Category Creation Playbook: How to Be Irreplaceable in B2B Marketing (with Josh Lowman)

This episode is brought to you by Zttle. We're halfway through 2025 and one thing's clear. We've been feeling this firsthand for sure. Events continue to be one of the highest performing marketing channels. Niche meetups, conferences, curated dinners, networking, breakfasts, everyone's all in. Everyone's leaning into in person. Events have become a core part of our playbook here at Exit 5. So far, we've hosted two virtual sessions. We do them twice a month. We do one large virtual event, sometimes two a year. One in person meetup. And we're deep in the trenches right now planning drive our annual conference coming back to Vermont in September. We use Zuttle to help us run a smarter event strategy. They help us with driving, registrations, managing invites, automating, communications, reminders, analytics, tracking. They do it all. They have a salesforce integration that also makes it easy and simple to report on pipeline and revenue from events without having to pull an op. So you'd know exactly how your events performed. On top of that, the differentiator with ZTTL is how their team is insanely good at supporting us. They always go above and beyond for us and that's how we've been able to keep the momentum going with 12 events this year already and just a small little team here at exit 5. So if events are a part of your marketing strategy like they are ours, you should check out Zuttle to see how Companies like Zillow, CrowdStrike and Iterable are using the top event platform for business events in 2025. Head over to zuttle.com exit5. That's z-u- dash dash l.com exit5 to learn more. You're listening to B2B Marketing with me, Dave Gerhardt. Hey, hey, hey. On this episode of B2B Marketing with me, Dave Garrett. My guest is Josh Lowman. He's the founder of goldfront. They're a category design studio. We talked about this hot topic of category creation in B2B marketers. Should you create a category or not? Why to do it? Common mistakes, lessons, learnings. Plus we got into a whole topic at the end about personal life, personal development, mental health. Josh just got back from a month long meditation retreat. We talk about that plus everything you want to know about creating a category. Here's my conversation with Josh Lowman.

It's so nice to see you.

It's good to see you too, man.

Yeah.

So what the heck is your backstory? So you run a company called goldfront.

That's right.

That's correct.

Yeah. I own a company called goldfront.

Okay.

Goldfront is a category design studio in San Francisco.

And how long have you been doing that?

It'll be 12 years in December.

12 years. So that was 20, 2013. Not many people were talking about category creation at that time.

We weren't talking about category creation at that time much. We came out as a creative studio. So as a creative studio, that was our category when we started. We came out as a creative studio and we happened to have a lot of experience and connections in kind of the tech world. So out of the gate, we started doing stuff for like Stripe and Uber and companies like that. So we kind of like built up this reputation for working for tech companies.

Yeah.

And it wasn't until we wrote a category POV for Qualtrics, then we did one for Newsela, and we kept doing a number of these category strategy engagements. Wasn't until then, until about 2020, that we repositioned as a category design studio.

And did you come up like, as a creative director designer? You just gimme that vibe. So I don't know. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So I came out of school in the 90s and I was like, I'm never getting a job. I'm going to be an artist. I'm going to write and direct movies. And then I procrastinated and I never got anything done. And then I was like, terrified that I was going to be a waiter for the rest of my life. Not that there's anything wrong with that. And so I went through the yellow pages to find jobs and I got a job as a digital designer, even though I didn't know what I was doing. And immediately I started designing websites. So I came up as a designer, moved to San Francisco because Wired magazine told me it was the center of the digital revolution. So I moved to San Francisco in 96, part of the whole dot com boom and bust, and did a bunch of really, like, interesting digital projects at that time. And at a certain point I was like, my heart tells me that I'm a writer. Like, I was like, maybe I can't be good enough as a designer. Maybe I'm actually a writer. So I switched over entirely to being a writer on, like, the traditional side of advertising. And I came up through that whole thing of writing TV spots and stuff like that. And then I just kind of like merged all these worlds of design, digital, traditional. And I was starting to shoot videos and at a certain point I was like, God, I'm like a generalist to a fault, but I need like one Flag to fly over all this stuff that I'm doing. And I was like, okay, I need to start a company. And that was goldfront.

Why'd you call it goldfront?

I wrote names for, like, a year, and at a certain point, I just took the words gold front, you know, the grills.

I was wondering if that was like, goldfront seems like a rapper. Like.

Yeah, yeah. And I just took the S off, and I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. It's like a nice. Instead of a cold front, it's a gold front, and it's about, like, gold records and success. And there's an agency called Funny Garbage at the time. And I was like, I want a name like that. Something that sounds kind of, like, nonsense. Yeah. And I shared it with, like, a good friend. He was like, that's it.

So now it's like this crazy game of, like, you have to have a good idea for a name, and then you go to GoDaddy and you're like, God damn it. There's no domains available.

Right?

And so it's so great to have a phrase with, like, simple wording. Like, when I named Exit 5, Exit 5 is the only good name I've ever come up with. Everything else I've named literally. I hosted a podcast interviewing founders in Boston in 2014. It was called Tech in Boston. The first iteration of Exit 5 was called DGMG, which is Dave Gerhardt Marketing Group.

I remember. I wasn't there.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. And then Exit 5 was like. I was talking to Harry Dry, who does marketing examples dot com. He's amazing. And he was like, you can name things literal or lateral. So literal would be like, Tech in Boston. Right? Or lateral is basically like what you did with Goldfront or Exit 5, which is basically you kind of come up with a concept, and then you revisionist history, tell your story into that. And so it's like, right. You know, I didn't wake up in the middle of night and, like, had this vision for Exit 5. I was trying to, like, think of a good name for it. And then you come up with a story that you can tell. And even, like, working with founders in the past, like, in consulting and advising, I'm like, how can we kind of retell the story of your company so we can, like, lean into the name and give it more meaning, even if that's not, like, the idea that you had from the beginning?

Such a fun thing.

Okay, so. All right, that's great. Super helpful context. I'm sure there's a separate podcast that we would need to be like drinking a scotch or something and hearing all of your stories from, you know, the late 90s, early 2000s and San Francisco. But the reason that I wanted to have you on this podcast is to talk about this topic of category creation. Because I think if you were to make a list of maybe three to five of the hottest topics over the last couple years in the world of the people who listen to this podcast, I would say that category creation is one of them. And it's also the most commonly contested.

Or there's the most objection around this. Yeah, yeah.

There's some reasons for that that I'm not going to. I don't need to get into on this pod, but.

Well, why not?

No, like there's just more like personalities and personal. Not about the concept of category creation, but I think that there's a take that like the only way to win is if you create a category. And I don't believe in that.

Right.

You know, like the sandwich shop down the street from me, she runs a great place and they make great sandwiches and everyone in my town goes there. And she didn't ones think about creating.

A category, man, it's crazy. I think of the sandwich shop down the road from me in the exact same context. Like when I'm thinking about a category, I'm like, well, they didn't create a category. They're great.

So do you agree with my take or do you have a way to frame that like.

I agree totally with it. Yeah.

Now that said though, if you are building something large, ambitious, like many of the founders you work with, many of the people listen, in this space, they work for those companies. If you're a founder that is out to build a world changing, life changing, billion dollar revenue, big exit type of company, then yes, I would argue that most of the time to have one of those exits, you need to have created a category. The third kind of thing of this though is it is much harder today than ever, I think, at least to create a category because so many names have been taken, something I want to get into you and so then I'll shut up in a second. But if I try to just like block the term category creation and I just think about like from a marketing fundamentals and principle standpoint, like, whether we call it category creation, whether we call it positioning, I'm sure you have a different definition for that. Like, is having a strong point of view about your company in the market the most important ingredient in marketing? I would say yes, If I could pick one thing. And I don't do consulting anymore, but when I was. And I still talk to founders now just to take calls every now and then. The number one area that I think most companies are lacking is a differentiator, you know?

Right.

And so anyway, all of those things are like, yeah, I'd love to have you on and. And riff on this topic. And I hope people, you know, hang up at the end of this episode and, you know, finish your run or whatever you're doing, and you're like, all right, I feel better about categories. So that's not a question, but I'm just curious to hear your reaction to any of those things I said.

I think that's all spot on. I just think almost like, I am thinking almost the same thing, and I want to go deep into some of this stuff so I can tell everybody how I think of it.

Okay, so I actually have up this. I have this category blueprint that you guys put out a while ago, and I saved it because I think it's very useful, and maybe we can start here.

And so can I see it?

Yeah, this is how I am. I was on a call with somebody, and they're like, yeah, I got your book founder brand up. And they're like, so on page 33, you said this. And I'm like, number one is like, why does most category creation fail? Is that a good place to start? Or how about who should, when, and why should you create a category?

Okay, wait, I got a good place to start. Okay, let me take the mic. Okay, please. All right, so, man, strategy is. It's pretty inaccessible. Like, it's kind of like, when I was in college, I thought about philosophy. I was like, oh, philosophy is like, something that smart people know about. But, like, I probably can't figure that out. But then I had a roommate, Mike Ehrman Trout, who, like, wore all black and listened to the Cure and smoked unfiltered cigarettes, and all he did was do philosophy, like, all day long, right? Read and write philosophy. And one day he told me, like, well, philosophy is really just trying to answer the question, what is a good life? And as soon as I heard that, I was like, oh, God, that's great. Like, I can understand philosophy now. And in a way, his definition of philosophy is almost like my definition of strategy. The question is, what is a good company? Or you could say, what is a good professional life? If we start with just a professional life, like, what is a good professional life? I would define it as, you're happy and you're irreplaceable. Like, that's the best that you could get, right? So Dave says at drift, you're like, hey, I want $5,000 more a year. And they just go, well, you're kind of replaceable, so we'll just get rid of you and put somebody else in your place. Right? So that would be a big problem.

No, what happened was I asked for more. I asked for more money and they said yes. And I was like, damn it, I should have asked for like way more than that.

Yeah, exactly right. And I think you've done a really good job at getting into that world where you're the senses that you're irreplaceable. It's the same thing for companies. Companies are just a group of people. So the goal of a company should be the people are happy enough and you have a product that's irreplaceable. And every company has their product on a spectrum of how replaceable versus irreplaceable are we? And you should try to get as far towards irreplaceable as possible. So a commodity like corn or eggs is totally replaceable. And hopefully these big tech startups that are trying to create a hundred billion dollar category are making something that's really irreplaceable or they're going to have a problem.

So a lot of people talk about vitamin versus painkiller, but you like this concept of irreplaceable, how to be irreplaceable?

Yeah, vitamin versus painkiller, it's fine, but it's not that material. You know, if I'm a writer or a designer or a marketer and I'm like trying to work on something, I can look at every single thing that we do and go, does this get us closer to the sense that our product is irreplaceable or further away from it?

Nice. I love this, man. This is what I love. I like when we can simplify things into, okay, so the goal is to.

How do we be here replacement? Because you have a community that some of them are just. People are just kind of starting out in marketing. Right. I don't want any of those people to think like strategy is something that just like smart people do and like, it's too intellectual and it shouldn't be that at all. Just like, hey, how can we make our customer believe that this product is irreplaceable? And that has to do with the mind of the customer. So it's really important that we frame all of that as like what needs to Happen in the mind of the customer. In order for that to be true, Strategy is everything.

The more I've gone into my career, it's like, I used to just kind of roll my eyes at that. It's just like a, you know, Harvard Business Review type of article. But it really is. And show me a company with a. For example, this concept of, like, how do you be irreplaceable? This can't just happen in the marketing room. It's gotta be like, product engineering roadmap. All of these things have to be aligned around this.

Yeah. I mean, once you start to think about how do we get the customer in their mind to think that we were irreplaceable, it gets rid of all of these divisions around departments in your company because you're like, well, the product has to do this and the marketing has to do this, and the customer service has to do this. And as long as you're thinking about the mind of the customer and that you want them to think it's irreplaceable, you no longer think in terms of silos. So that's just my way of setting the scene to say that, like, category does not really matter unless it's just in the context of, hey, it's a really good way to become irreplaceable. So the best way that I know of to become irreplaceable on an ongoing basis is to be number one in the category. There's like, a very special thing that happens in the mind of the customer when they're interested in a category and you are number one. They will gravitate towards you just because you're considered number one.

And that's a timeless marketing principle. Right. I think 22 immutable laws of marketing by recent trout is number one is the law of leadership. Right?

Yeah.

I don't want to take you off wherever you're going, but this is where. Okay, got it. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. This is where it breaks for me. Maybe I'm not good enough at this exercise. And I'm sure you guys are. Have a process. But then it's like, okay, but what is the ca. We are the AI generated slide deck. Gamma. Right. Gamma's a. You know, it's a AI slide generation tool. So is their mission to be the number one AI generated slide generation tool? Like, I've worked with founders before, you know, because you can't just come out and be like, CRM is our category anymore.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You Know what I'm getting at?

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, you know, actually before we talk about this, I just want to say one more thing about category. So if you want to become number one in a category, there's essentially four ways that you can do that. You could create a new category. You could transform an existing category like Tesla did with the electric car, or like iPhone did with a smartphone. You could transform the category so that you become number one. You could niche down like, you know, LinkedIn is a niche of a social network. Or you could solo. And solo is kind of like really special, where you could kind of like try to do every single little thing a little bit differently. And even if you're in a rational category that everybody says, like, oh, it's kind of in this category, everybody knows that you're completely different. So an example of that would be notion. Like everything notion does is like different. Even if you're like, oh, it's a project management tool or whatever it is. So okay, in that case, notion is a category of one. Okay, so now I forgot what your question was.

You were talking about the four ways to create a category.

Uh huh, yeah. And then I was talking about. Oh, right, you were talking about like.

No one, I think. Yeah, basically, like no one that I talk to will dispute that point.

Right.

Like the way to win is to be number one in a category.

Right.

But it's the like number one in a category. And so then like, what is the category that we are going after? That is where I see the most questions.

How do we come up with that? So let me tease this out. So in the way that I see it, there's a difference between sort of the rational category that people call it and the actual category, which is the category as it is in people's minds. So to understand. And sometimes they're the same thing, like CRM maybe. But to like share this idea, I could use an example. Two companies. One is Drift. So what was a conversation? What was the category, you guys?

I don't know. They've deleted everything. Website's gone. Everything's gone. RIP Drift, a sales loft company. Breaks my soul when I see it. It's conversational marketing.

Conversational marketing. Okay. And so in that scenario, this is all subjective. So this is my take on it. Right? Sure. In that scenario, okay. Drift's is a hot company. They're doing amazing. They created this category, but I think in the customer's mind they were like, well, it's like intercom.

Absolutely.

Yep. Yeah. So the category for the customer is Whatever they think of Intercom and Drift, it's like that's the actual category for the customer.

Yes.

Just because you named a category doesn't mean that actually was the leader of a category. The customer has to think you're categorically different from Intercom in order for them to create a category in their minds.

Yeah. And this was actually one of the big challenges in doing this was no matter what we or Intercom did, those things all bucketed at the time was under Live Chat. It was a live chat tool. And there was live chat for in app, there was live chat for support. We tried to be the first to come out and say, we're the only ones doing this for marketing today. You might call it chatbots, but yes, you're spot on.

Okay. And so that is essentially, that is the problem with the way B2B marketing, the B2B marketing world thinks of category is that the B2B marketing world generally thinks of, like, what you guys did with Drift as category creation, but you didn't actually create a category in the mind of the customer. You were number two in the live chat category. You tried to create a category, but it didn't work out. Right. Or here's another example, and I'm sorry to bring that up, because I love everything you do, but that didn't work out. But here's another example. Clay. I don't think Clay considers themselves creating a category, but they are. If you use Clay, you know, there is nothing like Clay. So in your mind, it's like, that is a category. That is a totally new thing. And you're like, oh, what is the category? You're making it. You're putting it together in your mind. Well, it's kind of like a spreadsheet, but it's got AI and it has all these APIs, all these other services, and you create the category whether there's a name for it or not. And so the reason why they've succeeded is because they actually have created a category. They just didn't name it. And so people just go, oh. It's that they kind of. In their mind, they're all like, oh, Clay, it's like a new category.

Do they need to name it to make it a thing? Or is it like you've won? If you've.

It would help. But it's not the most important part. The most important part is that the product is categorically different. And you get in the mind of the customer, it tips into that realm of like, oh, I can't really put this into a bucket. It's not really like Apollo. It's not really like, I can't put it in a bucket anywhere.

Your notion example makes sense too there because it's like you don't just think of notion. You know, when you think of notion, you don't think workplace productivity.

Right.

You're like, damn, planning a wedding in notion. Right. Notion is my to do list. And then it's also kind of replaced Google Docs at my company.

Yeah, yeah, right, yeah. So in your mind, it just goes into the notion category and like, that's a very good place to be.

The clay example, though, that is so, you know, marketing didn't like put a spin on this to create a category. It is like they fundamentally built a new thing that can be number one in a new category.

That's right. Like, so much of it is, you know, hey, what are you doing with the product? But then marketing, they came out with this thing where we're going to like promote people's clay recipes. I think that's been a big piece of their marketing is they find other people that are using clay and they help them promote their clay recipes on LinkedIn or whatever. And that's maybe a way that they're marketing, supporting the idea. There's nothing like it.

I asked ChatGPT, I said, what would Don Draper say about category creation in B2B marketing? He'd probably light a cigarette, take a long drag and say, you're not creating a category. You're creating a feeling. The category is just the box that they put it in after they believe it's pretty good.

That's good. Yeah. So I think that's essentially like, if you see all the, like, flame wars or whatever on LinkedIn about category creation, I think what people are really saying, the people that don't like category creation, basically saying like, we don't like fake category creation. You took something that's in an existing category, you called it a new category, and then you're like, ta da, we're a new category, but it actually isn't.

Oh yeah, they hate that. And then there's always this, like, look at marketers renaming marketing things again and again and again and again. That's why any of the pushback on the conversational marketing thing was like, yeah, they just name it something. There's inbound marketing and there's outbound marketing and there's conversational marketing.

Yeah. I mean, at drift, you had me, I was like, oh my God, this company, they're going to tear it up. This New category is really exciting. So, yeah, you. You kind of did it there for a while.

Not good enough. I'm still working. So.

So let's talk about what category is exit 5? So.

Oh, good question.

This is what I think. Okay. Being a super fan, you guys call yourselves a B2B marketing community. Right? But I don't think that really says it in the mind of the customer, and I'm a member of this community. I think what happens in the mind of your customer is it's the Dave Gerhart community. Your brand is so strong. You have a very unique way of doing everything. So I think people are going, oh, this is the Dave Gerhardt community. And that's a category of one. You don't need to call it that. It just is obviously that. So if you want to continue down the road of becoming more irreplaceable, what I would do is as much as you can, double down on that. And what that means is, obviously, you don't want to have to be, like, in the community chatting 24 hours a day, because that would drive you crazy. But, like, can you create features and events that have, like, the DNA of dg?

Yeah.

So, like, if I'm in the Circle community, you go, oh, we have this new feature. It's like this. And I go, oh, that's such a. That's so, like, in line with, like, how DG does things. That's strategically how you build the category.

I would agree with you, but I. I also think, like, in the evolution of the company, I think, and I want to riff on this. I'm not saying that you're right or wrong, but I think that, yes, that is what the differentiator has been today, which is like, I created this thing. I'm the tastemaker of this thing. If you believe in what I've done and you believe in how I think, then you are more likely to start this to come in. And if you look at analysis of our members, most of them come from LinkedIn and they reference either listening to this podcast or following me on LinkedIn. However, since deciding to create a real business around this, beyond a company of one. Right. I would like Exit 5 to elevate beyond Dave Geart. And maybe there's a founder story, and I'm the person who started the company and made it the way it is. But we had an event in Boston a couple weeks ago, Josh, and people were, like, lining up to, like, shake hands with Danielle, because they know her and she writes a newsletter, and they see her and they know Dan and they know Matt. And I feel like, especially in the last six months to a year, the Exit 5 brand is carrying more weight than just like the Dave Show. And also, I'm intentionally trying to make a company that's not the Dave Show. I don't want to be Gary Vee. I don't want to build the, like, you know, consulting funnel business. I want Exit 5 to stand on its own as a professional community for B2B marketers. And maybe the initial, you know, the DNA, though, is started by me. And so therefore, that community is going to be fundamentally different than a community that was started by the folks at, say, six Sense or Chris Walker or whoever else. Right. And I think that shows in the way that I write, the way that I talk, my personality. Can that work? You know, can it be like, this is the founder, but now the founder has multiple restaurants and you might go there because, you know, there's like the Wolfgang Puck branded, you know, pans and stuff.

Right, right, right. Well, it sounds like you don't want to go the Wolfgang Puck route.

Correct, yeah, correct. And this is an intentional back to strategy, though. This is an intentional strategy. I think there are different plays that I would be running if I wanted it to be like Dave Gerhardt's private community. And I would be doing more courses and presenting and public speaking. And I'm very consciously trying to make that shift. And it's like, this is a company and I run the company behind the scenes with people.

Okay, yeah. Cool. You know, this brings up a really interesting thing about strategy, is there's kind of a thing in the product marketing world where it's like, hey, just tell people who it's for and what it is. Like, that should be the strategy. Just be super clear. And the problem with that is that's just like a moment in time that's like, this is what the product is right now. This is who it's for and what it does. A more holistic strategy will go back a step and go, what's the ethos behind the product? And if you can figure out what that ethos is, then you can give it to the product team and they can go make features in the future. They know how to make features in the future. If you define your strategy as like, what's the product right now? Who's it for and what does it do? You can't give that to a product team and have them go, oh, I know what to build. And so in the, like, a strategic narrative that we would write, it always includes the ethos. And I think what we're talking about is the DG ness is like the ethos. Like if you wanted to go to the Wolfgang Puck route where your brand is everywhere and your face is everywhere, your ethos is. Let me check what my heart says and I'll just give you an answer, right? It's just like, what does my intuition say? Like. But if you want to not go where like your face is everywhere and it's just all about you, then you need to like write down like just a few things about what's the ethos of Exit 5? How do we do things differently than any other marketing community? You need to get that written down so that Danielle and the rest of your team be like, oh, I know what to go build for this. How does that land with you? Does that make sense?

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How is this different?

Yeah, I'm sure at some point we will be disrupted or attempted to, you know, someone's going to spin off a. You could just build a AI marketing community. It's like, well, why am I going to join that and exit 5? And so yeah, definitely.

But I think you guys, you do think about differentiation. You're just doing it as like, okay, how do I speak in social? And that becomes your differentiation.

Yeah, absolutely. I don't have it written down but I think it's like, it's the way we write, it's the who we choose to speak at our events. How are things looking feel? I saw this post the other day, everybody's going nuts about right now, this topic of unconferences. And they're like, Exit Fives Drive was an unconference, Spring was an unconference. Da da da. Chili Palooza was an unconference. And like, dude, we didn't have a meeting last year and we're like, we're going to do an unconference in Burlington, Vermont. That was just our way.

Right.

You know, and so you're exactly right. Yeah. They're just the way that we write, the way that we talk, the way that we do things, that is the differentiator. But, yes. I don't have a way of, like, perfectly naming that.

Yeah. But if, you know, you could just write down a few things. It's like, hey, we make B2B marketing accessible, not, like, fancy or intellectual.

Yes.

You know, just a few things. Like, voice is everything. We tried different ways. Like, we include everybody. Like, you don't want everything to be a bunch of platitudes, but, like, just a few things to say, like. Yeah. What's the difference between, like, what you're saying, the way you teach B2B marketing, and the way everybody else was doing it before? I think that's kind of your ethos.

Yes. Yeah, I'm going to write this down. I need to make it a vision, Doc. But one of the things that you made me think of is something that I believe in is I believe in this stuff. Like, not necessarily. I don't think the key to great marketing is knowing all the SaaS metrics and all of the acronyms and all of the jargon and nonsense. I like the focus of our community being, like, the marketing fundamentals, the principles. You know, we might not ever have a workshop on, like, how to understand CAC to ltv, blah, blah, blah, because we're not trying to teach you how to be CFOs, we're trying to teach you how to be creative marketers. And this is the stuff that I love. And so that's kind of, you know, embedded in the DNA of the company.

Yep. Makes sense if you don't have one. A strategic narrative that just tells the story of a big change that's happened in the world. Your customer who's left out in the cold in this big change, the price they pay for that being left out in the cold. The new way that you guys are building a community that nobody else has, that solves that problem. A little bit about what is included in that. Like, what do you mean by it's a new kind of community? A little bit about the ethos of it. It could be really short, but if you had that, that'd be a killer thing to be able to give to everybody in your company.

I agree. Okay, I'm on it.

What else?

You can keep driving.

Well, I think mostly I want to clear up this thing about category creation, because that's been hanging out there on LinkedIn a lot like, hey, category creation sucks. And it's there's been this, like, trend of category creation that started in about maybe 2017 when Qualtrics came out. And it sort of, like, started going downhill at the beginning of 2022 where it's like, oh, this sucks. This doesn't work anymore. So it's that whole, like, trend of category creation has gone down for the last couple years, but still becoming number one in a category. And the fact that the tech world proliferates categories like there's no tomorrow. And the fact that categories are so important to customers means that it will always, now and forever be central to how you define what your company is doing.

Do you think things went the other way and this stopped working because of this obsession over, like, naming a category? And everything has to be the naming the category of X. And we go to G2 and there's no category on G2. So now we're the this is a bad example, but it's like CRM already existed category. Well, we're the mobile first CRM or something, right?

Is it.

Is it that?

Yeah, that's a big part of it. Especially in the, like, rev ops space or marketing ops space, like those kind of SaaS tools. I mean, the name space is just so crowded, and everybody's like, okay, well, this is already taken, so we'll take this and let's get analysts to adopt this. It's like, analysts probably are not going to adopt your category name. And not every company is, like, making a new category. And if you're just trying to figure out how are we going to name our category something different than one of our competitors, and you don't have a case for how the product is actually categorically different than that competitor, then it just falls into that, like, trendy category creation.

So what advice would you give to marketers listening to this? Because we kind of have this. We have this fundamental truth that everybody wants to win. Okay? To win, you want to be number one in the category.

This is what I would do if I was on a marketing team. Well, first of all, it's different if you're the CMO or you work for the cmo. If you're the cmo, you want to buddy up to the CEO as much as you possibly can and sell through the idea that you need a unified strategy, a single strategy that guides everything that the company does. And then once if you can get sell through on that, or you verify that that's what the CEO wants to do before you take the job, then you can then become the Sherpa for the definition of that story. And you do it with product leaders and all the other leaders of the company in the room with the CEO.

Yep, that's the dream scenario. That's what I had at Drift. We had a visionary founders, product leaders who wanted to build this roadmap, who believed in basically building a roadmap in alignment with our positioning product leaders who would have new stuff to ship and couldn't wait to run down to my desk and grab me and pull me in a meeting. I don't think that's the norm at most companies. I think a lot of times it's like combative product leader. The product strategy doesn't actually match the marketing strategy and the vision. Maybe the CEO doesn't have a strong vision, right?

Yeah, yeah. I mean there's some degree of you gotta kind of play the cards you're dealt. Honestly, what I would do and what I've done for my whole career, and this is maybe unreasonable, but if I was in a marketing department, I would just think like, what would I do if I was CEO of this company and how do I need to get the mind of the customer to change in order for us to get to where we want to go? And I would write strategy as if I was the CEO of the company. And then it's like, well, if this doesn't fit into like the culture here because you told me these 12 things that really don't matter at all and I didn't write those 12 things into the strategy, then you will find like that's not a good place for you. And hopefully if you, at least for me in my career and I've been freelance more, not as much a full time employee, but it's really served me to just try to do things as if I'm the CEO of the company. And then some places I don't fit in because I'm not like towing the company line about all the 12 different things that I was supposed to say. And then other places are like, this guy is great. This is exactly who we need. And you kind of end up in those places where there's a need for that.

That's a great line, by the way, for people listening. I marked it so we can have a clip of it. But category creation or not, this mindset of that Josh just mentioned about like, what would I do if I was in the marketing department? I would think what I would do as a CEO of the company. And don't bother with, you know, how you change the finance or and how you do HR differently. Just as it relates to like, how do we sell more of this thing that we're making? And this is where I always say this on this podcast. But it's like everything in marketing works. Direct mail works, TikTok works, YouTube works, SEO works, events work. You can't possibly do it. All right? What separates the great marketing leaders from everybody else is the great marketing leaders can have a strong point of view about how the company should be doing marketing. And then the tactics get chosen based on that strategy. It's almost always like this to your point in the beginning about strategy. Take your average post in the Exit 5 community, right? About someone who's having a hard time at work or something's not working. Like if you kind of run the five whys on that, you kind of almost end up with like, okay, we gotta have a strategy, something in the company. Strategy is busted.

Right? Yeah. I mean, as much as I can, I just try to follow my heart. If I was a cmo, that's what I'd be doing. It's like, what is the thing that I'm most excited about if I end? And how would I get that down on paper if I was the CEO?

That's what the kids call vibe marketing now. You know that?

Man, I'm so glad this word vibe got so big. I mean, it's probably like jump the shark now, but in the world of communications, especially in B2B marketing, we are so over our skis about everything that's like logical and left brain cheat codes for performance marketing and all this like rational crapola. And the real magic is over on the right brain side of things, where it's like the feeling and the magic and the vibe of things. And that word vibe is so great because it basically says like, there's something that's beyond logic, that's really powerful here. And I think all of the great marketing organizations get to that place where there's a kind of magic in the communications that you couldn't just put in a spreadsheet.

This is it, man. This is like, I'm not good at marketing, I'm not good at spreadsheets, I'm not good at the metrics. But put me in a room and I will give you this, right? The vibes, the intuition. And I think especially in a world where a lot of marketing is going to be, you know, automated and done with AI and there's not a lot of soul in it. Like, I was lucky to work for people at Drift like David and Elias, who are the founders there, who understood that A big part of the job in marketing is like taste making. Right? And so there's two sandwich shops in town, same ingredients, same everything. One of them just makes a better sandwich because the woman is just better. She just knows how to do it better. Right? And it's like, that is what got me into this. Oh, I didn't. Well, I got into this job because I was broke and I needed to get a job and I turned out to be good at it. But that's the fun part, right? That's like your roots as a creative. Right. We need to bring more of this into marketing today. And it's even. Do you think this sole piece of this. Is this even more important because of what's happening with AI?

Absolutely. There's a guy, a neuroscientist, that wrote a book about left brain versus right brain. And what he says is that the left brain sees the world as a machine, kind of like a spreadsheet, bunch of connected parts with cause and effect and mechanical, but it's an ultimately dead way to see the world. Whereas the right brain sees the world alive. It's energetic, it's holistic, it's vibey, it's, you know, magical, it's ineffable. You can't really quite put words to it. And what he says is our culture is just like continuing to get more and more left brain as we go. And if you look on LinkedIn and like all these cheat codes for cold email success and things like that, it just gets more and more left brained. And I think that for people like you, and maybe for me, the more vibey you are, the more you can kind of follow your heart and know that communications has to have some, like, soul to it. You're just going to get more and more valuable as we go.

Okay, what else should I have asked you or should we have talked about in the last five minutes before we wrap?

Oh, man. Someday I want to talk with you on the podcast about mental health, but I don't think we have time for that. We could also talk about weightlifting.

Let's spend 10 minutes there. I just got great feedback. I did this podcast with Emma Stratton and we ended up talking a lot about personal stuff. And so let's go. We got 10 minutes left. Let's do a couple minutes on mental health and let's do a couple minutes on weightlifting.

Okay. I mean, if I'm gonna talk about mental health, I would go back to when I was 30. I had a nervous breakdown and I was trying to do Way too much in my career and trying to make everybody happy, and I just completely lost it. And I went to therapy and I started going to psychoanalysis. So I went to therapy five days a week for 19 years. And then just at the end of that, I started doing meditation retreats. I started doing like three or four weeks of meditation retreat every year for the last 10 years. And I also experienced a lot of a series of traumas when I was a kid. And so that's really what I was doing is I was trying to, like, work through that. And so, like, a lot of the posts I do on LinkedIn, I'm always trying to make sure that it's sort of like on the positive side from a mental health perspective. Like, I used to go to LinkedIn and see how successful everybody else was, and I'd, like, beat myself up over it, you know?

Yeah.

And so, like, I'm always trying to. When I post on LinkedIn, I'm always trying to say, like, hey, I'm. I'm not special. You can do this too. You know, I'm trying to always raise other people up, and I feel like you do that as well.

Yeah, it's a slippery slope. Social media is crazy because it's. You can basically dunk on anybody for anything at any time. I'll be like, the sky is blue. And someone's like, well, easy for you to say as a white male in tech. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, wait, wait. What does this have to do with anything? Oh, my goodness.

Yeah.

And then my day is just like, you know, I'm talking my wife. I'm like, am I a good person? Like, my whole day is. I do take personally what people say.

Yeah.

But, yeah, there is a whole world of people who just use LinkedIn to just dunk on other marketers. And, you know, I've done that in the past where just kind of criticize other people's marketing strategy as a way to teach. But I just, I don't want that. I don't want that energy around me. There's a whole world of people who get. People get really upset about, like, how people do LinkedIn. I'm like, I don't care. Don't click on their things then, and you won't see it. Like, curate your own feed. I like to use it as it's a creative outlet for me to write about my business and talk about the things that I'm doing.

You know, we're creating a category design studio. It's important when you're creating category that you have a contrarian point of view. Right. And so definitely I'll come out against a certain maybe left brain or boring way of doing strategy. And I won't call out people specifically, but I can be negative about that stuff in my post. But then I always make sure that, like, all of my comments are positive. Even if I disagree with somebody, I'll, like, call out, like, oh, I really like the post. I love your content or whatever. But I see it differently. I see it like this.

Yeah.

And I think if you're on there and you're doing founder brand as a play, that it's great to be a little bit contrarian in the post. But in the comments, just be a sweetheart.

Yeah, I like to be silly in the comments. That's my move.

Yeah.

I like to just write. I'm usually responding to comments like, later in the day, and I'll just say funny things or try to be funny. And I think injecting your humor and personality into it is also very disarming. But I'm glad you brought up the topic of mental health. I definitely. Everybody wants to talk about that. I think there's a great awakening, at least in the world of work, where people in tech and wherever, any job, really, the world is just more open to understanding that, like, if you're not good in your body and your mind, then you can't be great. You got to take care of yourself first. And I can be very hard on myself. And, like, the man, like, my life is so easy. Like, I didn't even go to war. I'm on zoom calls all day writing on LinkedIn. Like, how soft am I? This is such an easy life. And I try to not do that as much because I'm like, no, you know what? I'm here for a reason. I have a purpose. Like, I want to uplift people around me. I want to build something meaningful. Like, I can give back to my community because of the time that I'm able to get from my job. And I love hearing about people's journeys with mental health and personal development. I'm a huge believer in that. And if you invest in yourself, you can write your own rules. Like, I don't roll my eyes at any of that personal development stuff. It's the most important topic there is to me.

Absolutely. And I feel that, you know, you have a large audience on LinkedIn. I have a growing audience on LinkedIn, and I feel like we have a kind of ethical responsibility to not put ourselves out as, like, we're up Here, because there's a lot of people that are using social media to just, like, beat themselves up.

Yeah.

And I think the way that you do it is great because you never make it seem like, hey, I'm up here and you're. You're down there.

You know, I don't. But you know what's hard, though? There are people who don't know me, but they project that onto who they think that I am because I am a tech bro and I'm bald. You know, Like. Like, dude, the people. Most of the people that I meet in an event, in person, they're always like, oh, you're much more likable in person than I thought you would be.

Backhanded compliment, I know.

And I'm like, is that. Wait, but is that on me or is that on you? Is that, like, you reading my messages? But I even joke with my team. Right. Like in Slack, for example, like, the way that I write and communicate in Slack, if you don't have the context of, like, how I talk, my intonation, my sense of humor, it's very difficult. So, like, you know, we gotta be hanging out in person. Even if you have a remote company, you gotta be, like, cementing who somebody is in person, and then you can read their messages with that context. Now.

Yeah. Okay, wait and wait.

So you did. Do you say, 19 years of daily therapy?

Yeah. Five days a week. Psychoanalysis, cycle analysis. Yeah.

Good for you, man. That is a. It's just like, any habit to put that in. 19 years of consistency is probably quite literally, like, rewiring your brain. I'm sure there's still things you have to work on, but, like.

Yeah, I mean, the greatest gift is, like, I have two daughters, 11 and 13, and just. I just have a great relationship with them. And I never would have. That never would have been possible without really doing some work on myself.

Do you meditate every day?

I do, yep.

Is there a better time of day to do that?

First thing in the morning is the best time. I make some coffee. I actually, like. I'll bring my coffee with me. So I'll sit there, I'll have a cup of coffee, meditate, take a little sip. After a couple minutes, meditate.

You have to get better at it. I feel like I would like to meditate first thing in the morning, but I. Maybe it's a false belief. I feel like I would just go right back to sleep. Is it something you have to work through?

Have you tried that?

No. Obviously I'm giving advice on something. I've Never done before. Classic.

I would try it.

I mean, I like it in the middle of the day as a reset, but I do feel like if I started my day slower in that capacity, it would be beneficial. I can 100 see the benefits of doing it.

Well, the coffee helps me, but.

Yeah, but Huberman says you can't have coffee. First thing. You need to get outside view, sunlight, sauna, cold exposure. Then you can have your coffee.

So my whole morning routine with tech bros coming out. Yeah.

So first thing in the morning, meditate. Okay. And then you mentioned weightlifting. Sorry. I literally, quite literally in the last four minutes, I just got my son's cold on this podcast. So mark it down. Let it be known. I can't pass it through you. It's just a nose. I'm just a tech bro working through some, you know, working through some illnesses. I'll be good. What's your relationship with weightlifting?

Okay, so I'm six four. I've been skinny my whole life. Then I started putting on some weight. So tall, skinny, and fat. It's like, not a good look. And I turned 50, and I was like, I don't know, 235 pounds and not much muscle. And I was just like, okay, something's gotta change. So I got into weightlifting, and, man, it's been the best thing ever. I didn't realize that weightlifting is so much better for you than, like, cardio. I didn't understand that. How it changes your metabolism and how it burns calories, even on your day off because your body's trying to, like, build muscle.

Yep.

But I just love it. I don't really feel like I'm a weightlifting guy necessarily. Like, it feels weird to even say, like, oh, yeah, I'm really into weightlifting, but I think it's great. I'm not, like, pushing, like, really heavy weight. I'd say, like, on squats, my high would be like 240 for 4.

That's pretty good for a 64 guy. You got a long way to go then that, getting that squat.

Yeah. Yeah. So where are you lifting?

There's definitely a trend of more people being willing to lift weights. And I think the narrative used to be cardio, cardio, cardio. And now it's kind of like, no, you gotta lift weights.

Yep.

It's like the number one. I think it was, like, the number one. Cause of the reason people get injured when they get older is because they fall and they break something because you don't have enough bone density. I try to push everybody in my life to. To lift and it doesn't take much. It doesn't take much. But we don't have the time. We got all this other stuff people can't live. I get it. Excuses.

Oh man. I mean we're talking about mental health. The happiest I ever am is right after I lift weights.

Of course.

Yeah.

That's why I have to work out in the morning. I have to move my day around it because I literally am a better person to work with and I'm more creative. If I like were to wake up and get right to my slack messages and email, I'm going to be an asshole. It's just a fact. I'm going to reply short. I'm going to say things I didn't mean. If I can just wait on that stuff for a couple hours and I get my workout in first. I have my coffee, I have breakfast. Then when I approach my work, it is a completely different person.

Yeah. It's crazy how when you feel good with yourself, you're just like so much kinder, better person to everybody else.

Yeah. And look, I became a big. I've worked out my whole life but I think when I really my tune on it changed was after having kids. I didn't have the kids. I was there for it but. And I just was like, Look, I got 20 minutes a day. I'm gonna do push ups. I got a pull up bar in my house. I couldn't go to the gym anymore and it was Covid. I got a pull up bar in my house. I got a kettlebell and just did push ups. Push ups, pull ups and squats and kettlebell stuff every day for like two or three years. And that was good enough.

Oh yeah.

I have a lot of dad, friends, any parent really. And a lot of people feel like they don't have the time to work out. You know what I'll do? My kid will be in the bath and he wants me to hang out with him while he takes a bath. I will knock out my pushups and pull ups and squats right there with him in the bathroom. 12 minutes.

That's great. That's the way to do it.

Better than nothing, right?

Yeah. I think I told you on email. I was just at a month long meditation retreat. So. A month of silent meditation. I did it a year ago too and I lost like £12 going to that retreat. And probably like half or almost half of that was muscle and my lifts went way down. So this year I brought these like heavy weights in my car. I had my car in the parking Lot. And every day I took a break from meditating and I walked down to the car, opened the trunk and did like 15, 20 minutes of weightlifting.

Just like straight up monk mode. Just like working out in the parking lot.

I had like, you know, the squats. It's like hard to have that much weight. So I had two 50 pound dumbbells. I would just like lift up on my shoulders and I would squat that.

Yeah.

You know, it wasn't quite enough weight, but like it was enough to keep my squat only went down ten pounds from the time that I left to the time that I got back.

It's enough if you get the reps, if you try to go. If you're like, I'm going to try to do 25 reps right now, and then it's plenty.

Yeah.

So you were away for a whole month?

Yes.

Meditating?

Yes.

Silent for a month?

Yes. You meet with a teacher every couple of days and you have like a 15 minute meeting, but otherwise you're silent.

And what does that do to you? What do you feel after you come back with just this like unbelievable sense of calm?

Okay, so here's what it does. It's like we don't know this, but in our normal lives, it's like there's like a thousand blenders on. Like, our minds are so noisy and we don't even realize it. So when you go to a meditation retreat like that, or let's say you just meditate at home, it's like five blenders turn off. If you meditate for 20 minutes, you're like, oh, this is nice. It's only 995 blenders around. But if you go to a meditation retreat for that long and you get two, three weeks into it, you know, a week into it, it's like, oh, there's only 500 blenders on. And three weeks into it, it's like there's like five blenders on. And it's crazy. In your mind, everything is like crystal clear and there's like very little in there. And it's the best feeling in the world. Like, there is no drug that feels that good. But that is not the reason why you do that. The reason why you do it is it gets you incredibly relaxed. And as you relax, you come into contact with a lot of things that you kind of like hold down, you know, feelings that have been kept at bay for a long time. And as you come into contact with those negative feelings, they start to dissipate, they dissolve and they go away and you feel a little Bit more like yourself. After you do that, now you really see the effects. You can't really understand the effects while it's going on because there's these other, like this crazy good feeling or whatever. But if you then go like three months into the future, like, huh, I'm just like 3% more calm. I'm 3% less likely to say something mean. I'm 3% more okay being who I am. And that 3%, it really makes a difference in life.

When you mentioned the blenders, is that like the feeling of like, I'm talking to you right now, but in the back of my mind I just like, wait, did I pay my cell phone bill? Why is my cell phone bill $100? Wasn't usually $98. And then like the rest of my afternoon I got to spend, like dealing with Verizon. When it's like, really? What does that matter?

Yeah, exactly. When you're like on your iPhone all the time, I'm like, oh, God. Oh. And I got to go to my computer, like, oh, I opened up this app. I can't remember why I opened it up. Now I'm doing something else. Like, I was going to go to YouTube to search for this thing, but I'm like, I mean, it's kind of like that. And then it's also just all the tension that you feel in your body around some of these things. Oh, I gotta do all this. And like, everything's really grippy and you can't really see how noisy it is until you go meditate for a couple weeks. And you'd be like, oh, my God, I can't believe this.

And is that hard to be away for a month from your family?

Yeah, my wife, like, I'm so lucky because she holds it down. We got a crazy 80 pound dog too. So she's taking care of the kids and the dog and everything. I mean, it's easy for me compared to like, how hard it is for them. But I call them once a week. Like, you give up your phone so there's no phone. You give up your iPhone. So I'll be off my iPhone for the month. And then they have a landline so I can call every Sunday and I have a conversation with my family.

And is it just like one of those things in life where like, yes, it's sucks to be away for a month, but you need to put this deposit into the bank for the month because the rest of the year is going to be better because of how you come out of this thing.

Yeah. Like, if you could give, you just imagine, like, oh, I can give my wife a better husband, I can give my daughters a better father, and I can feel more comfortable in my shoes, like 11 months out of the year. It's like, that's kind of a no brainer. But at the same time, I mean, I also want to say, like, it's extremely enjoyable to be on a retreat like that. It's like very hard work, but there's a lot of contentment that comes with it.

Yeah, I would love to take my phone and just give it away for a month. That'd be amazing. Take my phone, put it in a box. I don't want it.

It's so cool. Like, when you get your phone back, you're just like, I don't even want that shit. Yeah, right.

Delete checking Instagram. All right, Josh Loman. This was great. Went in a bunch of different directions, but this is what's great about this podcast. We come on. Josh is Exit 5 member. We hang out, we talk about marketing, we talk about life. Thanks for listening to this episode. Go find Josh on LinkedIn. Even though he's very wise and calm, it won't hurt to get him like seven more LinkedIn followers. So go find him on LinkedIn, connect with him, check out Goldfront. Send Josh and I a message or DM us separately. And I have been enjoying talking a little bit more about life outside of the marketing stuff with folks on here because we're all people. We like to hang out, connect, learn from each other. So share some feedback with me and then make sure you join Exit five. You'll see Josh in there. He's an active member. We love that. He hasn't been active in a while because he was on his meditation retreat, but he'll come back soon. I hope so. All right, Josh, good to see you, man. Thanks for doing this.

Thank you so much. I love being on your show because I am a DG super fan.

Oh, stop that.

All right, man.

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