Transcript
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Welcome back to be tob growth.
I'm Dan Sanchezz sweetfish media. Today I'm
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joined with Edward Nevermont, who is
a senior advisor at Warburg Pincus and author
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of marketing BS. How's it going
today, Edward? I'm great. How
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are you, Dan? I'm doing
well. Thanks for making the time to
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record this episode. Today we want
to talk about your new book, Marketing
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Bs, but before we do I
wanted to dive a little bit into your
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background. So can you give our
listeners a little bit of context before we
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dive into the topic of your book
today? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm
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Canadian, so I guess that makes
me a little bit boring, but friendly
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at least. I moved down to
the US two thousand and nine. I
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met my wife here and have my
family here. We live up in Seattle
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and this is kind of my new
home. So I feel I feel more
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and more like this is this is
the place where I'm going to live.
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I originally came here in two thousand
and five. I came down to Warton
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Business School, spent a couple of
years here and then went back and kind
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of traveled the world work for McKenzie
and company. The consulting firm and I
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was single at the time, so
I just traveled around the world helping out
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clients. So I spend time in
Australia, spend a year in Africa,
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some time in Denmarks, some time
and in England and Netherlands and a kind
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of found that what was interesting is
even though the world was very, very
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different, they all had this problem
of just people chasing junk and wasting their
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time doing stuff. At Wart and
I learned all these advanced marketing techniques from
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some of the smartest professors in the
world and I was super excited to go
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and apply that stuff when I got
to Mackenzie. And what I found when
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I actually got there was they didn't
need the advanced, super fancy marketing techniques
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I was learning from academics at Warton. They just needed to stop doing dumb
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stuff and start doing the basics right. I remember I was doing one project
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with a company that we were trying
to reduce churn rate and we got it
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working across multiple countries and those one
country where all of our work wasn't working.
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We had built these algorithms predict who
is likely to churn and then we
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were sending messages out with targeted message
to those people and it was working everywhere.
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One Country it wasn't working. So
I sent my analyst of that country
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and he was a diving in trying
to figure out, like, what was
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special about this country that it wasn't
working. What? What did these consumers
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know? How are these consumers different? How was the competition different? How
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is the environment different? What was
the history? Was Our algorithm working?
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And he was. He spent,
he said, weeks. They're trying to
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figure it out and it turned out
the problem was that they're their machine that
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sent the SMS is out was just
not plugged in and wasn't sending messages out.
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And so much a business is the
problem of it's not your algorithm isn't
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good enough or your sophisticated marketing strategies
wrong, it's you haven't plugged in the
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friggin machine, and getting those basics
right is often the most important thing and
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all the other stuff becomes a distraction. And so I've taken that since then
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and use that in weren't kind of
companies I've been at. So I went
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to after I left Mackenzie, I
went to expedia and ran their global email
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program and again focusing on the basics, and what a difference it made.
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I went to company called a place
for mom that we helped turn around this
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business, brought it from forty million
dollars losing five million dollars a year two
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hundred and eighty million with twenty percent
even of margins, and all that time
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didn't do any fancy things at all. In fact, any fancy thing we
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did do ended up being a disaster
and all of the impact came from just
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getting these basics stuff right. I
left a place your mom and went to
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General Assembly, where I ran sales
and marketing globally, and just repeated the
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process again. Stop doing the fancy
stuff, take our advertising on stapchack filters
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down to zero and improve our quality
of paid search, improve our contact time
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when customers call, and you focus
on a lot of these basic stuff.
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It's not sexy it, it's not
really awesome to talk about a cocktail parties
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or podcasts, but man, it
makes money and and it improves the customer
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experience and makes the world better for
a lot of people. So I can
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see where it's going and I could
see even in your your career progression,
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it's developing a sense and a belief
that led to you writing BS marketing.
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So tell us, like, what
is BS marketing? What how would you
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define it and how do you spot
it out there in the wild? Yeah,
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so it's interesting. I'm not even
sure I love the title of my
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book. It's marketing BS, because
I it's definitely not people interpreted as a
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marketing is BS and there's lots of
people writing how marketings BS and marketing does
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damage the world and Mark Zuckerberger is
a terrible human being and that. That's
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not my argument at all. Like
I'm not arguing that marketing is bad.
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In fact, I spent my career
in marketing and I think marketing is adding
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tens of value to the world.
I think build a better mouse trap and
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they'll be the path your door.
Is the greatest lie I ever told to
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an entrepreneur. If you don't communicate
your product and get it in front of
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the right people at the right time, no one is going to be interested.
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And if your product is good,
presumably if you're trying to sell it,
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you think it's good, then you
want to make sure you're communicating it
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effectively. That's what marketing is all
about. I think the problem with marketing
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is not that marketing is bad.
I think that there's a lot of bad
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marketing and that's kind of what the
book is about. The book is about
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all the bad marketing that's out there
and why it's out there and and then
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what to do about it instead.
As a professional marketer, I always I
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always kind of take it always makes
me happy when I see how much bad
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marketing is out there right I'm like, oh, that's job security right there.
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There's just so much bad marketing out
there and I see it all the
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time. Why is it? Why
is it become the almost the norm for
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the industry to have so much bad
marketing floating around? I think there's a
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so that's the book. That's majority
of what the book is about. I
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think there's a few kind of core
reasons. Like the most of the biggest
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ones, I think, are there's
an incentive problem, and so I used
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it the metaphor of your car mechanic. If you want to go to a
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car mechanic, how do you know
if your car mechanic is any good?
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Well, if you're really good at
repairing cars, you can probably assess the
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quality of a car mechanic. But
presumably most of us aren't really good at
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repairing cars, which is why we
go to car mechanics. And given that
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I'm not an expert car mechanic,
how do I tell the difference between a
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bad one, a good one and
a great one? Well, you can
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probably tell the difference between bad and
good, because if they're really terrible,
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they can't repair your car, and
so even a non expert knows that.
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But what's the difference in a good
car mechanic and a great car mechanic?
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I know I couldn't tell the difference. And so how do I evaluate my
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car mechanics? I evaluate them on
things like, Hey, are they good
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enough to actually do something? Are
They not bad? And then do they
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have good customer service? Have they
done a good not like a slimy sales
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job, but a good sales job
and communicated be what their services are,
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the good follow up, and it
becomes like all these soft things that have
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absolutely nothing to do with their ability
to repair cars and everything to do with
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their their professionalism. I think I'd
much rather have a nonprofessional, awesome car
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mechanic work on my car, but
I don't know how to identify that person,
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and so instead I use professionalism,
as might the siding factor, for
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for repairing cars. The same thing
is happening in marketing. So if you
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go to a marketing I have friends
who are marketing vendors or at Red Marketing
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Agencies, and all of them are
good people and all of them are want
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to do good and they often times
they start out building these marketing they they
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realize they're good at market and they
found it a way to do marketing well
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and so they say, m rather
than just do this at one company,
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I'm going to sell us to multiple
companies. But once they become a marketing
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vendor, they quickly realize that no
one gives a crap how good the marketing
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is, that there have this awesome, great marketing. If they want to
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grow their marketing agency, they don't
need to get better at marketing, they
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need to get better at sales and
they need to get better at customer service.
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Sales will help them get more customers
in the door and customer service will
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help their customer stick around. And
none of their customers care about whether they're
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marketing is awesome. And so these
marketing vendors are doing that to marketing professionals
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all around the world and it's just
the their individual marketing vendors who are really
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good at their jobs. But we
don't know who those people are, anymore
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than we don't we know who the
good garage mechanics are inside the marketing companies.
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We have a different in set in
problems. So now you say,
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if I'm in the company, I
don't care about all it stuff. I
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care about doing good for my company. But that's not the way most humans
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actually operate. Most humans are good
care about themselves and when you get to
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a big company that becomes like a
political game within the organization and even at
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the CMO level. Back when I
was a CMO full time, I get
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recruited to be a CMO from headhunters
all the time, and when that happened,
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the first question I always get asked
was not how good was your marketing
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and can you show us how great
your Roi was? They want to know
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how big was your budget and how
big was your team. And so if
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you're a CMO and you want to
get a bigger CMO job and make more
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money and have more prestigion more status, how do you do that? It's
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not by getting better at marketing,
it's by getting a bigger marketing team and
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getting a bigger marketing budget. Now, one way to do that might be
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to be good at marketing. Is
You really good at marketing, maybe your
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CFO and you seeo give you a
bigger budget. But it's really not the
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only way and it's definitely not the
easiest with, especially in the large organizations,
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were measuring the impact of marketing is
really hard. Oh and, by
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the way, who decides what?
Who measures the impact of the marketing?
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That the CEMODA. So the CMO
is like judging their own work and it's
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very easy for them to say the
mark is better than it looks. And
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see if this is sent a problem
where the marketers who are running the companies
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want to create things that give them
status and prestige so they can get promoted
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and get bigger jobs, and then
very visible things, visible things, is
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what matters. You have marketing vendors
who are more than happy supply that and
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you have very few people who really
care about doing good marketing and you've a
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lot of people care about doing visible
marketing that get that drives their own their
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drifts, their own success. And
that's just the incentive problem. There's a
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whole other series of problems beyond that. Yeah, I mean I could definitely
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see it be even beyond just the
individuals, but marketing agencies. If you
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look at the incentive of a marketing
agency is to stand out and get more
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clients rather than just drive the best
results for their clients, right. So
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like it's almost stacked, stacked against
the people they're actually representing. Sometimes,
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even though I mean even sweetfish media
as an agency. Hopefully we're trying to
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beat against that somewhat, but sometimes
the incentives fly in such a way that
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marketing is mass. Is supposed to
be persuasion, but sometimes can become a
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little bit of manipulation in order to
achieve a different end than you would think.
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So once you're out there in the
world, like how do you recognize
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that that's happening with when you're starting, when you if you have a need
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as a company, like how do
you recognize the difference between the Good Marketing
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in the bad marketing out there?
Say, I'm looking for a new CRM
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system, like how would I recognize
whether a company is actually good or not?
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It's really hard. It's not.
It's how do you know what your
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car mechanics is good? Right,
like. I think part of it is
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being a strong enough marketer yourself that
you can identify who else is good and
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use marketing agencies for for exact example, or the markers on your team that
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you're overseeing, but your hires,
and use them on things that you know
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yourself, and so you know what's
good and what isn't and it's a matter
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of getting them to help you execute
those things rather than trying to figure out
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those things. But that's also not
the way to go through life. Like
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you do need to trust people,
that you do need to learn from other
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people and you can't just do it
all yourself. And so there's no real
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great answer apart from know something really, really well and if you know it
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really, really well, you can
talk to other people about the parts that
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you know really well and if they're
giving you legit answers on the stuff that
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you know really well, then hopefully
you can trust them with the stuff that
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they're not. I use the example
of like reading media. Most of the
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time, when I read a newspaper
but something I don't know, it all
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sounds very legit and reasonable, and
then I'll read the newspaper but something that
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I know really, really well that
they go deep in and ninety percent of
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the time I'm like, they have
no idea what they're talking about. This
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is terrible, this is not they
they they're just completely completely wrong, and
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not even they're so wrong they don't
even like the not don't even with the
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actual real issues are. It makes
you doubt, like all the other things
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you're reading in those newspapers. If
you can find a newspaper that were that
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doesn't happen for the things that you
know really well, then maybe you can
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trust them a little bit more about
the stuff that you don't. It's one
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of the reasons why I love The
economist so much. When the economists covers
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something that I know really well,
I I read it and say that's that's
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Vanal and not interesting, but usually
correct. And so when they cover something
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that I don't know well, I
I feel like it can trust them a
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lot more than the many other other
papers, and so I think when you're
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assessing other people and their expertise,
I think something along those lines is probably
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the right answer. I read something
on your just kind of the marketing page
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for your book, as I was
learning, like learning about your book and
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about yourself, but for this this
interview and it was said like don't trust
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the Gurus, which is interesting to
me because a lot of people, if
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they're not sure about what decision to
make, they often go to their favorite
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gurus out there, that experts,
their thought leaders, in order to try
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to make the more informed decision.
So what what's you're thinking behind being careful
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to trust that experts out there?
Again, it comes down to what those
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incentives are right. So the same
probably have a marketing practitioners and vendors around
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incentives. Like there's a whole other
setup incentive problems around Guru's. Grews get
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credit for saying radical things, exciting
things, and most exciting radical things are
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not correct. Some of them are, but just because something's exciting and radical
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doesn't make it more likely to be
correct. In fact, probably makes it
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less likely to be correct. But
grews who are saying non exciting, interesting
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things are not going to be grews
very long. That that's a problem.
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I like. Our human brain is
very condition to love Shiny, complex complexity.
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In our brain, we see something
that's complex, we're more likely to
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think it's correct. There's a great
scientific study that was done then is back
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in the S. and what the
researcher did is he took subjects and put
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them in a room with like this
is a back before computers, like it
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was like one of those like full
scap projectors. They projected images onto the
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wall and they showed who show the
pictures of cells, and the subject had
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to ask, just guess randomly whether
the cell was a healthy cell or an
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unhealthy cell, a six cell,
and if they got it right, they
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were told was right. If they
got it incorrect, they just told it
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incorrect. And based on that fast
feedback, eventually it people, subjects were
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able to get more and more correct. They were able to get more and
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more of the cells. They were
more they're able to guess which ones were
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sick, which ones are incre or
healthy, higher, higher accuracy, basic,
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using some simple rules based on the
feedback they're getting. That was the
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control group. In the test group, they did the same thing, only
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instead of giving them legitimate feedback,
they effectively just gave them random feedback,
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and so they're the simple rules just
didn't make sense because it'd create like a
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rule for themselves and they have to
like these convoluted explanations in their head to
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explain this random feedback they were getting
back then with the experiment? Or did
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you put the two subjects in the
same room together and had them teach each
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other what they learned and the person
at the simple rules, who was getting
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things very, very correct, explain
their simple rules and the person who had
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these were getting the random feedback,
would explain its super, super complicated rules,
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and the hope was that, hey, the simple rule guy would be
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like, Hey, this is actually
very, very easy. USY simple rules
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and you can figure it out.
But what happened was the reverse is,
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instead of the simple rule person convincing
the complex rule person of the need for
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simplicity, the complex real person convinced
the simple rule person that is simple rules
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were not complex enough and need to
add complexity. And that's how how difficult
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this whole thing was. And when
they went back to their rooms again to
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use the experiments, the complex person
continue to be terrible accuracy and the simple
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person now got a lot worse.
They were like infected by this complexity virus.
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We love complexity. Human beings are
just we're primed for it. We're
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prime for shiny objects and complexity,
and so grews feed us what we want
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and that's how they're successful, but
doesn't necessarily you. It's not going to
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make you successful by by falling for
the complexity. Man, that's fascinating something
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I'm even thinking about as I follow
a number of different people to start watching
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for our like, oh my goodness, how many times have I fallen for
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that? And I specialize in Seo
and marketing automation, where you cannot get
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more complex than two of those topics
right there, and I'm like, how
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many times I'm I'm remembering now,
like how many times I've even tried to
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implement it some fairly complicated Seo tactics
versus and marketing automation. You know webs
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that you can weave, and I'm
like, you know what, the simpler
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they were, the better they were. Almost every single time. It's not
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to knock that there's not technical issues, because there are. There are lots
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and lots of and SEO particularly,
there's lots and lots of technical things you
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need to do. But oftentimes the
answer isn't conceptually hard, it's operationally hard.
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Yep, it's great and process to
make them all, make blood post
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after blod post is hard to execute. Versus the actual technical part of it.
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That's exactly right, and like getting
that operational part, doing that operational
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part well is really, really hard. Takes a lot of effort and a
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lot of time, and too many
people don't do that because it sounds boring
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and it's just like it's execution work
and they get distracted by the magic bullet
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that's going to solve all their problems
if they can go and do this fancy,
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fancy thing, and the fancy thing
that the magic boat sometimes works but
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most of the time it doesn't,
and the distraction of going after that magic
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bullet as you miss all the important
hard work that needs to happen or to
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be successful. I'm a friend of
mine is a SEO consultant and his big
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win is he just comes in and
fit gets their time to first bite down
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and like if you get their time
to first bike down to it like to
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know a seconds or whatever the time
cut off is. He's like you get
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an improven INN SEO in the first
three weeks, and everything else he does,
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which takes a long time and it's
lots of feedback and so on,
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is almost like gravy on the fact
that the simple thing of just getting time
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to first bike down drives all his
perceived value. I love it. So
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there's obviously a lot of simple things
that people are skipping over in order to
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hit the more complex things, which
you call just low hanging fruit. They're
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all reaching for the high hanging fruit
when really there's so much you can gain
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just from doing the simple things that
are being missed at the expense of doing
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the complex things. What are some
things that are listeners could start looking at
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and actually just started valuating where they
leaving money on the table that'd be easy
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to grab. Yeah, so the
really depends on their business, but I
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guess let me let me start with
the story that as a few number of
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years ago. Is when now,
I was talking to a CMO, big
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fortune, five hundred business that has
really high price point products. So their
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model is, Hey, they generate
leads online, they pass those leads to
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sales team. The sales team works
those leads for months at a time and
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then converts them into a high price
point sale. And he came to me
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and asked how do I link my
marketing automation tools, all my marketing stuff,
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to my crm tools so that when
I cut my sales ages are talking
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to a customer. If the customer
goes on the website is looking at a
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big page. I want to feed
that information to my sales to die.
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So now my sales team can respond
to the the right customer at the right
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time with the right message. How
do I make all that actually happen?
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And I said, hey, that
sounds like a great vision. Before we
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go there, let me ask when
your marketing team generates a lead and sends
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it to your sales team, how
long is it take your sales team to
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call back that lead? And he
said how? I don't know, I
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have no idea, and I'm like, well, before you worry about into
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creating these two technology stacks together to
talk to the right customer at the right
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time, why don't you try to
talk to the customers that want to talk
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to you and when they want to
talk to you, because they're already you
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don't need a fancy automation for that. They're telling you, they're calling you
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and saying I want to talk to
you, or they're sending a lead for
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him. They're saying I want to
talk to you. Call those customers back
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right away when they want to talk
to you. And so here we do.
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We did this when I was at
a place your mom and we got
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our call back time down from like
five minutes down to two minutes. It
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drove a two percent bump on our
conversion rate of over overall business like being
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a little bit faster and a little
bit more customer cent customer centric makes a
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heck of a difference. Now I
did the same thing at General Assembly and
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they're when we got it down to
two minutes, conversiony actually went down and
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we figured out that we started out
for four hour call back times. We
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got that down and down and down
and down and down. But we when
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we optimize, we realize that the
ideal call back time is actually seven minutes,
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because there's a difference between imagine if
you go to a bar and you
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give your phone number to a member
of the romantic partner, potential romantic partner,
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and then that person texts you back
within thirty seconds. That's not like
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customer service, that's desperation. And
so there is this trade between like companies
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that try too hard and companies that
don't try hard enough. And you need
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to figure out where that number is
for your particular business. Now to place
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your mom, we never found out
what that speed was like we got it
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down to one minute. It was
conversion. It was going up. So
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speed beat desperation. Every time a
general assembly the answer was no, I
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seven minutes was the ideal time.
If you take longer than seven minutes,
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that's terrible customer service. If you're
faster than seven minutes, that's desperation.
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Seven minutes was was the peak.
But if you don't know what that is
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for your bit, what that number
is for your business, and you weren't
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optimizing and doing everything you can to
hit that number, you are leaving more
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money on the table than almost anything
else you could be doing. Almost wonder
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if one of the best things are
cut our listeners can do is just secret
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shop their own marketing and see what
the experience is like and just start looking
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for obvious things where it's like,
oh, like, if I when what
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I expect the next piece to come, what would I hope for? You
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might be able to explore and find
a bunch of different holes or missing pieces
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that your prospects are customers are experiencing
every day. Yeah, and I do
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it do with the head space of
like, I desperately need this product.
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How do I get this product?
That I'm desperate for it and if it's
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not easy to get that's a big
problem. Like convenience and distribution and ease
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of use are vastly over underrated.
I like that. Are there any other
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head spaces you would recommend, or
is it that, like the key one
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that you think would be the most
helpful to have when your secret shopping your
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own systems? I think so.
I think again, it's easy when you're
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so we need you great customer service. The people who desperately want your product
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are going to love you, and
the people who are not interest in your
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product might be annoyed by you.
All right, like if you go into
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a store and you aren't planning to
buy and you don't want to talk to
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anybody, like having a customer,
having a sales first to come and talk
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to you is might maybe not be
what you want, but if you're desperate
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for a product you walk into the
store, someone coming in offer you to
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help you find that product is really
helpful. Don't get turned off by your
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non customers being annoyed by you providing
great customer service, because that's going to
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happen and you, you can need
to accept that and just focus on the
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your great customers are making it really
easy for them to buy. That's fantastic.
359
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Is there anything else our audience needs
to know about lessons from Your Book
360
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Marketing Bs all, there's so much
they could read my book for hours.
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I think the the other issue,
I think that we talked about a bit
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is up about the book. In
the book. Is this feedback problem,
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because you are when I start on
this, what happens is is all the
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brand marketers realize, oh my goodness, I've been following all this bs for
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so long, and all the peer
the performance marketers are like hey, no,
366
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no, I am a data driven
guy, I can see through all
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this crap and I know what really
works. And you're speaking to the choir.
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But then I start talking about performance
marketing and also their backs get up,
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because our problem with performance marketing is
we become so reliant. We we've
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an incentive by us, we have
the shiny objects by us, but we
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also have like a feed, fast
feedback by us, and so performance markers
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are got to this place where if
you can't prove it with data, it's
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not true and if you can't prove
with data fast, it's not true.
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But it turns out most of the
most powerful things in the world take a
375
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long time and we've been trained ourselves
in marketing on the performance side of hey,
376
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it has to be fast or ignored
entirely. I tell the story,
377
00:23:29.170 --> 00:23:32.650
but a group on. So Group
on back in the day was a fantastic
378
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product for people who are too young
to remember. They they basically sent out
379
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a fantagic like a ridiculously good deal
to some business, local business, every
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day and that that deal was awesome. But they wanted to keep growing and
381
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the team came to Andrew Mason,
who was Seeo and founder at the time,
382
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and said Hey, Andrews said a
sending it one great deal every day.
383
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What if you said it more than
one deal? And Andrew said like
384
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well, no, I think that's
a terrible idea. Our whole business is
385
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predicated on us sending it one great
deal with one great offer. Why would
386
00:24:00.589 --> 00:24:03.549
you want to send more than one? And the team was like, well,
387
00:24:03.630 --> 00:24:06.630
the data, Andrew, we're data
driving company. Why don't we just
388
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test it and see? And Andrews
like, Oh, you're right. Like
389
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I I don't want to be the
CEOS authoritative and say hey, you do
390
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it my where of the highway,
like you're right, let's run the day.
391
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That will do the day and on
the day to would tell us.
392
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And so they ran the data and
they started sending up multiple deals to people
393
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and the short term feedback that came
back was that it was a little bit
394
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more unsubscribe but like negligible, and
the revenue, total revenue per day,
395
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went up because some people bought the
second deal. And the team of back
396
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to Andrews, I hate, we
proved it. We proved that this is
397
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great, which send them more than
one deal, and your kind of reticently
398
00:24:37.930 --> 00:24:40.240
said, okay, I guess that's
okay. I guess the data proved it.
399
00:24:40.240 --> 00:24:45.000
I guess I was wrong, but
and your wasn't wrong. Andrew the
400
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the day. The short term feedback
is always going to say if you send
401
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more and you inundate somebody with more
stuff, if you run bigger discounts and
402
00:24:51.160 --> 00:24:55.109
you're going to have higher short term
impact, but it's going to do long
403
00:24:55.109 --> 00:24:57.190
term damage. And what happened was
is a group on did long term damage
404
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and all of a sudden they're they're
ridiculously good. One deal a day turned
405
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into a moderately good two deals a
day down to a negligibly good ten deals
406
00:25:06.630 --> 00:25:07.579
in their dozen deals a day that
they're doing now, and now they're just
407
00:25:07.779 --> 00:25:11.859
like a cupe on site that sends
it has terrible stuff and it was that
408
00:25:11.980 --> 00:25:15.539
decision that happened at that one point
that and you recognize it was a problem
409
00:25:15.579 --> 00:25:18.460
at the time that he didn't accept
because the data told him to go the
410
00:25:18.819 --> 00:25:22.529
direction. And so you need to
figure out, like you need to have
411
00:25:22.849 --> 00:25:27.450
these long term sort of believe in
the long term, understand what that feet,
412
00:25:27.650 --> 00:25:30.730
but your long term thesis and what
you truly believe and learn as much
413
00:25:30.730 --> 00:25:33.450
as you can of a long term
impact about stuff, and then you got
414
00:25:33.609 --> 00:25:37.599
to use your judgment and you can't
just blindly trust the day because data can't
415
00:25:37.599 --> 00:25:41.799
tell you what long term impacts are
going to have. Man, that's so
416
00:25:41.920 --> 00:25:44.319
good. So what you're saying,
it's a little bit more art and science
417
00:25:44.480 --> 00:25:48.000
than we people in data driven marketers
want to believe. Yeah, I don't
418
00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:51.789
even know if it's art, it's
judgment. It's judging. You don't think,
419
00:25:52.190 --> 00:25:53.190
to think and you have to recognize, and you can go back and
420
00:25:53.269 --> 00:25:56.390
look at lots and lots of other
examples, but if you want to understand
421
00:25:56.390 --> 00:26:00.109
what the long term impact of something
is going to be you need you need
422
00:26:00.150 --> 00:26:02.509
to wait for the long term and
so we can go back and look at
423
00:26:02.549 --> 00:26:06.539
other examples of other businesses that happened
a long time ago and see what that
424
00:26:06.619 --> 00:26:11.099
long term impact resulted in. Internalize
that, understand it up. Like some
425
00:26:11.220 --> 00:26:14.539
of those rules we know right.
Some of the rules is like discounty is
426
00:26:14.539 --> 00:26:18.059
always a terrible idea. Almost always, if you discount your product, you
427
00:26:18.140 --> 00:26:21.970
do long terms. Yet short term
sales bump with long long term negative implications.
428
00:26:22.410 --> 00:26:26.089
And JC petty going bankrupt is the
latest inclination of that. GCPENNY tried
429
00:26:26.089 --> 00:26:30.609
to turn around their business and go
to it an everyday low pricing model.
430
00:26:30.049 --> 00:26:33.799
They brought in the guy who ran
apple stores to go and try to fix
431
00:26:33.839 --> 00:26:37.400
it. He only last he lasted
less than less than eighteen months. The
432
00:26:37.559 --> 00:26:41.359
even less than a year before he
got fired because they couldn't stop the discounting.
433
00:26:41.799 --> 00:26:44.680
But that discounty events. It drove
the cut the business under we know
434
00:26:44.799 --> 00:26:48.230
discounty is a bad idea. People
understand that the short term feedback you're going
435
00:26:48.269 --> 00:26:51.750
to get on discount he is always
going to be amazingly pop you want to
436
00:26:51.750 --> 00:26:53.470
get a boost in your sales this
week, run a fifty percent discounting your
437
00:26:53.470 --> 00:26:57.309
product and your sales will go through
the roof and we know now that's not
438
00:26:57.470 --> 00:27:00.390
good. Even though it's so the
data tells us. The short term impact
439
00:27:00.390 --> 00:27:04.220
data says it's great, but we
know from long term experience with other companies,
440
00:27:04.259 --> 00:27:07.220
we know that's a terrible, terrible
idea. There are lots more examples
441
00:27:07.259 --> 00:27:11.579
of that. And the longer year
in business then we're judgment you have in
442
00:27:11.619 --> 00:27:14.019
the more you read, the more
you learn about things, you can start
443
00:27:14.019 --> 00:27:18.009
using your own judgment and there to
replace short term feedback problems. So if
444
00:27:18.089 --> 00:27:23.569
we want to accelerate having good judgment, would you recommend just increasing your intake
445
00:27:23.609 --> 00:27:27.690
of case studies? Maybe I have
a chapter, but that to the problem
446
00:27:27.730 --> 00:27:32.400
with case that think it's there's no
real again, there's no real good answer
447
00:27:32.440 --> 00:27:33.640
this other than making the more you're
aware, the more you read, the
448
00:27:33.680 --> 00:27:37.079
more you're aware of stuff. How
do you how does someone get smart while
449
00:27:37.079 --> 00:27:41.119
it's not just going doing workbooks but
how to do math right? It's a
450
00:27:41.759 --> 00:27:45.190
it's a lifelong learning process and there's
no real easy answer. You can you
451
00:27:45.589 --> 00:27:51.109
read case studies. The problem with
case studies is case studies are horribly proproven
452
00:27:51.150 --> 00:27:56.710
by Halo Effects, and so the
companies that are that we're successful. Whoever
453
00:27:56.750 --> 00:27:59.579
rates the case studies goes and shows
like all the stuff they were doing probably
454
00:27:59.619 --> 00:28:03.700
drove that success and that you dive
into all these things when the chances are
455
00:28:03.740 --> 00:28:07.940
what drove success was something isoteric that
may not even be listed in what that
456
00:28:07.019 --> 00:28:11.299
case study is. And so trying
to tease apart what the meanwhile fit cupies
457
00:28:11.299 --> 00:28:14.609
it fail. They'll go back and
look at what they failed and they'll show
458
00:28:14.849 --> 00:28:17.930
they could be doing all the same
things as the companies are successful and it
459
00:28:18.009 --> 00:28:21.529
comes the opposite. A lesson from
the case study. The best example of
460
00:28:21.569 --> 00:28:26.210
that is things like Netflix. So
netflix offers unlimited vacation for their employees.
461
00:28:26.329 --> 00:28:27.480
They're one of the first companies to
do it. They wrote a hundred and
462
00:28:27.599 --> 00:28:33.039
ten page document about their whole like
culture and how they run their culture.
463
00:28:33.039 --> 00:28:37.480
People saw that case study and said, Oh, unlimited vacation, that's a
464
00:28:37.599 --> 00:28:40.599
great thing and encourages people to like
work when they need to work, driving
465
00:28:40.640 --> 00:28:44.829
impact rather than driving number of hours
worked and Bob Blah. Now you see
466
00:28:44.869 --> 00:28:51.069
all these tech companies offering unlimited vacation, but that unlimited acation was part of
467
00:28:51.109 --> 00:28:53.549
a package of stuff that Netflix was
doing, not just an isolated thing,
468
00:28:55.230 --> 00:28:57.180
and so you could read a case
at to try to figure what all those
469
00:28:57.180 --> 00:29:00.299
other things were. But at the
end of the day, like Netflix,
470
00:29:00.339 --> 00:29:06.500
had a fairly unique culture that you
can try to duplicate it by following all
471
00:29:06.539 --> 00:29:08.180
the rules in a hundred ten page
document, but we all know that's not
472
00:29:08.259 --> 00:29:11.529
how you build a culture. Our
culture is like starts in the beginning and
473
00:29:11.569 --> 00:29:15.210
builds up, and unlimited vacation work
in Netflix is culture. It's not,
474
00:29:15.210 --> 00:29:18.009
doesn't mean it's going to work in
yours. The reason why Google is success
475
00:29:18.130 --> 00:29:21.089
was not because they offer free lunches
to their employees. It's because they built
476
00:29:21.089 --> 00:29:25.680
an awesome search engine and monetize it
in incredibly efficient Dutch auction. Yeah,
477
00:29:25.680 --> 00:29:27.480
if you could build a next incredible
search engine and money has with a great
478
00:29:27.480 --> 00:29:30.119
Dutch auction, you can probably do
as well as Google. But giving you
479
00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:33.000
all your employees free lunches are not
going to give you google level success,
480
00:29:33.599 --> 00:29:37.319
right. I mean it's always a
mixture and combination and things and from what
481
00:29:37.400 --> 00:29:41.069
I'm hearing from you, it sounds
like really like a steady diet of all
482
00:29:41.150 --> 00:29:47.589
kinds of marketing materials, case studies, books, watching what people are doing.
483
00:29:47.829 --> 00:29:49.670
So just being paying attention to what's
going on around you and really just
484
00:29:49.710 --> 00:29:56.099
applying critical thinking to what their incentive
to say things are, right things,
485
00:29:56.180 --> 00:29:59.940
publish things, and then just using
your best judgment from there. Yeah,
486
00:29:59.940 --> 00:30:02.700
it's not a short game. It's
really just trying to use your best judgment
487
00:30:02.740 --> 00:30:06.740
and expose yourself to as many things
over a long period of time as possible,
488
00:30:06.779 --> 00:30:08.690
as well as working with your hands
to learn yourself. I think that
489
00:30:08.809 --> 00:30:12.730
that's a big piece. was doing
the stuff and, like learn by doing.
490
00:30:14.329 --> 00:30:15.809
That's how you're going to learn.
So we all, we all.
491
00:30:15.849 --> 00:30:18.690
Anyone who's a practitioner marketing knows that
you did. Anyone who's feels like they're
492
00:30:18.690 --> 00:30:22.160
a good practitioner marketing, those they
did not get good by whatever they took
493
00:30:22.200 --> 00:30:26.359
in college. That's not how you
got good at marketing. You got good
494
00:30:26.400 --> 00:30:30.240
by doing it, and I think
part of its understanding your own biases and
495
00:30:30.440 --> 00:30:33.119
just recognizing that they exist and you're
not going to be able to eliminate them,
496
00:30:33.759 --> 00:30:37.470
but the more you can recognize them, the less likely you are to
497
00:30:37.829 --> 00:30:40.509
fall prey to them. In a
really, really bad you're going to fall
498
00:30:40.589 --> 00:30:44.710
prey to them. Everyone is,
but you want to try to mitigate the
499
00:30:44.789 --> 00:30:48.150
worst, the worst elements of falling
prey to them and at the same time
500
00:30:48.190 --> 00:30:51.259
keep yourself busy by figuring it all
the basic stuff that you need to do.
501
00:30:51.859 --> 00:30:53.779
Keep coming back to that. But
like looking to paid search, example.
502
00:30:53.859 --> 00:30:57.140
So I paid search. So many
companies want to use fancy AI,
503
00:30:57.380 --> 00:31:02.819
to use predictive learning, to target
by customer and so on. The Way
504
00:31:02.900 --> 00:31:07.130
to do paid search is if the
customer types in red umbrellas in Seattle,
505
00:31:08.009 --> 00:31:11.809
you want to show an ad.
You want you want to have an ad
506
00:31:11.930 --> 00:31:15.890
running that targets that keyword and then
your ad should read we sell red umbrellas
507
00:31:15.930 --> 00:31:18.720
in Seattle, and hit them on
the landing page. It sells right umbrellas
508
00:31:18.720 --> 00:31:22.160
in Seattle and like that's not rocket
science at all. But if you're if
509
00:31:22.200 --> 00:31:26.359
you're only selling randombells and Seattle,
that's probably pretty easy to do. But
510
00:31:26.519 --> 00:31:30.559
if you're selling a hundred different products
in a thousand different cities, in a
511
00:31:30.599 --> 00:31:36.190
hundred different colors, all of a
sudden you're at a million keywords and the
512
00:31:36.509 --> 00:31:38.670
hard part, just like we talked
about in Seo, is okay, how
513
00:31:38.710 --> 00:31:42.630
do you build a taxonomy that targets
a million keywords and an efficient way that
514
00:31:42.710 --> 00:31:48.859
you can monitor and cleaning out the
garbage that happens along the way and rolling
515
00:31:48.900 --> 00:31:52.619
up the results in a way that
you can actually measure the results, because
516
00:31:52.380 --> 00:31:55.819
you know if you have a million
keywords, most your words are going to
517
00:31:55.859 --> 00:31:57.059
get clicked on any even months this. You need to have a way to
518
00:31:57.220 --> 00:32:00.730
a taxonomy that builds them into groupings
you can learn from them. That's a
519
00:32:00.890 --> 00:32:05.690
hard thing and it's lots of work. Ninety percent of companies are not doing
520
00:32:05.730 --> 00:32:08.009
it. Ninety percent of marketing vendors
are not doing it. Rather than trying
521
00:32:08.049 --> 00:32:13.769
to do something new and fancy and
may or may not be hit by one
522
00:32:13.769 --> 00:32:16.079
of your biases, that's a thing
you should do, and so that's that's
523
00:32:16.079 --> 00:32:19.559
going to keep you busy for the
next three months off, if you need
524
00:32:19.599 --> 00:32:22.559
to do it, or more.
There's so many simple things you can do
525
00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:25.960
that keep yourself busy that you shouldn't
that's that could solve your even if you
526
00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:29.759
have if you have all sorts of
terrible bias beliefs, if you do all
527
00:32:29.799 --> 00:32:31.029
the basic stuff, you're not gonna
have time to go and execute your terrible
528
00:32:31.029 --> 00:32:35.029
bias police. You can focus on
the basics. There you go, go
529
00:32:35.150 --> 00:32:37.990
back to the basics, execute what
you know you need to do and not
530
00:32:37.029 --> 00:32:42.269
chase the new fancy thing. So
many, so many things to fix that
531
00:32:43.109 --> 00:32:45.740
are going to solve a lot of
your your problems. Even the phone call
532
00:32:45.819 --> 00:32:50.619
one you mentioned earlier was like an
obvious one that I remember, remember thinking
533
00:32:50.700 --> 00:32:52.299
heavily about before. I'm like,
if we could just call them faster,
534
00:32:52.460 --> 00:32:55.740
I think that would make the difference. Intuitively, you start to see these
535
00:32:55.779 --> 00:33:00.410
things and know that there's those are
the big gains or where the big gains
536
00:33:00.450 --> 00:33:04.569
are. So and I think Paul
Paul Graham, the founder of why combinator,
537
00:33:05.089 --> 00:33:07.250
to a study ones where he's looking
at all these different companies and some
538
00:33:07.329 --> 00:33:09.410
of them became successful and some of
them didn't. He was looking to find
539
00:33:09.450 --> 00:33:13.880
metrics to whether things early on that
could predict whether they were successful or not,
540
00:33:14.319 --> 00:33:16.680
and one of the see that he
found was he looked at how long
541
00:33:16.799 --> 00:33:21.279
it took them to respond to one
of his initial emails and then and then
542
00:33:21.319 --> 00:33:25.720
whether that predicted future success. And
the companies that were successful tended to respond
543
00:33:25.759 --> 00:33:30.829
to his emails within minutes and the
ones that were unsuccessful tend to respond to
544
00:33:30.869 --> 00:33:32.829
his emails within days. It was
a good walk. Two orders of magnitude
545
00:33:32.869 --> 00:33:37.390
different between the successful companies in the
unsuccessful companies. Like speed and responsiveness is
546
00:33:37.430 --> 00:33:43.460
one of those things that is easily
said but hard to execute on or and
547
00:33:43.660 --> 00:33:45.779
it makes a big difference. Wow. I mean, if there's one tactic
548
00:33:45.819 --> 00:33:49.940
to go back it's thinking about that
one thing they could probably started thinking about
549
00:33:50.140 --> 00:33:52.619
going and executing today. That will
take a long time to actually get right.
550
00:33:53.460 --> 00:33:55.650
I know it would be for us
if we started trying to think about
551
00:33:55.650 --> 00:34:00.690
how fast we can get back to
our own contact forms and phone calls coming
552
00:34:00.769 --> 00:34:02.369
in. It can be difficult.
And then the first episode that is just
553
00:34:02.450 --> 00:34:06.049
tracking it right, so building up
the reporting that functionalities. You can look
554
00:34:06.049 --> 00:34:07.570
at it every day. We one
of the things we did at the place
555
00:34:07.610 --> 00:34:10.480
your mom is we've pulled that report
every day and we looked at how long
556
00:34:10.559 --> 00:34:15.599
did it take us to call back
leads yesterday? How is our our seamlessness
557
00:34:15.639 --> 00:34:17.079
of the process? We headed off
from like our call center team to our
558
00:34:17.079 --> 00:34:20.400
sales team? How long did it
take to be able to do to hot
559
00:34:20.440 --> 00:34:23.199
transfer basis and we went call by
call in the morning to fire why did
560
00:34:23.239 --> 00:34:25.150
it take us so long in this
one? Why did it take a so
561
00:34:25.269 --> 00:34:28.789
long on that one? And each
time you do that you find you got
562
00:34:28.829 --> 00:34:30.349
down a rabbit hole stuff you need
to fix in your operations to make sure
563
00:34:30.349 --> 00:34:34.949
it doesn't happen again. Well,
fantastic, Edward. Thank you so much
564
00:34:34.989 --> 00:34:38.380
for joining me on BB growth today. Working the audience. Go to learn
565
00:34:38.380 --> 00:34:43.579
more about you and your book.
Marketing BS. Subscribe to my newsletter.
566
00:34:43.659 --> 00:34:47.820
So Marketing bscom or marketing BS DOT
substackcom. I put out a new newsletter
567
00:34:47.860 --> 00:34:52.260
every Tuesday. There's nothing to buy, I don't sell anything. I'm just
568
00:34:52.380 --> 00:34:57.289
trying to create this community of people
who are striving to find the truth,
569
00:34:57.449 --> 00:35:00.650
and so every week I just take
something that happened in the news, either
570
00:35:00.690 --> 00:35:04.289
marketing related non marketing related, and
try to figure out what was actually going
571
00:35:04.409 --> 00:35:07.239
on and what the real drivers were
and what we can learn about it in
572
00:35:07.320 --> 00:35:12.599
marketing. So I have a professional
editor. I'm spending money on this thing.
573
00:35:13.159 --> 00:35:16.039
I'm not making any money of this
thing and I'm just trying to give
574
00:35:16.119 --> 00:35:20.079
me great satisfaction that the people are
enjoying. I think we have a twentyzero
575
00:35:20.239 --> 00:35:22.750
subscribers or so so far, and
love to have more pole joint mom certainly
576
00:35:22.829 --> 00:35:25.670
going to go and sign up all
right after this. Again, thanks for
577
00:35:25.710 --> 00:35:29.349
joining me on the show today and
thank you for listening. To be to
578
00:35:29.389 --> 00:35:35.780
be gross, it's sweetfish. We're
on a mission to create the most helpful
579
00:35:35.820 --> 00:35:39.260
content on the Internet for every job, function and industry on the planet.
580
00:35:39.739 --> 00:35:44.539
For the BB marketing industry, this
show is how we're executing on that mission.
581
00:35:44.900 --> 00:35:46.940
If you know a marketing leader that
would be an awesome guest for this
582
00:35:47.059 --> 00:35:51.650
podcast. Shoot me a text message. Don't call me because I don't answer
583
00:35:51.690 --> 00:35:54.289
unknown numbers, but text me at
four hundred and seven for and I know
584
00:35:54.690 --> 00:35:58.809
three and thirty two eight. Just
shoot me their name, maybe a link
585
00:35:58.849 --> 00:36:01.090
to their linked in profile, and
I'd love to check them out to see
586
00:36:01.130 --> 00:36:04.400
if we can get them on the
show. Thanks a lot.