The $100,000 Booth Problem: Why Conference Marketing Is Failing PT

0:00 You're listening to the P.T. Pinecast, where smart people in healthcare come to make noise. Here's your host, Jimmy McKay. Made one marketing move change, Andrea. Instead of calling this marketing doesn't work, I feel like it's too broad. Healthcare marketing doesn't work. Let's be specific. Let's be a little specific. It's more accurate. Marketing doesn't work is a great bumper sticker. We'll just do a little, what's the little editor note? Healthcare marketing. Yes, yes, exactly. Andrea, healthcare marketing, fractional VP, healthcare marketing person who's been in around on over between a lot of prepositional phrases in the beginning here. Before we hit live, you were talking about how you didn't start.

0:40 You're a late bloomer with with the coffee beans as well. I started drinking coffee at twenty eight. I was done with graduate school. Usually everybody's like, oh, you got to get through grad school. I didn't. It was afterwards. I had my first latte and was like, this just tastes like a milkshake with lightning in it. And it is. I was really tired one morning. I was also finished with grad school. I was tired on the way to work and I was like, I should just try it. Now I mostly drink tea or decaf and I pretend everything. I just pretend that it's giving me energy. My everything's about ice. Nothing's hot. I can't drink hot liquids. I burn myself hot water, hot water, burn baby. All right. So are you a little hung?

1:21 Are you a little hung over today? Just play along with me. Play along with me. If I were to be a drinker, I would be hung over today. From all of the advertisements, Andrea. Yes, I am. And I, yes, a lot of advertisements. Well, just a lot of talk. Some of it about the football game. A lot of it, not about the football game. yes it was uh yeah but people have always i mean i remember for years the statistic i don't even know if i heard anybody even talk about the statistic of what a thirty second ad costs i on purpose didn't take notes my thought process was if it's big enough for me to be able to remember the next day when i'm super bowl hungover then it's it moves the needle i don't remember hearing it once at all and like we're inundated with media constantly bang bang this this statistic you know do a reel about whatever i don't think i heard the cost of a super bowl ad one time did you i didn't no i also did not hear that uh i'm gonna guess it's a lot of money still I think I texted you yesterday just to say, Hey, let's, let's make this the focus since obviously it's advertising, but we can, you know, one step away from Kevin Bacon is healthcare marketing.

2:36 What, if anything stood out to you, let's go, do you want to go negative positive or positive negative? Let's go negative first. So we can end on a positive. Let's do, okay, negative or neutral. I'm going to, I'll call this, I'll call this negative or neutral. So just generally like AI as creative, I thought was really interesting in a lot of the ads. I also didn't know which brands they were. I'll be honest. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of, you've been in these meetings, people who have, people who are listening in healthcare, who are not in the marketing meeting, you'd be shocked because No, you wouldn't be shocked. You've been in these meetings. They're just like any other meeting where there's an idea on the table.

3:17 And by the time it leaves, we make a concession with this. I meet you in the middle with that. Chris Voss is an author I reference a lot. He's a former FBI hostage negotiator. He calls this black shoe, brown shoe. And what you see on the screen, I'm pointing at my TV. I don't know why I'm referencing that on the podcast. He calls it black shoe, brown shoe. If we're in a meeting and you have two co-CEOs and one says, we got to go black shoe for the suit and everyone says brown shoe, how do you compromise? You wear one black shoe and one brown shoe. And that is a terrible move. So sometimes it's, let's make the video crazier or bigger and you're you're compromising you're making concessions until you when you stop and you turn around and you have no idea what the video is even about because you made so many compromises it's like this we talked about last week frankenstein it's like you get to a home page and everyone is weighed in and it doesn't say it's it's a mess like at best it doesn't say anything at worst it's just a mess Yeah, it's a train wreck.

4:16 So I was watching Super Bowl, half of it with some people, half of it by myself. I usually watch the first half somewhere else. And I'm a get-together fan. I'm a snacks fan. Big snacks fan. I'll watch a sporting event. I'm more of a hockey-baseball guy. Game was pretty boring. That's okay. I mean, the players don't care. They're like, I got a ring, I got paid, whatever. Did any ads stand out? to you do you remember an ad that you were like oh yep this will drive something uh so serena williams was i didn't see it glp one oh and like you know you see ads all of the time for for pharma uh but super bowl promoting glp one with serena and like the tie back to she was in the halftime show last year i thought that was an interesting thing and like everyone knows her and she's super strong um and they were introducing like their new pill um which i thought well i i have a lot of feelings about this but for the sake of this conversation i thought it was really interesting they put that many dollars um to be front and center Does that shock you?

5:25 I mean, pharma is not really stingy. I said, interesting, not shocking. Okay. I was like, like pharma would pay you to name your baby. And then, and then pay for life, like whatever your kid's life, you know, got college, everything. They'll just write you a check tomorrow. So that was a healthy one that definitely stood out for sure. I don't know if there were any that jumped out to you. I'm not a note taker. I remember the Emma Stone one because I thought, oh, I get it. So the Emma Stone one was sort of like a perfume commercial. It was very like cinematic.

6:05 But it was like Weebly or Wex or- It was Square, yeah, Squarespace or Wex. One of them. There we go. It was- Although, here's why I liked it. Here's why I liked it. Do you remember what the, just like broad strokes, what was she doing? It was like emmastone.com domain unavailable. what are people going to do? Go to Amazon.com. Then you all have to worry about, so there's a little bit of attribution because now you're the marketing person at whatever, Squarespace or Wix or GoDaddy. It wasn't GoDaddy. I think it was Squarespace. There was a different- I think it was Squarespace, yeah. Yeah. I'm going to go there in a second. But that's the thing. Now, what are people going to do? I got to see it.

6:46 This got me thinking. This was the ad I hope we would talk about. When people go digital and high tech and AI, that's my cue to go analog. Because I like to skate where the puck isn't. I learned that from watching, being told what to do. It's why, like a few years ago, I was like, hey, let's send postcards. And we can actually see who took action on a postcard. Because it's so the opposite. And it doesn't cost you more, ironically, it costs you less to be different. Exactly. Because it's an arms race to out AI or out spend. But what you could do, ah, man. So my tweak, if I give a little note or like, ooh, yes and, let's say yes and, not a note, not an attraction.

7:36 What could you have done with AI technology and analog? would have been putting a phone number somewhere and saying, text me. Cause then you got it. Do you know what I mean? Like I forget the dude's name, but eight, six, seven, five, three Oh nine was the like, that was legendary. He didn't do it on purpose, but imagine you own that number. But imagine you did the Emma Stone commercial, emmastone.com, which, of course, I have to go there. I didn't yet. Maybe I'm denouncing my own point. But imagine it was like you flashed a number, and you kept it subtle. It was there long enough to write down. And, of course, everybody can pause TV.

8:17 Now, that's not an issue. And then you texted it, and now you were in a text conversation. That's some next level stuff. In my opinion, that could have, people could still be doing. And then you tell a friend, dude, text this number and see what it says to you. Cause you tell it, you tell the bot to change every time. Yeah. In response to your whatever, like user generated content because people are all over that. Yes. And then if you're on the other end, screenshot that there's your ad campaign for the next two weeks. Let's get to the plot next year, Jimmy. So I've got a friend who I was in radio with. I want to give him a nod.

8:59 I'm going to give myself a nod too, which, hey, nod, nod. We worked together in radio, we were in the same building. He was on the pop station. I was on the rock station, but we were, he did afternoons and nights. I did afternoons. So we were in the building at the same time. I watched him run around that building doing video. Fifteen years ago and being like, he's that's the direction. And everybody's like, he's doing video, but where are we going to put it? And I'm like, uh, the internet feels like a good place to put it. But anyway, he was not, it was not really supported. He was the guy running around. And do you know what my buddy Ralphie does now? What does he do? He's the entertainment reporter for USA today. So he's the guy running around the Grammys.

9:40 He's the EGOT and the Super Bowl. So I looked up, of course, still keep in touch with Ralphie because if I want to know what's up, most of the time he can't tell me what he's doing because he's like he's interviewing somebody two months ago for their commercial that's going to air yesterday. So most of the time he's like he can't tell what he's doing. He did a little ranking or I did a little AI search. His standout by Ralphie, the T-Mobile, tell me why. I'm going to bring up my graph. This is consulting companies. It is. B to C value pyramid. And real, real high in the emotional category is nostalgia, right in the middle there in the emotional.

10:24 So you get backstreet. Who's your target market? I'm going to guess Andrea. I don't know if you're a backstreet or you were a team in sync. I'm not sure. But you were team one of them. This was not an opt-in. This was you were NSYNC or you were Backstreet Boys. I mean, they really needed NKOTB. That was before. That was a little before. They paved the way. They did pave the way, right. So they knew. I mean, they know their audience and they know it's Backstreet Boys. So T-Mobile wants to sell phones. Who makes the decision for the household? females of what age right now if you're gonna hit if you're gonna aim for thirty forties what did they like when they were seventeen give me a little backstreet give me like give me the left backstreet and t-mobile goes ding that's worth the spend if you're gonna double down you with the super bowl commercial buying the real estate in the time is table stakes.

11:23 Now you need to put something in it. It's like, so you bought land on Rodeo drive. You still have to buy a house or it's not a thing and furnish it. Right. And furnish it. Right. Um, it's interesting because I think the T-Mobile had this element similar to the Duncan commercial. We'll get to that. And it, and it was, it was nostalgic and people were super excited, but it was transactional. And I was trying to think back of, they don't have like an ambassador that they're weaving through that they're trying to like get you to be comfortable with. You just immediately know, like, I, I know Backstreet Boys and I like them. Cool. Yeah. Do you think T-Mobile or Dunkin' should have a face?

12:07 I don't think they need that anymore. I think brands used to do that, and some brands still do that, but I think it's okay to be transactional because we are filtering so much noise that are we even going to care or remember that that's who their spokesperson was? We'll get to the Dunkin' one in a minute, but I thought it was a smart play to just sort of say, yep, this is who we're targeting right now. We know they're paying attention. yeah yeah yeah you're you're you're you're earning attention you're earning you're earning attention over time what's the goal in my opinion and we'll get to the article that just came out that i helped co-write and by co-write i like dropped three bars and left you you're you're you're trying to earn you're you're fighting for attention to ultimately do something and in my opinion it is trust familiarity coziness warmness and that cannot be purchased in a transaction there's if you're if you're trying to build a relationship and you're trying to purchase it that is a possibility that's just the oldest profession on the planet right do you want to be that or do you want to earn attention and that's not saying you don't have to pay for it so t-mobile was good i thought it was good i like those guys and it also comes off like they know how to read the, like everybody in the room knew how to read the room, which is like, we get what we are.

13:23 We were the, we were the cool thing for eight minutes and now we're forty two and now sorry, I did my math wrong real quick. Exactly. It was great. It was good. Yeah, I liked it. It was good. It was really good. I didn't see this one, but Ralphie said the Instacart bananas directed by Spike Jones, disco powered Ben Stiller. I didn't see it. I was super confused. So it was weird. So I was also, so we also are like, we like to get together and have snacks. So we were at a friend's house. I have two small children. So I was keeping an eye on my children running around the friend's house. And I was also trying to understand what was happening on these commercials and the game.

14:04 But the game was very easy to pay attention to because there wasn't much happening as a Patriots fan. Bananas was confusing. So they were dancing. There was a banana. There were like some other fruits maybe. And I was like, where is this going? Like, what brand is this? And then it was Instacart. And I forget what the message was like. i don't choose your own bananas or something i don't i don't remember what it was think about that if andrea who is not looking at it for just lols like you're looking at it for like oh what are they what's the you're like what's the angle what's the other angle how's it gonna play out if you can't figure it out And what are the commercials? Fifteen, thirty, at most sixty.

14:45 It was like fifteen. Right. It was super short. And everyone's like, what's going on? And I get the let's be so weird, like Puppy Monkey Baby. Do you remember Puppy Monkey Baby? Of course. Yeah. Who can forget it? Who was it? I don't remember who it was. That's the problem. I remember puppy monkey baby. I think it was Mountain Dew. I don't even know. I don't know. I think it was, was it Mountain Dew? I don't remember. So I get where you're like, dude, this, you'll be humming puppy monkey baby for a decade. I go, great. What does that get us? So I remember the song, but I don't remember who sang it. I don't remember who sang eight, six, seven, five, three Oh nine. But I remember that damn phone number. So weird is weird is a great big spike.

15:28 And then what? That's the thing I get. Let's put all the effort into one bang and video. Go to my Instagram account. I'd rather four hundred and fifty B minuses in a row. That's just me because I'm trying to build familiarity. Exactly. I didn't see this one a lot either, but Ralphie said American Icons, Anheuser-Busch, the spot featured Clydesdales and a bald eagle hatchling bonding to the soundtrack of Leonard Skinner's Freebird. If you said that that was an ad and who did it, I'd be like Budweiser. Budweiser. I didn't see any of the alcoholic beverage commercials, but I did read up on them this morning and that they were like just clinging to tradition.

16:13 And that's what you think they do. I remembered Grubhub. It was called The Feast, F-E-E-S-T. Did you see this one? It was a bunch of people around a table asking who's going to eat the fees, who's going to eat the fees. And then Grubhub was like, we're going to eat the fees. And I guess they were saying something like, essentially, we're not going to do what airline companies do, which is like your ticket's a hundred dollars, but by the time you go to check out, it's a hundred and seventy eight dollars. They're like fees or something. That was my takeaway. Okay. I didn't see that one. And if you're Grubhub, you're competing with Uber Eats and you're competing with DoorDash. Maybe, but I would have liked to have seen them do something like scan this and your next hundred feasts are fee free or something, something bananas, like something that can't be true.

17:03 Or like the first X amount of people get like reduced fee or whatever it is. Do you know, do you know like TurboTax and all those online tax places that they let you, they'll like let you follow your return for free? Yep. Do you legally have to? They legally have to let you file for free. They have to, legally. Well, because you have to be able to file your taxes. If you're a company that one of these companies is like H&R Block or whatever, they have to, but they advertise the crap out of it. They do. You're paying for preparation, but you're like, oh, look, I get this for free, but it's really for free.

17:45 We legally have to do that. They don't say that. They say, you know what? We're nice guys and we care about you. We want to make sure you get the most money back. We'll let you file for free. You have to. Yes. I mean, smart move. But until someone pointed that out, I was like, holy crap. It'd be like a PT clinic being like, you know what? We'll submit all of your stuff to insurance. No charge. No problem. You know what? If you say it enough, right? They're like, what is the rule? Loud, loud enough. infrequent enough yeah people believe you it's free it's free uh any other ads come to mind this was really bad right i mean it was bad and i missed the end i did miss the end um i was putting the kids to sleep but there was again i don't remember the brand kevin from the office oh no that was very good i i saw that today though i saw this morning kevin from the offense was it ramp ramp That sounds really...

18:45 It was yellow and black, I think, the brand colors. And it was like he was cloning himself. Right. So Ramp is like a digital online thing. If you run a business with a lot of people, they're like... Paycheck, HR, PTO, like all that. We just take care of it, lock it up. Don't worry about it. We do it offsite. That was great. They played off of his character perfectly. Perfect. Sort of a Mr. Magoo. He's in the office. He's got responsibility, but yeah. And then they cloned him fifty thousand times. And he was carrying the pan of the pot of chili, which was in the office. One that shocked me. That I, if we were in that room, Andrea, I'd be like, I am not compromising on this.

19:31 Did you see the Ritz Cracker series? It was several ads. It was Jon Hamm, Scarlett Johansson, and Bowen Yang, who just left SNL. No, I did not see these. Their whole thing was an ad or a series where they were on Ritz Island. Which you have got in twenty twenty six. Are you going anywhere near? Come on to our exclusive snack. Oh, no. I was totally thinking of something. No, no. It took me a minute. Absolutely not. Hey, Ritz, read the room.

20:14 A bunch of super exclusive celebrities alone on an island. What? Sorry, guys. Even if you. Well, first of all. First of all, the whole talk of an island has been going on for, checks, notes, a long time. So it's not like this just popped up. Even if it did, even if it popped up yesterday, you pull the ad. You pull it. So this is like, this is the decision you have to make. You pull the ad. Right. There's a psychological concept called the sunk cost fallacy. Well, I've put this much money into my degree. Therefore, I'm going to be the whatever until I die because I got that money out. No, you don't. You're going to die one time, maybe twice if you're lucky, but definitely one time.

20:58 And whatever you do from now until death day, is that what you want to do? If the answer is no, no. You put all this money into an ad. I don't think people are going to, I mean, believe me, like in this day and age, like you really have to do something bananas to even move the needle to a one now. But what, I don't think you won with this. I don't think it was a good, it's not like I'm going to be like, oh my God, I can't believe they did it. I just thought it was a dumb spend of money. Yeah. They could have pulled it and done something that would have been impactful. Yeah. So that was one. I can't remember other ones. Do you? I remember Duncan. Oh, no, no. Let's talk about Duncan. I thought that was well done. I saw one with Keegan-Michael Key and Danny McBride.

21:39 Danny McBride from Eastbound and Down. I think I was doing something at the sink and I was like, oh, Danny McBride. Key and Peele are not funny. They're insanely funny. So anything they're in, I'm like, if they said yes, it's probably good. And Danny McBride is like... He just plays the same kind of character. Do you know Eastbound and Down? I know Eastbound and Down, yeah. Yeah, he played that guy. And it was something with music or whatever, but honestly, I was doing something, which you also run a risk of. I know they say there's a bajillion people watching, but like a billion for how long? Like they're doing stuff. So I didn't get it. Right. So I don't even know what it was, but I remember seeing it and being like, oh, I love those guys.

22:25 What are they doing? I don't know. It was Bud Light. No, no, no. It was I'll Find It. But I was surprised. And it's interesting, too, because I think a lot of people do miss the commercials during, but then what does it look like after? Are we measuring that? People are talking about it. They're going to YouTube to find the video. So here's the interesting part. That I think that, here's a lesson here. Brands will release their Super Bowl commercial a week ago. Yep. What? If we understand. This is them showing you, everybody, the industry, showing you their cards.

23:06 It is about putting it on the world stage. Here's what I think it is. Did you ever watch a video on Instagram or Facebook or whatever? And then you're like, ha! And then you've got two or three people and you're like, boop, send. And you're like, and then you send it to them. It's not about you watching it in isolation. It's about you being part of it. So now, even if I've seen the ad, in fact, I think it's a good strategy because the first three seconds the ad comes on and you're like, oh, oh, everybody shut up. This one's funny. This one's funny. And now you get to be the person who's like, I've seen this. You're on the inside. I'm on the inside. Now I'm like, everybody shut up. Watch this. This is funny. Watch what happens. That is a good move because that is actually how people consume ads by themselves, but they want to be that part.

23:51 They want to be that insider or like, Oh my God, I send this. It's why gifts are so funny. Let me use someone else's earned emotional, whatever. And this is perfect for this moment. And then I get to, but I get the credit because I dropped the gift or I said this ad was funny. And that is a power move. It's a power move. From a brand perspective, they get to say, look at us, we're on the Super Bowl. Whether people watched it at the Super Bowl or they watched it a week ago or they watch it two weeks from now, or it won't be relevant two weeks from now, but if they watch it two days from now. There was a Catherine O'Hara nod. I missed it, but I heard that there was a Michelob Ultra. It was Kurt Russell who plays an over-the-top ski instructor teaching students how to win a race to avoid paying for a round of beers.

24:39 I caught it, but I was doing something else, so I didn't see the whole thing, and I missed any Catherine O'Hara. And then there was Willem Dafoe and Catherine O'Hara hustling people in Pickleball. But here's the thing. You're lining up people like Kurt Russell, Willem Dafoe, Catherine O'Hara, so you're tipping your hand to who I want to like me. This is not a twenty-one-year-old. This is probably thirty-five-year-olds, forty-five-year-olds. And we're saying, again, still, we're the beer you drink when you still want to be active and you're going to rock some pickleball or you're going to like learn to ski with Kurt Russell. Yes. All right. So now let's talk about the one, I guess, I guess, I don't know. I guess we'll crown since we both didn't know.

25:22 We both liked this one, the Dunkin' Donuts one felt good and they combined a lot of nostalgia. It was a lot of nostalgia. Um, it was at first I was sort of like, what are they doing? Like what's going on? Uh, but it was the nostalgia piece is exactly what it was, you know? And it's interesting. Duncan doesn't need like a lot of these advertisers. They don't need to advertise. People go there. And this is like, look at me. I'm culturally relevant. I understand you. I know what you like and makes you feel good. Like that's what they were doing. Do you remember the Duncan, uh, track suits, uh, of course the dunkings so they're staying with this whole like we're from boston and that's fine like people in new york like we should hate that but we don't we're sort of like we get it we like it it's good it's better than stat better than stabux we're not going to drink those guys we're real they're just positioned they're like we're toyota and starbucks can go over there and be lexus and that's cool because we're with the people so they so the whole thing was uh good will dunking Goodwill dunking.

26:29 Goodwill dunking. And it was played out, I mean, all the way to the end, like with Jennifer Aniston at the end. And she's like, how do you like whatever? I mean, whatever, you know, it's the line. But it wasn't them apples. It was like... Whatever she said. So good. So smart. Can you... I have the notes. Can you name all of the characters in that ad? I cannot. Two off the bat, right? We have Jennifer Aniston. Yes. And we had the other people from France. So who was from France? Do you remember? I don't remember the names exactly. Of course, Joey was. Joey. Somebody from Seinfeld.

27:11 Um... I don't remember. Jason Alexander. Yes, of course. You had Alfonso Ribeiro from Fresh Prince. You had Jasmine Guy from Different Worlds. You had Jalila White from Family Matters. So you had Carlton. Last night I was like, oh my goodness, these guys are great. And I just already blanked on who was in it. Then you had Sam Malone, Ted Danson from Cheers. Ted Danson was... Then when Jennifer Aniston popped in, you had Tom Brady. Tom Brady was in that commercial. Tom Brady was the least...

27:54 Tom Brady was the least... Because by then you're like, just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. I don't even remember that. If you would have asked me if Tom Brady was in a commercial last night, I would have said no. He was the biggest one. I remember her dragging someone into the window. That was Tom Brady. And I forget that it was Tom Brady. And here's who they all played themselves. Yep. They were just caricatures of themselves. So all Duncan did is they brewed up a pot of nice piping hot Duncan coffee. They let it cool a little bit so it wouldn't burn you. And then they just poured it all over you, made you nice and warm. And that's what they did. They're like, remember us? We're relevant. We're known.

28:36 We've been here all along. Who do we buy from? The loudest? Sometimes, maybe. I think we prefer familiar. Exactly. We know you. We get you. I might get better over there. I don't know if I want to risk it because I know that this is a B plus. I know it is. And once that's locked in, look, when I took over a radio station when I was twenty five years old, which probably not a great idea to hand a radio station that's doing seven million a year to a twenty five year old. Not a great idea. It turned out OK. I remember all the guys that I worked with, all the dudes who would like, you know, the engine, the blue collar dudes were like, now that you're in charge, man, you can start playing whatever you want.

29:19 And I'm like. You do realize we play this stuff because people know it. I know if we started playing obscure rock music, that would be cool for a spike hot minute. But then most people would go, the hell is this? Are you playing towards the middle of the bell curve or the edge? And there are times and places to do both. Right. But you listen to it because you, studies show. Well, actually studies show, saying studies show turns people off to whatever you're about to say, but I'll say it. We did research on this. This was my livelihood. People will listen to music that they don't like, but know longer and more consistently than they would to new music that they might like.

30:04 Interesting. So that's why you get it. That makes sense. So when Spotify and Apple Music came around, everybody was like, we don't need radio anymore. We're going to go stream our own things. And Andrea, the data has shown... People listen to the same stuff. Even when you're now the program director of your own radio station on Spotify, you are, yes, you do. You do a little taste. Let's go a little edgy. Let's try, who's bad bunny bro? Who's this dude? Let's check it out. All right, I don't like it. Or, oh, I do. That's the thing. It's sort of this rolling conveyor belt. I have my middle of the bell curve. I have the stuff that's never going away. But every once in a while, I'll drop something off and pick something up.

30:47 And then every once in a while, something that fell off, you dingle it in front of someone and bam, there's nostalgia. Oh, I love this song. So keep in mind, everything we're talking about today, it's not about Super Bowl. It's not about radio. We're talking about the relationship of you with whoever the hell you're trying to get to pay attention to you. All this stuff is easily transferable in my opinion. I mean, it is like this. We're talking about being familiar. And so we're saying like, know me, right? Duncan knew us and T-Mobile knew us. And so we're saying whether you are spending millions of dollars at the Super Bowl or your PT clinic, if you are marketing to me, like, please know me and speak to me.

31:28 Yeah. So the funny part is, so now we'll start to transfer away from the Super Bowl. Again, I would have thought is deserved an hour. I think it's a half hour at best. So I'm good at the thirty one. I agree. It was it was the last one. So lackluster, as they would say in the dunking. So let's the funny part is. In two thousand and eight, when I saw this thing, smartphone, I went as a guy running a radio station. Oh, expletive. Let's get out of here. This ain't going to be. And I didn't need anybody. I didn't need anybody to put together a listicle for me to be like, maybe I should. I was like, nope, no. I made that decision on the side of Interstate eighty one.

32:08 Like I'm out. We handed people these abilities, average everyday people. You don't need to be a radio station or a TV station owner to reach people. And then... everybody decides they need to become a tv station everything needs to be super well planned i'll do it tomorrow i'm seeing everybody else do it i'll get ready i'll do it tomorrow i've gotta it's gotta be perfect for me to publish produced and right we just handed you quite literally a portal to every eyeball in your local market your national market the world market and that's hard That's hard to compete with because now you're competing with everybody.

32:50 I needed to be the third coolest guy in Scranton, Pennsylvania in the afternoons and I could earn a living. And now I got to compete against everybody. Exactly. In the country. Here's my problem. It's like we handed people keys to the kingdom and they were like, okay. And most people don't do it at all. Or they feel like they have to overspend on doing it. You don't. You do have to ship. You have to show up, test stuff. I'm always testing stuff. And somebody gave me this great example. You know what TheraBand is, right? Yep. It's like we handed you TheraBand that you can use to strengthen yourself, right?

33:33 Love it or hate it, whatever. And you decided to use it as a slingshot. It's like, dude, you had this perfect tool to do this thing, but why are you using it that way? Well, you gave it to me. You didn't tell me what to do with it. That's right. I don't know what to do with it. So we gave people this. Oh, I turned my flashlight on. Oh, that's a sign. Flashlight. I'll be enlightening. We gave people a smartphone. And you know what they do? They bitch about stuff in the comment section on someone else's content. I'm like, guys... I need you. I had this and still have this diatribe. When we first met, I think one of the first things I said was, we need to start acting. We need to be a media company first that happens to sell physical therapy.

34:14 Red Bull is a media company. Actually, I'd say they're an attention company powered by media that happens to sell energy drink. They sell attitude. They sell belonging. They sell identity. And I know it sounds like we're getting real spacey, but we're not. It's real, right. How do you explain that to someone? And how is that often received by a CEO who might be a traditional CEO who maybe they don't understand the world changed? I think they understand the world changed. I think it's scary. So I think the way that I've explained it is similar to how you just explained you had to be the third coolest in PA, right?

34:57 We are competing against... you know in healthcare we're retail healthcare essentially right like we're not competing against just the other pt down the road we are competing against people going on instagram going like oh here's a stretch i can do right like we are competing against companies who have digital health programs we're competing against all of it and we are competing against the noise outside of pt and um everything else that people are exposed to like on their phone because they're on their phone all the time So I think it's if we are not figuring out how to break through the noise where people are, like we're just going to be left behind. Like it's as simple as that. Right. And so the way to explain it is to a CEO is like, hey, CEO, think about how you consume things.

35:39 Think about how you are a consumer. And let's go from there. Right. Like like the world has changed. It's no longer my doctor said I need to see a PT. So I'm going to go see this PT that they told me that I need to see or that I found in the yellow pages. Right. Uh, I'm, I'm getting a lot of information. Like I'm going to go on my neighborhood app and see if anyone knows of a PT in the area or something. Right. Like, um, so that's the way to explain it. Right. These people are consumers and just like the CEO is a consumer. I have an exercise. I don't know if we did this when we worked together formally. Uh, I have a screenshot party. So I say exactly what you just said to the CEO and the C-suite. I, I, I read rooms pretty okay.

36:21 Not great, but pretty okay. I'm not Dr. O's. who is insane, by the way, who's disturbing. If you've seen The Mentalist, you can't not in this. He's disturbing. I don't know how he does it. He's dudes from the future. So I have a screenshot party. I go into a C-suite and the director level, so mid-level and upper, whoever I'm working with. And I go, I figure out who do I have to convince and who has already drank the Kool-Aid. Not my Kool-Aid. Just be. Be Kool-Aid. Like, who's like, got it. We have to, like, I am not the marketing guy. I am your attention guy. Andrea's a marketing person. She's who puts, she's the how. I'm the wow. Wow is attention. How is execution.

37:01 Now we can cross over. She's got some how. I've got some what. But yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's the stage. I go into a room and I figure out who I got to win over. And then before I say anything, I ask a bunch of questions, which is like, what's our goal? You know, who are we talking to? All those formal traditional marketing questions. And then I go, and then I usually like body language wise, I'll get like real sloppy. Like I'll slouch and I'll be like, Hey man, what are you into? Like super, like I'll wait for a lull in the room. Hey man, what are you into? Like you got kids? What do you like? Baseball? And they're like taken aback because like this is a formal meeting. This is like when everybody's like taking a break though. And I get them to break down the defense. And they're like, oh, I'm into, my kids are into this. So of course I watch this. And I'm like, what's on your For You page?

37:43 And some of them are like, I don't know what a For You page is. I'm like, oh my man, that's your DNA in Instagram. Let me show you. And then I'm like, you might want to look at this first before you show me though, because I don't know what kind of stuff you're looking at. Just so you know, everything you're looking at is being tracked. And those things are being re-shown to you because the app company understands how brains work. Exactly. They understand you. And then I start to say like, that's, and I explain the algorithm or the person's like, I get it. And then I'm like, hey, here's a crazy exercise I just thought of. I didn't just think of it. It's totally planned. In the next seven days, I don't want anybody to write me a report or put together a spreadsheet because none of you are going to do it. It's going to be shitty and you're going to do it in an hour before the things do anyway. Every time you watch something for more than seven seconds, Take a screenshot of it in your phone.

38:29 Don't organize it. Don't put it in file. Screenshot it. Just screenshot it. And then an hour before our next meeting, send me all the screenshots of everybody. And you don't even have to say who it was or why. No thinking. Just my big, dumb lizard brain, as Seth Godin would say. Lizard brains say good. Click. Lizard brains say good. Click. Don't explain why. Don't even think about it. Then just select all and send them to me. And then I sit with everybody or anybody who wants to be in that meeting. And I put them on a big screen TV and I go, huh, this is weird. What's this? Whose is this? And a lot of times people are like, I don't, oh shoot, I think that's me. You don't remember. You don't even remember. And we get more insight out of a snapshot, a screenshot party than some deep dives.

39:13 Because I'm like, here's the best part. I do not need it to be all health. I don't want it to be healthcare. I want to steal the elements of attention of what you think. And then what I want to do is show you how broad that attention is. Oh, we're all in the same C-suite. We're all of similar age and similar geography in the similar industry. And look at how batshit crazy our spread of weird is. And it's all your weird. And then I say, bring up this company's Instagram page. And what's that look like? And then I like to point out, none of you pointed out your own stuff. Are you either not watching it or did it not earn your attention?

39:53 I just ask questions, you give answers. Because it's like a photo of them at their booth at a trade show. Right. Someone had this really great explanation and I'll steal it, which is there's a difference between storytelling and telling stories. How many people on LinkedIn now have storyteller in their bio? everybody's a storyteller. And I go, I, and I say, show me the last story you told. And they're like, there's, there's four pictures from our booth at that conference. And I go, that's telling me a story. I want you to storytell. And they're like, I don't know what that means. And I go, then I need you to delete that from your bio. Cause you're not, cause you're not anybody.

40:36 This is the year you have to be a storyteller. And tell me a story. And then I go, all right, if you're not the storyteller, you're the conductor. Show me, show me, don't tell me, show me the story this organization told yesterday. And when you can't, I go, then you were silent for twenty four hours and that don't play. I was live. My radio station was live twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. That's one hundred and sixty eight hours a week. Andrew, in case you're mapping that one extra hour on when the clocks change. And that's why we'll now radio segue to the article that just came out that I helped co-write and by co-write.

41:20 So Larry Benz, I mean, he's a big deal. A lot of people in PT know him, like him, respect him, trust him, but don't like him because he says stuff that pisses the norm and the status quo off. And I don't like that. I love that because that tells me he's on to something. It might not be right. Like everything he's saying might not be exactly on the money, but he's pressing on the right thing. problems or he's hot here's what we're doing in the article that came out today and he's been big and now he's like one of those guys who like well because everybody got a sub stack as soon as sub stack became a thing yep he actually puts good he's not he doesn't care dude i mean i'll say dude doesn't need money i'm gonna guess i'm gonna guess he founded confluent health he's done a gajillion things he doesn't need to do this my vibe on larry He doesn't want the profession that he helped build to sink as soon as he leaves.

42:16 And he's like he's trying to like be on the deck of the Titanic with flares being like there is an iceberg or we already hit it. Purge the bilge tanks or whatever someone who owns a boat would say. I don't understand. Yeah. And I've read some of his stuff. And that's exactly the sentiment. So he put out this article that essentially says the hundred thousand dollar booth that won't hire a single physical therapist. at CSM, the insanity of CSM quote talent acquisition. And Larry to his credit was like, hey, I feel like you'd have a good take on this. He's never asked me to co-write an article with him before. So I was like, Larry Benz is asking me to co-write an article? Like, holy, like, yes.

42:56 And he's like, but you have sponsors who do this. And I go, yes. I also think the sponsors know that this is an insane math thing. They know it. I don't want, I'm not, Larry's not crapping on people. Larry does not call out one company. Neither am I. We're trying to point out that we are not the canaries in the coal mine, but there are canaries in this coal mine, and those canaries are dead. Yep. So he does not speak on fields. He brings math. What were your takes on this? So one thing stood out, you know, I looked at it this morning and I think it's, you know, around this episodic visibility rather than sustained presence. I, having gone back and been in health care for many health care marketing for many years, have a lot of feelings about conferences in general.

43:42 And I think everyone has sort of the same sentiment that's like, well, we have to be there. Yeah, cool. fine, have a presence or don't because people might not even know you're not there anyway if it's a big enough conference, right? I think, you know, I thought this was really smart when I saw this this morning because PT especially, and I know every like sub-industry of healthcare has their own thing, but I think the point of PTs are coming in with significant debt. PTs for a doctorate level profession are entering, like their wages are just... not where they should be for a number of reasons. And so the thought of a company spending one hundred thousand dollars to go like, hey, pay attention, like whatever, it's not going to get them what they think it's going to get them.

44:30 And I think that's like that's why the piece around this sustained presence and we've talked about it in other contexts And it's so important, right? Like it's not just like be flashy, get in their face one time and then like never hear from them again or never talk to them again. I think it's about it's it's showing up authentically and it's being it's being present three hundred and sixty five days a year and giving people a real reason to want to work with you. And I think a lot of PT and other healthcare organizations don't do a good job at all of giving people a good reason to work with them. And my initial reaction when I looked through this was like, you know, turn this into a campaign, spend a hundred K on a campaign that goes like, Hey, yeah, we're not going to show up with this big flashy booth.

45:19 Like we actually want to give you financial incentive to come work with us. Here's how we're investing. You know, maybe we're not giving you an extra X amount of dollars, or maybe we are, but like, here's how we're investing. in culture in real training in like your you know you as an employee so that was my take um i really i really appreciated the article yeah i'll just i'll i'll throw some quotes my my goal is not to give away i'm sure i'll do a live stream with larry uh some mic drop quotes from this piece from larry ben's recruiting isn't an event it's the downstream effect of trust you Think about that. Hey, do you want to work for me? Who are you? Right. I hear from recruiters on LinkedIn.

46:00 They showed up to the interview and they didn't know a lot about the company. And I go... Show me your company's website. And like, here's what I want to do. It's like some recruiters. There are some great recruiters out there who get it. And there are some assholes out there too. They didn't know the company's mission statement. Hey, Steve, put your hands up right now. Put your hands up right now. No keyboard, Steve. Tell me your company's mission statement verbatim because you get paid by them. And if you mess up ten percent of the work, they can't give you the first five words. Right. But that's our litmus test. of who's who's who's going to be a good employee uh you can't buy familiar in a convention center you how many cities i've this is my tenth this is my ninth csm ninth ninth or tenth um i've been to san antonio i've been to san diego i've been to i've never been to those cities all i've been into is a ramada a hilton and a convention center It all, I'm just breathing sterile air.

46:58 So that's why the quote hit me real hard when it says, you can't buy familiar in an attention. You can't buy familiar. Oh, but Jimmy, a minute ago, you said Dunkin' Donuts. I said, no, Dunkin' Donuts brought back up the thing they've been paying for for decades. They showed me that they are familiar. They showed me that they know me, right? They didn't show me their coffee. Do you know the singer Ben Rector? He's like a Ben Folds, Dave Madden. Anyway, he's got a line in the song that says, here's one thing you can't make is old friends. I can't make oh, I'm forty six. I've got my friends from high school.

47:39 I can't have new old friends. Right. You can have new friends. I can make new friends. And then thirty years from now, but you can't man, you cannot buy nostalgia. Right. Oh, that one landed. Ben Rector songs called Old Friend, Old Friends. Good one. Here's another quote. Attention is a three hundred and sixty five day game. CSM is a three day event. I liked that as well. Which would you rather? So true. Andrea, do you have a puppy or a cat? You're an animal person. We have a dog. Great. What's the dog's name? Penny. Great. I just came into your house last night and stole Penny.

48:19 My children would be very upset, Jimmy. Great. Now I have your attention. Penny is in a cage in an undisclosed location. Oh my gosh. Penny is... Penny will be killed in three hundred and sixty five days. Right. You have one hundred thousand dollars to save penny. All you need to do is get ten hires. Are you spending the hundred K at a conference to save Penny? I'm not. I mean, Penny would eat. She would eat through the cage. But you get it, right? Like you get it, right? Exactly. Why do we do it? And one of the quotes that I actually brought is a cliche from the eighties.

49:00 You really got to know like business from the eighties. Nobody gets fired from picking IBM. Yes. I saw that line. That's yes. So I'll explain why and what it means and why I included it. If you're in the decision making seat, listen, man, your job is to keep your job first and foremost. I get it. Right. but your job should be to like do the job better, make the company win. So if you're in the eighties, it was like IBM was a computer company and there were others, but IBM was it, man. IBM was Hellman's mayonnaise. So imagine you're sitting there and it's your job to pick what computer thing to roll out to make sure this next big thing that has to hit to keep the company relevant. And you're like IBM or something else.

49:42 You pick IBM. Why? Because if you go with the variable and it tanks, you're on the hook. If you go with IBM and it tanks, it was like, well, we did make the IBM. So do we have to exhibit at CSM? It's IBM. Not being there and it not working, everybody can blame you. And that is an emotion that I need you to objectively prove to me why we need to be there. I'll throw a few more quotes. People don't work for companies they saw. They work for companies they trust. Think about this, the exhibit hall at a conference is a human zoo where every exhibit is a little cage with people with polo shirts on.

50:27 And they're just all trying, hey, feed me kibble, put the quarter and throw me some attention. Can I give you like a stress ball or something? The funny part is the people paying the hundred K to be there are the ones still begging for attention as the important people walk by. Yep. They're just paying more to beg for attention. and getting less, getting less. And then you go to these companies, Instagram accounts, which by the way, Like it or not is where attention is earned or ignored and where familiarity is grown or not, and you are not there.

51:11 I'll say one thing. I'm seeing more of this, and I don't know if it's because I'm clicking on more of it, but I'm seeing more big, medium, and small-sized clinics showing up. What they're doing is recycled garbage though, most of the time. And I know I'm being harsh. They're doing the latest like craze, like, oh, here's a trend we can easily replicate. Let's replicate it. And I'm going, it's too late. It's too late. It's too late. And does your audience like care about that trend? Oh, there's one more person doing that thing that I'm already over. I'm never going to double click. So I think you need to understand, what do you have problem-wise? It's not exercise videos.

51:52 That's over, guys. That's a trend that's over. Sorry. Then you're going to be like, well, Jimmy, what should we be doing then? Your thing. Why are you different than in everything else? And if you're not, that's your problem. Further upstream, that's a strategy problem. What is your target audience consuming and want to consume? Like what will land with them? They have no idea because they never bothered to ask that. We tell them what to consume because we handed people phones and we said, now you run a TV station. Whatever you put on there is what people watch, except there's a billion, seventy billion phones. So that math, attention is divided. then how are some people capturing so much of it? They're putting effort into it.

52:32 Yep. Luck favors the bold. Luck favors the prepared. Luck favors the... I want pecs, Andrea, but I'm not doing any pushups and I'm confused why I have no pecs. I have no audience. What'd you do on it? We recycled what someone else did, what they had success with. How'd that work? It didn't. What'd you do? We did it again. What? What? What? What? Maybe if we just do it more. What if we did the crappy thing more? Listen, if you do an okay thing more, good idea. A crappy thing more, not a good idea. The word of my twenty twenty-six word of the year for Jimmy is frequency. So I've said this before, there's exercise principles, frequency, intensity, time, type, volume, progression.

53:15 I looked at my analytics with AI and I was like, if I can pull one lever in twenty twenty six to improve my bottom line and my top line, my floor and my ceiling, what is it? And I said, frequency, you're good. Show up more. And I went, got it. And I didn't keep asking AI questions that made it want to give me the answer I wanted. I wanted it to give me the shitty answer. The results you're looking for are hiding in the work you're not doing. I have been flirting with going seven days a week for two years. How do you grow? Go live seven days a week. So I'm doing that. Three hundred sixty five episodes in three hundred sixty five days. Frequency.

53:56 Frequency. frequency. What else should we talk about? We have seven minutes. No, one quick thing I was thinking of as you were talking about this hundred K presence, it's the same CEOs are going, what's the ROI, right? So they're going like this side of the mouth, like we have to be there. Everybody's there. And then the other side, they're going, what's the ROI on this? There isn't one in the ROI on having a hundred K booth, but not showing up ever outside of those three days? That's an impossible question.

54:37 So let's think of batshit crazy things you would do that don't inquire a normal spend. One, I thought of an example when you were talking ten minutes ago. I would buy a booth I would put nothing in it, blank table, black backdrop, just a regular hanging drape. And I would put a box on it, like a money, like a Ronald McDonald house clear box. And I would say, we spent ten thousand dollars on this booth. If you put a dollar in this, we'll match it and give it as a PT school scholarship. By the way, we're we're we're we're this company. For every dollar you put in, we will put in a dollar as well.

55:19 And it's going to go to five PTs. Whatever was done at the end of this conference, put a nickel in it. That's a dime. Put a dollar in it. That's two. Why? Because we're too big. And then a little thing, that's it. Or a QR code maybe to see because you want ROI. See what this is and why we're doing it. Because we're out being PTs and we're finding good PTs. And we know there are some here, but we're too busy doing it. And we're trying to, we understand your biggest problem as a new grad, money. So we're going to give away five scholarships. Put a dollar in, we'll match it. That's why you're the wow to the house. Do you think anybody would ever, do you think, honest answer, could I ever, I'm forty-six, before I die, could I ever convince a PT company to do something that absurd?

56:04 Honest answer, I don't. I don't think you could because it feels so unsafe and it's, uh, but we have to like have our, like a one pager and we, we walk in boardroom guys. I've guys, guys talking to you in the audience. I've been in this meetings. People in big positions have a lot to lose. They do. That's their job. It's their livelihood. They screw one thing up and they don't have a job. It's hard to get jobs at that level again, right? But they talk, people talk such a good game about how we're going to change the profession. And then when they get in the batter's box, they draw, they try to, all they try to do is draw a walk.

56:46 Show me one company that's not trying to draw a walk. One, I'd love to be proved wrong. I'm not saying that they don't do it in bips and bops and bleeps, like little itty bitty. That's not, you don't get a little bit wet. You jump in the deep end, you don't get a little bit wet. You're in, right. It's in Anaheim. Okay, here's what I would do. I would not buy a booth. I would not do a flash mob because that's been done, but I would do a flash parade. We are down the street from Disney. I would go hire seventy eight Disney characters and a marching band, and I would march them through the convention center when it was the busiest.

57:27 And then I would do something like this moment of motivate, like something like. We have none of our PTs are here. They're all doing PT things where they are. If you want someone who knows how to gain attention and do things big, this is what we thought was... We brought you... This is our moment of joy. Here's a moment of joy. Here's Mickey and Daffy. No, not Daffy. Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and a marching band. And by the way, we're having a party tonight and... for every dollar we spend at the party we're gonna we're gonna put two into a scholarship you cannot listen man if you're a student and you're listening to this episode look for the recruiters and go drink all of their money go drink all of their money and when they're like are you thinking of working for me just be like you know two more vodka sodas and i might say yes drink all of their money because if you're dumb enough to play stupid games you're dumb enough to win stupid prizes do not work for someone because they bought you a drink not i'm not saying someone who buys you a drink isn't good to work for i'm saying that should not be listen graduate students who have intelligence that shouldn't be the deciding factor that's not that's not that's not an acquisition strategy right like that that's not right but by all means drink all of their drinks and then bring and text every one of your friends to drink all of their drinks and just be coy and be like i don't know maybe i want to work for you maybe i'll give you my email address right because if you

58:58 want to play stupid games you win stupid prizes um only decide where you want to go when you've done ten times as much research that you did when you wanted to go to PT school, you're going to do more research for your car or your first apartment than some people do for their first job. Don't fucking do that. I'm dropping F-bombs. Don't fucking do that. And this is from me. But Jimmy, I'll wrap up by saying, but Jimmy, you're a hypocrite. You're going to CSM. That's where the people are. I want to talk to people and hear from people. That's a good ROI for me. I didn't buy a booth. I found someone who let me stand at their booth. And they're trying to do good things. Shout out to US Physical Therapy, who's doing good things. But I'm in their ear saying, don't only be at CSM.

59:43 Don't only do that. That's not the answer. All right, we're at an hour. Parting shot. What's your parting shot? Parting shot. Show up three hundred and sixty five days a year. I would say companies are investing in moments when they should be investing in relationships. A booth creates visibility. Familiarity creates decisions. These are all pull quotes from the article that Larry Benz just dropped. Find the article. I just shared it on LinkedIn. and fight me if i'm wrong if you're like we spend seventy eight thousand dollars and we hired forty six people and that is a good roi prove me wrong i'm i'm not i think i'm right if you show me i'm wrong i will say i will bring you on this podcast i will let you have your roses and i will say the following words jimmy was wrong i was wrong once andrea turned out to be a mistake That's it for this one, but we're just getting warmed up.

1:00:39 Smash follow, send it to a friend, or crank up the next episode. Want to go deeper? Hit us at pgpiecast.com. Or find us on YouTube and socials at pgpiecast. And legally, none of this was advice. It's for entertainment purposes only. Bullshit! See, Keith? We read the script. Happy now?