Because Business is Personal

Unraveling the Power of Authenticity and Trust in Marketing - with Bryan Kramer

• Mike Caldwell/Bryan Kramer • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Ready to discover the hidden power of empathic marketing? Join me and business strategist extraordinaire, Brian Kramer, as we navigate the intriguing world of Human to Human connection in business. Known globally for his keynote speeches, executive training, and two best-selling books, Brian guides us through a candid and light-hearted conversation that promises to change how you view marketing.

Are you tired of the rampant distrust in online environments? With Brian's insights, we dissect the malaise of filters and clickbait plaguing social media and discuss how businesses can foster trust through transparent communication and by simply doing the 'next right thing'. We delve into the pitfalls of incorrect assumptions and the role speed plays in trust-building, all while keeping a humorous edge — after all, Brian's wife does call him 'Gaylord Focker' from the iconic Meet the Fockers.

The conversation takes an exciting turn as we contemplate the significance of body language in our tech-driven world, the power in being ordinary and why automation might not be the ultimate answer. Brian shares his thoughts on the role AI plays in today's marketplace and how it's affecting trust. Oh, and did we mention we discuss why Tom Cruise does his own stunts? This conversation is packed with nuggets of wisdom, laughter, and momentous truths. Don't miss out!

Eager to harness the power of Empathic Marketing to propel your business growth? Get your hands on my #1 Amazon Best Selling book, 'Empathic Marketing,' or book a '30-Minute Gap Analysis' session directly from my website: www.becausebusinessispersonal.com.

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Join our community and elevate your marketing game today!

Mike:

Hey, welcome to the Because Business is Personal podcast, the podcast where empathy meets marketing strategy. I'm your host, mike Caldwell, but I'm also known as the marketing medic. Now, the reason for that is because, before becoming a marketing strategist, I actually worked as a paramedic for 12 years, and it was during that time that I realized how important it was to truly understand the problems your patient was facing before you started providing treatment. And it's the same understanding, the same empathy, is just as crucial when it comes to understanding our prospects and making sales, and that's why, in each episode, we'll dissect the art of empathic marketing, exploring how top professionals infuse empathy into their strategies to build stronger relationships, boost their sales and make a lasting impact. So buckle up and prepare to turn up the dial on your marketing effectiveness. As we gear up to dive deeper into the realm of empathic marketing, I'd like to share a couple of special offers with you. First, you can get a free copy of my international bestselling book Empathic Marketing. You only need to cover the cost of shipping. Reading this will provide you with a much more in-depth understanding of the empathy-based marketing approach that we explore in this show. Next, I'm offering a 50% discount on a transformative 30-minute gap analysis session with me. Reading this session will identify the hurdles in your marketing efforts and together will develop an actionable roadmap aimed at winning you more clients and making you more sales. Just visit my website, wwwbecausebusinessispersonalcom to grab your book or use coupon code podcast to take advantage of my gap analysis offer. So why wait? Let's start turbocharging your marketing strategy today. Now let's get started with our episode.

Mike:

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Because Business Is Personal podcast. We've got a special treat today. I've just been speaking to him. He's Brian Kramer. We've decided that he's a brother from another mother. He's been called the Zen Master to Digital Marketers by Forbes. Brian Kramer is a renowned business strategist, a global keynote speaker, an executive trainer and coach investor, two-time bestselling author, including top 150 USA bestselling books, and a Forbes contributor. Brian also created a global movement and is known for his keynotes, his book and talks on and this is the part that really got me excited about interviewing him there is no B2B, there is no B2C. It's human to human, h to H. So he is the CEO of H to H companies, an executive coaching company, and co-owner of Pure Matter, a Silicon Valley marketing agency founded in 2001, which earned a spot as one of the fastest growing companies three years in a row by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. So with that, let's welcome Brian Kramer to the. Business Is Because Business Is Personal podcast.

Bryan:

Oh, mike, thank you so much. That was really nice of you. I appreciate it, thanks.

Mike:

Yeah, so you and I are big on the H to H connection. I'm empathic marketing because business is personal. So before we dive into the business aspect of things, I like to start with a more personal thing. So what's something that's non-business related about you that our listeners may find interesting or quirky in some way?

Bryan:

Let's see. I think probably the most quirky thing about me is what my wife called me since day one, which is Gaylord Focker, which is my nickname that other friends have come to know too, because we saw that movie together when we were first dating. And I was sitting there not totally laughing at the movie, and she looked at me afterwards and she's like, how could you not laugh at that? And I'm like, because that's my life. And she said, well, if you're going to learn, you have to learn to embrace your inner Gaylord Focker, or I'm never going to marry you. And I'm like that is a woman worth marrying and I'm going to embrace it starting right now. So ever since then I've embraced it and I have done all the things. So those are. That would explain the quirky side of me.

Mike:

All right. So it's funny because my wife and I were on vacation not too long ago and we didn't have any channels in our room and whatever channels we got was just playing all the Focker movies Back to back to back. We watched them all different pieces. So I've watched it recently. Meet the Fockers. But what? How do you relate to Gaylord? What traits do you share with him?

Bryan:

Oh man, you know I do stupid shit, so you know it's, it's definitely very, very random the stuff that happens. You know the volleyball scene been there, done that, okay, yep. So you know, setting setting stuff on fire by accident been there, done that. I mean, the list goes on. Man, I've been in a Formula One race by accident with in my Honda Accord Civic, I should say, and that was not on purpose and not my finest moment. You know, the list just goes on. You know I've done stuff and all own it. I'm the cause. So you know it's, it's who I am, and I think there's a little little little Focker in us all. So you know, the more we embrace it, the more we will, you know, be better off.

Mike:

Well, another time we'll have to discuss more about that F1 thing. The reason I say that is because the way I introduce most of my talks is that I say okay, imagine I show up to race in my F1, in my Ram 1500 pickup truck and Max Verstappen is there and we switch vehicles. Okay, we're on the Monaco course. Who's going to win that race? Like me and Max's F1 car or him in my pickup truck, who do you think would win? Brian?

Bryan:

I'm going to go with you as an obscure reason, and you're about to tell me why.

Mike:

I don't understand why.

Bryan:

I'm just gonna go with that, because that's just my current.

Mike:

The answer is Max is gonna win, even driving my truck, because he's a better driver. He can drive so much better than I can drive. It doesn't matter what vehicle he's in, and if I'm in an F1 car, I've never been in an F1 car, so you can imagine how I'm probably gonna control that thing right. And the reason? I start with that? Because so many businesses today they focus on the things like their websites and their ads and their emails and they don't focus on the message. And the message is the driver. Right, if you spend more time focusing on the driver, that's gonna win nine times out of ten, and so that's sort of the metaphor I use. It's not about the vehicle, it's not about your websites, it's not about your funnel, it's not about the upsells, it's about the message.

Bryan:

See that Human Focker moments left and right.

Mike:

Exactly I have five rescue dogs, and so that happens sometimes.

Bryan:

Well, what I love about that is it's all in how we learn and acknowledge where our blind spots are and then show up and learn from those blind spots and be able to create more, and then that, along with the message, as you said, is just critical. Being a brand marketing guy, I totally get that. That makes a lot of sense.

Mike:

So what did you do prior to becoming this forged consultant and all the rest of it? Do you have a day job?

Bryan:

My well, we had a marketing agency for 22 years.

Mike:

So you just started with that.

Bryan:

Before that I worked my way through ad agencies, through a marketing agency Okay.

Bryan:

And yeah, so since day one, my degree was in marketing communications and with a minor in Japanese, which didn't get me far. I just thought that was the beginning. So then I started working in ad agencies to help with digital transformation. Back then it was called websites, and so I just you know that was. My job was to help agencies to become more digital from traditional agencies, and then I worked my way into building digital interactive companies, leading into my own. So I started that in 2001 with my wife, and we had that for 22 years. So it was always working my way through the marketing agency land, though.

Mike:

Okay, so that question was a set for my next one. It's like what motivated you to become self-employed, a business owner and entrepreneur, and have you had any regrets since making that decision?

Bryan:

I always knew that I was going to start a company since I can remember that was my goal was to learn everything I could from everybody that was willing to share with me, and so I spent, you know, every waking moment trying to figure out what I could do. My job, before I got to the to starting our agency, was starting a company within another company under their P&L, and I got to learn from having using somebody else's money to start it, and we grew from three people to 77 people and it really gave me such an education in operations and sales and HR and marketing and ourselves and all kinds of things. So, you know, that was, that was the. The impetus really was behind learning what, what could I do so that when it was time, I would be able to do it.

Bryan:

So the answer to your question is, yes, regrets, yeah, every other day I regret it and then every other day I don't. So you know, I, I'm, I'm, I'm half kidding. You know I've, I've hit some high highs and some low lows, and on those lows you, you know, are the good days to to have a few regrets, and that's when the saboteur comes up and says what are you doing? You know, are you sure you know what you're doing? I've had those moments, for sure, and and usually it's if I waited long enough, that passes and I can. I can head it off.

Mike:

Yeah, I've always had, really before being an entrepreneur, I've always had really cool jobs. I was an international white water raft guy, I was a firefighter, I was a paramedic, but for one summer I worked in a corrugated box factory. So we made cardboard boxes and my job was to feed a machine called the waxer. So cardboard went into the machine and wax poured down on it for, you know, like the fruit boxes. Anyway, sometimes I think about those days and I remember I would punch it, I would punch out, and when I punched out, I was out, I was done. I did not think about work until my next shift, Like it was. It wasn't something like as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, is there anything else we ever think about? Like it's always somewhere rattling in our brain. You know what we're doing and how we're doing it, what we need to do next, and so sometimes I look back with fondness on that menial, like blue collar job of feeding cardboard into a wax machine.

Bryan:

What a job. That is a neat story. I love that.

Mike:

So I'm just going to pause for a second and I'm going to kick these dogs outside.

Bryan:

Okay.

Mike:

They usually don't play at this time of day and my wife's not home to take them for a walk. What's up? Yeah, after COVID, my wife during COVID my wife worked for a poem and she would take the dogs for a walk during these and but now she works for federal government and they have to go in two days a week. This is one of her days where she's back to work.

Bryan:

So oh good, Anyway, stuff happens again.

Mike:

Yes, we'll resume All right. Well thanks, brian. Again, can you share an interesting story about a major challenge you faced in your business and what you did to overcome that?

Bryan:

Oh God, which one.

Mike:

Which one?

Bryan:

You know, the biggest challenge that I faced was was my burnout. I burned out massively when I was traveling 200 days a year speaking and running the agency from the road, and it was. It was just a really great time in my life and also a painful time in my life because I was eating my way through every country and drinking my way through every country and every hotel bar. And it was just exciting, you know, especially from the outside, looking in, using using that time to learn how to speak on stage better, and at the same time I was. I was just dragging myself through airports and hotels and all kinds of stuff, and you know it got to the point where I was missing out. I was missing out on family and friends and events and, you know, kids and all that kind of stuff. And trying to just run the company, too, was just a real challenge, although we had some great support, and so you know, I came home one day and I told my wife I said I can't, can't do this anymore, not not you and I, but I mean the, just the, the constant going. I was really burned out and so we decided this was six years ago to exit everything. So we exited the company and exited speaking.

Bryan:

For a year I picked my kids up from school and dropped them off every day. I dropped, lost 85 pounds. I had diabetes, which I, which I lost. I don't register with diabetes anymore and so you know it really turned my life around from a health standpoint and a quality of life standpoint. I continued to run a different kind of business. We paired it, we, we put it in, we turned our, our, our company, or started a new company which is HCH companies, into a consulting company which alleviated a lot of stuff and and just created a whole new life. It was just absolutely fantastic. It was. It was a really hard decision, but it was really the best. Now, looking back, it's the best decision I ever made.

Mike:

Whoa. So that's a pretty found change and congratulations for for stepping back from where you were when you're so burnt out and seeing it. Cause, well, clearly, like up until that point, you didn't take that step back, you didn't, you know, you didn't say I have to do something, cause, yeah, how'd you not do? Did anything, then, like, where do you think you'd be today?

Bryan:

You know, I'd probably that. That's hard to say. That would be a crystal ball stuff yeah.

Bryan:

Who knows, who knows, but I try not to say what if or what could have been cause. If my head goes to the that saboteur side but you know, most likely I would I would probably still be running a different kind of company and and growing it, but I would have either I don't know I really could have been on a path to to worse, being worse off. That's the path that I was on. I was on a really bad path and so I don't think it would have turned out so well. It's the honest answer, cool.

Mike:

I'm glad you made the change, so let's focus more on like what you primarily talk about. So how do brilliant companies like build trust at the center? What do they do for that?

Bryan:

Yeah, building trust at the center is is kind of. You know, we all talk about putting the customer at the center, but I really think that we need to put trust at the center first and and and talk about trust as the priority, because I think, you know, trust starts with both internal at your organization, as well as external with your customer. How do we build trust at both ends If we're making every decision with is this, what is the next right thing for us to do? And are we doing the right thing by our, our employee and by our customer? I think that's that's important. Are we making, are we, are we communicating in a trustworthy way?

Bryan:

You know all the, all the questions, but at the, at the end of the day, I don't. I think that that we've lost our way a little bit and we're looking. You know a lot of, a lot of companies are looking at how do I automate, how do I, how do I use AI, how do I use technology, how do I use all these different tools now up and coming BR and AR and all this stuff to create connection with customers? But that's not going to create more trust, it's just going to create more automation, and you know so. So putting in the human factor and keeping the human factor at the center, which equates to trust, is is the most vital thing that we could be doing right now.

Mike:

Right, Actually I was. I was building a slide for a presentation just yesterday and I was. I was building a slide on this topic and it's just like the amount of distrust that's out there. Especially, a lot of it comes from social media, right. And one of the slides I saw was like the filters that are used in social media. So the people you see online, they don't look like that because they've got a filter right. It showed, like this quite attractive, you know, a reasonably attractive 30-something-year-old woman, but the filter that she used made her look like a, like a cover model, like a movie star, because the filter made her look that much better. So we weren't seeing the true her, true self, right.

Mike:

And then just some of the clickbait stuff like we're seeing so much clickbait that we don't like we keep getting burned on. And the one I used was a man tries to hug a line. You wouldn't believe what happened next, right. And so you, you have to click on it and you don't get the answer because it's just, it's just clickbait, right. And then the funniest one I saw is because this happened in real life and so there was an article about these two deputies in Georgia or something who went on this killing spree and were just like killing people, like crazy, and nothing was being done about it. And one of my, one of my friends we're up in Canada, right, and one of my friends in Canada posted about this because, you know, sometimes Canadians think Americans are a little crazy with a whole gun stuff or whatever. But those politics aside, she was posting about this, about, like what is happening in the US, like these two sheriffs are going nuts. Do you know who those deputies were?

Bryan:

They were the two deputies from.

Mike:

They were the two deputies from walking dead.

Bryan:

Wow, yes.

Mike:

It was a TV show, but somehow something got twisted somewhere that it was. It was portrayed that these two deputies were real life deputies and they weren't. They were killing zombies on the TV show, but in this post they had these two deputies that were just and this was being portrayed as news like these two crazy deputies in Georgia killing people, but really they were the walking dead deputies. And my point is is that we're seeing all this stuff online and because she shared that as news out of Georgia, right, and so if I was to believe her, then I'd be anyways. Yeah, there's just so much distressed out there because of stuff like that and so what? So? What are? How do you break that as a business? How do you break that cycle?

Bryan:

First of all, how random is it that those deputies were from the walking dead? That's just, that's crazy. Yeah, there's so much out there, but I could just go to show how extreme something can be.

Mike:

And my friend. She's well educated, she makes a lot of money, she's an executive at her company. Like she's a smart, educated person. Yeah, somehow she's still bought into this thing and it's frightening, yeah.

Bryan:

That's, that's the thing, it's that whole trust. But verify, you know there's. I think that there's three things that goes into building trust. The first one simplicity. What brand do you know that you think it embraces simplicity?

Mike:

A Coke is pretty simple, I think.

Bryan:

Yeah, yeah, totally that's a good one. Yeah, I think Apple's pretty good at simplicity as well.

Mike:

They're kind of a. I was going to say that first.

Bryan:

Yeah, an easy answer. But you know they, they really do embrace it. How about now? This is a softball for you because of how you wrote a book. But how about empathy? A brand embraces empathy.

Mike:

You know, I'm just going to be a little bit controversial here and I'm going to say, like the most empathic brand on the planet is Donald Trump. Trump understands his audience unlike anybody I've ever seen before. He knows exactly what they want. He knows exactly what their problems are and he tells them exactly what they want to hear. Like he is and I'm not. I'm not saying I'm for or against Trump, he's staying in the middle, but I'm. I'm planting my flag saying there is no more empathic being on the planet than Trump, because he understands his audience better than anybody I've ever seen in my life.

Bryan:

Wow, that's it. That is a, an answer I never thought I would. I would hear and and I love, I love the the controversial nature in it too. Yeah, you know I might throw Amazon in there because you know for the most part you can return almost every product without question. And when you're talking about trust, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, so that you know, not a lot of local stores, or stores in general, allow easy return, and they've just managed to figure it out. What about imperfection? Who do you think embraces imperfection?

Mike:

Embraces imperfection.

Bryan:

I can say embraces they're, they're intergaler at Fokker moments, but we'll go with imperfection.

Mike:

That's a tough one, yeah, I, yeah. I'm going to stumble for too long thinking that. So just yeah, feed me the answer there.

Bryan:

I don't know if there is just one, but you know, like Dove, dove embraces the imperfection of skin in a lot of their marketing. They are advertising that nonprofits, like you know. Red Cross, you know, does a good job. There's a lot of, you know, imperfection, humanity type of companies that embrace it. I can tell you, the company that doesn't embrace all three is Facebook, or at least in my opinion. You know there's no simplicity in that brand. There's not really any embracement of empathy, and they try to be. You know there's no imperfection there. I mean, it is imperfect, nothing's perfect, but it's certainly a brand that doesn't embrace all three. So, yeah, I think that those three things simplicity, empathy and imperfection are the secret ingredients. When brands or people that works for both embrace all three, it really locks in a higher level of trust over time. Trust isn't built overnight, but it is certainly something that's a lot faster when you embrace all three of those.

Mike:

Yeah, for any of us who have advertised on Facebook, we certainly can relate to that empathy thing. I had a client. We were spending $10,000 a week, which is, you know, significant money, and we had our ad account shut down. And I was the ads manager and I was following the rules, like I wasn't breaking any rules, and I just tried to reach out to Facebook and I said can you tell me what I did wrong? And I finally got some answers back that I could just they could.

Mike:

There's no way they could reopen my account, but I could create a new account. And I said I'll happily do that, but I'm going to continue doing what I was doing because I didn't know I was doing anything wrong. So if you could just you know, share with me what mistakes I was making, you know ignorantly, I'll be sure not to do that in the future. But they wouldn't tell me. They're like sorry, that's like proprietary information. I'm like do you want me to spend money on your platform or not? Like I want to work with you. And they were like no, we don't work with people.

Mike:

Like we take your money and we've got enough business that we're in the take or leave of business. Nailed it yeah.

Bryan:

Nailed it.

Mike:

It was horrible working with those people.

Bryan:

Absolutely.

Mike:

And that's, and so then I also do advertising on Google and we weren't spending a lot of money but I could call somebody on Google and talk to a real person and within his ability, he would do everything he could to help me and he was very transparent and it was such a different experience, like Google on the ad side of things had a lot more empathy, because because I told him like I'm like, listen, dude, I'm new to Google ads, I don't know what I'm doing, I need your help, right. And he was like, okay, I get it, here's what we need to do. And he held my hand all along the way and Facebook was not like that.

Bryan:

It makes a difference, it makes a huge difference and you know, we'll be more likely to spend a little more of our of our dollars in a brand that we, we trust.

Mike:

That's correct, yeah, yeah, so some along the same line. So like how do we learn how to speak and market and sell human to human?

Bryan:

You know part part of it, a lot of it, is what we just talked about the simplicity, empathy and imperfection. There's, there's one more ingredient to how we, how we talk, and that's that's intimacy. Intimacy, or as I like to call it, into me, you see, is giving people transparency into what's going on. When you add that ingredient into the three, into the how we communicate, intimacy is a deepening of a relationship over time, and and when you peel back that, that proverbial layer of the onion and and and create more intimacy with your, your customer, your, your potential customer, you know like when, when you have, you know.

Bryan:

There's like this great conversation that happened with Amazon on Amazon support, on their chat, and this one support specialist already knew the person had ordered the Hala, this book, from Thor, and it didn't arrive because of his profile, because of the data that they had.

Bryan:

And he said may I call you Thor? And? And he said, oh my God, yes. And he said, well, you can call me Odin, okay. And he said well, odin, though, are having challenges with thy delivery of thy book. And he said well, thou must stop that right here and deliver thy book within within two fortnights, or within one fortnight or something and and it just went on and the guy got his book, but it was just like this, this level of and they went back and forth and learn more about each other and started cracking up and created this intimate moment of conversation in this, this topic, and I just thought, man, that is just something that AI will never really be able to do. I mean, it's just a it's, it's an understanding and a and a creation of not just intimacy but also humor and and and deepening the relationship. The guy you know posted online is went totally viral because that's that's something that the company also approves and says yeah, go create personalized experiences, thank you.

Mike:

So, just devil's advocate now, so many people are now are afraid of that personalized side of things and I'll just give you an example. So, as we spoke about during the break there, my wife works for the federal government and she does mostly zoom meetings and one of the people on her team so it's big zoom meeting well, not big, there's like five or six people on the call but one of the one of her coworkers mentioned to a woman on the call it's like oh, monday morning that's hair washing day. I totally get that, because my wife has long, full hair like you, and I know what an ordeal it is to, you know, for women with hair like that to wash it. And so, yeah, I see, like this morning was was hair washing day. And he just made that comment because he wanted to have that personal connection and he talked about like how he knows about it because of his wife.

Mike:

But that one was on the other, was, was, was, was on the client side and she went to her manager and said you know, I'm uncomfortable on these calls now. And so she talked to her manager and my wife's the manager. So that manager talked to my wife and said listen, we got to do something about this guy who's making these inappropriate comments on these calls. And, like I, was looking at your face and I didn't see any signs that you thought what he said was inappropriate and I didn't think it was inappropriate and he didn't think it was inappropriate. But it's so hard now where the lines are that we don't even know exist, and are you ever afraid of crossing them?

Bryan:

Yeah, I mean, you know context is king, right. So, and the biggest, the biggest killer of all relationships is assumptions. And what I hear happening in that conversation was an assumption of where that person was coming from. And you know, in especially relationships, when we, when we don't clear an assumption to you, know it directly or indirectly, it really can kill just about anything faster than then almost anything else. An assumption is something we build on and it gets worse over time if we don't clear it. And that's, that's a business issue, that's that's not a that, that's an interpersonal relationship issue and really a leadership issue, a leadership challenge. And you know, if everybody learned how to ask more powerful questions and learn more in the context and contextual based understanding and clearing assumptions, we'd all be better off.

Mike:

So what was the incorrect assumption in that dynamic there?

Bryan:

I think. Well, based upon what you were telling me and what I, what I know of what you said, it sounds like she or he, somebody, whoever the person on the opposite end, the lady, assumed that that was a dig or that was inappropriate for some. For whatever reason, she made an assumption that it was a, it was a personal attack and and and. So clearing that assumption simply by saying you know where, you know where are you coming from, can you tell me more? Would have probably mitigated the whole thing, but staying quiet and keeping the assumption to yourself just prolongs it.

Mike:

Okay, yeah, because I think if you would have just commented on her hair, that might be like a sexual sort of thing, but he's like I get it because my wife it's every Monday morning, that's her big hair washing day, and I understand how much work you women go through and he thought it was just a completely innocent like let's, we've got this shared thing. You wash your hair, my wife washes her hair and let you know, we've got this shared bond now. And like, say, she had some other assumption that we're not aware of, right, that you know we couldn't predict in advance.

Bryan:

Yeah, totally.

Mike:

And so it's just kind of frightening.

Bryan:

Yeah, it's even worse in social media, because there's no body language.

Mike:

That's right. That's right. That's yes, yeah, yeah. So what are the fastest ways to build trust in a business and grow your business with more time, ease and impact?

Bryan:

One of the fastest ways is speed, you know, speed to correcting the issue, speed to conversation, speed to customer support, speed to everything. And I'm not saying that you should react. I'm saying, you know, take, take enough time to respond, but but but not not creating so much distance that it it creates. It creates more distance. The you know, when we hear back like if you get quotes from, let's say, you know three different contractors to come in and help you deliver something for, for, let's say, putting a new roof on the company that sends you the fastest quote, is is going to be in the top two they immediately get a higher priority of being chosen simply because they responded faster. And so that comes down to you know structure, process and and operations. And the more that you can really create that you know within your company, create a faster response mechanism for everything that you do so that you're ready to respond You're not ready to you have to react, the better, the, the more trust you're going to build. It's it really is in speed.

Mike:

Okay, yeah, like I've mentioned this, this talk I'm doing is presentation. I'm doing a month or two and it was interesting, the, the host of the, of the mastermind, he. He asked me for a headshot in my bio and so I sent it to him that afternoon. He got back to me the next day just like gushing, saying how professional I am and how great it is to work with somebody like me, and I was completely confused. I was like I don't know, I think you're thinking about somebody else, because everything was saying seemed like I did something really elaborate. He's like no, I asked you for your headshot and you're bound. You sent it to me like a timely manner and like nobody does that, like none of the other speakers have sent me their headshots or bios yet.

Mike:

And so yeah, what you're saying, nowadays it's really easy to stand out by just being normal, Almost right.

Bryan:

Yeah, well, normal to you and me, you know, and to people that you know, or or companies that don't have the right process in place. You know, I got a tweet one time from this is when Virgin America was was around and I tweeted from the airplane saying I had my coffee, my electric plush and my wifi what could be better? And I'm on my way to Florida to give a keynote. They looked me up and and and then they responded in kind and said looks like you're good because it was public knowledge. They said looks like you're going to give a great keynote at IBM. We're, we are, we are so glad that you have all the right tools in the air to get you there safely.

Bryan:

And I just thought, and they did that within like like five or 10 minutes and I was like that's, that's how it's done. You know, that's how an anti screenshot it and I put it in my keynote for the next day. So not only did they respond well, but you know I gave them some airtime as well. It's that kind of stuff that just goes a long way. It's not just even responding, but putting that added. Like you know, they didn't know us speaking at IBM, but it's public knowledge. If you do, you do a simple Google search. Now, all of a sudden it's like whole. You just took it to a whole new level.

Mike:

That's right. That's right. Yeah, Well, it used to be small things. I think are bigger things now and and what's interesting and you said this at the start of the talk is that so many businesses are trying to consciously move away from that. They're trying to automate everything, make everything more mechanical and, um, yeah, I think AI actually might be able to replicate that eventually, but right now it's not there and I don't think we should be fully automating everything at this point in the game.

Bryan:

No, definitely not.

Mike:

So where do you see AI playing a role in today's marketplace and maybe moving forward?

Bryan:

Everywhere and it's just going to grow. It's funny. I was on an interview this morning just talking about how my first Mac computer it was what, a Mac SE or a Mac Plus, I can't remember, but it had four megabytes, not gigabytes, megabytes and I had a bulletin board system for anyone who remembers what that is with a dial-up modem, dual band, 2,400 BOD. And I just sat there and waited for any one of my friends who had the phone number to just dial in and try it out. And there they were. There he was my friend Brendan, who typed back and said hello, and I'm like, oh my god, the future is here. And I'm like this is so cool. Right Like how many years ago is that? That's like I don't even know.

Bryan:

And now look at us, right Like now, there's chat bots that are AI. Like that's like you know, bulletin board, schmolten board. Now we've got chat bots and so you know where is it going to be everywhere? Where do we insert the simple moments of truth that are human? That's the bigger question. So right now, it's a matter of knowing that being human is actually everybody's competitive advantage, because everybody's automating so much that it's the reverse where, if you stand out and be more human, and it doesn't take much. Then you're going to stand out more and it's. You know, it's just that way and it's going to become more and more that way as we go.

Mike:

That's right. That's right and because I think trust is going to continue to be on the decline, there's going to be less and less trust. I have a friend, he's a podcaster and he interviewed Shaquille O'Neal and he got comments that people were saying that Shaq was AI generated, like people didn't believe he was actually speaking to Shaq, and so that's where the trust is going. I guess Shaq kind of talks a little bit funny, you might talk a little bit like a robot sometimes and people thought like this is, you know, you just AI generated Shaq's image and, you know, cloned his voice and this was like a completely fictitious thing, and that scared me a bit.

Mike:

You know people. We used to trust what we could see, but now we can't do that anymore because if it's on the screen and we're seeing it, we have no like. Just look at movies now, like there's no way you can tell what's a green like Tom Cruise, he's about the only guy that actually takes a motorcycle off a cliff.

Bryan:

I'm a ice man in Top Gun was his voice, was AI generated, you know, because he couldn't talk, because he's got a trachea in his throat, and so they generated they use software to generate his voice during that whole conversation and they took pieces of his past top all of his movie and Top Gun acting experiences and pieced it together and created the voice that we all heard to do that, so that he could appear because Tom Cruise was saying that we're not doing this movie without him.

Bryan:

And they're like, well, we don't have a voice. And here we go. I mean, you know, arnold Schwarzenegger has a podcast out that is all 100% AI generated of his voice, but he owns it. That's the key is he owns it. He's transparent about it. So, as long as we're transparent about AI generation, I don't see a problem with that. I see a problem with AI generation being for fake or for, you know, put in place to fake out people saying like this is real, that that's, that's gonna have a bad effect on on every brand that tries that.

Mike:

Okay so I think we understand that brands and business have to be more human, have more empathy, build more trust, but like what's one actionable thing that businesses could start doing today that will move the needle for them?

Bryan:

I would say walk over to your whiteboard, uh map that just just draw out, grab a person or a bunch of people that know your, your journey, your customer journey or your just your business in general, and just drop in all the different places, all the different touch points that you have communication. Um, just just throw it up on a whiteboard and then take a step back and say now, where are the human touch points? And then take a step back and say now, where can we take it up a level? If you do that exercise and you just touch one or two different places in that way, you will be winning. It's just a matter of taking a moment to do that, to make the human moments of truth matter.

Mike:

Yes, yeah, yeah, and I quite often do that. Um, I've lead magnets we all have lead magnets, right and I'll quite often, depending on how I interact with the person like we all have automated email sequences, right but whenever I can, if there's anything I know about that person, I will send them a personal email once I've learned that little tidbit and then, that way they know that this wasn't an automated email, because the only way I that email could have included that piece of information is if I knew them personally and I think and that always goes a lot I usually get a response saying, oh, wow, you're real. Yeah, crazy, Isn't it? And yeah, that's good.

Bryan:

Yeah, I mean, I have a newsletter that I really try hard to get people to reply to. That's my number one engagement, uh, kpi and um and uh, and then I'll take uh the following day and reply back. Uh, most of the time in video, uh, all actually out walking and, and I'll just do my reply as a video and hit, hit, send and that just like goes miles. Man, it doesn't take much, either 10 or 15 seconds. I loved what you said. Here's why I loved it and here's where I'm going with that. And boom, people will reply back and go Holy crap, really, you, you really did that. Like, that's, that's cool and it didn't take much, right, like, like, it's as fast as almost typing out an email, if not faster, because we're just very it's easier. Um, but those are the little things that can make a difference.

Mike:

Very cool. Well, thanks, brian. Um, if anybody wanted to reach out from you or get in contact with you or get some help from you, what? What's the best way to reach out from you? Or do you have anything for my audience here?

Bryan:

Thanks, man. Um, yeah, if you go to my site, it's at Brian Kramercom Brian with a Y, kramer with a K, and then at Brian Kramer everywhere on social Um, and uh, you know, if you're, if you're looking for uh, all of my, all of my articles, all of my, uh, my, my bi-week, bi-monthly newsletter, um, I've got um a ton of stuff to write weekly, so everything's there and, like I said before, if you hit the reply button I will reply back. So, uh, you know, I wouldn't be the age age guy if I didn't.

Mike:

Well, very cool. Well, thanks, Brian, this is, uh, it's great having a like-minded. Well, I'm actually, most of my guests are like-minded, but you're very tightly like-minded. I love what you've done with age to age. No B2B, no B2C is that's? That's amazing. So, yeah, I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your knowledge with my with myself and my listeners.

Bryan:

Uh, thanks, mike. I really appreciated the heartfelt questions and and the conversation. Cheers man.

Mike:

All right. Thanks, brian, and that is a wrap for this episode of Because Business is Personal. Thanks for joining us and don't forget to take advantage of my two special offers. First, you can get a free copy of my best-selling book, empathic Marketing. You just pay for the shipping. Or you can have 50% discount on my gap analysis session with the coupon code podcast. Just head over to wwwBecauseBusinessIsPersonalcom or check the show notes for details. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please don't forget to follow, subscribe, leave a review and share the podcast with others who might benefit. Your support means the world to us, so stay tuned for our next episode, where we'll continue to delve into the intersection of empathy and marketing strategy. Remember, because Business is Indeed Personal, every Connection Counts. Until next time, see you then.