Stop Buying Attention. Start Earning Advocacy | Ted Wright

1,000 days. That's enough time to transform a company, but not enough time to waste. Welcome to The 1,000 Day CEO, the podcast about decisive leadership, sustainable growth, and building a business that thrives beyond any one leader. Your host is Bill Canady. Let's make every day count.

Hey everyone, today it's Bill Canady here with The 1,000 Day CEO. Today's guest is Ted Wright. CEO of Fizz and a pioneer in modern word-of-mouth marketing, something that we all need more of. Uh, Ted helped reignite Pat Flu Ribbon, and he spent more than 2 decades studying why people voluntarily share brand stories. So today we're gonna be turning that knowledge into a CEO playbook for building trust, accelerating growth, and creating enterprise value. Ted, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Bill. I'm super excited to, uh, to be here.

Well, listen, I'm super excited because this, at the end of the day, we're all about growth and this is, this is how we get it, right? Advertising helps, none of that, but the trusted recommender is exactly what, when someone tells you something and you trust him, you're more likely to do it. So my big question for you is, how do big businesses, how do any businesses, B2B businesses drive this conversation? How do they actually make that happen?

So Bill, what you've really gotta do is you've really gotta think about word-of-mouth marketing as something that's at least 3,500 years old. So everybody's been doing this since literally 2,000 years before Jesus was walking around. So it's been a long time that folks have been relying on other people for recommendations, right? This word-of-mouth marketing, word-of-mouth is people talking to people. Word of mouth marketing is taking that and making it explicit on how you're going to do that and basically systematizing something that everybody already wants to do. So when you're thinking about doing that, from all your listeners are thinking about doing that, they really need to really think about 3 different pieces. They need to think about their story. They need to think about their target and they need to think about the activities that they're going to do to get the story to the target more efficiently. So if you just make a triangle and go story, target, goal on the outside and put the word activity in the middle, that's the tattoo that after this podcast, you should go and get on your forearm. So you'll never forget this.

That's absolutely right. And the key of that, when you're getting that tattoo, what's typically the thing that triggers it? Like, like how do they start asking this question? Why am I not doing more meta ads?

Right. So here's the, so here's the interesting thing for everyone who's listening, your total addressable market. Can be really broken up into 2 pieces, the 10% piece and the 90% piece. The 10% of that piece are made up of what we call advocates. And those advocates really have 3 particular qualities to them. They like to try new things because they're new.

Interesting. Can you enable these folks? Can you empower them? Can, or is it just an organic?

So here's the cool thing. You can enable them, but you cannot create them. So these folks have been this way. They've had this advocate personality by the time they're basically 10 years old. This is how they're thinking about stuff. They're like, hey, I know this about my friend. I know this about this thing, whatever that is. Next time I see my friend, I should totally tell them about that. Not because they want to be popular or not because they want to have some generator company send them $10 because, hey, Ted bought a generator. They're doing it because I know you, I like you. I see that you're moving down to where there's storms and there's power outages. You need to know how much I like my generator. And if you can, you should totally get one yourself, right? Advocates have an innate love for sharing stories with other people. So you activate them by knowing that they're out there seeking information about the thing you're interested in. Right? The thing that you're selling and they're interested in that. And if you'll share stories with them and information in a way that is totally not about selling, but about sharing them, they'll take in all that information naturally and they'll go share that with people that they think that they already know, that they think would find that information relevant.

And it's— I've seen it. I've seen it. Is this today's modern influence? Is this the The kid I see out in front of the restaurant doing a dance, is this, is it, have they figured out how to monetize it?

So, couple of things, 2 questions. Yes, it is influencers, but also it is non-influencers. The other thing is they have definitely figured out how to monetize that. Because the systems set up on social media are, they'll pay somebody if you can get them to stick on your platform and watch your stuff longer. So they'll go out and do stuff. They'll dance in front of restaurants. They'll say, I'm a lawyer in North Carolina and I'm 60 pounds overweight and I'm going to move to the middle of And build my own house. And I'm, that's the way I'm going to lose weight because there's not a lot of food around here and it's a lot of effort for me to build this house. And so I'm either going to freeze to death or I'm not going to be fat. Come join me on my journey. And you're like, that's just weird enough where I'll sit here and watch it. Then if it's entertaining, I stay. Okay. Influencers are basically what the kids refer to as cosplaying. So they are pretending they're advocates. Advocates will share stories about all of your audience's products and services.

I think you're onto something there. There is a difference between someone who, I'm making a living, I'm basically an advertising person. And if you gimme a free meal or you pay me money, I'll, I'll, I'll let my followers know about your restaurant. It does work and there's nothing wrong with that. But when you've got someone who's a true believer, if you can get your product in their hands, they're gonna play with that product because it's what they do and it's more authentic. How does, how does a business find those people and how do, how do they activate them?

So, all right, so let's do this. 2 things. There's find and there's activate. So let's talk about find first. Here's the cool thing. You don't find them, they find you. And they find you because you're smart and you're thinking, okay, where do my people hang out physically or virtually? And what can I go do there that will make them stop what they're doing already and pay attention to me? So I'll give you an example. Everybody who's listening to this goes to a trade show. We've all been behind trade show booths before. You know where the best place to talk to people on trade shows are? In the coffee line, starting at 7 o'clock in the morning, right? That coffee line starts at 7:00 AM.

That's right. And I'm commiserating. Gonna be here all day.

People are like, oh, okay. And rope drop's not till 9, but they're getting their coffee at 7. They may get another cup.

They gotta be at the booth by 8 to get everything set up.

Rope drop is at 9. Everyone comes flooding in. How cool is it if Bill and Ted are sitting there in the coffee line at 7:00 AM and we have a model of whatever our thing is and we're playing with it between each other? Everybody around the, us in line, and we're not talking to anybody else. We're just talking to ourselves. And they're like, hey, wait, what, what do you mean that generator does this? Or what do you mean that pen does this? Or talk to me about that flashlight. What do you mean that flashlight will throw a beam a mile and a half? Like, how do you know it'll go a mile and a half? I'm like, hang on, let me show you. And then you start showing people and eventually you're having a conversation as the coffee line goes. And people that are there at the flashlight show are interested in flashlights. So they're going to say, hey, cool. Like, are y'all in here? I'll say, yeah, yeah, we're going to our table at booth, you know, 7532. Like, here's a little card, here's the QR code on it, you know, whatever. Come see us. And then they order their coffee, they go away. You order your coffee, you go get your coffee, you go away, you go walk around the corner, you throw away the coffee, and you go stand back in line. And there Bill and Ted stand. Standing in the back of line again, having the same conversation about the flashlight. Because what we are doing is we are sharing the story with each other. We're creating what I like to just call hoopla. Like, let's just do something small. And if people want to join in our conversation, they will. And if they don't want to, they won't. And we're not going to be obnoxious about it. We're like, hey Bill, this flashlight's really cool. We're just going to be playing with our flashlight.

Yeah.

Like we're prepping to go. And it's like, and I might have 10 of them in my pockets. And I'm like, okay, I gotta turn on this one. Cool. You think it like is a mile and a half from here? Yeah. And then you say mile and a half 4 or 5 times that somebody eventually is gonna say, how do you know it's a mile and a half? Like, well, I, I'd totally like to tell you. And how long does the battery last? And you have a conversation and then they go and remember that and they're telling their friends as they're walking around the trade show, hey, so I saw this person playing with this flashlight and we gotta go talk to them. We got, I just got, I gotta go show you this flashlight. Or this generator or this, you know, this cool widget or whatever the thing is, we gotta walk over there. And when they walk over to your booth, everybody's already primed. They're predisposed to want to have conversation with you because their friend already vouched for this thing they're gonna show you is cool. So that's how you activate 'em. You activate 'em by being confident enough in your product, in your service.

Mm-hmm.

If you're like, If I actually could, if everybody in America knew as much about this thing as I do, I'd have people lined up down the street.

That makes a ton of sense. How do you do it at scale? There's only one Bill, one Ted. I can only talk to so many people. How do I do this at scale? So as you know, our audience is CEOs, private equity, and this is the key of being success, right? Is I got to grow this business. I have my own business. You have your own business, right? We, we, we lead these businesses. The biggest problem is actually doing this on command. It's powerful when it works. Do you have tricks or stories or examples you can help that, you know, the guy listening to this goes, I come, I'm going to do that tomorrow beyond just doing the coffee.

All right. So the, you, you can't, you can't do it on command because the command is always on. So you and I cannot decide that we're going to get everybody to talk about our in-home generator.

Mm-hmm.

What we have to do is we have to figure out, okay, if people are going to talk about the in-home generator, what would they talk about? So all stories that are most likely to get shared between 2 people who know each other have 3 particular qualities. They are authentic. They're interesting. And they're relevant. And if you like acronyms in English, do they have AIR? So they're authentic, they're interesting, and they're relevant. So the first thing you've gotta do, Bill, is that you've gotta figure out if you're trying to get this thing to go viral, why would people really care about this story? Our job as marketers, our job as CEOs is to help our people think, hey, what's the story? And then where can we go share this? And how can we go share this in such a way that doesn't interrupt people? Because nobody wants to be interrupted. Everybody's got more things than they can do on their plate every day, morning till noon, night, the whole thing. They can, they do not have time. Some people talk about what's the signal through the noise. I just explained what the signal is. The signal is something that is so interesting to me. Then I'm gonna stop what I'm doing. I'm gonna pay attention over here to this thing.

Mm-hmm.

So you and everybody else who runs a business, me, I have to figure out every day, what can I go do to share so that people are gonna come and ask me questions? Because once I get somebody to ask me a question, then I'm having a conversation. And a conversation leads to awareness, and awareness leads to action, and action leads to a sale. You don't get any action if people are unaware. Nobody has time for your broadcast. They just don't have time. They're getting hit with a new ad every 5.5 seconds. Lord have mercy.

Right? I believe it. I'm just, we just, at the end of the day, I get, this will sound, I get 1,000 emails a day. About 800 of those go in junk. Thank God for that.

Yes.

The other 200 make it to my inbox and then, you know, probably 50% of those should win in junk, but still, that's, that is 100 emails of a specific request of me. It's a lot, right? So we're inundated, inundated with this.

All right. So let's just do that. Let's say you work 10 hours a day and you get 100. That's 10 every hour. So you gotta answer, you gotta make a decision to answer the new email every 6 minutes, and you don't get to do anything else all day. And then, then tomorrow is a whole new crop of this stuff. So, so this is just people who are getting through.

That's not even my job.

That's just people who are getting through.

That's not even my job.

Yeah, this is, by the way, this is not my job. All right. So my buddy David, I just, David, if you're listening to this, hi, he's retired now, but he used to run all the marketing for AT&T. And I totally remember once I was at his house, we were hanging out, our kids all went to the same school together, and he had an accordion file. That he had all his notes for the day and they started at 7:00 AM and they ended at 6:00 PM. And his assistant loaded that thing up and they, he gave him a new one every day. And that's, he needed to read all that. And then he was, that's how he went through his day. And I said to him, how do you get any work done if you're doing meetings all the time? And he said, oh, I do my work after the kids go to bed. That's, I do the same. That is not sustainable, my brother. And he goes, that is correct. I haven't figured out a better system. It's kind of like Churchill said about democracy. It's the worst thing we've ever come up with except for everything else. Right. So that was, that was so true. Yeah. So that's kind of that, that's where David was ripping off of that. So in that world, and we're all like this, CEOs to not CEOs, to everybody out there, to my son who's 23. We have things that we want to do every day. And if we're going to have something new, that story has to be authentic, interesting, and relevant. And we have to be able to come to it of our own volition, not have it shoved at us. Because the first time you try and shove something at somebody, they immediately start rejecting it. Why? Because they're inundated already.

Yeah. It's just not on the plate today. Right. It may, I may truly would be interested. I just don't have the bandwidth. We've talked about a lot of these. We talked about Generac generators. By the way, I love them. I, at one point, was really associated in their early days with them. So I have nothing but the good things to say. Now that's my subliminal message to say that we're taking sponsors and Generac, we'd love to have you as one.

Right.

But, but in all seriousness, so I, one of the businesses I run today is a part supplier to the powersports industry. So motorcycles, right? And the way that we get our advocates is you're really onto something here. So We can identify, they're self-identifiers through a variety of things. Social media is there already, our posting. We will, from time to time, reach out to them or they'll reach out to us and we make available to them certain things that we care about. Like, oh yeah, a lot of these guys are like bike rebuilders. They want pistons. Like we have a very high-end line of pistons. We'll go, hey, try our pistons. And if you like it, talk about it. If you don't, Well, we prefer you don't, but they'll even talk more about it if they don't like it. But we, we put it out there. They take it and run with it.

They take it and run with it. All right. So let me tell you just a little factoid here.

These advocates, so that thing about they can work against you sometimes, actually they don't.

So, so here's, so here's the numbers. Now, if it's going to put somebody at their life at risk, yes. And there are also people that are also whining. And they whine professionally, or they whine for a living, or they just they want to just stir the pot again. We're all quoting our meemaws here. Uh oh, stirring the pot. Actual advocates, if they don't like your thing, won't talk about it. It is interesting you say unkindest cut of all because they one they think talking about stuff is the awesomest thing ever, so they love to do that. And secondly, they have a relationship with their friends. Their And if they're always coming in with a bunch of negativity, with a bunch of all the rest of this stuff, eventually people won't invite them to their house anymore, or they won't pick up the phone when they call. So if it's life-threatening, like, oh no, you know, these eggs now have salmonella, so I'm the food person, so let me tell everybody about this. That's one thing. But if they just don't like your eggs and they like a different type of egg, They just wanna talk about the eggs. It falls off their list.

That is so insightful. You're, you're exactly right. Well, uh, you know, first of all, I, I 100% agree that if they don't like this, they don't talk about it, but they're doing this because they love doing this. They say, yes, the thing that I'm sending them is something that enables them to do what they are already like, and they're just gonna play with the tinker toy that I've sent them. So that's a really good— so your risk Of, of, of trying to contact them is, look, it either works or it's nothing.

I, that has been our, that has totally been our experience. So if I'm a bike rebuilder and especially somebody like your company who like, they make the best pistons in the world. So not only am I glad for the free thing, but more importantly, for many of the people you talk to, they're excited to be seen. They're like, wait a minute, you saw my little thing about repairing This dirt bike. Oh my God. And they go and they tell all of their friends. And here's the other thing for everyone who's listening. When people talk about, oh, what are we gonna do for digital? All of the stuff we're talking about fits right into the digital world in 2 ways. Number one, if it happens in real life, people take a picture of it and they share it with their friends. Straight up, period. So if I'm the bike rebuilder and Bill sends me the best piston in the world, I'm gonna go talk to people about it and I'm probably gonna take a picture. And I might not know publicly. I just might send it to my 3 best bike building friends and say, dude, these guys sent me this and I'm going to put it in. And they're going to remember to ask me about it a couple of weeks ago. I was like, man, I like the heck out of this thing. In fact, I pulled it out just to see how messed up it got. It's perfect. Looks like it's brand new. I'm going to put it in there. I don't know if I'm ever going to use anything else.

As an expert in this, what, what are the enabling things that a CEO or a business owner can do That when, when they, when the, when the advocate does find them or they find each other, it's ready to go. What are some of the enabling steps they should be taking so that they're prepared?

So I think you should have invitations ready to do something that's low cost for you, but really interesting for them. And I'll give you an example. We did a bunch of work with this underwear company for a while. And one time I, we said to them, it's like, you ought to invite everybody to New York City and come pick out, help you and the head designer, you, the owner whose name is on the underwear, and the head designer to pick out the new colors for next year. And the head designer was like, well, what if they pick out the wrong colors? I'm like, I did. It's not a democracy. This is an underwearocracy, which they definitely liked that I did that quote. It's like, we're not asking for their vote. We're asking for their opinion. And so I, they said, okay, well, nobody's really gonna come to New York and it's gonna be very expensive to fly 'em out there and all the rest of it. I was like, oh no, we're not flying. We're just saying, would y'all like to come to the actual showroom and work with the actual designer and see how we pick colors? It's this Tuesday on this month. We're gonna, and we'll have lunch. But y'all, we're just gonna make it real clear. Y'all gotta figure out your own plane flight and wherever you're staying and all the rest of the stuff.

Okay.

So we had 280 people send us a note and say, we would like to show up in the first hour. We cut it off at 1,000, hoping that 1,000 people really didn't come. We figured half of people would come. We had 480 people show up.

My goodness.

480.

So it's not really about the money you spend. It's giving access. They get access that the normal person— is that the key to it?

It's access. It's something, it's something that they can't normally get. Mm-hmm. Or it's something that they've seen, quote, in a movie or something like that.

Like it's the chef's table at the restaurant. It's working in the factory. It's seeing, it's meeting the brand standards, right? It's getting behind the scenes.

Behind the scenes.

Yeah.

Behind the scenes. Uh, so we have several bands that are clients of ours. And I would just like to tell everybody right now that backstage is not what you think it is.

No, it's not.

You've seen that in movies and maybe that happened in the 1970s, but basically working musicians now are well into their 30s and beyond. And if they ever did any of that stuff that you think goes on in the background, they don't do it anymore. It's—

they're exhausted.

Once you get past 50, you're like, and remember Rolling Stones are like 82 years old or something like that.

Mick's got it going on.

Got it going on. But that's about yoga. The backstage is basically pregame is yoga and meditation and getting with your nutritionist to make sure you have the right amount of protein and all the rest of the stuff. And that's, that's how somebody's able to be on the road for 130 days in a year. Because being on the road is exhausting. So my, my point to bring all that up is it seems like really fun in the beginning, but it is really fun if you're a musician. So once I was on a cruise boat, so my friend invented the whole music cruise business where the band goes on the boat and that was his idea and it worked. And so once I was there and there's a band called Lynyrd Skynyrd and it was their cruise. And I go to this thing and the guy who plays bass for them is giving a lecture on how Lynyrd Skynyrd plays the bass. And he looked at everybody and he says, you know what's great about this song? He's like, we sing it in F, but we play it in G. And you would've thought he had brought tablets down from the mountain. Yeah. Everyone was so excited. Me, who is not interested—

They'll tell that story forever.

Tell that story forever. And they were amazed by it because they're super fans of this thing. And they all went out and they made notes and they told everybody and like, oh my God. And And then the story spreads. So you, with your Pistons, your job is to get people you think who might think this is fun. And also to go to those places. I mean, everybody in motorcycle world knows about Sturgis. If I was ever going to Sturgis, I would go and I would have one particular story I wanted to tell. And I'd make sure people could get as deep into that story as possible. And so many people out there in the motorsports world, go to these things and they treat it more like a carnival, like they're trying to get as many people through the Ferris wheel as possible. You don't want as many people on the Ferris wheel. You want people to have a great Ferris wheel experience and talk about your Ferris wheel for the next year. And if your Ferris wheel is that great, like, I can't wait to go back next year and see what they do. That's the job. The job is not the thing. The job is not the experience. The job is the conversation. The experience comes from.

So they self-identify. You have it set up where there is a unique experience for them to participate that they can't get anywhere else, right? So they're now, now they're there. The Ferris wheel ride went great. What do you do next?

How do you keep them? Then you just treat them like a friend. You're like, hey, hope y'all had a good time. All right. See you later. You know, and like, we're going to send you, you know, we loved having y'all so much that here is free samples of the next thing that we're going to do next year. And then you just treat them like your friend and you send them notes like, hey, so great to see you. I know you saw this piston at this thing. We've got the new one coming out. You know, wait till you see our grips that we've got using the same technology, you know, whatever else you're doing out there. And then you just treat him as a friend, treat him as like family. In fact, you actually work really hard. So just for a second, we talked about a story is authentic, interesting, and relevant, right? Does it have AIR? The A in authentic, let's just talk about that language. So for us in our shop, the difference between authenticity and truth is authenticity is the language of friends. Truth is the language of lawyers and politicians. So you want to continually talk to people like you're a friend, like, hey, and let's just say, so let's talk about motorcycles. You know, I am the CEO of Kawasaki. I'm gonna say, hey, I'm, I'm gonna say y'all, cuz that's my, if I was the CEO of Kawasaki, that's what I'd say.

Hey y'all. Obvious.

Just thinking about dirt bikes the other day, blah, blah, blah. We have this really cool thing. You know, this thing was always a pita for all of us in the dirt bike. So we've had some guys in Osaka working on this for 2 years. And I think they've really cracked the code and you should totally check this out. We've got a film on LinkedIn that shows the engineering and we've got this and we're going to be doing demos here, here, and here. You totally come check it out. Love, Ted, CEO of Kawasaki.

Boom.

Send that out.

Right.

And just have a conversation with people. And give them an opportunity for, for access for something they think it's talkable. And it doesn't have to be, people are listening to this, it's like, it doesn't have to be fancy. I don't have to go to the World Cup final. I can go to a fan zone during the World Cup and I can have a great experience and I can be like, this is the coolest thing ever. Who knew? And we're all doing the Norwegian team, like rowing thing together or whatever.

Mm-hmm.

Because there's a bunch of Norwegian people there. And we're doing this in Minnesota and everybody is from Norway. If you're from Minnesota or know somebody who's from Norway, and so we're all going to make this rowing thing. Okay, that's fun. I don't get to do that. Doesn't have to cost money, has to be interesting, and it has to be relevant.

And authentic. I think your point about authentic is key for a variety of reasons. So, so, so I self-identified or they found me. We now give them a backstage experience, right? Something behind the scenes that, that makes them feel included. And, and then from that point on, it's, it's just a regular engagement of, of, of, of, you know, kind of reaching out, hey, we're in town. Would you, would you, is that, is there more?

Is that it? Is that as simple as it is? So it's just having conversation and then it's having a relationship and seeing where that relationship goes. Some people peter out. Some people wanna be your best friend forever. Some people marginally, 2% of them might be super annoying. You're like, dude, it's a, it's okay. I don't need 40 emails a day. You know who does this the best? I personally think about this whole thing. Walt Disney Company.

Interesting.

So Walt Disney started this thing called Disney Moms, and they're like, and for all of y'all that have ever had kids that are of Disney age, you were at some dinner party once. And either you or your spouse said, hey, we're thinking about taking the kids to Disney. And somebody like leaped over the dinner table and said, okay, wait. Okay. So when you go, and then they wanted to plan out with you in front of you, in front of everybody else, your entire Disney vacation right there. They're like, okay, this is who I used, or, or I did it myself and I used these 3 websites and blah, blah, blah. And you're taking notes because you know that it's almost as expensive to go to Europe with your kids. As it is to go to Disney with your kids.

I think Disney's more expensive now. It's a great experience, but they are not giving that away.

They are not giving that away. And it is a great experience. And so what they did was they said, hey, there's all these people that are excited about that. And internally they call it Disney moms. They externally may still call it Disney moms. I don't know. I'm neither a mom nor a Disney parent, a Disney person. So bear with me. And so they just reached out to a bunch of people and said, hey, would you like to be on our Disney Moms Council? And all these people jumped up and down and they said, okay, cool. So we're gonna be here in Orlando and we're gonna be here this day and we're gonna be here this day. And so y'all should come. And you know, we have these hotel rooms cuz we're doing very much off-season. So we'll give you a little bit of deal on the hotel room cuz, and we're still gonna make money on the hotel room. That's what they're saying internally, but we're gonna give you a little bit off. And they're like, They couldn't get there fast enough. So excited. And so the first year Disney really didn't know how excited people were and they're like, oh no, we want to know everything. And so all those people went away and then Disney got together with everybody and said, look, we've got 500 people and we could have more, but we've got 500 people that are going to come and whatever we are going to do presentations. So if you've heard of television and the upfronts, Disney now treats that as the upfront. To 500 people that are going to go take out that message to everybody they know. When Disney Cruise is launched, that's part of their launch strategy was people say, okay, Disney's going to do a cruise. And people are like, that is the weirdest thing ever. And like, no, no, no, check it out. And then the first people went on the Disney Cruise, they all came back and they said, this is fantastic for the parents because the kids go and they have the time of their life and we can just hang out. And then we have a lovely dinner. It's all very adult. It's not like the character breakfast at the park. It's all very adult. It's all very fun. Kids had a blast. We had a blast. Low stress. It's great. And all the other parents who were listening to that are like, no, but half of them go on the website and they look, because remember, word of mouth is not the beginning and the end. It is both. There is a middle part and the middle part is digital. So when you, Bill, Send a piston to somebody. They're like, okay, this is cool. But before they take the 2 hours to install it in that bike, they're going to go online and they're going to check out for social proof. What are all the reviews? What are all the pictures? What do the engineers say? You know, if you did a survey like, oh my gosh, 4 out of 5 dentists say that this is the best thing ever. Like, how many dentists did you talk to? 5? Or, you know, what's your end value? Because I don't want to, I don't want to mess up my bike by putting your janky-ass part in there just 'cause you send it to me, right? So then they go and they say, okay, cool. I, I got, had the conversation, then I checked it out digitally. Now I'm gonna go do the thing. And the end of that is when it works, when the story matches the experience they have, they go tell however many people they're gonna tell.

And you— Is there, is there a way to measure the ROI or effect? But even if it's low cost, it still takes time. And they're gonna want to see the key people, right? So they wanna meet Mick Jagger, they wanna meet Ted Wright, they wanna meet the person. How do you measure the ROI to make sure it's worth the investment?

All right, let's talk about, let's talk about who they wanna meet and then we'll talk about ROI. So I'm gonna tell you a fun story. So we work with a band and they're very famous. They're very famous. And we were gonna do like, you should have all your fans come and we should do this barbecue dinner. I think we can get it for like $12 a plate and have everybody. I think we can charge $200 and somebody will come back there. And then the lead singer, very famous dude, says, yeah, but I don't wanna talk to 200 people. I was like, dude, I don't think you're the most interesting person in the room. You're the most famous person. He's like, no, no. Who's the most interesting person in the room? Your bus driver. He drove Motorhead for 23 years.

Geez.

And drove the Zeppelin before that. The man has more stories. So I said, dinner time, it's gonna be, his name is Bill. It's like, it's gonna be stories with Bill. And Bill's just gonna get up there and somebody from the band is like, Bill, tell that story about the whatever. And they're gonna have a conversation. And yes, and you guys are all gonna listen just like we're all listening. And we're fascinated by this cuz nobody thinks about the bus driver.

Mm-hmm.

And nobody in that room realized the bus driver knows everything. Because they see everything and it's super cool. Everybody wants a picture with the star. Everybody wants a picture with the band. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bill, do you have time for one more story? And we're, and then people in the crowd go, one more story, one more story. And the band is like, this is the coolest thing ever because we get to have an experience with our fans, but we're having the experience with us. Some people in the band didn't even know Bill because He's only driving one bus and a band will generally have 8 or 9 buses. So there's 8 or 9 drivers. So if you're not on his bus, you might or might not really know Bill during the tour. And you definitely don't wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning and need something or just wake up and like talk to him while he's driving you from one venue to another. All right. So the meeting is not about the most famous people. You've got to really be hardcore about interesting, And relevant. So your engineers, Bill, that are making these parts are just as interesting to these motorcycle guys as you are.

More so.

And said with love, probably more so. Absolutely.

By the way, when I go to a trade show or I go to a factory, I want to talk to the person on the floor.

Yes.

I want to hear what they're doing. And they'll tell you, you know, I do this thing. You're like, oh my God, that's the most amazing thing. That's why it works, right?

Yes.

You know, nobody believes anything the CEO says or anything. Like, our jobs are different. That person, uh, has got insight you can get nowhere else.

And they're, and it's super fun. Like if you're into that thing. So, and now I'm gonna get to your ROI question. Uh, we've been in business for 25 years. Um, and, uh, I would just say that people buy us on the hope and they renew, um, on the results. Um, and our average client lasts 9 years with us.

That's amazing. In this day and age, that speaks, you know, Uh, volume to what you guys bring. I'll give you one other thing that we've done. So, uh, you get these, uh, you know, these advocates, they turn into, I'm just coining a phrase, a superfan. Like they want more and more. We have found, because this kind of person is unique in that sometimes they actually know more about our product than we know about our product because they're using it in real world. We will make in certain cases. We'll give them access to product design and input so that next product comes out. It's almost like you get your own testing group.

For sure.

And when you do that, you can take it from this nebulous, because I forget who said it, it was someone famous, you know, 50% of my advertising is wasted. My problem is I just don't know which 50%. You then can tie it to something that has an attributable ROI. Hey, I developed a new product. It has the whizbanger on it that our advocate told us would sell. And it's selling.

Yes.

Right. So you can go beyond just, you know, did it rain in Southern California or not? You can actually tie it to concrete things. We found that to be very, very popular. It withstands the bright lights of budget cuts.

Yes. Unless you wanna say Heineken and we can have a discussion about the most interesting man in the world, which was a brilliant advertising campaign because it moved a ton of volume for them. We can talk about it.

And everybody quoted it.

Everybody quoted it. And just so you know, that's actually why they sold a lot of beer because you could buy a 6-pack of beer and you could take to a party and people would quote the ad back and forth and people like, yes, I'm going to a party, have interaction. I'm going to bring Heineken. Outside of Heineken and maybe a couple other things, most of the brands that have grown from Apple to Crocs to whatever else you want to name. Have grown significantly in the United States, have grown because one person shared a story with, about that product or service with other people they know, and they told 2 friends and so on and so on. You can trace it every time.

You said something earlier this morning, you've been doing this for 25 years. Your average customer tenure, 9 years. That's unbelievably strong. All right. Be an advocate for yourself. Tell 'em, what do you do? Like, like tell 'em about your secret sauce, how you make all this possible. To get these brands where they need to be?

So, my job at this point, so, I mean, I started this, I was in business school and I just watched Google and TiVo get adopted across campus. And I was like, huh, how'd that work? And I grew up in a family that how things work and why they work that way. We, we, I grew up in a family of scientists and engineers. So I was like, hmm, let me just go back to how does this work? So the secret sauce for us is having a replicable process. To where, you know, you can identify in the front end what products, services, companies are most likely to benefit from this. And then going to the people who are coming to you and saying, hey, I would like that kind of growth for my company that you've done with PBR or Fireball for this band, for this shoe, whatever, all the things we've done. I would like that kind of growth. Sometimes I have to tell people no. Because they fail on either the authentic, the interesting, or the relevant. And since everybody's listening to car, then to listen to us as a car, as a car person, we're just going to assume that for a second. I'm now going to tell the story of Corvette. So my dad loved to redo cars when I was a kid. Sadly, he passed away when I was in high school. So me spending my time with him redoing cars and particularly redoing old Corvettes is something that was very important to me. I still have the last car he and I ever redid, 1963 Corvette. She's beautiful. She's lots of fun. Just drove her last week. Corvette calls us and says, hey, we have a problem. We are the car for the successful plumber. We are not in anyone's conversation. About, you're not thinking Porsche, you know, Aston Martin or Corvette. And we're a better product, pound for pound, dollar for dollar, more power, better product, all the rest of the stuff. I'm like, you have called the right person. I can talk Duntov. I can talk rocker arms. Let's go. Could not have been more excited. Fly up to Detroit, go to the Renn Center. Big, big meeting. Go up there. And they say, okay, so what we really wanna talk about, basically a couple of things that nobody cares about. It was, this is the early to, this is mid-2000s. At this point, nobody cared about that. Everyone really cared about, if it was 1970, they totally would care about this stuff.

Yeah.

That's what they think is cool. And so I go back home and I'm struggling for a couple weeks and my wife can see that I'm struggling and she's like, what's wrong? I was like, I can't help Corvette. And it was good money. It was GM money back when GM had money. So it was good money. It was kind of life-changing money for where we were. Company's about 5 years old at the time. Had to go back up to Corvette. And this time the meeting was in Kentucky. And I had to say—

I think it's Bowling Green, isn't that the—

It is in Bowling Green. That's exactly correct. I had to go up to them and say, hey, we can't help you. And here's a presentation. Now I'm going to do a presentation. Like, here's most of your money back. Not all of it. Because we spent, I kept a little because We've done a little work, but here's most of your money back, which surprised GM. They're like, wait, what? That's a check? I don't even know how to process that. Wait, what? I was like, I'm leaving. I'm not leaving. I'm not taking this back. I can only be this nice once. And I had a presentation and I basically said, here's the things you have to fix. The Corvette that you see now is not because of that presentation that I did.

All right, Ted, tell them how to contact you so they can get all these great things.

So thank you, Bill, for asking. The company is called Fizz. We are, if you Google Fizz and Ted Wright, you'll find us really easy. My email is ted@fizzcorp.com, F-I-Z-Z-C-O-R-P.com. Always glad to have conversation with people. And Bill, thank you for bringing all this fun information to your audience. This is really good.

Listen, I'm taking away the big lesson for me today is word of mouth is not just something A company can turn on. It's something the company has to earn, and they earn it through being authentic, right? Interesting. It has to be repeatable. They gotta get a unique experience. The CEO's job is to make the product and storyline true, help identify them and gen— the people who genuinely care and give them something to pass on. And with your capabilities and experience, you know, there's a way to do this and, and really get it right. So thank you for showing us. How, uh, this conversation becomes about growth. Uh, we'll include the, include the, uh, links to Fizz, uh, down below the show notes so people can click on that. Your, uh, your LinkedIn profile, everything we've got. Listen, thank you everyone today for listening. Thanks, Ted, for having, uh, for coming on the show. It was fantastic. Have a great day. Thank you, Bill.

You've been listening to The 1,000 Day CEO with Bill Canady. Follow the show for more decisive leadership, sustainable growth, and strategies that build enduring businesses. Until next time, make every day count.