Episode 20: The power of AI in marketing and recreating the Go-To-Marketing strategy for Office Buildings

Episode Transcript

Garrett: Welcome everyone, to episode 20 of the Original Marketing Show.

Brady: It’s a new decade.

Garrett: Oh God.

Brady: You were like, ” What the heck is he saying?”

Garrett: What’s he talking about? Okay. You’re right. The 20th episode of our second decade of doing the show. What does that make us? Is there a word for two decades? That’s a singular word.

Brady: That’s beyond my pay grade. I don’t even think decade was the correct way to explain that, but…

Garrett: No, it definitely wasn’t. 10 episodes-

Brady: I went for it.

Garrett: … is 10years. It’s all right. But we’re here. We’re grinding and we’re excited to chat with you all. Any updates, Brady, from the weekend? I heard you had some bad smelling kitchen equipment.

Brady: Yeah, that was happening during the week leading up to the weekend, just bad smell.

Garrett: Bad smell.

Brady: Bad smell coming out of, not the garbage disposal, but the sink on the right. So I did Drano first. Didn’t work.

Garrett: Guessing it didn’t work. Drano’s a joke.

Brady: Then I hit YouTube and the washing machine feeds into the garbage disposal. So I did a load of dishes that were in there, put those away, then ran the wash machine with detergent empty on a high cycle. Thought that would work. Still smelled. And then on Sunday, I had the time to do plumbing and it actually didn’t smell that bad, but I took apart all the plumbing and the hose with the washing machine had a good amount of gunk in it, so I cleaned that out.

Garrett: I didn’t think you were handy.

Brady: I just go on YouTube.

Garrett: But have you always done the home?

Brady: Yeah. I installed the kitchen sink, so that’s why I was confident about just taking apart all the plumbing.

Garrett: Because you already put it all in.

Brady: Yeah. I’ve already redone it before, so I just hosed it out in the backyard just in case it was in there. I thought it was a mouse. You know the U pipe, that catch pipe where they say if a ring falls into the sink, it’s probably in that U?

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: I thought there was a mouse or something in there. It was bad.

Garrett: It was that bad?

Brady: It was bad. But it’s gone now, so I don’t really care. What the fix was, it was one of the three things I did. But did that and then grandparents, good grandparent weekend, both sides of the family. Got to make the effort. We got on my wife’s side, 99 years old, so he’s hopefully making it to 100 in February. Grandpa Fred.

Garrett: See, that’s bad for you though. That means you’re going to live a long time. Do you want to live to 100?

Brady: That’s not my genes.

Garrett: Oh, it’s not your genes.

Brady: No, that’s my wife. My wife thinks I’m going to be gone 20 years before her.

Garrett: I can see that.

Brady: Even though we’re…

Garrett: Same age?

Brady: I’m four days older.

Garrett: That’s it?

Brady: No, her genes on her side from her dad’s side are pretty dang good.

Garrett: See, I don’t want to live that long. I don’t want to be past like 75. Maybe 78. 80 seems like when things start going downhill. You start getting dentures. You don’t drive as well, you don’t walk as well, you don’t think as well. You tell everybody the same stories.

Brady: Yeah. That’s the thing with him is his mind is sharp, but he’s in a bed now. He’s 99. Last year he would go on the golf cart during a scramble golf tournament. The year before he might walk out and putt with us. But now his body’s just… his hip has fallen out multiple times. So when he was out of the bed, he was supposed to be wearing a hip brace and-

Garrett: He doesn’t like wearing a hip brace.

Brady: He wouldn’t wear it, it’d pop out.

Garrett: See, that’s me. I would be a bad old person. That’s the thing, I just don’t think I’d be a good old person.

Brady: He’s having a hard time with it just because his mind is so dang sharp. And they have hospice care. So the guy was trying to help feed him. He’s like, “No.”

Garrett: Well, it’s a war zone.

Brady: Yeah. It’s tough.

Garrett: I love that.

Brady: But 99 is he’s super impressive. And my grandpa, it was his birthday, so we saw him. He’s 89. He’s doing great.

Garrett: So you got it, bro. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.

Brady: Well, also my dad’s side, not so much my mom’s side’s pretty good. We’ll see what happens.

Garrett: Yeah, we’ll see what happens.

Brady: What about you?

Garrett: Sword fishing.

Brady: Did you get any?

Garrett: Not even a nibble, Brady. 12 hours and a lot of money. 12 hours and a lot of money. Not a nibble. But it was cathartic, it really was. I needed that. I haven’t not done anything for 12 hours maybe ever.

Brady: Is it somewhat of a solitude in a way, or is your brain pretty active the whole time?

Garrett: Well, we had two captains on the boat that I chartered, and then my buddy. And for dudes we all talk a while, but eventually we all are just done small talking. You know?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: You’ve already asked as many questions as you can ask. You’ve already tried to glean all their knowledge on how to catch a swordfish. And eventually you’re just watching the rod tip. And it just goes up and down, up and down. And you’re looking for anything. Didn’t get it.

Brady: But you learned a lot about the pre bite.

Garrett: Now I know what reel I need, what rod I need, how to rig it, how to drop it, how to read the currents, where I want to be, how to set my drift. I feel empowered to do it. It’s the gladiator of the sea and it’s five minutes outside Newport Harbor. I don’t have to go some far island offshore. It’s right outside the harbor. And I’m going to get one. I am going to get one.

Brady: Are they outside there? Because you didn’t get a bite.

Garrett: Here’s what I’m thinking. I think every day between Christmas and New Years I have off and I’m just going to go out there until I get a swordfish.

Brady: Nice.

Garrett: No rest for the weary. And I’m going to get one. The guy that… There was a boat a mile away from us on the radio that got one.

Brady: Okay, so you knew it was-

Garrett: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brady: It was happening.

Garrett: There was three boats out there trying to catch them because you can see the buoys and how they’re doing it, and they’re all on the radios. Two of us didn’t even get a bite. The other guy got a fish. That was it. But it’s all right outside Newport. I could see this office essentially, no problem.

Brady: That’s pretty cool. So you think next time you can do it without a charter, like a captain or-

Garrett: Correct. Yeah. I can do it without a captain. I need to get all the tackle and get all the stuff. It’s a big, heavy lift. Compared to all the other fishing I’ve done, this is the most… You got to learn how to sew and rig your own baits. You’ve got to have at least 12 to 16 ounce weights, they’re like rebar. You don’t tie knots, you crimp it. So it’s all 400 pound leader that you’re crimping in the metal. You’re not tying knots on anything. Everything’s crimped. It’s like you’re trying to catch-

Brady: The gladiator of the sea.

Garrett: The gladiator of the sea.

Brady: Well, let me know. Christmas break.

Garrett: Yeah. inaudible.

Brady: I haven’t figured out what I’m… It’s such a fun time to just do some type of project.

Garrett: Yeah, I know.

Brady: Last year I had COVID, so I tried to day trade. I joined Discord groups.

Garrett: Yes. I remember your-

Brady: Lost some money.

Garrett: …day trader phase. I forgot. One day I got lunch with you and you all of a sudden you’re talking about the stocks and stuff.

Brady: Well, 2020 I got into investing, which was nice timing. I saw the market crash in March. I’m like, okay, this is a good moment for me where I’m at, my age and my finances to get in the market. And then obviously learning through that, I’m hearing all these day traders. And so I had COVID. We didn’t have work. The market was open. So I joined Discord groups. And what I learned is it’s a full- time job. You probably have to do simulator trading for two years before you even enter with your own money. So it was nice for me to conclude that it’s not this. Because on social media, there’s all the finance pages and they make you think, oh my gosh.

Garrett: Easy.

Brady: I just day trade options and I’m set.

Garrett: Simple.

Brady: But actually-

Garrett: Who’s ever lost money on the market?

Brady: Actually being in it, it was crazy. The guys who were doing it full- time in Discord, it was pretty intense.

Garrett: Intensive grind.

Brady: They all are predicting the algorithms. They know the massive financial firm algorithms pretty well. So they’re all chatting about what they think the algorithm’s going to do next, and they make their move before it, and that’s their bet. I’m like, this is insane.

Garrett: I would love to be trying to beat Ray-

Brady: I checked that off the list.

Garrett: You’re trying to beat Ray Dalio’s algorithm that he’s got-

Brady: It was wild.

Garrett: …2 trillion on, and then you’ve got three grand in the market trying, to beat the trillionaire. I love it.

Brady: I was in Robinhood too, I learned that you can’t do more than five day trades a week. And so I was like day trading an option, I couldn’t sell it. I was like, well, there it goes that money.

Garrett: You were day holding more than day trading.

Brady: Yeah, I was day holding and I probably still have it in my portfolio.

Garrett: Of course. Yeah. Winning.

Brady: No. I usually like to golf during that break, but I was sick and it was-

Garrett: Maybe you come out with me.

Brady: Yeah, maybe I’m the good luck charm. We’ll see.

Garrett: Maybe. I’m usually pretty good luck. I went hunting once, I got a bore my first time. I went bluefin hunting, got a bluefin the first time. I was convinced like I’m going to get a swordfish, didn’t get a swordfish.

Brady: All right.

Garrett: Use some luck. But now that we’re going into this end of the year time… Any holiday ads you saw, Brady before… I know it’s not even advertising jealousy, but any holiday ads because remember you showed that one that was terrible.

Brady: Which one? No, the Chanel N°5 one?

Garrett: Yeah. Chanel N ° 5 was the crappiest ad.

Brady: I’m sure they have a new ad this year that’s just as bad.

Garrett: Oh, let’s pull it up. Hold on, scroll.

Brady: All fragrance.

Garrett: Let’s see the Chanel-

Brady: Perfume or cologne, I do not understand that.

Garrett: Well, the other one’s like the car ads where they make jokes like another car ad about someone who bought a$50,000-

Brady: Yeah. Bought a car without telling their spouse. Psychopath. So that’s the Chanel N ° 5, the one I hate from 2019.

Garrett: Yeah. Do we have a new one yet?

Brady: 30 Second Holiday.

Garrett: Yeah, let’s see that one.

Brady: All right.

Garrett: Is this it?

Brady: I haven’t seen this one. Is that the girl from Gossip Girl? No. Thought it was Blair for a second.

Garrett: Wait.

Brady: That looked like Robert Patterson a little bit too.

Garrett: What happened?

Brady: Exactly.

Garrett: Wait, go back. I want to watch that, I got to-

Brady: This is the perfume, cologne industry.

Garrett: Go back. I want to see this again, the Chanel. I thought I was watching it-

Brady: You’re waiting for it to be relevant, right?

Garrett: I didn’t know what happened to me. Okay, go again. It’s a love story, right?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Okay, so she walks out-

Brady: She’s like, “What a great moon tonight.”

Garrett: She sees a full moon.

Brady: Now they’re on the moon actually.

Garrett: Oh, so she’s dreaming because she was alone, right when she saw the moon?

Brady: She’s dreaming.

Garrett: Her perfect mister, her Mr. Perfect.

Brady: We’re on each other’s team.

Garrett: The neck grab, the admiration. Oh, whoa. The guy just dreamed about, showed up

Brady: Because Chanel N ° 5. Couple sprits and that’s going to happen.

Garrett: He didn’t se her.

Brady: He smelled her. Oh wow. That’s what they’re going for.

Garrett: Okay. What’s it called? Actually keep going to see because they partnered with Macy’s on it. What’s the…

Brady: The fragrance destination.

Garrett: Macy’s is good for buying-

Brady: Even that line, I just… I don’t know, man. These commercials every year. But there’s-

Garrett: What do you want them to say though, Brady?

Brady: I don’t know.

Garrett: In their defense.

Brady: They just all have the same style. I think there’s a blue one. It might be a cologne. It’s just this dude diving into an infinite pool.

Garrett: Oh, I’ve seen that one.

Brady: Comes out of the water-

Garrett: Aqua di Gio.

Brady: And he’s like, “Aqua di Gio.”

Garrett: I guess if you want to be a merman.

Brady: Macy’s, the fragrance destination.

Garrett: What do you want them to do? A woman goes like this with the perfume and then all of a sudden-

Brady: No, don’t know.

Brady: I don’t have the answer.

Garrett: And her problems are all solved?

Brady: I don’t have

Brady: the answer.

Garrett: You got a lot of criticism, Brady, give me an answer.

Brady: Nah, I’m just going to judge it. It’s not our industry. I don’t need to worry about it.

Garrett: Not your problem.

Brady: No.

Garrett: Come on. You got to sell. How would you do a perfume? How would we do a perfume ad, real quick?

Brady: Are we going straight into Market This right now?

Garrett: It’s not marketing. We got a separate… No.

Brady: Are we going to scrap our idea for the day?

Garrett: We got a separate segment. No, no, no. But how would you do perfume? Give five minutes?

Brady: I don’t know. Social ads, blind smell tests, what would you like?

Garrett: Doesn’t that make it… Do you think perfume should be humorous?

Brady: No, I don’t think it has to be humorous. I don’t think it needs to be a funny version of the blind smell test. And what do you think about this person? You just smell them and then you, ” Oh, they seem like they’re corporate or they seem free- spirited.” And then the person’s the opposite of that, but it just shows how the smell of someone is a judging factor.

Garrett: I know what I would do.

Brady: What would you do?

Garrett: Scarlet, pull up the Marlboro man.

Brady: The cigarette guy?

Garrett: Can’t do that anymore but you could just recreate the entire concept for perfumes.

Brady: The Marlboro man. Whatever.

Garrett: Oh yeah. Also inaudible the Marlboro man.

Brady: I don’t think it’s going to get us there.

Garrett: Yeah. It’s a cigarette. Marlboro.

Brady: I have no clue how to spell it so I can’t help you.

Garrett: Yeah. It’s a cigarette.

Brady: So the cowboy?

Garrett: Yeah. Watch, watch, watch. You could do, come to where the flavor is. Essentially-

Brady: Come to what the smell is.

Garrett: … they madeone guy, which here’s I think what makes it unique. Whenever we see a perfume ad, they could do them like flow from progressive. You could essentially create the embodiment of the… Or like Dos Equis. Dos Equis the Most Interesting Man. I think you could do something where you took the same character, and then you created, if you wanted to be, let’s say the rich, swanky guy and that was what your cologne was about, you would all be rich, swanky and it would just show this guy at lounges getting beautiful women, stepping into luxurious cars. And then the watcher assumes it’s because of the cologne, right?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: And you do that theme. The problem I have with the perfumes or the colognes is nothing seems integrated like the Marlboro man where you just had this hard Americana type character. I feel like the cologne or perfume, if you gave him a consistent character that had certain values that we knew would trigger in society, people would want that. They would want to become that, is kind of where my thought’s at.

Brady: I’m curious. Look up Miley Cyrus perfume because I’m pretty sure she’s partnered with a major brand and is in commercials.

Garrett: That’s inaudible kind of like Ryan Reynolds doing Aviation Gin, she’s doing her own. Yeah, like this. See, that’s good advertising.

Brady: Yeah, but why? Go to videos. Let’s see what the video ad looks like, because I’m pretty sure I saw it and I grouped it into the same… They’re just so…

Garrett: Okay. But this is so… Do you like doing mushrooms? If yes, try this perfume.

Brady: Look, I get it. Smell is the one.

Garrett: See, I think the problem with Miley is she’s more of a sex symbol and this is her doing women’s empowerment. Do women look up to Miley like they look up to T swift? I don’t feel like they do.

Brady: I mean, free- spirited, take no judgment.

Garrett: Correct, but inaudible I don’t feel like Miley is as much of a female hero is a male hero. I think men remember her riding that cannonball a hell of a lot more than women are empowered to follow her for…

Brady: That’s a great song.

Garrett: …her( singing). That is a great song. But see how you knew what I was talking about?

Brady: Oh yeah.

Garrett: That’s my point here. I don’t think any women know that song quite nearly as well as you did.

Brady: Yeah. I learned it in sign language in college.

Garrett: So you see my point? But see, Gucci’s got a theme. See though the theme here? Gucci seems to be doing this way better than Chanel. See how all the colors, like art? I do the art of that ad. I just feel like Miley’s a weird one compared to maybe others.

Brady: Yeah. It’s interesting. I remember back in the day, probably still exists, but in magazines they actually had a peel off scent. I remember as a kid, my mom would’ve a magazine, I just thought it was cool. You of course can smell something from the page. It was like scratch and sniff kind of thing. But it’s the one scent, I guess feel is tough to do.

Garrett: You could distribute it.

Brady: It’s a visual ad spot, yet they’re selling a scent and I think they just struggle. Like how the heck do we channel-

Garrett: Well, let’s go watch this. Go to YouTube on here. Go Marlboro man, because I want to see. And then let’s go to the Interesting Man in the World. I think we look at both of those. Give me a… that one right there.

Speaker 3: This is Lumen, the first device for hacking your metabolism with just one breath, women-

Garrett: Yes.

Speaker 4: You don’t see many wild stallions anymore.

Garrett: He’s a wild stallion.

Brady: Is he that big?

Garrett: A thousand mile stare.

Speaker 4: No. You don’t see many wild stallions anymore. And even if he did run off three of your best mares, he’s one of the last of a wild and very singular breed.

Brady: Want this man’s wrinkles.

Speaker 4: Come to where the flavor is. Come to Marlboro country.

Garrett: It’s a good ad because he’s calling the man a stallion and he’s… That’s a good ad. Now do the Most Interesting Man in the World for me real quick, Dos Equis.

Brady: I just like how she got a health related metabolism vape as a YouTube ad before that commercial.

Garrett: Oh yeah. You mean just… That’s nine minutes. Just give me like a… There we go. That one’s fine.

Speaker 5: He wouldn’t be afraid to show his feminine side if he had one. His mother has a tattoo that reads, son. At museums, he’s allowed to touch the art. He is the most interesting man in the world.

Speaker 6: I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis. Stay thirsty, my friends.

Garrett: They don’t drink in that ad either.

Brady: No, they don’t.

Garrett: Now, those all have nothing to do with beer until they do. I think you could do a fragrance ad with the similarity traits of those two commercials.

Brady: Yeah, just not as abstract.

Garrett: Correct.

Brady: I think that’s what the theme is in these commercials. They’re just so abstract. They’re trying to connect these dots.

Garrett: Because maybe flower fields have scent. You know when Miley’s in the flower field, but then she’s on her guitar. Once Miley gets the guitar, I don’t think a lot of women are like, ” I love when Miley plays the guitar. I’m going to buy the perfume.” You see what I’m saying? I feel like it creates a disconnect between them all. Which one’s this? Dolce& Gabbana? All right, let’s watch this one.

Brady: This is like the swimming pool ones I think.

Garrett: This looks like it’s a favorite of Scarlet’s, I wonder why. How’d she pull this one up? We didn’t say a favor to pull this up. She just went over there and remembered it herself. Oh wow, Scarlet. How’d you remember this one?

Brady: This isn’t the one I remember, but it’s probably similar.

Garrett: She remembers though. She’s out here in Italy in Capri or something, just waiting for this guy to swan dive and save her. Oh, yes. I think they’re going to need a bigger raft.

Speaker 7: Dolce& Gabbana, Light Blue.

Brady: These are just funny. I love these commercials and I hate them.

Garrett: Scarlet just knew about this one. I love that our producer pulled this one up, no prompting. She’s like, ” I’ve got a cologne that I like.” Oh, it’s all time. That one’s actually very much also just selling sex.

Brady: And that’s for the women to then buy it.

Garrett: For her… Not a strategy I actually like. I just would love the man to get the retargeting ad for it when he looks dad boded it out and stuff. You know what I mean?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: He’s like, ” Close your eyes, honey. You can smell this.” Because theoretically he’d probably smell like that.

Brady: That’d be a funny TikTok.

Garrett: That that would be a hilarious TikTok.

Brady: The guy Christmas morning and his wife got him that he puts it on and acts he’s that guy.

Garrett: Or you recreate that ad, because you can smell like him and then she can close her eyes and dream.

Brady: He’s just acting like he’s this ripped guy and she’s just like, ” What the heck did I do?” I love it. I love it.

Garrett: No, it’s hard. But I guess you and I are on the same page. I think you just have to want to become something that’s attainable. I think the hard part if you do the guy with all those abs, abs are the hardest thing in the world because he needs to restrain from so much. We want people to feel, I feel like, like they could become… Becoming the Marlboro man, you could become him without riding a horse with the way they do the copy and do the ad. You could imagine yourself being the Marlboro man as you photocopy 3, 000 copies of paper at the law office where you’re trying to come up as an intern. You could think you’re the Marlboro… You could imagine it. I think the same thing with the Most Interesting Man in the World, you can be trying new hobbies, do new things, be adventurous.

Brady: Yeah. Just more literal. Even I remember, I just wear deodorant now, but I used to wear this cologne, not a lot, and I remember-

Garrett: You know by the way, deodorant and cologne are separate. Right?

Brady: I know. I just don’t use cologne anymore. But when I did, you’d go to a get- together and you’d give someone a hug and people are like, ” Oh, you smell good.” And maybe an ad like that. Smell good.

Garrett: Oh, I like that.

Brady: And just less abstract and unrealistic.

Garrett: Start getting comp-

Brady: People don’t tell me I smell good anymore, so maybe I’ll get back on.

Garrett: We could have an ad that just said, start getting compliments and it was just all about-

Brady: It’s just more realistic. It’ll probably actually happen.

Garrett: Feel good about yourself. I like that.

Brady: Interesting segment.

Garrett: Very.

Brady: Just this fragrance industry commercials.

Garrett: It is.

Brady: It’s always fascinated me, that’s why I always bring up the Chanel N ° 5 ad, which we don’t have to watch the 2019 one.

Garrett: No, no. I’m good. But wildly interesting and engaging to see how they do that. And that was an all time ad, the Dolce& Gabbana Light Blue. Way to go, Scarlet.

Brady: That was epic.

Garrett: She’s over here trying to go viral. Smart girl. She’s going to get-

Brady: That’s going to be inaudible the TikTok clip.

Garrett: That’s the one that’s going to…

Brady: She’s like, ” You guys want views?”

Garrett: I see what Scarlet’s doing. She’s trying to make this podcast, get someone to listen to it other than our parents.

Brady: Click that commercial. Game over.

Garrett: We needed that. All right. Well, let’s talk ad jealousy.

Brady: Cool.

Garrett: Looks like I’m up because she’s got me pulled up. I like this one just because I’ve been trying to figure out what do I do with our brand marketing at Directive. I’m finding that it’s just hard to take a professional services business and do more innovative, creative stuff. And so I’m looking to direct to consumer for a lot of inspiration all the time. But I found this company, MarketerHire does this really, really well. Now this isn’t currently an ad, but this tweet was used as… They paid him to do this tweet and then they promote it.

Brady: I get their ads a lot on Instagram, through influencers. I get it, their advertisement.

Garrett: Okay. I don’t like those ads. I don’t think those are that great. I think these ads are elite. So first will you right click on E- Com Chase Diamond. So he’s got 99, 000 followers. Driven 150 million in email revenue for clients. Partner at an eight figure e- commerce marketing agency, blah, blah, blah. In other words, he’s saying, ” I’m worth listening to.” Look at that, his pinned tweet has a thousand retweets. So the guy’s got some clout in the email marketing game. So then what MarketerHire does is they find all the influencers. You can use a tool like SparkToro for this. And then what they do essentially is pay them to do a tweet. I don’t know what they pay them, I don’t know how these influencer rates are because I’m not in this game. But then essentially I get a promoted tweet from Chase Diamond on behalf of MarketerHire, like you can do Instagram ads that are creator plus brand now, and they have the two bios in the ad. They’re doing that here. This got me genuinely jealous because for me, think about it. You’re MarketerHire. You roll out a brand new expert assistant service. For$ 28,50 a month they provide companies with a fully vetted, college educated and full- time, 40 hours a week offshore resource to support their marketing design sales teams most time consuming tasks. That’s not a bad pitch, but now if you’re not clever enough to even realize it’s promoted as you go through the feed, next thing you know, you’re exploring MarketerHire because Chase who you follow and trust promoted it to you. And I haven’t seen anyone really doing that with B2B.

Brady: Yeah. He’s using it, he has that authority. It comes across like he’s using it, which maybe he could do another tweet that really makes it clear, like I have two of these MarketerHires-

Garrett: He didn’t ever say he uses it. He just said literally this is what they’re doing.

Brady: But because he is tweeting it, I think you assume, oh, he might be using this. And so that author’s there. And then that makes you dive in, because when I see it, it’s an Instagram ad that at least the ads I can remember, it might come across as if it’s like, oh, replace your W2 full- time team with MarketerHire. And to me that’s a bit unrealistic. But even the way it’s positioned here I thought was smart.

Garrett: Will you go down a little bit more, Scarlet, please.

Brady: It’s essentially niched VAs, but full- time is unique, I guess.

Garrett: And you can see I wonder how many inaudible. Whatever. And they got all look crazy, the normal comments that you would expect on social media. Lovely people who do these comments.

Brady: Overpriced if you ask me.

Garrett: And then he’s like Solid VAs in Philippines South are skilled between 500 to 10000 a month. Yes, but then you don’t have to vet them, manage them or find them. So this is the markup for the service. Six hours to hire someone to market inaudible. See, so everybody’s showing, ” Look smart I am.” But I think it’s brilliant because obviously these people I don’t think would’ve left comments or opinions if it was underneath the MarketerHire account. But instead it’s coming from Chase’s account. So you not only get the promotion, you also get the organic reach, and then the influence of him being the one who says it. I’m trying to figure out how I do something similar for Directive and take our six service lines, find influencers for each of the six. And then I got to figure out how to get them exposure to the service or something so it feels authentic to their brands, but then allow them or pay them to share on their social about Directive, I think could be a really cool influencer marketing for B2B professional services. Nobody’s really doing influencer marketing for agencies. And once I saw them doing it, I was like, ooh, this could really unlock a new marketing channel for Directive that we’ve never touched, that I think has elements of brand but also as elements of direct response and could be really, really successful. This was my advertising jealousy. It’s nothing that crazy. It’s a little different than what I normally talk about with video or video ads, but I thought it was well- written. I think he obviously didn’t write it and I don’t think he has any exposure to it. I think they literally paid Chase X amount of money to post this and he posted it just like he’s Kim K or any other inaudible.

Brady: Maybe not Kim K money. I think she gets what, a million for a post.

Garrett: Well, he doesn’t have the same amount of followers.

Brady: No, I know. It’s inspired by B2C marketing and if there are influencers in your space, it’s totally worth it. My ad is in the same category.

Garrett: Neil Patel did this. Do you remember that from six, seven years ago? He got a ton of backlash. I thought it was actually genius though. So he took all the booty influencers on Instagram and he paid them to promote neilpatel. com.

Brady: Oh, I don’t remember that.

Garrett: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the whole campaign was who is Neil Patel? And he was getting people to search, I think for Neil Patel and go to his website, but it would just be a bikini model being like, ” Who’s Neil Patel?” And so he was paying all the influencers and he did it like a blitz.

Brady: So his TAM is so massive. Sure it’s within marketing, but there’s millions of marketers out there and I think Neil Patel’s built his business to try to be relevant to all of them. So that makes sense.

Garrett: I kind of like that because I’m trying to take Directive mainstream. I’ve been trying to figure out what are some interesting, somewhat controversial, but intriguing ways to make Directive a part of the sociocultural conversation.

Brady: The podcast is a piece of that.

Garrett: Dude, with our 2 billion downloads we get every week?

Brady: We’re talking about beer, right?

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: It’s blowing up on TikTok. But the day- to- day is talking about SaaS marketing.

Garrett: Brady, you made it clear, we were not talking about beer. You.

Brady: You fired at me. I deflected. That’s all that was.

Garrett: I’m just lucky that I get to be in the presence of this guy.

Brady: Your clips are blowing up too. Your clips are blown up too. As long as you do TikToks.

Garrett: He’s right though. He’s right though. Brady’s the fan favorite. So Brady, tell us, advertising jealousy, what do you got for us this week?

Brady: Very similar. Social media influencer. Because I know last week I brought the long form one and so-

Garrett: What a capture to the… the influencers are so much better than us at this. Like, ” You’ll never write emails after watching this.”

Brady: This is his theme. If you went to his page, everything’s titled like that.

Garrett: I know, that’s why he’s so much better than me.

Brady: So I was fishing on Instagram this weekend looking for an ad, and this was more of an organic reel.

Garrett: You should downgrade your Netflix to finally get your ad game up, bro.

Brady: Oh, that’d be good.

Garrett: Yeah. You see what I’m saying?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: You could just-

Brady: My wife might not be too happy with that, but…

Garrett: Have her send you her favorites because I bet you her favorites are different than your favorites and it’ll be interesting to you.

Brady: I don’t know. We share an account with the whole family, so that’ll be interesting.

Garrett: Everybody gets ads. You just make everybody pay the price for the podcast.

Brady: The inaudible and I are just going to get golf ads. She binges Grey’s Anatomy every single day.

Garrett: Okay, I got you. All right, so tell me about the ad.

Brady: So like I said, I was actually looking for ads for this segment and I came across this video and it actually made me stop and go on my computer afterwards and check out the site. So just a really good organic feed influencer. And what I don’t know about this guy-

Garrett: Time out. Was it truly… Geez. How Mark sends… Who is the account? Because it’s in Polish. Is this English?

Brady: I don’t know.

Garrett: Because see on the top right corner is Abstract Glitch?

Brady: Yeah. So that’s his page name.

Garrett: This is how Mark sends emails.

Brady: I don’t know if his name is Mark.

Garrett: Is he Mark? Okay, sorry, I’m just reading this now and I’m trying to-

Brady: Read through his profile real quick, figure it out.

Garrett: Wait, yeah. Before I see the ad. Let me figure out what I’m looking at because I showed you the Chase person.

Brady: He’s all about AI.

Garrett: I know secret websites and coding tricks. I love this guy.

Brady: Yeah, so his name is DWhiz I think.

Garrett: DWhiz.

Brady: Dwhiz, now Dwiz.

Garrett: He’s da whiz.

Brady: Da whiz?

Garrett: Because he’s DWhiz.

Brady: Da Whiz is a cool name.

Garrett: So get in tech. Does he mean get in touch? I don’t think he speaks English. The way he writes does not-

Brady: Yeah, he does voiceovers and his English is pretty good.

Garrett: Oh, he’s doing voiceovers?

Brady: Yeah. When we watch the video it’s his voice.

Garrett: Okay. So he’s got these cool captions. He’s good with his little thumbnails. And then when he does this… 136, 000 followers, crazy. If we go back then to the ad, is there any more to see or is this the full view? Because it doesn’t show promoted or sponsored.

Brady: Well, that’s why I’m wondering if he-

Garrett: Because you get in trouble for that now. There’s laws around that. I don’t know the laws.

Brady: Yeah, if you are promoting, but it doesn’t say hashtag ad, that stuff.

Garrett: If you get paid to promote something, you have to make it clear that you received compensation for doing this. Is that correct, Scarlet?

Brady: Yeah. This could be purely organic to then build the following and then he gets sponsored posts every now and then.

Garrett: Okay. Let’s see it. Let’s say that. Let’s see it.

Speaker 8: You will never write emails after watching this. So first go on Google and then search for rytr. me. Once you’re on the website, select start writing. Click on continue with Google and log in. First you need to select the tone of your email. I will leave this on convincing. Then you need to click on choose use case. For this we select email. After that, you simply need to type in the key points of your email. As you can see here, I want to raise-

Brady: inaudible AI is the right thing to use for being raised. But that’s his example.

Speaker 8: AI will write an email to my boss. So go try out this crazy AI-

Garrett: Oh, he’s using OpenAI’s-

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: He’s using OpenAI’s API. They just rolled out the new GBT, I think 3 or GBT4, whatever it’s called, which is sick. I’ve been playing with it a ton. I sent our director of SEO a note saying, ” Hey, by four months from now I want all the manual busy work tasks automated using AI.” And so she’s all over it. She’s super excited about it. But why’d you love this ad?

Brady: I liked it because he showed actually logging in because I’ve done free trials with Anyword for Google Ads copy. I’ve checked out Jarvis but that was one where you got to put in your credit card.

Garrett: Oh, Jarvis AI makes you do the credit card when you set up the account?

Brady: Yeah, I think they have a credit card sign up. And so for me, I liked how he showed just how you can log in, connect your Google account. He gave a good example, which it was for a raise, but it got me thinking outbound email. I’ve been writing a bunch of different-

Garrett: They got you writing them now.

Brady: …variants. So I’m like, let me try this thing out. It was just clear enough for me to actually go on my computer, which I thought would be fun to do now. It’s super easy to sign up and we can test AI real quick. So rytr. me and he just made it… So there’s Jasper. So Jarvis is now Jasper. So they’re poaching. Scarlet clicking the ads.

Garrett: Wait, Jarvis is Jasper?

Brady: Yeah, Jarvis is now Jasper AI.

Garrett: What’s the difference?

Brady: I don’t know if it was an acquisition or something came up with the Jarvis name, so they had to change it to Jasper. I don’t know what happened. Their branding’s very similar and the name is even similar.

Garrett: Okay, so start writing.

Brady: Yeah, start writing. Just connect to Google.

Garrett: That’ll be$ 200.

Brady: Yep.

Garrett: Okay, so you can watch-

Brady: Just hit start. Yeah, you can watch their intro. And then choose use case. You can keep convincing.

Garrett: I’m awestruck. I want to go with awestruck.

Brady: Okay. I’ll test it out.

Garrett: Such a use case.

Brady: And then I did email when I was playing with it. Do you want to test something? They have meta titles and stuff.

Garrett: She was like, are you asking me?

Brady: No, I was asking you. Yeah. We can test email. We can test a neutral email.

Garrett: Yeah. Go to email. So go to-

Brady: Yeah, you got to scroll down a little bit.

Garrett: Okay. Go to email. And then let’s do key points. Generate more sales qualified leads.

Brady: Yep.

Garrett: Okay. Hit right for me.

Brady: And you can even put, we are a performance marketing agency for SaaS.

Garrett: Yeah. A$ 100 gift card.

Brady: Yeah, get a free audit. You can say things like, receive$ 105 Amazon gift card for an intro call. For SaaS, not sales. Nice.

Garrett: Nice. Get a free gift.

Brady: Yeah, get a free audit. This is probably enough.

Garrett: Okay, now hit it right for me. We’re doing an ad. No free ads, writer. All right. Let’s see. Hi, we are performing inaudible. We want to help you generate more SaaS qualified leads. Sound like something you could use? We would love to give you a free 100…. Gees, I don’t know why I need Brady.

Brady: Right? Dude, this is crazy.

Garrett: Bye, Brady. This was free.

Brady: I found it.

Garrett: Oh, they even did the merch tags for us. You could scale it really easily. They’re already doing merch tags.

Brady: But no, I threw in the gift card when I was testing it. It put it in pretty well, and even differentiated the intro call being the gift card and then an audit.

Garrett: One of our clients, they saw a 10 to 50% of customer retention. Imagine how much we can do with your help. What are we talking about? The AI knows.

Brady: I thought it was really cool.

Garrett: I saw the funniest tweet about all this. It was like OpenAI has hired 2 million people in Singapore to write responses for them, do things that don’t scale. And it was just like AKI. It was just people trying to write all the responses for the AI. Oh, what a weird world. I think AI’s going to be the most ground shaking, innovative, disruptive technology we’ve encountered in our marketing careers in the last 10 years.

Brady: Image AI is cool too. Canva has it.

Garrett: I’ve seen it. Yeah.

Brady: You can type it in Canva, and then I’ve seen some stuff in the digital photography community and those influencers where now you can just type in-

Garrett: Sunset.

Brady: Yeah, I want Yosemite, sunset, frozen river, snow on the ground.

Garrett: Boom.

Brady: And it just puts out the most insane AI Yosemite photo where now all the people who travel there during the winter and they stand there and wait for the sun to hit the waterfall within a two- day window.

Garrett: Don’t need that.

Brady: You just type it in. And so now there’s all this concern about just the photography, social media.

Garrett: Yeah, one of my buddies, Joel Clecky is a world- class copywriter and he’s obviously, I think going through it mentally and emotionally, which I understand. I can’t even imagine if I had committed my life. Now, I don’t think…. That second email’s really good.

Brady: And we only test, this is our top of mind, let’s throw in this guidance. You can really play with it.

Garrett: But we’ve helped company increase their conversion rate by 4% within a month going live, and also helped company two generate three X more leads in the same time. They wrote these emails. If I were to spend an hour to write an outbound email, it would look a lot like the second one, I’m not lying to you.

Brady: And you can type in, I tested, we work with, and I listed out some of our clients and it just mentioned the clients perfectly very well in three different variants.

Garrett: So if you’re a copywriter, this is obviously hard to go through. I think what you’ll learn to do is harness the technology, hopefully and create more value out of the tech than we could. Essentially, I think if I was a copywriter, I’d have to pivot into being a subject matter expert at leveraging AI. Because AI has its limitations, and so I would try to see it as a positive, all the stuff I hate about being a copywriter automate, but it can’t do all the market research because you still have to put the market research into the AI for it to write it, if that makes sense. I think there’s still a lot for those people to do and I don’t think AI’s just going to take our jobs today, but it looks like it’ll take them tomorrow.

Brady: But for entrepreneurs, I think it’s really cool.

Garrett: For advertisers, Brady, it’s just as dangerous. It is. It just meant who owns the AI. If Google owns the AI, not as dangerous. If a third party, so if I right now were to build a third party AI driven bid recommendation company, it would replace a lot of the media buyers in the industry within the next five years. It would, because it could look at your whole data set way faster than you could, and then it could apply recommendations at scale way faster than you could, and it would be more accurate.

Brady: For Google specifically, it’s all bidding algorithms now. You don’t actually go in and make decisions anymore from a bidding standpoint.

Garrett: Yeah. You really just write the copy. But this’ll write your ad copy for you and they’ll write the copy on the landing page.

Brady: And there’s landing page AI now.

Garrett: Yep. I’ve been telling this to our strategy. I’ll tell us to everybody listening and watching, if you’re a marketer, you need to pivot your tools from doing the work to managing the outcomes of the work. You need to really get yourself from production to strategy, from execution to consultation, because if you’re in the execution realm right now as a professional, whether that’s writing or math or anything you’re doing that is essentially execution based, you’re going to be replaced in the next five years by AI. It ain’t 10 years from now. And five is generous. It might be within the next two. I’m already working through-

Brady: It’s scaling quickly.

Garrett: I’ve already sent messages to our COO on every administrative related task in the business to be leveraged via AI.

Brady: My uncle, he’s in the legal AI space. He’s been flipping companies and he was telling me about his latest one and it’s just insane the jobs it’s taking over. Like court reporters. It’s all in the deposition AI space and the facial recognition and tone recognition and the summary of deposition reports done by AI. There’s hours of human work going in it just being replaced by AI in seconds. But I’m curious, product AI, think of HubSpot can recognize users wanting a new feature and then it could test like-

Garrett: No, it can write you an email-

Brady: And then it writes the code for a feature.

Garrett: Even more than that, it can do the email workflow. I want to launch an email workflow for everyone who went to the Dreamforce conference. Boom. And it has all 16 emails like that. Done.

Brady: I’m thinking about an AI that generates a new product feature. If this could recognize all-

Garrett: If you do all your customer feedback and it said, we recommend the next 10 ideas for product ideas-

Brady: Well, it’d build it too. It could recognize, hey, people I think want this for ad copy for Google. And the AI builds that-

Garrett: The actual inaudible.

Brady: … inthe product.

Garrett: I don’t think we’re there yet, but that’s probably what, 10 years.

Brady: No, I don’t think we’re there yet. But-

Garrett: Five, 10 years.

Brady: … the direction it’s goinginaudible next step.

Garrett: Well, trust me, you don’t think there’s a CTO right now trying to replace level three engineers that they pay 600K to or whatever? It’s happening. It’s happening. This is really cool. I love this ad. Great call out, Brady. And I liked more if you go back to DWhiz, I like the fact that they found this, if we’re being honest, completely weird account where it’s not really a real person. So much of it’s a tech account.

Brady: He could be AI.

Garrett: I would believe it. And the thing about this is you found this account, but someone had the idea to reach out to him and do this ad, and obviously it’s working because you saw it. And that’s pretty cool. Scarlet did I know technically just create an account from seeing the ad. I know that wasn’t really what happened. But you did.

Brady: Yeah. I was watching on my phone, looking for an ad for the segment. I’m like, I actually like that.

Garrett: No, this is really cool.

Brady: I saw it on my laptop and I started playing with it.

Garrett: We were literally on the same page. Both of us did influencer marketing ads today. That’s wild.

Brady: I know last week I did a long form one and I was frustrated. I couldn’t find a short one. So I was pretty excited when I saw this video.

Garrett: Hey, you’re on a little bit of a influencer marketing-

Brady: Yeah, I’m little kick here.

Garrett: … kick here.Yeah.

Brady: Have you seen the Websites You Need to Know guy?

Garrett: No.

Brady: It’s similar to this. He just-

Garrett: Does the five websites you need to know if you travel. Five websites you need to know if you inaudible.

Brady: He just says website you need to know. He’s probably on part 100- something and he just goes to these websites. And I don’t know how much of it is being paid for.

Garrett: It’s probably a lot of affiliate stuff too.

Brady: It’s pretty interesting.

Garrett: It’s very interesting. All right. And then what was your finding this week, Brady?

Brady: This week I’ll keep it short and sweet. This is an aggregated finding that I’ve noticed.

Garrett: What does that mean?

Brady: It’s like I’ve seen this throughout my career. It wasn’t like, oh, I saw this last week in this one account.

Garrett: Okay, so this is a thought. This is a viewpoint.

Brady: Well, it’s data I’ve seen in a repetitive manner throughout multiple accounts. It’s becoming a bit less within our clients, but I want to bring it up because I think it’s relevant.

Garrett: A trend.

Brady: Yeah, it’s a trend. And it is specifically for Google, and it’s all about calls from ads. And so the finding is, and I’ve found this in multiple accounts over my career, it’s all about…. We can go on a tangent with conversion tracking, but let’s assume people are tracking multiple things in Google Ads and they’re all created equal. It happens every day. And so someone calls you from the website, that’s a conversion. Someone calls you from an ad, that’s a conversion. Someone fills out your form to schedule an appointment, that’s a conversion.

Garrett: Someone fills out a random ebook.

Brady: That’s a conversion. And so let’s assume that’s a setup, which is the majority of setups that we see. The finding was within competitor terms. And so a lot of accounts have competitor specific campaigns. Some accounts with now broad keywords and even phrase match and exact match pulling close variance, you’ll have a non- branded solution based keyword. And Google pulls a company that does that as a search term.

Garrett: Uh- oh.

Brady: And so what I found in these accounts was conversions were looking really, really good. And so what you can do in Google is you can segment the conversion action. And I found it was calls from ads. I’m like, oh, that’s interesting. I didn’t really think this sales-

Garrett: Someone would call for this type of product.

Brady: Yeah. The sales team was really growing through calls. I thought it was more like form fills and demos. And then I went into search terms and I found most, if not all the calls from ads were for competitor terms. And these are in industries where customer service is a very large business unit.

Garrett: Naughty, naughty, naughty, Google.

Brady: And so the superpower of auditing in my opinion is just being realistic and really understanding what’s actually happening. And so the reality of this user experience is, it’s a consumer, a customer of the company searching the company name in Google and some of the search terms even said customer service number. And when you do that on your phone, the end user’s assumption is… yeah, Scarlet is clicking all the ads when we do this.

Garrett: She’s like this is exactly how we get those conversions.

Brady: In general on your mobile phone, you’re searching a company’s name with the intention of calling their customer service, technical support, whatever it is. And so you think, well, the first number that pops up on Google is going to be the number of the company I’m searching. That’s the ad. And so the company’s ad is number one on mobile. The call extension is being pulled. And so the end user thinks they’re calling a completely different company.

Garrett: So they called and complain about the product to the competitor and they pay-

Brady: To the competitor’s sales team-

Garrett: … $27.

Brady: …is essentially what’s happening. But in the Google account, it looks like it’s going bonkers.

Garrett: We’re crushing.

Brady: Looks like it’s the best thing in the world. And so the algorithm is now pushing all the bids to competitor campaigns.

Garrett: So it becomes a customer service department for all their competitors because Google’s just running wild on this.

Brady: So it’s a trifecta of how you’re tracking, how you’re telling Google what success means to your business.

Garrett: What you’re telling Google to optimize towards.

Brady: What Google’s now able to pull from many match types where the intent might not be to show up for a competitor name. Google’s targeting is loose enough for it to happen. And I know I said trifecta, but I’m blanking on the third point. And the end consumer is just what they think is happening when they Google a company name looking for their phone number, the first thing that pops up, they’re not even going to read your ad. they’re just going to tap on it, call the number.

Garrett: Your ad might mention the other brand in it, ironically. And then you’re like…

Brady: Yeah. So there’s call tracking stuff where you can set the minutes of the call. If it’s a two minute call, it counts as a conversion, if it’s not. So there might be some ways to clean it up. But it was an interesting finding that I’ve seen plenty of times throughout my career a bit less in a smaller TAM SaaS company where customer support calling a phone number isn’t as popular.

Garrett: Did you really doing chat ads then?

Brady: Chat ads in Google?

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: Oh nice.

Garrett: Yeah. This is some innovative new stuff.

Brady: Because they have the built in lead ads.

Garrett: No, they’re going to do a chat ad where you can chat in-

Brady: Oh yeah, I did see that. The chat is built into the ad itself and…

Garrett: If you could confer form LinkedIn convo ads, because that still crushes. Would be cool.

Brady: Chat’s being more popular if when I’m dealing with something with my cell phone bill.

Garrett: But that’s been the case for 10 years, dude.

Brady: Yeah, but I just think solving things through chat is getting better versus this chat’s not going to help me. Let me just get a phone number.

Garrett: I think it’s getting better. I think the companies have forced us to do it because when we call, no one picks up. We’re just on hold for 45 minutes and we know it’s faster to just use the chat. So I think companies have reprogrammed us to use chat over calling and I think a lot of young people prefer chatting or texting more than they prefer calling. So it’s changing culturally. And you’re right, with the AI and stuff, it’s getting way quicker and faster. So there’s a lot of changes coming. Would it be a good time to be a CS person? All that’s going to get replaced by AI too. But I love this. Well, let’s talk a little Market This. So Brady, Market This. I got a little confession to you. We’re going to maybe do this, because this might actually be our first real business on the show.

Brady: What do you mean?

Garrett: Okay, so here’s what I mean. Great, great.

Brady: What do you mean by that?

Garrett: Yeah, that’s such a good… Thank you, Brady. Way to tee me up, Brady. What do I by that? This lease, this lovely studio we’re sitting in right now is currently populated by a one sick business partner named Tanner Schaffer. Not sick mentally, just physically, he’s always sick.

Brady: Yeah, it’s bad.

Garrett: He comes in here and he just makes it so no one else can use it because he quarantines. He just comes in here, and he’s working in here. And essentially it’s just Tanner’s whole office. Tanner’s got a 4, 000 square foot office from himself.

Brady: Nice. Good for him.

Garrett: Yeah, good for him. And then we come in here on Mondays and record. And then three times a year I use it as a meeting spot for our offsite. Correct?

Brady: Yep. Doesn’t Jesse come in on Fridays?

Garrett: I think he came in on Friday. I don’t think he comes in on Friday. I think he came in here to pick up a shirt we had got for him. He had some swag. I think he came in because there was a package, not because that’s what he normally does. In fact, I’ve been here plenty of times. He’s not here. Nobody comes to his office. This is just Tanner Schaffer and occasionally Garrett Murdue. That’s it. Now, Jesse does have a full- time office right there he doesn’t use. We all work remote, right? I got a separate back house I work from, all this stuff. So I have this idea though, because I do still need an office space, but I figured I don’t know really where I want to put my own money right now. What if when this lease is up in 2024, I buy an office and I lease it back to Directive? It’s smaller, maybe only 2000 square feet. It has a nice office for myself, a way bigger one than my current one. More like my Austin one. That was a nice office. It had room for a meeting area and my office in it. So more like a conference room size. So I’m going to have a conference room that I work out of and then another conference room that’s a conference room. Little open space that’s casual with a kitchenette and stuff, and a studio for you and I to record. So two rooms, one conference room, open area, kitchen. Similar more to the office we had at Executive Park. Or not Executive Park, the one after that.

Brady: Oh, the airport?

Garrett: No, the next one.

Brady: Or the Costa Mesa one?

Garrett: Costa Mesa one.

Brady: That was a big office.

Garrett: That was 4, 000, same as this one. So maybe a little smaller than that. But I want it in a perfect world to be on the water in Newport where it’s a nice kind of vibe. So Scarlet, why don’t you help us and we’re going to see what we can find.

Brady: You know and all the injury lawyers.

Garrett: Exactly. I know, right? But I want to own it. I want to own the building. I want to buy the property. Let’s go for sale property. So let’s go to Newport Beach, California. Yep. And then, let’s see. Okay, now we got some spots. There’s this Kline Wilson one I’ve seen before. Do you know where that is? I think you know where that is, Scarlet. But it’s$ 5 million, 5, 400 square foot office building. And these are interesting. Click on it. So there’s actually some creativity here. So for Market This, we’re doing a commercial building today in case I didn’t make that perfectly clear yet. And we want to see how we would market a commercial building, especially in a post COVID world where in this case I have 35 employees, full- time that live within 10 miles of this office.

Brady: Probably.

Garrett: And no one uses it.

Brady: Correct.

Garrett: Okay. So what do I do about that? What are all these companies going to do with all these offices we see everywhere? We all need an office, but what if the office, what we use it for, changed? So if you click on this one, maybe you can look and some of the photos. Do they have any? Is that it? Okay, keep going more. What’s interesting about this one is they actually have condos on the back of it. So they have houses. Keep going. So they have their law office, but then they also… So this is the office. Would need a little reno, renovation on it. But then if you keep going, they have their parking, they have all their own parking underneath, but then they have these residential units they rent out.

Brady: Interesting.

Garrett: So this one was kind of clever because you’ve got two essentially full- time two bedroom apartments and then you have your office. So they’re literally mixed using it, which I thought was super creative.

Brady: Yeah. I see in cities, it’s the retail space on the bottom floor and then it’s apartments above it. But I’ve never-

Garrett: They have that on Lido Island too now.

Brady: Oh really?

Garrett: Yeah. And in Newport they have a lot of these.

Brady: I think Dana Point’s doing that now too.

Garrett: So to me I was like, wait a second, I could pay for my office and then have someone living above it full- time paying, making money essentially. So let’s go, let’s check out another couple options here in Newport if you go back to that tab. A little too big. I don’t want handles. Let’s try that one, the duplex. Let’s see what that one is. That looks like it’s a house.

Brady: That’s a commercial building? Yeah, that’s not.

Garrett: I don’t think that’s a commercial building. Interesting. So there’s your stereotypical, if you go up that 3, 600, that’s the classic, the 2950 Airway. That one is a pretty standard kind of strip, office type environment, B class building. I think these ones are a little harder for us. I don’t think our company comes across the right way in one of these environments.

Brady: Yeah. I was thinking there’s a new, it’s across from Google in Irvine, it’s Bridge something.

Garrett: Oh well yeah, that one’s nuts.

Brady: And the one’s off-

Garrett: I like this one. Culture Yard.

Brady: 405.

Garrett: So let’s just pretend we bought this one. This one’s a little bit more approachable. So Culture Yard, I don’t know if you’ve seen them before, but they kind of have this circle in the middle. If we were to buy this commercial property, what would you do about it? It’s 100% leased, so it makes you wonder why they’re selling it. But you’ve got this whole space. How would you make an office relevant again?

Brady: It was interesting to hear how Jesse came in for the gifts and stuff. How do you replicate that as a building owner? It’s almost like what’s your benefits package?

Garrett: Of the building? Yeah.

Brady: Of the building, I think needs to be relevant outside of the ping pong and arcade games. That stuff probably is still relevant.

Garrett: Irvine Company has full elite food.

Brady: They have big screen TVs, they have a pool table, food.

Garrett: Insane outdoor areas, full basketball court, manicured lawns. This is a truly class A complex. It’s harder to get a nicer complex than where we are sitting right now. And look around baby. There’s lots of parking spots.

Brady: It is easy to park here these days.

Garrett: It’s empty. And we couldn’t have done it any better from a corporate standpoint. So that’s the challenge today. Let me give you a couple ideas I have. My thought was foot traffic, baby. I want foot traffic because I think foot traffic can create some energy. Now, I don’t want to go to the co- working route where I try to create co- working in my space. But I was thinking about, you know the office building here in Irvine that has the coffee shop in it?

Brady: Office building in Irvine with the coffee shop.

Garrett: It’s off of Jamboree. I forget the name of it right now. But I would think if I were to own a spot, I would want to lease out some common areas. It’s like these spots right here, why not lease this out to a coffee cart so they can have that whole area right there and they can essentially… And then what you get ideally is they get a Yelp brand, they got to Google my business brand, they got their social, and then they’re promoting the setup. And now you have people coming to the party, creates an energy around there. And I think people might be more likely to use the office. What do you think?

Brady: Yeah, I’m thinking it was interesting that whole, the energy from people. I’m thinking the PCH offices, I know the Oppenheim Group, that Selling Sunset and Selling OC. Both of those offices, one is in Beverly Hills on a busy street, the other one’s on PCH in Orange County. And you don’t feel like you’re too separated in a business complex. You feel like, yeah, I’m in downtown Corona Del Delmar or Beverly Hills.

Garrett: I think this whole corporate complex, when we get people in the corporate mentality, they just don’t want it anymore as people. I think they want to feel the energy, the buzz, they want to feel a part of it. But I think we all have these bullpen styles. We got the rows of desks and like, well, they’re standing desks. Imagine if this place, you replaced all the desks with more casual work stations. So it was more like you were at a general area at a WeWork.

Brady: Yeah. It’s almost like in my mind it’s up to the company to do those things. But I think that’s this angle is how can the owner of the building offer the culture?

Garrett: Correct.

Brady: The materialistic culture. I know there’s-

Garrett: The energy.

Brady: …different layers of-

Garrett: It’s like energy is what they’re adding. The vibe. They’re creating a certain… so to me you need foot traffic. So the reason I like Newport is you could kind of be in it a little bit more. Let’s see if we can find one that’s in it a little bit more. Let’s go back to that list and I’ll show you where I was thinking. Maybe go this. What are the CDM ones? Those look like residential. Residential is all.

Brady: Yeah. That’s all. What’s that Corporate plaza one? No, it’s Fashion Island.

Garrett: Yeah, there’s no vibe there. That’s the opposite vibe. See what I’m saying? I think you have to get it into, see something more. Now let’s get some photos. Let’s see if there’s any way to redo the puppy-

Brady: The pet spa.

Garrett: The pet spa into something corporate. I don’t know how you could. You see what I’m saying though? You’d have to do something like this where people were a part of something and I feel like then they might go more to the office occasionally. What other ideas do you have to make something come to life?

Brady: I think it’s just taking ownership of the amenities that usually a company would make the decision. In these areas I’m thinking toll road passes paid for because that’s the one thing about the office is the commute.

Garrett: That could work. See, something like that. See that?

Brady: Okay, that’s right on PCH.

Garrett: That’s right on… You know where that is, right?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So this building, see, that could work. You could make this more like a vibe, then people could literally walk across the street and go to the harbor. You could do all sorts-

Brady: Yeah, catch a duffy boat.

Garrett: Catch a duffy boat. You could do all sorts of stuff. But I feel like then, if you made it also, maybe if people wanted to work together so they could come in and they could do some stuff. You could have in one of the units, the coffee shop we talked about, maybe the another one’s a bakery. So you have a bakery and a coffee shop, maybe a wine bar for at night and you keep some energy in the place. And then you’re working in more the work side of it.

Brady: Well, I think that’s the thing is people who are looking for a building obviously want their employees in the office. And so I think from marketing a commercial building standpoint, if you can be the one who says like, oh, we own three duffy boats. They’re parked right across the street. And so when you lease this, you have full access to them. Your team can take a boat to Lido for lunch.

Garrett: For 100 bucks an hour, but they can use them whenever they want or whatever it is.

Brady: Or maybe just it’s built into the lease is you have access to these boats. Obviously here’s the insurance on it, blah, blah, blah. But you really representing those more unique amenities because I think that hits the emotions of the person even looking for a new lease in the first place during this-

Garrett: They’re cultural amenities is what they are. They’re like things that you can add into your culture and use as an employer. Because there are some employers, Elon Musk, who want their employees back in the office. And I think that trend is going to continue as long as the richest man in the world is promoting it. At some point, other people are like, “Well, I’m not nearly as successful as Elon and he can’t get people to be as productive as he wants remote. How could I ever?” And then they’ll go back to it.

Brady: Yeah, maybe built in, built for hybrid remote, right?

Garrett: Correct. That’s what I’m trying to make this office more. This office isn’t built for hybrid. It’s built for in office.

Brady: So you have owls in every room. You have TV screens positioned well to where it feels like they’re in the board meeting when it is their remote day. So really building it for hybrid, which I don’t think exists right now. Whenever we do an offsite where some people, for whatever reason can’t make it, it’s a stark difference between the person on Zoom versus the people in the office.

Garrett: It matters, man. In person is so special. Now you can’t get everybody to move to Orange County because they couldn’t even afford it. That in- office days are just gone. And I think we just have to recreate what an office is. And to me, it looks a lot more like this unit right here. This to me, this unit’s really cool. It’s 2, 800 feet. But something like that to me is the perfect type of new age office building. And you could own it. Land assessment, 554. Total assessment though, 929. So they’re paying property taxes off of a million. So for a million bucks or something like that, you could own this spot.

Brady: But you’re looking to fill it out. Right? inaudible.

Garrett: I just need to rent it to Directive. The way the SBA loan works, you can get a loan to buy one of these buildings as long as you own 51% of the building. I would need to own at least 51% and then I could rent out the rest of the building. It looks like there’s two stories here for example as well. I could put my office upstairs and have that privacy and then rent out the ground floor, which would have the fun energy and vibes in there, which is something I know I would enjoy, going in and knowing that there’s going to be some energy around me. And then you’re in Newport. It’s not exactly the worst place to get a lunch, to get drinks afterwards, to make going to the office sexy. But I think we have to make going to the office more of an event these days, because I think as leaders we have to foster human connection. But I don’t think the way we currently treat our offices and the way we treat in- office work fosters connection. Because if someone goes like, ” Well, I can get way more done at my house and I have privacy and I don’t have to drive, they’re never going to come to the office.” But if going to the office is less about getting work done and instead maybe doing meetings you used to do in Zoom in person and the meeting room is very dynamic. You see what I’m saying? Because normally in offices it’s always hard to get a meeting room. They’re super small. The main conference room’s always booked out. You know what I’m saying? You can’t even use it the way… I think there are ways to bring the office back, but I think you have to get creative with it serving multiple purposes.

Brady: Yeah. When it comes to marketing this place, I do think preset floor plans. You ask where are you using it for hybrid work? Okay. Here’s what we would do in our use case, which is pretty unique. Temporary events, podcast recordings, and building out a layout on, okay, this is how this space would be used versus every day, 40 hours a week, everyone’s in here. What would that layout look like?

Garrett: Well, that’s where I was going. So go to Podcasts on 17th for me here, Scarlet so I can show him. In our podcast room, we could rent out. As the building owner, I could rent out the usage of the podcast room. There’s someone already doing this on 17th Street in Costa Mesa, which is kind of cool. So Sunset 17, watch this. They built a whole studio. So if you want a podcast, you can literally do your podcast in there and they’ll have… So go to podcast recording. They’ll have the full studio already-

Brady: Oh, interesting.

Garrett: Can you find a better photo for us, Scarlet, of… there we go. Keep going down. See? So they’ll have the full setup for you. You just show up and record. So Peter, our other producer would show up, he’d be running the equipment, but he wouldn’t bring his own cameras, own lighting or the set and all the soundproofing. That’s all done by the owner. You just show up and record and that’s your new backdrop. I’m sure you can replace the backdrops and the images to be your branding. So we could essentially have our own studio though theoretically what we use for two hours of the available 40. The other 38 Scarlet could manage essentially the rental, the bookings for me and then we could rent out the time in the studio. So I’m trying to think more of the commercial building owners too. How do you monetize these buildings?

Brady: Actually building a business plan outside of just running your business through it.

Garrett: Oh yeah. Correct. I want to own the asset of the building and make the building a desirable, profitable thing instead of it just being like… I want to be a part of the community. I want to have some type of value, some type of purpose. You see what I’m saying?

Brady: Yeah. Almost as if, let’s say it all fails, your employees don’t want to go in. You’re still happy with the purchase.

Garrett: They won’t go in. There’s nothing I can do to make people go in the office. So I need to know what it is. It’s another place for me to work because I do need that. It’s a conference room where I can host my offsites and big corporate events. It’s a studio where I can do our recording, and the rest is just an investment. So on the investment side of it, do I just get another tenant in there and call it a day? Or do you try to do something more dynamic to make the building feel like it’s a vibrant part of the Newport community? You see what I’m saying?

Brady: Yeah. I’m still stuck on how do you get people to-

Garrett: To work?

Brady: I’m thinking a point system, office hours points.

Garrett: Well, let’s start with you. Why do you not ever go to the office, Brady?

Brady: Well…

Garrett: Because technically you live, what, 25 minutes away? 30?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: 20. Probably 20.

Brady: 20 minutes and$ 14. Just because toll road is 20 minutes if I take the highway.

Garrett: You’re only 20 minutes away but you don’t ever go in here unless it’s an offsite or podcast recording.

Brady: Yep. I wear sweats. I have a space heater and an air conditioner in my office.

Garrett: Are those pants so different?

Brady: Than sweats?

Garrett: Yeah. They’re kind of-

Brady: They’re pretty comfortable, but-

Garrett: Yeah, that’s what I mean.

Brady: …they’re not joggers. I can wake up 10 minutes before a meeting and shower.

Garrett: Pretty impressive. Pretty impressive.

Brady: Full access.

Garrett: What would you want from an office? What would make you want to come into here? What would you need that would make it worth it to you, Brady? Because I don’t know if there’s anything.

Brady: Yeah, that’s a tough question.

Garrett: I know.

Brady: I don’t know.

Garrett: You get what I’m saying? But I think business owners still need-

Brady: I don’t have pets or kids yet. To me that would be a big thing. If I had pets or kids, I’d be like, there’s no way I’m going in. I don’t even have that.

Garrett: I’m spoiled. I have a separate back house I work out of. So I have my own private massive bathroom, shower, kitchen.

Brady: And my wife’s a nurse, so she has to go into work, so I have a whole house.

Garrett: Correct. But not everybody has that, right? Let’s say once you have kids, maybe she works from home a little bit more. And trust me on this. If she’s going to hate you, if she has to keep the kids quiet all day, she’s going to want you to leave so the kids-

Brady: Oh, that’s a different reality.

Garrett: So then the kids are yelling and all this crap and she’s losing your mind trying, ” Daddy’s on a call. Daddy’s on a call.” Trust me, I did that in Austin. It’s not very fun for your wife to try-

Brady: It’s tough for the kids too because the kids can’t comprehend like-

Garrett: What’s going on?

Brady: …oh, this is work. So they just think, ” Okay, my dad’s ignoring me?”

Garrett: Some people do need an office to go into. But if you don’t need an office to go into, there really is nothing to get a human to leave the comfort of their home to go to an office, I don’t think.

Brady: Yeah. I think a daycare program would be massive.

Garrett: Okay, so you’d put a daycare on. It’s just kind of like my wife goes to her gym, the equipment’s not that great, the paint’s not that great. It’s run down. Trainers are whatever, but they have a daycare.

Brady: Yeah, because daycare’s so dang expensive that that’s where a lot of the decision is let’s just make this work from home, because it’s pretty much renting another house or apartment to put your kid in daycare.

Garrett: And it builds community too because now she has more community because then all the other women working out also have kids. So they have this kind of connection. So they all go to this gym and get one hour away from the madness of their children and work out and then grab a coffee together after. If we could create something like that for work. But work is work. It’s not the gym. You know what I mean?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: I think you could make sure everybody’s hardwired. I think having a hardwire for all the work spots would be good because then you’d always have really good internet. But yeah, man, it is tough. I think the studio’s big though because I think a lot of these companies now have people who want to create content. So having a place where people could create content. So you had the right cameras. Imagine Brady, let’s say you wanted to get your social followers up or wanted to promote this podcast, something like that. And imagine we had a studio, something like this. And you could go in and shoot shorts to promote your social. That would be good for you.

Brady: Yeah. It’s like the setup to where to do your best work, you have to… the office has the equipment.

Garrett: Yeah, we do.

Brady: Yeah. I have a pretty nice mic at home.

Garrett: But you get my point. You can come in here, anyone could come in here and use the setup. I feel like that would be an advantage. But I don’t feel like it’s a huge one.

Brady: It’s tough. I enjoy my time when I get to see coworkers, but that’s a, everyone has to commit to it kind of thing. I don’t know if the brainstorming is-

Garrett: You need to do one week in office just to keep the vibes going, one day a week in the office. I think people will start doing some stuff like that. But you’re right man, it’s a hard… but these buildings are still being bought up and there’s not a ton of space. People need somewhere to work just in case, it almost feels like.

Brady: Yeah. And I don’t know if difference in generations because it was very interesting. We had remote as an option before COVID.

Garrett: Correct.

Brady: And I never did it.

Garrett: I know.

Brady: And that was more, as long as I had one person on my team coming into the office, I was going to be there. But then COVID hit and it forced us out. And then we grew-

Garrett: Pretty big.

Brady: …nationally more and then international.

Garrett: Now we’re a global company that has most of the labor not in the US.

Brady: So then I got to the point where it’s like, wait, I can better manage this national team by not naturally prioritizing the people I see in person because that’s what I struggled with was, okay, am I spending too much time with the people who can just walk into my office? Versus-

Garrett: And then neglecting those people that might be more remote and less easy to manage.

Brady: Yeah. So I dealt with that. But I don’t know, I enjoy my time coming in for the podcast. We get lunch together.

Garrett: We do. We make a point of it.

Brady: Lunch, that’s something I do miss was lunchtime.

Garrett: Dude. 11: 00 AM lunch with all the homies for what, seven years we did that?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Every day. That was the best. We did-

Brady: That was a special time to-

Garrett: …20 deep to a poke spot or Jersey Mike’s or whatever. That was really cool. And I know I did love doing this job way more when we were all in person together. It was way more fun because this is a hard gig, but it was nice to just see everybody’s faces, you can see how committed they were. Now it’s a lot less emotional I feel like because everybody’s just a Zoom screen.

Brady: It’s convenience. That’s what we’re battling is convenience.

Garrett: Convenience always wins in America.

Brady: I know Apple in San Francisco, they have buses pick up the employees and drive them to Cupertino or wherever the office is.

Garrett: Just like the good old sweat shops.

Brady: Yeah, right.

Garrett: They’re busting them in. You know what I mean?

Brady: Yeah. They have wifi buses so that they made sure they worked on that bus. Had no excuse there.

Garrett: See what I mean, it’s sounds like dystopia. It almost sounds like… I don’t want to treat people widgets. You know what I mean?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: I’m a big give people freedom and they give you their best self. But at the same time, I currently rent this from the Irvine Company. I’d rather just own it myself and have the company rent rented from me. But then how do I get more out of it is a really difficult question. I think you do the podcast studio, you can do the coffee shop. But other than that…

Brady: Some reward system for being connected to the office wifi. I don’t know if it’s…. maybe additional benefits.

Garrett: Maybe we do more once a month, everybody comes to the office that’s local once a month and we get lunch together because that could be cool. You know what I mean?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: But you’re never going to get everybody in there like they were. That’s gone.

Brady: Yeah. I know there’s something going on because Tanner’s moving to Austin. So I think we’re trying to get a lunch together.

Garrett: Yeah, we are on Wednesday. But no man, this has been great. It’s a hard one. Marketing a commercial real estate, I think you’re going up against… As always, you and I try to harness the human psyche, not manipulate it. We try to embrace reality. And I think the reality you have to embrace is companies still need a corporate office because what do I do if I need somewhere to work and I’ve got an important call? I still got to go somewhere. And for me, it’s a lot of times there might be construction at my house or something going on.

Brady: Clients flying in.

Garrett: Yeah, whatever that is. And I can’t have a crappy office either.

Brady: Yeah. I like the business, having businesses built into the building so that yes, if your employees aren’t showing up-

Garrett: They should never feel dead.

Brady: You have passive income throwing through that investment.

Garrett: I still get the lease. That’s the thing that’s so weird. That’s why the landowners don’t care. As you saw, all these places are still fully leased. Isn’t that crazy? They’re dead like here, but it’s totally dead. But they’re fully… Look at this one, 100% leased, four buildings, great freeway visibility. But you know those offices are empty, but they’re fully leased. As of Q2 direct vacancy for low rise office was 7. 8%. They only have 7.8% vacancy. That’s crazy. But they’re vacant, they’re 100% vacant with only 7. 8% vacancy. And I think if you can bring that back to life, you got something really powerful. It’s a fun challenge. I’m excited to see if I want to tackle it and do that. You know what I mean? But if I’m going to go into a building all the time, I’d like to own it and stop renting it from the Irvine Company. But it’s a whole thing. So hopefully that works and we get to hop on here in a couple years and talk about the success of the coffee shop and studio.

Brady: Yeah. I’m trying to think what other businesses we could pack in there.

Garrett: I think if you had scooters inaudible that’d be sick. Like the bird Scooters. But they were just owned and you could use the bike locks and stuff.

Brady: Get a good worker’s comp policy for real.

Garrett: But that’s Market This. Thanks to everyone for being on the show with us today. Like, subscribe, lead, five star reviews, rate us. Anything else? Share us on social.

Brady: Yeah, watch us on TikTok. And when you do watch, then follow the podcast.

Garrett: We need you to do the second part. We’re getting to a lot of views on TikTok, not a lot of downloads. So anything you can do to help us, we love doing the show. If it’s helping you at all, let us know about it. And thank you so much.

Brady: We’ll see you next week.

Garrett: Next week.