How To Hack Into Your Customer’s Mind (The Easy Way)

Summary

Podcast Title: Brain Driven Brands
Host: Sarah Levinger
Episode: How To Hack Into Your Customer’s Mind (The Easy Way)
Release Date: June 17, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of Brain Driven Brands, host Sarah Levinger engages in a deep and insightful conversation with Nate Legos, co-host and representative from Original Grain Watches. They delve into the transformative impact of Core Identity Maps (CIM) on Original Grain's marketing strategies, revealing advanced neuromarketing secrets that can revolutionize any e-commerce brand.

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Understanding the Core Identity Map (CIM)

Sarah introduces the concept of the Core Identity Map (CIM), a sophisticated tool that utilizes picture-based and metaphorical surveys to extract nuanced data about customer behavior, identity, and emotions. Unlike traditional surveys that focus on superficial metrics like website opinions or product preferences, CIM delves into the underlying beliefs and emotional motivations driving purchases.

Sarah Levinger [03:08]:
"The CIM uses picture-based surveys and metaphorical surveys to pull out behavior, identity, and emotion from your specific customer base."

Impact on Original Grain’s Marketing Strategy

Nate shares how the CIM has provided Original Grain with a granular understanding of their customer avatars, leading to more precise and effective marketing strategies. Previously, the team felt they were "circling" around their customer profiles, lacking deeper insights that could enhance their campaigns.

Nate Legos [03:08]:
"This is how we're going to open up market for you guys this year. It’s like we can get some really crazy campaigns going just because we asked really strange questions that got really interesting answers."

Key Insights from the CIM Study

The CIM revealed several surprising and valuable insights:

1. Emotional Triggers Over Price Sensitivity: Contrary to common assumptions, customers were not primarily driven by price discounts but by the emotional readiness to purchase. Many customers were waiting until they felt they had "earned" the purchase, aligning with notions of self-worth and sacrifice.

   Nate Legos [10:35]:
   "They don't feel like they deserve nice things. They don't feel like they should treat themselves. They feel like they're meant to be sacrificial in all aspects of their life."

2. Refined Customer Avatars: The study identified four distinct avatars for Original Grain, each with unique preferences and behaviors. This clarity allowed the team to tailor content creation, from copywriting to visual imagery, ensuring each piece resonated deeply with the target audience.

   Nate Legos [08:43]:
   "It's like, hey, not everyone deserves this, but you've earned this."

3. Visual and Messaging Adjustments: Insights from CIM guided the team to adjust their visual strategy, such as incorporating specific attire and settings that better reflect their customers' identities.

   Sarah Levinger [19:14]:
   "And that was shocking to me because you guys came to me and you were like, we're pretty sure that we have like a lot of cowboys, or at least aspirational. That'll be interesting."

Team and CEO Reactions

The introduction of the CIM had a profound effect on Original Grain’s team dynamics and strategic direction. The clarity provided by the CIM led to unanimous enthusiasm and a clear roadmap for future marketing efforts.

Nate Legos [29:39]:
"For a CEO whose main job is like capital and resource allocation, I think it gives him the reassurance that the marketing team’s gonna be doing exactly what they should be for the rest of the year."

Sarah highlights the unified excitement among the team, emphasizing how CIM eliminated guesswork and aligned everyone's efforts towards a common goal.

Sarah Levinger [28:11]:
"We can see why some campaigns hit super hard. And we can see what we need to lean into more."

Future Plans and Next Steps

Armed with the insights from the CIM, Original Grain is poised to refine their marketing campaigns further. They plan to implement specific changes, such as altering key messaging elements—from "deserve" to "earned"—to better resonate with their audience's sense of accomplishment and self-worth.

Nate Legos [15:42]:
"It puts it back on, like, what they've endured and what they've sacrificed and what they've worked for."

Additionally, the team is excited about upcoming content creation, ensuring that each campaign is meticulously aligned with the identified customer avatars.

Nate Legos [22:41]:
"But it is priming people to buy when the time is right."

Conclusion

This episode underscores the immense value of deep customer insights through tools like the Core Identity Map. Nate and Sarah exemplify how understanding the emotional and psychological drivers of customers can lead to more effective and targeted marketing strategies. Original Grain Watches’ success story serves as a compelling testament to the power of neuromarketing in e-commerce.

Nate Legos [28:29]:
"Zooming in on your target, making sure you can hit that bullseye over and over again."

Sarah concludes by encouraging listeners to leverage CIM for their own brands, highlighting the transformative potential of such in-depth customer research.

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Notable Quotes:

• Sarah Lovinger [06:37]:
  "These are things that people believe that they will never admit to their spouse, let alone a random company that hits them up."

• Nate Legos [13:08]:
  "If you've ever shot like long range rifles... the CIM kind of did for us. It just zoomed us in further than we ever have been."

• Sarah Levinger [25:13]:
  "What your customers are doing, you do every single time."

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Additional Resources:

• Tether Insights: Sarah's customer research company specializes in running Core Identity Maps to provide brands with actionable insights.
• Follow Sarah: Subscribe and follow Sarah Lovinger on her social media platforms to stay updated on the latest neuromarketing strategies.
• Follow Nate: Connect with Nate Legos on social media and listen to his Tactical and Practical podcast for more marketing insights.

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This episode of Brain Driven Brands is a must-listen for e-commerce brands seeking to deepen their understanding of customer psychology and enhance their marketing effectiveness through advanced neuromarketing techniques.

Transcript

[Sarah Lovinger]

Okay. We can 100% dive into it because we went through that whole call yesterday with your entire team. And I watch people's faces on these calls. And it's really interesting because you'll start out with faces being like, okay, demographics, cool. Like, Jesus, Sarah's gonna tell us exactly the same thing everyone is always told. And then I flip to the slide that's like, here's the key. Like, data that we found. Shit that's like, this is gonna be weird for you to know. And you just watch people's faces go, oh, my God. And then you get deep into it.

[Nate Legos]

I'm like, oh, I know. It was funny. Like, I think we got, like, to slide three, and it was the high level, overview stuff. Kind of stuff we all ready know. And I had a moment of like, come on, Sarah. Like, like, come on. I know. I know there's stuff that, like, better in here.

[Sarah Lovinger]

I know you can do better than.

[Nate Legos]

And then slide four is, like, gold. And like, that is when a couple guys, like, slacked me privately and were like, yo, like, this is what we were getting. I was like, yeah, this is what we were getting.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And this is. Are we. I don't know, are we recording? We should probably record.

[Nate Legos]

Oh, we're recording. Great. Well, hey, everyone. Welcome back. We are just debriefing from. From our meeting we had yesterday between Sarah and the entire regional grain marketing team. But welcome back to Brain Driven Brands. How are you, sir?

[Sarah Lovinger]

I'm back. Oh, man. I'm in a way. I'm in a way right now. I'm doing just fine, honestly, like, physically, mentally, I'm like, somewhere else. Mostly because I keep having these peaks and valleys. This week, I'm traveling. We took the whole family to Germany. It's a shisho. But yesterday's meeting with you guys was, like, peak of the week for me, so I needed it. I needed that meeting to happen. But I had no idea you were going to bring everybody. I was like, hello. I thought this was gonna be, like, me, Nate and Chris maybe.

[Nate Legos]

Yeah, that. That is on. On me. I think you invited me to the call. And then I invited 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 guys.

[Sarah Lovinger]

You invited everybody? And that was like, okay, I gotta be really awesome. And then, of course, like, my mic wasn't working, so I felt, like, not prepared. I just feel like I didn't have my makeup on that day. You know what I'm saying? I mean, you probably don't know, but I know now I just did not feel prepared. But luckily, the Data kind of speaks for itself. So today I want to do a rundown, a couple things for those of you who have gotten this far into this episode and have no idea what we're talking about. Sarah ran something called a CIM for original grade. The CIM is a core identity map and it uses picture based surveys and metaphorical surveys to pull out behavior, identity and emotion from your specific customer base. So I don't study things like, what did you think of our website? When did you first hear about us? What did you like about our products? I don't study that stuff because it doesn't help me at all. What I want to study is like, what people believe about themselves and specifically why they're buying emotionally. So to start, clearly, like, the call went really well. But I want to know from your standpoint, like, what did you think about the whole experience? And. Or I guess let's start from the beginning. What did you think you were getting? Because I didn't give you a ton of information. I was just like, hey, here's something.

[Nate Legos]

Yeah, I think we, this year, the last couple of years, honestly, it feels like we've been like circling exactly who our customers are. And it feels like we've done a couple things that have gotten, like, really close. I feel like everything we do is taking us like a step closer and closer and closer to knowing exactly who the guys are that wear original grain watches. But at a certain point we felt like, okay, but what else do we know about them? Right? Like, we knew, you know, they're, you know, middle aged, older guys. We know that they're not the flashiest. We know that they want stuff that's well made and, you know, that's enough to write some good copy and make some good ads and, you know, grow the business pretty well for the last couple of years.

[Sarah Lovinger]

I mean, you've been doing well.

[Nate Legos]

Yeah.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Yeah.

[Nate Legos]

But I knew there was more and I think you knew that there was more. And there would be a couple times we would test copy or we test imagery and it wouldn't hit. And I'd be like, that's weird. Everything I know about our customers makes me think that would hit and it didn't. So, yeah, came to you to get this identity map done. And honestly the feeling I had when I left that call was like, oh, shit, we got work to do. Like, there's so much insights.

[Sarah Lovinger]

That's what I wanted you to leave with though, was like, I have a laugh. And that's why I was like, don't worry that we haven't got all of this CIM done because just this much data is enough to tell me a whole lot. So. Yes. Okay. Okay. Continue. Sorry, I'm interrupting. I. I would love to know more about, like, what you thought you were getting, though, at the very beginning. Did this even, like. Did it even cross your mind that this is what you were gonna experience? When we went to the presentation call, I had faith.

[Nate Legos]

I had faith in you. I knew, like, something was. Was gonna be good coming out of it. For those of you who don't know, Sarah and I are obviously friends, but we also started working together three years ago for OG with the first time we did, like, an engagement. And even back then, to be honest, I don't think I knew exactly what I was getting. But you presented us with a very nice deck that talks about who our customers are, what they cared about, how their reviews and comments were, like, revealing who they were. We marketed into that for the next couple of years, and it crushed. So I knew, like, I'll get something similar to that, hopefully. But I couldn't imagine, like, the level of detail you pulled out, especially from the surveys we ran because of the cert. Like, yeah, if you guys saw the questions, you know, I hit you up. When you. When you showed it to us, I.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Think I said the funniest thing ever.

[Nate Legos]

That was like, hey, half of these questions, I can see where you're going. I can see what you're trying to get out of people. The other half, what the heck are you talking about?

[Sarah Lovinger]

I love this. Actually. That was, like, one of my favorite slacks that you ever sent to me because it showed, like, even people who know this stuff works and have seen it and believe in it and currently use it, even. Even those people are kind of like, what the is this, Sarah? Like, what are you running and why are we running this? So I appreciate the vote of confidence and faith in you, but it was funny when I got that slack because I was like, it's gonna be fine. Like, the questions are weird, and they're meant to be weird because I'm trying to pull out stuff that people don't know that they know.

[Nate Legos]

Yeah.

[Sarah Lovinger]

So when we go through these questions, especially since we're doing another round for you guys, we have, like, a couple different CIMs that we're working with, but this first one was just for the dudes that buy for themselves, which I feel like you guys had a really good handle on people buying for, like, gifters. And we've done a lot of work on that messaging side, but One of the things that you came to me with at the very beginning was like, we need to know more about, like, why would anybody buy the stuff for themselves?

[Nate Legos]

Yeah.

[Sarah Lovinger]

So that was one of the things that I focused on heavily, was trying to figure out why would these people even buy a watch emotionally, what was happening in that journey, in that process? So, yeah, it's just funny that you were like, are you sure? Are you sure this is what you want to run? Okay. So during that call, though, a lot of the guys on your team, it was really interesting. They asked a ton of good questions. So you guys had like, tons. Especially, who's the guy that does your photography? What's his name?

[Nate Legos]

John. J.V.

[Sarah Lovinger]

John. Yeah. Yeah. He asked so many good questions about specifically, like, the visuals. So I could tell, like, we were starting to dig deep into for your specific customer type. We are kind of going this direction, messaging wise. And I need you guys to go like 2 degrees this. This way. Like, you're just barely off. And his questions were like rapid fire. He was like, oh, so I need to go get construction workers. I need to go get, like, truckers. I need to go into, like, a welding shop. I was like, yes, you'll get it. So it. It helps a lot to have people on the team that know how to use it.

[Nate Legos]

Yeah, well, like, going to crush it. I. I think that's what is, like, so nice for us is like the whole idea of like a customer identity map sounds kind of like abstract. It's like, all right, cool. But. But when you present it to my whole team and then all of us automatically know, like, okay, we need to change how we're writing copy. We need to change where we're shooting our products. We need to change who is wearing them as models. We need to change how we design graphics. And like you said, we're not far off, but it's just like getting a couple degrees closer to true north. I think it's going to be really, really impactful for us. I don't know if you're subscribed to our text list at all today, but the text that went out this morning had that one word change that we talked about. Did it really?

[Sarah Lovinger]

Oh, my God. And I'm so stoked because you. I mean, it doesn't take much. One word can make a drastic difference in growth, and you guys are already growing well anyways, just because you have such a solid team. But I think a lot of this comes down to how. How well do you know your customers, but also how well can you like, pair it back to them, what they're saying to you. And that comes down to, did you actually listen? Did you actually listen when they talk? Because one of the things that we saw was you guys had this kind of framing for these guys. So when you wrote copy of things, we were trying to tell them a very specific message about who they are. Like, it's okay. Like, this is a cool thing about you. Right. And the interesting part is it didn't come out that way in the data. Like, they don't need that kind of validation. They actually needed something totally different.

[Nate Legos]

Yeah.

[Sarah Lovinger]

But they're so close that it would be really easy to miss. This is the reason why I love the cims.

[Nate Legos]

Yeah. Well, and it's like, I think kind of like what we were thinking and what they are feeling are like kind of two sides of the same coin. But we're talking about it from different perspectives. And I think what was really cool about this survey is that we found out things about guys that they would never admit, that they would never verbalize. Like, and this is where I think, like, most founders and marketers probably should talk to your customers more. But you got to acknowledge that there are things that people feel and believe that they will never admit to their spouse, let alone a random company that hits them up. So, like, that was really fascinating and I think dug into like, a lot of what men are feeling these days in general. Not just specific to our brand, but who American men are these days. It's stuff that they wouldn't admit about. They don't feel like they deserve nice things. They don't feel like they should treat themselves. They feel like they're meant to be sacrificial kind of in all aspects of their life. And that's stuff that we can tap into for sure.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Well, this is interesting because as a part of the cim, when I go through and I run these like picture based surveys, metaphorical surveys, I'll gather in all the data and then we go through and basically do an NLP first. So I basically warped the NLP into the cim. That NLP goes through and categorizes everything by keywords, by like phrases, all kinds of different things. So not only do we get access to like these really nuanced things about like, we thought our guys wanted extra XYZ and actually they want like abc, like they wanted something that was kind of on the opposite side, but we can also figure out specifically what type of men are in there. So we went through and did the avatar work for you guys. And as I was going through it, I was like, this is so tough because for avatars, for me sometimes I get a little irritated with them because they're so generalized stereotype that comes out. But they're there for a reason. Like the ones that we identified for you guys because you had actually four avatars. Sometimes I see like I said up to like 8 is the top that I've ever seen. Sweet spot is usually about like six to eight somewhere there. So you guys had about four. And it was interesting because as they were popping up it was like yep, yep, yep, yep. So some of this stuff in the CIM is actually more validation work. It's just validating to know you're going after the right guys. Yeah, they're 100 in there. Like they're coming out in this survey, in your post purchase, in your quizzes, in your emails, everything on the data set is saying the same thing. As far as the avatars go. So what did your team. I don't know what, I guess what was like the biggest takeaway from specifically the avatars. Do you guys know how you're going to use that yet?

[Nate Legos]

Yeah, I mean like our Q3, like content creation calendar is like pretty much booked in the last 24 hours because like, you know, for, for us, like we know the four watches we have to sell for the rest of this year to make it a good year. Yeah, it's really those top four. So like our shoots are never, I mean they're sometimes about new product drops, but when we're shooting our top dogs, it's always about like what environment should we be in, who should be wearing it, what should they be doing, how should they be dressed. And it just made it really clear of like, oh, we are in some ways hitting the nail on the head, but we're missing a couple of those avatars in our content. So that's made it super obvious how we should be creating content from here on out. I told you, I've got a page and a half of copy ideas that I need to refine and get into chat to make them usable. But yeah, I like, I think. Do you shoot guns at all? I'm gonna throw it shooting guns analogy.

[Sarah Lovinger]

I mean I used to like when I was really young, but not anymore consistently.

[Nate Legos]

If you've ever shot like long range rifles or if not, pretend you can have a scope that magnifies more and when you're zoomed all the way out on it, you can still see the target and you can put the scope on the bullseye. And you might hit it sometimes, and it's okay. But if you crank the scope up to magnify it 10x, then it makes hitting that bullseye really easy and makes that grouping much tighter. And that's what I feel like the CIM kind of did for us. It just zoomed us in further than we ever have been. And I think now hitting that bullseye consistently and in a way we can repeat it is gonna make us a lot more profitable and grow a lot faster.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Well, that just makes me so happy. You have no idea, because that's the only reason I run them. And this is the toughest part, is, like, the admin side of the CIM for Sarah is just kind of frustrating because it takes a long time. Like, we have to gather data. We have to analyze it. It's a market research study, and I'm not a patient person, so I'm like, come on, come on, come on. But if you're patient with these types of surveys and these types of reports, like the actual panel, you can get some data that's like, we didn't even know that was a thing for our customers specifically. And you'll have to. We can cut this out, Scotty, if we need to. But the difference between a reward and a medal, like, a difference between that, where we talked about, it's very much like slay the dragon for them. It's not so much like, treat yourself, which is like, they're so similar. They're just, like, right next to each other. But they're, like, different enough that people know that, like, they feel the difference. Yeah.

[Nate Legos]

And, like, so the. The. The magic word that I think we're gonna test in a lot of our. Our copies, you know, we currently say deserve a lot. We say because you deserve a watch as rugged, as dependable in you as you are. We're gonna change that to earned. And that sounds like the same thing, but it's so not. And, like, I think I can relate to this. As a admittedly flawed man, I can be like, I don't deserve anything. Like, everything I have is house, money. Like, life's good. Like, I don't deserve anything, but I've earned some things.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Earned. Yep. Yep.

[Nate Legos]

And, like, it. It. It puts. Puts it back on, like, what they've endured and what they've sacrificed and what they've worked for. And I think messaging like that is. Is, you know, almost gonna say to guys like, hey, not everyone. Not every man deserves this, but you've earned this. I think.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Exactly. It's really gonna help, especially for this customer type. And we talked about this a little bit with your team, like, on the call as well. And I love JV constantly. He was just, like, nodding the entire time. Like, he gets.

[Nate Legos]

He's fired up.

[Sarah Lovinger]

This guy gets it.

[Nate Legos]

He was working late last night. He's, like, jacked up.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Yeah. He's like, I'm on it, guys. I know what to do now. See, and this is why I love the cim, because I get this reaction from every single team who's ever done a CIM with me, which is like, I know what to do now. I don't have to think about it or worry about it or get more data or go off into the weeds and try and figure out, like, what Reddit thread I need to analyze. It's just, I know what to do now. So I don't need help.

[Nate Legos]

I don't need anybody help for us, because we're shooting those same four watches over and over again. Like, we'll run out of ideas sometimes. Like, hey, how do we want to shoot it? And, you know, the last, like, bestseller shoot we did was on, like, all those, like, pastel colored backgrounds, and that kind of just came from, like, well, it's spring, and, like, those colors are feminine, and we want women to buy for Father's Day, so, like, let's try that. But it wasn't any more thoughtful than that.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Yeah. Than just like, I think this will work.

[Nate Legos]

Yeah. And now we've got the roadmap for Q3 to be like, oh, this is everything we need to shoot before Christmas. So excited.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Oh, my God, I can't wait. Okay, so my last question to you before I get, like, to my actual, real question. The reason I brought you on my podcast today is mostly because you're my co host, but also, I need your help every week.

[Nate Legos]

Am I on the bubble whether or not you're gonna invite me to the podcast? Yikes.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Every week I'm like, I don't know, Nate. You might not make it this week. I might. We're gonna chop it this week. No. Okay, so the reason why the. Okay, so the last question I have, though is, did you go through all the actual data? So I gave you. I think there's, like, 51 slides in this thing. It's not. The CIM is robust, but that's because the first half of it is all strategy, and then the last half is all data. Do you guys take a look at the actual questions?

[Nate Legos]

No, not yet. Is it crazy? I've been obsessed with the first half and writing copy on it.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Here's what I want you to do. And this is going to sound really weird. Download that PDF, stick the whole thing into chat and just say chat, tell me what you see and it will give you a summary of what's in there obviously. But then go through and say based on the questions in here, like the last the data summary part, build me some campaigns. For every single question that we asked in the CIA, you're going to get the weirdest, like the most off the wall ideas, but they're going to be so targeted that this I think is how we're going to open up market for you guys this year. It's like we can get some really crazy campaigns going just because we asked really strange questions that got really interesting answers. That's what I would do. Especially because I've gone through all these questions that basically we did a prompt analysis that will take the images, put them into JSON. It's a really big deal. The CIM is ridiculous. We'll take the images, put them in a JSON format so the computer can actually read the image or look at it, and then it will take the analysis of the image, compare it with that one specific answer or the person actually answered the survey, compare it with all of their answers, and then it will basically combine those two analysis to try and figure out what does this person believe about themselves, about the industry, about watches, about self worth, all based on the fact that they chose an image of Superman. So do that because I think your copy is going to be real weird.

[Nate Legos]

I'm scrolling through it right now and I'm like, oh, for one of the shoots we got to get guys in hoodies and ball caps.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Yeah. Oh my God. And that was shocking to me because you guys came to me and you were like, we're pretty sure that we have like a lot of cowboys, or at least aspirational. That'll be interesting. Yeah, like aspirational cowboys. Every, like huge amounts of them were like no sweatshirt, baseball hat. Nobody said cowboy boots. Which I was kind of shocked because.

[Nate Legos]

I thought, I mean, 24%. Not. Not no one.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Yeah, like a smaller amount that I thought that was gonna be. I honestly thought tattoos were probably gonna be the top two. And tattoos were like, I'm not a tattoo guy, not a pat to guy.

[Nate Legos]

Which is how much of this. Well, I guess this was to cold traffic because I was going to say how much of this is just like you reap what you sow. And we haven't done photo shoots with Tattooed guys. But Cold traffic should be a pretty good evaluation of just like the general market, right?

[Sarah Lovinger]

Yeah. I mean the nice part is if we run it to cold traffic and warm traffic, I can basically combine the data together and I can tell you, here's your acquisition strategy and then here's your retention strategy based upon how people answer for this particular customer group. Because we started with cold traffic first, this is basically just like anybody who was attracted to your ad and the ad, the ad that we ran for any CIM literally just says will you take a survey? It's not like win something for free or like get a watch. We don't incentivize these surveys predominantly because I don't want to change the data. Once you incentivize, it changes everything about how people answer. So yeah, this should be pretty indicative of like people who are interested in what you have to sell but they have never purchased from you before.

[Nate Legos]

Yeah. The one other thing I want to touch on which I think was crazy important is like we knew that we had a long consideration period. You know, we've run a post purchase survey that says, hey, when did you first hear about us? And the largest cohort says over a year ago. Which by the way throw out anything with the word attribution on it when that's the consideration period we're looking at.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Oh my God.

[Nate Legos]

But that survey didn't tell us why and like I assumed it was price and or occasion related. Like they're going to wait till Christmas to get it or they're saving up for it, but that's not what it was at all. And that's going to also, you know, rewrite the marketing plan for Q3. For those of you who don't know, like our whole year hinges around Christmas. So the advertising I do in Q3 needs to shift to like, hey, how do I get people to know us like us remember us in November when I'm advertising in July?

[Sarah Lovinger]

I think you do acquisition for the whole year basically. Oh my God, that's a lot. You guys do a ton of acquisition. Okay, continue. So Q3 is going to be your biggest like ramp up to sales season.

[Nate Legos]

Yeah, we're going to try. It's bad buying time, but it's the time we gotta like fill the, the funnel and yeah, I think having the information that we do now about why they're waiting a long time and what is going to eventually trigger them is going to make the dollars we spend in Q3 the last like 7 day roas will not look good. We know that. But it is priming people to buy when the time is right.

[Sarah Lovinger]

100%. I actually had, like, a hypothesis going into this, because usually when I run cims, I have, like, three or four different things that I'm like. I'm pretty sure that's what these people feel, but I need. I need the data to, like, validate that. This one was different. This was something different than I thought. I had a very specific hypothesis for why people took so long to purchase from you. And I thought it was an identity thing. More of, like, I don't. I'm not sure that this fits with me identity wise, but that's not what we found at all. Seemed more. Sorry. I got people walking through. So when. When we looked at the data, it seemed more like people were just waiting until they felt ready.

[Nate Legos]

Yeah.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Which was, like, the strangest thing I've seen in a cim, because I don't see that very often where it's like, I'm actually purposefully stalling myself of. For getting this particular product that I actually want to have in my life. I'm purposefully not getting it just because, like, not ready yet. It's bonkers. That's great.

[Nate Legos]

And what was super interesting, like, I'm a pretty good representation of our customer base. And that stuff, like, it revealed the reasons why I have certain behaviors that I couldn't tell you. Like, I could tell you that I wait a long time to, like, buy nice things for myself. I told you about that really expensive cowboy hat I bought. That doesn't fit me, by the way.

[Sarah Lovinger]

A ridiculous level of, like, purchase. Because I was like, how much did you spend on that?

[Nate Legos]

Yeah, it doesn't fit me. And the guy who made it has ghosted me, but.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Oh, my God, that's the worst.

[Nate Legos]

But that was something that, like, I've known about it for years and years and years. I could have afforded it at any time. Like, you know, it was. It was a grand, which is a lot of money. But, like, we. We could have decided to do it at any time. And, yeah, the reason I bought it when I did was that emotional buildup that we see in our customers. And like, now, like, oh, my gosh, I. I felt like I had definitely earned it. And I was like, let's go.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Yep.

[Nate Legos]

It didn't fit in my whole mental health.

[Sarah Lovinger]

I mean, you didn't waste a thousand dollars. It just means that you're gonna have to, like, go back and find somebody else to resize it.

[Nate Legos]

I'm gonna hang it up here in a minute.

[Sarah Lovinger]

You should just make it like a wall ornament. I think it's interesting though that your experience and your customer's experience are exactly the same. And this is something we don't do in marketing a lot. It's like nobody recognizes you are a marketer and a consumer at all times.

[Nate Legos]

Yeah.

[Sarah Lovinger]

What your customers are doing, you do every single time. Especially if you are the target market for your specific audience. Like, it's pretty easy for you to kind of track if you just look closely enough. And these guys are waiting. They're just waiting such a freaking long time. Not because they don't want it. They actually probably have been following you for a year. Plus. They want it. They just don't want it yet because they haven't learned yet.

[Nate Legos]

For, for me, like, there's a whole list of things I know with certainty that I will buy one day.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Like, yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Nate Legos]

I'll buy a Ford truck one day, guaranteed. There are boots and guns that I want that I will definitely buy one day. I'm not going to buy them today. Probably not buying any of those things within the next couple months. But until you start thinking about it from the consumer's perspective is like, well, why aren't you. Because it might be why exactly. For some of those things, it's not price. It's just, I'm not ready right now.

[Sarah Lovinger]

And we think all the time that market, like in the marketing in particular, we think all the time that consumers are just waiting for a good deal. We just assume that everybody's price sensitive. And I'm like, sometimes it has nothing to do with price. And that's something we found in the cim. Is your guys in particular, particular not real sensitive to price, which is amazing.

[Nate Legos]

Well, and we've seen that and that's why we've able to like increased our aov, like almost doubled in the last couple of years. And we're starting to sell some bundles for like 1500 bucks. And that's encouraged us to go make much more expensive and much more, you know, higher priced watches from better materials. Because we've seen both in like our purchase data and now in this CIM that like, hey, when the time is right, when these guys feel like they've earned it, they're willing to spend a lot of money.

[Sarah Lovinger]

So this. Okay, was this beneficial? I know what you're saying, but like, I'm just fishing for compliments.

[Nate Legos]

All right. I think we've been. No, well, and I can give you the, like, you know, like I had to do some persuasion Internally to make sure we got this done. But like, everyone's so pumped now, like, oh yeah, your. Your work. And we went through this the first time to. We're like, your work is semi abstract. It's like, for those listening, Sarah is terrible at like productizing what she does. Little deck to explain it. I'm pretty sure she's going to turn this episode into a 30 minute commercial.

[Sarah Lovinger]

I probably will, actually.

[Nate Legos]

But what has happened every single time we've worked with you is like, we understand like 70% of what we're buying. We pay you, you do the work. We're like semi skeptical of the whole thing. And then we get the presentation and we're like, oh, the marketing strategy is done for the next year. And like, we can see.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Yeah.

[Nate Legos]

Why we've been wrong on a couple of things and why some campaigns didn't hit. And we can see why some campaigns hit super hard. And we can see what we need to lean into more. So like I said, it's just like that. Zooming in on your target, making sure you can hit that bullseye over and over again.

[Sarah Lovinger]

All of this is about the why. Everybody wants to know the why behind why their customers are purchasing things. And I'm like, I can, I can tell you. Like, I can tell you basically everything you need to know. Okay. Oh, this is already 20. Like, we're already like hours into this. For the next episode, we might go into, like, I'm going to ask you a question though, because now I need data, like how I need to do some of this stuff. But to wrap up this, we already kind of talked about how you're going to use it. Some of the interesting parts about it. What did your bosses think? Because I worked with a lot of people who are in the CMO level. Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's it. That's the thing that I think most of. Like, I see a lot of media buyers come in, a lot of CMOs come in and they're like, well, I'm going to have to convince the founder that this is going to be beneficial.

[Nate Legos]

Yeah. So. So Ryan was on the call, our founder, CEO, he slacked me like 20 minutes into it. I think he just said, this is good shit. And for like a CEO whose main job is like capital and resource allocation, like, I think it gives him the reassurance of like, oh, the marketing team's gonna be doing exactly what they should be for the rest of the year.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Now they know what to do.

[Nate Legos]

Yeah, like, we don't need to guess anymore who the model should be what locations we should pick for shoots. Because, like, you know, that's been something that we've, you know, not fought about because we've got a good team that works well together. But, like, the disagreements internally have been like, well, what kind of cowboy is it? Is it a guy who works on a ranch, or is it just a guy who drives a truck and wears the boots? Like, or is it a guy somewhere in the middle who works a blue collar job but wants to be on the. The pasture one day? So it's taken the guesswork out. It's taken some of the, like, gray area of what we do out. And yeah, I think he's pumped to just big. Oh, we all have, you know, clear sight on target now, and we can go full speed ahead. And we. And we don't have to be worried about investing a ton of money into new content creation and photo shoots because, like, well, now we know that this is the right path. So, yeah, let's invest in it.

[Sarah Lovinger]

My God. Okay. This makes me so happy. If I don't get anything else the rest of the year, I'm gonna be like, this was my win. My win for 2025. As I convinced Ryan that this was a good idea.

[Nate Legos]

Yeah.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Your main date, we finally got him to be like, yeah, this was a good decision. He believes in it, too, from the job.

[Nate Legos]

Like, he knows you do good work.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Good, good, good, good, good. But I just think it's funny because he's. He's a regular founder. Like, he's a founder who's like, are you sure this is going to be worth it? I don't want to spend money on things that we shouldn't, like, all this type of stuff. He's a good founder, so interesting. Okay, we just turned this into a testimonial, which is great. Anybody that wants to come, I hope.

[Nate Legos]

You'Re cool with me giving that testimonial on your behalf, by the way.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Oh, my God. If not, I will go and get permission. I'll be like, right, okay. Yes. If you want to run a cim, please come over and check it out.

[Nate Legos]

You guys couldn't tell. This episode is sponsored by Tether Insights, Sarah's customer research. Customer company, whatever.

[Sarah Lovinger]

That's literally all we do is, like, customer research panels. And now all we do is cims. So if you want to get data like this so that you can literally have the same experience that they just had and say things like, oh, I just know what to do now, then all you have to do is run this type of survey. And the easiest way to do is have somebody who's been doing it for months and months and months now. We've been running this since early 2024, and we're just continuing to perfect it. So go check out tetherinsights IO. Where can people find you? They want to come see how you're morphing it now, what you're doing with it.

[Nate Legos]

You can follow me at Nate Legos on all social media. You can listen to the Tactical and Pract podcast. It's pretty good. Some say it's better than this one, but I won't comment on that. I think Sarah is actually going to be on an upcoming episode of Technical and Practical.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Well, I love these kind of technical, practical ones too, because we actually get tactical and practical, which.

[Nate Legos]

Yeah, tactical, but also practical. I don't do a lot of guest episodes. I'm bad at interviewing people. But I like bringing you on because you know how to teach. So that's what I like on that podcast.

[Sarah Lovinger]

You know how to teach a sprite. Follow me at Sarah Lovinger. Anywhere you consume content. Like subscribe, share, make Scotty happy. Producer Scotty will be super happy if you do that. Yeah, that was all I had for this one. Great, great job, team. Go. Have a good week, everybody.

[Nate Legos]

Wow, what an outro.

[Sarah Lovinger]

Brain Driven Brands is part of the Learn and Laugh series on the Quickfire podcast network and is presented by Tether Insights. For more information, go to tetherinsights IO.