Why Authenticity, Trust, and Brand Are the New Currency in Digital Media | Bob Regular

Summary

The Entrepreneur DNA | Episode Summary

Podcast: The Entrepreneur DNA
Host: Justin Colby, Bleav
Guest: Bob Regular
Title: Why Authenticity, Trust, and Brand Are the New Currency in Digital Media
Date: January 7, 2026

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Overview

This episode dives deep into the evolution of digital media and its transformative impact on entrepreneurs, especially as it relates to authenticity, trust, and brand-building. Bob Regular, a veteran entrepreneur with three exits in the digital media space, shares his journey from the early days of the internet through to today’s “trust economy.” The conversation covers the importance of humanizing brands, the necessity of standing out amidst overwhelming digital noise, and actionable insights for both local operators and big brands looking to thrive by being authentic and building trust.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Early Days of Digital Media (00:38 - 10:41)

• Bob Regular’s Origin Story: Bob recounts entering the digital space in the mid-90s, drawing parallels between then and today’s AI boom.
• “It was very much the evangelical period, right? ... Not unlike the crypto people today or the AI people today, trying to create something out of raw cloth.” (Bob, 03:08)
• Evolution of Monetization: Digital advertising grew from convincing businesses to have basic websites, to building ad networks and performance-based models.
• Dot-com Crash & Recovery: The collapse in 2000 introduced skepticism, but digital platforms ultimately exploded due to measurable performance (unlike radio/TV/print), solidifying digital media’s place in business.

2. The Shift to Native & Social Commerce (11:11 - 15:38)

• Rise of QVC 2.0: Social commerce platforms (TikTok, Facebook shops) mimic live shopping and make transaction seamless within communities.
• Native Advertising & Walled Gardens: Platforms like TikTok curate content and commerce, prioritizing a less “ad-like” experience to drive conversions.
• Intent Becomes Digital Currency: Your behavior—what you click, watch, and purchase—determines what content and ads you receive, enabling hyper-targeted commerce.

3. Brand vs. Performance Marketing – Local and National Dynamics (15:38 - 22:48)

• Who are Infolinks’ Clients? Mixture of brand-centric and performance-driven advertisers, from airlines to car companies—“very practical people” focused on clear return on investment.
• Local Businesses vs. Major Brands: Local businesses often ignore brand-building in favor of immediate returns, while big brands focus on long-term brand value and mindshare.
• “If you also care about brand creation and you keep on the gas...you'll see exceptional results beyond your competitors.” (Bob, 18:56)
• Make the Boring Engaging: Even “boring” services like landscaping can stand out with creativity, humor, and relentless posting of authentic results.

4. The Power of Humanizing Brands (22:48 - 32:54)

• Personalities Drive Loyalty: People buy from people, not companies—a concept highlighted by consumer attachment to figures like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs.
• “People are dying to actually see authenticity of signal. Dying.” (Bob, 26:10)
• Overwhelming Digital Noise: With trillions of daily messages bombarding users, only brands that cut through with personality and authenticity stand out.
• Risks & Realities: Not every operator is suited to be the face of the brand—play to strengths, and use authenticity as appropriate for your market and audience.

5. Authenticity & Vulnerability as Competitive Advantage (32:54 - 41:13)

• Authenticity in Practice: Transparency about failure and authenticity builds trust, which is the “currency” in the new digital economy.
• “Your currency is your trust.” (Bob, 38:47)
• Moats & Differentiation: Lasting business success comes from a unique selling proposition—being “special” in a crowded field.
• Riches in the Niches: Whether local or global, define what makes you unique, even if it’s vulnerability (e.g., a real estate coach leveraging a prison stint as a teaching tool).

6. Cyclicality in Digital Media & The Future of Trust (41:13 - 44:54)

• The Gold Rush of Influencer Commerce: Today’s “authentic” influencer economy may lose impact once audiences sense they're always being sold to.
• “It’s a transactional gold rush ... and they’ll have an expiration date on that.” (Justin, 41:41)
• The Return to Walled Gardens: The industry is cyclical—once democratized, now walled again (echoes of AOL).

7. Final Advice for Entrepreneurs (43:23 - 44:54)

• Mentorship & Community: Building and scaling businesses is hard, but easier with mentorship and a supportive entrepreneurial community.
• Persistence Powered by Cheerleaders: Success demands persistence, which is easier to find with support, encouragement, and learning from others’ experiences.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Early Digital Media:
  “Building websites sounded so mundane right now, but at the moment it was like being an AI genius today.” (Bob, 02:00)
• On Measurability:
  "With digital, it was just facts, man. It was just straight up facts. I sent you an impression, I created a click, you got a sale, end of story." (Bob, 08:09)
• On Social & Live Shopping:
  “Why must I leave TikTok to go find and buy that pot at some other place?... I’m already here.” (Bob, 12:31)
• On Brand-Building:
  “Is your value just that you’re a landscaper or do you do something special? Why are you different and why are you special?” (Bob, 36:26)
• On Authenticity:
  “People are dying to actually see authenticity of signal. Dying.” (Bob, 26:10)
  “Your currency is your trust.” (Bob, 38:47)
• On Mentorship:
  “It’s important to mentor. It’s important to be mentored. ... The ingredient, at least that I’ve seen that’s really driven the most ability to find some success is persistence.” (Bob, 43:33)
• On Influencer Gold Rush:
  “It's a total cash grab ... if you don't actually build a brand around it, ... it's just a transactional gold rush that [the brand] doesn't actually benefit from.” (Justin, 41:41)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:38 – Bob Regular’s digital media origin story
• 07:18 – Era of performance marketing and early clients (Blockbuster and Netflix)
• 11:11 – Social commerce, TikTok & seamless shopping
• 15:42 – Infolinks' client avatars: performance & branding
• 18:56 – Advice for local business owners on brand-building
• 22:48 – The power of personality in branding (Steve Jobs, Elon Musk)
• 26:10 – The value of authenticity in a noisy world
• 36:36 – Unique Selling Proposition / “the special sauce”
• 38:47 – Vulnerability & trust as competitive advantage
• 41:41 – Skepticism on the sustainability of influencer-driven commerce
• 43:33 – Mentorship as a key to entrepreneurial persistence
• 44:54 – Episode wrap-up

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Conclusion

This episode is a must for any entrepreneur navigating the digital age. Bob Regular’s perspective hammers home that in a world of infinite content and choice, brand, authenticity, and trust are the true currencies. Whether you’re a local landscaper or a global airline, building a recognizable, relatable, and honest brand is necessary not just for immediate sales, but for long-term loyalty and differentiation.

Key Takeaway:
Double down on authenticity, invest in your brand, understand your unique selling point, and support or seek mentorship—these are the formulas that transcend both “old” and “new” media eras for entrepreneurs and marketers alike.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome back. The entrepreneur DNA family in entrepreneurial world. We have a very special guest here. He's been able to revolutionize the digital media space. And what does that mean for you? Well, the same thing that you're either listening to this on or looking at right now as you are watching it is the same place he plays. He plays in the digital media space. He's revolutionized the space and he's had three exit doing it. So this man kind of knows what he's doing in the entrepreneurship and digital media space. Bob regular is here. How are you friend?

[B]

I'm great, Justin, how are you?

[A]

I'm doing great, I'm doing great. As you saw before we started recording, I'm, I'm running and gunning today.

[B]

So I love your enthusiasm. It's, it's just, I love it.

[A]

Well, as someone who has a personal brand and someone plays in the digital media space and runs ads and leans into social media, many people out there are listening and watching this also do that more on the voyeuristic side. But we want people to understand how you can actually take advantage of what's out there. And you are the guy that is highly sought after has been able to kind of change the space of digital media, transform companies, keeping them on the cutting edge, that kind of thing. And so I want to lean into some of the lessons that you've learned in this, you know, multi decade resume that you've built specifically to the digital media space.

[B]

Great, so happy to share and thank you for having me on. Love the pod and it's certainly a pleasure to be a part of your infectious experience. You always have good energy, it's a great thing.

[A]

Appreciate you.

[B]

Well, listen, look, I've been incredibly fortunate to be a part of an industry from the very beginning, frankly. That is probably one of the most transformative runs that, you know, any space has had and we're currently seeing it as it reflects on AI. But I got into it in the mid-90s and you know, essentially digital media was nascent, non existent. We had dial up. You know, we may have had CompuServe, AOL if you were lucky, Yahoo was getting started. You know, you go back and tell these tales and people scratch their heads and think, you know, how is that possible? That was really only 25 years ago. You know, when you think about it, that sounds like a lot of time, but that goes like a blink of an eye. And that's this whole experience for me started off really with starting a company in the early days of building websites and that company of building websites sounds so mundane right now, but at the moment it was like being an AI genius today website. You know, we were going around prophesizing, trying to convince businesses you should have a www.com like you should have. And them just looking at us like, why does that matter? What is that? And you know, businesses at the time were not, and this is only 25 years ago, Justin. Business at the time did not believe in having a website. They did not ever believe anyone was ever going to transact with a credit card and buy things online. That was heresy. Holy cow, that's not happening.

[A]

I mean, it was probably not even fathomable.

[B]

No, it was not fathomable. It was like I was talking, right, a virtual reality to these folks. And so, you know, this was a moment in time in the midnight in the mid-90s 90s where it was very much the evangelical period, right? You were going around preaching that this is going to be something not unlike the crypto people today or the AI people today, or everyone is trying to create something out of raw cloth, right? And so that's when I really entered the space. And building websites was transformative at the time because you had to bring the businesses, you had to bring the content creators online. And so a whole business got created in that. And through that journey in that business, I discovered the need to monetize these publishers, these sites. The desire, like it's not just enough to build sites with content or E commerce or whatever you need to monetize. Yeah, this is a lot of fun and everything, but you know, ultimately is there money being made? And so, you know, I kind of pivoted and joined a company basically at the very early, early stages of putting ads on the Internet. And at the time there were very few websites to put ads on. And so what we started off doing was putting ads on downloadable software. And so as crazy as that sounds, but in the beginning, the most used thing on your, on your desktop or your laptop was downloading software that was, maybe it's a word processor, maybe it was a utility, maybe, you know, you're really cool college kid and you were downloading Napster or a peer to peer application, you know, not, not, not, not. Point Napster.

[A]

That is a name that brings me back.

[B]

Wow. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Right? So, so putting ads, building a, an ad serving technology that was able to put ads in that downloadable software. And time in the late 90s, early 2000, you were still using dial up. I mean, I still have the sound of dial up embedded in My brain, you know, of course, I could almost replicate it if you give me a minute, Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it's a sound that none of us will forget. And so, you know, that period of time was a very exciting period because you were creating something from nothing and you, you believed you were building a revolution, right? That's going to change the way we communicate, the way we put advertising, way we communicate with media. So if I accelerate forward, what I, what I would sort of without boring everybody with all little details, is this transformative event in 2000 really shaped me in a lot of ways because we had the dot com crash and you went. I went from this period from say 95 to 2000, where it was euphoric, not unlike, and I'm not trying to draw a parallel, but not unlike the AI euphoria of today, right? It's going to be transformed the world. And then suddenly it crashed. And everybody around me had a lot of doubt. Is this really going to do anything, let alone transform the world? And advertisers pulled back. Digital media as a growth industry pulled back. And there was all this hate, right? There was this hate about stock destruction, wealth destruction, VCs, right, were getting destroyed. Investors, of course, were really harmed. And so there's a lot of negativity for a long time. Then we had the 911 event right after and that just of course piled onto the negativity as it related to doing anything related around growth. And so there's this like period, this dark period of, call it three years where there's a lot of doubt like, is this web thing going to be the thing or is it just going to be sort of this cute side hustle that's going. And you know, at the time we, I was in a business that we were hunkered down and we were, you know, we had, we had unfortunately had to let go a lot of employees and we went and got a studio apartment and set up, put up our shingle in our shop and started hunkering down, building the business of performance advertising essentially and putting, you know, ads on websites and selling them to advertisers and figuring out the algorithms and the technologies around serving those ads and getting response. Because at the time coming off the dot com crash, coming off 9 11, all advertisers cared about was, if I give you a dollar, will you give me two back?

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Period, end of story, right? And I remember one of my very first advertisers, it's going to make you laugh, was what two of them was Number one was Blockbuster. Nice. What did Blockbuster care about am I selling in the end? Right. Getting consumers into that store and getting them to sign up more Blockbuster accounts. And then came Netflix was am I sending out discs? Right. Netflix would literally, as an advertiser, give us a report every day of how many signups they had to send discs.

[A]

And from the ad, guess who ate Blockbusters lunch?

[B]

And just who ate Blockbusters lunch. Yeah. Going back, thinking back to those days, Netflix was far more sophisticated. So obviously, you know, performance marketing took shape. Right, Right. And I think why, aside from the fact that the consumers adopted, once we got broadband, I think why digital media exploded so much, aside from just the Google and all those types of things that we know about is every other medium in history has always sold hopes and dreams that they work. Radio, tv, print, you advertise on them, you're not sure if they work, they don't work. It's hard to calculate, it's hard to measure. We come up with all these theoretical concepts about whether or not it's working. But with digital, it was just facts, man. It was just straight up facts. I sent you an impression, I created a click, you got a sale, end of story. It's facts. And advertisers and business owners love that. They're like, wow, we're going from I have a sales rep telling me hopes and dreams, but I can't measure it to this is facts. And that was the biggest fertilizer you can imagine driving growth. And those growths happen in of course, Google environments, Yahoo, back in the time environments, even AOL's environment and so on. And at the time, myself and my team were building an ad network, what's called an ad network. At the time, we were building an ad network. And that ad network connected publishers with advertisers. And so we were creating that exchange of publishers and advertisers coming together to buy the right media to get the right response. And so it acted as a facilitator between all the parties using technology. And so my history is building those types of facilitation ad exchange companies over the years. And we've seen insane amounts of innovation. Right. When you start to ponder like what has happened, we've taken what was in late 90s of me calling someone like you, Justin, going, hey, can I put this ad on your website? And you taking that ad and you posting it on your website manually, and then me calling you up in a week and going, is that ad still up? Could you take that down? Right. We've gone from that to mass high frequency day trading of advertising and exchanges doing trillions of requests a day across massive platforms like TikTok and Facebook and the open web programmatic Open web in general. And it there is not a probably, there's not a likelihood you'll find many people as you journey around the world that is not on their device looking at an ad experience or a content experience. Right. Like it's mass penetration.

[C]

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[A]

I have, you know, it's interesting. I'll take it like the next layer because I'm so interested in. I don't have any like e commerce type product where I could go sell per se on Amazon or. Well now we have this TikTok shop and these things that I'm interested to hear your side of this because it seems to be just such a. It's quite literally the new version of qvc.

[B]

Right?

[A]

So you and I are of the age of qvc. My mom had it on all day, every day. Pre. This is pre Amazon, pre everything. How does that play in like I'm not even talking about AI yet we can get there. How does that play into your world, the digital media space where quite literally someone can just be sitting here like this and shopping live, no ads needed. It's just a stream that you go. There's no ad to it. How does that play in your world?

[B]

Well, so, so one of the things, you know in the early days and it's still, it's still very successful today is a classic display ad or a classic video ad is placed on a piece of content. And that's where I play with my current company Infolinks where essentially we work with web publishers or mobile app publishers or even CTV publishers and we marry the advertiser in the form of display or video or native and put the ads in the right place, what we say is the right place at the right time to get the right response. Okay. That's the nature of this current business. What you have in the facebooks and the TikToks and the Instagrams and frankly even the Google environments is what we call walled gardens. Okay. These are essentially themselves publishers that self control their ad or e commerce experience. And they have so many users that they, they have a closed walled garden that. Where they curate their advertisers and they curate their audience and they bring them together. And the thing that they have been trying and doing, frankly, a really great job of over the years is trying to hide the ads from being like an ad experience and make them. The terminology is make them native such that they don't feel like an ad, they don't feel like an intrusive experience. They feel like a suggestion or a recommendation that is really a transactional event. Right. And it's part of disarming the consumer, right. To feel as though this is just a part of the experience of the content. So when you're on TikTok and you're getting an environment where you're looking at. Let's make up an example. I'm like really lately in buying plants. And so if you're on there and you're looking at plants and you had a plant merchant come up and he's got the best pot ever, right? Why must I leave TikTok to go find and buy that pot at some other place? That's right. Why must I leave and go to Amazon? Why? Right. I'm already here. Yeah, Right. So why show me the ad but not show me the product? And so what they're doing is they're bridging, right, friction that used to be there to allow you to shop in the platform in the walled garden at the moment that you have interest. And then the thing that you really are doing is you're taking your digital currency, which is your intent, and you're showing, hey, I'm interested in plants and pots and I'm transacting. Now you will forever be known as Justin the plant guy, right? And you're going to get lots of plant ads and all derivative plant products because you've shown your intent. And so this is, I mean, think how powerful that is compared to, you know, rewind the tape. Not too long ago, right? Newspaper ads, you know, like it's, it's incredibly powerful. So that is what all of us in this space, you know, particular, my company and Infolinx, we, we work on every day in the form of algorithms, in the form of the type of advertisers we bring in, coaching our advertisers to, to have messages, creatives and products that are interesting to the audience as well. Because, you know, if, if you go back to that. You go back to that example. If you really have lousy pots and you've got really, really lousy creative. And that's, it's just, you don't do a good job on that. Yeah, it doesn't matter that you're the plant guy because you being the plant guy, looking at that, you know, it's not very good.

[A]

So who's your, who's your avatar at Infolinx?

[B]

My avatar?

[A]

Yeah. Who's your clientele? Who are you speaking to in terms of like.

[B]

So we have a great mixture of what we term brand performance advertisers. So these are advertisers that really care about their brand and they have a lot of energy they put into the brand, but they also measure the performance that happens not only for their brand lift, but do they sell things. So it could be hotels that they're trying to sell actual hotel rooms and they measure that. What they said heads. Their terminology is heads and beds. And you know, you have airlines, right? They're measuring very specifically, are we selling seats? Right? So we're, we spent a million dollars with you. How many seats are we really selling as a result of that? How many searches for, for tickets did we get from that? It's very meas and it's very specific. You've got car brands. Let me tell you, car brands are incredibly insightful. The car brands will come and they will measure right down to the local level. How many test drives. Right. We put these ads in these locations, we spent this amount of money. How many test drives actually happened? So every major brand is advertising not only to create brand identity and brand lift, but they're very beginning, like they're getting very specific around, hey, what's the performances? What are the outcomes of this? And is this outcome mattering to me? And it's really no different than your local advertiser, probably landscaper advertising on Google, spending 50 bucks, 100 bucks a month trying to get more folks calling up in the same mow my lawn.

[A]

I can't imagine being much different at all. You're just talking about business KPIs. I spend a million dollars. What's my return on ad spend? I mean, that's, it's a very basic fundamental. For those that know anything about marketing, that's very fundamental. It's 101. But talk, talk to the guys that might be the, you know, let's use again gardeners or whatever. Like they have a company, they're online, they want to increase their revenue. Talk to them like, how do the big boys play, how do the airlines play, how do the car companies play, the guys that can spend a million dollars a month or whatever it may be? Because I think there's probably a lot of trickle down. That is a very same thing, just different zeros.

[B]

Sure. 100. That's absolutely right. It's different zeros. The thing I can tell you though, the big difference between local versus national is local is not very consumed with their brand, whereas national is very consumed with their brand, their brand identity, their brand messaging, their brand reputation. They're constantly trying to put seeds in your mind that they exist, they matter. And when you want to do a certain thing, whatever the thing is, they're the go to. What I find with local is because they're, they're budget constrained, of course, they're very practical people. Right. Your local landscaper is most likely actually putting plants in the ground. He's a very. Or she's a very practical person.

[A]

She's an operator.

[B]

Yeah, they're an operator. And that as an operator, they look at advertising in an operational way. And so when they say, I'm going to spend a hundred dollars, I better get 150 back right now.

[A]

Yes, exactly.

[B]

I don't want to hear about it coming in two weeks from now. I want it right now. If it doesn't work and I don't get a phone call right now, I'm out. That's right. And so where that limitation comes because it's budgetary, is they struggle to build a brand for their particular company, their landscaping company, to give any sort of reputation value from their digital media. And most of their reputation value comes from word of mouth. And so if I was ever to advise, you know, this metaphorical landscape company that represents all these smaller medium sized businesses that use digital media is you will see exceptional results beyond your competitors if you also care about brand creation. And you keep on the gas. Because the brand creation takes a lot of time.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Is there so much freaking noise? The noise is incredible. So brand creation is. Let's use TikTok as a medium. Go and create endless amounts of cool videos and, and photos of great work you do and constantly show people, not because you're trying to sell your lawn mowing services right now, but because you do a great job. Right. Show folks you do a great job all the time. So it starts to lodge in people's brains. Right. That when you think about landscaping, you know, Justin Colby's good landscaping company is amazing. We should think about him.

[A]

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[B]

It done right in case study it.

[A]

Right to your point. Like people love to see what that, what that thing, the company, the what they get. Like what do you get if I pay you to mow my lawn and if I go search you on TikTok and you have 400 videos of the freshly mowed lawn, I know what I mean to get, I'm going to just hire you. Hey, can you come do the same thing for my Lawn?

[B]

That's right, 100%. And the other thing I would advise these companies, and I've, I've lived this too through, through marketing is, you know, all due respect, landscaping is boring. And most businesses, right, are boring. Like most of us are passionate about our businesses because we're in it, because it's ours.

[A]

Our baby.

[B]

Ours. Our baby. It's like our kids. Like when you go around bragging about your kids and most people roll their eyes like I don't want to hear it anymore, right? But listen, right? They're boring. But to you they're really valuable. You have to remember they're boring. So you need to make this content and these ads interesting and frankly, if possible, humorous and fun. Totally. Because man, there's nothing worse than like these, you know, somebody taking their self dead seriously about being the best landscaping company, putting grass, mow, mowing. It's like, come on man, I don't care. Right?

[A]

And so come on, man.

[B]

Yeah. So I advise, you know, I advise advertisers and marketers like all the time. Like don't take yourself so seriously. Come on, like relate to the audience Relate to the audience.

[A]

Let's talk brand. I'm a big, big brand advocate now in my space. I'm not an airline in an auto industry. These are very big, large companies. But you're bringing up a point that I believe 99% of my audience will be able to really understand. Who owns Alaska airlines? What's the CEO's name? Who owns Virgin Airlines?

[B]

Right. The shareholders. No, right. Richard Bryce. Of course. Richard. Yeah.

[A]

Who owns Chevrolet? Okay. Who owns Tesla?

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

So I lean into some of the obvious ones. Well said. Because I actually believe in our day and age, this moment, it's a trust economy we got to get back to. And people will transact with not. And I want you to oppose me if you don't believe this. But like they also want to have a human component behind it. People love Elon. Like, I promise you, my, my Apple phone likely does every single thing a Samsung does.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But I loved my boy Steve Jobs.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And I just bought into him and I to this moment, even though he rip I am so full commit to that that like to this day I'll still watch motivational videos of his Harvard speech and.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know what I mean? So let's talk about the power of a brand because I think it is a. Even when you are a bigger company, if you're out there listening, you're big. If you don't have a representation, I'll bring it even full circle. Instagram CEO now is being seen infinitely more on Instagram than I've ever seen him over the last seven years of being on Instagram. Why? In my opinion. In my opinion, because he's realizing the same thing. I'm kind of pointing out that the face the human component, the trust economy is needed right now.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And a brand, a company that is faceless to some extent, I'm going to make the argument I'm not the expert, you are. I believe you will go further down the path longer with more success with a human component to a brand.

[B]

So I agree with you 1000% and I'm going to give some context around it. Okay. You're absolutely right on the money.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

What's happened as a result of the story I told, which is that we've exploded in the last 25 years where basically digital media is everybody's life. Right. There is very few that are not consuming hours of digital media every day is. The amount of noise is insane and incalculable. The quantity of impressions that a consumer sees in the run of a day of messages, photos, icons, Whatever. Whatever signal you want to say is in the trillions a day. And as a result, the term we use in advertising is frequency. The frequency is so high. Yeah. There's so much signal that what you're really actually pointing out with personalization, you know, Elon Steve Jobs, these are personalizations, right. Is people are dying to actually see authenticity of signal dying.

[A]

Gosh, that resonates.

[B]

And so with that need, when you are drowning in an ocean full of noise, right? Looking at that one thing that gives you to your point, trust, but at least gives you clarity. Clarity, right, is something you'll grapple onto. And I think that you see that in the rise of the podcast movement. You see that, right? It. You. It's like obvious, right? You see that in the rise of the political movement, people are grappling and attaching on to authenticity and clarity of signal and voice. And it's all because the quantity of noise is so insane that as humans, as people, right? Like, we are. We. We are a social species. We want others, right? We want to be connecting, one, you and I, right now, we're connecting, we're relating. So I think in the form of a media world, digital media, and you got a brand and you've got a company, and when you just are a logo, or when you're just a sale, 20% off, or when you're just a, you know, a physical box store, it's a very impersonal thing. It's not that you won't transact with it. It's just not special. It's a lot of. Still a lot of noise. So I think what you've done, both with your podcast and the references you've made is you've. You've been able to personalize your signal. You've brought clarity, and most important, you bring authenticity. And that is like always going to beat out the other one. That's the generic logo, right? That's just kind of humming along, running marketing routines, like 20 off this week and, you know, rebates and, you know, we've got the best tires, you know, with. With perfect treads and. Right. You know, so, yeah, I think you're right on the money. You've. You've identified the truth. Right. And I go back to what I said about the landscaper. That person needs to build brand. That's right. Because landscaping is impersonal. Who cares? I really. I do want my grass cut and I want it to look nice, but, you know, that's. That those are table stakes. And so I think that's that's where I come at it from.

[A]

I would agree. And here's what I've seen in my own personal side, and not sure if you follow me on my social side, but, like, I've become increasingly more authentic and transparent and what that has done for me over the last. Call it 45, 60 days, I would never have thought complete transparency, complete authenticity plays in the same realm. Meaning I had no idea the type of feedback and engagement I would get with more authenticity and transparency, which is where I believe more businesses should be.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I mean, again, the government and all these other things. But I don't want my show to get canceled. So we'll stay away from this. But, you know, listen, I think everyone, whether you're the. The Lawn keeper or you're the big brand, I think.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Everyone has to understand the power of the digital media. And this is where, you know, Bob and his company. I would highly encourage you to reach out to Bob. He's an incredible human, as you guys are seeing and going to infolinks at, if that's something that you're looking for. I think everyone should have some level of a digital imprint on a very consistent basis. And I don't need to be all Gary Vee on you, but if you just think about the concept of what Gary is talking about, it could just not be more true these days.

[B]

And what you say is absolute truth. But unfortunately, a lot of the people who run businesses that could be that face are folks that will not play well in having that brand. Right. That's fair. You can love Musk, but he's a polarizing figure. Fair, right. You like or hate Trump, but nobody will argue with me that he's a polarizing figure. That's right. And so on. And you can go down the laundry list, even of his time, even Jobs internally and around his sphere was a polarizing figure.

[A]

100%.

[B]

Right. And so, you know, a big part of building that personal brand, if you go down that road, whether it's for your brand of a United Airlines or it's your brand of Tesla or whatever, or it's your personal brand. Right. Like, you know, you have to also be relatable in a way. Right. That the consumer and the audience wants to relate with you or. Or you're repellent. And if you're repellent, of course, is you're better off just being a logo in a generic organ that no one quite knows that you're a repellent. Right behind this. And so, you know, I think sometimes what you get is these folks that are repellent that want to be out. And then you get these other folks that are, like, really perfect for it, and they're too. Too humble and shy. Right. To be out. And so you get this bipolar narcissism that goes on. Right. And I think it's just one of those things that a person, let's say this metaphorical landscaping company, they have to be very real with themselves, right? How am I going to represent this brand? You know, who am I to represent the brand? And I. Will I do a good job or will I just be repellent? And. And nobody will want to deal with me.

[A]

You know, I smile because we're bringing up landscaper. So I have an incredible landscaper here at my house, and if I'll shoot you straight, he throws himself on a camera and it's not going to go so well. It's not going to go so well.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

So you're not wrong. So play into certain strengths, right? I mean, you got to have some level of, like, common sense about it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But I'll be honest, you know, even the storyline of authenticity.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Can really take shape. I mean, there's someone in my space, in the real estate space, literally was in federal prison.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

And is now one of the larger educators in our space, which you're like, how does that. You know, he. He did this stuff and he went into federal prison and. Yeah, but he's being authentic. He's being real, and he's going to give it to you the way you need it to be given, versus the fluff and the makeup and all that kind of stuff.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And so, again, transparency, authenticity, you know, we can move on from the subject, but I think more people really, genuinely need to lean into it. And it just does better. It's the same. Listen, you don't need to be doing this podcast. Think about you think about Bob right this second. Does your company need you to do this right now?

[B]

No, no, for sure not.

[A]

But you understand what it could possibly do. Does it gain Bob more attention? Does it gain info links, more, you know, awareness?

[B]

A hundred percent, for sure.

[A]

And it takes one person listening to this pod, one whose friend is, you know, because I know your clientele typically is a. Is a bigger brand, bigger business, but who owns a, you know, 200 store franchise of a restaurant, right, that might say, oh, my God, I heard this guy Bob on Justin's podcast. Go reach out to him. He gave the info. Does that make sense?

[B]

The thing that, you know, we take Away from this authenticity portion of it. Right. Is about defining and advertising, let's say digital media and building brands on behalf of entrepreneurs. You know, I also think it's a very important ingredient into why do you have a successful business or not? And, you know, as you have all these entrepreneurs listening, I think one of the things that I've taken away is not only when you as an advertiser build a brand, you need to bring that authenticity in order to be successful, but I think how you build your business always does better when you take that authenticity and create something really unique that's differentiated. You know, we have these fancy terms, as you know, in entrepreneurship. Right? Build a moat. You should have a moat. How big is your moat? Right. Like you can sit into VC conversations all day long and you'll say the word moat repeatedly, right? No, I mean, there's no one else in the world talking about the word moat. That's right. Us in the entrepreneur and VC community. And what it really, you know, the reason that it stands out is again, with all the noise, you have noise in the Internet world that's related around messaging. Right. For sure. But you have noise in building a business. And the thing that's really helped me, after I acquired Infolinx, really grow Infolinx from sort of a struggling position to a very successful position was to take what I've learned from marketing and advertising and say, how can I make this business truly unique for the advertisers? And build a moat. Sorry for the cliche, but build something authentic and unique and different that allows it to thrive and not just hustle every day. Right. Trying to just get by. Yeah. And so I think it all comes together, right? The story of marketing is about that authenticity and the story of building a business as an entrepreneur and finding success. It's not an easy one. As you know, you almost have to be insane to be an entrepreneur. Right. It's a hard journey, but if you can build something that's got that differentiation, that specialness, then you will always find your way to success. You will always get there. It's when you are lost and aren't quite sure why I'm special, why it's special, what am I doing different? Where's. Again, these are cliches a little bit, right? But where's my value? Yeah. It's a hard question, right? Just like the landscaper positioning himself on TikTok. Right? What is your value? Is your value just that you're a landscaper or do you do something special? Right. When you landscape is Your specialty. You're amazing at cherry trees and you, you know, shape them in amazing, crazy ways. Whatever, right? Why are you different and why are you special and why is your business model different and special? To build that moat. And I think that's the biggest lesson. Like I'm, I'm, I'm at a stage now in, in this organization, in this business where I'm constantly refining and working on with my team and with my, my investors. How do you keep making it more special so that you get there? And that I find is harder than the day to day blocking and tackling and operations.

[A]

Could you, could you substitute the word special? Which I think I understand what you're saying, but like, in the sales world, you might call it the unique selling proposition.

[B]

100% for sure.

[A]

What makes special unique selling? Like, why is anyone going to use you, pay for you?

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

Versus the next guy.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And if you can define that, you know, people say riches are in the niches. If you can niche down into what makes you special, even though you're still an airline, you're still an automotive car company. Like, the cars drive. Okay. The air, you know, the planes fly.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But what makes you special.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Man, Is that a big takeaway from this episode?

[B]

It's so important. It's so important. And I go back to. And sort of keep repeating myself. There is so much noise, not only in noise coming out of your, you know, your social media noise coming out of your television and noise coming out of your device, but there's so much business noise. There are so many businesses vying for your attention, your business trying to be special, that when you have so much duplication, right. You being that beacon, right. That unique selling proposition you're defining, what makes you special is your sauce, oftentimes from entrepreneurs or business or investors at the time. Hey, hey, man. What's your sauce like? What's your sauce?

[A]

What would you buy into the. I'm leaning into this.

[B]

I'm curious.

[A]

Just as a friend and wealth of experience. I'm leaning into some of the sauce needs to be transparency of the failures. My special sauce is I'm going to help you avoid the mistake. Whatever this thing is. I feel like that world of again, going back to this trust economy and.

[B]

The need for it.

[A]

I think that, I think that plays. What do you think as far as a brand like transparency? Here's what I did, and it sucked.

[B]

Right? Right.

[A]

Authenticity. Here's how I can help you avoid that or get the better part of what that happened. Does that make sense?

[B]

100%. Wow. Super. Absolutely. I mean, that is. Right. Your currency is your trust.

[A]

Right.

[B]

That is your outcome. Right. Is you develop trust. How you develop that trust, I think, is vulnerability. Right. That vulnerability, your willingness to communicate, let's say, socially or whatever, however, whatever methodology you're communicating to your audience or your customer base. That vulnerability is awareness for them, understanding whether or not you're someone that can be trusted. To your point, there's a real estate, successful real estate person that went to prison and they're leveraging their vulnerability and their experience to say this is a teaching moment. I'm just guessing now, but my guess is this is a teaching moment.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you can learn from me and you can trust me because I learned from that. Right.

[A]

I. I would agree. And. And I don't know how. I mean, this is why you make the big bucks with these big companies. I don't know how an airline or a car company does that. Right. But there's ways, I have to assume, just thinking about the mistakes they made. Let's just use a car company. Seatbelt malfunctions, something terrible happens. Taking that as a unique selling proposition of. Or what makes you special now is, hey, we learned from this. Here's now how we make our cars invincible. And nothing. You know, and I don't know. I think there's a play.

[B]

Yeah. It's very. It's very hard for large national, massive brand. Yeah. That essentially looks at their leadership as, in some respects, transactional.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

They go. There's a lot of fear of making them the face of the brand. Right. Or the voice of the brand. So there's a little bit of that that happens. But there's a lot of worry about making that happen at a very large national level. On a local level or a regional level, it's a lot easier. Jobs and musk are very distinct rarity when it comes to that. Right. It's definitely an anomaly, not a common thing. So I would say this authenticity and this vulnerability to build trust is important about the brand and the product and how the product is introduced. Which is why when you think about how TikTok is raged or Instagram has raged in success, it's the influencers that are demonstrating authenticity and vulnerability and enthusiasm for a product. They're trading on that currency that get people to buy that product.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

So they're almost like local advertisers or local merchants in the form of trust. And I think that's worked exceptionally well. We've seen a booming Industry from that in the marketing space, however, I think that's got a timeline as well. Because you see that as the consumer starts to say, yeah, you know, like, it seems like everybody coming on here is selling something.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's a gold. I call it a gold rush. That's my take on it. I think it's a total cash grab.

[B]

Total.

[A]

And I could be wrong. I'm not the expert in the space. I just, I think it's great. I think it's brilliant. But I find it to be a gold rush. And they'll have an expiration date on that.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because if you don't actually build a brand around it, in my opinion.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Going back to the brand, if you're just transactional and Justin Colby is always selling you, you know, these glass cases all the time, but the glass cases don't have a brand like Warby and Parker.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

Then no one's going to be able to find Warby and Parker's glass cases. You just have Justin selling it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And so I think it's just a transactional gold rush that Warby and Parker doesn't actually benefit from because no one knows the brand behind it. No one can Google that. Does that make sense?

[B]

And this goes back to my original state. Remember I said they're walled gardens. Right. They're walled in. Right. The brand is walled in. The transaction is walled in, the influencers in the wall. It's almost like, hey, man, we've got this wall and everybody's in it. And this is where you're going to exist and transact and get your information and buy your product and you're never getting out. It's really remarkable, but that's where it is. And life comes full circle. We started there, we started there with aol. You know, it may be pre generation of everybody listening, but AOL was just a big walled garden where you went and you saw the information and the messaging had buttons and you could buy and so on and so forth. It was a walled garden. And the reason that AOL basically collapsed was the democratization of the Internet. Everyone broke out and they just wanted their own personalized experience on the web. And now we're going back to walled gardens. Cyclical.

[A]

Cyclical.

[B]

Yeah, it's cyclical, right?

[A]

Yeah, it's cyclical, brother. Any, any last words that you can give advice or the best, best advice you've been given to the entrepreneurs out there?

[B]

Ah, wow. That's a, that's a, that's a quick. I would, I Would like to say that it's important to mentor. It's important to be mentored. It's important to mentor. You know, building a business is exceptionally hard. It's exceptionally stressful, right? It is, it is filled with more challenges than it is, you know, good times, no doubt. So, you know, other entrepreneurs understand that. And so it is a bit of a lifestyle, Right. And I think that part of what makes it easier and better is community. And I highly recommend, you know, the entrepreneurs listening, if you're older or even if you're not, right. Take somebody under your wing and mentor them or act like a self help group even. Right. But that community of mentoring or being mentored I think is a very important ingredient to getting through. Because the ingredient, at least that I've seen that's really driven the most ability to find some success is persistence. And this persistence sometimes is very hard to have unless you have cheerleaders. Yeah. And so being mentored, mentoring, being there for people, giving them, you know, good, good insights to get, get through it. All right. And get to the, to the promised land you hope is the promised land. That, that would be the thing I would like to leave anybody listening with.

[A]

Brilliant.

[B]

Brilliant.

[A]

I love it. Well, guys, if, if you thought Bob was pretty good here and gave some good inside tips on branding and marketing and even just being a mentor to someone else or mentor or know, getting mentorship, please share this with two people because I thought this was an incredible episode. That is Bob regular. This is Justin Colby. This has been the entrepreneur DNA. I appreciate you guys give this a five star review. Bob, appreciate you and we'll see you on the next episode.

[B]

It was a pleasure. Thank you.