Why Brand and Culture Can’t Be Afterthoughts with Jed Morley

Mark Abbott

[0:00:06]

Hey, Jed.

Jed Morley

[0:00:06]

Hey, Mark.

Mark Abbott

[0:00:07]

This is so cool.

Jed Morley

[0:00:08]

Very cool.

Mark Abbott

[0:00:09]

Thank you for, you know, making your way over here and.

Mark Abbott

[0:00:14]

And, and joining me on this. I'm. I've been very much looking forward to this.

Jed Morley

[0:00:18]

Thank you for the opportunity. Yeah, yeah, me too.

Mark Abbott

[0:00:21]

You and I met, I want to say, it feels like. Like a year and a half ago.

Jed Morley

[0:00:25]

That's about right.

Mark Abbott

[0:00:26]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:00:27]

And. And you were working on your book at that moment in.

Mark Abbott

[0:00:32]

I think you had your framework pretty much locked and loaded at that time. And the title of this whole podcast series, Founders Frameworks. And so I'm a huge framework lover, and I was blown away by your framework at that time. And as I shared with you, to me it was the best.

Mark Abbott

[0:01:01]

Framework I'd ever seen for pulling together everything associated with creating an amazing brand. It was.

Mark Abbott

[0:01:11]

Comprehensive and yet relatively simple for something as comprehensive as it is. And, And I personally believe that I've been a student of brand for decades.

Mark Abbott

[0:01:27]

Think that I know a fair bit about that. And as an example, I've had one of my bhags to be one of the most trusted brands in the world since I started this company.

Jed Morley

[0:01:37]

Love it.

Mark Abbott

[0:01:38]

Right, so.

Jed Morley

[0:01:40]

And you're well on your way.

Mark Abbott

[0:01:42]

Well, we're working hard.

Mark Abbott

[0:01:43]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:01:44]

It's a grind. It's. It's not as easy as you, you know, think it should be. I just want to say, number one, thank you for creating this framework. Number two, you know, guys, if you, if you want, read, read a great book on building a brand, this is it. It's Building a Brand that Scales by Jed Morley. And so I would love to, you know, always fun to get into the origin story. Yeah, right. Your origin story. And, and how you came to build out this thing.

Mark Abbott

[0:02:17]

And, and, you know, there's a center of the, of your brand wheel, for lack of a frame, lack of a better expression. And so, you know, at some point in there, let's get to that, because I are both deep believers in that thing.

Jed Morley

[0:02:30]

Love that. Yeah, sounds great.

Mark Abbott

[0:02:32]

Yeah, cool.

Jed Morley

[0:02:33]

So this journey started when I thought that brands were logos. I fell in love with Nike running track in high school and cross country. And the reason I liked Nike was because they gave me the courage to overcome the fear of pain. When you round that second lap, the last turn of that 800 meters, which was my event, and the lactic acid is firing on all cylinders, and you have a gut check, am I going to override the pain or am I going to succumb to it and do something less than my best? And I felt like Nike inspired Me to override the temptation to ease up. And I wondered where that came from. So I've been in pursuit of understanding that emotional connection that a brand can have with its core audience for a long time. I studied design undergrad, thinking that if I could just design a cool logo, I would be creating a great brand. And I've since learned that a brand is the sum total of everything we associate and experience with a brand. A business, a person, a place, a thing. And I love helping founders clarify and articulate why they exist beyond making money and creating those kinds of connections with their customers and communities.

Mark Abbott

[0:03:49]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:03:50]

And that's what the book's about. Yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:03:52]

And. Yeah. And at the center is purpose.

Jed Morley

[0:03:55]

That's right.

Mark Abbott

[0:03:56]

And so, I mean, there's so much to unpack on just what you said here.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:00]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:01]

But, you know, it's. It's interesting because, you know, as a founder.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:07]

I would say that I probably.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:14]

Have fought my own people.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:17]

Over the importance of brand.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:20]

Almost since day one. And.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:26]

And I would say that, you know, that in and of itself is a really sort of deep rabbit hole to go into, because, you know.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:37]

Sometimes as a founder, you know, you. You in intuitively understand that brand is everywhere.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:45]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:46]

You know, it's like brand and culture, they're both kind of almost air that.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:51]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:52]

And they, obviously, they have to be extraordinarily.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:57]

Interwoven. Interwoven. In sync, intermixed. Whatever.

Jed Morley

[0:05:01]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:05:01]

Whatever the right metaphor here is. But, you know, a lot of people.

Mark Abbott

[0:05:08]

In my experience, right, Even. Even starting from day one, saying we had to be one of the most trusted brands in the world, they not only didn't get it, but, like, you know, they think I was an asshole because I cared so much about, like, everything. Because brand is everywhere. Just like culture's everywhere.

Jed Morley

[0:05:28]

And the expectations that come with that demanding standard of being at that level.

Mark Abbott

[0:05:34]

Yeah. And it's like you're, you know, you're. You're. You're, you know, you're being the bad version of founder mode. You're micromanaging. Right. Just let us do this. And then they put stuff into the world, and you just want to cringe.

Mark Abbott

[0:05:45]

Right. Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:05:46]

And. And so my hack for the first three, four, five years was, I don't even want to look at the website. Right. I don't. I. I don't. I. I can't do it. I got to focus on building the product.

Mark Abbott

[0:05:57]

Right?

Jed Morley

[0:05:57]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:05:58]

Someday I'll be able to do this. Right. Someday I'll be able to figure out how to explain to people all this Stuff matters.

Mark Abbott

[0:06:03]

Right, Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:06:05]

But.

Mark Abbott

[0:06:07]

But, you know, I think that we talk a lot about. I talk a lot about how, you know, a founder has to own. Creating a great culture that ultimately will persist after the founder's gone.

Jed Morley

[0:06:21]

Right? That's right.

Mark Abbott

[0:06:22]

And to create that great culture, you not just need core values. Right. Those are important, but you need to figure out a lot of other things, and you need to do a lot of work. And so I actually have a. I should share this with you soon.

Mark Abbott

[0:06:35]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:06:35]

But I have a book I'd like to say it, that I've written. It's not as good as it needs to be. People are giving me some grief that it could be so much better, but it's like, yeah, but does it really need to be so much better? But the big idea is called a Founders Guide to Culture.

Jed Morley

[0:06:50]

Okay.

Mark Abbott

[0:06:51]

And it walks you through, as you know, as you start a company, the stages of development, and what you need to do in order to create a culture that ultimately persists.

Mark Abbott

[0:06:59]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:07:00]

And, you know, over time, you not only need to have the core values, but you need to think about the operating environment that the. That the company's sitting in, the implications for culture there, comfort with ambiguity, levels of intensity.

Mark Abbott

[0:07:13]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:07:14]

That the organization operates at. Then you need to start to, you know, create the rituals and the artifacts.

Mark Abbott

[0:07:20]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:07:22]

And the guardrails that protect the culture. And so that, you know, when you end up moving on.

Mark Abbott

[0:07:30]

Hopefully, you know, many, many, many decades into it. Because I believe great founders want to be with that company for a very long time. You want to build a company that you love being a part of, that you. Working with people you love working with.

Mark Abbott

[0:07:43]

You will have put in place enough.

Mark Abbott

[0:07:48]

Substance so that if someone comes along, because it inevitably will. They inevitably will if they start to, like, tear. Tear apart some of the things that are core to that culture and brand. We'll get there, right?

Jed Morley

[0:08:01]

Yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:08:01]

If they start to come in and tear apart things that are core to that culture, whether it's your icp, it's your compelling value proposition.

Mark Abbott

[0:08:08]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:08:08]

It's why you exist, the purpose.

Mark Abbott

[0:08:10]

Right, Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:08:11]

We'll get into. In brand. Right?

Jed Morley

[0:08:12]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:08:12]

So overlapped.

Jed Morley

[0:08:13]

Right, right.

Mark Abbott

[0:08:14]

That it's like a bad organ. Right. The. The. The organization will eject them.

Mark Abbott

[0:08:19]

Right?

Mark Abbott

[0:08:20]

No, that's. That's off. That's not. That's not who we are, culturally speaking.

Jed Morley

[0:08:24]

That's right.

Mark Abbott

[0:08:24]

The same big ideas are around brand.

Mark Abbott

[0:08:28]

Yeah, Right.

Jed Morley

[0:08:30]

You can't operationalize the brand promise without the culture. You can't live up to the promise and ultimately A brand is the promise you keep.

Mark Abbott

[0:08:38]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:08:38]

So if you make a promise, but you can't keep it because your culture doesn't live in alignment with it, you'll bounce checks. Yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:08:46]

And just like in a culture.

Mark Abbott

[0:08:49]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:08:49]

With brand.

Mark Abbott

[0:08:52]

If you don't codify a bunch of things like I did with culture, with rituals and artifacts and guardrails and storytelling. I forgot to talk about that.

Mark Abbott

[0:09:00]

Right.

Jed Morley

[0:09:00]

That's important.

Mark Abbott

[0:09:01]

Core values.

Mark Abbott

[0:09:01]

Right, Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:09:02]

If you don't codify these things, then, you know, it's hard to pass the brand on because it's just implicit in the founder's head and. Right. And you're, you know, you're basically sort of playing Geppetto with your, with your, with your, with your culture. It's the same thing with brand.

Jed Morley

[0:09:18]

And I like that analogy. I think some cultures feel so rigid and programmatic and top down, it's like Pinocchio you've mentioned. Yeah. The puppeteer, you know.

Mark Abbott

[0:09:29]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:09:29]

And so when does the wooden boy become a real. When does the culture become a living, breathing organism?

Mark Abbott

[0:09:37]

Yeah. And it's the same story for Brand.

Jed Morley

[0:09:39]

Same story for Brand.

Mark Abbott

[0:09:40]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:09:40]

If you get people to behave in a way that's consistent with your values, in the way that they go about fulfilling the promise, that's when you start to separate and pull away from people who pretend to have a brand and really they just have a logo.

Mark Abbott

[0:09:55]

So I have a theory.

Mark Abbott

[0:09:59]

That, as I said earlier, I alluded to it, if not said it directly, but we didn't drill down on it, that it's really, really rare for there to be a great company that doesn't have at its core a founder. Now, people confuse when I say founder with what I mean by founder.

Mark Abbott

[0:10:20]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:10:20]

So Ray Kroc is the founder of McDonald's. Now, he's actually not the real founder of McDonald's.

Mark Abbott

[0:10:25]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:10:26]

Schultz was not the real founder of Starbucks, but they were the founders of, of those two organizations.

Jed Morley

[0:10:32]

The defining leader. Yeah, yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:10:34]

Right.

Jed Morley

[0:10:34]

The leader who defined what it would become.

Mark Abbott

[0:10:37]

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:10:38]

Is it same for brand?

Jed Morley

[0:10:41]

I think there are a lot of iterations that can come before the coalescence of the identity and purpose and clarity of the brand force that ultimately becomes the way the brand manifests.

Mark Abbott

[0:10:58]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:10:59]

And it has a lot of the elements that you talked about with those examples of a charismatic leader who cares.

Mark Abbott

[0:11:07]

Right.

Jed Morley

[0:11:08]

And they are willing to sacrifice for their values because they mean that much to them.

Mark Abbott

[0:11:12]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:11:13]

And you see it in those companies that become iconic. The thing that's curious to me is we can recognize the principles at work in those case study examples that we all like to hold up and celebrate. But when it's our term to build that brand and that brand culture that supports it, sometimes we either don't know what to do, we don't have the courage or the commitment to live into the principles we've seen pay big dividends for other companies. And that's why I wrote the book. I wanted to make it easy for other people to see what they could do to increase the likelihood of building a great brand that can actually scale, that can grow with the company, that can become something bigger than them as the founder.

Mark Abbott

[0:11:57]

So.

Mark Abbott

[0:11:59]

When you're. Because I think you've been successful enough, you probably don't work with people that you don't think it's going to. They're actually going to benefit because they're not going to really do the work.

Mark Abbott

[0:12:11]

Right.

Jed Morley

[0:12:11]

And I've leveled up.

Mark Abbott

[0:12:13]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:12:13]

In terms of the caliber of people and companies I want to work with. Because there's only so much time. Yeah. And you want to make an impact.

Mark Abbott

[0:12:19]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:12:19]

So you're selective.

Mark Abbott

[0:12:20]

Yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:12:21]

So what are the characteristics when you're thinking about a client.

Mark Abbott

[0:12:25]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:12:26]

That you focus on?

Jed Morley

[0:12:28]

That's a great question. The characteristics we look for is a leader who dares to be great. Time and again, we've seen scenarios where there's a brand unlock an insight that could transform the business. And so often.

Jed Morley

[0:12:46]

We uncover insights that could take the business to a whole nother level, put it on a different trajectory and have a much bigger outcome for everyone involved, customers, the founders, the investors. And there's something inside the leader that hesitates. It's kind of like the kid on the diving board at the pool who's hesitant to jump in and everybody's waiting in queue on the ladder, like, are you going to jump or not?

Mark Abbott

[0:13:11]

Right.

Jed Morley

[0:13:11]

Are you going to go for it or not?

Mark Abbott

[0:13:13]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:13:13]

What's the use of having a brand breakthrough if you're not going to take it to market, if you're not going to activate it?

Mark Abbott

[0:13:19]

Right.

Jed Morley

[0:13:20]

So if you're not visionary, if you don't have a big idea and if you don't have a big commitment to realizing it in a big way, then it's a pass for us. And you get to the point after you've seen enough of these conversations and opportunities to be able to sense and understand whether there is a big idea and whether there's a big commitment to bringing it to market in a way that makes a big impact. So we're looking to have a big Impact. And so we partner with people that are equally committed and capable of, of affecting that in the world.

Mark Abbott

[0:13:50]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:13:50]

And it's fun to see what can happen in terms of growth within the person who's founding the company, but also the people who are helping them bring that vision to life. And it's really satisfying to be an accelerant of value. We help companies accelerate value and we help leaders accelerate their growth and development.

Mark Abbott

[0:14:13]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:14:13]

By helping them.

Jed Morley

[0:14:16]

Recreate the original inception of the idea and clarify and articulate it in a way that can rally the support and buy in and belief of the number of people that it takes to bring that big idea to market at scale.

Mark Abbott

[0:14:32]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:14:33]

And that's why I think it's so important to think about what does the brand want to be when it grows up from the early days of the business so that you don't paint yourself into a corner and miss out on the opportunity to attract like minded people that have the talent and the capacity to do something significant.

Mark Abbott

[0:14:48]

It's the same with culture.

Mark Abbott

[0:14:49]

Right? Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:14:51]

Because you can, you know, if, if, if, if you end up with.

Jed Morley

[0:14:58]

You.

Mark Abbott

[0:14:58]

Know, some material percentage, we can say whether it's 10 or 20%.

Mark Abbott

[0:15:03]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:15:05]

5% you probably get away with. Right. But if you end up with 10 to 20% or more of people who are not good cultural fits because you didn't focus on it early on, right. Now, all of a sudden.

Mark Abbott

[0:15:18]

There'S a lot of hard work that needs to be done and there are a lot of people that you're impacting because, and I'll take it on myself in terms of what the work we did and didn't do well, because all of a sudden now you're like, gee, this isn't the culture that I was hoping to build. Where did I mess up? Now I've got to go undo it. And, and, and, and, and that's hard. And by definition you're going to be letting some people go and that's hard. They're not going to like you for it. So that's hard, you know, because, you know, generally speaking most people don't want to be disliked, generally speaking.

Mark Abbott

[0:16:00]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:16:01]

So, you know, so both of whether it's brand or culture, once again, the overlap is extraordinary here. Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:16:08]

You know, the better you are, the earlier on, you of course are not only have the focus, but then you have the benefit of compounding.

Mark Abbott

[0:16:16]

Right? Right.

Jed Morley

[0:16:17]

Compounding is huge. Is, is huge. And the sooner you rectify and remedy the mistakes, the missteps, the sooner you can realize the compounding effect.

Mark Abbott

[0:16:26]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:16:26]

Of having some continuity and having that cohesive sense of connection over time.

Mark Abbott

[0:16:32]

So I'm going to ask the question again because. Not because you didn't answer it, you answered it. But I want to go for very, very specific answer. What percentage of the time are you working with founders versus someone who's taken a company that, that they're where they're no longer the founder. And walk me through those. I mean, the founder discussion is probably pretty straightforward. I think the other one would be really fascinating. But so what percentage is founder versus, you know, that, that, that, that, that successor? Whether it's this first successor or second successor or third successor. What percentage of your clients fall into those two categories? And how do you sort of navigate.

Jed Morley

[0:17:12]

I would say 8 out of 10 times working with founder led companies. Yeah. And the difference between the two is interesting in the sense that sometimes founders have more passion and emotional connection to the inception of the company and that can be good and bad. Sometimes they need to pivot and they're reluctant to change or admit that maybe their initial hypothesis didn't work the way they wanted. Other times I see.

Jed Morley

[0:17:45]

Clients and CEOs that are pushed in different directions because of the funding that they've taken. So there are structural reasons why they're headed in a direction that may not feel as right.

Mark Abbott

[0:17:58]

Right.

Jed Morley

[0:17:58]

And that dissonance, that disconnect can be really damaging.

Mark Abbott

[0:18:02]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:18:02]

Because psychologically you're at odds with yourself and you can feel that there's an underlying conflict.

Mark Abbott

[0:18:09]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:18:09]

The word that keeps coming up for me as I listen to you describe the different kinds of founders and the dynamics at work between brand and culture is alignment. If you don't have alignment, you're constantly running against the wind and the delay, the distraction, the deferred gratification of the success you might have had if it had been reversed, you had that tailwind. When there is alignment is significant. I can't overemphasize the importance of being clear and then attracting like minded people so that you can have the benefits of alignment to accelerate your success and to sustain it over time. Yeah. And I think that includes the kind of funding that you choose and who you get it from and who you partner with so that they too are aligned. And when you get that momentum going, watch out, because that's when you see the exponential growth that comes from having a sustained focus.

Mark Abbott

[0:19:04]

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:19:05]

Because you know, if, if you have a decent culture and a decent brand.

Mark Abbott

[0:19:11]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:19:12]

And the founder, let's just say, sells the company.

Mark Abbott

[0:19:16]

Let'S just say they Sell it to a private equ firm and you know, they, and, and the private equity firm brings on a new CEO, new leadership team, whatever. And then, you know, they start to rip away some of the core, whether it's cultural or brand specifically. Then, you know, you have a bunch of people who help create this great company. Right. Because obviously it's good enough to be purchased by private equity firm.

Jed Morley

[0:19:43]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:19:44]

And, and so now you start to have those people leave.

Jed Morley

[0:19:48]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:19:49]

And because they don't like where things are going. So. And maybe there should have been change. Let's just say that you really didn't need to have change. But you know, but, but regardless, they're ripping away stuff. And if there never should have been change, what's probably going to happen is someone's, they're going to have problems. They're going to go, right. Maybe they go and hire another CEO that understands who the company was at its core, both culture slash brand and they repair damage. Right. And then they get back on trajectory.

Mark Abbott

[0:20:23]

Right, right. Or right.

Mark Abbott

[0:20:25]

Maybe they figure out a new, a different culture and maybe they figure out a different brand story essence. I find that.

Mark Abbott

[0:20:36]

I would bet that that.

Mark Abbott

[0:20:40]

Version where they made it better, different and better.

Mark Abbott

[0:20:46]

Is a rare, is a, is a rare outcome.

Jed Morley

[0:20:50]

It is a rare outcome. And you said a key word I wanted to circle back and highlight and that is core, core people, core aspects of the brand and the culture. Who clarifies, who codifies what's core.

Mark Abbott

[0:21:03]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:21:03]

And who advocates and protects what's core.

Mark Abbott

[0:21:06]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:21:06]

You see examples like Schultz and Iger by Bob Iger coming back and leading their respective companies, Starbucks and Disney. Why? Because they understood what the brand was about better than the people who succeeded them. And how do you know what's core? And how do you internalize that and make sure that you've transmitted it to the next person who's going to sit in that seat to build on what has made you unique in a way that adapts to changing forces.

Mark Abbott

[0:21:39]

Well, you know, and it's, it's interesting, you know, Starbucks, Starbucks is back in the news again.

Mark Abbott

[0:21:45]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:21:46]

From a cultural perspective.

Mark Abbott

[0:21:47]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:21:48]

And, and you know, they, they made some decisions.

Mark Abbott

[0:21:54]

Probably at least a decade ago that they ended up not thinking we're great, and then they ended up reversing them. And, but people that came in after those decisions now don't like what Starbucks part of what, who Starbucks is and part of Starbucks culture. And so, you know, so now we are here. You know, Starbucks now has had, you know, another turn where it's got Cultural issues.

Mark Abbott

[0:22:26]

And so it's interesting when you look at. And then, you know, Schultz has been. I think he's been back twice since he.

Mark Abbott

[0:22:32]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:22:33]

He retired.

Mark Abbott

[0:22:34]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:22:34]

So, you know, some of these decisions, man, they. They can hurt you for a long time. You know, Disney, I think you. And I've jammed on this one. Right. So once again, going back to. I've been studying brand really intently since Built A last came out. Right. So we're talking 1989, maybe. Yeah, ish.

Mark Abbott

[0:22:57]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:22:57]

1989, 1990, for sure. So I've been really, you know, like, studying brand. And, you know, when Disney bought abc, I was like, right. Because Disney was, you know, its brand.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:12]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:12]

Its culture, its ethos. Right. Was all about making families happy.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:15]

Right, right.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:16]

Abc.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:18]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:18]

Is not about making people happy. Right. The reality is, what if it. If. If it breathes, it bleeds, it leads kind of a thing.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:24]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:25]

So to me, those two cultures, I thought, wow, right? I don't. You know, espn. Yeah, I can buy that one.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:32]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:32]

But it was ABC that I thought, well, you know, this one's really gonna sort of cause some problems.

Jed Morley

[0:23:39]

And who's leading?

Mark Abbott

[0:23:40]

Yeah, right.

Jed Morley

[0:23:41]

Whose culture is going to influence?

Mark Abbott

[0:23:43]

Yeah, right.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:44]

Because, you know, because otherwise, now, you know, you. You have these cultural disconnects.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:49]

Right. Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:51]

So, you know, and so what you see is in Disney, right, over the years, it's had these ups and downs and downs because it's navigating this weird set of cultures.

Jed Morley

[0:24:03]

That's right, yeah. And so you get that underlying current. And is it a riptide? Is it pushing you toward where you want to go or taking you off course? One of the companies I've admired that we had a chance to work with a few years ago is Lucid Software. And Dave Grohs now the CEO, Carl sun before him. Carl personally interviewed everybody who was hired. And I'll never forget, when I was consulting with Lucid, I was in their break room, they said, hey, Jed, you know, if you're here and you want, you can have lunch. And we have this well stocked kitchen. And inevitably, when I was in the kitchen, a stranger, for all intents and purposes, who is that guy? People would introduce themselves. Employees of Lucid. And I thought, what's going on here?

Mark Abbott

[0:24:49]

Right?

Jed Morley

[0:24:50]

Why is everyone consistently interested in me? And it was genuine, it was warm. They were extending themselves. They were wanting to connect. And it was completely unprompted by anyone. No one was suggesting, hey, you should go invite Jed to have lunch with you or whatever. It was just organic, but it Was cultural. And it's because they were so careful about curating a culture and making sure that the people they hired.

Mark Abbott

[0:25:16]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:25:16]

Were aligned. Yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:25:17]

So they thought you were potentially interviewing for a job.

Jed Morley

[0:25:20]

They just saw me and wanted me to make. Make me feel welcome.

Mark Abbott

[0:25:23]

Okay.

Jed Morley

[0:25:24]

Yeah. And that was it. There was no ulterior motive. You know, it was just. That's how we are. That's who we are.

Mark Abbott

[0:25:29]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:25:30]

That's what we do. Yeah. And they did that at scale.

Mark Abbott

[0:25:35]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:25:35]

Not surprisingly. They've built a big business.

Mark Abbott

[0:25:37]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:25:38]

Because they were able to keep and cultivate that core over time. And they're getting the compounding effects of that. But think about. Of all the things a CEO could do when you're already 100 million plus ARR company. Carlson's taking time to interview each new hire because he realizes that culture is that consequential to the success and the sustained success of the business and the brand.

Mark Abbott

[0:26:04]

Yeah. I interviewed every single employee up to 100. And then.

Mark Abbott

[0:26:12]

I got.

Mark Abbott

[0:26:17]

Feedback that I can't continue to do this.

Jed Morley

[0:26:20]

Interesting.

Mark Abbott

[0:26:21]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:26:23]

And I gave in.

Mark Abbott

[0:26:28]

And you can tell where I am right now.

Mark Abbott

[0:26:30]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:26:31]

So.

Mark Abbott

[0:26:33]

I, you know, I, you know, one of the other things I used to do.

Mark Abbott

[0:26:39]

That I think was probably one of the best things I, I did was in, in the last big company I ran, we had 200 and some odd employees. And, and we had a bonus program, annual bonus program. And I oversaw that.

Jed Morley

[0:26:58]

Of course.

Mark Abbott

[0:27:00]

I was resident. Right. And I oversaw that program for several years. And then I said, enough of this madness. Because it was just way too much negotiation. It was, it was, it was just messy.

Mark Abbott

[0:27:12]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:27:13]

So I decided that I'm going to allocate the bonuses to every person all the way down based upon everything I know. Then I had their managers.

Mark Abbott

[0:27:23]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:27:24]

The team leaders and I would all get together and we would tweak.

Mark Abbott

[0:27:32]

Common language.

Mark Abbott

[0:27:34]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:27:35]

Common perspective set the whole thing up. I took that from a three week process to a two hour process.

Mark Abbott

[0:27:42]

Wow. Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:27:44]

Because I started with a common perspective.

Mark Abbott

[0:27:47]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:27:49]

And then what was really fascinating was when, you know, let's just say of the 200ish, maybe there were 10 or 15 names that were would be negotiated. For lack of a better term, those negotiations were extraordinarily insightful.

Mark Abbott

[0:28:08]

Right.

Jed Morley

[0:28:08]

Negotiations with your team.

Mark Abbott

[0:28:10]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:28:10]

So.

Mark Abbott

[0:28:11]

So, you know, why is so and so getting this. And so and so is getting that. Right. So then we'd have that conversation.

Mark Abbott

[0:28:16]

Right, Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:28:17]

And it would help align the leaders not only on the way they looked at their people.

Mark Abbott

[0:28:23]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:28:24]

But literally on how we all saw those people. Right. So sometimes it was, you know, you have one leader who thinks, well, they're great.

Mark Abbott

[0:28:31]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:28:31]

Nothing wrong with you, but another leader that says, no, they don't work well at all with a bunch of different people.

Mark Abbott

[0:28:36]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:28:36]

So you got that thing going on and then you have, you know, another one who's just like, you know, they think, you know, everybody should make, you know, 120% of the making or an 80%. And then you align on that. So it's really interesting just to. To do that because after a couple of years, it was like, I mean, I took that process down to, you know, it was lickety split because there was, you know, there was a common system in there. There was a common way of approaching it.

Jed Morley

[0:29:03]

Shared understanding.

Mark Abbott

[0:29:04]

Shared understanding.

Mark Abbott

[0:29:05]

Right.

Jed Morley

[0:29:07]

So and setting the culture and leading from a position of shared understanding.

Mark Abbott

[0:29:14]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:29:14]

Makes all the difference. Yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:29:16]

Because ultimately, you know, the.

Mark Abbott

[0:29:20]

I think I was trying to remember who it was. I want to say it was like Sergey Brin or someone. I think they got up to like the first 350 employees that went into Google, he interviewed every single one. And it could have even been. It was a big number.

Mark Abbott

[0:29:33]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:29:33]

So I was like, hey, I'm only at 100.

Mark Abbott

[0:29:35]

Right, right, right.

Mark Abbott

[0:29:37]

But, yeah, that, I think the, you know, there's. That, that early work.

Mark Abbott

[0:29:45]

I think is. Is so important for both brand and culture.

Jed Morley

[0:29:50]

Absolutely. You mentioned purpose.

Mark Abbott

[0:29:52]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:29:53]

When I worked with Ben Peterson and Ryan Sanders, the founders of bamboohr, they were five years into it and they had recently rebranded. They changed the name of their company to bamboohr. They had a new logo, they needed a new story and strategy to go with it. And I was their marketing leader at the time. And so we worked together to be able to help them uncover the underlying core value that caused them to create the company in the first place. And we were able to articulate together their brand purpose, which they've continued to use ever since. It's been their guiding North Star. We set people free to do great work. Right now Bradley Rancher runs the company, but the purpose didn't change. He continues to build and be the steward of that ideal. And thing that I was impressed with from Ben and Ryan was their commitment to living the brand inside the company. Yeah. So they made sure that their people didn't work overtime, they didn't work evenings or weekends because they didn't want people burned out.

Mark Abbott

[0:30:50]

Right.

Jed Morley

[0:30:51]

Which was counterculture because most startups talk about the grind and the expectation is you're going to do whatever it takes so Bamboohr did a different tack. They zagged when everybody was zigging and said, we're going to insist that you take vacation. We're going to give you money to spend on vacation. You'd better spend it all. And as a result, they have people that have been with them for 10 plus years. Yeah. And think about the benefit of retaining top talent. Yeah. They have the institutional knowledge, they know the space, know the company, they have customer, deep customer relationships. And I think that's what propelled them to such successful benchmarks. They've exceeded everyone's expectations, I think for a company that could break the mold when it came to the quality of life, work life balance. Right. And it's because they were really committed to creating a place that sets people free to do great work inside the company as well as for their customers. Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:31:45]

And getting that balance so it's not abused is actually, you know, easier said than done.

Mark Abbott

[0:31:51]

Right, Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:31:52]

Because that's been our goal. Right. Is to have a similar, you know, we call it work life harmony. And you know, but what was fascinating. It has been fascinating is, you know, you know, we have had people that have abused us on this.

Mark Abbott

[0:32:08]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:32:10]

And you know, in your, you know, part of you is like, ah, you know, this is much harder than like my old business, one of my old businesses.

Mark Abbott

[0:32:22]

It was actually a heck of a lot easier to create the culture because it was up or out.

Jed Morley

[0:32:26]

Okay.

Mark Abbott

[0:32:26]

Right.

Jed Morley

[0:32:27]

And tell me about that business.

Mark Abbott

[0:32:28]

So investing in lending to companies being acquired by private equity firms. Okay, Right. Or recapitalizing them as well. Right. So. And we had hundreds of people, but, and we had teams. We, we had teams against markets, we had teams against industry.

Mark Abbott

[0:32:42]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:32:42]

We had team that would focus on syndications. And, and so we had like this constellation of teams is the way I would present the, the business model.

Jed Morley

[0:32:52]

Okay.

Mark Abbott

[0:32:52]

But every single team, right. You know, you, you, you had sort of an entry level and then you had, you know, someone who would focus on one of the core things you do. One of. So the core things you do is a core thing you do is marketing. A core thing you do is customer service. Right. So you have these core characteristics on each core, core, core functions on each team. And you can decide how you want to organize people. Do you want them to all be all three? Do you want to have just salespeople, just due diligence people and just, just customer success? But within two to three years, you need to move up to that next level of, of development from a skills and competencies perspective.

Mark Abbott

[0:33:36]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:33:37]

And then you Know, and then you had, we had to believe that you had what it took to make it to basically the essence of a partner. And, and at a partner level you got carry in all of our, in all of our deals. And so there was, there was, there was, I want to say three, maybe four levels between entry level and partner, if you include interns, for sure there was four levels. But if you were not progressing and we didn't think you had what it took to become a partner, which means you were pretty good at all three of those things, right? Then we said, you know, hey, we don't think you're going to make it to partner level, right? So we, we, you know, we just want to let you know this, right? You should go look for a job, right? We're not going to fire you, right? But you got like three months to go find something else, all right? And, and so, you know, it was pretty straightforward, right? You needed to, you know, from a, from a, from a performance perspective, you needed to perform culture perspective. You need to be a great cultural fit, right? So I call it, we did that, that that system gave us a really good balance of what I call high care and high performance. And, and, and, and you obviously joined that organization because that was the deal, right? And everybody knew going into it. That's the deal, right?

Jed Morley

[0:34:55]

This is the deal.

Mark Abbott

[0:34:56]

So it's actually relatively straightforward because you either had what it took or you didn't.

Mark Abbott

[0:35:00]

Or you didn't, right?

Mark Abbott

[0:35:01]

And, and, and I remember, I'm literally the guy, I took over and I changed the culture there, right? I, I, I, I implanted the upper out model. I won't bore you with the whole story, but.

Mark Abbott

[0:35:18]

Everybody was afraid of the train of the change when we announced was like Christmas Day because all the employees understood what the deal was now they knew. And the reality was is that everybody in the company thought I can succeed in that culture. So we had still had a good culture, right? It wasn't like oh, it wasn't like.

Jed Morley

[0:35:42]

Oh shit, it wasn't either or this.

Mark Abbott

[0:35:43]

Isn'T what I joined, right? It was, it's like, no, no, this is cool right? Now I know what it is right? Now I know how to play the game. And then we even rolled out a whole career path mod help people, okay? So these are the skills you need to develop, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And, and it worked out really, really well. But my point was, is that that was actually an easier culture to build than what I'll call Balanced ambition, which is what your, you know, the bamboo guys had, what we have here. Right. Which is. Look, guys, it's got to be high care and high performance, right?

Jed Morley

[0:36:16]

Yes.

Mark Abbott

[0:36:17]

We want to not have. We want you to have work, what we call work, life, harmony. Yep. But guys, it's not a place where you can take 400 hours off.

Jed Morley

[0:36:26]

No.

Mark Abbott

[0:36:27]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:36:27]

And it's not a place where you can't perform. It's not a place where, you know, you can hide and, and think that no one's going to notice it.

Mark Abbott

[0:36:37]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:36:37]

Everybody has to contribute. Everybody has, you know, and. And so, you know, on a cultural perspective, we were actually, you know, very, very, very, very few bad culture hires in our entire history. Right. On the performance stuff, we did have some people who drifted, I. I'll call it into sort of comfort and convenience more than high performance, high care.

Jed Morley

[0:36:57]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:36:58]

So it's been harder, to be honest, finding that balance. Yeah, finding the balance.

Jed Morley

[0:37:01]

And I think if you're. If your culture is that you're not allowed or expected to work after hours, you'd better make the hours you are at work really count.

Mark Abbott

[0:37:09]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:37:10]

So there's an added incentive to be effective.

Mark Abbott

[0:37:12]

Yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:37:13]

And so don't screw it up for all of us.

Mark Abbott

[0:37:14]

Right, Right.

Jed Morley

[0:37:16]

Exactly. Yeah. The other thing in writing the book that came into focus for me was the importance of understanding your customers. Really deeply caring about and connecting with who exactly it is that you're serving. Yeah. We've had a lot of opportunities to help clients understand and clarify who are their ideal customers. And it takes time to get to the kernel sometimes because they have so many kinds of customers that they haven't really taken time to assess and decide who is our core customer.

Mark Abbott

[0:37:47]

Yeah. And you know how that happens. Right. It's because in the beginning. Right. You're like any, any. Anything that breathes or fogs a mirror. Right. We'll take them.

Jed Morley

[0:37:55]

We'll take them. Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:37:56]

But very swiftly on.

Mark Abbott

[0:37:59]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:37:59]

If, when you have non ideal customers. Right. They're demanding things that you should not be doing.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:04]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:05]

Worst case, they become big, and all of a sudden now you're being pulled in a direction that you never wanted to be pulled in, but you're not solid enough. Right. You haven't created a strong enough company yet where you can just say, hey.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:17]

Right, we're gonna fire them. Right. Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:20]

And actually I did a. I don't know if you know Bob Glazier. I don't. He's got a. He's got his most recent books called Compass within, but Bob ran a marketing company, very successful, wrote a book called Elevate. And he literally was telling me in our. Our time together about how the time he had to fire, like, his most important client. His biggest client.

Jed Morley

[0:38:42]

His biggest client.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:43]

Right. Because they were not a good. Good cultural fit.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:46]

Right, Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:47]

And it was super scary.

Jed Morley

[0:38:49]

It is scary. Yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:50]

So the. Once again, getting this stuff.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:54]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:54]

And back to compounding.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:55]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:56]

When you get a really clear ideal customer.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:58]

Right, right.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:59]

And I mean.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:00]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:01]

Really good definition, you know, of demographics and psychographics and geographics.

Jed Morley

[0:39:05]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:06]

That's at least the way I talk about it.

Jed Morley

[0:39:07]

Sure.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:08]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:09]

And now.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:10]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:10]

If someone's not ideal because they show up.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:13]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:14]

You know.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:16]

I hate to say it, but don't listen to them.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:18]

Right, Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:22]

And certainly don't let them influence your product. Don't let them abuse your employees.

Jed Morley

[0:39:26]

Employees, Right, right.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:28]

And so. And then, of course, obviously, now you get to compound.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:32]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:32]

And it's interesting because, you know.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:37]

There'S.

Jed Morley

[0:39:37]

Been.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:40]

Moments in our company's history.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:44]

Where.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:46]

I had a fractional CMO and he and I disagreed on who our ICP was.

Jed Morley

[0:39:52]

Oh, interesting.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:53]

Yeah. Now, I should have fired him the first week.

Jed Morley

[0:39:55]

I was going to say, how did that resolve?

Mark Abbott

[0:39:57]

Yeah, well, yeah, exactly.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:59]

Right, yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:59]

But he was really smart.

Mark Abbott

[0:40:00]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:40:01]

But there were like three or four areas where we just disagreed with each other.

Mark Abbott

[0:40:05]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:40:06]

And because he was smart, others are, you know, sitting around the table going, you know, this guy's smart, mark. Why don't you listen to him?

Mark Abbott

[0:40:12]

Right. Who.

Mark Abbott

[0:40:13]

Who made you king? Well, it's my company. It's my company. But let's forget about that one. I don't want to play that card.

Mark Abbott

[0:40:19]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:40:20]

But occasionally, unfortunately, I probably did. But, you know.

Mark Abbott

[0:40:25]

Ricp, from day one was always, for me, the leader of the company.

Mark Abbott

[0:40:32]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:40:34]

And. And we had debates internally around whether you even make that more specific. It's a founder. Is it a business owner? Is it an entrepreneur? Because they're different people.

Jed Morley

[0:40:46]

And is this in context of 90?

Mark Abbott

[0:40:47]

This is 90.

Jed Morley

[0:40:48]

This is 90. Yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:40:49]

Right. What he wanted to do was listen to the employee.

Jed Morley

[0:40:54]

Listen to the employees of the client of the client of the client.

Mark Abbott

[0:40:58]

That's who he wanted to index into. And I'm like, no, because most of them don't even understand or agree with what's taking place right now in their company.

Mark Abbott

[0:41:06]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:41:06]

And so I'm like, no, I would go so far as to say that, guys, I don't want you to listen. Right. Because we had chat. We get all this feedback on chat, as you can imagine. Right. I'm like, look, for all practical purposes, for right now and for, until we.

Mark Abbott

[0:41:23]

Agree otherwise.

Mark Abbott

[0:41:24]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:41:25]

All that feedback that's coming to you from the lower, lower levels of the organization.

Mark Abbott

[0:41:29]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:41:29]

Ignore it. All that feedback that's coming to you from the, from the, from, from the founder, business owner.

Mark Abbott

[0:41:35]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:41:35]

Etc. That's super feedback. At the senior leadership team level, that's really important as well.

Mark Abbott

[0:41:41]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:41:42]

But.

Mark Abbott

[0:41:45]

My number one ICP is the founder, slash CEO slash business owner. And to the extent that the feedback that you get from the senior leadership team is in alignment with that, awesome.

Mark Abbott

[0:42:00]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:42:00]

But let's not have feedback at the next level, or worse, the next level down that actually does not align with the CEO slash owner.

Mark Abbott

[0:42:10]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:42:12]

Slash founder.

Jed Morley

[0:42:15]

That, that was the conflict.

Mark Abbott

[0:42:17]

Yeah. And trust me, that was not like easy to resolve internally.

Jed Morley

[0:42:23]

How did you work through it?

Mark Abbott

[0:42:24]

To this day, I just still don't think we've done a good enough job to this day.

Jed Morley

[0:42:29]

Yeah. Something that we've found to be really helpful is having the opportunity to step out of the day to day and have in depth conversations with customers about what's working or not and why and having an empathetic approach to that, to where you're not thinking of it as what's in it for us, but what can we do to better serve the customer and to have context for their pain and understanding where it's coming from and what more you can do to better serve and support them. The thing that surprises me is how few companies take time to talk to their customers.

Mark Abbott

[0:43:15]

And I, and I would, I, I've had this conversation with my senior leadership team. I, I think we don't have an. We do not at the senior leadership team level. Talked to our customers enough. Right. Our product people do. Our heads of products do.

Mark Abbott

[0:43:26]

Right, right.

Mark Abbott

[0:43:27]

Our head of product.

Mark Abbott

[0:43:29]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:43:30]

I would argue probably not enough.

Mark Abbott

[0:43:32]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:43:33]

I do.

Mark Abbott

[0:43:34]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:43:35]

Because I have clients and I'm out in the marketplace all the time and I'm coming into interaction.

Mark Abbott

[0:43:43]

So I have those conversations. But I agree with you, number one. Number two, you know the nuance. Because I can hear some of my own employees right now talking about this issue. As I said, it's alignment.

Mark Abbott

[0:43:58]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:43:59]

So it doesn't mean that you don't listen to the department leaders. That's not what I said.

Mark Abbott

[0:44:03]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:44:04]

And it doesn't mean that we don't listen to the next level down because they do matter.

Mark Abbott

[0:44:07]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:44:08]

But, but it's just a question of how you weight things. And now if all of a sudden you, you know, that like the two levels below the, the. The CEO founder, there's a disconnect with your product right now the question is, okay, do you support.

Mark Abbott

[0:44:26]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:44:27]

How do you reconcile that?

Mark Abbott

[0:44:28]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:44:28]

Because that, because we have had an issue of. I called whole company product market fit. We always, you know, we have, you know, 17, 000 leadership teams that are up running on 90 but then you know, only like 20 of our companies go all the way down. So you know, I've meaning they. Everybody.

Mark Abbott

[0:44:46]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:44:46]

Which is what we build it for.

Mark Abbott

[0:44:48]

Right.

Jed Morley

[0:44:48]

It's for everyone to be on.

Mark Abbott

[0:44:49]

Yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:44:49]

Now why, why is there this, this problem? My perspective is twofold. Number one, we haven't armed the founder and the senior leadership team well enough to believe in the power of cascading it down. That's a thing. Number two, we are behind but we're catching up swiftly in terms of integrations. And so what'll happen is, you know, no one wants to have two systems of record for goals or to dos or project management.

Mark Abbott

[0:45:20]

Right, right.

Mark Abbott

[0:45:21]

So the reality is, is that you need to integrate with these project management platforms and I call it tech stack anarchy. Because what you see in most of our companies, you know, one group will be using Monday, another group will be using ClickUp, another group will be using Jira, another group asana.

Mark Abbott

[0:45:36]

Right, right, right.

Mark Abbott

[0:45:37]

And it's like guys, do you do work together? And if you do work together.

Mark Abbott

[0:45:40]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:45:41]

How do you decide whose system you're going to be using? Whose project management system do you use? So I, I believe there's this tech stack anarchy issue out that it's out there. So you know, and there.

Jed Morley

[0:45:52]

And that the frontline workers are in those tools and platforms.

Mark Abbott

[0:45:56]

Yes, yes.

Jed Morley

[0:45:57]

Every day.

Mark Abbott

[0:45:58]

Yeah, exactly. And. And you, and you really have like the project leads.

Mark Abbott

[0:46:02]

Yeah, right.

Mark Abbott

[0:46:03]

Which is, which is, you know, it's usually one step below like the, the department lead.

Jed Morley

[0:46:07]

Usually.

Mark Abbott

[0:46:08]

But a lot of times you'll have departments in. Involved as those in those as well. So there's this weird area within the company like it's hard to go through because of this issue. Now integrations hopefully will impact that and then ultimately. Right. We just got to make the product more.

Jed Morley

[0:46:23]

I think that's a really good insight. We've actually bumped up against that backstory is how do you integrate tools like 90 with. We use ClickUp. Yeah. So that there's that integrated seamless reporting up and down. Yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:46:35]

Because you know, the people down below. You're right. You're, you know, as a leader, you know, you want to have a great Relationship with your team, if your team's bitching at you all the time because, well, I got to do this double entry, right?

Jed Morley

[0:46:47]

Yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:46:48]

Then, you know, I get it.

Mark Abbott

[0:46:49]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:46:49]

And so, you know, so. So I do get it. And that's why integrations are so important. And we have integrations coming out for Monday and ClickUp and Asana and to do list and then, you know, on and on. But you know, going back to the icp, you know, you got to choose like a really clear icp.

Jed Morley

[0:47:09]

You do, right?

Mark Abbott

[0:47:12]

The ICP can't be a company.

Jed Morley

[0:47:13]

It's not. Well, and this is the distinction that I address in the book in that section we were talking about leading up to this conversation. Messaging is designed to operate at a company level. We call that brand messaging. You can call it company messaging if you want. It spans every audience and offering and then you have audience specific messaging. So in like fashion, you have ICP level communication where you're talking to a type of company. And then there are individuals within those, those customer companies who are making or influencing the buy decision. So we make that distinction. We say ICPs are for companies, ideal customer profiles. Might as well say ideal company profile. And then customer Personas are the people who make or influence the buying decision within those companies. And that's helped us keep that clear and straight.

Mark Abbott

[0:47:59]

Yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:48:00]

And then obviously with the advancement of technology, you can. Because I've always said, look, guys, once we get to the ability to communicate on a one to one basis, all these issues go away.

Jed Morley

[0:48:11]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:48:12]

Because we do know that's if. Remember when we were talking about with Cole before we got on here, right. Just getting down to the archetype, getting down to the, you know, the person in that seat, understanding the person in the seat, understand the nature of the seat. Right. Understand where they are in the organization, et cetera. We have the ability to ultimately do that. But you know, in the beginning, right. Without sort of having evolved techno tech stack in this regard, marketing tech stack. And I would say that, you know, we know this, but we're not got, you know, nowhere near great at this yet because that's. It's complicated.

Jed Morley

[0:48:44]

It does take time.

Mark Abbott

[0:48:45]

Yeah.

Jed Morley

[0:48:45]

To parse it out. Yeah. And what do you do with the information once you get it? How do you store it in a single source of truth that everybody can tap into and leverage in their respective areas of responsibility.

Mark Abbott

[0:48:55]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:48:56]

We run on a HubSpot. So in theory, right. When we sending out emails, HubSpot knows, right. That this is the way we mass.

Mark Abbott

[0:49:02]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:49:03]

Craft this for this particular person. I mean, what. It should be able to get there. We should be able to get there, but we're not there yet.

Jed Morley

[0:49:09]

Yeah, yeah, it's a process I don't think branding's ever done. Yeah, it's a little bit like the Golden Gate Bridge. They stop, they paint it, and then they paint it again.

Mark Abbott

[0:49:17]

Well, it's, you know, entropy's everywhere.

Mark Abbott

[0:49:19]

Right, Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:49:20]

And. And. And it's going to, you know, it hits everything.

Mark Abbott

[0:49:23]

Right.

Mark Abbott

[0:49:23]

It hits your KPIs, it hits your vision, it hits your ICP, it hits your processes. Right. It hits your design, it hits your webs. I mean, it's everywhere. Right. So, yeah, there's no such thing as ever done.

Jed Morley

[0:49:35]

Having clarity around who you are, what you do and why it matters. If you get that brand purpose, the difference you make beyond making money, to clarify that and continually teach and reinforce it with the culture, the artifacts, the routines, the stories, it helps people course correct, you are going to get blown off course. And if you know where the true north is, you can adjust and come back in alignment with that over and over again and over time, get that compounding effect.

Mark Abbott

[0:50:04]

So how should people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about backstory and how you can help?

Jed Morley

[0:50:11]

Glad you asked. I'm on LinkedIn and we're@storybranding.com.

Mark Abbott

[0:50:16]

All right, well, once again, I love the work you're doing. I appreciate you putting this into the world, and.

Mark Abbott

[0:50:25]

I suspect we'll talk again.

Jed Morley

[0:50:28]

Thanks, Mark. This was great.

Mark Abbott

[0:50:29]

Same, Jeff. Thank you.

Jed Morley

[0:50:31]

Thank you.