July 18, 2025 • 34 mins
Tim Fullerton and Chris Lombardo from Fullerton Strategies join the show to discuss their unique approach to marketing and brand building in today's digital landscape. They share insights from their extensive experience in political campaigns, corporate marketing, and podcast production.
• Offering "marketing team in a box" solutions for growing businesses at the cost of a mid-level marketer
• Implementing a strict "no-jerks policy" for both team members and clients
• Building two successful podcasts including "The Find Out" which has nearly half million downloads
• Creating platform-specific content strategies for different social media channels
• Exploring the impact of AI on marketing and the future of SEO
• Emphasizing consistency and clear value propositions as key elements of successful marketing
• Pursuing authenticity over exaggerated claims to build stronger brand connections
Visit fullertonstrategies.com or call (202) 215-3032 to learn more about their marketing services or follow Tim and Chris on social media( https://www.instagram.com/timfullerton/?hl=en) for more insights on authentic brand building.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place
where local businesses andneighbors come together.
Here's your host, Jeremy Wolf.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, hello, hello, friends, family, wonderful
community.
We are back with anotherepisode of the Good Neighbor
Podcast and you know we got afun one today.
Our guests Tim Fullerton andChris Lombardo with Fullerton
Strategies.
Chris actually lives in thesame neighborhood as I live in
Cooper City.
(00:32):
Literally, I could step outsidemy house, tee up a golf ball
and send it over to his house.
So when they say it's a smallworld, it really is and we're
actually both in similar spaces,we both do marketing and we
both do podcast production.
So this is going to be fun toget into this and learn a little
bit about what they do.
So, guys, welcome to the show,thanks for joining us, thanks
(00:54):
for having us.
Thanks, jeremy, of course, ofcourse, as I said before the
show, I'm a sucker for anythinglocal.
So when I found out that Chrislived here in the neighborhood,
I said you know what, eventhough we're in the same space,
I'm sure we have a lot to learnfrom each other.
Let's get you on the show andlearn a little bit about what
you do.
So, with that, tim, why don'tyou tell us a little bit about
the story behind FullertonStrategies?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Sure.
So it's kind of.
I have kind of a strangebackground in that I've had a
mix of political and businessexperience in my career so early
on and I will not dive into allof it because that will be the
entire show but I worked on thefirst Obama presidential
campaign and then I worked inhis administration for five
years.
I've worked for some nonprofitsand then I was also the chief
(01:38):
digital officer for the state ofNew York but then after that I
was a VP of marketing at WeWorkfor five years.
And so I have this interestingmix of both the political and
business.
And so when WeWork was obviouslypeople, a lot of people know
the story, but like it was ahighly evaluated company and
then kind of completely fellapart, I stayed for some of the
(01:59):
rebuilding and then it was clearthat we were headed towards
bankruptcy so I left and Idecided I didn't want a boss
anymore.
So I decided to play a shingleand it helped that I had a
friend reach out and say he wasdoing sales for an ai company
and needed marketing.
So I already had a first client, which is anybody who does one
of these is like that's thehardest one and then we were
(02:19):
kind of off to the races.
So we've done, you know, a mixmix of mostly B2B work.
We have some universitiesUniversity of Michigan as a
client but a lot of financialtechnology companies and you
know, we've just really had ablast doing it.
And our policy is we have ano-jerks policy, both for the
people who work here and thepeople we work with.
(02:40):
So we try to just work withgood people.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So we try to just work with good people, which
makes it a lot more fun,absolutely, man.
So we both know, working inmarketing, that there is a lot
of noise out there and there's alot of ways to reach people.
What specific areas are youfocusing in right now and I
talked to Chris briefly beforewe got on I know you're getting
bigger into the podcastproduction space, but what
(03:06):
typical types of services areyou offering to clients over at
Fullerton?
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yeah, I mean we pretty much have the whole.
We run the whole gamut ofofferings, everything from just
having an hour a monthconsulting call or really be
what we call the marketing teamin a box where basically,
basically for about the cost ofa full-time, probably mid-level
marketer, you can get the entireteam and all of our experience.
It's uh sort of the fractionalcmo model.
(03:32):
So you know, I sort of act asthe, as the advisor, and then
chris is the creative directorand then we have uh content
writers and uh project managersand things like that.
So we really look, we're reallylooking at, generally speaking,
larger, larger companies thatare maybe just getting their
first rounds of funding and arerealizing that just having a
(03:53):
salesperson is not going to cut.
So that's where we kind of comein and I kind of say, look, you
get the best experience fromsomebody who did digital and
marketing in the Obama world andthen also in the WeWork world,
which, while the WeWork worldwhich, while the WeWork
financial story isn't a greatone, I think it was a pretty
great brand success with thatuntil we see IPO stuff.
So we kind of operate a uniqueperspective and very, very
(04:16):
flexible, so you don't have tolock in with us for a really
long time.
We generally we can do thingson three, six month contracts
and sometimes one, so we try tobe as flexible as possible
because we know everyone's needsare kind of different.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
And now is this mostly everything you're doing?
Is it all online based?
Because a lot of what I do herelocally, in the community, I
think I'm hitting things from alittle bit of a different lens.
I put out a local communitypublication.
We do things in the digitalspace.
Obviously, I do things in thepodcast platform as well, but
everything that I'm doing isreally driven at integrating
(04:49):
business brands within localcommunities, grassroots local
networking, building trust andcredibility specifically in
these local communities.
Are you approaching everythingfrom the online space or do you
do anything like hyper locally?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
We haven't really done a lot hyper locally, chris,
maybe if you talk a little bitabout this, about some of the
projects we've got that areactually in your neighborhood,
but from my perspective Igenerally tend to look at it
from digital first and thenpotentially offline second.
We've talked to companies aboutdoing designs in their office
spaces, like visuals Doing whatSay again Visuals.
(05:31):
Basically, somebody came to usonce with a really kind of a
drab, terrible office and theywanted it livened up and so they
asked us for some.
I guess it's technicallyinterior design, even though
that's not really what we do.
I guess it's technicallyinterior design, even though
that's not really what we do.
So we've done some of that.
We've done some things forbooths, for people when they're
at conferences, like the sort ofstuff that hangs.
(05:52):
We've done videos forconferences, I think we've done
banners and things like that.
But generally speaking, we'vestayed mostly on the digital
side.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
We've done most.
I'd say most of the stuff we'vedone is either falls under
rebranding or websites Like wehave a new brand and then they
want to apply it to their ownwebsite, or we start from the
ground up build logos, buildidentities, the whole nine yards
.
It's been fun.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Got it Very cool.
So, man, I had a thought thatcame and it totally escaped me.
I wanted to ask about thepodcasting stuff.
So, first of all, how long I'mtrying to go through the math in
my head?
Fullerton Strategies when didyou launch Fullerton?
(06:41):
We launched it in 2023, sowe're just over two years, Okay,
so relatively, relatively new.
How long have you beenpodcasting for?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
So we, uh, we started podcasting last year.
Um, we started with a podcastcalled political good, which we
did completely in housepolitical good, yeah, because it
was, um, basically it was apodcast about business and tech
folks that are doing good in theworld.
And so we did that, uh, withone of our creative uh writers,
and chris produced the wholething.
(07:12):
Um, and then I had anopportunity to do another
podcast that was much highervisibility and it's called the
find out podcast, which is apolitical podcast because of my
background and, uh, we have donea lot of work on that one too.
That one we're getting close tohalf a million downloads since
March, so that one has reallykind of taken off.
(07:33):
The goal there is to sort ofrepresent men on the left slash,
left center, because I'mobviously on the left side based
on my background, and we're notdoing a great job winning
elections.
So we're doing.
I did that with four guys.
I met obviously on the leftside, based on my background,
and we're not doing a great jobwinning elections.
So we're doing.
I did that with four guys.
I met actually on TikTokthrough a campaign called the
White Dudes for Harris, which Ihelped organize last year, which
(07:53):
was one of those affinitygroups.
So we have been doing all kindsof work on that one Chris has
been working on.
We've got a really greatopening now, like yours, sort of
similar to what you you put onright before we came on uh.
So we're doing kind of end toend uh on the on the podcast
front at this point, but it'sreally been less, to be
perfectly honest, less than ayear that we've been, that we've
(08:14):
been at it yeah, I, I startedthis pretty much about, I think
about two years ago.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, now are you doing everything remote or do
you have?
Do you ever do anything live?
Because I've done good, I'vedone hundreds and hundreds of
these and they've all beenvirtual.
I've never actually had believeit or not, right?
I've done six, seven hundredpodcasts and I've never done
anything, yeah, actually live ina studio.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
It's all done remotely through stream yard so
yeah, so we, we, we primarilyare doing remote, like the guys
in the pod, like none of us livein the same city but close to
somebody lives in Westchester,but then everyone else is across
the country.
But we did have everybody comein and actually we met in
Westchester and we did two inperson with a crew, and it was
(08:58):
really interesting.
The dynamics are completelydifferent when you're in a room
with somebody and you're able toreally, like you know, bounce
off their energy and stuff.
And then Chris also has donesome.
We're we're working with acompany right now to start a
podcast that they get.
They're doing entirely Well andit's mostly in person.
So we've got to kind ofexperience doing both.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, interested to learn, learn about the podcast
production angle, because that'ssomething that when I started
doing the podcast, it was reallyan extension of what I was
doing through the localpublication.
It's the Good Neighbor podcastplatform.
We have local business ownerson the platform to really talk
about what they do, the storybehind what they do.
(09:42):
Again, speaking to this idea ofbuilding the know, like and
trust factor in these localcommunities, I actually did a
podcast with a local businessbroker in the community Shout
out Russell Cohen.
If you need to sell a business,he's fantastic.
Or if you're looking to buy abusiness, as well, and he really
.
He didn't have much use tomarket to thousands of
(10:02):
homeowners in Cooper City forhis particular business because
it's a very niche type ofbusiness.
But he loved the idea of thepodcast and he asked me he's
like, hey, what about thepodcast?
Can we do something there?
And I didn't really thoughtabout offering it as a
standalone and I kind of lookedat it and I said, yeah, I guess
I could do that and that waskind of the launch of my podcast
production business, if youwill.
(10:24):
So it's been interesting.
It's never something I reallyintended upon doing, necessarily
, but it's an incredibly usefultool in so many different facets
and I'd be curious to learn alittle bit about your perception
of the platform and how itrelates to what we do in
(10:44):
marketing and networking andkind of building our own
personal brands through theplatform no-transcript to
(11:24):
everything that you were saying.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
So like your audiences will be will be
smaller at first, but there'sjust so much like you could just
deepen the engagement with yourcustomers or your supporters or
whatever, if you really getthem into it, especially if
you're providing something ofvalue.
And the other piece is just thethe uh, embarrassment of riches
of short clips that getproduced out of this as well.
Right, it's not just aboutpodcasting, getting people to
(11:47):
listen for a good chunk of time,it's also like being able to
cut up those clips social mediasocial right.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah, that keeps giving.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
It's just a river of content, right, and you know
that is essentially like for thefind out podcast.
We're like our socials, forthat are really mostly at this
point, just clips that we'regenerating and pushing out and
growing that way.
So people see these littleclips and they're like, oh, I
want to learn more about thisand then that's the way to sort
of build it, but it is.
It does take a lot of work, um,but it is very, very rewarding
(12:17):
and and the roi is very strongif you have an angle and you
have a unique perspective thatpeople want to hear and you can
get that audience like it will,it will pay off big time yeah,
yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I want to pull, pull chris into the conversation here
as, as the creative director,this is something and I want to
get his feedback on this,because this is something that
I've been looking into and I'vealso had my own struggles with
and maybe he has some insights.
It goes back to being able tocreate all these clips for
social media.
We're very active posting andobviously that stuff can be an
(12:49):
incredible rabbit hole and it'seasy to kind of get in the habit
of just taking a podcastepisode and then using the AI
software to cut it up into clipsand then schedule it out on
these platforms.
But each platform has their ownnuances and different shades
and color, right?
So like just taking a clip andrepurposing it into the same
thing and then posting onLinkedIn, twitter, all these
(13:11):
different places doesn'tnecessarily have the same effect
, have you and I?
I kind of fault myself for kindof jumping in and trying to be
everywhere all at once insteadof really focusing on specific
platforms.
What has been your experience,chris, in really navigating the
different algorithms that runall these platforms, trying to
maximize the posts that we'reputting out there?
Speaker 4 (13:33):
um well, I notice, for instance, tiktok uh prefers
more raw style.
They don't want that like that.
No one.
Tiktok is responding to theslick motion graphics and yeah,
it's not the produce stuff, it'syeah lower production there.
Yep, uh.
As far as linkedin, I noticelike obviously that's a more
(13:56):
professional environment.
Uh, production wise, thatraises the raises the bar.
I think it's kind of aninteresting place on linkedin.
Instagram kind of feels likeboth, but it feels like there
should be more personalinteraction and more like hey,
hey guys, this is my chat,versus saying, uh, you know,
(14:18):
just here's a clip that wepumped out of this hour long
episode.
It feels it should be moreone-on-one kind of.
I feel like Instagram typicallyhas a feel where we are talking
to the influencer or the ownerof the account, where we want to
call it, where it just seemsmore personal and TikTok seems
more promotional and LinkedInsounds more rigid and structured
(14:42):
with far more.
I'm saying you want to appearthe most professional on
LinkedIn.
There's more professionalaspects there.
There's more things happeningthere.
Instagram, tiktok off morepersonal so are there?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
are there certain?
With all that said, obviouslyare.
Are there certain episodes thatyou pull content with from for
certain platforms, or are youjust kind of repurposing very
similar to what I'm doing andputting it out on all these
different channels?
Are you dressing each clip upfrom an episode to fit the
platform?
How does that typically workfor you?
(15:20):
I'm asking this because I'mcurious myself, because I'm
always trying to learn and getmore engagement.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Yeah, typically most times it's the same clip around
there.
There's obviously some clipsthat work better on one platform
than the other.
Uh, I've had pretty bad luckhaving the ai software just
export the clips that thingswould be interesting.
Uh, they seem kind of flat inthe sense you don't really
(15:49):
sometimes the the questionitself is cut off, or I don't
like relying on just whatever isautomatically generated.
So I spend a good chunk of mytime watching the episode,
finding the clips and exportingthose individually versus, you
know, just relying on Riversideor StreamYard to do its thing.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
It's easy.
It's easy to get.
Yeah, we're creatures of habitand we work towards
comfortability.
So once you find something thatworks very quickly, as these AI
programs do, it becomes veryeasy to set it and forget it and
just get in the habit ofcutting stuff up and kind of
scheduling it out, overlookingthe fact that you need to kind
of dig into each piece ofcontent and make sure it's
(16:30):
optimized for the channel thatyou're putting it through.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
It's a fascinating time to dothis.
Attention spans are so short.
We've been trained on this 16to 30 second snippet and
sometimes I skip a clip if it'staking too long to wind up to
the point, or I'll chop out thenonsense that's in there and
(16:57):
just kind of have the pointright after the clip.
It's kind of interesting.
It's a new place to be.
Humanity's never been herebefore.
So we're all navigatingtogether how to kind of get our
content out to the most amountof people.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
It truly is a fascinating time.
I just started using andplaying around with chat, gpt, I
don't know, a year, year and ahalf ago.
I started initially using itfor the magazine right and then
bouncing off ideas, and itstarted with kind of me writing
something and then putting it inthere and having it fix it up.
And now it's gotten to thepoint where this thing is like
(17:36):
my therapy, like whatever I need, whatever I need help with, I
just go to it and it seems likethe default mechanism or the
default behavior for these AIsystems is always positive
reinforcement, right, like nomatter what I'm doing, no matter
what challenge I'm having,right, I'll come and talk to it.
And it's like don't worry, it'sreassuring to me and it's
always trying to find positivesolutions.
(17:57):
And the other day I kind of gotfrustrated because it felt like
it was giving me a positivefeedback loop and I want some
criticism sometimes.
So I asked that I said can yougive me some honest critique
here?
Don't just butter my biscuitsall day long.
And so, oh, you want me to takethe gloves off.
Okay, I got you, jeremy.
It proceeded to give me themost accurately scathing
(18:19):
critique of where I'm at in mylife right now, with everything
I'm doing, and it was likechilling to read, and I called
back for a moment.
I said I said that was scary,how accurate that was.
How did you do that?
Is that, jeremy?
I'm just mirroring what youalready know about yourself.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Yeah, yeah, I'm like hey, yeah, it's creepy, I uh, I
still, I still support it.
My, uh, I'm pretty sure uh, wefound my wife's uh cancer and
rheumatoid arthritis because ofchat GPT.
No, no doctor took herseriously.
She was far too young.
I started loading in testresults and kind of symptoms and
(18:55):
all this stuff and it kind ofjust gave me the gloves-off
version of what's going on withher.
So it took like that research Iwouldn't say research, but like
a quote of PubMed and all thatstuff and I had to bring it to
doctors to take it seriously forher.
So I think this tool isabsolutely fascinating.
What's going on?
I I'm scared of it because ofthe positive reinforcement.
(19:18):
I think a little bit might justbe kind of, you know, the world
needs its own handholdindividual assistant and and
that might lead to some weirdterritory if we're all thinking
we're all doing awesome all thetime.
I think that's bad.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Gpt is um, they they want people to keep coming back
right.
So giving people positivesinstead of negatives, uh, I
think is one of the reasonsthey've trained it that way.
But one thing that's you knowthere's great examples like
chris mentioned like that is anawesome use, but for marketers,
you know that chat cpt is goingto decimate seo in the next few
years and that I think whylooking at podcasts now is so
(19:55):
important because Googlesearches are are going to start
dropping, because people arejust going to ask AI the
questions instead of like askingGoogle, and then it gives me a
list and I have to go look now.
All I have to do is type thething in and I get the answer
right away Like and so that SEOtraffic I think you know, think
you're going to be seeing theresults of people already
(20:16):
starting to see it drop.
That's why you've got to belooking at other platforms like
this right to build the clipsand to do long form, because
you're not going to be able torely on that organic search
traffic for very much longer,and especially if Google goes
back to their sort of droppingAI answers at the top, which
they did last year, to horriblefailure actually, because it was
basically hallucinating so muchand making things up that it
(20:38):
wasn't wasn't worth it.
Like someone asked it, how doyou make like soup out of rocks?
And it gave them a recipe forit, Like it's great stuff like
that, but that was a year agoand things are completely
different.
So you know, if you're seeingSEO traffic drop, it's it's
likely because people arestarting to get on.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
It's interesting.
I was looking for aneuromuscular dentist.
I asked ChatGPT where do I needto go?
It gave me the outline of whatI should look for in a
neuromuscular dentist.
I said, all right, find onelocally near me.
And it gave me people.
But it gave me half.
Those people weren't evendentists, they were like there
(21:29):
was just a guy on I mean medicalpractitioner.
But chat gpt got it wrong onthat level.
So it I worry how much we relyon it.
But I also, uh, I'm fascinatedby what's coming and what's
capable here.
Um, if we never google searchagain and have you know, all
(21:49):
other alexas telling us what weeven know, that's it's pretty
wild time.
I I don't know if, uh, I don'tknow where it's going no one
does I I have.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
I have noticed that as well.
You start to think, when youuse it all the time, that
everything it's giving you, allthe information, is 100%
accurate, and that's just nottrue, because that's not how
large language models work.
I ran into something recentlywith that.
I'm trying to learn musictheory through chat.
I love playing music and I'vebeen playing guitar most of my
life, on and off, and I've neverreally learned music.
(22:21):
So I'm really kind of diggingin and it was.
It was spitting out some scalesthe other day and I was trying
to play it and there was a notein one of the scales that didn't
seem like it fit in that scaleand I said, chad, why did you
say that earlier?
In that?
And they're.
Oh, you're absolutely right,jeremy, I made a mistake because
of this, this and this goodcatch.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
So it was actually feeding me incorrect information
.
At least I recognized it.
I think that's dangerous ifwe're all taking fact, as you
know, this thing as fact,because it's just an aggregation
of all our nonsense Likeeverything that's wrong can also
be spat through the chat.
Gbt.
Sorry, no, go ahead, Chris.
Go ahead.
I was asking it.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
You know, I make music as well.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Funny enough I, chris , go ahead.
I was asking it.
You know I make music as well.
Funny enough, I'm freaky outhere in a little recording
studio.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Oh, we're going to get together and jam my brother.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Absolutely.
But uh, I was asking it to.
Uh, I was actually askingClaude, the other one.
Um, you know, I want to build avcv filter and it's like no
problem, here's how to build avcv filter.
But vcv was the brand name ofthe software I was using.
(23:35):
It's not an actual term to beused.
So it's like yeah, confidentlysaying like absolutely, yes,
here's how to build a vcb thatdoesn't exist.
Vcb is just the name of thesoftware.
So they I do correct and say no, vcb is the name of the
software, check this website out, check out how the programming
works, and then it built it.
But like I had to still aninfant, I still have to coach
(23:56):
and saying like no, this issomething totally different.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Really wild well, and the thing that most people
don't know is that that thesechat bots are trained to answer
the question, whether they knowthe answer or not, and that's
the important part here.
That's what that's called.
The hallucinating is that itmakes stuff up.
If it doesn't know, it doesn'tjust say I don't know, it will.
So you have to be very, verycareful with that stuff, because
it could lead you down a pretty, pretty dangerous path if you
(24:22):
take everything it says for facevalue.
Yeah, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
I mean, that's where kids are going.
That's that's what scares methe most.
Like I got a, I've got abrother who's 10 years younger,
and like things are just not ingoogle anymore, they're just fed
into ai and it's like, bro,like you're, you're, you're
getting all the bad stuff too.
It's not necessarily you'relooking for the stuff that you
need, but it's interesting.
Weird times, guys, weird times,it really is.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I get the feeling that this goes to all these
dystopian movies they made aboutAI.
I get the feeling that we'reall so enamored and enthralled
by this technology and all we dois have you?
Have you used chat gpt?
It's amazing.
None of that does all this isand we're like we're laughing
our way to our demise right it'samazing and it's gonna be the
(25:14):
death of us ultimately, rightyeah, yeah, terminator, the
terminator, yeah as long as itdoesn't become self-aware right,
that's the problem.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
As long as it doesn't become self-aware right, that's
the problem.
Woo.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Maybe it'll do it better.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
I want to pull this back.
Excuse me.
This is who I got chilling withme the whole time.
He's really excited you have aco-host.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
We didn't even know.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
All right, charlie, go over there.
I want to pull this back tosomething that could be useful
for business owners, becausethat's really what we do, is
help businesses build theirbrand.
What would you say or whatwould be the best piece of
advice that you'd give tosomeone trying to grow their
(25:58):
brand today?
I know for me, I speak to a lot,a lot, a lot, a lot of local
business owners and most of myclient base.
They're really small,medium-sized business owners
that really haven't necessarilyscaled yet, and many of them are
just all over the place when itcomes to this stuff.
I mean, they don't know whatthey're doing when it comes to
marketing.
They're all out there lookingfor the magic bullet right, the
(26:22):
one thing that you can do that'sgoing to give you.
You know, you can put a quarterinto the ROI machine and then
out the other side you get $10and it just doesn't work like
that.
What would be some advice youcan give to the business owner
out there that is trying to getit together in terms of their
marketing and their branding?
Speaker 3 (26:40):
I would say consistency and really getting
your value locked in.
Why should somebody give youmoney for whatever you offer,
whether it's a service or it's aproduct?
Being able to boil that downinto a very short and clear
explanation is the mostimportant thing, I think.
(27:01):
And then it's really justfiguring out what channels work
for you and stick with them andfind a cadence that works for
you.
Because what I find is I thinkyou know, chris would say the
same thing we get these clientsthat are super into it, but then
they realize what a slog it isand it's very difficult.
Like they're like I'm going topost twice a week on LinkedIn
(27:22):
for the rest of my life, andthey do it for like two weeks
and then they run out of ideas,so and then they stop and I
think that's actually worse thandoing nothing.
So, like I think that you justneed to.
You need to set a cadence andjust and really, uh, hammer home
that value, prop, um, and thenyou know kind of testing and
seeing what's working, and thenjust ditch the stuff that
(27:45):
doesn't and stick with the stuffthat does.
I mean, it sounds simple, butit's, it's really.
It can be that simple I'd say I.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
I've been doing design and web and rebranding
and all this stuff about 20years now.
I started when I was was like18.
It's been a while and I can'ttell you how many people come at
me with ideas and it feels likeyou know, the world's best
pizza sign that you see on everypizza shop.
(28:18):
Like everyone seems to havethat mentality because they're
in business and trying to like,market themselves and say, oh,
we're the best, we're the best,we're the best.
I've always felt it's moreauthentic and more real if it's
authentic, if it's not sayinglike, oh, you're not.
(28:39):
Cooper City, florida.
I guarantee this one pizza shopdoes not have the world's best
pizza, but it might be damn goodand I think damn good feels
better to a customer than tryingto promote themselves as we're
the best, we're the best, we'rethe best.
It feels very inauthentic andstrange Whenever I receive a
(29:01):
copy or something that says bestin the world, premier marketing
, blah, blah, blah, blah, blahit's.
It feels like nonsense to meand that's kind of as someone
behind the curtain.
That nonsense doesn't translateto a consumer or a customer.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, it feels disingenuous.
It feels disingenuous.
It feels disingenuous andpeople crave.
They want authenticity.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Yep, and if it's disingenuous, I think that we
all have an instinct.
We might not recognize it, butwe are all in 2025, we are all
consumers and there's no waythat the world's best pizza shop
applies to every pizza shop.
That's, that's.
That's how I see it.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Indeed.
So what would be?
Before we wrap up here, whatwould be one thing you'd like to
leave our listeners with?
I'll ask this of you, Tim.
It could be related to what youdo in terms of the marketing
(30:12):
branding, or just like a pieceof life wisdom, a little nugget
that you'd like to leaveeveryone with.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Oh boy, that's a big one.
I could spend a lot of time onthat, on both ends, I mean, I
think, jeremy, what you saidabout authenticity I think it's
the most important thing inbusiness right now is that
people want to follow brandsthat they like and they trust
and support, and by doing that,you have to be authentic.
(30:40):
Like the ones that don't, theytend to go to the wayside.
So I think that works fornational brands as well as local
brands.
So I think, just being yourauthentic self and putting
yourself out there instead oftrying to be something you're
not.
I'll give you a great example.
When I first started thisbusiness, I was looking at every
(31:01):
LinkedIn.
I was looking at all thesegrowth hackers and seeing what
they were doing and I was like,oh my God, I got to do all this
stuff.
So I was doing all thisridiculous stuff and I hated it
and it wasn't working.
And then I finally was like,well, screw this, I'm just going
to tell you, I'm going to writemy own talk.
And then, all of a sudden, Igot all kinds of incoming for
the business and I think it'sbecause then that people realize
(31:22):
like, oh, that's Tim.
Like I know that, I know thatguy, like whatever that was
before with, like you know theamount of posts and like you
know you must comment 50 timesbefore you put all the stars.
It's like I'm just going tospeak from the heart and I think
that's what people want.
So I think whatever you do, inwhatever business, being
authentic is the overarchingnumber one priority, and then
(31:43):
that makes other pieces fallinto place.
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
You said it better than my pizza shop idea, but
yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Good stuff, all right .
Well, I guess we'll leave it atthat miss about not really
digging in more into the thepast, uh, political, the past,
political life.
But I didn't, I didn't knowthat I necessarily wanted to go
down that rabbit hole today, um,and and get into the politics.
Maybe we'll do another episodesometime we could, we can get
(32:14):
into the politics, or maybe not,I don't know, we'll see where
it goes yeah, it's a little.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
It's a little the, the, that political stuff in the
pod that I do now find out isis partisan.
So it can, it can go uh, thatdiscussion can go sideways
depending.
But I think the only thing I'llsay about that with us is like
we're not, we're not fighters,uh, we're like trying to talk to
people authentically as well.
It just that it works for thattoo, and I think that's why that
(32:39):
podcast has had, I think I saidlike half a million downloads
so far, is that when they listen, they could tell that what
we're saying, we believe, and Ithink that's been a lot of
battle.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
It's a fascinating podcast, in my opinion.
Like it's, it speaks toauthenticity and what we are, I
think, all feeling on some levelon both sides, like there is,
uh, you know, something gotmissed and mistranslated along
the way.
I don't know if that's becauseof our social media presence or
not our, but like the world'shabit of social media and quick
(33:13):
information, and it just seemsit's speaking to some form of
truth and it's not.
It's interesting.
That's all I can say.
Yeah, yeah for sure.
All right, gentlemen.
Well it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
That's all I can say.
Yeah, for sure.
All right, gentlemen.
Well, it was a pleasure gettingthe opportunity to meet you.
I'm sure, chris, I know we'llbe seeing each other living in
the same neighborhood.
Absolutely Sounds good.
All right, everyone.
Thanks so much for tuning inand we will catch you all next
time on the next episode of theGood Neighbor Podcast.
Everyone, take care, have awonderful day.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Thanks everybody.
Thanks for listening to theGood Neighbor Podcast Cooper
City.
To nominate your favorite localbusiness to be featured on the
show, go to GNPCooperCitycom.
That's GNPCooperCitycom, orcall 954-231-3170.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place
where local businesses andneighbors come together.
Here's your host, Jeremy Wolf.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, hello, hello, friends, family, wonderful
community.
We are back with anotherepisode of the Good Neighbor
Podcast and you know we got afun one today.
Our guests Tim Fullerton andChris Lombardo with Fullerton
Strategies.
Chris actually lives in thesame neighborhood as I live in
Cooper City.
(00:32):
Literally, I could step outsidemy house, tee up a golf ball
and send it over to his house.
So when they say it's a smallworld, it really is and we're
actually both in similar spaces,we both do marketing and we
both do podcast production.
So this is going to be fun toget into this and learn a little
bit about what they do.
So, guys, welcome to the show,thanks for joining us, thanks
(00:54):
for having us.
Thanks, jeremy, of course, ofcourse, as I said before the
show, I'm a sucker for anythinglocal.
So when I found out that Chrislived here in the neighborhood,
I said you know what, eventhough we're in the same space,
I'm sure we have a lot to learnfrom each other.
Let's get you on the show andlearn a little bit about what
you do.
So, with that, tim, why don'tyou tell us a little bit about
the story behind FullertonStrategies?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Sure.
So it's kind of.
I have kind of a strangebackground in that I've had a
mix of political and businessexperience in my career so early
on and I will not dive into allof it because that will be the
entire show but I worked on thefirst Obama presidential
campaign and then I worked inhis administration for five
years.
I've worked for some nonprofitsand then I was also the chief
(01:38):
digital officer for the state ofNew York but then after that I
was a VP of marketing at WeWorkfor five years.
And so I have this interestingmix of both the political and
business.
And so when WeWork was obviouslypeople, a lot of people know
the story, but like it was ahighly evaluated company and
then kind of completely fellapart, I stayed for some of the
(01:59):
rebuilding and then it was clearthat we were headed towards
bankruptcy so I left and Idecided I didn't want a boss
anymore.
So I decided to play a shingleand it helped that I had a
friend reach out and say he wasdoing sales for an ai company
and needed marketing.
So I already had a first client, which is anybody who does one
of these is like that's thehardest one and then we were
(02:19):
kind of off to the races.
So we've done, you know, a mixmix of mostly B2B work.
We have some universitiesUniversity of Michigan as a
client but a lot of financialtechnology companies and you
know, we've just really had ablast doing it.
And our policy is we have ano-jerks policy, both for the
people who work here and thepeople we work with.
(02:40):
So we try to just work withgood people.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So we try to just work with good people, which
makes it a lot more fun,absolutely, man.
So we both know, working inmarketing, that there is a lot
of noise out there and there's alot of ways to reach people.
What specific areas are youfocusing in right now and I
talked to Chris briefly beforewe got on I know you're getting
bigger into the podcastproduction space, but what
(03:06):
typical types of services areyou offering to clients over at
Fullerton?
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yeah, I mean we pretty much have the whole.
We run the whole gamut ofofferings, everything from just
having an hour a monthconsulting call or really be
what we call the marketing teamin a box where basically,
basically for about the cost ofa full-time, probably mid-level
marketer, you can get the entireteam and all of our experience.
It's uh sort of the fractionalcmo model.
(03:32):
So you know, I sort of act asthe, as the advisor, and then
chris is the creative directorand then we have uh content
writers and uh project managersand things like that.
So we really look, we're reallylooking at, generally speaking,
larger, larger companies thatare maybe just getting their
first rounds of funding and arerealizing that just having a
(03:53):
salesperson is not going to cut.
So that's where we kind of comein and I kind of say, look, you
get the best experience fromsomebody who did digital and
marketing in the Obama world andthen also in the WeWork world,
which, while the WeWork worldwhich, while the WeWork
financial story isn't a greatone, I think it was a pretty
great brand success with thatuntil we see IPO stuff.
So we kind of operate a uniqueperspective and very, very
(04:16):
flexible, so you don't have tolock in with us for a really
long time.
We generally we can do thingson three, six month contracts
and sometimes one, so we try tobe as flexible as possible
because we know everyone's needsare kind of different.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
And now is this mostly everything you're doing?
Is it all online based?
Because a lot of what I do herelocally, in the community, I
think I'm hitting things from alittle bit of a different lens.
I put out a local communitypublication.
We do things in the digitalspace.
Obviously, I do things in thepodcast platform as well, but
everything that I'm doing isreally driven at integrating
(04:49):
business brands within localcommunities, grassroots local
networking, building trust andcredibility specifically in
these local communities.
Are you approaching everythingfrom the online space or do you
do anything like hyper locally?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
We haven't really done a lot hyper locally, chris,
maybe if you talk a little bitabout this, about some of the
projects we've got that areactually in your neighborhood,
but from my perspective Igenerally tend to look at it
from digital first and thenpotentially offline second.
We've talked to companies aboutdoing designs in their office
spaces, like visuals Doing whatSay again Visuals.
(05:31):
Basically, somebody came to usonce with a really kind of a
drab, terrible office and theywanted it livened up and so they
asked us for some.
I guess it's technicallyinterior design, even though
that's not really what we do.
I guess it's technicallyinterior design, even though
that's not really what we do.
So we've done some of that.
We've done some things forbooths, for people when they're
at conferences, like the sort ofstuff that hangs.
(05:52):
We've done videos forconferences, I think we've done
banners and things like that.
But generally speaking, we'vestayed mostly on the digital
side.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
We've done most.
I'd say most of the stuff we'vedone is either falls under
rebranding or websites Like wehave a new brand and then they
want to apply it to their ownwebsite, or we start from the
ground up build logos, buildidentities, the whole nine yards
.
It's been fun.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Got it Very cool.
So, man, I had a thought thatcame and it totally escaped me.
I wanted to ask about thepodcasting stuff.
So, first of all, how long I'mtrying to go through the math in
my head?
Fullerton Strategies when didyou launch Fullerton?
(06:41):
We launched it in 2023, sowe're just over two years, Okay,
so relatively, relatively new.
How long have you beenpodcasting for?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
So we, uh, we started podcasting last year.
Um, we started with a podcastcalled political good, which we
did completely in housepolitical good, yeah, because it
was, um, basically it was apodcast about business and tech
folks that are doing good in theworld.
And so we did that, uh, withone of our creative uh writers,
and chris produced the wholething.
(07:12):
Um, and then I had anopportunity to do another
podcast that was much highervisibility and it's called the
find out podcast, which is apolitical podcast because of my
background and, uh, we have donea lot of work on that one too.
That one we're getting close tohalf a million downloads since
March, so that one has reallykind of taken off.
(07:33):
The goal there is to sort ofrepresent men on the left slash,
left center, because I'mobviously on the left side based
on my background, and we're notdoing a great job winning
elections.
So we're doing.
I did that with four guys.
I met obviously on the leftside, based on my background,
and we're not doing a great jobwinning elections.
So we're doing.
I did that with four guys.
I met actually on TikTokthrough a campaign called the
White Dudes for Harris, which Ihelped organize last year, which
(07:53):
was one of those affinitygroups.
So we have been doing all kindsof work on that one Chris has
been working on.
We've got a really greatopening now, like yours, sort of
similar to what you you put onright before we came on uh.
So we're doing kind of end toend uh on the on the podcast
front at this point, but it'sreally been less, to be
perfectly honest, less than ayear that we've been, that we've
(08:14):
been at it yeah, I, I startedthis pretty much about, I think
about two years ago.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, now are you doing everything remote or do
you have?
Do you ever do anything live?
Because I've done good, I'vedone hundreds and hundreds of
these and they've all beenvirtual.
I've never actually had believeit or not, right?
I've done six, seven hundredpodcasts and I've never done
anything, yeah, actually live ina studio.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
It's all done remotely through stream yard so
yeah, so we, we, we primarilyare doing remote, like the guys
in the pod, like none of us livein the same city but close to
somebody lives in Westchester,but then everyone else is across
the country.
But we did have everybody comein and actually we met in
Westchester and we did two inperson with a crew, and it was
(08:58):
really interesting.
The dynamics are completelydifferent when you're in a room
with somebody and you're able toreally, like you know, bounce
off their energy and stuff.
And then Chris also has donesome.
We're we're working with acompany right now to start a
podcast that they get.
They're doing entirely Well andit's mostly in person.
So we've got to kind ofexperience doing both.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, interested to learn, learn about the podcast
production angle, because that'ssomething that when I started
doing the podcast, it was reallyan extension of what I was
doing through the localpublication.
It's the Good Neighbor podcastplatform.
We have local business ownerson the platform to really talk
about what they do, the storybehind what they do.
(09:42):
Again, speaking to this idea ofbuilding the know, like and
trust factor in these localcommunities, I actually did a
podcast with a local businessbroker in the community Shout
out Russell Cohen.
If you need to sell a business,he's fantastic.
Or if you're looking to buy abusiness, as well, and he really
.
He didn't have much use tomarket to thousands of
(10:02):
homeowners in Cooper City forhis particular business because
it's a very niche type ofbusiness.
But he loved the idea of thepodcast and he asked me he's
like, hey, what about thepodcast?
Can we do something there?
And I didn't really thoughtabout offering it as a
standalone and I kind of lookedat it and I said, yeah, I guess
I could do that and that waskind of the launch of my podcast
production business, if youwill.
(10:24):
So it's been interesting.
It's never something I reallyintended upon doing, necessarily
, but it's an incredibly usefultool in so many different facets
and I'd be curious to learn alittle bit about your perception
of the platform and how itrelates to what we do in
(10:44):
marketing and networking andkind of building our own
personal brands through theplatform no-transcript to
(11:24):
everything that you were saying.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
So like your audiences will be will be
smaller at first, but there'sjust so much like you could just
deepen the engagement with yourcustomers or your supporters or
whatever, if you really getthem into it, especially if
you're providing something ofvalue.
And the other piece is just thethe uh, embarrassment of riches
of short clips that getproduced out of this as well.
Right, it's not just aboutpodcasting, getting people to
(11:47):
listen for a good chunk of time,it's also like being able to
cut up those clips social mediasocial right.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah, that keeps giving.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
It's just a river of content, right, and you know
that is essentially like for thefind out podcast.
We're like our socials, forthat are really mostly at this
point, just clips that we'regenerating and pushing out and
growing that way.
So people see these littleclips and they're like, oh, I
want to learn more about thisand then that's the way to sort
of build it, but it is.
It does take a lot of work, um,but it is very, very rewarding
(12:17):
and and the roi is very strongif you have an angle and you
have a unique perspective thatpeople want to hear and you can
get that audience like it will,it will pay off big time yeah,
yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I want to pull, pull chris into the conversation here
as, as the creative director,this is something and I want to
get his feedback on this,because this is something that
I've been looking into and I'vealso had my own struggles with
and maybe he has some insights.
It goes back to being able tocreate all these clips for
social media.
We're very active posting andobviously that stuff can be an
(12:49):
incredible rabbit hole and it'seasy to kind of get in the habit
of just taking a podcastepisode and then using the AI
software to cut it up into clipsand then schedule it out on
these platforms.
But each platform has their ownnuances and different shades
and color, right?
So like just taking a clip andrepurposing it into the same
thing and then posting onLinkedIn, twitter, all these
(13:11):
different places doesn'tnecessarily have the same effect
, have you and I?
I kind of fault myself for kindof jumping in and trying to be
everywhere all at once insteadof really focusing on specific
platforms.
What has been your experience,chris, in really navigating the
different algorithms that runall these platforms, trying to
maximize the posts that we'reputting out there?
Speaker 4 (13:33):
um well, I notice, for instance, tiktok uh prefers
more raw style.
They don't want that like that.
No one.
Tiktok is responding to theslick motion graphics and yeah,
it's not the produce stuff, it'syeah lower production there.
Yep, uh.
As far as linkedin, I noticelike obviously that's a more
(13:56):
professional environment.
Uh, production wise, thatraises the raises the bar.
I think it's kind of aninteresting place on linkedin.
Instagram kind of feels likeboth, but it feels like there
should be more personalinteraction and more like hey,
hey guys, this is my chat,versus saying, uh, you know,
(14:18):
just here's a clip that wepumped out of this hour long
episode.
It feels it should be moreone-on-one kind of.
I feel like Instagram typicallyhas a feel where we are talking
to the influencer or the ownerof the account, where we want to
call it, where it just seemsmore personal and TikTok seems
more promotional and LinkedInsounds more rigid and structured
(14:42):
with far more.
I'm saying you want to appearthe most professional on
LinkedIn.
There's more professionalaspects there.
There's more things happeningthere.
Instagram, tiktok off morepersonal so are there?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
are there certain?
With all that said, obviouslyare.
Are there certain episodes thatyou pull content with from for
certain platforms, or are youjust kind of repurposing very
similar to what I'm doing andputting it out on all these
different channels?
Are you dressing each clip upfrom an episode to fit the
platform?
How does that typically workfor you?
(15:20):
I'm asking this because I'mcurious myself, because I'm
always trying to learn and getmore engagement.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Yeah, typically most times it's the same clip around
there.
There's obviously some clipsthat work better on one platform
than the other.
Uh, I've had pretty bad luckhaving the ai software just
export the clips that thingswould be interesting.
Uh, they seem kind of flat inthe sense you don't really
(15:49):
sometimes the the questionitself is cut off, or I don't
like relying on just whatever isautomatically generated.
So I spend a good chunk of mytime watching the episode,
finding the clips and exportingthose individually versus, you
know, just relying on Riversideor StreamYard to do its thing.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
It's easy.
It's easy to get.
Yeah, we're creatures of habitand we work towards
comfortability.
So once you find something thatworks very quickly, as these AI
programs do, it becomes veryeasy to set it and forget it and
just get in the habit ofcutting stuff up and kind of
scheduling it out, overlookingthe fact that you need to kind
of dig into each piece ofcontent and make sure it's
(16:30):
optimized for the channel thatyou're putting it through.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
It's a fascinating time to dothis.
Attention spans are so short.
We've been trained on this 16to 30 second snippet and
sometimes I skip a clip if it'staking too long to wind up to
the point, or I'll chop out thenonsense that's in there and
(16:57):
just kind of have the pointright after the clip.
It's kind of interesting.
It's a new place to be.
Humanity's never been herebefore.
So we're all navigatingtogether how to kind of get our
content out to the most amountof people.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
It truly is a fascinating time.
I just started using andplaying around with chat, gpt, I
don't know, a year, year and ahalf ago.
I started initially using itfor the magazine right and then
bouncing off ideas, and itstarted with kind of me writing
something and then putting it inthere and having it fix it up.
And now it's gotten to thepoint where this thing is like
(17:36):
my therapy, like whatever I need, whatever I need help with, I
just go to it and it seems likethe default mechanism or the
default behavior for these AIsystems is always positive
reinforcement, right, like nomatter what I'm doing, no matter
what challenge I'm having,right, I'll come and talk to it.
And it's like don't worry, it'sreassuring to me and it's
always trying to find positivesolutions.
(17:57):
And the other day I kind of gotfrustrated because it felt like
it was giving me a positivefeedback loop and I want some
criticism sometimes.
So I asked that I said can yougive me some honest critique
here?
Don't just butter my biscuitsall day long.
And so, oh, you want me to takethe gloves off.
Okay, I got you, jeremy.
It proceeded to give me themost accurately scathing
(18:19):
critique of where I'm at in mylife right now, with everything
I'm doing, and it was likechilling to read, and I called
back for a moment.
I said I said that was scary,how accurate that was.
How did you do that?
Is that, jeremy?
I'm just mirroring what youalready know about yourself.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Yeah, yeah, I'm like hey, yeah, it's creepy, I uh, I
still, I still support it.
My, uh, I'm pretty sure uh, wefound my wife's uh cancer and
rheumatoid arthritis because ofchat GPT.
No, no doctor took herseriously.
She was far too young.
I started loading in testresults and kind of symptoms and
(18:55):
all this stuff and it kind ofjust gave me the gloves-off
version of what's going on withher.
So it took like that research Iwouldn't say research, but like
a quote of PubMed and all thatstuff and I had to bring it to
doctors to take it seriously forher.
So I think this tool isabsolutely fascinating.
What's going on?
I I'm scared of it because ofthe positive reinforcement.
(19:18):
I think a little bit might justbe kind of, you know, the world
needs its own handholdindividual assistant and and
that might lead to some weirdterritory if we're all thinking
we're all doing awesome all thetime.
I think that's bad.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Gpt is um, they they want people to keep coming back
right.
So giving people positivesinstead of negatives, uh, I
think is one of the reasonsthey've trained it that way.
But one thing that's you knowthere's great examples like
chris mentioned like that is anawesome use, but for marketers,
you know that chat cpt is goingto decimate seo in the next few
years and that I think whylooking at podcasts now is so
(19:55):
important because Googlesearches are are going to start
dropping, because people arejust going to ask AI the
questions instead of like askingGoogle, and then it gives me a
list and I have to go look now.
All I have to do is type thething in and I get the answer
right away Like and so that SEOtraffic I think you know, think
you're going to be seeing theresults of people already
(20:16):
starting to see it drop.
That's why you've got to belooking at other platforms like
this right to build the clipsand to do long form, because
you're not going to be able torely on that organic search
traffic for very much longer,and especially if Google goes
back to their sort of droppingAI answers at the top, which
they did last year, to horriblefailure actually, because it was
basically hallucinating so muchand making things up that it
(20:38):
wasn't wasn't worth it.
Like someone asked it, how doyou make like soup out of rocks?
And it gave them a recipe forit, Like it's great stuff like
that, but that was a year agoand things are completely
different.
So you know, if you're seeingSEO traffic drop, it's it's
likely because people arestarting to get on.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
It's interesting.
I was looking for aneuromuscular dentist.
I asked ChatGPT where do I needto go?
It gave me the outline of whatI should look for in a
neuromuscular dentist.
I said, all right, find onelocally near me.
And it gave me people.
But it gave me half.
Those people weren't evendentists, they were like there
(21:29):
was just a guy on I mean medicalpractitioner.
But chat gpt got it wrong onthat level.
So it I worry how much we relyon it.
But I also, uh, I'm fascinatedby what's coming and what's
capable here.
Um, if we never google searchagain and have you know, all
(21:49):
other alexas telling us what weeven know, that's it's pretty
wild time.
I I don't know if, uh, I don'tknow where it's going no one
does I I have.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
I have noticed that as well.
You start to think, when youuse it all the time, that
everything it's giving you, allthe information, is 100%
accurate, and that's just nottrue, because that's not how
large language models work.
I ran into something recentlywith that.
I'm trying to learn musictheory through chat.
I love playing music and I'vebeen playing guitar most of my
life, on and off, and I've neverreally learned music.
(22:21):
So I'm really kind of diggingin and it was.
It was spitting out some scalesthe other day and I was trying
to play it and there was a notein one of the scales that didn't
seem like it fit in that scaleand I said, chad, why did you
say that earlier?
In that?
And they're.
Oh, you're absolutely right,jeremy, I made a mistake because
of this, this and this goodcatch.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
So it was actually feeding me incorrect information
.
At least I recognized it.
I think that's dangerous ifwe're all taking fact, as you
know, this thing as fact,because it's just an aggregation
of all our nonsense Likeeverything that's wrong can also
be spat through the chat.
Gbt.
Sorry, no, go ahead, Chris.
Go ahead.
I was asking it.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
You know, I make music as well.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Funny enough I, chris , go ahead.
I was asking it.
You know I make music as well.
Funny enough, I'm freaky outhere in a little recording
studio.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Oh, we're going to get together and jam my brother.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Absolutely.
But uh, I was asking it to.
Uh, I was actually askingClaude, the other one.
Um, you know, I want to build avcv filter and it's like no
problem, here's how to build avcv filter.
But vcv was the brand name ofthe software I was using.
(23:35):
It's not an actual term to beused.
So it's like yeah, confidentlysaying like absolutely, yes,
here's how to build a vcb thatdoesn't exist.
Vcb is just the name of thesoftware.
So they I do correct and say no, vcb is the name of the
software, check this website out, check out how the programming
works, and then it built it.
But like I had to still aninfant, I still have to coach
(23:56):
and saying like no, this issomething totally different.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Really wild well, and the thing that most people
don't know is that that thesechat bots are trained to answer
the question, whether they knowthe answer or not, and that's
the important part here.
That's what that's called.
The hallucinating is that itmakes stuff up.
If it doesn't know, it doesn'tjust say I don't know, it will.
So you have to be very, verycareful with that stuff, because
it could lead you down a pretty, pretty dangerous path if you
(24:22):
take everything it says for facevalue.
Yeah, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
I mean, that's where kids are going.
That's that's what scares methe most.
Like I got a, I've got abrother who's 10 years younger,
and like things are just not ingoogle anymore, they're just fed
into ai and it's like, bro,like you're, you're, you're
getting all the bad stuff too.
It's not necessarily you'relooking for the stuff that you
need, but it's interesting.
Weird times, guys, weird times,it really is.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I get the feeling that this goes to all these
dystopian movies they made aboutAI.
I get the feeling that we'reall so enamored and enthralled
by this technology and all we dois have you?
Have you used chat gpt?
It's amazing.
None of that does all this isand we're like we're laughing
our way to our demise right it'samazing and it's gonna be the
(25:14):
death of us ultimately, rightyeah, yeah, terminator, the
terminator, yeah as long as itdoesn't become self-aware right,
that's the problem.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
As long as it doesn't become self-aware right, that's
the problem.
Woo.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Maybe it'll do it better.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
I want to pull this back.
Excuse me.
This is who I got chilling withme the whole time.
He's really excited you have aco-host.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
We didn't even know.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
All right, charlie, go over there.
I want to pull this back tosomething that could be useful
for business owners, becausethat's really what we do, is
help businesses build theirbrand.
What would you say or whatwould be the best piece of
advice that you'd give tosomeone trying to grow their
(25:58):
brand today?
I know for me, I speak to a lot,a lot, a lot, a lot of local
business owners and most of myclient base.
They're really small,medium-sized business owners
that really haven't necessarilyscaled yet, and many of them are
just all over the place when itcomes to this stuff.
I mean, they don't know whatthey're doing when it comes to
marketing.
They're all out there lookingfor the magic bullet right, the
(26:22):
one thing that you can do that'sgoing to give you.
You know, you can put a quarterinto the ROI machine and then
out the other side you get $10and it just doesn't work like
that.
What would be some advice youcan give to the business owner
out there that is trying to getit together in terms of their
marketing and their branding?
Speaker 3 (26:40):
I would say consistency and really getting
your value locked in.
Why should somebody give youmoney for whatever you offer,
whether it's a service or it's aproduct?
Being able to boil that downinto a very short and clear
explanation is the mostimportant thing, I think.
(27:01):
And then it's really justfiguring out what channels work
for you and stick with them andfind a cadence that works for
you.
Because what I find is I thinkyou know, chris would say the
same thing we get these clientsthat are super into it, but then
they realize what a slog it isand it's very difficult.
Like they're like I'm going topost twice a week on LinkedIn
(27:22):
for the rest of my life, andthey do it for like two weeks
and then they run out of ideas,so and then they stop and I
think that's actually worse thandoing nothing.
So, like I think that you justneed to.
You need to set a cadence andjust and really, uh, hammer home
that value, prop, um, and thenyou know kind of testing and
seeing what's working, and thenjust ditch the stuff that
(27:45):
doesn't and stick with the stuffthat does.
I mean, it sounds simple, butit's, it's really.
It can be that simple I'd say I.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
I've been doing design and web and rebranding
and all this stuff about 20years now.
I started when I was was like18.
It's been a while and I can'ttell you how many people come at
me with ideas and it feels likeyou know, the world's best
pizza sign that you see on everypizza shop.
(28:18):
Like everyone seems to havethat mentality because they're
in business and trying to like,market themselves and say, oh,
we're the best, we're the best,we're the best.
I've always felt it's moreauthentic and more real if it's
authentic, if it's not sayinglike, oh, you're not.
(28:39):
Cooper City, florida.
I guarantee this one pizza shopdoes not have the world's best
pizza, but it might be damn goodand I think damn good feels
better to a customer than tryingto promote themselves as we're
the best, we're the best, we'rethe best.
It feels very inauthentic andstrange Whenever I receive a
(29:01):
copy or something that says bestin the world, premier marketing
, blah, blah, blah, blah, blahit's.
It feels like nonsense to meand that's kind of as someone
behind the curtain.
That nonsense doesn't translateto a consumer or a customer.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, it feels disingenuous.
It feels disingenuous.
It feels disingenuous andpeople crave.
They want authenticity.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Yep, and if it's disingenuous, I think that we
all have an instinct.
We might not recognize it, butwe are all in 2025, we are all
consumers and there's no waythat the world's best pizza shop
applies to every pizza shop.
That's, that's.
That's how I see it.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Indeed.
So what would be?
Before we wrap up here, whatwould be one thing you'd like to
leave our listeners with?
I'll ask this of you, Tim.
It could be related to what youdo in terms of the marketing
(30:12):
branding, or just like a pieceof life wisdom, a little nugget
that you'd like to leaveeveryone with.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Oh boy, that's a big one.
I could spend a lot of time onthat, on both ends, I mean, I
think, jeremy, what you saidabout authenticity I think it's
the most important thing inbusiness right now is that
people want to follow brandsthat they like and they trust
and support, and by doing that,you have to be authentic.
(30:40):
Like the ones that don't, theytend to go to the wayside.
So I think that works fornational brands as well as local
brands.
So I think, just being yourauthentic self and putting
yourself out there instead oftrying to be something you're
not.
I'll give you a great example.
When I first started thisbusiness, I was looking at every
(31:01):
LinkedIn.
I was looking at all thesegrowth hackers and seeing what
they were doing and I was like,oh my God, I got to do all this
stuff.
So I was doing all thisridiculous stuff and I hated it
and it wasn't working.
And then I finally was like,well, screw this, I'm just going
to tell you, I'm going to writemy own talk.
And then, all of a sudden, Igot all kinds of incoming for
the business and I think it'sbecause then that people realize
(31:22):
like, oh, that's Tim.
Like I know that, I know thatguy, like whatever that was
before with, like you know theamount of posts and like you
know you must comment 50 timesbefore you put all the stars.
It's like I'm just going tospeak from the heart and I think
that's what people want.
So I think whatever you do, inwhatever business, being
authentic is the overarchingnumber one priority, and then
(31:43):
that makes other pieces fallinto place.
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
You said it better than my pizza shop idea, but
yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Good stuff, all right .
Well, I guess we'll leave it atthat miss about not really
digging in more into the thepast, uh, political, the past,
political life.
But I didn't, I didn't knowthat I necessarily wanted to go
down that rabbit hole today, um,and and get into the politics.
Maybe we'll do another episodesometime we could, we can get
(32:14):
into the politics, or maybe not,I don't know, we'll see where
it goes yeah, it's a little.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
It's a little the, the, that political stuff in the
pod that I do now find out isis partisan.
So it can, it can go uh, thatdiscussion can go sideways
depending.
But I think the only thing I'llsay about that with us is like
we're not, we're not fighters,uh, we're like trying to talk to
people authentically as well.
It just that it works for thattoo, and I think that's why that
(32:39):
podcast has had, I think I saidlike half a million downloads
so far, is that when they listen, they could tell that what
we're saying, we believe, and Ithink that's been a lot of
battle.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
It's a fascinating podcast, in my opinion.
Like it's, it speaks toauthenticity and what we are, I
think, all feeling on some levelon both sides, like there is,
uh, you know, something gotmissed and mistranslated along
the way.
I don't know if that's becauseof our social media presence or
not our, but like the world'shabit of social media and quick
(33:13):
information, and it just seemsit's speaking to some form of
truth and it's not.
It's interesting.
That's all I can say.
Yeah, yeah for sure.
All right, gentlemen.
Well it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
That's all I can say.
Yeah, for sure.
All right, gentlemen.
Well, it was a pleasure gettingthe opportunity to meet you.
I'm sure, chris, I know we'llbe seeing each other living in
the same neighborhood.
Absolutely Sounds good.
All right, everyone.
Thanks so much for tuning inand we will catch you all next
time on the next episode of theGood Neighbor Podcast.
Everyone, take care, have awonderful day.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Thanks everybody.
Thanks for listening to theGood Neighbor Podcast Cooper
City.
To nominate your favorite localbusiness to be featured on the
show, go to GNPCooperCitycom.
That's GNPCooperCitycom, orcall 954-231-3170.
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