The Full Stack Advantage: Chris Rodriguez on Authenticity Over Algorithm Changes

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And I think video in general continues to be a strong connector so long as you are keeping it authentic. And perhaps my bias, but even the chat we're having right now, as much as there was some, some business prep. Sure. On your end and my end, you know, I'm just having a conversation with you here. Right. So the idea of imagine deciding, hey, I'm going to record myself saying a thought today and not worried about like, am I wearing my best gear? Did I sometimes, you know, some of my best videos are when I'm unshaven. Right. Like it's just true. Authenticity is what I believe works and that's what's worked for me and that's what I would recommend to my clients.

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I am here with Chris Rodriguez. And Chris, I was just noting that we have a little bit of a shared background, probably different sides of the music spectrum. I worked a lot more in dance music club music, but I did work with some New York legends like masters at work a very, very long time ago. But I love it when I get to speak to people who are in the digital world who have that background. I think it makes us really gritty, determined. It gives us a whole other skill set than just the traditional skill set.

Yeah, I appreciate that perspective. I like to say I cut my teeth in the school of hard knocks digital marketing space while first doing hand to hand combat in that form of marketing. Right. So everything from event promotions to talent management, you know, the real hustle, being able to have the tolerance to accept rejection, all of the above. I, I just think like it, it allowed me to be comfortable in my own skin and yet a continued hustler and continuing to push no matter the circumstances. So yeah, I do appreciate that synergy as well, just to flesh that thought out a little bit. I spent some time after college, so I was a music major at the University of Virginia. But I was the out of state New Yorker who came back home with this fresh music degree, but not necessarily planning to be a musician so much as in the music business. And I sort of lived two lives. I had a full time job that was lucrative, but respectfully probably soul sucking work. I was working in, you know, cubicle land in the legal industry of Manhattan while spending nights and weekends following my passion of the music business. You know, all the while probably it was not as lucrative and so I was living to have lives if you will. But it helped me learn much of what I just described. And I had a bit of an epiphany during that path where as I started to find my way as a digital marketer for the music space specifically these were during the times of MySpace creating MySpace communities, creating an email newsletter at the time, you know, when record labels would push records, they would want these email newsletter blast companies to push the newest single. And I found my way into relevance of that space. And then I had a bit of an epiphany that I started to appreciate the craft and the setup of the promotion more than the actual musician, him or herself, more than the, the elements of what brought me here in music. And I said, huh, this is probably a sign. And that was the first beginnings of me really becoming passionate about the craft of digital marketing. And I appreciate you highlighting that at the start of our chat here.

Yeah, thank you. I remember those days of moving from record labels sending us cassette tapes and records and merch to it moving into the email newsletters and the digital downloads. And of course I had my little list of friends I would forward all those, you know, emails to so they could also download the music, you know, and then into continuing progression.

That was my game for sure.

Yeah, yeah. So it's also really fun to see that perspective of growth from the early days to now. And you've been now in digital marketing for over 20 years.

Indeed, indeed. Different evolutions, different chapters. Right. Today everything is AI and you know, I still remember saving as a file and it taking like an hour and a half. So you know, I guess a true xenial in that sense and really appreciating the details for each stage is what I would say. So When I, when I say it sounds a little tongue in cheek, like the school of hard knocks learning. Like, I learned how to build community out of necessity. I learned how to optimize an email out of necessity. So I even had a chapter where I was running a streaming show. And this was when there was a. A true irl. Folks show up at a certain location at a certain time. It was not, you know, what we're doing right here, Anika. It was not virtual in that sense. And so learning all of these things when it was to be learned in the real way at the time.

Yeah. And I think that gives you such a strong foundation. I mean, fast forward to today. You started a company, a digital marketing agency. You have worked with over 30 startups from funding, you know, from C to Series E. So you've been able to use all of that experience. But more than that, the social side. Right. The communication, how you deal with people, which is such a big part of even knowing how to navigate the world of these different types of clients. I mean, they're all trying to reach a certain goal, but they're all in different stages of their business.

Indeed. And I think having built businesses from nothing to then having challenges of having the honor of representing someone's brand that is established and mature, those experiences allow me to flex in either direction. I come from humble beginnings. I'm a Puerto Rican from New York City, and yet I have a top 25 bachelor's degree. Right. And I went to a very prestigious boarding school, so I'm able to navigate from the streets to the boardrooms, up and down on the class spectrum. So it has helped me again, be comfortable in my own skin, no matter the setting, is what I would say. And truthfully, as I say that I'm now, you know, a proud daddy to young girls, and I try to instill some of those aspects. Times are changing. You have to be able to navigate the technology, the dynamics culturally, personally, professionally. And you don't know until you experience it that you're just being yourself. And yet there's some skills in that. And so I try to emulate that, pass it down, share it with my team. Yeah, I think it's. It's something that I, I was just being myself until I realized it was a skill.

Yeah, truly is. Because I think so many people don't have that mindset. They feel imposter syndrome as they move from one status to the next. Right. So that is 100% an asset. And so I'm wondering what led to you deciding to start IXL yeah, so.

I had been fortunate enough to progress my career in the tech side of digital marketing. I guess not to go too far back, but everything we've spoken on thus far was the beginnings of the digital marketing career. I then had a bit of an epiphany as I noted that I became passionate more about the craft. And at that point I had decided to make a career pivot into tech startups. The skills were quite transferable. I became a 30 year old rookie in tech startups surrounded by a bunch of, you know, fresh 21 year old grads, but had the 10 years of knowledge, sweat equity, hustle, whatever you want to call it. And so I caught up very quickly and throughout that process, as I'm continuing to be employed by a startup, a full time salary, you know, I'm dabbling in consulting on the side here or there, nurturing this consulting lifestyle. But I found out later of course, how important those reps were. And after starting to get to a certain level where I'm running either demand generation or digital marketing for a reputable startup to even becoming the true cmo, the final marketing decision maker, I had a bit of an epiphany at that phase in my life where I was like, you know what, respectfully, this is probably the last time I joined someone else's train. I think I can do this. I have enough inbound and demand where I enjoy the context switching. I think the math can be simplified to say if I can simply generate X number of clients at Y annual, you know, average monthly sal rate, rather I can make this work. And so I had a bit of a plan to moonlight during a full time job that was quite demanding so that I could have a soft pillow to land on when it was my time to step out on my own. And that plan, though challenging for six months, was actually wise and fruitful. And I was able to kick it off with four clients already established with invoice history and trust equity built with four clients. And then at that point it was just like, gotta keep the lights on, gotta keep it going. And I was able to do that and created a lucrative lifestyle business for myself. But it got to six clients and I continued to have people asking me, can you help me? Can you help me? And I often was like, no, I'm at capacity, I'm at capacity. And there came a point where I realized it's not cool to reject this money anymore. You know, I come from very humble beginnings. I've got to figure this out. I mean, I don't have to figure this out. But I, I thought I should figure this out. And you know, I realized if I really go down this path and really mean it, there's nothing but challenges. It's like you're running into the fire, right? You're, you have to manage people, you have to expectations, you have to manage operations, you have to pay salaries and sometimes you could do everything right and things could just crash. And you have to want that path, that challenge. And I just thought, like, not to be too dramatic, but you asked, right? So the story ends with, I didn't want to have any regrets on my deathbed. I didn't want to say that I didn't give it a full go. And God forbid, if it didn't work out, you know, I can just go get a lucrative job again or fall into an individual consultancy. I've already proven both of those levels, so that's a pretty good fallback. So let me just give this thing a go and see how it goes. And six years later, I'm still here. Have not had a paycheck from someone other than myself since July 2019. And everything that I envisioned, which is ups and downs, is very real. And yet, you know, I wouldn't trade it. So it's been a very rewarding path.

Well, congratulations.

Thank you.

That's a success story right there that you've been able to leverage this, that you had the fortitude to moonlight and work full time so that you could live your own dream.

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Mentioned, there's a lot of things we have to consider as business owners. When you move from employee to employer, all the ups and downs and do you have the right team members? Are you going using remote teams are using in person? Do you have to have a fancy office, you know, just to name like the smallest things? You already had the client base, which is fantastic. But how was it when you decided to start adding people? Were you slow, deliberate? Did you think that you had to scale up pretty quickly?

Yeah, I think there were phases. The first phase was not truly like a bringing on your first employee, which was having contractors having the flexibility of a few people that can execute on the edges. That phase was, even though I say this as someone who has run entire organizations and therefore has run the people aspects therein, good goods or bads, ups or downs aside, it was never on my dimension and it was some company that had funding or a track record or Runway. When it's your own bank account, it humbles you. It presents a totally different perspective, a challenge. And I do remember what made me feel comfortable enough to really take that plunge. And it was really bootstrapping and stacking six figures. And so basically like acting as if the profit margins don't exist, such that you are creating your own seed round, for lack of a better term. Because I didn't want to do it on the fly. I wanted to have the same way. I worked on having a nice pillow until I leave with a client roster. I wanted to have a nice equivalent of a seed round or a large loan round. And then at that point I decided to double that with an actual loan. I, I started, I got an SBA loan and at that point I felt very comfortable almost treating myself as if I were a startup that had a seed round. And that's when I hired my first full time employee. And it humbles you. You're paying someone's salary and now it's normalized for me. But there was a time when I had to almost, you know, the imposter syndrome, where it's like, wait, I'm responsible for someone's like real salary? I'm, I am considered amongst other opportunities on the market. I have to have a competitive package, competitive salary if applicable, like profit sharing or some, some end of the Rainbow sort of add on. And the real thing for me was that it was actually the salary, sure. But it was the health insurance like wait, so I need to actually, you know, I take that seriously. Someone needs a real health insurance plan like and then obviously the cost therein. So that's when it became quite real for me. I did have a phase where I hired a first and then a second and then a third. And so to have three full time salaries of very competitive salaries at the same time was suddenly like holy smokes, this is a large cost here per month, I've got to quote unquote make payroll every month. And thankfully the decisions that were made prior for the the seed round, for lack of a better term, the saving to get to there allowed for any ups and downs. And at this point I've been doing it long enough where I feel very comfortable as a leader of men and women. But there was a first. Yeah.

And the work you do today is on the spectrum. Growth marketing. So paid strategies, but also organic strategies.

Yes. So first of all I like to call us full stack demand gen. So imagine every channel and there is the strategy of that channel, there is the free or organic side of that channel and there is the paid side of that channel with some exceptions. So basically for search we do organic search and paid search. Now organic search has expanded to geo generative engine optimization. Still the concept of search, the medium of search, there's social, so there's organic social and paid social. I like to say that we have a little bit of a B2B lens as it relates to organic social. In other words respect due to those that have brand vision as it relates to social or social media management. I mean we focus on sort of the, the lead gen component of social. So like automated dms, target audience building, et cetera. There's email, whether that be cold email or nurture email, we definitely find ourselves to be experts at those aspects. I like to say the back end, the back channel stuff. So tracking analytics, you know, though often associated with email, the concept of CRM marketing automation, building your systems, building your pipes, any and all of that. And so some clients dabble in a piece of that, some clients accept the full stack if you will and the depth of engagement is based on need. Sometimes we just do a project to fix a problem or to build something out and then pass the baton. We've done any and all of those permutations. Yeah.

Nice. And is there a strategy, tactic, tech stack that you feel actually drives results versus what people think will drive results?

Sure. Well, if I had to pick one as a favorite tactic to share, I think first it starts with the idea of authenticity. And authenticity is hard to do at scale. And so the best tactics that I've seen work are LinkedIn personal profile communications. I say this is someone who has 30,000 LinkedIn connections. And I often pride myself on the ability to make real connections. Even though sure, behind there is a business purpose, but imagine not feeling that and yet still making a business connection. It's a hard thing to do. So I find that that channel has the highest efficacy, the concept of a connection followed by a dm, but a well written one that is personal in nature. The primary channel there is LinkedIn. It used to be similar in Instagram as well as X or formerly Twitter, but those channels have sort of lost a little bit of that connectivity. I would say Instagram still has some, but that medium that, that funnel is a favorite funnel of mine. And I think video in general continues to be a strong connector so long as you are keeping it authentic. And perhaps my bias, but even the chat we're having right now, as much as there was some, some business prep. Sure. On your end and my end, you know, I'm just having a conversation with you here. Right. So the idea of, imagine deciding, hey, I'm gonna record myself saying a thought today and not worried about like, am I wearing my best gear? Did I sometimes, you know, some of my best videos are when I'm unshaven. Right. Like, it's just true. Authenticity is what I believe works and that's what's worked for me. And that's what I would recommend to my clients.

Yeah, yeah. And I appreciate that. I mean, you did come, you're here, you're bringing your authentic self. That's why we're having a good dialogue. And that's why if I have somebody come to me who needs services in your specialty, you know, I would recommend them to you. This is another form of that, making that connection. And now we're connected on LinkedIn and it goes on and on and on.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And it was authentic the whole time, I promise you.

No, I totally believe that. Well, I want to ask the name iexcel. Right. Because when you hear Excel, I mean, yes, there's excellence, but you also think of like Microsoft.

Sure.

So what prompted the name? What stuck? What was. Why were you like, this is the name.

So before I answer, I want to thank you for asking that because no interview I've ever been on, surprisingly, has ever asked me that.

Wow.

And there's a story behind it. So first I'll start by saying, I just so happen to be awesome at spreadsheets, and I love spreadsheets. But I promise you, the name has nothing to do with Excel or spreadsheets. And the name connects to your first question, which had to do with music. So the answer is, like anyone in the urban music industry, and frankly, you can be of any performance and have a stage name. You know, I come from, I don't want to say the hood and try to sound cool, but, you know, we all have nicknames and there was a time when I was entering the music industry and I wanted to pretend that I was going to be a rapper. And so when you're going through and you're choosing your names, my rat moniker was Excel.

Nice.

Okay, so. So much so that my boys back where I grew up, they don't even call me Chris. Sometimes they don't even call me xl. Some of them call me X. Yo X. So Excel has been my name for a long time before I got into tech startups. And I just, again, in the spirit of authenticity, like the people who know me my whole life know me as Excel. So the company was became ixl and I found a cool domain name, ixl co. I wanted to get ixl.com, of course, but, you know, that was taken maybe one day and that was it. That was the beginning.

Amazing. I'm so glad I asked you that.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah. There was a point in time when I was sitting with Linda, who discovered Masters at Work in New York, and another woman and Linda said, where are the Triple P's? I'm not going to tell you what one of those P's stands for, but it was the Power Posse.

Okay, got it.

Yeah. So you're really taking me back to those days. So it's amazing. And I love the fact you were able to keep that moniker alive, not just with your friend group. And, you know, it's a nod to your culture and to your background and that school of hard knocks that you talked about. So kudos to you 100%.

And it fell that way. I can't say that I had some master plan, but I'm glad that it fell that way.

Yeah, I think. I'm sure you've done a ton of interviews at this point, but the more you do and the more the IXL Co is mentioned, you'll get. You'll get the dot com. That's what happened to me.

Yeah.

Hey, you are brand amplified.

Manifest you. You shall manifest.

Absolutely.

I will say that there's power. And just to spin this to some digital marketing, there's power in short, memorable URLs and brand names.

Yeah.

The same way if we were at a bar and there's loud music playing and I'm telling you the name of my company, you want to be able to pass that test? Like, did you remember it if it was long winded answer.org right. You're probably not going to remember it. So I tried to test it with, you know, it's, it's five syllables. IXL co. So simple is better.

Absolutely. Do most of your clients because you do work with a myriad of categories of text startups and companies. Are they mostly B2B? B2C? Is there a mix?

If you would have asked me that question three years ago, I would have said exclusively B2B SaaS is our game. And that has a lot to do with the fact that that was the evolution of where my jobs took me. And frankly, that's not a bad place to, to land.

Absolutely.

And I learned the difference in the tactics of B2B versus B2C in reverse order. Which is to say, though, yes, technically in the music industry, we're talking B2C. In the tech industry, I hadn't done B2C for the first, I want to say, 10 years of my tech career. And now as I stand here, our biggest case studies are neither B2B nor SAS. And so it was sort of out of necessity getting our hands dirty. Specifically, one of our best case studies is having worked with a company called Dapper Labs where they were, you know, maybe a couple years ago, this was a cooler story, but they were selling NFT products during the boom of NFTs. But they were selling the official NFTs of several worldwide, you know, IP, the NBA, the NFL, La Liga, soccer, UFC. And so just being able to combine something we haven't really spoken about, my passion for sports as well, with my digital marketing acumen, you know, that was not a B2B funnel. That was grabbing fans of sports teams and having them buy a digital product in a E commerce transactional way. So now as I say that, like I take pride in knowing that I can market anything. As I'm speaking to you right now, right, there's a camera in front of me, there's a screen, there's a microphone, there's a cup. Every single product has a target market. And the chase, the passion lies in understanding where do people like this frequent digitally, what are the words they're using, what are the hashtags they're using, are they on this channel? More so than that channel. So just understanding all of that and then understanding the tactics that best fill that funnel is where I find the joy. So I just love the digital marketing funnel.

Chase, I was going to ask you about joy and what brings you excitement because you also. You have all this experience, but you also come across very seriously. Right?

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I take. I take my craft seriously. Maybe that extends to every facet of my life. And sometimes as much as I might be fun in some respects, maybe sometimes I'm too serious. But I want to make sure that I'm delivering, obviously, for the client, but also I don't think too much about the reputation as the lead, but I care about making sure that we're doing right by these people and that we are known to be people who take funnels seriously that are. That do right by our folks. And you want to hire someone who thinks that. Right. Like, I want to hire employees who. Who take our brand seriously and want to make sure that the client has satisfaction for their own accord. Right. Not just because your check's gonna come in the next payroll, but because you take pride in your craft and the work. Because that's what I represent, and so that's what I find joy in. And honestly, I've learned now, after some trials and tribulations, to find the right people who emulate that because they represent a culture that I want to create and that I want to. We want to give that off as we're on calls and we're passionate about your success. Right. So that's what I find joy in, and I want to surround myself with people who find joy in that as well.

Corporate culture is so important. I did some branding work with Red Bull employees, and it was a lot around their personal brands, but their personal brands are so ingrained with the Red Bull brand, otherwise they wouldn't be there.

Right.

And so we did a lot of, like, mapping out what they want to do, who they need to talk to, setting goals that went with who they are authentically, what they bring to the table authentically, and where they saw themselves being able to grow in the company. So I'm hearing some of those same things from you.

Well, hey, if I can aspire to grow towards a certain company culture, I have many respected friends who have touched that culture. And now I know that you have as well, Anika. So I've always thought Red Bull's culture is one that has a level of authenticity and passion, even though it is at the scale that it's at. So that's something good for me to take away from this conversation.

Oh, nice. I did want to ask. Now I'm losing my train of thought because you gave me that compliment.

No, no, hey, I appreciated the tip.

Well, one thing we know today, of course you talked about geo. We know that algorithms are picking up different things. I was just talking about this with my students because I teach some digital media management, digital social media. And we're talking about, you know, now we can't just talk about user generated and professionally produced. There's this AI category and AI really underpins so many things, but also different platforms. Whether it's Facebook trying to supposedly get back to more friends, family, the feel good stuff that we liked when we started using that platform that we still want to see, right? Maybe like I have a lot of family overseas, I want to. That's how we communicate versus Instagram wanting still videos, carousels, maybe less hashtags or no hashtags to, you know, YouTube shorts. But not being in the shorts, being in like the actual main sections. And it seems like they're always testing out different things based on what the other platforms are testing out. Now you and I both love LinkedIn, but we know that it's necessary to have a digital footprint in a lot of these places for a lot of different companies. What do you do when you have, you know, what works. But then if the algorithm's now rewarding something else, do you have to change tactics? Do you try to hold steady or do you know a little bit of give and take?

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It's probably a little bit of give and take an example on both extremes would be ChatGPT and LLMs have taken a significant chunk of the traditional organic search percentage usage. So obviously that means being aware of how to optimize for that new market share is vital. And yet let's not overstate the fact that Google is still let's not act as if people are suddenly stopping searching in a Google browser. So it's more of an and statement. There's plenty of tactics that once worked in a foolproof way. Cold email evolves all the time. And technically, as much as I take pride in the concept of cold email, it is a gray hat tactic. It's not technically allowed. Right. And so there's an art to being able to do it in such a way that when it hits your inbox it feels useful and authentic. And yet Google is one decision away from being a little more aggressive on percentages that indicate, you know, more spam than usual or the world shifts from under you and you just have to be nimble and agile and ready to work with it. You know, I'll give you a positive spin. So the idea that what used to be a traditional a market specific commercial video would have cuts of the generic sections and then a cut for the regional sections that you would have to Repeat the region 20, 30, 50, 100 times Similar model to if I would. I used to manage DJs and so the idea that or or artists and they would have to shout out each DJ for a drop in this case. Now I'm getting videos that are AI driven as my YouTube pre rolls and they are spot on in terms of my region in terms of the value proposition and obviously that's not a human there but it looks close enough where I get the point and maybe it's not going to work on me, but it might work on the baby boomer that is watching the video right alongside me, my neighbor. So, you know, there goes the need for unfortunately staffing for that or thinking in, in the old way. So though abstract a bit, I think the, the point that I'm really trying to make is you just have to accept that new tactics will come, study them, know them. But that doesn't necessarily mean the world is crumbling.

Yeah, 100% believe that. And that's why it's important to understand how to use everything at our disposal as marketers.

Correct.

You've talked a little bit about things that still work today. Is there anything that doesn't work that people would be surprised about in this day and age?

I think many traditional advertising tactics are starting to be more challenging. On the B2B side, there had always been a multiple touch funnel that as long as it's executed with the right details as it relates to audiences and retargeting and assets that people would simply add to your funnel. But I think the user behavior of people giving you their contact information, broad statement has changed and so as a result you need to target the right people while no longer expecting that they will give you the information that you're looking for. So I would say that concept applies across the board. And so how do you resolve that things related to hyper targeting and geo targeting without necessarily needing contact information? Things where you are allowing the person to make the decision, let's say like video ads that are convincing them or without necessarily expecting to get like the information, but maybe having them come in direct, having been influenced by your video. So it challenges you from an attribution standpoint because you want to create a halo effect and total number of leads that are directly attributed to that campaign, though that might come up less. You have to now be able to prove that you still created the, the halo effect of influence. So it's been a little bit of a welcome challenge, but a challenge nonetheless in terms of direct ROI and direct email addresses acquired direct sales from your efforts. And often they show up in terms of branded search or direct traffic.

Yeah, well, and I mean in Google itself is trying to do last touch attribution or data driven attribution. Right. Versus the other types of models that people used to be more inclined to use.

Well, yeah, and there's also speaking of Google, the idea that they had the AI overviews which are extremely helpful and as a result they're so helpful that they prevent you getting the actual click. And so the idea of impressions and tracking impressions, sometimes as a digital marketer As a demand gen marketer, I had often maybe discredited the concept of an impression being a success metric. That might be something that's good for reach or PR purposes but not for funnel generation. And now that tune has to change because as long as you're in the right decision making places, that is more valuable than ever before.

Well, and let's talk a little bit about that Geo so important I've heard that Geo really like LLMs try to find search results that are reviews from other people. They don't just want you to be touting your own brand, but they want to go to like page 10, page 11 of search of a traditional Google search or Bing or whatever to find that random person who's like really an expert on this very niche thing and says good things about you. But then I've also heard on the other hand that Google is cutting off after like 10 pages of search, that LLMs can't do that and people are forced back into Google search. Is this a myth? Is this true? Have you seen any of this in the work that you've done?

The thing that I've taken away from the answer on Geo, if you will, is it is not much different than what we call SEO on page optimization, which is to say if you set up your site in a certain backend infrastructure way and you follow a certain prescriptive checklist, then the likelihood that when an LLMs bot intakes your content that it will categorize you higher is no different than if you set up your page for SEO optimization. The rules, the spec, the specific rules differ, but the mentality is the same. And for those of you listening, the prescriptive checklist on Geo, generally speaking is you want to make your content be friendly for what you see today as an output of LLM. So that means LLMs put out bullet point summaries. You want to have a bullet point experience on your page. Often if you summarize your content, then the summary of your content will provide the simplicity for the LLM to understand your content because you've simplified it for them. If you are looking for a logic tree extension, meaning if you have a question in the LLM and there is not only the direct answer but related answers, you want to create related answers on your piece of content. So setting your piece of content up with categorizing it with an executive summary up top that is bullet point formatted, setting yourself up with a frequently asked questions and FAQ section at the bottom of your content is going to help really categorize your content correctly and then to literally categorize your content in the form of the schema markup on the back end of the page so that if you are of a certain type and the LLM in its response knows it needs to look up that type, it's looking for your type of content and then the summary you have and if applicable the FAQs to then have you show up as one of the handful of results in that prompt response. So that's the beginnings of the answer. And so other things that I could say about GEO are they're looking for user generated answers and thus far they've chosen Reddit as the primary social media location for question answer. So having a prominent presence on Reddit is beneficial thus far, but that answer could change and you know, it's one algorithm update away from being a different website. But that's how I know it so far.

Yeah and that does make sense because Reddit is one of those last bastions of I mean obviously the bots do get through but people are pretty good about shooting them down pretty quickly and self moderation. So yeah, so I can see why that would be the case. Now I could ask you so many more questions, but I will just ask two last questions.

Okay.

Of course we're going to have your website in the show notes so everybody can click through learn more about the work you do and working with you. Chris, what is one piece of advice you would give into every organization going into the new year?

I would say keep your eyes on the prize. There's a lot of noise and the thing that continues to work for me is signal versus noise. And yes, that applies to digital marketing tactics. But I'm also speaking as a CEO of a company, a small business. Signal versus noise. Keep your eyes on the prize. Stay focused. Don't allow distractions and noise to derail you from the topic at hand. The focused goals that you have that's always been that holds true no matter the times. I've always found that like anytime I see a shiny object I have to train myself, almost slap my my hand like stay focused young man, stay focused. So I share that with everyone else who's on the front lines.

And while that is great advice anytime, I do think that it is very specific advice that is even more important for this time. Signal, not noise. Yeah, a lot of us would do a lot better to get out of the noise cycle and just focus on our goals and our communities. This may or not be the same answer, but the last question I ask every guest Is do you have a favorite quote, mantra, verse, poem, family motto?

I don't know if it's a quote, but maybe a concept. I'm a big believer in the, the idea of 10, the 10,000 hours. Malcolm Gladwell. And it is related to what I just said. Keep your head down and focus. It's important to find your expertise, be comfortable in that expertise, know what you don't know and get to that, get to that level of expertise. There's a place for an expert generalist. But the reason why we're talking today is because I've put in my 10,000 hours. And when I'm looking to hire people, with few exceptions, I'm looking to hire someone who put in their 10,000 hours. Right. And I've seen signs up that say the reason why I can charge this rate for 10 minutes of my time is because know I'm butchering it, but because I put in my 10,000 hours and I just encourage everyone to not be so shortsighted and put in your time. Sometimes it's like I almost feel old school saying that. But that's probably back in my day. Right. Back in my day that was a normal thing to do is to pay your dues and keep your head down and, and learn. And I think everyone can benefit from that.

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much. I know it's the evening for you and it's just a few minutes till clock out.

Well, my version, the game never stops. Night, day, it's all a blur.

Yeah. But we have to turn our attention to our kids.

You know that is true.

Make sure they're fed homework, whatever the case may be.

So that is true. Amazing. I appreciate, I appreciate the time. I appreciate your expertise, your perspective and I look forward to continued growth for you guys and your brand amplified. And I will certainly keep tabs on everything that you're doing as well in eco.

You're stealing all of my lines, Chris. But yeah, likewise. We will definitely be staying in touch, bring you back on, talk about things as they continue this shift that we're in the middle of right now and see where, you know, where we're going next. So thank you again and thank you to everybody who is watching this episode or listening to it. Remember to put in your time focus signal, not noise. That'll serve you all really well. I know I'm going to be listening to that advice, probably writing it somewhere. I see it every day going into our next phase, whether it's our business or our lives or both until a few days from now. Have a great time. I'll be back again with another amazing guest to share their story and their journey with you.

Thanks for listening or watching to this episode of youf Brand Amplified. Don't forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast listening platform. And if you want to learn more, check us out@yourbrandamplified.com.

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