April 6, 2025 • 26 mins
In this episode of The D2Z Podcast, Brandon Amoroso speaks with Steven Sakach about the intersection of Gen Z entrepreneurship and empathetic marketing. Steven shares his journey in the digital marketing space, emphasizing the importance of building love into scalable systems and the need for authenticity in marketing. They discuss the transition from a service-based organization to a software company, the implementation of a pod structure for better employee engagement, and the significance of understanding customer emotions. The conversation also touches on the challenges of navigating advertising channels, the pros and cons of bootstrapping versus VC funding, and the future of marketing in an AI-driven world.
Here's What You'll Learn:
❗Empathetic marketing is essential for engagement.
❗Building love into business systems can enhance employee satisfaction.
❗A pod structure can foster collaboration and passion among team members.
❗Defining a higher purpose is crucial for business direction.
❗Younger generations prioritize authenticity and meaning in their work.
❗AI is rapidly evolving and impacting marketing strategies.
❗Understanding customer emotions can lead to better marketing outcomes.
❗Bootstrapping allows for greater control over business vision.
❗Authenticity is key to resonating with modern consumers.
❗The future of marketing will rely on emotional connections.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to the Gen Z Mindset
03:12 Stephen's Entrepreneurial Journey and Conscious Marketing
06:01 Transitioning from Services to Software
08:54 Implementing a Pod Structure in Business
12:03 The Importance of Empathy in Marketing
15:02 Understanding Customer Emotions
17:59 Navigating Advertising Channels and Technologies
20:56 Bootstrapping vs. VC Funding in Business
24:03 Conclusion and Future Directions
Stephen Sakach:
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-sakach-3181aa28b/
ZeroCompany:
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/company/zero-company-performance-marketing/
Website - https://www.zerocompany.com/
Brandon Amoroso:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonamoroso/
Web - https://brandonamoroso.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bamoroso11/
X - https://twitter.com/AmorosoBrandon
Scalis.ai - https://scalis.ai/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everyone.
Thanks for tuning in to D2Z, apodcast about using the Gen Z
mindset to grow your business.
I'm Gen Z entrepreneur, BrandonAmoroso, the former founder of
Electra, now co-founder ofScaleless, and today I'm talking
with Steven Sikach, who's thefounder and CEO of Xero Company,
as well as the co-founder andCEO of AICMO.
Thanks for coming on the show.
Good to be here.
I'm looking forward to theconversation.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
So Thanks for coming on the show.
Good to be here.
I'm looking forward to theconversation.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
So before we dive into everything, can you give
everybody just a quickbackground on your
entrepreneurial journey and thetwo different companies you're
currently running?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah for sure.
So we're in the digitalmarketing space and I remember
like years ago, maybe a coupleof decades ago, going to this
consciousness seminar, you know,where we're talking about
things like oneness and stagesof consciousness and integral
theory, and you know all thesedifferent philosophies and stuff
(00:54):
.
Like well, how are you going toapply this to your business?
Back then it's like well, we dolike a Google ad, you know, for
people and this is like 20years ago or so You've got like
one headline, a couple ofdescriptions.
How do you fit, you know,higher consciousness,
consciousness into that?
And really, kind of the journeyhas been, yeah, how do you do
(01:20):
that?
And especially coming from amarketing standpoint.
So you know it was just askingthat question over and over
until we're like, oh really,it's all these other things
around your business that, um,you can do, maybe from like a
lot of people familiar with likea conscious capitalist approach
to stuff you know.
And for us it really becamekind of this journey.
(01:43):
We've got this mantra thatwe've always used, um called
bliss, which is build love intoscalable systems, so kind of the
standpoint, and so we just kindof put that to work for us from
the marketing standpoint.
So what does that mean whenwe're building love into, you
know, marketing, or into oursystems, and it's just really
(02:05):
dive into every part of yourbusiness, and you start thinking
about that question, which Ithink is an important one.
Today, especially, there'sGallup studies showing that only
23% of employees are engagedworldwide.
That's a tragedy worldwide,right, that's a tragedy.
(02:30):
You know that 77% are active,you know, either not engaged or
actively engaged.
It's just, and we spend so muchtime in our lives, you know, at
business doing business, and tohave people so disengaged with
that it's like well, why?
And so, from a marketingstandpoint, for us it was really
about how can we help buildmeaning into companies, how can
(02:52):
we help build love in companies?
And so we started asking thatquestion a lot more and it
really became this sort ofempathetic, you know, marketing
approach to how we do that.
So, yeah, long story short, thatended up kind of directing our
agency, and then we built thissoftware that we just launched
(03:14):
recently, the AI Chief MarketingOfficer, and really what it was
designed was trying to buildthat empathetic marketing kind
of leadership that we wanted,you know, from a tool standpoint
, we could build like an chiefmarketing officer that you know
we love to work with.
What would that look like?
And so we started building thatout and spent about a couple
(03:37):
years doing that, and it'sreally focusing on kind of that,
that empathetic approach that Italked to about marketing,
trying to make emotionalconnections, and one of the ways
we do that is it starts outwith trying to help you define
your business's higher purpose,and that's really a good place
(04:00):
to start if you're trying tofind meaning in what you do is
defining that, and you probablytalked about that a bit on this
show, for sure how, what was theprocess like, trying to take
what you do from a servicesstandpoint and then get that
into the software.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
And also, you know, leverage ai, which obviously is
all the all the buzz over thelast 18 to 24 months.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, yeah and with ai too, it's like it's changing
rapidly as you're going along,right.
So you're like, okay, what arewe going to build that won't be
replaced by, like microsoftco-pilot in you know a couple
years, or that the technologywon't even exist, because you
know open AI has solved thatproblem or whatever.
So you've got kind of thismoving target that you kind of
(04:50):
have to feel ahead of the curve.
But really for us it was likewhat is our process?
You know, for any given client,if we could give them as much
expertise and build it into asingle tool, what would that
look like?
And so it was breaking downeach of these elements into
separate tools and there'sprobably like a hundred
(05:12):
different tools in there.
That it does, but no one's goingto want to use something that's
like a hundred different tools.
So it's like, okay, we've gotabout a hundred different things
that can do.
How can we boil that down tomaybe 10 different things in a
tool and take you through thisprocess so that will leverage
maybe about 100 different expertapproaches to marketing in
(05:35):
there.
Right, do that.
And then, along with our mantraof trying to build love into a
scalable system, how can we dothis so that it helps companies
build love into what they'redoing and tell those, and tell
those, uh, those kinds ofstories that are um much more
connected.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
What's it been like making the transition from
running a services or to asoftware company?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, we're still like so it's really becoming
sort of another part of ourcompany, right, it's sort of a
branch out of our company andit's like the interesting part
is we've almost got like thisworking lab of marketers that we
can test the tools on all thetime so we can iterate and
things like that.
So that's um been exciting.
(06:23):
And then the same time frametoo, we're also like you know,
maybe we're a little crazy, butwe're we're kind of reorganizing
our company to be more likeself-managed, um kind of pod
structures, which is, you know,kind of the sort of next level
kind of business structure atthe same time.
So, um, which really helped usto kind of bring everybody
(06:46):
together in different ways withtheir expertise, um, so that
we've got our ai dev teamtalking to our sales people or
talking to our marketers and,you know, really working
together and that.
So it's been.
It's been, you know, certainlya challenge, but it's been fun.
Um, actually, this has probablybeen the most fun I've had in
(07:07):
the past couple years trying togo through this whole process
you mentioned transitioning intolike a, a pod structure.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Can you talk a little bit more about that and what
that actually entails and howthat might be different from how
most businesses are set up?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
yeah, I think most and this is part of that problem
that we talked about with that,you know, engagement.
They're like this hierarchicalstructure, right, where it's
sort of top down, you knoweveryone cracking down the
hierarchy on each other, and soI think that starts with
leadership, kind ofunderstanding that, no, now
you're actually in service toyour teams, to your employees,
(07:46):
right, and so that, really, youkind of have to start with
leadership modeling, eq andbeing empathetic and kind of
understanding some of that,because what you're going to
then do is allow people thatyou're serving to become leaders
themselves, and so you've got,for us, it'd be like different
(08:09):
marketing execs or salespeoplethat come together in these
different pod structures andreally allows them to almost
find what they love the most.
You know, hey, I, like I'mworking with, instead of working
in, kind of, a silo doing myjob, now I'm working with this
team, and one of the silo doingmy job now I'm working with this
team, and one of the teammembers says, hey, I really love
doing this.
Another team person might be,oh yeah, I hate that you take
(08:32):
all that work and now I reallylove doing this other end.
So what you end up having,though, is people who end up
being very much more passionateabout their different roles in
there, and I think that reallyreally does help that engagement
process that we have, and it'sjust been fun seeing people
participate in new ways thatthey haven't before.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, I think putting the ownership in the team
members is always a good call,no matter how you go about
actually putting that intopractice, and so long as they're
willing to take that on butalso a little bit more
accountability.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
And then this is where, really going back to
having that purpose in yourbusiness, where, if you have a
well-defined purpose, thatbecomes kind of the boss right
For everyone.
It's like this is the guiderails.
How we get there, we don't know, but this is the guide rails,
right, is this entire purposethat you're doing?
So that really allowsleadership a little bit to step
back, let go and let them find away to that, that purpose, and
(09:43):
so you know, that becomes thatfreedom part that we talked
about.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
so that's been a fun process, but, yeah, we're doing
that in the middle of everythingelse we're doing what have been
some of like the biggestgotchas, you would say, along
your entrepreneurial journeythat, uh, you took away as
pretty big learning lessons thatyou've leveraged over time.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Biggest gotchas business person is really
thinking empathetically as muchas you can, um, because you can
have great ideas and you know itmay not resonate and so, like,
resonance is sort of everything,I think, especially when it
comes to marketing, right?
Um, you want stories thatresonate, but also you want a
(10:36):
job with meaning.
You know that resonates withpeople, and since you know we're
kind of talking gen z, I feellike the younger generation they
kind of get this more andfaster, you know, than previous
generations.
So, because of all the workother generations have done, but
you know, going back tostudying consciousness, they're
(10:57):
coming up to a place ofconsciousness much faster, much
quicker, and so meaning becomesmuch more important early on in
in lives.
You know, and so you're lookingfor a job that resonates with
you.
You're looking for, you know,meaning, and now we've got even
(11:18):
younger generations who aregoing to be pretty much waking
up in the AI algorithm space.
They're born with this, they'reraised by the feed and taught
to consume, I guess, anddefinitely the most marketed to
generations in history, right,because it's constantly coming
(11:40):
at people now, and so you know,they know every trick, they know
when they're being manipulatedand they know when something
doesn't sound authentic a loteasier, right.
And so I think, really goingback to that purpose in your
company and kind ofunderstanding sort of a North
Star so that you can be about it, it's just the sooner you can
(12:04):
figure that out with yourcompany, I think, the better off
you're going to be.
And so it did take us a whilejust to figure that out, because
it's like, how do we developthese higher consciousness
thoughts into doing ads?
It wasn't an easy journey, butI think we made some good
strides there.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I feel like the BS detector that consumers have now
for marketing is way higherthan what it used to be, and so
the bar is so much greater fororganizations, whether it be to
be or be to see yeah, it's likethey think maybe the younger
generation even are like they'renot anti.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
It's like they think maybe the younger generations
even are like they're notanti-business, they're anti-BS
right, they don't.
They don't hate brands, theyhate inauthenticity, right, it's
just it's because it doesn'tresonate.
You know, they reject beingmanipulated, and so I think the
future of marketing it's reallygot to go to that more of that
(13:00):
authentic space.
You've got to be about it.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, when you're working with the business, how
do you go about extracting fromthem the information that you
need to be able to help themdeploy successful you know,
empathetic marketing campaigns?
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yeah.
So that's really kind of whatwe tried to build out quite a
bit in the um, ai, cmo tool,which is, I think, starting with
kind of digging down intopurpose um first.
And so we've got we've got kindof a tool in there that you
could either spend an hour withor five minutes with, depending
on how much time you want tospend with it.
But it's really like help usdefine a general purpose for you
(13:41):
in some way that resonates withyou.
It doesn't have to be the mostyou know eloquent purpose,
necessarily out of the gates,but if we can at least use that
as a guide rail, then we canthen kind of move on to a next
step is like okay, well, how canwe do, uh, something that will
emotionally connect with youraudience?
(14:03):
And so most marketers you startwith that basic customer
journey.
You know kind of exercise,right right, like what are they
going through in this customerjourney?
And so we've really tried totake that to more of a what are
the emotions they're feelingduring these different stages?
Because really that's kind ofthe key part of that is
(14:25):
empathetic marketing.
It's just how people feel, Ithink, when you get to that
process of advertising to them,there's all different ways they
feel.
Then, when they're actuallyconsuming that product, there's
all different ways they feel.
And then when they're actuallyconsuming that product, there's
the consumption emotions, right,and this is where they can
either be your biggest advocate,right, and your brand
(14:48):
ambassador and all these things,if you hit it right, if you,
you know, bring them somesurprise or some delight kind of
emotions in there and pull thatout of it, um and or they can
be like, you know, on socialmedia.
This is trash.
I don't like this all the line.
Now it's you got the oppositeproblem right, but so we're
going through that process ofeven the consumption emotions
(15:09):
Like, how can we?
We have a surprise and delighttool in there?
It's like, how can we help youbuild something into your
business that taps into thoseemotions so that the experience
people are having is one thatreally takes them to the next
level?
Because if you can build anemotional connection there's
studies out there you'll get306% improved lifetime value
(15:35):
over a satisfied customer.
That's over a satisfiedcustomer's over a satisfied
customer.
But if you make that extra stepto really try and emotionally
connect with them, this is whereyou do find those communities
around brands and things likethat right when it comes to like
actually deploying a campaign,what are your typical channels
(16:00):
that you're you're workingthrough with organizations and
are you typically doing like b2bor it'll depend.
So, yeah, it'll depend on what'skind of in their best interest.
So, um, you, obviously I justthink you kind of want to start
with the, the low-h fruit,whatever that may be for you.
But if it's a business, maybeyour audience is on LinkedIn,
(16:23):
right, but they're probably alsodoing some kind of search on
Google as well, of some type,and those searches might be in
different stages of that.
Maybe they're just educatingthemselves right now, or maybe
they're trying to choose betweentwo products or something.
So you have different stagesthat they're at even in those
(16:46):
searches, and so you want to beable to speak to each of those
stages so that you're relevantto them and you're emotionally
connecting to them.
Um, so, but we do, yeah, we,we'll do everything from search
to you know, any social channel,uh, to programmatic advertising
, which is maybe, um, maybe,like your hulu, you know, tv
(17:07):
kind of things.
Programmatic is really the areawhere you get into things can
get really creepy with with thiskind of stuff.
You can do that.
You can just target individual.
You know, if there's 10 houseson this street, I want to target
that one specific house, forwhatever reason, right, and
because our phones, our phonesare so, um, they tell us a lot
(17:29):
about ourselves programmatic.
It has a lot of stuff there, wejust have to be careful.
It's like where's the line ofcreepy and, um, helping people
sometimes that gets a littleblurry, but we're like no,
that's creepy I swear my phoneis listening to me.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I mean, the amount of times that I have gotten an
instagram ad or something abouta conversation that I was having
, you know, 45 minutes before,is uh.
It's adding up to the pointwhere you know I, I, you're like
something's not right here.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
But yeah, and what's interesting is like you can take
your phone into like yourfriend's house or something and
suddenly now you're seeing an adthat's directed just to you.
It's like wait a minute, howdid that happen?
Um, but there's literally, Imean there's ways you can do
that kind of stuff where it'sjust like you know, I don't know
what year we are now it's justgetting crazy.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
We're in the future.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
We've got AI, we've got, you know, ads tracking us
around everywhere.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Are there any like new tools, technologies,
advertising platforms thatyou're excited about this year?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
advertising platforms , that that you're excited about
this year.
Well, certainly, I think, um,you know, we've been, we've been
in ai a lot, like even before,like this new, you know, sort of
generative ai phase.
So, for you know, a decade orso, if you're doing any kind of
google ad or any other you knowplatform, you're working with ai
to some extent.
Um, and I'd say there'sprobably some individual tools
(19:01):
in certain platforms that can beused really uniquely.
Like google, for instance, youknow, you got like their
performance max or some kind ofcampaign or a demand chain
campaign, and you can either usethose horribly wrong or you can
, you know, use them.
Uh, exactly right, and it'll dosome very sophisticated stuff
where, um, you know, if you'retrying to, if you're buying a
(19:24):
car, you're getting touched.
Probably you've got about 700touch points in that buying
process, right, which is kind ofcrazy if you think about it.
And so, um, humans, we can onlyhelp market to some extent.
You know, along those differenttouch points and try and build
that out.
But, uh, at some point, ai isreally going to be pretty
(19:45):
brilliant at understanding allof those and figuring out where
you are.
So that's where some of, Ithink, some of the platforms are
getting better at.
So you know, not necessarily anindividual platform, but some
of that technology is reallyimproving.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yeah, it feels like every day there's a new update
or some sort of advancement thatwe're able to leverage in some
way.
I mean, like maybe half of whatwe have in our platform right
now would not have been possiblea year ago, because either the
the accuracy or the price orjust the actual functionality
(20:22):
that it is providing wasn'tthere, and it's just seeming to
multiply on itself even more so,yeah, yeah, and for us, when
we're developing the ai chiefmarketing officer tool, really
we were focusing on thisempathetic approach and we knew
one of the key elements is, thecloser it can be to human senses
(20:44):
, the better it's going to beright.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And then along came that sort of vision element
right in that developmentprocess, and so we didn't start
out.
We said this is going to comealong at some point where ai is
going to be able to see and tellyou stuff about it.
So we kind of programmed a bitaround that until the
capabilities came.
And then we're like, yes, nowthis is perfect, we want this
vision to be seen in our toolsso that you can upload basically
(21:08):
any kind of picture and say,hey, here's my marketing problem
, help me fix this, and it'll doit from expert level, um, no
matter what that is.
So it could be.
Hey, here's my trade show booth,right?
Um, how can I improve this?
Or here's my window display, uh, how can I, you know, improve
that?
Or even the interior of mystore or my restaurant.
So now you've given ai thisvision so that it can be a
(21:30):
little bit more empathetic inkind of solving that problem.
So it's cool watching some ofthese developments come along.
But as it gets these more humansenses or capabilities, then I
think it'll have more ability tobe empathetic, the way we want
it.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Is your new software product.
Is that all bootstrapped or didyou raise outside funding for
that?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, that, that all bootstrapped or did you raise
outside funding for that?
Yeah, that was all bootstrapped.
Um developed it from uh.
Then what?
About two, two years almost umworking through that process and
really we launched um uh, itwas about a month and a half ago
, so six weeks ago or so, whenwe kind of soft launch Um, but
(22:17):
yeah, that was.
You know, it's not an easyprocess to do, but the nice
thing is like we already had afunctioning business and, like I
said, our working lab ofmarketers where we can test
things and iterate things andactually use these tools to make
our marketing better at thesame time.
Things and actually use thesetools to make our marketing
better at the same time.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
So you know, it wasn't like being sort of cold
turkey starting out from nothing, which is very it's much harder
to do.
What would you say are like thepros and cons of that approach?
I mean obviously buildingwithin.
You know the service offeringthat you currently are providing
has its own advantages, butbeing able to take profits and
(22:56):
revenue from other sources andthen invest that in the software
.
I've heard pros and cons frompeople going to raise the VC
route and then also justbootstrapping.
I think bootstrapping ispicking up more and more steam
over the last two years as VCfunding has either dried up or
it's been a little bit lessglamorized than it was
historically.
(23:17):
But what are your thoughts onthat?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, I think for us, because we're really in a way
trying to do something that'sreally about kind of radical
love in business if we can, andso for us to kind of be
caretakers of that visionwithout it being, you know,
pulled in one direction oranother, I think that's a huge
(23:42):
benefit for us.
As far as bootstrapping going towork if you know we're coming
from, say like a consciouscapitalist approach or maybe a
level above that as well um, asfar as business consciousness
and we've got, say, someinvestment, um company that's,
(24:03):
you know, more in thetraditional approach to things
where it's just gonna, it's justnot gonna work, um, and if you
studied, like some of theseorganizations that are sort of
those next level businesses thatwork, and when they don't work,
it's when they bring someone inwho's kind of not seeing eye to
eye on that consciousness part,right, and then it's just
(24:25):
everything just startsdisconnecting and falling apart.
So that's to me it's like allright, we want to kind of make
our case, if we can, on our own,without having to be influenced
.
You know, one way or another,there are good conscious VC
folks out there as well thatwill be along with you in that
(24:46):
journey too, so I think youcould probably find that route,
but it's much rarer.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Yeah, I mean, there's bad money and there's good
money for sure.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
So yeah, exactly, we're like just being able to
control the vision.
I think is really important tous right now well.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I really appreciate you hopping on and sharing all
these insights with us, butbefore we jump, can you let
people know where they couldconnect or find you online, and
also the the types of businessesthat you typically work with as
well?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
yeah, um, go to aicmoio that's the uh artificial
intelligence marketing officerum software there.
Um, really, we test it with anykind of business, so the
crazier the better.
We think it's just fun becauseit's like, oh wow, how can you
build love into this type ofbusiness?
Or come, find a purpose forthis type of business, and
(25:40):
sometimes those are the onesthat are impacted the most, and
so we're trying to test it onevery type of business we come
across just to see how it reacts.
So, yeah, go there, check thatout.
Our digital agency,zerocompanycom, z-e-r-o company,
zerocom.
Check us out there if you needany, if you're trying to tell
(26:02):
you know more of a emotionallyconnecting story with your
business, you know in thedigital space, we'd love to help
you about that.
That's what we're all about.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Awesome.
Well, again, thank you forcoming on.
I really appreciate it Foreverybody who's listening.
As always, this is BrandonAmoroso.
You can find me atbrandonamorosocom or scalistai.
Thanks for listening and we'llsee you next time.
Hey everyone.
Thanks for tuning in to D2Z, apodcast about using the Gen Z
mindset to grow your business.
I'm Gen Z entrepreneur, BrandonAmoroso, the former founder of
Electra, now co-founder ofScaleless, and today I'm talking
with Steven Sikach, who's thefounder and CEO of Xero Company,
as well as the co-founder andCEO of AICMO.
Thanks for coming on the show.
Good to be here.
I'm looking forward to theconversation.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
So Thanks for coming on the show.
Good to be here.
I'm looking forward to theconversation.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
So before we dive into everything, can you give
everybody just a quickbackground on your
entrepreneurial journey and thetwo different companies you're
currently running?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah for sure.
So we're in the digitalmarketing space and I remember
like years ago, maybe a coupleof decades ago, going to this
consciousness seminar, you know,where we're talking about
things like oneness and stagesof consciousness and integral
theory, and you know all thesedifferent philosophies and stuff
(00:54):
.
Like well, how are you going toapply this to your business?
Back then it's like well, we dolike a Google ad, you know, for
people and this is like 20years ago or so You've got like
one headline, a couple ofdescriptions.
How do you fit, you know,higher consciousness,
consciousness into that?
And really, kind of the journeyhas been, yeah, how do you do
(01:20):
that?
And especially coming from amarketing standpoint.
So you know it was just askingthat question over and over
until we're like, oh really,it's all these other things
around your business that, um,you can do, maybe from like a
lot of people familiar with likea conscious capitalist approach
to stuff you know.
And for us it really becamekind of this journey.
(01:43):
We've got this mantra thatwe've always used, um called
bliss, which is build love intoscalable systems, so kind of the
standpoint, and so we just kindof put that to work for us from
the marketing standpoint.
So what does that mean whenwe're building love into, you
know, marketing, or into oursystems, and it's just really
(02:05):
dive into every part of yourbusiness, and you start thinking
about that question, which Ithink is an important one.
Today, especially, there'sGallup studies showing that only
23% of employees are engagedworldwide.
That's a tragedy worldwide,right, that's a tragedy.
(02:30):
You know that 77% are active,you know, either not engaged or
actively engaged.
It's just, and we spend so muchtime in our lives, you know, at
business doing business, and tohave people so disengaged with
that it's like well, why?
And so, from a marketingstandpoint, for us it was really
about how can we help buildmeaning into companies, how can
(02:52):
we help build love in companies?
And so we started asking thatquestion a lot more and it
really became this sort ofempathetic, you know, marketing
approach to how we do that.
So, yeah, long story short, thatended up kind of directing our
agency, and then we built thissoftware that we just launched
(03:14):
recently, the AI Chief MarketingOfficer, and really what it was
designed was trying to buildthat empathetic marketing kind
of leadership that we wanted,you know, from a tool standpoint
, we could build like an chiefmarketing officer that you know
we love to work with.
What would that look like?
And so we started building thatout and spent about a couple
(03:37):
years doing that, and it'sreally focusing on kind of that,
that empathetic approach that Italked to about marketing,
trying to make emotionalconnections, and one of the ways
we do that is it starts outwith trying to help you define
your business's higher purpose,and that's really a good place
(04:00):
to start if you're trying tofind meaning in what you do is
defining that, and you probablytalked about that a bit on this
show, for sure how, what was theprocess like, trying to take
what you do from a servicesstandpoint and then get that
into the software.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
And also, you know, leverage ai, which obviously is
all the all the buzz over thelast 18 to 24 months.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, yeah and with ai too, it's like it's changing
rapidly as you're going along,right.
So you're like, okay, what arewe going to build that won't be
replaced by, like microsoftco-pilot in you know a couple
years, or that the technologywon't even exist, because you
know open AI has solved thatproblem or whatever.
So you've got kind of thismoving target that you kind of
(04:50):
have to feel ahead of the curve.
But really for us it was likewhat is our process?
You know, for any given client,if we could give them as much
expertise and build it into asingle tool, what would that
look like?
And so it was breaking downeach of these elements into
separate tools and there'sprobably like a hundred
(05:12):
different tools in there.
That it does, but no one's goingto want to use something that's
like a hundred different tools.
So it's like, okay, we've gotabout a hundred different things
that can do.
How can we boil that down tomaybe 10 different things in a
tool and take you through thisprocess so that will leverage
maybe about 100 different expertapproaches to marketing in
(05:35):
there.
Right, do that.
And then, along with our mantraof trying to build love into a
scalable system, how can we dothis so that it helps companies
build love into what they'redoing and tell those, and tell
those, uh, those kinds ofstories that are um much more
connected.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
What's it been like making the transition from
running a services or to asoftware company?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, we're still like so it's really becoming
sort of another part of ourcompany, right, it's sort of a
branch out of our company andit's like the interesting part
is we've almost got like thisworking lab of marketers that we
can test the tools on all thetime so we can iterate and
things like that.
So that's um been exciting.
(06:23):
And then the same time frametoo, we're also like you know,
maybe we're a little crazy, butwe're we're kind of reorganizing
our company to be more likeself-managed, um kind of pod
structures, which is, you know,kind of the sort of next level
kind of business structure atthe same time.
So, um, which really helped usto kind of bring everybody
(06:46):
together in different ways withtheir expertise, um, so that
we've got our ai dev teamtalking to our sales people or
talking to our marketers and,you know, really working
together and that.
So it's been.
It's been, you know, certainlya challenge, but it's been fun.
Um, actually, this has probablybeen the most fun I've had in
(07:07):
the past couple years trying togo through this whole process
you mentioned transitioning intolike a, a pod structure.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Can you talk a little bit more about that and what
that actually entails and howthat might be different from how
most businesses are set up?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
yeah, I think most and this is part of that problem
that we talked about with that,you know, engagement.
They're like this hierarchicalstructure, right, where it's
sort of top down, you knoweveryone cracking down the
hierarchy on each other, and soI think that starts with
leadership, kind ofunderstanding that, no, now
you're actually in service toyour teams, to your employees,
(07:46):
right, and so that, really, youkind of have to start with
leadership modeling, eq andbeing empathetic and kind of
understanding some of that,because what you're going to
then do is allow people thatyou're serving to become leaders
themselves, and so you've got,for us, it'd be like different
(08:09):
marketing execs or salespeoplethat come together in these
different pod structures andreally allows them to almost
find what they love the most.
You know, hey, I, like I'mworking with, instead of working
in, kind of, a silo doing myjob, now I'm working with this
team, and one of the silo doingmy job now I'm working with this
team, and one of the teammembers says, hey, I really love
doing this.
Another team person might be,oh yeah, I hate that you take
(08:32):
all that work and now I reallylove doing this other end.
So what you end up having,though, is people who end up
being very much more passionateabout their different roles in
there, and I think that reallyreally does help that engagement
process that we have, and it'sjust been fun seeing people
participate in new ways thatthey haven't before.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, I think putting the ownership in the team
members is always a good call,no matter how you go about
actually putting that intopractice, and so long as they're
willing to take that on butalso a little bit more
accountability.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
And then this is where, really going back to
having that purpose in yourbusiness, where, if you have a
well-defined purpose, thatbecomes kind of the boss right
For everyone.
It's like this is the guiderails.
How we get there, we don't know, but this is the guide rails,
right, is this entire purposethat you're doing?
So that really allowsleadership a little bit to step
back, let go and let them find away to that, that purpose, and
(09:43):
so you know, that becomes thatfreedom part that we talked
about.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
so that's been a fun process, but, yeah, we're doing
that in the middle of everythingelse we're doing what have been
some of like the biggestgotchas, you would say, along
your entrepreneurial journeythat, uh, you took away as
pretty big learning lessons thatyou've leveraged over time.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Biggest gotchas business person is really
thinking empathetically as muchas you can, um, because you can
have great ideas and you know itmay not resonate and so, like,
resonance is sort of everything,I think, especially when it
comes to marketing, right?
Um, you want stories thatresonate, but also you want a
(10:36):
job with meaning.
You know that resonates withpeople, and since you know we're
kind of talking gen z, I feellike the younger generation they
kind of get this more andfaster, you know, than previous
generations.
So, because of all the workother generations have done, but
you know, going back tostudying consciousness, they're
(10:57):
coming up to a place ofconsciousness much faster, much
quicker, and so meaning becomesmuch more important early on in
in lives.
You know, and so you're lookingfor a job that resonates with
you.
You're looking for, you know,meaning, and now we've got even
(11:18):
younger generations who aregoing to be pretty much waking
up in the AI algorithm space.
They're born with this, they'reraised by the feed and taught
to consume, I guess, anddefinitely the most marketed to
generations in history, right,because it's constantly coming
(11:40):
at people now, and so you know,they know every trick, they know
when they're being manipulatedand they know when something
doesn't sound authentic a loteasier, right.
And so I think, really goingback to that purpose in your
company and kind ofunderstanding sort of a North
Star so that you can be about it, it's just the sooner you can
(12:04):
figure that out with yourcompany, I think, the better off
you're going to be.
And so it did take us a whilejust to figure that out, because
it's like, how do we developthese higher consciousness
thoughts into doing ads?
It wasn't an easy journey, butI think we made some good
strides there.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I feel like the BS detector that consumers have now
for marketing is way higherthan what it used to be, and so
the bar is so much greater fororganizations, whether it be to
be or be to see yeah, it's likethey think maybe the younger
generation even are like they'renot anti.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
It's like they think maybe the younger generations
even are like they're notanti-business, they're anti-BS
right, they don't.
They don't hate brands, theyhate inauthenticity, right, it's
just it's because it doesn'tresonate.
You know, they reject beingmanipulated, and so I think the
future of marketing it's reallygot to go to that more of that
(13:00):
authentic space.
You've got to be about it.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, when you're working with the business, how
do you go about extracting fromthem the information that you
need to be able to help themdeploy successful you know,
empathetic marketing campaigns?
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yeah.
So that's really kind of whatwe tried to build out quite a
bit in the um, ai, cmo tool,which is, I think, starting with
kind of digging down intopurpose um first.
And so we've got we've got kindof a tool in there that you
could either spend an hour withor five minutes with, depending
on how much time you want tospend with it.
But it's really like help usdefine a general purpose for you
(13:41):
in some way that resonates withyou.
It doesn't have to be the mostyou know eloquent purpose,
necessarily out of the gates,but if we can at least use that
as a guide rail, then we canthen kind of move on to a next
step is like okay, well, how canwe do, uh, something that will
emotionally connect with youraudience?
(14:03):
And so most marketers you startwith that basic customer
journey.
You know kind of exercise,right right, like what are they
going through in this customerjourney?
And so we've really tried totake that to more of a what are
the emotions they're feelingduring these different stages?
Because really that's kind ofthe key part of that is
(14:25):
empathetic marketing.
It's just how people feel, Ithink, when you get to that
process of advertising to them,there's all different ways they
feel.
Then, when they're actuallyconsuming that product, there's
all different ways they feel.
And then when they're actuallyconsuming that product, there's
the consumption emotions, right,and this is where they can
either be your biggest advocate,right, and your brand
(14:48):
ambassador and all these things,if you hit it right, if you,
you know, bring them somesurprise or some delight kind of
emotions in there and pull thatout of it, um and or they can
be like, you know, on socialmedia.
This is trash.
I don't like this all the line.
Now it's you got the oppositeproblem right, but so we're
going through that process ofeven the consumption emotions
(15:09):
Like, how can we?
We have a surprise and delighttool in there?
It's like, how can we help youbuild something into your
business that taps into thoseemotions so that the experience
people are having is one thatreally takes them to the next
level?
Because if you can build anemotional connection there's
studies out there you'll get306% improved lifetime value
(15:35):
over a satisfied customer.
That's over a satisfiedcustomer's over a satisfied
customer.
But if you make that extra stepto really try and emotionally
connect with them, this is whereyou do find those communities
around brands and things likethat right when it comes to like
actually deploying a campaign,what are your typical channels
(16:00):
that you're you're workingthrough with organizations and
are you typically doing like b2bor it'll depend.
So, yeah, it'll depend on what'skind of in their best interest.
So, um, you, obviously I justthink you kind of want to start
with the, the low-h fruit,whatever that may be for you.
But if it's a business, maybeyour audience is on LinkedIn,
(16:23):
right, but they're probably alsodoing some kind of search on
Google as well, of some type,and those searches might be in
different stages of that.
Maybe they're just educatingthemselves right now, or maybe
they're trying to choose betweentwo products or something.
So you have different stagesthat they're at even in those
(16:46):
searches, and so you want to beable to speak to each of those
stages so that you're relevantto them and you're emotionally
connecting to them.
Um, so, but we do, yeah, we,we'll do everything from search
to you know, any social channel,uh, to programmatic advertising
, which is maybe, um, maybe,like your hulu, you know, tv
(17:07):
kind of things.
Programmatic is really the areawhere you get into things can
get really creepy with with thiskind of stuff.
You can do that.
You can just target individual.
You know, if there's 10 houseson this street, I want to target
that one specific house, forwhatever reason, right, and
because our phones, our phonesare so, um, they tell us a lot
(17:29):
about ourselves programmatic.
It has a lot of stuff there, wejust have to be careful.
It's like where's the line ofcreepy and, um, helping people
sometimes that gets a littleblurry, but we're like no,
that's creepy I swear my phoneis listening to me.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I mean, the amount of times that I have gotten an
instagram ad or something abouta conversation that I was having
, you know, 45 minutes before,is uh.
It's adding up to the pointwhere you know I, I, you're like
something's not right here.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
But yeah, and what's interesting is like you can take
your phone into like yourfriend's house or something and
suddenly now you're seeing an adthat's directed just to you.
It's like wait a minute, howdid that happen?
Um, but there's literally, Imean there's ways you can do
that kind of stuff where it'sjust like you know, I don't know
what year we are now it's justgetting crazy.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
We're in the future.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
We've got AI, we've got, you know, ads tracking us
around everywhere.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Are there any like new tools, technologies,
advertising platforms thatyou're excited about this year?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
advertising platforms , that that you're excited about
this year.
Well, certainly, I think, um,you know, we've been, we've been
in ai a lot, like even before,like this new, you know, sort of
generative ai phase.
So, for you know, a decade orso, if you're doing any kind of
google ad or any other you knowplatform, you're working with ai
to some extent.
Um, and I'd say there'sprobably some individual tools
(19:01):
in certain platforms that can beused really uniquely.
Like google, for instance, youknow, you got like their
performance max or some kind ofcampaign or a demand chain
campaign, and you can either usethose horribly wrong or you can
, you know, use them.
Uh, exactly right, and it'll dosome very sophisticated stuff
where, um, you know, if you'retrying to, if you're buying a
(19:24):
car, you're getting touched.
Probably you've got about 700touch points in that buying
process, right, which is kind ofcrazy if you think about it.
And so, um, humans, we can onlyhelp market to some extent.
You know, along those differenttouch points and try and build
that out.
But, uh, at some point, ai isreally going to be pretty
(19:45):
brilliant at understanding allof those and figuring out where
you are.
So that's where some of, Ithink, some of the platforms are
getting better at.
So you know, not necessarily anindividual platform, but some
of that technology is reallyimproving.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yeah, it feels like every day there's a new update
or some sort of advancement thatwe're able to leverage in some
way.
I mean, like maybe half of whatwe have in our platform right
now would not have been possiblea year ago, because either the
the accuracy or the price orjust the actual functionality
(20:22):
that it is providing wasn'tthere, and it's just seeming to
multiply on itself even more so,yeah, yeah, and for us, when
we're developing the ai chiefmarketing officer tool, really
we were focusing on thisempathetic approach and we knew
one of the key elements is, thecloser it can be to human senses
(20:44):
, the better it's going to beright.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And then along came that sort of vision element
right in that developmentprocess, and so we didn't start
out.
We said this is going to comealong at some point where ai is
going to be able to see and tellyou stuff about it.
So we kind of programmed a bitaround that until the
capabilities came.
And then we're like, yes, nowthis is perfect, we want this
vision to be seen in our toolsso that you can upload basically
(21:08):
any kind of picture and say,hey, here's my marketing problem
, help me fix this, and it'll doit from expert level, um, no
matter what that is.
So it could be.
Hey, here's my trade show booth,right?
Um, how can I improve this?
Or here's my window display, uh, how can I, you know, improve
that?
Or even the interior of mystore or my restaurant.
So now you've given ai thisvision so that it can be a
(21:30):
little bit more empathetic inkind of solving that problem.
So it's cool watching some ofthese developments come along.
But as it gets these more humansenses or capabilities, then I
think it'll have more ability tobe empathetic, the way we want
it.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Is your new software product.
Is that all bootstrapped or didyou raise outside funding for
that?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, that, that all bootstrapped or did you raise
outside funding for that?
Yeah, that was all bootstrapped.
Um developed it from uh.
Then what?
About two, two years almost umworking through that process and
really we launched um uh, itwas about a month and a half ago
, so six weeks ago or so, whenwe kind of soft launch Um, but
(22:17):
yeah, that was.
You know, it's not an easyprocess to do, but the nice
thing is like we already had afunctioning business and, like I
said, our working lab ofmarketers where we can test
things and iterate things andactually use these tools to make
our marketing better at thesame time.
Things and actually use thesetools to make our marketing
better at the same time.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
So you know, it wasn't like being sort of cold
turkey starting out from nothing, which is very it's much harder
to do.
What would you say are like thepros and cons of that approach?
I mean obviously buildingwithin.
You know the service offeringthat you currently are providing
has its own advantages, butbeing able to take profits and
(22:56):
revenue from other sources andthen invest that in the software
.
I've heard pros and cons frompeople going to raise the VC
route and then also justbootstrapping.
I think bootstrapping ispicking up more and more steam
over the last two years as VCfunding has either dried up or
it's been a little bit lessglamorized than it was
historically.
(23:17):
But what are your thoughts onthat?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, I think for us, because we're really in a way
trying to do something that'sreally about kind of radical
love in business if we can, andso for us to kind of be
caretakers of that visionwithout it being, you know,
pulled in one direction oranother, I think that's a huge
(23:42):
benefit for us.
As far as bootstrapping going towork if you know we're coming
from, say like a consciouscapitalist approach or maybe a
level above that as well um, asfar as business consciousness
and we've got, say, someinvestment, um company that's,
(24:03):
you know, more in thetraditional approach to things
where it's just gonna, it's justnot gonna work, um, and if you
studied, like some of theseorganizations that are sort of
those next level businesses thatwork, and when they don't work,
it's when they bring someone inwho's kind of not seeing eye to
eye on that consciousness part,right, and then it's just
(24:25):
everything just startsdisconnecting and falling apart.
So that's to me it's like allright, we want to kind of make
our case, if we can, on our own,without having to be influenced
.
You know, one way or another,there are good conscious VC
folks out there as well thatwill be along with you in that
(24:46):
journey too, so I think youcould probably find that route,
but it's much rarer.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Yeah, I mean, there's bad money and there's good
money for sure.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
So yeah, exactly, we're like just being able to
control the vision.
I think is really important tous right now well.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I really appreciate you hopping on and sharing all
these insights with us, butbefore we jump, can you let
people know where they couldconnect or find you online, and
also the the types of businessesthat you typically work with as
well?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
yeah, um, go to aicmoio that's the uh artificial
intelligence marketing officerum software there.
Um, really, we test it with anykind of business, so the
crazier the better.
We think it's just fun becauseit's like, oh wow, how can you
build love into this type ofbusiness?
Or come, find a purpose forthis type of business, and
(25:40):
sometimes those are the onesthat are impacted the most, and
so we're trying to test it onevery type of business we come
across just to see how it reacts.
So, yeah, go there, check thatout.
Our digital agency,zerocompanycom, z-e-r-o company,
zerocom.
Check us out there if you needany, if you're trying to tell
(26:02):
you know more of a emotionallyconnecting story with your
business, you know in thedigital space, we'd love to help
you about that.
That's what we're all about.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Awesome.
Well, again, thank you forcoming on.
I really appreciate it Foreverybody who's listening.
As always, this is BrandonAmoroso.
You can find me atbrandonamorosocom or scalistai.
Thanks for listening and we'llsee you next time.
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