Brave Creatives: The Importance of Risk-Taking in Marketing

Brandi Starr [00:00:34]:
Hello, hello, hello and welcome to another episode of Revenue Rehab. I am your host, Brandy Starr, and we have another amazing episode for you today. I am joined by Melissa Rosenthal. Melissa is an award winning marketing executive and former CCO of ClickUp. Previously, she was the CMO of Insight timer and CRO and EVP at Cheddar. For her brand work, she was named to Forbes 30 under 30 Business Insiders, 30 most creative people under 30, and as one of the digidays changemakers. Prior to Cheddar, she led BuzzFeed's global creative team. Joining the staff in 2010, Melissa was a key contributor to the creation and early success of Buzzfeed's branded content.

Brandi Starr [00:01:26]:
Native advertising model. Melissa, welcome to Revenue rehab. Your session begins now.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:01:35]:
Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

Brandi Starr [00:01:37]:
Thank you. I am, I feel exceptionally privileged to have you. It sounds like you have accomplished lots very early in your career. And so before we jump into our topic today, I like to break the ice with a little Woosa moment that I call buzzword banishment. So tell me, what industry buzzword would you like to get rid of forever?

Melissa Rosenthal [00:02:06]:
Oh, so many. But if I had to pick one, and I think people still say this, I've heard it, and I'm just, I can't believe it. Thinking outside the box. Like, if we're not, if you have to tell people to think outside the box, you haven't hired the right people. So the fundamental issues that precede using that buzzword, to be able to use that buzzword, it should just never exist, never be set again.

Brandi Starr [00:02:32]:
I would agree. Because at this point, all the things that are in the box no longer work.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:02:38]:
So, yeah, that too. That too.

Brandi Starr [00:02:41]:
It's like, you know, we all have to live outside of the box consistently, especially in marketing.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:02:49]:
Absolutely.

Brandi Starr [00:02:51]:
I can promise that I will not even bring up the box in our discussion today. It won't be inside or outside. So now that we've gotten that off our chest, tell me, what brings you to revenue rehab today?

Melissa Rosenthal [00:03:07]:
Yeah, I'd love to speak to the importance of brand marketing. The fact that efficiency is not a growth strategy, it's a mindset. But efficiency doesn't get you to the next, the next level of your company, of your brand growth, of your market. Efficiency should be the underlying part of how you think and how you operate, but it doesn't, it doesn't negate the need for brand and the need for brand marketing and brand growth to really be able to be successful as a company. And I think we often now conflate the two in a world where everyone is looking to operate efficiently, which we should be doing, but it's almost become this sort of this crotch. And I would love to talk about why that's important to differentiate.

Brandi Starr [00:03:55]:
Okay. And I know a key part of that, just from what I've learned about you and your position, is that there's a component of risk taking in there that is important in being able to do that. And even more so important now that we are in the age of AI and ML. And I think it goes back to the getting outside of the box that we're not going to talk about in being able to take those risks.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:04:23]:
Yeah, I mean, and you know, I was talking to someone the other day and I think there's just this also notion of like accruing brand debt, which is no matter how successful you are, I become as a company, it's going to catch up with you. If you don't take these risks, if you don't make bets on brand, if you don't try to build a brand, you're going to hit a wall at some point, whether it's sooner than you think or once you go public, you're going to enter a room and no one's going to have heard of you. And that's because you haven't really invested into brand the way that you should.

Brandi Starr [00:04:52]:
Okay. And I believe in setting intentions. It gives us focus, it gives us purpose. And most important, it gives our audience an understanding of what to expect from our discussion today. So what's your best hopes for our conversation? What would you like the marketing leaders who are listening to take away from our discussion?

Melissa Rosenthal [00:05:12]:
That they can be efficient, but also still think differently and build legacy brands in ways that maybe they're not already thinking of and use creative solutions to really push themselves and push their teams and be able to accomplish and achieve amazing things. And a lot of that starts with just embracing with the challenger mindset. No matter where you are in the company, start thinking of your brand as a challenger brand. And if you approach it that way, what does that look like holistically across your strategies?

Brandi Starr [00:05:44]:
Okay, so my first question for you, just as a way of level setting is like, why does the problem exist based on what you're seeing? It seems like you would think like people, when they're thinking about brands, putting some focus on it, being creative, like all of these things, when you say them out loud, kind of feel like a duh. But clearly it's a challenge and it's not always happening. So why do you feel like the problem exists?

Melissa Rosenthal [00:06:16]:
Well, the problem is actually what I find to be cyclical. We go through cycles where brand is very important. There's a hyper focus on it. And then when the economy isn't at its best, we go and retreat backwards into a world in which it doesn't matter at all. And instead of kind of having this always on thought process around brand, I think we just get, we get scared and we start thinking about the things that can drive immediate rOi. And if it doesn't drive immediate rOi, we pretend that we don't understand the value of it. And I think that's just such a short sighted way of thinking. But I do think just the problem exists as a natural way of the way that the market works.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:06:57]:
And where do you invest money? You invest money where you can see returns immediately. But what about those returns that are going to outlive those immediate. That immediate Roi that are going to give returns five years, ten years, 15 years down the line? Especially if you're looking to build a long standing legacy company that has strong brand. You have to start investing somewhere and you can't, you can't pivot. You can't. I mean, you can pivot. You can't pause it and then turn it on and turn it off. It needs to be something that's ongoing and is an ethos within the company.

Brandi Starr [00:07:26]:
Yeah, I would agree. And I do think that that is a challenge I see many leaders face, especially, you know, working with the CEO, the CFO, the board. It is this, like, oh, things are not great. We need to focus on this, turn those other things off and it's almost, you know, like they see it like a water spigot. Like, you know, you turn it on and there's water and you turn it off. Like, that's not really how it works. And so, you know, thinking about those that are out there, you know, the brave creatives that are, that are forging the good fights, so to speak, what are the sorts of things that you are seeing that are working, that people are doing? Like, we talked about why the problem exists, but let's paint the picture of what it looks like when you're doing it and it's going well.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:08:16]:
Yeah, I mean, I think there's different levels of it right. And I think it depends on what kind of company you are. If you're a B2B company, B2C company. I think they're becoming increasingly more blended in the way that they approach marketing. But from the B2B side, it's, you know, it's constantly thinking about every single touch point that you have as a part of your brand and how do you differentiate that? So let's just say you're not, you know, we're not in the days of spending millions of dollars in Super bowl ads anymore, but your product launches, your feature launches. The, the way that you talk about yourself in market, your social strategies, the, you know, video does not cost a lot of money anymore, especially with the evolution of where AI is now. There's so many things that you can do to build brand to get people talking about you. It also still reaches your target buyers.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:09:05]:
So you are effectively achieving both goals. But you just need to think about that differently. And, you know, it's not everyone's strong suit to be able to do that. I think it actually is a very kind of everyone. I just read this quote this morning, which I was talking about like last week too, but it's, everyone in marketing loves to tell you how to do your job better, but the people that do marketing really well are very skilled and special at it and can really build something differentiated and thoughtful. There's a company that I really like called air, and they're basically a Dropbox competitor, but more geared towards creatives. And they made a really funny satirical video that did really well about how they were unleashing a new product and the product was a creative director, but it's just AI. And you can select from a creative director and that person is just AI and you can fire your own creative director.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:09:58]:
And they were going to fire their own creative director is going to be the solution moving forward. And people like, I don't know if they fully understood that some of it was satirical and they started commenting and saying like, oh my God, you're replacing creative people with AI and X, Y and Z. But it's that, it's getting conversations going around the pain points in market and also news jacking the common conversations that are happening around your space, around AI in your space. And I love that intersection of what they did with that product, that fake product launch where really it was tied to another product launch. But it's, how do you get that going? That does drive brand is conversation. So thinking about it like that.

Brandi Starr [00:10:38]:
Yeah. And I think that is a great example because, you know, we see so many of these, and especially in the B2C side, where, you know, brands are taking more risk. They're doing things that get people talking that, you know, there's the one, and I can't think now what the company is. I'm totally drawing a blank. But the Super bowl commercial, to be where it seemed like someone had changed the channel on the Super bowl and a whole bunch of controversy, and, I mean, there were some negative effects of that, but in general, it got people talking. And so there are all these things that we see on the B2B. On the B2C side that, you know, a lot of B2B marketers almost feel afraid to take.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:11:25]:
That kind of risk. Yeah. Yeah. I was just gonna say it's really interesting that you say that. And I sort of go back and forth on this because I think, like, there's a level of, like, high standards that I hold to the things that I've done with my teams and what we've put out into the world and how I think about creative that way. But at the same time, you know, what you really want is people to be talking about you, period. And I don't know if you're familiar with what just happened, but canva, at their large product conference, did a Hamilton inspired rapid to announce the fact that they were going enterprise ready. And, you know, it was a.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:12:03]:
I don't know if you're familiar with succession, but it was like a little bit of a Kendall Roy moment. And it was, you know, it was definitely very polarizing. I won't say whether I hate it or I loved it, but it was very polarizing. And the amount of people, good or bad, that were talking about canva that day, the articles that were written, but they were also mentioning that they were enterprise ready, and they were talking about the musical wrap in, like, in great detail describing the event. And when you think about what that would have done if that didn't happen is no one would have talked about that event at all. And now, all of a sudden, the exact message that they're looking to get into the world is getting to the world and going viral. So, you know, I applaud them for taking a huge risk and doing something like that. And, you know, also, the Internet has a very short attention span, so it doesn't matter if, you know, something works today that doesn't work tomorrow or where people talk about it or it's negatively perceived like it, unless it's really damaging to the brand, it doesn't really matter.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:13:01]:
It's to get people talking. So I think brands taking risks like that is just impressive.

Brandi Starr [00:13:06]:
Yeah, I think that is another great example because I saw the think pieces all over LinkedIn. There were some, you know, funny ones done on TikTok. There were clips of it. And at first I didn't even know what the event was. I just saw multiple people reposting this rap. And, I mean, I can say I found it hilarious because I took it for what it was like. They were being funny and they did get the point across. And some of the, you know, some of the things they were highlighting in being enterprise ready were fairly boring features that they gave a little pizzazz to.

Brandi Starr [00:13:47]:
And so, you know, I think about a lot of the things that are being marketed in B2B can be. It's like, this is not, you know, this is not that interesting, but there are ways that you can spin it to make it interesting.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:14:03]:
Exactly, exactly.

Brandi Starr [00:14:05]:
And so, you know, what I come across is talking to some marketers who are more at the, like, manager level, who have these ideas and they need to pitch it upward, or cmos, who have embraced this sort of notion and they have to kind of pitch it upward. And so how do you have some of these conversations around? Okay, we're going to take a risk that we think will work, but there's always the chance it could backfire. Like, how do you make that case?

Melissa Rosenthal [00:14:43]:
Yeah, so we did something not dissimilar, but we decided to roll out a campaign against Jira. And it was strategic. It was a lot of, I think, making your case for why you should be doing it to begin with is a good way of approaching it. And the reason we picked Jira was twofold. One, if you're going to punch up, if you're going to punch up against a large competitor in market, go for the elephant in the room, go for the $50 billion cap company. Punching up against them is just a great way to put yourself at the table against them in the same conversation. So we picked them for that reason and the same time. What we were finding through our own data internally and then on the Internet and just common discourse was that Jira was impossible.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:15:32]:
People hated using it. It had become almost like a cultural meme that no one could figure out how to use it, and they were being forced to use it. And it was just this pariah of the work management world. And to see the sentiment be so public on forums and Reddit and Twitter and see all these things going viral, we kind of felt like it was a natural in for us to be able to take a perspective there. And I think when you already have something that is culturally relevant, it requires less of, like a, you know, you're taking a large liberty to try to, like, make that argument because the argument's already been made for you. So now it's your job to be able to capitalize on that and do it in a fun and cool and smart way. So we took that, and then we applied that framework to how do we create a series of ads which speak to the pain points in which we're hearing in market from our own customers of why they're switching to us? How do we take those pain points and then make something really funny and, you know, to start conversations? So we created several ads. One was an SNL type skit that almost mirrored a pharmaceutical ad, about how, you know, we were the remedy for, for the issues of using jira.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:16:40]:
And we positioned it as, you know, all the commonalities of when you open up a pharma ad and people are holding their heads and they're sad, and all of a sudden, the, you know, the anecdote to the problem comes up and people are happy and they're working well, and. And people already kind of knew what that that would look like. So, you know, it was polarizing because we were choosing to do a competitive jousting ad which mirrored the Mac versus PC ads of the nineties. And it's just a polarizing style of advertising. But we felt very confident with the decision. Now, having both of those things, both the data on why we should do this against this specific competitor, there are other competitors we could have picked from, but it wouldn't have made sense, really. But then having the conversation with my CEO, the conversation was, hey, so I know you're excited about this. I'm glad we already had sold in the fact that he was excited about this idea.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:17:30]:
But I want to level set that this is going to be very polarizing in market, and there will be a percentage of people that will hate this. And I want to make sure that, you know, that going into it, because my view on it is the conversation will be the conversation, and we're going to win if people are talking about this. But I do want to make sure that you understand that some of the comments will be negative because people just don't like this type of advertising. And that was a really good thing that I did that because there definitely were a ton of negative comments. People said, you know, this is so, like, low brow to go up against your competitor like that. But meanwhile, lots of people loved it. They thought it was genius. They reposted it.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:18:08]:
It got millions of views organically. So, you know, you just want to, I think, level set with, with your leaders and have them understand the holistic, like, challenges that might come from doing something like this and just prepare them, because if you don't, having them caught off guard is not the way that you want the campaign to be approached. But if they already know that you're thinking about it, coming into it is just, it's so much better. And it's usually viewed as a win because you've thought about all of the ways that this will benefit you and how the outcomes will kind of come to fruition.

Brandi Starr [00:18:39]:
And have you seen any examples where, you know, companies have taken this risk and regretted it?

Melissa Rosenthal [00:18:48]:
Um, yeah, I think not so much in I'm trying to think of it. There's like a, an exact example. I mean, I think a, if it's done poorly, if the jousting is done poorly, it could be very strange. It would have, wouldn't have made sense for us to go up against Monday.com or, or a company that didn't have as much cultural relevance or sentiment brewing within the Internet itself. I mean, there's been the larger B2C companies that have made some political statements that are just like, you know, Pepsi. You know, like, I don't know how this got out the door. Maybe this should have been got checked a little bit more where they're trying to just say something punched way above their, you know, their weight in terms of what they're trying to take on and challenge. So I think it's like, where, what do you, what does, what is the stance that you're trying to take and what are you trying to say? And should that be aligned with your brand? And is it okay to do that? And I think there's just a lot of conversations that need to be happened around that.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:19:53]:
So I've seen it really kind of not B2B so much because I don't really see that type of advertising in B2B as much. I think, like, we might have been one of the first to go so hard like that against the competitor, but I see a lot in the B2C world, and you're sort of just like, whoo, let that go out the door. And I think it's like everyone says that in unison. Like, who thought that would be a good idea?

Brandi Starr [00:20:20]:
Yeah. Now, I definitely, I do think there's a lot longer list on the B2C side of things, like there no review before this, you know, but, yeah, that part's kind of neither here nor there. I think the other thing that I want to ask about is, you know, you talked about finding those places, and I've talked to people where they're like, I would love to do that, but struggle. And, you know, I hate to use the buzzword, but to get their team out of the box of, like, this is what we've always done. This is what everyone usually does. And are there any, and, you know, there are some people that like these ideas, just come to them and, yeah, that is always great when you have those. And sometimes there's agencies that you work with, but if you're a team where you're like, you know what? We're really trying to get there, but struggling. Are there any tips, processes, thoughts, like ways that you have found that you can push people to kind of find that golden nugget of like, here's a place where we can, you know, add humor, be controversial, whatever it is.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:21:33]:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I like to draw up sort of a north star of, like, what we want to be, how we want to sound in market, and, like, have everyone aligned to that. Like, what is our brand? Like, what do we stand for? We're bold, we're vibrant, we're humorous, we're self aware, but we don't take ourselves too seriously. And I think when you outline those pillars of what you want the brand to be, the understanding from then the top down becomes a lot easier. So people all of a sudden adopt this mindset of, oh, we can be irreverent, we can talk about these things. We can do x, y and z, and all of a sudden they become inspired. Like one of our, one of the things that we said I wanted to do is we can news Jack, we can take the things that are relevant and market to us and apply them to our framework of social, of video, of advertising. So let's use the world for inspiration because we're able to encompass everything that everyone else is doing.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:22:27]:
And take that as a blueprint. Doesn't mean we do the exact same thing, but it's something that we can jump off of and copy and paste and then tweak and see how it would work in our world. But I think when you set those kind of expectations up top of, like, what the brand is and how it should feel, it just opens. I think that mindset for people to be able to approach it in a different way and not be like, that's what we've always done. I mean, like, that should be a band buzzword, like, 100%. Like, okay, well, it's not working, or it hasn't worked, or it's not working anymore. So what are we going to do next? And I don't know. I think it's just always setting those, like, that north star of what it is that you're trying to accomplish, who you're trying to reach and in which ways you're trying to do so.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:23:13]:
And I think from there, your team should be able to extract a lot of that personality out of the pillars that you set. And obviously, being a leader, a strong leader, and a champion, and understanding and explaining why ideas are good or need tweaking or why it wouldn't work. Like, I think the more that you can teach your folks about, like, how they think about it, just the more, you know, I think they will. They will kind of become these really, really great creators and leaders themselves. And I've seen it happen, and it's really inspiring. You're like, oh, okay. You're, like, starting to embrace the mindset of, like, how we think about things coming to me with really creative ideas. And I'll be like, yes, but what about this x, y and z? So it's a mix of setting things very clearly and then being a good player, coach, leader, I think.

Brandi Starr [00:23:58]:
Okay. And I want to shift gears a little bit and ask about kind of the legal piece. So when you're getting into these creative scenarios and taking risk, are you bringing in your legal teams? Are there any, you know, what's the process that you're using to make sure there's a little bit of CyA in here when we are taking risks?

Melissa Rosenthal [00:24:24]:
Oh, yeah. I mean, legal was my best friend, and we would run everything by them and we would say, hey, this is how we're approaching it. This is what we're going to do is, worst case scenario, we get sued? Are we going to get a C synthesis letter? And I think you just have to have a level of tolerance for what might happen, depending. And we would do things in such a satirical way that we're not defaming the companies. We're not. We're doing things very playfully, which can almost be viewed as satire. So we would rework things at points just to make sure that legal felt fine about it. Sometimes we would take risks and we're like, all right, well, you're not going to sue us, but they might send us a really nasty letter and, like, let's deal with it then.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:25:06]:
Honestly, if it gets to them, to the point where they're doing that, we might have won anyway. So let's, let's try our luck. But, yes, legal was always involved. I would never do something and put the company at risk. But usually, you know, our legal team was very luckily, a ClickUp was so, and Buzzfeed definitely was so on board with us taking these risks and these chances and generally viewed them as very low risk.

Brandi Starr [00:25:30]:
Yeah, I would agree. I, you know, I won't call out the companies, but there was a recent cease and desist situation that became the talk of LinkedIn for quite a while. And it was, you know, it very much was like, okay, the fact that the letter was sent, does that mean that they won or did it actually, or, you know, there was like this whole kind of debate there. And, yeah, I agree with you. Like, if, if the worst thing is we get a nasty letter, it's pretty easy to react to that. But if we're likely to land in litigation, you might rethink those plans a little bit.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:26:08]:
Yes, yes, absolutely.

Brandi Starr [00:26:11]:
And so, you know, really thinking about, you know, all of, or should I say most of the people listening have some elements of brand and creativity that they're trying to, you know, pull in. And as we have AI and all these different tools that have opened up so many more opportunities for what people can be doing, what do you think has changed? Why has this become more critical? Like, really wanting to think about just the sort of state of brand marketing in general and how that has changed so much with the evolution of technology?

Melissa Rosenthal [00:26:54]:
Yeah, I mean, I think, like, AI definitely enables you to create really high quality pieces of work, especially now, what I'm seeing with the Sora coming out and video, where you don't need to be spending, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars on creating something anymore, that doesn't mean the narrative doesn't need to be strong. You don't need creative people directing it. But I think just the output of the actual asset, something that might have taken you months to create, can take you a few weeks. So I think it's figuring out how to leverage it in smart ways to create campaigns. But when you think about what, what goes into actually creating a full scale campaign, a lot of that can be automated with AI now. So it's thinking about the ways that AI can automate the hard parts for you and you can still drive the creativity. But I am very excited about the tools that enable you to kind of, you know, take one UGC ad and turn it into ten different languages and augment that piece of it and be able to use Sora for certain types of creations depending upon what you're looking to accomplish. So there's a lot of tools.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:28:00]:
I wouldn't say that that actually takes away from, like, the creativity that people bring to the table. I just think it augments it and hopefully makes it more robust, easier. You can create more assets, get more out of it. That's how I'm looking at AI now. I don't know, I don't buy into the whole, like, it's replacing everyone. Like, I just think that, like, the smartest people will be able to leverage it in really great smart ways and make themselves look like heroes.

Brandi Starr [00:28:24]:
I agree. You know, I very much see AI as a co creator and as a way to, you know, be more efficient, be able to scale, which is, you know, another one of those buzzwords. And so I want to talk about where we go from here. Talking about our challenges is just the first step and nothing changes if nothing changes. And so in traditional therapy, the therapists will give the client some homework, but here at revenue rehab, we like to flip that on its head and ask you to give us some homework. So tell me, what is the one thing for those listening that they recognize that they need to be a brave creative, that they, you know, need to put more risk taking and creativity into what they are doing to build their brand? Where do we start? What's that first step?

Melissa Rosenthal [00:29:17]:
Yeah, well, you know, I would love to say, like, go up the ladder and ask for all this investment to do all this great stuff, but I know that that's not the reality. So I would say take the ten, five to ten marketing activities that you're focused on now and try to rethink them a bit. Think, how do you differentiate them? What are you doing to not just do another webinar, another feature release? Like, how do you differentiate the exact marketing tools that you're doing to actually create conversation around them? Can you pull in pain points that are happening across your industry and be able to have your own take on them? How do you create conversation? And I think if you're starting to look at your marketing efforts like that, rather than just going through emotion, I see brands doing that all the time. They just go through emotion. Going to have another webinar, we're going to put another white paper out, we're going to do the same thing over and over and over. But if you are going to do some of those activities because they're baked into your lead funnel, how do you think about them? Differently and how do you add a creative flair to them? I would say that, and then I would also say, like, there are net new channels, there are things available for you to be able to break through the mold, do some research on how to, how to create new channels. And I hate the word hack, but find ways to actually hack through the experience of building that brand and reaching sub and niche communities through different ways of creating assets. And I think a lot of people are just stuck in the like, we'll just do this, we'll just do this, we'll just do this.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:30:39]:
And then it just becomes this thing that, like, no one wants to change rather than like, rethinking the way that we're doing it. Who, why are people going to talk about this webinar? What is our, like, k factor and viral coefficient on every single thing we do? Why would anyone care or talk about this? Like, how can it go from generating one lead to three leads? And I think it's like, it's creativity. It's what you want to make people laugh. What do you want them to take away from it? What is the human emotion that they're going to get out of it that's going to make them share it? And I think just even going through that exercise is a good way to just take a step back and be like, why are we creating what we're creating? Why are we doing what we're doing? Are we just doing it to do it to check a box that we're working or do we actually want to make an impact?

Brandi Starr [00:31:21]:
I love that. And, you know, starting from what's already in the plans is a great first step because there are, you know, I mean, especially where we are in the year, like, there's a lot of things, a lot of motions that are already, you know, happening. Like the ship is going. And so that is a great way to say, okay, we're going to do all the things we said we're going to do. We can't just change course, you know, midstream, but we can rethink how we're doing it, what the messaging is. Where can we add a little more flavor in there to make this not just another, you know, insert asset type here?

Melissa Rosenthal [00:32:03]:
Yeah. And I think the more that you do that and the more that you see success with those, those small tweaks, those small iterations on what you're currently doing, the more you're going to be able to justify budget to do bigger things. If the CEO and the CRO and everyone involved is seeing success and conversation and your prospects are bringing this up on meetings. It's going to be able to create some discourse around, hey, how do we go bigger here? How do we do more? Oh, we like this. I always focus on these small wins. What are small wins look like? Because they ladder up to really big investments, they ladder up to changes, they ladder up to everything. So it's trying to go big immediately just never works. It's, let's see small progress over time and be like, this was really great.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:32:45]:
Oh, I love the way that we did this. Okay. That gives everyone else the confidence. How do we do bigger? How do we go bigger? How do we think more about this? Flying Z.

Brandi Starr [00:32:54]:
Awesome. Well, I love that as our action item, so everyone listening has a next step. So talk to your teams about the current plans, do some brainstorming, figure out, you know, and I like the thing that you said of what emotion are we trying to trigger here? And I do think that that's a good litmus test because I don't think that, you know, if I look at, I mean, even if I look at our own efforts that we have planned, I can't say that anybody on my team is going to know right off, like, this is the emotion that we're trying to trigger. What do we want them to talk about? So that is, that is a great sort of, you know, way to look at all the things that you have planned. Well, Melissa, I have enjoyed our discussion, but that's our time for today. But before we go, how can our audience stay connected with you?

Melissa Rosenthal [00:33:47]:
I am very active on LinkedIn. I respond within five minutes or less. Money back guarantee? No, I respond very quickly on LinkedIn. I'm constantly posting, sharing my thoughts, ideas, the way that I view brand, marketing, life, career. So follow me on LinkedIn and connect with me on LinkedIn. I love talking to people and just hearing their perspectives on the world.

Brandi Starr [00:34:11]:
Awesome. Well, we will make sure to link to your LinkedIn. So wherever you are listening or watching this podcast, check the show notes so that you can stay connected with Melissa. I can say LinkedIn is how we got connected. And me seeing some of the great content that Melissa posts, I was like, I gotta have you on the show. So thank you so, so much for joining me.

Melissa Rosenthal [00:34:35]:
Thank you so much for having me. Great.

Intro/Outro Voiceover [00:34:37]:
Awesome.

Brandi Starr [00:34:37]:
And thanks, everyone, for joining us. I hope that you have enjoyed my discussion with Melissa. I can't believe we're at the end. I'll see you next time.