Spark of Ages
In every episode, we interview B2B Marketing leaders, executives, and innovators about their successes and challenges, asking them how they broke through and what spark in their careers took them to the next level.
Spark of Ages
How Podcasting Leads to Growth/Simon Chou - Personal Branding, Community, Hot Sauce ~ Spark of Ages Ep 32
Building a personal brand through podcasting can be a game changer for marketers looking to connect authentically with their audience. Simon Chou, host of @marketingonmars shares strategies for growing a podcast, engaging communities through unique events, and leveraging technology to streamline marketing efforts.
• Insights on the current podcast landscape and listener demographics
• The significance of consistency in podcasting
• Steps to cultivate a powerful personal brand online
• Importance of building community both digitally and in-person
• The transformative role of AI in enhancing marketing strategies
Ever wondered how the perfect blend of hot sauces and marketing strategies can create a captivating podcast experience? Simon Chou, the marketing maestro behind "Marketing on Mars," joins us to share the secret sauce behind his show's success. From tackling hot sauce challenges with top marketers to leveraging platforms like LinkedIn and YouTube for personal brand building, Simon reveals how consistency and creativity can grow your podcast audience. Discover the art of balancing education and entertainment in content creation and how Simon's unique approach keeps listeners coming back for more.
Our conversation takes a deep dive into the power of influential guests and the complexities of managing podcast metrics across diverse platforms. Unpacking the journey of "Marketing on Mars," Simon explains how high-profile guests have boosted listenership and the significance of community building in the digital age. Whether it's engaging with Vancouver's vibrant community or navigating career transitions, Simon's insights on personal branding offer listeners a roadmap to preparing for life beyond their corporate identities.
Journey with us through Simon's transition from finance to marketing, where human connection and innovation take center stage. This episode is packed with personal stories, networking strategies, and invaluable marketing insights. Explore how Simon's knack for creating engaging communities informs his current projects. As we venture into the evolving landscape of podcasting and marketing, listeners are invited to harness the transformative potential of building authentic connections and thriving communities.
Email us with any feedback for the show: spark@postion2.com
Find more great content like this at: https://www.position2.com/
If you like what you here, please drop us a comment!
SUBSCRIBE TO @Position2Inc FOR MORE EPISODES!
Rajiv Parikh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajivparikh/
Simon Chou: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonchou1/
#podcasting #community #personalbranding #marketingschool #entrepreneur #innovation #growth #technology #innovatorsmindset #innovators #innovator #product #revenue #founder #entrepreneurship #growthmindset #growthhacking #enterprise #business #company #companies #smartgrowth #efficiency #process #podcast #comedy #desi #indian #community
Website: https://www.position2.com/podcast/
Rajiv Parikh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajivparikh/
Sandeep Parikh: https://www.instagram.com/sandeepparikh/
Email us with any feedback for the show: spark@postion2.com
Hello and welcome to the Spark of Ages podcast. Today's guest is Simon Chow. Simon is a multifaceted marketing leader, podcast host and community builder. He's the founder of the very popular Marketing on Mars podcast, where he interviews marketers and founders folks like myself about their marketing strategies, along with unique hot sauce challenges. So, beyond podcasting, simon advises organizations on leveraging podcasting and LinkedIn for thought leadership and is actively building cool AI capabilities at his firm, clifford AI. He's also deeply involved in the startup and VC community in Vancouver, fostering connections through his happy hour events and building thriving communities for founders, hr professionals, recruiters and young tech professionals in Canada. Go Canada, so many people from the Bay Area want to move there.
Speaker 1:Formerly the CEO of VC Jobs, simon brings over a decade of global leadership and marketing experience guiding B2B organizations and possesses a wide range of skills, from digital networking and content creation to SEO and personal brand building. Some of the key takeaways you can expect from this episode number one insights on building a personal brand through podcasting and LinkedIn. Number two strategies for growing a podcast audience. Number three knowledge nuggets from Simon's interviews with an amazing set of marketers. And number four understanding the key ingredients for creating a strong and engaged community, especially in the digital world. So, simon, welcome to the Spark of Ages.
Speaker 2:Can I just bring you everywhere, for you to introduce me everywhere. I go at every single event. That was amazing.
Speaker 1:I will be your digital announcer. I'm super happy about that.
Speaker 2:Or in person.
Speaker 1:We might meet in person in San Francisco soon.
Speaker 2:So I'll just bring you everywhere, that's right.
Speaker 1:I'm in for that. I'm glad you're visiting. It's great you, that's right, I'm in for that. I'm glad you're visiting. It's great you have woken up super early. I know you're in South Korea right now because you just go everywhere and you're willing to do anything from anywhere, so thank you for joining me from all the way out there.
Speaker 1:Before we jump into all this about podcasts, we have a little bit of research to talk about, so interesting, about what's happened with podcasts. I'd love to get your sense on this. 40% or 41% of Americans have listened to a podcast on a monthly basis. Most of them are between the ages of 12 and 54. About 55% of the 12 to 34-year-olds listen every month, 50% of 35 to 54-year-olds listen to it monthly as well, and 21% are 55 and older. So it's for really that middle, young to middle segment and where they listen to them. About 49% listen at home, 70% listen using their smartphones and they listen to it either in the morning, the afternoon I mean, it's all day. So and it's just amazing.
Speaker 1:The revenue from podcasts forecast to reach over $4 billion by 2024. Ad spend is about $2.5 billion. There are two and a half million podcasts on Apple podcast. Only 450,000 of them are active, so a lot of people with intention Hard to follow through. 82% of shows haven't released a new episode in 90 days. So one of the things you're going to tell us about, simon, is the importance of being consistent, and here's a couple weird facts Half of podcast listeners use a podcast to fall asleep.
Speaker 2:I'm definitely in that camp.
Speaker 1:Really you do. Do you listen to a podcast to fall asleep? I listen to my own to fall asleep.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, like this is so boring, I want to fall asleep.
Speaker 1:I'm too keyed up. When I listen to mine, I'm like how many mistakes did I make? How many scoops, how many ways can I improve? It's very stressful for me. 54% of those listeners remember an ad the next day.
Speaker 1:So if you're a marketer and you advertise on these things, it can be incredibly effective, especially if the host is doing the ad which is what you do with your hot sauce takes, which I think works really well for that brand, and 37% of B2B podcasts are content marketing. For B2B topics, 37% are content marketing and content distribution is 25%, and so podcast listeners are nearly as likely to listen to a branded podcast as they are to a celebrity show. So that's pretty amazing. In terms of platforms and we'll get into some of this YouTube is number one. As of Q3 2024, 30% of podcast listeners chose YouTube, followed by Spotify 29% and Apple Podcasts 15%. Podcast marketing and branding Podcast Lift brand awareness by 89%. 85% of companies capture video and 65% of branded podcast showrunners share short clips at least once a week, and I know you're a big fan of that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, huge. Yeah, I'll try to remember as many of those stats as possible. Yeah, I'll try to remember as many of those stats as possible, but certainly some of the ones that stood out to me. Youtube definitely is our top channel. I think it's because every single channel has its own purpose. For LinkedIn, we use it as kind of like our resume, so we always want to show our best. It's always our best foot forward. So a lot of LinkedIn posts and content that's posted on LinkedIn are very filtered. Yeah, twitter is like kind of the renegades and don't want to listen to the, you know, kind of against the rule kind of thing like free speech and all that. And so the stuff on twitter is is highly unfiltered and, um, they hate stuff that is filtered. And, uh, when I say they, I mean the people that are, you know, bigger, the biggest users of uh twitter, now called x.
Speaker 2:Youtube is where you learn. I think it's where you learn, but in a educational way, I think, which is why podcasts do well, because podcasts, uh like, like yours and like many podcasts most, some of them think about the most popular podcasts that you listen to. They're educational, but they're entertaining in some way or fashion. Um, I chose to put in hot sauce hot takes as an entertainment factor. Other other, even very successful people. You lot think about Elon Musk. When you think about Elon Musk, you think about that interview with Joe Rogan, right? Um think, uh, you know it's educational but entertaining and that's why, uh, youtube does really well that's cool.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, youtube's a place where, when you go there, you're willing to listen for a while right, you go there, you're willing to listen for a while. Right, you get on it, you're willing to listen. And there's the expectation of longer form content, which is very different from TikTok, where you still may spend a lot of time 90 minutes but you're listening to, you're watching 30 second or 15 second videos Maximum yeah. So that hasn't been one of your favorite places to go, right maximum.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that hasn't been one of your favorite place to go. Right, we've tried on, we've tried on tiktok and, uh, the clips that does well on tiktok, not surprisingly, are the hot sauce takes. They're only in it for the hot sauce. They just want to make them so you make them.
Speaker 1:The interesting part about you is if, if someone doesn't answer the question, answer the question like when you, when you ask them how much they much they make. I think that's the one where you get them. They have to chug hot sauce.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like literally hot takes, because as a host and you probably run into this all the time it's like what can I ask that won't offend them or won't get them to? You know, not answer, because I don't want to make them feel uncomfortable. Now I kind of spun that around and I'm like now, as a host, I don't have to think about that anymore and you and I have had several conversations so I've told you there's nothing that's off limits for me um, no, I.
Speaker 1:That's one thing I like about it. You're gutsysy about that. You ask people what they make or what their revenues are, and for private companies, a lot of people don't want to talk about that, no, and so that's where you get them to drink some hot sauce, and it's kind of fun.
Speaker 2:How much does do you guys make position square?
Speaker 1:Oh, if you look at our taxes, we're probably about a $100 million company.
Speaker 2:Revenue top line, bottom line, would have been a little crazy, would have been a little harder.
Speaker 1:Private company, but we invest a lot into building our own AI platforms Nice. So why make money when you can put it in a technology that can really change the world, which is what I'm about. So one thing I like about your podcast is you have had tons of great CMOs on there. So CMOs of Zoom Info, one of the guests that we got, alice Crowder Crispy Crunchy Chicken. She was freaking awesome on ours.
Speaker 2:She's amazing.
Speaker 1:I love having her there. She was episode 25 for us, for's amazing. I love having her there. She was episode 25 for us. For you, I think it was episode 100. We had Melissa Rosenthal of Outliver, formerly CDO or Chief Design Officer, chief Creative Officer of ClickUp, so she was episode 26. So she was episode 26. And I know you had her and Alice on a multi-person episode along with the CMO of Headspace. So you've got some great folks coming on your show Same thing same. Zoom info. So how do you get these folks?
Speaker 2:Personal brand, I think, is the biggest thing. So I've been very intentional. I knew that when I started my podcast, my number one goal was to build a personal brand. It wasn't to generate revenue, it wasn't even to get a lot of views. I didn't set out. I started one podcast in the beginning of COVID and it took off. But it didn't take off like Mark and Omar's and so I knew how challenging it would be to get viewership. Like viewership wasn't going to be the number one metric for me and it's funny.
Speaker 1:Um, now we're doing quite well in terms of viewerships, but when we first started, you were talking about what you're getting at tens of thousands of views per episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, on on YouTube. On YouTube we get, uh, each per episode, we get three to 6,000, sometimes 25,000 for, like, a really good episode. Um, spotify, we get a ton of downloads from there and and, yeah, like we, we get a lot of viewership on on LinkedIn as well. I made a post recently, and this was like a month ago now. I made one post and I got 100,000 impressions, wow, and that was with Henry Shi from Super.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a very recent one right. I mean that's the one you were talking about, the $150 million from Supercom, so well-known, and so you just reached out to him and he said, yes, right, cause they've heard of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've, I've been, yeah, I, so I can kind of walk through the process but yeah, built a brand on LinkedIn so that when I reach out pre-podcast, I think my acceptance rate, my cold outreach to acceptance rate rate, was like I'll get one response in every 20 messages, or 25 messages. Now is like one response in every five or six. So the, so the response and response rates have been have gotten really really high. Um, and it's because I've built a brand on on youtube and linkedin and I really focus on the channels. Like, back to what you're saying tiktok didn't work for us, so we stopped posting on tiktok. Tiktok didn't work for us, so we stopped posting on TikTok. Twitter didn't work for us, so we stopped posting on Twitter. And I think just find out which audience, which platform has your audience and my audience. I was catering towards junior to intermediate marketers or just marketers in general, like we have marketers listed to us from junior to intermediate, all the way to senior level marketers, and they're all on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:So LinkedIn for me, I knew, had to be the channel to focus on had to be really important for you, because you had to nail that, and that's a known audience. You can actually go back and when they comment you can actually figure out who they are right, as opposed to YouTube where it's hard to tell. So, as part of your growth strategy, is that how you kind of did this? You put out in, you put out content, you waited for feedback and then you built it that way, or did you have to? I mean, I was told, basically you had to have a number of podcasts just to establish that you're there, right.
Speaker 1:So, almost you almost blow off the first 20 or 25. In fact, I was told wait till 100 before you, before you have anything. How do you think about it? Or how did you think about it?
Speaker 2:okay, so I started one podcast, uh, during covet 2020 to 2022. Uh, that one took us like 25 or I think it was 25 or 27 episodes before we broke a thousand downloads and, in terms of viewerships, same thing like it. We were hovering around, you know, we would post on youtube and we would get 50 views or 20 views, um, per episode, and it's very, very common. So it didn't take off until like episode 20, something for us, um, I wanted to not play the that game anymore, so I really wanted to focus on the quality of the guests, yeah, and so, um, this, the second episode, the second podcast, market of mars. We started late 2022, around 2023, so it's been like a year and a half, almost two years now, and our show took off around episode 18 when we brought on Microsoft on the show. So we got an exec member.
Speaker 1:It was like a CMO of Microsoft Teams yeah.
Speaker 2:VP of Teams. He was the one who created Microsoft Teams, where you and I met on Teams recently. There we go. This guy started the whole thing, so we brought him on the show. He talked about the journey of building it and growing from zero to 500 million downloads, and obviously for a company like microsoft it wasn't too difficult. Um, and then from there we got the cmo of aloe yoga and then the cmo barbie.
Speaker 1:That episode did really well for us that must have popped right, because, because I and I find this like um, I was mostly doing2B stuff and that's because that's what we focus on. We do a lot of B2B but we also do some B2C, but the B2C topics are easier for people to approach. So if you're talking to Alice about crispy crunchy chicken and chicken sandwiches, so much easier. Everyone can relate to that right, so Barbie must have been. The shared experience is massive.
Speaker 2:And we posted it a week and a half after barbie was released clever so that one had like 50, some 50 something downloads, 50 000 downloads on youtube alone, wow. And then on on spotify. We had like 2 000 uh downloads, sorry, 50 000 uh views. And then on uh, and I hate how every single platform uses different things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, different metrics all over the place. Downloads versus views.
Speaker 2:I find views and impressions are pretty similar in terms of a metric, and then downloads are quite separate, and you and I can probably relate to this. On Spotify, their download metrics, they get updated quite often.
Speaker 1:That's been.
Speaker 2:My number one challenge with Spotify is figuring out what my actual numbers are. They tend to update them quite often.
Speaker 1:What do you care about the most? Like what, if you were to go through a cycle of, if you were to turn this into a framework and you probably you know, as you're going along, you're probably experimenting as you go and it's probably not this perfect little consulting framework, but if I were to force you to do one, what would it be?
Speaker 2:I just focus on who comes on the show.
Speaker 1:Got it. Your number one goal is get great people.
Speaker 2:Get great people. And I do have a metric and I can share this. My metric is companies have to be making $100 million plus in revenue and the reason why I have a reason for that companies that are making $100 million plus and you kind of fall into that category is typically when you're at that scale, you have a very large team. Typically when you're at that scale, you have a very large team. And when you have a very large team, we can do a lot of, we can do a collaboration we can, we can both work together to push the episode, whereas if I'm getting in the early days, I was getting on founders and CMOs who had like a team of 15. So even if they pushed this episode that we were recording right now to their team maximum, they'll get 15 or 20 views additional Because their team is the only one, exactly, unless they have a great voice in a community, right?
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yes, but even then it's probably not as professionally run, and I've seen this with some folks where, after they go from the big company to doing their own thing, if they can't continue that voice when they post again, it's not as resonant.
Speaker 2:I've. This is a very good point. Yeah, like a lot of us and unfortunately I don't fall into this camp but a lot of people, they spend, you know, 10, 15, 20 years in one company and then their identity is with this one company. And I actually just spoke with someone recently who worked for one of the big fan companies I'm not going to name which company and worked there for 15, 20 years, built a very solid brand very, very high up, but recently started thinking maybe I should build my network outside and prepare for the future that we just saw. I don't know how many of your listeners are basketball fans. Luka Doncic got traded for Anthony David and who? I thought, like you know you're high, high up, but you still can get traded Same thing for, you know, at a big company. You know you, regardless how high up.
Speaker 1:You are, you can leave for any reason or things cannot work out and you move to another place and then you start all over again, right, and so and you're talking about this it brings up the question, right. So you've talked about um we were talking about podcasts and the community and growing the podcast, but you've also done community building, not just around your podcast but through events like your happy hour, right so? And you've done a lot, especially in that BC area or in Vancouver, about building that strong, engaged community.
Speaker 1:I think that a lot of your first efforts were around that, and so talk about the key ingredients that you have in terms of building that a really strong and engaged community, and then relate it to the digital world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love to talk about your community as well. I mean, you have your, you have a community. Yeah, that I like. I mean I'm sure both, both of our learnings are quite similar and it's it's just very hard to build an engaged community. It's very, very hard and even today we're still learning.
Speaker 2:When I first started running events, I was running events for 30 to 50 people. It grew to 100 plus people per event. But then over time, people always want new People always want excitement and fun. It's just what we live for. So if you always constantly run into same events, which is what I was doing it was engagement, engagement, exciting and exciting.
Speaker 2:And then it started to be like um, we started seeing like the number of people that were returning to the events, kind of fade. And especially when you're running events for founders and executives, they always want to meet new people. They're there for one purpose is to network and grow the network. So if you're constantly seeing the same people, so even if people, even if you got a lot of returning people, if they're seeing the same people over and over and over again, you're not going to see as much value in the. So I thought I was doing a good thing with the return visitors and returning members, but that actually wasn't the right metric, and so it was just this constant back and forth, and so nowadays we're doing a lot of poker.
Speaker 1:Poker seems to resonate really well with founders, and it's something you can do without being specifically about networking, right? If you go to an event that's just about networking, then the people who go are the connectors and not necessarily the content creators or the thought leaders, right, unless they're trying to promote their content. But you're not going to get some of those people that have really special, special things to add because they're like oh, I got to go to a freaking networking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this really sucks. So the only time they go is when they're out of the job. Exactly, exactly. And you don't want those kind of people Like that's not, that's not the kind of environment.
Speaker 1:No, if you get a whole bunch of people, then you just have networking networkers talking to networking, about networking.
Speaker 1:No, I mean so that, yeah, we've talked about this in one of my other episodes, but we have our growth marketing summit and that's an invitation only small event.
Speaker 1:It's very different than the bigger events that I do, that we do as a company, or I do in association with this group called the Go-To-Market Leader Society, with my friend AJ Gandhi and my friend Eli Cohen. Called the Go-To-Market Leader Society with my friend AJ Gandhi and my friend Eli Cohen. So that's one group is about hitting some level of scale, as well as private dinners and that kind of thing. We have our own special one, which is just people invite only a special core group of people that are content creators or thought leaders or CEOs core group of people that are content creators or or thought leaders or ceos, um, and and it's just very special because it's a small group and it's over four days and we're in a compound together. It's very, it's expensive, um, but I'm really happy that that group has done a lot of work together, done a lot of business together, put each other in each other's boards, suggest, recommend investments together.
Speaker 2:And like what is your North Star? I find that every great community leader has a North Star. Like for me, my North Star has always been keep it fun, keep it light.
Speaker 1:So every single event has to be like what was yours? Well, I'd say it goes to my purpose, which is connecting great souls. So, just like you talked about, I just want to meet with high quality people and do and learn. For me it's very similar I just want to be around great people and put them together, and fulfillment for me is them establishing great connections with each other.
Speaker 1:So that's the goal and right of course we're going to measure it later on was there revenue or business or whatever? But you can't do that as a immediate output. You have to basically look at it as a you know what I'm going to do this for three or four years and then see what I get out of it. And that's a very expensive way of doing things. But you can tell, because things eventually work itself out or don't, and if they don't drop it, but give it time.
Speaker 2:If you start dating, you're 20 something. You start dating because you want a marriage and you approach every single date like you have a marriage certificate on the table and you're ready to sign it right. I think that's a very different approach than if you're dating to just try to find the right person and you're open to meeting different types of people. And I think um, playing the long game sometimes works in your favor. You sometimes get a lot of things happen in a faster way than that then you would have originally thought.
Speaker 1:But I totally agree with you on that there. There are times where there might be people that I really want to talk to at an event, but I know that they may be coming back to another one. This happened a lot in covid. We were, a whole bunch of us were getting together and I wouldn't try to overdo it.
Speaker 1:You know, like you don't want to just go in and go, come in hot and say, hey, let's go work together. It's like just get to know them, make them you know, see if they're someone that could be your friend, and then things will happen. I'd say, like some of my best friends are people I just met at things over time and I just looked at. I'm like I'm going to be friends with this person someday.
Speaker 2:I wasn't too like you're saying forward about it. It just sort of happened and you have quite the network in SF. I think it just goes back. I think good podcasters and good brand builders are naturally good people. People. I think there there's something to be said about that. Yes, you might, you might have, you might be very smart or you know hardworking or whatever. Like you have a lot of things going for you but at the end of the day, you gotta be some decently good with people to have a very strong brand.
Speaker 1:You have to like them, right, and and I think that's you know, so, like if you were to relate that to you said this is about some of this. A lot of this is about personal branding, right? Was there a personal brand that you were looking to build and there's an archetype that you were looking for as part of it? And, like you said, you talked about not trying to go for the kill in the first meeting. Did you find that there were specific ways that, when you watch people, how they are able to be authentic and impactful?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was very lucky to have actually one of my mentors. He's based in Vancouver and he also has an agency. They do over 150 mil in revenue as well. And when I watch him talk and it's not that I was trying to be him or, but a lot of what he's taught me you can't be someone, you have to learn from someone else and kind of and kind of take it and do it in your own way, but, uh, but the way he's, he he's he said it was very similar to you. It's like you.
Speaker 2:You're just trying to build good relationships with people and if business comes out of the relationships, great, but at the end of the day, business is a person to person, it's a human to human connection. So you got to be able to start with that first and business will come second. And that really resonated with me and how I approached my personal brand. But I would say I kind of skew way far left into the non-selling category, which is why I find I've been able to build a stronger community than most people in Vancouver and so we've expanded to Seattle and San Francisco. Is, I'm just like, very focused on community and what, just giving, giving, giving, giving 10, 15x and maybe, maybe the one will come back, but I think, because I've skewed so far into the giving category, I haven't been taking as much, and I think that's what I'm trying to learn this year is how to be a better salesperson and how to sell myself to those others.
Speaker 1:I think it's great to give and they encourage that. But I think to your point, like if you're always in the giving mode, sometimes people don't realize they got to take care of you too, and I think it's okay to ask for the order sometimes.
Speaker 2:And it's not their responsibility to care for you.
Speaker 1:So there's this notion and I can't remember where I got it from, but it's like sometimes, when you present yourself as everything's great, they don't know that you may need help, right, or that there's there's ways they can help you, or they want to find ways, but you're not telling them that. So there's nothing wrong with at some point saying hey, you know, I'd like to get some more business for my company, I'd like to do this, can you help me, and that. But that can come later, after you've, like you say, you've given a bunch of times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wish there was like a little AI angel on my shoulder. Just go. Hey, you've given 15 times to Rajiv. Now maybe it's time to ask. I don't have that, it's not in my blood and I think I'm working through that. It's like a. It's like a giving therapy, would you? Would you?
Speaker 1:say that's like something you grew up with. Is that something you got from your parents or from your?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think so, like my, my mom, um, she grew up as a as a single mom, uh, raising me and my brother, so a lot of it was just giving, giving to us and not asking for anything.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Um, but after you know many, many years, she realized she had to take care of herself as well. But it just took a long time to get there. And so I think I'm kind of, um, I'm, I'm going through the process right now and, um, I'm in, I'm in my early thirties right now. And uh, I think this is a good time to start, and so I started. I started a couple of startups in the last um five years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I and I think it's, I think it's good to start asking for the order. Right, this is maybe a good time to start asking for the order from the folks you've met. So, if you were to go like, you have this podcast that has done well over a million views or downloads or impressions right, I think one to two million done really well.
Speaker 2:We just reached two million views. Wow, 2 million views and downloads. We do some kind of conversion with downloads to views. It's usually about four views equals to one download.
Speaker 1:Got it. That makes a lot of sense. You've built up a great audience. You're in the marketing world. You've started, but you're also building technology through AI. So what's a day in the life of Simon Chow?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the podcast has gotten to over 100 episodes now, so it kind of runs on its own. I spend very little time on it. We have a small little team. We have a sponsor All Gear Digital. Shout out to All Gear Digital. They raise money. They raise like 50, something around $50 million and they became like a private equity firm of some sort. So they just bought a bunch of assets. So they own like over 20 different sites and they just buy these sites that are that are in different verticals, usually on the outdoor gear or vertical, and they just kind of take it all in-house and then all they'll share resources and so they've they've done really well in that sense and so they're our main sponsor.
Speaker 2:But yeah, like that the podcast runs on its own. I spend a lot of time nowadays brainstorming with potential clients and users of AI.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And we found a niche right now with non-tech industries. So I'm talking to a couple of companies. I'm talking to One is in the dental area.
Speaker 2:So it's a founder, owner of three different dental clinics. They know nothing about AI and they're trying to revolutionize their tool stack. They went to CES and they were mind blown about AI and they were just thinking what can we do with AI to automate a lot of our repetitive tasks? And so we're working with them right now. And then a law firm as well One of my friends. He owns a crypto law firm. They have over 200 clients, so they're busy. They're very, very busy.
Speaker 1:Especially in crypto, there's a lot of law A lot of law and so much of a lawyer.
Speaker 1:lawyer, a paralegal's task especially, are just pushing renaming emails and pushing emails yeah, it's a lot of non, it's a lot of well you well with law. You have to really nail. You can't make mistakes, so it's got to be. It's very granular, but there's a lot of I'm sure there's a lot of repetitive tasks. My son is a lawyer, so I've uh learned quite a bit from him, but I have a lot of friends that are yeah yeah, so so there are.
Speaker 2:So there are revenue generating tasks like that, where you can't script the law. But then there are just small repetitive tasks, mindless stuff, right? Yeah, mindless things that you shouldn't pay a lawyer $300 an hour for, and so if you can remove that, if you can remove those tasks, automate that so that you can focus on more revenue generating tasks and more client facing tasks. I think that can be very good for law firms for retention client retention et cetera, so you're building tools for that area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's going to be the secret. That's what AI is going to unlock us. It's going to give us a lot more time for revenue client-facing. We're going to be able to connect more in person. That's great, because all the repetitive, mindless things will all be automated away, which is unfortunate for a lot of jobs like data analysts, for example, even developers, if people are saying the number of developers required will be reducing. Salesforce came out.
Speaker 1:Mark Benninghoff came out and said that the whole agentic agent force right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, agent force, they're not hiring anymore. No, they're not hiring anymore.
Speaker 1:Seth Iñadela is saying. He's saying SaaS applications are going to die, but really he means transform to more of an energetic set of capabilities. They'll still need to access applications, but they'll be using these agents as a way of functioning and driving things forward. So you're working in that world, but you're applying it to small and mid-sized businesses, which I think is a great place to go, because then you can build scale right, Probably through a lot of the marketing that you've learned by by interviewing all these great people yeah, and I think I mean you've been.
Speaker 2:You've been through this. You've been through like the rise of, remember, the website. When the website first came out and it's like everyone wasn't sure how to build a website. A website cost ten thousand dollars to build. Now it's like everyone can build it for under $400 if you really wanted to. But back then there were no options.
Speaker 1:Well, you could do a very template-based one. My company would not do a $400 website.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:If you want that, we don't want you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but there wasn't even that option. That wasn't that option.
Speaker 1:Now there's amazing templates coming out that you could exactly build for it.
Speaker 2:So yes, doesn't work for a lot of people. But then there's at least there's a, there's a low level, and then there's also the high, customized level, and that's what. What we're seeing with the gen tech. It's kind of opening this new world where things can be automated. For you know, know, if you really wanted to $150 a month, if you really wanted to, if you really wanted to. But if you wanted to be customized with your entire flow, you're probably going to have to pay $10,000, $15,000.
Speaker 1:And I think, the higher end and, by the way, there's firms that will pay millions of dollars for it but the higher end is really more about massive scale. So if you're at, if you are google cloud security, you've got thousands of pages, you have a lot of content, you are around the world, different products have to be nailed and so and have to work across multiple devices, multiple places. So, but you're going after scale and I think, like you're to your point, the, the new website will not be a single like oh, here's my home page. It's really custom to you and I think that's the important part we're.
Speaker 2:We're building an ai solution right now for bc jobs, um and bc jobs company that I used to um work for. I mean, I'm still there. I sat, I stepped down as a CEO, I'm an advisor now and still advised the day to day, and right now they're building a genetic flow to manage their whole stack. They've been around for 15 years, so they have some stack, some of their stack flow. They're usingnet still Right Coding language as like ancient nowadays. So what AI solution nowadays will be able to integrate with all these different? I think their total stack has like 20 different solutions. One has to talk to another has to talk to another has to talk to another. How do you build an AI? What? What ai workflow can, can, can help them? And the answer is none. They have to build it. Um, they have to build it kind of customized and so that's what they're.
Speaker 2:That's what they're working through to your point.
Speaker 1:That's your point. Like that, you have to build it super. You have to build a custom to your situation and that's what's going to matter. I also think, like you're saying, is that there's going to be multiple buyers. When someone goes to buy something B2B, it even happens B2C, but you have to customize the sale and that customization, or enabling it to switch and customize and pick different points of the buying journey. That's where the complexity comes in and that's where AI can be helpful and, of course, when you do that, you have to run experiments. So there's tons to do. All right, so I have a question. So did you know you always wanted to work in marketing? Was there a moment that just got you that said this is my field? Did it come from your mom? Did it come from friends? How'd you discover it?
Speaker 2:Oh man, that's a good question, I don't. I think you just kind of I don't know.
Speaker 1:You have a finance degree right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a finance degree and then I worked in crypto. So I worked at Litecoin, I helped Litecoin. I don't know how many of your listeners know Litecoin. They're not so relevant now, but they were really relevant between 2016 to really up to like 2019, 2020, until the owner, charlie, decided to sell a lot of his coins and just a lot of things didn't get built out and the public lost interest in them. But I built community for them from between 2017 to the end of 2018. Oh wow. Built community for them from between 2017 to like the end of 2018 oh wow. And and so from finance to crypto, but I did mostly marketing there. Yeah, I did community building and so that was like my my kind of intro into marketing. I didn't fully immerse myself into marketing, but I was touching crypto.
Speaker 2:Uh, community and and crypto communities are like heavy on pr heavy on influencer marketing and so I got a touch, a little bit of that and then, from that, from that, when I left crypto after the crash of 2018, I jumped right into b2b sass and I don't think I it's not like I I didn't think I was going to be like I was like a born marketer or whatever. It was just like a couple of roles that were were available at the time Um and I got really lucky and um joined joined a marketing agency and um that agency. I ended up being one of the early founders of it and it grew from. It grew from, you know, six figures to yeah high seven figures.
Speaker 2:Uh, I think we, we, at the end, and at the end of it we exited. We exited for, you know, multi seven figure that's awesome.
Speaker 1:So you fell in love with marketing and you, like you, moved from finance, got you the crypto job, but then you found your passion in marketing and I it's super cool isn't that crazy how life works.
Speaker 2:Like, like for you. Like, how did everything start for you?
Speaker 1:I was. I graduated with a degree in engineering. I was writing code, I was I was gonna do uh, electromagnetic fields and waves but I fell in love with. I did a marketing internship while I was in college and I fell in love with that more than writing code. And then I went into enterprise sales after college, selling technology. So after that got to B school, went into product and marketing, product management and marketing eventually started companies and that's how I fell in love and I love marketing. I love connecting people together, I love innovation, I love technology and I like figuring out how those great disruptors can find their market.
Speaker 2:Isn't that crazy it sounds when you say it out loud, it sounds crazy, but that's just how your life journey went, and it's crazy how life takes you into different directions.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Spark Tank, where we spark unexpected connections in the minds of technology's most innovative thinkers. Today we're joined by Simon Chow, a digital storyteller who's transformed community building into an art form, from running Western Canada's leading job board to hosting spicy conversations on his show Marketing on Mars. This is the spark of age's custom-built game where community meets creativity, where digital networking collides with authentic storytelling and where the next breakthrough might emerge from an unexpected word association. Our brains are pattern-matching machines, constantly drawing connections between seemingly unrelated concepts. Sometimes the most groundbreaking innovations come from these spontaneous neural leaps from content creation to community building, from digital marketing to authentic leadership. And today we're going to tap into that creative chaos. This is the ultimate word association challenge, where every response could unveil a new perspective. So here's how it works.
Speaker 1:I will start with a marketing related word and, simon, you'll respond with the very first word that pops in your mind. No filtering, no second guessing I know you'll do well at this Then I'll respond to your word and then we'll keep this neural chain reaction going. The only rule is spontaneity. Let your mind make those unexpected leaps, so ready to see where your synapses take us, simon.
Speaker 2:I'm worried, I'm worried.
Speaker 1:Did I freak you out with all that banter? Okay, let's go. This is going to be really easy. Word association we're going to have a blast with this, All right. First word Paradigm.
Speaker 2:Shift.
Speaker 1:Leap Frog Crypto.
Speaker 2:Decentralization.
Speaker 1:Blockchain Security Trust Human. Uh, decentralization. Blockchain security trust human. I like that. So we we end up being human from starting. About paradigm I love that. All right, here's the next one. This is gonna be a favorite of yours linkedin.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh man, I have so many words. Go Community, I'll say community.
Speaker 1:Community Connections.
Speaker 2:I'll say IRL, it's more like three words into one.
Speaker 1:But that's fine, you can do a phrase. Irl Events.
Speaker 2:Light Lighthearted.
Speaker 1:Friendships.
Speaker 2:Effort.
Speaker 1:Effort Consistency All right, I like that one. That's a good one. Here's another word association game, vancouver.
Speaker 2:Rainy.
Speaker 1:Flowers.
Speaker 2:Smell.
Speaker 1:Meadows.
Speaker 2:Exercise Exercise.
Speaker 1:Do you exercise in the rain? A lot in Vancouver.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, every single day like it feels like an exercise. I don't know you got to do so much. You're wearing boots, so you're like everything is heavier. I don't know You're wearing a jacket, everything is just heavy. I'm not a really outdoorsy person, you're not, if you haven't already taken note of that. I'm not a really outdoorsy person, if you haven't already taken note of that. I'm usually indoors podcasting working.
Speaker 1:All right, here's the last one Hot sauce.
Speaker 2:Marketing on Mars.
Speaker 1:Ah, I love it. All right, that nails it. You win that game. Consistency All right, I like that one. That's a good one, all right. What's the first word that pops in your mind when you get negative feedback on an episode?
Speaker 2:I got to consider it. Yeah, it's like, at the end of the day, we're all different, we're all human. There's a reason why that person said something and you have to just try to figure out if that is real or not. I know in the beginning you might not fully understand why they said what they said, but the more research you do, I think the more you understand.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what are some of the best knowledge nuggets you've taken away from your show and who are the folks who dropped them taken away from your show?
Speaker 2:and who are the folks who dropped them? I mean, this is pretty fun doing this and it's not my show, but I'm having these conversations.
Speaker 1:I can chat with you all day, Simon. You're a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, best Nuggets. Oh my God. Honestly, I learned from every single episode. I just learned something different from every single episode, like on the episode with Melissa Rosenthal. She, you know, at ClickUp.
Speaker 1:She spent a lot of money on billboards, so I learned a lot about how billboards I really like that point that she made about, because that is not what B2B marketers think about is building their brand through billboards.
Speaker 1:So I think, that was counterintuitive and how she in that episode talked about how she made it performance-driven too. They could tell by the places they put the billboards versus. They did their own A-B testing by putting in certain places versus not in other places, and they also used it as a clever competitive thing, so that was a good one on that episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm sure there was a lot of things that were not trackable, but they did their best and when they calculate their blended, a lot of big companies do this right. They do blended CPA Because there's so many things that are untrackable, where you spend $50,000 on this marketing initiative and you have no idea where to track it. You just put a blended cost in marketing and at the end of the day it worked. So that was really cool to dive into it and I did ask some spicy questions around that.
Speaker 1:And I think I think to your point like performance marketers sometimes there are performance marketers that are too performance marketing, meaning there has to be a direct response to the campaign right away, as opposed to looking at it as a lag and and trying to measure based on that. So if I do tv advertisement, does it drive my? It may not initially drive people to buy from me, but eventually it should lower my cost of acquisitions because people see my brand and they know, okay, it's time to. Then I go to buy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like how many of the ads that we see nowadays are we already numb to anyways? Yes, like when was the last time you clicked into an ad? How often per year? Just think about it.
Speaker 1:Other than using other than maybe Facebook, where they know me pretty well and they know I like tech kind of stuff, clever tech stuff. I rarely click on ads, but nowadays the B2B advertisers have gotten better at knowing what I'm interested in, the content I'm interested in, the things I'm interested in learning. So sometimes I do click to download something.
Speaker 2:It's rare, it's rare I don't, I don't think that's, that should be the purpose.
Speaker 1:I think that's just about building an impression about your brand exactly, yeah, it's about awareness, um yeah, like, the folks at coca-cola are not fools, right, they're pretty bright people and they know that even though this is something you drink all the time, you have to keep the brand in front of your face. So they always put everything in terms of that coke bottle, even on the can. Right, they put a coke bottle and they put it everywhere, right, I? I one time I was in machu picchu, like we were on a five-day hike. There was no humans around and a woman walked up to us with on her head a bunch of cold cokes and sold it to us. Right, I was like, oh my god, coke even gets here.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is the most incredible marketing distribution company in the world yeah so anything else that popped in your head of, like a one of your, maybe a recent guest oh, we had a recent, uh, we had a recent guest that you know they do about 600 million dollars in revenue. They um are in the health care space, uh, health carousel and uh, they basically help hospitals all over the us. Staff, uh, staff them with with nurses, short-term nurses, long-term nurses yeah, um, and talk, talk a lot about that and the process and just building A lot of it is just like building culture, right, and like, how do you market to nurses?
Speaker 1:So you mean it's like recruitment, marketing of professionals? Yeah, that's a huge problem, by the way, for we have a number of these health organizations, multi-location health, and that is an important side of their business, what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:And nurse shortages are all over right now. All over, and so how do you get these temp nurses to be able to come in and work for a few hours on call? That's a very difficult task right now. How do you target these nurses?
Speaker 1:Was there some technique that they used that really stuck in your head?
Speaker 2:They would host these, they would engage with the nurses, they would host these big nurse kind of parties where they would get their nurses to. They realized that the best way to uh meet nurses is that nurses know other nurses, and so they would host these parties and you would just bring another nurse friend and and they would. They would do these quarterly and they would run these all around all across north america. They found that that was the easiest way because, like if you think about it?
Speaker 1:was it a social mixer or continuing ed, continuing ed?
Speaker 2:kind of thing, um, yeah, just, uh, just mixers, and they just keep it fun and and they try to keep keep those non non-educational right and just more about fun, because they realize that, uh, I mean, there's there's some portions of continue ed as well, so you can like learn things, but then there's also like these fun mixers and they, and they really focus on that element because they they knew that that was what would draw the nurses out and it's like, um, that's, it was just interesting to hear yeah, I.
Speaker 1:I think this gets to our point about um, about the notion of creating great experiences for people. So it like it. That is marketing is creating great experiences for your target market and once they have that a great experience, they associate that experience with you and when the time comes to buy, they'll think about your company, right that's the most important.
Speaker 2:I mean I I had a talk to another um company and they they um, not this current company, but worked for a different company that sold earbuds, and we think about earbuds. Where do you use these earbuds? They have a variety of different earbuds for different purposes for sleep, for when you're on the plane, for different purposes, but the one that really put them on the map was they created one earbud for music experiences oh, wow and so they became the main sponsor of ultra music festival in in belgium.
Speaker 2:Um, and I think a lot of people might already know this brand, um, uh now, but before they did this campaign, they were like struggling with ad spend and everything. But this put them on the map because they got in front of 200,000 people, or a hundred thousand people, yeah, and everyone. They just pass a lot of these for free, just free free, free here.
Speaker 1:You got one, you get one, you get one. Give it to the top influencers in that field and have them use it.
Speaker 2:Everybody started posting about.
Speaker 1:It just had a big event.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, it just became free, influential marketing yeah so shout out to loop now.
Speaker 2:Now they're all over korea, japan, they're all over now. But it was just like figuring out what was going to be there. We're going to be your ultra fans, people that are just going to be your biggest fans. And that, even though, even though they targeted the music vertical that grew into every other, they were thinking would sleep be our best? Uh, product line? Would it be? Would it be music, would it be whatever? And then they figured out that one vertical that was going to be your best and I think that is what we should all try to figure out is what's our number one channel?
Speaker 1:number one, influencer number one. Yeah, I mean, I think your, your point is like people who are the best influencers or market of of sound love, music, right, and they are. They are audiophiles. It's hard to get someone that's going to influence you about sleep, you know right.
Speaker 2:But but you'll get bored. I think you might fall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I sleep really well, but it's hard to get really motivated and maybe you're like a sleep doctor or sleep something.
Speaker 2:But even then when was the last time we followed a sleep doctor? I mean, unless you have horrible sleep and if you have horrible sleep, you probably want to listen to a sleep apnea, or like an actual specialist not like music.
Speaker 1:Music is like community sharing um, it's awesome. So that that's brilliant. That's brilliant. Knowing your market and getting to that um, okay, where do you? I love these examples. Where do you see the future of podcasting in terms of building community and fostering deeper connections? Are there any trends or technologies you think will play a significant role?
Speaker 2:I think it's so many people already have their own podcasts. I think it's not going to change With AI technology. Now anyone can edit their podcast really quickly, really cheap as well. We definitely leverage a lot of that on our show. Equipment is getting better. I have this whole setup. This is my traveling setup. I bought this whole set for under $1,000. It's never been cheaper. It's never been easier to start a podcast. I think a lot of people will have it, whether they make it past 20 or 30 episodes. Like you said, that's up for debate.
Speaker 1:That's discipline, right.
Speaker 2:That's just discipline. That is hard. That's always existed, whether it was blogs from the 90s to websites, to all the channels have evolved and now podcast is a big thing. On the flip side, because there are so many podcasts, all the channels have evolved and now it's podcast is the big thing. But, uh, but on the flip side, because there are so many podcasts, it hasn't been, never has been easier to stand out. That's right.
Speaker 2:If you're if you're a very good podcast host which you are and you have great guests on your show um, it's inevitable after X number of episodes that it will do well and um. Um, it's inevitable after x number of episodes that it will do well and um. And maybe it is just to build brand, like the way I do it. Or maybe it blows off and then you become you know, you start getting sponsorships and you start getting all that. But that should never be the the goal. I personally feel that a podcast should just be for the connections, just like how everyone you know in the b2c world everyone uses instagram as their daily journal and to share about their life.
Speaker 2:The podcast should be in the b2b. Uh uh, you know b2b marketers arsenal for sure definitely.
Speaker 1:I think it's definitely a way to to keep going and keep, keep, keep presenting yourself in terms of new content and challenging content. I don't know about you, but it helps me just learn things. I mean I can read an article keep presenting yourself in terms of new content and challenging content. I don't know about you, but it helps me just learn things. I mean I can read an article.
Speaker 1:I always remember my conversation with someone and it'll just pop in my head. I had this great conversation and something they said popped up Right and you know, like you talk about experience. John Miller talks about experience. He's the founder of, one of the co-founders of Marketo and he was the co-founder of Engagio. So he's like, yeah, MQLs, that's going to be the death of marketers. We need to focus on how to build a great market and great experiences. So it sticks in your head. So it's a great way to learn too and grow, and I get awesome feedback from people. I'm sure you do as well. Nothing makes me happier than when someone writes to me about what we're up to or just calls me Okay, what's your personal moonshot?
Speaker 2:Like this year, next three years or.
Speaker 1:It could be a life moonshot. It could be a life moonshot.
Speaker 2:I really am passionate about just building a strong community and if I can figure out a way to turn that into a living and not just have that be secondary, it would be awesome. Just big on community that has kind of been my life since 2017. Being able to turn it into something like an actual full-on business would be really, really cool.
Speaker 1:So if I asked you, the question if money was no object, would that be your job?
Speaker 2:That would be it. Yeah, unfortunately, as you know, with community, like a podcast, everyone has a community and so it's very hard to monetize the community and it's not a game that I want to play in. So it's something. Nowadays, I focus 80% of my time on building Clifford, my startup, probably 10% of my time on the podcast, and then the remaining 10% on community building. That's kind of like my split nowadays.
Speaker 1:All right, how about this? Tell me the second thing you love. You already told me the first thing. What's the second thing you love?
Speaker 2:This podcasting, podcasting, having these conversations yeah, I love having these conversations. I also don't similar to community building. I don't make a lot of money at all, just enough to kind of pay the bills, pay the people that work on the podcast, and for me that's enough and just having these conversations. You and I would have never met had it not been through the podcasting.
Speaker 1:That's right Through one of my folks, Taryn Talley. She heard about you. Loved your podcast, Taryn's amazing. She heard about you loved your podcast went to your went to your event, worked with you on your live one that you had in the bay area and, um, I was able to uh, I listened to a couple of your you know a couple really awesome guests and bring them onto the show, so I really appreciate that. I've learned a lot from you and I love listening to your podcast, so I really appreciate having you on.
Speaker 1:I mean it's been amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, appreciate it, Appreciate you having me on. Thank you, thank you for this and hopefully your guests got some, some tidbits, some nuggets here and there. Well, I think, and.
Speaker 1:I learned a lot just talking to you. I mean, you saved me from getting onto TikTok and spending a lot of time there. So I appreciate that, because I get a lot of folks saying, hey, jump onto TikTok and do your hot take and I'm like I don't know if I'm the hot take kind of guy. Yeah, YouTube.
Speaker 2:YouTube is the way I like your point about YouTube.
Speaker 1:So I will definitely. We did more LinkedIn and channels and we do do YouTube, and so now, based on your advice, channels and we do do YouTube. And so now, um, based on your advice, I want to do more YouTube.
Speaker 2:So, we're doing YouTube shorts now, so I heard you also do some comedy. Oh yeah, we do like me, we do like memes, yeah. So so we, yeah, we do a lot of meme. Uh, I mean it's meme culture right now Everybody. I mean it's meme culture right now Everybody. It's into memes. Just go with the culture right now it's awesome.
Speaker 1:It's awesome that you can see it and sense it and then pick up on it and drive it, so it's really cool. So, simon, just a thrill to have you here. Thank you for doing this with me, especially from South Korea, and enjoy your travels. Hope to see you in the Bay Area. Look forward to meeting you in person and let's do more shows together. This will be fun.
Speaker 2:Let's make this a regular. I will. We'll get you on my show. Let's, let's, let's just visit each other's show back and forth.
Speaker 1:Let's do it. I'm in. I'm in. Great to have you on, simon. Thank you so much. Great to have you on, simon. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:You as well. Thank you, the founders of Substantial Companies on his podcast that it's great to meet with someone that's met and talked to all these people and used his platform as a way to learn and build community and grow and scale, and he's taught me a few things. One thing that we didn't talk about that he mentioned was that when he launches an episode, he actually sends a calendar invite. When he launches an episode, he actually sends a calendar invite so that he and his guest or guests can all start sharing at the same time.
Speaker 1:Now what makes folks like Simon Tick, as he mentioned, it's something he loves to do, he's passionate about doing, and it's less about money and more about great connections, but I can tell you it'll pay off for him. Great guy and just a lot to learn from him. Anyone that can do 100 of anything is someone you have to respect, especially the type of growth he's experienced over time and just the pure perseverance of it. So I love having him on. If there's one thing I could impart from what I learned today, it's just that power of commitment and passion put together.
Speaker 1:And what I liked about Simon in that is that he just said that he was there to learn. It wasn't, he says, personal brand, but it was really about his just passion about learning, about marketing, and really for him it was about community. That's marketing to him and, frankly, that's what it should be. I think there's a lot to learn from him and I take that to heart because it's something that I care about all the time. It relates, it feels really right to me. So thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the pod, please take a moment to rate it and comment. You can find us on Apple, spotify, youtube and everywhere podcasts can be found. The show is produced by Anand Shah and Sandeep Parikh, production assistant by Taryn Talley and edited by Sean Maher and Aidan McGarvey. I'm your host, rajiv Parikh, from Position Squared. We are a leading AI-centric growth marketing company based in Silicon Valley. Come visit us at position2.com. This has been an effing funny production production and we'll catch you next time. And remember, be ever curious.