Episode Transcript
Don Mock 0:18
Would it be interesting, Rob, if we wrote some lyrics for the opening song? Or is it just instrumental only?
Rob Broadfoot 0:25
Now that that might be a fun exercise? I don’t know who’s gonna sing them?
Don Mock 0:28
Yeah, I don’t know.
Rob Broadfoot 0:29
Mr. C would have to sing them.
Don Mock 0:30
Well we’d get an AI.
Rob Broadfoot 0:31
Yeah, we don’t need real people anymore for anything.
Don Mock 0:35
All right, we’re back episode 24. With no lyrics up front, but episode 24. Today. Topic I thought might be interesting to circle back around on something we’ve mentioned in the past, but the concept of efficiency. We’re big on efficiency here, right? Efficiency. Ready, go.
Rob Broadfoot 0:57
Yeah, so… (laughter)
Don Mock 0:59
(laughter) I’m just messing with you.
Rob Broadfoot 1:00
Well, it’s one word that means a ton of things.
Don Mock 1:02
Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 1:02
And I think specific to us and what we do and how we do things around here. It’s a pretty important, cornerstone, dare I say?
Don Mock 1:12
Yeah, it’s the building block of our methodology. Let’s call it what it is. It’s pretty important around here.
Rob Broadfoot 1:17
And I think that, you know, again, it’s kind of hard to figure out where to start with it. You know, our entire model and the way that we built the agency, from leverage learnings from past lives, I think, guided us towards this idea of efficiency. And not to harbor on the past. But predicated by this idea, I think we both felt like wow, there’s probably a more efficient way to do the things that we do.
Don Mock 1:45
Yeah. And I think that might be summed up and again, I don’t want to bash anything or reversion is just the layers in an organization. And that’s not necessarily unique to advertising and design. Just the function of the process of trying to get creative workout, right? The larger you get a lot of times there’s just more people involved more layers, right? So our building block was to how do we get to greater work faster?
Rob Broadfoot 2:09
Yeah.
Don Mock 2:09
And then how do you define efficiency? Is that speed? Like I just said, is it faster, right? Or is efficiency cost, right? Because it didn’t take as many man hours to get to where you need to go? Or there’s less man hours involved? I don’t know?
Rob Broadfoot 2:09
Yes, is the answer. And I think I think on a broader sense, you know, when you’re starting a company, you have to be efficient. Yeah, you have to be efficient with your time, because there’s only so much time in the day. You got to get a phone line set up and you got to get a bank account set up. It’s all the things that you maybe don’t think about, then you also have to try and get work done.
Don Mock 2:44
Yeah, yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 2:44
At the same time, so you kind of forced to become a pretty efficient doer of all the things. And then over time, I think you learn what works and what doesn’t. And certainly, you know, as time goes by, and as the world and technology has evolved and all of these things, you have to be efficient in what you do. You don’t have the luxury of time anymore. Typically, if you think about time, in terms of, financial gain and how you bill clients. How you do that, and then time in terms of speed to market, and time in terms of how many projects you can work on. To build all of the things. So I think it’s, you know, I think about efficiency a lot in a lot of different ways like that. And we sort of had to do that. And it’s worked. It’s worked really well, I think.
Don Mock 3:41
Yeah, for sure. Well I’ll go back to, and I know everybody’s been wondering about the story, I teased in a previous podcast, the colorblind story, right? And I use this as a… and I’m just gonna jump in here and share this example. I think it’s an interesting sort of peek behind the curtain as to how we work for those that are interested in that, and sort of how potentially one one area definition of efficiency could be defined, right? So we are working on a private label package for our client. So it’s not even the client that we’re talking to. We’re talking to the client’s client. If that makes any sense. Working on a private label package going through the rounds revisions and whatnot and hitting you know…
Rob Broadfoot 4:26
Define private label for those who may not know what that means.
Don Mock 4:29
Geez, okay private label is you’ve got your knockoff brands, dare I say, right? So you’ve got Kellogg’s cornflakes. But then you’ve also got your Aldi, you know, mill flakes or cornflakes and all these different things, right? So a lot of times you’ll have one manufacturer of goods. Basically they make one product but send it down the chute and go hey, it goes into this package and it goes into this package, right? So a lot of private label brands that people are familiar with, like Target has Archer Farms, CVS has Up & Up, um…
Rob Broadfoot 5:03
Whole Foods has their 365.
Don Mock 5:05
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So, a lot of that, is manufactured by the same manufacturer. You know, it’s whatever Nestle or I mentioned Kellogg’s or whatever it is, right? But it is the line of products that is exclusive to that retailer.
Rob Broadfoot 5:19
Right.
Don Mock 5:19
So you can never buy, you know, the Whole Foods brand, obviously, at an Aldi or something like that.
Rob Broadfoot 5:25
Yeah.
Don Mock 5:25
Thanks for getting everybody caught up on that one. So we are working on a private label brand. It’s actually for Dollar General, I don’t mind sharing that little tidbit, right?
Rob Broadfoot 5:33
DG.
Don Mock 5:33
DG, yes, exactly. They’re seemingly everywhere these days. And so we’re working with our client, but his client is Dollar General, right? So the request came in from Dollar General to them. And then we’re going over everything on the phone. So knock out all the revisions to hop on the phone to go over everything with him. And it’s, hey, I’m talking about this color, and this typeface and this and that, whatever the case may be, right? And it’s, hey, hold up a second. I can’t really see what you’re telling me here because I’m colorblind. I was like, whoa! Like, what in the world? You know? So I think it was red green color blindness, and I’m going into specific brand colors, you know. Like, Coke is red and Dollar Generals yellow, and you know, like, whatever. And so it was like, whoa! So he couldn’t really explain, and he couldn’t really see what we were trying to show him, right? And the different variations that he would go back to Dollar General with, right? And so what was interesting about that, and this is the longest explanation ever of how to get to efficiency, I think, we were able to on that phone call in five minutes, sort of ascertain what was blind, how to help him navigate and explain it back to his client, and all that good stuff. And I remember hanging up the phone and going my word, right? I mean, like imagine trying to type that up on a form and hand that to somebody else to design. You know what I mean? It was because the people that were actually doing the work were on the phone call, were able to sort of quickly pivot and understand where the limitations were. And then also, not only that, but give him the tools that he would be able to use to have those conversations with his client. And of course, the story ends with with raging success, ticker tape parades, you know, fireworks, I mean, it’s the greatest.
Rob Broadfoot 6:22
Military parade.
Don Mock 6:36
It was the greatest little package for it.
Rob Broadfoot 7:26
Yeah
Don Mock 7:27
It was the greatest little package design project that ever happened. So number one seller in America, all that good stuff, right? So you know, but I think about that inefficiency of like, every time you’re like, Oh, my word, you know, how else could that be done in any other manner?
Rob Broadfoot 7:43
Right.
Don Mock 7:44
You literally couldn’t do that as efficient as we did it right? So yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 7:47
I think, you know, back when we were starting out, and a project came in to the shop. Not here I’m talking about in past lives.
Don Mock 7:56
Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 7:57
But, it was okay, here comes the brief. And again, I’m not picking on anything, but here comes the brief. And the brief, generally speaking, was anything but brief.
Don Mock 8:05
Yeah, three pages on the minimum?
Rob Broadfoot 8:07
But yeah, it was it was somebody’s translation of a conversation. You know, with the idea, not knocking briefs, but the idea that they’re distilling it down to a single point of strategic communication that you want to say, accomplish a goal, or whatever.
Don Mock 8:21
Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 8:23
But, you know, a lot of times that’s like a game of telephone in a way.
Don Mock 8:30
Yeah. Right.
Rob Broadfoot 8:31
Because you got to kind of whistle at a telephone down the line.
Don Mock 8:33
That’s great way to explain it.
Rob Broadfoot 8:34
And hope that when it makes it around the circle, it’s the right thing. So I think we quickly learned that like, hey, we enjoy talking to the clients.
Don Mock 8:43
Yeah, for sure.
Rob Broadfoot 8:45
We love our clients, we love working with them, we love talking to them. And we have great, interesting conversations. And I think part of what we love about what we do is that we get to learn a lot of different things about a lot of different industries.
Don Mock 8:54
Yeah, totally.
Rob Broadfoot 8:54
We talked about that. That may be another podcast.
Don Mock 8:56
That may be.
Rob Broadfoot 8:56
So we like talking to clients, but then also a lot of times, it’s hey we gotta get this out, we got to get it quick. By talking to a client, or whomever on the phone, we can have a quick conversation and pretty quickly get up to speed on what we’re trying to do and what we’re trying to say in any of the nuances of a particular project that may A: be extremely important, but B: may spark an idea, even just in that conversation that might get lost in translation otherwise.
Don Mock 9:27
Agreed.
Rob Broadfoot 9:27
And it saves everybody time.
Yeah.
And it generally seems to be a little bit more efficient way of doing things. Which isn’t to say briefs are dead. No, we get them and we work with them. And some are better than others. But yeah, I think efficiency in terms of in terms of accuracy and turnaround time.
Don Mock 9:45
Well, the other thing too, is that every client that we work with is different and unique and has their own set of challenges, and has their own skill sets of what they do, right? So I’m not ashamed to admit that we kind of interface and work with different clients differently by design, because they do different things, right? It’s hard, you know, if we had a hard and fast, rigid formula where every client has to ascertain to a very specific metric, right? That might be a little challenging for some of them, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, some clients sell products, some clients sell services.
Rob Broadfoot 10:22
Yeah,
Don Mock 10:22
That type of thing.
Rob Broadfoot 10:23
Yeah.
Don Mock 10:23
So it’s, you know, being able to quickly interface with clients differently, allows us to be a little bit more efficient with the way that not only we work, but the way that they interface with us as well.
Rob Broadfoot 10:36
Now, I think it’s good point, some prefer coming to the office and sitting down and looking face to face and talking about the project and having an in depth conversation about it. And if that works best to communicate the challenge or the need, great. If it’s, hey, I’m out on the road all the time, I don’t have time for this. Let’s jump on a quick 15 minute call. Great, let’s do it that way. Whatever’s the most effective way, I think to get across the information. Another thing too, I think efficiency is pricing strategy. And the way that we do things?
Don Mock 11:08
Oh, my goodness, we’re gonna talk about pricing and money.
Rob Broadfoot 11:10
Absolutely.
Don Mock 11:11
Hahaha.
Rob Broadfoot 11:12
So a lot of shops. And again, this isn’t an us versus them, but a lot of shops. bill on time.
Don Mock 11:19
Yes.
Rob Broadfoot 11:20
And so if you think about it, their motivation is to spend a lot of time working on your business.
Absolutely
Billable hours.
Don Mock 11:27
Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 11:27
And again, there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think for us, in the interest of being efficient for clients and for ourselves, we sort of flipped the script on that a long time ago.
Don Mock 11:40
Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 11:40
And, you know, figured out a way to kind of come up with a flat rate pricing model. And that’s worked really well for us. And I think it’s worked really, really well for our client.
Don Mock 11:54
Yeah, for sure.
Rob Broadfoot 11:54
Hey, here’s the budget. I know what I want to spend. And we’re both aligned, right? Because we know what it needs to be. Now, obviously, there’s parameters and scope, of course, but generally speaking, it’s a pretty quick conversation. And then we’re both in alignment that you know, if we can get the project done faster, and very well done, as we always do, great. That’s a win for us. If it ends up taking eight rounds of revisions, which it rarely does, I’ll toot our own horn, but it rarely does.
Don Mock 12:29
So be it, right?
Rob Broadfoot 12:30
So be it. That’s a win for the client. Because the client knows that the end of the day that, hey, here’s my budget. This is what I’m going to spend on the project.
Don Mock 12:36
Yeah. And this is what I’m gonna get.
Rob Broadfoot 12:38
This is exactly what I’m gonna get. Then that seems to work well, and I think it served us well.
Don Mock 12:44
Yeah. There’s nothing sweeter than when the PIO lines up with the invoice, right?
Rob Broadfoot 12:48
Oh man.
Don Mock 12:49
I mean, that has nothing to do with creative work whatsoever. But it is a function of the process of commerce and Business and things in general.
Rob Broadfoot 12:55
Yeah.
Don Mock 12:56
So there’s no overages. I mean, you know, if there’s massive overages, there’s going to be raising of hands. Somebody’s raised their hand and said, “hey, we got to scoped out. You know, we started off doing a two sided sell sheet, and now we’re doing a thirty second commercial.” Well, obviously, there’s been a conversation along the way, right? But yeah, I think that is kind of a kudos to us for how to make that work. And it’s worked really well for us.
Rob Broadfoot 13:17
Yep.
Don Mock 13:18
But it is unique to our business model. And the way that we work.
Rob Broadfoot 13:20
Yep.
Don Mock 13:21
So yeah, we’re really sharing. I love it, a deep dive behind the curtain.
Rob Broadfoot 13:26
The model.
Don Mock 13:27
Yeah. But I think it works. And it is, you know, many times when we get clients, they don’t really leave, you know, which has been great for us.
Rob Broadfoot 13:38
Like, leave our office or when they come to hangout?
Don Mock 13:40
Never. Well, they come here for the meeting to launch.
Rob Broadfoot 13:42
Then they just stay.
Don Mock 13:42
They stay all day. Yeah. We’ve had a few of those.
Rob Broadfoot 13:45
We’ve had a few of those. They’ve traveled down 45 minutes.
Don Mock 13:49
Yeah, yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 13:50
And strategically done that at about, for the one o’clock meeting. And then it’s well, you know, I am in town now. I think I’ll just stay.
Don Mock 13:58
Well we’re absolutely going to have to give a shout out to a guy down the street, right? Sushi on 14th Street.
Rob Broadfoot 13:58
Oh, yeah.
Don Mock 13:58
Because I gotta tell the joke is how many times do we eat there in a week, right?
Rob Broadfoot 13:59
Wagaya.
Don Mock 14:04
Yeah, and it’s at least once a week for somebody coming down. You know, it’s a lot of lunch meetings over there, which is great, so.
Rob Broadfoot 14:14
A lot of lunch meetings.
Don Mock 14:15
Yeah. And it’s efficient to just walk down there.
Rob Broadfoot 14:19
Oh… that was really well done.
Don Mock 14:20
Dun dun dun.
Rob Broadfoot 14:22
All right. With that
Don Mock 14:24
We’ll be efficient with our time.
Rob Broadfoot 14:25
We will be efficient, or your time and our time and keep it under 15 minutes.
Don Mock 14:28
All right.
Rob Broadfoot 14:29
All right. Well, you can find us on the interwebs Of course, at mocktheAgency.com and on all the socials @mocktheagency, and as always, feel free to drop us a line. Your comments, thoughts, feedback, concerns, compliments, or questions.
Don Mock 14:44
Alright, thanks, everybody.
Rob Broadfoot 14:46
Bye.
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