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About the podcast
The Digital Utopia Podcast is for SMB Marketers and Business Leaders looking to align their Marketing, Sales, and Service departments so they’re part of one powerhouse growth team.
Each episode will dive into the strategies, philosophies, and tools that will change your approach to organizational growth, give you renewed focus and clarity, and allow you to build a brand that not only helps you stand out—but win.
The Digital Utopia Podcast is produced by Digitopia and hosted by Frank Cowell and Joseph Freeman.
Episode transcription
Frank:
Hey gang. Welcome to the first episode of the digital utopia podcast. I'm your host, Frank Cowell the author of building your digital utopia and I'm joined by my co-host.
Joe:
Joseph Freeman.
Frank:
It's good to see you guys. Good to have you excited to do this, Joe, you know, we've been talking about doing this for a long time.
Joe:
Yeah, years.
Frank:
You're not lying. It's been years. So I want to, Joe, I want to get into what this show is about why we're doing it. But before I do that, I want to acknowledge a couple of really important people that you might hear from, from time to time on this show. So we've got Ariane Brandt, who is one of my partners in crime. She helps me gather all this information. She's really kind of the mastermind behind the content that we're going to do on this show. So Ariane say, hello,
Arianne:
Hello hello hello.
Frank:
There she is. We are not in the Alps. That is not a real echo. Uh, so that's Ariane and we've got DJ Shirley DJ is our engineer on this show. He's also one of our partners in crime and helps us make so many amazing things come to life. And so you may hear from him from time to time, but if you don't, he's another awesome team member that you might, you know, see, you know, passing some information by way and whatnot, but DJ, thanks for joining us too.
DJ:
Happy to be here.
Frank:
Awesome. Um, okay. So, uh, again, thank you to everybody. As Joe mentioned, we've been trying to do this for a long time and I think I'm guilty of, um, letting a lot of things get in the way of, you know, and strategic initiatives that, you know you should be doing, but you just don't have the time for it seemingly, but the reality is if you just make the time, you make it important and you make it a habit, these things can come to life and it can happen. So I'm super excited because this podcast coincides with the launch of my book, building your digital utopia. If you'd like to learn more, go to buildingyourdigitalutopia.com, you'll find out about information on the book. There's some free tools and resources. I'd highly recommend you go there. It's a lot of really cool stuff that we're doing.
Joe:
Hmm.
Frank:
We're going to have an academy there and all kinds of other stuff. So buildingyourdigitalutopia.com. All right. So in the book I teach a methodology called the digital utopia methodology. And so the digital utopia methodology is a relationship driven digital growth framework. And, uh, it's a system that you can implement into your business. So that way you can align your marketing sales and service teams across process platform and people ultimately. So that way those people within your organization become a powerhouse growth team and they don't continue to operate as siloed marketing sales and service departments. So ultimately that's what I'm trying to teach with the methodology and, uh, within the methodology, and we're going to cover each of these things in later episodes, we're going to go deeper, but we're going to talk about the five core philosophies. We're going to talk about a relationship driven Ascension path. We're going to talk about the engagement and re-engagement activities that you're going to have with your buyers across that entire relationship driven journey. And then we're going to get into all sorts of tips, tricks, resources, and tools on implementing all of these things within your business. So we're really heavy on strategy when we talk about digital utopia methodology, but we're also going to talk about some very tactical, practical things to help you take action. So, you know, in addition to wanting to do something like this for years now, I've also been getting a lot of feedback. In fact, an overwhelming amount of feedback from people who have read the book, people I've consulted with over the years, and they're just hungry to go deeper and they're hungry to learn more and figure out how they can get their entire teams organized and aligned and enthused around doing something like this, which is to create a systematic approach to growth where everyone in the organization is really on the growth team. You know, it's not about like separate marketing in sales teams and service teams. Like how do we get those people aligned to where they become a powerhouse growth team? And so, because of that feedback, because I've been wanting to do this for years, that's why I'm doing this podcast now. And what I hope to do in these episodes is to go deeper, not only into the concepts and the philosophies and the strategies that talk about in the book, but just in all things related to systematic growth, right? And, and leveraging digital to do that. And so if you're here today and you know, you're overwhelmed in your business and you feel like man, we've chased a lot of shiny objects or wow, I just can't get this team aligned. And on the same page or, you know what, we've really tried. A lot of things, you know, we did the blogging, we did the Facebook, we did the, this, and we did that and we we've hit a plateau. And we now have to figure out how to go to the next level. Or maybe you're just really fricking frustrated at how noisy and crowded it is out there in today's marketplace. If that's you, I want to help you implement a system to overcome that because I personally believe that systems are the way out of chaos. Systems are how you create sanity. And if you can operate from a place of sanity, look, you're smart, right? It's not like, you know, you just don't know what to do and you wake up and you don't even know how you got here. You're smart, you've done. You've done things to get to where you're at, but now you've reached a level where the complexity is is different. And once you reach that different level of complexity, it actually requires sanity and clarity for you to make it out. It's, it's not necessarily that there's this wizbang campaign that you have yet to figure out or this Wiz based bank slogan, right. That, that has just been eluding. You, you need sanity and you need clarity. And the only way to make that happen as your organizations grow is through systems. And so that's ultimately what I want to help people do. And the by-product of that is that you're going to have a brand that is differentiated. You see, because that's what it it takes to grow in today's world is having a differentiated brand and you might be thinking, well, Frank, I thought you said it was systems. Yes, it is systems systems help you create the differentiated brand. It's the yin and yang. You need a differentiated brand to stand out against all the noise in the marketplace, how you do that is through systems. So with that said, Joe, let's, let's talk a little bit about like where this originated from.
Joe:
Yeah so as you know, you and I have been working together for about 12 years now, um, started programming, uh, websites, custom web apps, uh, web developers. Um, and so we take a very systematic approach to our work in general, because of that over the years, we worked with a lot of companies that, um, just didn't seem to have any alignment from marketing to sales and ultimately to service. And so any of the, um, you know, websites, we were building into the apps, we're building any of the marketing tactics that were being employed, um, weren't necessarily barely turning into sales. They were turned into contacts in the database and, you know, "new leads", which looks really good on a report. Uh, but the sales team was, was not able to do anything with it. And so we saw the need to align marketing sales and service so that, that, uh, customer, that prospect had a way to naturally flow through all of those and to ascend through, uh, the relationship levels that you'll be learning about here. So, um, you know, over the years, Frank has been the visionary. Um, I really been the implementer. And so we have taken these, these philosophies and these concepts, and we've actually put them into practice for client after client, after client. And we've seen the successes and we've also seen the failures from it. But, uh, through that over the years, we've really refined. Um, you know, how this works, how you take a prospect all the way from a stranger up through several relationship levels and ultimately make them a fan.
Frank:
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. You know, you mentioned that we've had that visionary implementer relationship. So, you know, we we've certainly have that, an interesting dynamic there because, you know, uh, I'll certainly dream up something and then you have to figure it out and sometimes make good on promises that I make. And I'm sure that's never been difficult for you at all,
Joe:
but what that has done is led to innovation.
Frank:
Yeah, Absolutely. Yeah. I think that's probably one of the best ways to innovate is you, um, you know, you, you make a promise and then you move heaven and earth to like fulfill on that promise.
Joe:
Yup.
Frank:
So let's jump into this, let's jump into the why you kind of already stepped into this a little bit during your introduction, but you know, for many years we came across organizations that were kind of a mess, right. In terms of their approach to growth. Maybe if you could talk about when it comes to like getting your hands dirty and actually looking at what's happening inside these organizations where some of the things that you were saying that, you know, kind of led to some of these aha moments for us.
Joe:
Yeah. You know, I think that one of the biggest realizations we maybe had several years is that these organizations are just a collection of disorganization. Right. Um, we worked for a lot of years, um, in, in marketing and building marketing process and executing on marketing, um, you know, tactics only to find out that when we generate leads for an organization, uh, the sales team doesn't really know what to do with them, right? It's not that the sales team doesn't know what to do in general, but with the leads that we're generating that are different than the ones that they have, um, you know, drummed up on their own or, um, you know, been handed a list or whatever, they don't know how to follow up with these leads. They don't know what to do with them. And as a result, you end up with kind of a stale database. And because of that as an agency, that's a bad place to be in, right? Because you
Frank:
Right.
Joe:
have all of these leads, you feel great about the reports you're giving you. You love the fact that you're getting new contacts in the database and those contacts look qualified on paper yet there is no opportunity coming from them. And so clearly there is something breaking down between marketing and sales, uh, that, that needs to be fixed. I think that's what kind of started us off on figuring out how do we not just talk about marketing? How do we not just build solutions for marketing? How do we extend that across marketing, which goes to sales, which then obviously eventually goes to service.
Frank:
Abso- on the same page, well, let's talk about this next thing.
Joe:
Let's do it.
Frank:
You and I were really, uh, programmers at heart, right? So we built a lot of tech together, right? And I think when it came time to look at developing marketing systems and growth systems, we took the same approach to digital growth systems in that, uh, when, when putting in the effort to, to build the system, we want to make things that you don't have to constantly like revert to campaigns. You don't have to revert to this idea of being, um, relying on creative campaigns and rolling the dice. And I think that's like a massive problem that I wish marketing agencies would wake up to is they, they take this like my job for my client is to develop these creative ideas and creative campaigns and ideas and campaigns. They're like a dime a dozen. And the problem with that approach is you end up putting a lot of effort and time into things you can't reuse
Joe:
Hmm.
Frank:
And you, you don't have equity. And this is a massive problem when it comes to the way people approach growth, as they think it's about a creative marketing campaign. And it's not. So, um, anyway, just when you were talking, it made me think about how like that original programmatic mindset was kind of how we started doing this whole thing.
Joe:
Yeah. I also think there's one thing that we don't actually talk a lot about, but comes up in conversation and that's that each individual department usually has a system that they're using. And so when you talk about like, I'm gonna put a system in place you will often get from the marketing department, we have systems, but what a lot of businesses don't have is a system, one system to rule all one that follows that customer or that prospect all the way through all seven relationship levels. Um, you know, there's always not always, but there's a lot of the times, um, if we do a bottleneck analysis, we see a drop-off as the handoff happens between marketing and sales. And we see another drop-off from sales, who's promised the world to this new customer that now is handed off to an execution team, right? Like a service team that does a good job, but does a different job than what sales said they would do. Right. Right. And so having a system that aligns the journey all the way through where everybody can agree that they all understand what that experience should be like, I think is super important.
Frank:
Yeah, you know, I find that the typically when we, when you see the marketing department say, oh, we have systems, oftentimes unfortunately what ends up happening is they're trying to accomplish too much. They're trying to address way too many markets and way too many products. And, uh, I often look the leadership of the company squarely in the eyes. And I say, that's your fault because these people are often doing what they're being directed to do, especially in marketing, right? Like I have a real soft spot for my friends in the marketing teams, across these organizations because you know, most our marketing organizations are not given much cloud. Right. And most of them, um, are heavily directed by the executive team and they don't have the autonomy and the freedoms to do what they know is right. Oftentimes, so I look the executive team, the COO, the GM's, the presidents, I looked them straight in the eye, like, you've got to, you've got to take ownership of this. Right. You have to decide what your company's about and what it's not about and, and not have your marketing team running around, trying to.
Joe:
please everybody,
Frank:
please everybody and tackle every market. So that's a huge problem there. And then, you know, I just think generally, um, organizations aren't thinking about aligning marketing sales and service, and how do you do that in a way that's effective. Okay. Moving on, Joe, we were talking about noise and chaos, right? And to me, that noise and chaos combined with the plethora of options that people have today, you know, in terms of like marketing tech and sales tech, and devices and channels, I think when you put all that together, it leads to a massive amount of overwhelm. And I know if you're listening today and you're thinking about like, how can I take a better approach to growth? I'm willing to bet you're probably experiencing quite a bit of that overwhelm as well. And the reason I know this and the reason I'm pretty confident in saying that is I talked to thousands of business executives and the story's the same. They were doesn't matter what the business is. It doesn't matter what the industry is. The story is almost always the same. And the amount of overwhelm that people are experiencing today, um, is ultimately the reason why I wanted to come up with a methodology that people could follow. We purposely like limit the scope on it. So that way it's something people can grasp onto and, and run with and actually understand. You know, it's funny to me, success is when I hear an executive after an executive has been overwhelmed and I, and I explain my methodology to them, success is when they say, wow, I finally get digital. Now that's massive. Right. Because digital has become this thing that is just so overwhelming. There's so many tactics and there's so many different ways you could go. So, um, let's talk a little bit about like, you know, a lot of the people that you've interacted with when the rubber meets the road, I mean, you're oftentimes helping these companies actually implement, what are you seeing that they're struggling with when it comes to just like implementing anything related to growth?
Joe:
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think one of the conversations that we have a lot, when getting into a new relationship and starting, uh, to, to talk about what, what digital utopia, what, what that kind of success looks like. Um, it becomes very apparent right out the gate that what they are doing is not dissimilar to somebody who gets a gym membership and walks in. And they, they kind of stumble around looking for just the next open machine. Right. And they walk around and they spend a lot of time kind of cruising around, not wanting to look too dumb. Um, and just looking for whatever's open. And as a result on day one, they do a few exercises. And when they decide to come back on day seven, uh, they do a few others, but there's no connection, right? There's no plan there. Um, they kind of feel like they're working out, but they don't start to see results. And then they get frustrated and then they kind of stop altogether, right? Marketing, uh, for a lot of the clients we cut in bed with is very similar. They're trying everything. They hear about the latest Facebook craze. They hear about the latest platform that they could jump on and they try a little bit of everything, but there's no plan. There's no real growth plan there. Um, all they hear are the success stories that come from the companies that are promoting these and hope that that is the silver bullet. And I think the truth is there is no silver bullet. No, there's not. I think what you really need is you need a trainer, right? You go to the gym and you get a trainer and what do they do? Do they have a magic potion? Uh, do they have a magic? Anything they don't, all they do is they keep you accountable to doing the same things every time, or, you know, they switch it up, but it's a program either way. They keep you on the same program. And is it the best program? I don't know, there's a million out there, but as long as you're on a program and you have somebody keeping you accountable to that, you will see time and time again, that your reps, you can get a few more reps in each time, right? And you can lift a little bit more weight. And when you look back 12 months from where you started, you are a completely different human being. And I think the same thing happens when we put these systems in for people. Uh, they go from being chaotic and shotgun and just try and whatever comes down the pike next to, uh, executing systematically on a plan on a program that actually transcends marketing. Um, you know, it takes it past marketing and actually puts process and even platform into place for sales and service teams so that you actually see growth, uh, and conversion boosts at every level of those relationships. As you take somebody through the different relationship levels of, uh, you know, the customer
Frank:
Journey, you know, I wish I wish everyone would walk away from this initial episode with, with one thing. And it's something that you just said, which is no matter what system you decide to execute, it doesn't matter if it's perfect. It doesn't matter if you think it's the greatest thing in the world.
Joe:
It doesn't matter if it's ours.
Frank:
It doesn't matter if it's ours. What I want you to do is I want you to like find a system and stick to it and execute the hell out of it. Because what you said about putting in the reps, that's what matters you have to put in the reps, you know, same, same, you know, concept of going to the gym. You know, like you can kind of pick any halfway decent workout routine. You know, if you relentlessly execute on it, you're going to feel great. Eventually you're going to look good eventually. And the, the that's the important thing is that you're consistent with it because the consistency ends up creating. What I think is actually one of the most important things when it comes to growing a business or really achieving anything for that matter. And that's the word momentum and, and hands down, I've been, I've been in business quite a while now, hands down. Uh, it's my belief that momentum is the thing you're striving for, not perfection. So you don't need a perfect system. You don't need to like wait and plan and think about it and wait and deliberate and get the book you need to execute. And you just need to put in the reps because when you do that and you're consistent, you're going to get momentum, momentum. I'm telling you, you mentioned there's no silver bullet. I would say the only thing close to a silver bullet is momentum because it's kind of a magic elixir. It, it tends to breed things that you can't always quite pinpoint where it came from. And so if there's anything magical or spiritual or woo going on with, with anything, it's when you create momentum, because when you do that, the energy you create is contagious. People start to hear about you. People start to want to get on board with what's happening in your organization. And that's whether you're trying to attract clients, create fans, or even attract potential employees or donors or supporters to your brand. There's something magical that happens with momentum. And so ultimately, you know, we talk about one of the five philosophies that I have that I talk about in the book is called commitment and consistency. It's philosophy, number five. It's my favorite philosophy because of exactly what we're talking about right here. Um, and so if you're listening today, you've, you know, been on and off the hamster wheel and you've jumped around from campaign to campaign. Man, what I would love for you to do is stop that I would love for you to be consistent with something, just be consistent with something. So I, I, um, I forget what I was either reading a book or listening to a podcast or something. So I apologize. I can't give, uh, pay respect to whoever I heard this from, but I want to share this story with you. There was a story about this college professor who was running an experiment with his photography class, and what he wanted to find out is what leads to becoming a better photographer. And so what he did was at the beginning of the semester, he told half the class, he said, your only job is at the end of the semester to turn in your single best photo possible. And you'll your whole grade will be based on this one photo, just turn in one photo. He told the other half of the class, your single grade will be based on the volume of photos. You turn it at the end of the semester. So one half focused on quality, the other half focused on quantity. He was blown away to find out that hands down. It was night and day, not even close. The group that consistently had better quality photos was the group that was focused on quantity, because what ended up happening is they were putting in the reps so much that they became photographers. And so that's the lesson here is you don't become a photographer. You don't become an entrepreneur. You don't become, you know, a physical fitness buff. You don't become any of those things until you do those things. No amount of studying, no amount of preparation, no matter whatever, and doing it once, doesn't make you that thing. And so that's, that's again, talking about the, kind of the magic elixir. If, if there's anything that's magical, it's, it's what happens because of momentum you put in the reps and magic happens. I know when I'm, uh, go through highly consistent periods, I'm not perfect, right? But when I go through highly consistent periods of my own, you know, engagement and content production, and thought leadership conversations just appear like magic. It's, it's, it's pretty freaky. Um, and so that, that's what I would impress upon you. And that's philosophy, number five, commitment and consistency. It's hands down. One of the most important things you can do
Speaker 3:
So you mentioned number five. Um, I think there's probably a large group of people who haven't read the book. Uh, so let's rattle off what all the philosophies are. All five. Yeah.
Frank:
So number one, a customer service mindset. And so I'm not going to go into each one real deep here today, because what I want to do with you is I want to go through each of these in later episodes, really deep. Cause I want to have an episode per philosophy, and I want to really dig into examples and who's doing it right. Who's doing it wrong. We're going to talk about examples of who screwed it up and what they could have done better, all that stuff. Right. But the first one was customer service mindset. And I'll give you the Cliff's notes on each of these customer service mindset means that we start treating people who interact with our brand as if they were customers, the moment they interact with our brand. And so what I like to tell people is their customers. They just, you don't know it yet because even though just consuming content on your website and they're anonymous to you, they're paying you not with dollars, but with their time and attention and in today's world, that's a form of current. Okay. So customer service mindset, number two. Okay. Um, is hyperspecificity. Okay. Hyperspecificity means that I no longer want you guys doing campaigns to try to appeal to the broadest audience possible again, whether you use my system or some other system, or you don't follow a system, you're just doing campaigns, whatever you're doing going forward. I want you to make sure each of those efforts, yeah. Hyperfocused in on one persona with one pain point. Okay. One persona, one pain point. That's it. And the reason you're going to do that is because today's world is crowded and noisy. So when people ask me like Frankie recommend producing so much content, isn't that kind of a waste of time. Cause we're already like overloaded with content. Yes. The world's overloaded with content. That's why I want you to producing better content. That's why I want you producing much more meaningful content. That's why I want you getting much more hyperspecific with your content. So you can mean something to someone. Okay. So one persona, one pain point going forward, each of your efforts needs to be focused on that. So if you have a marketing team that's running campaigns, or you have a sales team that's going and doing door knocking and they're doing outreach or whatever it is they're doing. I want you to ask them, who's this effort focused on what pain are you solving for them? How are you changing their lives? If you can't the answer that you're too broad, you're too general and you're not relevant. You're just noise. And you're a nuisance. Okay. So hyperspecificity. Okay. Next one. Slow down to speed up. Okay. Slow down to speed up means that if you look at the way people buy, especially in a considered sale cycle, especially you're selling something, that's "big ticket" or requires cohort decision-making the, the buyers don't want in that situation. They don't go from like, I'm not a buyer. And then I am a buyer. It's not binary. There's a whole progression that happens. And unfortunately, businesses have not built their business models around acknowledging that fact, right? Businesses have like, we're marketing, you're a buyer, right? We're marketing. You want to buy something. We're marketing. You're paying us as a customer. That's not how it actually works. And so businesses need to build in to their model a way to engage people through their journey. Would you rather be there the whole time through their journey, even if you're not selling your ideal thing, would you rather wait until they're ready to buy, knowing that your competitors are finding ways to bring value in court them. And so slow down to speed up means I want you to build in steps into your business model. That seemed like you're adding additional steps in which would seem like you're slowing things down, but that's actually going to speed things up because you're going to have a reason you're going to have a why to create that conversation. It's no longer like, here's my product you want to buy? No, thanks. Okay. And certainly there are people who are ready now, buyers, quote unquote. And I'm not suggesting you stop trying to get ready now buyers. Right? All businesses. We have a little bit of that addiction to ready now, buyers, I get it. You have to do that. But for the 95% of buyers who aren't ready now, what are you doing? And do you have a business model that allows them to engage with your brand and find value with your brand before they're paying money to your brand?
Joe:
Yeah. And I would even add that the ready now buyers, were not ready now at one point. And when they were not ready now, at one point somebody was educating them on something. It might as well be you.
Frank:
Yeah. I remember, you know, it's like that old school thing, they would say like, Hey, who's whispering in your girlfriend's ear, right? Like if you're neglecting your, your loved one, like someone's whispering in their ear, right? Like this is no different. When it comes to business situations. Like if this is your audience and you care about them and you want to be meaningful in their lives, stop waiting until they have something for you. Why don't you show up and start giving something to them. And you can do that in ways that are systematic. And we're going to talk about that in later episodes. And we're going to teach it to you. I hope you buy the book. Not because I make a bunch of money off of a book. Those who write books, no, you don't really make money off books, but I hope you buy it because you're going to learn something of value. And you're going to learn how to build these systems into your business and you, yes, you can systematize relationship building when it comes to business. Uh, I don't recommend you, uh, systematize your marriage too much, cause it's a bit clinical, but you definitely can do it in business. And there's ways to do it effectively and authentically. Cool. Uh, number four, uh, before the commitment, consistency is top-down optimization. Okay. So I want you to optimize from the top down. What do I mean by top-down in my worldview? I don't look at it as a funnel where at the top, you know, like anonymous visitors come in and not the bottom dollars magically fall out. I don't look at it that way because I think it's a little too anonymous. I think it's a little too cold. I don't think it acknowledges relationships. So instead I think of it as an Ascension ladder or an Ascension path. And I sometimes still call it a funnel because that's a word that I know most people are going to get and understand. So if you hear me call it a funnel, it's not that I'm against the word funnel. I just, my view of it is an Ascension ladder, a path going up where the bottom is your stranger and the top is your, those are your customers and fans. So when I say top down optimization, what I mean is when it's time to now start optimizing your system, right? You finally get a system in play where you start optimizing is at the top, meaning you ask yourself, okay, at what rate are we creating fans? And is that rate acceptable? Are we happy with that rate at which we're creating fans? How many of our customers become fans? And you might say, well, how do I know if they're a fan or not?
Frank:
Well, you might have ways in your organization to measure that. But if you don't, you could be looking at things like how many referrals do your customers give you unsolicited? How many reviews do they leave for you online on solicited? If you're getting a net promoter score survey or some other survey satisfaction survey from them, what are they saying? How long do they stay with your brand? What's the tenure? How often do they repeat by? How often do they increase their spend with you? These are things you can measure that will indicate whether you're creating fans or not. Okay. And again, you may have your own indicators in your business. Like you might actually have a program where, you know, you, you have a special fan designation and that's cool too. Um, and so if you're not creating fans, if those things aren't happening, there are things you could be doing that are part of a system. There are things you could be doing to turn people into fans. Um, and we're going to get into that in some of the later episodes. We're gonna talk about examples of that and how you do it again. Talk a little bit about, about that in the book, but we're gonna, we're going to get into this. We also have an academy that we're going to be launching, uh, called digital utopia academy and digital utopia academy is going to give you examples of all this stuff. Uh, we're going to talk, we're going to actually give you templates and tools and resources on how to get your team, to learn how to do this stuff and implement it. And you as an executive, how you can implement and manage a system like this and keep your sanity at the same time.
Joe:
Uh, you know, there's one, one thing I want to point out. Um, and that is when we start working with clients and we talk about the five core philosophies. Um, we get a lot of head nodding, right? this resonates with people. Um, it makes a lot of sense, especially to business owners, right? Especially to the C suite. Uh, they get this a lot when we start to implement stuff. What I think resonates first with people is the hyperspecificity. I think that for the first time, this aha moment of we're not selling to everybody, um, we shouldn't be selling to everybody. So therefore we shouldn't be talking to everybody. We should be talking to individuals. I mean, we talk a lot about B2B and B2C. Um, it's really B to H right? It's it's business to human, and I'm gonna take it even further and say, it's H to H it's human to human, right? We're having real human conversations with real humans on the other side. So the more specific we can get in understanding who that human is and what we're saying to them and what they actually care about. Because at the end of the day, they don't really care about my hammer, right? They care about the hole they're going to make with it. They care about the thing they're gonna hang. You're going to
Frank:
Make a hole with a drill. I hope, gosh, I hope you make a hole with a drill. So
Joe:
This is one thing that you're going to find out about me. I mix those things up all the time and it's super endearing. My point is that we Are selling value to them in hyperspecificity is really the first step towards understanding what they care about, right? Who we're talking about, what they care about.
Frank:
I mean, look, I like to look at the, um, the psychological side of this too. Like there's an endearing. There is a, an enrichment, um, values, reason why you would do this, but if you don't care about that stuff, like you're here today and say, I want my green back. Show me how to get more greenbacks. There is a psychological reason why this works too. And you have to look no further than when you're in the grocery store. And you look at the magazine from the Inquirer, right? And you see the headlines, right? What are those headlines like? They're always ultra specific because they know that once you have the specificity, it becomes more real. It becomes something that your brain can get. It starts to create a level of believability. So when you get hyper-specific on your buyer persona, they start to, they, they automatically have a higher level of trust and belief based on the story you're giving them. It's no longer a general story. It's a story about them. And so if you're not, if you, you don't care about any of the warm, fluffy reasons as to why you would do this, know that like psychologically, this means you're going to engage in a more conversations. You're going to increase your awareness. People are gonna be attention more.
Joe:
Love that.
Frank:
Hey gang, thanks for joining us for the very first episode of the digital utopia podcast. If you'd like to learn more about the philosophies and the strategies and the tactics that we talked about today, and what's in the book, go to buildingyourdigitalutopia.com and there we have a special gift for you. You can get a free copy of the audio book, so go check it out, get your copy, uh, learn more about what we're going to be talking about. We're going to cover a lot of stuff in future episodes and go deeper into it. So I'd love for you to be able to follow along buildingyourdigitalutopia.com. Thanks for joining us.
