#140 - AI Is Killing Authentic Marketing w/ Caleb Roche - Authority in the Wild

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
AI is the most narcissistic personality that you will find
Meet Kali approach who is someone who truly lives at the
intersection of theory and practice.
As humans, we are desperately looking for as much humanity as
we can. He's an assistant professor of
marketing at Oklahoma Baptist University, teaching future
leaders how to think strategically, communicate

(00:22):
clearly, and make data work for them.
And at the same time, he's the CEO of group creating where
those same principles turn into real world outcomes.
I've heard so many chats, BT type scripts on TV, I've even
seen large brands. I can't say it's AI, but I would
be confident to say a 99.9% chance was AI.

(00:44):
Over 10 million in revenue generated, stronger customer
relationship and entire product categories launched.
As you'll see in this episode, he's not just talking strategy,
he's building systems that perform.
And in today's episode, he's sharing with you how to
penetrate new markets, how to understand your customers, when
and why you should say no to everyone that's knocking on your

(01:05):
door, and many other insights that you don't want to miss.
Enjoy. Hey, thank you for tuning in.
I'm your host, Gabe Marushka, with Authority in the Wild, and
these recordings are made for you, the listener.
I wouldn't record more than 130 episodes if weren't someone out
there tuning in every single week.

(01:28):
And I want to thank you to thankyou for listening to thank you
for sharing this episode with someone that you think it needs
these insights and more importantly, why you listen to
it. I thank you for taking notes and
actually applying the lessons here before we TuneIn.
If you find this episode's valuable, it would help a lot if
you support the podcast by subscribing or following

(01:48):
depending on the platform that you're tuning in.
Thank you so much in advance andenjoy the episode.
Caleb, welcome to 13 the Wild. Thanks, Gabe.
I appreciate you having me on mypleasure, especially because
it's not every day when I sitting with both ACEO and a
professor. That's a quite a unique blend.
It's not very common, is it? Yeah, absolutely.
And I'd love to know how your role influence your day-to-day

(02:12):
work. Yeah.
So one of my lifetime goals actually has been to be a
professor. And so I had my master's degree,
didn't have my doctorate yet andan opportunity came up where to
be a professor, obviously. And so I have this unique skill
right where it's I have one footin what I call the boardroom and
1 foot in the classroom. So I'm able to take what

(02:35):
students are seeing real time and actually get some insights
about consumer behavior on Gen. Z, right, because most of the
students are Gen. Z.
And on the flip side, I'm able to help them with strategies
that they'll actually use in theworkplace because an
educationally where you landed. But I didn't learn as much as I
wanted to or should have in college for a marketing degree,

(02:56):
right? So left college thinking that I
was going to be the best marketer in the world, realized
I knew nothing about marketing after college.
And so on the classroom side, I'm able to take that to
students and in the boardroom side, right, I'm able to see
what trends are happening in Gen.
Z, right? Then on the flip side, I'm
getting some really creative ideas centered from students

(03:18):
around how do we grow and build,you know, systems and processes
for students and for future marketers.
So kind of a fun little balance between the two.
Yeah, I love it, especially because indeed, as you
mentioned, it's a unique blend. And it's interesting that often
school doesn't prepare us truly for what's there in the real
world. And you to have a foot in one

(03:39):
place and one in another, it's so powerful because you can
actually teach your students what's happening in the real
world. And especially now with AI, all
the playbooks are almost rewritten, right.
So I love to see what you saw out there, like what's, for
example, let's say the last couple of weeks, what change in
the marketing space that's just a couple of months back was the

(04:02):
norm. Yeah.
So we've been having this conversation a few of my
classes, which I'll be interested in your take, right?
Are you on social media? Yes.
Do you consume like real contentor video content on Instagram or
TikTok? Yes, pretty much, but not a lot,
I would say. OK, so based on that, right, in
the past seven days, have you watched any video content?

(04:23):
Yes, I do. OK, So let me ask you this
question. Do you remember any of the
videos that you've seen in the past seven days or any sort of
what type of video content you saw on social media?
Not particularly. OK.
So something we've been talking about in the class, the reason I
asked this is our behavior and our mindset around trends and

(04:44):
what we're seeing content wise. We have become so consumed with
content that our brains cannot keep up.
And so something that we've beentalking about in marketing for
trends, our trends are no longereasy for us to follow because in
one sense, right, you talk aboutvideo content and I think we can
all remember a couple years ago a trend would happen and
everyone would take that trend, right?

(05:05):
Like the trying to think like different dance trends, right?
You'd, you'd see it once and then it'll be everywhere.
Now it's completely different because that doesn't happen as
much. And on the flip side, those
viral videos do not last as long, especially in our mind.
And so something we've been talking about is trends are good
for us to follow, but they really don't help us build that
brand voice. And so something we've been

(05:26):
talking through as students withthe students is how do we build
memorable experiences as brands within marketing, right, that
tell that story? And for the US with Super Bowls,
right? Previously, Super Bowl ads were
always big because you would build up this story for your
massive $1,000,000 video campaign, right?

(05:47):
And so for instance, Mr. Peanut died like a year or two ago
where I forget how long ago it was.
They built up the story of like where Mr. Peanut was and then
Super Bowl came out with here's Junior Peanutter, etcetera.
Right now with the way the consumer mind works is it
doesn't work, right? We launch a campaign that
excites people about that ad andif we leave 30 days between that

(06:10):
next set of creative, that consumer is going to forget
about that story, right? So the question becomes, and I'm
curious, your take on this is within how this works, how do
you build actual brand exposure and awareness with your consumer
in such a fast-paced world and market?
Yeah, that's $1 million question, right?

(06:31):
And from my perspective, it's doyou need to have some sort of
consistency in your brand, something that truly people not
Only Connect with, but they can refer you back?
I think I saw something similar just a few days back.
And then after a couple of itemsare like seeing your content
over again. It's like it's actually related

(06:53):
to this person or is it related to this brand?
Because if there's some sort of consistency in the messaging out
there or in the visuals or something.
And I think if we just think about big brands out there, like
for example, the Nike or the World or the Apples of the
World, they had that. They had either a message or
something that was memorable. And no matter what trends come

(07:14):
around, they're still made it memorable.
And it's interesting now that, for example, not sure if you
know about Nike changing this approach like they had to just
do it and now they change it. So it's something else we've
been talking about and we have having to teach an international
marketing course. And if you look at penetration
on Nike outside of the US, they've got essentially no

(07:36):
market, right? You look, I'm sure you can
resonate with this, right? Adidas has what we would
consider a heavy penetration in the European market.
Is that correct? Yeah.
Being also a German brand, it's much more easier for them to be
on the ground and understand consuming behavior faster.
So Nike has obviously established a large market in
the US, which has paid off. But I think from what I can tell

(07:58):
from the direction that they're heading is I truly believe
they're trying to steal international market share.
And so it seems like from their messaging, they're going from
that American based, just me, I can do it to that holistic view
because I had my students last week analyze Adidas social
profile versus Nikes. And you notice Adidas is more

(08:18):
collaborative. It's more of that European
mindset versus Nike. If you look at their social
content, it's very American. It's very, I could do it on my
own merit. I'm, you know, I'm the best,
right? And So what you're finding is
from my understanding, and I could be completely off here, is
you're seeing the shift in content from Nike more towards
that European mindset. Is that, is that what you're

(08:40):
seeing? Yeah, exactly.
And I don't recall exactly theirnew tagline, but was less about
me, was more about, as you mentioned, like something
collaborative. Like now I'm a bit, it's it's I
just looked it up. It's why do it not just exactly.
Exactly. Yeah.
Which is very fascinating because you wonder, right, is

(09:03):
that going to be effective in some sort of European market,
right, Because they've spent so much time and effort building
this just do it athlete type, right?
Is that a an easy shift or maybenot an easy shift, but is that a
sustainable shift for them to make within the marketing space?
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see because often this type of
campaigns and I just can't recall the Jaguar campaign that

(09:28):
was such a failure, at least in my view last year.
It's like exactly the big question is Nyquil succeed with
this or not and time will tell. But it's interesting to see,
especially these big brands thatare established, the people know
for a certain tagline or they know for a certain message they
put out there and they still have the bold in us to just make

(09:50):
waves again. Yeah.
Well, and that's the interestingpart.
So on that same note, right, I had my students two weeks ago,
we are analyzing failures of American based companies
entering into European markets, which would be similar to Nike,
right? They they're not entering it,
but they're starting to try to penetrate.
And when we talked about it, youknow, Walmart tried to enter

(10:10):
Germany, lost, I believe, 1 to $3 billion based on the fact
that they were trying to build the same ideals that they had
back in the US into Germany, which failed, right?
Same thing with Home Depot in Japan.
They tried to enter Japan with the same models.
That works, right? And these are massive companies
where it's not like one marketing decision maker.

(10:31):
They probably have market research behind why they're
doing it, and they're still not doing well.
So I think this will be a reallygood test to understand Nike has
the money, they have the brand power, you know, domestically,
do they have the capabilities? And does this work on a large
scale outside of domestic? And when shifts like this

(10:51):
happens when businesses try to enter new markets, what do you
often see as mistakes they're making?
So the number one mistake that Itell my students that most
companies make when entering a new market and we're talking
outside of domestic, right? So US to South America, whatever
what happens is, especially if the company is based in North

(11:13):
America, they have this bias that they are doing what they
need to do well and they are trying to have that country
adopt what they are doing instead of adopting to what that
country is doing. So for instance, the best
example is Walmart, which is a massive retailer in the United
States tried to enter Germany and what they did was they tried

(11:35):
to take the friendliness of Walmart, right?
So American ideals of you have agreeter at the front, everyone
talks to you, everyone smiles. They do this chant for
employees. They're very anti union, right?
The problem was they went into Germany and Germany was the
complete opposite, right? Germany thought it was really
creepy that they had people at the front of the store saying

(11:56):
hello. They thought it was weird that
people would smile at them when they're shopping, right?
They are very pro union. And at the other side, the
workers thought it was a really weird cult that they were
chanting. There's a video that I showed my
students, I would look up. They were literally chanting
like Walmart, Walmart, Walmart, right?
And so the interesting part is most companies, they try to take
the same ideals that they have and adapted into a culture.

(12:19):
And instead of that, they need to think about how do we adopt
this culture into our business model and integrate the two
together. And I from my perspective,
that's not the only thing that makes it successful, but from
one element, I think that's a key for success in some sort of
new market, right? Yeah.
And I think this is valid for somany type of businesses.
It's not just, I don't know, a huge corporation trying to

(12:42):
penetrate a new market, but evenus individuals, if you have
clients in different cultures, we need to take that into
consideration. And I remember first time, like,
I used to have like, clients just in Romania.
And when I expand overseas, I was like, whoa, they react in
such weird way, but it was just their culture.
And after that, they'd become a nomad.

(13:03):
And after like now 6 1/2 years on the road, I realized that
people are so different at the end of the day and culture are
so different. So we need to adapt.
Otherwise it's so hard to make business with them.
And yeah, like, this mining partdoes not truly come in around
Europe, but if you go to Asia, you just go to North America or
to Latin America. It's so normal to see people

(13:24):
smiling back at you even on the streets of the stranger.
And obviously not everywhere, but it's such a normal thing in
other places. But in Europe, yeah, people are
thinking, oh, what is this this weird though?
Like smiling back at me on the street.
Exactly. Well, I think it's a really good
example, right? Because when I tell people is,
yeah, it's great to think about these big market entries, right?

(13:45):
Walmart or Nike going international.
But to your point of even a personal brand or a smaller mid
sized regional brand, it doesn'tmatter if you're going across
states or even in Europe, right?You go from Italy into Spain or
something like that, right? It's a completely different
culture. And so the really beneficial
part and challenging part as marketers is we have so much

(14:07):
accessibility to enter markets at this point, right?
In this very moment, within 5 minutes, I could place an ad in
Europe, probably in your area, right, and get something to
launch. I could use translation apps and
get a creative, get a creative out there, right?
Which is great because speed to market is very easy.
The problem is it's difficult for us to actually understand

(14:28):
what that culture once without doing extensive research.
And I think we've gotten so ingrained to let's do something,
let's activate very quickly instead of, hey, let's take a
step back and be very strategic.Even if it's a small market or a
small shift that we're doing, let's take a step back and think
about what are those values and cultures that we need to be

(14:49):
understanding before we push that message out, because I
think that that pause before we activate will make a campaign
much more successful. 100%. And what do you think about the,
the approach of using, let's sayAI tools like deep research from
two GPT or Perplexity or Gemini to do that research for you to

(15:10):
understand the new culture? Do you believe that's accurate
or these tools are still bias? I think there's still a little
bit of level of bias between those, but I think it's the best
that we've got so far, right? Because most companies do not
have the resources, unless you're Walmart to go over to a
different market, right? And do extensive research that
takes quite a lot of resources. And so from my perspective, if

(15:31):
you have to be scrappy or you get creative, I think it's a
great stepping stone to say, hey, let's set a baseline
strategy and use perplexity or Gemini or chat to BT.
To really understand that market.
And then let's use that to inform our initial strategy and
either do some testing or to talk to some locals in the area

(15:51):
or even to do a trip out there and experience like what is this
culture versus what tragic BT is, you know, because tragic BT
can't get that full culture, right?
Like they, it understands some of the ties, but it might not
get all of the deep roots that most locals understand.
And so that's where I think froma perspective of it's the best

(16:12):
that you have, but I don't thinkyou should just go, all right,
Chad to PDI had a conversation with it.
I prompted it a little bit. Now I know this market I'm going
to launch, right? I think there's one more layer
outside of that. Yeah, I agree because nothing
beats face to face interactions and truly immersing yourself in
a culture. And I would argue that you

(16:33):
should do that for a long periodof time, like at least a couple
of months to truly understand the dynamics.
Because often, like for example,if I stay in one place for one
or two months, it's often not enough to understand how that
culture behaves, how they react with certain things and so on.
Not to mention there are like small details and especially
when it comes to communication, like if you use certain, let's

(16:57):
say words that probably in NorthAmerica works really well and
use the same 1 like your examplein Germany, that won't work like
they'll just like close that ad or like scroll past.
Yeah, 100%. And that's the thing, right.
And I that's why I think I've been testing my students to say,
hey, use AI to understand like we, I give them some case
studies, right, the Walmart example and I say do your

(17:18):
independent research and then pair it with tragic BT or
whatever AI function and see howaccurate based on your research
and maybe get some more in depthinsights.
I think the biggest piece is right, we've taken the
creativity out of advertising inMonoso Bucks here.
But I've heard so many chats, BTtype scripts on, on TV, I've
even seen large brands and I can't say it's AI, but I would

(17:42):
be confident to say a 99.9% chance that it was AI.
I've heard TV commercials from big brands when they say
navigating your financial future, right?
And to me, I hear the word navigating and that's like the
number one word on Chachi BT. So again, maybe they came up
with that on their own. But I think it's a big premise
of we use these tools to do no work.

(18:05):
And instead of it, it should be used to inform what we do, can
give us more creativity so that we can launch at a more creative
campaign, right. And so obviously there's a
balance there. But what's your thoughts on the
AI side with doing research, entering markets?
Yeah, I'm going to sit pinch with you.
And I'll add the fact that, for example, when I research
something using these tools, I always ask myself, like, is this

(18:27):
true? And sometimes I throw that back
out to the tool itself, like, Are you sure what you just spit
out there? It's real or and obviously the
nice part is that you get the links they use to do that
research. So you kind of can double check
the sources if it's ready. For example, I was like, all
right, but it's not that often the case scenario because they

(18:51):
don't use Reddit anymore, especially to do their research.
But in the past was like most sources was ready.
There's like how that can be accurate then because it's just
people throwing stuff out there.But apart from that, I think we
need again a balance like you mentioned, like using these
tools, leveraging them, but not relying tired on them, asking

(19:12):
the tough questions like is thisreal or this was just people
pleasing me because they need togive me an answer.
I was like, all right, this might must be true.
Or especially when it comes to copy.
I think that's a important topicbecause often the topic not just
use the classic AI words that every single piece of content
out there now it's present with,but in the same time, they don't

(19:37):
use the words that customers use.
And I think this is probably themost important one because if
your actual words that your customers use or your audience
are not present in your copy or in your content, they won't
resonate with it. It will just be like blunt, no,
they won't have a piece of humanity in that content.

(19:58):
And then it's just something that people won't read, won't
buy, and won't take action. And that's why I did that part
of the measure to actually go out there, like talk to people,
take notes, actual words that people use and use that in the
copy. It's so underrated.
I know it's manual work, but it's the work that stands the
test of time because often people kind of follow the same

(20:22):
behaviors and they make purchases.
Of course, that might change a bit in the future, but still, if
they express, let's say, a challenge, a problem, pain in a
certain way, if you use exact the same words, they'll
immediately find themselves in that.
And I see that all the time in my clients.
For example, people messaging clients saying you speak so

(20:43):
directly to myself, I'm going through exact same experience
that you described because it used those words.
And I think that's the humanity in marketing.
We need to still use it if you want to be relevant.
Absolutely. And you raise a good point.
I think as humans, we are desperately looking for as much
humanity as we can. Everything is turned into this

(21:04):
like robotic. There's not much humanity.
There's really no depth behind the message.
I think that's where we're starting to miss the mark of
we're trying to put. It's kind of like the Gary Vee
type thing where we're trying toreplace quality with quantity,
right? And there is so much quantity
out there that it's so hard to stick out from anyone else that

(21:25):
if we can make a shift towards more quality and have actual
humanity and like our messaging resonates with our target on a
legit level, they will make yourmessage stand out significantly
more. And it hits that emotional cue.
I always make the joke with AIAIis the most narcissistic
personality that you will find right?

(21:46):
Because I saw a tweet the other day and it said someone posted
and they were prompting and theysaid, man, it's a beautiful
sunny day. And the and Chadapiti goes, it
is such a perfect day. And then they respond back and
go, no, it's actually not. It's raining and it's terrible.
And it goes, oh, yeah, you're right.
This is such a terrible day. And so AI tries to model you

(22:08):
right. And it's a good and bad thing,
but if we allow it just to dictate, right, we we have to
put some responses back or buildhumanity in there.
And so it's one of my favorite jokes to say because it's like,
it's so true. You can say I'm the greatest
person in the world and say, oh,yeah, you are.
And then you say, well, I'm actually not.
Well, yeah, you're probably not.But.
And so it enables us to think that we have these creative

(22:30):
ideas. Yeah, 100%.
And it's funny that I actually customize the instructions, for
example, for these tools to ensure that they never take for
granted what I said and even thequestion like try to hit back
with other questions that might make me ask a better question

(22:52):
back to the tools. Speaking of questions, I'm
curious what type of questions we should ask individuals or
service and so on in order to truly gather those insights and
the real words that people use before they buy?
Yeah. So I think we have to go back to
the element of consumer behaviorand customer insights, right,

(23:12):
Because it was a kind of a growing trend and it still is,
right, of consumer insights within specific products or
etcetera, right. And so I think we have to go
back to the consumer behavior element.
And instead of asking the right questions, I think we have to
have the right intent, right? And so our intent will take us
in the right direction of the questions.

(23:32):
And so from that perspective, the way that we get those
insights or we try to understandthat is we try to build what is
this core element of the culture, right?
So what is the core element of culture?
What is the main need that my buyers experiencing, not what
they want to experience, but what they are experiencing and

(23:53):
what's their biggest pain point that they're willing to be
honest. And I think if I were to say,
Gabe, in your business, right, what's your biggest pain point,
you're probably going to give mean answer.
But if we're being honest here and you asked me the same
question, I don't think we're going to be really honest fully,
right? There's things that are had that
like, well, this is a pain point, so I'm going to say this,
but this one's a little bit bigger and I don't really want

(24:14):
people to know it, right? And so if we directly ask people
what their pain point is or whattheir biggest need, there's too
much in there. That doesn't give us the fully
honest answer. And so if we can walk backwards
and start building a story and understand, for example, right,
we talk about a business, what'sthe biggest pain point?
Instead of me saying what's yourbiggest pain point, we start

(24:35):
stepping backwards and we say, all right, tell me your story,
right? Tell me the story of how you
created your business and what things have you encountered
throughout your business that have been really good things,
right? And then we step back and we go,
OK, on the flip side, what are your biggest obstacles that
you've encountered? Right.
And then what we do is we start shaping your story, plus the
good things that have happened in the obstacles to inform what

(24:57):
questions. So you might say, well, I moved
from Romania to X and I saw thisdifferent shift in culture.
I can ask the question. What was the biggest shift in
culture that you saw and how didthat truly affect your business?
Right. And then we start uncovering
more in depth understanding of what problems or what needs we
have to then inform the questions.

(25:19):
And so we feel like we're building this relationship.
We're getting these insights from the customer, from the
person that allow for us to havemore in depth conversations
where they feel comfortable sharing the.
Actual, real story of what they're experiencing.
Does that make sense? Yeah, perfect.
So we need to listen to them because if they feel that it's

(25:40):
not just there to go through a set of questions, but actually
they have the ability to share something with us, a story and
something much more deeper, theywill tell us those insights that
we actually need to know. And I love that approach because
often indeed, if you go and throw under like what was the
biggest challenge that you face?And if you start with a

(26:02):
challenge, like straight away you put the individual or I
don't know, the members of that business in the position of
defense. I should tell that the biggest
pain that they have or I should just sugarcoat it a bit because
often you will tell the challenges and the roadblocks
that you face. You'll tell how that 2-3 months

(26:23):
without revenue went for you or how you lost that client or
something. And I think having this ability
to interview people, it's such an underrated way to deal with
this type of insights foraging LC, because when you have that
ability, you kind of turn the individual into a storyteller,

(26:44):
not just the person that is sitting in front of you.
Like, Oh my God, I need to answer all those kind of
questions. And now what I'm going to do if
I don't have the right answer, you might not be providing the
right solution to me or whatever.
But yeah, I think that's powerful.
And once you have that, like once you've got those insights
and you identify certain aspectsof other cultures, you identify

(27:08):
certain challenges they are facing, the different way
they're facing those challenges.What would be, in your opinion,
a go to market strategy that we can even go like more specific,
let's say it's a business that it's completely remote.
The act in the technological space, they build AI wrappers,

(27:31):
let's say, for such things that it might be a ChatGPT wrapper
doing a more customized, let's say display ads, copy and
display ads visuals. And they want to enter Germany
and they're from US. And once they identify them,
what they should be their approach in order to ensure that
they actually find clients thereand not just losing time, for

(27:56):
sure. So the baseline of research,
right? Because we would consider this
research, the baseline of research is if we have
quantitative data, right? We can assign variables or data
to that and say, all right, these people are experiencing
this specific issue. Now when we get into the issue
of in depth interviews or qualitative data, right, or

(28:17):
we're getting words of where we can't really put an aside of
value to it. What we have to do is we have to
take all of those learnings and build some sort of model
internally right around shared experiences because as humans we
are looking for shared experiences.
We crave that. And so from that experience, we
need to take everything that we've learned from those

(28:39):
conversations, right? So we might sit down and talk to
business owners in Germany, right?
So we've done our, so stepping back, we've done our research
right around the German market. They're not looking for
something that's like warm and friendly all together family,
right? It might be a little bit
different. And so from our research that
we've conducted, we take that into learning about what

(29:00):
specific decision makers or target market is looking for.
And through those conversations,we're getting more.
End up feedback. What we have to do is we have to
learn from those shared experiences and allow that to
guide the go to market strategy.And so for instance, let's say
we find from America that the number one issue that I would

(29:21):
I'd claim that most businesses are struggling with, right, is
some sort of financial crisis. Because right now it's coming
out right, But no one's willing to talk about it is most
businesses are struggling. Most consumers are struggling.
Consumer purchase intent is not there.
And so if we're an American based company currently, right
now, our biggest focus might be winning on price, right?

(29:45):
Winning on price and having the most benefits and features.
But on the flip side, and I don't, I haven't researched
Germany as much, but let's just take a guess, right?
Or let's imagine Germany's financial outlook is positive,
right? They're strong, they have their
citizens, have spending power, They feel like they can live
comfortably. They might not be looking for

(30:05):
that value out of the cheapest price with the most benefits.
They might be looking for the best balance between benefits
and price, right? They want a high quality service
and not overpay, but they reallydon't care about the cheapest
service as well. And so if we just take that
example, for instance, if we just went off of what we think
from AUS perspective, we're going to go strictly based on

(30:27):
price and how many benefits. But that's where we would go
wrong is we would take those understandings from the people
that we talked to and say, we understand that the German
consumer is much different than the US.
They have a better savings gap, things like that.
We need to enter this market with value based content that's
around highest quality of service and that needs to be

(30:49):
displayed and how we do our advertising, right?
So we we show higher quality creatives, we do in depth
interviews that look like they were professionally built.
It doesn't look like AI built this, right?
Like it doesn't look like some random guy on Fiver built this
for $5. They're looking for it looks
like a local company built this and they invested in that.

(31:09):
And so I don't know if that makes sense and if I've fully
cohesively put my thoughts together.
But from that perspective, I think that's how you build a go
to market strategy is you have to look at what all of those
experiences and thoughts that are coming from your target
customer and how those actually relate.
And again, like we talked about,you have to adopt those within

(31:30):
what you do to that market. Yeah, it it did answer my
question and you mentioned there's something that indeed
it's an actual problem right nowand especially for North
American businesses and mainly US.
And on that note, how people should prepare if they are
business owner that are currently struggling to find
clients and they see the economic taking this as not

(31:54):
right now. And like how did you behave
apart from the things that you just mentioned in order to
survive this? Yeah.
So what we're finding, and again, there's no single
framework for how to survive because I think I'm still trying
to figure out how do we help ourclients survive, right.
The big framework is how are youtalking to your customer and
building value in relationships with your customers.

(32:16):
I like to show this, this book that I've got, it's called The
New Rules of Marketing. And this was back in the 90s,
right? And so one of the most
interesting facets of this is there's a bunch of different
chapters, but one of the most interesting things is chapter 6
is popcorn peanuts and database.Database marketing is the

(32:38):
fastest growing marketing investing in North America,
right? This was back in the early
2000s. We're 20 years later and where
is the best return on dollars when we have customers in our
database that we are continuallytalking to and building a
relationship. So from my perspective, the way
that brands win, the way that marketers win is we shift our

(32:59):
mindset from this acquisition model very short term focused on
how many leads can we get in thedoor or how many appointments
can we book to what are we doingto actually retain and keep our
current customers. Because as you probably know and
can agree, it is significantly cheaper for us to retain and
keep a current client than it isto attract a new client.

(33:21):
And so from my perspective, we as brands as marketers need to
focus on two things. One, how do we increase our
value that we're providing from a service level, right?
Whatever we sell, what are we doing to enhance or increase the
value of that product without raising the price or maybe
raising the price but having incremental benefits?

(33:43):
And on the flip side, how are wetruly solving problems for that
consumer that is going to get them to spend their hard earned
money or their last dollar to buy that product, right?
Because what we are experiencingis a lack.
Of leads. Across the board, everywhere,
right? Most marketers that I'm talking
to, and I'm generalizing here, I'm not saying it's doom and

(34:04):
gloom for literally every business, but what I'm finding
is the people that I talk to is ad inflation is real, right?
Inflation in general is, is creeping up.
But what we're finding is cost per acquisition is actually
going up because of inflation, right?
More brands are making more money, so they're investing more
into their acquisition, right? And So what you're finding is

(34:25):
cost continue to increase and most businesses cannot keep up
with that because what happens as our costs increase, we have
to pass it off to our customer. And if the customer is already
tapped out from a financial element, they cannot continue to
keep spending more and more, right?
And that's relative. But what I tell people is if we

(34:46):
can focus on reducing our budgets that we're spending on
acquisition and reinvest that into some sort of retention
model and benefiting our customers, how much more would
that dramatically shift our business, right?
If you, instead of spending $100to acquire a new customer, what
if you took 25 to $50.00 to invest in your current customers

(35:07):
to send them a gift, send them acard, whatever that looks like
to build that relationship? How much more valuable is that
to your business? Yeah, I love that because
retention it's unsexy topic because everyone talks about
I'll get X amount of leads in your door, I'll, I don't know,
flood yourself with calls and soon.
But no one talks about, right. But how about those clients that

(35:30):
you currently serve, How do you make their life easier?
How do you can help them more and so on.
And often it are small things like you said, like a gift or
something or often to just increase the onboarding
experience of that customer or ensure after they are like up
and running with their business to truly have often conversation

(35:53):
with them and see what other challenges they are facing, what
from everything that you're doing there doesn't work.
And you can turn that into a value add service to what you
already offer and so on. So I think this indeed can be a
super easy to implement in theory strategy to survive in
such economic challenging times.But on top of that, even looking

(36:18):
at operations, like if for example, you take care of your
operations and you are able to provide results faster and so
on, that's will ultimately allowyou to help further that kind of
something else because they're like, Oh, you over deliver.
That's amazing. And that's what's interesting is
I can't take credit for this. I've I heard this from another

(36:39):
podcast. So I can't quote who I heard it
from because I, I want to say itwas Gary Vaynerchuk that might
have said this, but have you heard of the red napkin theory
in marketing? No.
OK. So the red napkin theory in
marketing is I'll give you an example, right, You have a local
restaurant in your local market,right.
And so the question is how we know traditionally speaking
within restaurants, right, If you give someone two to three

(37:00):
good experiences at a restaurant, there is a higher
likelihood that they will becomereoccurring customers and come
back? After that second or third good
experience, right? But that takes a lot to build
two to three really incredible experiences for them to want to
come back, right. And especially if you're maybe
more of a mid scale, right? You have, you're not the
cheapest, right? You have some sort of a value
prop there. So the red napkin theory says

(37:23):
when someone comes to your restaurant for the first time,
when they sit down, when you seat them, you put a red napkin
next to them, right? So they have the red napkin
that's sitting next to them, right?
And what that red napkin does isit indicates that this is their
first experience. So the wait staff know we're
going to be very highly intentional with our people,
right? We're going to make sure they
have a great experience. And that also indicates that

(37:43):
after the meal comes out, the chef is going to come out to
that red napkin and say, hey, Sir, ma'am, how is your
experience? Right?
Was the food good? Right now there's some sort of
personal connection. So as they're leaving, they've
built that one connection. As they're leaving, the server
hands them a little card and it says, thank you so much for
coming and trying our restaurantfor your next visit.

(38:05):
If you come back, we're giving you 50% off desserts, right?
So next time you come back, takethis card and you're getting 50%
off desserts. What that does is that signals
when that person comes back, when they show you that card,
that means that's their second time.
So we still have to be highly intentional.
What that does is we don't builda fake or non genuine experience

(38:26):
because what our goal with that is we treat all of our customers
with that level. But at the end of the day, what
that does is it builds a very unique and positive experience
for that customer. Without us having to do all of
these massive crazy things. And so it's such a simple
concept, but I love it because what it does is it shows you if

(38:46):
you can start the relationship off well and build that into
your culture of serving people well, that is going to translate
into a very powerful culture of the consumer always wanting to
come back and. Reinvesting in you.
I love that example. And Speaking of examples,
because I'm a true believer thatwe often learn more from
mistakes when it comes to the flip side of things, what do you

(39:08):
see businesses do in order to kind of destroy the relationship
with the customer from the beginning?
Yeah. So seen this a lot, right.
So what happens is most brands, they have this idea of what they
want to deliver, right? Save a product that they're
wanting to deliver. And the problem?
Being. We're not usually honest with

(39:29):
ourselves and with our customersabout what the limits of that
experience are. And So what I find, right, and
it's the growing trend within the marketing space in North
America and I think outside of North America, but what I'm
finding locally is. These marketers or brands that
are coming in and telling business owners, I can guarantee
you X amount of leads per month,right?

(39:52):
And that that's all they say, right?
They say I can guarantee you X amount of leads.
I promise money back guarantee, right?
I think we've all heard that. Have you heard that before?
I never believe it. And you know what's amazing is
the amount of business owners inthe US that fall for that,
right? Because they say they, what
happens is there's some psychological tick that says,

(40:12):
well, if they can promise that and they've given me a money
back guarantee, obviously there is an element of honesty behind
that. So I'm going to deliver, right?
What happens, traditionally speaking from what you've heard,
when that company does not deliver on the leads?
That come in yeah, more often than on and they usually they
have hidden terms when they return the money and so on and

(40:35):
they're like, but you didn't executor from your side that
part or you didn't if it's online course that promise you
that, but you didn't watch all the videos that are like 900
hours videos there. So what that does is it builds
lack of trust across the industry in a whole right.
So now that experience that they've had translates into any

(40:55):
marketing agency that they talk to you now moving forward,
right, because now they don't trust anything that you say.
And so in a similar token. Brands are doing a similar
model, right? I have a perfect example of a
restaurant that we go to. We've gone to this restaurant
for three years, right? Been a loyal customer.
I've been there for probably, I don't know, probably three
years, right? And I used to go every week at

(41:18):
my frequency changes, but it's one of my favorite places to
work. Got to know the wait staff right
from that experience. Every time I would sit down if I
had someone that had I interacted with before.
I love iced tea. I'm sweet iced tea with lemon.
They would as I sat down, if they would see me come in, they
would bring me an unsweet iced tea immediately and ask me, do

(41:38):
you want chips and. Salsa or chips?
Whatever, right? And they knew that.
And so for me, that was an incredible experience.
I'm having this very positive experience where I feel like I,
this restaurant cares about me. Cut and take probably six months
later. It was already kind of an
expensive restaurant, but it waskind of a splurge.
Six months later, they come out with this new pricing model that

(42:00):
things are up about 40% from what they were charging
previously. So I think of 12 wings went from
$12.00 to now $20.00 for 12 boneless wings that aren't super
big, right? And so you would expect the
value to go up. And so I show up, menus changed,
I sit down, and most of the staff that was there was no

(42:20):
longer there. And so we sit down and it takes
me 10 minutes for the server to come talk to me.
It takes another 5 minutes to get my drink.
It takes 40 minutes to get our food right.
And everything is completely changed, the quality of the
food, the price. And so it went from a $30.00
bill to now a $6570 bill for a lunch right for me and my wife.

(42:41):
And So what happens is that experience completely shifted
and they failed to deliver on what they were excelling well
with. And what is that restaurant went
from being a very hot commodity in the local area, everyone went
there to now you go in there andit is absolutely dead 90% of the
time. And that's the perfect example

(43:03):
of how not to do things. But yes, Caleb, if someone tunes
in, watch us, listen to us and they're like, Oh, my Arizona is
so much with whatever we heard right now and we want to hire
collect where they should reach out to get connected with you.
I always tell people find me on LinkedIn.

(43:23):
Caleb Roche MBA is my LinkedIn. I always love having
conversations with people because at the end of the day, I
always tell people I only want to work with you if you truly
need me. And so my first step is, what is
your actual need? What's your service, right?
And where's your disconnect? And is that something that I can
solve through a simple message and conversation?

(43:44):
Or is that something that you need, right?
Because so many brands are so quick to just put a Band-Aid on
it and think that I can be the end all be all, or some other
person can be when that's not the case.
And so if someone's interested in talking, I would love to
reach out, send me an e-mail, send me Adm on LinkedIn, happy
to have a conversation and see how I can guide them in the
right direction. That's great.
And make sure you check the shownotes down below for the link.

(44:07):
It's got his profile. And I want to conclude something
like you just met someone that it's in a different situation in
which they say yes to everyone that knocks on their door and
they just cannot say no to someone that needs their help.
Even if they truly cannot help them.

(44:28):
What do you tell them in just one minute?
So it's a very churn and burn model because I used to be that
person, right? I used to, every time someone
would need help, I would try to find a need or a fit, right?
And the problem with that from my perspective, and this is
completely biased feedback, right?
Someone else might have that model and it might work
completely well for them. What I found.

(44:49):
Was is you will waste your time and you will get burned by so
many people that are the cheapest clients or that just
won the quick fix that their intentions are not pure.
Versus on the flip side, when you are very strategic about who
you work with, what happens is those people are very
intentional and they last much longer.

(45:09):
And so when I look at our business, the people that have
worked with us for years have come with a need that we've been
able to solve, but it was not AIhave this immediate need.
I'm bleeding out. It was a we are looking in this
space, we need some help and we want to have a conversation.
The people that came to us and said we need help and we solve
that problem very quick. What happens is, you know, for

(45:30):
one example, I hate saying ROI numbers, but we had a.
Client that achieved 100% ROI based on what they were doing
over a year period, right? And so every dollar they would
spend, they would make $100. What happened was they had that
for a year, everything was great.
We built a great relationship. Next year comes around, we
deliver and they go, we want more than 100 times return on
investment, right? And at that point, it's

(45:52):
unsustainable. We can't do that.
And so it becomes this hamster wheel of working.
So probably a longer explanationthan you wanted, but when you
work with your ideal client, it really builds less friction
between you and the client in the long term.
Yeah, absolutely. Because often every single yes,
that you said to the wrong people, you'll just wear you

(46:13):
down over time and you won't endup working with those that
actually you provide the best value that you can provide, of
course, the best results and so on.
And in the same time, you feel fulfilled and you enjoy working
with them. And at the end of the day, if
you don't enjoy working with them, it's not worth it.
Absolutely. But I appreciate you having me
on the podcast, Gabe. This was a very interesting and

(46:34):
fun. I love these types of
conversations. So thanks for being such a great
host. I appreciate you.
Thank you so much for coming in.It was an honor to have you.
And for those listening, until next time, Pura Vida.
Hey, you're a superstar. Thank you so much for staying to
the end. I think if you did that, you
truly find it helpful. If you haven't already, please
subscribe to support the podcastand share it with someone that

(46:56):
might need this advice as well. Thank you again.
And until next week, Pura Vida.

All Episodes

#140 - AI Is Killing Authentic Marketing w/ Caleb Roche

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#140 - AI Is Killing Authentic Marketing w/ Caleb Roche