#307: Should You Invest in Community?

#307 Building Community | In this episode Dave joined Ali Orlando Wert (Director of Content Marketing & Brand at Databox) on their podcast called Move the Needle. She did an interview with Dave focused on community building. They cover how Exit Five grew 80 percent by operating more like a startup than a Slack group. Dave gets into the truth of building community, why most companies should not launch one, how to measure brand without losing your mind, and why AI has everyone simultaneously energized and spiraling.

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Dave [0:00:00]: You're listening to B2b marketing with me, Dave Gerhardt.

Ali [0:00:17]: Welcome to Move the Needle.

Ali [0:00:18]: Today, We're joined by Dave Gerhardt, the founder of Exit Five, which is the top community for B2B marketing professionals.

Ali [0:00:24]: Prior to founding Exit Five, Dave was also the Vp of marketing, and then the Chief brand officer at Drift.

Ali [0:00:30]: Where his work helped the company achieve a billion dollar exit.

Ali [0:00:33]: Also, previously Cmo at P, which he led towards a hundred million dollar plus exit.

Ali [0:00:38]: So a lot of great experience there, Dave is also the author of founder brand, a frequent podcast guest and speaker, Dave or someone.

Ali [0:00:45]: I've been really excited to chat with for a while, so welcome to the show.

Dave [0:00:48]: Oh, thank you.

Dave [0:00:49]: That's that's kind of you.

Dave [0:00:50]: It's always more fun to chat with somebody when they wanna talk to you.

Ali [0:00:54]: Oh, you know what?

Ali [0:00:54]: I as the podcast host.

Ali [0:00:55]: I only choose people that I actually wanna talk to you.

Dave [0:00:58]: That's how much should be.

Dave [0:00:59]: Heck care.

Ali [0:01:00]: Yes.

Ali [0:01:00]: I followed Exit Five for a while.

Ali [0:01:01]: You guys put out so much great useful content for B2B marketer.

Ali [0:01:05]: So, this is a pleasure for me to get to chat with you.

Dave [0:01:07]: Cool.

Dave [0:01:07]: Thank you.

Ali [0:01:08]: I wanted to start by talking about community.

Ali [0:01:10]: Obviously.

Ali [0:01:11]: Yes, This is core to Exit Five offerings and something you talked about a lot.

Ali [0:01:16]: And you've shared that Exit Five grew nearly eighty percent last year by treating your marketing community like a product, and I wondered if you could talk more about that.

Dave [0:01:26]: Oh, jeez.

Dave [0:01:26]: I always getting in trouble when I write things online and then people come back with the the statements.

Dave [0:01:31]: I mean, so the short answer is it is our product.

Dave [0:01:35]: Right?

Dave [0:01:35]: And so what's cool about x Exit Five is that this whole thing kinda started unintentionally.

Dave [0:01:40]: I was a marketing person, and I just grew to love marketing, and I found there's this kinda whole sub world of, like, people sharing about sharing what you're doing with your job online whether you work in marketing or sales or accounting or gardening whatever the domain is if you share that stuff online, you can attract like minded people.

Dave [0:01:59]: So I started writing about marketing years ago on Linkedin, and I had a podcast, and then I happen to work at a company that made marketing software and so I got even closer to the role of marketer And along the way, I I launched my own little private community of of marketing people on the side, and it was just...

Dave [0:02:15]: It was called Dg g, Dave care hard marketing group, my wife likes it tell me that I'm terrible at naming things.

Dave [0:02:20]: Right?

Dave [0:02:21]: And I had no plans to, like, turn it into a real business or a real company it was just I was a Cmo, and this was kinda, like, my subs stack.

Dave [0:02:28]: Right?

Dave [0:02:29]: But it was on Patreon now subs is more popular.

Dave [0:02:31]: It's just a good analogy.

Dave [0:02:32]: And then, a couple years ago, we had Basically, grown a couple thousand members.

Dave [0:02:37]: We had a podcast made a newsletter.

Dave [0:02:39]: We had companies wanting to sponsor people asking about doing events, and I had this kind of weird in between year of wandering after.

Dave [0:02:46]: Those companies that you mentioned in intro had some exits.

Dave [0:02:50]: I was doing consulting for a little bit, and then the consulting money was really good until twenty twenty one, and then the z era went away and all these founders that had all this Vc money, and then All dried up and there wasn't a lot of money in consulting and I realized It had the opportunity to basically burn the boats and try to turn this Dg g thing into a real business.

Dave [0:03:09]: And I wanted to basically brand it, so it wasn't You know, I wasn't the center of it.

Dave [0:03:14]: I had seen other successful communities in the past.

Dave [0:03:17]: I super familiar with Max Alt show...

Dave [0:03:20]: Sc from Gt fund, and he had this company called Sales hacker.

Dave [0:03:24]: They sold the outreach back in the day.

Dave [0:03:25]: I think Sam Jacobs in Pavilion.

Dave [0:03:27]: They've built a really cool business and I kinda start to realize that we have that already.

Dave [0:03:31]: We already had product market fit.

Dave [0:03:33]: We already had thousands of paying members.

Dave [0:03:35]: We already had a popular podcast.

Dave [0:03:37]: I just had it on under this Dg g brand, and so I wanted to rebranded to something memorable Exit Five, hire a team and build from there.

Dave [0:03:46]: And so really, it was more of this decision of, like, everything I think in the in the trajectory of the business now goes back to, like, the fall of twenty twenty three when I decided to take it from, a side project of mind for since dating back to November of twenty nineteen.

Dave [0:04:00]: So what was that four years and deciding to, like, hire real people brought on Dan Murphy to Bc coo, brought on a couple other people on the team built a real company.

Dave [0:04:10]: And so the community piece is a part of the business.

Dave [0:04:13]: And so instead of it just treating it like, you know, initially with my patreon thing I was like, oh, if I had an additional thought, I would just kinda go and got it out, You know, I I dare.

Dave [0:04:21]: I wrote my two minutes on patron for the day.

Dave [0:04:23]: Instead, we try to treat, like a real product.

Dave [0:04:25]: We have a product owner map on our team as the community manager.

Dave [0:04:28]: We have a road map.

Dave [0:04:29]: We have features.

Dave [0:04:30]: We have feedback.

Dave [0:04:31]: We do N mps.

Dave [0:04:31]: We have things we wanna build.

Dave [0:04:32]: And so just really taking the care to treat it like a real product.

Dave [0:04:36]: The last two years as opposed to kinda dave's side project has been everything.

Ali [0:04:40]: And still run by a pretty small team.

Ali [0:04:42]: Right?

Ali [0:04:42]: Team of five or six?

Dave [0:04:44]: Yeah.

Dave [0:04:44]: Team of five or six.

Dave [0:04:45]: Although in the age of Ai, all of the Linkedin content in the Vcs and everybody will tell you that probably even five people is too many, so it really should just be fire everyone should be me and, like, a chat Or something like that.

Dave [0:04:56]: So I'm very self conscious about the teams at notch today.

Ali [0:04:59]: That's what I know.

Dave [0:05:00]: It's five five people, It's a good size for where we're at.

Dave [0:05:02]: And, most importantly, I'm having a lot of fun, and I feel like I've been growing again professionally, which is really cool?

Ali [0:05:10]: That's the best part.

Ali [0:05:10]: From your perspective, what are some of the keys to launching and growing a successful community.

Dave [0:05:16]: Okay.

Dave [0:05:16]: Well, we can't answer that question without first peeling back, like, what is the definition of community?

Dave [0:05:21]: And I don't have a perfect definition.

Dave [0:05:23]: I feel like I wrote this down at some point, but I'm not gonna try to recite and not have it in, like, a Apple note.

Dave [0:05:29]: Because I wanted to try to write a definition for his actually To see if I can look it up while here.

Dave [0:05:33]: Mh.

Dave [0:05:34]: Because A lot of people ask, you know, obviously, I'm a huge thought leader in a building community.

Dave [0:05:39]: That was a joke.

Dave [0:05:40]: You

Ali [0:05:40]: didn't wow.

Dave [0:05:42]: He never know some people think that's funny.

Dave [0:05:43]: My team gives me hard time it's an internal joke, and I say it externally like, wow.

Dave [0:05:47]: He really is

Ali [0:05:48]: an asshole.

Ali [0:05:48]: Love it.

Ali [0:05:49]: Thanks for the clarification.

Dave [0:05:51]: Yeah.

Dave [0:05:51]: That's okay.

Dave [0:05:52]: So the community question is Because there's a community, which is, like, a Slack group, but, you know, we have ours is on Circle.

Dave [0:05:59]: It could be Whatsapp because you whatever And then there is a community, like, I live in this town in in Vermont, and there's a local community because we all kinda live in this surrounding area and we wanna take care of the land, and we pay taxes and we go to the school.

Dave [0:06:13]: And so I think that First question is like, are we talking about should you build a private walled community user group place.

Dave [0:06:22]: And I think you can make the case that, Maybe you should, maybe you shouldn't.

Dave [0:06:25]: Right?

Dave [0:06:26]: But I think the broader thing is, like, community to me is the most one of the most powerful ingredients in marketing because, basically you're tapping into this shared interest.

Dave [0:06:35]: So let's forget about, like, where it's hosted, what it is, private community, public, whatever actual place somebody goes to log and more just like, yeah, like, dads who run is a community.

Dave [0:06:46]: That doesn't mean that we have a circle product that we're gonna log in by Think.

Dave [0:06:49]: Right.

Dave [0:06:50]: This is what the unique opportunity is from a business standpoint, which is, like you're selling you're selling a product.

Dave [0:06:56]: Right?

Dave [0:06:56]: You work at Databox.

Dave [0:06:58]: How would you describe the product.

Dave [0:06:59]: One or two lines about, like, the space you play in data analytics?

Ali [0:07:03]: Yeah.

Ali [0:07:03]: Business intelligence.

Ali [0:07:04]: Yeah.

Dave [0:07:05]: Okay.

Dave [0:07:05]: Business intelligence Perfect.

Dave [0:07:06]: And so there are plenty of people in the world who work in business intelligence?

Dave [0:07:10]: There is probably something that they can rally around that has nothing to do with Databox, but you can be basically the stewards of that conversation.

Dave [0:07:17]: Right?

Dave [0:07:18]: They all go to work every day.

Dave [0:07:19]: They all have problems.

Dave [0:07:20]: You are in the middle of those because you have customers, you know this world really well.

Dave [0:07:23]: You know, Pete's been working in this industry forever now.

Dave [0:07:26]: Like, you have all this Information and knowledge.

Dave [0:07:29]: So you can basically be the one to host the party.

Dave [0:07:31]: Yeah.

Dave [0:07:32]: And people built that that's one form of a community.

Dave [0:07:34]: Right?

Dave [0:07:34]: Another form of community is, like, people just love certain products like Str is a great example of it's like, people who run or bike, they have this great app.

Dave [0:07:44]: You can track your runs That app, by the nature of it has community built in because we're gonna be friends.

Dave [0:07:48]: We're gonna connect on the app.

Dave [0:07:49]: You're gonna see all my details.

Dave [0:07:50]: And then there's the other example, Which it's like, okay, Do we wanna build a private walled space for people to hang out.

Dave [0:07:57]: And there isn't one really...

Dave [0:07:59]: I can't give you one snippet for social media to answer that question because I think it's kinda like anything in marketing There's a lot of Nuance, and I would...

Dave [0:08:06]: I would kinda run down the place there.

Dave [0:08:07]: Mh.

Dave [0:08:08]: And then you look at a company like Hubspot.

Dave [0:08:10]: They built this category of inbound marketing back in the day that raving fans, and they weren't raving about Hubspot software.

Dave [0:08:16]: It was Hubspot said, hey, there's this was twenty ten.

Dave [0:08:19]: Obviously, this is all changing now, but twenty ten, they said, hey, there's a new way to do marketing and tub out, like, creating content that people love and it attracts them to your brand.

Dave [0:08:27]: Mh.

Dave [0:08:28]: That was such a powerful message at the time because it's like, I'm one of those marketers like, I love writing.

Dave [0:08:33]: I love creating content.

Dave [0:08:34]: I'm not in it for all the outbound and ads and all that stuff And so, yeah, like, I rock with Hubspot.

Dave [0:08:39]: That's cool.

Dave [0:08:39]: I was a fan of them for fifteen years before ever buying their product, but I was a fan...

Dave [0:08:43]: They told me this mission this this kind of vision that they had about inbound marketing, And...

Dave [0:08:47]: Yeah.

Dave [0:08:48]: I would consider myself a community member of Hubspot despite the fact that I never logged in into a community.

Dave [0:08:53]: Right.

Ali [0:08:54]: So

Dave [0:08:54]: that's that's not an answer as me trying to explain all of the nuance there and I'm happy to jump in into it from there, and then Mh.

Dave [0:09:00]: I'm assuming most of the audience.

Dave [0:09:02]: So this is in B2B.

Dave [0:09:03]: And I think what's cool about B2B is the opportunity is that, like, where The opportunity from a company standpoint is to help people do their jobs better.

Dave [0:09:10]: And I believe that, like knowledge and expertise and education is the best ingredients for successful B2b marketing.

Dave [0:09:18]: You have to have a great product.

Dave [0:09:20]: You have to have a product that works and people wanna use and love and enjoy.

Dave [0:09:24]: But if you can create content and education around the bigger problem that you're trying to solve.

Dave [0:09:29]: Mh.

Dave [0:09:30]: Help me as a salesperson help me as a marketer, that is how you build community.

Dave [0:09:33]: And ideally, when you build community, you build loyalty trust affinity, so that when somebody has the time in place that when they're ready to buy that product, they're gonna...

Dave [0:09:42]: They might not necessarily always buy you, but they're gonna put you first on the shopping list.

Ali [0:09:46]: Yes.

Ali [0:09:46]: That makes sense.

Ali [0:09:47]: I like that you covered the whole spectrum there of different ways to think about community, and I would imagine if a company is not doing a good job building that broadest definition of community, steward in good conversations, attracting people to the story and the point of view that you have, then there's really no point in jumping to trying to build a wall or a paid community because you haven't

Dave [0:10:09]: done.

Ali [0:10:10]: Groundwork first.

Dave [0:10:10]: I love.

Dave [0:10:10]: I like, I like the way you reframe that because that...

Dave [0:10:12]: That to me is where all of this starts.

Dave [0:10:14]: Right?

Dave [0:10:14]: I think I get a lot of questions about how to build a community because that's the business and the world that I've happened to be, but I'm not an expert in.

Dave [0:10:20]: I didn't I don't have an opinion, like, every company because I have a private community with Exit Five.

Dave [0:10:25]: Yeah.

Dave [0:10:25]: I think everybody often thinks that, like, my point of view is, like, every company should have a private community.

Dave [0:10:30]: And it's like, no.

Dave [0:10:31]: You actually shouldn't because what happens is like, most often, like, all communities is my biggest fear with Exit Five and them.

Dave [0:10:37]: Eventually, every community goes to goes to zero at some point because it just becomes spam.

Dave [0:10:42]: It just becomes noise or the community starts off strong.

Dave [0:10:45]: You wanna launch a community at Databox and, you know, you hire...

Dave [0:10:48]: This is no disrespect to you.

Dave [0:10:50]: All this just how this usually happens in a I'm.

Dave [0:10:52]: Here.

Dave [0:10:52]: I like to speak with examples.

Dave [0:10:53]: You know, you hire Pete's twenty two year old niece to, like, manage the community, and it's a Slack group, and, like, it starts off nice, but then, like, after kind of four weeks, it just ends up being, like, people promoting their own blog posts in there.

Dave [0:11:07]: And so I don't think that every company should have a community at all.

Dave [0:11:11]: We got into this because I think it's a unique business opportunity that we got in where, like, I had two thousand subscribers on Patreon, a member of mine Henry Johnson messaged me one day.

Dave [0:11:22]: And he's like, hey, man, It's cool to listen to you, but, like, since there's two thousand of us and they're, like, how about you let us all talk to each other and I was like, Yeah.

Dave [0:11:28]: Oh.

Dave [0:11:29]: That's genius dude.

Dave [0:11:32]: And so we added the community from that so I'm standpoint.

Dave [0:11:34]: So I I don't I don't feel strongly.

Dave [0:11:36]: In fact Actually probably...

Dave [0:11:37]: Recommend most people don't, and I think instead, most people focus on what you talked about in the beginning of that question, which is like, let's focus on, like, let's just take a level up from where our product is.

Dave [0:11:47]: Like, if where Databox and we are business intelligence, like, we want the people who work in business intelligence, a business intelligence to to spend their time with us?

Dave [0:11:57]: How do we get them to do that?

Dave [0:11:58]: Well, it's not gonna be about talking about the features and all the nonsense and Databox It's gonna be like, well, would it Be I folks care about.

Dave [0:12:04]: What do they do?

Dave [0:12:05]: Are, you know, they have their own language.

Dave [0:12:06]: They have their own humor, what we're seeing with Exit Five is like beyond all the marketing stuff they we're talking about.

Dave [0:12:11]: It's like, people want work friends, virtually either.

Dave [0:12:14]: Right?

Dave [0:12:14]: Because nobody else like none of my, like, dad friends care about that, a B2b marketing.

Dave [0:12:21]: Yeah.

Dave [0:12:22]: You don't care.

Ali [0:12:23]: Oh, no.

Dave [0:12:24]: It's a it's very surprising.

Dave [0:12:25]: Right?

Dave [0:12:25]: I just help me by work in the Internet.

Ali [0:12:28]: There you

Dave [0:12:28]: I go.

Dave [0:12:29]: But we have six thousand five hundred people inside of Exit Five who do care deeply about Pb.

Dave [0:12:34]: And so what's cool is like, it kind of flips the conversation.

Dave [0:12:37]: So now it's like, oh, you know, this is Charlie.

Dave [0:12:39]: Charlie is Vp of marketing at this Ai company.

Dave [0:12:43]: Charlie also likes to run.

Dave [0:12:45]: Charlie also has three kit.

Dave [0:12:46]: Now we're building a french.

Dave [0:12:48]: So so it's not just about, like, that we share, like, hot marketing tips in there.

Dave [0:12:52]: Like, we're really seeing this.

Dave [0:12:53]: That's the power of communities connecting people.

Dave [0:12:56]: And so that...

Dave [0:12:56]: That's like the pro from, like the data of side is, like, How do we connect people in the Bi world and then the result of that downstream is hopefully they'll end up buying our product window?

Dave [0:13:05]: Mh.

Ali [0:13:05]: I love it.

Ali [0:13:06]: I mean, music to my content marketing errors.

Dave [0:13:08]: The hard part though is...

Dave [0:13:09]: So that the everything I just described is, like, that's how marketing works.

Dave [0:13:13]: But then, like, the Ceo and the Cfo offer, like, awesome.

Dave [0:13:16]: So how are you gonna measure that?

Ali [0:13:18]: Oh, how did you know that was my next question.

Dave [0:13:21]: Didn't.

Dave [0:13:21]: But it's

Ali [0:13:22]: I mean, we are?

Dave [0:13:23]: No no.

Dave [0:13:23]: We're gonna try yeah.

Dave [0:13:25]: And we'll make sure that anytime they talk about her company, we will use a Ut link and we will be able to perfectly measure this I promise you.

Ali [0:13:33]: You mean, you haven't figured out how to perfectly measure all of it?

Ali [0:13:36]: That doesn't Yeah.

Ali [0:13:37]: You wanna ask the question.

Dave [0:13:38]: Why don't you ask the question?

Ali [0:13:40]: Perfectly.

Ali [0:13:40]: How do you try to come tie, we'll say community, social, the broad definition of community engagement back to business outcomes.

Dave [0:13:50]: Okay.

Dave [0:13:50]: So I feel like whenever we talk about this question, we by default, assume that the people in our community in our audience are just complete morons and have no idea and no recall and they'll never tell you.

Dave [0:14:04]: And what I found I'm certainly not an analytics expert.

Dave [0:14:07]: I'm good at writing and storytelling.

Dave [0:14:09]: I haven't done this at a humongous company.

Dave [0:14:12]: And so I'm sure the rules are different for how you'd measure the Roi of a billboard by Cisco in the Austin airport.

Dave [0:14:17]: I I don't know how to do those things.

Dave [0:14:19]: Not what I'm good at.

Dave [0:14:20]: But I I find that a lot of times, believe it or not.

Dave [0:14:25]: People will tell you.

Dave [0:14:27]: That's it.

Dave [0:14:28]: That's number one.

Dave [0:14:30]: We can r on that more, but that is the networking one.

Dave [0:14:32]: And and in fact, I worked to this company called Drift and we had this amazing podcast there that we did and the podcast ended The podcast was not about our product.

Dave [0:14:40]: It was about work in life and entrepreneurship and startup up lessons and no joke the first million dollars in revenue that we did as a company.

Dave [0:14:48]: We've probably had five sales reps at the time.

Dave [0:14:52]: I would bet you that seventy five percent of them would tell you like, hey.

Dave [0:14:55]: I on a call with a prospect today, and she told me that she listens to seeking wisdom, and she's a super fan.

Dave [0:15:00]: So how do we measure that?

Dave [0:15:03]: How do we know?

Dave [0:15:03]: That is how we know.

Dave [0:15:04]: She just told us.

Dave [0:15:05]: Literally just told.

Ali [0:15:07]: Right.

Dave [0:15:08]: But it's like, we wanna try to, like, break down all of the ingredients and and it's like, okay.

Dave [0:15:13]: Well this part costs twenty dollars and this part costs tend.

Dave [0:15:16]: We need to add them all up and then like, make the math work by the part, but it's like, no.

Dave [0:15:20]: This is good marketing.

Dave [0:15:21]: Which is it doesn't feel like marketing because it's really not.

Dave [0:15:24]: It's community building.

Dave [0:15:25]: Its audience building.

Dave [0:15:25]: Its content.

Dave [0:15:26]: Right?

Dave [0:15:26]: You know, content is your thing.

Dave [0:15:28]: Imagine every single article you wrote, you had to, like, try to tell someone in your team, like, what the Roi of that article was.

Dave [0:15:35]: Yes.

Dave [0:15:35]: It's like, no.

Dave [0:15:36]: That's not how it works.

Dave [0:15:36]: The goal is like, over time, Mh.

Dave [0:15:38]: We publish lots of great, relevant, useful specific content on the Databox site.

Dave [0:15:43]: We get more traffic.

Dave [0:15:44]: We get more links.

Dave [0:15:45]: People talk about us Now people just start to show up without us doing anything.

Dave [0:15:48]: Yeah.

Dave [0:15:49]: And they hear about us.

Dave [0:15:50]: And so what's really cool now is and we didn't have all this in that era, which is, like, all this is gonna come up on sales calls and you can record them with whatever you're using and get that data.

Dave [0:15:59]: Like, that's what I would be looking for be like, how many of the hundred customers that we close this month if you have a emotion where you have sales reps that are in that process or even customer success or whatever.

Dave [0:16:08]: Like, just ask them.

Dave [0:16:10]: How did End up appearing about us?

Dave [0:16:11]: And they're gonna tell you oh, Went to this event or I listen this podcast?

Dave [0:16:13]: And so I think you can find ways to measure anything, really, a I read this question is more of, like, how do we justify it?

Dave [0:16:20]: And I think...

Dave [0:16:21]: And I think the way that you'd need to start by justifying it is, like, if your company does not inherently understand that this is how great marketing works.

Dave [0:16:27]: And like, you need to sit down and need to draw that out, and I think this is the job of a good marketing leaders to be like, hey, Let's first, like, talk about the customer journey.

Dave [0:16:34]: Let's talk about how people are gonna buy our product, and let's get an agreement with that.

Dave [0:16:38]: Right?

Dave [0:16:38]: Because it's not just this entirely coin operated machine.

Dave [0:16:42]: Mh.

Dave [0:16:42]: And so the very first thing I'm gonna do, and I used to do this all the time at Drift internal marketing was a big part of our of our job there was basically, like, explain to the company and the Cfo and with sales team whatever Like our philosophy Like, hey, here's how we think people are gonna buy from us.

Dave [0:16:57]: Right?

Dave [0:16:57]: They're doing research.

Dave [0:16:58]: They're gonna go to events.

Dave [0:16:59]: They might do some Google searches of, yes, we gotta show up an Seo.

Dave [0:17:03]: We gotta show up an ads, but there's kinda all this other stuff that we can influence them.

Dave [0:17:06]: They buy from text know.

Dave [0:17:07]: Their friends are influencing these purchase decisions.

Dave [0:17:10]: And so you have to teach people how good marketing works.

Dave [0:17:13]: Right?

Ali [0:17:13]: No.

Dave [0:17:14]: So Like, did you buy that Cla v bag because you saw this direct response added media clicked on it Inbox.

Dave [0:17:20]: Like, no.

Dave [0:17:20]: You will, you you got a friend who had that bag and you like that style?

Dave [0:17:24]: And then you end up, like, hearing this thing and you you heard this, like, the founder actually, like, is a big believer in, like, women's rights, and she donated all this money to this call.

Dave [0:17:33]: All that.

Dave [0:17:33]: Cool, that brand is really.

Dave [0:17:34]: Then you happen to be sitting on the couch one night, and you see an ad and you're kinda, like, you know, watching Bravo and it's kinda boring.

Dave [0:17:39]: And then you buy the bag.

Dave [0:17:40]: Right?

Dave [0:17:41]: Yeah.

Dave [0:17:41]: The ad is gonna get the credit for that Same thing in in B2b, it is being able to tell that whole story.

Dave [0:17:46]: And so I think people are gonna tell you by doing it.

Dave [0:17:48]: I also think the way you measure this is one of the simplest ways to think about brand in this sense, and I think about brand meaning like your reputation, not your, you know, logo or colors, is how many people showed up to your website directly.

Dave [0:18:02]: Mh.

Dave [0:18:02]: Right.

Dave [0:18:03]: I've heard the term Databox.

Dave [0:18:05]: I know they do business intelligence.

Dave [0:18:06]: Like, how many people went directly to Databox.

Dave [0:18:08]: Dot com because...

Ali [0:18:09]: Large percentage

Dave [0:18:11]: who's doing that if they don't haven't heard.

Dave [0:18:12]: Right, the challenge is, you don't know if the thing that got them there was, like, your Instagram post or Pete's like Linkedin rant or whatever?

Dave [0:18:20]: Yeah.

Dave [0:18:21]: But I think we're just looking at broad strokes like, And then the other the other part is, like, with social media today, you can feel it.

Dave [0:18:28]: This is what's amazing about social media marketing, and it's not a secondary part of a brand strategy what's it's the core part is like.

Dave [0:18:34]: And I'm sure I've seen pete's content as an example.

Dave [0:18:36]: But, like Sure you can write about things.

Dave [0:18:38]: And the response to a topic, now becomes a signal for, like, man when we write about blank.

Dave [0:18:44]: Right?

Dave [0:18:45]: Give me an example.

Dave [0:18:45]: I'm sure to tap inside the company he.

Ali [0:18:48]: Well, I take a little bit of pride on this one.

Ali [0:18:49]: So I will give you an example.

Ali [0:18:51]: I will say Pete's post that blew up the most within the last three months was one that he wrote up about our content playbook, actually and talked about specifically how we do podcasts, repurpose that into newsletters, you know, in support of our.

Ali [0:19:07]: Multi channel, omni new channel strategy.

Ali [0:19:09]: But got very specific about how exactly we do it laid out the playbook and that one that one did really well.

Dave [0:19:15]: So that did really well.

Dave [0:19:16]: Doing really well doesn't necessarily mean that you got seven new customers from that company.

Ali [0:19:21]: Right?

Ali [0:19:21]: Yep.

Dave [0:19:21]: But it means that probably more likes and comments, and then the actual qualitative of the comments matters, like, again, back to the we're not more on thing like, wow, I'm getting a lot of Vp vps or heads of marketing or, like, people at legit companies commenting on this post or, like, asking me to send them the recipe or whatever.

Dave [0:19:37]: Those signs all matter.

Dave [0:19:39]: Those are all signals, probably getting more Dms, probably over time.

Dave [0:19:43]: It's getting shared.

Dave [0:19:44]: Yep.

Dave [0:19:45]: Those are signs.

Dave [0:19:46]: That's how we know that this is working.

Dave [0:19:48]: Mh.

Dave [0:19:49]: We need to stop trying to, like, compare what's working with, like, direct response marketing.

Dave [0:19:55]: Right?

Dave [0:19:56]: What's working with, like, a Ppc ad is gonna be, like, are we spending money on this traffic and is the traffic converting?

Dave [0:20:03]: What's working with content brand community is this stuff that's gonna build and take time.

Dave [0:20:09]: And then the last thing I'll shut up on this is...

Dave [0:20:11]: Also think like, just the brand and awareness is just so underrated, and we don't think about enough, or we think that awareness has to mean, like, We engaged some, like, research firm and all these...

Dave [0:20:21]: You know, we did this big study.

Dave [0:20:22]: I would put it as, like, look, if you have a sales team?

Dave [0:20:25]: Like, do you wanna work for the brand where more people know that your company exists or not.

Dave [0:20:29]: Right?

Dave [0:20:29]: And so when we're doing outbound?

Dave [0:20:31]: Have people heard of us before roughly?

Dave [0:20:32]: Then, like, marketing basically opens the doors for all those all of those conversations like, we used to say Drift this.

Dave [0:20:40]: Like, this is, like, you know, you kinda get that rusty squeaky door that's hard to open and then, like, you come in and spray some W.

Dave [0:20:46]: Forty on it, and it's much easier to open, that's Yeah what great marketing and great

Ali [0:20:50]: content

Dave [0:20:50]: content can do for the brand, you just gotta be able to, like, package all of this up and explain how you're doing marketing internally to the company.

Dave [0:20:58]: If you're just out there and you're talking about how you're writing three articles a week and that's all you ever talk about.

Dave [0:21:04]: Then, of course, everyone's gonna be like, do we pay this first?

Dave [0:21:06]: And then, like, when does it cost to produce these articles?

Dave [0:21:08]: And how long they take?

Dave [0:21:09]: What's what's the result?

Dave [0:21:10]: Because you can paint this bigger picture?

Dave [0:21:12]: I think that is where you'll be more successful in having these conversations about what works.

Ali [0:21:17]: Love it.

Ali [0:21:17]: Since you are a community based product, I'll ask what are the measures of success, the metrics and kpis that you look at and that are important to you.

Dave [0:21:28]: Number one is Mps, net promoter score, how likely are people to recommend this product.

Dave [0:21:33]: How happy are they?

Dave [0:21:35]: That goes back to that because all the stats and everything doesn't matter if people don't don't wanna be there.

Dave [0:21:41]: And so we look at that.

Dave [0:21:42]: Number one, Number two is probably monthly active users and just engagement.

Dave [0:21:47]: And then, obviously, it's a paid community When I'm trying to, like, sell you a software license after.

Dave [0:21:52]: So it's...

Dave [0:21:53]: For us, it's not really, like, a lead gentle it it is the product and I think having it be a paid community helps create a bunch of value and keep a lot of, like, the r raf out.

Dave [0:22:03]: Pep has called it that.

Dave [0:22:04]: And I've I've taken that.

Dave [0:22:05]: Keeps a r raf out.

Dave [0:22:06]: So new members, revenue churn then like the leading indicators would be traffic.

Dave [0:22:12]: Our email list is a big part of our business.

Dave [0:22:15]: And so looking at the health of that list opens, engagement unsubscribe.

Dave [0:22:20]: And then just like, where traffic is coming from, like, for example, it's today we're recording this.

Dave [0:22:26]: It's the third week of July, the first two weeks, a big portion of our traffic.

Dave [0:22:30]: Probably fifty percent.

Dave [0:22:31]: And it comes from advertising, and it was slow, and so we weren't generating a lot of contacts.

Dave [0:22:36]: Traffic was down.

Dave [0:22:37]: Con were down.

Dave [0:22:38]: Everything was down.

Dave [0:22:38]: That's good.

Dave [0:22:39]: What we we would go look at, and then the the longer term view on it is, like, twice a year, we'll measure Mps of the community and and use that to determine, like, our people happy with their product.

Ali [0:22:49]: And if they're not, based on that feedback, what do you do that data?

Dave [0:22:53]: Well, we don't.

Dave [0:22:53]: We just gas like them until they are happy with

Ali [0:22:55]: the product.

Ali [0:22:56]: That's how that working.

Ali [0:22:57]: Yeah.

Ali [0:22:57]: Yes.

Dave [0:22:58]: It's it's great.

Dave [0:22:58]: It's great.

Dave [0:22:59]: It's totally recommend.

Dave [0:23:00]: No.

Dave [0:23:01]: I mean, so obviously, like, we measure N mps ones or twice a year, but we don't wait to make changes.

Dave [0:23:06]: What's amazing about a community based businesses is that the feedback loop is kinda always going.

Dave [0:23:10]: And I mean, I am.

Dave [0:23:11]: I'm in the community every day.

Dave [0:23:12]: I'm getting messages for members all the time.

Dave [0:23:14]: Our team is getting messages.

Dave [0:23:15]: We're seeing posts.

Dave [0:23:15]: We're seeing comments.

Dave [0:23:16]: Like, the feedback loop is always there.

Dave [0:23:18]: Every week, we get...

Dave [0:23:19]: If somebody churn, hopefully they leave a note about why they churn and those get fed into Slack and so we can see the churn reason about why.

Dave [0:23:27]: And so.

Dave [0:23:27]: There's all those, like, indicators along the way.

Dave [0:23:30]: And then we have a regular community discussion community meeting where we look at the community metrics.

Dave [0:23:37]: We have goals.

Dave [0:23:38]: And so we're kind...

Dave [0:23:38]: You know, it is a product right So we're always talking about it.

Dave [0:23:41]: And so if it's like, hey, like, churn has been brutal the last two weeks.

Dave [0:23:44]: Like, let's do something about it or like, hey, we did this thing inside the community and it flop, like, let's have a conversation.

Dave [0:23:49]: Let's do it.

Dave [0:23:50]: We're treating, like a product.

Dave [0:23:50]: There's there's sprints, there's goals.

Dave [0:23:52]: There's a map.

Ali [0:23:54]: Yep.

Ali [0:23:54]: And it's nice being at.

Ali [0:23:55]: I don't know if you feel the same way.

Ali [0:23:56]: I know for me being at a smaller company again where, like, those changes can happen quickly is really refreshing.

Ali [0:24:02]: Been in a few.

Ali [0:24:03]: Larger org where those wheels turned very slowly.

Dave [0:24:06]: Yeah.

Dave [0:24:06]: I don't know if I could kinda only work that smaller, fast moving companies.

Dave [0:24:10]: Big for me was, like, three hundred people.

Dave [0:24:13]: Like I guess I worked at helps...

Dave [0:24:14]: That was a lot of people, but I was a a small team.

Ali [0:24:17]: Okay.

Dave [0:24:17]: Yeah.

Dave [0:24:17]: That would drive me nuts.

Dave [0:24:18]: I especially just with the speed of, like, how things move today.

Dave [0:24:21]: Like, I'm just...

Dave [0:24:22]: What we just believe in, like, daily shipping, weekly shipping, constant, like, small iterations to make things better.

Ali [0:24:28]: It's much better experience for the customers.

Ali [0:24:29]: So I love that you are in the community every single day.

Ali [0:24:33]: People are reaching out to.

Ali [0:24:34]: You said you're...

Ali [0:24:35]: I'm sure watching the discussions that are happening there.

Ali [0:24:37]: So I would love to know like, what's the chatter right now.

Ali [0:24:41]: What are the top things?

Ali [0:24:42]: I know Ai has to be one of them.

Ali [0:24:43]: But what else are the top b2b leaders talking about in your community.

Dave [0:24:49]: I mean, I wish there wasn't else, but that is since cincinnati.

Dave [0:24:52]: Nah.

Dave [0:24:53]: There's no else.

Dave [0:24:54]: I think the else is like, I would say I kinda bucket things in my head right now into, like, there's the kinda time...

Dave [0:25:01]: I I even...

Dave [0:25:02]: Maybe timeless is the wrong who's the wrong framework, but there's the the stuff that marketing leaders and marketers are always talking about at least until all of our jobs are replaced by Ai is, like, strategy stuff, hiring, firing, goal setting, hey, like, I just I just gotta asked to take over this new, like, geography and we've never had a sales rep over there before.

Dave [0:25:25]: How would you think about structuring comp and There's kind of those, like, strategy level type of stuff, and then all of the other stuff is very much Ai related, and it's not just Ai tool related.

Dave [0:25:36]: I think that the the challenge is like what's happening with the Ai stuff is that it's It's not about the recipes of how you're using these tools.

Dave [0:25:44]: That is a hugely popular con...

Dave [0:25:46]: We'd we do a ton of content around that, and that is gonna continue.

Dave [0:25:48]: But what the Ai discussions have caused is kind of this, like, existential, like, where is marketing going?

Dave [0:25:55]: Yes.

Dave [0:25:55]: What is happening?

Dave [0:25:56]: I talked to a Cmo two weeks ago and she was, like, my company...

Dave [0:26:01]: Like, I got seventy people on my team and, like, our board and our our founders and everyone is pushing me to be, like, what are we doing with the Ai.

Dave [0:26:09]: Where does the know, what does the future of the team look like.

Dave [0:26:12]: And so Yeah.

Dave [0:26:13]: It's not just like, here's how you can use Ai to send an Sdr outreach.

Dave [0:26:17]: And right we're gonna show you how to do that.

Dave [0:26:19]: Those things are interesting, and and we show a lot of those.

Dave [0:26:21]: But I think it's really people are rethinking about the role and the goals of marketing in this world and I think it's...

Dave [0:26:28]: You, I was in, like, seventh or eighth eighth grade when the Internet really...

Dave [0:26:32]: Maybe six seven eighth grade When the Internet happens, so I can't...

Dave [0:26:34]: I wasn't thinking about this.

Dave [0:26:36]: I was trolling smarter child on on But it it feels like that, It feels like, okay.

Dave [0:26:42]: We all work at these businesses, where we just got access to the Internet, like, what's gonna happen.

Dave [0:26:48]: Yeah.

Dave [0:26:48]: That is the macro thing that I I think everybody's talking about and thinking about.

Ali [0:26:53]: Would you say in general, the sentiment is, pessimistic somewhere in the middle.

Dave [0:27:01]: I think the pessimistic are pessimistic about it, the optimus are optimistic about it.

Dave [0:27:05]: I think if you put them all in a bucket and you blended them together.

Dave [0:27:07]: I think it would be right down the middle.

Dave [0:27:09]: Yeah.

Dave [0:27:09]: It's probably You know, I see all sides of it.

Dave [0:27:11]: I see you open up Linkedin and there is the person who's always mad at someone and always angry at someone that post is gonna be about how this is the worst thing ever and, you know, Ai and, you know, privacy and you just I'm not saying those are not true client.

Dave [0:27:28]: I don't know.

Dave [0:27:28]: I'm just saying.

Dave [0:27:29]: And then on the other side, It's like, no, this is amazing Here what's gonna happen with marketers and so I don't know.

Dave [0:27:33]: I'm an optimus.

Dave [0:27:34]: I am.

Dave [0:27:35]: I'm gotta believe that Like, you can create your own future and as someone's who go well.

Dave [0:27:40]: Course can, like, you know, what what privilege to say that.

Dave [0:27:43]: But that's is not what I...

Dave [0:27:44]: I'm just saying, like, I believe that I have a very entrepreneurial mindset, which is, like.

Dave [0:27:49]: Okay.

Dave [0:27:49]: I don't know.

Dave [0:27:50]: Go ahead.

Dave [0:27:50]: Take my job away, we'll figure it out.

Dave [0:27:52]: I don't know.

Dave [0:27:53]: Yep That's how I've always been.

Dave [0:27:54]: I'm like, I like I like the challenge.

Dave [0:27:56]: I like the competition.

Dave [0:27:57]: Go ahead, like, replace Exit Five.

Dave [0:28:00]: Exit Five goes to zero because of Ai, like, I promise you I'm not gonna be out on the street.

Dave [0:28:05]: I'm gonna freaking...

Dave [0:28:06]: Find a way to create something of value.

Dave [0:28:08]: I don't know.

Dave [0:28:09]: Maybe I'll go buy a car wash.

Dave [0:28:10]: I don't know.

Dave [0:28:11]: I don't know.

Dave [0:28:12]: Yeah.

Dave [0:28:12]: But this just my mindset.

Dave [0:28:13]: Mh.

Ali [0:28:15]: Not the first time things have been totally shaken up, and not the last time it'll happen either there.

Ali [0:28:19]: Right?

Dave [0:28:20]: Yeah.

Dave [0:28:20]: Look.

Dave [0:28:20]: I also feel like there's like...

Dave [0:28:22]: And I kinda go back and forth in this every day, which is like, the rate of change of Ai isn't insane right now, but at the same time, it's still not perfect and you need a human in there to take things to the last line.

Dave [0:28:34]: Right?

Dave [0:28:34]: And so Everybody's obsessed, like, right now, Google has this, like, v three, you know, I'm sure you've seen it where you can basically write a prompt and Google and they make this, like, eight second video for you.

Dave [0:28:45]: Right?

Dave [0:28:46]: You don't know what you're doing and you go do that.

Dave [0:28:48]: It's terrible.

Dave [0:28:48]: I've tried.

Dave [0:28:49]: I cannot make a good...

Dave [0:28:50]: The o three.

Dave [0:28:51]: If you are funny, witty, creative, know how to prompted in the right way have read done a bunch of research on it, then, like, yes.

Dave [0:28:59]: You're gonna get a better output.

Dave [0:29:01]: The variable there is still like I can't just sneeze into Google Gemini and get this, like, amazing ad for my company that...

Dave [0:29:08]: That's what you see on Linkedin.

Dave [0:29:10]: And you're like, yeah.

Dave [0:29:11]: Like, everybody, someone made this, like, fake liquid death ad that went viral And it's not like Dave Gerhardt just sat down in his computer and, like, you know, wrote three sentences into some Ai tool and got that.

Dave [0:29:24]: Like, there is real work in the real creativity.

Dave [0:29:26]: And so.

Dave [0:29:27]: I'm to take the optimistic view of, like, I think of this as, like, I love marketing.

Dave [0:29:32]: I love creating.

Dave [0:29:33]: I'm treating this stuff as, like, a video game or some super intelligent software that's gonna allow me to, like, do my job to the Max or, like, you as content ten person.

Dave [0:29:42]: Doesn't mean that you're all of a sudden, all the Databox content is gonna be Ai slot because you have access to all these tools just like, oh, no, as a team of one, look at how many things I can do by myself.

Ali [0:29:54]: Right.

Dave [0:29:54]: And how much faster can I go and how much better can I get things in, like?

Dave [0:29:58]: Oh my gosh.

Dave [0:29:59]: I can actually build this website by myself without having to be, like, you know, get halfway.

Dave [0:30:03]: And then also, you know, Jason Le from Sas has been writing about this recently, but, like, everybody's talking about vibe coding almost everybody that's ever tried to actually vibe code that's not an actual engineer, like, you get somewhere along the way and you're just stuck and you stop and you never finish anything because there is still some technical knowledge you need.

Dave [0:30:21]: There is still some complexity and so I think there's probably gonna be a a year, you know, I don't know if it's two years or five years, but a buffer of, like, not all this stuff is gonna change overnight, but it's definitely coming.

Dave [0:30:34]: And if you can use these tools to your advantage to make your job.

Dave [0:30:38]: Better and more effective and more efficient.

Dave [0:30:40]: And then also, Yep.

Dave [0:30:41]: On the optimus piece of this.

Dave [0:30:43]: Like, okay.

Dave [0:30:43]: Let's let's just say that, like, yeah, this Ai stuff is gonna take all of our jobs.

Dave [0:30:47]: Well then, like, you just wanna ignore it.

Dave [0:30:50]: Or you wanna

Ali [0:30:52]: get ahead of it?

Dave [0:30:53]: Get ahead of it and fully understand it and have an opportunity to be.

Dave [0:30:56]: You know how valuable, like...

Dave [0:30:57]: If you were like, a digital marketer Internet marketer was to company to figure that out, you know?

Dave [0:31:02]: And so And then there's also, like, all these legacy companies here are I I don't think are just...

Dave [0:31:06]: They're not gonna go out of business overnight.

Dave [0:31:07]: Right.

Dave [0:31:08]: Hopefully not.

Dave [0:31:09]: I really don't know.

Dave [0:31:10]: I hate giving, like, predictions because, like, I don't know and I change my mind all the time, but I'm just answering your questions.

Ali [0:31:16]: No.

Ali [0:31:16]: Love it.

Ali [0:31:17]: It's really helpful.

Ali [0:31:17]: I mean, you see a lot of the conversation.

Ali [0:31:19]: So it's helpful to get your thoughts.

Ali [0:31:21]: And it's nice to get an optimistic point of you.

Ali [0:31:22]: I.

Ali [0:31:23]: I sent this to my boss yesterday.

Ali [0:31:25]: It's a forbes article five chad Gp prompts to completely replace your marketing team in thirty days.

Dave [0:31:32]: Nice.

Dave [0:31:32]: I would say, well, who reads Forbes.

Dave [0:31:34]: So what...

Ali [0:31:35]: It was probably...

Ali [0:31:35]: It was probably written by a bot anyway.

Dave [0:31:38]: Of course Forbes.

Dave [0:31:38]: Yeah.

Dave [0:31:39]: Forbes is garbage.

Dave [0:31:40]: So...

Dave [0:31:40]: Sorry Forbes if you're listening.

Ali [0:31:42]: All good.

Ali [0:31:43]: Alright.

Ali [0:31:44]: I have gotten through most of my questions.

Ali [0:31:45]: So I will just ask if there are any...

Ali [0:31:48]: Anything I didn't ask that you wish I had final thoughts?

Dave [0:31:52]: No.

Dave [0:31:52]: I'm been enjoying more long form conversations because I think it's...

Dave [0:31:56]: People see social media content and three, you know, a post for Linkedin and, like, obviously, there's nuance to that discussion and so I think, like, having real conversations is is important.

Dave [0:32:05]: And I don't know.

Dave [0:32:06]: I don't have all the answers.

Dave [0:32:07]: I'm figuring everything out every day...

Dave [0:32:08]: Every day

Ali [0:32:09]: a lot leader.

Ali [0:32:09]: If thought leaders are supposed to have all the answers.

Dave [0:32:12]: Well, yes.

Dave [0:32:12]: I do.

Dave [0:32:13]: I do.

Dave [0:32:13]: Perfect.

Dave [0:32:14]: I still two years to make the forty under forty thought leader list, so that's okay.

Dave [0:32:18]: That's the only reason I went on this podcast.

Ali [0:32:20]: Nice.

Ali [0:32:20]: I am sure we can do something about that.

Ali [0:32:22]: Awesome.

Dave [0:32:24]: What's going on inside of Databox?

Dave [0:32:26]: Like, what's the conversations around ai and where marketing is going?

Ali [0:32:30]: All the things.

Ali [0:32:30]: I would say on the go to market team side.

Ali [0:32:32]: It's very much like, you know, we're small team.

Ali [0:32:35]: How can we do more with less everybody's using it.

Ali [0:32:38]: I'm playing around a lot with custom Gp and we're working with a freelancer to build out some, like, agenda workflows and things like that to just try to speed stuff up.

Ali [0:32:47]: I'm shocked.

Ali [0:32:49]: Every week.

Ali [0:32:50]: The amount I can get done in a week or even a day that I'm, like, a year ago, two years ago, that took me that took me a month, like, that was a months of work, and I just did it in due days.

Ali [0:33:03]: Like, that's Pretty.

Dave [0:33:04]: I think my my favorite opt with Ai stuff right now is Der from Hubspot.

Dave [0:33:08]: And I was listening to him talk on the podcast of their day, and he basically said, like, you need to at least start every project with...

Dave [0:33:14]: I'm gonna use, like, Chad To at least help me get this project going.

Ali [0:33:18]: Yeah.

Ali [0:33:18]: For sure.

Dave [0:33:19]: And I've been trying to adopt that, and I think that's that's helpful.

Dave [0:33:22]: But it is...

Ali [0:33:23]: A great brainstorm partner, And I I think the best piece of advice I got was from a good friend of mine.

Ali [0:33:27]: She's been very active with custom Gb and testing stuff.

Ali [0:33:31]: And you know how to chat Gp especially has that habit.

Ali [0:33:35]: Of I'm just telling you what you wanna hear, and it tells it to you in such a nice, like, affirming, encouraging way.

Ali [0:33:41]: And so she programmed hers to, like, be a spa partner.

Ali [0:33:44]: Don't tell me what I wanna hear, but, like, challenge me.

Ali [0:33:47]: And I did that to my personal favorite Gp, which I call my...

Ali [0:33:50]: It's Ali Clone, and it transformed it.

Ali [0:33:54]: It's so good.

Ali [0:33:56]: It's really helpful.

Ali [0:33:57]: And it's like...

Ali [0:33:58]: Just having, like, another version of yourself, but one that doesn't agree with you one that challenges you and it knows how you think, but it poke the holes and it finally the gap...

Ali [0:34:06]: It finds those gaps, and that's been...

Dave [0:34:08]: Oh, that's a great point.

Dave [0:34:09]: Like, I do that all the time, which is, like, tell me all the reasons why I shouldn't do this.

Ali [0:34:13]: Yeah.

Ali [0:34:13]: I say tell me all the things if I present us to my Ceo, tell me all the questions he's gonna ask and all the problems he's gonna have with it.

Ali [0:34:21]: That's a great one too.

Ali [0:34:22]: And it literally, they are like, the exact questions that he will then ask when I forgot stuff to happen and I'm, like, All ready for it.

Dave [0:34:29]: That's good.

Dave [0:34:29]: That's good yeah.

Dave [0:34:30]: The ability to see the problem from the other side is just really yeah.

Ali [0:34:33]: And then on the product side, you know, everybody wants Ai and built into their products too.

Ali [0:34:37]: So we already had some Ai, you know, insights and features built in, but that's a big priority too.

Ali [0:34:44]: Is taking that to the next level.

Ali [0:34:45]: So...

Dave [0:34:46]: Nice.

Ali [0:34:47]: It's all everybody's minds.

Ali [0:34:48]: Yep.

Dave [0:34:49]: Alright.

Dave [0:34:49]: Well, six months from now, it'll change again and.

Dave [0:34:51]: We'll see.

Ali [0:34:52]: Let's just hang on for the ride.

Ali [0:34:53]: What marketers do.

Dave [0:34:54]: That's right.

Ali [0:34:55]: Alrighty.

Ali [0:34:55]: Well, thank you so much.

Ali [0:34:56]: This is pleasure.

Dave [0:34:57]: Thanks for having me.

Ali [0:34:58]: You bet.

Ali [0:34:59]: Bye bye.

Dave [0:35:03]: Hey.

Dave [0:35:03]: Thanks for listening to this podcast.

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Dave [0:35:19]: Instead of leaving a rating a review.

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