Why Creativity Without Data Is Just a Pretty Waste of Money with Jeremy Beyt

Ch 1 — Growing Up Barefoot on the Bayou

SPEAKER_04 0:00

All right, good day, everybody. Welcome to the Deal Podcast. The mission and purpose of this is to inspire future entrepreneurs, and we love deals, right? We like helping people sell their business. So we we drum this up to share the stories of entrepreneurs at many different stages of business. And uh today we get the pleasure of having one of Scott's friends come in, and maybe even more than a friend come in to be interviewed. Uh Jeremy, welcome to the show, man.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04 0:28

Yeah. All right. So how do you know Scott?

Ch 9 — One Decision He'd Change: The Operating Agreement

SPEAKER_01 0:30

We are more than friends. Uh Scott is a cousin. I don't I don't know what number cousin. I think it's three. We go with a third. But yeah, a couple generations up, there were some siblings. And uh here we are, but Scott also like we didn't hang out a lot growing up. We saw each other around, uh, but we did some work together when you were launching cousins, and uh that was like I think rekindled our friendship a little bit. No doubt. Yeah. And we've both suffered together trying to build businesses. Yeah, we're bonded, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04

Bonded in business. Um in the trenches of business, uh, you could create really great relationships, but also um, it's brutal. Building businesses is hard. Kind of talk to us about uh, you know, who is Jeremy? What the heck do you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Yeah, so um I am today, I am a dad of two kids, seven and five. I have a lovely family, lovely wife. Uh I grew up in New Iberia, Louisiana, and uh grew up barefoot on the bayou, is what I like to say literally, like swimming in the bayou, chasing snakes. Uh, but at night, I would play on the computer. You know, I had this weird fascination with the internet. It was a way for me to connect with the world outside of New Iberia. And for whatever reason, I always felt when I was a kid, I couldn't get out fast enough. I was like, I gotta get out of here. I want to see the world, and here I am all these years later. But uh what I did back in the 90s was I would make websites, you know, with tools like GeoCities. Some people were those types of platforms, and I learned a little bit of HTML, and that was sort of the foreshadowing of where my career would eventually take me. But uh went to school, studied economics. I really like I was fascinated by it because I like the sort of the soft science side of why people do what they do, the behavioral side of it all, you know, what makes people speculate, what makes people take action. Um, and then accidentally started a company somewhere along the way, which that's a whole story. But I I've never called myself an entrepreneur. I didn't identify with that language and wasn't part of that thing, you know. I was just like, honestly, just didn't want to work. I was like, what's the what's the best way to not work? Oh, probably own a business. How little I knew? Yeah. Jokes on me. Um, but yeah, so that's kind of like that's in a nutshell the story. I'm a uh lifelong musician, drummer. That's my first love. That was my first plan. I was gonna be a rich drummer for a cool rock band, and yeah, that didn't work either.

SPEAKER_04 3:17

Yeah, who's your favorite drummer?

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Oh man, it changes. Um the most influential drummer on me is a guy named Aaron Gillespie. He's sort of like a uh rock drummer, uh, but he has a very unique style. And then there's like Benny Greb and Ash Ash Sohn, who are European drummers who are just like funk drummers. But man, the the list changes, you know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:42

Yeah, mine was uh Carter Buford from Dave Matthews band. Unrocked. And then there's this guy right now who's like just blown up the internet. He has this huge beard and he has like Estefario. Oh my gosh, if you're listening to Estefario, like play us a jam, like I'd make us a beat for the deal podcast. I don't know if that would but he he does some ridiculous, asynchronous, like each hand and foot moves. He's not human.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

He's one of those people that takes like a precedent and just dominates it, like like sets a whole new paradigm for like what's possible behind a drum set.

SPEAKER_04 4:14

Yeah, it's ridiculous. It's wild. Does that when you watch someone uh uh in their craft that good being a drummer, does it discourage you or encourage you?

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Man, you know what discourages me is when I see a six-year-old shredding on the drums on YouTube, which seems to be like, first of all, I want to know the relationship to their parents and how that works. Like, how do you get a six-year-old there so fast? That I just go, I quit. Like, there's no chance. But uh, when I see someone like Estefario, what I take away from someone like that is discipline. Like, and he talks about this a lot on his channel. He's like, What y'all don't see it are the hours and years of me just doing this, you know, just if you can't see me, I'm just tapping my hand, you know, doing rudimentary fundamentals for the 10,000 hours it takes to master something. And uh that's a big lesson for me of like it just takes work. Yeah, you know, like things take work, there's no shortcut.

SPEAKER_04 5:12

There's none. Yeah. Do you uh transfer, you know, from drums to djembae to Cajon? Do you do you kind of like play them all?

SPEAKER_01 5:18

I had those years in college, you know. We'd go to the hacky sack. Yeah, yeah. There was hacky sacks and djembays, and like I've had that phase, yeah. For sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 5:29

All right, so you you study economics, behavioral economics, and you you love kind of the the Venn diagram of economics and marketing, and you know how how people make decisions, the psychology of it. Like, where do you think that fascination comes from and and how do you apply that to today's business?

Ch 2 — The Power of Persuasion: From the Pew to the Boardroom

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Yeah, um I've thought about this a lot. Like, what put that in me? And I think the truth is growing up in church, and specifically in the church I grew up in, which was a pretty fundamentalist, pretty some people would say radical church, and uh, and that's a whole story and journey of just kind of navigating that. But what I was exposed to my whole childhood was the power of persuasion, yeah, you know, and the power of like a good message and a well-delivered message and what it can how it can move people, and so that was like in me, you know, the same way music was in me. It was like this the energy of that and the impact of that was so inspiring and so moving that I think it just carried forward subconsciously into my studies where I'm like, yeah, it's like the power of perception, the power of messaging and persuasion can move entire like masses of people to do things, and uh it's it's just I think it was just wired into me that way.

SPEAKER_04 6:57

Yeah. And and you've probably seen it done well, and you probably see it done in a way of manipulation. There's motivation, manipulation. Motivation is getting people to do what they want to do, manipulation is getting people to do what you want them to do, right? Yeah, um, so that that's a cool story. So sitting in the pews, you're watching, and you're like, wow, this guy's dynamic, or this lady, and and man, they're moving the the community here, and then you you see some traveling pastors who come through and you're like, man, they suck, right? Like the the good message about you know the good news and the good word, but maybe maybe how they delivered it, they missed the ability to really move people towards a decision, right? Yes. So you started studying that. What did you find along your journey of studying that?

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Man, that's that's how much time do you have? But I think I could summarize Could you do it in two minutes?

SPEAKER_04 7:49

Not just give it a chance.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Could you do it in one sentence? Yeah. Uh people make decisions on emotion. That's what it boils down to. And in spite of our rationality and in spite of our AI-enabled insight, people are largely functioning emotionally. And uh that's a that was a big unlock for me. And it's sort of the uh it's also like the there's there's I don't know if you've read the book Feck Perfection. It's a book. I got it. But the the message of that book is nobody has it all figured out, yeah. You know, like everyone's just winging it, and uh, and it's sort of the same, that's like the part of the same concept to me is like once you know that you can bring value because nobody has all the answers. So you can bring value to any situation and that people are largely emotional and often impulsive, it it sort of helps you frame yourself in the world and to understand that situations aren't as loaded and there there isn't as much of a discrepancy between you know this person and this person over here. Like the the the playing field is not as tilted as it might seem.

SPEAKER_04 9:05

Yeah. The we are emotional decision makers and we try to back it up with logic after we make the decision emotionally. Yeah. We you know, we make a decision within the first 10 seconds whether we're gonna do something or not. Like we have that in our gut, and then we try to rationalize it. We could always change our mind, but it's hard to change your mind later on, right? So, man, this is I love talking about you know marketing and um talk to us about some of the things that you do in marketing, film, campaigns.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Um, so it's funny, there's sort of a a through line here of uh like a good persuasive presentation versus a bad one. So, fast forward, um I'm gonna try to make a long story slightly less long, but uh I s I started a company with a friend, and we were doing mostly like digital websites, stuff like that. There was another group of guys down the street who had started a presentation agency. That's all they did was presentations, and they were landing like big name clients, fortunes, all the big companies, uh, because there weren't a lot of people doing that. And the way they started their company is they attended a seminar at LSU when they were students, and this the story is this presenter had like a 200 slide deck full of copy and and text, and it was just boring, and nobody there remembered anything because it was just you know, just a blitz of of boring information. And Kenny and Gus were the founders of this presentation agency at the time, they said there's an opportunity here, like we're gonna rid the world of boring presentations, and uh, and so we were doing web, they were doing presentations, and we started kind of just working together like informally, and uh there was a lot of synergy for lack of a better term, there, because seeing our our creative work and our messaging work presented in a live setting and instantly knowing if it worked was such a great feedback loop for how we develop persuasive language and creative concepts. So it sharpened us fast and it also gave us access to all these executives that they were working with, coaching them on presentations. So it ultimately led to us merging our companies together. There's a there's a whole tangent there where private equity came in and tried to buy us before we merged, which we can go down that road when the time is right, but uh yeah, so so we were a web shop, they were a presentation shop. As of today, we are more of an integrated agency. We do with a film studio called L3, where we produce film, like commercials, animations, live events, things like that. We have a we call it a web block or a tech block, which is anything digital, websites, software, stuff like that. And then we have a brand block, which is anything when it comes to your messaging, your identity, and how you tell your story through campaigns. And that's where we are today.

Ch 3 — Accidentally Starting a Company: From Appraiser to Designer

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Yeah, so I actually learned he was talking about the presentation piece, um, and what we do particularly. The norm, you know, when people send out a package on a company. It's a lot of text, a lot of graphs, a lot of valuable information, but information that's overlooked. And I actually learned from Jeremy many years back um the importance of messaging and and presentation. So we use it a lot in what we do. Um you have a short window to capture the eye of an investor or a potential deal maker. Um so just kind of an interesting side that I picked up from Jeremy through our work over the years. It's the importance of of just visual and and message.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah. It goes, I'm jumped the timeline. We're Tarantinoing this whole conversation. Oh, I love it. Yeah. Uh so prior to working in marketing, uh, because I say that I accidentally started a company, I was a commercial real estate appraiser doing valuations for totally different sides of brains, bro. Yeah, yeah, spreadsheets all day. Uh, but but if you know anything about commercial appraising, there's a narrative component where you do all of your empirical analysis, you do a few different approaches, just like you value a company. You have your valuations and then you write a narrative approach on like your rationale, how you got there. So I was doing that. Um, and it was this was 08, 09. So I was giving everyone bad news. I was just like bad news bears. And the my nature was such that I was uh I've always appreciated great storytelling and I've always appreciated design. So I started making our reports look really nice, really pretty. And I was like, maybe this bad news will be a little more palatable if it's pretty. And I started delivering these reports with great data visualization, supporting my rationale so that I wasn't gonna get yelled at, which was happening. And I would say, look, this is the data, I'm just the messenger. If you want to contest it, we can talk about it. And uh, and my boss liked it so much that he started just making me design everything. All of a sudden I was a designer, and um, and then the people I worked with started asking me to freelance design stuff for them, and that's that was sort of the origin of like oh, I guess I'm a designer now. And yeah, and that's that's what that was the first my first foray professionally into persuasion and visual language as a way to create context.

Ch 4 — The PE Firm That Flew Them In — And Why He Said No

SPEAKER_04 14:55

Man, that's cool. Quentin Tarantino back to the PE. You got offered they they they wanted to buy what you built, and you said no. Yes. Talk us through that story.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah. Um, so prior to merging with Big Fish was the name of the company, and they also I'll tell they also said no to Shark Tank at the same time. So we were both on these kind of like trajectories. So with our web company, um the some investors came to town. One of them was from Louisiana originally, they were all living in Chicago now, and um, they were looking for whatever reason they wanted to buy a tech company, air quotes, uh, in Louisiana, and they found us and they liked us. And they they did the whole dog and pony, like private jets, fancy dinners, like big steaks, everything. It was, I mean, we were dazzled, you know. I I was not ready. And uh, and they did that for like a month or two. They courted us, and then as time went on, you know, it we were confronted with this idea of like two different realities, you know, like one is like relinquishing control and for a payday, and the other one was like doubling down on ourselves. And when ultimately when the terms came in and they laid they laid the terms out in front of us, the the picture of the future, like I I I imagine the you know, the future of this company with our employees and and us, and it didn't look good. Like ultimately the money wasn't worth it, and we said no, and it was terrifying because I was burnt out already at that point. Like the first five years of a company are hard, and this was five years in. So we had been grinding, we had we were broke, you know, trying to build this thing, and a big paycheck looks really nice at that moment. So saying no was terrifying. We said no, the big fish guy said no to Shark Tank, because that that was a similar situation, like you're kind of you're giving up a lot of your autonomy, and we said let's do this together, and then we merged, and we said we were like, we're either gonna sink or swim together, and it's uh it's fortunately worked out, not without trial, but it's worked out.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

So going through that process, obviously highly emotional.

unknown 17:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

How did you apply your understanding of emotional decision making and economics? Because it's a whole lot easier to see it in other people than it is to see it in yourself.

unknown 17:35

Good question.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Dude, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

But you're aware, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:38

I didn't know that I did. Uh that's a good question. Um I think my answer to that is the decision to say no was purely emotional. And what I mean by that is it was a gut feeling. It was a gut feeling. It wasn't the numbers said yes. Yeah, it was like that was an easy yes by the numbers. Yeah, we get paid. But the terms even were fine, but it was the emotion, the feeling. Uh so that's I was making an emotional decision in that moment, likely. Uh and then the the guys who were buying us were very good at obviously like whining and dining us and painting this big picture of the future and stuff. It was effective. I mean, they played on our emotions very well, and I I respect them for it, like they knew what they were doing. Um but yeah, it was they didn't talk numbers with us for probably five weeks, zero numbers. And that was like that kind of mess with me. You know, what's going on here? It was uh it was pretty good, like they were they were good at what they did.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

I think that's great advice though, because we tell people that a lot, like the numbers are important, but rarely is that the most important thing for business owners.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Um especially if they plan on being involved after or have employees, and yeah. Um I think that's a myth in the the world of selling companies, is that you look at the dollar sign only.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

No, there's a lot of emotion.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

It's your baby, you know, it's it is for especially for founders. It's like you have you're confronted with you know getting rid of like selling your baby, and uh and then you think about all your employees and the staff and like what's gonna happen to them, and all of that's in there, and like I just yeah, all I could picture was us sitting in like a sterile office with no windows, you know, in a few years and just like grinding out ads. It's like I don't I don't want to do that. Like I'd rather be a company that makes less money and I like showing up every day, honestly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:54

Yeah, good question, Scott. Um talk to us about, you know, in your studies, moving to appraising commercial real estate, moving to design. Does the identity piece ever pop up in your brain of like, am I in the right spot? How do I know if I am? How do I know that I because you were happy doing appraising, but how do you know that maybe you weren't in the right spot? You know what I mean? Looking back as you reflect on your life.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Yeah, man, that's a great question. I'll if I'm being honest, I am perpetually um discontent, is that the right word?

SPEAKER_04 20:33

Yeah, like I'm same.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Yeah, I am always FOMOing about everything, and it's it's my wife, like it drives her crazy because she has zero FOMO about anything in life. She's so okay. Yeah, and um, and so I've always been someone, like I said, growing up here, I couldn't leave fast enough. You know, no matter where I am, I'm like, what's next? What are we doing? Uh but the the thing that I get in the place that I'm in today that I didn't get in other jobs was a um I think like a more direct creative outlet. And I I I've as I've gotten older, I've learned that creativity is everywhere and and it can live in any job.

SPEAKER_04 21:16

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

It's so uh it's it cheapens it to be like, oh, we're a creative agency. Well, like anyone can be creative. We just make like the stuff that is most commonly associated with creative, you know, like cool ads and stories and stuff like that. But like, you know, structuring a deal is creative, negotiating is creative, everything's creative, you know? So um looking back on my life, I kind of think I'm the kind of person who could probably have a good time in most jobs. And as long as it's challenging, yeah, I just like to I like to have a big challenge and I like to build towards something. I'm not good at maintaining things. I I like to start. Build and go. I've learned that about myself, for better or worse.

SPEAKER_04 22:06

I've interviewed a few people over the years, a lot of creatives, right? One of the challenges, I don't know if you've experienced this. One of the challenges some creatives have bucked up against is how do I value my creativity or how is it valued in the marketplace? Right. So kind of like a race to the bottom or an hourly, you know, clock in, clock out, you know, going up against people on fiver 99 bananas or whatever that thing is, right? 99 designs. But you know what I mean? Like how how do you how did you approach that?

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Yeah, okay. So I I love that question. Um, because like the the creative industry has been like commodified and competed to death. And so, like, how does a company like ours survive and and thrive going forward is like a question. Uh I've got a perspective on that, and and I believe personally that I personally believe that creativity is the ultimate weapon for any organization. I will always believe that. Like how you approach a problem and solve it is everything. And but that the keyword there's problem, right? Like I think so many creative professionals are way too obsessed with their solutions and not obsessed enough with their clients' problems. And that is what cheapens the industry when you can go on 99 designs and get infinity ads for a hundred bucks a month, like where's the value there, you know? Um you're you're you're just you're just buying in my opinion, a lot of times people are buying a lot of noise and not a lot of signal in general because they're just throwing stuff. It's the spray and prey model. Um to me, like an agency like us that is very creative, very innovative in our approach to the world, uh, we should be bringing smarter solutions to problems for companies. And that isn't always gonna be like the stereotypical creative output. It's not always gonna be an ad or a cool website. It might be a system, you know, it might be a great nurture system for your prospective clients, or it might be a great customer experience idea for people you're working with, or whatever. You know, there's a lot of ways to think about it, but that's where we're moving as an organization is being, to use some marketing jargon, more downfunnel or more integrated with the business. But uh we want to be that creative partner where someone goes, we've got this problem. Like we've never been able to solve it. We're losing as many customers as we're gaining every month. What do we do? And marketing agencies today will say, Oh, you know, like, well, let's do let's do a promo. We'll give them a we'll do a win back promo. We'll offer them a free month or whatever. You know, like that's like that might work for a little while. It's not very creative. So, what's the more creative solution of that? You know, how much do you even know about why those people are leaving in the first place? Again, too obsessed with our solutions, not obsessed enough with the problem. So getting deeper on the problem, like really unpacking it. Go, well, we've before we can figure out what to do, we need to figure out why it's happening. And once you really get clear on that, now you start up investing in the solution. And those dollars suddenly don't feel risky, they feel purposeful. And marketing goes from being a cost to an investment. And uh, that's like my goal now, as at this phase of my career, is like I want people to see us as like the best money they spent. That's hard to do.

Ch 5 — What Most Companies Get Wrong About Marketing

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Yeah, I love that though, and I know it's true because you've you've steered me away from spending money in the past with you. Um, there was one example where you said, hey, the website like isn't gonna be the magic bullet that fixes the growth problem. Like there's other approaches, so definitely recognizing what in my case was a perceived problem that wasn't even a problem. Yeah. Um, and guiding that ship. Um follow-up to that, just curious, companies in general, what would you say from a marketing standpoint they're doing wrong most often? Or maybe not optimized at least from a marketing perspective?

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

And it probably changes every week with today's world.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Man, okay, so the short answer is data. That's the short answer. Uh, not a sexy answer, but the right answer. They if you don't know what's working and what's not, how do you make decisions and how do you place investments? And what ends up happening is you get this stacking effect where it's like, hey, let's do a new website because we need more leads or like we need better sales enablement or whatever. Build a new website, spend a bunch of money, nothing changes. So then you're like, okay, well, that didn't work. Let's let's run some ads, let's hire an ad agency or an SEO or whatever. And you start stacking solutions where you never even figured out the problem. Goes back to problem, like problem identity and what what I call design thinking, which is a a framework of how to unpack problems. Uh, it's coined by IDO, which is a design agency. Great course anyone can take. But uh just like stop and take time with the problem. Going slow at first is going to make you go faster later, but people want to jump to solutioning. And um, and so I think like what when I say data, this is what I see in a lot of organizations, is I'll sit with a a new company or a prospect and say, okay, so what are we doing here? Like, why are my why am I here? We want to grow, we want leads. Okay. What's the if we win you a client, what are they worth? What's the lifetime value of that client? I don't know. Okay, start there. Let's figure that out. So we know like what what is the value of a win? Okay, how much are you spending right now to win a client? I don't I don't know. I don't know. Okay, let's see if we can figure that out. And you just start like start with the fundamentals. You get to your your cost of a customer, you get to your lifetime value of a customer, and now you've got at least a base basic math formula. We have to spend less than the lifetime value of a customer for it to make sense, a lot less, usually. Uh, then you can get into like your cost per lead, and you can get into your nurture cycles and all of like the marketing stuff. But helping them get to just fundamental metrics and then building a system by which they every KPI or every piece of data in their marketing ecosystem is defined, measured, and made visible to everyone. So, what's a lead? Every company defines a lead differently. You need to define what a lead is to you. What's a qualified lead? You know, what's a close? Uh and then once you have those definitions, you start measuring them and you build a dashboard. And now you can start to quantify your marketing efforts. And attribution is like anyone who's worked in marketing knows it's a it's an imperfect science and it's have art. It's like mysticism. So there's always going to be gray, but most companies I would say are at like 5 to 10% clarity when they could easily be at 40 to 50% clarity. And um the good ones are at 80% clarity. And so if we can get you from 5 to 10 up to 40 to 50, we've done a good job, and it makes decision making ultimately and investing make more sense. And and it makes us a better partner versus an expense. So I I feel like I'm starting to pitch ourselves, which I don't mean to do, but that's our mindset as an organization. Yeah, it's cool.

SPEAKER_04 30:04

I forget to hit I forgot to hit record, so we might have to start. I'm just kidding. Wouldn't that be terrible, Doug? That was such a good like presentation. I and I and I'm grateful for I'm grateful for you sharing these things. Um there's so many great things, business fundamentals. And I think that I love that you came from kind of like a logic background into a creative background and you're kind of combining them two. Because I think a lot of creative aid agencies will be like, oh, let's create something viral. And you're like, cool, viral for what? Or or you create something beautiful and nothing happens.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:37

So there's got to be this like overlap of like we're gonna get attention and convert attention.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

That's right.

Ch 6 — Aligning Sales and Marketing Around Shared Data

SPEAKER_04 30:43

Right? Yeah. And that's marketing and sales combined. Right. Okay. Exactly. So marketing is one thing, sales is another. Yeah. How do you how do you work with the teams? You already mentioned, okay, we got to measure, you know, conversions. What is a conversion? What is a sale? What is a close? Sometimes there's this fight between you know quantity and quality of leads between marketing and sales. Yeah. How do you work with organizations to kind of go, here's how to make your sales team better based on this data? Great question. Which data is sexy. Yes. All right, go for it.

Ch 7 — The Merger 368 Feet Apart

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Um, I wouldn't have said that years back, but now I I I know I've grown up. Uh okay, so that's a great question. What the unfortunate reality that I've seen over my career in most organizations is that sales and marketing are two different functions. Um which always perplexes me because it's like this is it's a continuum. You know, you're like you're driving leads, you're nurturing leads, you're closing leads. Like that's that's sales, and then you're hopefully getting loyalty and growth. So um the way that I have so many different examples for this, depending on the industry. Um, like one industry that's interesting is like insurance, where you've got sort of a like a syndicated or like a franchise model almost, like a state farmer or something will have like a corporate brand and marketing function. But the agents in their towns are really like doing the relationship development and building their own sort of ecosystem. And those two things, like I think the value of a brand name is just that. It's like, oh, you work for a brand name I know and trust, but there's so much opportunity left on the table for better coordination there. So things that we have done for organizations like that is we will build for lack of a better term, sales enablement tools that they can deploy into their like front lines people. So a salesperson um is almost always off script with the brand. Like the brand team and the marketing team are like, we've got the perfect positioning and messaging and like it's gorgeous and everything. And then the sales guy is like, don't worry about any of that. Like, I know your dad, you know, like it's it's like there's such a disconnect. So if we can bring that narrative and those resources to the front lines, make them accessible and usable, uh, we've done a good job and we can see a lift in those situations. So that looks like it's a lot of tech enablement, you know, building like a digital asset management delivery system, using Canva as a tool because everyone can use Canva. You can build incredible AI-enabled solutions there where anyone can roll out messaging, you can create sandboxes. So there's some of that, and then there's also been a lot of like what we've done with corporate organizations when we see these disconnects is we say, hey, can we do a two-day off-site with your sales and marketing team and just like have a conversation and get some empathy? And we'll we'll do that. We'll get a big off site. Salespeople tell their stories, they're like, This is what people like to hear. The marketing team's like, well, this is what we think people need to hear. And they're like, Okay, someone's wrong. So what's going on? Let's talk about it, and then let's talk about the opportunities here. Like, what do you need as a sales team actually that you're not getting? And it's because the sales guys always have complaints about marketing, marketing always has complaints about sales. So we just try to build empathy, and then that turns into scopes of work for us. Uh and then on the back end, developing a going back to all data being defined, measured, and shared. Like if the sales team and the marketing team are looking at the same metrics across the continuum, the funnel, whatever you want to call it, uh all of a sudden there's some level of collaboration and accountability that is shared versus siloed. And like, you know, that thing we've been saying is like our job is clarity, and that to me is clarity. Like everyone can see it, everyone understands it, it's shared by all. Now we can do something.

SPEAKER_04 35:03

One of my mentors said back in the day, clarity trumps persuasion.

unknown 35:07

Right?

SPEAKER_04 35:08

Stealing that. Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's hard to get to. It's hard to get to. As you build this, you said no to PE, uh private equity, uh, you merged with another group, and you you guys were kind of going in, going sink or swim. But this is this feels like a better decision, right? As you look at you know, the way you made decisions, Scott asked a great question, is like, was that an emotional decision to say, you know, no? And how did you go about doing that? Merging with a group and and kind of linking arms and going together, there needs to be a lot of alignment and vision, mission, vision, mission, vision values, right? So, as you did that, what were you looking at the other team? Like, what were you inspecting before you said yes to them?

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, so the first, the most glaring uh discrepancy was their team, it was all dudes, they were all like college dudes. Yeah, they were very startupy, and we were not, like we were just had a different DNA. And so culturally, I I spent a lot of time in their office just listening because I would if if the cultures don't match, nothing else matters, it's not gonna work. And uh I knew enough to know that. So I spent a lot of time uh just sussing out their vibe. Like, are they are they driven by the same motives that we are, like to do better work, to kind of push the envelope in Louisiana for what like good work looks like? And the answer was yes. Like, I the the more time I spent with them, the better I felt. And then um there were there were some bumps on the road too. Even prior to the merger, we kind of did like a dating relationship where we would sub some of their team into our work, they'd sub some of ours into their work, and we would just kind of feel it. And there were, you know, I had some run-ins with some of their people because you know, they they just there would be someone in the meeting who just didn't care about what we did, you know, because it it wasn't what they signed up for, and we would have to have some tough conversations about this, and just it, you know, it's a merger's not always smooth. For sure. But uh our approach to it was we had the luxury because our offices were 368 feet apart, which is where the name comes from. We had the luxury of being able to really test the waters by working together prior to working together. Um and so it to answer your question of what I was looking for, I wanted cultural alignment, I wanted someone who was a good business operator. Because at the time, me and Nick were just we liked to do the work, we did not know anything about business, and we didn't know how to make money. So we needed they had a great operator, and uh, we needed a good sales function, and Kenny was a great salesperson. So they they checked a lot of boxes like functionally that we didn't have, and then we brought craft and expertise that they didn't have. Uh so it it was sort of it was actually very well balanced magically, you know.

SPEAKER_04 38:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

I don't know if this that was a long answer, but no, it was good, man.

SPEAKER_04 38:28

I feel like when we're when we do that which we are designed to do, I think that as humans, we're designed in a certain way, like we're wired to like something or not like it. Right. You know, we can always change. We're we're more gifted at this than that. We have our strengths and weaknesses, right? Like uh, you know, the world of EOS calls it visionary integrator. Emith revisited said, you know, leader, manager, technician. So I think everybody has their unique wiring. I think a lot of times I get into the trap of you know being an entrepreneur wearing many hats is trying to figure out the things that I'm not good at and trying to really like just push through. Oh, Josh, if you just push through, you could be better at project management or organization or this, rather than focus on the strengths, right? Yeah. So as you're looking at the whole team, it seems like this is hidden, right? As you're looking at these teams of doing a merger, you're you're having to truly a sober assessment of self and go, strengths and weaknesses, this is where we have some gaps, this is where they can. When you lay that out, it may cause some insecurities in self, but also you see opportunity if we did it together. Looking through that lens, what did you see? There's like this little guy trying to eat me. Uh for people listening in, a bug just almost ate me. But as you're looking at this landscape of strengths and weaknesses, your own self, what were your thoughts? And did any insecurities pop up where you're like, man, am I even gonna add value? Or like what were your thoughts there?

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Yeah, gosh. Um tons of insecurity, first of all. Um, I think the one the insecurity that comes to mind for me first with assessing the landscape was both teams had great designers. I was also technically a designer by by practice at the time. And the expectation was that I was gonna come in and sort of lead both sides, but they already had leaders on their team and they were better designers than me. Um, but I was I had ownership in the company, you know. I was so I was functionally like by default expected. So there was just this deep insecurity of like, why should I lead? I don't even know how to do that, you know, like I didn't sign up for this necessarily, and uh just kind of navigating that, all the dynamics of that was one element that I had to work through and figure out. Um, and then the the other part of it was looking at, you know, there like redundancy is like a sterile word, but there were there were overlap of people who it was kind of like one of these people probably won't be here after a while, like unless we really grow, but we're gonna let everyone stay and kind of see how it shakes out. Like we also were still very much startup mode, like we didn't have a very deep perspective, and we didn't know a lot, we didn't know what we didn't know. Um, but but navigating that as well, where like there's there's an example. We had a our one of our biggest clients on my side, on the web web agency, brand agency side. Um, after we merged, we had this huge presentation, and we brought in some of the team from Big Fish to help on it. They were great, but different ethos, different mindsets. Some of them were probably all the way bought in. And the day of the client presentation, um, you know, I went in to check, hey, is everything ready? We're meeting, like these guys are we've been working with them for four years, they're the they're their big deal, and they were not ready at all. They were kind of not focused on that at all, and uh, and I lost it, you know. I was like, what is happening? You know, oh my god, and uh, and they're like, whoa. And and that was like one of those moments of oh, we've got work to do, like that the alignment's not there, and I probably have the wrong people in the room for this now that I'm look, now that I see that it's not working. Um, so I I don't know if I'm answering your question, but it was just kind of messy, you know, but it was fun. Like we had so much fun, Mario Kart tournaments, all that stuff. It was those years.

SPEAKER_03 42:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

And it was also the years when tech still had a promise that people believed in. Like, like people believed like the next tech breakthrough was going to make the world a better place. Like the promise of Airbnb and Uber and all these companies that were coming up and like we're revolutionizing the way of of living. And now I feel like tech has a darker kind of personality to it, where it's like, is this good or is this not good? Like people are a little bit more like side-eye to the tech. And um, and so those years were just different too. Like the the energy was like, we can do anything, nothing's gonna stop us. We're all gonna live in castles, you know. Like that was like the the vibe back then.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

Man, you led me right into my question. Good work, castles because you live in a castle?

SPEAKER_01 43:48

What kind of castle?

Ch 8 — The Pragmatism Era: From Tech Optimism to Prove It

SPEAKER_00 43:49

It's a golf question. So market, I would say, has probably changed more than like maybe any industry in the past decade, right? Like billboard. And radio and uh websites were like the cool thing. Yeah. Now it's like influencers, social media. Like you can build a website in four seconds with AI.

SPEAKER_02 44:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

Canva you mentioned earlier. Like how has your business had to adapt and where is it going? Uh I mean it's a different, yeah, it's a totally different marketing world than it was 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 44:25

Man, okay, I'll I'll just tell you where my head's at. I don't know. I mean, like, you know, I've never known either because this industry is so volatile, but uh fortunately everything is changing except for people. So as long as people don't change, we will have a job because our job is to connect people to things that improve their lives. That's the first principle of marketing. As long as we can help do that, we will have a value in the economy and in the culture. So that is what like that's what helps me sleep at night. Um the way we've evolved, like the the way the language I use to our team is over the past 10 years, uh our value is in the things we make. In the next 10 years, our value will be in the things we make happen. So more outcomes-oriented, uh, better at navigating ambiguity and change on behalf of our clients because the gap between where businesses are and where technology is has never been wider. Like the AI race is so fast, organizations just can't possibly keep up. And so that's a that's an opportunity for a company that can help close that gap and navigate it. So for us, that's like where we're where we're thinking today. There were error, I actually made a presentation for our team, the eras of 368, because like era one were those startup years, and I call that like tech optimism years. Like it was everyone in the world, it felt like was like we're gonna make the world's gonna be a better place. If you remember the brands at that time, everything was mission-based. It was like a promise of like changing the world, all these things. We did work for Unilever at the time, a mega global brand, and I pitched them all this like world-changing copy, and they just approved all of it. Yes, let's go. And the Unilevers got a great mission, but uh we then we moved into um just to make this binary, we moved through COVID. The promise of tech wasn't fully realized, and people got disenchanted. People also got uh they they slid into scarcity mindset a little bit, they slid into survival mindset a little bit, the economy got a little tighter for small businesses, for some businesses, and uh now we're in what I call the the pragmatism era of marketing, which is like prove it, prove it, show us your work and prove it. And um, we hear that from a lot of clients because if we pitch big, lofty ideas, they go, that's cool, but what's the ROI? For sure, yeah. And we were not getting asked that question in 2015. Nobody was asking that question. It was kind of wild, and I'm sure I know there were earlier adopter companies who were ahead of me. I'm a slow learner, that were probably already indexing on all that and performative stuff. We've never been, we've never gravitated toward pure performative marketing. I I do believe like emotion is the ultimate ingredient for persuasion, and so like you have to have both. But today, like, we're doing the work of bridging those two things. Like, how do you tell the most authentic, most compelling, most human story through a system that measures and defines and refines what you're doing? Like, can why not both? And that's the work we're doing right now. Like, we're very hyper systems oriented right now, hyper AI enabled. Um, and we'll see where it all shakes out.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

If you woke up tomorrow and had one project that like excited you, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 48:13

Something for National Geographic. That's all that's been my dream since. You know why that is? Uh my grandfather, who you know, um had he collected Nat Geo magazines. I remember those. And I would read them as a kid, and it's it what it's part of what I think made me fall in love with like national parks and traveling and all these things. And our logo is a square, which is a reference to the Nat Geo logo, which is a rectangle. So it's all tied in there. My ultimate dream is to, if you're listening, Nat Geo, we do. We got you. But yeah, I want to do anything for Nat Geo, something to expose people to cultures or wildlife or places that are wild and natural and like largely unknown or undiscovered.

SPEAKER_00 49:00

I did not expect a quick answer to that question. Yes, I'm sorry. You were on it.

SPEAKER_04 49:07

Well, speaking of questions, we're gonna uh one of the greatest joys that we have is you know meeting with great guests like yourself, but connecting guests with a form of a question. So the guest who came on prior to you, Scott Rainey, and we have not read this. I have no clue what it says. It could be totally obscene. We'll we'll see.

SPEAKER_00 49:24

Scott's gonna read it. Yeah, Grammy Awards.

SPEAKER_04 49:26

Yeah. So this question's gonna be for you.

SPEAKER_00 49:29

And the question the question is. Oh, it's a good one. If you could go back and change at one decision, would you? And what would you change?

SPEAKER_01 49:52

I'm not gonna say not selling my Bitcoin. Even though that's the first thing I thought of.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

It's a it's a valuable uh mistake.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

Yeah, very um. Oh man. Let me think about that for a second.

SPEAKER_04 50:10

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 50:11

A great question.

SPEAKER_04 50:12

Yeah. So as you're as you're thinking about that, you you have a few things to think about now is what to answer you know Scott Rainey's question. Read by Scott Shea, that was talk about Quentin Tarantino and like connections. Uh, but you'll you'll be sharing a question for the next guest, so we'll do that in a little bit. But as as we're going through um, you know, building out these businesses, and um, you know, what's the thing that gives you great joy as you, you know, you're a husband, a father, business owner, you're in the world of creativity and you you have passion there. Like outside of work, outside of being a dad and a father, what brings you joy?

SPEAKER_01 51:01

So outside of all the stare the typical answers. Yeah, because everybody's gonna say their their wife, their faith, or their their kids, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:09

Right, right. So take those off. They're they're there.

SPEAKER_01 51:11

My my my two happiest places are somewhere outside, like deep in the woods or up on a mountain. That's I just that's where I feel extremely healthy. I don't know how to explain it. And then uh the other one is deep in a stank, nasty pocket with a band where I'm playing the drums, and we're just we're so locked in that I don't even know where I am. I'm not even thinking. That's one of the happiest places in the world.

SPEAKER_04 51:45

That's a good feeling when you just jam out with someone and you're in tune. Yeah, yeah, you're just deep in it. Yeah, that's cool. All right. So, do you have uh uh an answer to Scott's question?

SPEAKER_01 51:58

Man, it the the answer is yes, I would change, I'd probably change a lot. I'm that I'm I'm one of those people that I'm like, yeah, I do have regrets. Uh sure, I would change things. Um But uh I think like the the answer that comes to mind is even though we built a great operating agreement and we hired attorneys to write it and everything, I would I would write a better operating agreement because we've been through a couple of buyout situations and they're always so painful and no fun at all. And uh that's like the my least favorite part of owning a business is navigating those things. And I just wish we would have had a some sort of agreement that accounted for more scenarios, if that's even possible. So that like a partnership is tough and a buyout is tough, and these are people, it's like your family, like you're like married to them, and those situations can really put a strain on the relationship. And I just don't like that. Like I it's like a regrettable part of the whole thing, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 53:06

Great advice, too, because I mean, you know in a perfect world, the operating agreement goes in a drawer and you never use it again. Right. But if you do need it, it's nice to have planned it ahead of time, yes, that way everyone's on the same page and there's no it's pretty black and white at that point.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

You need to really take do the work of planning for the worst. Planning for the worst, and everyone agrees this is how it's gonna go, so that you don't have to navigate that when the worst happens, you know, because then it then it's you know your relationships get strained.

SPEAKER_04 53:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:43

And yeah.

Ch 10 — Music Is the Greatest Analogy for Business

SPEAKER_04 53:45

So as we kind of go towards the end, um you get to choose the path for the final topic of discussion. So we could talk about old marketers, Claude Hopkins, Oglavy, you know, some of the some of the greats you're how do you want to know your other than to know your background?

SPEAKER_01 54:03

Okay, Josh knows a lot.

SPEAKER_04 54:05

Just yeah, I just yeah, I have an earpiece on. It's chipped. Yeah, I'm connected. So we can we can talk old school marketing, we could talk like kind of like madman style, like the the show and the you know, like the truth of the marketing of that.

SPEAKER_02 54:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:22

Or we could just kind of go, you know, off the wall and you get to pick your own adventure. But we're gonna probably end it with whatever you choose.

SPEAKER_01 54:35

It's like just topical.

SPEAKER_03 54:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:37

Um, the one that comes to mind, we talked a little bit about music. To me, music is the greatest analogy for business.

SPEAKER_03 54:44

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 54:45

Uh, and anyone who's played music would understand that. Like you kind of get it, but let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_04 54:54

Cool. All right. So coming from the drummer.

SPEAKER_01 54:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:58

So is it the drummer's job to keep every is it the drummer's job to be the glue? Is it the drummer's job to keep the momentum, the the the kind of the the push, the the drive forward, or what do you think is the drummer's job?

SPEAKER_01 55:14

Um, to be the coolest person on the stage.

SPEAKER_04 55:17

One, you got that.

SPEAKER_01 55:18

Um are you a drummer?

SPEAKER_04 55:20

Wanna be like a C-rated drummer?

SPEAKER_01 55:23

I feel it. Yeah. Um, I do I believe the drummer's job is to be the foundation. It if you do your job, everyone stands with confidence, everyone plays with confidence. If you don't, everyone is playing scared. And you can see it. So that's like um the the other for the drummer and for any musician in a band, the most important job that you have is not playing your instrument, it's listening. And that's a huge lesson in business, especially in sales, is like learn to listen and play off of what's happening in the room and also play what's appropriate to the moment. A guitar player who shreds all the time, or a drummer who solos all the time. You've probably seen like the drummers at the wrong gig videos on YouTube. If you haven't, look them up, they're funny. But like when you're out of place like that, out of pocket, um, you you it's ultimately it's it betrays the song and it's a failure of the execution of the song. And like the ability to listen, the ability the ability to understand flow state, what it means to be in harmony without having to work hard at it, without having to constantly struggle to get alignment, is a magic that many people in this current time don't know. And if you know what that feels like and you know that it's possible, it changes how you think about your work across the board.

SPEAKER_04 56:57

I'm so yeah, I I so much agree with you. When it comes to someone overplaying their part, it usually comes from a place of ego. I want to be seen or insecurity or overplaying it. But like some people can just like they could play such a simple count for count, and it's so good, it's in the pocket, like it's jamming, or even like just throwing the kick, and you could keep a song. But like that feeling when you're like it gives me goosebumps, when like everyone's flowing together and not overplaying, and also like pushing each other up, like you know, like hey, this is your turn, man. Go for it, right? That's it's such great joy, and you've experienced that being the the drummer seeing that because you got the background, you're watching everybody jam, and you know when the guitarist is the analogies are infinite, infinite, but it's it's like um Steve Jordan is uh one of the most famous, reputable drummers.

SPEAKER_01 57:51

He's played with everyone, he's played with John Mayer, he is famous for pocket, which pocket means doing nothing but the bare minimum, just a straight, just straight. And that's all he does, no matter what song it is.

SPEAKER_03 58:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:06

And every famous songwriter in the world hires him because he's reliable and he's he knows how to edit himself and he leaves room for others.

SPEAKER_03 58:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:18

And like all of that is in there. Um, often it's it's about what not to do more than it is what to do, right?

SPEAKER_04 58:25

Yeah. So give me that beat one more time. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening in to the Deal Podcast. As always, reach out to our guests and say, Hey, I feel like you know, like we're at one of those things where you like click. Guys, I hope you've enjoyed this episode. If you have a deal that you'd like to talk about, or maybe you have a guest, or maybe you'd like to come on the show, head over to thedealpodcast.com, fill out a quick form, maybe get you on the show next. Until then, we'll talk to you all on the next episode. Cheers, guys.