Disrupting the Agency Model

Tom Nixon (00:01.506)
Welcome back everyone. Curtis, you see, I’m still donning a cap, but you see, I’ve

Curtis Hays (00:06.591)
It’s not the same one you are wrong. I’m in the same cap. You’re in a different one.

Tom Nixon (00:10.102)
I’ve moved on because here we are now in the future and I’ve come to learn that the Detroit tigers would not be winning the world series. so I’ve moved on to better pastures. think, and you’re probably thinking, well, Michigan football is no great shakes this year, but it’s basketball season and spring, you know, hope springs eternal. Right.

Janet (00:17.981)
you

Curtis Hays (00:32.609)
Yeah. Good deal.

Tom Nixon (00:34.866)
And I will, I shall reveal the real reason for why I’ve been wearing caps low these many weeks, but it’ll have to come at the end of an episode, maybe even this episode.

Janet (00:39.635)
Thank

Janet (00:44.09)
Hmm.

Curtis Hays (00:44.397)
Got some theories.

Tom Nixon (00:45.774)
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Anyways, well, enough of that. So, welcome back everyone to Bullhorns and Bulls Eyes and speaking of welcoming back, I need to bring back someone from my past and my current and hopefully my future. Someone I go way back with, Curtis. Uh I understand you connected with her in 2018 which we may come back to but this is my old friend, not old but old time friend, Janet Tyler. Janet, welcome back into my life and welcome to Bullhorns and Bulls Eyes.

Janet (01:06.451)
Thank you.

Janet (01:12.327)
Thank you, Tom. Hello. Glad to be here.

Tom Nixon (01:14.744)
Good. Yeah. So, Janet today is a the founder, co-founder and president of True Depth, right? We’re gonna get into what True Depth does, but you have all sorts of experience. We have a resume that rivals mine in length, far surpasses it in quality, but we’ll go through. You and I first got together way back when you hired me at a local public relations firm way back in 1998.

Janet (01:29.523)
You

Janet (01:41.553)
Yes, I like to say I’m a PR person in recovery for many years now. No longer practicing that art necessarily.

Tom Nixon (01:45.128)
Same.

Same, same. Well, what let’s talk about the art that you are practicing and the science and we’ve been reading that you’ve been writing about agency reinvention disruption. What is driving what you’re finding in terms of agency disruption or just reinvention these days?

Janet (02:10.493)
Well, I can tell you, I think the agency model, Tom, back when you and I were working together, we’ll leave the year out, but it was a while ago, to say the least. It doesn’t, that agency model, I don’t think it exists anymore. Those, you know, slower timelines, less technology that the agencies had been using in the past, or maybe trying to start to embrace AI would be probably one of those.

Lots of middlemen, tons of meetings, layers of people. I just don’t think that that exists anymore. And I think we’re going to see a lot fewer agencies, but hopefully stronger, better, faster agencies in the future, whatever that model looks like. But I just, one thing I do know, agencies of the past are probably not long for the world. If they’re not gonna disrupt themselves,

Tom Nixon (03:03.319)
Yeah.

Janet (03:05.809)
This environment is certainly coming to disrupt them.

Tom Nixon (03:10.144)
Interesting. Yeah. The one thing you didn’t mention, the thing that I did not ever like about the old agency model is the old bait and switch where you get sold by the, the, know, the founder of the firm. And then the first kickoff meeting, you’ve got some junior level intern. I’m going to be running your account and like, come on. Right. So

Janet (03:27.923)
So true. mean, and I was part of that machine. There’s no doubt about it. I mean, but that just doesn’t work anymore. And in fact, when I think about why, why, why did I burn out and want to like get out of agencies back in 2013 or 14, um, it’s really because I wasn’t doing the work anymore. I kind of as a senior leader, right? You take your, you, you, you you, you, it’s all delegated and you’re not really practicing anymore. And I think that I really ended up missing that. Uh, but

Tom Nixon (03:31.214)
As was I.

Janet (03:57.073)
At the time I didn’t really see it, but I just, I was like, what am I good at anymore? I’m just dealing with people problems and you know, whatever with 65 employees or whatever at one point. I mean, it was, it was just overwhelming.

Tom Nixon (04:09.186)
Yeah. Sounds like you’re writing my biography. Curtis, you, as always, you were ahead of the game here and ahead of the curve because you sort of disrupted this model. How many years ago did you found kaleidoscope on this very premise?

Janet (04:12.668)
Yes!

Curtis Hays (04:21.965)
Yeah, same as, yeah, same as Janet. So, I mean, I sort of formed an LLC in 2010 for some side work, but it was in 2013, I gave notice at the 22 person agency that I was managing. And then really the summer of 2014 that I was quote unquote consulting, but had told myself two things. One, I would never work for somebody ever again.

Janet (04:46.097)
One.

Curtis Hays (04:50.709)
We actually had a retirement party for me at that agency I left. So I was what, know, 30, 35 years old, we had a retirement party. And, and two that I would never have employees again, because of the hiring and the delegation and like, I wasn’t doing what I love doing anymore. I was managing people. You mentioned meetings, Janet, I remember Patrick, reading so many Patrick Lanchione books and like, death by meeting and there’s this like,

Tom Nixon (04:52.782)
I love it.

Curtis Hays (05:18.125)
how do we optimize this model? And all of my employees were frustrated even just in the way that we were running. We’re in so many meetings, we can’t even get work done yet you expect us to get the work done. But they wanted freedoms and then you had, you know, culture driven, you know, initiatives and it was like, we want to have fun, but do work and it was just, it was too complicated for me. It’s like, you know what, I’m just gonna, all I want to do is help people. And so,

I said, I’m going to consult and if you want to work with me, great. I told my network and so what I think what you’re going to lean into maybe a little bit here, Tom, is the TeamLance model, which you shared with me a few years ago. And I didn’t, I sort of accidentally fell into that, but didn’t do it on purpose. I just had said, I don’t ever want to have employees, but I want to work with great people. So how do I do that?

Tom Nixon (06:11.363)
Yeah.

Yeah, we brought up the team Lance bottle last week when we spoke with Brian Clark, who even he says he didn’t invent the term, but that’s how I became aware of it. And it completely clicked with me. mean, I left after Janet and I worked together. I went to a startup firm and we got that to about a 30 person firm that I was running managing at least. And everything you guys both have said, it’s like, I’m not doing any time. They’re spending any my time in the craft. It’s like the minute I put my head down, the door knocks. Hey, Tom, you got a minute in walks a problem.

So, I did, the stupid thing of I decided I’m going to open the hatch. I’m going to jump out of the plane and on the way down, don’t forget to make sure you packed a parachute. Cause I had no idea what I was doing. Right. And, I went through another partnership and then a third. And by the time that third one didn’t work out, I realized the problem is you in the mirror, like you should not be a partner. You should not be a boss. You should be.

Maybe just the deliver of a craft or service. So I’m on the non-agency model. You’re on the non-agency model together. We’ve got this amoeba defense that can, we think can apply to just about any problem in the marketing and lead gen world. so when you say Janet, that this old agency model is broken, right. It will probably die. Usually, you know, enterprise things or institutions take a long time to die off and they probably will. So what replaces it in your view? Is it something like what?

Janet (07:14.738)
Yeah.

Janet (07:35.932)
yeah.

Tom Nixon (07:39.768)
Curtis and I are doing or something else completely.

Janet (07:42.355)
Well, I do think what you’re doing is very interesting and I think it’s super applicable, but there are a lot of people who still want to build value and have legacy. And not that you can’t do that in this model, but it’s not something that is probably saleable on the outside. Probably. I mean, I don’t know enough about what you guys are doing to make a big proclamation like that. But I think it’s like the agency of the future is, you know, think of like a McKinsey.

Tom Nixon (07:52.142)
Hmm.

Tom Nixon (08:03.555)
No.

Janet (08:11.987)
but real, real tiny and kind of around, you know, disruption, you know, which is what I agencies should be doing. So I just don’t know if what, you know, this old model, which is exactly what we talked about, know, junior turn, overworked mid levels, tons of meetings, all of that bloat and overhead. So.

We need to get scrappier and how we solve problems for clients. Sometimes that’s marketing, a marketing challenge or problem, but oftentimes it’s help us inspire our team because we need to make this big change or we’ve sold the company, help us integrate all of our communications between the different employees or the different firms that have been bought that are now going to try to operate as one.

I think it would be like where the intersection for me, because I’m tech, all my whole career, the somewhat common thread has been technology. And so I think it would be using technology like AI, but leveraging it to our advantage and bringing together. And it could be a core agency model with some team Lancers in areas that could be.

not just AI, but like you guys helped me out. Like there’s the PR piece, there’s the change consultancy, business strategy. You know, and I look back at some of the content, Tom, probably that we worked on. mean, it really sometimes oftentimes went beyond just marketing. You know, we would be writing and then storytelling somewhere has got to fit in there. So I don’t know what the agency model of the future is. I do think there is a place for agencies.

Tom Nixon (09:40.846)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Nixon (09:52.716)
Yeah.

Janet (10:02.675)
I just think the old model has got to evolve and change. And for those agencies who won’t, I don’t know what that answer, I may be retired by then, I don’t know, 10 years from now. If you’re trying to operate in an hourly model, I don’t see that happening for long.

Tom Nixon (10:05.272)
Yeah.

Curtis Hays (10:24.352)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Nixon (10:24.428)
Yeah, I want to come back to AI in a minute, but I wanted to touch on what you said at the beginning because I think both Curtis and I would both concede that what we’ve built is not likely not saleable by design. It’s not scalable, right? We don’t want it. We want to grow our businesses, but we’re not looking to scale, you know, to create something 23rd. I’m never going back to 20 or 30 people, although that’s what Brian Clark said, and then he did do it. But anyways, I don’t think I’m ever going back to 20 to 30 people. So you

We should mention that you do a ton of &A work in this space, right? And you’re advising companies is &A in the let’s call it the advertising or creative field or whatever. Is it as strong now today as it was 10 years ago when I felt like it was really hot? And if so, like what’s what does the future look like the short term future knowing that the agency model is being disrupted? What does it look like from a an acquirer standpoint or from a target standpoint?

Janet (11:20.583)
Well, I mean, there’s a, you know, private equity right now has very deep pockets or we say in the industry, dry powder. So they are definitely looking to invest. I think right now private equity, you know, we’re not hearing like, this is a research. This is a market research firm. We don’t want to buy that because we think AI is going to replace it. We’re not hearing that yet. So I don’t know. And I know we’ll get to AI.

If the market is quite caught up, I see a lot of activity. This is pretty much my bread and butter, although I am working on some other interesting businesses, car dealerships and things. For the most part, I transact professional services firms with a core specialty in marketing services. It’s a big part of what I do. But private equity firms have investors. They have…

They have the cash to invest and so they’re investing in the right firms and sometimes that means, you know, would they like a 30 % margin? Of course they would. But will they do a deal for something that’s under 20 but in a very interesting like market segment or they’re doing something unique that might add to the platform that they’re building so that you’re right in that the big firms. I mean, it’s probably not done yet, but there’s just been a ton of stuff happening at the top, right?

&A, you know, know, let me even mention all these big firms that have been pushed through &A activity. Now it’s about a lot of mid-sized firms layering in and creating these super agencies. So it’s market research, it might be public relations, it could be performance marketing, digital and AI, SEO, whatever we’re gonna call it in the future.

kind of coming together to create these super agencies for an exit on the other side once those are created. But those firms that are being welcomed into those platforms are pretty savvy. And they’re in the midst of some form of an evolution, the ones that are selling, in my opinion.

Tom Nixon (13:16.182)
and do you

Tom Nixon (13:28.026)
That was going to be my question too. I have two brothers that are in the insurance agency space and they’ve been acquired still by private company, not PE. But the way that they characterize that industry is they’re like everyone who’s anyone has already been gobbled up. So now it’s like they’re going after the scraps, which might be a five person agency or a three person agency. We’re not yet to that point. Do you think on the advertising creative side or?

Janet (13:51.995)
No, no, I don’t think we’re there yet. think it’s probably more, know, if it’s well, no, there’s if it’s strategic. So I did just, you know, whatever this is public knowledge, a Detroit firm, VVK just did an acqui hire for a company that I was representing very small. Right. That’s a five person, you know, acqui hire position, like the strategic strategic connection when it’s a financial buyer. Those firms are definitely bigger.

But not ginormous either maybe a million dollars of EBITDA sometimes less on the private equity side, but that’s usually a pretty good You know if I’m representing a firm that’s under a million in EBITDA Sometimes it’s difficult to get the attention of that private that firms got to be doing something so mind-blowingly different or unique or you know, I could that I could really shake up, know private equity with but if it is, you know a

You know your your standard PR firm doing stakeholder relations and public relations and media relations and maybe some ad strategy Yeah, I know I know I’m sorry, but it’s true Those firms are not gonna move

Tom Nixon (14:59.146)
I almost fell asleep. Sorry. I started to not off there. Yeah. No, that’s okay. I think it’s. It’s a trigger mechanism to protect me from PTSD. yeah, Curtis. So I’m curious. We’ve never had a formal like conversation about what your plans are. If you have an exit strategy, you, do know without saying too much that you are working on something that could be very disruptive and interesting that

Janet (15:10.951)
the past.

Tom Nixon (15:28.408)
people might be interested in, since we can’t reveal that anything, what are you thinking in terms of what do you do with this thing that we’re building that we’re not building?

Curtis Hays (15:37.612)
Right. Yeah. So I’ve wrestled with, I an entrepreneur? Cause I wasn’t really an entrepreneur getting into this and then sort of came to the conclusion I’m more of a lifestyle entrepreneur. Like I like my job. I love it. I can provide for my family. I’ve got just enough work to keep me busy. I can keep some other people busy. But I also have some freedoms and flexibility and

I don’t know if you know this Tom, earlier this year I was approached by another agency that’s doing rollups. So if you’re familiar with that terminology, Janet, yeah. So, it wasn’t attractive to me at all because I know if I would have rolled up into that larger agency, they would have worked me like a dog. because you know, the, the payout for me is at the end when they now go from being

you know, 25 million to 75 million, and then they, that owner of that company sells, then maybe there’s a piece of that pie for me later. But I’ve got to work like a dog to get that person to that point over the next five years so they can do that. And I’m in no interest of doing that. But I maybe have five, 10 years left in me of doing this. I either have to be disruptive or my agency will just fizzle away because

Janet (16:50.791)
Yeah.

Curtis Hays (17:04.141)
technology will pass us by in the marketing space it’s just to me what why even look at where we’re at a year ago tom and what has changed in the last year let alone you the last three months it’s it’s incredible how quickly things are changing from a technology perspective

Janet (17:22.631)
Yeah, and regulation is going to pay.

Tom Nixon (17:23.438)
Well, from that standpoint, it’s almost like you can’t plan. I find it almost a possible plan for 10 years from now, which I will be 65. But like if I tried to plan 10 months ago for today, I would have been wrong. We would have been way wrong. So, mean, Janet, you’re seeing this. I mean, talk about disruption. Is there anything since the advent of the Internet that’s been more disruptive than AI? And what does that mean for us?

Curtis Hays (17:36.29)
Right.

Janet (17:45.403)
No, think AI, mean, you I hear people, I’ll just say, without telling my age, Tom, since you kind of told yours, but we’re in that same neighborhood. And I hear people our age say all the time, thank God, I’m gonna be out of the workforce for this AI thing. Because this is, I just can’t wait to retire. I don’t wanna be any part, and for me, it’s the complete opposite. I’m like so bummed that I don’t get to see.

Tom Nixon (17:53.157)
Ha!

Janet (18:09.585)
what’s gonna happen with AI in the professional workforce, because I may retire in 10 years, maybe a little less. But I feel the opposite. I cannot wait to see where this thing goes. Yes, I have fear and trepidation like all of us do, because we don’t really exactly know. I think AI has probably done more in my mind than we originally thought even two years ago. So two years from now, what’s it gonna be?

I don’t know, do I think that companies will still have to outsource work, whether you’re an insurance or accounting or yes, I still think that model, you know, hiring people full time to do things, no matter what, how they’re doing it, maybe they are using AI to do the task or to make them more productive, but I still think that there is a place and I just wanna be clear.

on that point. I just think it’s going to look very different. Less people, probably more boutique agencies kind of bringing together different disciplines. know, like similar Curtis to probably what you just described, having this plat, this agency kind of building the super agency that they’re trying to do, but maybe on a smaller scale with really unique services like strategic reinvention, go to market,

Tom Nixon (19:12.099)
Yeah.

Curtis Hays (19:26.829)
Mm-hmm.

Janet (19:36.421)
opportunities, leadership activation. I think you’re just going to see some really unique, hopefully, heady type services offerings. Agents, not going to outsource probably social media, writing the blog. Because now we know that AI really will be able to do the ad buy. It’s going to be more problem solving, more strategic. I still think there’s a place for that.

Tom Nixon (20:05.74)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, well, Curtis, do you have anything in response to that? Because I mean, we’re we’re seeing that the thing so far. AI hasn’t replaced people. It could starting to, but it’s made smart people really, really smart, really, really fast. And I think we’re being reconditioned just in the real world to expect very short time frames. I mean, we went from a generation where it’s like I have to wait till Thursday to watch the next cheers and it’s

Thursday already, right? And like, now it’s like, I want to find out the best place. You’re right. Now I can jump into AI and I can not only ask what were the funniest shows of the in the early 90s, and then I can ask immediate link to buy it and then AI can buy it for me and then it’s probably here the next day and I got the whole catalog. So people are just being reconditioned. So going back to our model, Curtis is like, we have to, we’re already doing this.

Janet (20:36.775)
Yeah, I wanna watch all 10 episodes.

Tom Nixon (21:04.3)
disrupt the way that client service looks like things that we talked about offline that I won’t say used to take us 90 days. Now we’re getting done in nine days because the client expects that.

Janet (21:14.131)
Yeah. And you guys will not be happy to hear what larger agencies are doing now is recognizing, hey, Tom, you’ve got this AI chatbot. We’re spending $20 a month for that. I know we said you should be 90 % utilized, but we think you could be 94 % utilized next year. And the year after that, we’re projecting you to just be 100%. So what’s happening is the productivity standards are going to come up.

I’m curious what you guys think about the hype about we’re never going to hire junior people again because AI can just replace. I don’t know if you think there’s a place for that in this Team Lance model. 20 year olds are just, pardon my French, are they just screwed? Like if they’re trying to come into the space because there’s no jobs for them? mean, that worries

Curtis Hays (21:56.631)
There’s…

Curtis Hays (22:05.389)
Yeah, you mentioned it. think the correlation goes to what you just said of the expectation from the client is our role is to be more strategic. It’s not just to do work. So if our role is to be strategic, that strategy comes from experience. So how do these young people come in and are, you know, sought after or needed from these companies? They don’t have any experience. They don’t have any strategy really that they can bring other than maybe academic. So I think they’re

Tom Nixon (22:14.691)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Nixon (22:32.302)
That’s in to piggyback off that. It says Janet already accused me of being so freaking old. I will act like the old man and say when we grew up, not only did we have to learn how to learn, we had to learn how to know. In other words, every fact and figure was not available at our fingertips. We had to know things. We had to learn how to problem solve. Today’s youth.

Janet (22:41.043)
Ha ha ha.

Tom Nixon (22:58.882)
are being rewired to they don’t need to know anything. They don’t need to memorize anything and they don’t need to learn because AI does it all for them. My fear is that if I wanted to hire a junior level person, where would I find somebody that has those skills that I might need going back to what you said, Curtis, that can think strategically? Well, how can you think strategically if you don’t have the depth of knowledge, you don’t have a depth of experience and you never bothered to learn how to learn? So to answer your question, I think they are kind of screwed.

Curtis Hays (23:22.913)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Nixon (23:26.19)
Unless they can figure out a way like we did as the internet generation to prove our value in the mastery of the internet. Remember there were old people like us back then. It was like, I’m not using email, take down a memo. And then all of a sudden you became really valuable because you knew how to do email and internet. So I’m thinking that those are the people. I don’t know what the corollary is, Janet, how you’re working with clients, but that’s how I see this use today’s kids. They better figure out a way, man. I got kids at age. I don’t know if they’re doing it.

Janet (23:52.977)
Yes. And I honestly, we could sit and pontificate about it all day. I don’t really know what the answer is, but I am definitely hearing from agencies, we’re not hiring junior people. I’m like, wait, at all? Ever? It’s just very interesting because that’s not what clients want, is that what you guys are building is it’s senior level intelligence that they cannot necessarily bring on.

Tom Nixon (24:07.854)
You

Janet (24:23.055)
a Curtis and a Tom to work full time, right? Like they’re going to bring you in to solve a complex problem or, but you might still need someone to help pull, use the AI in order to get you smarter, but I’m not sure because AI is getting so good.

Curtis Hays (24:39.905)
Well, it’s more of an apprentice. I liken it to the trades, right? That these young people are going to have to come in an apprentice. They’re not going to be able to write solo on an account. You’re not an assigning a 25 year old on a client account to project manage it. They’re going to have to shadow for a period of a time an apprentice so that they do figure out how to problem solve. Like you mentioned, Tom, so they do, they can, you know, they might come in with some really good skill sets because they’ve grown up with the technology.

Tom Nixon (24:39.906)
Yeah.

Janet (24:48.531)
Yeah.

and then we’ll be back.

Curtis Hays (25:09.399)
sort of like we did and we were thrown in and we knew how to work the remote and our parents didn’t. So we had that head start, right? So was like when email came around, it’s like, yeah, I know how to press buttons. Not just the up down button, but I could like put in codes and, you know, process things. So I think they’ll face that same thing. They’ll probably be better at using the tools that will be available, but those core skills, they’re gonna need that.

Tom Nixon (25:14.83)
That’s it, exactly.

Tom Nixon (25:21.174)
Right.

Tom Nixon (25:26.306)
Yep.

Curtis Hays (25:39.052)
that close mentorship and it’s whether or not the companies want to invest in that if there’s legacy to be passed on. Right? And so that’s where I have to think about my agency. Am I passing this on to somebody else? Is there a legacy for it? Whether that’s an existing person who’s part of the team, one of my daughters, or do you just try and exit with as much as possible and maybe somebody wants to take over or you just wind it down?

Tom Nixon (25:49.378)
You know what I think is.

Janet (26:00.11)
Thank

Curtis Hays (26:08.565)
I don’t know.

Tom Nixon (26:09.798)
something that might be applicable in the future is the know, the past this prologue thing and my brother who’s been on the show works in the big agency world and a phenomenon he observed years ago was that there’s this cycle where for a time

Agencies want to bring everything in house because it’s like, well, why would we pay all these consultants? Bring it in house. Then then we can, you know, scale that person and I can, you know, get 10 X out of them where I can only get one X out of the consultants and whatever. Then period of time goes by and they realize that because there’s too much internal group things, they’ve gotten dumb on certain things and they don’t trust their own level of expertise. And they say, well, we need, we need the ninjas. Let’s go out and find the person that really knows what they’re doing. And so then there’s this ebb and flow out to outsourcing.

Right. Because they don’t trust their internal resources. I think they’re in, and then it goes back and forth. Therein lies an opportunity though, for the knowledge worker that has very specialized expertise. I think this would be my advice to my own kids. Get really good at something that’s very niche and very specialized that somebody looks at you and says, we can’t get that with what we got here in AI can’t do it. I need to hire that person. And I think that’s where we position ourselves. Curtis is the ninjas that people need when they can’t get it done themselves.

Janet (27:23.783)
Yeah, and the people that can lead their teams. So I’m working right now with a crisis firm and they do way more than PR because they’re coming in and I mean, they’re literally like they filled a major credibility gap. They don’t have this person time, as you just said, in the company. And this firm is coming in. They’re working with the leadership team. Sure. They could go to AI and say, there’s a great, where’s a smoldering crisis and type it in. The AI would give them an outline.

but no one is in the boardroom leading the people, teaching them about the narrative. What is the process we’ll follow? Even if it came from AI, you need that presence, that gravitas, that person that can help literally bring the troops together to defend when needed using the crisis as an example. That is an agency that I think is going to transact and do so very successfully because it’s predominantly

you know, senior people that are delivering like in the room, not just here’s a plan, good luck, go execute it, you know, see you later. Like what I would imagine, you guys are in the room, so to speak, you know, solving those complex problems and building, you know, narratives and stories with your clients, right? Like in tandem versus.

you know, sure, AI is going to tell you how to do it, but who’s, and that’s where I think until robots come and maybe that’s going to, I think I, it’s safe to say I will really be retired when that happens or possibly dead. But like, you know, we’re to have a, you know, crisis robot come to the board, come to the board meeting. I, you know, I don’t think so, but you know, never say never.

Tom Nixon (28:44.611)
That’s it.

Tom Nixon (28:57.624)
Yeah.

Tom Nixon (29:08.847)
Never say never. I’ve seen that Tesla one that he looks pretty. He could dance. I don’t know if he can get you out of a crisis, but.

Janet (29:13.863)
That thing is spooky. wouldn’t like that is like, I know. Thank you. I don’t know. I saw a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger or the robots. You know, Terminator and Gosh, Fifth Element. You know, those robots are freaky. I guess that’s not an oral movie, but like, thank you.

Tom Nixon (29:19.606)
I feel like

Curtis Hays (29:22.541)
Terminator.

Tom Nixon (29:23.758)
It’s a servo data. Yeah.

Tom Nixon (29:30.99)
I see it. feel like god, we’re only like two years from the Clone Wars happening. It’s like, my god. scary thought. What? so hopefully, don’t wish that you are dead because it might come sooner than you think, Janet. yeah.

Janet (29:36.177)
Right. What’s happening?

Janet (29:43.389)
Good point. Thank you. Good point.

Curtis Hays (29:45.067)
You snuck in a Star Wars reference, Tom. just cut under that. Good job.

Tom Nixon (29:49.163)
Yeah, I did. Now, if I sneak in a yacht rock reference, hey, I just did. OK, moving right along. So I’m curious, Janet, what you’re seeing in terms of what in recent years now, because of all of this disruption and the disruption to the disruption, what is the post deal environment look like? So when these agencies and the reason I’m asking this is because the post deal environment was always kind of tricky, right? It’s like cultures. But now we’ve got remote workforces, right?

Curtis Hays (29:52.831)
Tom Nixon (30:15.574)
Now we’ve got people looking over their shoulder saying, all right, which one of us is being replaced by AI next? like, how are you helping? I don’t know if this is something that you do, but how are agencies post-acquisition being sort of integrated in a way that’s not disruptive to use the word again.

Janet (30:31.549)
Yeah, well, mean, first off, it is disruptive. So let’s just say what it is. It’s really like, you know, I’ve always say it’s very easy to buy a company if you have, you know, the cash to do it or the financing to do it. It’s pretty easy to buy a company, but it’s really hard to build one company once the deal is done. And I think that’s what is overlooked. There’s so much time and energy that goes into crossing the finish line to sell any kind of company.

And I think companies make the mistake of not really thinking and planning for the integration, the one culture. You know, after the attorneys are gone and everybody has signed their deal and collected their money, it’s kind of like, we’re supposed to have a plan for this, I think, right? And because I’m, you know, this communicator in recovery or whatever, I often ask, so what does day one look like? It’s not, that’s not what I do now. I’m really more transactional. I can’t help myself. still,

put that hat on on occasion and they just look like, yeah, wow, I’m so tired from just doing this deal. Like we haven’t even had time to think about it. And I just go, what? Maybe you need to call Tom and Curtis. I don’t know, but like that is definitely kind of oftentimes coming up as an afterthought. Even with professional communications companies who do this.

delivery for, you know, the cobbler has no shoes. They’re not really thinking about it further. They’re still working on their client’s &A, but they might not have thought about like their own, like, what are we going to do? And it has to be intentional. It has to be planned. Milestones have to be created for how we know we are actually working towards something. Because to the point of what Curtis was saying in an earn out like situation, it won’t, it won’t be successful if people quit, clients quit.

Tom Nixon (32:01.976)
Yep.

Janet (32:29.867)
I mean, all the disruption, I just, I don’t know. I just think it can’t be an afterthought.

Tom Nixon (32:36.364)
Yeah. Well, just word of advice. You may not want to take it, but I wouldn’t call Curtis and I, because we will come in and say, fire all your employees and extract yourself from the partnership. So easy peasy. My personal experience was, yeah. And again, I fully concede the problem was me all along, but so I recognize that. So no one has to be my.

Janet (32:46.079)
just get off me! because of your own bad personal experience? i hope not!

Janet (32:57.415)
Well, self-awareness, that’s what they’re called, blind spots. You were blind. You didn’t, now you see.

Tom Nixon (33:01.87)
Yep. Yep. Yep. I should have listened to my brother. He told me I would never want to own anything less than 51 % of anything. And he was right. All right. Curtis Eddie. Go ahead. No, go ahead.

Janet (33:10.257)
Really? I did get a job in between. sorry. Go ahead. I was just going to say Curtis was talking about I’m a lifestyle entrepreneur. don’t I’m not sure I’m resistant entrepreneur. I’m not sure what I would call that. But I did take a job to see like, could I work for somebody else? What would that be like in between when I sold my agency and actually picked up executive coaching and group coaching? A lot of what I’m doing now.

And it’s just been very interesting. I could work for someone else as it turns out. And I did okay. I never slept so good. Because somebody would quit and I’d be like, bummer. When it happened in my firm, Tom, you know, because you quit on me. I am like, my God, what do you mean you’re leaving? know, like it was so hard for me to separate. So it was very good experience for me to take that job working for another team.

Tom Nixon (33:45.912)
Hmm.

Curtis Hays (33:45.974)
Yeah.

Tom Nixon (33:53.496)
That’s right!

Janet (34:06.599)
great people by the way, that I went to go work for, but it wasn’t an experiment. Like could I even do this? I’d really not done it in almost 20 years. So I don’t know, but I am still, I’m still not very independent. So maybe I can’t work for somebody else is the bottom line.

Tom Nixon (34:17.08)
Yep. Well.

Tom Nixon (34:25.486)
being the copywriter that I am, I’d like to rephrase quit on me to pursue another opportunity.

Janet (34:31.781)
Okay, thank you. Yes, you did pursue another opportunity and I was as happy as I was for you. I had a difficult time and I was younger then but separating my own personal interest into like this is probably what is best for him. You know, like at the time when it happens, you know, I was younger and I think I just took those things really personally. Like, I don’t know.

Tom Nixon (34:49.741)
Yeah.

Tom Nixon (34:54.978)
Well, this is morphing into a therapy session. So, let’s go there. So, I just, I was so young at the time. To me, it didn’t matter what the right thing for me was. It was like, cuz I loved Franco and I loved you and I loved our boss at the time and I loved my favorite colleague Tracy. but like this on the other side was this like my best friend from high school was offered me to like have this real slacker lifestyle at a three-person startup. I’m like,

Janet (34:59.987)
Let’s do it.

Tom Nixon (35:23.404)
I’m young. got, let’s do it. So it was tough for me as well. So.

Janet (35:25.373)
That was good. Yeah, but you were, you know, you were with a lesson for me there is that you were highly poachable at that time, right? Like, and so I spent a long time after leaving Franco and getting into the airfoil, starting airfoil, we spent a lot of time thinking about retention strategies and how we’re going to hang on to good people through non-voting equity and programs, you know, golden handcuff programs or whatever you want to call them. But

Tom Nixon (35:53.452)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Janet (35:53.977)
know, agencies are smart to do that because if you’ve got a revolving door and you do want to sell, you will not sell. That is absolute barrier to entry. If you’re churning clients and employees, you’re dead in the water. You could even have a strong EBITDA, but it would be very difficult to transact your company.

Tom Nixon (36:15.17)
Well, I know one agency that might be in trouble. Anyways, Curtis, wrap us up here. What? Where’s your head at this as the team Lancer that you are? What’s going through your mind? AIs disrupting your daily life? What’s your takeaway?

Curtis Hays (36:29.771)
Yeah, like I said, I think there’s five or 10 years more for me in this. I’d like to keep plugging away with it. I love the thought process that we had earlier that I think it was you said, my advice for my kids would be to really kind of niche down in something. And I actually see my two daughters who are both teenagers really doing that. They’re like figuring out what are they really passionate about.

And starting to say, okay, could I make a career out of this? And then they’re not necessarily seeking to learn those skills in school. They’re picking up books at the library. They’re, you know, watching YouTube videos of people who are in those careers currently. And I had my 14 year old put together a business plan the other day and presented it to me how she’s going to make a million dollars by the time she’s 30. Right? So there’s, there’s an entrepreneur in her, which I didn’t have.

Tom Nixon (37:13.047)
school.

Janet (37:21.597)
Love it.

Janet (37:28.147)
Queen?

Curtis Hays (37:29.675)
right? And, you know, so I think, okay,

Tom Nixon (37:32.396)
You will too. I’ve met the I’ve met the young lady. She will do this. But sorry, go ahead.

Curtis Hays (37:35.758)
Yeah. But no, think for me, it’s like, how could I take what I learned in all the businesses that I’ve supported over the years, both from a technology perspective, as well as a sales and marketing perspective, and just lean into that and say, okay, how can I help you guys grow a business? Right? And I don’t know, I often wonder if this disruption will cause what existed, you know, 100 years ago, where families had businesses

Janet (37:36.701)
Yeah. I love it.

Curtis Hays (38:05.569)
and they built, you know, family wealth and, you know, they all worked together like it, and then everybody spread out and they moved away and you went and you had a career opportunity in Chicago. You went there, then you went to San Francisco and you, Denver looked attractive. You took a job there and everybody spread out. Could AI bring us closer together? Say like, well, we don’t have to travel to these places. We could work remotely, you know, but is

If I’m going to be an apprentice and I need to learn these skills, maybe I learn them from a parent or a brother or sister and I get into the family business. There could be something there and maybe we see more of that kind of tighter, closer, protecting wealth and protecting businesses and, you know, moving forward that way. I don’t know.

Janet (38:51.747)
Super smart, Curtis. I mean, I love that. It’s that the silver tsunami, the boomers that are all selling their dry cleaning businesses, their gas stations, electric electric electrician shops or plumbers. Yes, HVAC like that is a huge and there’s actually competition for those businesses. Now it used to be the parents begging, please, Tom, take over the family business. It’s going to be and now.

Tom Nixon (38:52.054)
My next? Yeah.

Curtis Hays (39:06.379)
Yeah, HVAC, yeah.

Tom Nixon (39:18.872)
Mm-hmm.

Janet (39:19.987)
They have these kids that are of these silver student. There’s competition for those businesses. They’re teaching that at Harvard. They’re teaching it at Stanford. These four-year MBA students are coming out of college looking for those businesses with SBA or family money. That’s how they’re starting their careers, which is so interesting. And it’s a huge societal shift that you’ve just identified, in my opinion, too.

Curtis Hays (39:38.445)
Mm-hmm.

Janet (39:49.968)
Amen.

Tom Nixon (39:51.129)
Yep. I was going to say the same thing. I’m actually been toying around with my next endeavor. Once I get obsolete by AI, if I haven’t already, and it is it’s a family business. I know that with partners like you, who needs enemies? mean, jeez. But yes, so but it is it’s a family business. It’s a local has to be a local business, and it would be something that literally AI would not be capable of doing. And that’s all I’m going to say that.

Curtis Hays (39:59.502)
I’m trying, Tom, I’m trying to obsolete you. We’re cloning you.

Janet (40:05.779)
Hahaha

Curtis Hays (40:06.681)
Yeah

Curtis Hays (40:17.953)
Yep. Yep.

Tom Nixon (40:19.246)
So, um, all right. So final thoughts from you, Janet. So if you, regardless of an agency, if they are target, if they are, you know, on an acquisition, what would you, if you walked into an agency meeting blind tomorrow, what would be something that you would say? So something you must do next week.

Janet (40:36.371)
Well, I mean retaining clients and employees, building a strong management team, making sure that you are not at the center, which was a mistake I think I made in my agency, this fear of delegation or any new business pitch, I had to be in the room kind of mentality. Actually, when I’m looking to sell an agency, I’m actually looking for owners that are not that.

I actually want to see a really strong bench of leaders who are the future of the firm. The reason why that person is selling is because they’re either they’re tired, they’re older, the AIs, they think AIs coming and they want to sell quickly, but you know, that’s that still matters along with profit margin and all the financial metrics. But it’s, really and also maybe a proven history of not being afraid.

to disrupt yourselves because if the agency is afraid, like, we’ve always been in consumer, this is all we’ve done. And maybe the signals are showing them they should be in health and wellness consumer or something like that. But no one knows us that way. It’s like, don’t be afraid to disrupt yourself and show us patterns of being able to do that and have success at doing so.

Tom Nixon (41:56.022)
Yeah, that’s a great place to live.

Janet (41:57.051)
And most agencies, just kind of keep trodding along, doing what they’ve been doing. But that’s not very interesting anymore.

Tom Nixon (42:03.309)
Yeah.

Tom Nixon (42:07.062)
And now is not the time to be doing that. That’s for sure. So that’s a good place to leave it. think. Thank you, Janet Tyler. True depth.com is the website, right? We’ll link to that. The show notes and we will link to your LinkedIn as well. So you should definitely connect with Janet on LinkedIn and elsewhere. I think I’m going to embrace your final thought, Janet. I’m Curtis. I hope you don’t mind. I’m going to be totally disruptive of our brand and I’m going to thank everyone for listening to this week’s Bullseyes and Bullhorns.

See what I did? See ya.

Janet (42:36.573)
Thanks for having me.