Everything You DON'T Know About Marketing | Ron Tite

I think that there are far too many organizations. They talk aspirationally, but they talk about it as if they're already doing it. And I think really connecting with people is about two things. It is about cutting through, kind of cutting through the noise and being unique, but it's also about building trust while you do that. So when we go think, say, do, it's so aspirational that if somebody goes, okay, I'm going to connect with you right today. And then you go, oh, don't look at the website. We're working on the website and sorry about that. We're still working on the process and well, we're going to get there someday. Well, then now I'm like, well, that's lunch bag let down. This is like, well, I was promised one thing and the actual experience is very different. So I also think the hierarchy of it should be, this is what we believe, this is what we do to reinforce that belief. And then the say is, what do you talk about? We talk about what you fundamentally believe and what you do to reinforce it. That is what you say. You say it in a unique and compelling and interesting and relevant and entertaining way. But that's really the heart of it. So I think say should always come last.

Look, I want to jump straight into this, this new piece of work that you guys, that you have. I'm absolutely loving. I was. I was joking around with a little bit off air. I chose to consume it via audiobook. And for anyone who hasn't read your book or experienced your book yet, I recommend not only buying a physical copy, but also getting the audio copy as well. Because, guys, there is some really, really cool stinking sound effects and music and stuff. It's not like something boring like you're going to. You're on like a long trip kind of thing and driving for hours on end, about halfway to fall asleep. This book's actually going to teach you something and keep you awake. So kudos to that. But one of the things that I absolutely.

I just had just like, listened to a book. Sorry, I was. I just listened to a book that I was really. That I hadn't read. I was really looking forward to reading. I was like, oh, listen to it. And it was. They go like, oh, they got the actor to read the. I'm like, oh. And then it's just like. There's just something about a professional voiceover, right, where they all do it the exact same and it's professional and polished and like, as you said, it's like.

Yeah, but then you're half asleep. You're like, I've got this to learn something and now I'm tired.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Well, thank God your work is not like that. I don't, I don't think even engaging with your reading it, none of that stuff. You're obviously an upbeat human being who loves that. Loves to add a little humor and everything. But yeah, one of the things that I absolutely loved was. I know you said you didn't coin the phrase, but I do love the phrase altogether, which is this, this idea of being pitch slapped. Let's talk about being pitch slapped because I think in today's marketplace and, and whatnot, it doesn't matter if it's LinkedIn or wherever. You're getting beat senseless with people just throwing stuff at you. Like, break that down for me a little bit.

So pitch slapping is the, the art or lack thereof. I think prioritizing a sales pitch over everything else, you know, we're all here. I mean, this isn't recreational writing, right? Like, this isn't recreational podcast. Like, there is a fundamental business reason why we all do all of this stuff while we're consuming content, creating content. So I get that this isn't rec business, but when your sales pitch proceeds and is a higher priority than everything else, then you're just, you're inundating the person with a promotional message opposed to adding value first and then eventually earning the right to maybe bring up that promotional message when you fully understand that there is a need for what you're selling and that you can customize that proposal, verbal proposal or written proposal, to that person's specific situation. And often now, and I don't remember who said it, it wasn't me. But you know, this idea of.

Digital marketing wasn't ever supposed to be about scale. Yeah, it was always supposed to be about customization. As a guy who grew up as a creative director in a traditional international Holdco agency, when we were pumping out a ton of TV spots, all the digital folks who were emerging kept saying, oh, just you wait, TV guy. You know, just you wait until the individual consumer will only see the very ad that they want for the thing they want in that precise moment on the precise medium that they're choosing to consume in that moment, and it's going to be completely customized to them. And that was seemingly refreshing. And what happened 24, 7, I can send 4 million emails just as easy as I can send one pitch lap.

Yep.

And we just went to scale and we lost, completely lost it on that. And we failed to deliver the true potential of digital marketing. And now we're all just trying to game the system and cheat the system to achieve some sales goal. And it's exhausting. And here's the most important part. It doesn't work.

No, it doesn't. All it's done is create more and more and more and more noise.

Yeah.

And, you know, I think about it too, as someone who's actually, I kind of in your camp. I want to put out valuable content that people actually want and need and can use. And I, at least for me, I find myself competing against all the other noise, all the other people that are just trying to sell something here. Buy this widget. Buy this thing. And you know, great, if that widget or that thing helps that one person. But you're. You're blasting the other thousand at the same time.

So I call those the other thousand. I call them the innocent bystanders.

Yeah.

You're like, ah, I just got pitch slapped. I didn't just stand in here.

Yeah, I remember I went to go. I was searching for a house one time for a family friend that was considering moving to my marketplace. And for the next six months, I saw nothing but housing ads. Every time I was on Google or Safari or whatever, I'm like, this is ridiculous. And even when I hit the little button that says opt out, like, you know, close out ad or stop advertising, to me it says, wait, why? Why do you not want to see this anymore? I was like, because it's not relevant, dude. Like, you know, give me a break.

But yeah, I'm getting stalked by banner ads for homes for sale in my neighborhood.

Oh, man, it's so. It's so aggravating. And then I love the fact that you, you have no idea how happy you made me when you decided to Talk about the LinkedIn stalking and all the, and all the craziness. We got to break that down because I was very, as you were describing, like, the different levels of the different. Call it LinkedIn marketing system. And I love LinkedIn as a platform. Like, it's a great platform, you know.

Totally.

Yeah, it's great for that. But I do, I think about. I have, like, I don't know, I don't know, countless people that are, quote, following me on LinkedIn. All of them, if not most of them, have tried to sell me something almost without even knowing my name.

Y.

Which is mindboggling. So let's, let's Talk about the LinkedIn strategy or the LinkedIn type of things that you mentioned. In the book along with. And how it's creating additional noise and additional distrust.

Well, there's, you know, and again, yeah, LinkedIn is about business relationships. And we know that business relationships can lead to business transactions. Yeah, of course, 100%. But again, people are trying to take the shortcut. They're trying to game the system and they're trying to pitch, lap and prioritize their sales pitch over everything else. And so there's just, there's different ways that people can do that. And they, you know, there's the. And you can. It's almost like the first five words of the. Either the connection request or a LinkedIn message. You're like block sender or, you know, unconnect or disconnect or whatever it is. And there's the, like I was perusing.

Like, you know, I stumbled across your platform. That's.

Sorry.

Yeah.

I stumbled across. Really? You stumbled across me? Well, that seems.

I really like what you're doing. Yeah. Sometimes I just say, well, what am I doing?

Yeah.

The number of people who reach out to me and say, we can help. We're an agency that helps businesses get new leads. I'm like, I'm an agency like Church and State is an agency. Our biggest clients are Google and Walmart. I think we know how to get leads. We just, you know, we prefer to do it in a way that is consistent with the tone and personality of the brand. And my gut reaction to all of them is.

If you're supposedly the expert at new business and you're the expert at generating qualified leads for a business and this is how you do it, I think it just lost my trust because I actually don't think. If somebody came to me and said, I actually have a profound way to deliver the clients you actually want in a way that's consistent with your brand, I would listen. Of course I would. We all want new clients.

Yeah.

But if that's your approach, that tells me right away you have no idea what you're doing.

Oh, gosh. Well, look, you know, so I know you kind of broke down. I like, what I wanted to do was maybe even break down a couple of the different LinkedIn tactics. And I'm using, we're using LinkedIn as a, as a, as a concept of different ways that people try to kind of quote, unquote, mingle their way into your business. I'm sure the techniques that you mentioned, the book will work just as well with any kind of like, I guess, B2B correspondent. But let's, let's Talk about some of the sneak attacks.

Sure. Well, you know, it might be helpful. Do you want me walk into, like, how I use it? Like, because we all know the pitch. Laughing. You want me to know, like, how I kind of use it? Because I generate stuff for my agency of church and state as well as speaking. I do like 70 keynotes a year, so I'm on the road a lot.

Yeah.

So there's a way, I think, to fully embrace the reality of adding value and providing content and getting smarter, yada, yada, yada. So this fundamental way to do it is progressive and brand consistent and get you the goals that you want over the long haul. Like the people who, if you're looking to generate five new leads today, well then send out your million emails and maybe a 0.0005% of people are going to, you know, click on, you know, I don't know. But that's not a game I'm playing. I'm playing the long game.

Yeah, for sure.

So I worked with a guy named Todd Lo Hendry out of Wisconsin. And Todd's a really lovely guy who's really, kind of gets the idea of tools and platforms that we can use to become more efficient. And he had something called the four Cs that I've adopted or adapted. Adopted and adapted for how I use it. So the first C is consumption. So one, we need to consume media in a really operationally efficient way. Yeah, that you. We need to get smarter. We need to read stuff and listen to stuff. So how do you do that? So one, I use Feedly, I use an RSS reader, I follow a whack of magazines and bloggers and blah, blah, blah. And I can just operationally and efficiently read the content that makes the most sense for me. That is in my sweet spot of understanding and expertise. So that's the consumption. The second C is curation, which is if I read this thing, if I read. Look, just, I just, I'm just in the middle of reading Joey Coleman's great new book, Never Lose an Employee Again just came out. It's fantastic. But let's say I read an article by Joey and I go, this is really important. My followers or my. What are my community, whatever you want to call. They should. They should read this. They should, they should read this piece. Then you curate that out to them that here's a great article. And I don't just go resend or repost or whatever it is or reshare. I editorialize it. I go, I think this article is important. Because of 1, 2, 3, or. I disagree with this. Whatever. I'm adding value to the thing. Joey might. Might be a competitor of mine. It's not about that. It's about delivering that content. So I curate that one to my audience. Secondly, I curate it for myself. I create a slide in that moment. If I was to deliver this content in that moment, what would I deliver? Would the slide be. I designed the slide. Right. Then I put my notes in the speaker notes. I. I put the reference to the article in there as well. I slide that over into a bucket. Maybe it's, you know, internal employees or employee experience.

Yeah.

So I'm constantly building the next speech with all this stuff. Do the same thing at Discriminer, which is where I write the books. So I'm always writing the next book. I'm always writing the next speech. So that's the second C curation, third C creation. @ some point, you got to create your own stuff. You got to go, here's what I think. Here's a funny thing I said, or here's whatever. And then the fourth C, which is most important. This is where LinkedIn is so great. The fourth C is connection. Now, if I post the thing about Joy Coleman's book, never Lose an Employee Again, and somebody goes, not in cpg. It doesn't work that way. Well, I do one of two things. Either double down and go, nope, Worked with CPG clients. In my experience, this is relevant. Or I go, oh, my gosh, you just made me smarter. I didn't think of that. And now I go back and amend my notes. And the next time I go to do a speech, if I'm in cpg, and I go, I know what you're saying. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, not here, not in cpg. So the reason I really think where we can, where LinkedIn can help us all is it forces us if we're going to create content. It forces us to think about things, it forces us to editorialize things. It forces us to read things because we're now under pressure to share it out. But we're also. We're there to interact with everybody who are there to make us.

Smarter.

Yeah. And that, to me, is the real power of it. And over time, people will. They just. We just won a massive national campaign of somebody who said. And I said, why did you. Why did you put us on the rfp? And she said, I saw you speak once and I follow you on LinkedIn, and I love your perspective and the tone in which you interact with.

People. Yeah.

That'S. It's a million dollar.

Campaign. Yeah. That's awesome. And you did it authentically. That's, that's the big thing is it's not an inauthentic exchange. It's an authentic connection. And I think that's where a lot of folks are getting a lot of things really wrong. It's one of the things I found really refreshing about your book. I don't know if this was intentional or not, so I'm going to ask about it because obviously I think it's kind of cool. Think, say, do. All right, so I would have thought it would have been Think, do, say. I'm sorry. Yeah, so I thought I would have gotten it backwards. Right. So I'm curious to know why say is at the end and not in the.

Middle. It's a great question. The day the book launched, I did a TV interview, national TV interview. And the interviewer is like, it was literally launch day. And they said, and please welcome the author of the book, Think, say Do, Run. And I'm like, dude, it's day.

One. Good. No, I'm not the only one that screwed it up.

100%. It happens all the time. I think that there are far too many organizations who talk about the thing. They talk aspirationally, but they talk about it as if they're already doing it. And, you know, I think really connecting with people is about two things. It is about cutting through, kind of cutting through the noise and being unique, but it's also about building trust while you do that, because anybody can cut through. Anybody can cut. You just go naked. Show a picture of yourself naked. You know, we see people who do these really outrageous. What's.

That? Because then start your own flash.

Mob. There's easy ways to cut through the noise and get coverage. Of course you can do that. But if you. If you don't build trust and people go like, oh, this is unique and I would trust doing business with this person, then it's useless. So when we go think, say, do, it's so aspirational that if somebody goes, okay, I'm going to connect with you right today. And then you go, oh, don't look at the website. We're working on the website and sorry about that. We're still working on the process and, well, we're going to get there someday. Well, then now I'm like, well, that's lunch bag letdown. This is like, well, I was promised one thing and the actual experience is very different. So I think it's and then I also think, you know, the hierarchy of it should be this is what we believe, this is what we do to reinforce that belief. And then the say is, what do you talk about when you talk about what you fundamentally believe and what you do to reinforce it? That is what you say. Now, you say it in a unique and compelling and interesting and relevant and entertaining way, but that's really the heart of it. So I think say should always come.

Last. Yeah, yeah, no, I love it. Well, I thought it was such an interesting spin too. You know, I. One of the things that I love about, I guess the succinctness of the book is this. It's not even aspiration. It's the truth behind living by real beliefs, like, you know, being a brand that truly believes exactly who they're. Well, not only who they are, who they're called to serve, and then kind of in what methodology they're going to serve. So walk me through a little bit about the how people kind of vote now with their time versus their.

Wallet. Yeah, there's, you know, they used to be about back when it was just kind of, you know, three distinct channels. There was print and magazine and out of home and tv and that was in maybe radio that, you know, we used to vote with our wallets because we just, we got ads and we responded by buying stuff. Well, now there's, you know, it's relentless in terms of the. Not only the number of promotional messages that people are forced to see across a wide variety of different areas and spectrums, but I think the thing that people don't talk about is.

They always talk about the, like whatever the quote is, which is probably a lame, completely wrong data point now, but like 5,000 advertising messages a day. Yeah, it's not a. I don't think it's as much about that as it is that rapid increase in the number of SKUs that it's not just we're forced to see. We're now there's 25 different types of toothpaste. There's now 400 different types of Cheerios. And each of those need their own kind of promotional message. So, yeah, it's messaging, but it's also SKUs and products that are completely customized. So we're just completely inundated. So in order to first win the customer's attention, in order to deliver the message that is really important when we talk in product features and whether it's caloric benefit in food or whether it's miles per hour in cars or whatever it is.

Well, everybody's talking about that stuff everybody is talking about speeds and feeds. All those rational arguments like are you kidding me? If I see one more mobile ad that says I get so many minutes for free with the day.

What?

Yeah. Or cars that say a lease payment of 500 as Mr. Or whatever those terms, like I don't even know what this is. It all sounds the same. It all sounds the same. And, and so those things are useless in trying to win that first battle for time. So when I say we, we vote with our we used to vote with the world, now we vote with our time is that I'm willing give time to listen to something that is entertaining enough, relevant enough to me, informative, important enough. Sometimes that's an ad.

And sometimes it's pure play content. It's a streamed show. Often it's stuff that's kind of in that gray area. Is it an ad.

If I'm a big baseball fan? If I'm watching a baseball game and they talk to me about, you know, tuning into the All Star game, is that just content that they're providing to me add value as a baseball fan or are they driving me into another channel so that I can consume more.

Content? Sure.

Yeah. Right. So they're advertising just as much as they're providing content. So. And if it gets too pitch slappy then I go, I'm out. The metaphor to think about for people is, you know when you, when you go to watch YouTube, right? And Google's the client, full disclosure but. And you go to watch YouTube and there's a pre roll ad and then you know, there's the countdown box.

In the corner and you're waiting for the countdown box to get where you can hit the button Skip. Yeah.

Yeah. You're hovering over it, right? You're hovering.

Over. I pay for premium just so I don't have to watch any of that stuff.

So they sold me a different.

Totally, I'm with you a hundred percent. I pay premium. But most people, they're hovering over like can I skip now? Can I skip now? Can I skip now? Can I skip now? They don't even give it a second to see. They're just like, when can I skip it? I think metaphorically the skip ad button appears before every single piece of every single piece of content we consume. It's like, am I, can I skip this? Now you're in a party, a lame conversation with an accountant almost becomes a game. E. What's.

That? So it almost becomes a game to click the.

Button? Yeah. How do I get the hell out. How do I get out of this conversation? How do I skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip. So we just need to win that initial battle for time if we ever want to get the share of.

Wallet. Yeah, well, you know, it makes me think about something that's, and I know you've been a huge, huge resource for Microsoft and how they con reconverted their marketing and kind of what they're doing now. But you know, I believe that one of the reasons that Apple was able to take grain some ground for a number of years was because of the what. Because of what they believed. I got this Steve Jobs thing on my wall back here. You know, here's how this fits. And, and I feel like that.

Right?

Yeah. But Microsoft, when I was buying Microsoft computers as opposed to Macs then was very much like, here's this 17 inch monitor with this CPU of this and this RAM of this. I have no idea what a RAM is. Does it hold my pictures and my music, you know, kind of.

Thing?

Yeah. You know, and to that, to that end, I think that's, that's a key strategy now that obviously you're implementing everywhere you go and all the folks you work with. But I'm curious to know, like, you know, I know you work with a lot of big brands, right? And you've been very successful at it. You've been very successful at helping them communicate their beliefs and their values in a much more succinct and clear way, which obviously helps us as a consumer because it kind of helps us separate the noise, which is fantastic. But when we're talking to the everyday entrepreneur who's maybe, maybe hasn't busted the eight figure ceiling yet or seven figure ceiling just yet, and they're, and they're trying to decipher where, where do I market. It sounds like you're saying before you decide where you market, you need to decide how you market. But I'm curious to know what, what's the difference between what they would do versus one of these big brands would do to cut through the.

Noise? Yeah, I, I think it's easier for them. I think, you know, I think for metaphorically that business is kind of if we think of like Times Square, right? Like on the top part of Times Square, those, those big really expensive billboards and you got to be, it's, they're really expensive. You got to be there. Now the, the reality though, for the big brands of the world who can afford to be up top, they're actually further removed from the reality of the street and and because it's so expensive to place a billboard, well, there's more eyeballs on it. And because there's more eyeballs on it, it becomes lowest common denominator of messaging. Because there's more eyeballs on it. They like round the edges a little bit everything. And they want it to sound perfect. It becomes a little bit too polished and they completely lose their authenticity. So they can do things at scale, they have budgets that smaller organizations can't. But what can small organizations do that they can't? They can be way more targeted. They can be way more authentic. They can be. They can control the activation of those beliefs. Because they got a team of six.

People.

Yeah. It's so much easier. Whereas, you know, if you go into big multinational brand, they got thousands of employees who are all exp. Like every single day, every single one of those employees is going to live up to that purpose. No, someone's.

Going. Elon learned that the hard.

Way. Yes, right. Yeah, exactly that. We've seen this with entrepreneurs who come into great power and they go, what? You know when you see when an entrepreneur goes into public office, not naming any names, but they get. But it's happened on both sides of the border. But they get really frustrated because they don't understand that big enterprise and big government works in a completely different way. And they can't just make a decision and implement it. There's too many.

People.

Yeah. So those small organizations. So I think the. One of the things that they can do, follow the thing to say, so one walk away from mission and vision and North Star and behead. People have got 25 different terms and they. Because they think that's what they're supposed to do. They took an MBA or they did a minute MBA course and they go, I gotta establish my vision. My vision, my values, my purpose, my value. You know, my value prop. They go through every single thing. They've got a book on it. And then you go, what does it mean? And they go.

I don't.

Know. See, I think that's this. I think that's the interesting piece, because I don't think the exercise is bad as long as it actually is taking you somewhere. And I don't know about you, but I've been through a thousand different offices before. Core values on the wall. And it's very clear the entire company is not operating on the core values, which tells me that the leadership team is not functioning on the core values or preaching or teaching or educating or empowering or any number of things. So I totally get what you're saying there for.

100%. Yeah. You know what typically happens in that is. And I've been in the room a million times, is somebody at senior leadership goes to a resort on a lake north of the city that they operate in, right? They go up, they're like, we're going to this Happy Valley place. And they go in the boardroom, they huddle around a flip chart, and someone goes, light, we need values. And Sam was like, I hear accountability is good. I like my family. That's okay. Yeah, right? They go, oh, yeah, we're a family. Okay. Oh, we're gonna write that down. Right? And they write it on the flip chart, and then they go, okay, we got performance, accountability, creativity. And they go, oh, man, if only we had an E. We could spell pace, energy, and yes, right. And they go, that's it. Energy. Oh, yeah, yeah. Great, Great, Mary. Now we got pace. And they get a marathoner to set the pace. They write the posters, we set the.

Pace. You're like, all that stuff, it's all.

Fake. It's all completely.

Fake.

Yeah. The reality is, you're right to what you said earlier. It's not that you don't go through the exercise, but in terms of values. I should not read your values. I should experience your.

Value. Exactly.

Exactly. Experience your values through the actions and behaviors of you and your.

People.

Yeah. And so if I'm a smaller, you know, entrepreneur, owner, operator, I know that it's easier for me to have people live those values. So I have a fundamental brand belief. I believe in something. This is why we're in business. Or to you Simon Sinek fans, the why you do what you do. Okay. And by the way, that is strategically linked to what you.

Sell.

Yeah. It's not like, what's the latest cause? We believe in saving the planet. Well, it's human rights. Now. We believe in saving human rights. That's. You're just picking.

Causes. You're just cherry picking causes and you're selling lipstick. Yeah.

Yeah. It's not purpose. Purpose is strategically linked to what you sell. So we create this line that is very simple, takes all that stuff and is we believe that, or we believe this. So we do this by doing this. Yeah, it's that simple. Three bubbles. We believe this, so we do this by doing this. Now you've got that. That's all you need. Now you go, okay, we. We understand what we fundamentally think. We understand what we fundamentally do. Now the say. Then we just literally start to go through it. Okay, what do we say? We say this is what we believe, and this is what we do. Okay, where do we say it or who do we say it to? Well, we say it to the person who's our key target. Okay, what do we know about them? Like, where are they looking for research and where are they spending their time? Okay, well, that's where we should probably say it. How should we say it? Well, what kind of tonality is authentic with our brand and our personality? And in a way that really connects with them and differentiates us in the category, that's how we say it. When should we say it? There's your content calendar. There's your media plan. You know, like, it's really that simple. And then kill it and bill it, get it done, get it out the door. And, you know, people are so afraid to take risks now that they're like, what if this fails? You know what, in this market, if it fails, it probably means. Because nobody saw.

It. Yeah, very.

True. Sounds like a pretty good time to.

Fail. I was also thinking, too, that another pivot off of that. If you can. If you can ultimately clarify your core beliefs and values, and they're in their real and they're authentic. If you're really trying to build that into your organization, into your marketing, everything else, it also needs to become the lens that you hire people through. Like, when you sit down with them, you're like, this is what we believe. This is what we stand for. This is how we go. This is how we're actually bringing it to market. And I think that's different than, hey, we have this vision, this mission statement, this set of core values are all on the wall. I hope you like it. You kind of tap it on the way in as you're sitting them down. And, you know, that kind of thing, which I think is a huge, huge difference. In fact, one of the things that you said in the book that I love, and I'll read this exactly. Believe in something, even if it matters. Sacrificing everything. I absolutely love that, because I don't feel like a lot of people going back to that fear thing will do what's so authentic that they'll turn business away. Not realizing that they turn business away. It will get them more.

Business. Yeah. That was the line from the Nike Colin Kaepernick ad. Right. It was like, believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything. And that in business terms, it's kind of like, you know, I think it's the. The old.

I think it was Bill Bernbach. Yeah, Bill Bernbach. Who said, a principle is only a principle when it costs you money. That is. I mean, it's really easy to say we believe in this. You know, I talk in culture.

Cookie. I can't. I can't throw so much.

Shade.

Yeah, but when you're challenged, you're like, this is what we. We really do believe this, and we're going to take a hit for it Then, then, now. And this is the reason why I think Quiet Quit or the Great Resignation kind of started at the beginning of the pandemic was there were so many organizations who had paraded out these values and beliefs, and then push came to shove. They clearly didn't believe in.

Them.

Yeah. And people.

Walked. Yeah, that's very true. You know, it's interesting, the. Your book does a phenomenal job of laying out all the concepts we're talking about in order, in a strategic way in which somebody could actually take your book and then implement it in their. In their business pretty quickly. But one of the things I wanted to kind of do is you. You have this concept. You say customers don't want you to be reactive. They want you to be proactive. And I think there's some. That's a huge principle from what I'm seeing in the marketplace, specifically in regards to building trust and authenticity. Can you give me some examples of maybe some of the clients that you work with? Maybe you don't give the names of the clients per se, that maybe were doing it wrong, that you helped them position it.

Correctly? Yeah, there's, there's, you know, if you think of a metaphor to think about, there is, in any professional sport, the referee, if you see the referee, if you notice the referee, if the referee gets attention, it's probably because you're not doing a great.

Job.

Yeah. And so the best referee or umpire in any sport is the one you don't even think about. They just quietly go about, and all the focus is on the players. They just. You don't think about them. They're. It's not about them. They just do their job in the best way possible. And there are so many organizations who are. Make it about the customer experience or make it about the customer service service where I'm responding to a complaint. And this is how we go about it. Right. And they, they make that the thing that they want to be famous for when the reality is like, you should have solved that problem in the first place. Yeah, it's kind of, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's creating an. This Is, I think, the difference between customer experience and customer service. Customer service is often reactive in a way that, like, we will respond to your complaints in a timely and efficient way. Customer experience means that they never actually complain about it because it just works. And so being really proactive means that you're building systems so that you don't. It just works for people. It's seamless. It's exactly how they want it. It does everything it's supposed to do. And, you know, they. They. It. It's really efficient for them in so many different products we consume.

And we've. We've happened. We've worked on this with a number of clients where you go through that customer journey and you find out that when the pro. When the consumer buys the product, they create what we call a workaround, right? They're like, well, I need the product to do this, but I just do this thing, right? I just. Oh, I just copy and paste it from here to here, and I do it this way. And I got my own little workaround, and it.

Works.

Yeah. And the consumer might think they're smart, and you may not even notice it because they're not complaining about it because they figured out how to do it until another brand comes along and they don't need the workaround anymore. That often all these great innovations are things that have just identified what the workaround was and they've eliminated it. They just solved that problem, and it's a way better experience. I think the best example right now is there's a baseball team called the Savannah Bananas. Have you heard of the Savannah.

Banana? No, I haven't.

Okay. This is amazing. Case study. Jesse Cole's the owner, bought this team very quickly. Bought this team in Savannah, Georgia, does a name contest. What are we gonna name this whole bunch of people? Submit. Someone says, the Bananas. Savannah Bananas. Which is a great handle.

Right? I love it.

Yeah. So he just starts to go through the customer experience, the customer journey. What do people hate about baseball teams and going to see baseball? And he just identifies the workaround or the problem, solves it. They hate a stadium filled with ads. He goes, no more ads. They go, food's too expensive. He goes, you know what? One price, one ticket. All you can eat food. There's no food prices. All you can eat everything, right?

But then he realizes something really important. And think of this in terms of category. So within category, there are ways and rules that all businesses in that category operate. Within baseball, there's a rule. If you hit a foul ball into the stands and you get to strike until you hit strike two, and you just keep hitting foul balls. What he decided was baseball can be boring for people. We're going to make it more interesting. If you hit a foul ball into the stands and a fan catches it, you're out. Now that. That is possible in baseball because the rest of the category is going that, no, that's not the rules that we play by. So he said, fine, I'm leaving the category. I'm leaving the league. I'm going to write my own rules for something, and I'm going to only exist as a one, you know, one team that will play other teams and just completely change the rules. You can't bunt for the Savannah Binet. You cannot bunt. It's illegal. If you get walked, you actually have to run to first base, and you can keep running until they tag you out if you want. So he. He really realized to really be exceptional, he had to leave the category because he didn't want to play by the same rules as everybody else. That to me.

Absolutely brilliant. And by the way, you cannot get a.

Ticket.

I was gonna ask you. I was gonna have that work out. I mean, it sounds like. It sounds like a crumble concept to me. You know, I remember one of the time I went to an NFL game one time, and because of the TV timeouts and the ads, it was like they'd play. They'd. They'd pause for five minutes and they'd run another play and then pause for their five minutes and run another play. And I'm like, I'm bored. It's probably why I ended up watching hockey, because at least the puck's moving all the time on a consistent basis.

So. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Well, before I get into a couple more questions, I'm curious, where can everybody get the. Get. Get the book at as of right now? Because.

It'S. It.

Is. I'm. I'm enjoying it thoroughly myself. Like I said, I've got it. I got a print copy now, as well as the audiobook. I personally like the audiobook just for fun, because there's a lot of fun stuff in it. But. So we're here about a game of.

That. Yeah, you can get it wherever you get your books. It's available. Published through page two. And yeah, it's. It's available everywhere. Including the audio. The audio version. It's all.

Available. Yeah, I figured as much. But, you know, I never like to always like to share and ask, you.

Know. Yeah.

Totally.

Yeah. Thank you. There's so. Well, there's so many different ways to buy and consume books now that. Yeah, you know, some people are just like, I'm doing audio only for this next one or whatever. There's just so many unique ways to do.

It. Yeah, we've had a couple of, a few folks on that were just, you know, they're super close to some tight, you know, book environments. You know, national retailers are awesome. That's obviously their huge partner when we write books and stuff. But you know, a smaller bookstore in their hometown or something like that, so, you know, go pick one up from over here as well kind of thing. So I always like to ask that.

Question. But yeah, I like to support the independence where.

Possible. Yeah, for sure. Well, all right. So one of my other questions is this, and I thought this is pretty profound. You said it's not as important kind of about what you do as, as most important about who you do it with. Where were you coming from in that concept? What kind of led you? Because I thought that was pretty.

Profound. Well, we often, you know, it's like the customer, the customer, the customer, the customer. And yeah, sure, that's your source of revenue and you know, that's your focus of acquisition and, and, and loyalty. Sure, I get that. But you know, the economy is, or the, the kind of business environment has shifted in a way that were. On one hand, yes, there's convergence, convergence, convergence in many other ways of organizations. You're just massively acquiring organizations, the entire food chain and kind of doing it all under one umbrella. On the other hand, there's another kind of school of thought which is like increased specialization. Like we're only going to do the thing that we do and then we're going to bring in partners. The reality is the end consumer pays for it all. Like they're funding everything. Yeah, they're funding everything. They buy that box of cereal, they are funding the ad agency that does that, the design shop, the media shop, or the, their funding everything. Yeah, it's just back end accounting of who gets a share of that dollar or that five bucks or.

Whatever.

Yeah. And the legal firm gets a certain percentage and the ad agent gets a certain percentage and the brand manager gets a certain. It's all just back end accounting. And the end consumer doesn't really care who, who, who does what and who's owned by who. You know, there's a metaphor I'll use often which is like, I don't know, you know, when the Grateful Dead was around, I don't know who was an equity member. I don't Know who got songwriting money. All I know is like every once in a while, Bruce Hornsby showed up and played piano. Yeah, there was just this collection of people that got together who were bound by a certain a purpose and a series of values. And what do I care? I paid one ticket to go see them. And they're going to divvy up the money like however the hell they want. And so customers may come and go, but those partners who allow you to do the thing that you do on a regular basis, the partners who share your values, the partners who can sometimes deliver business back to you, who act on your behalf, that we have to treat those partners with the same care and respect, if not more than the end customer, because those people are with us through the entire journey. Through many of our relationships, the customer is really just the relationship of one. And we pride ourselves in that. You know, like most ad agencies, we, you know, have a bench strength of freelancers that we use on an ongoing basis that are kind of extensions of our team. And when we put them in a meeting, they act on our behalf and they share our values. We, we. Well, we may not give them benefits like we do our full time employees. We certainly invite them to our summer parties and certainly, you know, get them in on certain fun.

Things.

They're. They're part of the.

Team. Yeah. No, I love that. No, I, you know, reason I ask is because a lot of times that that's. If the entrepreneur is aimed in the wrong direction, they're only focused on revenue, growing revenue. They're not focused on community, they're not focused on team, they're not focused on their, their, you know, really what they're building beliefs are, you know, I love it. You did several case studies throughout the book, which I absolutely love, and you kind of broke down Red Bull, which I kind of really appreciated it, you know, kind of that kind of concept. Maybe with a few minutes that we got left, maybe walk me through one example of the process that maybe you would maybe walk someone through in determining some of this. I know a 30,000 foot level and maybe even tell us, you know, who your ideal client is in case some of our audience is in your pipeline that would want to work with.

You. Well, thanks. Yeah, I think I'll give you a quick example. Answer the second question first. We have both, like, yes, we have big enterprise clients who do a variety of different work for.

You know, Google, Walmart, Worth, Santana College, which is the college close by, and a number of other great clients. We also work with.

A number of Clients, many of whom are in the US who come to us and they kind of get that like, like we're in the, we're now, we're doing a lot of work with private equity group who has this series of companies in their portfolio. And they've all gone through this. Like, we've just acquired three companies and now we're going, now what, like, what does that mean to what we fundamentally believe? How do we bring all these people together? The same part? Should we have the same name? Like, how do we talk about it to the market? And what's the brand hierarchy and the architecture, you know, of all these brands coming together? And so we do a lot of, probably, probably a third of our revenue is those short term, six month assignments where they go, can you just come in and help us figure this new brand story.

Out?

Yeah. And that's like, it's a kind of, you know, 100 to $150,000 project kind of thing. And then, and we're in. It's really strategic and we kind of create all that stuff and then we, we go or we hang around and do more work for them. But that's where we do a.

Lot of work these days when they do those types of. I'm just out of curiosity about how, what is the average lifespan of the brand work, knowing that the market and the economy and everything shifts, or is the brand always stay consistent because that's who the brand.

Is. Yeah, there's, there is a pivot that we take. We're like, okay, given this new structure because often, you know, your smaller organizations are like, they start as an owner, operator some, you know, sometimes maybe their name is on that. We just finished one where the guy's name was on the.

Door.

Yeah. And it's like, oh, I've acquired four other companies. Is got to be more than the.

Name.

Yeah. And so there's this really crucial point in time where it wasn't built for flexibility in the beginning. It was all to do with the.

Person.

Yeah. So when we come in, we recraft everything and we build it for flexibility so that other things can kind of, you know, be added on in the future. So in terms of brand name and brand, you know, logos and colors and palettes and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. They should last a very long.

Time.

Yeah. Maybe with some tweaks to update color palette or, you know, slight style, but no, they should last 5, 10, 15, 20.

Years. Yeah, I just want to bring that up because a lot of. I'm thinking about the earlier, earlier Stage guys, there's seven and eight figures, right? They, in theory, if, if they really wanted to commit to the process that you guys do so well, I mean, you guys do a terrific job in the marketplace. You know, if they go and invest 100, 150, $200,000 into, into a project like this and, you know, if they think that they're have to redo it every 10 years or three years or five years, stuff like. Exactly. That's kind of what this is. Like. Once you super clarify who this, who this brand is and what you guys stand for, stand against and then how you're going to tell people what you stand for and stand against, your tribe is going to find.

You.

Yeah. You know, but at least for me, in building my first business, it took me 10 years to figure that out. I did it on my own, which is why it took me so stinking long. And I wasted millions of dollars the first 10 years trying to, you know, trying to stumble my way there. So from me to you, I encourage anyone who's in, who's in the kind of the matrix that you kind of just laid out to work with you guys, because you do. You guys do do a phenomenal job in the marketplace. You guys have a fantastic.

Reputation. Oh, thank you. I really, I really appreciate.

That.

Absolutely. To answer that first question of, like a quick example, this is the most recent one. We didn't do it, but it's, it's universal enough that everybody knows it, so. And I don't. And they certainly didn't use our language or specifically our process. I don't know how they went about it, but General Motors just went through a really big shift now. So let's look at why would General Motors want to revisit their brand? Okay. There's a couple of different reasons. One, they still got that stink from 2008, 2009, when they showed up begging for money on their own private jet. Right. Okay. So they still got that going for them. The car market has fundamentally changed with the.

Rise. It's very different now, right?

Yeah. So EVs are going through the roof. Completely different ride sharing going through the roof. Way new, important or fundamentally easier ways to rent cars.

People are looking for completely different types of cars. Leasing arrangements are going through the roof. So the entire category of getting from point A to point B has fundamentally shifted. Okay. So the market has completely changed. So they go back and they revisit things. What do they fundamentally believe? They rewrite their purpose. And they don't go, our purpose is to move People from like they or they don't go. Our purpose is to move.

People. Our purpose is to put people in.

Cars. Yeah, right. It's like, you know, you have to believe in something that goes beyond your product to build in the.

Flexibility.

Yeah. So their line was we stand together to drive the world forward. So it was about progress and it was about their role in driving progress through what they do. Now, of course, it has to be linked to where they make their money, which is making cars. So they think. What do they think? They think that we should stand together to drive the world forward. Okay, great. What do they do to reinforce it? GM took a look at their entire ecosystem and said a couple of things. One, we're going to drive the world forward by increasing the product EVs in our product portfolio. They're going to have 14 EVs in their portfolio. Secondly, we're going to use our size and scale for good. Thirdly, we're going to create and increase the diversity of our team so that we guarantee that we get different perspectives in the car buying journey. We're going to create a customer experience for people that is not based in a model that was created in the 1950s. We're going to fundamentally redraft and recreate our customer experience. So they do, do, do all these things now. How do you talk about it? Well, one way was they could have changed the name, which they didn't. But remember that old logo, it.

Was that caps G. Caps G and the M.

Yeah. The underline underneath it with that blue that you just smell the carburetor on. It's like. It just seems so old and so.

Cocky.

Yeah. And so then what do they do? They completely refresh their id so they, they contemporize the blue so it's a way more contemporary blue. They take the G and the M and they move them to the lowercase. So a lowercase G. A lowercase M. And if you look in the negative space of the M, it's an electric plug in there. So they've. The way they talk about the brand from the logo representing this new profound way of thinking is completely consistent. Now we, we know what they believe. And then from a line they don't go to the market with, we stand together to drive the world forward. That's a strategy line. That's internal language. What do they say? They say everybody in. But it's two.

Words.

Yeah. That completely describes everything. They now stand for everybody in. I absolutely love it. And it's really early in their journey, I think. They just did it last summer. Yeah. And maybe it's. They're. They're leading with the.

Say.

Yeah. But it's got my attention that I want to, I want to keep following.

It. Yeah. I mean, as a side note, I think even Ford right now, their new CEO has been talking about either overhauling how the distributor's car lots are or bringing those all in house in order so they can control the customer journey and the experience. Because I think they also became aware of in the car buying journey that people were scared to step on a lot because you're scared to have to haggle and negotiate and like, you know, all that kind of.

Stuff. And you're right. Yeah. I just did.

Four engagements with four dealers nationally. Four groups of. Four dealers. Four massive groups of four dealers. And you're right, they are fundamentally changing their guest experience. They're going to call in customer experience, a guest experience. And because it is, it is that treatment, it's such a weird mental shift. Right. It's like if you go, the customers walking in, then you're like, I'm going to pitch slap them. But when it's like, oh, no, this is a guest who's coming in.

Yeah. It's like, do you want a bottle of water? Do you like. It's, it's.

You.

Yeah. How you treat them at your.

House. Yeah. So Ford is also doing it. Really respect what they're.

Doing. Yeah. I absolutely love it. Dude, we're out of time. Ron, I have thoroughly enjoyed our time together. I encourage everybody to go learn more about what you're doing, the book and all that good stuff. If there's any way we can be of service, please let us.

Know. Stephen, this is a. You're so good at what you do. Thank you. And what a great conversation. I've really enjoyed my.

Time. All right, take care. See.

You. Okay, see.

You. I hope you liked that video. And if you did, make sure you check out this next video right.

Here. The first place to start in terms of letting go and surrender is the willingness to tell the truth. Many times we stay stuck, we stay blocked, we stay cycling in patterns because we've been conditioned to lie to ourselves.