377. The Art of Crafting Gutsy yet Relevant Brand Messaging

Welcome to episode 377 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Carmen Rodriguez of GUT Miami. Ready? Let's get started. You are listening to the Brainy Business podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer. Hello. Hello, everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. In today's conversation, I am joined by Carmen Rodriguez. Carmen is managing director and global Chief Client Officer and a partner at gut, one of the top global independent creative networks. She was named one of Ad Age's Women to Watch and is the agency's first female managing director in its Miami headquarters, an office with 60% women and many bilingual employees. Carmen led DEI initiatives at the agency's rapidly growing network of seven global offices in just five years and also led Gut Miami's account management department and new business practice. She's also one of the most awarded account management leaders in the industry, with Gut recently breaking records at the 70th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, winning the 35 Cannes Lions awards, including Independent Network of the Year, Agency of the Year for GUTS Buenos Aires Office a can first for Argentina, latam Regional Network of the Year and Independent Agency of the Year. How do they do it? The secret is in their name. With guts. Carmen will tell you more about that in a moment. Of course. Really quickly, before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know that there are links in the show, notes for everything, including some related past episodes, articles and books. It's all within the app you're listening to and@the brainy business.com 377. Now let's jump right in. Carmen Rodriguez, welcome to the Brainy Business podcast.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Very excited.

Yeah, of course. I am delighted to have you here to chat with me about the really cool work that you and your team do. Before we jump into projects and processes and stuff, can you tell everyone a little bit about yourself and your background and, you know, the work you do?

Of course. So my name is Carmen Rodriguez. I am originally from Brazil, have been in Miami for the past 10 years working with advertising. I've worked with advertising my entire life. It's my passion. It's my absolute passion. Interesting, because there nobody in my family that worked with advertising, but I think because I was so passionate about music and creativity, it was just the right thing, I believe, for me, and I've been doing this for quite some time. I am in charge of the growth of GoT. GoT is an advertising agency, a global network, and I am the global Chief Growth Officer for got. So basically my responsibility is to work with clients, to grow with the current clients that we have, but to also bring in new business, identify potential clients and potential new people to come and have a relationship with us. So that's what I do.

Yeah. And I'm sure that people listening, and I will have said it a little bit in the intro, but where you hear, you know, you say gut. Did I hear that right? Gut. Right. So let's talk a little bit about the name. You know, what does that mean? Why'd you pick that?

Yeah, so our founders, Anselmo and Gaston, they have been the creatives in the advertising industry globally, working a lot in different big industry, big global companies. Right. And I think to pick this name was something very interesting because it's very related to this intuition, right. We truly believe that in the world, there's so much data around the world right now. We, we are being every day bombarded with information, right? So so much data, so much information. And we truly believe that humans are somehow losing that instinct. We think that sometimes you just want to be, especially in our industry, right? You want to be so much informed and make informed decisions and being backed up by research and data, which are all important, don't get me wrong, I think they're all very valid, but I think we're starting to lose a little bit of that instinct, right? And we truly believe that when you know, when you have a powerful idea, when you have something in front of you that is really getting that reaction from you, you just know it. And we truly believe that everyone needs to follow those instincts. When you see an idea, especially in our industry, when you see a creative idea or something that really moves you, you need to follow your gut. You need to trust that intuition. So we exist to inspire the industry and the people to actually follow their intuition, to trust their guts more, and that's why we pick the name. Also, it's very easy for clients when they see an agency that's called gut. I think they already know the type of work that this agency is going to present. It's going to be something that takes them out of their comfort zone. So we like that because that's already an initial filter, right? You're going to work with an agency that provokes you in some ways, so you choose that, you know what's coming. So I think that's a good thing.

Yeah, it's definitely priming. So for one, in the case of, you know, for you as an agency and anyone, you know, a lot of the people that listen to the show are, you know, entrepreneurs, small business owners, and, you know, it can be hard sometimes to think about helping people to self select whether you're a fit for them or not. But there's so much value in that because you don't end up with a bunch of people that you, you know, essentially waste time where, you know you're not going to end up being a fit for each other. And as the agency, you feel compelled to still submit an RFP or do whatever sometimes because somebody reached out and maybe we could make it work if we only tweak this or that. And those things never work out very well. Right.

It's not very difficult.

Yeah, but if you know who you are and it's so obvious that someone is able to come to that page or, you know, go research you and go, yeah, no, like that's not a fit. Or like, oh, yes, like this is what I want. So that is super helpful for you because people are bought in before they come in. And like I said, with priming, they've like preset this expectation for something to be gutsy, to be different. They know it's going to be pushing them out of their comfort zone and they're ready for those pitches. Having worked at an agency before and, you know, having done marketing for a long time, I know that people struggle with this a lot to get people to not pick the safe choice. So I think having that setup is really helpful. But what other advice do you have for people out there that are trying to get their clients to buy in on the crazy out there ideas?

Yeah, it's so interesting that you said that because our name sometimes is used in our favor by our clients and sometimes it's used against us because sometimes we present ideas that our clients look and said, oh, now I understand why you're called God. Right. So they feel that, that, that, that intensity or even like something that is very simple. But like, oh, we haven't thought about that. So that's sort of God. See? And I'm going to talk a little bit about the bravery scale, which is like the journey, right, that we, that we take our clients through. But some clients use it against us because sometimes we present ideas that are more in the safe zone. And they're like, I thought your name was God. And they were like, oh, my God, we have to go back and redo this because we're playing too safe. Because sometimes depending on the brief or depending on the client, even us, let's take it slow because we don't want to scare clients so they come back to us with our names. So that's, that's very interesting, but related to your question, I think what's very important is, and it's part of our values as well, it's to have actually very clear values. You need to know who you are as a brand. When you are very clear of what you stand for, what are your values as a company? And you make it very clear internally to your people and externally to your clients, to your consumers. That is where to your point, you get that filter. They are for me or they are not for me. But you need to have very clear values and live by them. So for example, at God, we have three values, right? Courage, transparency and intuition. They're all related to our name. Courage is having the gut to do things that were never done before. So that's gut right there. The second is transparency. It's about spilling your guts inside and out. We're very transparent with each other and we're very transparent with our clients. And we love hearing very candid and transparent feedback as well. That's very important for us. And we each to each other internally. We also very transparent when we like something or we don't like something. Very respectful but very transparent. And the third one is intuition, which is what we have been talking about, which is trust your dot. Right. Trusting your gut is very important. So those three values are very clear for us. We live by them every day. We make ourselves accountable for that. And that's why to the world it's very clear when they see us as a partner, as a vendor, what the role that we're going to have partnering with them, what they're going to use us for. So my advice to any brand or any entrepreneur that is starting to come up with name or starting to work on their brand foundations is to be very clear about what they are, what you stand for and to communicate, to make sure to communicate that very clear and live by those values.

This is very important for sure. Yeah, definitely. What you are and what you are not too. Right. So and while that may not be public facing for some, for some brands it is. And that's helpful. You know, the we're not a fit for you. If, you know, sometimes you want to spell that out. It can be helpful and, but, and maybe it's also helping to firm up who you're going to say no to, even if they do reach out. Right. Because that's important too.

Yeah. And we do that a lot. So we. We. The same way clients assess us, we also assess clients, and not just from a place that, oh, we're not for you. It's not that. It's because you need to understand that, like, a relationship between a client and an agency is like any relationship. Right. When you're going to choose someone that you're going to date or. Or someone that you're going to be friends with, you need to have shared values, you need to have affinities, you need to have things in common. Right. So it's the same. So every time we're talking to a client, sometimes we're asking them also questions when we are in the chemistry meeting or getting to know them to see if we are going to be a fit for them. Because sometimes they think we're going to be a good fit or they want us to be a good fit, but not necessarily. That's going to be the point. And we need to be transparent to the point to say, look, we don't think this is going to work because of this, this and that, and we think it's going to be a waste of your time and our time to try to make it fit. Or sometimes even when we are already in a relationship and you start to get into these corners and you cannot pass through, like, those, Those. Those difficulties. You just have to have very, very transparent conversations, like, do we want the same things? Are we looking at the same direction? Do we have the same goals as companies and are we willing to. Because of course, you have to mix and match sometimes. It's not always like the perfect fit. But are the compromises that I need to make messing with one of my values, and maybe the compromises that you have to make as a company are messing with your values, and those are the types of conversations that you need to have with your clients on an ongoing basis to make sure that those relationships are healthy and they're going to have longevity.

Yeah, no, definitely. So important. You mentioned the stages of bravery. A little bit. Do you want to talk a little bit more about what that means, what that looks like?

Yes. So we always say that every time someone asks us, how do you define yourselves as an agency? We say that we are a brave agency for brave culture clients. Right. And that's a very bold type of statement that we've learned in these five years that we've been working. We've learned that this statement sometimes attracts clients. So clients that are more in the brave side and they really want to do disruptive things and they know a lot about themselves. They say, hey, I want these people, I want to work with them because I want to disrupt. But some clients, actually, this statement repels them and they say, ooh, I don't want to mess with those people, or I don't want to. I'm not that brave, so maybe I'm not for them. And what we decided to try to do is to try to kind of unpack a little bit assumptions about bravery, because people think that bravery is just do crazy things or be very controversial. And actually, bravery is a scale. So it's a journey. You don't wake up one day and like, oh, I'm going from 0 to 10, or I'm just decided that I'm going to do something very, very crazy today. It's not like that. It's a process. I always use the analogy of learning to ride a bike. So when you, when you're little, when you're learning to ride a bike, usually you have those, like the side wheels, right? Or you have the two side wheels and you start and then become more confident. You lose one and you still have the second one there, and then you lose the second one and then you're fully on. So for us, it's the same. We take our clients through that bravery journey. So what we need to identify first is that we want to be braver. Great. That's a great start. Where are you in a bravery scale? So we actually created a scale, we trademarked it, so it's called the bravery scale from 0 to 10. And then we say, usually, clients, where are you in the scale from 0 to 10? Ah, we are at 4, but we want to reach 8. That's great. You don't have to do it overnight. You can go from four to four and a half to five, and then maybe you're, like, feeling more confident and you jump from five to seven and sometimes you take a step back and then you move forward. So we truly believe that that journey, it's, it's, it's, it's a. It's. It's very important for the clients and the brands to identify where they are, where they want to go and who they want to partner with on that journey. And we love to be that partner, to take the clients through that journey of bravery. So it's about that. It's about every day building up.

Yeah, I love that. And it is, you know, it's helpful as you look at. And I'm sure in that process it's like, well, over here we're like a four, but in this area of the company, we're actually more like a seven. And it would be nice if we could lift this one up to match where we are over here, you know, getting an idea of where you might be pushing the envelope or to say, hey, we gotta stay at a 2 over here in this area because it's regulatory stuff or whatever. But over here we've got some freedom and we can be more brave. Like having that. The context that you're able to filter things through and to evaluate something that people don't talk about enough, I would say, or at all, really in this area with being brave, I, I think that's a really valuable tool to help assess. And, you know, if you probably in that process too, if someone says we're a one and we want to go to a two, it might be like, well, there's this other agency that's probably a better fit.

Yeah, for sure. And, and sometimes again, for some clients, bravery means changing their positioning. Like, it's just like, okay, we've been this brand whatever, and we've been on the same positioning for years and we want to update our positioning or we want to be more relevant to the young audiences or we want to revamp. That might be really brave for some brands. Or maybe like, for example, you see so many brands nowadays doing things with celebrities, right? But, and, and that's even like type of. It's usual. Like a lot of brands do it, but for some brands, it's actually very brave to put their reputation in some celebrity and makeup, make a, make a commitment to that celebrity. It could be super brave for, for another brand or even, okay, let's launch a new line or a new product or a new category. So all of those things are brave. So it's not necessarily just, oh, let's do something that it's going to be super controversial. Not necessarily so. Bravery have different facets, and that's what we believe. So to your point, some things are going to be in it too. Some things they're going to be flexible to go to a four. Some things we can take it to a seven, and then an average, you're gonna be moving up. And in the end of the day, what we always say, and it's our, our purpose as a company is that bravery means business when you're braver and when you make things in a different way, that not just it's not just being brave for the sake of being brave is being brave to get business results. That's why we are in this.

Yeah, well. And I'll definitely be linking to the episode on status quo bias for people. You know, as far as we get kind of stuck in the way we've always done things, as well as, you know, some hurting and social proof and feeling like we have to do things the way other people close to us are doing them. Or even kind of the flip side, as far as customers getting excited about something because it's different, you know, when it goes outside of the norm and is a way to be able to stand out, that contrast is really important. And knowing that the thing that was brave yesterday isn't necessarily brave tomorrow. And once it's been done, you kind of have to look to the next thing. A lot of times, you know, there's I stand with the if it ain't broke world. Right. We've done the email. It's working. We don't need to scrap it and come up with a new one. We can be building and, you know, enhancing something we're already doing that we know works. Right. But the type of space where you're working, see, I'm guessing there's a lot more we did that and time to do something total, you know, we have to do something different because that's now more normal. Because it's been done or been seen.

Yeah, you have something, you have some of that. But we are also very, very cautious of if. Because sometimes clients just want to change things for the sake of changing. And sometimes you have something very powerful that you shouldn't let go. Maybe there's something that. Look what. What we usually try to do with our clients, like, let's assess. And that's when we use a lot of data. Let's assess, let's do a research. Let's understand what is working for you and what is working for you. Don't change it. Actually double down on it or try to do it in a different way, but still with the same. Either it's your positioning or it's your communications platform. Whatever it is and whatever is not working to your point, then we update, then we change it. And of course, some brands we're gonna research and understand that, yes, this brand really needs a completely 360 revamp. Cool. But if not, let's understand, let's. Let's use the data in our favor. What we try to tell the world a lot is that data is there, we need it, we need to use it. But you need to use it in a gutsy way so it's not just the other way around. Just let's, okay, this is the data and then that's it. That's how we're going to put it out there. No, use the data, but execute it in a gutsy way. Or sometimes you're going to have a very gutsy execution or a gutsy idea and you look at that and you're like, oh, this is good. Okay, let's back it up with data. Let's validate, let's see if this is really going to work for the clients. So what we try to do is, to your point, don't, don't fix what's not broken. If you have something that is very powerful, like a brand positioning that is gold and it's been working for years, you don't have to change it necessarily, just change the way you execute it, update it, but keep your strengths and double down on your strengths and then change whatever you need to change to, to, to, to make it work.

Yeah, Well, I think it's a perfect moment to make the transition into some examples of some of the work that you've done. Lots of award winning stuff, really cool things. I will let you sort of choose the adventures we walk along here. I know there's a lot of really great work to choose from and I think if we can, one that shows the timeliness and being able to turn something around super, super quick and the value of that for some brands and then, you know, we can look at other options as well. But having that someone primed, where they're ready to just go with the gut and do something real quick. I know you have at least one example of doing that for a client.

Yeah, I think one of the most recent ones that we did and it was something so simple but very brave from the client. So it's one of our newest clients at Miami this year, vitalpharms. So we started working with vitalpharms and they are one of the biggest players in the AG industry and we were pitching for their businesses and we were in the latest stages of winning the account and we're super excited to be partnering with them. And it was right close to Valentine's Day and there was this entire thing about the egg pricing and the world was talking about the prices and how eggs were super expensive. And the client told us we are brave and we want to do brave things. And then we just came up with this idea that like it was literally, I think two or three days before Valentine's Day. So it was basically telling them, look, let's embrace the fact that eggs are very expensive, and let's embrace the fact that your eggs are better because the way you treat the chickens, because the way you do everything, the way you farm, the way all of their ecosystem is very, very sustainable and very good. So it is more expensive because it's better. So let's embrace this and let's create a promo that it's Valentine's Day. So if people propose using, instead of a ring, an egg for Valentine's, because it's as pricey as a ring, they can get eggs for life. And they. We send this idea over the email like a deck, and we say, look, this is it. We have to do it. They said, let's do it. We love this. We pulled it off in 24 hours. We filmed it. And I can share the. The film. It's on YouTube. But it's a super, very romantic type of film. We see couples and we see them proposing. Very romantic, romantic song. And in the end, when you see it's not a ring, it's an egg. And it's actually basically embracing the fact that the egg prices were up to here. And it was beautiful. A lot of people participated. It was a hit in terms of PR for them. It was the first idea that they actually executed. And they ended up, of course, awarding the account to us. So we are partners with them now, and there's a lot of more ideas coming in the next few months. So. Very exciting.

Yeah. Well, I love. I love that. And there's real value in embracing the things that people already know that may feel a little bit scary to say. You know, the thing that people think about you or say about you where it feels like it might be damaging. The one who's willing to go all in and embrace that language and really own that it can. It can be shocking in a way that makes people kind of laugh and that they'll remember you. I remember I recently saw. And there were. You know, it was. People were kind of on both sides as to whether this was actually a good. We'll say, like, stunt or. Or not, but it was. So it was an influencer who was hiking a mountain in New Zealand and she had bought a. What's supposed to be, like, weatherproof, you know, rainproof type of jacket at North Face, which she's wearing. And she's like, well, thanks a lot. Like, I'm a drowned. I'm the only one looking like a drowned rat up here. And, like, would really Be great if y' all could send me an actual waterproof jacket. Like, you'll find me at the top of this mountain of which people are saying like, this feels like it was staged from the beginning. But what they did is they had someone from North Face that, you know, they filmed the video of them grabbing a jacket, getting in a helicopter, flying and delivering her the jacket and leaving. Right. But that sort of embracing that, the thing they didn't talk about the fact that the jacket, like, why didn't the original jacket work? You know, but still, you know, but it's being there, invisible in the moment. Of course, you know, another iconic, um, instant moment that you had to do, you know, within seconds is, you know, the Oreos at the super bowl and the, you know, dunking sort of thing. Um, so those timely things, you have to be ready at a moment's notice to set em up, pull the trigger, make it happen. Do you have any tips other than, you know, what we've already been talking about, about being ready to embrace and try things, knowing, you know, not everything is going to be a home run, right. Not everything's gonna change the world.

Yeah, we, we always say that nobody knows anything, right? So every time you do something, it's never 100% sign that it's gonna be a success. So you always have that. You, you can protect yourself and you can cover yourself with data and a lot of other things, but you never know. So you have to trust your instincts. But in the end of the day, for me at least, what has worked a lot and we have been doing this cultural moment for very, very long time is it needs to fit within the brand. It cannot be forced, not necessarily. Everyone needs to talk about what is happening in cultural. Everything that's happening. Things happen every day, right? And brands all the time, they, they try to jump into the conversation. But I feel that it needs to really make sense for the brand. It really needs to make sense for who you are and the way you speak. You cannot try to make something just to, to jump into the conversation because it's gonna sound fake and people are going to notice. Our consumers, the consumers are very smart. We cannot underestimate the power of the consumer. And if you try to force fit something, they will call it immediately and then it's going to be way worse for you to try to kind of like get it back. So I think the first thing is, does it really make sense for the brand? Does it really make sense for who we are? And then you try to make it as fast as nimble as possible as you as client and agency, you have to have that speed and agility in the process to make things like that happen. And we've been very fortunate to make those things happen quite often and with a high rate of success for the clients. So.

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, speaking of, do you have another example of a project that you want to share and talk about?

I think another one that was very interesting in that same area was Philadelphia, one that we did. So right after, I think it was right in the latest stage of the pandemic, A lot of people were cooking a lot, right. People were making a lot of things at home. So we actually had a shortage of cream cheese in that year. And by the time you get to the end of the year, it was. People were. We knew. Everybody knew that we were going to have a hard time finding the cream cheese to cook. And a lot of people. It's very traditional to cook cheese cheesecakes for holidays, right? Thanksgiving specifically. So we said, okay, what do we do? We need to have an idea to make sure that people are not super unhappy, that they're going to try to find their cream cheese on the shelves and they're not going to find any. So we basically embraced it with our clients and we created a promo that any. If you don't find your cream cheese on the shelves, we're basically, you can buy any dessert, any ingredients to any dessert, brownies, other quiche, other type of desserts that you can do, and we'll cover the costs because you couldn't find your cream cheese. So we created this promo. It was a hit. It was a success. Everybody was super happy because they didn't find the cream cheese, but they had other options. And we offered support and help for the people that were happy because we were helping them find a solution for their holidays. So again, embracing a problem that we had in the system, but in a nice, cheeky way that was very on brand because Philly is always like that kind of like cheeky brand. They do like some things, they're sort of humorous, but nice holiday ish feeling. So very on brand. Super nice. Very topical and very fast.

Yeah, that's great with that. So was it something you go. Did you partner with like the different supermarkets and grocery stores, whatever that. Then you go to look for where cream cheese should be and there would be this sign or something if they were out of cream cheese or how did they people know?

We ran. We ran a campaign and we had a website so you could input your receipts for what you bought instead of the ingredients to do a cheesecake. And we would cover for that. So we give you a coupon or something, but you would input your information on a website because we knew that it's really difficult to get the entire chain of supermarkets to know who's going to get it, who's not. But if you went to your local supermarket and you didn't find it and you saw the promotion and you said, okay, I bought chocolate and I don't know, condensing milk and I don't know, the brownie thing, here it is. And then not very good. We cook, clearly. But anyway, clearly not very good with cooking, but any recipes. So we were able to reimburse the person. So that was the. The mechanic.

Yeah, that's great. And it's an interesting reframe of being able to make it, like you said, instead of people being really mad to see this as that kind of generosity, giving something at the holidays. And, and again, not hiding or shying away from or trying to, like, hunker down and wait till it's over and we can come out on the other side. And, you know, potentially when things came back around then it might say, hey, I know you didn't get that holiday cheesecake you wanted, but Valentine's Day is a great time for a cheesecake or whatever, you know, if it came back around. Yeah. And then now, now you even have, I mean, you know, don't know what you did with everything or any of that. And I'm sure that's not disclosed, but like, you know, potentially now you have a list of people who like to make cheesecake at the holidays that you can send recipes and maybe they, I mean, talk about the win, win, wins of the world. It's great.

Exactly. So there's a lot of potential when you do things like that. And again, embracing an idea, embracing your problem, being proactive and, and being fast. So this is, this is, I think, the secret sauce in being on brand. Make sure that whatever you do, it's on brand. It's not just a cheeky thing that has nothing to do with your audience, with your brand, because then people. People get it.

Yeah. Well, I saw on the GUT website where you have, you know, showcasing a bunch of your work, which we'll of course link to in the show notes for everyone to go and check out, but another Philadelphia campaign that I thought you were going to be talking about is this bagel. This, like, stuff. Bagel tax. Yeah, the bagel tax. Do you want to talk about that? One. Yeah.

So this one was very interesting because again, what. One of the things that we do and especially for our clients, that we have a long term relationship, right. The clients that we are the agency of record for, we are always. We have a big, big content department here. So basically we have people that are, we have big dashboards in this room. So it's very sort of chaotic visually because there's a lot of screens and with data flying and I get in there, I'm like, oh my God. But it's very interesting because they are all the time monitoring what the Internet is talking about, right. And they start to listen and it was, it was tax season and they. Someone find out, found out that in New York, if you buy a bagel and like a plain bagel and the cream cheese separate, you pay tax. But if you buy the bagel with the cream cheese already spread on like one thing only, you don't pay tax. Which is crazy. So everybody, when we found that out, we were like, what? So we decided to create this bagel, bagel free text. So we partner with one of the biggest bagel institutions in New York, very famous bagel shop. And we started to make this quick activation that basically sold bagels already with the cream cheese for people, the tax season for people to actually buy bagels tax free with already their cream cheese and their bagel and they don't pay tax for it. So that was very interesting. And again, a lot of people talked about it. It went on the news, people were, it really picked up press because people were like, that's so unique. Right. And interesting.

So yeah, I'm definitely going to also be linking to. I have an episode on availability bias, which is the things that are familiar that people are talking about that come to mind easily. We believe more and they're like when they're relevant, top of mind. And so I talk about it in the kind of PR and pitching and thinking about how you can tie your brand in with what is topical and things like that. So I will definitely link to that in the show notes for everyone. But there is definitely value in linking up with that. But the idea, like you're saying, of trying to observe everything that's going on and what everyone is talking about would be. I'm sure AI is going to be really helping y' all out.

Yeah.

As you're going through and scanning that. But you know, some of the advice I give to people on this is if you are looking to find some opportunities for your own company, you know, you want to look for you need to be thinking in advance a bit. And so for people that are looking to prep and plan, there's a little bit of knowing. Like you said, tax season's coming up. It's going to be Valentine's Day. What, in December, people are shopping a certain way, which means in January, people are thinking about fresh starts, they're thinking about getting back on track, and what are we doing in June, what are we doing in September, you know, those sorts of things. If you can be thoughtful about what's happening with the weather, what's happening with sports, what tournaments are happening, who's interesting, when's the draft, when is this, you know, all the stuff you can go and look for. And I tell people to practice, you know, if you were going to try to pitch your brand tied in with this thing, knowing that there are people that write about this year after year after year after year, and it's boring. And we've said the same, same thing over and over again. Every holiday season we talk about whatever. And so if you can pitch something that's different, that they haven't heard before, but it's like a spin on something they're already used to talking about, then they get to look smart, like an expert that came up with this new and different idea. They're more likely to want to run it, but you have to pitch earlier. And you know, if you're trying to get in a magazine is different than social media or online articles and getting picked up by the news or whatever. So being thoughtful to those sorts of things, what other tips, you know, might you give, you know, for someone if they're trying to dip their toe in to this sort of work?

Yeah, for me, it's, it's, it's what you said, thinking about a calendar year and what happens in the moments that you already know. So everybody knows super bowl is end of January, Everybody knows Christmas is Christmas, Everybody know Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, Halloween. So you have the big moments, but also you need to understand that everyone with a lot of money is talking on those same moments. So how can you hack those moments to your point, how can you do something that is different and relevant enough for people to pay attention and decide to talk about you instead of talking about something that is right there and paying a lot of money with media behind. So it's very difficult. The big moments are also the biggest competitive moments. So strategically, should you use those moments or should you try to avoid it if you don't have a lot of money and try to, to be louder when there's less of a competition. So it's about assessing and again, understanding what makes sense for you and your brand.

Love it. Yeah. There's untapped markets everywhere and if we look at what everyone else is saying and doing and we think about who, who's missing, who's not part of that and what would speak to them is a really good opportunity to be able to showcase and stand out 100%. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I know there are so many, many different amazing campaigns and things to go look at, which like I said, we're going to link in the show notes so people can go poke around and find some of these themselves. And for everyone who is interested in connecting with you and learning more, you know what is their best path to do so.

I am on LinkedIn, I am on Instagram, so I try to answer all the messages that I get from people. Just shoot me a note there and I will be happy to answer any questions, anything they can find me on social media, I'm very active or I try to be as much as I can, but I love talking to different people and meeting new people. Besides, being part of my job is something that I'm very passionate about.

Awesome. Well, I love it. Well, of course link in the show notes for everyone to make it nice and easy. And I just want to say thanks so much again, Carmen for joining me on the show. It was a lot of fun to chat with you today.

No, thank you so much for having me. It was very nice to chat with you as well. I'm very honored to be part of your guest list on your show. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you again to Carmen Rodriguez for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, I really love how well GUT has defined their value proposition for clients. They know exactly who they are and it means makes it easy for people to self select if GUT is the agency for them or not. That's so valuable for a business when people are excited to work with you and well bought in before you even start to pitch. That's priming the scent of the cookies from the it's not about the cookie framework in action. It also makes it so your team is less likely to waste time with people who wouldn't be a great fit for you, which is a win for for everyone. And it means that GUTS clients are also primed to push the envelope a little bit. Whatever that means for them to get out of their comfort zone, out of the status quo and try something different, which helps them stand out and get great ROI and win awards and attract more great clients and fun work. It's such a virtuous cycle and I love that. Take a moment now to reflect on your own business. Even Even if you aren't pushing clients to try something gutsy, you can still emulate these qualities in whatever type of work you do with your clients. How can you make it easy for your ideal clients to find you and others to self select out? What is it you do that makes you different from the competition? Is that clear? When people are evaluating you as an option, how can you make it just a little more clear and easy? Try it out and come share with me on social media. I would love to hear about how this episode inspired you. You can find me as the Brainy Biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. And be sure to tag Gut Miami as well. There are, of course, links in the show notes to make it easy, along with links to related past episodes, articles and books, plus ways to connect with myself and Carmen and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and atthe brainy business.com 377 and thank you again to Carmen Rodriguez for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me Tuesday for another Brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun. You won't want to miss it. Until then. Thanks again for listening and learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful. Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.