Cold Open And Office Banter

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Hey everybody, welcome back to Marketing Qualified. I'm Mike Griffin.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

And I feel like a game show host. I'm Drew Carey on The Price is Right.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

You look way better than Drew Carey. Ever good, first and foremost.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

And also the That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me, Mike.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Yeah, you might take notes salty Dan. That's how you give a compliment, okay? Uh the uh the the points here are very real, they're very salient, okay? They actually go towards something. We're bettering people's careers, their lives with all these scorching hot takes. Uh uh speaking of scorching hot, dude, we are officially at the point in New York City autumn where the automatic heat is on. It feels like it's a June day in here. You might be wondering why I am able to wear such a hoodie. And that is because the windows are open and a nice crisp breeze is attempting to combat the fucking fire breath that's coming out of the furnace right now. Uh, how goes it in your neck of the woods?

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Uh it's going pretty well. I'm at my uh my office today using a different microphone, so um that's that's why I mentioned I feel like true carry, because I need to hold it like right up to my face. It looks like a game show host mic uh compared to my normal like stand mic that I use for podcasting. So um just to give the audience uh a little context as to why I'm such a weird fucking asshole.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Yeah, for those on the audio only format, it's actually a lie. Chris is just out in the field, ready to source these marketing takes that we're gonna have. Uh he's got terrific sound cancellation. Uh, let me tell you about some things that Chris and I would like to cancel. Uh, no surprise here, a couple of stops we're gonna have include uh dunking on LinkedIn content about it, things we've seen during it, uh during our perusal of it. We want to have a uh a conversation we've been meaning to do for some time now, and that is is is marketing getting smarter or just louder? Uh we're gonna make some cases for for both of those things. Uh Chris very briefly ran me through this concept of the law of small numbers and hasty generalizations and promised a bit of a juicy, probably angry knowing him takedown or a further elaboration of of what that's going to be. And then time pending, there was uh just like a bit of like recent marketing news I came across earlier today just about uh video and how that is now possible to surface in LLM. Uh we'll get there if we if we

Defining LinkedIn Slop And Echo Chambers

SPEAKER_01 2:50

can. So without further ado, uh let's pivot to LinkedIn slop, I believe is the buzzword here. Uh tell me what you have in mind, Christopher.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Uh well, first of all, let's uh let's hear your opinion on what you think it is, and then we'll see if it matches with what I've actually seen as the the definition. This is uh a word that I heard I want to say a couple weeks ago now at this point. Um but what what do you think it uh means?

SPEAKER_01 3:17

When I think LinkedIn slop, I think basically just terrible, probably written via AI, likely generic advice that is pertaining to either a career trajectory or decisions that someone could make along their career, or for marketing, just like really basic sort of takes. And I think it's slop because it's just fucking garbage, it's low quality. In the past, we've discussed how people are creating things just to hit like volume production numbers instead of actually focusing on creating quality type of content, and that is what comes to mind to me immediately when I hear LinkedIn slop. What is the actual definition, I guess, or what are some examples of it?

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah, you actually hit the nail on the head. So this was um something I read, uh, I think it was in a fortune article or something. Um, the Reddit co-founder um basically was talking about dead internet theory. Like, we're not gonna get into any of that today, that whole like rabbit hole of dead internet theory. But he was basically uh he said, quote, you all prove the point that so much of the internet is now just dead, this whole dead internet theory, right? Uh whether it's botted, whether it's quasi AI LinkedIn slop, uh, end quote, O'Hane said speaking to the host of the TBPN podcast on Monday, quote, having proof of life like live viewers and live content is really fucking valuable to hold attention, end quote. Um so that's that's the quote uh from from what I you know first heard about this term LinkedIn slop. Um Yeah, you you hit the nail on the head. So I mean it's it's really just like just low quality, low, low, low value, like AI generated content, or like just a lot of that same content. Like I feel like LinkedIn's such an echo chamber where everyone's like screaming the same thing, and like you don't even like need to like hear it anymore. It's like that's that's kind of what I think of when I when I think of LinkedIn Slop. It's one of the reasons that I uh myself and Naomi are famously no longer on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

That's right, yeah. Oh my god. I hope she's doing well. I hope she does.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

She is doing it. She asked how you were doing. I I told her that you've you've been better, but uh um you're you're cranking along with some some exciting new uh things coming down the pipeline.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Uh that's that's terrific to hear. Uh you guys have been in touch. I uh yeah, man, you know, it it is just the the term echo chamber is kind of used too much, probably, but it really is all the stuff for me because I am my own worst enemy here. I've told you in the past about how I see posts that ruin my day and I let it and like I engage with shit that I shouldn't.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

I mean the the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. Like, if if that was me, if you know I'm I'm reading a post and it's constantly you know, going on the network, I feel shittier after leaving it. Just get rid of it. Like taking it off like I I still have an account because I need to, because I'm a professional, obviously. Like you're you're not a real professional unless you have a LinkedIn account, and you know, it is useful for like communicating with people and like staying in touch with your network and stuff. But taking it off your phone so you're not constantly bombarded with all that bullshit has been a huge, huge benefit. Just you don't have to delete your account, just try taking it off your phone for a week. I guarantee you you'll be uh happier next time I talk to you.

LinkedIn Puzzle Games And App Addiction

SPEAKER_01 6:38

So here's my problem, and here is where uh my wife had a I think a very valid pitch recently is we are totally I dude, I'm on like a 254-day streak of one of the puzzle games that LinkedIn has. Like these guys have me hook, line, and sinkered. Sinkered, hook, line, and sunk. What the fuck am I trying to? You know what I'm trying to say. Uh where's Larry, the fishing expert here, we need him. Uh we they they have me totally addicted to the game, which I to my knowledge is not possible to do on the desktop version of it.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

I have what is the LinkedIn game? I didn't even know that there was games on LinkedIn. Well, first of all, the LinkedIn game just like reading you know posts by bald fucking influencers and then trying to guess how much how much you know how many drugs they took the night before or something.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

If only it were so simple. No, these uh so like seriously, if you were to open up the LinkedIn app, they have an entire thing when you click on like your face, right? And then the drop-out or the pop-out menu that shows up, there's a puzzle game section. So they have one where it's kind of like the it reminds me of Snake, right? That you can play, the one that my wife and I are super competitive with. It's called Tango, where I don't even I'm not even gonna bother to try to explain it right now, but just know that it uh they have like leaderboards available on LinkedIn for people in like your working organization or people that you went to college with. Like it's how you rank compared to them and how your scores are contributing to your alma maters placing amongst like the conference that you belong to. It's a whole thing. And I have also tried, I've been told that doing these puzzle games, doing crosswords, doing Sudoku, I hope I'm saying that correctly, I never do, is actually like beneficial for ADHD years. So I've been trying to like commit to that, and uh, I am actually proud to tell you for the first time this past week I've been doing it, doesn't matter how long I've been doing it, I beat the average time, and I feel like this is a major competition. So yeah, uh there's a puzzle game. Wife says they should just separate that, like get it out of LinkedIn major and do like a spin-off kind of thing. Couldn't agree more. If that were to happen, then for sure I would get the main app or whatever off of off of my phone. As it is right now, I uh I can't do it.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Okay, well for for our three listeners listening, somebody for the love of god buy this man an Xbox. Get him to get off the LinkedIn app, buy him an Xbox or a PlayStation or something. Like there's there's plenty of games out there that don't require you to uh to sell your soul to LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

No one told me.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Like, you know, uh, you know, on some websites and blogs and stuff, they have that little icon, like buy me a coffee, where you can like donate like a dollar or two to like you know, buy the person a coffee or like give them a tip or whatever. We need like a button on this podcast, like buy Mike an Xbox. You know it put it put a couple dollars into his Xbox fund.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

I'm such a squid man, like I would have to be so specific about like first person shooter games, can't play him. Gives me migraines, I get motion sickness. I I don't know. So I'm very restricted in even the kind of like entertainment that I can allow myself to consume. Maybe that's why I just waste my time on like saying more about me, uh more about me than maybe I should. But okay, but LinkedIn slop, it's a thing, it sucks. We uh maybe if if that's LinkedIn slop, does that make me a pig? Am I a slop consumer LinkedIn farm animal? I don't know. Uh in any event.

Ghostwriting, AI, And Fake Authenticity

SPEAKER_01 10:07

So okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

I mean, uh before we before we move on from LinkedIn Slop, I know that a lot of content on this is probably not the best segue, but a lot of content on LinkedIn is also like ghostwritten too. So like if you're seeing like a CEO constantly posting like long like thought leadership articles or whatever, I'm willing to guess 95% of the time it's not written by him. It's written by a ghostwriter. Um so first of question for you is do you think that ghostwriters will slowly go away as this AI-driven content keeps growing, like this LinkedIn slob content? And B, do you think that these ghostwritten articles are disingenuous so since they're not actually coming from the quote unquote thought leader?

SPEAKER_01 10:52

It's an interesting question. For number one. No, I don't think they'll go. The reason I don't think they'll go away is because they will become increasingly uh efficient at training the AI that they're fucking using to write the posts anyway, to mirror the tone, the sentiment, the length, the points, whatever, right, of the person that they're providing the ghostwriting for. And I don't think that there's uh at least in my experience in you know series A and series C level kind of companies, the founders just aren't gonna want to take the time to craft this stuff themselves and so too will like VPs of marketing, right? They just don't want to take the time to do like a social like media manager type of activity. So that's thing number one. Uh thing number two is yes, is the simple answer. I think it's uh I think it's unauthentic, I think it's uh disingenuous, and the reason that I think it's disingenuous is because what they're saying, even if it is ghostwritten or AI produced, might actually be valuable to the people that are consuming it. But it's like uh the real reason they're doing it is not to help people, right? That's like the premise of a thought leadership. I don't try to fucking help you, they're ultimately trying to like sell you still. So, like, I don't know, to me the ultimate maybe that's too deep of a take, but what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 12:11

A question for you on the value, like you say it's valuable to the end user. Is it valuable because it's coming from the thought leader, or is it valuable because it has inherent value where the the advice that they're giving is actually valuable? Like if fucking Chris Newton posted this instead of the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, would it be as valuable? They obviously want to get as much reach, and people probably want to give it as much weight because it's not coming from a certain individual, even though that individual is not even writing it to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

That is true. This is actually uh first of all, uh, I would have Chris Newton updates just skyrocket to the top of my feed, subscribe to everything, make sure that it's unmissable. That's thing number one. Uh thing number two is this is actually like a strategic uh conversation that I've had in multiple places I've been a part of, right? So there is that concern, right, about uh disingenuous disingenuous on lack of authenticity. Basically, like people all know why a fucking CEO is like posting something, right? And like maybe it's helpful, maybe it's not, they're ultimately trying to make a sale. Even for myself, the nerds that I follow are less founders and more people that are like in the weeds, right? Like, I follow more VPs of marketing or CMOs, or frankly, like other people that are in the trenches that have like built up the market.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

I'm gonna I'm gonna have to call you out on this one. You say that you follow people who are in the weeds, and then you quote uh VP of marketing and a CMO who are inherently not in the weeds. I mean, more in the weeds than like a CEO for sure, but you know, not as in the weeds as like your social media manager, your performance marketer who's got hands on the keyboard.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

That's that's real. That is real. Yeah. Part of that depends on company size. Like I remember going to an in-person event a while back, right? And the guy had gone to, I forget the guy's name. We maybe talked about it at one point on the podcast, but he's like he he he went from uh basically like a series fucking D or E, or even a publicly traded company, down to an A. And he was like a VP of marketing in both organizations. He's like, You guys, I'm doing so much work now. Like it's actually so yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

I mean, that that's that's fair. I mean, uh when Salty Dan was head of marketing uh at at one of his companies, uh, it was a company with I think like maybe five, ten, twenty people or something, and he was the only person on the marketing team, so he was the head of marketing, but he was also you know the one doing all the actual work too.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

So have we have you seen that David Beckham meme about like the head of marketing? No, I don't think so. Okay, uh I will not take your time with it now, but I'll try to find it offline and perhaps oh, there's a good call to action to uh maybe have an Instagram post about it, right? It's it's it's yeah, then we have to credit someone. Anyway, I promise I'll I'll find it, I'll I'll send it to you.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

But uh if I Google David Beckham marketing meme, is that uh we are transparent with our pricing, be honest. I am being honest. What will I see when I click on your pricing page? Talk to sales, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Yeah, that that is the template that I'm referring to.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Oh, it's the template, okay. Yeah, so there's there's different there's there's different memes using that template. I got it.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Tons of it, yeah. And the head of marketing watch is because you made me think of it, right? It's like I'm the head of marketing. How many people are on your team? Be honest. It's just me.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Um that's that's funny. I actually like this template. I'm gonna actually create uh I'm gonna create one, send it over to you after this, uh please. After this recording sesh. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

I'm excited. Man, who knew that LinkedIn slop could probably predictable for us, just do a bit of like a triggering and I was going with this fucking rent. Uh okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

For for the next podcast, we should see if we can get through an entire podcast without saying the word LinkedIn once.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

And like, or and not not any euphemisms either. Just like not even talking about it at all. Like it clearly lives rent-free in my head and like maybe a little paid in your head since you were paying for premium, you said earlier.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

I have a fucking mortgage with LinkedIn at this point. Ridiculous. Uh that would be fun. And actually, we could do some overlay with all those uh with all of our audio editing prowess, just a little taboo noise every time we open up or maybe we should just even more fun is just like let's bleep out whatever we say LinkedIn, like the word people just say.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

I think we should. Maybe, I mean, maybe for the the rest of this episode we just bleep it out. That's it's like you know what, you know what I fucking hate? I fucking hate LinkedIn and LinkedIn and LinkedIn will be bleeped out, but all the all the F-bombs will be in there. That's alright. We we marked uh we marked these podcasts as explicit. So if you're listening to this around small children, that's on you.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Yeah, 100%. We take zero responsibility for that. Did you ever see that Jimmy Kimmel segment he does, Unnecessary Censorship?

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Uh sorry, uh that who does?

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Jimmy Kimmel. At least he used to did a segment called Unnecessary Censorship. He takes like real news clips and bleeps out stuff that doesn't need to be. It is great. I strongly encourage you to YouTube that.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

I'll I'll check it out after.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

In all that free time that you don't have. Uh well, listen.

“Open To Work” And Negotiation Leverage

SPEAKER_01 17:23

I'll try to say right. Speaking of free time, something that people that might be job hunting right now, uh, it's such a fallacy, man, because you think that like, oh, you're unemployed, you have all this time to do stuff. You don't. It's so fucking busy. But anyway, uh, if you are looking for work, you might have an open to work banner on yes, your get ready to bleep LinkedIn profile. Uh, I think you had some thoughts on this concept, the badge itself, the use case, etc. Take it away.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

I I do, yeah. So I personally am not a huge fan of the the tag. Um I I just feel like a lot of recruiters might see and like I don't necessarily feel this way myself, but uh even just doing a little bit of research on recruiters, like a lot of recruiters, like if they know that you don't have a job, then it first of all takes away a lot of your bargaining and negotiating power um by you know telling them that that you're unemployed and that you don't have a job. Other recruiters might see it as like kind of like a little bit of like desperation to like you know, if if they were laid off or if you know why hasn't anybody hired them kind of thing. Um I don't know. It's just I I was reading like some recruiter like forums and stuff, and people were like, yeah, if they one recruiter was like, if if they have the open to work badge, I won't even consider them. And they won't even like reach out to them, like if they're doing like outreach or whatever, or if somebody applies and they see the open to work bag, they won't badge, they won't consider it. Um so I'm just curious your thoughts on that. Like I don't have an opinion one way or another on it. Um I've never used it myself, but um it is kind of shitty that there is kind of that mindset that if people are using it, it's like a source of like desperation, or you know, there's something else going on that might be a red flag for a recruiter. Um, your thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Yeah, I guess so maybe I missed this, but that person that you mentioned, they they said they wouldn't contact someone with it. Did they give any additional context or explanation about why?

SPEAKER_00 19:22

I mean, no, which I I think they probably should have, but I mean other recruiters on the forum, I think it might have been something on Reddit. I wish I remembered where I actually saw this, but other people basically tore that person apart, being like, you shouldn't be judging somebody on that alone. Like you should, you know, if they have the qualifications and talk to them, like at the end of the day, like recruiting isn't rocket science. You're trying to take people that have skills and experience and match them to a job at the lowest price possible. That's the recruiter's job is to to do exactly that. And yeah, it's yeah, there wasn't any additional context, but I I am kind of curious that you know it it could potentially take away like negotiation power. Like, I'll never tell a recruiter that I don't have anything else going on. Like I've always got stuff going on, and like the second that they know that you need the job, you kind of lost a lot of your your your leeway in in negotiation. So um there there are ways around it, but I I feel like the open to work might be a little um might be take away a little bit of that leverage. And also go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

I was gonna say I I agree with that. Like as someone that has currently the open to work banner on it, I waited until it felt like quite frankly a bit desperate in order to put it on when like the well had dried up when it came to opportunities coming through, and like uh it it was just yeah, it seemed a little bit dire, especially in like the current market environment.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

So it fucking sucks right now.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Oh, it's brutal, right? And so like prior to adding that on took a lot of time, a lot of like iterations of sort of like the the post essentially like announcing, right? Impacted by a restructure and contemplating how to pitch myself or like uh position things I might be open for. And like this is the one time where actually that the value of like the professional network helped out. There were a lot of very like kind folks that I'd worked with in the past, folks that were like connections with connections that reached out with opportunities to try to you know interview and connect, and some of those uh went quite deep into the process with, actually. So for my own personal experience, I'm deeply empathetic to those that would hesitate to put it on for all the reasons that you mentioned. Like, I think it does take away all of your negotiation leverage, right? Like they think that you're desperate, they're they know that you're not like walking away from anything in the unless you're one of those rare people that got like a really good severance agreement from a riff or something like that. You don't have like the you know, like these. This is my current situation type of talking point for a leverage. Uh difficult call. And I just want to say fuck that person that you were talking about in that post that's like the desperate uh yeah or um how they wouldn't reach out to someone. So those are those are my initial sort of not well-baked thoughts and reactions to it. Yeah. Uh also it's just like a how many we should go back. I'm gonna have some AI analyze all the time as I say final thought and then continue to riff for several more minutes. Uh but like I don't know, especially in the current macro, man. I just feel like it has to be destigmatized, especially in tech, where like this shit happens for better or worse, and we can spend hours talking about the why everything is going on. But like there's no you know what I mean by like the stigma of being laid off or like being unemployed or whatever. I just feel like that has to be not normal, yeah, normalized, right? Like it's just so many people, it's just like the reality of how things

Fractional Work And The 1099 Shift

SPEAKER_01 23:06

are gonna go. And like you and I were talking before the recording about just like the the freelance work 1099 type of stuff really becoming more of even what like people that maybe in the past would have looked to bring aboard a full-time employee are in fact after these days, right? Like you you've had a couple of personal experiences with that kind of thing, right? Where it's like you became more like uh desirable almost as a candidate when they realized that you were after like a part-time thing instead of a full-time, they don't have to pay benefits, right? What remind me what it is that you were you were pointing out before the recording.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Yeah, I mean I've I've definitely seen an increase in fractional work in the past couple years, and you and I were talking about this a little bit before the the the recording, where it just seems like companies are so plagued by indecisiveness right now, with like, you know, it's like the like the the stock market's at an all-time high. Like I think it hit a new all-time high today or something, the SP 500 did. But companies are still played by indecision, like even though the stock market's doing well, really well, the actual like real economy, like the the real economy that you and I live in to like feed our families and like pay our rents and mortgage and like all that kind of stuff is doing fucking terrible right now. And companies are like plagued by indecision. And one of the ways that I've been seeing that they're getting around this, like I'm full-time like consulting right now. Like I don't have a full-time job right now. I just do you know, I work for several different clients, and I'd rather have you know five to six clients paying me income than one employer who can lay you off at a moment's notice. But I've I've noticed definitely an increase in in people looking for like fractional types of employees because like like you were saying, like they don't need to pay benefits, they don't need to give any equity in the company, like that wouldn't be expected for like a 1099 contractor. Right. They typically like pay at or you know, maybe even slightly lower than what you would pay an employee. Like it well, actually in in some cases you you would pay get paid a little bit more up front from like the whatever you negotiate for the contract, but then like if you look at total comp, like benefits, healthcare, right, equity, like all the other stuff, it's actually much lower to pay a 1099 contractor. And it's also much easier to fire a 1099 contractor. You just, you know, depending on what the contract is, if it's a month-to-month contract, you just let them go, and like that's all you need to do. Like you don't need to worry about any lawsuits or anything because it's literally just a contract.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yes, and I would actually argue that in some instances it's harder to get rid of like you can do the act of firing a 1099 person, but typically speaking, there's at least a 30-day notification clause in a contract, right? Whereas if you're an employee on a full-time exactly. If you're an employee at will at a full-time position, they can tell you to fuck right off after lunch if they want to. Right. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Exactly. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely it's definitely safer having multiple sources of income. And also, like, I always do like a 30-day out for any of my any of my clients. Like, they need to give me 30 days notice. And A, that buys me time to go out there and try to find additional client work um if needed. And B, it gives me time to like just wrap things up and make sure that they're in a good place so that whoever they bring on next, whether it's somebody full-time, you know, in-house or another contractor, if they want to take it over themselves, make sure that they have access to all their systems, all their tools, that they have all the reporting and like everything that they need to. Whereas if they just like get rid of somebody immediately, then it's gonna make whoever has to pick up the pieces that that contractor was dealing with have a shittier time. So I think it's got I think it's beneficial to both sides, but more so to me, where it gives me time to find something else, you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Which is there's nothing wrong with needing to add in that buffer so that you can survive assuming you don't have a shitload of stocks in the record setting essays. So that uh yeah, actually it's something that you don't know, but I've actually been quoting you a lot. You said something to me recently that really really resonated, really stuck. And that was don't we were talking about getting in for some of these consultants kind of gigs and just knocking stuff out, building it up, right? I don't mind working, but I actually really like working in a lot of instances and creating the stuff. Having a job can be the drag, right? Like have it all the stuff that comes with it, the meetings, the internal politics, that type of stuff is what really can uh wear on the morale.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Yeah, I mean, so so much of working the working day is is wasted. Like you know, the whole the old saying uh half your marketing budget is wasted, we just don't know which half.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

I'd say that like I'd say that like half the working day is wasted with like meetings and politics and bureaucracy and ass kissing and bullshit. And I would say that we don't know which half, but I know exactly which half.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

Right, yeah, but we do it's like a lie.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

It's like all pretty much all of it in some cases, but um yeah, and like the thing that sucks is like the higher up you get and the more money you you make as you get promoted, the less actual work you do, which seems counterintuitive.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Yes. Right, right. Uh it it it does. It reminds me, there were two instances earlier, and I bet because I I'll I'll rabbit hole us here, but like are have we talked about are are you a Simon Sinek fan? Have we talked about him on the podcast report? Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Yeah, I've read all of his books.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Nice, okay, yeah. So you'll remember this one. I forget which one it's in, but he he talks about how as you're in the ideal world and in like healthy companies, uh being promoted, having a senior leadership position is not an excuse to do less, but a responsibility to do more, right? Do more like effectively. Uh he also has, and maybe we put this in like the show notes, but I saw a clip circulating recently about him explaining this. Uh the point he's making is about having empathy for your coworkers, and specifically he was picking on the the Gen Z, the the way that they approach, like, oh, you want me to do all of these additional responsibilities? Great, like increase my pay, and then I then I'll do it. And that's very different than like the boomer generation, even like the millennials, right? It's like you want that promotion, you want the additional pay, go above and beyond, and then like eventually you'll be rewarded for it, right? But now, for all the reasons we've been talking about, you can get laid off at a moment's notice. There's no safety, there's no guarantee that they're gonna be around to reap that reward. Think about bonus payouts, right? All that kind of stuff. And so when you think about like the why it is that they insist on getting that pay, like in advance, you can start to build empathy. And by the way, they're fucking right. Think about it like that. Like 100% it's been in solidarity with that.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

There you there used to be an unwritten rule of employee employer loyalty where you know an employee is loyal to you, the employer will be loyal to them, reward them with promotions, and you get the gold watch at the end of the 30 years. Like that's all gone now. Employers still expect it, but employees have been burned too many times where they don't give it anymore. And they shouldn't. Like they they they really shouldn't.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Yep.

Is Marketing Getting Smarter Or Louder?

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Uh okay, so Gen Z is being a little bit loud, making the case for themselves validly so here. Uh let's talk about marketing. Is is marketing getting louder? Or actually, yeah, Gen Z is being really smart about this too. But or is marketing getting s smarter? Smarter or louder?

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Marketing, your thoughts? Um well, let's chat through a little bit what we what we mean by this first. Um I've got let me just pull up my notes here. So the cases for getting louder. Um content saturation, we talked about this a little bit already. Every brand is a publisher now. Um flooding feeds with insights, quote unquote, insights that are that rarely differentiate between all the other slop that's out there. Um the volume of marketing has skyrocketed, but the attention has not. Like there's only so much attention to go around, but the amount of marketing that's going out there is at all-time highs, and it keeps getting more and more and more. Um another case for louder uh vanity metrics and short-termism. Um, many teams chase impressions, clicks, and ROAS over actual customer value or brand equity. Um, we're optimizing for vet visibility and not value. Um I definitely think that that's going on quite a bit as well. Like, even like anytime I'm like watching a commercial, you know, watching like a football game or something, and I see a commercial, half the stuff I see, I'm like, this isn't relevant to me at all. Like, why am I having to shove down my face? Like, why do I need to like be paying any attention to this? Yeah, right. Kind of thing. Right. And like um, automation overload, AI and automation make it easier to produce more, not necessarily to think more. More impact more output doesn't always equal more impact. And then the last one for case for louder is algorithmic uh conformity. As everyone optimizes for the same algorithms, creativity flattens. We we definitely see this on LinkedIn, fucking LinkedIn, and uh um other you know social media networks, you know, TikTok, like all that kind of stuff. Um the result is a sea of sameness macro masquerading as progress. So those are all my my cases for louder. Um I'll go through the cases for Smarter and then leave you a little bit of time to make a case for each.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Um cases for smarter, uh, data-driven precision, targeting, personalization, and automation have made campaigns more relevant and efficient. Examples predictive lead scoring, behavioral segmentation, and real-time optimization. Smart marketers can measure and adjust faster than ever. Obviously, with it with digital, you know, you have a lot of advantages over marketers like 30 years ago when they were pretty much relying on like radio, TV, print, like all those types of channels. Um, where you know you're you're putting together a campaign months and months and months in advance of when it might actually run, and a lot can change within those months, especially now. Whereas right now you can you can you know make a change like right on the fly. Like just the other day, like I had a client who said that one of their biggest, or not a big competitor, but one of their competitors is going out of business and they want to launch a conquest campaign on Google Ads. I had that campaign spun up in the same day. Whereas like 30 years ago, it would have taken months to get something out um to kind of take advantage of this new opportunity that presented itself. Yeah. Um number two case for Smarter AI and insights. Um tools like uh Google Analytics, other analytics tools, uh ChatGPT make pattern recognition and trend prediction more accessible. The smartest teams are interpreting data, not drowning in it. Uh-huh. And then number three is customer empathy at scale. Brands that harness behavioral signals and feedback loops can tailor experiences in a way that feels human, even automated.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

Yeah. Huh. There are some words in each like argument that really stood out to me. The first is visibility when you mentioned that for louder, right? Because I do think that well, the way that I was, I was glad that you like continued to speak to it after after saying it, right? Because to me, visibility is like, well, if it's visibility in front of the right folks, then that actually matters a lot. And visibility when it comes to proving like ROI on a marketing campaign, whether it's paid or organic, sometimes visibility does factor in there, right, as a leading indicator. So it was a really good example about like a commercial who it could be hitting millions of people, literally, that it's just not relevant to you at all, just burning through. So that that's just like noise, that's loudness, that's trying to get out there.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Um, when it comes to nothing drives me more crazy than watching like all the pharmaceutical commercials during like football games and stuff. Like none of those are ever relevant to me. Like look at Uber Bay's commercial, like unless you're like under the age of 70, like half that stuff isn't even relevant to anybody, you know, like it wouldn't be relevant to somebody our age, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Yep, yep, exactly. Uh and the other word that stood out to me was or uh more of like a an expression or phrase, right? You said and that was like uh something about uh insights and not drowning in data. Like I think that that's true. I think that uh for myself included in this statement, but like the pendulum sort of overcorrected when it came to everyone wanted to be data driven, right? And I think sometimes that came at the expense of taking like a calculated risk on the creative side of thing, like let's test something out, whether it's messaging or an offering, or even just like a different type of uh frankly, like an ad medium in some instance. Like you, you and I were probably going through the similar pushback when like video first became like a thing, right? And people want to do more like video in different ad formats. So I do think there's some nuance there. If I had to say in general, I do strongly fall on the side of marketing's being louder for the reasons that we've lamented about on this very podcast, and that is just quantity of content being cranked out for the sake of doing it, not actually creating a ton of value, being able to, and you see the losers that we talk about on LinkedIn talk about like how much more productive the team is and how much more they're able to ship, right? And all these series A's that I've been at, just shipping, shipping, shipping. That's like what the name of the game is. And I don't think that that's made for a better like quality product from any marketing lens, content, engagement, nurturing, reporting, etc. etc. So I fall pretty firmly on the on the louder side.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

Yeah. I I definitely agree with that as well. I mean, I definitely am in favor of smarter marketing, and don't even get me started on like the word data-driven marketing. Like, I've worked at so many companies that have said they're data-driven and then make decisions based on anything other than the data, based on the the the VP of marketing's gut feeling at the time, or you know, an emotional response to something. But um, that could be a whole episode in of in and of itself.

Final Takeaways And Sign-Off

SPEAKER_00 36:49

Last thing I'll say here before we close out is uh the best marketers use data to simplify, not to shout. And I think that there's a lot of simplification that could be going on in in our jobs, and you know, it's it doesn't always need to it does it it doesn't always pay to be loud.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

It does not, nor does it pay to be on the free zoom. So we will wrap it up there.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

Uh it does pay to it does pay to be on the free zoom.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

It saves. You're right. Uh thank you guys for coming back. Uh we'll talk to you again next time. Be well until then. Take it easy.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Thanks all.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Later, buddy.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

Later.