879: Redefine Management of Digital Services with Don Moore

Speaker 1 0:00 marketer of the Day episode 879 redefining management of digital services with Don Moore.

Robert Plank 0:11 Hey, and welcome back to the podcast, we're here with Don Moore from high risk theory.com. Don is the president and CEO of Hybrid Theory in North America, he's responsible for the overall strategy, operations and business direction of the company in the region. And we are going to be talking today about how to oversee different personalities and workstyles. To drive campaigns, we're going to be talking about Jon's experience as the CEO of a large organization and about CMOs and metrics and marketing wherever we go. So Don, glad to be talking to you.

Unknown Speaker 0:47 Nice to be talking to you, too. Thank you for having me.

Robert Plank 0:49 super glad to have you. And so you know, I am here to amplify you to get the word out about your message. So what the heck should we be paying attention to? What's what's the problem? And what should we be knowing you for?

Speaker 1 1:05 Well, I, as you mentioned, I am a marketing and sales person. I've been in the industry a long time, probably don't want to say how long. But here in Hybrid Theory, which is my current stop, I oversee all the operations for our North American operations. And what that means is, it's really about digital media marketing is what I is what we do, we are one of those places, people that plays for our clients and agencies, exceptional digital marketing pieces that you see and sometimes probably annoy you, as you surf through the internet day to day.

Robert Plank 1:42 Okay. And so digital marketing means a lot of things. But what is your focus? What has you most excited when it comes to digital marketing?

Speaker 3 1:51 Probably the way we well, I guess, these days,

Speaker 1 1:57 it's the balance between respecting the privacy of the consumers that we try to reach on behalf of our clients and, and finding new and in a way innovative ways to bring that relevant content to them. So we do a little bit of both. I mean, and it seems like every month, there's new technology and new ways to do it with discipline and respect for the for the clients that we serve, and also for the consumers that we reach. So it's a it's a fast moving industry. It really is. And every week, it's a little something different.

Robert Plank 2:27 Yeah. So can you give us a fun story of one of these crazy different weeks and just to give us a an idea of maybe what your week is like or what your companies focus on, or just to kind of like, give us a little bit of a quick story.

Speaker 1 2:42 I don't know if I have a story at the top of my head. But I know that every Sunday night, I try to plot out my week. And it seems that every Friday night, when I look back on what I was going to do, I've accomplished some things. But I said, I set out the week to start with. But we've had we do have a couple of clients in recent weeks, and I can't really name them by name. But I kid you not in they have come up with no less than 10 changes to the marketing plans. I don't mean just creative, I'm talking about entire approaches and platforms, they want to do television, they want to do CTV they want to do or they want to do CTV, they want to do video, they want to create a web series, they want to get all in one in the last 30 days. So this is really a nonstop you know, kind of change. But we've got a great team here. I'm really honored to be a part of them. And they take these things in stride a lot better than I do. Sometimes. So yeah.

Robert Plank 3:41 And so what what has your evolution been like? Because you say that now you're you're here and you have this team, and you plan out your day, but sometimes you just all these, these fires that get in the way. And it seemed like there was a little bit of subjects in there as far as like being patient with your client and going with the embracing the chaos basically. So I mean, what what sort of like in personal improvements, have you picked up in those last couple of decades? Like what were you like, you know, all those years ago? And what kind of like mistakes have you learned from?

Speaker 1 4:19 You know, it's, it's, I get asked that question a lot. And I think it's really about balance. And what I mean by that is, you know, when you do start out on your career, everything takes on that importance of of almost epic magnitude about even the smallest things you do, especially if you want to do a great job. And that's what it was for me. So everything was very emotionally invested. At one point I was emotionally invested in everything we do. But as time goes on, you see things repeat themselves, the patterns repeat themselves. Same things, not the same mistakes, because you learn from it. But you see people that would act, the way you say that you used to, that would be the same way you used to. And then you're come to kids, and here come the marriage and life insurance and you realize to put these things in their place. So my job now is, at this point in my careers to really be a mentor and a teacher about work life balance. And to recognize that there will always be clients that change your mind 30 times in a week, and there will always be that mistake that happens at the last minute, or somebody some of the most conscientious person that is a part of the team will always end up one day making some kind of error where we're looking something, it happens. And it's not the end of the world, you have to keep that in balance. And remember the things that are really important to usually waiting for you after five o'clock, or six o'clock, or seven or eight o'clock, depending on when you decide to call. So just keep it in perspective. And kind of cherish your time off. And I tell everybody, I try to end every meeting with, you know, statement, your vacation, take it, I want to make sure that they always always realize that it's important to spend time away and go off the grid and recharge. So I think I tried to bring that perspective a little bit more differently than, than the bosses I had when I was in my 20s.

Robert Plank 6:30 And I like that a lot. I like that, that you know, you get the perspective over time you understand those patterns? You know, it's you're not always coming across a brand new situation, you're like, Well, I've seen this before, I've seen this personality type before I've seen this problem before. And in the big picture. It's not so bad. So I like your your work life balance term, especially because I don't know if you've come across but it sometimes like it gets kind of misused, right? This work life balance kind of seems like an excuse to kind of do it do things halfway at work and then do things halfway at home. And so it's I'm always interested in how to be like, fully there, right, like fully focused and fully energized, and sometimes in adulting, doing the things that you don't really feel like doing and then doing them anyway. And then when you're partway through it, you're like, I don't even know why was stressing so much. So do you deal with any of that? Do you deal with saying like, Oh, I have this full calendar, or I have this this family activities. And I'd rather just, you know, sit at home on the couch. And there needs to be a way to kind of energize and focus yourself. So what kind of secrets or insights about that, can you share with us,

Speaker 1 7:42 you know, that you always, after a full week, it always seems tempting to get that nap. And the Tayar are doing Netflix surf, you know, at the end of the day, but those things will always be there. And my daughter just graduated from college in about three weeks ago. And you know, I'll never get her to zero to 21 years back and now she's come strike out our own and be in the same place I was many years ago. So you know, when you you can always find a way to rest and relax, but real life and real events you need to take advantage of when they're here. Yeah, that kid's sixth birthday party boy, just I don't know, I would rather be anywhere on the planet. Well, you may think that but when your daughter grades for graduates from college, you'll look back and say I wish I was at that six year old birthday party again. You know, it goes really fast. I'm not not that I mentioned or anything I want to come across that way or some wise Yoda type sage. But, you know, just keep pushing, you can always take a moment to sit out. It'll be there. It'll be there. That's for work. You know, there are a lot of distractions more so than there used to be at work. You should try to take advantage of every minute that you can to focus on those things are important. So there's less to do over on Saturday or Sunday, there will be weekends that you have to do things. Just accept that as normative one weekend, a month, two weekends a month, I have gone months without taking a day off. But that can happen. Just don't make it the habit of your lifetime. So that's, that's all I say. But that the you know, the it's funny about the work life balances. I about a year ago, I went into a storage facility and opened up a box and there were hundreds of photos in there. And I had them all digitized. And when you look back on that, that stuff, that's the real stuff that support digitize of my kids when they were younger. So that's the kind of stuff that's really, really important. And it'll make by the way, that kind of stuff will make it be better at work. Believe it or not, you'll see it's hard to explain it's not in a textbook. When you feel good about the weekend, you spent at a six year old birthday party, believe me, you'll you'll laugh and joke your co workers or roll their eyes, I've been there, I've done that, but you'll do better at work, I promise you. So, feel better.

Robert Plank 10:18 I like that a lot. And I can understand I can get why that could give you the reason why. Or you can feel like you kind of left left it all out on the field, so to speak. Like he gave me a role in the personal life and there's not nothing there and left hanging, and my sons to right now. And I hear so much of like, you know, the these parents such as yourself whose kids are in their 20s 30s and older and they just say like, man, the the amount of money I would give for like one hour back in that period of time. And so I just I tried to soak it all up, since since that's my present right now.

Speaker 1 10:49 Yeah, I don't know about a two year old stage. So I probably wouldn't want to go back back to the two year old stage. But when they're your robot, when I used to have my daughter used to be my road, dog United scrap him in the car, I go play golf at six in the morning, be back at noon, then strap him in the car and they run errands with me on a Saturday afternoon, those times I take back because that was hysterical. They were fun. Two years old. That's a tough a. That's a fun age. That's a fun age. It's interesting. They get interesting. In that point, they're turning into little people. And it's really fun. I'm sure you laugh all the time.

Robert Plank 11:23 So Oh, yeah, every day, and so does he and with the with the parenting, and with the working from home. And with the pandemic, I'm definitely experiencing the lack of weekends or reduced weekends. And then sometimes just jumping in for 15 minutes just to make like a little bit of progress or to just see where things are at or just chip away. So that way, it's not this huge overwhelming thing later on life you're talking about. And it reminds me of like when I was an immature kid, when I was a teenager, when I was in high school, I would leave assignments until the very last minute, and it was just like, so stressful. And looking back on it. Now I'm thinking like, what, why did why did I put myself through that. But why did like every every kid in America do that. Right? every teenager, every high schooler just waits till the very last second. And it's like, you know, if you just put in 15 minutes, every day, until that assignments due, then the day before, you might only have to put in like 10 minutes. So I like that, that mindset. And I've been embracing that more than anything else these days. But like the limited time just jumping in for just a quick 15 minutes just to chip away at something.

Speaker 1 12:27 And, and what will happen is when you do and I do that too. And that you have to be able to keep that running tally of where everything is in your head. So you don't forget something. But just remember, you think you can put together that presentation at four hours. You know, I always multiply that by six or seven. Because if you just to give myself enough time to think and pontificate over it change this and that, because it takes twice as long three times as long as you think if I take you know, so don't rush it. You're gonna start on it two weeks early, what doesn't hurt to do a slide and then go back and change it you got time. You'll still be working that lasts. You'll still be crunching that last four or five hours. But that's when you know, you put enough work in there. It's tight. It's really tight. You know, and it's better than you would have done if he had rushed it. Yeah, I agree with you.

Robert Plank 13:17 We Yeah, you're you're being like optimistically pessimistic or maybe pessimistically optimistic one of the to yourself, I guess it works either way, right? When you say like, I know, it will take longer than I expect. So I'm kind of hedging my bets ahead of time and doing you know, doing what I should do before it's at the very end of the clock. And so there's a lot of kind of things we've been talking about so far. But what's kind of your, your big idea or like what's like your your big picture, because if you're Mr. CEO, you gotta be like taking on big jobs, big tasks, thinking about big things. So is there any, like just something huge, massive and epic that's been on your mind lately.

Speaker 1 13:59 growing the business here in the States, and in Canada, it's been on my mind and just I try to offer at this role, I come up with ideas and partnerships and, and potential clients and you know, holding fast to the, to the real strategic platform or where we're headed and let the team do the work. We built a nice team there. And you have to trust them to move things forward. I give them every thing that I can give them in terms of support, so that they can move forward and I come up with ideas. Some of them good, some bad, some of them they're way too polite to tell me. Oh, that's interesting, which really means that I did socks and we're not doing it. So they know better than I did. And but, you know, we're trying to really increase the size of this business and a service that we give to our clients. And that's what really has been on my mind, you know, every day every, you know, I can do what with a golf club in my hand, or I can do it when I'm starting a dishwasher, but I'm always, you know, or at least for the most part, thinking about it. So what specific ideas now that I can't tell you? And I'm okay. But it is and how we go about it with the support of our team over in the UK? Is is something that occupies my mind?

Robert Plank 15:29 Yeah, good. It's good to have a top secret project so that that way it feels exclusive and unique to you.

Speaker 1 15:36 Or projects with? Yeah, yeah. Cuz, like, like I say, guarantee you a couple of them are just gonna be really bad ideas or fail miserably. You just need to get one or two across the finish line that make a difference. You're gonna figure,

Robert Plank 15:51 yeah, you can have 510 20 failed, if you have that one that that succeeds. That's all you need.

Speaker 1 15:57 And that's exactly what it's just like starting a project early. You, the more chance you have, and the more opportunities, you have to tinker around with stuff, the better, you know, you'll eventually find the one that works. And that's what we try to do now.

Robert Plank 16:12 Yeah, and because the wife, for some reason, the wife, I mean, last night, we were kind of getting on this topic of like these, these different brands, and we saw a photo of a 711. And there was a sign out front, and like the logo of 711, she notice hasn't changed in decades. And then it got us on this whole tangent I'm talking about, you know, like, like Taco Bell messes with their menu item, and McDonald's comes out with the MC rib. And there's just like all these just kind of like experiments that you see businesses doing with the food in the fast food. It's funny, because like, you see those all the time. And it's kind of it's more exciting than like a clothing brand. But like you see all the all these, you know, Burger King, or, or so someone is always innovating and just trying out these little experiments. And it kind of gets them some buzz get some some attention. And usually it's a complete and total failure, and they pull it off the menu. But in the meantime, they're holding out for that, that one thing that really succeeds. And even if it kind of fizzles out if it's kind of a dud, it's still bringing in the customers, it's still marketing for them, even though it's kind of a failure in a way. Yeah,

Speaker 1 17:17 very true. I mean, is there's no, there was when I started out my career at Johnson and Johnson there, they have chairman at that point, who instilled in you a lack of fear of failure. He said, If you're not trying new ideas, we're never going to grow. So I learned that early on that you don't always have to succeed and you can fail, you know, over and over again, just keep your eye on how expensive those failures are. But I mean, you know, there are plenty of precursors to success that were born of failure, and some things that are that have their time. You know, there were there were dozens of applicants to the throne of the iPad before there was the iPad. And you know, there was Betamax before there was VHS. So there's plenty of applicants for the title. And now there's no VHS, so you should try. If you don't try you're not doing the job. He should be. He should flog a daylight for not doing job. Yeah, very true.

Robert Plank 18:23 And you always hear about things like like 8020 or like a loss leader. And as long as you have, you know, the your main stays that are making you money. And then you have all these little experiments on their periphery that maybe those are failing over and over, like you said, as long as it's not too costly, totally okay.

Speaker 1 18:42 Everything has a lifecycle. And it doesn't matter. You know, you may feel in your heart that Google will be around forever, but it won't. And you may feel like at one point Ford felt invincible. So the General Motors and they obviously became not invincible. Sears felt invincible. I know I'm from Chicago, they were invincible. Tom was building one of the tallest buildings in Chicago was named after the companies no longer named after that company. They were invincible. Everything has a lifecycle everything eventually will decline. Apple too, although right now they're on a roll. Netflix, oh my gosh, the unstoppable juggernaut suddenly has a hiccup and their stock just plummets. Well, it's normal. Is it permanent? Well, we'll see. But in digital life cycles are shorter, you know, by the way than they have been. So yes, why you're planning why you believe there are the mainstays of your portfolio and products that has a lifecycle. You must always prepare for the inevitability of the client because they will eventually fall and they must just natural offense.

Robert Plank 20:01 And you're reminding me of a few years ago, I found some web pages that they looked at all these websites from 20 years ago. And they showed like New York Times front page, Amazon, and they look like the most like piece of garbage websites. But it just goes to show like how much things have changed and how these life cycles have happened. But you don't realize it because you're going through the gradual day to day and you don't realize like, oh, man, I stopped using AltaVista or excite how many years ago, just but you didn't notice. Because there was that one day when you didn't log into my space anymore. You didn't fire up Napster anymore. But then you look back at the years, and it's just, it's so drastic. And so as we're beginning to wind down our conversation here, Don, I want to make sure we fit in here a little bit of room for like a little bit of a failure story, because we've talked about some other stories and talked about failures, but like solving the problems or maybe even like the the difficulties you've been having growing this company, like what comes to mind as far as just the the obstacles, the struggles you've been coming up against lately,

Speaker 1 21:03 lately. I don't think any of us ever managed to cope, there has not been a COVID. So coming out the other side, I mean, suddenly, you know, we have offices that today are basically empty today. And no. There's only a few few people here this, this is this is the obstacle that I'm having you hear about the great designation, you hear about the hot job market at the same time, it's the great resignation in terms of work. This is the struggle, I'm having talent, where are they? Are they you know, can we afford? We need great people to grow. We need great people to see tomorrow to offer those ideas that succeed and fail. And COVID Has it changed the rules? It seems more surreal how we all behave just two years ago, your your your son? I believe the sun is what you said it was? was probably born inside a comment. You know what I mean, during that time out? Wow, that's a mind blower right there.

Robert Plank 22:12 I was worried I wouldn't be able to see him born. I was worried they wouldn't let me in the hospital. A fair

Speaker 1 22:17 and that's a fair concern. And, you know, so now, that is the you couple that with a global insecurity over the economy. And we don't know what tomorrow but I've managed through recessions, I've managed to inflation's I've managed through, you know, stagflation made up terms like well, they were really made up terms, but they were real terms. But I've never married mare managed through post COVID. Inflation, recession, I have no idea what it's going to look like in terms of what our clients need our clients need and what they want. So and also the the reevaluation of the needs of talent these days, and what people really want from their job isn't enough, because too much, you know, I mean, is working from home permanent I saw today and Elon Musk has said if you don't come in the office for five days a week, I'll assume you don't want to be here something to that effect. So I mean, I don't know how well that's gonna. For him. It's maybe a different animal. But I mean, how did we manage? That's my biggest, biggest hurt, you know, it's getting back to whatever that sense of normal is post COVID? And how long will it be here? Now?

Robert Plank 23:37 So you're saying there's a lot of uncertainty, and you've dealt with these periods of uncertainty, but but nothing quite as, as unknown and new is this

Speaker 1 23:47 economic uncertainty? Sure. I'm married. I maddest. I've said that twice. I've managed through eras of great boom, like beginning of the.com era where you thought you were a genius, because there was so much money being thrown around. And so without discipline, you thought, wow, look at my business grow, and you were doing nothing to deserve this. It just happened. There was all this money because everybody was trying to find, you know, the next big.com You know, pets.com throwing around money left and right back in those days, but never anything coming on the kind of sea change in in expectation and satisfaction, evaluation and needs of, of talent and the economy post COVID. We are much more mobile economy. You know, brick and mortar is under assault, everything has changed. It accelerated every trend by say at least five to seven years. It's now normative to see delivery on the streets, not just in New York. But in middle America. It's normative to see that it is normative for most people to get the goods and services delivered by Fill in the blank, usually some usually filled in with Amazon. But it's normative not the exception not 30% of the cases is not how do we respond to that kind of uncertainty and permanence in our business, you know, at what mobility for physicians is normative. Now, getting counsel from physicians over the over your computer normative, I'm thinking a few years ago, everybody wants to go to see then want to go see the doctor, but they will. Because they have to. So that's its challenge. It's fun. It's interesting, it changes every day.

Robert Plank 25:37 So what I like your attitude and you say, how do we respond to this? And it's not an easy answer is it's it's a different response based on each case by case

Speaker 1 25:48 Yeah, think about this. There's no textbook for this is there there's a textbook for managing X business or X type of business through recession, inflation, permutations of both there is no textbook written on how to handle even existing employees post COVID. Some are suffering through their own personal rebuilding inside their head. Oppose COVID Still, and but there are few tech me their articles here and there, but those are young articles are not the ones that you go to lists as the as the definitive tax on excellent advice, all that's being rewritten right

Robert Plank 26:27 now. Well, since there's no textbook, I can tell that you're a thinker, you're someone that kind of sits and like most things over in revisits and I think that thinking is really underrated skill, because you can't really put a can't really put an exact, you know, method on it, right, just like sitting in and solving the problems. And this was even an issue that was only brought to my attention, like a year or two ago when I said, Well, am I you know, implementing this right? And do I my strategy and using this right? And the person said, No, you you just need to think about what it is that you're doing more and even like, you were saying how there's these cycles, and you know, if real estate blows up, just because someone happened to be lucky or cryptocurrency blows up, that person thinks they're so smart. It's like, well, no, you were just gambling. You weren't, you weren't thinking about it. So just from our conversation, and like kind of getting into your thought process. The lesson I'm getting is how important it is to just sit there and think about well about the future, about my people about their problems about my responses about where I'm at just thinking is a thing that we all need to be doing more of?

Speaker 1 27:32 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Great. 100%.

Robert Plank 27:36 Well, cool. Well, we've been having a nice conversation here. And I want to make sure that we plug Hybrid Theory and tell people were really quick, and these last few minutes about what you're all about. So Hybrid Theory, it's not for everyone, but who is it for and what's the sales pitch,

Speaker 1 27:49 we, we we build custom audiences based on proprietary intelligence, what that means is, if you if your business either client or an agency, we build custom audiences that better address your needs and how to reach these companies, you're in consumer places you may never have been before incremental business you may never have seen. And we're the ones that have it and probably do it better than anybody else in the industry. But in addition to that, we do run, we can run and have put together hundreds of 1000s of digital marketing campaigns, not just for the sports of the world, and McDonald's, as he mentioned that the world but we we specialize in helping those small to medium sized businesses that don't have access to the big, big, big box, the hundreds of millions or 10s of billions of dollars to throw in the media were were the ones that really helped them. And that's really the part that is really America, you know, it's not necessarily, you know, run by the mega corporations. This is the business on the corner that has half a million or, or 200 or 100,000 for their own marketing budget, perhaps even less, and we're there to help with technologies that you normally can't find, reserved for those really huge clients. And that's where we found our niche. And we're glad to serve that.

Robert Plank 29:10 So how can someone reach out to you and your agency and make contact?

Speaker 1 29:15 Hybrid theory.com is a good way to start. You can even if you if you have a story you want to share on there, maybe what you need. We have a sell to sales team that can be contacted on that website, at any time or hypothermia. New York is another way to do it. But we're always here we try to answer just about everyone as you might imagine, we get many a day looking and it very much depends. We always try to ask the question as opposed to take in money can we really help you? You know, and that's the thing that we we try to do. Sometimes it's just not enough scale or size of the campaign and we can steer you in directions. Sometimes other parts of our business or sometimes even competitors that do better, but we, you know, we're not picky. I mean, it's not saying we're overly picky. We only accept this and this this, that's not what I'm trying to say is that we want to make sure that you succeed. And if we're not the best choice or that we'll let you know

Robert Plank 30:18 what fabulous. So it sounds like the time is now for if someone is watching or listening, and they are that right size of business, and they want to have your team help build those custom audiences, if they're tired of the way things have been going, if they need to do better moving forward in the future with all these uncertainties and all these things going on, then the place to go right now is hybrid theory.com and contact Don and his company, get that conversation started. See if you're right fit, see if they can solve those problems, the ones that you know about and the ones that you don't know about hybrid theory.com. And any final parting words of advice here, Don as we wrap up our conversation? No,

Speaker 1 30:57 I wish I did have some pearls of wisdom to drop on you. It'd be a great time for it. But I do want to thank you for taking the time and having me on the show. I really appreciate it

Robert Plank 31:07 and appreciate you too. Doing the big picture stuff, right having the important conversations.

Speaker 1 31:12 Ah, yes, yes, absolutely. You have a great day. You as

Robert Plank 31:16 well and those podcast listeners out there you have a great day over at hybrid theory.com We will see you there. This is Robert plank from the marketer of the day podcast which you can find that marketer of the day.com for more episodes and d f y podcast.com Ford slash free if you want to know more about running your own podcast or running a better or more fun or easier or less time intensive podcast. Go to d f y podcast.com/free. To find out more right this instant