Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Marketing Superpowers: Build A Brand So Good That Getting Customers Feels Like Magic | Jon Davids

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

TAKEAWAYSPower of influence and building a strong customer communityInsights on influencer marketing and industry evolutionThe movement formula for successful brand buildingPitfalls of marketing and understanding the "why" behind a product or serviceChallenges of building a community and driving organic growth in the digital landscapeImportance of amplifying a unifying message and leveraging social proofConcept of "minimum viable concept" and promoting an idea to gauge audience resonanceCreating a movement around a brand and successful brand strategiesEvolving media habits of different age groups and adapting to changing consumer behaviorsPrinciples outlined in "Marketing Superpowers" for long-term brand successTIMESTAMPSThe importance of attention (00:00:00) Discusses the value of attention and the need to offer something truly valuable to capture attention effectively.The significance of the present (00:01:52) Explores the significance of focusing on the present and the potential risks of being too early in the market.Early entrepreneurial journey (00:03:40) John Davids shares his entrepreneurial journey, starting with his success in generating advertising revenue in the early 2000s.Origins of Influicity (00:04:41) John Davids explains the inception of Influicity and its focus on influencer marketing as its initial service offering.Evolution of influencer marketing (00:06:05) Discusses the niche and fragmented nature of influencer marketing and its impact on different audience segments.Influencers as modern TV stations (00:07:44) Compares individual influencers to modern TV stations, highlighting their role in providing content, entertainment, and education.Influencer timing and impact (00:09:56) Explores the impact of timing on the success of influencers and the evolution of social media platforms.Building a community for influence (00:11:16) Emphasizes the importance of having a business idea or product to build a community around, rather than pursuing influence for the sake of it.Authenticity and value in influence (00:13:38) Discusses the importance of authenticity and offering something truly valuable in the influencer space.Introduction to "Marketing Superpowers" (00:14:42) Introduces John Davids' upcoming book "Marketing Superpowers" and its relevance to individual influencers and larger brands.The Movement Formula (00:15:07) Explains the core concept of the book, "The Movement Formula," focusing on building customer communities and the unifying belief, faith, and action.Marketing lessons from religion and politics (00:19:22) Discusses extracting marketing lessons from powerful societal movements like religion and politics.The importance of the "why" in marketing (00:19:41) Emphasizes the significance of starting with the "why" in marketing to address customer pain points and needs effectively.Building Organically (00:22:41) Discussion on whether organic growth is possible or if pay-to-play is necessary for brand building.Liquid Death Story (00:23:30) The story of Liquid Death's successful promotion before the product was even built, demonstrating the power of marketing before production.Crumble Cookies Case Study (00:26:01) Exploration of how Crumble Cookies built a successful brand through storytelling, community, and limited-time offers.Hacking the Axis (00:31:11) Strategies to fast-track brand influence and navigate growth plateaus.Owned vs. Rented Land (00:34:29) Discussion on the importance of migrating community engagement from rented platforms to owned channels.TikTok's Significance (00:37:22) The significance of TikTok as a major platform and the debate around its longevity.Future-proof Marketing (00:39:09) The importance of embracing principles outlined in "Marketing Superpowers" to stay relevant in evolving media habits.Book Promotion (00:40:45) Promotion of "Marketing Superpowers" with details on where to find and pre-order the book. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

I think some people are fooled by the term fake it till you make it. You could fake it for a very long time and never make it. If you have something to offer that's truly valuable, you can put it out there actually in pretty crummy form and people will jump to get it. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet

with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now. Yo, what's up guys? It's Ryan Offord. I'm your host. Welcome to Right About Now. Hey, we said we're always getting right.

It's always about what works now. And I think that's really sort of the mantra for today. So we've got John Davids. He's the CEO of Influicity, and he is the writer and the author of Marketing Superpowers. What's up, John? Ryan, it's awesome to be here, bro. I've been looking forward to this. Excited to talk to you. Yeah. Anyone that has superpowers or is writing about them as kind of a, I don't know, Superman, Batman growing up, you know, I was pretty pumped. And I think, you know, the biggest thing is you know how to grab attention. And that's the key today is, you know, grabbing attention, but you got a lot of substance behind it. So I really respect a lot of what I see that you're doing and excited to kind of get behind all of it. I appreciate that, man.

Yeah, learning how to hijack attention is something I figured out pretty young, but really figuring out how to monetize it and turn it into money and sales and dollars and sustainably do that, that took a bit longer. So yeah, but you got to start with step one. You got to get attention if you want to get anywhere. Yeah. Well, I've been asking, you know, it wasn't like when we came up with the show title, it was sort of, it was intentional, you know, like there's a lot of stuff that's the sacred cows of the past and too forward looking, you know, the metaverse, you know, like there's a lot of stuff that's the sacred cows of the past and too forward looking, you know, the metaverse. You know, like so it's like right about now is sort of meant to be like, OK, let's talk about now and what's working.

You know, let me ask you this question, though. Would you rather be right or would you rather be now? Because let me give you a little more context while you digest that. So yeah, I mean, a lot of people like to future cast, but they're not always right. And then some people like to be exactly precise. If they're going to talk about something,

they want to make sure it's definitively known. Which camp do you fall in? You know, I think people romanticize the past and the future. The reality is what's happening now is the least sexy, but probably the most useful. So if I had to pick, I would say just stick with now because you're going to be right more often than not. The problem also, and we all see this in the startup world, is that people are right. They're just way too early. And then they die a premature death. And if they say, oh, if I just waited three years, I would have been bang on the money.

Yeah, there you go. Talked like a true analyst. You got to see the data, baby, right? Got to see the data and you got to live it. Because if you're early, like I've been in the past, man, it can be painful. Yeah, yeah, no kidding. I've got a few of those scars myself, a few less zeros on the bank account. But John, let's set the table, you know, give a little bit of your brief background and who the hell you are. Yeah, man, I'm a kid that couldn't do too much, but figured out how to get attention on the internet in college and was able to turn that into a $300,000 business. Short version is figured out BuzzFeed before BuzzFeed came along, figured out how to get people to read content on the internet. This is pre-Facebook, pre-YouTube, pre-all that. And I learned in the early 2000s, the big sites on the internet were

MSN, AOL, and Yahoo. And I essentially made some content, did some deals so that I could provide them with their content. And in return, they gave me links, hyperlinks back to my site. And just doing that, a whole lot of hustle and grind, I was able to build a business with a whole lot of advertising revenue, pulling in about $300,000 a year, paid for college and then some. And that was kind of my start of my entrepreneurial journey. Yeah, I love it. What the hell does influicity mean? I got to ask, you know, like for the audience sake, I know it sounds like a cool word. You know, I think I know it's it there's influence in there and, you know, there's action. So what does it mean?

I still remember coming up with Influicity. I was struggling so hard to come up with it. You know how hard it is to come up with names, man. Like you want to get something that encapsulates everything. But yeah, it was a bit of influence. It was sort of like its own world. I kind of came up with city. And I think I actually sat down in the end

and just wrote down a whole bunch of words, you know, left side of the page, right side of the page. But, you know, our start was influencer marketing. So that was the inception of it. And that's all we did for the first five years. I mean, it was a long time before we added any other services. So it's kind of influence.

Yeah, I love it. I mean, influencer marketing is an interesting, you know, world, right? I mean, you've lived and breathed it, like you said, the first five years. I'd love for your perspective, because a lot of, you know, it's been around longer than you think, but it's evolved and there's more people. I would stop short of calling it crowded. I don't think it's crowded because it's still effective. I think crowded starts to erode perception of effectiveness, which is not what I'm trying to do. But it's definitely changed. I mean, what's your view just on influencer marketing and the evolution of it?

Yeah, I would say it's not crowded. It's splintered. And the more influencers that come along, the more space they carve out and they do take share away from others. But it's share that is better used on exactly what they're doing. So what I would say, you know, at a high level, influencers and influence in our culture is incredibly niche. It's incredibly fragmented. We all live in our own brand bubbles. We all swipe the feed on TikTok and Instagram and see something and think everyone else is seeing it. Well, here's a newsflash.

No one else is seeing it. You turn to the person to your right and your left, they're seeing something totally different. So we're all in our own cultures and our own bubbles. And I think influence plays a big part of that because everybody can grab a mic and the camera. You know, most people aren't as good as they think they are. We can't all be Ryan. But if we can build something that people can watch, all of a sudden we can carve out our own 10,000 fans. And now, again, we've splintered it again. So that's how I think about it. Yeah. And I don't know, it's become really interesting

because I had this conversation this morning, so it's really relevant, John. And with TV declining, like linear TV, social media doing what it's done, it's been rising a long time, podcasting rising, all these mediums. Like it's almost becoming like individual influencers or people are almost like the TV stations of today. You know, like it's fascinating because, you know, it's almost like reality TV meets social media, meets authority, meets, I don't know, celebrity. It's this combination of things that makes it the content entertainment that people want to watch or even education. I mean, because even TV was used for education and entertainment. And now it's sort of like influencers are the news CBS, ABC, NBC. I don't know if you've ever thought

about it like that. Oh man, you're reading my mind. I mean, do you remember back when Ozzy Osbourne had a reality show? Yeah, of course. And it was Ozzy Osbourne and it was the OC and the Hills on MTV. And it was really a lot of MTV. And then it was Laguna Beach and I'm trying to like Jersey Shore. And when this happened and then years later, it was the a lot of MTV. And then it was Laguna Beach and I'm trying to like Jersey Shore. And when this happened, and then years later, it was the Kardashians. But that was kind of the start in my mind of the modern influencer era, where you really build networks around individuals, they become their own micro brands. And then they start building products and services and all kinds of stuff around themselves. And then it went from linear TV and cable to Instagram. And that I would say probably the first big piece of that was the

Kardashians, you know, Kim Kardashian, 300 million plus followers on Instagram. So it's been this slow burn, but it actually happened pretty quickly, just a couple of decades. Yeah, it is. And Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt are friends from the Hills. Oh yeah. And had both of them on, on our show over the years and talked a lot about that. Heidi maintains that she was more popular at one time than Kim Kardashian, but the inner, but the social media had, they were, you know, like two years behind it. With social media had been like two more years advanced, you know, their fame and fortune would have been multiplied. And I don't know that she's wrong. I don't know if, and I love both of them.

They're actually pretty good people and fun to be around and, you know, have their own skills and talents. and fun to be around and, you know, have their own skills and talents. I think that the Kardashians might be a little more naturally entrepreneurial than maybe them. But the attention that they're describing that they might have had was probably on par. You're bang on, man. If you think about it, back to the conversation about you've got to be now because they were a bit early. If you think about them and even the Osbournes, like the Kardashians, yeah, they had the momager that was pushing them and probably doing a better job than others.

But also it was the timing. Paris Hilton, Heidi Montag, Spencer, he was the villain on the show, if I remember, from a couple of decades ago. Yeah, we all hated Spencer. But if they had just come around three, four years later, yeah, they would have been in the position to capture Instagram and Snapchat and all the rest. Yeah, exactly. What's been your experience now, like, you know, having the agency and working

with, you know, more of the, I don't know, self-made influencers, I imagine, and the ones that do it. Is it it seems like in a way, you know, like you said, not everybody's and I don't know that I'm good either, but not everyone's good necessarily in front of the camera and the mic. But what's the balance between what's necessary to be an influencer? Like you've got micro influencers, you got big influence, all that. Like it's hard for me to sort of divide the line because people always go like, well, should I just be an influencer. Like you've got micro influencers, you got big influencers, all that. Like it's hard for me to sort of divide the line because people always go like, well, should I just be an influencer? And like, you know, it depends. Does this enter into your foray much? You've got to have something to offer. And, you know, in the book, so one thing I talk about a lot is the idea of choosing your content format wisely. So you could do visual content, video.

You could do photo content. You can do written content. And there are influencers throughout every one of those genres. You could have a famous author who's an influencer. You could have someone who's on YouTube as an influencer. You could have a writer, someone on Twitter. So there's definitely different levels. But this whole idea of should I

be an influencer is the wrong way to approach it. First of all, most influencers, and I know a lot of them, they make no money. They're poor and they don't have any money and there's no way of making money. So just because someone's got 100,000 followers and they're getting a bunch of likes, they're dead broke. So don't be fooled by that. That private jet is a set in Santa Monica. I've been there. The second piece, the second piece is the best way to go about it is to have a business idea in mind or something that you could possibly sell and build a community around that. The reason I talk so much about community and building customer communities is because that really is where you can connect content and commerce. So you can say, you know, down the line, maybe I want to start a brand for moms.

I want to do a clothing brand for moms. I'm a young woman. That's my thing. The thing I would do on day one is start making content to serve that audience. And then you'll monetize down the line. But just making content for the sake of it, because I want to be an influencer, most of the time, that's a loser's game. Yeah. And I think that's the evolution right there, right?

It used to, I think it's gotten a little better with people recognizing that, you know, like just the sports cars and, you know, beach photos and all the sort of aspirational content versus the meaningful, you know, like, like you said, truly building a community. And I think that's where you see the divide of the, ironically, the haves and the have nots. It's like, show me like what's seemingly a well-made, thoughtful, yet underproduced video. And I'll show you who's probably making six figures versus the opposite of you know the beach photos and everything else who's uh probably living the reverse lifestyle right i think there's

a lot of what you're describing 100 you know and and it's this idea i think some people are fooled by the term fake it till you make it you could fake it for a very long time and never make it. If you have something to offer that's truly valuable, you can put it out there actually in pretty crummy form and people will jump to get it. I'll give you an example. There's a guy I know on Wall Street. He has a hedge fund and he is an influencer. He can put content out on Twitter X.

He can put content out on LinkedIn and he will have people clamoring to see his content. And I'll tell you why. Because what he's putting out is insanely valuable data, camera like I do, because he's got something way more valuable to offer, which is a financial model that's super valuable to this audience. So you've got to think about connecting, again, content to commerce and think about how you get there logically. It takes more than just beach photos. Yeah. Talking with John Davids, author of Marketing Superpowers that's coming out soon. Is that right?

Can we hold the book up for everyone, John? June 18th, man. Pre-order right now. MarketingSuperpowersBook.com. There you go. Talk to me. Let's talk about the book. Like what are the marketing superpowers? And, you know, we've been talking about individual influencers. Are we talking about, is the book more geared towards that business versus, you know, corporate business and larger brands and things like that? Yeah, the book is pretty universal. And you'd be surprised, like I said, we did nothing but influencer marketing for the first five years. And we do a lot more than that now at Influicity. But even in those first five years, our clients were maybe not who you'd think they are. Yes, we had the Toyotas and JP Morgans of the world, but we also had like construction companies, accounting firms. Influence lives in every business, every sector. It doesn't

matter who you are, a 70-year-old man or a 13-year-old girl, we're all influenced. The book itself is actually a spin on influence. And the reason I say that is because it really focuses on customer communities. So it doesn't matter what business you're in, you need to build a community of people that are obsessed with your product. And the core of the book comes down to one simple formula, and I'll give you the formula right now. It's called the movement formula. And every brand needs to have this, a unifying belief multiplied by faith equals action. And your unifying belief multiplied by faith equals action. And your unifying belief is what is something that everybody should believe,

everybody that you're selling to should believe. Number two is faith. What are all the things that you do every day to build faith? Things like testimonials and case studies and books and studies. And then the third thing is action. How can they, if they believe you, how can they actually buy into it? And the answer usually is buy my product. Yeah. I love it. And I always

talk about a formula that's it's, it's not that exact thing, but it's like, what do we want people to think? How do we want them to feel? What do we want them to do? Love that. Love that man. And so like when I'm building a creative brief for for a brand it sort of starts with that like you know what what do we want them to think how we want to feel because people think with their head and they buy with their heart ultimately but they do emotion and logic emotion and logic it's the it's the combination and i think that's what i love with with your formula like the faith it wasn't what I thought at first. I'm like, oh, no, John Davids is going to tell me that hope and faith is a strategy.

No way, man. No, it is not. You're talking about the faith of what builds the faith, the social proof, the sort of what ladders back up to proving ultimately your unifying belief, right? Did I get that right? You just nailed it. It's the social proof. It's the case studies. It's the thought leaders that echo what you're saying. And it goes beyond brand. One of the reasons I love thinking about it, and I named it the movement formula, is because I talk about things like the ketogenic diet. I talk about things like crypto. I talk about things like the ketogenic diet. I talk about things like crypto.

I talk about things like strategies that people use for investing. The biggest one of all is religion. Everything follows the exact same formula of belief, faith, action. And yeah, it's not about hope and a prayer and me wishing someone's gonna buy my product. It's me working hard to prove to them

that this is the way to go. You know, and I'm a God-believing man, but I'm just going to say this because I'm also a marketer and like, you know, like educated. I go to like, I've been to a few, like the super churches. Man, you talk about knowing the formula. They got it, baby. Like, they're like, if you want to study marketing,

go to one of these mega churches and see the content and see it all. And I mean, extracting the message out of it, because I'm not trying to be blasphemous for anyone listening. I'm just more impressed with the overall organization and their understanding of the tennis that you just talked about. 100%, man. It's funny. There are so many things in our culture that you got to be careful about talking about. So two of the tennis that you just talked about. A hundred percent, man. It's funny, there are so many things in our culture that you gotta be careful about talking about. So two of the most powerful movements in our society are politics and religion. And those are two things you gotta be very careful

because I don't wanna offend anybody. Like you said, we're taking lessons. We're not trying to be blasphemous. But I talk about those two things in the book as examples. And if you look at the US presidential campaign, and I don't mean this one, I mean any one of them for the last 50 years. And if you look at religions, again, not one, but all of them, they all follow the same pattern. And if you can extract the lessons, you can say, OK, I can sort of do this and this in my business. And it has the same effect. and it has the same effect. That's right. Do you think like with most people or brands,

you know, in trying to build the movement and trying to get that universe, you know, like where does the pitfalls come? You know, like what's, what are, you know, maybe some of the things that holding people back or what's their biggest problem kind of getting to that stage? The biggest thing I see, Ryan, constantly is there's two things you got

to talk about. There's the how and the why, and people get them reversed. You see, the why is why somebody needs to solve this problem. If you want to go to the gym and lose weight and get a six pack, your why is because I want to get a six pack. That's why I'm going to the gym. But if I'm the person who owns the gym, who's trying to sell you a membership, and all I'm talking about is, hey, I have a gym, buy a membership, here are my hours, check out the equipment. All you're talking about is the how. And again, you as the business owner, or maybe as the marketing person think, oh, but that's what I'm trying to sell. It's a gym. And no, no, no, you're not. You're trying to sell the why. The why is because you desperately

want to lose weight so you can play with your kids, so you can run up the stairs, so you can live to be 85 years old and be healthy and happy. So figuring out what is the why, that's the customer's why, and what is the how, and that's my product. But always start with the why and go on with it for as long as you can. You'll notice, man, one thing, for example, in my content, I talk about a lot of stuff on LinkedIn, on Instagram. I'm always talking about the why. I'm always talking about what's of interest to you as the reader. I don't talk about myself at all. Or if I do, it's like in the PS of what I'm writing. So focusing on the why and then getting to the how only when they're ready to take out their wallet. Ah, love it.

Now you're in the pulpit now preaching like a true preacher. You got me fired up, man. Yes, I love it. Is, yeah, it's fascinating to me. A good, one of my good friends is Christopher Lockhead, Category King developer. And he says, he who evangelizes and owns the customer product will rule the category. And that's what you described in a lot of ways is not your speeds and feeds and features or your brand colors, but owning, i.e. messaging, i.e. showing that you understand that pain point, that problem. And because when you own the problem, your brand or your service tends to be the solution, right?

Because it's the payoff. It's the payoff. And people will beat a path to your door if you have something of value. And the thing of value is not what you have, it's what they want. And so that's where, again, people get confused. I get messages all the time on social media because I preach about the power of building a customer community and marketing and making money and this sort of entrepreneurship marketing stuff. And people will message me and ask me for things that I don't even sell. Like they want

consulting services or they want, people were asking me for my book long before I ever wrote a book. You know, people, hey, do you have a book I can buy? It's like, no, I don't, I didn't even write a book. And so if you have a solution or if you have a message, I should say, that resonates, people will beat a pat to your door. Bingo. How do, John, you know, when you're building, I had this same discussion recently. You know, it's not you build it and they come, unfortunately. So, I mean, unless it's TikTok, which still has some organic power, you know, you've got to amplify these things.

You know, like you get your unifying message. You get your social proof. You have all the content. You're doing these things. You know, like you get your unifying message, you get your social proof, you have all the content, you're doing these things, but is one way or another, is it pay to play or can these things really happen organically? Oh, they can happen organically, man. And I'll give you my, my, my diatribe on that. Do you know the story of liquid death at all? Yeah, I do. I know it well enough to know the Cliff's notes, but let's talk about it for the audience sake. Yeah. So Liquid Death, it's tall boy cans of water. Looks like it was designed in a tattoo bar. I say it's Dasani meets Post Malone. That's kind of what it looks like. Yeah. But the reason I bring it up is because what you just said,

build it and they will come. Build it and they will come, that does not work. But if you talk about it and promote it without actually ever building it, they actually might come too. And I'll give you the liquid death example. So before that brand ever started, before that product was ever built, there was no canned water at the time.

What the founder did was he just put out a video and then ads, I think he spent like three or 400 bucks ads on Facebook, driving to this video with this really cool new rock punk star water brand. And then when you actually clicked and got to the landing page, it was just a email field. Hey, this product doesn't exist yet. Put your email in and we'll let you know when we have it. And he was able to get, I think it was some crazy number, like 50 or 100,000 email addresses of people who were just desperate for this water because they bought into the message,

they bought into the brand, and he was able to then build it. So it wasn't build it and they will come, it was promote it and then they will come and then you can build it. So I just like showing that example because to me, that's like the minimum viable concept. Forget about minimum viable product. it and then they will come and then you can build it. So I just like showing that example because it's for me, it's like that's like the minimum viable concept. Forget about minimum viable

product. That's the minimum viable concept of just showing a message to people and seeing if it resonates. You down with MVC? Yeah, you know me. Minimum viable concept. You don't have to make the product. John David, everybody's going to love this, man. It's going to be like, I don't even have to make the product. Just give me, I can always start promoting some concepts. If the concept makes sense. And yeah, on the side of like building organically, again, I talked to so many brands that are playing what I call the messy marketing math game, which is how do I spend a dollar to make $5? How do I spend a dollar to make $5? How do I spend a dollar to make $7 on Facebook? It's like, get off the Zuckerberg train for a second. And if you open

your eyes, you'll see there are brands that are spending a dollar to make $100, make $1,000 because they have brands that resonate so magnetically. When you see a line outside the door because this new sneaker brand just launched and there are people lining up at six in the morning believe me they're not running uh facebook ads and doing the math they're just putting their product out there because they've already built that community yeah i love it uh and it's it's playing from the playbook baby and like let me just say this let me give you another great example crumble cookies oh yeah that it that is a textbook example of this you know and look yeah they're selling here's what companies i talk to like i use them as a case study like sometimes or like as an example well they're selling desserts you

know like they want to like not give them credit because they're selling desserts or will they have 900 locations? You know, that's why they're doing it. No, they were doing this when they had four stores. They knew how to evangelize the product. They knew how to make it. It was a branding masterclass combined with how to garner attention and interest and something that's been around for years. How long have cookies been around? You you know like it's been around forever but who would spend eight dollars on a cookie well a lot of fucking people are that's what they are and because they knew how

to create a story they knew how to create a movement around delicious cookies because you see though how they're made high quality video content you see how they're made, high-quality video content showing them how they're made, describing the story, those pink brilliant boxes, you know, that get your attention. Everybody wants that pink box. Craveability, you know, meets attention, meets amplification. I love that story.

It's so true, man. And I wrote about Crumble Cookies probably about two years ago, maybe a year and a half ago. And what's so cool about their brand is if you look at the others in the market, there's Dirty Dough, there's a whole bunch of others. Last Crumb, I think, is another high-end one. But Crumble just nailed the social storytelling so well, and they made it about so much more than just the cookie. So again, going back to the movement formula, the unifying belief that cookies should be enjoyed with family.

And really, they extended that. It was about family. It was about happiness, connection. And that really resonated. And then you had all these faith builders, everything. They're releasing a new cookie every week. They have a killer app, 900 locations or 900, yeah, some huge number of locations. And they just nailed these pieces of

the social culture so well. And yeah, they spun up a product with zero innovation. Really, it's just a chocolate chip cookie with some fancy ingredients. And they were able to build this absolute power brand. Yeah. Sagar Hemsley is one of the founders. Had him on right about now and messaged with him occasionally. He's brilliant. And I'll say this,

they did everything that you said and you mentioned it a little bit, but then they combined like the tried and true retail tactics. Limited time offer every Sunday. So they've got the beautiful cookies being made videos and all that. But they have limited time offer three new flavors each week. Two stand that always their chocolate chip cookie and some other one. And then three new ones to be more excited.

They're jazzed to come back. They don't know when their favorite is going to come. Then they created scarcity. They created FOMO. They create all that, all these things in one. And so that's part of what drives the movement too. And so even if you, and I think with brands and stuff like that's a, that's a component tree that I think sometimes gets sold. And look, I hate performance marketing. I hate the term. I hate that the salesmanship of what you said, like $4 is going to all that stuff. And I don't, I don't hate the tactics. I just hate the perception of performance. Look, we all, all companies are in business to make sales. You know, of course, we need some performance. But you can't have performance when you don't have a movement.

You can't have sizzle without the steak, baby. You said it, and it's got to be self-propelling. And I'm with you. We love Google. We love Facebook. We run ads on those platforms. I'm not against that. We love Google. We love Facebook.

We run ads on those platforms. I'm not against that. What I'm against is people building businesses that are 100% reliant on those platforms. And there are so many case studies of businesses that have crashed and burned. There's a graveyard of e-commerce companies. I don't want to name them because I don't want to offend anybody. But there's all these e-commerce companies that thought they had figured out the Facebook algorithm, built their $50 million business on it, and then realized when those numbers fluctuate a little bit, guess what? Their cogs fall out of whack. Their CAC is off. But at a certain point, you've got to own the demand too. And going back to your example of Crumble Cookies, urgency, scarcity, FOMO, limited time offers, rituals. Another big one is rituals.

They build this habit of we're going to drop cookies on this day. They're going to show up on TikTok this day, come into the store on this day. All those things are what makes for a brand that people are obsessed with. Talking with John Davids, author of Marketing Superpowers, coming out here soon. John, you know, building equity and building community, it's not easy. It's not, there's a formula to it, but where do people go? Like, you know, it's one thing to get started and to have that universal belief. You start to build proof and all that. How do we grow, nurture, and keep that community engaged? It's a great point. And I actually dedicated an entire section of the book. The last section of the book is called Hacking the Axis. So I've got this thing that I call the

axis of influence, which basically explains how things, brands become influential in society. And then at the very end of the book, I talk about hacking the axis. How do you actually fast track, get in the speed lane, and also change when things change around you. There's no question that as brands grow, they'll hit a ceiling and maybe they'll get to 100,000 followers or this much revenue or what have you. But then they hit a ceiling and they have to kind of break what they've built and rebuild again to get to that next plateau. I think where most people get stuck in the early phases, let's talk about like zero to one or one to two, is they keep doing the same wrong thing without

actually improving. It's not good enough to just keep at it for months and years at a time. Like you've got to do that, of course. But if your content format isn't working, if you're writing content and really your written content's not performing, try doing video content. If you have one person doing the content and people aren't connecting with that person, maybe they're not a fit for the brand or the community you're building, try swapping somebody else in there. So thinking about not only staying at it for a long time, but shifting around my approach, my content, my know, I'll tell you my own personal story. I started making content, I mean, really like 10 years ago, but it wasn't until like 2021 that I finally started to hit because my storytelling got to the point where it was just way better because I'd been working at it for so long. My copywriting

got a lot better, my public speaking. And so it took a long time, but I was also improving in that time. And that's the thing that I think a lot of people miss. Yeah. When you're a good, good gold there, that'll be a highlight clip that, that segment right there. Just for, so if you're listening, you can rewind that a couple of times. So John, I kind of glossed over it. I didn't want to, cause you, you spoke some of my other love language, the, the owned versus a rented land, uh, aspect. And it's a tough one. It's tough because, you know, we leverage social media, these rented lands, these walled gardens, you know, we're renting them, you know, sometimes free and you don't know when they're going to change.

And so it is super key to be migrating them to sort of those owned channels. But like when you're I do always think, though, like on the own side, some of the decisions have to be made with like keeping up with that community delivering. Because email is certainly the channel. You want that first party data. You want to be able to have that direct communication. But how else, you know, I mean, are you a proponent of like building these sort of internal walled gardens? Like, how else are we kind of keeping that community intact beyond email? Yeah, there's different levels. So there's definitely the rented landscape, totally rented, which is I'm going to buy space on Google to get in front of your eyeballs. Then you have the next level down, which is the social media platforms, which are not

owned by you, but at least you have organic access to them and you got to still play by the algorithm. And then at the very bottom, you've got things like email. You've also got podcasts and SMS, I would say, you know, texting people's phone numbers. So, you know, the way I think about it is, yes, ultimately you want to get as close to first party data as you possibly can. I want to have an un-intermediated relationship with you. If you're my customer, that comes down to phone and email. But regardless, if you have touch points that are out there and if you're doing as you scale, if you're doing a lot of stuff, so maybe you start with Instagram, then you expand to TikTok and YouTube and X and podcast and video. If you have enough touch points, you can be present in people's lives and part of their

daily habits, even if they never subscribe or listen, I do a podcast, you do a podcast, you do an amazing podcast. And I'm sure you have people come up to you on the street, Ryan, or maybe, you know, email you and say, hey, I've been listening to you for, you know, six months, man. And you don't know this person's name. There's no indication that they have any relationship, but they are tuning in. So just because you don't see them doesn't mean that people aren't there. Yeah, that's a big one.

I'm in the grocery store and I get, you know, we change our name and we have the Radcast Network now with Right About Now being on it. But we used to be just the Radcast. And I'll get, you know, crossing the street or at a grocery store with my son, one of my sons, Radcast. You know, like that's just what they like. That's awesome. Sometimes it scares me. Oh, oh, oh, what happened? And no, but yeah, to that very end, you never know where it's coming or at an airport. That seems to be where it happens. A grocery store at an airport. I don't know what that is, at least for my call outs and asking me things. Yeah. DMs.

Airports are the best for that because airports are where it doesn't matter who you are, where you're from. Everyone congregates at airports. We all end up at an airport at a certain point. So, yeah, you will see if people know you if you get stopped at an airport. Yes. Yes. What I mean, what do you make of I haven't spent much time with this. You know, the whole tick tock thing, less a debate about if it's going away or not, but like it is such a behemoth now. It's hard to ignore. When you're talking with brands or people that you work with, I mean, where does TikTok fit in there? And is it just so big that no one should ignore it or is it still niche to you? It's definitely not niche. It's definitely big and

I wouldn't ignore it. And you see businesses big and small. I mean, I open my TikTok and I see people talking about interest rates and mortgages and entrepreneurship because that's what I'm into. But then my wife opens it and she's looking at food videos and kid videos. So everyone's in their own little feed bubble. I would say that the discussion around is TikTok going to come or go, it's not going anywhere. It might transfer ownership from a usage perspective. You might see a difference in the algorithm or you might see a difference in some of the fine print. But like you're not going to not have TikTok. If I had to put money on it, I would say TikTok's not leaving.

Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a big debate. But I would say, you know say TikTok's not leaving. Yeah, agreed. Yeah, yeah. And that's a big debate, but I would say it's not going anywhere. But should you avoid it or should you try not to be on it? I would say people who avoid it today are probably going to be looking back in six months, a year, two years, three years, and they're probably going to join the bandwagon anyhow. But to be fair, Ryan, that's what happens with a lot of social media platforms. A lot of us didn't join Twitter in 2007, right? We joined it in like 2015.

And so a lot of us didn't do podcasts in 2005. We did it in 2018. So that's just the reality of how these platforms work. It's not going anywhere and I'd embrace it. That's at least what I've done. Yeah. Agreed. I led the witness a little bit, but too big to ignore. Too big to fail. A little bit. A little bit. Exactly. John, as we're kind of wrapping up here, you know, any final counsel, any final, you know, tips, tricks, things that you're seeing on your radar or things that you want to convey to our audience? Yeah, I would just say that people, wherever they are in their business journey, whether you're an entrepreneur or professional marketing or a CMO, a CEO, you need to think about some of the stuff I talk about in marketing superpowers, not because it's a certain way to market or not because it's like, oh, if you're talking to this kind of customer, I need to build a community or I need to build a movement. This is the way the world is going. Five, 10, 20 years from now, if you talk to people today, I talk to them all the time. I have young cousins, nieces, nephews who are 15, 16, 17.

Their media habits, their media diets, their consumption habits are a different world from what somebody in their 30s, 40s, or 50s is living today or has grown up with. And so, you need to think about the principles I talk about in marketing superpowers because they will affect every single brand. And if you want to be around in 5, 10, 20 years and still be relevant, this is what you need to do today. 100%. And I'll leave you with this and why I support marketing superpowers and the tenets that John's been talking about. Here's what people get lost in.

If you only make one sale to a customer and you aren't building a relationship for lifetime value and for repeat sales and referrals and word of mouth, you can never outrun the new customer game. You will never get where you need to go. And that is the superpower. And that is why you need to check out John Davis' new book. John, it's a pleasure having you on, brother. Talk to me about where everybody can keep up and buy the book. Absolutely, man.

The book is simple. MarketingSuperpowersBook.com. You can go there, get a free sample, get the first few chapters free, and of course, pre-order. And you can go Amazon, Barnes & Noble, wherever you want to get your books. And then I'm at JohnDavids.com. You can go there, follow me across social. And I really appreciate you having me on today, man. This was awesome. Yeah, man. Hey, if you want your brand to fly, you got to get marketing superpowers. You know where to find us, ryanisright.com. We'll have links to all this stuff today, where you can find John, where you can buy the book,

and where you can learn more about everything we're doing every day. We appreciate you for making us number one. We'll see you next time on Right About Now. This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit RyanIsRight.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.