Speaker 1: 0:01

Yo, what's going on everybody? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. With me, as always, is my co-host, mark Goldhart. Mark Goldhart, mark Halvard, yeah, yeah, goldhart, that's the name. I don't know why I was thinking there was a. I don't know what I was thinking. It just didn't sound right when I said it.

Speaker 2: 0:23

I know how that is. I do that with words all the time.

Speaker 1: 0:26

Yeah, I do that too and my wife like I actually just say things wrong all the time. Like I say sayings wrong all the time and my wife is like immediately so quick to tease me about it.

Speaker 2: 0:38

Yeah, Actually, that one always sounds weird to me Actually, yeah, julie, that one always sounds weird to me.

Speaker 1: 0:42

Actually yeah.

Speaker 2: 0:46

February sounds weird to me. Yeah, guarantee that one always weirds me out because of how it's spelled.

Speaker 1: 0:52

Yeah, I don't know that one's a hard one to spell Like Guarantee, yeah, yeah, how are?

Speaker 2: 0:57

you Doing good Tired Kids are just tiring, so but good excited yeah, excited for spring and summer. I am too yeah, we're gonna have a good year.

Speaker 1: 1:16

I just found out I'm remodeling my bathroom right now and I just found out that I had they ripped out the walls and I have black mold all in my walls. Yes, and originally they would think in a bathroom like that's not too crazy, like it's an old house, so it's not crazy. So they think like, oh, it's probably just the shower leaked or the bathtub leaked, which is, which is what you'd hope it would be, and it wasn't that.

Speaker 1: 1:44

It was my roof leaked into it so like it's like the whole siding. Yeah, so they, just like yesterday, had people just come cut into my stucco. They just had these massive from, like you know, the ground to the mice roof, you know, 30 feet up holes in my wall from my living room because our, my bathroom's, like my living room's, right underneath my bathroom. Oh man, it's pretty awesome for me and my pocketbook a little overrated, I don't know I would say yes at this time of my life, but normally I would not say that.

Speaker 1: 2:29

Yeah, it just depends when you love where you live and you're like you get. You're like, if you get lucky to have like good neighbors, you know, and a place that your kids want to be, it's good, it's it's good. Homeownership is good and there is few better things than like on a Saturday, like perfectly manicuring your yard and just being like like pulling out of the driveway the next day and seeing it and you're like, yeah, I took care of that and did that. Just makes you feel manly.

Speaker 2: 3:02

We're getting a fish that makes you feel manly.

Speaker 1: 3:06

Yeah, if fish that makes you feel manly. Yeah, if that's what you. I have no desire to do that. I'd have no desire to get a fish.

Speaker 2: 3:12

Yeah, I've done it before, manly I've done it before. I don't like it, though you gotta go get some food from the wilderness I don't disagree that that would make you feel that way at all. And nothing will trigger your brain's reward system, like getting food in the wilderness.

Speaker 1: 3:33

You think so you want to know what triggers my brain reward system the most.

Speaker 2: 3:37

If you went and did that.

Speaker 1: 3:39

The thing that comes off the top of my head if I go to somebody's warehouse and pick, pack and ship packages, there's nothing that triggers my reward system more. There's no thing that I do in my life that makes me feel like I'm more accomplished than doing that Really. Yes, and there's something about it, dude, because it's so quantifiable and it's so processed, like going in on a black Friday and just shipping all day. I would. I don't think I'd do great at it as my career choice, Right, but like once one to like four times a year, once a quarter, I'd eat that up, dude. Make me feel accomplished all day long.

Speaker 2: 4:21

That's my personal hell. Actually, you feel accomplished all day long.

Speaker 1: 4:28

That's my personal hell. Actually, I can't think of anything worse than that. Have you ever done it before? Yeah, would you come do that with us at Fond?

Speaker 2: 4:32

Design, yeah, and I worked warehouse as a senior in high school.

Speaker 1: 4:37

Oh, as a kid.

Speaker 2: 4:38

Yeah, I worked at the warehouse at Industrial Supply. But yeah, no, that's that sounds horrible.

Speaker 1: 4:45

I'm telling you right now Okay, listen, this is for anybody, but if you were, if you were, I'm going to talk to probably an audience who I don't know if it's listening to this, but if you are, I hear a lot of mothers who don't work, who sometimes, oftentimes, they have a hard time feeling accomplished, not because motherhood is not so rewarding, but you oftentimes, day-to-day, don't see the progress of what motherhood does.

Speaker 1: 5:15

Right, it's like one of those things where, like, if you have a relative that lives, like if your niece or nephew lives out of state and you see him once a year, every year, you go and like, oh my gosh, you've grown so much. But the parents are like, what are you talking about? I haven't grown. It's because you're with them all day, right, like I think that's how my wife will feel, that sometimes She'll just be like, oh man, because she stays at home. And I always tell her. I'm like, if you just, like I, accomplished something like a plus B equaled C today, once a month, you should just go ship, contact an e-commerce company and go show. They're looking for shippers all the time.

Speaker 2: 5:54

I'm telling you right now, and that's a soundbite right there or Kenzie, you can just learn how to fly fish and you'll feel far more accomplished.

Speaker 1: 6:03

What if you didn't know? No, no.

Speaker 2: 6:08

What if you don't catch anything? Then you failed. So you don't yet, but you will.

Speaker 1: 6:10

You'll learn how to catch them I'm telling you right now though that's no way. No way. Like I said, you can, you can go and ship a hundred boxes in a couple hours. No, it's a primal reward system.

Speaker 2: 6:21

There's something deeply ingrained into our genetic code I believe that, obviously, like that, you catch. You catch a fish and it's so exciting. Not because it's not because of the difficulty of it, necessarily it's exciting because it taps into something primal I'm just saying when you need an accomplishment. I think we're saying two different things, because I agree with what you're saying no, I'm just saying there's nothing that hits your reward system like catching a fish, I agree and I say catching a fish because some people may not want to kill an animal and you can catch and release.

Speaker 2: 6:55

Fly fishing is very easy, where you don't have to actually take it out, but what are we talking about today?

Speaker 1: 7:04

we talking about animals and shipping and packing.

Speaker 2: 7:08

Yeah, we can talk about, uh. I mean, I mean, well, tiktok's getting possibly banned, well, I think they said that the bill was passed. Yeah, well, that's not a full ban, that just means that they have to divest. The people's republic of China has to divest, so they have to sell the company and they have nine months to do so.

Speaker 1: 7:33

so it's not banned yet, but it could it's more real yeah, it's essentially like if a US, if it's not owned by China within nine months tiktok will be banned yeah so that's interesting what do you, what do you think about that? What are your thoughts about this whole tiktok banning um?

Speaker 2: 7:59

for tiktok in particular. It's probably I mean, it just depends on how you look at it, I guess. But I think it's a good thing because I have a moral dilemma with social media in general. Tiktok has found a way to algorithmically hack people's attention in a way that, you know, instagram hadn't. I mean, instagram has its own problems, but I mean I think it's pretty clear TikTok's been a pretty negative thing For society. Yeah, especially kids. Yeah, like yeah, so you know, and then we can go into, like, freedom of whatever, but it's probably a good thing. And obviously they're hacking and mining citizens data and sending it back to a foreign government and spying. So I think that's pretty obvious. Whether people think that's a big deal or not, I mean it's kind of probably a good thing.

Speaker 1: 9:07

Yeah, I kind of have like three. I look at it from three perspectives, which I'm sure you do as well, Like when I look at it from the societal perspective, which is do I ever want my kids on TikTok? And the answer is no. Like if my kids never open up the app, Then good, I'd be happy with that. Yeah Right, and I know there's oh, there's so many arguments because there's people who's let their kids on TikTok. I'm not saying that that's like you're, you're bad for that, but I've just heard enough statistics.

Speaker 2: 9:39

But you probably shouldn't.

Speaker 1: 9:49

And shouldn't, and I've seen enough people like everyone's bad for it, but I'll say you probably shouldn't. No, I'm not saying you're bad for it because it's like. What happens is like in society, when you see your, when you see your tribe. When I say your tribe, I could mean either like your immediate family members, it could be the community in which you live in, it could be the group of dads or moms that you reside, it's the, it could be the buddies you golf with. I mean, when your tribe does something, even though you may have morally been for or against it let's say against it in this situation but you, but enough people, are doing it like, oftentimes, you conform to what your tribe does. So I like you're not a bad, but but yes, you're like.

Speaker 1: 10:25

There's enough studies to say like you shouldn't do it. Yeah Right, like we had, we had Nate Randall on the podcast, who's the CEO of gab wireless, and he said that it is more. It is more dangerous for your addictive, addictive, for your children to be on social media than it is for them to smoke their first cigarette, which is crazy when you think about it. And I had. I got so much heat from some of those clips that I posted.

Speaker 1: 10:55

Oh, you did, yes, I could not believe some of the arguments, but all the arguments seemed more of a defensive justification rather than somebody coming and bringing in statistics as to why it was wrong. Does that make sense? It was like, no, but my, my kid is awesome because of X, y, z. And it's like, yeah, and cause there's no doubt that like there are really good kids out there, like there are some kids who just like could be on it and there's also some good kids that smoke cigarettes. Yeah, I think had I had social media when I was a kid, I would have been doomed. Like I cared so much of what everyone thought about me and my priorities were so out of whack. Had social media been what it is today when I was a kid, I would. I would be in. It scares me so much and I'm like so beyond grateful that I did not have it at my grasp because I would be not the person who I am today.

Speaker 2: 11:49

I think most well, I think most of us would have, and the stats show that clearly in in what it's doing to you know at least what's correlated with youth behavior. But yeah, so I mean tiktok, tiktok. I know TikTok has been a good advertising channel for a lot of people. And again, you know it's like TikTok's like anything, it's a tool. Tools can be used for good and bad Um, and tools also have there's an age appropriate uh level for using tools and certain kinds of tools. That's how I view it overall.

Speaker 1: 12:23

Yeah, same thing with substances, right, yeah, everything.

Speaker 2: 12:27

Like you, don't give a three-year-old caffeine.

Speaker 1: 12:30

Yeah, and you don't give an 18-year-old alcohol.

Speaker 2: 12:32

You don't give an 18-year-old alcohol, so TikTok. I think just you got to look at it in that lens. But it's probably a good thing that it's getting banned, but it's clearly going to be a negative thing for certain businesses.

Speaker 1: 12:45

Yeah, yeah, so a lot of businesses have been built on TikTok. Yeah. So we've kind of talked morally or not morally. We've talked societally. We're happy about it.

Speaker 2: 12:55

Especially for kids, more or less.

Speaker 1: 12:57

I mean, there is some argument for adults, like I've told this story a lot. Like my wife Ken's, she got off of social media like seven or eight years ago completely and and she's never been happier. You know, like as I mean, as she's an adult and she's someone who has healthy morals and she's a healthy self-esteem, but there's just something that would happen when she'd get on social media. You know, you just, whether it's irritability, anxiety, comparison, like you name it, like there's a lot of potential negative emotions that one can feel, even as an adult.

Speaker 2: 13:41

So like, yes, I think you're right, Primarily kids. Yeah, there's a certain level of I think the difference between social media and watching a movie or a television show, for example, is that social media because it's people you know or quote real people, unquote you know, like, oh, they're real people it causes more self-reflection, Totally. And comparison yeah, you know, nobody's comparing, for example, nobody's comparing themselves to the apartment that the friends yeah, Everyone knows that's fake.

Speaker 1: 14:12

And I'm also not comparing myself to Brad Pitt, his body in a movie, because I know that he was paid millions and millions Like I know that if I was paid $10 million and I had a year, I'd be in the best shape of my life and I'd look better than anyone if that's what I was paid to do.

Speaker 2: 14:32

And so I think I think that's one of the, the power that's, that's part of the power and and the and really the negative of social media is it's powerful because it can be so relatable. And then the negative is also because it's so relatable, it can also cause a little too much self-loathing because you compare to others.

Speaker 1: 14:56

So that's the societal, the business side. I don't love it that it's getting banned from the business side of things.

Speaker 2: 15:05

From the business side. I do Really. Yes, Sorry for those companies that have benefited from TikTok.

Speaker 2: 15:11

Tell me, talk to me Well my theory is that if TikTok, if you just got rid of TikTok, yes, there's going to be a new platform, but ideally what that could do is cause an influx of eyeballs that go into more traditional platforms at the time, which would be meta, instagram and Facebook, which could cause CPMs to go down Because demand, supply, Supply of eyes, supply of eyes goes up and time on platform platform increases, and that simplifies it for a lot of businesses. I mean because each platform is different, but if you get more of those eyeballs on one platform, it makes it easier, in my opinion, for certain businesses and most businesses, especially small businesses, of course yeah, it's hard to perform across multiple platforms it for sure does that, but on the flip side it also crushes a lot of businesses that operate very much on how TikTok operates.

Speaker 2: 16:12

Oh, yeah, it will.

Speaker 1: 16:13

And Instagram will never be able to operate the way TikTok operated. They've tried it enough times and it won't work.

Speaker 2: 16:19

No, but that's I mean, that's just going back to. Tiktok was a new platform. They weren't in the pay to play game at the beginning, right, because they didn't. They were just trying to get users and eyeballs, and so eventually, people just have to remember that. Yeah, that hurts and it sucks now, but TikTok is going to be what Instagram and Facebook are now.

Speaker 1: 16:42

Kind of turned into in like 2017.

Speaker 2: 16:44

Yes, it's going to happen, and it's already been happening. Anybody who's on TikTok knows that. You know, views used to come cheap organically, that speaking, not literally pay to play. But views were a lot easier to get. They are a lot harder now than they were. And why is that? Well, it's because oh, come to find out TikTok's a business and it wants to make money, so it it's going to be the same thing eventually. Yeah, I know it's not quite the same thing yet, but it eventually it will be. So, whether it's now, we're in six months or a year, it's going to happen. So, yes, it doesn't operate the same way, sure, but eventually people would have to operate more similar to how they operate in Instagram.

Speaker 1: 17:27

Or people become more apt to like. Right now it is not a crazy thing for, on any given day, for somebody to buy in platform on Instagram and you're not quite there yet with TikTok, but you're going to get there where it's not weird. Yeah, like I've been, I bought on Instagram, I bought on TikTok maybe like four times, and two of the four times I've been screwed on TikTok, yep. So I just like. I personally just don't trust it as a platform to buy on, but I love it as a platform to storytell because it I think it does helps brands significantly more on storytelling than instagram does, and I don't know why. I just, you know, maybe it's an algorithm thing, maybe that's just like. Maybe I'm getting fed that.

Speaker 2: 18:20

Yeah, I mean maybe, maybe but I I also think the thing about thing about the TikTok discussion is people just have to understand that China is waging economic warfare with the United States. Right, Like that's just the nature of the geopolitical beast and TikTok is part of that strategy of theirs. Right, and Temu or Timu or whatever it is, is also seemingly a part of that strategy. Right Like Timu is coming in and raising CPMs, causing all kinds of problems by spending tons of money on Facebook. Right, which is also pushing people out to try to get people to go buy direct. So you know, there's like a whole onion there in layers that I don't really care to go down today. But you know we're pro on this podcast, we're pro American small businesses, especially right, and growing businesses and businesses that are run here.

Speaker 1: 19:20

We understand that there's a supply chain that often runs through Asiaia right now and and everything but uh, there's there's tactics being played at higher levels sure that we can understand to sway that the united states do you think one of those tactics and this is where you start to get into some conspiracy theories which I know you enjoy Do you think that one of those tactics, um, is because of the way the algorithm operates in the United States versus how it operates in? I mean, obviously that's part of it in China. Yeah, that it's dumbing down and making it it's. You know, people are saying it's like it's making its users dumber here, whereas in China it's making them smarter.

Speaker 2: 20:09

Yeah, of course it is. Of course it's designed to do that. To us, it's not even a question. Do people even argue that? Oh yeah, of course they do like oh, actually it's a good thing that we all get dancing videos all day and well, no, I don't know if people like argue that I think it's more people like no, that china's not doing that oh, they just don't think china is doing that. No, they are, it's not like.

Speaker 1: 20:35

That's not why it is, it's just.

Speaker 2: 20:36

This is what americans want yeah, I think the biggest problem for people is that the human brain is meant to disseminate information, and one thing that it tends to be good at is getting rid of information that's not super useful. Or at least, if it's super repetitive and not really important, it can kind of zone it out right. I think what happens with a lot of people is if they're on social media a lot, their brain just gets overloaded because they're trying to find something you know. Right. I think it just puts them, it just crushes their dopamine levels. Yeah, the highs and lows, and then they're just kind of miserable.

Speaker 1: 21:13

How about politically right? So, like socially, there's one thing Business-wise, there's another thing that we've discussed there's pros and cons to it being banned on both sides. But there's another thing that we've discussed there's pros and cons to it being banned on both sides. But politically there's like another, like this is another thing, which is, I know a lot of. You know what america is doing is they are saying hey, the main reason this is happening is because of the selling of data to foreign countries I don't think it's being sold.

Speaker 2: 21:40

I think it's just being given.

Speaker 1: 21:41

Given whatever yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:43

It's just that TikTok is a spy machine.

Speaker 1: 21:47

What about the fact that some people say the amount of information like what's been interesting for me as a user on TikTok is I am able to get and access certain bits and pieces of information that I'm not, that I don't see happening on Instagram, right? So some people are saying like, hey, is this the government saying? Hey, we don't like that Americans are learning these things because people can come out and just not whistleblow.

Speaker 2: 22:25

That's not the right word. Yeah, but that's too pronged, because we know that the United States government has worked with American companies to suppress certain kinds of information or stories. So that's what I'm saying, and China's doing the same thing. So there's just a play.

Speaker 1: 22:41

You know I'm not here to say they just might not be suppressing the same things that the American government would suppress potentially.

Speaker 2: 22:49

Potentially, I think it's probably verifiable at this point. Yeah, of course, like there's different, the Chinese government wants the American public to think a different thing than what the American government does yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:02

Yeah, so who do you think buys TikTok?

Speaker 2: 23:06

Microsoft.

Speaker 1: 23:11

I mean, there's probably only 10 brands or people who could afford it.

Speaker 2: 23:18

Yeah, it'll either be Microsoft or Amazon.

Speaker 1: 23:23

Yeah, it's like Microsoft, Amazon, Apple. I've heard Walmart.

Speaker 2: 23:27

I don't think Apple would, walmart maybe, elon yeah, elon, just the black swan, yeah, he just comes in and wants to buy everything and everything. That'd be crazy, that would be crazy, that would be crazy there. But but speaking of Tik TOK, just in, like what people gravitated towards Tik TOK with that storytelling, something that I was thinking about on my drive home yesterday was marketing. So this is going to be a little long winded, but it'll all come together. So have you ever heard of the transatlantic accent?

Speaker 2: 24:13

no you haven't. Does that make me stupid? No, it's just back in the early 1900s.

Speaker 2: 24:22

You know how people spoke, a certain way Like hey there son Sure yeah yeah, right, there was different tonations and accents and back then there was a lot of regional accents too, right, I mean the Southern draw, that was a very thick accent and there was different kinds of it, right, like Texas kind of had their own variation. Then you had like the Deep South, you had the kind of like the antebellum South too, and then that had their own variation. And then you had the West Coast. That started creating like the California accents and kind of the more the West Coast, which is really how everyone talks now, is the West Coast regional accent at the time and I don't know what the term was. But so where I'm getting at this is, over time, you used to have different ways of talking. So, like Bernie Sanders, he talks like an old New Yorker. Donald Trump does not talk like an old New Yorker, right, yeah, like Bernie Sanders has that accent, donald Trump doesn't.

Speaker 2: 25:22

And as you've gone over the generations, everyone across the entire United States is talking more and more similar. Yeah, those regional accents are starting to Disappear, disappear. So here's a great example of that is everyone well, especially in Utah, right, our generation in Utah talk like valley girls from California, and a lot of generations do. And why is that? Because the Valley girl accent was picked up by the media companies that got projected and that just kind of like cross pollinated across the culture. Okay, right, so the Valley girl accent and also the words that they use like Right, you know our generation uses like way more often than our parents ever did and that's why everyone's watching Disney Channel and all these movies Right, they pick it up. So things are becoming more and more similar across the spectrum culturally. In the United States, right, and businesses are doing the same thing. Businesses used to have these really creative logos. They used to have very different types of campaigns and it appears as though a lot of businesses have just folded into Just adopted what everyone else is doing.

Speaker 2: 26:50

Adopted what everyone else is doing and I don't know if it's like. I don't know if this is intentional or not intentional, because sometimes you're trying to be different, but you follow a trend. For sure, Baby names is a great example of this. Every parent thinks they're being unique, but chances are you're actually following a trend.

Speaker 1: 27:05

Yeah but like three years from now, they'll say hey, top baby names in 2024 was this, and you're like what I thought, dude, the same thing happened when we named Mia. She's our 11 year old. Yeah, like if you go look at top baby names.

Speaker 1: 27:17

No one's named Mia let's, yeah, and we were like so stoked on it and like that, I think is in the top like 25 baby names or something like that for girls and I'm like how is that possible? No way, that's shocking. It is shocking. This episode is brought to you today by Bestie.

Speaker 1: 27:33

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Speaker 2: 28:48

Businesses fall into this trap, I think, all the time right, which is everyone's kind of converging at this point of similarity and not dissimilarity. Yeah, and TikTok was a moment where some businesses were able to do some things different in terms of storytelling, which I think was a good, a good thing that came out of it.

Speaker 1: 29:11

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:12

Which is how we could start telling stories in a different way. You know we can. We can be loose and fun with it over on TikTok in a way that you can do on Instagram. You can, but at the time it was a faux pas. Yeah, again, it's on Instagram.

Speaker 1: 29:23

Yeah, time, it was a faux pas on Instagram, yeah and it just goes back to this idea.

Speaker 2: 29:28

it's like what, as marketers, are you trying to get your audience to feel? And often times, I think everyone just wants the audience to feel the exact same thing that everyone else wants them to feel, right, whether that's powerful or beautiful or whatever you want to attach to it. Yeah, and how do you get companies to stand out? And I think you start by asking the question of what? What do you want your audience to feel? And TikTok introduced a new way of feeling.

Speaker 1: 30:11

Right, but you're right there now, but now everyone just follows templates.

Speaker 2: 30:14

Yeah, it doesn't anymore.

Speaker 1: 30:16

Like it's almost making it so that everyone's trying to follow what everyone else is doing. But the problem is is it's too late?

Speaker 2: 30:24

Yeah Right, it's always too late when you're following trends.

Speaker 1: 30:28

Yes, yes, it's a really interesting point. I didn't think about it that way. I mean, I think I brought this up several times on the podcast, but we've talked about the good different chart before. Yeah, right, by Marty Neumeier. So the good different chart. For those listening, it's like Thanks, marty.

Speaker 1: 30:52

Yeah, you got a quadrant and in quadrant one which is top left, so on the Y axis, right Y axis is good-axis is different, all right. So the further you go here, the more different it is. The further you go up, the better it is, the more good it is, the good or whatever you want to say. Right, the good, or it is. So q1 up here, top left, is very good but not different at all, all right. And then you got q2, which is very good and very different. You got q3, which is not good, not different, and you got q4, which is not good but very different, and the main place you want to live is q2, which is good and different. Right, if you're just good. What you're talking about right now is most people, most people sit in q1, right, you definitely have people who just have bad ideas and it's not good, right, but most people are smart enough to understand that if you're sitting in q3 like you're gonna bust yeah, but what I'm this is not me disagreeing with you.

Speaker 2: 32:08

Okay, but I think the reason why that chart can hurt so many marketers out there is because what is the point of being good and different, right, it's to sell something. Right, right, and I think sometimes people think good and different is just standing out for the sake of standing out, sure, without actually putting action into standing out.

Speaker 1: 32:38

Well, to me, the standing out part is the different. Like, if you're just standing out, that doesn't mean anything, but if you're also doing something that is good and you're standing out, then people are going to want to follow or act on that, right, right.

Speaker 2: 32:54

And then this is the other thing I was thinking about. Driving was similar to this. The good and different chart, right. It's like okay, what are you trying to get people to feel? And the reason why you need to think about what you're trying to get people to feel is because people buy off of emotion, not off of logic, and that's how everyone makes their decisions. You know, very rarely people make a truly logical decision.

Speaker 1: 33:21

It's kind of scary to think about, but it's true, yeah, most of the time they don't right, no.

Speaker 2: 33:24

And so here in Utah we're known for door-to-door salesmen, whether that be through, like the church's missionary efforts right here locally, or if that's through the solar sales guys like Vivint right, their entire billion dollar business off of door-to-door sales, all the pest control companies that come out of Utah door-to-door sales. And one thing you learn about in door-to-door sales is, for example, if you're talking about a home security system, it's not that effective. It's effective, but I mean, a dog is more effective than a home security system at truly deterring somebody. Sure, a dog and lights, right, maybe that stat is outdated, but a while ago it was, that was true, which would just make sense.

Speaker 2: 34:14

So what are you really selling to somebody? Right, and they, they tell you, like you're selling somebody the sense of security, right, but how you get there is you sell them on the sense of peer pressure of other people doing it, like there's all these ways to get somebody in the mindset of, oh, okay, like somebody else did this. Who did it? Oh, your neighbor down the street or whatever, right, or whoever else you sold. So you're using that social pressure or the tribe of like, oh, other people are doing it because they want to feel safe FOMO yep here. Very rarely do stats mean anything, like you're not going to go in there and be like oh, did you know that crime has gone up 10% in this area.

Speaker 1: 34:54

Yeah, or that our security system notifies cops 10% quicker than any other.

Speaker 2: 34:59

Yeah, very rarely. That's going to be how you lead.

Speaker 1: 35:01

You think those are really good. You do, right, yeah, but I did door-to-door sales and this is going to sound super sketchy ourselves, and this is going to sound super sketchy, but I was an 18 year old kid when I did this. But we'd go into, we'd have, uh I can't remember what they were called correlations or something like that, where you would uh meet all together as a team and then you go knock on doors, um, and you talk about like okay, what's the incentive for the day, what's the, what are the goals?

Speaker 2: 35:25

for what are the goals?

Speaker 1: 35:27

whoever gets the most sales gets a free ticket to a Dallas Cowboys football game. You know, it's all that kind of stuff and we talk and role play different, like like one liners and I was selling pest control and the one liner. We found that sold more than anything, right, and we had cheaper prices. We got out faster than anybody. You know, we use like all organic material so that it was safe to spray in your homes. It was all bio.

Speaker 1: 35:54

You know, like all the facts, stats, you know we'd call those like all the features, yeah, right, and there was one saying that would work flawlessly and it was a lie but everyone would use it and it was. You'd go into a big neighborhood, so it wouldn't be a small neighborhood. You'd want to go into a big neighborhood that not everyone's going to know everyone, yeah. And you would say and you'd find a name that wasn't like super, super generic, like the Smiths, but it also wouldn't be like a crazy name Like the. I don't, I can't even think of, just just think of a really like weird person's last name. I got George Bailey down the street, yeah, yeah, you know. So you, you come up with a name like the. You know, I don't know the Pattersons. It's not quite Peterson, but the pattern you know, it's like that. Okay, I hear that name, you know. But hey, do you know the pattersons that live on Three streets up? No, I don't.

Speaker 1: 36:54

It's like, well, hey, their kid got bit by a black widow this summer and they're seeing black widows everywhere and have you guys seen anything like that? No, I haven't. Oh good, good, like, that's super good, like. But we're seeing it with a ton of people and people are really nervous for their kids. Do you have small kids? Oh, yeah, I got small kids. So if you saw like a, like a slide in their backyard or a tramp or toys, as just you just can't even the kid route, yeah, you go the kid route, like, hey, you don't. And and I mean especially if it was a woman and every mom and every dad wants to protect their kids yeah, right, but you're going away from the like. You don't talk about biodegrading. You know that was part of it. As they're signing the papers like, oh yeah, hey, by the way, this is biodegradable.

Speaker 2: 37:33

Hey, you know, and this and this is the dark side of of selling, right, totally, because, because what they're, what they're trying to do when they're, you know there's ethical ways and there's a lot of ethical door to door salesman. No, I think most are ethical, but you do have some bad actors out there, right, and? And a lot of bad actors are just trained that way too, by the way. Sure, and so, like in your example, like you're, you're, but what it's doing emotionally is you want them to feel scared and in a fight or flight mode.

Speaker 1: 38:05

Yeah, like I don't want to take my kid to the hospital.

Speaker 2: 38:08

Oh like, oh yeah, like I don't want that, which makes them reactive.

Speaker 1: 38:12

Yeah Like, I'd much rather be prepped. Yeah, yeah, which is how insurance companies all work, right?

Speaker 2: 38:18

Yes, most people don't ever use their insurance. No, but the whole point of insurance is the peace of mind just in case something happens to you Exactly. Statistically probably won't happen. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 38:27

So you're right, like I'm going back to this Hence why, like all, the insurance companies, are leaving California. Yeah, so one thing there's a. There's a book that I read called uh, it's called. Why does it does it does? Have you read this book? I don't know. Well, they, they have this like they talk. It's all. People don't buy. They're not buying off of the features, they're not even buying off the benefits. You can tie the benefit they're buying off of why people buy.

Speaker 2: 38:51

I think the emotion.

Speaker 1: 38:53

But they essentially say ask yourselves why somebody buys from you, and you'll really get down to the real reason after you ask yourself why six times, yeah Right, why do you buy an Apple phone? Because it's got the best memory and it's like? Why do you buy an apple phone? Oh, because it's got like the best memory and it's got, um, like a really, really good camera. Why do you want that? Because it's cool. Uh, well, I, I love taking pictures and I like I, I just need more data. Why do you need that? Oh, because I create content, I'm a content creator and you list oh, why. Why do you do that? Oh, because I'm wanting to make more money. Why do you do that? You know, and you can get down to like, all these like, and eventually you get to this point where, like, okay, that's my marketing material. It's not. It has two terabytes worth of data. Yeah, no one cares, it's not, the pixel is xyz, it's because I don't have to.

Speaker 2: 39:52

I don't break up group messages yeah, yeah, it's it's because I I when I put, when I take my phone out, I look cool and at this point a lot of people do, just because that was one of the first. You know, the iphone was the big one, yeah, at the beginning, with the touch when it first came out, and now people are just used to it and they don't want to change. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, going to storytelling and branding is how do you, how do we get people to feel things Right? And I think, as marketers, we often get caught in this trap where you just start regurgitating stuff.

Speaker 2: 40:30

I know I've been caught as into this trap as a marketer, where you just start regurgitating oh, like, what's working, we'll use this kind of hook or blah, blah, blah or this kind of ad copy. But in order to get to that good different quadrant remember you, you're not just going to nail it, you don't just land there in the good different quadrant where you're doing something that's actually moving the needle Right you have to go through tests of different Sure.

Speaker 2: 41:03

Yeah, and take some risks, take some gambles and just remember that no one cares, no one remembers. Yeah, but you're never going to find yourself in good and different if you're not ever going to be willing to be different. Right, and most brands are just not willing to be different. Like, think about how every brand has just the same kind of text logo. Yeah, the sans serif text logo.

Speaker 2: 41:25

Yeah, white, yeah the sans serif text logo yeah, white, yeah, yeah, I mean, no one's willing to try like. Everyone wants to play it safe in business. And I was just talking with a friend that we were consulting with and he has this brand palette. He showed me this product and I said, oh, that's kind of cool, but you know, it's just kind of like all monochromatic and I was like it's just throwing me off, like it just doesn't stand out, you know. And then he showed me this brand palette of his. That's got cool colors and it's way different. Yeah, I was like, dude, just do that. Yeah, like, throw that out there and see what happens. Don't go with like the safe for sure, the safe bet. Go with the the risky one. Yeah, because that's not like. I don't go with like the safe for sure, the safe bet. Go with the the risky one. Yeah, because that's not like. I don't see that anywhere.

Speaker 1: 42:13

Yeah for sure the safe bet never works. Yeah, so it's almost like you know. You almost think as a brand owner. You know, when I was a cmo, I got so caught up in watching like everything our competitors were doing and it made me play everything safe. I played within their boundaries always. Oh, they're launching a new product, we should launch a new product. Oh, here are some of the colors that they're dropping. Should we be dropping some stuff? You know?

Speaker 1: 42:42

you just play like you just naturally play, especially if they're bigger than you right, you're like oh, what are they doing?

Speaker 2: 42:48

yeah, yeah they.

Speaker 1: 42:49

That must be working exactly they're bigger than us yeah, and one thing you and me have learned like we've talked to 100 million dollar plus brands, 250 million dollar brands, and you're just talking to the same people who are running 10 million dollar brands. They just happen to be at a different company, so it's not like they're doing anything bigger or better. They might have maybe more budget to do some research, but like they're not. A lot of times, you know, like they're still just oftentimes shooting from the hip and hoping that it's going to work. So I almost feel like, you know, going back to tick talk, you know we're all on these platforms and maybe, maybe, as as business owners, you should be completely off of these platforms to make some of these bigger creative decisions, you know yeah, yeah, you can't be different going, going back to this idea, right is these people that are different throughout history?

Speaker 2: 43:49

and when we think about people who are different, let's just throw out some, some names of people who stand out in history. But if you look at a Frank Sinatra like he stands out, right as a, as an entertainer. If you look at a uh, like a JK Rowling Like she stands out, she created a pretty, she created a cultural phenomenon with her books. If we look at I don't know, we could think of some other people too tired to right now, but they.

Speaker 1: 44:24

I get the point you're making.

Speaker 2: 44:26

Marilyn Monroe is maybe a cultural icon. A lot of these people have pretty interesting and different backgrounds, yeah, which has always led me to believe that you can't really be different if you're not isolated in a way to help you think and be different. Sure, help you think and be different. Sure and as a brand I've thought about that too is like you're saying, if you're always looking at what everyone else is doing, there is the law of diminishing return. Yeah, I'm not saying you shouldn't look at what other people do or you can't learn from other companies, but we hear about these companies, just that are always looking at each other and, at some level, you're never going to be different if you're always looking at each other and, at some level, you're never going to be different if you're always looking at each other you're going to be influenced.

Speaker 1: 45:15

Yeah, you know, you might not think it. You might say, oh, I'm doing it for competitive research, to understand what they're doing, but at the end of the day, you're always going to be influenced. We're all influenced by right, because if you see a video get a certain amount of views or certain amount of likes and it's consistent, then you're like, oh, maybe I need to be like this.

Speaker 2: 45:35

Well, and a great great point of being influenced is the Valley girl. Like, why does everybody talk like that? No one realized they were being influenced by a different subset of culture from the eighties in California, right From the Valley of culture from the 80s in California, right From the valley, yet it's permeated the culture in so many different ways. Yeah, no one realizes that you're being influenced and so sometimes you have to isolate to bring out your own creativity. Right, you got to go monk mode sometimes, not all the time, but yeah, Well, I think that's what.

Speaker 1: 46:07

What did I mean? You see this in the? I've been a big fan of Queen pre the Bohemian Rhapsody film, but they should they depict it in the film like when they wanted to go out and I think it was the album A Night at the Opera that had Bohemian Rhapsody on it Right Like the way they created. That was like they went. Well, they went out into like a to a farm and recorded that whole album in a barn or something like that.

Speaker 2: 46:36

Which isn't uncommon, led Zeppelin did the same thing with Led Zeppelin. These three, I think it was.

Speaker 1: 46:41

They just have to get away you know and isolate yourselves and just be like you know, and they did things that Led Zeppelin did, things that no other bands did, but people took a lot of inspo from them. Yeah, and same thing with Queen, you know, and you could probably name Pink Floyd and all these other bands right who who are iconic bands? You don't see that as often nowadays.

Speaker 2: 47:08

No. Surprisingly, and so I wonder yeah, I just wonder about that is how do, how do we think more creative as marketers? Yeah, and I don't think it's like this hokey pokey thing where you have to sit there and be like a Buddhist monk to be creative and be all Zen all the time, necessarily, but I do think there is just a level of maybe be conscious about how much you're absorbing, cause sometimes it's hard to, it's going to rub off on you, it's it's hard to output when you're always inputting Totally.

Speaker 1: 47:40

Yeah, oh, yeah, for sure, I yeah for me, I know it like completely will cripple me, like one of the best, most effective, most effective times I've ever felt like I've been from a business perspective, um, and from like a, just a human, like a dad and a, and a husband was just like I. I went on a 30 day social fast. Outside of posting, I would post, but I would not look, you know at all. Yeah, and like that was some of the most creative I've ever felt, like just because, finally, I wasn't consuming constantly, right, because you just find yourself consuming when you're just sitting, I'm waiting in line, going to the bathroom, we consume, right, and it eventually starts to impact you in a negative way so if you're brand, let your marketing do some different things.

Speaker 1: 48:34

Yeah, don't be afraid that. It's different from what everyone else is doing.

Speaker 2: 48:37

Yeah, don't be afraid of some losses either, right, like sometimes I think people give up on things far too quick. Yeah, just because it didn't work in a certain way doesn't mean you shouldn't try to flip it around and try it from a different angle yeah, yeah, for sure and see what happens.

Speaker 2: 48:55

We've seen, we've seen some people that we work with do some different things recently and it's, it's paid off, yeah, big time yeah, for sure in their ads specifically, is what we're referring to, yeah, is wording and headlines and taglines that they haven't really used before, that are a lot more playful, like playing into cultural phenomenons or taglines from movies in the past, just little things that are bringing out a more flavor, I think, in their marketing mix, and a lot of this can just be done in statics.

Speaker 2: 49:36

You don't have to go produce a giant video to test these kinds of ideas out. Sure, but again, just start with who you are as a company, what you want people to feel from your company, and then from there, I think that gives you a good framework, right, yeah, and the framework, I think, is always you start with what they want to feel and then, is your audience going to be the hero or are you saving them from? Are they a victim? Are you the hero making saving them, or are you making them a hero where they kind of save others or themselves? Yeah, yeah, sometimes that helps me think about as, in terms of a framework, sure, like, either they're the hero of the story, because everyone's either the hero, the victim of a story.

Speaker 1: 50:23

That's why every movie has archetypes, that people relate with really yeah yeah, or at least they should be yeah right. You should be treating them as such, for sure.

Speaker 2: 50:31

Like you're either the anti-hero or you're the hero or you're the victim right.

Speaker 1: 50:35

The other thing. I want to add one more thing in this. This just came up somewhere. I can't remember where I started thinking about this, or maybe I posted it on LinkedIn or something like that, but it's the other thing you can do to be more creative is I've noticed that some of the most creative brands are brands that don't have big budgets because they have to, like they have to rely so heavily on creativity.

Speaker 1: 51:02

So you've got this side that we've talked a ton about, which has been in order to stand out, you have to stop fitting in so much and conforming and consuming the way you are. Okay, that's going to help you exercise your creativity, because, rather than thinking about what other people have done, you've got to start to think about what you're going to do, because you don't have any examples to think from. Yeah, the second thing is, most brands succeeded so well in the beginning. Any brand that's like crushing it right now got their jump in succession by like being super, super scrappy, and I think that there's an element that you know if, if you are a bigger brand or whatever like, you should think about potentially cutting some budgets, you know, in certain areas, to see what your team can do, and wasn't it, wasn't it this?

Speaker 2: 51:48

is a good example of. They started out doing really scrappy stuff and they kind of lost that as they were growing.

Speaker 1: 51:55

Yeah, nine, nine figure business, 10 figure IPO. Right Like they were so scrappy, they were creating such funny content that was so just every weekend relatable kind of content, cause they and then they got money they wanted people to feel was like relief. Yeah, but then they got money, like you said, and they kind of went away from some of that and then they decided to go back to it and that's what helped them. Preston Rutherford episode something.

Speaker 2: 52:26

Yeah, they started to conform and I and I think that's the danger and what every company forgets is that at some point, as a company, as a person, as an individual right, and as an individual or as a company, you will start conforming, whether you realize it or not. Yeah, and that's maybe the ultimate fight of marketing, right? Is that everyone starts to conform at some point. They don't realize it.

Speaker 1: 52:49

Maybe it's just bureaucracy takes hold in a company that grows and the processes get a little bit more muddied and just silos, or more rigid, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, you have to jump, yeah, you have to go through eight people to make a decision, whereas before you could just toss something out. Because who could like? Because?

Speaker 2: 53:06

nobody cares right. It's like, well, you might as well try something.

Speaker 1: 53:09

Nothing else is working I like it well, tick tock.

Speaker 2: 53:15

Yeah, we'll see what happens over the next nine months the clock is ticking on, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock there you go.

Speaker 1: 53:27

All right, I think that's a good place to end yeah, and, and I have to go to the bathroom.

Speaker 1: 53:31

As do I. All right, well, thank you everybody. We'll see you guys next week. Thank you so much for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. Please go rate and subscribe the podcast, whether it's good or bad. We want to hear from you because we always want to make this podcast better. If you want to hear from you because we always want to make this podcast better, if you want to get in touch with me or give me any direct feedback, please go follow me and get in touch with me. I am at the Trevor Crump on both Instagram and TikTok. Thank you, and we will see you next week.