Billy Bross on marketing as an argument | Sacred Business Stories 42
In this Sacred Business Stories Substack Live episode, host Phil Powis and co‑host Carolina interview Billy Bross, author of Simple Marketing for Smart People and creator of the Five Light Bulbs Framework. Billy walks through his unconventional career path—from biotechnology to renewable energy, home‑brewing, and finally marketing—highlighting his talent for spotting patterns and translating complex ideas into simple, dignity‑preserving messages. He critiques reductionist, neuroscience‑driven marketing that treats people as lab rats, arguing instead for a Christian‑rooted ethic of inherent human dignity (Imago Dei) that should guide every marketing decision. The conversation explores the fear and resistance that arise during major pivots, the danger of “shiny objects,” and the importance of in‑person relationship building. Billy shares practical frameworks: a three‑step moral‑ethical‑practical model, the Five Light Bulbs Framework, and his new Substack Fractal Faith. He also touches on using AI as a sparring partner to test arguments. The episode ends with actionable resources—marketingisanargument.com, the manifesto graphic, and the Fractal Faith newsletter—for listeners who want to adopt a more human‑centred, values‑driven approach to marketing.
Chapters
Hi, so welcome to Sacred Business Stories. This is our weekly Substack Live where really we just have an honest conversation about what it looks like to build a business that aligns with your deepest truth. And today we are joined and we're excited to be joined by our friend Billy Bross. He is the author of Simple Marketing for Smart People, creator of the Five Light Bulbs Framework, which we love around Sacred Business Flow. And Recently, actually, I'm excited to learn a little bit more about this as well. He just launched a brand new publication here on Substack called Fractal Faith. And so, yeah, welcome, Billy. We're excited to have this conversation with you.
Hey, thanks, Phil. Thank you, Carolina. Yeah, I love speaking with you both and it's, it's been a while, so I'm excited for this.
Yes, thank you so much for joining us. And, uh, we like to open up for, um, the audience to, to ask questions. So we try to play with the chat as much as we can. And I always like to remind ourselves, to remind, um, people listening and our guests here why we created Secret Business Stories. And it's purely for inspiration. We all, not all, but we, we often have like a desire in our heart, like a calling that we want to follow. And sometimes we want to turn into that a business and we admire people out there. That have like successful business like you, and we don't know the behind the scenes. Like we just see what we see right now and we don't know what it took you to, you know, restart the journey and be where you are today. So just to tell people, like, it doesn't matter where you are, you can always begin. And we would love to hear your story and you take us like the way you want it, like the, you know, the, the most important things for you, like how you started the journey and how you became, uh, who you are right now in your business.
Yeah.
Yeah. Happy to.
Yeah.
And, uh, I love how well too, I mean, you know, we work together on your messaging for Sacred Business Flow and the phrase that just really stuck out, I think to all of us and that sticks with me today is everything is connected. I love that phrase that you guys use. I, I love your manifesto and I, I think that's a good place to kick it off because I've really gone between a lot of different industries. I mean, I started off in, in college, I started in biotechnology, then I went to renewable energy. My career was in renewable energy. I left that job. I went into beer brewing, home beer brewing of all things, teaching home beer brewing courses to then, to then marketing. And then even as Phil alluded to now, faith, like those are very different, right? Like energy, beer, marketing, faith, all over the freaking place. But you know, but our key phrase, right? Everything is connected. Everything is connected. And so that's really been my journey. I, um, there's a lot of things I'm really not good at. Just ask my wife, but pattern finding, like seeing the patterns between things, seeing the commonalities is one of those things like I thought everyone could do because it just came so easily to me. And I'm sure your listeners have that. You guys have that, that thing that you just do so naturally. You're like, oh yeah. Like I was just listening to, um, I've gotten really into Charlie Puth, the, uh, the artist. Laura and I saw him kick off his tour. You know, the musician, and he was talking about this, like when he was like 10 years old, he sat down at the piano at church, uh, because the person was sick and he had just heard all the songs from being there. And he sat down and just played the whole service by ear. And he's like, but you guys heard the songs too. You could do this as well. Right. Of course. Right. Like that was, that's his gift. So for me, it's seeing these different patterns between things. And I just love bringing that, like being a translator for people. That's really how I see myself is as a translator. My day job is making the complex accessible, and I do that by pointing out these patterns. And when people see that, you know, it's, it's relief when you could see that, you know, you say, oh yeah, this thing is showing up in this area of my life. And then also this area of my life as well. It, it brings some sense to the universe in a time where things can seem very senseless.
Oh, I think I, I, I think I lagged for a moment. Can you guys hear me?
I got you. Yeah, I was done. I don't know if you guys caught that.
Cool. Yeah, no, on my, I, my screen skipped a little bit, so my apologies. But yeah, um, yeah, I mean, I think for me, um, that's something I've definitely really appreciated about you, and it's also something that I think is so important and is something, you know, I think we also provide for our clients. But I, I found so valuable about working with you was exactly what you said. You know, when you're in something, whatever it might be, you know, for us, like when we were starting to build out our messaging for Sacred Business Flow, there were a lot of things we did know, there were a lot of things we could see, but we're so close to it that it can become really challenging sometimes to kind of understand where you are in that and to not get lost in it. And so I found that, yeah, that you brought a tremendous amount of value to that. And it seems to me that that's You know, that's what you've been doing throughout this whole journey. And even like when I looked at your publication recently, I started looking at it, it seems like it's kind of that the same theme, right? Like you're taking some pretty, pretty complicated stuff, you know, if you, you know, depending on how you orient and you're kind of breaking it up and looking at it for some different angles. And yeah, it's really, it's really, it's really a gift that you have. So thank you for— I know for me personally, just giving you a lot of thanks because it was, it was a huge You know, I, I, I attribute a lot of what we were able to do in a pretty short amount of time on this platform to that clarity we got like early on doing that work with you.
Yeah, it was an honor. It's extremely rewarding when someone has that in them like you guys did and they're just too close to it. And I suffer from this as well, right? That's something I got to work on too. And I have people who help me with that, drawing it out of me, but it's very rewarding to draw that out of someone and, you know, like you guys and show it to you and say, hey, here's your story that you weren't even seeing. So yeah, thank you. Um, yeah, loved it.
Yeah.
And, uh, I think that I, I really liked the way you shared. It's like, I simplify complex things for people to understand and connected a little bit with like the thing that you're writing right now and faith and all of that. Like I heard once that like the truth is simple. Um, and, and then like I. I try to bring that to everything in my life. Like, it doesn't mean that I can do it always, but how do you translate that to your own business? Just a little bit of like, you know, in the behind the scenes, the process of like making decisions, um, because your brain, well, or the way I'm perceiving, like, because the framework that you created to explain marketing to people is so simple that even me coming from like uh, yoga, energetics, like having zero knowledge of, uh, marketing, like many years ago. And when we first met, like, I'm like, this is, this is so easy. This makes so much sense. So how do you apply that, like, in your business on a daily basis? Uh, if, if you do, or if you see a correlation there.
Yeah.
And, and I love seeing that cuz yeah, like you, you, like so many people, I remember Caroline, you just picked it up quickly and said, oh yeah, here's how I can apply that to what I'm doing. So it's one of those intuitive things, but it's also one of those things where it's simplicity on the other side of complexity. Complexity. And like I said, my background is not in marketing. And when I first got into it to sell those home beer brewing courses for $47 and try to leave my really good career in the energy industry, I was like, how the heck do I do this?
Right?
Like, how do I sell these? I had my, I had my MBA. I was like, I'm a business dude. Right? I can definitely sell these beer brewing courses, but man, it was, it was really hard, right? I could do like advanced finance, but I, I couldn't sell these courses online. So Um, so I, you know, I fell into the usual stuff. I mean, just trying to, because I'm on the Kolbe score, I'm very high on fact-finding. Like I like to do the research first, you know, to a fault. And so I was doing that with online marketing, but it was just, but you know, especially around that time, Phil, I know you remember around 2008, 2009, right when blogging was taking off and social media was taking off, YouTube, everything. It was just like drinking out of a fire hose. And I just got super overwhelmed by it all and just couldn't keep up. And so, but you know, but I was still working. I was still in the trenches running my own business, the beer brewing business that finally did allow me to leave the job. And then I really fell in love with the marketing side and helping other people, other domain experts, subject matter experts with their marketing. And just seeing that all that, all that crap just doesn't matter. All those channels that they're telling you to be on, all those tactics, all the software they want you to use. Again, coming from the energy industry, it's all about leverage. You're, you're always trying, we work with cars and automobiles. We're trying to get more miles per gallon, more energy out of the power plant, right? For, for every, every ounce of fuel that we put in. And so I just took that mindset into marketing and said, what's the one thing that makes the biggest difference? And the answer was obvious just after having had enough reps in and successful launches, failed launches and the whole thing. And it was messaging. The words.
Yeah. And it's, uh, I know how many people that are like in, uh, kind of career marketers actually didn't start as marketers because that's, that's my story too. You know, I got into this while I was working in tech and then, uh, you know, my, my partner at the time was opening a private practice and I was like, oh, I'm going to see how, how could it look to attract more clients and more patients to this practice? And then just like you, I kind of fell in love with that whole process. Um, But it's interesting, you know, for me coming from a tech background, I definitely got caught up in all the, you know, the tech and the software and all that. And yeah, you know, that's one of the things I was kind of known for early on. But like, and I do use all that stuff to create leverage, but I did have to have this kind of big correction where I kind of learned, and you were actually someone who was very influential on me in that way of like getting down to the fundamentals. And yeah, you're absolutely right. The fundamentals for most people, especially when they're just getting started is, is in the message. And so, yeah, I would love to hear more about that or how you could— yeah, how you could expand on that because yeah, I see this is— and I think there's a lot of reasons why people put the focus in other areas. And, you know, sometimes I think it's from a true sense of belief that that is the right thing. You know, there's a lot of people selling the tactics, selling the quick wins because they're quite honestly easy to— easier to sell. But then also I think there's like patterns of procrastination and resistance, you know, because the minute you kind of start getting this messaging going, it's like, okay, now I have to show up and own that. And so, yeah, I'm just curious, like, anything else you might have to say around that topic?
Yeah, it certainly does sell better, I'm sure. And that's always been something I wrestled with. It's not, you know, like, now I'm the philosophy marketer guy. That's not quite as sexy as like the latest AI thing, right? And I've had a lot of frustration around that. It's like, Hey, but the thing that I've made is, is, is so good and it's just got, it's so much truth to it and it's so deep and so evergreen. It's like, why are you buying the Clubhouse courses when you could be buying the messaging course? Right. But, but I get it. Right. And I've, and I've, and I've bought those things too. So, um, so yeah, it, it is both. Right. And, and that's certainly, and look, and the tactics matter. I think you're also kind of a freak of nature, Phil, in that you can, you can hold these things in your head. Like these systems, these online marketing. Carolina, is he like that? He can hold these amazing systems in his head and kind of know where everything is going and how things are flowing. I think, I think it's a very rare skill. You know, that said, of course, like it can be only compounded by having the messaging side, you know, which you've gotten so strong at recently. But I, I envy you on, on that side, on being able to create what looks like controlled chaos from all those, all those sticks and pipes and everything.
Yeah, it's, uh, I mean, yeah, for me, I still, I, I still have to be really careful because that's still the part that's fun for me. I can, I can, uh, I can sit back there and just like tweak all day and then, and then, uh, lose sight of the— yeah, lose sight of the, the bigger work. But I'm curious, um, another question I'd love to ask you, um, is, you know, you've been in this for a long time, um, you've gone through a lot of transitions where you've kind of, um, Yeah, you've moved from the beer, the beer brewing to the marketing and different flavors of that. And, and one of the things that we like to convey to our audience is that in this kind of like entrepreneurial journey, it's perfectly normal to have fear and resistance coming up, especially if the things you're doing are something that are close to you or meaningful to you. And so I'm curious, where does that, you know, and I'm curious maybe even right now, you know, this is in the coaching world. And I know we've had offline conversations about AI and all the things changing, but like, where's an area that fear resistance shows up for you? And what kind of work do you do to kind of keep moving forward when you're kind of in that uncertainty of direction or like where you've been, or maybe like when you've been making a shift in your business? That's a big one.
One thing that was really scary early on was when I left the energy industry, I had built up a decent amount of revenue on the side from the beer business, not a ton, but almost equal to what I was making in that salary. I think I was making like $70,000 a year from that job, which was a lot when I was like right outta college, man. I, I, I thought I was crushing it. And I was like, okay, if I can get the beer business up to that amount and then have some in savings, I, I wanna say I saved up like $100,000 over the years, maybe like 7 years, right? Because not paying anything for rent really where I was, it was great. And I was like, okay, perfect, perfect time to leave. And then my calculation was, well, 40 hours more free per week. Not having that career. I mean, I was just working on the beer thing at night. Imagine if I put that many hours into the beer thing, the beer thing is going to take off. And, uh, and it didn't happen. It wasn't like that, that movie, right? That you see where it's like, finally I snapped the chain of oppression and I'm just from a bird just taking off into the sky. No. And it didn't crash either. It was kind of like an entrepreneur's worst nightmare where it just kind of stalled out. And I remember that was a really scary moment because I was like, oh crap, should I have left that job?
Oh, so this was after you'd actually fully, fully left. I see. Okay. Yeah. So did you, did you start, you started the thing while you were still working or did you kind of take the leap and start? Yeah.
Yeah. So you started while you were— I was working on the side for years.
Okay. Okay.
Yeah. That was one of the, that's another thing too, is like, you see all these cliché stories. It's like, yeah, you know, and people making these promises. Like give the finger to your boss and say, I'm out of there and just live the 9 to 5, the 4-hour work week. It's like, I really liked my boss. I liked his family. We would eat together. Like, I liked my coworkers. I liked my industry. If it was, if it was worse there, maybe I would have been more motivated to leave early. Um, but I wrestled with that as well. It's like, I actually, you know, I do like this, but eventually I did. It was a small company. The internet was taking off. I felt really tied down. I felt really like there was really a ceiling. Above me in that company, all these things I was missing out on. And so, yeah, I don't regret it. I'm glad I didn't know at the time how hard it would be being on my own. That's for sure. I don't know if I would've done it. But looking back on it now, that was '29, now I'm 41. Yeah. Glad I did it.
Yeah. So, so just to, so you, you, you took the, you know, you got the thing up and running while you're still working. You took the leap, you thought, you know, it was just going to keep kind of moving and soaring and you kind of just stalled out. So, Yeah, maybe kind of walk me through what was going through your head at that time and kind of how did you kind of keep moving forward and keep your own sanity, keep yourself grounded, and ultimately how did you kind of, you know, move through that to kind of whatever your next level was?
Yeah, and it stalled out for multiple reasons. I mean, one of the things was, and this has been a downfall of mine, is that I lose interest in it. And after doing it for so long, and especially being exposed to the online stuff, cuz the beer thing brought me online. Now I'm online. Oh, there's all this cool online marketing stuff and Twitter and YouTube and all this. So that became the new shiny object. Uh, and then believe it or not, you know, you run a beer website, you get tired of drinking beer all the time. And I was trying to, yeah, I was trying to get into shape. I was like really into fitness and I felt obligated and homebrewing is a lot of work. So I started to resent it cause I felt obligated. It's like, okay. Trying to be healthy this week, but I gotta review this 12% Imperial Stout and do a video on it. Or, uh, you know, this thing's 600 calories in a 12-ounce bottle, or I have to brew this batch of beer and record the whole thing. So it, it started to ruin the hobby for me, having to, having that be the thing that was paying the bills. And I really didn't like that. And then, and then also, I mean, this was out, outside my control. Definitely not the only reason, but the industry started to suffer. And this is when craft breweries started to really take off because all these homebrewers were saying, well, why am I going to do it myself when I could just go next door and buy the thing instead of putting in all this blood, sweat, and tears? And so my traffic started to drop at the same time. So all these things kind of compounded and I just really wasn't that into it anymore, but also kind of panicking because I mean, that was my main revenue. So what I did was to answer your question, I early on through one of the online marketing forums. This was through, um, Copyblogger. If you remember Copyblogger, Brian Clark.
Yeah, we just had, we just had Brian Clark on two, I think two weeks ago. He was on the show here. Yeah, it was an awesome, it was an incredible interview.
Yeah.
Yeah, he rocks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. And, and, and he attracts and attracted in the early days of, um, Copyblogger and the Third Tribe, really good people. So I met some people through there and, and even people who had much bigger websites than mine. but they were in these very niche industries. Like one of the early ones I worked with had a website for vegan and plant-based athletes that was much bigger than mine. And, uh, but I said, hey, like, here's some marketing stuff I learned. Here's some copywriting stuff I learned. You can tweak this, you know, rewrite this headline, put an opt-in right here, start to get results. So as the beer ship was kind of sinking, the online marketing plane was taking off.
That's cool.
That's really nice. Like, like right now you're writing, um, and I'm reading your stuff and you're talking about faith and all of that. Like, who, like, how do you see the evolution of your relationship with faith and your ability to keep going and following the signs of life? Like, hey, this is going down, but there's something here that's going up. And I just need to keep following. I don't know how you call it, like the signs or what's working. And, you know, like this is not fulfilling anymore. And now I need to, I'm looking to this direction. Uh, without being distracted because you have a very solid business right now. So I don't think, maybe I'm wrong, but you are not the one that is always looking for the shiny object. Like you're very grounded. Your work is very grounded. And how do you relate with like faith maybe a couple of years ago and how you understand it right now?
There, there are certainly more of those shiny objects kind of hidden in my, buried in the backyard than you guys know about. Trust me, they're, they're out there, right? Those false starts. This is going to be the best newsletter in the world. And then 3 weeks into it, I'm like, that was a bad idea. Shouldn't have started that. Shouldn't have done that. Hope no one really paid attention to that one. Uh, but yeah, I mean, faith. Yeah, that's, uh, definitely not a word that was, uh, on my radar until about 6 years ago. Although I would say I was exhibiting it, but I wouldn't use that term. Um, I've always been pretty persistent and maybe stubborn and, and just, I just don't give up, you know? And so even like when things got really dark and, and, and really tough and it, And it has been a tough ride. Um, when I was going through like a really hard time back, like 2019, 2020, I would say I had an older mentor who I was talking to, a guy I respect a lot. And, uh, and he was saying, and he went through something like really, really tough, like much tougher than I went through. And he said, you know what I do is, you know, there's this whole Christmas movie. You guys might've seen it. It's like this claymation Christmas movie. I forget the name. And there's a little character and they sing that song, just put one foot in front of the other, just put one foot in front of the other. And he said he would watch that like every morning while he was going through that. And that's kind of always been my approach is like, just, okay, just get up, do the thing, put in the work at the end of the day, you did the best you can and then go to bed and try again the next day. So kind of like a stoicism sort of philosophy, operating philosophy towards life. And then, and then of course, like I said, about like 6 years ago, like the real faith, the whole, the Christian side of things came in and I was finally able to, to ground it in something.
It's very nice that you're mentioning this because I think, uh, and it's, it's one of the reasons why we, we like to have conversations like this because often like what you're going to put on social media is everything that's working for you, right? Like when the project is already like up there, when people are like already celebrating, when you reach a certain level of success, and then when you go into this journey, You're like, that's not easy. You know, like there is like very, like, there's not one dark night of the soul. There's like many dark nights of the soul. There's many moments that you're like, what's happening? Like, where do I go? And sometimes I feel that it's just such like a lonely journey because I feel, uh, very few people are open to, or yeah, like to share, you know, like the reality behind. And eventually like it keeps up, it kicks off and it goes and it makes it easier. Um, but I just appreciate that you're sharing. And also like, yes, I do have shiny objects and it didn't work. And I just hope that people didn't see it and whatever it is, but I kept going and it's always like one, um, step at a time.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely. It's one of those things, right? Like that, the whole idea of suffering and being in that dark place and in that pit, like who wants suffering? I mean, if you could order it off a menu, you would say, nope, no thank you. I will not take any of that in my life. Um, but at the same time, and you guys would probably agree, like, you know, I am a better person, a stronger person because of the suffering I've been through.
I agree 100%. Yeah. All of my, I think at least for myself, like, um, most of my let, let go and transformation on my own identity and ways of being that were like unhelpful or clinging too much on just something came through like hard situations and pain that like there's no, I don't know, options. And right now I just need to let go the part of me that thinks that should be different. So I think there's a lot of, uh, reward in that transformation.
For sure.
Just before we get to the next serious topic, to put you on the spot, uh, what, what has been your most recent, uh, shiny, shiny object?
My most recent shiny object. I've gotten, I've gotten much more disciplined about it. I did have, you know, kind of before Fractal Faith, I had another idea for a newsletter because I, we just, you know, I just started my family recently. I got married 4 years ago and I have 2 kids now. And so I started a dad, like a dad newsletter. And that only lasted, that was the main one I was referring to, and that didn't last too long, maybe a few months. And I was like, ah, nah, let's put that down. But you know, but again, having gone through that experience, it was kind of, it was on the right path. It was a precursor for Fractal Faith. It was just a lot more, I just had to wait a little bit more and synthesize things more, but it's a lot more whole now. It's a lot more complete. So sometimes you do something like that, right? And you had to get through that to then see what the real thing you're supposed to do is lurking on the other side of that quote unquote failure.
Yeah, I think this is something we talk a lot about is even with our clients that, you know, are trying to get something off the ground. It's so often it's through the doing that they're going to learn. And what they— even when they come and they're like, I have this idea, something I want to create, and it feels really alive for me, it's still kind of being intellectualized. And it's not until— there's all those studies that say that our brains are— I couldn't quote it— but our brains are really bad at knowing what we actually want. And so then it's really through the doing that you start to fine-tune and be like, oh, yeah, I really actually love this aspect. But this part, I'd love to be doing that different. And we've had clients that have had huge pivots in the process and started to build really really cool things, but it was like completely different than what they, what they initially started with. Um, so yeah, I totally resonate with, uh, with what you're saying there. And, um, yeah, just to talk more about the, the Fractal Faith, um, yeah, can you share a little bit more about the, you know, the inspiration for that, or kind of how you, how you knew that this was something you wanted to bring into reality, and kind of what your, you know, what your current thinking is in terms of where you're hoping to take it?
Yeah. Yeah. So again, that phrase, everything is connected. I'm a very integrated thinker and I can't really isolate my beliefs. I can't say, okay, well, I'm going to believe and practice this thing in this one area of my life, maybe marketing, and then this other area of my life, my personal life, I'm going to think and behave like this. And so, so with marketing, I started to ask these questions because I think all of us who have done marketing, especially when you have to market something really personal like yourself or your coaching practice, you get those feels, you get those often uncomfortable feels and you're like, this just feels kind of weird. And you see a lot of the advice out there telling you what to do and you're like, that seems like strange advice. And so I started to notice that really all the advice that we get really comes from this one school of thought. And I describe us as the fish that are born into water that know don't know that they're in water, which is what we were born into, which is all we know, all we, all we accept and all we think there is. And so it's this, this area of reductionism, uh, which is really reducing something down to its parts. And, and you hear that all the time in marketing, you know, like so much of the advice out there assumes that people are just neurons and chemicals and, you know, uh, bundles of wires to be hacked. And so you, you hear things like, yeah, spike their dopamine or press that emotional hot button. Right? It's this very scientific way of looking at the world. And hey, my background is in science. Like I said, I got started in biotechnology. I love science and it's phenomenal for studying the physical world and coming up with solutions, you know, the things that can solve a lot of problems that we have. But humans are different, right? We are not lab rats. We're not, matter, you know, we're not this desk that I'm sitting at, uh, you know, and we should be treated with dignity. And that's the big thing that I saw that was missing. So much of the marketing just completely strips human dignity away from people. Like when you treat someone like they're a bundle of chemicals and you talk about hacking their neurons, it's like you've taken away their dignity and you've also taken away their agency. And I know this is something you guys talk about, you know, like, which is free will and the power of having a choice. Because what you're trying to do with that, all that marketing advice is trying to do, like triggering their cognitive biases, is you're trying to bypass their agency, their ability to choose. You're hoping that their biology takes over and they hit buy before they actually have to think about what you just said. And so, you know, and a lot of people justify it by saying, well, that's what works, right? That's, and you have to ask, well, what does works mean? Okay, it makes money. Okay, well, it might make money in the short term, but are those people who you, those customers you acquire by hacking their brand chemicals gonna be the customers that stick around forever and keep buying from you and refer you? No. And Phil, you've been behind the scenes of a lot of these businesses that grow that way based on all these psychological hacks, and they might show a spike in revenue for a couple weeks, but then, you know, check in a few months later and you just see a ton of refunds. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So even that argument that it works better, I don't buy that at all, especially if you're in it for the long term, like I think all of us on this call are. Um, so, so that was one stopping point for me was saying, well, okay, I see what it's doing wrong is stripping away people of their agency and their human dignity and really their free will. It's trying to bypass their free will. Um, but then, you know, being the digger that I am, I kept digging and saying, well, well, why is that important? Like, why, why do we assume that humans have human dignity? Why are they not, why are humans not just bundles of chemicals? Because if you assume that humans are just chemicals, then really you're totally reasonable in treating people like that. All right. Like, like, like, like machines to be programmed. And then, so that question of where does that dignity come from? And then that's where I'd been on this other journey, a parallel journey, probably all the same journey of being born Catholic, growing up really atheist, agnostic. Trying all the things, you know, Stoicism, New Age, humanism, you name it, uh, and then eventually coming back to Christianity, and we can talk more about that if we want. Uh, well, that also provided that the grounding for that belief that humans should be treated with human dignity. And it comes from the Christian belief in Imago Dei, we're made in the image of God. And, and he made us in a way that gave us through love and with love, you have to always have the freedom to choose. Like God didn't program us. He gave us the choice, right? So that provided that, let's call it the metaphysical foundation for that belief that humans are born with inherent dignity and therefore we should treat humans like that regardless of what works, how we treat them and what we assume about people comes first.
I truly appreciate this conversation and, and, and the reason why it, it touches me like deeply is because For the first 3 years of my business, I rejected marketing for this exact reason that like what we mostly see out there is, is people treating people not as, not as humans. It's like the results are like money no matter what. Like it doesn't matter like if I need that, but I'm going to make you believe that you do. And it's like, uh, trying to control people with like fear and the language that like makes you feel that you're missing out no matter how much you buy, no matter how much you do, you're always missing out because you're being bombarded with like like information and the first, and then I was kind of like, it's impossible that there is just that in the marketing world or the business world. Like I can't, I want to have my business and I want to succeed and I want people to find me, but I don't want to play that game. And then I hired Phil as my first like business coach and marketing coach. And I'm like, I knew it. And I, it's like, I was kind of like playing around and I'm like, I knew that it was something that, and maybe that's why, like, I work for, like, say, we created, like, Sacred Business, right? Like, that there is a way that you can do marketing that is aligned to your values and you're not treating people as, like, you know, a pack of, like, bones and matters and chemicals that, you know, I know how to trigger fear and now they're going to give me money. And then after him, I got to know you. And I'm going to be honest, like, it's not that I know a lot of marketers, but both of you are just the two people that I'm like, if I need to, like, I only read your emails, Billy, about marketing. And I do sign up for other stuff, but I only read yours. And if I need any type of advice, it's from Phil, because I've never seen anyone talking about like, uh, selling and messaging and marketing and business, like in this human way. Like, this is not about money only. Yes, money has to play. It's important in the equation and it's part of success, but it's not like I don't do everything that I do just like to get the money results. So I truly appreciate like your perspective about like dignity and respecting people the way we are and, you know, aligning to values. And I think this is a conversation that, um, well, it's extremely important because if we are not from the marketing world, We are being consumed by a game that we don't even have the choice, right? Like the way you said, like I'm, I don't have the agency to choose because we're playing with my brain because we're playing with my chemicals in a way that I feel I need it. And at the end of the day, I don't. So I truly appreciate this perspective.
And look, just to jump in there and then I would love to hear your responsibility, but like Billy's a super humble dude, but I also want to call out here. I think there's a lot of people that will hear this type of conversation and they think, yeah, that's cool. And that's like a, that's like an ideal state, but like that doesn't make money. Like I got to play the game that makes money. And I know for a fact, you know, I've had my own experiences, but I know for a fact you've been behind some very large creators. You know, I don't know, Thiago Forte is the one that most people will recognize his name, but I saw some recent numbers that he put up and I know you've supported him a lot over the years. I mean, just to say like this, this different approach and not treating people without dignity, it can work. Like, you know, so, so don't think, if you're listening to this, like, that we're just talking about this, like, kind of fantasy world. It's like, oh, like, we can all kind of, uh, have these high values and morals and principles, but at the end of the day, I have to play that other game. And so, um, so yeah, I just wanted to share that as well. But yeah, I would love to hear more from you, Billy, of how you've seen that maybe play out in, in real life.
Yeah, it's so funny too, because Again, I'm just a translator. I mean, I, I, I'm pointing the credit back at people 2,000, 3,000 years ago, right? These are just old ideas that I'm reviving. So yeah, it does, it works. If you think Aristotle had something worthwhile to say, then it works because what we're doing here is making an argument just like Aristotle talked about thousands of years ago, right? This is really just classic rhetoric and we're just again born into the fish born into the water that don't know we're in water. We're just born into this this, this, this, this very specific time of, of reductionism, scientism, behavioral economics, consumer psychology. I mean, the field of psychology is only 150 years old. It used to be part of philosophy, which is thousands of years old. And all the playbooks that we get happen to be from this new school. And we've just forgotten the old school. And I, and I think a lot of us, myself included, I mean, look, I'm the worst offender of all this stuff, like reading all those books on how to hack psychology and all that. My bookshelf was full of them. And I really threw all those away. I mean, you look at some of the titles too. The Illusion of Choice is a very famous book on marketing. It's like, oh yeah, your customers think they have a choice, but that's just an illusion. They really don't. They're really just lab rats that we can program. It's like, come on. Like, and I'll also point out the people that write those books are not billionaires, by the way. Like, I don't think, uh, like all those behavioral psychologists, behavioral economics, like if that, if this stuff works so well, why are they not all just crushing it? From what I've seen, they're not, right? So it's really just this one kind of weird school of thought that we were born into about hacking dopamine and all this stuff. And we think that's all there is. But no, there's a very ancient school of thought about making an argument, uh, having really sound reasoning, presenting that reasoning through rhetoric and, and backing it up with evidence. And so that, that's all I'm trying to do is to show people like, hey, this has always existed. You just didn't know about it. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
That's cool. Yeah. And it's very important because I feel that at least like people that come to us and, and I'm sure some of your clients as well, like they're mostly very sensitive people. And they feel that like they, like me in my past, like they reject marketing, but they, it, and then the, the, the work I think is like, it's not that we reject marketing, like we reject this game, but marketing in itself is neutral, right? It's just like energy. It's like money or, but if we can connect the message, connect the understanding of marketing, like for me, marketing became like inner work. Like just through the messaging work that I did with you and also like the work that I did with Phil, I got to know myself in ways and you guys reflected back to me stuff that I'm like, oh, I've never seen myself like this. So then I step into possibility because you mirror back like whatever, my power, my beauty, some of the stuff that I couldn't see it for myself. And this is marketing for me. And now I can, when I speak about what I do and at the time when I was talking about what I was doing. It was coming from a much more clear space. Um, and then people would resonate and then I kept sharing and now with Phil, like we keep sharing your message and then if you're aligned with our values and you believe that yes, you have something beautiful to share, you want people to get attracted to you, like we can walk together the path. But, um, yeah, like it's, it's sad that I see a lot of very talented people that reject marketing because this is like maybe the But mostly people are sharing and then they lose the opportunity to share their gifts because they reject the tool thinking that the tool is the wrong thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would, I would love to kind of throw another idea here, Billie, and get your thoughts. And then I would love after that to go, we have a really cool question in the, in the chat. But one of the things is it's interesting, right? Cause there's, we're having this conversation and I love that you said, hey, I've got all those books too, because I've got all those books too. I've read so so much of this, you know, and I've had to, at certain points, kind of relearn certain things and make decisions about what's right for me and how I want to show up. And what I want to say here is I'm thinking of— I can't remember exactly what it was, but I don't always get this right. There was an email. I'm just thinking like maybe 3 months ago, I sent an email, like a promo email, and we send a lot of emails. So I guess I'm not going to be able to get them all right just by that. But someone came back and and basically was like, hey, I'm unsubscribing because, you know, I loved everything you guys are doing, but like, it really— I really am feeling like fear and shame in this. And I had to really like check myself and be like, hey, like, you know, like, where did that come from? Like, you know, what was, you know, and, and sometimes we're kind of moving on autopilot and this stuff comes through. And so I took it as a nice reflection moment for myself. But what I want to say about that is another thing I see with our clients is they want so much not to be associated with that energy or that approach that this becomes the reason why they don't put themselves out there. Because it's almost like, what if I get this wrong? You know, like kind of like I said, I got it wrong, you know, and I'm sure I've got it wrong many other times. I know I have, right? But, you know, how to play with that, right? Where this doesn't become the thing that kind of handicaps you or causes you to freeze from putting yourself out there, you know, when you have kind of this this resistance around marketing. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, Billy, or not, but it's just something I've observed in myself and with people where they don't trust themselves because that influence can be so strong, you know, because this is what we see, this is what we're taught. You know, there's been so much of this in recent history.
No, I have a lot of thoughts on it. Yeah. I mean, that's my whole work. That's all my work in marketing is really providing a a framework for people to follow because it's tough, right? Like those moral decisions where it's really clear, it's like, okay, there's the good moral decision. That's a little angel talking on this shoulder compared to the bad moral decision, that little devil talking on this shoulder, right? That one is easy. It's like, okay, you choose that one, right? The angel. But where it's between something, but it's often real life is messier than that. For example, if you have two competing goods, like this thing is good to be charitable, but this thing is good as well, maybe to be courageous, right? What if those two things are competing? Which one do I choose? So I think just recognizing that, Phil, like you did, because not everyone— I give you credit for that— not everyone recognizes that. Like, that is that reflection moment that you talked about where it's like, okay, well, what happened here? What was my intention? Because that's a big part of it. How did that come across? Did my, intention? Was it expressed as well as it could have been? Right. And, and so, you know, you're not gonna get it perfect, but the, the proper response is to kind of meditate upon it like you did. But yeah, but I'm also trying to help people, like give people guidelines to follow and that's this whole kind of foundational work. I mean, maybe what would help is if I, I created this kind of 3 steps that I think about when it comes to marketing that kind of bridge the gap from the moral layer, which is what we're talking about here, right? Moral, and then into ethics. Ethics is more like, how do I act? And that's what really trips people up, like, like your audience you were talking about. I don't want to act like one of them, right? I don't want to be one of those people. Down to the tactics. So, um, I can walk through it if you're up for it.
Yeah, by all means, please.
So the, the, the foundational axiom, like what I think could really help everyone here, society, especially business owners, marketers, is to start with that axiom that I mentioned earlier, which is humans are born with inherent dignity. And it's dignity that can't be earned. You don't need to earn it and it can't be taken away. Now, how you get at that, right? That's a different conversation. For me, it's Christianity because we're made in the image of God. You can get to it from other paths as well, secular paths as well. But if we, if we use that as our starting point, humans are born with inherent dignity. Then that, that defines all our downstream ethics and actions. So then we say, okay, well then how do we speak to our, our audience, our prospects, our clients, our customers? Well, what we don't do is we don't do the psychology hacking thing and treat them like they're machines to be programmed or, or lab rats to be stimulated. Okay. So instead of appealing to someone's, your prospect's baser instincts, you appeal to their better nature. Okay. And then how, and then, okay, then that's all great, Billy, but then how do you do that practically? Well, that, that's where the whole argument thing comes in, which I know is kind of a combative term. I'm trying to redeem the term. And I think hopefully everyone sees now that the way I say like marketing is an argument is not a fight, but it's actually engaging with the recognizing the person's agency, appealing to their better nature and making an honest case to them. That they can think about with their reasoning mind and freely choose. So through the act of making an argument, we check those boxes, right? We check the box on, on the human dignity thing, and we check the box on, on, on not treating them as if they're objects to be manipulated. So I think if people— hopefully that helps people to kind of think about that framework, and that'll help, you know, kind of give you guardrails when it comes to that. Tough question of how do I act in my business.
Yeah, thank you for that. And I, you know, all words bright and beautiful. Thank you for being here and lighting up the chat with us here. I mean, I think you actually just kind of spoke to some of that, Billy, but I don't know if there's anything else you want to share. He or she or they mentioned, what are the most important principles we need to apply in order to make our marketing more Christian specifically and more human? So I feel like in many ways you've been demonstrating this throughout the conversation, but if there's anything else that you feel called to share there, please do.
Yeah, and that's, uh, that's Josh in the chat. Josh has a great Substack as well. I know Josh, so thanks for the question. Yeah, so the, uh, the principles to make it more Christian and human— I mean, I, I think the, like, the first thing is like understanding Christian values and even if you're not Christian, I mean, most of us in the West follow Christian values. I mean, the idea, the idea that humans are born with inherent dignity was a novel idea. I mean, that was not a thing. Like you were born into a class and if you were a low class, you were not as valuable as the upper class. So that idea that no matter who you are and where you were born or when you were born, that as soon as you become life, that you have inherent dignity. Like that is a, that is a Christian idea. Now, a lot of people today, secular people agree with that without necessarily having like the metaphysical foundation for that. I do think that's risky. I think that can be like sawing off the branch that you're sitting on if you try to strip that away from the foundation. Um, but understanding those principles, like, like, you know, there's a lot to it. We couldn't go into all of it here, but the idea of free will, right? If you just follow that one. Like when you're going about your marketing, ask yourself, like, am I trying to restore people's agency, help them choose, or am I trying to bypass it? And I think that'll get you going in the right direction. Cool.
Yeah, I love that one. Agency. That's one, that's a question that I ask myself often. I have to often ask myself, am I holding the other in their highest until they can see it for themselves and kind of trying to guide them in that direction? So yeah, thank you for, thank you for sharing that. So another one I wanted to ask you about, and I know we'll probably be coming up on time here soon, but I think we have time for this and then I'd love to give you an opportunity to share more about your work for anyone who's not familiar. But I feel like another way that you and I are in some ways similar is we've worked like behind the scenes for a long time. In fact, until like kind of a few years ago, I was like completely kind of a behind the scenes guy. And this has been my first attempt at building a kind of a larger brand, which has been quite a, quite a fun, fun journey. But so much of what I've observed with you has been relationship-based, like your ability to be successful and have the clients that you've had and the wins that you had has been through connection, through relationship. And I think that this is something that a lot of people struggle with online, you know, and even people that feel actually quite good at this, like in real life, for example, it's like they get online and for some reason, like, those rules go out the window and they're not quite sure how to show up and how to connect and relate to people. So I'm just curious what advice you might have for someone who wants to create meaningful, authentic connection online to grow their business in service of their message. And, you know, what sort of actions might you suggest for them?
Yeah, the relationships are really important. That's something that like you don't see just because what you do see is all the public stuff. It's all the social media, the email list growth and everything. But very early on, you know, when that ship was sinking on my beer brewing business and I was trying to get going with the marketing, the consulting side of things, I was very active in person. So I was flying all over the country. I was going to events. Hugs and handshakes, not direct messages. And so I think, you know, especially in these days, I think the more that you can do in person and build those relationships. I remember I was at a, you know, if there's anyone on here like who does freelancing, professional services, I remember I was at a conference with a buddy of mine, Jeremy, and he's a copywriter. It was a marketing conference, right? And we get into the elevator and there was a woman there who everyone knew, like pretty big name entrepreneur. And he was introducing himself to her and he goes, oh yeah. And I'm, and she asked, what do you do? He goes, oh, I'm a copywriter. And she says, oh, I need a copywriter. Please give me your card. And I was like, imagine if he was trying to, if he didn't go to the conference and he was trying to reach her with a Facebook ad. He really, he didn't do anything. He got into the elevator, introduced himself, said, I'm a copywriter. And she later hired him and paid him tens of thousands of dollars for copywriting. Right? Like it is, it's a good ROI. I'm trying to do more of that myself in San Diego here because so much of my work has been internationally over Zoom. But like I make a point now every month I go to an in-person meetup in San Diego.
Yeah, this is something I coach our clients on a lot is two things. Like one, basically just what you said. We've had people where we encourage them like, hey, go out there and get yourself into a room. And I'm thinking of this one client who works in like healthcare fundraising in in Boston. And he— I forget exactly what he said, but he was kind of like, really? I'm going to go to this event and set up a booth? And I'm like, yeah, you're going to do that. And I remember he sent us— he was like driving down, I think it's Storrow Drive, if you've ever been in Boston. And he sends us this WhatsApp video. He was like so high, he's driving. I was like, dude, you should put down your phone. But he's like, Phil, he's like, I was like, what did he say? Something like, I was like raw meat to a—
I felt like meat for the piranhas.
Yeah, he's like, I couldn't believe it. They were just all like, I want to hire you, you know, just like, and same thing, Billy. Like, if you just stayed in front of his computer, this wouldn't happen. And what I often tell people is if they flip things around, like everyone thinks like, okay, it's like audience building online first and then like that's the top. But it's like, hey, what if you actually consider all this stuff? Like if you like with us, like if you have a regular content cadence, that's kind of like the thing that bolsters people's confidence when they meet you, right? So I often tell people like, Hey, get this thing running, but then go put yourself in a room. And then when they're like, hey, let me check this Phil guy out or this Billy guy out, like, what's he about? They enter into this like rich, like, you know, ecosystem and there's lots for them to explore, but it all starts in the room. And so I think it's really cool that you touched on that because especially now with AI and all this stuff, I think this— I think it's always been important. It's always been a human need to be connected in person like that. But I think it's just going to become more and more important that we all stay, you know, find ways to connect in real life like that.
So yeah, I mean, you know, with my book, I co-authored that with my client Tiago Forte. And yeah, I didn't have a big audience, but when the book came out, Tiago sent it to his list of 50,000, 75,000 people.
Relationship right there.
Yeah. Yeah. Right. And I put in the work. I remember the first time he was, 'cause we didn't live in the same towns, but he came into town. I had something going on. I could have been somewhere else, but I made a point to go meet up with Tiago when he was in town. And then we were both living in Southern California together, still a couple hours away. But I made a point as often as possible to drive up there to Long Beach and hang out with him. And I like hanging out with him, right? It's not like it's just strategic. Like he's an awesome dude and you know, it's more fun in person. But it also solidifies those relationships a heck of a lot faster. Like, you know, it's on like warp drive. One in-person, go to a conference with someone, like a 1 or 2-day conference with someone. You'll be closer than talking every day over Zoom for the next 12 months. Cool.
Cool. So yeah, just to kind of close, I'm going to try to squeeze one more in, like 30 seconds. Like I have to ask you because you're a marketing guy. I like to ask people like, you know, we see a lot of the same kind of information and being kind of regurgitated and shared. But like, is there anything that just kind of comes to mind to you that's like kind of unexpected, something you haven't seen people talking about, maybe not the fundamentals? I know you're big on the fundamentals, but just something you've been experimenting with that, that has, you know, that's been having surprising results or, you know, something that someone might want to try related to growth.
Hmm, let's see. Well, I know a lot of people are talking about AI. I'm still gonna talk about it, but maybe I'll put a fresh spin on it because you know what you see usually is AI around content generation, writing emails and things like that. But you know, it can also be like, I really like how it challenges you, you know? And again, like this kind of argumentation-based work, it can be tough. You know, your customers are gonna be skeptical no matter what, and they're always asking these questions and they're always trying to poke holes in things. Right? So it can be kind of uncomfortable, like the people who I work with, like, like, I say, okay, I'm gonna be your sparring partner. I'm gonna poke holes in your marketing. I mean, you guys went through that, right? It can be a little bit uncomfortable, but I think like you using these tools, you know, making sure that they're not just yes men, 'cause they can certainly be like that. Like, oh yeah, you're awesome. So, you know, it takes doing it right. But I think having that kind of space where it can push back and poke holes and then you fill those holes, it just gives you a lot more confidence. In your ideas when you take something to the market.
Mm-hmm.
Cool.
Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing. Thank you for being generous with your time. Like, yeah, it's funny, we say we go 45 minutes on average and sometimes we go a little bit longer, but I just feel like I could sit here and we could just talk about stuff all day. So yeah, thanks for being generous with your time. And, you know, if anyone is, you know, we'll send out a recap after this to our list. So if anyone's watching on the replay or of course, if they've been here live and they're not familiar with your work, Um, what would be kind of like a first best step you might recommend if they want to kind of explore a little bit more?
Yeah, it depends on what path you want to take. On the faith path here on Substack, as you mentioned, Phil, I have the new Substack, Fractal Faith. Uh, so you can check that out, see if you like it. On the marketing side, the place I would start is the manifesto, which really has that framework I talked about. The marketing worldview, the moral, the ethical, and the practical. We have a nice graphic that my illustrator Matt Strebe created for that. And that's at marketingisanargument.com.
Marketing is a or an?
A, a, a, an, an argument. Yeah.
Marketingisanargument.com.
Cool.
Yeah, we'll make sure that gets into the recap, but I also just dropped it in the chat in case anyone wants it there. Yeah, Josh. I know Josh is a fan. He's a fan of your work for sure.
Yeah, I'm a fan of his. Yeah, good to see you.
Yeah, he's doing awesome stuff. So cool. Well, thank you, Billy, so much. And, um, yeah, we're, um, yeah, we're huge fans of your work, as, as I know we've, we've said many times. So you've got allies in us if we can help in any way, and we'll, we'll keep, uh, we'll keep spreading the word. We'd like to tell people about the 5 light bulbs.
So thank you, thank you. That means a lot. Thanks for having me.
Thank you for being with us, and thank you everyone for watching.
Yeah, till next time everyone.
Till next time.
Bye everyone.
