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The Tracks Nobody Sees, But Every Marketer Should Hear.
This podcast celebrates the hidden gems of marketing insight found across all professions—both within and beyond traditional marketing roles. Just as B-sides on a single contain brilliant tracks that are treasured by true fans, every profession contains marketing wisdom that isn't obvious at first glance but is incredibly valuable when discovered.
Tom Hootman (00:05)
Howdy partners. How cowboy of me just now. giddy up. My name's Tom Hootman Welcome to The Marketing B-Sides This is a podcast that's not just about marketing, but is always about marketing. If that makes any sense whatsoever. we firmly believe here that every single one of you is a marketer, and none of us even remotely have begun to have any of this figured out as well. So I am the CEO and founder of Mixtape Digital.
This is where I talk to people from within the marketing executive business entertainment stratosphere and just get to know their stories. And today's a fun one. I'm reminded of a quote by the amazing Roger Sterling of Mad Men, who said, this is the greatest job in the world if it weren't for the clients. I'm joking, of course. Kinda.
Not really. I am joking. and full disclosure, today's guest has been a Mixtape Digital client. Now, ⁓ I first met Heidi Henderson, goodness, ⁓ about a year ago now, a little less maybe a year ago or so. And she came on board as a client and we immediately hit it off.
she's a great listener. she can command presence in a room, executive presence. She's honest. She's invested. she actively listens. ⁓ she takes feedback to heart and provides honest feedback without being a jerk about it. Thank you, Heidi. and I was intrigued from from day one by her story. like yours truly, she has been in her business for a little while now.
⁓ and it's bridged the gap a bit between real estate and now ⁓ accounting tax services. And she's the host of Slash Tax, the popular podcast that I, full disclosure, have been fortunate enough to be on. What do I know about taxes, let alone slashing taxes? Nothing. But that's what was fun about it is a different perspective. See? Sometimes it's about the friends we make along the way.
A wonderful conversation with an amazing individual who I cannot speak more highly of. thank you, Heidi, for making time to be on the podcast. ⁓ fascinating conversation. I hope you get a lot out of it. As always, you know where to find us. You know what to do. You like, subscribe, leave a review. I don't know, send me an email. A fucking smoke signal, a carrier pigeon, whatever you need to do to tell me what you think. What you love, what you hate, I'll pretend to
Take your hater-ade ⁓ into consideration. ⁓ enjoy the podcast. Thanks for listening.
Tom Hootman (02:24)
You started in real estate, right? Now you're like in investments tax, the thrilling subject of business taxes. Do you ever stop and go like I never thought I'd be hosting a podcast and I'd have this personal brand of me doing this, or was this like mission from day one when Heidi Henderson started in real estate?
Heidi Henderson (02:25)
Mm.
Tom Hootman (02:42)
Two years ago when you were twenty two.
Heidi Henderson (02:44)
So yes, I ended up taking a temp job in college as a receptionist for three weeks while the receptionist was out of town. Because I'd gone to a temp agency.
Tom Hootman (02:54)
Temp agency, not something you hear about anymore.
Heidi Henderson (02:56)
Right? Yeah, I know. It was weird. This was a long time ago. And I ended up working there for five years. I ended up staying there all through college.
I think it was surprising to me because I grew up in a very traditional home, stay at home mom. And when I said I was going to college, I got to college because I was an athlete and I got a full ride track scholarship and my parents were like, Wait, what? You're gonna go to college? 'Cause like I was supposed to be a a a wonderful wife and mommy. And ⁓ so I was like, Wow, well I just got a full ride scholarship to school, so I guess I'll go to college.
And it was like, wait, what? But I had always taken business classes in school. Like in high school, I was in these business entrepreneurial classes and I went to these entrepreneurial camps, and I'm like, I don't think that way. Like, I'm risk averse and I just want to do like the standard things. Like these people that build these massive companies, these people are crazy and they're super creative and outside the box. So what's interesting is I go to work while I'm in college.
Tom Hootman (03:30)
What?
Heidi Henderson (03:54)
Which was a shock to my family, ended up working for this hyper successful woman entrepreneur who owns the largest real estate brokerage in Oregon at the time. And this was in the early, early 90s. And she mentored me and taught me how to handle all the real estate transactions on the back end of their work brokerage. And I was like, wow, this is crazy. And that is sort of like how this merge of like accounting expertise, because I have a master's in
accounting. But that's sort of how it all blended with real estate. Because then that was the trajectory of my career, is always working on the tax and accounting side with real estate firms, whether in real estate developments or brokerages or investments and with investors, and seeing the success that people were achieving in that particular sector. So that's sort of how it all evolved.
Tom Hootman (04:44)
So there's so many intricacies in there that's like what do they call it in industry? A callback, right? You always wanted to learn. I was going to say like ⁓ two pieces of advice that I would say, raise your hand and say yes, I'll help. And always be looking for mentors and like people that you can learn from. And if you do that, good things tend to happen. And it's always like the people like, how did that happen to them? How'd they end up? Well, like they they just jumped in and said, I'll I'll help. How can I help?
Heidi Henderson (04:50)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (05:08)
And that you end up globing onto, and I say globing on to someone where you're hey, I'm gonna follow you because you seem to know it's like you seem really sharp and brilliant, and I'm gonna learn what I can from you. And the rest kind of sorts itself out. And I I think the vast majority of people we know are risk averse. And I think it's such a cut and dry phrase. There are so many phases of risk you can take, measured risks, and
Heidi Henderson (05:13)
Yeah.
Yeah. No?
Tom Hootman (05:30)
applying for a job while you've got a job, or saying yes to a promotion that you're unsure about, or saying yes to a lateral move, right? And taking a step sideways to take three steps forward. That's a risk that still has psychological safety in it. And people think they tend to lump it into like, my goodness, you're jumping out and just doing your thing. You're crazy. And they don't see like the safety nets we've created for ourselves There are some people out there who are like, I'm gonna start
Heidi Henderson (05:33)
Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (05:55)
revamping sailing boats, right? And they're like, what? How much money do you have? Like, nothing. That's crazy. That's a huge risk.
Heidi Henderson (05:57)
Yes. Yes. Right.
That's a risk. Right. Cause you're trying to jump into something you don't know anything about and you don't understand. But to your point, I have always been hungry for information and what I think I've learned is information is power.
Tom Hootman (06:14)
Absolutely.
Heidi Henderson (06:14)
And I think
that's ultimately what it comes from. So it's not about taking a blind risk or an uneducated risk. And I think especially with young people, young people, and I felt like this when I was young too, and I am not anymore, that I needed to show up like I knew everything. I had to prove that I know what I'm doing. I needed to prove that I belonged in the room and prove that I had the expertise to do the things. And what I realized is, you know what? You are so much more.
More
powerful and better off if you are just completely vulnerable and you're like, here's the things I do know and here's the things I don't know and I want to know. So help me teach me, I want to learn, I want to be the best, and respect the people around you, what they know, and you learn from that, you glean from that. People ask me on the real estate side, how do I get started? I'm like, if I was gonna get started and I knew nothing about real estate investing or the tax structuring, I would find someone who knows a lot about it and be like, can I?
partner with you on my first deal and learn from them and lean on their expertise and then eventually you do become intellectually knowledgeable enough and educated enough to be able to move into different spaces and expand. And to your point, it isn't as much of a risk because you've mitigated the risk by making sure you have the right data.
Tom Hootman (07:33)
You mentioned that like you think you need to have it all figured out. The moment for me, I mean, I literally I'm from South Bend, Indiana, and I came home one day and I was either like go to school in South Bend, Indiana after high school or move down here where everyone I liked and hung out with all the time was already going to school and figure it out later. And I literally said, mom, I'm gonna move out, I'm gonna move to Bloomington because ⁓ a friend of mine lost a roommate and they have a room. She's like, When are you gonna go? I I'm gonna go Tuesday.
And I remember like the talking to and like the lesson, like the sit-down, like your what? When I realized years later that I was older than my mom was when I made that decision. So like 20 years later, I'm like, wait, shit. She didn't have anything figured out. Like, I'm I'm like a year or two older than she was when her son, me came home was like, I'm moving to Bloomington. And
Heidi Henderson (08:09)
Mm.
Tom Hootman (08:18)
was like she's just kind of faking all those lessons.
And that's also that's about right around when you learn like half of the shit, three quarters of the stuff on LinkedIn is bullshit. Right. When you're like, you're not an expert, come on, someone's writing that for you. ⁓ yeah.
Heidi Henderson (08:25)
Ha ha ha. ⁓
You you wanna hear You wanna hear the best
thing. One of my colleagues said like last week she was presenting and doing a a coaching session with so this is a whole group of managing partner CPA firms for large CPA firms across the country. It was a great session and she was talking about change management. And essentially how do you deal with change within your company or organization and how do you help communicate that to your staff when they are like, no, we don't want to change, no, don't change the platform, because
like you have to sell the idea of change and support it and encourage it. And there are a lot of people that are change averse. She said something that was like so spot on. I'm like, I love that. I'm gonna steal it. And she looks in this room of, you know, predominantly
middle to late stage men who are running and managing CPA firms. And she says, you guys, stop pretending. We all know we're just big babies living in grown up bodies. And I was like
Tom Hootman (09:24)
diffuses
the room immediately, right? It's like, yeah, like, chill out.
Heidi Henderson (09:28)
Yeah. And to your point, maybe it's the older I get, I do the exact same thing. I'm like, I was just telling my son this recently. I'm like you look at grown ups, and think grown ups have it figured out. Are you kidding? We are just the same as you. Like when you were twelve years old and we are just pretending like we know what we're doing.
Tom Hootman (09:45)
Hundred percent. One hundred percent. The best Another
great way to to realize how little you know, buy a house, right? like get a car, invest in something, real estate, because then you start to realize you have to have a network of people to lean on where you're like, I never thought I'd be in a world where the refrigerator dies and I don't have a landlord. So I guess I'm buying a refrigerator today. How does that work?
Heidi Henderson (09:50)
Hm.
Yeah.
Mm.
Tom Hootman (10:06)
Just how long can food sit out, right? Like all these things you have to go through that next time that happens to a friend of mine, like, hey, I heard your fridge died. What did you do? You're like, here's how you handle it. And you're like, I'll be a resource because I'm an expert, because I have an instance of one of this happening in my life. That's expertise nowadays. I want talk about the CMO hat that you've worn, multiple times. But before that, we talk a lot about accounting. Tell us a bit about what.
Heidi Henderson (10:06)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (10:29)
you do and what Engineered Tax Services does.
Heidi Henderson (10:31)
Yeah. so Engineered Tax Services, super weird boutique firm. We are a specialty tax firm, so really specializing in tax incentives and credits or deductions. ⁓ Essentially, you're paying a lot of income tax? Hmm, wonder if we can do something to reduce that. So the people in this world that are really, really successful, wildly successful, and honestly,
wealthy are almost all real estate investors or have a significant portfolio of real estate. And there are reasons for that. It's not just in the growth and the appreciation in the value of real estate, it is the tax benefits associated with it. So we have a lot of strategies where real estate just inherently carries a massive amount of value from a tax investment and then also generational standpoint. So, anyway, we consult.
on the real estate side with investors and handle that from the tax side.
Tom Hootman (11:24)
And you've been doing this for a little while now, right? A couple years.
Heidi Henderson (11:27)
Yeah, fifty
Yeah. So it's been fifteen years here. talking about like my journey. I was an accountant. I was sitting in an office staring at spreadsheets, running financial statements monthly, and
I was actually watching our real estate agents in this development on the amount of money they were making. And it was ridiculous money. I mean, and this was, before the crash of 2007 , 2008. And they were just sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. We had tons of projects. I mean, I had agents that were making well over seven figures a year. And I'm like, this is great. I'm writing their paychecks behind my desk at this computer where I don't get to talk to anybody all day long. And mind you, I did not have a window.
I will tell you the one thing that the CEO of that company did wrong with me is he gave me an office with no window because I have to move I have to see the light so I'm like I'm gonna sit in a box with no window and stare at spreadsheets and then write these people's paychecks and get paid what I'm paying and they're making seven figures. I am doing something wrong.
So that then led to really, you know, I'm like, last thing I want to do is be in sales. But where is a happy medium? And I ended up falling into this situation because talk about a leap of faith. It is one of the, you know, handful, three or four times in my life, when I made a conscientious decision to take a wild leap of faith. And I told myself, if I fail miserably, I can always go back and get an accounting job.
And that was that was fifteen years ago. Yep. Yep. Yep.
Tom Hootman (12:48)
That's just it's a great mindset. It's true. It's true. There's always something, right? It goes back to like the take one step back. You're cool. It'll be all right. ⁓ it doesn't
you can fail. Failing's fine, momentarily be a success later. You never know. ⁓ I'm I it's fascinating to me because of the vertical you're in, taxes, is ⁓ it's highly competitive. There's a there's a ton of nuanced providers and solutions out there.
Heidi Henderson (13:02)
Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (13:15)
What have you learned about building trust and awareness over the 15 years? I would imagine it's it's like any other industry. Like it takes time to build the trust and awareness, but to get to a point where it's it's not you picking up the phone, the selling aspect, right? What have you learned about how do I create and build trust in an industry? No offense. Sometimes
There's some dark corners.
Heidi Henderson (13:37)
Yeah, absolutely. We've seen like a shift where people are trying to commoditize some of the services we do, and then automate certain things which have a downside. And then we have definitely seen ⁓ less than transparent people in our space as well.
I appreciate that question because I have a master's in tax. What happened? I actually have an undergraduate. I have I have a bachelor's degree in marketing. But because I was mentoring with that gal originally who had me learning accounting and and real estate and all that stuff, I ended up later going back to school and I got my master's degree in accounting. And so so I I have this understanding for marketing, and I have handled some of the marketing for this company before.
Now what has happened is I have sort of shifted roles and shifted entirely into the CMO role, the chief marketing officer role with Engineered Tax Services. And reason being is you think of how do these blend in terms of how we communicate our message. And I think that's what I've learned, if anything, is I mean.
Trust and rapport, I don't think can be facilitated or fostered in a day or a month. It takes commitment, it takes time, it takes presence, it takes authenticity. And that's hard because so many people want a quick fix. They want it now, they want it instant, they want to be a millionaire this second, they wanna, you know, I'm sure on the marketing side, it's like, hey, I want to run this campaign and I want it to pull in, you know, half a million dollars in the like six next six
60 days. You know, there are lots of things. The reality is, is there is just an inherently
certain amount of time, I feel like you owe it to society to have to put in the work to build your brand, to build the rapport, the trust, the weight. And especially today, this is where I feel like we're winning. And I am without a doubt more excited right now than ever in my career and ever with this company because people are like, AI is gonna take over these jobs and AI is going to do all these things. And now there's all this competition.
And all this stuff. And you know what's fascinating is I think it is making every one of us more
critical in the way that we think. And I don't say critical in terms of negativity. I say critical where we're more aware and we're paying attention because we're like, wait, is that real or is that fake? Is this AI or is it something legitimate? Is this something that I can trust or am I being lied to? And it's a little sad that we have to be really careful because I feel like everyone is constantly trying to scam
me out of something. and and I don't like that feeling but I think that's where I'm realizing
I am able now to say, look, we have been here for 25 years. We are going to do the right thing by people and educate and provide meaningful information and content and support and be super real and authentic. So I will show up on camera. There are times I am like, this is so embarrassing. And you know what? Maybe someone will make a comment about my stupid mic or that my hair is messed up, or I have wrinkles because I have wrinkles. And you know what? As much as I
Tom Hootman (16:27)
So I'm not sure what
As much as I a lot of that.
Heidi Henderson (16:43)
I want to hide that,
I have chosen not to hide it. Because it's like I am not AI and I'm not going to do AI videos. And
Tom Hootman (16:50)
Yeah.
Heidi Henderson (16:52)
We're gonna just bring who we are to the table and we're gonna say, look, we have the history, the expertise, the longevity, we're not going anywhere, we're the experts in the field, and I feel like the people that are looking for that and appreciate that are finding us. And that makes me happy.
Tom Hootman (17:11)
Yeah. No, no,
I absolutely get that. And I think that you mentioned authenticity. I used to sell chicken strips to restaurants. I sold food to restaurants and anyone who could buy food for a company called US Foods, 100% commission. And you had to have patience. It wasn't like day one, but it was like a click down, is what they called it. And a a president, Kirk Cummings, who I I was fascinating guy, once said it the best. He's like, it takes you a year.
Heidi Henderson (17:23)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (17:37)
To be
able to read the pitches out of the pitcher's hand, let alone to be able to make contact. And what you're doing is you're building trust. It's just showing up. I have a million of these old sales reps. The hardest door to open is the one to your car, is one of them. Like these, like these like old guys with cell phones on their belts, right? And like old polo shirts on. And they're kind of right. Like, yeah, it's really easy 100% commission to like.
Heidi Henderson (17:42)
Hm.
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (17:59)
Call it a day. But you do what you say you're gonna do and you show up when you say you're gonna show up, things just happen. Like it builds trust, and then people start to ask you for help. And that's then when you can step in and help them. It's fascinating. so I I had a a very good friend of mine, one of my best friends who was the president of an agency I was at before, was our our president, and then he was the COO at my former agency.
Heidi Henderson (18:00)
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (18:21)
He had a degree in philosophy. So I'm always fascinated by the dichotomy of degrees and master's degrees. I don't know that I've ever come across anyone who had like marketing and then accounting. For where you're at, it always used to call him the perfect weapon, right? Like he kind of can live on both sides of the fence and really do two jobs. You've put on the marketing hat a few times at ⁓ ETS. Like, what's a
Heidi Henderson (18:22)
Hm.
Yep.
Yeah.
Mm.
Tom Hootman (18:46)
Marketing lesson you learned the hard way. Like something you thought you had figured out that you were like, shit, this is different.
Heidi Henderson (18:54)
I think the hardest piece of it, I mean I guess learning the hard way is as soon as you have things really figured out and working, it changes.
And it is so fast. It's like I feel like every time I turn around, it's different. So it's like, wow, this is working great. Wow, we're we figured out we sort of solved the puzzle of driving leads and this is amazing. And then bam, you're like, nope, you know, this algorithm changed, or like Google decided to change everything. Or, you know, whatever it is, it is like there's all this moving parts. It makes it's what makes it fun.
But it is painful because it's not like you ever get to rest. It's not like you ever solve it and then you're like, Cool. So it's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, you
Tom Hootman (19:34)
like delivering the mail is what I tell people. Like there's no there's no finish line. Like every day you get up and you gotta deliver the mail again. Like it's not gonna stop. Like you just have to keep going. It's gonna change.
Heidi Henderson (19:44)
Yeah, you don't get to build it and then be like, Okay, perfect. I did it. And now I get to just sit back and watch it run. Like, you know, okay. It's like it's like an autonomous mail delivery. I mean, I don't know. Are we gonna have robot? I mean autonomous mail trucks that drive your mail over and drop off in your driveway. I I Yeah.
Tom Hootman (19:56)
Rum.
Maybe, right? Like we already have the I saw one of the autonomous
robots yesterday on campus, like the little four wheel robots delivering food. And I was like, it's just it's still funny to me. It just it just looks funny 'cause it's just like doot doot doot doot doot and I'm like, never thought in a million years that would be a world I lived in, but here we are. You never know.
Heidi Henderson (20:18)
Yes.
Yep. So it's just it's a little bit painful 'cause sometimes it just feels like there is no rest.
Tom Hootman (20:25)
No, yeah, there's there's no rest whatsoever.
And I think that's part of what people struggle with in marketing is the relentlessness of it. Is it just goes and goes. Even the wins are like a quick high five, one little victory lap, and then what are we doing next? And it can be taxing and it's tough too because from an agency side.
Clients with a good perspective of like, yeah, this is hard are great to work with. And that's why they're great to work with. And there are some clients that wield that out of fear of of failure and what's next. I gotta push the this these people forward harder. Like, you can tell them good job once in a while. Like that's okay. Like, let's a pat on the head every now and again, tussle their hair and say, that's great job. Let's all move on to the next goes a million, million miles with us.
Heidi Henderson (20:46)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (21:06)
I've had clients back up and be like, I'm sorry. I need to be better about that. I've had leadership calls with clients and be hey, like, you always seem like you're in a bad mood. Like, no, you guys are great. It's like, are we? And you're like, yeah. I honestly think too, it's why a ton of people in our industry who I've worked with who've been on the client side as well as the agency side in the new economy are now consultants and doing project work.
Heidi Henderson (21:27)
Mm.
Tom Hootman (21:28)
And what I've heard from the former CMO of a client, two of them, is that they love getting in and fixing the problem and then having an end date and being like, All right, you're set. Teams can take over from here, the agency can take over from here, call me if you need me. Because they're like, I get to like reset and go work on a different thing. So it's like a it's like a little bit of in-house and a little bit of agency, which they like. And
Heidi Henderson (21:35)
Mm.
Mm.
Yeah,
That makes sense. That makes a ton of sense. because that that is a difficulty with marketing. It depends on kind of your executive team and and owners and what the end goals are, but you know, when it's growth, especially massive growth, and it it feels to me like now there is a lot of push for a lot of big growth. It's like go, go, go, grow, grow, grow, you know, where's your ROI? And I feel like marketing can be one of the most difficult things to try to calculate.
an ROI for because it is essentially your entire company. it's the whole thing. It's not always just a direct line to that that cash that came in based on a particular project or client or whatever.
Tom Hootman (22:28)
I just came out of a client call before th this call where we talked about, hey, the team's doing great. We're hitting the goals that the team's working on. Let's talk about the board's goals and the C suite's goals. And it's like, yeah, those are d those are different. It's like, yeah, like they're different. They're not different. They're just like rolled up. Like, so what are the two KPIs that like at the end of the day are gonna be great? Cause there are so many times
Heidi Henderson (22:31)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (22:50)
We think we're doing great. And then the there's a there's a meeting that doesn't go well where they're like, Hey, by the way, the board's not happy. And like, what do you board's like, look at all the green on this graph? And they're like, That's not the KPI. And in your head you're like, this would have been great to know when we started.
Heidi Henderson (23:00)
Yeah. Yeah. Hmm.
Yeah, it's
yeah. Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (23:07)
So you mentioned AI robots and ⁓ before we dive into the AI postal delivery of the future, how is AI impacting your business and like how do you see it evolving?
Heidi Henderson (23:11)
Yeah.
I am fascinated with it and I think that people that are not just embracing it are just missing out because my it is fun. I mean it's just the stuff that can be reviewed, analyzed, produced, and and worked with is remarkable. However, I feel like it can also just create so much more work.
because it's great at being like, You should do all of these things. Here's a hundred things that you should do in like the next ten days. And you know, and it's not like it does it for you. Like, yeah, okay, we keep talk AI agents and they're just gonna do everything magically for you. You know what? I have yet to have seen any of these platforms magically do everything for me. Now there's lots of things that will help me facilitate a lot.
One of the things I feel like it is a godsend for me has been really helping me to draft scripts so that videos can be created and content can be created. Not that it's done automatically. I think that's the thing where people can really miss the boat is getting caught or trapped into thinking that, it's just gonna magically do all of this for me. I don't to do anything. If I spend the right amount of time really talking it through and providing
information
and building it and researching and sharing my thoughts and my vision and why I want to approach things, then it we can really help it
articulate things honestly better than I can and faster. And so it can put it into a more usable format for me to be able to just use that and produce what I need. So from that sense, it does help me from an efficiency standpoint really well and in planning. When I tend to get scattered, it's much better being let's pull all this together and and lay it in a plan and get things organized. So it's like having my own personal organizer
on steroids. And I'm using it a lot of different areas. And I'm using probably five different platforms now, which is weird. But I'm playing with all of them. So they're they're all proving to be very interesting.
Tom Hootman (25:04)
Yeah.
No, it's not. Yeah.
I mean, it's something here we we just sent out I posted about on LinkedIn today. ⁓ Mike McPeak on our team sent out an AI survey. He's our resident AI. He likes to pull it apart, put it back together, and then throws it up and says, Hey, what if we all did this? Part of what we've realized as an agency is that like we're all using most of or some of the same platforms, but are there platforms someone's using that someone else isn't?
Heidi Henderson (25:27)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Tom Hootman (25:36)
Not
just from an efficiency standpoint of like should where should we point our dollars as an agency for Mixtape right? Like ⁓ subscriptions for the team, but more so even there's so many new tools each and every day and agent creation models that are coming out that people are working on in their silos that they may tell me about there's a great chance I'm gonna forget and not roll it up to everybody most of the time, right? Making certain that
Heidi Henderson (25:50)
Mm.
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (26:03)
we're all on the same page. A agency I worked at we had a thing called Red Bop Research, Development and Best Practices Day once a month. We would bring in speakers, we would do sessions with platforms, with vendors, with other agencies. And one of ⁓ one of my coworkers here, you know him, Elliot, brought this up. He was like, It'd be cool if we just he's like, I don't want to do Red Bop every month because it's all that's all that's crazy. We used to do it every month and it was not.
Heidi Henderson (26:09)
⁓ nice.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (26:27)
they said, can we just do an AI red bop one day with the team? I was like, Hell yes, we can. Because it's like, it's like garbage in, garbage out. You get what you put into it. And what I've realized from my seat is I have team members who are phenomenal at RFP responses because they've trained their agent to think, speak, act like them, and help refine their language. They know what works. I could load the same information in, but because I haven't written an RFP response myself.
Heidi Henderson (26:29)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Tom Hootman (26:52)
I would be at an earlier starting point and I wouldn't get the same output. You take that one example across every facet of an organization, you end up with an army of individualized tactical specialists who all have this gift and talent for their specific way they use AI that we're trying to fan in together so that everyone's learning from each other. The people I know who hate AI have used it once or twice and they're like, this is stupid.
Heidi Henderson (27:07)
Mm.
Ha.
Tom Hootman (27:16)
It's
like, yes, it's very stupid for quite a while, and then it's not very stupid, and it also won't do your job for you. It's not there to do your job for you.
Heidi Henderson (27:18)
Yes. Yep. Right. Right. And that's
That's what's fascinating. Like I was working on a project yesterday. I've got some new people on my team. So setting up some kind of thirty, sixty, ninety-day plan goals and guidelines and you know, what do we need to accomplish and you know, all of the planning, structuring, you know, people management stuff. And my tool, my agent knows a whole bunch of history of, you know, the last two years of having conversations. And so it puts some good stuff together based on all of our prior conversations.
And it's got this beautiful three page thing and it's wonderful.
it doesn't catch the day and the month and the year correctly. So if that isn't just the key point to like, okay, AI is amazing and gonna take over the world, but it doesn't know what day of the week correlates to the date of the the month. So it's that kind of stuff that it's like, yes, it creates this big beautiful package, but does it actually have any meaning? So this is like to what I was saying earlier.
Tom Hootman (28:02)
It's so good.
Yeah.
Heidi Henderson (28:19)
Earlier, we have to be better at critical thinking. Our critical thinking skills have to be more honed than ever. So great, use the tools, but you better be prepared to analyze and dig into the weeds to validate, because that's the reality of the output.
Tom Hootman (28:36)
Yeah. Maybe this
AI is what brings us together and finally teaches all the doom and gloom and boomers not to trust everything they see on Facebook, right? It's like, you flood it with bullshit and you're like, wait, I can't trust any of this. And you're like, no, you've never been able to trust any of this. Just now it's blatant.
Heidi Henderson (28:47)
Yes.
Yes. So exactly. I'm like, maybe now people realize that everything you are seeing is is fake.
Tom Hootman (28:59)
favorite meme where it's like people say I've started texting my significant other like I'm Chat GPT like did you empty the dishwasher? Yes, I did. No, you didn't. There's dishes in here, you didn't even run it. And it's like, you're right to push back. That's a good call out. I didn't. And it's like that conversation where I'm like angry typing, like, no, you it's literally the opposite of what you just told me. And people you I appreciate. God,
Heidi Henderson (29:09)
Yeah.
You say, I really appreciate you bringing that to my attention. Now as I revisit that, I see that you're correct.
Tom Hootman (29:24)
I hate how much I love it. One last question and then we'll try to get you out of here. And I've asked this question forever, it's my favorite question. It has nothing to do with anything we've talked about. If your career or your current role had a two to three song playlist on let's say Spotify or Apple Music, if you're weird, what songs would you include and why?
Heidi Henderson (29:38)
Yeah.
Mmm, smart. That's a smart one. let's see. First one's gotta be I'm a Maniac It's gotta be, right? I mean can we play that? I'm a Maniac Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like you just judged me harshly for that.
Tom Hootman (29:41)
Yeah.
Maniac from Flashdance? Yeah, okay. Yeah. I remember I remember Maniac. No, no, no, no, no. It's just the song's just Maniac.
I didn't know if there was another song called I'm a Maniac. There is probably another song called I'm a Maniac. It's Maniac, I believe. And I'm trying to I'm trying to think
Heidi Henderson (30:00)
No, no, yeah, no, I'm not thinking of the the terms. You know, I'm I feel I feel like I am
a maniac. I feel like I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off, doing a million things. And it's like let's start another business. Let's start this, let's rebrand to something different. Let's
Tom Hootman (30:16)
Michael Sembello
is the guy who sings it. I would never have remembered that name in a million years. okay.
Heidi Henderson (30:21)
Yeah, I would I wouldn't have either. the
The other one, ⁓ more personal, I am a huge fan of Brandi Carlile. I have been since way before she was ever a star and now all of a sudden she's everywhere.
But she has been one of my favorite, favorite, favorites for over 20 years. and she has a song from many years ago called My Story. and it always resonates because it just talks about, you know, all of these lines on my face, they tell a story about who I really am. And, you know, people don't see that and they don't know that, but they tell the story. As we age and get older and, you know, now we live in this world of perfection, it's like I love that so much because I'm like, you know.
What I will embrace every single one of them because that's the reality of who I am at the core as a human being, aside from all the facade and the work and the personas, like the core of being human beings. And that ultimately is what I love about what I do every day is the connections like with you and people I've worked with that I've worked with in work. And it's like fine, work is great. But to be perfectly honest and transparent, I care much more about the human being behind the work.
And the work is just the junk we do on the surface. So I love that talk.
Tom Hootman (31:32)
You couldn't have put a better
bow on things if you tried. That's wonderful, honestly. And it introspective and self-reflecting. That's wonderful. That's a fantastic song. That's a fantastic artist, fantastic answer. how can people find you? Where can they find you? Where should they find you?
Heidi Henderson (31:36)
Yeah.
⁓ lots of places, you know. I actually have ⁓ you know, there's Engineered Tax Services, and ETS, of course, is all specialty tax, and we deal with a lot of direct studies. My content side that I really focus on is on really education and providing guidance for investing and alternative investing in tax write-offs. And I do that through my podcast Slash Tax. ⁓ and Slash Tax is on Instagram and YouTube, and then all of the podcast platforms.
It gets technical. So, you know, I've seen comments, they're like, wow, that sounds interesting. I have no idea what she just said or what she's talking about, but that's cool. So take it for what it is.
Tom Hootman (32:20)
I do.
It's I went to a birthday party over the weekend and
a friend of mine said, I love your stuff and I listen to the podcast and I don't know what any of it means half the time, but it's awesome. And I was like, Thank you. Thank you so much. That's really sweet of you. Heidi, as always, it's wonderful speaking with you. Thanks for making time for us. Thanks for being on the pod. I really, really appreciate it.
Heidi Henderson (32:42)
Of course. Thank you for the invite.