High-Value Brand Assets Most B2B Companies Haven't Tapped Yet (with Louis Grenier, Founder of Stand The F*ck Out)

Dave [0:00:01]: You're listening to The Dave Gerhardt Show.

Dave [0:00:02]: My guess on this episode is Louis Grenier.

Dave [0:00:19]: Louis is the founder of Stand The F*ck Out, a beat to be positioning in GTM consultancy Aka stand the fuck out, which is Book wrote, which is great.

Dave [0:00:28]: He's also one of the keynote speakers at Drive, twenty twenty six our big annual event for Exit Five coming in this September, and he just ran a study scoring a hundred B2b companies of how distinctive their brands actually are, And the results were kinda surprising.

Dave [0:00:42]: Most of them blend together completely.

Dave [0:00:44]: So we get into why that happens and what actually makes a brand memorable, and it's not the stuff that we usually talk about on this podcast.

Dave [0:00:50]: Actually, we're talking about design, logos, sound.

Dave [0:00:53]: Mascot, the physical identity of a brand, Louis makes the case that in a world where every product looks the same, and Ai has made differentiation nearly impossible.

Dave [0:01:03]: This might be the last real lever left to pull.

Dave [0:01:06]: Let's get into it.

Dave [0:01:07]: This is an awesome conversation all about brand and B2B with Louis.

Dave [0:01:10]: Alright.

Dave [0:01:11]: We're back on the podcast.

Dave [0:01:12]: I'm excited to have you, mister Louis because behind the scenes, we just spend about fifteen minutes.

Dave [0:01:17]: You are one of the big stage big name keynote speakers at Drive.

Dave [0:01:22]: September eighth through tenth twenty twenty six in Vermont.

Dave [0:01:24]: We're shipping you over via train via boat.

Dave [0:01:27]: We're getting you over to the United States, which is a big deal.

Dave [0:01:30]: And you're gonna be talking, and you just told me what you're gonna speak about and told me that I'm not allowed to tell anybody about it, which makes it even better.

Dave [0:01:38]: So I'm excited to have you.

Dave [0:01:39]: We just published your research recently in our newsletter, and the goal for having you on the pod today was to talk about this because you wrote this interesting angle.

Dave [0:01:49]: So you're all about standing out.

Dave [0:01:51]: You put out this state of B2B brand stink, which...

Dave [0:01:55]: I, like, let's just start there.

Dave [0:01:57]: What the hell does that mean and why did you go and do

Louis [0:01:59]: this?

Louis [0:01:59]: How was the pleasure to talk to you?

Louis [0:02:02]: I, you remember when I met you you had hair, so that was a long time.

Dave [0:02:07]: Yeah.

Dave [0:02:07]: Fuck you.

Louis [0:02:10]: That's it.

Louis [0:02:10]: I don't have companies stand out.

Louis [0:02:12]: I helps companies standard right.

Dave [0:02:13]: We're done.

Dave [0:02:13]: We're adding and the podcast is over.

Dave [0:02:15]: So hundred percent intensity man.

Louis [0:02:19]: So why did they use those buzz words distinctive and whatnot not.

Louis [0:02:21]: I wanted it to be precise about the words I was using because I think there is a lot of misconception about certain concept, and I don't wanna misuse certain words dom the same thing.

Louis [0:02:31]: So distinctive essentially is a brand that looks like itself and is different from any other brands.

Louis [0:02:38]: So it's like, oh, I see this mascot that this this color, this tag, you know, I see them at an event.

Louis [0:02:44]: I know who they are, and They stick out in my head, they've created memory structures in my brain that Are not with others.

Louis [0:02:51]: Essentially.

Louis [0:02:52]: Some people would use the word differentiation different to talk about it, and I make the distinction.

Louis [0:02:59]: Those are not the same thing.

Louis [0:03:00]: Differentiation is the ability to say and claim that you solve problems, challenges, struggles that others, alternatives competitors are solving...

Louis [0:03:11]: Are not solving well if at all.

Louis [0:03:13]: And it's like this giving them a compelling reason to pick you over the competition.

Louis [0:03:17]: And to stand of account nowadays, I think, and I believe you need both.

Louis [0:03:22]: In some comm markets, extremely comm markets, differentiation is almost impossible, Yeah.

Louis [0:03:29]: The same features same product, Like, it's the exact same.

Louis [0:03:32]: The only thing you can leverage is distinctive.

Dave [0:03:35]: I have an interesting example of that.

Dave [0:03:36]: So I've been doing Exit Five for four ish years now and a handful of different companies come through as sponsors for our events and for our content.

Dave [0:03:45]: And there's one category of company that is...

Dave [0:03:49]: There's been maybe seven or eight of them, and it's this, like, interactive product demo, you know, like, I'm not darn.

Dave [0:03:56]: There's no shade at all.

Dave [0:03:57]: Please don't take this wrong.

Dave [0:03:58]: I'm just saying, like, there is same way I was at drift.

Dave [0:04:01]: There was, you know, multiple companies doing chat of some kind, there's seven or eight of these companies, and I have kinda thought like, man.

Dave [0:04:07]: What would I do if I was...

Dave [0:04:08]: In marketing there to try to differentiate because if you look at them, all of their messaging, It's like, everyone's trying to just do, like, one more feature better, like, oh, well, okay.

Dave [0:04:18]: Maybe these...

Dave [0:04:19]: All the other companies have these first nine things, but actually the tenth thing we do differently and that's what makes us better.

Dave [0:04:25]: And what drew me to your stuff is, like, I think you can win simply by being distinct and having an interesting brand and be like, yeah.

Dave [0:04:32]: Like how these people feel or I like how it looks.

Dave [0:04:35]: It's...

Dave [0:04:35]: They just have a certain way when you walk into the room, you know, there's certain brand...

Dave [0:04:39]: There's a certain brand there.

Dave [0:04:40]: I think I just think, like, with all of the challenges from competition and Ai today, it's interesting to think that, like, actually, you know what your brand, the physical representation of who you are as a company, might be the greatest differentiator you could have.

Louis [0:04:55]: Yeah?

Louis [0:04:55]: That's exactly it.

Louis [0:04:57]: So if you think about that product category as an example, yeah, if I were the CMO of any of them, I would say to the product marketing team, let's stop ob accessing over finding differences in our products versus others.

Louis [0:05:08]: Yes, it's important to innovate, but let's make peace with the fact that we're all gonna catch up to each other.

Louis [0:05:14]: And so it would be a waste of time to try to find this tiny mini features that will be different.

Louis [0:05:19]: So solving that problem that will be different.

Louis [0:05:21]: Unless you find a problem that is very painful, important and completely ignored by the competition.

Louis [0:05:28]: Maybe something that happens recently like new technology, new context that introduces a problem.

Louis [0:05:33]: Unless you have that, But even then they'll catch up.

Louis [0:05:35]: So let's pour more money into being distinct, meaning, sticking in people's brain more likely to do that, and therefore, having higher chances to up in their shortlist list, with...

Louis [0:05:46]: And, therefore, Having higher changes to be chosen as the vendor, and that's kind of the only lever you can pull.

Dave [0:05:54]: K.

Dave [0:05:54]: So you did this study.

Dave [0:05:55]: There's nine verticals deb tools in infrastructure security and GTM, Hr and people marketing and GTM knowledge and Cx vertical Saas fintech sales and Rev ops, data and analytics.

Dave [0:06:04]: Yep.

Dave [0:06:05]: There are eight assets scored from zero to three.

Dave [0:06:07]: You looked at color, logo, visual device typo tagline, human identity, product Ui and sound.

Dave [0:06:15]: What is human identity?

Louis [0:06:17]: So anything entrepreneur.

Louis [0:06:18]: So looks like a could be a human could be a...

Louis [0:06:22]: Something that represents to human could be an animal could be...

Louis [0:06:25]: Anything that has...

Louis [0:06:27]: Yeah.

Louis [0:06:27]: Human like features.

Dave [0:06:29]: K.

Dave [0:06:29]: Then bias control.

Dave [0:06:30]: You had Ai pick a hundred company knees blind to your own tastes and then the agents scored and you reviewed every score.

Dave [0:06:36]: The report was built end to end with Ai, end to end, and then the bands are zero six invisible seven to twelve generic thirteen to eighteen recognizable nineteen to twenty four own.

Dave [0:06:47]: So you really wanna be above thirteen.

Dave [0:06:49]: You wanna be recognizable and on or is own the gold.

Dave [0:06:52]: That's where you wanna be.

Louis [0:06:54]: So I don't mean to make this study kind of a benchmarking thing where you can score against and and if you're above thirteen you're great, if you're under thirteen your shit For me, it was more a way to confirm a bias that I had, which was, yeah, B2B tech, you know, in B2B in general, companies are really not distinctive overall.

Louis [0:07:14]: And I want you to have a sample that was mine.

Louis [0:07:17]: That was a me choosing brands that I knew because then, obviously, that would be against it and and get the answer.

Louis [0:07:25]: And so, yeah, The answer is that are...

Louis [0:07:26]: There's is only one out there out of one hundred that could be classified as extremely distinctive based on the criteria, I setup up.

Louis [0:07:33]: But I'm sure you could use other the scoring system that could find more or less.

Louis [0:07:37]: So the point is not...

Louis [0:07:39]: The exact scoring is more like, eighty percent are really not distinctive at all, and we know that.

Louis [0:07:44]: Like it's around eighty percent percent So far out of it.

Dave [0:07:49]: So the number one was, is it wiz.io o?

Louis [0:07:52]: Yeah.

Louis [0:07:52]: I didn't even know them before they that research.

Louis [0:07:54]: So it's Wiz on they sell cyber cybersecurity thing.

Louis [0:07:59]: And again, didn't know about them before.

Louis [0:08:02]: And what was really good about them was...

Louis [0:08:05]: It's not that they have, like, let's say, one mascot that is, like, an octopus, and it's it's all fun, all that they have a tagline resource smart.

Louis [0:08:14]: It's like, they clearly clearly clearly, internally know that the power of a distinctive brand is in making a distinctive everywhere and being absolutely anal all about details, anal all about the different type of assets you could be using and doing it everywhere.

Louis [0:08:33]: So right now, you look at the page, you can see the little gnomes, I think, like, moving around or whatever.

Louis [0:08:39]: Yeah.

Louis [0:08:40]: They use them everywhere, but it not just that.

Louis [0:08:43]: They have a podcast called crying out loud, and they are the only one with the actual custom jingle.

Louis [0:08:48]: I don't even remember how it sounds, but it was...

Dave [0:08:51]: You look, this is great.

Dave [0:08:52]: This little gnome right here whatever the wiz.

Dave [0:08:54]: Schedule call with a wiz x.

Dave [0:08:56]: It's.

Dave [0:08:56]: Right?

Dave [0:08:56]: Instead of just saying, get a demo, schedule a call with a wiz expert.

Louis [0:09:01]: They have, like, if you go to their blog, their featured image or, like, really, really consistent and using the same set of color, like, they they use this kind of pastel blue pastel pink.

Louis [0:09:11]: Other diagrams is also quite niche.

Louis [0:09:14]: They look like they they have this magic hands, magic wand type of visual across everywhere.

Louis [0:09:20]: So if you look at their scoring, their logo, and marks is a three out of three because they're using a extremely simple start thing, that looks like on the magic thing.

Louis [0:09:30]: No one else in that category do that.

Louis [0:09:32]: The visual device, which is, like, visual device, the asset is like a a shape or a structure or something that is like unique to them, and they're using, like, as I said, this kind of dia way to explain how they work with clouds around it.

Louis [0:09:49]: It's extremely, again, distinctive, And then another thing that this called three honest the color.

Louis [0:09:55]: So, like, this kind of...

Louis [0:09:56]: As I said, blue Pastel pink pastel thing.

Louis [0:09:58]: So across everywhere.

Louis [0:10:00]: Right?

Louis [0:10:00]: So for the study, I looked at a website, but also Linkedin ads, also any video slash sound asset I said that they had Facebook ads that they had any social media india presence in General as well as their leaders if they were present or not and if so how they were talking and appearing.

Dave [0:10:18]: This is great.

Dave [0:10:19]: The other reason that I like it, it's like, I think a lot of times people have this belief that you can't be both, like, you can't have these types of graphics and the no and the crying out cloud and the crying and, like, also be serious and sell to the enterprise.

Dave [0:10:33]: But the way that they do that is by just showing real people, real logos and at like, it it gives you the ability to have bulls.

Dave [0:10:40]: Right?

Louis [0:10:41]: Yes.

Louis [0:10:41]: And another thing that people make...

Louis [0:10:43]: Like, the assumption that they make when I talk about it, particular is that they think when I talk about being d distinctive or standing out or whatever.

Louis [0:10:49]: They think let's be loud and have a French accent unsafe fuck you know, every few sentences.

Louis [0:10:54]: It does not at all what I'm trying to say.

Louis [0:10:56]: It's, like, amplify who you are at hundred percent intensity, whatever it is.

Louis [0:11:01]: There's literally billions of possibilities here.

Louis [0:11:03]: So it's more about the behavior and how it's, how you communicate that to together outside world rather than being a copycat at.

Dave [0:11:10]: Yeah.

Dave [0:11:10]: Here's another one that did well in your assessment there, which is mutiny.

Louis [0:11:13]: Yes.

Louis [0:11:13]: Mutiny, I don't like them.

Louis [0:11:15]: I love them.

Louis [0:11:16]: I don't know why.

Louis [0:11:17]: It's just something.

Louis [0:11:18]: I just like the way they behave as a brand.

Louis [0:11:20]: I do know why they have a Raccoon as a mascot, and I love the story behind it, how they came up with it.

Louis [0:11:26]: So their CMO, I think was working with an agency around developing the logo and stuff, and essentially, she said, because we're so crappy, and so extremely scrappy now everyone would say that, let's pick an animal that, like, would go super far to, like, feed itself or whatever.

Dave [0:11:45]: My god.

Dave [0:11:45]: Raccoons are insane.

Dave [0:11:46]: I have them in our backyard because of the compost that we have.

Dave [0:11:49]: They are talk about crappy dude...

Dave [0:11:51]: Yes.

Dave [0:11:51]: Yeah.

Dave [0:11:51]: The other day, I got out there.

Dave [0:11:52]: My dog knows to nose who one of these raccoons codes?

Dave [0:11:55]: You wanna mess with one of these guys or girls?

Louis [0:11:58]: The argument was no one else would ever dare to use a raccoon as a mascot logo, and that's so true.

Louis [0:12:05]: Actually, you know what?

Louis [0:12:07]: I'm already working on my next research and it's connected to this.

Louis [0:12:10]: So I wanna know what you think.

Louis [0:12:12]: So there is around from Census.

Louis [0:12:15]: Stays around thirty thousand B2B Saas slash kind of companies.

Louis [0:12:20]: Nowadays.

Louis [0:12:21]: Right?

Louis [0:12:22]: Just as a...

Louis [0:12:23]: You could argue maybe forty thousand or fifty...

Louis [0:12:25]: Well twenty it doesn't matter.

Louis [0:12:27]: But, like, that's the order of magnitude.

Dave [0:12:29]: Yes.

Louis [0:12:30]: How many do you think have a mascot of some sort?

Dave [0:12:36]: Probably less than one percent.

Dave [0:12:37]: I would be shocked if it was more than that, you know, a couple.

Dave [0:12:41]: So if there's thirty thousand, I I would be shocked if there's more than three hundred that have mascot.

Louis [0:12:46]: Three times less.

Louis [0:12:47]: There's a hundred, we could only find hundred and three Saas companies having in mascot or any kind.

Dave [0:12:56]: And which which is funny because if you go the other way and you think about not b2b I like to watch golf.

Dave [0:13:03]: If I sit on the couch on a Sunday for twenty minutes because everyone interrupts me and I don't actually get to watch it.

Dave [0:13:09]: If you watch consumer brands, they all have, you know, Geico A flag.

Dave [0:13:14]: Progressive state farm.

Dave [0:13:16]: Like, all these other brands I can think of Geico is a lizard state farm is the umbrella, you know, but for some reason with...

Dave [0:13:23]: Why do you think that is actually?

Dave [0:13:24]: You answer that question.

Dave [0:13:26]: I don't think

Louis [0:13:29]: the percentage is higher in the world outside of B2B tech.

Louis [0:13:33]: Okay.

Dave [0:13:34]: So I'm wrong.

Dave [0:13:34]: So nobody has mascot.

Louis [0:13:36]: It's not that.

Louis [0:13:37]: It's just...

Louis [0:13:37]: I think it's a testament to the power of such thing.

Louis [0:13:41]: It's like, we recall and think about them because they're so easy to remember and embed in your brain.

Louis [0:13:50]: And so, yeah, you naturally go to those animals and and stuff like that because they're so easy to remember.

Louis [0:13:56]: I don't think that many do it.

Dave [0:13:59]: No.

Dave [0:13:59]: And I also feel like maybe there's...

Dave [0:14:01]: It's also a very paralyzing thing, like, tire the right agency to create the right mascot.

Dave [0:14:06]: You know, Like, I'm sure that mutiny, but I'm sure people in the company, some...

Dave [0:14:12]: Maybe two or three people thought the Raccoon was great, and a bunch of other people hated it, and they did it anyway and it worked.

Dave [0:14:17]: You know?

Dave [0:14:17]: That's a great sign.

Dave [0:14:18]: What when someone hates it.

Louis [0:14:20]: Yeah.

Louis [0:14:20]: I don't know if you've you've come across that in Your career, but it's, like, To me if everyone agrees with it and say it's great.

Louis [0:14:26]: Like, it's a red flag with clients.

Louis [0:14:28]: That's what I said.

Louis [0:14:29]: Well, like, it shouldn't really be that.

Louis [0:14:31]: Like, it's too safe then.

Louis [0:14:32]: You have to have people who say, I hate it.

Dave [0:14:37]: Yeah.

Dave [0:14:37]: I guess it's just having the courage and being someone inside of the company that is, I think the challenge if from my experience, you asked, you wanna get my opinion on, you know, what marketers and people that, you know, from from our world would say I think they would say, yes.

Dave [0:14:51]: Great idea.

Dave [0:14:51]: I believe you, but everyone's just gonna veto me inside of the company, and it's very hard to, unless you're the founder, you're one of the top executives at the company.

Dave [0:14:59]: It is very hard to stand on that desk and say, damn it, we're gonna do the Raccoon, and I don't care if you hate it.

Louis [0:15:06]: Yeah.

Louis [0:15:06]: Do know record could doing it.

Dave [0:15:08]: So I think that would be my guess, and I'm curious people are listening Send us a note after this or whatever.

Dave [0:15:13]: That's my guess on why because, you know, it's same same thing.

Dave [0:15:16]: Nobody get fired for for buying Ibm, you, nobody get fired for making that...

Dave [0:15:21]: You're gonna get fired if you take to do the raccoon You spend six months with an agency doing the raccoon, and it doesn't work.

Dave [0:15:27]: Right?

Dave [0:15:27]: Yeah.

Dave [0:15:27]: But you would get fired that six months later once you

Louis [0:15:30]: haven't lifted any ko Kpis apis.

Dave [0:15:32]: So.

Dave [0:15:32]: Yeah.

Dave [0:15:32]: They're gonna fire you either way.

Dave [0:15:34]: So you might as well do a raccoon.

Louis [0:15:36]: Exactly.

Louis [0:15:36]: But I I, look, I emphasize with that, and I know how difficult it is.

Louis [0:15:39]: So I have a few tactics here.

Louis [0:15:40]: One of them is to ask for forgiveness not permission.

Louis [0:15:44]: So instead of going through the traditional route and I asked for everyone's sit feedback and approval.

Louis [0:15:48]: If you have enough power inside a company to do things, do a campaign with it, like, launch a new set of of creative inside a Linkedin campaign, and test it and see how it compares to other stuff and then show the results.

Louis [0:16:03]: Another thing is to just use proper scientific evidence because what we're talking about so far is not just my belief, just my understanding of it, or, it's not that.

Louis [0:16:15]: It's it's I'm standing on the shoulders of giants of people who've research those things for decades and...

Louis [0:16:20]: It's not my fucking point of view.

Louis [0:16:22]: Those things those assets, especially the collection of assets that you can develop.

Louis [0:16:27]: So visual sounds, smell even in, in a different world.

Louis [0:16:32]: All of those things contribute to memories,

Dave [0:16:35]: the CRM of the future is gonna compete on smell.

Dave [0:16:37]: We have the best smelling CRM.

Louis [0:16:39]: Like, obviously, that's a little world, the B2B or whatever.

Louis [0:16:41]: But like, in the real world hotels and cafes and restaurants and all of that spend so much money on smell.

Louis [0:16:48]: They know that influence his behavior as much as music and other stuff.

Dave [0:16:52]: Oh my gosh.

Dave [0:16:53]: Totally agree.

Dave [0:16:53]: By my wife and I tell with this all the time.

Dave [0:16:55]: We went to this one place in Mexico for a honeymoon, you know, ten years ago, and I can still smell.

Dave [0:16:59]: The the just play smell like a high end, like, the...

Dave [0:17:02]: Oh my gosh.

Dave [0:17:03]: It's amazing now.

Dave [0:17:03]: And then compare that to this little place that we went to in maine last summer, which smelled the opposite of good and now my head is...

Dave [0:17:10]: Anyway, you mentioned the the science and the research behind this.

Dave [0:17:13]: Is this Do you love this brand...

Dave [0:17:15]: Like, how brands grow?

Dave [0:17:16]: Is that what it is that the Aaron Bass research that stuff is way outside of my pay rate and this is why people love to dunk on me because these things are not for me.

Dave [0:17:25]: But maybe can you just explain what is this based on that you like?

Louis [0:17:29]: So it's based on the Herring bow...

Dave [0:17:32]: Yeah, What is the book I read that book?

Dave [0:17:33]: How brands grow?

Louis [0:17:35]: Yeah.

Louis [0:17:35]: So the one that talk a about little a bit more is building distinctive brand assets that's literally in the name of it and it's from the same.

Louis [0:17:42]: People, it's from it's uttered by Jenny Ra, who's a researcher there.

Louis [0:17:47]: She leans on a lot of studies on on on how memories are built and how it's essentially something that needs to be maintained over time.

Louis [0:17:55]: It's not like, you create a memory and then that's it how to retrieve memories.

Louis [0:18:00]: So she she's done a bunch of research herself, but she's leading a lot on research that has been done.

Louis [0:18:07]: So for example, they talk about the power of like, the color, And the most fundamental thing that they've proved there is what type of assets are the most noticed and what type of assets are the most re.

Louis [0:18:25]: Right?

Louis [0:18:26]: And so over, like, they show that mascot on human characters are, for example, extremely extremely high when it comes to both categories and sounds is also extremely high.

Louis [0:18:37]: So, you know, if I think to you, it's mad how five.

Louis [0:18:43]: Five notes, and you know who that is.

Louis [0:18:46]: You know?

Louis [0:18:47]: Yes.

Louis [0:18:47]: So I think those things...

Louis [0:18:49]: Are proven Like, she mentions things that are from the seventies sixties eighties.

Louis [0:18:54]: It's nothing new.

Louis [0:18:55]: She's just used those research as a, as a way to show how Bim are built and how people think about stuff and how to retrieve it, and then she added a bit more stuff like around tagline versus other type of assets.

Louis [0:19:08]: It's a great book.

Louis [0:19:09]: And, yeah.

Louis [0:19:10]: It's a bit heavy, but it confirms a lot of things that you would know intuitively.

Dave [0:19:14]: Yeah.

Dave [0:19:14]: Well, this is just my...

Dave [0:19:15]: This is my shitty little Ai overview.

Dave [0:19:18]: I haven't read the book, but I'm gonna pretend like I did because I I googled it.

Dave [0:19:21]: But one of the things that it looks like that she calls out here is she calls it glut, just like the marketers a bit...

Dave [0:19:27]: Like, we don't we don't pick one and then stick to it and commit to it.

Dave [0:19:31]: And so if we're changing it all at time, you're basically robbing yourself from actually, like, getting something to stick, and so it's almost what we were saying about the Raccoon where it's not even just picking the perfect thing.

Dave [0:19:40]: I believe this in marketing actually, like, I think that there are multiple right answers.

Dave [0:19:44]: Agreed.

Dave [0:19:44]: I think that challenges we don't often pick one and then commit to it, and I think you could succeed.

Dave [0:19:49]: Like, I think mutiny could have been successful if it was a squirrel.

Dave [0:19:52]: If it was a lie, And if it was a whale, it almost doesn't matter, it's just, like picking one and committing to it.

Dave [0:19:58]: And then if we're changing it all the time, then you you don't ever make progress there.

Louis [0:20:02]: I'm nodding like an idiot because that's it.

Louis [0:20:04]: And that's exactly it.

Louis [0:20:06]: And I love your point of view.

Louis [0:20:07]: I think you you show that recently about.

Louis [0:20:09]: There's no anything can work in marketing.

Louis [0:20:11]: You know?

Dave [0:20:12]: Everything works, I say this all the time,

Louis [0:20:14]: But that's so true.

Louis [0:20:15]: So if everything works, then how how do I make decisions in the day to today day as a professional marketer.

Louis [0:20:21]: Well, you lean on foundational stuff first.

Louis [0:20:24]: So, like, your foundations are the things that you know will always be true.

Louis [0:20:27]: Right?

Louis [0:20:28]: First principle thinking.

Louis [0:20:29]: You lean on those, And then you take one direction and you go at it with a hundred percent intensity.

Louis [0:20:34]: That's the secrets.

Louis [0:20:35]: Let me show linear because this is

Dave [0:20:38]: the other one that stood out.

Dave [0:20:38]: And this one I have more questions about because I, I...

Dave [0:20:42]: What...

Dave [0:20:42]: What...

Dave [0:20:42]: Why does it...

Dave [0:20:43]: This doesn't stand out to me, this just looks like a, you know, a lot of dev tools kinda their websites look like this.

Dave [0:20:48]: Am I missing something?

Louis [0:20:50]: So if you really look ind individually at each type of assets, there are things that others don't have.

Louis [0:20:55]: So their are logo, this kind of wireframe, sphere, mark is is quite distinctive.

Louis [0:21:00]: They don't know one else

Dave [0:21:02]: Oh, this guy, No wonder.

Dave [0:21:02]: This guy kinda looks like you.

Dave [0:21:04]: No wonder do you like this brand?

Dave [0:21:05]: This kinda like friendship.

Louis [0:21:09]: They they have this...

Louis [0:21:10]: If we talk about something Haven't already talked yet about is, like, the the tagline, the words, the the type of things they say.

Louis [0:21:16]: Is quite different from the rest too.

Louis [0:21:19]: So let's just give you an example in terms of socials.

Louis [0:21:22]: So they use vocabulary, like, species a lot.

Louis [0:21:26]: So like they say, like, a new species of product tool.

Louis [0:21:29]: Okay.

Louis [0:21:29]: Something that others don't do, and they were...

Louis [0:21:32]: I believe the first to go with this near black aesthetic everywhere, and the the other tools that you are referring to are the ones that are trying to catch up to them.

Dave [0:21:46]: K.

Dave [0:21:46]: Hold on.

Dave [0:21:47]: I kinda like, this is kinda good.

Dave [0:21:48]: At Linear where this is from their linkedin.

Dave [0:21:50]: At a linear, we're run a mission to bring magic back to software.

Dave [0:21:53]: To empower product teams to do their best work.

Dave [0:21:55]: We are building an issue tracking pro to found it I like that.

Dave [0:21:59]: Bring magic back to software.

Dave [0:22:01]: Whatever that means you gotta have to live into that.

Dave [0:22:04]: Obviously, and they've they've built a great company, but I like words like I like the word magic, bring magic back to software.

Louis [0:22:10]: They have this editorial page as well starts with.

Louis [0:22:12]: Issue tracking is dead.

Louis [0:22:14]: It's like a manifesto thing.

Louis [0:22:16]: And again, I agree.

Louis [0:22:18]: It's not like that's a good news for folks listening.

Louis [0:22:20]: It's not a groundbreaking brand that looks completely this distinct from anything else and no one has ever done any of those things.

Louis [0:22:29]: I think what they do so well is that they've picked a lane.

Louis [0:22:32]: They've picked, you know, a sharp logo, sharp distinctive shape.

Louis [0:22:36]: They also are very good with the screenshot their product Ui is extremely...

Louis [0:22:40]: They have a style of it, They just went for it with all in intensity, their CEO is quite vocal on linkedin team, which helps with their score.

Louis [0:22:48]: So it's...

Louis [0:22:49]: You could always argue about the score or or why this one versus another.

Louis [0:22:53]: Again, the sample was only one hundred What I did was for each category, the companies inside that category were compared with each other only.

Dave [0:23:01]: Yeah.

Dave [0:23:01]: So no.

Dave [0:23:02]: This is good.

Dave [0:23:03]: This is one of the product pages.

Dave [0:23:04]: I see what you mean And then I I like this as an example though because I think it's easy for someone to be like, wow, we're not gonna do a.

Dave [0:23:10]: We're not gonna do a raccoon, but we could do this.

Louis [0:23:14]: No.

Louis [0:23:14]: We're sitting to developers.

Louis [0:23:15]: There are serious people.

Louis [0:23:16]: They're wearing suits.

Louis [0:23:17]: So no.

Louis [0:23:17]: No No.

Louis [0:23:18]: No.

Louis [0:23:18]: No.

Louis [0:23:19]: No raccoons.

Louis [0:23:20]: This is attainable.

Louis [0:23:21]: Nor.

Louis [0:23:22]: Exactly.

Louis [0:23:23]: So that's...

Louis [0:23:24]: I think the the three that we talk about so far is a great.

Louis [0:23:27]: It's a great summary of what we're trying to say here.

Louis [0:23:29]: Right?

Louis [0:23:30]: It's like there's millions of possibilities, and it's not about whether the raccoon but mascot is a better asset than having a jingle like Mcdonald's, it's not that is that whatever you pick, please go at it with sheer intensity because if you don't in today's world where, the noise is the constant where everyone is trying to out noise each other.

Louis [0:23:54]: This is the only way to to be safe to to sharpen that wedge to fucking go for it, and not look back.

Dave [0:24:01]: Okay.

Dave [0:24:01]: Let's...

Dave [0:24:02]: Let's talk about sound because you did.

Dave [0:24:04]: So you know, you did the little Mcdonald's jingle before.

Dave [0:24:08]: Right?

Dave [0:24:09]: Or was that burger King?

Dave [0:24:10]: I don't even know.

Dave [0:24:11]: Mcdonald's.

Dave [0:24:12]: I don't eat that shit.

Dave [0:24:13]: And I'm just kidding.

Louis [0:24:14]: No.

Louis [0:24:14]: I don't think you.

Dave [0:24:15]: I feed it to my kids though.

Dave [0:24:16]: Here you go.

Dave [0:24:16]: Eat

Louis [0:24:17]: this.

Louis [0:24:17]: Yeah.

Dave [0:24:18]: Okay.

Dave [0:24:18]: So it's sound.

Dave [0:24:19]: Now I do believe in this.

Dave [0:24:20]: And I am a Gary v fan love that guy.

Dave [0:24:24]: I do.

Dave [0:24:24]: I'll fight you over it.

Dave [0:24:26]: He's talked about audio branding for a while, and I thought that's...

Dave [0:24:29]: I thought this super smart.

Dave [0:24:30]: I remember talking about this back at in the drift days because He just had this little podcast and it made this sound before.

Dave [0:24:37]: Mh.

Dave [0:24:37]: But you you actually fully...

Dave [0:24:39]: You did this like a psycho.

Dave [0:24:40]: You you five hours.

Dave [0:24:41]: This sounds awful.

Dave [0:24:42]: Five hours.

Dave [0:24:43]: You watched five hours of explain her videos and ads, headphones on.

Dave [0:24:48]: Just sitting in your little cabin over there.

Louis [0:24:51]: First of all, how they are you?

Louis [0:24:52]: It's my office.

Louis [0:24:53]: Second of all, again, that's the point about intensity.

Louis [0:24:56]: Like, what's the point of of doing a a a a true brand study and not having sound because sound is is one of the a different way to tackle the brand of your customers.

Louis [0:25:06]: Right?

Louis [0:25:07]: That helps retrieve memories.

Dave [0:25:09]: So not a single brand in the study of these a hundred had Jingle that you'd recognize.

Louis [0:25:14]: Not necessarily jingle.

Louis [0:25:15]: Okay?

Louis [0:25:15]: So Sound could be, like, a a distinct music, it could be a jingle could be an accent, like my accent.

Louis [0:25:21]: Right?

Louis [0:25:22]: If you if you think about it in terms of pure distinctive assets, my French accent is actually a huge, huge, distinctive asset in my field, just like Arnold Cha.

Louis [0:25:31]: Has a distinctive assets there.

Louis [0:25:33]: So it's it's not just a Jingle.

Louis [0:25:35]: It doesn't have to be just a Jingle, but it has to be something that is auditory.

Dave [0:25:41]: Even, you know, I I started using Slack at this company, maybe ten years ago in Slack was new, and it's still I wake up in the middle of I didn't hear the, you know, the Slack notification sound.

Louis [0:25:52]: Is okay.

Louis [0:25:52]: That's such a good one.

Dave [0:25:54]: Okay.

Dave [0:25:54]: So it doesn't have to be the an ad that has a jingle.

Dave [0:25:57]: It could be your product?

Dave [0:25:58]: Could it could it be product, like, the...

Dave [0:26:00]: Your product has a unique sound or something when you log in?

Dave [0:26:03]: Absolutely.

Dave [0:26:04]: So a station.

Dave [0:26:05]: You're probably more of an Xbox guy.

Louis [0:26:08]: I still Remember a fifa find ninety eight.

Louis [0:26:09]: Ea games.

Louis [0:26:10]: Oh, ea sports.

Louis [0:26:12]: Ea sport.

Louis [0:26:13]: It's the game.

Dave [0:26:14]: Yeah that's a legendary one.

Dave [0:26:15]: Ea sports is a Ea sports.

Dave [0:26:17]: It's in the game.

Dave [0:26:18]: Oh my gosh.

Louis [0:26:19]: Yeah.

Louis [0:26:19]: See how sticky it is to our memory.

Louis [0:26:22]: It's mad, like, at a power of those things.

Louis [0:26:24]: So I got a few people asking a question about something.

Louis [0:26:28]: Well, I never really...

Louis [0:26:30]: I I have everything on mute.

Louis [0:26:32]: I don't even have ringtone, like, ring on for my phone.

Louis [0:26:34]: So, like, how is that even gonna work?

Louis [0:26:37]: And exactly, as you said, there's other opportunities there.

Louis [0:26:41]: So you need to be a bit invent.

Louis [0:26:42]: So podcasting obviously they're not gonna turn their sound off for your podcast, going to conferences if you run events.

Louis [0:26:49]: You know, what is the sound you're gonna play?

Louis [0:26:52]: What is the thing that you're gonna repeat?

Louis [0:26:53]: Ads is another one.

Louis [0:26:55]: But as you said inside the product on Youtube.

Louis [0:26:57]: And I think, you know what?

Louis [0:26:58]: I believe there's a trend that it's gonna come back, and I might be completely wrong.

Louis [0:27:03]: I think the trend on playing sound on websites.

Louis [0:27:05]: Is gonna come back.

Dave [0:27:07]: Okay.

Dave [0:27:07]: Prediction, put that in.

Dave [0:27:08]: Put that in here.

Louis [0:27:09]: Now, you have to say yes, to listen to the sound or whatever, you know, because browser and stuff, but I...

Dave [0:27:15]: Especially in Europe, In the Europe, you're gonna get crushed, the Gdpr rules of...

Dave [0:27:19]: Did the sound infiltrate your ears will be a whole issue, but...

Louis [0:27:22]: Yeah.

Louis [0:27:22]: Well, I'm not going to drive anymore.

Louis [0:27:24]: I'm not going to the Us.

Louis [0:27:25]: That's it.

Louis [0:27:26]: No.

Louis [0:27:26]: That wasn't it.

Dave [0:27:27]: That wasn't a dig You.

Louis [0:27:29]: Yeah that wasn't in a day.

Louis [0:27:30]: I'm just taking things personally for those.

Louis [0:27:32]: So That's it.

Louis [0:27:33]: That's it though

Dave [0:27:34]: You know?

Dave [0:27:34]: I love.

Dave [0:27:35]: Oh, listen.

Dave [0:27:35]: Okay.

Dave [0:27:36]: Here's a call to action.

Dave [0:27:36]: So if you're listening to this, I want you to send us an email, hyatt at exitfive.com.

Dave [0:27:42]: Tell me, tell us a brand.

Dave [0:27:43]: So we mentioned a couple of them, like ea sports as a great one, playstation I remember Espn sports center, Jingle.

Dave [0:27:52]: I'm sure there's other examples, so tell so tell us.

Dave [0:27:55]: And I think this is a really interesting angle.

Dave [0:27:58]: I really like all this stuff.

Dave [0:27:59]: I'm really digging this because I think product differentiation is harder than ever.

Dave [0:28:04]: And what I'm reading from this is basically you're saying, look, dude.

Dave [0:28:07]: There's thirty thousand companies less than a hundred are doing these things which are so clearly differentiator and allow you opportunity stand out, isn't the whole game in marketing, like, looking at the field looking at the board and figuring out, like, where can we play?

Dave [0:28:20]: How can we win?

Dave [0:28:21]: Who's gonna be the company to do that?

Dave [0:28:24]: And it seems crazy, but you're gonna stand up in front of the CEO and the CFO, You're gonna say here's our logo.

Dave [0:28:28]: It's a bull frog.

Dave [0:28:30]: I love this type of stuff.

Dave [0:28:32]: This is what got me into marketing.

Dave [0:28:33]: This is the fun shit, man, not lead scoring and arguing about Q and all that bullshit.

Dave [0:28:38]: This is what I love.

Dave [0:28:39]: I love this stuff.

Louis [0:28:41]: Same.

Louis [0:28:41]: That's my thing.

Louis [0:28:42]: You know, like the very facebook book.

Louis [0:28:43]: That I've ever read in English about marketing was a couple cow.

Louis [0:28:47]: By, I don't know if you know the guy he's bold as fuck like you.

Dave [0:28:51]: Bald fuck.

Dave [0:28:52]: That golden and...

Dave [0:28:52]: Hey, not only.

Dave [0:28:54]: We found that we drive...

Dave [0:28:55]: You know, we're working with Seth.

Dave [0:28:57]: Set this a gangster by the way.

Dave [0:28:58]: He has no team.

Dave [0:29:00]: He's doing everything.

Dave [0:29:00]: He's doing everything.

Louis [0:29:02]: All dogg it.

Louis [0:29:02]: He's raw dogg it.

Dave [0:29:04]: We drive the same car, Ferrari.

Dave [0:29:06]: We both have the same hair and we're both like Legends in marketing.

Dave [0:29:10]: You know, there's...

Dave [0:29:11]: That doesn't get better than Doesn't get better than that.

Dave [0:29:12]: Just cut this clip exclusively and then everyone who already hates me will have another reason to hate me because they have no sense of humor.

Louis [0:29:19]: You made a couple of comments about this.

Louis [0:29:20]: Tell me more.

Louis [0:29:21]: Who hates you?

Dave [0:29:22]: Oh, I don't know.

Dave [0:29:22]: People who people who wanted to, what this his marketing community sucks.

Dave [0:29:27]: I'm like, go built yours.

Dave [0:29:28]: Let's see your version of it.

Dave [0:29:29]: I'm still waiting.

Dave [0:29:30]: But I'll wait.

Dave [0:29:31]: Did you know?

Dave [0:29:31]: It's...

Dave [0:29:32]: Anyone someone dude someone is gonna see your research and they're gonna hate this.

Dave [0:29:35]: They're gonna think you're a fraud.

Dave [0:29:36]: It's just human.

Dave [0:29:37]: It is human nature if you create something.

Dave [0:29:40]: If you put work out there in public, it does not matter.

Dave [0:29:43]: There could be a book.

Dave [0:29:44]: Go to go I do this all the time.

Dave [0:29:45]: Makes me feel good.

Dave [0:29:46]: There's a book that is universally loved.

Dave [0:29:48]: I read this book the other night.

Dave [0:29:50]: Great book to called the correspondent by Virginia Evans.

Dave [0:29:52]: Amazing book.

Dave [0:29:54]: I love the book.

Dave [0:29:54]: My wife loves the book.

Dave [0:29:55]: My wife's mom loves the book.

Dave [0:29:56]: Amazing book.

Dave [0:29:57]: It was recommended...

Dave [0:29:58]: I go to the reviews and I just click one star and just go to read just these assholes on the Internet with nothing better to do, than throw rocks at somebody who created something.

Dave [0:30:07]: I think it's just human nature, you know, and and social media has given us a venue where.

Dave [0:30:12]: I don't have to walk up to you and say anything to your face.

Dave [0:30:15]: I actually hadn't...

Dave [0:30:15]: I had one time.

Dave [0:30:16]: I went to this event one time, and this guy who was, like, notoriously a troll of mine for no reason.

Dave [0:30:22]: I'm a marketing guy at a software company.

Dave [0:30:24]: Give me, like, who cares?

Dave [0:30:25]: I say these things to my wife, and she's like, dude, who you marking people are so weird who actually cares.

Dave [0:30:31]: I'm, like, right.

Dave [0:30:31]: Exactly.

Dave [0:30:32]: I see this guy in the bathroom.

Dave [0:30:34]: He comes like, oh, Dave.

Dave [0:30:35]: How you doing?

Dave [0:30:35]: Good to see you.

Dave [0:30:36]: Nice to meet just shook my hand in the bathroom.

Dave [0:30:38]: And I'm like, did you the same guy that just talk shit about me so much on the Internet, But this is how people are.

Dave [0:30:43]: We don't we don't have the courage to say these things.

Dave [0:30:45]: And so whether you're an Artist.

Dave [0:30:46]: This is has also tied this back.

Dave [0:30:48]: It's why people don't wanna take chances and do the brand thing because someone out there is gonna is gonna hate it.

Dave [0:30:52]: Yeah.

Dave [0:30:53]: Someone out there gonna shit on it.

Dave [0:30:54]: Someone out there hates Mutiny because they have a raccoon anyway.

Dave [0:30:57]: That's my rant for the day.

Louis [0:30:58]: So should we talk about how I've done this study?

Louis [0:31:01]: Yes.

Dave [0:31:02]: Please?

Louis [0:31:02]: Because I'm sure some...

Louis [0:31:03]: Like, a lot of folks listening I play with Ai tools, like cloud code and stuff like that.

Louis [0:31:08]: So I think it's important take a moment to think about how fucking insane is the moment we live in where I'm able on my own to run research like this that would have cost me ten thousand twenty thousand dollars easily to run with more people and all of that.

Louis [0:31:25]: How can I do something like this with just my brand and quote code is crazy?

Dave [0:31:31]: It wouldn't take me twenty thousand dollars and and three months.

Dave [0:31:34]: Somebody else, some agency.

Louis [0:31:36]: Oh, at least at the very least.

Louis [0:31:38]: So one thing that I do just to tell you my setup, I use visual studio code with cloud codes.

Louis [0:31:44]: So visual studio code is...

Louis [0:31:45]: You can use another one, But it's essentially an interface that you can plug cloud two and it's, like, to me it feels so natural because you can see your local files, and it just feels like, really whatever the name of this computer that our man has feels like that.

Louis [0:32:01]: Anyway, whenever I have an idea.

Louis [0:32:02]: Instead of trying to think, oh, I have the answers,

Dave [0:32:05]: you feel like Iron man, doing your little B2B brand research study.

Dave [0:32:09]: You feel like Iron man.

Louis [0:32:10]: Exactly.

Louis [0:32:10]: But that's how I am.

Louis [0:32:12]: I am, by the way your lame is me, if not more.

Louis [0:32:14]: So whenever I have, like, a an idea like this, I don't I don't I don't assume that I know how I'm gonna do it.

Louis [0:32:23]: So what I do instead is, I asked, and I plan it together.

Louis [0:32:27]: Right?

Louis [0:32:27]: I asked it, okay.

Louis [0:32:28]: This is an my idea.

Louis [0:32:29]: How do you think we should be doing it?

Louis [0:32:30]: And what we did...

Louis [0:32:32]: So phase zero was essentially python script to look at...

Louis [0:32:36]: Okay.

Louis [0:32:36]: What is doable, like, searching for things in complexity, searching for things Okay.

Louis [0:32:41]: What is the?

Louis [0:32:41]: So I built a little pilot in one.

Louis [0:32:43]: And then I had five agents in Parallel.

Louis [0:32:47]: So had one agents that taking screenshots.

Louis [0:32:51]: So screenshot one, I'm using an Api called screenshot one.

Louis [0:32:54]: But it's super high quality screenshots of every page.

Louis [0:32:57]: I'm using play right to scrape.

Louis [0:33:00]: So essentially to go switch each website and scrape off the words?

Dave [0:33:04]: I have a question.

Dave [0:33:05]: Did you use Ai to figure out the tech stack to go and use to build this.

Dave [0:33:09]: Did you say here's my idea.

Dave [0:33:11]: How would I go do this?

Louis [0:33:12]: Yes.

Louis [0:33:12]: So even, this is the clean version, but essentially, I went through maybe ten or twelve different ways to try to do things.

Louis [0:33:18]: At first, it's taking screen screenshots in, the Chrome Mc p two, but the...

Louis [0:33:24]: It blocks most pages, and it looks like shit.

Louis [0:33:26]: So can you find it another way to do this?

Louis [0:33:28]: And oh, actually, yes, there's an Api?

Louis [0:33:30]: You can access screenshot one?

Louis [0:33:32]: It's actually quality better, right.

Louis [0:33:34]: So it's...

Louis [0:33:35]: That's what I'm trying to say.

Louis [0:33:36]: It's like, I didn't have that at the start, but I knew that if I play with it long enough, I will find the answers, and we will get to the point where...

Louis [0:33:43]: Okay.

Louis [0:33:43]: This is good.

Louis [0:33:44]: So play right is a headless browser.

Louis [0:33:48]: So meaning it doesn't open on your computer, but it's still the scrape things for you from turn that into markdown, then I discovered Ap five, which is a service that enables you to to do stuff to access pretty much anything on the Internet, like, if you wanna see Linkedin post from dave over the last three months, or if you wanna see the way back machine.

Louis [0:34:07]: So way back version of a website.

Louis [0:34:09]: It doesn't use your own computer.

Louis [0:34:11]: It just use an Api to access those things so that you don't get banned from anywhere and whatever.

Louis [0:34:16]: So same for Linkedin ads, same for Linkedin ad library and stuff data.

Louis [0:34:20]: And then we essentially extracted every single brand, all of the data for it.

Louis [0:34:25]: So as I said, like, website pages, Linkedin ads, screenshots of of na visual.

Louis [0:34:31]: And then essentially built eight parallel, specialist that would look at this asset, but from different views.

Louis [0:34:38]: So from the eight type of assets we have.

Louis [0:34:40]: So one specialize in copy, and one in color, shape, etcetera etcetera.

Louis [0:34:44]: And then recon reinventing all of these.

Louis [0:34:47]: I think I spent five hundred euro of cloud tokens total to do all of this.

Louis [0:34:54]: That's it.

Louis [0:34:55]: It's crazy.

Dave [0:34:56]: That's amazing.

Dave [0:34:57]: Because everybody talks by how expensive everything is done...

Dave [0:35:00]: I'm like, do you realize that what, like, what you can do for five, you know, five hundred euros and, like, Yeah.

Louis [0:35:05]: I could have done more much cheaper.

Louis [0:35:06]: Our people are...

Louis [0:35:07]: It's two hundred dollars

Dave [0:35:08]: a month for claude.

Dave [0:35:09]: I'm like, that's insane.

Dave [0:35:10]: Yeah.

Louis [0:35:11]: If you think about it willingness to pay.

Dave [0:35:13]: I mean, I'm happy to pay ten times that amounts still.

Dave [0:35:16]: I know.

Dave [0:35:17]: This is...

Dave [0:35:18]: Okay.

Dave [0:35:18]: This is a separate thought, but something I think about a lot.

Dave [0:35:20]: Now, I wonder how these Ai tools have completely fucked our willingness to, like, pay for things because the things I can do with two hundred dollars a month claude, twenty four hundred dollars for the year.

Dave [0:35:32]: You want me to pay fifty thousand a hundred thousand dollars for your enterprise Saas product, That's the hardest part I think right now of marketing.

Louis [0:35:42]: Yeah.

Louis [0:35:42]: Well, there be a big recurring and I think you had pricing will increase, but I agree.

Louis [0:35:47]: It's crazy.

Louis [0:35:47]: And so it's like, I I burned through that, and then I didn't just let Ai do everything and scar everything.

Louis [0:35:54]: So I made him build a review page where I can give you back to every single score, look at every single page, listen to every sound or whatever, and essentially have me, like, review everything, add, there's a lot of shit that we're wrong with it.

Louis [0:36:09]: Last thing, I would say in the technical side, I also use a tool called open router, which is an Api that gives you access to every model out there, every Ai model.

Louis [0:36:19]: So Gemini, Gp, even the free open source ones.

Louis [0:36:23]: And you can use that wheat clock codes and essentially, I asked it every step of the way to to have those look at the stuff we were building to find issues and unstructured improve.

Louis [0:36:33]: So it is is just phenomenal the power of this, yeah.

Louis [0:36:38]: It's only for little fucking like us to do marketing stuff, but it makes me happy.

Dave [0:36:43]: Well, I...

Dave [0:36:44]: There's thousands of...

Dave [0:36:45]: There's...

Dave [0:36:45]: I hate to tell you but there's thousands of geek like us who listen to this podcast is very very relatable.

Louis [0:36:51]: Good.

Dave [0:36:52]: So thank you for sharing how you did it.

Dave [0:36:53]: Do you also feel like that was a fun...

Dave [0:36:56]: I like projects like that because it gives you a fun reason to, like, go in the deep end and learn a bunch of this shit.

Dave [0:37:02]: So it's almost like...

Dave [0:37:03]: It's not just that you did this study about brand distinctive, but don't you feel like Louis as the person, you just learned how to do some cool shit, and that's gonna help you and give you more ideas for what to do in the future.

Louis [0:37:14]: Yeah.

Louis [0:37:14]: But that's exactly it.

Louis [0:37:15]: That's why I talk about it like this.

Louis [0:37:16]: It's like...

Louis [0:37:17]: It's the first time in my life where the bridge between my ideas or the crazy stuff I could be doing what I can actually do is social so small that it doesn't exist anymore.

Louis [0:37:29]: It's like, I would have dreamed in high school of having something like this.

Louis [0:37:33]: And even five years ago, I couldn't do half of the stuff I'm doing now.

Louis [0:37:37]: So it's like, the bridge is gone, and it's just amazing for our brain, like, my brain because I...

Louis [0:37:43]: That's what I like.

Louis [0:37:43]: I want to go deep and finances and have fun.

Louis [0:37:46]: Like, this is the other thing.

Louis [0:37:47]: It's fun to me.

Louis [0:37:48]: It's not fun to everyone, but fun to me.

Louis [0:37:50]: That was super fun.

Louis [0:37:51]: I spent hours and hours and I never felt like I was working.

Dave [0:37:54]: Yeah.

Dave [0:37:54]: Well also, I think it's it's really important to go do stuff like that because I think there's the hype about how to use Ai is just like out of control that it's impossible to know.

Dave [0:38:03]: What's real, what you should keep up with or not when it's so obvious like, the way Yes.

Dave [0:38:08]: For myself, personally, the way that I learn is by actually doing, and I stress myself out when I see what everyone's writing and what everyone's talking about, and I'm like, no, no I need to actually have a specific project, and I'm going to deploy all these tools to learn it's exactly what you did is, like, the best type of learning that you could do.

Louis [0:38:26]: Yeah.

Louis [0:38:26]: That's my advice too.

Louis [0:38:27]: It's like, if you feel over overwhelmed, just speak one lane, and don't try to have the answers before you build anything.

Louis [0:38:33]: Now, just comment it from a very curious mind and say, well, I wonder know if I can do this Can use a deep research on this and spawn ten different agents to look at different sources, and then you come back with a consensus of how to do it.

Louis [0:38:43]: And that's it.

Louis [0:38:45]: You know?

Louis [0:38:46]: So you don't I don't have the answers.

Louis [0:38:47]: I still don't know half of the ship.

Louis [0:38:49]: You know, if you asked me to code any of that, I wouldn't be able to even write one online.

Louis [0:38:53]: And I didn't know any of those tools that I mentioned two months ago.

Louis [0:38:57]: But what's the beauty of it you learn, and and you challenge yourself, and it's the thing like, it's, like follow the fun, like, what gives you the energy?

Louis [0:39:04]: What is the thing that you that you would do in your sleep because it doesn't feel like a lot of work doesn't feel like a lot of efforts.

Louis [0:39:10]: Like seek those things and stop feeling like, people are gonna make fun of you or, you shouldn't do it should be doing some more proactive now.

Louis [0:39:17]: Just like, follow that gut instinct because those other things that separate you from the rest,

Dave [0:39:23]: Alright, Louis.

Dave [0:39:24]: Great to have you on the pod.

Dave [0:39:25]: I'm kinda feel like the rest of my day is gonna be figuring out what the Exit Five mascot should be, honestly.

Louis [0:39:32]: No.

Louis [0:39:32]: Needs be a sound.

Louis [0:39:33]: For you?

Louis [0:39:34]: It's a sound.

Dave [0:39:34]: Do you think it's a sound?

Louis [0:39:35]: No.

Louis [0:39:35]: I'm just I'm just being trying for the sake of it?

Louis [0:39:38]: I'd like a sound.

Louis [0:39:39]: Yeah.

Louis [0:39:40]: There you go.

Louis [0:39:41]: I don't think it need much small to be honest.

Dave [0:39:43]: Yeah.

Dave [0:39:43]: I think we're good.

Dave [0:39:43]: We don't need it.

Dave [0:39:44]: I think I think if I was in a really crowded industry, I would try to stand out.

Dave [0:39:48]: Like, we have all the ingredients.

Dave [0:39:49]: I I don't wanna make more more work for us than we need.

Dave [0:39:52]: Dude, this was awesome.

Dave [0:39:53]: And I'm excited to see you.

Dave [0:39:54]: I personally, this is not for the pod, but I am excited to get to hang out with you in person.

Dave [0:39:58]: I hope that will show you the the ROI of of this trip to America will show you what Vermont...

Dave [0:40:05]: Has to offer It's a beautiful place to be in September.

Dave [0:40:08]: I'm gonna take so many selfies with you and piss you off, and it's gonna be great.

Dave [0:40:11]: So...

Louis [0:40:12]: I come to see how Told you out.

Dave [0:40:14]: Dude.

Dave [0:40:14]: I had some fucking, first of all.

Dave [0:40:16]: Some woman, this is not a...

Dave [0:40:18]: This is not a bit.

Dave [0:40:19]: This is not a joke.

Dave [0:40:19]: Some woman at drive.

Dave [0:40:21]: Last year it came up to me and she said, you're a little bit shorter than I thought you would be.

Louis [0:40:25]: Yeah.

Louis [0:40:25]: I'm thinking too.

Louis [0:40:26]: I think you'll show

Dave [0:40:27]: It's I've not...

Dave [0:40:29]: Look, I'm five eight and a quarter.

Dave [0:40:30]: Maybe three quarters.

Dave [0:40:31]: Maybe I used to...

Dave [0:40:32]: I just was having this conversation with my mom either there I said, I used to say on I'm five nine.

Dave [0:40:36]: But I think that was because I had a little bit of hair.

Dave [0:40:39]: I'm five eight.

Dave [0:40:39]: Hey.

Dave [0:40:40]: I have two hundred thousand.

Louis [0:40:41]: But thankfully, you have a dense on the top of your head.

Louis [0:40:44]: Like, it's, like,

Dave [0:40:45]: I have a dent.

Dave [0:40:45]: I have a flat spot.

Dave [0:40:46]: Look, I may be short, but I have two hundred thousand followers on Linkedin.

Dave [0:40:49]: That's a big fucking deal dude.

Dave [0:40:51]: So take that to the bank.

Louis [0:40:53]: How many did you buy?

Dave [0:40:55]: Alright.

Dave [0:40:55]: Thank you for listening.

Dave [0:40:56]: Louis Good to have you on the pod We'll see you at drive exitfive.com slash drive.

Dave [0:41:00]: Get on our newsletter, exitfive.com slash newsletter.

Dave [0:41:03]: Go follow Louis on Linkedin.

Dave [0:41:04]: He is a breath of fresh air in a world of same ness.

Dave [0:41:08]: He's the guy that I like to follow and see for like, yeah, You know what?

Dave [0:41:12]: Let me get out of the M sql rabbit hole, and I'm gonna worry about creating a brand and being distinct and standing out.

Dave [0:41:17]: I think it's very important stuff for right now and a I like the way you think.

Dave [0:41:21]: I'll talk to you later.

Dave [0:41:22]: Thanks for listening to this episode.

Louis [0:41:24]: Not of you too.

Louis [0:41:24]: Wow.

Louis [0:41:25]: This Goodbye.

Dave [0:41:30]: Hey.

Dave [0:41:30]: Thanks for listening to this podcast.

Dave [0:41:32]: If you like this episode.

Dave [0:41:33]: You know what?

Dave [0:41:34]: I'm not even gonna ask you to subscribe and leave a review because I don't really care about that.

Dave [0:41:39]: I have something better for you.

Dave [0:41:40]: So we've built the number one private community for B2B marketers at Exit Five, and you can go and check that out instead of leaving a rating a review, go check it out right now.

Dave [0:41:49]: On our website exitfive.com.

Dave [0:41:51]: Our mission at Exit Five is to help you grow your career in B2b marketing, and there's no better place to do that than with us at Exit Five.

Dave [0:41:58]: There's nearly five thousand members now in our community.

Dave [0:42:01]: People are in their posting every day asking questions about things like marketing, planning, ideas, inspiration, asking questions and getting feedback from your peers, building your own network of marketers who are doing the same thing you are, so you can have a peer group, or maybe just venting about your boss when you need to get in there and get something off your chest, like It's a hundred percent free to join for seven days so you can go and check it out risk free, and then there's a small annual fee to pay if you wanna become a member for the year.

Dave [0:42:28]: Go check it out, learn more, exitfive.com, and I will see you over there in the community.