← The Futur with Chris Do
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- [00:00]
A
If you challenge people's beliefs too much, they will probably think you're an asshole. I think of it as a credibility bank that every time you validate someone's beliefs, you're putting money into that bank. Every time you challenge them, you're making a withdrawal from that bank.
- [00:27]
B
Hey, Finn. Happy to have you on the show. Your background is really unique in that you spent over 15 years as a designer working with some really big brands. But I think you came to this point in which you thought maybe design wasn't it for you, and you very kind of unusually got a degree in business. So when we talk about the business, the design, the design of business, I think you're the living embodiment of that. Like, I learned business through my coach and mentor, but you actually went to get a degree in it, so there's lots of things I want to get into it with you. So for people who don't know who you are, can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit of your story about how you got here?
- [01:03]
A
Sure. My name is Finn McKenty. Everybody probably knows that. Most people know me from YouTube. I have two channels. One is called the Punk Rock NBA, where I talk about kind of music history stuff. Another one is just my name, where I talk about sort of like it's Twitch highlights, just sort of like more fun, silly music kind of content. But like you said, I didn't start YouTube until I was 38, so we both started a lot later than most people do. Before that, I spent my career and I still do, like product design and marketing, and most people know me as a YouTuber, but I would consider myself a designer and marketer first and foremost. And one of the reasons I've always been drawn to your content is like, to me, there's no distinction between product design and marketing. And, like, it's all the same thing. It's like, what are we going to make and how do we get people to buy it? And so my brain probably thinks about design a little bit differently than most people's does, but that's how I think of myself. Like you said, sort of my career. I think the first time anybody paid me to do design was 1999. So unfortunately, I'm also old. I sort of tricked my way into the agency world. I did some work for, like, Nike and Nintendo and Red Bull, this agency, around 2001 or something like that. I did terrible work for them. I'm sorry, I apologize to the client. It was not good work. But, you know, I got my foot in the door. And once you have those sort of on your resume, it makes things easier. I worked for a bunch of other agencies. The thing I did that probably was the most foundational for me was worked at an agency in Cincinnati called Kaleidoscope, where I worked on a lot of stuff for Procter and Gamble, like Tide, Febreze, Bounce, Swiffer. I think that all the Swiffer stuff, or at least the majority of Swiffer stuff that's on the market now we designed and a lot of stuff for Febreze as well. And so I really learned a lot. That's when I switched from design to business. Because from being exposed to P and G and just how incredibly sharp they are, I still think they're the best marketing organization on the planet. I was like, oh, actually, the problems that I'm interested in solving are really the domain of marketers more so than they are designers. And I was in school at the time. I started later for reasons we can talk about if you want. And I was like, I think I should probably switch my major. Which was scary because I had spent the last, whatever, like almost 10 years, like, really convinced that I wanted to be a designer. But it just sort of became clear to me that, like, I think I'm a good designer, but I'm not great. And there's other people who are just naturally better at it than I am. Whereas when it comes to, like, marketing, I think I'm like, naturally very good at it. So I was like, well, I guess I should take the leap. And I did make that switch, but I got three. I went to school for design at UC for three years, and it's University of Cincinnati, which is a really good program. And then I finished out the degree in business. And so I feel like I got two degrees in one, which was awesome. It took longer and it was more expensive, but I don't think I could do what I do without having both of those. After that, I worked at a startup called CreativeLive that a lot of people in your audience probably familiar with. We did online education for creative people, primarily photographers, like wedding and portrait photographers, but also did a lot of stuff with design and entrepreneurship and stuff like that. Then I started YouTube and also a partner in a company called URM Academy that does online education for music producers. And here we are.
- [04:09]
B
That was a lot to unpack there. So I'm going to try to figure out the timeline here.
- [04:13]
A
Okay. And I should say I was a big fan of Blind back in the day, back when I did some Motion graphics stuff. And I did not know that you were Chris from BLIND until like a year ago.
- [04:25]
B
Oh my God.
- [04:26]
A
Yeah. Like I was a fan of Blind 20 years ago. I've been following your content for probably close to 10 years and I didn't know. And so that sort of ties into some of the stuff we'll probably talk about. The importance of telling your story and the stuff that you think is glaringly obvious to your audience is not.
- [04:41]
B
I think you're a little bit younger than me. I'm 52. Are you 48?
- [04:44]
A
46.
- [04:45]
B
46. Okay, so there's a couple of years apart here. And when you talked about you thinking of yourself as a designer doing product design, people use one term for two different meanings. Are you talking about industrial design or digital design?
- [04:59]
A
Both.
- [05:00]
B
Oh, so you're going to make it even more confusing for us.
- [05:03]
A
Yeah. So Kaleidoscope was an industrial design and engineering agency. I was not an industrial designer there, but I was on the industrial design teams. And so those were like the projects we were working on. So like this were for wet jet and dry mop and we did a lot of medical devices and stuff like that. But now, of course, that's what product design meant 20 years ago. Now it means making apps and websites, which I've also done.
- [05:23]
B
When you said you went to school for design at University of Cincinnati and you did three years and you switched majors, was that before you were working or you did that after you started working?
- [05:33]
A
So I started out self taught and I was like a lot of people. I was like, to be honest, kind of arrogant and thought like, I don't need to go to school for this. It's just a piece of paper. I can teach myself. And I did and I was okay, but I just sort of had to be honest with myself. I had some other friends that did go to school for design and I saw that they were like getting a lot better than I was. And that was a little bit of a bitter pill to swallow, but I swallowed it and I was like, well, okay, I guess I made the wrong call. And at 24, I went back to school and I'm glad I did.
- [06:08]
B
But you got real world working experience and you probably have a better frame to appreciate the education, I imagine. I mean, if you had gone when you were 18, you might have finished your degree and not even thought about business.
- [06:19]
A
I went to college for one quarter when I was 18. I did not want to be there. I didn't pay attention. I barely went to any classes. Total waste of Time and money. So when I went back as an adult, I wanted to be there. I loved it. I went to every class, I went to every office hours and study session. They had an amazing design library there with all these super rare books from all these old international style books and stuff like that from the 50s that you can't get anywhere. And so I would go to the library and read all those and I took full advantage of that opportunity.
- [06:50]
B
So were you six years older than everybody else?
- [06:53]
A
Yes.
- [06:54]
B
How'd that make you feel?
- [06:55]
A
It's a little humbling, but I wasn't so old that it was like weird. 24 and 18. It's not that big of a deal. Maybe it felt like it at the time. In hindsight, it's like, we're basically the same age.
- [07:06]
B
Okay, so you didn't feel too weird about it? You weren't too self conscious about it?
- [07:10]
A
At first I was, but then once I got to know everybody, it was, it was fine.
- [07:14]
B
I went to Bible school later in life because.
- [07:17]
A
Oh, I didn't know that.
- [07:18]
B
Yeah, I was raised Catholic, but I didn't do the full bit, so I needed to do that. And the reason why I went to Bible school later in life was because as a kid I just kept cutting Bible school. I just ditched. And of course I never completed a program. It only takes a year to like do, but I just didn't stick to it. So by the time I was doing, I'm like, let's see here, I'm kind of junior high, almost getting to high school, but they're like little kids there. And so I always felt like I'm superior to you because you're just a little runt. And for the first time I'm like big. Literally the big man on campus. I'm like, did you feel that at all because you had had experience, you've worked, you're more mature, you're older. Did you feel like you had an edge on the people?
- [07:58]
A
You know, maybe a little bit. But I was pretty humble about it because I saw that the people I knew who went through this, the reason I went to that school is because my friends went there and I was like, I knew the exact coursework they were doing and stuff. And I had been humbled many times in my sort of attempt at a design career of trying to like, I just, I could not get a job anywhere really. Like, I sort of. I managed to like sneak my way into these agencies and blah, blah, blah, and like, it sort of worked. But like, I was not even sniffing the opportunities that I wanted and I had to sort of admit to myself it's because I wasn't good enough. So by the time I was there, I think my ego, obviously I had some experience and I didn't discount that, but my ego was sort of, I think, properly in check by the time I got there. And like, we're all here to do the same thing. And the specific thing that I think I was missing, like a lot of self taught people. And I don't want to knock self taught people because there's some amazing ones, but I was missing the fundamentals. Like I could do like flashy, trendy stuff, but I didn't have the fundamentals of composition and stuff like that because that stuff's boring. And you're probably not going to do it on your own. You're not going to grind through these composition exercises from the Armand Hoffman book on your own. But if you have a teacher to force you to do it, you will. And that first year in that program, you don't touch a computer at all. It's all stuff with paint and cutting out pieces of paper and all that old school Bauhaus stuff. And at the time I was like, oh, so stupid. Like, just let me open Illustrator. And by the time it was at the end of the year, I was like, okay, this is like exactly what I needed. Maybe I should stop thinking I know everything.
- [09:36]
B
Okay, so let's fast forward to the part where you're talking about like, you're switching majors now and you're going to study business. That seems like a pretty radical switch. I'm curious because I've not gone to business school myself. What do you see the overlaps in terms of like the creative design brain and then what you learned in the business program?
- [09:56]
A
I don't think there's a lot of overlap in terms of the brain, but there's a lot of overlap in terms of the skills. In other words, like we've all experienced, you know, when marketing people run design projects. And maybe it doesn't go as well as we would like. When designers run businesses that typically also doesn't go the way we would like. And so the way it's used, like, I'm not the best designer, I'm okay, I'm decent, but I'm not the best. I would say I'm a very good marketer. And if I also have the ability to either do the design myself or better yet, work with somebody who's better than me, I can work with those people better than probably 99% of other marketers, because I understand their job. And it's just like there's a step between sort of the business and the output of creative work that oftentimes there's something lost in translation. And I don't have that issue.
- [10:46]
B
I think I understand what it is when you say you're not maybe a great designer, There are a lot of people who do better. But when you say, like, I'm a really good, maybe a great marketer, I don't know what that means. So can you define for us what that means to you?
- [10:58]
A
I get people to buy shit. That's the job, is make the good line go up.
- [11:04]
B
So what have you learned in your experience in terms of, like, how to get people to buy stuff? Because everybody wants to know that.
- [11:09]
A
I would say the foundational things I learned from, like Procter and Gamble, I still use all the time. So, for example, the big insight here, I think is fundamentally marketing is applied psychology. If you understand how the human brain works, then you understand how to fit into that, such that you fulfill their psychological needs by offering them a product or service. And everybody. At the end of the day, the most basic human psychological need is that people want to feel safe. So reducing uncertainty, things like that. A term that Procter and Gamble came up with a framework called acb, or Accepted Consumer Belief, which basically is like, to understand what people already believe to be true about the category in which you're working. And we don't get to decide what people believe. What they believe may not necessarily make sense, it may not be true, but it's what people believe. And you have to meet people where they're at, or at least you probably want to. It is sometimes possible to change those things. That's tough. And I wouldn't suggest it. So, for example, from doing research, they found that people. I don't know if they still own Pantene, the shampoo brand, but they used to. They found that people believe that hair should be nourished, which is not actually rational because hair is not living tissue and it can't be nourished. But that's how people feel about it. And you got to meet people where they're at. So if you look at their marketing for pantene at least 20 years ago, when I was working on it, that's the way they would talk about it is. So it, like, nourishes your hair and in reality, it can't be nourished. And they're not deceptive at all. But the way Pantene worked at the time is it has a lot of silicone in it, so it coats your hair and it makes it feel thicker and fuller and lusher. It makes you feel like it's nourished. And people actually feel the same way about furniture, which is weird. They may pledge. And so people feel like furniture needs to be nourished, even though, again, obviously furniture is not living tissue and it can't be nourished. So that's the first thing I think, is to understand what people already believe to be true and then meet them there. Figure out how your offer can slot into people's existing sort of mental model and fulfill some psychological need at the most basic level, help people feel more safe.
- [13:13]
B
How did they come upon this idea that people believe that your hair needed to be nourished?
- [13:19]
A
So P and G, as far as I know, is sort of the company that invented a lot of the methods that we use now, like ethnographic research. So they would have, like, PhD anthropologists go into people's houses and watch them do laundry for a week and come out with all these, like, amazing insights like that about it. And I don't know how they do things now, cause I'm with them in a long time, but that's how they would do it. Just lots and, like, they invest lots and lots and lots of money into talking with consumers and just understanding what they do and why they do it.
- [13:47]
B
So how did they then use this idea that people want their hair to be nourished? How do they message that or communicate that? We understand that and we're going to give you the solution to that idea.
- [13:57]
A
Yep. So there's another framework they have called the Reason to Believe, or rtb, which is so there's a claim that your product does or service does, whatever the reason to believe is the specific objective reason that I should believe your claim is true. So I don't remember how they do this for Pantene, because it's been a long time, but let's pretend they also make Bounty paper towels. Let's pretend that it works like this. So the thing they would always do in commercials is like, AB comparisons. Like, they show, you know, Bounty versus the leading brand, and they wipe something and the Bounty one picks up 30% more, whatever it is, and you go, wow, okay, that looks cool. Well, how does it work? The reason to believe is that Bounty has patented magic Thirst Pockets in it, made with blah, blah, blah technology. So I don't remember how they did it for Pantene, but there's always some reason to believe so here's the accepted consumer belief. Here is the benefit of the product. And the reason to believe is the way the consumer will believe that your product will deliver on that benefit.
- [14:57]
B
I remember watching a lot of commercials in my youth, and I remember seeing a lot of those demos where they wet things and they put something heavy on it and the competitor breaks apart. It doesn't. It pushes water on instead of absorbing it. But even as a. As an unsophisticated consumer of marketing messaging, I always a little suspicious. Like, I think you cheat these things.
- [15:20]
A
Well, people may think that. Again, that's one of the things you need to understand is like, you just figure out through testing these things, like, is this a believable claim? Is this reason to believe effective? And that's the sort of thing you find out through all the different methods that they have of testing. They do all kinds of focus groups and blah, blah, blah. They have like, eye tracking and shit. So when you go to certain stores, they know how you're shopping this aisle. They see exactly where your eyes go. So they'll test that and get empirical feedback on it and adjust.
- [15:50]
B
Well, Procter and Gamble and probably their agency have created very memorable campaigns because to this day, I haven't bought a paper roll, paper towel in some time. But I still remember Bounty is the quicker picker upper. So it's like a tongue twister, something like that. And you'll remember these things or that Snicker satisfies. I don't know why he does, but Dave told me, and I've mentioned this to my friend. When I'm walking through the grocery store and I'm a little hungry, my stomach's grumbling. I'm like, snickers. I'm like, no, not Snickers. No, that's not real food. Right. But it has peanuts, it has protein.
- [16:23]
A
Exactly. That's the reason to believe.
- [16:25]
B
It's nuts.
- [16:26]
A
Yeah, that's the reason to believe is the nuts.
- [16:28]
B
Okay, that's wild stuff. Okay, so do you remember anything that you worked on and have a pretty clear roadmap from the whole. The accepted consumer belief was this. This was our claim. This is the reason to believe. So this is the benefit of the proof where you can walk us through it so that we can see it end to end. Like, let's pick one thing.
- [16:47]
A
No, because I was a pawn in that machine. That's an example of, like, I was there and I learned. But this is sort of what leads me to YouTube is like, I learned so much from this. And I think Every designer will know. This is like, you know, you did good work, but can you, like, just you answer me that question? Like, okay, well, tell me how you did it. And you're like, well, I didn't really do it. I was part of the team, and I believe that I did good work. But can I really say that, like, this was my thing? Like, no, because there are a hundred people that worked on this, and really, probably the only person would maybe be, like, the brand manager at P and G or maybe the creative director. You know, there's only a couple of people that could really, like, take credit for this, and I'm not one of them. I also worked at Abercrombie and Fitch, like, doing design hundreds of girls T shirts that sold millions of units. But I was just executing what the creative director gave me. So can I really say that? That was my, like, I mean, I'm proud of it, but it's tough, right?
- [17:44]
B
And I appreciate that kind of frame. Let me restate the question. I don't mean to describe something you've done from beginning to end, but one where you can highlight. This is what they told us, and this is you don't have to be involved at all. I just want to see it from beginning to end. Because you mentioned the accepted consumer belief for Pantene as nourish your hair, but we don't know how it ends. Then you're telling us a little bit of bounty, but we don't know what the accepted consumer relief was. I just want to see your understanding of it as it's mapped across anything. It could be a case study. Doesn't have anything you have to touch on. Touch yourself.
- [18:16]
A
I don't know if I remember anything from beginning to end, to be honest with you, because this is stuff I worked on 15 years ago. But, yeah, well, I mean, I did. I did a product called Febreze Sport, which is the thing that I probably had the biggest impact on. So to make a long story short, they came to us with some research that said, hey, we've talked to people and they told us that basically we have permission to do something called Febreze Sport. We asked them, hey, would you be interested in Febreze Sport? And everyone said, yes, but we don't really know more than that. So could you do some exploratory work to just show us what that might be? And that was. We had a good relationship with the design manager and the brand manager, so I think we had a little bit of room to run with this. And that was like, A natural fit for me because like I know a lot about sort of, you know, lifestyle marketing from coming up in sort of skateboarding world and stuff like that. I've been around with like lots of sports and stuff like that. So this was like something I understood very well. And so what I wanted to help them understand is like how something like Febreze sport, like how you would need to change the brand sort of play in the world of lifestyle marketing because that's what like athletic products are. Nike basically invented that playbook. And so to make a long story short, what I think could credibly say that I helped them understand is the importance of sort of, rather than what they would do with any other Breeze product is just drop it right into Walmart because as they would say, they have one and a half customers, one is Walmart, the other half is everybody else. So they go, okay, we're just going to drop it right in Walmart. But what I wanted them to understand is that in this category you need to start by getting the credibility of the people who are most influential. So first that starts with like athletes, like hardcore athletes, which is a very small number of those people, but they have a lot of currency. So like if you know somebody, you know, whatever, like let's say you do CrossFit and there's a guy, your gym that's like, that competes in the CrossFit games, that's the person, or girl, whatever, that's the person, you would ask her like, hey, what shoes should I get? And then so you're the second layer out from that of you're not like the hardcore pro or semi pro, but you're like the serious enthusiast. And then the next ring out from that would be sort of the Walmart consumer. They're looking to you like, hey Chris, I know like you have a trainer, right? Like what is, what kind of shoes does he tell you to get? So this is how it works. You can't just go right to Walmart because if you just go right to Walmart then it has no credibility. And credibility is the oxygen that this whole segment runs on. So I persuaded them to do user research rather than doing it in Cincinnati, which is what they wanted to do. I persuaded them to do it in San Diego where people are a lot more active, a little bit more representative of who we would want to sort of market this to. And that was really eye opening for them because these are mostly people from the Midwest. And so we're talking to people who these were like professionals that had finance jobs or whatever. But they're like, yeah, I get up every morning at 5, and I go surf for an hour before work. And they're like, wow, people do this? Like, that's crazy. Everybody here is so active. And like, well, yeah, that's why you live in San Diego. It's expensive, so you gotta. You gotta make the most of it. And so then we sort of understood how these people. The role of odor management in their lives, which. It's like, really? I have no idea if this is what you wanted to talk about, but this is the sort of nuances of, like, where you're talking about where, like, design meets marketing is like, understanding number one on the. On the sort of. The marketing side of things, I would say, is like, what is the role of odor management in their lives? And, like, how do they think about it? And what do they perceive value there? And then the design side is like, how do we execute that? And so I'll explain that, because this was actually tricky. So we talked to a bunch of these people. Like, there was a personal trainer. There was, like, an MMA fighter girl that did, like, yoga, was like a. I don't know, probably 15 people or something like that. And we asked all of them, like, your clothes smell bad when you're working out. And they're like, yeah, they smell horrible. They're like, what do you do about it? And they're like, nothing. I don't care. I'm like, hmm, interesting. And they're like, everybody asked them, like, but, you know, what do you use? Febreze Sport? And they're like, yeah, that sounds cool. Like, what for? I don't know. So we're like, this is really interesting. There's clearly odor plays a role here, but nobody seems to have a problem with it. So. But what do we do? And so we talked to him a little bit more and found out that odor plays a role at home. So they would tell us how they would do all this crazy stuff. Like, one girl, she would get super sweaty and she would hang her gym clothes out the window of her car on the way home to air them out so that when she got home, they wouldn't make her house smell all funky. People had all these kind of workarounds for that. This is a thing that P and G calls compensating behavior. So we sell these compensating behaviors and realized, okay, the opportunity here is, is that odor is fine in the athletic zone. Like, when people are actually at the gym or on the field, it's fine there. Odor is not Fine at home. And so the role of this product is to prevent the transfer of odors from the athletic zone to the home zone. And so we came up with, I think, four SKUs to do that. Like, for example, a sachet that you put into a gym bag that would eat up the odor on the way home. So that when you open up your gym bag when you get home, you don't get, like, blasted with this disgusting wave of vile scent. And I actually did do quite a bit of work, graphic design work there, on sort of exploratory options for the branding there to sort of help them break out of the existing Febreze. Like, brand equity was not going to work, you know, when we're talking to athletes. And so I sort of helped sketch that out.
- [23:28]
B
What was the accepted consumer belief for Febreze sport?
- [23:32]
A
The accepted consumer belief for. For Febreze sport? I don't remember, to be honest with you, because this was 2009. But the thing that I do remember is, like, the crux of this was, like, preventing the transfer of those athletic odors.
- [23:44]
B
Okay, that's the insight that you guys figured out.
- [23:46]
A
That's the benefit. Yeah, that's the.
- [23:47]
B
We're okay here smelling bad, which they shouldn't be, but. And then we're not okay here smelling bad. And athletes realize there's a lot of funk that travels with them. So this is going to create that barrier so that you don't transfer odors. So was there like a tagline or some messaging or campaign that was built to reinforce that message?
- [24:07]
A
There was, but it was done by different agencies, so. And I don't remember what it was, to be honest with you. But the thing is, I mean, you've experienced this, I'm sure, is like, there's five different agencies working on it this. And I have no fucking idea what the other ones are doing. Like, I never see it unless I see it on TV or something. I'm like, oh, that's what landlord did. Okay, cool. We don't talk. I'm sure when you were doing motion graphics back in the day, you would see it used in ways that you totally didn't expect or see be like, oh, they used it like that.
- [24:33]
B
Okay, yeah, that is all true. And so I think you're highlighting a problem with large communications teams across multiple disciplines and then different companies that you describe as a pond. The way I usually describe is like, one tiny gear or cog in the whole watch. Right. It's like we do our part in some way. The clock maker is orchestrating all this stuff to come together. But I try to be like the student of advertising and marketing because I want to be able to apply this. Well, knowing what you know now, do you have confidence that if I threw a problem at you, you could just pretend to, like, do it? Because you're like, I'm a good marketer. I could do this.
- [25:09]
A
Yeah, sure, let's do it.
- [25:10]
B
Okay. And my audience is going to know this. I'm going to speak very selfishly right now.
- [25:14]
A
Okay. Please do. Yeah.
- [25:15]
B
Okay. I've noticed some trends, some alarming trends. The trend that I noticed is that AI has made educational products, information products, worth almost nothing. So across the board, people who sell information products who did really well. I'm not talking about books, because books and information product, but online digital courses, study at your own pace kind of thing.
- [25:37]
A
I sell these, by the way, so I'm interested.
- [25:39]
B
Okay, this is good. We can talk about this. A bunch of my buddies are in the same space. I'm like, oh, is not going well. The trend line is moving down, is moving down pretty quick because people, wrongfully or not, believe that they can just ask ChatGPT, Cloud or one of these other programs or software AI things teach me this thing and I'll just teach you. And they think that's better because they spent $20 on that and they get a lot more than just a course. So if I am now in this place where we see our core sales go down, which it's true, what do I need to do to tap into some of your marketing prowess? Whether it's following the acb, RTB program or not? What do I need to do to, like, run a marketing campaign to get more people interested in it?
- [26:27]
A
Well, I'll maybe answer this on the product level, because I think that product and offer level, because I think it starts there. So to me, the education value chain has four parts. Number one is the information delivery. Number two is feedback of some kind, whether that's student to student or teacher to student. Number three is credentials. Number four is job placement of some kind. So I don't actually think that AI replaces the first part of that, but let's even say that it does. For the sake of argument, let's say that perplexity and ChatGPT does the information delivery part. Well, there's still. That's one part of the value chain, and as of now, it can't do the other three parts. So I would say if all you're offering is the information delivery piece, then that's your problem. But I probably push back on the belief that AI is even effective at the information delivery part. It's probably. It's okay, I think. Here's how I would say about it. Here's what I'd say. Say, yeah, like chatgpt, perplexity. They're pretty good. But is pretty good good enough for you? Like, do you want to be pretty good? Are you okay? Like, I would say you can get a solid B or B plus answer out of Chat GPT on most things. And if you're okay being a B plus, then keep doing that. But I don't think you want to be a B plus. I think you want to be an A.
- [27:43]
B
Since we're in the same space though, let's try to reverse engineer this. Pretend like we had these cultural anthropologists, these researchers with PhDs going into the home of everybody who's considering buying course or uses GPT. Best guess, what do you think the, the accepted consumer belief is? Because I like this concept very much, I'm trying to figure out how I turn this into something.
- [28:02]
A
So will you tell me? Like, I'm surprised to hear that that's even true because I feel like creative people are the ones who I think are the most skeptical of generative AI. So I'm actually surprised to hear that even in your space that that's true. Can you tell me more about that?
- [28:18]
B
Yeah, well, maybe this is correlation and not causal. Well, across the board, friends that run educational companies like our sales are down pat. Flynn released his video information Products are dead. And he started to chart how his sales have died and what he's doing to pivot. He talked about it and I talked to my buddy Daniel Priestley, and Priestley is like, yeah, information's almost at the price of zero now. Or that's the perception. And so maybe it's the larger market perception and not maybe into the niche of creative folks. And a lot of the products we, we sell that make us money aren't necessarily designed for teaching creativity. It's teaching business parts. So we just isolate the business fundamentals like pricing strategies, negotiations, things like that. They might find a comparable solution with Perplexity, GPT or Claude or something like that.
- [29:07]
A
Yeah, I guess I would want to know more. So there's another factor that could be here is just there's more like genuinely great free information. It's not like it was 10 years ago, like when you started out, Like, I don't think there was. There weren't very many people talking about like pricing for creatives. The way that You. You have now there's lots of them. So I would say that there's a general, like. So there's a guy named Michael Porter that has, like, a framework called. Yeah, the five forces. So, like, threat of substitutes, I would say, has increased quite a bit. And rivalry, there's more people making courses. So, like, those five forces, you know, would contribute to, like, lower profitability in this sector. AI is one of those. But I'm not sure that AI is, like, the primary causal factor here, if it is. So the reason I'm poking on that is because, like, if it is specifically AI, I would probably talk about it one way. If it's just like, hey, there's a lot of free information out there that's pretty good, I might talk about it another way.
- [30:00]
B
Okay, let's do that. Let's say the accepted consumer belief is there's a lot of free information that out there that's pretty good.
- [30:06]
A
Yeah. Which I agree with.
- [30:07]
B
Is that okay for acb? Okay, I'm going to write this down. Okay.
- [30:11]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it might be something like, I don't need to buy a course because the existing free information that's out there is good enough. And I might say something like, yeah, that's true. However, number one, it's only free if your time has no value. So let's talk about YouTube. Are there some good YouTube videos about pricing for creatives like yours? Absolutely. There's a lot of bad ones, too. And you're going to spend a whole lot of time separating the wheat from the chaff. And if you're cool with that, like, when I was 19, I had way more time than money. And if you have more time than money, I think you should do that. So I like to just sort of give people options and let them decide. So, like, say if you have more time than money, you should just use all the free stuff and, like, yeah, you're going to spend some time sorting it out. But that's cool because you have the time. Do you have more time than money? And you, as an adult are going to say, no, I don't. Like, okay, cool. Well, let's look at how many videos there are. Like, whatever. I'll take the top 20 videos about pricing for creatives. This is a total of, whatever, 18 hours of content. Do you want to spend 18 hours sorting through all this and figuring out what's good or bad? Or would you rather pay me a hundred dollars and I'll just give you the good stuff? Now I've got to prove to you that that's the good stuff. But, like, I would argue, like, is 18 hours of your time worth more than a hundred bucks? I hope so.
- [31:26]
B
Okay. Is that the reason to believe?
- [31:29]
A
The reason to believe would be, like, in your case, your accomplishments. You can trust what I say because I did the following things. And I've also helped however many students do the following things.
- [31:39]
B
I see. So the reason to believe is the. What they call the receipts?
- [31:44]
A
Yeah, it's the objective proof that your claim is true. So, like, I'm claiming that I can give you the optimal framework for pricing your work as a solo freelance graphic designer in one hour. And the proof is that, like, I did the following things and I helped my students do the following things. Can other people say that? I would say there's probably only a handful of people in the world that could make the same claims that you could.
- [32:10]
C
It's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.
- [32:22]
B
Enjoying the conversation you're listening to right now. You're going to love what we have for you inside the Future Pro membership. From live group calls with myself and vetted guest Experts to over 600 hours of pro exclusive trainings and monthly networking, you have everything you need to fast track your growth. Check it out@future.com pro.
- [32:45]
C
And Rebecca, welcome back to our conversation.
- [32:49]
B
So basically is some version of value based pricing because I'm selling your time back to you. So if you don't think your time is valuable, you keep using the free products.
- [32:58]
A
Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's one way. You know, I'm not saying this is like the only way, but you know, we're playing lightning around here.
- [33:04]
B
Right. Because that's one challenge. With the free information, we don't know what's good and what's not good.
- [33:08]
A
Yep. Some of it's good, but some of it's not.
- [33:11]
B
And then we probably can make a list of two or three of those problems. Like, okay, say it's good, but is it actionable?
- [33:17]
A
Right, right.
- [33:18]
B
Is it deep enough for you? Are the resources included?
- [33:21]
A
Is it specific to you? Is it about, you know, wedding photography? Yeah. Can you apply that to graphic design? Probably, but, you know, you're going to have to think about it a little bit.
- [33:30]
B
Okay. This was a helpful exercise and I think you kind of mapped it out. So is there anything else that we need to do once we identify and talk about this, is there an additional step or is that good enough for the marketing campaign?
- [33:41]
A
Well, then it gets into the execution, which is sort of, you know, I mean, that's the people listening to this. That's where you're going to shine is like, if you understand that this is sort of the framing, like how do we express that to people in a way that that's persuasive to them? Right.
- [33:55]
B
So if it were a static thing, what are the words? That's copywriting, what are the images? That's art direction. And then if it's not static, meaning it's a moving thing. Now we have to get into like, what is the script, what are the visuals and the sights and sounds that we're seeing? And that's in the realm of creative folk.
- [34:09]
A
Yep, exactly. So, like, for example, one way you could do this would be, like I said, to take the top 20 videos about pricing for designers and you know, show a list of those like in a playlist and be, you know, at the bottom. It's like Total running time 16 hours and 21 minutes, you know, and then compare that. This is like an AB comparison. Like, compare that on the other side to, you know, Chris's course on pricing for designers, you know, total running time 52 minutes. This is an example of like education where like, more is not really better. Do you want a 16 hour course on this? Like some people do, but probably most people are like, not really.
- [34:45]
B
And this is good. So. And I've worked in advertising, inside advertising and adjacent advertising. I kind of know what it is like. So the strategists and the marketers get together and they figure this kind of nugget out. Like, people believe this. This is the problem with this. And that's critical because if that brief is wrong, creative is screwed. And then creative has to take that and then turn it into the quicker picker upper or something like that. Herbal essence. Like there was some kind of orgasmic thing with herbal essence that seemed to work. Right? It's like her secret or something like that. Or maybe she was born with it. Maybe it was Maybelline. So they can take complex ideas and turn into like a catchy mnemonic device. A heuristic that you can, can absorb. Just do it is an example of that, right? Or the real thing. Okay, so this is one of those ones where the free information seems pretty good at the front of it. But maybe we then reframe it as free is sometimes like noisy and no one likes noise. It's too much clutter. It's a mind clutter, you know, and so maybe that's where the creative part comes in. So that's the. Is that the kind of the approach.
- [35:54]
A
Yep. And this is the part where I realized the creative part, like, I'm okay at it, but I'm not great at it. I'm certainly not as good at it as you are or a lot of other people watching. This is. This is the part where I learned my role is to pass that on to the creatives. And then I'm like, you're better at this than I am. I trust you. And I think that what makes me effective in that role is they can tell that I have genuine respect for them because I know their craft. I can see how good you are at this. You're fucking good at it. You're better at it than I am. And I love watching you do your thing. So my job is just to help you do your job the best that you can. And I think that's where I shine. They can tell that I'm like, I'm a fan of working with these people.
- [36:34]
B
Yeah, I like this. Okay, that was really clear. So you're a marketing strategist, and then you need to bring in copywriters and art directors to do the other part.
- [36:42]
A
I'd say I'm pretty good at the copywriting part, but.
- [36:44]
B
Okay, so you're good at copywriting. So that's creative to me.
- [36:47]
A
Yeah, but like the design piece.
- [36:49]
B
Design, okay. The visual aspects of it, like the.
- [36:50]
A
People I worked with at Abercrombie are so good, it's insane. Some 24 year old assistant merchant would come in and be like, I don't know, can we do like a. A painting of some people, like by a lake? And they'd go, okay, fine. And like 15 minutes they do like a watercolor painting of a bunch of people, like at a bonfire by a lake. And the merchant's like, I don't know, the bonfire looks too big. I'm like, oh, no, redo it. I'm like, do you understand what just happened? Like, this girl just like busted out two beautiful watercolor paintings in half an hour. And you're saying they're not. Like, do you understand how talented this person is? This is insane.
- [37:23]
B
Okay? You're dealing with, like, illustrators and designers that just. It comes out of their pores, right? So like in that moment, you're like, I think I need to switch my focus here.
- [37:33]
A
Exactly. I'm like, I am not on their level. Like, I'm just not. And that's not false humility. Like, I'm not on their level.
- [37:39]
B
Okay, that was very helpful. So I'm gonna just quickly recap for folks, okay? I don't know, too many industries or services that are out there that isn't feeling some level of competition either because of inflation, things are tight, interest rates are up, or whatever it is, or AI or just too many options. Right now we live in a time of abundance. And so you're competing against everybody who wants to do what you want to do. So the first thing that you said was, let's look at the belief. And then you challenge the belief, saying, that could be one reason, but could it be this other thing? And so we need to make sure, because otherwise we're building a whole strategy on a false premise. And in my case, you're like, maybe it's just like, there's just so much free stuff that's out there, that's really the problem. And AI just one point of the spear, not the whole spear itself. Okay, I get that. And so then we have to kind of then ninja flip that to say, like, okay, if that's so good, what is the potential problem with that? And then broadly we can say, well, if you have a lot of options, maybe that means you're going to spend a lot of time. And if you have a lot of time, that's not a problem. So young people have a lot of time and not a lot of money. Older people have more money than they have time. And you would say, then your most valuable asset is your time. And so would you rather spend money getting it from someone who's credible, who's done it before, who can teach you the way, and then you can be on your business and go make money? So that was the entire way of looking at that problem. And I think there's going to be a lot of people who really need to sit down and take note of this and then start to think about how to apply it in their life. Now, I want to go back to something you said earlier, because you highlighted a problem. I guess I'm surprised too. Like, I've known about you here. I've known about you here. I didn't know those two people were the same people.
- [39:20]
A
Yes, I was. I was like, what? That's Chris from Blind. I had no idea.
- [39:23]
B
And I'm like, what the f. Like, how could that be? Like, if you follow that, us at all? Okay, so I'm gonna tell you my bubble and then you're gonna. You're gonna burst the bubbles. Like, well, from the outside world, it's not like that. I started a service design company called Blind, made commercials and music videos for 25 plus years. And my Biggest challenge at that time, being in Los Angeles, was to make sure I can grow blind beyond my name and me, so that I'm not doing all the work. And we pretty successfully did that. But oftentimes clients would say, where's Chris in this? Where's Chris? What is he doing? And we'd have to explain, like, no, I'm making sure that all the things are getting done, but I'm not actually in any of your projects right now. So it's shocking to me that if you followed us, that you wouldn't know, because within that sphere of people in the motion design space, they would probably think Blind and Christo are synonymous.
- [40:17]
A
I was on the outside looking in. I was living in Cincinnati then. I'm from Seattle, but I went to school in Cincinnati. And so I was just looking into stuff on the Internet. And basically, what I saw, I didn't look at your company's about page or whatever. I just saw your reels. That's all I cared about. It was like, they have a cool reel, and I'm going to copy it. So that's my experience of Blind is just like, I thought your reels were awesome, and so do lots of other people. For anybody who doesn't know, like, Blind was, like, very, like, I would say, very, like, hype at that time. A lot of people were, like, copying you guys. Really top of the food chain back then. And, like, a lot of people were copying you.
- [40:49]
B
Yeah, for a minute. We were top 10, I think, in the world for a minute. And so the interesting thing is then, I think, as the future, here I am doing my thing. I've mentioned Blind and talked about the work we used to do. So I think then naturally. So again, that's my bubble.
- [41:03]
A
You didn't say the name of the company very often, though. I knew you did motion design, but you didn't say Blind at least. I mean, I don't watch everything, but I watched a lot of it.
- [41:12]
B
Very interesting. Okay. Because we would also do case studies. We would show things that we're doing. And watermarked in all those frames is the word blind and the logo. And we would talk about this.
- [41:23]
A
I probably just missed it, you know? And so I guess the larger point here is, like, even me, I would say, like, I'm a. A pretty big fan of yours. Even for me, like, people are not scrutinizing this stuff as much as you think they are. Not you specifically. I mean, like, you. All of us, like, you got to tell people stuff again and again and again and again.
- [41:41]
B
Okay, so that's the message here. As much as you think you've saturated that point, there's a good chance a large portion of your audience doesn't even know what the heck. So the necessity to tell your origin story or connect relevant points, you need to keep doing that over and over again. And this is probably why large multibillion dollar brands repeat the message to you over not months or years, but decades.
- [42:06]
A
So that when you go to Safeway, you're like, snickers really satisfies.
- [42:10]
B
I know, they got me on that.
- [42:12]
A
I mean, think about Gary Vaynerchuk, I think, is the master of this. Like, half the people listening to this could probably rattle off his origin story right now because he's patiently told it again and again and again and again for years. I've noticed he doesn't really tell it anymore. Probably because he's checked the box.
- [42:30]
B
Yes, he's done enough times now. How do you combat when a creative person hears that? It's like, God, he's just incessant about telling that same story and that same example, the same four pieces of advice. Hustle, do this grind, garage sales. You know, how do you help them overcome that belief? Or can you?
- [42:49]
A
I can't. Maybe someone else can. I choose to work with people who already come into it. Sort of like, I only do inbound. Like, I don't do any outbound. So everyone that comes to me is already sort of bought into the way that I see the world and the way that I do things. And sort of like one of my foundational things is, like, you got to do what works. We don't get to choose the rules of the game. We just got to play them, which is, you know, I would say that's not always true, but, like, that's how my brain works. Like, if you were to think about there's a slider between idealist and realist, which idealist is like, the world should be this way, and a realist is like, here's how the world is. You just gotta adapt. I would be far on the realist side. And I'm not saying that's better or worse. It's just where I am. So I choose to work with people who are kind of pragmatic realists who would just be like, oh, you got to say the same four things over and over again for a year. All right, let's do it. So for creative people, I do think that that's a challenge that a lot of them have in their career and life in general is like, they get bored of stuff. But that's another case where our weaknesses are our strengths and vice versa is one of the reasons that you're good at what you do is because you're always looking to do something new and innovative. But there are times when that's also maybe going to hold you back. Whereas I would say that I'm not innovative enough. I'm very good at doing the same thing over and over and over again for fucking years. But there are times when maybe I need to be pushed out of my comfort zone a little bit. So I think one's not better or worse than the other. You just have to recognize where you are and when you need to maybe adapt.
- [44:15]
B
Finn, on that note, what are the three or four things that you need to repeat over and over about Finn?
- [44:20]
A
I feel like that's always a work in progress. I'll tell you the one. Let me outline a challenge that I'm having right now. So maybe this will help other people and if you have any advice, I'd love to hear it. So I have done a lot of stuff in my career, like obviously the sort of design and marketing stuff, like that's one part of it and different kinds of design too. Like, you know, I've done like graphic design, I did T shirts, I've done like product design. I used to do a lot of like flash and like website stuff back in the day. And like I still, like, we have a full time software engineer at our company that I manage. So like, you wouldn't want me to write code, but I used to do it for a living. And like, I'm definitely competent in terms of like talking about that and managing it. And so one of the things, and also like my dad was a corrections officer so I sort of know a lot about that sort of side of things. And so one of the things that I've noticed has made me very effective with some of my clients. For example, there's a woman I work with who like sources products like in China and stuff. Well, I spent a lot of time in China and Korea and Indonesia at Abercrombie, like going to factories. And so when I talked to her I was like, oh, well actually I know a lot about your world. And she's like, okay, great, let's work together. So one of the challenges I have is like, how do I communicate all the stuff that I have done so that people will understand that I have pretty deep expertise in their business that I'm not just like someone who like is a generic like LinkedIn or YouTube coach. Like, I actually know their business. How do I communicate that without sort of muddying the waters or just like barfing out all the stuff that I've done? Because that's just sort of super unfocused. So I can talk about some of the ways that I'm trying to do that now if you want. But that's like a challenge I'm having right now, which is probably very similar to a lot of the. A challenge a lot of people listening to this have is like, man, I've done all this different stuff. How do I wrap that up into one sort of thing that communicates my value but doesn't overwhelm people?
- [46:03]
B
There was a campaign that was run by an editorial company. Editorial meaning like the edit commercials. And they would run ads in ad Age and things like that. Or creativity. And the tagline was always, everyone could use a good editor. And they would take this really long ass speech and it would delete or cross out all the words, and they would then find the most profound thing and it would be funny and interesting, like to be or not to be. But the rest of it was garbage. And that's what a good editor does. So I think what it is is that all of us have complicated, like a rich tapestry of stories, but they're not really all relevant and no one really wants to hear all of them. So the way that I teach people, and it's a. It's a derivation of what Russell Brunson talks about in his.com secrets, that to be an attractive character, not physically attractive, but to attract people to you, there's four things you need. Right. And I kind of modified it slightly. So number one is you need a compelling backstory. So let's focus just on that. You need a compelling backstory. And the compelling backstory to me has three core components. Your origin, like, where were you born, who were your parents, what did they do, your birth order and all that kind of stuff. Because you said you were raised in Seattle.
- [47:12]
A
Yeah.
- [47:13]
B
Okay. So we know things about Seattle. Seattle was the music epicenter for grunge and a bunch of different things. The birthplace of Starbucks. It's rainy and cloudy. So there's things that we know about that and that's not that complicated. If you're a middle child, the firstborn, the last one, there's things that people know about that and something about your parents. Right. And you said your father's a corrections officer.
- [47:33]
A
My dad was in the Navy and a corrections officer, yeah. Which I would say is pretty formative to who I am.
- [47:37]
B
Yes. And then your mom may do this or that, but those things form you, okay? And especially if you had a rivalry with an older sibling, that forms you. And so that's clue as to who you're going to become, okay? And it's part of your identity that's part of the cultural currency. So if I say I'm from South Africa, I'm from Vietnam, or I'm from India, we automatically assume certain things, both good and bad. And that's just part of your currency. This is where it gets interesting. Some point in your life, there's an inciting incident where the world is no longer the same for you. Something had happened, and it's a clue to the person you're going to become. So scrub through your timeline and find that point in which you're like, I think that was the first time I started to see the world differently, and I could not see it the same again. What was that point? And how old were you?
- [48:21]
A
Yeah, so for me, that's when I started doing YouTube. So I was 38 then. And I had the challenge that a lot of other people listening to this probably have had, which is why I do the work now of, like, helping other people build their audience is like, I had done a lot of stuff that I thought was pretty cool, but, like, really nobody cared about me or knew who I was. Like, I felt very invisible. And that's not a good feeling, especially me getting older. I'm like, this is not good. So to make a long story short, I felt like YouTube is the place for me because the platform had changed. You know, I realized it wasn't just stuff for, like, little kids and unboxing videos and stuff like that. So I was like, well, I'm going to do this. I'm going to find a way to build an audience, you know, inspired partly by you and some other people. I'm going to do this. And so I did it. 130 million views later, like, now that's a thing I can hang my hat on. And I no longer. It's interesting. Like, I feel like the other stuff I've done in my career is actually more interesting and cool. But the accepted belief among my audience is that the fact that I built this YouTube channel is actually the most interesting thing about me. So I. I lean on that.
- [49:20]
B
This might be your defining moment story. But when was the first clue that kind of tension that existed? And usually there's a resistance, right, because people hear this like, oh, get on YouTube. Like, no, I don't want to. And they'll say, I don't know I have anything to say. I'm not good on camera. No one will listen to me. And so the inciting incident isn't where you figure it all out, but it's like the moment where it starts to become clear. And that clue, do you know what that is?
- [49:45]
A
Yeah. So I did a course with a friend of mine who plays in this band called Periphery that some people might know, and the course kind of didn't really go well. It was a good course, but it's because everybody who showed up was a fan of his, and they're not really a fit for the course. And I was like. And I sort of put the course together for the most part. And I was like, oh, this is a problem. I don't have an audience to bring to this. I'm just relying on other people's audiences to get attention for everything I'm doing, which means I'm sort of subject to the things that their audience wants, which is not the things that I necessarily want to offer. And so I was like, I see what he can bring to the table. I see what I can't. I need to have what he has.
- [50:26]
B
Okay, this is perfect. This is exactly what we want to do. All right, so we have these stories. We put them in a container, and we have to look at it through the right lens. And the way that I do it is I figure out a very short title. Usually just two or three words doesn't have to be a complete sentence for you to be able. Like, that's the story I want to tell. So I'll give you the example, your.
- [50:45]
A
Two word personal brand kind of thing. Yeah, yeah.
- [50:48]
B
Well, no, that's even bigger than that. So I'll. I'll tell you. So the first story, my origin story, is how I went from Saigon to Santa Monica. So I can tell you that whole story. Number two, this story is the three names. Rudy, Brad, and Dean. There are three people who are not super connected, but somehow lead me to discovering that you can be a professional graphic designer. Dean was a professional graphic designer that I met while running an errand for Brad to pick up typesetting. This is in the early 90s, right. This is me kind of figuring out that graphic design could be a field of study. And my world changed. I didn't know such a thing existed, that there were professional creative designers earning a real living that sends me.
- [51:29]
A
I didn't know that either. Much later. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah.
- [51:32]
B
You see what I'M saying, so that that sets me on a path, not the final path. And that's my inciting incident. The final path is the two J's, Jesse and Jose, which lead me to my. My trip to YouTube. So Jesse's my wife. She's sitting in class with me. She's like, this is your magic space, babe. But the container for this is too small. Can you play bigger than this? Than the 12 students? And I'm like, I don't know what that means until I meet Jose, the second J. So that person says, hey, let's get on YouTube. I'm like, I don't want to get on YouTube. But when I do, that whole thing changes my life forever. And this is what I do now. So Saigon to Santa Monica, Rudy, Brad and Dean and the two J's, that's the complete, compelling backstory.
- [52:16]
A
Okay, I can apply that.
- [52:17]
B
So you'll have to workshop that a little bit.
- [52:19]
A
Yeah, I get where it's headed. Yeah, I can work with that.
- [52:21]
B
So what you do is when you go out there, depending on who you're talking to, you're like, you can quickly recall those things, and it's very easy for you to talk about because they're containers for that longer story. So you want to figure that story out, and you just repeat that over and over again until people are like, we got it. Then not necessary anymore.
- [52:39]
A
Yeah. So I got to figure out the snappy version of me as a sort of designer, I think, to sort of explain how all this got here. It's helpful.
- [52:47]
B
Yeah. All right. So that's what you would do. So in case people are wondering what the other things are. So you have to have a compelling collection of stories curated so that you need to have. Which you have plenty of. You have to have character flaws because no one likes people. Right. Pixar's 22 rules of storytelling. We admire characters more for their struggle than we do for their success. And the last one is you have to be a correct contrarian. If you say what everybody's saying, no one's going to listen to you. So you have to find out, like, what conventional wisdom is, and you have to find the way that you say differently. And I'll give you an example of that. Most people say, as a teacher, as an educator, you want to create safe space so that everyone can feel seen, heard, and valued. When I teach, I say I create unsafe space because I want it to be full of friction and because friction is where the magic happens. But we have to learn to be brave enough to go outside our comfort zone. So it's with a wink, it's still safe, but there might be a moment here or two where you're going to feel a little uncomfortable.
- [53:48]
A
I'll tell you my version of that, which is. And I stole this from someone else. Trevor Nielsen. Thank you. I've always given him credit for this, but it's a good one, which is opportunity goes to people who are the most visible, not necessarily the people who quote, unquote, deserve it. And we can all think about a time where that was true of like, somebody got promoted. When you're like, she's not actually good at her job, but she's good at making herself visible to execs or certainly in the agency world. There's lots and lots of examples of this, right? And, and so this is one of these things that I like to think of these as inconvenient truths where you're like, here's how the world works, right? And you're like, ugh, yep, that's how it is. And then that opens the door to them, like, okay, well what should I do about it? And that's when I can open the door to the other thing, which is like, well, you need to build a personal brand because visibility is sort of oxygen for opportunity. So whether you're a full time employee, contractor, agency owner or whatever, it doesn't matter. People need to know who you are and like, that's what I call the mindset shift. So you give them the mindset shift and like, okay, yeah, you're right. What do I do with it? Opens the door to the capability shift, which is in my case, I believe that for people in sort of our world that I think LinkedIn and YouTube are the two best places to do that and get them to buy into that. Once you've got them to buy into that, that opens door to your offer. You just sort of lead them there. Just logically it's like, well, if you believe all these things, then the next step is my offer. And they're like, cool, I'm in. So by the time someone DMs me to ask about this, they've already sort of bought into all these things. And it's really mostly just a question of like timing and budget and stuff like that. It's like halfway closed already.
- [55:17]
B
Okay. As a marketer and as a person who can write well, I'm going to suggest you do one thing. Take whatever your friend Trevor said and turn that into a much more digestible, repeatable thing. And then that way you don't have to mention him anymore. So one. One version of this is to say it's not.
- [55:33]
A
Changes work. So I give him credit anymore.
- [55:36]
B
Well, like, you elevate it. You transform it. Right? It's a transform, transformative work. Like, one way of saying that to me, and it's a twist on something very familiar, which is it's not what you know, it's who knows you. Which would be able to take that. Your knowledge and your skill only takes you so far. But that takes the visibility part into consideration.
- [55:53]
A
So I'll do that. Quote Chris do quote Finn McKenty like.
- [55:57]
B
The office, you got to write your. Just do it. And then everybody understands. Like, wow, that was so profound. You create that lightning rod for people to remember.
- [56:05]
A
But these things are always a work in progress, you know, I'm sure, like, I know you're always refining this stuff. You know, it's. I've seen how it's evolved over the years. You know, you throw this stuff out there, you workshop it, you say it one way in a podcast, you're like, oh, that was pretty good. I'm going to start using that from now on.
- [56:19]
B
Yeah. Usually you see a reaction from the crowd like, oh, you guys like that? Okay, let me work on that. And sometimes in the moment, you say it and it rhymes and like. Or there's alliteration. You're like, who's smart today? Who took their smart vitamins today? You know, all right, I did that. Okay. I think the one I want to ask you about, the big takeaway, the thing that I think everybody needs to figure out is what are the fundamentals of making creative, engaging content about any topic? Because there's a very diverse audience that tunes into the podcast.
- [56:46]
A
Yes. I will give you my framework for this. So again, it's sort of a spin on the acb, which is. So what you want to do is it starts. Understand that the fundamental currency to all of this is emotional engagement of some kind. Like, if you want to get traction for your content, it has to connect with people on an emotional level. So you need to start with some topic in which people have existing emotional engagement. And there's a way to spin. And if you can't figure out an angle in which they have emotional engagement here, keep working on it until you do. So, for example, like doing your taxes. Not something that people have a lot of emotional engagement to. Maybe, however, getting audited, that's something people might have emotional attachment to. Or again, going back to the fundamental need for human safety, being comfortable in Retirement, that might be a thing that people have emotional attachment to. So keep working on it, keep poking at it until you find an angle on the thing. You pick the thing you want to talk about, and then find a way to package it such that it's a topic people have emotional engagement to. So I'll give you an obvious example. This is like football because, you know, people care about football. So then underneath that, unpack the existing beliefs that people have about this thing about football. So one of the beliefs about football, and again, I'm not saying that I. That these are true or untrue, is just beliefs that people have. One is that, like, NFL football is better than college. Another one is that they've changed the rules and now the game sucks. Another one is that football is unsafe and nobody should play it. These are three beliefs. And then under each one of those beliefs, your content is either going to validate or challenge that belief. So, for example, we take the belief that NFL is better than college football. You could make a video or reel or whatever it is that's like, college football sucks. Here's why. And you say, there's no defense and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like, NFL football is the best sport in the world. Here's why college sucks. You could do the opposite and it would still work, right? You could say, like, NFL is boring and the guys play it safe. I like college because they go for it, blah, blah, blah. Either of those would work because we're working with something which people have an emotional engagement to. Either, you know, they identify as a pro football fan or a college football fan. And I'll give you one more layer on top of that, which is, generally speaking, you will get more. It's not always true, but generally speaking, it's sort of easier to get a lot of engagement by challenging people's beliefs. However, if you challenge people's beliefs too much, they will probably think you're an asshole. I think of it as a credibility bank, that every time you validate someone's beliefs, you're putting money into that bank. Every time you challenge them, you're making a withdrawal from that bank. So if you want to challenge someone's beliefs, you better make sure that you have enough currency in the bank to cover that withdrawal. So I don't know exactly what the number is, but let's say it's like 60 or 80% validation of your audience's beliefs so that they understand, I believe you, I trust you. We're on the same page here. So then when you're like, okay, guys, I gotta tell you something you may not want to hear, but I think you need to hear, which is the following. Then you have currency in the bank to cover that withdrawal.
- [59:50]
B
Okay, that makes sense. You're talking about things that people really care about. But what if I'm in a really boring space? What am I going to do?
- [59:57]
A
There's always a way to find. You got to keep poking at it until you find a way to make people care about it. And there's always a way. Always, always, always a way.
- [60:04]
B
Okay, I'm going to give you an example. I'm an accountant. Is it the tax thing?
- [60:09]
A
Sure. I mean, there's lots and lots of different ways. I mean, there's like, I would sort of want to get a little bit of this better sense of, like, who exactly your clients are. Like, are these entrepreneurs? Are these, like, families?
- [60:21]
B
Like, yeah, entrepreneurs.
- [60:22]
A
They're entrepreneurs. Okay, so why do people hire you? Like, perhaps I would say cash flow management is probably a challenge for a lot of entrepreneurs, especially people in the agency world, which is, we did the work, but we're not going to get paid for 30 days if we're lucky. Realistically, we're going to have to chase this invoice down. Meanwhile, I've got payroll coming in and I've got 12 people that work for me. And so I've got to find a way to keep these people employed who do the work while I'm trying to chase my clients down to get the money. So I would perhaps talk about that sort of challenge that entrepreneurs have of, you're doing the work, business is good, but. But cash flow is tough, and you're stressing about making payroll all the time. It doesn't have to be this way. Here's how you work with an accountant to sort of smooth out cash flow such that you're no longer having this stressful moment every day. It's like, the 23rd payroll's on Monday. What are we going to do? Like, so and so hasn't paid us yet. Like, business is good, we have the money. It's just not in our account yet. Work with me and I can help you sort of get out of this, like, monthly stressor that you're experiencing all the time. Does that make sense?
- [61:30]
B
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Okay, that was perfect example and applaud you for doing that. So if you're an accountant and you're working with entrepreneurs, the subject of cash flow is kind of boring. It's like taxes. Like, okay, now what? So you're saying find the emotional engagement or the hot button that, that triggers people in like, oh, I feel that what's going on?
- [61:49]
A
Making payroll, that's something people have a lot of emotional attachment to. Yes.
- [61:53]
B
Making payroll, not getting paid. Or maybe a line is like, business is booming. How come the bank statement is zero?
- [61:59]
A
Exactly, exactly.
- [62:00]
B
Stuff like that. Right?
- [62:01]
A
Yep.
- [62:02]
B
Okay, that was, that was a great example. Thanks for doing that. Okay, so I think that was very clear, high level understanding of this. I'm going to make the assumption that this is what you help people do. So outside of the punk rock stuff that you do and reacting to punk rock and bands, that's like a whole different lane that you're in. But the way that you really make money or how you're an adult is you actually help companies figure out their marketing.
- [62:26]
A
Yeah. Well, I would say it's entrepreneurs, like typically solopreneurs, because I don't like working with companies for all the reasons that you probably don't either. And that all the people listening to this don't is like, I don't want to deal with like stakeholder management, so I accept lower budgets. Like, I know I could make more money if I was working with companies. I don't want to do it, I don't need to do it. So I just work with entrepreneurs so I don't have to deal with all that bullshit.
- [62:50]
B
You like to work with entrepreneurs. You help them figure out how to make their boring messaging not so boring.
- [62:55]
A
So they can and specifically grow on LinkedIn and YouTube. Okay, so if you're an entrepreneur and you want to grow your audience on LinkedIn and or YouTube and turn that into money, I can help you do that.
- [63:05]
B
Do you have a framework to do that?
- [63:06]
A
I have lots of them and I could explain all of them, but it would take us another hour and a half. But if you thought the other stuff that I said was smart, it's similar stuff to that.
- [63:14]
B
Okay, so where can people go to find out more about some of the stuff that you do?
- [63:18]
A
You can go to finnmckenty.com that's F-I-N-N-M-C-K-E-N-T-Y.com or look me up on LinkedIn would probably be the two best places to do it.
- [63:27]
B
Thanks for hopping on our podcast, sharing that. I enjoyed hearing your story and I think you gave us some really tangible things to do. So give him a follow. Where should they go to follow you?
- [63:36]
A
LinkedIn. Yeah. Finn McKenty on LinkedIn.
- [63:38]
B
LinkedIn. Oh, that's easy. Okay, just look him up. Finn McKenty and that's F I N N McKenty M C K E N T Y thanks very much for being a guest on our show today.
- [63:48]
A
Thanks for having me. I am Finn McKenty and you are listening to the Future.
- [63:59]
C
Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get new insightful episodes episodes from us every week. The Future Podcast is hosted by Chris Doe and produced and edited by Rich Cardona Media. Thank you to Adam Sanborn for our intro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reviewing and rating our show on Apple Podcasts. It will help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefuture.com and you'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and the creative business. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.