The Five Levels of AI with Courtney Baker, Knownwell

The Five Levels of AI with Courtney Baker, Knownwell

Released Friday, 25th April 2025
Good episode? Give it some love!
The Five Levels of AI with Courtney Baker, Knownwell

The Five Levels of AI with Courtney Baker, Knownwell

The Five Levels of AI with Courtney Baker, Knownwell

The Five Levels of AI with Courtney Baker, Knownwell

Friday, 25th April 2025
Good episode? Give it some love!
Rate Episode

Episode Transcript

Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.

Use Ctrl + F to search

0:00

brand may be staying on top

0:02

of current trends, but are you

0:04

agile enough to stay relevant, resilient,

0:06

and successful as customers, competition, and

0:08

the world continues to change at

0:10

a breakneck pace? I'm thrilled

0:12

to share the newly revived version of

0:14

my first book, The Agile Brand.

0:16

I'm calling it The Agile Brand Revisited.

0:19

It's been updated to reflect our continually

0:21

changing world, and it provides seven

0:23

principles that form the backbone of

0:25

an agile brand. offering detailed insights

0:27

and actionable steps for incorporating them

0:29

into your business strategy. This

0:31

is the book that started it all and I'm excited to

0:33

share it with you. It's now available

0:35

in print and digital formats

0:37

and available everywhere. Learn more

0:40

by going to the Agile

0:42

brand guide website at www .agilebrandguide.com

0:54

Welcome to Season 7 of the Agile

0:56

Brand, where we discuss the trends and topics

0:58

marketing leaders need to know. Stay

1:00

curious, stay agile, and join the

1:02

top enterprise brands and Martek

1:04

platforms as we explore marketing technology,

1:07

AI, e -commerce, and whatever's next

1:09

for the Omni -Channel customer experience. Together,

1:12

we'll discover what it takes to create

1:14

an Agile Brand, built for today and tomorrow,

1:16

and built for customers, employees,

1:19

and continued business growth. I'm

1:21

your host, Greg Kilstrom, advising

1:23

Fortune 1000 brands on Martech, AI,

1:25

and marketing operations. The

1:28

Agile Brand Podcast is brought to you by Tech

1:30

Systems, an industry leader

1:32

in full -stack technology services, talent

1:34

services, and real -world application. For

1:37

more information, go to

1:39

teksystems.com. To make sure

1:41

you always get the latest episodes, please hit subscribe

1:43

on the app you listen to podcasts on, and

1:45

leave us a rating so others can find us

1:47

as well. And now on to the show. As

1:53

AI continues to evolve, how can marketing leaders

1:55

ensure that they're staying ahead of the

1:57

curve instead of simply keeping up with it?

2:00

And how do you navigate the complexities

2:02

of using AI while maintaining a personal

2:04

human touch in your campaigns? Joining

2:06

us today is Courtney Baker,

2:08

Chief Marketing Officer at KnownWell. and

2:11

co -host of the AI Know How

2:13

podcast. With a wealth of

2:15

experience in marketing and AI, Courtney

2:17

is leading the conversation about how

2:19

artificial intelligence is transforming the marketing

2:21

industry and redefining business strategies. She's

2:23

going to share insights on the next

2:25

era of client intelligence and the five levels

2:27

of AI that are reshaping businesses. Welcome

2:30

to the show, Courtney. Thank you.

2:32

Really glad to be here. Yeah, looking

2:34

forward to talking about this. I mean,

2:36

of course, we talk about AI plenty

2:38

here, but I really like this angle

2:40

here and looking forward to diving in.

2:42

But before we do, why

2:44

don't you start by giving a little

2:46

more about your background and your

2:48

role at Nongwal and what kind of

2:50

inspired this interest in AI and

2:52

marketing? One of the things

2:55

I love about being a marketer is

2:57

I've always felt like I could take

2:59

my craft and deploy it. to what

3:01

I was interested in. You know, I

3:03

used to joke that I felt like

3:05

I could market anything, you know, if

3:07

it was a tube, a tube. I

3:09

was like, I can market that. And

3:11

so I think my career has really

3:13

showcased that in a way that, you

3:15

know, in my 20s, I really spent

3:17

a lot of time in nonprofit and

3:19

traveling the world and getting to really

3:21

figure out how to market to unique

3:23

audiences to get them to do something

3:25

to change the world. I've

3:28

worked in professional services

3:30

companies where we're

3:32

doing executive coaching and

3:34

really working on

3:36

productivity for executives. And

3:39

so in a lot of different ways,

3:41

I've been able to take things that my

3:43

craft and what I'm passionate about at

3:45

that time and be able to use it

3:47

in conjunction, which I think makes for

3:49

a really Marketing is such a

3:51

fun career. Personally, obviously, I'm

3:53

very biased, but it's

3:55

just really neat to be able to do that. In

3:58

my career, I was connected

4:00

with David DeWolf, who's our CEO

4:02

at Known Wealth, the company

4:04

that I was working with, was

4:06

building an app with his

4:08

previous company, Three -Pillar Global. And

4:11

we just hit it off.

4:13

I remember from the very beginning,

4:15

I was like, this guy

4:17

is very impressive. I think I

4:19

just would love to learn

4:21

from him. And so as he

4:23

started to look at launching

4:25

a AI platform for professional services.

4:28

I joined the founding team, and

4:30

so that was two years ago.

4:32

The rest is really history from

4:34

what we've built and done it

4:36

and done well. Nice, nice. Well,

4:38

yeah, let's let's dive in here

4:40

and definitely you are the right person

4:42

to talk about this this topic

4:44

here So love this love your experience

4:46

here. So let's talk about the

4:48

next era of client intelligence So as

4:50

you mentioned briefly and want to

4:52

dive in a little more, you know

4:54

known well focuses on client intelligence

4:56

for marketing and professional services firms that

4:58

sounds like so can you define,

5:00

you know first What do you

5:02

mean by client intelligence and, you know,

5:04

what does that mean today? And maybe,

5:06

you know, where does it come from?

5:08

Right. Well, speaking specifically

5:11

for professional service

5:13

firms, in so many ways,

5:15

it's hard to be a professional

5:17

service firm because unlike SaaS

5:19

companies or e -commerce companies that

5:21

have all of this rich transactional

5:24

data on their customers. In

5:27

professional service firms, you don't

5:29

have that. What you have is

5:31

rich relational data. And

5:33

funny enough, we don't think of it

5:35

that way. And so in a lot of

5:37

ways, a lot of these tools that

5:39

we've kind of had over on the e

5:42

-commerce side or SaaS side, it's just it

5:44

doesn't apply for professional service firms. And

5:46

so if you think

5:48

about a small marketing firm

5:50

or small technology service

5:53

firm, at the very beginning, when

5:55

you're small, you just know

5:57

your customers. It doesn't take

5:59

anything special because you've got 25

6:02

customers. You have your thumb

6:04

on the pulse of what's happening.

6:06

with your customers. But as

6:08

you scale a professional service firm,

6:10

that becomes harder and harder. And

6:12

when you're early on, there's somebody that's

6:15

just really good at that. They just

6:17

have intuition. They know, hey, the Stanley

6:19

account, something was off

6:21

there in our meeting today. I

6:23

think we need to have an

6:25

executive way, jump in, reach

6:27

out to their connection there. Obviously,

6:29

as you scale that becomes harder

6:31

and harder and you're just you're less

6:33

able to get your hands around

6:35

what's really happening in that client relationship.

6:37

And what we are doing is

6:39

really what that person does on a

6:41

small firm of being able to,

6:43

you know, use their intuition to say

6:45

like, hey, we should flag

6:47

this, somebody should reach out to them

6:49

with AI. We can

6:51

do that now. So at

6:54

scale, we can take all

6:56

the exhaust from those relationships,

6:58

all those communications, all

7:00

those transcripts, emails, Slack conversations, and

7:02

really provide an objective view

7:04

of what's going on in the

7:06

health of that relationship with

7:08

that client and signal, hey, you

7:11

need to take action here.

7:13

Something needs to happen here. And

7:15

so we're really excited about

7:17

this new era of client intelligence.

7:19

for professional service firms and

7:21

excited to see, you know, I

7:23

always joke with our team,

7:25

you know, we say, see,

7:28

we talk about marketers, we talk

7:30

about CRMs all the time. And it's

7:32

a customer relationship management, you know,

7:34

we all know that's what it stands

7:36

for, but it's not actually what

7:39

it is. You know, it's really an

7:41

acquisition platform. It's really

7:43

actually a terrible way to

7:45

track what's happening in

7:47

your client relationships or your

7:49

client management. And so

7:51

what we're doing today, sometimes

7:54

I'm like, what we're

7:56

doing is real client intelligence,

7:58

client management in modern

8:00

era. Yeah. I mean,

8:02

I think, so two things there. I mean,

8:04

I think what you're saying is, you

8:06

know, a CRM is trying to quantify There's

8:10

some emotion and some

8:12

real relationship stuff that's

8:14

happening. What's the

8:16

drop -down value for angry clients

8:18

or whatever, something like that.

8:20

But also, I think maybe

8:23

to use an analogy, if

8:25

a company sells products, sells widgets,

8:27

let's say, and they can have

8:29

100 or they can have a

8:31

million, and AI actually probably does

8:33

a decent job at scaling to

8:35

that. But to your point, when

8:38

there's so much nuanced conversation

8:40

happening, when sometimes the thing that's

8:42

happening is what doesn't happen. I

8:45

would imagine there's so

8:47

much nuance there that the

8:49

idea of structuring that

8:51

data must be a challenge,

8:54

right? Yeah, absolutely. And

8:56

at the end of the day,

8:59

What what we're trying to do, what

9:01

we believe wholly in is really

9:03

using AI to help us humans do

9:05

what only humans can do. And

9:07

what we believe is humans are the

9:09

ones that engage in relationship that

9:11

actually know other people and know them

9:14

well. And that's where our name

9:16

known well comes from. And so that's

9:18

what we're trying to do is

9:20

take. you know, give professional service firms

9:22

the information they've always needed and

9:24

not known that there would ever be

9:26

the kind of technology to help

9:29

them do that for them to go

9:31

be in relationship with their customers. Yeah.

9:34

Well, so then, you know, next

9:36

logical thing, what does that allow people

9:38

to, you know, for these companies

9:40

to do and do better with their

9:42

marketing strategies? Yeah, I mean,

9:44

I think there's so much,

9:47

especially in the growth opportunity side,

9:50

so many times where upsells fall

9:52

in an organization. It's like a

9:54

revolving door. You just don't know.

9:56

It gets changed all the time.

9:58

Whose responsibility is it? And I

10:00

think when you have a intelligent

10:03

source like known well, helping you

10:05

see when there's opportunity and when

10:07

it takes the guesswork out of

10:09

that, it makes it a lot

10:11

easier to figure out how to

10:13

solve that problem. the best way

10:16

you can in your organization. It

10:18

makes it where, hey, if it needs to be

10:20

a collaborative process, but we've

10:22

taken the hard work of figuring

10:24

out when that collaboration needs to

10:26

happen, it takes those

10:28

opportunities to the next level. And

10:31

so we're really excited about what

10:33

that means for the growth of

10:35

the existing bases within these organizations.

10:38

Yeah. And so to dive in

10:40

a little deeper here, so

10:42

with enough time and resources, I'm

10:45

sure a marketing company, a

10:47

professional services company, could probably make

10:49

a really, really detailed spreadsheet

10:51

that has a lot of information

10:53

here. To your point, you're

10:55

using AI to take things much

10:57

further. Can you talk a

11:00

little bit about what's the power

11:02

of AI in this to

11:04

really do what you're saying? You

11:06

bring up a great point.

11:08

We have interviewed hundreds and hundreds

11:10

of professional service firms and

11:12

even the most successful firms. They

11:15

are using a spreadsheet, a red,

11:17

yellow, green. What's the status

11:19

of our clients? There

11:21

is value in that. But

11:24

at the end of the day, it is

11:26

still subjective. It takes

11:28

a lot of work to wrangle, hey, has

11:30

everybody got that in? If

11:32

you're in leadership, you're

11:35

having to just trust people. perception

11:38

of things, their subjective

11:40

assessment of what's happening.

11:43

And what you want is actually

11:45

to know that you've got

11:47

something covering the blind spots, the

11:50

things that help you not have that

11:52

surprise turn. I think it's the worst kind

11:54

of turn is that surprise turn. You think

11:56

you've got a great client and then you

11:58

find out they're leaving. That is painful. And

12:01

so, you know, what this does is

12:03

really give you that other source, that

12:05

objective source, again, both very

12:07

powerful. It's not that you're not

12:09

going to need subjective. It's just

12:11

that you're going to use both and really

12:13

create kind of a powerhouse of knowing, confidently

12:16

knowing that you know what's

12:18

actually happening with your clients. Yeah.

12:20

Yeah. mean, I think that that objective source

12:22

is really important because, you know, I

12:25

would imagine in some case somewhere, you

12:27

know, someone doesn't really want to say that

12:29

the client's upset and report a problem.

12:31

But I would say probably in most cases,

12:34

people are well -intentioned, they

12:36

just may not have

12:38

all the data to

12:40

change that from yellow

12:42

to red. I've

12:44

seen that spreadsheet way too many times,

12:46

by the way. So

12:48

AI being more objective,

12:51

it applies the same

12:53

rules to everything. I

12:55

think that's a really powerful thing. And then

12:57

to your point, then leaders

12:59

can adjust, I'm sure, or they

13:01

can interpret still, but at

13:03

least it's a the level playing

13:05

field, right? Well, and I

13:07

think the other powerful thing that

13:09

I'm not mentioning is the

13:11

red -yellow -green is on a client

13:13

-by -client basis, a subjective at

13:15

the client level. There's nothing

13:18

to really take the level up of

13:20

what's happening and actually being able

13:22

to apply and see the trends and

13:24

connect the dots between all of

13:26

these things. That is hard

13:28

work. And that's what

13:30

AI is so good at. And

13:32

so not only are you looking

13:34

at what is the health of

13:36

these clients, what's the objective score

13:38

with these clients, but what's the

13:40

intelligence sitting above all those clients

13:43

and able to say, hey, here's

13:45

what's happening to your portfolio. All

13:47

of your clients that have

13:49

this certain product, they always churn

13:51

after 90 days. And here's

13:53

what you can do to fix

13:55

that. It's really being able

13:57

to help you connect dots like

13:59

you've never been able to

14:01

before. Want to learn

14:03

more and join the discussion about marketing

14:05

and AI? Attend a premier

14:08

conference dedicated to marketing and

14:10

AI. That's MEACON, the Marketing

14:12

Artificial Intelligence Conference, from October

14:14

14 through 16 in Cleveland,

14:16

Ohio. MEACON brings together the

14:18

brightest minds and leading voices in

14:20

AI. Don't miss this

14:23

opportunity to connect with a

14:25

dynamic community of experts, visionaries,

14:27

and enthusiasts. The Agile brand is

14:29

proud to be the lead media sponsor of this

14:31

important event. Register today

14:33

at marketingaiinstitute.com. That's marketingaiinstitute.com.

14:35

and use the

14:37

code Agile150 for $150

14:39

off your registration

14:41

fee. I can't wait

14:44

to see you

14:46

there. So

14:55

I mentioned at the top of

14:57

the show of the five levels of

14:59

AI and I wanted to get

15:01

back to that and have you kind

15:03

of walk us through that and

15:05

explain how each level impacts various business

15:08

functions. Yeah, thanks.

15:10

This is one of my favorite topics

15:12

because obviously AI, I'm passionate about

15:15

it. I talked about being able to

15:17

deploy my craft in different ways. This

15:20

area specifically with AI, I

15:22

think it's really exciting. If

15:24

you're listening, I think early

15:26

on, we got really used

15:28

to thinking about AI as

15:30

just a tool to help

15:32

me be more productive in

15:34

my own job. I

15:37

think this frame really helps unlock

15:39

a little bit of where we're going

15:41

all the time. You probably hear

15:43

like, this is just the beginning, but

15:45

it's hard to really think of,

15:48

okay, well, what could or will the

15:50

feature look like? That's tough with

15:52

this new technology. And so

15:54

I'll break it down this way.

15:56

If you look at the very

15:58

bottom layer of work, it's really

16:00

manual labor. And if you think

16:02

of how AI applies to manual

16:04

labor, we all get its robotics. And

16:07

we've had it for a long time.

16:09

And so really easy concept. The

16:11

level up from that is

16:13

execution. And it's

16:15

really automating core knowledge

16:18

work and driving individual performance

16:20

excellence. And that's really

16:22

what we've had with chat

16:24

GPT, starting two years

16:27

ago. And a lot of

16:29

the AI tools that we've had up

16:31

to date, they're all on this

16:33

level of execution, helping us do our

16:35

jobs better and certainly valuable. But

16:38

if you start to look at these levels

16:40

above this, this is where I think it

16:42

gets really interesting about examining where AI is

16:44

going to take us in the future. So

16:47

the level above that is

16:49

operations. And it's really

16:51

how do we work together

16:53

across the organization to move

16:55

the business forward to drive

16:57

results? That's where

16:59

you're starting to see

17:01

more AI platforms like

17:04

knownwell and other platforms

17:06

that are actually helping

17:08

work across organizations, not

17:10

just to drive individual

17:12

performance, but to drive

17:14

the entire business forward. Hopefully

17:17

that's helpful for unlocking. Oh, I

17:19

can start to see how AI is

17:21

going to start changing business on

17:23

the operational level. Now, obviously,

17:26

if we go above that, you have

17:28

the strategy of the organization. I don't

17:30

think we're there yet with AI, but

17:32

certainly I think we will start to

17:34

see a more AI impacting strategy. And

17:36

then at the very top, we have

17:39

the ideology of our businesses. don't

17:42

think. I hope, and this

17:44

is where we have to do some

17:46

work as a society of figuring out where

17:48

does AI, how far do we let

17:50

AI go? And I hope that maybe this

17:52

is an area we retain as humans,

17:54

that we drive the ideology of our business,

17:57

our values, our purposes. Hopefully

17:59

we retain that. But I think

18:01

thinking about it in this frame

18:03

really helps maybe unlock what could

18:05

the future look like as it

18:07

escalates through these different levels. I

18:09

love that framework. And yeah, mean,

18:11

I agree. When we get to

18:14

that top level, it's going to

18:16

look a lot different than we

18:18

could imagine it right now, right?

18:20

So in other words, you know, because I

18:22

think even over the last couple of

18:24

years, there's been, you know, as

18:26

with anything, I mean, it used to

18:28

be like back in the day with like

18:31

social media, like Facebook changed the placement

18:33

of a button and society like cried out

18:35

that, you know, life was unfair or

18:37

whatever. And now it's like, AI

18:39

is going to take our jobs. Yes,

18:41

it will take some of them, but

18:43

we're actually making a lot of progress

18:45

in how we work with AI and

18:47

stuff. I guess I'm an optimist when

18:49

it comes to a lot of this

18:51

stuff, not hopefully cautiously optimistic, but I

18:54

guess to get to the operational piece

18:56

because I feel like that's where a

18:58

lot of companies either are or that's

19:00

where they're striving to get to to

19:02

your point is like that's kind of

19:04

the next the next step, if

19:06

not current state for a lot of

19:08

companies. To me, that's where

19:10

I see a lot of the

19:13

agentic AI and those things that are,

19:15

that's like the buzzword of the

19:17

month or whatever in AI circles. But

19:19

I think there's tons of promise

19:21

there because we have had a lot

19:23

of people in their little silos,

19:25

like somebody using Claude and somebody using

19:27

ChatGBT and all in the same

19:29

company. And then when a company tries

19:32

to do something, it's like, okay,

19:34

well, What do we do? Which one

19:36

do we use? So

19:38

I think there's so much promise.

19:40

And good to see that

19:42

I've been on the other side

19:44

of things too, but I've

19:46

been at plenty of professional services

19:48

firms with some of the

19:50

challenges you describe. And so knowing

19:52

that someone's trying to tackle

19:54

this problem is very reassuring. Where

19:57

do you see most marketing

19:59

firms today? Have

20:01

they gotten quite to the operational

20:03

piece or are they still before

20:05

that? Yeah, I would say

20:07

they're usually before that. And I

20:09

think partly just because we haven't

20:12

seen a lot of offerings on

20:14

that operational level yet, I

20:16

think we will continue to see

20:18

more. If you think back early,

20:20

hindsight is 20 -20, but so

20:22

many of these large enterprises we're

20:24

talking about building their own AI,

20:26

how do you get that talent

20:28

in? And in many

20:30

cases, I think probably jumped the

20:32

gun on spending the

20:35

resources to go build their own

20:37

thing. And I think we're going to

20:39

have a lot of options here

20:41

to help us solve problems that are

20:43

going to be off the shelf

20:45

and hopefully a lot more affordable for

20:47

mid -market firms and smaller firms to

20:49

still be able to leverage that

20:51

technology without the cost of trying to

20:53

maintain the technology. And so,

20:55

I think today, you know, a lot

20:57

of marketing firms don't have the

20:59

option of these operational tools yet, again,

21:02

known well as one of them. I think there are

21:04

going to be quite a bit more. I

21:06

do see them deploying,

21:08

you know, at the execution

21:11

level of, you know, evaluating

21:13

how do we get more

21:15

out of, you know, for

21:17

everybody on this team with professional

21:19

service firms, we know if we

21:22

can You know, there's such a

21:24

cost with people. We have to

21:26

have people and professional service firms

21:28

to scale. We can't scale without

21:30

people. That's been the recipe for

21:32

so long. But with AI, you

21:35

can actually that curve of

21:37

that growth. curve doesn't have

21:39

to be so linear between

21:41

clients and people needed to

21:43

provide the delivery. And

21:46

so that's what's really exciting to

21:48

me for marketing firms is can

21:50

we start to bend that curve

21:52

more than we ever have before?

21:54

And so I do see them

21:56

working with a lot of the

21:58

different AI tools for execution because

22:00

that, of trying to bend that

22:02

curve and get more than they've

22:04

ever been able to do before

22:06

out of their individual contributors. Yeah.

22:09

mean, I think what's interesting here to

22:11

totally agree on the execution side, it's

22:13

like there's, I think, and I think

22:15

in the long run, people will find

22:17

more value in their jobs because of

22:19

it. I think in the short term,

22:22

you know, certainly there's, there's some, you

22:24

know, and right, rightfully said, there's, there's

22:26

some trepidation there as far as, you

22:28

know, not wanting to lose their role

22:30

or whatever. But I think on the

22:32

other side, on the relationship side, I

22:34

think that was the harder

22:36

thing to scale to, I mean,

22:38

obviously, known well, found a business model

22:40

there, right? So it's like, I

22:42

think that's, that's promising too. Because yeah,

22:45

I mean, if you're, it's

22:47

going to come down to, I

22:49

think a lot of clients are going

22:51

to want to rethink the way

22:53

that they're compensating firms. And so I

22:55

know even with some firms, I

22:57

deal with, they're rethinking how, you know,

23:00

their business model. And no, they

23:02

can't just cut their costs because they've

23:04

reduced some people but have

23:07

AI. It doesn't quite work

23:09

like that, but they also need to

23:11

be able to scale their ability

23:13

to have relationships with their clients too

23:15

as they scale the ability to

23:17

churn out content with AI and stuff

23:19

like that. I don't know

23:21

what the question is there. I

23:23

guess maybe my next question would just

23:25

be, I think

23:27

there are some aspects. Again, marketing

23:30

firms, professional services firms have been really focused

23:32

on, you know, again, how do we execute and

23:34

all that? What are they overlooking? Like, what

23:36

do you see as like, what's the low hanging

23:38

fruit that people aren't just paying enough attention

23:40

to now? Yeah, that's a

23:42

great question. I, in

23:44

some ways, I feel

23:46

like especially when it

23:48

comes to churn, and

23:51

I would say even going

23:53

back to what I said

23:55

at the beginning of just

23:57

not being able to have the

23:59

information they need to really

24:01

successfully run their firm because

24:04

when you're having to run

24:06

off subjective information, you're really

24:08

having to use your gut. Do

24:10

I trust this subjective

24:12

information? And it only takes

24:15

a few times of eroding that

24:17

subjective that you start to question.

24:19

And it's just natural. It's going

24:21

to happen because At the end

24:23

of the day, it's people working

24:25

with people. There's perception on perception,

24:27

and it's a hard job. What

24:29

these teams do, these people dealing

24:31

with their clients, they

24:33

are some of the most, absolute

24:35

most important people in your

24:38

organization. It's a hard job, but

24:40

it's also hard for the

24:42

leadership to be able to make

24:44

data -driven decisions off those subjective

24:46

analysis of what's happening with

24:48

their clients. You know,

24:51

they're missing that there is a

24:53

new world being open where there

24:55

is platforms that are able to

24:57

bring in all of these different

24:59

resources to really give them where

25:01

they can lead from confidence and

25:03

not having to lead from get

25:05

really being able to make decisions

25:07

from data. I would say that's

25:09

the big unlock here. Yeah.

25:11

I mean, I think, you know, as

25:13

as an entrepreneur myself, you

25:15

know, there's a fair amount of I'd

25:18

like to think it's not delusion,

25:20

it's optimism. You

25:22

have to be optimistic as an

25:24

entrepreneur or I'll broaden it

25:26

as an entrepreneurial person because I

25:28

think salespeople and client services

25:30

account people within organizations. They're entrepreneurial

25:32

in the sense they're either

25:34

trying to grow the business or

25:36

get more clients. So you

25:38

get a bunch of entrepreneurial people

25:40

there that want to look

25:42

at the glass half full and

25:44

to your point, Again,

25:46

best intentions, you

25:48

know, it's but but it's still it's

25:50

a a bit skewed sometimes and

25:52

you you know, there's a by there's

25:54

an anchor bias. There's a whatever

25:56

whatever kind of bias that's that's causing

25:58

you to think that way. But

26:01

again, best intentions aside, it's still it

26:03

can lead to that. unintentional churn

26:05

that you mentioned earlier. Right.

26:07

Absolutely. That's the whole thing is like we

26:09

all have blind spots. So this

26:11

is a platform that helps you make

26:13

sure you don't have that blind spot on

26:15

every level of the organization from the

26:17

person on the ground dealing with the client

26:19

to the CEO. Yeah, yeah.

26:21

So I want to switch gears just a

26:23

little bit here. As I mentioned,

26:25

you host your own podcast. So definitely highly

26:27

recommend everybody checks that out as well.

26:29

Don't stop listening to this one. There's

26:32

plenty of hours in the day. Listen

26:34

to both, please. I'm

26:36

always curious other's journey as

26:39

well here. How has podcasting, whether

26:41

it's deep into your understanding

26:43

or just kind of broaden your

26:45

understanding, or what impact has

26:47

it had on just how

26:50

you think about AI and marketing and business.

26:53

Yeah, it's been an absolute game

26:55

changer on that front. I

26:57

think there is something to

26:59

be said to just being able

27:01

to have conversations with people

27:03

that are thinking about, excited about,

27:06

really examining what AI

27:08

is going to look

27:10

like for business and

27:12

society. There's a lot

27:14

that we have to think

27:16

about as business leaders. as

27:20

professional service

27:22

firms, but all the

27:24

way down to just at

27:26

the individual level of, hey,

27:28

how is this going to change

27:30

our society? What things

27:32

are we good with? Which things

27:34

are we not? How do we

27:36

start to... really question what makes

27:39

humans human? And then how do

27:41

we retain those things that are

27:43

so core to being a human?

27:46

Those are heavy topics. And I

27:48

think being on the podcast and

27:50

talking to a really, really

27:52

sharp, and I would say

27:54

a lot of times very technical

27:56

people has been really enlightening. And

27:58

then trying to try to help

28:00

executives, especially those of us that

28:02

aren't necessarily technicians, you know,

28:05

translate those very smart

28:07

technologists and what they know

28:09

into things that are

28:11

very practical for, hey, what

28:13

should we be examining in our business? How

28:15

should we be thinking about AI? How do we

28:17

deploy it well? How do

28:19

we deploy all these different questions? It's

28:21

been really helpful for me of

28:23

just challenging my own thinking. And

28:26

I don't know, for those of

28:28

you that are listening. If

28:30

you're anywhere close to my age bracket,

28:32

which I'll just tell you, I was in

28:34

college when Facebook came around. Do you

28:36

remember when you had to have a college

28:39

email address? You know, and so

28:41

I think I'm especially primed for, you

28:43

know, if I look back, you know, I'm

28:45

always like, if I only would have

28:47

known, you know, like I was one of

28:49

the earliest people using this platform. If

28:51

I would have done something different earlier

28:54

in my career, could have really paid

28:56

off. And so I think now that

28:58

we're here with AI, we see this

29:00

as, hey, this is a huge moment

29:02

in time. And, you know, I'm

29:04

not going to, you know, I'm smarter now than

29:06

I was when I was, you know, 18. I'm

29:08

going to engage in this differently than I

29:10

did back then. And so I think it's, if

29:13

you're in this similar age bracket,

29:15

you're looking at this and being like,

29:17

this is either, for

29:19

me, it's very exciting of, okay,

29:21

how do I, there are

29:23

things hopefully that we've learned. in the

29:26

past about how these new technologies, how

29:28

we need to be thinking about them.

29:30

And so for me, it's really exciting to

29:33

have a platform to be able to do

29:35

some of that wrestling and that thought -provoking work,

29:37

and then hopefully to be able to share

29:39

it with people that are listening. Yeah,

29:42

yeah, love it. Well, Courtney,

29:44

thanks so much for joining today. One last

29:46

question I'd like to ask everybody. What

29:48

do you do to stay agile in your role and how

29:50

do you find a way to do it consistently? Oh,

29:53

such a great question. You

29:55

know, I would say it's so

29:57

much of as the people around

29:59

me that helped me do that

30:01

and the collaboration with really smart

30:04

people and helping, you know, totally

30:06

be there to challenge and to

30:08

think through and push me to

30:10

new levels. That is when you

30:12

find those people, hang on to

30:14

them. They're worth it, even when

30:16

it's hard. It's not

30:18

always easy. Love it. Well,

30:20

thanks again to Courtney Baker, CMO at Known Well

30:22

for joining the show. You can learn more

30:24

about Courtney and Known Well by following the links

30:26

in the show notes. Thanks

30:30

again for listening to The Agile Brand, brought

30:32

to you by Tech Systems. If

30:34

you enjoyed the show, please take

30:36

a minute to subscribe and leave us

30:38

a rating so that others can

30:41

find the show as well. You can

30:43

access more episodes of the show

30:45

at theagilebrand.com. That's theagilebrand.com. And

30:47

contact me if you're

30:49

interested in consulting or

30:51

advisory services or are

30:53

looking for a speaker

30:55

for your next event.

30:57

Go to www .greggkilstrom.com. That's

30:59

G -R -E -G -K -I -H

31:01

-L -S -T -R -O -M.com. The

31:04

Agile brand is produced by

31:06

Missing Link, a Latina -owned, strategy -driven,

31:08

creatively fueled production co -op. From

31:10

ideation to creation, they craft

31:13

human connections through intelligent, engaging, and

31:15

informative content. Until next time,

31:17

stay curious and stay Agile. Ever

31:26

heard of Farm

31:29

to Table? How about Farm

31:31

to Home? That's how Costa

31:33

Farms plant business works. With

31:35

over 1500 plant varieties grown over

31:37

5 ,200 acres, they're not

31:39

just a company, they're your plant partners

31:41

who've been perfecting their craft for

31:43

60 years. They deliver beautiful, high quality,

31:45

easy to care for plants. They

31:48

even offer virtual plant

31:50

consultations and an insider

31:52

club for rare plant

31:54

access. Check out www

31:56

.costafarms.com today and enter

31:58

code growing Costa

32:00

Farms 15 for a

32:02

15 % discount on

32:04

your first purchase. You

32:07

can also purchase

32:09

this unique plant

32:11

brand at Lowe's,

32:13

Walmart, Amazon, and

32:15

Home Depot. Go

32:17

to www .CostaCOSTAFarms.com

32:19

today. Before

32:24

we continue, I wanted to share

32:26

a key strategic resource that a majority

32:28

of the Fortune 500 are already

32:30

aware of. Finding the best

32:32

technology, business, and talent is

32:34

not easy. With business

32:36

demands and competitive pressures mounting, you

32:38

need to be able to

32:40

design, deploy, and optimize your technology

32:42

to provide leading customer experiences

32:44

while driving business growth. Those

32:47

of you that have been listening to this show

32:49

for a while know that this podcast is brought

32:51

to you by Tech Systems, a

32:53

global provider of technology, business,

32:55

and solutions for more than

32:57

80 of the Fortune 500. Tech

33:00

accelerates business transformation for

33:02

their customers. Whether

33:04

you're looking to maximize your technology

33:06

ROI, drive business

33:08

growth, or elevate customer experiences,

33:11

Tech Systems enables enterprises to

33:13

capitalize on change. Learn

33:15

more at

33:17

techsystems.com. That's T

33:19

-K systems.com. Now

33:22

let's get back to the show.

Unlock more with Podchaser Pro

  • Audience Insights
  • Contact Information
  • Demographics
  • Charts
  • Sponsor History
  • and More!
Pro Features