Episode #29: Is It Company Culture, Or Branding - Kenny Nguyen

Welcome everybody to the Paddy G Show. I am your host, Paddy G. I'm here with Kenny Nguyen of 368. We're gonna do a little bit of chatting about the origin story behind 368, kind of where they are now, and also what they're doing to get through these trying times that everybody is with the coronavirus happening. So Kenny, thank you for coming on the show. I really appreciate it, man. I know it took us a while to nail this down.

You are hella persistent, man. I gotta say, dude, respect.

Hey, you want something bad enough, you keep going after it, right?

I agree, man. Tenacious as hell, man. Look, we're on, man. It worked out.

That's it. We're on. We're making it happen. It only took a pandemic to make this happen, but you know, I'll take what I can get. So for those that aren't maybe aware of who 368 is, what are y'all and what do you do?

Yeah, we're a brand strategy firm proudly based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. You know, we just help— really like what we do is we're storytellers. We help people tell their stories, and we also help build people and organizations. So our work can look anywhere from, you know, helping people come up with a campaign to launch a new product or a new brand, to even helping companies rehash their talent strategy. So really, we help power the people behind the brands and actually power the brands themselves. And I think it's this fun work that we've been able to grow the last couple of years like we have. Some of our key clients you might recognize include like Ochsner Health System and Louisiana Economic Development. You know, we love working with people that are challenging like the status quo, and we like working with people that are open to being challenged as well.

Right, it's hard to take on a new client whenever they don't— they don't want to make change, they just want you to make them better without changing up the whole infrastructure. So it's kind of key— key to having a good client is having one that says, okay, I like what you're saying, let's run with it, and you know, we'll kind of Follow your lead. Mm-hmm. So what I thought of you initially as like a marketing firm, but it sounds you're almost even more than that because you said you go into the details of helping the actual personnel within the organizations.

Yes. I mean, if you think about it, man, it's kind of like, you know, I tell our people like we're a leadership firm disguised as an agency. And that comes from like working beyond just like the marketing C-suite. It's important to work with like throughout the whole entire organization. Because the marketing should just be an extension of that company's purpose, its mission, its values. And purpose, mission, and values is something that bleeds throughout the whole entire company. And for us, I think that's how we are able to grow the way that we did is that we just didn't respond to challenges with marketing answers. I know my competitors, even what we used to be, is if there's a brief that comes in with a challenge, the first thing we would say is they need a new logo, they need a new website, they need a new marketing strategy or campaign. I realized that's just not a fun way to look at because that's a very limited perspective. And I found that if I asked multiple really good questions, I usually say you should start your questions off with why, what if, and how in that order, because why challenges convictions, what if opens imagination, how actually talks about how to get things done. What happens there is your imagination opens and then you can attack multiple parts of the business that needs improving. So during COVID-19 right now, you know, people usually say like, man, what am I gonna do to fix my marketing? You know, I didn't get more out there, you know, I didn't drive my sales more. I don't think it's a marketing problem, 'cause when clients do come to us, I say like, you know, it's a business problem, 'cause COVID-19, I mean, do you think about it? Pandemics, natural disasters, like things like this will always disrupt your business, man, you know?

Right, you can't plan for a worldwide global pandemic.

You can't blame it, you know? If you blame it for the reason why you're like not surviving, I'm not a believer in that. I truly do believe like the reason why that we may be suffering, my firm's been impacted as well, you know, is that maybe we just didn't have the discipline to focus on the right things beforehand, you know? And we just using that excuse now to say like, yeah, we gotta level up. Like, you gotta be in the long game, man. Any entrepreneur and business owner has to be in the long game, and they should be using this time right now to make their business better. And you can't just think in like, I'm trying to survive and then to this date, and by this date I wanna go back to once I was, once was. That will never happen. You never return to once what you once were. Your business should fundamentally change because like, business should. And so for us, like those aren't marketing problems, that's growth and business problems. And for us, like, you know, whether it's like powering the people within them, like the leaders, or like helping them, you know, challenge themselves to think of things differently, that's where we come in, man. Like, so wrap it up with this, like, you know, our mission statement, you know, it's to challenge common thinking so that we create an uncommon future. You know, that uncommon future for a lot of clients, it's to live in a world where they don't have competition. The way that you don't have competition is if, you know, you play the long game and you do the, you make the right decisions in the long term. I say like, you know, your culture doesn't cost you anything. Your culture doesn't mean anything until it costs you money. You know what I mean? Look at like Todd Graves, Raising Cane's, our first client ever, you know, not taking a salary, neither AJ, his co-CEO. I mean, dude, that's when you know that culture really means something. And like, you know, it's marketing to get it out there so you can recruit better talent, but to actually do it and execute it, that's deeper, you know? That's where we're at right there is like looking at the holistic business and helping people live their true purpose.

Yeah, it's much more than just saying, okay, let's do some team building exercises. It's okay, what can I do from the top down and show the people, you know, working in the trenches that, hey, I really care about what's going on, I care about you. And yeah, you're right, Todd Graves with the Raising Cane's is a perfect example of that, you know. Hey, I'm not taking a salary, I think it's what, for the whole year, for the remaining of the year, to make sure they don't go too far into the red as far as their cash supply is.

Yeah, I mean, that's huge, man. That sends like a statement out to the people of Hey, look, you know, we're in this together and I am purely focused on making this happen and I'm putting my money where my mouth is. And that's super valuable. I mean, think about this too. It's not just COVID, it's the brands that always like stuck by what they believe that are surviving, right? Like they never changed their model, Kenny Nguyen. They thought of like great, great, great customer service, whether in the store or delivery, focused on one product supremely well. You know, the only time you can get something different at Cane's is when you go to the airport and there's a Cane's in there and they have to serve breakfast items because the airport's making them do that. Otherwise than that, you can't, you know? Right. That shows you like relentless focus and they live it in what they do. I mean, like, if you want to go like beyond like Louisiana clients, like, I mean, everyone knows Patagonia, right? Patagonia is like an environmental firm disguised as a clothing company. Just like Cane's is a leadership company disguised as a restaurant. Like Patagonia, you know, I mean, they donated what, $10 million in 2018 based on like extra, like, from money they got back from taxes to like the environment. You know, they're doing things where they put their money where their mouth is and it costs them money, but that's what, and they're surviving, you know? And that's the thing is like, if you stick to your values, and you're able to say, like, I'm going to focus on the really important things here, like, that's the long game. But if you're focused on, I'm just trying to survive to get back where I once was, you're playing a losing battle, man. It's just right, you know, you're just gonna be clouded by things in the short term, you know.

Yeah, and it's— you're focusing on how can I make that next dollar and keep, you know, how can I keep the lights on, keep myself being paid, keep the employees being paid, where it's more of, okay, how can we make a statement with the situation? How can we make a bad thing turn good, meaning we want to know that at the end of this we come out for the better. We don't go— we don't ever hear the term pre-COVID-19. We only hear the term, what do we do during COVID-19 to make sure on the back end we're so much better than we were coming into it?

Yeah, 100%, man. I mean, our staff knows it well. Like, you know, I remind them again this month, the Monday morning meeting, is that, you know, let's not play the finite game, let's play the infinite game. And we've had rough years where we, and God bless, every time we had a rough year, we came back even stronger the same year where it started out. And this year is just another test to that same grit and resiliency. I mean, really, a mentor of mine, Jude Melville from Business First Bank, I mean, he said it the best. Now's the time to really prove to the world your worth. And it's so true, you know, it's like, let's show the world who you really are because, you know, it's one thing when you're doing really well, you can say all these things, these inspirational quotes and all that. But like, once you're actually in the grind and doing it, you know, you really see the mark of a leader when they're tested, when they're stressed, how they handle adversity, you know, and now's the time to really show who are the real leaders out there versus the ones that just want to go out on stage and talk about leadership.

Yep, it's easy to be a good person in good times. It's much harder to be a good person in dark times whenever everything's being thrown at you. Yeah. So I want to go into what you kind of— we touched on about the short-term versus long-term. I know a lot of, you know, entrepreneurs getting started and even businesses who've been in business for a while, they always keep their sights on the short-term rather than long-term for the most part. Why do you think that is? That a lot of people do that, especially when getting started.

I mean, you know, there's always that pressure of profitability. You want to be as profitable as possible. Um, I mean, you have like shareholders or investors, of course you want to make their money back as soon as possible. You know, we're lucky that we don't have like investors. You know, we have partners, but you know, we're not beholden to like, you know, the public, or we're not beholden to like an investment group. You know, I do think it's very important though, like regardless of whatever company model you have, you should be very clear upfront on like your company mission and what you are, what you are not. Because if you're very clear on what you are, you should also be super clear what you're not. Because once you have that, your decision-making matrix is gonna be pretty, like pretty simple, you know? And your talent strategy is gonna be very simple too, because you can, your talent, your culture, if you're following along who you really are, it's gonna be so strong to attract the right people. Just so it's gonna be so strong to repel the wrong people. So that's the thing is like, if you're focusing on like, uh, short-term, usually it's because you have to answer to a board, you have to answer to like shareholders, you have to answer to something that maybe in your mind is like, I have to make this much money by this time. And don't get me wrong, you know, I do know businesses have to make some decisions to pivot because of COVID-19, no doubt. But usually those decisions should be rooted in some way of, okay, this should last past whatever, this should be long-term-wise because we don't know when we're gonna get out of this. You know, you can't say like, I'm gonna do this for the next 8 months, you know, I'm gonna, it's best to do it now. You know, I said yesterday on this webinar that I did, you know, people want clarity more than good news. I think good news comes from optimism and positivity and optimism and positivity can be dangerous if there's no substance behind it. And that's why like with us, you know, we send out an email every Monday, Wednesday, Friday from Theresa Jones, person that handles HR at our company. And also like I might say a message or two, but it's always like very clear matter of fact, this is what you should do. This is what's going on right now. You're not gonna get like an inspirational message from me. We could say that for Monday morning meeting, or I can say that in a one-on-one. It's important for people to know like, this is what's really going on. This is the situation, you know, they just want clarity. I think that's what businesses really need to do because, you know, if you're like out there, like pretending like you're making it, you're doing so freaking well, you know, no one's going to really have any like empathy on you because we live in a time now where people are very forgiving. If a brand screws up, you know, if they have a good relationship with their audience, you know, it's like, that's cool, man. You can actually walk away from your business like Tommy Talley from Ecotango. On our webinar, I said this yesterday, it's one of the few times in the world you can just walk away from your business, no ego, like just walk away from it and everyone be okay 'cause they understand, you know? But the ones that do choose to stay in this fight, man, like please stick to your mission, please be super clear in what you're not, but also like just be real, like be real with like what's going on right now because people want that realness. Like Keynes was super real. Remember when they said, You know, our hope is not to have any layoffs. We dip below that 25% mark, um, we might have to look at that. But luckily we have credit margin, we have like, uh, good credit that we can tap into and good lines. I mean, everyone should have a good line of credit. But see, that tells you like how transparent they are. They're like, hey, look, you know, we're going to survive. They're very clear. If we don't do this, if this happens, expect it to happen. That's leadership, man. They're being positive But they're being clear. That is great example of why AJ and Todd are at the top and leading that company.

Oh, absolutely. It's, you know, if you were to stop their sentence right when they said, hey, we're not gonna lay anybody off during this time, then that's when you get to that motivation, that inspiration, like, oh, we're gonna do great. We're gonna get, you know, we're gonna get through this with the same crew we had when we started this. But it's that follow-up that's so crucial. To making their brand just stick of like, okay, we might not if we drop to these, you know, extenuating circumstances. So I think you hit it right on, right on the head. So what are some of the things— I know you said you'll have y'all's weekly meetings or your weekly email— what are some of the things that 368 is doing to get through these times?

Yeah, I mean, like, dude, it's finding like a sense of normalcy, you know. You want to feel like you're still together, your culture is still there. Um, you might be distant, but it's really tested, like you know, how resilient of a team we are. I mean, our team has stepped up, man. Two of my senior staff, uh, Tara Lorette, she created a Friday Slack channel, or Friday, uh, group chat on Google Hangout called, uh, Work From Home Water Cooler, where we all call in at 4 o'clock and we just talk about our week. And we're able to like really sit down and talk through things. Um, it's been super enjoyable because we still have that feel like we have that time for the team. and we just kind of decompress and get into the weekend. Phil Roberts on my team, he actually created a lunch Google Hangout every Friday. We got over the fact that we can hear each other chew, but every Friday, you know, we just call in and, you know, just talk and eat lunch together, 'cause like lunch culture is huge at 368. We call it 360 Wait, 'cause we eat it together a lot. And, you know— Is that a bad thing though? Yeah, I mean, hey dude, like, we live in the South, you know. That's it. Yeah, it can be a bad thing. Anyway, we hang out a lot, and so like having that sense of normalcy, we're all eating, sharing stories, getting to like talk to each other without like having to worry about work, that's super important. But there's some other things that we've done that I'm so proud of, like Corey on our team, our senior designer, he created a daily gratitude channel on Slack where every day we share what we're grateful for, and we've been keeping up with it. Everyone's been sharing something every day, And that shows you that we should be grateful for things because really, like, we have tons of things to be grateful for, man, because something bad will always happen. I think the universe just kind of resets. It's— we're in a time where we're setting because maybe we weren't present enough to notice things and now we do, you know. Maybe that's kind of like out there, but, you know, I'm a firm believer of those kind of spiritual things. Uh, another thing is TSE Pulse. So if you're familiar with Slack, this is another Slack channel that, uh, Justin Hutchinson on my team created. Um, he learned it from, uh, yeah, oh yeah, you know Justin.

Yeah, I know Justin. We had drinks all before this COVID stuff happened. We got some drinks together.

Yeah, yeah, dude, he's a good dude, man. I'm so proud of that guy, you know, being on the team. He created this awesome Slack channel called TSC Pulse where every day you share 3 emojis on how you're feeling, and it's been pretty helpful because you could see a lot from those emojis. You can imagine when Tiger King came out, there were some pretty clever ones. But no, it was cool because You know, you can see how people are feeling just from emojis, and like, you know, people work on their storytelling that way. But really, man, it's like the Slack channels at Normalcy. We use digital tools like that, but the intention is what's clear behind all of them. It's clear. It's that we still want to be in touch with each other, and we still want to talk, and we still want to be able to get along as a team. Uh, you know, ways that we can improve, man, you know, I know our meeting culture has to get better. I know Kara and Carolina on my team and Tara, you know, we're spearheading an effort right now to improve you know, how we do meetings at 360 so we get more stuff done, that'll make our time more intentional. I think that's what I'm trying to get to here, Pat, is that I think right now, like leaders and teammates have to be super intentional with their time because before, you know, I'll say pre-COVID, you know, you can always like make an excuse to take that lunch meeting, to take that podcast, I'm just kidding, but like to take any kind of meeting, right? I like you, so of course I'll jump on for you, man. You warmed me up. What happens though is that you tend to get a lot of time debts where you can push things off. Well, yeah, I'll just do that and get off my back. I'll defer that a week from now. You're just afraid to say no now. We're trying to say the team is like, hey, you say no now, you don't have to be in this meeting, or you actually focus your meeting and have the right conflict. You can save so much time in the future. In the time they save in the future, you can do better work, better work equals more clients, more clients equal we can keep on growing as a great company. I do think that meetings are the single most like determining factor of like a company's health, 'cause you can tell from a meeting, is there a good positive conflict? Does the team trust each other? Are the team like, is the team vulnerable enough? Does the team actually like focus on like results? It's kinda like the 5 dysfunctions of a team. You know that book? It's like that same model. And like, you could tell a lot just from how people operate in meetings. And that's right now like one of our big focuses in the company, being super intentional with our meetings. Because the more intentional we are, the more stuff we can get done.

Right. And it's, you know, it's learning to be open to not being physically present in those meetings and then trying to learn what's the best way to communicate digitally and virtually even, you know, because this— I'm sure a lot of people had a very large learning curve with technology. And video broadcasting and just talking with people on the phone and getting things done that way over in person. Yeah, this was, this was kind of a big push for that.

It was a big reset, man. I mean, think about this, the talent war that's going to happen after this, or during this even, it's going to be huge. Because once most companies realize like this is a new normal and they realize that I can hire talent freaking anywhere, like dude that's gonna open up the floodgates for people to hire people from like, you know, like my creative director Eddie, if he's watching this, you know, what up Eddie, he's out in like Los Angeles, you know, like Tara, my senior strategist lives in Colorado Springs, you know, while we bat for Louisiana, we have Louisiana flavor into like our soul, you know, as a company, we do believe in hiring the best talent and sometimes the best talent, you know, for that role might not be down here, you know, we might not be able to develop the talent, in time, we have to look past the borders of Louisiana. I'm the first one to bat for Louisiana, but I also believe in building a great company. That's why I think after this, man, companies that help build great talent pipelines, that's gonna be a very good place to be in. And luckily, we have experience with that, but I think companies now have to evaluate their talent pipelines immediately and how they recruit. Because the way that we recruit talent, where we get talent, will never be the same ever again, man.

Right. I mean, I was just talking with Vishal over at Leaf Telemetry. Yeah. And he hired like 2 or 3 people via Skype call, you know. He never even met them, and he hired them because they fit what he was looking for. So just right there, people are adapting and changing their ways of, we have to have a face-to-face sit-down for an interview, I gotta see you, we gotta chat before you're even hired. Now it's okay, let's talk over, you know, the phone, computer, whatever the form may be, and then let's bring you on because we love what you're doing. We are able to see your work, and so you're hired. And that's— yeah, I'm right there with you. That change is gonna be huge even during this time.

Yeah, I mean, that tells you that people are gonna have to work on actually like creating better processes on like vetting great candidates. Like, you have to like make up for not being able to see people like face to face like being physically present, you know, face to face. I think like, you know, when it comes down to that, you have to really just hone in on what makes a great cultural addition to you, not a fit, but a cultural addition to your company. Someone that can actually improve the perspective of your company, that asks questions that you're not already asking. You know, I don't want people in our company that like think the same way. I want people that believe in the same things as people, ethically, by values, but I want them to like look at things differently so we can get the best answers for our clients. And I think that's where like, you know, we have to evolve as a company as well. It's in our hiring process, we have to be much better at identifying what makes great candidates versus like not the greatest candidates for our agency. You know, and that comes from like really figuring out like, how can we within like this hiring process figure out this person lives our values?

Right, and now it's open to, they don't have to live here because we're able to work for so long via telecommunications and telecommuting for work, that now the restriction is not just put on a local environment. It's okay, where can we find the best talent, period? We don't care where they live. We don't care what city they're in. What can we find wherever they live to bring into our community to make it better for the company as well as the community as a whole?

Yeah, 100%, man.

And as soon as companies recognize that, I think we're going to see a little bit hiring outside of Baton Rouge and even Louisiana whenever they say, okay, we telecommuted for a month and a half, we did all right, and I think we can do better by bringing in more talent from outside.

Yeah, and I don't want to see Louisiana companies complain, like, you know, I don't even want to see, like, I don't want to see the complaint of these companies out here taking our, uh, our people, you know, from Louisiana. Like, companies out in Louisiana have to be built well enough to not only maintain the local talent here let's want talent outside of Louisiana to come work there. So it's like a two-way street, you know, like we just can't be making excuses. I think this is where like it's so important to be very clear on where you stand on as a company today, because that will be your distinct competitive advantage is like where you stand and what you believe in. And are you willing to cost money based on your culture?

Yeah, it's what did you do during this time and what changes did you make for after? And, you know, did you stick to your changes? Or are we going to see a pattern of after 3 months, once we get back to our quote unquote normal, are we going to see people reverting back to the old ways? Yeah. And if they do, are they going to decline as a business?

Yes. And I worry that, like, you know, people are right now are thinking that, you know, just when things like go back where that we can open up and like the economy kind of opens back up and then you can go back to brick and mortar stores like it was pretty easy. Like that's the way it should be, just be. No, I mean like, dude, you know the best KPI in any business, man, is momentum, right? Like you wanna invest in businesses that have momentum. You know, if you build momentum and you have that momentum and you stop, that's losing a chance for you to have that distinct competitive advantage where your competitors can't catch up to you. I mean, dude, like the program that LinkedIn bought called SlideShare, we were one of the top accounts on SlideShare. Some of our presentations that we posted had like 600,000 views, man. And we were like on it, dude. Yeah, dude, companies like ESPN were calling us to do presentations. This is during the back in the day when I owned a presentation agency. That's down a service line called Big Fish Presentations. And we let our foot off the gas, man. We stopped doing presentations and we came back in the game I mean, some of our presentations were only getting like, you know, a couple thousand views. We just didn't have that same magic. And that's why like, you wanna go in on things when they're hot. Like right now, like the thing I'm going in on personally is LinkedIn. You know, you've been liking my LinkedIn posts, man. I've been like working hard on my LinkedIn because I realized like LinkedIn's a great platform where people are going to right now for resources and like finding out like who's really clear on where they are. And you know, while I can do it through 368, I wanted people to know it came directly from me and that I won't compromise on what we believe in and that you'll hear directly from my mouth and you can quote me on these things. So like when the going's great or like the going's tough, nothing has changed. We are still convicted in what we said beforehand. And I'll tell you the one message that we're seeing over and over and over again, Pat, is that people want clarity over good news right now. Just be super clear. On who you are, what you stand for, and what you intend to do, and you're going to find a way to make it through. That's authenticity, right?

It's being true to yourself throughout everything, throughout whatever is thrown at you. As long as you remain who you were going in, regardless of the situation, people are going to like you better. They don't like somebody that's going to up and change every so months because that's where their direction— that's where people are, you know, saying they should go. When it's in reality, well, we've got what we're doing, we've got our client base, and we know that what we can do, we do it well. Let's just keep pushing forward. So in the long run, that goes back to that long game that you were talking about earlier. While you might have some people make, make changes in the short term to gain that small benefit, it's really the long benefit that they're not looking at when just sticking to your guns from the, from the origin.

Yeah, man. I mean, best thing is like you have to be so You have to really stick to like the reason why you built your business. I mean, here's the thing, dude, the reason why you built it can be the same, but just how you execute on that mission can change. Like dude, 360 can be a restaurant in 4 years, but as long as we're still living our mission, challenging common thinking so they create an uncommon future, that's fine. I mean, look at Raising Cane's, look at Chick-fil-A, you know, Chick-fil-A's Their retention rate is insane because they believe in living that and like their product is chicken fingers, but if you really think about their product is customer experience. Customer experience only comes from great leadership and being people taught right. That's why they're a great example of being a leadership academy disguised as a restaurant as well. And that's the thing is like people have to let go of like, what they do and how they do it right now. That's fine, you know, that's just strategy, you know, strategies adapting to what, you know, your people need. Like, our business had to adapt as a strategy, you know, as a strategy. Like, why has always stayed here since we started the company, man. But like, over the years, dude, we had to pivot our company too, man. Like, we originally just started off doing really cool websites, you know, presentations, and we started doing some brand refreshes, you know. But then also we started being called in to handle all the marketing for Louisiana Economic Development because we're doing Assembly Required, the conference series highlighting the best talent in Louisiana. We're trying to recruit businesses. We were basically talking about why Louisiana should improve and we had the passion, the fervor, the belief behind it. And that's why our business evolved. It's like, hey, let's take on bigger challenges here. I heard it from a mentor and he said, "You know how you become a billionaire? You solve a billion-dollar problem." And so, when you're a small business, you know how you become a millionaire? You solve a million-dollar problem. But you know how you become a multimillionaire? You solve a bunch of million-dollar problems. That's how your business has to evolve, man. And so that's how we had to evolve, is that we had to start thinking, what are the real problems that people aren't solving? Is it really websites or Is it really that they don't understand how to sell online? Like, not just from like the marketing standpoint, but from the language standpoint, but from the operation standpoint. Like, let's actually like look inside of their business and help them change it. So what changed for us was we switched from a marketing agency to more of that consultancy model where we're actually thinking about like, hey, let's actually pick a prop across all the different parts of your business here. And let's see where we can improve on. And if we can't handle it, we're gonna bring in an expert that can help you. And that kind of studio model, that's what like the industry calls it, is why we've been able to grow is that we're not caught into our own biases as much and we're able to like look at problems in multiple different perspectives. It's not like, you know, every problem's not a marketing problem. It can be a sales, it can be an ops problem. That kind of mentality is where agencies need to evolve today. I think any agency should be evolved to that because if you think you can get by right now just by doing a new website, dude, you're going to get so trounced right now, man.

Yeah, that's— I want to— so marketing versus advertising, what's the difference there?

I think, look, you know, there's always that big difference really. Like, look, at the end of the day, you're trying to drive sales. That's what it is. Like, you know, to me, like, some can argue that like you know, advertising and like marketing, like, you know, some say marketing is like very direct, advertising is to the masses. You know, I'm a big believer in this. Marketing or advertising is talking about something that should be talked about because it grabs our attention and it's relevant and it means something to us. It somehow relates to something inside of, you know, of who we are, whether it's good or bad, you know, because like an emotion doesn't have to be good or bad. Whatever it may be, like good marketing, good advertising should pull out of it. But that doesn't fix, you know, the major issues, you know, like the best marketing in the world doesn't make a shitty company run better, right?

Right.

It just doesn't do that. And so that's why like agencies have to really think today, like, you know, am I in the marketing business where I am in the actual business improvement business. It's like you have to look at your business in a different light. It's like, how much value are you really bringing into people? When I get a call from, let's say, my friends over at Offshore, if I look at things where it's only through a marketing aspect, I feel like I'm missing out on looking at the end customer. Right now, like the biggest challenges marketers have is that people aren't spending as much and people are like holding their wallets really tight. The way that you combat that is that you have to be able to think about the people that you're serving right now, not selling but serving, who's their end customer? You know, if I'm like working with like, let's say a restaurant, you know, I'm not trying to sell to the restaurant, I'm figuring out how do I sell to their customers? You know, and that's the language and the focus I would be focused on. You want to build your solutions around the end customer and like how you talk about things around the end customer, not around the client, your customer. You know, that's the kind of like deep thinking that people need to have. Like, we were on a call the other day with a client, and I— when he was telling me like, uh, hey man, like, you know, we're trying to re-look at this in a different way. This is what our customers want, or they might be pulling back. And I told them, you know, What are your end, like, what are their biggest fears for their customers? And he started listing off a bunch of things. And, you know, what we realized here is that the only reason why, like, his customers were buying was because of his end customers. And he was trying to market all the things that would be attractive to his customer, such as I can save you money. But once he started talking out loud and saying that I can build more credibility with your customers, where your customers will believe in you more, it completely flipped this, the way that he looked at it. You can make a more compelling sales pitch. And that's where I'm trying to encourage people today, is that really think about helping your end customer, your client's end customer, rather than your— rather than your client themselves. That kind of servant leadership will take you far.

Yeah, and that's— it's crucial for businesses to grow to have that mindset. So I want to— I want to jump back a couple years and kind of get the origin story of 368. So I mean, how— how did you get into this? What were you— were you doing something before? Was this like your very first thing?

Yeah, so I started a company called Big Fish Presentations with my co-founder Gus Murillo. We did that in about 2012. We focused on helping rid the world of boring presentations, man. It started while I was a sophomore in college and I dropped out to pursue this business. So it all started when I was a student. I was a— oh, where was I? I was in the Student Real Estate Association at LSU. And I was on, yeah, I was on like, uh, I guess you could say like the board, and I was the IT guy and the treasurer. Maybe I was agent, I don't know, I'm just kidding. But like, you know, you put me on that, they all in one package. Yeah, they're like, hey, you seem like you'd be good at this, I guess, man. But, uh, what happened was one day I was— so I was in charge of bringing in the presenters and the speakers. One day they told me, hey, you don't have to vet this guy, we're gonna bring him in. And so they brought in this like Fortune 500 executive and they told me like, go ahead and get him ready. So when I got him up on stage, I took his USB drive, plugged it in. He said, hey, don't worry kid, I got this. And I was like, did you just kid me? I was like, all right, man, well dude, you have like 20 minutes, make sure you deliver an amazing presentation. And he said, don't worry about it, man, I know what I'm doing. When you're at my level, you can present and really enchant the audience. Well, dude, as soon as I load the presentation, I saw at the bottom of this, like the corner of his PowerPoint, 200 slides. Dude, this guy went through 200 slides over 3 hours and he like was reading off his own slides. He was like answering his own questions, laughing at his own jokes. And dude, while I was sitting here, I was just thinking to myself like, oh my God. And I think everyone's mad at me because they thought it was my fault. I was like, nope. I am not taking, I am not dying for this, man.

I'm not doing this. This was not me.

Yeah, this is not on me. I have to sit through this 'cause I'm the guy that has to take the USB drive out. But during this time though, the entrepreneur in me said, dude, you should totally help people make better presentations. And so we did. And so me and Gus built this little company, you know, we were about 6 people until 2016, then we merged with another company called Hatchet with Jeremy Bate and Nick Defelice. And that company focused more on like digital marketing experiences, really websites at the time. And the company that we built together today, 368, their name comes from Big Fish Presentations and Hatchett, their company, being 368 feet apart. So when we merged, the name 368 is a symbol that we should be together, and that always reminds us why, you know, anything's a partnership here. You know, we have to be very equitable and fair, and it's in the root of our name. So we've been battle for 20, since 2016, man, helping people improve their businesses, tell better stories, and live their brand promise. What they promise to people, we wanna make sure they bring it to life.

I love that. So then real quick, 5 key steps for a good presentation.

Oh man, dude, no takeaways, only to-dos. I learned this from a good mentor of mine, Eric Schnur. He was the speechwriter for Al Gore. I asked him, "Give me a good speechwriting tip." He goes, "If you give people takeaways, they might not do it, but you give them to-dos, they will, but do it in a way that's very digestible." So we have a trick that says, "If you do this in 72 hours, you'll get this." The reason why is that the average human being makes 30,000 decisions a day, whether consciously or subconsciously. If you can help them out with a very clear decision-making framework of like, you do this within 72 hours, people feel like they have momentum. If people have momentum, they think about the person that gave them momentum as a person of influence and power. That's the first step in any great presentation, have to-dos. Tell them to do something in 72 hours, and if they do it, they'll see you as a person of influence, 'cause the best KPI in any presentation is momentum, just like a great business. Two, is that you wanna make sure that you have a call to action. You know, it's kind of like that to-do, but the way that you do that is that you have to know what you're asking your, wherever your audience is at the end of the day. If you don't have a call to action, it can be very ambiguous. Next is you have to be very, very, very clear on your purpose of your presentation. We call it the big idea. And your purpose of your presentation should be actually challenging. If you're not challenging your audience's way of thinking, it's not gonna work, man, 'cause it's a lecture at that point, right? If you know what I'm gonna say—

Right, yeah.

You know, it's a lecture, man. You don't wanna be in a lecture, you know? Like, you have to be able to do, you have to be able to present in a way that can make people wanna listen to you, and people wanna listen to you for two reasons, either because you're challenging their way of thinking or because they really wanna learn something new. You have to be able to do that. The other 2 comes from actually presenting in person. If you think about it, man, people love to hear their own name, their own voice. In a great presentation, you should be able to get people to engage with you. And so that's a great reminder on virtual calls like this. If I use your name, you know, like, right, Pat? Like, you're more likely to perk up or ask me to say something. Yeah, exactly, you know? It's like one of those techniques that you do to keep people engaged in presentations, just like the same thing with virtual meetings. And finally, man, when it's all said and done with presentations, I firmly do believe that great body language goes a long way. If you're not able to express what you truly believe in your body language, it just doesn't feel real. So let's walk it past. You have to be able to have to-dos. You have to have a call to action. You have to challenge your audience's way of thinking with a big idea. You have to have great body language, and finally, you have to be able to use people's name and then get them to engage somehow. That's what makes a great presentation that's memorable. It's also what makes great stand-up happen too.

This is true.

I mean, remember, you saw me— Remember, remember? Yeah, dude, you remember when you saw me do that stuff for Omar, man? Yeah, for No Show Comedy. Shout out to my guys. Omar Finley, man. You know, same thing, man. Comedians, are they? Yeah, dude, like great comedians, man, they get the same things, you know, like they wanna be able to say names, they wanna be able to do crowd work, you know, they wanna challenge the way people think, like, you know, they just want people to trust in them. You know, it's like very similar, great presentation, a great comedy set is very similar, you know. I think personally stand-up comedy is harder, but it's something to aspire to be. Like, I tell this, If you wanna be a great stand-up comedian, go do stand-up comedy. Or if you wanna be a great presenter, go do stand-up comedy. You wanna do your homework? Like, go watch a bunch of great stand-up. Dave Chappelle, of course, Dave Attell, you know, those guys out there. Then go do a set. You'll see how great of a presenter you really are once you're able to do a set.

That's a fact. Reach out to Latko Comedy and—

Yeah, them too.

Convince them to let you do some stand-up, right? Yeah, yeah, former, former guest of the show. Little shout out.

Oh yeah, I love those guys.

Thank you. They're amazing, man.

Yeah, I thought Betty was gonna kill me at, uh, at No Show. You remember that? Yeah, she's watching, man. Dude, well, she got a chair out of me afterwards. Like, after the debate, I'm like, yo, Betty, I'm sorry about that. You know, we— it was a debate, and I remember, uh, she was like, hey, will you buy chairs? Like, yeah, I got a chair, you know. So I'll get it. I'll get it.

I'll get a chair after. Tensions ran high during that debate. I know I was sitting next to Brian Haldane and we kept on looking back at each other. We're like, oh gosh, we're like, this is something about to throw down.

Yeah, I felt it, man. I really did, man. Oh Lord.

But it created a lively discussion. There were people were getting engaged. It was great.

Defending champs, man. Me and Franz, dude.

How many rounds now?

Uh, one. We were supposed to actually defend our title in the next one, but COVID happened, so yeah, I mean, like, dude, Omar, call me, you know. Like, me and Franz, we're like, dude, come take this crown from us, man, you know. Like, come make our day.

Yeah, bring, bring somebody worth challenging to knock the crown off. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so, um, getting, getting towards the wrap-up, what are, what are a couple lessons you've learned throughout the process of 368 and whatever, um, just being an entrepreneur? You know, what are some of the key takeaways that you have? Maybe we'll do like 2.

You know, man, that's a good question, man. Um, I guess like the things that I live by are, uh It's a quote from Steve Martin, "Be so good they can't ignore you." That's something that's always drove me in my life is that if you want to be really different and you want to stand out from the crowd, you have to be able to risk it all. You have to be able to have some sort of risk because to be an entrepreneur, you have to be able to risk something. However misunderstood that you may be, if you're the best of that, that you can be, people are going to notice you. Whether they buy your product, that's a different story. But I think entrepreneurs just want to be ignored. They love the recognition. They love doing something that can help the world. And they love recognition for the problems that they're trying to solve. I think that's really important. I mean, that's at least what drives me, is that the things that I'm passionate about, which is helping people create their uncommon futures, we just have to be so good at our job. The world can't ignore us and it can't ignore the things that we're helping our clients with. So be so good they can't ignore you, something that we live really dear by. The other is, the other, man, I'll tell you, dude, it's something that like I live really deeply because it's something really dear to me, man. There's just something about like, how do I word this? You know, it's just like, it's what I'm trying to say is like it's family, man. You just have to really know, you have to really just know what drives you. And this coronavirus thing, I'll tell you the one thing it has done for me, it has been able to let me reflect on not just my business but my whole self on what's really important. I really did have to look at my problems at business and I have to say, in the scheme of things, are these the biggest problems in my life? What my biggest problem in my life was, was I wasn't spending enough time at home. I was working super late. I was making problems bigger than what they were. There were things in my head, man, that weren't as big as they should be. And absolutely, that's what, like, that's what changed me, man. So like, I guess like if you want to sum it up, be so good they can't ignore you. Do something so well no matter how misunderstood that you are, that people will say, I respect that because you put your heart out there. And you know what, I might not agree with you, but I respect you. Now, the next one though is, you know, be able to really figure out like what really means the most to you and know that your energy isn't infinite. You get, you really get what you, you know, you really get out what you put in. And I realized like in this coronavirus stuff, what I really, what I really missed the most was my family. And that's what really drove me to do all those things. And I made the excuse of like, I'm working so hard because I want to provide for my family. You can only do that excuse so much to where it becomes a detriment because you can work till 7 o'clock at night and not get a lot of things done, you know. And what you realize then is that maybe you weren't working on the right things or you weren't leading the right way. So what's taught me the most now is to be super intentional for our time. So if you're going to focus on the right things, be super intentional of your time. And usually that comes from the right meetings, getting the, like, making the right decisions or encouraging positive conflict. So you got to embrace those things. I feel like if you're going to be a great entrepreneur, I'm nowhere near great. I definitely believe I have a long way to go. I really do still believe like we're in the beginning. But I do think that I'm starting to understand how the great ones really do grow is because they realize that, you know, they're not afraid of being misunderstood truly, but also like they know what really matters in their lives and they're just super productive in the time that they put in. Because you can have—

I really do believe you can have it all, dude. Kenny Nguyen, I'm right there with you. Those, those three are— they're great ones to live by, not even just for entrepreneurs, but for people in general. You know, if you're working in a, in a job or a 9-to-5, as people call it, you know, be so good that your boss can't ignore you. You know, be so good that your clients can't ignore you. And I think the biggest thing that this coronavirus has really shown me is that we all lived a very fast-paced life. Yeah. And this COVID-19 just caused us to slow way down. I mean, to the point where when I would go exercise before COVID I would see nobody outside. I would see cars driving by super fast trying to get to point A to point B so they could do what they needed to do. Now it's people are going on strolls, people are going on bike rides, people are forced now to slow down in their life and it's given them time to rethink, hey, this is actually not all that bad. You know, so it's encouraging to see people taking those steps and taking those, you know, having those thoughts of we really need to slow down, but I want to see this continue on after coronavirus. You know, I want to see people continuously riding their bikes, being outside when they can, just bringing a sense of community 6 feet apart, um, and just growing as a whole people, you know, not just being so wrapped up in running through the paces of life, doing everything so fast, getting everything done. And just like you said, you're working for so long but you're lacking the time with the family. I mean, I was— I'm right there with you. It's sometimes I find where it's like, oh gosh, it's like 8 or 9 o'clock at night and I haven't stepped out of the office, or I haven't stopped working on this particular project. I really need to go spend time with my family. And that's just huge for people to realize, man, because they were there before you got started with everything and they're going to be there after you got started with everything if you give them the time and attention necessary.

Can't— I mean, dude, I agree with you so much, Pat. I mean, like, look, dude, I always tell myself, like, beforehand, like, you know, maybe I just— you know, before coronavirus, man, I used to work at 8 o'clock at night and I always think to myself, like, there's so much things to do. But nowadays, like when I actually look at my time and I see all these things I have to do, I work 8 o'clock at night. I tell myself this, I have no freaking excuse to complain because I don't have to do these lunch meetings anymore. You know, I don't have to do these speaking gigs as much anymore. You know, like all I have to do is focus on being the best, you know, person I can be and that leader wherever the team needs me to be. What I lacked beforehand was fricking discipline, dude. I just like discipline, man. I just like discipline. I wasn't focused on the right things, and now I am forcing myself to focus on the right things so I can get off at 6 o'clock and be with my family. Because I realized that if I'm disciplined and I put my head in the right things and I say no to the right things, I'm gonna have time to do what I want. And I can't have it all. And That's how I want to live my life. I want to be able to build a great company with the people that I'm working with, but I also want to be a great husband as well. I want to be a great son, brother, you know? Dude, absolutely. I feel like you got one life, you can do it, man.

And that's— especially being home with your family now, you're forced to kind of be reminded that they're always there. You know, when it— excuse me— when you're at the office, it's easy to kind of let them slip your mind and you get just so focused in on work and what you're doing. But when you're at the house, you're like, okay, they're in the other room. You know, you're constantly reminded, hey, I need to finish what I'm working on so I can then go and spend more time with them. And it's like that forced, it's like we're almost forced to spend time with the family because there's A, there's nothing else we can do. And B, it's kind of gives us this re, this reignition of fire within the family unit. As a whole between this coronavirus. You know, it's like relit the burning sensation that a family is and how important they are. You know, if you don't have a good relationship with your family right now, this corona is gonna be a whole lot worse for you in the long run than if you have a great relationship that you can just keep growing.

You know what they say about, you know, good conversations? Like, you know, good conversations only happen when you say— when you run out of things to say. And I find like that's where it is right now with like families, is that when you're stuck together, you're going to talk about all kinds of things. And when you run out of things to say, you'll then start talking about the important things. That's what I'm really realizing, like, with time is right now with my family is that we're talking about the most important things because we put them off. Because when you get home and you wake up the next day, the clock resets. You're talking like you get into that ritual of like, you know, tell me how your day was, blah, blah, blah. You're never gonna get down into like the really, really, really, really deep things that you need to talk about, such as, you know, where do we wanna go from here? What do you wanna do this? You know, like critical decisions. That's why I'm such a firm believer for you to reset now because you can have those conversations that you never could have beforehand and they're gonna come up and you best like be ready for that, you know?

Yeah, if you didn't think the conversation, surprise you whenever they do, because they will. Yeah, and it's just, just a matter of when at this point. Yep. So, so Baton Rouge, man, what, what attracts you to Baton Rouge, man?

Dude, I was born and bred here, man. I do believe in this city. Um, I'll tell you, like, what I love about Baton Rouge the most is, like, exemplified during 2016, uh, flood, you know, that was the best way to showcase, like, how together of a community we can be. And I think we're slowly getting together more and more. We tend to like— it's weird, man. This virus is like suited to kill like Louisianans and infect Louisianans because you think about like anything bad that happens, we get together, we get each other's backs, we're physically there. Now it's like specifically bred to like attack the thing that we like resort to the most. And I'll tell you, like Baton Rouge just has that grit and that resilience. And you want to build something like that. And I know that the projects that I'm working on today, the things that I'm doing today, I might not get to reap all the benefits, but maybe my family, my future children, they may. And it's just interesting to play a part in that story. And I think that's where your life is bigger than what yours is. I've always looked at it like that. Is that, you know, if you live like once, you want to come back. If you— this is like my essence of a great life. If you live such a great life, you should want to come back as yourself. Right?

Right.

That's how I want to live. And I believe I can do that by being who I am and doing what I believe in in Baton Rouge. That's why I love living in Baton Rouge.

I love that. So on the, on the flip side of that, If you could change one or two things about Baton Rouge, what would they be?

I mean, everyone would say traffic and education, right? You know, but the thing is, more than that though, Kenny Nguyen. Yeah, but yeah, you know, I'll tell you this is that right now in Baton Rouge, uh, I think there's a sense of panic. Once we get through the sense of panic and realizing it's time to reinvent ourselves, we can really create a greater Baton Rouge. Because think about this, you know, the best thing that you can get in life, right, is a new perspective. Correct? Because like once you see something completely different, you're like, oh my gosh, you know, it's like eye-opening, you know. And imagine this, Pat. Imagine coming back to Baton Rouge in a city that completely reinvented itself. So it's almost like Visit Baton Rouge like did this campaign where you can say you can look at the old things with new eyes, you know. And that's where I think Baton Rouge has to get out of its way, is it has to start saying to itself, We have a lot of problems and we have to use this time very intentionally to focus on the problems that we are ignoring. We can get kind of like politic-y and we can get kind of in the way of ourselves where we're trying to please too many people or trying to be really like— we're trying to do it all ourselves. You know, I think there's a sense of like a lot of pride in ownership to the point where it can get negative in Baton Rouge. I think this is a time where collaboration needs to happen the most. And also a sense of, you know what, let's— we're all in this together. Let's work together so when we get out of this, we can build a new Baton Rouge. So when we all come back as residents of Baton Rouge, it's almost like we're living in a new city that's refreshed. Wouldn't that be a great feeling right there? You know, being able to see something old with new eyes. That's cool, man.

Dude, I love that, Kenny Nguyen. That's— yeah, if we can come— everybody loves the sense of new. And imagine after this, we're able to come back to a new city. You know?

Yeah, right. Wouldn't that be cool? Leave your neighborhood and be like, whoa, what's this? You know, just that energy feeling.

Yeah, go to, go to Mid-City like, oh gosh, this was not here before.

The roads are fixed. I'm just kidding, it's never gonna be fixed. But like, yeah, that'd be cool though, you know? Like, or there's a freaking train there now. Like, with a furrow, like, you know, my— this business I love is doing different things now, you know, those kind of things, you know. Like it's a small start, but it's like, it's all mindset from here, you know? Like that's what COVID's teaching us right now is that mindset's gonna get us through this. It's like that long game, that infinite game that Simon Sinek talks about. It's like mindset is the most important thing we gotta hone right now, and that's what's gonna get us through this.

And that answers the follow-up question of how, you know, how are we gonna, how can we make that change? How can we reinvent this city? And you said it perfectly. We can start by each of us changing our mindset for the better and going into this and coming out of this as, you know, a more positive, more positive people with a better view on, okay, we don't have to get stuck in our ways. We can adapt. We can overcome adversity. You know, if we were used to being able to go down to the corner street and get our favorite restaurant, now we can't do that. Let's find a different favorite restaurant while supporting more local people. You know, it's changing the community, not just sitting there and being like, I can't go to this place, you know, gosh, like I can't go sit down at a restaurant, it's terrible. It's like, okay, we can't change that fact. What can we change? And how can we fulfill that need in a different light?

Yeah. And here's the thing, it's time to work with competitors too, you know, like you can do a lot, you can learn a lot. I mean, yesterday I was at a webinar with people that we compete against all the time and like, we all recognize it, you know, And the thing is, like, it's a beautiful thing is that we can set those differences aside and work together. I mean, think about this, guys. If the three big hospital systems, Ochsner, Baptist General, and R.L.A.V.E. the Lake— I know for a fact, you know, because we're doing some initiatives to help out some of the hospitals right now and the healthcare frontline workers. If they can work together and sit down, put aside their differences, we can too. You know, like, yes, come on. Like, let them be the shining example, you know. That's where we're at right now is that like, you know, all the things that we thought were so important might not be as important as we really think and it could come down to like pride and ego. Now's the time to really say like, let's figure out how we can band together and make this better while social distancing. But you know.

From a socially acceptable distance, how can we band together and make everything better?

Yeah, exactly.

That's right. Okay, so final question then for the show is, what can I do to help you?

You know, man, the best way you can help me is that, you know, spread the word. We have those webinars that we do, you know, right now. Like yesterday, we did the small business marketing during COVID-19. Just spread the word. Like right now, like, what we're trying to do as a company is, you know, we're not able to bring back our Summit Required conference platform. An event series because, you know, obviously COVID. So we're trying to do things more digitally, and we're still trying to bring the same value to people that they may have, uh, if they go to one of our events. So, you know, any, any way to share the love, you know, that, that would be great because we're really trying to like keep the positivity going, but at the same time like teach people that like it's good to be positive, but you have to realize that this is the long game. Be positive about the long game, not the short game.

Yeah, don't be positive that, oh, we're going to be able to go outside next door next week or something. Yeah, yeah. Be like, okay, we'll get through this eventually, and when we do, then we'll go with this route.

Exactly, exactly. You have to think in the long game. If you're only trying to survive, you're only going to do things and you might compromise your mission and who you really are as a company. And you know, if you let one thing slip, another thing's gonna slip. So you gotta really stick to your gut. So if there's anything I want people to remember from this, it's, you know, you know what your company mission is. How you do and what you do can always change, but just stick to your guts on why you built it in the first place. That compass you built for yourself on day one when you signed that LLC, you know, never forget that, 'cause that'll get you through the toughest of times. Especially if your customers believe in you.

Well, I love that, Kenny Nguyen. So I think we're gonna, we'll call it ending on that positive note and that high note. So I wanna thank you for being on the show.

Positive vibes.

That's it, man. I love the positive vibes and I really appreciate you. We're finally able to make this happen. Thanks so much for that.

Thank you, man. Thank you for giving me the platform.

Dude, you are more than welcome. It's always fun to get people in the area and have their stories be told, and that's kind of what we're here for— get their stories told, get it shared, and get it out there. So thank you for that. Um, for everybody listening, thank you for enjoying or watching this latest rendition of The Patty G Show. I'm your host, Patty G, with Kenny Nguyen of 368, signing off. And y'all have a good one.

Take care, y'all. I'm a simple man, don't wanna complicate ya— uh! Complicate ya— uh! Uh-uh! Yeah-ha!