Lead Generation with Jason Friedman

Hey everybody, Rob here again. And today I’m here with my guest, Jason Friedman. How are you today, Jason?

I’m great, rob. Thanks for having me.

On the show, yeah. It’s great to have you, despite all the technical issues you and I have had together. How two tech guys can have this many issues trying to do a podcast like. Yeah.

We persevered, buddy. We fight, we fight through it, we. Fight through it.

Yeah, we sure do. So I thought we’d jump in and tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into the spatial and then the whole thing about regeneration and customer.

Yeah, sure. You know my my story is a little little different than many. I started out in theater, so I was a behind the scenes guy. I was lighting designer lighting, you know, tech and scene builder. I built scenery and did the lights and stuff for shows. And over the years. Just kind of fell in love. With the whole idea of the theater. On the show and I went to school for that, I have a a degree in lighting design and technical direction. And then from there I went out on the road. I was a rock’n’roll roadie, so I toured with a bunch of groups like Peter Gabriel, Fleetwood Mac Rush, and then went on to some more legit.

Wow.

Like the Canadian Power Trio, you gotta love rush, right? You’re you’re from up there.

Yep.

I’m a rush. I’m a rush fan, Jason. I yeah.

And then. Who’s not? Who’s not right? They’re amazing. And then I went out and I did some more legit theater and, you know, robbed the whole journey that I was on with theater. It’s one of those Mr. Miyagi kind of experiences. You’re learning the wax on wax off the whole ride and then all of a sudden you have some skills that you didn’t realize you had and. My skills were about. Really engaging an audience like I understood, really how to tell a story in a really. Dimensional way that let our customers feel special and feel more engaged and be more bought in to what we were doing with them and as a result built the pretty big business doing that and helping others do. That.

That’s really cool. I love this story and I have to tell you, you know, point aside. My mother actually worked with Getty Lee’s mother for numerous years in real estate that says, and in the other room I I have a copy of power Windows signed by getting himself. So there you go. I am such a.

Get out.

That’s awesome.

Amazing. Alright, well, I knew I liked you for even. More reasons, right? So.

So there you go.

Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah, very cool. Yeah. It’s it’s been a. It’s been a journey, you know.

That’s it. It has we it’s an interesting journey now in terms of customers, it’s really it’s really funny. First of all, you guys have a great website. I have to tell you that number one, it’s really good.

Thanks.

Isn’t it all about hitting a motion with customers? And I think you talked about that on your website. What do you think about that?

Yeah, I mean, so my hallucination, if you will, my belief, yeah. And also my everything that I’ve ever tried done, learned, experienced shows me that it’s true that it is all about how customers. Feel right? So if you have customers that feel accomplished, they feel like they got value that they got results from working with you, that it was a positive experience. They will tell other people you will feel better, your employees will feel better, right? So creating like this positive experience that you know for customers. Is super powerful as a tool when you wield it with intention, and so my whole business career has been all about that. Helping small businesses, large businesses, universities, institutions, you name it, really being more intentional. Mount the journey that their customers go on with them. Whatever that journey happens to be, whether it’s online, offline, both lines. Either way, yeah. But it is about how they. Feel.

Yeah, and and I think a lot of people don’t realize that or don’t understand that and certain businesses are more like for example. I’ve got a really good friend who owns a jewelry store, an independent jewelry store. He does very well. And I can guarantee you 90% of his business is based on emotion. People walk in and say I like that piece. I don’t like that piece that looks good. I don’t like that. Good. What’s the story? Why you remodeling this? And you know people. It’s funny. People fix stuff.

100%.

Because of the emotional attachment to it, not that it’s worth it or not worth it.

Of course.

Yeah. No, 100%. Yeah. And you know it’s it’s it’s everything like you want to do business with people that you like, right? Like you don’t, you know you you you prefer to buy from people that you like you know. And that’s why, you know like look even the biggest brands out there like Amazon like everything they do is to try and be a better create a better experience for their customers because they know that. They want it to be easy, they want to remove every obstacle to something, getting in a customer’s way of getting what they want, and so they we talk about this a lot in our business. We help people remove friction.

Yeah.

Right. It’s it’s my belief that we as business owners more often than not and mostly without realizing it, we make it hard for our customers to do business with us and we make it really hard for our customers to have a lot of success with us and we don’t realize all these kind of friction points or obstacles that we put in the way. And so I think it’s really important. Use your jewelry store as an example, right? If someone’s coming in looking for an engagement ring, you know if if we make it hard for them to like, look around and learn, and and we’re we’re making it an uncomfortable, unpleasant experience, they’re gonna go right to the next jewelry store. There’s a million off. Is out there and our friend Google has made it super easy to find them. All right, well, one click away from the next option, so it’s important.

No. What in your opinion is the number one friction point that potential customers have dealing with the company?

That. A loaded question, but I will tell you probably the most common friction point I see across all industries, right. Every industry might. Every business might have like a bigger one, but what I see in every business right is expectation. This match, and so more often than not, we we see that customers have an expectation whether the business has set one and managed it or not. And so if we’re not careful about how we help to set and frame up expectations that our customers have, we’re going to miss their expectations and we’re going to have this mismatch where they’re either you know.

Cool.

Super unhappy or frustrated or what have you. And so it’s really important as we look at like the journey that customers have when they enter our world and when they’re in our world, when they leave our world, making sure that we really kind of pave a path and let them know what’s going to be happening and how it’s going to work is really important.

No, I I would agree with you. I mean, I think a lot of times the business owner hasn’t made their expectations clear or the customer. I know in my business, they don’t always listen or want to listen and and and there’s some and there’s some of that and then you know I kind of I kind of described. Marketing agencies, which is the business I’m in as being a menu of services, right, if you want AB and C off to restaurant menu, you pay for AB and C and customers forever are saying I’d like. D and you say to the customer, well, you can have D but D comes at this cost or this price or this option and then the customer looks at you and says I’m not paying that. So what do you do to make that customer happy?

Hmm.

Yeah, I mean, listen, I think there’s always going to be that kind of a scenario, right? And so for me, it’s about explaining to customers up front like in that scenario, it’s like, look, we have a whole menu of services. We have ABC D all the way to Z, right, and and we’d love to work with you on the most appropriate services at the right time. Right. It’s not like D might be what you what you want, but really you need AB and C first. So let’s explain what this journey looks like and let me paint a picture of how we can work together and how when we’ll get to D and when that will make more financial sense for your business, right? And so you’re setting this expectation, what you’re doing is you’re you’re you’re laying out a path that will be a success. Path for them so that they can go down this road and you’re even opening up this aspirational thing of like, look, I wanna help you get to D where it makes it’s a no brainer to invest that much would D it would. It doesn’t make sense right now. Like I’ll sell it to you. If you’ve kind of forced me to, or if you’re even a better partner, you’d say look, I’m not going to sell. You did right now because it’s not right for you right now. I don’t want to take your money and and create a scenario that’s not gonna help you. Right. And I think customers, most customers are right fit customer for you will appreciate you supporting them in that way. When you do it with kindness. And and really, it requires you to though deeply understanding your customers and their business before you can get all you know go down that road and and and understand enough to guide them that way.

Yeah, I I agree with you wholeheartedly. One of the things that we see a lot is and I’ll. I’ll since we’re playing on the jewelry store scenario, we’ll go back to Hello, Phil. By the way, the.

Yeah.

So you’ve got 3 drawers, first in a mall. And. One of the things people always do is they fight this price to the bottom. Ohh. I’m gonna sell the engagement ring for 500 bucks. I’m gonna drop it to 300 bucks. I personally think that race to the bottom is a race to be out of business. How do you and there’s a really good book out there called the inside advantage? I don’t know if written read it by Robert Boom. It was written in 2009 and he talks about why you should make your business different. And not fight the price to the bottom. What’s your take on that?

Yeah. So I thank you for the recommendation. I have not read that book or even heard of it yet, so I’m going to grab a copy of that. I I will tell you that I 100% agree. So there’s another famous book on kind of differentiation is blue ocean strategy, right? And so where it really looks like in this red? See if competition you can’t stand out and it is a race to the bottom, right. And there’s a great example that they use in there of like the circuses out there and Cirque du Soleil. Right. And and if you look out there like Ringling brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, that’s been around forever, is gone. Right. Yeah. They actually were in that scenario and they didn’t differentiate. It was more of a kind of like, you know, same as the Joneses with everybody else and they and and then Cirque du Soleil emerged. And they’re doing great. They’re going going strong and they’re charging more per ticket than the circus ever charged because they created and carved out a niche and a a point of differentiation. And they created a different value. Right. And so there’s another great book out there by person, by the name of Dan Arieli called predictably irrational. Yes. Right. And it’s another great book, especially if you’re looking at pricing your services and and looking at how to it’s, you know, it’s behavioral economics kind of book and looks at how people make decisions about pricing and things. And so if you’re thinking about, like, going into a mall and you’re having these.

No.

You know, 3 seemingly identical businesses, right? A jeweler is a jeweler is a. Ruler and they have the same things. They have diamond rings for engagements like what makes them different, right. And so in Dan’l book he uses an example of the Economist, right, the the newspaper magazine. And they did this test and they had like, the digital version, which was like $59, I think. And they had the printed version, which was like 100. And $25. When they had those two options next to each other, that’s what people were comparing. And what do you think most people bought the $59 option, so they went with the online only. Well, they tried another example and they did a 59 online only 125 print only and 125 print and online. Now that wasn’t a mistake. I said that right. There’s two that are the same price, but they have both pieces in it. And So what happened there, almost everybody bought the $125. Print and online. Now, why did they do that? They did that because they’re comparing the value of the comparison set, which at that point was not 59 versus 125, it was 125 versus 125. So they didn’t go to the lowest price option. Now this was at the within one business. But think about this in terms of three different retailers, right? What is the package? What is the offering that you’re putting together that makes it more valuable? And it’s not just the stuff, right? I believe it’s also the experience, the environment, the relationship with the sales people. So when you start to think about this in your business, you it’s creating contexts like Cirque du Soleil reinvented what circus? This means right? And they created a whole new value and context of value, and so the ticket was worth more to people and they were willing to pay for it. So in your business, I think it’s really important and incumbent upon you to really look at what is that value equation. And if you’re just trying to go like that race to the bottom is it’s a race to your death. It really is. Right. It’s it’s, it’s you. Wanna you, Dan Kennedy. You know, the famous copywriter, he’s like, you know, there’s there’s no value in being the second lowest price, right? You like, just be the highest price. Right, but back it up with value and so I love working with brands that want to create a truly valuable experience for their customers, have top notch products and services. And when you’re able to do that and understand that customers are happy to pay for it, it’s it’s they they perceive that value.

You know, and sometimes the price is it’s the value. But if the customer really wants to work with you, the price doesn’t become the objection. So I give you an example of that. I rolled in in January and I raised all my prices across the board by not 5%, not ten per. Said try 30% crossword. Just said that’s it. I knew I was going to pull the switch. There was two reasons I did it. One, I knew 90% of my clients wouldn’t bark at it because they have a value and I was gonna use it as a way to get rid of the 10% that I wanted to get rid of anyone.

Yeah.

So the minute they saw the price increase, they said we’re not doing this. I said, great. Good luck. I wish you.

Yeah. And I think that’s smart, right in a way. And it’s not, it’s not disingenuous either, right? Like if you want to provide a great experience for your customers and you want to provide top quality service, you need to have the the financial wherewithal to do that, right? It costs money these days to run a business. And so we need to be able to do that. I also think that the value. You has to be looked at so like as you look at your business and you look at like increasing your prices and bringing on new clients, I think you really do have to keep looking like what are we doing today that we should no longer be doing? That’s not working for our clients that we’ve just kind of been doing and it’s not necessary and what do we need to be doing for our clients to. Take them to the next level. I have a a a very dear friend and client who has a like a. Of, like a spiritual healing practice, right. And so in her business, she’s been charging the same amount for people, and she goes on what she calls Spirit time. Right. So everybody has, like, an hour long session. But sometimes it goes a little longer. Right. And she doesn’t nickel and dime people. She doesn’t charge them beyond that. And people start taking advantage of that. Right. And so she was in a situation where she needed to raise her prices cuz expenses are higher, rents higher electric, everything’s higher, right. And she’s running out of hours to, you know, she’s trading time for money. And so as she looks at her business, she’s like, you know, what do I do? And we had a long conversation about this. And I said, listen, the people that are that are used to getting a certain service level. Like you can maybe grandfather them and say, listen, my prices are raising and here’s how it’s working. And because you’ve been with me for so long, you can buy a, you know, a six pack or whatever for one last time. For what this is, and that’s what it is going forward, this is the new pricing. Right. And here’s why. And, you know, and everyone was very grateful, you know, and most of them even said, you know what? I appreciate you doing that. I’m happy to pay the new prices cuz you’re amazing. Like the value you create is amazing. So a lot of times you probably agree with this already. I know we’re very aligned in a lot of stuff like it’s in our head that we can’t do that also and the value like if we really think about what’s happening with our clients.

Yes.

You know, they they are. They’re actually I I know that I was feeling like with with there’s a vendor that I work with. I’m like you are you’re not charging me enough. You need to charge me more. I feel like I’m taking advantage of you because you’re doing such a great job and you’re not charge.

Yes.

You know, like maybe I’m crazy, right? But I I want to pay them more because I want them to be around for a long time to be able to support our business and the. Others out there. So yeah, pricing is an issue. It’s it’s interesting. It’s an interesting dilemma that a lot of us have.

It’s always and and you shared the story about your friend, and that’s exactly what I did. I said, OK, I’m doing this for three weeks.

Yeah.

I will give you this year’s pricing, but keep in mind and the route I went was I made it clear all Grandfather pricing went and went everything. Yep. So if you were on special deals, they’re gone. If you got discount, they’re gone. And here it is and surprisingly enough.

Yep. Yeah, she did the same thing. She did the same thing you had. You had six. You could have six more sessions at the old price if you wanna buy them. In advance otherwise. It’s gone forever, so I love that.

And and it’s and it’s. Testing while we’re on pricing just cause I like to go down this. Road, what do you?

Yeah.

Think about discounting and people offer specials for period. Do you think that’s a good idea? Bad idea. Do you kind of say don’t do it or if you can do it, be genuine about it. Like, how do you go?

Yeah, I mean, this is a, this is an interesting conversation and debate. So I’m in a couple of different high level masterminds. And this is always like where people take the put the boxing gloves on and they start sparring over this. Right. So there’s some very and and and everyone that I’ve listened to make arguments has a good argument for this. So the the simple answer from me is I don’t really know. I can tell you this like what I would do. Right. So I do believe that there’s. A time and a place to offer some discounts or savings on things I don’t know that I would offer it necessarily on your flagship products. It does tend to devalue those. In some cases it depends on your. Market, you know, if everybody in your market is discounting, you know, you gotta ask question like why is there a reason like and if I do I do. I want to stand out from that competition or not and it’s a it’s a decision that you need to make. I do like to create different. Products and different things that are less expensive. Right. So I might take like if I have a course or a training, I might take a piece of that out and sell it at a smaller price because I think it stands alone on its own and it can create a lot of value for people and it also and it’ll help them and it also gives them a sampling, a taste of the full picture of other things that they might want to do so. So a lot of times I’ll do something like that, I’ll. Pull something out. Of a of a course or a program or training or something like that, where I’ll do that. The other thing I do is I’ll create a special product for a special scenario. So like instead of like for Black Friday, I see people like will discount all their products and sell them for a small amount of money. I might have a product that I only sell on Black Friday that you can’t get other times of year and that’s the special deal that I make. So it’s not that I’m discounting something else.

Yes.

So it’s a personal thing, right? It’s I my sense though is. I I like. I like to have established a value and kind of and keep that value there.

Yeah, I would agree with you. So moving on for pricing a little bit, let’s let’s talk storytelling cause that’s a fun one. How do you how do you think storytelling impacts the customer journey? And I think it’s an underused technique.

Well, so I think storytelling is everything. So, so this one’s near and dear to my heart. So thank you for this question. Look, I think the reason in our business, we have a program called the kinetic customer formula and what we do is we help small business owners. Really understand the journey that their customers go on and and once we understand the journey we try and remove all the friction. Right, take all the objections, all the obstacles. As out of the way as we can or reduce the amount of friction as much. Then we look at the points where there’s still some tension, still more difficult where people maybe like not have the right motivation and we look at how do we induce or boost momentum in those moments. So what we’re really doing is we’re building what I call like a water slide. So you imagine you’re on this like wonderful water slide. There’s plenty of water flowing and you’re able to just kind of. Effortlessly go down it versus the water slide you’re on and there’s not quite enough water and you’re like always getting stuck and you’re like, frustrating like, oh, I gotta try and move again. Right. And so I like to think of our, our customer journey really is what we call a kinetic pathway. Something that, like, allows you to flow through that. And when you do. That right, there’s stories that are being built by the customer, right? And those stories of their success are the stories that they’re going to tell, probably along the way. If you give them enough reasons to tell the story along the way. But most importantly, they’re going tell them at the end, and they’re going to feel compelled to because it was. Exciting for them. They got their results and they felt really good. And so as we help people craft that kinetic pathway, it’s always with the end in mind. So what we do is we start at the end, we say like what is the world’s best customer testimonial that you could get. Right. And so we look at our different avatars, our different, you know, prototypical clients. And we say to them, if they were, they just finished our our an engagement with us, whatever that is an online course shopping in our store, a yoga session, whatever your business happens to be, they just finished it and they loved it and it was really. Good. What would they go and tell somebody about it? Like, what would the juicy words be? What would they talk about like at at the beginning? Maybe they had some, some trepidation about starting, or maybe they were like, all in whatever it was for the. What would that journey be? And so we have our customers write this out. We call this the ideal customer script. What would that ideal customer say that it was so wonderful? And then from there we reverse engineer it. So what we’re doing, Rob, is we’re creating like little mile markers or little little triggers all along the way so that they are capturing the story. That we want them to tell at the end, all through the journey. And so they actually live that journey. And it’s not. It’s not manipulative in that what we’re doing is we’re literally giving them this ideal experience because we’ve designed it. It’s like the perfect Disney experience, if you will, right. And of course, nothing’s perfect. But but really trying to get it to that place. And as they go through that, the stories that come out of that, that becomes the best marketing. For your business. Right. Like I believe I see all these gurus, all these marketers out there teaching us how to fill our funnel, how to use Facebook ads, how to use Google, how to use TikTok, Pinterest, you know, YouTube, you name it, right and all that’s important. But if once they get in, they buy it, let’s say they actually buy it. All that stuff works, but they don’t get the results from our product or our service or our programs. Hmm, it doesn’t matter that we spent. They’re gonna ask for a refund, or they’re gonna leave a negative review where they’re not gonna tell other people. And what if every time 1 customer came in, they told two other? All of a sudden your business has this compounding effect, and the reason that they will and that will end up happening, it is the stories. It comes back to your marketing that the front end, all the stuff that you’re gonna start doing when you fix the back end when you do what we teach you to do and you make this kinetic side, this kinetic pathway of your business.

Yes.

Work the the marketing is your customer success. Your customers are your marketing and they become you know we this army of raving fans but they become your sales force. Like your customers, become your unpaid sales force because they feel this compulsion to do it and it’s their story. So when they’re telling it it’s authentic, they’re late. Like they live it like when they’re telling you like the engagement, the energy, the excitement, it’s real because they’re reliving the wonderful experience they just had. And so every business that’s not capitalizing on these stories. And this is true on the inside of your business. I’m only talking about your customers, but your employee experience is. Too, like I talked to people all the time about like they have retention problems with their employees or they’re having a problem like attracting great talent. They’re not getting the the caliber of employees that they want. This fixes that too because it’s exciting to work for a business that’s creating such momentum and results for their customers, right. And and when we remove friction. For our customers or from our customers journey, we actually remove friction from our employees journey. We make it more fun and easier place to.

Yeah, that.

Work.

That is so true in that. Mentioned refunds and I like to go there because refunds are are a pain in the you know where we’ve all had them customers not happy. You’re past the 30 days customer still wants to refund. They don’t care. I’ve seen some interesting ways of handling refunds.

Yeah, we’ll probably get.

Yep.

A couple of businesses in the Toronto area. Handle businesses if you’re part of their loyalty program, they extend your days for refunds. So we were my partner and I were out shopping in a well known store and their policy is if you have a loyalty card, you get 30 days to do an exchange or refund, not ten. So that’s how they handle it. How do you how do you handle refund objections like how would you handle?

Well, so I. I I like that idea of like if we have a long term relationship in place like you’re part of my loyalty program, right. You have a special you, you get something special in advance to reward loyalty. Right. I like that idea. Right. I believe very much in reward and. Recognition. So I think that’s great. So yeah, kudos to them and and online businesses, especially online businesses that have like some kind of subscription or membership program, this is a great way for them to think about it. If you’re in our membership, then you can actually get extended refund terms on all of our other products and services.

Yeah.

Right. So that’s that’s a, it’s an interesting way to kind of help with retention within your membership. But like I’m I’m I’m a little bit weird this way, right? Like I don’t want someone in my program if they don’t like it.

I agree.

So. So I would rather refund somebody, even if it’s beyond the time frame, then have them be unhappy. And it’s because I don’t want their money. I want their success. And if they aren’t able to find success with us, then I want them to go find success elsewhere. So. So what I what I would do and what we do as a matter of you know, our operations here is we have a stated refund policy and if someone comes in and they we have conditional refunds also like if they if they try and do. The work like. If they haven’t opened it up and they haven’t made any effort, that’s different than if they have made some effort and they’re not enjoying it or they’re not getting the value. Right for some. Reason what I would like to know though is why right? Because our whole mission is to help people get results and so I would rather kind of talk you out. I’m not the person that’s like, look, no matter what, come into our program, you can get your money back. Like it’s like, look, if you feel like this is a good program for you, then come.

Yeah.

On let’s do this. And if it’s not working out then you can have your money back. But it’s not like come in no matter what. Just do it. Just do it. Do it. Now. You have 5 minutes left and. Then you can. Get your money back. I don’t wanna pull in all the the people that are sitting on the fence that aren’t committed. Like I believe that when people purchase something, it’s an intention, not a commitment. Right. And I want a commitment cause when I have committed people committed, people get results, right, people that are on the fence, they don’t get results, right. And that’s true in almost anything in life. And So what I try and do with customers that come into my world is I try and and and get a commitment to them to the result. And if this is not the result. Flop and this is not the time for us. Maybe there’s a time for us later. And it’s not that I don’t want to help you. It’s that I know that I can best help you when you’re like. Heck yes. I’m gonna make this happen. I will. I will show up. And do you know more than 100% of my side if I have a committed client. But if they’re not committed, I can’t force them over the finish line. I’m not gonna be able to help them. Right. And so we try and be like we talked about expectations. Doing earlier I try and really set expectations like what is the right fit client for us look like and in my business it doesn’t matter if you have a brick and mortar business or you have an online. Business what it matters is that you’re a committed business owner, right? That you actually are looking to create an experience for your customers that helps them get results. That helps them increase their engagement. That helps them, you know, become whatever version of themselves that they want to become. Right, that’s. That’s what’s important to me. And so when it comes to refunds. I do think having a risk reversal, kind of, which is really what a refund is a guarantee of some sort. I think that’s an important piece and obviously it’s required like like legally you know, depending on what country you’re in, where you do business, whatever there’s credit cards and whatever there’s requirements for that, right. So we got to meet the obligations. Of the law. But I think philosophically speaking, like it should be there to help when there’s a real problem, but I don’t think people should get in unless they’re really feeling like this is the right thing to do.

Yeah, love that answer. So you. Work with companies to help them foster their customers. Tell. Tell me a little bit about your formula and how it works.

Yeah. So in a nutshell, there’s, we believe there’s, there’s this idea of the result, the ideal result that we want, right. And for all of us, we want our customers to rave. About. The process right like, Oh my gosh, I just worked with Rob and studied digital media. It was amazing. Like, I couldn’t even believe that this was. Possible, right? So they’re raving about it. We want them to renew. Like, if you have a monthly service or you have an annual service, we want them to renew that ongoing service. We want them to. To repeat and buy other products and services from us, maybe they buy a higher level product or service or maybe they buy a different product or service and ultimately we want them to recruit other businesses and customers into our ecosystem. That to me is success and we believe that that comes from a combination of four factors, right. Attitudes of customers behaviors. So what are they thinking and expecting? What do they do? Doing. The friction. What is stopping them from getting results and momentum? How can we increase the likelihood of them staying engaged and So what we have is a formula that we’ve created that we’ve been you know we’ve battle tested over the last 30 years. I know I don’t look that all. Thank you. But in all seriousness like we’ve we’ve got all tested this and it’s what we’ve used with everyone from you know the. Disneys of the world to the universities, to small entrepreneurs, small business. And and what we do is we go through and we analyze your journey and what we do it based on your actual customers. So we look at your customers and we create these prototypical customers avatars which you know everyone in the marketing world talks about. But we do it on a slightly deeper level, right. And so the way we think about it, again bringing in my theater. Background. As we think about it, as if you were going to play the character, the role of your customer on stage. If you had to do it believably, if you’re like Matthew McConaughey, and you had to get into character and act them out realistically, what would they be saying? What would they they be thinking? What would they be driving? How would they be interacting? Would they be angry? Would they be frustrated? Would they are they get up early in the morning, like what brands are they like all the basic stuff that? Everyone thinks about. With Avatar, but then also that other bit. How do you authentically portray them and when you can step into their shoes? It’s a different game, and then once you’re in their shoes, we actually have you walk their journey. Me in their shoes, not from the perspective of the the company, which is what we mostly do, but really from the perspective of the customer. And it’s an interesting experience, right? Most people that come in and kind of go through this experience with us, they have some kind of very emotional reaction and. A lot of. Times. It’s crying and frustration at themselves. Because they have that that epiphany of like ohh gosh, we really are making it hard. Like I can’t believe we’re doing this. I never had. Any clue? Right. And so when we go through that, that’s when we can then go in, we can really analyze it. We can pull away the friction, we can reduce that. We can find opportunities to add momentum. We can figure out where we need to set expectations like just because someone has a problem, let’s say, in step five, that might mean that we had to set an expectation in step one. Right, not at Step 4. And so we really get to see it and and honestly, we map these big boards out, Rob. And it’s it’s so transformational for our class, it’s like it’s the most fun thing I’ve ever done in my life because you see the epiphanies that people are having throughout it and they leave with an actionable game plan to, like, fix this stuff. And you know you, you, you pick, you prioritize what is the biggest obstacle that’s stopping people. So I had a woman just totally.

Yeah.

Like, not even like a a business case. It was an author, right and so. She had a. Book and she was finding that she was having a hard time getting people to read past Chapter 2. And so we did the same map because it got too jargony and too technical. And so like, she was losing people and she was not. She was giving them all the information. It was from her perspective. She has the curse of knowledge. She knows too much, right? But her customer wasn’t ready for all that yet. And so we rejiggered.

Why?

Some of this and she she put this out in a different way and all of a sudden people are getting the end. And she put motivational like little side authors note saying listen on the other side of this chapter is a massive breakthrough. It’s hard. I get it. Hit the gas pedal and power through this because there’s unbelievable amazingness on the other side right in her words, whatever she said. And they did. And that was just that little dose of momentum. That they need it to just get over the hill. It’s like when you’re driving the car and you kind of like coasting. As long as you’re going straight or downhill, the car is gonna keep moving, but if it. Starts going uphill. You gotta hit the gas pedal, otherwise it’s not. Keep going, right? Or the electric if you’re a Tesla fan, right? So whatever it is, you gotta stay with them. And so in our program, we really go through that. And so the formula helps you look at all of those things, attitudes, behaviors, friction, momentum and how do we achieve that result. And we break it down by every moment that people have with you before they even find you. So we look at like their journey of discovery. Of your business. All the way through to again renewal and buying other products and services and it’s a it’s a powerful tool and you. You know, over the years as we refine this and and we’ve just made it more and more actionable and we’ve worked with businesses in every every possible industry. So it applies to you know it’s like I know that when you’re talking to everyone, you’re talking to no one, but it really is a people, right, it’s it’s about people and how people work. So it applies to any business online, offline or whatever. And and it’s just something that I think, especially nowadays with AI and and the way the world’s working and and it’s getting more and more. Additive the only true way to kind of have your fingerprint, your uniqueness. It is your experience. It’s not the physical products, it’s not the service. It’s the way people feel after interacting with your business.

True. You know, so since you went there and mentioned in two most dreaded letters in marketing called AI and you had to go there and we. Yeah, I know you can. It’s the buzzword these days. You can thank ChatGPT for that. A year ago we we know we know.

Yes, I had you. I couldn’t help it.

Microsoft’s a big player in open AI and copilot. We know Google’s doing some. Amazing things with Bard right now. How to say I play into all this, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it? Is it just kind of a tool like where do you sit with that?

Well, so I think AI is awesome and I think AI is. I think. It’s an opportunity to be a great tool. For us, for all of.

Yeah.

Us, right. So what I’ve heard it called as a like a joke, but it’s really powerful to me, is accelerated intelligence. Right. It helps you move faster. It gets you information in ways that you can process.

Yes.

Faster amplified intelligence, right? Like losing that artificial idea. And so for me, I find it to be a fun brainstorming tool. Like it’s having like a ghoul kind of sparring partner with me when I’m trying to brainstorm something. Or it’s a great tool for me when I’m trying to get insight into my avatar.

Yeah.

Like if I’m trying to figure out how you know how to play this customer on stage, I use that that example just a little. There we go. This will help me think about those people. Right. So one of my one of my good friends Will Hamilton, he has a he’s a an online tennis instructor. Right. He has like one of the largest online tennis instructing. Platforms out there.

Hold on.

Yeah, it’s called fuzzy yellowballs.com definitely worth the check out. He’s an awesome, awesome human. He also is studying. Out to be a stand up comedian and he’s using the the art of like writing jokes in writing, copy to, you know, in marketing and it’s really kind of interesting the parallels between. The two he uses AI to find out interesting things to help write better jokes or write better copy so he’ll write. He’ll put down there like if so, let’s say I was going to market that, that jewelry store, right and and you know he’s he’s trying to find a way to get a a a 25 year old male to come by.

In.

From him, he would say, you know, as a 25 year old male who’s afraid of picking the wrong ring. What are the top five things that he’s worried about? And it might come up with five things and that helps him kind of understand what those fears were and might say. So if I was able to eliminate this fear, what might be true? And then I will come back and give them some other ideas. So it’s just helping them think through, like what’s going on in the heads of those people. And it’s a. Powerful tool, that said. You know, there’s also people that are coming up with products and services that aren’t their own and like having AI generate it and go out there tomorrow and competing with other people that have products and services, right? So that’s why I think the. France is the great equalizer, right? Like I’ve been saying it for 30 years, right? Like it’s more important today than ever before. I like sound like a broken record. If you go back and listen to me on stage 30 years ago, very awkward young kid. And today on stage I’m saying the same thing, right. The most important thing is the experience that customers have with your business.

I do.

That is what’s gonna be the great equalizer. And so AI is a tool. It’s not gonna replace people. What’s gonna be more important for everybody that’s listening to this is you really do need to put on that lens of your customer. You need to walk a walk. The walk in their shoes. You need to see what they’re experiencing, cuz that’s going to be what decides. If you’re here tomorrow or not.

Mm-hmm.

No, I agree with you. I think I think AI is just making my job and your job probably more easier. It’s doing some of that background work for us and you know. I I think I saw a presentation last week by Canada Post and part of it was really interesting part was Gen. X sorry Gen. Z, which is the younger generation and part of it was AI and the gentleman who did the AI presentation said listen, you want the best way to learn a I throw $30.00 at chat. GPT 4 copilot for a month to go. Try it and go play. That’s the best $30 you’re gonna.

Yeah, I think it’s interesting though. So and I’m a mastermind that I run, we’ve got everybody using it now. And what’s interesting is their team like here’s the thing more often than not, your team is already using it, but they think they’re gonna get in trouble. So they’re not letting you know. And so we, we’ve actually made it be a requirement of our teams like we want.

Yeah.

Either use it and play with it. And and utilize it and see like what can we make easier? How can we be using our skills in a in our in our unique abilities and our zones of genius in an even better way because we’re able to offload some of these other things into automated ways. And so I think it’s a really powerful tool and I think we should all be embracing it. And I do think that those that kind of like. Snubbed their nose up at it and and don’t. Don’t figure out how to embrace it in some way. Are gonna be sorry that they hadn’t spent a few minutes on it, you know?

Yeah, I would agree and I and the big thing about being in this business is we’re always learning. So you know if you’re anything to do with marketing and agency technical, you’re always learning, I mean, and we all learn different ways. Podcast books, I’m an avid reader. I’m. I’m still a book a week guy, so I. I read one book a week. Yeah, and I will. I love to read. And, you know, somebody said my mom was talking to me earlier today, and she said.

God bless you, man. Me too. Thank you.

How many books do you have on your night stand? And I said right now I got 7 of them and that doesn’t count to three Kindle books on the go when I’m on. The road so. You know, I I’m. I’m there. So you you find your your learning consumption network and just keep learning and it’s just I think we’re at a fascinating time right now. Yes.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. You know, AI’s AI’s here with us. I think it’s going to be here for the duration. So if you’re on the fence about it, play with it, learn a little bit more about it. Be curious.

Jump in, jump in now. Don’t wait. Yeah, I would agree here.

Yeah, just be curious. I think being curious is is a great thing, you know, and learn a little bit.

Yeah, I I agree with you. If somebody wants to learn more about to set formula has the best way.

Yeah. So I’ve got. Well, first you can go to our website cxformula.com. Thanks for the kind words about it earlier. And you can check us out. But I actually I have a special PDF just for you guys, your people. Rob, if that’s cool. If they go to, yeah, if they go to gift.cxformula.com forward slash.

That sure is.

SDM for stunning digital media, I’ve got a special PDF there. I’m not gonna tell you what it is. I’m gonna create a little curiosity. Right, so here’s what I’m gonna tease you with. It’s. Freaking awesome. It’s an amazing strategy that’s also actionable, and it’ll take you 10 minutes to go through it. And so it’s gonna give you some ways to think about your business a little bit differently that you can actually do something with. I only asked two things. One, if you go there and you download it, actually open it up and take a look at it, please don’t let it just sit on your hard drive. Collecting dust and digital dust and two my emails in there shoot me an e-mail. Let me know you think about it. I’d love to hear from you. Hear your thoughts and and see if there’s a way we can help you with your.

And what I would tell you is knowing Jason, this PDF is going to be awesome cause him and his team are awesome. So so they so real quickly. If somebody wants to reach out to you emails the best way or are you on any socials.

Thanks, man. Appreciate you. We’re on a whole bunch of socials. I’ll make sure you have all the links to put below this because I can’t even remember them all right now, but if you hit us up at cxformula.com, there’s a way to send us a note or all of our socials are on there as well.

Now, thanks, Jason, and you have yourself an awesome weekend, my friend.
Awesome buddy. Thank you, rob.