The brightest marketing idea (that's a pun!)
Also...y'know what'll solve the housing crisis? Frequent flyer miles
Hello Gobbledeers,
Oh it is good to be back. I mean, not as good as being gone, obviously. But still - I missed writing and hearing from a-few-to-many of you. Let’s jump right in, shall we?
No we shall not :)
One quick bit of business:
I’ve been working with clients on a quick way for them to improve their website messaging, because I’ve learned that not everyone is ready for a 2-day workshop. This initial group has made huge improvements in the clarity of their messaging, and they can make those changes within the week.
Here’s how it works: You pick 3 pages on your website. I’ll go through those pages word-by-word and provide feedback and copy ideas to make your message clear. Easy, and also peasy. Because I want as many companies as possible to have clearer messaging, the cost for this is just $1,000. As a client just wrote to me, “We are so glad we got your help!” You’ll be glad too.
Just fill out this quick form and we’ll get your messaging fixed in no time. (Or if you’re too lazy to fill out a form, just send me an email at jared@sagelett.com).
(End of commercial.)
Saving the Homeless, One Discounted SoulCycle Class at a Time
I love tech founder origin stories. Love them. Ever since Netflix’s founder made up a fake story about starting the company because he had accrued huge late fees on a tape rental, every founder has felt the need to come up with some quirky reason why he (of course “he”) started the company.
Longtime Gobbledy readers may remember when we talked about the founder of Instacart starting the company because, he said, he was in his apartment in San Francisco “bemoaning the fact that the only thing I had in my refrigerator was hot sauce.”
We wrote:
So we are meant to believe that Mehta was sitting on his couch in San Francisco in 2010. He was hungry. He got up off the couch, went to the fridge, opened it, saw that the only item inside it - like on every cop show where they are trying to demonstrate that the cop has no life outside of work - is a packet of hot sauce (also acceptable - half empty carton of Chinese takeout; a quart of milk that the cop picks up and smells and realizes is bad, yet returns it to the fridge). And he goes back to his couch and texts a friend “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, all I have to eat in my fridge is hot sauce….what has my life come to?????”
And then he gets inspiration and texts his friend (even before the friend can text back from the first text) “I know what I’ll do! I can solve this! I will raise billions of dollars and hire thousands of people (and also not hire thousands more and make them independent contractors or whatever), and in several years you’ll be able to wildly overpay to have your groceries delivered, and THAT way I will have more than just hot sauce in my fridge.”
And Mehta was so busy tapping away he didn’t notice the 3 dots on the phone where his friend is texting him, “Dude, there’s a Safeway downstairs.”
That was Instacart.
Are you familiar with Bilt Rewards? Bilt Rewards is a fintech-ish startupy thing where they will give you points for paying rent through their platform and you can then transfer those points to airlines and hotels or use them to pay for meals and gyms and whatnot.
Bilt has been pretty successful and raised funding at a $3 billion valuation, so when I saw this headline I knew I was going to love the rest of the story:
The article describes how the founder came to start Bilt after allegedly chatting with someone in Silicon Valley about a possible role at another startup:
“This venture capitalist goes, ‘I got this big idea that’s going to change the world. We’re going to put $100 million into this company, and you would be great for running it,’” Jain, 34, told The Post.
That big idea? Putting virtual luxury goods on the blockchain.
“I go, ‘Sorry, what’? He [said, users] could have their own Prada bag in the metaverse that can’t be duplicated.
“And I remember walking outside [in San Francisco] and there was a homeless person butt-naked humping a scooter in the middle of the street, with traffic stopped, and I’m thinking to myself: ‘You have the biggest housing crisis, a health care and mental health crisis here in the city… And here you are sitting, talking to me about like, digital Prada bags on the blockchain.”
“It was so out of touch with not just big problems, but big opportunities.”
To recap, he has a meeting with a VC guy, the guy pitches him on an idea where you can store your Prada bag on the blockchain (?), and then he walks outside and views an unhoused gentleman having sex with a scooter (ed. note: do not Google that), and he decides he will not partake in frivolity like blockchained Prada bags while we have the biggest housing and mental health crisis to deal with.
(It’s here that I’ll call bullshit on that story, because he says that traffic stopped as the gentlemen was in delicto flagrante with the scooter, when I am 1000% certain that in San Francisco traffic would not stop for something that ordinary.)
That’s when he decides he will focus on housing. And I assume that would involve housing those who are struggling to afford it, perhaps because of mental health issues, as he was really moved by that scooter humping incident.
So he took what he learned from that admittedly horrible thing he witnessed, and decided to create a platform where “renters can redeem points on perks in their neighborhood — like SoulCycle classes…”
But he’s really a down-to-earth guy, focused on the big problems:
“It’s not for everybody, but I love it. And I find that New York self-selects incredible people who want to do big things — not change the world with blockchain Prada purses.”
It self-selects for people who want to solve the housing and mental health crisis by allowing people to earn a rebate on their rent that they can use at neighborhood places like SoulCycle, which is definitely usually located in neighborhoods with low income housing. Problem solved!
…And Then a Lightbulb Went Off!
Have you ever worked at a company where they got a booth at an event? No? Congratulations.
Yes? Also congratulations, because you can really appreciate how challenging it is to actually make attending one of these events worthwhile for you and the company.
We can skip over the conversation-after-conversation and meeting-after-meeting you had either to convince someone else that it’s worth the company’s while to spend way-more-than-you-can-imagine to get a booth, or you had all those meetings specifically to convince someone that it’s NOT worth the company’s while to spend way-more-than-you-can-imagine to get a booth.
(Though if you did try to convince them not to spend money on the booth, you’ll be accused of not fully supporting the sales team, because that new guy that we just brought on in sales? That guy? At his last company they went ALL OUT at that conference and it brought in like, 60 leads. 70 maybe. And they were all good ones! Why don’t you want to bring in 60, maybe 70, good leads? Maybe this isn’t the right organization for you.)
So you decide to do the booth at the cybersecurity expo called Black Hat and you’re going to do a happy hour, because, as they say: in for a penny, in for a pound. Happy hour it is!
But now you’ve blown through the budget, because you figured you’d need to get the booth, plus decorate the booth, plus buy socks with your logo on it because everyone makes complicated software buying decisions based on the comfort of their feet, and you’ve got to spend a bunch of time with your SDRs making sure that 2 weeks before the event they’re reaching out to everyone who is going to attend the show and seeing if you can set up meetings at the booth or - and I almost forgot this! - at least come by the booth between 10am and noon because we’re doing lattes!
Still, you’ve got this happy hour to deal with and you need to get people there. And you’ve already been bothering your SDRs about calling attendees to tell them to come to the booth for the latte, and you don’t want to confuse anyone by asking them to ALSO invite people to the happy hour. They have to focus.
So whatt’reya gonna do? If you’re going to spend $12,000 on happy hour, you’ve got to get people to go.
And someone hasn’t made the task any easier - they’re making you call this thing the “CyberRisk Collaborative Happy Hour Presented by: paloalto.”
(I forgot to mention that in this exercise you work for cybersecurity company paloalto.)
I mean, what says “this is an hour of happy” more than “CyberRisk Collaborativeness”? (That was a rhetorical question.)
But you do what ya gotta do and you get a sign made up and you stick it near the happy hour (er, CyberRisk Collaborative Happy Hour) and hope for the best.
It would look like this:
OK, I mean that’s just fine. But you may decide that that’s not going to be enough to drive a bunch of CIOs who are READY TO BUY NOW! You gotta step it up. You gotta think about what would drive a CIO to attend your “CyberRisk Collaborative Happy Hour.”
And then - a lightbulb goes off over your head. And you get an idea.
And here is the idea:
You got a concrete idea - a lightbulb over your head - and you put it into action! Just wait for the accolades to roll in from the boss!
(2 days go by…)
This apology is spectacular.
I have questions about this sentence:
“The misguided attempt to welcome guests with branded lampshade-wearing hostesses was not consistent with our values.”
Which part was not consistent? It seems like welcoming guests would be consistent with their brand values. Then he specifically says “branded lampshade-wearing hostesses.” Was the issue that the lampshades had their brand on them? Because why else call that out? The hostesses, I guess, were fine. And perhaps lampshade-wearing hostesses would also be fine. But when you slap the paloalto brand on a lampshade, and then have a hostess wear it, and then have that hostess welcome people to a happy hour, well, that is not what this brand stands for.
Then…
“I appreciate you not judging us on this isolated event.” Does this mean that he assumes we are not judging them? Because, goddamn, of COURSE we are judging them! They had women wearing branded lampshades on their head - something that is very, very clearly not consistent with paloalto’s brand values - welcoming people to the CyberRisk Collaborative Happy Hour.
But really the best part is “a sincere apology for a marketing decision” and he has “addressed the issue within our event team and the entire marketing organization.”
HE THREW THAT MARKETING TEAM DIRECTLY UNDER THE BUS!
And THAT is how you do leadership.
As always, thanks for reading to the end.
If you’d like to chat about whatever’s on your mind (marketing stuff? not marketing stuff?) here’s my Calendly link. Nearly everyone I’ve met with says something to the effect of, “I was kind of afraid to set up time with you.” I’m not scary! I promise*.
(*Not a legally binding promise.)
And I do actually promise - the copy review I mentioned at the top is a really great way to make a huge leap forward with your messaging. And the price is right. Shoot me a note at jared@sagelett.com or fill out the form here if you’re interested.
I think I am becoming a Gobbledy superfan. Just thought you should know!
I gotta know … where do you find these stories?