Jeremy Weisz 16:02
And you’re a software I mean, you come from coding and development, too. So you’ve seen the kind of evolution that was in the form of in your five-year plan? What was in there?
Devon MacDonald 16:15
It means in that realm, in that category, the activating data, for sure. I think for a lot of brands, the data that they have is one of the most valuable resources, and building tools and platforms that connect data stronger together, and lets you do more modeling make things more automated, is a real pain point for a lot of agencies and a lot of clients who have too much information. And so a big part of the plan is activating and creating data platforms to improve decision making improve speed through automation. But I don’t think if I look back that artificial intelligence would have been in the five year or 90 day.
Jeremy Weisz 17:08
Yeah, I mean, connecting data automation, activating data platforms. Now, you could just do that using quicker, easier, probably with AI. Imagine, we’ll go back to the 90 day, but on the AI topic, what are you doing with AI, I know you’re doing some innovative things in that realm.
Devon MacDonald 17:27
For sure. So it’s such an exciting space, I don’t think humanity is over. I don’t think that creativity is dead either. I think it’s an amazing additive tool for every marketer to put in their toolkit. And so back in the winter, or just 10 months ago, nine months ago, the generative AI tools, a large language models were being available in the public, fascinating times fascinating to see a world of possibilities that maybe can continue to develop. And we find there an opportunity. And that if we’re able to teach a language model about a brand, it can tell a story or give information about a brand. And my simple data processing mind that is an output and AI-based programmatic or dynamically created or dynamic optimization, creative, dynamic, creative optimization, what a jumble requires an input. Then, so those two simple things that I talked to the team about to say we have these tools available, we have lots of willing ambitious clients. Let’s connect those two pieces together, and really build a first-of-its-kind tool that can take ad copy from a language model, put it into an ad server, and optimize it for effectiveness. I believe we’re the first to do it. I have not heard someone else do this. I’ve been waiting to see what else someone can do. But in the meantime, we’ve developed a product roadmap for 2024. We have an exciting launch coming up soon about that. And it’s such an exciting space where there’s so much possibility for brands and for an agency like ours as well.
Jeremy Weisz 19:34
Devon let’s talk about that for a second. You know, you are very technical. Okay. In general, you have skills. It sounds like you just empower the team do this and you kind of step back a little bit. Correct me if I’m wrong, but what did you, just for people listening. Obviously, everyone would be like, hey, here’s the issue, go solve it. Talk about how You guide the team, you empower the team and guide them to come up with a solution to what you’re looking for.
Devon MacDonald 20:09
Sure. So I have a technical background for sure. I don’t know if I’d be able to use a coding interface today. I think they’re well beyond me now. But I do have a basic understanding of how the systems work and how the machines connect. And I generally know that you can connect any two things together. So I don’t trust people when they say they can’t. Second, if I understood the opportunity for us, and what it would mean for our client, to be able to produce this, produce and optimize this volume client. What I didn’t know was the middle piece. And so talking to the team, and really saying to them, we have the tools, we have the technology, we have the vision, we have the clients, we have the budget, we have no other barriers, take the time, invest the time, this is the number one thing for us to focus on. You get to build something from scratch, for yourself, for the company. Let’s do it. And really the speech was, why not you, why couldn’t you create this? Why could we create them for our clients? Why not? And that helped them I hope, I think, and I encourage them and push them as much as I can and giving them the platform and time to do it today?
Jeremy Weisz 21:38
I’m curious to know, and maybe you’re not in the weeds enough to know this. But I’m curious, what software tools did you look at or did you end up using in this space.
Devon MacDonald 21:51
So I know two of them. And then the middleware stuff, I have no idea. So it was a ChatGPT model that we use. And we isolated a version of that model to teach it about a couple of our clients. And then we have an ad server partner called Ad Form, who’ve been fantastic, and has great engineering resources. And so the ad server is essential for the input, and delivering out to the outside world. And what our teams are able to do was to figure out how to codify the API, from ChatGPT into ad form, and to one open technology and one proprietary technology. So that took some work, what the work was and what the weeds were, you’re right, Jeremy, I don’t know. But I knew it would be possible.
Jeremy Weisz 22:49
It’s like when I go in and flip a light switch on I don’t know what necessarily all the physics behind it. But I do know the light turns on so.
Devon MacDonald 22:57
Sure which AC which DC, the lights go.
Jeremy Weisz 23:02
So I can see it’s interested in your five-year plan. And I think I love hearing how you think we’re just connecting data automation, activating data platforms, to help companies get to the next level, not just yours, but others. What was in the 90-day plan, like someone’s like, hey, I just need a rock solid. How did you do the research on that? Because you weren’t on board yet at that point? How’d you do the research to come up with that, and what was in the 90-day plan?
Devon MacDonald 23:32
I’m scanning back to my brain, about what was in there exactly would have been about two and a half years ago when I wrote that. But I know I would have started from a place of learning. And talking to the clients and talking to the people. My job in the 90 days was for them to get to know me, and me to get to know them. To make sure I met with every employee and every client just to say hello, I’m an unknown entity coming into their business coming into their lives. And change in being part of change in a company where for 10 years, David and Sherry were leading the company, here comes the new guy. So it’s getting them, them getting to know me, reassuring them that I’m here to support them and empower them. And for the clients to know that too. That would have been two-thirds of it. The other parts of it so I’m clients and people that are component would have been around our technology and our product. And that for me discredit strategy products, media planning products, and the technology platforms we have. And it’s really to get in a little deeper on a client-by-client level and a per-platform level, to really see where we were and to really understand what we could do next. It takes time. But the relationships with the staff, teams and clients are the first part of that. They’re the ones who created these tools. They’re the one who created these plans. I want to help them, I want to support them. And add to what they’ve done.
Jeremy Weisz 23:32
Yeah, I mean, I can see those pieces are important. And especially when you’re starting a relationship, they’re testing your plan. You’re testing theirs as well. How did you test? I don’t know if you remember, because it’s been a couple years, but how did you test their plan versus yours?
Devon MacDonald 25:45
So I was able to see, of course, a lot of financial statements and structure of the company, and that was fine. But that doesn’t answer the real questions. Things like client longevity, client tenure, staff, longevity, staff tenure, staff promotion, throughout their tenure, how have people grown, that tells you a lot about the strength of a company and the strength of a servicing group. And the agency certainly had that. But in testing their plan, it was, we have a high amount of accountability between each other. between myself and the partners, to make sure that we stick to the plan. And so at the beginning, it was before day one, a lot of open discussions, a lot of going back, let’s make sure we’re clear here, we had a great RACI chart that probably had 50 things on it, that talked about where I would have autonomy where I would not, and I was comfortable with that, for sure. And then on the product side of things and going in. So being able to see things in advance, understanding the context is important. But they also let me and insisted I make my own or create my own opinions. And they wanted me to have the flexibility to learn in an unbiased way. And that told me so much about them as leaders and about what they wanted me to do. And to form my own opinions and plans based on what I saw, again, what the strengths were and what the opportunities were.
Jeremy Weisz 27:45
It sounds like Devon, they really shared a bunch of information with you, financial staff and other information that allows you to get a good picture, or at least a glimpse of not just financial pieces, but the staff as well in the services.
Devon MacDonald 28:07
Absolutely good way to summarize it. And yeah, they did share a lot of information with me, which really helped me understand, they were a competitor before. And so you don’t learn a lot about things, you learn stuff through press releases. And that’s great. But it doesn’t tell the whole story. And there was definitely more for me to learn, and even a fine that they were so willing to share that with me was build trust early with me.
Jeremy Weisz 28:45
And you don’t have to say your specific scenario. But how should founders incentivize bringing someone in to take more control over their company? Should someone just be thinking of compensation benefits? Should people be thinking of giving equity stake in or investing over a period of time? What are ways that founders can attract really good talent and to help run their company?
Devon MacDonald 29:19
Well, I think all those components are very important in the financial aspect of things. And I was fortunate in coming into these discussions and coming to the opportunity. I have friends involved in M&A as lawyers as finance years or have gone through this as a seller or purchaser or a new president without our agency but a lot of people to talk to and to understand their experience. But the most important thing for a founder is to be clear on their goal. What do they want to do? And that in for me with a test as well. And for people who work for me, they know when I say what is your plan? I really want to know what the plan is. And I was able to share that with David and Sherry, and they were able to share their plan with me. And so our goals aligned and yes, incentives and compensation and other things. They line up to it. But without alignment and understanding of goals, and a clear understanding from the founder of the goals. None of that stuff matters.
Jeremy Weisz 30:36
What should someone like you be asking when they come in from a succession standpoint? Right? Because that is kind of a goal, like we’re bringing the president we’re stepping away. What does that look like? As part of the conversation should they be having as intention of when you want to sell or the person is going to take over? How does that conversation go?
Devon MacDonald 31:00
Yeah, so one example one of the founders, David, he was promoted to executive chair of the company, about six months or so after I started? And what was important for me to understand? And the questions I had of David and Sherry, I have data of all you want to be executive chairman. What does that mean to you? How involved you want to be? What does that mean to the racy? Do you want to be on a weekly fastball? Do you want to see the operating plan every quarter? What’s it going to take for you to feel comfortable in your new role. And those are all open discussions across 50 points, 100 points to have to understand what their plans are, and what they want to do. So for me coming into it was Gandhi and clear articulation. And anyone coming in, in my position to take over running a company, you have to make sure that your goals are aligned and net responsibilities are clear. If they’re not, you’re gonna have trouble very early. And that trouble leads to conflict and conflict will lead to failure.
Jeremy Weisz 32:26
Let’s talk about culture for a second, Devon. And because it seems like from the beginning, you have this culture of empowerment, what are some of the things you do as a company that’s built in some examples of building culture?
Devon MacDonald 32:42
Sure, super difficult in these new world for me, and for a lot of other agency leaders or listeners, I think, when you have some people working from home, some people from the office, some people from Thailand, wherever they might be, they’re all over the place. And so our definition of culture, used to be the office and used to be hanging out together. That doesn’t happen as a physical center anymore, as strongly as it used to. And it’s quite difficult to recreate that I find in a digital form. You have to be intentional with people and with teams, too and over-communicate your goals and vision with them, to make sure they understand what they are and then they believe in it and align to it. So building a sense of empowerment as an example, is by leading with example, and letting people in making sure people take credit for the work that they’ve done. It also means that we encourage people to over-communicate with themselves to share what terrifies me about remote working is people being digitally isolated from their colleagues to learn and to hear from each other. The water-cooler talk about what’s happening with client X no longer exists until the learning of osmosis does not happen. So we’re very focused on training people and helping people improve their careers through training and through work. Which to me, for our culture, in being insights-led and strategically driven. I think that’s how people can improve in their work and how we can showcase the best of an employer and company.
Jeremy Weisz 34:49
What are some of the things that you do in the remote setting to foster culture like you said before, you’re talking around the water-cooler you’re hanging out? What are you doing remotely to foster that.
Devon MacDonald 35:02
So what I would say first of all, is I do believe there are absolutely a lot of things that are more efficiently done, when people are working remotely. On the flip side of that, I do absolutely believe that there are things that are done more efficiently together and first. And so we’re very, we’re very transparent with teams about that. We talk about that with them, how to get the best out of your work, and how to get the best out of each other. And so for people working remotely, and we have a full flex policy, which I say is what people do what they want. Which mean could mean never coming in, which could mean coming in every day and everywhere in between. But for those individuals and their managers, they need to stay on top of each other. And I don’t mean in a micromanagement way. I mean, in how are things going? What are you up to? Where do you need help? How can I support you? And those casual discussions that you used to count on and walking by someone’s desk 17 times a day, I believe doesn’t need to be recreated. And that doesn’t mean 17 Zoom calls a day? I hope it doesn’t. That’s a complete waste of time. But it actually takes more effort, I think to do it, but it’s worth it for people to, to over communicate with them to overshare and to stay in touch with them.
Jeremy Weisz 36:38
What’s a cadence meetings do you have on a weekly basis?
Devon MacDonald 36:46
I meet with our leadership team as a group every other week. And then one on one, there’d be six people within the leadership team. And it’s up to them, I leave it up to them, we can meet once a week for half an hour, we can meet once a month for an hour. And then we stay in touch at a VOC through messages or, or email, of course on important issues. But as a leadership team, it’s important for us to be aligned and to share and to over communicate about issues because of the way they impact other teams in the company.
Jeremy Weisz 37:24
What’s important to have one on one from a format perspective.
Devon MacDonald 37:32
Oh, well an agenda, of course, is important, and a short agenda. It can’t be 20 things long. If it’s 20 things long, you’re not meeting regularly enough, or you have too many priorities. So a short agenda is important. And if you haven’t met with them in a while, making sure you talk about personal stuff first. How are you doing? Where are you at? Are you feeling that there’s something we can talk about or you need help with. And then getting into the problem-solving or updates as required. But that list should be short, shouldn’t be any surprises, and should be about moving things forward.
Jeremy Weisz 38:17
I want to talk a little bit about what you do as a company. And can you walk me through a little bit of an example would be like a leading telecommunications company and what you did with them?
Devon MacDonald 38:30
Sure. So we do have a client is leading telecommunications company. And they provide a variety of services across mobile, internet, home phone, cable, all those good things to a wide swath of customers. And it’s a super competitive business, as I’m sure you’re aware, driven by rates and during by performance of the networks that they’re on. And so for us, working with our client, in this space, it’s a great client because they do have so much ambition, and they do have so much need and they believe in advertising, which is the most important thing for any client. And so we use things like our transparent trade desk to model customer behavior, ingest first party data and our DMP to understand the signals and triggers that we can go and apply against unknown audiences for acquisition purposes. Get people into stores and use modeling to uncover through search and programmatic to understand what is doing the best work to get people into stores. And of course, elevating the brand. I’m excited for this one client in particular, they have a new brand platform coming out this fall. We all know how much brand does help improve performance. Study after study shows this and we breached this balance of so important. And also integrate understanding and helping them evaluate how the inner workings of technologies in their company can be activated within Media. And for too many firms. There are silos between technology and marketing, where the customer data platform choices and signals really matter, and can be activated and empowered further within Media, all privacy, compliance and all that good stuff. But there’s so much resources available for me to activate on. And that’s the part for my teams and myself, where we feel we can really help accelerate media, and not just rely on media performance, but actual business performance. It’s so important to us.
Jeremy Weisz 40:58
First of all, I just want to thank I have one last question. Devin, before I ask it, I’d love to hear some of your favorite resources, whether it’s books, podcasts could be on leadership or business. Before we get into that part, I just want to thank you for sharing your expertise. I want to encourage people to check out the website, which is Cairnsoneil.com to learn more. Talk about some of your favorite resources from leadership or business perspective.
Devon MacDonald 41:35
Well, I’m very fortunate I’ve had some great leaders as bosses throughout my career. They remain friends, I text them or call them when I need help. And they do now meet which is a strange turn of events. But welcome. And so that professional network is my number one source, whenever to source. I like to read books, I read very few marketing books. I mostly read books about artists or individuals who have worked through challenges and have success. My two favorite books that I’ve read recently that I’ve recommended to people heavily are Rick Rubin’s latest book, and Sinead O’Connor’s biography, when she wrote before she passed away, she wrote two summers ago, first passed away this summer. Both incredible creators who see the world very differently than you and I, because I have a fundamental belief that we’re just stuck to my ideas where we’re in big trouble. And so I like to hear different perspectives from people and books like that are where I get my ideas and have the ability to think differently about things.
Jeremy Weisz 43:01
Devon I’ll be the first one to thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your journey or knowledge. This is fascinating everyone check out more episodes of the podcast and we’ll see you next time. Thanks Devon.
Devon MacDonald 43:12
Thanks Jeremy.
