Is Your Marketing Toxic? Find Out if It's Hurting People & Your Bottom Line w/Ethan Beute

WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah, 2 00:00:06.940 --> 00:00:10.280 welcome back to be, to be growth. I'm dan Sanchez with sweet fish media and 3 00:00:10.280 --> 00:00:15.220 I'm here with Ethan Beauty, who is the chief evangelist at bom bom and a 4 00:00:15.220 --> 00:00:19.930 longtime guest on BTB growth. So Ethan, welcome back to the show, Thank you so 5 00:00:19.930 --> 00:00:24.450 much. It's been a privilege to be engaged with you and the other folks 6 00:00:24.450 --> 00:00:28.650 who have hosted and co hosted the show over the years. Um and I'm happy to be 7 00:00:28.650 --> 00:00:33.420 back today. We're here to talk about heathens new book they just co authored 8 00:00:33.420 --> 00:00:38.060 with Stephen personally, they just authored the book Human centered 9 00:00:38.060 --> 00:00:43.220 Communication, a business case against digital pollution and I've been hearing 10 00:00:43.220 --> 00:00:47.060 about this book coming out for a long time. I finally just had a time to look 11 00:00:47.060 --> 00:00:51.400 over just before this interview and it is a fantastic premise. You think, can 12 00:00:51.400 --> 00:00:55.070 you tell us a little bit about the premise behind the book and digital 13 00:00:55.070 --> 00:01:00.000 pollution itself and then I have lots of interesting questions and stories to 14 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:04.230 share afterwards. Awesome. So I'll start with digital pollution and then 15 00:01:04.230 --> 00:01:07.700 move a little bit into human center communication, then get into the super 16 00:01:07.700 --> 00:01:12.380 fun part. So digital pollution, I feel like we've given a name to something 17 00:01:12.380 --> 00:01:17.190 that we've all suffered with for a long, long time in a variety of different 18 00:01:17.190 --> 00:01:20.130 ways. I think we would all recognize different examples that we've 19 00:01:20.130 --> 00:01:24.270 experienced and I think as we get into the conversation, some of those will be 20 00:01:24.270 --> 00:01:28.250 obviously illuminated, but when you think digital pollution, think about 21 00:01:28.260 --> 00:01:34.790 anything that's confusing, frustrating, annoying, distracting, perhaps even 22 00:01:34.790 --> 00:01:41.240 dangerous. So at one really far end of the examples is malware, phishing 23 00:01:41.240 --> 00:01:47.120 attacks, data breaches, ransomware. All these other things like very malicious 24 00:01:47.120 --> 00:01:52.000 and intentional on the far other end is just kind of this sometimes funny, 25 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:56.030 silly innocent type stuff where you pick up your phone and there are 85 26 00:01:56.030 --> 00:01:59.540 text messages and you're like, hey what the heck just happened and you realize 27 00:01:59.540 --> 00:02:01.950 you're now in a group message that really didn't need to be a group 28 00:02:01.950 --> 00:02:04.780 message or maybe you didn't need to be in it. And so like you got to figure 29 00:02:04.780 --> 00:02:08.610 out what's going on there, you know, not intentional, not harmful but still 30 00:02:08.610 --> 00:02:13.020 distracting and kind of annoying. Or another one is when you receive or 31 00:02:13.020 --> 00:02:18.210 you've actually sent a an auto corrected or mistyped message. That 32 00:02:18.210 --> 00:02:23.020 creates some confusion sometimes it's even embarrassing. So that's like 33 00:02:23.020 --> 00:02:26.170 that's on the other end, it's just those things just happen and we can be 34 00:02:26.170 --> 00:02:30.670 maybe a little bit more careful, but The bulk of the conversation, I think 35 00:02:30.670 --> 00:02:36.020 especially in the context of B2B growth B two B sales, B two B marketing and 36 00:02:36.020 --> 00:02:40.610 really across the entire customer experience is what I call consequential 37 00:02:40.610 --> 00:02:44.380 pollution and it's you're not seeking to do harm as you are on the 38 00:02:44.380 --> 00:02:48.900 intentional end. But something about your approach to creating and 39 00:02:48.900 --> 00:02:53.940 delivering value is frustrating, confusing, annoying, distracting or 40 00:02:53.940 --> 00:02:57.490 even threatening to somebody else and they deem it pollution. So that's a key 41 00:02:57.490 --> 00:03:02.450 characteristic digital pollution is subjective and contextual, you don't 42 00:03:02.450 --> 00:03:06.680 get to decide what's pollution, the recipient or the person experiencing 43 00:03:06.680 --> 00:03:10.690 what you're presenting gets to decide for themselves in the moment. One quick 44 00:03:10.690 --> 00:03:15.720 thing on that is you and I dan could get the exact same message from the 45 00:03:15.720 --> 00:03:19.590 exact same source in the exact same channel. Let's just pretend it's email 46 00:03:19.590 --> 00:03:23.670 to keep it simple um with the exact same offer for the exact same reason. 47 00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:26.650 There there's several things that you and I shared and that might land us on 48 00:03:26.650 --> 00:03:30.210 the same list of the same message at the same time. I might get and say oh 49 00:03:30.210 --> 00:03:33.960 my gosh, this is so helpful, I'm so glad I got this today, you might get 50 00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:39.490 and go not again unsubscribe abuse, whatever. However, if you had received 51 00:03:39.490 --> 00:03:42.610 that same message a month earlier, perhaps before you had made a buying 52 00:03:42.610 --> 00:03:47.260 decision or before you understood something differently, you might have 53 00:03:47.260 --> 00:03:50.040 been happy to receive it or a month later, that situation might change. So 54 00:03:50.040 --> 00:03:56.760 it's highly contextual and highly subjective. So that's pollution. Any 55 00:03:56.770 --> 00:04:00.910 thoughts or observations yourself with regard to that idea. I mean I think the 56 00:04:00.910 --> 00:04:04.090 internet has made it pretty obvious like what pollution is. I mean even 57 00:04:04.090 --> 00:04:07.070 when you first think about it, when people even think about advertising in 58 00:04:07.070 --> 00:04:10.930 general, you think of like Madison Avenue which just so many lights and 59 00:04:10.940 --> 00:04:14.560 advertisements all over the place, you're just like oh my gosh! I mean 60 00:04:14.570 --> 00:04:18.600 that one is so over the top that it's actually a landmark now, but in general, 61 00:04:18.610 --> 00:04:22.180 I feel like the internet is kind of like that. We're just, there's so many 62 00:04:22.190 --> 00:04:27.860 irrelevant messages and spam floating around our systems that it just becomes 63 00:04:27.870 --> 00:04:32.320 obnoxious to the point where we become banner blind because we can't even see 64 00:04:32.320 --> 00:04:36.370 it anymore. One of things I did it like as soon as I had submitted the 65 00:04:36.370 --> 00:04:40.800 manuscript, I went on an internal tour at bom bom, the company I work in um 66 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:44.110 and went team by team and just facilitated brief conversations about 67 00:04:44.110 --> 00:04:47.690 these ideas to help create some understanding awareness to develop them 68 00:04:47.690 --> 00:04:52.480 even further. And one of my most obvious takeaways is something you just 69 00:04:52.480 --> 00:04:57.900 observed which is that we've become so desensitized to it. We just accept as 70 00:04:57.900 --> 00:05:01.790 normal some of the stuff that we have to do, whether it's just a habit of 71 00:05:01.790 --> 00:05:05.820 swipe, delete swipe, delete swipe, delete on our phones while we have a 72 00:05:05.820 --> 00:05:09.080 minute so that when we actually do intend to spend time in our inbox, it's 73 00:05:09.080 --> 00:05:13.030 on things that we've already filtered or whether it's just accepted that I 74 00:05:13.030 --> 00:05:17.800 need to be silence that friend or block that person. So I don't see any more of 75 00:05:17.800 --> 00:05:22.680 that junk anymore. And so, and this goes very big. We just saw the 76 00:05:22.680 --> 00:05:28.270 instagram facebook Internal documentation thing come out that they 77 00:05:28.280 --> 00:05:33.280 know that what's going on in social is insanely damaging to a generation of 78 00:05:33.280 --> 00:05:36.940 young women um that fits in this conversation to outside the bounds a 79 00:05:36.940 --> 00:05:41.440 little bit of B2B growth but um still part of the digital pollution 80 00:05:41.440 --> 00:05:47.530 conversation. And so we've become blind to it because it's so pervasive, it's 81 00:05:47.530 --> 00:05:51.660 funny because as a user it's like as I was reading the book, I'm like it's so 82 00:05:51.660 --> 00:05:55.240 obvious like of course like of course the more narrow the segmentation of 83 00:05:55.240 --> 00:05:59.270 course the more personalized it is, the more human it is you're kind of like 84 00:05:59.280 --> 00:06:03.270 like of course that's going to work but then I can think back to my time as a 85 00:06:03.270 --> 00:06:07.820 marketer and I'm like I've clearly not always done this and I think any 86 00:06:07.820 --> 00:06:12.320 marketer that's been marketing for any length of time has a list of like that 87 00:06:12.320 --> 00:06:16.110 would be dripping red like with all the sins we've committed of digital 88 00:06:16.110 --> 00:06:20.220 pollution like over over the last decades I know if I can share like one 89 00:06:20.220 --> 00:06:25.000 of my most embarrassing ones um that I was thinking about as I was reading 90 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:30.930 this book and I'm like that was me um was a time I was working for a 91 00:06:30.930 --> 00:06:36.520 christian university, I was trying to grow instagram followership and we had 92 00:06:36.520 --> 00:06:38.980 been running ads and all that kind of stuff. You could say that some of that 93 00:06:38.980 --> 00:06:42.370 might have been digital pollution probably less so than other places 94 00:06:42.370 --> 00:06:46.720 though, but I had a friend that was having great success with an automated 95 00:06:46.720 --> 00:06:51.680 program right, fully automated kind of like a follow one follow type of a 96 00:06:51.680 --> 00:06:56.470 system and it would go and actually, automatically, like a lot of different 97 00:06:56.470 --> 00:07:01.310 posts We had great engagement with our Instagram profile, but I was like, you 98 00:07:01.310 --> 00:07:04.120 know, we really want to get this up above 10,000 because then we can have 99 00:07:04.120 --> 00:07:07.620 the swipe and the stories and have links in there and all kinds of stuff. 100 00:07:07.620 --> 00:07:10.160 Let's get it over 10,000. Let's use some automation. Let's increase 101 00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:13.890 engagement 100 times because it's going to be commenting and liking other 102 00:07:13.890 --> 00:07:18.370 people's posts for us automatically. So we run this system, it's running for a 103 00:07:18.370 --> 00:07:22.590 few weeks and I'm like, okay, engagement's going up, reaches going up, 104 00:07:22.600 --> 00:07:27.280 followership is going up all systems go little did I know like people were 105 00:07:27.280 --> 00:07:31.690 paying attention to what that page was commenting on and liking on. And even 106 00:07:31.690 --> 00:07:35.400 though I had set really tight parameters, it started liking things 107 00:07:35.410 --> 00:07:39.730 that I would never want associated with the college and the followers that were 108 00:07:39.730 --> 00:07:45.290 engaged noticed, they were like, what is this? Did you like this questionable 109 00:07:45.290 --> 00:07:50.870 photo was like, no, it was so bad. But it was like one of those things where 110 00:07:50.870 --> 00:07:54.820 you think just because you can increase it with automation just because you can 111 00:07:54.820 --> 00:07:59.980 scale something to the n degree that it's going to work. But oftentimes 112 00:07:59.980 --> 00:08:04.130 taking that kind of robotic approach just isn't isn't going to get you to 113 00:08:04.130 --> 00:08:06.620 where you thought you were going to go, it isn't actually going to build the 114 00:08:06.620 --> 00:08:10.460 relationships you were hoping it would build and it kind of alienates some of 115 00:08:10.460 --> 00:08:14.470 the people that you actually did have genuine relationships with because 116 00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:19.810 guess what? They can feel it. So that was like probably my worst story of 117 00:08:19.810 --> 00:08:24.100 like taking it too far and the consequence of it, of course I shut it 118 00:08:24.100 --> 00:08:26.860 down after that, never went back to that kind of automated social game 119 00:08:26.860 --> 00:08:31.640 again, but it was certainly painful. So the interesting thing that you just 120 00:08:31.640 --> 00:08:38.429 shared there is an awareness of the counter impact or kind of like the 121 00:08:38.429 --> 00:08:44.900 negative metrics or the failure rate of what you were doing and by that, I mean 122 00:08:44.910 --> 00:08:50.100 you fortunately had built a brand and built a following that cared enough to 123 00:08:50.100 --> 00:08:57.030 let you know that they were confused at best and displeased at worst, but that 124 00:08:57.030 --> 00:09:01.160 you were paying attention, I think so much of this activity were so focused 125 00:09:01.160 --> 00:09:06.300 on the first number you started with was like let's get to this number and 126 00:09:06.300 --> 00:09:10.100 do whatever it takes to get there and oh by the way, let's, you know, we're 127 00:09:10.100 --> 00:09:14.930 gonna, because it's less tangible. It's less measurable to know what the 128 00:09:14.930 --> 00:09:19.150 sentiment is. Either of the people on the receiving end or in this case, you 129 00:09:19.150 --> 00:09:23.720 know, people already accepted into your community, It's harder to understand 130 00:09:23.720 --> 00:09:27.550 that sentiment. So fortunately people to raise their hand, but you know, if 131 00:09:27.550 --> 00:09:34.230 we want to high five about achieving a 3% conversion rate up from 2.4% 25% 132 00:09:34.230 --> 00:09:38.700 growth there and we can be like, we're superstars were amazing. I can't 133 00:09:38.700 --> 00:09:44.750 believe we grew this by 25% so often what we do in that scenario is ignore 134 00:09:44.760 --> 00:09:50.540 the other 97% and some of what's going on in that population and some of that 135 00:09:50.540 --> 00:09:55.230 is negative word of mouth, it is distancing from you. It's blocking 136 00:09:55.230 --> 00:09:59.230 deleting if there, if it's an email and they're using a tool like superhuman, 137 00:09:59.240 --> 00:10:03.350 they can block not just you but your entire domain. So none of the sales 138 00:10:03.350 --> 00:10:06.330 people ever to take that role or any of the marketers ever to take that role in 139 00:10:06.330 --> 00:10:09.730 the future can never reach you again. And I don't think we're honest enough 140 00:10:09.730 --> 00:10:14.900 about some of the counter impacts of what we're doing. The failure metrics 141 00:10:14.900 --> 00:10:19.680 is another way to say it. And so at least you we're working in a context 142 00:10:19.680 --> 00:10:23.690 where people were kind enough to let you know. Yeah, I was fortunate. I'm 143 00:10:23.690 --> 00:10:26.650 sure there's been many times where I've worked in context where nobody let me 144 00:10:26.650 --> 00:10:30.200 know and then I just had spinach in my teeth right? Maybe no one noticed 145 00:10:30.200 --> 00:10:33.970 because it just wasn't, they weren't real people. It's interesting to think 146 00:10:33.970 --> 00:10:38.800 about human center communication. It makes me wonder Ethan if there are like 147 00:10:38.810 --> 00:10:43.260 certain channels or certain broad practices that are like clearly just 148 00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:47.560 these, these things should never be done or if there are channels that are 149 00:10:47.570 --> 00:10:52.020 always always good. Can you think of certain tactics channels maybe like 150 00:10:52.020 --> 00:10:56.260 broad broad strategies that are on the no list or on the yes list for human 151 00:10:56.260 --> 00:11:00.970 center communication. Um, you know the fun thing is this is not so black and 152 00:11:00.970 --> 00:11:06.300 white. What we're looking to do here is not prescribe your behavior for the 153 00:11:06.300 --> 00:11:10.800 next 36-48 months based on what we've learned from the past and what we're 154 00:11:10.800 --> 00:11:14.800 forecasting for the future. We're really applying the principles of human 155 00:11:14.800 --> 00:11:19.540 center design, which is a 30 or 40 year old practice to our daily digital 156 00:11:19.540 --> 00:11:23.660 virtual and online communication for the benefit, not just of the, of the 157 00:11:23.660 --> 00:11:28.110 people you're reaching out to our engaging with but for everyone and for 158 00:11:28.110 --> 00:11:32.460 your long term relationships, reputation and revenue and I think that 159 00:11:32.460 --> 00:11:36.620 reputation pieces key and you just told a nice story about it And so you know, 160 00:11:36.620 --> 00:11:40.200 I don't know that I would offer anything in the context of your 161 00:11:40.200 --> 00:11:45.110 question that would be really new or surprising. I mean obviously purchase 162 00:11:45.110 --> 00:11:51.160 lists and taking every single email address you can find and putting it 163 00:11:51.160 --> 00:11:55.290 into your sales cadence tool or whatever and just like you know, 164 00:11:55.290 --> 00:11:59.140 shooting things at them until they finally reply or the unsubscribe or 165 00:11:59.140 --> 00:12:03.940 mark you for abuse. Obviously we can, you know, laugh all day about the 166 00:12:03.940 --> 00:12:08.560 foolish approach of you know making linkedin connection requests under some 167 00:12:08.560 --> 00:12:12.740 premise or with no, you know, no note with it at all And then immediately 168 00:12:12.740 --> 00:12:18.750 dumping the copy paste stuff about how the funny ones obviously have bad 169 00:12:18.750 --> 00:12:23.740 variable data in them, you know, like I know how much time in an effort you put 170 00:12:23.740 --> 00:12:28.880 into building good conversations and a good personal reputation on linkedin 171 00:12:28.890 --> 00:12:33.570 and I do that probably not as aggressively or as well as you do, but 172 00:12:33.580 --> 00:12:37.090 in any case, you know, I built a page for the customer experience podcast, I 173 00:12:37.090 --> 00:12:40.160 built a page for this book, Human centered communication. And so 174 00:12:40.160 --> 00:12:43.680 sometimes those variables will get plugged into some of the outreach that 175 00:12:43.680 --> 00:12:47.650 I'm getting on linked in or even by emails after Lincoln gets scraped. I 176 00:12:47.650 --> 00:12:52.010 mean obviously all that stuff where we're pretending this is a key, I guess 177 00:12:52.010 --> 00:12:55.910 this is a key idea and then I'll give it back to you on this, whether it's a 178 00:12:55.910 --> 00:13:01.990 I or automation or personalization, that's really just a form of automation 179 00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:06.570 um where you're slugging things in, you know, scraping and plugging, I think 180 00:13:06.570 --> 00:13:10.870 where we go awry and we're definitely not operating in a human centered way 181 00:13:10.870 --> 00:13:14.270 because you can automate things in a way that is in service of other human 182 00:13:14.270 --> 00:13:17.500 beings and they will appreciate, right, like I don't ever want to talk to 183 00:13:17.500 --> 00:13:21.730 somebody at amazon and I love the products that they refer to me at least 184 00:13:21.730 --> 00:13:25.680 I like never mind seeing them because their hit rate on it is decent, like, 185 00:13:25.690 --> 00:13:29.190 oh I don't mean that now, but at least it's a you know, it's legit. That's a 186 00:13:29.190 --> 00:13:35.340 pretty good offering. So this can all be done well. But a key idea is don't 187 00:13:35.350 --> 00:13:41.110 let things act as if and don't set things up to act as if they are 188 00:13:41.110 --> 00:13:42.450 something that they are not. 189 00:13:44.040 --> 00:13:48.790 Uh And by that I mean I have written emails that say, hey, you know, I'm 190 00:13:48.790 --> 00:13:52.130 sending this email to a couple 1000 people and you're one of them right? 191 00:13:52.140 --> 00:13:56.730 Stop pretending like this is made just for you now. There's a difference 192 00:13:56.730 --> 00:14:02.330 between what I just offered and you know, going into a crm are similar and 193 00:14:02.330 --> 00:14:07.540 saying if this is true, if that's true, if this number is between this range 194 00:14:07.540 --> 00:14:11.490 and that number is between that range and these two things are false as soon 195 00:14:11.490 --> 00:14:15.760 as those things all line up send this message that is actually going to be 196 00:14:15.770 --> 00:14:21.280 super helpful for somebody. Probably right. And so there are ways to do this 197 00:14:21.280 --> 00:14:26.390 well and there are ways to do it poorly but don't let things act or be 198 00:14:26.390 --> 00:14:31.490 presented as if there's something that they are not because a R. Bs detectors 199 00:14:31.490 --> 00:14:34.900 are very strong and they get stronger all the time when something new happens. 200 00:14:34.910 --> 00:14:39.390 Maybe were fooled one or two more times like because it's new but humans are 201 00:14:39.390 --> 00:14:43.400 very adept at this and so we learned very quickly and then to it just sets 202 00:14:43.400 --> 00:14:46.370 the whole relationship off on the wrong foot. I mean you're you're 203 00:14:46.380 --> 00:14:49.960 mischaracterizing or misleading out of the gate and I don't offer that in a 204 00:14:49.960 --> 00:14:54.050 moral, with a moral sensibility. Obviously we could undertake that from 205 00:14:54.240 --> 00:14:57.170 it. Just being the right thing to do is to be more forthright and 206 00:14:57.170 --> 00:15:01.050 straightforward with people. But as soon as people discover that gap, 207 00:15:01.540 --> 00:15:05.410 you're immediately killing the one thing that leads to a yes, which is 208 00:15:05.410 --> 00:15:11.320 trust. Hey, everybody Logan with sweet fish here. If you've been listening to 209 00:15:11.320 --> 00:15:15.300 the show for a while, you know, we're big proponents of putting out original 210 00:15:15.310 --> 00:15:19.340 organic content on linked in. But one thing that's always been a struggle for 211 00:15:19.340 --> 00:15:24.010 a team like ours is to easily track the reach of that linked in content. That's 212 00:15:24.010 --> 00:15:27.330 why I was really excited when I heard about shield the other day from a 213 00:15:27.330 --> 00:15:31.850 connection on, you guessed it linked in. Since our team started using shield, 214 00:15:31.860 --> 00:15:36.390 I've loved how it's led us easily track and analyze the performance of our 215 00:15:36.390 --> 00:15:40.400 linkedin content without having to manually log it ourselves. It 216 00:15:40.410 --> 00:15:43.780 automatically creates reports and generate some dashboards that are 217 00:15:43.780 --> 00:15:48.050 incredibly useful to see things like what contents been performing the best 218 00:15:48.060 --> 00:15:51.530 and what days of the week are we getting the most engagement and our 219 00:15:51.540 --> 00:15:55.550 average views proposed. I'd highly suggest you guys check out this tool if 220 00:15:55.550 --> 00:15:59.500 you're putting out content on linked in and if you're not, you should be, it's 221 00:15:59.500 --> 00:16:04.510 been a game changer for us. If you go to shield app dot ai and check out the 222 00:16:04.520 --> 00:16:10.250 10 day free trial. You can even use our promo code B two B growth to get a 25% 223 00:16:10.250 --> 00:16:15.880 discount again. That's shield app dot Ai. And that promo code is B. The 224 00:16:15.880 --> 00:16:22.600 number to be growth all one word. All right. Let's get back to the show. Hey, 225 00:16:22.610 --> 00:16:26.210 that's tough. As you were talking. I could think of a lot of different 226 00:16:26.210 --> 00:16:32.190 situations around my gosh, I'm still doing this and I'm still doing that and 227 00:16:32.190 --> 00:16:37.040 it's not, it's not, it is disingenuous. I will just call it out for what it is 228 00:16:37.050 --> 00:16:43.250 in places where I still consult or help with. Not a sweet fish but sweet fish 229 00:16:43.250 --> 00:16:49.800 is like very hands on, very personable. Everything's done almost manually. I 230 00:16:49.800 --> 00:16:52.880 can think of a situation where I send a text message after someone requests 231 00:16:52.880 --> 00:16:57.220 information that of course it's very triggered to be like only come at a 232 00:16:57.220 --> 00:17:00.660 certain amount of certain time when someone could actually be sending it. 233 00:17:00.840 --> 00:17:03.400 And it's like, hey saw that you were just requested information. What was 234 00:17:03.400 --> 00:17:06.960 interesting to you about the program right? And it's made to look like it 235 00:17:06.960 --> 00:17:09.500 came from a human naturally. I'm the one who wrote it and it's been sent 236 00:17:09.500 --> 00:17:14.390 thousands of times from other sales reps and but I'm like well is it going 237 00:17:14.390 --> 00:17:18.690 too far to make it look like the representative even though like if I 238 00:17:18.690 --> 00:17:23.690 had enough time and I slowed down the lead rate per rep. They probably this 239 00:17:23.690 --> 00:17:28.640 is exactly what I would have them send over and over again. So it gets hard to 240 00:17:28.640 --> 00:17:33.700 just like figure out where I've even sent the reverse where someone might be 241 00:17:33.700 --> 00:17:37.410 ghosting me or ghosting a rep. So I have a little script, it's not even 242 00:17:37.410 --> 00:17:40.670 automated. I have them manually send out something that looks like a robot 243 00:17:40.680 --> 00:17:44.630 just so they respond and I know whether they want to follow up or not. I mean 244 00:17:44.630 --> 00:17:47.330 maybe I could know that hey they haven't responded so maybe I should 245 00:17:47.330 --> 00:17:50.950 stop calling them. But there's certainly been times where I'm like 246 00:17:50.950 --> 00:17:56.110 reply yes, reply yes or no. Text text message rates may apply, you know, to 247 00:17:56.110 --> 00:17:58.690 make it look like it came out of an automated system just to get them to 248 00:17:58.690 --> 00:18:02.210 reply. So it's those kinds of things that I'm still trying to navigate 249 00:18:02.220 --> 00:18:06.520 internally. How do you use your framework to tell? Like whether whether 250 00:18:06.520 --> 00:18:11.470 or not you've kind of crossed the edge. Okay, so that leads me to acquit I'll 251 00:18:11.470 --> 00:18:17.510 do this quickly. It is I'm going to use a model from a design firm called video 252 00:18:17.520 --> 00:18:21.520 and I'm just going to describe for people human centered design. So I D. O. 253 00:18:21.520 --> 00:18:25.660 Is a design firm that's used human centered design principles in this 254 00:18:25.660 --> 00:18:30.170 model I'm about to describe to design the first apple mouse decades ago, more 255 00:18:30.170 --> 00:18:34.230 recently, a water system in Africa and they've designed hundreds if not 256 00:18:34.230 --> 00:18:38.580 thousands of products services systems and processes using this framework and 257 00:18:38.580 --> 00:18:42.010 it's very simple. It's three overlapping circles. Think of them 258 00:18:42.010 --> 00:18:45.190 maybe in a triangle shape with two on the bottom one on the top and they all 259 00:18:45.200 --> 00:18:48.290 equally overlap so they all meet in the middle and then their spots where the 260 00:18:48.300 --> 00:18:53.430 two of the circles overlap. The three circles are these number one in 261 00:18:53.440 --> 00:18:57.840 desirability and the needs of humans. Like what do the people involved in 262 00:18:57.840 --> 00:19:00.750 this or on the receiving end of this or who are going to be affected by this? 263 00:19:00.750 --> 00:19:05.770 What do they need and want? Then other circle adjacent to it is feasibility. 264 00:19:05.770 --> 00:19:09.850 What does technology allow us to do? And then the third circle kind of on 265 00:19:09.850 --> 00:19:15.600 top overlapping those two and meeting in the middle is viability. The 266 00:19:15.600 --> 00:19:19.730 definition for business success. So desirability needs of humans, 267 00:19:19.740 --> 00:19:24.380 feasibility, what's possible with technology and viability. The 268 00:19:24.380 --> 00:19:28.760 definition for business success. And so if you're if you want to start thinking 269 00:19:28.760 --> 00:19:33.410 about, Gosh, am I really doing the best thing here for my long term 270 00:19:33.410 --> 00:19:38.160 relationships, reputation and revenue. This is a common track that a lot of 271 00:19:38.160 --> 00:19:41.680 people fall into. And if you start with the definition for business success, 272 00:19:41.680 --> 00:19:45.190 you start with viability. What do we want. We want X number of dollars or X 273 00:19:45.190 --> 00:19:48.640 number of clicks or X number of whatever's right. We start with our 274 00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:53.070 definition for success and then we immediately go to feasibility, what 275 00:19:53.070 --> 00:19:57.250 does technology allow us to do? Well, As we all know, a listener to this show 276 00:19:57.250 --> 00:20:00.980 would know whether it's your second episode or you're set 200, you know 277 00:20:00.980 --> 00:20:04.730 very well. The technology is insanely powerful and incredibly inexpensive 278 00:20:04.730 --> 00:20:09.270 these days. And so that opens up a lot of doors and the problem is so many of 279 00:20:09.270 --> 00:20:13.880 us because it's the fastest easiest and very often maybe even the most 280 00:20:13.880 --> 00:20:19.080 profitable thing to do as we stop there. And we're operating at the overlap of 281 00:20:19.090 --> 00:20:22.710 our definition for business success and what technology allows us to do and 282 00:20:22.710 --> 00:20:28.050 that's where we wind up doing these things that treat people like numbers 283 00:20:28.060 --> 00:20:31.830 rather than treating people like people. Another problem too is if there are 284 00:20:31.830 --> 00:20:36.510 people involved, not only are we at some level dehumanizing the people were 285 00:20:36.510 --> 00:20:40.920 trying to build our business success with were also very often dehumanizing 286 00:20:40.920 --> 00:20:45.370 our team members who are forced to execute these systems and processes. Um, 287 00:20:45.370 --> 00:20:49.920 it doesn't bring them to life. It doesn't allow them any creativity or 288 00:20:49.920 --> 00:20:54.110 any space to make adjustments on the fly. Now that's an extreme that being 289 00:20:54.120 --> 00:20:59.240 in an extreme organization most allow some level of flexibility and trust, 290 00:20:59.240 --> 00:21:01.970 but a lot of them don't either. I mean you think about like just a really 291 00:21:01.970 --> 00:21:06.700 harshly run call center is what a dehumanizing role that could become 292 00:21:06.700 --> 00:21:14.350 very easily so missing in that scenario, in case you missed it is desirability. 293 00:21:14.360 --> 00:21:17.590 What do people actually need and want? And this goes back to your observation 294 00:21:17.590 --> 00:21:24.850 earlier dan of like duh yup uh huh. If we designed more of our work and more 295 00:21:24.850 --> 00:21:29.360 of our messages and more of our experiences starting and this is key 296 00:21:29.360 --> 00:21:33.910 for human centered design. It starts with desirability. We have to balance 297 00:21:33.910 --> 00:21:37.030 it with the other ones. This all has to work together. This is not an act of 298 00:21:37.030 --> 00:21:43.360 altruism, this is not an act of moral generosity or kindness. We do need to 299 00:21:43.360 --> 00:21:47.150 meet the requirements for our business success in coming to the right solution. 300 00:21:47.150 --> 00:21:52.050 But it starts with desirability and some level of intimacy and 301 00:21:52.060 --> 00:21:56.710 understanding of the people were trying to serve through this process. Now, 302 00:21:56.720 --> 00:22:00.950 good news is a listener to this show, probably is working from personas and I. 303 00:22:00.950 --> 00:22:05.880 C. P. S. And other tools based on research and interviews and past 304 00:22:05.880 --> 00:22:08.900 experience and what do we know from our current customers and how is that 305 00:22:08.900 --> 00:22:13.130 turning out? So we can inform that process. It's just a matter of making 306 00:22:13.130 --> 00:22:19.060 sure that as a matter of habit we're consciously thinking about the 307 00:22:19.060 --> 00:22:24.690 desirability of other people before we start figuring out the other circles 308 00:22:24.700 --> 00:22:28.160 and we need to operate more at that intersection of all three rather than 309 00:22:28.160 --> 00:22:32.480 the intersection of our success and what technology allows. And so with 310 00:22:32.480 --> 00:22:35.850 that framework, then we can start talking about how we're doing this, how 311 00:22:35.850 --> 00:22:39.720 we're doing that and we're deep in this at bom bom right now, Different teams 312 00:22:39.720 --> 00:22:43.080 because again, as I said earlier, I started these internal conversations 313 00:22:43.080 --> 00:22:47.060 and teaching these ideas months ago I submitted the manuscript at the end of 314 00:22:47.060 --> 00:22:51.290 March. And so, you know, and we did an internal book club off the off the 315 00:22:51.290 --> 00:22:54.620 manuscript itself. And so we're wrestling with all this stuff ourselves. 316 00:22:54.620 --> 00:23:00.010 So I offer that is the don't beat yourself up. None of us is perfect. 317 00:23:00.010 --> 00:23:03.700 There are no easy answers. We we involved 11 different experts in this 318 00:23:03.700 --> 00:23:08.220 book too. None all of them have strategies and tactics that I think 319 00:23:08.220 --> 00:23:12.460 people will find helpful, but none of them has the answer. There's a reason 320 00:23:12.460 --> 00:23:16.220 we call it the Holy Grail. And it's because nobody has it. I mean, I don't 321 00:23:16.220 --> 00:23:21.430 think anyone is going to I like the three points that you listed below. And 322 00:23:21.430 --> 00:23:24.630 I'm actually trying remember the last month's desirability, feasibility and 323 00:23:24.630 --> 00:23:29.170 the last one Viability. The definition for business success or the 324 00:23:29.170 --> 00:23:33.540 requirements for business success. So that begins to give me a little bit of 325 00:23:33.540 --> 00:23:38.330 a framework to even judge what is actually working here. So even I have a 326 00:23:38.330 --> 00:23:41.680 list of things. I was gonna say, see if it passed your mustard or not. But let 327 00:23:41.680 --> 00:23:45.050 me, let me see if I can walk through some of them using these three things 328 00:23:45.060 --> 00:23:49.730 and maybe I can arrive at my own conclusion. Starting with um it was 329 00:23:49.730 --> 00:23:54.600 funny, I threw out self checkout at the grocery store, right? You almost wonder 330 00:23:54.600 --> 00:23:58.530 is like, well that's less human. But at the same time the desirability to want 331 00:23:58.530 --> 00:24:01.610 to go through it is obviously high people use it all the time and 332 00:24:01.610 --> 00:24:05.770 sometimes it's just faster, easier, simpler bam I'm out. Maybe it's less 333 00:24:05.770 --> 00:24:09.510 human because I'm not having to interface with the human face to face. 334 00:24:09.510 --> 00:24:14.730 But as far as desirability goes, it clearly passes the mark and it's 335 00:24:14.730 --> 00:24:19.860 clearly feasible and passes the viability test. So that would be good. 336 00:24:21.140 --> 00:24:26.000 Yeah. Really, that's a great example. I would the one qualifier I would offer 337 00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:30.120 because I've been in this situation before is you know, I eat a lot of 338 00:24:30.130 --> 00:24:34.920 fruits and vegetables and you know, I don't always like to like pick out the 339 00:24:34.920 --> 00:24:38.390 numbers and weigh each one of them. The person who does it, you know, 1000 340 00:24:38.390 --> 00:24:42.300 times a day is faster than me. I think the best case scenario is to have self 341 00:24:42.300 --> 00:24:46.840 checkout also with some other lanes open. But my wife and I sometimes we'll 342 00:24:46.840 --> 00:24:51.220 go grocery shopping at five a.m. On a saturday and they're not staffing that 343 00:24:51.230 --> 00:24:55.150 the human checkout lines. So we have to self check. But I think giving someone 344 00:24:55.150 --> 00:24:59.260 the option there is a, to your observation. Yes, it's not inherently 345 00:24:59.260 --> 00:25:02.980 bad. In fact it's great. A lot of people prefer it. Some people prefer it 346 00:25:02.980 --> 00:25:07.470 all the time and someone like me prefers it under most circumstances. So 347 00:25:07.480 --> 00:25:12.610 um good example. I like that one. I was thinking of mandating zoom videos or 348 00:25:12.610 --> 00:25:17.380 you resume video on like in a team meeting, that's been a topic of debate 349 00:25:17.380 --> 00:25:20.400 where people I've posted about it on linkedin, people get pretty upset when 350 00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:24.050 you're like, we should mandate videos and some people get passionate about it 351 00:25:24.060 --> 00:25:29.140 desirability while it is more human and certainly allows the team to connect 352 00:25:29.140 --> 00:25:34.060 more when you can see each other, right? Video. Desirability is always not there. 353 00:25:34.060 --> 00:25:38.160 Some people desire more, some people to desire it less. So of course, most 354 00:25:38.160 --> 00:25:41.890 companies have taken the stance now from what I can tell, like strongly 355 00:25:41.890 --> 00:25:45.700 encouraged but don't mandate it right kind of falls in that middle ground. I 356 00:25:45.700 --> 00:25:48.780 guess it comes down a lot to option is now I'm going to find them like is that 357 00:25:48.780 --> 00:25:51.390 going to be a trend? Is that giving people options is probably the best 358 00:25:51.390 --> 00:25:57.880 thing to do. I think um, setting the expectation, I think some get togethers 359 00:25:57.890 --> 00:26:02.790 it could and should be required. Um, and I think other ones, perhaps not, it 360 00:26:02.790 --> 00:26:06.430 depends on the nature of the work. You know, if it's a team, like let's just 361 00:26:06.430 --> 00:26:09.910 say it's an internal team at bom bom or it's sweet fish and everybody knows 362 00:26:09.910 --> 00:26:14.870 each other and it's maybe kind of more of a stand up style update thing, you 363 00:26:14.870 --> 00:26:17.680 know, that's, that's kind of common and repetitive. Sure. Give people the 364 00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:20.360 option or you know, we often have people that are like, hey, I'm eating 365 00:26:20.360 --> 00:26:24.010 lunch, I'm gonna turn my camera off and that's cool and everyone understands it 366 00:26:24.010 --> 00:26:28.830 but I think as long as the expectations are set and managed well then I think 367 00:26:28.840 --> 00:26:34.050 it's good, I'll give you the other side of it as a buyer. This was super weird. 368 00:26:34.440 --> 00:26:38.690 So I agree. Like I don't I don't buy technology for Bomb Bomb but but I can 369 00:26:38.690 --> 00:26:41.730 be a champion internally and so you know I'm paying attention. I 370 00:26:41.730 --> 00:26:44.950 communicate with a lot of people on linkedin and so I get pitched a lot of 371 00:26:44.950 --> 00:26:48.750 stuff and most of the time I'm like no, but if you tell me who your ideal buyer 372 00:26:48.750 --> 00:26:52.110 is, you know, I'll take a look at it and pass it on to somebody if they're 373 00:26:52.110 --> 00:26:55.170 interested they'll reach back out to you in this case it was a C. X. 374 00:26:55.170 --> 00:26:58.730 Platform and so I was like that's interesting. Um So I was very candid 375 00:26:58.730 --> 00:27:02.840 with him. I am not your buyer on this but I'm super interested in it. I will 376 00:27:02.840 --> 00:27:05.740 take this meeting because I want to learn more about it. I want to 377 00:27:05.740 --> 00:27:08.980 understand it. I want to see how different people are tackling, you know, 378 00:27:08.980 --> 00:27:13.780 managing C. X. Which is this big crazy wild hairy thing. Um So I would love to 379 00:27:13.780 --> 00:27:19.830 take the meeting. So two funny things happened one after we go back and forth 380 00:27:19.830 --> 00:27:23.960 about when I would be available for the meeting and we arrive at a day and time 381 00:27:24.640 --> 00:27:28.000 couple hours later he comes back and says hey could you actually do it um 382 00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:31.830 tomorrow instead? Um and I was like, no, I already told you I can't do it 383 00:27:31.830 --> 00:27:34.770 tomorrow and we already picked this other day, turns out it was the last 384 00:27:34.770 --> 00:27:38.070 day of the month. So I immediately felt like a number. I felt like I was trying 385 00:27:38.070 --> 00:27:42.410 to fit his quota for appointments set and held within a month's time. So that 386 00:27:42.410 --> 00:27:46.450 immediately was a bad feeling. But more importantly and specific to the zoom 387 00:27:46.450 --> 00:27:52.210 call scenario. It was him and an account executive and me and I was the 388 00:27:52.210 --> 00:27:56.550 only one with my camera on. So I want to talk about this for just a moment. 389 00:27:57.240 --> 00:28:01.610 Super weird for me to be on the other end of this. I guarantee at a minimum 390 00:28:01.610 --> 00:28:05.580 it was a six figure commitment, probably on an annual basis was 391 00:28:05.580 --> 00:28:09.530 probably an additional six figure install setup. You know, let's make all 392 00:28:09.530 --> 00:28:14.420 the data flow properly, um consulting fee on top of it. Probably guessing 393 00:28:14.430 --> 00:28:19.550 because we never got that far. I want to know who you are. I want to know how 394 00:28:19.550 --> 00:28:22.900 you present yourself. I want to know if you believe in the things that you're 395 00:28:22.900 --> 00:28:26.680 saying, I want to know if you seem to have my best interests in mind. Now 396 00:28:26.690 --> 00:28:32.600 live synchronous voice over the phone or like cameras off on zoom, it's okay. 397 00:28:32.610 --> 00:28:37.570 But I as a human being, if I'm going to represent you inside my own 398 00:28:37.570 --> 00:28:42.150 organization to put my own name and reputation on the line to suggest that 399 00:28:42.150 --> 00:28:47.430 this is worth someone else's time. My ability to see your face, to see your 400 00:28:47.430 --> 00:28:54.250 body language, to judge your intent and to have a fuller understanding of what 401 00:28:54.250 --> 00:28:58.770 you believe, about what you're saying, what you believe about my situation. Um, 402 00:28:58.770 --> 00:29:02.740 and all these other things that humans have thrived on, like we need this 403 00:29:02.740 --> 00:29:06.280 information to make good and safe decisions for ourselves. We've done it 404 00:29:06.280 --> 00:29:09.860 for millennia. That's why we're so freaking good at it automatically 405 00:29:09.870 --> 00:29:15.000 without even trying and largely without even being conscious of it. The fact 406 00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:18.830 that neither one of those guys would turn their camera on in a 30 minute 407 00:29:18.830 --> 00:29:23.240 meeting just weirded me out to no end. Like why wouldn't you in that scenario? 408 00:29:23.250 --> 00:29:27.170 I don't know you, I haven't met you. I've sent you a video email because I 409 00:29:27.170 --> 00:29:30.680 do it all the time or video linked in message. I guess it was. I had never 410 00:29:30.680 --> 00:29:33.850 seen them at all. I've just seen these static pictures and we all know how 411 00:29:34.140 --> 00:29:38.780 distant those might be from reality. So anyway, that's just, that's just a 412 00:29:38.780 --> 00:29:42.980 quick go in a quick story on cameras, off cameras on and then a pro tip for 413 00:29:42.980 --> 00:29:46.820 people, if you, if you feel like I do in some circumstances that you would 414 00:29:46.820 --> 00:29:50.780 like someone to turn their camera on Lauren bailey, who is the founder and 415 00:29:50.780 --> 00:29:55.010 president of both factor in and Girls club is featured in chapter eight of 416 00:29:55.010 --> 00:29:59.300 this book. She's one of the 11 people we engage directly on it. And she has a 417 00:29:59.300 --> 00:30:03.010 whole set of things that she offers to get people to turn their cameras on in 418 00:30:03.010 --> 00:30:06.110 a polite manner. That's fantastic. And I'm looking forward to reading that 419 00:30:06.110 --> 00:30:10.350 section of the book. One thing that came to mind while reading the book was 420 00:30:10.740 --> 00:30:14.840 it really made, I think it really makes a good case essentially for good 421 00:30:14.840 --> 00:30:20.120 content marketing. Right? As a way to do essentially all the promotion you'd 422 00:30:20.120 --> 00:30:24.990 like to do but doing it in a way where you can actually create favor with 423 00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.150 other people. I was even thinking about sc oh right, you're like S E O can be a 424 00:30:29.150 --> 00:30:31.330 lot of different things that could be whitehead, it be great head, it could 425 00:30:31.330 --> 00:30:34.820 be black hat, but if you're doing it in a way that essentially google would 426 00:30:34.820 --> 00:30:37.860 love it for you to do and just creating high value content that ranks for the 427 00:30:37.860 --> 00:30:42.880 keywords that has actually has the best and most thorough possible answer to 428 00:30:42.880 --> 00:30:47.450 meet their searcher's intent. Well that's just, that's good marketing and 429 00:30:47.450 --> 00:30:51.110 hopefully build some credibility with them. Well, one thing I think about 430 00:30:51.110 --> 00:30:55.090 though is like, well if you start doing that and that's good, where does 431 00:30:55.090 --> 00:30:59.950 retargeting ads fall kind of fall into the mix and some people love retard. 432 00:30:59.960 --> 00:31:03.140 I'm actually, I haven't heard a lot of people that love retargeting ads. I 433 00:31:03.140 --> 00:31:06.770 like them because I just like to see how they work and what people are doing. 434 00:31:06.770 --> 00:31:09.850 But I'm a marketer. I'm a nerd some probably a little bit different but 435 00:31:09.850 --> 00:31:14.230 people are either like or they hate that their privacy is being stolen and 436 00:31:14.230 --> 00:31:18.270 now they're being targeted by ads. So be interesting to hear your case on 437 00:31:18.270 --> 00:31:22.320 this one particularly and I've heard ways of making it better by retargeting 438 00:31:22.320 --> 00:31:25.400 with content or different things like that. Where do you kind of sit on 439 00:31:25.400 --> 00:31:33.210 retargeting as I don't mind them? I think it's nice that um so so one big 440 00:31:33.210 --> 00:31:36.560 idea that you already just mentioned. I just want to double down on it. 441 00:31:37.640 --> 00:31:42.970 Any of these tools any of these systems any of these things can be used well or 442 00:31:42.970 --> 00:31:47.030 poorly just like when the printing press came out You could print really 443 00:31:47.030 --> 00:31:50.700 helpful and valuable material or you could spread misinformation just like 444 00:31:50.700 --> 00:31:56.290 when social media became a cultural norm we could use it for good and 445 00:31:56.290 --> 00:31:59.300 connect with people and help people and answer questions and provide 446 00:31:59.300 --> 00:32:04.470 recommendations and tips or we can use it to manipulate large groups of people 447 00:32:04.480 --> 00:32:10.120 and you know one of the women who I cite in chapter 16 wrote a book called 448 00:32:10.130 --> 00:32:14.830 deep fakes. The coming in faq ellipse her name is Nina schick, she's a 449 00:32:14.840 --> 00:32:19.770 geopolitical consultant and observed that like the same groups like groups 450 00:32:19.770 --> 00:32:24.470 were creating pro donald trump and pro Bernie Sanders groups the same people 451 00:32:24.470 --> 00:32:29.310 were creating these two groups drawing people in creating the shared identity 452 00:32:29.310 --> 00:32:33.300 and then turning them like turning them angry. Same thing. Black lives Matter. 453 00:32:33.300 --> 00:32:36.830 Blue lives Matter like the same people are using these tools to manipulate 454 00:32:36.830 --> 00:32:40.900 people so we can do well and help our family and friends and co workers and 455 00:32:40.900 --> 00:32:44.950 strangers and stuff or we can manipulate people and make life worse 456 00:32:44.950 --> 00:32:49.100 for everybody and destroy the social fabric that binds us together as people. 457 00:32:49.110 --> 00:32:52.670 So to your point, you know, we can execute these things whether it's 458 00:32:52.670 --> 00:32:56.510 retargeting or anything else in a good way or not a good way in general. I 459 00:32:56.510 --> 00:33:01.150 don't mind retargeting as long as there's some substantial basis there 460 00:33:01.150 --> 00:33:05.330 that the behavior that triggers it has some substance to it. I think you're 461 00:33:05.330 --> 00:33:10.370 much more likely to get that follow up click and not too expensive a cost and 462 00:33:10.370 --> 00:33:14.680 so that's a caution, right? Is like the math is going to be better if you do 463 00:33:14.680 --> 00:33:18.610 retargeting in a better way and by better. I mean the behavior that 464 00:33:18.610 --> 00:33:23.200 triggers the re target is a substantial behavior and to your observation that 465 00:33:23.200 --> 00:33:28.610 the follow up stuff is maybe iterations or alternative versions of the core 466 00:33:28.610 --> 00:33:32.480 idea that continue to add some layer of interest or value or take you farther 467 00:33:32.480 --> 00:33:36.580 down the road. That's not my area of specialty but in general I would also 468 00:33:36.580 --> 00:33:40.540 add then this is why I went on the kind of that tool tangent there, it's a big 469 00:33:40.540 --> 00:33:45.870 idea but be people can turn them off. So like as long as people have control 470 00:33:45.880 --> 00:33:49.810 at some level and they know where they're being retargeted is your choice 471 00:33:49.810 --> 00:33:54.270 to be on that site. You know that that site is supported by advertising. Some 472 00:33:54.270 --> 00:33:57.560 of it is retargeting advertising. I feel like there's enough consumer 473 00:33:57.560 --> 00:34:02.130 choice there that you know, it it would be hard to do that in a really 474 00:34:02.130 --> 00:34:06.830 aggressive or terrible way. I think the bigger question behind it is who has 475 00:34:06.830 --> 00:34:11.560 whose data and how was it obtained? Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. One of 476 00:34:11.560 --> 00:34:14.659 my favorite marketing books from Derek Sievers, I don't know if you have you 477 00:34:14.659 --> 00:34:18.380 read this one? I have not one of my probably second to marketers 478 00:34:18.380 --> 00:34:21.330 philosopher. As far as my favorite marketing books, Derek Silvers wrote a 479 00:34:21.330 --> 00:34:26.530 book called Your Music and People and it's really a book written to like 480 00:34:26.530 --> 00:34:32.219 musicians about how marketing and business and the man are not 481 00:34:32.230 --> 00:34:38.480 necessarily evil, right? He makes essentially a very concise case or why 482 00:34:38.489 --> 00:34:42.610 you can be an artist and do good marketing and let that be an extension 483 00:34:42.620 --> 00:34:45.850 of your heart, let it be an extension of your music and your brand and what 484 00:34:45.850 --> 00:34:49.969 you stand for. That good marketing is actually just being considerate. 485 00:34:51.040 --> 00:34:55.219 Otherwise, your fans would never be able to know who you are or where you 486 00:34:55.219 --> 00:34:59.160 came from or where you're playing next or getting that reminder to that thing 487 00:34:59.160 --> 00:35:03.360 you almost checked out for but never quite finished. It's just being 488 00:35:03.370 --> 00:35:07.120 considerate. It's being, having the best interest in mind at least good 489 00:35:07.120 --> 00:35:10.310 marketing. Of course there's lots of bad marketing. It's probably one of my 490 00:35:10.310 --> 00:35:13.610 favorite lessons from the book. So even when I think about retargeting, I guess 491 00:35:13.610 --> 00:35:18.630 you could even go to your audience itself. They might tell you, they might 492 00:35:18.630 --> 00:35:21.730 ask, you could ask them about it and they certainly might say something. 493 00:35:21.740 --> 00:35:25.550 I've certainly had people come to me without being asked about sweet fishes. 494 00:35:25.550 --> 00:35:28.460 Retargeting at times have been like, man, you guys are awesome at 495 00:35:28.460 --> 00:35:31.200 retargeting. I'm like, oh, like what do you like about it? I don't know. I just 496 00:35:31.200 --> 00:35:35.930 like seeing them like, okay, um, I've literally had someone, a customer at a 497 00:35:35.930 --> 00:35:39.370 past place at work come to me and be like, hey, your Youtube ads. I just saw 498 00:35:39.370 --> 00:35:42.260 them all the time. I like them so much. I just let him play. 499 00:35:43.340 --> 00:35:46.910 I was like, wow. Because it was, they were just straight up advertisements. 500 00:35:46.910 --> 00:35:50.120 They weren't content, but he liked them so much. He would just let it play 501 00:35:50.120 --> 00:35:53.050 because I think you just got tired of all the other whatever junkie was 502 00:35:53.050 --> 00:35:57.780 seeing on Youtube Youtube's ads so there's certainly a lot of room, lots 503 00:35:57.780 --> 00:36:01.720 of shades of gray. But if you're asking the right questions and thinking 504 00:36:01.720 --> 00:36:05.670 through it about what they actually want, what would you want in that 505 00:36:05.670 --> 00:36:08.790 situation if your favorite brands were doing what you're doing, what would you 506 00:36:08.790 --> 00:36:12.270 expect them to do, what would you hope they would do? Then you're probably 507 00:36:12.270 --> 00:36:15.050 taking a step or a few steps in the right direction. 508 00:36:16.230 --> 00:36:19.590 So to kind of wrap up this interview, I'd love to hear about the differences 509 00:36:19.600 --> 00:36:23.920 between the marketing of this book and the marketing of your last book. What 510 00:36:23.920 --> 00:36:27.440 have you changed? How are you making it more human because of what you've 511 00:36:27.440 --> 00:36:32.830 learned in the writing of this book? Sure. And I loved what you just offered 512 00:36:32.830 --> 00:36:38.940 their about marketing. Again, this is not altruistic. You're not undertaking 513 00:36:38.940 --> 00:36:42.480 marketing the way you described being considerate and helpful. You're not 514 00:36:42.490 --> 00:36:48.720 undertaking that at any sacrifice to revenue or results. In fact, the more 515 00:36:48.720 --> 00:36:53.810 you do that, the more you think that way the better results are going to be. 516 00:36:53.820 --> 00:36:58.500 And the key thing is we have so much control now over what we see and what 517 00:36:58.500 --> 00:37:03.490 we don't um in our behavior uh is being read by machines and so machines will 518 00:37:03.490 --> 00:37:06.730 increasingly control what we see and what we don't it already happens in our 519 00:37:06.730 --> 00:37:10.550 social feeds for example, or google search results. They're very contextual 520 00:37:10.550 --> 00:37:14.000 to us. And so if anyone's listening to this and be like, yeah, being 521 00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:17.030 considered, it sounds really nice, but let's get back to the real job of 522 00:37:17.030 --> 00:37:22.160 marketing. That is the real job of marketing, if you want to be successful, 523 00:37:22.530 --> 00:37:27.010 You know, two years, five years, 10 years from now because word of mouth, 524 00:37:27.020 --> 00:37:31.750 the ability to block, deny, ignore and to teach the machines that you're not 525 00:37:31.750 --> 00:37:36.150 worth anyone's time or attention. Like there's just more risk than ever in 526 00:37:36.150 --> 00:37:42.880 proceeding in this kind of selfish industrial lazy mass even mass 527 00:37:42.880 --> 00:37:48.280 segmented type of manner. And so I just wanted to say that so fun just as this 528 00:37:48.280 --> 00:37:53.280 is an observation. So two things I intentionally did differently this time 529 00:37:53.280 --> 00:37:58.840 compared to 2.5 years ago when we released re humanize your business and 530 00:37:58.840 --> 00:38:02.810 then one big observation. So the two things we wanted to do for sure is we 531 00:38:02.810 --> 00:38:06.010 wanted to bring this book to life. We thought it would be fun. We thought it 532 00:38:06.010 --> 00:38:09.910 would be unique. We thought it would be in the spirit of the book itself. And 533 00:38:09.910 --> 00:38:14.020 so what we did was create a number of experiences around it. In some cases 534 00:38:14.020 --> 00:38:17.300 these experiences are rewards for people who opted to preorder at 535 00:38:17.300 --> 00:38:22.450 different stages And we had these 11 experts and so we reached out to them 536 00:38:22.450 --> 00:38:25.490 and said, hey we want to do these events on these particular days. Are 537 00:38:25.490 --> 00:38:29.530 you around for them? You know? So tomorrow for example, the day after 538 00:38:29.530 --> 00:38:32.590 recording this, not the day after someone might be listening to it. But 539 00:38:32.600 --> 00:38:36.350 tomorrow the day after recording this, I'm going to be joined by dan Hill who 540 00:38:36.350 --> 00:38:39.190 is an emotional intelligence expert with seven U. S. Patents in the 541 00:38:39.190 --> 00:38:43.960 analysis of facial coding data, julie Hanson who is a salesperson and sales 542 00:38:43.960 --> 00:38:49.050 manager who decided to take acting and improv classes to become more confident 543 00:38:49.060 --> 00:38:53.340 in her role and now she teaches people acting and improv to be more successful 544 00:38:53.340 --> 00:38:57.010 in their sales roles and on camera in particular. And then Lauren bailey who 545 00:38:57.010 --> 00:39:00.650 already mentioned um founder and president of Factory and Girls Club 546 00:39:00.820 --> 00:39:04.720 these events. It's just me steve these three steve is my co author on the book 547 00:39:04.720 --> 00:39:09.000 in our CMO at bom bom the five of us and then whoever else wants to show up. 548 00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:14.410 The first one we did was super intimate. It was like 18 people plus me steve 549 00:39:14.420 --> 00:39:17.940 shep hiking who's a customer service and customer experience expert has 550 00:39:17.940 --> 00:39:23.160 written nine books and um dan tire who is one of the more beloved people in 551 00:39:23.160 --> 00:39:27.370 the world of sales in my opinion because he's just so over the top and 552 00:39:27.370 --> 00:39:32.050 generous sixth employee at hubspot for salesperson at hubspot. And so these 553 00:39:32.050 --> 00:39:35.770 people were getting like intimate practical advice about problems they 554 00:39:35.770 --> 00:39:38.680 were really facing in their day and learning from other people who are 555 00:39:38.680 --> 00:39:42.050 asking their own questions of these people. So several of these intimate 556 00:39:42.050 --> 00:39:46.230 experiences was one thing that we wanted to do to like bring the people 557 00:39:46.230 --> 00:39:49.740 out of the pages and make it like a real interactive experience that 558 00:39:49.740 --> 00:39:53.940 specific and custom to the people who decided to show up and who were 559 00:39:53.960 --> 00:39:57.640 interested enough or brave enough to ask questions in a group setting, 560 00:39:57.720 --> 00:40:01.550 intimate group setting, but a group setting. Nonetheless. Another thing was, 561 00:40:01.550 --> 00:40:07.450 I was very aggressive about 1 to 1 videos. So I started um just like I 562 00:40:07.450 --> 00:40:10.310 would take five minutes and I'll just write down a bunch of people's names. 563 00:40:10.310 --> 00:40:13.850 People I like people I thought should know about this. People who've been on 564 00:40:13.850 --> 00:40:18.090 my podcast, people have been kind enough to host me. Someone like you or 565 00:40:18.090 --> 00:40:21.670 Logan or James who I've known for some time and I knew would be interested in 566 00:40:21.670 --> 00:40:26.620 the contents Of the book. Um so I would just do the session and then you know, 567 00:40:26.620 --> 00:40:30.560 I would carve out 15 or 20 minutes a day and just send videos and as soon as 568 00:40:30.560 --> 00:40:34.100 I got through that list, cross them all off and I brainstorm another list and 569 00:40:34.110 --> 00:40:38.840 another list. Another list. I sent hundreds of personal video messages by 570 00:40:38.840 --> 00:40:44.750 email and linked in Over the probably 8-10 weeks leading up to release And it 571 00:40:44.750 --> 00:40:48.290 resulted in a number of things. Some people said, this is awesome. I want 25 572 00:40:48.290 --> 00:40:52.000 copies for my whole team. Other people said um that's really awesome, 573 00:40:52.000 --> 00:40:56.250 congratulations and nothing else from that. Other people said awesome. I need 574 00:40:56.250 --> 00:41:00.490 to get you on the show because they host a lie a linked in live or podcast 575 00:41:00.490 --> 00:41:03.760 or something else. Other people said, Oh my gosh, this reminds me of my 576 00:41:03.760 --> 00:41:10.570 friends. So, and so I need to introduce you. And so I guarantee and this now 577 00:41:10.570 --> 00:41:15.310 leads me to the other big observation. We used a lot of emails, we have a very 578 00:41:15.310 --> 00:41:18.520 large database at bom bom. We have tens of thousands of customers and then 579 00:41:18.520 --> 00:41:22.240 thousands of people who try our software for free every month. Um and 580 00:41:22.240 --> 00:41:26.230 so we communicate with those people in different ways and so we were offering 581 00:41:26.230 --> 00:41:29.890 the book to them when we did that with re Humanize, we hit number one in all 582 00:41:29.890 --> 00:41:34.400 these amazon categories 2.5 years ago we'd send a mass email. We light it up 583 00:41:34.410 --> 00:41:38.580 here. You know, the open rates were about the same. The click rates were 584 00:41:38.580 --> 00:41:42.250 not terrible. The content was pretty good. We're not just saying, you know, 585 00:41:42.250 --> 00:41:46.120 simple stuff like hey go by the book. Um you know, there's some of them were 586 00:41:46.120 --> 00:41:53.040 interactive and value added but I promise that I sold more books myself 587 00:41:53.050 --> 00:41:58.020 sending 1 to 1. Video messages in the in the ripple effects of doing that and 588 00:41:58.020 --> 00:42:01.510 say, you know, reaching people personally talking about the last time 589 00:42:01.510 --> 00:42:04.590 we connected, talking about why I thought they should know about this. 590 00:42:04.590 --> 00:42:08.100 And then just leaving it in their hands, hey down below. I've got a link to the 591 00:42:08.100 --> 00:42:11.570 main landing page. I've got a link to the book bonus. Like the packages we 592 00:42:11.570 --> 00:42:14.940 put together and a link to the full introduction in table contents of the 593 00:42:14.940 --> 00:42:19.290 book. If you have time and interest to check it out, I welcome your feedback 594 00:42:19.290 --> 00:42:22.540 if anyone comes to mind or it seems interesting. I welcome introductions 595 00:42:22.540 --> 00:42:27.190 like, um, and just leave it at that, leave it completely in their court. But 596 00:42:27.200 --> 00:42:31.870 in this way that is I thought of you because, and so it wasn't this like, 597 00:42:31.880 --> 00:42:35.720 hey man, could you do me a favor? Although I guess someone couldn't infer 598 00:42:35.720 --> 00:42:39.920 or imply that from from the message. It was like, it was a sincere like you 599 00:42:39.930 --> 00:42:43.670 truly came to mind as I thought, who needs to know about this? Who do I want? 600 00:42:43.680 --> 00:42:48.020 Who believes similarly to me and steve and in our broader community and in 601 00:42:48.020 --> 00:42:51.520 these types of things. And so I think that made the whole thing a lot more 602 00:42:51.520 --> 00:42:55.930 personal and the result was really good. I mean, we just got out of launch week 603 00:42:55.940 --> 00:43:00.430 and the number of posts, even from people that I didn't send videos to. 604 00:43:00.500 --> 00:43:03.890 You know, people just coming out in support of it um in a variety of 605 00:43:03.890 --> 00:43:07.480 different ways and it's just an absolute pleasure. And I think it 606 00:43:07.480 --> 00:43:11.940 reinforces this idea that our reputations matter, that our 607 00:43:11.940 --> 00:43:15.570 reputations are built message by message experienced by experience, 608 00:43:15.570 --> 00:43:20.600 comment by comment. And you know, if you're trying to cut shortcuts or you 609 00:43:20.600 --> 00:43:23.780 treat people like numbers, you're not going to get the things that you maybe 610 00:43:23.780 --> 00:43:27.250 need or want or hope for in the moments that you need or want or hope for them. 611 00:43:27.260 --> 00:43:31.540 Whereas if you treat people with respect and kindness and you're curious 612 00:43:31.540 --> 00:43:35.000 about the work that you're doing. Um I think the results are going to be 613 00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.250 better. It's going to be more satisfying work and you're gonna have 614 00:43:39.250 --> 00:43:42.290 doors open that you don't even know existed and that happened for me and it 615 00:43:42.290 --> 00:43:45.520 was, it was a joy. It's funny as you say that 616 00:43:46.700 --> 00:43:51.240 it makes me think it's like doing doing the right thing and doing it well. It's 617 00:43:51.240 --> 00:43:55.500 not just 10 times harder. It's not even 100 times harder. It is. It is 618 00:43:55.500 --> 00:43:59.810 literally probably like 1000 times harder to do it that way. But the 619 00:43:59.820 --> 00:44:04.750 impact that it has, like even just growing, like I shared that story about 620 00:44:04.750 --> 00:44:08.800 trying to grow an instagram page. Like I did it the hard way, just growing my 621 00:44:08.800 --> 00:44:12.200 own Lincoln following over a year and a half and I guarantee you like the 622 00:44:12.200 --> 00:44:16.270 amount of time and effort and hours putting to just commenting, let alone, 623 00:44:16.270 --> 00:44:21.970 right in my own post. I'm like probably over easily 1000 times harder and more 624 00:44:21.970 --> 00:44:26.990 time consuming. But it's also 1000 times more rewarding. And I could 625 00:44:26.990 --> 00:44:30.410 probably sell something now through linkedin and you could probably like it. 626 00:44:30.410 --> 00:44:34.030 So I'm not surprised that you sold more books because it's just that much 627 00:44:34.030 --> 00:44:39.100 better at what it is. It's just harder and honestly, I don't think people are 628 00:44:39.100 --> 00:44:44.070 to our aren't that afraid of making the jump to doing something harder. I think 629 00:44:44.070 --> 00:44:47.920 they just have to have a more confidence that it works 630 00:44:48.990 --> 00:44:52.220 that yes, you can put in, you can put in the 1000 hours 631 00:44:53.290 --> 00:45:00.090 it pays out, it pays and I think as we continue to champion this message as we 632 00:45:00.100 --> 00:45:03.450 get it in front of more people and I hope a lot of people from this show go 633 00:45:03.450 --> 00:45:07.310 and buy this book because it's probably going to convince you that doing it the 634 00:45:07.310 --> 00:45:11.610 hard way doing it the right way. Well not only yield better results, but 635 00:45:11.610 --> 00:45:16.190 we'll multiply whatever results you get in the short time period you put into 636 00:45:16.190 --> 00:45:20.540 like, like just putting the work into it and doing the right thing. But it 637 00:45:20.540 --> 00:45:21.600 grows with you 638 00:45:22.690 --> 00:45:28.210 because all those messages you sent out Didn't just lead to one transaction. No, 639 00:45:28.210 --> 00:45:32.050 that was like an almost, it wasn't just an ask, it was almost a deposit into 640 00:45:32.050 --> 00:45:37.000 the relationship. You exercise the relationship in a way that now can lead 641 00:45:37.000 --> 00:45:42.960 to something again in the future in a way that added value. So I love what 642 00:45:42.960 --> 00:45:45.890 this book is doing. I love that. It's giving people confidence to do things 643 00:45:45.890 --> 00:45:51.500 in a way that can, is harder but is ultimately 10 times 100 times more 644 00:45:51.500 --> 00:45:55.720 profitable and just makes honest and honestly, it's just way more fun to, as 645 00:45:55.720 --> 00:45:59.850 hard as some of these things are the reward you get when you actually enter 646 00:45:59.850 --> 00:46:04.550 into these conversations. I find it's just to be so much more significant and 647 00:46:04.560 --> 00:46:08.910 makes work so much more enjoyable. So thank you so much for joining me here 648 00:46:08.910 --> 00:46:13.800 on GDP growth. I assume this book is available in all the different places. 649 00:46:14.180 --> 00:46:16.870 I don't know if there's an audio book out yet, I think I looked before and I 650 00:46:16.870 --> 00:46:19.810 wasn't there, I assume that's coming of all the places. What would you 651 00:46:19.810 --> 00:46:23.110 recommend? What what's probably the best way to consume the book in your 652 00:46:23.110 --> 00:46:27.860 opinion? So we're currently not planning an audio book for two key 653 00:46:27.860 --> 00:46:33.090 reasons. First, the number of voices um that speak into it and some of the 654 00:46:33.090 --> 00:46:37.370 quoting that we do at length, it would like, that's just an interesting, 655 00:46:37.380 --> 00:46:40.470 interesting dynamic. But the other key thing and the reason I like it better 656 00:46:40.470 --> 00:46:44.650 in the, in the hard cover or in a digital version, you know, reader's 657 00:46:44.650 --> 00:46:48.610 preference. I mean the physical version is absolutely gorgeous. We got to do 658 00:46:48.610 --> 00:46:51.820 all the design work ourselves. It feels nice in the hand, is a beautiful 659 00:46:51.820 --> 00:46:55.380 product, but the reason I like those formats and the reason we're, the 660 00:46:55.390 --> 00:46:59.450 second reason we're kind of defaulting against an audiobook is that there's so 661 00:46:59.450 --> 00:47:07.310 much in terms of bullet lists, frameworks, structures, illustrations, 662 00:47:07.320 --> 00:47:12.390 tables and other things that just, I just feel like a lot would be missing 663 00:47:12.400 --> 00:47:17.470 from the audiobook experience. Um that is much easier to take, even if you 664 00:47:17.470 --> 00:47:20.460 want to just like pick and grab it off the page or pick and grab it off the 665 00:47:20.460 --> 00:47:26.080 digital page. Um so you can learn more about it at bom bom dot com slash book 666 00:47:26.090 --> 00:47:30.050 or you can hit me up on linkedin. The book itself actually has a page. Human 667 00:47:30.050 --> 00:47:34.670 centered communication with a hyphen between human and centered. Check it 668 00:47:34.670 --> 00:47:37.540 out and you reach out to me directly, if you have questions, if you're trying 669 00:47:37.540 --> 00:47:42.350 to decide whether or not the messages for you or whether you've actually 670 00:47:42.350 --> 00:47:45.920 picked up the book and you have questions or feedback or even push back. 671 00:47:46.180 --> 00:47:49.610 This is all about conversations and so I welcome anything anyone has on it. 672 00:47:49.820 --> 00:47:52.990 Fantastic. Thanks again for joining me on GDP growth. 673 00:47:54.880 --> 00:47:59.120 Mhm. One of the things we've learned about podcast audience growth is that 674 00:47:59.120 --> 00:48:03.930 word of mouth works. It works really, really well actually, so if you love 675 00:48:03.930 --> 00:48:07.840 this show, it would be awesome if you texted a friend to tell them about it 676 00:48:07.850 --> 00:48:11.360 and if you send me a text with a screenshot of the text you sent to your 677 00:48:11.360 --> 00:48:15.370 friend meta. I know I'll send you a copy of my book, content based 678 00:48:15.370 --> 00:48:19.170 networking, how to instantly connect with anyone you want to know. My cell 679 00:48:19.170 --> 00:48:24.970 phone number is 40749033 - eight. Happy texting. 680 00:48:27.480 --> 00:48:27.700 Yeah. 681 00:48:29.080 --> 00:48:29.290 Mhm