Speaker 1: 0:01

Yo, what's going on everybody? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast, with me, as always, my co-host, mark Goldhart. Mark Goldhart, how are you?

Speaker 2: 0:10

Mark Goldhart, that's my name, yeah.

Speaker 1: 0:13

Sounds weird. Mark Halvard Goldhart.

Speaker 2: 0:18

You know, when some days words sound weird. It just sounded weird Halvard or Goldhart, Just my name yeah, mark Goldhart.

Speaker 1: 0:24

Yeah, it's just in weird Halvard or Goldhart, just my name, yeah, mark Goldhart.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Yeah, just in general. Marcus Goldhart, marcus, yeah, I'm doing great, excited to be here. We are in for a treat.

Speaker 1: 0:34

We are in for a pleasant treat, very pleasant one, yeah.

Speaker 2: 0:38

That's all I have to say about it. We're going to learn a lot. I'm excited, yeah.

Speaker 1: 0:42

This is. We have a guest today that, um, I'm a bit excited to have on for a minute.

Speaker 2: 0:48

Yeah, we've talked about it for a long time.

Speaker 1: 0:49

We've talked about it, but we've never talked to him about it.

Speaker 2: 0:52

Yeah, it's true, mainly my my fault, because I have a hard time remembering to text people.

Speaker 1: 0:57

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:06

Normally I'm the one and this one fell on mark, and so that's why. So, just so you know, we've been thinking about you for months acted on it recently.

Speaker 1: 1:09

Well, let's introduce, let's introduce our guests here today. We got alex mcarthur with us today. Uh, alex is former cmo at purple, former cmo at kizik, as of recent as of recent first podcast he's ever been on since he left.

Speaker 3: 1:24

Is it Dang it? We can lie, maybe if you make this one live first.

Speaker 2: 1:29

Oh yeah, we're going to just publish this one first.

Speaker 1: 1:31

Yeah, we're going to skip the publish and now just consulting, right, mm-hmm, that's it Awesome. How are you?

Speaker 3: 1:36

dude Doing great Welcome A lot of my life recently, yeah, obviously you know, exiting Kizik and um excited to be here with you guys. I don't know if you remember the first time we met. I saw you speaking in Vegas and I'm like man, this guy's sharp.

Speaker 1: 1:51

I walked up to you. I think I told you that.

Speaker 3: 1:53

And then had a similar experience with with Mark at a at a dinner. Like I, like this dude. Like how I think. So I'm glad to be here with you guys?

Speaker 1: 2:00

Yeah, that that was. That was one of my actual favorite like store, so that was my very first speaking event I ever spoke at. Okay, and I got asked to speak at the magic show in las vegas which most?

Speaker 1: 2:11

people don't go to the magic show. I was there to to listen to speakers. I didn't know that. I think it was my first year at the magic show. By the way for people who are listening to this, because I say it all the time people like are like a magic show. The magic show is a big, like Magician convention. Yeah, it's a big convention full of magicians where we're all learning to. You know.

Speaker 3: 2:32

Now I'm thinking of Joe Blues, yeah now I'm thinking of yeah rest in development.

Speaker 2: 2:39

No, so it's like a we demand to be taken seriously.

Speaker 3: 2:46

A big like apparel fashion. Yeah, a lot of footwear companies.

Speaker 1: 2:47

Yeah, like, where you go, you go for two reasons one, you go to find manufacturing. Two, you go to get your product in stores, like get in, get in retail. So I was at it, got asked to speak about something that I can't remember and, um, they were like, when I was prepping for it, they were like, yeah, there should be like expect, maybe hundred to 200 people in the room. And I'm like, oh sweet, and I was way excited and like I'm going to be famous, I'm going to do this. And then I like get in this massive room and there's maybe 20 people.

Speaker 3: 3:17

No, there was more. There's like 60, man.

Speaker 2: 3:19

No, I mean, maybe there was a big room, but when it's a big room and it's scattered it felt like 15 people.

Speaker 3: 3:28

Me and Monty, CEO of Kizzik, were sitting right there. We had no idea you were from Utah.

Speaker 1: 3:35

They were so cool. They came up to me and were like I can't remember.

Speaker 2: 3:38

That's the early days of Kizzik right. Nobody knew our name.

Speaker 1: 3:42

Were you guys trying to Do? You guys know, jeff Buckwalter.

Speaker 3: 3:46

Sounds familiar, monty does. Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 3:48

Because Monty Was Monty part of OGO. No, well, I think he might have been, he was counsel.

Speaker 3: 3:53

I think he might have been involved externally with his law firm at the time. I think so too.

Speaker 1: 4:05

In any ways, like like Jeff Buckwalter, who was with us, who we worked with him. I feel like Kizik was trying to get him to come and say, hey, cause he's a finance guy, Okay, Come help us out with some finance stuff, and so yeah. But yeah, you guys were so like that I was devastated in the whole entire speak speaking moment Cause I didn't think anyone was there. I had prepped a ton and then you guys came up to me and said some very kind words and so I really appreciate it and that makes me feel even better. I always thought you maybe just knew who I was and you were just trying to be nice to me.

Speaker 3: 4:34

I know who you are now. Seriously, I was impressed.

Speaker 1: 4:37

That was the best part. I've got to go find a way to.

Speaker 2: 4:38

Which is a great way of showing who Alex is as a person. I think everyone who interacts with you has a good story about how, even though you've been leading these companies through massive success, you do take time to hang out with the little guys.

Speaker 3: 4:54

Dude. Yeah, there's no little guys man. So that's my favorite part of business is the people right, Like you guys have had Brett Swenson on this podcast, who was with me at both Purple and Kizzik and like dude is just so good. Good person, good marketer, and like when you can build a great team and you differentiate your product, you kind of can't lose.

Speaker 1: 5:14

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 5:15

And so, for me, networking, getting to know people and I hate the word networking, like it's connecting with people, building relationships with people is where the value really comes in for me.

Speaker 2: 5:25

So networking sounds transactional, it does.

Speaker 1: 5:28

Very much so.

Speaker 2: 5:29

I've always used it.

Speaker 3: 5:30

Tried to use it as a positive word, but I guess there's a better way to say it. Maybe it's just connecting.

Speaker 1: 5:34

The problem is I feel like you have to explain it. Yeah, making friends.

Speaker 3: 5:36

Yeah, Like you have to. But what do you mean? You're gonna make some friends. I'm lonely not that there's anything wrong with making friends at 36 but like I think it's great. You know, um, I'm 47. Yeah, like I don't act my age and people tell me I should act a little more executive, but like it hasn't worked for me yeah, and I have more fun spending time with as many people as I can everyone, everyone, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1: 6:05

So okay, so let's jump into some stuff. So tell us you're at Purple. Then you went to Kizik Two massive companies, like two companies in Utah that have had some really good success.

Speaker 2: 6:18

Well, two D2C unicorns, in a way Very much so yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:22

Purple was the D2C unicorn in what 2016. We launched in In a way, very much so. Yeah, purple was the DTC unicorn in what 2016?.

Speaker 3: 6:26

We launched in January of 2016. Yeah, 2016, 17.

Speaker 1: 6:31

And now Kizik is. Like you know, kizik is the brand that people are talking about here in Salt Lake. That is the brand you got to know about.

Speaker 2: 6:38

They're getting a lot of love from Toby, the CEO of Shopify.

Speaker 3: 6:43

Are they? Yeah, there's been some. Yeah, yeah, we got featured on the site.

Speaker 2: 6:48

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 6:49

Have you seen him mention it recently?

Speaker 2: 6:51

No, I just remember when they did that they did something about you guys were one of the guinea pigs on their program.

Speaker 3: 6:58

I don't know what program it was Deliver, deliver, yeah which is now taken out of Shopify. That's right, it's now taken out of Shopify, that's right, it's now pulled out.

Speaker 1: 7:05

Cool. So tell us about your journey at Purple. Give everybody a little kind of rundown of what you were doing at Purple. What brought you over?

Speaker 2: 7:15

to Kizzik and what Well, actually can we start before that? Because, I think most people listening to this podcast know about Purple and Kizzik. Now, what were you doing before Purple? How did you arrive to Purple? Because Purple was such a massive success and I'm curious about where were you before and how did you find yourself in Purple?

Speaker 3: 7:34

Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing that I got maybe noticed in Utah was Orange Soda. A lot of people now don't know what it is but a lot of people that are some of the best marketers in Utah worked at Orange Soda. A lot of people now don't know what it is, but a lot of people that are some of the best marketers in Utah worked at Orange Soda. So I did that Like my first job right out of BYU. I started out in computer science, realized I didn't want to sit behind a screen talking to people like connecting Too social.

Speaker 3: 8:00

Yeah, switched to communications, which is probably too far. The opposite way A lot more girls in those classes.

Speaker 1: 8:06

There you go. That was good, nice, and you didn't have to take calculus. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:12

I liked calculus.

Speaker 3: 8:13

So from computer science, my interest there, thinking that's how I have to make money in the future, like tech is the only way to make money. I worked at Exactware for four years, right out of college.

Speaker 3: 8:26

Yeah, and then the people were awesome. It was a great company but it was so boring, just miserable. And I met this guy named Jay Bean which started a company called MarchX Sorry, not MarchX. He started AHA, which was acquired by MarchX, which was the first pay-per-click engine before AdWords, which was the first pay-per-click engine before AdWords. So Jay was just super sharp, got me into digital marketing. He started Orange Soda. I was one of the first employees to join.

Speaker 1: 8:53

Tell everybody what Orange Soda was.

Speaker 3: 8:54

So it was a small business internet marketing provider. So at the time only big companies were paying for SEO or paying for AdWords. We were trying to offer something that a small business could pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to at least be in the game. And it worked. We saw success. A company called Deluxe acquired us, which again nobody knows checks anymore, but Deluxe was the company that owned the check cashing business across the country.

Speaker 3: 9:27

Um, so they acquired orange soda. It was a small win and got got me kind of hooked on entrepreneurship, um, and so my whole career I've kind of gone back and forth between consulting and in-house, and if a business exits or there's some kind of transaction or a change I go back to consulting. So far, every time one of those consulting deals turns into my next big thing, and so that's kind of been the rotation. So you know, orange Soda did some consulting. It was at SEOcom for a minute, did some additional consulting. My friend Chris at the time was the first person brought into Purple to help kind of consult and he brought me in as well. Yeah, we caught fire pretty quickly. It was a blast and like so interesting how all of a sudden the world was talking about mattresses. It wasn't just because of us, obviously. Casper had raised hundreds of millions of dollars. There was Tuft Needle and Lisa and a bunch of others, but like.

Speaker 3: 10:27

In the end, we drove the most revenue with raising the least amount of money, which was pretty yeah, casper probably did a really like because there was that.

Speaker 1: 10:34

What was that study? I remember you and me were talking about this in what 2018, where casper was like bleeding, yeah, like tens of millions of dollars every year.

Speaker 3: 10:49

They did build a fairly strong brand.

Speaker 2: 10:51

Oh for sure. Well, I think the difference between Purple and the other mattress brands and it's actually a great little case study, I think, for a lot of people and the troubles that they're facing now in D2C, which is at the time in D2C back in 2010 to 2018, a lot of brands were just built on arbitrage opportunities and a lot of those mattress brands were just trying to take this direct to consumer right. People forget that's what it meant. Like direct to consumer, you were cutting out the middleman.

Speaker 3: 11:22

That was our first message. Right yeah, consumer, you were cutting out the middleman.

Speaker 2: 11:25

That was our first message, right? Yeah, and so you're cutting out the middleman and giving the consumer better deals, supposedly at the beginning which at the beginning there were better deals for yep. So casper was basically just trying to go to a manufacturer that did tempur-pedic type mattresses and then just go. Okay, we're just going to cut out the middleman. Where purple what differentiated Purple was? You actually, guys had a unique product. It wasn't just an arbitrage of something that already existed, and I think a lot of brands are now facing that difference, which is the arbitrage opportunities aren't really there anymore. Right, with cost CPMs, you're not really getting a better deal necessarily buying d2c, which now brand building yeah is so important.

Speaker 3: 12:07

But yeah, I'd love for you to speak on that yeah, great marketers care about product and differentiation, the story behind that product, and it's not just can we slightly, can we perform one percent better? And I feel, like that's what was happening. I mean, at the time a lot of people thought there were 300 bed-in-the-box players. To me, 299 of them were the same Chinese-made foam material, I'm generalizing.

Speaker 2: 12:34

Sure, sure, yeah, no offense to everyone.

Speaker 3: 12:37

That's how it felt, right, like we had the only thing that was different and we really wanted to lean into that story and Purple is a weird name. So we you know, I know now people are kind of tired of humor, but at the time, yeah, it wasn't that way and we leaned into it and it worked and it created a lot of awareness and over the next three to four years, we really tried to elevate, yeah, the brand and I felt like that was pretty successful, but it did make it harder to create that mass awareness.

Speaker 2: 13:08

I have a question because Purple is known for some of those humorous videos at the beginning right. I think that was kind of the heyday of the slapstick comedy or these awesome demos that turned into like humorous presentations with the spokesperson ad yeah, the spokesperson ad yeah, what? As the CMO at the time, because you guys were one of the pioneers in this and using these types of video productions. How did you decide on? That was the way to go, because it was a big investment at the time.

Speaker 3: 13:33

Oh, yeah, yeah Again, chris. My friend, chris Knudsen was a part of that early. Another guy named Dan Bischoff. He had an agency called Content Hook and you know we were all brainstorming different things to do and you know the Harmon brothers were a local down the street. You know, partner, that was having a lot of success, and so the Goldilocks story was the first one that people really remember. But in terms of choosing to do that, some of it's, to be honest, like I'm a big believer in ringing the cash register early. I think a lot of people try to over-perfect their brands and then assume that sales will follow.

Speaker 3: 14:17

And I'm a believer that I want to ring the cash register along the way. Self-fund as best as possible, justify the next big effort, and I also believe that you can pivot a lot more than people think they can.

Speaker 2: 14:30

Now, when you say pivot, are you saying with your brand? With your brand?

Speaker 3: 14:34

you can pivot and use the tactics you have to. And humor was really working, or we thought it could really work, and there were a couple people that had successes Again, the Harmon Brothers had a a couple of big successes and and literally they're right down the street Right. So uh made sense to to take a swing at that, create some mass awareness, um. And then it worked and people started to demand our content and kind of our internal theme became feel better. Um, meaning the mattress makes you feel better.

Speaker 1: 15:06

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 15:06

But even if they don't buy, how do we make people feel better With a little bit of content? That can be memorable and engaging and fun, and that will create more of an emotional response than just being the same old black and white website like everybody else.

Speaker 2: 15:20

Well, a purple mattress made my wife feel a lot better. Good, nice, that's well a purple mattress made my wife feel a lot better. Good, nice Woke up every morning with bad neck, bad shoulder, and then we got a purple and four years later she's great. Now she's rocking. She's getting some affiliate. Yeah, give this guy a code, get her a testimonial, give this guy a code.

Speaker 1: 15:36

I want to talk about something you said which is interesting. Like so, mark and I see this all the time where brands, brands get so caught up in we call it marketing to marketers, right when everything has to be perfect and if it's not perfect, because of what their peer meaning, what my peers are going to see, right.

Speaker 3: 15:54

I call it ego marketing, because I feel, like they do, what's based off of what makes them look cool to other creatives, and to me that's frustrating.

Speaker 1: 16:01

How do you break through that Cause? Like at purple, for example, did you have? Like you said? Your mantra is like let's, let's ring it early right Versus perfect it, cause we don't know if perfecting it is actually going to do anything for us.

Speaker 2: 16:14

Which, just to define that, is just prioritizing sales.

Speaker 3: 16:17

Yeah Right, I mean making it memorable and working towards a brand, but not putting the brand. Like everybody tells you. You have to protect the brand to death, and I do believe that too, but your brand won't matter if you can't get some sales. So there's a balance, but I feel like the balance is so out of whack, like generally.

Speaker 1: 16:36

Can you walk through how brands should be balancing that? Like, how did you, did you have to convince the team at Purple? Did they just like follow you because they felt the same way?

Speaker 3: 16:49

At the moment. I mean I would never compare us to like Dollar Shave Club or something like that. Everybody you know that was a massive, massive campaign. We had some of that flair and people were looking for the next thing and we noticed how they were kind of only known for one spot and we wanted to do more things to keep that fire going. One of the things that we talked about internally a lot is how high is high? Like nobody knows how big we could be. Let's not just be content that we're more than happy with the results we've had, but let's continue to swing further and further. So I never felt any resistance. If anything, it was the opposite, like the inventors, tony and Terry Pierce, the guys that invented the material. You know a lot of people give our marketing team a ton of credit, but those guys were constantly like, hey, everything you're doing is working, why aren't you spending more? Why aren't you doing another video? So we had positive support and pressure from them, so a lot of kudos to them for that.

Speaker 1: 17:51

That's awesome.

Speaker 2: 17:52

Yeah, we see a lot of brands get stuck in that phase where they want, like you said, they want to protect the brand and you say people, you can pivot a lot more than people realize. Can you dive into what you mean by that? For those who are listening, that might be overprotecting their brand.

Speaker 3: 18:09

Yeah, I think the average brand has a very small box, like a tiny little box, that this is exactly who we are and for some companies that works, I think it's very few. I mean, even Nike extends their brand more than people realize. They have some pretty out there stories that I think.

Speaker 2: 18:28

And.

Speaker 3: 18:29

I love Nike right. Apple has so many different types of ads but people look at their brand and think it's so tight and it's always this way To win online. Right now you can have a tight brand where your packaging, your website, looks great. Then your LPs and your landing pages and your PDPs and your campaigns can extend pretty far and capture more eyeballs.

Speaker 3: 18:53

If you just keep looking the same, a tight brand box, and you know brands that don't adapt. I feel like they're just being too safe and it becomes egocentric where it's. Hey, my fellow creatives think this is the fashion sense that matters, right now and then everybody does the same thing.

Speaker 3: 19:18

That's where I get frustrated. Is that to win, you have to look like everybody else. To me, that's completely contradictory to good marketing standing out, being memorable, being differentiated. So that's where I get frustrated. Is the great brand minds out there want you to follow the trend that everyone is doing? It doesn't mean you can't follow trends and be different, but I like being a part of brands that have a unique angle to them.

Speaker 1: 19:45

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 19:46

And it feels like you can have more success and it works for me.

Speaker 1: 19:51

Dude, I know we've I brought this up a couple of times since you brought it up, but I thought you're cause we talk, we this just is a topic that we talk about. Just it just happened, maybe because we're so passionate about it the same way you are. Um, is they say that right?

Speaker 1: 20:10

yeah is so spot on with this, which is, like some call it, the mid-atlantic but okay, doesn't really matter, which is like hey, like the whole world used to speak different, but because of social media, now all of us speak the same right.

Speaker 2: 20:24

We've all, just like everybody's, adopted a californian accent yeah a west coast accent across the entire country, when in the past we used to have these pockets of strong regional accents and they still exist to some extent. You still have, like midwesterners, and you know canadians, and southern and southerners but southerners do not talk near like that accent is not as strong as it used to be right like it's. It's fading, each generation's fading, along with vernacular. Right like you actually have regional words that are dying. So, there was a graph recently about soda and pop. It's changed.

Speaker 2: 20:57

And it's totally changed. It used to be very regionally based if you said soda or if you said pop, oh yeah, and now it's just soda.

Speaker 1: 21:06

Utah was primarily pop. Are you from Utah?

Speaker 3: 21:10

So I'm a perfect case study. I'm from North Carolina, lived in Tennessee for a long time, had a really thick southern accent and over time I don't know if I forced it out or because of media and everything it's gone. I mumble now, so you can hear me here. But yeah, I had a thick southern accent as a kid.

Speaker 2: 21:31

Well, for you. You moved right, so you were obviously surrounded by it. But I think what's interesting with media is it just permeates beyond geographic boundaries. Now, so if all the media you consume is produced in California, and they're hiring Californians. Eventually you're going to start talking like Californians.

Speaker 3: 21:51

The more we talk about being different, it's interesting how we're all becoming more the same. Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1: 21:56

When you and you look at like brand logos nowadays and they're all the same font, black, thin writing, versus like in the nineties it was like you remember, like the Sega Genesis logo and the Nintendo or MTV or like these really like pop stand kind of somewhat aggressive like logos.

Speaker 3: 22:18

Imagine if the world was black and white in every way Like it's beautiful, full of lots of color and variety and like brands are becoming less and less, so yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:28

Have you ever read the book SAG before?

Speaker 3: 22:30

Do you know who Marty Neumeier is? I know the name, but I haven't read the book he talks about this. Ever read the book?

Speaker 1: 22:33

zag, before you know marty newmeyer is. I know the name, but yeah, he talks about this. I bring this up way too much on this podcast, but it like he, he breaks this down because he's a branding genius, like he's the guy that I I'm gonna mix the story up because it's been a long time since I've read zag, but he, he, uh, if I remember right, he started a creative agency and he went into I think it was Atari, um, and told them that he had like Apple's account or something like that, just made something up and just won this massive client based off of like a lie, essentially, and became this like really, really well-known guy. But he talks about, you know, he brings up this. He kind of identifies this chart called the good, different chart, which is like brands sit into a quadrant of four right, like if you're looking at y-axis, wait y-axis, and then x-axis, right.

Speaker 2: 23:28

And then where's the z? No, we're not going. Three-dimensional.

Speaker 1: 23:31

The y-axis represents good and the X-axis represents different. And so if you're in Q1, you're good but not different, and that's where the majority of people sit. If you're in Q2, you're good and different, and that's where you really want to be. Q3, you're not good, not different. Obviously you don't want to be there3 you're not good, not different. Obviously you don't want to be there. And q4 is not good but different. You know, and so he talks about this like so many brands hover in q1 and I think that's the safe zone.

Speaker 2: 24:04

I think the problem that a lot of brands have and I'd love your input here, alex is if you want to be good and different, you have to be willing to be different and bad. Yeah, yeah, like you have to at least know what it feels like to get into that, because you're never going to just and be willing to pivot, yeah, yeah, like in pivot because you can't just expect to be good and different and in this perfect little quadrant, all the time, unless you're making some mistakes.

Speaker 3: 24:30

Yeah, yeah. To me it's like is we're all digital marketers here, right, and or have experience in it, and everybody talking about talks about testing and learning. I don't think brands do that and I feel like you, you can't move at the same speed as ad iterations if you're changing things that affect packaging and overall brand appeal, but, um, but I feel like you can test it and experiment and and you'll find things that break, break through the, you know, the get people's attention and, um, I don't know. I just get really frustrated with how all of the great brand, um, you know, minds out there and creatives tend to narrow you down and that feels like winning. That's frustrating to me. Um, I just feel that pressure the bigger you get, the more you're pressured to look like everybody else.

Speaker 2: 25:20

I have a I have a good comparison to that is I feel the same way when you, when you listen to rich people tell you how you should work with a balanced mentality, right, it's like they're trying to tell you how they work now, but that's not how they got there.

Speaker 3: 25:42

No way.

Speaker 2: 25:42

Yeah Right, it's like, well, you need this balanced life, like I'm all Zen now you need to be mindful.

Speaker 1: 25:48

Good example.

Speaker 2: 25:49

And you go. That's not how you got to the success that you have now. Now, I'm not, maybe Now, maybe in the message they need to reiterate, they're not trying to tell people how to be rich. They're trying to tell people that they're not happy because they're rich. I know some of them talk about it.

Speaker 2: 26:08

But at the end of the day, most people are listening to them because they are successful, and you don't get successful by doing all these little practices they do after they've already reached success. Right, and that's kind of what happens with these branding people that you're talking about is a lot of voices out there reach success following some template at a company that they're no longer at, and then they kind of repeat that message over time, but that message is already faded and so it just narrows everyone down because everyone's still listening to them. But it's like, dude, your company was successful 10 years ago. The trends aren't what they are 10 years ago anymore.

Speaker 3: 26:40

Again, that's why it's so vital to have that experimental mindset right, Like what made Google so great during its good years, all those stories that people heard about 10% of your developer's time on experimenting with products and that's when they were launching other products. That made a difference and now it's just too big to turn. Yeah, Um, but yeah, it's hard to flexibility so hard with size right. The bigger the business gets, the less flexible it gets. It's so hard to protect that.

Speaker 1: 27:10

Well, the other thing that's so interesting is I do think that, as you know, I've started like small brands before, you know, and um that that have scaled to be bigger brands, and it's funny, as a small brand, we look to these bigger brands right for inspiration.

Speaker 1: 27:29

They wish they could be you yeah yeah, we look, we look for the inspiration. What are they doing? What channels are they on? What agencies are they? I mean you, yeah, yeah, we look, we look for the inspiration. What are they doing? What channels are they on? What agencies are they? I mean, you're looking at, what tools are they using? Right, you're looking at all of these things, but, at the end of the day, most of us, most brands like Kizik, is a nine figure business and there are so many people who don't even know who Kizik is. So this, this idea that I need to protect my brand, when you actually think about it, is really silly. No, I'm not saying that you shouldn't protect your brand, but like that, that that's what's stopping you from growing is by protecting a brand. You know, these brand decisions you feel like you have to make when when, in reality, if you're a million dollar business, you don't really, you don't really have a big brand. Can I, can I bring up a to be hurt like to get hurt right.

Speaker 1: 28:23

Can we get biblical please?

Speaker 2: 28:25

well, it's really just the story of the talents, right? So many, so many brands and small businesses are just. They're the man with one talent that went and hit it yeah and it's like, yeah, like you might lose one talent, but like you're very small and if you don't go risk it, then you're not learning.

Speaker 3: 28:44

Yeah, gaining another one.

Speaker 2: 28:45

You're not gonna get another one, and so you're just stuck in this plateau and this phase, in this limbo, yeah, so to speak, and and you're always looking at these other guys, but you're too scared to make a move because you're like oh I just got to protect my one little thing. It's like no one knows about your one little thing. There's nothing to protect.

Speaker 1: 29:00

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Speaker 1: 30:13

We love Bestie and we use it for every single brand we work with. Go check them out today at bestieai. So how did okay? So how did some of those like big lessons and that growth on the purple side, like how did that help you at Kizik? Like going over to Kizik?

Speaker 3: 30:33

How did that help you at Kizik? Like going over to Kizik.

Speaker 1: 30:37

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 30:37

I mean, unfortunately, trust comes with success sometimes, and some people give you more trust when you've had more success. So it's unfortunate that sometimes the best projects are handed to people that have had the wins before. That's kind of how it works right, and so sometimes I've had things just dropped my lap because of the success from the past. But for this one I mean for me I've had the you know, the privilege to like, pick the projects I want to work on and um, you know, as I looked at kizik, you know there were things I didn't like and there were things I did like.

Speaker 3: 31:14

When I first met the team and the people were great, and to me that's the most important thing. So I can work with this right. They're flexible, they're willing to try things, even though my background's in digital. I think a lot of digital marketers get so attached to performance that they're not really creating enough awareness and brand lift, and so that's one thing that I've tried to do, different than most growth marketers, which is, you know, we spend a buck, we make three bucks and like to me, I'm really trying to create massive lift, believing that sales follow search Because that's a metric.

Speaker 3: 31:57

You can track that if I'm making a big campaign and we all of a sudden our Google trends goes up and search lift is substantial, you know that's a quicker metric to look at than you know these quarterly or yearly brand lift studies that say oh yeah more people know about us.

Speaker 1: 32:14

Right.

Speaker 3: 32:15

But to me, like sales follow search, and that's a really simple thing to measure for me. I know how much search is coming in, I know when we're pushing something if search lifts Right. So I know there's a million different metrics that marketers follow, but that's one that I believe in and so really took that into Kizik from day one. Follow but that's one that I believe in and so really took that into Kizik from day one. We did have to spend like a year like making some more um, what I would view as like approachable shoes.

Speaker 3: 32:40

Some of the shoes were like leather and heavy in the beginning yeah it was a little bit slow to, to course, correct that. We kind of rebranded the site it was more of a maroon color changed that and then really started to catch momentum. From that point on, brett joined us and then blake, who you guys know. Um, at first I was just working with the local ad agency and I think we forexed it, then started to build the team um, and then just started to lean into all the different channels so um, I don't know.

Speaker 3: 33:09

For me it was um, there's a lot of ways to do things. I want to do it with the right people that want to win together and with as little ego as possible, and then, when best ideas win, all the stuff we always hear is what I'm really trying to live by. So, yeah, it was an awareness play with, obviously, a massively differentiated product, so again, had a huge advantage and I'm completely aware of that is is that?

Speaker 1: 33:36

what is that? What drew you to it? Like I know you said. I know you said the team was awesome, so I believe in demonstration, yes and I love demonstration and marketing.

Speaker 3: 33:44

To me it's, it's fun. People think it's gimmicky. I feel like people crave it they want to see why things are different. And again, to me, that's that narrow brand box. Everybody's like we're a little bit more stylish than this, I'm like, but why are you better or?

Speaker 1: 33:57

different, you know yeah um. So this was it's like the old qvc approach literally.

Speaker 3: 34:01

I think I've told this story 100 times before, but the day I left purple, I was introduced to the kizik team and I looked at him like this is like too good to be true, yeah demonstration sake yeah, so that's, that was really fun yeah, because I, I, it's so funny.

Speaker 1: 34:17

My I mean and this is maybe you know me as a younger marketer, um, but I remember I was introduced to kizik, probably. When did you start?

Speaker 3: 34:27

so I left um. I was at Purple from October 2015,. Launched in January 2016. I think we went public in end of 2018. I left March of 2019 and started consulting for Kizik in 2019. Okay, march of 2019.

Speaker 1: 34:46

Yeah, I mean, I probably heard about Kizik. Early 2019 would be my guess, yeah, and I remember just thinking there's no way. But I was looking at the brand, like the shoes were ugly. Yeah, the brand was terrible, you know, it looked like just shoes that you'd get for my great-grandpa and I. So, like my naivety was just like I was looking at the brand but I wasn't looking at the solution that it was solving. Which, what, which is what you got you guys into the market?

Speaker 2: 35:19

Yeah, it had unique proprietary technology.

Speaker 3: 35:22

Yeah, yeah, and I think and again, I'm not saying I'm better than anybody else, by any means I think a lot of marketers would look at that and think, oh pass. And to me I look at like what it could become and I don't care what people think right now Like we're going to find a way to take steps and make it better. So maybe that's a flaw in how I think or I don't know, but like to me it's. You know, I think a lot of marketers want easy wins.

Speaker 3: 35:43

They tend to take deals or projects that like oh, I can just make a little tweak and we'll figure it out like to me, because it needed a lot of work sure?

Speaker 1: 35:51

well, we, what like? What we say all the time is like behind every great marketer is a better product oh yeah, right no doubt, like it doesn't, like we're, just not we're just not time I. I think that great marketing used to work um when there wasn't a massive array of brands and competition and t and TikTok creators and attention grabbing like you used to be able to market to people without having a great product and you could win.

Speaker 2: 36:17

Well, also because you had arbitrage in pricing. Yeah for sure. So a lot of DTC companies could be cheaper. Where now like are you really getting that good of a deal by going DTC? Versus I would argue that the Delta has shrunk almost to nothing significantly, significantly yeah.

Speaker 3: 36:35

Yeah, and I think I think good marketers care enough about the product to influence the product too Right? Um, so yeah, both purple and Kizik, like they were nothing and grew rapidly and there there wasn't separate product teams in most cases, right? Yeah like, obviously there there were some specific people, but we were able to influence that. Like kizik, everything was internal marketing team pushed really hard for external tech. I'm not wearing it today, but, like that's, the best selling shoe is the athens right yeah that external tech is medical and and inspires people to ask like what is, what is that?

Speaker 3: 37:07

You know so?

Speaker 2: 37:08

Well, here's a question, because a lot of SaaS companies have product marketing teams and in e-commerce you don't tend to see that right. You have marketing and you have product.

Speaker 1: 37:18

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:18

So you just talked about a little bit of that unification or synergy, Like how do you get marketing teams and product to work together to better the brand overall? And I'm sure there's some pretty intense internal fights that have happened For sure. Maybe not at your companies, but how do you bridge that gap in a company?

Speaker 3: 37:38

I don't think I've ever perfected that at all Like at Purple. In the beginning there was a guy named Russ in there that had invented a lot of the machines that made the material and came up with a lot of stuff that Purple did. He was great to work with. There was no product marketing team, but the marketing team would push like people are responding to this, and he'd listen, you know. So that was easy. As it got bigger, you know, there ended up becoming product marketing and it became slower, you know, and that's when I tend to leave. When things get slow it drives me nuts but kizik, um, everybody wanted to win.

Speaker 3: 38:15

There wasn't a product marketing team but, um, you know, steve and craig one of them's more on the tech side and one was more on, like, shoe design side like they were so great to work with for me. But now that it's bigger and you're ordering much more inventory and, um, you know, it becomes a little bit more of a slower, multi-year planned out process. So it's, it's a real company now, right, it's not a you know, it's not the same, not a startup.

Speaker 1: 38:41

Yeah, you're not making decisions on the fly and yeah, yeah, what's the like, what's your like? Coolest memory at Kizik.

Speaker 3: 38:50

Coolest memory at Kizik Shoot man. That's a tough thing to narrow in on.

Speaker 1: 38:57

Or most memorable.

Speaker 3: 38:59

Yeah, either or Strange. This is a weird thing, but it's what's coming to mind right now. I feel like we moved offices like every year, and we were forced to because of the growth and like moving with everybody was always fun because we weren't big enough. Like you know, the big local companies that you know get their big fancy building and they show up and their, their desk is all set up.

Speaker 3: 39:23

Moving together is fun and to me that's what's great about growth and marketing is like you're moving, doing this together, and you're doing a little hard work, but it's fun together so like I'm just, you know, thinking of moving offices with blake and brett and you know, jason lee operations guy like um experiencing the change that happens because of the growth yeah this is what comes to mind on a human level.

Speaker 2: 39:48

Yeah, yeah, which is a weird thing to be in my head at the moment.

Speaker 1: 39:52

I like it. That's why I asked.

Speaker 2: 39:53

I like it too, because it exemplifies what good marketing is about, which is establishing human connections. Right, we talked about this pre-podcast networking. Networking is kind of a transactional term. I'm going out to meet people just so I can turn it into a transaction at some point where you talked about you just meeting and knowing people and helping people, like we talked about at the beginning of the podcast, and so your memory of Kizik I think that fits you as a person which is the growth was great, but it was that human moment of the growth that was great and as marketers, we're trying to capture those human moments to transmit to the masses, and those human moments often have to capture some kind of emotion. So you talked about humor being utilized. How do you help a brand or what would you advise a brand right now to find their human moment? How do you transmit that and market it?

Speaker 3: 40:54

Yeah, I think most marketers, um, you know, have a sense of how to do that, but I don't think a lot of them have the courage to like, recognize sometimes the truth of what it is within their brand. And it depends on sometimes, if the founder or the inventor wants to be the face, you have to connect that story to them and you can't just because it's trendy to be x right now. You can't always force that. You know, everybody says authentic and all these things like what if? Yeah, what if? Uh, the story that you've crafted that you think looks good doesn't represent the real people behind the business.

Speaker 3: 41:28

It'll come through eventually in interviews or something. So, um, I think there has to be a little bit of courage to like match what matters there. Um, that's that's hard to define and like get to, but you feel it as you spend a little bit of time with with people and um, yeah, I don't think there's an easy answer there.

Speaker 3: 41:50

Um like, for example, um mike, the guy that invented the concept of hands-free, the you mentioned, ogio yeah um, he is just an inventor at heart and, like, even though footwear is fashion in the end, like the reason most people buy shoes is because of how they look. Comfort plays into it, but it's mostly fashion.

Speaker 2: 42:17

There's that age curve, right Like comfort becomes more important the older someone gets.

Speaker 3: 42:21

But because he was such an inventor mindset and creator, we had to make part of the brand innovation. Like it had to be, even though everybody told us that doesn't make sense in footwear like that doesn't work. You know, nike's talked about it for forever. They're the only ones that can get away with that idea. It worked for us right. We leaned into it because it's who Mike was and it fit what we were trying to do. And Craig internally, who's, you know, chief innovation officer like every day, he was creating something new and we wanted people to see that.

Speaker 3: 42:59

Um. So I think it's recognizing who you are and and what's true to the brand. And yeah, I know we all talk about that. But I think again, because people limit themselves to that narrow brand box, they don't often have the courage to say we're really this, but everybody tells us we should be this yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:10

Or even on the flip side, like I think we're this, but we're discovering that this is actually what we are, but we want to be this, like we want to be this, but that's not really who we are, you know yeah, I mean, everybody wants to be nike and apple and you know whoever, but they were, they evolved yeah, and we don't let ourselves do that.

Speaker 1: 43:30

We feel like we have to jump to where they were right evolved yeah, everybody wants to be on chapter 30 or 50 when you're on chapter one right, yeah, just remember all those celebrities were weird drama kids in high school and they still are when they aren't buttoned up and on screen right.

Speaker 3: 43:47

Yeah, for sure. They're still their weird selves.

Speaker 2: 43:52

I think about that all the time, Like all those kids in drama in high school that you're like dude, just can you not be so weird right now?

Speaker 1: 44:01

You're just offending everybody who is in drama right now. Hey, it's a compliment, because those people turned out to be the celebrities and those people are the people who didn't care what other people thought right, and who are, you know, a little easier to be more successful when you're not constantly looking over.

Speaker 1: 44:18

When you're okay to be a little different. Yeah, when you're not comparing for sure, okay. So now that you're, you've, as you said, like okay, it's like every time I leave something I consult, I get another thing I consult. Now that you're consulting again and now that you've been a part of like two very, very successful businesses, like what are some of the biggest mistakes you're seeing brands and marketers make on any given day basis?

Speaker 3: 44:44

yeah, um, it's really interesting because everybody keeps saying what are you doing? Are you just hanging out? I feel like I'm working harder than I ever have, looking at tons of different deals and opportunities, and I am seeing some themes. Obviously, the economy is a little bit down right now.

Speaker 3: 45:02

It's not as down as people are acting. It's down and there's reason for concern. Consumer spending is down. Saas companies are laying people off, so it's affecting all. There's reason for concern. Consumer spending is down, you know. Saas companies are laying people off, so it's affecting all types of businesses, not just one area, but it's.

Speaker 3: 45:15

You know it's down a little bit and I'm seeing people like completely scrap their marketing spend or completely, you know, give up on certain things that we're working for them. I'm willing to wager I mean I'm older than some, older than you guys, and you know I've watched multiple election cycles and it's always building up to the election that people get anxious and stock market's more up and down and then it always tends to. I mean, maybe this time's different but, historically it tends to settle after that.

Speaker 3: 45:45

But the difference this time is inflation's been pretty significant and made things a little bit more complicated for everybody with homes to buying everyday things like food.

Speaker 2: 45:54

But so to me- Well, just on cogs alone, right, yeah, cogs. Oh yeah, for sure, adds up fast.

Speaker 3: 45:59

So to me, I feel like people have pulled back a little bit too much, and so I think we discussed it before the podcast, but I feel like now is actually really time to get market share Like this is the moment to grab as people pull back yeah.

Speaker 3: 46:12

As everybody else has pulled back. If you find a way that you can lean in without you know hurting yourselves, yeah, this is the chance to gain some ground, rather than waiting till everybody feels safe and everybody leans back in and all everything goes back up even more. Yeah, you know, Kizik, one of our best moments was during COVID, when everybody else was pulling back. We had a moment where we told a story about nurses not having to touch their shoes. Right, because this is when we were still all really, really scared of COVID and we weren't trying to be fear-based, like hey, we're an option here for you, and like that's one of the things that got us momentum. We don't talk about it much anymore, but like that was a moment that really helped get Kizzik going. So, looking for opportunities in moments of fear.

Speaker 2: 46:58

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 47:01

Fear is the worst and I think a lot of people are scared right now and if they can settle down and look at the opportunities, this is a time to gain ground.

Speaker 1: 47:10

Yeah, yeah. I love what you said at the beginning is like you would always measure, like if search is up, sales will follow Always, right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 47:21

Doesn't mean that conversion isn't a problem.

Speaker 2: 47:23

Like maybe you don't convert at the clip that you should, but if you're driving more search volume, that means people care to type in yeah something that makes them learn about you so their intent is yeah, intent is high, yeah I actually like that, because another way to think about a moment of anxiety or fear from a cultural perspective is as a marketer, you're always looking for tension, so you either have to create the tension and relieve it or you can use just whatever tensions out there to relieve it. So you guys you guys identified that fear which was at the time. You know COVID was scary.

Speaker 2: 48:03

Right there's all those deaths in Italy and nobody knew what it was or what it was going to be. It hadn't mutated to the point where it is now, where it's obviously not as bad anymore. But you use that tension out there in the ether and then you showcased it to how you could relieve it with your product.

Speaker 3: 48:26

Yeah, I'm with you. I think tension is a great word that business owners and marketers should look for that moment. It's so delicate, though right. You notice, I defended myself.

Speaker 1: 48:36

We weren't using fear tactics. Right, yeah, for sure, because you can take advantage of stuff and actually hurt your brand. Well, there's brands that have completely folded because of that.

Speaker 3: 48:46

Yeah, leaned in too hard yeah.

Speaker 2: 48:55

But I just feel like everybody's leaned out so far. Yeah, they're not even in the game. Yeah, right now. Yeah, there's fear tactics, but there's also using the tension and I think, like you said, that it wasn't a fear tactic you guys were using. You weren't saying you shouldn't tie your shoes, you were just showing hey, look how much easier it is now for nurses who have to be extra hygienic during their shifts.

Speaker 3: 49:14

And, truth be told, we didn't sell a lot of shoes to nurses. But the campaign stopped the scroll, got people interested Again. People think they have to talk only to their demographic. In reality, their demographic wants stories and those stories don't always have to be in the demographic, they just have to be engaging to the demographic.

Speaker 1: 49:33

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's awesome. This has been awesome, like, uh, I mean, I I had other questions, but you've kind of just answered them throughout the entire time. Um, tell us where. So right now you're up to your consulting. Mm-hmm, any thoughts, ideas on what your next like move is?

Speaker 3: 49:55

I'm thinking about a lot of different things. You know have a couple great consulting clients right now looking for a couple others thinking about some really what I think are interesting ideas, where one example I won't go too deep into it, but you know I started out in tech. Now I feel like I'm labeled a consumer guy, not that I care what people think it's like you know, I never thought I'd sell mattresses.

Speaker 3: 50:25

I never thought I'd sell shoes right, just it's when the right opportunity pops up. But you know, in Utah we look at a little bit of consumer, a lot of SaaS. There's an interesting opportunity to productize services, which I think is fairly intriguing, making national brands around services that become very regional and are very scaled or don't cross promote products very well. So that's something I'm thinking about.

Speaker 2: 50:54

Cool.

Speaker 3: 50:54

So maybe outside of product or SaaS you know, something a little bit different.

Speaker 1: 51:00

Cool, but using similar tactics from a brand perspective that you do on the consumer side for sure. Yeah, well, that's awesome, dude. Where can people find you?

Speaker 3: 51:09

Uh.

Speaker 1: 51:10

I'm not your president.

Speaker 3: 51:11

I'm on LinkedIn a little bit. On occasion I try to stay off, but then I feel like I'm get a little bit of FOMO and I want to know what's going on. So I get on LinkedIn a little bit.

Speaker 1: 51:19

Nice.

Speaker 3: 51:20

Uh, that's, probably it, yeah.

Speaker 1: 51:32

Love it. Yeah, because it's just on my mind. Are you guys aware what's going on with uh, this?

Speaker 3: 51:34

uh, chipotle um boycott.

Speaker 1: 51:35

No, you guys hearing about this chipotle boycott. So you guys know who keith lee is.

Speaker 1: 51:39

No, keith lee is this guy who has become a famous restaurant tester a restaurateur yeah, whatever you where you call it, where he like, uh, he'll get something and he just sits in his car and he eats it and he rates it. And he just had such a way with words and people loved him that he has become I mean, he is he will change a business overnight like a restaurant's business overnight. So he would help like small businesses like hole in the wall Indian food place or something like that. So he would help like small businesses like hole in the wall indian food place or something like that. And there's this big. There's this big uh, there's this big conversation right now happening at do you guys like chipotle? Do you guys eat at chipotle ever?

Speaker 3: 52:19

yeah, on occasion. I mean, I don't eat there enough to like know, but there's this massive thing happening right now where, like, their costs have gone up so high but their portions are like oh, they're decreasing so, so, so, so, so low and they're getting the heat for that, even though everyone's doing it yeah, I mean they're getting tons of heat for it, like have been for probably like a year.

Speaker 1: 52:41

But then keith lee, this guy gets up and he's like I normally don't do these big businesses but I'm gonna, like I just got chipotle cause I used to love it, and he like went in and rated everything and it was like such a miserable experience. And you see him like open up his burrito bowl and there's like three pieces of chicken in his bowl, and so he rates it like the whole thing, like a two out of 10.

Speaker 1: 53:04

Oh and now there is this revolt against Chipotle saying, like what they're telling people to do is like, either go in order if they don't give you the portion you want, then walk out mid while they're mid doing it or like, stop going like at all whatsoever if you go. Just type in Chipotle and TikTok. I mean hundreds of millions of views on every single one of these videos. I was just curious if you guys had any thoughts about what is going to happen to Chipotle and what they should do.

Speaker 2: 53:40

Probably nothing will happen to them. You don't think so? No, because remember when they had that E coli or whatever everyone was mad at them, but then everyone goes back.

Speaker 1: 53:52

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 53:53

Maybe I think people can overreact to meaning brands.

Speaker 1: 53:57

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 53:59

Corporations can overreact. I mean they need to care and value their customer and try to make the best product or service they can. But I mean, when's the last time one of those moments killed a company like people thought.

Speaker 2: 54:11

Budweiser was going to die over their controversy oh Bud Light yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true, and I think they named all those moments. I mean they got hurt for sure, yeah yeah.

Speaker 3: 54:19

I mean it has been damaging for some, but yeah, but they're still around yeah ended up getting a big UFC like.

Speaker 1: 54:25

UFC yeah, they just signed UFC as the UFC sponsor which is interesting, Cause they were like the UFC is so conservative.

Speaker 2: 54:34

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 54:34

I mean, they're probably one of the more conservative sports leagues. Oh, and Dana White is wildly conservative, yeah.

Speaker 2: 54:41

Speaking of, I think, from a branding perspective. We'll talk about Donald Trump really quick for all the people that love Don I'm just kidding, no, but I think, talking about that good-different chart, right, you have to be willing to go into that bad zone and, yes, there's fallout that can happen. I'm not saying it's without risk. There's risk in trying to get to the good-different zone. But if there's anything that you can learn from people like a donald trump or a bud light who have made a lot of errors in in the past, right, a lot of these people just weather it out right and there's almost something that galvanizes their core group to them more. Oh yeah, when you weather out a bad storm, that, yeah, you made a mistake, but if you can weather it, you can come out on top. Do you have any opinions or thoughts on that, alex, of weathering a bad storm?

Speaker 3: 55:38

Oh man, I feel like you're setting me up here.

Speaker 1: 55:43

Yeah, who are you voting? Who will you be voting for? And?

Speaker 3: 55:45

why oh man?

Speaker 2: 55:48

Yeah, i'm'm like or hate him like a Donald Trump, like he's how many times have people? Said it's over for him, but it's not. And Bud Light, like everyone said it was over for them. It's not.

Speaker 3: 56:03

They'll probably be where they were anyways, like in five years from now yeah, he's definitely made many, many mistakes, uh, but the fact that the media goes so hard at him 24 hours a day, I think makes his base even more defensive of him. Um totally and so that's why he's not going to go away, you know. But yeah, I mean to be honest for me. I know you're not asking my political view, but like I have to say, like I'm done with all of it, man, like I want a new option, like I'm just tired of the.

Speaker 3: 56:43

I feel like the extremes have gone, so yeah, the delta's huge. I don't even care which side they're on. Like somebody that cares about people to show up rather than winning the fight and I know you didn't ask that, but I just have to say it I don't feel like anybody that represents us is there to represent me or my child or my wife.

Speaker 2: 57:06

Well, that's why RFK has become a big name, right.

Speaker 3: 57:09

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 57:10

It's because people feel like maybe he could be that middle ground in the fight. Yeah, and I think a lot of Americans feel the same way that you feel, which is just exhausted.

Speaker 3: 57:21

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 57:23

But from a branding perspective we talk about this.

Speaker 3: 57:25

If you have an enemy, it can really help you as a brand it turns your followers and fans right and we're not telling you to go be donald trump and be as, but I think people get tired of the game and they see that it's like it's like a fake bet, like you know how sometimes in in sports, you know that the media props up these rivalries or something and like some people fall for it and most of us are just like, not again.

Speaker 1: 57:54

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 57:55

And that's how I feel like politics has become, like it's such a fake. The moves, like all the individual senators and everybody. They aren't thinking what's best for my state, what's best for my people that I represent. They're all thinking about how do I get points in my party yeah and it drives me nuts yeah, I agree yeah, I don't. I don't know why we went there, but mark was just trying to get. He was trying to get some. I was just trying to get.

Speaker 1: 58:21

I'm just trying to stir, trying to get a hot take, because we know it'll do good as a social clip you know he was trying to get you to say I love donald trump no for xyz bringing up how he weathers the storms.

Speaker 2: 58:32

Yeah, as an individual, whenever, like you know, because we talked about, like chipotle he's a master attention getter is chipotle over the. The reality is no like I'm sure it looks like a big deal on tiktok, but guess what everybody? And this goes back to, I think, to just wrap it all up, the? The entire conversation here, even from the beginning, is Alex mentioned. Brands are scared of pivoting, but pivoting isn't that big of a deal.

Speaker 3: 58:56

It's natural Be ready for it rather than do it out of desperation.

Speaker 1: 59:00

So, that's.

Speaker 3: 59:02

That's. My tip for the day is like proactively change rather than do it out of desperation yeah, do it and most people don't know who you are, so it makes pivoting easier.

Speaker 2: 59:13

Right, you're not as big as you think you are most of the time, yeah, and even if you are, you can weather it. You can weather it and just pivot. That's what Bud Light did. They pivoted and now they're the sponsor of the UFC and they'll probably be fine.

Speaker 1: 59:25

Yeah, it's very true.

Speaker 2: 59:30

Well, I yeah, it's very true. So I think yeah. So I think that's to wrap it all up. Don't be scared to get dirty and test and try things right yes, and pivot and be different don't just be another sans serif.

Speaker 1: 59:42

Logo sans serif and muted color brand. I love it. I think it's a great place to end what about you, Alex?

Speaker 2: 59:51

Where do you want?

Speaker 3: 59:52

to end, you already quoted all my few good things. You summarized them right there.

Speaker 1: 59:57

Well, thanks so much for being on the podcast, dude. We appreciate it. It was long, uh long overdue.

Speaker 1: 1:00:02

Thanks, guys Appreciate it All right, everybody. We'll see you guys, uh, next week, thank you. 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 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.