MKJ (00:00.458)
Hey, hey, CEO mission makers. MKJ here with Andy Cunningham. Andy, I cannot wait to dive into this section. You ready to rock with me?

Andy Cunningham (00:01.533)
Hey!

Andy Cunningham (00:09.4)
Absolutely. Let’s get down to business. Yes.

MKJ (00:12.436)
Let’s get down to actually the rubber meat in the road. What do we actually do? So again, if you haven’t listened to the first two episodes, I highly encourage that you do so because now we get to take exactly what Andy just talked about at the end of our last conversation and just run with it. So you mentioned that journalism has changed. PR has changed because we now own, we now can…

influence and impact and create our own content on many, many different channels. And there aren’t any gatekeepers in that respect anymore, at least not in the journalism respect. Social media still has gatekeepers. We won’t get into the details of that, but they do. So how do we do that? And I’d love for you to bring in just try and encapsulate again, your book, Get to Aha. You talk about positioning, you talk about all those things, but let’s start with

How do you craft that story and decide where to publish it on what channels?

Andy Cunningham (01:11.602)
Sure, so let’s start with crafting the story. This is why I got into positioning, because it is the epicenter of great marketing. If you don’t have the right position in a marketplace, the story you tell doesn’t even matter, because you’re not fitting. People talk a lot about product market fit. Well, that’s what we’re talking about here. It’s product market fit. And if you find that white space on the competitive landscape where you uniquely fill a hole,

Then then you’ve got the the nugget if you will have a positioning strategy and so you develop you first you figure out What is that unique and compelling spot on the competitive landscape that you and only you can own incredibly and then you build a message architecture around that and that’s critical for storytelling because once you have that message architecture Now you have the framework to write your story and then you can tell your story. So once you have a great story

Then what you do is you parse it out in many pieces, many bits and pieces, for all the different channels that we have. So there’s long form content where you can use the whole story. There’s short form content where you just pull out the critical pieces of it. There’s social media where you just might pull out a meme or two that you’ve created. And you just start on this journey of building your own digital footprint. And the one thing I really want to stress here, for those of you who are not communication people,

The only way you can get people to remember your story is you have to repeat it over and over and over and over and over again. And it has to be the exact same words. You can’t be telling your story 27 different ways. It has to be the same words and the same phrases in the same way. And if you look at our politicians today, they’re pretty good at that. They’re pretty good at being on message. And that is the key, is being on message. So once you have your story,

and you start to build your digital footprint and you’re on message all the time and repeating the same story, you are now building a digital footprint. You’re building real estate in the virtual world with your story. And then all of a sudden, you can then talk to a real journalist, know, the New York Times or a Wall Street Journal. And the first thing you know they’re going to do is Google you when you call them. And if they don’t find anything, guess what? You don’t exist.

Andy Cunningham (03:28.582)
So the first thing you do is build that digital footprint. Then you can reach out to the Wall Street Journal and you can say, hey, I’m from XYZ company, and I have a brand new product in this new market, and I’m super excited. Can I tell you about it? And if they Google you and they find a story that you have already planted there, they are far more likely to talk to you than if you don’t have that. So that’s the name of the game. And those are the tactics. That’s what you have to do. It’s really not brain surgery, but it’s.

all important.

MKJ (03:59.814)
It is, and it, so many of us, you know, we say something once and we think, well, that’s it, we’ve said it, and that’s all there is to it. That’s not the way it works. We have no idea, right? We have no idea who heard it, who saw it, where, if anybody’s gonna see it again, the algorithms, if they had it or didn’t have it or any of those things. But if we do that, so let me ask you this, the difference between your owned real estate, your owned digital footprint,

Andy Cunningham (04:08.956)
Yes. And we get bored.

Andy Cunningham (04:28.87)
Right.

MKJ (04:29.468)
and you’re borrowed, right, or you’re rented land. The rented land will be the social media algorithms and all those. And you’re owned, like a podcast you own, your blog posts you own, your website you own. Is there a distinction between those two, or should we be saying the exact same thing in both places? Yeah.

Andy Cunningham (04:48.936)
You say the same thing all the time. If you’re giving a speech, if you’re teaching a class, if you’re on a train with somebody, no matter what you’re doing, it has to be the exact same words. And just to add a thing to this, the reason that I wrote this book, which talks about the process of how do you actually come to that positioning, the thing that is, I think, innovative, if you will, if we can back up for a second, about what I wrote in the book is that I discovered that there are three kinds of companies in the world.

And it really is an expression of their DNA as a company. And if they align everything that they’re doing from a marketing perspective, like their storytelling, like their marketing, with the DNA that is who they are, they are far more successful. And that’s a key. So I defined these three types. There’s mothers who are customer focused, there are mechanics who are product focused, and then there are missionaries who are concept or change the world focused. And if you know which one you are and you align your behavior with that,

you will be more successful. And this is true whether you’re a human being or a company. So for example, what I like to tell people, if you’re Curry and you’re showing the world what a great basketball player you are and all of a sudden your mother says, you know, I don’t think you should be playing basketball. I think you should be playing the violin. So you stop playing basketball and you start playing the violin and you suck at it. It’s because your DNA.

is not about violin playing, it’s about basketball. So if you target yourself and your behavior against the thing you’re good at, guess what? You get better at it.

MKJ (06:22.336)
agree 100%. I really, really do. And there are your that’s why this whole structure of storytelling and figuring out what your DNA is figuring out now how to communicate that DNA based on I love how and I know you I can tell very clearly that you love data, you love breaking things down into a clear stepwise process. And you’re very good at that. You’re very good at that.

Andy Cunningham (06:48.206)
Yes, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Yes.

MKJ (06:51.44)
even storytelling, something we think is all creative and blah, blah. It’s not. It’s still a process, right? Right. So I’m telling you people, if you have not read this book, get to Aha! It will be in the show notes. You need to read this book because if you don’t, so many companies I work with, so I do consulting on category design, positioning, all those things. And then conversation. I like

both sides of the conversation, not just what we tell people, but how we interact with them. Yes, and that’s why I call it conversation, not just communication, because it is back and forth. And especially now we have tools. There’s a company I’m working with called Relatable that basically allows you to use interactive video to build that relationship. So…

Andy Cunningham (07:23.864)
Absolutely.

MKJ (07:40.916)
conversations are where we’re headed in the internet world. If you’re just using passive media, then you’re going to get passive engagement. You need to interact in some way. You need to listen. That’s right. But that story is vital. if you’re brand new company and you think, here’s my story, and you’re more of a product design person, and you’ve been designing the product, and you’re excited about how it works,

Andy Cunningham (07:42.598)
Yes.

Andy Cunningham (07:51.484)
Right. Yep. You do need to interact and you need to listen.

MKJ (08:09.148)
You have to have someone walk you through developing that story and really what are you doing, not just how great your product is. So.

Andy Cunningham (08:15.9)
Yes.

MKJ (08:18.228)
That’s what you need. You need someone like Andy to walk you through that, how do you create that story? What really is it you’re trying to do? It’s not just the way your wonderful software works. It’s what impact you’re trying to make. And if you’re diving into the software and you’re all wrapped up in the software, you’re not thinking about the story and how it impacts really the world and the customer, right? How does that work?

Andy Cunningham (08:29.864)
Exactly. Right.

Andy Cunningham (08:41.601)
Exactly. something I want to add to the point you just made there, back when I started in this industry a long time ago, there weren’t that many technology products out there. So finding your differentiator was actually not that hard, because you pretty much had one, and you just had to uncover what that was. And I used to say we would excavate the differentiator and then bring it to the forefront.

However, this has changed dramatically in recent years because now, if you just look at any category of product, let’s just take the one we live in, which is Martech, right? So we know there are over 8,000 Martech products alone. So think how many accounting products there are, how many HR products there are, how many finance products there are. You can’t differentiate any more based on the product alone.

So this is why storytelling is even more important today, because now it’s about your story, which could be about your mission. It could be about your vision. It could be about your target market. It’s not going to be about the product so much anymore. storytelling is everything. Yeah.

MKJ (09:44.968)
Yeah, yes, yes, yes, I, it really is. And I agree with you. That’s that brings us to another concept of really just the, our children who are coming up behind us, who are basically native digitals, right? They were born into this world of digital, they, they really don’t know what we know of analog, right? They would never imagine taking a trip on a drive and not bringing their phone with them. I mean, we

Andy Cunningham (09:59.239)
Yes.

Andy Cunningham (10:08.445)
yeah.

MKJ (10:10.962)
We lived and existed and survived and thrived without that ability, right? So, but they are native digitals. And in that native digital world, all these softwares are ubiquitous. They are ubiquitous. are just, they’re everywhere. So not only do you have to differentiate because of your story, but you have to differentiate because this new breed of human that’s coming up behind us really is.

Andy Cunningham (10:16.4)
Right. Yes.

Andy Cunningham (10:25.021)
Yes.

Exactly.

Andy Cunningham (10:36.624)
Our children.

MKJ (10:37.856)
Our children, right? mean, they don’t, it was so weird to me when they, when they would drive up to go, you know, someone would come to the house and pick them up when they were, you know, 17 years old, they wouldn’t come to the door. They would just text and say, I’m here. And, and the kid would leave. like, well, where’s your friend? he’s waiting in the car. okay.

Andy Cunningham (10:50.812)
Right, yeah, I’m here, yeah.

MKJ (10:58.248)
I mean, that was completely foreign to us, but that is the way they live because this is all ubiquitous. It just is. They just exist with it. So now you have to think about this new breed of human and how do you tell the story with them? That’s why we have TLDR now. Too long didn’t read. That’s why we have all these new ideas and ways of looking at the world. And these people do not want to be sold to. They have my sons have ad blockers on their phones. So if you’re trying to reach them just with ads, you’re not going to do it.

Andy Cunningham (11:05.212)
Yep.

Andy Cunningham (11:13.094)
Yes.

Andy Cunningham (11:24.412)
Yes.

That’s true. That’s why the value of advertising is going down. But programmatic advertising is going way up. So all the ads now that you see on your social media feeds, it’s crazy.

MKJ (11:28.17)
So you have to find it.

is going down.

MKJ (11:35.86)
Yeah. Yeah.

MKJ (11:40.084)
Yes, yes, but even those, even those, it’s really, they’re the decisions for which companies to research and figure out whether they want to do business with are all happening in dark social. They’re all happening in their private messaging with their friends. Yes, it’s not where they’re just scrolling social media and they see an ad.

Andy Cunningham (11:59.91)
Yeah, yes, all with their friends. Absolutely.

Yeah, the friend network. Yeah.

MKJ (12:08.004)
they’re going to their friend groups and they’re going into the whole dark social and say, what do you think of this? And I’m looking for that or, did you hear about this? It’s all happening in places right now. Most of us can’t. Yeah, we can’t quantify that yet. I mentioned this other company again, they’re they’re working on quantifying that the whole interactive video thing. But I it’s so fun. I’m a right same thing. It’s so fun.

Andy Cunningham (12:15.282)
Yeah.

Very, very true. Yes. Yeah.

Andy Cunningham (12:27.566)
I’ll have to check that out.

MKJ (12:35.524)
to be into this world, even though I’m an old timer, I’m an old native analog, age doesn’t matter. My eyes absolutely sparkle with some of these, some of the no code tools that I get to play with where I can automate so many things. It’s just incredible. But if you don’t tell that story, I really have to leave it on that note.

Andy Cunningham (12:45.768)
Alright.

Andy Cunningham (12:52.102)
Yeah, very cool.

MKJ (12:59.41)
Is there anything we talked about positioning, you talked about storytelling, you talked about being an excavator and trying to dig into really what it is that makes you different as a company? And I’m telling you, if you’re identifying yourself as an accounting firm or a PR firm, you’re not differentiating. You can’t identify yourself that way. You can’t, yes, definitely. So is there any last piece of advice? Of course, I’ve already said they need to go get your book and I’ll put some more.

Andy Cunningham (13:10.568)
Right.

Andy Cunningham (13:17.648)
Impossible.

Andy Cunningham (13:26.45)
Thank you.

MKJ (13:27.076)
information on that because right there if you just do that I’m telling you you’re going to be blown away. But is there any piece of advice that you can give about a company or an entrepreneur who’s wanting to differentiate themselves and wanting to be heard in the noise and create that digital footprint? Any last piece of advice you’d give them?

Andy Cunningham (13:32.296)
Well, thank you.

Andy Cunningham (13:47.442)
So yes, and I got it from Apple, right? And it’s the whole think different ad campaign that Steve launched when he came back to Apple. And it’s such a brilliant phrase because it’s not about thinking differently. It’s about thinking something different. And that was the brilliance of it. And so whatever you’re building, whatever product you’re building or service industry that you’re in, think about doing it in a different sort of way.

Don’t do it the same way everybody else is doing it. Think about doing it in a different way. And if you are doing it in a different way or appealing to a different part of the person’s mindset, for example, Apple products appeal to people who like design. That’s just the way it is, right? So Apple decided they were going to focus on that side of the brain. And that’s a differentiation that is beyond the product. Now it’s about who they’re talking to. So when I say think different, I mean

Don’t just think about how to make your product different, OK? Because that’s cool if you can, but I bet you can’t. But if you can, that’s great. But if you can’t, what is it about that that is targeting a different market, living in a different space in the market? What is it that is different about it that isn’t about the product? And start telling that story, because that’s where the future is here.

MKJ (15:08.725)
Yes. So every marketer, every conversational designer, every mark on person communications, this, what Andy just said is, is where your life will, will bring a, sorry for using the same word, but a different value to the companies you’re working with. If you can dig that out.

Andy Cunningham (15:26.588)
Yes.

MKJ (15:30.716)
If you can come into a company and they say, this is what we are and this is who we are and this is what we do. And it’s the same words that anyone else in that same industry is using. If you come in as a marketer or some kind of communications person and you can try and dig out and ask questions, it really is about curiosity. Ask questions, ask unique questions that not everybody’s asking.

Andy Cunningham (15:50.576)
Yes.

MKJ (15:55.142)
Why did you do that? And it usually has something to do just like Andy was talking about with Steve Jobs. It has something to do with the the founder of the company had a specific vision that that vision or that thought. Maybe no one has brought that out. Maybe no one has really dug into where that came from. Dig into that. It is right, isn’t it? Most of the time, founder.

Andy Cunningham (16:03.655)
Yeah.

Andy Cunningham (16:11.29)
Right. Yeah. It could be the phone. Yeah. Yeah.

MKJ (16:18.673)
has created this thing and somebody hasn’t, no one has actually asked the right questions to dig that out. That I think is the place you’ll find the differentiator.

Andy Cunningham (16:24.68)
Thanks.

Exactly. Think about Richard Branson, who all the companies Richard Branson has ever founded, none of them were very differentiated products, including his airline. None of these things were differentiated products. But he made the difference. His personality, his cult of personality, and the way he talked to customers, those were the differentiators for Richard Branson’s stuff.

And that’s what built his great brands. And so you have to think, you really do have to think different. Don’t think like we’ve been thinking for the last 50 years. Think about something completely different.