outbound is dead, like that outbound marketing is dead.

Welcome to Marketing in the Raw.

This is Deanna.

I'm here with the trusty host, Adam.

Adam, how you doing?

I'm doing okay.

I thought you were gonna say Trustee Dusty for some reason.

No, we left Dusty out this time.

I'm, thank you for pausing the recording and redoing it.

Uh, after saying dusty last time,

No problem.

Glad, glad to be here.

What's going on?

You know, I'm Not a lot.

I feel like I usually, there's something going on, but for once, and I think this is great.

There's not a lot going on.

Well, we're talking like days after the election

I'm trying to have nothing go on.

and we're, we're about to hit head into the home stretch of everything, right?

The end of the year holiday time.

Um, are you, are you a, are you a Thanksgiving person?

Do you like Thanksgiving?

do.

My family has a love of food, gathering around food.

It's when we argue the least, um, collaborate the best.

food shoved in their mouth so they can't say anything bad to the people next to them.

Yeah, so we love it.

We will gather, we'll gather around the table, cook an inordinate amount of food, and the rest is herstory.

Herstory, is that what you just said?

Yeah, it's like history, but with her.

to think of, who, who said that?

That's gotta be, somebody said that

It's not mine.

Nope, I can't take credit.

It's not like a Taylor Swift thing or something like that?

No.

Nice.

Um, well, uh, We usually do.

Um, I don't have tons of family that live like really close by any longer.

Uh, we'll probably have my mom over.

I'm hoping that a couple of folks that are out of the country will be in the country at the time so they can come over and have it.

There's just not a lot of pressure in the same way that there is for like.

Big cultural or religious holidays to just, you know, Thanksgiving, you're just showing gratitude.

I'm a big fan of gratitude.

So therefore I'm a big fan of Thanksgiving.

And, um, you know, I transitioned from many years ago, somebody else doing the Turkey to being the one that does the Turkey, you know, me and myself and my wife, I can't act like I'm the one that's cooking the Turkey all the time.

Um, And honestly, sometimes we're doing brisket because I actually like doing smoked brisket.

Um, but, uh, now I'm thinking of that.

And I haven't even had lunch yet today, so I'm ready to go eat.

Um, but, uh, today, uh, we, we're having Um, a really, uh, interesting conversation with AJ Rocco, um, and it just reminds me of all these conversations I continue to have with marketing leaders, how big the, um, theme of leadership is.

Because everybody we're talking to are, marketing leaders.

We, we, you know, we've got a lot of other folks on their teams, but we're talking to people who actually have a responsibility ultimately to lead marketing within their company.

And you know, there's a human element that goes along with that.

Obviously they're building their team, they're delegating, they're learning about how good they are at building the teams and delegating and trying to improve at that.

Um, and it got me thinking a little bit about, uh, uh, You know, like AJ went from being somebody who just working on, um, marketing at, at his first job at, on social media to becoming a leader at that same organization in marketing in, in the blink of an eye, you'll hear the story about how that happened, but, um, you yourself, Deanna, in your role as a account manager at secret sushi, you know what that's like to.

Kind of find yourself someplace that I don't think you necessarily had the intention of being there, but what are your, what are your feelings?

Like when, when we first talked and said, look, I want you to step into this role.

Did you have any reservations?

Uh, did you have any fears?

Was there a bunch of excitement?

I want to, I want to, let's, let's talk about, let's put it out there.

Marketing in the raw, let's be raw about this.

Let's be raw.

Yeah, I'm super excited and honored that you and Henry, what you all saw, and me, So I had to channel that instead of letting the imposter creep in and say, you're not good enough at that.

You don't know what you're doing.

You know, those are mean words to say to yourself, but they happen every once in a while.

But I just remember feeling actually really empowered.

And when someone trusts you to take on that kind of role in like leadership or.

managing a team or delegating, there is a little bit of blind trust that has to happen.

And so to me, that was a huge honor and you are always very transparent.

And so there was no question to me, like if I, if I was actually a good fit for that role, you made it very clear, this is how you see it.

And, and I agreed because you believed in me.

Well, that's interesting that you say it that way, right?

Where you say there's a little bit of blind trust, and I don't know if that's, it'd be interesting for the listeners to, to comment on it about if that's the way.

Um, Other folks feel as well.

I wish it would be something I'd go back and ask AJ.

Um, also, um, but I, I think, I think commenting back to you about that, I'd say, like, it was something we would have wanted to do even sooner than we actually did.

And you yourself had to actually earn it to, I mean, like you, you earned it.

You, you earned it and, uh, and so you were stepping into something that you absolutely earned.

And we, we, we wish we could have done sooner, but we did end up doing it in the end.

And, um, I'm sure that that could be different for a lot of people.

I mean, I'm sure that there's some individuals that get tossed into a job and, um, They don't get supported and they don't, um, have like the transparency that you're talking about with me, um, and, and Henry.

And so therefore it can feel maybe a little bit more like a bait and switch than it does like an opportunity, I guess.

Um,

Yeah.

would you, would you agree?

Have you ever had that in like maybe another job that you had in the past where it was a little bit like, yeah, these people want somebody to do this work, but they actually don't?

don't want to support me.

They don't got that level of confidence.

You're just kind of looking for somebody to fill in this gap and hope that I can rise to the challenge without really any of that.

So that support system, that, that, that they themselves as leaders should be also infusing into that, uh, role for you.

Yeah, that's happened.

Luckily not very often.

Um, but I, I have felt that before when you're given more responsibility, but not given the tools and the support to actually crush the role, you know, so That feels like, almost feels like you're being worked out of a position.

Like if you're given something you're either not qualified for or not supported in.

So yeah, I don't feel like that at all.

I'm wondering how you feel about going from a one man show 18 years ago with Secret Sushi to now leading the whole team and having a huge influence on all of the people that work with you.

Um, It's definitely that same thing of like having a belief in yourself.

In this case, there isn't anybody else outside that has to like have that belief.

I think, I think, I think that's a little untrue.

And what I mean by that is I've had some great folks who have been a part of the team at different times.

You know, one of my best friends Steve who worked with us for a period of time, uh, definitely Henry, a number of other folks who, um, um, Have, you know, a, a sort of institutional knowledge of working with other companies and other people and have been a little bit of that.

Um, I don't know if it's the right way to use it.

A litmus test to about whether or not, um, I'm on the right path and what I'm doing, um, and each in sort of different ways or like Henry, he is our COO and somebody who's known me for many, many years.

Um, he understands more of who I am as a person.

And so therefore the way that he helped us develop out this culture, um, at the company, like to, to be transparent and to, to be supportive and to try to look for opportunities to lift folks up into the roles that they seem very much.

you know, capable of, of, of, of getting into and doing as long as they have the right, again, like belief and support system and, and all that behind them.

Um, That it's, it's because we didn't necessarily have those people early on in our career.

Um, both Henry and I, myself, um, that we want that to be the way that we, that sort of the lens that the way we look at, uh, business and at the, at the work that we do.

Right.

And eventually it then permeates through everything else that it is that we do with our clients and, and, and so on, which I think is, is really great.

So I'm happy with, with where we are.

And in fact, I can be a better leader because I've got you and the rest of the team who, uh, Who believe in, believe not only in the vision, but you believe in me, right?

And so with that, it makes things much easier to, to lead.

Um, and it, it doesn't feel like I'm just kind of doing a job.

Uh, it actually feels like we as a team are moving together on this and we're figuring things out as we go along.

If there's any bumps we run into, uh, but we're all focused on, on, uh, Finding the right path forward for our on behalf of our clients and the folks that we work with and everything.

So cool question.

Thank you for that and Again, this talking with, with AJ talking about this episode, um, he talks a lot about kind of this, about being thrust into a leadership role and what he had to kind of learn.

Um, and, and take responsibility for within those companies as he continues to, to be in that leadership role all the way through till, uh, till now.

Um, and, uh, uh, I really enjoyed the conversation with him.

Um, he, he, a number of things that I learned where he talks about habits and about habits being, you know, a foundational year to, to the execution of achieving goals that having, I can't remember exactly the way that he said it, but basically having goals.

It's like, it's, it's, it's great that you have goals, but that's not what helps you accomplish those goals.

It's, it's, uh, constructing great habits that you, that you get behind and you act on.

Um, so I don't want to steal too much of his thunder.

I really enjoyed this conversation with AJ and, uh, we've had a longer than usual intro.

So I'm going to just let you get right into this conversation with AJ Rochow.

AJ, my man.

Uh, my Cali brethren.

How are you doing today?

I'm good, man.

I'm good.

Thanks for the invite.

Glad to be here.

You're in Southern California, right?

Yes, sir.

We are.

I'm in L.

A.

and you're in the Bay, so, um,

We won't talk about baseball

Yeah, yeah.

like that.

Have you

No, we,

that right?

This would be the time to do that because Dodgers just won a championship, so.

That's, that's awesome.

And I'm assuming, are you a Dodgers fan?

I am a Dodger fan.

I, I have to say I'm more of an October Dodger fan, uh, than anything else.

But big Laker fan, big L.

A.

Kings fan, you know, those are, those are my teams for sure.

Well, congratulations.

I don't know when it'll come back up to our side of California at all, but we can all take pride in that win in some shape or form.

I have a good friend who, who, who has lived here for quite some time, probably, I don't know, 20, 25 years at least.

And, but he's originally, uh, uh, um, I think I can't remember if it's New York city or Brooklyn or whatever, but he's, he's a Yankees guy and I was texting him, uh, whatever it was last week or something.

Um, and he texts me this photo of him, At Yankee Stadium, um, you know, he'd been waiting for it for so long, he ended up jumping on a plane and flying there just for one game at least, and that was the one game they won.

I'm not a big sports guy, so I barely even know what happened in any of this, but I do know I think it looked like that was one game that they lost, and then they swept the rest of them, right?

Yep.

No.

Yeah, he was he was at a good game for sure.

I mean the tickets were Crazy overpriced but you know people were spending twelve hundred dollars for nosebleeds, which was you know, crazy

Yeah, I asked him, I was like, you're going to end up going to the, you know, to the next game in LA or whatever it was.

And he's like, I can't, I can't afford it.

I'm done.

brought it, he brought his little brother with him and everything.

And you know, I think it was just an opportunity to, to, to try to do it at least once.

Right.

totally totally.

Yeah.

No, I mean it's I think they said something Dodgers hadn't played the yankees in this world series in like 40 years or something like that So it was definitely a definitely a big series a lot of eyeballs on it, which was cool

Well, uh, tell me in the audience a bit about you.

How did you get started in, in marketing, my friend?

Yeah, um, I probably have to go back to my college days.

Um, in college I started to major in marketing.

So early on my freshman sophomore year, um, was a marketing major and I had a class my junior year, like first semester.

With, uh, the head of the marketing department, who was one of the sharpest guys, one of my early mentors when I was in college and we were in a upper division marketing class.

So it was, you know, 15, 20 students and the con like the concepts that we were talking about were like in the digital space of social media, digital media.

And my professor at the time made a statement and he said.

You know, YouTube is not going to be around in five to 10 years.

And my eyes kind of widened up and I raised my hand and I said, prof, I, I, I totally disagree with you.

I think you're so dead wrong about the way that people are going to be consuming media and entertainment.

I think YouTube is going to be around for a long, long time.

And at that moment, a light bulb went off in my head where like, I was like, Oh my goodness, you know, for me not being the smartest guy in the room, talking to the smartest guy in the room by a mile.

Has no concept of what marketing is, is what's happening in marketing and what's really going on.

So I made a decision actually after that to major in finance.

So I double majored in marketing and finance.

So I said, what's always the same and what's consistent it's finance.

Um, but I always had a passion for people and, um, marketing to be honest, was the.

What I felt was the least amount of barriers to entry at the time.

Uh, when I was in school, it was around, you know, 2000, you know, 15, 2016, uh, right around there.

So, you know, social media was just really coming to its own.

People were starting to figure things out.

Influencer marketing was becoming a thing.

Um, YouTube obviously on the rise and I, I just saw it changing so rapidly.

And then every other big business person that I ever met in like a leadership class or anything like that, they just didn't have any real concept of what social and digital media really was outside of having a Facebook account.

Right.

So, um, I knew that marketing had a lot of opportunity more so than any other.

Piece of the industry that I felt in the, in the business sense, like finance, As a lot of, you know, testing, a lot of things you have to do, if you want to kind of rise through the ranks, uh, business management was, was tedious and there was different things there.

And marketing seemed to be kind of the wild west and something that had been the same for a long time.

There'd been these old rules of marketing.

And advertising that people had known, um, you know, kind of the, uh, the consistencies of, you know, really out of home advertising with billboards, magazines, everything's like that.

But now the media digital media space was really creating a whole new, a whole new market really for, for, for businesses to kind of tap into.

So I knew that was something that I could really lean into as someone coming out of college, super underqualified.

You know, I definitely came out with the chip on my shoulder.

I wanted to kind of make things happen.

And, um, from there I ended up getting into a startup role, uh, at a restaurant chain, global restaurant chain at the corporate level, and I was just doing social media management, uh, kind of worked through the ranks there, became director of marketing, uh, and then from that went into more of a tech and software, uh, investment firm.

Uh, working at the marketing, more business development, development, marketing there, and then joined a early startup that was full SAS in the hospitality space, um, helped grow that company, uh, from five employees to around 80 at the time raised about 13 and a half million dollars.

Um, and then went and joined a larger company in the market research space, uh, in the software space for about two years.

And, uh, now I'm at, uh, club fusion, which is a club management software as president and CMO there.

So kind of leading the charge with that company and building that brand and doing that.

So, um, that's kind of a real high level overview of where I've been, but, um, you know, that's really where it started just with me.

Really liking to talk to people and wanting to understand people.

I think a lot of marketers, you have to meet marketers who are introverted and like to just kind of think and problem solve, or you meet marketers who can do both really, really well, but be extroverted when they need to be and really understand people and, you know, there's definitely a lot of sales and marketing components, uh, that are intertwined in our business.

So, um, that was always something I felt like I had a good skill set in.

So, you know, obviously doing what I was good at was, was important.

Let me ask you.

So you talked about when you were in school, one of the things that was going on in marketing, uh, and on the digital side in general was social media.

And that's kind of, I think, cause there's, there's, there's a lots of different areas in, in marketing.

Digital marketing in the internet and so on where attention goes.

And, and but social media was the place that stood out to you at that moment, which sounds like that was your first role.

And then you transitioned from there to actually leading, uh, marketing.

So I'm interested to know, how did that transition happen in that first role?

Yeah.

So I was working as a social media manager and then at the time the company was bringing it on a director.

Uh, this is about a year and a half after I'd been there.

Um, the COO was bringing a director of marketing on.

And everyone was really excited.

You know, this person had been in the hospitality space, worked with different restaurant brands, done that.

And we were just kind of starting to gear everything up with what we were doing, because we were working with franchisees and then we also had the corporate aspect, so there was a lot of different, uh, you know, things that we were doing on the marketing side.

And long story short, basically it fell through this person, this director.

Totally just.

Just didn't take the opportunity.

They were already signed up.

I know that I don't, I don't really know the inner workings of what was happening, but I got called into the COO's office and he said, Hey, look, you've been doing a great job, you think you can do this?

And I said, sure, I think I can do that.

Like I'll figure it out.

Um, totally was very naive at that point.

Cause running social media versus running a department is very, very different.

And, um, you know, learning to, to do that well.

Um, definitely was hard, but I was always someone who was up for the, you know, up for the task, up for the challenge.

So that's really how it happened.

This person just didn't come into that role.

I, it could have been another year for me, depending on what I was at.

But, you know, there was, uh, some higher powers at work there, and then they offered me the job and the role.

And then I stepped up and tried to start solving problems and, and, uh, learning as well, uh, in that space.

Um, Uh, that was really how the transition happened.

What was one of the most challenging things that you had to deal with?

Like you, you talked about going from essentially doing something which probably was solo at the time to then managing a department and being in a, in a leadership role.

Um, and this wasn't one of those things where it sounds like you consciously were like, that's the job I'm going for it.

It happened, which is, which can be very awesome if you're willing to do like what you said, right?

Are you looking for your first transitional stepping stone to kind of a, a leadership position?

But what was the most challenging thing that you ran into at that time where you're like, Oh, I gotta, I gotta fill some gaps in here.

I gotta work on this here.

Yeah, the biggest thing for me was, and something that I've stuck with, is just learning to validate before I delegate.

And when I'm, in marketing it's, it's very important, and marketers are under serious duress.

Whether you work for, on the agency side, or you work for, on the corporate side, the individual business side.

Is, you come in and marketers are expected to know everything.

And they're expected to know content.

They're expected to know how to write.

Well, they're expected to know how to do SEO, SEM.

They're expected to know how to do Google ads, run, you know, meta ads.

Uh, they're expected to know how to put a content calendar together and schedule.

And then they're, you know, uh, supposed to know how to manage a budget and they're supposed to know how to manage communications and personalities and all these things.

And, and, and they're oftentimes under resourced when it comes to that.

Right.

So.

My thing going into, you know, a small department at a, uh, company, more on the corporate side was, can I trust that this person's doing the job that they're supposed to be doing if I don't know how to do the job or if I don't have the base level knowledge.

So validating before you delegate tasks is really important.

That's what I say to people who are looking to scale, like their internal departments with agencies, like if you go out and you want to find an agency as a good partner, you need to be able to validate what you're bringing them in to do, because if you can't validate what you need done, how are you gonna be able to delegate that task in the right way and kind of see that through.

So.

That's kind of, um, really one of the biggest things I had to learn quickly was because if I would delegate something, someone over here, and then they're reporting back to me and telling me, Oh yeah, we're doing this and this and this, I'm like, okay, great.

I have no idea if that's even the right thing we need to be doing.

Right.

So that was definitely something I had to learn was how do I validate all these different pieces of the business and what, um, we're doing from a marketing side and then how can I then delegate appropriately?

And empower the other people around me to do their best job.

As you started to move through your career and make your way into sort of the, the SAS space.

What was it that interested you about making that move into that space?

And you know for the most part you're still in that space, you know right now as well Given some of the other types of businesses you worked with early on.

Yeah.

I mean, I've always been in startups.

Uh, I mean, pretty much my whole career.

Um, when I went into more of a SAS company, the easy decision for me was what's going to be around in 20, 30 years.

It's just tech, right?

Like it was tech, like what is disrupting what?

And at the time there's, there was a lot of industries that were being disrupted by technology and software and there's been, software has been around for a while, but how it's changed and how people have been, you know, wanting more ease of use, more integration, you know, there's been all of these different needs on a per industry basis.

And.

Tech and SAS particularly have been what has been the main disruptor in a lot of these industries.

So for me, it was just wanting to get in and see what that looked like.

So for me, when I joined.

journey, they were doing that in the hospitality space, specifically focused around, um, you know, Airbnb managers, mom and pop managers, and then boutique hotels and all these different things.

And they knew that for just someone to manage their Airbnb, they needed five different, six different software systems, just to run it efficiently.

There was not one system that allowed them to do all the things that they needed.

And then how could you go in and kind of build that process, which was, which, that was fun.

So you're solving a problem, obviously, but you're also being a disruptor.

And I think being a disruptor in any sort of industry is really, really exciting.

Uh, so that's kind of what drew me to, uh, the software space.

How did you Speaking of being a disruptor, what do you see that as, as, as having advantages for someone in the marketing side of the business or challenges?

Cause being a disruptor can, can give you a leg up on being differentiated in a really strong way, but it can also put you in a position where you're having to educate the market on, um, this solution that may be drastically different than what they're used to.

Um, um,

Yeah.

I mean, my, my thing is, you know, when you do disrupt an industry, especially with.

Some sort of legacy software components to it where, Hey, we've always had the same system.

It's always been the same system.

And then you have what software does is it creates independent verticals, right?

Where if you have a overarching piece of software in an industry, then you have companies that rise up and do one thing really, really well, right.

Or do one thing not really well, but they're a great brand.

So they do.

They handle one aspect of your business.

So if we take hospitality, for example, there's one company that does pricing.

There's one company that does reservation management.

There's one company that does cleaning and ticketing for your property, right?

All of those are individual software companies.

You have to have a license with all of those, right?

So.

Going into an industry like that where there's already a lot of that happening and you know, there's a the famous saying is You know, the the pioneers get slaughtered, but the settlers are the ones who survive, right?

It's not so much the people who go in and find You know these new areas and establish them because they end up dying right but the people come in and settle and you know, really

they've paved the way or blazed the trail.

Totally.

So it's very similar in software where, you know, you have a lot of times where people have come in and just tried to, they've taken a business problem.

They've tried to solve it.

Right.

But then they created all of these different necessities within the ecosystem, and then it gets totally out of hand.

And then it's just, everything's open API integrated.

And then when something breaks, you don't know what's broken.

And then it causes the business problems, you know, you lose out on revenue and there's, there's so many different things that happen.

So.

You the where and with software, it's always being developed.

There's always going to be new products and new systems and new things.

But what the market is asking for and wanting, even if they, um, you know, have been in the, in that industry for a while is this interconnectivity.

And they want a system that speaks to all of those different components of their business so that they can manage everything from one place.

what?

What has got you most excited over the last?

year or two with your your your more recent roles,

Excited in terms of like personally or like the space or what do you mean?

so I I want to talk with you about AI a little bit later on, cause I know folks are always going to talk about the, uh, the, I mean, it's, it's on the top of everybody's mind.

But in addition to that, like you sound like somebody who, as you're, as you're choosing your roles and you're, you're taking the roles, you, You're learning, you've got that chip on your shoulder.

And I don't know if that chip is still there, but you, you, you want to learn and you want to apply what you've, you know, you wouldn't have been able to take that job and successfully continue to work through it if it wasn't something where you, you leaned into it.

And so I'm wondering, is there something that got you excited?

Uh, is it, it could just simply be the industry.

It could be the product that you were working with, but just from a marketing standpoint, were there, were there any new challenges that came up due to.

Um, market forces or the way that your, uh, team had to, to kind of realign around current trends, especially given the last couple of years has been, you know, uh, roughly just after this couple of years of a pandemic.

Um, so I'm, I'm just interested to hear, uh, what was the new challenge that maybe could simultaneously have kept you up at night, but also got you kind of excited about having a, a good, a cool problem to solve.

Yeah.

I think, I think about challenges in a couple of different ways.

What my initial reaction to that question is something that I think a lot of marketing people face is.

The communication aspect of, you know, what needs to be done from a brand side in order to be successful.

Um, again, I, you know, I talked about it.

Marketers are expected to know everything, right?

That kind of jack of all trades, um, which is definitely important.

Um, but if the company or the brand or the executive team is not willing to invest in that, um, Then it puts the marketing person in a really hard position.

Um, and there's a big battle in marketing right now between brand building and performance marketing, right?

We talk about what are the things that need to be done for brand to be successful.

Obviously marketing's number one goal is to drive revenue.

That should always be top of mind.

And in order to do that, though, there has to be specific strategies and things that are taken care of in order to make that something that is a revenue driver for the business, that department.

And, um, I think a lot of marketing people and I've, I've faced challenges there as well, where it's hard because sometimes people just don't.

get it Or people are stuck in the past or don't want to try new things or look at new things or really even understand the longterm benefit of what brand building does.

And

talk about leadership in this sense, right?

You're talking about, okay, got it.

yeah, yeah.

Um, and people know that they need marketing, but then they don't know what to do and they have it.

Right.

So that's where it's like, Oh, if we bring in one or two marketing people, they're going to be able to solve all these problems.

They're going to generate, you know, 10 tons and tons of revenue for us over the span of a year and a half.

That's just like, you know, you come into a situation and I've come into situations where there's literally been nothing done, there's been nothing built on the marketing side and having to come in and start from scratch basically, and start to build that inbound engine with a specifically a company who's maybe only been focused on outbound marketing for a long time.

And then vice versa, having no outbound versus a company who wants to really invest in the brand and the longterm, you know, effects of brand building and the inbound engine that they need to do across the board with content and things like that.

So right now there's a big argument going on around that, like outbound is dead, like that outbound marketing is dead.

Um, that just the way that people consume information is so different the way that you have to create awareness or with people is so different.

But then there's the other side of the spectrum where they say, well, inbound is dead because inbound cost too much, right?

Outbound is relational.

Outbound is effective.

It's one to one.

It's very easy to attribute, right?

If I make one phone call, uh, a day and I get five meetings out of those, then there's my, there's my return, right?

So there's a lot of arguments.

What I think is exciting is companies are starting to figure out the need for brand building and to understand that they have all the tools necessary in front of them to be able to build a strong brand, to be able to have a presence online digitally.

Right.

And just to understand how the consumer, um, consumes information, it's all on their mobile device, right?

It, everything is in front of them.

Everything's accessible.

And if you're not hitting all those right notes with who your ICP is and the people that you want to attract to your business.

You can do as much outbound as you want, but that that's going to dry up and get real expensive real soon.

Um, so I think the exciting thing is companies, um, getting to the point of realization that we need to have a strong brand presence and we need to bring in effective marketing people who can help us get there.

So I think that's, what's exciting for, um, the industry and kind of for.

Where I'm at with, uh, club fusion is, is just doing that, right.

Coming in, building a brand, building a strong brand presence while we are working on both the inbound and the outbound side of the business for referrals and sales and new opportunities.

So that's what's really, and that's what I enjoy.

I love doing that.

I think it's exciting.

I think it's fun.

I think it's creative.

It's all those things that like.

Marketers fall in love with when they start in the industry.

As you're thinking about that, what are some of the most top of mind or, or, or, um, biggest themes that you're looking at in regards to that brand building effort you're talking about?

I mean, you, you know, we, we, we touched a little bit on AI.

Obviously I've been really focused on search and just how search is going to evolve.

I think SEO people, you know, the marketing is, is, is there's so much like marketing, um, information out there and everyone's got an opinion on every single thing.

But I've been seeing trends of like, well, you know, chat GPT search is going to kill Google search.

You know, all these different things and what is that?

And does that kill SEO?

Like, how does that work?

I think it's again, what's exciting is when, when judge came out, it was all volume.

People were cranking out volume blogs, doing this, doing this.

Ranking and more keywords and that stuff's great.

But now I think what's happening is, I mean, Adam, like unless what's the last time you went past, you know, the first 30 organic results on Google for looking for something, probably

said that's the best place to bury a dead body is after probably five or seventh results on, on

totally, totally.

So for me, it's like, you know, that's probably 1 percent of people who are doing search who go past those 30 results.

So what that tells me.

Is one for search, what's the quality that I'm putting out because I think now brands need quality content over the quantity, uh, whether it's AI driven or human driven.

You know, brands need, you know, quality content with backlinks and that's how they can rank and that's how they can be successful.

So I think focusing on that is exciting from, from the consumer standpoint, because we want quality when we search something, we want it to be good, but we want it to be what we're looking for.

We don't want to do a lot of layering and digging for things, which is why people never, you know, less than 1 percent of people go past.

The first 30 organic results on Google.

So I think that's, what's really what I'm paying attention to, because I think there's a lot to be said about the quality of the content and the storytelling that brands are doing.

Um, And, and how AI can, can obviously help with that and, and, and, and encourage that, but again, it's not about just having 30, 40 different blog posts about, you know, one thing it's about, what's the story, what's the content quality, and that takes creative input.

That takes, you know, direction that takes content that takes strategy.

So.

That's what's exciting.

I think marketers can do really well there and provide a lot of value too.

All right.

You convinced me.

We can talk about AI a little bit here.

Um, and to, you know, to your point of quality over, over quantity, like quantity in re in regards to content has never been easier than it is now.

And every month it'll continue to get, to get easier, like literally push button easy.

But, um, that's why both.

The quality and the quality from the standpoint of being able to stand out as well as, um, you know, just in general people consuming data, excuse me, consuming content, um, will be hungry for something that isn't sort of, you know, low calorie junk food content and, and actually providing some, some level of, of value.

Um, I assume you're excited about AI.

Um, it's interesting because as I record the, the, the, the podcast, um, you can almost always bet that folks are going to say that AI is one of the things that's most exciting, most, um, interesting to them right now.

Um, and at first I was like, okay, well that means we're going to sort of repeat this, right?

We're going to repeat this, this, the same, they're gonna have the same conversation over and over and over again.

And it's like, well, no, that's not entirely true.

Uh, everybody's got a different angle, but secondly, actually, there is no, um, Lack of hunger for, for, for, for learning about this from all different angles and everybody's experience.

Um, what, what is assuming again, your, your interest in AI, what is it that interests you in, in your current role, which is relatively new at the time of this recording and all of those brand efforts and even talking about content, what is it you are looking forward to kind of like you utilizing AI to do?

Yeah.

I mean, I think there's a lot there, like you said, definitely people have, again, different opinions.

I definitely think it's a double edged sword, um, with AI.

Um, AI can be a crutch for a lot of people.

And I think for anybody who is using AI efficiently, they're probably only using it.

For about five, 10 percent of the work that they do on a daily basis.

Right?

Most people are using it for content refinement, uh, search or, you know, potentially, uh, image and video creation, things like that.

Um, but most people are not utilizing AI yet to the, to the full extent of what it can do.

And I think what people are getting in, you know, I'm, I'm all about just trying to create good habits and really how that, for me as a business person, as a marketer, as a professional, again.

Is that going back to that validating before I delegate, like, can I make sure that I'm still well versed in things?

Before I go and even delegate tasks to AI, right?

Because if I, if I can't validate how something is supposed to be done or how I want it to look or feel or what the tone should be or the direction I want to go with the content, I can't guide the prompts well enough to get to where I need to be, to be able to put out something really, really, uh, effective and efficient.

So, uh, I think marketers need to be super careful with that.

Um, you know, if you're, if you're relying and wanting to not put in the work, Right.

And just use AI as something to kind of get you through on, on certain things, with certain projects or campaigns or whatever, because writing a blog versus writing an ad campaign for Facebook is two different things, right?

Um, writing content for your website versus writing a blog is two different things, depending on who your ICP is and who your audience is and.

Marketers need to know their audience.

They need to know who they're going after and they need to build content and put strategies together with it within that framework and then use AI to really come in and help support and make those processes faster.

But again, if they don't know those key questions, who's our client, who's our customer, what is the tone I want to do?

What's the goal?

What's the core message I want to communicate?

It's going to be really hard to build instead of them just going on chat, GPT insane.

Do this thing for me and make this better.

Water, you know, you chat, GP just spits out whatever it wants or barter, whatever people are using.

So, um, I, my big thing is, you know, like I always think about from, I don't know if you've read atomic habits by James clear.

No, no, but I'm a familiar, familiar with

yeah.

Great book.

He basically says, you know, you do not rise to the level of your goals.

You fall to the level of your habits, right?

So that's, that's something for us as marketers and for, and people, it's like, Hey, we might have these big goals and aspirations and want to do all these things, but we fall back to the habits that we've created over time.

And if you're creating bad habits with chat, GBT or whatever sort of AI, you know, system that you're using, you need to be careful because if you create bad habits now.

It's going to impact you in the future and, you know, where it can, you know, make or break you, it can help you be more efficient and better and learn and, and, and, and generate more content and, you know, create all these more, these, these meaningful pieces, or it can be a crutch and you can say, I just want to, you know, do this and, and, you know, Hey, do this, do this, do this.

And then I forget how to write an email or, or do something effective that, you know, something that should be kind of second nature to me.

So.

Um, you know, AI is very exciting.

It's only going to get better.

I don't think it's killing search.

I don't think it's killing Google.

Um, you know, I think Google is getting much better at fielding out the noise, right?

And that's what we talk about, you know, that those first 30 organic links, you can type in auto insurance on Google.

You're going to get a billion plus hits, right?

You're never going to even get close to looking at a billion hits, right?

So it's.

Again, how do you create quality content that's either AI or human generated with backlinks and that's, and, and, and getting that to rank and, and, and going there, that's, what's really exciting because there's going to be a lot of noise with anything that comes out with, with AI and just, like you said, people are creating content at an exceptional rate and it's the content that's going to be the best quality in terms of storytelling and, um, And it's storytelling to that specific client, that ICP, right?

It's not broad.

It's not, I'm not trying to hit every single person from 18 to 65.

That's not my target market.

Um, you know, refining that ICP, understanding who your client is, who your customer is generating content.

That's quality content for them.

That's going to excite them.

It's going to make it something that they want to share, engage with.

That's what's exciting.

And that's what I think AI can help, you know, really, really do.

But marketers and business people need to be careful.

You bring up a couple of points, um, that to something, you know, I've been thinking about quite a bit where, um, so two parts to it is, is one, you have to have clear.

Inputs to get the best outputs.

So to your point of like having a clear understanding of ICP, um, might be voice, you know, tone and voice, uh, it might be, um, messaging, positioning, competitive information, like.

You need to be clear about that and develop these elements out.

And it's even more important than ever.

There's a lot of businesses that have gotten by, by having next to none of those things actually documented in any clear way.

Um, and they felt that it didn't really matter as much.

I believe strongly, like these are all pieces of the puzzle that in order to use generative AI at all.

to have these.

I mean, you have to have even a visual style guide, you know, brand style guide because all of these things are, are the, the, the, they're multimodal.

Um, and um, so when you have those pieces, you're going to be a step ahead just right there for whatever gets, Gets, you know, generated if, if, if, whether it's strategic or whether it's just content that you're outputting from it.

And then on top of that, if you suck at delegating, if you suck at leading other human beings towards the destination you need, you know, towards the, the out output that you need, the outcome that you need from them, um, uh, You're going to suck at prompting.

Um, and, and so I think that's super important that you need to understand how to ask questions, how to understand if a certain amount of information hasn't been given, what level of responsibility you have for filling in that gap and answering the question.

The, the, the bigger downside of generative AI is that, um, you're going to have, Right now the system won't ask you it'll I don't understand this or I don't get this most of the time That's not the response.

You're gonna get it's always gonna try to make you happy and give you an answer and it would be drastically different if AI did a better job of being like I don't quite have enough information To do this.

Can you help me with this?

Can you, a human being will at least, you know, a good, a good teammate will ask these questions versus just sort of brush it under the table.

Those other teammates won't last very long because they're not going to provide, you know, the level of, of, of, of results that you're looking for.

So I think that those that are still at the moment to your point, like doing the surface level stuff and then just kind of looking at what comes back to them and using that are, are, Maybe going to get to the same surface level crap that faster.

Um, but if they don't have those inputs already, right?

Like even for me, I, I'm, I'm working on developing out a bit of a Adam assistant, so to speak.

And, um, what I want the assistant to just basically do is, is almost like be the Jiminy cricket.

shoulder that knows enough about certain things that when I ask it the right question, cause I'm going to be completely aware of what I've fed into it, what knowledge I've given it, what parameters I've given it.

I know what to expect from it.

I don't expect it to solve world peace for me, but if I can give it, The right information.

It just helps me be more productive given the right framework of what I'm, of what I'm providing it.

And again, this is the stupidest that any of this stuff will ever be.

It's just going to continue to get better.

And we're at the cusp of.

You know, the theme next year is going to be basically AI agents and we're already, folks are already talking about it right now, but it still is at the tip of folks tongues.

And, uh, we haven't seen some of the like bigger frontier model companies like open AI yet really put it out there.

But I believe really strongly that that is the direction that they are all going from a more generalized standpoint.

And when you know, At the time of this recording, you know, HubSpot and Microsoft alone have put this stuff, not HubSpot, Microsoft, excuse me.

I mean, Microsoft has actually done this to, to a lesser extent, but, um, uh, Salesforce, right.

They're talking about these AI agents and everybody's trying to define what it, what it actually looks like.

Um, but that is where we start to possibly, um, Uh, when we can customize those things and have those inputs where we can give them the agents, that stuff, there's a lot of really cool stuff that happens, but folks still need to, to be prepared with their inputs.

Um, prompts alone don't solve the equation.

Um, and, and then in addition, like understanding clearly what these.

Systems are capable of doing and not capable of doing.

Um, there was a really interesting, it was the, the marketing.

No, it was the AI artificial intelligence podcast, Paul Racer and Mike Kaput, I think it is.

And they're talking about how it's almost more dangerous when a system is only 5 percent inaccurate or 5 percent hallucinogenic than, than if it was 50 percent because if it's only 5% You start to believe that everything you're getting out of it is actually good and it's accurate and awesome.

And then you just keep moving forward without actually double checking anything and making sure that you have a human in the loop.

Um, if it was more inaccurate than you, you're aware of that.

And so you become more mindful of it.

And it's amazing to me to hear how many people just even today, Um, uh, peer business group that I'm a part of.

Somebody just said, Oh yeah, you want to know how to do that stuff?

Just type it in.

And I did that with chat GPT and it gave me some answers, but there was no second question, third question vetting, you know, all that sort of stuff.

So what We still have some way to, we still have some way to go, but to your point, um, you, the skills you talked about understanding you needed to do early on are still skills that need to be leveraged and utilized, even modified a bit, but used for properly getting what you need out of, out of a generative AI right now.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, I look at AI too, as you know, you want it to be an extension of you and your team, you know, but again, whatever tasks that you're giving AI to do, you have to validate that before you delegate it to AI, right?

Like, internally yourself, is this the way that I want to do things?

And then, okay, I know I can delegate these things out to these people or this, um, AI component or whatever it may be.

So same rules apply.

The tools are just different, right?

So it's, it's, it's very important for people to kind of realize that.

And then also create good habits with that, right?

How are you, you know, helping your team think through that?

Uh, how are you helping your team be more efficient, um, in, in what they're doing so they can achieve more things.

Faster and better, um, than they would.

Uh, so there's, there's definitely a lot of, a lot of growth.

I like what you said.

It's as dumb as it's going to be right now.

You know what I mean?

It's, it's definitely going to get smarter and smarter.

And, uh, that's why the creating those habits right now is really important, right?

Because five, 10 years down the road, the bad habits that you create now with what you're doing in terms of your workflow and how you use it are going to impact how you could possibly be using it in the future.

So.

Love it.

Um, so this is the last question of the interview, but this is an opportunity for you to ask me one question.

Uh, except for.

Why I named the agency secret sushi because it's a common question I get from a lot of folks And so it's like I'm like if I don't put that stipulation that's gonna end up being the question that pops up more often than not, but This is just an opportunity for you to throw something back at me

Yeah, I think from a question that I would like your feedback on is A lot of people are talking about influencer marketing as a part and a piece of that inbound funnel, that brand building aspect, um, you know, influencers, I still feel like it's the wild west when it comes to influencer marketing.

Uh, if you've ever worked with an influencer, they're most of the time a nightmare to work with, um, especially if they're with an agency or something like that.

But what do you think from a business standpoint for brands looking to not Obviously build impact with their website, with their digital, um, presence like SEO and things like that, but how important is it?

And should that be something that brands are looking into more, um, or should they even stay away from?

Influencer marketing as, as you see it.

And I'll be talking about any any any industry b2b b2c segments a lot

Yeah, I think B2C is probably the better snippet.

I've seen a lot of people doing B2B well.

Um, but it seems like the B2C, especially from a product standpoint, you know, is, is really what the bulk of that industry is wrapped up in.

So I think there's some trickiness in that space that that's a bit of an art to have to maneuver through and that's because what we're talking about is human beings and human beings that have all different personalities and essentially it's driven by personality.

relationships.

Um, and, and so are you good at that?

Is the brand good at that?

Does the brand understand how to engage with people in that way and to make a decision?

Also, if those people are, um, nowadays we call people influencers simply because they have capitalized on attention.

Right.

And so it's always a bit.

Humorous to me to see folks who call themselves both influencers or let's call them content creators.

And we're just talking about people that basically found a way to leverage digital marketing, uh, or not digital marketing, but digital media tools.

My background before ever, you know, starting the company was in Like new media design, as they called it.

Um, and so, you know, creating interactive and, and, and the digital, uh, design experiences, uh, visual design, audio, you know, uh, mixed media, all of that sort of stuff.

So I've got experience.

I know how to use.

The tools, the camera, the, the, the, the tools to do what I need to do to create stuff myself.

And, um, and so a lot of folks, right, just with their phone and, and, and then they go and they upgrade it and they create their own studio and they're streaming and they're doing all this.

They're just creating these micro Spheres of attention around them.

Back in the day, we'd all be watching TV.

We'd all be, you know, doing these other other things that everybody was sort of collectively doing where our attention was going.

And now our attention is split like a million blades of grass across all these smaller individuals that we're paying attention to.

And not all of them are good.

Influencers, so to speak, or good, uh, uh, places for us to be spending our time and attention, let alone aligning our brand with them.

And I, it always is amazing to me to see people who are again, quote unquote, influencers who are like, got tons and tons of followers, millions and millions of followers on something like a TikTok for really stupid things.

Uh, or they themselves are.

Are always maybe the nicest person, uh, or whatever the case may be, you know, some things that are pretty obvious, but brands want to take advantage of that captured attention and, and align themselves with that.

I think that's where things are that that doesn't align with my values personally.

Uh, and I think every business has to be clear about whether or not they're willing to do that just for the sake of, you know, Making a buck off of leveraging that attention from those influencers.

And so how they kind of weed through that.

Um, I think that's where it's really interesting when you work also with a micro influencer where.

Instead of trying to go after these really big folks who oftentimes, um, are much more performative in what they do.

You're able to work with people who actually have created a trusted and bigger, bigger influencers can do this as well, but a trusted community of folks around them that don't have to be in the millions.

They can be.

A few thousand or something like that.

And they have some, some influence on their, their audience.

I think that, and I think they need to be really well aligned with what they're selling and what this person's, you know, audience is, uh, there needs to be a clear alignment with it.

So, um, I, I think it's really powerful.

Anything that involves human beings.

anytime you have a human in the loop, anytime you have a human participating and they're creating a connection with their audience and they're leveraging their trust with that, with that audience and the attention that they have, um, in creating a human connection is awesome.

And when you can insert yourself in there naturally, uh, it's really, really awesome.

It's just more, um, It's a bit more delicate of a dance than lots.

That's why things like right now, uh, social media is having a little bit of a.

Um, almost like a renaissance in a way where, um, on LinkedIn, right?

There's LinkedIn creators.

They, some of them call themselves creators, but, but, but they are essentially LinkedIn influencers.

There are people that are on LinkedIn, a channel.

We wouldn't have never associated with what we think of as, you know, from YouTube and, and some of these other channels, they are creators on LinkedIn, leveraging video, leveraging, you know, images, leveraging conversations and all that.

And I think that it works because.

That's always going to work having the human connection and conversation.

Um, so that, that's my thoughts on it.

Yeah.

Awesome.

All right, sir.

Um, I, I super appreciate talking to you.

Where can folks, uh, find you online these days?

Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn.

AJ Roco.

R O C H O W.

Not many people with that last name, so it's not too easy.

You'll find a really handsome photo of me on there.

Um, no, just kidding.

Um, yeah, yeah, I'm on LinkedIn.

Feel free to add me, connect on there.

Um, yeah.

You know, on the rest of the socials, I'm pretty dormant, which is funny.

Um, but LinkedIn, I'm, I'm there.

The social media guys now dormant on, on the rest of social, huh?

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

I know it.

I'm still around.

I got some ghost accounts to keep up with everything, but you know, personal stuff, I'm just kind of like, I ain't got time for that.

That's great.

I appreciate you making the time to talk.

I know.

Um, Uh, we talked about you joining for quite some time and being in the conversation and you still made the time to loop back around and be like, all right man, I'm ready.

Let's have a conversation.

So

man.

Anytime.

Damn.

I appreciate you.

Exciting.

Uh, thanks again, man.

It's great to see you.

Great to hear from you.

Appreciate it.

All right.

You take care.