Unignorable Buyer Psychology: Why Buyers Buy Accounting Services | Katelyn Bourgoin

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to Amplify, the podcast for accounting firm growth. My name is John Tireman and I will be your host for season 10 where we're going to explore the psychology behind why buyers buy accounting services. Today I'm joined by Caitlin Bogoyne, the founder of Unignorable, the agency that helps big brained experts like you extract their first ownable idea. Caitlin also publishes the why We Buy newsletter that features a cognitive bias in each edition. And as of this recording, her newsletter is distributed to 63,353 business professionals. Welcome to the Amplify podcast, Caitlin.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me. Um, can I share a secret with your listeners?

Speaker B: Please?

Speaker A: There's actually probably not that exact number of readers right now because of course it goes up and it goes down. But one of the, one of, uh, a cognitive bias is that we really like things that are specific. Right? Specific numbers feel more trustworthy. So using specificity as opposed to saying 63,000 or even just 60,000 plus. Right? Like this, the more specific, often people, it feels more believable. So accountants, they're number people. Like the specific numbers are useful.

Speaker B: I'm glad you went there. That's exactly why I put that exact number in the intro read. So thank you for taking the bait on that one. Um, so Caitlin, uh, um, we've actually crossed paths a few times. Um, I started following your why we buy newsletter in 2020 or 2021. Um, it was super helpful for me. I'm a research geek. I come from a market research background. Listeners, if they want to subscribe, you go to learn why we buy.com. um, and, uh, Caitlin, I'm pretty well versed in your story, um, having followed you for so long. But just before we dig into some more of those cognitive biases, um, do you think you could give our listeners just a quick overview of how you came into this world of buyer psychology?

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, my first business was a marketing agency. And like a lot of marketers that are selling services, um, at some point I said, you know what, wouldn't it be cool to sell something more scalable, like not sell time for money? And I was like, that will be cool. And this is back in like 20, 2013 probably. And I was like, oh, well, there's too much, you know, courses are cool, but there's a lot of people in that world. It's too overcrowded. This is 2013. I'm like, I'll just build a tech startup. How hard could that be? Turns out very, very hard. So I went off, we raised venture capital, we built a company. It looked like things were going great from the outside. Um, Inc magazine said we were building the LinkedIn for women entrepreneurs. But inside, everything was going wrong. It was a dumpster fire of problems. And eventually that company, I ended up winding it down. Um, but I had been a marketer. I'd worked closely, uh, with a lot of other startup founders, trying to help them, kind of just like as a friend with their marketing at the time. And so my lead investor came to me and they said, we've got this portfolio of companies, and all of them are brilliant engineers for the most part. They're so good at the product side, they need help with marketing. Would you help them? And I said, absolutely, because I am so broke. So I went in and I started working with all of these founders. And I would ask them the question that we, of course, as marketers, need to know, which is, tell me about your customers. And I was just blown away by how rarely I could get a straight answer out of these folks. So it's like sometimes it was, oh, well, you know, we target this customer and this customer and this customer. And it was like enterprise companies and small businesses. It was all over the place. Um, and then one time, this founder looks me, like, right in the eyes, like, you know, he's not bullshitting, and he goes, well, our customer is very narrow. It's company. It's B2B companies with anywhere between 10 and 500 employees who sell things online. And I was like, so everybody, Everybody.

Speaker B: And it became boil the ocean, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So narrow. Um, it became clear to me that I actually did up working with, uh, that team and helping them to actually narrow in and figure out who their customers were through doing customer research. And they ended up crushing it. They had an exit a couple years later, so that's a fun success story. And then one of the co founders actually went off and started a customer research business because she believes in it so much now. Um, but that's how I got my start in it. And so I realized I was like, there's a real problem here. Like, there's a lack of understanding about who the customer is. Not just, like, from a demographics perspective, but, like, what are they trying to get done? Why do they buy? Why do they, like, what brings them into our world? And so I planned to start a productized insights agency. That was my goal. Um, and I built this little newsletter as a way to attract prospective, uh, clients. And I thought most people don't care about research. It's a project in their mind. It's not something that they want to open a newsletter every week and learn about. So what do they care about? And I'm like, what's kind of another way you can get the job done? Like, if you're trying to understand why your customers buy and you're not doing research, what other thing might you do? And I was like, oh, behavioral science. Like, you know, um, cognitive biases, heuristics, that stuff. I'm like, okay, I'm going to write a newsletter about that. And so I started the newsletter. It took off in a way I never expected. Um, Covid happened. My husband lost his job, we started a business together, I got pregnant, we had a baby, he broke his neck, and life was crazy. And I was like, suddenly all of these, um, brands started reaching out to me and being like, I'd love to, uh, be. I'd love to sponsor your newsletter and pay to be in it. And I was like, oh, that's a thing. It turns out that is a thing. And so that became kind of the jumping off point to what got me where I am now. It never was supposed to be a business, and then it kind of became one. So a lot of people apparently want to understand why their customers buy, which I'm very grateful for.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that's a very good thing for the industry that so many marketers want to understand why, you know, why their buyers buy. Um, and in fact, uh, Caitlin, you did. And back in 2021, I don't know if you remember or not, but you did a training session at the agency that I worked at, and it was actually really, really helpful. You introduced me to this concept of jobs to be done, which I believe was originally coined by Clayton Christensen.

Speaker A: Clayton Christensen was one of the co creators, Bob Melesta, another one. I think there were about three or four folks who kind of came together and put all their big brain energy

Speaker B: into coming up with that big brain energy. Love it. Um, so I think this is probably like a foundational piece where I would love to jump off of for our listeners. And, um, can you just explain the whole concept of jobs to be done?

Speaker A: Absolutely. So, like you, as I started to see this problem, I was like, why are so many companies struggling to understand their customers? And as I got into the weeds of this, you know, I'd always been a marketer. I'd always known that understanding your customers was important. And back in my agency days, you know, we would create Personas for our customers, and those things would Be full of like, you know, it's Mary the marketer, and she's 27 years old, she drives a Toyota. And like, it was just like this stuff that like, on paper is supposed to help you empathize with your customers. But let's be honest, that stuff didn't necessarily explain why they bought. And a lot of times it was just guessing and it was kind of bullshit. And so I was like, okay, if we want people to understand their customers and just looking at the demographics and the psychographics is only getting us part of the way they are. Like, what else is there? And that led me down this rabbit hole. And eventually I discovered jobs to be done. And it just blew my eyes wide open. And it changed the way that I think about marketing, changed the way I think about product design. And if your listeners are, you know, near a computer, like, write this down, like you want to go and watch a video called Milkshake Marketing with Clayton Christensen. Because that, that will be a, uh, before and after moment in your marketing career. You'll be like, there was before the milkshake video and there was after the milkshake video.

Speaker B: I remember that video too.

Speaker A: It's so crazy, but like, I will not do it nearly as much justice as Clayton does. But like, essentially the idea is this. People do not buy products and services because of who they are. That just happens to be like, you know, there happens to be some trends and uh, correlation there. But people buy products and services because they have a specific job that they're trying to get done. And when you understand that job, you understand all of the nuances about what they're trying to achieve. Their, you know, the functional elements, the social elements, how they want to be perceived by others, the emotional elements, how they want to feel once the job is done. When you really dig into it and you kind of think about it that way, you can identify what does your business really do, what job do you help people get done? And you can design better solutions and you can market them so much more effectively because you can reach people at the right time. And so that's the kind of high level concept. Um, one of the examples that, ah, that's that I love is like, if you think about, um, if you think about. What would be a good example here, I feel like my brain is a little toasty today.

Speaker B: Well, let's, so let's think of this through the lens of accounting firms. And I've put some thought into this, um, and I could probably. I've put some thought into this and I've thought through the kind of the jobs to be done from an accounting firm perspective. I would love to get your feedback on this. Um, people are probably thinking, oh, we want to buy an accounting firm because of this logical solution. Right. We want to save more on taxes. Mhm. Sure. There is like a risk mitigation element to that. So I would say like, that's, that's one job to be done. But I think there is an emotional job that purchasing accounting services does, um, especially for a business owner. And I think it's like reducing anxiety about money, reducing your risk, reducing uncertainty. So you can kind of feel a little bit more calm about your financial situation.

Speaker A: Absolutely. You said you just hired your first accountant. I'm in the process now of moving to a different bookkeeper. I'd been using a different service and unfortunately they ended up shutting down. But like the um, for me, like, there's a very clear job to be done, which is like, I want to know, I want an at a glance view of where I'm at. Right. Like I want to be able to know that these things are profitable, that these things aren't. Because that does bridge that anxiety. I'm a small business owner. It's just me and a couple of contractors. Like, I know that I'm always profitable, but I don't always know how profitable. I don't really know. Like I'm, I often was just leaving until the end of the year and then doing all my bookkeeping in one mad dash. And so it's like I, for me, it's like, like, like help me, like free me from the anxiety that I'm not. That I don't understand my money. Like there's a shame in that too. There's that emotional part. It's like if somebody asked me, how much revenue did you do this month? I can ballpark it. Like I don't know. And that's a problem. Right? Like, and so there's all like, uh, when you talk to your customers and you learn about their journey, you can often find that there's these very clear jobs to be done.

Speaker B: And I think when it comes to accounting, it's always retroactive either. I think, uh, the best accounting firms aspire to be, uh, the trusted advisor. That's like the goal, what all accounting firms try to aspire to be. And so in order to do that, you really need to perform the job of illustrating progress or illustrating a path forward. Right. So helping their clients understand and manage their financial realities so that they can make better decisions moving forward. Yeah, so those are a couple jobs. Uh, I think we've touched on that sufficiently. So those are some jobs to be done in the accounting world. Um, Caitlin, where I'd like to go next is in the world of professional services. In accounting and beyond, in other industries, it's very much a business of expertise. You're buying services from people performed by people with the aid of technology. Um, but there is this pattern that emerges in the sales process of knowing, liking and trusting. Know, like trust. This framework's, you know, familiar. And I don't think there's any one specific origin point. But what I'd like to do with this and structure this, Caitlin, is let's talk about each one of those three, and then let's dive into some cognitive biases that might impact getting to know, um, an accounting firm. Getting to like an accounting firm and trust them.

Speaker A: I love this question. Um, and I know that you've been thinking about the cognitive biases that fall in here, too, so why don't we go one for one? I'll share one and you share one.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Um, so one that comes to in the know one. One that comes to mind for me is distinctiveness, right? Because there has, or it's often called the von Restorff effect, but there have never been more content that there is today. Like, AI has unlocked a lot of opportunities for us. And one of those is that it's just hella easy to create content. And so our feeds are already very full. Our inboxes are very full. And if you actually want to get known and discovered, you need to be seen. And to be seen, oftentimes, you need to be able to stand out. So the von Restore effect is this idea of, uh, when you think about everything else that's showing up in front of somebody, the thing that they focus on is going to be the thing that's different. Right. It's like you see a hundred black circles. The red one stands out instantly. It's immediately where you place your attention. And yet, when it comes to marketing, so often what we do is we look at what's happening in our industry and we mirror it. We do this. We do something very similar or just like one degree of difference. And it's like, oh, we're not going to be black, we're going to be charcoal gray, and that's going to really help us stand out. But it's like, no, if you really want to. When. If you want to be noticed, because you can't be known until you're noticed. You have to Stand out. So the Von Rashtorff effect. Figure out what's happening in your space or your industry. And it doesn't mean that you need to be crazy or zany or do silly things, but find a way to stand out.

Speaker B: I love that example as a lead off because, um, I'm thinking through my own experience recently hiring an accounting firm just a few months ago. And um, I found an accounting firm that specialized in creative entrepreneurs. And I run a podcast marketing agency. And um, they have a podcast. So that was another kind of check list on my box. I want them to be able to see the value of it so that we can relate. But what kind of. What stood out to me in kind of like underneath this umbrella of distinctiveness was when I went to their website, it read very much like a digital agency. It m didn't look like an accounting firm. It felt like a digital agency in the way that they presented the content, the bold col used. And it was starkly different from what I'm used to seeing working with some of some larger accounting firms. Um, so I think that's a great example of distinctiveness in the accounting industry.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: So you wanted to go 1 for 1 for each of these. Um, I think you coined this one. I'm probably taking what I know from you, but the mere exposure effect, I

Speaker A: didn't coin, but it is absolutely one of my favorites.

Speaker B: Well, thank you for sharing that terminology with me. I love this familiarity bias, maybe some might call it. But um, it's this notion of just by showing up and exposing yourself and your point of view, you become familiar. And if you become familiar, that's a stepping stone to our next bucket. Being liked and then eventually being trusted enough to doing business with. So just showing up and just being visible, um, is, um, helps you become more familiar and leads to trust.

Speaker A: Love that one. Okay, so now we're going into, um, being liked. I would say there's a couple different ones we could play with here.

Speaker B: Um, well, I've got two. So hopefully you don't take. Well, if you take.

Speaker A: One of my favorites is the pratfall effect. I don't know if that was.

Speaker B: That was one of them. Yeah, but go ahead. I love that you went there.

Speaker A: I'll leave that one for you. So why don't we go with this, um, the effort heuristic. Right. So people often assume that when they're struggling with something, it's that they are not good enough. Like they're like, you know, they're not able to do it. And so I Think that one way for an accountant to be likable might be messaging that kind of like normalizes that hiring an accountant is actually a competent signal. It's like, you know that you're going to leave this to the experts, like basically making them feel smart for enlisting this with the experts, as opposed to. Sometimes you'll see messages around like, here are tips or here are struggles that you're having. And it's like, well, yeah, because now you're making me feel dumb. Like, I'm feeling like I'm not good at this thing. So I think that being able to kind of showcase that they're not failing because they're incompetent, but they're actually failing because they're struggling with these pieces because you know their area of expertise and that that's why you want to work with an expert. That could be a way to be likable, to have a message that actually doesn't create shame or anxiety, but relieves that shame and anxiety.

Speaker B: Totally. I mean, is this the best use of your time doing your own books? Right, Exactly. And you don't know the tax code as well as our tax professionals, so let's let our tax pros handle that. So you can instead repurpose that time on selling more of your services or selling more products.

Speaker A: I could see how that would come out in ads, right? Uh, you could show like, what they want to be doing versus, like what they're doing with trying to figure out their own accounting. And it's like, you're a frigging rock star. Like, you should be over here doing this thing, like, leave this boring crap to us. Right? And I think that that would be likable because that's what people want anyway. So I think that ultimately being able to share a message that like, frees them from the anxiety that they should be able to figure this out and instead shows them that their time's much better spent elsewhere would be like, totally.

Speaker B: Yeah. I love that example. All right. The pratfall effect. So, um, this is one of my favorite ones. And this is the cognitive bias that essentially people like other people more when they seem slightly flawed.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Right. And so in some form or fashion, um, obviously you want to be competent in your area of expertise, but you also want to be human. Right? People like to do business with other people. And just seeming like completely polished and perfect can sometimes be like a turn off or.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Or even like bring up questions of like, wait a second, like, is this person for real or are they faking it. But when you bring in that element of like human nature into the conversation, then it just, you become more likable because you become more human. And honestly, that's why I think podcasting is fantastic. Because we're here having a conversation, two people with our different, you know, predispositions and beliefs and cracking jokes and stuff. Mhm.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that one. And the thing about the pratfall effect too, that is like, um, the one of the studies they did that where they coined this is they had people come in for job interviews and they didn't, the people who were rating them didn't realize they were all actors. So they were actually actors doing these job interviews. And as they, um, would, as they would be on the interview, like there was ones that would buy intentionally spill a little bit of coffee on themselves. And so the thing that they did that was kind of like human and flawed. It wasn't that they, you know, they were a mathematician and like somebody asked them, what's two plus two? And they said nine, like that's not going to make you more likable. But they, it was unrelated to their area of expertise, but yet still showed their humanity. And the ones who had had that kind of like little human error were the ones that the interviewers actually rated as far more likable. So it's very interesting where you go into a job interview, you think, I need to nail this. I need to be so perfect, I need to be on my game. But actually one little like, admission of like humanness might actually be the thing that makes you much more likable.

Speaker B: That's really interesting. It's like the confidence to be human almost. Right. Instead of trying to be perfect and then coming across as insecure.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Um, just embracing who you are. Ah, Uh, I think that's a great example. All right, so let's move on to trust. And I know that this is a lot of probably accounting firms are probably accounting marketers right now are thinking, okay, let's skip to trust. How do we get to trust faster? But I think it's important to go through. You get to knowing somebody and liking somebody first. You have to before you can trust them.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Um. So let's go one for one again here. What's a cognitive bias that, um, helps you gain more trust?

Speaker A: There's so many good ones here. I'm trying to think of which one is the one. I feel like the one that would be not the most obvious but really valuable would be like the bandwagon effect, right? So the bandwagon effect is this idea is like if we see everybody else is doing something, we're more likely to do that thing too. And so I think that when as a, uh, as an accounting firm, if you can somehow show a lot of people like you are doing this thing, so maybe it's on your website, you could have something like, you know, nine people like you, you were working specifically with creators, right? This age, this accounting agency works specifically with creative entrepreneurs. So if they could show something like, you know, in the last week, nine new creative entrepreneurs signed up with us. You're like, oh, okay. Like, you know, other people, my peers are doing this thing. I'm m going to do it too. There's a bunch of different ways when you think of it from more like a, um, outside of the accounting industry, like if you see everybody lined up at one brunch spot, what do you do? You go, that's the brunch spot. I'm getting in line, right? You think, okay, everyone else is going to that spot. It must be good. It may not be. There might have just happened to be a queue and then suddenly everyone thought it was good. So we're very influenced by what others are doing and we'll likely jump on the bandwagon if it seems like it serves us. It saves, uh, cognitive load. So if there's ways that you can show that everyone else is doing something that benefits your business, it's a good way to get other folks to jump on the bandwagon.

Speaker B: To your point about that bandwagon effect? Now that I'm reflecting on my recent experience purchasing an accounting firm, that had an impact because along with signing up and onboarding with this firm, they have a community of creative entrepreneurs. And these are folks that could potentially be teaming partners on projects or referral sources, um, or potentially people that have gone through this situation and can offer advice. Um, so it's interesting that you mentioned that I didn't put that together, but that's a great example. So I'm going to go with storytelling.

Speaker A: Ooh, I love it.

Speaker B: And I don't know if it's a cognitive bias or not, but I know that stories have this, this kind of like impact when, you know, I, I guess like, let's just think about human history, right? Like before we learned how to write, we passed on knowledge through stories. So I think that we're, our brains are wired to, yeah. To be able to retain information specifically through stories.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And I've interviewed a few people about this, but I think, um, the, especially if an accounting firm has an industry specialization, like we specialize in the transportation industry, we're creative entrepreneurs. And if you're able to tell stories about client success, stories about how you've served people in that specific industry achieve certain outcomes, that can go a long way to building trust. I suppose it plays on social proof and um, maybe authority bias and a few others wrapped up in there.

Speaker A: All these though, they're all so interwoven because like um, behavioral scientists, like many people in many disciplines, they love naming shit, right? So like there's always overlap between these. Like.

Speaker B: I love it, I love it. Yeah. Um, well, and then I think it's, it's also a way to so social proof authority bias. Yeah. And there's, there's a whole bunch wrapped up in there. But I think again, people learn through stories. So if you're able to share a story, loop in some statistics, maybe loop in some, um, names, specific examples in making it real. And obviously it has to be true. Right? You can't just make up stories out of thin air. Um, and it shows past performance, which is something that can reduce risk too. So I think that there's kind of like another aspect to storytelling too.

Speaker A: I love storytelling and what you talked about, the brain. There's actually studies that show when we are hearing a story, something switches in our brain and we become. It's almost like a drug. Like the same types of chemicals are released when we're hearing a story that are released when we're having alcohol or when we're like having a drug. And we become almost entranced. And what ends up happening, which is great for us as marketers, but something to be cautious of, on the receiving end of it is we become more, um, more easily persuaded and more influenced. Like we're more easily influenced and suggestible when we're in the trance of a story. We kind of shut down that side of our brain that is doing a lot of, um, analysis and judgment and we just become more open. So storytelling is a beautiful way to reach your customer with their guards down.

Speaker B: Oh, that's interesting. That's very interesting. So Caitlin, uh, let's shift gears a little bit. Uh, we talked about know like and trust. Um, another topic that is big in the accounting marketing world is personal branding. And people like to do business with other people. People like to do business with faces, not logos. Mhm. Um, and so I would love to kind of understand your take on, um, personal brandings. How can accounting subject matter experts build their personal brands today? What are some tips or tricks.

Speaker A: I love this question. And I fundamentally believe, like you just said, like, I think that with this, like, new tsunami of content, that we're all going to be inundated by the kind of, like, five tips about prepping for tax season. Like, that stuff's not going to land anymore. You're going to need to do better. And when you see a face showing up consistently, somebody who's likable and fun and seems, like, credible, that's going to be what's much influential. So when it comes to the personal branding stuff, it's funny, in my original unignorable challenge, which is kind of a group cohort program that helped entrepreneurs build their personal brand, one of the examples I gave was an accountant. Because ultimately, oftentimes people will assume, well, the thing that I do, I'm going to create content personally about specifically that day. So it's like, I'm an accountant. Maybe I do tax prep for the, like, agricultural industry. So all of my content is going to be around that. But as your listeners know, accounting can often be very seasonal. And there are times when people are thinking about tax prep and there are times when it's not even a thought in their mind. Right. And so they need to take an approach of like, how can I create content that both is going to educate, but also probably entertain? Be something that becomes evergreen, where it's like, it's a topic that I can like. It's something I can do over and over, kind of like, as a content series. But it's still going to be, um, interesting, even outside of the seasonality around the business. So you, you m. Mentioned there's a couple famous accountants.

Speaker B: You said there's a rapper, one Scotty Scarano. I interviewed him on my podcast. But he's an accounting rapper. Yeah, I love it.

Speaker A: Right. Because guess what? That's always fun. So I think when it comes to thinking about your personal brand, question number one is like, don't think that all you like educational content is great, but you don't need to educate in a very boring way. You don't need to say so intentionally on topic. The example I gave and unignorable with the accountant is like, you could tell, like, you could create a account and like, you tell these, like, horrific stories of, like, accounting gone wrong. And that would be interesting all year round. There's probably some fun stories that could be found. Like, there's probably celebrity divorces where, like, one little error led to, like, all this stuff. So you find, you can find these stories and kind of make it sensational, create kind of an episodic series around it, but find something you can do that goes beyond the most obvious. This is what we do. So this is what I'm going to talk about because oftentimes the things that we do in our day to day are not the things that are going to capture and keep attention all year round.

Speaker B: Totally. Uh, I love that you brought in the seasonality aspect of it because that's a very real thing that happens in the accounting industry is, you know, tax season is a very, very stressful time in those businesses. And so marketers have a challenge of how do we generate demand. Ah, outside of those seasons. Um, I like how you positioned your offering in terms of you're not just differentiating, but you're becoming unignorable.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And so I wonder, can you talk about the distinction between differentiation and becoming unignorable? What does that mean to take it that next extra step?

Speaker A: So the way that I think about it now is like, ultimately, if you think about any person who has grown a large and significant following, there's often like one idea that really like, is the catalyst for that growth. That one sharp thing that broke through that they then became known for. So outside of the accounting industry, because I don't know that industry as well, we think about somebody like James Clear. Right? Like when you hear James Clear, you think Atomic Habits, Atomic M Habits has this big idea which is like 1% better every day. Like you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. And so figuring out what it is, like, is there an idea that you can own that will really differentiate you and become something you can build on top of that's really valuable. Um, and so that's. And that's how you become unignorable because there's just a shift that's happened that AI has made it creating content so much easier that we really need to find a unique, unique angle that we can both, that is both interesting to the way that we do our work that's differentiated that our target customer actually would be interested in, even if they don't realize it, and that nobody else is saying, because if we sound like everybody else, then we're ignorable. So it's finding that kind of sweet spot. And once you find it, just like doubling down, finding a thousand ways to kind of stay on that topic. Like the rapper, right? He found he's like, oh, this is working. So he didn't start rapping and then go off and also start doing like, tutorials on like, quantum accounting. I don't even know accounting terms.

Speaker B: Quantum accounting, if that's a thing, I'd uh, love to know about it.

Speaker A: But he found a thing that was working, right? And he, and he becomes known for that thing and he's able to build on that thing. And so I think for a lot of folks, they never really find their, their ownable idea and then they're always kind of like jumping between different things and then they don't really become known for something.

Speaker B: And so you help these experts find that ownable idea and help them amplify it.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: Very cool. You brought in the buzzword AI. It only took us about 30 minutes into the podcast conversation to talk about AI, which is awesome because we're focused on the humanness. Um, but I think you raise a point and I don't want to just kind of scathe over it a little bit, but AI has created a sea of sameness out there in terms of the content that's produced and marketers that leverage AI and use it specifically for content generation and for um, you know, posts and image generation and things like that. It is kind of like a race to the middle almost.

Speaker A: Mhm. Um, it'll create lots of good enough stuff. But I'm a believer and like, I know your audience are marketers. I've never been more confident in how valuable being a creative marketer is. Like, I think that because, um, Andrew Chen, he's from the tech startup world, but he has this ah, term for marketing. He calls it the law of shitty click throughs, which is essentially like every tactic that starts working like, you know, something like banner ads. Years ago, like you probably ran a banner ad, you probably like a 50% click through because nobody had seen that before. It was like, oh my gosh, what's that? And now you'd be lucky. Like it's the only time you get

Speaker B: experience 1 or 2%, right?

Speaker A: Somebody touched it by mistake, somebody's kid like grabbed their iPad. But like, every tactic eventually decays and then you need to find the next meta thing. Like, what's the next meta thing? And so what I love about behavioral science is it gives you the principles that you can then apply to, uh, different tactics as things change. But I think as a marketer we have this incredible new tool set which is also a, uh, competitor to us. So how do you stay highly leveraged? I think it comes down to just being creative, knowing your customer better than your, your competitors, and creating stuff that gets their attention and earns their trust and makes you likable.

Speaker B: Totally. And I, uh, you know, as. As I'm like scrolling back through the notes from our conversation, there's a few different cognitive biases that have a positive impact that AI can't necessarily replicate. Right. Like, um, the pratfall effect.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And storytelling. Like, you own your stories and your own human experiences, so bring those out. It's like, we're not today, we're not just differentiating against the competition, we're differentiating against AI slop out there in the. In the feeds and the inbox and all of these different channels, um, which, you know, supports the dead Internet theory. I don't know how much you've got a wormhole on that, but I, uh,

Speaker A: worm old enough that it's like, once you get it, you're like, yeah, I can see that could happen. But I think as humans, I don't think we want that to happen. Right. I think that we want to know that when we're scrolling our feeds that there's still human content. And I think that social platforms don't make any money if people aren't clicking on ads and buying stuff. And AI agents aren't going to do that very much. And so a lot of these platforms have a real incentive to keep it human. And so let's see how they approach that.

Speaker B: Let's see how they approach that. Uh, well, Caitlin, this has been a fantastic conversation. I could probably geek out with you about all these different cognitive biases for hours. Um, if folks want to connect with you, um, they can go to learnywebbybuy.com and, uh, sign up for your newsletter. But where else can they connect with you?

Speaker A: The places I'm most active these days, LinkedIn. Very active over there. Active on Twitter. I will never. It's hard to call it X for me because I just miss Twitter. But, yeah, those are the two places I spend the most time. Um, the other channels, I'm mostly just there as a human, just, you know, sharing pictures of my son. So if you want to talk business stuff, Twitter and X.

Speaker B: Excellent. Awesome. Well, so go follow Caitlin on LinkedIn. Go follow Caitlin on Twitter formerly, or X. Formerly known as Twitter.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, Caitlin, thank you so much for your time.

Speaker A: Thank you, John. So great.