yourself and ask yourself, how could I make one deliverable my best deliverable I've ever made?

and really care. So it's like the passion, the focusing on your craft and continual improvement. Those are like the foundation. So if you're not doing that, then career longevity will be harder to come by. You'll be doing that and then you're doing the trust building and the relationship building on top of it. That for me is what makes for a great long career where you can move around. You're never without work. Yeah.

Mark Baldino (26:51.052)
It's a lot of sales always makes it sound disingenuous and I don't mean it because you're not selling something. Maybe you're selling your design work to stakeholders, but it is a lot of like relationship building and relationship managing and networking and networking with a purpose. And I think you're right. The better your network is, the longer that your career is going to be and you'll have folks that you can reach out to both from a mentorship perspective, but as you said, switching jobs.

Sara Fortier (26:55.574)
Yeah.

Mark Baldino (27:20.11)
or looking for work, or people are brave enough to move into the agency owner space, you start to have your kind of initial set of clients. So I think this is really good place to wrap it. I have one final question for you. And that is, if somebody is listening to the podcast, and the audience is product and design leaders, and they're thinking about

Sara Fortier (27:28.599)
Yeah.

Sara Fortier (27:33.57)
Yeah.

Mark Baldino (27:49.186)
contract work or they have something coming up in the roadmap and they're maybe thinking about maybe interesting to sort of have a blended workforce model or contractor. Like what's a good, like who's your ideal client profile if you want to get that specific, but also like what's a good point in their journey that they might be like, now is the time to reach out to Sarah and team and see if she can help us with, you know, some staffing.

Sara Fortier (28:16.234)
good. Did my camera flip for you? Sorry. Okay, I'm floating. It's real. My cat sat on a thing. I'm good.

Mark Baldino (28:19.982)
It didn't. I think it did.

Mark Baldino (28:27.31)
Oh, I think you're good. Do want me to re-ask the question?

Sara Fortier (28:32.12)
Can you already ask the question? Sorry about that.

Mark Baldino (28:34.328)
No, no, no, you're good, worries. So I think this is a pretty good place to wrap, but I do have one final question, which is if you, again, you can pitch a little bit here, but I'm kind of curious if there's people who are listening to the podcast now, who are looking at their roadmap and they're thinking, well, maybe we don't have it in the budget for a full-time hire. We're thinking about maybe some contractor blended the workforce. Like who is a good, typical client or ideal client for you folks?

And then what is like the point in their decision-making journey that would be a good time to reach out to you and your team at Outwoodly?

Sara Fortier (29:09.248)
Yeah, so I think the point, you know, for our ideal client, we love working with UX directors or, you know, director of UX research, because they really get it. And so that is our ideal client. If they work at a larger organization, even better, because they have hopefully more buy in for the work that they're doing, which makes it a better environment for our contractors as well. So that's our ideal client. We work with other clients and other profiles, but

those folks are always the best. And then in terms of where they are in their journey before they decide to bring on a contractor, mean, a lot of the times it does have to do with like their budgets. So, you know, do they have the budget? Has there been a hiring freeze or maybe they could use a contractor? And then also they need velocity, right? So their teams are maybe underwater dealing with tickets and design debt and they want to kind of unburden their teams.

Mark Baldino (29:59.95)
Thank

Sara Fortier (30:07.576)
Or if they need like a specific skillset like UX writing or a design systems expert, that can also be a good place to bring in a contractor for six months to set something up or to train people or to get a project over the hump. Yeah, that can be good.

Mark Baldino (30:26.936)
Okay, great. My final point here is if people do want to reach out to you, we'll include a link to your website and LinkedIn. Are those the best places to find you to reach out?

Sara Fortier (30:41.11)
Yes, definitely. So at outwilly.com and then my personal LinkedIn, Sarah Fortier.

Mark Baldino (30:47.854)
We will point them in that direction. Sarah, I just want to say thank you for your time today and the conversation on sort of design trends in the industry, what maybe some leaders and individual contributors are struggling with in the design space, and then obviously some areas for folks to build up their skill set if they want to have kind of a long lasting design career. So appreciate your time.

Sara Fortier (31:10.508)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Mark Baldino (31:12.482)
You bet. Thank