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Marketing Agency Exposed Podcast


Oct 13, 2021

Summary:

On today’s episode we break down the pros and cons of investing in technology and other tools. It’s important to understand exactly what you’re investing in and what it will do to help accelerate your business. Technology is a vast, evolving field so it’s also important to ensure that your information and assets are thoroughly protected. One of the ways you can achieve this is through redundancy. Protect the information that makes your business unique by keeping an updated, spare copy. While technology and tools can really benefit your agency, allowing your business to rely on a single platform, or tool, is deadly. Also, forgetting that you have 27 different tools for 2 jobs is definitely very costly. Being aware, thoughtful, creating redundancy, and assessing your tools will help your agency be ahead of the curve.

 

Top 3 Curtain Pulls in this episode: 

 

  • Know exactly what you’re investing in, and why. Technologies are the tools of the trade in the agency world. But if you’re not careful, you’ll quickly become bloated. “The point is to invest into it and to be aware of it.”
  • Create redundancy. In the agency world, we are always creating various kinds of information. This information is what allows our businesses to exist and succeed. It’s our IP and it’s critical to clients. Your information is most likely your entire business. In order to protect your information, redundancy is a must. Protect your ideas and information by storing them in more than one place. “You're making information, so you gotta protect that.”
  • Evaluate your tools to become self-sufficient. Services, subscription, platforms, and other tools can be incredibly helpful, but if you're not careful they’ll run away with your profit. Have you ever had 12 different TV subscriptions so that you can watch every single NFL game, yet never ue them? This can happen with your agency’s tools, and with these applications, the bills really stack up. This is why it’s important to regularly assess your tools and determine how your agency would be affected if they suddenly were gone. “What type of technology are we relying on that if it went away would hamper our business?”

 

 

For more tips, discussion, and behind the scenes:



About The Guys: 

Bob Hutchins: Founder of BuzzPlant, a digital agency that he ran from 2000-2017. He is also the author of 3 books. More on Bob: 

Brad Ayres: Founder of Anthem Republic, an award-winning ad agency. Brad’s knowledge has led some of the biggest brands in the world. Originally from Detroit, Brad is an OG in the ad agency world and has the wisdom and scars to prove it. Currently, that knowledge is being applied to his boutique agency. More on Brad:

Ken Ott: Co-Founder and Chief Growth Rebel of Metacake, an Ecommerce Growth Team for some of the world’s most influential brands with a mission to Grow Brands That Matter. Ken is also an author, speaker, and was nominated for an Emmy for his acting on the Metacake Youtube Channel (not really). More on Ken: 

 

Show Notes:

[0:44] Brad opens today’s episode by talking about Bob's radio voice and the new Apple iPhone 13. 

[1:59] Brad asks the guys, “When is the right time to make some upgrades or to give your employees some new gadgets? When is the right time to invest in technology?”

[4:27] Brad talks about what technology he provides for new, full time employees, and how he wants their first day at Anthem Republic to feel like Christmas. 

[7:50] Ken discusses his strategy for preventing a buildup of unused computers.

[8:23] Ken says that investing into your employees by providing them with technology that will help them be more productive or produce better results will pay for itself. He also asks, “From a security side of things, how do you control all these laptops and what's on them, to the level that you need to for your business?”

[11:11] Bob asks about other kinds of tech and talks about evaluating their usage and value on a yearly basis. 

[11:31] Brad talks about automation and his timeline for upgrading technology.

[12:23] Ken contemplates the psychological aspect of opening a new computer box from Apple.

[13:36] Bob discusses the importance of redundancy. He also continues the conversation about evaluating the tools your company relies on and how a shutdown could negatively affect your business. “What type of technology are we relying on that if it went away would hamper our business?... How do we keep on top of that, and always have redundancy in a backup?”

[15:13] Ken recommends that every laptop should have a ‘backup cloud’ backup solution that is different from Dropbox to protect the information that your business runs on.

[17:45] Ken talks about physical hard drives and other methods of protection for your information. “You're making information, so you gotta protect that.”

[18:04] Brad discusses his perspective on hard drives and redundancy.

[21:30] Bob talks about the questions he asks his employees to, “Keep us thinking about how to be redundant and self-sufficient, but it also keeps us ahead of the curve.”

[27:11] Ken talks about the importance of awareness when your agency has many third party tools, and how those subscriptions can really add up.

[29:11] Bob discusses a cost reducing method where your clients pay a fee of some sort that helps cover the cost of the third party tools you use.  “If you do have an expense like that where you have a subscription figure out ways to charge the clients and encourage them pay for that subscription.”

[32:10] Brad considers how to make sure that your data on the cloud is protected in the future.

[33:08] Ken talks about how, “There is always a backdoor for the government to be able to get access to any data for any company.”

[38:05] Ken concisely summarizes his perspective on investing in technology when he says, “I think the point is to invest into it and to be aware of it.”

[42:05] Bob talks about how to be a leader for your agency when investing in technology.

[46:02] Bob mentions a book called “This is How They Tell Me the World Will End” that is about cybersecurity and vulnerability. 

[49:41] Ken says that it is crucial to have a strategic mindset and stack the odds in your favor.

[50:36] Bob concludes this episode by briefly talking about ensuring that your agency has cybersecurity from all angles.