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- [00:00]
Testimonial Speaker
I was like this. I found it. I found it. This is what I've been looking for, I can honestly say has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It's changed the results that I'm seeing. It's changed my engagement with clients. It's changed my engagement with the team. I couldn't be happier. Honestly. It's the best investment I ever made.
- [00:16]
Marketing Narrator
What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing Certification Intensive program for fractional CMOs, marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could use our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only.
- [00:32]
Jon Jantz
Ideal clients and confidently present your strategies.
- [00:36]
Marketing Narrator
To build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM World Scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It's time to transform your approach. Book your call today. DTM World slash scale.
- [01:03]
Jon Jantz
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is Jon Jantz. My guest today is John Grabowski. Jonathan Grabowski. He's the co founder and chief marketing officer at Pengi, an on demand graphic design platform that provides businesses with unlimited custom design services at a flat monthly fee. Pengie connects clients with top tier designers delivering completed projects within 48 hours. So we're going to talk about design, graphic design and maybe how AI is impacting that industry as well. So Jonathan, welcome to the show.
- [01:36]
Jonathan Grabowski
Thank you so much for having me. I've been a fan and we've known each other for some time now and excited to explore the, the podcast and any questions that you may have.
- [01:45]
Jon Jantz
So I started to introduce you as John. I don't think my official name's Jonathan. I've always just been John. Is, is Jonathan always been your thing or do you ever get shortened?
- [01:56]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yeah, so my. There are probably about like three people on planet Earth that call me John like every day. My mother who unfortunately passed away about 5ish years or so ago, was very, very particular about Jonathan and pretty much corrected them and scolded them anytime anybody ever said John. So I've always just been Jonathan, you know.
- [02:16]
Jon Jantz
Yeah, yeah. Well you know we, we share a Kansas City connection so I'll share this story. I was listening to a sports announcer who was calling our quarterback Pat Mahomes and the other announcer says his mother is scolded me frequently. It is Patrick, so that's great. Shares that as well with his mother.
- [02:36]
Jonathan Grabowski
And I do have a little bit something over you being that we beat you guys in the, in the super bowl this past year.
- [02:41]
Jon Jantz
So yeah, that was very fun to watch. I'll Give you that. So the, the, the name Pengi, it's probably on your website somewhere. I've. When anytime I see like a kind of a different unique name. Was there some story behind that?
- [02:55]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yeah, great question. I don't really share too much about it because people aren't as curious as you may think. When we first started we, we had this idea of like, well, what, what if you were to slow down the name Pengi, you would ultimately lead to a particular file extension that is, that is related to graphic design and so.
- [03:19]
Jon Jantz
Programmable network graphic or something. I can't even.
- [03:22]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yes, exactly. Right. It's pretty much PNG now. Png speeding it up of course. And that's related to the graphic design. So although we are originally a graphic design company, we've kind of morphed into more of like a creative services that expand well beyond but kind of paying respect to the graphic design aspect. It is Peng, but it technically came from png.
- [03:45]
Jon Jantz
Well now I'm really glad I asked that question because that's a great story. Lots of people are like, yeah, I just saw it or I heard it and I thought it sounded cool the domain was available. But that's a great story.
- [03:56]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yeah, I remember very vividly it was like 12, 1 o' clock, 2 o' clock in the morning when my co founder and I were talking about it and we're just like, you know, putting things together and that was the one that stuck.
- [04:06]
Jon Jantz
So that's awesome. So was there any particular vision? Like, you know, a lot of people start companies because like I couldn't find good graphic design myself, so I started a company. Was there, was there any story or vision like that?
- [04:19]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yeah, I would say. I'm not a graphic designer, so. And we were a digital marketing agency. We sucked. We probably didn't use the duct tape marketing system in order for us to grow. Oh, we were terrible. So we basically the one thing that people always said was we were really good at graphic design. And then we decided to kind of like niche down and say this is our, this is what we're selling. We turned it into a productized service and it obviously focused very heavily on graphic design. Obviously now it's a little bit more expanded beyond just graphic design as the, the world of AI and marketing as a whole, it becomes necessary. But finding people, finding reliable people, hiring people is a pain in the absolute butt. It's, it's terrible. It's terrible. Like I, I, I don't like hiring people simply because of, there's so many aspects of it. The emotional aspect is this person, a good product, fit into the culture of the business? Are they actually good at their job? Are they just telling you that they're good at their job even though they're not good at their job? I mean, there's a lot of fundamental factors. So, like, what if there was a solution where you could go onto a website, hire immediately, and find and talk to somebody who's reliable and good, inherently good at what they could do, and can pretty much turn things around within the timeframe that you're looking for? That is really the ethos behind Pengi and how it started. It's just like we got good at one particular thing, we got credit for it, turned into a business, and here we are today.
- [05:52]
Jon Jantz
And I think the last time you and I talked, I mean, it's not just you and another person sitting around in a room anymore.
- [05:57]
Jonathan Grabowski
Right.
- [05:57]
Marketing Narrator
I mean, it's.
- [05:58]
Jon Jantz
You've. You've built quite an organization.
- [06:00]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yeah. I mean, at this point, we have over just about 500 people and we have thousands of customers all across the country, all across the world. And the problems that I had then, just getting it off the ground now, the problems are completely different. Um, and they're, they're more meaningful and impactful because if you make a mistake, you have lives of other people that are going to be hurt or be better off because of your decision making. And then, so it's just systematically, you have to become more systematic and more thoughtful in your approach to every day, rather than just kind of being like, hey, man, what are we doing today?
- [06:39]
Jon Jantz
Like, h. You know, I've. I've preached for years strategy before tactics. A lot of people view even design projects, you know, oh, we need a brochure, we need a banner, we need a logo. And there's really no thought given to. It's just like, yeah, okay, I like that one. How do you help businesses kind of establish maybe a brand identity as opposed to just doing one off project?
- [07:00]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yeah, I mean, that's actually a pretty hard thing because a lot of times our customers don't necessarily have like, they primarily. Most of our customers already have existing brands. In addition to that, they are actually digital marketing agencies. So from like a business standpoint, we assess it no differently than a. Than a typical project. The core differentiation, in my opinion, that if you were to hire like a service like Pengi versus that of like an agency, an agency is probably going to be able to sit down and talk to you and kind of go over like the creator brief correctly, creative briefs and Talk to you for several hours and be able to do that. Like, we're very factual with what it is that you're looking for. And we're. We're very project oriented. So, like, or visual oriented. So if you have a new company, it's the art director's job to find out more about your company, and then you have to provide us a visual. And what I found personally is that. And maybe you can attest to this too, John, is like, if somebody just tells you, hey, hey, I want this, and you're like, well, what the hell does this look like?
- [08:00]
Jon Jantz
I'll know it when I see it.
- [08:02]
Jonathan Grabowski
Correct. That is like, literally the worst thing that you can say on planet Earth. Like, I know when I say, okay, well, that's really nice to hear that. But, like, listen, bro, I need something in your brain. Yeah, I. I need a p. A sliver of your brain to understand what the hell you're trying to do.
- [08:20]
Jon Jantz
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [08:21]
Jonathan Grabowski
So we start there first. And if you can't provide a visual, to be honest with you, we don't really want you as a client because, like, you're going to fail in Pengi. And honestly, like, that's the biggest piece of Pengi's success and lack thereof, is the customers not communicating efficiently and effectively. And you would be surprised at how bad at times entrepreneurs and business professionals are at communicating. And what I found is that the designers, as a customer works at Pengi, they're the best customers because they have the empathy and the understanding that is needed to articulate a project. Whereas, like, a founder is very like, I need this done. I need it done tomorrow. I need it done right now. And it needs to be done, you know, in 1080p, the 18 different styles. And please give it to me ASAP. Like, and those are great customers and they can work, but communication is so, so important.
- [09:20]
Jon Jantz
Let me ask you a few things.
- [09:21]
Marketing Narrator
You feel like you know, what differentiates your business from every other business out there? Can you confidently charge a premium for what you offer? Are you working from a plan, a marketing roadmap that allows you to know precisely what to do next? Look, don't worry if you can't answer yes to any or all of these questions. You're not alone. See, marketers today get so focused on the tactic of the week staring them right in the face that they forget to look at the big picture, the overarching strategy needed to consistently grow their business. Over the years, I've worked with thousands of businesses helping them do just that. Create the perfect marketing strategy and plan that gives total clarity about what to do next, confidence to charge ahead and charge more, and complete control of the marketing tactics they choose. I would love to help you and your team do the same. Look to find out if our Strategy first program is right for you. This visit DTM World Grow and request a free consultation. That's DTM World SLG Grow.
- [10:30]
Jon Jantz
So do you have. Do you find that, that you either you don't. I mean, you fire that customer or do you find that that you are moving a little more towards being a consultant on brand strategy?
- [10:43]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yeah, I think there's a. Well, so number one, my claim to fame is that I fired more customers than people and I'm very quick to be able to say, listen, that this isn't a good fit and it's okay. I think that discipline is really important when it comes to business. If you focus all of your time and energy on the loudest customers and problems, I don't think you will ever complete anything ever, because you'll always just be putting out fires. But when it comes to the consultancy, yeah, I think that's like a core differentiation between us and probably our competitors is that there's a human aspect. And I think that's like the approach that we're looking for is the human element of talking to our customers, understanding them, getting, letting them know that the project is completed or the project is being worked on. And that is kind of like the differentiation between us and like AI, you can easily use AI and it works great. Like we use the AI and at Pengi all the time. But I think the, the reason why you sign up for a service like Penzi is because you want that human interaction.
- [11:46]
Jon Jantz
Do you have. And I, I do want to dive into the AI a little bit. I didn't want to go straight there though. So set a. Set the table a little more. Do you have any examples of that you can think of? And you don't have to share names if you don't want to, but where, where the work that you have done, your team's done, has, has kind of significantly impacted a brand's perception or, or maybe even success.
- [12:06]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yeah. There is a very reputable university and institution that is located in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania that we have worked with for multiple years, created slideshows, presentation presentations, basically where the presentations were then presented to making change internally within the infrastructure of the business. So I can't necessarily go into detail, but if you kind of use my words, you can kind of put two and two together. We've instrumentally made the presentations that were made and the conversations that we had with that team has made significant changes in the business structure. The acquisition of multiple other institutions and hospitals and things like that. And then in addition to that, serving people that have illnesses and things like that. So has. That's just one from like a feel good type of one. Then there's another one that's also located in Philadelphia, which I'm not going to be able to go into with the specific name, but it is a delivery service where we pretty much were able to incrementally help their brand from beginning to, I would say, very close to ipo. I don't necessarily know if what we did specifically orchestrated the, the, the growth of what it is, because I think a lot of it has to do with strategy. But, but from a visual standpoint and the advertising and execution behind that advertising allowed that company to grow exponentially.
- [13:45]
Jon Jantz
Yeah, I think a lot of businesses, most businesses, quite frankly, really underestimate the value of the visual aspects of their brand. And I think that, I think it can make a huge difference. It's. It doesn't mean you have to spend, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars on know I, I was H and R Blocks, another Kansas City company, and they, you know, they years ago redid it and they basically their new logo was this square green block. You've probably seen it because they, they use it now to. And I was talking to their marketing person and they'd spent $150,000 on that logo. It's like it's a square green block. But, but I, I do think that companies, you know, who really get that idea, you know, are willing to invest and do spend a lot of money on the right look and the right feel because it supports the overall message and then ultimately makes people feel good about doing business with the company.
- [14:34]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yeah, I would actually like on, on the slight contrary, I would say I would love to understand the amount of money that was wasted on the, on indecisions of, you know, founding partners or executives and things like that, because I think that's like where kind of, in my opinion, that's where the, the beauty of Pengi is, is because it decreases the inefficiencies of the actual graphic design process. So, like, you could have easily asked for, within a month's timeframe, you could easily ask for 500 different variations of the, of the HR block square. And I can almost guarantee you that there's something in there that's going to be moderately decent, if not the One. But yeah, I find it interesting as well.
- [15:17]
Jon Jantz
You didn't do focus groups and you know.
- [15:20]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yeah, I mean that's a different ball game, right? Like that's just like that's a, that's a client that. I would say we love the, the, the revenue but at the same time I don't know if I want to get involved in it because there's just so much emotion that it, that's just not the, the company, you know.
- [15:35]
Jon Jantz
Well and of course, you know, when they, the other thing with a company that's that, that publicly known too, when they rolled it out, then they had to take all kinds of crap about it, you know. I can't believe that. Right?
- [15:46]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and that's always interesting the, the world of marketing nowadays a lot of people are in social media. I think it's okay to have opinions obviously. But like man, like one bad thing could absolutely destroy a company. And that is actually very true in the world of business too. If you're not making the right decisions, one wrong move can just fundamentally destroy trust, can fundamentally destroy the business. And myself and my co founder hold that to very high.
- [16:17]
Jon Jantz
Regardless, let's talk a little bit about AI. You know, the AI graphic tools are getting better, but I still think that they are not there to where like the, the normal user could just, you know, grab anything and have a whole set of, of you know, images and visuals. What tools are you adopting? What tools? I mean, how are you using AI in, in the whole design workflow?
- [16:41]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yeah, we love AI. Um, we use AI every single day. Are there specific tools? None that like I could say, but when it comes to internally we use AI for pretty much everything.
- [16:54]
Jon Jantz
Right.
- [16:55]
Jonathan Grabowski
However, I don't feel the, I'm not afraid of AI terminating a business like ours because I think from a business standpoint, one of two things, we as humans are very human driven creatures and want that human interaction regardless. And right now, as you said, and I don't think even in the next five, 10 years, unless there's some type of way in order to get people to think for you, you need a human being to submit these AI prompts and you need AI to at least make modifications. Even if you use do it yourself models, there needs to be some human touching it. So with that said, I don't think there'll ever be a need for full on AI specifically but I do think that it's a necessary tool for that every company should be implementing right now.
- [17:51]
Jon Jantz
What about designers? I mean you hire a lot of designers, you probably talk to thousands of folks that want to kind of come into your stable. Do you have any advice that if somebody who's learning design today about embracing AI or how like their relationship with AI needs to be.
- [18:10]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yeah, I mean, I think you'd be foolish not to use it, to be honest with you. I mean, like, for example, if a client comes up to us and says, hey, I need a, a project. Right. Done. Okay, cool. I need it done. 12 hours. Well, we could use AI, right? And give them at least like 90% of where it needs to be. Ask the client, hey, what's the stat? Like, what do you think of this? And then make them the proper modifications in order to order to make it 100% custom and unique to the person. That is at times how we use AI. It just depends on a case by case basis. But again, you can't, in my opinion, I don't think you can make anything custom directly from AI. It's passable at best and it can be used if you're okay with the ultimate solution. But if you want something on brand and if you want something specific to your company, it, it just right now at least you need a human being.
- [19:00]
Jon Jantz
Yeah. If not, if nothing else, I think, you know, I still find that the human being is going to bring empathy, is going to bring strategy, is going to bring context. You know, a lot of times a design has to be done in the context of a family of designs or the context of, you know, what the service offering is. And I think that at least for right now, we're certainly not there with AI.
- [19:24]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yeah. 100. I mean, I, I mean, like, I think the, the best phrase to use in this, and I, and I kind of say this at times to some, like to our salespeople is like, imagine going into AI and saying, hey, could you please put a photo of a family? Right? Like the word family is so different to so many people. You know, it could be a man and a woman. It could be a same sex, like, like family. It could be you and a dog. Like, it doesn't really, there's no boundaries to that. And I think like, that's where you said John, very, very eloquently is like the empathy behind it is the understanding of like, who is your target audience? Who are the people that you're trying to go to? So I would say, like, if a designer is listening right now and they're trying to figure out themselves, well, how do I take my business to the next level? I would say understand the other person's business to the fullest extent and have some level of empathy and conversation skills that you can display to understand the company in full. Because that's why people are actually buying. They're not necessarily buying in my, in our business, they're probably buying because of the service because it's very obvious, hey, you get unlimited graphic design for this particular cost. So like for our business specifically, it's very numbers driven and very like direct. Right. But I would say for a business or like an agency or something like that, they're probably buying you right now. In our world, they're buying the product, but they're staying because of the human. And, and, and that's a little bit of a different buying process. But at the same it's still we're buying from other people. We're staying because we love X person or X designer. And I think if you were to look at our reviews versus our competitors, we get reviews pretty much one to two times a day from or every other day, at least from our customers. And it's because of how we make them feel. But if you were to look at the landscape, there isn't in a single company that's genuinely writing reviews about their, about the service except for a business like ours because of the way, the emotional reaction that our customers are having to our team.
- [21:27]
Jon Jantz
You know, it's interesting. I've, I, you know, we, we review companies reviews as part of our strategy process. I've read millions of reviews and it's, I'm struck by how often how, how infrequently the company's actually mentioned. It's always Rusty fixed my boiler and he was amazing. He was like, I don't even know the name of the company. And I think that people really underestimate the, that experience is such a big part of getting that positive reaction.
- [21:56]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yeah, I mean just look at all the best companies in the world. I mean you have Disney, right? Like my father's in Disney. This is why I brought it up without us. And I think he's selfish piece of crap for going there by himself and not inviting me. I'm just kidding. When you leave Disney World, you feel, wow, man, they made my child feel so happy. Right. Or man, I feel like a kid again. These are all things that you're constantly thinking about. And if we can alleviate just like an ounce of that effort and that stress that you probably have in your business day to day, it's a world of hurt. And specifically from the people that are listening to this, I want to also give like business Advice too. We actually train our sales, excuse me, our support people to find a personal element to that person. Right. And so I'll give you a quick story and speaking of names, I'll mention the person's names, but a gentleman by the name of Pepe found out somehow, some way that, that one of our clients birthdays was that specific day. He didn't say anything or mention anything. He sent him a Google Meet or whatever to like talk and then he changed his background. And we never told him to do this like specifically, but we do teach the aspect of having that level of empathy. He had a happy birthday sign in the background and pretty much had like a hat on and like a, a string of something like that to celebrate the guy's birthday. And he was just like thrilled and overjoyed. It's just like those small little things where it's like the reason why people are staying at Penji and be being remaining customers isn't the graphic design. It's how the people, how, how our team is making them feel.
- [23:31]
Jon Jantz
Well, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Ducktape marketing podcast. Where, where do you want to invite people or where would you invite people to find out more about Penji connect with you?
- [23:39]
Jonathan Grabowski
Yeah, absolutely. Pen G co if you feel inclined to be able to, you know, become a customer, that'd be amazing. But if I provided even an ounce of value at all and if you need help in your, your life or business, I'd be more than happy to assist. That's kind of my purpose on, in my opinion on this, on this plan is to help other people. Email me. Jonathan J O H N A T H A N Pengi Co I'd be more than happy to provide you my time to help you any way that I can.
- [24:06]
Jon Jantz
Awesome. Well, again, it's great catching up with you again and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.
- [24:11]
Jonathan Grabowski
Sounds good, brother.
- [24:17]
Jon Jantz
Let me ask you a few things.
- [24:19]
Marketing Narrator
You feel like you know, what differentiates your business from every other business out there? Can you confidently charge a premium for what you offer? Are you working from a plan, a marketing roadmap that allows you to know precisely what to do next? Look, don't worry if you can't answer yes to any or all of these questions. You're not alone. See, marketers today get so focused on the tactic of the week staring them right in the face that they forget to look at the big picture. The overarching strategy needed to consistently grow their business over the years I've worked with thousands of businesses helping them do just that. Create the perfect marketing strategy and plan that gives total clarity about what to do next, confidence to charge ahead and charge more, and complete control of the marketing tactics they choose. I would love to help you and your team do the same. Look to find out if our Strategy first program is right for you, visit DTM World Grow and request a free consultation. That's DTM World Growing.