May 12, 2021

How to Have Fun with Your Brand w/ Steve Pockross

In this episode, Timmy Bauer talks with Steve Pockross, CEO of Verblio, about one of the most underrated B2B tactics: how to have fun with your brand. 

-----------

Vidyard makes it easy to record, host, embed and share videos to engage more deeply with your buyers. Sign up for free today at vidyard.com/b2bgrowth. No promo code needed!

Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah. 2 00:00:04.940 --> 00:00:08.590 Hey everybody welcome back to be to be growth. I'm timmy Bauer, content 3 00:00:08.590 --> 00:00:15.450 strategist. And my guest today is steve Park Rose. He is the ceo of verb leo a 4 00:00:15.450 --> 00:00:19.380 company with a team of over what is it? 3000 writers. How many writers do you 5 00:00:19.380 --> 00:00:24.720 have? That's my right. Three over 3000 riders uh do on demand, content 6 00:00:24.720 --> 00:00:29.620 creation to power, digital marketing and S. E. O. And steve. Welcome to the 7 00:00:29.620 --> 00:00:33.830 show. Thanks. It's good to be here. I'm excited to talk to you the last time 8 00:00:33.830 --> 00:00:38.320 you and I were talking, I asked you what you think is the most underrated 9 00:00:38.330 --> 00:00:44.210 B2B marketing tactic and you had a great answer. You said it's having fun 10 00:00:44.210 --> 00:00:49.110 with your brand. I love that answer. Why don't we just start there with like 11 00:00:49.110 --> 00:00:53.250 what do you mean that that's the most underrated B2B marketing tactic And 12 00:00:53.250 --> 00:00:56.670 what do you mean by having fun with your brand? So a couple of things. So I 13 00:00:56.670 --> 00:01:00.780 think so, first of all the B2B space, there's something about it, it just 14 00:01:00.780 --> 00:01:04.160 feels like if your company is selling to other companies that you need to be 15 00:01:04.160 --> 00:01:08.340 dry and professional the entire time. And I think that most people don't 16 00:01:08.340 --> 00:01:12.580 realize that there's people at the B2B company, you are people at the B to B 17 00:01:12.580 --> 00:01:16.550 companies selling to people uh and you need to bring that to life that those 18 00:01:16.550 --> 00:01:19.860 connections are more and more important, the deeper we get into living at home 19 00:01:19.860 --> 00:01:24.020 and the closer this mixture between our work and the life personalities become. 20 00:01:24.030 --> 00:01:28.260 And so if you have a choice of being educational or educational and 21 00:01:28.260 --> 00:01:31.550 entertaining in your authentic selves, people are going to want to work with 22 00:01:31.550 --> 00:01:34.770 you if you can get education and entertainment because they're spending 23 00:01:34.770 --> 00:01:39.880 their amount of time online too. Yeah, and I mean it's obvious I just poking 24 00:01:39.880 --> 00:01:43.130 around on your website, I'm like, this is a company that is having fun with 25 00:01:43.130 --> 00:01:46.980 their brand. I mean it's it's the big stuff which I'm going to want to get 26 00:01:46.980 --> 00:01:50.460 into you with you, but it's even little stuff, like, so I'm on your website 27 00:01:50.460 --> 00:01:54.990 right now and your little Pop Up is our ghost writers won't ghost you, and then 28 00:01:54.990 --> 00:01:59.630 this picture of this cute little ghost, and then it's like one quality content 29 00:01:59.630 --> 00:02:04.650 from our pre qualified writers, and this is not an ad for a verb leo, but 30 00:02:04.660 --> 00:02:08.139 honestly steve if you sucked at content, we would be talking about something 31 00:02:08.139 --> 00:02:13.160 else. But yeah, I love it, and I'm excited to get into some of the like, 32 00:02:13.160 --> 00:02:16.950 specific examples of like really bigger things that you've done to have fun 33 00:02:16.950 --> 00:02:21.020 with your brand. But let me ask you this, why do you think it's so common? 34 00:02:21.020 --> 00:02:26.690 Like why do you think it's so hard For B two B companies to like let loose and 35 00:02:26.690 --> 00:02:30.870 just have fun. So, I think a couple of things, I think when you ask that 36 00:02:30.870 --> 00:02:34.390 question, it takes me back to business school, so I got a marketing degree at 37 00:02:34.390 --> 00:02:38.470 a business school 20 years ago and the whole focus was how do you make your 38 00:02:38.470 --> 00:02:41.210 company successful and you're supposed to go in there and they teach these 39 00:02:41.210 --> 00:02:45.330 tools? None of it is about being yourself forward. And I think that is 40 00:02:45.340 --> 00:02:49.500 all completely evolved with the growth of online businesses over the last 20 41 00:02:49.500 --> 00:02:53.040 years. It's now about having personality, it's now about actually 42 00:02:53.040 --> 00:02:56.430 having your personality in front of your company and merging those two 43 00:02:56.430 --> 00:03:00.510 things together. And so I think a lot of it for people of my generation who 44 00:03:00.520 --> 00:03:04.720 graduated 20 years ago, that's just deeply uncomfortable. It's 45 00:03:04.720 --> 00:03:07.930 uncomfortable. Is posting something really personal about yourself on 46 00:03:07.930 --> 00:03:11.550 linked in. We would never considering it. Like, you know, half the people 47 00:03:11.550 --> 00:03:15.510 graduated with my class right there profile in the third person about 48 00:03:15.510 --> 00:03:20.430 themselves, It's their site. So I think part of it is just like a, getting used 49 00:03:20.430 --> 00:03:25.620 to what the new business world is. And I think the second is that just how do 50 00:03:25.620 --> 00:03:30.000 you have a, you have fun at your company when you've decided that you're 51 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:34.030 one of your company values is to have fun and to be fun and like you want 52 00:03:34.030 --> 00:03:38.270 this to be a place that you live and so it has to be a, you have to have that 53 00:03:38.270 --> 00:03:41.010 as one of your values and something that you're doing at the company. I 54 00:03:41.010 --> 00:03:44.660 think a lot of companies compartmentalize their marketing 55 00:03:44.660 --> 00:03:47.660 department and be like, ok, go tell everybody what you do. So it's more 56 00:03:47.660 --> 00:03:52.680 about like, here's our glory story and I have one of my, my favorite podcast 57 00:03:52.680 --> 00:03:56.680 episodes of all time is there's a, this american life episode, kind of like one 58 00:03:56.680 --> 00:04:00.990 of the originals of the podcasting universe. Uh and it's all about there 59 00:04:00.990 --> 00:04:04.090 being two types of storytellers and there is one type of, all of their 60 00:04:04.090 --> 00:04:07.710 stories are the hero. They end with themselves as the hero and they've done 61 00:04:07.710 --> 00:04:11.610 something magnificent and the way that you respond to that, as you say, wow, 62 00:04:11.620 --> 00:04:14.700 that's really impressive. And then you have another kind that's all about 63 00:04:14.700 --> 00:04:18.339 humor, regardless if it's self deprecating, making fun of themselves. 64 00:04:18.350 --> 00:04:21.950 The goal is to entertain your audience and to keep them. And I think about 65 00:04:21.950 --> 00:04:24.980 that all the time, if you really want to break down the world into two types 66 00:04:24.980 --> 00:04:28.760 of storytellers and I think that be to be in particular has a hard time 67 00:04:28.760 --> 00:04:32.730 thinking about, hey, let's poke fun of ourselves. It's okay we can have a 68 00:04:32.730 --> 00:04:38.380 world class product and still make it fun. Yes, I mean the simple reality is 69 00:04:38.380 --> 00:04:42.040 that as human beings, we keep going back to the things that make us laugh, 70 00:04:42.050 --> 00:04:45.230 that is what we are constantly returning to. So if you're a marketer, 71 00:04:45.240 --> 00:04:49.510 like you've got to do that and then one of the biggest ways that you can make 72 00:04:49.510 --> 00:04:53.970 people laugh is like one of the most accessible forms of humor, I think is 73 00:04:53.970 --> 00:04:58.970 self deprecating humor. How did you personally get past that? Like self 74 00:04:58.970 --> 00:05:04.450 barrier? Like of insecurity around getting into self deprecating humor and 75 00:05:04.450 --> 00:05:08.930 then like how do you get other companies to get through that? For me, 76 00:05:08.930 --> 00:05:13.370 it's a pretty opposite problem most people, I think because my, my sense of 77 00:05:13.370 --> 00:05:17.890 humor is let's just say at business school with all of the finance classes, 78 00:05:17.890 --> 00:05:22.490 My personality type was clearly not the standard consulting investment banker 79 00:05:22.490 --> 00:05:26.570 type. So for me, I always found the corporate kind of handcuffs is like, 80 00:05:26.570 --> 00:05:29.860 you can't really express yourself, you always have to be a different self, 81 00:05:29.860 --> 00:05:33.960 showing up at work, felt very constraining to me. So I was really 82 00:05:33.960 --> 00:05:38.690 lucky. I came into this company, I was hired by the founders four years ago to 83 00:05:38.700 --> 00:05:42.710 scale the company and the founders were super fun too. So the founding 84 00:05:42.720 --> 00:05:47.140 journalist, uh, Ceo, his, you know, his background as a journalist and 85 00:05:47.150 --> 00:05:51.880 everything he wrote was fun and goofy. And basically it just gave me a 86 00:05:51.880 --> 00:05:55.500 platform to say, I can take this and run with this. I don't have to be 87 00:05:55.500 --> 00:06:00.750 anyone stuff. Actually. I would offend the founding Ceo who hired me uh, if I 88 00:06:00.750 --> 00:06:04.440 was that type. So I was super lucky to do. So the question is like if you're a 89 00:06:04.440 --> 00:06:10.150 B two B market or how do you go to your CFO? How do you go to your um you know 90 00:06:10.150 --> 00:06:13.930 to a Ceo who doesn't believe the same values you do and express it. And I 91 00:06:13.930 --> 00:06:17.020 think you have to look at all of the marketing trends of like authenticity 92 00:06:17.020 --> 00:06:20.610 and the power of it. I look at companies like whiskey as one of our 93 00:06:20.620 --> 00:06:24.720 founding lights of like companies leading the way with fun personalities 94 00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:29.060 that totally changed B two B marketing and rand Fishkin and what they're right, 95 00:06:29.070 --> 00:06:32.600 you gotta find a way to stand out. So whiskey a story I think is a really 96 00:06:32.600 --> 00:06:35.880 interesting way to do this, which is when they were into their space. There 97 00:06:35.880 --> 00:06:39.970 are 15 companies that were doing B two B video hosting. It is not a very sexy 98 00:06:39.970 --> 00:06:44.550 space. Uh and their way that they stood out as they wrote a really goofy and 99 00:06:44.550 --> 00:06:48.810 funny viral video that just took off with less funding than everybody else. 100 00:06:48.820 --> 00:06:52.800 People want to interact with that brand to make it human. So I think the first 101 00:06:52.800 --> 00:06:56.670 step is to gain the permission from your company in order to run with what 102 00:06:56.670 --> 00:07:00.960 you want to and just have those fun brainstorming sessions. If we could do 103 00:07:00.970 --> 00:07:05.430 anything we wanted and write anything, we could right now, what would we write 104 00:07:05.430 --> 00:07:10.090 about? What would, what video do we do? This is kind of how we got to are you 105 00:07:10.090 --> 00:07:13.410 might have seen our piece that we right after I just was going to ask you about 106 00:07:13.410 --> 00:07:19.880 it. Yeah, so hilarious video that you guys made, its um you're like dressed 107 00:07:19.880 --> 00:07:23.580 as a doctor. I loved how it starts, You're like got a lab coat on and 108 00:07:23.580 --> 00:07:27.290 you're like, I'm not a doctor, but I do have an amazon prime account is where I 109 00:07:27.290 --> 00:07:33.230 got this lab coat and the place I haven't paused on right now is your 110 00:07:33.240 --> 00:07:36.990 listing different things that verbal leo can help with? And one of them is 111 00:07:36.990 --> 00:07:43.010 like C. B. D. For dog anxiety, M. D. M. A. For human anxiety. I mean you really 112 00:07:43.020 --> 00:07:47.760 got edgy in this video. How did the video happen? And uh tell me the story 113 00:07:47.760 --> 00:07:51.300 behind it? So first of all, we have, our team is super creative and we're 114 00:07:51.300 --> 00:07:54.500 always brainstorming these ideas and our problem is always which ones do we 115 00:07:54.500 --> 00:07:58.710 pursue as opposed to how do we come up with anything? Uh and then we have just 116 00:07:58.720 --> 00:08:03.370 an absolutely brilliant copywriter who like you need to have somebody on your 117 00:08:03.370 --> 00:08:07.580 team who can foster your good ideas. So everyone's got great brainstorming 118 00:08:07.580 --> 00:08:11.570 sessions. To me this is like your great copywriter is a combination of the 119 00:08:11.570 --> 00:08:15.160 product manager on your dev team, who everybody comes up with a great 120 00:08:15.160 --> 00:08:18.010 development ideas that your engineering team should do and then they all get 121 00:08:18.010 --> 00:08:21.590 lost in space. Unless there is an amazing person who can handle the 122 00:08:21.590 --> 00:08:26.070 vision side and also the organization side. And for me, that's our brilliant 123 00:08:26.070 --> 00:08:31.470 copywriter, who can both capture all those ideas. Um curate them, figure out 124 00:08:31.470 --> 00:08:34.900 which ones are good and then bring them to life. So how do you get a copywriter 125 00:08:34.900 --> 00:08:39.350 like that? What do you look for? Oh man! You find somebody that you completely 126 00:08:39.350 --> 00:08:42.820 gel with and like get to you and you say your idea that you thought was 127 00:08:42.820 --> 00:08:45.900 funny and then they say it back to you and it's more funny and it's more 128 00:08:45.910 --> 00:08:51.870 accurate. Hi dan Sanchez here with a quick break from this episode, sponsor 129 00:08:51.880 --> 00:08:56.080 Vidyard. If you haven't started using personal video yet to enhance your 130 00:08:56.080 --> 00:09:01.160 marketing campaigns, you're missing out. Having the ability to quickly capture 131 00:09:01.160 --> 00:09:05.980 video and record my computer screen or both helps me not only create marketing 132 00:09:05.980 --> 00:09:10.830 assets faster, it makes them way more personable. I use personal videos in 133 00:09:10.830 --> 00:09:15.470 social media, email blast landing pages and even on our website, Vidyard makes 134 00:09:15.470 --> 00:09:20.900 it easy to record host in bed and share videos to more deeply engaged with your 135 00:09:20.900 --> 00:09:25.780 ideal buyers prospects have told me repeatedly that they are blown away 136 00:09:25.780 --> 00:09:31.100 every time they get one for me. So sign up for Vidyard free today by going to 137 00:09:31.100 --> 00:09:35.760 Vidyard dot com slash GDP growth and just like you guys, the team at Vidyard 138 00:09:35.760 --> 00:09:40.020 can't keep up with all these promo codes on podcasts, so they are making 139 00:09:40.020 --> 00:09:44.870 signing up as easy as possible. So no promo code needed. Just go to Vidyard 140 00:09:44.870 --> 00:09:49.870 dot com slash GDP growth. So start using vidyard completely free and as a 141 00:09:49.870 --> 00:09:56.410 bonus, get their 2021 B two B video trans guide. I like that. That's a 142 00:09:56.410 --> 00:10:00.210 really good just little tidbit. I also want to talk to you about this article 143 00:10:00.210 --> 00:10:03.840 that you wrote. I'm going to read some of it and once again like this is not 144 00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:08.160 what I would normally do on a podcast episode, but you guys did this article 145 00:10:08.170 --> 00:10:12.220 attending burning man or inbound. We are more alike than we are different. 146 00:10:12.220 --> 00:10:16.960 36 of our team attended inbound. In 21 of our team attended burning man this 147 00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:21.930 year. We were, this is funny, we were going to make a Venn diagram comparing 148 00:10:21.930 --> 00:10:25.780 the two, but then we realized it would look more like a solar eclipse than a 149 00:10:25.780 --> 00:10:31.600 Venn diagram. And then just you scroll down and there's um, it's like Burning 150 00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:36.930 Man or inbound one. Strange deafening club music at all hours of the day to 151 00:10:36.940 --> 00:10:40.890 strangers, keep approaching you and trying to give you things three, you're 152 00:10:40.890 --> 00:10:45.600 in a constant detox re tox cycle four after 10 minutes of talking to someone, 153 00:10:45.610 --> 00:10:51.490 you're still not sure what they're talking about. Oh man, this is good. 154 00:10:51.500 --> 00:10:55.970 How did this happen? So first of all, the concept of this one was mine. I 155 00:10:55.970 --> 00:10:59.820 will not say the majority are mine, but this one was just like, I just felt the 156 00:10:59.820 --> 00:11:03.880 cult spirit from both sides because I'm obsessed with cults and I like read all 157 00:11:03.880 --> 00:11:06.730 sorts of history of culture all the time. Anyway, I'm like, we are both in 158 00:11:06.730 --> 00:11:11.330 cults were a business cult. And so when it comes back, the first thing we do is 159 00:11:11.330 --> 00:11:15.360 it's not just like a one on one process. We have a slack channel that's all 160 00:11:15.360 --> 00:11:20.570 about brainstorm. And so creating a fun brand is not just about what the 161 00:11:20.570 --> 00:11:23.610 marketing team does, its about. You were reading off some of the things 162 00:11:23.610 --> 00:11:27.080 that we have fun copy even on our sales emails, we have an automated sales 163 00:11:27.080 --> 00:11:31.140 email that had a poem on it as a third automated message which was basically 164 00:11:31.140 --> 00:11:35.360 you've dropped off. We want to win you back. I can read that one too. But like 165 00:11:35.640 --> 00:11:38.370 the way you get that is you have to hire with that, that has to be one of 166 00:11:38.370 --> 00:11:41.830 your hiring criteria. So before you build a brand that you can turn into 167 00:11:41.830 --> 00:11:45.270 fund, you have to create your vision and then you have to hire the team that 168 00:11:45.270 --> 00:11:48.990 believes in the vision and lives it. And so like the step three where you 169 00:11:48.990 --> 00:11:52.160 get to have fun with the brand, you had to do a lot of work up front to really 170 00:11:52.160 --> 00:11:56.080 define how to get there. And so the story behind the Burning Man post was, 171 00:11:56.080 --> 00:11:59.730 we came back then we've created a channel that was pure brainstorming of 172 00:11:59.740 --> 00:12:04.220 everybody in our company, of everybody throwing out their ideas and because of 173 00:12:04.220 --> 00:12:07.490 that, you know, probably three quarters of them came from everybody else in the 174 00:12:07.490 --> 00:12:10.430 company and only a quarter of them, maybe it came from the copywriter 175 00:12:10.430 --> 00:12:14.160 herself, but she, she pulls it all together and then we get to edit them. 176 00:12:14.740 --> 00:12:18.750 I love it. What I want to do with podcast episodes is try to make them as 177 00:12:18.750 --> 00:12:24.170 practical as I can. So the idea here is how to have fun with your brand, What 178 00:12:24.170 --> 00:12:28.410 would you tell listeners as like, here's the process, here's how you have 179 00:12:28.410 --> 00:12:35.420 fun with your brand. Step one, step two, wow, I don't really think of it as a 180 00:12:35.420 --> 00:12:39.550 step by step process. I will say that one of the key steps that we haven't 181 00:12:39.550 --> 00:12:43.820 included is the same key is to all good content, which is all good content is 182 00:12:43.820 --> 00:12:48.200 not just uh first is understanding your audience. The second is to what do you 183 00:12:48.200 --> 00:12:52.240 want to write about, But one of the most critical piece, if not the most 184 00:12:52.240 --> 00:12:55.370 critical, is consistency and making sure that you write something 185 00:12:55.370 --> 00:12:58.900 consistently produced video consistently, post on linkedin 186 00:12:58.900 --> 00:13:02.720 consistently, wherever is your main channel. And so what I'd recommend is 187 00:13:02.720 --> 00:13:05.880 you. So what we've started to do with my linkedin post, I try to post three 188 00:13:05.880 --> 00:13:10.920 times a week. One is my podcast share one is, you know, something on the hero 189 00:13:10.920 --> 00:13:15.700 story side and then my friday post is always going to be fun. And so we try 190 00:13:15.700 --> 00:13:19.220 to plan that out in our planning cycle, which is like if we haven't done 191 00:13:19.220 --> 00:13:22.020 something that's entertaining to us, that makes us smile and we want to 192 00:13:22.020 --> 00:13:25.770 share it with all of our friends every month and a half, then that needs to be 193 00:13:25.770 --> 00:13:29.830 part of our cycle. So I would say put it into your content calendar is the 194 00:13:29.830 --> 00:13:34.100 only way you'll ever make it a priority. What are some key ways that you try to 195 00:13:34.100 --> 00:13:38.050 vet the ideas that your team comes up with to figure out what you're going to 196 00:13:38.050 --> 00:13:43.120 go with and what you're not going to go with, especially for the too edgy stuff, 197 00:13:43.120 --> 00:13:47.400 which, which comes up too often. I would say that Well, that's probably 198 00:13:47.400 --> 00:13:51.570 one thing right? There is. So you've got a whole bunch of stuff coming your 199 00:13:51.570 --> 00:13:56.280 way that is too edgy. I mean, I would say that there's probably plenty of 200 00:13:56.280 --> 00:14:00.430 companies where they don't have that problem because they haven't encouraged 201 00:14:00.440 --> 00:14:05.940 their writers to really swing for it. I think we so, first of all, did it 202 00:14:05.940 --> 00:14:09.890 entertain us? And if it entertained us a lot, then it's going to take a lot 203 00:14:09.890 --> 00:14:13.830 for us to take it away, even if it is too edgy. And then I think we just have 204 00:14:13.830 --> 00:14:17.060 our basic these are the people, each one of us has somebody that we trust, 205 00:14:17.060 --> 00:14:20.580 like our circle of like five people that we run it by. So it's pretty damn 206 00:14:20.580 --> 00:14:25.210 and formal Because we're we're 3000 writers, but we're like 30 people at 207 00:14:25.210 --> 00:14:28.700 our headquarters. We don't have to go through this bureaucracy. We don't have 208 00:14:28.700 --> 00:14:32.140 a legal department reviewing our copy any of the stuff that I would have had 209 00:14:32.140 --> 00:14:36.370 to do it. Some of the bigger companies that have worked at before. So I think 210 00:14:36.380 --> 00:14:40.000 right now, we don't have it very formalized. And until I get into 211 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:43.140 trouble, we'll probably keep it that way. I don't know what your answer 212 00:14:43.140 --> 00:14:46.520 would be with this, but this is the question that's bubbling up to my mind. 213 00:14:46.520 --> 00:14:53.700 And that is how could you encourage somebody with a much smaller team, uh, 214 00:14:53.710 --> 00:14:57.720 with a very small team, maybe they got just a couple of writers to try to 215 00:14:57.730 --> 00:15:02.450 emulate the kinds of things that you're doing. I would say one of the things 216 00:15:02.450 --> 00:15:06.010 that we've been doing kind of informally is once we really kind of 217 00:15:06.010 --> 00:15:11.340 latched onto this idea is we started to try to write down things that we said 218 00:15:11.340 --> 00:15:14.410 in informal meetings. Like it doesn't all have to be a brainstorming meeting. 219 00:15:14.420 --> 00:15:18.110 Our best ideas are probably going to be with us, like in a normal, like a, you 220 00:15:18.110 --> 00:15:20.510 know, a product planning meeting. Somebody says something off the cuff. 221 00:15:20.510 --> 00:15:23.670 Oh my God, shouldn't we have a plan that just takes all of those clients 222 00:15:23.670 --> 00:15:27.010 and puts them into outer space and you're like, oh yeah, that's funny. But 223 00:15:27.010 --> 00:15:31.120 now we're trying to write them down, so it's really to uh make sure that we're 224 00:15:31.120 --> 00:15:35.720 thinking about them. My so I was a random history major and I threw out 225 00:15:35.720 --> 00:15:39.370 random history references generally about the Mongolian empire all the time. 226 00:15:39.380 --> 00:15:42.610 Okay, my marketing guy loves them, but I never do anything with them, and he's 227 00:15:42.610 --> 00:15:46.400 like, I'm writing them all down and I'm giving him back to you and those will 228 00:15:46.400 --> 00:15:51.660 be your linkedin post on friday. And so I think the key to great content is to 229 00:15:51.660 --> 00:15:54.880 take the stuff you've already done and put it out there, as opposed to think 230 00:15:54.880 --> 00:15:58.550 so hard about how do you create something that's never been done before? 231 00:15:59.040 --> 00:16:04.510 And then follow up question like it is, how do you think a smaller company 232 00:16:04.520 --> 00:16:11.480 could be trying to emulate what you guys are doing and get it wrong? Um way 233 00:16:11.480 --> 00:16:13.770 number one that comes up to me is like, if you're trying to say, we're trying 234 00:16:13.770 --> 00:16:17.660 to have fun with our customer services messaging to, which is the time that, 235 00:16:18.140 --> 00:16:20.690 you know, your clients are most tense, they've got a piece of content back 236 00:16:20.690 --> 00:16:23.880 that they didn't love or they've been waiting one day extra for it. And like 237 00:16:23.880 --> 00:16:28.780 there, you know, at high, high anxiety mode with your company and you're 238 00:16:28.780 --> 00:16:32.970 trying to re win, that becomes the friendliest content creation platform 239 00:16:32.970 --> 00:16:37.030 in the business as we want as we strive to be. There are moments where you 240 00:16:37.030 --> 00:16:40.540 could really screw that up by trying to have too much fun while they're not 241 00:16:40.540 --> 00:16:46.550 having fun. And so how do you personally navigate it? We work on that 242 00:16:46.550 --> 00:16:50.910 tone multiple times. So what we try to do is we empower everybody in the 243 00:16:50.910 --> 00:16:53.960 company to have as much fun as with the brand as possible. So if you're gonna 244 00:16:53.960 --> 00:16:58.420 make I give you full license on my team to make the mistakes as possible. If 245 00:16:58.420 --> 00:17:01.390 you're trying to live the brand values and have fun and if it's received the 246 00:17:01.390 --> 00:17:05.319 wrong way, this is going to happen, but I'd rather have it, be received the 247 00:17:05.319 --> 00:17:08.660 wrong way and have somebody to remember us for something that we're doing that 248 00:17:08.660 --> 00:17:13.300 was unique than just be to corporate and not not the fun company they want 249 00:17:13.300 --> 00:17:17.900 to work with on their free time. And so the way we try to navigate that is to 250 00:17:17.900 --> 00:17:22.069 answer the question first, make sure you resolve the clients issue before 251 00:17:22.069 --> 00:17:26.640 you, you know, make it more more fun and are taking, Could you give me an 252 00:17:26.640 --> 00:17:30.100 example? I know I'm really putting you on the spot here, but do you think you 253 00:17:30.100 --> 00:17:34.610 could give me an example of something that you did to make it more fun? I 254 00:17:34.610 --> 00:17:38.300 mean, I know we're dealing with like sensitive information so you don't have 255 00:17:38.300 --> 00:17:42.730 to tell me like who it was and who messed it up and what they did. But I'm 256 00:17:42.730 --> 00:17:46.770 just curious uh as specific as you could get with, like what was the 257 00:17:46.770 --> 00:17:50.850 method or what, what did they do to be humorous at the same time as they were 258 00:17:50.850 --> 00:17:54.060 trying to make it better. I'm going to give you an example because I don't 259 00:17:54.060 --> 00:17:56.770 have one right off the bat, but I do have one of my favorite ones from 260 00:17:56.770 --> 00:18:00.330 wisteria that I was just sharing with the company. So they have a, your 261 00:18:00.330 --> 00:18:04.480 credits are about to expire, which is, you know, just as painful and B two B 262 00:18:04.480 --> 00:18:07.340 as a message can be. And it ends with when you have a moment, could you 263 00:18:07.340 --> 00:18:10.170 please visit our building page to update your payment information? It 264 00:18:10.170 --> 00:18:15.870 would be much appreciated by the walrus in our building department. Nice. Great. 265 00:18:15.880 --> 00:18:19.770 It's just so clever. It's so easy. It's still on target. You're pushing the 266 00:18:19.770 --> 00:18:23.440 customer, but you're still like, we realize you're a person and we thought 267 00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:27.900 this was funny. Yeah, I love it. Steve, it's been really fun talking to you. 268 00:18:27.900 --> 00:18:31.910 How can listeners connect with you a few ways so you can see our site at 269 00:18:31.910 --> 00:18:37.220 virgilio dot com. E R E L O dot com. Uh, make sure to check out the publisher's 270 00:18:37.220 --> 00:18:41.190 page in the cannabis page if you're looking for most fun, copied, uh, and 271 00:18:41.190 --> 00:18:44.800 you can check out my um my podcast verbally O'shea, which comes out at the 272 00:18:44.800 --> 00:18:47.450 Wednesday. Love it. Thanks for being on. Thanks so much 273 00:18:49.840 --> 00:18:54.120 is your buyer at BB marketer. If so you should think about sponsoring this 274 00:18:54.120 --> 00:18:58.930 podcast. BtB Growth gets downloaded over one 130,000 times each month. And 275 00:18:58.930 --> 00:19:02.600 our listeners are marketing decision makers. If it sounds interesting, send 276 00:19:02.600 --> 00:19:05.670 Logan and email Logan at sweet Fish Media dot com. 277 00:19:08.140 --> 00:19:10.050 Yeah.