Crafting Credibility in Content - With Finn McKenty | Episode 326 - The Futur with Chris Do

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
If you challenge people'sbeliefs too much, they will probably
think you're an asshole. Ithink of it as a credibility bank
that every time you validatesomeone's beliefs, you're putting
money into that bank. Everytime you challenge them, you're making
a withdrawal from that bank. Iam Finn McKenty, and you are listening

(00:23):
to the future.
Hey, Finn. Happy to have youon the show. Your background is really
unique in that you spent over15 years as a designer working with
some really big brands. But Ithink you came to this point in which
you thought maybe designwasn't it for you, and you very kind
of unusually, got a degree inbusiness. So when we talk about the

(00:44):
business of design, the designof business, I think you're the living
embodiment of that. Like, Ilearned business through my coach
and mentor, but you actuallywent to get a degree in it. So there's
lots of things I want to getinto it with you. So for people who
don't know who you are, canyou please introduce yourself and
tell us a little bit of yourstory about how you got here?
Sure. My name is Finn McKenty.Everybody probably knows that. Most

(01:05):
people know me from YouTube. Ihave two channels. One is called
the Punk Rock NBA where I talkabout kind of music history stuff.
Another one is just my name,where I talk about sort of like it's
Twitch highlights, just sortof like more fun, silly music kind
of content. But like you said,I didn't start YouTube until I was
38, so we both started a lotlater than most people do. Before
that, I spent my career and Istill do, like, product design and

(01:27):
marketing. And most peopleknow me as a YouTuber, but I would
consider myself a designer andmarketer first and foremost. And
one of the reasons I've alwaysbeen drawn to your content is like,
to me, there's no distinctionbetween product design and marketing.
And, like, it's all the samething. It's like, what are we going
to make and how do we getpeople to buy it? And so my brain

(01:50):
probably thinks about design alittle bit differently than most
people's does, but that's howI think of myself. Like you said,
I started my career. I thinkthe first time anybody paid me to
do design was 1999. Sounfortunately, I'm also old. I sort
of tricked my way into theagency world. I did some work for,
like, Nike and Nintendo andRed Bull, this agency, around 2001

(02:11):
or something like that. I didterrible work for them. I'm sorry,
I apologize to the client. Itwas not good work, but, you know,
I got my foot in the door. Andonce you have those sort of on your
resume, it makes thingseasier. I worked for a bunch of other
agencies. The thing I did thatprobably was the foundational for
me was worked at an agency inCincinnati called Kaleidoscope, where
I worked on a lot of stuff forProcter and Gamble, like Tide, Febreze,

(02:33):
Bounce, Swiffer. I think thatall the Swiffer stuff, or at least
the majority of Swiffer stuffthat's on the market now we designed
and a lot of stuff for Febrezeas well. And so I really learned
a lot. That's when I switchedfrom design to business, because
from being exposed to PNG andjust how incredibly sharp they are,
I still think they're the bestmarketing organization on the planet.

(02:54):
I was like, oh, actually, theproblems that I'm interested in solving
are really the domain ofmarketers more so than they are designers.
And I was in school at thetime. I started later for reasons
we can talk about if you want.And I was like, I think I should
probably switch my major.Which was scary because I had spent
the last, whatever, likealmost 10 years, like, really convinced

(03:15):
that I wanted to be adesigner. But it just sort of became
clear to me that, like, Ithink I'm a good designer, but I'm
not great. And there's otherpeople who are just naturally better
at it than I am. Whereas whenit comes to, like, marketing, I think
I'm like, naturally very goodat it. So I was like, well, I guess
I should take the leap. And Idid make that switch, but I got three.
I went to school for design atUC for three years, and it's University

(03:36):
of Cincinnati, which is areally good program. And then I finished
out the degree in business.And so I feel like I got two degrees
in one, which was awesome. Ittook longer and it was more expensive,
but I don't think I could dowhat I do without having both of
those. After that, I worked ata startup called Creative Live that
a lot of people in youraudience are probably familiar with.
We did online education forcreative people, primarily photographers,
like wedding and portraitphotographers, but also did a lot

(03:58):
of stuff, you know, withdesign and entrepreneurship and stuff
like that. Then I startedYouTube and I'm also a partner in
a company called URM Academythat does online education for music
producers. And here we are.
That was a lot to unpackthere. So I'm going to try to figure
out the timeline here.
Okay. And I should say I was abig fan of Blind back in the day,
back when I did some motiongraphics stuff. And I did not know

(04:20):
that you were Chris from BLINDuntil like a year ago.
Oh, my God.
Yeah. Like, I was a fan ofBlind 20 years ago. I've been following
your content for probablyclose to 10 years and I didn't know.
And so that sort of ties intosome of the stuff we'll probably
talk about. The importance oftelling your story and the stuff
that you think is glaringlyobvious to your audience is not.

(04:41):
I think you're a little bityounger than me. I'm 52. Are you
48?
46.
46. Okay, so there's a coupleof years apart here. And when you
talked about you thinking ofyourself as a designer doing product
design, people use one termfor two different meanings. Are you
talking about industrialdesign or digital design?
Both.
Oh, so you're going to make iteven more confusing for us.

(05:03):
Yeah. So Kaleidoscope was anindustrial design and engineering
agency. I was not anindustrial designer there, but I
was on the industrial designteams. And so those were like the
projects we were working on.So like this were for wet jet and
dry mop and we did a lot ofmedical devices and stuff like that.
But now, of course, that'swhat product design meant 20 years
ago. Now it means making appsand websites, which I've also done.

(05:23):
When you said you went toschool for design at University of
Cincinnati and you did threeyears and you switched majors, was
that before you were workingor you did that after you started
working?
So I started out self taughtand I was like a lot of people. I
was like, to be honest, kindof arrogant and thought like, I don't
need to go to school for this.It's just a piece of paper I can
teach myself. And I did and Iwas okay, but I just sort of had

(05:47):
to be honest with myself. Ihad some other friends that did go
to school for design and I sawthat they were like getting a lot
better than I was. And thatwas a little bit of a bitter pill
to swallow, but I swallowed itand I was like, well, okay, I guess
I made the wrong call. And at24, I went back to school and I'm
glad I did.
But you got real world workingexperience and you probably have

(06:10):
a better frame to appreciatethe education, I imagine. I mean,
if you had gone when you were18, you might have finished your
degree and not even thoughtabout business.
I went to college for onequarter when I was 18. I did not
want to be There, I didn't payattention. I barely went to any classes.
Total waste of time and money.So when I went back as an adult,
I wanted to be there. I lovedit. I went to every class, I went

(06:33):
to every office hours andstudy session. They had an amazing
design library there with allthese super rare books from all these
old international style booksand stuff like that from the 50s
that you can't get anywhere.And so I would go to the library
and read all those and I tookfull advantage of that opportunity.
So were you six years olderthan everybody else?
Yes.

(06:53):
How'd that make you feel?
It's a little humbling, but Iwasn't so old that it was like weird,
you know, 24 and 18. It's notthat big of a deal. Maybe it felt
like it at the time. Inhindsight, it's like, I'm basically
the same age.
Okay, so you didn't feel tooweird about it? You weren't too self
conscious about it?
At first I was, but then onceI got to know everybody, it was,
it was fine.

(07:13):
I went to Bible school laterin life because, oh, I didn't know
that. Yeah, I was raisedCatholic, but I didn't do the full
bit, so I needed to do that.And the reason why I went to Bible
school later in life wasbecause as a kid I just kept cutting
Bible school. I just ditched.And of course I never completed the
program. It only takes a yearto like do, but I just didn't stick

(07:34):
to it. So by the time I wasdoing, I'm like, let's see here,
I'm kind of junior high,almost getting to high school, but
they're like little kidsthere. And so I always felt like
I'm superior to you becauseyou're just a little runt. And for
the first time I'm like big.Literally the big man on campus.
I'm like, did you feel that atall because you had experience, you've
worked, you're more mature,you're older. Did you feel like you

(07:56):
had an edge on the people?
Maybe a little bit. But I waspretty humble about it because I
saw that the people I knew whowent through this, the reason I went
to that school is because myfriends went there and I was like,
I knew the exact courseworkthey were doing and stuff. And I
had been humbled many times inmy sort of attempt at a design career
of trying to like, I just, Icould not get a job anywhere really.

(08:19):
Like, I sort of. I managed tolike sneak my way into these agencies
and blah Blah, blah. And likeit sort of worked. But like I was
not even sniffing theopportunities that I wanted and I
had to sort of admit to myselfit's because I wasn't good enough.
So by the time I was there, Ithink my ego, like, obviously I had
some experience and like, Ididn't discount that, but my ego

(08:40):
was sort of, I think, properlyin check by the time I got there.
We're all here to do the samething. And the specific thing that
I think I was missing like alot of self taught people, and I
don't want to knock selftaught people because there's some
amazing ones, but I wasmissing the fundamentals. I could
do flashy, trendy stuff, but Ididn't have the fundamentals of composition

(09:02):
and stuff like that becausethat stuff's boring. And you're probably
not going to do it on yourown. You're not going to grind through
these composition exercisesfrom the Armand Hoffman book on your
own. But if you have a teacherto force you to do it, you will.
And that first year in thatprogram, you don't touch a computer
at all. It's all stuff withpaint and cutting out pieces of paper
and all that old schoolBauhaus stuff. And at the time I

(09:25):
was like, oh, it's so stupid,just let me open Illustrator. And
by the time it was at the endof the year, I was like, okay, this
is exactly what I needed.Maybe I should stop thinking I know
everything.
Okay, so let's fast forward tothe part where you're talking about
like, you're switching majorsnow and you're going to study business.
That seems like a prettyradical switch. I'm curious because

(09:46):
I've not gone to businessschool myself. What do you see the
overlaps in terms of like thecreative design brain and then what
you learned in the business program?
I don't think there's a lot ofoverlap in terms of the brain, but
there's a lot of overlap interms of the skills. In other words,
like we've all experiencedwhen marketing people run design
projects and maybe it doesn'tgo as well as we would like when

(10:10):
designers run businesses thattypically also doesn't go the way
we would like. And so the wayit's used, like, I'm not the best
designer, I'm okay, I'mdecent, but I'm not the best. I would
say I'm a very good marketer.And if I also have the ability to
either do the design myself orbetter yet, work with somebody who's
better than Me, I can workwith those people better than probably

(10:32):
99% of other marketers becauseI understand their job. And it's
just like there's a stepbetween sort of the business and
the output of creative workthat oftentimes there's something
lost in translation. And Idon't have that issue.
I think I understand what itis when you say you're not maybe
a great designer, there are alot of people who could do better.
But when you said, like, I'm areally good, maybe a great marketer,

(10:54):
I don't know what that means.So can you define for us what that
means to you?
I get people to buy shit.That's the job, is make the good
line go up.
So what have you learned inyour experience in terms of, like,
how to get people to buystuff? Because everybody wants to
know that.
I would say the foundationalthings I learned from, like Procter
and Gamble, I still use allthe time. So, for example, the big

(11:15):
insight here, I think is,like, fundamentally, like, marketing
is applied psychology. Like,if you understand how the human brain
works, then you sort ofunderstand how to fit into that,
such that you fulfill theirpsychological needs by offering them
a product or service. Andeverybody, at the end of the day,
the most basic humanpsychological need is that people
want to feel safe. So reducinguncertainty, things like that. So

(11:39):
a term that Procter and Gamblecame up with a framework called acb,
or Accepted Consumer Belief,which basically is to understand
what people already believe tobe true about the category in which
you're working. And we don'tget to decide what people believe.
What they believe may notnecessarily make sense, it may not
be true, but it's what peoplebelieve to meet people where they're
at, or at least you probablywant to. It is sometimes possible

(12:03):
to change those things, butthat's tough and I wouldn't suggest
it. So, for example, fromdoing research, they found that people,
I don't know if they still ownPantene, the shampoo brand, but they
used to. They found thatpeople believe that hair should be
nourished, which is notactually rational, because hair is
not living tissue and it can'tbe nourished, but that's how people

(12:23):
feel about it, and you got tomeet people where they're at. So
if you look at their marketingfor pantene at least 20 years ago,
when I was working on it,that's the way they would talk about
it is though, it nourishesyour hair, and in reality, it can't
be nourished and they're notdeceptive at all. But, like, the
way Pantene worked at the timeis it has a lot of silicone in it,
so it coats your hair and itmakes it feel thicker and fuller
and lusher. It makes you feellike it's nourished. And people actually

(12:46):
feel the same way aboutfurniture, which is weird. They make
pledge, and so people feellike furniture needs to be nourished,
even though, again, obviouslyfurniture is like, not living tissue
and it can't be nourished. Sothat's like, the first thing I think
is to understand what peoplealready believe to be true and then
meet them there, figure outhow your offer can slot into people's
existing sort of mental modeland fulfill some psychological need

(13:10):
at the most basic level, helppeople feel more safe.
How did they come upon thisidea that people believe that your
hair needed to be nourished?
So P and G, as far as I know,is sort of the company that invented
a lot of the methods that weuse now, like ethnographic research.
So they would have, like, PhDanthropology, go into people's houses
and watch them do laundry fora week and come out with all these,

(13:32):
like, amazing insights likethat about it. And I don't know how
they do things now because I'mwith them in a long time, but that's
how they would do it. Justlots. And, like, they invest lots
and lots and lots of moneyinto talking with consumers and just
understanding what they do andwhy they do it.
So how did they then use thisidea that people want their hair
to be nourished? How do theymessage that or communicate that?

(13:53):
We understand that and we.We're going to give you the solution
to that idea.
Yep. So there's anotherframework they have called the reason
to believe, or rtb, which isso there's a claim that your product
does or service does, whateverthe reason to believe is the specific
objective reason that I shouldbelieve your claim is true. So I

(14:14):
don't remember how they dothis for Pantene, because it's been
a long time, but let's pretendthey also make Bounty paper towels.
Let's pretend that it workslike this. So the thing they would
always do in commercials islike a B comparisons. Like, they
show Bountie versus theleading brand, and they wipe something
and the bounty one picks up30% more. Whatever it is, you go,
wow, okay, that looks cool.Well, how does it work? The reason

(14:35):
to believe is that Bountie haspatented Magic Thirst Pockets in
it, made with blah, blah, blahtechnology. So I don't remember how
they did it for Pantene, butthere's always some reason to believe.
So here's the acceptedconsumer belief. Here is the benefit
of the product. And the reasonto believe is the way the consumer
will believe that your productwill deliver on that benefit.

(14:56):
I remember watching a lot ofcommercials in my youth, and I remember
seeing a lot of those demoswhere they wet things and they put
something heavy on it and thatthe competitor breaks apart. It doesn't
pushes water on instead ofabsorbing it. But even as a. As an
unsophisticated consumer ofmarketing messaging, I always a little

(15:17):
suspicious. Like, I think youcheat these things.
Well, people may think that.Again, that's one of the things you
need to understand is like,you just figure out through testing
these things, like, is this abelievable claim? Is this reason
to believe effective? Youknow, and that's the sort of thing
you find out through all thedifferent methods that they have
of testing. You know, they doall kinds of focus groups and blah,

(15:37):
blah, blah. They have like eyetracking and shit. So when you go
to certain stores, they knowhow you're shopping this aisle. They
see exactly where your eyesgo. So they'll test that and get
empirical feedback on it and adjust.
Well. Procter and Gamble andprobably their agency have created
very memorable campaignsbecause to this day, I haven't bought
a paper roll, paper towel insome time. But I still remember Bounty

(16:00):
is the quicker picker upper.So it's like a tongue twister, something
like that. And you'll rememberthese things or that Snicker satisfies.
I don't know why it does, butthey've told me and I've mentioned
this to my friend. When I'mwalking through the grocery store
and I'm a little hungry, mystomach's grumbling. I'm like, snickers.
I'm like, no, not Snickers.No, that's not real food. Right.

(16:21):
But it has peanuts, it has protein.
Exactly. That's the reason tobelieve it's nuts. Yeah, that's the
reason to believe is the nuts.
Okay, that's wild stuff. Okay,so do you remember anything that
you worked on and have apretty clear roadmap from the whole.
The accepted consumer beliefwas this. This was our claim. This
is the reason to believe. Sothis is the benefit of the proof

(16:42):
where you can walk us throughit so that we can see it end to end.
Like, let's pick one thing.
No, because I was a pawn inthat machine. That's an example of
like, I was there, and Ilearned. But this is sort of what
leads me to YouTube is like, Ilearned so much from this, and I
think every designer will knowthis. It's like, you know, you did

(17:03):
good work, but can you just.You answering me that question, like,
okay, well, tell me how youdid it. And you're like, well, I
didn't really do it. I waspart of the team, and I believe that
I did good work. But can Ireally say that this was my thing?
No, because there are ahundred people that worked on this,
and really, probably the onlyperson would maybe be the brand manager
at P and G or maybe thecreative director. There's only a

(17:24):
couple people that couldreally take credit for this, and
I'm not one of them. I alsoworked at Abercrombie and Fitch doing
designed hundreds of girls Tshirts that sold millions of units.
But I was just executing whatthe creative director gave me. So
can I really say that that wasmy. I mean, I'm proud of it, but
it's tough, right?
And I appreciate that kind offrame. Let me restate the question.

(17:47):
I don't mean to describesomething you've done from beginning
to end, but one where you canhighlight, this is what they told
us, and this is you don't haveto be involved at all. I just want
to see it from beginning toend. Because you mentioned the accepted
consumer belief for Pantene isnourish your hair, but we don't know
how it ends. Then you'retelling us a little bit of bounty,
but we don't know what theaccepted consumer belief was. I just

(18:08):
want to see your understandingof it as it's mapped across anything.
It could be a case study.Doesn't have anything you have to
touch on. Touch yourself.
I don't know if I rememberanything from beginning to end, to
be honest with you, becausethis is stuff I worked on 15 years
ago. But, yeah, well, I mean,I did a product called Febreze Sport,
which was the thing that Iprobably had the biggest impact on.
So to make a long story short,they came to us with some research

(18:30):
that said, hey, we've talkedto people and they told us that basically
we have permission to dosomething called Febreze Sport. We
asked them, hey, would you beinterested in Febreze Sport? And
everyone said yes, but wedon't really know more than that.
So could you do someexploratory work to just show us
what that might be? We had agood relationship with the design
manager and the brand manager,so I think we had A little bit of

(18:52):
room to run with this. Andthat was like a natural fit for me
because like, I know a lotabout sort of, you know, lifestyle
marketing from, you know,coming up in sort of skateboarding
world and stuff like that.I've been around with like lots of
sports and stuff like that. Sothis was like something I understood
very well. And so what Iwanted to help them understand is
like how something likeFebreze sport, like how you would

(19:12):
need to change the brand sortof play in the world of lifestyle
marketing because that's whatlike athletic products are. Nike
basically invented thatplaybook. And so to make a long story
short, what I think couldcredibly say that I helped them understand
is the importance of sort of,rather than what they would do with
any other Febreze product isjust drop it right into Walmart because
as they would say, they haveone and a half customers, one is

(19:34):
Walmart, the other half iseverybody else. So they go, okay,
we're just going to drop itright in Walmart. But what I wanted
them to understand is that inthis category you need to start by
getting the credibility of thepeople who are most influential.
So first that starts with likeathletes, like hardcore athletes,
which is a very small numberof those people, but they have a
lot of currency. So like ifyou know somebody, you know, whatever,

(19:55):
like let's say you do CrossFitand there's a guy, your gym that's
like, that competes in theCrossFit games, that's the person,
or girl, whatever, that's theperson, you would ask her like, hey,
what shoes should I get? Andthen so you're the second layer out
from that of you're not likethe hardcore pro or semi pro, but
you're like the seriousenthusiast. And then the next ring
out from that would be sort ofthe Walmart consumer. They're looking

(20:17):
to you like, hey Chris, Iknow, like you have a trainer, right?
Like, what is, what kind ofshoes does he tell you to get? So
this is how it works. And youcan't just go right to Walmart because
if you just go right toWalmart, then it has no credibility.
And credibility is the oxygenthat this whole like segment runs
on. So I persuaded them to douser research rather than doing it
in Cincinnati, which is whatthey wanted to do, I persuaded them

(20:39):
to do it in San Diego wherepeople are a lot more active, a little
bit more representative of whowe would want to sort of market this
to. And that was really eyeopening for them because these are
mostly people from like theMidwest. And so we're talking to
people who, you know, theseare, like, professionals that had,
you know, finance jobs orwhatever. But they're like, yeah,
I get up every morning at 5and I go surf for an hour before
work. And they're like, wow,people do this? Like, that's crazy.

(21:00):
Everybody here is so activeand like, well, yeah, that's why
you live in San Diego. It'sexpensive, so you gotta. You gotta
make the most of it. And sothen we sort of understood how these
people. The role of odormanagement in their lives, which.
It's like, really? I have noidea if this is what you wanted to
talk about, but this is thesort of nuances of, like, where you're
talking about where, like,design meets marketing is like, understanding

(21:23):
number one on the. On the sortof. The marketing side of things,
I would say is like, what isthe role of odor management in their
lives? And, like, how do theythink about it? And what do they
perceive value there? And thenthe design side is like, how do we
execute that? And so I'llexplain that because this was actually
tricky. So we talked to abunch of these people. Like, there
was a personal trainer. Therewas, like, an MMA fighter girl that
did, like, yoga. It was likea. I don't know, probably 15 people

(21:46):
or something like that. And weasked all of them, like, do your
clothes smell bad when you'reworking out? And they're like, yeah,
they smell horrible. Like,what do you do about it? And they're
like, nothing. I don't care.I'm like, interesting. And they're
like, everybody asked them,like, but, you know, would you use
Febreze Sport? And they'relike, yeah, that sounds cool. Like,
what for? I don't know. Sowe're like, this is really interesting.
There's clearly odor plays arole here, but nobody seems to have

(22:08):
a problem with it. So. Butwhat do we do? And so we talked to
him a little bit more andfound out that odor plays a role
at home. So they would tell ushow they would do all this crazy
stuff. Like, one girl, shewould get super sweaty and she would
hang her gym clothes out thewindow of her car on the way home
to air them out so that whenshe got home, they wouldn't make

(22:29):
her house smell all funky.People had all these kind of workarounds
for that. This is a thing thatP and G calls compensating behavior.
So we sell these compensatingbehaviors and realized, okay, the
opportunity here is that odoris fine in the athletic zone. When
people are actually at the gymor on the field, it's fine. There's
odor is not fine at home. Andso the role of this product is to

(22:51):
prevent the transfer of odorsfrom the athletic zone to the home
zone. And so we came up with,I think, four SKUs to do that. Like,
for example, a sachet that youput into a gym bag that would eat
up the odor on the way home.So that when you open up your gym
bag, when you get home, youdon't get, like, blasted with this
disgusting wave of vile scent.And I actually did do quite a bit

(23:13):
of work, graphic design workthere, on sort of exploratory options
for the branding there to sortof help them break out of the existing
Febreze. Like, brand equitywas not going to work, you know,
when we're talking toathletes. And so I sort of helped
sketch that out.
What was the accepted consumerbelief for Febreze sport?
The accepted consumer belieffor Febreze sport? I don't remember,

(23:35):
to be honest with you, becausethis was 2009. But the thing that
I do remember is, like, thecrux of this was, like, preventing
the transfer of those athletic odors.
Okay, that's the insight thatyou guys figured out.
That's the benefit. Yeah,that's the.
We're okay here smelling bad,which they shouldn't be, but. And
then we're not okay heresmelling bad. And athletes realize
there's a lot of funk thattravels with them. So this is going

(23:58):
to create that barrier so thatyou don't transfer odors. So was
there like a tagline or somemessaging or a campaign that was
built to reinforce that message?
There was, but it was done bydifferent agencies, so. And I don't
remember what it was, to behonest with you. But the thing is,
I mean, you've experiencedthis, I'm sure, is like there's five
different agencies working onit, and I have no fucking idea what

(24:18):
the other ones are doing.Like, I never see it unless I see
it on TV or something. I'mlike, oh, that's what Landor did.
Okay, cool. We don't talk. I'msure when you were doing motion graphics
back in the day, you would seeit used in ways that you totally
didn't expect or see be like,oh, they used it like that.
Okay, yeah, that is all true.And so I think you're highlighting
a problem with largecommunications teams across multiple

(24:41):
disciplines and then differentcompanies that you describe as a
pond. The way I usuallydescribe is like one tiny gear or
cog. In the whole watch.Right. It's like we do our part in
somebody. The clock maker isorchestrating all this stuff to come
together. But I try to be likethe student of advertising and marketing
because I want to be able toapply this. Well, knowing what you
know now, do you haveconfidence that if I threw a problem

(25:04):
at you, you could just pretendto, like, do it? Because you're like,
I'm a good marketer. I coulddo this.
Yeah, sure, let's do it.
Okay. And my audience is goingto know this. I'm going to speak
very selfishly right now.
Okay. Please do. Yeah.
Okay. I've noticed sometrends, some alarming trends. The
trend that I noticed is thatAI has made educational products,
information products, worthalmost nothing. So across the board,

(25:27):
people who sell informationproducts who did really well. I'm
not talking about books,because books and information product,
but online digital courses,study at your own pace kind of thing.
I sell these, by the way, soI'm interested.
Okay, this is good. We cantalk about this. A bunch of my buddies
are in the same space. I'mlike, oh, it's not going well. The
trend line is moving down.It's moving down pretty quick because

(25:48):
people, wrongfully or not,believe that they can just ask ChatGPT,
Cloud or one of these otherprograms or software AI things, teach
me this thing and it'll justteach you. And they think that's
better because they spent $20on that and they get a lot more than
just a course. So if I am nowin this place where we see our core

(26:10):
sales go down, which it'strue, what do I need to do to tap
into some of your marketingprowess, whether it's following the
acb, RTB program or not? Whatdo I need to do to, like, run a marketing
campaign to get more peopleinterested in it?
Well, I'll maybe answer thison the product level, because I think
that product and offer level,because I think it starts there.

(26:31):
So to me, the education valuechain has four parts. Number one
is the information delivery.Number two is feedback of some kind,
whether that's student tostudent or teacher to student. Number
three is credentials. Numberfour is job placement of some kind.
So I don't actually think thatAI replaces the first part of that,

(26:53):
but let's even say that itdoes. For the sake of argument, let's
say that perplexity andChatGPT does the information delivery
part. Well, there's still.That's one part of the value chain,
and as of now, it can't do theother. Three parts. So I would say
if all you're offering is theinformation delivery piece, then
that's your problem. But I'dprobably push back on the belief

(27:16):
that AI is even effective atthe information delivery part. It's
probably. It's okay, I think.Here's how I would say about it.
Here's what I'd say. Say,yeah, like ChatGPT, perplexity, they're
pretty good. But is prettygood good enough for you? Like, do
you want to be pretty good?Are you okay? Like, I would say you
can get a solid B or B plusanswer out of ChatGPT on most things.

(27:37):
And if you're okay being a Bplus, then keep doing that. But I
don't think you want to be a Bplus. I think you want to be an A.
Since we're in the same spacethough, let's try to reverse engineer
this. Pretend like we hadthese cultural anthropologists, these
researchers with PhDs goinginto the home of everybody who's
considering buying course oruses gp. Best guess, what do you
think the accepted consumerbelief is? Because I like this concept

(27:59):
very much, I'm trying tofigure out how I turn this into something.
Will you tell me? I'msurprised to hear that that's even
true because I feel likecreative people are the ones who
I think are the most skepticalof generative AI. So I'm actually
surprised to hear that even inyour space that that's true. Can
you tell me more about that?
Yeah, well, maybe this iscorrelation and not causal. Well,

(28:22):
across the board, friends thatrun educational companies like our
sales are down pat. Flynnreleased his video information Products
are Dead. And he started tochart how his sales have died and
what he's doing to pivot. Hetalked about it and I talked to my
buddy Daniel Priestley, andPriestly is like, yeah, information's
almost at the price of zeronow. Or that's the perception. And

(28:42):
so maybe it's the largermarket perception and not maybe into
the niche of creative folks.And a lot of the products we sell
that make us money aren'tnecessarily designed for teaching
creativity. It's teachingbusiness parts. So we just isolate
the business fundamentals likepricing strategies, negotiations,
things like that. They mightfind a comparable solution with Perplexity

(29:04):
GPT or Claude or somethinglike that.
Yeah, I guess I would want toknow more. So there's another factor
that could be here is justthere's more genuinely great free
information. It's not like itwas 10 years ago when, like when
you started out, like, I don'tthink there was. There weren't very
many people talking about,like, pricing for creatives the way
that you have now. There'slots of them. So I would say that

(29:25):
there's a general, like, sothere's a guy named Michael Porter
that has, like, a frameworkcalled. Yeah, the five forces. So,
like, thread of substitutes, Iwould say, has increased quite a
bit. And rivalry. There's morepeople making courses. So, like,
those five forces, you know,would contribute to, like, lower
profitability in this sector.AI is one of those, but. But I'm
not sure that AI is, like, theprimary causal factor here, if it

(29:48):
is. So the reason I'm pokingon that is because, like, if it is
specifically AI, I wouldprobably talk about it one way. If
it's just like, hey, there's alot of free information out there
that's pretty good, I mighttalk about it another way.
Okay, let's do that. Let's saythe accepted consumer belief is there's
a lot of free information thatout there that's pretty good.
Yeah. Which I agree with.
Is that okay for acb? Okay,I'm gonna write this down. Okay.

(30:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it mightbe something like, I don't need to
buy a course because theexisting free information that's
out there is good enough. AndI might say something like, yeah,
that's true. However, numberone, it's only free if your time
has no value. So let's talkabout YouTube. Are there some good
YouTube videos about pricingfor creatives like yours? Absolutely.

(30:33):
There's a lot of bad ones,too. And you're going to spend a
whole lot of time separatingthe wheat from the chaff. And if
you're cool with that, like,when I was 19, I had way more time
than money. And if you havemore time than money, I think you
should do that. So I like tojust sort of give people options
and let them decide. So, like,say if you have more time than money,
you should just use all thefree stuff and, like, yeah, you're

(30:53):
going to spend some timesorting it out. But that's cool because
you have the time. Do you havemore time than money? And you, as
an adult are going to say, no,I don't. Like, okay, cool. Well,
let's look at how many videosthere are. Like, whatever. I'll take
the top 20 videos aboutpricing for creatives. This is a
total of whatever, 18 hours ofcontent. Do you want to spend 18

(31:14):
hours sorting through all thisand figuring out what's good or bad?
Or would you rather pay me$100. And I'll just give you the
good stuff. Now I've got toprove to you that that's the good
stuff. But, like, I wouldargue, like, is 18 hours of your
time worth more than 100bucks? I hope so.
Okay. Is that the reason to believe?
The reason to believe wouldbe, like, in your case, your accomplishments.
You can trust what I saybecause I did the following things.

(31:35):
And I've also helped howevermany students do the following things.
I see. So the reason tobelieve is what they call the receipts.
Yeah, it's the objective proofthat your claim is true. So I'm claiming
that I can give you theoptimal framework for pricing your
work as a solo freelancegraphic designer in one hour. And

(31:57):
the proof is that I did thefollowing things and I helped my
students do the followingthings. Can other people say that?
I would say there's probablyonly a handful of people in the world
that could make the sameclaims that you could.
It's time for a quick break,but we'll be right back.

(32:22):
Enjoying the conversationyou're listening to right now. You're
going to love what we have foryou inside the Future Pro membership.
From live group calls withmyself and vetted guest Experts to
over 600 hours of proexclusive trainings and monthly networking,
you'll have everything youneed to fast track your growth. Check
it out@Future.com Pro.

(32:44):
And Rebecc. Welcome back toour conversation.
So basically is some versionof value based pricing because I'm
selling your time back to you.So if you don't think your time's
valuable, you keep using thefree products, right?
Yeah, exactly. I mean, that'sone way. You know, I'm not saying
this is like the only way, butyou know, we're playing lightning
around here, right?
Because that's one challenge.With the free information, we don't

(33:06):
know what's good and what'snot good.
Yep, some of it's good, butsome of it's not.
And then we probably can makea list of two or three of those problems.
Like, okay, say it's good, butis it actionable?
Right, Right.
Is it deep enough for you? Arethe resources included?
Is it specific to you? Is itabout wedding photography? Yeah.
Can you apply that to graphicdesign? Probably, but you're going

(33:28):
to have to think about it alittle bit.
Okay. This was a helpfulexercise and I think you kind of
mapped it out. So is thereanything else that we need to do
once we identify and talkabout this? Is there an additional
step or is that good enough?For the marketing campaign.
Well, then it gets into theexecution, which is sort of, you
know, I mean, that's thepeople listening to this. That's
where you're going to shine islike, if you understand that this

(33:48):
is sort of the framing, likehow do we express that to people
in a way that that'spersuasive to them.
Right. So if it were a staticthing, what are the words? That's
copywriting. What are theimages? That's art direction. And
then if it's not static,meaning it's a moving thing. Now
we have to get into like, whatis the script, what are the visuals
and the sights and sounds thatwe're seeing? And that's in the realm
of creative folk.

(34:09):
Yep, exactly. So, like, forexample, one way you could do this
would be like I said to takethe top 20 videos about pricing for
designers and you know, show alist of those like in a playlist
and be, you know, at thebottom. It's like Total running time
16 hours and 21 minutes, youknow, and then compare that. This
is like an a B comparison.Like compare that on the other side
to, you know, Chris's courseon pricing for designers, you know,

(34:33):
total running time 52 minutes.This is an example of education where
more is not really better. Doyou want a 16 hour course on this?
Some people do, but probablymost people are like, not really.
This is good. And I've workedin advertising, inside advertising
and adjacent advertising. Ikind of know what it is. The strategists

(34:55):
and the marketers get togetherand they figure this kind of nugget
out. People believe this. Thisis the problem with this. And that's
critical because if that briefis wrong, creative is screwed. And
then creative to take that andthen turn it into the quicker picker
upper or something like that.Herbal Essence. Like there was some
kind of orgasmic thing withHerbal Essence that seemed to work.

(35:15):
Right. It's like her secret orsomething like that. Or maybe she
was born with it. Maybe it wasMaybelline. So they can take complex
ideas and turn it into like acatchy mnemonic device, a heuristic
that you can, can absorb. Justdo it is an example of that, right?
Or the real thing. Okay, sothis is one of those ones where the
free information seems prettygood at the front of it. But maybe

(35:37):
we then reframe it as free issometimes like noisy and no one likes
noise. It's too much clutter.It's a mind clutter, you know, and
so maybe that's where thecreative part Comes in. So that's
the. Is that the kind of the approach?
Yep. And this is the partwhere I realized the creative part,
like, I'm okay at it, but I'mnot great at it. I'm certainly not

(36:00):
as good at it as you are or alot of other people watching. This
is, this is the part where Ilearned my role is to pass that on
to the creatives. And then I'mlike, you're better at this than
I am. I trust you. And like, Ithink that what makes me effective
in that role is they can tellthat I have genuine respect for them
because I know their craft. Ican see how good you are at this.

(36:21):
You're fucking good at it.You're better at it than I am. And
I love watching you do yourthing. So my job is just to help
you do your job the best thatyou can. And I think that's where
I shine. They can tell thatI'm like, I'm a fan of working with
these people.
Yeah, I like this. Okay, thatwas really clear. So you're a marketing
strategist, and then you needto bring in copywriters and art directors

(36:41):
to do the other part.
I'd say I'm pretty good at thecopywriting part.
Okay, so you're good atcopywriting, so that's creative to
me.
Yeah, but like the design piece.
Design, okay. The visualaspects of it, like the.
People I worked with atAbercrombie are so fucking good,
it's insane. Some 24 year oldassistant merchant would come in
and be like, I don't know, canwe do like a painting of some people
like by a lake? And they'd go,okay, fine. And like 15 minutes they

(37:04):
do like a watercolor paintingof a bunch of people, like at a bonfire
by a lake. And the merchant'slike, I don't know, the bonfire looks
too big. I'm like, oh, no,redo it. I'm like, do you understand
what just happened? Like, thisgirl just like busted out two beautiful
watercolor paintings in halfan hour. And you're saying they're
not. Like, do you understandhow talented this person is? This
is insane.
Okay? You're dealing with likeillustrators and designers that just.

(37:27):
It comes out of their pores,right? So like in that moment, you're
like, I think I need to switchmy focus here.
Exactly. I'm like, I am not ontheir level. Like, I'm just not.
And that's not false humility.Like, I'm not on their level.
Okay, that was very helpful.So I'm going to just quickly recap
for folks, okay? I don't knowtoo many industries or services that
are out there that isn'tfeeling some level of competition

(37:49):
either because of inflation,things are tight, interest rates
are up, or whatever it is, orAI or just too many options. Right
now we live in a time ofabundance, and so you're competing
against everybody who wants todo what you want to do. So the first
thing that you said was, let'slook at the belief. And then you
challenge the belief, saying,that could be one reason, but could

(38:11):
it be this other thing? And sowe need to make sure, because otherwise
we're building a wholestrategy on a false premise. And
in my case, you're like, maybeit's just like, there's just so much
free stuff that's out therethat's really the problem. And AI
is just one point of thespear, not the whole spear itself.
Okay, I get that. And so thenwe have to kind of then ninja flip
that to say, like, okay, ifthat's so good, what is the potential

(38:32):
problem with that? And thenbroadly we can say, well, if you
have a lot of options, maybethat means you're going to spend
a lot of time. And if you havea lot of time, that's not a problem.
So young people have a lot oftime and not a lot of money. Older
people have more money thanthey have time. And you would say,
then your most valuable assetis your time. And so would you rather
spend money getting it fromsomeone who's credible, who's done

(38:54):
it before, who can teach youthe way, and then you can be on your
business and go make money? Sothat was the entire way of looking
at that problem. And I thinkthere's going to be a lot of people
who really need to sit downand take note of this and then start
to think about how to apply itin their life. Now, I want to go
back to something you saidearlier, because you highlighted
a problem. I guess I'msurprised, too. I've known about

(39:15):
you here. I've known about youhere. I didn't know those two people
were the same people.
Yes. I was like, what? That'sChris from Blind. I had no idea.
And I'm like, what the f. Howcould that be? If you follow us at
all. Okay, so I'm gonna tellyou my bubble, and then you're gonna.
You're gonna burst thebubbles, like, well, from the outside
world, it's not like that. Istarted a service design company

(39:35):
called Blind. We madecommercials and music videos for
25 plus years. And my biggestchallenge at that time being in Los
Angeles, was to make sure Ican grow blind beyond my name and
me, so that I'm not doing allthe work. And we pretty successfully
did that. But oftentimesclients would say, where's Chris

(39:56):
in this? Where's Chris? Whatis he doing? And we'd have to explain,
like, no, I'm making sure thatall the things are getting done,
but I'm not actually in any ofyour projects right now. So it's
shocking to me that if youfollowed us, that you wouldn't know,
because within that sphere ofpeople in the motion design space,
they would probably thinkBlind and Christo are synonymous.
I was on the outside lookingin. I was living in Cincinnati then.

(40:19):
I'm from Seattle, but I wentto school in Cincinnati. And so I
was just looking into stuff onthe Internet. And, like, basically
what I saw, like, I didn'tlook at your company's, like, about
page or whatever. I just sawyour reels. That's all I cared about.
You know, it was like, theyhave a cool reel and I'm going to
copy it. So that's myexperience of Blind is just like,
I thought your reels wereawesome and so do lots of other people.
For anybody who doesn't know,like, Blind was, like, very, like,

(40:41):
I would say, very, like, hypeat that time. A lot of people were,
like, copying you guys. Reallytop of the food chain back then.
And, like, a lot of peoplewere copying you.
Yeah, for a minute. We weretop 10, I think, in the world for
a minute. And so theinteresting thing is then, I think
as the future, here I am doingmy thing. I've mentioned Blind and
talked about the work we usedto do. So I think then naturally.

(41:01):
So again, that's my bubble.
You didn't say the name of thecompany very often, though. I knew
you did motion design, but youdidn't say Blind at least. I mean,
I didn't watch everything, butI watched a lot of it.
Very interesting. Okay.Because we would also do case studies.
We would show things thatwe're doing. And watermarked in all
those frames is the word blindand the logo. And we would talk about

(41:22):
this.
I probably just missed it, youknow. And so I guess the larger point
here is, like, even me, Iwould say, like, I'm a pretty big
fan of yours. Even for me,like, people are not scrutinizing
this stuff as much as youthink they are. Not you specifically.
I mean, like, you, all of us,like, you got to tell people stuff
again and again and again and again.
Okay, so that's the messagehere. As much as you think you've

(41:44):
saturated that point, there'sa good chance a large portion of
your audience doesn't evenknow what the heck. So the necessity
to tell your origin story orconnect relevant points, you need
to keep doing that over andover again. And this is probably
why large multi billion dollarbrands repeat the message to you
over not months or years, but decades.

(42:06):
So that when you go toSafeway, you're like, snickers really
satisfies.
I know they got you on that.
I mean, think about GaryVaynerchuk, I think, is the master
of this. Like, half the peoplelistening to this could probably
rattle off his origin storyright now because he's patiently
told it again and again andagain and again for years. I've noticed
he doesn't really tell itanymore. Probably because he's checked

(42:28):
the box. Yes.
He's done it enough times now.How do you combat when a creative
person hears that? It's like,God, he's just incessant about telling
that same story and that sameexample, the same four pieces of
advice. Hustle, do this grind,garage sales, you know, how do you
help them overcome thatbelief? Or can you?

(42:48):
I can't. Maybe someone elsecan. I choose to work with people
who already come into it. Sortof like, I only do inbounds. Like,
I don't do any outbound. Soeveryone that comes to me is already
sort of bought into the waythat I see the world and the way
that I do things. And sort oflike one of my foundational things
is, like, you got to do whatworks. We don't get to choose the

(43:09):
rules of the game. We just gotto play them, which is, you know,
I would say that's not alwaystrue, but, like, that's how my brain
works. Like, if you were tothink about there's a slider between
idealist and realist, whichidealist is like, the world should
be this way. And a realist islike, here's how the world is. You
just got to adapt. I would befar on the realist side. And I'm
not saying that's better orworse. It's just where I am. So I

(43:29):
choose to work with people whoare kind of pragmatic realists who
would just be like, oh, yougot to say the same four things over
and over again for a year. Allright, let's do it. So for creative
people, I mean, I do thinkthat that's A challenge that a lot
of them have, like, in theircareer and life in general is like
they get bored of stuff. But,you know, that's another case where
our weaknesses are ourstrengths and vice versa is like

(43:50):
one of the reasons that you'regood at what you do is because you're
always looking to do somethingnew and innovative. But there are
times when that's also maybegoing to hold you back. Whereas I
would say that I'm notinnovative enough. Like, I'm very
good at doing the same thingover and over and over again for
fucking years. But there aretimes when maybe I need to be pushed
out of my comfort zone alittle bit. So I think one's not

(44:10):
better or worse than theother. You just have to recognize
where you are and when youneed to maybe adapt.
Fin, on that note, what arethe three or four things that you
need to repeat over and overabout Finn?
I feel like that's always awork in progress. I'll tell you the
one. Let me outline achallenge that I'm having right now.
So maybe this will help otherpeople. And if you have any advice,
I'd love to hear it. So I havedone a lot of stuff in my career,

(44:30):
like obviously the sort ofdesign and marketing stuff, like
that's one part of it anddifferent kinds of design too. Like,
you know, I've done likegraphic design, I did T shirts, I've
done like product design. Iused to do a lot of like flash and
like website stuff back in theday. And like, I still, like, we
have a full time softwareengineer at our company that I manage.
So like, you wouldn't want meto write code, but I used to do it
for a living. And like, I'mdefinitely competent in terms of

(44:53):
like talking about that andmanaging it. And so one of the things.
And also like my dad was acorrections officer, so I sort of
know a lot about that sort ofside of things. And so one of the
things that I've noticed hasmade me very effective with some
of my clients. For example,there's a woman I work with who like
sources products, like inChina and stuff. Well, I spent a
lot of time in China and Koreaand Indonesia at Abercrombie, like

(45:14):
going to factories. And sowhen I talked to her, I was like,
oh, well, actually I know alot about your world. And she's like,
okay, great, let's worktogether. So one of the challenges
I have is like, how do Icommunicate all the stuff that I
have done so that people willunderstand that I have Pretty deep
expertise in their businessthat I'm not just like someone who
like, is a generic, likeLinkedIn or YouTube coach. Like,

(45:35):
I actually know theirbusiness. How do I communicate that
without sort of muddying thewaters or just like barfing out all
the stuff that I've done?Because that's just sort of super
unfocused. So I can talk aboutsome of the ways that I'm trying
to do that now if you want.But that's like a challenge that
I'm having right now, which isprobably very similar to a lot of
the challenge to a lot ofpeople. Listen this. I was like,
man, I've done all thisdifferent stuff. How do I wrap that

(45:57):
up into one sort of thing thatcommunicates my value but doesn't
overwhelm people.
There was a campaign that wasrun by an editorial company. Editorial
meaning like the editcommercials. And they would run ads
in ad age and things likethat, or creativity. And the tagline
was always, everyone could usea good editor. And they would take

(46:17):
this really long ass speechand it would delete or cross out
all the words and they wouldthen find the most profound thing
and it would be funny andinteresting, like to be or not to
be. But the rest of it wasgarbage. And that's what a good editor
does. So I think what it is isthat all of us have complicated,
like a rich tapestry ofstories, but they're not really all
relevant and no one reallywants to hear all of them. So the

(46:41):
way that I teach people, andit's a. It's a derivation of what
Russell Brunson talks about inhis Dotcom Secrets, that to be an
attractive character, notphysically attractive, but to attract
people to you, there's fourthings you need. Right. And I kind
of modified it slightly. Sonumber one is you need a compelling
backstory. So let's focus juston that. You need a compelling backstory.

(47:01):
And the compelling backstoryto me has three core components.
Your origin, like, where wereyou born, who were your parents,
what did they do, Your birthorder and all that kind of stuff.
Because you said you wereraised in Seattle.
Yep.
Okay, so we know things aboutSeattle. Seattle was the. The music
epicenter for grunge and abunch of different things. The birthplace
of Starbucks, it's rainy andcloudy. So there's things that we

(47:21):
know about that and that's notthat complicated. If you're a middle
child, the firstborn, the lastone, there's things that people know
about that and something aboutyour parents. Right. And you said
your father's a corrections officer.
My dad was in the Navy. Andthen a corrections officer. Yeah.
Which I would say is prettyformative to who I am.
Yes. And then your mom may dothis or that, but those things form
you. Okay. And especially ifyou have a rivalry with an older

(47:43):
sibling, that forms you. Andso that's a clue as to who you're
going to become. Okay. Andit's part of your identity that's
part of the cultural currency.So if I say I'm from South Africa,
I'm from Vietnam, or I'm fromIndia, we automatically assume certain
things, both good and bad, andthat's just part of your currency.
This is where it getsinteresting. Some point in your life,
there's an inciting incidentwhere the world is no longer the

(48:07):
same for you. Something hadhappened, and it's a clue to the
person you're going to become.So scrub through your timeline and
find that point in whichyou're like, I think that was the
first time I started to seethe world differently, and I could
not see it the same again.What was that point? And how old
were you?
Yeah, so for me, that's when Istarted doing YouTube. So I was 38
then. And I had the challengethat a lot of other people listening

(48:28):
to this probably have had,which is why I do the work now of,
like, helping other peoplebuild their audience is, like, I
had done a lot of stuff that Ithought was pretty cool, but, like,
really nobody cared about meor knew who I was. Like, I felt very
invisible, and that's not agood feeling, especially me getting
older. I'm like, this is notgood. So to make a long story short,
I felt like YouTube is theplace for me because the platform

(48:49):
had changed. I realized itwasn't just stuff for little kids
and unboxing videos and stufflike that. So I was like, well, I'm
going to do this. I'm going tofind a way to build an audience.
I'm inspired partly by you andsome other people. I'm going to do
this. And so I did it. 130million views later, now, that's
a thing I can hang my hat on.And I no longer. It's interesting.
Like, I feel like the otherstuff I've done in my career is actually

(49:10):
more interesting and cool. Butthe accepted belief among my audience
is that the fact that I builtthis YouTube channel is actually
the most interesting thingabout me. So I lean on that.
This might be your definingmoment story. But when was the first
clue that kind of tension thatexisted and usually there's a resistance,
right? Because people hearthis like, oh, get on YouTube. Like,
no, I don't want to. Andthey'll say, I don't know I have

(49:32):
anything to say. I'm not goodon camera. No one will listen to
me. And so the incitingincident isn't where you figure it
all out, but it's like themoment where it starts to become
clear. And that clue, do youknow what that is?
Yeah. So I did a course with afriend of mine who plays in this
band called Periphery thatsome people might know, and the course

(49:53):
kind of didn't really go well.It was a good course, but it's because
everybody who showed up was afan of his, and they're not really
a fit for the course. And Iwas like. And I sort of put the course
together for the most part.And I was like, oh, this is a problem.
Like, I don't have an audienceto bring to this. I'm just relying
on other people's audiences toget attention for everything I'm
doing, which means I'm sort ofsubject to the things that their

(50:15):
audience wants, which is notthe things that I necessarily want
to offer. And so I was like, Isee what he can bring to the table.
I see what I can't. I need tohave what he has.
Okay, this is perfect. This isexactly what we want to do. All right,
so we have these stories. Weput them in a container, and we have
to look at it through theright lens. And the way that I do
it is I figure out a veryshort title, usually just two or

(50:38):
three words. It doesn't haveto be a complete sentence for you
to be able. Like, that's thestory I want to tell. So I'll give
you the example, your.
Two word personal brand kindof thing. Yeah, yeah.
Well, no, that's even biggerthan that. So I'll tell you. So the
first story, my origin story,is how I went from Saigon to Santa
Monica. So I can tell you thatwhole story. Number two, this story

(50:58):
is the three names. Rudy,Brad, and Dean. There are three people
who are not super connectedbut somehow lead me to discovering
that you can be a professionalgraphic designer. Dean was a professional
graphic designer that I metwhile running an errand for Brad
to pick up typesetting. Thisis in the early 90s, right? This
is me kind of figuring outthat graphic design could be a field

(51:20):
of study. And my worldchanged. I didn't know such a thing
existed, that there wereprofessional creative designers earning
a real living. That sends Me a path.
I didn't know that either.Much later. Yeah, that's cool.
You see what I'm saying? Sothat sets me on a path, not the final
path. And that's my incitingincident. The final path is the two
J's, Jesse and Jose, whichlead me to my trip to YouTube. So

(51:44):
Jesse's my wife. She's sittingin class with me. She's like, this
is your magic space, babe. Butthe container for this is too small.
Can you play bigger than this?Than the 12 students? And I'm like,
I don't know what that meansuntil I meet Jose, the second J.
So that person says, hey,let's get on YouTube. I'm like, I
don't want to get on YouTube.But when I do, that whole thing changes

(52:06):
my life forever. And this iswhat I do now. So Saigon to Santa
Monica, Rudy, Brad and Deanand the two Js. That's the complete,
compelling backstory.
Okay, I can apply that.
So you'll have to workshopthat a little bit.
Yeah, I get where it's headed.Yeah, I can work with that.
So what you do is when you goout there, depending on who you're
talking to, you're like, youcan quickly recall those things,
and it's very easy for you totalk about because they're containers

(52:29):
for that longer story. So youwant to figure that story out, and
you just repeat that over andover again until people are like,
we got it. Then. Not necessary anymore.
Yeah. So I gotta figure outthe snappy version of me as a sort
of designer, I think, to sortof explain how all this got here.
It's helpful.
Yeah. All right. So that'swhat you would do. So in case people

(52:49):
are wondering what the otherthings are. So you have to have a
compelling collection ofstories curated so that you need
to have. Which you have plentyof. You have to have character flaws,
because no one likes plenty ofthose people. Right. Pixar's 22 rules
of storytelling. We admirecharacters more for their struggle
than we do for their success.And the last one is you have to be

(53:12):
a correct contrarian. If yousay what everybody's saying, no one's
going to listen to you. So youhave to find out, like, what conventional
wisdom is, and you have tofind the way that you say it differently.
And I'll give you an exampleof that. Most people say, as a teacher,
as an educator, you want tocreate safe space so that everyone
can feel seen, heard, andvalued. When I teach, I say I create

(53:32):
unsafe space because I want itto be full of friction. And because
friction is where the magichappens. But we have to learn to
be brave enough to go outsideour comfort zone. So it's with a
wink, it's still safe. Butthere might be a moment here or two
where you're going to feel alittle uncomfortable.
I'll tell you my version ofthat, which is, and I stole this
from someone else, TrevorNielsen. Thank you. I've always given

(53:52):
him credit for this, but it'sa good one, which is opportunity
goes to people who are themost visible, not necessarily the
people who deserve it. And wecan all think about a time where
that was true of someone thatgot promoted. When you're like, she's
not actually good at her job,but she's good at making herself
visible to execs, or certainlyin the agency world. There's lots
and lots of examples of this.And so this is one of these things

(54:14):
that I like to think of theseas inconvenient truths where here's
how the world works, right?And you're like, yep, that's how
it is. And then that opens thedoor to them, like, okay, well what
should I do about it? Andthat's when I can open the door to
the other thing, which islike, well, you need to build a personal
brand because visibility issort of oxygen for opportunity. So
whether you're a full timeemployee, contractor, agency owner,

(54:37):
whatever, it doesn't matter.People need to know who you are.
That's what I call the mindsetshift. So you give them the mindset
shift and like, okay, yeah,you're right. What do I do with it?
Opens the door to thecapability shift, which is, in my
case, I believe that forpeople in sort of our world that
I think LinkedIn and YouTubeare the two best places to do that
and get them to buy into that.Once you've got them to buy into
that, that opens door to youroffer. You just sort of lead them

(54:58):
there. Just logically it'slike, well, if you believe all these
things, then the next step ismy offer. And they're like, cool,
I'm in. So by the time someoneDMs me to ask about this, they've
already sort of bought intoall these things. And it's really
mostly just a question of liketiming and budget and stuff like
that. It's like halfway closed already.
Okay. As a marketer and as aperson who can write well, I'm going

(55:21):
to suggest you do one thing.Take whatever your friend Trevor
said and turn that into a muchmore digestible repeatable thing.
And then that way you don'thave to mention him anymore. So one
version of this is to say it's not.
Changes work. So I don't haveto give him credit anymore.
Well, like, you elevate it.You transform it. Right. It's a transformative
work. Like, one way of sayingthat to me. And it's a twist on something

(55:41):
very familiar, which is it'snot what you know, it's who knows,
you. Which would be able totake that. That your knowledge and
your skill only takes you sofar. But that takes the visibility
part into consideration.
So I'll do that. Quote Chrisdo quote Finn McKenty.
Like, the Office, you got towrite your. Just do it. And then
everybody understands. Like,wow, that was so profound. And you

(56:02):
create that lightning rod forpeople to remember. Right.
These things are always a workin progress, you know, I'm sure,
like, I know you're alwaysrefining this stuff. You know, it's.
I've seen how it's evolvedover the years. You know, you throw
this stuff out there, youworkshop it. You say it one way in
a podcast, you're like, oh,that was pretty good. I'm going to
start using that from now on. Yeah.
Usually you see a reactionfrom the crowd like, oh, you guys
like that? Okay, let me workon that. And sometimes in the moment,

(56:23):
you say it and it rhymes andlike. Or there's alliteration. You're
like, who's smart today? Whotook their smart vitamins today?
You know, all right, I didthat. Okay. I think the one I want
to ask you about, the bigtakeaway, the thing that I think
everybody needs to figure outis what are the fundamentals of making
creative, engaging contentabout any topic? Because there's
a very diverse audience thattunes into the podcast.

(56:45):
Yes. I will give you myframework for this. So again, it's
sort of a spin on the acb,which is. So what you want to do
is it starts like, understandthat the fundamental currency to
all of this is emotionalengagement of some kind. Like, if
you want to get traction foryour content, it has to connect with
people on an emotional level.So you need to start with some topic

(57:08):
in which people have existingemotional engagement. And there's
a way to spin. And if youcan't figure out an angle in which
they have emotional engagementhere, keep working on it until you
do. So, for example, doingyour taxes, not something that people
have a lot of emotionalengagement to. Maybe, however, getting
audited, that's somethingpeople might have emotional attachment

(57:30):
to. Or again, Going back tothe fundamental need for human safety,
like being comfortable inretirement, that might be a thing
that people have emotionalattachment to. So keep working on
it, keep poking at it untilyou find an angle on the thing. You
pick the thing you want totalk about, and then find a way to
package it such that it's atopic people have emotional engagement

(57:50):
to. So I'll give you anobvious example. This is like football
because, you know, people careabout football. So then underneath
that, unpack the existingbeliefs that people have about this
thing about football. So oneof the beliefs about football, and
again, I'm not saying that I.That these are true or untrue, it's
just beliefs that people have.One is that, like, NFL football is
better than college. Anotherone is that they've changed the rules

(58:10):
and now the game sucks.Another one is that football is unsafe
and nobody should play it.These are three beliefs. And then
under each one of thosebeliefs, your content is either going
to validate or challenge thatbelief. So, for example, we take
the belief that NFL is betterthan college football. You could
make a video or reel orwhatever it is that's like, college

(58:30):
football sucks. Here's why.And you say, there's no defense and
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.And like, NFL football is the best
sport in the world. Here's whycollege sucks. You could do the opposite
and it would still work,right? You could say, like, NFL is
boring and the guys play itsafe. I like college because they
go for it, blah, blah, blah.Either of those would work because
we're working with somethingwhich people have an emotional engagement
to either, you know, theyidentify as a pro football fan or

(58:52):
a college football fan. AndI'll give you one more layer on top
of that, which is, generallyspeaking, you will get more. It's
not always true, but generallyspeaking, it's sort of easier to
get a lot of engagement bychallenging people's beliefs. However,
if you challenge people'sbeliefs too much, they will probably
think you're an asshole. Ithink of it as a credibility bank

(59:13):
that every time you validatesomeone's beliefs, you're putting
money into that bank. Everytime you challenge them, you're making
a withdrawal from that bank.So if you want to challenge someone's
beliefs, you better make surethat you have enough currency in
the bank to cover thatwithdrawal. So I don't know exactly
what the number is, but let'ssay it's like 60 or 80% validation

(59:34):
of your audience's beliefs sothat they understand, you know, I
believe you I trust you. We'reon the same page here. So then when
you're like, okay, guys, Igotta tell you something you may
not want to hear, but I thinkyou need to hear, which is the following.
Then you have currency in thebank to cover that. That withdrawal.
Okay, that makes sense. You'retalking about things that people
really care about. But what ifI'm in a really boring space? What

(59:55):
am I going to do?
There's always a way to find.You've got to keep poking at it until
you find a way to make peoplecare about it. And there's always
a way. Always, always, alwaysa way.
Okay, I'm going to give you anexample. I'm an accountant. Is it
the tax thing?
Sure. I mean, there's lots andlots of different ways. I mean, there's
like. I would sort of want toget a little bit of this better sense
of, like, who exactly yourclients are. Like, are these entrepreneurs?

(01:00:19):
Are these, like, families?
Like, yeah, entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurs. Okay, so why dopeople hire you? Like, perhaps I
would say cash flow managementis probably a challenge for a lot
of entrepreneurs, especiallypeople in the agency world, which
is, we did the work, but we'renot going to get paid for 30 days
if we're lucky. Realistically,you know, we're going to have to
chase this invoice down.Meanwhile, I've got payroll coming

(01:00:40):
in and I've got 12 people thatwork for me. And so I've got to find
a way to keep these peopleemployed who do the work while I'm
trying to chase my clientsdown to get the money. So I would
perhaps talk about that sortof challenge that entrepreneurs have
of like, you're doing thework, business is good, but cash
flow is tough, and you'restressing about making payroll all

(01:01:02):
the time. It doesn't have tobe this way. Here's how you work
with an accountant to sort ofsmooth out cash flow such that you're
no longer having thisstressful moment every day. It's
like the 23rd payrolls onMonday. What are we going to do?
Like, so and so hasn't paid usyet. Like, business is good, we have
the money. It's just not inour account yet. Work with me and
I can help you sort of get outof this, like, monthly stressor that

(01:01:27):
you're experiencing all thetime. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.Okay, that was a perfect example
and applaud you for doingthat. So if you're an accountant
and you're working withentrepreneurs, the subject of cash
flow is kind of boring. It'slike taxes. Like, okay, now what?
So you're saying find theemotional engagement or the hot button
that triggers people in, like,oh, I feel that what's going on?

(01:01:49):
Making payroll, that'ssomething people have a lot of emotional
attachment to.
Yes. Making payroll, notgetting paid. Or maybe a line is
like, business is booming. Howcome the bank statement is zero?
Exactly, exactly.
Stuff like that. Right?
Yep.
Okay, that was, that was agreat example. Thanks for doing that.
Okay, so I think that was veryclear, high level understanding of
this. I'm going to make theassumption that this is what you

(01:02:11):
help people do. So outside ofthe punk rock stuff that you do and
reacting to punk rock andbands, that's like a whole different
lane that you're in. But theway that you really make money or
how you're an adult is youactually help companies figure out
their marketing.
Yeah, well, I would sayentrepreneurs, like typically solopreneurs,
because I don't like workingwith companies for all the reasons

(01:02:32):
that you probably don'teither. And that all the people listening
to this don't is like, I don'twant to deal with like stakeholder
management, so I accept lowerbudgets. Like, I know I could make
more money if I was workingwith companies. I don't want to do
it, I don't need to do it. SoI just work with entrepreneurs so
I don't have to deal with allthat bullshit.
You like to work withentrepreneurs and you help them figure
out how to make their boringmessaging not so boring.

(01:02:54):
So that you can andspecifically grow on LinkedIn and
YouTube. Okay, so if you're anentrepreneur and you want to grow
your audience on LinkedIn and.Or YouTube and turn that into money,
I can help you do that.
Do you have a framework to do that?
I have lots of them and Icould explain all of them, but it
would take us another hour anda half. But if you thought the other
stuff that I said was smart,it's similar stuff to that.
Okay, so where can people goto find out more about some of the

(01:03:17):
stuff that you do?
You can go to finmkenty.comthat's Finn N-M-C K-E N T Y.com or
look me up on LinkedIn wouldprobably be the two best places to
do it.
Thanks for hopping on ourpodcast, sharing that I enjoyed hearing
your story and I think yougave us some really tangible things
to do. So give him a follow.Where should they go to follow you?
LinkedIn. Yeah. Finn McKentyon LinkedIn.

(01:03:37):
LinkedIn. Oh, that's easy.Okay, just look him up. Finn McKenty
and that's F I N N McKenty M CK E N T Y thanks very much for being
a guest on our show today.
Thanks for having me. I amFinn McKenty and you are listening
to the Future.

(01:03:58):
Thanks for joining us. If youhaven't already, subscribe to our
show on your favoritepodcasting app and get new insightful
episodes from us every week.The Future Podcast is hosted by Chris
do and produced and edited byRich Cardona Media. Thank you to
Adam Sanborn for our intromusic. If you enjoyed this episode,

(01:04:19):
then do us a favor byreviewing and rating our show on
Apple Podcasts. It will helpus grow the show and make future
episodes that much better. Ifyou'd like to support the show and
invest in yourself whileyou're at it, visit thefuture.com
and you'll find video courses,digital products, and a bunch of
helpful resources about designand the creative business. Thanks

(01:04:40):
again for listening and we'llsee you next time.

All Episodes

Crafting Credibility in Content - With Finn McKenty | Episode 326

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Are You A Charlotte?

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

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

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Crafting Credibility in Content - With Finn McKenty | Episode 326