Mastering Messaging, Copy, and Clarity with Emma Stratton

Summary

Podcast Summary: B2B Marketing with Dave Gerhardt – Mastering Messaging, Copy, and Clarity with Emma Stratton

Release Date: April 3, 2025

In this insightful episode of B2B Marketing with Dave Gerhardt, host Dave Gerhardt engages in a compelling conversation with Emma Stratton, the founder of Punchy—a consulting and training firm specializing in positioning and messaging for fast-growing B2B tech companies. The episode delves deep into the nuances of crafting effective messaging, balancing clarity with creativity, and enhancing personal productivity to foster career growth in B2B marketing.

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1. Introduction to Emma Stratton and Punchy ([02:49])

Emma Stratton introduces herself and Punchy, highlighting her expertise in refining and developing messaging for B2B tech firms. She emphasizes the importance of clear and compelling messaging in connecting with target audiences and outlines her role in training marketing teams.

Emma Stratton ([02:49]): "I work with teams on refining their messaging, developing it, and I also train marketing teams at all kinds of software companies how to do messaging as well."

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2. The Art and Science of Messaging ([03:19] - [07:15])

Dave and Emma discuss the challenges of training others in the art of copywriting and messaging. Emma shares her journey of transitioning from being the sole writer to delegating tasks, which necessitated a clearer understanding and articulation of effective messaging.

Dave Gerhardt ([03:19]): "How do you train that? ... there's a huge appetite for training marketing teams on messaging and on copy."

Emma Stratton ([04:51]): "When I started growing my team... I had to figure out how to tell her what I was looking for."

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3. Defining Messaging vs. Positioning vs. Copywriting ([07:15] - [09:11])

The conversation pivots to differentiating between messaging, positioning, and copywriting. Emma provides a clear definition of messaging as the verbal manifestation of positioning, encapsulating a company's unique value proposition in a few sentences.

Emma Stratton ([07:32]): "Messaging is really that handful of sentences, core messages that really encapsulate and bring to life your positioning..."

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4. Challenges in Differentiating B2B Messaging ([08:19] - [12:05])

Dave and Emma explore the increasing difficulty of standing out in the saturated B2B market. They discuss how many companies struggle with differentiation, often leading to generic messaging that fails to resonate with their target audience. Emma underscores the necessity of narrowing down the target audience to create impactful and differentiated messages.

Emma Stratton ([11:24]): "They wanted to water down the message and speak to everyone... and their messaging got really generic."

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5. Practical Techniques for Making Messaging Concrete ([20:13] - [25:44])

Emma introduces the concept of minimizing abstract language to avoid vagueness in messaging. She advocates for using concrete language that paints a clear picture in the buyer's mind, thereby enhancing understanding and engagement.

Emma Stratton ([20:13]): "The opposite of abstraction is concrete language... Here's my example of abstract versus concrete..."

Dave Gerhardt ([24:22]): "What does that mean? So if you actually think, okay, what does this look like in my buyer's life through their eyes..."

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6. Leveraging Customer Insights and Sales Teams ([25:44] - [27:29])

Emma highlights the importance of direct customer interactions and insights from sales teams in shaping effective messaging. These sources provide authentic language and real-world challenges that help in crafting messages that truly resonate with the target audience.

Emma Stratton ([25:48]): "Talking to customers and prospects... can help shape your hierarchy and keep your messaging honest."

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7. Balancing Creativity with Organizational Constraints ([27:50] - [30:52])

The discussion turns to the tension between creative freedom and organizational pressures such as committees and legal reviews. Emma emphasizes the rarity of environments that foster creativity, pointing out that many marketing teams lack the necessary space for inspired and effective messaging.

Emma Stratton ([27:52]): "It's so rare that experience is not Common in most people's day to day in marketing... The committees coming in, the pressure to deliver."

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8. The Role of AI in Messaging ([30:52] - [33:11])

Dave and Emma debate the impact of Artificial Intelligence on messaging. Emma acknowledges AI's utility in polishing and generating multiple versions of messages but contends that the strategic elements of messaging—such as defining what a brand stands for—still require human insight.

Emma Stratton ([30:58]): "Messaging is more strategic than it is just about wordsmithing... there's this strategic element where you have to make those decisions."

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9. Personal Productivity and Self-Management ([33:11] - [50:23])

Transitioning from messaging, the conversation delves into personal development and productivity. Both Dave and Emma share their routines for managing stress and enhancing creativity, such as journaling, exercise, meditation, and cold plunges. They advocate for self-management as a critical component of career growth in marketing.

Dave Gerhardt ([35:35]): "I have two notebooks... One is my work notebook where I plan my next day, and the other is my journal where I recap the day."

Emma Stratton ([45:32]): "My biggest productivity hack is just going on a run... I will achieve more by going on that run than I would have sitting at my computer."

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10. Conclusion and Community Engagement ([50:23] - [52:07])

The episode wraps up with Dave promoting Exit Five's private community for B2B marketers, emphasizing the value of peer support and shared knowledge in advancing one's marketing career. Emma mentions her upcoming podcast focused on personal development and inner growth, inviting Dave to participate.

Dave Gerhardt ([50:36]): "She's Emma Stratton. She's on LinkedIn. Go check her out."

Emma Stratton ([49:12]): "It's all about how personal development... helps me grow my business."

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Notable Quotes

• Emma Stratton ([07:32]): "Messaging is really that handful of sentences... It directs all the copywriting and content that comes from there."

• Dave Gerhardt ([08:39]): "How do you show that you're different?... People don't believe it because marketers are, you know, we're doing our job."

• Emma Stratton ([20:13]): "The opposite of abstraction is concrete language... What does this actually mean to my buyer?"

• Dave Gerhardt ([30:58]): "There's this strategic element where you have to make those decisions in messaging that I wouldn't hand over to the bots just yet."

• Emma Stratton ([45:32]): "There are those times where I'm like, should I just sit this computer... or should I just say fuck it and go on a run?"

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Key Takeaways

1. Clear Definition and Training: Effective messaging requires a clear understanding of its distinction from positioning and copywriting. Training teams to articulate messaging standards is crucial for scalability.

2. Differentiation is Complex: In a crowded B2B market, standing out necessitates focusing on a specific target audience rather than attempting to appeal to everyone, thereby preventing generic messaging.

3. Concrete Language Enhances Clarity: Utilizing specific, relatable language over abstract terms can significantly improve the effectiveness of marketing messages.

4. Leverage Customer and Sales Insights: Direct feedback from customers and insights from sales teams are invaluable for crafting authentic and resonant messaging.

5. Balance Creativity with Organizational Needs: While creativity is essential for impactful messaging, it often clashes with organizational constraints. Creating spaces that nurture creativity can lead to more inspired marketing efforts.

6. AI as a Tool, Not a Replacement: Artificial Intelligence can aid in refining and generating message variants but cannot replace the strategic, human-driven aspects of messaging.

7. Personal Productivity Fuels Marketing Success: Personal development practices like journaling, exercise, and mindfulness contribute to better self-management, reducing stress, and enhancing creativity in professional roles.

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This episode serves as a comprehensive guide for B2B marketers aiming to master the intricacies of messaging while simultaneously nurturing personal growth to excel in their careers. Emma Stratton's expertise, combined with Dave Gerhardt's practical insights, offers valuable strategies for creating impactful, clear, and differentiated marketing messages.

Transcript

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[Dave Gerhardt]

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[Dave Gerhardt]

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[Dave Gerhardt]

You're listening to B2B Marketing with me, Dave Gerhardt. All right, my guest on this episode is Emma Stratton. Emma Stratton is the founder of Punchy. Punchy is a consulting and training firm that helps fast growing B2B tech companies win on positioning and messaging. We talked about how to write messaging that resonates with buyers, how to balance clarity versus creativity in messaging. How do you actually get a clear and compelling messaging? But the back half of this podcast we actually spun off into a completely different direction, talking about how to be productive at work. We talked about things that I didn't expect to talk about like going for a run, meditation, journaling, cold plunging. It all seems silly, but it's had a huge impact on both of us. And it's a sneaky little podcast on how to be better and more productive and work on yourself. Because that is one of the most underrated things in managing your career is you got to learn how to manage yourself. If you Want to grow. We talk about that. So it's a little bit of marketing and personal development mix into one podcast. Enjoy my conversation with Emma Stratton.

[Emma Stratton]

I'm Emma Stratton. I'm the founder of a training firm and consultancy called Punchy that focuses solely on positioning and messaging for B2B tech companies, high growth companies. So I, you know, work with teams on refining their messaging, developing it, and I also train marketing teams at all kinds of software companies how to do messaging as well. And I wrote a book on messaging called make it Punchy. So all about messaging, baby.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Love it. I love it. All right. I love copywriting, I love writing. Over the years, a lot of people have, hey, do you do any training? And I've always thought, man, I'm not smart enough to be able to train somebody else on how I write. And, you know, writing and copywriting and messaging is such an art form. How do you train that? But at the same time, I've always thought, like, yeah, if you could have a way of doing things and you could train others on it, like, there is a huge appetite for training marketing teams on messaging and on copy. So how did you create that?

[Emma Stratton]

There really is. So, I mean, I don't know exactly what the phrase is, but it's like that next level of understanding a subject is when you can teach it to someone else. And that's totally true. I think for me, it started organically. First it was me, you know, starting out my business, deciding to help, you know, startups and tech companies with their messaging and just figuring out how to do it myself. So there's like a couple years of, all right, how do I do this? I mean, I'm a natural born writer, but not naturally born to write for tech companies. I mean, who is? So I had some basic skills, but I had to figure out how to do it. Then you have that intuitive knowledge and how do you kind of get that out of your head and help other people? So when I started growing my team and I had a writer who was taking over the writing I used to do, I had to figure out how to tell her what I was looking for. So that helps me kind of understand, okay, what does good messaging look like? How do you actually describe it and direct it to someone so that they can do it?

[Dave Gerhardt]

It's like a gift and a curse, right? I struggled with this at one of the companies that I worked at, which is like, the founder and others in the company, they always wanted me to write the emails. Like, it's gotta be your Voice like, you're. And that's amazing. It's flattering. It's great. They work, but. But that's no way to live, because then you just become a bottleneck. And, you know, essentially, like, despite my job title was like, VP of marketing, but I was essentially, like, copy editor for, like, oh, we got this email going out tomorrow. Well, has Dave looked at it? It's funny now, but that's just, like, poor training on my part. Right? Like, that's no way to run a company.

[Emma Stratton]

I think it's really common. You know, you find someone who's got the gift, and you just. You're like, you do this because you know how to do this. And to everyone else, it's a mystery. And I. When I thought about delegating and getting someone else on my team to actually do the writing, at first I was like, is someone else going to be able to do what I can do? Like, I just do this. I don't know how someone else can just do this. And it took a bit of time, but it forced me to figure out how to articulate, this is what we're going for. This is the style. This is how it needs to be. And through coaching her, it actually helped me better understand, okay, what does good messaging look like? What's the standard here? And working with teams for a while, I realized, hey, no one really knows how to do this. Like you said, most teams has, like, a couple people who are just naturally good at it, that they ask them to do everything, and everyone else feels like they're not good at it or they wish they were better at it. So I thought, all right, I think there's an opportunity here to train teams. And actually, it was a team that came to me and said, hey, could you train Our team of 20 product marketers how to do messaging? And I was like, all right, I'm gonna do it. And I just took my best crack at really breaking it down into simple, practical techniques, like, do this, and then you will get a good result. I'm not a big fan of, like, theory and kind of getting into all the philosophy of it. I'm into, hey, do this, and then you will get a good outcome. Here's, you know, a framework, here's a formula, Here's a way of thinking that anyone can do and get a good result. So honestly, David took years of in the trenches and then refining and working with people and seeing what resonated. It took years to do. It's not easy.

[Dave Gerhardt]

So basically, your thing is messaging, right? Lots of Folks have come on this podcast talking about position. There's positioning.

[Emma Stratton]

Yes.

[Dave Gerhardt]

There's messaging.

[Emma Stratton]

Yes.

[Dave Gerhardt]

There's copywriting. I often use the term storytelling. You intentionally use the word messaging. Let's talk about that. What is messaging?

[Emma Stratton]

Yeah. So messaging is really that handful of sentences, core messages that really encapsulate and bring to life your positioning, but articulates that unique value that you really offer a certain set of customers. So to me, I define it as really, it's the first step of positioning actually coming into life. Right. Positioning is like a strategic document. Positioning is making decisions about how we're going to put ourselves in the market and who we're up against. But messaging is the first time that actually turns into words. So it's that handful of sentences that really capture what makes you unique and why people should care. And it directs all the copywriting and content that comes from there.

[Dave Gerhardt]

So that's what it is. That is the kind of like, you know, textbook definition. Now we get into the actual hard part, which is how are you unique? How are you different? What makes the messaging good, especially in B2B? And I've been writing and talking about this a lot lately, but it's harder to stand out than ever before.

[Emma Stratton]

Yeah.

[Dave Gerhardt]

And I think that curve is going to continue. And so when it comes to messaging, how do you do that? How do you stand out? I think this is the number one question right now is how do you show that you're different? And then the hard part is even if you are different or better or whatever your thing is that you're going to claim, people don't believe it because marketers are, you know, we're doing our job, we're marketing things. Right. I can tell you that my thing is the fastest. And even if I tell you it's the fastest, you're going to be like, yeah, but I mean, he wants to get me to buy it, so of course he's going to say it's the fast, fastest. Right?

[Emma Stratton]

Right. Yeah. That's the million dollar question. Dave, I agree with you that I think messaging gets harder every year. Differentiation gets harder every year. I feel like when I started doing this in, like, 2016, it was kind of hard then, but now it's really hard because there's so many more people in the market. And I think differentiation is this thing that people are obsessed with. You know, they're like, if I can just nail differentiation, like, all of our problems are going to go away. That's what I hear from people. And it's not as simple as a differentiated message. Like you said, that's not going to do it just by saying something that maybe is different. Because then you have this whole situation where everyone's just copying everybody's websites and messages. Like, it's so bad now. I mean, people used to do it by fail. Like, it's even worse now, which makes this expectation that, like, hey, I'm gonna come up with a value prop at the top of top marquee and it's gonna differentiate us. It's like, no, that's putting unreasonable demands on a sentence or two. So I think people need to get real about differentiation. And it's not just the message. Like, it's the product, it's the customer. You know, it's the experience. Experience that you're giving people. Yes. It's also the marketing, it's the content. So differentiation is bigger than just what the message is. I think what people really struggle with and that would really help them is to have a clear positioning to not try and say, we're going to be this for everyone, or we're going to stand for X, Y, Z and ABC for everyone. I think that's the thing that people struggle with. They don't want to narrow down in any way. They want to leave everything open. I was working with this earlier stage, this company, the other day, and they were already having issues with trying to serve everyone and talking about a product that is like five years away. I was trying to rein them back from marketing to everyone and they're like, but wait, but what about those Personas we don't even. No, we're gonna sell to yet.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Get out of Silicon Valley. Is this real?

[Emma Stratton]

They weren't even a Silicon Valley startup. That's the scary thing, you know, And I was just like, people, no, you know, they had this one audience that was great that there was still so much room to grow that they could have had an amazing message for them, but they didn't want to do it. They wanted to water down the message and speak to, like, everyone that might one day wanna buy this product. Product. And so their messaging got really generic. I really feel like this is the thing that no one wants to do. And if people would just do it, they would have a more differentiated message because everyone's trying to, you know, be all the things for everyone.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Funny enough, this morning I was listening to an interview with Seth Godin and he was talking about one of the key parts of a successful product or business is being able to turn people away and articulate who you're not for. And he's like, you know, somebody shows up at the Ferrari dealership and well, I've never been to the Ferrari dealership. I drive a RAV4. But somebody shows up at the Ferrari dealership and they say, yeah, I want, you know, something great. I got six kids and I need to take them all to school every morning. Well, the Ferrari salesperson is not going to try to, you know, jam them into a Ferrari. They'll be like, yeah, why don't you just get back in your car and go drive down the street to the Volvo dealership, right? And I thought that was great because I do think that it is as important as that you can articulate who you're not for to find out who you're for. And one of the challenges though, and I've seen this in my career, is like, there's kind of like this wave of companies, especially in the venture backed company world, where you start off as a point solution with a very clearly defined customer Persona, icp, niche, whatever you want to call it, and then you sell to multiple Personas and then, you know, five, 10 years down the road, I think it's almost easier to be better at messaging as a startup, as a, you know, a challenger brand, right? Like, it's when you have, you know, $100 million in revenue and all these different product lines and different VPs with different incentives, that's where it starts to get really hard.

[Emma Stratton]

And here's the thing. You know, when I've worked with earlier stage companies, I don't know if you've noticed this, they're like, let's do messaging like Salesforce does messaging. Let's organize our website the way, I don't know, Oracle Salesforce comes up a lot. And I'm like, no. Salesforce has their own problems, which you just described Dave, of to, you know, all the products, all the industries, all the Personas. You have such an advantage as an earlier stage company where you are a point solution and you have a defined audience and you can write awesome messaging because of that. So people often ask me like, oh, what companies do you like with their messaging? And I have a hard time answering that.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Oh, this question is the bane of my existence.

[Emma Stratton]

Oh, thank you. I was afraid you were gonna ask me. I was like, oh, he's gonna ask me this.

[Dave Gerhardt]

No, no, no. It is with me, it's like, because I have a marketing community, I have a career in marketing. My whole brand is marketing. Like I'm supposed to just be able to like rifle off three brands that do great marketing right now.

[Emma Stratton]

Because I'm like, have I failed? You know, am I some failure because I don't have sticks to. Just. Thank you, Dave.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Because you know what? I. I don't pay attention. I don't. I only pay attention to, like, when I'm in the funnel for something. My brain is like, I'm running a business. I got children. I'd like to do other things. I don't have a list. I honestly, I'm not kidding, Emma. Two years ago, I made, like, a note in my phone of Apple Notes. Like, I was going on this podcast, and it was when I had my book founder brand come out, Plug founder brand. And they were like, can you recommend some people that are great to follow on LinkedIn?

[Emma Stratton]

And I'm like, that question.

[Dave Gerhardt]

I can't. I really can't. I open the feed and I see who's there, and, you know, there's nothing. Also, like, I just end up hating everyone. I'm sorry. Don't meet your idols. Like, everyone has flaws. And so there is. My other least favorite question is, like, dead or alive, three people you'd go out to dinner with?

[Emma Stratton]

Oh, God.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Like, I don't know. No one. How about I'll just. My wife and I. Or maybe I'll go sit by myself at the bar. Is that a good answer?

[Emma Stratton]

I know. Oh, my God, I love that. Thank you so much. I feel extremely validated now. Now I'm gonna just be like, no, I don't have one for you.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Sorry, I don't. I don't. Or like, you know, you just be an. And just, like, pump your portfolio. That would be the way to do it.

[Emma Stratton]

That's right. That's right.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Love that. All right, we. I don't even know where we were from this.

[Emma Stratton]

I don't know. We're talking about something about messaging.

[Dave Gerhardt]

So you mentioned early, before we started recording, like, you work mainly with B2B SaaS now, but you came up, you know, working with kind of B2B non SaaS. We get a lot of questions in Exit 5 as we've grown. Like, people want more of non SaaS. And you said something. I want to hopefully get you to say it again on the record, but it seems like SaaS or not, those two things are not as different as you might think.

[Emma Stratton]

Absolutely. They're really similar. So I used to work in consumer. That's where I started. I was living in the UK and I was working on consumer packaged goods, writing, packaging, copy, and coming up with, like, personalities for, like, sausages and Toilet paper and sex toys, like all kinds of things. And I moved back to the States and I had a baby at the time, so I was like, I just need the shortest commute possible. Like, that was my number one criteria. And so I worked at this kind of sleepy B2B marketing agency that had quietly been existing for like 20 years. No one kind of really knew who they were, but all of their clients were kind of traditional business to business, like pest control, chemicals manufacturing, I can't remember, like, you know, machinery parts. Just. You've never heard of these companies, right? And some of these companies are still running print ads. I mean, this is back in 2012, but, you know, they're running print ads in trade journals and getting decent returns, right? It's kind of different, you know, I'm coming from like Procter and Gamble now. It's like pest control. I'm like, what? So that was a whole thing like B2B. Oh, my gosh. But because I was sort of not, I don't know, naive or I was like, look, I don't see how this is totally different from what I was doing in B2C, where it's like I'm trying to connect with a consumer. I'm trying to figure out who they are and come up with something that kind of connects with that. So that was kind of like I saw, okay, there are some similarities, right? But then my first big client with this agency randomly was an enterprise data management company. It was a company that had recently IPO'd. They had great software, but their messaging was really complicated. And so I started helping them. And that's where I realized, oh, my God, the tech world has a really, really big problem with explaining what they sell and writing a story and acknowledging that they're selling to humans. But I find that, you know, in the other B2B industries, it's similar, right? We're all talking about features, we're all talking about the things we produce, right? Whether that is SaaS software or metal machinery, right? Those are all our products. And we talk about the specs of the products, we talk about what we sell, and then maybe we talk about ourselves as a company. And kind of everyone does that in B2B. And the goal to have better messaging and better marketing is to remember that, hey, you're trying to talk to the potential buyer or customer and you want to talk about them, not you. And you want to get out of your features and your product. Don't just go there straight away. Give people a reason to understand why they should Care about it in the first place, draw them in a bit, you can get to your products and feature specs later. So it's the same problems that I see in B2B. I think each industry has its own jargon, right? Each industry has its own lingo and buzzwords and things that they're putting out there that maybe are a bit meaningless and unhelpful for the customer or the reader, but kind of we just put it out there anyway. I mean, that happens in SaaS, but big time. But it happens in other industries as well. The words are just different. Like, you know, healthcare. They've got their buzzwords, they've got their phrases that kind of make the messaging less human and relatable. So I think there are some common challenges that all B2B companies are dealing with when it comes to their messaging.

[Dave Gerhardt]

How do you chip away at vague messaging? How do you start to peel back the layers there? Right? We talked about differentiation a little bit before, but if you come to someone like, what would be the exercise you run through to someone like, if the messaging kind of seems a little bit weak or a little bit vague, how do we make that thing punchy?

[Emma Stratton]

Yeah, this is what I'm obsessed with teaching people about this. This is when I get my English teacher, like, glasses on and I'm like, okay, first, I think it's really important that people understand what abstraction is. What is an abstract word? Abstract words are what make things vague. It's the bane of our existence in B2B messaging. So words that end in shun, like, I don't know, operationalization or like, you know, all these ridiculous words that we put out in business. And you're like, what does that actually mean? Right? That is an abstraction. Strategic solution. Okay, that's a great example of an abstraction. What is that? Right? You're like, okay, I kind of know what that means, but what is that? And the tell is, can you picture in your mind what a strategic solution is? Now, Dave, if I asked you what you're picturing for strategic solution, it's probably something slightly different than what I'm picturing. And that's the problem with abstract language. People don't really know what it means. And everyone's kind of coming up and filling in the dots of sort of what that means in their mind. And so that's vagueness. The opposite of abstraction is concrete language. And being concrete is how you make a message go from vague. What does that even mean? To something really specific. So here's my example of abstract versus concrete so an abstraction would be high performance. I'm like, high performance, what does that mean to you? And I ask people this at talks. What are you picturing? Some people might be like, oh, a race car. I'm thinking of an energy drink. I'm thinking of a sales team. I'm thinking of an athlete. Right? So there's all these different ways to really think about what high performance means. It's abstract, it's unhelpful. Now if I say V8 engine, everyone's like, okay, I'm kind of picturing the same thing, like a powerful engine. So a V8 engine is the concrete version of high performance. Rather than leaving it vague, I'm getting concrete and I'm getting specific. I'm saying V8 engine and we're all picturing the same thing. So you apply that to messaging. A great way to do that is to ask yourself, okay, what does this actually look like in the context of my buyer's lived experience? How does this actually show up? So the example I use, and it's a bit sassy, but it would be real time visibility for a financial platform. We're like, hey, it's got real time visibility. And we think that just says it. All right, done. Real time visibility. Well, to a head of finance, they like kind of might know what that means. But nothing about real time visibility is making them be like, oh my God, I gotta get this thing right. Because it's vague. It's just like, okay, so if we want to get concrete, we think, okay, what does that real time visibility actually look like through the eyes of our head of finance in their day to day life? Well, it's now you can see all your financials from different accounts in one place.

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[Dave Gerhardt]

That's customer IO exit 5, or I'll give you another one today. The equivalent of that is AI powered.

[Emma Stratton]

Oh, God, don't get, don't get me started on AI.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Purpose built. Purpose built for X.

[Emma Stratton]

Exactly. It's like, what does that mean? So if you actually think, okay, what does this look like in my buyer's life through their eyes, now, that requires a bit of translation. How it looks to them is not going to be how it looks to you as someone who works at the company, you know, or someone who's built the thing. It takes some translation, but that's what messaging is really about. It's translating a complex technology into something that your buyer can simply grasp and understand. So you need that translation. So whenever you write something and someone else reads it and they're like, what does that mean? Just ask yourself, okay, what does this actually mean to my buyer? Like, what does this actually look like? How can I put it in a way that they're actually going to understand that will force you to get more concrete and specific. I think the tough thing is, and you know, I see this with teams when I work with them. I think we're always trying to be exciting and we're trying to convey innovation, you know, and so we kind of go to these big words and these fancy, seemingly fancy phrases to try and get people to listen and, hey, we're innovative. And it really just confuses people and they just kind of move on because it doesn't mean anything.

[Dave Gerhardt]

What's the best information that informs good messaging?

[Emma Stratton]

Yeah, I mean, there's two things that I love the most when I do messaging engagements. I mean, the first is talking to customers and prospects. Right? I mean, that is really the best. And doing it with a messaging lens. So this isn't the kind of interview you would have with a customer to write a case study. This is really talking to someone and digging into the challenges they were facing, kind of the triggers for actually looking for a solution, the benefits that they've experienced, the value in their own words. Not only do you kind of understand what really matters to customers, you can kind of, that can help shape your hierarchy, but their language can help you actually write messaging and keep you honest to make sure you're writing messaging that's kind of in their language. So customer interviews are the best. But I recognize that not everyone has access to customers or time to do it. Sometimes that's a big ask. So the next thing I always do, you know, most of the companies I work with have sales teams. I speak to salespeople because they are, if you think about it, kind of running their own messaging tests like every day, all day. They're just like, you know, trying stuff in conversation, they're trying stuff in emails, they're talking to prospects and they have a really down to earth realistic outlook on what potential customers care about, what they're looking for. And that can really help with shaping messaging as well. So those are my two favorite inputs for messaging that I always, always use if I can.

[Dave Gerhardt]

How do you get over like consensus and committees in writing messaging? Because it's, you can always tell when, when you wrote kind of the safest copy, the safest headline. There's so much that can be data driven in marketing today and we like to make decisions based on customer insights and data. But so much of this is, it.

[Grammarly Ad]

Is a craft, it is having taste.

[Dave Gerhardt]

It is being able to say like I got a crazy idea, here's the thing that we're going to say. And being able to have, you know, five people inside your company disagree with you, but you ship it and it ends up working out and you're like haha, no, we, we would never do that. We would be like, well you know, you know, things happen. But you know what I'm trying to get at, like I want to just shed more light onto the art of this. There's so much science in marketing today, but there is a little bit of an art involved at the same time.

[Emma Stratton]

There is so much art. And to be honest. And look, I do training and that's the most of what I do now. I really love it. So I've trained the marketing teams at all the tech companies you've heard of. I've run training with those teams and we spend half a day doing writing exercises in small groups and sharing. I mean I love it. Like it reminds me of my creative writing classes. We're just writing and sharing and it's a space out of a busy day where you can do that and people get so lit up, they have such a good time and they come up with such amazing ideas and they, they're so excited to kind of use it moving forward. But the thing that kills me, Dave, is that it's so rare that experience is not Common in most people's day to day in marketing. What I actually see a lot of these folks up against is, yeah, the committees coming in, the pressure to deliver. So you don't even have any time to be creative. Legal coming in with a red pen and sort of deleting everything. Or the brand team. Right. Some other kind of team stifling creativity. And so I think you're really lucky if you're in a company that makes space for the art of messaging, because creativity does take space. Good writing takes space. I think, you know that Dave. Like you can pump stuff out, but like those really inspired ideas and headlines come from a breath, a pause, you're taking a walk, you have some space, space from it. And I think a lot of teams are just, you know, being pushed really hard and it's hard to come by the space that the art needs. So that's one thing that I see. The other thing, the other side to it being art is that's why everyone loves coming in with their opinions. Everyone secretly wants to be the one with the great headline. Like even the people who quote unquote, aren't creative. I think everyone kind of wants that because it is creative. And I think that's why people are attracted to kind of giving their feedback. And I also think that's why it can be hard to not have all the opinions coming in because everyone wants to be involved. Like everyone wants to be the one that comes up with the great headline or the great name. You know, I've seen that just over the years. That's just what I've seen. So it is art, but I think that's what makes it hard to do it in your job.

[Dave Gerhardt]

How does all the evolution with AI play into the world of messaging?

[Emma Stratton]

Yeah, I mean, I ask myself that same question. Where is it going to go? I mean, right now I think the best use of it is polishing up, you know, helping you kind of come up with different versions or tightening something, seeing what it comes up with. And of course writing mundane emails for you. I mean, there are some things where it's working really well, but messaging is different. So, you know, messaging often gets mixed up with copywriting or people kind of use the two interchangeably. Right. But messaging is that first manifestation of positioning. It is more strategic than it is just about wordsmithing and it is about kind of making these decisions. What are we going to stand for and how are we going to say it so it comes through and what are we going to focus on versus all the things? And so There's a strategic element, and that's why at the moment, I don't think you can just hand it over to AI. AI is kind of wordsmithing, right? It's riffing on words. But there's this strategic element where you have to make those decisions in messaging that I wouldn't hand over to the bots just yet.

[Dave Gerhardt]

What about just like on the research and ideation process, right? Like, I don't want to automate all of my messaging, but I found that one thing that helps me as a writer is I'm able to take large amounts of data and synthesize some of the lessons and learnings and findings. And so that could be, you know, recordings from 50 customer calls. Right. Let's pull out the trends in there. Where before, I think it's important to listen to customer calls because you hear the pain in somebody's voice. But I remember the last marketing leadership job I had. I would have the Gong app on my phone and for the first couple weeks of that job, I would just listen to those instead of podcasts. It was incredibly boring, but very insightful, and it helped me become better at positioning and messaging for the company. But today I could basically pull out key themes from all of that. And ultimately I feel like it's true that great writing is great editing and the ability to like, whittle down and chip away at a lot of this information is where you get that punchy copy and punchy messaging from.

[Emma Stratton]

Yeah, definitely. It is great for kind of throwing it in and getting those high level themes and especially lots of sales calls. And if you did tons of customer interviews, I will say this is probably just my age even. I will do that. But I will still listen to all the customer interviews and I will still print them out on paper and read them. And I just still will. And that's more about my brain. To do my job, I need the input in my brain. So, yeah, I print things out still sometimes, you know, and it really, really works for, for me.

[Dave Gerhardt]

So for some of you listening at home, a printer is this. You connect it to your computer and you're able to get the things from your computer onto paper. It's. It's much different.

[Emma Stratton]

Do you print anything out, Dave?

[Dave Gerhardt]

I do. Depends on what I'm doing. So, yeah, I print out my tax forms. No, but, but here's an example. Like we're doing an event in Boston in a couple weeks and I'm interviewing three people and I have prep notes for that. I don't like to sit up on stage with my phone or with my iPad, there's something about physical paper. And so I'll print that out. And I like to scribble and take notes. And actually more telling than printing is like, I write notes, like as I'm interviewing you and talking, and I'm very. I have a bunch of notes all over. And so, like, I'm very bullish on AI. I love the tools, but I'm also still analog, Dave. Like, I have written in a journal every day for like eight years, I believe. Have you? Yeah. Huh. And my daughter's just getting to be able to read now, and I'm a little bit worried that she's gonna find all these, you know, journals and read them. But I do think that there's something about the physical writing that I think it's really important for humanity not to lose. And I think there's some brainwave connection that you make when you, when you write things down. So like, sometimes if I'm just stuck on something, I need to just print something out and write it down. Or I found that my best writing. Anytime I need to make a presentation, even if I'm going to use AI to make the presentation, I got to write it down first. I have a whiteboard in my office. I'll have a notebook. I got to start there because I just feel like some of the tools, it's too structured and I think ideas need to be more free form and flowing. So I do still print things and I do still write things down.

[Emma Stratton]

I love it. I totally agree. Humanity needs to keep writing analog. May I ask what you write, what your journaling practice is?

[Dave Gerhardt]

Absolutely. It's about time somebody asked me a question back on this damn podcast. Gosh. So I have two notebooks that I keep. One of them is. And this is. I've learned this process over years. And so one of the notebooks is like my work notebook. And I found that before I go to bed at some point at night, usually around like once I get my kids to bed, which, you know, is between 7 and 10pm, very wide, very wide ranging window, I like to write out my plan for the next day because I feel like it just gets it out of my head and it allows me to just like be home and just be chill and do whatever. And so I'll just kind of like sit there with my laptop, look at my computer. I'm gonna write down my kind of three or four big things I want to get done for the next day. I'll write em down and then boom. It's in that notebook. Get outta my head then. The journal is something that I. I've kept basically every day, either that night or the next day. I just recap what I did the day before.

[Emma Stratton]

Wow.

[Dave Gerhardt]

And it could be three paragraphs, it could be two lines, or it could be like three pages if I'm on a plane. Like, my wife and I went to New York over the weekend, and I had 40 minutes on the flight, and I just decided to put, like a long journal entry in there now. And I usually just write about what's going on at this point in life, what we did today, basically the flow of the day, anything interesting that that happened, any funny things at a kid said to me or something that happened in life. And I hate doing it. I really don't enjoy it. But the value in it is, like, being able to look back at it later. I love myself that I did it because I'll just go grab a random notebook and I'll just be like, hanging out with my wife. I'll be like, check this out. July 2021. Tuesday, July 10, 2021. And I go to my journal from that day. And we were both instantly transported back to that day. We were, you know, up all night because I got food poisoning because some garbage that I ate. And then here's how this happened. And then that was the day that I quit my job. And then you can pair that with, like, then you go to your phone and you type, you search that date on your phone, and you can see photos from that day. And so I think it gives me this unbelievable log and history of life. It's just a cool little running way to do it. I've tried doing it, like on a computer, on Apple Notes, on Google Docs. There's something about just, like, having that and then also, like, back to the analog point. I want my kids to see me using a pen and paper at the same time. I'm very, you know, much on my laptop all the time. I want them to see me writing things down. And it's just a little habit that I like. And now that I have done it so long, I feel like I can't break the streak. In fact, I just realized that I didn't write in my journal last night. And so after this later today, I gotta go fill in yesterday at some point.

[Emma Stratton]

Oh, I love that. That's so cool. I mean, I really struggle with journaling. I've, like, tried and abandoned it. You're inspiring me to, because I thought that would be really cool.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Well, There's a bunch of methods I kind of have found, like, sort of like meditation. I don't know if you do any. Any of that.

[Emma Stratton]

I do, yeah.

[Dave Gerhardt]

I do it all. Cold plunge, sauna, meditation, grounding, breath work, journaling, all the nonsense.

[Emma Stratton]

Do you?

[Dave Gerhardt]

Mostly, yeah, mostly. I'm not joking about anything that I said there.

[Emma Stratton]

Yeah, I do all of that, too. I mean, I do all the things. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dave Gerhardt]

And they work. People like to joke about it and, you know, shit on you online. But I think that our brains just, like, run crazy. And I do believe that, like, controlling your stress and control, like, a lot of the stuff that happens in life is really just made up in your mind. And if you can control that a little bit more. I do that through exercise. I do that through getting in the cold plunge. I do that through sauna, through journaling, whatever. Like, I have seen a amazing impact on my life. And I have friends or family or colleagues or whoever, other people in life who have a lot of issues. And I think that you can manage a lot of that stuff by working on yourself and doing it through those methods. So I do that. The thing about journaling, though, like, meditation is, like, I feel like when I try to stick to somebody else's way, like, for me, like, meditation stuck when I can just like, oh, yeah. The goal is really just to sit there for 10 minutes.

[Emma Stratton]

Yes.

[Dave Gerhardt]

I don't need somebody's mantra. I don't need a guided. It's just like the act is sit there for 10 minutes and each time your brain races to, like, nonsense you got to do later, you just come back to right now. And so I've done all the journals. I've done the bullet journal, I've done the five minute gratitude journal. And like, I did that for, like, 60 days. And like, each day write the same things that I'm grateful for. It's like, I don't want to do this. This is nonsense. And so I just write, you know, I just write a little recap of the day, and I try to, like, if I have some time, I try to take a minute and, like, write down the things that I'm thankful for and, you know, write down what my goals are and, you know, repeat that. But I found that I don't like to repeat a lot of that stuff. I just like to kind of, like, document what's going on and how I'm feeling. And then also, you can also, if you don't want to keep, like, the daily journal, I've just found, like, if you're super stressed out or you're just pissed off or you're grumpy. Just get a piece of paper. It doesn't have to, like, live in a journal and just, like, write out all the things that are making you mad. And then it just gets out of somehow. It's, like, amazing. It just gets out of your body and onto paper.

[Emma Stratton]

Yeah. I love it. Then you could just. You could burn it.

[Dave Gerhardt]

You could burn it, throw it in the fire. That's right.

[Emma Stratton]

No, I love what you're talking about. I mean, there is power in handwriting. I mean, I love that you make this point of writing with pencil and paper for your kids, and it's different. Like, not only do you think differently when you're handwriting and it kind of changes what's going on in your mind, but I believe, like, real inspiration kind of frees up and can come through. Did you ever read, like, Writing down the Bones?

[Dave Gerhardt]

No. What is it?

[Emma Stratton]

Oh, you should. It's classic Natalie Goldberg. It's one of those classic. It's sort of like Zen Buddhism and writing, creative writing. And each chapter, some of them are really short and they're standalone, so you can just pick it up and just read one. And she talks about morning pages where you write. You know, you just have journals, and you just, like, every morning you just write and just let that flow go. But she draws a lot of parallels between the two, and it's super cool. So recommend that.

[Dave Gerhardt]

I love that. I just think it's so easy to just be so reactive all day and to slack in emails and social media and to just take a minute and be able to sit down and write and not just, like, context switch all day.

[Emma Stratton]

It's not healthy what the world we're. The world we're in. And kind of the technology and Slack and the just bombardment of stuff and information and potential triggers and all of that you really have to be mindful of. You've got to set up those boundaries and find that quiet space for yourself. Totally.

[Dave Gerhardt]

I think for anybody listening, though, I think also it's just like this. I believe in this, like, constant act of just, like, working on yourself and finding the right way for you to work. And so I just started to notice.

[Grammarly Ad]

This pattern of me.

[Dave Gerhardt]

It was like, man, I get to the end of the day and I'm like, I have an amazing life. I have the easiest job in the world. I live a very soft life. I talk about marketing on. In Slack and Zoom. Like, what the heck am I so stressed out about? I was like, oh, Your brain is not wired to be like Slack message, tech, message email. Your brain feels like you're in war, like it's insane. And so this is all self selected. And so I'm like, oh, maybe Dave, you shouldn't like check Slack every five minutes, right? Maybe don't check your email every. It's literally like I'm just in my inbox like looking, I'm like waiting for somebody, waiting for somebody to piss me off, you know, it's so dumb. First like I found that the best way for me to work is like I have one or two big rocks, big projects a day. I spend two or three hours on them and I work out already, my day's gonna be good. Then I go and do that. One or two big projects checked off the big thing. Then I can go spend an hour getting through my Slack messages, getting through email, checking in on the team, making sure everybody's good. Just do that once or twice a day. I've noticed a humongous difference in like how I feel and I gotta work at it. I haven't done a good job of that today as an example. It doesn't happen every day. I'm not perfect. I got to work on it. But I do think this and I think so much of, you know, to tie this a little bit back to our conversation about just like work and marketing and life is one of the things that I think I learned a little bit late, you know, as I continue to progress in my career, is just like, you have to be able to manage yourself, right? No one is going to manage your work for you. We just had a conversation with the, there's six people on our team at Exit 5 and we have like a flexible, you know, time off policy where like you don't get like 14 days or whatever. It's like it's on you. And I shared with the team, I was like, look, I need you all to be grown ups and be adults and like you gotta be able to take time off. You have to be able to regulate yourself because what happens is, and I'm guilty of this too, this is like my toxic trait. My toxic trait is like work so hard, right? But it happens to all of us. Like, yeah, it's been like six months. If you haven't taken one day off and you wonder why, you're burnt out. And so I do think a big part of the thing that we don't talk about a lot enough at work is just your ability to regulate yourself and manage yourself and manage your workload. And manage your stress plays a humongous. That's probably twice in the last three minutes I've said humongous now, but it does. It plays a humongous role in your happiness and how you do at work. And by the way, if you're less stressed and things are a little bit slower, you have more time to be creative and to make your things punchy, Emma. Right.

[Emma Stratton]

Like, that's right. You can't.

[Dave Gerhardt]

It doesn't happen. This is what my biggest thing is. I hate. I hate. You're probably the same way. I hate the brainstorm meeting. I'm not good at brainstorming on the spot. You want to call me up and get some ideas from me. You're not going to get them. We need to have a conversation about it. Then you need to give me two or three or seven or 21 days and I got to go away. And then, boom, I got it. Right. That's just how work happens. But you don't create that environment if it's like Slack email. Slack email, Twitter, LinkedIn, DM meeting. It's insane, right? It's insane.

[Emma Stratton]

Yeah. No, I'm all for that kind of. You know, my biggest productivity hack is just going on a run.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Right?

[Emma Stratton]

There are those times where I'm like, okay, should I just sit this computer and, like, grind out a couple more things, or should I just say fuck it and go on a run? And I will go on that run. I will have ideas, I will just capture them, like mid run. And I will. I will achieve more by going on that run than I would have sitting at my computer.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Exactly. And you've never felt bad when you said, fuck it, I should go on a run. You've never been like, damn it, I wish I didn't do that.

[Emma Stratton]

No. I wish I had stayed at my computer on Slack.

[Grammarly Ad]

Because you feel amazing, right?

[Dave Gerhardt]

You get the endorphins and all that stuff. You feel amazing from it. But also you often get ideas from that.

[Emma Stratton]

I always get ideas. Always. I always just, you know, open up, voice recorder, just record my ideas. They just flow in a way that they just do not flow when I'm at my desk.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yeah. You should hear how many breathless voice notes I have in my phone.

[Emma Stratton]

That's what I like. I like.

[Dave Gerhardt]

All right, so here's the deal. I got the idea. It's not AI powered. It's purpose built. It's just. Yeah. It's literally my life. Yeah.

[Emma Stratton]

I have like thousands of messages like that in the exact same way.

[Dave Gerhardt]

But it's funny, I Always have this feeling like, oh my gosh, I need to document this because if I don't, I'm going to forget it. Then at the same time you don't ever forget it. But I'm never confident enough to just let myself. I like to document it so I can get out of my head. Otherwise I got to, I'm thinking about it until I get back to my computer.

[Emma Stratton]

Right, yeah, that's funny. We both do that.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yeah. But there's something to this that's about why are we wired to like what is it about? Going on a run for however long you run for that makes you feel awesome after. And I think knowing those things and Tony Robbins has talked about this forever. He's like, you change your state, change your, you know, and it, but it works like if you just got up and just did 20 squats or 20 push ups or just went for a walk for 10 minutes. I read this book a couple years ago called Built to Move by Kelly Starrett. He's like a mobility, you know, physical performance type of guy. And they, there was a picture in.

[Grammarly Ad]

The book and it was a kids.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Brain activity before a walk and after a walk and like your brain is just lit up for like a 10, you know, 10 to 20 minutes. So if you're listening to this, hopefully you're on a walk right now. You're scribbling on your phone. But man, this is a fun time.

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I want to do.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Forget the marketing stuff, let's do a podcast on this.

[Emma Stratton]

Well actually Dave, I'm launching a podcast on this. So I have a podcast. Yes, get outta here.

[Dave Gerhardt]

What's it called?

[Emma Stratton]

And now I'm like, I want you to be on it.

[Dave Gerhardt]

I'd love that.

[Emma Stratton]

Well, it's called the Emma Stratton show because I didn't want to pigeonhole like a topical name. So it's. Yes, I love that. Yeah. And it's all about how personal development, how inner growth kind of reflects outer growth. So I fell into all this when I started my own business. I wasn't into any of this until I started a business. And then I got deep into personal development and spirituality and all these things that actually helped me grow my business, which no one talks about. Everyone gives you this stupid kind of, oh, do this, you know, all these kind of like rational stuff when really it's the inner work that dictates the growth in the, in your business. I'm like a huge believer in that. I have amazing stories. So yeah, I'm sharing that and I'm talking With people. So, Dave, you're going to be on it. Now, I didn't know you were one of these people, but now you. You will be on it.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Love that. Yeah, I'm just a B2B marketing bro on LinkedIn. But there's more beyond the service.

[Emma Stratton]

He's more. He's so much more than that. I even have a question that says, what practices and rituals do you do to support yourself? Like ice bath plunges, meditation. Yeah, that's a question.

[Dave Gerhardt]

I got all. The answer is all. All of them.

[Emma Stratton]

Well, I want to hear about it because I've never done a nice bath plunge, but I hear they're great.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yeah, I. Cold showers are great too.

[Emma Stratton]

Okay. A cold shower works.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yeah. And I feel like a cold shower is great. And I just set a timer for two minutes because what happens is like if I go for a run in the middle of the day, then I go take a shower. If that shower is warm, man, I'm going to be in that shower for a long time and I got to get out. So it's like a two for one. So set a timer. Two minutes. It sucks because it's cold and you feel amazing after.

[Emma Stratton]

I'm going to try it today.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yeah, go take a two minute shower. Let me know. Well, the ideas are going to be flowing, but I love that. And by the way, if you're listening to this right now, I want you to do me a favor. I have a feeling that a lot of this content is going to resonate with you in, in a way that you didn't expect. And so DM me on LinkedIn or just email me davexit5.com I'm just curious. And yeah, Em, I'm happy to come on your thing and talk about it, but I wrote this quote down a while ago. I don't know who said it or where I got it from, but because I've been feeling the same way. It says entrepreneurship is the ultimate personal development program.

[Emma Stratton]

That is so true.

[Dave Gerhardt]

And it's one of the huge underrated benefits of whatever happens with Exit 5. Like, it just forced me to be better. And I think that's a huge outcome.

[Emma Stratton]

Absolutely. Right there with you.

[Dave Gerhardt]

All right, Emma, this was a blast. Thanks. Thanks for making me not talk about marketing the whole time. It was really fun.

[Emma Stratton]

I know. Yeah. We didn't talk about our favorite website.

[Dave Gerhardt]

I don't have any. My favorite websites are none. I love Google. I love the minimalist design of Google. Go check it out.

[Emma Stratton]

I'm a big Apple fan. What can I say, what can I say?

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yeah, all right. She's Emma stratton. She's on LinkedIn. Go check her out. And that's fun. Go listen to the Emma Stratton show. The Emma Stratton Stratton Experience at some point in the future when it's out, right. And I'm gonna check it out. All right, see you later. 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.

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Building your own network of marketers who.

[Dave Gerhardt]

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. Foreign.

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[Dave Gerhardt]

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[Dave Gerhardt]

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