DC: Brand Nerds. Brand Nerds. Brand Nerds. You already know what it is. Brands Beats and Bytes. The one and only back at ya 100 countries and growing. Namaste We are very, very thankful Brand Nerds. 
LT: Yes, 
DC: LT, we are fortunate. 
LT: We are. 
DC: I'm not certain how we get the guest that we get, but somehow we get them.
And I can sum up this guest kicking it off. I know you're gonna do the real introduction, but I'm just gonna brand nerves. Put something out there for me. I love a few things. One thing that I love, lt, you know, this is a great name, like a great company name and if the name can also be like an analog, you've got me at, hello.
So that's one thing I love. The second thing that I have become more in love with, I've always loved this area, but more in love with in the last five years in the age of tech, are people who know people. Y thi this is becoming a lost art in our time, Brand Nerds, because we're, we're starting to conflate technology with people.
One of them can be used by the people. The other one attempts to use the people. And this guest understands how people, the importance of people will drive the future. And the third thing I love is a good book and a good podcast. And one of my favorite books of the last multiple years is by Ben Horowitz, who is half of Andreessen Horowitz, that is the venture capital firm out of Silicon Valley.
And they specialize in backing founder based and led companies. So not these folks that come in that are like professional executives. They're like, if you know how to run a company. We and found a company We want to work with you, Ben Horowitz's books. I don't know how many he's written, but the one I've written is The Hard Thing, Larry, About Hard Things, not the Larry's not in there. It's "The Hard Thing About Hard Things." And this next guest has something to say about the hard things LT, let the Brand Nerds, the peoples know who we have in the building today. 
LT: DC I love your preface. This is wonderful. We have Gabe Lullo in the house today. Welcome, Gabe. 
Gabe Lullo: Thank you so much, LT. Thank you so much.
DC I guess I have to be going by GL now. I, I, I think is the way we all should do this, right? 
LT: It's not mandatory, Gabe. It's not mandatory. 
DC: Mandatory not mandatory, not, 
LT: not mandatory. So, so Gabe, this is where, uh, we take the brand nerds through. The wonderful background of our guests so they really know who's in the, in the virtual building.
So, uh, Brand Nerds, uh, a a as DC said, we have someone who has a company that has DC and me at hello with their company name. And the name of this company is called Alleyoop Yes. The name comes from the basketball term of throwing the best Alleyoop pass for your teammate. For an easy slam dunk, think the current Denver Nuggets duo of Nikola Jokić, better known as the Joker to Aaron Gordon.
My favorite all time is Gary Peyton to Sean Kemp, but I do digress as a business metaphor for clients. This is awesome. As DC alluded to, Gabe is currently CEO of Alleyoop. Let's walk you through his path to become CEO. First as a youngin, Gabe was a professional juggler and a wilderness canoe tripping guide for long expeditions. Um, for college, Gabe Burns his undergrad degree at the University of Hartford in economics and finance. He then begins a career in executive recruiting, which he does successfully for 10 years. Okay. Brand nerds. We often talk about key pivot points and people's career, and it feels like Gabe's next move is his.
In 2013, he joins Alleyoop as their head of people operations for the next six years. Gabe is an integral part of helping Alleyoop grow. He then gets, gets an opportunity to become general manager of routing box, a dispatch management software company for non-emergency medical transportation. After two successful years at Routing Box in 2021, Gabe gets a call to rejoin Alleyoop, this time as Chief Business Officer, and in 2023, he earns the big promotion to CEO. Alleyoop is a professional outsource resource helping clients propel demand generation. At scale. This can be for fast growth startups and well-established brands entering new markets or periods of new expectations, whether it is sales development or client service, through their unique three-prong people process, tech approach, Alleyoop is in the business of immediately helping companies meet and exceed their sales revenue and or other KPI goals. More than 1600 brands have dunked the Alleyoop pass. Happy clients are bountiful, including Adobe, ZoomInfo and Lightspeed to name a few.
Also, in 2024, Gabe and colleagues started a podcast called, and this was DC alluded to, called the Do Hard Things podcast, the Do Hard Thing part podcast, where they unpack the toughest challenges in sales, marketing, and leadership. They go deep on origin stories, real world hurdles, and the trends shaping what's next?
Really looking forward to this one Brand Nerds. Welcome to Brands, Beats and Bytes. Gabe Lullo, 
Gabe Lullo: Thank you so much, uh, LT, that was awesome. I appreciate that. Humbling to hear it. Uh, and also DC thank you so much for the intro. A great book by the way, and can't wait to do this. I'm big fans of both of you.
DC: Thanks. Thank you, brother. Thanks Gabe. Thank you brother. Gabe, we now get into the Get Comfy section. Okay. You, you have a very unique experience. Um, you've dealt specifically in the area of, uh, recruiting. Mm-hmm. As I mentioned upfront and as Larry has gone over, um, people is a, uh, is a big part of what you, uh, have done and continue to do now, and as people who do the business primarily because of the different roles that you've had, you've also dealt with. Many different types of C-Suite executives. You've dealt with CROs and heads of sales that have come to you to work with your company and your services, and you've also dealt with CMOs who have come to you and said, Hey, hey Gabe, we, uh, we have some issues or We've got some opportunities.
We'd like to talk to you about operations, or whatever it is. Given your purview in seeing and understanding questions in the mindset of different C-Suite executives, what are the different kinds of questions or areas of interest do you get from, say, A CMO client? Who's the primary day to day and a CRO client, if there are any differences whatsoever.
Gabe Lullo: Absolutely. And there's a lot of differences. And, and my best analogy, and you know, I like analogies with the name Alleyoop Uh, the reality is, is we feel like we are a marriage counselor between those two roles. 
LT: Oh, wow. 
Gabe Lullo: Right. Okay. 
DC: That's good. That's good. 
Gabe Lullo: Okay. So like the CMO could be the husband and the wife, right?
Or the wife and, and then the CROs is, is the, is the spouse, right? Yeah. And the reality is, is when we look at sales development, which we believe that's, we believe it's its own department. Mm-hmm. You know, marketing likes to take it over and say it's theirs. Sales like to say, no, it's ours. But isn't it interesting?
They're always at odds, right? So when we go into a company, you have sales blaming, marketing for bad leads, and then you have marketing blaming sales for not closing the leads they're giving them. So you usually have a CMO and A CRO championing those conversations from their team to each other. And you have the old, you know, adage where they're at war, right?
You had sales throwing spears over the one side of the wall and marketing's throwing spears over the other side of the wall. And to your point, when we're in there asking the questions to bring them two together, we have to figure out what their challenges are, what their problems are. But it's usually a blame game scenario, right?
Mm-hmm. And we have to kind of say, okay, hold on a second, instead of blaming each other for why, you know, you, you didn't make the bed, or why you, you know, you were late to pick up the kids, right? Same thing is like, we have to figure out, okay, how do we get these two people working together and what is important to them?
Because at the end of the day, what do they want? They want the same thing. Right. They both want growth for the company. They both want revenue for the company. They both want success for the company. So yeah, we're, we're trying to figure out what those things are when we're asking them. And it's usually more of that he said, she said type scenario.
DC: Mm. 
LT: D, I have a follow up to this. Yeah. This is a great, this is great and this is why we wanna have this conversation with you, Gabe, you're, you're so great to ask this question. So you guys have a process from what I glean, and is this one of the top parts of the process that when you're engaging a new client that you're trying to find, really find out quickly what the, what the relationship is between sales and marketing.
Gabe Lullo: A hundred percent. I was just on a call earlier today where I was on the phone with the, the CRO of the company and he wants all of these amazing things and he is blaming marketing the whole time. Now, the next call we have scheduled is with the head of marketing, right? And the head of sales. 'cause he feels, oh, I gotta bring this person in to have this conversation.
And we're trying to understand what is specifically their pain points because it's usually the same point, pain point, but it's said very differently. 
DC: Oh yeah. And, and that's 
Gabe Lullo: what, and that's what we have to figure out. And we have to get them on the same page and then we could come in and, and hopefully be a saving grace to both of them and make them both look good in front of the founder, which is usually, or the CEO, which is, and the CFO more than, more than ever before now, in the last few years.
But usually that's the third call when we're talking about companies of the larger sizes. 
LT: Well, this is, this is juicy D. What else you got? 
DC: Alright. Uh, I, I gotta talk about this analog of marriage counselor. 'cause I believe that's exactly what the industry needs. Yes. Between CROs and, and, and CMOs. So, staying in the vein of marriage counselor, Gabe, we don't want you to mention any clients or any people's names.
Have you all reached a point in your, uh, in your company lifecycle where when you start to talk with one of the spouses. The metaphorical spouses where you can discern, ooh, this is headed for divorce. This is, this is not headed, this is not, this is not going to a good place. So that's question number one.
And then what do you see that would indicate that that to you? Okay. That's the first question. And then the second question is, if you're talking to one spouse and they are bad mouth badmouthing the other spouse, say the CMO is badmouthing the CRO, have you all reached a point to where you can, after you've talked with both spouses, where you could go, Ooh, the CMO, who's saying the problem is the CRO doesn't know that the CMO is the actual problem.
Okay. Yeah, so, so those two questions. Your thoughts please, counselor Gabe. 
Gabe Lullo: It's funny because yes, the answer's a hundred percent. I have to see that and deal with that a lot. Um, but I'm usually the one in my seat. I hear that from my team and my contact, my point of contacts, they're telling me this, and I usually have to do this.
I have to call the judge, you know, the judges, the CEO of their company. 
DC: Yep. 
Gabe Lullo: Ah, got, okay. Yep. 
And I gotta call, I gotta call the judge and say, Hey, guess what? You know, you, you have to, you have to divorce these two people, or you have to get rid of one of them. Ah, and many people, unfortunately, have had to be exited from companies for, at our clients based on our recommendations.
And so, and we work as hard as we possibly can to get it going, uh, between the two. And there's many more success stories than, than terminations. I will promise you that. But at the end of the day, if it's impossible or if it's a scenario where, to your point, it's just one person is just not making it work, we gotta call in the, the judge and make, make that final decision.
DC: I got, I got one follow up question, Larry, but do you have anything on this before question? 
LT: I have. Keep, keep going and I'll, I'll go after you. 
DC: Okay. So Brand Nerds. Let's be really clear about this. Gabe and his company, they don't want to go to the judge. 
LT: No. 
DC: They, okay. This is the last, they want to work this out between the two spouses.
They really want the spouses to work this out. Yeah. But if one of the spouses digs digs their heels in Gabe and Alleyoop, they have a job to do. They have a remit. And as Gabe Artfully elegantly articulated earlier, both the CRO and the CMO, they want the same thing. Grow the revenue of the company successfully, uh, uh, profitably and successfully.
So they both want the same thing, but if one of them becomes recalcitrant and is like. Hey, I don't care. I am going to hold my position no matter what. Then Gabe has to go to the judge. Now I'm going to my question here. So, Gabe, when you and your team recognize, Ooh, this, it looks like, looks like Judge Judy time, looks like Judge Judy time.
When you get to the CEO, who in this story, this metaphorical story, is the judge? How does the CEO the judge react when you are bringing this to her? 
Gabe Lullo: Yeah, I mean the way we deliver it is usually the way that they react. And what I mean by that is if we come to them and just say, Hey, you know, my team is just really having a hard time getting through to your CMO, no offense, like, they're not gonna react very well to that.
Right? And so I have to show them very specific data-driven decisions and insights. So we have a very robust dashboard that we create through Google Looker for all of our clients. Ah, and it tells us everything. I'm a big Formula One guy. So it's, imagine like having every single one of those, you know, screens when you're monitoring 
DC: Oh yeah.
Gabe Lullo: Race cars. They have 275 sensors on our Formula One car telling them something back in the, in the home office. So we have to showcase to them, okay, this is what the data is telling us. I'm sure this CMO is great. It could be your brother, right? But the reality is, is this is what the data is telling us.
And in order for us to move this needle and to hit these numbers, which is what you came to us to hit, uh, these are the blockers we're receiving. Check this number out, check that graph out, check this out. And when we come to the conversation that way, very data-driven, uh, usually the response is extremely positive and very thankful.
And whether or not they make those decisions internally, uh, is up to them. And then we can, you know, plan accordingly. But that's, that's the deliverable they usually give us back. 
DC: Outstanding, Larry? 
LT: Yeah, this is great. So, Gabe, what perce is that rare? Like what percentage does that happen? You know, does it happen in single digits or is that happening 50% of the time?
I, I'm sure it's not, but you, where are you with the, with when you have to jump in and talk to the judge? 
Gabe Lullo: Well, it's interesting because usually it works itself out, right? And what I mean by that is we can, we had some sort of, and, and you know, we have a little bit of a fun betting game internally, like yeah.
That, that CMO isn't gonna be here in the next 60 days. Like, it's like we can just kind of tell the writing's on the wall, whether it's whether the, whether the, the CEO's already involved and there's some work inner working conversations and we see that, or whether they're completely checked out and they're on the other, you know, o other job punts already.
So usually it's working itself out and we have a new CMO coming in or a new CRO coming in and we work with that relationship and it's always a little bit better 'cause it's starting off new and they wanna, you know, make a good impression. And it's usually, they work together very well when a new person enters in during our relationship.
Uh, so it's, most of the time it works itself out in that scenario. Uh, very rarely do we have to get to that level of, of bringing it to the judge. But when we do, it's, it's very intentional. 
DC: Yeah. Brand Nerds. I want you to pay attention here very closely. Gabe's company name is Alleyoop. That is an analog to basketball.
He then talks about his role being a marriage counselor for, Alleyoop, that's an analog. He uses a judge if there's a, if there's a debate between the two couples, C-R-O-C-M-O, he goes to the judge, CEO, and then he went to Formula One. He said the data is in, in front of, uh, Formula One. Did you say 275 sensors that get, yeah.
Okay. So the Formula One, pay attention to the analogs. I think we're gonna hear more of those as we go along brand nerds. But to this point about the data, going to the judge and saying, this is the data, a key learning here, Brand Nerds, and it's this. Data should inform the decision made by people not make the decision.
Mm-hmm. Uh, that, that, uh, by people. So this data that Gabe and Alleyoop and and his team, they bring forward. So he doesn't have to say to the judge, you should do this or that. Instead he says, Hey judge, these be the facts. These, these be the, these be the facts. What would you like to do with them? That's, that's dope.
That's dope. Okay. That was a really good one. That was a really good, uh, uh, Get Comfy section. 
LT: D, I have one quick question. 
DC: Oh, sorry. Sorry Larry. Go ahead. 
LT: Running along, but, um, we're, we're gonna make this up 'cause I think this is really important. Gabe, so many of our listeners are climbing the ladders as marketing folks.
Do you have any advice to them? You know, this is something that people are dealing with all the time from a marketing perspective. Is there anything they should be thinking about? To so they can smooth the sales or do what they can do to make sure that they're, uh, really working well with their sales compadres.
Gabe Lullo: I think the best thing a marketer can do right now than ever before is to listen to sales calls. Mm is to is, is to literally listen to what the market is telling them. I mean, the word marketing is from the word market, right? That's right. So if you think about it's, it's about the market. So we record every single call we make and it's, it's not the initial closing sales call, the the down the funnel.
So closing sales calls as much as that first call, whether it's a cold call, whether it's an inbound, and you're making that first call, those first calls. And we do that as a company. And this is not to toot on Horn, we're saying marketing has to listen to those calls that we make so they can understand what the marketplace is telling them.
So then they can actually build what they need to build to influence it. I think that's where junior marketers need to be spending a lot of their time. And I will tell you, most do not. So that's what I think it needs to happen. 
LT: Right. Love that advice. That's awesome. D, you ready for the next segment? 
DC: I am, I'm going to attempt to put another bow on this, although your great question, Larry, Gabe has already put a bow on it.
Uh, Gabe and our business with, uh, Larry and I and, um, our team at brand positioning doctors and brands, beats and bytes, we have a slide that we will use in our, um, discussions with our clients. And the slide has a chair in it, just one chair, and we say that is the, that's the, uh, consumer or customer sitting in that chair.
And if they can't understand what it is we're talking about, right, all these wonderful terms and strategies or strategies that we have, if they don't get it and they don't care, it's dead on arrival. It's, it's dead on arrival. So love this piece you, you've mentioned about listening. Alright, here we go. We are now into five questions.
Gabe, Larry and I go back and forth, uh, with a question each until we arrive at five. I am up top. Gabe, when you were a shorty youngster or somewhere thereabouts and you had a branding experience, it could be with a particular subject, it could be a book, it could be a pair of shoes, it could be something that you had on your wall, whatever the branding experience was at that time.
Could be someplace that you went where it just captivated your soul. It took root in your heart. You could not stop thinking about it, couldn't stop, uh, admiring it. Almost like a first love. What was this branding experience for you? The first one, Gabe. 
Gabe Lullo: I was 17, I think is when it came out in 1997. So you now know my age.
Uh, and it was, um, the think different ad by Apple. Ah, yeah. Yeah. And so when that came out, I was right at that age group of like thinking about what I want to do in life and knowing I can sell and you know, realizing I can make money for talking versus lifting heavy things and sweating at the end of a shift.
So I got really excited about that. Um, my aunt always had Apple products. My first computer was an Apple 2E so I'm a pretty big fan boy, if you will, in the Apple world. Um, I know that's controversy these days, but I will say that that was an amazing branding opportunity for me and always really appreciated what Jobs did with that company in the early stages.
DC: Hmm. What was it about it that captivated you? What was it about Think Different? 
Gabe Lullo: Well, I think the title right there is, is a good judge of, of what it is. It had nothing to do with a computer, right? It had everything to do with smart, intelligent people, again, becoming successful, mostly with their brain and their mouth.
When you think about Einstein and when you think about Gandhi, who were both in those ads in the black and white commercial 
LT: Jackie Robinson. 
Gabe Lullo: Exactly. So like, if you think Yes. And, and that commercial was great, and I think it was Richard Dreyfus that actually was the spokesperson for it. Oh. I don't know.
And he was really famous at the time. There was a version that Steve Jobs did for the commercial, and it was played at his funeral, uh, at Apple Park when Coldplay played at his, uh, essentially his celebration of life and they played it. Um, but that was an actually, uh, the person who who said it on the show is, is Richard Jackson voiceover.
LT: Uh, I think you're right. It was Richard Dreyfus. 
Gabe Lullo: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So that, I mean, that to me just really caught my attention. Right. People that I've looked up to, you know, my parents are educators, so there was a lot of people in that, in that, uh, commercial that, you know, they read their books, they taught me things.
I listened to quotes and just caught my attention. You know, it wasn't about, uh. Gatorade and why it made you, you know, not thirsty anymore or something like that. It was, it was pretty cool. 
LT: Mm. Love it Mary. No, I love it. I think that's really cool. And, and I think that when you're at that age and, and it actually, you can see how that, uh, really helped inform where you went with your life too, which is, which rarely happens when we ask this question.
So I think that that's, uh, that's really cool. Uh, I, 
DC: I, I've got a comment here. Larry, you gonna say anything else before I get my note? Branders Gabe said he, he mentioned Einstein Gandhi and then Larry, you brought in, uh, Jackie. Jackie Robinson. 
Gabe Lullo: Yep. 
DC: And he said this, he, he said, this ad think different. This campaign had nothing to do with computers.
And, and, and dare I say, in case you're wondering, even though this thing dropped in 1997. Yeah. When Gandhi, Einstein and Jackie Robinson were live, rest in power, all of these icons, there weren't no damn computers. That's right. 
LT: At least not where they took a city block. If there was one. Took a city block.
DC: Yeah. There, there were no personal computers at this time. Yeah. So the, the, uh, the ballsiness of Steve Jobs and Chiat Day, that was the agency Yes. That, uh, Chiat that did the, uh, the ads for them to say, we're gonna market a, a computer, a personal computer using people who've never seen a personal computer who, woo.
That's next level. 
Gabe Lullo: It is in black and white too. The whole thing is right. And white. And white and black. 
LT: Thank you. Alright. Yeah. 
DC: And black and white. Alright. Larry, next question. 
LT: Yeah. All about emotional connection, which we love. Okay. Next question. Uh, Gabe, who has had or is having the most influence on your career?
Gabe Lullo: I'm gonna go with had, um, a gentleman named Jim Rohn, passed away in 2009. He's, uh, Tony Robbins's mentor. He's a business philosopher. Uh, he is, he is just someone like, has just timeless words and, and amazing order, and, uh, just a great communicator. And so I learned a lot from his books, his audio tapes, and it taught me, again, a lot about how to use words correctly, how to understand people, uh, dynamically and, uh, really how to build a business.
So, Jim Rohn and J uh, IM, and then ROHN. 
LT: Awesome. Yeah. Rest in power. Jim. Um, I did not know that. Uh, that was Tony Robbins mentor. That's really cool. 
Gabe Lullo: Yeah. Darren Hardy too. If you ever heard of Darren Hardy, uh, the Compound Effect, that's his book. Uh, he's great. 
DC: Darren Hardy. 
Gabe Lullo: Darren Hardy is his mentor as well.
It's funny, Tony Robbins walked into a Jim Rome seminar, I think he was 16 years old, and he was completely on, messed up on drugs in a really bad way. And, uh, after attending that, he interned for him. And, you know, now he's, you know, makes a hundred million dollars a year, but it was a big part of that. He actually did his eulogy at the, at the funeral.
Wow. 
LT: Uh, I D, I love how Gabe is so conscious and really strategic about everything that he does, uh, brand. There's a lot to be gleaned from that. 
DC: Thank you. Yeah. Um, you're right, Larry and, and Gabe, we submit, the closer you are to people, the closer you are to the nectar of what makes everything work, including business.
So Jim Rohn. Speaking of people, a couple of quotes he's known for is that he said, uh, but you are the average of the five people you spend most time with. That's not exactly it. Right. But so this is so Brand Nerds. Think about the five people that you spend the most time with, and you are probably right around there.
Right, right around there. 
LT: Yeah. I didn't know that came from Jim Rom DI love that, 
DC: that, that, that came from Jim Rome. Yeah. 
Gabe Lullo: You're the su you're the sum, total, and average of the five people you hang out with. Yes. 
DC: There we go. And 
Gabe Lullo: I would, it was funny. You wanna hear a quick story? 
DC: Sure. Yes. 
Gabe Lullo: So Tony Robbins is speaking on a stage and I'm listening to him speak, and he was talking about this and he said, you know, I really want to become a millionaire.
He was told by his mentor, he is like, well, who are you hanging out with? Oh, I know, I know this. I'm hanging out with my mastermind there. You know, one's 10 million, one, there's 2 million, you know, 3 million. And, and he's like, okay, okay, well that's your problem. And he is like, what are you talking about? And he is like, you said you wanna become a multi-millionaire and you're hanging out with millionaires, you gotta go hang out with billionaires.
Ah, and that's, and that just knocked him out of the, the chair because if you want to grow, and he was feeling stuck like he was doing well, but he was trying to get to that big, big next step. And he thought that he was hanging out with the right people. And his mentor very quickly just said, no, you're not.
And that, that's exactly what changed his dynamic for, in a big way. 
DC: Damn. Uh, one, one more, one more. Um, um, it, I think this is particularly, particularly relevant now when we can learn. Almost anything we want to learn if we're willing to hustle and work for it. And this is another Jim, uh, Jim Roh, which, which Gabe will know better than I, but formal education will make you a living.
Self-education will make you a fortune. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's another one. Yeah. These are heavy Brand Nerds. These, these are heavy. 
Gabe Lullo: Another one he says, which is very similar is his profits right. Are better than wages. Wages will make you a living and profits can make you a fortune. Yeah. And once I got back that, you know, I mean, think about it.
Sales, you know, in sales specifically, you know, you're, you're your own business. You're your own entrepreneur, right? Yeah. And so if you can start thinking about commission in the form of profits, yeah. Uh, you know, it's, it gets very, very exciting. 
DC: Cool. Larry, shall I go to the next question? 
LT: Please do. 
DC: You have, uh, many what we call Ws wins.
Wins As Jamon Winston used to say at, uh, Florida State, Heisman winning, uh, quarterback did not have the pro career that he thought or we thought he was gonna have when he was at Florida State. He say, yeah, we, we gonna eat these Ws you, we gonna eat these Ws. We don't wanna know about these Ws. Uh, we wanna know about the Ls, the losses with this question.
Gabe, in your career, what is the biggest F up that you have made? You are responsible for it. Not, oh, a client did this. They switched up on me, or the budget got reduced. No, Gabe made a blunder, an F up. And more importantly, what did you learn from said F up? 
Gabe Lullo: I mean, I, I started at a recruiting firm at a very young age, and I did so with a business partner.
And that was my F up. My F up was, I was doing it with the excitement of getting into the business and becoming successful, and was very self-serving and thinking about me and not really understanding the alignment that I needed to have with a business partner. So I went into that because he had money, he had success, he had, you know, uh, perceived success.
It was a cold introduction. I didn't know him very well, and I was, again, wet behind my ears and young and excited and, and ready to roll. And, and he, he was just not aligned and it wasn't the right thing. So I screwed up by one, not vetting him out and maybe going in there very prematurely. I was quite green, but it didn't turn into a successful business.
Um, I was doing 90% of the work. He was doing 10, like most partnerships, you hear that dissolve. And that just threw me for a loop. And I had to really reinvent myself and get out of that and take two steps back to take, you know, three steps forward. 
LT: Hmm. So Gabe, when did you realize that this was not right?
In going sideways? 
Gabe Lullo: I mean, literally flew across the country to go to a conference and he never showed up. So like, once I realized he was completely checked out, uh, it turned me into a scenario where I was realizing, you know, time versus money, you know, and, and, and I thought that that was just, it was unbalanced.
And once I saw the, the input was not, uh, uh, the same, uh, of course the output would also not be the same yet it was on paper the same. So that was. Where I realized I needed to make a shift. 
LT: How far in was that? Was that like Uh, yeah. 
DC: How, just how far, just how far in? 
Gabe Lullo: Yeah. The good news is that I learned pretty quickly.
I was a, it was after one year of, of working together. Okay, so it was a year is a long time when you're young, right? Yeah. But at the end of the day, uh, now in hindsight, it was a blip and it really helped cor, you know, you know, change the trajectory. But at the end of the day, it was, it was a full year that I committed to it.
LT: Interesting. 
Gabe Lullo: And I'm also not a quitter, right. I just like, it's like ingrained in me since I was a kid. And so making that shift was very hard to get around whether I was quitting or whether I was pivoting. And that's really the difference. Right, right. 
LT: D, what you're thinking?
DC: Larry mentioned earlier about giving advice to the up and coming Brand Nerds.
I'm gonna go back to his format of questions of if you were giving advice to the brand nerds. About the difference between quitting and pivoting, how would they know the difference? 
LT: Great question. 
Gabe Lullo: Yeah, I mean I think quitting is giving up, right? And, and then, and starting anew versus pivoting is changing the course and testing and understanding strength versus weakness, understanding scoring and data-driven decisions with the same outcome in mind.
Like, I want to be successful, I wanna achieve this, or I wanna hit a number, or whatever that is. Is pivoting getting you to that number or are you just settling or are you just not willing to hit get that end result anymore? And that would be more of the definition of quitting if the target changes in a big way.
LT: Got it. Interesting. Got it. Very good. That's a great that that was a gift, Gabe, for you to learn that that early actually. 
Gabe Lullo: I agree. Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm, I think I, I, I don't talk, we don't talk. Uh, I, I, it's not because I, I choose to or, or have any animes. It's just, we just don't communicate. But I thank him virtually all the time on, on shows like this.
And when I, when asked these types of questions, because it did, you know, I, I, I look at failures. That's how I, I judge everything. It's how you learn, and that's how I learn how to know what to say to somebody when someone says something to me in regards to sales. So I just always said, okay, why is this person saying, no, not feeling bad?
Why this person said, no. 
LT: There you go. That's a successful salesperson for you. It's, uh, no, no. Is the, uh, is the first path to saying yes. Most, most great salespeople say, yeah. 
Gabe Lullo: A lot of people say, you know, oh, I, I just heard more nos than you. Well, no, that's not true. Maybe it's true, but it's probably not true.
I learned from the nos that I heard. That's not about hearing more. If you didn't change or pivot to your my point or do anything about the nose, then you can still hear a lot of nos. So the reality is it's not about how many shots, it's about how many times you reflect from each shot that you take is what makes it happen.
LT: Love that. 
DC: That's good. Gabe, Larry. 
LT: Ready? Next question. 
DC: Let's do it, brother. 
LT: All right. So Gabe, when you, when, regarding technology and marketing, and man, your company's really at the confluence of that in many ways. Uh, so you're perfect to ask this question. Can you tell us where you think marketers should lean in or best leverage tech?
Or you can talk about areas that you think they should be leery or simply avoid. 
Gabe Lullo: Do it manual first, get the process aligned first, and then use tech to scale. Tech to me, is a way to scale. Not to just do. Now, there are scenarios where you literally can't do something without tech. I appreciate that. Uh, but it is not many, right?
So it's like messaging, ab test, everything. If you're doing a messaging campaign and you're looking at it, I, we ab test literally everything who we're calling, how many times we're calling, who we're emailing, how many pieces of content we're sending out, are we doing dms, are we just doing on the feed?
Like every single piece of what we do is tested, uh, in two different versions of it. And then we pick which one has the most amount of results, and then we double down and then we test again, and then we double down and then we test again. So the best way I think to answer that is really to test it all and always continually understand that there could be a different way.
And then once you figure that process out, then you can bring technology in to whether it's automated, whether it's scale it, whether it's train it, or whether it's actually, uh, providing you the information you need to make those tests. 
LT: Ooh, this is really good. Dee, I have a quick follow up. So the first thing you said, Gabe, was go manual first and use tech to scale.
Can you talk about that a little bit more specifically? Or, uh, examples where you, where you're, uh, you're taking us through that? 
Gabe Lullo: Yeah, absolutely. So right now we're doing a lot of content, right? So we're creating content and we're writing posts initially to go ahead and, and put those posts on LinkedIn.
And we started that in a very manual way. And then we're now using technology to do some video editing. We're using technology to do video recording. We're using technology to do writing and actually build actual, uh, posts through technology. Again, not in a way that makes it look, uh, fabricated or AI with an amp or stamp in every single sentence, right?
It's, it's, it's about cr creating it where we can now make it better. And then instead of sending out 20 pieces of content a month, which is where we were. Four years ago now, my team sends out close to 300 LinkedIn posts a month organically just on our brand. And we have been able to use technology to make that.
So, but again, it's still not replacing the people part. Uh, it's just allowing us to do it with maybe instead of doubling our team, we can do it, uh, with our current team. 
LT: So you're becoming more, you're, you're taking the learnings and you're becoming more purposeful and you're able to be more efficient with technology.
That's what I'm hearing you say. 
Gabe Lullo: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you're using ai for instance, we're able to program AI and all the manual posts that I've written for two years and let the AI use that as the way to then create posts in the future, right? But if we just asked, Hey, AI make posts for me day one, it doesn't sound truly like me, right?
So we used manual posts, manual writing to really teach the, a ai how to learn how to do it, and then we were able to use it with, uh, with, uh, all the posts. 
LT: Love that. 
DC: It's good. 
LT: Anything else? Dave, you wanna go to the next question? 
DC: Let's go to the next one, brother. Gabe, what are you most proud of? 
Gabe Lullo: Well, I have a business and personal one.
I mean, I have an amazing daughter. I'm very proud of her. Uh, she is extraordinarily intelligent. She is an athlete in so many sports. She's a musician in so many instruments. Um, she's a world traveler. Uh, she was in, you know, Tokyo and Australia before the age of 10. Like, she's, she's, she just is very well cultured.
Uh, yet every time I give her $10, uh, for her allowance, I take away three for taxes. So she's learning, uh, how to be a business person. And, uh, it's exciting to see, uh, that happen. She's 12 now, so it's starting to turn into this. Is she a kid or is she becoming a new adult? Like, all, all these things. So that's something I'm personally really proud of, uh, from a business.
LT: What's her name, Gabe? 
Gabe Lullo: Addison. 
LT: Shout out to Addison. 
Gabe Lullo: Yeah, she's crushing it. Um, from a business perspective, you know, you said in my story, I left Alleyoop you know, I, I actually left the company that I'm at today. I was asked to come back by our founder. Um, he was the CEO at the time I was here. I learned a lot from him.
He is, uh, the founder of our company, uh, but he has five kids also, and he was ready to retire and he, he did so and asked me to come back to run the company, uh, and, and his, you know, absence of being retired. And back then we were a 30 person, you know, very small agency and we're very custom and bespoke and very white glove.
And, and that was our, our approach. Uh, so in the last four years since I've been back as CEO, we have now grown into 150 person company from 30, uh, and we've eclipsed this, the third largest company in our space, outta 2000 competitors. So we're number two right now. And, uh, we're looking to double again. So, not to be arrogant or braggadocious, but I'm just saying I'm super proud of that because it's, it's it, the work we're putting in is, is paying off.
LT: Love this, D. 
DC: that's fantastic. 
LT: What I'm struck with is brand nerds. You notice Gabe said the personal first, then he went to the business and having balance, we hear this all the time, but Brand Nerds. It's so true that having that balance in life is absolutely critical and you're Addison's 12 once, you know, um, and Dee Dee as his three children and Haley's we're blessed to have her as one of our producers.
And, um, you, it's really important to be in the moment as a parent as much as one can. And then also being able to have the great business results and, and uh, and do the things that Gabe has been, uh, blessed I'll say, and also really great at his job to. Engender those, those great business results. So I love the balance that you put forth, Gabe.
I think it's super, super dope that you're able to, uh, to be successful in both areas. 
Gabe Lullo: Thank you, LT. That means a lot. I appreciate that. 
DC: Uh, gabe, you mentioned Addison is a musician, so what does, uh, Addison do? 
Gabe Lullo: Yeah, so she plays the piano and then that's where she started and she's just gotten into band at her school.
She plays the saxophone and she's also in chorus. So she's a singer and she's also really into theater camp over the summer, so she does theater as well. 
LT: Awesome. 
DC: Wonderful. Um, you love your Addison. I love my Hailey here who's a part of our, uh, our team and Lauren and, and my Sydney. It's a, it's a wonderful thing.
I'm, I, I have three children, they're all girls, so I'm a girl dad. I don't know what it's like to be, uh, a boy dad, but that, that you all have a special connection. We can feel that. 
LT: Yeah, that's super, super dope. I have a 22-year-old son, Jake, so I'm the outlier. So, uh, yeah, we're all blessed to, to have wonderful kids.
Uh, alright, de should we, uh, should we go to the next segment? 
DC: Let's do it. 
LT: All right, Gabe, this is awesome. Uh, so Gabe, our next segment is What's popping? What's popping, D? What's popping, Gabe? 
DC: What's popping? 
LT: So Gabe, this is our chance to shout out, shout down, or simply air something happening in around marketing today that we think is good fodder for discussion.
And we think you have one for us. 
Gabe Lullo: Yeah, I mean, podcasts is, what we're doing right now is absolutely popping, and I think we all know that, but the way in which we do it is, I started off being a guest like this on a show as a founder. I got a booking agent and put me on guests. I've done 400 podcasts in the last four years.
Wow. Wow. It's a lot. Wow. Um, and I started doing it as a guest before I started my own. But a lot of people, and you guys do it better than anyone is, it's about that repurposing of that content. So we've been able to create and parlay that podcast into repurpose content, and that's why we are, we're posting 300 times a month on LinkedIn, but it's all revolving around our content that we create through our podcasting.
And I think that's really, uh, what has generated a ton of growth for us to be data driven. Again, 40% of our new business comes from LinkedIn and, and or content generating activities. Um, the other is our own outbound, which is what we sell six, you know, uh, is cold calling. But I will say, uh, that's, that's a massive popping, uh, piece right now that we have doubled down on for sure.
LT: Wow. So I love the, the way that you said that. So you started being guests. You've been on 400 podcasts. We're 401. We love that. Thank you for joining us. And, and, and, and honestly, you're, you're really good at it. And, and I'm really looking forward to listening to your podcast as well. So what was the impetus for you to say, Hmm, maybe we ought to do this on our own?
Mm-hmm. 
Gabe Lullo: Yeah. It's interesting because people literally started coming to us through our LinkedIn content and they started asking us to be referral partners. Say, Hey, we really love your business. I don't need to have a need for it, but I'd love to resell or refer business to you. Do you have a referral partnership?
And we always accepted referrals. I mean, it's the best way to build a business is through referrals, but we never formalized it. And so we really, what doubled down and formalized it, bought software and really created a true referral partnership program. And, uh, with that we said, you know what, we wanna give back to these amazing partners.
And usually they're fractional CMOs or fractional CROs or people in go to market. And we want to feature them in ways to, you know, support them and obviously send us business. So we use the podcast as a way to profile our referral partners who are these widely awesome, successful people. And that's really where it started.
And now it's created a life of its own. And, and we've been able to attract people from everywhere. So 
LT: that's, that's awesome. And where did you come up with the, with your subject matter, because as DC alluded to with the Ben Horowitz, uh, book, which is, it's, it's a great subject matter, and as we all know, there are podcasts are bountiful and plentiful.
So, uh, uh, how did you zero in on that? 
Gabe Lullo: So here's the story and I may take digress for a couple minutes if you guys don't mind. All right. So I grew up in a very blue collar, hardworking, cold city of Buffalo, New York Bills have never won a Super Bowl. Let's just stay. Go Bills. Exactly. So it's hard to live Bill's 
DC: mafia.
Gabe Lullo: Yes, that's it. That's it. So it's hard to live here, literally. It's physically hard to live here. Now I also grew up in a family that all my, you know, my dad passed away when I was very young. So all of my father figures, my uncles and cousins that are all men, all actually worked in the Ford plant, in the GM plant, in the, in the, in the, in the, uh, restaurant coming home, uh, at three in the morning, you know, uh, smelling like fish or like one uncle of mine fell off a roof and literally broke his back working, right?
So everyone did hard things. So I thought, okay, for Gabe to make money and be successful as a young kid, I had to go do those things. And then here's what happened. I was 11 years old. I had to raise money for a fundraiser at our school. So our school was asked to raise money. It was the whole region of all the schools combined to save our local aquarium, the Buffalo Niagara Aquarium.
So we sold t-shirts and I sold 20 t-shirts to my uncle and they were the ugliest t-shirt ever. I don't think he could even wear it, let alone, you know, it was a nice shirt. But I sold 20 of just to him. And then I came into school after the month of campaign, and I didn't sell more than everyone in this school.
I sold more than everyone in the entire school district. And I actually was asked to go to the aquarium and win this big award, and I'm 11 and I'm like, oh my God. So I realized right then and there, and by the way, it was really hard to do. Sure. But at the end of the day I realized, oh my God, I can make money talking as opposed to lifting heavy things or roofing houses, or work it in the Ford plant.
And I said, you know what? I'm gonna do this. And that's how I really decided on why I wanted to get into business. But it's really, really hard. And a lot of people think just because you're not lifting, lifting heavy things and I'm sitting in a nice, you know, tally leather chair in the comfort of my home and don't have to leave my house and, you know, w travel the world and do anything and make millions of dollars, just talking to people on video cameras all day long, which is what I do.
Uh, it's still very difficult. And that's where we, we is the premise of the show. That answer your question? 
LT: I love that. And you alluded to that when you were talking about the Apple campaign of Think Different, that, that actually, I, I think that was the next level from the 11-year-old to the six 17-year-old where you, there, there's these, we all have, uh, the, these path stones in our life where we see them or don't see them.
And so you were seeing them as a kid and uh, this led you into the path that you have. And so I love that, that now you've taken that full circle. Uh, into these, these hard areas. And DC and I talk about these a lot, um, because we've faced our share of 'em, you know, in the, the boardrooms of Coca-Cola and, and elsewhere with our clients today in the boardrooms of, of big companies.
So, uh, you know, this, this is something that if you're successful at all, you need to navigate. And it's really great to hear stories like this to help you again learn. That's what we try and do. The service of our podcast is helping the, the up and coming marketers, uh, provide them stories and anecdotes so they don't make the same mistakes so they can actually make, uh, get to that CMO chair in a way of, from listening to our podcast that they probably wouldn't if they didn't listen.
Yeah, absolutely. 
DC: So, Gabe, you're Buffalo, New York person. Mm-hmm. So it is like hard to live there, physically, hard to live there, and it is. I grew up in Detroit and it was physically hard to grow up in Detroit. Not only because of the weather, but also just because it was dangerous in the city. Mm-hmm. And also to your point, when I was coming up, most of the people around me who were successful did something in and around the auto industry.
They worked with their hands, with their bodies, not necessarily primarily with their minds. It's not that working on an assembly line is mindless, but they were there mostly using their bodies, uh, for in exchange for, uh, money, which worked out pretty well, uh, for, uh, for many of the um, uh, Detroiters. But I want to go back to your opportunity as an 11-year-old to sell t-shirts, which you did at a district leading level and going back to Detroit.
Uh, one of my favorite MCs, top five mc is my homeboy. Eminem, don't know him. Never met Marshall. Uh, don't, don't know him. He doesn't, he doesn't know me. But the lose yourself. One of the bars in there is that you only get one shot. Do not miss your chance to blow. This opportunity comes once in a lifetime.
That was your one shot, Gabe. Yeah. And you made the most of it. You made the most of it. So, congratulations. I now wanna circle back to your What's Up topic, which is podcast. Oh, I love this podcast. Subject, Gabe. I love it. So brand nerds. I'm gonna list for you right now, the Top 10 Podcast on Apple's platform today.
Number one is the Joe Rogan experience. It just became number one, it's all, it's been number one on YouTube for years, but now on the Apple platform, number one. Second is The Daily. Third is the Mel Robbins podcast., Crime Junkie fifth Dateline, NBC six, smart Less seven, call her Daddy, eight, the American Life, nine Huberman Lab, and 10 the Ezra Klein Show.
Let's go to number three, the Mel Robbins podcast. It was not in the top 10 in 2024, and it launched in 2022. It's now number three on Apple. The Ezra Klein show currently number 10, 2025, also was not in the top 10 of 2024. Um, my, my mother used to say this to me, uh, Gabe on occasion, when I would drone on, she would say.
Uh, baby. Um, are you arriving at a point and I'll say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mom, I'm arriving at a point. So Brand Nerds and Gabe, I'm arriving at a point. What I love about the podcast game is you could be unrecognized 12 months ago and 12 months from now you might be in the top 10 of all podcasts produced in the world.
Mel Robbins podcast is now known as the number one podcast globally. She started in 2022. That's what's popping for me about podcast. If you, you, you got a, an idea you are willing to execute. Gabe, you said you've done 400 podcasts, Brand Nerds. I have good news for you and bad news for you as it relates to podcasts.
Gabe said 400. We've got 150 approaching 200, uh, of our podcasts and Brands, Beats and Bytes. If you've got three podcasts, you're not a podcaster. I'm sorry. Okay. You're just not, you're pretending to be a podcaster. 
LT: Right. 
DC: You gotta stack these things. So that's what, that's my response to you. What's popping is that you put in the work, you have a great idea, you execute at scale, and you're consistent.
You can have something really special. 
Gabe Lullo: Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. It's funny, my daughter has to do a book report on a famous person. She did The Beatles, um, uh, last year. We took her to see Paul McCartney a couple weeks ago, actually. It was pretty amazing. But I will say this, she actually asked me if she could do it on me, and I'm like, what?
What are you talking about? She's like, dad, I Googled you. And I'm like, what? And when she, she Googled me and apparently I, I did it myself recently, and it's kind of crazy and surreal to to, to that because of all the shows we've done. But you're right. I mean, podcasting, you can, you can, you know, go from zero to hero in two years and, and, uh, it's super important.
And, and you by the way, can ride the, the revenue train of a building a business at a company by doing that as well. 
DC: Yes. 
Gabe Lullo: So yeah. Very important. 
DC: Great point. Great add. 
LT: Yeah. All, all great. Gabe, man, this has been so great. We just love doing these shows with guests like yourself and d dc and I look up and it's like, oh, we're at the end here.
And it always bums us out a little bit, uh, because we, uh, we enjoyed these conversations so much. Uh, so we're in the last segment and, uh, we're gonna posit our learnings. Uh, I'll go first, D will go next. And then if you want to, uh, to hit us with anything that you've learned from this conversation, we'd love to hear from you then.
So, I'm gonna go first. I have five awesome ones. Okay, just five great ones. So, number one, uh, was in the get comfy segment. We were talking about marketing and sales. So I, anybody who's on the marketing or sales side or in a, in a company, you gotta get marketing sales to work in synergy. And it is absolutely critical for long-term success.
They've gotta work together and invariably they are in some type of disagreement or worse, but they've gotta work in synergy for you to have long term success. That's number one. Number two, when delivering bad news to people. It is best served to depersonalize it as much as you can and also bring objective evidence as, as Gabe was talking about, when he was the going to the judge when he needs to do that, uh, with the CEOs he needs to talk to.
That's number two. Number three, this is directly from Gabe. This is a quote, marketers should listen to first sales calls. Brand Nerds, it is critical for you to be a successful marketer. You need to understand the sales function and everything that's going on and is then DC alluded to also. You've gotta hear firsthand from that customer, we have the chair and that we don't think of it just as a, as a slide.
We act absolutely live it. You need to understand what is going on with the customers or consumers, whether you're B2C or B2B. So that's number three. Number four, Gabe was talking about sales, but branders in your business life and personal life. Think about when you hear the word no. As a learning opportunity and don't take it personally.
That's number four. And my last one, which, uh, which Gabe talked about very directly, um, when it related to technology. Think and go manual first. So you get the process manually. You've got well thought, have it well thought out. And then use tech to scale like Gabe and his team have done with their LinkedIn posts.
Those are my five. 
DC: Excellent. Larry, I'm experiencing a first. Gabe, as I mentioned earlier, Larry and I and team, we've done somewhere between 150 to 200 of these podcasts. And at the end, what I attempt to do is give my perspective on the human that sits before me, what, what is it that this person offers the world that if they don't offer the world, if Gabe does not give this to us, we're not gonna get it.
We might get something similar, but we're not gonna get Gabe's version of, uh, of, of gift unless Gabe's specifically gives it to us. What usually happens, Gabe, is through the course of the podcast, I will go back and look at answers to questions and I can tie together specific answers to create a bit of a mosaic in front of me.
I know you like analogs a mosaic in front of me that then evokes from me what I believe is the special gift of this guest, but this is the first time where that has not happened. I have not been able to go to just one answer that you've given or one perspective. This is the first time where I've gotten something from all of it.
You have been consistent through all of this podcast, not just a place here or there. And here is what has been consistent. When you answer questions, Gabe, you start off with a headline, bang. That's the first thing you do. The second thing you do is you give the rationale and support of the headline, and then the third thing you do is you give a killer conclusion.
A killer conclusion. It's like when you're speaking, you are speaking in the form of a three act play, a three act movie, a three act book. Also a bit like speaking music rhythmically, brand nerds, uh, you all who are not seeing this podcast behind Gabe, are many artifacts. Two of them are guitars. One of them is a Les Paul guitar that's an electric guitar and that is over his left shoulder, our right shoulder, and the other is an acoustic guitar.
And I believe those guitars have a larger meaning for you, Gabe, and how you get down in music. And it all came to me when you talked about your daughter, Addison, and you said she is a athlete. She's also a musician, and I asked, well, what, what, what, what does she do? You talked about the fact that she plays piano, saxophone, and you also talked about the fact that she acts and when she went about doing a project after, after you have taken her to you, you, you've introduced her to the Beatles and you say you took her to see Paul McCartney.
I'm thinking, okay. Paul McCartney's, also a guitar player. He's also a wonderful songwriter, one of the best, uh, of all time, but this dude is also a guitar player. It then occurred to me that your gift is specific, and I believe it's this. There are some guitar players who are known for playing full pieces of music.
When you ask who are the best guitar players of all time, you know this Gabe, you're gonna get Hendricks, you get Purple Hayes and Voodoo Child, you're gonna get Eric Clapton Crossroads and Bell Bottom Blues. You're gonna get BB King and, uh, the Thrill is Gone. These guitarists, all of them, are known for, uh, the, the way they handle a full song.
But your gift, Gabe, is a little more precise musically, I believe the way that you do your music and business is akin to a lick. So this is just a, like a, a section of a song or a quick riff or lick that everybody goes, well damn, I need to pay attention to that. And that Gabe is Jimmy Page. Jimmy Page. For those of you who do, who do not know legendary guitars for Led Zeppelin.
And here are some of the songs. 'cause Gabe, you are a people person. You are a people person. Right? Here are some of the songs where Jimmy Page has played some stupid, and I mean by stupid Good licks, whole lot of love. I've been loving You. Love is in these songs. Now you also got Black Dog, but love is in these songs and so I believe.
That you are in business. The Jimmy Page lick playing savant of business. This is what I believe You are Gabe, and I want to give you a couple of quotes to back up my supposition by Jimmy Page. One quote by Jimmy Page. He says, the guitar, there's no hiding it. It's unforgiving, but it's beautiful Brand Nerds.
If you looked at Gabe's background here, there's no hiding it. He's not hiding the guitars or anything else. It's also unforgiving mean. If you are off key, if you are off rhythm on that lick, the whole song falls apart, but it's beautiful. And here's the final quote. Well, he's got many more. Jimmy Page does.
But here's the final quote. He says, so many people are frightened to take a chance in life. There's so many chances. You have to take. That's you brother Gabe. 
Gabe Lullo: You are awesome. I've been on, like I said, 400 shows and no one has ever been able to connect the dots, uh, about me is better, better than you did.
So thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it. 
LT: You, we warned you, Gabe, in our prep meeting. We warned you. This was good. Yeah, I was 
Gabe Lullo: looking forward to this. I've been waiting the whole time waiting to see what, what was gonna happen. It's like Christmas morning. I'm like, what did this DC get me for Christmas?
That was good. 
LT: Oh, it gave, oh man, go ahead D. Sorry. 
DC: No, no, no. I'm, I'm good brother. That, that's, this was a joy for me and I'm, I'm getting kind of emotional because I'm a music dude. I would not be sitting here before you, uh, Gabe without music in my life. It's now making me think about what do I need to have in my background that is music related so that people know that I'm communicating, yo, I'm a, I'm a music person, but to, to.
Just take in and, and watch you do your licks through these answers. Like what? Watch, like, listen to your, uh, your fingertips slide across the fretboard, like listening to that metaphorically in your answers. I was like, this dude, this, this is, this is a music dude. This is a, this is a, I don't know whether the clients know they're getting a lick, but they're getting a lick.
LT: Yes. Mm. 
Gabe Lullo: I literally have one iPad on this, just iPad for, for my sono speakers across my entire house. This, this, all it does, it just sits there. It's an iPad just for music. 
DC: Wow. Great. Wow. That's great. Wow. 
LT: That's, that's awesome. 
Gabe Lullo: That's awesome. Yes, sir. 
LT: Well, that shows the prominence. Hey, so Gabe, before we sign off, any, uh, any last words that you wanna share with the Brand Nerds about the wonderful conversation we've had?
Gabe Lullo: Yeah. Absolutely. And I had said, I, I appreciate and grateful for the time and the opportunity to be here and, and learn from you guys as much. You know, it's funny because, you know, in sales and in marketing, it's all about asking questions, right? Yep. If you're a new salesperson and you're taking 90% of the conversation, you're not a good salesperson.
You have to ask questions and, and be quiet. And I had to learn that the hard way. 'cause I'm a talker, right? I'm an Italian. I knew how to, I learned how to talk and as a very, very young age. Mm-hmm. And I say that, uh, very happy that I did that. But it's also a double-edged sword. You don't wanna be talking if you're, if you're selling it or, or, or understanding the market.
You want to be asking the great questions. So I learned so much from being a guest by the questions I'm being asked. And when I interview new candidates to come work here, uh, I, I'm the final interview, and if they can get through me, they can get a job. And the reality is, is they meet with three other people before that.
Uh, so we have a four step interview process, and I don't ask them questions, and everyone knows this about me. I, I say, what questions do you have for me? Yep. And, and that's how I know how good they're going to be or not, and their ability to ask me those questions. So I just want to say thank you to both of you for asking phenomenal questions.
The other piece is, you said about the framework, right? The, the three steps. I say it, and then, yeah. And then I love that, and I'm gonna have to give a nod to my mom. She's an English teacher, retired, and, and she taught me all of that and, and, and how to communicate. But she taught me this framework, which I do all the time and everything, including, you know, how I tell my daughter to clean a room, right?
So it's like, I, it's, it's about the framework of a story, right? And you talk about what you're going to say or say what you're going to say, say it, and then say what you said. So say what you're going to say. Say it and then say what you said. So you've framed that perfectly, and I appreciate you picking up on it.
And I don't even think about it anymore, but when you said it reminded me of that early childhood of, of learning that framework. And then the last thing is as we talked and as you talked and, and the analogies and the conversations about doing hard things and the, the, the story of, of me at, at 11, uh, 11 years old, and then the 17-year-old version of me, and then the 22-year-old version of me failing with the partner.
And then, you know, coming back to my company and then leaving and then coming back to my company. All of those things and all the ways I did it, it's all about storytelling. And I think the biggest thing between marketing and sales, remember we talked about marriage counseling. The first thing a marriage counselor needs to do or a judge needs to do, or a mediator needs to do, is they have to find common ground.
And the common ground between sales and marketing is the art of storytelling. Storytelling is marketing and storytelling is sales, and it's just a, the conversation. And so what we have to realize is that that sales journey or the marketing journey, yeah. And by the way, there's a whole nother stepchild over there called customer success, right?
So we have to always, we have to figure out how to work with them too. But this story of marketing, no one knows who we are to who are we to, let's go ahead and get started to, let's actually implement that timeline is just a storyline. Yep. And so you have to really understand that you are just part of a story and you have to share stories to relate.
You know, when, when, when I talk, I don't actually tell people anything. I share stories and then they remember them. And being a marketer and as well as being a salesperson, the number one objective is to be memorable. 
DC: Yes. Mm-hmm. 
Gabe Lullo: 1997. Why did I remember that? I brought up a commercial and then all of a sudden Larry jumps in.
Jackie Robinson was on it too. Yeah, that's, you know, how long ago that was? 'cause he remembered it 'cause it was memorable. Yep. So stories are memorable. So if you wanna get sales and marketing to work together, you gotta be memorable and you gotta do it through stories. And this is what my mentor said, and I'll end with this.
He said to me, Gabe, facts tell, stories sell. And if you, if you just think about that, that's the way you should frame up your partnerships between those two divisions. Love that. 
LT: That's a mic drop right there. That is a mic drop. That's so good. 
That is a mic drop right there. 
DC: Hey. 
Hey. So Larry. Yeah, go ahead Dave.
That is a mic drop. And normally Gabe, again, I'm, I'm all outta sorts here with this. I don't get in the way of a mic drop. Larry knows that Larry doesn't get the way of a mic drop. I gotta say something here. I got, I gotta say something here. 
Gabe Lullo: Okay. Do it. I'm here for it. 
DC: He, he ends with the, uh, with the, uh, Apple ad.
Think different. 1997. He references you Larry. Talking about Jackie Robinson. I'm gonna make another connection here and then I'm gonna make a, a, a final point. The name Apple, as many of the Brand Nerds know, some of the younger ones may not comes from the name of the studio where the Beatles recorded.
Yes. Yep. In, in, uh, in London. In the, alright now, and check this out. Gabe mentions that as his answer to question number one about the branding thing. Then he talks about his daughter Addison, who he took to go see McCartney, who is a Beatle, who is a, who is a former Beatle, who recorded in this studio called Apple.
So these things connect. Finally, I'll say this, Gabe, um, I grew up loving, um, the, the, it was, it was a, a, a genre of music called Jazz Fusion. So these were my heroes. I played percussion. Mm-hmm. So Billy Cobb, him, uh, Steve Gad, who I think is the best studio drummer to, to ever, uh, ever live. But one of my favorite groups of all time was Return to Forever.
Return to Forever. Chick Korea on the Keys, uh, Stanley Clark on the, uh, on, on the bass, on the lead guitar, and I'm going to see him with my fiance soon. Al Di Meola, Al Di Meola, I will be sitting in the audience watching him soon. Okay. I've gotten in front of the mic drop. I'm sorry, Larry. Let's bring this home. 
LT: No, the, I'm, I'm so glad you guys put the bow on the mic drop.
So, Brand Nerds, thanks so much for listening to this great episode of Brands Beats and Bytes the executive producers of brands. Beats and Bites are Jeff Shirley, Darryl "DC" Cobbin, Larry Taman, Hailey Cobbin, Jade Tate, and Tom Dioro 
DC: The pod father. 
LT: That is he. And if you do like this podcast, please subscribe and share and for those on Apple Podcasts if you are so inclined, we love those excellent reviews.
We hope you enjoyed this podcast and we look forward to next time where we will have more insightful and enlightening talk about marketing.