← The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)
The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)
How To Write Great Marketing Copy (And Generate More Ideas, Faster)
00:55:18
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- [00:00]
A
Email, in my humble opinion, is still the greatest marketing channel of all time. It's the only way you can truly own your audience today. But when it comes to building those emails, well, if you've ever tried building an email in an enterprise marketing automation platform, you know just how painful that can be. I won't name names, but templates get too rigid. Editing code can break things and the whole process just takes forever when it shouldn't. That's why we love knack here at exit 5. Knack is a no code email platform that makes it easy to create on brand high performance forming emails without the bottlenecks. If you're frustrated by clunky email builders, you need nac. If you're tired of hoping the email you sent looks good across all devices, just test it in NAC first. And if you're a big team that's making it hard to collaborate and get approvals on your email, you definitely need nac. The best part, everything takes a fraction of the time. You can see Knack in action@knack.com exit5. That's knock.com exit5. Or just let them know you heard about Knack from Exit 5. That's us. You're listening to the Dave Gerhard Show. Exit. Five. One, two, one two, three, four. Exit five.
- [01:26]
B
Welcome to what's yous Process. Today I am joined by the founder of Exit 5, Mr. Dave Gerhart. Dave, how's it going to Demetri.
- [01:33]
A
Good to see you, man. Thank you for having me. Fan of yours? Fan of the pod, actually, I haven't listened to an episode yet. I told you that. But you reached out and I, I said yes to coming on because I think it's fun to do a podcast with someone. You know, I host a podcast and so I do these a lot. But it's really fun to like not be interviewing today. And so I'm like, heck yeah. Like how? This is actually the easiest meeting that I have today. So I'm happy to be here.
- [01:59]
B
I'm glad to hear that. Hopefully it's the most fun as well.
- [02:01]
A
It will be for sure. I just talked about my tax, my tax bill and my accounting for next year, so can't be worse than that.
- [02:10]
B
Weirdly enough, I did the exact same thing before this. Not not even kidding you. Good Times Accounting. Who knew that that would be like, is that what we should talk about today?
- [02:21]
A
I mean, there's so much to unpack. I will say that one of the. I think, you know, you run your own business. I'm running my Own business. Man. I've learned so much about things that I never paid attention to in school or in life until I. I think. What's your process? A big part of my process is like, I typically don't pay attention to anything until I actually have to, like, do it personally. That's how I learn. So I'm learning a lot right now, honestly.
- [02:47]
B
Same or. It's like, I. I've always thought, like, there are a lot of these things. I'll just figure it out when it comes time and then say, oh, this is actually like a super complicated, complex, nuanced thing.
- [02:56]
A
Today's the day to figure it out.
- [02:58]
B
Yeah, I. I have 20 minutes to figure out this study for, you know, 20 years of their lives. But, you know, accounting aside, what do people need to know about you?
- [03:09]
A
My name is Dave, Dave Gerhart. I am a dad, a husband. I live in Vermont, and I've made a career as a marketer. I started my career accidentally, got an internship in PR and worked at a PR agency because it was like, one of the only places that I could really get a job at that would pay me any money. It was an hourly, know, like 10 bucks an hour as an intern. And that's my first real, like, business. I never really thought about business. I wanted to be doing sports or, like, cool things. And I got into a company and it was awesome. I. I turned. It was like, I learned a lot. I was good at my job. I got to rise up through the company and then kind of parlayed that into a career in marketing. And I've now done the psychoanalysis on myself and realized that there's a bunch of common threads here, which is like, I've always loved presenting, performing, writing, creating, and marketing is kind of that role inside of a business. I was CMO at a couple of tech startups, and there were two acquisitions. And then I was able to start my own business, which is Exit 5, which is a community for B2B marketing professionals. We have online community, we do events, we create content, and having a lot of fun doing that. So that's my intro.
- [04:21]
B
Love that. And, you know, for people who maybe are not aware of Exit 5, this is not sponsored, but I am a member and I'm very happy that I'm a member. So highly, highly encourage you are.
- [04:33]
A
Actually, we got a big. There's a big name, like $100 million plus revenue company, CMO joined on a Saturday morning. And her, you know, UTM underscore source referral was Demetrius Seamus. So shout out to you, dude. Thank you.
- [04:51]
B
I'll send you my address for the. For the cut later.
- [04:54]
A
You know, you. We got you. Well, so it's funny. You've got. You know, I'm glad you're happy because you've, like, accidentally or unintentionally, like, made your way into company lore. Because I'm putting this on the record for anybody who doesn't know, we did our first event last year, so we've now done it twice. Our big annual conference. And Dimitri was one of the people that kind of took a chance and got a ticket and ended up having a blast. And he was leaving Chicago, you know, Chicago to Burlington. Would you fly o' Hare to Burlington? Was it direct? And he posted from the airport, like, I'm on my way to Vermont, aka, like, the B2B Mecca. Which is just, like, such an insider joke. Hilarious. Set the whole tone off for the. You know, right? Like this. This guy's coming to Vermont for a marketing conference. B2B marketing conference. And so. And then this year, I put that in my deck, you know, when I did an intro and welcome, like, I. I welcomed everybody back to the B2B Mecca. So you've branded it. I'm glad you're wearing your brand hat because you helped us brand Vermont. Rebrand Vermont as the B2B. Me.
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B
Well, we'll talk to the tourism board and make it happen just like Vermont.
- [05:58]
A
A B2B state, high taxes in Vermont, cold weather, no billboards. Did you know that there. This is. I don't know if it's the only state. I'll have to Google it. But there's. You cannot. Billboards are illegal here.
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B
What?
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A
Not good for brand advertising. And now officially the. The B2B Mecca. Wow.
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B
Yeah. I mean, B2B Mecca with no. Out of home is. Or I guess there's out of home. There's just no billboards. But that's. That's pretty fantastic.
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A
Well, what would. Out of home. Is there. Is that true? Like, can you have out of home with no billboards? Like, what is that? What is it? What would that mean?
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B
Like, you know, buses.
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A
Nah.
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B
Yeah, I guess I can have random signs. Summer benches, perhaps.
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A
Okay, that's fair.
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B
Is there a subway?
- [06:36]
A
Yeah, there's no subway.
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B
Or train.
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A
There's subway, like the sandwich restaurant. There's no subway.
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B
I mean, that's clearly sponsoring all sorts of things anyway, so.
- [06:47]
A
But it was.
- [06:48]
B
It was an honor being featured in two of your keynotes. Unexpected. Now I'm sitting here just like, you know, I'm. I'm coming in Sept. September to, to stow to the third one. So you know, buy, buy your tickets to drive folks. But I'm like, am I going to make the third? Am I going for the hat trick on this one?
- [07:08]
A
Yeah, you're coming. Yeah.
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B
No, no, no, no. I'm, I'm physically, I will ask. Will I make the keynote? Yeah, yeah, absolutely no pressure, obviously.
- [07:16]
A
Absolutely no pressure. We're now shifting to, it's a strictly pay for play model. So I'm, I'm not sure who I'm going to mention in the keynote now, but we will, we'll let you know.
- [07:25]
B
Well, you know what, Keep that referral bonus for yourself and we'll, we'll call it even.
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A
Thank you. All right, good. Noted.
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B
Noted. Perfect. So Dave, what is one thing you're.
- [07:35]
A
World class at talking? No, that's not the real one. That's not the real. I'm a world class shit talker. I think it's a huge part of humans and, and our connection and I think it's very important. I think I'm a world class copywriter, self proclaimed world class copywriter. And when I talk about copywriting, I actually think there's probably plenty, plenty of people who might read my writing and think that I'm a writer. It's not pretty, it's not perfect, but I think I'm excellent at getting people's attention, getting a point across and finding a way to say that through words that comes out in a bunch of different formats. I'm the person like in my family that if my wife is struggling to write that kind of strong but not being a dick, like kind of forceful email to the school. She wants to consult with me and be like, how would you say this? And she's like, ah, that's such a better way of saying that. And it's like you're not directly being an, but like you're, you're saying like you're being firm. Last night I was literally rewriting an ad for one of our sponsors in our newsletter. We, we rewrote the headline, we rewrote the image. We, you know, made a bunch of changes and the sponsor was like, oh my God, is this is way better. And so that's the thing that I feel most comfortable doing and am best at.
- [08:59]
B
That's awesome. I, I love that answer because I think like there's, there's a lot of angles that, you know, when, when I was thinking about who I wanted for, for the show, obviously you were, you were near the top of the list. But, like, copywriting was something in my mind. Building community was something that was in my mind, like, just in general, like, the. The. The idea of even bringing people together beyond, like, our B2B definition of what community is. I think you. You've done a good job. At Start, like, you were. You were literally the first person I ever met that started a podcast. I don't know what that says about who I was, you know, a decade.
- [09:33]
A
Ago, but I think that was normal, though, because the way that we. The way that we met was at HubSpot, and I actually. It was really weird because the company that I was at went out of. Affected, like, went out of business, and I had a podcast on the side, and Mike Volpe, who's a CMO at HubSpot at the time, was. Had a relationship with that company, and he knew my podcast and he knew that the, you know, I didn't really have a home. And he decided to. Him and Joe Chernov, they had this idea of they were going to hire a podcast producer at HubSpot, which was, like, a crazy idea at the time because nobody even had a podcast. And to pay someone, I don't know, like, eight, 80 grand or whatever to, like, host a podcast full time was. Was crazy. I would tell my friends about it. It was, like, embarrassing almost. It was like, wait, your job is what? And then, like, I hated, like, walking around HubSpot and, like, meeting new people, because everyone. I just thought it was, like, the dorkiest thing ever, like, oh, this is Dave. He's our new podcast producer. And people are like, a what?
- [10:25]
B
Well, you know, it's. It's funny. So I. I don't. I've never actually told you this story, but I told someone else this just the other day.
- [10:32]
A
Yeah.
- [10:33]
B
So, like, a lot of people assumed it's because, like, we're cool now, that we were, like, buddies back then. And, like, we were just.
- [10:39]
A
Are you going to tell people you didn't like me on this?
- [10:41]
B
Dave was the worst. No, no, no, not at all. But, you know, we were just. We were just two guys working in an office, and we knew each other, and I. I'd say we were cool, but, like, you know, we weren't, like, hanging out after work or anything like that. But, like, I was also, like, in my mind, like, I was like the. The new guy in Boston. I had just moved from New York. I was like, I'm generally, like an introvert. Like, doing this is always, like, a wild thing for me. So I'd been at the company for six, seven months at that point. And a buddy of mine came up for inbound, and this was like, inbound 15 or something like that. And he was talking about how he wanted to start a podcast, but he didn't know how. And I was like, I know. It's. I. I know who to talk to. And I was like, oh, this is the perfect way. I'm like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna get him, Dave. And then literally, like, that Monday, you had put in your notice, and I was like, well, I guess I'm not getting in fatigue.
- [11:32]
A
I thought you were gonna say, like, you tried to set me up with this guy. And I was like, just come up. Like, didn't even take the meeting. And I was like, a complete dick. Be that way sometimes. So that's better.
- [11:43]
B
No, you're. You're. You're a great talker, but you're a good dude. So. No, not a. Not a concern there.
- [11:49]
A
I just have such a hard time. Like, I don't. My wife likes to tell me. She's like, no. She's like, dave, no is a totally acceptable answer. But there's this weird kind of, like, social contract of, like, I think it's crazy that someone just because they, like, ask you that you have to take a meeting or, like, give time. To me, I've always felt this way. Like, time is, like, the most valuable asset that I have, and I'm fortunate enough to, like, have money now. And so I change how I think about time because I quantify. Like, I'm really not going to do that. But I felt like this even when I wasn't financially successful, I just felt like, man, I only have an hour out of this hour. Like, am I really gonna go have lunch with some guy who really just wants to, like, ask questions about me to help his thing? And then my wife is like, yeah, but what about all the people that took meetings with you? I'm like, I. I know. I know that there's this weird balance, but I never know how to handle those things. So I'm. I'm. I'm glad to hear that.
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B
I don't know.
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A
There's a connection between the podcast thing and the copywriting thing, too, which is just like, I love storytelling, I love communication. Like, amount of people that I was able to meet through hosting and producing a podcast was, like, this insane cheat code at the time. And then I think having done so many episodes and interviews, your brain just, like, builds up a repository of. Of that knowledge, and so I can write a Hook for something in like a minute because I've done it a lot before, right? And it's like. Or you draw on like, man, I don't know. I think about this sometimes I lay in bed and I think about this. I'm like, over the last 10 years I've probably done this format an hour with somebody, I don't know, maybe 500 unique individuals, right? That's why like, and that's not even that. There's podcasters who are doing that every day, every week. You know, you got, you look at people that are in like the thousands of episodes. And so for me it's just been in a bunch of different forms, mostly about marketing. But think about how that stuff compounds conversationally. And then the reason I always have like little notebooks and stuff around me is because I'm constantly writing things down because you just never know. And everything that we talk about, like I might have just said something, I might have just. People always ask about like LinkedIn content or newsletter or whatever. The more you talk, I'm like, oh, that's actually a funny story. Like, like how I, I hate taking meetings. Like I might write a note on that and then like later that becomes like a topic that I write for a newsletter. And so I think one of this, one of the skills that I've developed and like, I think you, you have this too is like this brain where like everything can become marketing and storytelling and content and copy in some way. I think about a little anecdote my, my father in law told me. And so I think it's just kind of always being curious, having lots of conversations and then like being able to translate that into, into writing is the thing that I, I en.
- [14:31]
B
100% like, I mean one of the questions I get all the time because like I'm out here talking about technology and AI in a lot of instances and it's like, oh, you're out there like pumping note takers and using them and whatever. And it's like, yeah, I absolutely am. But that doesn't mean the notebook goes away. Because what the note taker doesn't capture is that nuance, right? It doesn't capture the random thoughts that you have in the back of your mind when someone says something because it can't possibly know know those things so well.
- [14:55]
A
There's also something like yesterday, even just now, before this yesterday I had an hour long conversation with, with my lawyer and there was a call recorder, obviously. But the whole time during the call I'm taking notes and I have the date. There's a good chance I don't ever. I don't ever go back to this, right? But I think there's something. There has to be some way that we're physically wired where, like, because I wrote down notes during the call, my brain is, like, organizing information in a certain way. And I think that this dramatically increases the chances that I can recall what I said. And so I try to, like, just doodle and take little notes. And then, like, my writing is like, you can't read it. It's terrible handwriting. But I know what it says. And I can go through this conversation that I have my lawyer yesterday, and I know, like, okay, here are roughly the three points. And this was actually a thing for me early in my career where, like, I was a religious note taker. And I saw a clip from Mark Andreessen on this recently, and he's like, a lot of times the person who takes notes in the room is the one with the power. And I remember being like a more junior person in a bunch of these meetings. And you ever been. You remember this from, like, early in your career. Like, you get invited to this big meeting and you don't really have to say to contribute.
- [16:07]
B
You're just happy to be.
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A
You're just kind of there, and you're just like, moving around a lot. Well, dude, I took, like, religious notes. I took so many notes. I have notebooks and I have an evernote filled with notes. And I. I gotta feel like that has compounded over time and is a skill. And I really want. I also want. I love technology and all this stuff, but I want my kids to see me reading physical books and writing things down. I think there's just. There's a lost art that I'm worried about losing there.
- [16:31]
B
So, I mean, that's like. I don't want to get sidetracked and jump into the process in a second.
- [16:35]
A
But, like, I mean, have you noticed I've been. This is my job. Been sidetracking us since the beginning.
- [16:39]
B
You've been doing a great job. This is all interesting stuff, at least to me. And, like, selfishly, like, who cares about everyone else, right? But no, I, at some point went. Went digital on my reading. Like, I'm analog in most things in life, but for whatever reason, digital is the way I read.
- [16:54]
A
Well, the Kindle, my wife and I were just talking about this. The Kindle is the supreme reading device, because you can lie on your side. You can lie like this. A book is not the best, but.
- [17:04]
B
You have a million books. As well, where it's just like, you know, you go on, on a trip or something. Like we went on a family trip a couple weeks ago and like, just lugging six.
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A
Exactly.
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B
Like, especially, you know, I mean, you, you get it. Like, you're, you're a father of young kids, and every, you know, God forbid they read one book. It's, you know, you have to read 10 books at any given time. So, like, you know, having, having that collection all in one place is great, but at the same time, it's also like, I'm yelling at my kids to get off screens, and they're like, but you're on one. It's like, but I'm reading a book. Like, but how, how are they gonna know that I'm not Just.
- [17:35]
A
I know. And my daughter, My daughter really wants it. She crushes books. She's a voracious reader and she wants a Kindle, and for some reason, I don't want to get her a Kindle because it's like a screen. But I, I don't know. It's a weird thing.
- [17:46]
B
You know, we'll, we'll, we'll talk parenting on the next one. On the next. What's your process? But what's your process?
- [17:51]
A
Oh, once you're process Parenting edition, that's, That's a good sub brand.
- [17:55]
B
I don't. Like, I had a great. And it's funny because, like, you know, I think you bringing up copywriting is really interesting because Eddie was on the show in season one. Eddie Schlanger. We also delved into fatherhood in a lot of ways in that conversation. And I wonder if there's, you know, we'll, we'll find out at the end of this thing. But I wonder if there's some sort of, like, through line or, or just continuity between, like, how thoughtful you have to be as a copywriter, even with that muscle memory and what it's like within parenthood or like, some level of increased responsibility. I feel like there's something there because, like, it just came up naturally in both conversations. And we're just getting started, so. All right, let's talk about world class copyright, because I think you're a great shit talker. I do think you're really good at getting your point across. How do you start, like, when you're, when you're thinking, like, I need to write something down, which is a very broad and vague introduction to this. Like, what, what crosses your mind?
- [18:53]
A
Well, I think first it depends on what I'm writing. If I were working on, say, A landing page for a new product launch or an event that we're doing. My first step would almost always be to go and find at least one, maybe two or three examples of event landing pages that I think are good. This is like the hack for maybe anything ever. Humans, the world has been around for 14 billion years or something like that.
- [19:23]
B
I don't know, I wasn't there. I don't remember.
- [19:25]
A
That's why I wasn't there either. Some version of me was. That's what it said in sapiens and humans. It's like, it's, it's crazy if you actually think about the life, like how long the world has been around and then like how humans. We've really only lived for tiny fraction of it. Yeah, a tiny fraction of that. But, but in the day to day, you know, social media cycle, everything feels brand new. And it's like actually no, a lot of this stuff has already happened before and success leaves clues and most of us, you know, we're all, we're all just copying each other in some form or not. There are very, very, very few, like completely brand new original zero I, you know, and so sometimes I'm feeling like super juiced up and I feel like I can just like free form, write something and I know I have this, you know, sometimes like magic does happen. Like that is the creative process as you know, you can be stuck on something and like, bam. You're just like in the wrong place. Your kids screaming at you, but you're like, I got this idea and I gotta go write it down. And I will literally just like, you know, get out my notebook and I'll just draw like the landing page and I'll just like write what the headline is and kind of draw what the body should be and then I'll like save that and I'll go back later. So that's rare. You can't rely on that always happening. It's like having the best day ever. It doesn't happen. So usually it starts with finding something else and finding inspiration and finding someone who's done a good job of this here before. And I will start with that. And I usually don't ever write 0 to 1. Right now we're like as an example, we're working really hard on trying to improve our newsletter with Exit 5. And so that went. That meant like I've spent the last week obsessing over Morning Brew, obsessing over Lenny's newsletter and just really trying to understand like what is it that people love about those things. And how can we apply them to that? And so that's. That's typically where I'll start just to get a rough idea of, like, what's the. What's the kind of layout? And then for me, it always starts with the headline or the hook. And I say headline or hook because I think they can be used interchangeably. Like, the headline doesn't necessarily mean, like, three pithy lines, like a tagline, you know, on the HubSpot homepage. It's more just like, what's the general thing that we're trying to convey here? And then another thing that really matters a lot is naming things. If you name something, it's something just sticks with people in a different way. Like, you saying the B2B Mecca is. Is pretty funny. It's pretty silly. And so if we're working on something, we always like, is this something that could be named? Like, does this need to be named? And so we're working on a new event. Like, we have Dry. Like, we came up with the name Drive for our event, and I didn't really love the name at all. I just like, yeah, whatever, Drive. It's cool. It's not like the craziest name ever, but it's kind of like naming your kid. My son Sam was born, and I was like, sam Gerhardt? Sam seems so weird to say, right? You're like, who the is Sam Geheart? But now he's.
- [22:16]
B
He's Sam now.
- [22:16]
A
Now he's. That's my dude. Of course. That is Sam. That is. There are Sam isms, there are Sam things. And I think the same is true with, like, naming things. And so we kind of just. We picked this idea, so we had to name Drive. Okay, now I got the name, I got the example, I got the concept. Now I can kind of go and start to. Start to write this thing a little bit, and almost like, begin. Begin with the end in mind. There's a great book called the Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs by this guy Carmine Gallo. And he broke down, like, how Steve Jobs was such a compelling public speaker and just communicator general, and the whole secret from the Apple stuff was like, they'd almost always start with, like, what's the sound bite? We're launching the new iPhone. But, like, what's the sound bite that we want, like, wired to write about? And then it's like, let's say that. And then, like, let's work backwards from that. And so, like, with Drive, it's like, what do we want people to say that it's you know what, what would be success? What. How do we want people to talk about this and then like, let's make that thing. I think we can. You can make that a reality.
- [23:15]
B
Well, what, what I love about this, that goes counter to pretty much every piece of advice you ever get is like, it's always, you know, write the subject last, you know, write the email or whatever it is and then come back and write the subject line. And you're just like, no, I'm absolutely getting in your face right off the bat and then filling it out.
- [23:31]
A
And like I actually, I had this conversation yesterday. So Aaron is on our team and she, she does content for us and she said, can I ask you a question? She said, do you. And I like, I edit and, and like approve all the emails and newsletters or whatever that go out. And so they send me a draft and I look at it, I get to tweak and edit things and whatever. And every time I rewrite the subject line, delete it and write it. I don't like, just softly edit it, I guess. Like, I don't like that. I change it every time without fail. There's never been one that I haven't rewritten. And she's like, she's like, do you want me to just like you always delete it? Should I just not write a subject line? And I said, no, actually, no, because I like the. It helps me get to where it should be quicker. Like, I like that something is there. Then I can, My brain instantly goes like, no, it's not that. It's this first. If it was blank, then I have to be like, what is it? And similar to like the drive naming example, like I actually part of like the what's your process thing is like it's never going to be the first idea that comes out of you, right? You have to, it's editing, you have to edit. It's like I, I don't know who said it, but there's a quote that I say all the time which is like, great writing is actually just great. It's great writing is great editing, which is like, let me write, let me try to write out like five or ten subject lines. Figure out the ones that I like. And this is actually where tools like Chat GBT are great. I can say here's the concept. Let's come up with 15 variations of this subject line. And then I can like take this word from this one. Oh, I like this. I wouldn't have started that one here. And then like I ended up I end up building my own. It's like, that's what I love. I don't think I'm a very, like, beautiful writer. I think I'm really good at, like, piecing things together and that, that's what it becomes, you know.
- [25:17]
B
Well, so the, that's the other thing that, like, I, I've taken away from the past, like, few minutes of this where, like, you, you know, you've talked about Morning Brew, you've talked about Lenny's newsletter, You talked about the jobs book. You talked earlier about how you're a voracious reader. Like, you're constantly, it seems like consuming content. There, there's got to be something to that too, where it's just like you are, you know, you're picking the nuggets from each of these things that are valuable for you. But then also I imagine thinking, like, you know what, I would have done this differently or I would have approached this in a, in a different kind of way. And that also, like, kicks things off for you.
- [25:52]
A
All right, it's that time of year. Everybody's scrambling to wrap it up, justify budgets, get those plans in last minute, and quietly hope that the numbers are going to hold going into 2026. But here's the uncomfortable truth. Most marketing teams still don't actually know what's driving real results and what's just taking credit. There's a difference. And you can't make smart calls for next year if you're just guessing about what's working, what's not, and where to put your next $$. Paramark has built something to fix that. It's their free incrementality calculator, and it takes two minutes. And it's going to give you a simple reality check on one question. If you stopped a campaign, would the results still happen anyway? I can think of a few ideas in my head right now that I would like to run this through. Maybe branded search would be one of them. Anyway, that's incrementality and it's how the best marketers are cutting waste, tightening budgets, and figuring out which programs actually deserve to make it into next year. You'll get a quick read on whether you're ready for incrementality testing and how much money you could be saving right now. So go and check it out. Completely free, free tool from Paramark. It's Paramark.com calculator. That's Paramark.com calculator. That's part of, like, that almost inspiration, constantly, everything, every. It must be annoying as hell to, like, work with me sometimes because I'm like, look at this thumbnail. Sending this email. Check out this thing. Sending a picture from the grocery store. Like, look at this. But that's just how my brain works. And I think that helps me with. With writing because it's like, I don't believe in writer. I. I think. I don't really think writer's block exists. I think you just have to, like, force yourself to just get something going. And it's like. It's like working out. It's like running right.
- [27:34]
B
It's like, yeah, you got get the wheel turning. And once it's turning, it's turning.
- [27:38]
A
Once you run that first mile and you got a little sweat going and you're like, all right, I got this. Like, this feels good. Now that's where we want to get to.
- [27:45]
B
Yeah, I can't relate to that one. If I run one mile, I'm good. Yeah. And I've checked the box. I'm happy to. I'm happy to stop. All right.
- [27:53]
A
I won't. I won't. I have a. I have a thoughts on that, but I won't fight you on it today.
- [27:57]
B
Whatever your thoughts are, I promise you they are right. And I'm well aware of them. And I'm still not doing it, but. So you figured out what you're writing. You've been inspired. What happens next?
- [28:10]
A
I usually just write it. Just. Just go. Just until I hit a stopping point. And I try to get as much of it down on paper as possible. And then I will go back and edit and really think about something that drives me nuts with writing. And again, people that might listen to this, you might read my writing and think it sucks. I'm just talking about, like, my personal stuff. I think formatting is really an underrated part of writing. Yes. And so, like, you know, we. We run our business on slack, like a lot of people do. And I think it's very easy to. In slack, you just, like, you just wrote a lot. And I'm like, dude, no one's going to read that. Like, getting someone to read it, like, the dish has to be appealing. You know, if it looks like a bunch of. You're like, trust me, this is like the best thing you're ever going to eat. You're never going to get there.
- [28:59]
B
You eat with your eyes.
- [29:01]
A
Is that. Yeah, you eat with that. I want to steal that. Eat with your eyes. That's copywriting technique. Right? So then I'm like, I want to get all the thoughts out, and then I want to, like, Then I want to reorganize it, re. Restructure it to be like, clear headline, section, thing one, thing two, thing three. I really like guardrails for writing too, because I think it's like, very easy to just kind of like go off the deep end. And I really like grouping things. You know, if. If we can say the three. This product has three core benefits. Or here are the five reasons you should use Exit 5 or whatever. Like, I like little tricks like that to give myself guardrails to like, frame things up. I, you know, used to be on the. Used to live in the website world. I hate working on websites because it's like the founder and the product team and the marketing. It's like any. This is infinitely possible. We know it's not. Let's like, here's the home page. It's going to have these sections like, what can we put in these buckets? I think that's really useful from a. From a writing standpoint. And then I got this from. This is not groundbreaking. I got it from that Carmine Gallo presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs thing. But it's always like, tell us like, story, problem, solution, call to action is almost always works. Yeah, Tell a story to get someone in, to hook them in, right? Then present the problem. Like, introduce some type of conflict and say, but there's a problem. Right? Then show the solution. Talk about the solution, how you solve that. Back it up with examples. Because humans, we operate in stories and nuggets and clear examples, especially me. I'm like, oh, wait, what do you mean, oh? It's like that. Okay, got it. And then, you know, have your. Have your ask or call to action. The thing that drives me nuts with writing is like, too many competing CTAs.
- [30:52]
B
Well, that's going back to your. Your homepage example. That's what ends up happening, right? Where it's just like, oh, we can't. We can't offend this person or this team. And like, they've been working so hard. We've got to put whatever they've done on the homepage. It's like, but is that what we want to be known for or is that what we want the key takeaway to be? Right?
- [31:08]
A
I use this quote. There's this. This guy, Ryan Dice, gifted me these books a couple years ago. The wizard of Ads by Roy. It was Guy Roy Williams. And I use this quote all the time. But, like, 50% of people don't understand what it means. So I'll say what. Let me, Let me in the book. He Says the risk of insult is the price of clarity.
- [31:28]
B
Risk of insult is the price of clarity. I love that.
- [31:31]
A
Do you, does that, do you understand what that means, though?
- [31:33]
B
Yeah. Like, in speaking the truth, you're probably going to piss some people off.
- [31:37]
A
So in your website example, like, the risk of insult, the risk of the VP of partnerships not being happy that, like, her thing wasn't listed on the website and the VP of product, you know, the head of sales, the, our sales guy at Drift used to always be like, why don't we talk about this? Okay, I'm okay with that. The, the result, though, is going to be like, people are actually going to get. Go to our website and understand and take the next step. I think so much of marketing and communication is like, actually, you know what the goal is not to get everyone to know everything your product can do and thing can do in this moment. It's just this constant cycle of like, next step, next step, next step. Oh, interesting. Cool. Did I convey the message in the homepage? Like, do you think our brand is credible? Do we have proof? Do we have examples? Do you roughly understand what we do? Yes. I'd like to learn more. Okay, cool. Now I'm going to tell you the next thing in the next, you know, with that context. And so I was editing an email, you know, earlier this week, and there were like five different call to actions in there. It's like, link out to our podcast. Link out to this thing. Link out to this thing. I'm like, think, let's begin with the end in mind. Go to the recipe, be the recipient of this email. I'm checking my email. After I got off my call with Demetri, I got 56 new messages.
- [32:50]
B
Right.
- [32:50]
A
Does my brain have the time to, like, parse all of that and figure out what's important? Oh, no, this is, this is an invite to a webinar that we're doing great. There should be one call to action. There should be one call to action in this email, and that should be to register for this webinar, period. If you want to repeat the same link multiple times, which I also do, which I think is important, I'll put the link in the first or second line. I'll put the link again at the bottom. Same exact link. I'll bold it, underline it, whatever. That's the goal. And then even just to give you a specific example on this, because I know people nerd out on this. I hate when people do, like, sentence and then like one word, one. You know, it's like click here and then like the only thing that's hyperlinked is here. I want the whole real estate. I will link that whole entire sentence and make it bold because I'm like, oh, the link is here. You're not. You're going to read the whole thing and then click it. But if it just the back to like the formatting really matters. Right?
- [33:44]
B
Yeah, I love that because whether it's this like framework from, from Carmine Gallo or just as you're thinking about the, the homepage example, like, you know, I know we're jumping around and doing a couple of different things here, but like a lot of what you're talking about seems like it's focus. You know, it's like have a point. You know, get people to where you want to get them as opposed to just like throw a bunch of stuff into the wild and, and hope it sticks. And like whether that be with the subject line that you're editing, whether that be with the single cta, all with the. The many. I guess we would call that a long tail keyword to a certain extent. Right. If it's a link and it goes out to something at some point. I'm clearly an SEO expert. But just keep it, keep it.
- [34:27]
A
Yeah, keep things simple. Like the. Let, let's. Let's be clear, let's be direct. I mean there's certain times in life where yeah, there's nuance and, and people want to have all knowledge and get more information. But I think for the sake of this discussion, it's less is more.
- [34:41]
B
I'm with you 100%. And you know, and going back to like the, the direct process here. Right? You, you've written it, you formatted it. Do you just hit post or send or is there any kind of like secondary editing process or thinking process?
- [34:58]
A
I think everything kind of goes into my head and it's like, what's the. What is. What are we working on? And like what's the stakes of that thing? And so something that we doing this new event in March and an event in Arizona, this Exit 5 marketing leadership retreat. I'll actually tell you the URL just so you can. Just so people can see it because I think it's a good page. It's exit5.com retreat. This was a page that we spent a lot of time on. Sweat every word. Because this is a new event. We, the audience is like CMOs doing like a hundred million in revenue. There's a personal letter for me. I even have at the bottom like, hey, I really wrote this, like, not chatgpt, da da da. My signature, things like that. That was like, the goal is not to rush this out. The goal is like, to get this right. And so there's multiple rounds of feedback. And so, like, we kick that back and forth a lot. But then there's something like LinkedIn. I can post on LinkedIn every day. And so, like, I Sometimes I just will. Literally today I wrote my post at the end of my workout. I was just. Was walking on the treadmill for. For 10 minutes and I was like, oh, I don't have a post for today. And I just fired something off. Like that one. Don't care. There's typos, there's whatever. Somebody will call it out and I'll fix it later. Like, the. The stakes are lower on that one. And so I think the stakes matter a little bit less. Something like our email. I love, I love writing with deadlines. I think we do this kind of. It's very easy as a creative and creator to just like, I hate when there's. I think time. Boxing can really be your friend. And so it's like, yeah, our newsletter goes out every Tuesday, every Thursday. There are very clear deadlines for, like, when I have to have that copy in. And, like, I have to ship this. Like, the homework is due tomorrow. And like, it is what it is. It's already. The grade has already been written.
- [36:38]
B
Does the newsletter go out if you don't see it?
- [36:41]
A
No.
- [36:41]
B
Okay, so now this, this brings us to an interesting place because, you know, I know we, you know, you. We've been joking about founder mode for, for a long time online and whatnot, which I'm a huge fan of. But as the founder, you do get to make some of these calls, right?
- [36:57]
A
Well, yes, but, like, let's. Let's like, level set. Let's give people the context of like, we are a media company. The newsletter is a product for us. It generates reven, has, you know, thousands of subscribers. We sell sponsors. It is the product right matters versus, like, if I was the founder of like, a SAS company, like, would I need to sweat every single email? I mean, maybe I should. Maybe that is. Maybe that's the beginning of this episode, actually, which is like, I think that is my unique skill. Like, every founder has a. An angle, a thing. And it's like, this is an area where I can provide unique value and have expertise in. And so, like, I think that's for our business. Like, that's where I should be spending my time. Now it's changed a Lot. I'm not. I'm not. I don't take it from zero to one. Like, we have. We have writers. We have a team. Like, I'm getting it towards the end of the line, but I'm going in and making changes and, like, putting my, you know, fingerprints all over it.
- [37:52]
B
Are you. And track and field is not something I know intimately, so let's obviously go with that example. But, like, are you the. The last one in the relay, like, getting the baton and crossing the line?
- [38:04]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But. Yes, but there's somebody at the end who's gonna. Like, I also say, like, I kind of go in and I kind of do the found. I kind of do, like, the Tasmanian Devil thing on it. And then someone else goes back in and is like, let's clean up this section. Let's tighten this up. Let's get like. Like, good. I don't. I don't need to see it again. I'm like, I don't need to see it again after this. But, like, here's my changes. Like, I changed this. I rewrote this intro. Like, I would say, can we find a better example here? And then I. And then I have to be just where we're at now. Like, I just. I have to be good with it. My life would not be possible. It would not be possible to live my life if everyone had to wait around for me to final. Final bless it. But then also, look, it's a newsletter. Like, back to, like, how do you decide? Like, or when is it done? Or what's the. Like, what's your process? Like, it's. It goes out weekly. Let's have weekly at Bats at this thing, and let's make it better every week. And so the message that I try to share with our team is like, I'm gonna edit it. I'm gonna give you feedback. I'm also gonna give feedback on it after it's gone out. And that's not to criticize it. It's just like, let's look. We're looking at it after. And it's like, this kind of came off weird. This showed up weird. Like, let's tweak it for next time. I think. I believe that, like, quality matters, but I think a lot of times as marketers and creators, like, we let quality be this, like, excuse to not ship stuff.
- [39:26]
B
Yep. What I really love about this point here is, like. And especially within the realm of, like, consider the stakes is even though something is important and matters and affects the bottom line, you can still experiment right and, like, I'll. I'll see it within the newsletter from, like, oh, you know, well, one time it's a list. One time it's a. It's a thought piece from you. One time it's, you know, something. It's. It's takeaways from. From a webinar or an event. So, like, you're. You're playing around with the format to a certain extent and learning from it, which I think is great, because too many. You know, I've seen this throughout my career. I know you have as well, where it's like, too many teams will sit there and wait until it's perfect. We. We can't let this out the door until it's the greatest version of whatever it can be. And then it's like, one that's not a real thing.
- [40:13]
A
It's not a real thing, dude. Let me. The reason why we're okay with this, though, is, like, we've now put enough. We. We've shipped enough things and done enough things that, like, actually, multiple times, I'm like, ah, I don't think this is our best one. I don't think this is our best thing. And we do it, and people love it. And I'm wrong. And on the flip side of that, we've had many things that I'm like, this is it. I spent so much time on this. This is amazing, this video, and it flops.
- [40:40]
B
Yeah, well, there's gotta be a V2. Like, there's always. There's this joke in, like, engineering and, like, development where it's just like, you know, we'll. We'll come back to it in V2, and there's never a V2 because, you know, you just move on to whatever the next thing is. Yeah.
- [40:55]
A
Here's V thousand as marketers and creators today. And, like, we're. We are living in an era where, like, you can get some type of feedback or signal on your work, like, almost instantly. You don't have to wait for, like, you know, it's not like, Don Draper like, selling, like, Heinz ketchup. And, like, you have to wait for, like, a quarter's worth of, like, sales data to come in on Heinz ketchup to know if this campaign was successful or not. It's like, oh, did I make that joke on LinkedIn? Or, like, in our email? And, like, did people respond to it and, like, use that. Oh, man. When I use that example, everyone got it. That's amazing. That's an amazing signal that I can now take to, like, go and create the next version of it.
- [41:35]
B
Love that. That's, that's, that's really cool. And I think that's like, I would love for any, anyone watching this, listening this to like, take that's like in my mind the biggest takeaway where it's like, you will always get more at bats. Take this seriously. This is important, this matters. But like, it's okay, it's okay to, you know, around and find out or.
- [41:53]
A
Just like how many, I don't know, like endless sweating about like what the homepage headline should be. And it's like, let's just, if we don't like it, let's just change it. If we get, if we get data that says it's not working, but it's.
- [42:05]
B
Etched in stone, we can't, you know, it's, it's impossible to, to change. We have to go through the creative queue and we know that's a, that's a pain. So we're just gonna leave it it this way forever.
- [42:16]
A
The creative cue.
- [42:20]
B
All right, so consider the constraints. Like, or like, you know, think about the constraints like, or the, the stakes. Oh my God. Constraints. I'm, I'm now in like, I heard creative Q and I'm just like, in like project management, creative op plan. But like considering the stakes is really interesting because of this perspective. But like, you know, now as we've written it, we've added it, we've gone back to it. Like at that point, is it just learn? Is it ship it and learn?
- [42:46]
A
Yep, absolutely. Ship it and learn. And so like you're, you mentioned just we're using our newsletter as an example. You've seen different formats, you've seen like personal notes for me, lists, you know, things about AI, webinar, recaps, whatever. Like, it's a game of just constant calibration to understand which thing people like the most and what we should go do more of. And so we've done a bunch and it's like, you know what, it's funny. We have this newsletter that's about B2B marketing. You know what our highest performing content is been, it's been writing about like how people work. How do you manage your work, what's your workflow, what hours do you work? Like, how do you. And people love that. And so we got more responses in a day to that email than ever. I don't even know the number. I don't have data on it just felt that way. It's just some of these things in your business are so obvious. Bam. A lot of people came in our store today, like, okay, yeah, great, let's just go do more of that. And so now it's like we're trying to intentionally work in more personal stuff. Right. And, and, and it's not, it's not scientific, but it's just a gut, a gut feeling. And so now we're looking at. All right, for the next, you know, months worth of newsletters and content. Like let's have, let's make sure we have one of these and three of these and one of these. And we're going to keep iterating.
- [43:55]
B
I was at an event a couple of weeks ago with Zapier and someone there said something really interesting, really smart. They're like, you know, we're all experts in this like space in automation, workflow and AI and like all we do is create content for one another, more or less. It's like we're, we're creating content for the top 1 2% when the, the 98 is who demands the actual knowledge. And like we, it doesn't all have to be up here, it can be down here. And I think like just to that example, like people just want to know what it takes to succeed. People want to know what other folks are doing that they admire that, that they respect how they're operating because they're trying to figure it out. And it's like if we start talking about these like hyper complex, really niche kind of thoughts, ideas, workflow systems, tools, whatever it is, every time, we're going to lose a ton of really great and smart talented people. So like I think the response to that makes a ton of sense because it's literally something that any human being can, can learn from and apply to their day to day. Like the 1%. Like they're doing some advanced shit that no one else is ever even thinking about it or that doesn't occur to them.
- [45:02]
A
Yeah, which is fine. I just would like, then reframe your thing around that 1% and we're going to talk specifically about that use case and we're going to be just for those people and we don't really care how big it is, we just want to focus on that slice.
- [45:15]
B
Yeah, that's a, that's a great way to put it. So on that note, you know, we've shipped it, we've learned, we've, we've found new inspiration, I imagine. But I'm curious where, what's next? Where, where can we see your process in action?
- [45:29]
A
I think now it's like the stakes so, so like ship fast. Do all this stuff. But to me now, like, the stakes are. The stakes are higher because I think over the last couple years, like, we've built a real. And I'm just only talking about this within the context of like, the thing I'm working on right now. If I was working at a different company, I would maybe give you a different answer. I'm just trying to tell you personally the stakes are higher and seem real. And so it's like, yeah, sure, here's an example. Like, we will be year three of our event. We got more people, we're spending more money on that event than we made in the first year of doing business in general. You know, like, it's, there's. The stakes are high and I think it's a constant game of raising the bar because like anything in life, like, once you do something and have a little bit of result and success, then like, the expectations go up. And I want to make sure that we continue to like, raise the bar. And so the feedback that we got from driving year one helped make drive in year two better. And now we have to take an even bigger step this year. And so, so I'm trying to fight all of my tendencies to like, go fast and just like shotgun a bunch of stuff out there to really like. My theme for this year is probably just like depth and, and quality. We're like, let's keep. We don't need a bunch of 10, 10 x crazy ideas. We just need to make like everything just a little bit better.
- [46:43]
B
But if you have those one or two kind of big swings, they'll more than 10x if they're done right. I think that's the whole issue with like, you can't peanut butter at all. You only have in this good. Let's tie it. Let's. Let's bring it all the way back. You only have so much time, right? You only have so much focus. So what are you going to spend it on? And what are, what are the stakes? You know, what, what happens?
- [47:05]
A
So, yeah, it's very, It's a. You make a good point. It's very easy to make a list of like, the hundred things that you could be tweaking and optimizing. When it's like. I think it's Tim Ferriss, who I've listened to for years, and I, I love his perspective on things, but he has this kind of mantra that he says, which is like, like, what's the one thing? It's like the one thing or one question I'll. I'll botch it, but it, you'll get the concept. It's like, what's the one thing that would make everything else easier?
- [47:29]
B
Yes. Yeah.
- [47:31]
A
And so like, if I did this, would that make the rest of the other smaller things much easier? And it's again, back to things have never changed. It's just, you know, probably like the, this is the Pareto principle, the 8020 rule. Right. It's like there's always kind of one or two things that are going to make all the difference and then the micro things don't matter as much.
- [47:49]
B
You're basically just pitching my business now, so thank you for that.
- [47:53]
A
In what way? Just doing one or two.
- [47:55]
B
Well, in, in creating space for those one or two big things. Like, we all get bogged down in the busy work, right? Like, I know you've heard this spiel a million times at this point, but it's like we all get stuck doing these like, tiny, low lift, incremental things that prevent us from actually taking chances and, and experimenting in real weights. So, you know, the idea of like, what's the one thing? Like, for us, it might just be like, oh, you know what? We're working with a client that has a lot of paid ads and their design team is super talented, but they're just pumping out like resizes all day, every day. Like, that's a bad use of designer time. Like, I don't care how, how big your advertising business or how, how much business you're doing due to your advertising, I promise you there's a way to simplify that work workflow to free those designers up for that big event booth that you're spending a ton of money on that.
- [48:46]
A
Right? Yeah. This is a, you know, this is a symptom of so many teams, which is like everyone, if you polled everyone on the team, like, everyone is maxed out, everyone is super busy, everyone is on the borderline of burning out. And yet we're not hitting our goals.
- [49:00]
B
No one's doing anything of value.
- [49:01]
A
And so often that's not that individual's fault. So often that speaks to alignment across the organization or like trying to do a bunch of marketing for a product that people don't want or isn't the right fit in the market.
- [49:13]
B
And I think it comes back to fear.
- [49:15]
A
Yeah.
- [49:15]
B
And honestly, in my experience, it also comes back to a lack of decision making where someone's not comfortable going in and saying, like, you know what? This isn't the right thing. This isn't a good use of time. Let's, let's switch your Focus over to something else.
- [49:31]
A
Yeah, I think one of my back to the superpowers thing. Let me just make this about myself one more time.
- [49:35]
B
This is about you. This is literally about you.
- [49:39]
A
I think one of my biggest strengths is also one of my biggest weaknesses. But like, my ability to just blow up the plan and change direction is like second to none. I mean, if my, if I could get Leah to come over here and, and share this right now, like, I would be like, yeah, let's sell the house. We're moving to Hawaii tomorrow. I don't care, let's do it.
- [50:00]
B
I think that's admirable, man.
- [50:03]
A
But here's the. And like inside of a company, this is where like, I, I can be a problem sometimes because I just like, I see all these things like, what, what, Wait, what are we doing? Why, like, okay, that's fine. Like, oh, but this person reports this thing and I'm like, I don't care. The pain of, like the longer term pain that we have to deal with in going through this nonsense. Like, let's just fix it right now. Let's just go over there and let's go talk to Dimitri right now and let's just go fix this.
- [50:27]
B
Not enough people are willing to do that.
- [50:29]
A
I have no patience for anything other than that.
- [50:30]
B
I don't know. Like, yes, it's a pain in the ass. Yes, they're, they're knock on effects for sure. But like, if one of the knock on effects is that you win, like you, you start generating more business, you start, you know, your team is happier, your team is, you know, taking more chances, learning, doing all the things, then like, who cares if, if a couple of people's feelings get hurt? But that's the kind of thinking that gets you canceled. So this feels like it's hard to.
- [50:54]
A
Be a leader that does get you canceled. It's hard to be a leader. It's very easy to not be a leader and to just be on the sidelines and to criticize everyone. Like anyone that's ever been been thrust into a position of leadership. And you realize that all of a sudden now people don't like you because you have to make hard decisions. And hard decisions often hurt people's feelings. And that is just the cost of being a leader. Whether, whether you're on the school board, you know, in a small town in Vermont, or, you know, run. Running a company, it's. It's no different.
- [51:21]
B
It's the job.
- [51:22]
A
Yes. Oh, that's right.
- [51:24]
B
All right, Dave. So we are wrapping up here We're. Where can people find you?
- [51:30]
A
You know, it's funny, this was a great conversation. I've never shared any of this out loud and so even this was a great way to understand my process. So I'm going to get this recording from you after.
- [51:38]
B
No question. It's yours.
- [51:40]
A
Exit5.com LinkedIn that's it. Dave@exit5.com if you, if you listen to this and you resonated with anything I said, I do, I'd love to hear from people. So send me a note. Davexit5.com I'll try to reply to you.
- [51:52]
B
It's awesome.
- [51:53]
A
And Dimitri, thank you. Thanks for your. You've been an awesome member of Exit 5. I think what you said is cool, is. I feel like, yeah, it's funny, you work at a company, but there's, you know, 75 people on the marketing team. You don't, you don't know somebody during that phase of life. But now we do. It's cool to, like, make a friendship that way now. And, you know, I'll see you when I see you.
- [52:10]
B
Couldn't agree more. Thank you so much for the time, Dave. Thank you for being here. Excited to get you this recording as fast as possible.
- [52:17]
A
Yeah, get your team on it.
- [52:19]
B
Yeah, we'll, we'll do. My people will call you.
- [52:21]
A
Your people.
- [52:21]
B
All right. Take it easy.
- [52:23]
A
See ya. Hey, thanks for listening to this podcast. If you like this episode, you know what? I'm not even going to ask you to subscribe and leave a review because I don't really care about that. I have something better for you. So we've built the number one private community for B2B marketers at exit 5. And you can go and check that out. Instead of leaving a rating or review, go check it out right now on our website, exit5.com our mission at Exit 5 is to help you grow your career in B2B marketing. And there's no better place to do that than with us at exit 5. There's nearly 5,000 members now in our community. People are in there posting every day, asking questions about things like marketing, planning, ideas, inspiration, asking questions and getting feedback from your peers. Building your own network of marketers who are doing the same thing you are. So you can have a peer group or maybe just venting about your boss when you need to get in there and get something off your chest. It's 100 free to join for seven days. So you can go and check it out risk free. And then there's a small annual fee to pay if you want to become a member for the year, go check it out. Learn more exit5.com and I will see you over there in the community. This episode is brought to you by our friends@customer IO remember when a personalized message in marketing meant just putting someone's first name into the email? And that was magic. Hello David or hello Gerhart or whatever fake name I put into the form? Well, those days are long gone. AI has raised the bar for lifecycle marketing because now you can deliver smarter context aware communication that actually feels personal and you can do it at scale without hiring five more people. Today, personalization doesn't just mean using my name, it means actually having the right context. But there's a problem because even though this sounds great in theory, most teams can't actually do it because they're stuck with broken reporting, siloed data and outdated tech stacks. It's often easier to just keep doing things the way that we've always done them. So our friends at Customer IO recently surveyed 600 marketers like you and me to figure out what's working and what's broken in lifecycle marketing right now and how the best teams are actually solving these problems. The report breaks down 2026 priorities, where budgets are moving and how to to tame the measurement mess that we're going through. Real world examples from brands like Notion and Monarch Money that are using AI personalization experiments and understanding the next chapter of AI, what's on marketers wish lists and how customer journeys can get smarter, not just faster. So this guide is packed with examples, data and strategy that you can put to work right now. If you want to get smarter about life cycle marketing, this is a great free resource. So where my email marketers at, my life cycle marketers listening to this, go and grab it right now customer IO exit 5 and you can grab this and learn how to build lifecycle marketing that keeps up with today's expectations. That's customer I.O. exit 5.