Why Leadership Is Never Aligned

Mark Abbott

[0:00:05]

Hello, David Meyer. What's going on, Mark?

David Meyer

[0:00:08]

Man, this is so good.

Mark Abbott

[0:00:10]

Yeah, this is fun. This is fun. So you and I now have known one another reasonably well. I want to say it feels like going on two years. Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:00:27]

Maybe more, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01

[0:00:28]

Yeah, maybe more.

Mark Abbott

[0:00:30]

And you were a client before I met you. And then, um, you were gracious enough to join a, uh, uh, what's, what do they call it? Right. A focus group, uh, to help us think about, um, how to position, what's going on right now, but this was literally, I want to say, um, 18 months ago. And what was fascinating about the focus group is that, uh, or I should say focus groups, cause we talked to like, I want to say 12 or 15, maybe even more, right. About what was going on with AI and where we were taking 90 and, uh, The punchline was 18 months ago, people didn't want to even hear about it. Right. They weren't interested. They, uh, um, generally speaking, uh, they felt it was, uh, uh, disconnected with reality conversation. Um, and all they wanted to do was talk about how our product could get better as it is. And, um, and, and that part of it was revealing in and of itself. Right. Yeah. And, uh, And what's fascinating is the topic for today's conversations change. Right. You and I geek out about change and just generally speaking, uh, we thought we'd have, I'd say what I'll call a free flowing conversation around change and what's going on in the world right now. You have your vantage point and talk a little bit about your business. And I have my vantage point, obviously, but, uh, uh, these are fascinating times. And, uh, to paraphrase, uh, our friend, Bob Dylan, the times they are changing.

David Meyer

[0:02:28]

Come gather around people.

Mark Abbott

[0:02:35]

So for my friends in the audience, if you wouldn't mind, it'd be great if you could share a little background. So they've got a sense for this friend of mine.

David Meyer

[0:02:45]

So I've been in marketing for my entire career. Started, spoke 17 years ago, almost 18. And started it because I wanted to find, I wanted to create a kind of place that I wanted to work.

Mark Abbott

[0:03:09]

And I think we've been successful at that. Most everybody's been around most of the time. We've got seasoned professionals.

David Meyer

[0:03:20]

As my partner Steve says, we hit the nail in straight the first time without bending it all around.

Mark Abbott

[0:03:26]

Most people have been,

David Meyer

[0:03:29]

I think the average tenure is probably a dozen years.

Mark Abbott

[0:03:32]

And that's awesome.

David Meyer

[0:03:33]

A few people have joined in the last few years, but it's really it's some of us have been working together 30 years. It's just a great group of people. And our what we're great at is understanding brand messaging and positioning and setting the brand apart and telling stories. We say you haven't told your story until someone else can tell it. So it's really figuring out not so much what you want to say but what they want to hear and putting that in a in language that's clear, concise and compelling and then position it so hopefully you're the only reasonable choice for your ideal customer. And then take it from there. Just, you know, whatever we find the fastest path to cash. And it's just been a lot of fun.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:27]

You know, it's funny you say the only reasonable choice. I think it's just a clear and compelling choice, right? Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:04:33]

I mean, pretty much the same. I mean, I don't know whether we think the difference of that is clear and compelling or only reasonable.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:41]

You know, I don't know about you, but I'd rather be like excited about something that, you know, that's a reasonable opportunity, right?

David Meyer

[0:04:49]

Okay. All right.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:52]

Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:04:53]

Well, hopefully it's compelling.

Mark Abbott

[0:04:55]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's why I like, you know, it's like, you know, I always like, you know, our time together because I look forward to it because we always have really energizing and interesting and uh, you know, conversations around what's going on and whether it's, you know, in the broader world or we're talking about, you know, the world of EOS and operating systems, or we're talking about brand and marketing or, or change in general, you know, just I always enjoy the conversations because, you know, uh, there's a, there's a, there's, there's a, always a positive energy, right? that, you know, we're, you know, there's that, you know, we're creators, we're builders, we can do this, you know, as opposed to, you know, certain conversations. I remember, I think I told a story once on this podcast, but in college, I fell head over heels for a woman and, uh, Uh, she kind of, um, rejected me after about three dates because she felt I was too optimistic. She was more of the, you know, the, uh, oh, you can't be bright because you're an optimist. You know, the bright people are all the cynics. And so I wasn't, I, you know, I wasn't her cool dude. You know, the guy with the, you know, sitting at the coffee shop promoting how, you know, we're all, we're all gonna die.

David Meyer

[0:06:21]

I don't know.

Mark Abbott

[0:06:22]

But anyway, I always enjoy our conversations because you and I both are pretty optimistic about the long term.

David Meyer

[0:06:29]

It's exciting. Like all the change. It's, I think in every industry, I mean, your industry wasn't around. You know, hasn't been around that long.

Mark Abbott

[0:06:40]

No.

David Meyer

[0:06:42]

But in marketing, my first job out of college was in the yellow pages. Like, there's been a lot of change.

Mark Abbott

[0:06:53]

Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:06:54]

I mean, I don't know how many of my you know, how many people have never seen or held a yellow page book, or don't, you know, and it's like, and it's just, it's been constant change from, from the, from go.

Mark Abbott

[0:07:08]

Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:07:09]

And it's, there's always something else. And it's just, it's exciting. It's more, I think I would get bored if there weren't constant change. That's why I like the industry. Because working I, I've never worked in house for a company, because I don't think I I don't know if I'd get bored doing the same thing every day. But jumping from learning about all the different industries and clients and change, it's been fascinating. It's been a really interesting career.

Mark Abbott

[0:07:40]

Yeah. So you and I, uh, were together at the, uh, EOS conference, which was now, feels like forever ago, but probably three or so weeks ago. And we were chatting about, you know, uh, getting together and doing this. And, uh, one of the things that, you know, you brought up is I, I think we should talk about change. So what was going on through your head, you know, and what has been going on through your head where you thought this would be a great conversation for us to have?

David Meyer

[0:08:09]

Well, we looked back, we're the cobbler's kids. I think most agencies are like this, cobbler's kids with no shoes. So we have a hard time treating ourselves as a client, but we're doing a better job of it. And we looked, one of the things we do with our clients is look at who are your best clients. I mean, it's obvious stuff. Who are your best clients? How did you get them? What happened? Just looking for patterns. And we did that for ourselves and we noticed that just about every time when someone came to us, they were on, we've called them thresholds of change. Something happened. It's a new product launch, it's new leadership, it's mergers, acquisitions, it's societal change, the way customers buy, it's environmental, whether it's environmental or AI or technology, there's some catalyst that they reach a point where the more successful ones realize that they're at that inflection point and do something about it. And some unfortunately wait until they're in a lot of pain and there's just total misalignment. And it was just in the context of your book, I thought, you know, the, the stages of company growth. I think there are probably some parallels. I haven't dug that much into it, but your book, I refer back to it more than I'd like to admit, but just in how 90 and how your mission, it's just to help people reach those if they want, not that there's anything wrong with a level three company, right? if they want to move to level four, it's, it's, there are these changes, there are these thresholds that they hit. And it's, I just think there's some interesting parallels.

Mark Abbott

[0:10:18]

Yeah, no question. And I think, as we said, you know, change is all around us right now. And, and whether, you know, whether that change is, you know, you know, that in order to turn that vision that you have into reality, you're going to have to go through stage three, which is where a lot of companies, you know, as an example that run on EOS, um, that's sort of where they like, uh, right. Uh, we're in this, I've, I've gone out and I've hired, you know, a bunch of good subject matter experts, leaders in marketing or leaders in sales or leader in, in product or leader in operations. And, and, and now I've got all these people, but they all came with their own playbooks and they're not really, um, leaning into making sure that we're all, you know, have the same culture. They kind of have their subcultures going on and the next thing you turn around and you're like, this is hard and I don't even like this company anymore. How'd I get here? And now you're like, do I, do I just let these, you know, these, these people just do it because, you know, their experience and, you know, I don't really know each other. you know, areas of expertise anymore. And, or do I, you know, have that founder mode moment where it's like, damn it, we got to all get on the same page. And if you're not willing to get on the same page with me, then, you know, I'm going to take care of you. But, you know, it's time for you to, to, to move on. And so, yeah, you know, each of those stages is filled with changes, right? I remember when I first encountered EOS and, you know, Gino used to talk about, you know, every single, you know, business owner, founder, entrepreneur, you know, is dealing with 136 issues. And if you just think about that, right, and you don't categorize them or compartmentalize them, right? That's just overwhelming. But when you realize, oh, these are vision issues, and these are, you know, you know, measurable issues, and these are just, you know, planning issues, and these are just, you know, you know, meeting related issues where we got to make sure we're all on the same page, given what we've all agreed to do for this quarter, you know, or these are process issues, right? All of a sudden, you can take these 136 and you can put them in the six key components and it just becomes much more manageable. And so, um, but the reality is, is, you know, it doesn't matter whether you're at stage one or you're at stage five, or, you know, you now have a multi-company holding, uh, structure where, you know, at stage six or you're international and you've got, you know, a bunch of different brands, which is kind of stage seven. you know, there's always these issues, right? And, and, and there's always entropy. And so change is always constant, right? But some changes are a little bit more obvious and impactful than others. And, and, and, and to your point, those moments where the weight of the need for change is palpable, Right. Whether it's in the brand, right. Or whether it's, like I said, whether it's structural or whether it's a leadership or something like that. I'd say 80 plus percent of the time, you know, change is driven by pain. Yes.

David Meyer

[0:13:47]

Yeah, for sure. Like that's human nature. I mean, that's psychology. Yeah, people, people will rush to change more to avoid playing pain than to rush to pleasure. It's yeah, motivator. It's fear. It's I mean, it's I mean, that's Yeah, I mean, we're we're emotional creatures, we're big emotional meatbags, and make all our decisions based on emotion. And then backfill it with logic. And a lot of times that pain with change shows up in its lack of alignment. Yeah, internally, that's where it breaks internally. before the messaging or any of the marketing changes. It's, they haven't recognized, they need to recognize it, name it, own it, address it. What are we going to do? What has to be true for us to navigate this change?

Mark Abbott

[0:14:46]

Yeah. You know, it's, it's interesting. I never thought about this until just now. So, you know, I, I try hard as an INTJ, right? So I'm an introvert, and in theory, I'm an intuitive who thinks, you know, and then makes decisions quickly as a judger. So in theory, you know, I'm less emotional. than a feeler, right? So you have the thinkers versus the feelers in that third dimension of the four dimensions associated with Myers-Briggs. And so you think that, you know, a thinker thinks that they're relatively rational. But if you think about what we just said, it's actually emotion that's driving change.

David Meyer

[0:15:33]

Always, right? Because it's pain. And by definition, there is no pain if there is no emotion.

Mark Abbott

[0:15:39]

Maybe I'm wrong on that one, but I'm pretty sure there's a high R-squared between an emotional response and pain, right?

David Meyer

[0:15:47]

Yeah, I'm an ENTP. But yeah, it's the emotion. I mean, it's Aristotle. I mean, he was ethos, logos, pathos. And it's how does it make you feel? Do you trust the person? You know, do I believe them? And then how does it make you feel? Yeah, that's, that's the driver. Well, I think it's those pathos logos is the is the order. But it's do you trust the person? How does that or the whatever it is? How does it make you feel? And then logos, logic comes last.

Mark Abbott

[0:16:21]

But it's interesting that, um, You know, as an intuitive, I've always said that I believe emotion reveals what my subconscious is processing, right? It's not particularly good at articulating it, right? But it's like, you know, it's like something's going on. I can't put words to it, but I can feel it, right? My intuition says that there's an issue here, right? And so it's fascinating because as an intuitive thinker, right, you're relying on your emotions to give you the, to help you tap into the intuitive processing that's taking place, you know, subconsciously. And so back to your, you know, the emotion does precede the logic. Oftentimes.

David Meyer

[0:17:17]

Emotion puts money in motion.

Mark Abbott

[0:17:20]

Yeah, because otherwise, why would you do it, right? It's like, you know, there's too many other things going on.

David Meyer

[0:17:25]

How does it make you feel? Why did you choose whatever it is? It was how it made you feel. Yeah, yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:17:33]

So I didn't know you were so Jungian. I love him. So how did the thresholds of change concept first emerge inside Spoke?

David Meyer

[0:17:47]

It was just a realization. It was just a hopefully, it was, hopefully, it can help people understand what's going on, and give them a framework for how to address it, or just to realize it, sometimes just naming it helps people deal with it. And so it's like, if we can help just, we can help clients or anybody just realize that they're undergoing some change.

Mark Abbott

[0:18:18]

And

David Meyer

[0:18:20]

focus on how to address it, how to get ahead of it, how to stay aligned, how to make a plan.

Mark Abbott

[0:18:26]

Yeah. Is that what you're finding right now is that, let's just say a team realizes that, you know, they're in the midst of change. And, um, and then the next thing is, it's like, okay, so how are we going to deal with this? Cause you've now said a couple of different times, you know, there's an alignment.

David Meyer

[0:18:48]

It's 100%.

Mark Abbott

[0:18:50]

Yeah. I know, I, I know that we're, we, we, I literally at our last quarterly said we got, you know, actually before the quarterly, before the quarterly, uh, we realized we had an alignment issue. And so we did a survey and, you know, around six or seven categories and sure enough, right, there was an alignment issue. And then we literally spent, I want to say two or three hours talking about it at our offsite. Right. And part of the alignment issue was around, you know, certain individuals had a, uh, uh, you know, they were focused on the now. And certain individuals were focused on, you know, six months to 12 months from now. Right. And, and, and, and then I'm sitting here going, I'm, I'm really focused on a year or two years or three years or five years from now. Right. And working my way backwards and they're like, you know, no, there's too much change going on. Let's just align on the moment we're in. I'm like, but you know, as I've said for literally since I started the company, I'm always, I'm always fearful of, I call it the animal house. scene where the guy pushes the conduct the the marching band leader out of the way grabs the baton and then the alley it goes in the alley and everything like you know everything breaks up right the trombones you know band i love that scene i'm like dudes i do not want to be You know, going into the alley, I don't, you know, and, and, and for us to go, what the hell? Right. Cause I've experienced it too many times in my, even with 90, right. Where it's like, I won't even bore you with all the stories. Right. But it's like, we talked about this, we all aligned on this and then everybody got heads down and they forgot about it. And next thing you know, we're like, well, shit, how'd we get here?

David Meyer

[0:20:35]

Well, and then, so I mean, not to go back to Animal House, but how could you not? They cut back to that scene later towards the end, if I recall, and everything else is going on. The band's still in the alley. There's no visionary taking them anywhere. Like, they just stayed there. Yeah, it is. I mean, it's always the byproduct of, I think, and I'm sure other agencies are the same or other marketing or other consultants are the same, where after one of our working sessions, our workshops, our modules, the benefit that people don't know that they're gonna get, but we almost always see as alignment. Yeah, they walk out with a clear it's before we'll start we start one of the things we'll do is. Like if we're doing a messaging, if their messaging positioning is off, we'll ask the leadership team, whoever's in the room, we'll give them all a note card and say, write down the single most important thing that you guys do. Like what's your single most important message? And I don't think we've ever had two people write the same thing. And it's just like, I mean, and it's just like, they're all, none of them are wrong. None of them are bad answers. They're just not the same. They're just not moving in the right. They don't all have that same shared vision. And it's kind of fascinating.

Mark Abbott

[0:22:17]

How many times do you think you've done this now?

David Meyer

[0:22:20]

We've been in business 17 years.

Mark Abbott

[0:22:23]

So what's your, I mean, just, just, you know, for the audience's sake, what's a gut number on how many times you've done this work and seeing that the leadership team is not aligned and what percentage of the time is the leadership not aligned? It sounds like you're saying it's over 95%. Not aligned. Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:22:41]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And the number of times, I mean, I'd have to look and see. I mean, we've had over, we've been in business 17 years, I'd have to look. But definitely over 100 clients, right?

Mark Abbott

[0:22:55]

Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:22:56]

We tend to keep, the good news is we tend to keep clients for a long time.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:04]

Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:23:05]

So, you know, we've had clients that have been with us as long as we've been in business. And yeah, it's, um, there's just, yeah, it's, we've been very fortunate that way. There's a, just a good level of trust and it's nice.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:19]

Is it, is, well, just, just to sort of finish on this one though, is it a hundred percent of the time? Oh, a hundred percent of the time. That's crazy, right?

David Meyer

[0:23:29]

A hundred percent. Like some of them might be close, but yeah, if there's, if there, if there are three people in the room, it's, they're not aligned. And I thought it was just me.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:42]

Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:23:43]

You are a simple snowflake, but yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:23:50]

It's fascinating.

David Meyer

[0:23:52]

I got to tell you, I'll be honest, like Cobbler's Kids, if I did this with our company, it'd be the same thing. I think part of it is there's constant change. Like you were saying about your company, it's like we've got people focused on the doing now and people focused on doing what's next, like, because we're evolving. We're constantly evolving.

Mark Abbott

[0:24:15]

Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:24:16]

And it's the messaging for us is difficult, too. And we're you know, it's it's by the time and this isn't unique, I don't think to to us or to you, but by the time you come up with messaging and do whatever, it's on your website, which is the anchor of your brand. if that takes six months, something's changed.

Mark Abbott

[0:24:39]

Yeah. Well, it's like we did branding work recently, I would say, and it doesn't reflect what's going on right now. And I said, when we started the work internally, I said, guys, right, I think we need to to be thinking about, once again, this is, you know, this whole issue around time span of, of reference, right? So, um, and, and by the way, we can get, we can bring that back to stages of development here in a second, cause I think it'll, it'll help folks, right? But, you know, my perspective was, you know, we need to be thinking about where we're going to be next, not now. Right. But the work, right, that everybody aligned around was now, right? And guess what's happened? Next is now, right? In no time at all. In no time at all, right? And, um, and it's, and it's going super fast, right? And then, and, and, and to be specific, you know, we are now in, um, the, uh, uh, beta, it's a closed beta, but, and if you're interested, if you're a client, you're welcome to join our beta, right? But we're in a closed beta right now with what we call AskMass. And so AskMaz is, uh, the culmination of over two years worth of work where, it's really why we raised the Series B, right? AskMaz, you just AskMaz anything about what's going on in your company and whatever is in the operating system, you know, whatever's in 90s operating system or whatever's connected to 90s operating systems or integrations, AskMaz can interrogate, right? So you can ask MAS as an example, you know, are the rocks that we, you know, we are, that we've selected for the quarter, you know, what percentage of them are aligned with, you know, with our goals for the year? Do we have any rocks that are duplicative as an example, right? You can ask MAS which parts of your organization are not having effective weekly meetings. You can ask MAS anything, right? And, um, and it can see because it, you know, because we took two years to figure out how to connect everything in the system to this, you know, to this brain, for lack of a better phrase, right? That, that can see and, and not just can see, but then it's like, all right, Mazz, can you create, you know, um, an issue for me, uh, for the senior leadership team that says, hey, we gotta, you know, we got five rocks. that are duplicative or in conflict, right? Or, you know, create a, create a to-do for me to go talk to Joe because, you know, Joe's team's not, they're not, they're, they're not updating their KPIs, right? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right? And so, and so, but the brand didn't really, you know, contemplate um, work, you know, AskMass being in the world yet, right? So, um, so it's, it's, it's interesting, right? Back to the, the way I like to look at this stuff, and, and I think the alignment tension comes in here, right? Is there's now, next, later, and never, right? And, and all three of those, four of those categories, right, or buckets are really important. You know, the never stuff, there's people who, there are people who just, you know, constantly bring something that, that's like, they think it's a cool idea and it's like, no, that doesn't make any sense. Or they, or they want to have, you know, your ICP instead of your ICP being, being very focused, they want your ICP to be, you know, your, your personas, right? That, that, you know, it's like, no guys, there are big difference between the personas that we support, right? So we, obviously we have visionaries and we have integrators and, You know, we have leadership team members and we have team leaders and we have individual contributors. They're all individual personas, right? And then you can even go in and start, you know, cutting this all up by stage of development, by industry. I mean, you could personify the hell out of everything, right? And eventually, and it matters, right? Because ultimately, you know, our software knows who you are. Right. So they know what seat you're sitting in. Right. They know what company you're sitting in. Right. They know what industry your guys are in. They know what stage you're in. I mean, really, you can get super, super, you know, like laser focus with your personas. But they're personas, right? They're not, you know, they're heuristics for helping us communicate better. And I could go on. Right. But they're not our ICPs. And so you have these fights. I say fights. Right. But, you know, we do have these battles every now and then around personas versus ICPs, as an example. And it's like, come on, guys, right? We're not, like, this is in the never, right? The ICP is forever. Turning, having 20 ICPs is in the never bucket, right? But, and there are a bunch of different examples, like never, we're never going to be, you know, payroll processing company. It's in the never bucket, right? but getting people aligned on now, next, later, and never. across, you know, brand, across product offering, across structure, across, you know, the things that are important for you to win the stage of development you're in right now, right? Um, it sounds so easy.

David Meyer

[0:30:12]

I mean, every time you roll out a new feature or a new update or new anything, like how do you guys, how do you guys handle that? Like what's, What's that look like for you?

Mark Abbott

[0:30:25]

Well, those are really interesting conversations, right? Because now with, you know, agents and technology being the way it is, um, you know, the way, the way that we'll do it in three months is going to be different than the way we're doing it right now. Right. So that's, and, and, but that's now next, not now. Right. And so that's your classic issue as a, as a founder, as a visionary, as a CEO, it's like, Hey guys, right. Next, we're going to start working on transitioning to leveraging, you know, agents to do this kind of work as an example. That doesn't mean we're doing it now. Right. And so don't freak out about it. Right. And it may be that we get into the next quarterly planning session and we don't have a, we don't have the resources to do it. you know, to make it now. So it's going to sit in the next category, right? Lots of stories around, you know, founders, CEOs, visionaries, whatever you want to call them, you know, just thinking out loud and all of a sudden people running and, or, or even some of my senior colleagues, um, you know, we've got some stories within our company where, you know, someone will come up with an idea and the next thing you know, and because they're a senior, you know, they've been here for, you know, you know, since very early on and highly respected, it's like, well, we're going to go execute on that. And it's like, no, we don't have the resources to execute on that. But next thing you know, you're sitting there and people are complaining because so-and-so is, you know, asked us to do this stuff. And I'm like, but We don't have the resources for it. Why are you even thinking about it? Why didn't you bring that to me? So, you know, this now, this now, next, later, and never stuff I think is very important for alignment, right? Because I think a lot of times if you don't have the discipline around those four buckets, You, you will end up fighting over stuff that you're really not as disconnected on as you think you are. It's just a question of timing. Right. But there are a lot of people, you know, who I think predominantly live in the now. Right. Even, even on your leadership team. Right. And, you know, that's back to the stages of development. You know, that first stage is, you know, that's all about now. Right. Stage one product market fit. That's now. Right. Are we, are we figuring out how to, how to get this so that people actually think this is a something they'd be willing to, to, to buy and spend money on and, and spend enough on so that we have a commercially viable business. And, and so that's, you know, zero to 90 days, right. That's your, that's now. And then, and then once you have that in place, uh, now you can move to having a now and a next, right? So the now is, is, is, is sort of this current 90 days and the next is the next quarter, right? We're not going to worry about this until next quarter. And, and, and that next quarter person, you know, needs to be someone who's You know, that's sort of like your second layer of your organization, right? So your first layer of your organization is all about the zero to 90s. Second layer of the organization is about the 90 to 360. And so, you know, so, and, and you can say that that 90 to 180 is, is, is all about the next and then everything else is in the later or the never. And then, and then as you stack the next layer, it's one to two years, the next layer is two to five, and next layer is five to 10. And now, you know, you'll have people like me who are sitting here in the five to 10. And, you know, I'm like, I'm not worried about, you know, if you're dragging me into now, then, um, fair enough, I'll, I'll, I'll solve for it. But you need to know my brain's not in now. Right. And, you know, and my brain really isn't in next. my brain is almost always in later. And so, you know, you can, you, you know, I'm willing to help on now and, and, and, and next, but, you know, but, and then I'm trying to do my best to understand that, you know, you're either, you know, if you're on the senior leadership team, you should be, you know, pretty much in the, in the, in the later category, but managing your people in the next and the now categories really, really well. But, um, alignment around now, next, later, and never super important. What other areas do you see people struggling with in terms of alignment?

David Meyer

[0:34:52]

I think it's having clarity. I think it's, there's almost information overload. And there, it's like, there's information everywhere. And it's just creating that clarity around it, and having the confidence. And that confidence will build trust.

Mark Abbott

[0:35:10]

When you're helping teams, and it's interesting, you've talked about, you know, you've had clients now for decades, right? When you're helping your clients, do you find that you're visiting alignment? How often? Is it 90 days, 180 days, once a year? How often are you all getting back in?

David Meyer

[0:35:36]

We meet with clients at least quarterly. I mean, we meet with them more often, but we're not sitting in on their quarterlies. I think to answer your previous question, the biggest mistake we see around when alignment's off is that people throw more tactics at it. Like, that's going to solve it. It's like, more this, more that. And it's like, that is absolutely not the answer. Like more, it's just, it's, it amplifies the problem instead of fixes it.

Mark Abbott

[0:36:10]

Yeah. It's interesting, right? We, I've noticed that is especially when there's this core, like really important work that needs to be done. Right. And then there's, uh, this sounds like the asshole founder, right? Then there's this performative work, right? Where people are working just to stay busy, but it's not really good work, right? And so, um, I think there's, you know, if you can have a way to sort of understand like the ratio of performative versus like really important work that's going on, that's probably tells you something. Right. It either tells you that you have too many people. Right. Or that there's misalignment. And so people are just trying to appear busy. so that they don't have to address the real issue, which is we're not all on the same page. And so the work you're doing, the work we're doing collectively, isn't actually as powerful as if we were all on the same page.

David Meyer

[0:37:13]

And yeah, and more isn't always better. And it's, you know, we're back to AI.

Mark Abbott

[0:37:22]

It doesn't,

David Meyer

[0:37:25]

It's a great tool. It doesn't help you think better. It exposes bad thinking faster. It's like doing more of bad is worse. And it's like, and then there's the authenticity angle. Consumers can sense, it's that synthetic sheen of AI thinking that lacks, now more than ever, that human element. So that shared vision is, and that clarity is all grounded in humanity. And then back to the feeling and the emotion.

Mark Abbott

[0:38:10]

When you think about feeling an emotion in particular, sort of with founders or CEOs, visionaries, whatever we want to call here, right? What do these leaders mostly get wrong during these threshold moments where change is here, but they may not be confidently addressing it.

David Meyer

[0:38:32]

There's an attachment to what got them there. There's, and again, it's making, it's an emotional decision. They're emotionally attached to what it was. And the good ones are ready to embrace what it is and what it's going to be. But it's, it's like, you know, dragging an anchor through the sand sometimes. And having really frank conversations with people, which is sometimes hard, but has to be done. But it's it's that emotional connection to what was and what got them there.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:10]

And

David Meyer

[0:39:11]

Like, this is my baby. Like, and sometimes kids move off and go to college and whatever. It's not always going to, you know, so, um, it's, I think it's that emotional tie to the, with the founder where they just get stuck.

Mark Abbott

[0:39:30]

What percentage of the time is the struggle would change? resting at the founder's level, an individual within the leadership team's level, or the leadership team, generally speaking, aligned against the founder, right? I was going in different.

David Meyer

[0:40:04]

I think the answer where I thought you were going to go is, having the whole team aligned, I think.

Mark Abbott

[0:40:12]

Right.

David Meyer

[0:40:12]

So it's not aligned. We've already agreed it's not aligned. Now the question is.

Mark Abbott

[0:40:16]

If we get the leader and the leadership team aligned, the thing that breaks is outside of the leadership team and communicating that throughout the organization.

David Meyer

[0:40:29]

And so it's, I mean, to your first question, is it the leadership team or the founder?

Mark Abbott

[0:40:36]

Or an individual on the leadership team, right?

David Meyer

[0:40:38]

Because I think he could, you know, you could kind of have, you know, maybe those, you know, if you think about that as a pie, as a percentage of the pie, right?

Mark Abbott

[0:40:45]

I think the founder is obviously easy, right? The leadership team generally, and when I say leadership team, I mean, multiple members of the leadership team being, you know, sort of against what the founder wants to do, right? Back to alignment. Or there's just one member of the leadership team who's like, you know,

David Meyer

[0:41:03]

It's one member of the leadership team is probably what we see most.

Mark Abbott

[0:41:07]

Mostly? And not the founder?

David Meyer

[0:41:11]

Founder will come along before, you know, every member of the leadership team.

Mark Abbott

[0:41:17]

That's been your, but your experience is when you're going through these misalignment, realignment moments. Once again, and I hate to be sort of pushing on an answer here, but I'm curious, right? Is it typically the founder? Is it typically one member? Or is it typically a bunch of the leadership team against the founder?

David Meyer

[0:41:46]

That is the problem?

Mark Abbott

[0:41:48]

Yes. Where the misalignment exists.

David Meyer

[0:41:53]

I think it's getting it's one or two members of the leadership team I think, whether it's the founder or the majority of the leadership team. And the leadership teams that we work with are great. And they can see things that the founder doesn't. And most good founders that we've worked with, we've been fortunate, can see it, might take some time and embrace it, but getting the whole team aligned around it takes longer. That's, you know, getting the stragglers on board, I think takes longer. I think most founders, at some point you realize you have some self-awareness. It's like you can't smell your own breath.

Mark Abbott

[0:42:39]

Right.

David Meyer

[0:42:40]

Like someone needs to tell you.

Mark Abbott

[0:42:42]

Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:42:44]

And most good founders are open to that. You know, they have to be.

Mark Abbott

[0:42:50]

Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:42:50]

Once they get to a certain size, certainly, whether it's the leadership team or a board or whatever, you have to.

Mark Abbott

[0:42:58]

Yeah. I mean, otherwise you're, you know, you're going to fail eventually. Right. You know, it's a reason a lot of, you know, whether it's, you know, having someone with you, with your expertise and, and wisdom, right? Or whether it's having, you know, a coach, right? You can't read the label from inside the jars, the expression we use, you can't smell your own breath, right? But ultimately, you know, if you're, I would say if you're a reasonably intelligent founder, right, you want to do what's right for the long run. And, and, you know, a lot, and especially if you're not, not just a founder, but, you know, you, you're a significant, you know, if not the entire shareholder base, right? I mean, you, you know, you're not stupid. Um, and the reality is you want to do what's right, but, but sometimes, you know, you're, you're locked into something more than you think you are.

David Meyer

[0:43:48]

Well, my guess, not having ever sat on your leadership teams, is that one of the jobs and what makes your leadership team great is they probably reel you in sometimes. you know, too often, but that's their job. So that's, I mean, so there's an alignment thing too. So it's whether it's, it's pushing you out or pulling you in, it's that, it's that right tension between now and next and later.

Mark Abbott

[0:44:16]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And, and, and that's usually, you know, like I said earlier, we have had fights over ICP as an example, right, over the years. And which to me is crazy, because in my mind, it's always been the same. It's never changed. Right. But, But, you know, we, we, we've had moments, right? And, and we've had, we, you know, and we've, we've had moments over, you know, recently on, uh, on, you know, sort of on, you know, thinking about the brand, you know, through the lens of, you know, a car manufacturer, right? you know, are you a Chevy, you know, are you a BMW, are you a Porsche, are you a Bugatti, right? Where, you know, where do you sit? Are you sort of, and you know, from a value proposition. And so, you know, I think, you know, in my mind we've, nothing's ever changed, but it's interesting how you find yourself coming back to these conversations. more often than not, and especially, once again, back to the theme for our discussion today, when things are changing, right? And so, you know, when things are changing, you know, it's like, oh, shit, does something that's core that we viewed as core, does it need to be, need to change or no, it's, you know, it was built to help us actually pass through, you know, this change.

David Meyer

[0:45:48]

Your brand evolves and like it, yours certainly has, but, and it's not, brand isn't really what you or the company say. It's what people conclude about your actions and your behavior and how you work. So that's, it's, your brand doesn't live in your brand guidelines. It lives in the minds of your best customers. And you know, that's, that's, that's where the brand lives.

Mark Abbott

[0:46:18]

You can... But this is an interesting conversation, right? So I, so I do tend to, I'd say, Maybe on the margin, right? But a great brand. I mean, you know, if you don't screw with it, like I always like to talk about Disney, right? Disney never, I've said this for decades now, right? Disney never should have bought ABC. as an example, right? Because Walt, you know, Walt, it was very clear about who Disney should be, right? And it was about, you know, about families and making people happy. And obviously it was an entertainment company. And, you know, there's stuff that's like just core to who Disney is, right? And then, you know, it lost its way a little bit. And then Eisner and Wells came in and they, you know, really leaned into, but then, you know, they went and acquired ABC and God knows what else. And, you know, the news isn't always here to make people happy. In fact, one, you know, can make a reasonable argument that people read about, you know, you know, right? People are interested, read and believe, whatever it is, right? There's just a big difference between ABC and Disney in terms of, you know, their go to market and, and, and what they need to do in order to remain, um, um, you know, uh, a successful, you know, enterprise.

David Meyer

[0:47:45]

So I, you know, I, I think at their core, great brands, right? But it is in the history between Disney and ABC is, and I'm not going to get this a hundred percent right, but it was like the wonderful Disney on Sunday night.

Mark Abbott

[0:48:00]

Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:48:02]

Disney came to them. None of the other networks wanted anything to do with it. And Disney was like, we're going to create an hour for you. And none of the other networks wanted to touch it. And Disney, the worst performing, weakest network of them. You mean ABC? Yeah, ABC, yeah. And took it. So that relationship goes back decades. Um, so, but it is interesting. It's not at the core of the brand.

Mark Abbott

[0:48:37]

Right. And, and if you look at, I mean, we can go through a bunch of different brands. Sure. Yeah. Right. Yeah. ESPN is more interesting though, right?

David Meyer

[0:48:45]

Because it, it, it very much was entertainment.

Mark Abbott

[0:48:48]

So, you know, as opposed to, right, news. Um, but you know, but I'm just pushing back a little bit on, I, I, I think great brands do not actually change that much.

David Meyer

[0:49:01]

But that's because they don't change that much. That's it still lives in the heart and minds of their consumers.

Mark Abbott

[0:49:09]

So, you know, I think

David Meyer

[0:49:13]

Budweiser has had some missteps over the years. When they get back to their core, they're fine again, but it's just staying consistent. The Bud Light debacle a couple years ago was like,

Mark Abbott

[0:49:34]

There was an example where someone came in and just didn't think through the fact that they were insulting their primary customer base. And the insult wasn't the commercial. It was the response to the commercial where, where the mess up took place, right?

David Meyer

[0:49:50]

It wasn't the commercial.

Mark Abbott

[0:49:51]

It was.

David Meyer

[0:49:53]

It wasn't even public. It was like, yeah.

Mark Abbott

[0:49:55]

Yeah. Well, and then the influencer side, but, but on that, on that whole front, it really, you know, it wasn't, I don't think their, their, their, their core base was like all up in arms over, you know, that it was what they double down defending. Yeah. That, that's where you're like, wait a second, right? And, and, you know.

David Meyer

[0:50:15]

You have an influence or a thing and, you know, it wasn't.

Mark Abbott

[0:50:18]

And, and insulted, literally insulted the customer base. And so, you know, it's interesting, but I guess back to, back to the change that's going on right now, you know, what's your, what's your sense for how, from specifically from a brand and positioning perspective, do you, do you feel like, A, a significantly higher percentage of your clients are finding themselves in a, at, at a threshold of change because of everything that's going on in society right now and specifically with technology? More so than normal?

David Meyer

[0:50:54]

For sure. But a lot of them, I mean, we're still, we still have clients that haven't adapted to I mean, we see successful companies that just really haven't addressed how consumers' buyer behavior has changed. I mean, and that's been a long time where consumers are in charge and they're making their decision before they ever reach out to sales. And some companies still don't get that.

Mark Abbott

[0:51:29]

Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:51:29]

So it's, there's, there's laggards everywhere. But I think, you know, having that consistency and, and honesty and integrity is paramount importance. And that's, though, you know, the companies that realize that and address it, and move along with it. A brand change can be a shift. It doesn't have to be a 180.

Mark Abbott

[0:52:00]

What you're doing, what you're delivering, it should be consistent. It shouldn't be a surprise. It shouldn't be you know, and now for something, it shouldn't be you doing payroll. Right. It should be evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary.

David Meyer

[0:52:17]

Absolutely.

Mark Abbott

[0:52:18]

Yeah. If a founder listening to today, you know, feel stuck between the old version of their company and what's coming next and trying to figure out how to evolve as opposed to be a revolutionary, where do they begin?

David Meyer

[0:52:32]

They need to realize where they are. They need to like, so, Name the threshold. It's you know, where are you and just aim that threshold and then just tell the truth about what changed and what happened and then really quickly get aligned as quickly as you can. Um, and then, you know, I guess, clarify the priorities and the trade offs you have to make, but then really commit to the clear narrative for the brand and be able to back it up with proof. So it's, and you know what

Mark Abbott

[0:53:16]

When you say quickly, since we've been dealing with it, since I literally have been dealing with this in my team, right? I've been dealing with this. You know, what I, what I find is, you know, I'm like, I'm like, I'm clear. Right. Right. And, uh, and let's just do this. And then, you know, and then, you know, cause we got a bunch of people on our leadership team, you know, someone will come up and say, dude, you're just forcing this. People aren't, you know, they're, they're, you know, you're forcing alignment. That's not alignment. Right. So obviously it depends on how many people are involved. Right. Um, but, uh, you know, your experience, how swiftly can a real, how swiftly does it typically take for a realignment? Give me the, you know, don't, don't include the 10% outliers in terms of really fast or super slow. What's the 80% typically look like in terms of how, how much effort and time it takes to realign around a change?

David Meyer

[0:54:20]

I don't think I can answer that question. Because by the time they come to us, there has been some acknowledgement that there's change.

Mark Abbott

[0:54:29]

Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:54:31]

Where we come in. So they've, they know that there's a change, it takes some time to define the destination.

Mark Abbott

[0:54:41]

It's

David Meyer

[0:54:43]

they're there because that's where it takes some time is really to define the next and the later. And clarifying that with the leadership team in the company. It doesn't take longer. With us, it doesn't take longer than two months, you know, it's a process.

Mark Abbott

[0:55:06]

Right.

David Meyer

[0:55:07]

And it takes, sometimes it's a lot, lot, lot less time.

Mark Abbott

[0:55:12]

Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:55:13]

You know.

Mark Abbott

[0:55:13]

And that's just, and that's just you working with the leadership team, or is that you helping the leadership team actually, you know, sort of navigate the entire change process, including with the entire company?

David Meyer

[0:55:27]

We know that's just the leadership team.

Mark Abbott

[0:55:29]

That's what I thought. Yeah. Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:55:31]

No, that's just getting the leadership team and like nailing the positioning and aligning to what the destination is and mapping out how to get there. But rolling it out to the entire team can take a while. You know, it's like because you've got to you've got to reposition the narrative. You've got to And then before you do anything, you got to get the team aligned before you activate anything through marketing or go to market efforts. So it's a process. And it really depends on the founder and the leadership team, how nimble they are and how big and how long they've been, you know, how big a boat are you turning? If it's a $500 million company, it's harder to turn than a $10 million company.

Mark Abbott

[0:56:23]

Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:56:25]

The nimbleness and agility that is ingrained in the systems and processes over however long it took for them to get there.

Mark Abbott

[0:56:34]

Yeah. And the culture too, right? Whether a culture is used to change like this or not. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, listen, I would love to spend a lot more time on this. I think you and I could spend another two hours on this conversation, but, uh, but we're going to have to bring it to a close here. Is there anything, you know, any parting thoughts that you'd like, love to share?

David Meyer

[0:56:59]

If you're struggling with it, a good question to ask yourself is the old story no longer matches reality because And then answer that question. And get your whole leadership team to answer that question clearly. And that'll help make the next steps easier. Realizing what that is. Why isn't the old story matching? Just look internally. I think that's probably the, It's the simplest and hardest thing to do is to have that conversation.

Mark Abbott

[0:57:46]

Yeah. And then once, and then, and then once you have that conversation, I presume the next thing is now, do we think we can do this on our own or do we think we need someone to help us navigate this change? Because once again, as we've said earlier, you know, you can't read the label from inside a jar.

David Meyer

[0:58:02]

I think there's some wonderful in-house marketing teams, and we've worked with them.

Mark Abbott

[0:58:09]

So I'm biased.

David Meyer

[0:58:11]

I think having someone outside coming in that isn't emotionally anchored to something and doesn't have, I think the issue with internal marketing teams sometimes is they don't have the freedom to say the emperor is wearing no clothes as often. They're like, if a client fires us or they get mad at us, okay, like we tried to help. But that internal team sometimes, I think they see it and it's harder for them to say it.

Mark Abbott

[0:58:48]

Yeah, I think another, another thing is, you know, sometimes it's not the team, sometimes it's the founder, right? And so, you know, a really healthy, you know, team would go in saying, look, it could be the founder, it could be the team, it could be one of the members on our team. Um, and you know, it doesn't really matter, right? What matters is we figure out how to get aligned.

David Meyer

[0:59:09]

Absolutely.

Mark Abbott

[0:59:10]

Yeah. Yeah.

David Meyer

[0:59:12]

Pick that vision, define it, know what next looks like and map to get there. I mean, the rest of it, I don't want to say is easy, but the hardest part is aligning around it, picking out what it is, why it's not working, what next is, and mapping out how to get there is easy after that.

Mark Abbott

[0:59:33]

Well, maybe even the harder part is just admitting you, you've got a problem.

David Meyer

[0:59:37]

I mean, cause you said it's like the old, you know, the old story no longer matches reality because that question, that's a hard part.

Mark Abbott

[0:59:47]

Yeah. David, like I said, we could go on man, but, um, and maybe we'll have a part two and a part three. I'm confident someday we'll have a part two and a part three, but, um, uh, I'm going to add your contact information down below or we're going to add it. Um, but. Uh, if people want to get ahold of you, what's the right way to do that?

David Meyer

[1:00:09]

Our website is SpokeMarketing.com. Um, we're there. Uh, LinkedIn is always an easy way to get me. All right.

Mark Abbott

[1:00:19]

Cool. Yeah.

David Meyer

[1:00:21]

All right.

Mark Abbott

[1:00:21]

Thank you, my friend.

David Meyer

[1:00:23]

It was great. Thanks.

Mark Abbott

[1:00:24]

Always a pleasure. I've enjoyed a lot.

David Meyer

[1:00:26]

All right.

Mark Abbott

[1:00:28]

Cheers.