Speaker 1: (00:01)

Welcome to Unlearn, where we talk to industry leaders about unlearning how we go to market.

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Speaker 2: (00:06)

I'm Kelly Serbin, and I run tech partner enablement and advocacy at

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Speaker 1: (00:09)

HubSpot. And I'm Asher Matthew, co-founder of Partnership Leaders.

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Speaker 2: (00:13)

The old ways of going to market are getting more expensive and less effective

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Speaker 1: (00:17)

To thrive in an era of digital transformation, you have to go up to market differently. Let's find out how. Alright, Kelly, we're back. I see your, your camera angles changed again. .

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Speaker 2: (00:32)

That, well, my fancy camera battery needs to be recharged, so I'm back with the regular Oh, Mac camera. I, I'll be last high definition if anybody's watching on

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Speaker 1: (00:43)

Video. Got it. Got it. Alright. Hey Kate.

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Speaker 3: (00:46)

Hey. What's happening in Asher? Hey Kelly.

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Speaker 1: (00:49)

, thanks for joining us.

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Speaker 3: (00:50)

I'm low deaf, super low def today, even in my mind. You know,

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Speaker 1: (00:56)

You were just telling us about Mr. David Newman. Scott, tell us a little bit about your relationship with him.

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Speaker 3: (01:00)

Oh, he's the best. So, um, David Merman Scott is one of our investors. He's become a friend actually. And he, I met him, someone introduced us for investment or for, to become a customer. So he became a customer and then 10 seconds later he's like, I'm investing, you know, pull, pull out all the stops. And he's an amazing, amazing, really genuine human who by the way has like some crazy, um, like hobbies. So he's a massive, um, astronaut and space, um, buff. And he's got all kinds of really cool, I don't know, things to,

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Speaker 2: (01:36)

Does he have like a super expensive telescope? I feel like that would be required. He

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Speaker 3: (01:41)

Has, um, he has like, I think the joystick for one, one of the Apollos. Right. Which

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Speaker 2: (01:47)

Is pretty cool. Oh, so like paraphernalia,

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Speaker 3: (01:49)

That's Yeah. Yeah. Like real, real deal stuff. And then he's a guitar of aficionado as well, like, so he has some amazing guitars, but he wrote this very famous book called, um, Fano, which was all about the fandom of the Grateful Dead. So he's this massive, massive deadheaded as well. So of course when we met like Sparks flu, cuz we had like a million things in common, you know, my, my Uber Power is turning listeners into fans or customers into evangelists.

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Speaker 2: (02:19)

Interesting. And actually, um, we've had some prior episodes talking to people about the new role of media in B2B SaaS and how companies are often buying that up because they don't have the skillset in house. But I think there is that strong analogy, right? Like converting, telling good stories, converting to customers and converting to listeners and, and, and what is the same about those skills?

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Speaker 3: (02:45)

For sure. Like, I,

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Speaker 1: (02:46)

I really hate to hate to do this, but I, I need to tell you guys my David member Scott's story.

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Speaker 3: (02:51)

Oh yeah, you got one? Okay. Tell me,

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Speaker 1: (02:53)

You guys gonna like

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Speaker 3: (02:55)

? Wait, so you're a fanboy? Is that what you're saying? Oh,

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Speaker 1: (02:57)

This guy is unbelievable. Like, like, like I'll tell you like, so like for everybody who's in sales, like my big thing is you have to learn marketing. You're not gonna be able to survive in the future if you don't know marketing as a seller. And specifically David Memer, Scott's like specialty is Newsjacking and he's like, how do you take current events, tie your value proposition into them, and then amplify that message and make it resonate with people, right? And he has a number of stories on this stuff, right? Yeah. And so, because I have been very fortunate of, uh, to have been mentored by a lot of amazing people, my thing has always been like, let's give back and invest in the future of our leaders, right? And so, a very long time ago, and this is probably like 10 years ago, um, I decided to do the Emerging Leaders Day at this thing called the Worldwide Partner Conference, which is is Microsoft's partner conference, right?

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Speaker 1: (04:03)

And, uh, and, and, and I saw that the people that attended the conference were all in their like forties and fifties or maybe sixties. And I'm like, these people are gonna retire. Like, like where's the next generation of these leaders? Right? And uh, and I happened to be on the worldwide partner executive board and there's like 30 CEOs and like, uh, uh, sorry, 27 CEOs and three young people. And it was like Amy, me and, and another, another gentleman who's also in the Bay Area. Uh, and then we were like, we have to do something for the young people, right? Like, like for the people who are gonna be leaders and want to like run businesses in the future, right? And, uh, uh, and, and so, so we, we got permission from Microsoft, like as part of their entire conference. They gave us like five sessions to do, right?

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Speaker 1: (04:45)

And uh, uh, and one of them was uh, uh, by Steve Clayton, who's the chief storyteller of Microsoft. He does like all of core comms at Microsoft now, right? But then the other session was David, me, Scott. Oh my God. And, and so the story gets better because like, like the, the, and this is, this is just like a really good example of like an ama a person who is just working at his prime, right? And this is even the 10 years ago, right? And so, so the sessions on a Wednesday and David is thinking the sessions on the Thursday Oh, and this session, but the session's really on a Wednesday. And so we are like, okay, before his session we will all meet an hour earlier just to get mic checked, done, make sure he has the black badge to get through con the entire conference.

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Speaker 1: (05:36)

Cuz there's like 30,000 people at his conference, right? And David Lands, I believe like an hour and a half earlier than the session. And it's almost like time for us to meet and we're like, where is David? Oh my gosh, . And I'm like, attack. He is the guy and like there's like 800 people in the audience that are gonna be be here specifically to watch him, right? So we called David, were like, David, where are you at man? He's like, um, I just landed and uh, uh, I might go to my hotel. Uh, and I thought the session was like tomorrow. And I'm like, no, no, no. She was in an hour. And he is like, oh, dang it. And so we're basically what he is, he's jetted from the airport straight to his hotel. I don't even think he went to his hotel, but like he came straight to the conference, right? The guy is in like cargo pads, . Like, this

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Speaker 3: (06:26)

Is like

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Speaker 2: (06:28)

Just in mind. Asher was the one that told him the wrong time.

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Speaker 1: (06:35)

Lot of things that I do, but I'm very comfortable cause of my like military, hilarious. But the guy

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Speaker 2: (06:40)

I wanted a good story 10 years later ,

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Speaker 1: (06:44)

Well actually Tim, that would be a great one. Anyways, so like, like, like what happens is this guy gets in a cab, comes to the thing to to the conference location. We send special security for him to like bring him our, uh, he doesn't register. Cause like obviously there's like a huge security risk of somebody's entering the conference that that big without registering come straight into the to session, delivers an amazing presentation, doesn't even miss a single slide.

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Speaker 3: (07:11)

Wow.

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Speaker 1: (07:12)

Nails the whole thing. This is why I'm like, we have to have on the podcast, you gotta figure out how to, how to get on podcast. It's

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Speaker 3: (07:18)

Incredible because I've seen him present before and I don't think he would mind if I said this, but cuz I get nervous too. And so, you know, he has stage nerves and he has a routine to prep. Like so many people do. I do too, right? And so, I mean that's pretty impressive. He just, he must have gotten a lot done in the cab ride on the way over there,

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Speaker 1: (07:35)

I'm sure is a single slide. The people were like, whoa, this is like great. And oh, 800 people learned about the art news jacking and like, they were like tr uh, trying to figure out, uh, and I think he is like, it's isn't The New Rules of Marketing is also a book that he wrote, right? Yeah. It's

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Speaker 3: (07:50)

In its eighth edition and lately it's featured in the New edition, by the way. Nice. Nice. Yeah, he wrote that. It's like, I think it's one of the most famous marketing books, right?

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Speaker 1: (07:58)

So anyways, like, like, like when I heard that, that like, I mean, I'm a big fan of the the guy because I followed a lot of stuff that he did and you know, like I'm a big fan of you jacking as well, and I I some somewhat sometimes successful at, at doing it, but that's what I learned it. And this is like 10, 12 years ago. So yeah, we gotta have on podcast, Kate. You gotta

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Speaker 3: (08:15)

For sure.

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Speaker 2: (08:17)

So,

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Speaker 3: (08:20)

Well, so I wanted to touch, based on what Kelly was saying, which is still, we're still in David Mirman Scotland because he, he lives and breathe all of this as well. So the parallel that you, I believe you were touching on is what, what I call theater of the mind, right? So the theater of the Mind is this incredibly powerful gift that we as humans have where when we're reading or listening, right, the your, your imagination plays a role and fills in the blanks there. And that's why those acts are incredibly more meaningful and memorable than like watching a, a TV show or a movie, right? Because those are gimmies, you don't have to really do anything. You just, well veg out , right? So what I was thinking

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Speaker 2: (09:05)

About depends on movie, right?

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Speaker 3: (09:07)

depends on the movie. Yeah. I mean, if it's alien, you're

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Speaker 2: (09:09)

The Veg Out wines are like completely formulaic. You don't have to think at all Hallmark, more independent film dramas where it's like a red balloon like being watched for 10 minutes, then you then you gotta put in your own imagination

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Speaker 3: (09:22)

. Right? A lot of imagination . Exactly. Exactly. So what's what's what I was thinking a lot about is, um, you know, there was that book, this Is Your Brain on Music, and um, I read it, it's fair, it's kind of thick, but what fascinated me was this idea, which is when your brain listens to music, Asher, it must instantly and a new song specifically. So you, you get a new song, your brain's like, ah, where do I index this new song in the library of the memory of my brain? And it's running down every other song you've ever heard before, trying to find familiar touchpoint so it knows where to log this one. And it's tugging on nostalgia and memory and emotion, which are all the things that build trust. And trust is why we buy right now. Similarly, Kelly, when you write a text message or a social media message or an email or a chat, your when and someone reads it, they hear a voice in their head, your voice, right? And so as the author, it's also your job to figure out how do you tug on nostalgia and memory and emotion and get that trust thing happening there, right? So these, the commonalities are the same. And this is what we fueled into lately because my idea was let's not just go for the sale, let's go for the fan. It's a double win. We want the megaphone, right?

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Speaker 3: (10:51)

And, um, and not make myself

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Speaker 1: (10:53)

Recording. That was amazing.

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Speaker 3: (10:57)

Well, I wanna give you one more proof, proof in the pudding. There's the

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Speaker 1: (11:00)

Takeaway, God, ok. And it sounds pretty simple that people should think about this stuff.

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Speaker 2: (11:04)

No, I think we should dig into, it's, it's super fascinating topic, both, um, I think in the context of using ai, but also, um, even outside of that and just the human to human context, which is obviously what, um, most businesses have done before, but also to your point, entertainment. Um, yeah. Which there's a fine line, right? Because it's an audience and you're trying to establish trust. And I think the challenge, right, um, in any of those things is you're often trying to establish trust very quickly. Um, you have a very limited window. And, um, so it's an, it's an interesting question in terms of how are you framing, I guess when we think about it. A what are your thoughts on sort of the best ways to do that human to human? And then we can discuss how does AI come into it and can AI potentially doing do it better?

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Speaker 2: (11:57)

Um, many people in the audience might have read the, I think it was the New York Times article where the reporter was talking to the Bing Chat and the chat fell in love with him and started sounding really creepy , which was a total, total misfire fire. The chat was like, I don't think your wife is good for you. I'm good for you. . So funny, that was not the exact words, but it was very creepy. Um, now of course this is all very version 1.0, right? So we can easily imagine those kind of emotionally charged conversations where the AI becomes much more skilled and effective and, and people, you know, start to have feelings for, for ai. But let's taking a step back, um, because you also have had a lot of success as a marketer, right? Um, in your prior roles. Wait,

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Speaker 1: (12:47)

Before we, I feel like a little bit more to expand on just the, the what happens in the mind and stuff. So do you wanna continue your thought, Kate?

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Speaker 3: (12:56)

Well, I'll get, I'll touch both of the, you guys are so awesome by the way. Like, I love that we're having a circular conversation because this is how I think like, not linearly. So I hope people are keeping up, um, , which is to say like, yes. So on the, I wanted to give you a proof point of, of why what I said works. So at, at lately we only use lately to market lately nothing else, only organic social media run through our AI that is designed to collaborate with humans specifically because that power of the theater of the mind, the Genk, that that third party in the room is so impactful that you see results like a 98% sales conversion, which is what I have, or 12000% increase in engagement, which is what we got Gary Vaynerchuk or a 40 x increase in productivity, which is what we get signify slash Phillips Electric, right?

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Speaker 3: (13:51)

So, and it's not just because it's ethical to includes humans in the process of of how AI works, it's because the results are so much more galactic. But to answer your question on the human side, Kelly, here's one of my, one of the favorite things that I learned, which is, um, when you're at a conference like the one you were just, that Asher, um, recently all the marketers , one of the things I want, I wanna you wanna be the takeaway, right? You want to be the thing that's memorable because it's a c of so much going on. And I've found that it's, especially when we're all often a personalities and, and like being on stage naturally, it's very easy to walk in the room and be like, you know, hey, hey, hey. Right? Like be the loudest person, the harder thing, but the much more powerful thing to do is if you are the, the person that is the, um, more the magnet in the room that is shining the light on other people, right?

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Speaker 3: (14:56)

So you're making them glow by giving them the spotlight. This is that two-way street that I'm talking about, right? With, and I'm talking circles with the theater of the mind listening and reading. If you are the author or you are wielding the microphone, you're doing a good job with that nostalgia and motion, et cetera. The person on the other side feels like they have a part in the conversation, right? They're playing a role here. And the idea is the same thing. If you're surrounded by people and you're making them feel as that though they are the ones on the stage, then they walk away with this with a gift, right? They're a fan now they're a fan. David Meerman Scott does. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 2: (15:36)

Interesting. Um, and what does that look like? Even, even in the con context of a conference, say, um, cuz I know Asher likes to go in and hold the stage, so

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Speaker 1: (15:50)

I feel like maybe Kelly, think of the camera personally today, you know,

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Speaker 2: (15:55)

. But it's interesting because the idea of a magnet, when you think of a magnet at a party, right? You, you immediately think of, or at least I do, of the person who is, um, telling stories or being funny and, and very charismatic and people are coming more to listen. Now of course people can talk, which I think is partly what you're saying, and then they feel part of the conversation, even though if you have like a transcript, the other side actually was not contributing as much. Um, but then you have another extreme where people who are just great listeners, right? Mm-hmm. and they really are not producing a lot of content themselves, so to speak. They're actually just really good at listening to the other person kind of amplifying the other person. And, and sh to your point, shining a light on the other person. But I think of those as sort of two different sort of personalities or approaches. Is is what you're saying in the middle of those, is it more the second?

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Speaker 3: (16:48)

Yeah. That's so smart because I mean, of course everyone wants a good audience, you know, so Amen. Those listeners. But, um, you know, I think the, the key is like dropping familiar touchpoints along the way that make you lean forward and go, oh, me too, right? That's, that's really what you want, that common ground. Who are the people that can find the common ground? Um, which is why the weather is so beautiful. That's, we started this conversation, where do you live? How's the weather, right? That's, that's what we, you do,

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Speaker 2: (17:14)

Those are the zoom go-tos for sure. Where are you coming from?

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Speaker 3: (17:18)

So meaningful, like, it sounds like so dismissive of course, but I mean, here, how many things have we dropped already in this conversation? We're talking about the Grateful Dead David Mirin, Scott, I've got a Pacman poster that's actually velo behind me, child of the eighties, right? Um, we talked about being a rock and roll DJ briefly. Like there's just so many ways that I'm trying to access the, whoever's listening, whoever's watching, because we know that humans are multifaceted, right? So let me think, let's talk about this in the, the terms of go to market, the old way of the message being consistent and the same all the time. That is done. It's done because we think of it as spam now, and we're bored. You have to be entertaining online and humans, this is my friend David Allison's project called Value Graphics. Humans respond to 56 values like productivity, uh, education, community, stuff like that. And so you have to figure out how to weigh a way to touch all those values in your conversation, right? And it's, it's, um, it's complicated. You're weaving a, a, a web so that you walk away and think, I love her , I love her. That's what I want.

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Speaker 1: (18:35)

Right? That's what people do when they meet Kelly. Anyway, so like

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Speaker 4: (18:50)

Exactly. Get myself more friends. Exactly. Forget the business use case. I'll convert the,

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Speaker 1: (19:01)

What you said is actually very interesting because like, like most, let's call it folks that like want to learn marketing, right? They understand at some level somebody introduces them to empathy, right? The word empathy, right? And then they start thinking about the situation. The person is professionally, right? But they really think about all the situations that they could be personally, right? And then the voice in the head that they're thinking about mind, right? As you're saying it, right? Mm-hmm. is almost always drawn from the professional environment versus the personal environment, right? And what you just hit on, it's a little tough, right? Uh, and it's interesting, I was just hanging up with Morgan Ingram last night, right? Like, like, and he's a very amazing content writer, right? Like, like he spent a lot of time when you talk to the guy, you're like, wow, man, you are definitely a content person because you spent hours studying this stuff, right?

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Speaker 1: (20:03)

And he was explaining this concept, saying like, look, you can write us up through all the content folks out there to obviously through 90% of the content folks out there by just repeat, uh, posting consistently, right? Then you can rise up to even like the next, like the 99% of them by just making sure that you are relatable, right? Like, like that, that you've actually understood their situation, right? Mm-hmm. . And then he was like, but there's these Hall of Famers, right? And the Hall of Famers are playing a very different game, right? Mm-hmm. , we couldn't unpack the conversation. Maybe we should, we need to get, get him on the, on the podcast too. But like as you're saying this, I'm just thinking about like, like, uh, and we have Jamal Ramer on the, on the podcast too, and Jamal's number two lesson for me was like, Hey, the, the deal's happening here. It's not happening here, right?

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Speaker 1: (21:00)

, and, and, and we about this a lot more from a marketing perspective so that people can write a basic copy that sticks and then ultimately gets to fandom, right? And, and people are unfortunately, a lot of like execs are like, Hey, get me these ups and deals and stuff like that. But like, if it was more about like, let's get fans and people really started focusing on like what's happening in the mind and what are people's experience life experiences that you need to actually be cognizant of. So when you write amazing copy and you do make, uh, creative that it resonates with all those people, and then they're totally a hundred percent, uh, uh, agreeing what you're saying, which is like they volunteer in versus you pull them in, they just volunteer themselves in, right? And it's like a different level of volunt in a way, right? Because you're telling an amazing story, but it, it hits those points, right? Um, amazing. I mean, it's like, I mean, this requires hours and hours and hours of work, but obviously you've created a tool that allows people to draw on some of it. So tell us, tell us about like how your company even what it is and where. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: (22:09)

We should probably do that. . Well, and and to your point, like, so I'm a hall of famer. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna say that I am, so like when I write posts on LinkedIn, for example, I get 86,000 views, right? I'm really good at this. And so lately we, we taught lately to learn from me actually, like it learns from you first and your best practices, and I'll go over that, but then it, it, it defaults to me. And then because I get the 98% sales conversion with my brand, it defaults to that. It's looking for different ways to support you, you know, so lately is a, um, AI fueled repurposing engine that is also a social media management, employee advocacy and sales enablement publishing platform. So it's like a lot all at once.

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Speaker 2: (22:56)

So wait, it learned from you as, and then basically it's advising or whoever's using it is essentially becoming more like you in their post

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Speaker 3: (23:06)

? No, it starts with you actually. And then it just use me, uses me as like a buffer to kind of

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Speaker 2: (23:13)

Mark as to what works essentially.

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Speaker 3: (23:15)

Yeah. So when you connect your social channels to lately, and we study everything you've ever published going back for the last year on those channels, and we're specifically analyzing the messaging that performed the best for you. The highest for

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Speaker 2: (23:27)

For you, okay.

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Speaker 3: (23:27)

Yeah. For you. And we're breaking that messaging down into words, ideas, phrases, and sentence structures. And so we have a very clear model of literally, um, how you sound your brand voice and then exactly what your target audience will like, comment, click, or share. Once we have that, then you ingest long form content. Like this podcast for example, we'll transcribe it instantly in the background and we'll read it through with the model in mind and we lift out the pieces that are in the model and we clip up the video of who said what at the same time in that little snippet there, right? And then we'll also do a style transfer, which is, we'll take your, take what's written there and uh, and kind of unify it. , right? So for me, I say, uh, in real life I curse like a sailor and I try not to do that online. So I make up things like holy hot, pickled jalapeno peppers, stuff like that. And it does that for me. ,

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Speaker 4: (24:26)

Right?

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Speaker 3: (24:27)

Yeah.

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Speaker 2: (24:27)

So initially the client would be the best version of themselves, uh, for their current audience that they were reaching.

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Speaker 3: (24:34)

Yeah.

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Speaker 2: (24:34)

That would, that would be like day one of, of using the tool

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Speaker 3: (24:37)

Day one. Yeah. And, and unless if they have nothing, then it'll be fault to me, my brand and then then and

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Speaker 2: (24:43)

Pickles

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Speaker 3: (24:44)

And pickles obviously really Beans, another hot favorite. Um, but then we have millions of data sets from like all the customers we've ever worked with as well. So that's the next mote that it pulls from Too.

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Speaker 1: (24:56)

Scary thought. Two Kelly's

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Speaker 4: (24:59)

.

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Speaker 3: (25:01)

Wait a second. I really wanna clone, are you kidding me?

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Speaker 4: (25:05)

Wait a second.

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Speaker 3: (25:07)

Live,

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Speaker 2: (25:07)

I mean, there, there's like a hundred Kate out there now, so

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Speaker 4: (25:11)

Als .

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Speaker 3: (25:11)

Yeah. Like people are like, oh, I don't want AI to replace me. And I'm like, I do like God, just think I can get done. Jesus.

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Speaker 2: (25:19)

I feel like your page will become more and more popular cuz there's now like a sense of familiarity and it almost like eventually nostalgia about you. Cause they're like, this sounds vaguely but not exactly familiar. I don't dunno why I love this person.

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Speaker 4: (25:33)

. .

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Speaker 3: (25:35)

There you go. I mean the, the, the, the thing is that's so important though, is this human trainings that we've been talking about, right? This theater of the mine. So what we built into lately was, um, every little thing that you do, it's taking note from and we surface you even the word clouds, the exact ideas in black and white that are ringing true with your audience. And you get the opportunity to be like, ai, that's awesome. It'll say like, oh, the idea of humans versus AI got 43,000 impressions in two posts. Do you want us to do more of this? And you can say, yeah, that's great. And then it could say, well what about pickles? And you can say, Nope. Off the rails, right? So there's a massive learning, um, with the human involved. And, and to touch on the question you had earlier, Kelly, about the New York Times. Um, so , let, let's level set everybody here today real quick. So AI, as we know it in Hollywood, does not exist. That's fake, right? Um, magic does not exist. I'm so sorry to break this to everyone, uh, , you know, major Harry Potter fan myself. So, um, and I, I want to believe in magic, but it doesn't exist. If you think of

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Speaker 2: (26:50)

We just lost all our kids.

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Speaker 4: (26:51)

Oh God, , we

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Speaker 3: (26:54)

Just killed everybody. Um, so, so if you think of like, imagine humans. So, so as, as mammals, we're pretty useless. We're the, we come out of the womb and we can't feed ourselves, we can't defend ourselves, we can't do anything without care from another human. It's, we're pretty unique in the mammal escape, uh, like that. And AI is the same way. And so if you think of AI as a human, it's about three months old, right? Requires a

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Speaker 4: (27:25)

Lot of care.

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Speaker 2: (27:25)

But it does talk better than a three month, year

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Speaker 4: (27:27)

Old. Cause uh, ,

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Speaker 2: (27:29)

As a mother, I was shocked at how little newborns can do or say, just say

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Speaker 4: (27:33)

.

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Speaker 3: (27:37)

I think like

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Speaker 4: (27:38)

Somebody,

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Speaker 3: (27:38)

I'm gonna somebody online and I feel bad, I should figure out who it was and take, not take credit for this and give them credit, but they, they said emotional intelligence is what's missing and still, and that's true. So like, we're short on the ei, you know?

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Speaker 2: (27:51)

Yes. I would assume that is. Yeah, very.

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Speaker 3: (27:54)

But also you made me think of Silicon Valley because like, have you guys seen, seen it when they fall in love with Fiona ?

‍

Speaker 4: (28:02)

That was weird.

‍

Speaker 1: (28:05)

Okay, so let's talk, let's talk a little bit about like, how do go-to-market professionals, right? Actually practice before they even use lately, right? Like practice understanding how to evoke nostalgia in their, let's call it copy or creative or in other communications, right? Like, like before I train the ai, I need to actually be somebody who, who is something like that. Because I feel like, like AI is hard to get into a place where people are not gonna be scared or be super fans and stuff like that, right? Like, but I think the basic is still like you as a human also need to be cognizant of these things. And so do you have any thoughts around that, Kate?

‍

Speaker 3: (28:49)

Yeah. So I'll give you some quick takeaways. So, so the rules that I use, I wrote them down and I give workshops and I did, that's how Crystal and I met, I I did a workshop for, um, HubSpot Academy on the rules. So I'll, I'll just like kind of give you an example of one. Um, so, so when I write, I like to drop a lot of these, these things, these kind of nuggets into, um, into the, to the mix, right? So here's, I'm just gonna read you a social post I wrote. Um, so why, how's the weather is the simplest, most powerful question still plus other sales and marketing pro tips that'll make you go hmm, with Mo and Katy Allison. So what I'm doing here is a couple of things. First of all, um, I'm asking the question why when you use, why it's always followed by, because we all know this, right?

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Speaker 3: (29:38)

So I'm just tapping in on something that everybody knows, a very, very familiar kind of thing. And it's, it's tricky like that because I said why? How's the weather is still the most powerful question, but I didn't give the, because I hid the, because behind the link, right? Very tricky there. And then I'm, I'm using a question, a double question. How's the weather? Is a question framed inside the question, right? And that is a great way of making people sort of lean forward. They want an answer to the question. I'm saying it still is. I'm making a statement also here. So the statement, even though it's in the form of a question, has the ability to convey authority, but I'm, I'm subtly I'm not undercutting my authority, but I'm giving you an access point so you don't feel like I'm commanding you into oblivion because I'm couching it in the face of a question. The other thing that I'm doing is I'm referencing the nineties tips that'll make you go, Hmm, right? And then I also am repre rep referencing the seventies. I I think of myself as Ms. Piggy a lot and I referred myself as as wa right? So there's a, there's a whole lot packed, packed into there

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Speaker 1: (30:48)

Incredible

‍

Speaker 2: (30:49)

Interesting

‍

Speaker 3: (30:50)

‍

Speaker 1: (30:51)

That is, yeah. And, and, and so I, I, I guess the question becomes as people go down this path, right? Eventually you also hit a milestone or maybe like a blocker or maybe like a point where you're like, am I gonna lose too much of who I am as I'm going down this path? Right? And, and I, I want to come to the, to the technology piece of this in a little bit, but I, I just wanna stay focus on the person because again, like I said earlier on, so my firm belief that like every salesperson if they do not learn marketing are just gonna be done, right? Like, like, yeah. And so, but these things like writing effective copy and writing, understanding how creative actually works, like it is really, really important, right? And so, but on that journey you can lose yourself.

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Speaker 2: (31:40)

It's really, I just have, I think it's so interesting cuz on the one hand, right, the goal is to establish trust, right? And there's this concept of being an authentic person, but then taking these like 15 to 20 tips and tools and changing your content, um, smacks of artifice. Now does that mean it's wrong? I don't mean that in derogatory sense. It, it, it doesn't, right? And obviously, um, you know, I think people who are marketing on behalf of companies and brands expect to do, um, some measure of sort of changing their voice to fit the brand. Having said that, I do think marketers choose to work at companies where there's an alignment between their authentic self and the brand, right? So I used to work at a branding agency and we did a lot of B2B sass, but we also did some direct to consumer.

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Speaker 2: (32:29)

And I remember doing like a craft of beer and because it was just a branding, a like commitment. So it was like three to six months in one project I was okay to do, do it, but I was like, never in a million years could I like work full-time for this company because I'm not hip in this way. I'm not like, cool. And like that was the brand voice. It felt it was very artificial for me. Um, which doesn't mean it can't be done right, but it, but it feels inauthentic. So I love Asher's question because I do feel from the human level, even just as workers, what is the connection in your mind between intentionally thinking about the theater of the mind and using that and your knowledge of it to, to create trust and connection, um, in such a intentional way?

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Speaker 3: (33:23)

Yeah. So, and that's, you're, it's the nuance there, which is the intention of the persona. So when I'm on the air, you're listening to XM 50, the Loft, right? That's my persona, that's my on-air persona. It's me, but it's just, it's a different slice of me. The person that I just read to you online, that's me. But that's very specifically my online persona, right? It's not, it's like, you know, when we go to a wedding and I put on a dress and heels, my elbows are off the table, you know, until we've had too much champagne probably, but I, and I'm sitting up straight , you know, all those things. But you know, tonight on the couch, I'm gonna be in my jammies and having tequila with no mixer probably. Cuz that's how I feel like rolling on Friday Night, , you know? So I think it's the, and, and David Meerman Scott, by the way, is the same way. The guy who's on stage is a different guy that I, you know, went for a hike with in Woodstock a couple months ago with, right? It's, it's,

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Speaker 2: (34:32)

I think that's super valid point. And I think if you look at like, method actors, that's the extreme, right? Because they're acting, but then they're literally adopting and living another persona in their life. But, but when you think about how people live and work right now, right? Your job may be, let's just say 50 hours of your, of your week, right? Mm-hmm. , um, that's a lot of time to embody what may only be 10% of your personality. Um,

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Speaker 3: (35:02)

Yeah. So I mean, this is the game, right? Like, you're right, , when you're in sales, especially though you're, you have to turn it on. Like, for example, at the end of the day, I always, we always sit and watch TV because I just talked all day long. I'm on all day long. I'm putting on a show here. I'm putting on a show with investors, I'm putting on my c e hat with my team. Like, I gotta be these different people all day long. And it's, it's effort, you know, major. Well, what

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Speaker 1: (35:30)

If you didn't have to put a show on, you know, what, what, what if people were, that's just who you were. And may, maybe that's where you ultimately get to.

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Speaker 3: (35:37)

Well, yeah, I mean, I'm cheapening it by saying that it is who me, who I am. But it's, it's a certain part of me that I need to highlight to get this specific thing done, right? Because, I mean, our whole lives are, I believe this is going to make somebody mad. I feel like, um, , everybody's life is about getting something done. We're all trying to get something done, lots of things done. And so communication is about that objective. I want you to love me, I want you to take out the trash. I want you to make this sale. I want you to fund my company, whatever it is. I want you to be a g good guest on my show. And you have to change, you have to think about how do I get that person to do what I want specifically? Cuz the way I motivate Kelly is different than I the way I motivate Asher. Right? And if you, if you're not doing that, it, it's not gonna work for you. That's why some people are really good at this and some people are not.

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Speaker 2: (36:33)

That's really interesting. Yeah. Um, I, I have a very hard time thinking that way, but I will say, I know that it costs me even in my job, which is not, is not a sales job. And that's also why I know I'd be a terrible salesperson because I feel like I am too honest of a person. Um, and don't have,

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Speaker 4: (37:00)

Asher

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Speaker 2: (37:01)

Does this well, but I'm,

‍

Speaker 4: (37:03)

It's hilarious.

‍

Speaker 1: (37:05)

Where are we going in this podcast? Hold on. Hold

‍

Speaker 4: (37:08)

. I know

‍

Speaker 2: (37:09)

I was a philosophy major and I feel like this episode is tapping into my college

‍

Speaker 4: (37:14)

So hilarious.

‍

Speaker 1: (37:15)

We just went from like, let's help you be the best version of you to, like, salespeople are liars. Got it.

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Speaker 4: (37:22)

. No, no,

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Speaker 2: (37:25)

They're, they're one part of themselves to get the job done, which I think is an accurate statement.

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Speaker 4: (37:31)

So I think

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Speaker 3: (37:31)

So Kelly though, you, sorry, real quick. You can, you pro you are very intelligent, clearly. And so, you know, to lean on that skill when you, when you need something that, that you can use it for. So like, I personally put both feet in my mouth most of the time. , I just do, but I use it, right? Because I already know that's my default. That just is how I am. And so that kind of ucks, whoops, charm. Like it gets me a lot of stuff. I mean, it does, right? So I don't, I don't bother to correct it because works for me.

‍

Speaker 1: (38:04)

, I, I, I think, I think where I'm at this podcast is like, if you want to exist, you're very welcome to like just be you and just be all by you and just go through life and you are gonna achieve some level of success. We just don't know what it is. Right? And you may have to give it all right? But if you wanna live right, then you must care. And if you must care, then there's no like level of caring. It's you either care or you just don't care. And if you'd care, you must actually deliver your thoughts in a way that people would talk to themselves. And understanding where they're coming from personally and professionally is like really important. And when you do that, it'll start showing up in your copy and your creative, which, if you're a salesperson, you absolutely need to be able to present your thoughts in the way that other people know how to understand.

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Speaker 1: (39:04)

Cuz you are trying to get them to understand your point of view. And if you are a marketer, you must write extremely amazing, clear, specific copy. It doesn't have to be hyped, but has to be very clear. And you are not gonna be able to write it if you don't know where they're coming from, right? And so the two skills have to come together, literally. This is dejavu. Cause we were just talking about this yesterday as well. It's like, like copywriting, creative, presenting. If you just those, those two, three things, well, from the perspective of like how another person likes to hear about themselves from their own perspective, you'll win, right? And, and that's what I think the, the, the, where we are in this, like economic slowdown, et cetera, et cetera, we said, whatever you wanna call it, right? Is we have an opportunity actually live and not just exists. Which I think was what we were already doing because it's all about hype. T2, D three, this, this, this grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. And you just don't have to live by those rules anymore. You can actually just become a really amazing copywriter, a really amazing creative person, and a really amazing presenter. And most people will do really well just by being averaging better than on these three skill sets. Mm. What do you think?

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Speaker 3: (40:16)

I think the, I mean, I would just like, I was thinking about the mirror as you were saying that, right? So everybody likes to look in the mirror because we're narcissists at, in, you know,

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Speaker 4: (40:27)

like

‍

Speaker 3: (40:27)

Default, you know, just throwing

‍

Speaker 4: (40:29)

That out there, just throwing everybody listening, you're a narcissist, you know? Well,

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Speaker 3: (40:34)

Cause on Zoom is, you know, here we are. What are we on, we're not on Zoom. But like, it's the same idea. Like,

‍

Speaker 1: (40:39)

I'm like, which part of our

‍

Speaker 4: (40:40)

Argument, ,

‍

Speaker 3: (40:41)

We're gonna have to go to confession after this.

‍

Speaker 4: (40:43)

Jesus. It's like, there's no magic. You're all narcissist, I knows works

‍

Speaker 1: (40:50)

Podcast

‍

Speaker 4: (40:51)

Jesus.

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Speaker 3: (40:53)

But I mean, you know, so you're looking, you're looking at how often do you look at people in the eye on the camera? You're, you're looking at yourself. I mean, this ha it just happens. We can't, we're, that's a human nature. And so yeah, it's like generally speaking, people like to talk about themselves. Everybody knows that you go to a party and you just ask questions and you're off, you know, you're off to the races. Um, so I think like, so, so, so there's that obvious thing. But the other thing you made me think about was, um, I don't know if it's like to, to me, to be human and to be good at your job, which is kind of tied together. You want, you're always aspiring to be better, right? Like, that's part of the, the human experience. You don't have to be perfect, but you have to try to get onto the road. You know, that's the road you're on is like getting 1% better every day or whatever the, the mantra is there. And, um, if you're, I mean, you're just, you're not living if that's not in your, in your aspect. So if you want, why wouldn't you wanna be a better communicator? Which by, by default makes you a better salesperson, , because all communication is some kind of sale, right? Get me to do something. Gimme your money. make

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Speaker 1: (42:05)

The record. I believe Kelly would be an amazing salesperson if she actually really wanted to, but she doesn't want to be that problem. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: (42:13)

No,

‍

Speaker 1: (42:13)

I agree with you. I think, I think it's, it's like, it's like everybody wants to do better. I think it's also trained behavior. Cause we've been trained like that through school, right? But I think everybody just wants to live because, and if, if all of the constructs that we've been taught just vanished away, vanished, right? We were just actually act like normal people, right? Like, which would be let's go live and build shared experiences. And some of those are gonna be great and some of those aren't gonna be great, but the ones that were aren't great, we're just gonna learn from them and not do them again. Because that's how humans are trained, right? Like when the first time you hit fire or you touch fire, you're like, oh, this, I'm just not gonna do that again.

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Speaker 3: (42:58)

Right?

‍

Speaker 1: (42:59)

And it's just doesn't make any sense, right? And so, or or if like, like, uh, like, I mean, this is gonna resonate with a few people, hopefully and not alien people like we've been doing to the rest of this podcast,

‍

Speaker 3: (43:13)

This podcast,

‍

Speaker 2: (43:15)

, you're a narcissist, and there's no magic

‍

Speaker 1: (43:20)

As

‍

Speaker 3: (43:21)

You,

‍

Speaker 1: (43:22)

As you go through life, right? And for the folks that have kids, right? Like, like there's more people that have two kids than have like three kids, right? But the, the, the, the, the thing here is like after you've had a couple of kids, right? And you try to get like your life back together, most people I believe don't have kids after that because they're like, oh, we understood that experience. So it was great. But we also understand that we want to live the rest of our life also with shared experiences with the, with the four. And a lot of the families that do, and I'm sure there's data around this, but like a lot of the families that actually go in that direction do end up cre uh, like being very invested in their kids. And then the kids become amazing humans and they go out to do great, great things versus the people that like falter back on. And, uh, you now have, uh, have a lot more kids. And again, as I say this probably a very controversial statement as the goal here is like, like the body is designed to not do things when it learns that, like, that, that, that there's a better way to do things. Right? Um, so I'll pause there because I'm sure I'm gonna get a lot of hate mail on this one.

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Speaker 3: (44:25)

. Yeah. I mean, I think you hope that people learn. I mean, that's, that's the gr not not everybody I feel has that great skill there, there. And I think that is a skill. You know, we've been talking about that, um, at my company as well. Like, and I've said this before, when we hire people, our expectation is that the worst mistake you will make is still gonna be just fine, right? Yeah. So we very much prized the idea of just doing it, figuring it out. Like obvi ask for permission. No. You know, don't, don't ask permission. Ask for ask for forgiveness and just go make a bunch of mistakes and learn from them. And when we know right away, when, when we meet people and we've hired them and that's not working out because it's a, it's a, it shows us that they can't self self-learn in this way. And in a startup we don't have time to teach them, right? Yes. So it's a, it's a, it's a super catch 22 because yep. Not everybody is built built like that, which is totally understandable. There's nothing wrong with that. But, um, in order to, you know, fail fast and fix it and

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Speaker 1: (45:27)

Yeah, it, it, it would be okay in another company, just not in a startup. And then again, I think intentionally understanding why you are in a situation which is designed to grow fast and make it or break it, right? Like, I don't think a lot of people understand. It's actually like when this whole SVB debacle happened, right? And I was standing in line outside of SVB and there's like 30 founders and I'm just like, 40% of your people should never have raised money.

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Speaker 3: (45:55)

Yeah. Cause you

‍

Speaker 1: (45:56)

Just added a lot of like, like anxiety into your life and a lot of like urgency in your life. It was for no reason cuz they were gonna be okay. And then when you asked them like, Hey, how much money do you actually want in life? They would throw, raise random numbers out. And they're like, well, they don't even know what they would do with it, right? And so like the whole intentionality about like, why am I even in a startup and does the startup actually align with what I want to do? And does the values of the company align with what I, who I am? If a lot of more people kind of like started dotting this stuff out, you would've a lot more successes than the scary stories that we hear. And uh, and, and, and I do think that that's where we are right now. Like, people are actually really questioning like, why are they even in this thing specifically? Because a lot of founders actually returning money that they raised from, from, uh, from, from venture. Yeah. I mean there's a lot of that happening right now.

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Speaker 3: (46:46)

Yeah. Um, what are you, what are you gonna say, Kelly? You look inspired.

‍

Speaker 2: (46:50)

Oh, I wasn't inspired that by that point. , I've been thinking about something else I wanted to go back to for a while. So if you have a response, but I, I agree. I would just say I, I agree that not everyone, um, fits in an early stage startup and nor does everyone have that sort of need to progress. I think probably the three of us do, um, on this call. But I do, I think that's a personality trait. I think some people are very content to go into the same office and do their work and get off at 5:00 PM don't think about it again until nine the next morning. Um, which again is fine. I don't think that that, I think society needs all different personality types, right? Like you gotta fit in where you go and, and that's how society runs. But, um, but what I wanna return to is this personalization thread, right?

‍

Speaker 2: (47:47)

So I feel like in marketing we're in very early days around personalization. So what we have is websites that can personalize based on who's visiting. Um, that's probably the most interesting thing that I think has some wide level of adoption. Obviously we have smart content in emails as well where we can flip up the content depending on who's, who's receiving it. Um, sales, um, there's a wide spectrum. You still see a lot of people company first name like very rudimentary attempt at personalization, even though everyone I think acknowledges it's table stakes to use it in marketing and sales. Um, but when you look industry wide, I would say we're not that far down that journey yet. I think AI could open up a ton of really amazing but potentially, um, hard to manage possibilities of say LinkedIn eventually makes it where you can change up your post to be surfacing to different audiences that you've selected.

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Speaker 2: (48:48)

Right? What's really interesting is a lot of what I hear you saying with the theater of the mind is it's about tapping into those individuals triggers, right? So some people might not, um, know much about seventies bands or, um, miss Piggy, like, so those things aren't gonna be as much of a sticky for them. Um, it might still be endearing cuz it is. But like I I, I think if we go far down that road of personalization powered by programmatic, um, tools, essentially we could see a world where companies can whip up a crazy level of personalization and have their own brand voice kind of modified in the way that you were saying earlier. Where you have a slightly different brand voice to persona X, um, to your rev ops person, but then to the marketer or the salesperson, your brand voice changes a little bit. So I'd love to hear your thoughts as someone who's probably on the forefront of thinking about those issues. Um, a where are you we in that? Do you agree with kind of how I described the landscape? And then b, where do you think we're going?

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Speaker 3: (49:58)

Yeah. I love, and I love the way you, you you speak. I'm, I'm stealing little ideas from you all the whole time by the way. . , I do agree with you. I mean the, you know, so you yes. I, I feel like the, the generally the personalization or customization now is fairly rudimentary. We, we we're all onto it, right? , um, and which is why we, like, we haven't done any cold emails. Like we're doing one weird experiment at the moment, which I don't wanna be doing at all, but it's a long story while we're doing it . Um, so, you know, open ai um, doesn't have the ability to customize to your voice right now. It does, it can't understand your audience cuz there's no learning learning loop of data there. So, you know, you and I put in this same, um, inputs generally we'll get the same outputs out.

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Speaker 3: (50:53)

It's very much like Cliff notes, right? With uh, with chat G B T, you know, we, we were in their closed beta when it was chat G B T two, so four years ago. Um, so we're, we're OGs, but, but all these other, even Jasper by the way, included, like, they can't, they don't own the engine chat. G B T is an engine that everybody, it's a car they're driving, they're, they can change the color of the paint of the car. That's it. And the engine also only has data that's always a year old. So it's not up to date, right? So my machine learning and natural language processing is nine years old and it's mine, , the whole engine is mine, right? Um, and then because we're able to customize your voice, you're making fun of me learn, learn your voice and learn your audience. Uh, my friends at Microsoft were actually asking me like, how can lately expand the impact of open ai and, and this is how, right? So I'm, I'm convinced that ai, I'm not even convinced. I know that the future of of AI is AI and humans together and I've already been living that for nine years and everyone else has to catch up.

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Speaker 1: (52:03)

Yep. . And, and so

‍

Speaker 4: (52:05)

Get with it. I know you're holding a society back, .

‍

Speaker 1: (52:12)

See, I I don't, we're gonna run, run, run outta time, uh, but Oh,

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Speaker 3: (52:17)

Shoot, shoot. I didn't realize.

‍

Speaker 1: (52:18)

Yeah. As, as, as we're, as we're, as we're working through this whole AI thing, I do believe that there is the concept of private ai, that it's gonna come up at some point in time. And it's because of what you just said, there's gonna be models that are just very customized for certain situations, right? But there's also people's data that they're just not gonna be comfortable in putting, sharing it across this, let's call it escrow of data that we are feeding into this giant ai, right? And so, and it happened with cloud also, right? I mean it's no different than than that. And by the way, data scientists have been working like this forever. I mean, and, and that's kind of the basis of all AI anyways, right? And so, so the, the the, uh, like there's the general consumption, let's call it ai totally.

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Speaker 1: (53:08)

That will help us do things better. But then there is gonna be this like niche AI that is designed for like certain scenarios and, um, and I, and, and maybe like, like, I don't know, at some point in time all it is just AI and like all this stuff, but I i, I don't think that's in the near future that's gonna be a, a, a thing. But to answer the personalization question, at least from my viewpoint is like, well if everybody uses the same person, uh, personalization for ai and AI is designed to like look at what trend, what's the trending topic, then we're kind of back into like unpersonalized emails anyways cuz they're all gonna look like the same thing and they're gonna be like spam, you know, like in a way. Exactly. So the humans for sure are gonna be,

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Speaker 2: (53:49)

They're all talking pickles to each other, .

‍

Speaker 4: (53:51)

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

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Speaker 2: (53:53)

One loop of pickles. No , but you answered your own question. It's these unique data sets, right? That could, could provide the competitive people to, to go ahead. Which it sounds like that's how Kate's tool works, essentially making a person the best version of themselves while no one else is taking all of those persons posts and, and viewing them. Although things that are public in the future may, um, indeed be consumed other, other places. But I think there's always additional data that, that you could, for example, be pulling from people's, um, papers, how they are in their Slack internal channels, talking like wherever they wanna get, like a unique data set

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Speaker 3: (54:36)

Yeah.

‍

Speaker 1: (54:37)

Minute left. So if it's okay, we're gonna have to bring cake back think in this journey, like of how do we use ai, uh, uh, I I think there's like other learnings that, that, that we'll get. But Kate, before we let you go outside of Mr. David Scott, are there two other people that you would recommend bringing on the show, now that you know how Kelly and I do these things, .

‍

Speaker 3: (55:02)

Oh

‍

Speaker 4: (55:03)

Boy.

‍

Speaker 2: (55:03)

We won't be turned off by our conversations.

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Speaker 4: (55:07)

Yes, . Well,

‍

Speaker 3: (55:10)

For sure. My friend David Allison, who I mentioned, um, he consults the United Nations and value graphics is his baby. It's the death of demographics. Right? So it's the idea of, of predicting human behavior based on what they care about as opposed to their name and their, their, their date of birth or their, um, sex or their location. Because, you know, the three of us are in different places. We all look different, we're different ages. We come from different backgrounds, but we have a lot of commonalities we've discovered here today. Right. And so it's much more valuable to understand how we're making decisions based on what we care about than our eye color. Um, so definitely David would be a good one. And, um, then I'm gonna have to think about the other one, . Okay. Let me get back to you. Um, I wanna, I wanna recommend a wonderful woman and I'm trying to decide which one. So let me, let me get back to you on that. Okay.

‍

Speaker 1: (56:04)

Well you can, you can recommend two also. You know, we're here all day. Well, not all day of

‍

Speaker 4: (56:09)

‍

Speaker 2: (56:11)

Will send you fake personalized cold emails following up for your third one

‍

Speaker 1: (56:22)

Joining us. We hope you enjoyed being a guest on our podcast as well, and we've really enjoyed learning from you.

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Speaker 3: (56:29)

Yeah. Back at you guys. You guys are super cool. And, um, I hope I get to meet you in person sometime. Cheers.

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Speaker 2: (56:35)

Awesome. Thanks so much. Thank you for listening to Unlearn Subscribe wherever you listen. And visit unlearn podcast.com for the transcripts.

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