Building a Truly Engaging Brand That Starts Conversations with Kenny Nguyen at ThreeSixtyEight

A lot of our work is to help clients actually figure out how do you actually get your audiences to interact with your creative, interact with the materials you put out in the world, whether it's through a response, through a signup, or through some kind of interaction point where they feel like they're part of the story. They're not being marketed to, they feel like that you're building a community with them.

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Hey leaders, welcome back. This is Ledge. Really excited to welcome Kenny Nguyen to the show. Kenny and I have been having a fun time off mic, so I suspect this is gonna be funny and we're gonna have a good time. Kenny, I always have the guests do an intro, uh, yourself and your work for the audience that doesn't know you yet.

Yeah, I'll put it in a couple words here. Formal title, CEO and co-founder of 368. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a big proponent of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the city that we're headquartered in. I'm also a husband. I'm also a proud corgi owner, a brother. I'm many things to many people, but most likely you'll probably catch me on the streets as either a big community advocate for Baton Rouge or probably my wife's husband, who's well known in the community as well.

Right on. Actually, that's a much better title.

Yeah, for sure.

So tell me, yeah, that 368, just talk a little bit about the business, what you guys do. Let's dive into, you know, who you are and what you're doing and build that story a little bit.

Yeah, we're an agency that really lives on the intersection between business and strategy because I think creative strategy is one of those things where you might have the actual ideas, but how does it actually bring an actual return that's not just a BS return where you're talking about just impression clicks and likes? What you really want here is conversion. And, you know, our agency is powered by this POV called interaction over interruption, where we really are tired of the traditional advertising of, let's give you something that just shocks you and interrupts your day. We actually wanna get you like into the story. So a lot of our work is to help clients actually figure out how do you actually get your audiences to interact with your creative, interact with the materials you put out in the world, whether it's through a response, through a signup, but through some kind of interaction point where they feel like they're part of the story. They're not being marketed to. They feel like you're building a community with them. It's such more fun work than just like screaming at people. You know, this, like, we're always like, whenever you're on Instagram or like Facebook, it sounds like everyone's yelling at you. When do you get the chance for someone to be like, hey, what do you think? How about you actually respond? How about we actually have a conversation?

It's like, engagement that's actually authentic. And then, but you do talk there about like the, I guess what people call like CRO, right? Like conversion rates and things like you want something to happen. You want engagement to be authentic and real. And yet you also want some type of business result to happen from that, which I guess is that, like that intersection that you talk about.

I mean, if you read between the lines, what I'm really saying here is that we're a big proponent of building a brand. Versus just plain performance marketing. I do think brands that are very authentic and true to themselves. Whenever we approach a client, they ask us, "Help us create a brand." It's like, your brand already exists, whether you like it or not. Our job is to unveil it. And our job is to make sure that you tell authentic stories around it, but make sure that those stories aren't, I don't wanna say the word elitist, but like just completely outta reach for your audience to be a part of. So an example of this is like working with the B2B company, data health company, Talend, one of our clients. Working with them, what they make sure you have is really healthy data. And that's not the sexiest way to put it, but the way that we were able to frame it with them and work together was they came up with this really brilliant insight where there's a very large percentage of executives that make decisions without data. That's a relatable statistic, but how do you tell that in a way that makes people go, oh, I totally feel you where you're at. And so we created this character called the Chief Destiny Officer, Cosmo, along with them. And he's actually become their mascot. And so the way that you interact isn't just with your actual clients and your prospects, because the prospects obviously react to that where it's, yeah, basically we're giving up this, our decisions to this Chief Destiny Officer making decisions with a crystal ball. It also resonates with the employees. I think that's what interaction is, right? It isn't just going out to the world and speaking to your customers. You sometimes forget your best customers are the people right inside your building or right inside their homes. In the remote speak. So that's the kind of job that we have that's so fun is like find ways to interact, not just with outside world, but the inside world as well.

This thing, you know, what's interesting is like, I talk to a lot of folks in these types of marketing positions and just people have to do this ethereal stuff. And you think like, how the hell do you convince people of value that you can actually sell when you get to talk in this way that's new and it's like, Getting started with that must have been hard. And then establishing credibility of like actual, like everybody says brand, like I'm a brand marketer. What, what, what the hell is that?

What you should really be saying is that I think you're a business strategist. A brand marketer is like, at the end of the day, I think brand is one of those things that people throw around a lot where like you Purpose, you know what people give a crap about? Can I curse? You know what people really care about? They care about, can you do your shit? Can you give them your service? Everything else you do on top of that is important. So like the baseline stuff is your product superior to others along with your experience and are you ethical? That's a good beginning starting line if you're gonna be a company. Now on top of that though, is all that you wrap around it, cuz a brand is really an outcome versus an output, right? It's an outcome of all the things that you do, all your customer experience, even how you do like shipping logistics, how you talk to the people, how your company culture, your sales process, it's an outcome. So like when I think of brand strategy, I always challenge That's a, it's a very difficult job because really what you're doing here is making sure all the outputs of a company like are reflected off of a company's purpose. And that's a Herculean job to do. Yeah.

And typically when someone sells or buys this type of service, it's gonna live under like some marketing budget. And like as the, I know this as the consultant or as the person brought in from the outside, like there would be like in most organizations near zero expectation that you would get to touch anything that's outside of—

Yeah, outside of the marketing. Yeah.

Like they don't get to own that. And you're like, what about recruiting and HR? What about executive strategy setting? What about touchpoints, customer service? Like they're talking like logistics, like what the hell? Who are you, brand guy, even wanting to talk about? These things.

Yeah. I think that's the, that's what, why people get wrong sometimes is like, maybe we could do a better job at it is as marketers, people put us in this box, right? Of, hey, bring in the creators. But really like our job is to solve business problems. Like you have a problem here where our message is not clear enough to the world. Help us solve it. If you solve that problem, that's gonna be sales, right? Or we're just so damn complicated. Help us simplify. Those are some of the two, two of the four most common problems that we solve. It's like the day if you do that, doesn't it just make your life easier as an organization? But you sometimes get put in this box of come up with this marketing campaign. That's why I think like marketers, I'll just say it out loud, get fired first at times, right? Because they're not, they're seen as like that external part of the business. But really it's if you do marketing right, the sales should be coming in. Like the conversions should be coming in and it's like changing the language of how you speak about it. You asked me earlier about how to get buy-in and everything. It's It took a while. It's the POV ain't BS, man. Interaction interruption. We knew that like the Destiny Officer could work, but on top of that though, you have to push your clients to a place that's like true to them, but also a place that they're unafraid to make decisions that others aren't like, are afraid to make. Cause that's where like real greatness comes from. Right? It's like you had to give up something, you had to commit to something, or you had to put your stake in the ground as a brand. And it might cost you something. Now we always say purpose doesn't mean anything until it costs money, but that's what it takes. And I think like when we coach a CEO or a brand, it's look, you're gonna think we're gonna talk a lot of fluffy shit, but at the end of the day, when you really mess up or you do something super well, people will usually say that's par for the course, cuz that's just who they are. Every action that you take builds the brand a little bit. And so like when people say that's just who they are, that's how you're really being measured at by public perception is like, how strong is your brand when you do well? But then how strong is your brand is when you mess up? And that's where it takes like companies like ours to remind executive teams is that, look, what we're building for you here is the right lens to build your reputation. Every action that we're gonna help you take is gonna help you build that reputation forward. So if something ever did happen, God forbid, you could take the hit, or if you have some kind of huge opportunity, people are just gonna celebrate you. That's a long-winded answer of saying, let's help you make some fans. Internally and externally.

Yeah, no, I totally get it, man. It's just like you get rare opportunities to— like, it's just like major companies are going through this now.

Disney, let's talk about that, man.

Yeah, dude, it's just losing your way when you're the house of Mouse. Yeah, house. And like, people are not like just bought in. There is the magic fading. I mean, magic is your freaking world. And for people to say that, like, how far did you need to stray from that core value purpose? And that's just like existential threat for outrageously important company. And that can happen on any scale.

Yeah, it's culturally relevant to us. Yeah, it can. If you think of Disney, this is where we call a brand live. What you say and what you do there's a disconnect. The longer that this brand lie keeps expanding, the more likely you're going to die. And I think what is it? I think the frontliners of Disney get the people that you see in the parks, OG folks that get the Disney ethos. If you read the book, Be Our Guest, like each theme park or even each resort down to it has like their own set of core values too, that also reflect the company core values. I think it might be on the leadership team. Is that there might be a disconnect on what Disney was until what Disney wants to become. And that's why the shakeup happens. And that's like a brand lie at its like biggest level is when the people on the ground are like saying we're this, but the top they're saying like, no, we want to be this. You gotta find a way to close that chasm or get what you just saw with Disney, man. It's heartbreaking to see that because dude, if I play like Hakuna Matata, if I play like Frozen, God forbid, man. Like you're gonna start singing a lot where you know the words, right? Or I Can Go the Distance. You just know those things, right? They're part of our childhood. To watch a brand like that crumble, that's part of your childhood even till now. Like that's so hard to do, man. And that's why like we live as brand marketers, I think, or like creative strategists here, or business strategists, is that we should be helping prevent that.

I know, like I'm the family that, that paid like ungodly sums of money for the Disney Cruise or whatever that thing is. And you just Yeah, you, that better be damn magic because it sure cost me. But I mean, that's what you do, right? And, and even like, and in some cases they've done a tremendous job of— I associate Star Wars with Disney and like the new stuff is pretty damn good. And so I think like it's built in and it's part of that life experience, but you can't, I don't know, take that for granted in growth or whatever it is. Anyway, that's a consumer brand. So we're getting off our B2B train. But another thing you made me think of was just like you said about the simplicity, and it's like, why is this so freaking complicated? And I know as somebody that has to rebuild sales processes or build from scratch, it's just the first thing I'm going to do is, dude, we got to make this easy to buy and easy to sell. And just what the hell is all this? What do you actually do here? And the features-benefits thing, you know, is I guess tried and true and maybe even tired to some people, but what the hell is this 6-page spreadsheet I need to fill out in order to just even explain to somebody what the hell you do? Like this, this is a problem. Like now I know all that stuff happens on the backside and that's important, but our job is to obfuscate that into an amazing feeling where Shit's being done for me.

Yeah, that's so true. I think the features and benefits thing is a great framework, but I think what misses a lot in like sales training nowadays is like really understanding how to uncover problems properly. I think like when you go to med school, at least my friends that are medical professionals, like they learn this like way to really diagnose like your health. And I like, I think that's our job too as consultants, right? Is to learn how to really diagnose the problem. Problem. Like the feature and benefits are okay, but what really moves the needle that people care about is, do you really understand my problem? Or do you think my problem is a symptom of a bigger problem? And that's where like, I really find like the best agencies and marketers in the world are the ones that say, you're thinking this, but what you're really saying is this. And what I need to show you is this for you to change your mind. They're really self-aware. What piece of information can I give this person here that would radically change their mind? And like, I think we forget a lot about that in the sales process. And that's why we have a lot of objections. Is at the end of the day, when you ask someone like, hey, look, if I'm gonna provide value to you and you don't believe in me and yet, what would change your mind? If a person can't articulate that, I think that's where like you gotta get better as a salesperson is learning how to uncover objections. But I think that comes with uncovering problems. You just gotta be really good at it.

You're good.

You're great at it. Yeah.

I do what I can. I think I take it a step further even, and I'm just, I'm not even gonna question how to get to what are your pain points is the lazy ass version of not being confident in sales. It's more just I'm gonna educate you along the way. So it's your idea that it ought to have been this way. And here's a competitor or here's a peer group company that is doing this really well and also happens to already be our client.

Oh yeah, that's the best.

And I think that that experience of being able to pattern match and I don't fault anybody for being crappy at sales at the beginning because you need to do the, you need to do your 10,000 hours. But now I can say that I'm approaching 3,000 hours of just doing it on Zoom.

Yes. Let alone doing it at all. Yeah, I get it.

I resonate with that brand sort of authenticity thing because I think it's just, we just like maybe forgot how to take care of people and be human and just be authentic at all. I spend the first few minutes of every call, where are you in the world? What are you doing? What's interesting? Oh, hey, I used to live somewhere around there too. And unfake rapport building. And I think brand experience can do that also. Like it just doesn't have to feel like you're essentially reading off the ethereal script of what I was supposed to do.

Yeah, exactly.

You mentioned reading off the script of we are this blah, blah, blah.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's brand should just be lived, right? It should be easily lived. It shouldn't be forced. If you think of brand, like I like to explain, like it's a standard, right? It's a standard of experiences that are consistent with your purpose and your mission. But like you can over-brand where it just feels robotic, where I feel like I'm being taken part of a process. I think that's the magic with Disney though. If you think about Disney, right, as a brand, let's just go to the theme park. It's hot as shit in Orlando no matter what time of the year it is, right? They can't change that. So they're gonna find ways to make your day better because they're a purpose-driven company about magic, right? They want you to feel magical. So that Disney Express, it's gone now, but it would— they used to send, they used to send, remember, your bag to your room. Like, you didn't have to worry about going there. And when you like go to Disney, you really focus on the touchpoint, just the smells. Just like the colors of the building. So you won't even know it's like the background stages, how they call each other cast members. Like they, they really do focus on what they can control. I think that's what brands get a lot wrong is like they try to focus on every single damn touchpoint has to be an amazing experience. Disney instead says, hey, look, we can't control this shitty weather, but we can make sure by when you get off the plane, here's what we can control. Your bag's gonna be there. You're gonna feel great. I think that's where like we gotta change to is like, you don't have to control everything as a brand. You just gotta focus on the right things that make a difference in a customer's journey.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, let's go to your story. Like you didn't just wake up one day and kind of know, oh no, man, like still learning, brother. Take me back to like, tell me some stories of like where you just like epically screwed this up and you hit the speed bump at 100 miles an hour. And I wanna know what's the story before, go back to the kitchen table or what's behind this? What's your path?

Dude, in high school, man, I didn't know what I wanted to become. Thought I wanted to become a chef. I lost the culinary scholarship because I was really dumb. And instead of showing up to this competition where the judge told me I was top 3 favorite already, I was training like rigorously every weekend in like different kitchens across the city. I just partied with my friends and I totally overslept. And when I— yeah, it sucked. Obviously, like, if things played out for what it was, but that was a good lesson because I remember waking up the next day, well, I'm just gonna phone it in. And I realized I missed it when I looked at my watch. I called her, I was like, "Hey, can I still come?" She's like, "No." I want to let you know something. I hope you will remember this for the rest of your life is you got to show up for your opportunities. It's not just luck. You got to show up. And dude, that was a pretty low moment, man, because I didn't plan to go to college. And ironically, I did have this life-changing experience in Vietnam, but I left to go back to the motherland. And when I came back, something just clicked in me, man, where I want to build a business. And I fell into my first business, Big Fish Presentations, where I sat through like the most boring presentation of my life, dude. It was so bad, man. Funny enough, like I was the treasurer for the Student Real Estate Association, but I was responsible for setting up all the presentations for the speakers that would come in. I remember there was a Fortune 500 executive that was coming in where when I told him he had 30 minutes, he said, son, let me tell you something. I was like, did you just son me, dude? I don't even know you, bro. He just, started going, look, when you're like an important figure like I am, people are gonna listen to you. Where I'm like, dude, that doesn't change. You have 30 minutes, man. This meeting, like, we have to get out of here in 30 minutes. He goes on for 3 hours, 200 slides, reads off every damn slide. And I thought to myself, yo, if companies are presenting like this, if executives are presenting like this, no freaking way is ideas, can that next big idea be heard? And so in college we decided, what if we just created a company that can help people become better presenters, better presentations? It's so naive. Why would you trust a bunch of college students to go out and help you with your presentations? But we somehow got in the hearts of clients like NASA, Oracle, Raising Cane's, Century 21. It was hilarious, man. And the thing is like, I would take these meetings, like I would go to class at 8 in the morning, man. Fly out to go meet my clients, like in New York, Nashville, California, like later in the— like for the 10 AM, like, flight, get there in the afternoon, then fly back that evening, man, on the red-eye to go to class the next day, dude. That was my college schedule, Ledge. And what happened was, man, I— like, a freaking advisor called me and said, dude, your grades are freaking trash. I'm gonna have to kick you out of LSU. And I remember telling her, like, look, I just want to have a career where I can help people build better presentations at the time. And she's like, I heard there's a startup in town called Big Fish Presentations. You should go intern there. And I was like, yo, I own that company. And she looked at me, closed the door, and she said, you got to get the fuck out of here. I was like, what? She's like, what are you doing here? Why are you killing yourself? Just go and do that. School will be here. And I was like, dude, you're going to get fired for this. But she was like, no, I get paid to make sure these students have a great opportunity. You don't need school anymore. You got what you needed. You got into school to figure out what you didn't want to do. Congratulations, you figured out what you wanted to do. And so that could have been my massive screw-up right there, man, where I could have stayed. But she basically kicked me out. I like groveled because like in Asian culture, dude, like God forbid you're gonna drop out, dude. And look, I dropped out. There are times even where like Like you, I definitely think, man, was this a mistake? Do I need a degree? I remember like during my first year, like Shark Tank came calling as well. They wanted us to be on the show. We actually turned them down because we didn't, we actually turned them down to be on the show because we knew that, I don't know if this is like the right path for the company, even though the rest of the world would say this is what we should do, but I don't think it's right for everybody. There are moments where I always think, what if? But gotta keep moving on, man. That, that was one of the lower moments though of my life where I didn't know where I was going. I fumbled my way into things. But one thing I always am, and just as an entrepreneur, you're probably like this too, I'm a figure it out guy, you know. I'll figure it out. Like, I would say, I'll figure it out on the way down. But I imagine my life, it's like on the, like a flight of stairs, and as I'm going down, like, the flight stairs, like, I'll figure out by the time I get down there, don't worry.

Yeah, I don't know if I ever had the— I don't know, maybe I just had like a naive sort of arrogance about it. But yeah, I mean, I, at one point I was just like, I don't know, I'm going to start a company. I don't know anything about this. I'm going to leave my job. I'm going to move to a city where I know nobody and somehow I'm going to succeed.

And where does that confidence come from? Where does, where did that confidence come from?

I don't know. I can't even remember being in that kid's head 15 years ago. It's just a lot's happened. Since then, I don't know, like I had, I don't know the way I remember it and tell the story. Like I was actually really close to the World Trade Center on 9/11. So like a block away and I, I don't know if I've mythologized this, but I remember hiding under my desk in the dark, flashing safety lights and dust and just death. And I was like, I don't want to die under a desk at a job I hate. And I know that happened. I don't know again if I've mythologized that a little bit over the course of years and memory, but I think. Maybe those turning points happen or some kind of traumatic thing, but ultimately you just go, I think I look at it. I'm just like, I'm reasonably intelligent and chances are that if somebody figured this out, I can probably do a decent job. Now, in retrospect, that business was a total disaster. I didn't understand that marketing was even a thing or sales. I just wanted to do the thing and just figured if I hung up a logo, people would come and knock and tell me how awesome I was. But, uh, and we went to zero. We bankrupted the thing in the great recession and all that business, but I learned a lot. Yeah, I don't know, you just keep going. Oh yeah, man, I learned what marketing is, that the marketing is a real thing.

You learn what not to do, I'm sure, man. Look, whenever I hear stories like that, man, I think of you're at that crossroads, right? Are you gonna be alive or are you gonna live? There's a difference, right? I think alive, you're on autopilot. To live— I'm glad what you did, man. I'm flipping this interview on you right now. Is so—

look, I know this is the skilled guest approach, man.

I think I mentioned this to you when we first had a chat, is I think there should be a podcast where someone interviews the host because they're always the one with the most interesting stories because they meet so many interesting people. They just end up in interesting places. What are some of the things—

it could be cool. Yeah. Flip the podcast approach and just be like, I'm bringing in people to interview me. I don't know. We might need some branding help on that one. It feels a little—

think about like how awesome would it be to interview Guy Raz or you interview like Reid Hoffman, Master Scout, just like interviewing those folks there that like, yeah, just like interview them because I'm sure they have a wealth of stories. So I'll ask you one here. As you've done this podcast and you've met so many dang people, you probably learned like so many tips or like things that were like probably like platitudes, right? You should do this. You should do that. What's like some tried and true things you're like, yo, that shit works. Things that like, yeah, it's like me saying like purpose means it doesn't mean anything until it costs you money. That shit doesn't work until you actually put the pedal to the metal. When you're actually like faced with a hard decision, what are some of the things that you've learned with that, man?

Everybody talks about this. Again, it talks like, it sounds like platitude, but when you get down to it, Everybody talks about just surrounding yourself with the right people. And when I dig into it, entrepreneurs and people who have advanced through multiple businesses or jobs or whatever it is, I'm absolutely convinced, and I've done this to an extent, but I'm convinced that entrepreneurs and people who succeed are really just people collectors. Because you bring the folks along adventure to adventure and it's like the epic quest is a real thing. And we're just gonna keep breaking stuff and barely surviving until some of us are left and we execute. That, I'd say that comes up every time, hundreds and hundreds of conversations later. And like you said, the fortitude. And I think I like a recent guest said, don't play small ball. And he really meant just clear the deck and what should I really be focused on? So here's my favorite question. I invented this years ago, but you like The Office? Did you ever watch The Office?

We have a café disco in our office up here. As a meeting room.

Yeah. Right on. Right on. So there's an episode where Jim gets to send, sends Dwight faxes from future Dwight and the coffee is poisoned or whatever. So I'm like, okay, I hand you a piece of paper and a Sharpie and a magic fax machine to send Kenny a fax 10, 15 years ago. Choose an epoch, right? What do you scrawl on that paper?

That's a really good question, dude. I've been on, what you said was also very interesting to me because when I ask you like your top tips about it's all about the people, funny enough, like I've been in this phase of my life where I keep, I asked a bunch of mentors that built like $100 million companies and beyond, what like really was the change? And I kept asking what, and they're like, dude, you're, the problem isn't how you ask your question, it's who. You think it's all strategy, but this is, you think this is all biz strat, this is a people strat problem. You need to get the right people in the right seats. You need to pay them well, treat your stars. And really like whenever, when like, and like one, one mentor framed up these, I get to a $15 million company. You don't ask what do I need to do to get to a $15 million company? It's who do I need to hire in this direction to help me get to that? It's changing the way you did that. And like at first I was like, okay, that's one mentor having a point of view. Then I kept talking to more people that they've done it, or every single person was a talent magnet. Dude, if I were to read a Back to the Future, it's that I understood this to the T. And when people described me, they're like, that guy is one hell of a talent magnet. He got people that I couldn't believe to go and join that team. And because of that, not only did the agency grow like crazy, the community that he wanted to build grew like crazy as well. I really do think it's all about the right people, right seats, man. That's been my focus here is making sure that people want to come work here. People like want to be a part of this. It sounds so hokey, but dude, I mean, it's tried and true, man. If you got the right people on the bus, doesn't shit just work, man? This point, just say, I want to go over there. You got the right people on the bus, they're going to tell you how to do it.

Yeah. If there's anything I wish I could focus on more is just, you're always stretching to an agency land or any service business. It's like the step wide. I want to keep hiring people and building the tribe, but you need enough work for them to do. I think That's the limiting factor there is.

That's why you gotta hire the right people though, is dude, if you don't hire the right people in a services business, dude, like that shit hurts because like when you look at like a services business, like an agency, you think of every revenue per employee, right? If we wanna go brass tacks, like when you go down into that, it's like each person here should contribute to the team. And when you're a 30-person agency like ours, it can hurt when there's not any contribution. So that's why I think we have to be very clear on our values and our purpose. 'Cause I think like you can always hire people that have that aptitude, but like to hire people with the right attitude and the right like mindset, those are the folks that you have to like recruit constantly. I do think like a part of a CEO's job is that you should always be recruiting even when you're not hiring, right? You should always know who should be, who should hire next. I wanna reiterate that a mentor of mine also told me like, you should know your next 5 hires. I started listing by title. He's like, nope, you're just like everyone else. She's like, you gotta know 'em by name. That's not good enough. If you're gonna, if you're serious about freaking growth, know 'em by name. You have to literally name 'em out right now in front of me if I'm gonna take you seriously.

It's like account-based marketing for hiring. Yeah.

But that, that we're in a people business though, right? Yeah, dude. I get it. Like, like one brilliant strategist, creative designer matched with the right perfect partner of a client. Like that kind of chemistry, that alchemy can transform us. It's our game. It's like for you, right? It's the company that you keep that really makes, you know, who you really are and who you can become. So you must meet, I know you meet a ton of people on this podcast, but like just the people that you work with, it's really the company that you keep and the company, it's like the grass is always greener to some people, but I think I've heard the grass is greener where you water it. And I think that's why I think it's so important to like constantly be recruiting, constantly keep putting that energy into that.

I am ready, always ready to admit that I am not good at hiring, interviewing, like, like I can recruit. But I need to turn that over to somebody who doesn't go rose-colored glasses on. Yeah, like, I actually hate— obviously, oddly, I hate interviewing people for jobs. Like, I don't— I'm just not in that function. I like interviewing people to draw out the best in them. That's a bad thing for hiring because I will bring you in and like just decide that you're awesome and paint all kinds of positive things on you and then hire you, and it's Oh shit, they're really bad at this. And for me, it's been like, I need to collect over time the people who fit perfectly into the partner lens or that core group of people that can read my mind. Cause I'm not a very damn good manager. I'm pretty good leader, but I need people that I just, that understand my quirks so that I can execute. And, but I think that picture of just not knowing or knowing what you're lousy at and surrounding yourself with people to to fix that or ameliorate that problem. That, that really has been key for me. Without that, I'm unemployable.

Yeah, no, I know what you mean, man. I feel the same, man. That's awesome, that distinction too. Leading and managing are very different things. I personally think that you should always be leading, but sometimes you manage more is like when you don't have the right fit or something's not working right. That's when you go into the management mode. Really, like, the majority of our time should be spent on leading. I know this is a B2B podcast, we're not gonna talk about leadership stuff, but like, you know, what books, what books are you reading, man, that have really transformed the way that you like lead teams? You got like the Patrick Lencioni's, like the Radical Candor's out there. Like what books have left like an impression on you?

I am not a big business book guy. Like I consume a lot of sci-fi and fiction and dystopian and like I actually leave my desk and just go and I want to consume. Different weird stuff. If I do nonfiction, I just finished the book that Eric Schmidt and Henry Kissinger wrote about AI. I'm really interested in just books should stretch my mind. Like I want to have other thinkers, but I don't adhere to what I learn in a business book because like, I think years ago I read so many that it's just like, all right, this is running together now. What else is there? History, biographies, like stuff that I want to get to the meat. And I, maybe that's why I resonate with doing the interview stuff. But so I just went through Think and Grow Rich again where I just, you know, I want to learn habits. Like I'm not a good personal habits setter. If I have a meeting with you, I'll show up absolutely on time. If I have a dentist appointment, I'll show up on time. If I block a calendar to work on my own personal self, I won't do it. And so then I wanted to set onto this idea of like personal habit setting that is actually good and self-discipline.

Yeah, no, that's good, man. I, I love what you said about getting outside of just business because I think that's where perspective— one of the most— I read a lot of cookbooks, man. I think you have to like, cuz I think that's where creativity is though, right? It's taking things that are unlike, that normally don't match and making them go together. And if you only read business books over and over again, what's gonna happen here is that you only will see this color as green. But what if I told you that this color was So-and-so green because I read this other book. I think like you, man, and I, I'm not gonna say we're good at exactly what we do. I being humble, but we have a multiple different lens to see things because of that. I try to avoid like, just in my like investment world, like I try to avoid investing in entrepreneurs that only obsess about one thing. I like to see that you have different things because that means you're seeing different things.

So when you apply it to a problem, oh my God, I wanna see different things. I spend all day on calls and it's neat. I get to talk to people all over the world, but then I want to go pick my kids up. I want to dig holes in the yard and I just want to think about other stuff. Psych, sociology, neurology, quantum physics, you know, I would like, I don't know, maybe I'm my own sort of Renaissance guy. I just, that's freaking interesting. Show me the multiverse and prove me some quantum theory physics or whatever. Like I'm just a big nerd and I don't know when it gets brought back in, but I have to think that if you tease your brain around the edges, like stuff clicks that you don't even know. And I'm like, I'm more—

yeah, dude. And that's why you gotta find that creative, like spot where it's— I think it's one you should know, like where do you find your best flow state? And like when you get— that's, that's where the magic dynamite happens, right? Is when you're just in flow, time just flies back, like just past you. You have no idea. You look at your watch like, holy crap, I can't believe it's this time. You gotta find time to do that, man. And like, that's awesome because I can imagine when you're digging in a hole Sometimes like you're shoveling, you're gardening, that's where some of your best ideas come from. So that means you should garden more.

Yeah. And it's interesting you say that, cuz I'll wrap it with, I talk about brand, right? People spend incredible amounts of time and money and whiteboards and consultants and all this stuff coming up with a brand from scratch. So one of my companies now is @1zero and people can look it up, whatever. But the funny thing about that is that That's the brand I get complimented on the most. It was a totally random side thought. We took a logo from a different business that had failed before, and then we just repurposed it, changed the letters, same colors, everything. And the funny thing is like, that's the one you get complimented on the most. And what I think is interesting is this thing's finally Click together and that's because it's authentic and you just, I spent no time on this, but it must've come from my real brain. I think that's fine.

And you get so mad because it's like the culmination of all that to make it look effortless.

It's the overnight, not overnight thing where you're just like, dude, I've been at this for 15 years. I've blown up more businesses than I want to admit. I've had horrible ideas, efforts that I've spent $15,000 on a logo. Are now in the trash bin, and this one I came up with, and we just repurposed some crap we had paid for that failed already. People love it, and I think that's— yeah, that could have been in the garden, it could have been in the shower, whatever. But it's just putting in that time, I think, is what, you know, really matters.

Yeah, and that's the time that no one talks about, is like that time that you just put yourself in those spaces. Your brain works when you're not even thinking about it. We think too much as humans. I think too much. But like, when you just like just let it go and your brain just is processing you and I could be driving to a restaurant, all of a sudden you would see like a school or you see something where you're like, I get it. Yeah. And you just connect it. That's creativity. You have to put yourself in this.

Oh, you got to see all the raw stuff and just go, yeah, how can I turn? I believe there's one master vocabulary that we all don't know. Right. And that every subdiscipline is creating a bunch of ideas and just calling it different things because we put it in the neurology or the physics or the sociology bucket. The business book, ultimately it's all models are wrong. Some models are useful, right? Like what's the thing, right? What's the unifying idea? So that, that's been fun in my business and I can't even tell you why I can recognize it in anybody else's thing. I just know that's not gonna work cuz I put in the time and this'll work instead. And I can't map that to a sales book because I haven't read the sales book, so I don't know what the thing is.

Yeah, no, that's, but that's great though. It's like your gut, your instinct is something that you refine over time. That's, we tend to like not look at, but you think about it. Think about all the pain that it took to refine your gut. Yeah, right? Why wouldn't you follow it? That's the thing that you invest the most— if you think about it, all the experiences, all this shit you go through in your life, it's all to really refine your instinct, right? It's like you can't forget that. And like, that's awesome, man.

This is a good conversation.

I know we're like living over time.

Good conversation. We're blowing overtime. I know, like, we're getting the hairy eye here. So Kenny Nguyen, it's been super fun, man. Where could people reach out to you if they're resonating, or what channels, or how do they get more, more win?

Yeah, more win. W-I-N, right? We were joking about that earlier, about the way y'all, how you pronounce my last name. That's just, by the way, y'all, if you ever wondered, win. We're about to go win this game. So y'all, you can reach me at Kenny Nguyen, K-E-N-N-Y dot Nguyen, at 368.com. You have any questions, obviously go to our site, 368. You want to see some of the work that we do and some awesome clients that we get to work with. Um, I mean, beyond that, if you want to go pick up a book from Big Fish Presentations— if you hate— you want to help rid the world of boring presentations, look up The Big Fish Experience on Amazon.

The Big Fish Experience, right on, man. I love that. Some big fish.

Yeah.

And since I'm now going to convince you to have your own podcast, people will be able to get a lot more Kenny Nguyen.

So yeah, going from the webinar to the podcast, you've taught me so much about that. You need your own podcast where I can interview you.

All right, fair enough. All right, man, I appreciate you coming out. Thanks so much for spending the time.

Yep.

Thank you, Ledge.

Thank you for listening, and we hope you enjoyed this episode of the Leaders of B2B podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please give us a 5-star rating. And as always, you can see more information about this episode and all the resources mentioned at leadersofb2b.com. Com.