At UpSide, we believe that small businesses drastically improve communities. That’s why we want to highlight local business leaders in our community. We’re more than accountants; we are business confidants.
Come take a walk on the upside with UpSide Accounting’s founder, Mike Widdis, and have a laugh with us (or at us!) as we talk business.
In the second episode of Take a Walk on the UpSide, Mike Widdis challenges Trevor Stooke from Agenda Digital Marketing to a horse betting challenge at Mohawk Racetrack. Get the inside scoop on Trevor’s upcoming art collections and other inside business tips from our industries!
Make sure to watch until the end to see who’s horse won!
Learn more about Trevor Stooke here.
Transcript
Trevor Stooke:
Hi everybody out in radio land.
Mike Widdis:
Let’s get ready to rumble…
Trevor Stooke:
Put your hands together for… Mikel!
Mike Widdis:
Welcome to the second episode of “Take a Walk on the UpSide”. Today I’m joined with my friend here Trevor Stooke from Agenda Digital Marketing.
Trevor Stooke:
Hey Mike, how are you?
Mike Widdis:
Hey, good, good. We’re at beautiful Mohawk Racetrack here where today we’re going to be doing sort of a random betting challenge. Trevor and I will be asking each other seven questions and the number of questions that we each get right will be the number of horse that we’re going to be betting on. So are you up to the challenge?
Trevor Stooke:
Let’s go.
Mike Widdis:
Awesome. First, let’s here a little bit about you and Agenda.
Trevor Stooke:
Well, we founded Agenda Digital Marketing back in 2005. We’ve been in business 13 years and we have pivoted slightly as to what we do; we are now a design factory. We help clients stand out, look competitive, and look great online.
Mike Widdis:
Awesome, you’re doing a fantastic job.
Trevor Stooke:
Thank you.
Mike Widdis:
So question number one, ready?
Trevor Stooke:
I’m ready.
Mike Widdis:
Here it comes. So in business, there are two things generally that you want to get right – you want to nail – that you can consider yourself successful. What might those two things be?
Trevor Stooke:
I’m going to think top of the list might be profitability, you want to get your profitability right, and in order to get your profitability right you have to have a good plan.
Mike Widdis:
That’s good for me. You got one point there.
Trevor Stooke:
Awesome. All right, now I have a question for you. Since we had two p questions on that one there, profitability and planning, what are the five p’s of marketing?
Mike Widdis:
Planning is going to be one of them.
Trevor Stooke:
It is not.
Mike Widdis:
It is not? Oh my god there’s five ps and planning isn’t one. Picture? No.
Trevor Stooke:
No, although it would fit, but it doesn’t in this case.
Mike Widdis:
This is terrible.
Trevor Stooke:
How about one of the five?
Mike Widdis:
One of the five is going to be perfection.
Trevor Stooke:
Which we strive for every time but it is not one of the five p’s of marketing.
Mike Widdis:
It is not, and one zero. What are they then?
Trevor Stooke:
Promotion, price, people, place, and product.
Mike Widdis:
Oh that’s a good one.
Trevor Stooke:
They’re the five important ones.
Mike Widdis:
All right, so question number two is a bit of a general accounting question. What’s the difference between a profit and loss statement and a balance sheet?
Trevor Stooke:
Profit and loss encapsulates the balance sheet and shows you the profitability of the company. It’s a good guess, sort of? And the balance sheet, well, the balance sheet shows you what is coming in and what is going out.
Mike Widdis:
Yeah, that’s pretty close. So balance sheet, the popular term is what you own and what you owe. So assets, liabilities, and equity. Whereas a profit and loss is going to be your income and expenses, so your net profit at the end of the day.
Trevor Stooke:
Well good. And that’s why I rely on you. Perfect, my question. Every day we are inundated with many marketing exposures. So from the billboards we see to the radio advertisements. Do we see more than 100 every day? More than 500 every day? Or more than a 1000 everyday?
Mike Widdis:
I’m going to say a 1000.
Trevor Stooke:
You would be right.
Mike Widdis:
Woo, all right.
Trevor Stooke:
Yay. Actually some numbers estimate that we run into about 5000 if you incorporate all of the ads from online, radio ads, and everything. So anyway it’s important that your message cuts through the clutter because clutter is all around us.
Mike Widdis:
Absolutely, getting worse every day. So for the third question we’ll take a little bit of a different way. I’ll ask a question and you can refuse not to answer, which will count as a wrong. If you do answer, it will be a right. We won’t have anybody confirming whether it is true or not so, I mean. Do what you will. So you have a martini collection and a whiskey collection now, scotch collection. Are you planning a third?
Trevor Stooke:
I am.
Mike Widdis:
And what might that be?
Trevor Stooke:
Probably the one I should have started with to begin with because everyone loves it. Wine. I’m envious actually, I’ve been thinking about beer as well. So yes, I am thinking about it. I have prototypes in process and if you tell me your secret favorite vineyard, I might be able to get one for you VIP style so.
Mike Widdis:
Hey, you heard it here first!
Trevor Stooke:
That’s right, I’ll only charge you double. Trevor at StookesStudios.com. So my question to you is in creating those I use a very popular software suite for creating my art as a digital artist. Do you know what software suite I use?
Mike Widdis:
I’m going to go with Adobe Creative.
Trevor Stooke:
That’s correct, Adobe Creative Suite, probably the premier of them. Most popular and the most widely used and I think there’s an opportunity for other people to come into the marketplace. Sorry Adobe but the King may not be the King forever, we’ll see how the other competitors come in.
Mike Widdis:
Hey gotta stay on your toes, right?
Trevor Stooke:
You do indeed.
Mike Widdis:
So next question. What is the bottom line? What are they talking about?
Trevor Stooke:
Funny, I’ve heard it a lot but not in accounting and I’ve probably said it. Especially with the kids. But I would say the bottom line is the cold hard fact to the number, to that profitability sort of sense.
Mike Widdis:
You got it – ding! That was the word I was looking for. The net profit.
Trevor Stooke:
Are you making money or are you not?
Mike Widdis:
At the end of the day, are you profitable? That’s it.
Trevor Stooke:
My question to you Mike, when you go to your website and you see for some reason you have a 404 error, do you know what it’s telling you?
Mike Widdis:
Call Trevor.
Trevor Stooke:
Definitely call me and I’ll get rid of that one.
Mike Widdis:
Page not found I believe is 404, right?
Trevor Stooke:
There it is. Mikel, you did it. Wonderful job.
Mike Widdis:
I’ve seen that a couple of times.
Trevor Stooke:
And if you do have that, you either make sure that page is found or you put a redirect in so that people can find an alternative page which then they can utilize to maybe get to where they want to go.
Mike Widdis:
That’s good advice. So on the martini theme. Bond. James Bond. His suggestion is shaken, not stirred. Would bartenders agree with that statement?
Trevor Stooke:
It depends on the person wanting the drink and how you like your vermouth to settle.
Mike Widdis:
Well would most bartenders agree that’s the best?
Trevor Stooke:
Most would stir it.
Mike Widdis:
They would stir it, yes, you’re right.
Trevor Stooke:
But the shaken martini adds a little bit more bubbles, a little cooler action in there, and activates it a little bit more, so it depends.
Mike Widdis:
Good point.
Trevor Stooke:
Probably has more to do with the gin than the process.
Mike Widdis:
Just give me a drink now.
Trevor Stooke:
Give me a drink. Make it dry.
Mike Widdis:
Bartender.
Trevor Stooke:
My question to you is one of the major softwares that you’ve introduced to me that has made my business flow so wonderfully now is Intuit. Intuit’s share price. Is it up or down today?
Mike Widdis:
Today specifically?
Trevor Stooke:
Or what is the share price within about 5 points?
Mike Widdis:
I’m going to go with is it up or down because it’s 50/50. I’m going to go down today.
Trevor Stooke:
You would be right sir. It’s down about 4%.
Mike Widdis:
Woo all right, it’s a good day to buy. So you’re martini collection is based on cities, famous cities.
Trevor Stooke:
Correct.
Mike Widdis:
Famous architectural buildings in cities.
Trevor Stooke:
Buildings in cities, towers in the cities.
Mike Widdis:
So if you’re doing an Italian themed-
Trevor Stooke:
Ah there’s a good one.
Mike Widdis:
Which buildings, structures, towers-
Trevor Stooke:
I, as of this point, do not have an Italian tower, so if anyone out there has one, please make me aware of it. But I was thinking, only thinking because I didn’t think that it aligned perfectly with what the martini tower concept is, is in Venice there is a bell tower, church bell tower. St. Marks or something to that effect. I was going to use it, it didn’t quite work, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa is probably the most famous one and it just looked wrong. It looked like what a martini might look like after you’ve had way too many of them so.
Mike Widdis:
Maybe you have.
Trevor Stooke:
I didn’t think it looked as elegant as it should for a beautiful, contemporary piece of art, so it fell off the drawing board. Speaking of Italians and cryptocurrencies – actually we weren’t talking about either of those – but here’s one that you probably do know. Can you name five cryptocurrencies?
Mike Widdis:
Other than bitcoin?
Trevor Stooke:
Other than bitcoin.
Mike Widdis:
Etherium, Ripple, Dash, Zcash, Civic?
Trevor Stooke:
Those are legitimate, you win.
Mike Widdis:
I don’t know. Let me know below in the comments. Did I get it? Did I nail it? So what is a burnt martini? a) a martini that you’ve lit on fire, b) with a touch of smoked whiskey, or c) a gin martini.
Trevor Stooke:
Well I’m going to go with A because I really don’t know the answer to that one.
Mike Widdis:
It is B. A bit of burned whiskey in there.
Trevor Stooke:
That’s great, I’ll have to try one of those. So my question to you, to round out the questions. There’s a certain logo from a certain firm called UpSide.
Mike Widdis:
Might be familiar with it. It’s ringing a bell.
Trevor Stooke:
Fantastic logo.
Mike Widdis:
It’s all right.
Trevor Stooke:
Can you describe or explain what the symbol is as part of the logo? The U?
Mike Widdis:
Yes, the U is taking a negative and turning it into a positive. It starts with my favorite color red and turns it into a green.
Trevor Stooke:
Well done.
Mike Widdis:
All right, so based on those answers I think I got horse number six and you got horse five.
Trevor Stooke:
Yeah, you did better in the trivia than I did.
Mike Widdis:
Well, trivia doesn’t matter if your horse wins.
Trevor Stooke:
That’s a good point. Go five!
Mike Widdis:
Six!
Mike Widdis:
Well I just want to thank you Trevor for being a good sport and coming out here to Mohawk Racetrack. Had a good time and we’ll be spending on some horses.
Trevor Stooke:
Let’s do it, let’s win.
Mike Widdis:
Thank you everyone for watching. If I made you smile at any point during the video, please like and subscribe and catch us for the next one.
Mike Widdis:
So how was that for you? Number six takes it.
Trevor Stooke:
Unlike five, defeated miserably.
Mike Widdis:
He did finish the race. You gotta give him that.
Trevor Stooke:
It’s a consolation price. Participant’s medal.
Mike Widdis:
Right, so we threw a 20 down, got 35 back, not bad. Luck was on my side today.
Trevor Stooke:
Luck is on your side. Cheers. Thanks Mike.