Episode 139: Greatest Hits from 4 Years!

Welcome to Skucast, the podcast for entrepreneurs in the promotional products industry. Skucast shines a light on our industry's best work, features maverick personalities, and discusses what's really involved in running a modern promotional products business. Skucast is the official podcast of Common Skew.

SkewCast is celebrating 4 years. Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, the Chief Content Officer at Common Skew. It has been an honor to chat with so many of you who are passionate about what we do as a profession. To celebrate our anniversary, Mark Graham, Common Skew's President and Chief Branding Officer, and I each select our 4 favorite episodes and play highlights from each guest. It was such a hard choice to select only 4. As we both scrolled back through the many conversations, we were overwhelmed by gratitude. Thank you to our many guests who have graced us with your wisdom and been so open to share not only your victories, but your failures, and for opening up your hearts to share your life lessons. And we're so thankful to you, the community, our friends. The SkewCast averages around 4,000 to 5,000 listens a month. And Mark and I have heard from so many of you through the years. We hardly ever ask this, but if you found this QCast helpful, will you share it with a friend or share it on social? You can mention us @CommonsQ. We'd love to hear from you. One quick housekeeping note. At the time of this recording, March 12th, there's a lot of uncertainty around public events due to the coronavirus. Like many of you, we remain concerned and we're monitoring the outbreak of the virus and its impact on public gatherings. As of right now, We will continue with our plans to host SKU Camp in Austin, Texas, September 13th through the 16th. I mention it because we just released the schedule featuring the topics, which includes sessions on building and leading a values-based organization, experiential marketing, sales planning, driving sustainable change, and more. And this year, we're also featuring special breakout sessions that are community-led and community-inspired on topics ranging from operations to HR to sales, marketing, and more. We are over 80% sold out for SKU Camp and anticipate selling those remaining tickets soon. To reserve your spot now, head over to skucamp.com to register. This episode is brought to you by CommonsQ, the work-from-anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. You can learn more or start your free trial now at commonsq.com. And now on to today's celebration with my friend and co-host, Mark Ramm. Mark, 4 years, 4 years of sitting across from folks and interviewing people in the business. What have been some of your favorites?

It's such a hard question, and I know that we've been preparing for this episode for some time, uh, and I really struggled when we were doing some of the background research for this, but yeah. But what I think is kind of fun about this episode is we can just start throwing some of them out and we can talk about them. Some ones that come to mind are the one that we recently did with Jamie Mayer.

He's the marketer, he's the customer, and his team are the marketers and the customers. And you think of how they talk and what they talk about. They talk about, let's do something that's going to engage our customers and drive you know, participation, or let's do something that's going to generate leads based upon, you know, this event that we're planning. I don't think the conversations are, wow, let's buy hats. Oh no, let's buy jackets. And that's to me is the whole broken telephone game from the supplier to the distributor to the customer.

I think that was episode 136, and that's where we basically just turned the mics on and had this really interesting conversation amongst 3 people with pretty different experiences, pretty different set of experiences. You know, Jamie, of course, having been a distributor and starting his distributorship with SwearPoint, selling to BDA, and then subsequently moving on from BDA. You've got you and your deep program experience background that you had with Robin for 25 years before moving to Common Skew. And then, of course, my experience starting up Right Sleeve and then selling that business and then of course starting Common Skew. And that to me, it felt like it was like a part 3 nerdy friends riffing at a coffee shop talking about marketing, even though we weren't really at a coffee shop. It felt like part-time therapy as well. But just really, really interesting to get Jamie's perspective. I've got a few more that I'm going to mention, but how about you?

Selected 4 to honor the 4 years we're celebrating here. But I loved that episode with Jamie too. And I think it's funny, it's the only episode we've ever recorded that we published that's an hour and a half long. And it was one of the conversations that when we were done, we weren't done. Like, we could have gone— easily gone for another hour talking about things. But you asked me when we were done why that was so rewarding, why it was such a rewarding— I think it's because the 3 of us sort of threw ourselves into this. And, you know, you're talking about 3, 3 people who invested their lives in, in this business. And so it was sort of, um, trying to get, get to the essence of that and what it meant. And, and looking forward, I mean, the fact, fact that we're all still love the business and we're in the business and that we still have and want to make an impact, I think that was part of it. But that part was also one of my favorites. It was just cheating a little bit because I'm selecting all 3 of those as one of my favorites. That series, um, which was your idea, was a great idea. Is that the decade ahead, like looking back at the past 10 years and then what we— what has propelled the industry forward, what were the biggest changes that made a difference? And then what do we see as the biggest changes down the road? If you haven't listened to those episodes, there are 3 episodes. One is with David Nicholson of PCNA and Jonathan Isaacs and the GemLine. And I love that because there's a supplier perspective.

The opportunities for industry become just more dynamic. This is not a fast-moving industry, whether that's pricing, response to product trends, data. I mean, again, this is an industry that we're in the marketing business. People are making investments in these products to get results. Our ability to really be able to track and analyze data is a huge opportunity for both suppliers and distributors. I mean, we know very little about how our products are used or the effectiveness of our products.

And then there's the episode with Tim Andrews and Paul Bellantone. I think there'll be more consolidation. I think, on the supplier side. However, I think successful consolidation is tougher. If you look back in the last 10 years, there've been very few really truly successful consolidations of suppliers. How would you define that success? What do you mean? I think successful because they grew faster, they had better service levels, they innovated more quickly, you know, and I don't know that we really have seen that in the last 10 years in the industry. Then there was ours, which was the distributor perspective. So in a sense, you've got 3 viewpoints of the industry that reflect pretty much the 3 large groups of folks in the industry. Yeah, that was— but I love that one too, and I loved it. It was just a great distillation of, of lots of thought, because particularly with Tim and Paul and Jonathan and David, a lot of research rolls up to these guys. And so we were able to sort of, um, you know, get the essence of what they think looking forward.

Yeah, that was a really neat, neat series, and it was neat to be able to do the the PPAI, ASI, and the Gemline and PCNA one in person. Yeah, right. Because of course, I mean, I think probably most people listening to this know that we're in different cities, but it's rare that you and I get the opportunity to podcast together in person. I think if you had your druthers, you'd never want to do it again. But believe it or not, I actually don't mind hanging out with you, and it's kind of cool to feed off of one another's nervous energy as we You know, get the mics all set up and then you're like, oh damn, I forgot to press record. But that, that, that, that is a cool experience because I think that, you know, I'm far less nervous doing them when I'm sitting here in my makeshift studio here in Toronto than when I'm doing it in person because I'm like, oh man, I have to really come across like I know what I'm talking about when you've got, you know, a human being in front of you.

Well, those human, the human side of this, the face-to-face recordings are actually phenomenal. When you look at some of those that we recorded, like the creativity episode we did with Pierre and Denise and others at Chameleon-like, we recorded at Snugs USA hearing Brandon tell his story. I recorded in, in the hotel room at Mandalay with Craig Dunlap and Kirk Meyer, with Kirk in his boxer shorts and socks. And that was— that's always fun. And then crawling through Austin, Texas, and recording with folks like Lisa, going to her house and sitting down and recording, or arriving at— in Chicago at that screen printing industrial shop, you know, at Robo Creative. And there's just been so many in-person ones that we've done. You're right, it's been a small percentage, but they're very memorable because of those experiences. Yeah.

And, you know, it's funny that now that you say it, there's— it's, it's more than I recall.

Yeah.

That we've recorded in person. You know, of course, you've got the BELLA+CANVAS one that was done in L.A., and I'm just going through them here. And it's just, it's, it's really interesting to be able to, to be able to see these. So, you know, I think we need to continue to diversify in terms of our in-person, in-person.

So we both listed one of our 4 favorites. What is your second favorite?

Well, I don't know if I'm going to say them necessarily in order. I would just say that these are sort of 4 ones that have jumped out at me. I'm going to list 2 because they were both part of a CMO series that we were doing for a little bit. We may revisit actually redoing it again, but this was a podcast series that I did with the CMOs at the different suppliers. And Two episodes that really jumped out at me was the interview with Eckhart Sons, who is the CMO of Prodeer.

It's all about storytelling. It's all about understanding stories, about conveying messages, really being passionate about communication, about creating stories, about contextualizing products in such a way And the story's become an integral part of what they are.

The Swiss-based pen company, really cool writing instrument company. And then Andrew Graham, who is the head of corporate markets at Marine Layer based out of San Francisco, really interesting apparel brand.

And so what's the quickest way for me to get a sales force? Utilize the sales force that exists in the industry already.

Right.

And I would gladly, and I still believe this, I would gladly give up that 35 to 40% margin all day for access to the companies that we have access to now, that we would never have had access if I was trying to do that directly.

What I loved about these two interviews is that it's so obvious these companies have invested it in their brand as the key differentiating factor in how they go to market. What I love about it is that Marine Layer, they're a t-shirt company. Prodeer is a writing instrument company. When I look at When I think of those categories, you immediately think of huge, big, commoditized, somewhat lackluster, boring categories. I know I'm being a little harsh when I say that, but that's kind of a knee-jerk reaction, right? You can say a lot of me-too companies that are out there, kind of a race to the bottom, and not necessarily categories that get a lot of respect. And what I loved speaking about with these two guys is just how they have invested in their brand, how they've invested in this emotional connection with their customers, how they've invested in just being different and not being afraid to be different. To me, I've always had a soft spot for that because that's the kind of brand marketer I am. But I just sat there just taking notes upon notes and I thought the the most important message that they were conveying is, you know, stand for something, don't be afraid to go against the grain. And if, and if you do so and you invest in this great brand experience, and of course you have that product there as well, that you can create a really unique, compelling category. And I think that that's fantastic for this industry when you have people that invest in that, because that that translates into more demand for what our industry sells. It translates into more respect for our industry amongst the end client community because you've got quality and distinction there. And so for me, I found it very inspirational. It was kind of a masterclass in how to build a category or how to build a brand within a crowded category.

Yeah. And two of my four favorites were with suppliers as well for some of the same reasons. Numo, was one of my favorites with Jim and Melissa. Our responsibility is, is to create relationships with our product. It is not to create relationships with people. That is, people buy our product, they don't buy the relationship that they have with someone. And that bubbles underneath the surface of everything that we do. The reason I liked it, they personified the philosophy the best our medium offers. So beautiful product that we live with, sustainable, and just making good shit that people care about. Um, and I just, I really I love how Jim and Melissa bring all they are to everything they do, their quirks and foibles and their creativity. It's like all out there. They aren't very vocal in the business, but they sort of exemplify a phrase I heard years ago: let the excellence of your work be your protest. Um, and so that was, that was one of my favorites. Um, and of course that episode was about this massive, beautiful trade show house they built as a trade show booth at Expo. But my other favorite was, uh, supplier favorite was with Vicki at SanMar. And I just I just love how Vicki dovetails the world of consumer demand to what we do. And I personally, personally, I just love following style trends. And I think this kind of deep research that becomes practical insight for us, it's not plentiful enough in our business. It should be because we're a massive industry with lots of revenue. And I just love it when someone can marry the importance of deep research with store style and fashion-forward trending and things like that. So I love that one too.

Be constantly and consistently looking at a number of images. Don't even worry about what you're trying to find. Just look at things. You're going to start seeing consistencies of messages over and over, and you will be able to figure out what the trends are without even trying. Going back to the Numo podcast that you referred to, I agree, that was amazing as well. And I think that one was almost as long as the Jamie Mayer podcast. So I think that may be true. That, that, that may be the second longest podcast, but it's interesting. It's almost like you didn't want it to end. Yeah. What was the background around that? Like, didn't, didn't you want to go and interview them in person?

They stood you up or something like that? Yeah, totally, totally. This is the funny thing. I don't mean to be arrogant, but I don't really wait around for anybody. And so if I were going to go interview someone for, you know, something, there's so many voices in the industry. And so I went to their booth because I actually wanted to talk with them in the booth, which was kind of foolish because Expo is the worst time to try and schedule anything like this because suppliers are busy. They're very, very busy. And so I went to the booth and kind of hung out in the living room on the couch, cracked open a beer. I didn't actually crack open a beer, but I sat there in the living room just like I would anyone at anyone's house, waiting with a microphone and headphones for Jim and Melissa to show up. And they stood me up, which I actually— they probably got a great kick out of, to be honest. And I'd actually spent the time interviewing their PR director. Instead, which was an enlightening conversation as well. And then I, I thought, you know, by next week I really want to have this conversation. So I kind of hounded them. And eventually there's some things that we do with the SCUCast that we're proud of that aren't necessarily things that hit the airwaves. And sometimes that's having a conversation or cornering people at the right time so that you can publish something timely. And that was kind of one of those moments. I just had to have this episode. I was like, the salesperson in me gets real tenacious. Around something like this, and I just had to have that conversation with them. And in fairness to them, they got slammed and they, you know, it's the worst time to try and schedule something with anyone around Expo. And they had two major shows to go to back to back. So for them to even fit it in was, was impressive.

Yes. You're being nice to them. You know, Jim and Melissa, if you're listening right now, you guys are, you guys are difficult.

Yeah. Oh my God. But that's why we love them. That's why we love them. We both listed 3 of our 4 favorites to celebrate this 4 years. What was your 4th favorite?

I'm going to go with the Fast Company podcast that we did with Elizabeth Segran. This is the one where she had written the article that really took down the industry and got a lot of people in our industry understandably upset.

I have been writing against the trend of fast fashion for a while, as you mentioned, and The concept of swag is basically a very, very close parallel to fast fashion in that, you know, it has to be from my perspective, as somebody who receives a lot of it at these events, it's inexpensively made, it's not necessarily designed to be used for a long time. And I don't just mean like a tote bag that, you know, like, even among some of the better quality tote bags that you might get at an event, The goal isn't to give somebody something that they will use for the next 20 years, right? Like, that's kind of the standard I'm trying to have the industry move towards, you know, having really, really durable products that will last decades and cut down just the sheer amount of consumption. And there just is very little in the world of conference swag that aspires to that level of longevity, I think.

And I remember you and I were chatting about this and, you know, we thought like This could be an opportunity for a really interesting conversation that is balanced, right? On one hand, she certainly makes some good points, no question about that. There's a not great side to this industry, but the majority of this industry is phenomenal. And I think that that's really what that article overlooked. And so the whole process of A, reading that article, B, reaching out to her and getting her to even agree. I mean, what person would want to come onto a podcast that felt it was a hostile environment? So I think we worked very hard to make it not that, but at the same time, not pandering to her either. And so that was just, to me, a real thrill because most of the people that we have on the podcast are usually very cooperative and very happy to get onto the podcast. So it's not really much of a sell job because we can make a case for it and it's kind of a win-win. In this case, it was like, this is a cool win because she doesn't need to do anything that we ask her. And that was really interesting. And it was eye-opening for me, and I think you as well, on how someone outside of our industry sees the industry, both good and bad. And it was And it was really neat following it where we had the classic promotional products experience where we're in this business, we love to say thank you with a gift, just kind of a knee-jerk reaction, and sent her something along with a personalized note that said, "Thanks for taking the time. It was great. We do this with a lot of people." And just the reaction, it was just so heartwarming and so positive. And I thought to myself, well, hang on a second here. Didn't we just prove this about how effective this medium can be? And that, of course, wasn't the intent of doing it. It wasn't like I wrote back to her and said, aha, I gotcha. It was just like one of those cool moments where you could both sit back and go, this was great. And we've kept in touch with Elizabeth since then. So just a great example of how you kind of turn conflict and controversy into a force of positivity.

I love that episode too, for different reasons, and maybe some of the same that you have. But one of the reasons I love that episode is I heard Nick Cave speak about songwriting at South by Southwest several years ago, and he said that songwriting is counterpoint. And I've always loved that succinct explanation of songwriting because it counterpoints to what? To the way you live, to your life, to everything. Songwriting is counterpoint. And some of our best experiences have been a counterpoint to something happening in the marketplace. And that was a great example, counterpoint. I mean, that day I had to publish a piece, and the pressure around getting something succinct and that would voice the industry's position in a way that was respected by an opposing viewpoint was a lot of pressure. And I cranked that piece out, and when she responded on Twitter— what I love about the whole exchange is that we actually made a friend through all this. She responded on Twitter that this was a very thoughtful response. And so I love the whole experience around this, making a friend out of what would seem an enemy. And we even connected further down the road on Instagram and other things like that. So I just love how that story ended and the fact that we could just have a good, strong dialogue. But the whole counterpoint part of it is what I— the lesson I learned from it was to be open to those moments. You're really good at spotting those kind of moments. You're really good at It's spotting trend or a, or a trend is not even a fair word. It's more like seeing some little ripple in the timeline of life that you go, that's something we should pay attention to. And you've got a pretty good radar for that. So in our working relationship here, that's actually something I've learned to respect.

It may be actually the only thing you respect.

That's true, actually. Let me mention my last, my fourth favorite that I had on my list was one that we did titled People Don't Buy Products, They Buy Better Versions of Themselves. And the title is from an article written by Xander Nethercutt. And we actually reached out to Xander. You saw the article, which is an interesting insight into how we work, which we'll get into in a minute. But you saw the article and you shared that with our team, and it sort of detonated in my mind. Sometimes I, I like an episode because we use it as a first draft for thought, for like thinking through a concept. And again, here's another songwriting is counterpoint conversation that we had. But I love, uh, episode because it forces us to first draft something or think through a concept that's interesting to us. Most times, if it's interesting to us, it'll also resonate with the community. Not always, but most times it does. And we read the article after getting permission from the author. The title alone has implications for how we don't sell and opportunities if we sell to a higher version of ourselves. And I was ignited because I've always loved this quote by E.B. White, who encourages writers to resist writing down to readers. And there's no such thing as an average reader, and that each of us is ascending, and that we should write to that higher version of ourselves. He's like, almost the exact same sentiment. And to flip that on its head and think about it, it's like looking at another facet of a diamond. To consider that from the perspective of selling, to me, was a fantastic journey to take on thinking out loud. And just— and this is kind of what happens with us with some of these podcasts is that we've actually learned to keep it as something organic and spontaneous as a way for us to sandbox concept or ideas too. And some of those are the most fun.

Yeah. Yeah. So Bobby, this just came to me around that style you just mentioned, this idea of the spontaneous, somewhat casual style. And when you're in a public space, coffee shop, whatever, and you overhear a conversation from the people that are next to you, and to be clear, I'm not suggesting being like a creepy eavesdropper, but sometimes you can't help but hear it because it's just loud. And you hear two people that are talking about something in a really kind of unscripted, casual, spontaneous way, like two friends or associates or business colleagues would speak to one another, and they're kind of telling each other stories and like, hey, this is kind of interesting. What do you think about this? And they're getting into an interesting dialogue. Sometimes that's actually quite fascinating to listen to. Again, I am stressing not in a creepy eavesdropper kind of way, but sometimes you're like, I kind of want to hear the end of what they're talking about. Or maybe in some cases you might even jump in. You're like, hey, you're actually talking about something I know about. Again, not to be creepy, but I think what I'm trying to, the point I'm trying to make here is that I kind of feel how we've constructed these podcasts is to take a page from that experience, right? Where, you know, we're speaking to people who are really experienced and smart in their particular domains in a way that is casual and spontaneous that brings that that out so that you want to listen to it and hopefully it's not boring, right? As opposed to something that is overly scripted and it feels like this boring ping pong match back and forth.

Right. Well, when we first started this podcast journey, it was in the earliest days of podcasting in 2011. It was your and my first episode together. It was a promo kitchen recording. And then we did it because we kind of wanted, as Wendell Berry says about reading, to read to know we're not alone. Back then it was kind of about bringing the private conversations to the public, and that's exactly what you just said. I think where the forum has somewhat elevated to is pushing the boundaries of thought and expression and thinking in terms of the business and the industry and what— and its impact on our lives. I, I think we've taken it to a place where we still want to connect with others to know we're not alone. I think the podcast at its basic level does that for folks because there are folks who are driving to work or maybe they're solopreneurs. We hear from people all the time, you know, that it's encouraging to them and that's encouraging to us. But also we just love the thought journey of ourselves going on this ride and being a part of it. Either we're riding along or riding shotgun with someone else who's at the wheel and driving the ideas, or sometimes we're contributing. But that's kind of the fun part about it. One of the most interesting lessons that businesses can learn from content in general and podcasting is that when you look back at our top SkewCast episodes of all time, there's a lesson around here for the depth of content marketing and how important it is for the brand, because our top 5 most popular episodes— and I won't name them because I don't want to insult anyone— they're not necessarily our best episodes. In fact, they were in the very early days and they were pretty rough. They weren't, they weren't— I think people were still themselves wrestling with this part public persona versus private, whereas I think we've crossed a chasm around that. And so our top SKUcasts are actually the deepest SKUcasts we have going back to early episodes. Our top SKUcast episodes published in 2019 are kind of more about what we're discovering people are finding relevant for business today. Um, you know, there was the paperclip episode was one of the top 5. The Marine Layer was one of the top 5. The acquisition story, uh, your story with Right Sleeve and the acquisition and the sell to GenuMark was one of the top ones. Um, the marketing podcast that you and I did, So You Want to Amp Your Marketing, um, was timely because we're heading into a new year and people were thinking about that. And then the Break the Wheel with Jay Acunzo was one of the top 5 of the past year. But this parlays into, I think, an interesting part of what you choose to do as a brand in terms of content is where you choose to go and what you choose to talk about and what you choose to publish. Um, it is a— is, is an important lesson that I think I've learned. If other folks are trying to schedule or develop a content plan or a podcast plan, um, shed some light on how we go around choosing episodes and choosing guests.

I feel we have three dials of episodes. There's one where it's an interview with an expert within the industry. There's another one where it'll be you, me, or it could be another colleague here at Common Skew that will open up the mics and we'll riff about a specific topic. And then I feel like there's this third category, which is kind of a special category, which feels more almost in the moment. So examples of that would include the Fast Company Elizabeth Segran cast. So we were responding to something that we had seen in the marketplace. The Jon Jantsz tweet led to that particular podcast. And what's cool about that is that we spent about 5% of that episode talking about the tweet and then moved on and then started talking about things that were actually a lot more interesting from a macro perspective. So there've been a few episodes that are like that, that I would feel are a little bit more opportunistic and in the moment. And I think that the good thing about our team is that I'm not in charge of the planning or distribution of the content. I used to be, but that was back in those deep dark days. We're really lucky now, Bobby, not to make yourself feel greater than you are right now, but You've done a phenomenal job of orchestrating and managing and curating all of this content and really thinking in the future as to where we're going to be. And then certainly Kate and Ali that are on the marketing team really provide structure and making sure that we're adhering to a consistent publishing schedule with all of the content. Yeah. And I think that has been the true game changer in terms of how this all works and kind of allows me to play this like, hey Bobby, here's this really cool idea. And we can slot it in because we're a very flexible organization. But if that's the way this podcast worked all the time, it would be very bumpy and quite inconsistent. And so it's nice that we've got different roles and different personalities. On this particular content team.

Yeah, we've also had another category, and maybe you covered this. We also have another category, um, of discovering voices. So it's been, um, probably one of the most fun and enjoyable parts of the podcast is discovering a new voice. Um, and maybe it's an emerging entrepreneur, maybe it's someone who's just— we've never met before. Uh, and I actually— it's funny, a lot of folks don't know this, but I I miss business development, prospecting. I love that part of the business. And I actually, when we'll go into a market, um, sometimes as a team, maybe we're there for an event or something, we'll look for new voices and use the podcast as a way to get that audience with them. Um, and it's a fun way to make new connections. I mean, the, the Robo Creative story is one of those. I reached out cold to these guys. They're amazing guys and they end up speaking at SkuCon. And so I love that journey. And, you know, kudos to you. You're the one who sort of paved the road for that. But that's a fun part for me to, to meet new people through the podcast. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think the new voices is, is the thing that we've really learned because when we first started out doing this and this would have been back in the Promo Kitchen days and, you know, we're still involved in Promo Kitchen. But in those days, it was industry luminaries, people that had the big sort of out-there public profiles because they were the people that were the easiest to interview. They were the most willing to be interviewed. And we didn't really know what we were doing. We didn't have a big network. So it was like, all right, well, here are some people we know. And what I think has been really exciting as this whole journey has matured is, as you say, uncovering people that are not necessarily in the industry spotlight and would not necessarily even self-select as such. But when they're asked and they're delighted to be involved and we let them tell their story and it's always been fascinating. Some of them are shy, some of them are really outgoing, some are introverted. They're all over the place. But yeah, but this is the power of the medium. It really drives this intimate connection with, with the audience. And I just, I just love meeting these new people that have got a really cool take on this business we're in that I think, you know, it's been an honor to help them tell their story.

We both have a strong conviction that everyone does have a story to tell, that everyone's story is interesting, and that drives a lot of it. And to me, the introvert, I love the Skewcast as a way to get to know someone. Because, you know, if I had to show up and just talk about myself, this is where the introvert just, you know, dies inside and crawls away. But in this case, I get to talk, I get to ask questions, and I get to talk with others and get them to open up. One side note, you've heard me write about this before, but one side benefit to hosting a podcast that you get lots of practice in what Krista Tippett calls generous listening. She said listening is not really about being quiet but about being present. Which I love that. And that being a good listener starts before the conversation starts. The point of a question is to invite somebody to think out loud and that thinking out loud is a vulnerable-making thing. And it is. I'm far more cringy than you are about doing some of these things. The other thing that she said, that how do you measure a successful conversation? She said somebody says something that they haven't quite put words around before and they surprise themselves. I love it when that happens and you can hear that moment. In a lot of these conversations. Yeah.

The road ahead.

One of the things I do want to keep doing is discovering these emerging voices and also just using, continuing to use the SkewCast as a sandbox for ideas for, for the industry and, and thinking forward with it. That's one of the things I look forward to. What about you? I think there's two things.

Number one, I'm really excited about how we are going to continue to evolve and grow our content and media strategy over the next two years, whether it's around premium content, whether it's around video, whether it's around looking for relationships between our different media types, so written, audio, video, premium, events, in-person, all that stuff, and looking at ways of continuing to find links between each of those pieces of content, I think is really exciting given what we've been able to produce over the last couple of years. So that to me is just interesting. I know that might sound very high level, But I think there's something there. We were talking before we clicked record that there's some great examples of bleeding-edge content examples that are very multimedia. Some examples would include companies like Wistia, MailChimp, ProfitWell, just some examples in the tech space that are doing some really cool things with original content. And it's almost like they're creating almost like a Netflix style of experience with their content that then changes the relationship they have with their customers well beyond just the, hey, I've got a blog and a podcast. It's almost like it's now moving in this totally different direction that's in another dimension. And I look at that and I'm like, wow, I'm really impressed with it. So that to me is really exciting, I think, in the future. And I think number 2 is I think that content will always be relevant if you're continuing to add value. I think that's a very common sense thing to say, but when I was preparing to answer this question, I was thinking about podcasts that I have listened to for years, and I think to myself, why am I still listening to Planet Money or Reply All? I've been listening to them for years and years and years, and one might think that over time you would just get bored of it. And I think to myself, well, the reason I don't get bored with these particular podcasts is because on one hand they're familiar, so they're adhering to a format that works, right? So there's the familiarity, but then they're also not afraid to change things up. So they've got these new new formats they have and that are always, always, always very relevant from a current event perspective. So I'm listening to this so I can learn and be relevant and stay ahead of the curve. And I think that if we continue to do that, we're going to continue to honor our customers and honor the people who listen. And I hope we don't lose that edge.

Yeah. One of the things I look forward to in the road ahead is The thing that keeps you and I very excited about what we do every day is this curiosity and ideas. And so one of the, one of the things, to your point, is that I look forward to continuing to expand on something, some idea, some new discovery, or using things like the SkewCast as a way to think ahead and think our way through a challenge or difficulty, but also looking for the optimum way to express this. So as you said about multimedia, it can take, it can take any form that we want. And now we've had this experience both on the written side and on the, um, just on the podcast side. Uh, what's exciting to me is then taking an idea and then trying to discover, okay, which medium is going to best express this. Or which medium can we use? Or can we use— how do we use all of these media options to best expound on this idea? Because one of the things that we— that we— that I want us to do more of is proliferate some of these ideas because we have an hour, an hour and a half conversation we have. Jamie is a good example. There's— there's a book in that conversation with Jamie Mayer, or there are 20 articles you could write based on that. So there's a proliferation of content that I'm looking forward to as well. So not just the multimedia aspect, but How do we best express this idea and explore this topic? So, Mark, it's been 4 years. I have to say it's been an honor to really sit across from so many people, emerging voices, thinkers in the business, and to just enjoy exploring things with them. As we close, what are your final thoughts, Mark?

I couldn't agree more that it's been— I think it's been a journey where we, I think, have learned way more than our listeners. Right.

For sure.

We're often the students that are literally sitting in the front row here when we're speaking with these experts. So, that's been really rich and a really cool experience. We love it when people write in and say nice things about what we're doing, but at the end of the day, we're really the ones who are privileged here in terms of what we've been able to learn. And I think the other thing that I would say is that this is definitely not the Bobby show or the Mark show or the Mark and Bobby show. I think the power of the content has largely stemmed from collaboration with our community of listeners. We love hearing from people in terms of their ideas about potential guests or potential topics. There's no question that we always discuss them, whether we move ahead with them or not. I think we move ahead with actually most, but we really encourage people to stay close, whether it's on social or you've got our email addresses or hit us up on Commonsku. Without our community of customers and listeners and without those ideas, this program would not be nearly as interesting as it is. So thank you for that and keep those ideas coming. Ideas coming.

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of SKU Cast.

Be sure to keep up with our latest content by subscribing to SKU Cast on iTunes or to our blog at community.commsku.com. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening. Mm-hmm.