Episode 170: "Do Less and Obsess" with MarketingProf's Ann Handley

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. SkewCast is the official podcast of Common Skew.

Storytelling is about telling true stories well. So it's about making your products and services come alive in the world. It's about giving them a pulse. It's about showing how they help people and how is it that you make other people's lives better. The people you do business with.

She has nearly 500,000 followers on Twitter and over 400,000 LinkedIn connections. Her personal newsletter has over 45,000 subscribers. And these aren't just numbers. These are people who passionately follow what Ann shares, which is why Forbes once cited her as the most influential woman in social media. Considered a digital pioneer, Ann Handley is the chief content officer of MarketingProfs. She's also a speaker, and author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller Everybody Writes, and the co-author of the bestselling book on content marketing, Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, eBooks, Webinars, and More That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business. This is also such a joy for me because Ann is my hero. She is the world's first Chief Content Officer, and I've been friends with Ann for over a decade. She's been a constant influence in my journey, and she's truly an amazing human being. Is as lovely in person and up close as you might imagine. What I love about Anne the most is that she empowers us to escape marketing mediocrity and compels us to do work we're proud of. Anne will be our opening keynote at SKUCon on January 7th, where she will share the big, bold, brave new world of content and storytelling. Join us to hear more from Anne and other speakers just like her, such as Seth Godin, at SKUCon. To learn more, check it out at skucon.com. This episode is brought to you by Commonsku, the work from anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow and enables you to dramatically grow your sales. You can learn more at commonsku.com. Now here's my conversation with Anne where we talk about doing the right kind of marketing, right.

So, and the audience listening is diverse. We have distributors/agencies, we have manufacturers, but to generalize, when it comes to marketing, this audience falls into two categories. Number one, those who have the team and bandwidth to do marketing well, and number two, those who lack the bandwidth or the team to deploy a full marketing strategy, so they end up picking and choosing the tactics. Now, both groups really strive and hunger to reach higher and do better. Otherwise they wouldn't be listening to this.

Now everyone knows that listens, they know I love to quote people.

So I'm going to quote Anne's favorite author, E.B. White, who talked about this idea of doing better, but it's a paraphrase and, and I've replaced E.B.'s word writer with marketer. So here we go. And I know you know this quote. It is my belief that no marketer can improve their work until they discard the dulcet notion that the customer is feeble-minded. For marketing is an act of faith, not a bag of tricks. Ascent, A-S-C-E-N-T, in case my Texas-bred accent buried that word. Ascent is at the heart of the matter. And a marketer who questions the capacity of the person at the other end of the line is not a marketer at all, merely a schemer. The people at the other end of our line today are smart entrepreneurs who are doing some really cool and effective marketing, but either they have bandwidth or don't, but all want to ascend to great marketing, which is why I wanted to talk first with you about the subject from ASAP, as soon as possible, to ASAP, as slow as possible, or what you called elsewhere, slow down to speed up, because I think it's applicable to both audiences, whether they have bandwidth or not. So the question to you then is, why should we be marketing more slowly? And can you explain your wonderful quote, do less and obsess?

Yes, I can. Yes, thank you so much for that. You know, I love any conversation that starts with quoting more or less E.B. White. So thank you. Thank you for doing that. You just made my day, literally. So I do think, by the way, I just want to say that the two audiences or the two points of view of the audience that you describe here, That's exactly what I hear all the time from audiences that I speak to more broadly. So outside of this industry, I think that's the condition of so many marketers. And sometimes that actually, those two, that duality exists within an individual marketer as well. And so I just wanted to legitimize, I guess, what you're saying is that I do believe that we all want to do better. We all have the bandwidth sometimes, but then sometimes life gets in the way. We just need to sort of figure out what to focus on. And I think the goal is always the same, right? The goal is always to not just sell more stuff, but also to, you know, make a difference in the world, to make a mark in a very positive way. And at least that's what I have to believe in my heart, because I know there's a lot of darkness to the world. There's a lot of darkness to business and to marketing. But to be the kind of marketer that I want to be and inspire the kind of marketers who I want to inspire. I need to believe that, you know. And so I'm going to assume, and I know you well enough to know that this is true of you, so I'm going to assume that this is true of everyone in this audience too, that we all do want to do better and that we all do want to, you know, create meaning with what we're doing in our work lives. And so all that to say, I do believe that the concept of as slow as possible relates across everything in marketing, everything that we do. And I think it relates to everyone. And that really the concept is pretty simple. It's just a matter of instead of throwing tactics at everything that we do, instead of thinking about we need to do a blog post because it's a Tuesday and we publish a blog post every Tuesday. So quick, get something up, put it on the blog. Let's go. Let's share it out across the social channels and let's plaster it across Instagram and on Facebook and on LinkedIn, if that's appropriate, and wherever else, TikTok, wherever else we may be, like, let's just get it out there. And that's the mindset of a lot of marketers. And it has been the mindset of a lot of marketers and a lot of businesses. And I get that because our world is, our world is very fast-paced. You know, we live in a really crazy world. But what I'm suggesting and what I'm really urging marketers to do is to not do that, but take the opportunity to step back and think more broadly, okay, what are we actually trying to do here and what are the appropriate channels to tell that story through? And in some ways, you know, the idea of as slow as possible comes from the— it comes from my belief that is now back about 5 years or so. I've been thinking about this and writing about it and iterating on it, I guess, for about 5 years. The notion of how do we actually do that, right? So where should we focus? What does that actually mean from a strategic standpoint? And I do think it starts with figuring out your positioning in the market, figuring out who you speak to, telling your story more effectively. Like that's kind of where it starts. Do that, do that work first, do that slow work so that you can speed up later on. And then when you, when you do match your tactics to your story, when you decide, all right, here's where we're going to be talking to the people that matter most to our business. Then do a really good job with that. That's what I mean by do less and obsess. So don't worry about being everywhere and being all things to all people. Instead, focus on who you speak to. And then secondly, speak directly to them. So as I said, I've been thinking and talking and researching this for so many years now. And I have to be honest with you, Bobbi. It's like I thought by now I would have a book on this topic. You know, I thought for sure I would, I would be like, I would have, in addition to Content Rules and then Everybody Writes, I would walk into a bookstore when we can walk into bookstores again and wander around freely instead of having to do curbside pickup, at least where I live. But I thought that I would walk into a bookstore and I would see ASAP, As Slow As Possible, with my name on it on the shelf. And, you know, to the point where I was manifesting that a few years ago, writing about it in my journal, like, this is going to happen. But it never quite happened. And I could never quite wrap my arms fully around it. And so in a lot of ways, I think that where we're at right now, not just in our industry or in marketing or in business, but in the world, we're in the midst of a pandemic. And in some ways, it's crystallized so many of these ideas for me in a way that I would never have anticipated, in part because none of us would ever have anticipated this pandemic. This moment in time we find ourselves doing business in. But more broadly, like it has crystallized so many things for me because this is a time in the midst of, you know, a pandemic as at the end of 2020 heading into 2021, we are 10 months-ish into this pandemic. And, you know, for me, it's really crystallized the fact that we do need to be very strategic in terms of how we're marketing. Not just because of the pandemic, but, you know, for a number of other reasons as well.

Well, COVID seemed to accelerate a lot of what was happening. The market was moving toward this anyways. And I know as a very sales-driven organization, we tend to— and I heard this at the B2B Forum— we reduce the art of marketing to military language. And so unleashing a barrage of heavy artillery, multiple tactics, most poorly done because we're trying to do too much, versus marketing as a way to build community, make connections, and establish trust., it, it, it seems antithetical to the sales-driven organization to slow down. Um, but the world isn't begging for more mediocre content to read or watch. Um, so that's why I think it's so vital for this audience because as I've talked with entrepreneurs in this business, they will lament to me those, those challenges you said that everybody tends to have them. And it's great news because if you have the bandwidth, you still have to slow down and do quality work. If you don't have the bandwidth, then you can focus on a couple of strategies or tactics that can really energize and build connections with your audience. Yes, yes.

And, and there's not a single— sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you there, but just to build on what you were saying, there's not a single marketer that I talk to who says, wow, you know, our, our response rates are fantastic and our conversion rates are just off the charts. I mean, that's pretty rare for me to have a conversation with a marketer about that. Most of them are bemoaning, you know, dismal response rates, dismal open rates. We're talking good marketers too. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, like 1%, you know, response. And people are feeling that, you know, what, what else can we do? Well, I mean, the solution there is that— or I guess that the bigger story there is that we have— we've just been failing to really speak to the needs and the wants and the hearts and minds and emotions of our audiences for a very long time. And so I think we have an opportunity to fix that. And by the way, like, this isn't just me saying like, oh, I think we should be doing this because there's love in my heart and I want everybody to think of marketing the way that I do. There are actually reasons why we need to think about this. For example, you know, tightening privacy restrictions, right? I think those are coming. They're expanding into the US. They're already happening in Europe. They're already happening in Canada. And it's coming here too. And so, there's a whole lot of external pressures, a whole lot of regulatory pressures that also speak to the idea of being much more strategic and also valuing connection, trust, engagement, community over anything else that we've been focusing on. So, you know, just to reiterate what you were saying, I think it's never been more important than ever to really put the notion of engagement and people at the forefront of what we're doing.

Yeah, which is a good segue to the next thing I wanted to talk with you about or ask you about. According to the 2021 B2B Content Marketing Report, this is produced by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs. One key section of the report is about the differentiators, the things most successful marketers do that the least successful don't. For example, 73% nurture subscribers, audience, or leads. Only 38% of the least successful do. 60% build a subscribed audience. Only 25% of the least successful do. One more stat. The top predicted areas for marketing investment in 2021 are content creation, 70%, and website enhancements. On this topic of building a subscribed audience and building loyalty, I love what you said elsewhere, that community isn't something you monetize, it's how you live your life. And let's take one example as a tactic. There's an unsung hero sitting quietly ignored in our marketing toolbox, the newsletter. Can you do two things? Number one, can you explain briefly the resurgence of the newsletter through your own experience? And then before we get into that, can you distinguish between a regular marketing email and a newsletter?

Yeah. So I love that you just quoted those stats, by the way. I started to get a little nervous because I was like, hold on a second. Is he going to ask me about a specific number and I'm going to have to scramble?

I wouldn't do that to you.

No. I was like, oh, that's a big report. That dirty rat. No, I think I love the numbers that you called out because Those are the exact ones that were some of my favorites in that report. So that's the, that's our 11th year of doing that report, by the way.

I read it every year.

Oh, it's fantastic. Yeah. It's, it just, it's such a, it's such a benchmark for, I think, where the industry is heading. And so seeing the focus on engagement and trust and all the things that I, you know, that I hold near and dear to see them called out as, as things that, that the most advanced marketers are focusing on too. That really just made me. Yeah, it just made me very grateful. So yes, so the newsletter from my perspective, you know, I talk about newsletters as a really special opportunity and I don't mean that in a, you know, in a kind of kumbaya feel-good way, but I really do believe that the opportunity that we have with an email newsletter, most of us in business are completely missing the opportunity. And I believe that so strongly. For two reasons. First of all, because most of us spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to game the algorithm on social channels. You know, we spend a lot of time trying to break through and figure out, okay, how am I going to get my stuff, you know, in the feeds of the people who I care about on Facebook or on Twitter or on Instagram or any of the places where we're sort of connecting with, with our audiences. But you, you don't have to even worry about an algorithm if you really focus on serving the needs of your database of your email newsletter. And so I think that's the first reason why is that it's the only place in my mind where algorithms are not in control. People are in control. And that's the place that I want to be as a marketer. That's the space that I respect. And it's a space where I think we, again, we have an opportunity if we think about it a little differently. So in terms of how we think about it though, I think a lot of brands think about their, their email newsletter as they think about that word newsletter and they think about the first part of the word. They focus on the news. And really, I think we should be focusing on the second part of the word, which is the letter. So instead of thinking about the news we want to share and think, instead of thinking about the news that we want to tell people about, instead of thinking about our email newsletter as a distribution strategy, I think we need to think about the letter. We need to think about the opportunity of writing to one person and having that person open it in their own individual inbox. And just a real quick example of that. I get, I mean, I love email newsletters. I'm always looking for like the best and highest use of tactics in general, but especially email newsletters. So I sign up for all kinds of email newsletters from crazy industries, you know, I mean, if you were to look at my inbox, you would not be like— you would be like, is she like a pipe fitter who does crafts and also has like a heart condition? Like, what is— who is that person? You know, so because I sign up for crazy stuff as soon as I— and anyway, so often, and you could just look at your own inbox, look at your— the email newsletters that you subscribe to. So many, so many companies start their newsletters as The greeting itself is plural. It's hello friends or hi all or hey everyone, something like that. It's not everyone. There is one person be, you know, opening up your email. So, and the reason why, like, that's a small thing, but at the same time, I think it's emblematic of a much more fundamental issue, which is that we're not thinking about it as an opportunity to connect with one person. We're still thinking about it as an audience, like this sort of amorphous faceless audience.

And so, which is ironic when we go out and win customers in B2B sales one by one, and then we suddenly turn to talk to them and we treat them like a they, right?

Right, exactly. And so, you know, I think that it's just a mindset shift. Like, think about that one person you want to affect. So that's the opportunity. In terms of my own experience, so it'll be 3 years in January I launched my own email newsletter. Now, I have been in internet marketing, as we used to call it— I've been in digital marketing for a really long time. For— I talked to somebody yesterday who said, wow, you have 2 decades of experience. And I was like, wow, why aren't I dead? Because that's a long time. Um, and it's, and it's true, you know, I have been around for, for a while.

Um, which, by the way, we met in 2007 through digital marketing. So that's how far back we go. All right.

Yes. Yeah, that's really amazing. Um, and so, you know, the funny thing is, like, it— as anybody in, in, you know, as, as somebody who has been around for a while and as we've— I've advanced through my career, and this true for so many of us, I think you start touching things less. Like you start, you stop making things and you start managing people who do things. And so I wanted to do something that I could do just on my own, just something that I would own, that I would touch, that I made all the decisions around. And so I launched an email newsletter 3 years ago. So why email newsletter? Well, in part for the reasons that I mentioned, because I believed that it was the one place where I could connect directly with people who I wanted to speak directly to one-to-one. But the other reason is because I'm a writer fundamentally. Like, that's where I started my career. That's who I am as a person. And so I didn't want to do a YouTube channel. I didn't want to do like a Facebook Live series. It's just I wanted to write. And so, you know, I embraced that opportunity. And every other Sunday, I create a— what some would probably call a long-form email. I think it's inherently— it's story-driven. So I think it's inherently readable. But, you know, it's a little long. I'll own that. And so over the past 3 years, I've learned a whole lot about what works and what doesn't in the email newsletter format. And what works is thinking about, again, that one person you want to affect, that one person you want to help change, you know, just, you know, be part of their lives even for that 20 minutes that you have them in, you know, in looking at you in their inbox on a Sunday morning in my case. And, you know, that to me has been, there's a million ways that I could get into about how we, you know, how that expresses itself, but it's just been a real fundamental shift in how I think about email newsletters.

Well, can you explain the numbers? Because people, I think I need to address the skeptic in the room for two things.

Number one, I can hear people going email newsletter, really?

But remember when Teddy Goff spoke at the B2B forum? Yeah, I do. He was Obama's. Digital campaign director for his first campaign, if I remember right. I have never forgotten his advice. We all give such astounding weight to social channels, to TikTok, the new TikTok, whatever it is, but the most effective channel they had, and no one, regardless of your politics, you cannot argue that that first campaign was an astounding marketing campaign. And that's why you had him there at the forum. Um, and he said that of all the things, Facebook especially, all of them, Email was where it was at. And so, and my question to you is, is that still where it's at? And, and can you reflect on your, with Slack and everything, you know, is it still where it's at? Can you reflect on this change you had with the response through email by, by delivering on quality because you had an astounding number increase?

Yeah. So I started with, um, I had fewer than 3,000 people who had been, who were on my list 3 years ago, and now I'm in the it's like 45,000 subscribers. So from less than 3 to 45,000, you know, I mean, honestly, it's, it's not that astounding. I don't think because, you know, that's 3 years of, of hard work, I guess, of every other Sunday putting out this email newsletter. But to me, it's incredibly gratifying because my open rates are fantastic, about 40, 45%, something like that. My click-through rates I don't worry about as much because so much of what I'm looking for is engaging in the newsletter itself. And so I don't look at, I don't look at what people are clicking on because to me, honestly, it just doesn't matter. Again, it speaks to my goals for the newsletter, which is to have that connection happening in the inbox with one person. But yeah, I think it's, I think that the email newsletter is just, it's like, like, as I said, and I think Teddy would have said this too, it's just vastly undervalued. We do see this resurgence. In email newsletters more broadly across so many different kinds of industries. And I'll give you just a, just really two quick examples. Um, so the first is the New York Times, the New York Times in June. So in the, in the sort of midst of this pandemic decided that they would shift the way that they delivered their morning news through their email newsletter. So rather than just having an email newsletter that comes every, morning from the New York Times, which is what they did for years and years and years. Instead, they shifted their strategy, and now the morning update, the morning briefing from the New York Times comes from a single person. It comes from David Leonhardt. And if you subscribe to the New York Times morning edition, you get an email from David. And David delivers the weekly, or sorry, the daily news to you. He tells you what's going on in the headlines. He gives a little bit of his perspective about things. He imbues the entire email with his personality, which by the way is not unlike the New York Times brand, but nonetheless, it's always through the lens of David. And so the broader lesson I think in there for companies is that, you know, the New York Times, who is, you know, arguably like this, just a very solid brand, but Nonetheless, you know, and also has done a tremendous job, I think, embracing opportunity with digital channels of all kinds. They're great marketers in addition to being a news outlet. So when I talk about, you know, what the New York Times has done, I want you to think about it more from a brand standpoint than from a newspaper standpoint. So yeah, you could argue, well, it's the New York Times. I mean, that's what they do, but it's not what they do in the sense of they don't typically approach their digital channels with one person in mind. But yet I think the reason they did that is because David is connecting with me every morning. And yes, it's, you know, it's wrapped in the, in the New York Times brand, but it's a conversation that David has with me every morning. And so I think that there's a lesson in there for all of us brands. Make sure your email newsletter comes from a person and that it actually has an implication or that it reaches the inbox of one person like we've already talked about. So that's one opportunity. The second one actually also comes from a newspaper, but I'm only mentioning it because I think it's the funniest/weirdest example of the opportunity with email newsletters. So I don't know if you're a fan of The Bachelor TV show.

Are you, Bobby? No, I'm not a fan, but I have seen some episodes. How's that?

I don't know, because you actually scream The Bachelor to me. Like, I feel like you should— I thought I'm sure you would be like, yes, as a matter of fact, every week I pop up some popcorn and I sit on my couch.

I have a friend who's going to love this exchange. Let's put it that way. I watch it. I watch it sort of on the side. How's that?

Okay. All right. That's fine.

I'm in the room. I'm in the room when it's playing.

There you go. You're in the room, like, you know, reading Keith in the background or something like that. I just have this. Picture of you sitting there with your smoking jacket and your velvet slippers and your ascot. OK, so the Washington Post launched a weekly email newsletter that is all about The Bachelor. And the name of this newsletter is The World's Most Dramatic Newsletter. And the reason why I love this so much is because who watches The Bachelor for the most part? I mean, my daughter, who is— In her early 20s, she watches The Bachelor with her roommates or on Zoom when she's not with, you know, other people. They watch it together like it's a party. It's an event for her. She's in her 20s, you know, and she subscribes to The Washington Post, the most dramatic newsletter ever. She's the one who told me about it, in fact, because like Bobby, I do not watch The Bachelor either, but I read this newsletter for reasons that I've already shared with you because I subscribe to everything. Um, but I love it so much. And the reason why the New York Post is— or sorry, the Washington Post is doing that is because they're trying to reach people like my daughter Caroline, you know, and or people who would probably be fans of The Bachelor but not necessarily aware of The Washington Post. And so it's a really tremendous brand strategy when you think about that, you know, the fact that they are publishing a newsletter about it. And the writing of that newsletter, by the way, is just— it's fantastic. It's It's everything that you would expect it to be. It doesn't sound like it's written by a Washington Post reporter, although it is, but it's, it's just, it's such a fun read. You know, it's like, it just matches the tone of the show. It matches the audience. Yeah.

The reason I love it is it's a great example of do less and obsess. It's just a great example of pick a tactic and do that. And now for SKUCon in January, for those that are going to be joining us, we're not going to talk about newsletters there. We're going to talk about storytelling. So let's do this briefly. And I know we got to close here, but let's touch on storytelling so the folks will know what we're going to be chatting about there. Now, I have to say that as an industry, we still struggle with marketing. There are the outliers who are doing exceptional work, but many are still doing primarily product pushes and interruption marketing tactics. So one big challenge we have is that everyone in this $26 billion industry sells product from the makers and manufacturers to the distributors and agencies. Our marketing still has a product-first focus rather than a customer-first focus. So I know we must push product, but we also know that our audiences expect more from us and that product-only marketing is not finding resonance. So this idea of storytelling, can you tell us how that changes the tone and aspect of our marketing and why it's important? And we'll unpack more at SKUCon, but can you give us a brief overview?

Yeah, I think story is hugely important in terms of how you're marketing your business, mostly as relates to your brand, right? How is it that you are different from your competitors? And, you know, I think that's true of SKUCON attendees. I think it's true of any business-to-business company because your brand is, is what you have, right? Your brand is your differentiator. And by your brand, I mean, yes, in part your product, but also how you deliver them, the people who work at your company, the way that you are there for your clients the customers long-term. So I think your story is reflective of all of that. And in my mind, you know, your story is the thing that sets you apart as a company and as a brand, because it's the one way that you have to differentiate. Now, yes, you could argue, you know, well, our prices are better. Okay. You know, you could argue that, you know, our, our product, um, our products are, are more diverse, that we have a, like a broader array than any of our competitors. And it's like, okay. But that again is only going to take you so far. I think the thing that really will connect with people is understanding who you are, how you do business, and not just what you sell, but how you do business. And I think that's where your story and your brand come together and they, and you can really bring your customer into that conversation instead of speaking at them.

Yeah, we're going to unpack that more because there's a lot there. And I think this is really exciting because it goes back to that bandwidth we talk about too, that this gives folks focus, and we'll talk about that at SCUECON.

Can I just say one more thing about storytelling? Yeah, please do. I think the thing about storytelling is that so many companies think it's a little high-minded. It sounds like a fairy tale. It's like, well, we're going to be telling stories. But, you know, I wrote this 10 years ago in my first book, and I continue to live it and breathe it and believe it every single day. The storytelling is about telling true stories well. So it's about making your products and services come alive in the world. It's about giving them a pulse. It's about showing how they help people and how is it that you make other people's lives better, the people you do business with. And that essentially is what we can really dig into at SKUCon and what I'm really excited to share.

I can't wait. Thank you for that, Anne. You know what, it's funny, and I tell folks this, the workshop that I did at the B2B Forum, in the audience you'll find folks that are, they're Windex manufacturers, They're product manufacturers. And what's exciting for me is I've seen this story empower marketers and communicators and salespeople, whether they're selling household cleaning products or whether they're selling insurance. That's what's fun. And we have incredible potential because you know what we do. But, but okay, so let me get to this so we can save our time here. And because of Marketing Props and because of who you are, Ann Handley, which by the way, you're famous enough to get a first and last name when people speak of you. I know you've heard that. Before, but you connect with so many respected worldwide brands. What are you seeing? Give us kind of one thing that future CMOs or marketing teams are wrestling with. In other words, how can we be more prepared and more sensitive to their challenges? Because we're an audience that largely serves marketing and branding professionals. Is there a couple of things or one thing that stands out to you when I ask that question?

I mean, you know, I think this year, 2020, has been just a tremendous challenge for so many of us. We're all figuring out— well, many of us have been trying to figure out how do we work from home. And from a marketing standpoint, from a manager standpoint, how do we stay connected to other team members? How do we stay connected to our customers? And how do we stay connected to one another at a time when everything is virtual? How do we handle virtual sales? How do we find ways to make virtual events more meaningful? All of those things I think are top of mind for leaders these days. And so, yes, I think the perpetual questions of how do we actually connect with our customers are always there, but I think they're more heightened this year because of this tremendous shift that was foisted upon us in March of this year when we all retreated to our home offices and tried to figure out how to do business there. But I think maintaining that connection with customers and with our team members is absolutely top of mind for marketers because every single marketer that I talk to shares a version of that story with me. And I think it's a real challenge.

And real opportunity for those in this audience because we sell merchandise that creates emotional connections. And so it's a fantastic opportunity. We're going to unpack this a little bit more at SKUCon, but Anne, you know, I love you dearly.

Thank you for joining us. Oh, I can't wait. And I look forward to speaking with you again and with everybody in January.

That'll be fun. All right. Thanks, Anne.

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of SKUcast. Be sure to keep up with our latest content by subscribing to SKUcast on iTunes or to our blog at community.commskew.com. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening.