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Every day you have a choice. You can wake up and choose to give in to mediocrity and complacency, you can choose bad habits and poor choices, and you can do the bare minimum to get by and fly under the radar. Or you can choose to make today the day that sets you apart from the crowd, you can choose to start doing the right things, the things that will set you up for success. You can choose to create a life that is worth living, worth waking up to, and worth sharing with the world around you. Today You can choose to start with a win.
00;00;01;04 - 00;00;02;05
Doug Zarkin
No problem.
00;00;02;08 - 00;00;11;16
Adam Contos
Let me give a clapped aline our audio. That's. And here we go. Doug, welcome to start with a win. It's great to see you here today.
00;00;11;18 - 00;00;13;21
Doug Zarkin
Adam, thanks for having me on the show I appreciate it.
00;00;13;23 - 00;00;34;16
Adam Contos
Awesome. So I mean, you've been to a lot of through a lot of different companies running a lot of different marketing and advertising teams carrying a lot of brand promise forward. you know, you're you're with good feet now. You went from, you know, the eyewear, brand. What was it? provision for, like. Yeah.
00;00;34;18 - 00;00;35;24
Doug Zarkin
That's saw exotica. Yeah.
00;00;35;25 - 00;00;41;24
Adam Contos
Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, how do you how did you make that transition? And what are you doing today with good feet?
00;00;41;26 - 00;01;12;26
Doug Zarkin
Yeah. So, I spent 11 years as the chief marketing officer for Pearl as part of the Laurel exotica family. a great experience, a great experience in my career. Great experience. Growth for me as a leader, as a human being. But why I stayed as long as I did is because I made a difference. I made a difference not just as a leader, but as a human being, as a person, as Doug, and made some incredible relationships with our franchise owners and and the leadership team globally, both in Paris and Milan.
00;01;12;28 - 00;01;44;26
Doug Zarkin
To me, making the move from Pearl to Good Feet Worldwide, where I'm now the chief brand officer, was really about finding a organization that also had a purpose driven mindset and its solution that was offered, you know, I could have marketed anything by going to an organization like good for where our products, whether it's our first brand, whether it's the good field store, whether it's stretched, which is our assisted stretching, premium assisted stretching business here in New York.
00;01;44;28 - 00;01;58;02
Doug Zarkin
They're all businesses that really are about purpose in human beings and really helping people be their best self. and that really resonated with me because it gives me, as a leader, a sense of purpose that I'm actually making a difference.
00;01;58;05 - 00;02;20;29
Adam Contos
Awesome. And I mean, you talk about this, you can literally see people change with your. Yeah, I mean, it's it's amazing. Either you're giving them vision or you're helping them walk or you're helping them. I mean, truly enjoy life or. Yeah, regain their mobility. I mean, that's, very much a purpose driven brand there. What what is it like going from.
00;02;20;29 - 00;02;40;24
Adam Contos
I mean, you've you've been around several different corporate entities, Victoria's Secret, Avon, things like that to go from, you know, a corporate type piece into a franchise type piece where you're helping franchisees market themselves. What does that transition look like? And and what if franchisees want that, like corporate entities don't want necessarily?
00;02;40;26 - 00;03;06;16
Doug Zarkin
You know, I think the commonalities or whether you're marketing for a corporate owned platform or a franchise owned platform, the commonality is the fact that it's about results, but it's about results done, with a sense of humanity. You know, for us, it's a good feat. It's not necessarily just about top line sales. It's about the impact we have on people in the communities that we're in.
00;03;06;19 - 00;03;30;07
Doug Zarkin
the people that we affect, you know, when you put on the arch supports that are part of the good food system, you can instant feel a difference in. Many consumers walk out really feeling that they now have the power to live the life they want to live because of the good food Arch support system. So for me, what franchisees really want is they want support.
00;03;30;07 - 00;04;02;29
Doug Zarkin
You know, there's an entrepreneurial spirit that permeates the franchise model. And so it's not about telling somebody what to do. It's about helping to provide guidance, leadership, stewardship, and enabling them to unlock their own personal growth. I mean, every entrepreneur has a hunger. And so if I can help them channel that hunger and figure out what really is meaningful that they may not have thought of, but also take advantage of the things that they can educate me on, are what?
00;04;02;29 - 00;04;07;14
Doug Zarkin
Meaningful. That's when you get that great collaboration and that's where you really unlock great results.
00;04;07;17 - 00;04;45;04
Adam Contos
I love that the word collaboration, I think, is incredibly powerful because, you know, you're not a B2C, you're a B2B to see here. And it's fascinating when you look at the franchise or franchisee relationship. And for our listeners who are not necessarily familiar with the Zorzi piece, the franchisor is the parent company. So good feet. you know, the the parent store here is the franchise owner, and then the individual locations are the franchisees, and they deal with the consumer and really, a lot of times what you find is you have such great entrepreneurs in these franchisees, and they have their own ideas as to what great marketing should look like.
00;04;45;04 - 00;04;56;20
Adam Contos
And so I'm sure you know, the franchisors like, wait, timeout, timeout. Let's let's create some consistency and some impact here. So how do you come alongside the franchisees effectively.
00;04;56;22 - 00;05;17;13
Doug Zarkin
so first of all I think in in in the franchise models I've worked in, there's always a corporate store platform, you know, there's always corporate stores. So you are dealing with a DTC model. But for me, I always try to approach situations from the mindset of the consumer. you know, marketing is about positioning. Positioning is about the art of sacrifice.
00;05;17;16 - 00;05;37;07
Doug Zarkin
And that innately is a challenge for some that are entrepreneurs to embrace the fact that not every idea is a great idea or not. Every ideas and now idea, the entrepreneurial spirit kind of runs counter intuitive to that, right? You don't want to let something else go by that could have made you money. That that discipline, that rigor is hard.
00;05;37;09 - 00;06;00;14
Doug Zarkin
I think trying to take the temperature of the franchisees is is and understand what level of support they need is, is not something you can really understand until you get into the organization. You know, what does the cultural permission look like? You know, I came from a system where I had 11 years of credibility. I had an incredibly smooth runway of moving the brand forward, really starting.
00;06;00;14 - 00;06;19;00
Doug Zarkin
And I would say year three when I joined Good Feet, you know, I had to realize that I wasn't in year 11. I was in year zero. And so, some of the ways that I had, you know, approach things, weren't necessarily going to work in this system. And you learn that the hard way. You learn that through feedback.
00;06;19;00 - 00;06;45;08
Doug Zarkin
You learn that through introspection and humility. You know, it's a fine line between being proud of your expertise and at the same time, meshing that with a real need to be an active listener. those things don't always go hand in hand. And, look, I'm I'm a work in progress. I have great days where, my listening ears are wide open, and I have other days where I'm so passionate that maybe I'm not as good a listener as I need to be.
00;06;45;10 - 00;07;08;17
Doug Zarkin
But that's the beauty of working in a business with people who really care, is that there should be that understanding that we're all in it to win it. You know, I'm not concerned with being right. That's not my goal. I'm concerned with making the right decision and how you get there isn't necessarily always a straight line. And and that's frustrating at times.
00;07;08;17 - 00;07;12;27
Doug Zarkin
But again, that's what keeps you in the franchising world. I've been on your toes.
00;07;12;29 - 00;07;42;06
Adam Contos
Awesome, interesting. And franchising is ever evolving. I mean, there's always a new product, a launch or, you know, a limited time offer. We call them Leo's in the restaurant space. And how do you, how do you figure out? Because a lot of this starts with marketing, with you having your ear to the ground with the consumer and or maybe product comes to you and says, hey, Doug, we want to we want to launch this new marketing or this new item, and here's why we think it will be effective.
00;07;42;06 - 00;07;57;21
Adam Contos
How do we frame this to the consumer? take us through an example of how you've done that in the past to help, evolve a product so that maybe the consumers never heard of it. It didn't exist before, but how do you get it out there and get it noticed so that it can get sold?
00;07;57;23 - 00;08;26;05
Doug Zarkin
So, Creating educated brand awareness for a new product is actually a lot easier than creating educated brand awareness for an existing product. Interesting. You know, I found from my time at Pearl that the brand had done such damage to itself by spending 50 years doing buy one, get one free as the modus operandi to sell that. It was about repositioning Pearl as an eye care brand.
00;08;26;07 - 00;08;48;19
Doug Zarkin
First I where second at the Good Feet store. you know, there's definitely opportunities to strengthen the understanding of what we deliver. You know, some consumers think we're a shoe store, some think we sell socks. Now, we happen to sell both shoes and socks. But that's not our core. Our core is our arch support system. and I'm an art.
00;08;48;19 - 00;09;10;27
Doug Zarkin
I've been trained as an arch support specialist, so I've actually sold on the floor and can tell you that the accessories, like socks and sneakers, are just that. They're their builds on our system, but a pair of sneakers isn't going to transform the way your hips, knee, back, and leg feel. The arch support system that goes in those sneakers is going to transform.
00;09;10;29 - 00;09;33;09
Doug Zarkin
And so it's figuring out how to bring the right focus on what we do so that people can understand the impact it can have on their lives. I had a franchisee said to me very recently, you know, we're not in it, meaning we're not a product. And I think he's he's spot on. We're not in it. We're a solution.
00;09;33;11 - 00;10;10;21
Doug Zarkin
You know, braces is not an IT. It's a solution. And so if you think about arch supports and the impact it has on your feet, very similar to the process you go through when you're starting straightening your teeth, unless you're going to get them yanked or you're going to cap them takes time. The arch support system is a series of three different types of arch supports that the consumer gets immediately at the store, and it's that wearing process that over time strengthens the ligaments, the tendons, changes the fatty tissue, helps the foot realign itself into that ideal foot position that allows the entire kinetic chain to be in alignment.
00;10;10;24 - 00;10;17;28
Doug Zarkin
That's a lot to try to say in advertising. So how do you simplify it? that's the challenge.
00;10;18;01 - 00;10;36;18
Adam Contos
Interesting. I've, I've kind of heard it put, you know, people don't buy I mean, for the sake of simplicity, I, I've heard this one over and over again. People don't want to go buy a half inch drill bit, right? They want a half inch hole, but they have to go buy the half inch drill bit to get the half inch hole.
00;10;36;20 - 00;10;42;17
Adam Contos
So how do you sell them the half inch hole. You really can't. You have to reverse. Well, this.
00;10;42;23 - 00;11;09;27
Doug Zarkin
I think that's where I'm so excited about, which is I feel like we have an opportunity to put forth more about the life that you can lead. Here's what success looks like and here's how we get there. Do you focus on the problem or do you focus on the solution right. I believe in my vast experience at Good Feet, which is four months, that consumers want to be focused on what the outcome is.
00;11;09;29 - 00;11;29;19
Doug Zarkin
The product we sell leads to the outcome. The product agnostic of the outcome is just the product, right? But it's our arch support specialists and the world that they unlock for you. If you're somebody who wakes up every morning and your first step out of bed, it's that plantar fascia that kills you, I'm giving you that relief. Your life, it's instantly changed.
00;11;29;22 - 00;11;36;14
Doug Zarkin
If you're somebody who likes to play golf and you can't walk the course with your buddies, and I can help you do that.
00;11;36;17 - 00;11;59;26
Adam Contos
Isn't that awesome? I've been there. You and I were talking before the end, and yes, that was, you know, I dreaded the first step in the morning where you almost fall on your face because your feet hurt. Yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, truth be told, you didn't know this before we got on, but I'm a I'm a, customer, so,
00;11;59;29 - 00;12;00;17
Doug Zarkin
That's great.
00;12;00;22 - 00;12;25;05
Adam Contos
That's great. Thank you. Has been life changing. Thank you. It has been a process. And it has been from the fact that I didn't know it. Good feet was I again, I like you mentioned, I thought it was a shoe store and I thought, okay, I, you know. Yeah. And first question is what brands do you carry. But ultimately it came down to I did some research on the internet and I found, okay, here there's the results that I want to get and that's where I need to go to get them.
00;12;25;08 - 00;12;59;28
Doug Zarkin
Yeah. I mean, look, I talk about in my book, moving your brand out of the friend zone, the whole notion of the book is about strengthening that brand value equation, you know, creating that relationship. So somebody like you doesn't feel like we sold you a product, but we basically made a commitment, right? And that's that's part of the journey that I'm excited about is how do we strengthen that commitment to care post-purchase, you know, what are we building to help there to continue to let somebody know that they've trusted us with their with their feet and their body, that that trust is well earned post-purchase.
00;13;00;02 - 00;13;18;03
Adam Contos
Right, right. Yeah. And I mean, it's fascinating when you look at that. I mean, and, you know, when I went through my MBA, we, we used all these different tests to figure out, okay, how do you market a product or whatever. You know, you talk about Porter and my forces and all these other different interesting ways of introducing a product.
00;13;18;05 - 00;13;39;20
Adam Contos
Let's let's take for our customer, the listener of this podcast, who's an entrepreneur, who's trying to introduce a product or service to the industry that they are in, regardless of what that is. And they're out there saying, look how great my product is, look how great my service is. We pump the brakes for a second. What did you have for them?
00;13;39;22 - 00;14;08;23
Doug Zarkin
So, I talk about this in the book a lot. Embrace the niche. Niche doesn't mean small niche means opportunity. So embrace the notion that you have a niche product that will focus you into that part of sacrifice. Niche will help you understand as a challenge your brand, which you are, who is most likely to be receptive to your product, solution or service?
00;14;08;26 - 00;14;25;27
Doug Zarkin
The second thing I would say is, as you look at your service model and whether that's a virtual service model online or a brick and mortar service model, I talk a lot about the notion of thinking human and thinking human really comes down to a single concept. Treat every customer that walks in as if they were your only customer for the day.
00;14;26;00 - 00;14;48;20
Doug Zarkin
What would you do? How would you build the experience? We tend to get caught up on what we could be, and we don't spend enough time and talking about what we should be. And that's that's just a victim of, you know, success is exciting, but the path to success is not easy. And so that not easy part is really getting rigorous as to what do we want to do every day?
00;14;48;21 - 00;15;08;01
Doug Zarkin
What do we want people to feel after they experience our brand? We know what we want them to get to product or service, whether it's a restaurant or you're selling shoes or whatever. But what do you want them to feel? And if you build your service model around that feeling, you're going to win.
00;15;08;03 - 00;15;26;22
Adam Contos
I love that. So most of the people out there when they implement advertising, marketing or whatever, and we're talking about strategy right now, we're not talking about an ad, we're talking about a brand statement or something like that. We're talking about the strategic aspect behind that. But most people want instant results in their marketing and advertising. I mean, it's fascinating.
00;15;26;22 - 00;15;54;01
Adam Contos
You hear a, you know, at a board meeting or whatever, the marketing team rolls in, here's the next campaign we're going to do. And right, everybody says, okay. Then it rolls a couple of weeks later, people like, what are the results? Right? Why are we so short term thought process on marketing and advertising, when ultimately it comes down to it takes a while to educate the public to what we can do to help them, and even longer for that impact to happen for them.
00;15;54;03 - 00;15;55;00
Adam Contos
Yeah.
00;15;55;02 - 00;16;22;21
Doug Zarkin
Yeah. And it comes down to this awful thing called money, you know, like, you know. Yeah, if you take if you take profit and money out of the equation, then people will be more willing to adopt that long term mentality. But look, we got to pay the bills right? People out of pocket. So and then you can't separate the need to drive impact from the need to do it the right way.
00;16;22;21 - 00;16;50;09
Doug Zarkin
You know, it's it's I say something to the effect of strategy without an eye for execution is nothing more than just really great words on paper and nothing more than just great words on paper. And you've got to be thinking how this strategy is going to drive impact. It may sound, you know, super sophisticated, even poetic, but if it doesn't move the needle for the entrepreneurs trying to pay their bills, it's a problem, right?
00;16;50;14 - 00;17;08;00
Doug Zarkin
It's a problem. And that's where I think the franchising model is unique in that you have a real results mindset that you have to be in at all times and still balance long term brand growth. and that's part of what makes it really challenging.
00;17;08;03 - 00;17;12;17
Adam Contos
So how do we add accountability to that? How do we add accountability to our marketing?
00;17;12;19 - 00;17;36;12
Doug Zarkin
I mean, you should see my, my email box, you know, accountability and a franchise model is built in. The franchisor has accountability. The franchisee has accountability because they're paying for it. So accountability is not the issue. Where the issue becomes an issue is when something breaks. Where does the where is the source of that broken? Is the source of the broken at the franchise or level?
00;17;36;12 - 00;17;58;28
Doug Zarkin
Is it at the franchisee level? Why that becomes important is number one, who's going to fix it? Most importantly, and number two, if it is the franchise or then it becomes an issue of service, like is the service model the right service model? We providing the the right layer of support. And if the answer is no, then you have to have the humility to realize, you know what we got to do better here.
00;17;58;28 - 00;18;25;10
Doug Zarkin
We got to do better. I'm not afraid to admit even the team that I have now, we are not perfect. We're getting better every day. We're not perfect. And it's important that when you make a mistake to own it. But it's equally important that not every mistake is catastrophic. Breaking of trust. You know, perspective is so important and it's often lost.
00;18;25;13 - 00;18;53;29
Doug Zarkin
And I think part of the job is to try to build that relationship where not everything is a catastrophe. Because if everything is a catastrophe, then when a catastrophe really happens, it's just like, okay, something else is broken. So I think, again, there is a real need to figure out within the ecosystem that you're in what is most meaningful and focus on those things.
00;18;54;01 - 00;18;58;17
Doug Zarkin
That doesn't mean everything else is important and important, but really prioritize.
00;18;58;20 - 00;19;26;07
Adam Contos
Okay. And I know the brands that you've been affiliated with are very in intentional. Yeah. Leadership and leadership delivery. you know, there's the voice of the brand that has always been existent in all of those organizations. Let's let's wrap leadership in the marketing. How does leadership impact marketing? How does marketing impact leadership and how do those things work together to bring a take the company forward?
00;19;26;10 - 00;19;57;06
Doug Zarkin
Yeah, I mean, part of the reason I talk in the title of my book that it's a modern day guide is that a guide is taking you on a journey, but you're an active part of that journey. You know, a guide can show you things, but inevitably it's just a route to route to the top. It's a route from A to B, and I think leadership is the ability to appreciate that you are guiding people, but that route to the top has to be something where everyone gets to the top and wants to take the group photo.
00;19;57;09 - 00;20;13;04
Doug Zarkin
You know the guy who gets to the top by themself? Great. It's a sense of accomplishment, but they're taking a selfie and that's not a lot of fun. So how do you build the mindset to ensure that people are on the journey with you? And how are you taking input that isn't necessarily going to derail you from the goal?
00;20;13;06 - 00;20;32;05
Doug Zarkin
May take you a little bit left of center, right of center. You may have to stop and look at the waterfall that you didn't necessarily plan on looking at. or take an extra break just to, you know, catch your breath when you're not really out of breath. But inevitably, if you can get to the top and get to the journey, the end of the journey, that's really what leadership is about.
00;20;32;07 - 00;20;52;25
Adam Contos
Awesome. And, you know, for the audience, you've referenced your book moving your brand out of the friend zone. I mean, it's it's a cool way of looking while moving your. I love how the your brand is kind of highlighted out of that because this is truly a branding book. It's a marketing book and really a connection book.
00;20;52;27 - 00;21;17;05
Doug Zarkin
It's a book that's, you know, look, I wrote it over the summer. I'd been toying with the idea for a couple of years, and I had about 16 weeks the summer to write it, and, I spent my summer. It was the hardest. I think I've worked harder this past summer than I did probably in 20 years, and I wrote it because it's not just about branding and marketing, it's also about you as a brand.
00;21;17;08 - 00;21;47;21
Doug Zarkin
There are lessons for you as a leader. You know, I, I've been fortunate to have, to whatever degree of success people like you feel like I've had. but it hasn't always been easy and it hasn't come without some significant failures. I've made some terrible mistakes in my career. I'm grateful for them because I've tried to not make them multiple times, but if I can help somebody avoid a pothole that I stepped in, why wouldn't I want to do that?
00;21;47;23 - 00;22;02;12
Doug Zarkin
You know, I try to do that as a parent for my kids. I try to do that for franchisees that I work with. But this book is really for an entrepreneur or somebody right out of school who's trying to understand. All right, I have this idea of what I want to do with my life, but I'm not really sure how to go about it.
00;22;02;15 - 00;22;31;09
Doug Zarkin
Can I get a perspective? It's a perspective. You know, not everything in the book is going to resonate with you, and that's fine. one thing I did purposely is at the end of each chapter, I kind of have like the three key takeaways, so that if you really didn't want to read the chapter, but you want to read the cliff notes, for those of you that are that are that were born post 1970, you may not know what Cliff notes are, but, you know, if you want to read the summaries, you know, I also have, at the end of the book, all of the chapter summaries stacked up so that you can get
00;22;31;09 - 00;22;43;14
Doug Zarkin
a sense of some of the key lessons. And, you know, if the majority of them resonate with you, then I've done my job, I love it. If not, just don't. Please don't return it to Amazon. You know, you bought you bought it. Your own it, my friend. You bought it. You own.
00;22;43;14 - 00;22;45;12
Adam Contos
It. There you go. Hand it off to somebody else.
00;22;45;12 - 00;22;46;25
Doug Zarkin
Hand it off to somebody else.
00;22;46;27 - 00;23;03;07
Adam Contos
That's awesome. I love the concept of thinking human that you talk about in there because I think we we get away from that so much in what we do and we start thinking, you know, we think business. We think, you know, what crazy big words can we assign to things? What did I learn in college? Stuff like that.
00;23;03;07 - 00;23;13;04
Adam Contos
But ultimately, I mean, you've you've hit the nail on the head. It comes down to that, you know, that authentic self in how we deliver to the customer and how they connect with us. So.
00;23;13;07 - 00;23;38;27
Doug Zarkin
You know. Crafting strategies that don't ground itself in human nature. You're just you're you're trying to impress yourself, right? Your goal is to really marketing's goal. Like I, I've asked this question, I've been fortunate to teach at Ivy League institutions. I've been terrifyingly fortunate to teach my daughter's high school, which is probably the hardest group of kids I've ever had to teach in front of.
00;23;39;00 - 00;23;57;16
Doug Zarkin
And you ask the question, what is the purpose of marketing? And you get I mean, there are books and classes and you know, you get a lot of big words and big phrases. Here's the cheat code for for that answer. Marketing is about motivating the consumer to do what you want them to do when you want them to do it full stop them.
00;23;57;20 - 00;24;16;14
Doug Zarkin
And I've chosen to do it in categories in businesses that have purpose, because I can go to bed at night feeling pretty good about myself. that's what marketing is about. And if you don't think human, how are you possibly going to motivate someone to do what you want them to do or what you need them to do if you don't understand who they are as people?
00;24;16;17 - 00;24;18;29
Doug Zarkin
And I don't get it.
00;24;19;01 - 00;24;39;21
Adam Contos
I love it, I love it. You talk a lot, about high performance habits in there as well, you know, and obviously marketing is consistency. It's a consistent connection. But ultimately, you know, we all as business leaders have high performance habits also. And that's part of this podcast is how do you start your day with a win?
00;24;39;22 - 00;24;47;06
Adam Contos
How do you create a performance habit yourself? So did you take us four through one of yours? How do you start with a win, Doug.
00;24;47;08 - 00;25;12;16
Doug Zarkin
So, there's something that I do every morning that, you know, as I've been somebody who has taken his growth and development pretty seriously, I start my morning by saying a couple things when I get out of bed besides, like, oh, my back's killing me from tennis from the night before. I first I thank myself, I call it self gratitude.
00;25;12;16 - 00;25;43;11
Doug Zarkin
Thank myself for just what I've accomplished. Married, two kids, cute dog, nice house, good group of friends. I forgive myself for the mistakes that I've made. I think that's incredibly important. and so self forgiveness and self appreciation is so important. I also go through a bit of a is it real? Is it true or is it helpful?
00;25;43;13 - 00;26;03;21
Doug Zarkin
You know, because the minute you wake up your anxieties for what the day brings hit you and they do, if you really love what you do. And I try to sort through that by just thinking about, is it true or am I making this up? You know, is this meeting really going to go bad? And even if it is, is it helpful to be thinking that way?
00;26;03;23 - 00;26;27;17
Doug Zarkin
And so it's a little bit of, of, of that, that I try to start my day with, I think every business leader should have a dog. And I'll tell you why. Because I begin my day and end my day with the ultimate humility check, which is trailing after my dog and picking up dog shit. And you, you you want to remember?
00;26;27;17 - 00;26;46;10
Doug Zarkin
You want to remember to ground yourself in in just life. Bag your dog on a snowy day to please go to the bathroom because you're freezing or on a rainy day to like, making deals with God. So the the dog will go to the bathroom so you can just get dry. That kind of stuff just keeps you really humble.
00;26;46;13 - 00;27;11;03
Doug Zarkin
and it's also a sense of laughter. You know, I will jump on a 10:00 call, you know, after spending 20 minutes at 550 in the morning begging my cavalier to please go to the bathroom, it's like, do those things really go? And they do, and they they they they just make me laugh. I mean, you know, if I can get in and out of the house in 15, 10 or 15 minutes on a cold morning or a late night where the dog does its business, it's a win.
00;27;11;05 - 00;27;19;26
Doug Zarkin
So, you know, it's just that that that series of things, and you got to find your own thing to do, but definitely find your own thing.
00;27;19;28 - 00;27;30;26
Adam Contos
I love that, I mean, and the humility behind that is unbelievably powerful. So, so thank you. I mean, that's my dog just ran down the hall behind us outside the studio.
00;27;30;29 - 00;27;44;25
Doug Zarkin
yeah. I mean, you know, we got we have five inches of snow on the ground here in, in New York. And I took the puppy out this morning. And, you know, I'm just like, come on, buddy, let's go, let's go, come on, let's go. And he did I, I was like yes.
00;27;44;27 - 00;27;46;09
Adam Contos
Inside victory.
00;27;46;09 - 00;27;48;05
Doug Zarkin
Good win. Good way to start the day.
00;27;48;08 - 00;28;08;27
Adam Contos
Awesome. Doug's archon chief brand officer at the Good Feed store, author of Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone. Check him out on Amazon. Hey, folks, let's get him. He's got all five star ratings on Amazon. Let's get him some more. So go, go check out the book there as well as you can find him on all the social media networks.
00;28;08;27 - 00;28;27;06
Doug Zarkin
At no returns, no exchanges. but no, I appreciate it's great being here. I love what you're doing with the podcast. And again, I would just encourage every entrepreneur realize that it's not about perfection, it's about progress. Don't beat yourself up over what you've done poorly. Focus on what you're doing well and what you can get better at every day.
00;28;27;08 - 00;28;28;19
Adam Contos
I love that. Thanks a lot, Greg.
00;28;28;19 - 00;28;29;25
Doug Zarkin
It's good to see you. Thank you.
00;28;29;28 - 00;28;31;05
Adam Contos
Thanks for being on. Start with a win.
00;28;31;05 - 00;28;33;19
Doug Zarkin
No worries.
00;28;33;22 - 00;28;34;03
Adam Contos
All right.