Gratuitous sorcery and incantations from actual Wizards.

Qualifying Questions have been a popular litmus test to determine whether a prospect is worth working with…or not. Countless businesses engage in qualifying prospects to help weed out those who aren’t ready and willing to buy your solutions. At the end of the process, qualified prospects who survive are deemed worthy to enter the sales funnel.

There’s just one problem: qualifying prospects is utter nonsense.

The reality is clients don’t need to be qualified. It’s the solution provider that needs to be qualified.

Stop making your problem their problem. It’s bad manners. 

Why?

The fact is, your customers aren’t the authority on the solutions they need. You are. It’s your job to ask the right questions to determine if and what you might have to solve their problem correctly. 

Your business and solutions may not always be the right fit for your customer’s needs. Using qualifying questions will allow you to properly assess a client’s situation and determine the perfect solution for their problems. 

One must never use their solutions as the gold standard prior to working with a prospect. It’s always about identifying your client’s specific needs first, and then presenting the right solutions to their needs.

That’s what qualifying questions should be about. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how qualifying questions work and explore 27 questions to ask prospects.

How Do Qualifying Questions Actually Work?

Sales statistics information reveals that at least 50 percent of your prospective customers are not a good fit for your solution. That’s why many businesses think that qualifying prospects is a good idea to avoid wasting money, effort, and time.

But what this data doesn’t reveal is how well the seller understood their prospects' needs. Time and time again I have listened to sales presentations and wondered if the salesperson was even in the same room when the prospect expressed their desires and needs. 

Qualifying a prospect is lazy, entitled, and selfish. Being qualified to offer a solution by really understanding a prospect is key. We all know that the buying process should always revolve around our customer and exceed their return on perceived investment. Their investment is money, energy, time. Once your solution's value exceeds their MET (money, effort, and time), a sale is made. 

To this end, qualifying questions should not be used to qualify a customer, but rather, for the seller to become qualified to sell them the right solution.

Think of it this way.

A sales professional asking qualifying questions to customers is like a doctor diagnosing a patient. During the interview, doctors don’t shove their medical achievements, facilities, and expert staff down the patient’s throat. 

Instead, they actively listen to the patient and try to understand the sum of their symptoms. Only when they have a complete understanding of the situation will they be able to prescribe the right treatment.

For you, qualifying questions operate with the same intent.

You want to fully comprehend your customer’s situation to properly diagnose their needs. This enables you to prescribe the right solution. Ultimately, when your presentations are tailored specifically to your customers’ needs, you will boost your conversion rate, average sale, and profit in the process.

27 Qualifying Questions to Ask Your Prospect

The thought of all the possible questions you could possibly ask a prospective buyer can feel overwhelming. When I really studied all these questions, they ultimately fell into three essential categories. 

1. The prospect's needs that make them feel right about the purchase.
2. The environment that the solution is exposed to.
3. The solution needs to be the most fitting option, perceptually and literally. 

Well conceived, open-ended questions help you gather intelligence to determine the best solution and if your business is the right fit for your prospects. 

Contrary to popular opinion, there are stupid questions. These are the ones that neither propel the conversation forward or set you up for a successful closing sequence.  

Furthermore, pay attention to the tone you set. Use your playful voice and your reassuring late-night FM DJ voice. Your vibe will directly affect the responses you receive. 

This is why you build a deck of solid qualifying questions that uncover the 3 essential needs. 

27 Qualifying Questions 

Prospect’s Needs

1. Would I be crazy to think you want this fixed right the first time? 

“No” oriented questions allow the customer to feel in control and state their truest desires. Everyone is transactional until you make it relational. This is done with tactical empathy and confident competence. 

2. Who has been servicing your needs up to now? 

Finding out if you're the fool or the favor helps you figure out how to win their favor. Rule of thumb: if they are a new customer and have used the same provider more than once, you’re in the role of the fool. Figure out what’s changed. 

3. When home repairs like this come up, how do you tend to fund them? 

While clearly not a question to ask early on, this is a great way to open up a conversation about finance options, minimizing the cost, and saving money. It’s a portal to a deeper, more empathetic, more competent solution. It’s never about you making money. It’s always about how you save them money, stress, and time both during and after the problem is resolved. 

4. Have you had any bad experiences with contractors before? 

Knowing what not to do is arguably more valuable than knowing what to do. Most people are guided by good manners and a servant's heart. Recognizing things that trigger a negative feeling allows you to show up in the best way. 

5. What matters most to you, the cheapest solution, or the lowest overall cost solution? 

The cheapest solution is most often not the lowest cost solution. Most customers don’t want the best solution, they want a slightly better solution than what they have now. If it is broken, they want it fixed. If it can’t be fixed, they want a new one that gives them the most value for their money, efforts, and time, both during the sale and after. 

6. Would you rather have the same thing as you have now or an upgrade? 

This is a simple to answer either/or question that clarifies where the buyer’s mind is at the moment. You’re setting yourself up to share options by planting a seed that you offer choices, not ultimatums. 

7. When were you hoping to have this problem solved? 

The short answer will naturally be, “It depends.” This question holds some tension in it, but you want to understand how much urgency the prospect has to make this problem go away. You can decide how to most appropriately raise consequences in your closing sequence. 

8. Would I be off base to think you’re probably anticipating some problems arising?  

When you gently tug out and preemptively address objections before they become a roadblock, you make closing so much easier. This shows up as empathy, and allows you to show your competence, which are the 2 key ingredients to trust. PRO TIP: After you’ve asked the question, go silent and allow the prospect to speak. 

9. Would I be silly to think that there are 2 decision-makers for something this important?  

Using “no” oriented questions allows you to protect your prospects' dignity with a sense of control. They will be certain to correct you if they are the only decision-maker, but almost always they will reveal they have a built-in stalling mechanism in place to avoid quick commitments. Knowing this allows you to set up your closing sequence for a higher chance of first-sit conversions. 

Environment‘s Needs

10. When did you notice the change? 

Knowing when things changed, internally and externally, is helpful in coming up with an accurate diagnosis. Things don’t break in a vacuum. You also learn how urgent the issue is to them. If they’ve been putting it off, I’d be curious what hasn’t felt right to have them act. 

11. What are some of the ways you tried to make it work again? 

You learn a lot about a person’s understanding of the problem by what they attempted to do before calling you. From nothing to something, you gather helpful intelligence. In some cases, the equipment is exposed to tinkering, while in others, the solution has been sitting there uncared for. 

12. When was the last time it was given scheduled maintenance?

Having a homeowner verbalize their duty of care gives you a good indication of what you’re facing. Most people want their home’s major systems to silently work and remain invisible. That means they often forget about it. This gives you an opportunity to sell them the convenience of annual preventative maintenance. 

13. Would I be out of line to advise you if I find something concerning? 

Asked in a nonconfrontational, “no” oriented question, you can elicit a lot of helpful information from the environment their home’s systems survive or thrive in. The environment includes both what a system is exposed to and how the systems are cared for. 

14. Are any of your spaces uncomfortable? Do you have all the hot water you need?

By speaking about how the prospect's environment feels, you are exploring the environment from the opposite direction. This shows both empathy and competence, which has them feeling right about you solving any problems you may identify. 

15. Might it be crazy to think you invited us here today because you’re not completely happy with how your system is operating?

This ”no” oriented question gives your prospect a safe way to reveal anything that they have on their mind. People can be hesitant to show their cards, and if you were to ask the same question, soliciting a “yes” response, they will be more guarded as they fear you trying to make a sale. 

16. Does this room/equipment get exposed to any extreme conditions? 

Are there abnormal conditions that could be affecting the existing solutions or new solutions? Heat, cold, old wiring, wind, large windows, low water quality, etc., all have the ability to affect performance. If the prospect recognizes it as an issue, it is an indication that they are open to accepting specific performance or finding solutions. 

17. Do you want to fix it or risk it if I find something is broke? 

While you’re not trying to find problems, very often there are small problems that can be fixed to avoid an impending catastrophic failure. This question plants a seed of doubt and indirectly asks permission to share your concerns if any arise. It’s an empathetic way to broach an uncomfortable conversation about a grudge purchase. 

18. When’s the last time you gave your system a deep cleaning?

Ever go into a teenager’s bedroom and nearly die from the smell, twist an ankle, and hear a rustling noise as you run out in terror? A lot of homes are like this for residential systems and equipment. Every once in a while, it’s essential to give everything a proper clean.

Solution’s Needs

19. Has the equipment been keeping up with your comfort? 

Knowing how people perceive their equipment performance will give you insight into two things. One, their level of interest in their equipment, and two, how they feel the equipment is serving their needs. 

20. Does your equipment do…or not do something you want? 

If there is a gap, they’ll share it with you. If there is something unpleasant happening, they’ll tell you. Not surprisingly, they will never offer up what they don’t know to offer up. So, stay curious. Do you have a lot of dust in the house? Do your tub, toilet, or taps have stains? Do your lights ever flicker? 

21. Would it be uncommon for you to have a power bill over $500 a month these days? 

Framing this question to a “no” oriented response empowers the prospect to respond effortlessly. Removing friction from an odd, mildly intrusive question allows you to get past the first roadblocks of a more open conversation about how you could improve their situation with more efficient solutions. 

22. Does your equipment ever make any funny noises? 

Funny noises are a good indicator of potential problems. The term “funny noises” leaves space for family-friendly humor, too. Keep your word choices simple and relatable. Don’t be afraid to even mimic a few of those potential funny noises to drive home your point with a bit of a chuckle.

23. Did you pick out the equipment, or did you inherit it with the home? 

Asking a prospect how old their equipment is will expose you as a slick Willy sales guy. Asking them if they bought it or inherited it is a subtle way to learn more about the relationship they have with the equipment. 

24. Anything you want me to pay particularly close attention to today? 

Your client called you for a reason. Give them their voice so they may guide you. This shows empathy and respect for their input and opinions. It also presents you as more competent, having given them the time to feel heard and understood. 

25. Where do you keep your filters? 

People who know where the filters are typically care for their equipment. For those who have no idea or don’t have filters on hand, have a lower duty of care for their equipment. One prospect likes having you help care for their equipment, and the other desperately needs you there to care for their equipment.

26. Do you notice any weird smells coming from your equipment? 

Smells are a sign something’s wrong with your household equipment. They are intrusive. They give your home a stigma, mentally and emotionally. And you are your client’s problem solver. Their painkiller.  Their odor eater-upper. 

27. Would I be crazy to think we could fix it today instead of replacing it? 

In the greedy world of short-term sales quotas and revenue maximization, all to please a bunch of soulless shareholders that don’t even live in the same state, the privately-owned, hometown contractor that wants to be appreciated at church on Sunday, their kids' football game on Friday night, and the grocery store on Wednesday. Replacement sales will happen when they need to. 

Finding ways to save a customer money (at the right price to be profitable) represents your brand far more than closing that big deal and leaving a trail of disappointment. 

Revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. 

The Rest of the Diagnosis

Not all questions are for your client. Much of the questions you need to have satisfied come from cleaning and inspecting the equipment and the environment it is in. Make it a good practice to NOT ask questions that the environment and equipment can answer for you better. This will show your competence. 

A prognosis without diagnosis is malpractice. 

Once the doctor gathered all the anecdotal information, they would set about running tests. Your job is no different, even if the diagnosis is to replace the old unit. 

Why? Because what if? What if the system could be fixed? What if it was something simple? What if the ethical sale is a repair? 

Would a doctor amputate a leg if he could stop the infection? No. Neither should you. 

Be thorough. Be satisfied that you turned over all the stones. Serve the buyer at the highest level, and they’ll demand that you come back, again and again. 

Did You Notice?

Not a single question started with the word why.

Most of the questions we have are why questions. It instantly exposes intent. There’s just one problem. It’s TOO forward. It feels cunning. It FEELS intrusive. Almost adversarial. Certainly salesy. 

The good news? Any “why” question can be asked in a different way to get a response. Often a better response, because you’ve not set off their spidey-senses. 

When you embrace the truth about serving others at the highest level, you operate within the two core elements of truth — empathy and competence. 

And that means choosing your words with intention. 

Even the smallest changes will garner dramatically better results. 

Remember, in a transactional category, the only differentiator you have is how you make people feel. 

Good Selling. 

Step into the smoke-filled boardrooms of Madison Avenue with Advertising in America. Ryan Chute, Mick Torbay, and Chris Torbay pull no punches as they debate the most expensive myth in marketing: the “perfect lead.”

Episode Highlights

• Why chasing the “Glengarry leads” could bankrupt your business.
• The dangerous illusion of digital targeting and search intent.
• Why brand-building beats hyper-targeting every single time.
• The real math behind reach, frequency, and cost efficiency.
• How messaging, not media, is the ultimate form of targeting.

🎧 Hit play. Then go build a culture that actually means something.

📱 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

💬 Do you believe in the mythical “perfect lead,” or is mass media still king in building brands?

💥 Brought to you by Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services

In a world of opportunity, we can send our limited resources to good leads or bad leads. If all we want are the good leads, where can we go to just talk to them? 

Targeting good leads. The Glenngarry leads the magical list of leads where everyone is rolling in cash and ready to buy. They just don't know anyone who sells what you sell or does what you do. Is there such a list? Maybe. 

Budweiser advertises a lot on TV. Is that because that's where all the thirsty beer drinkers are? No. Are there tons of TV viewers who aren't even beer drinkers? Sure. But the medium still builds the brand very well among plenty of people who are the target. Reach that group with a relevant, compelling, memorable message, and you will have plenty of targeted leads. 

Targeting good leads is the most expensive way to market your business. You can't afford to spend good money showing Chris Torbay how good your geotechnical drill is. 

When people say fish, where the fish are, what they really mean is…

Ryan Chute: In today's episode, we're going to debate the best way to target the good leads. To start, let's hear from Mick on the best way to target these supreme specimens. 

Mick Torbay: Nobody wants to waste their money talking to the wrong people. In marketing, we call that wastage. Premium brands understand wastage. You put an ad for a Rolex in a magazine, and you have to know that about 90% of the people who read that magazine can't afford a Rolex. So wastage is a real thing. And you need to understand how to reduce it. Ideally, you would not spend $1 transmitting your message to anyone who cannot afford what you sell or is otherwise not inclined to buy it. So, that leads us to targeting; targeting good leads, the Glenngarry leads, the magical list of leads where everyone is rolling in cash and ready to buy, they just don't know anyone who sells what you sell or does what you do. Is there such a list? Maybe.

One of my Wizard of Ads Partners has a client who is in the private jet business. He buys them, sells them, charters them, leases them. If you want to take a citation jet from Regina, Saskatchewan, to Palm Springs, I got a guy. That's right. Private jets in Saskatchewan, Canada. This is a province the size of Texas, except it only has 1.2 million people in the whole freaking place. Now, how many of those 1.2 million people can afford to buy a private jet? The answer is not in the thousands. It's in the dozens. Can you effectively market your private jet business without targeting?

No way. You can't use TV, radio, print, or outdoor. Too much wastage, and you can't use digital because there's no search intent. If they're not looking, you can't target them. No search intent means digital is a dead end too. So my partner bought the list. Expensive, yes, but absolutely necessary. 

I feel bad for any business that is put in this position because targeting good leads is the most expensive way to market your business. If you sell industrial mining equipment, you sure as shit better target your leads. You can't afford to spend good money showing Chris Torbay how good your geotechnical drill is. There's 50 people in the world who buy those, so you'd better be on a first-name basis with all 50 and target. The hell out of each one.

But remember, in our quest to not spend one dime on people who can't afford what we sell or are otherwise not inclined to buy, we can easily get distracted by the not one dime part. Reducing wastage to nothing is not actually achievable. And there's an intersection where the cost of a good lead is actually higher than the wastage it's supposed to prevent.

Think of wastage as something you wanna reduce, not eliminate. Because as you get close to zero wastage, you're now paying a fortune to reach almost nobody, and that's not a good strategy. I'm lucky because most of my clients do not have such a narrow target. For the most part, they're looking for homeowners or adults, 18 plus, or women 30 and over. Now that's a demographic that doesn't require a lot of targeting. You can reach those people by the thousands for just pennies using mass media. Way cheaper than targeting. If you have a competitor who's trying to target leads, when the demographic is homeowners, don't do anything to change his mind. He's gonna spend himself into the ground. Let him do that. Unnecessary targeting is a beautiful thing when it's being done by your opponent. 

Ryan Chute: Wait a minute, Chris doesn't know shit about geotechnical drills. Or does he? He does know a thing or two about advertising, and I'm not sure whether to think more or less of him, Chris?

Chris Torbay: The best way to get more targeted leads is to get more leads, reach more people, become familiar with more people, be the brand more people think of first and like the best from that vast pool, the right people. We'll sort themselves out. There is no medium where people whose air conditioner just failed, hang out. There is no medium where guys about to shop for an engagement ring, hang out. Will they Google it at the last minute? Sure. But if that's your strategy, you've already lost. 

Budweiser advertises a lot on TV. Is that because that's where all the thirsty beer drinkers are? No. Are there tons of TV viewers who aren't even beer drinkers? Sure, but the medium still builds the brand very well among plenty of people who are the target. Reach that group with a relevant, compelling, memorable message, and you will have plenty of targeted leads. 

By all means, don't target badly. Don't advertise Budweiser during Saturday morning cartoons. Don't advertise Barbie dolls on a home renovation show, or on one of those car fixer-upper shows. When people say, fish where the fish are, what they really mean is; don't fish where the fish are not. But that's only specific to a degree. It means fish in a lake, don't fish in a parking lot. But within the lake, the fish are everywhere. There isn't a secret spot where you can just drop your line and konk a fish on the head with your hook. You still have to fish, and it still takes time. 

Targeting the right audience by choosing the right show or the right medium can only be so effective, and audiences change. If you reach consumers who are not your specific target today, they may very well become your target tomorrow or a year from now. The fish swim around, the fish get bigger. The spot that was no luck yesterday could be full of fish tomorrow. My bigger question is, where did you get this impression that there actually was a way to only target your message to only the people who specifically need your product or service right now?

Who the hell suggested that this would be possible if you were just a little bit smarter? Because that guy has set unrealistic expectations for how the universe works. Do you go into a bar hoping that inside there is one single girl who is exactly your type and has a thing for guys who are exactly like you, and you buy her one drink, and she accepts, and you propose marriage? No.

No one expects that. That is how the world works. Do you walk into a purse store and find them displaying one purse, and it's exactly the one you wanted? No, they literally have hundreds of purses because they have no idea what you want and no idea what the hundreds of other people who come into the store might want. And that's the purse store. These guys totally know that vertical. Bloomingdale's has to do that with purses, and underpants, and pillowcases, and coffee makers. Everybody is different, and the same people are different tomorrow. And criteria change and circumstances change. Stop thinking there's a perfect target and a perfect solution for that perfect target.

There's bad targeting and there's good targeting, but good targeting only gets so good, and it doesn't get any better. Be a great brand with a great offering and a memorable message. Be present enough that people will know you well and be likable enough that people will turn to you when the opportunity arises, but do all that broadly. The more successfully you do that broadly, the more hot, immediate targets you will reach. 

Fishing with a rod and reel at your favorite secret spot is fun, especially if you what you really like doing is spending the entire day in the sun chatting with your buddy, drinking beer. If you like catching fish, get a net. Go into the ocean. 

Ryan Chute: Huh? Stay tuned.

Ryan Chute: It seems to me that there's two angles of approach here. That one, you could get the good leads before they get to Google by targeting them with epic ad copy or that two, the second angle is that we target homeowners from age 35 to 55 years old females, because they're the most likely to call and ensure our message is in front of the right people at the time when they need your thing. What's the best play here, guys?

Mick Torbay: I wanna start by answering your question as asked.

Who the hell told you that there's a way to target people? The answer originally was the Yellow Pages. They originally said, “This is where people look when they're just about to buy. Do you want to talk to people who are just about to buy?”

“Oh, yeah, that's exactly who I want.” And more recently, the search engines are saying exactly the same thing. Come to spend your money with us because we have people who are just about to buy. The part they don't mention is the people who are just about to buy, who do not already have a preferred brand.

Chris Torbay: The people who are brand completely clueless at that moment.

Mick Torbay: And that's the part that we don’t, that they never mentioned to you, is that they're only talking to people who don't have a preferred brand. The reason why people don't have to Google where to get a burger this afternoon is because a couple of burger ideas are already in their heads.

So if we today, we wanted to quickly grab some lunch, we wouldn't have to say “burgers near us.” We just go to fricking Burger King or Mickey D's. So sadly, that's the answer to your question.

Chris Torbay: I think you're right.

Mick Torbay: They sold a bill of goods because it's horseshit.

Chris Torbay: And beyond that, too, it's not just the search engines; it's all digital marketing that has created this, too, where you pay per click. You have, or you have display ads where you only pay when somebody clicks on them. So only a person who is looking for lemons will click on this ad for lemons, and allegedly, then, what they tell you is that, and it's trackable, and we can measure exactly where your people are coming from.

Mick Torbay: And it's based on a false premise, which serves that advertising medium to sell you more advertising.

Chris Torbay: But then it erodes the reality of the world, which is that people are just walking around, and you cannot get into their heads. You cannot target specific people at specific times when they're just about ready to buy and they're looking, all these sorts of things, that's an unreasonable thing to think of. To think is possible.

Mick Torbay: I also think that to some degree, people will conclude that a good lead is somebody who bought, and a not-so-good lead is somebody who didn’t.

Chris Torbay: There are lots of good leads.

Mick Torbay: Our clients run into this challenge all the time when their CSRs are on a phone call and they take a call, and then at the end of the call, they have to say, "Did it close, did it not close?" And there's another button, especially on ServiceTitan says, “this was not a lead.”

And there's a lot of times when people will click on this, “Oh no, that wasn't a lead”. And then if you actually go and listen to that fucking call, “Oh, it was a lead.” All right. It's just you.

Chris Torbay: I think that's a good point.

Mick Torbay: And you've now magically made your close rate get higher. Because everybody who doesn't, who calls you and doesn't buy wasn't a lead.

Ryan Chute: It should instead infer that I wasn't a salesperson capable of doing my job.

Chris Torbay: Or any number of other things. I'm a homeowner. If you want to advertise wallpaper to me this year, I'm not going to wallpaper anything in my home this year. I'm pretty, pretty sure about that. But will be in three years, in which case I'm a lead. Eventually, I'm gonna get to it. Am I a lead now? Am I gonna close this week? If you're a better salesperson, am I gonna close this week? No, we, everything's pretty much the way we want it, but in the future, there will be a time that I will close, in which case I'm a lead now, if you’re brand building.

Ryan Chute: I think that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what lead gen is and what branding is, and what sales activation is.

Mick Torbay: Now, we have to define our terms.

Ryan Chute: We do. And I think that when we all communicate with the same language, that will have a much clearer path to how we construct our marketing.

So in marketing, we have brand awareness, and we have to say things that would attract a relational customer.

Sales activation is going to attract the transactional customer. So we have to have both of those. About 40% of your business and home services should be focused in on the messaging around, around activation. Get somebody to try us out. Now that doesn't mean discount necessarily, but it does mean to do a thing now.

Mick Torbay: Find a reason to take them down the funnel.  That's a little bit.

Ryan Chute: So it's about where they're on the funnel at, in the funnel. And branding isn't at the top of the funnel. Branding is at the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel and way past the funnel when we're trying to continue the relationship afterwards.

Sales activation happens along the way for the things that we might be able to entice somebody to do, or to bring them in deeper into the funnel to do something with us in the first place. The missing piece of this equation is this ferial thing called lead generation.

The reality of it is that branding and sales activation are both lead generation activities; all of it is lead generation. Your truck wrap is lead generation. Your website, right? The uniforms that you wear, the performance that you have inside the customer's house, the great work that you do, the warranty, all lead generation, for the next time they just decide to work with you or not.

Where the problem lies is the portal, to which they transition from not a customer or a previous customer to buying something from you now, or at least giving you the opportunity to buy something right now, going from lead to prospect. For me, a lead go to prospect is they've booked an appointment, they've shown up in your store, they have done a thing that has required them to take an action to transition from one state to another state.

This is a portal, this is symbolic. But it's deeply important because when we recognize that it's not about lead gen, it's about capturing a lead or being present where the leads are when they need your thing, we're now talking about spending money on conversion presence or portal presence. Having that ability to be able to quickly get the customer from m not us to us, and then converting them into a prospect. And when we get them to prospect, it's our job in sales to get the thing done, which is going to be supported by the marketing, communication, and creativity that we started before we got to Google.

So if all you're spending your money on is the portal, why are they gonna pick your door and reach for your doorknob versus the 400 other doorknobs that are sitting in front of them at the exact same spot.

Mick Torbay: On the topic of targeting, what concerns me the most about the topic is that I think there's a lot of advertisers who say, “I've only got a certain amount of money, so therefore I must target.” And how shall I target? I would submit that if that is your starting place, you may have already made a mistake. Because I would look at it in terms of, do I have to target or should I target and what I want to, I want the answer to be is you either don't have to target or, “oh crap, I have to target.” If you have to target, that's bad news for you because it's expensive and it's fewer people.

Chris Torbay: But I also wonder, like it's a continuum, right? So the example of private jet, I think, was a great one. That one, yes, you've got no other choice. You've really gotta do that. I think generally speaking, it's a bit of a continuum, and so many things, it's easy to get a bit better. To get better than that starts to get more and more expensive. And that's the challenge, which to reach. You could do a bad job. So let's not do a bad job. Let's find things generally where are homeowners wide, generally where these people where can you find them? What media do they listen to? What sort of shows do they watch within that medium? All that kind of stuff. But then, beyond that, you're still gonna get lots of noise and lots of other stuff. You can only be so good without doing that extreme thing.

Ryan Chute: That's the red herring, though, right there. And I love that you brought that up, Chris.

One of our media buyers that we're working with right now is looking at a particular landscape where they can't service the whole city. So they're saying, let's target. Every time you add something to the target, the cost goes up.

Mick Torbay: And the number of people you reach goes down.

Ryan Chute: So what we're talking about right now is the critical conversation around efficiency versus spend. Now, here's where the break happens.

I'm a small business operator. I have $5,000 I can spend on that thing to target, right? I have to choose who am I going to lose, right? Which is something we talk about all the time, and who are we gonna lose, but we're talking about it from the standpoint of messaging. And the answer to this, by the way, the spoiler alert here, is that the people you choose to lose. The targeting that you do happens in your message, not in your people, not in media choice. But sometimes you gotta choose the channel, and you've gotta choose who to lose. I can't go on all of the radio stations. I'm gonna choose the most efficient option possible.

When I'm in that small part of the city where I can only do so much, I'm going to have to shrink it down and just talk to these people, but talk to them over and over again. So it's not your budget, it's always a reflection of reach, not the frequency or message. Always invest in frequency and message properly, and targeting becomes more freeing as you get more money.

Chris Torbay: But also the reason you're still gonna have so, you're living within your means. You're targeting as many people as you can, or you're advertising to as many people as you can, given the means you have. It's targeting with its message. And what that means is there's a bunch of people in there who are not going to buy because the message is talking to a specific subset, even of that smaller group.

Ryan Chute: And that's where the problem lies when people say, “Hey, I'm going to target women 35 to 75, homeowners only of a certain income with a college degree and two kids at home.” All of a sudden, you've got this perfect little thousand people you're gonna talk to

Mick Torbay: And damn is that's expensive.

Ryan Chute: And that's not only expensive, but absolutely ineffective.

Chris Torbay: They don't all want your product this week.

Mick Torbay: Their water heaters all work right now.

Ryan Chute: Exactly. So what we're talking about here from a targeting standpoint is if you are looking at targeting for a budget, target the geography. Target +18 if it's social media.

Mick Torbay: Unless you're selling Barbie, in which case maybe not +18.

Chris Torbay: Here's the interesting thing, I made that point about if you're selling Barbie dolls, don't put them on the car fixer-upper show. Guess who watches those? Car fixer-upper shows? Dads. Dads. Dads. Oh, they've got daughters. How many dads have got daughters? About 50% of them.

So it's actually not bet. It's not great. But it's not like even within that, you'd certainly be the only right, the only daughter toy that is advertised in that show, in which case you're gonna stick out. People are gonna remember it. So maybe it's not all that bad, actually.

Ryan Chute: But the trick from that next step forward is you're in front of dad's talk to dads and about how to make their little girls' habits.

Chris Torbay: There we go. Messaging use.

Ryan Chute: Targeting dads. Is the message that you're targeting, it's not the actual dad, right? We don't wanna talk to all dads because there's going to be a whole bunch of people that aren't dads right now. But if you know what, if you run that ad and these people are 18 years or older, it has been scientifically proven. I don't know if you guys know about this yet or not, but 10 years later, it's 10 years later, they're exactly 28 years old.

Mick Torbay: Or in my case, 43 years later. We’re starting to have kids.

Chris Torbay: It's interesting, Mick makes the point about about don't run a TV ad for geotechnical drills because there's only 500 guys who buy those. Have you ever, because I have seen all three of these on like major network television, have you ever seen an ad for General Electric? Bombardier or Siemens?  

Those are ads that are aimed at bond traders, and corporations that might, airline CEOs, things like that. And they'll run it during the football game. They'll run it where? Everywhere. And that's 99.99999% wastage. But it's still worth it. Because you know those, that subset is out there, and if the message to those people is relevant, and you go, “Wow, Bombardier, they seem like they're really got their act together.” I don't know if you're a bond trader,but  you might buy the bond, right? Like it might invest. And so mission accomplished.

Mick Torbay: You might also acknowledge that almost no major decision is made in a vacuum. And that bond trader might be deciding to do it, but he also has a circle of other bond traders that he talks to. He might talk to his wife, or he might talk to his executive assistant. He might talk to his mentor. And in fact, at every stage the numbers get a lot huger. And suddenly, if everyone in America has a good feeling about General Electric, then all of the shareholders of this company might say,

Chris Torbay: “Oh, I guess we're, they're doing great things. Why don't we invest in them?”

Mick Torbay: I certainly feel good about the General Electric engines on this airplane.

Chris Torbay: And I guess that’s my point, which is whenever you try to get too specific of a targeting, you go. Are you sure your target's that small? Or do you think your target's actually way bigger? Why don't you grab a lot of people?

Mick Torbay: Especially since it costs so little, since it's to reach millions of people.

Chris Torbay: Like pan for gold in there. And finally, you'll find that they were in there. You didn't see them initially when you scooped up the big fistful of dirt.

Ryan Chute: But let’s put some math on this thing. Let's put some math on this thing by talking about doing some targeting. Now, when we did this particular study, we had a couple of different things at play here. We had a measuring company that is producing absolutely astounding metrics for us. Just rock your socks off metrics, and you go, woo, wow, like we can win here. Then we do our zero in targeting. And we have two different companies that we're looking at comparing this to as to getting this content on, and the goal is that we're trying to get frequency at the right frequency for the least amount of money, for the most amount of people.

So in one instance where we removed all of the targeting, what we found was that we actually got down to about a $5 cost per 1,000 people, talk to three times a week. Wow. I'm paying $5 to talk to 1,000 people. Every week, three times. Not too bad. Not too bad. Not the best. There's way more efficient buys than that. We have buys that are under a dollar that do the same thing. Different markets, different strategies, different channels.

When we started using dialing in, tuning into the very specific metrics, we got it up to $48 for the perfect customers. $48 three times a week, every single week. Now, do you want to spend $48 for 1,000 people, or do you wanna spend $5 for those same 1,000 people? How many more thousands of people can you buy?

Mick Torbay: Nine.

Mick Torbay: That's called math, right?

Ryan Chute: There you go. Nine times the amount of people. And do you know what those nine times more people know?

Mick Torbay: Other people.

Chris Torbay: They know Other people.

Ryan Chute: Other people. And if you say the things that actually matter that catch their attention, that entertain them, that actually draw some sort of conclusion that you are the value-based solution that they're looking for, will they tell their mom, dad, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, next-door neighbor, or friend? There's a lot higher chance of success here.

Now, what if we took that $5 per 1,000 people and got it to 40 cents? And what if we, instead of that, on that 40 cents of having a 30-second ad, we turned it to a one-minute ad? Now, how many more people are we talking to? We're talking about just a metric shit ton more people. We're talking hundreds of thousands of people. That we're now talking to and at a minute-long ad times by three ads a week. To the same people. By the way, to the same people that we're talking to, we're talking to hundreds of thousands of them. We're targeting them inasmuch as we're targeting everyone.

But we're now talking to basically your population. We're doing it for a fraction of a penny, and we're talking to them for two and a half hours a year. Two and a half hours a year. Can you imagine talking to two and a half hours of clients a year? Now they may not need the thing when they saw your ad. Most people don't.

Mick Torbay: But maybe they have a preferred brand now. And now they are going to be Googling you in your category.

Chris Torbay: And that's part of it is sometimes when you hear people talk about, “oh, I wish I could target,” it's because it comes from desperation. They're not in a position to build their brand over the years and say, "Why don't we become the market leader?" They need a call tonight. So that they're, so that their truck doesn't, doesn't sit around all day tomorrow.

Ryan Chute: And this is the obsession.

Chris Torbay: Targeting is not the cure to that.

Ryan Chute: That's right. This isn't Field of Dreams. Just because you're on Google doesn't mean you're going to get chosen. And if you are, you're up against all of the people, all of them that have more money than you. All of them, right? And they're going to outspend you.

Mick Torbay: You will bleed out playing that game. Unless you've got the most money, which you probably don't,

Ryan Chute: And if you do, you're probably not dealing with us because you've been bought by private equity. And yes, you know you're doing the thing that you need to do.

Mick Torbay: The things we're talking about are here are not hypothetical because our clients expect us to make the market leaders, and this is exactly how we do it. We're not holding shit back here. This is how we do it. We don't do it by targeting fewer people for more money. We do it by targeting more people for less money. And for the most part, our clients are not as narrow as the private jet guys, where they have no choice but to target, and if you're in a business where more people knowing who you are, knowing why you matter, and knowing why you stand apart from your competitors, if that would help you, then that's the way to do it.

Do it the less expensive way, reach more people for less money, instead of the other way around, which by definition is what you're doing when you're targeting.

Ryan Chute: The rule of thumb is very simple. If you can buy a list, buy it. If you can't buy a list, do mass media. And I think, where the biggest disconnect for people is, I only have $5,000. I can't do radio, or TV or anything else. You probably can't do TV, but you could; you definitely do radio well.

Do you know that you could, depending on your town? If you're ready to service all of, gosh, what Tampa, all of Tampa, Florida, you can absolutely start targeting Tampa, Florida as a whole for $5,000 a month on radio.

You will absolutely get a cult following of people that listen to that one station that you're going to get a real good deal on, because you're gonna have us figure out how to get you a real good deal and negotiate out that desperate station that was happy to put 40,000 people in front of you. It's gonna be one of the worst stations on the radio. It's gonna be one of the worst.

Mick Torbay: Don’t get the number one station, that's for sure.

Ryan Chute: It 100% will not, but you know what it'll get you? It'll get you the right frequency with the right message in front of a small group of people that will start doing your thing. And do you know who? They know people.

So you're 40,000 people. How much does that cost you? About $20,000. About $20,000 to do those. 40,000. And it's about. But even 40,000 people for $40,000, if you're ready to drop $3,000, $3,500 a month, you're in good shape. For $5,000 a month, 60,000 people, $60,000 a year, there's a pretty darn good chance that we're gonna get you somewhere in the realm of 100,000 to 120,000 people. If we could get a real deal, good deal to come together.

120,000 people versus occasionally passing by somebody as they're doom scrolling on social media, as you're trying to get their attention with no message that matters in an emotional environment that has you being completely and utterly ignored,

Mick Torbay: And you think of how few of those 100,00 people have to need what you what you sell now, it's a tiny number of those, if it's 1%, if it's one 10th of 1% that's 100 people, right? Oh my God. That's pretty good. It's not something that's possible when you start targeting.

Now, if you're only reaching that perfect group of 400 people, how many of those people have need a new water heater today? Is it two? Oh God. And how many of them are gonna buy from you? Like, the numbers become so low so quickly, and did I mention how fucking expensive it was to buy those 400 people?

Ryan Chute: Hugely expensive. And that's why small markets are usually very cheap markets to purchase for us. But they're also, least efficient because we're not talking to as many people, right? So if you're in a tertiary town or area, you're going to spend more per person as a cost, but you're going to absolutely be the big fish in a little pond right away.

Mick Torbay: And this is exactly how we do it.

Ryan Chute: This is exactly how we do it. And look, when you start thinking about it that way, the real question is how do I target? The simple answer is you target with your message. You matter in your message. You become the company that they know, like, and trust, for one, when their system or solution or problem lets them down. The thing you sell lets them down. And the guy that they currently have let them down. Those two things are letdowns.

Boom, you're in, right?

Chris Torbay: But target with your message, and not with your choice of media.

Ryan Chute: That's it. That's it. The call to action is we're going to be there fast. The call to action is not necessarily a discount.

Mick Torbay: The call to action is, you remember us and you like us and you feel good about us because we entertained you, we’ve been with you every day when you went to work. Every day when you drive home from work. It's those people. “Oh, yeah. That guy with the penguin. It's awesome.” There are a lot of ways to get into people's heads, and some of them you can argue they don't deserve to be there.

But it doesn't matter if you deserve to be there. If you've been with them and part of their daily routine and you've done something that made them feel good, You told them a nice story, you entertained them, you made them giggle on the way home, then you will become remembered. That is absolutely predictably possible.

Ryan Chute: But that does require you saying something that resonates with them, that matters. That's what we call salient. That does mean that you have to say things that are going to bond you with the gut, with the prospective clients.

Mick Torbay: And it takes time.

Ryan Chute: And it takes time. Be ready to have a relationship before the relationship even starts. Everyone's talking about relational selling and relationships, and no, it's about being relational.

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Ryan Chute: There is absolutely the truth between short-term and long-term, and when we really think about this, again, what's one of those ways that we target? Well, it’s through the copy.

What are we saying in the copy when we're targeting? It's about talking transactionally or relationally. Now, if our goal is to target the high-value leads, it's not about targeting the people with the biggest houses and the highest net worth in your zip,

Mick Torbay: Or magically finding the people whose water heater broke this morning. 

Ryan Chute: That a super expensive lead, right? Because that's hyper targeting. What we're targeting here, is a high-quality lead, is the relational customer that's able to pay you. That's it. 

Mick Torbay: And who will choose you as their preferred brand? Literally, months before they need it. Months and months. 

Chris Torbay: As they like way, the way you behave, what you stand for, the kind of vibe you give off. And it may be that high-end, high-service, high-touch. Things they know deep down that I bet you this guy's also not the cheapest, but they are identifying with that, they are attracted to that aspect of it, way before the day their water heater actually craps out.

Ryan Chute: So targeting happens in the relational disposition of your brand, not the transactional disposition. That's why you should have 40% of your messaging towards sales activation, which will diminish over time, that sales activation, those offers, those things. You should be asking people to buy stuff from you. Yes. 40% of the time. Somehow call to actions. But, we absolutely need to not be that impetuous teenager sticking their hand out, begging for $200  every time they see you, either. Because now you're creating this commodity-based, transactional customer.

Mick Torbay: And don't be surprised when that's exactly who you get. A person who wants a discount. 

Chris Torbay: Yeah. And the greatest brands, in fact, that percentage gets very low. Apple, virtually never transactional, and the only urgency they have is the new ones here.

But basically, they just make you really want one of those products. And they don't just target the person whose phone just broke. I was gonna say, they don't just, people, target people whose phone is four years old. They continually, continually, market themselves. 

Mick Torbay: And the only reason why they ever take put something on sale is because the new one's there. If they are old enough justification for lowering that. You don't actually want that one anymore. 

Chris Torbay: You'll find the brands like that, in fact, don't target at all. They say who they are, and the people find them. And if you say that message with a wide enough, broad enough appeal, or a broad enough spectrum, you will appeal to the people that you're gonna appeal to within that.

Ryan Chute: Folks, this has been another episode of Advertising in America. If you like what you see go ahead and smash that like button. 

Mick Torbay: Don’t smash it. Gently.

Ryan Chute: Do it gently, touch it just softly. touch it with a loving caress. Go in and leave us a review. We'd love to hear you. We're happy to take your smack talk as well, like we love it all. Just give us some interaction. We want to hear from you. We want to know that we're connecting with you and you're feeling something. Till next time.

this is Advertising in America.

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Thank you for joining us on Advertising in America. We hope you enjoyed the show and captured a nugget of marketing magic. Wanna hear more? Subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast with your friends. Do you have questions or topics you want us to cover?

Join us on our socials @advertisinginamerica. Wanna spend your marketing budget better? Visit us at wizardofads.services to book your free strategy session with Wizard Ryan Chute today. Until next time, keep your ads enchanting and your audience captivated.

I was whining to Clay Cary about the interest rate the bank was going to charge me to fund a real estate investment. I felt the percentage was way too high.

Clay asked, “Is the deal you’re about to make a good deal? How much money will you make from it?”

I answered his question conservatively. He said, “Now let’s calculate the total amount of interest that you will pay on the loan that makes this deal possible.”

We calculated the dollar amounts.

I was going to make hundreds of times more money on the real estate than I was going to pay in interest on the loan.

Clay said, “As a rule of thumb, if the interest rate you are paying determines whether or not the deal you are making is good or bad, you are definitely making a bad deal. Don’t judge according to percentages. Judge according to dollars.”

Here’s a thought.

Why do banks never get angry about the huge profits that YOU make on deals using THEIR money?

I have never heard a bank say, “We supplied the money, but you are keeping most of the profits. That’s not fair. You should give us more money than we originally agreed upon.”

Banks never say that because banks always remember that YOU found the deal and decided to let THEM make some money on it with you.

Here’s another example of how percentages can be misleading.

Woody Justice had been in business for 6 years when I met him in 1987. His business was circling the drain. Woody’s biggest year had a top line of $350,000. His goal was to someday sell $1,000,000 worth of jewelry in a single year. That would put Woody in the top 10% of jewelers nationwide.

I began working with Woody and we grew more than 100% a year for two years in a row. We blew past the $1,000,000 mark in the second year. About a dozen years later, Woody was grumpy. He said, “We used to grow by big percentages. But last year we only grew by ten percent. You need to get your shit together.”

“Woody, how many dollars did our top line grow last year?”

“We grew by a million dollars,” he said.

“Woody, when we first began working together, a million-dollar jump from $350,000 to $1,350,000 would have been a 286% increase. We would have nearly quadrupled your best year ever and you would have wet your pants. Evaluate yourself by dollar growth, not percentage growth. Percentages will lead you to believe that you are doing better, or worse, than you really are.”

Woody made a face but didn’t say anything, so I continued. “And by the way, we’re running out of people in this Dairy Queen town. If you want to grow by big percentages again, we’re going to need to open another store somewhere else.”

I could say those things to him because we were close friends.

Woody died unexpectedly 14 years ago but I still have his number on my cell phone. I tell myself that if I press that number, Woody will hear his phone ring.

As long as I don’t delete that number from my phone, Woody Justice will never be gone.

Hundreds of businesses have jumped on the bandwagon, posting witty memes about a couple at a Coldplay concert, hoping — praying — to go viral.

I wish every business owner could go viral once, so they could realize how little it actually moves the needle.

Aspiring to go viral is like a kid dreaming of being discovered on American Idol, but never taking a singing lesson or booking a gig. Year after year passes while they wait to be “found”… but nothing changes. No growth. No traction. Just hope without effort.

Your business’s growth is NOT on the other side of going viral.

I’ll say it again for those in the back: Your business’s growth is NOT on the other side of going viral.

Believing otherwise isn’t just naive — it’s lazy.

The best singers, athletes, and business owners don’t wish their way to success. They train, they hire experts, and they outlast their competition. They remove every variable they can’t control and get to work on the ones they can.

Let’s break it down.

Hire Experts

The need for expertise becomes obvious the moment you get serious about growth.

Nearly every guest on To A Million And Beyond has echoed this truth: hiring the right people or firm unlocked a new level of performance in their business.

Growth is only “voodoo” to those who don’t understand the process.

Real marketing is not about making one flashy video. It’s not about chasing trends or creating something “viral-worthy.” It’s about crafting a strategy rooted in your business’s core identity—and building messaging that speaks to real people, consistently, over time.

Think about a cardiologist. They don’t just study the heart in isolation. They understand how the heart fits into the entire body — how every part influences the other. That’s what expert marketers do. We don’t just make things that look good; we make things that work together to build trust, spark emotion, and drive results.

That’s where many media companies fall short. Yes, they create beautiful videos. But their only goal is views. Their strategy? Get lucky.

“Hope is not a strategy.”

If you want impact beyond the post, you need a strategist who understands human behavior — someone who can craft felt messaging that aligns with a proven growth system.

If your marketing doesn’t make people feel something, it’s worthless.

And if people don’t know, like, and trust you, they won’t buy from you. Going viral might get you known (so does streaking across a football field), but if you’re forgotten tomorrow, what’s the point?

Train

Success isn’t a lottery. It’s earned.

You want predictable, compounding growth? Then stop waiting for a lucky break and start doing the work. Even if you go viral and get a big cash hit, what’s next? If you haven’t learned how to build and scale with intent, the money will dry up as fast as it came in.

True growth means evolving. As you scale, new challenges emerge — and your strategy must adapt with you.

Last week, I proposed a major revenue model update to a client. They’re seasoned business owners, but the ideas blew them away. Not because they were flashy. But because they fit seamlessly into their business’s larger picture — ideas only an outside expert with perspective could see clearly.

An expert gets you on course — and corrects you when you drift. But you still have to do the work. You still have to train.

Outlast the Competition

We call the first 9 months of any new marketing strategy the “chickening out period.” That’s how long it typically takes to start seeing meaningful revenue shifts. Why? Because trust takes time.

And most business owners aren’t used to that. They’ve been sold a lie: that they can go viral, run a couple of Google Ads, and cash in. It’s why we go out of our way to be brutally honest with prospective clients. We don’t promise fast money — we promise real growth.

But that growth is earned, not granted.

The ones who stay the course become household names.

The ones who quit? They keep playing Google’s slot machine, or hoping for the algorithm to smile on them.

The Bottom Line

I didn’t write this to discourage you. I wrote it to give you hope — the right kind of hope.

Hope rooted in reality.

If your current approach to marketing feels like a gamble, it probably is. But it doesn’t have to be. You can grow predictably. You can become a trusted brand. And you can build a business that lasts.

But you have to stop waiting to be discovered.

And start building on purpose.

Clarity and Brevity are the highest creativity. But “clear and brief” does not mean simple and predictable.

One the most talented writers of advertising in the world would be surprised to hear me call him that. Jonathan Edward Durham is a novelist. He recently posted this random thought.

“‘Why am I so sad today?’ I ask myself after staring at my little handheld sadness machine and clicking all the sad little things that will definitely make me sad.”

You may not agree with Durham’s statement, but you will agree it was artfully crafted.

What Durham gave us was clarity and brevity without predictability. This is the mark of a great ad writer.

“Why am I so sad today?” immediately gets our attention. We are compelled to keep reading.

We are surprised that he owns “a little handheld sadness machine.” But our cleverness allows us to translate it as “iPhone” and we receive a tiny spasm of delight.

You have never heard of “a little handheld sadness machine” but you knew exactly what it was.

His 30-word sentence demonstrated clarity, brevity, and creativity, but none of what Jonathan Edward Durham wrote was simple or predictable.

Durham’s ability to bring us – his readers, his listeners, his customers – into active participation in a one-way conversation is pure genius.

Jonathan Edward Durham causes us to become engaged with what he is saying.

You can do it, too.

“Time + Place + Character + Emotion.” That’s it. That’s how Stephen Semple turns a weak story into a powerful one in his famous TED-X talk.

Here’s how Jonathan Edward Durham uses Time + Place + Character + Emotion to tell us a story in less than 30 seconds.

“About two years ago, we moved across the country. It was a big, stressful move, and anxieties were high all around, and it had only been about six months since we rescued Jack, so he was really just beginning to adjust to having a forever home. Needless to say, Jack didn’t understand why a bunch of strangers were taking all of our things, and he was having a very, very ruff time with the whole process.”

“We want Jack to live forever. That’s why we feed him The Wizard’s Magic dog food.”

Jonathan Edward Durham’s wonderful story became an excellent ad with my addition of just 16 words. “We want Jack to live forever. That’s why we feed him The Wizard’s Magic dog food.”

You already know how to write the 16 words. Now you need to learn how to tell a wonderful story in 76 words like Durham did.

Time + Place + Character + Emotion.  Give it a try.

Roy H. Williams

PS – Most people use too many words to make too small a point. The average writer wraps lots of words around a small idea. Inflated sentences are fluffy and empty like a hot air balloon. Good writers deliver a big idea quickly. Tight sentences hit hard. – Indy Beagle

“Facts tell. Stories sell.” – Tom Schreiter

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Let’s cut the crap—“culture” isn’t a ping-pong table in the breakroom or a laminated mission statement on the wall. Culture is Jerry. And Jerry is why people quit.

In this episode of Advertising in America, the boys throw elbows at the myth that culture is fluff. They unpack how toxic bosses, hollow perks, and lip-service values quietly bleed companies dry—and why the few brands that actually live their culture end up building empires. From Wells Fargo’s spectacular crash to Zappos’ billion-dollar sale, the lesson is simple: culture sells, or it sinks.

Episode Highlights

• People don't quit companies—they quit bosses.
• Wells Fargo proves toxic culture costs billions.
• Zappos proves authentic culture can be priceless.
• Pizza parties, perks, and penguins won’t save you.

This episode’s for the leaders brave enough to stop faking it—and bold enough to let their culture be real, messy, and unforgettable.

🎧 Hit play. Then go build a culture that actually means something.

📱 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

💬 Are you building a brand people believe in, or just wallpapering over Jerry’s bad behavior with pizza parties?

💥 Brought to you by Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services

Does your culture really matter in how your brand shows up, or is it just a bunch of malarkey?

I've never claimed to be a culture expert, so if an actual culture expert disagrees with me, then please ignore me and trust the expert. People don't quit companies. They quit bosses. No one has ever said, “I hate IBM. I'm sick and tired of IBM. I quit.” No. What they say is, “I'm sick of Jerry. Fuck Jerry, fuck him and all his bullshit. I quit.”

Any of these companies where the consumer has a visible interaction with the staff will benefit by creating a culture where the staff are clearly happy and engaged.

I had a job once back when I was a teenager, where the boss was a complete prick, but the guys who worked for him, we loved each other. We had a common enemy, the boss.

If you run a business that depends on other employees performing well for you to succeed, I encourage you to develop a strong company culture. Does company culture matter to consumers? I don't know.

Ryan Chute: In today's episode of Advertising in America, we're going to debate whether your company culture really matters, starting with the guy who puts the HR in harassment. Here's Mick.

Mick Torbay: I've never claimed to be a culture expert. So if an actual culture expert disagrees with me, then please ignore me and trust the expert. But I have seen a few things in my time, and that's led me to some insights. I had a client in Virginia Beach. He was always complaining about attrition. This town has no loyalty. He said, nobody will stay at a company longer than 18 months. Then they're off to see if the grass is greener somewhere else.

And that got me thinking. I've had a lot of jobs. I've had a lot of bosses, some good, some great, some not so good, but getting a new job is hard. I've stayed at jobs way too long because, although I wasn't happy, at least I understood how it all worked, and you never know if the next one will be worse.

So here's the company owner saying in Virginia Beach, no one will stay at a company longer. 18 months, and I just carefully rephrased that last sentence to, no one will stay at his company longer than 18 months. I'll remind you that Virginia Beach is a military town, with Naval Air Station, as well as being the home base for aircraft carriers and other large ships. There's also an army base and a National Guard station. It's hard to find someone in that town who is not ex-military. We're talking about your most loyal, dependable workforce in the country, and he thinks they can't commit to an air conditioning company. Are you insane?

The owner of this company is a brilliant guy, a genius at working the books, and he could easily tell you what's wrong with your business, but he couldn't see in the mirror.

People don't quit companies. They quit bosses. No one has ever said, “I hate IBM. I'm sick and tired of IBM, I quit.” No. What they say is, “I'm sick of Jerry. Fuck Jerry, fuck him and all his bullshit. I quit.” So if you have a staff retention problem, I'd look long and hard at the person who that quitter directly reported to.

There's your failure in company culture. The problem is Jerry.

I've seen a lot of companies give lip service to culture. They have meetings and company picnics, and team-building exercises. In a lot of cases, they're ticking boxes, and I'm not even sure company culture can be controlled by the boss. I had a job once, back when I was a teenager, where the boss was a complete prick, but the guys who worked for him, we loved each other.

We had a common. The boss, Ron. He's dead now, so I can use his real name. We sang songs about him. Best company culture ever. There was no way we were leaving that job. We worked our asses off, got paid shit, treated like shit, but I still had a blast at work. I still miss those days.

I know Wizard of Ads Partners who truly understand company culture. They've built successful businesses where people are dying to work there, and they've done it multiple times. If you can afford to hire one of those guys, you'll do yourself a world of good. If you can't, just make sure you get rid of Jerry before he costs you your entire staff. Speaking of my former client in Virginia Beach, never in my career have I ever fired a client except him. I'm just saying.

Ryan Chute: Fuck Jerry.

Mick Torbay: Fuck him in the neck.

Ryan Chute: Fuck him. No, seriously fuck you, Jerry.

Now, to defend why culture is a total sham perpetuated by big culture to sell more culture, here's Jerry. I mean Chris.

Chris Torbay: Culture's great for employees; if employees like it there, if they feel appreciated and like they're part of a family, maybe they give a shit more and do better and put in extra effort and cover your ass when you have operational shortcomings, and maybe that helps the business succeed.

Maybe it helps you recruit good people when you're known as a great place to work. So if you run a business that depends on other employees performing well for you to succeed, I encourage you to develop a strong company culture. Does company culture matter to consumers? I don't know. The line is nowhere near as direct.

There are clearly examples of where it does; Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Disney World, any of these companies where the consumer has a visible interaction with the staff will benefit by creating a culture where the staff are clearly happy and engaged. But there are plenty of successful companies where the company culture is average or maybe below average, and I have no idea.

Does anyone know of a car company with a culture that is significantly different from the rest? Ford, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Dodge? Does anyone know anything about any of their cultures? Does any of that make a difference to the vehicle you buy, or do you buy based on the reputation of the product, independent of any culture?

Does anyone know the culture at Campbell Soup? I assume it's okay, but I don't know. I know I like the soup, though. What about Levi's, or Kellogg's, or Hertz, or Neiman Marcus? Perfectly successful companies with quality products and a premium price, and no particular culture that anyone is aware of unless you work.

To avoid getting sued. I won't accuse anyone specifically, but we all know major running shoe brands have a history of questionable manufacturing conditions that certainly could never be referred to as a strong company culture. Ask the poor kids stitching sneakers together for 12 hours every night, and the punishing Mumbai heat if he's there for the company culture. I suspect the culture sucks, but the kicks are amazing, and hey, if LeBron likes them, I'm buying some.

Miramar Films had a culture of having to sleep with Harvey Weinstein if he wanted to roll in his movies, and they made a ton of great movies in those days.

Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential told us just how shitty the world's best restaurants treat the staff who literally make the food that makes them successful.

Amazon warehouse workers have to piss in water bottles because they don't get enough breaks, and Amazon is doing just fine, thank you very much. Because rumors of a sketchy culture haven't stopped the average American from wanting to buy cheap consumer goods to fill the existential hole in their heart.

We love it when we see great company culture. If we see that culture reflected in the customer-facing workers we interact with, it's lovely. But can you build a company by grinding your workers down, paying them as little as possible, providing them minimum number of amenities, and basically saying, take it or leave it? Sure can. It means you suck, but you can totally do it.

Ryan Chute: Who wants pineapple Pizza for lunch today? Woo. You've all done such great work. Thank you. We'll be right back after our well-deserved pizza party.

Ryan Chute: Wizard of Ads Partner Ray Seggern, taught us about how the best stories we tell in our advertising are about the employee and buyer experiences that shape why the brand matters. Does a deadbeat culture stunt profitability and growth, or does is it clear out the deadwood?

Mick Torbay: I feel like a bit of a fraud, involving myself in a conversation about company culture. I know just enough about culture to be dangerous. So I feel a little awkward talking about it, but that doesn't change the fact that, we've all been in various situations where we're working and the culture is great and the culture is not. Sadly, I have to agree with Chris to some degree that the company culture and the consumer experience very often have no connection. Which doesn't mean that I don't believe in my heart that a company with a good company culture where everybody loves going to work and sings hi-hoe every morning would not be more successful. I just wish there were an easier way to quantify that.

Chris Torbay: Yeah. I gotta believe, I mentioned, I just picked some names outta the air, Levi's Campbell Soup, all these companies where we don't, the average person doesn't know anything about their culture.

I would assume that they probably do spend some time because the last thing you would want is to find out, “Hey, that soup company that everybody likes, and it's so wholesome and so family-oriented. It turns out they're a bunch of bastards.” So nobody wants that to come out. And so I assume you know that there's a minimum average that keep most people stick to.

Ryan Chute: The minimum viable product strategy of disappointing people just to a certain point. There's always a culture, right? No matter what company you're in, there is a culture because while leadership can set the tone for the culture based off of what they tolerate, the reality of it is it's gonna be good, it's gonna be not good, or it's going to be super toxic, and you have to decide what that means to your business. Now, I talk about this in friction all the time, and it really boils down to communication. People are the wild card, and they represent 80% of our business effort at any given time. So if all we're doing is working hard to put out fires and deal with employees, deal with customers, because we don't have a culture that serves a culture that removes friction. A culture that makes it easy for sellers to sell and easy for buyers to buy, that by its very nature is going to put drag on the flywheel of business, and that reduces profitability. It certainly reduces your highest potential for growth. And that's really what I see.

So a big question is what's the quantifiable examples of that?

I have two quantifiable examples. One is Wells Fargo, and the other is Zappos.

So Wells Fargo, 2016, got busted. Big time, multi-billion dollar scam for what happened during the financial crisis. They had basically set up a culture, a toxic culture of sales effort that took advantage of people at the highest levels. And then they bundled all of this bad business up into otherwise good stock, and that's one of the biggest culprits of the entire financial crisis having led it down the road that we ended up going down in 2009.

Chris Torbay: Which is a culture of just runaway ambition or runaway competitiveness as opposed to we're trying to make a great company here, or we're trying to do great things for people here. It's somehow delineated or descended into make sales at all costs. Sell products at all costs.

Ryan Chute: And that in itself has an inertia, right? Roy says that the masses of people are predictable, but the individual is not. And that falls into that category of you get this herd mentality pushing towards a, if you work here, you're going to be a sales goon. And if you're not a sales goon, then get out. No different than the old movie Boiler Room that we saw with just some fantastic cast, but what a wonderful movie. Anyway, I'll digress.

Mick Torbay: But you look at what affects the success of the company, and it's easy to talk about sales, and I think it's harder to connect those dots of good company culture with sales. I've flown Southwest, had a blast. It seems like everybody there is having a blast. Had a great experience, but I'm not sure I would choose the wrong time to depart or the wrong price to pay to fly Southwest versus something else based solely on having a good time.

Chris Torbay: If there was a tie on all the other things, two flights, two different airlines, but at the same time, same price. I'll take the Southwest one. I know I’ll have a good time, but how much would you shell out extra?

Mick Torbay: But, for example, at the last big agency where you work, I don't think you could describe the company culture there as being particularly good. And yet, I don't know if, I don't think it affected the quality of the work you guys did. I think the work you did was top-notch, even though there might not have been the best company culture there.

What the company culture cost them was their creative director, and that is gonna affect your ability to do business. So I think that's part of it, right? It might be more about that, like more about keeping. Keeping key people in, keeping them in key positions. If somebody who's really good at what they do, who does not enjoy going to work, will find work elsewhere, and will easily find work elsewhere.

And replacing that person is, first of all time consuming. Second of all, expensive. And third of all, it might not work.

Chris Torbay: That’s also where you get things like quiet quitting. Which is, if the culture kind of sucks, then you go in there, you take your paycheck because you know it's a pretty good paycheck.

And as you said before, it's hard to find a new job. But you spend your whole day saying, “Yeah, they're not paying me enough to go and do that, or to cover so-and-so's ass, or to, whatever.” And so they're letting problems go up. “They're gonna let this problem happen. I'm just gonna, yeah. It's not my fault,” whereas if you belong to a company that does have a really strong culture, you go, “Hey, geez, I should go tell somebody that this, we're heading towards this iceberg,” and whatever you feel a bit of ownership and responsibility to save everybody else's asses beause you feel like a family.

Ryan Chute: And I think you just said something that's really important, that they have a sense of ownership. They have a sense of dignity, of contribution to something that's pointing towards the greater good. And when we really distill this down, there are 12 kind of major components that I've identified in the culture that are slowing things down or speeding things up.

But ultimately, it boils down to how much does that matter? And if everything was operating optimally, what is the net result?

For short-term thinkers, like Wells Fargo, who created three and a half million fraudulent accounts between 2002 to 2016, as it grew momentum, ultimately you end up seeing this opportunity unfold, and things fall apart. You flip over to Zappos, and they sold for in excess of a billion dollars because they oriented everything around the customer service that they delivered, that unreasonable hospitality that they delivered every day in and day out. And I think, while we may not see it in some things in the marketing top of funnel, we are seeing it mid funnel as the people start interacting with customer service agents, technicians, and or salespeople, or the speed at which they receive things done well, a whole bunch of this stuff becomes invisible, right?

Things just got done faster, easier, smoother, cleaner, and it was done, and the customer didn't have an impression of wow, but maybe, certainly had an impression of that’s easy enough for me to go back and do that again. And given the two choices between Frontier and Southwest, I'm gonna choose Southwest for the sake of 20 bucks difference in the price because I can rely on the experience.

Mick Torbay: And how important is it as an employee of the company to know that your boss has your back? Breaking in a boss is difficult. Nobody likes to do it. But the boss's job is to serve the subordinates. And I think if the boss has that attitude of it's my job to make your job easier, and you come to me with what will allow you to accomplish more, that's gonna set things up for success. I'm not sure everybody who rises to the rank of boss thinks that way. And a lot of people might even get there, through nepotism or through…

Chris Trobay: They think it's the other way around, which is that your employee's job is to serve the boss and absolutely. And what you’re saying is the opposite of that.

Mick Torbay: And so I think that sort of thing can affect things, but ultimately, I think this is about retention. I worry that my ignorance on this subject is going to, is gonna take me in a bad place because I do not consider myself an expert. But to me, that seems like the most important.

Chris Torbay: But retention is a huge part. But there are also plenty of companies that are fine dealing with turnover. McDonald's knows. And McDonald's has a pretty good culture. Kids who worked at McDonald's all say very positive things.

At the same time, they just churn through people, that's the thing. They hire you at 16, you work because their employees go to college. They go off and do something, and so they learned some valuable lessons, and hopefully, they actually experience a good company culture. But that's a company that is also used to operating with turnover as part of the thing.

Your example of the guy in Virginia Beach, he's a guy who didn't want to have a huge human resources challenge every single day of his life. He would like people to join, and he could forget about that for a while.

Mick Torbay: And it never occurred to him that there was a problem, by the way.

Chris Torbay: But you can run it both ways.

Mick Torbay: He thought the problem was the town.

Chris Torbay: And maybe he solved it by saying, “You know what, we gotta get two solid HR people in here and just gimme new employees” as opposed to solving his problem.

Mick Torbay: That’s exactly what they did.

Chris Torbay: That's what I'm saying, you can do it, it makes you a dick, but you can totally run your business that way if you want.

Mick Torbay: But it's expensive. You gotta pay for those people, and it’s ultimately going to mean that when someone really great comes by, you can't say, “I'm gonna lock this person in 'cause she's freaking awesome.” She's gonna leave because she can go anywhere.

Ryan Chute: I think that leads to the bigger conversation of what we're talking about here is, if the buying experiences are the things that we want talk about in our advertising.

Then equally as much we need to talk about the employee experiences in a lot of ways to attract new candidates, to be able to get more buying experiences underway. So it becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy of capacity. That one, you're never gonna keep a unicorn, you're never gonna lock that good one down. Those unicorns down because top candidates don't stick around in toxic environments. Why would they? Why do they need to?

And if you're the, if you're a really strong, sales guy in a toxic environment, there's a pretty good chance that you're a toxic person yourself. Like you're really comfortable in survival mode, fighting it out with the rest of the toxic people. You're in the shark den.

Mick Torbay: So then my question to you would be:

Is company culture something that is luck, that is to say, you happen to be this kind of leader and you naturally lead in a certain way that makes everybody else feel good and want to be part of your team. Or is company culture something that you can purchase? Can I go and say, I would like to buy myself one lot of company culture and then bring someone in, create this?

Because I don’t, I literally don't know the answer to.

Chris Torbay: I think the risk is that people think you, and you even said sometimes it's just lip service, and people say, “Oh yeah, we should get some more company culture in here.”

So let's have a summer picnic, and let's have Santa Claus come at Christmas, and let's have red shirt day and whatever. And it's if the boss is still a dink, and everybody's underpaid and everybody's overworked, and they're all still putting out fires every single day that company culture doesn't work.

The company culture where everybody feels like they need to pull together and, because they believe in this thing,  and then on Monday morning meetings people will say, “No, we gotta go out there. We gotta see if we can beat our, beat our projections.” That rah thing is not gonna come from that sort of thing, it only comes when you feel like you have a stake in it or something. And so I think it can be expensive. I think you do stuff like profit sharing, there's a culture thing where when people feel like it actually can pay me, so if I really care more, but those things are also not cheap.

You can't just go buy some balloons and pizza on Friday and think you have a company culture now.

Mick Torbay: Even if it's a Hawaiian pizza,

Chris Torbay: If it's Hawaiian pizza, you get good shot.

Ryan Chute: I mean, anything with pineapples really.

It really does self-fulfill the prophecy. And the answer to your question earlier of, is it something that you can purchase, or is it something that you can’t?

Mick Torbay: Because you can purchase advertising, I know that we do it. And other people do it. But my question, is it possible to bring someone in and create the sort of culture that we know will lead to company success, separate from the luck of being able to do it yourself?

Chris Torbay: You have to do it the same way that we sell you advertising, which is you have to not go with what you thought was a good idea for an ad. You have to go with what I think is a good idea for an ad, and it's gonna scare you at first, but you're gonna have to change your expectations.

And I bet you if you're a lousy boss and you bring in a culture person to come and help your company, the boss is gonna have to admit that he is part of the problem.

Ryan Chute: There you go. Thank you. There. There we go. Then that's what I was hoping to get to right now, is that you can purchase a person to come in and teach you how to do it. But it only matters if you do the work.

Mick Torbay: You feel like doing it.

Ryan Chute: Well, it not just feel like doing it, but feels like sustaining it.

Chris Torbay: Committing to that. It's like the first step of any 12-step program. I think you have to admit that you have a problem, and that's why you had to bring in this consultant, and so you have to listen to what they say.

Ryan Chute: And thank you. The 12-step program really does start with admitting that you do have a problem. And then from that, making amends with not just that, but the process in which you need to resolve those issues. And then you need to go out and apologize to all the people that you did awful things to. And that could be through your policies, through the things that you need to do to become more, less frictionless in your business or less friction in your business. And then you need to. Teach others to reinforce and support that in and along the way as well. So there is this 12-step process.

The truth of every 12-step process follows these four major key points. These way points. And it always comes back to the person at the very top. If you're just a shitty person, who's going to be a shitty person from now to the end of time, then you're gonna have a terrible culture. And you're going to have to pay the price of turnover, and extra HR people, and lower productivity, and disappointment, and frustration all the time. Putting out fires and covering the cost of customer disappointment and everything that goes along with that.

The chances of you actually growing beyond the length of your shadow is fairly low. It's fairly low. The flip side of it is, if you really lean into it and change your heart to serve people, like you said, starting with the leader saying, “I'm at the bottom, not the top. I'm here to serve them. I need to give them what they need to succeed.” Now we're changing the complete dynamic and disposition, and people can change. People change all the time.

So one of the things that I talk about is very much about getting out of your own way, but the first thing you need to do is recognize what's in yourself. And a lot of that's gonna stem from daddy issues.

Frankly, it's gonna it's coming from daddy.

Chris Torbay: I can see that.

Ryan Chute: You're trying to prove something. You're you act like an asshole because your dad treated you like an asshole. It's all the time. We know that. We fired someone for that.

You have all of these things where you're thinking, “How do I solve this problem?” You solve the problem by making it simple for people to do their job, to feel like they're a part of something, to retain their dignity along the way. So this really boils down to one big thing. The exact same thing that's true about advertising is the exact same thing that is absolutely true about sales and relationships. You can purchase a relationship for an evening too, right? And that's great.

Mick Torbay: This suddenly got awkward.

Ryan Chute: This and that's great for the short term, if that's your thing. But it's a short-term thing. It takes effort, it takes commitment. It takes clear and open, and robust communication to maintain a relationship, and certainly to get into a relationship where you get married and have two lovely kids.

At the end of the day, this is no different than your business. If you hope to retain those people, you have to do something that they're willing, and it they see worth staying for.

Mick Torbay: And if I'm hearing you what, it starts with is for the people at the top admitting to themselves that maybe they're not doing it right.

Ryan Chute: Even the well-intentioned people are almost always not doing it right somewhere. And if they're doing right for what's right, right now, for the size of their business, as the business grows and more people are added it and more complexity is added, we now have to do it again. And probably in a different way.

This is a perpetual motion machine. It's not something that ever ends. It's always going to be something that continues to be problematic. Because if you think about a ball bearing and, or like a bearing, and it's got a little flywheel in it, and there are 12 bearings in it. What if I make one of those bearings bigger? Now the whole flywheel's janky, right? Or I make one too small, or I make the channels too narrow or too thick, or I add rust, right? But what if I grease the wheels? There are always things that can change it, and we have to just one by one, look at all the things that can change and make it easy for people to do their jobs, to do the thing that they want to do to serve themselves.

And what is it that we're trying to serve? A customer?

In an earlier episode, we talked about a customer's purchases, things to tell the world, including themselves, who they are. An employee tolerates a job or thrives in a job to tell the world who they are, including themselves.

And sometimes they get stuck, and sometimes they're in survival mode, and sometimes they're thriving. But at the end of the day, everything that everyone does, no matter what the context, is about identity and ranking up in this world within ourselves, with the people that we love and the greater tribes that we're associated with. And that comes to work. That comes to our family. That comes to our kids, that comes to our next-door neighbor. That comes to everyone.

Mick Torbay: I think especially when it comes to your career, because people literally will describe themselves by their career. I'm a doctor.

Chris Torbay: The number of people you go to, it all struck me as weird. When you meet somebody at a party, the first thing you say is, What do you do? What's probably more real is what's hobby?

Ryan Chute: What makes you happy?

Mick Torbay: “I’m a father.” Nobody answers the question that way.

Chris Torbay: They say, “What do you do?” And half the people are like I'm a something by default. So that is not their identity. But it's amazing how we have decided that's how we will categorize people.

Mick Torbay: But also to some extent. I think you raised an interesting insight, which is that we very often, for better or for worse, we define ourselves by our job.

But I think we also have to define ourselves by who we work for, right? If you work for someone you really admire, I think you will really take pride in. I do this thing, and I do it for that guy, or for this organization. And if you're working for a person who you know doesn't respect you, does not appreciate what you contribute, then how can you with pride define yourself by your career? Then it becomes more like from nine to five, I do this thing, but yeah. Fuck it.

Chris Torbay: And then you, and it's funny when you ask that question, you get some people who answer that way because the, they want to quickly move off of that. Do not define me by this. Because I actually don't like it. I'm just too chicken to leave.

Ryan Chute: Yes. And look, a lot of those people are just not in that place where they want to leave be or they're financially obligated, or whatever the case might be. And it goes both ways, both positive and negative. You could be a Marauder with Stockholm Syndrome surviving in a toxic wasteland culture, and be the guy like in Mad Max who's absolutely going to dominate in that thing. That's fantastic. But they'd sell their mom for a wooden nickel.

That's what you get with that culture. And if that's what you want, just know that you're living a highly transactional life that is going to be treated with transactional people. That's what you're attracting in, which means that's what you're attracting from your customers, and that's what you should expect.

You should be commoditized and expect the lowest price, and always have to be the low-price guy. And when you're celebrating your big wins because you scammed a customer, because you didn't actually deliver on the value proposition that you promised for your premium price, then all of a sudden, you end up reaching this length of your shadow because no longer is it that customers don't know who you are. It's that they do. And that's scary, when you have to be run outta town and go starting the next town over to do the thing again because you're no longer welcome here.

Chris Torbay: Because everybody knows you're full of it.

Ryan Chute: Or you just hit this level of people who are also accepting you for what you are and willing to let you exist in their universe because it suits them in some way. At the end of the day, this is what we saw with Wells Fargo, but, on the equal and opposite flip side, it's also what we saw with Zappos. Culture absolutely is going to affect your success.

Mick Torbay: Do you think they would be as successful as they are if they did not lean into that craziness?

Ryan Chute: My argument is that I don't believe that they would've sold for the multiples they sold to Amazon if they didn't fervently protect their culture the way that Tony Shea did.

It made a huge difference. Now, when you compound that into the cost of doing business, you know the cost of turnover, the cost of extra HR people, the cost of disappointed customers, the cost of lost customers, there isn't this endless glut of customers that's going to come now to the end of time.

There's going to come a time when you just stop. And it just continues to diminish downwards. But you're also just surrounding yourself in this horrible environment of negativity and survival. Guarding the resources, hoarding the resources, and protecting that last little scrap of food that you have. What kind of life is that?

It's just tough. It's exhausting. So it has to impact you because that's where burnout comes from.

Mick Torbay: It can not, it can't not affect you.

Ryan Chute: At the end of the day, what are we trying to solve? We're trying to solve for what kind of culture you want to have.

It's always gonna come from commander's intent. The commander is going to determine what kind of culture you have, not because of what you say you're going to do, but because of what you tolerate, in what actually happens, the actions, the behaviors of other people. If you tolerate toxicity, you get toxicity. If you tolerate transactional treatment, you're going to get it. If you treat your employee like a transaction, like a number, like a peon to do your work and to perform for you and dance even though you don't supply them with the proper leads, and your price book is embarrassing, and all of the things that you're doing to supposedly sell stuff is an absolute tragedy, including the way your marketing, the way you're selling, the way you're delivering on those promises or not the way that you set up your org chart, who you've got in charge of other people?

How you measure people, “you gotta have a 40% closing or you're outta here.” If you're going to measure me on a statistical sample size, that's one fourth of what it needs to be for me to be actually measured on whether or not I could actually achieve 40% and you send me on opportunities that could get me a 40% conversion, and you gave me a selling system that allowed me to convert easier because the customer's gonna say yes more readily. I'm not saying I can't sell, what I am saying is I can't sell under these terms and conditions.

And no solid-minded person is going to say yes to a crap offer. And if I don't believe in it, my customer's not gonna believe in it.

Mick Torbay: And I think that's the point, which is that we do watch what the leaders do. We call them leaders 'cause they go first. We take our cues from what leadership does. And so when leaders act in a way that is supportive of the subordinate, then that works its way down. If the leader acts like they're saying to the subordinate, it's, what have you done for me lately? Then what's that subordinate gonna do to the people who report to him? And that's when the whole thing falls apart.

Ryan Chute: It is. And so it all comes down to really what I love to call Harold the Motivation Penguin.

Chris Torbay: Naturally, but of course this one does.

Mick Torbay: It always comes down to seabirds.

Ryan Chute: It always comes down to Harold. And there's basically there's external internal motivations. There are positive and negative motivations, and all of those motivations orient and lead towards identity. And if we just recognize those simple things first, we can actually start to inspire our employees instead of having them conspire against us.

The only thing you get with compliance is defiance. So the end of the day I'm rhyming.

Mick Torbay: It's a lot of rhyming. That's a lot of rhyme.

Ryan Chute: That's how you remember stuff.

Mick Torbay: And nothing rhymes with Penguin by the way.

Ryan Chute: That's right. The problem. The Harold, motivation Penguin. So the reality of it is that when we know the basic ingredients of motivation, we can motivate, and we can recognize when we're weaponizing things like fear, shame, and guilt in our infrastructure.

So, from an actionable step is take a look at your business. Take a look and figure out, “Hey, am I doing a thing that is causing friction?”

Is my friction creating a culture where I'm getting less productivity, I'm getting less buy-in, I'm lowering my conversion rate, I'm doing the things that are causing problems that have the customers say no? Am I even staying tuned to my marketplace to recognize how the market has shifted and where their head's at right now? Are they afraid? Are they unsettled? Are they feeling unstable? Are they tapped out?

All of these things need to be married into the relationship message that you have together. If you're working on this as a couple, you can't avoid the financial conversations. Those things are gonna come up, and sometimes people want something fixed, not replaced. Maybe build a model that makes it easier for them to do that. Which is gonna make it easier for your salespeople to sell, and you're easier for your CSRs to book appointments, and easier for customers to come into your marketing because we've done marketing that speaks to the real needs of customers in the moment.

Mick Torbay: So if I understand you correctly, if you do it well, you're like a really happy penguin. And if not, it's more like having an albatross around your neck?

Ryan Chute: And you don't want, who wants an owl?

Mick Torbay: Wow. Two, seabirds two, right?

Ryan Chute: This has gotten nautical, up in here. I love it.

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Ryan Chute: To land this bad boy, a strong culture, I believe, makes a big difference. It makes a big difference. And not only the employee experience, because it's the employees who deliver the buying experience. And if employees are 90% of the equation when we're trying to grow our business, then it's our job as leaders to orient towards a culture that serves them so that they can service our clients better. And that means making it easier, and those end up being the things that we can advertise about in our advertising.

In our marketing, we have a client, Barker and Son that does a wonderful job speaking about their business inside their business on every single ad. And it's grown them all kinds of accolades because they're recognized as a great place to work. They don't have a hiring problem in a very challenging state, where hiring is incredibly hard.

Mick Torbay: And nothing in the ad ever says this is a great place to work. We simply project a great place to work.

Ryan Chute: That's right. And look, we're going up against a company that was known for how big they were, like a giant five times the size of our client. And now they're literally 50% less than our client in total revenue. They've gone from five times more to 50% less than our client. And they've done that because they had such a toxic culture.

So these are the ROI. Steps for ROI only matters in relation to time. If we don't land that right, and we don't understand that in the short term, did Wells Fargo look like they were a bunch of geniuses? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Up until they got caught.

Mick Torbay: For a while.

Chris Torbay: Until it imploded.

Ryan Chute: And it's eventually going to implode because too many people doing too many completely illegal things, compounded it out, and then somebody gets fired, and then there's the whistleblowing.

So no different. You have to run a business, if you're looking to run it sustainably in long term, it's all gonna orient around the count the culture. We equally see that in private equity companies that purchase companies, and there's plenty of great private equity companies that do a bang-up job. There's way more that have no clue what they're doing.

Mick Torbay: And don't bother.

Ryan Chute: And fold the companies like dramatically quickly. We see it two, maybe four years at the most, and these companies are completely gone because the culture's not there anymore. Everything's been gutted out, and they're not, and they don't have anything but a name left over.

So does it matter? Yes.

In my estimation, based on what I'm seeing, the math points towards be the leader that people want to follow. And you can't be that leader unless you have a North Star, because the North Star is the only way you can navigate. And if you can't navigate, all you're doing is surfing or drifting, or worse yet, drowning.

Till next time, this is Advertising in America.

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