You're listening to the PT Pinecast,
where smart people in healthcare come to
make noise.
Here's your host, Jimmy McKay.
First suggested like, hey,
let's do this regular thing.
And then I was like,
why not Monday at nine thirty?
Why not make it the very first thing
you do on the week?
That sounds like a great idea.
Yes.
Coming in hot from school drop off.
So it's good, though.
It's good.
Good.
Andrea Chaney.
I'm Jimmy McKay.
This is Marketing Doesn't Work.
And just to be clear,
I'm saying that ironically.
But if you don't do it,
it doesn't work.
And if you're doing what you think is
marketing and then you're like,
it doesn't work,
You can dismiss it.
I love to push back because I'm in,
you know, you're in healthcare marketing.
I'm in healthcare marketing, right?
Like communications, PT, right?
In a really small world.
I just gave this little presentation to
students this weekend.
Not a presentation.
I went to APTA's,
APTA New Jersey's like student conclave.
And at the end,
you know how it is.
We all get excited when we speak or
do something and then people hang around
after to ask us a question.
That's always nice.
And some students were like,
but how do we do this?
And the cool part is,
and I don't know if you agree about
this, but they're asking for a real,
they think they're going to get a really
sophisticated answer for me,
but they're not.
And I know this.
And I literally drew six words on,
six letters on the dry erase board.
I like turned into Professor McKay, right?
And it was frequency, intensity, time,
type, volume, and progression.
Have we talked about this before?
We have talked about it, yes.
And I'm like, oh,
first I quiz the students.
I'm like, what is the fit VP principle?
And what are all the words?
And these students at APT in New Jersey
did not even know.
They were like, bang, bang, bang, bang.
I was like, okay,
you didn't skip class that day during X
fits.
Awesome.
And then I wrote them out, frequency,
intensity, time, type, volume,
and progression.
And I said, these are exercise principles.
I paused and they're like, got it.
Where's the magic?
And I'm like,
these are communications principles.
And it was cool because there was like
six of them and one of them was
like, got it.
And the other one's like,
I don't understand.
And I'm like, well,
how often do you show up?
how intense, I guess,
what would you say intensity would be
like, what's the,
what's the level of either fun or inner
information?
Exactly.
Vibe.
Yeah.
I deliver the same thing as someone else,
but do it a different way that it's,
it lands for,
and neither is better or worse.
It's just, what's the intensity,
frequency, intensity, time, type, volume,
progression.
And I was like,
these are exercise principles.
These are communications principles.
These are relationship principles.
These are business principles.
You use these principles with people.
You barely know people.
You never know people are closest to you.
And magically you,
Things work.
So yes, I imagine if you're like,
I tried marketing.
We did three posts last week and get
nothing.
Well, marketing doesn't work.
You're right.
That's the thing.
Whatever you believe to the phrase
marketing doesn't work, you're right.
You're right.
Yeah.
Yes.
Your marketing doesn't work or the way
you're doing marketing doesn't work.
Yeah.
So I rewind them back to who are
we trying to talk to?
What are you going to give to that
person?
What's your give?
We can get into that later.
But first...
If you live by numbers,
you die by numbers.
But numbers are fun.
They're objective.
And you had something sort of blow up
this weekend.
Low up.
This is my most, dare I say, viral.
It's not viral.
But this has been the most engagement I
have seen on LinkedIn.
And so I'll be your hype person,
which is I'll set it up, right?
So you share information,
you work fractionally.
And I don't know if that was a
term one of years, ten years ago.
I don't think it was.
It feels like it just started two years
ago.
It's been more than two years, but yes,
it was not a term.
And fractional is like, hey, listen,
if you don't have budget or the need
to hire someone like Andrea or a CFO
or CMO, be chief marketing officer.
But you're like, we need that.
There are people like Andrea who are like,
I might not want to work for you
full time.
Right.
Because I want a little bit of freedom.
Or I could make more money doing this
and charge you less.
You get a hundred percent of Andrea one
day a week, twenty percent of the time.
Um, and so you, the post was,
I've got the full detail as much as
I could.
You share good information from your point
of view.
And I like it because you're not trying
to get people to just nod, like,
and move on.
Like you're, you're,
you're calling it like you see it.
You're trying to get people to be like,
do you, do you see this?
Am I wrong?
Am I right?
Instead of being like, I'm right, right?
It's like, am I wrong?
Am I right?
So you want me to read this or
you want to do it?
You can read it.
So this is a post from a couple
of days ago.
I worked with a CEO once who reviewed
and revised every piece of marketing,
which sounds like a delight.
Every email, every social post, every ad,
every landing page reviewed.
I have thoughts on this,
as I'm sure you do.
We can do this.
Nothing launched without her approval.
Then months later in a board meeting,
she agreed that, quote,
marketing isn't delivering results,
end quote.
The marketing team wasn't the problem.
The bottleneck was...
uh here's the pattern we often see ceo
delegate marketing decisions or campaigns
uh sorry then campaigns move slowly or not
at all then marketing can't test iterate
or optimize then results suffer then the
ceo blames marketing this is a circle this
is a life cycle you pointed this out
i didn't know this because i'm not really
a c-suite guy what am i what's the
below the c-suite that's where i like to
hang out the bullpen
middle manager i don't know i don't know
i'm in the bleachers if people are in
the seats in the suites at yankee stadium
i'm in the right field bleachers so if
you're if you're gonna own every decision
and wordsmith every message you also have
to own the outcomes
This is why you brought up the CMO
has the shortest average tenure in a
C-suite.
Is it because, hold on a sec,
all CMOs are just terrible?
Or is this part of the problem of
why like, well, that person's wrong.
You know, I think I wrote some,
my response to this was like, well,
if you put your finger,
if you're the CEO and you put your
finger in every bowl of soup that goes
out the door in the restaurant,
don't be surprised when the soup tastes
like fingers.
Nobody likes finger soup.
Stop talking to my soup.
So I'll stop here,
which is if you're going to own every
decision and wordsmith every message,
you also, as the CEO,
have to own the outcomes.
You can't pee all over everything I do
and then say, why didn't it work right?
And this touched a nerve.
It touched a nerve.
And I'll say my intention was not to
give CEOs a hard time.
I was simply saying the quiet thing out
loud,
which is beneficial to both marketers and
founders and that healthcare and beyond
space.
We both work in healthcare,
so it's relevant for us,
but this is across the board.
And this is a conversation I've had with
marketers in my network forever.
It's like a tale as old as time.
And to put this out there and go
like, hey, CEOs,
you might be the problem in a very
not meaning to be like in a demeaning
way,
a helpful way to see so many people
engage with that was was validating and
like a little disheartening.
And I had so many for all the
engagement you see there,
like I received so many DMS
Of people who are like,
I can't comment publicly, but...
That's when you know you've said
something, at least to yourself...
and now it's to others too, true, right?
True, yeah.
You know, you've said the thing, you said,
like you said,
you said the quiet thing out loud and
other people, it's even better.
That's when you know you're onto something
when someone's like, so I agree with you,
but I can't say that.
I can't say that.
Because the person that I'm afraid of
reading that isn't able to accept that.
Right.
And that sucks.
It sucks.
And that's the like the whole this show,
right?
Marketing doesn't work is the perspective
is marketing doesn't work.
There's a lot of reasons why marketing
doesn't work.
And it's not.
Yes.
I mean, CEO, I'm having fun.
I'm making fun by putting up a gif,
a gif of Taylor Swift saying, hi,
it's me.
I'm the problem.
It's me.
Sometimes you sort of need to do that.
I think market, well, this is biased.
I think marketers are fast to do that.
I was taught the fastest way to look
bad as little as possible is be the,
be quick to say, hey,
maybe we did this wrong.
Like own the hell out of it first.
And like, instead of saying,
I am perfect and this failed because of
all of you or one of you screwed
up.
Right.
That whole Taylor Swift gift.
I keep like holstered and I was taught
early in my career.
Hey,
if you lean in and saying I'm there's
a possibility I'm the mistake.
It's harder for people to want to break
out their pitchforks and torches and burn
your house down.
I just had this conversation with a client
the other day about something else and we
both agreed and he's been in business much
longer than I have and he was sort
of sharing a similar like,
this is all we have to do.
And I'm like, yep,
I think it's a good skill and a
good habit.
And I think that, you know,
it's not that CEOs are like,
I want to mess stuff up.
Right.
Like they're smart people.
They've grown a business.
Like it's I think it's a few.
There are a few things that it could
be.
What are they?
I have I have thoughts.
I know that shocks you.
My thoughts are they are they don't
understand marketing.
So they're scared.
There it is.
They're they are afraid.
And I think like I've worked with a
few different people.
like there's fair base right and this is
like everyone has acts out of fair
sometimes but i think ceos who are founder
ceos who have grown a brand are like
i don't want to let go and give
you my baby that's my brand i've told
the story or they just don't trust
marketing they don't understand marketing
it's because they are they're worried and
they're um their butts on the line
ultimately right like
So when I do this, number one,
like Chris Voss would validate the fear.
Hey, listen, I understand.
This is scary.
Marketing is where everything you sort of
can control within reason, operations,
people who you put on your team,
who you don't allow on your team,
touches the rest of the world.
It's like the outer layer of the
spaceship, right?
as you're going to come back in from
what's the heat shield when you're going
to do re-entry, you're like, man,
if this fails, the whole thing explodes.
It's like, yes,
but you constantly going outside the
spaceship and touching the heat shield and
checking it, you're going to burn up.
You're going to screw it up.
You're poking holes in it, man.
But everything boils down to an emotion.
And I learned that.
It took me a while to learn that.
It's like, no, it's this, it's this,
it's this.
I'm like, boil it down.
Keep boiling.
If you're talking to a human,
you can boil it down to an emotion
of why this isn't moving, growing,
any of the verbs.
It's fear or... I mean,
fear is the big one, right?
It's fear.
Fear is the answer.
And I think for people who have...
It's like EQ, right?
And I think trying to validate that for
someone who is willing to have that
validated, like, yes.
And I've had this conversation in the past
where I'm like...
you know, hey, you know,
I think we've all been in dysfunctional
marketing leadership relationships.
Like I have been in more than one
of them.
And I know all of my marketing friends
have been in more than one of them.
And I know I worked with a leader
and I, hey, you know what?
I understand there's a lot of pressure
coming down from private equity,
from the board, whatever.
No, that's not what this is.
And so it's like, okay, well, I'm,
you know,
I'm trying to help you validate this fear,
but I think it's really important to like,
get down to what that emotion is to
then be aligned because we're all
operating.
Like as the marketing leader,
I'm worried that I'm doing something
wrong.
Right?
Like we're,
none of us know what we're doing.
We're all like, we,
we know what we're doing,
but to some extent we're like figuring
this out as we go.
To a degree.
I mean, you said it here,
which I liked.
So here's the pattern.
Here's the life cycle you said you often
see.
CEO won't delegate marketing decisions.
I'll go a step deeper.
They'll delegate it,
but they won't let it go.
Exactly.
Here it is,
but they still have their fingers.
Nope.
Delegation is you've given me a task.
I clearly understand what I'm being
measured on.
This is my former sales director,
John Crawford, speaking through me.
I love this line.
He's like,
make sure you're not playing ice hockey,
but you're being graded on figure skating.
So you scored six goals,
but they're looking for fifteen triple
Lutzes.
It's like we're both wearing skates.
It's like you're being you're being graded
on the wrong thing.
So make sure we understand very clearly
before I leave that room what the goal
is and not just the goal.
Make more sales.
Well, that's sales job.
What's my role?
My role.
Where do you see that?
Help me understand.
I told that to students this weekend too.
You want to have the three most powerful
words in your holster?
Help me understand.
Puts it back on them, but doesn't say,
I don't get it.
I don't get it is lazy.
Help me understand.
Says,
I'd like to meet you more than halfway.
So here's your life cycle.
Here's your next post.
Go into Canva and make this a life
cycle image.
failure to delegate, then the next step,
campaigns move slowly or not at all,
things break down, then marketing can't,
here's the one I wanted to highlight.
If you're over my shoulder,
marketing can't test, iterate,
or optimize.
It's not that we don't know what we're
doing, and I said this before,
this is one of my lines,
humans are human-y.
I was in a meeting this weekend,
helping an organization or suggesting to
an organization,
that they should launch a YouTube channel
and a podcast and fill it with content
regularly.
And I was like,
I am someone who can do that,
but you don't have to hire me,
but I think you should do that.
And they said,
what results can you guarantee?
I paused and I said,
and it looks right into the camera of
the zoom meeting.
I said, none, none.
I can guarantee that I will get this
work done,
but we're putting it out to humans and
humans are human.
Right.
Why did some stuff go, quote,
why do some people gravitate?
That's what marketers, I think,
people never really see unless you're on
the team.
You and I and marketers or non-marketers,
but who are curious, go, hey,
that thing blew up.
Why?
What about that?
And we'll look at that and stare at
it like it's a Mona Lisa for date.
Like, let's look at it from over here.
Huh?
And then sometimes the answer is,
I don't really know.
I don't know.
I've said this so many times to my
teams.
I've said this to like,
sometimes the answer is, I don't know.
We're trying to figure it out,
but I don't know.
Let's talk about this in PT terms.
Sometimes the answer is, it depends.
PTs love that.
Well, it depends.
Yeah.
But then we'll hold that it depends gun
right to the marketing.
You said it was going to work.
Tell me what it is.
No,
we decided this was the best course of
action based on the information we had
given and the tools that we were given
at the time.
And we went we all agreed this was
the best course.
Yes.
And we went forth and then it did
or it did.
The system achieves the results that it's
designed to achieve.
So you can blame the world all you
want,
or you can control what you change the
system again, change one,
change one thing at a time.
Yep.
And then change another.
Yes.
So what'd you learn from this?
Wow.
So I it was what did I learn?
It was validating.
And I think I learned that marketers were
all like living the same marketing life.
But the few CEOs who reached out and
were like, I'm in this situation, like,
what do I do?
What do I do?
I think I think.
you know, it's more common than we think,
right?
So what did I learn is more just
like what was validated.
And now I'm dissecting this to go,
how do I replicate this with the right
audiences?
And it also sort of,
I don't know if you saw my post,
I think I posted it last night,
I was like,
this made me think of an idea and
it was an idea I had a couple
of years ago,
which was to offer like CEO,
CMO alignment sessions.
And it's essentially marriage counseling
for CEO, CMO.
So the fact that CMOs and marketing
leaders have the shortest tenure,
they have the highest turnover and we know
what it costs to hire a C-suite person
or maybe they're not in C-suite,
but a leader like it's super expensive to
hire on board benefits the whole nine
yards.
Um,
nevermind if you need to like pay the
other person severance and all that.
So, uh, I was like, aha,
I can help solve this.
Right.
Like I'm still doing my marketing,
but I can help solve this.
I speak both languages.
I've sat in on board meetings.
I've,
I've been accountable to private equity
firms.
Right.
But I've also been the marketing leader
and I'm like,
this is all it comes down to is
alignment.
So like get down to the emotion,
understand what's happening,
start speaking the same language,
get aligned.
And like, by the way,
don't move the goalposts on me.
And if you do,
please like help me understand why you're
doing that.
Completely hypothetical, Andrea.
What would you do if you saw a
situation like that between someone in
marketing and a CEO and they were given
nine different goalposts to hit in three
to four months?
That's a lot of goalposts, Jimmy.
I mean, I'd probably leave the role.
I don't know.
No, no, no, no, no.
If you were the person in between,
you might.
No, if I'm the person in between,
I would,
that would be like a thousand percent
expectation setting.
Like nobody is going to be successful
given nine or five or four big goalposts.
I feel like Stooges, Musketeers,
Blind Mice, threes for whatever reason,
a good number.
And I mean, it's like,
who can be successful like put it back
in pt terms i don't know i'm not
a clinician like if you're like improve
these nine things i don't think we focus
on we're only allowed to do a lot
of times with insurance it's like my
shoulder hurts and my hip and you're like
well we're gonna work on pick which one
is worse that affects your life and we
even know that and yet a clinician or
someone in health care be like fix these
nine things now
Right.
You can't do it.
And so it's what are the most important?
What are the most impactful to the
business and why?
And then let's start prioritizing.
And also, by the way,
like making sure it's aligned with what
you hired that person for.
Like if you are hiring someone who,
you know,
so I'm not going to go down all
the paths,
but I would say let's let's hit the
pause button is what I would do.
Hey, so help me understand.
You want one person to solve these nine
problems.
How long have these nine problems been a
problem?
How many different solutions, people,
dollars have you put towards these nine?
And you're asking this one person to solve
these nine in four months.
Do we feel that that is realistic?
Right.
And then pause.
Pause.
Right.
Yeah.
So what are you going to what are
you going to call this?
Are you going to call this the CEO
whisperer or what are you going to do?
I mean, that's a that's a cool name.
I don't have a name yet.
Right.
Right now,
when it when it popped into my mind
again, I was like CEO, CMO alignment.
But I think, you know,
it needs a cool name.
So number one,
I learned this and it sounds like I'm
just Jimmy being Jimmy again.
And I am.
But I was taught in radio,
which we only had one dimension to work
with, just sound.
That if it didn't have a name,
it really wasn't tangible.
Yeah.
So every little goofy thing I did,
we called them features or benchmarks.
Like every day at five o'clock on my
radio station that I was on the air
for,
I did something called the five o'clock
block.
I asked for engagement from when I got
on the air from two to three o'clock.
I can't remember if I was on the
air two.
So from two to five, I was like,
had a long day.
When you hit,
when you're like Fred Flintstone and you
hit the whistle and you slide down the
back of your brontosaurus and into your
car and you're going to be driving home,
what should be the soundtrack of today?
Name the band.
So I would let them name the band.
And then we do three songs, one band,
your call, five o'clock block.
But that was the thing.
Honestly,
if it got to like five oh one
and I hadn't kicked it off yet,
the cool part after doing that for a
while, people like what's up, what's up,
what's up with the five o'clock block?
What's the deal?
And then I would also do this thing
called what the hell theater.
what the hell theater was, I would,
you know, radio DJs are just lazy.
We're just sitting in a booth all day
playing Pearl Jam.
I would scour the internet for the dumbest
news stories on the planet.
And I would read you three.
saving the best dumb story for last,
where I would then hit a button and
my voice guy would go, what the hell?
And you can then go online and read
all the stories of the day.
And people would say after a while, hey,
what it's for?
It's for twenty two.
You do what the hell theater at four
twenty five twenty.
What's the deal?
And I think people need to understand that
it does need a name as dumb as
it sounds.
If you can't say it to someone,
if no one can ask for it,
They won't.
Right.
McDonald's puts things on the menu.
They don't just say they'll figure it out
and order it.
They write it down and say what it
is.
Yeah.
They'll say what it is.
Yep.
So what's the next step for you?
Like,
are you going to put this thing together?
You know, I am.
Yeah.
No, I mean,
I have it together because I've had a
few of these experiences, Jimmy,
in my career.
And I'm like,
if only there was a third party to
come in and help us
The funniest part is I have been hired
in full-time roles.
I have been given tasks.
I have come back and say, I understand.
Reiterate the thing you were given.
As I understand,
you want me to do this because of
this to achieve this.
Is that correct?
Here is my plan to do that.
And then people that pay me...
regular money, like every two weeks,
the four one K and health insurance are
like, yeah.
And then a consultant will be hired and
come in.
And I, it's been so funny.
I was sitting there next to a friend
who I'm still friends with.
And he goes,
isn't this essentially what you said a
month or two ago?
And I go,
and then the whole room goes,
that is what we should do.
We should do that.
And I wanted to jump up and scream.
That's a great idea.
I had it.
That I had three months ago.
We have all been there.
So why do we do that?
Why do we undervalue sometimes our own
internal employees,
the people that we know the best,
and in theory, why we hired them,
and then over lean into people who we
just met and just overpaid?
It's like psychology, I think, right?
I don't know.
I think it's like,
this is a third party.
They're unbiased.
This is all they do for a living.
They don't do the other things that we,
you know, I think that's,
and I'm not minimizing it.
Like this is what I do.
And I have found coming in as a
third party person, you are the expert,
but for whatever reason,
the people closest to you,
that you hired to be the expert end
up in this position of, and you know,
I think part of it is like,
you come into a marketing role,
you're treated like a suggestion box.
You get this like fire hose of,
of nonsense thrown at you constantly.
And then you become like,
this is what marketing does internally,
but wait,
there's a person externally who all they
do is this really important strategic
thing.
And it's like, wait, wait, wait, wait,
I'm supposed to be doing that really
important strategic thing.
i'm not knocking the value of a set
of new eyes that is fantastic um i've
been both yes and i've been over valued
when i come in and go so what
this marketing person has been suggesting
i mean i'm sure i could add a
little but like they're
They're going west.
And you told me the goal was find
gold.
And I'm like, they said go west.
Right.
You're just watching them make the sausage
or whatever.
They said to go through St.
Louis and I said to go through
Albuquerque.
But I really think as long as you
hit the goal,
ask a hundred marketers to put together a
plan,
you will never see the same plan twice.
It doesn't mean any of them are
necessarily wrong or right, but...
A hundred times you ask someone who does
this and clearly understood the task,
and then you're going to put your finger
in their soup.
Right.
So, uh,
I've been both and I will continue to
be that third party to help.
And you know,
it's to help CEOs and it's to help
marketers.
It is,
it's really frustrating for everyone
involved to be in that situation.
And it delays business progress.
You're wasting money.
You are just throwing money out the
window.
So my, my goal is, you know,
I come in,
I have three sessions and I,
I help you get there and it's not
a, you know, complain session.
It's like, where are we?
And then let's,
let's get to where we need to be.
Andrea, we got a new sponsor.
Did you know that?
I did not know that.
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When you want some fascial release,
but you also want cuddles,
look up TheraFluff,
the emotional support foam roller at
TheraFluff.com.
Sometimes I do fake sponsor it because it
makes me feel engaged.
It's a really cute foam roller.
I saw a really cool marketing idea.
The quickest way, in my opinion,
to look smart in your industry is to
continually look...
outside your industry at what other
industries are doing and then not copying
them.
That doesn't really work.
But I think stealing the elements,
and Picasso said it was okay.
He said, good artists borrow,
great artists steal.
I love that quote.
I saw a really cool idea and I'm
trying to figure out if I should steal
it,
even if it's just a thought experiment.
I'm going to give you two.
One I did the other day,
and I gave it to a friend.
Concierge PT practice.
They come to you in New York City.
House calls.
Knock, knock, knock.
Your doctor has arrived on door.
Now,
the clinic treatment room is your living
room or your neighborhood.
This is my buddy, Dave Kittle.
And I was sitting on my couch one
night, and this is what marketers do.
It's eleven o'clock.
I should have just been watching a late
night show, but I wasn't.
I was like...
Oh,
the reason I got there was something else.
So it started with door knock,
door hangers,
the things that do not disturb signs in
hotels.
I joined one of your other live streams
late and caught the tail end of this.
So there was the pitch.
The pitch was, could you take those?
They belong in hotels.
They don't belong everywhere else,
which is why it's perfect for marketing
because now the term is it's a purple
cow.
It stands out.
It doesn't belong there.
Why is that there?
It puts an itch in your brain that
you've got to scratch.
You've got to look.
Yep.
Do this for a hundred years.
It doesn't work anymore, but do it,
be the only person to do it.
So I had, I designed,
I mocked up a bunch of these for
him, which were juxtaposition, right?
Like putting it in a place that doesn't
belong is when it actually has power.
So I'll find these,
I'll bring them on screen.
But when you caught the end of that
live, when I was explaining it to Dave,
what were your thoughts?
I thought it was cool.
I thought it was a great idea.
I mean, it's so simple.
This is like one of those.
It's so simple, but different.
Yeah.
i called the campaign please disturb huh
do not disturb please disturb and here's
just some of the images and i'll read
them for the live stream audience or sorry
the podcast audience uh the first one says
and these are all two-sided and i know
how jokes work i don't tell any well
but i know how they work set up
punchline set up punchline set up
punchline so the setup is the one is
the is the side that you leave hanging
so the odd the person coming home from
work can see it
You pique their curiosity.
You put the itch in their brain.
They have to turn it over.
And then hopefully there's a close that
makes them feel like, ooh.
So the first setup is this door leads
to relief.
On the other side,
your living room is our clinic.
Logo, phone number, QR code.
Easy.
Checkout time with an arrow like saying,
hey, turn me over.
Checkout time.
I freaking live here.
What the hell is doing to me?
Oh, for pain.
Your living room is our clinic.
Concierge, pain relief, phone number,
QR code.
This is not a hotel service.
If I come back to my apartment building
where I live, I'm going,
what the hell is this?
Other side,
but we still come to your door.
Logo, phone number, QR code.
What if pain was optional?
This will not land if you're not living
in pain.
That's okay.
This cost me eleven cents.
But if you are, this touches the nerve.
What if pain was optional?
Other side, treatment at home,
results that last.
Concierge pain relief, phone, QR code.
And I think this is the last one.
This door opens to better movement.
We bring physical therapy to you.
Logo, QR code, phone number.
So that was one.
And so you had seen that.
So Dave did come back to me and
he said,
we tried something like this before.
I've heard from a couple other people that
said they tried something like this
before.
But as a good marketer, I pushed back.
So you did door hangers.
Awesome.
I did not think I was the first
person to ever think of this.
What did yours say?
Oh, well, it just had our logo.
It was a billboard.
I go, that's why I didn't.
That's why it didn't work.
Or in my opinion,
would not have worked as well as it
could have.
I had this idea for the woman who
cleaned my house a month and a half
ago.
That's the story I heard.
And I think it's a great idea.
Cost you a hundred bucks and a tank
of gas and an hour of your life.
And if you land one client,
pays for itself.
Pays for itself.
And in the word of mouth, I mean,
like you land one client,
you keep them for a long time.
Yes.
Lifetime value.
The second campaign,
this is the one I haven't talked about
yet.
I'll probably bring it up tomorrow.
So we have our big APTA CSM.
I'm going because I always go because it's
where the elbows are to rub.
Do I need to do something that draws
attention?
And you don't half-ass anything, right?
Whole-ass everything.
That's my strategy.
So it's near Disney.
Do I play on the... So first,
who am I talking to?
Am I trying to get consulting clients?
Am I trying to get someone to hire
me?
Do I dress?
Do I have some sort of handout saying...
I have a few mocked up,
but need to get more attention.
Do you need more patients?
Do you need more,
do you need to hire more clinicians to
grow?
But something's in the way.
And then I want a full legit cosplay
Mandalorian costume.
I will buy this.
I will not,
this will not be from Halloween
superstore.
This will be like someone built this.
Like a real, a real one.
And I will walk around in that.
And then my line will be,
this is the way.
That's the close.
That's the punchline.
Need to do this.
This is the way.
So do I do that?
Okay.
So my second question,
here's the one I want to steal,
but it might be too much and that's
okay.
Sometimes you overpay for a campaign
because the, because the attention,
the memory, the smell,
the taste lingers is worth it.
Yeah.
Nets cafe did this campaign,
I believe in a Canadian city.
Okay.
And they rolled out a bunch of coffee
carts all over the city one morning, one,
let's say Saturday morning, right?
When you're going to get a lot of
people who aren't rushing to work because
you need a little bit of time to
make this campaign work.
And then they went around the city.
They must have had permission because of
what I'm about to tell you.
And they took bike locks,
combination bike locks and red branded
Nescafe coffee mugs.
and they bike locked hundreds of them
around the city.
Park benches, pay phone,
anywhere that the city owned.
The cup is sitting there,
but you can't get it until you get
the code.
So you're like, I want this,
but there's a code.
And there was a little QR code that
you scanned
that led you to check in on social
media and Nescafe was automatically
tagged.
So to get the prize,
to get the free prize inside of the
box of cereal,
you had to announce to your network
Nescafe.
So for, I don't know,
a ten dollar mug and I looked it
up already,
a six dollar bike lock is really as
cheap as you can get them.
You had to unlock it to get the
code for that lock.
You had to advertise to your network the
words Nescafe and a link to Nescafe,
right?
And then... Also user-generated content.
Oh, we're not done yet.
That would have been great.
They went a step further.
I would say they went two steps further.
The instructions after you did this popped
up and said, take that cup and...
to any of these locations and a bunch
of maps right now.
And there are these Nescafe little coffee
carts all over the city.
And we will give you a free cup
of coffee.
one more step further.
If when you bring this cup to prove
that you've done all these steps,
we're going to give you another cup to
share it because this cafe brings people
together.
And I was like, hot.
Now,
could you do this or should you do
this every day?
Absolutely not.
But doing it once in a major city
and I pick a couple of target cities
and I'm
I don't know.
I loved everything.
That is such a cool...
I bet the CEO was not involved in
marketing for that.
Or they were like,
I'm going to bike lock you,
your hands down until I'm done explaining
the idea from front to back.
Yeah.
So, you know, why do you like that?
I think we both like that.
I cherry picked that idea,
but why do you like that one?
I love that idea.
So it is like the element of the
scavenger hunt and it's user generated
content.
It's like so simple, but.
so clever and like the bringing people
together.
So you're you're like working for it.
It's memorable.
You could go buy a coffee mug.
That's not the point.
But you're like, I need to get this.
I'm curious.
This is so cool.
And then, by the way,
I'll get some coffee out of the deal
and give one to a friend.
Very cool.
So do you know Robert Cialdini?
He wrote Persuasion and Influence.
He's a psychologist.
This is where I would go to the
CMO.
Sorry, the CEO.
I would go to the CEO and say,
here's why we're leaning on this to work.
According to Dr. Cialdini,
this leading researcher in influence and
persuasion,
these are the psychological principles
that are at play.
One is, I would say, loss aversion.
Are you familiar with that one?
I am more apt to...
I am more emotionally driven to not lose
ten dollars.
Yes.
Than I am to gain ten dollars.
So to me, I found the mug.
It's there it is.
I found the prize,
but I can't get it.
Yes.
Now I don't want to lose the thing
that I found.
It's now sort of mine.
So I'm going to step,
I'm going to take the twelve seconds or
the two minutes.
Whatever it takes to do this.
Whatever the step is to do this, right?
There is a psychological aspect of
novelty.
If you did this every day,
this would be annoying,
but this is cutesy and the only time
I've ever seen this and I am in
the know,
I am going to be the first in
my circle to do it.
Even if I'm the fiftieth person on the
street,
I'm looking at other people doing it
because there's also going to be the
bystander effect.
A hundred people might walk by this before
the first person even stops and goes,
what's that?
And gets in close enough to the tag
to say, scan me.
Yep.
Win me, scan me, scan me, win me,
right?
There are other psychological principles
at play, but that is the root one.
That, in my opinion, is where you start.
That's why things fail or succeed.
Is this itchy enough?
You know,
Seth Godin wrote that great book,
Free Prize Inside.
So hold on a second.
People knew you had to buy,
people were buying cereal.
You didn't have to convince people to eat
breakfast.
Some people you do,
but most people eat breakfast.
So you're standing, listen, envision,
you're standing in the breakfast aisle.
Well, don't judge a book by its cover,
Andrea.
But of course we judge books by their
cover.
covered and then what would differentiate
fruit loops from fruity pebbles well a
hannah barbara character like pebbles from
flintstones but that little thing in the
bottom right hand corner it said free
prize inside if it's a jump ball what
are you offering
to get more value versus the one that's
not.
This feels like I'm getting more.
Feels like it.
It's four and a half cents worth of
plastic.
Do you remember the Frosted Flakes diving
Tony the Tiger?
I do.
It was like a Tony the Tiger,
this big, half the size of a pen.
And then you would put it in an
empty soda bottle and it would float
unless you squeezed the bottle.
And then magically Tony would sink.
Then when you let it go,
it'd go back to the top.
It was so dumb.
How much money do you think that stupid
sinking tone diving Tony the Tiger was
worth?
Millions.
A lot.
But what would happen if the CEO had
just been like, well, let me touch this.
I feel like I need to touch this.
And I would be like,
you would just be like,
get off the diving Tony the Tiger.
Put your hand back in your pocket.
All right.
So Nescafe,
I feel like it's a good idea.
So let's go full circle.
How does Jimmy steal the Nescafe idea at
CSM?
Like I might get in trouble just bike
locking stuff.
I mean, you could get permission or not.
You could ask for forgiveness.
It's going to be twenty thousand dollars
and then it's the juice ain't worth the
squeeze anymore.
Right.
So what's the so how are we stealing
it?
I don't know.
Like maybe I don't... Okay, here's how.
We're doing this live.
Have you seen those guys that do the
videos where it's two guys who stand a
lot of times on a college campus because
it's a high traffic area and they'll stand
there with tape over their mouth and
they'll have a sign that says like,
first person to bring me a banana wins
a hundred dollars.
And a hundred people walk by and just
go,
and until one person walks by and goes...
Right.
Dining halls right there.
Are they really going to give me a
hundred dollars?
So I'm watching the video to see,
is there a person who's going to do
the banana thing?
So these guys are getting monetized.
So believe me,
they've made their a hundred dollars back
and paid for their time.
So maybe I'd play the Mandalorian idea.
where I don't need to unlock anything or
I could, I don't know,
like there's something there.
There's a crossover.
There is something there.
I mean,
I keep going to like things that are
probably going to cost money though.
So we need to, I don't mind money.
Cause like if I get one client out
of this, it's a loss leader.
Like I don't mind working.
I don't mind getting paid to support my
own advertising.
I would be a,
I would be a disingenuous marketer to say,
got to spend money to make money, bro.
And then say,
I don't want to spend any money.
We keep working on that.
I love the audience because here's the
best part.
Andrea and I do marketing.
I don't think either of us are geniuses.
I think we liked it enough to keep
doing it.
Yes.
And now we're just better than average
than average.
Right.
Because we're okay with, we're okay.
Choose your heart.
We're okay with like, this is frustrating.
I was talking to someone the other day.
about launching podcasts for
organizations.
And then once they were sort of they're
not they haven't signed the contract yet.
But they're on this side of the slope
where they're like, wait,
could we
could we do this?
Wait, could we do that?
And I'm like, now you're thinking like me.
Yes.
And like,
and then an hour later at ten o'clock
at night after like three, could we,
how could we,
do you know what we could do?
And I'm of course not, I'm just,
what do you mean by that?
I'm just letting them go.
Motivational interviewing.
I'm like, and then they go,
This could be fun.
And that's when I jumped back in and
I said, do you want to know why?
In the future,
we'll know if an idea probably won't work
or probably will.
If it doesn't feel fun to us,
it's definitely not going to feel good to
the audience.
Right.
We should maybe really triple down on
looking at that idea.
And I think that's when you turn someone
in from a skeptic into an evangelist.
It's an important thing, right?
For like founders to keep in mind.
Cause sometimes we do things just to check
the box.
Like you're talking about an event and
I've worked with so many people in house
and on the consultant who are just like,
well, you know,
we have to show up and have a
booth and like, we need a banner stand.
And it's like, but like,
what else are we doing?
And the hard thing I think for events
is like, whoa, what's the ROI?
And it's like, well,
we can track that in a few different
ways if you'd like,
but it might not be immediate.
But also if you do a really cool,
fun,
memorable thing and you start to like warm
people up.
Right.
Do you know my response to a C-suite
person?
Because I've had these.
What's the immediate ROI?
And of course,
Jimmy goes into question mode.
What do you mean by that?
Well,
can you prove that going to that
conference is going to pay for itself and
then some by the time you get on
the plane out of that conference?
I already know where I'm going with this.
I want them to lead me.
And I go, huh,
I never thought about it like that.
How much money do you make?
And can you show me what you did
today before you get in your car to
drive home,
had the ROI to cover your salary for
the day?
And then they get real quiet.
And I got to be careful with that
one.
Obviously, because that's personal.
Right.
But it highlights that sometimes the
direct ROI of me walking outside with a
bucket full of ice cold water and walking
at a parade and saying, well,
I bought fifty dollars worth of water,
twenty dollars worth of ice.
I walked around and I walked away with
a hundred bucks positive.
Yes, I understand that.
that's in the immediate transaction
business.
Right.
We're not always in the immediate
transaction business,
especially in healthcare.
Especially in healthcare.
We are not.
I mean,
it's in like B to B conferences that
I've been to, right?
With, we talked about this sales cycles,
how long it takes,
like you're not going to be able to
measure that right away.
Yeah.
That doesn't mean it's not worth doing.
And here are the reasons why we would
do it.
That's why the minute...
Because we didn't really know what we're
going to call this recurring segment.
And we were going to do this and
this.
And then all of a sudden...
When you're starting to try to be cute...
Stop.
Right.
And that's why as soon as I think
I said or I texted you,
marketing doesn't work, we were both like,
ding, ding, ding.
That's it.
Because either the people who were like,
yeah, it doesn't work.
Let me zoom in to see why these
people agree with me.
Or the people who were like,
what do you mean?
Of course it works.
They're going to agree.
They're going to zoom in to see why
they're wrong.
So we're either confirming your belief,
preconceived belief,
or we're flipping your preconceived belief
on its head.
And I think that's important.
Um, so I need,
I need a strategy or sometimes the
strategy is don't.
Did I ever tell you the story or
the, my, my, my look at the Scranton,
Pennsylvania, St.
Patrick's day parade?
No.
So I ran a radio station in Scranton,
Pennsylvania, Northeast Pennsylvania.
I wound up running two radio stations in
Scranton and in my company, my building,
there were,
we owned four radio stations in the
market.
Overall,
how many actually competitive radio
stations were we competing with?
Let's say eight.
Okay.
Of different genres competing for
attention, but different ages,
different demo and psychographics, right?
I ran a rock station.
I wanted dudes, eighteen to thirty-five,
eighteen to forty-five, right?
The country station I ran,
that's a funny side story.
Jimmy McKay,
who can't name four country artists,
ran a country station.
That's a different story.
Pretty great.
Northeast Pennsylvania,
Being in the Northeast, too,
everything's gray for like nine months.
Winter fears long.
The unofficial start of spring and warming
up, St.
Patrick's Day.
There's also a large Irish and Polish
population.
And everybody loves a parade.
Except me.
But everybody loves a parade.
So the Scranton St.
Patrick's Day parade is an event.
It also involves alcohol.
So it's an event, right?
So it's like the parade and selfie in
Boston.
Yes.
You don't even ask.
You don't ask what you're doing on parade
day.
You're doing, it's the parade.
You're doing that.
So every year, like an arms race,
every year we'd go in.
And when I first became a program
director, I was like, I was like,
I was like, I was like,
I was like,
I
pitch your idea, you leave.
He then says, you get this,
you get this, you get this,
you get this.
Because as he should,
you got to earn it.
Right.
Well, of course,
I come up with creative ideas and I'm
pitching and I'm learning.
I'm pitching to him,
but also I want the idea to work
with the audience.
I'm doing this.
And after about three or four years of
pitching the idea, executing the idea,
and in radio,
it's hard to measure results,
like objective results, right?
But you're subjectively measuring.
Like, dude,
we just spent all this for this?
Like, all right.
So I don't know what it was.
Year three, four, five,
I walk in and I position myself in
the room so I could go last.
And Bill Palmieri was like a...
like a tradition, a cliche of a CEO.
Like he was a CEO.
He was a general manager, right?
Business guy,
but he had been a broadcaster.
So he had done all the things.
So he's sitting there with his, you know,
leather notebook and his fancy pan in his
suit.
And he's like, all right,
I'm going to hear your pitches.
And he's being very, you know,
hand on chin.
And he gets to me and he goes,
Jimmy, what do you got?
And I go,
what are you going to do on St.
Patrick's day weekend?
And I go, nothing.
And he goes, the whole room's like,
interesting pitch, Jimmy.
And Bill's smart enough because he knew me
as a newbie and then eventually gave me
my own station and stations was like he
knew he was smart enough to know he's
going somewhere.
And then I said,
I don't want to yell when everyone else
is screaming.
I don't think anybody I think it's so
big.
The parade is so big.
No one will ever notice if we're not
there.
I want this amount of dollars to do
these three ideas in April,
May and June because everybody's going to
blow their load in March.
I'm going to be the only person.
I was always fascinated with like American
history and like the musket balls.
And I'm like, why'd you shoot so early,
dude?
Like that guy's reloading and then,
and then kapow.
So that was the strategy,
which was nothing.
I wanted to do an outdoor campaign with
billboards in April, May and June.
Cause I also knew what my ratings periods
were.
And I said,
I bet you no one will notice we're
not there.
And we could be there.
And they probably like assumed you were
there somewhere else or like didn't think
of it.
They didn't need to think of it.
Correct.
And Bill looked at me and the other
guys who had just pitched were like,
you're like, shoot.
Bill goes, you got it.
But now I needed to come up with
an idea for outdoor.
And we got eight minutes left or ten
minutes left.
Here's what I did.
Maxim magazine was a thing.
And Coors Light National was paired up
with Maxim Magazines, going for dudes.
Coors Light wants dudes.
Maxim Magazine wants dudes.
I got rack music.
We got dudes.
So I said, let's bring things to life.
Let's go non-digital.
When everybody's digital, let's go analog.
And when everyone goes analog,
you go digital.
There's your marketing lesson for the day.
Take that, if anything.
And I said, what is Coors?
So now I got to pay attention to
who cares about what.
Coors Light cares about dudes.
But what they really care about is bars.
Because they know if the bartender or the
bar owner pushes their stuff,
they sell more.
Exactly.
They're like,
how do I make the bar owner happy?
Selling beer is a transaction.
In marketing, we'd call it added value.
What can I get?
You're going to pay for this,
but I'm also going to pay for this.
It's all theater.
But we have to do it.
So I turned to Pat Verastro,
who ran Coors Light and other brands,
and he was similar to my general manager.
Dude, old school,
been sitting there for a million years
going, he'd seen it all.
Trying to wow someone like that,
Go basic.
Because they're going to see right through
your bull anyway.
So I said to Pat, I go,
you want to take care of your bars.
Because if the bars love you,
you're taken care of.
He understood his game.
Don't go to dudes.
Go to the bars.
The bars go to dudes.
And I'm a route to both.
So I said,
you're paired up with Maxim Magazine
Nationwide.
We're going to do a Maxim Magazine contest
in bars.
So the bars are like,
what do I get?
Here's what the pitch was.
The radio station I ran was called
So I said,
we're going to do a Northeast PA search.
We're looking for your next ex-girlfriend.
Because that's the line, right?
That's the cutesy line.
That's a great pickup line.
Hey, how are you doing?
Hey, what are you doing?
Looking for my next ex-girlfriend.
You want to apply?
That's stupid.
And it probably never works,
but it gets the giggle.
Wow.
In the wow and how.
So that's my core, right?
So here's the pitch.
The pitch was pick fifteen bars.
And for fifteen Fridays over the next
fifteen weeks, we'll get a photographer,
a professional photographer to come set up
a backdrop and lights.
And I bring the music and we'll announce
it for a week.
This Friday,
the Maxim model search looking for our
next ex-girlfriend will be at this bar.
And the next week it's at this bar.
And it's zero dollars to get your pictures
taken.
And we'll put the pictures on the Web
site.
That's the prize so far.
Now, when you get there,
we have two different,
we have female cut t-shirts and male cut
t-shirts.
And the male lines had things like,
I'm looking for my next sex girlfriend.
Are you my next sex girlfriend?
Want to be my next sex girlfriend?
I'm iterating those.
And on the back is Coors Light Maxim
and my radio station logo.
And then the girl version of the t-shirts,
little like t-shirts, and they say,
I could be your next sex girlfriend.
Want me to be your next sex girlfriend.
I had people offer me cash to take
the shirt off my back because we ran
out every night.
And everyone wanted the t-shirt.
So what's the point though?
Is the point just to get your picture
on the website?
No,
it goes back to what did Jimmy really
spend his money on
instead of the parade i bought billboards
in northeast pennsylvania on
interstate-eighty-one that got a bajillion
cars passing so i said we're going to
do voting so to get in the contest
girls because the girls if you get why
why do they do ladies night at bars
because they want dudes to drink so they
get ladies and juice follow right
So we did that.
But then what's the carrot for the ladies
be looked at by guys?
I said,
get your picture taken to get in the
contest.
You got to come to at least one
event or you can come to multiple for
more pictures to get more votes on our
website.
I got digital traffic.
And the girl with the most votes gets
her foot.
She's going to be on the billboard.
Oh, boy.
Yeah.
I mean,
you're talking to the wrong person about
this because I'd be like so far away
from this, but you nailed it, right?
Like this is...
And then I think we also did,
I think the first year we really zhuzhed
it up.
It wasn't just votes on the website.
Votes on the website got you invited to
the live party.
And then people were going to cast ballots
at the live party for contestants one
through ten.
And I wore a tuxedo,
and I was doing fun games.
So this is like the whole experience.
Everyone feels special and seen,
and it is memorable.
Yes.
So we did this...
for probably five or six years until I
had to turn to them and be like,
guys, this is jump or let's just,
let's just stop it for a few years
and come back to it.
Cause right now we're, you know,
like the shoes, the sheen has,
has worn off.
Right.
Cause that's like,
you want to be the one on the
billboard.
You don't want to be one of X
number that ends up.
I think it's fine,
but it's like any good idea.
Like after a while,
some things stick around.
Do you remember real men of genius?
I do, yes.
Bud Light's TV radio campaign,
Ruminant Genius,
imagine if the CEO had been like,
but someone had permission and did it,
and it was a great campaign,
and it lasted way longer than I bet
you they thought it would because they
were like, people...
people were calling my radio station to
request a commercial because the
commercials were funny and for people who
don't know me a real man of genius
it was a campaign who was like we
salute real men and then it would take
like here's to you guy who wears a
baseball glove at a major league game and
a jersey
And then it was like,
real man of genius.
You never know when they're going to need
an extra guy and you're already wearing
the jersey and brought your glove.
And it was just like all those stupid
things.
And everyone was like.
It was like a girly guy doing something
like, yes, yes, yes.
I would front tease,
which means like coming up,
we're going to hear from Linkin Park and
a new one from Foo Fighters.
I would front tease the commercial.
I'd be like,
I have fifteen calls for the real men
of genius foam finger guy.
That's coming up next.
Here it is.
Yep.
That's when you know you've got something.
When you're advertising is content.
That is simple.
It's just not easy.
Right.
You can't do... You can't...
can't tell the same joke.
Eventually,
eventually the joke wears out and you have
to recognize that and accept it.
But I got to be honest,
if I worked for Bud Light right now,
do you know what I would bring back?
Twenty years later,
Real men of genius.
And here's why.
To the audience who knew it the first
time, you have a very powerful... Oh,
it's like nostalgia.
They are lovely.
Nostalgia is gold.
And to the second one,
but you remix them and you make them
real men of genius.
Here's to the guy rolling his eyes at
every nine-year-old saying six, seven.
Like, make it new again.
Yes.
And these are powerful weapons,
and you start with the psychological
drivers and move backwards.
This is why people are like,
seven habits of highly successful people.
I don't even remember what the other six
are.
I remember number two,
which is start with the end of mind.
I know there are six other habits.
I hammer on that one, which is,
what does the end of the scavenger hunt
look like?
Is that a photoable moment?
Is it powerful enough to make people jump
through the hoops?
And it doesn't notice.
I mean, what did that cost?
Sixteen dollars per mug.
Right, because a bike lock was six,
we'll say a mug is ten and you're
going to give away a second mug.
So that's twenty six dollars.
Is it worth it?
Depends, depends on what your goal is,
depends on what your goal is.
Well, right.
What does success look like?
How are you measuring it?
What's your goal?
All right.
Parting shots.
Wow, we talked a lot today.
This is a good, I didn't, I mean,
we come in with minimal notes,
but what would you want to leave with
the audience as we wrap up?
Parting shot.
Oh man, we talked about so many things.
Parting shot.
You know what?
I'm going to go back to my post
that you brought up.
And it is, gee, what's the parting shot?
I think CMO, CEOs,
figure out a way to get aligned because
you are wasting money and time if you
are not.
It's a nice way to say it.
Call it like your campaign should lead
with, can't we all just get along?
Marriage counseling for CEOs and CMOs.
Because divorce in the C-suite is
expensive.
There it is.
And you're welcome.
Play it back.
My parting shot would be today,
understand the psychology of what you're
asking someone to do.
you're asking them to do something show up
pay attention give me money give me effort
give me time you're asking for it uh
the value of that or perceived value and
i would say all value is perceived value
uh depends on it depends on if they
will even consider following through or
not uh we'll be back next monday because
marketing doesn't work
That's it for this one,
but we're just getting warmed up.
Smash follow, send it to a friend,
or crank up the next episode.
Want to go deeper?
Hit us at pgpinecast.com.
Or find us on YouTube and socials at
pgpinecast.
And legally, none of this was advice.
It's for entertainment purposes only.
Bullshit!
See, Keith?
We read the script.
Happy now?