Episode #495: Billing by the nanosecond? Fifth interview with Tim Williams

Business Podcast Archive and Shows - The Soul of Enterprise

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SHOW SUMMARY: Ron and Ed welcome back for the fifth time, author, speaker, and positioning and strategy guru, Tim Williams. Tim has been doing a ton of thinking (as always) about a productized business model and capturing the value of AI for marketing agencies. His lessons are easily applied to all professional firms. In short, when Tim talks, people (including Ron and Ed) listen!

SHOW NOTES

Segment one

• Tim wrote Positioning for Professionals and Ron guarantees you will like this book or he will (literally) buy the book from you. https://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Professionals-Professional-Knowledge-Differentiate/dp/0470587156

• Tim wrote “The Unscalable Business Model” on LinkedIn. In the article he talks about why advertising agencies are losing their best talent to the client side of the business. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unscalable-business-model-tim-williams/

• Tim also wrote “The Transformative Benefits of Productizing Your Business Model” in which he states, “Professional service firms are largely allergic to the concept of productization.” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/transformative-benefits-productizing-your-business-model-tim-williams/

• “You'll always bring unique thinking and creative solutions to the problems you're solving for your clients. What we’re talking about is creating a framework or a roadmap, that is the equivalent of a product or program that helps you get from A to Z, in effect a repeatable.” —Tim Williams

• “The first the first initiative in a productization engagement is to just sit down and think through what the recurring problems that you solve for your clients are. That list then inspires what your products can and should be.” —Tim Williams

Segment two

• Ed played the song, “Carolina-O” today live on the show. It is the next GREATEST country hit or it is completely generated by AI. Or both. You decide. https://www.udio.com/songs/6TfsNT72U1QZNphKZayZUy

• In the advertising agency world, AI is being used in the prospecting space and that is where it is having the most impact according to Tim Williams. For example, think how arduous filling out an RFP can be.

• AI might be great but it’s not going to come up with an ad featuring a gorilla playing the drums to “In The Air Tonight” on behalf of Cadbury. Wait??? You haven’t seen that ad yet? Thank me later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHtEyDrD4oA

• There's a really provocative quote from Sam Altman, co founder of open AI, from just a few months ago, in which he said, “95% of what marketers use agencies for today will easily, nearly instantly, at almost no cost, be handled by AI.”

Segment three

• “Using the principles of behavioral economics can be way more powerful and a heck of a lot less expensive. So I think it ought to be a mainstream competency in in anybody that calls themselves a marketing problem solver.” —Tim Williams

• “Creatives with a wacky idea have to get approval from the logical suits and the finance team. But it never works the other way around.” —Rory Sutherland

• Rory Sutherland has also pointed out that you're going to make investments in your customers when you're not just looking to monetize every single thing that you do.

• “Productization is a way of creating something that will have long term value in a broad based way.” —Tim Williams https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/transformative-benefits-productizing-your-business-model-tim-williams/

• Are you familiar with the Scope Metric Unit (SMU) from Michael Farmer? More at this link: https://www.farmerandco.com/proprietary-metrics

Segment four

• Is trying to bury the billable hour getting old for Tim? Not at all. AI and productization are putting a new spin on it as it creates a new sense of urgency that we haven’t had before.

• Many advertising agencies understand that they are never going to make their margins are never going to afford world class talent again unless they adopt a scalable business model. Those same firms understand that they cannot do that with a labor based approach.

• Ed asked Tim about the Landscaper story today. Here is the video Ed recorded YEARS ago telling the story (it’s quick…go ahead and watch it now): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5wzlVplZ34

• What company has the highest revenue per employee ever reported? …Ready?… Craigslist.

• A big THANK YOU to Tim Williams for joining us today. Tim publishes a GREAT email newsletter and you can hop on his list at the bottom of this page: https://www.ignitiongroup.com/propulsion-blog

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