Joseph Frost, Co-Founder of yorCMO, hosts this weekly retreat for executives to unwind and hear from their peers about new opportunities and innovations in the C-Suite.
Joe Frost: welcome. I'm excited to have our next guest today. He is, um, a chemical engineer turned marketer, which mirrors my path, but, uh, uh, we've probably have done different journeys to get, uh, where we are today, but we both started with some engineering.
And ended up in marketing. So, uh, today he is a seasoned marketing executive now with a proven track record, um, helping industrial and technology-based B2B companies tackle their marketing, uh, problems. He brings 35 plus years of experience to this podcast. And he is an expert, uh, suited for large corporate environments as well as small organizational, uh, companies with, uh, minimal marketing needs.
Um, he's, he's everywhere in between. Uh, so I wanna welcome to our, uh, podcast, a fractional c m o at, uh, your c m o, my guest, Ken Acker. Ken, welcome to the show. Thanks for having
Ken Acer: me, Joe. Really appreciate the opportunity to have a chance to share some ideas with your, your audience.
Joe Frost: Yeah, absolutely. This will be fun.
Um, it's when, you know, it's not normally stated that, uh, when two engineers get together, it's fun, but today will, but definitely be fun. So I promise you that in our audience as well. Um, but let's get started. Our first, uh, topic I like to kick off the show with is just a question around, um, something that's of interest to you or something that you think.
Um, that other C-suite professionals need to be thinking about or aware of these days. Uh, so what, what would you like to share with our, our C-suite brethren?
Ken Acer: Okay. Yeah, it's, it's an interesting, uh, uh, task opportunity I've gotten out to join your C M O. I've been doing fractional marketing for seven years with my own firm, and then recently introducing your C M O to my clients and potential clients.
Uh, introducing them to what fractional means is sometimes, uh, a little bit of a challenge, but a more interesting discussion happens around just the general idea of marketing. How big is marketing? What is marketing? Uh, this week I had a group of about 15 people. We were chatting about what marketing meant to them, and it meant something different to each one of them.
And you know what each one of them was, right? marketing is what your organization needs. For long term growth in terms of intelligence, market intelligence, and in terms of competitive intelligence, in terms of, how you're gonna put together a program for growth. So marketing for me, it spans a wide idea, a wide range of ideas, all the way from fundamentals like strategy and developing the right organization.
To what products, what unmet customer needs are out there. So what products do you need to develop or services do you need to develop? Then once you have products, then developing customers, a adding customers to your base. That's very different from adding orders to your pipeline, so you, you have to acquire customers and then after you acquire customers, generating demand.
That's usually something that's shared between sales and marketing. You generate demand and then you have to generate orders. And that's generally thought of as a sales function. But the marketing team has an important part with order acquisition. And then, you know, we need to, you know, satisfy the order.
Uh, that's often in the operations team. But then after the product gets delivered to the. I think marketing has a role there as well in terms of ensuring client satisfaction, frequently asked questions, common usage questions, application questions. So marketing c spans a really broad spectrum of different, uh, possible intersections with the marketplace and with potential customers and with salespeople.
So, um, what, what an individual client needs at any given time is gonna be unique to their situ. And, and, uh, and their challenges.
Joe Frost: Yeah, that's very well said. I think that it's so broad. It, it, it does. Um, From a, from a fundamental standpoint, I think it's all about connecting prospects with products and services, and that's, that's kind of what I, over my overarching definition of marketing is very simplistically.
But when you start thinking about all the layers that you described, Prospects, you've gotta acquire, uh, their trust so that they can become, you know, client pro prospects or, uh, customers first, and then can you upsell them? And then how do you add more products and services and what are the right products and services to be adding?
There's just so many layers, um, to that puzzle, um, that I think many businesses don't quite comprehend until. They start asking the questions themselves, where, where can marketing best support our strategic objectives? I think that that's my favorite question for business owners to ask is, um, not what is marketing, but wh how can marketing and marketing professionals, um, help support our strategic objectives?
And sometimes that means at the beginning, Trying to understand what the market is. Um, at the end it's, uh, how do you understand and find new markets potentially. So that's not the end. Like there's, there's that side of it. Then there's the creative side, which most people associate with marketing. The, the brand, the look, the feel, the website, the assets.
Um, but I look at that as more of a creative function, not necessarily a marketing function. So how do you advise your.
Ken Acer: Yeah. So, uh, you're right. And when people hear marketing, they often think, you know, ads Twitter accounts, old in the old days, TV and print ads. But those are all just tactics, just tactics to accomplish a specific goal.
And, and you should have some specific goals in mind whenever you've got some kind of, uh, advertising or, or promotional activity, uh, in place. I, I, I go back to. What, uh, something that, that came out of, uh, sun Sue's book. The Art of War, which is to know, you know, your yourself and you know your enemy and you'll be successful in a hundred battles.
Or he says, more poetically, a hundred battles. A hundred victories. And, and, uh, when I'm training marketers on their role, what I ask them to do is go out and look at competi. In a very structured way, who's first on, in terms of market size, market share? Who's the largest? Who's the, who's the fastest growing, who's the most innovative, who's the closest to your position, and then make an estimate of the overall market size as well.
From there, you can get some market share estimates, and then after you understand some ideas about where you stand compared to your competition in terms of share. Then I like to look at, at customer needs and quantitatively, how do the five competitors that we just mentioned, how do they compare to the customer's needs?
And then you can get a really strong idea of where you're positioned, uh, comparing your feature set to competition and who's winning in the marketplace. And then add a third variable to it in terms of pricing. Where should you be? Where are you priced now, and where should you be priced? And that gets into a price positioning, uh, discussion with your existing products.
It also helps you with your product development activities cuz if you have a gap in the marketplace with maybe a low feature, low price product, or a higher feature, higher price product, then you know where you need to fill that gap in the two to three year horizon and start working on product development activities.
Joe Frost: When you look at a marketplace, how do you distinguish between, you know, what might be a, a fad, uh, that is an unmet need or need that's, that's kind of appearing in a fad fashion versus a, a, maybe a trend or a real long-term, uh, evolving need that needs to be met? Any differentiates between the. What I,
Ken Acer: what I like to do is, is talk to real users, real customers, uh, in their environment, in their workspace.
And especially, um, watch them work. Not necessarily ask 'em a bunch of questions or give 'em a survey, or actually, you don't do that. You don't, you don't give 'em a survey. They won't be able to fill it out. You have to observe what they're doing in the marketplace and try to understand why they're doing it and.
And, uh, what I like to do is I like to find big customers, uh, small customers if they represent a large segment, and also people who s who are really pushing the envelope for your product category. People who are maybe being a little inventive themselves, adding features themselves, and, and trying to kind of bootstrap a product solution into, into your product line and, and understand why they're doing.
And when I, when I say that, it really takes a long-term mindset, it takes a two to three year horizon. That you have to be aiming for because let's face it, product development is not easy. It often takes, I mean, a fast product development might be a year and a half, maybe be in software, it might be quicker.
But often product development efforts are multi-year, uh, activities. And you have to be able to try to think about what the unmet needs are today that will be important in two or three years. And if it's something that's. If you hear about a fad, but you don't really see how it's helping some, some customer with a, with a, with a concrete benefit, then that's something I, I try to sh uh, shy away from.
Joe Frost: Yeah. The reason I ask that question is I, I, I wonder how much of ai, uh, is a fad versus, uh, a true change in our, uh, way that we need to think about marketing.
Ken Acer: Well, I think it, I think it's definitely getting a lot of fantastic, uh, um, attraction and, and interest in the market. But the reason I think it's not a fad is because I just, like I just said, I've watched people use it and oh my gosh, what they're able to get out of the system answering questions in a, in a, in an intuitive way, in a conversational.
Really, uh, when I use, uh, chat G p t I actually, I, I write, please in my query, can you please answer this? And I think somehow the, the responses come back in a different tone based on how I'm asking the questions. You know, when I'm doing, when I'm Googling something, I would never say, please, you know, find me restaurant near me.
I would just say restaurants near me. It's, it's a really interesting, uh, interaction that, that at least I'm having with, uh, the, the chat G P T interface. And I've just seen people have immediate, tremendous value in Essent, especially, uh, low-hanging fruit, I think is, is uh, uh, creating first drafts. I've got a specific example of something I did this week.
Yeah, I'll, I'll jump into it there. There's a client that I haven't talked to in nine months, and I think that they are still an opportunity, but I was feeling like I was feeling awkward about how to approach this customer, or I haven't talked to in about a month and a half. So I wrote to chat G P T in that way.
I said, I feel awkward about this. This, uh, person I haven't followed up with, and I, and they came back. It came back, whatever it is, came back with a really pleasantly worded email. I didn't send it. Of course, I took it and I, I used it and a adapted it, changed it, and then sent the e email off. But just getting that first draft out there was really a helpful first pass for me.
Joe Frost: Yeah, I love that example because I've had the same, um, or I've had a similar thought where the. There's a lot of, um, friction when you just wanna create something and, and that friction, that might be small, but for some of us, it, it's a big, a big sticking point and chat. E B T seems to be a way to overcome some of that friction.
Uh, what is, uh, what is an email I can send to? This client, you could sit there and stew on that in your own mind. In your own head for days. But if you just ask the question and they spit something out, now you've got, maybe you're 70% of the way done. Like, I just need to get over that initial hump to start.
Now I can hone it in and and send it. And I think that is definitely a really good use of chat, g p t, um, where I was kind of, and as individual professionals in any, you know, any. You can use it that way to get over your own internal kind of angst or, um, uh, little, little st you have from moving forward.
Um, but I heard the other day, this, this comment from another marketing friend of mine. She's a, she's a good personal friend. She also runs marketing for, um, another company that, that I, um, am familiar with, and she said, Speaking of this other company, she goes, the, the owner of this other company really wants me to build a, uh, a marketing plan using ai.
Like that was the demand from up above, like, I need marketing that uses ai. And I thought to myself, what does that mean? Like now we have CEOs of companies telling their marketing teams to use ai. Like how and why and to what extent and what does that mean? And uh, it reminds me greatly of the, the fad around QR codes like 10 years ago.
I want a QR code. Like, but why? So I'm just curious, like how would somebody begin figuring out the why behind using AI in their marketing?
Ken Acer: Yeah, I, I agree. I, I, it, it's like, I remember I had a sales manager who, who just said, make more phone calls. Like, you know, I mean, that's, you make more phone calls for a specific reason to, you know, make cold calls or to follow up on leads, or follow up on quotes.
But, you know, it was, it was just his, what he wanted to see was people on the phone when he walked through the office. Maybe was helpful for his head, but it's not necessarily, uh, the right way to go. Uh, I think just telling somebody to use a tool doesn't make sense, uh, to me at all. Um, you know, we were talking about getting the first draft out and the, and something that we didn't really touch on is just what is a marketer versus what is a salesperson?
And I think. It ties into what you're saying in terms of a, a marketer I think is somebody who's able to get inside somebody else's head. Um, as salespeople need to do that also, but, but, uh, I, I think one reason this helps this chat g pt, uh, tool helps me with the first draft is that I'm able, Be a pretty good editor.
I'm not a great writer. I'm actually not a good writer. Getting the first draft of something out is really hard for me, but I am able to have something drafted in front of me and then I can. Look at it, I'd say from my mother's perspective and see, you know, does it make sense to her as a non-technical person?
And then, although I'm not a PhD, I, I'm a, I consider myself a, a technical person and, um, I'm not a PhD, but I try to read something from a PhD's perspective and see if it makes sense, if the, if the, uh, logic and the footnotes and the, you know, the references are there. Um, Um, you know, salespeople have a very urgent or an urgent mindset, uh, a, a mindset that talks about a, a one week, a one month, you know, a, a shorter, uh, sales cycle, a shorter, uh, urgency in their rewards.
Where marketing people think more about, uh, this quarter, this year, the next three years of, of product flow and, and order flow and, and sales. Um, so when you're, when you're out there watching customers, observing customers, you want, you, I, you generally don't wanna have a salesperson with you unless they're a unique salesperson with the ability to not derail the customer's.
Ideas and stream of consciousness for, for, for why they're doing what they're doing. Uh, hope that was helpful and interesting for you, Joe. Yeah,
Joe Frost: I think that's a, that's a, there's a good differentiator there as far as how salespeople would view a market opportunity and how marketers would view the same market opportunity for salespersons can look for.
And they should. And it's, it's important that they do that short term opportunity, whereas a marketer might look a little more broadly at, uh, what, what am I seeing here? And, and not getting, um, not, not losing the force through the trees, if you wanna use that analogy where Salesforce might be chopping down the trees.
The, the marketer may be, you know, looking at, well, what's beyond this first range that, uh, is also gonna be there for us two or three years from now to. To harvest. Um, sorry for that awful, no analogy. But, um, with, with, uh, ai, I find there's this, um, Desire to want to like, like there's, want to use it right away from many of the business owners that I talk to.
There's also many that are just like, I don't want it. It's, it's, it's nothing I wanna deal with or think about. You know, they're kind of burying their heads in the sand. I think the, the middle of that somewhere needs to be, um, Where the, the, the, the, the bright balance is like we have to be researching and understanding and seeing where it's going, but not overreacting and over impulse buying.
Um, as marketers and as, uh, business owners. Um, I'm curious. We, we had this conversation yesterday, or not yesterday, last week. Internally, the difference between tools and tactics in marketing, and a lot of times I think we, we as marketers sometimes, Get confused or can confuse others. I think of ai, AI as a tool, not as a tactic.
That's, that's my my thought process. Um, but some people think, oh, we've gotta, you know, throw AI at this. Now we gotta start being AI as a tactic for getting new customers. Like, no, the, the tactics can be enhanced with this tool of ai, but the tactic. Gonna change. There's no AI tactic that I'm aware of, um, for getting customers.
What would you say to that? That's what I
Ken Acer: was trying to say earlier, and you just said it much better than I did. Making the analogy about that, that, uh, sales manager who wanted to see people on the phone, the phone is a tool, uh, and the, the, the tactic is the, is the more important issue to resolve. First is maybe the issue is following up on open quotations.
You know, how do you do that? Does, does marketing have a role in that? Does what, what is sales role in that? And, and, uh, the following up on the quotation is the tactic, and then the tool could be many different, uh, ways to do that. You could do that in person, on the phone by, you know, by email. Uh, many different ways.
Joe Frost: Yeah, I think it's, um, important to think of it as, as a, as a tool and then not. Glossy eyed with, with everything that we can do with this tool. It's just a sh it's a new shiny hammer, but we still need to hammer nails. You know, there's, um, it's not making that any different, but, um, internally when we look at ai, we're, we're asking those questions right now.
Okay. How can we use this tool to enhance our. Uh, how can we use this tool to provide more value for our clients? How can we use this tool to make our operations more efficient? Um, that's how we're looking at it. And I think from a marketing lens, um, there's a lot of things this tool can help us with, can make us a lot more efficient.
Um, it can give us a lot more creative like inspiration. Um, You know, it's not gonna, if, if your audience doesn't read emails, all of a sudden posting a bunch of AI emails in front of them isn't gonna change the output. Like, it's not going to make a single bit of difference if your audience doesn't respond to it to begin with.
They're not gonna suddenly respond because you have the ability to create a hundred more emails than he used to be able to send. Like, that's not gonna change the result. Um, same with content, in my opinion. Like if your audience doesn't respond to content on Facebook, by suddenly be able to have hundred times as many posts isn't going to change a conversion.
But if you're able to find 50 different messaging strategies and now. Potentially increase conversion because all of a sudden you figure out that it wasn't, the audience not responding, you just didn't have the right message. And now you can test it differently with AI at a, at a much faster rate.
There's how the tool can help you.
Ken Acer: Yeah, absolutely. Right. And I, I think, you know, w we all, or I think the best companies look to marketing for their thought leadership in terms of their product and service offering, so that when the engineers get together, You know, and, and make the, the new product, they're, they're making something that someone's going to need in two and three years.
So I think similarly internally, I I, I see marketing folks getting pulled into the AI discussion because they, they're naturally thinking two and three years down the road. Um, and then, and, uh, you know, something that, that, uh, also is tied to this idea is, is. Marketing and branding. You know, it can be, it can feel great to think about, you know, a, a big brand like, I don't know, Coca-Cola or I b m and, and, and just thinking about the br making the brand stronger or better with, with marketing efforts.
But, but boy, at the level of companies that I've ever dealt with, marketing's job is always to drive sales. Yeah. It, and, and sometimes it's directly generating. But sometimes it's just making the salesperson's job easier with better tools and better, uh, collateral material. Um, and, and sometimes it's, it's also helping the salesperson by, in post-sale environment helping with frequently asked questions or service training or, or, you know, or usage training.
So the salesman's not stuck, helping teach the customer how to turn the product on or turn it off or, or troubleshoot. Um, and you know, w our job in marketing is often to make the salespeople into heroes. So they, you know, they're so, they have more confidence so they can get out in front of customers more frequently, uh, more confidently.
And I think how we can help them efficiently use AI to, to be an, an answer machine for their customers, for, for them to be more effective, answering questions for customers. I think that there's a role there for us as.
Joe Frost: Yeah, I think this might be a good time for one of the, uh, the top 10 lists that I like to put together with my guests.
From time to time, it's picking a topic and then going back and forth and coming up with 10 ideas to share with the audience. So if we thought about a topic being how marketers can u use AI to help enhance sales, um, Let's come up with 10 ways that we can, uh, brainstorm on how we can use this new shiny object, uh, this tool of AI to enhance, uh, sales for, uh, for salespeople.
So, um, one of us can start and we'll just go back and forth and share ideas until we get to 10. So,
Ken Acer: and I, I tell you, I did one, uh, yesterday. I, I had a client that I'm looking at and. Basically just went into chat, G p t as a first pass. I said, what is this company's, uh, strategy? And I'll tell you what they sent, sent back wasn't perfect, but it, it was really interesting.
And, um, I've, I've put that into, uh, you know, I've put that into a pre part of the presentation that I've been making later this week. So helping salespeople learn about, uh, their, their prospects?
Joe Frost: Yes. That's a great one. Um, I would probably say, so that made me think about doing the same with competitors, helping, uh, salespeople better understand their competitor's current strategy using, uh, using ai.
That's a great one.
Ken Acer: Um, it's, it's funny, I, I think there's gonna be an explosion of content and also a devaluation of content, but, but helping create, uh, content for, you know, blog posts, uh, would be a, you know, sort of low hanging fruit.
Joe Frost: Yeah, that's a, that is a good one. Um, I. I've, I've often wondered about the devaluation of content because of ai.
Uh, and, and that it, it does scare me from a marketer standpoint. Like when you start having this, um, massive influx of content that um, no longer is meaningful to anybody, like it's, the noise gets so great that you just tune everything out. Um, what, what that's going to. Um, so with, if that does happen, then, um, you know, what, what can AI do with this universe of, of content that's just making no difference anymore.
And I think the opportunity is to, um, Perhaps train the, uh, thinking about it as a training tool for, for salespeople to be able to practice their pitch, uh, in such a way that they can be, um, able to break through the noise over the phone, uh, and, and, and practice with this universe of content that's out there to find the, the potential responses that are, that are peaking interest using.
What are some of the, the ways they can practice to this universe and uh, then pull out gems they can then go use in person.
Ken Acer: Well, that's an interesting idea. Um, in terms of practicing. Another idea that, that, uh, might help salespeople is, is to. Practice or, uh, practice presentations to different personality styles.
Uh, you know, maybe they've gotta be trained or skilled in, in noticing personality styles, but having some ideas on, on how to handle frequent objections from different personality styles might be interesting for sales folks.
Joe Frost: Yeah, I do like that. Um, and you could use AI to be able to, um, tell you the personality style of your prospects, um, right, so that they can, uh, I'm meeting with, uh, Ken Acker and here's his LinkedIn profile and here's, find everything he's written in the last 10 years on anything he's posted on social.
And tell me what this most likely personality style is and how can I best, uh, approach him knowing that and that, that that would be a. You know, extension of what you just shared. Um, along those lines, uh, there's an old sales technique I learned called the, the Ben Duffy, and it's the, uh, it was based off the.
There was a small ad agency run by a guy named Ben Duffy back in the tobacco era. Um, and he was going to try to win a big tobacco, uh, ad contract, and he was up against the, the big giant agencies. And what he did was, before he went in to give his pitch, he wrote down, What the 10 questions that he thought, um, the company would have of him.
Like, why should I use a company your size and why should we use you? All these questions that were his disadvantage that he thought he would be, um, Asked in that positioning and he, he opened his, um, pitch with, here's the things that I think you might be wondering about me right now. And he answered those right away.
It's called the Ben Duffy approach. So I think a company could use AI to, a salesperson could use ai. Like what are the things that this customer might, reasons why this customer may not buy from what are. Blind spots I'm not considering and train themselves to, well, not even trained, just to decide what those questions might be so they can prepare a hit proposal ahead of time.
Answering those, those objections.
Ken Acer: Yeah, that's a great one. That's a great one. Um, I, yeah, the, I took a training class with that mentioned Ben Duffy also, and, and I thought one of his questions was, If you could change one thing about my product, what would it be? And that gets to, well, I guess I'm off the topic of the, of the 10, uh, of the 10 things AI might, might be used to help sales folks, but, um,
Joe Frost: We're at five here, so, uh, we need five more.
Ken Acer: We need five more. Five more. Okay. So here's, here's one way a, I might be able to, might be able to be used to help salespeople, which is just, you know, find me a list of 10 customers, like my favorite customer, abc, and give them, give the, the AI some criteria about that customer.
Have them find 10 more.
Joe Frost: Yeah, I love that one. Um, I just got asked today by, uh, a guy, I, I need to go market. He wants to send an email and a mailer to a hundred businesses, so I, you know what I told him? Just go into Chad, g p t and say, I wanna send an email and a mailer to these a hundred customers that look and feel like this.
Can you search some lists and find the most recent addresses for those customers? And a contact person? Now it's gonna be 2021 data. Right. It's cuz it's limited to when it was last recently listed. Um, right now, maybe three weeks for an now it'll be completely different. Um, but it'll still be a start.
Right, right.
Ken Acer: Yeah, that's a great idea.
So, uh, you know, having customers, uh, asking, uh, AI to find out how customers buy these products or, or what triggers they're buy. Decision in getting to the buyer'ss journey and understanding, uh, what unmet need they're, they're really satisfying by, by going ahead and, uh, purchasing the product, that might be helpful.
Joe Frost: Yeah, that's a great one. Um, there are some really good, uh, ai uh, presentation tools out there where you can go in and, and say, I wanna, here's my, here's my pitch and my product and my service. And the features. And the benefits, and here's my audience and here's who I'm talking to tomorrow. And they'll develop a whole pitch deck for you, um, using best practices and put it in and it'll add images and color and creative and, and design your, your proposal, um, deck, if you will, uh, in, in seconds.
Uh, there's some of those out there. I just came across. I, if I think about it, I'll add one to the show notes, but, um, I just came across it the other day. I'm like, wow, that's, that's insane. They can take your old one and just improve it too, uh, easily.
Ken Acer: Okay.
Joe Frost: I, I think, uh, one that I would, uh, use myself is
give me a, a list, uh, or not a list, but, um, you can take a existing website. Let's say it's the, um, association of, um, Uh, manufacturers, uh, Northeast, um, you know, Minnesota or something. You, if you can grab a list and you can upload it and you can say, I want you to reference this list with, with publicly known information and highlight.
The top 10 prospects that might be interested in my product or service based on x, Y, Z criteria, and have them sort through your, your list and, and actually help you rate the top most likely people to, to approach based on whatever criteria you can give. It could be similar to like LinkedIn, it could be size of company, but it could also be associations with um, uh, Companies they worked for, you can give it all sorts of strange criteria to help them sort a list of
Ken Acer: prospects for you.
Right? Right. That's a great one. And you know, just directly with that is, you know, salesman's gonna be traveling on this path to get to this customer. You know what customers are within 25 miles of that highway. Or something like that.
Joe Frost: Just ah, I love that. All right. We got to 10. It was a, it was a little bit of a labor, uh, but we got
Ken Acer: there.
The possibilities are endless, but it, it's sometimes it's tough to come up with 10.
Joe Frost: Yeah. Yeah. Which one of the 10 are you gonna use to help yourself find more clients?
Ken Acer: Um, I like the one about, uh, giving it criteria and saying, come back with a prospect list. Yeah. I think that's a
Joe Frost: really good. I like the, uh, I like the idea of, of, um, destination.
Like I'm, I'm gonna be in San Diego, California next week. Uh, who are the top 20 clients that I might reach out to based on this criteria that look a lot like this other client that we have would
Ken Acer: be a great one. Right? Right. It could look at your LinkedIn profile and your contact list and whatever else is out there on the.
That might be interesting. Yeah,
Joe Frost: sure. But it certainly doesn't replace the old desire, old need to just reach out and call someone and, uh, set up that appointment. It's not gonna do all that for you yet. That's what your virtual assistant for. Right?
Ken Acer: Right. Right. Yes.
Joe Frost: Well, Ken, what, uh, what do you like to do for fun?
Ken Acer: Well, for fun, uh, I, I'm a, I consider myself a pretty athletic person. Uh, I. Over the past few years, I've been playing a lot of tennis. Uh, I, in the past year and a half, I had, uh, two small surgeries, nothing serious, uh, a knee and a shoulder. Uh, the parts were just out of warranty and needed a little bit of repair work.
So I've been, uh, laying off a tennis, uh, recently, but I'm ready to get started with that again. Uh, we have a, a, uh, COVID dog. Uh, we got him just before Covid and oh my gosh, he's, uh, wonderful. I walk him, uh, every day for about an. And, and that's, um, that's a great, uh, multitasking activity. Cause I'm also, um, making phone calls on podcasts.
So, um, keeps me active and, and, uh, keeps me connected. I also have picked up, uh, sourdough bread making during covid and a little bit of woodworking. Uh, I always did a little bit of those in the past, but I, I've gotten a little bit more
Joe Frost: serious on both of them. Wow. It's quite a, quite an array of things you like to do there.
That's awesome. Yeah. Um, we got a. Recently as well, not before, but right in the middle of, of Covid. So that's been, that's been fun watching, watching that dog grow up. And, uh, she, she's great. Um, do you ever do pickleball, you're a tennis player, right? Have you ever played pickleball? Uh, I've only
Ken Acer: done it once and I had a great time with it.
Uh, my wife doesn't move so well these days and, but boy, she played really well too. She actually, uh, was, was taught tennis. A squash player, a a squash, uh, world, no US professional. And, uh, and so she has an interesting tennis stroke, but, but, uh, she, she did really well with pickleball. I was really happy with it.
With
Joe Frost: her. Yeah, I heard that. Pickleball. I was talking to a guy the other day and he's, he's a big pickleball player. He's been doing it quite a bit, and he runs like pickleball tournaments in Nebraska. And he said that he ran into a, a f a a grandson and a, and a grandpa, like a, uh, a generational, uh, pickleball teammates.
And he was talking to the, the, the grandfather and, and, and he said this, The one sport, I'm able to still compete equally with my grandson on the court. Oh, great. Because it's, you can play at any age. It's that particular sport, um, very competitively. So that was, that was interesting for me to hear. I've, I've not really picked it up.
I've been thinking about it. My wife and I are gonna be empty nesters next year, and this might be a sport we, we try to, to jump into. Uh, some, I love sports you can age with, you know, not age out of, but age with and. Pickleball Seems like one of 'em, uh, for
Ken Acer: sure. Oh, and it's, it looks like a lot of fun, too.
Lot of fun. Fast game. Yeah.
Joe Frost: Well, Ken, um, what's the best way for people to get in touch with you if they want to, uh, learn more about, uh, about you and what you do and, and, uh, get, get, uh, a chance to talk to you more?
Ken Acer: The simplest way is just to send me an email, uh, Ken, your cmo, y o r cmo.com, or go to your cmo.com and find the team and my, my phone number's in there.
And, uh, we'll, Dr. Can drop the phone number into the show notes as well.
Joe Frost: Yeah. And I would encourage anybody that's listening to this two or three, uh, weeks from now when we're filming it, uh, I think that AI is changing so fast that some of those top 10 lists might be outdated by the time you get to hear this.
And if they are, reach out and ask for a more recent top 10 list. Cause this is one of the things that we're gonna be studying, uh, and working at quite a bit over the next several weeks, is trying to stay on top of the, the latest and greatest in AI for marketers and. So reach out and ask, and we'll send you our, our updated list, uh, as we get into it.
Um, well thank you again for being here. I really appreciate it. Appreciate your time. It was, it's been, it's been fun. Oh, I've
Ken Acer: enjoyed it very much, Joe. And, uh, hope the audience got some value out of it. Uh, I know I enjoyed being here and, uh, I, I've enjoyed your other podcasts, uh, with the other CMOs and other.
Joe Frost: Appreciate it. Great. I appreciate that. And to our audience, thank you for listening. Uh, do reach out to Ken for his latest and greatest AI tips, uh, as he's building them. And then, uh, consider downloading or, uh, and subscribing to our podcast. I think my producer says subscri subscribing to it is what we need people to do.
If you enjoy, listen to Ken and wanna listen to, to more guests like him, please subscribe and, and we'll keep you up to date and post it as we continue to interview more. And. CMOs and other fractional professionals out there.