Marketing Qualified
Welcome to the Marketing Qualified Podcast, your home for discussion on all marketing things that are utterly fucking absurd. Co-hosts Chris Newton and Mike Griffin have 20+ years of marketing experience between them. Said differently: They've seen some shit.
Tune in every week(ish) for a new, less than 40 minute long episode, with discussions ranging from failed marketing tactics to marketing facts to campaign ideas to profanity laden rants about whatever may be top of mind. You may even learn something new.
Visit us at www.marketingqualified.io or follow us on your favorite social network of choice, as long as that social network is Instagram, because we don't have anything else (and neither should you).
Marketing Qualified
What If There’s No Such Thing As Free Marketing
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Your homepage might be the page everyone argues about, but it’s rarely the page that closes the deal. We kick things off with a round of Marketing Mythbusters, using a mix of real-world experience and hard-earned opinions to separate “common marketing wisdom” from what actually drives conversions in B2B and SaaS.
We get specific about the pages buyers care about most, why pricing and integrations can matter more than a glossy homepage, and why sending paid traffic to a generic home page is usually a waste. From there we hit the fantasy that marketing success happens overnight, including the classic leadership request to “just go viral,” and why that mindset leads to short-term thinking instead of sustainable demand generation.
Then we dig into practical conversion rate optimization: shorter forms tend to win, progressive profiling and enrichment can replace redundant questions, and paid ads never guarantee sales without a strong post-click experience. We also talk channel strategy the simple way: you don’t need to be on every social platform, you need to be where your buyer persona is, and customer interviews are still one of the fastest ways to find the truth. We close with a real conversation about the current job market and the trade-offs between staying on the job hunt versus starting your own business, including a frustrating look at reference checks and roles that disappear mid-process.
If this helped you rethink your go-to-market, subscribe, share the show with a marketer who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find us. What’s one marketing myth you want us to bust next?
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Cold Open And Flight Woes
SPEAKER_02Hey everybody, welcome back to Marketing Qualified. I'm Mike Griffin. And I'm Chris Newton. And Chris, uh, I don't know if you saw it, but the FAA is actually like reducing the total quantity of flights like across the country, but from like some 40 specific hubs by 10% or something like that. You don't have any upcoming air travel scheduled, do you?
SPEAKER_00Uh luckily I don't have any travel right now. Um, I don't think we're gonna be flying anywhere until March to when we go down to Florida. So um I'm not convinced that the shutdown will be done by then, but you know, we can hope.
SPEAKER_02We can hope indeed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I I wouldn't be surprised if the FAA is just uh shutting down airspace like around like liberal cities like New York and Boston and stuff.
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah, yeah. It's a very strategically picked host of cities in which are airports that are being shut down. Right. Well, listen, fret not. We have some things that we're gonna fly through today. Uh oh, I see what you did there. I hate me too. Okay. Uh we're going to We're going to do uh a little game called Marketing Mythbusters. I actually have like uh no real inclination in terms of what you have queued up here, but always love the pleasant surprise that is that is delivered live on these podcasts. Or something sometimes the unpleasant surprise. More often than not, the unpleasant surprise if we're being candid. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh we're gonna do that. We're gonna take a look at uh something that came up about like ChatGPT and whiskey of video visibility as AEO and what do you call GEO? I don't even know what fucking acronym to use for this anymore, but like it makes a difference. We're gonna talk about it. Uh then we're gonna talk about uh because of some personal the situation and circumstances that you and I have both experienced in the somewhat recent past, right? It's like starting a business versus getting a job in the current macro and even like micro conditions. We'll take a look at an outsider's perspective, not outsider, but like someone that we don't know, someone that we found on LinkedIn, like their own perspective uh for what's going on right now, and just kind of go into the pros-cons of each, uh, as well as since we are kind of dipping our toes in the uh in the camp of starting a business, like what marketing strategies make the most sense to use out of the gate to help get that time to first value and get that first success under the belt. Those are those are our main stops, probably with some fun or potentially frustrating two listeners' rabbit holes along the way. So that's where we're heading. Uh that's our flight path, if you will. I'm I'm into this journey. I'm yeah, you sure are, like it or not. Uh okay. Marketing
Mythbusters Game Setup
SPEAKER_02myth busters. My understanding is that you have some kind of stats available that we're gonna go through.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, so I'm gonna read a list of um what Chat GPT generally sleep generously put together as a list of marketing myths and marketing facts. And I'll read them to you. I know which ones are myths and which are facts, and then you'll try to guess which ones are myths and facts, and then we'll kind of just discuss what we actually think about them. Cool. Um
Homepage Myth And Real Money Pages
SPEAKER_00so first myth or fact is the home page is the most important page on your website.
SPEAKER_02I actually think that is a myth, and I think that a pricing page is the most important page on your website.
SPEAKER_00A hundred percent. That was a myth. Um I agree with you. I don't think that it's the most important page on the website, and in fact, I actually think the homepage is probably one of the least important pages because chances are if somebody's landing on your homepage, like from from organic search, for example, they already know your brand, like they Google your brand and then they they are at least somewhat familiar with you. So the homepage just needs to be as broad as possible to kind of capture cast as wide of a net while also staying focused on the brand. Um you know, so your your branding on the homepage needs to be really tight. I agree that it's not the most important page. Um and also too, like if you're sending ad traffic like from like a non-brand paid search campaign or a meta campaign or YouTube, if you're sending any of that traffic to the homepage, you're doing it wrong. I'm sorry. So you either need to fire yourself if you're managing the ads, or you need to fire whatever freelancer or agency is sending ad traffic to your homepage because it's a complete waste. All paid traffic needs to be going to dedicated landing pages. Like this isn't this isn't really up for debate as far as I'm concerned. What are your thoughts on that, sir?
SPEAKER_02Uh I don't I don't have any thoughts to the contrary. Just I I would double down on that. Like the homepage used to be like in the days of yesteryear, it did matter, right? And it had to be well optimized for search because like people might stumble upon you when they were punching in some random, tangentially related to your business long tail query, right? And you did need to rely on like showing up at first, and the homepage was the fast-tracked way to do it because of all like the on-site SEO techniques, the breadcrumbing and what have you that made that possible. Now, even if you're in like a branded search campaign already, like site links that can show up, or to your point, there should be dedicated landing pages across this is like his it's lost its prevalence. I know that we've talked about this in the past as well, but just the increasing demand generation happening on other channels, even outside of church. Like you mentioned GPT, even by the time that someone is punching in Chris Newton's company, right, into that, typically speaking, like just by virtue of the fact that they entered into the prompt, right? They are generally aware of your business, perhaps what you're offering, or looking for more information about like the services they're in or pricing or something like that. So, yeah, total total myth busted. Is that still a thing? Didn't something happen in the myth busters? Is there a controversy?
SPEAKER_00Um I feel like there was recently. I don't remember what it was about or anything. Does the mustache get too outrageous? This is I don't know. Well it is mustache November, and I noticed that you don't have a mustache yet, Mike. I do not have a mustache, but I couldn't easily have a mustache in like five minutes if you just shave the rest of the beard.
SPEAKER_02It'd be so simple, and I would absolutely traumatize. I don't know who would take it harder, my son or my wife, to be honest with you. I have an unfortunate track record of doing some uh some ridiculous facial hair to my poor wife. And uh I don't know, maybe I don't do it this year.
SPEAKER_00Just thought yeah, there's too too much other stuff going on to uh be getting on your wife's bad side. Right, right, right, exactly. Exactly. Um in terms of most important pages, like I I think I probably agree with you for SAS, that's probably the pricing page. Um other important pages that like whenever I'm evaluating, like if I'm gonna buy like a SaaS tool or something, or you know, really just anything in general. The pages that I tend to look at and order are pricing, number one. Make sure that they're not like charging millions of dollars that I can't afford or something. Sure. Um integrations, I think, is also pretty important. Um most SaaS companies have some type of integrations, and I want to know that it's gonna work with my existing um tech stack. Um not gonna lie, I also like a good about us page too. Like I like to know a little bit behind the company, like I like I like to know like is the CEO like cheating on his fucking wife at a cold blade concert. Like I need to know these I need to know those things. Um if I go to a website and I see that CEO's face on the website, I'm probably not gonna buy that product. Um yeah, I'd I'd say that those are the the ones that I typically look at first before I start diving a little bit deeper. And it's actually kind of curious. I I didn't think about this before, but I don't actually start looking at the product and the services pages in a little bit more detail until I kind of check off those first three boxes. Like, is it affordable? Like, is it within my budget? Does it work with is it going to work with my existing tech stack? And are the people that work at this company somebody that I want to support? And then if those boxes get checked, okay, let's make sure that the product is you know decent, it's gonna have the features and functionality that I need.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's really interesting. What would be okay, so hypothetical, you get to a page, you have you have found yourself on a pricing page. I think you rank that as top priority, right? For SaaS at least. Yeah, okay. So you're there, you like what you see, you go to navigate to an integrations or like ecosystem type of page, and maybe maybe you don't see something that makes you as happy there. Are you more inclined to bounce like your research process is over? Are you going to chat in in the event that that functionality is available on the site? Are you gonna request a demo to like get final clarity, or are you just you just out?
SPEAKER_00It's it's not a complete um game what's what's the word I'm looking for? Game changer. Deal breaker? Deal breaker, yeah. I was I was like game changer. I'm like, that doesn't sound right here. Um anyways, uh yeah, uh similar to you, like the coffee's not working today. I need to I need to get a different uh type of coffee or something, but something, yeah. Yeah, definitely not a deal breaker if it doesn't integrate with like all the tools or really any of the tools that I use. Um I guess it's it's so situational, so like some SAS tools like you don't really need it to integrate with what you already have. Like it can kind of be its own standalone thing. Like I'm taking like SEMrush for example. I don't know if they integrate with HubSpot or you know, if there's any need to do anything like that. I usually like use that tool like kind of on its own. But then there's other tools like um I'm just completely drawing a blank, but like where you you know, if it's something like relating to like your CRM and it doesn't integrate with HubSpot, for example, and you would kind of expect it to, or else you're gonna need to do a bunch of manual exports and imports, and like it just gets kind of messy. That could be a deal breaker if it's kind of related to that. So like a tool like RB2B or something where you're like sourcing contacts for the sales team or like figuring out who's on your website, like those types of tools I would expect to integrate with my existing website slash CRM stack.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. Um with you. Okay, I think that's fair. Two somewhat dotted line related items based on what you just said. One is I'm sorry, I forgot to save it. I don't know who posted it, where it came from. But do you remember those old Mac and PC commercials that used to be on TV? Like, hi, I'm a Mac and I'm a PC. Yeah? Yep, yep. Okay, so someone did a version of that where the PC was Salesforce and the Mac was Hubspot, and like the angle being made was like Salesforce's old positioning. Like you and I have lamented about this probably multiple times on the podcast. It's like if you're Salesforce is supposed to be like the CRM, right? But HubSpot. And the argument made was that Salesforce was built as a CRM for people that want to maintain like control and order, and people that want to like, yeah, it's like have that power, whereas HubSpot as a CRM was configured to empower the people that actually use it, right? Like on a day-to-day basis, it's more intuitive. And I know there's some dubbing over in terms of like lyrics and not lyrics, but like uh words being said and the code. I'm sorry I didn't save it, but just know that it is out there, dear listener. If you feel like finding it, I'm sure you can. I saw it on LinkedIn, it's got to be out there elsewhere. That's thing number one. Thing number two is the original myth busters ended in 2016 due to declining ratings and the host's desire to move on. So it just goes to show you how jaded I am, at least, just assuming there was some kind of like scandal that happened that kicked them off air. Not people just lost interest, right? There are only so many myths that you can bust, but that uh we'll be the judges of that, actually. What uh what else do you have on the myth versus anyways?
SPEAKER_00Uh so let's uh let's move on to the next uh myth or fact.
Why Marketing Never Works Overnight
SPEAKER_00Um marketing success can be achieved overnight. Myth or fact.
SPEAKER_02If you ask any CEO that I've ever worked for, they no, that's a that that that's that is a myth. Even in the most like short-term ad campaign, immediate product demo, sign up kind of thing. I just don't think that the real impact can be accomplished overnight. Tell me I'm wrong.
SPEAKER_00Is that the CEO saying that or is that Mike Griffin saying that?
SPEAKER_02This is this is me preparing to die on that hill.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So it is according to Chat GPT a myth. Um, I agree with you 100%. You can't achieve marketing success overnight, like it just doesn't make any sense. Like, just based on human nature, like people need time to like get familiar with your brand and your messaging and and all that stuff. Like, it's not the kind of thing where you can just flip a switch. That's why I think it is important to invest in marketing early and often versus building a sales team and a product and you know, all this stuff, and like then kind of bringing on marketing as as an afterthought. Like, I think that marketing should be part of the process, you know, from the second that the company's started to the second that the company dies. Um going to uh your example of the CEO, I mean, according to most CEOs, I mean, marketing is a myth in and of itself. Sure. Because marketing doesn't work, sales is what works, not marketing.
SPEAKER_02That's correct. Yep. Yep. You're you're more likely to find a CEO that believes in Bigfoot than like a well-running marketing machine. Just to just to slightly call you out here, man, it sounds like you're suggesting that you can't just go viral and have success for your family. Is that what you're is that what you're trying to tell me?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, uh viral marketing, you know, just you know when the CEO tells you to put together a viral marketing campaign, like you know, it's I think you should you should head for the high hills if a CEO tells you to do that.
SPEAKER_02Like just get out of there. I know we'll talk about the the job market in a minute, but like man, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I'm actually curious what the definition of viral marketing is. Like I know it's like you know, something you know takes off unexpectedly, but if you're expecting it to take off, is it still viral?
SPEAKER_02Have we just uncovered an oxymoron, a paradox of sorts?
SPEAKER_00Because like it's it's like the stock market, like nobody knows which direction it's gonna go day to day. Just in the long term, it's gonna go up and to the right, and I feel like marketing's the same way. Like you could write a blog post and like it could be you could expect it to be like the best blog post in the world, like to to rank organically, but it bombs. But then this little shitty obscure blog post that you didn't think twice about ends up getting a shit ton of traffic because it gets ranked really well. Like the same concept for virality. Like, let's say you do a video and you're like, you know, I don't think this, you know, it's gonna do okay like our other videos or whatever, but then it like ends up blowing up, like that's virality, and you can't plan for that. Right. Totally agree, totally agree. Because if you could, like, everyone would be going viral, and then that means nobody's going viral.
SPEAKER_01Right, yes, yeah, yeah. If everyone goes viral, was that uh Thomas Jefferson that once pondered that? If everyone goes viral.
SPEAKER_00No, I think it was Alexander Hamilton. Ah, yes, of course, of course. Get your uh historical figures right, Mike, Mike. I'll do better. I'll do better. Alexander Hamilton portrayed by um Lynn Manuel Moretta. That's right. That's who he played in that in that, right? Oh yes. Yeah, yeah. Um, are you ready for the next myth slash and or fact?
Short Forms And Progressive Profiling
SPEAKER_00Yes. This is gonna be a softball for you. Uh landing pages with fewer fields on forms tend to perform better. Yeah, I mean that's that's a fact. It it is a fact, yeah. According to Chat JPT, that's a fact. Um which, you know, it kind of begs the question, like, why are so many fucking landing pages so long? Like, why do you need a million pieces of information for a fucking demo request?
SPEAKER_02Dude, especially now when there are so many enrichment tools available, like even like pre-form submission, right? I know within HobSpot, I I think it's Breeze that powers it, right? But you can be like, if this person on this landing page attempting to fill out a form, if we already know something about it, even if it's like an included form field that you've had built in the back end, get rid of it, right? Like you just do that. I remember back in the day you could do some uh I always called it progressive profiling. Maybe there's a different term for it, right? But it's like if we've already gotten Chris's or whatever, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, no, is it progressive? So there are two different things, right? Dependent fields is like if field value A is known, then show this one, or if field A has a value of X, right, yeah, versus progressive profiling, which was like if we already have Chris's company name, don't show him that. Instead, show him like the next whatever's queued up. Yeah. Uh but yeah, there you can be way more sophisticated now, or even on the back end, even if you can't do it pre-form submission, right? Like there are a million and one different things out there that can help you get the things that you're probably uh unnecessarily asking for on a landing page.
SPEAKER_00I mean, nothing nothing's a bigger pet peeve of mine than on a forum where it requires a work email, like you sure require a work email, like you don't want the Gmails, like yeah, that's that's fine. It's probably a little bit of a better qualified lead if you're getting a work email. But then the next question after they ask for work email is your company name, fuck all the way off. Yeah, dude. Like it takes first of all, like to your point with enrichment, like any enrichment tool is gonna be able to tell you what the company name is based on the domain. And if not, it takes two seconds to fucking go to the website and find out their company name. And like you also don't even need it until you get deeper in the sales process. Like, why do you need the company name? Like the domain is the most important thing. Correct. Yeah, and like one of the first things that I think or or similar to that, is like they they require a work email and then they ask for company name, or they ask for website URL, which is in the fucking company email.
SPEAKER_02So insane to me, man. So insane. This has been this has been a solvable problem for at least since whenever you and I were back actually at HubSpot. Remember, you could turn on the like create and associate company based on email domain. Like this has been a fixable thing for forever. So if you're still asking for it, then I think that you're fucking up. That's my that's my that's my candidate.
SPEAKER_00You heard it here first, folks. If you're still asking for it, quote, you're fucking up, end quote.
SPEAKER_02It's the kind of hard-hitting stuff you come to marketing qualified for.
SPEAKER_00Uh here's another one for you. Paid ads guarantee sales. Uh no, that's uh that's a myth. That that is a myth. That's that's true. I've uh seen unfortunately plenty of paid ads that just completely are a waste of money and don't lead to any sales. I've got uh I've got a little bit of a cold. I understand. Get well soon. Um here's another
You Do Not Need Every Platform
SPEAKER_00one. Uh, you need to be on every social platform to have a successful marketing campaign.
SPEAKER_02Somewhere. Mark Killins, previously of HubSpot Academy, is just tearing his hair out right now because all I can think about is the buyer persona training that you give. And like the first like bullet point number one is like you need to be where your personas are. If your personas are not, to the extent of your knowledge, and you've conducted theoretically like research on this, right, to back it up, then you need not be wasting your resources, variable, time, etc. on that channel. That is Did I already say myth?
SPEAKER_00Uh you you didn't it got lost in the uh in the the um the the the brain dump, but yeah, it it is a myth, and I agree with you 100%. Don't waste your time on channels that you know might not be where your personas are. So Chris, what about the untapped potential?
SPEAKER_02The untapped potential.
SPEAKER_00I know like my my argument for this, like I had a uh manager once who was like, we need to be getting on all these social channels and like building building out this social presence because like we don't know you know where leads might be coming from. And like we do because we know where the leads are coming from and they're not like coming from these these other channels, you know, they're not even on these other channels. And my my new pushback for that is gonna be like if someone's like we need to be on every social network, let's create a profile on every single social network. It's like, okay, sure. Um I'll build a a profile on on 4chan. Like let's uh let's start advertising our business on 4chan, or like you know, some like some super right wing, like Nazi social network or something. Like, let's see how far that gets us.
SPEAKER_02Cast the wide, and that is possible, right? We gotta be everywhere, everywhere all at once. Dude, I by the way, like tangentially related to like doing the research to know where your personas are. I saw this on a feed somewhere, but like someone had a list of If they were to step into a new, I think they specifically called out like startup marketing job, but I think it's more broadly applicable. One of the questions that she would ask is when is the last time that a customer interview occurred? Right? Not necessarily via like a case study or testimonial solicitation, but just like they interviewed a customer about like product roadmap or how they spend their day, or even like a user group that was conducted. And if there's not a good answer to that, that's a red flag. So yeah, it did the point is like you could get that information by talking to your customers, which is for some reason a radical idea.
SPEAKER_00Right. Uh you want to do a couple more of these and then we'll move on? Sure, yeah.
Let Data Lead Creative Decisions
SPEAKER_00Alright, let's do uh data beats opinion. And then some context to this one. Testing and analytics should decide creative direction, not hierarchy or gut feel.
SPEAKER_02I do think that that is a fact. I would put a slight asterisk next to it where it's like if you are based on a customer conversation that you just had starting to build a presence in a new space, third party comes to mind for me. Like you have identified that your personas hang out and they read a particular newsletter, so you take out an ad placement in that, and you're looking to essentially like you don't have like data to to base it off of. Maybe it's your first foray into third party. Then sure, you can find like some benchmarks and what have you, but like you do have to use not opinion, right? So much as like your intuition as a marketer to understand like what's going to resonate with that folks, what you what makes this most sense to try out in that capacity. So, like to me, the answer is fact, but all the things I just said.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_02What's your take?
SPEAKER_00Uh you're you're right. It it is a fact. Um I agree with uh with everything that you said. I I think that you know if you're gonna be like you have to be trying new stuff and you're not always gonna be able to prove that something's gonna work before it happens. I worked at a company where you had to do that and it was kind of a catch 22 where we didn't try anything new because I couldn't prove it was gonna work definitively. Um yeah, I mean just you know when you test something new, just having clear goals in place and like making sure that you are tracking the right metrics so that you can decide on what success is and what's not. Yep. Um all right, let's let's do two more and then we'll move on. Uh
Trust Signals And No Free Marketing
SPEAKER_00trust drives conversion. Reviews, case studies, and social proof increase conversion rates substantially. A hundred percent a fact. It is a fact, yep.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yep, yep. Like every I was always the easiest sell when talking to like a trust pilot or a G2 rep or someone like that. Like, yeah, dude, I I get it. Let's do it. Let's get the t let's get the ads, let's get the carousels created, let's use the badges. Like it does, it makes a difference. Makes a difference. All right.
SPEAKER_00And I'll give you one last one. Uh so far you're batting 100%, Mike. Wow, that doesn't happen. I know. I know. I'm I'm as shocked as you, trust me. But uh yeah, you you've gotten everyone, every every fact and every uh myth right so far. So I'm gonna read one last one. Let's see if you can keep your your average edge 100%. Sure. I'm actually trying to find one that's a little bit more difficult, but uh I wish you hadn't told me. Uh social media is free marketing. See, now I'm in my own head. It's like the things I think the look of confusion on his face, folks. If only you could see this.
SPEAKER_02If only I am going to go with Brockmann have to overexplain it. It's a myth, and here's why. Even if someone is doing like free social media posting on your behalf, like influencer or UGC, you still have to invest some type of resource allocation and to get them familiar with your brand, your product you're offering enough for them to want to do that in the first place. My other thought, rapid line of thought in this ADHD brand was like if it's organic social you're talking about, then like there's still resources to that. It's not free just because you're not spending money on it. You still have like stuff you have to invest into making it a thing. And so, yeah, I think for that for those reasons, I believe it's a myth. Did I fuck up?
SPEAKER_00You're you're 100% right. So you are still batting 100. Uh well, I'll I'll try to get some more difficult ones for next time because I can't have you uh constantly uh winning all these things. But um Yeah, it's uh I I'm 100% with you. It's it's definitely like in my opinion, there's no such thing as a free marketing tactic. Like everything is gonna have even if it's like building like an SEO post or something that gets you tons of organic traffic and leads and stuff, it's not free because you have to invest in, you know, even if like the CEO's writing it himself, like you still need to invest the time into building the content and like publishing it and like all that kind of stuff. So there's no such thing as a free lunch, no, no such thing as a free marketing campaign. Right. I'd say the thing that gets closest to free is probably referrals, but it's not free because you need to get the customers to begin with. So you're spending money to acquire those customers that are then hopefully delighted and referring you to other you know people in their network and stuff, but it's still not free. Like even if I get one customer and it costs me a hundred dollars to acquire, and then that customer refers to me every single other customer I have, which shout out to Salthy DN. That's pretty much what happens with my consulting business right now. Like pretty much everything's based on referrals from from him or you know from other referrals of other people in my network and stuff. So um, but yeah, no, no such thing as free marketing. You know, even if you know you have one customer who refers you thousands and it costs a hundred dollars to acquire that one customer, your CAC is still you know a hundred dollars for or you know, a thousand customers divided by a hundred or whatever that ends up being. You you know you know what I'm trying to say? 100%. 100% your CAC would just go down, but it's not gonna ever be zero. Like the second that you spend a dollar on a c on anything to acquire a customer, your CAC will never be zero, even if they refer you a ton of business.
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah. That sounds like I don't know, you know how Liverpool and the EPL, their their whole thing is like you'll never walk alone. You just maybe think your CAC will never go down.
SPEAKER_00Nice and well, it can go down, it just it can't be zero.
SPEAKER_02True, true, true. Your CAC will never be zero. Excuse me. Very funny. Okay. Flying right through to our next layover, if you will, on the agenda.
Job Market Friction And Starting Up
SPEAKER_02We're gonna do uh business like current macro in the environment, like pros, cons, and like what we do from a marketing strategy to uh to actually get this thing up off of the up off the ground. Uh continued pun intended here. Uh there is a LinkedIn post, I think, that we won't go through in its entirety, but with some guy who's in like a comparable position title to where you and I were at, and just talking about the struggle of like all these job postings that stay up for forever, you get to the final round of interviews, things don't pan out even after like reference checks are done. It's just it's just fucking hard. And so you're faced with like staying in that situation, that environment, or trying to like start your own. So getting a job is how we framed it, like stay saying the course there versus starting your own business.
SPEAKER_00Uh, you've done this dance, give me give the people can I go back to one thing that you mentioned, the the reference check, and then still not getting the the job afterwards. Is that like they was that like based on an offer that doesn't have a contingency or something? Like why would they why I I don't think I've ever had a reference check done without like an offer in hand.
SPEAKER_02Really? Okay. Well, I'm gonna tell you my personal story about this experience then.
SPEAKER_00If a company is is checking references and then not hiring, you know, afterwards, like that's kind of fucked up and should be called out.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't disagree with you. Uh, not only did they check the references that they asked me to provide, but they also back channel referenced other companies that I had previously been employed at to people there and didn't tell me. Like, I happened to be like uh friends with a gentleman that reached out to me and said, Hey, just so you know, such and such pinged me, gave you a glow-in-the-dark review, hope it works out. And I was like, I can't believe this happened. I didn't know. So we can spend a whole other thing. Maybe we've talked about it in the past about like the back channel, like the dark referral kind of thing. But anyway, yeah, pulled personal reference did the back channel kind of thing, and then ultimately it was decided that after all of that, that the position itself was no longer one that they as an organization deemed necessary to fill at that point in time. And I tell you, Chris, against my better judgment, about two weeks that this was uh it whatever, doesn't matter how long ago it was. Against my better judgment, about two, three weeks ago, I go to the site out of pure curiosity, and not only on their own website is the position still listed, but the salary range is actually higher than it was when I was going through the interview process. So just like a double uh double jab to the chin there.
SPEAKER_00Wow. Um, do you want do you care to share what company it was so we can shame them two or three listeners? I am definitely afraid you don't have to do that. Yeah. Just trying to see how how far I can push you here.
SPEAKER_02That's fun. Yeah, yeah. See, you're pissed about the myth section, so let's just fuck them up with me. That is awesome. Uh okay, yeah. So there's that. Give me your thoughts. Pros, cons of job versus business. Your own business.
SPEAKER_00I mean, definitely the benefit of having your own business is you get to do things on your own terms, like you're not reporting to anyone. Um I mean, obviously a con is that like a lot of businesses fail, and a lot of businesses th those that do get started, like it takes them a while to become profitable. Right. Um Yeah, I I would say that I mean the best time to start a business ideally is when you're you're still employed and you can kind of work on it on your spare time. I say this is somebody who tried doing that and it didn't work for me because by the time I'm like done with all the fucking bullshit of the day and the bureaucracy and the fucking you know, all the stuff that you do at a job that doesn't actually involve doing work that that you were hired to do. Like I'm just so burned out. I just want to have like a fucking old fashioned and like you know, veg out on the couch the rest of the day. Nice. Um I think that that advice, like you know, work on a side hustle while you're employed, like that can be a little unrealistic in in certain instances, like especially if you have a family and kids that need attending to and like all that kind of stuff. But yeah um Yeah, I mean overall I would say that starting a business is one of those things where it definitely takes a certain type of mentality. Yeah and like some people would prefer just like I I've got friends who like they just want to be employees, like they want to be told what to do or like have a list of tasks to work on and like collect their paycheck and like could they be making more money? Yes, like they realize that, but they're fine with what they're doing and they just don't want like the risk or they don't want to have to be like constantly selling themselves so they're happy, like kind of working at the same company for for multiple years. Um that being said, I think that having a business is much r more rewarding um and you can also be rewarded much more handsomely, like if the business does do well, the upside is like unlimited pretty much as opposed to most companies. Like you have a salary cap of which you know, even if the company like makes millions and millions of dollars based on some idea that you implemented or something, you're not gonna see much of that beyond like maybe a bonus or you know, some extra equity grants or something.
SPEAKER_02It's all there in the fine print when you're signing that offer of employment, right? Any of your IP, guess what? That ain't yours, Christopher. Thank you very much. Yeah, it's a tough one. Just one quick clarification question. I think about this because I know what you do for a work. Are you thinking about that through the lens of like strictly consulting or like business as a like startup founder type of person as well?
SPEAKER_00So I I think of it mostly in the terms of like uh being like a startup founder. Yep. Um I mean consulting, like I I think is definitely much more doable, like as a side thing. Like I did that for years, like kind of on the side and nights and weekends, you know, doing work for clients and stuff like that. Um but to basically like to build a product or a service-based business that like requires like you know, like a product and a website and all that kind of stuff, like building an actual business is a full-time job in and of itself, and much more than a full-time job in many instances, whereas consulting, you can do as many hours as you would want based on whatever free time that you have. And it's you know, it does require a little bit of like business upkeep and and management and stuff like that, like doing taxes and accounting and all that kind of stuff, but it's definitely not as big of a commitment as startup.
SPEAKER_02Totally fair, totally spare. Uh, totally spare, totally fair. Speaking
Closing Thoughts And How To Reach Us
SPEAKER_02of free time, we are just about out of ours. We were gonna have to ground this flight early to make it to our full destination and agenda. We'll come back to it. Like the myth thing a lot. If you guys have thoughts on the discussion today, let us know. Reach out to us via email, drop us a comment in the show notes, any kind of thing like that, right? And we will do this again very soon. Take it easy, everybody. Appreciate you.
SPEAKER_00Take it easy, and hopefully the next time we record the government shutdown will be over, and uh Mike won't have to make any more flight analogies.
