Why "Better" Is Garbage with Grant Gooding – Proof Positioning – Mix & Matchbox Podcast

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[SPEAKER_00]: At Matchbox Design Group, we help financial institutions turn their digital presence into measurable growth with smarter websites, practical marketing strategies, SEO and AI optimization, accessibility, and ongoing support.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If you're ready to get more from your marketing, go to Matchbox Design Group.com.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, I am Brent Feldman.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We are back with another episode of Mix and Matchbox.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Today I am joined by Grant Gooding.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Grant is the founder at proof positioning and Grant.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It is great to see you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: How are you doing?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we're going to see you about how we doing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, doing wonderful, super excited to get all these questions.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I know we've had a couple of chats before, but we got some, we got some spicy ones.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll jump right into an easy one, not spicy yet.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Before we get into proof positioning, can you take us through your journey from, basically, mergers and acquisitions to studying why people buy?
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[SPEAKER_00]: What did you see in failed deals that convinced you,
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[SPEAKER_01]: customers in trying to, trying to bore people to death right off the bat, trying to talk about murders and acquisitions, you know, if you're close to it all like they people kind of like tongue and cheek refer to it or some murders and executions, which is always funny, but it's a very complicated, it's a very complicated world.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I did start out there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I, I will,
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[SPEAKER_01]: I loved it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We kind of joke and call it an MBA every day because as you might imagine, you're just constantly dealing with these very high level strategic issues that you kind of have to solve for.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I suppose that was sort of the birthplace of the idea of proof, which was really rooted in.
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[SPEAKER_01]: essentially a lack of good research that we could use when making those strategic decisions.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So if you've ever gone through this or if anybody listening has ever gone through an acquisition, they know that the due diligence process is cumbersome.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It is, I mean, there's a microscope on everything and you're surrounded by a ton of smart people.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, one of the things that we kind of identified that we always needed to know, but couldn't figure out is why and the heck someone is doing business.
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[SPEAKER_01]: with one or both of the entities that we're looking at.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So let's just say for the sake of simplicity, we're making an acquisition of two companies.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now let's just say they're very similar business models.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They're agencies, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And typically there's a strategic reason you're doing that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You're adding customers or you're adding services or whatever that you can do a one plus one equals to your kind of situation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the thing that is kind of soft that you don't really have a great beat on is how these organizations are actually different.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know what they do, you can see the work product, you can look at the customer bases and you can analyze all these things and that's what happens in due diligence.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But you don't really know who these people are.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Why did a client gravitate towards you?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Or versus somebody else?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And conversely, the company that you're purchasing, why are they doing business with it?
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[SPEAKER_01]: a fundamental thing that we needed to know, but didn't exist anywhere.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so we started asking stupid questions around like, all right, well, who can tell us that?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And we looked at actually ages to ages these are like, we'll tell you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then they give us these personas and we're like, what is this?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, this doesn't help us, it helps us understand some quantifiable, albeit stereotypical things about customer potentially.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But why are they here?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, it was inherently a noble information.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so it went down this kind of like whole rabbit hole of doing research on research and trying to figure out what's the psychology and, you know, the whole point of most market research methodologies are to measure people.
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[SPEAKER_01]: One of the surprising things that we found out is there's almost no market research methodology
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[SPEAKER_01]: in their measurement techniques.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, why do we ask people questions the way that we ask them?
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[SPEAKER_01]: We learned a whole bunch of stuff that
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[SPEAKER_01]: that had a scratch in her heads and going, why do people do it this way?
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[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't make any sense.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that's where it all started and that's how the transition happened.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's cool.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, honestly, it is, there's so much to go through when you're doing an M&A process.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing that I've heard is that if you think your books are good, they're not, they're, they need to be better.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I know that, yeah, the first question of jumping into M and A, that's not where we're going here necessarily.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I do want to jump into some other questions here.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You've said that customers don't care about your organization.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like that is just like such a transparent thing and a realization that sometimes people need to come to.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, what does that mean for, and in this case, maybe a bank or an association who's marketing constantly talks about its history, its mission, its product, its people?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're 100% right, all of those things happen especially in making, especially, I mean,
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[SPEAKER_01]: The lesson here is that human beings are selfish, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And organizations are also selfish.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's why they want to shut up about themselves.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's also an indication that they actually don't have any idea why their customers are doing business with them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They have no idea what value they actually drive and therefore they have nothing else to talk about other than look how many years we've been in business.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, let's come up with a catchy phrase or something that we think might be unique in our market.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Drealty is that that's not how the human brain works.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The human brain does not do well with little, like little fancy quotes like integrity, consistency.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the brain operates in very, very simple phrases.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The buying brain is the dumbest part of our brain.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And it does not care about you at all.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We've been able to actually mathematically prove it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We've got all, we had all case study on it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The people can read on our website if you want to find out.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's called, we titled it, aptly, your customers don't care about you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because they don't.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And in almost any way, what can you do for them?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that is something that I simply simply just don't see thanks to talk about.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Banking is a very challenging, it's a very challenging, I see good, for sure, but yes, you're 100% right, it is they are they are wild violators of that basic psychological principle.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It definitely makes sense to for industry that's heavily regulated, they have to deal with obviously the challenges of that mix with really not necessarily understand their own differentiation point in a lot of cases, they're kind of funneled into the middle of exactly talking about, you know, the same tropes as everybody else, things that really aren't necessarily interesting at the core and they miss the point of, you know, what are you going to do for
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[SPEAKER_00]: the end of the day.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, then you layer on the fact that there are ability to differentiate via experiences, darn near and possible, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's so commoditized now that you just need to have friendly people in an easy process and that's your best, that's the best you can do.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So banks are forced into a situation which is they have to win at the margins.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The idea that you
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's not a thing anymore.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They have to understand that you have to be able to identify micro ditches and micro markets in order to be successful if you're a bank.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're not doing that, you are not growing unless you're just getting really, really lucky on the business side of the bank.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, one of the most interesting things the other other day.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I know they've had these another, you know, markets already, but I saw what was at the Capital One Cafe.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So instead of just being a bank, it's essentially it's like a coffee shop, but they have banking product, you know, tell it things to, you know, to help you there with whatever it may be from that side of the financial side of the house, but they also just
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[SPEAKER_00]: they just have a cafe.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it's wild because I think people in the outside of it actually don't get it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, especially the people that may be passing by in the mall looking at going away, do I have to be a capital one customer to go in there?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Can I get a coffee if I'm a regular person?
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think it's worked out, but I think that goes to your point of like, it's so hard to differentiate what are you going to do in the marketplace that's going
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[SPEAKER_00]: know, you know, good, good, good, good.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I always say one of the golden rules of marketing is going to be better than anybody else.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You just have to be different.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And at least they're doing that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, at least if people are like, what the hole's going on in there?
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[SPEAKER_01]: What the hole's going on in there is actually not a terrible marketing strategy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you look and smell the exact same as everybody else.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, definitely actually that you walked right into that next question of like, you know, like, you don't have to being better that can be expensive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It can be meaningless.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why is why is better is better anything in marketing of just like, well, we're better.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the better is garbage.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But it's not, I mean, it's not even anything.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And look, there are certain words.
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[SPEAKER_01]: that you absolutely cannot say, okay?
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you are in business and you're trying to connect with human beings and there words like customer service is one, that's not even a real thing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It is a lazy amalgamation of actual things that are meaningful, summarized into a concept that was made up, quality, exact same thing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: not a real thing, it is an lazy amalgamation of actual things, for instance, quality could be the defect rate per million of your manufacturing process.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It could be the density of a product.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It could be the length of time that the product exists.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It can be all of those things, but the brain does not know how to process quality.
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[SPEAKER_01]: we get things done, all of those things, literally you're losing money every time you say them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because the brain does not know how to quantify and objectify those things, which is how the brain remembers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, better, better is, it's absolutely pointless and meaningless and you should never, ever, ever strive to be better.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because even if you say that you are by some objective measure, it's incredibly hard to prove it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And here's a there's a principle and I'm sure I don't know what this is.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I have a graph for it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I write graphs for everything because I'm a weird out.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm sure there's a principle around this that someone's much smarter than me has put together, but it's it's a round the idea of a first impression.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the things that we've been able to figure out is that the first time that you have an engagement with someone whether or not they're walking into your bank for the first time or whether you're doing a brand engagement with them or we're doing a research project or whatever it is.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you execute that flawlessly, the first time, that is what people remember.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And you can execute subpar from that point on and still their perception of you will still be executing it 100%.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Conversely, if you hit a B minus on that first engagement and you hit an A plus thereafter, you're still a B minus in their brain.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so, if you're better, that means you're trying to get somewhere, and then what you have to convince people that somehow you've objectively improved, you're fighting against how they're brain naturally operates, it is absolutely an absolute waste of time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Your only job should be how do I make myself different?
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[SPEAKER_01]: The brain is genetically predisposed to identify things are different.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Use that psychology to your advantage.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Cool, love that, that's, that's super important.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I, I'm thinking on, you know, the next one here is going to be interesting because, you know, I guess most banks are promising trust, you know, service, relationships and community.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's something that, you know, they're all all words you're not supposed to say.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, keep going.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, totally.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I know when I was like, there's one that's sitting on the back of my mind, it's luckily not leverages much that I would just murder some of you every time I hear it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's authenticity.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and I'm like, you know, please, like, you're using that word.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like it's not off it anyway.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But if every institution uses the same language, have those words become essentially useless, much like you were talking about with better.
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[SPEAKER_01]: 100%.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like not only does the brain not know what to do with them, but the more the people say it, the less value they have.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's just they're getting wide-rushed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's absolutely point.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's absolutely pointless.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And they don't realize like humans don't think in marketing crazy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They think in dumb, dumb, sixth grade language.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's how our brain works.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's how it remembers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's how it likes to communicate.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Great salespeople know this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you meet great salespeople, they will talk to you like at a sixth grade level.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, it's a kind of brand.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Fairly about being, you know, flowery or decorated with all the, you know, engineering knowledge or especially jargon heavy lingo, it's about being talking to people, how people sometimes just want to be communicated with.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We're saturated with so much all the time that like, yeah, by trying to talk up here, it's, you know, maybe missing all of those people within the fray and, uh, and that, that
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[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, even as far as web studies, they were saying that people don't want to be talked to on an extremely high level.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, better communication happens at a, and I think for the web, they were saying an eighth grade level, but still, you know, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Associations often assume that they know their members because they interact with them regularly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They have all these, you know, sort of whether it be events.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They're chatting with them frequently because they're getting their feedback.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But why can familiarity actually make an organization worse at their judge of their audience's values?
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a good question.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's probably the same reason that
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[SPEAKER_01]: The answer, I think, in one word is perspective.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of like if you work at your own company, and you become very familiar with systems, processes, dogma, and you know everything that's going on.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What you don't know is the color of the paint on the outside of the building, because you're never on the outside.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You're always on the inside.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so you make these assumptions about what value you're driving, and associations are, you're right, they have a lot of interaction with their members and they typically have a really good pulse on what they need.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's also typically extremely fragmented.
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[SPEAKER_01]: right like there's lots of different things that they do and they really don't understand well which are those things actually drive value and which of those things are noise.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Is it the events that we're going to go to?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Is it um are they providing consulting?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Is it the networking?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Is it that they can provide some kind of a accreditation that'll help me increase micro?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like associations do a hundred things for a member.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And there's probably only one or two that actually drives real value that has people go, you know what, this is I'm going for this, but they don't ever know that because they're talking to them and if you're talking to someone you should absolutely not believe what they tell you because it's not the truth it's not that they're trying to deceive you necessarily, but it's like, um,
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[SPEAKER_01]: They take any consideration who they're talking to.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In the United States, we're incredibly polite, wildly polite.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll tell a little white lies just to be applied to somebody.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So if you remember to association, you're talking to the member.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to be somewhat polite.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There also may not be a great answer to the question that you got asked.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so you made one up.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And not because it's wildly wrong, but
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[SPEAKER_01]: the the question actually created an answer that didn't exist and therefore it's bad data.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Does it make sense?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So then they take that back and they go, oh man, well here's this and this we should do this and it's like you're solving a problem that you created.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't think it wasn't a thing but but people take people's words and they absolutely
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[SPEAKER_01]: they absolutely should not.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't trust what people tell me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I trust the data that I see.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, actually, I heard a presentation about, you know, it was about sales essentially and it was like all of your customers are lying to you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All your customers, your potential customers, they're going to lie to you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's the inclination, you ask them all that, you know, the same questions formula and like you just, you have to know that they are going to lie to you.
18:45.167 --> 18:47.108
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not because they're trying to be rude.
18:47.508 --> 18:51.949
[SPEAKER_00]: It's literally, it's just kind of inherently the thing you said it, they know who they're talking to.
18:52.329 --> 19:04.612
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of those communication points are to like, you know, obviously we the communication in the way that they're feeling like that will be most important for them, not necessarily what will be most important for you.
19:05.033 --> 19:06.893
[SPEAKER_00]: And so anyway, it's just fascinating.
19:07.213 --> 19:13.415
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, this is a tack on question that, how would you say that people go about relearning their customer?
19:13.875 --> 19:21.500
[SPEAKER_00]: Because, you know, if they're talking to them all the time, and I think that's an operative word, the talking, they're not necessarily listening, but what is that?
19:21.560 --> 19:25.062
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the way to, you know, sort of, like get the right information then?
19:27.062 --> 19:34.264
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I have a very biased and myopic lens because it's all I've done for 15 years to do that exact thing.
19:34.304 --> 19:43.526
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think the way that we tried to solve this issue, Ted Ways from Sunday, and we've settled on a model that we think works really well.
19:45.247 --> 19:48.628
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't bias folks, it takes any consideration their motivations.
19:49.917 --> 19:57.903
[SPEAKER_01]: their feelings more than what they say or how they justify a purchase or why they didn't purchase something.
19:59.985 --> 20:05.129
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, my answer in that instance is wildly selfish because of kind of what we do all day.
20:05.910 --> 20:12.695
[SPEAKER_01]: But to your point earlier, I think if you want to see a CEO's face turn red, tell them that
20:16.984 --> 20:22.769
[SPEAKER_01]: Just what you said, every single one of your customers has lied to the face of all of your salespeople.
20:23.450 --> 20:27.914
[SPEAKER_01]: And then your salespeople will take that data back to their sales director, their sales manager.
20:28.355 --> 20:29.856
[SPEAKER_01]: And they are keeping track of it.
20:30.296 --> 20:36.782
[SPEAKER_01]: And they are developing strategies and tactics based on zero truths and 100% lies.
20:37.463 --> 20:39.064
[SPEAKER_01]: And you will see that sink in.
20:39.785 --> 20:43.367
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can just see the horror on their face if they've never thought about that before.
20:43.387 --> 20:53.074
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen that several times, but it's a thousand percent true and unless you have good data that helps you understand what's really important to people,
20:54.463 --> 20:58.405
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what you have to figure out is, well, here's a hack, okay, I'll just play this.
20:58.465 --> 21:05.087
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't, yes, we have a tool that does this, but the reality is human beings make decisions with their belief brain, okay?
21:05.647 --> 21:11.430
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, the limbic system is responsible for a few things, emotions, memories, beliefs are the most important.
21:12.092 --> 21:20.617
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason is because every human walking around is she has just hundreds and hundreds of beliefs that they believe are true.
21:20.697 --> 21:25.539
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything from how they dress, to how they shake somebody's hand, to the correct way to hold a towel.
21:26.220 --> 21:26.540
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay?
21:27.160 --> 21:33.003
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you can create alignment with their belief system, you can sell someone almost anything.
21:34.284 --> 21:36.926
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't, however, so here's a great example for banks.
21:39.171 --> 21:40.172
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a little older than you, I think.
21:40.272 --> 21:45.216
[SPEAKER_01]: I grew up in the 90s, basically, right?
21:46.137 --> 21:50.580
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, in the 90s, think about all the movies.
21:50.600 --> 21:52.682
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of financial movies in the 90s, right?
21:52.722 --> 21:53.983
[SPEAKER_01]: Like going Gary Glenn Ross.
21:54.444 --> 21:58.607
[SPEAKER_01]: And think about all these bankers, what did they all wear?
22:00.409 --> 22:04.132
[SPEAKER_01]: Big suits, big shoulder pads, big ties, right?
22:04.172 --> 22:05.113
[SPEAKER_01]: Very stereotypical.
22:07.121 --> 22:14.667
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, just because I grew up during that time when I was exposed to that, it is my belief that a banker should wear a tie.
22:15.487 --> 22:26.035
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, if that's really just based on nothing other than my consumption during the time when my brain is forming, and I'm learning what things are true and what things are not true.
22:26.596 --> 22:31.139
[SPEAKER_01]: And because all that's solidifies by the about the age of 13,
22:32.248 --> 22:37.592
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it's very, very hard to change someone's belief system that bankers don't have to wear ties.
22:38.012 --> 22:47.559
[SPEAKER_01]: So imagine I'm sitting in my office in a banker walks in, and he's trying to win my business and convince me to take out a loan or to move my deposit business over to him.
22:48.599 --> 22:50.040
[SPEAKER_01]: And he doesn't have a tie on.
22:50.941 --> 22:51.801
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why.
22:51.821 --> 22:56.505
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why, but it doesn't feel right, right?
22:57.285 --> 22:59.106
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's because there's this belief that I feel like
23:02.100 --> 23:07.244
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I may not realize that, rationally, but it's happening in the back of my head, right?
23:07.364 --> 23:11.428
[SPEAKER_01]: And in this calculation happens, it happens in milliseconds, right?
23:11.608 --> 23:14.170
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what everything is based on is this belief system.
23:14.811 --> 23:16.792
[SPEAKER_01]: So then I don't hire them.
23:17.773 --> 23:21.636
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the banker asks me, hey, why did you decide not to go with us?
23:22.137 --> 23:23.117
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna say something.
23:24.218 --> 23:27.281
[SPEAKER_01]: It's gonna be polite, but it's not gonna be true.
23:28.725 --> 23:28.945
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
23:29.585 --> 23:35.629
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I'm not even if I did realize that I don't think you take your jobs here, is you gonna say that to them?
23:37.389 --> 23:38.430
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not gonna say that to them.
23:39.711 --> 23:44.093
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you use a model like ours where you can't lie to us, we'll be able to figure stuff like that out.
23:44.613 --> 23:52.037
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the difference between really understanding a customer and just going around guessing and growing darts.
23:52.737 --> 23:53.238
[SPEAKER_00]: That's great.
23:53.778 --> 23:55.559
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, now that we're on the topic of lies,
23:55.979 --> 24:24.115
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... what what is the biggest lie uh... a traditional customer personas tell us and uh... you know how much marketing money gets wasted because leaders can fuse demographic profile with an actual buying motivation uh... it's a good question i thought you're to say like what's the biggest lie is it's too expensive uh... i know that's not exactly the question thought over you're going to be without question the biggest lies uh... all we have the budget for that
24:25.131 --> 24:25.491
[SPEAKER_01]: wrong.
24:25.872 --> 24:27.993
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the most common lie at times.
24:29.094 --> 24:30.996
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, but the actuality is well here.
24:31.036 --> 24:31.476
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's a hack.
24:31.656 --> 24:31.897
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
24:32.357 --> 24:39.783
[SPEAKER_01]: So the human brain essentially is a is a risk detector.
24:41.044 --> 24:43.967
[SPEAKER_01]: And if someone did not buy from you.
24:45.175 --> 24:47.337
[SPEAKER_01]: Two things did not occur most likely.
24:47.937 --> 25:02.290
[SPEAKER_01]: One, you were not differentiate yourself from the other considerations that were happening at the time, which means you look the exact same as somebody else, and so you forced someone into a price situation against their will, right?
25:03.030 --> 25:07.054
[SPEAKER_01]: The second thing is you did not decrease the risk of hiring you enough.
25:08.274 --> 25:13.977
[SPEAKER_01]: The person on the other side of the table is going to select the least risky option, whatever that is.
25:14.617 --> 25:23.601
[SPEAKER_01]: So whatever you can do to diminish the perceived risk of hiring you will mathematically maximize the probability of you winning business.
25:23.701 --> 25:30.164
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not, that's one of the biggest hacks that I've learned studying humans for the last two decades almost.
25:31.005 --> 25:33.026
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's an absolute hack.
25:33.046 --> 25:33.486
[SPEAKER_01]: Personas,
25:36.290 --> 25:43.973
[SPEAKER_01]: make everyone feel great like they're Susie and Susie feels real.
25:43.993 --> 25:47.575
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a picture and she's tired when she gets off work.
25:47.735 --> 25:50.376
[SPEAKER_01]: And when she drives home, she just wants to relax.
25:50.436 --> 25:52.277
[SPEAKER_01]: Because when she gets home, she's got all these things.
25:52.697 --> 25:55.518
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all, it's not all, it's mostly nonsense.
25:56.239 --> 26:01.221
[SPEAKER_01]: We've analyzed hundreds and hundreds of personas with actual data.
26:01.581 --> 26:02.241
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what we find.
26:07.067 --> 26:08.309
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to be exactly right.
26:08.329 --> 26:23.567
[SPEAKER_01]: One of them is going to be kind of like, yeah, there's something there, but it's not completely real, but or maybe we've taken two when we kind of mixed them together into one, because it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it
26:24.402 --> 26:26.963
[SPEAKER_01]: Because a persona is a clean format.
26:27.284 --> 26:29.084
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, humans are not clean formats.
26:29.105 --> 26:29.945
[SPEAKER_01]: They're complicated.
26:30.725 --> 26:32.966
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's a couple of further typically six for some reason.
26:33.347 --> 26:38.009
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's two personas that are like completely, typically, made up.
26:38.209 --> 26:42.371
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like one interview, and they just, they're like, oh, that seems like a good one.
26:42.651 --> 26:47.054
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna call that one the face, face, do gooder.
26:47.954 --> 26:57.381
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then we make a persona for the face, face, face, do good and it's like based on one interview and there's no quantifiable data to justify why that persona should exist.
26:59.002 --> 27:00.523
[SPEAKER_01]: But people love personas.
27:00.603 --> 27:07.008
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes, like, if you can take something complicated and make it simple, people are going to like it, period.
27:07.668 --> 27:09.429
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's one of those things personas do.
27:09.549 --> 27:12.391
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes a while, it takes your whole universe of customers and just goes,
27:17.282 --> 27:17.883
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
27:18.103 --> 27:18.363
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
27:18.443 --> 27:20.706
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I mean, like it in it definitely it makes sense.
27:20.786 --> 27:28.595
[SPEAKER_00]: It's easier for people to glam on to something where it's digestible as supposed to be as messy and chaotic as it actually truly is.
27:29.275 --> 27:34.881
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and on that, uh, you know, people say they make rational business decisions.
27:35.242 --> 27:38.385
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sure this applies, you know, especially in banking.
27:39.206 --> 27:44.890
[SPEAKER_00]: you argue that emotion drives the decision and logic merely justifies it.
27:45.311 --> 27:53.396
[SPEAKER_00]: So, what emotions are banks actually selling and whether they realize it or not?
27:53.737 --> 27:59.661
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think those emotions are that they are trying to sell or what should they be selling from an emotional standpoint?
27:59.988 --> 28:02.290
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, first of all, I'm not arguing that.
28:02.511 --> 28:04.653
[SPEAKER_01]: People, neuroscientists argue that.
28:04.933 --> 28:05.934
[SPEAKER_01]: I just trust them.
28:06.635 --> 28:09.457
[SPEAKER_01]: You're an eroding idiot, okay.
28:09.477 --> 28:10.999
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's not my argument.
28:11.019 --> 28:12.160
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not my argument.
28:12.200 --> 28:13.642
[SPEAKER_01]: You could look up to Masio, right?
28:13.662 --> 28:19.347
[SPEAKER_01]: Antonio to Masio would be that original argument, but it has been wildly justified.
28:20.088 --> 28:24.832
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we make decisions with the dumbest part of our brain in the limbic system.
28:25.172 --> 28:34.840
[SPEAKER_01]: And people think they make rational decisions, but you could argue that you can't make some arguments that the, that's the, that's the frontal lobe in the Theo cortex, okay?
28:35.120 --> 28:40.184
[SPEAKER_01]: That part of the brain is sort of physiologically incapable of making a decision, right?
28:40.204 --> 28:42.505
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's mostly true.
28:43.166 --> 28:44.587
[SPEAKER_01]: So anybody that says they made a
28:47.109 --> 28:52.312
[SPEAKER_01]: They're just telling themselves that to make themselves feel better because every decision is emotional, right?
28:52.373 --> 28:58.457
[SPEAKER_01]: Regardless of its complexity and the way we will ignore our species is that's quite the irrational.
28:58.877 --> 29:03.300
[SPEAKER_01]: We will ignore logic and reason in every turn to satisfy our emotive brain.
29:04.220 --> 29:07.483
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you think I'm joking, just walk outside and pay attention.
29:08.103 --> 29:10.485
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll be like, yeah, it's all craziness.
29:10.845 --> 29:14.007
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing logical or rational about what it's happening outside.
29:15.849 --> 29:23.415
[SPEAKER_01]: So that being said, what emotion are banks selling, I don't think they are.
29:23.895 --> 29:29.120
[SPEAKER_01]: I think they tried, I think they're trying, I think they want to, I think they want to sell a few things.
29:29.660 --> 29:35.024
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you really took us asked a bank CEO and said, what do you want your customers to feel?
29:35.425 --> 29:39.508
[SPEAKER_01]: They're probably going to say something like, I want them to feel confident.
29:40.529 --> 29:42.410
[SPEAKER_01]: I want them to feel secure.
29:43.353 --> 29:45.595
[SPEAKER_01]: right, these are great emotions.
29:46.215 --> 29:48.878
[SPEAKER_01]: But they're again, not all that differentiating.
29:49.398 --> 29:51.860
[SPEAKER_01]: People aren't worried about their money anymore.
29:51.920 --> 30:01.669
[SPEAKER_01]: There's too many regulations and things that have been put in place like the FDIC and all these other things are people actually aren't worried about their money being taken out like they were in the 1930s.
30:02.369 --> 30:06.893
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's great that you want them to
30:11.244 --> 30:28.039
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, people with machine guns in the front, wild the unnecessary right like they aren't they aren't they aren't selling them emotions now I also want to be clear when I say emotions I don't mean like happiness.
30:29.433 --> 30:30.854
[SPEAKER_01]: friendliness, right?
30:30.874 --> 30:32.536
[SPEAKER_01]: Like anxiety.
30:33.697 --> 30:39.661
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't mean you have to sell them those emotions, but humans make irrational emotional decisions.
30:40.142 --> 30:43.805
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have to find something that does not talk to the logic frame.
30:44.245 --> 30:51.551
[SPEAKER_01]: They get them to go, yeah, it's like so for instance, um, if you just, if you're a bank and you just decided, you know what?
30:52.272 --> 30:54.494
[SPEAKER_01]: We are all about the arts from now on.
30:55.204 --> 30:55.545
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
30:56.266 --> 30:58.450
[SPEAKER_01]: Arts and culture.
30:58.730 --> 30:59.211
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's it.
31:00.060 --> 31:08.764
[SPEAKER_01]: and put a stake in the ground and say, well, now we know who we are, we know who our customers are, we know what our employees are, right?
31:08.824 --> 31:11.785
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we know the types of events that we should sponsor.
31:12.345 --> 31:19.569
[SPEAKER_01]: And now we can go target those nonprofits to be customers and be like, you want to work with us, where the bank for people in the arts.
31:20.369 --> 31:23.150
[SPEAKER_01]: That will work because it's a micro segment.
31:23.530 --> 31:25.171
[SPEAKER_01]: It's doing anything different.
31:25.331 --> 31:26.912
[SPEAKER_01]: No other bank in town is going to do that.
31:26.992 --> 31:28.512
[SPEAKER_01]: I promise you they're way too scared.
31:30.643 --> 31:32.264
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, all you have to do is that.
31:32.564 --> 31:33.405
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all you have to do.
31:33.925 --> 31:42.610
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what, I think you're honestly, you're speaking to something and I feel very passionately about is that like I feel like everybody needs a vertical focus.
31:42.710 --> 31:49.474
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter what that is and honestly, it's really former people to reinforce the idea that they care about something.
31:49.835 --> 31:55.998
[SPEAKER_00]: And people want to I think know that whether it be an institution or anybody that they care about something.
31:56.178 --> 31:58.500
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, they're focused on something.
31:58.980 --> 32:01.802
[SPEAKER_00]: And anyway, and I do, I feel like that's a great idea.
32:01.822 --> 32:03.863
[SPEAKER_00]: They can tap that network.
32:03.943 --> 32:13.829
[SPEAKER_00]: They can play that out, essentially more fully, if they're actually focused within a sphere as opposed to just all over the place and speaking of the same values that everybody else has.
32:15.170 --> 32:25.977
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been in the last hundreds of times, about thousands of folks that have said, well, certainly thousands, and asked a very simple question,
32:29.082 --> 32:33.065
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, almost nothing interesting comes out of their mouth.
32:33.085 --> 32:39.710
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, imagine you just walked up to like, you just stood outside of a bank and when someone come out and you say, hey, why do you do business with this bank?
32:39.730 --> 32:45.814
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're like, well, um, I just really just like to throw associated with black rock.
32:45.955 --> 32:49.597
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like, no, nobody is going to have any idea.
32:49.757 --> 32:50.678
[SPEAKER_01]: They just treated me well.
32:50.698 --> 32:51.599
[SPEAKER_00]: They were just really nice.
32:51.679 --> 32:52.840
[SPEAKER_01]: That's like all you have.
32:53.785 --> 33:15.860
[SPEAKER_01]: But imagine, if you're this fictitious financial institution that really hyper focuses on the arts and be like, they support the organizations that I support, they came out and spoke when I was, you know, my daughters in ballet and they came out and spoke to us and like have like, they care teaching them about finance and you know, I just really thought that was great.
33:16.080 --> 33:17.081
[SPEAKER_01]: It was aligned with who I am.
33:17.141 --> 33:17.501
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
33:18.813 --> 33:20.554
[SPEAKER_01]: But the problem is there's too many of that.
33:20.574 --> 33:23.515
[SPEAKER_01]: There's too much of that for any one bank to do all of it.
33:23.856 --> 33:26.957
[SPEAKER_01]: So you got a pick one or two and no bank will do it.
33:26.997 --> 33:28.518
[SPEAKER_01]: They're way too chicken.
33:28.538 --> 33:35.941
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I can count on one hand, the number of the number of bankers I've met that even have a reasonable risk tolerance.
33:36.535 --> 34:00.551
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and it's actually it's so painful too because like actually there's so many banks that I know who are aligned with great organizations and really putting all their eggs in that basket or even merely talking about some of the amazing things they do in the community for the people that they serve is sometimes just not even on the radar and like, you know, what you get is the vanilla water down, you know, and
34:02.452 --> 34:03.372
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's so challenging.
34:03.432 --> 34:11.176
[SPEAKER_00]: Like some great nonprofit work, you know, stuff that they're doing with like, you know, certain segments of the community, it's just it's all over the place.
34:11.236 --> 34:18.699
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like it's not happening, but it's maybe not at the forefront and what they are actually projecting is like, this is, this is us, this is who we are.
34:18.759 --> 34:19.920
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why we are.
34:20.480 --> 34:43.663
[SPEAKER_01]: So will they they need to figure it out because there's what 4,000 small banks in this country and the numbers getting smaller all the time and so like if you if you want to stand on your own two feet You better figure this out because I know at least 20 from what from what our clients tell us at least 20% of their of their net income goes to security alone
34:44.677 --> 34:59.591
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's your marketing budget right and they have for force to spend that and it's up so margins are then if you're a bank and if they don't figure that out they're either going to get acquired or they're going to go away so like if they're not doing it now.
35:00.530 --> 35:01.451
[SPEAKER_01]: They're in deep crap.
35:01.511 --> 35:02.112
[SPEAKER_01]: They just are.
35:02.673 --> 35:02.893
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
35:03.193 --> 35:03.734
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
35:03.934 --> 35:04.415
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
35:04.635 --> 35:09.641
[SPEAKER_00]: If they're going to prove to be that vital part of the community or this is how they connect everything else.
35:09.701 --> 35:14.627
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why they they have earned the right to exist long term.
35:15.088 --> 35:16.009
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
35:16.029 --> 35:16.790
[SPEAKER_00]: Got to stake the claim.
35:17.130 --> 35:17.470
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.
35:17.610 --> 35:21.031
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's good associations on the other hand.
35:21.132 --> 35:29.995
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they're frequently responding to declining engagement by adding, you know, more benefits, they're adding more programming, they're adding more content.
35:30.055 --> 35:30.795
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just the thing.
35:30.835 --> 35:34.877
[SPEAKER_00]: Up like, hey, guys, we need to do more for our members in order to improve value.
35:35.457 --> 35:37.418
[SPEAKER_00]: So, is that solving the problem?
35:37.498 --> 35:38.978
[SPEAKER_00]: I know the answer is no.
35:39.098 --> 35:43.860
[SPEAKER_00]: But, or is it simply creating more things members don't care about?
35:47.390 --> 35:56.276
[SPEAKER_01]: if they're creating more widgets, they're probably unnecessarily decreasing their perceived value.
35:57.077 --> 35:59.098
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's because of how humans perceive value.
35:59.118 --> 36:09.686
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't, like, people falsely believe that a quantity equals value, which is not true.
36:09.786 --> 36:13.929
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's say that you're trying to sell someone a piece of software.
36:14.797 --> 36:24.649
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, and you know, and the reason I picked this is because like you see like when you sell software they've got like the grid with the check marks of all the things you know what I mean, and
36:26.298 --> 36:31.483
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they're, so that's how they try to differentiate the silver gold platinum versions.
36:31.803 --> 36:32.064
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
36:33.085 --> 36:35.187
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and so they'll use check marks.
36:35.227 --> 36:36.488
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, each one has more check marks.
36:36.508 --> 36:37.529
[SPEAKER_01]: They're for its more valuable.
36:37.969 --> 36:41.733
[SPEAKER_01]: But they really don't know what is actually valuable.
36:42.374 --> 36:46.077
[SPEAKER_01]: And so let's say that you look at those check marks and you're like, I don't even know what that is.
36:47.068 --> 36:53.391
[SPEAKER_01]: You actually, so that means you're increasing the price and confusing someone, which means you're decreasing the value.
36:54.071 --> 36:58.273
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're going in the wrong direction, both ways when it comes to value perception.
36:58.453 --> 37:05.356
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's been many times where we've said, hey, if you want to sell this piece of software, eliminate these two features.
37:06.036 --> 37:07.436
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're like, we can't do that.
37:07.837 --> 37:08.197
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we,
37:08.937 --> 37:09.877
[SPEAKER_01]: We built those features.
37:09.997 --> 37:10.418
[SPEAKER_01]: They're on there.
37:10.438 --> 37:13.639
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, no one knows that they are and it's losing you money.
37:14.459 --> 37:25.003
[SPEAKER_01]: Theoretically, you can take away features and increase the price because you're increasing the perceived value and associations do the same thing.
37:25.283 --> 37:28.825
[SPEAKER_01]: There were a lot of associations and they're all the exact same both, right, which is
37:29.691 --> 37:35.395
[SPEAKER_01]: We're losing members because natural consolidation is happening in every market, private equity is making consolidations.
37:35.435 --> 37:41.799
[SPEAKER_01]: And so membership counts, membership per capita is going down, is an inevitability.
37:42.020 --> 37:44.722
[SPEAKER_01]: So the one thing that, and they're not,
37:45.965 --> 37:50.111
[SPEAKER_01]: associations are all facing the same problem, but it is a solvable problem.
37:50.311 --> 38:00.406
[SPEAKER_01]: They just have to figure out what is the one or two things that we need to be absolutely amazing at and what things can we really get rid of.
38:01.007 --> 38:09.216
[SPEAKER_01]: And almost no association that we've ever worked with has it was even remotely close on what they thought the most important things were to their members.
38:09.296 --> 38:11.799
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not because they're dumb or that I try and hard or anything like that.
38:11.919 --> 38:18.045
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just they are in this inside the bubble and, you know, they don't see the paint on them.
38:18.065 --> 38:19.447
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't see the paint color on the outside.
38:20.163 --> 38:24.306
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep, yeah, that's that's that's that's super helpful.
38:24.386 --> 38:25.687
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like it is challenging.
38:25.707 --> 38:35.494
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like there's a national natural inclination towards, you know, trying to to give more do more in order to increase that value, but that's that it's just patently, it's not the answer.
38:36.875 --> 38:39.777
[SPEAKER_00]: You've said that a wimpy brain needs to pick a fight.
38:40.537 --> 38:43.879
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, my god, you were.
38:44.020 --> 38:44.560
[SPEAKER_01]: I read that.
38:45.047 --> 39:03.315
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but but actually when I read it, it resonated because like I and you know you can tell me otherwise if this is not where you're coming from but it's kind of like what's going to help you get recognized and there's not a lot of cases where you know you can be.
39:05.076 --> 39:11.061
[SPEAKER_00]: a windy brand and do something, you can be doing great things, but it might not get you recognized.
39:11.441 --> 39:27.332
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I like the idea of picking a fight, but what should banks and associations be willing to stand against and or for, but probably against if they're picking a fight, and what are most leadership teams terrified, why are they terrified to draw that line?
39:29.520 --> 39:34.904
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, every successful organization and institution in history has picked a fight.
39:36.085 --> 39:40.668
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't need to make the argument as to why that's a good idea.
39:43.190 --> 39:49.934
[SPEAKER_01]: Every country, every religion, every big company has picked a fight of some kind.
39:50.795 --> 39:54.378
[SPEAKER_01]: And if they can, particularly, if they can find the moral high ground,
39:55.395 --> 39:57.876
[SPEAKER_01]: they are going to be successful, okay?
39:57.936 --> 40:08.581
[SPEAKER_01]: So a moral high ground argument would be Chase Bank is a, oh, I like this, okay.
40:08.821 --> 40:17.845
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're a small community bank and you're trying to find a moral high ground argument, maybe one of the easiest things that you can do, here, picture this, picture a billboard, right?
40:18.545 --> 40:24.288
[SPEAKER_01]: And the billboard says, if you do a bank of America,
40:25.503 --> 40:35.365
[SPEAKER_01]: a $1, Chase Bank $1.50 or wait, no, I'm sorry, sorry, making this up on the collection, do that.
40:36.365 --> 40:38.185
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I'm not just billboards, okay.
40:38.325 --> 40:52.808
[SPEAKER_01]: Bank from America, 1% Chase Bank, 1.5% XYZ community bank, 100% and then caption at the bottom the amount of money that stays in our community.
40:54.508 --> 40:54.728
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
40:55.408 --> 40:57.069
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a moral high ground argument.
40:57.809 --> 41:02.290
[SPEAKER_01]: No bank will ever have the balls to take that to take that out.
41:02.370 --> 41:04.911
[SPEAKER_01]: They are terrified to pick a fight and they won't do it.
41:05.651 --> 41:05.991
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
41:06.051 --> 41:11.113
[SPEAKER_00]: You just laid out a potential marketing plan for somebody and and it's right there.
41:11.233 --> 41:11.873
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just sitting.
41:12.993 --> 41:18.217
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's, that's great, give us your hottest take, this is the last question I got for you.
41:18.237 --> 41:21.759
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's got to be something, you know, you feel really deeply.
41:21.799 --> 41:34.587
[SPEAKER_00]: But what is the one marketing practice that, you know, banks and associations continue to spend heavily on to, you know, continue to, you know, put out their ad nauseam, even though the evidence says it does not work.
41:40.771 --> 41:47.075
[SPEAKER_01]: For banks, my first thought was winning deposit accounts.
41:48.716 --> 41:49.977
[SPEAKER_01]: Not waste of time.
41:50.798 --> 41:51.658
[SPEAKER_01]: You are not going to do it.
41:52.079 --> 42:01.305
[SPEAKER_01]: Not when you have Chase Bank that is emailing me twice a day, telling me they're going to give me 1500 bucks if I open a checking account in a savings account.
42:01.645 --> 42:08.610
[SPEAKER_01]: The break even point on 1500 bucks for deposit account for the average bank or community bank is incalculable.
42:09.445 --> 42:10.606
[SPEAKER_01]: right, it's impossible.
42:10.646 --> 42:11.727
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot win that fight.
42:12.348 --> 42:28.384
[SPEAKER_01]: And because banks are so commoditized and no one can tell the difference between first bank of trust and the second bank of trust down the street that have the almost identical names that no one can tell the difference between one or the other, they're going to take free money.
42:29.005 --> 42:30.026
[SPEAKER_01]: They've done it to themselves.
42:32.246 --> 42:36.031
[SPEAKER_01]: the advertising to try and win deposit accounts?
42:36.271 --> 42:40.576
[SPEAKER_01]: No, spend your advertising dollars and be onery with it.
42:41.237 --> 42:44.481
[SPEAKER_01]: The, the, the, the, we're right around the corner.
42:44.501 --> 42:51.729
[SPEAKER_01]: Dude, if you're not getting, if you're not getting creative and finding out
42:52.765 --> 43:02.088
[SPEAKER_01]: what the hill it is that you can die on and what stakes you can put in the ground, you are dying financial institution, period.
43:02.208 --> 43:08.490
[SPEAKER_01]: And the only way that you are staying afloat is buying other smaller banks and delaying the inevitable.
43:10.393 --> 43:11.374
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, woo!
43:11.934 --> 43:12.595
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, thank you.
43:12.835 --> 43:13.696
[SPEAKER_00]: That was great.
43:14.256 --> 43:31.530
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I think that it's super important, um, and if I'm going to, you know, kind of, uh, summarize a lot of the things that you've said is just like that there are bold things that, uh, people need to stand behind, uh, and, and those things will help differentiation.
43:31.890 --> 43:35.893
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll help people understand their potential value or what they care about.
43:36.333 --> 44:05.325
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of that at the end of the day is so critical and a landscape full of, you know, so much noise, so much clutter, so much things that would, you know, that are just confronting us every day, that, you know, if people can actually stand up, take a risk, be bold, that there is, there is something on the other side for them, that that can actually, you know, help there is green, there is there is, there is blue ocean, there is green grass, however you want to say it.
44:05.905 --> 44:10.667
[SPEAKER_01]: but they are typically so conservative that they won't do it.
44:10.727 --> 44:15.628
[SPEAKER_01]: And I keep picking on them saying won't do it because I'm activating a part of their brain that hopefully will look at what I'll show him.
44:16.929 --> 44:18.309
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what we need to happen.
44:18.329 --> 44:21.850
[SPEAKER_01]: If we want to save our smaller banks, which we need.
44:22.230 --> 44:23.111
[SPEAKER_01]: And instead of,
44:23.972 --> 44:26.814
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, big banks are not great for communities.
44:27.335 --> 44:28.656
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you just called them chicken.
44:28.976 --> 44:29.977
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I heard.
44:30.718 --> 44:32.659
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's what I heard.
44:32.819 --> 44:35.001
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, um, this has been awesome.
44:35.021 --> 44:36.943
[SPEAKER_00]: Grant, uh, this has been a lot of fun.
44:37.443 --> 44:40.546
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, and, and I really do, I appreciate your perspectives on all this stuff.
44:41.106 --> 44:49.573
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, as far as you, at proof positioning, uh, where, where should people reach out to you, the organization, how can they, how can they find out more about you?
44:51.787 --> 44:57.834
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah, look at our website, uh, proof positioning or you can Google my name, uh, but pretty weird name.
44:58.035 --> 44:58.595
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like me.
44:58.635 --> 45:00.357
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like one dude who's a swimmer.
45:01.399 --> 45:02.960
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, he seems great.
45:03.601 --> 45:06.044
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm not, I'm not the swimmer.
45:06.304 --> 45:10.650
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, it's an advantage of having a funny name, I guess.
45:11.515 --> 45:13.016
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, that's amazing.
45:13.036 --> 45:23.225
[SPEAKER_00]: I know I love looking up the people of my same name and I was like, wow, they're living in this alternate universe that is essentially not me, but they've got my name.
45:23.345 --> 45:24.466
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so weird.
45:24.887 --> 45:27.069
[SPEAKER_01]: They have friends that call you your name.
45:28.470 --> 45:30.532
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they have a nickname that's similar.
45:30.572 --> 45:31.152
[SPEAKER_01]: Who knows?
45:31.212 --> 45:33.875
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
45:33.955 --> 45:35.376
[SPEAKER_00]: Well anyway, there's been a lot of fun.
45:35.396 --> 45:37.418
[SPEAKER_00]: Seriously, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
45:38.630 --> 45:39.471
[SPEAKER_01]: You, but it's good to see you, Brent.
45:39.491 --> 45:40.032
[SPEAKER_01]: Appreciate you, bud.
45:40.533 --> 45:40.873
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks.
45:41.214 --> 45:43.958
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, this has been another episode of Mix and Matchbox.
45:44.118 --> 45:45.340
[SPEAKER_00]: I am your host, Brent Feldman.
45:45.380 --> 45:47.003
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be back soon with more content.
45:47.083 --> 45:48.565
[SPEAKER_00]: Please like and subscribe.
45:48.945 --> 45:49.186
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks.