"Consumers don't buy features, they buy solutions", with Brian Button and Michal Lasman

Speaker A: A lot of people are very confident what they do, what they stand for. The problem is, when someone like me comes in and I hear that, I go respectfully. Your customer doesn't care. That's important to you. Your customer does not care, and that's why you're not moving the needle. It's almost a gift to have external perspective or to be very close to your customer or do a lot of testing, having a relationship with your customer, building community to get that reaction, that only validates and verifies the work and the intuition. But if you don't do that and you've got maybe a little bit more egotistical founder or leadership or someone who's so rigid if they're not willing to listen, that's the issue. I think a lot of people understand and know what they stand for, but sometimes it doesn't matter. It falls on deaf ears. And I think that's the gap that we're trying to solve with Grant.

Speaker B: Hi, and welcome to CMO Convo. I'm Ihal Lassman, global marketing leader and your host. Today we are joined by Brian Button, a brand strategist and former creative director who's worked across some of the world's most recognizable companies, including Lyft, Doordash, and Instacart. Yeah, Brian's perspective is simple, but hard for many companies to act on. When products become interchangeable, brands become the real differentiator. Today we'll unpack what actually means in practice. So what does brand as a differentiator actually means? I think that brand is now becoming. Became such a huge, huge topic. So, um, I'm very excited to have you with me, Brian. Thank you very much for joining my show.

Speaker A: Yeah, so exciting to be here. And I'm very excited to talk about something I'm very passionate about, which is brand. So looking forward to it.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, that is great. So, Brian, maybe before we dive into the topic, would you mind kind of like just sharing a bit of your background? What led you to, you know, fall in love in brand and also to the major companies that you've been working in?

Speaker A: Yeah, so I got my start. My first job was as a creative copywriter and advertising, uh, agencies. And I did that for a handful of years. And it was really interesting to think about how to come up with a big idea and express that big idea in a multitude of ways. So as a TD script or a out of home billboard or a web landing page, um, and making sure that the idea kind of lands despite all the different touch points. And I Think that was a really good foundation that led me to in house and tech. I was in San Francisco, uh, very close to Silicon Valley. And so I, I spent about eight years in uh, Adland. And then Lyft, the rideshare company, was growing and they were looking to build their in house capabilities more creatively, uh, more story led. And so they had called me. And my my first Lyft ride was to the Lyft interview. Uh, so I was not a fanboy. I didn't know much about the company at all. But I said, well, I should figure this out as I go over there. And uh, you know, I walk into the building and it is like a beehive of energy. It's just infectious. And I'm coming from ad agencies where it's less so and I talk to the people and I see a great opportunity and uh, yeah, joined Lyft. And that was my first foray into, um, into brand side, where instead of at agencies where you do a little bit of work for a lot of companies in house, you do all of the work for one company. And it was really amazing to have that opportunity, especially in the early days. I think I was employee 300 at Lyft and I got a front row seat to how these corporations work. So I got to help build the internal agency. I got a front row seat to the importance of brand. And we'll get into that later. The whole Lyft versus Uber saga. Um, and I was just, uh, you know, just so enthralled with this experience. And I was able to parlay that from Lyft to DoorDash, which was a very similar opportunity. DoorDash was an app on a phone. There was no real preference, there was no real brand affinity. And so me and a handful of other folks that joined at a similar time got to build the reputation of DoorDash. And then I took all of that to Instacart, where I really got to own brand marketing. Um, and I think after three, three stops at pretty high growth places, as more of a creative person, I kind of played the game of what am I good at and what makes me happy, how do I make that the job? And I really landed on brand and strategy and I've been doing that on my own for about two and a half, three years now.

Speaker B: Very, very cool. Thank you very much for sharing. So Brian, would you mind kind of like maybe helping me unpack the whole topic of brand as a differentiator? And maybe my first question would be. So you said that when products are omnipresent. Brand. Brand becomes the true differentiator. What signals tell you that a category has reached that point?

Speaker A: Yeah, this is something I'm so passionate about. Uh, I shout from the rooftops as often as I can about brand is the biggest differentiator you have. And the story I tell often is back at Lyft, Lyft versus Uber, um, the product was literally the same. There were drivers that drove for both Uber and Lyft. And so as a passenger, you can get into a car. Your entry point is either Uber or Lyft. But the, the product experience is virtually the same. And so, you know, in those days, Lyft, we really couldn't compete with Uber financially, globally, they were a much bigger entity. But what we could compete on was brand. And what that means is really giving a customer a choice. If your product is the same, give your customer a reason to choose you over the competition. And Uber made it pretty simple back in those days. Unfortunately, that's where they kind of had some of their missteps and some of the leadership, uh, organization issues. And it's all to say that, you know, if they were going to be a black and white logo, we were going to be magenta. And if they were about being having a personal driver, we were going to position ourselves as your friend with a car. We had a pink fuzzy mustache. All those were decisions that we made to differentiate. We couldn't really do much for the product. We tried to treat drivers better, which they said we did, but we couldn't affect how they operated because they were independent operators and all those things. So we tried to create as much differentiation as we could of what we could affect, which was brand. And that was really just about the decisions that were important. And one of our co founders, John Zimmer, he had a little bit more of a hospitality background and he was really interested and emphasized how do we treat people better. And in fact, that became one of our brand tenets is literally documented in our, in our brand book of treat people better. That worked internally, externally, for our drivers, for the cities we work with, for our passengers. And those are decisions that you make. And I think that's one facet of brand is what reasons are you giving a customer to choose you over the competition? Um, that could be color palette, that could be logo, that could be your tone of voice. Again, if we can't really affect the product, how do we affect the brand and give people a reason to choose you over the competition? That's why I talk a lot about brand is your biggest competitive advantage. Because sometimes you can't augment the ingredients of a, uh, better for you bar. But you can talk about the brand and the community and how you treat people, and that was really important. And that's what I learned firsthand at Lyft.

Speaker B: Yeah, and you're touching a really interesting point. You know, so we're kind of like comparing between Uber and Lyft. But I think that when it comes to products, B2B SaaS or even in B2B, you know, B2C consumer goods. Right. A lot of products are very, very similar. And I think that when we're talking about, you know, software, a lot of time we still see companies that are competing in developing very similar features. Uh, why do you think that like companies are still going on that path rather than investing in brand and then actually creating this differentiator? Right. Because a lot of, you know, the purchasing and the decision process and I don't need to. Yeah, you know much more about it than I do is actually about emotions. It's about trust, it's about credibility, it's about the connection that you even feel to your brand. Right. I mean, a Rolex is a watch. It's still just a watch. You know, you can get a watch, I don't know, like at the flea market and it still has the same function. So why would you invest in a Rolex brand? Right. Legacy, storytelling, etc. So from your perspective, uh, and as an expert, why do companies still go in that path of the features?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's something I grapple with a lot. And um, I feel like a lot of folks, founders, certainly in tech engineers, brand is a nice to have. And I do think, unfortunately, brand, the term brand has been watered down and overused and misused to where it's kind of a catch all. So in my earlier days as a, as a consultant, I would talk to people about brand and they would say, I don't need a logo, I don't need a color palette. And I go, no, that's not what I'm talking about. But it was, that was my fault for not positioning myself more clearly. And I think right now especially we're seeing this with AI. AI is in everything I saw. I'm a golfer now. Um, thanks Covid. And I saw someone with a golf club and it had like an AI feature on a golf cloud. And so I just feel like we're a little bit, um, getting so caught up in the new shiny thing, but forgetting why it's important to people and to Come back to answer your question. And again, I learned this in tech, where these people work so hard, relentlessly hard, on obsessing over their features and optimization. And so it's hard not to be biased and not think, if I've worked three months or three years on this thing, someone else is going to think it's important. But consumers don't buy product features. They buy solutions to their problem. And I think the issue is a lot of tech or founders or even cpg, they think their ingredients are so important, they think their features are so important, but I don't think they realize that everyone else is saying the same thing. So then now you're lost in a sea of sameness. Whereas if we can talk about brand, for me, brand is all about taking those features of what's important and positioning it as a solution to your customer's problem. And I think we also forget the user journey. They need to know you, they need to like you, they need to trust you. They may choose you. So I think we kind of forget the know and like. And if you're leading with your product features, there's nothing really to like about that. You're kind of just giving me product stats or bullet points. You're not communicating with me, you're not explaining, you're not playing back to me, my problem, and that this is a solution to that. You're just telling me that, you know, this holds more water. Can you see this holds more water? Or, uh, you know, the iPhone has more processing. We're just getting lost in features because we're so tech heavy these days. I guess especially with AI, there is no differentiation with AI, um, because I think kind of a lot of people are still figuring it out. But if we can brand that, if we can create uniqueness or find that little corner that's important to people and position it that way, I think we're gonna have a better time.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, But I think that's what you're mentioning. First of all, it's true. And I think that, uh, so I come from B2B and from software. Yeah. And oftentimes, first of all, you need to meet the market expectations, especially with competitors. So if one company is offering features and you still don't have it, then you must create it in order to meet the market expectation, at least to offer the same similar features. But I do agree, and I think that some companies really struggle when they want to translate their storytelling or their product narrative, especially in B2B, into something that people really care about. And I would Love to ask you, how do you move the conversation from features into something that is much more meaningful?

Speaker A: Uh, yeah, it goes back to thinking about your customer and having empathy for them and understanding what they're going through and then being able to translate product feature to how can we position this feature as a solution to solve that problem? One example, I worked with ZenBusiness which, uh, if you're an entrepreneur and you want to file for an LLC or an S corp, you go to them, they make it very, very simple. Uh, they help you stay compliant, they help you with deadlines. It's an amazing resource. I was actually a user as a solopreneur and then I got to work with them and the issue they had was they were all about conversion. So they have all these wonderful products and tools and services. You can only access them after the paywall and they realize after about nine years they're just losing ground. They're not gaining, they're not growing as much as they could be. They brought in a few other people that, that emphasized and prioritized brand. And so how do we open up the aperture of our services? You know, the term freemium had come, had come up where let's give away some of these tools and features so that we can earn trust before they become a paying customer. I think as an entrepreneur I know I'm very reluctant to just give my money away until I know that this service or product because it has helped help me. And so we positioned Zen business, uh, as being calm in the chaos. And being an entrepreneur is very chaotic, it's very noisy, you don't know who to trust. We're going to position ourselves as being, providing calm in that chaos. We're going to open up the aperture for storytelling and a little bit more. Instead of trying to lead you to a sale, we're going to say, hey, we know what you're going through and we got your back and we make it easier. And here's how and here's the proof points and here's stuff that we're giving you so you don't take it from us, you actually believe it. So that when it comes time to convert, they've already known us, liked us and trusted us and then they're going to choose us. Uh, so it's a little bit more of just making room for storytelling. And you had mentioned earlier being a motive. How do we know what they're going through? And in this specific example for entrepreneurs, it's very nerve wracking. Uh, and so to understand, say, hey, we're going to be your guide. We're going to guide you through this experience and we're only going to give you what you need when you need it, versus everything all at once. Which is kind of more like a Google search. Right. If we rely on Google, it'd be everything. We'd be overwhelmed. But this uh, this product knows where you're at in your journey and we're going to just give you the next few steps not to overwhelm you, but to provide calm and that chaos. And I think it's just knowing and understanding who you are and what's important to them or what they're going through. And they being your customer, it could be another business. For B2B, it could be B2C. But what are they going through, what are their hurdles and how can this genuinely help them and then positioning it as a solution to that problem.

Speaker B: Mhm. And I 100% agree. And by the way, I'm a true believer in being customer centric. Yeah. So for example, in B2B, when launching a product, you can have a beta, you can have a small group of testers, you can develop a relationship with them, you can talk with them so that you can really understand their language and the jargon as well. So there are multiple ways to actually getting this insight. But you need to put time and effort and of course be an empathetic listener, um, and practice a lot of active listening. So thank you very much for sharing. I would love to ask, do you have any good example of a company that has successfully turned from being kind of like more functional product into something that is emotional, differentiated, like Nike. Right. Shoes. It's very functional. But they created a connection to emotions, to health, to wellness, to well, being, to um, not, you know, just fitness as a whole. Right. Like when you're wearing Nike, you also represent something that is like innovative to an extent because their product is very innovative.

Speaker A: Yeah. You know, citing Nike. I'm really interested. It's such an easy example because they've got 50 years and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of validating. But going back to the genesis of it all, you know, their belief was there's an athlete in everybody. Right. That was their belief because they were in the early days they were kind of track shoes. But there's a, uh, they believe that there's an athlete in everybody. Therefore if that is true, there are no excuses. So just do it. Right. Um, and so that just allowed them to get into the mindset of their consumer and remove the excuses and we're going to, we're uh, going to provide you with a product that's going to allow you to accomplish that. Right? That's the other thing about brand is you got to make sure your product is, is at the level of your brand. Um, if you have a poor product but a great advertising or great, great brand, it's not really going to last. Another um, example I was thinking about, another very easy example is Apple. Um, their product is very intuitive. It's very easy to use Everything that they create now it works out of the box. And if we remember even 10 years ago when, or let's say 20 years ago, the um, mobile players, right, um, uh, before the ipod, the other examples you'd have to download and you've got a manual this big and it's just not intuitive. But the back versus PC campaign was so great because they positioned themselves for the creative person and it's very simple. Um, and so the products are slightly different but just the way they're aesthetic and they knew exactly who they're marketing to and who they weren't. This wasn't a thing to do spreadsheets and heavy computing. It was to make beautiful things. And so the product had to be beautiful, the product had to be intuitive and they just knew their consumer. And I think it's the other thing that's really hard. I have empathy for CMOs and brand folks that have to make decisions and they have to exclude part of the pie, part of the consumer, uh, group. But if you try to be everything to everybody, you're going to end up being nothing to nobody. So knowing who you're for and how you support them, I think you'll actually have maybe not more customers but you'll have more uh, fan favorites that go a little deeper with you. And so I think Nike is a great example, Apple's a great example.

Speaker B: Uh, I think that Apple is a great example. I think that Apple is like a school of branding because basically they have a very loyal client base that is literally knocking on the door when they're releasing a new product. And that is something that is so unique. So I think that most of the companies are still trying to go with expansion, expansion, expansion. I have a different mindset. I actually believe in lifecycle marketing, meaning create your client base and resell, resell, reinvent, you know, kind of like, but keep them interested, keep them engaged. Um, so that is just my perspective. So I would love to go for my next question, which is for teams that are very product led today. What is the first Step for them to shifting in how they think about their positioning.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's important to think outside of the room, meaning think about your customer, your consumer. Uh, a lot of problems can be solved that way. I think a lot of conversations can be much easier when it's objected and when it's about your customer and their benefit. Um, that's why I get a little weary when I see a lot of these Series A, Series B companies get a lot of investing and they're engineer led, a product led, which is fine, but. But there's no brand there. And I just don't think brand is something you can tack onto in 10 years time. So to answer your question, product led teams, again, they love their features, they obsess over them as they should. But I think thinking outside of the room and thinking, what does this solve for the customer? And how do we differentiate? How do we position this? But also how do we brand it in a way that does it give it a personality? Is it relatable? Is it funny? Is it disarming? Is it emotional? Um, just because these are inanimate objects doesn't mean we can't personify them or provide emotion or position in a way that elicits emotion from your customer. I think that's the difference is emotion. It comes down to how do we make people feel? Um, and how does this product make someone feel with Instacart? Uh, you know, it's pretty simple. You order a bunch of groceries on an app, someone goes and picks them up and drops it off. You know, it's very transactional, but we were really adamant about ensuring that we knew our customer, whether it was a stay at home mom or a dad. Um, we didn't want to have, we didn't want them to choose. Do I need to go get my kid from practice or do the grocery shopping or do I just want to go exercise or take a nap instead of the grocery shop? So we had this idea of let's give you time and let's give you time back so you can do whatever you want and we'll take care of this. One thing that's kind of a burden for a lot of people. I enjoy grocery shopping. I'm the cook at home, so I love it. But me too. Yeah. For the 98% of people, it's a big burden. So it's a very simple transaction. An app on a phone. But how do we emotionally make sure that we know their problems and this solves it?

Speaker B: Yeah, 100% agree. Thank you very much. For sharing. Yeah. So I would love to ask you because Brian, you've worked with both large brands and, and early stage companies. Where do you most often see the brand type of thinking breaking down?

Speaker A: Unfortunately, at every stage. And it differs every stage. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: There's very few, there's very few companies that get it right. Um, you know liquid death is just the darling of the Internet right now. But it's can blotter it couldn't and they make fun of it. That's why I think they're so beloved is they're so self deprecating and disarming but they are uniquely, truly themselves. It has nothing to do with the product, it's just water. And so they make fun of that. Right. But that's a playbook that only they can use. Other companies you see try to steal their playbook and it doesn't work. So you have to know who you are and that's where authenticity comes in. But authenticity is earned over time. I think back to your question. I've been fortunate to advise and work with very early stage kind of emerging CPG brands where it's just boundary lay. It's just them, they are so interested in brand but they really don't know how to do it unless they are an ex marketer or brand person. So what I found with early stage kind of founder led companies is they're looking for permission. They have the intuition, they have the idea or the gut to say I should do this. They just need permission and a little bit of refinement. So I work with them and help kind of strategize a brand strategy. How do you sound, how do you position yourself, who are your clients? And then they're off and ready and it's amazing. So they're looking for permission. I think larger companies like The Zed business, $100 million company, um, you know they were, they were product led for the longest time and they were, then they were conversion lighted. So now nine or ten years later they're having to make a pretty big investment and a big adjustment to introduce brand and it's going to be a little jarring because it wasn't natural from the start. And so for those folks that are paying attention, they might see a shift and then it becomes well, do I still trust them because they're changing or they're, they're evolving. I like them the way they were. Uh, but you know they've got a lot of people that they're trying to attract. So yeah, it's really tricky to. Unless you believe in it from the beginning. And fortunately for us at Lyft, our, one of our co founders was a big believer in brand and differentiation. But unless it's in the DNA of the company from the beginning, it just feels like an add on and it feels very forced. And so again from the emerging kind of founder led all the way to 10 year old $100 million companies, um, it's really hard to introduce brand unless it's part of the water, unless it's part of the DNA. And so just I think each phase just requires a different type of entry level or approach to really reinforce the difference that brand can help and get them to that next level.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, 100% agree. And I think that um, so you know, I've done many podcast episodes here during the show and oftentimes I have this discussion around brand is being perceived as a cost center and not as a revenue growth kind of like differentiator. And I believe that brand is super important. And especially, especially in today's market when it's so saturated it's so hard to cut through the noise. Everyone sounds similar to, um, marketing teams are writing content with AI. We all kind of like started to sound the same and it doesn't matter, you know, like now Claude is on the rise, so everyone switched from GPT to Claude and everyone sounds the same. So the only differentiator could be your brand, your emotional being recognizable I think as well. Right. So having something that is unique for you and I think that, you know, like that's leading m me to my next question, which is what are some common mistakes companies are doing when they try to quote, unquote, invest in brand?

Speaker A: I think the biggest mistake I see is they guess. They just guess because they don't know. And maybe the leadership is um, embarrassed by not knowing or not bringing in experts like myself and a million others who've done this before. But I think because they don't know, they guess. And then work goes out. And then again I think with the consumer they're seeing this inconsistency. Not doc. If you don't define your brand and document it and distribute it to your teams, the end user sees it and they feel it. Um, and I. It's a very sticky phrase, but I don't like it because it rhymes. But that's why it's sticky. If you confuse, you lose. So if you're not clear with your client, with your customer, you know, um, if you're being too creative or too clever or too cute and you're not just cutting through the noise and drawing a direct line from product to consumer about what this does, um, you're going to lose them. And I think when you don't have your brand well defined and documented, everyone's kind of making up as they go. We think about decentralized teams. After Covid there's a lot of remote, you know, doordash halfway through was Covid. We were remote. Instacart was always remote. It was really hard, especially as a leader and improver manager to oversee all the work. So the issue becomes leadership, becomes a bottleneck because everyone's asking permission for approval if this is right versus documenting and saying this is what's important, this is what makes it us us. And whoever can write has this and then they can execute. So the volume of work goes up and the consistency stays on point. Um, but yeah, if you don't document it, I think the whole point is the end consumer can notice that if a brand sounds like one thing on Instagram and then sounds completely different on their website and then the product copy, it's all different. You're going to have a really tough time to convince people or again that know like and trust. That trust part is going to be hard. If you don't earn their trust, they won't choose you. And so I think that's the biggest breakdown. And again I kind of repeat myself. But the goal is really to understand your differences and decide. You have to decide. You document it and you distribute it to your teams so they can deploy and that's should uh, be as simple as it gets. But a lot of companies don't do that and they put work out and then unfortunately the marketing dollars are blown. They're not seeing the revenue, they're not seeing the uptick. They're losing people and they're wondering why. So they double down, they spend more money. It must be a volume thing. We should put more work out there. But if you don't know who you are and what you probably solve, there's not enough money in the world to make the, you know, the numbers go the right way. And so it's a pretty simple exercise. The problem is at this day and age nobody can afford to slow down. And so that's where you, you kind of find a consultant or a fractional come in on the side and incorporate this stuff and introduce it. So that slips into the work and you, you remove the bottom necks.

Speaker B: Mhm, mhm. 100 agree. And I think that that's an issue with a lot of companies. You Know when you're joining a new company and you're doing intakes about, okay, so what is the company stand for? What are the values? What is the product about? And then you, you hear so many different variations. And I think that it starts there. Yeah, so it starts first of all with internally understanding the, the, the vision and the mission of the company. And then of course, the positioning and the brand needs to come from that. Um, if I may have to ask

Speaker A: you, if I may, on that.

Speaker B: Yeah, of course.

Speaker A: I think in my experience, a lot of people are very confident what they do, what they stand for. The problem is when someone like me comes in and I hear that, I go respectfully, your customer doesn't care. That's important to you. Your customer does not care and that's why you're not moving the needle. So again, it's almost a gift to have external perspective or to, you know, you mentioned earlier, be very close to your customer or do a lot of testing. And again, I'm not suggesting you don't test. You'd be so confident that you just execute. I think it's important to test. But having a relationship with your customer, building community to get that reaction, that only validates and verifies the work and the intuition. But if you don't do that and you've got maybe a little bit more egotistical founder or leadership or someone who's so rigid if they're not willing to listen, that's the issue. I think a lot of people understand and know what they stand for, but sometimes it doesn't matter. It falls on deaf ears. And I think that's the gap that we're trying to solve with granted, 100%.

Speaker B: I think that it needs to be a mixture, right? It needs to be a healthy balance between, okay, the vision and the idea that the leadership team or the company stand for with a combination of what does the market needs, what is the client facing, etc. Etc. So that is, I think, the healthiest balance, um, talking about the brand and brand being a bit m. Misunderstood. I think that there's also the issue that, um, brand is sometimes, you know, in a bit of a competition with performance. And performance is something that is very, very, very measurable while with brand. And although again, I had multiple guest here saying that, yes, you can measure brand, but I think that it's still very, very difficult to, to show, quote, unquote. Yeah. The revenue that comes from brand. And I feel as if that is something that also gets a bit lost in the conversation. Would you Mind sharing a bit of your perspective on that?

Speaker A: It's um, Uber versus Lyft, Pepsi versus Coke, brand versus performance. It's as classic as that. And unfortunately I don't have the silver bullet or the magic wand to make that disappear. But I will say yes, performance, um, is very immediately measurable. That's why everyone loves it. You can track your dollars, so it's sensible. The problem is it's mostly conversion. It's bottom of the funnel. If we still think about the funnel, where you're not building relationships, you're not building trust, you're probably offering discounts and coupons so that, that earns you a customer but not loyalty. And with brand it takes a little bit longer, right, to show that uh, that investment paying off. Now for me and specifically the work I do, the ROI for what I do is less about performance and like ROI on marketing budget, it's clarity and confidence with the decision makers around the table. A lot of the work that's tricky because I'm not a self promoter and the work I do is really meant for the internal folks to be confident. And uh, again with Zen Business was my recent client. I had the chief Product officer, the chief Marketing officer, the founder in a room playing back the information that they gave me, but distilled in an actionable, clear, concise way. And all of their eyes are lighting up and you can see they're getting excited because now they know what they stand for. Now they know why they're different. It's so hard to do that when you're getting pings and slacks and emails and you're chained to your desk for 10 hours a day. You can't think outside. So I have nothing but empathy for these busy C suite and leadership roles in these high growth places. But the work I do is to try to assist them and inform them what is important to you. Now let's get rid of all the other stuff and let's document it so that you don't become the bottleneck. And so your team actually has permission to move at the speed in which you expect them to. But all the clarity and consistency is there so the work will be more affected because it's going to be more consistent. You're saying fewer things better. And so again my, the joy I get is seeing the relief on these overworked, almost burnt out C suite folks. And so for me to partner with them and their team again, we talked about it. Define, document and distribute, that's my job. Let's, let's work with the founders to define it, I will document it and then work with you to distribute to your team so that they can deploy. And so it's not so much about. I can prove to you the case study of the work I did that had 200% this. It's more of like, I made this CMO's life so much easier for the next couple quarters or I just removed so many hurdles and bottlenecks from this marketing organization. So for me the data is a little tricky, but I think more emotionally, um, I see it in them and I just see the relief and that fills me up because I've been there on the corporate side where you're just pulling your hair out, trying to keep up with everything and you don't know, uh, how to be consistent or clear. And so that's kind of a work I do now.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I love also the frame of work that you've kind of like. I don't know if you coined it, but if you haven't, please, the 4Ds. Yeah. Define document, distribute, deploy. That's amazing.

Speaker A: You got it. That's it.

Speaker B: Let's take it with us. Um, although I'm having so much fun, we are reaching the end of this lovely episode and I'm really having so much fun in this conversation, Brian. So thank you very much. My last question for you, it will be more for our audience than our listeners. So for the people that are currently working in companies that really sound the same and they want to be able to stand out, what will be the first thing that they should do? Or how do they even understand? Or what is the question? Maybe what will be the question that they need to understand? Okay, are we standing actually out or not?

Speaker A: Mhm. It's a great question. I think they need to take a really long hard look at, uh, their products and their marketing and ask themselves, is this unique, is this different and not to be for difference sake? Right. I think we see a lot of creativity for creativity sake. And I'm not suggesting that, but if you keep an ear to the ground, if you know your customer and you know what's important to them and you can deliver on that, there may be some competition there, but I think less so because you're, you're kind of having a direct connection to your customer and doing what's important for them, I think, you know, there's a lot of ambition to be authentic. I work with emerging brands who haven't defined their, their brand and they say we want to be authentic and it's hard for me to tell them that's earned. You can't just put that down in a document and say, okay, everyone, we're going to be authentic. Authentic. And authenticity is knowing who you are and sticking with it and not chasing trends or pivoting every quarter. It's knowing exactly who you are and who you're for and staying the course despite all kinds of distractions. I think that's authenticity. So that's another thing for folks to look internally and say, are we sticking to our guns? Are we doing what we say we're going to do? Are we doing it consistently? Um, but if they're pivoting constantly, it's kind of. Kind of a sign to me that they don't really know how they're different or why they're different. And then there's people like me that can come in and help.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I just want to mention, like, when you were talking, I really thought about this book. I still haven't read it. I have it, like, on my, uh, to read list, but maybe you've heard of that, uh, Stand the Fuck out by Louis Guarnier. So it really reminds me of that. Right. Like, so how do we stand out? And I think that what you've mentioned here also really relate to trust, to the emotional perspective. Right. To. Also to a bit, um, the element of delight. Maybe that could be your fifth D in your framework.

Speaker A: Oh, my God.

Speaker B: Like, you know, bringing also a bit of a delight experience, which is a bit lacking, you know, because eventually when you're using a product, be it a software or be it, I don't know, like, shoes, you want to create a delight experience, like this moment where kind of like, oh, I like it. It makes me feel good. I enjoy it. Like, I can recognize myself with this product. Right. And I think that that is getting a bit lost, especially in the B2B, uh, space. So I would love to see more of these delight moments.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm definitely going to take you up on that and figure out where that fifth, uh, D word comes in, because that's amazing. But, yeah, I think levity is really, right now, so important. Um, some people abuse in this street humor because it's forced. But I've always said, let's. Let's be refined. Um, but let's add levity where we can. As long as it's authentic to you. Right. If it's a very serious, somber product, maybe we don't. But I agree with you that we can be a little lighter. We can have a little bit more fun um, because I think that's what people are seeking and kind of desperate for now is just a little bit more levity. So I just. I love that. Oh, if I. 100%, if I may, just another book. Um, Stand the Fuck out is great. Obsessed by Emily Hayward Bay. Um, she runs Red Antler, which is an amazing branding agency. She's. They're like, oh, I just. I envy them because they're so good. But she. I read that book when I first became a solopreneur and that really turned me on to how important brand is and how to be different. And so if I could just plug Obsessed, that's another book that folks should read. Marketers, CMOs, interns. Uh, it's just so important because it talks about how you build a beloved brand beyond just your product. And that was very influential to me a couple years ago.

Speaker B: 100%. And I think that also people that work in product marketing or even product need to educate themselves about brand as well. Because it's not just about the features. Uh, it's really a lot about the emotions, trust, and understanding your clients. And with that, I will wrap up this lovely episode. Brian, maybe I will invite you to be a guest again because, like, it's so much fun and easy talking to. And I will be searching for the frame of work, so please share it when it's ready. And yeah, thank you for your time.

Speaker A: Yeah, thank you so much. This was such a delight. Again, I get such a kick out of talking about this stuff. Uh, um, thank you so much for the great questions and thank you for the time. Thank you for tuning into this episode of C CMO Combo. If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a rating and review on your preferred platform. Don't forget to tune in next week for another insightful conversation with the leading cmo.