Mick Unplugged - Dr Marcus Collins | Marketing that Matters: Dr Collins on Relationship Building and Authenticity

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

Welcome to another insightful episode of "Mick Unplugged"! Today, we're joined by the brilliant Dr Marcus Collins, a profound thinker in marketing and culture. In this episode, Dr Collins dives deep into shifting marketing strategies towards building authentic relationships and serving people, rather than just selling products. We explore his top hip-hop influences, with names like Kanye West, Tribe Called Quest, and Jay Z making the list, and discuss his top three hip-hop songs that have deeply resonated with him. Dr Collins shares invaluable tips for businesses focused on culture, emphasizing the need to understand and articulate your beliefs, connect with like-minded people, and spread your message authentically. We also dive into the cultural significance of regional phrases, Dr Collins' innovative merchandise strategy, and his motivational journey to prove his potential despite external doubts. Mick Hunt, our host, delves into the power of understanding what moves people to influence them, praising Dr Collins for his profound insights on culture. They touch on leadership, organizational culture, the concept of belonging, and how marketing and PR strategies can complement each other to build strong, lasting relationships with audiences. This episode is packed with wisdom, humor, and motivational titbits, making it a must-listen for anyone looking to understand the deeper aspects of culture and human behavior in business. So, tune in and get ready to embrace your purpose and potential with the incredible Dr Marcus Collins. Takeaways: ·       Culture is a system of conventions and expectations that govern behavior. ·       Understanding culture requires a sociological lens and curiosity. ·       Understanding humanity is key to effective marketing. ·       PR helps grow visibility for marketing efforts. Sound Bites: ·       “Building Brands with Significant Meaning” ·       " Role of Marketing in Sustaining Engagement” ·       "Importance for Entrepreneurs to Stay True to Their Brand.” Connect and Discover LinkedIn:                          linkedin.com/in/marctothec Instagram:                       Instagram.com/marctothec Website:                           marctothec.com X:                                      @marctothec Author of:                        For the Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What                                           We Do, and Who We Want to Be  https://a.co/d/1UVRC08                        See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Marcus, when you started this journey, man, like, what was your because? It was because people didn't think I could. People doubted me. And maybe even I doubted myself. It wasn't about showing them that I can do it, but it was about... One of the quotes that's deep with me this week is, if you want to move people, you got to understand what moves them. And as simple as that quote is, that's also the genius of Dr. Marcus Collins, because I think a lot of times we take things for granted. We tend to mistake the obvious because it's there, it's right in front of us.

The obvious thing about us is that culture isn't something that's bought into, it's who people are, what your business is. And I would love for you to elaborate that culture as a system of conventions and expectations that demarcate who we are and govern what people like us do. Welcome to Mick Unplugged,

where we ignite potential and fuel purpose. Get ready for raw insights, bold moves, and game-changing conversations. Buckle up. Here's Mick. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged, and today's guest is an unstoppable force who's transformed the way we think about marketing, branding, and culture. If you've ever wondered how to turn cultural

awareness into a strategic power, you are in for a master class today, I promise you. Get ready to dive into the world where ideas spark action, authenticity leads to transformation, and the future is creating one meaningful story at a time. Please join me in welcoming the brilliant, the visionary, the dynamic, the guy that doesn't know he's helped me become the man that I am today, Dr. Marcus Collins.

Marcus, how are you doing today, brother? I am blessed and highly favored and so very grateful to be with you. I am excited, man. We were just chatting literally just a few minutes ago on just what you mean to me, the person that you are, the things that you talk about and discuss, but more importantly, the action and thoughts

that you give people, man. I've been a huge fan of yours forever, so I'm honored to just share some time with you, bro. That's a blessing, man. Thank you so much. That makes two of us. Let's do it. You are a Michigan man. I'm not. I'm not an Ohio State guy either. Oh, they're all good. No worries.

You're a Michigan man, right? So, I love to hear a little bit about just telling the story of Marcus Collins. For those that don't know, most people do, but for those that don't know, most people do, but for those that don't know, tell people why Marcus Collins is one of my top three people in the world. I wish I had the answer to that, but I'll tell you a little bit about who I am. I'm a product of Detroit.

Now, I always start that way because I feel like Detroit was very influential in how I made sense of the world, how I framed the world. Being a city that is predominantly black, but living in a world that straddled the fence of both, I mean, I was a swimmer growing up, which wasn't how the black folks swimming. So I lived in two different worlds at the same time. And having a city like Detroit as the backdrop just always created unique frames for me. It's a big city, but never thought of like as a New York and LA or even a Chicago. It was a tough city, but never thought of as sort of as gritty as, I don't know, I don't want to be disparaging another city.

But it was always sort of in the middle. And because of that, there's always a chip on the city's shoulder. And I feel like everybody from the city sort of bears that. I think that that sort of disposition followed me not only as an adolescent coming of age, but as a college student coming out of college, starting a company, a music company, much to the chagrin of my parents,

to going back to school to get an MBA, to having the audacity to say, I think I can work at Apple, on the surface, to see like I think I can work at Apple, you know, to on the surface and see like I had the credentials to be there, then to then go run digital strategy for Beyonce, then to then go into advertising and then to then be a professor, then to then write a book, like all these things. It just felt like, you know, no one thought that I could do those things, which made me

feel like, oh, well, let me show you what's up. Yeah, man. You know, I love that I could do those things, which made me feel like, oh, well, let me show you what's up. Yeah, man. I love that. And we're going to talk a lot about the things that you have going on. But on Make Unplugged, we talk about your because, that thing that's deeper than your why,

that passion that keeps you going. And from time to time, your because changes. But if I were to say, Marcus, when you started this journey, man, what was your because? What was that motivation, that drive, that must have that kept you going? It was because people didn't think I could. And I think maybe a part of it, maybe I didn't know if I could. I've always hoped for and wanted the most of myself. I wouldn't say more of myself. I'd say the most of myself. I mean, if you asked me when I was in high school,

I was going to be the fifth member of Voice to Men. And I thought that that was possible. I thought it was legit possible. And my parents, particularly my mother, was like, yo, you better go to school to be an engineer, fam. Like this music delusion you have in your mind, like that's not happening for you. You're going to do this thing because it was logical. And I guess a part of me felt like, well, why should I abide by what is logical? You know, and I think that my because is that because people doubted me

and maybe even I doubted myself. I wanted to tell it wasn't about showing them that I could do it, but it was about proven to myself that I could do it, I suppose. Hmm. That's amazing, man. That's amazing. And, you know, I told everybody that's listening and watching when I did the intro. We're in for a master class on culture because if there's any person that is the voice, that's the face, that's the authority in culture, it is you.

And I want to talk about the book for the culture for a second because I don't want to say something sacrilegious, so I'm not. It's something that you know how with the Bible, right? Like you go and every day you can read passages and it hits you different every time. And it's something that we do, us believers do all the time. For the culture is like probably my number two where I can literally go in and find a quote

and that quote means something right there. And one of the quotes that's deep with me this week is, if you want to move people, you got to understand what moves them. And as simple as that quote is, that's also to move people, you got to understand what moves them. And as simple as that quote is, that's also the genius of Dr. Marcus Collins, because I think a lot of times we take things for granted, right? And so if you want to move people, you got to understand what moves them.

And I mean, thank you for that. And I think that, you know, it's the obvious that gets us every time. A gentleman named Duncan Watts wrote a book that essentially said, the obvious typically isn't obvious until someone points it out to you. Once someone points out, you go, oh man, totally, absolutely. I think that we tend to mistake the obvious because it's there, it's right in front of us. The obvious thing about us is that we know how influential people are. We know how influential culture is,

but yet we spend a fraction of our time thinking about how do we better understand people so that we can understand how they influence each other? How do we better understand culture so we might be able to engage in such a way to get people to move? And for me, I was working in an industry advertising where all we talked about was

culture. Get our ideas out into culture, what's happening in culture, we got to move at the speed of culture. And I was saying this like multiple times a day. And what I realized that I didn't know very much about culture at all. I knew it sort of intuitively, and I knew it conceptually and intellectually, but I didn't understand the underlying physics, the mechanisms that make culture work. And the more I came to understand it, the wider the aperture of how I saw the world became. It became so illuminated.

In many ways, it was humbling because I realized I didn't know much about anything, which only if anything just sort of cat ellipsis. It's like dot, dot, dot for people to continue to build, to build on top of it, because I feel like I've built, I've built on top of those who came before me. It's amazing, man. And you know, like for me, leadership is my jam, right? And so just like you, like I've got more than one

or two people who are like, I'm going to build on top of this. I'm going to build on top of this. And so I'm like, I'm going to build on top of this. And so I'm like, I'm going to build on top of this. And so I'm like, I'm going to build on top of those who came before me. It's amazing, man. And you know, like for me, leadership is my jam, right? And so just like you, like I've got multiple degrees in organizational leadership and cultural leadership. And another thing that fascinates me with what you say,

and this is actually something that I teach and you do it much more eloquently than I do, culture isn't something that's bought into, it's who people are, what your business is. And I would love for you to elaborate there because for all the business owners and C-suite leaders, or even if you're a solopreneur and at some point, you're gonna have team, people talk about culture,

but they talk about it like they've got to buy in and you have to embrace it. Like, no, you don't. Like, if that's your mindset, that culture is something that you embrace or that you buy into, you've missed the boat and culture is something you don't have. Or, I'm sorry, the culture you think you have is quite the opposite of the culture that really exists. A-Man, amen.

So, I think about culture through a sociological lens. When the founding fathers of sociology, Emil Durkheim, talks about culture as a system of conventions and expectations that demarcate who we are and govern what people like us do. And in the book, I try to detail what those systems are. It's identity, who we are, a shared way of seeing the world, and then a shared way of navigating the world,

like a shared way of life, and then the way we express ourselves, a shared way of expression called cultural production. And the alchemy of those systems make up our culture. I try to prosecute this idea that our consumption behaviors and our behavioral adoption that happens in the marketplace out in the world is culturally mediated or culturally governed because of the way we culturally mediate. We mediate the world through our cultural lenses.

And to your point, organizational culture is the same system of conventions and expectations. They're the same collection of cognitions and kinetics that govern how we act here. And though leadership may go, we have a great culture here, we do X, Y, and Z. And it's like, well, is that really what's true? Because while you're trying to get people to buy into sort of the policies you create, we have a great culture here, we do X, Y, and Z. And it's like, well, is that really what's true? Because while you're trying to get people to buy into sort of the policies you create, they are negotiating, constructing

what people like them do. And we know this intuitively. Like you started a new job, hey, Mick, how do I do this thing over here? You go, well, you're supposed to do this, but this is how everybody does it. That's your culture, but everybody does. That's the culture.

The leaders of the organization make rules, but it's the people's your culture. What everybody does. That's the culture. The leaders of the organization make rules, but it's the people who make culture. And real leadership is, you know, we talk about it here at Ross, that leadership is the ability to influence without authority. And leadership is about influencing without authority. And what's the most influential force of human behavior? Culture. So those who are able to contribute to, engage in, move the culture forward, those are the people who are most likely to influence people, to move people forward.

I love it, brother. And that's why I promise you for the culture, and I wanna talk about the necessity of that book in a moment, but this conversation is why genuinely I am in this book multiple times per week because I'm always grabbing something and in culture, whether it's societal culture,

whether it's business culture, right? Whether it's something people don't think about your household culture. This book gives you everything because you're not just talking about one aspect like you were talking about culture in general. And one of the things that I think is really hot right now, again, I can quote the book all day, bro.

At least this week, I've highlighted the things that I'm focused on. You said belonging is the ultimate currency. Belonging is the ultimate currency. I love for you to elaborate on that, brother. Well, we are social animals by nature, as Aristotle would say. We are built to be in community, as social beings. If you believe evolution, evolution anthropologists will argue that the reason why we were able to evolve and to sustain as a species because

we socialize, we cooperated. That is deep in our brain stem. And therefore, for us, trust and safety is predicated based on our belonging, based on being a part of something, being with people, which is why we always try to find people like us. We're homophilic, we're self-loving, we find people like us, we feel safe in those numbers. So therefore, being a part of a thing becomes the ultimate currency in life because that means survival. If the job of the brain is to make predictions about the future so that we increase our chances of surviving and survival is inextricably linked to being connected, then connectivity means survival. There's no currency greater than that. And we're just constantly just trying to find

us. We're trying to bump into people like us. We're just in everything we do from the way we present ourselves, the clothes we wear, the products that we buy, how we style our hair, if you have it, of course, you know, all the, oh, you know, you know, you know, we're about all these things. And we'll actually navigate towards people who seem to be like us. I mean, I tell my students this all the time, that when you were younger, you went to sleep away camp and you find someone who's from your hometown, you go, Oh, you're from Detroit, from Detroit too. Oh my goodness, oh my God. Best friends, right?

We would do this when we travel abroad. You could be in a foreign place, you hear nothing but foreign accents, until you hear an American accent, you go, where are you from? Someone goes, I'm from Chicago. I'm from Detroit, Midwest, what up? You immediately feel connected to that person. This is your brain saying your chances of survival are better by being with this person, and therefore we connect with them.

As social beings, there is nothing more important than to be connected, and we go to great, great lengths to do that very thing. And that's awesome. That's awesome. We could do this, like, all week, bro. I could literally just pick your brain on you, right? It's rare that I get the actual authority on what I watch or read the most, and so, again, I'm honored.

So, you know, we've given folks some insights into what's in the book, which everybody needs to go get, and I'll make sure there's links to that, and we'll talk a little bit more about that too. But I would love to know what made Marcus say, I have to write a book. And not only that, but these are the actions, these are the thought leadership points that need to go into this book because bro, it's brilliant. It's like you captured everything again, whether it's in your business, in your home, in society, like you have truly captured culture.

Like what made you say the world needs this? You know, honestly, I did not think that at all. I had no intention of writing a book in any temporal sense, nothing like in the near term at all. I got an email from a literary agent who saw a talk that I gave somewhere online. And he emailed me and said, hey, I think you have a book in you. And I was like, what? And when the email came through, I honestly thought it was one of those like ghost writing

spam emails or like, hey, just dictate it, we'll write the book for you. And no shade to them, I just never would do that. And I was like, ah, just kind of ignored it. And then he emailed me again and said, hey, like, I love just dictate it, we'll write the book for you. And no shade to them, but I just never would do that. And I was like, ah, just kind of ignored it. And then he emailed me again, said, hey, like I love just 15 minutes of your time. I just think you have something interesting to say. And he caught me right at the right time because we had just had our second daughter, Ivy,

and I'm walking her in a stroller and I got a good half hour of time to walk her. So I was like, I'll take the call. It's like, let's go to call. And we talk and I'm basically just grilling him about the industry, because I didn't know very much about publishing at all. And we agreed to just write proposal.

No strings attached, we write proposal. And honestly, when I hung up the phone, I just compartmentalized it somewhere in the back of my mind. So that I'll do later in life. COVID happens and a close friend of mine passes very, very early, very early. General by the name of Marlo Stoudemire. He died March 24th, 2020.

And immediately, it reminded me of a book I'd read years ago called Die Empty. And that book said that the most expensive real estate on the planet is the graveyard, because that's where ideas are buried that weren't brought to fruition. Books weren't written, movies weren't made, albums weren't recorded, companies weren't started because everyone was waiting for the right time. Well, you don't have time. Time, you're on borrowed time. And in the middle of the pandemic,

my mortality just felt so tangible. And I was like, I'm gonna write this proposal. So I wrote the proposal, my agent liked it, I liked it. He said, let's pitch it. And I'm like, great, what's the worst that can happen? Did they say no? And they said, yes. And I was like, okay, cool, great, awesome.

And we ended up getting a deal to write this book. And then I go, oh man, I had to write a book now. And the truth that matters, and being totally honest, this is like totally true. I wrote like 5,000 words and I go, I got nothing else to say. That's it, I got nothing else to say. And I think I was on think I was on the hook,

contractually on the hook to write 85,000 words. And I go, just take your money back. Like I can't do this. Like this is a mistake. I've made a mistake here. And here's where things got interesting for me is that I thought, okay, what am I trying to say? What's the argument I'm trying to say?

I'm trying to say the culture is important. So many people have said this. People a million times smarter than me have written that, people know that intuitively, but what can I bring to the discourse that's unique? And I thought about it for a while and it dawned on me sort of serendipitously that those early scholars of sociology, which is where most of my academic repertoire sort of sits, so those early scholars of sociology, they studied culture by observing religion. And I go, oh dude, I'm a church boy. That's a perspective I can have. And as a marketer, I realized that we spend so much of our lexicon actually comes from the theology. We say, you know, we need people

to evangelize the brand. We need people to convert over. It's like, oh, this is all theological nomenclature that is of the theory that culture was studied. And I happen to be a practitioner, so I could tell stories that I've actually done using this work. And it was like for good measure, you know, I'm a product of hip hop. Like I'm a hip hop fan. That is a culture that to which I studied as a doctoral student and that I know as a fan. And it was really the intersection of all those cylindrical circles. Like that's the book I'm going to write.

A book that interrogates culture through a sociological lens, framed through what we know of religion, theology, through a practitioner's lens with a hip hop slant to it. That's the book. You just summed up exactly why I read it almost every day. Like literally, like that's amazing. And I didn't know that story. 5,000 words and you had 80,000 more to go.

Man, I literally was like, I have nothing else to say. Like there's nothing else. Like get squeezing thing out of me. I've written down everything I thought I knew about this topic. And it wasn't that my understanding was shallow. It's just that I did not have a voice to say it. I was regurgitating what the literature says as opposed to having

a point of view. I think that that's been one of the biggest learnings for me is that if we put things in the world, whether you write, you talk, you host a podcast, whatever the cultural production you create, it's not enough to just to create. You have to create with the point of view that you have on the world. And it's that point of view that people go, oh, I see myself in it and realize that not everybody's going to like it either. And that's cool too. It ain't for everybody. And the idea is that I write from a place that is vulnerable and that is honest in hopes that people see my humanity in it and they see their humanity as a result of it. That's amazing, brother. I love that completely. So shifting gears a little bit, you are also, these are mixed words.

Dr. Marcus is never going to brag about himself like this. I'm going to say it for him. You are a marketing and branding genius. And no, I mean that, man. I would love for you just to talk to the viewers and listeners, and we're going to talk to two different ones. So we're going to talk about the entrepreneur right now that is at the beginning of that journey, whether it's one to three years.

What are some tips that you can give from a branding and marketing standpoint? And then I have a follow-up question. Okay. For those entrepreneurs who are starting early in their career, three to four years, I would say this. You think that you cannot do marketing fidelity that you want to because you don't have the means or the resources. And I would say that is the biggest lie that you could tell yourself. Because every brand that we look at out in the world, they were once exactly where you are,

exactly where you are, and they built themselves to that. And the best ones built themselves to that by being disciplined, being disciplined about who they are as a brand, which requires a little vocabulary lesson, if you will. I hate the word lesson. Let's just say it requires some vocabulary, a Rosetta Stone. There you go.

Marketing is going to market. Like that's what marketing is. Let's just say it requires some vocabulary, a Rosetta Stone. Marketing is going to market. That's what marketing is. And I would argue that everybody, whether you have marketing your title or not, you are a marketer because you are going to market. You're either bringing products to market, you're bringing yourself to market if you're looking for a job, you're bringing ideas to market if you write or create content, whatever the case may be, we're all going to market.

Marketing is going to market, right? And the market is people. We're going to people in an effort to get people to adopt behavior. So then what is a brand? Well brand historically for 4,000 years, brands were essentially just a mark of ownership. We would mark our cattle as a way of saying that this belongs to me. These are Collins Cows. I marked them as such so that you know them.

You can distinguish them from anybody else's. Kyle's. But brands have evolved to be much more. That brands today aren't just identifiers. They are signifiers. They represent something. They are vessels of meaning that conjure up thoughts and feelings in the hearts and minds of people relative to a company, an institution, an organization, a product or a person. And I would say that brands mean something, but the strongest brands mean more than what they create. So if you are a razor blade, if you sell razor blades, you go, my brand is the best selling razor blades. I go, great, good luck with that. But it's the brands that transcend the category, that transcend the product and value propositions. Those brands mean more and therefore they are more meaningful.

They are more full of meaning and people find themselves investing themselves in it. You could do that today right now. You don't need a million dollar budget to do this. You have to first identify what do I believe? Now what do I create? But what do I believe? How do I see the world? And then you use all the resources at your disposal to go preach the gospel.

Now you're not trying to get on the Super Bowl stage and preach your gospel. No, no, no. Go door to door. Knock door to door, person to person, winning over a consumer a day, converting one a day, arbitrarily speaking, that allows you to not only do hand-to-hand combat, but also learn about how people respond to your message. Nike doesn't have that luxury. Nike has to convert millions a day.

If not, it's a failure. That's the cross that they're bear. That's the burden that they bear behind the success they have. The burden you bear is far lower. A consumer a day, a viewer a day, one engagement a day. And you do this not by preaching the gospel about how sharp your razor is or how fast your car goes, but rather about what you believe and how you see the world.

And people who believe the world the way you do, see the world the way you do, go, that's my brand. Then they go tell other people about you. Not because they love you so much, but because they love their people. And that's a powerful place to be. See, that's why I love it, man. Like everything you do is in simple, actionable terms.

That's only because I'm a simple guy. That's it. It's because I'm just a simple guy. Okay. I'm right there with you. That's why we connect so well. So now let's talk about the established business. And they're at this point, right? It's going to end of 24, beginning of 25.

The world is vastly different. And what you did yesterday probably doesn't work today because buyers are evolving. And I tell people, I'm not saying buyers are getting younger. I'm just saying buyers are evolving. My mother, who a couple of years ago is like, there is no way I'm putting my checking account or credit card online or anything. Ask my mom for a check or some cash right now. And she will, and my mom is a preacher.

She will give you a look that will almost biblically cuss you out. Right? But so, so for that, that business now, how does marketing and branding help them to your terminology starting to transcend a little bit? So what we see is an evolution of media and the media is important because the media has meaning embedded in it.

And as media evolves, we have to evolve with it. We have to make sure that we're given the right message in the right context. That's great. But what I would tell those established brands is that here's the benefit. That while yes, things have changed 1000%, but you know what hasn't changed very much? Us, humanity. So we have to start by understanding humanity, the underlying physics of what it means to be human. Those things change very, very, very, very, very slowly.

If we start with the understanding of who people are, not customers, not voters, not subscribers, because that's their actions, it's not who they are, but understanding who people are and engage them as such, we can then say, all right, where are the best places to do that based upon what that media means? It's like this, it's like, you know, I feel totally licensed telling Eddie Murphy jokes at the bar with my friends, right? They get it, they're totally fine with it. But I would never tell those jokes in the church sanctuary ever, even with the exact

same friends. Why? Because that environment, that situation does not lend itself culturally to be acceptable and the same jokes resonate, but the environment makes it different. So the question becomes then what resonates with these people? A is people who I'm trying to engage and then what are the best environments in which I can do that? And then that's when we look at the evolving media landscape to say, okay,

where should I be to do that thing? Because every surface area is media. Amazing. So then this was my follow-up question. Okay. And it's something, and you know, we shared the same publicist, right? You get 90% of her time. I get 10, but it's okay.

Shout out to leverage with PR. I have this thing because the last two years, in my mind, I have figured out PR is more important than marketing. I'm not saying marketing is not important. Marketing is still up there, but in my mind, the relationship aspect, and again, what you just said, the humanity aspect, in my mind is more important than marketing. I would love for markets to, you can counter that, however, and I know you, you didn't know I was going to say that, so I'd love to catch you. I would push on it just a little bit. I would say that marketing without public relations is shallow.

Correct. And so to your point, like public relations is a discipline that's about nurturing, nourishing, and grooming the relationship between an entity and the public. It's about how do we influence, shape, and create interventions that inform the public zeitgeist, the collective mindset of the people. And I would say that if you have really good PR, we have really good relationship with

the public, but you don't go to market, you never get a chance to benefit from that good will. Right? If we define marketing as going to market, that going to market is a necessity to realize the benefit that comes from PR. But if you go to market with a product, but you have no relationship with the public, the chances of your marketing winning is pretty slim. The idea is that these things, they work in concert together. You've got it earned media, you've got it paid media. I'd say the idea here is that they are, whether

you are left wing or right wing, it's all one bird. And the idea here is that PR and marketing, going to market, they work in concert in an effort to help you soar. Marcus, bro. All right. I appreciate the pushback. I get the spirit of what you're getting at. I told you the spirit is that you could have the best product, you could have a very reasonable price,

you can have all the right distribution, what we call place, and you can have the really great promotions, the marketing communications may be spot on, but if you are not engaging with the public, or if the frame in which the public translates you as a brand, as a person, as an entity, as an organization, as an institution, as an entity, as an organization, as an institution, if those things are congruent

and all that going to market is for naught. Agree. And I tell people and the listeners and viewers have heard this before too, like I always say the difference for marketing PR for me is this, if I have a database, an email list, whatever you wanna call it, an outreach of a thousand people,

marketing keeps me in front of those same thousand people. And human nature at some point, I have a thousand today, next month it's 900. And then two months later, it's 750, just because the course of who we are, right? You're going to unsubscribe, you're going to oversaturate. Well, in order to prevent that, that's where PR becomes important. And that's why I say, I'm not saying marketing is not important, but for me, like PR helps grow that visibility so that you have more to market. And I think that the idea is that if we think about our going to market less about how do

we sell things, cram things on people's throats? But instead, how do we service people? I think when we think of it that way, we go, oh, well, I'm in the relationship business then. That my marketing is in service. I'm going to market in service of people. And therefore, the relationship I have with the public becomes tantamount to my ability to serve them. When those two things feel it, they're of the same spirit, they're of the same ilk, and there is no bifurcation between the two. And now when you're there, now you're in lofty places. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All right, Marcus, we're going to get to my favorite part of the show, rapid fire. Okay. With Dr. Marcus Collins. All right, you are a hip hop

guru. Your top five hip hop artists are? Ooh, of all time? All time. No particular order. Tribe Called Quest, Redman, Jay-Z, Andre 3000, and I might get flack for this, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it, Kanye West. Old Kanye, not just new Kanye.

Old Kanye. Hip hop Kanye. Exactly, exactly. All right, I like that. I like that. I might've thrown LL in there somewhere. Yeah, he's in the path. But I could only give you five.

That's my five. That's my five. Okay, top three favorite hip hop songs, meaning like if you got to just get ready, what are the three songs that are in that rotation? Oof, oof. Scenario by Tribe Called Quest. Tribe, yep.

They probably hate that I say this, but Me, Myself, and I by De La Soul, because they hate that song themselves, but Me, Myself, and I just kind of talks to me. And, oh man, a part of me, I guess I would say, I guess I would say Flashing Lights, Kanye West. Okay. I would not, I guess I would say flashing lights. Kanye West. Okay. I would not have guessed that from Mark. And an honorable mention, honestly, would probably be, I wonder, by Kanye West. Okay, all right, I dig it.

Yeah. I dig it. For the business, the family, that's looking to, I don't even wanna say improve culture, but just start to really focus on culture. What's three tips you have for them? Start with what do you believe? Who are you? How do you see the world?

And then find the people who see the world the way you do. These are your collective of the willing, people who believe also, and then preach the gospel to them. And what will happen is they'll go, finally, someone said it. Man, I've been feeling this way forever. I thought I was the only one.

And they'll take your messaging, your branding, all your things that you put out in the world, and they will use them to express their own identity as their own identity project. And it will propagate into the population. They'll tell other people about you, not because they love you so much, but because they love their friends.

And it'll come with a level of credence that you could never buy. That's the reverberating network effects of culture. Amazing. Amazing. All right. Last rapid fire question. Okay.

You're from Detroit. Yes, sir. How many times a day do you say, what up, though? Almost every salutation, everyone's just like, what up, though? What up, fam? What up, dude? This is what we do. This is what we do. I love it.

Like, you know, so early you were saying someone with an American accent, right? Like where are you from? You never have to worry about that with anyone from Detroit. Never. So when someone said, what up, dude? I was like, are you from the D? Right.

Just like if you're from Philly, someone says that John, you go, oh, you're a Philly guy. Like, or if you're, if you're, someone's like what up son, you have New York. Like we're just, these, these lexicons, it's just so, they're so telling of who we are. It's really powerful. Yeah. Hey, so do you know how you can tell when someone's from California? What up? Cause I don't know. Don't worry. They'll tell you that's where, that's where my wife and daughter-in-law right there.

I told that joke five times a day. That goes for New York too. Right. All right. So before we get into where people can find and follow you, man, I just have to give you a shout out for what I'm going to say is the best merchandise in the world for the culture. I was looking at your merch being really impressed by the way. No, no, no, no, no. I don't have a deck of cards. Like the moment I saw a deck of cards, I was like, oh, that's my dude. And you're always adding something to the to the merch site, too.

So it's not one of those things where you view it today. And it's the same thing a couple of months down the road like, oh, he's added this. You know, now we got a letterman's jacket. That's right. I'm grateful for that. And it's, you know, it's been informed by the marketplace. You know, like, when we put things in the world, we're in discourse with the market and they're saying things back to us and we can decide to remain in discourse or just

sort of fade away. And what I realized is when I was out in the world talking about the book, people get the ideas intellectually, but they need just one sort of push to get them to apply it. I was like, Oh, let's use the playing cards. Like, let's do that. Like that way. They, the questions I would ask them, they can ask themselves and, and it can use that to workshop those ideas internally. It's like, Oh, that's what we got to do. And I thought about, you know, it was like freezing cold here in Michigan.

And I was like, man, I remember back in the day, I used to love my letterman jacket. I used to wear in high school. I was like, actually, my favorite jackets have always been letterman's. Like when I played Sigma, my letterman jacket, I wore it all the time. I was like, I don't have a letterman jacket. It's like, we need a letterman jacket for For the Culture. We got to do this. Yeah.

And so I'm actually going to buy some. I'm going to go on. So for the Mick Unplugged fam, the first, how many letters? I should get what? Five letterman jackets? I mean, that's very, very kind of you. All right. I'm going to order five letterman jackets.

I'm going to get 10 copies of the book. So the first five that message me FTC Letterman jacket. The next five that do for the culture or the next 10 that do for the culture get a book. So I'm going to go ahead online and do that now. But just so you know, and I'm going to send you a picture, a video or something. Thanksgiving, you're going to see the playing cards out

because spades happen at my house on Thanksgiving. My house is where all the fam comes in. I'm grateful for that. I'm going to have a deck of cards for you. I'm super, super grateful, truly. This has been a pleasure. We should do it again. Yeah, fam.

Why are we playing games? Absolutely. But this time, I want to interview you. Consider it done. Done. Consider it done. All right, so where can people follow and find Dr. Marcus Collins?

Across all the social channels. I go by at Mark to the C, M-A-R-C-T-O-T-H-E-C or marktothec.com, or you just Google Dr. Marcus Collins. I think the SEO has been kind to me, so I might show up. You know, when somebody says just Google me, you know they're that guy. No.

No doubt. Just Google me, you know they're that guy. No. Just Google me. I'm there. Ha ha ha. Brother, I appreciate you more than you know. Like I said, this means the world to me to have someone that I genuinely look up to that is as real, authentic, and honest as they come.

From the bottom of my soul, I appreciate you. Grateful for you, man. Looking forward to the next time. You got it. And for all the viewers and listeners, remember, your because is your superpower. Go unleash it. Thank you for tuning in to Make Unplugged. Keep pushing your limits, embracing your purpose, and chasing greatness. Until next time, stay unstoppable.