Connect To Market

How can marketers use improv, human connection, and a market-led mindset to better understand their customers?

In this episode of Connect To Market, host Casey Cheshire welcomes Danielle Radden, CMO at Magic Door, to explore why the best way to connect with your market may be to stop assuming you already know what your customers want. Danielle shares her unconventional approach to marketing through the lens of improv, where being open-minded, listening closely, and adapting to what happens in the moment can lead to better customer conversations and stronger strategies.

Danielle explains how marketers can apply the principles of improv by setting aside assumptions, embracing the information customers provide, and using a “yes, and” mindset rather than telling customers what they need. She also shares her approach to “market-led marketing,” from attending industry events and listening to the questions people are asking to building small experiments and following the solutions that gain traction. Plus, Danielle discusses the importance of human connection in building customer advocates, why your network can shape your career, and her cardinal rule for using AI: you can’t use AI to do something you can’t do yourself.


Takeaways:
  • Approach your market with an open mind. Set aside your assumptions and let customers establish the “scene.” Ask questions, listen to what they are experiencing, and adapt your strategy based on what you learn.
  • Use “yes, and” to create better customer conversations. Rather than telling customers what they need, embrace what they tell you and build from there. Marketing should be a reciprocal conversation, not a constant stream of features and messaging.
  • Let the market lead your marketing. Danielle recommends going to industry events, listening to the conversations and questions happening around you, and using those insights to identify problems worth solving. Start small, test an MVP, and follow where your audience leads you.
  • Use AI to amplify your skills, not replace them. AI can help you learn, improve your work, and move faster, but marketers still need to understand the fundamentals behind what they are creating. Without that foundation, it becomes much harder to recognize or fix what AI gets wrong.

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Connect To Market is produced and sponsored by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/ 

Creators and Guests

Host
Casey Cheshire
Producer
Erica Weser

What is Connect To Market?

A movement of B2B marketers who realize direct connection with buyers is the foundation of all growth.

CTM - Danielle Radden
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Danielle Radden: [00:00:00] in my opinion, the number one thing you can do to connect with your market is to take improv classes. I'll just leave it there.

Welcome to Connect to Market. I'm Casey Cheshire. Join the conversation with the marketing leaders driving the fastest growing B2B brands. We're sponsored by Ringmaster, building B2B podcasts and communities to reconnect you with your audience

Casey Cheshire: Okay, we're doing this thing. Hey, another exciting episode. I'm just g- I'm adjusting myself in the chair. I've opened up my caffeine already because it is time to lock in. ever say lock in? There's... I sometimes I'll say lock it in, and then all of my teenagers just freak out because I'm saying it the wrong way.

But no, it is time to lock in on this particular conversation because my guest today is an absolute badass. I can't wait to introduce you to her. "Well, who is she, Casey? Who is she?" Well, she's a marketing leader, a thought leader, that [00:01:00] understands the tech side, understands the market, growth strategy, positioning, partnerships, go-to-market, you name it.

CMO at Magic Door, Danielle Raden. Welcome to the show

Danielle Radden: Bye. Thanks

Casey Cheshire: Dang, busy. You do a lot of things. Let's get into this

Danielle Radden: I, I guess I do, yeah

Casey Cheshire: Yes, and foreshadowing. So hey, I want to ask you the first question here, but in order to do that, I need to enlist the help of a giant blue foam finger.

Danielle Radden: I really wanted to have my own foam finger, and I just couldn't get it. I'll just use my one

Casey Cheshire: to make sure we get you one because I gotta ask you this question, which is, what is the number one thing that marketers need to do in order to connect to the market?

Danielle Radden: Well, the number one thing, and there's hundreds of things that you can do, and I've gone back and listened to many, many, many episodes, and all of them are brilliant and I love them all. However, in my opinion, the [00:02:00] number one thing you can do to connect with your market is to take improv classes. I'll just leave it there.

Casey Cheshire: Take improv classes. me more.

Danielle Radden: Oh, well. Okay. So when I was younger, I got really into theater. Uh, I'm a, I am a very shy, introverted person. I did not know how to talk to people. Uh, I was recently diagnosed as mildly on the autistic spectrum. I did not know how to interact with people at all. I wanted to sit at home with my books. And I got into theater.

I realized if I can act like a different person, then I can be a different person, and nobody else knows the difference, which was very relieving for me because it felt like they weren't looking at me, they were looking at whoever I wanted to be, which can be dangerous, but I used it a lot to learn how to mask and how to function in society.

Um, and so it, it was just very liberating for me to be able to [00:03:00] act like whoever I wanted to be. And as an adult, I explored a little bit of improv, and I went to a couple classes, and I fell in love with it. This idea that you don't know anything about a situation, but you can make it funny, you can take it in any direction you want.

You have no idea where it's gonna go. And I can really relate that to marketing in this idea that you have no idea who your customers are. You have no idea what the market wants. You can make a lot of assumptions, just like in improv. You can go into a situation and make a lot of assumptions. But at the end of the day, you really, you really don't know, and you have to experience it.

You have to be there, let everything unfold around you, learn as you go, and adapt. And, and really, if you can bring that mindset of improv into your marketing, it can transform everything.

Casey Cheshire: Wow. Yeah. The-- Man, to go from the books to the stage, the fact [00:04:00] that you could be anyone and no one knew the difference, just, could see how freeing that would be. Um, I love theater too, so, I mean, the idea of, know, if they don't like you, it's not they don't like you, they don't like your character, you know? Um, or they like you and they like your character. Uh, yeah, and, and the fact that, I mean, I've never heard someone call it out quite so well that like you don't actually know anything about what your buyer's going through right now. You know, if, if you, you're-- Even if you were your buyer like a year ago, you

Danielle Radden: Mm-hmm. Yep

Casey Cheshire: have changed, and that bias may actually just hurt you more than it helps you. So starting from a, a place of just, "I don't know anything what's going on here. I need to like adapt to it." H-how, how do we, how do we take the improv acting into our, like, into our strategy?

Danielle Radden: That's a good question.

Casey Cheshire: Yeah

Danielle Radden: there's, there's really two components of improv. I would call them rule- rules, but [00:05:00] improv is all about not having rules, so whatever. Um, there's-- So the two rules. You have to be open-minded. You can't come into the situation thinking that you already know where it's gonna go.

And, and that's the first rule, is set aside your pre- your... set aside your original assumptions, have no expectations, totally open-minded, complete blank slate. The second rule is put up the constraints. Have some guidelines. Uh, you know, you-- my customers are property managers. I'm not gonna talk to them about cars necessarily because we're talking about real estate.

And so we already have a, a predefined constraint. And I don't know if you've ever watched Whose Line Is It Anyway, but they would-- I mean, who hasn't, right? It's the best show ever. Um, but they would often do things where scenes from a hat. You pull out a scene that the audience wrote down, and it might be space aliens in the [00:06:00] zoo, but that's a constraint that you have to, you have to form your scene based on this constraint.

Uh, and it's kind of the same in marketing, that you have to be open-minded, so you don't know where this is going, but you also know that you're still gonna function within this pretty defined box. Uh, so those-- between those two things, I think any conversation, you go at it, you think, "All right, my box is what I know about a customer.

I know they might be female. I know the general demographic. I might know some of their value graphics." Uh, so you do know a little bit about them, but at the end of the day, everything is open. So asking questions, uh, you know, play role or play act, really get into the moment of, "Oh, you, you have a problem with that?

You, you can't collect rent? Oh, that's crazy. What, what's the problem? Oh, they're, they're bringing their checks to you by hand, and you don't have anywhere to put them because you don't have a [00:07:00] safe? That's crazy. Of course, you wanna have digital payments." So being able to just say, "Oh, yes, I understand. Yes.

Yes, and..." Uh, so really bring in the information and draw it out of them as long as it fits within that constraint of you are a vendor, they're a customer. You, you have that kind of box. You have the guardrails.

Casey Cheshire: Got it. See, I can totally see how starting with a blank slate will help prevent you from just assuming you know everything. And I know I was talking about people that maybe, like, were in their industry before. They, they bring all these biases like, "Oh yeah, I, I, I know property management. I know how this all works."

And then you just don't ask that question. You don't find out about the safe. You don't find out about the digital pay- like, because you, you brought your own scene into the mix, right? You brought your own script and it's like, no, that's not what we're doing here. We're, We're learning what-- L- let them establish the scene type of thing.

That's really cool

Danielle Radden: Yes, and that actually reminds me of, of a good point. [00:08:00] One of my biggest pet peeves is when a vendor will try to tell a customer what they need, and that is a cardinal rule that you cannot do that in improv. You cannot tell the other person who they are. You cannot tell them. You don't get to put your narrative onto them.

You have to say, "Yes, and," and you have to act that and embrace it fully. So if your customer says, "I don't need that feature," you listen to them and you say, "Okay, tell me more. Where can we go from here?"

Casey Cheshire: You're not like, "No, you're an idiot. You're wrong. You need this thing."

Danielle Radden: Right. Right. You know, it, it's not... Marketing is just leading into sales and a sales team would never say, "No, I'm gonna tell you what you need." You know? They're gonna sell them what they want in, in any way they can. But you gotta embrace it. Just go with it, you know?

Casey Cheshire: Yeah. Hmm. Why don't you think we do [00:09:00] more of this in marketing?

Danielle Radden: Um, I think there's a lot of people do think they know. Um, you know, you do market research, you get polls. Um, I think on one of your last podcasts, you talked to somebody who he was saying that he just goes out and does the job with people. You know, they, I don't remember exactly what the example was, but he's in the field.

And if you think you already know it, if, if you are, if you're not in the scene, then, then you can't really play along. You can't say yes and unless you actively are a participant in what's going on

Casey Cheshire: So we just need to get improv classes for all the marketers. Like

Danielle Radden: I think we should.

Casey Cheshire: Salesforce event, all the lessons are canceled. We just need you all just to do some improv

Danielle Radden: Yep, yep. And it makes us funnier too. I mean, honestly, it really helps you see, adapt quickly, I think is another kind of side benefit of improv of, [00:10:00] of, uh, I don't know. I really appreciate the kind of witty banter of, of British people and probably I'm, I'm stereotyping right now. But they all have this really defined wit, and I love that.

And,

Casey Cheshire: Hmm.

Danielle Radden: able to do that for myself was really important. So improv has kind of honed that wit.

Casey Cheshire: Well, I think there's something, something about impr- improv, like you can, because you, you know your partners are gonna say, "Yes, and,"

Danielle Radden: Mm-hmm.

Casey Cheshire: You can kinda say anything, right?

Danielle Radden: Yeah. Yeah

Casey Cheshire: you can make them...

Danielle Radden: As long as it fits in the scene

Casey Cheshire: yeah, you're in a starship. Like it's just, it is what it is and

Danielle Radden: Yeah

Casey Cheshire: and, and I'm, I'm the pharaoh.

You're like,

Danielle Radden: And I dropped the bomb and now everybody has to get off the starship as fast as possible.

Casey Cheshire: quick, let's parachute to the pyramid. Like how...

Danielle Radden: Yep. Yep

Casey Cheshire: here, but... And so yeah, people just kind of go with it and everyone's, flexible. It do- it does make it more [00:11:00] entertaining. I think you get really good marketing when you're not so all about the following the rules,

Danielle Radden: Of it too is you, as a marketer, we have this tend- especially in technology and, and in B2B, we have this tendency to talk about all of our features, and we're just trying to shovel all of our cool stuff onto, onto our customers. I think there is definitely in improv, there's this, this interplay of I give you something, and then you have to give me something back.

And you can't just keep shoveling your own stuff. It has to be a reciprocated, uh, conversation. It has, it has to go back and forth, otherwise the scene stalls. And so it, so it kind of really sets up this mindset of I can tell you about a feature, but then you have to tell me something before I can go on.

And being able to see that, uh, and, and being able to bring that [00:12:00] into m- more static content too, so not all of marketing is conversations obviously. So being able to bring that into a website or into a flyer or even into an event booth. You know, how do you, how do you demonstrate that you're listening at the same time that you're giving?

And that is a mindset that, I mean, honestly, that's where we need to be going is you can't just shovel out your features

Casey Cheshire: Yeah. crazy question. Have you ever invited your buyers to an improv class?

Danielle Radden: I have not, but that's a fantastic idea. I have invited a lot of friends, and I, I go to a lot of improv shows. Um, but honestly, that's a really good idea. I need to get my team in and do some improv with them too.

Casey Cheshire: Heck yeah.

Danielle Radden: That'd be awesome

Casey Cheshire: But I could see that being a customer event that they would not soon forget,

Danielle Radden: No, no. And customer events, I mean, it's all just, just icebreakers [00:13:00] anyway. So yep, get them talking, get them moving, laughing with each other. That would be so much fun. I love that idea. I'm doing it. I'm pitching that one

Casey Cheshire: Yeah, do. Do. You might be the first one

Danielle Radden: I know, yeah. That'd be good. I, I don't want to teach it. I just like learning improv. I'm not an improv teacher, as I teach all of your listeners about improv.

Casey Cheshire: Yeah,

Danielle Radden: Just foot in mouth, right? Yeah.

Casey Cheshire: for you then. Um, I'd love for you to tell me about a time when a human connection, whether it was a podcast, a community, a partnership, or just a real conversation, led to a business result that no ad or automation could have delivered

Danielle Radden: My gosh. A human connection that led to a business deal.

Casey Cheshire: Yeah

Danielle Radden: So at a previous company, the CEO was... Uh, he [00:14:00] had been... He- Kind of to your point of a lot of, of technology vendors start out by doing, and then they realize there's a gap, and they real- so they build something else. That was very much him. He was in facilities management.

He realized there was a gap. He had some skills, so he built a tool that served his peers effectively.

Casey Cheshire: Okay

Danielle Radden: and he was having a conversation with a bunch of people and kind of got into a little bit of an argument of, of what is possible in the future. And he and one of his future best customers ended up kind of just hashing it out for an hour or so.

Um, and the, the story is from this customer. He was like, "This guy's smart. I need smart people on my team." And he was, he was very much our flagship customer. Uh, his results were astounding. We paid for him to travel around the US to talk on our [00:15:00] behalf. Uh, that was the single best hour discussion that our CEO, our CEO had ever had.

So while that's not

Casey Cheshire: Wow.

Danielle Radden: not my human interaction,

Casey Cheshire: that's fine.

Danielle Radden: I'll lean into it.

Casey Cheshire: Wow. Um

Danielle Radden: And he ended up winning a bunch of awards because of it, because we were paying for him to go speak and stuff. So he's like, "Yeah, I'll take advantage of that."

Casey Cheshire: Yeah. Right?

Danielle Radden: was coming in with bank. He had all of these trophies and so he, I think he was really enjoying it too.

Casey Cheshire: Man, that's it. Man, that-- would you call those? Like advocates, influencers, like happy customers? Like,

Danielle Radden: Yes, all of the above

Casey Cheshire: the above and just bringing them everywhere and having them share what they've learned with everyone else. That's so cool. Have you, have you thought of how to, how to get like that to happen like 100 more times?

Danielle Radden: Oh, I think about that every day, Casey. How do you, how do you get advocates? Isn't that like the ultimate goal? Um, I do. I think my next step is I'm gonna invite him to an improv [00:16:00] class.

Casey Cheshire: Yeah, I think so. Like, the, the advocate level folks. Maybe not people you just met, they might be a little freaked out.

Danielle Radden: No, I think that's the best. That, that's what makes improv fun. You really don't know these people, and all of a sudden you're pretending to be a gorilla. And like, yep, this is, this is the phase I'm at in my life.

Casey Cheshire: I'm a gorilla.

Danielle Radden: That's right

Casey Cheshire: Man, um, you know, it makes me think about our, our community too, and, uh, how we might be able to, like, get some improv built in. I wonder how improv does virtually

Danielle Radden: Pretty fun.

Casey Cheshire: We, uh, I'm gonna definitely have to think about how we can, like, get some kind of virtualness built into the community. Any, any thoughts or for anyone who's, um, not been to Connect to Market Roundtable, any- anything you would tell them or recommend for them?

Danielle Radden: Listen, um, that is the best way to build your network. [00:17:00] And, uh, for myself personally, my network has been my- the single way I have grown in my career. All of my jobs have come from, from somebody recommends me, and maybe I go through an interview process, but I've leaned very heavily on my network. And always, always go to your network, expand your network, talk to people, learn about them.

It's not about you. It's about having that interaction and connection

Casey Cheshire: Learn about them. Yeah, totally. And I mean, everyone is just so kind and caring, and they're just giving, and people bring challenges, and we're all just sort of throwing things out there, but it all starts with listening. That's so, that's so true. What's the whole thing? We have one, we have one mouth and two ears, you know?

Like, we should listen

Danielle Radden: listen twice as much as you speak.

But my mouth is a lot bigger than my ears, so

Casey Cheshire: yeah, that, oh God, that kind of breaks the whole mold.

Danielle Radden: Is that right? [00:18:00] Yeah

Casey Cheshire: should just talk more than we listen, honestly. I guess we should just

Danielle Radden: Yeah. Yeah.

Casey Cheshire: Yeah

Danielle Radden: think it's just a sign that we should just sing

Casey Cheshire: Okay, I'm in. I'm in

Danielle Radden: And for the rest of this episode, it's musical time. I'm not a very good singer.

Casey Cheshire: me,

Danielle Radden: This- we're not doing this.

Casey Cheshire: so we get demonetized. We're not even monetized, but, uh, but, uh, we'll get flagged for copyright violation. Um, well, h- here, here's my next question for you. And w- it's called, it, the question actually has a name, and it's called The Framework. Dun, dun, dun. If you had to build a connect-to-market strategy from scratch, no budget for ads, what would your top three moves be to get in front of and build trust with your ideal buyer?

Danielle Radden: Three moves. Okay. The first thing I would do is go to every event that I can find. I wouldn't get a booth, I wouldn't try to market anything. I would just go to the events, and I would talk to people, and I would sit down at tables at lunch, and [00:19:00] I would listen to conversations without telling them who I was, because people are very candid when they don't think there's somebody trying to sell them something.

Casey Cheshire: Yeah

Danielle Radden: Uh, so I would, I would definitely go to events, and I would listen in the talks for what questions are being asked, because those are really indicative of, of challenges and problems.

Casey Cheshire: Okay

Danielle Radden: Um, so that would be step one, is be there, be involved in what's going on. And I would actually... Can I name this framework?

Casey Cheshire: Yeah, name it

Danielle Radden: I would call this market-led marketing, where you follow the market. So if at these conferences, at these events, you are noticing any trends whatsoever, you have to follow that. And then the next step would be to build a, uh, MVP, but, but you would build something small and see if it [00:20:00] sticks.

And you would give it out for free, or the very least amount that you could possibly charge. And if it gets traction, and I feel like I'm just regurgitating all of the... how- however you would develop your, your product market fit analysis, but I just, I'm like, I feel like I'm just quoting all of the articles that I've ever read about it.

But ultimately, that's what I would do, is, is if the market is saying, "Yes, yes, yes, I want this," then you give them more of that, and you build that out, and then you might try other features, and you might try other avenues, and you might try other audiences even, but you follow where they lead you, and your, your audience is ultimately going to pull you in the direction that they want.

Casey Cheshire: , I love that. Follow where they lead you. Yeah. And we're not leading them somewhere. They're, they're leading us to the solution. They're telling us what their challenges are

Danielle Radden: Well, yes.

Casey Cheshire: The help.

Danielle Radden: Yeah

Casey Cheshire: Well, right about [00:21:00] now, I'm curious your take on how AI fits into all this, because we've talked about the human side.

Danielle Radden: I'm so glad you're talking about AI

Casey Cheshire: Okay. was like, is that sarcastic?

Danielle Radden: no, I'm very serious. I have a, a special place in my heart for AI

Casey Cheshire: Yeah, me too. So let's dive into it. Where do you see AI making marketing better, and where do you think it's actually making it worse or noisier?

Danielle Radden: Yeah. I have a soapbox for AI,

Casey Cheshire: Let's go

Danielle Radden: I will rattle off my, my cardinal rule of AI that I tell all of my team: You cannot use AI to do something that you cannot do yourself. You can use AI to do that better, and you can use AI to teach you something new, and then you can go and expand on that. But until you know the basics, you cannot use AI to do something you cannot do yourself.

And my kind of story for this is [00:22:00] we have a, an amazing dev team. They build everything under the sun in like ten minutes. I don't know how they do it, probably AI. But they have all been coding for years and years and years. They're fantastic coders. They know every language I could possibly think of, and so they could code everything on their own.

And they do a lot of vibe coding, and they do a lot of-- and they use a lot of Claude, and they integrate a lot of AI into our codes. When something goes wrong, and it did recently, then they can go in and say, "This is the line that broke it. I can fix this." And so they did, and we didn't release a bugged product to the audience that would have been...

It, it would have been near-- Well, I wouldn't say catastrophic, but it would have been crazy. It was like texting all of the customers random old messages from, from multiple years ago.

Casey Cheshire: Right

Danielle Radden: just can't do that. Um, but we didn't release it, and we found exactly what was going wrong, and they fixed it [00:23:00] because they knew the code.

And even if they had just known the basics, they knew where to look, they know how to read code, so they can fix things that the AI does because AI doesn't know what it's doing. It doesn't have a goal. It just puts out what it thinks is right. Um, so for marketing... Now let me get off my soapbox.

Casey Cheshire: No, no. Keep, keep preaching.

Danielle Radden: So for marketing, I think there's a little bit of AI has made everybody into a marketer, but not everybody is a marketer. And it's really hurting us as an industry because all of a sudden there's this, this idea that, like, you can just put in, "I need an ad for a new toothpaste," and AI will give you an ad for a new toothpaste.

But it-- that person didn't know how to write a creative brief. That person didn't know how to tell a story. That person didn't-- There's, there's no guidance, and there's no way to fix it, so they don't know what's wrong with the ad. They don't know why it's not [00:24:00] performing well. They don't know what's grabbing people, what's not grabbing people.

They don't understand the copy. They don't understand the typography. Whatever it might be, if you don't know the basics of what you need to do, then you can't expect AI to do it for you.

Casey Cheshire: Right. It, it, it's like that-- I feel like that's the lazy path. And

Danielle Radden: Mm-hmm.

Casey Cheshire: Now where does this-- Have you seen this be violated and have catastrophic things happen? Like where, what happens if you try to use it to do things that you don't know how

Danielle Radden: Luckily, my team would never do that.

Casey Cheshire: Right.

Danielle Radden: I I have hammered this home. Um, but, but I see it a lot of times, you know? People will say, "Oh, I'm, I'm spinning up a new company. It's gonna be great." They'll get it 70%, 80, 80% of the way there, and then they find the thing that AI did wrong, and they don't know how to fix it.

So the company fails, or they lose a bunch of money, or... And I can't [00:25:00] think of anything personally, but I know I've read a lot of those articles that say AI will get you 80% of the way there. It's because AI does that base work, but you have to know the basics to go in and fix what got broken or what's wrong

Casey Cheshire: Right. Right. I-- You know, it's, it's kinda like the same argument that existed with marketing automation, you

Danielle Radden: Mm-hmm.

Casey Cheshire: Like, it doesn't make your marketing better. It, it takes whatever you're doing and it makes it happen for more people. So if it's bad,

Danielle Radden: Yeah

Casey Cheshire: people are experiencing how bad this actually is.

Danielle Radden: Yes

Casey Cheshire: Um, and it's not... Yeah. Now, if it's good, great. More people are experiencing that. Same thing with AI. If you know what you're doing, man, you can really get things cranking. But if you don't... But I

Danielle Radden: And

Casey Cheshire: that learning is, should happen first

Danielle Radden: Right. Right. Well, and like, I like to put that in there because I don't know how to code. I know some basic HTML and SQL, but I've never done [00:26:00] Python or anything. Um, but my CEO is like, "Hey, I need you to build this tool." Like, all right.

Casey Cheshire: Yeah

Danielle Radden: I, according to my own law or my own rule, I can't vibe code it because then I don't know how to fix it.

So I am having Claude teach me the basics of how to build an app, and Claude's great at that, and I know how to be a student. So that's something that we've all grown up in school. Everybody knows how to learn. So if you are using AI to learn, go ahead, do that. Learn the basics, and then use those basics that you learned to then go beyond that.

Um, so if you don't know how to write a creative brief, have ChatGPT tell you what needs to be included. What should I put here? You know, build on that

Casey Cheshire: and so it's like, it's like the whole adage of like teaching someone to fish as opposed to just fishing

Danielle Radden: Yes. Yep. Yep, exactly

Casey Cheshire: Yeah. Um, huh. [00:27:00] Do you have a favorite platform for AI?

Danielle Radden: Um, it depends on what I'm doing. Uh, my favorite therapist is ChatGPT.

Casey Cheshire: Yeah

Danielle Radden: Um, I also really like ChatGPT for creating doodles and artwork and redesigning my living room.

Casey Cheshire: Nice

Danielle Radden: like, I like Claude for anything that's a little bit more technical. I also use Claude as all of my-- to integrate into all of my MCPs.

Casey Cheshire: Okay

Danielle Radden: so I think those two are really... I, I've dabbled in the others, but I've, I've spent so much time building up ChatGPT and Claude that those-- I kinda just stick with those

Casey Cheshire: Yeah. When, when the platforms have memory, they just, they just, man, they get so much better. 'Cause it's

Danielle Radden: Oh, yeah

Casey Cheshire: a single prompt, it's a single prompt and, and it remembers, oh yeah, and like we were chatting about this two weeks ago and this is where we're at, so

Danielle Radden: Mm-hmm.

Casey Cheshire: Here we

Danielle Radden: And I like, I like Claude for some of that too, because I can tell it what to add to its memories and which has been really nice. Um, and I use Claude Code [00:28:00] mostly, but, uh, because it can go in and I've got everything integrated into my own database on my, on my computer, so it can add files and it can adjust everything for me

Casey Cheshire: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally. How did, how did you come to f- to out that you had preferences in certain directions? Like, yeah, Claude, maybe more, a little bit more technical or my MCP friend and, you know, that kind of a thing. How did that develop? Did you try having ChatGPT Connect and you're just like, "No, you know what?

This is over here."

Danielle Radden: in the reverse direction of that, I have tried to have Claude do more creative work for me, writing emails or helping me write up briefs or,

Casey Cheshire: Yeah

Danielle Radden: or any sort of content. And Claude, I, I don't like it. And so that's why I've kind of moved all of that over to ChatGPT. Like I said, ChatGPT is also my therapist, so it's a very motivating platform for me. and I've told it, you know, I've [00:29:00] taught it skills of how to interact with me.

And so that's kind of why I put everything creative and anything that I feel personally attached to, I kind of have migrated over onto ChatGPT. I haven't done any of that with Claude because it's a business account, and I wouldn't feel comfortable telling my business account about my anxiety in the middle of the night.

So that's why it's a little bit like, uh, I'll do all of the technical stuff over there

Casey Cheshire: Yeah, fair. But like, yeah, kind of like divide and conquer, right? Certain things for certain, um, areas. And yeah, I, I've found it to be incredibly useful for all of that. And, you know, have you experienced, um, just like the crazy growth of it? Like, the, the growth of it, the intelligence? 'Cause I remember first using it for like middle school math homework, it would not give you the right answer.

Danielle Radden: Yeah

Casey Cheshire: It couldn't do that math, but it could at least tell you how to solve a problem like this. So, which

Danielle Radden: [00:30:00] Yeah

Casey Cheshire: when your middle schooler's like, "Dad, how do you do this?" You're like, "I haven't seriously considered that for like, don't know, 30 years. Like, I don't know how many years."

Danielle Radden: I said, don't use AI. You can't use AI to do something that you can't do yourself, but you can use it to teach you how to do it

Casey Cheshire: 100%.

Danielle Radden: I'm glad you brought my soapbox back to me. Thank you for that

Casey Cheshire: Yes. Back on the soapbox. Uh, but I would say now it's, it's challenging. I wonder how kids are gonna deal with it because now it can do the math. It does know

Danielle Radden: yeah. Yep. Um, I mean, a whole, that's like a whole nother philosophical question, but, uh, well, we're bringing kids into it. But your original point, I think, was kind of has it changed over the years and has it evolved, and yes, absolutely. I remember one of the very first things I did with it was I had it write a rap song about my dog.

It was just the lyrics, and it was, it, it was all about how she licks everything all the time. She licks the ceiling. She licks [00:31:00] the walls. Uh, 'cause it's true, that's what I... But now it actually will play a rap song and sing it, and you can upload it onto Spotify if you wanted, which is, is crazy.

Casey Cheshire: You know, I actually did that.

Danielle Radden: Yeah

Casey Cheshire: I, I had it make a song for me, and it was like-- it was using, uh, Suno or Suno, and it was so good. I just enjoyed it, and I was like, "I'm gonna put this on Spotify." So

Danielle Radden: Yep. Yep

Casey Cheshire: be... yeah, so if that's me, then, you know, who knows how many other songs are out there.

I feel a little bit bad though, 'cause it's not really like I wrote the song,

Danielle Radden: Mm-hmm.

Casey Cheshire: Know? So someone can't be like, "Oh, great song." It's kinda like, great prompt?

Danielle Radden: I don't know. I mean, that's a- that's how I feel about using AI for marketing too, though. Like, did we really make it? Was it really my creative, or is it the collective creative of all of humanity that's, that's contributing to this?

Casey Cheshire: Yeah. [00:32:00] Exactly. Exactly

Danielle Radden: I mean, I'm not gonna stop using AI. I just... There's a lot of ethics and like I said, that's a whole nother philosophy question. I don't know if we have time for that

Casey Cheshire: the pod just turns into philosophy class. Philosophy with Casey and Danielle. Let's

Danielle Radden: That's right.

Casey Cheshire: Um, well, really next, next question I'm thinking about for you is like, who are you? Who are you? How do you know these things? Can you take me back in time to like little you days? you know you were gonna be a marketing leader, CMO to the stars, like doing all these things, leading your team through improv and AI?

Danielle Radden: I am a scientist at heart. My original goal, I wanted to study neurosci- neuropsychology. I was really fascinated with the brain and neurodivergent thinking, although that's not what it was called back then. Um, but, but I loved it. I loved everything having to do with why humans do what we do, and I still, I still love just [00:33:00] people-watching and trying to figure out why the hell are they doing that.

But, uh, so I went to school for psychology 'cause you have to have a foundation in what people do, and then I got a master's in biochemistry 'cause it's all about brain science. And then I got married, and I had kids, and I stayed home for many, many years and went absolutely bonkers because when the only thing you have to think about is how many vegetables your kids have had every day or how many steps you've taken or...

I mean, it was just-- I started canning and I... Like, I'm not domestic. I, I don't like cooking. This is not me. so the fact that I was...

Casey Cheshire: of tomatoes. What am I doing

Danielle Radden: Exactly. Like, this is not me. I need to be building something. I need to be, I need to be using my hands. I need to be functioning in the world and contributing. So I actually started a woodworking business.

Casey Cheshire: Yeah

Danielle Radden: it was a very weird idea with two toddlers, but I loved it at the time. Um, so I [00:34:00] made wooden guest book puzzles, and this was back before laser cutters were really, were really a big thing. Uh, and I sold them really well. I made a lot of money. For about two summers, I made a ton of money. And then laser cutters became real, and I had to learn how to market, and it was like, "Whoa, this is hard."

Casey Cheshire: Yeah

Danielle Radden: was kind of my first foray into marketing. since then I've owned a publishing company. Uh, I ghostwrote 27 books, mostly memoirs, a lot of nonfiction, uh, technical books, everything from capsule wardrobes to

Casey Cheshire: How

Danielle Radden: female infertility.

Casey Cheshire: Wow

Danielle Radden: So that was kind of career transition too.

Uh, And all? Do any of them have your name on it?

Uh, one, one book has my name on it, yeah.

Uh, that one wasn't ghostwritten. I wrote that one

Casey Cheshire: Okay, which one is that one?

Danielle Radden: It's called, uh, Becoming a Streaker

Casey Cheshire: Is that the name of this episode? Should we just label it [00:35:00] that

Danielle Radden: the book is just about using different ways that people find fun and play in their life as adults to build healthy habits.

And one of those, one way is to enjoy life and to have fun is to collect things. Some people collect coins, some people collect stamps, some people collect vacation spots. Um, one lady collected how many solar eclipses she had seen. It's cool. Um, but I collected days of running in a row.

And so I had a running streak, and I wrote... I ran 5K every day for, it was, like, 36 days or something. It wasn't outrageous, but in that time, I was interviewing people. There were people that had ri- run at least a mile every day for years. And there is a whole community of streakers that have a running streak, and they're all bonkers, let me tell you.

But it's this idea of, like, you can find fun and play in anything. You just have to understand yourself [00:36:00] and then adapt your circumstances to be able to build in good habits and make it fun

Casey Cheshire: Okay. Well, we're gonna have to link to that book. Now that we understand what it's all about, you had me intrigued and worried at the same time. That's a, that's a great concept

Danielle Radden: Yep. Yeah, it was fun. I had, I had a good time with that one. It was a very short book, um, that was early on in my writing career. I usually don't recommend it 'cause now I read back on it and I'm like, "Oh, that was terrible,"

Casey Cheshire: you know, um, I, I had a, I had a publisher and supposedly an editor, um, with, with my book, at the very end of it, put, um, massive typo. I didn't do it. Not my fault. Uh, I put, "I don't wanna be just one of those book authors that, like, just hides in an ivory tower. I wanna... Like, reach out to me. If you have a question about this stuff," it's about marketing automation.

Like, "Reach out to me. Connect with me. I wanna-- I will answer you and

Danielle Radden: I want to connect with my market.

Yeah,

Oh, wait

Casey Cheshire: right. Thank [00:37:00] you. Great callback. And I'm like: Here's my, my email. At the time it was Casey@Ring- Um, not Ringmaster. @casey@... That's my now email. It's casey@cheshireimpact, my old company, cheshireimpact.com. The publisher, editor, whoever, place setter, like: Well, that's a long word.

It doesn't fit on that line, so let's make it Cheshire dash, next line, impact.com. And they went to print with it and everything,

Danielle Radden: Oh, no

Casey Cheshire: I'm like: Guys, that's a

Danielle Radden: My email.

Casey Cheshire: That's a different email. People are gonna think

Danielle Radden: No.

Casey Cheshire: There.

Danielle Radden: Oh, no. Oh, no

Casey Cheshire: and everything.

Thankfully it was available, but, like, I had to go buy the domain. But here I am, and before I fixed that, here I'm like: I don't wanna be in an ivory tower, and then you try to email me and it bounces.

Danielle Radden: Oh gosh. Oh my gosh.

Casey Cheshire: Bringing you back. You were ghostwriting a whole bunch.

And then what?

Danielle Radden: when you're writing books for people, a lot of that is you have to market the books. If you have a [00:38:00] publishing company, you gotta get their books out. So again, I'm thrown back into this marketing loop and

Casey Cheshire: Yeah

Danielle Radden: to figure out what I'm doing.

Um, I'm a scientist, so all of it, I decided early on, I don't know how to market, so I'm gonna treat this like any science experiment, and you start off with the scientific method. You gotta observe what's going on. You gotta make hypotheses. You gotta design an experiment. You have to test results. You have to measure.

You have to know what you're measuring, and then you have to see what happens, and then build a follow-up experiment. So I learned marketing with the scientific method, and I very much taught myself. Um, one of my authors started a company called Mindful Mamas, and she hired me to head up her marketing department.

Uh, she was like, "You're doing great with the books. I think you would be fantastic." Um, so that was kind of my foray into, into, like, corporate marketing, and I've sort of bounced around ever [00:39:00] since. Like I said, all of my, my career jumps have been through my network, and whether it's being introduced, or someone knows me, or we've been in contact before.

Uh, and then there's an opportunity that I, I say yes and, and just kept moving up, and now I'm, now I'm CMO, and I have my own team, and I love it. It's-- I definitely feel like every move I've made has maybe not been easy, but it's been good.

Casey Cheshire: Yeah. It-- You, you truly have yes and, anded.

Danielle Radden: Somebody said a perpetual optimist or an eternal optimist is what, what one of my customers said at one point

Casey Cheshire: Hell yeah. I feel like you need to be that in marketing, honestly. Uh, until, until you find the sweet spot, like, okay, let's keep making

Danielle Radden: Yep.

Casey Cheshire: Until

Danielle Radden: Yeah. Yeah.

Casey Cheshire: Um,

Danielle Radden: exactly

Casey Cheshire: well, this is perfect. My next question is perfect for an improv expert actor, [00:40:00] um, an improv marketer. Here's my next question. It's a hypothetical question if you're ready for this.

Danielle Radden: Yeah

Casey Cheshire: I may or may not have a time machine over here in New Hampshire.

Danielle Radden: Mm-hmm.

Casey Cheshire: All right, just kidding.

Danielle Radden: Too bad it's in New Hampshire and nobody goes there

Casey Cheshire: This is true. Nobody does come here. But apparently, if you did happen to do a customer event in Massachusetts, come on up. It's in the backyard covered in a tarp, right?

So just come on over But it's a particular kind of time machine where you get a chance to go back in time and meet yourself a few days after getting that You got the psych degree. You're bright-eyed, bushy-tailed four days later, you get to meet that you. What do you tell her?

Danielle Radden: I'm so excited for this question because you said earlier in the episode there's no rules, right?

Casey Cheshire: That's right, just components.

Danielle Radden: Okay, I need to set up this experiment.

Casey Cheshire: Yes

Danielle Radden: I'm going to need to come back and talk to that [00:41:00] person again in 20 years. So I'm gonna talk to myself four days after I graduate, but I have to also follow up because you've gotta measure and track, right?

This is a good science experiment.

Casey Cheshire: Yes

Danielle Radden: The other rule is I'm gonna first document what happened on the existing timeline. Let me... I'm doing a lot of build-up. I'll get there, don't worry. So I need to know, I need to know what happened in the timeline I, timeline I'm on, and then I would go back and I would tell myself, four days after I graduate, I would say, "Go to medical school.

Follow your dream to be a doctor." And then I would go back again 20 years later after that, and I would see if fate is actually a thing and if I end up in marketing

Casey Cheshire: Oh, wow. What, what do you, what do you think would happen?

Danielle Radden: I think that I would still end up in marketing. I think, I don't know, I think that I would, [00:42:00] I would maybe go to medical school. I think I might end up with a different trajectory. I might do something totally different for a while. But I think people who genuinely want to take the next best opportunity for them end up in a place where they are genuinely happy and where they're really thriving and succeeding.

Because if you're not happy, if you're not thriving, you're gonna keep bouncing around to get to the next best thing. You got me talking about philosophy again, Casey.

Casey Cheshire: I- that's what we do on this show.

Danielle Radden: I think that no matter what I had done four days after I graduated with my undergrad, I think I would still be in the same place I am now. That's my hypothesis

Casey Cheshire: well, follow-up question to that. Do you think, and this is even more interesting because of the situation you set up, do you think you would listen to yourself? 'Cause I know you, you told yourself all your dreams and go to medical s- medical school, but would you [00:43:00] listen?

Danielle Radden: Mm-hmm. Yes, I think I would because I, I really did genuinely, at that time, I really did genuinely want to go to medical school. And I didn't because of social pressures and, and my family was very adamant that I can't be a stay-at-home mom and a doctor at the same time. And I think I just needed one person to say, "Yes, you can."

And I think it would've been a different life, but I still think I would've ended up here

Casey Cheshire: just one person... You know, I had something similar. I w- I like many attempts to be a fighter pilot and several door openings, but for whatever reason, knowing what I know now about what flying is all about, I would be a terrible pilot. Be like, you know, "Ladies and gentlemen, uh, welcome on board. I know we're going to New Jersey, but that's boring.

We're going to Hawaii instead." You know? "So email everyone, let them know you're gonna be a little late 'cause we're gonna..." Yeah, so I, I-- it was just not gonna be a fit, but it was painful when I'm pushing on certain [00:44:00] doors and then they're like, "Yeah, no." Or when they... The worst part is when they open a little bit and then you

Danielle Radden: Mm-hmm.

Casey Cheshire: And closer, but it's like, this is really not for you

Danielle Radden: don't know, I think you could have been a cool fighter pi- pilot. I wouldn't fly with you, but

Casey Cheshire: Well, I think there it is right there. Um,

Danielle Radden: But I do like Hawaii

Casey Cheshire: so, okay. Where do people go if they want to connect with you? They want to reach out, they're like, "This lady's awesome. I want to connect."

Danielle Radden: , you can find me on LinkedIn, and I think there's only one Danielle Radden on LinkedIn. Um, so yeah, it's just like John Madden, but with an R

Casey Cheshire: Yes, exactly. We'll link to that in the show notes

Danielle Radden: Perfect

Casey Cheshire: This has been awesome. Man, Danielle, thank you so much for coming on here. I'm just looking back through all these notes I've been taking, and I'm like, I feel like this has been a masterclass not only in marketing, but like you said, a little bit of

Danielle Radden: In acting?

Casey Cheshire: Class as well,

Danielle Radden: Oh, [00:45:00] yeah

Casey Cheshire: It's like we had acting class as well today. Man, we just, we, we put all that into a, uh, our own time warp of an hour as well

Danielle Radden: Well, next time I'll come better prepared and we'll do some improv

Casey Cheshire: Yeah. Yeah, we should definitely talk about, um, subjecting our people in the CTM community to, uh, to that. You know, people hearing that will go, "Okay, good. Now I was- wasn't sure if I should go to that event. Now I'm definitely not going." But, uh, no, it's fun. If you're a marketing leader, come join us. It's a round table.

It's free. It's a good time. Um, but yeah, Daniel, thank you. Thank you for coming out here and just kind of us a masterclass.

Danielle Radden: Thank you. It was awesome. I love it

Casey Cheshire: Yeah. And those listening, if you learned something, and I freaking know you did 'cause I literally have two pages of notes over here front and back, then share this with someone else. One person, two people, 9,000 people, that'd be nice. But even one person, like who needs to hear this? Who needs to have a little improv class with their customers?

Maybe shove, you know, shove some of those biases you have off into the corner and just kinda [00:46:00] like be open-minded. Take those components with you. No rules, just components. With that, Danielle, thank you again.

Danielle Radden: Yep. Thanks, Casey

Casey Cheshire: This has been so cool. Another crazy cool, very fun, exciting episode of Connect to Market, the pod. We'll see you all next time