A Newsletter on Marketing (and Life) #008

Read this for a masterclass on modern marketing.

Author

Jordan Ogren
August 11, 2023

Hey there 👋

I hope you’ve enjoyed the first 8 installments of this newsletter. Things are about to get a little different ‘round here.

First, I want to thank the incredible human who sent me this email last week:

“I almost unsubscribed because I don't work for a marketing company anymore... then I saw your human iOS and decided to keep following you for the same reason I have always enjoyed your writing. Thanks for being real.”

This made me rethink the purpose of this email and how I can best serve you. Which is where the changes are coming from.

Second, I just finished Season 1 of my podcast, so there will be no more takeaways. Instead, I’m going to write a weekly essay on marketing until Season 2.

Finally, the fastest way I can ensure this brings you value is by having you share how I can help you make progress in terms of marketing (and life).

Thank you for being here, and I hope you’re still here on the 16th installment.

Podcast Takeaways

(Time to read: 1:53 minutes)

This isn't Kyle's first rodeo.

He knows his stuff and has a track record to back it up. He's also an incredible human.

He gave me the opportunity to interview him when I didn't have a podcast: just an idea and an intrinsic desire to improve by talking to the best marketers on earth.

Kyle is the final conversation in Season 1 for a reason.

I hope you learn from him and see his (beautiful) humanity through this interview: listen to the conversation.

Takeaway 1: The experience = marketing

Marketing cannot be contained to one activity or output. It's a collection of experiences you refine for your audience.

"It's the set of interactions that a person has with a brand or a company." – Kyle Lacy.

That's why marketing = (the) experience.

"Experience is everything. Experience is the best story you can tell."

Key insight: Every touchpoint a customer has with your company matters and can either enhance or detract from the overall customer experience.

Focus on improving the bad experiences and amplifying the positive ones.

What now?

  • Document the customer journey as accurately as you can to define the experiences

  • Pick one experience to improve that is close to a significant event (purchase)

  • Interview customers who churned and figure out if an experience led to their dissatisfaction

Takeaway 2: Marketing needs to generate revenue

If marketing doesn't contribute to revenue, it should change its name to "cheerleaders."

To take it further, Kyle suggested that marketing should contribute and be held accountable for generating revenue.

"Marketing should have a pipeline generated number, or they should have a revenue generated number." Why does this matter?

Without it, "...it's very hard for marketing to have a seat at the table if you are not revenue-oriented." And without a seat, you're unable to advocate for big bets or brand-building initiatives.

"...revenue is what will help you do big bets and move major rocks on the brand side."

Key insight: You can gain more support and buy-in for brand building and big bets by being revenue-focused.

What now?

  • Accept the truth that marketing cannot be divorced from revenue

  • Observe how your marketing actions (indirectly) lead to revenue

  • Become accountable to a pipeline or revenue-orientated goal

Takeaway 3: Continual learning and unlearning in marketing

The best marketers master two skills: Rethinking and unlearning.

Marketing is moving so fast that you must be skilled at updating your models and regenerating better strategies. The worst marketers are the ones using outdated strategies and tools.

"Marketers should not be afraid to stop doing something if it no longer fulfills them or helps them grow. This applies to every aspect of marketing, from tactics to messaging."

While I lack clarity on how to help others get the unquenchable desire to learn and grow, Kyle has one power tip to begin rethinking and unlearning:

"Surround yourself with a community of people that are better at it than you." Find a tribe that thinks differently and engage with them.

Key insight: Rethinking and unlearning are skills that lead to original and effective marketing.

What now?

  • Accept the fact that being wrong is better than being right (so you can update your beliefs)

  • Pick one aspect of marketing and challenge yourself to think differently about it

  • Join a group of people who force you to rethink and unlearn

Three quotes. Three books.

"It takes humility, not ego, to be a great writer.”

– Julia Cameron (Author of The Artist’s Way)

"Your happiness as a person is dependent on what you measure yourself against.”

– Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy

"If we have hope of amending our lives and making spiritual progress, it behooves us to begin afresh like good novices and allows ourselves to be instructed in virtue.”

– Thomas Ā Kempis

Links to the three books quoted above:

Personal Note from Jo

(Time to read: 3:37 minutes)

*This is a new installment to the Human OS Guide*

We all have a story.

Some are worse than others. We've all experienced joy, pain, and everything in between.

These experiences shape us. Oh God, do they.

As one strives to upgrade their Human Operating System (HOS), they will inevitably reflect on these experiences.

Some will create features that make learning, applying, and sustaining the upgrade requirements easier.

Others will cause bugs that make upgrading difficult and more time-consuming.

A weird insight is that experiences during our formidable years (0-25) can potentially leave prominent features and bugs. This would be due to a large amount of wiring within the brain, leaving heavy traces later in life.

Imagine you were raised by two loving (middle-class) parents that treated you with respect, dignity, and unconditional love. As you grew up, you may have experienced some adverse events, but life treated you well for the majority. You had your parent's model to follow and love in your heart to lead you.

That would have created many features that remove friction from upgrading your HOS (if you decide to upgrade).

Now imagine you were raised in a family barely making ends meet. One parent leaves, making one parent raise four kids. Some days you go hungry, which leads to issues at school. You barely get your diploma and can't afford college.

As you grow up, upgrading your HOS will be more complex; in certain areas, you may face challenges for your entire existence.

It's the sad reality of something none of us control: the family we are born into. This has been a forever conundrum:

Born into royalty, jackpot! Born into a peasant's family, suffering!

Sure, we have closed the gap in that many more people are now born into what would be called royalty in the 18th century. But even in 2023, many people are born into families that do not edify them. They are not raised with positive models; sadly, they follow the (wrong) models provided.

Caveat: Even though you're born into privilege, that doesn't do anything for your HOS aside from removing friction (which is YUGE). Even though you have fewer bugs and more features, you still must choose the road less traveled (to upgrade your HOS). And redecide daily.

Now, back to the point about how these experiences have exponentially more impact earlier in life. Experiencing trauma at a young age can cause drastic damage to a person's potential to have a higher HOS later in life.

Some do make it out and tell their story to the masses, but the majority never make it. They are the ones who become addicts and find themselves experiencing homelessness.

Most of this comes from the physical and sexual abuse they faced as kids. This can cause such damaging bugs that the person lives with constant reminders.

"We could only conclude that for abused children, the whole world is filled with triggers." – Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.

How can a child who lives through that not have similar views when they are 39? This makes upgrading their HOS far harder.

While I was not abused, I have "trauma" that has caused struggles in upgrading my HOS.

When I was 11/12, I saw my first "pornographic image." That changed everything. I was overtly curious about girls from a younger age, but this put the gas pedal down on that (uncontrollable) pull.

Pretty quickly, I became utterly addicted, using daily. Do this for long enough, and you'll have significant bugs.

Bugs that cause struggles such as:

– Viewing women merely as objects to objectify
– An irresistible urge to use when anxious/stressed/upset
– Overload of shame, guilt, and anger

A concrete example is self-talk. Self-talk is a feature for upgrading your HOS. For me, I struggle with that because, for so long, I was living a double life I felt horrible about. One way to cope was to shit on myself relentlessly.

I am so hard on myself, and one reason I struggle to upgrade "past" is because of these bugs caused by events a decade ago.

While I've rarely shared, I felt this essay would be the place; To show that I'm with you in the arena. Trying to be better, yet struggling due to poor choices. I can't imagine what it feels like for someone who had another's choices affect them. I'm eternally sorry.

All of that to say, if you experienced trauma as a child, you'll likely face challenges if you haven't transformed the trauma. And as you face trauma later in life, you will also have more barriers when upgrading.

Thanks for the negative news, Jordan. Well... There's more!

While bugs are inevitable and forever wired into our system, we have hope in the process of debugging, bringing us closer to our highest HOS. Debugging has a million forms, but it's intentionally spotting a bug, understanding it, and then repairing it with better "code" (I.e., habits, mindsets).

In our next essay, we look into debugging and how to leverage the process to remove friction in upgrading our HOS. Specifically, we'll reverse engineer how we obtain bugs to repair and improve.

– Jo (every second counts)

P.S1. If you've experienced sexual or physical abuse and haven't talked about it, please seek professional help. I've personally used a therapist to work through the challenge I shared in this essay. It helps so much.

"If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it." – Richard Rohr.

P.S2. Here is what I’m working on: