Not Another Marketing and Tech Agency

From the virtual desk of Mike Cline,
Founder of Tech Guys Who Get Marketing

Back in the day when phones were plugged into walls, I had a dream. A dream of going to space. I still have that dream, but that's not what we're here to talk about.

Tech Guys Who Get Marketing, also known to us internally as “TG”, was birthed from being in the right place at the right time with the right mindset. The year was 2003 and the name wasn't even TG yet.

From 2003 to 2005 it was rough. Trying to figure out exactly what the services were. What was this online eCommerce stuff we were asked to help with? The remote sysadmin stuff that kickstarted this- where is it all going?

Fear. Worry. Unknowing. Living on a credit card after losing that first main client due to an acquisition. In 2005 I met an individual in the digital marketing landscape wanting some words on a website updated. The page was ugly. Horrible in fact. The most disgusting thing I had ever seen. I voiced my opinion and was told “only change what we tell you to change, padawan.”

Hrrumpt. "Padawan. I'm a Jedi," my subconscious snorted.

A man from stage says, “most technology and marketing people will tell you what I teach here is wrong, but- follow the sales and decide for yourself.”

I hear this and my heart sinks. My mind races. Whoa whoa whoaa.

How did I, an Engineering Physicist with a Math minor think ANYTHING different than what this man just said? Wasn't I here to make things better and more efficient?

I was, but I was blinded by my own ignorance. I was measuring the wrong variable. In fact I had so firmly established my world view at the time that I was often a touch arrogant.

2005 - 2009 were massive educational growth years. When honing in on the right variables to optimize the equation, e.g. dollars, my world changed overnight. Holy smokes we had clients coming out of the woodwork for our services. We also developed a very early pre and post-transactional upsell software (it lived on oneclickupsell dot com back then) which the digital marketing community was clamouring for.

I made it. I crested my first big hill on the entrepreneurial path. The team swelled to 30+ people in a decentralized democratized manner that I felt was the future. I met business groups, mastermind groups, groups galore, filled with successful- and often bonkers business people. I found my tribe.

But I also found something else that I didn't look at right away. Something that I decided subconsciously not to look at.

The 2000s were about the rise of online sales intersecting information marketing and a lot of the tactics being used were becoming unethical. We would be approached by someone wanting to do X, Y or Z and have to say, “no, we're not going to help with that.”

Fake scarcity, like the newspapers legitimately did and TV commercials who skated the grey line used to do, were now done in high-fidelity grabbing at the emotions of a human amygdala with razor sharp talons. Forced subscription products quietly inserted into order processes. Aggressive multi-part death-by-unlimited upsell tactics.

You. are. not. getting. away.

By the early 2010s I was becoming saddened by the industry that had emerged around us. But still hopeful. We had picked up Tony Robbins as a client and were amped to be associated with a company whose message was impact, growth and change. But not all things personal development are as they seem.

The measuring stick for success that I had bitten into back in 2005 was showing its ugly side. Money for money's sake isn't the goal. Dollars as the performance indicator is useful but not at the detriment of other variables. Variables like lives changed, humans helped. Be it inside the company with employees or outside the company with customers or vendors.

Looking back, I wish I had towed a better line with the due diligence on the real impact some of these businesses we served were having.

As we rolled past 2012, my energy went into special projects, taking the eye off the ball of just growing TG. Special projects like working with Peter Diamandis, a hero of mine from the first X-Prize days, on launching his book- and building and executing a crowdfunded project for a space telescope with Planetary Resources.

The Arkyd is still one of the most rad projects we've had the opportunity to vision, build and execute. All aimed at the future, at exponential technology, at impact for humanity and at tribal connections.

I had been bitten by the next bug. Impact. Be the change you want to see in the world.

For the later part of the 2010s I found myself dabbling in some projects within TG, as well as working on new projects with partners. Helping found and launch the National Academy of Future Physicians and Medical Leaders was very fulfilling and challenging.

Learning the sensitivity parents have with their children's education. The delicate nature of working with academics fearful of being associated with the wrong messaging. The pitfalls of big data dependencies. A lot was learned.

The biggest lesson of the last decade was connecting with my own art. Realizing that I'm an artist first and an entrepreneur second. That I value the uniqueness of people and their expression to my core. We're all here to sing our song in this world and the “life” process is about becoming unencumbered from your own past beliefs in order to do so.

My art has come in the form of companies, projects and things I build with my hands. From the weird to the wacky to the impactful. From building a 30 person peanut butter and jelly art-car for “that event in the desert” that serves gourmet gluten-free peanut butter and jelly sammiches, to an 80' steel Kraken sculpture atop an old WWII ship that was sunk as an artificial reef, complete with a documentary by top talent who moved by the project.

As I step into the 2020s and back into TG to help our re-visioning and recalibration process— I'm aimed at helping you. The visionary.

That is, if you're ready to be helped. If you're ready to step into what you're here to do on this planet. We're here to work with the game-changers, those ready to solve some of the world's toughest challenges and make the biggest impacts.

And to be clear, that “big impact” can be your local community, we're not talking about the pie-in-the-sky big for big's sake. This isn't above the size of one's.... That's 2005 thinking.

This is holistic thinking of how we serve others in collaboration.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. That's the creed and phase of life that I'm at.

Mike Cline