Episode Transcript
Don Mock 0:20
Right, everybody, Episode 25 We made it to a quarter century.
Rob Broadfoot 0:24
Quarter century.
Don Mock 0:25
Ding ding, ding, ding, ding. That’s exciting. 25 episodes up 25 episodes down. Right?
Rob Broadfoot 0:30
It happened so fast
Don Mock 0:32
I Know. It does feel like it happened very fast.
Rob Broadfoot 0:34
Right?
Don Mock 0:36
Well, good. What is his expression..? Good things..? Time flies when you’re having fun.
Rob Broadfoot 0:40
There you go.
Don Mock 0:40
Right. There you go. So all right, Episode 25. Let’s talk about, and we’ve kind of tickled the subject in the past before. So I thought it’d be fun to talk about maybe a little deeper dive on things you love about your job, right? I mean, we’re pretty lucky guys. We work in the creative arena.
Rob Broadfoot 0:59
Right.
Don Mock 1:00
We do have a foot in kind of both worlds, though being business owners as well.
Rob Broadfoot 1:04
Right.
Don Mock 1:04
So it doesn’t necessarily have to be a creative job answer to the question, but what are some of the favorite things that you love about your job, Mr. Rob?
Rob Broadfoot 1:14
Mostly that I don’t have to wear pants to work.
Don Mock 1:16
Okay. Well, it’s very distracting for the rest of us in the office.
Rob Broadfoot 1:21
It’s liberating.
Don Mock 1:22
Janice in HR is constantly, it’s a struggle.
Rob Broadfoot 1:26
She’s not happy.
Don Mock 1:27
Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 1:28
I wear pants.
Don Mock 1:29
I know.
Rob Broadfoot 1:30
Yeah. So a lot of different things. I think I will echo what you just said, which is we’re fortunate to work in a fun, exciting, interesting industry. And then also, you know, fortunate to own the company.
Don Mock 1:46
I mean, it’s not always fun. We’ve worked in places where it’s hasn’t been fun, though to.
Rob Broadfoot 1:49
Oh, it’s not all fun.
Don Mock 1:50
Yeah, yeah. I mean, just to make everyone’s perspective in regards to, not every shop is as awesome as ours.
Rob Broadfoot 1:57
That’s right. None of them are.
Don Mock 2:00
But hit me.
Rob Broadfoot 2:02
For me. I think, and first I’ll kind of throw back and give you a quick timeline. I remember back in the mid 90s, when I was in college at the University of Georgia, back to back national champions, Go Dogs.
Don Mock 2:18
Go Jackets.
Rob Broadfoot 2:21
No, yeah, they’re cute. Jackets are cute.
Don Mock 2:24
How many astronauts has Georgia Tech sent?
Rob Broadfoot 2:26
You know how I feel about space.
Don Mock 2:28
That’s why I said that.
Rob Broadfoot 2:29
Yeah. And I remember, I was studying English. And I always loved reading, writing and the letters in the alphabet and all that good stuff. And, you know, I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a career. I know that my father had studied English and then gone on to practice law.
Yeah, lawyering, oof.
Bankruptcy law.
Don Mock 2:51
Yeah, that’s intense.
Rob Broadfoot 2:52
Boy, dealing with broke people all the time.
Don Mock 2:57
So you weren’t gonna follow the family business?
Rob Broadfoot 2:59
I was not gonna follow the family business.
Don Mock 3:01
Well, I didn’t follow the family business either.
Rob Broadfoot 3:03
But I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. And And long story short, I landed in advertising. But I was on a different side of things. I was more on the media planning side of things. Yeah, for a couple of years, few years. Tthree years, I guess. I remember being there, and I knew I was in the right industry, but I was not in the right office.
Don Mock 3:25
Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 3:25
And not in the right position. So I loved the work that the agency was doing. But I would remember looking at the work and going, oh, I would have done it this way. Wow, I wish I had done that are all of the things. I really love the creative product coming out of the shops that I was working for. So did what I had to do, went back to school and then started writing. And that was a good move for me, I think, because I just love, that we get to create things out of thin air. And I know a lot of people do that in a lot of different industries. But for me, it’s the combination of the learning part of the job. We do a lot of different things for a lot of different industries across a lot of different companies. Big, small, short and tall. And I love the learning.
Don Mock 4:17
I like that, I hadn’t heard that one before.
Rob Broadfoot 4:18
What’s that?
Don Mock 4:19
Big, tall, short? What was it big tall? Would did you just say?
Rob Broadfoot 4:22
Large? Small, big and tall?
Don Mock 4:24
Yeah, I think so.
Rob Broadfoot 4:24
I don’t know what I said.
Don Mock 4:26
Somebody hit rewind.
Rob Broadfoot 4:29
And I love diving into different industries that I didn’t even know it existed. Let alone know anything about and learning. I think about a client that we’ve worked with over the years that owns a mine in Wyoming.
Don Mock 4:46
Yeah, Green River Basin Wyoming.
Rob Broadfoot 4:49
In a prehistoric, an underground prehistoric lake bed.
Don Mock 4:53
That’s exactly correct.
Rob Broadfoot 4:54
900 feet under the earth.
Don Mock 4:56
Yes. Under the surface crust. Yeah, I remember we flew out there we go out to the mine, I’m totally interrupting your story. And there’s one main elevator to get down to 900 feet right.
Rob Broadfoot 5:08
Ya one way in and one way out.
Don Mock 5:09
And we all got our hard hats on. And we’re with like, rough and tumble miners. I mean, like, oh I live in Wyoming.
Rob Broadfoot 5:14
Like real men.
Don Mock 5:15
Real people, a lotof ladies.
Rob Broadfoot 5:16
Real Men of genius.
Don Mock 5:17
Yeah, well, there are a lot of ladies that work at the mines. And I remember we looked at and we’re like, what the f are we about to get into? Like, because you look down the elevator shaft. The bottom was a grate, remember? You could see down, but you couldn’t see 900 feet down into the darkness. you’re like, What the f is about to happen down there? And just Oh, my word. What are we about to experience, you know?
Rob Broadfoot 5:42
Well it felt like going on an awesome school field trip. I felt like a kid again, like, woah I’m getting to go explore something. And I remember, I think it was, it’s 900 feet down. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it’s like 13,000 square miles?
Don Mock 6:03
I couldn’t tell you what it was.
Rob Broadfoot 6:04
I mean, it’s gigantic. It’s ginormous. It’s a prehistoric lake bed. And it’s ginormous.
Don Mock 6:08
At the time, we went down there. I know that they were mining with a room and pillar method. And they still had 50 years worth of mining available. And there are three companies that had a lease on that prehistoric lake bed, I believe. So that was just there corner.
Rob Broadfoot 6:23
It’s the world’s largest soda ash mine.
Don Mock 6:25
Yeah, it’s the world’s largest natural soda ash mine. Correct.
Rob Broadfoot 6:29
And so anyway, I remember going down there. And I remember, specifically, when we were down there, just the enormity of the operation, and then going into specifically the safe room.
Don Mock 6:41
That place was nuts.
Rob Broadfoot 6:42
Right, like when the you know what hits the fan like, this is where you go. And it had oxygen, food supplies, and all the things you would need. I don’t remember how long you can stay in that room. But I remember it being literally the most quiet place I’ve ever been. And the darkest place.
Don Mock 6:59
Yeah, they were like everybody turn off your flashlight, turn off your little minor light right on the front of your hardhat and whatever, right? And it is a level of darkness that is unbelievable, you can only be 900 feet under the earth to experience that level of darkness.
Rob Broadfoot 7:12
And that was one of those kind of freeze frame moments for me because I remember sitting there and thinking like, wow, this is scary.
Don Mock 7:19
Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 7:19
But also, how did I, how did I get here? Like, I’m at work right now. This is my job. And I’m working, I’m learning, and all of these things. So, then to resurface. Come back to our creative cave here and figure out how to take what we just learned and then communicate that to the people that we needed to communicate it to. And how do you do that in an interesting way that’s going to resonate in terms of the message, the concept, the idea, or whatever. So for me, and that’s just one example of we’ve been on a lot of field trips.
Don Mock 7:54
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Rob Broadfoot 7:55
A lot of field trips. And I love that I love the learning part of it. To me, that’s fun. And then I also love the idea that, you know, once the assignment is given, I know something is gonna happen.
Don Mock 8:09
Something magical.
Rob Broadfoot 8:10
I get to go think and I get to work, and I get to create and be silly and be serious and all of the things, and then just kind of pull something out of out of my brain somewhere.
Don Mock 8:20
Well, I will jump in here and say that I second the love of learning. I mean, if I had to pick one thing. If someone asked me, hey, what’s the best part about your job? It would definitely be the learning factor. I can see my kids probably groaning right now, but the learning never ends. And the learning is for me, the coolest part of the job. Yeah, man we flew out to Wyoming went down to this mine took a tour, went into the refinery, and learned all these crazy statistics. All about their entire operation, right? I mean, to the point where Union Pacific ran a line straight through the refinery, they fill 80 rail cars a day of this 365 days a year. I mean, just learning all these really interesting aspects of what our clients do, that we would never be able to be exposed to, if we weren’t in the business we’re in. So I mean, that’s just one example. Like, we know more about medical biologic clients than than anybody who doesn’t have a PhD should care to know about in terms of non rotational ligament fixation and shape memory polymers and how to repair the body and all this crazy stuff. I mean, you know, we obviously don’t have medical degrees, but…
We did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.
Correct. I believe I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express dun dun dun. So, you know, the learning aspect is so super cool. Even when we went and toured, we had a bakery client for a while, you know, and it was like, Hey, here’s how you make you know, bread and pretzels and waffles.
Rob Broadfoot 10:02
They are delicious.
Don Mock 10:03
Yeah. And it’s like, oh my god, here’s like 100 pound block of butter. Like, woah! Remember that? You know, it’s like, here’s a KitchenAid mixer that’s like the size of this conference room.
Right? Like, don’t fall in the mixer. It’s not a joke. So the learning and the exposure to all of the different client needs. And again, to your point, the taking the tour and learning everything about them, so that we can package up that communication vehicle for the appropriate target audiences. And we have to learn the nuances, you know, like, alligator cracking in our parking lot, right? And, you know, learning all the different intricacies. You know, we had an asphalt repair client for quite a long time, you know, and things like that, right. So the learning, I think, is the coolest part. My backup, or my second answer, I guess, would be that lightning bolt strike of inspiration. That never gets old, right? It’s when you get an assignment. And then I don’t know if it hits you in the shower, if it hits you in bed, it hits your work, it hits you wherever, and you go boom! Like, oh my god! I totally, I know exactly what it is. And then you scribble it down as fast as you can. And no one can understand either your notes or your drawings or whatever, but you just give it a little whatever. And you’re like, I got it and you’re rushed to get to the computer. You can’t get it done fast enough. And then it’s hey, pencils down, everybody I have totally crushed, and you know, nailed that assignment, right? And that’s, you know, there’s only been one logo project I can point to we did a Nurse’s for Africa logo, which I believe is somewhere we can put it on the interwebs or whatever was an assignment. And that was I think it might be the only time in my entire career where it was okay client, like, here it is.
Rob Broadfoot 11:27
Right.
Don Mock 11:46
This is your…
Rob Broadfoot 11:48
Here’s your logo.
Don Mock 11:48
Yeah, here’s your logo. I mean, like full Paul Rand style, right? Boom, we are done here. Like there are no alternatives. There are no options. This is the perfect logo for the entire like, this does everything you needed it to do. It won like a gajillion awards, and not that we’re into that kinda of stuff, but it was that. So, you know, it doesn’t happen every day. But it happens frequently enough to still get the juices flowing. And I love that lightning bolt inspiration of boom, I totally nailed it.
Rob Broadfoot 12:17
I also love the first round creative presentations. Because when you’re proud of your ideas, and you’re excited to share them with clients. And we often say to clients, and we recognize like, we’re the most fun part. This is the most fun part of their day.
Don Mock 12:33
Best part, best meeting of the day.
Rob Broadfoot 12:34
Best meaning of the day, you get to look at pretty pictures and cool words and ideas and things. It’s um..
Don Mock 12:39
And two incredibly handsome men (laughter).
Rob Broadfoot 12:41
And just distractingly handsome.
Don Mock 12:44
Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 12:44
I worry sometimes.
Don Mock 12:46
It takes away from the work. Is that what your worried about?
Rob Broadfoot 12:48
Yeah, I do.
Don Mock 12:48
I think the same thing.
Rob Broadfoot 12:49
I’m worried about that. That’s why sometimes I don’t turn my camera on when we do like a Zoom meeting. Because I don’t want to distract people.
Don Mock 12:49
It’s too distracting,
Rob Broadfoot 12:49
Very distracting. Anyway, I distract myself!
Don Mock 12:50
I know it to the point where we don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore do we?
Rob Broadfoot 12:59
No.
Don Mock 13:00
We get lost in thought.
Rob Broadfoot 13:03
But I love those… I love that first round presentation. Because everybody’s excited to see the work. You’re proud of what you’ve done. And to hear clients respond positively to multiple ideas. You know, that’s when it’s like, I don’t know which one to pick, I love so many of these.
Don Mock 13:19
Oh my God, when we say there’s an embarrassment of riches.
Rob Broadfoot 13:22
And there’s a wealth of creativity.
Don Mock 13:24
That is when we know we have crushed the meeting, but also, it’s a good problem to have where all of these different approaches as to how to solve the problem, right? And when you’re in that position as a client, there’s no wrong decisions, because all of the more work you know.
Rob Broadfoot 13:24
Right. So it’s way more fun than presenting a flowchart.
Don Mock 13:42
Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 13:43
I promise you.
Don Mock 13:44
Yeah, we dabble in the world of Excel. I mean, we fill out a few little spreadsheets here and there.
Rob Broadfoot 13:49
More than numbers.
Don Mock 13:51
Sure. But thankfully, it’s not the vast majority of our day by any stretch.
Rob Broadfoot 13:57
Right.
Don Mock 13:57
So we’re we are definitely fortunate in that, you know, we can put Excel away and pick up whatever this is. This is a uni ball vision, fine, waterproof pen.
Rob Broadfoot 14:07
You know, that’s a good one.
Don Mock 14:08
I want specific instead of saying
Rob Broadfoot 14:09
It’s 2016.
Don Mock 14:10
(laughter) Instead of saying, you know, playing with crayons and whatnot, I tried to put a little bit of professional spin on it and say, hey, there’s an actual pen here.
Rob Broadfoot 14:19
Yeah.
Don Mock 14:19
I don’t know where this pen came from. I think might be yours.
Rob Broadfoot 14:21
Well that’s when they changed the body design on that in 2016.
Don Mock 14:25
On this pen?
Rob Broadfoot 14:26
mmhm.
Don Mock 14:26
What are you talking about? You’re being ridiculous right now.
Rob Broadfoot 14:30
All right, well, being ridiculous as part of what we do, and it’s super fun. So I think that’ll bring us to closure. Maybe we’ll do another one another day about…
Don Mock 14:39
Yeah, this could be a two parter.
Rob Broadfoot 14:40
A two parter. Yeah, on the fun parts of running the business.
Don Mock 14:43
Do we ever do a third one about the worst part of our job, or is that just too negative?
Rob Broadfoot 14:48
I’m not afraid of that.
Don Mock 14:50
Okay.
Rob Broadfoot 14:51
Not afraid.
Don Mock 14:51
Well, you started off today’s podcast by saying how you frequently don’t wear pants. So I don’t know that you’re afraid of anything.
Rob Broadfoot 14:58
I’m really not.
Don Mock 14:59
Ya you’re pretty bold.
Rob Broadfoot 15:00
I afraid of how handsome I am.
Don Mock 15:01
(Laughter) All right on that note where can the people find us Mr. Rob?
Rob Broadfoot 15:05
Well if you happen to be traveling between Midtown and West Midtown, you can find us on 14th Street, and feel free to come and ring the doorbell, and bring us some treats.
Don Mock 15:13
Yeah, well, you better bring the dog some treats because they’re going to bark at ya.
Rob Broadfoot 15:16
Oh, yeah, they’re gonna bark. Stop by for a cup of coffee and a chat if you like.
Don Mock 15:20
Yeah, cause we’re not busy at all (laughter).
Rob Broadfoot 15:21
Now, you can find us on the interwebs at mocktheagency.com and of course on the socials @mocktheagency and as always, feel free to drop us a line share topics, feedback, thoughts, concerns, compliments, all that good stuff.
Don Mock 15:37
Sounds good. Alright, thanks everybody.
Rob Broadfoot 15:38
Bye.
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