Episode 409: 🌴🖍️ Progress over Perfection in the Digital Age 🖍️🌴

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to another episode of Dynamics
Corner.
What is a marketing strategy,or even an SEO?
I'm your co-host, chris.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
And this is Brad.
This episode was recorded onFebruary 19th 2025.
Chris, Chris, Chris, Marketing.
I think marketing is one ofthose undervalued, underrated
things that everybody needs, andtoday we had the opportunity to
learn a lot about marketing,marketing strategies and even

(00:29):
some tips and tricks how tomarket a podcast With us.
Today we had the opportunity tospeak with Tara and Brandi from
Big Room.
Hey, Chris, did you know thatyou can use AI in Business

(00:56):
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Speaker 1 (00:57):
Really you can how.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
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(01:20):
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(01:41):
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Speaker 1 (02:02):
Who's typing?

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Me Are you working?
You working, yes, very hard.
I can tell I don't know whatyou?

Speaker 3 (02:13):
what were you typing?
I was typing to brandy that I'mdrinking lemon water in my
progress over perfection mug andwhat's the significance of that
.
The progress over perfection.
Mug Brandy got me, I got themfor all of us.
Yeah, you did get one for allof us, that's right.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
So we could just you didn't get me one.
I was going to say define usWhere's mine.

Speaker 4 (02:37):
I mean, is that a thing you struggle with?
Maybe I can get some more.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
There's people that I know struggles with that.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yes, progress over perfection.
I do like that we could talk.
That is a discussion on its own, in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
I can go get my progress over perfection mug and
we can both have them going.
If you send me one, I'll drinkit in front of that person that
wants to be perfect that wantsto be perfect.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
We do love our progress over perfection.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Reminders.
That's a good phrase, by theway, because a lot of people
want to perfect something andthen you'll never get it running
.
I don't think perfection isattainable?

Speaker 2 (03:22):
No, because you'll always find something else right
, and that's why, if you try todefine that you like something
or you don't have strict rulesor guides for it, someone can
always look at something.
Oh, one more thing.
Oh, one more thing.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
The infamous scope creep, and you just have to
that's like marketing, right,like marketing is just like that
.
You everyone wants you to beperfect, but I'll never get
perfect.
Well, it's always improvements.

Speaker 4 (03:48):
So exactly perfection .
Are we going?

Speaker 2 (03:52):
oh, see this.

Speaker 4 (03:53):
We could turn this into a philosophical discussion,
if you'd like this is wheretara and I are slightly
different, because I'm just likeship it and see what happens,
and she would like it to beperfect.
But as you pointed out, br,there is really no attaining
perfection, so there isn't.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
So you're saying Tara is like perfectionist, so you
like got her a mug to remind her.

Speaker 4 (04:14):
Define herself as a perfectionist.
I just like remind her thatsometimes, when I'm being
chaotic and just shipping thingsbefore she feels like we should
do that, that I'm on theprogress over perfection side of
the coin and she can sometimesbe closer to the perfection side
.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
I think, to clarify, I think that the progress over
perfection and I think, brandy,to your point of just shipping
it I'm on the lines with youbecause I do like things to be
perfect in a sense, according tomy level of perfection, but I
found that sometimes that's moreof a hindrance than a help.
So I believe in gettingsomething out there that's

(04:53):
functional and usable, whateverthat may be, and then seeing
what falls into play with it,because sometimes you can spend
a lot of time on something andit's not adopted, not used, not
used, not reached or it'schanged, and then you feel like
you perfected it.
But then correct, but I'm notsaying just to throw stuff out

(05:15):
there and see what sticks.
So there does have to be somelevel of completeness to it.
But you're not going to geteverything perfect because, as I
had mentioned and I see thisevery single day it doesn't
matter how many times you lookat something.
Every time you look at it againyou'll find something that
you'd like to change, orsomebody will find something
they like to change and to beclear.

Speaker 4 (05:34):
If perfection was an option, that would be my 100
goal in life at all times.
But it just it gets in my reallife hey right.
So at some point, just for myown mental health, I had to
accept that, that maybe I'mnever gonna get everyone's
everything all right the firsttime you said another key

(05:58):
statement see, we're going to bebest friends after this taris
quiet because I, I've learnedlike you is you're not best
friend quite yet I'm not bestfriend.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
You gotta work.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
You gotta work on you gotta work on it, you gotta
work at it, but you hit the.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
You did hit.
A key point is yes, things willchange, somebody will look at
it and you have to get it out.
If it was achie, achievable orattainable, then we'd all strive
for it, but unfortunately Idon't believe there is such a
thing as perfection.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
If I was an accountant, it would probably
cause me more concern to beperfect because I can ruin lives
.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Well, that's concrete , because I think even in there
define perfect, the numbers haveto add up.
You may not like the numbersand you can have the numbers in
different places, but as long asthe numbers add up, it still
may not be a perfect balancesheet.
It may not be a perfect incomestatement, because you want more
revenue, but ultimately you putthe income statement of balance
sheet together.

(06:56):
So I don't think perfection isachievable anywhere and I'm just
going to lay it down.
But I do agree with a lot ofthings that you said.
I didn't know we had somesimilarities.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
It scares me in a way , but that's okay.
I also think that it happens.
I mean, we see it happen a lot,especially in products and in
marketing, right, where peopleare trying to guess what that
last 20% well, what if they wantthis, or what if we did this?
And then they're trying toguess what that last 20% well,
what if they want this or whatif we did this or what?
And then they're trying to putthat in for something perfect,

(07:29):
and then you'll spend 80% ofyour efforts on 20% of the
output.
That may or may not matter,right?
And so it's better to and again, my mug always reminds me to
you know refine what is going tomatter, and then you know 80-20

(07:52):
rule.
Yeah, what happens?
And then you can better adjustafter you've gotten feedback.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
That was perfect what you just said.
So you achieved perfection inthis conversation.
But it is true, you can pleasesome of the people some of the
time, but you can't please allthe people all of the time.
So, even if the point when youdo deliver some and I'm talking
universally there isn't, I'm nottalking.
I do have some questions, a lotof questions on marketing from
you.
But it could be marketing, itcould be a software product, it

(08:20):
could be a vehicle, it could bea pen, it could be a table, it
could be anything be a softwareproduct, it could be a vehicle,
it could be a pen, it could be atable, it could be anything.
Somebody will always findsomething different.
Or what, if you know what?
If it's raining on Tuesday andthe power goes out and the wind
is high, what will we do then?
Well, sometimes you have to say, well, we just will deal with
it if it happens, and you knowit's, or we'll just let it go
because that's not thatimportant to us.

(08:40):
So you have to be able to cutsome of that stuff off and
realize that there is a targetmarket that you want to reach in
the case of marketing.
But before we jump into thetopic and I've been dying to
have this conversation, so beready well, I thought we were
best friends already, so nowthat I know I'd say now she's

(09:01):
stuck with that.

Speaker 4 (09:02):
She's gonna be stuck the whole entire time no, I'm
gonna work on making him my bestfriend.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
See, see, Chris, you see what I did there.
Now she's going to work ontrying to be perfect.
So she was working on progress,but now she's trying to be
perfect, a perfect best friend.

Speaker 4 (09:14):
If I work on trying to be perfect, this will all go
sideways.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
So I we don't want anyone to try to do anything,
but before we jump into theconversation, would you mind
telling us a little bit aboutyourselves and tara?
You have the mug, so I guess wecan start with you.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
we'll say oh man, I was gonna make brandy go first
okay, you can go first.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
No, I, because you want to try to be more, you want
to try to be a little moreperfect than she is.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
She has a perfect response to perfect whatever she
we're a little competitive likenot usually amongst each other,
but a little bit ourselves.
What do you want to know aboutme?
I have been in this channelsince the mid 90s, so I'm just
going to let all of you do themath on that.
I have been working.
I started working in admin, somy one of my first roles was

(10:03):
working for one of the largerbars that was selling division
that came over from Denmark toCanada or to North America, and
so I started working in adminand then I did sales and
marketing coordination for thatcompany.
I vowed that under nocircumstances, but I work in
technology or continue to domarketing.
When I got out of university Igot a four-year degree in

(10:27):
criminology a good old artsdegree.
If you need to know how to burya body, I can give you some tips
.
And then when I got out ofschool and couldn't find, you
know, a role in my space,because halfway through
university decided I didn't wantto be a lawyer, which was sort
of my track at the time Ended upworking for going to a

(10:50):
recruitment company, working forthem for a bit in sales and
marketing coordination and then,when you know what, I ended up
back at a marketing company thatwas focused only on VARs and
ISBs, and that was in the early2000s and so somehow.
And ISPs, and that was in theearly 2000s, and so somehow,
despite going to university andworking really hard to not be in
this space, I am here a solidyou know, however, many years

(11:13):
later, that that makes me and,yeah, and I actually really do
enjoy it, and I think just overthe many, many years of being
exposed to all of the wonderfuland wild people in the software
reseller channel, I haveabsorbed a lot of really great
information and learned byosmosis a lot of why the
partners and bars and ISPs dowhat they do and then, on the

(11:36):
flip side, what the customers orthe prospects are looking for,
which I think is a part of whatmakes our team great.
Tara will go into herbackground as well, but
everybody here sort of has along-standing story with the
Dynamics channel specifically.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
It's one of those things.
It's like that ride or thatsaying I messed up this week, I
don't know why, so you'll haveto forgive me with it.
But it's once you enter youcannot leave, because I have
known many people over the yearsthat have been in the space,
that have left and they comeback.
They get pulled back in they doso it's once you come in, you

(12:12):
can't leave there's an invisiblemagnet there, for sure oh yeah,
I believe so, I believe so yeah, absolutely yeah, I'll give you
my long winding journey in thischannel.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
No, so currently I'm COO and partner at Big Room
Creative and you know just alittle quick about that.
I mean, we, we are a boutiquemarketing agency specifically in
the Microsoft dynamic space.
So so we, we really focus onthat, really focus on that.

(12:51):
However, I started in about2004 in the channel, so that's a
little more specific thanBrandy's.
But you know fun fact a lot ofpeople don't know this I
actually started sellingNavision when it was Navision,
but that lasted only about ayear until I moved over to ISV
side for a very prominent ISV inthe channel and I worked there

(13:12):
for over 15 years until I wasthe VP of marketing there.
And then they were sold off andin that process I was lucky
enough to work with Brandy andBrian and that team because we
were augmented marketing, sohalf was in-house and half was

(13:33):
outsourced, and when the companysold we had just worked
together so well, brandy andBrian asked me to join.
Well, brandy and Brian asked meto join, and so it's been about
five years now that we'veworked together on making
marketing magic in the Microsoftworld.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
Aiming for progress, huh.
I like that marketing magic inthe Microsoft world.
So Big Room is a marketingagency in the Microsoft space.
Do you primarily work withcustomers, partners, ISVs?
Who do you work with from themarketing point of view?

Speaker 4 (14:13):
Almost exclusively the partners and the ISVs.
We don't really have any enduser customers.
We have in the past sort ofbeen exposed to some of the end
users and sometimes done somestuff for them.
But we really focus on helpingthe bars and the ISVs build
their brand identity anddifferentiate themselves in this
market.
Obviously, on the ISV side itcan be a little bit easier to

(14:35):
differentiate yourself as theproducts are a little different.
But you know, working with someof the bars and everyone
selling similar products, that'ssort of our sweet spot is
helping the brand identify.
What is it about them thatmakes a customer want to buy
Business Central from themversus, you know, any number of
the competition.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Excellent With the marketing, and this topic has
been on my mind for quite a bitand, from hearing the history
from both of you, like myself,we've been in this space for
quite a bit of time.
Chris I think we've alreadydetermined Chris was in high
school or elementary school whenI started working with this.
I don't remember.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
No, we joke.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
I think I was in high school, yeah, like junior or
something like that, when youstarted your career, we'll have
to do the math again, but one ofthe things that I see and one
of the challenges that I washoping that you could help talk
with me a little bit about is,as we mature in the space, the

(15:40):
we get older.
As far as we have is workingwith the product.
Technology changes.
You know, in the world.
We have AI, now we have theinternet, whereas when we first
started out working with this,the internet didn't exist.
We use dial up and people madedecisions differently.
So now, as we move forward into2025, to me, I think, is there a

(16:05):
difference in an approach tomarketing, to decision makers to
go for a product or a servicefrom a partner at ISV?
That has changed over the yearsand more in turn is how do you
market across generations?
Because we have a matureindustry with Business Central,
started with Navision, microsoftDynamics Nav, but there's also

(16:27):
a lot of new companies that arestarting to use the application
because Business Central isbecoming more and more popular.
What are some challenges or howcan some companies deal with
marketing across generations?

Speaker 3 (16:44):
A really good question, you know, uh, good
timing.
We actually were just lookingat some new research that came
out about self-directed buying,right, and that's a really big
part of uh.
There's a couple of things,there's a few different answers
to your question, but I thinkself-directed buying is really

(17:04):
at the center of a lot of this,and we were just reading an
article about the importance ofthat and how I think a lot of
organizations know okay, youknow, buyers, and especially
younger buyers, but even buyersthroughout, across generations,
really do want to collectinformation and start matching

(17:28):
solutions on their own right.
And is this the partner for me?
Is this the ERP solution for me?
Is this the CRM solution for me?
They don't want to talk tosales representatives all too
much before they've made most oftheir buying decision right.
And the real key is amongst thateducational material and that

(17:51):
thought leadership material thatyou're putting out there to
help them self-serve.
How are you differentiatingyourself?
Because organizations andwhether it's software or
anything else in the B2B or evenreally the B2C space, what are
you doing differently that mightmatch something that they need?

(18:13):
Is it a culture fit?
Is it your you know?
Your responsiveness, yourexpertise there's different.
Is it your, you know technical,the technical team, that you
have your availability, yoursupport.
There's different areas thatyou have to identify.
So, first off, you need to meetthe buyer where they are.
You need to meet the customerswhere they are.

(18:36):
What are they wanting to learnon their own and are you
providing that information?
And then, within thatinformation, how are you
distinguishing, how you'redifferent?
Right, because that's really.
Ultimately, it's not evenbridging generational gaps
anymore.
They know the tools are attheir fingertips to go get what
they want and they want to makesure that that information is

(18:59):
there.
So, are you there where they'relooking?

Speaker 2 (19:02):
So with the self-directed buying, the buyer
now typically does a lot moreresearch, would you say, or they
do a lot because of the ease ofthe internet.
They can do a lot of searchingand research before speaking
with you.
So would it be safe to say that, before they even speak with
you, they already have some sortof decision?

(19:23):
I don't want to say decisionyou, they already have some sort
of decision.
I don't want to say decision,but they already have some sort
of decision or view of who youare and what you have, before
they even talked with anybody.

Speaker 4 (19:35):
Yeah, they're not.
You know, it's an interestingspace in marketing because we
get data from like search and,like you know, search data and
those kinds of things.
If we look back over, say, thelast decade, all of this stuff
has been happening the entiretime, but the actual people who
are selling and some of thebuyers themselves, having not
gone through the experience,haven't caught up with it.
But if we go way back to sortof the tendance of SEO in the

(19:56):
beginning, how do we get mywebsite to rank?
We were never going to rank forMicrosoft Dynamics 365,
business Central, for instance.
If I want to know aboutBusiness Central, I'm going to
go to Microsoft's website.
They're going to publish themost useful technical
information for me.
I know that I, you know, I'myoung enough to have gone
through university when therewas the internet.

(20:17):
People who are sort of 40 andyounger have definitely just
grown up assuming thateverything is on the other side
of the keyboard.
Right, that's just how theywere made to think.
So, even if you look way back,when we talk about what were
some of the ways to get to thetop of search engines, it was
really about honing in on whatare people searching for.
People do not go to theircomputer and say I want to buy

(20:39):
Dynamics, erp or even ERP.
Most of the time, if you'retalking about ERP, even those
people in those researchpositions have no idea what ERP
even is, unless they're tryingto replace one they have.
So they are searching for thingslike how to get my financials
under control or what do I doabout my inventory mess in the
warehouse.
Those are the kinds of thingsthat they're looking for.
So you need to be able toanswer that question.

(21:04):
And it's like the first ducksyndrome where, like the first
quack, you follow who you know.
So if I search for that andyour website comes up and it's a
really great article, I'mgiving me a lot.
You feel my pain.
My inventory is a mess.
It's costing me a bunch ofmoney, it's taking a bunch of
time.
Now, when I think about my nextquestion, I might just go right
to your website.
No-transcript read was like thecurrent average is 13 to 15

(21:54):
pieces of content that a buyerwill interact with on your
website or about your companybefore they contact you.
So that could mean attending awebinar, watching a video, your
LinkedIn profile downloading awhite paper.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
It's increased.

Speaker 4 (22:08):
Yeah, and that is happening constantly, right,
because it's right there at theend of your fingertips.
How that information kind ofgets transferred over to
decision makers depends on thesize of the organization and
what that criteria sort of looklike.
But people are not out therelooking for a product, they're
out there looking to solve aproblem.
So to the degree that you canbe the beacon of light in their

(22:32):
distressed state, you will bethe place that they want to
connect with.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
That's a good call out, just talking about problems
that you're solving, notnecessarily focus on the tools
and the software itself.
It's much more important to putcontent like hey, this is a
problem that we're going tosolve and be able to find it
because you're right, they'regoing to look at how do I

(22:57):
reconcile a bank statement, andthere's tons of tools and
softwares that can do that, butyou want someone that has the
knowledge and and be able toanswer that question for you.
So I think their content isbecoming more important and, of
course, you get a follow-up withthe relationship aspect when
they do reach out to you yeah,and it means having content that

(23:19):
covers a range, right, and soyou need to have that content.

Speaker 4 (23:23):
That's really what we call top of the funnel or tofu
content.
Where that is a person, theyhave a problem.
They have no idea if there'seven a solution for that.
That's where you want to meetthem.
You want to meet them there.
You don't want to meet themwhen they're looking for
Dynamics 365 because they'realready bought in.
They've already talked tosomebody.
They already have a connectionwith this guy because his
support team's great, or thisperson because the guy that owns

(23:45):
the company went to universitywith me.
There's a million ways thatthey get there.
You want to meet them whenthey're still trying to figure
out if there's a solution.
And I mean, I think everybodyknows there's a technology
solution to every problem youcould imagine, right, like,
obviously the accountingsoftware is going to help your
accounting Great, so who cares?
Right?

(24:05):
What is the company going to dofor me?
How am I going to get morevalue out of this than just you
plugging software in?

Speaker 2 (24:12):
So it's more to the services and the company and the
individuals over the product.
So, to take it back, it'sindividuals aren't searching for
Dynamics 365 Business Centralbecause they may or may not know
it exists.
And if they do know it exists,they may know they already want
it.
They just need to work withsomeone who can help them solve

(24:34):
their problem the best.
So, from a marketingperspective, it's having the
proper image of where a problemsolver we specialize in these
types of problems per se Right.

Speaker 4 (24:47):
And not everybody.
Not every partner or ISP solvesthe same problem, and so what
is the problem that you're thebest at solving?
Let's exploit that to market itto the people who are looking
for that right.
Some people really need areally robust support team
because they have a hugeaccounting department that
they're maybe not as skilled andthey need to know that they're
going to have 24-7 support.

(25:07):
Other people are like I don'treally need the support, I just
need someone who I can trust tomaintain it and make sure that
my software doesn't go downright.
There's a whole gamut ofreasons why people will attach
them.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
No, I like it.
The point that you hit wasMicrosoft is now spending a lot
of time on the documentation ofBusiness Central, as you had
mentioned.
They're doing a great job ofexplaining what it can do,
having white papers of what itcan do, adding content to their
website, even down to thedetails of how to do specific

(25:39):
functions.
So, in a sense, as you hadmentioned, you're not going to
beat that on a website yourselfunless you just take all of that
same content and put it onyours.
So it's a matter of being ableto differentiate yourself from
others that implement thesoftware and then focusing on
the things, as you had mentioned, that may make you different.
So, just to recap, I'm learning, so I just repeat so I can put

(26:03):
it in my head.
So, if you have something likeyou have multilingual resources
or geez, I'm not supposed to saythat, chris you have to edit
that out.

Speaker 3 (26:11):
I'll get in trouble.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
You have multilingual contributors to your team.
So if somebody has multiplelocations in different countries
, that's something that coulddifferentiate you.
Focus on what makes youdifferent in the services you
provide.
Countries.
That's something that coulddifferentiate you.
Focus on what makes youdifferent in the services you
provide.
See, this is great because Isee so many that they emphasize
and I always bring ERP softwareand Chris loves to hear me say

(26:33):
this to building a house ordoing an addition to a house,
because it is.
It's a project.
You're building something.
You don't call the carpenterworrying about the hammer that
he's going to use.
You just say a wall put up, orI need a house built, you use
the tools.
So here's the tools that wehave to have the house built.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
So I like the materials itself right, like I
mean, you could choose whatevermaterials, but you still want
that person that will not onlyjust implement but give you you
know the pitfalls and things tolook out for and better design.
You know how do you?
You know how do you approachthis differently.

Speaker 4 (27:07):
That's important than just someone who can just
hammer stuff in yeah, I mean,anyone can like put flooring
down, but it would be great ifthe person who was going to do
that told you that this is theworst floor you can choose for
your dog because they're goingto ruin it right, like that's
the disconnect.
Yes, kind of right there, right, anyone can sell you anything,
but is it going to work for you?

Speaker 3 (27:29):
Right, and I think this is also you know where we
saw this emergence.
So you know what I'm actuallygoing to create a much longer
story about this, going back tomy one year, as in the vision
sales, I'll never forget.
I had to create the CD like anactual CD-ROM.

(27:51):
That was sort of this salespresentation.
We focused on like kind of likecivic organizations, right,
maybe municipalities, cities,things like that, counties,
cities, things like thatcounties, and I put together
this whole CD-ROM.
That was like why, right, ourorganization addressed this and
our version of NAV and how weconfigured you know what I

(28:14):
shouldn't even say now, becauseit was Navision at the time and
it was like kind of animated.
I mean very rudimentary, right,but I literally had to drive
four hours and take a ferry togive this CD-ROM to somebody on
the San Juan Islands, and I mean, right, san.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
Juan.

Speaker 3 (28:33):
Islands.
This wasn't that long ago Imean, it's a little while ago we
won't age me too much, but thisisn't that long ago it used to
be about who could get in frontof the person right, who was
there physically, who wasattentive enough, and now
everything that was probably onthat is is something that you

(28:54):
would want to put out there on amuch more generic, much more
accessible informational site,right, essentially a much
broader audience.
But I think this is also wherewe saw as the product, the core
product, got a little moregeneral.
This is where we saw thatemergence of verticalization

(29:15):
right, like really focusing onindustry and we know your
industry, we know your processesand then you know from there
it's okay.
Well, are we local?
Are we not local, or do, as, asBrandy mentioned, do we have
the larger support team or do wehave the more boutique firm
because you want this whiteglove service?

(29:37):
Going circling this all back toour progress over perfection.
Where I think a lot ofproviders software providers
maybe got misdirected was theywere focusing on the 20%
outliers, right, and thinkingthat if they could just capture
or target the broadest audience,what if somebody's bigger?

(30:01):
What if somebody's smaller?
What if they're this what ifthey have a bigger budget, a
smaller budget?
Let's make sure that we looklike we can do it all.
I think that's where a lot oforganizations got misdirected in
this transfer from like theseon-premise you're in person, you
know software solutions to moreof these accessible cloud.
I mean, you know what an ERPcan do for the price these days

(30:24):
is just uncomparable to what itcould do 20 years ago, right,
and so again, it's really aboutthat distinction and there's
multiple ways to do thatVerticalization, team makeup,
culture, resources, those typesof things but it is so important

(30:45):
and it has obviously evolvedover the time.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
I think technology has added to it.
I have a whole list here thatI've been keeping track of
questions, so do you want me tofire them all at you, or do you
want me to do them one at a time?

Speaker 4 (30:58):
It's your show, man, we could do rapid fire it's not.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
So we talked about.
It's not my show, it's yourshow.
You are the stars of this show.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
You are the stars.

Speaker 4 (31:08):
Yes, it's hard marketing, sir, like we are used
to it being everyone else'sshow.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
Well, this is an exception.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
This is your show.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
You make everybody else's show look good.
How's that that?
Is so therefore it is,Therefore it show look good,
how's that that is so?

Speaker 3 (31:27):
therefore, you, it is .
Therefore, it is your show,without it being your show.
Yeah, we're the quiet, we'rethe quiet stars.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
I like that well.
I think marketing is one ofthose.
In my opinion, marketing is oneof those that it's tough to
measure the results at timesbecause it can take time and how
can you quantify certain thingsthat you're marketing?
Because you may do a specificcampaign to go with what you're
talking about.
This is my opinion, so justtell me if I'm off base before I

(31:53):
get into the questions.
So if they're going to look at13 or 15 pieces of content, that
may be over a span of time,because if we're talking with
that Microsoft Dynamics 365Business Central, that's not
something.
Somebody wakes up one morningand goes, huh, I need a new ERP
system.
I'm going to buy it.
Tara, can you sell it to me?
All right, install it tomorrow.

(32:13):
It's usually a process for themto get to the point where they
reach out to somebody by doingsome research for solving
problems.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
Long-term play.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Yes for solving problems.
So long-term play yes.
So you may have campaigns orsuch that were from chris and I
talk about.
We do presentations that shows.
You'll hear from someone twoyears later saying a conference,
events, conference.
See, I can't speak, we have tojust fix all this.
So and they'll say well, wetalked with you two years ago
and now we're looking to dosomething.
So tell me more and it to meit's tough to measure, but it's

(32:46):
also important because you doneed to be in front of people
with all of the informationthat's accessible to somebody
behind the keyboard, because Ican sit here and type up a quick
search right now in between aconversation and have a lot of
information and read quickly.
So it's a matter of gettingthat information out there.
How can someone and youmentioned that one important

(33:07):
thing with this is don't sellDynamics 365, sell solving a
problem or sell what makes youdifferent from others how can
someone determine what trulymakes them different from others
?
That's market.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Do they even know?
Sometimes they don't know whatmakes them unique.
That's my question is how?

Speaker 2 (33:24):
how do you determine what that may be and how do you
pull that?
There's an exercise right.

Speaker 4 (33:30):
Yeah, I mean, at some stage the company matures right
and they they start to needmore leads or more sales to keep
themselves going.
And that's usually the pointwhere they start to reach out to
an agency or look at augmentingtheir marketing.
They're moving their marketingfrom making it like an off the
side of the desk thing thatsomebody has to do to actually

(33:53):
being something that they focuson.
And you know, in thattransition and when that happens
, people have to really startthinking about, like, how did
you get here?
What makes your currentcustomers happy?
I mean, the best, the quickestway to find out what
differentiates you from yourcompetitor is go talk to a few
customers and ask them how theyfeel about you.

(34:14):
Ask the ones that love you, askthe ones that you've had
challenges and overcome, and askthe ones even that maybe are
still in the midst of achallenge with you and just
figure out what they would say.
What would they tell somebodyelse about working with your
organization?
That's kind of where we startthe base of this.
There is a whole exercise toChris's point.
He may have been put throughpart of it at some point in his

(34:36):
life and, you know, as somethingthat we work on.
When we have new customers onboard, is this foundational
element, right?
So if we have someone come tous and say we need a new website
, we're like that's fantastic,we love that we can do that for
you.
Why, what's it about?
Well, we want to sell Dynamics,right?

(34:57):
You and 7,500 other people tomy left.
What do you actually want to do?
You don't actually like.
Do you wake up in the morningand think I want to sell
Dynamics 365?
Probably not.
What do you want to do?
You want to help a nonprofitget a better handle on
everything so that they cancontribute back to the community
better.
You are really jazzed aboutinventory velocity and making

(35:19):
sure stuff doesn't sit onshelves and you really feel good
when you help somebody uncoverthat mess.
Maybe you're just somebody wholoves to support and you just
know so much about thetechnology and it really gets
you fired up and you want tocontribute that back to another
tech team at.
You know your customerorganization, so starting to
look at like what motivates youand your company to continue to

(35:41):
do this that isn't just to get apaycheck.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
Understood.
And I think the exercise wouldbe important because I talk with
many and I don't know if theyreally even understand
themselves what they're tryingto do.
And it's not that they're notgood at what they do, it's not
that they're not passionate,they're not successful.
Sometimes it's difficult topinpoint.
Like you said, let's identifyin reality what are the key,

(36:07):
distinct bullet points of whatmakes us different.
It's, it's tough to.
It's almost like writing a bioabout yourself.
You almost you need someone topull it out of you versus you
writing it yourself, because youmay miss.
Some people will overexaggerate and some people be
extremely humble and cutthemselves short, to put it in
my terms Exactly.

Speaker 4 (36:26):
And you have to be willing to accept that that's an
integral part of this exercise.
So I would say that one thingthat comes up in, you know, with
us all the time, with newprospects and in marketing in
general, is this sort of conceptthat marketing is this like tap
, like we need a lead, turn iton, throw out a campaign, get
some stuff in, turn it offbecause it's expensive, sales
guy's job.
Now and this is where the salesand marketing rub always come

(36:48):
in but believing that marketingis going to work for you, when
you treat it like that, is thestart of your problem.
Right, because this is anintegrated situation and you
have to build that foundation,otherwise, like we call it, like
throwing spaghetti at the wall,like we can do that all day I
can do it.
You have to build thatfoundation, otherwise, like we

(37:08):
call it, like throwing spaghettiat the wall, like we can do
that all day.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
I can do it all day.
I can send campaigns all day.

Speaker 4 (37:11):
That sounds fun, you might throw spaghetti against
the wall.
To Brad's point, it's very hardto get to any sort of like
success metrics when all you'redoing is like spraying
everything out the hope and praymethod, right, yeah, that's not
the best and most strategic wayto leverage your marketing
resources, but getting people tounderstand that marketing is
more than just a sideadministrative function or

(37:34):
standing up a campaign or havinga LinkedIn page is actually a
big challenge that I think weface when we're dealing with
prospects, and I think,internally, that a lot of the
companies face themselves.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
The way I look at it too, it's like, um, you, when,
when I have this conversationand and Brandy, I've gone
through that, you know brandingconversation like who are you?
And and the way I look at it,it's almost like I want to catch
fish, okay, what kind of fishyou know?
And there's like there's like athere's different oceans and

(38:06):
lakes.
I want to catch freshwater fishor I want to catch tuna, and
then you're, you know, maybeyou're fishing out in a
different ocean or there's notuna there, but then you're
wasting your time, right.
So it's very, very importantfor all organizations and at
least the ones that I've workedwith where you have to identify
that fairly quickly of, like,what kind of fish you want to go

(38:27):
after, and not just any fish.
So it's important to go throughthat exercise to really
identify okay, what kind of afisherman are you?

Speaker 3 (38:37):
And what kind of lure do you need right?
Or a pole or a boat?

Speaker 2 (38:41):
Exactly, that's extremely important and it's for
anything, I think, from a salespoint, it's understanding your
target and you have to define atarget.
And the answer can't be toChris's point every fish on the
planet, because it's notfeasible for you to be able to
catch every fish in the planet,because saltwater versus
freshwater, you have differentbait, small fish versus large

(39:01):
fish, some fish will eat frogs,some fish will eat crickets, so
your bait's there.
But talking with this andyou're talking about the
marketing campaigns and not justthrowing and spraying I think
that you had mentioned Tara it'show long we had mentioned that.
Already now we have to gothrough an exercise, to bring it

(39:24):
to simple terms.
So an exercise of identifyinghow we're different from others,
also identifying who our targetis like, who is our ideal
customer in this case, or idealfish.
Once we have that done, we needto determine, to come up with a
plan to market to them.
How do you and you have to besearchable.

(39:46):
It's what your point was.
How do you and you have to besearchable?
It's what your point was how doyou determine where to market?
You had mentioned linkedin.
I had a conversation withsomeone the other day.
They said and I don't ever useit, unless somebody sends me a
link and I click on it tiktok,they said.
Well, tiktok is a bigadvertiser.
Used to be instagram, used tobe facebook.
You have web pages, you havewebsites.
You have different events thatlook for sponsors.

(40:08):
How can you determine who,excuse me, how can you determine
where you could market yourself?
Or do you have to just doeverything?

Speaker 4 (40:19):
Well, it's not financially feasible to do
everything unless you areMicrosoft, so that's part of
where you start, right, is thatDara?

Speaker 3 (40:28):
Microsoft.
So that's part of where youstart, right, is that, dara?
Yeah, I mean, there's.
There's a lot of different.
We're specifically working inthe B2B space, right, and so
there already are certainoutlets that are just a little
more successful than others,based on what we know, right.

(40:49):
One really popular method isLinkedIn, as you mentioned, brad
, account-based marketing.
Do you know the profile of thecompanies or the people at those
companies?
And that goes back to thefoundation.
There is a way to target themthrough that.
Through you know theinformation that they have on

(41:10):
their LinkedIn profiles.
That can be very effective.
It can also be very expensive.
So another way is searching, nowthat you've identified, okay,
what are the compelling eventsthat happen with your target
audience before they come to you, happen, um, with your target
audience before they come to you?
That's another really goodquestion.

(41:30):
To sort of start to identifywhat your target market looks
like.
What are these?
What is happening to them priorto them seeking solutions?
You start to look at searchterms.
What are they looking for onthe internet to solve their
problems, or, um, to reach thegoal that they want to reach?
And, um, you start to look atthe viability of those.
So, before you put, obviously,any money into it.

(41:52):
There are ways to see okay,these people are searching for
this or they're not searchingfor this and there's this volume
for this.
And you have to look at yourexisting assets.
Do you have a list of peopleyou've met previously?
Are there people that go tocertain events that fit your
profile?
You do have to lay it out andstart to say okay to get any.

(42:14):
You know it is a full exerciseas the next step to decide where
you put your money, but it'snot going to be perfect the
first time.
You do it right.
There's baselines that you needto.
You know what was successful inpaid media and using these
search terms versus what wassuccessful in LinkedIn or what

(42:36):
was successful at these events,to see where do you turn the
dials right, what dials shouldwe shift down and what dials
should we shift up, and that's aconstant, ever-evolving,
ever-changing thing that youalways want to look at.
But even upfront, it's going totake you some baseline to
figure out, okay, which one isdoing the best or seems to be

(42:59):
yielding the most results interms of converting or
engagement, that sort of thing.
So you do have to do a littletrial and error, but you can do
enough legwork up front onceyou've identified your target
audience, that being the biggestright importance there to start
to see what works.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
Once you go through all that, you mentioned that
you'd be able to measure, liketheir search terms, or measure
the results of your campaigns,is what you're talking about, or
where you're marketing.
How do you determine that andhow long would you say that it
takes for something to becomeeffective to where it is

(43:42):
searchable?
And I hate to say this becauseI don't like talking about it I
had a session about a month agoand I told everybody I wouldn't
say the word in the sessionbecause I'm sick of hearing it
all the time Now that there areAI tools that bring results back
.
So what considerations shouldyou make for tools such as AI

(44:04):
that may bring information backor search differently?
Then I know there are alsoblockers, ad blockers and such
that may inhibit someinformation being obtained of
the effectiveness of thecampaign.
And that also goes back to thequestion of see, I have them all
here and I'm just trying to getthem all out before I forget.
That's it.
I do it on purpose sometimesjust to see which ones you can

(44:26):
remember.
Sure, or actually the truth is,and I'll say it now, for
everybody.

Speaker 4 (44:33):
I just say them all so I don't forget.
Yeah, we know the secret.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
Now you know the secret, it's out because Brandy
and I are best friends.
Now I could share that secretwith my best friend.
But how long would it take fora campaign to be measurable I'm
not saying effective, becausethe campaign may not be proper
or appropriate based upon theconditions that you put for
selection of audience orselection of information, the

(44:57):
key for the differentiatoritself.
But what is the time periodthat you should wait and what
are the considerations that alsoyou can make for the technology
of today to make yourselfappear?

Speaker 4 (45:07):
It'd be so amazing if marketing was even remotely as
linear as you're asking thisquestion of.
Unfortunately, it's difficult,right?
If you're starting from a goodplace and you've got some brand
recognition, you've got somegood domain authority on your
website, you've got good peopleworking on your stuff, you can
tell within a few if it's likean email marketing campaign.

(45:31):
After the first two emails youhave a pretty good idea of if
this is going to do well or not.
Right, Like the first email isalways the best and then they
kind of drop down and so if yourfirst email is a flop, you are
pretty ready for the rest of it,to kind of do that.
But when you're looking atsomething like your organic
campaigns or your paid mediacampaigns, those are a lot

(45:51):
harder to really quantify interms of time and it also
depends on what matters to you,right?
So we have some customers andone deal to them is a success.
Whatever they're selling,whatever they need to do, is so
valuable to them that just onedeal makes the whole campaign a
success.
Where we have other customers,they need 30 deals for them to

(46:14):
consider it a success becausethey're more transactional or
it's a smaller piece of the piefor them that we're working on,
and so it's really it sort of itdepends on a lot of factors,
and I do hate to say that itdepends, because I think that's
a bit of a trite answer whenyou're asking for specifics but
a true consultant.
Everything is, it depends um,but you know it does it, it is.

(46:34):
It is difficult, and I thinkyou know if, if you take
anything away from it, it's thatyou need to launch a campaign
from a place where you feel likeyou gave it as much attention
as you expect to get in return,and so you need to build the
pieces that go with it.
Sometimes the campaigns aremeant to just be like let's see

(46:55):
if something happens, and that'sokay.
Doing something is alwaysbetter than doing nothing.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
So, to go back to your point of marketing being
not so linear, I am not thatunique, so I'm thankful that
we're having this conversationbecause I'm certain that many
others may have a similarquestion of how do I do this.
But I heard in your response tothe question put some sort of
success metric in the campaignalong with I guess, take out the

(47:24):
time but put in, as you hadmentioned, if we get one deal.
I guess take out the time butput in, as you had mentioned, if
we get one deal, the campaignsuccessful, we're happy.
Instead of we're going to sendout 700 emails, for example, and
we get seven, we expect to have700 replies because everybody
loves us.
So it's just a matter of havingsome sort of realistic metric
of what is successful to me in arealistic fashion and sometimes

(47:46):
it's brand awareness campaigns.

Speaker 4 (47:48):
Right, sometimes you're not even necessarily
working on a direct like I needa lead to give to sales.
It's just, you know, I needsomeone to know that we exist.
I need people to start talkingabout us.
We're a new ISV or coming toNorth America for the first time
, or we just got a cashinjection and we want to do more
.
Well, no one's ever heard ofyou.
So what can we do to even justdrive some brand awareness

(48:10):
amongst this channel?
Right, as we talked about atthe beginning, this channel is
we've all been here for a longtime People know somebody
everywhere and so you know whenit, when you're looking
internally, some of it is justgetting that name recognition
out there, so that you aresomebody that that somebody else
feels that they could trust ordo business with.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
Yeah, you know, we did a workshop, um, at, at an
event last year where we wetalked a lot about campaigns.
So you want to build a campaign, right?
Um, and there is two parts tothis right.
But one thing we reallyemphasized was when you build
your campaign, yes, you can layout the metrics that you are

(48:54):
going to track.
Are you going to track clicks,track conversions, track how
many leads ended up becomingsales, qualified, sales
qualified?
There are probably as manymetrics across as many campaign
concepts that we could spend aneternity sort of discussing or
diving into right, but decidewhich ones you are going to

(49:16):
track.
More importantly, define, like,clearly define the objective
and the goal.
Right, because you could trackall these metrics.
But to Brandy's point, whichmetric matters?
Right, what is your goal?
Are you getting brandrecognition?
Are you trying to just getLinkedIn followers or are you

(49:36):
really trying to get people tofill out a form to discuss a
very specific solution with you?
Those are two very differentthings.
So it's really important thatyou define it, because what we
see too often is that peoplethrow a lot of money, a lot of
resources and a lot of capacityat building campaigns and
they're not actually thinkingabout how are we going to

(49:57):
measure what the success of thiswas or what the outcome was
afraid to also, I think, behonest with themselves sometimes
, like what if we don't hit foursales?
Or what if we don't hit 10sales?
Or what if we don't hit 50leads?
That's okay.
Put a stick in the ground soyou can say this worked, this

(50:18):
didn't.
We're going to change it nexttime, because that's how great
marketing evolves.
Right Is being honest withyourself and seeing what
actually worked to meet theobjective, and the objectives
can be different acrossdifferent campaigns.
The other thing I just want toadd is that you will start to
see metrics instantly, right.

(50:39):
The second something launches.
You're going to start to seeopens, clicks, cost per click,
all that stuff.
That will all be data you startto get right away.
You do have to get those somedirectional, like you know
information about that data,which means you do have to let
things run for a period of time.

(51:00):
I think that kind of goes backto your original question.
But well, how long do you do itbefore you decide it works or
it doesn't work?
I think if you're starting anew let's say, paid media
initiative, you've never done itbefore and you want to try it
out and you're going to do thesesearch terms or whatnot.
Anybody is likely going to tellyou, or we would likely tell

(51:20):
you, you got to let somethingrun for 60 to 90 days to
baseline it.
It doesn't mean you don't seesome directional data after two
to three weeks where you canmake some tweaks and be like,
okay, you know, this search termor this campaign or this
segment of this is workingreally well, this one isn't so
much.
Let's dial this one up, let'sdial this one down, see if it

(51:42):
changes.
But don't just try it, for youknow four weeks and then be like
, well, that did or didn't work,that that probably won't give
you the directional data thatyou're looking for.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
And with the consideration how do you think
AI?
And the reason why I'm asking Ihate to bring it up because I
hate to talk about it, causeit's not everything.
World's not AI centric, as muchas everybody may think it is.
Uh, or maybe it is, and I'mjust it's affecting everyone.
It does affect everybody, but Isaw somebody post something and
I forget where it was the otherday and they said well, they

(52:17):
got their first lead from ai andit's one I.
I'm curious to know how you cantrack it back to AI.
You know somebody prompting AIand getting a result, but how do
you feel that that impactssomebody's marketing campaigns?
I'll use the word campaignversus the traditional campaigns

(52:38):
, right, traditional campaignsagain.
Over the course of the yearsyou had mailings, flyers, emails
, ads on websites.
There's what I would calltraditional, but now with search
, search in my opinion, beingcondensed, because now even on
google or uh, what's the otherone?
Google, microsoft?

(52:59):
the other search engines bangsee, I told you I'm, but it's
now you get like.
You get the AI response at thetop of your results.
That has links to it, alongwith the listed websites or
pieces of content that matchyour result.
What are some considerations?
One how does that impact yourcampaign with everything that

(53:20):
we've spoken about, and what aresome considerations someone
could make so that it can be inthat top summary for problem
solving?

Speaker 4 (53:34):
So if we go back to the start of our conversation,
when we talked about the 12 to15 or 13 to 17 pieces of content
that somebody wants to interactwith you with before they talk
to you, that is basically what'sgoing to feed those AI snippets
, and so to the degree, justlike SEO, it's garbage in and
garbage out Whatever you have.
So companies that have spentthe last three, five, ten years
building thought leadershipcontent, focusing on helping

(53:56):
people solve their problems,meeting the buyers where they
are, are going to be a lotbetter than the companies that
are running what we refer to asbrochure websites, which is like
here's the product, here's ourlocation, here's how you get a
hold of us.
Those companies are going tolose ground a lot more quickly
in the AI space in terms of thatsearchability Because, even

(54:17):
beyond what you're talking about, at Google IO last year they
announced that they are notgoing to serve links at some
point.
Google will not give you a linkto a website.
Eventually they want it to bean enclosed system.
Now they announced this andthen they had to sort of
reconcile what they're going todo about getting money out of
the paid ads and those kinds ofthings.
I think they have pulled back alittle bit on it, but in their

(54:41):
ideal world, they're not servinga link to your website anymore
at all.
They're answering your question.
You're staying in Google.
Google is your friend now.
And so how do you become theanswer to those questions?
Well, you have to have thecontent on your website.
You have to have the people inyour organization that actually
live, breathe and die by whatyou're talking about.
So, hiring 25 consultants tocome in and be like well, I have

(55:06):
a team of 30.
Well, do any of them know whatthey're talking about?
If they don't, you're not goingto necessarily beat the person
with the five-person team nextdoor.
It's really about, like, we areat a place where your thought
leadership, your ability todemonstrate your expertise to a
robot, may be the most importantthing you can do, like right
now, today, in this transition.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
So you mentioned thought leadership.
You mentioned thoughtleadership.
Now I want to kind of breakthis down further.
And you mentioned that there'sdifferent channels.
You know 11 to 13 differentplaces you put content.
Which one of those brings moreweight into being found?

(55:48):
Is it more thought leadershipor you're All of them together?
All of them together?
Okay.

Speaker 4 (55:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
I liked what you said .

Speaker 4 (55:57):
Having one post on LinkedIn irrelevant, nobody
cares.
One post is not helping you.
You spending the last howevermany years you've spent building
up a personality on LinkedInand then having that reflected
in your podcast, inconversations you have places,
in sessions you lead atconferences, in write-ups that
people have about you.

(56:17):
This is building the story ofwho you are and it's becoming a
lot more.
The individual is becoming morerelevant than the company as a
whole in this transition period.
This is why you're seeing suchan.
I love that.
Can you repeat that?

Speaker 1 (56:33):
in stereo you might not even have to.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
We might just have to loop that over and over.
I say that time and time againin this world.
It's all coming down to people,all coming down to people.
Where it is the individual,even in consulting that, we all
know the space well.
People work with people.

(56:55):
They have I use the wordloosely a relationship with the
people of the team that theyhave.
It's not the company exactly.
The company brings themtogether.
The company may have othertalented individuals or a group
of individual, but it's the teamthat's servicing your fish.
To Chris's point, that are themost important part a strategy

(57:15):
right, and then every componentof that's just your uh tactical
approach of individual umcomponent.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
But the whole thing is a strategy to get.
You have to get all 11 to 13things to you know to make it
all work to to get results andit takes time yeah, I think it's
also important to just likekeep in mind, right, google's
been changing consistently andconstantly changing their
algorithms for years.

Speaker 3 (57:56):
I mean, I mean years and years and years, ever since
they were Google.
And the one thing, though, thathasn't really changed too much
in those algorithms is what haswhat holds weight and time and
stands the test of time right,like websites that have been
there longer, or content that isconstantly getting built off of

(58:20):
a site right, that always umholds a lot of weight with
google, and, and ai is anothercomponent right right of this
evolution and the changingalgorithms.
But what we kind of like toremind people is that what you
want tomorrow, you need to havestarted yesterday, because the
one thing you'll never buy istime right.

(58:42):
And so I think a lot oforganizations think, oh, now
there's AI or now there's this,and they're very reactive.
How do we address this?
How do we get this?
The thing is, it's a long game.
You need to create the thoughtleadership culture and you need
to really invest in that andthat content and that value add

(59:06):
out there right on the internet,and that will always wait more
than just yeah, like Brandy said, like a few social posts or
like oh okay, let's just build anew site today and then it'll
be different and it'll be better.
Yeah, it might have the betterschemas in it, but you still
have to feed that over time toshow that you know you're a

(59:26):
player in the game that you'retrying to get in front of.

Speaker 4 (59:30):
I think the AI thing is an interesting opportunity in
our space.
I know in the technology space,there's lots of different things
that it's being used for, butit is an interesting thing when
you look at what Google ispreferencing and when you're
looking at how things are comingtogether.
All that Google's doing rightnow, at the bare bones of it, is

(59:50):
trying to determine what wasdone by a human and what was
done by an AI so that it candeprioritize what was done by an
AI, which is hilarious, becausethey're using an AI to
deprioritize the AI.
All of the updates that they'redoing and they're looking like I
think it's probably not Googleso much as Bing, but Bing is

(01:00:11):
actually doing work on wherethey can sort of match your
LinkedIn content, because theycan get into there with exterior
content about you and say, like, does this sound like Brad?
Does it actually feel like Bradis writing his LinkedIn content
and his sessions?
Or is this two different peoplea marketing person pretending
to be Brad and actual Brad?
Right, the AI is actuallyactively trying to suppress when

(01:00:33):
somebody's faking it or whenit's AI content that was
generated, or when it's not realthought leadership.
That's all they're working on,and so, to the degree that
you've just established a baseof expertise in your space,
you're going to come up a lotbetter than somebody who has
been sort of trying to grift offthe idea of like content,

(01:00:54):
spamming or whatever right.
They're trying to determinewho's a real person.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
That could change in time, though, right, because as
it gets, as it improves and youknow, now you could teach AI how
to sound like you and, you know, feed it.

Speaker 4 (01:01:08):
That's going to be a tough one to help you work these
days it's a little complicated,but yeah, I mean, and that's,
it is going to change probablybefore we continue, let the
record state, counselor, thatbrad is brad.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
The only thing brad uses is grammarly is a great
tool which I've used for a longtime to just.

Speaker 3 (01:01:29):
AI built in there, Brad.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
I don't know.
It does have AI to help improvesome of your sentences, but you
don't have to use it.
I sometimes will dictate in arant what I want to say and some
of the things that I post,because I'm mobile or somewhere
and I'll have to use gramly orsomething to go back to clean it

(01:01:52):
up.
But brad is brad at this pointuntil we feed it with your voice
.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Man, look, look, these are all recorded, right?
So anybody can download thisepisode and just feed it to ai
and say I want you to sound likeI'll tell you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
I did.
I used 11 labs before and I'vehad conversations.
I mean it wasn't as good asreal time, but recording some
snippets and I would love tohave some conversations that way
, which this is another PSA forthat.
Speaking of the voices, this ishow the tangents of my mind
will go.
You need to have a safe wordwith people.
Because of AI and theseconversations, I cannot tell you

(01:02:29):
how many people that I've heardstories of and I've known
firsthand where they've beenalmost scammed, because someone
will say hey, dad, I'm stuck atthe car dealership, can you send
me $200 or $2,000 to get my car?
At that point you should say,okay, what's the safe word?
It's not some crazy questions,because now anybody can find
anything about anybody on theinternet.
It's not some crazy questions,because now anybody can find
anything about anybody on theInternet.
You need to have a safe wordthat somebody can authenticate

(01:02:50):
them.
Or I know someone that hadsomeone call and say that they
were broken down on the side ofthe road, like someone close to
them was broken down on the sideof the road to come pick them
up.
They weren't there.
There was someone there thatwas ready to rob them.
This is how creative some ofthese scams are going.
You're talking about the voice,chris.
Scams are going.
You're talking about the voice.
Go back to my public serviceannouncement.
Maybe we'll cut that out, maybewe won't, but everybody have a
safe word.
That's all I have to say.

Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
Chris, we need to have a safe word with you I know
yeah I'm sorry, you fuck thetangent I wasn't sure how far I
should go with it, but like thisdid actually happen to my
in-laws, you know where theythought my stepson was calling
them, because it is actuallyreally scary.

(01:03:34):
And, and you're right, wetalked about the safe word.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
But see, just right here in the conversation of four
I don't know Brandy and Chris.
If it's you know first and I'mtalking firsthand, I'm not
talking, I read it on theInternet.
If it's you know first and I'mtalking firsthand, I'm not
talking, I read it on theinternet.
Like between four of us here,two of us know somebody close
firsthand that had somebody tryto use fake voices to take

(01:04:00):
something from them, whateverthat may be, and mine was money,
I mean.
So if that's happened to you,then that's what I'm saying.
Look at the percentages of howgood this is getting now,
because it't take a lot.
You can automate a lot of thatstuff now too.
So the safe word is good.
So, tara, thank you.
Now we're best friends, brandysee you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
Bye, brandy, you're still working on that.
You got progress going.
I got the progress I didn't getthe other perfection.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
You get me a yeti with progress and perfection, or
even a big room yeti, so thenI'll drink it and we'll be best
friends you know, overall, Ithink we're we're kind of ai is

(01:04:48):
is so broad, right, what it'saffecting, and I think it does
get very philosophical veryquickly, right.
But if we're just speaking interms of marketing or um,
delivering software solutions,it it is.
Also.
There is some exciting stuffright, and I think that we
shouldn't be just push it asideand be like tomorrow's problem,

(01:05:12):
tomorrow's problem, right,because it really is affecting
us today.
So being a part of thatevolution and using it as a tool
where it makes sense is reallyimportant, and also staying on
top of okay, how can I build instrategies and execute them?
So it's going to meet AI whereit is today and help me not be

(01:05:34):
so reactive in the future whereit's like oh oops, didn't do
that, now what do you do?

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
right, so you're adapting to the AI revolution,
whereas some marketing folks arelike, no, I'm not, you know
they're so against it, butsounds like you guys are
adapting to that and make itpart of your strategy.

Speaker 4 (01:05:53):
Those people are either lying or almost retired
and they don't want to learnsomething new.
Because I think it would beinsane to believe that you could
operate in a digital landscapethese days without understanding
what the AI is doing.
That doesn't mean you have toturn your job over to it, but it
does mean you have to stay up,like you know, on top of it all.

(01:06:14):
And we do use it here, right.
We're not going to pretend like, oh well, we never would use it
, and I think Chris and I had aconversation on LinkedIn about
chat GT the other day.
But it's the same thing garbagein, garbage out right, I can
use it to quickly get somethingdone, because I can say I want X
, y and Z in this format forthis audience done this way.
I want you to look at this.

(01:06:34):
It has to sound, you can tellit all of those things and it
will give you something that youcan then start to work on right
.
So now I have a draft.
That's 70% of the content thatI want.
I still need to go in there.
I need to make sure that theheadlines make sense, I need to
make sure it makes sense for thebrand voice, I need to put the
links and the calls to actionand all those things have to go
in there.
I also had to start withsomething more than write me a

(01:06:57):
blog post about inventory,because that is not any use to
anybody and so you have to be anexpert.
And then you have to use the aito supplement that, not to
replace it.
You're not going to get rid ofa staff member and then be like,
well, now all of the content'swritten by this ai.
It's like yes, we know intel,because it it reads it.

(01:07:20):
You can tell you use the worddelve.
Oh, there's, there's so manywords you can pick up on this
landscape we delve into thisinventory management man do I
ever use any of those phrases.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
See, I'll have to have to have to create content
and say we need an anti-a,anti-ai agent to say that we
need to make your text not soundlike ai it will just spit back
the same.

Speaker 4 (01:07:51):
In today's dynamic business environment, if you
google just that sentence, like700 of the websites will come up
.
Everybody starts a web like ablog post like that.
We.
It's an internal like joke inour organization like.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
What is it that I have to search for?

Speaker 4 (01:08:07):
like in today's dynamic business environment, or
to in today's competitivelandscape.

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
It's always today's ever-evolving business landscape
like now we have an 80sorganization like have you found
using um, you know, chat, gptor whatever ai tool, your lm
tool you're using where you askit to write something for you?
But consider the seo yep likehas that worked well or is it

(01:08:39):
off entirely?

Speaker 4 (01:08:40):
it works, ish.
So again, if you're going to say, I'm gonna do, do my SEO with
chat, gpt, with the little agentthat someone built in there,
like you're going to get 70% ofthe way there, the same 70% that
the other 12 people that alsowent through that exercise got
right and so it can start, itcan help, it can give you ideas,

(01:09:02):
it can build out a bit of thestructure, but again, if you
don't know what you're doing,it's not going to be the end,
all and be all of that.
And I mean I think we go back to, like, you know, how do we get
found and how does my websitecome up and how does this happen
?
Like the base of that is notjust your foundational messaging
about who you are, it's yourdigital architecture and how all

(01:09:23):
of that stuff was constructedin the first place, and how all
of that stuff was constructed inthe first place.
There's no, to our knowledge,there's no amount of AI that is
available right now that couldreplace somebody who has that as
a background, who could come inand do that in a way that we
would say would be successful.
It's an augmentation, but it'snot going to be a replacement

(01:09:45):
right now.
I mean, who knows right?
Future is what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
So you're using AI tool to augment your day-to-days
, just to get you a baseline toget you going, because sometimes
starting is difficult for many,and so using AI to kind of get
you started and then be able toget the ball rolling and I think
it improves efficiency so thatyou can focus more on the

(01:10:11):
creative side now that it'sbuilt something for you as a
starting point.

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
Yeah, and you know, I listened to a really
interesting podcast actuallyjust about three days ago.

Speaker 1 (01:10:21):
About this.
Is it us?

Speaker 3 (01:10:23):
About this about this yeah, it focused a little bit
more on the role AI plays ineducation, so I won't go down
that rabbit hole, because that'sright, a topic in and of itself
, but the conclusion of it, Ithink, is, uh, very relevant
here, which is we really shouldnot have prompt engineers

(01:10:46):
running our organizations, orany parts of our organizations,
through AI.
We need art directors to run artthrough AI.
We need real digital architectswho know how to do this from
the ground up, running the SEOand those components through AI.
We need copywriters who knowtheir own voice, who have, you

(01:11:10):
know, harnessed that piece ofthe art for them to be running
the AI that helps them buildthis, if that makes sense.
So we really do need the skillsbehind it to run it so it's
successful and it doesn't justall turn out the same or because
then it's completelyineffective, right and and.

(01:11:31):
So I just think that that wasjust a really good conclusion to
that, but it just shouldn't bea bunch of prompt engineers that
know how to ask these genericquestions, because the output
will all of a sudden start to,cyclical, be pretty much the
same very valid point.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
You need to have the right people in the right
position doing the right thing,because it's also the same you
have some.
Just because somebody can dosomething doesn't mean they
should, or doesn't mean they'regood at doing something else.
You could be a great technicalperson who can build the space
shuttle.
It doesn't mean you can run abusiness selling space shuttles

(01:12:06):
right.
You need to have the rightperson in the right role.
A couple of few an additionalthought before we wind down here
, taking up all the valuabletime.
I could talk with the two ofyou all night long, and we'll
probably have to have aconversation.

Speaker 3 (01:12:22):
Yes, that's what I was just about to say.

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
We'll be ready in Vegas to have many, many
conversations, some impromptu,some will be coordinated.
But we've talked a lot aboutmarketing across jeez, across
many different areas, with ai,with uh, where do you market,
how do you market timing andsuch, and you work with many
different customers and manydifferent irsvs within dynamics,

(01:12:47):
three, 65, stack or space.
What are some of the biggestmyths I guess you could call
them myths that you hear fromcustomers or that you see in the
space about marketing for ERPsoftware?
We again, we talked aboutwhat's differentiate you or ISVs
.
What are some of the myths thatsome people come to you, um,

(01:13:09):
that you hear that aren't sovalid?

Speaker 4 (01:13:14):
I mean, I think the like the thing that we run up
against the most often is isjust the amount of your revenue
that you should contribute backto your marketing engine.
People really do think thatmarketing can be a discipline
that's off the side of someone'sdesk, or we can just throw this
little bit at it, and theydon't.
I think a lot of organizationsstruggle to understand the

(01:13:37):
entire value and sort of inputthat marketing has on an
operation.
It's not just your campaign,it's your brand awareness, it's
your employment branding.
Does somebody even want to workfor you?
If you're looking for peoplewho are great in the space, what
does your company say about you?
All of that ties back tomarketing.
What are your customer successstories?
What are those ratings thatyou're getting?

(01:13:57):
None of that is easy to obtain.
It takes a lot of people, a lotof work to build those things
up, and so assuming thatmarketing can be run as sort of
an off the side of the deskfunction or sort of like a oh,
we have a marketing coordinator,that is all we need is, I think
, one of the biggest.
I don't know if that's a mythor how you would call that, but

(01:14:18):
I think that would be one of thethings we run into like most
often yeah, he's still mine, butI I see, that's what you get
for having her go first all thetime we must see it a lot, uh,
but I think the product of thatright brandy is is to your point
.

Speaker 3 (01:14:35):
there they're hiring or employing like a single
generalist right and thinkingthat that is all the marketing
output that they need.
That Joe or Susie can dographic design, seo, build a
website, do content, runLinkedIn and that's perfect.

(01:14:57):
That's all we need, and thenwondering why they're not making
more headway on lead generationor brand awareness in the
market and that sort of thing.
There really are specificpeople that know parts of that
work right, and you really doneed, for instance, somebody

(01:15:20):
that does graphics very well.
Maybe you have senior andjunior.
You need somebody that knowsoverall strategy and
organization.
And, yes, marketingcoordinators can play a great
role administratively,especially when it comes to
events and putting piecestogether or connecting parts of

(01:15:41):
the department.
But there really is no unicornout there.
I just want everybody to knowthat Nobody can do absolutely
every piece of the puzzle.
Well, um, and and we've run upagainst that an awful lot-
that's a great tips to have.

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
Brandy.
Tara, I did want to go throughan exercise with you, but I
don't think we have time.
Hopefully we can do it in thefuture, unless you have time,
because I know, a pod.

Speaker 1 (01:16:07):
You should do it for our website we're ready oh, okay
should Navi join us for this?

Speaker 2 (01:16:15):
who's Navi?

Speaker 1 (01:16:17):
wait, you name your dog Navi.
No, navi is.

Speaker 3 (01:16:23):
Navi is our on-chromosaurus.
Yeah, we're.

Speaker 4 (01:16:26):
Solomon, solomon and Navi is our on-premis for us.

Speaker 2 (01:16:28):
Yeah, we're Solomon is it like a talking stick?

Speaker 4 (01:16:37):
if you don't upgrade to business central.

Speaker 1 (01:16:40):
Navi and.

Speaker 3 (01:16:41):
Solomon on-premis for us.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
Oh, I like that well, if we can go through the
exercise.
I know these, these guys spreadOne premise for us.
Yeah, oh, I like that.
Well, if we can go through theexercise.
I know these guys that have apodcast, oh, yeah, have we met
them that they need help.

Speaker 1 (01:16:57):
Yeah, and they just put up a new website.

Speaker 2 (01:16:59):
They just put up a new website.
I did not.

Speaker 4 (01:17:01):
Because they thought they could do it.
I didn't know the help that wasneeded at all we just need
progress.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
okay, hey, you made progress over perfection,
progress over perfection.

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):
We have guest pages.
Now we have a number of thingsthat we didn't have before, so
we've progressed.

Speaker 4 (01:17:18):
You did.

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
It's not perfect and don't say it's not near perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
And it's not on non-premise.
I promise you that.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
So how did Navi and Solomon help us through this
exercise of how we can havebetter brand awareness and
marketing for this podcast?

Speaker 3 (01:17:37):
we're just going shooting out the general
question, just how you just youheard my questions before to
brandy when she told me they'revery linear.

Speaker 2 (01:17:45):
So I know how to talk into a microphone.
Maybe not well, and that's whyI use grammarly.
But what do we do make it work?
Do I sound like a customer?
A?

Speaker 4 (01:18:00):
little bit.
Um, I mean, mean, to be fair toyou, you have done a great job.
I think just you had to buildthis base right.
You're starting to get somemomentum.
People are looking at yourpodcast.
They're interested in it.
You're pulling in people fromall sorts of areas and
disciplines in the space.
You're not just talking to CEOsof large bars and that kind of

(01:18:21):
thing.
You're getting the bigperspective.
I mean, this is a time-basedexercise.
I think right now is buildingthat brand awareness.
I think doing things like Ihave my pin up here that Chris
gave me at Summit, doing more ofthose things this podcast is a
labor of love for you two.
Obviously, this istime-consuming and it is

(01:18:42):
obviously taking something outof you to do it, and so that is
the message that you need to putforward that you really are
doing this because it'ssomething that you love to do.
Why are you doing this?
Right?
Let's get really clear on that.
What is the purpose of this?
Is it just because you like totalk to people all day?
It might be, but I suspectthere's something else
underneath that.
So, I think, continuing tobuild those relationships that

(01:19:03):
you're building.

Speaker 2 (01:19:04):
I thought you were asking me a question, I was
ready to answer.
Sorry, I thought you wereasking me a question, I was
ready to answer.

Speaker 1 (01:19:09):
We're trying to make best friends, okay, that's the
purpose, no it is a labor oflove.

Speaker 2 (01:19:17):
As you say, we started off doing the podcast
about four years ago and we tooka different direction of it.
For me personally, I enjoytalking with various members of
the community to hear theirstories, to hear what they do,
because it is a great community,it's so large but yet so small,
even internationally.
So I enjoy this is mepersonally speaking with many

(01:19:39):
members of the community hearingwhat they do, hearing how they
do, learning their history.
I enjoy the people aspect of itbecause we're all people every
day working to try to besuccessful with implementations
of Business Central across theD365.
I can't even say BusinessCentral because we branched out
beyond that, like you hadmentioned, brandy.
So that's the passion for me.

(01:20:00):
Behind it is just lettingeverybody tell their story,
whether they're an ISV that hasa product that helps somebody
run their business.
Again, it could be competingISVs even talking with you from
a marketing point of view,getting to know you, your people
behind a marketing agency thatdoes well with business central,
isvs and customers, and maybesomeone listening to this can go
, oh, we need some marketing orwe need some insights and let's

(01:20:23):
speak with Brandy and Tara overat Big Room.
So that's the passion for me isgetting the community together,
understanding who's in thecommunity and everybody being
able to talk about what theyhave and what they enjoy doing
with others.

Speaker 1 (01:20:37):
So mine's slightly different than Brad putting this
together.
It's just really getting toknow the human side of all the
contents put people put outthere.
There's incredible contentcreators that puts out knowledge
, right and thought leadership,but who are they you know as
human beings and get to knowthem.
Like I didn't realize thisperson played an ukulele.

(01:20:58):
I didn't realize this personrode motorcycles, you know, and
something that I can relate to.
And and just getting to know thepeople behind the persona of
what's put out there, and thatalso includes partners that we
you know.
That that's part of the showand I even ISVs, like including
the both of you, and justgetting to know.

(01:21:19):
Like I didn't I didn't realizethat Tara goes on vacation all
the time, and so you know, and Ididn't realize Brandy, you and
I are practically neighbors, youknow things like that.
It was like that's really cooland in just that relationship
aspect of it, not just thecontent, that's what I love

(01:21:40):
about doing this podcast andthen when we see each other,
it's much more fun because nowwe don't have to talk about work
all the time, we're justcatching up and like be friends.

Speaker 4 (01:21:52):
It's true and it's.
You know it is funny, right?
We all get our like, I think,one of the things that's pretty
unique about the space.
Granted, I haven't workedoutside of the Dynamics channel,
but even the competitive peopletend to be out there helping
each other out right, like wewould never hesitate to
recommend one of the competitivepartner marketing organizations

(01:22:12):
in the space if it was.
If somebody came to us and wedidn't have the capacity to help
them, or maybe they werelooking for something that
wasn't necessarily our sweetspot, and I think that's the
same for a lot of the partnersand the bars and the ISPs.
You're cross competitive,they're all cross competitive,
but in a fairly friendly way.
I mean, I know there'sobviously, like certain
rivalries and that kind of thing, but I think to the degree that

(01:22:34):
you guys can continue to, touse your love of the human story
and exploit that angle a littlebit more around the community
is going to further your abilityto get your podcast across
mediums.

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
So how do we do that?

Speaker 4 (01:22:48):
I mean you keep talking like you have been.
But I think there's I meanwe're still being recorded.
I think there's ways to talk topeople, right.

Speaker 2 (01:22:56):
You said we could do the exercise.

Speaker 4 (01:22:59):
And I don't know because I have never actually we
have never gone down the pathof looking at what it would take
to get a podcast or somethinglike this off the ground or,
like you know, more, moreproliferated across the market.
If it was me, I would becozying up to like the board,
directions and the dynamics,user communities and seeing if

(01:23:21):
you can't get yourself as like amedia contact at some of these
events Right and so we talkedabout that how, brad, because
I'm listening.
I'm listening, chris, you seethose kinds of things, right.
So how do you transition frombeing, you know, these two guys
that that happen to worktogether right now and have
their podcasts and they'retalking to people?
How do you become somethingmore than that?

(01:23:43):
How do you break outside of um,the concept that maybe you're
looking for internal lead genand so you're just doing thought
leadership as a podcast?
Right, like, how do we getaround some of that and really
focus on putting yourselves outthere like you're a community
place?
You are going to naturally, orprobably have become a hub of
knowledge because of the amountof people you take the time to

(01:24:04):
speak to on your podcast and inperson.
You're becoming a centralizedplace of knowledge yourselves
because if somebody asks you aquestion, you've got four years
worth of these conversationsthat you can drag on.
So how do we harness that inmore than here?
Watch our podcast episodes.
I can't watch four years ofyour podcast episodes.
I can email you and say, hey, Iwas wondering about this, but I

(01:24:25):
suspect you probably talked tosomebody.
So how do you get that a littlebit more front and center?

Speaker 1 (01:24:30):
Yeah, we have a little corner of dynamics.

Speaker 2 (01:24:36):
And there's a chair.

Speaker 3 (01:24:37):
Your dynamics corner.
I also really like what yousaid about what you do, a little
bit more than what you havewritten about what you do,
because I really love this anglethis right.

Speaker 2 (01:24:50):
Here is where we need help, and I told you we need to
pull it out Like this is likebeing in the therapy chair.
I like this, yeah, well.

Speaker 3 (01:24:57):
I mean looking at your website, we could, we could
probably help you with that alittle bit, but I mean just
front and center.
Right, the concept that you'recultivating and humanizing the
Microsoft Dynamics 365 community.
Right, and it's not justbusiness central, it's basically
the Microsoft businessapplication space.
But I think that is theimportant part, right, and

(01:25:23):
that's what you're ultimatelyout to do.
And I believe I mean, based onthe number of people I see at
events and it's only a fractionof this community there's tens
of thousands of people out thereinterested in this.
They're spending, you know, amajority of their week in this
space and so, um, I thinkhumanizing yourselves a little

(01:25:45):
bit more, um, as a part of thebrand for this is, is so
important because but I'm notsure your websites really don't.

Speaker 2 (01:25:56):
how do we?
How do we do that?

Speaker 3 (01:25:58):
I'm looking for concrete, like you're telling me
to do this, but yeah, I mean, Ithink, just how you know, I'm a
, I'm a, get in it and do it.
I can't necessarily do itverbally.

Speaker 2 (01:26:10):
So we'll do some negotiations, we'll give you
some advertising space.

Speaker 4 (01:26:17):
You give us a little write up and then we, we can we
have a big room shirt we have avested interest in your success,
so we're very happy to talkwith you more about it, for sure
.
I mean, you know, like I thinkone of the things we go back to
the beginning we're talkingabout big room and that type of
thing.
We're not we are not a a volumeplay at big room right, we are

(01:26:40):
a.
We are not a volume play at BigRoom right, we are like a
bespoke.
Like you get a lot of attentionfrom Tara or myself or whomever
is running the account, andthat means that when we work
with people, we work with peoplethat we believe in their
product or their vision or whois working with them, and that
is what gets us doing this right, because otherwise we could
just sort of do the volume playand be like we want 200 partners

(01:27:02):
to pay us this much money to doto cross compete you against
each other, like that's not sortof what we do.
And so, again, like we arelooking, we are always
interested in helping people inthe community grow their space
and get where they want to go,and what you guys are doing
isn't that far outside ofmarketing.
We would tell people who hadrobust marketing departments or

(01:27:23):
had the ability to do this kindof thing, to do a podcast like
this, you would have.
You know, if you're doing itwithin an organization, you get
some of the leverage from theirwebsite and their marketing.
But this is not.
This is marketing.
You're just marketingyourselves and your and your
passion for the community, right, and so I think we would.
You know we, like you guys, wewould have an interest in seeing

(01:27:44):
you continue to lead right.

Speaker 2 (01:27:46):
Thank you, I appreciate that.
I'm glad you like us.
We want you to love useventually.
It's quality over quantity.

Speaker 4 (01:27:52):
Well, it's back to Brad and his best friend level
with me.

Speaker 2 (01:27:54):
Oh no, we're back to best friend level.
Well, I say with others thatI've talked about it for Well, I
say with others that I'vetalked about it.
For me, this passion is thetrue passion.
I'm the type of person that I'mdoing it for that, and once I
don't have the passion, I'll bedone.
It's just how it is.
It doesn't matter what it turnsinto, because I enjoy the
conversations with every singleperson that we have, and that's

(01:28:14):
what drives me.

Speaker 1 (01:28:15):
That was the promise that Brad and I had.
Like we cannot make this feellike it's work.
Right, promise that Brad and Ihad.
We cannot make this feel likeit's work.
We have to enjoy it and justlove doing it.
The moment it feels like it'swork, it's like oh, it's going
to be painful.

Speaker 4 (01:28:29):
You have an opportunity when my husband and
I if we go to visit Tara and herhusband, who also works in the
channel we can't help it.
It's so much of theconversation that it isn't even
necessarily we're not talkingtactical, like we got to do this
, we got to do that.
I mean, tara and I aresometimes doing that, but when
we're talking, you know, morebroadly, it's like you just

(01:28:53):
can't help it.
It's just because we spend somuch time doing this and so that
is like you guys are like theguy at the kitchen, like table,
that would actually talk to meat a party, because I, that is
like you guys are like the guyat the kitchen, like table, that
would actually talk to me at aparty, because I'd be like, oh
my god, like this marketingthing and this channel thing and
everybody else is just likevery glossed over, because it
you, we're all here forever andwe spend all of our time doing
this and we find it veryinteresting and I think that's

(01:29:16):
just a special group of weirdosthat we are right.
Like my husband worked here verybriefly over the COVID times
and he and he's we've been, youknow, he's been around this
forever and he was like, okay,well, it took me all of the
previous knowing you and then ayear of working here.
I think I've maybe figured outlike what's going on a little
bit in this group, right,because it's not like you can't

(01:29:39):
explain it to people that areoutside of the channel and so
like you're like everyone's bestfriend I was told it's like a
cult.

Speaker 2 (01:29:49):
We're all in a cult.
We're in a big cult the, thecommunity.
I call it a community, so Iguess it makes it sound like a
cult.
You call it a channel.
It's uh, it's a cult.
Okay, so we have to humanizeourselves.

Speaker 4 (01:30:00):
I like going through this exercise.

Speaker 2 (01:30:02):
I'm enjoying going through how you're helping a
young organization such as apodcast, grow so it's basically
we just have to record ourselvesbrad.

Speaker 1 (01:30:14):
That, uh, that's not like behind the scenes.
You know, we don't brad andI'll try not to talk about work
outside of this space sometimesand we just talk about, hey,
what did you cook, what did yousmoke in your smoker, things
like that.

Speaker 3 (01:30:30):
But how do we do that , but how do we get?

Speaker 2 (01:30:33):
that on the website so that it's searchable.
How do we get it to show up?
How do we do this?
This is where I'm stuck.
I could go back to Brandy withmy linear thinking how do I get
it so that we market?
Well, chris, to your point, wecould have those conversations
that we have.
So we just record thoseconversations and just put them
up as episodes, without guests,and just stay behind the scenes

(01:30:56):
as just a portion of extendingwhat you're talking about here,
right?

Speaker 4 (01:30:59):
because outside of this, if we left this room and
we didn't know you two at all,we don't know if you go and
leave this and not to talk toeach other until another guest
comes back, or if you guysregularly hang it like you know,
people don't know that no, wedon't hang out.
He's in the opposite side ofthe country.
Well, but sorry, like textmessaging or whatever it is

(01:31:20):
right, right right but there is.
You know, there there is ways.
And this is where, like I I am,I don't have tiktok, I can't
get there, I'm not going to.
This is where people would belike, oh, you put those things
on tiktok.
I think it's better to kind ofkeep it in.
You know your closed system,but I think you guys could talk
a little bit more to each otheron linked, for instance.
You guys can do some of thesepodcasts.

(01:31:43):
Why don't you interview eachother?
Why don't one of you sit oneither side of this and just
have these conversations in bothdirections and just see?

Speaker 2 (01:31:50):
Chris, you're taking notes?

Speaker 1 (01:31:51):
I'm taking notes.

Speaker 2 (01:31:53):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:31:58):
Theoretically, you're being a little bit more
self-promotional.
Which back to your no one wantsto write a bio about themselves
and all those kinds of things.

Speaker 2 (01:32:06):
I can't do that.
I am one that I could notself-promote anything of myself
period.
I can sit and talk to anybodyand do anything, but you
actually have asked me to sitdown and talk about myself or
write about myself.
I can't do it.
I get stage fright.

Speaker 3 (01:32:27):
We can help you with that.

Speaker 1 (01:32:31):
It's recorded, by the way.

Speaker 4 (01:32:32):
I also want to know that oftentimes we'll get
content from people.
That is like you were saying youdrive around and you rant it
into your phone and then youhave to get grammarly to fix it
you oftentimes get just thestraight thought, like stream of
consciousness rant intosomeone's phone when they're
driving around, and then we haveto make it into something like
there are ways to get thecontent to a place where it can

(01:32:55):
be publicly shareable, whilestill honoring your issues with
talking about yourself or yourinability to write or your
disinterest in sitting down infront of a computer and doing it
.

Speaker 3 (01:33:04):
It's just about thinking about different ways to
do that right yeah, we coulddefinitely take a look in the
under the hood of that, thatwebsite there I mean a few title
tags, a long way uh say thegame please the few title tags
like you can.

Speaker 4 (01:33:18):
The seo strategy could be probably touched even
microscopically on that site,like there are things to do with
that.
But back to tara's earlierpoint.
What is the goal of being foundlike what, what, what do you
get out of this podcast?
What do you?

Speaker 2 (01:33:34):
I get enjoying again.
Not to the chris, you can gofirst.
Forget it, you go first nexttime.
My goal is to talk with as manypeople and even have repeat
conversations, follow-upconversations.
We're going to cycle I don'twant to say cycle.
We're going to have a number ofindividuals come back on again
as sort of a follow-up, becausewe may have talked to them a

(01:33:55):
year ago, two years ago, just totalk to them about where
they've progressed in theirlives, in their careers or in
what they're doing.
My goal is to talk to as manypeople in the community as
possible, so that is why youwant to be found, so that more
people will want to speak withyou.
In essence, I think it's morepeople want to speak with us so

(01:34:18):
we can have the conversationsabout the different things that
you can do within this space.
Again, it could be an ISV thatoffers us a product.
It can be consultants thatoffer services.
It could be customers that areusing the product.
So we want anybody that'swithin this space to be able to
talk with them about themselves,their lives and the technology.

(01:34:41):
So how do you use BusinessCentral?
How has it helped you?
What are the services that youmay be able to provide someone
to help them?
What is the product that youhave that can help them?
Is that too broad for me to saythat I want to talk?
When I say I want to talk witheverybody, but that's kind of.
The target that we're lookingfor is to be able to talk with
individuals across the differentroles.
So you have very similar likewait, hold on.

(01:35:05):
I want to know what.
Tara.
Tara, you had something to say.

Speaker 3 (01:35:07):
Spit it, I could see it's okay, it's still being
recorded, but I would, if wewere off air, perhaps ask you if
you think this is more valuablefor professionals that do work
in this industry on a day-to-daybasis.
Then potentially like so.

(01:35:29):
For instance, I'll just go withmy husband's industry.
He delivers a business centralto wineries, right.
In the end, the people he workswith are really mostly
concerned about where their wineis going, what their
distribution is, who's drinkingit and and that.
Right, they're not as concernedwith business central all the

(01:35:49):
time.
Yes, it could be a core part ofthe CFOs or the inventory
manager's job.
Ask you, do you think yourtarget audience, or maybe who
you're cultivating thiscommunity for, is more geared to
the tens of thousands ofprofessionals that work within
this space?

Speaker 2 (01:36:08):
Yes, because of the conversations we have.
I hope that somebody and whenwe do the pre-podcast calls with
everybody, we hope that theconversation I say what I say to
everybody in the pre-podcastcalls we want to have a
relatable conversation andhopefully something that
somebody can get something outof, because those individuals in
this space I hope they learnsomething from it Whether it
could be if a customer, if we'respeaking with a customer, a

(01:36:30):
customer can say how they'reusing Business Central, some of
the challenges they have, sothat maybe another ISV it's just
, in a sense, it's bringingeverybody together.
See, now I'm getting passionate, I don't know if you can tell.
It's how you can bringeverybody together to be
successful, whatever thatsuccess is for them, because
rising tides raise all ships.
I say it over and over again IfBusiness Central and this
channel, this cult or thiscommunity is successful,

(01:36:50):
everybody in it is alsosuccessful.
So if we can have a place wherepeople can come talk freely,
share information that somebodyelse may be able to listen to
and get something from it, againit can be an isv, because they
may have a solution thatsomebody can use to make their
implementation easier.
Or a partner can help with acustomer or customers say, hey,
this is there, even in an agencysuch as yours, the boutique

(01:37:13):
marketing agency that if theyneed some help publicizing the
isv or getting some moretraction with their business
central or Dynamics 365implementation team or even a
customer may have products thatthey want to sell.
I know you target primarily thepartners and the ISVs, but even
some of the tips and tricksthat we talked about here to me,
I think could be applied to anybusiness of how to become more

(01:37:35):
successful.
So that's my steadfast goal isto have a knowledge share.

Speaker 1 (01:37:41):
It's very similar Mine's very, very similar to
Brad.
It's just a volume of people whowant to talk to from different
industries and even, if I can, Ican even extend beyond that
where you know, when I firststarted my career, it was very
difficult to find content, verydifficult to find people to you
know, bounce ideas and thingslike that.
Maybe you have some local usergroups and such, but it was

(01:38:02):
always been limited to theregional area, and so what I'm
trying to get out of thispodcast is to be able to reach
out globally where people canfeel like, hey, I know I can
listen to this podcast and I'mlearning maybe someone that's
changing careers or maybe kindof learning the industry or
maybe trying to get into thisindustry and getting information

(01:38:25):
from that aspect.
And so if I can help in thatcapacity to get more people into
this community, it's like ourcult to get them to be part of
this, the things that we'reworking on, the things that
we're working on, that's perfect, because then it kind of
reminds me, reminded me ofmyself, where I wish this
existed when I was building mycareer, because it would have,

(01:38:48):
it would have accelerated.
Now I get to know the ISVs outthere that I should be paying
attention, or the tools that issolving problems and and instead
of like Googling at that timeand maybe only see the first
five, now I can go to thispodcast and maybe I'm searching
for something and it's.
You know, maybe we had aconversation solving a problem

(01:39:10):
from different perspective andnot just reading a content that
someone put out.

Speaker 2 (01:39:15):
So this types of conversation, these exercises
you go through with individualsthat you work with, I like the
way that you're pulling this outto be honest with you.

Speaker 3 (01:39:22):
I'm just saying it.

Speaker 2 (01:39:23):
I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the
passion of it.

Speaker 4 (01:39:27):
Yeah, and I mean it is part of what we go through.
And again, sometimes customersget really into it and they want
to go down this path.
And sometimes they think we'retrying to run a meter and just
talk.
You know what I mean.
And it's like, well, reallylike we're only as successful as
the story that we can tell.
And sometimes that is a pointat which we decide that we're
not a fit for a certainorganization.

(01:39:49):
Right, because someorganizations are like I have
lots of money to pour into paidmedia.
I just want someone to run thatfor us.
You can do it that way andthat's fine, but that just isn't
going.
It doesn't go very well withour business process.
We do like to have theseconversations, we like to make
people think about it in adifferent way and just like

(01:40:10):
anybody's sort of craft right,like we forget that things that
we know or that we might, offthe cuff, suggest you do isn't
something that you would come upwith on your own in a million
years, just because you wouldn'teven think about it.
Or I'm always like, well, it'slike obvious, but it it isn't
obvious to people, and so you doneed to have the conversations,
like having that context, thatwhat you're really looking for

(01:40:30):
out of this, beyond buildingthis knowledge base, is to try
to get more diverse people tocome onto your podcast, is a
really big differentiator interms of when you say you want
to be found, it's a lot easier.
Like you, everybody in thisindustry will talk to you.
They all want to talk.
You run into them atconferences.
They can't stop talking abouttheir product themselves or

(01:40:51):
company, their thing.
Right, you just have to get infront of them and offer them the
opportunity.
And I would say like from myperspective and I won't speak
for Tara like it would neverhave occurred to me that you
would have wanted to talk to uson this podcast until I think
you and I had like a bit of aconversation.
I kind of made a joke like, oh,are you gonna have us on the
podcast?
When you said whenever you want, I was like oh, I didn't

(01:41:13):
actually think that we would besomebody that you would want on
here, and not because there'sanything like I, just I was
envisioning it really like youwanted more technical
information or you wanted totalk a lot more with people who
work with the product or thosekinds of things.
So I mean, just be unashamedabout what you're trying to do.
Tell people, hey, do you knowsomebody that you think would be

(01:41:35):
cool on my podcast?
Like, hook me up and then I'lltake you for a coffee or we'll,
you know, give you someaccolades or say thank you on
LinkedIn that you introduced us.
Like.
People are motivated,especially in this space, like
about that little bits ofrecognition, about being part of
something right, becauseotherwise we're all just this

(01:41:55):
cog in this big machine thatMicrosoft owns.
So giving people theopportunity to stake their claim
is more powerful than you mightbe thinking about it probably
Boom.

Speaker 2 (01:42:03):
This is great.

Speaker 1 (01:42:07):
This is a referral program or something?
Here we are.

Speaker 2 (01:42:13):
We started off a little rough, but I think we're
going to be BFFs by the timethis is over.

Speaker 4 (01:42:18):
Okay, now we're acronyming it, we're going to
get the tattoos.
Don't time this is over.
Okay, now we're acronyming it,we're going to get the tattoos.
Don't get this Vegas man.

Speaker 2 (01:42:23):
Don't get too.
There are no more tattoos goingon this body.
I would get one more, but now Ithink I'm too old for it, so
I'm not getting any more.

Speaker 4 (01:42:30):
See, I figure the older you get, the less it
matters.
I don't know because.

Speaker 3 (01:42:35):
Yeah, yeah, what you going for now?
Well, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:42:43):
Yeah, well, I think it's just a matter of where and
what.
I think I made sure that minecould be covered completely if
needed, but anyway, we digress,okay.
So, chris, we need to talk toeach other more.
That might be a struggle.
We'll have to work on that.
We need to come up with somebranding to talk about what
we're trying to do with thepodcast as far as bringing

(01:43:06):
people together.
It's not necessarily branded toyour point.
Thank you, see.
This is good you pulled it out.

Speaker 1 (01:43:11):
By the way, for the record, Brandon and I talk a lot
right outside of this.
We just have to record it.
Brad, that's the problem.
We could be anywhere right now.
We just be like, we'll justrecord this right now.

Speaker 2 (01:43:22):
You could be smoking your Some of those conversations
I don't think we want to record.

Speaker 4 (01:43:25):
to be honest with you , you don't even have to
necessarily record theconversation, throw a selfie up
there or be like Brad and I werehaving.
I mean, just you know, I thinkI probably, like I was way too
into the Twitter era so I gotused to very like everything was
a quip.
What can I throw out there?
Right, and that's just likewhere my brain goes with this

(01:43:45):
kind of stuff.
It's just like that is the easypart.
You're not selling FNSEM orwhatever it's called today.
Like this is you guys.
Are just you just trying to getpeople to talk about themselves
?

Speaker 1 (01:43:56):
Perfect.
So we'll do the next conferencethat we'll all get to see each
other.
There'll be off-the-cuffconversation, yep, in person.
So, for example, the directions, I think we're all gonna see
each other.

Speaker 4 (01:44:10):
So you guys will be there, we will be the las vegas.

Speaker 2 (01:44:13):
We'll be there vegas is big, we may not see each
other.
I've gone to conferences.
I have never been to aconference and not seen you too,
so I think I went to someconferences recently last summit
we we didn't see a bunch ofpeople and I I swear I didn't

(01:44:35):
know that people were there, wasit in?

Speaker 1 (01:44:36):
san antonio, was it?

Speaker 2 (01:44:37):
yes, it was san antonio where there were a lot
of people that I normally see atthese conferences or events
that I didn't run into at all,and then I talked with them
afterwards and they were there.
It was just weird for somereason.

Speaker 4 (01:44:51):
So some it's a different beast in all of their
like individual parties and thatkind of thing I mean directions
is a little bit more oh, you'llsee us at directions, you're
right directions is partner,partner focused so it's a

Speaker 3 (01:45:07):
different type of we are always everywhere, so you I
think it's a great place for usto continue the conversation
about articulating your brandhere getting you out there more
okay perfect.
All right, I think that's thenext step I think you got to let
everybody know you're here tocultivate the community

(01:45:27):
grammarly won't write that forme, so I'm gonna send you some
questions.

Speaker 4 (01:45:31):
You can think, have a conversation that'll be
excellent, I appreciate.

Speaker 2 (01:45:37):
Okay, so we started the exercise.
We will finish the exercise,just this.
I think we have spent about 15minutes, looking at the time, or
maybe a little more than 15minutes.
Again, it's a blur for me, andjust what we spoke about in
those 15 minutes totally changedmy view of how to get the
message out.
I don't know how to do it.

(01:45:58):
I know what we need to do, notthe how, and also it gave me an
interesting perspective of whatwe're doing, fantastic.
So I appreciate that.

Speaker 3 (01:46:07):
That's what we're here for.

Speaker 2 (01:46:08):
No, I think that was.
I think I think it wasenlightening for me to go
through that brief exercisepersonally.

Speaker 3 (01:46:15):
Did you say we made progress today, Brad?

Speaker 2 (01:46:18):
We made progress, but we didn't make perfection.
Yes, brandy's now a friend.

Speaker 4 (01:46:24):
Here we go Perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:46:26):
That's good.
Well, brandy Tara, thank youvery much for taking the time to
speak with us today.
We greatly appreciate it.
I learned a lot from it and Ifeel energized about marketing
the podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:46:39):
Awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:46:39):
I appreciate what you've done with us.
If anyone's interested inlearning a little bit more about
Big Room or talking with youabout some of the opportunities
or services or help that you canprovide for partners, ISVs or
within the dynamic space, howcan they get in contact with you
?

Speaker 4 (01:46:55):
We are both on LinkedIn, or our first names at
bigroomcreativecom are our emailaddresses, and, or you will
find us at the conferences.
We will be at directions in allof our swag for different
customers.

Speaker 2 (01:47:12):
Excellent, excellent.
Again, thank you very much.
We appreciate your time and welook forward to seeing you in
Vegas.

Speaker 4 (01:47:18):
You will Awesome.
Talk to you soon, ciao, ciao,thanks.

Speaker 3 (01:47:21):
Chris, thanks, bye, bye.

Speaker 2 (01:47:24):
Thank you, chris, for your time for another episode
of In the Dynamics Corner Chair,and thank you to our guests for
participating.

Speaker 1 (01:47:32):
Thank you, brad, for your time.
It is a wonderful episode ofDynamics Corner Chair.
I would also like to thank ourguests for joining us.
Thank you for all of ourlisteners tuning in as well.
You can find Brad atdeveloperlifecom, that is
D-V-L-P-R-L-I-F-E dot com, andyou can interact with them via

(01:47:55):
Twitter D-V-L-P-R-L-I-F-E.
You can also find me atmatalinoio, m-a-t-a-l-i-n-o dot
I-O, and my Twitter handle ismatalino16.
And you can see those linksdown below in the show notes.
Again, thank you everyone.

(01:48:16):
Thank you and take care.

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