ChatGPT Indexing Trend Reversal

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Hey everybody, welcome back to Marketing Qualified. I'm Mike Griffin. And I am Jean Bonafont. Oh Monsieur, and I must say Mademoiselle, because I feel like that's like an easier thing to say in uh in French. Uh Jean Bonifant, welcome to Marketing Qualified.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

I understand you have uh an update you'd like to give the people. Uh yeah, all that marketing advice that I gave last time, uh completely bullshit. Uh doesn't work at all. So uh if you tuned into the last podcast, uh if you're one of the three people who listened to it, um we talked about uh Jean Bonifant and his advice on LinkedIn to basically start scraping and mining search intent from public uh Chat GPT links. Um that was a short-lived feature now, uh where Chat GPT allowed um people's conversations to be indexed. Of course, you had to consent to that and and choose the the you know share option and make it public and all that kind of stuff. But as to be expected, uh huge privacy concerns, lots of issues with that, uh with that being with that being indexed. Uh Mike and I actually predicted it on the last podcast. And I think that it lasted about a week before ChatGPT realized that this was a huge mistake, and they have since uh rolled back that update. So now they they do not index um chat GPT conversations in search.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

So a tough week for that product marketer, product manager, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

It's like, oh, oh what people don't like this. We uh we like to joke that we're a uh a podcast where we just vent about random shit that pops into our heads with like a little nugget of marketing wisdom from here and there. But I just like to say that uh this is one of those instances where like you'll see like you could be on LinkedIn for you know 20 minutes and you'll find like 20 fucking marketing trends. This is just a sign, don't go jumping on trends. It's always important to be testing different strategies, you know, being mindful of you know new new tactics and you know everything that's that's coming out, new things to try with marketing. But don't put all your eggs in one basket. Like if you had completely pivoted your SEO research strategy towards this new way that John Bonifont pitched, now you're gonna completely like it's not even like you can't even do it anymore. Like it's not even an option anymore. So just uh be wary of trends and fuck Jean Bonifont.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

And fuck Jean Bonaparte, that's right. The list, the gre the list grows larger with each batch of salt that we drop on uh on this podcast. Uh I also wanted to say that if you are one of those three listeners and you are like AI inclined, not the chat GPTs necessarily, but please take the beep to the melody, all the above of Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls by TLC, and please update that to be don't go chasing trends on LinkedIn. I beg of you, send it to us. We'll send you some not as of yet existent marketing qualified swag as a thank you.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

You know that you just completely dated yourself. Like we might as well just rename the podcast Millennial Marketers, because like we just lost all of our Gen Z listeners. All all maybe one of them, you know, if it's one third of our audience is is Gen Z.

Grinder Culture And Sub Shop Rankings

SPEAKER_00 3:28

There's gotta be like some kind of TikTok trend that has used that. But then again, don't go jumping on trend. So here we go. I don't know. Foot in mouth. Uh okay. Speaking of other things that one might put in their mouth.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Uh we're gonna we're gonna call you the master of uh of segues here.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

I've been I've been called worse, I'll tell you that much. Uh we're going to talk, so I have no idea what you meant by this one. It just simply says subway versus Jimmy Johns versus Jersey Mike versus and then uh with a bunch of question marks surrounding it, quiznos. Uh, we'll talk about whatever the hell that is. We want to talk about some uh potential acquisition news, right? Perplexity to buy Google Chrome. I actually hadn't heard about this, so you're gonna be bringing me up to speed on that uh development, if you will. Some awkward situations where websites have prompted you for a location. Uh, we're gonna we're gonna give some tough love to our friends in the HR recruiting uh department of different organizations and tie it back to marketing specific examples and like some personal anecdotes, if you will. Uh we have a bunch of stuff that we want to just like get fresh raw reactions to and uh dump some salt on. So that's where we're headed today. Uh Mr. Uh Mr. Hero, Mr. Sub, Mr. I call them grinders where I grew up in Western Mass. I don't know what that's all about, but uh you know please.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

It's it's actually funny you mentioned that because I grew up in Vermont and we called them grinders up there as well. What's wrong with us? I I don't know. I mean, you know, I I think that the you know you know the grinder sandwich, you know, to you, what is a grinder? Like it's I'm assuming it's the same as what what it it is in Vermont.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Uh yeah, it's basically just like I guess like a hoagie as well, just like that, you know, that classic sub roll. Right. With uh for me, I think about it in terms of like it's basically some variation of an Italian sub, right? It's like a grinder, but like the method, the delivery of it is the two sub rolls with some type of meat and cheese and oil, mayo, whatever in between. That that is a grinder, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:27

It's specifically uh a cold, a cold uh sandwich. It's like I I've never called like a hot sandwich, you know, like a chicken parm or like a you know grilled chicken sandwich or anything like that a grinder, even if it's on the same type of bread. To me, a grinder is always like cold cuts, like ham, turkey, roast beef, you know, anything anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

The dumb face is because you're right, I just never realized it, right? Even back then in Western Mass, I'd would order like the turkey grinder, but I would order a meatball sub, for example. Right. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Yeah, it's actually kind of funny that like to me, a sub, like it's always been like something that was hot, but most people like call them hoagies. If you're I guess new maybe new like New Jersey is like hoagies or in Massachusetts, it's more like call them subs or just sandwiches or whatever, but right, right.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Ha. Interesting. Well, I feel enlightened now. Uh enlighten me further or perplex me more. What is the sandwich thing all about?

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Uh so yeah, I mean, we've talked about like our favorite like fast food breakfasts and like other random shit like that. So always nice to start on a on a light note, get the creative juices flowing. But um, in your mind, like have you tried all I guess all four of them Subway, Jimmy Johns, Jersey Mics, and Quiznos.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

I don't think I've ever had Jersey mics, but I have most certainly had too much Subway. A sampling of Jimmy John's and uh Quiznos. It's been it's been a minute, but yes, I've had it. Yeah, what about you?

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Um same. I'm I'm pretty sure I have had Jersey mics at one point or another. I just can't like remember what it might have been or when or where it was. But um, yeah, I definitely had the other three. I actually just got back from lunch at Jimmy Johns, so it's very fresh in my mind. No pun intended. The the bread there is freshly baked. Eh eh. But um, yeah, I guess I mean which which one based on your recollection of them, like which one do you like, which one do you hate, which one do you want to fuck? You know, if there is one that you want to fuck, which one do you want to fucking kill? So on.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Yes. Um, I have like super strong nostalgic ties to Quisnos. Again, going back to like Western Mass where I grew up, like everything was at least a couple of years late arriving to us in terms of like food, whatever, right? Quiznos was a great example, man. And when this thing went in, there were literally they had a drive-thru, there was like a walk-in place, and both instances had like lines around the corner, out and around the door kind of thing. And I remember being so fond of they had this like honey mustard chicken type of sub that they would obviously toast or whatever. And it was my go-to thing. Like, whenever I had spare change, I would go there and just get as large of a sub as I could. So that was that was a lot of fun. It was like a hangout spot for a while that wasn't the mall, was the mall alternative, was that Quiznos. So for me, that that takes the cake and it's not even close. Uh, what about you?

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Yeah, I'd have to agree. I mean, compared to the other two, I think that you know, if if I want like a hot sub, like Quiznos was actually decent for like a hot, like a hot um sub. I guess this this might be more local, like this might be more of like a New England or Massachusetts thing, but I actually really enjoy D'Angelo's too, if you recall our days at HubSpot. Uh I mean my love for D'Angelo is quite known amongst the uh the premiere consulting team. But um yeah, I'd say that you know, Quiznos is probably the best of the three, but it's actually kind of funny that they I I feel like like similar to you, like my hometown got a quiznos way, way too late, and it lasted just a couple years before it seems like all of the quiznos just immediately disappeared all at once. And I think that a lot of it was due to just like just like mismanagement of like franchises and like them like making a lot of like really bad decisions that basically squeeze all the profit margins out of the franchisees and like just a lot of other you know terrible management decisions. Because like I think this is one case where like they do have a good product, like going back to our conversation with Salt Eden, they did have a good product compared to like the toasted garbage you get at Subway, like whatever the fuck that is, like not even real meat or whatever. Like, you I think you can't even legally call it bread or something. Like there's something about the bread where it's I remember that you know it's got too much sugar or something in it, but right um you know, this is one case where you could have a good product, but you can't manage your way out of a good product, or you can't outmanage a a shitty management doesn't help a good product, like you could still fuck up your business by uh by having shitty management making terrible decisions that they shouldn't be making.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Totally, completely and totally. Yeah, I mean that's to say nothing of like the PR nightmare that Subway had to or I mean you could say which specific PR nightmare have they had to are you referring to here, Mike. But it's been a disaster for them. The quality is never good. Quiznos, yeah, man, I don't know. It it just hit the spot, right? When you have like a thing that you're known for, right? It's just like let's toast this shit and make it delicious. So that was that was the good stuff back in the day. I actually remember uh Quiznos, I I I was super lucky. I think it was like my sophomore year of high school. I remember because I was uh if you could believe this, I was actually like a youth league rec basketball coach for a little bit, me and a couple of my buddies from high school. And I remember being uh super like sick for a while. I had like pneumonia and the flu back to back, which is this oh I'm sorry, bronchitis and pneumonia back to back. And so I was like on my deathbed for a while. The first thing I fucking wanted when I got up and like I was able to go to a game, one of my buddies actually brought to me at the game a quizno sub. So I was like trying to coach these kids, like yelling to do like get back on defense or whatever, which is like honey mustard chicken flying out of my mouth. That's how much I appreciated and wanted quiznos back in the day. Um, I think it was a I think it was a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Yeah, I I actually just did a a quick search and yeah, everything on Google Maps, like Quiznos sub permanently closed, quiznos permanently closed, quiznos permanently closed. I've you said you said that there was one. Is there one near you or like you know of one?

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Honestly, I think I drove by what clearly must be like the the skeleton of one back uh last fall or whatever. We're doing some pumpkin picking in New Jersey. So I I don't know. It's unfortunate, right? It's unfortunate. You get your hopes up for a moment, and then I think you should have to take the signs down when you go out of business. Like I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Yeah, I was gonna say, are you sure he's gonna go out of business and they just like got up and left and like didn't even bother taking the sign down? Uh it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case. What a shame. Or maybe it's one of the situations like kind of like the last blockbuster, like there's one blockbuster in like I think it's in Washington, Oregon, or something. You know, just one last quiz nose that's hanging on.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Yeah, yeah. Well, if you needed another excuse to go to Jersey, there you go.

Subway Sub Felony And PR Fires

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Well, I I don't really have many. I mean, I have one friend who lives in New Jersey, so I I would go visit him. But usually whenever I go visit him, we usually just meet up in New York City. I'm usually like, hey, take the path, take the path in, I'll meet you in New York. I don't want to go to fucking New Jersey. No offense to our uh New Jersey listener, although I haven't seen anyone pop up on the map from New Jersey. So that's right, yeah. But the the real reason I wanted to talk about this is actually to tie things back to uh current events in a headline. Um, this actually just happened this morning, where I'm sure you've probably seen where you know all the chaos that's going on in Washington, D.C. Like Trump called in the National Guard, basically put like the police under Capitol Police under government federal government control, like a bunch of stuff like that. So we're not gonna go into like the politics of it or anything, but I saw this headline this morning that I thought was pretty interesting. Um, man accused of hurling sandwich at federal agent in DC DC gets hit with felony assault charge. And then it goes on further, like this is very good, like investigative journalism, where they actually discovered that the sandwich that was thrown was a subway sub. Oh. So, you know, you throw a sandwich at an officer and you know you get slapped with a felony assault charge. Uh, pretty serious stuff. But my question to you, sir, is if he had thrown a Jemmy John sub or a Quizno sub, would he still have gone the felony assault charge?

SPEAKER_00 13:41

I think at that point you're looking at a misdemeanor, and I'll tell you why, because like wasn't one of the scandals with subway being like a high metallic count in it, right? So it's like more solid, it's like considering like it's closer to throwing a pipe at the officer in your damn.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Like I said, like the bread's it's like it's not even classified as bread. Like it, I guess it could be classified as like a dangerous object. Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

I I I that that's my I that's my genuine belief. That had it been a different sub, maybe it wouldn't uh maybe it wouldn't be the case. And so, Jesus, man, we're just talking about like PR for Subway, and like obviously PR is a slice of the overall marketing pie. What does it end for these guys? I mean, that sucks. That's just another another thing that now you got to deal with, like, you're ahead of. I I often think about like these crisis comms people. I used to hear a lot of when I was an undergrad people that had to deal with like just this bullshit and they'd have to put out the fires of like I remember this one lady telling the story about how she was like the head PR manager for Disney on Ice, okay, like the big like spectacle, like in the international kind of thing. And one time the people who played the dwarves on Disney on Ice got caught being absolutely blackout drunk at the airport bar, and they're like taking too many shots at tequila. And someone snaps her picture of these, and she walked into her office the next day. I'll never forget the story. Her boss puts the newspaper down on her desk of the photo of the drunken dwarves and just like fix this. And uh, that's why I got out of PR. That's what I was in at the beginning of my career, and uh made it made a hard pivot into inbound marketing.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

So your your PR career was about as short-listed as the Quisnos in their hometowns.

Perplexity Bids For Google Chrome

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Just about, yeah, might have been slightly longer actually than the Quiznos tenure. Uh yeah, man. I think that was a I think that was a good move for me at the time. Uh speaking of good moves, Perplexity is buying Chrome.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Is that is that uh so no, it um Perplexity made an offer to Google for let me just pull up the amount here. Um Perplexity is offering a long shot$34.5 billion to to Google to buy Chrome. So nothing's been accepted yet. Um, I doubt Google would sell it. Like it's a huge source of revenue for them, obviously. But there is um some like lawsuits and like antitrust stuff where I think they got declared like a monopoly or something with like search and chrome being so tied together. Um so I think that's why they made the offers. You know, if if Google is trying to unload it, you know, 34.5 billion is a decent sum. The most interesting part to me, like I I guess I I'm not sure how familiar you are with perplexity, but their market cap I think is only like 16 to 18 billion. So they offered over twice amount the over twice the amount of what their company is worth to buy this browser. Isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Interesting. That is crazy.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

I don't even know how that's possible. It's like I only have 18 billion, but I'm gonna give you 36 34 billion for your product. It's like you don't have 34 billion. I mean, I'm sure they could get it, like I'm sure that they would be able to get enough investors on board to buy it. But uh definitely I guess uh two questions for you. How familiar are you with perplexity? Like, do you use it? And what do you think of this offer?

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Perplexity is a trigger word for me because it came up so often in my my last employment place. Like, everyone wanted to rank on perplexity. It's like, well, we're showing up pretty well on Google Search and in ChatGPT and you know elsewhere, even even on Grok to a certain extent, right? But so I I have like moderate familiarity with it at this point. And then what was the second part?

SPEAKER_01 17:15

What do you think of this uh$34.5 billion offer? Because like the the crazy thing is like the the antitrust stuff, it's like it's something along the lines of like Google has a monopoly in search, and then they also have like the this browser with a ton of market share, and they're trying to like split it up a little bit. Yeah, um but if they sell Chrome to Perplexity, Perplexity is also essentially in search, wouldn't that basically just be moving one browser from one search company to another? You know, obviously Perplexity doesn't have the market share that Google does, but I would argue that it's almost like different use cases in different audiences rather than like direct competitors.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

But totally now I I I couldn't agree with that more. Yeah, it's just like you're you're reshuffling the deck and just like I don't know, it's a rigged deck kind of thing, is what is what I think about it as, right? And then like I do wonder what to your point about like the market cap or like the reach and like um again, like the SparkToro folks talk a lot about like uh use of something like Perplexity, a GPT, etc., versus traditional search and what have you. Like as marketers, there might be real like strategic pivots that you need to make if you're not already in like the GEO, or I've heard so many acronyms for this kind of thing now, man. Just like showing up in LLM, like that that is gonna continue to be like a an area of importance, right? And I just wonder what a move like that would mean in terms of like how much more it matters, right? I guess it ultimately depends on like for your specific company where your personas are likely to hang out across like levels of seniority and what have you. But yeah, there's there's something there, good or bad, I can't say, but I think it is definitely is definitely interesting. So that's my meaningful contribution to the to to this take.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Yeah, I mean I I think that I feel like browsers are just kind of a commodity these days. Like I don't really think about it that much anymore. Like I usually just default to Chrome, but like I feel like I could easily switch to Firefox or so like I use Safari on on mobile and like not even really miss a beat. Like I feel like back, you know, 15, 20 years ago, like the browser was was like I feel like a lot less ubiquitous than it is now. If that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Yes, that makes perfect sense. Like I remember getting like commercials basically or ads for Chrome because they were trying to drive adoption so aggressively. Um now, actually, uh my family and I recently made the switch to using Brave browser. It's supposed to be like way more secure because it's not totally open source, but it's kind of open source. It was like um, I forget the name, but like the most preferred one is right. But then there's like Brave, and then Safari's pretty good at blocking stuff, and then Chrome is just like notoriously not great. It's great for speed. I I was a creature of habit. It was really difficult for me to actually like rip myself out of a Chrome environment to be very candid. Um, because I'm so used to been using it for like a decade plus now, right? Um, but obviously it's a Google company, right? So like all your shit is not exactly being like, I don't know. We talked in the past about the anonymous surveys you could fill out, and like your privacy protector, like I don't believe in any of that. So that's uh yeah, that's where I'm at.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Yeah, I I found it hard to switch. Like, there's also have you heard of Arc Browser? I I think that's the other one, maybe that was what what is it in the thing up? Arc Browser. Um I I've tried it and like it has a lot of features that I like, it's just so difficult for me to switch. Like I'm just like like similar to you. Like I've been using Chrome so long it's just hard to like get used to something else.

When Websites Demand Your Location

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Totally. It might make for an awkward situation, if you will, uh, if you were to try to switch. Uh there are awkward situations you wanted to discuss uh when it comes to websites and them prompting you for your location. This has me a little bit nervous, but I'm gonna let you have the floor here. What uh what is this about?

SPEAKER_01 20:58

So it was gonna be more of a conversation starter of um I don't remember exactly what uh situation I was in. I think it was on like Boston.com, like reading an article or like doing I was doing something on my phone, you know, reading something on Safari that wouldn't typically need a location. Like, you know, if you're gonna order like a pizza or something, like sure it pops up like what's your location or whatever, like that kind of stuff makes sense. But there was it was something that was so egregiously like they don't need to know my information or like my they don't need to know my location, why are you fucking asking me? kind of thing. And I I wish I wrote down what it was. I wanna say it it was I was like reading an article on boss.com or something. And it's like share your location and like I feel like there needs to be three different buttons for that. Like one is like sure, one is no, and then one is just like fuck all the way off. Back.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Like yeah. Yeah. Uh safe to assume you would hit the last one in that scenario.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Of course. Like it you know I I just I it it's annoying when it like this I guess we can probably tie this to marketing somehow, but if it just pops up and like doesn't even tell you why they're asking the location, like if it's not obvious, like if you're searching for directions, like sure, you need to know the location, like it makes things easier. But if they're gonna pop up something to ask for your location and it's not obvious, they should at least tell you why they're asking for it. And that's the same with like any any kind of data that they're requesting from you, whether it's sharing your location on the website or you know, sharing a piece of information on the form, or you know, whatever the case may be.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

I I completely agree with that. Um, and I'm even trying to get inside the head of like, okay, so like at random places, right? What is the use case for getting that right? And my mind, God help me, goes into GA4. And it's like, where are the sessions from your site coming from from like an IP like geography standpoint? So maybe if you're like a Boston.com or Boston Globe or whatever, you can use that information to get a sense of like percentage of people coming and consuming your content down to the specific URL that are from like outside of the greater Boston area, the New England area, and what have you, to see if there is maybe like a targeted uh campaign that you can use to attract new subscribers to you that have moved out of the area but are still like consuming your content, or maybe they're thinking about putting you know what I mean? Like just to stay apprised of like the Boston area goings-on, which is definitely not a word, but anyway, like maybe that's a use case. Otherwise, I think it's just like I always fear the words, just like we're just gonna collect this trove of data to sell to not even like a high bidder, just like whoever wants it, you can fucking have it for a moderately affordable price, and uh that's that's the darker side of it.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

I I actually do remember now what I was looking at that prompted me for the location. So I was making I was making dinner for my wife uh like last week or whatever, and I was making uh Caccio y Pepe, which uh if if anyone's familiar with that, it sounds fancy, but it's literally like I don't even know why I needed a recipe for this. It's literally like three ingredients. Yeah, just pasta, cheese, and pepper, and like you mix a little bit of a bit of pasta water to make it a little bit creamier. You have to like save the starchy pasta water and like mix it all together. Um, but because I'm a dumbass, I I Google the recipe for this, you know. I'm looking through the recipe, I'm like, huh. This seems pretty pretty straightforward, pretty simple. So, you know, I'm like scrolling down to the recipe and then I ask for my location. Like, why the fuck do you need my location? Why do you I are you like building a map of where people like to make cut you know pasta from? Like, what what are they gonna even do with this data?

SPEAKER_00 24:34

It's nothing, you know, like you know, when back in like one of the big like CRO tests that you wanted to run was to include social proof, right? So it'd be like join X number of other customers who are already taking advantage of this, like join the 1,000 people who have successfully used this recipe, right? Like, maybe maybe that's like part of the back end thing, and you're not just like bullshitting it. The other thing I can think of is like maybe they're trying to correlate people who have consumed this recipe from a certain geo and overlay that with like 911 fire department calls to see if it's just gone like horribly wrong. If there's any kind of like safety risk there. And then the final thought is not related to that at all, but uh it's actually really funny timing. I don't know why, but I saw something recently about like there was a lot of blowback from Italians from Italy about these ridiculously over the time. Is that what you got?

SPEAKER_01 25:24

That's actually why I made the recipe because I thought it was so ridiculous. I actually I read that article where it's uh you know, Italians are pissed that like the the egregious thing was like it was like uh I think like a UK news site or whatever published a recipe or something where they call for butter and the Italians are like, oh fuck that. Absolutely not. You don't put butter in catchy all epepe. So like was yes. I saw that article and I'm like, huh, I actually want to I want to try this. Um I I made it without butter, I made it the real Italian way. My wife wouldn't let me do any other way, but smart. Respectful. How'd it come out by the way? Uh it was okay. I'd say like five out of ten.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Five out of ten? Okay, great, great, great, great. Um yeah, I the other thing, by the way, that I saw in there is like the list of grievances from Italians, that was definitely like a hard number one. But also, there was something about like having a cappuccino after like 11 a.m. or something like that was another thing. There's like, what the fuck are you guys doing? Like, that's not how it's supposed to be. I've seen plenty because like I'm an avid coffee consumer, right? And I at one point watched more YouTube videos than I care to admit about like the different types of coffee that you can order or whatever, and like you're supposed to stir your espresso a certain way with the spoon and shit like that.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

So clockwise, not counterclockwise. It it's not even it's not even that.

Safari As A Surprise Super App

SPEAKER_00 26:37

You're supposed to like dip, you have to like like you're folding in fucking cream or cheese. I I maybe I'm getting it wrong. I don't know. For our Italian listener, please don't at me this one. I'm I'm doing my best to remember here, but I don't know. That's uh that is but that is but one thing in a sea of like outrageousness that I saw recently. Um speaking about one thing. One app? What is this?

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Oh yeah, I I actually should have uh brought this up when um when we were talking about uh like apps earlier, but so I've got a question for you. What if I told you there was one singular like one singular app that you could use that could access all other apps and it works better? You can communicate with other people on it, you can create documents, it's just one single app and it does it all. What what would you what would you say? Would you be intrigued by that? Is that something that you would want to use? Or do you do you prefer to like have like m lots of different apps on your on your phone for different use cases?

SPEAKER_00 27:41

So that immediately made like my neck hair stand up a little bit. It makes me a little makes me a little anxious. Um I I would have to I would obviously want to learn more about it, but my immediate reaction is I don't think I'm into that. Uh why what are you aware of such an app?

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Tell me more about that.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Tell me why you're you wouldn't be into an app like that. Well, which is like a single source of if you get hacked once with your information on this app, then like all the things, your communications, like you said, like all the things.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

That's the thing, is the app is completely agnostic. You don't need to log into the app to use it. That breaks my brain. I don't understand. How are you gonna how hmm how would that even work? There's other apps on your phone where I'm I'm sure you don't log into it. Like, I don't log into like the recipe app on my phone, but I can still access the content on there and stuff. Oh, that's a good point. Yeah, I guess it'll yeah, and then like it'll be secure. So like if you want to like access you know your other app, like let's say you have like Spotify, you can access Spotify through this app, and you can log in securely to your Spotify through this this other app, and then you don't need to go to Spotify separately.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Now it's starting to sound like a one password or something like that that you could use, but obviously it doesn't include communications. I don't know, man. Count me down as a skeptic for this one.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

What is this? So it's uh it's an app, everyone has it on their on their phone. Uh I'll use iPhone for this example because I you and I both have iPhones, but you want to know what the name of the app? I do. We already have it. It's called fucking Safari. Ah going back to the the browser conversation. Right. Uh yeah, I've I've been uh just you know so bogged down with the number of apps that I've had to use lately where I've started actively deleting apps, like I famously deleted LinkedIn uh on you know when we talked with Naomi a couple months ago. Right, right. Um, you know, I've been slowly pairing back my apps, and you can do the majority of the stuff that requires an app just through your browser. And it's just so much better. Like even like on like a like on a desktop, like most I feel like most desktop um people access like HubSpot, for example, through a browser. You don't use totally they don't have like an app that you download on your Mac for HubSpot, but they do for the phone. And like the the HubSpot app is a good example where it's so pared down, like you can't do everything that you could do from the normal HubSpot, where if you actually want to get actual work done, you need to go on the browser anyways.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Exactly. Yeah, I was gonna say, even until super recently, I was using the Spotify web player versus like the Spotify like desktop app on my uh what do you call it on my laptop at least? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that resonates, man. That resonates.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

I know we've uh we've bitched and complained about apps in the past, but uh yeah, I just saw this quote the other day of you know, one super magic, you know, app that can do that can access all the other apps out there, and everyone's like, ooh, what is that? That sounds so cool. I want that sounds interesting. You're like the one asshole who's a fucking skeptic. You're like, I don't know about that. That thing sounds a little iffy to me.

Job Rejection Delays And Bad Workflows

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Yeah, I uh I don't know what that says about me. You know what? You all are fucking crazy. You're sure that family guy, I don't know what fucking family guy episode it was, but it's like that something has happened in the town is completely desolate at this point. And it's like the Chris says something about like the only person that's doing okay is the guy that's selling all the tumbleweeds. The tumbleweed guy's like, y'all calling me crazy, you know? Like stupidest fucking thing. Uh okay. Speaking of stupid fucking things, super delayed responses to you for marketing jobs from recruiterslash HR. This is the part I promise. We're gonna give a little tough love here. I know that you and I, before we started recording, swapped some stories about like putting in an application, hearing back like eons later.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Uh, what was the what was your time frame? Uh yeah, so uh I I honestly don't even remember applying to this job. Like I just was applying to a ton of jobs like back a couple of Novembers ago or whatever. And got hired at a new job, you know, didn't even think about this company ever since. And then I get a random rejection email in April. So arguably, you know, November to April, that's what, like five months, six months, something like that. Yeah, carry the tree back that much later, saying that they've decided to go with other candidates. Uh were you devastated when you received the email? I'm not gonna lie, I was a little hurt, Mike. I was a little hurt. You know, it just brought up all those old wounds of all the other rejections I got during the job search. And, you know, just to get one final fuck you when I'm like four months into a new job is uh And we still don't want you. Yeah so this actually brings up another point. Have you ever gotten a double rejection where they send the rejection twice because they forgot they sent it to you the first time?

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Okay, that's funny. No, I haven't gotten a double rejection, but I have very accidentally double applied. Like this happened. Same. This the more recent past is like, hey, thanks for reaching out again, dumbass. If you haven't heard from me, did they really say that? I it was that it was the subtext. Okay, it's like you applied back in however many months ago and then back in three days ago. Yeah, fucking relax, bro, is what they're trying to tell me. I think it's like, yeah, so mine, this particular example was like, you know, from two and a half, three months or so ago at time of doing the second application submission. It's like, if you haven't heard from us, we may still be reviewing your profile. It's like you should probably move on, buddy. Like, we're not gonna is what they uh is what they should tell me.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

That's the fucking truth. Um my last my my last thing to harp on with uh job rejection emails is I'm have you also gotten these, like have you ever had a situation where you're you know you've got multiple offers, you're you know, weighing which offer you want to go with, you end up taking one, and then you you politely decline the other offer that you got. Of course. And then after you decline the offer, they send you the generic email being like we decided to move forward with other candidates, or like something to the effect of like, we really appreciate your skill, but it wasn't a good fit for this role. It's like you just gave me a fucking offer.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

Yeah, what are you talking about? No, no, I broke up with you. What are you talking about? Fucking stupid dude. It's so dumb.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

And so that whole that whole world we should we should do a whole uh like I'm sure it's just like uh somebody pushing the wrong button in like greenhouse or you know, whatever fucking HR screening applicant system they use or whatever, but we should do a whole episode on automation gone wrong. I feel like that would be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Yeah, that would be really fun. That'd be really fun. Oh, I have an idea for that one. We'll talk to you about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. I like it. Uh, tangentially related to this before we squeeze in one more thing here, and that is just like if you are a recruiter, if you're an HR, please bother to look at a candidate's profile prior to reaching out. Don't just use like whatever aggregated automated search you get, right? Like, I right now, for example, have like a large, easy to see, open to work banner in my message. I'm sorry, I've pivoted and gone back to where this is feedback for the salespeople, right? Like, if I I got I've gotten several calls recently, Chris, and you know I've been impacted by layoffs recently, right? I've got several calls from sales reps. I have uh received a lot of like LinkedIn in messages, like, oh, hey, ideas for your campaigns or whatever. It's like, hey, I don't have any fucking campaigns now. And you would know that if you bothered to do one bit of looking and research at my profile prior to reaching out. That's all I have to say.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

That's it. When when you say recruiter, are you talking about like uh recruiters reaching out to you for positions that they're trying to fill, or are you talking about you apply to a company and then the recruiter reaches out without knowing anything?

Ship Less Often Make It Better

SPEAKER_00 35:22

I was actually completely confusing everyone. I was talking about sales outreach. I had I had made a mental segue without clarifying that out loud. Um, but I have had some of those like the latter camp of HR outreaches as well. So it's a funny, funny accident to stumble across here. Um I am not going to read to you the entirety of this final thing. I wanted your reaction to, but like the gist is that nobody cares about the frequency of your marketing campaigns as much as you do. If you have to make a trade-off between shipping now versus making a campaign even a little bit better, I will almost always say make it better. Every day there's more content online than ever before. You have to go the extra mile to be the signal among the noise and then the post from Amanda Not TVD. I'm gonna attempt that Spanish pronunciation there, uh, goes on to list out like specific tactics to that. But I saw this and I was just like, say it fucking louder, please, because especially in a lot of like startup environments, I know it's all about just like pumping the stuff out and shipping out and velocity and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like all this shit sucks and is super mediocre. We should actually like take that little bit of extra time to like fully bake it and have it be an impact and something that people are actually gonna give a shit to consume. And so the loose, the loose paraphrase I have for you and for our listeners is high frequency, more like high likelihood, nobody gives a shit, dude. Like, take your time, slow it down, make equality. Your thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

Um, I agree 100% with that. And I also think that this message is more important now than ever before, just because it's so easy to create content with AI and push out a bunch of different campaigns and messages, like basically in like seconds. Um, the frequency isn't an issue anymore. It's it's gonna be like, does this resonate in like you know, to your point, like the quality of the messaging um more than anything? Like if anything, like frequency is actually a bad thing where you might actually want to go less frequently now. Cause like there's there's like some like newsletters that I get once a week that I actually look forward to, versus some companies send me like five emails a week and every single one gets deleted until I get pissed off enough where I just unsubscribe.

Parting Shots And Next Time

SPEAKER_00 37:25

That's exactly it, man. Like let them miss you for a minute, right? Don't overdo it in like not everything. I get the internal pressure from different cross-functional stakeholders, but like not everything that you have to say is as like significant or important to your ICP as you believe it is. That is my firmly held belief. Um and gone of the days, by the way, where that has to apply to like content creation, blog posts and what have you. That's actually some uh some advice that used to be given quite often, right? You gotta be frequently knocking out these blog posts whenever you need keywords and what have you. And like that actually sounds like some advice that uh our friend Neil Patel used to give back in the way. So I wanted to take this opportunity to say fuck Neil Patel. Um thanks to thanks to Jean Bonavent for joining towards the beginning of this call. Chris is nice to let of you to let him come on the line. Uh, we didn't make it through everything, but we got some good salt in the uh salt in the atmosphere here. We'll talk about some more shit that bothered us and play, I think, game, little campaign roast game next time that we connect. Any final pearls of wisdom for the people?

SPEAKER_01 38:25

Um fuck Neo Patel.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

There it is. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

And and other bald marketers.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

And other balders are right. Yeah, we're just gonna keep this one anonymous, which is the funniest thing. If and when this uh this gets circulated, he'll be like, oh wow, they thought of me. Probably not. Good to see you as always, buddy. Everyone who listened, come back again. We'll talk to you real soon. Be well. Bye y'all, I'm gonna go.