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.
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More