Talking About Marketing

In this second episode of the third series of Talking About Marketing, we turn our attention to acknowledging the inner potential we all have, individually and in teams, when it's time to embark on new tasks or projects or opportunities.

To that end, David mines the work of Kathryn D. Cramer.

For the Person segment, however, Steve taps into the work of Bill Bryson, who has thoughtfully mined the work and lives of many people throughout history in his mini tome, A Short History Of Nearly Everything. As you'll hear, many important breakthroughs in human history have arisen from time spent on hobbies. How to you use your spare time?

In our mailbag, Steve has a timely and money-saving reminder to check PayPal or other payment services to make sure you are happy with any recurrent payments you have set up. It can be easy to forget some you no longer need.

Then, we continue our special secondment of the Perspicacity segment to focus on the first stage of David Sandler's Sales Submarine.

Get ready to take notes!

Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes

02:16 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.
A Short History Of Hobbies

Bill Bryson's engaging and time-spanning book, A Short History Of Nearly Everything, could easily be retitled as, A Short History Of Hobbies.

This is because many people who've made important discoveries in human history seem to have been people driven by an intrinsic sense of curiosity.

From a personal perspective, what does this mean for us. Do we "veg out" when not working and deposit our time into Netflix or gaming?

It makes Steve wonder just what sort of human potential is waiting to be tapped within all of us if we could find something that takes our fancy and fuels our interest.

In this reflection, he uses Charles Darwin as an example. He could have easily remained as a little known vicar and pigeon fancier. Instead, he transformed our understanding of life because he said yes to some opportunities and dedicated some of his spare time to joining dots between his observations.

11:54 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.
You Never Start From Zero

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, David had noticed that a majority of people he engaged with day to day were becoming progressively more anxious about doing new activities.

They would worry more about all of the things that could go wrong, and would procrastinate longer before starting in an already stressed (and often negative) state, immaterial of whether the task was for work or pleasure. Roll forward four years to today, and people’s anxiety about doing new things is even more apparent, and their procrastination is even greater.

David found the beginnings of a tool-kit to counter this anxiety in 2014, which he has further developed over a decade of training people in complex problem solving.

As he discusses in the podcast, Kathryn D. Cramer’s book, Lead Positive, succinctly summarises the value of learning from what highly effective leaders see, say, and do.

There are three things Cramer’s research led her to conclude that are critical to decreasing anxiety and procrastination to increase performance.

• You need to work out whether what you are about to do is similar to something you have already been successful at.
• You need to work out what skills you already possess that have contributed to your previous successes, which will contribute to you being successful at a new task.
• And, Finally, you need to tell someone that you trust how the new task is similar to something you have already been successful at, how you are going to apply your existing skills to the new task, and get their advice and approval before moving forward.

David leads into the discussion, however, by referencing One Mission by Chris Fussell. We hope this segment bolsters your confidence to forge forward.

You can also read more in David's blog post about this topic, entitled, Anxious About Decision Making? You Never Start From Zero.

25:51 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.
Check Recurring Payments

Steve was surprised by finding a notice from a web services provider, alerting him to the fact that his subscription will go up this year, when payment is taken in seven days' time.

Sadly for him, the email was 10 days old. However, he quickly contact support and the company agreed to refund his payment and close his account.

His argument was that the 7-day warning/alert email was fine in theory but many emails like that go to spam. What would have been better was if the email required the customer to take action to ACTIVELY renew their payments.

Of course, that would mean many people might jump ship.

What this means for you is that it is useful to check your PayPal account or bank accounts and look for where it lists recurring payments or subscriptions.

Double check you are only paying for what you want and use, otherwise, cancel them.

You might just save a precious dollar or two.

29:18 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past.
Sandler Sales Submarine Part One: Bonding and Rapport

Each Perspicacity segment this series, will focus on one part of the Sandler Selling System, Bonding and Rapport.

David Sandler argues this is crucial before engaging in any sales discussions.

This insight links nicely to previous discussions on Talking About Marketing in which we highlight that people buy from people they know, like, and trust.

Our conversation is being guided by David Sandler's excellent book, You Can't Teach A Kid To Ride A Bike At A Seminar, Second Edition.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this first episode of the third series of Talking About Marketing, we turn our attention to the all important task of writing words that "sell".

But before we help you gain fame for your sales prowess, we begin with Marcus Aurelius' warning words about fame itself.

In our mailbag, Steve is drawn into his broken record-like reminders about how clunky and miselading many Google warning emails can be.

Then, for something different, we launch the first of nine Perspicacity segments that will focus on elements of David Sandler's very grounded and effective approach to sales.

Get ready to take notes!

Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes

02:18 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.
Fame Is Vanity

Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD. He practiced Stoicism and wrote about his own Stoic practice in his journals.

Steve opens this episode by reflecting on a passage from Aurelius' book, Meditations, which is a unique document.

As the Daily Stoic points out, "it is the private thoughts of the world’s most powerful man giving advice to himself on how to make good on the responsibilities and obligations of his positions. Trained in Stoic philosophy, Marcus Aurelius stopped almost every night to practice a series of spiritual exercises—reminders designed to make him humble, patient, empathetic, generous, and strong in the face of whatever he was dealing with."

However, Steve draws out quotes about how fickle fame is, and for us, he uses the insight as a keel to give us balance as we get drawn into the rough and brutal seas of social media.

11:10 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.
Ray Edwards On Writing Copy That Sells

Ray Edwards is a copywriter and communications strategist who's worked for some of the most powerful voices in leadership and business.

Some of his clients include New York Times best-selling authors Tony Robbins (author of Awaken the Giant Within and Money: Master the Game, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen (co-authors of Chicken Soup For the Soul), Jeff Walker (author of Launch), and many more.

David leads a discussion about Edwards' short and functional book, How To Write Copy That Sells.

20:12 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.
Google Analytics Has Stopped Gathering Data

Google continues as one of the companies that writes the most alarming and obscure error messages.

The latest is one announcing errors with Google Analytics, now that it has stopped version 3 of the product and is only gathering website data through version 4.

If you get one of these messages and have already configured Google Analytics 4, it is safe to ignore. Often, the error messages are come from old Google Analytics 3 set ups which are being held for historical data, given that GA4 cannot import old data.

If in doubt, check with your trusted web/analytics person.

24:26 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past.
Introduction To The Sandler Selling System

Each Perspicacity segment this series, will focus on one part of the Sandler Selling System.

David Sandler created this approach to sales after teaming up with a clinical psychologist so he could develop an approach to sales that would break the traditional stereotypes of salespeople.

The Sandler Selling System focusses on mutual respect, clarity, and qualifying decisions.

As David and Steve discuss, one of the critical aspects is the understanding of how important your own sense of self-worth is to your success (or otherwise) when it comes to selling.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How much does AI really understand? How much have we made ourselves its slave through our social media usage? And what does this mean for our marketing efforts?

In this final episode of the second series of Talking About Marketing, we turn our attention to the endeavour of human craft as well as our proclivity for finding the laziest way possible to do things with AI.

David Auerbach is a writer, technologist, and software engineer, whose latest book has shone a light on the way our social media usage has helped the large language models that power Artificial Intelligence to have richer insights into how humans intone and communicate.

As we discuss, the current state of technology and social media is a double-edged sword for marketers.

Meanwhile, back in the "good ol' days", we catch a glimpse of all the background effort applied by Michelangelo to enable him to be the artist we admire. Yes, it's another case of an overnight success who put in thousands of invisible hours to make it all look so easy. There's something in this for all of us!!

And we close out with a tip about getting more views for your YouTube videos and why we don't really need to envy AI robots.

Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes

01:36 Person
This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.
What Would Michelangeo Do?

In his book, Resilience, Eric Greitens, a Navy SEAL, shares a series of letters he'd written to another Navy SEAL who was hitting rock bottom and struggling to adapt to civilian life.

What separates this book from other books written by Alpha males, is that Eric is very well read and has a knack for weaving ancient writers, poets, and philisophers into his letters.

The book powers forward and is probably best consumed one letter/chapter at time rather than than being binged because it is dense with observations, suggestions, and lessons.

One that piqued Steve's interest was letter 8, where Eric is talking about the importance of honing our habits. One great insight was that the key to success is actually to train at enjoying training because once you enjoy training, the rest is easy.

But by way of example, he shares some thoughts from the master artist, Michelangelo, who had detailed notes on things to practice and consider when painting. The end result being that when it was time to paint, the artist was in his flow state.

All of us could probably do with extra tweaking around our habits, whether that's the habit of blogging, or reflecting on our enterprises, or making sure we're looking after our health so we CAN keep producing the output we desire.

11:03 Principles
This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.
Meganets

Is there any way of shaking the dark shadows of our addiction to social media? Is AI something to be scared of? And have we helped make the AI monster smarter?

There is a lot we could discuss arising from David B. Auerbach's book, MEGANETS: How Digital Forces Beyond Our Control Commandeer Our Lives and Inner Realities.

Steve decides to centre our discussion around three things of relevance to us as marketers:

• The reason why many marketers and users find social media puzzling (it's because we're all in filter bubbles)
• Why it's impossible for executives to control the junk and lies in social media sites
• The shallow depth of AI "understanding"

David Auerbach is a writer, technologist, and software engineer. He previously worked as a software engineer at Google and Microsoft for many years before turning to writing. He has written on technology, literature, and philosophy for many publications.

One of his opening observations is that people are not constant. When we interact, it is quite chaotic.

Within all that content, there is more poisonous content in social media than ever before in human history. This is because in the past, when we were restricted to interacting with people in our locale, there would rarely be a concentration of people who agreed with our excesses. If we had fringe ideas, it would get blunted by others around us who would challenge it.

However, social media has meant we can connect with likeminded people no matter where they are in the world. This has the result of making dangerous and fringe voices much louder than they would otherwise had been due to Volume, Velocity, and Virality.

For marketers, this is a double-edged sword. On one hand, if we manange to get "in" with our people, we can surf on a really strong current of ready made customers. However, if we upset a certain person or group, they can quickly "pile on" with their fellow travellers; many of whom will comment anonymously.

Secondly, David argues that when we complain that Mark Zuckerberg should do more to stop the poison in our networks, we are wasting our time. He cites many internal papers noting how little control they have over the networks. Every minute of the day, Google conducts 5.7 million searches, Discord uses send 668,000 messages, TikTok users watch 167 million videos, Facebook users share 240,000 photos. Algorithms just can't process the resulting chaos with any great accuracy.

On top of all of this, us humans actually change the machines. Users search, Google watches what they like and don't like, the algorithm updates itself to change results, website owners change content, and the cycle continues. The same happens everywhere.

And the scores given to how offensive certain terms are, need to be updated because often it is not the surface value but the cultural context that makes something offensive. For example, the phrase "I f*cking love you man. Happy birthday" was rated as 93 in 2017 as very vulgar, but that had dropped to 60 in 2021, while "drop dead" only rated as a 40 in 2017 but jumped to 71 in 2021.

He explains how AI is not all that effective because it does not UNDERSTAND human language. The language models being used just work on the probability of what word is more likely to go after this word in this context.

That's why the third point of interest was his explanation for how AI learns using deep learning.

He explained that if we gave AI a pile of pictures of correctly labelled animals and asked them to separate them into separate containers, it would look at what all the dog pictures had in common and all the cat pictures had in common, as well as where the cat and dog pictures differed the most. These similarities and differences are not things humans would understand. It would be certain arrangements of patterns and pixels. It basically is a huge pile of variation about what makes things more cat-like or dog-like, without it being clear as to WHY. But because we have trained it, it becomes accurate. A new unlabelled image comes in, and it is correctly labelled.

Eerily, David says our daily activities in social networks is a gift to AI. We are giving it a huge library of human interaction and, because the networks give us icons to click to show like and anger and love, the AI deep learning machines get an extra head start in categorising.

In fact, David's forecast is that the mega networks are moving towards dumbing down the flair in human language so that we can feed the machines better.

What do we do with this?

It's a reminder that we are about to go through a time of vanilla writing and things will get very bland for consumers. Our job will be to find ways to keep bucking trends and staying human.

Listen to the full conversation.

33:21 Problems
This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.
Video Thumbnails

If you've noticed videos on YouTube having catchy images with bold titles, it's done for a reason.

Video thumbnails help grab our attention and if you haven't experimented with them yet, now might be the time.

An easy way to start is in Canva which has a set of video thumbnail templates.

36:01 Perspicacity
This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past.
A Hard Earned Thirst Unless You're A Robot

A fun note to finish on. The Michelob ULTRA - Robots - Super Bowl 2019 Commercial features an AI-driven robot doing everything better than humans, until it comes to enjoying a beer.

This ad has a bittersweet ending as the robot is left bewildered while humans enjoy the human experience of having a beer.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's one thing to be good at marketing. In marketing, you choose the areas to fish and select the right bait and plan the finer details of your fishing expedition. However, if you get a bite, can you land your prize? This latter part of the process is called Sales.

In this episode, we discuss David Sandler's 49 rules of sales. According to summaries.com, the rules can be divided thus:

• Rules 1 - 6 are the core concepts of the Sandler System and can be used to transform your selling process.
• Rules 7 - 33 are the heart and soul of executing your sales process. You have to do what works.
• Rules 34 - 49 are all about reminding yourself of those principles which are all too easy to forget.

David Olney and Steve Davis share their insights into these rules and how to apply them.

We also stretch the boundaries of content this episode, with a reflection on some sizzling consumer marketing commentary by comedian, Chris Rock. In fact, the show stretches more than a pair of Lululemon's yoga pants!

We traverse a very common problem that can frustrate your website, domain, and online services usage before finishing off with an ice cold, AI-generated Coke.

Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes

02:18 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.
Selective Outrage

A few weeks ago, Steve watched the Chris Rock comedy special, Selective Outrage. At one point, Rock launches a tirade against the sportswear retailer, Lululemon.

He ridicules the signs they apparently have in their storefronts saying they do not support racism, sexism, discrimination, or hate. But he then goes on to note that they sell $100 yoga pants, so they must hate somebody: the poor.

It was a well-delivered joke and it picks at an uncomfortable topic in the world of marketing. We do believe our businesses should stand for positive, community-building principles but maybe that's better done by living and demonstrating those principles.

Placing signs in shop windows or posting catchy, cute value messages in social media, is a hamfisted, short cut for trying to get kudos for being good.

Steve also saw a superb Welcome to Country at the Thunderbirds game on the weekend and noted how it was authentic and earnest, contrasting greatly by the increasingly long and convoluted Acknowledgements Of Country appearing at the beginning of some theatre shows. Again, it takes time, effort, and expense to have an elder appear at the event, so some organisations just pile on the "make up" as they confect concern.

13:32 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.
Sandler Training's 49 Rules

The topic of sales training has come up recently in mentoring we've been delivering, and David referenced Sandler Training's 49 Rules.

As you'll hear in this discussion, there are some interesting points from the principles encapsulated by David Sandler that can make a positive impact on your business.

David Olney is particularly taken by the Power of the Future Yes.

Another point of interest is Sandler's transactional analysis. Sandler argues that in any sales process the emotional child of the buyer must be excited (emotional drive overlaps a lot with inbound marketing), the adult within the buyer needs to be able to reason it is good (the rational mind at work at the end of the process), the parent gives permission (emotional and rational together).

Meanwhile, Steve uncovered the vivid imagery of Rule Number 2, Don't Spill Your Candy In the Lobby. He plays a snippet from Dave Mattson's interpretation of this rule and Steve thinks it's pertinent.

Instead of rushing to "spill our beans", we first need to make sure our prospect actually wants our beans.

27:18 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.
Check The Spelling

Steve had a client battling to register for a paid Zoom account over the weekend.

He offered to step in and help but she was keen to keep trying a little longer.

Found out this morning that after 48 hours of struggle and wondering why she was not able to log back in to pay for her upgraded account, she has been mistyping her email address.

Yes, a simple typo is sometimes to blame.

29:16 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past.
Coca-Cola Masterpiece

Does Coke add life to AI or vice versa?

This is a little on the side of the ledger for “do it because you can rather than because you should”, reminding me of the early 3D movies where an actor sweeping would pause, look at the camera, lift their broom, and gently poke it at the audience “because they could”.

What saves this from purely being a simple showcase of using AI in film, is that the playfulness is on brand with the Coke advertising legacy; they’ve simply swapped beach antics, surfing, or novelty extreme sports for a romp through the art world.

What is unexpected and unintentional messaging, however, is that the protagonist in this Coke ad is not being physically active. Instead of cartwheeling around the place (and burning off those syrupy calories) he’s just sitting there, passively seeking inspiration from the AI zeitgeist. Hmmm, sounds familiar?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Continuing on from our discussion in episode 6, The lost art of delayed gratification, this time, David and Steve ponder the challenges we all face when the marketplace is full of businesses and media working overtime to be "novel".

Despite needed to do some ethical gymnastics, they stumble upon a marketing mix that might help you have your cake and eat it too, without selling your soul (or your business).

You might recall how much Steve fell in love with the classic Russian novel, Anna Karinina, over summer. Well, this time he's fallen for a contemporary novel writting in the sweeping but observational style of Russian literature, A Gentleman In Moscow.

His insight for all of us, related to a particular passage about the twice chiming clock.

In the problems section, Steve shares some thoughts on when you should or shouldn't consider paying for support for WordPress themes.

And in perspicacity, the Mastercard Priceless ads are in the spotlight, including a particularly naughty one that might not be safe to listen to at work!

Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes

01:50 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.
A Gentleman In Moscow

The novel, A Gentleman In Moscow, by Amor Towles, comes highly recommended by Steve if you have the mindset that allows you to slowly devour a story that is succulent in every detail.

The book revolves around the fictional character, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, who is a Russian aristocrat. When he returns to Russia in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, his death sentence for being a "social parasite" is changed to one of staying within the walls of the Hotel Metropol in central Moscow, for the rest of his life. To take one step outside would mean instant execution.

Towards the end of the book, having received guardianship of a little girl, Sofia, he is asked by the child why his heirloom clock only chimes twice a day. His explanation is something of note to all of us engaged in our enterprises, either as business founders or leaders.

As you hear in the excerpt, his father wanted the clock to chime at noon as a sign that one's well-earned lunch break is now. The Count's father believed that if you'd been up since sunrise, you should have completed your day's work by noon, especially because the lack of hourly chimes would mean a lack of distraction.

Likewise, the only other chime was to happen at midnight and if you heard it, the Count's father would argue you have not gone to bed early enough to maintain this disciplined regimen.

For us, the notion of hiding clocks or other signals that draw our attention and make us anxious about deadlines, could well be the key to deeper, longer bouts of concentration and productivity.

But what of rewards? The father believed that having worked a full day by noon, one should be able to spend the afternoon in pursuits of interest and curiosity without any guilt.

Let us know what you think about this.

09:50 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.
I Only Want New

Billy Joel sang, in The Entertainer, that he knew where he stood. He knew he was just another serenader, your current champion, but that if he didn't stay in the charts we'd soon forget him and he'd be "put out the back in the discount rack like another can of beans."

It's a sobering thought but one that is realistic, especially in the fickle sector of fashion and entertainment.

We have noticed the dominant culture in social magazines and sites like Glam Adelaide and CityMag, that headline space only goes to "new and novel" things.

Here's a sampling taken at the time of recording:

• COMING SOON: Owner's of Ovo Gelato are set to open Adelaide's newest authentic pizza restaurant, Padrino ... bringing incredible Italian cuisine and ...
• NEW: A river-side pizza restaurant and brewery with cheese and beer-making classes on site? We can't wait! Stay in the loop and subscribe to our…
• NEW PIZZA JOINT in the western suburbs … Westside Pizza Joint Whipping Up Cheeseburger Pizzas Has Landed ... satisfy all your devilish cravings with a cheeseburger pizza only on offer …

It must be a disincentive to try to craft something of solid, lasting value, when media buzz and energy is constantly focussed on the latest fad; invest money in a new gin bar that serves drinks in glasses made from cardboard from wine cartons, get a hit of publicity, and then never rate a mention again until you go out of business.

It can be a vicious game and soul-destroying if your values are around considerate consumption and enduring value.

That said, while building up a loyal audience through quality and word of mouth is a solid gameplan, occasional flirts with fantasy seem to be wise to introduce you to new people who might then become your loyal tribe.

Listen to the podcast to think this approach through further.

19:40 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.
Paying For Support Is Wise

We've been working with Donna on a web project and have needed to use a product for her WordPress site made by Radius Themes.

As is common, premium products sometimes come with six months support and just as her allocation of time was up, we had a few more question.

The Radius team was brilliant throughout, sending back helpful, custom videos and instructions to sort our issues.

It was an easy decision to page $20 to extend support for another six months.

Sometimes, in the WordPress environment, it's easy to get stuck in "free" mode and neglect the value that comes from paying for premium services and products.

21:47 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past.
Pricelss

Unless you consume zero media, it's hard not to be aware of the Mastercard Priceless campaigns.

These ads usually show the dollar value of certain items but then, when showing how these items were used to enjoy time together with family or friends, the tagline notes that such times are ultimately priceless.

Like this one, from 1997.

You might be surprised to hear that both Steve and David were glowing over the enduring value of the messaging in these campaigns.

This is because they tap an eternal truth; money can't buy you love but it is needed to buy the supporting things that you need to survive so as to be able to love.

In researching this ad, we discovered a strange strand of marketing called subviral marketing, nicely defined in this Guardian article:

Subviral marketing is a topsy-turvy trend that's said to be being pioneered by brands including Budweiser, Ford, Levi's and Mastercard. While traditional viral attachments feature short, slapstick video clips stamped with the brand's logo and web address, subviral campaigns are carefully shot to seem like they were produced by an internet prankster.

The Mastercard reference relates to a cheeky ad brought to our attention by our editor, Tim. This might not be considered safe for work, so watch with caution.

For the record, we are not suggestion you use subviral marketing. The risks outweigh the rewards.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you get through to your customers and potential customers in this era when pleasure is not only expected but still leaves them jaded?

It's hard to be novel and the star of the show these days, for any more than Andy Warhol's famed "15 minutes" because all of us are saturated with pleasure triggers. Professor Anna Lembke pulls the curtains back from this phenomena in her book, Dopamine Nation. It makes for some sobering reading.

Why did we have that drink, take that pill, ogle over titillating stories at the bottom of that online news story, spend hours trawling Netflix for something to bingewatch, or even pick up our phones to find ourselves reading this?

We are seeking pleasure in the form of distraction.

If you can stay with us, you will be rewarded by some intriguing insights for yourself and your business.

It should only take as long as it takes for the head to settle on a freshly poured pint of Guinness. Oh, that's the subject of our Perspicacity segment!

But we start by punting a footy around a country paddock, as Steve shares his unexpected and surprisingly effective method for switching off during down time.

Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes

01:41 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.
Country Sport Shortcut

On a recent holiday, Steve stumbled onto a "hack" that helped him get into relaxation mode, fast.

Like most founders, he's pretty ordinary when it comes to switching off, but an overheard conversation in a bottle shop changed that.

On Friday evening in Middleton, Steve popped into the local hotel to get some whisky and wine (a nice segue into the next segment about being addicted to pleasure), when he overheard a couple of local lads talking about tomorrow's footy game against Mount Compass.

The next day, Steve and his family grabbled lunch in Mount Compass and then paid their $7 a head adult entry fee to access the local sports ground where his wife watched the local netball with one daughter, while he watched the local football with the other one.

Just 20 minutes into this process, having already having the first of many strangers come and sit next to him and start light conversation, Steve realised he'd cracked the code for finding the "off" switch for work and the "on" switch for social connection and relaxation: an afternoon immersed in country sport.

It might not have been as relaxing for the locals but because Steve had no skin in the game regarding team loyalties, he was able to just enjoy the atmosphere of humans engaged in good-spirited competition.

If you try this on your next stay in a regional area, let him know what you discover.

06:40 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.
Dopamine Nation

Anna Lembke’s book, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, helps us understand why instant gratification has become the norm.

According to Lembke’s argument, we live in a world of easy pleasure (fast food, instant entertainment, gaming, and pornography, just to mention a few) in which the addictive potential and pursuit of pleasure is ubiquitous.

Consequently, instant gratification characterises our age, and has some dark consequences: the more pleasure we experience, the more pleasure we want; the more pleasure we have experienced, the more pleasure it takes to get the same buzz; and the more pleasure we have experienced, the more any moment of suffering begins to feel like extreme pain, which can only be countered by even more pleasure.

Under these conditions, it is becoming progressively more difficult for people to concentrate on boring/neutral activities for any length of time, and people are becoming even less willing to do uncomfortable things.

Unsurprisingly, people who have learned delayed gratification, who can manage their pursuit of instant pleasure, have a real advantage in most aspects of life.

The only significant downside of delayed gratification is that people can learn to work so hard, for so long, that they can forget how to experience pleasure (that's a reverse segue back to the opening section about finding peace int local sport).

We all know at least one workaholic who no longer remembers how to have a relaxing day with their family and friends, or how to do something just for the sake of immediate pleasure. Our pleasure-pain balance can be messed up by both too much pleasure and too much suffering through hard work.

Delayed gratification is especially useful and only sometimes problematic, while instant gratification has become detrimental to our wellbeing.

Therefore, we need to reflect on how much pleasure we seek, how much pain minor suffering causes us, and how hard we should work toward our long-term goals.

In the conversation between David and Steve, they discuss what this means to us with our marketing hats on.

19:32 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.
Achieve SEO Gains By Attending To The Small Details

I have long had some fun entries on my much-neglected personal site, stevedavis.com.au, including some fictional About Me pages.

They have been designed to "cash in" on and experiment with the Google value of my namesakes like famous cricket umpire, Steve Davis, famous jazzman, English footballer, and, of course, the snooker player.

Two weeks ago, I gave those pages a quick nip and a tuck, in which I double checked wording on the pages, ALT text on the images, and meta description information.

Despite having been published like that for more than 10 years, that "SEO spring clean" resulted in me getting around a dozen email enquiries for Steve Davis the snooker champion, having never had one ever before.

So, when inspiration isn't quite there, go through and spruce up the pages you have; you might be pleasantly surprised (as many businesses were early in Covid when they did just this and saw great results)

23:31 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past.
Waiting For Guinness

We reflect on an old ad for Guinness, this episode, because it amplifies the high degree of delayed gratification one needs while waiting for the head to settle on this black brew.

Could such an obscure ad as the Guinness Horses ad work today? Listen to the chat.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why do smart people do dumb things? This is the question posed by author Keith Cunningham and discussed by David and Steve in this episode.

One hint might relate to how much time smart people spend each day actually thinking.

It's an interesting discussion that might just help give you the edge in life and business.

Steve also picks up an unexpected insight from the book, Chokepoint Capitalism. It has nothing to do with money and everything to do with disabling thoughts that can rob us of happiness and clear thinking.

Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes

01:41 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.
Chokepoint Capitalism

While reading Chokepoint Capitalism by scholar Rebecca Giblin and writer and activist Cory Doctorow (a great book, by the way, that explains how Amazon, Spotify, book publishers, record labels, and streaming services all conspire to exploit artists by keeping us happy) one quote grabbed Steve unexpectedly.

Comparison Is The Thief Of Joy.

In this discussion, Steve and David discuss the profound truth in this quote, and offer a couple of mitigating strategies.

09:21 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.
Travelling The Road Less Stupid

Smart people do dumb things.

So argues, Keith J. Cunningham who labels himself as having been one of those "stupid" people.

David explain's Keith's thinking from his book The Road To Less Stupid, in which the author sets out to show us that we don’t need to do clever things to succeed in business: we just need to do less dumb things.

Keith argues the vast majority of our poor results are consequences of emotional, overly optimistic, and insufficiently thought out decisions.

The solution? We all need to invest more effort to make and utilise thinking time.

Here it is summarised on a bumper sticker: Operators react and sweat. Owners think and plan.

18:47 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.
Domain Name Registrar

A plea from Steve. If you do not have direct access to your domain name registrar and your webhosting, stop everything and get it sorted now.

While working with some people running a fishing charter business, Steve experienced yet another small business that had no idea about these very very important bits of information.

It is a complete and fundamental business risk not to have this rectified ASAP.

And if you'd like to know who is recorded as the official registrar of your Australian domain name, visit this service: whois.auda.org.au.

Need help? Book a little time with our web people.

21:56 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past.
The 5AD Superchart

Something different for this segment is a walk down memory lane to the once great 5AD Top Forty charts.

Steve recalls these charts kept the radio station top of mind. It gave a focus to our understanding of and access to popular entertainment for many decades.

Former 5AD legend, Greg Clark, recently shared a video from the popular music show he used to present, Music Express, when they celebrated the 25th anniversary of the chart.

But would charts like that work today? Do we need them?

Steve and David discuss this in the podcast.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you're a founder (or you work for one), you will find this episode helpful if you've had to navigate that point in a business at which a founder's personal abilities and capacities are overrun by the demands of growth in the business.

It is at this point that founders need to make some profound adjustments to avoid their business imploding.

This crossroads is typically met when an enterprise reaches the 5-15 employee mark.

In other topics this episode, we cover the TikTok security threat, the Guardian's iconic Three Little Pigs campaign, and the way that you think you're watching YouTube but in fact it's YouTube that's watching you.

02:27 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.
YouTube Is A Case Of The Tail Wagging The Dog

As a business owner or leader in the modern age, you are probably busy producing content, juggling work demands, and being exposed to content in your daily life (or you fret that you are not doing as much creation as you'd like to) but for the Person segment, Steve took a moment to reflect on how our content consumption is being curated and governed by others.

Through an interview with successful science-educating YouTuber, Derek Muller, from Veritasium, on The Skeptics Guide To The Universe podcast, episode 923, we are reminded how much we need to be vigilant.

As Derek explains in the interview, he has been producing videos (including viral videos) on YouTube for a long time (more than 10 years) and maintining success means modifying production to please the website's algorithims. To ignore the changing formula that determines whose videos get exposed to new audiences, is to relegate yourself to becoming irrelevant.

For example, in the early days, YouTube favoured producers who built their list of subscribers. Back then, if you accrued a large number of subscribers, they would then be exposed to your new content and, by default, this signalled the value of the content to YouTube so its algorithm would then share your work with "strangers".

But in recent years, they've changed to different measures of what is popular, front-loading the importance of how many people view the opening seconds, resulting in producers now having to handcraft thumbnail still images with catchy titles and opening sequences that "jazz up" the content to snare a share of the ever diminishing moments of attention of YouTube viewers who increasingly consume contenty by scrolling the site while on mobile devices.

Derek explains this means meatier topics are sadly overlooked in favour of shallower ones. We all lose from this. But YouTube wins.

It's sobering stuff, and Steve argues we need to take back as much control as possible when using services like YouTube. By disabling autoplay and by using your own search terms to hone in on topics of importance to you, you will stay in the driver's seat as much as possible and avoid being sucked into a vortex of titillation.

As an aside, Steve also referenced a Sam Harris interview in which his chat with AI experts, Stuart Russel and Gary Marcus, referenced research revealling that those of us who binge watch TV are UNHAPPIER than people who watch a little. Apparently, it boils down to opportunity costs. We later resent the time we have wasted.

The main takeaway is to take time to curate your viewing yourself, save things for later, and stay in control. The same goes with streaming services. If we go in with a shortlist of content was want to consume, we'll be less likely of falling victim to the infinite scroll.

10:48 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.
The Founder's Dilemma

During his years of working as a consultant, David Olney discusses the gap he has discerned between leaders’ visions of what their teams should be doing and their teams’ understanding of and ability to do what they do.

He explains that when leaders have a particular take on how to translate top level strategy into something that their teams can do every day, it often ends up being at odds with what their teams have been historically habituated to do. As a result, teams often lose their motivation and impetus for action, lose faith in their leadership, and move on to other teams and organisations.

While David first noticed this in large organisations, he has increasingly seen it in small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which is why he has dubbed it The Founder’s Dilemma.

For the sake of brevity, as you'll hear in the discussion, David notes that founders either hold on to control and information very tightly, blunting their people’s ability to grow and contribute to the enterprise, putting future growth at risk; or they surrender a bit of control and share some information, empower their people to contribute, and the enterprise can grow because of a shared vision, responsibility, and trust.

You'll hear the full discussion in the episode and can also read David's article here: The Founder’s Dilemma: Building your business without blunting your people.

23:34 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.
Leaving TikTok

Steve raised the issue of privacy in the digital age arising from a chat with his eldest daughter, AJ.

AJ had watched a TikTok video explaining how much monitoring the app does of its users, prompting her to delete it.

Steve then explained that almost every app on her phone is tracking and selling information about her, even our beloved weather app. This happens when you let the app track your location to serve you with local weather. She didn't realise that her location was then being sold to local councils and other enterprises so they could target her with advertising, etc.

As he explains in the segment, they then went through and made judicious decisions about which apps were to be deleted, which would stay with mobile/location data turned off (except when in use), and which ones provided enough value to live with the privacy trade off.

36:33 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past.
Three Little Pigs - The Guardian

In 2012, an ad for the Guardian's open journalism won a Cannes Lion Award.

The "Three Little Pigs advert" re-imagines how the story of the three little pigs would be covered in the digital era of news gathering.

Steve and David discuss this ad in the Perspicacity segment to ponder whether it might work today.

Listen to the discussion for the range of items raised but in short they note the naivity of our society back in 2012 where our embracing of the eruption of social media discussion was welcomed as a triumph for humanity.

We have since seen just how dark and manipulated this "town square" can be.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We do tend to think of heroes as solo champions who save the world.

But no hero (or business leader) is an island.

Even the iconic hero, Superman, relied on Lois and Jimmy to get him out of tight scrapes when the likes of Lex Luther weakened our superhero with Kryptonite.

In this episode, we reflect on what historical stories about heroes and leaders on the battlefield can realistically teach us about how to lead, relate to, and appreciate the people around us.

Plus, we urge you to celebrate your quirks!

Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes

01:26 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.

Celebrate Your Quirks

Stanley Kubrick was auditioning for the air steward for 2001 Space Odyssey, and the woman who got the part had arrived at the audition having just come from a dentist appointment.

She was disoriented by the drugs and couldn’t walk properly.

As history reveals, Kubrick loved her tentative walking; it evoked images of moving in weightlessness. She got the part.

The moral of the story is even if you're not you're 100% ready, do it anyway.

This is especially so when pitching for business because you never know if there’s something about your quirk or your flaw that is exactly what the other party is looking for.

07:31 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.

Belonging To The Brand

David is halfway through listening to Christian Cameron’s series, The Long War, which is centred around the exploits of Arimnestos of Plataea during the protracted conflict between the ancient Greeks and Persians.

The first three novels in the series already inspired him to think about leadership in a more integrated way than he had considered until now, as well as motivating him to comprehensively situate leadership within the broader contexts of the rule of law and what makes a good life.

"Over my years of lecturing and consulting, I have listened to more books about leadership, virtue ethics, and what makes a good life than I can remember. Even though I can remember quite a bit, and can tell you something useful about every book in my nineteen page recommended reading list, a lot of the pieces don’t fit together in a cohesive and immediately relatable way. After reading three of the six books in The Long War series, I recommend that you should listen to/read Christian Cameron’s novels next time you want to reflect on, and learn something new about, leadership."

Arimnestos is a complex, sometimes noble, and regularly flawed character, making his way through a brutal and beautiful world, which is simultaneously familiar and alien.

He very quickly becomes a dangerous man on the battlefield (a “killer” in the parlance of the series), and learns that a hero can change the course of a battle, but cannot win it on their own. This lesson is reinforced when Arimnestos becomes a leader in war.

Leaders/heroes can do things that their followers can’t, but without disciplined, well trained followers to fill the space they cut, and to walk the path they forge, heroic actions frequently only result in tragic stories of what might have been.

15:55 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.

Helping Donna

Steve is working with a lovely woman who is creating a social enterprise, so he's particularly conscious of helping her save money wherever possible.

During troublesheeting a premium plugin that is a key part of her new site, the tech support people needed some specifications from her webhosting.

Not rocket science level information, just information that would take a little time and chatting with the webhost to access.

Steve was able to arm Donna with the exact wording she needed to ask and she was able to get this information herself, and in the process she stretched her budget just that little bit further.

Depending on your interests and time and budget, it's always worth checking with contractors about any aspects of the "grunt work" they're doing for you could be done in house.

It is a balancing act because there's no enduring value in learning how to do something you'll only do once, but in some situations it might just be a smart way to stretch your budget further and even move things forward a little quicker.

17:54 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past.

Le Specs, Le Tough

Ever broken an expensive pair of sunglasses?

Steve has. Too often.

He made a decision years ago to stop wasting money and stick to good but practical glasses.

He's gone back to taking a chance with more premium sunglasses again, thanks to needing prescriptions, but there was a time in the 80s where a pair of Le Specs actually lived up to their promise and withstood his punishment.

David and Steve discuss the Le Specs, Le Tough campaign and ask, would it work today.

We think it would. Listen to the interview to find out why.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Would you join a community build around your brand?

If you're anything like Groucho Marx, you'd refuse to join any club that would have you as a member, which is why this episode might make some uncomfortable and challenging listening, re Belonging To The Brand.

This book by Mark Schaefer, offers community as a new frontier for marketing to explore, but it's a high stakes option where people will be able to smell bad motivation from miles away.

Later in the episode, we tackle community in different ways, reacting to an article that labelled The Banana Splits as the best TV show of all time. Yep, it certainly has a passionate tribe of fans, which is one flavour of community.

Plus we reflect on reading and how to embed it into our lives better, while sharpening our alertness regarding a different type of scam from any we've mentioned before.

Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes

01:57 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.

For The Love Of Reading

We talk a lot about reading on this podcast, so we thought it would be fitting to talk about reading habits.

As business owners or leaders, being exposed to fresh and structured thinking can shine a new light into the shadows of current operations. New insights might affirm what we've been doing or cause us to take stock and decide to change direction.

This opening conversation was inspired by one held on the podcast, Econtalk, and, in particular, the episode from April 2022 in which host, Russ Roberts, had a sprawling conversation with Tyler Cowen of George Mason University, who Russ describes as an intellectual omnivore.

08:39 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.

Belonging To The Brand

In his book, Belonging To The Brand, Mark Schaefer asks, can a business have a community or serve one?

David and Steve discuss this "radical" idea and try to ground it in the practicalities of small businesses or organisations.

Can we create communities that don't get dismissed by cynical consumers or citizens?

20:23 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.

Registration Scammers

On the day of recording, Steve received two scammy registration letters, one from Registry Australia and the other from Online Business Registration, both trying to lure him into their worlds to renew registrations with them.

While they stick to the letter of the law and have wording on the letters saying they are not official and they are not invoices, the whole thrust of these letters is to get a busy business person to assume they are routine and official, and just pay them, thus, making the business person their customer and from that time forward paying higher fees for their registrations.

It is yet another reason to be vigilant when receiving unsolicited communitation, whether that is email or paper-based.

22:39 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past.

Best TV Show Ever

Steve stumbled upon an article recently that named The Banana Splits as the best kids TV show ever.

That's a big claim.

So, for our Perspicacity segment, David and Steve decided to reflect on the way we label things like TV shows as "best ever" and whether this can ever be subjective.

And they also ponder how timeless some cultural programs might be.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.