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Dave Gerhardt (Founder of Exit Five, former CMO) and guests help you grow your career in B2B marketing. Episodes include conversations with CMOs, marketing leaders, and subject matter experts across all aspects of modern B2B marketing: planning, strategy, operations, ABM, demand gen., product marketing, brand, content, social media, and more. Join 3,500+ members in our private community at exitfive.com.
Dave Gerhardt [00:00:00]:
1234. Exit. Exit. Exit. We're back inside. Exit five. How do you think this has been going so far? Has anybody emailed you about it?
Matt Carnevale [00:00:21]:
I think it's been going good. It seems like for every episode, there's been at least a couple of people who've shared one insight from it on LinkedIn. And when I'm speaking to people, a lot of them will be like, oh, by the way, I loved what you and Dave talked about last week. So cool. People seem to be liking it.
Dave Gerhardt [00:00:38]:
All right, that's good. I'm enjoying doing it. And the episodes have been, you know, as well received as the other one, so I think we should keep doing it.
Matt Carnevale [00:00:45]:
Same, same.
Dave Gerhardt [00:00:46]:
All right, let's do it. I'm ready.
Matt Carnevale [00:00:48]:
Okay, cool. So the first one, we got our first voice note, which is awesome. So.
Dave Gerhardt [00:00:53]:
Oh, sweet.
Matt Carnevale [00:00:54]:
Okay, if you're listening right now, if you send a voice note to hi, exit five.com, we're going to play your voice note during the episode and we're going to answer it. We're going to give our advice. So, hey, look, if you can get ten minutes of Dave Gerhart's time, I mean, I think you should take it. Right?
Dave Gerhardt [00:01:10]:
Some people, I'd have to pay them for that. But for this audience, yes. Maybe. Fair. Fair.
Matt Carnevale [00:01:16]:
You could even email. So we will read out an email if you email in. But voice notes are going to get the priority. So let me play our first voice note. It's from Amy Tarkington. She sent four of them. I was only able to choose one, and there was one of them about LinkedIn, but. Okay, I didn't want to play that one.
Matt Carnevale [00:01:31]:
I think we always talk about LinkedIn, so this one's about, she just started her marketing agency. What should she do to generate some attention and get her thing going?
Dave Gerhardt [00:01:39]:
By the way, shout out to Amy. Sending four voice notes out of the gate, like, MVP status right there. I'm ready. All right.
Amy Tarkington [00:01:46]:
Hi, Dave Gerhard. This is Amy Tarkington. I'm a owner of a new marketing agency called Trend Industries. And my question for you is, when you start a marketing agency, how do you go about creating a portfolio if you're just starting? I am assuming that you can't use work that you've done for previous companies who you've worked for. So how do I show my chops without making my company angry? Thanks.
Dave Gerhardt [00:02:20]:
First of all, great question. How great is that? That was great. It's why we got you that good mic. That was, like, awesome. I was like, oh, these are gonna be great. But we have to edit them in. That was great. Just literally held up the phone to the speaker.
Matt Carnevale [00:02:31]:
Exactly.
Dave Gerhardt [00:02:32]:
All right, Amy, so my perspective on this is, I think that if you have a. So ultimately, you're starting an agency because you have experience in a niche, and I think that's gonna be the most important thing. And so it's more about, like, narrowing down to define your story and what are you offering? And so as an example, let's use Tim Davidson. He's been on the podcast. I saw him last week. He left his company. He was vp of marketing at an agency type company, and he left to start his own thing. And he niche all the way down to LinkedIn ads.
Dave Gerhardt [00:03:01]:
And so I think, number one is like, that's most important because then what you're going to do if your company can't know about it, you're going to be on LinkedIn, and you obviously have a LinkedIn profile. And so I would make sure that your LinkedIn profile and even your personal website explains who you are and what you have experience doing. And so now if I see if I get a outbound message on LinkedIn from someone who's like, you know, hey, Dave, my name is Amy. I've spent the last ten years doing x, y, and z at these types of companies. I'm actually about to start my own agency where we do LinkedIn ads for B, two b SaaS companies. I think we could help you. Would you be interested in learning more like that? Seems like an effective strategy where you don't have to have public work showing, but you have enough of, like, a name and resume and background you've niched down to define, like, what your offer is, and then you're going to do outbound. I don't think that your company needs to know about that.
Dave Gerhardt [00:03:49]:
You don't have to broadcast it. I will say, though, that would be how I would get, like, my first one or two clients. And then I do think eventually you have to make the decision of, like, either staying or going by yourself, because I just talked about this with somebody last week at golden hour. They were like, I really want to go full time on my new thing, but I can't get enough demand because I can't tell anybody I'm doing it in that sense of, like, I love that phrase. The obstacle is the way, right? In that world, like, the only way you're going to get more clients is if you quit your job and then go to LinkedIn and say, hey, attention, everyone. I'm starting my new business. It's called X, Y and Z. And so you have to do that little dance and eventually make a decision.
Dave Gerhardt [00:04:26]:
But for now, I would take this approach and hopefully be able to get one or two clients, then be able to go in full time, do this on your own, and then build a portfolio. What's your risk? I see you nodding along, but what's your reaction to that?
Matt Carnevale [00:04:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. I definitely like the advice of finding your niche. I may or may not have went to your website, Amy, and may or may not have thought it was a little broad, what you're offering. So I think that's the first thing. And I think the Tim Davidson example is awesome. I think another one, too. I've never done it, so I can't speak from experience, but can you do a couple free projects for people? Can you approach people and say, here's what I'm good at? I noticed maybe based on your website or based on something that maybe you need help here, like, I'll do it for free.
Matt Carnevale [00:05:06]:
And the reason I would do that is because, I mean, a, you're working, so it's not the income that you need, it's just the fact that you want to start a business. Right. And then that free work is going to be the stuff that you can show to future clients. So if the issue is I don't have the work to show, it's like, go do some for free. Build up your portfolio the next three months, learn from your mistakes, and then come out with a bang and say, I have an awesome offer. I've done it for three companies. Here's why you should work with me.
Dave Gerhardt [00:05:31]:
Yeah, that's good advice. To do it for free. And you could try both approaches. You could try the free approach. I do think there's some value into, like, I think whether it's the free approach or just get started, there's value in, like, the. You really need to. I've made the mistake in the past of, like, obsessing over packaging and pricing, especially for the first handful of clients or customers. I think the way you really learn about what the right engagement and right work is going to be from actually doing it and, like, wow, that was completely out of scope.
Dave Gerhardt [00:05:59]:
Like, that was not what I want to do. Let's trim back, or, oh, interesting. This went really well, but we could do it this way. So in either case, if you're going to take Matt's advice and do it for free, or mine and try to get paid for it right out of the gate, I think the most important thing is that you, if you want to go do this, you got to go do it. Go do it for a company. Go do it for a customer and build from there. I think it's easy to worry about how you're going to get client number five and six and seven and 8910. Like, just focus on one or two customers.
Dave Gerhardt [00:06:26]:
Also, I see this all the time from people that I know myself personally in our network and stuff. Like so often it, it is the network effect. And so you do good work for someone. All of a sudden someone's like in exit five as an example, like, and says, hey, I hired so and so for this video project and they were awesome. Or the CEO gets asked like, hey, who did that video? So doing that work for the first time is really what matters the most.
Matt Carnevale [00:06:48]:
Yeah, exactly. Think of even these clips for our podcast. Hatch does them and we recommend them all the time. So if you do good work for people, they're going to talk about you, there's no doubt about it.
Dave Gerhardt [00:06:57]:
Yeah, it's funny. Somebody who commented, I posted a clip of one of the things we talked about was UtMs, UTm links on this podcast. And I posted that clip and somebody had a great comment. He said, it's kind of funny. Like, UTMs are a problem created by marketers to solve where like, if the thing you created was so good and so interesting to people, they would most likely just find it on their own and then tell you about it. And I think we've seen that with exit five. I've seen it a bunch of times in my career as a marketer. It sounds really nice to do that.
Dave Gerhardt [00:07:27]:
But I also understand why inside of a company you would use the trackable stuff.
Matt Carnevale [00:07:31]:
Yeah, exactly. Cool. I think we answered that one well.
Dave Gerhardt [00:07:35]:
Okay, Amy, and good luck. Send us a note, by the way. Just, we don't have to share it on the show, but just Matt and I, out of curiosity, when you listen to this, email us back. I just am curious what type of agency you're going to start. And we can trade a couple emails on this if you want.
Matt Carnevale [00:07:47]:
Cool. Last mailbag, we actually had someone write in. As a sales leader, what are the best ways that I can build credibility with my marketing peers?
Dave Gerhardt [00:07:55]:
Oh, sorry, sir. Sorry, madam, sir, whoever you are, we don't take sales leader questions on these podcasts. You're going to have to go to GTM fund or Pavilion or somewhere else. So here you go. Next question. No, just kidding. That's awesome. First of all, shout out to you, whoever you are, can you email us and tell us who you are because I want to know what type of sales leader is listening to this podcast.
Dave Gerhardt [00:08:14]:
That's like inception levels. It's awesome. So the question was, I got caught up in my own yapping, Matt. The question was, how do I build credibility with the marketing team?
Matt Carnevale [00:08:23]:
Yes.
Dave Gerhardt [00:08:24]:
Wow. Usually it's the other way. Yeah, usually it's the other way around.
Matt Carnevale [00:08:27]:
Exactly.
Dave Gerhardt [00:08:28]:
I think you build credibility with the marketing team by, similar to how you build credibility in anything, really is getting in there and like working on something together. I think it's tough to build a relationship with somebody until you actually get in there and then do the work together. And so I think number one is just like even just saying that, like wanting to be a partner and going to the marketing leader and saying like, hey, I want to be a partner to you. I think that's definitely step number one. Step number two is you can't really be a great partner without a shared goal. And so if ultimately, if Matt and I have different incentives, we can have a partnership on the surface and we might know each other's coffee order and enjoy working together, but something's going to break down the road. So I think really getting aligned on a goal and then understanding how at your company, sales and marketing contribute to that goal and then work together. At golden hour last week, John Miller, who's the founder of Marketo and Engagio, he said he was on this panel and he said ultimately, he said something like the dream scenario would really be sales and marketing have one shared goal and that's how the whole thing is measured together and they're one team.
Dave Gerhardt [00:09:35]:
And I really like that concept. And so I think that's the fundamental level and then that's like the macro level and then the micro is like in the day to day things like giving real feedback, meeting halfway and saying like, you know, here's what we do, here's what you do. How can we work together but then not just doing that at a fluffy level, like finding something that's in play right now that you can collaborate on and make better. I feel like that's where the relationships get built. And so it's like, hey, actually we've been working on this new sales deck. Like to have the head of sales, like deep in that process in a positive way with marketing. Okay, great. Oh, yeah.
Dave Gerhardt [00:10:09]:
Now I feel like I just spent a bunch of time with the sales order. We worked on something specific together. Those are a couple of things I would think about. Cool.
Matt Carnevale [00:10:16]:
Yeah. Yeah. I agree with a lot of those things. I find that at last companies, when I didn't have the greatest relationship with sales, not like it was bad blood, just like we didn't have the best working rhythm, it was because both of us or the sales team was like reactive in how they would approach marketing. It's like they would do a project and then when it didn't work well or all the emails sucked, they would go to marketing and be like, oh, actually, can you help us rewrite all these? And it's just like, why don't you tell me about this? In the beginning, I could have done this work and then we both could have done this project together and gotten the win together. So it's like, be proactive in how you use marketing and actually use their strengths. Like, if you have your sales team writing a bunch of emails, like, is that really the best use of their time or should you get the good marketing copywriters to do that? Right. It's almost like in a way, in the past I would find it, and maybe this is my ego, but I would find it a bit offensive if it's like they were doing something that I could definitely do better.
Matt Carnevale [00:11:13]:
So it's like, please use me for the things that I could do well, and I'll use you for the things we can do well.
Dave Gerhardt [00:11:18]:
Nice.
Matt Carnevale [00:11:18]:
So I think that's a big one. And then the second one is like, let's not point fingers at each other. I think both teams need to do better at that. But it's like when something gets brought up, like not saying, oh, that's a marketing thing because then it's just like, oh, like it kind of puts you on the defense. Right? It's like, instead of trying to point fingers, it's like, all right, marketing, like, let's meet tomorrow and let's game plan and how we can tackle this and share resources, because, I mean, a lot of the time too. Like, sales is like an eight person team and marketing is like a one or two person team. So it's like it can't always be a marketing thing because they're super under resourced. Right.
Matt Carnevale [00:11:51]:
So I think those are the two big ones from my personal experience.
Dave Gerhardt [00:11:54]:
And the more you can understand that both how each team can work together and what each role will be, and then you can figure out, hey, we're going to work together to close deals. Oh, marketing contributes this way. Sales contributes this way.
Matt Carnevale [00:12:08]:
Yep, exactly. Cool. Next one. This is not a write in. So these are now the popular topics from the community and social. This week, the first one was someone asked in the community, should a podcast be for brand awareness or for lead nurturing?
Dave Gerhardt [00:12:25]:
Oh, boy. Well, I think it depends on what you mean by lead nurturing. I do think that the podcast is a great nurturing tool, but it's not very linear, it's not very time based. I mean, we see it all the time with exit five, right? Matt, somebody might say something like, I've been listening to your podcast for six months and I finally became a member today, right now we have a subscription product in a community that we're selling. That's our product. But that to me is no different than a SaaS company selling, you know, any one of their products, right? You're going to entertain, educate, inform with your content. And then when someone is ready to buy, which we know 95% of people are never, are not in the buying bucket, only 5% of people are in market to buy, then they're going to think of you. And so maybe something, maybe there was a catalyst, maybe it was an ad in that episode after six months, or maybe it was at work that week.
Dave Gerhardt [00:13:17]:
Their boss was like, yeah, we really want you to, you know, here's $300. You can invest this in some type of like, learning tool. And that was what prompted her to go and sign up. So I do think the podcast can be a nurture tool. I also think it's a brand building tool, brand building. I think it builds awareness and affinity for your brand, and if that's something that you want to build, podcasting is a great tool. I also see it separate from the kind of regular marketing and demand machine. It's not going to instantly generate sales.
Dave Gerhardt [00:13:47]:
It does contribute to sales over time in different ways. It's not going to be direct response and contribute to sales. So you might need to, still need to do some of those things. But if you're like, hey, we want to start a podcast because we believe it's something that will help us build our brand and awareness and consideration all these things over time, then yes, I think it can be a great channel.
Matt Carnevale [00:14:05]:
Yeah, agreed. I think it's both. It's going to help you build brand, it's going to help you nurture leads. I think the big thing too is like you're talking to people in your space and you're learning, so you're getting smarter as a team and as a company. And all of the great content you get from the podcast can be shared everywhere. So it's definitely going to help you with brand awareness, even to a slight degree in the beginning and then lead nurturing. Yeah, we see it all the time. And there's even the play where it's like, it can be an ABM tactic, too.
Matt Carnevale [00:14:31]:
So you could actually invite the people that you want to have sales conversations with on the podcast and then hit them up again at a later date. I think that's a great play.
Dave Gerhardt [00:14:39]:
Yep. The content really matters here, too. Like, if it's, if your podcast is just webinar replays, then your lead nurturing is going to feel different than if it was more of like an entertainment approach. Yeah, totally. All right, what else we got next.
Matt Carnevale [00:14:54]:
One is, does anyone care if a webinar is actually live?
Dave Gerhardt [00:15:01]:
No. What did I write on that you.
Matt Carnevale [00:15:05]:
Wrote, I mean, I have to scroll through a bunch of comments here. I think it was something along the lines of, like you said, no, it depends. Yeah, usually the hosting company, the ones putting on the webinar, I'm not going to read. You actually left a long comment here, but there was something along the lines.
Dave Gerhardt [00:15:19]:
Of like, yeah, I think. I don't think so. I think that's kind of changed. And actually, the only thing that people spend time in their lives and watch live anymore at all is pretty much sports. Yeah, there's really nothing else every. I can't think of anything maybe there. And so to think that someone's going to be there at 01:00 now, the company hosting the webinar has historically been the one that, that it matters to them if you show up live, because showing up live, it shows more intent than somebody, you know, just registering or whatever. But I think that's kind of an outdated way of looking at it.
Dave Gerhardt [00:15:51]:
I think that I would think of webinars as part of just like part of a content strategy, and some percentage of people wanna be there live. And we see it with our webinars as an example, like, because we're, we're marketers in the group and everybody's kind of peers. It's fun to be on the chat and like, chime in and add, convert and discuss stuff. But is there any reason anybody has.
Matt Carnevale [00:16:13]:
To be there live?
Dave Gerhardt [00:16:14]:
No, but I think we then market it as such. I think that's the best strategy, is to be like, we actually literally write that in the marketing copy for it. We're like, hey, this is a webinar. I like when people show up live because it's more fun to have you in the chat and to get your feedback and ideas and help each other out. But if you can't make it live anyway, no worries just register and we'll send you the recording. And I think ultimately, most people care about that question about live attendance or not because they're trying to measure some level of, like, lead engagement or lead capture or some part of the funnel. Well, you can still get the same thing if you just think about it, like, oh, yeah, who consumed this video at some point? Why does it have to be live? If you want it to be live and it has to be live, then you better have a damn good offer and reason for people to be there live. Otherwise, for most people, it's never going to apply or you're only going to have a very small number of people there.
Dave Gerhardt [00:17:04]:
So, no, I think I know why this question was asked, and I don't remember who asked it specifically, but this is a perfect example of the, the reason this question gets asked is because probably inside of that company, there's some discussion about, like, a live webinar attendee should be scored higher as a lead versus someone who watched the video. And so therefore, how do we make it so people show up live? And I just don't think that that's really possible. And so I wouldn't even play that game unless you're a sports franchise of some kind.
Matt Carnevale [00:17:33]:
Yeah, yeah. I totally agree. Whenever, when I wasn't on the exit five team, I would always like to come to live events because I felt like, oh, like, I'm making it live. I'm like, I'm getting it while it's playing so I don't have to go watch it later. But with that being said, like, there's so many platforms now where you can record something and then play it that date and make it look like it's live. So it's really not the biggest deal. Like, sometimes you can't even tell. I do like the element, though, of, like, if people are in the comments saying funny things, that you can make that part of the dialogue.
Matt Carnevale [00:18:03]:
But again, like, I don't think it takes away from anything. I think whether you have that or not, it's not going to change the perception that much.
Dave Gerhardt [00:18:08]:
Yeah. I do think, though this is separate. I do think that live people who are there live, it is better, right? It's the same reason why, like, events are back right now. People like the in person connection, even though this would be online, that knowing something is happening live, like, does create a certain level of energy and community, and it's different. I just think it's a really hard metric to influence. And so, like, we might get 800 sign ups for a webinar, and pretty consistently, like, 200 of those people will show up live. I don't think it's valuable to be like, well, how can we get those 600 other people to show up? Because I feel like that's just not being realistic, that's understanding our consumption habits. Like, let's be realistic.
Dave Gerhardt [00:18:50]:
People don't want to come to, most people don't want to come to this live. And so let's make it easy for those other 600 people to still get this content. Yeah.
Matt Carnevale [00:18:58]:
Yeah, exactly. Cool. Last but not least, I had something, but I saw what you posted today about, you know, six months ago, I decided to stop working alone, hire a team, and what we've got going on. And I figured, what better time to chat about this live than inside exit five, right?
Dave Gerhardt [00:19:15]:
Yeah. All right. So you put me on. So basically, so last week I went to golden Hour, which is audience plus event, and it was in Brooklyn, and we had already started to plan our in person event. And I think we've been excited about that. But then this was the first event that I've really traveled to for work in a long time, maybe five years. I went to Austin for something that pep did two years ago, but it wasn't really, it was different than this. And I couldn't believe how many people, like, knew who I was and knew what we were doing with exit five.
Dave Gerhardt [00:19:51]:
And I say that with no ego attached to that at all. I'm just saying it as a fact. Like, I haven't been out of the house in so long, I forgot, like, oh, yeah. Like, there is something, like, we have a strong community and connection in this world. And, like, I wasn't ready for it. I was so drained. I messaged you. I was so drained after a day because, like, within 2 hours of going to this event, I talked to more people than I in person, I talked to in like a year.
Dave Gerhardt [00:20:18]:
I just couldn't believe it. And I think that's the showing you the power of, like, a social network, like LinkedIn and the community that we've built. And that was really cool. And so that got me, like, man, and I've talked to for a while about, like, I wasn't going to do exit five. I was going to do something else, maybe shut it down. I don't want to do this. That just like, was like a cold. It was a slap in the face.
Dave Gerhardt [00:20:38]:
And I saw Kaylee Edmondson, who I've talked to, I talked to about this before. And we sat together for a minute at lunch, and I said, I'm mad at myself right now because I almost didn't go do something in this space, and here I am at this event, and so many people know who we are and what we're doing, and it's so obvious that the company that I should be building is in this space because business is hard and why not go somewhere where the wind is at your back a little bit? And so that just whole thing, that whole experience got me, like, just super fired up. And I totally see the power of the in person event and why that's really important. And the connection and energy and buzz was, was just different than something I felt in a while. So that paired with how many people were like, I'm coming to your event. I was like, are you serious? Well, first of all, prove it. Like, when my kids tell me that they're tired before bed, I say, prove it, because usually they're still running around 2 hours later. But tell me that you're coming to my event.
Dave Gerhardt [00:21:32]:
But this is on. I know who you are. You've told me you're going to prove it when those tickets launch. But that made me feel like, man, we got to do something in this space. And then everybody, so many people that I know, love pavilion and pavilion, does these great CMO summits and events, and they're part of this group. And I'm like, we have some of that. We have that, and I want to go and build there. And so I think the clarity that I've had over the last couple weeks is like, I think the community is one product that we have, but we have, we're truly building a media company in this space.
Dave Gerhardt [00:22:01]:
And I think events is an area that I want to explore now. This could all fail, fail horribly, and that's the reality of it. But, like, we're doing our first event. I'm excited about the next event and the next event after. I want to hire an events person. I want events to be a big part of our business. And so what I wrote really, on LinkedIn today was just expressing some of that. And I like to write some of these things every now and then to give a little tease and glimpse into the future.
Dave Gerhardt [00:22:24]:
I think when you let people in on where your business is going, they're more likely to be involved today. And I think if people are like, oh, it's just a community that's different than like, oh, actually, what they're doing at exit five is really interesting. And so even though we're not there yet, I think sharing it along the way, you know, builds some awareness and affinity. It also, who knows who we might work with and hire and companies in the space. There's just so much going on that I wanted to write it. And usually when I write something like that, it then solidifies in my mind and it's like, oh, yeah, I kind of hear the three, the three pillars. What's your reaction of that being on the, the other end of a thousand slack messages?
Matt Carnevale [00:22:59]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's pretty like unreal what we have. I just don't think people have the opportunity, even like once in their career if they're lucky, to work with a brand like this.
Dave Gerhardt [00:23:10]:
But when you say that, I just wanna explain that for people. When you say that, like, what is the sign for you? Cause it still is almost like surreal to me that you're in my business and you think it's cool, you know, but so I'm curious as like, what is the sign?
Matt Carnevale [00:23:23]:
So if I had to sum it up, it's like, do you feel like you're fighting uphill or downhill?
Dave Gerhardt [00:23:29]:
And the reality is we actually, this is on top of like a down month. Like we're struggling to grow trials right now and so we're trying to figure that out. But even though things, even though it was a bad month, I'm excited about the vision and it seems like you've bought into that. And so there's like these feelings. This is why I talk so much about how do you know if something's working? They people will tell you. I mean, Matt, if people saw like our slack, our love proof slack channel, like that says it all.
Matt Carnevale [00:23:55]:
Yeah.
Dave Gerhardt [00:23:56]:
And so this is like the meta, like the back to marketing lesson. Not just me, like boasting about exit five and being so happy, but the marketing lesson is like when you have something, you will know and people will tell you. And so if you over index on how to measure it, you don't get this. And I think now what we're learning is people want more. And I think we're in an opportunity to do that and do some interesting things in this space.
Matt Carnevale [00:24:18]:
Totally it. And I think you feel it in a company. Like when it's, when some of the fundamentals are broken, you hit a point where you're like, I'm just not going to change how leadership thinks about this. I'm just not going to change how crappy the product is. I'm just not going to change how dead the industry is. Like, I don't, you know, you just don't feel any of that here. It's almost just like, if we need to tweak things. Okay.
Matt Carnevale [00:24:37]:
But all the fundamentals are so sound. And couple that with how people feel about exit five, it's. Yeah, it's really something. I even spoke to a couple friends today that I haven't in a long time and, like, haven't talked to them since I joined exit five. And the first thing was like, how's exit five? Like, how's it working with Dave? And I'm just like, these are people where it's like, I don't even know if they would have known who exit five is. They're just marketers, right?
Dave Gerhardt [00:25:00]:
Yeah.
Matt Carnevale [00:25:01]:
So it's cool.
Dave Gerhardt [00:25:02]:
You're like, I don't know. He just sends me a lot of slack messages.
Matt Carnevale [00:25:06]:
No, it's funny. They were like, is he intense? And I'm like, no, actually, like, quite the opposite.
Dave Gerhardt [00:25:12]:
Like, you don't think I'm intense? I feel like sometimes, like, when I'm on, like, a thread about something, it can feel. I'm like, do people think this is intense? And then I'm trying to, like, say it in a way that sounds like this.
Matt Carnevale [00:25:23]:
Yeah, yeah. No, no, I don't. Intense, I think, has negative connotation to an extent, so. Or it can. So in that sense, no, but I think you're passionate and you care deeply about the details.
Dave Gerhardt [00:25:35]:
You know, it's weird. A bunch of, like, a couple people that I met were like, oh, you're much nicer than I thought you would be, and I never know how to. I don't know how to react to that.
Matt Carnevale [00:25:46]:
Yeah.
Dave Gerhardt [00:25:46]:
And again, back to, like, the in person thing. I think there's so much value in, like. Or, like, the intense piece. Like, you've spent a bunch of. We've done so many video calls and phone calls, and you've heard me rant and you've heard my intonation and sense of humor. And, like, once you have that, don't you feel like that context of someone also helps? Like, how you interpret their writing, and if you don't. If you only have the writing, you don't get any of that.
Matt Carnevale [00:26:09]:
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I feel like now that I've been here for a couple months, it's like, the way you say certain things, it's like, this is one of Dave's ideas. Or, like, this is like, you should definitely do this, or this is like, maybe you should or shouldn't, like. Right?
Dave Gerhardt [00:26:21]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm always like, what do you. And then, is that on you? Like, the fact that you thought I was not as nice. Is that on you or is that on me? I don't. It's very confusing.
Matt Carnevale [00:26:31]:
I don't know. I mean, I think people are just always going to try and make those judgment calls.
Dave Gerhardt [00:26:35]:
You got to be careful out there, though. Then I saw. I met Adam Robinson for the first time, and he was, like, literally three times taller than I was, and I was like, see, this is. Yeah, that's why you never know.
Matt Carnevale [00:26:44]:
Yep. Yep. The height one is always the biggest. It's like, how. How tall are people? Right? Yeah. I mean, I don't think of it that often, but it's always like. It always surprises you. It's never what you think.
Dave Gerhardt [00:26:54]:
Well, the other hard part is somebody who doesn't look like what they look like in their LinkedIn picture at all. Yeah. And they're like, right up in your face, and it's like, Dave, how you doing? And you're like, oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit. Who is this? Yeah, luckily, I'm just, like, short man with a bald head. And so, like, I. Oh, yeah, that's me. That's me.
Matt Carnevale [00:27:16]:
I was.
Dave Gerhardt [00:27:17]:
I'm not wearing a hat. You'll know who it is.
Matt Carnevale [00:27:19]:
Yeah, exactly. I feel like you're, like, you're spottable a mile away, so you're lucky.
Dave Gerhardt [00:27:22]:
Yeah. But there's, like, a million other people who look like me at the same time, but. Yeah. And then an event like that. You're right.
Matt Carnevale [00:27:28]:
Yeah.
Dave Gerhardt [00:27:28]:
All right, well, thank you, everybody, for listening to this little short episode of the exit five podcast called inside exit five, where Matt. Matt is here, works with us at exit five. He's on the team marketing. He does marketing. He does community. He does a bunch of stuff. Right now, he's a swiss army knife, which is awesome. And then I'm Dave.
Dave Gerhardt [00:27:46]:
I'm the founder of this thing. Every now and then, we do an episode like this where it's not an outside guest, it's us talking about what questions we've seen, what's popular inside the community. I think we have an interesting view. We have our finger on the pulse of what's happening in b two b marketing, and this is a fun way to talk about it. So thanks for listening. Subscribe to the podcast if you haven't. And, Matt, I'll see you back in slack in a little bit. Right.
Matt Carnevale [00:28:07]:
Cool. Thanks, Dave. Exit.