An Agency Story

What a Disney Princess Can Teach Agency Owners - EZ Marketing

• Russel Dubree / Tom Malesic • Episode 194

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In this episode of An Agency Story, Russel Dubree sits down with Tom Malesic, founder of EZ Marketing, to explore what it takes to stay relevant through decades of change. From selling websites before businesses understood the internet to navigating today's AI revolution, Russel and Tom share some of the hard won lessons on agency leadership.

Inside this episode:

  • The benefits of having a book to share your expertise
  • Why agency leaders need a team that can tell them “no”
  • Lessons from implementing EOS and creating accountability
  • Another perspective AI's impact in the agency space

Podcast Intro

Russel

Welcome to An Agency Story podcast, where owners and experts share the real journey, the early struggles, the breakthrough moments, and everything in between. I'm your host, Russel Dubree, former eight-figure agency owner turned business coach, who sold my agency and now helps agency leaders create their ideal business. Every agency has a story, and this is your front row seat. This is An Agency Story.

Meet Tom Malesic

Russel

Welcome to the show today, everyone. I have Tom Malesic with EZ Marketing with us here today. Thanks so much for being on the show today, Tom.

Tom

Yeah, thank you

Russel

All right, well, let's get to it. Tell us what EZ Marketing does and who you do it for.

Tom

Sure. So, uh, Easy Marketing does digital marketing, so everything from building websites, SEO, Google Ads, social media, geofencing. Uh, really anything that's digital. We'll do a logo, but I really try not to do brochures, radio, TV, billboard. Like, we'll let other people deal with that stuff. And our primary customer is a small business owner. So, people who kinda get overlooked by big marketing agencies, uh, those are the people we love. You know, maybe they have a budget of, I don't know, 30 to $100,000 a year. We're not looking for guys that are trying to spend a million dollars on their marketing. Uh, we just love that small business owner. Absolutely. That's who we just can make a huge difference in their world.

Russel

That's awesome. Nothing wrong with that, and a little special place in my heart. I love small businesses. Truly the backbone of the world, for sure, probably, and if at least not the US, so- Exactly glad you're out there helping them. And we'll figure out what all that looks like, how you got started. I know you got some other ventures as well I'd love to, to hear about as we, uh, get into today's episode.

Early Life and College

Russel

But, uh, before all that, I'm more interested in young Tom. Tell us, uh, where he grew up in the world, who he wanted to be when he grew up, and anything in between.

Tom

Oh, boy, that could take hours. I feel like you asked the young Sheldon question, like we're on TV, so that's fun. Yeah, so I grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, so kinda small, small town. Uh, I still live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, so I didn't move too far from home. And, uh, I wanted to be a veterinarian when I grew up. Okay. Okay. I wanted to help dogs. I thought that'd be great. Then I watched a vet actually do surgery and I passed out. Went to college. I think I majored in drinking beer and having a lot of fun. And, uh, and you didn't really know. It was the '80s. Nobody talked about career planning or what you wanna do. At least people in my world weren't really talking about that. My mom just said, "Please graduate," you know? Yeah,

Russel

yeah. Besides beer drinking, what did you major in?

Tom

I majored in, in, uh, industrial relations, so unions essentially, which is kind of ironic really, so.

Russel

Okay. I mean, that kinda makes sense coming out of PA area, I guess. A very- Yeah, I guess very union strong- Yeah steel working.

Tom

You know, just, uh, it took a lot of, uh, sales, marketing, entrepreneurial classes, and those are kinda the ones I really liked the

Sales Hustle Origins

Tom

best. Okay. Uh, so I just started off really being a salesman. So I sold Kirby vacuum cleaners to pay for college. So door to door, I'm knocking on doors, uh, selling vacuum cleaners, trying to get somebody to spend $1,500 on a vacuum cleaner in, 1989. so-

Russel

Wow. What is that, like today's price, is that like $5,000 vacuum

Tom

cleaner or something? Easily, yeah. I don't know what they cost. No, I don't, gosh, I don't wanna know. So I just kept, uh, I kinda stayed on that, uh, that sales path and- Then one day I, I ran into a, a kid I knew from college. He was in my business fraternity, and he's, he pulled me aside one day. I was selling giftware items to his dad's gift store, and, uh- Okay does that make sense? So it was like- Yeah I sold stuffed animals. It was super embarrassing to talk about, right? It's like, we sold Barney. Remember that purple dinosaur? Oh, yeah. That was like the- Oh, yeah hottest thing. A really fun job. Couldn't, you couldn't make any money on it, but it was super fun.

First Web Company Leap

Tom

He pulled me aside one day and he said, "Hey, Tom, a buddy and I, we're starting a web development company, and we need a sales guy. Can you sell that?" And I go, "What's a website?" Like, I had no idea. It was 1996, like, no one knew what a website was, right? It's AOL, uh, 14.4 baud modem, you've got mail kind of stuff. And, he showed me a ho- a local hotel. You know, it took like 10 minutes to pull up on the screen, and I, I was like, "Yeah, I can sell that." Pay me what I'm making now, which was, like, nothing. Right? And, uh, yeah, we kinda had a disagreement about a year into it about who could become a customer, and he said he took my resignation. I took my laptop, and I walked down the street and sold a website to somebody he wouldn't sell a website to. And, yeah, it's, borrow two grand from your mom and now you got a business.

Russel

Oh, I love that. I mean, w- I, I don't even... You know, from that era, like, how, how were you learning how to build a website? Like, what was your information go-to sources even back then?

Tom

Like, n- nothing. So one of his, uh, my friend's business partner, he was the programmer, and they weren't building the websites fast enough. I was like, "Just show me how to do it." And I grew up around computers, like my dad built computers when I was a kid. I was like the only kid in my dorm to have a computer. My dad's idea of a college graduation gift was a laser printer. You might've got a, a crappy used car. I got a $2,000 printer. So yeah, like B means bold. It wasn't- I don't know. Websites didn't have design to them, right? Like, you didn't need to know a ton of stuff.

Russel

Okay. To make

Tom

a site. Makes

Russel

sense.

Tom

You know? Uh, 'cause you couldn't use, couldn't really use graphics 'cause nothing would load.

Russel

Yeah,

Tom

yeah. Yeah, it was crazy. I did see. Pre-WordPress, pre any builder, like you just wrote straight code

Russel

Yeah, I saw a TikTok the other day that was a little take back remembering when, yeah, when you were trying to load an image on a page, you'd have to go make a sandwich or, find something else to do in the interim while that image loaded. These young folks just don't know how good they have it. Um- Exactly.

Tom

I don't know. Maybe they have it worse, right? They live in instant gratification. Yeah. We were willing to wait five minutes for a page.

Russel

That is true. Boy, maybe, maybe that's what taught, some perseverance to me that I didn't quite realize- Exactly was the ability to, to wait for an image to download. Okay.

Selling the Internet Era

Russel

And I imagine they had to have some difficulty back then. I mean, I even feel like this was still somewhat of a thing, 'cause I didn't start my agency till '06, was just getting people on board with the idea that they needed a website to begin with, and it wasn't even just work with me. It was, do you even want this thing that I'm selling?

Tom

Oh, not just do you want this thing, but do you even know what I'm talking about? Like, like, I would... so I'd go and I'd talk to prominent local business owners and, most of them, they, they didn't, they had no idea. Go with my little laptop and pull it up and try to convince them that they, that this is the future, right? I had one guy, he was a really well-known, real estate agent, and he ran, like, TV, billboards. Like, this guy was everywhere, and I'm sitting at his desk trying to tell him that, like, people are gonna try to buy houses online, and they're gonna wanna know this information. And he literally, the guy walks around the back of the desk, pats me on the top of the head. I mean, literally pats me on the top of the head and says, "Tom, you seem like a nice young man, but perhaps, you should go do something else because no one, and I mean no one, is gonna look for my business on the computer."

Russel

Yeah. Like- And

Tom

like it was selling an intangible that people just couldn't wrap their head around. Like, nobody says that to me now. They might say, "I've, I have more business than I need. I don't really care about, you know, upgrading my website." But they don't tell me that no one is gonna look on the internet anymore.

Russel

It looks like we've gotten past those days. And I know it's, really interesting how you tell that story and I think a lot of folks, right, when they talk about AI today are sort of comparing it back to the, you know, the mid and late '90s and, and the digital evolution there. But even then, I think when we think of what even your everyday folk can think of what AI could become, I mean, there's still some gaps and we all don't know anyway. But, Nobody believes it's magic or that it's an impossibility versus I think that's still where we were back then as this, this move to digital seemed like an impossible concept. And so, so even that makes me think, okay, it's even, it was even more revolutionary back then than maybe even how we're looking at AI today.

Tom

Yeah. When you think of all the technology that came about in the last 50 years, I mean, the internet has to be... To me, it's gotta be like the number one tech. Like it has- Yeah totally changed the world.

Russel

Yeah. Well,

Tom

AI's gonna do the same thing.

Russel

Yeah. But, uh, well, we'll, we'll put a pin in that. I'm sure that might come back

From Solo to Team

Russel

up later. But getting back to your journey, w- I mean, how long until, it was solidified to you, like, this is a serious thing, this is what I'm doing, and it's gonna be more than just Tom selling and, and slinging websites? When Did it get serious?

Tom

Probably about two years in. So I, I figured out pretty quickly that I couldn't sell it and do the programming, and I joined, I joined a little leads group. You know those little networking groups where you pass leads- Yeah back and forth?

Russel

Like a BNI kind of thing or something?

Tom

Yeah, yeah. It was, it was pre-BNI. BNI didn't exist back then.

Russel

Okay. Wow.

Tom

I know, it's really funny. And, uh, one of the ladies in the group, she was really worried about her son-in-law, because he quit his job, and he and her daughter were traveling around the country for a year visiting every baseball stadium in the country. And she was really worried that when Fred came home, Fred wasn't gonna have a job. Now, Fred and his brothers owned a large beer distributorship and sold it. Fred didn't really need to come work for me, but Fred wanted something to do, so I rented one office in a, in a law firm's building, and, we shared a desk. So I was out selling when Fred was out, being meaningful, making little crappy websites. So then I hired Fred, and I hired... Fred retired from here, believe it or not. So he worked for me for a long time. And then I hired two other people, within a two-year window, and then it just kinda kept snowballing from there.

Adding SEO Services

Russel

You had a pretty good focus, like you said, small business and a full suite of marketing. At what point in your journey did that come online?

Tom

Oh, so we started that probably within three years, right? Because so once, once people built the website, and then it was all about Google, right? And then it was, well, how do you rank? Well, back then it was super easy to rank. Let's just be honest, like, like there were tricks, and you just put the keyword you wanted in white text on a white background and SEO, right? And then once Google got, caught onto our little tricks, then, now you're having a conversation about how to sell that. So to figure out how is that a service and how can you be good at it, how can you really deliver that result of, "Oh, I see for the keyword I rank," and then all that turns into business for me. So pretty early on, we figured out that we had to do that.

Russel

Yeah, for the folks, uh, I guess you can lament at this, but, even coming online later, like the late 2000s for us, we could run a campaign overnight and we knew we were playing a dangerous game by this point, but you could rank, you could jump your ranking near, near number one, or if not number one for... we would do that for terms like web design and we knew we couldn't keep the foot on that gas or we'd risk being blocked or whatever, but those were wild times, to say the least.

Tom

Yeah, exactly.

Russel

Okay.

Growing Pains and COVID

Russel

And so, I mean, 30 years, well, we won't, we won't cover all of it by any means, but when you just think back upon that journey, what are some of the toughest times that stand out to you?

Tom

So, I think there's always a tough time when you have... When you're trying to figure out, go from being just the entrepreneur and that you're doing so much of the job to move more into management. So how are you managing the team, and then how are you having managers who manage the team? I think those, those pivotal points were really challenging. It's how do I be a better leader? How do I be a better manager? Because I think just by nature of entrepreneurship, we don't always think about that. Like entrepreneurs, we're just the people who get crap done and come up with cool ideas and like, "Well, let's run in this direction really fast." But then to try to figure out how do I really turn this into a business and how do I not have to be responsible for everything? So those are really the... All, all of those little moments in time, I think, are big moments. Um, COVID was a big moment, right? When you have, you send your staff of, 40 people home, right? Like that's, that's hard. And then everybody wanted to cancel their services and, what we did, we s- we said, "Nope. Nope, not canceling. Yeah, if you don't pay me, you don't pay me. I'm still going to work." Like you can't not market. So we didn't let people cancel. We had clients that didn't pay us for a couple of months, but yeah, we didn't let them cancel for that. That's,

Russel

that's amazing.

Tom

You know, I think every business has moments in time where you're like, "Why am I not that profitable?" Or, "Why does this piece of the business feel so rough?" Yeah. So one of the things that, that we did actually prior to COVID is we signed up with an EOS implementer, the Entrepreneurial Operating System. Mm-hmm. The luckiest moment that, you know... We should've done, should've hired an implementer years prior to that, but I was too cheap because I live in a little town- and we don't have that money. So hiring an implementer helped us have better leadership conversations, helped us run a better company, and helped us be more profitable, so that when COVID hit, we already had these foundational pieces in place to be able to weather the storm. And that certainly- Yeah hit all of us, so.

Discovering EOS Traction

Russel

Yeah, I wanna dive more into that because, I might be a little biased here. I'm a Big advocate of getting coaching guidance, just an outside perspective on this very difficult, complicated thing of running a business, much less an agency business. When You look back, and so you even mentioned, like, "Oh, I should've done that sooner," what problems were you facing, or how did you ultimately arrive at a decision like, "Oh, we should go do this"?

Tom

W- so here's how I arrived at the decision. I was in a-- I own an IT company as well. Just, let's jump into that quick. So I'm in an, I'm in an IT business owner peer group that I was in for, hmm, I don't know, eight years, nine years at, at that point in time. I'm, I'm still in it. And, we decided we're all... You know how you're in a peer group and it's, and somebody goes, "Let's read a book together." Right? Like, have you done that before? So- uh, Bruce said, "We're all gonna read the book 'Traction.'" And, so we all read the book, and then some of my friends, well, they went on to hire an implementer. And I'm a dummy, and I didn't. And their businesses were like growing crazy, and mine was like not. And I literally remember I said to my friend Satima, I said, "I don't understand. Why is your business growing so much?" And she goes, "Why are you so stupid?" Like, like- Go hire an implementer." I'm like, "It costs money." She's like, "Stop being so cheap." Right? And so that's really why. You know, it's, when you watch other businesses have success in a certain, it's not really coaching, but i- let's call it for lack of a better term, coaching platform. Yeah. It was time to be a better business

Visionary vs Implementer

Tom

owner, right? I needed to go from being an entrepreneur to being a business owner, and to me, those are kinda different, right? So I can-

Russel

Oh, yeah

Tom

be crazy thinking about stuff and, you know, blow crap up, but every time I blow crap up, well, uh, then we can't execute because I'm being the guy that's causing all the problems. I had to learn to, yeah, be more of an implementer and less of a visionary and to create better cadence so that my team could easily say to me, "Tom, that's great. We can do that, but, if we do that, what aren't we doing? And you said these are our quarterly rocks that we're gonna get done. So, uh, what do you wanna do?" Right? So it was learning to be a better business owner. And I loved it so much, I'm an EOS implementer now because- like, I need one more thing to do. It's different than coaching. It's teaching a system, right? Yeah. So I'm teaching tools and it's amazing. It's absolutely amazing, so.

Russel

Well, it's funny. I mean, that honestly in, in hindsight, once I'd, much, much later in, in my own business journey when I came upon EOS and started to really understand how it oper- operates. I, I think it... I would've too, would've liked to have done that much earlier in my journey, especially in a partnership business where, I think sometimes we did have a trouble deciding or aligning what direction we were going and we didn't always really fight through that or, or work through that, I should say, in a more positive way. And, which I think is one of the great things about EOS is creating that alignment. And I was writing down as you were describing that, a good mutual accountability with the team to say, "Look, we said this is what we're gonna do, and we have a defined framework and time period of when and how we're gonna do that." And- Yeah uh, look, a little accountability on all sides is, is, can be a powerful thing it seems.

Tom

It, it has to be, right? Because as the owner, everybody wants to make you happy, right? Mm-hmm. So they don't want, they never wanna tell me no. Mm-hmm. And they need to tell me no, and they need to have a framework in which to tell me no. And as an entrepreneur and really as a sales guy, like, I don't even hear no. Like, you start to tell me a reason why you can't do it, now we're problem-solving right? Like, that wasn't no, that was you need advice. So.

Russel

Yeah. Yes. Oh, yes, I can.

Leading With Words

Russel

Yes. Uh, that's a... No- Yeah no means I just gotta try harder. Yeah. That's a, that's a really good perspective, and I don't know exactly when on my journey, but I remember coming to that realization too of like, oh, how powerful my words can be, and how much more careful I have to be in where and how I use them and assert opinions or whatever, because I think to the point, it's if it's a boat and I throw my words a little too heavy, it's going to carry the entire sail in a direction, good or bad, and that's, not necessarily the best way to lead when, especially when you have a decent sized team under your boat.

Tom

Yeah. And, um, and it's so easy to make an offhanded comment that you don't think's gonna have an impact and it does. You know? Or you're having a bad day and you just derailed the next 30 days 'cause of your bad day.

Disney Never Breaks Character

Tom

There's a book called, Disney You by, Doug Lipp, and one of his lines is, "Cinderella never has a bad day." Right? So if you're at Disney and you're walking around and s- like, Cinderella doesn't just, like, break character and smoke, and smoke a cigarette and tell that little girl to get the hell out of here, right? Cinderella never has a bad day. And as an entrepreneur, you just can never have a bad day. So shut your door, go home, do something. But you, you like, it... You just can't do it because of what you said, right? Like that... It's, it's, and it's a, it's an impossible thing, right? You're not perfect. We're never gonna be perfect. We're gonna screw stuff up, but just, uh, try to just keep that in the back of my mind

Russel

I love that. I'm gonna check out that book 'cause I, I do just gravitate towards what I know is no shortage, the things that Disney does to create the experience they create. And like even when you were mentioning that example, you don't see Cinderella have a bad day, or you don't see any character when they're not in character, that's part of the reason why they built the tunnels and the whole system is like that you wouldn't have to see, or even like you wouldn't see Cinderella in the Future Land or anything like that. That

Tom

it was all- Yeah,

Russel

exactly intentionally designed in that

Designing Systems To Pivot

Russel

way. And so yeah, the, I think the reminder of there is what do you need to intentionally design for yourself that, you know, people don't necessarily have to experience your imperfect moments as heavily?

Tom

Yeah. And it's how are you intentionally designing your agency? Mm-hmm. Like, like piece by piece, how are you intentionally designing your SEO team and your processes and your systems? And then how do you pivot when that doesn't work anymore? And I think that's one of the hardest things in owning an agency is that everything changes so fast, right? So if you're not constantly on top of it, you're behind, right? Like what worked in 1997 surely doesn't work today. And honestly, what worked last year doesn't work this year. The protectionary tools that we used like five years ago, "Hey, I've got an antivirus. You're good to go," right? Uh, no, that is, like antivirus you barely even need it anymore because everything else is so horrible coming at your network, um, that you need so many more, more security tools than you ever had to have before or that we ever even thought was possible before.

Writing Books For Credibility

Russel

Well, you, dropped there a second ago that, you've had more entrepreneurial endeavors than just the agency. I also know somewhere in there you've written books. Where did that fall in the overall business strategy?

Tom

Yeah. So, um, you know that, that IT peer group that I told you I was in? So the, the woman that, that led that business, I was at, again, I was being cheap, so I went to, I went to, she put on a road show, so f- and I had to stay overnight. Like, it was crazy. Like, I had to go someplace, stay overnight to go to this road show. Didn't even wanna do that. And, so she says from stage, she says, "Listen, if you wanna be perceived as the expert, you need to write a book because, people who write books, they're clearly experts." So, I wrote a book because she said, you know... So I think of it this way, right? Two people show up in your office, right? One person hands you their book, and the other person hands you their logo pen, who has more credibility, right? It's not the guy with the logo pen, right? Because we throw away logo pens, right? That's no problem. We never throw away a book, right? That's, I don't know, it's sacrilegious. You can't throw away a book. This is gonna sound terrible. It is the best, uh, $3.75 ad specialty piece money can buy, right? This doesn't cost much to print a book. It's time-consuming to write it, but once you have it, right? It adds a new level of credibility, right? It's right up there with Google reviews. So when somebody goes to your website, how do they pick you over the other three people they just looked at? Because all they had to do is do a Google search or a search on ChatGPT, right? To come up with who I wanna talk to. I wanna talk to the person I can trust the most, and I trust people who are published authors.

Russel

This is why I always respect someone that has taken the time to write a book, is because e- even to write a bad book takes a lot of time, And most of the time people aren't gonna do that much effort to put out something bad. So it generally means whether they're a good writer or not is, might be the challenge, but that there's something good in there to say. Yeah. So thank you for, again, contributing to the thought leadership in the community. How long does it take you to write a book, just out of curiosity?

Tom

The first book took me 90 days. Don't read that.

Russel

That's

Tom

not bad. It, it was essentially like a question and answer. It was, uh, 21 things your web developer never tells you, right? Mm-hmm. So it's kind of an, a, you know, it's a sales pitch, right? Yeah. In today we'd call it an e-book,

Website As Marketing Hub

Tom

right? But this one took, uh, six months, and it's primarily because, one, I got more of my team's input into what they wanted to see in our new book. But it was also because I was very specific about my advocated position. So my advocated position is the website's the center of all your marketing. So no matter what you do, everything comes back to that website. So if that website's crap, everything else is crap. You can spend as much money on other stuff as you want, but if you take 'em d- back to the stinky smelly guy, no one's gonna wanna buy from you, right? 'Cause you look bad and you sound bad and you're not trustworthy So it was really to take a belief that I had and be able to s- put that in a way that, that our potential customers could read about and then be like, "Oh yeah, maybe I shouldn't just spend $2,000 on a website for the kid next door that's gonna build this for me."

Russel

Yeah. Nice. Dare I say too, you can say if this has been your experience or not, but I think that's where we're having to move in the agency space for folks is being more thought leaders, albeit even a book could be a great way to get some of that credibility and expertise. And sometimes it's not even about someone writing it, that it's just that you have it and it says, "Here's my claim on something important," and that has a lot of credibility and expertise in itself.

Tom

I know. That's so funny. Doesn't matter if they read it. Like-

Russel

I mean, it sounds, it sounds bad, but

Tom

it's so bad, and it's 100% true.

Russel

Yeah. Yeah.

Tom

Like, that couldn't be more true.

Russel

And not to say, still write a good book or do the best you can because someone might read it, and you... And certainly your, your thought and your brand out there. But just know that too, that there is a lot of value there. And I've heard similar stories, right? It's, I think especially, this is more for the folks at home too, and you can weigh in where it's also been helpful, is it allows you to get speaking at conferences and have that point of view. And, yeah, it just adds a lot of credibility and opportunities to be in front of your, your ideal customer.

Tom

Exactly. Well said.

AI Strategy And New Services

Russel

I guess get us more into current time, like what's, what's the game plan of the day? What are you focused on? Where are you trying to take EZ Marketing?

Tom

Yeah. The, the game plan of the day is AI, right? And really leveraging how we use AI. But really, I think the next level is how we sell AI. So we've obviously been using AI for a long time, and we've been using independent tools, but now we have, we have a new tool that aggregates about seventy of the LLMs together so that we can create buyer personas, and we call them agents, within the model. I've created that... the profile of the client, who they are, how they talk, who their customer is, what they do, so that when I then go and write content for them, I know everything about that client, so it's speeding up my content creation. And if I can speed up my content creation, it means I can write more content for the same price that I'm currently charging them, so that I can add more content within, our social media plans or within our SEO plans, right? To give the client more value. And then the next level is how do you-- it's not really ranking, but how do you rank in ChatGPT Right? And like it's the number one question. I get leads every single day, somebody who did a search on some kind of AI model and found me somehow, right? So it's not just we provide SEO services, but now we're providing the generative engine services or AI search services. So now, AI has added a whole new service delivery to the team. Yeah. Right? And, uh, you know, I think we hear all the time, "Oh, AI's gonna take my job." And to me, it's kind of a comical conversation, and our team worries about this stuff. They literally worry about it, and AI isn't taking anybody's job. AI is this amazing tool that's gonna help you essentially have your own personal assistant, right, um, that we couldn't possibly hire for you. So it's allowing us to use our higher level thinking so that AI can do all the stuff that we didn't wanna do in the first place. Uh, so that's gonna be that next level I think as to the direction that, that the business is gonna go.

Future Of Software And Risks

Russel

Now, just got back from a conference and they were talking about this idea that, you know, in the future we'll all just be software companies. And it, it's an interesting thought. I don't know that I'd necessarily sing that from the rooftops per se, but, it does lend to that, idea of, yeah, we're just gonna have technology bolted a lot more onto the quality and value we're delivering.

Tom

I think it's gonna go a step further, and we're gonna be the creators of all kinds of software for ourselves, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. So if... I think a lot of software platforms that exist today won't exist because you're gonna be able to make that platform. Yeah. So in other words, why buy HubSpot when you can just use, uh, QuadCode and build your own? Yep. I, I think that's a lot of what we're gonna see, uh, over time. I mean, we're not g- it's not a next year thing, right?

Russel

No.

Tom

Um, but I kinda, you know, you said, hey, you know, at the beginning of the internet. In 1996, I saw that website and said, "Oh my gosh. What's that gonna be- Mm-hmm in the future?" And it took longer to get there than honestly I thought it was gonna get to. But we're sitting here at the beginning of the AI, and I'm looking at it going, "Oh my gosh, look how, look at all the amazing things we're gonna do." And are there gonna be horrible things that AI does? Oh my gosh, yeah. There were horrible things the internet did, right?

Russel

Yeah.

Tom

Yeah. There's gonna be horrible things. And, uh- Yeah horrible people create horrible things and, um, that is a true statement regardless of what we're talking about, right? So.

Russel

Well, all tools can be used for good or evil, and that's- from down, down to a hammer all the way up to, uh,

Tom

AI. Yeah.

Russel

Um-

Tom

It's gonna be interesting. It

Russel

interesting is, is the probably the best way to describe it. But even kind of running along that same thought is something you shared, it was also another thought at this conference, was the idea that, look, AI is gonna certainly change jobs, they use this example of how, I guess, ATMs back in the, mid-'80s or some time frame there of we're gonna revolutionize banking, right? Probably kill the need for, uh, to actually have s- banking centers and brick and mortar banks or whatever. And right, we know this for nowadays that obviously didn't happen, but ATMs came online and enhanced banking overall as an industry and a business, and then all the sub-businesses that came from it as far as installation software just the monitoring and upkeep and all that has just created an entire brand new ecosystem that couldn't even been envisioned when it first came online and it seems like that's- Yeah a good analogy for AI.

Tom

Yeah. Well, online banking is, has, I think has had more of an impact than, uh, than the ATM machines, right?

Russel

That's fair.

Tom

Because, I mean, I just deposited a check today off my cell phone. I don't have to go to the bank.

Russel

That is

Tom

true. So, so less banks- I don't go to the bank anymore less tellers in the bank, right? I only go there when I'm forced to. And-

Russel

that, that could be too, yeah. Yeah. What a world. But we'll see where that goes as well. I mean, that's obviously the technology and focus and shifts.

Agency Growth And Acquisitions

Russel

You think you got another 30 years left in easy marketing and...?

Tom

I personally don't have 30 years. That's gonna make me pretty old. But, uh, I think the digital marketing industry as a whole has a, has a huge future okay You know, so I, I feel good about, I feel good about our agency. Uh, you know, we're always open, open to acquiring some smaller agencies, you know. If they're like a few, entrepreneur, maybe five or six employees, you know, those are great opportunities. You know, not everybody wants to be a business owner all the time. It's, uh, it's hard. It's just, it's hard to be a business owner. Yeah.

Russel

A-amen to that. And, and I've learned, and I think I knew and felt this when I was in an agency, but, I think I understand it maybe just more now of that an agency is, is a hard business on top of just being a business owner that... and if nothing else, that it kinda comes down to this idea of you've just got so many people involved, from the client to the client's client, to yourself and the team, that, getting everyone rowing in the same direction is, is quite a challenge.

Grace Through Failure

Tom

I was reading a newsletter this morning from a, another marketing professional and, and she said that, you know, one of the, one of the most important qualities of, of an entrepreneur is to forgive yourself for the mistakes that you make, right? Like you're, you're moving really fast, and I view it like if you're not making mistakes, you're just not trying very hard, right? Like, put lots of effort in and don't be afraid to fail, because it's through our failure that, that we figure out the direction that we wanna go. Um, and that's how we grow and get better, and that's how our team grows and gets better. And the more you have that kinda lifetime learner, mindset, and just not be afraid to go for it, right?

Russel

Yeah.

Tom

There's a- Like there were tons of AI abysmal failures that we did at the beginning. Like, like whoo, we wasted a lot of money. People were frustrated, people were mad, nothing ever comes out perfect or right the first time, you know? Every master was a disaster at some point in time, right? Like, you just don't start out perfect ever or really ever get to perfect. So just, be kind to yourself in the journey.

Russel

Be kind to yourself. I think that's a great, great mindset. And yeah, I, I'm standing on a mountain of failure. But I, I always tell folks, I don't know there's anyone that failed worse than me, especially in the early days of our business. But, yeah, a little grace is always goes a long way. Well, fascinating

Born Or Made?

Russel

conversation. Now I'm curious to hear your answer to the next question as we start to wrap up: are entrepreneurs born or are they made?

Tom

They're both. They're both. I, I think when we think of things as either/or instead of and, right? I think some people have more of that, entrepreneur spirit or we're just kinda wired to, like, try stuff and not care what somebody else thinks, because that is a lot of entrepreneurship, right? It's like, "Oh, I'll try it," right? So I think there's some of that, but in the same term, then it's, well, how do you take that idea or that dream and really turn it into something? And I think that's where the made part comes in more Right? I, I think you can teach it. I think you can teach people how to be less fearful of trying and of failure, and I think that's a piece of it. I, I think over time you can teach people kind of your risk tolerance, right? I have, I have a very high tolerance for failure, which makes me have a really good to- Like, I can tolerate risk day after day because I don't really notice it. And, one of my managers at one point said, "Tom," He goes, "I don't know another human being that somebody can verbally punch you in the face and you just, like, don't even flinch." I was like, "Well, you know, they get to have their opinion." Like, I don't know. Because everybody's gonna tell you that you can't do something because they don't wanna see you fail, or they're afraid of it. And I think it's, you know, it's in those moments that I think that's where entrepreneurs really shine, and the more we can teach young people to be creative and to come up with stuff, and that it's, it's okay to pursue something that seems, like, crazy, right?

Russel

Awesome. Love that. Be a little fearless. It's... It is required ultimately. A great reminder there.

Where To Find Tom

Russel

Well, if people wanna know more about EZ Marketing, where can they go?

Tom

Yeah, go to ezmarketing.com. It's the letter E, the letter Z, marketing. Um, or they can go to tomalesek.com, and that kind of has a lot of my thought leadership things, the EOS, the IT, marketing, kind of get to all of it, uh, from there as well.

Russel

Perfect. Well, those links will all be on the post when this goes live at anagencystory.com/podcast and, and, as well as a recap of our conversation here today. Speaking of which, so many wonderful nuggets. I can't recap them all, but the importance of energy in the business, setting yourself up to your business to be told no, the power of giving yourself grace, and the value of putting out thought leadership, albeit in the form of a book. Really appreciate you taking the time to share all that with us today, Tom.

Tom

Yeah, happy to. Yeah. Well- Thank you so much for, uh, letting me be on your podcast.

Russel

Thank you for listening to An Agency Story podcast, where every story helps you write your own. Subscribe, share and join us again for more real stories, lessons learned, and breakthroughs ahead. What's next? You'll want to visit anagencystory.com/podcast and follow us on Instagram @anagencystory for the latest updates.

A Signal to Be Nice

Tom

So when we first started to implement EOS, one of the things is the right people sitting in the right seat. And I had the wrong guy sitting in the wrong seat and he was on my leadership team. And it turns out that I would get so frustrated with him and I wasn't as thoughtful maybe in my words as I should have been. And one of my other team leaders said, you know, Tom, like you're really verbally beating the crap out of this guy. And I was like, what are you talking about? Like I had no frame of reference whatsoever. And he, and, and I really didn't want to, like, I wanted this guy to succeed. Like I was really committed to like, like, come on, you can do it. And, and I said, well, we're going to need a code. Like, I don't have awareness of when I'm doing it. Like, you need to give me some kind of code for when I'm, when you think I'm beating up on this guy. And he goes, here's what I'm going to do. So we're older guys. We all wear reading glasses at some point. Right. So, so what he would do is he would, in the meeting, he would take his reading glasses off and he put them on the table and then he'd slide them across the table, like move them, like, like deliberately moving them. So that was, that was his code to me that says, you got to like, calm down, like be nicer. So I'll put that as my weird embarrassing moment of, you know, just having somebody help you with self-awareness. Right. Because it's so hard. I think it's one of the hardest things when it's emotional intelligence is what writes Brandon under. And it's, it's hard to have that because in the moment, we always think you're right. Right. Like no one says stuff and goes, oh, I'm going to blatantly be wrong or I'm terrible. Like we just don't do that. Well, I don't know. Most people don't do that. And I just didn't know.