Insights, commentary and news

Listen on Spotify
Listen on Apple Podcasts

Transcript by Derek Oyen 

[Intro theme music] 

Derek: I’m seeing a tea bag in your coffee cup and I’m wondering how your second day without coffee is going. 

Jesse: So, I was raised Catholic and our guest today, I believe was also raised Catholic and is still a practicing Catholic, and I participate in Lent. So, yes, Derek, I gave up coffee this year for Lent. I try to do it every year and I always try to do something challenging, and this year I was, like, “What’s the one thing I really don’t think I could do?” Probably had a coffee in my hand while I was thinking about it, and I’m like, yeah, I’m having, like, three cups a day. This would be the hardest thing. Have you ever participated in Lent? 

Derek: I have. I was not raised Catholic, but my wife and my kids are Catholic, so – and they went to Catholic school – so whenever it was Lent we were all, “What’s it this year?”  

Jesse: Yeah. 

Derek: I’m a tea drinker, so – my mom is British – and we … tea is part of what we do at home with my wife and I. So, I have my morning cup of tea. I have my evening cup of tea. That would be a good one, I think, for me to give up if I were to give something up. But I’m not giving up my tea. 

Jesse: You know what’s great about today, though? I think this would be an episode people are excited to listen to. And if you want to just skip the other ones that are on there and go right to this one, I would totally understand. But yeah, we do have somebody that Derek and I are very, very excited to talk to because they’re just a huge part of what makes Marcus Thomas, Marcus Thomas. And when Derek and I first started out doing a podcast in general, this was a person who was at the top of our list of “we need to sit down with them” because they’re gonna have so many great stories and so many great words of wisdom. Not to put you on the spot …  

Derek: Yeah. No pressure. No pressure. 

Jesse: No pressure to give us words of wisdom. But if you have them … So, let’s kick things off by reading off his Two Truths and a Lie. 

Derek: All right. Number one: “I grew up in a family with 24 kids.” 

Jesse: “I’ve been to every state in the U.S. except Oklahoma.” 

Derek: And finally, “I have over 4,000 business cards of people I’ve met during my career.”  

Jesse: OK.  

Derek: These are all impressive numbers. 

Jesse: They are. These are big numbers. 

Derek: 24. 49. 4,000. 

Jesse: First of all, we’ll talk about this with him, but this man is very well traveled, and it does not surprise me he’s been to every U.S. state. I would think he’s been to Oklahoma as well, but maybe not. 

Derek: Of these … You know, I know he’s … he has a huge family. He comes from a huge family. I don’t know the accuracy of 24, but I have no reason to think that that’s not true.  

Jesse: 24 is pretty big. 

Derek: No question, no question it’s big, but … 

Jesse: For some reason, the number 12 sticks out to me with the number of kids in his family. 

Derek: In my head, of these, I can completely see 4,000+ business cards.  

Jesse: Oh, yeah. 

Derek: So, I’m going to say that’s hard truth.  

Jesse: Yes. 

Derek: What’s weird to me about this is, why Oklahoma? Because you have to drive through Oklahoma to get to a lot of states. So, I would have thought, well, if you’re in Northeast Ohio and you’re going to the Southwest, you’re driving through Oklahoma and get to Arizona. You’re driving through Oklahoma to get to Texas. So, I see Oklahoma as the false.  

Jesse: OK, so it’s good we do have a different answer because I really do think… I’ve talked to Mark before – not that we’re talking to Mark today. It could be anybody – and I really believe he said that it was 12 that he grew up in a family of 12 kids. I’m going to say that 24 is the lie.  

Derek: OK. 

Jesse: Mark, do you want to introduce yourself and tell us which is the lie? 

Mark: So, I’m Mark Bachmann. I’m glad to be with you all today. My title is Partner. I used to be Chief Client Officer here at Marcus Thomas and had about 30 years of a good run here, so I continue on as a consultant, but not as a full-time team member. So, I am … my parents had 12 kids. We also brought in 12 foster kids as well as part of our family. So, we did have 24 kids. 

Derek: So, you’re right about the 12.  

Jesse: Yeah, wow. 

Derek: But that’s just a phenomenal number. 

Mark: Yeah, yeah, that’s, so, you’re right about both of those. I have never been to Idaho. So, Oklahoma I have been to. Idaho: so that was the lie. 

Jesse: Are you personally avoiding Idaho for some reason? 

Mark: No. Idaho is on my list. If, ultimately, if it can come up, I will be there. So, I’ll work on that. And then the third is true. It was interesting, as I was working through cleaning up my office and the like. I have two big binders full of … there used to be a thing called a Rolodex where you’d put your business cards. They all ended up in binders in my office and there were … and I couldn’t throw them away. Each of them are a handshake or relationship. And I would scrawl on there what date I met them or where I met them, if it was a conference or something, and I just couldn’t take myself to throw it away yet. They’re all digital now, of course. So, I don’t know what I’m going to do with those, but … there’s probably 4,000. Yeah. 

Jesse: 4,000 business cards and you said you can look at those and kind of remember what the connection was or … 

Mark: So, when flipping through that, I can remember a lot of them, and some of them I just don’t know. I don’t know, you know, how I met them or who they are. Somebody told me I should do a podcast and try and chase down those business cards and see where those people are and just interview people who I intersected with on my journey. 

Jesse: We should. We should do that. We should join that and make that like a side thing. Sitting down with Mark and tracking down the business cards. 

Jesse: I worked in sales, once upon a time, and they – my sales manager – had a rule. Don’t give out your business card first. Let them offer theirs first to start the conversation and then give it out. So don’t just hand it … Did you have any kind of rule like that? Or were you handing yours out to anybody? 

Mark: No, I think there always needed to be a way you’d hand it to someone. It wasn’t just flipping the card to someone. There was a handshake. There was eye contact. In certain ethnicities, they hand it to you with both hands, and that’s a cultural thing in some parts of the world. So, sometimes that’s part of it, to just make it memorable. But I did not have a ritual that I, that I followed. 

Derek: It’s a lot like the photo albums. You know, we have photo albums at home that you can just pick up and look at, and it’s an old-school way of doing it. But there’s such an interesting connection when you have a physical thing in front of you. 

Mark: It’s interesting. One of my kids was flipping through old photos – this was when he was little – and he was sad. He said, “We don’t have any memories anymore.” And what he meant was, “We’re not printing out our photos anymore.” Because they used to – the kids used to – go through the photo box all the time, and those disappeared at some stage as we moved it all to digital. So, I think you’re right. I think we’re missing something without having those things in a physical state. And thank you three for being here face to face and not doing this over Teams or Zoom. 

Derek: [laughing] Absolutely. We want to be physically in the room with you for these conversations, yeah. 

Jesse: It makes the world of difference, I feel like. So, 12 kids in your family and then, and then your parents took on 12 foster kids.  

Mark: Mm hmm. 

Jesse: Wow. Still close with everybody? 

Mark: Still close with a lot of them. Of the 12, number 11 was born with Down syndrome, and so we got very involved in the communities that support people with different abilities, and most of the foster kids had some sort of disability or another. We still stay close with many of them. Some come for the holidays. The 12 were very close with the foster kids. It just depends where they are in life and whether we see them often or not. 

Jesse: If you were to be talking to a therapist or something and saying what created this drive in you, would you say because you were one of 24 and you felt the need to really push to the top? 

Mark: So, I don’t know if it came “pushed to the top,” but I think you learned some things in a big family; it’s harder to learn when you’re, when you’re more isolated. First off, you don’t understand property rights. So, growing up nothing belonged to me, so I didn’t get attached to things. You know, if I had the toy, it was my toy that day. If my sister had the toy the next day, it was her toy. So, the idea of property rights, you don’t learn.  

You don’t learn about personal space. In a big group like that, you’re kind of on top of each other. You’re all watching TV, just like a big heap in the living room. And I think the third is, especially being one of the older ones, you felt responsibility for everyone within arm’s reach. You know, with nine younger ones than me, I joked that I was changing diapers when I was still in them.  

So, this idea of caring for others was important, growing up in the big family. In terms of it driving me to pursue success, I don’t think … I don’t think that was one of the things that happened because of my big family, but maybe some of the attributes that I had helped me to be successful. 

Jesse: Yeah. That makes sense, and I know recently you’ve kind of made a decision to step back a little bit, but can you explain to anybody new to Marcus Thomas, what your role did entail? When you were here every day? 

Mark: So, I joined Ira Thomas. I think we were about 20 people or so – my employee number is 18 – and Ira worked out a deal with four of us to buy the agency from him a few years after, and my role was always, “How do we grow this place?” First off, how do we grow this place just to be successful, but also how do we grow this place to be able to pay Ira back? Because none of us came from money, we were gonna do it through organic growth of the business. So, my role from the start was growth. How do we sign new clients? How do we keep clients? So, the whole area of account management. Early days, I also oversaw Media, Planning, was involved in every aspect of the business as we grew up, and then over the last few years it was … I oversaw the Media team, Business Development and took that Chief Client Officer title, which oversaw how clients were getting the services from Marcus Thomas. But it’s always one of the key roles that people saw me as is the person responsible for signing new clients. 

Jesse: So, again, you decided to step back recently. We actually had Alison on the show recently, and she told us just about when she was coming on, you made such an effort to instill the history of Marcus Thomas with her and just go over where we came from and the value of who we are and our morals. How did you kind of go about that transition? Was it, was it tough to have those discussions or was that the most important thing to you, to make sure she understood the history? Where did you kind of start? 

Mark: So, a few years back, I hired a coach to help me think through the transition because what you see in a business of our size with a couple aging owners – I’ll call us that – was just continuity in the business. For this business to be successful long term, it can’t be built on individual personalities. It has to have a sustained strategy for how you transfer those relationships and process and culture. And so, I hired a coach and part of the conversation was, “I need to be more Yoda and less Luke.” I can’t be in every fight and every pitch and all those kinds of things. So, we hired Stephanie to oversee business development, and I stepped back from that. And then we hired Alison as our new Chief Client Officer, who’s a terrific hire and, you know, she’s so much stronger than I am in that role. But what I thought was important was for her to understand this place, these people and the team here very deeply. And so, I shared my observations about what has made us successful, but it wasn’t a dictate. It wasn’t saying, “This is how you need to do this.” It was, “This is how I thought about this role in the past. This is what has fueled our relationships with our clients and fueled the growth in our teams. So, I hope that you might consider these points.” And she has such great background in both independent and big agencies. She was just a terrific person for this role. 

Jesse: And the good news is, we’ve still gotten to see you around the office quite a bit even since the transition.  

Mark: You still have to see me on occasion. 

Jesse: That’s a great thing. But you’ve had more time to do things like traveling, biking. Has that all been great? Or has it been tough for you to step back a little bit? 

Mark: So, some of it has been tough, and it’s tough in that I was always a 50-, 60-, 70-hour-a-week guy. I felt like I was a shopkeeper and needed to get down and get to work. So having to reset my plate of how I spend my time, it hasn’t been a problem at all. It’s been very exciting, but it’s just a little bit disorienting. But it’s more time obviously with Carol, my wife; my kids; I’m involved in several nonprofits that have gotten deeper involved. My parents are 88 and live independently. So, to be able to go over there once or twice a week to, you know, fix something or check in on them has just been wonderful. So, there’s a lot of gifts that come with this transition. 

Jesse: Yeah, that makes sense. And getting now to do the travel you want to do … there was a time you and I were sitting down, and you, and you mentioned, “Do you have any trips coming up?” And I said, “I think my wife and I are going to go to Pittsburgh for a weekend. How about you?” You said, “Yeah, we’re going to go to Egypt, I think, for a couple of weeks.” [Derek: laughing] So, you take some pretty crazy, exotic, fun trips. What got you into that kind of world travel? 

Mark: Yeah, it’s been a lot of fun. I think probably when we talked, we did a biking trip in Croatia. And what you do is, Croatia has 1,500 islands as part of the country. And so you go on a boat from island to island and you bike, you know, 20, 30 miles a day. So, it’s not crazy biking, but it is mountain up and over a hill. And then we came back and were home about a month and then we went to Egypt on a river cruise on the Nile, which was awesome. But historically, we’ve always liked to see the world. I mean, as a little kid with that size family, we weren’t traveling all over. But early on as a kid, I got to see the world through work. You go to LA for a shoot. You go meet a client in Chicago. I mean, work got me the opportunity to see different markets and it gave me a real taste for travel and meeting new people and experiencing different cultures. And yeah, we love that. 

Jesse: Yeah, I remember pictures of the family in Cuba as well. Any favorite trip you’ve gotten to take? 

Mark: You know, this Egypt trip was really spectacular. Not only because it’s a culture that goes back for so long, you know, pharaohs ruled for 3,000 years, right? In Rome there was an emperor, what, 900 years? You know, we’re looking at a country now that we’re under 300 and it feels a little wobbly, right? [Derek: laughing] So, to see a culture that spanned that long, it was just amazing. And I had not traveled to an Islamic country before either. So, that part of the culture was very rich and very exciting and very different from what we’re familiar with. 

Jesse: We mentioned earlier in the episode how I was participating in Lent and feel free to – you don’t have to talk as much about this as you want to – but I know you do come from a Catholic background. Would you say that it helps guide what you do today? Is it still very important in your life? 

Mark: Yeah, my faith is important. I think sometimes, you know, organized religion sometimes loses touch with some of its origin and what it, what we’re trying to accomplish, just as interaction with people and what we’re called to do to care for one another. But I think some of the faith traditions create that community and the common framework. And so, there’s a lot of, a lot of benefits to that. But the Catholic Church was how I was brought up and what I’ve, what I’ve stuck with. In terms of the Lenten tradition, the giving up of chocolate and some other things. I’m doing fine on that, so far. I also like to think about Lent is not about giving things up, but what can I add? What can I do better? Anything from fitness to volunteering in the community. So, Lent’s a good opportunity to back off from some things, just to be conscious, and then how can I lean into other things where I’m supposed to make an impact? 

Jesse: And the Boys & Girls Club is a big part of your life. Can you tell us a little bit about that? 

Mark: So, I’ve been involved in Boys & Girls Club for the last 15 years, and we serve the kids in this community that need us most, you know. Cleveland is a market with 115,000 kids living in poverty, and that’s just unacceptable. And as you meet the kids, you want to do anything you can to give them the opportunities that they deserve. So, Boys & Girls Club – which is an after-school program – does tutoring and academic work, does character-building kinds of exercises and it also does athletics. So, it’s a very well-rounded program, and this is one of the biggest clubs across the country. 

Jesse: So, will we continue to see you as frequently as we’ve been seeing you so far or do you, do you plan to still be a very big part of Marcus Thomas in the day-to-day? Or … 

Mark: So, I am still an employee at Marcus Thomas. I still have some ownership in Marcus Thomas as well, so I’m happy to help however I can. What’s been the big change for me is giving up the responsibilities for the success of certain functions here. So, I don’t have any direct reports. So, you can’t blame me for any challenges in your career anymore, Jess. So I’ll be here as needed by the organization, and my guess is it’s probably a couple times a week. I’ve, you know, had some lunch, breakfast, dinners with clients to stay connected with certain people, and some of the various leaders in my team, I stay connected to the BLT [Business Leadership Team] as well. 

Derek: I’m curious to know … you started at Ira Thomas, so that was even before the Marcus Thomas merger. How consistent or how variable has the culture been over the different mergers and acquisitions coming to today? 

Mark: Yeah. So, Ira Thomas, I started there in ‘89 and then we built the Ira Thomas culture from there, and then we had, over the years, I think, six acquisitions or mergers with other companies. So, I think along the way those cultures evolved, but I truly believe that if you start with the people, the right kind of culture can emerge. You know, people like Harvey Scholnick, leader at Marcus, did not run the business the same way, for instance, Jim and I and Beth did, but, smart marketing guy, good human being. And so, if you find good people, then the culture is gonna evolve, but there’ll be commonalities. Those values that are painted on the wall have been consistent through all our history because of the individuals that you connect with. With Pat and Nate joining us from Cincinnati, if you spent time with those two, great guys, consistent with our values, certainly will help evolve the culture of the organization, but not anything that’s contradictory to anything that we’ve built in the past. But it will … it will evolve, it will evolve. 

Jesse: And speaking of the culture, and Derek brought up COVID earlier, you know, a few years ago, we were coming into the office five days a week. One day it was, “OK. Everyone go home.” You know, “Bring your computers.” And then we were at home for what, two years? From your standpoint, running the business during that time, what was that kind of like? And what kind of stress were you under? And can you just tell us a little bit about that? 

Mark: I wanna say it was a Thursday we agreed that we were going to close the office and all work remotely on Monday, so we prepared, we prepared ourselves, but it happened, as we all recall, very quickly. We all viewed it as temporary. You know, soon we learned how it was going to evolve and it’s still evolving. I think part of the challenge is how do you … how do you make it … it can be more efficient and more productive because we’re seeing the studies on that, but it’s also more transactional and you pop on a meeting, and you hit click and you leave the meeting. Well, the conversation that I had with the three of you maybe before Mikey even turned on the mic, that’s some of the richness and the relationships that we have with each other beyond the transactional of, now, how do we sit down and develop, you know, a breathtaking campaign for a client?  

So, I still think we’re trying to figure out what that means. What it meant to me as we were going through it, was scheduling time for check-ins constantly with people. Without necessarily an agenda. It’s, like, “Jess, how we doing? How are you holding up? How are things going? What’s new at home? What movies you’re watching?” You know, the things that bind us as humans beyond just what binds us on the work. Another example: You and Brett came to work here together. One day your dad came through. And I don’t remember why he came through, but you were walking down the hall and said, “Hey, Mark. This is my dad.” And it was so nice to meet your dad. I admire you and Brett a lot. And it was like, wow, this is so cool. Well, we would never schedule a Teams meeting for me to meet your dad. I mean, you know. 

Jesse: Yeah. I’ve tried. 

Mark: It just wouldn’t happen, but because you know, because … but since we’re all together and we all come to the same place every day, that was an opportunity that was wonderful for me. And I’m sure you felt good about it, and you were proud. And that just can’t happen in a remote environment that we’re in. 

Jesse: That day did mean a lot to my dad because Mark, not only did he say hello, but he actually stopped and said, “Tell me about yourself,” you know, “What business are you in?” and talk to my dad about his landscaping business and everything. So, my dad still brings that up and I appreciate you taking that time that you did that day to meet him. 

Mark: Gosh. Tell him I said hi.  

Jesse: Yeah, I will for sure.  

Mark: Tell Brett I said hi, too. I don’t see him, either. 

Jesse: Well, well, yeah, that’s OK. [Mark and Derek: laughing] So what kind of advice would you give to somebody, I guess, who’s starting off in this industry now? 

Mark: Now, so just broadly about our industry, when I started in the business, I started in Research, but then in Media, and I was buying cable TV. And cable used to be able to buy by whole market. But then in Chicago there were 52 interconnects. So, for me that was infinitely targetable that I could almost target my TV by ZIP code. I just thought, “This could not get any better.” And now I look at that 30 years later and say, “That was crazy compared to how well we can target now.” The point there being that things are changing quickly, and you have to be constantly curious about what’s next. Read everything, watch everything. Get the certifications. I did the AdWords and GA certifications, not because I would ever push the buttons, but because I just wanted to understand the language and what we talk about.  

Fast forward to today, and as we look at things like AI, I don’t think there’s a more exciting time to be in our business. I sometimes wish I was 20 years old again and jumping into all the things that we can learn together. So, curiosity is key. Asking questions – curiosity drives questions, as you guys know by the name of your podcast – and what I found at Marcus Thomas is that everyone will give you the time to answer a question. So, I would encourage someone to be successful here to ask, to seek out people like Raf and seek out people like Joy and others in the team here who can explain to you how they think about their world and how it fits together.  

I would encourage people to work hard. If you’re passionate about what you’re doing, you put in the time to learn it and to be successful at it. So, I encourage people to think about how they can be students of the craft and think of it like a vocation and not a job. Which means putting the energy against the learning part of it.  

And then learning the client’s business. As an account person, you win if you know your client’s business deeply. What are the audiences? What are the drivers? How do they think about it? Your key client contact, what is her next promotion? Who is she trying to impress? How can we help her to accomplish whatever her goals are as a professional? The joke always was in our business, “Great creative wins clients, but great account management keeps clients.” And I think our average tenure was 13 years in an industry that it’s three and a half. So, those are some things that are on my mind about people I’ve seen be successful here at Marcus Thomas and what it required. 

Jesse: That’s a great answer, and I know you’ve, you know, a big part of us is – of getting clients in general is – you and how great you were at the new business. And I know you’ve always said how you hate to lose. You love to win, and no doesn’t mean no forever. It means no for right now. Did you always have this kind of competitive streak within you where it’s like, “I need to win”? 

Mark: So, I don’t know if somebody told me this or it just evolved, but my view was always, “There’s gonna be plenty of people that can outsmart me, but no one’s going to outwork me. I’m going to put in the hours.” And so, when I meet … 

Jesse: I said that you got that from me. 

Mark: Oh, I’ve got to go back to a few people and give you the credit, Jess. I’m sorry. But so, as I thought about new business, it was the same thing. It was, “This is who we are. This is how we can help your business. Oh, you’re not ready for us yet? OK, well, I’ll be back.” And I will be back. Even though this isn’t my role anymore, there are prospects that we’re gonna end up doing business with who I stay in touch with. And they just weren’t ready for us yet. So yeah, I’ve always been competitive. I don’t know if it’s a chip on my shoulder or it’s something else, but I’ve always felt like certainly this agency was good enough. And by the way, I spent, I don’t know, 10 years on the board of the 4A’s and got to meet a lot of different agencies and a lot of different agency leaders. And I’d come back here and say, “This team’s as good or better than most that I’ve met.” And that can fuel you to confidently step up to the podium for us to win a piece of business. When you have a great team – or I’ll use the word “product” – when you have a great product like we have, we deserve to win. Yeah. And I feel that deeply even more today with what’s going on in our industry. 

Jesse: Well, I think we could probably talk to you all day and have more questions. 

Mikey: Can I ask a question? Do you have to go anywhere? 

Mark: No, I’m good. 

Mikey: So … 

Derek: Do you want the microphone? 

Mark: I don’t have a full-time job, Mikey. So, I’m good. 

Mikey: There may not be an answer to this. It might be more of like a long-running occurrence. But you said earlier when you were starting out, you were kind of hustling. Everybody was just trying to pay the bills, get, pay … whoever back what. Was there, like, an inflection point, specifically, when you knew, like, “Ah we’re going to make it” or a big win, or was it more of like a long-term, just, drawn-out process? 

Mark: That’s interesting. There are multiple times when things were going well or things were going crappy, but in terms of knowing that we made it, early on we borrowed money. My house was on the line for, I don’t know, 15 years on the line of credit. I’d come home some days and we’d be struggling a little bit and I said, “I don’t know how we’re hitting payroll this month,” and Carol’s like, “Are they going to take the house?” And I said, “No, they’re probably not. They don’t want our house, honey.” But when my … when we were large enough that my house didn’t have to be on the line of credit, I looked at Joe Blaha and Nash and said, “That’s cool.” That’s a milestone of stability that I was super proud of, and Carol was thrilled with. But in terms of wins, I think our largest couple clients that we have now took us into a different level as an agency. There’s very few agencies in that two- to five-hundred size range, I’ll say. You know, not that there’s a handful, but there’s just more than a handful that are still independent in this country. And to hear our name discussed in the same breath with some of those agencies – you know, the Barkleys and the Tombrases and the C-Ks of the world – I was excited and could look at my partners and say, “Hey, that’s … we’re in a new, you know, a new stratosphere.” 

Jesse: I just want to say thank you so much for everything you’ve done for Marcus Thomas. Derek mentioned how great the culture is. It’s why a lot of us stay. I would just piggyback off of what he said. You know, I look at the culture now and I say, I love everyone here so much. They’re not just co-workers. It’s like my friend group, you know, and how many people could say that about their work? Cause they look forward to seeing everybody every day. So, I know you’re a huge part of making that what it is and you’ve done such amazing things. So, thank you so much. 

Derek: And thank you for building this for us. I know it wasn’t yourself, on your own, but you are a huge part of why we are here. 

Mark: Well, my pleasure. It’s been a … it’s been an amazing ride and I sometimes contemplate all the things that we’ve been through to get where we are, and it’s been, it’s been quite a run. 

[Outro music starts] 

Derek: Today’s show is hosted by Jesse DiFranco and me, Derek Oyen. It was recorded and mixed by the man to my right, Mikey Nichols. Our theme was composed and recorded by David Bemer. Thanks, David. “Ask a Better Question” is produced in and by Marcus Thomas. The opinions on this show are not those of Marcus Thomas. You can take that up with Jesse and me. 

[Outro music fades]