Transcript
WEBVTT
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mhm
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Hi everyone welcome back to be to be
growth. My name is Olivia Hurley and
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today I am joined by josh Lohman who is
the founder and chief creative officer
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at Gold Front, josh, how are you doing
today? I'm doing great. It's nice to be
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here. Good. I'm so glad. I'm really
excited. We get to talk today. So
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you're the founder and chief creative
officer at Gold Front, which is the
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world's first category design studio.
That really begs the question, what is
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category design? Okay, well actually it
begs the question, what is a category
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design studio? Your right, let's start,
let's let's start there. What is a
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category design studio? Okay, so first
of all, I'm here in san Francisco, this
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is where Gold Front is my company and
we are a category design studio. And
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that means that we help startups create
and own their own category. Um, we're a
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category design studio because we're
the first creative company to combine
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category strategy with all the creative
execution you need to do to launch that
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category in the world. Brand design
website, design video, et cetera. And
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the what the importance of having a
category design studio in the world is
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that our clients for the most part have
been using a very old kind of strategy
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called Brain strategy. And it can't get
them to where they really want to go
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because Brain strategy was invented to
help people stand out in an existing
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category like cars or cigarettes or
something like that. Category of
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strategy was invented to help companies
create entirely new species of products,
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something entirely new. And it's
designed around that there's a lot of
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overlap with brand strategy, but as
long as you're putting your
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communications and your ideas and your
vision into the world, into the kind of
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language of brand strategy, it's going
to limit what your company can be. And
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that's why we're a category design
studio. Well, there you have it. So
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brand is becoming antiquated or is not
right for startups, especially who are
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bringing something new into the world.
So can you walk me through what
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category creation is in its essence
could just ground us in a definition to
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start with. Sure, category design was
first made popular in the book play
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bigger about five years ago. But the
idea that People make buying decisions
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based on category 1st and foremost has
been around for decades. And category
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of design is the intentional creation
of new market categories so that you
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can own a much bigger kind of market
then you otherwise would if you were in
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an existing category and the word
design in there, I think suggests that
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it's something that you do thoughtfully,
it's something that you do with a lot
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of rigor and it's something that you do,
bringing together a number of different
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elements, all working in concert to get
you to your goal. So who might the
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people or companies be who need to be
thinking about category design is it
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for everyone are there? People who
would you don't need it? Yeah. Yeah. So
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category creation in and of itself has
been around forever, you know, as long
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as there have been products, but
category design has really taken off in
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these last 5 to 10 years because we're
in this time where there's all these
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companies who are innovating people are
creating totally new kinds of products
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at a much higher rate than they used to.
And so category design has been picked
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up as this kind of very relevant thing
for startups to do and especially for
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startups that are, are funded, people
are investing a lot of money in those
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startups. And so they're shooting for a
big acquisition or some some kind of
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event liquidity event at the end where
they're valued very highly. And the way
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to do that is not through competing in
an existing category, but it's to
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create a category of your own. Okay, so
we know why we're doing it, we know
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who's doing it. Let's talk about the
how, so you bring companies in and take
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full assessment and walk with them from
start to finish, of course, in this
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category design process. But would you
mind just kind of sharing the high
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level process if somebody wanted to
maybe take stock of what that would
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look like starting by themselves? Yeah,
I'd be happy to. You don't need us, you
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can do it yourself and if you were
going to do it yourself, here's how I
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would do it. First of all, you have to
carve out the time in your schedule.
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One of the reasons why we are so
effective for our clients is because
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our clients are busy constantly all day
putting out fires, answering emails,
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taking care of their to do list. And we
carve out time to really think deeply
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about category. But you can do the same
thing. You have to go to your boss, you
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have to say, look, I need at least an
hour every morning where I don't have
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to do any email, I'm not going to be on
slack, I won't be in any meetings. Okay.
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Because you're gonna need that time to
write and really think so once you've
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got the time scheduled, the next thing
you're gonna need to think about our
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kind of three big buckets or things
that we need to define for as category
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designers. The first is the gap. What
is the gap that you are trying to close
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or solve for your customers? Second is
what is your vision for the future,
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five years down the road, What does the
world look like for your customers and
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even for the world if you are
ultimately successful with what you're
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doing. And the third is what's your
category idea and the category idea is
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best expressed as the name of a
category and maybe a single sentence
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describing what that what that means.
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And so once we, so you start with those
three ideas and then I want to talk a
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little bit about how you're really
actually going to do this. So you get
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into your writing time, no one's going
to bother, you don't check anything of
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all your notifications. And then you're
gonna write down, you just start with
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the gap and the way that you get to the
gap because you're going to start
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writing down problems that you uniquely
solve for your customer. So you know,
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this is all assuming you already have a
company and a product and maybe you're
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an existing category but you want to be
a category creator, right? So you take
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that product that you have and you
think like what problems do we solve
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for customers especially what are we
uniquely solve for customers. And the
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first thing people will do will be to
try to write this in terms of the
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features and benefits of their product,
but don't do that. You want the reverse,
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you want to write it down as problems
that your customers have And just write
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down a ton of stuff. Uh this is too
expensive. It's too hard to do. X. um
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just keep writing stuff down. You
should get a list of 20 things and
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you're gonna look at that list and
think about
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what are the things that are most
valuable that we solve and one of the
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things that are most unique most unlike
anything else and you're going to start
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to think about like, okay, how could I
get wrap all this up into one concept
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and that one concept is something that
we call the gap. You're going to try to
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name the gap, We're going to try to
name this one concept that is all of
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the problems that you uniquely solved.
So for example, we just launched a
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category for our client visible busy bo
was an event management software
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platform. They just came out as an
event experience. Os and that's very
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different than just event management
software and for them, the gap that we
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helped them land on is the event impact
gap. So that's the impact that people
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who are putting on events are unable to
make for their business and for the
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event goers with existing event
management software. So that was,
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that's an example of one gap, but
you're gonna have to name your own gap
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and so that's that's the gap part. So
I'm curious about the, about the
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problems parts. So a couple of
important assumptions that need to be
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made one, you know, your customer base
really, really well, you know what
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they're dealing with in their day to
day, that's going to help you when you
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really think through the getting to an
accurate gap, I would assume right and
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the second one would be knowing what
your competitors are doing, knowing
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that your space really well because
that's how you're going to be able to
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determine, we do this either uniquely
or we do it the best. And here's why in
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order to
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tightly determined at the end of that
exercise, what is the gap and even how
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do I begin to put language around it?
Absolutely. When you say those are true,
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Absolutely. That second thing you said,
it's that's so spot on Olivia, you have
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to have a good, once you come up with
all the things that you, the problems
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that you solve, you have to have come
up with a really good list of what?
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Okay, well, which of those things are
unique and better than who we perceive
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as our competitors are doing this is
why you need the notifications off in a
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couple more, a couple hours in the per
week to really be left alone to figure
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it out. Probably some research involved.
This, it sounds like creating this list
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is the foundation of everything to come.
That's right. That's right. Ok. Okay.
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So we're putting a lot of thought into
this and a lot of that's right. That's
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right. And in fact, if you really solve
that gap the right way, if you can
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really name it, Probably 70% of the way
there. If you really nail that, you can
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probably get to the rest of it. But
we're not going to do that. We're not
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going to jump the line. We're going to
go to the next thing, which is now,
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you're going to write down your vision
for the future and when we ask our
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clients to talk about their vision for
the future a lot of times they'll be
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like, well we're super successful and
we're making a lot of money and people
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love us, you know, and which of course
that's sure who wouldn't want that, but
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the vision that we're talking about is
what specifically does it look like for
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your customers if you guys are really
successful and the key is that you're
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being really specific and you're using
your imagination to really imagine what
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it might be like five years from now.
So for example, Uber is a client of
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ours and they have the idea that if we
keep going like this in the future we
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can take more cars off the road. And so
part of their vision is cities may
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actually have more space for
pedestrians and bicycles and things
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like that. That's a really great
specific way to talk about their vision
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for the future. And so you kind of want
to think creatively about that and
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really kind of get into the details of
like what does that world look like for
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your customer? Hey everybody Logan was
sweet fish here. If you're a regular
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listener of GDP Growth, you know that
I'm one of the co hosts of the show,
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but you may not know that I also head
up the sales team here at sweet fish.
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So for those of you in sales or sales
ops, I wanted to take a second to share
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something that's made us insanely more
efficient lately, our team has been
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using lead I. Q. For the past few
months. And what used to take us four
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hours gathering contact data now takes
us only One where 75% more efficient.
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We're able to move faster with outbound
prospecting and organizing our
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campaigns is so much easier than before.
I'd highly suggest you guys check out
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lead I. Q. As well. You can check them
out at least I Q dot com. That's L E A
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D I Q dot com. Alright, let's get back
to the show. I love that. This is a big
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goal in the world of like investing. I
don't know why that comes to mind right
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now, but they call it like the big
audacious goal. And I think this is I
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love actually when we were talking
before we were on this call you had
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mentioned companies are interested in
doing well. So revenue success very
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measured but doing good as well. And I
think this is where you get to get
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creative. But you also the it sounds
like this vision is very large, it's
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not unrealistic. It's very connected to
the business, it's very connected to
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the impact that your product can make
or your service can make. How detailed
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do you get with this vision any of
these for both the problem and vision.
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It's really just a series of simple
statements. So for vision, you know,
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just write down a sentence that says,
what does the world look like in five
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years and then you don't have to write
paragraphs or it's just a list of ideas
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And you know, you probably want 10-20
of those. Yeah, okay, 10-20 vision
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statements. I'm curious about one thing
actually, if we can hop back up to
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determining the gap, is there a way
that you recommend people test that,
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that what they've come up with is
accurate? Yeah, best way to test is the
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way Quentin Tarantino does. So he
writes his scripts and he's obviously
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one of the most successful filmmakers
in Hollywood and he works really hard
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on his scripts and then he invites a
person over and he reads them every
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part of the script while they stand
there or sit there or whatever and if
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they go,
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wow, that's amazing, I love it. Then he
knows that it's ready and I'm sure he
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does that to more than one person, but
that's the best research you can do is
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you take your ideas, you pitch them to
people and you wait until you get you
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start getting reactions where people
are like, wow, you really got something
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mm Okay, good way to, good way to test.
So then we've written down the problem,
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we've established the gap, we know what
our vision is, we know our direction
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and where we're heading, we know that
we're going to be thinking more than
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just everyone in the company is driving
Lamborghinis and we're just rolling in
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it. I don't care about cars at all, but
that's, that's expensive and it's far,
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it's far more about how are our
customers lives being changed or
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impacted. So what's next? What comes
next? Okay, so then when we get to the
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final part, which is your category idea
and most, most of the time category
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ideas are going to come out as category
names and just come up with as many as
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you can. Don't worry if they're good,
just write stuff down, write whatever
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comes to mind. Once you've written down
say 50-100, you could go back and you
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could bold the ones that you think are
most interesting. You want to think
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about, You kind of need to think about
two things during this stage. You need
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to think about what is the idea, like
what is the actual concept of this
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thing? But then you also need to think
about what does the actual name sound
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like. And there's a few things about
names that are kind of important about
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category names. One is that they should
be fairly rational. So something like
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Nike, just do it, just do it that
doesn't work as a category name. Um,
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it's a great tagline of course, but
it's just not telling you enough about
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what the thing is. So a category name
should tell you what is it. The other
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thing that I would think about is you
also want it to be a little bit
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emotional or have a little bit of
tension, something interesting about it.
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So we just named the event experience
os for obisbo, that word experience is
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more emotional than a word like
management. And then also when you say
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that it's an os you're really saying
like, hey, this is something big, this
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is a much bigger play than just a tool
or piece of software and so things like
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that, give it a little bit of
excitement and you know what it is,
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That's right, there's obviously
intrigue and a hook and you want to
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learn more, but you can probably
surmise accurately what it is. Other
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examples of categories, account based
marketing, account based marketing is
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the famous category. Yes. What might be
a few others? Well, we we created a
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category for our clients all day
kitchens and all day kitchens came out
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as an alternative to ghost kitchens
last year. Ghost kitchens were pretty
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big. There were this idea that there
was this idea that kitchens without,
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that weren't restaurants could be
rented by restaurants and it would
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allow them to increase their delivery
footprint. Right? And all day our
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clients that all day kitchens came out
with some with a kind of different way
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of doing this whole thing, trying to
get a similar result, but a different
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way of doing it, which is to actually
run the kitchen's themselves and let
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the restaurant make the food at their
restaurant and then from there all day
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kitchens picks up the food and then
makes it at all these satellite
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kitchens and there they have expert
chefs at the center of their business,
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so they know how to take, You know, the
amazing food of a great local
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restaurant, and then they learn how to
make it exactly like that in their
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kitchen, and they can take the
footprint of the delivery footprint of
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a local restaurant and expand it from,
you know, maybe two miles to 50 miles.
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And so they really wanted to let the
world know that they were different
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than a ghost kitchen. So we came up
with this, this name of a distributed
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restaurant platform and we really liked
this idea of naming it around the kind
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of restaurant because really they're
all about championing restaurants, They
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saw this moment that restaurants, local
restaurants were gonna get steamrolled
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by, you know, our delivery future and
so they wanted to give restaurants a
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chance to transform into something that
could win in that future. And the
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transformation that they're, they're
saying restaurants can make is to
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become a distributed restaurant. So
that's a great local restaurant that
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has the capacity that all day kitchens
offers them. Oh my gosh, I think that's
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awesome as somebody who loves
restaurants and loves probably eating.
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I think that is brilliant. So remind me
of the category, name, distributed
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restaurant platform. And then there's
another category name in there, which
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is a distributed restaurant. So you've
created to it's two categories, right?
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Oh my gosh, which is just absolutely
wonderful and brilliant tactics. So
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then does that allow for other in this
kind of thought experiment for a second?
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Would that potentially allow for other
people, other companies to then move
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into that category? That's already been
established for them? Yes, that's the
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idea is that other companies could move
into that category as well and they
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will at some point if it's successful.
Right? So there's an idea that the
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category is a almost like a gift that
you give to the world who knew that
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this was so benevolent. I mean, that in
the truest way, I think that's that's
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awesome. So curious about you just
mentioned if it's successful, I'm
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curious about some of the results that
category creation has, has driven that
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you've seen personally with your
companies and that you've worked with
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around, you know, okay, they create the
category, they have this vision for the
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future, then what? How are they really
assessing? Yeah. So the results that we
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see our clients getting are kind of
amazing. I mean, first of all, almost
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all of our clients go on to raise
another much bigger round after they do
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category creation and that's the number
one way that they're going to measure
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this? Is, did this raise awareness for
their company? Their product, their
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category. Did it make people start to
convert to become customers did
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increase revenue, things like that. And
if they can do that then they're going
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to be able to get another, you know,
additional round of funding that's even
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much, much bigger than the previous one.
And so that that happens almost like
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clockwork for most of our clients. But
also there's I mean there's just like
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huge potential in this. We worked with
another agency played bigger to write
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the category P. O. V. For Qualtrics and
Qualtrics at the time was a survey
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company. They were being lumped in with
Medallion and Surveymonkey and the
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evaluation was a little bit under a
billion dollars. Which was they were
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doing great but cool tricks had a
vision that was much bigger than
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surveys. And so we helped them land on
this new category, P. O. V. And then
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when they brought that out to the world,
their valuation just shot up because
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people perceive them as no longer in an
existing category. But a really
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exciting new category that they were
the leader of. And valuations go up
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when you're perceived as the leader of
an exciting new category. And so today
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that was five years ago that we did
this work and Now the evaluation is
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that I think it's around 24 billion.
They're a public company and they still
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use um so in their S1 when they filed
to go public, they still use all the
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same ideas to express their value in
the world from five years ago. That's
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incredible. One billion. Which is I
like you said, sitting pretty up to,
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did you say 24 billion? I think that's
what it is. Yeah. Yeah. So what was
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their new category? Experienced
management, experienced management?
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They're gap is the experience gap. And
so the experience gap is the difference
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between the experience that your
customers are having and the experience
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that your executives think that they're
having. And if those two things are way
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out of whack and you know, different,
then you've got a really big problem in
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Qualtrics is the first experience
management platform that closes that
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gap. This is so interesting to me
because I'm sure that that's a
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prevalent problem for many companies is
the experience you're exactly think
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your customers are having versus the
experience that your customers are
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having. And people can use Qualtrics is
a great example of of, you know, that
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category has already been created and
we could either join in with Qualtrics
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if that makes sense, or we can use that
as a stepping stone and think, I think
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it provides even more guardrails for
addressing their own categories. That's
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a great example. I love that one. If
you were to give a few red flags or
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warning signs. As people who take this.
Maybe internal assessment or the D. I.
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Y route of creating or thinking through
a new category for their company, what
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would be some of the wrong turns that
people might take? Okay? The biggest
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thing is people thinking too small,
just got to think like how big could
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this thing be and can't be too attached
to what you have right now. Category
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design is not just like a marketing
thing, you're not looking at. What what
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product do we have now, How do we paint
it and how do we show it in its best
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light? Category design is a little bit
of that but it's also invention. And so
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I think what I see is people may be
thinking a little too small or thinking
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more about what do we need to do in the
next couple months as opposed to where
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do we need to get to in, you know, four
or five years. How do you help people
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kind of break out of that, that small
mind sound. Yeah, it's interesting
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because there's a few ways that I think
things that we do that part of our
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process that is helpful. 11 thing is
that we only work with the Ceo, I mean
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we work with the CEO and other
executives but if the Ceo is not
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involved then we won't do category
strategy with them. And so that's
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that's one big thing right there and
then we're not cheap as a company. And
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so our clients put down real money to
do this thing and I think just the act
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of doing that makes it so that they're
going to give it more attention and
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really give it their focus. Another
thing is we do workshops that are 2.5
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or three hours and usually there's four
or five of them. So that's a big
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investment of time. So when you get the
ceo investing money time, getting all
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the executives together, then it takes
on a different, you know, way that
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people are thinking about it compared
to some of the other initiatives that
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they have going on. And I think that's
really important in order to kind of
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think big enough about what you're
doing, there's some major skin in the
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game there, and they want to get the
most juice good news as we say. Yeah.
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Oh my gosh, that's phenomenal. And then,
you know, and then also on our side
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it's incumbent upon us to think big to
and to be kind of as dramatic as we can.
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And I think one thing that's
interesting about is when we're writing
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strategic narratives and helping our
clients figure out the story of this
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new category. We're always using this
idea that, like, okay, it's got to be
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as dramatic as possible, and then we're
going back to like, well, what can we
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actually approve? Like, what do we
actually have? So that this doesn't
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just come across as Bs, right? And
we're always trying, kind of, going
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back and forth between those two things.
Be as dramatic as possible. Make sure
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it's not Bs be as dramatic as possible.
Make sure it's not Bs. And we're trying
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to find that connective tissue so that
eventually we can get a story that
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really is dramatic but also resonates
as true for the audience. Oh my
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goodness, you have put so much thought
into this. Does this work just light
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you up? This sounds just my God, It's
so fun. It's so fun. And it's
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meaningful to, because new technologies
are going to decide our fate, it's
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going to decide the fate of our species.
We may destroy ourselves, we may save
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ourselves. We don't know. But these new
categories that are being created are
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going to be the thing that decides that.
And so, you know, you better make them
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good. And also we have a particular
interest in making sure that those new
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categories are purpose driven, humanist,
good for the world. So it's very
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fulfilling work. That sounds awesome.
I'm so glad you're doing that. I'm so
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glad so many people have been coming to
you and creating these new categories.
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You are wicked Good at what you do.
Just even from these stories, I'm so
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lucky that we've gotten to chat today.
If there was one big takeaway you
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wanted listeners to come away from this
episode. Just one nugget. What would it
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be? Believe in yourself if you feel
that you've got a better way that your
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company could be doing things and
people are saying, nah, nah, forget
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about it. Just, let's do it the old way.
Just believe in yourself. You got to
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figure out a way to break out of that
and listen to yourself and try to, you
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know, do something big for your company.
I love it and do the legwork, you know,
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do that list, writing of the problems
and figuring out the gap like you said,
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I, I think that's phenomenal advice.
Well thank you so much for joining me
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on GDP growth Olivia. I really enjoyed
this. It was great talking with you. Oh
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awesome, thank you.
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Are you on linkedin? That's a stupid
question. Of course you're on linkedin
352
00:31:05.680 --> 00:31:10.190
here, Sweet fish. We've gone all in on
the platform. Multiple people from our
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team are creating content there.
Sometimes it's a funny gift for me,
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00:31:14.030 --> 00:31:18.060
other times it's a micro video or a
slide deck and sometimes it's just a
355
00:31:18.060 --> 00:31:22.130
regular old status update that shares
their unique point of view on B two B
356
00:31:22.130 --> 00:31:26.370
marketing leadership or their job
function. We're posting this content
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00:31:26.370 --> 00:31:31.150
through their personal profile, not our
company page and it would warm my heart
358
00:31:31.160 --> 00:31:35.720
and soul if you connected with each of
our evangelists, we'll be adding more
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down the road, but for now you should
connect with Bill reed, R. C 00 Kelsey
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Montgomery, our Creative director dan
Sanchez our Director of audience growth
361
00:31:45.340 --> 00:31:49.090
Logan Lyles, our director of
partnerships and me, James Carberry.
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We're having a whole lot of fun on
linked in pretty much every single day
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and we'd love for you to be a part of
it.