Does Your Agency Have the Visionary and Integrator Roles Filled?

If you've ever been that cheap disruptor officer in your agency or if you're doing everything within your agency right now, this is the episode to check out. I bring on a buddy of mine, Mark, and we're going to talk about the five rules between a visionary, which most of you listening and watching are, and the five rules between a visionary and an integrator, like the ops person that president for your agency in growing. It's a really cool episode and I hope you enjoy. Hey Mark, welcome to the show.

Hey Jason, thanks for having me on.

Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. You know, any friends of Gino is always welcome to come on the podcast and I know you guys co wrote a book, but for the people that have not heard of you yet, tell us who you are and what do you do?

Yes. So I'm basically a guy that believes in the entrepreneur and helping those that are brave enough to take that leap and make something happen if, if they find themselves stuck, help them get unstuck and get it back on track to what they, you know, what they really wanted to be like when they took that leap. And I spent all my days really thinking about how to make that happen. Rocket Fuel is the book that Gino and I wrote together. And it's all about a special combination of that visionary entrepreneur with somebody we call the integrator, which is a very execution oriented kind of leader. And what kind of magic can happen when we get those two together.

Awesome. So what is your background like before you're doing Rocket Fuel and doing all this? Tell us a little bit about kind of the backstory.

Yeah, so I actually started out in big corporate. So my first job out of college was Procter and Gamble and I was in the P and G army, dressed up in my three piece suit to go and walk the halls of grocery stores and did that for a while. Went to business school at the University of Chicago. And while I was in business school, I saw some people, you know, when I was involved in class projects doing things that were just way more interesting than what it felt like I was doing. You know, they invented this widget that could do all this and that and we could sell it for this and cost this to make and here's how much money we're going to make or here's this unmet service need in the marketplace. And so it just, it just looked way more interesting. So I made the jump myself. You know, the entrepreneurial bug bit me and I caught it big time and so I kind of burned my ships and said, all right, we're going to do this. And that led me to now up to 14 different businesses that I've either started, started myself, bought from somebody else, or shut down or sold. And it's been really a pretty interesting ride. All different kinds of industries, all different sizes of business. Some have been horrific failures, some have been huge successes. And so all that learning led me to get into more of the advisory role later on in my career when I started to get more gray hairs than not gray hairs. And that ultimately is how I met Gino and got involved with eos, the entrepreneurial operating system and helping folks with that. And then we wrote the book Rocket Fuel. And so now it's all, all about visionaries and integrators.

Now how many of the businesses were successful? Because like, we never talk about the, you know, the failures. Like, I cannot even remember how many companies I've had over the years like that we never even mentioned. Like, I think one of our, like the second company we did was like a 1031 exchange that just bombed. I mean there was just like, we created one that was called My Town, that was actually before MySpace, but that bomb, right. Like, it was just like all these bombs that led up to. So like, tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, sure. There's been at least a handful that have bombed big time and some of them should never have gotten started. Some of them, you know, something went wrong in the middle. We've had, you know, situations with ownership conflict. You know, one, there was a major shift in the supply chain that caused it to go down. Another one, you know, the 08 recession, you know, when we were selling a very premium priced product, really super premium priced product. And you know, the list of folks that were in the queue to buy that all of a sudden, you know, it's like, well, I don't know if I can afford to spend this much money on something like that when I'm seeing this on the news. Right. So that one went away. But as you well know, you know, the lessons that come from, you know, going through that kind of stuff a lot of times are, you know, the most valuable lessons that you get along the way.

Yeah, I remember kind of toward the end of my first agency, before we sold it, I remember coming across something that was called predictable success. And it was like a, like a quiz that you would take to tell you kind of like who you are and that kind of stuff. I remember like testing on that really high as a visionary. Right. And I never really understood the difference between like a visionary, like I thought the visionary, the head of the per, like can do everything and they should be doing everything. And like, I quickly realized that that just wasn't possible. I most like got to a couple times where I'm, I'll just go take a job. And then I realized kind of the distinction between a number of different things. So kind of for the ones that are listening and that may or probably be new to the podcast because we're talking about visionaries quite a bit, because most of us that get into this crazy world, we were visionaries, but we're probably pretty bad at execution, but we're just forced to do it. So talk a little bit more about that.

Yeah, so that's exactly the pattern is the visionary has the, you know, the courage to take that leap. They see the opportunity and, you know, they're not going to let risk get in the way. And so they make the jump and then they find themselves in it. And then like you said, you feel like and you sort of convince yourself that I got to be able to do all this. And you probably don't have, you know, maybe anybody around you or very few resources around you. So the reality is if you're going to survive and make it through you, you have to do it and figure out how to get it done. And so because of that, a lot of visionaries are sort of self taught, kind of jack of all trades. And so they get to a point on the other side where they've sort of survived and now they've got something and now it's time to try to grow it, you know, make it, make it bigger, make it more and start bringing in other folks on the team. And that's where this interesting transition happens where we talk about two different leaders that are actually wired very differently. The visionary sees the future, they see the opportunities, they got ideas coming out all like this and that's really where they get their juice from. That's what they love. But they're kind of superman and so they've been able to do all this other stuff. So I am, you know, a good manager. I am good at, you know, project management or I am good at whatever, right where on the other side the integrator is, you know, that's just, that's their DNA, that's their superpower is, you know, chasing those details, following through, you know, making stuff happen, you know, being a good manager of people. And so there's, there's this thing that has to happen where the visionary actually says, you Know what? Yeah, I can do that, but that's not what I love to do. That's not what I'm, you know, necessarily made to do. It's not what I'm great at. So here's somebody who's actually great at that stuff. So what if we let them do that? I do. What is my superpower. They do what their superpower is, and together, that's the. That's the power, right?

Yeah. I was always. I always look back, I'm like, I was a crappy manager. Like. Like, I was just. You know, I was just. And then I finally realized I was like, well, look, I just need to tell people where I want to go, and then they'll figure out how to get there. Like, I had a guest on not too long ago. We'll link up in the. In the show notes, but it was Gary Vaynerchuk's coo.

Okay.

And I asked him. I was like, how did you realize that you should be a coo? He goes, well, we came into this. He used to work for Saatchi, and Saatchi this big Addy. And, like, they brought all these execs in, and they were like, tell us, where do we need to go? And everybody had ideas, and so he didn't say anything. He goes, you just tell me where you want to go. I'll figure out how to get there. And they hired him as the coo.

Yeah. So I mean, it's crazy that, you know, for somebody who's not wired like that, to see somebody who's wired like that is just. It's alien. Right? And. But that's. The wiring that we're looking for is they actually. They want to be fed. You know, give me the thing. I don't want to come up with all that stuff. You know, give me that good thing. And then they get their juice from going and actually making it real. And so. And they look at visionaries like, we're crazy visionaries. Look at them like, why would you just want to do that? And so that's sort of the big aha and, you know, a trap. Jason of the visionary. And I know I've fallen into this. I'm not a very good manager. I've managed lots of people. You know, I've done it, but super hard for me, where others who are great at it, man, I do. It's effortless. But one of my patterns in my past is I would hire people that look like me. I interview somebody, and I think they're like me and they're awesome. And I bring them on. And that's not what I needed more of.

You don't get anything done, nothing. You guys talk a big game the whole time, right?

And so that's another sort of visionary trap, right? And so the reality is the integrator that you need, the one who's, who's is really pretty different than you. It may not feel good at first, right? It feels like, you know, this is kind of abrasive. This is kind of, you know, this is not. Doesn't feel quite right. And it's because of those, those differences that are in there. But actually that may be exactly the person that you need. So you just gotta, gotta be able to understand what's going on there to be able to make it happen.

My, one of my clients that's been with me for five years and I remember he was around 400,000 in revenue when we started. And he's multimillion dollar agency now and he has a coo. And sort of the very beginning when I forced him to find that coo, that operations person, they were always fighting and they still fight. It's like an old married couple fighting. But they come out like, you know, best friends and like, because they see things so differently, but it makes the agency work, right?

100%, yeah. I mean, you think about them wired so differently to left to their own devices. This is what's going to happen, right? They're just going to butt heads and all that friction, which can be really negative and destructive. And so what Gino and I built, and we call it the five rules and the five tools, and that's the structure that you put around that friction to sort of blend it into something that's really positive and powerful and that's the energy that drives the company to that next level.

Talk a little bit about the five rules and five tools.

Yes. So the five rules, the first one, which sort of goes to. It sounds like the relationship that you were just talking about is to stay on the same page. So the visionary and the integrator have to stay on the same page and they have to do whatever they've got to do to get that alignment. So we've got a structure requirement called the same page meeting that helps them do that. But ultimately, if they're going to fight, if they're going to disagree, they got to do it sort of behind closed doors with themselves. So that when they come out into the organization, they're arm in arm, they're two halves of the same brain. They're aligned in front of the team. They're not. It's not mom and dad fighting in front of the kids. You know, they've got it worked out. And that changes all the time, right? So you got to keep going back to that. Something new will come up. That where you feel like you're getting out of sync. So you got to bring it back. Or here's this new thing I'm thinking about. And before we even really throw it out there, I got to make sure that you and I are pulling the same direction on this. So that's a super big one. In fact, that may be the biggest one of all. When I look at the problems at the root of a lot of visionary integrator relationships, a lot of times they've just gotten away from that simple, yet not always easy discipline of staying on the same page.

So rule number one, fight when no one sees it. Is that right?

Well, it's the most importantly is stay on the same page. But, yeah, let's do the work, the dirty work. Let's make the sausage in the back of the house, not out in front where everybody is watching, right? So that's rule number one. Rule number two is no end runs. So we call them end runs. So think about the structure. So we've got a visionary, we've got an integrator that reports the visionary, and then everybody else in the leadership reports to that integrator. And so when you bring the integrator into that role, there's going to be old habits. And one of the old habits is, well, I used to go to the visionary for everything. So I'm going to want to end run that new integrator that's in place. And if the visionary says, okay, I'll listen to what you're bringing to me and I'll make a decision or I'll give you direction or whatever, it really makes that integrator ineffective. And it really sort of cuts them off at the knees in terms of their ability to do what they're there to do in the organization. So we have a structure for how the visionary handles that to basically redirect those end runs and send them back to that integrator. And then likewise, there's old habits with the visionary because like we said, the visionaries had to do everything. And so over the years, they've got this habit of if they want something to happen, they go straight to it. And so they will end run that integrator and go down into the organization. And I call it tampering. The visionary will go and fiddle with this and fiddle with that. When they do that same thing, it has this effect of really making it difficult for the integrator to be effective. We want to eliminate those end runs, and we do that by making sure that the visionary and the integrator are 100% on the same page, and then making sure that whenever somebody comes up, they get redirected. And if the visionary knows it's not that they're necessarily going to change the behavior overnight, but they're working to, okay, I got to quit going and tampering. If I want something to happen, I'm going to give that direction, you know, through my integrator to go and make it. Make it happen. Does that one make sense?

I've never done that in the past five minutes.

In the past five minutes. Right.

In the past five minutes. That's the key.

We've had you locked in this seat and kept you from doing that.

Well, people called me the chief disruptor officer. Right. Because I would just fiddle with stuff, and you'd be like, dude, we're doing this. Like, but I pay your paycheck. And then, like, then we have to go fight behind closed doors. And we're like, okay.

Exactly. And you don't feel like you're doing harm at the time? No, but it's. But it's.

You know, the idea around that, though, is. Or the reason why I think visionaries do that is because we want to feel significant. I remember the same client that. And this happened to me when I started putting the right roles and the right systems in place. I would come into the office, and I would go into a creative meeting. I would go in this pitch, and they'd be like, no, we're good. And then I go to the next one. Oh, no, we're good. And then I was like, I don't have that significance anymore. I'm irrelevant. I don't matter. I cannot contribute. And then. So when I'm walking my clients or my mastermind members through it, I always warn them. I go, here's the five roles that you need when you do this. Congratulations. You'll be depressed. And they'll all be like, no, no, no, no. Never, never, never, never. And I'm like, yes, you will. You'll come to me. You'll be bitching, you'll be moaning, you'll like all this. And I'll slap you around a couple times. And then I'll be like, this is what your role needs to be.

Yeah.

And then we move forward.

Yeah. We call that visionary remorse. And you know, or put being put out to pasture as language that a lot of visionaries will use. And it is just a real thing. I mean, you've experienced it and we see it. Sometimes it lasts a little while, sometimes it lasts, you know, six to 12 months. But it's this realization that, okay, I actually have a different role. And there's something else that's kind of interesting, because when I'm doing that role, it doesn't feel like work, but it actually is super powerful. That's the stuff we need you doing because you're gifted at it. It doesn't feel like work, but it doesn't mean that it's not important. Right. Not impactful. So that whole realization, once we can get them to realize that, then it makes it less tempting to go and meddle in the organization.

There's a reason why when we go on vacation, the business does better 100%. What's three?

So, number three is that the integrator is the tiebreaker. And so the idea here is the leadership is reporting to the integrator. And we don't want to have a situation where the organization gets stuck. Let's say that sales and marketing is saying go this way and ops is saying, go that way. Ideally, what do we want? We want sales and marketing and ops to be able to talk and work back and forth and figure that out and resolve it. But if they cannot, then we want the integrator to be able to hear everything that's going on in the context of the greater plan. What's the vision? What are we trying to get done here? Okay, we hear this, hear this, and then take it all in. And then in consideration of that plan, of the greater good, you know, make the call. What are we going to do and get us unstuck and go forward. So we want the visionary to let the integrator make those calls. Because for, you know, the vast majority of them, they're actually in a better position to, because they're closer to the ground. They're closer to all the executional things underneath that are actually going to be, you know, trading off with each other in order to make one thing happen or the other. And if we've done a good job, same paging, they're going to be considering the great bigger picture, strategic things. Right. And so, you know, that's a really important thing. And again, it rests on that foundation of same pageness. But is rule three is let the integrator be the tiebreaker.

Awesome. And what's four quattro?

Four is the idea that we call it the owner employee rules of the game. And so this is the sense that a lot of times the visionary is also an owner, and there may be other owners that are involved in the business as well. And so what we cannot let happen is that somebody who's an owner pulls out this owner card and says, you know what? Because I'm an owner, I don't have to play by the same rules as everybody else. I don't have to show up at those meetings. I don't have to get my stuff done. I don't have to. Yeah, exactly. Record my time. You know, it's because it's different for me. I'm an owner. And so the standard that we want to set, the expectation that we want to set, is all the owner stuff is pushed up into what we call the owner box. So whether that person is just a strategic account manager or the visionary or the integrator or the head of ops or whatever they might be, all that owner stuff goes up there. But when day to day, we're playing in the business, we're wearing our employee hat. And as an owner wearing an employee hat, the idea is you should be the best example of what you would want an employee to be. So you should show up on time, do what you say, live by our core values, do all the expectations of the things that you're accountable for in an exemplary fashion, and to kind of drive it home. Owners only have two rights by virtue of the fact that they're an owner. Number one is they have the right to their share of the profits via whatever formula that there is exists in your ownership structure. Number two is that they have a right to their voice in the major decisions that are relegated to the owner's box. Now, that's not every single decision in the company. In a healthy company, that's probably maybe 5% of stuff. That's the really big stuff. Are we going to sell the company? Are we going to buy a building? Are we going to take in a new equity partner? Right. That kind of big stuff is what happens up there. So they're going to get their vote, if you will, in that. But otherwise, the ownership is empowering this leadership team to go and execute the business plan and figure it out and get it done and help us maximize our profits or grow or whatever our objective is. And so that's what we're trying to do. An interesting observation here is just because you're an owner does not mean that you have a right to be an employee in the company. Right. So back to the standard here is we want somebody. If you're, if you're going to be an employee, you're going to have to be an exemplary. You're going to have to be held to the same standard as everybody else is. We drive those owner cards out of the culture.

I love that. What's number five? Get rid of the owners?

Well, you know, sometimes it happens and it's interesting when you set that standard. You know, I've seen major changes where people have actually left the ownership changes where firms have split and examples where people have adopted that and they buy into that, they get the impact of that on their investment. And so they just lock in and they are exemplary employees. So number five is maintain mutual respect. Maintain mutual respect. And so if you think about the visionary and the integrator, you know, one of the things you got to watch out for is a visionary that treats their integrator as some kind of a lackey, some kind of you're less than me, you're whatever. And what we're looking for is really kind of an eyeball to eyeball relationship that's pretty evenly matched. And the visionary understands and respects their integrators, this essential counterpart for them. And they treat it like they would any other really important relationship in their life. I have clients that talk about it as their business spouse and they treat it with that kind of investment of energy and time and respect. And that's super important. We've got to maintain that, that level of respect if we're going to be able to make it work and max the power.

How do you know if you have a good second? Right. So here, I'll give you a scenario. When I started my agency, I was 22, and even back then I was a visionary, right? Like I wanted to be the face, you know, I could see what was coming and all this. But I felt like I'm just a 22 year old punk kid out of Arthur Anderson.

Wow. Back when it was Arthur Anderson.

Arthur Anderson, yeah. Until I saw people shredding papers, I was like, what's going on? I was a whistleblower. No, I'm just kidding. And so I brought on a business partner, 50, 50, about 10 years older. So I was like, oh, 10 years older. Like you got to have the, all the wisdom, like. And a lot of people, a lot of us bring on partners that, to make up for a lot of the. Well, I don't want to. I can't do it on my own. And so I always kind of took the visionary role and they always kind of took the integrator role, but they weren't. It outgrew them. So how do you know how to figure out who needs to be in there? And then here's another scenario for you to throw in a twist. So a lot of times people think, well, this person's been with the company for 10 years, they need to be that. So how do you figure out are they the right, like they're fighting with you or like, can they actually do it?

Yeah. So, boy, lots of good stuff here. So first, your example of the person who's been there for 10 years, that's almost completely irrelevant other than the fact that they know some stuff. So they were going to factor that in. Right. But here's the way to visualize it, Jason, is it's a puzzle. Okay? So we talk about the visionary integrator fit as a two piece puzzle, okay. And we have some assessments that help you understand the shape of your edge in that two piece puzzle. And what we're trying to do when we have a good fit is we're trying to make sure that we don't, you know, have too much overlap where, you know, we're really strong at the same stuff and we don't have too many gaps where between us, you know, neither one of us has it. Right. So a good fit just kind of really complimentary fits together between us. We've got all those essential things covered. So those assessments are really helpful to do that. The other piece of the puzzle. So we expand it. Here's the click together of the visionary integrator duo. These two have to click together with the business. And so the business. We talk about a visionary spectrum and an integrator spectrum of how much visionary, how much integrator a particular business needs. So think about the visionary side. Is it a big, complex, growing business that's highly regulated or whatever, has lots of complexity? If so you need somebody that's got a lot of visionary energy, you know, like a Steve Jobs. Right. If it's, you know, a business that goes out and hangs drywall, you know, something that's just pretty straightforward, you may not need a lot of visionary. So somebody who doesn't have that super long site may be necessary on the integrator side, you know, same kind of idea based on the complexity and the needs of the company. Do you need some, you just need a strong project manager or do you have a situation where we're in multiple markets, we've got all different kinds of, we got multiple business models in play. We've got all this different kind of stuff that, that they're having to kind of wrangle together and make work in alignment. So we understand those. So if you think about the three piece puzzle, we're solving for the missing piece. So typically it's the visionary entrepreneur. You got to understand yourself first. So it's a lot of searching inside yourself. Who am I? What do I need? What am I missing? And then by virtue of mapping that out for you and for the company, then you see the shape, it sort of emerges of what that third piece is that you're looking for. And then we go and find the search. So that's how you find it. So do the work on the front end. But then the other hard part of what you said is, all right, what if I'm already in it? What if I'm in it and I've got this person, how do I know if they're great for me? And so that's where we go back to that same page. And actually, by the time this episode posts, I'll have what we call an integrated report card out there for you. And it's basically a handful of the things that these things, if it's working right, they must be true. We already have a thing called the rocket fuel power index, which is eight different areas where, you know, you can kind of see if it's working the way it should be. You should be seeing this coming from your, from your combination.

And I guess the same thing is, is too, because there's some people listening that they're like, all right, great, Mark and Jason that, like, I'm not a visionary, I'm more the other, and I'm looking for a visionary. It's, it's all about kind of, you know, it all comes down to kind of self awareness of, like figuring out, you know, what are you really good at? Like, I remember when, when I got to a point where I wanted to just say, turn in the. Turn it in. Go get a job, like one of those jovs. Like, oh, my God. And I remember them asking me two questions that are like, what do you want to do every day? And what don't you never want to do again? And I just listed out, like, I created this. I took a sheet of paper and drew like a circle about as big as my fist on it. And I was like, I don't want to. And everything outside of that circle, I wrote the stuff I never want to do. And then by the time I eliminated almost everything, I was like, well, what are the Few things I want to do. Right then I was like, oh, it just started clicking. I was like, these are the types of people I need. And this, like, I don't want to manage people. I don't want to manage clients. Like, I just want to sit here and come up with ideas. Like, that's it.

That's. That's exactly it. And we coach our visionaries to create. We call it a wish list. And actually, one of Gino's clients came up with this years ago. And it's basically that. It's the brain dump of, man, what do I not want to do? What do I want off my plate? What do I wish would go away? What do I wish would finally get solved? And kind of laying all that stuff out. And then when you get that right integrator there, then we transition that list of them, and it's a joint project to help prioritize. Well, which one of these things do we want to knock off first? And then, you know, we just start the process of chipping away at that list to make all that stuff go away. Do you.

I had another gentleman on a podcast, or maybe it was. I can't remember, we've done a lot of these where we talked about the best way to bring in, like, a president, right? To kind of take over the agency, and you kind of kind of transcend up to the chairman, is to really bring that person in as a consultant for a number of different months to work with the team to get them right. So then they're not, you know, and. And. And what do you call it? End around.

End around, end runs.

No, end runs and runs. Okay. And you're skipping them. And it worked really well. Like, like, they were like, this is awesome. Like, have you seen that? Or is it just, like, bring someone in?

And so the pattern we see is being called a fractional integrator. Okay. And so we see fractional. So there's fractional marketing firms, there's fractional cfo, there's fractional everything anymore. And so integrator integration is essentially a function. And so you're right on. It's a great model to bring someone in and kind of date before you ask them to marry you. And for companies that are kind of wrestling with, well, gee, I don't know if I can afford to invest that much until I really understand, am I going to get the return? Maybe they start off and bring them in a couple of days a week so they can kind of test drive that and test drive the relationship. So we are seeing that the exact model that you describe as one way to kind of move into that kind of relationship.

Awesome.

Well, cool.

Well, this has all been great. Mark, is there anything I did not ask you that you think would benefit the audience?

You know, the only thing that I can say that we didn't really touch on is we talked about the two piece puzzle when we look at our statistics for how many folks are wired to be visionaries and how many are wired to be integrators. And another interesting thing is the ratio is actually about four to one visionaries to integrators. And then it gets a little worse because that integrator isn't necessarily a great match for all four of those visionaries. So it's something less than that. So the integrator really is the scarce resource. So for all your agency owners, I sort of want to make a passionate plea that, you know, be have a sense of urgency as you go about looking for a visionary and are looking for an integrator. I don't want you to be the one that gets left left without one.

Yeah, well, I always tell everybody, I'm like you're always, always be closing but you should always be recruiting is actually even more important because then if you have the right people then you know all the rest is solved by other people, not you for sure. Awesome. And what's the website? People can go and check you guys out.

So markcwinners.com is going to get you to pretty much everything I've got going on. Rocketfuelnow.com will take you into all the visionary integrator Stu and then on the socials. I'm pretty much marked C winners everywhere.

Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show and for all you listeners out there, if you guys, one of the easiest things I've seen in order to really get out of your own way. Right. Because we're always in our own way is to be surrounded by amazing people that are going through what you're going through or that have already have and they can sometimes see the stuff that we may not be able to see. So I'd love to invite all of you to go digitalagencyelite.com this is our experience, exclusive mastermind, where we get together on a regular basis where we can see the things that you're not seeing. We can share what's actually working right now. Not theory, but actually working. So go to digitalagencyelite.com and until next time, have a swank day.