Jason Mlicki (00:01.71)
So Jeff, today we are recording episode two of the Prudent Petal Growth Trilogy. So we’re expecting some big reveals here, possibly who Darth Vader really is. That’s a little dated. People probably don’t even recognize that that’s the original trilogy. But anyway, and the second episode of that trilogy. Don’t tell anybody. Don’t tell anybody.
Jeff (00:11.503)
Hahaha
Jeff (00:24.057)
return of Gandalf, Lord of the Rings.
Jason Mlicki (00:30.85)
No spoilers. Okay, so, no, I’m looking forward to digging into this. As listeners know, our first episode was really all about kind of what blocks growth, the real reasons that firms struggle to sustain organic growth. And all of this stuff really is coming out of a really good ebook that you wrote for CEOs. I think we did this in the first episode, I don’t know, but.
And you know, you shared this with me and I’ve worked some progress over time and I kicked the tires on hard. And in the end, I was like, I think this is really good. And I didn’t, you know, and you were kind of surprised when I came back on it’s like a 48 page book. I was like, I don’t really have any changes. Like I wouldn’t shorten anything. And so you’re, if you’re very surprised by that, but, um, and then I said, let’s do this as a series. so anyway, so we’re in series two. want to do just kind of a, uh, a super fast recap of, of, of episode one. Um,
where we talked about the three kind of things that block growth because they ultimately are resolved within your framework. So the first one is what you’ve always called the BSFPS and that’s just sort of the cultural impediments inside a firm that make it hard to sustain growth, like sort of get in the way of doing what needs to be done.
at a firm level to succeed. The second one is the performance envelope. And that’s sort of the strategic boundary of the firm where its most profitable offerings exist. And this sort of fact that there’s just so much gravitational pull towards the center, towards the core solutions that are becoming commoditized, that it’s hard to pay attention to the periphery as much as an organization needs to.
It’s true in all companies, but it’s particularly more true, I think, in professional services firms. And then the third piece of it, the third reason firms struggle to sustain growth, is the thinker-seller-doer dynamic is broken. And that’s, I think you talk about this really well in the e-book, this idea that there is the folks that are responsible for doing the thinking, for developing the marketing output that demonstrates the firm’s
Jason Mlicki (02:52.11)
insights to the marketplace, selling, turning those insights into contracts and relationships, and then doing, delivering on the work. And they’re all siloed and they’re all disconnected. And it just kind of creates a lot of dysfunctionality. So those are really the three growth blockers. What we want to do today is really peel back the lens, peel back the onion, I don’t know, whatever. We’re peeling something back. We’re looking at…
your growth framework that resolves these things, helps firms figure out how to resolve these things that are meaningful. So did I do that justice? First is the main question.
Jeff (03:35.599)
I think you did it very good, Justice. Yeah, that was a good synopsis.
Jason Mlicki (03:41.389)
Okay.
Jason Mlicki (03:45.71)
So I like, as you know, I mean, I say this to listeners probably don’t understand how much back and forth there was on this growth framework and how many times I would criticize you and say, I think you got it wrong. You’re doing this wrong. I don’t like this. And you never changed anything. And was like, man, he’s so belligerent. And then in the end, I was like, well, I understand why he’s doing what he’s doing. And I’ve come to really like it. So let’s paint a picture since this is an audio show.
Jeff (04:03.315)
What the?
Jason Mlicki (04:14.434)
Let’s paint a picture of what the growth framework is and what it looks like. And I’ll open this and set you up. But I think the most important thing for listeners to visualize in their minds is that you structure it as a framework that looks like it looks like a molecular structure more than anything. And it’s made up of three systems. So I’ll leave you with that and let you kind of talk us through what the framework is and how it’s organized.
Jeff (04:40.175)
Before I create that visual image, your synopsis was really good. And it made me think, maybe there should be a fourth issue. And it’s this. I think most people will, this will resonate with them, is in professional services firms, there are not huge marketing budgets.
Jason Mlicki (04:43.31)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Mlicki (04:53.134)
Well, boy.
Jeff (05:10.449)
And the thing about this framework is it’s very pragmatic and it works in an environment where there aren’t huge marketing budgets. I was just listening. I think you turned me on to the Michael Lewis podcast against the rules. I have been listening to the latest one.
Jason Mlicki (05:32.637)
man, what a great show that is. Yeah.
Jeff (05:39.735)
Absolutely love it on sports gambling.
Jason Mlicki (05:43.254)
Okay, I haven’t listened to that series, season.
Jeff (05:46.305)
get on it. Well, he said something that really struck me. He said that the two leaders in that industry, DraftKings and FanDuel, will never be supplanted because they have invested over $2 billion in marketing. And their name recognition and their marketing approach is just can, it can’t be overcome.
I mean, there have been some major brands that have moved into that market. ESPN, MGM, you know, they have a sliver of the market. And in order for them to really start taking market share, they’re going to have to make an investment of $2 billion or more to really move, to move the market. And as I was listening to that,
I tried to think of an example of a firm that had a huge campaign like that, and there’s really only one. And that was Accenture with Be a Tiger. So it reinforced in my mind that if you don’t have huge marketing budgets, everything you do needs to have a return on investment towards moving the firm.
revenue goals. And really, because of my work as a CMO and working in those firms that didn’t have Accenture level marketing budgets, I had to come up with a different way. And this really reflects that thinking that we’re building a brand of brick at a time, not the way Accenture has done it.
So I think it’s important for people to keep that in mind that this is a pragmatic system.
Jason Mlicki (07:48.45)
Well, before we jump into it a little bit, want to underline a couple of things you just talked about. One is that there is private equity money, more of it, and venture capital money, more of it flowing into the services industry right now. And there are firms that are showing up, not to the level of the fan dole that you’re describing, but they’re showing up with much deeper marketing budgets and they’re throwing a lot of money.
at building things that other firms haven’t seen. Now, the reason I’m underlining this point of what you said is because I think it points you back to the importance of having a growth framework like you’re suggesting, having structure in your thinking and focus and how you’re approaching things because you are now facing these types of competitors who are showing up with other people’s money and they’re spending it much more aggressively than most firms are used to facing competitively.
And if you haven’t faced it yet, I just did a working session with a client this week for this exact issue. And you will. I promise you, you will if you haven’t faced it yet. You may not recognize it, but it’s going on. So let’s break open this molecule and see what we got here.
Jeff (09:08.273)
Okay, so let’s start with the basics. The molecular structure of this is a basic triangle. It was inspired by, as I said, a cycling coaching model created by a gentleman named Freel. I really liked that design and that was my inspiration and I’ve stuck with it. So if you think of a triangle,
At the vertices, at the points of the triangle, there are three molecules, bubbles, right? I call them elements. And on the outside of the triangle, there are three market focus capabilities and brand that represent what I call the GPS system. And GPS stands for exactly what you would think it would, global positioning system.
This system is designed to set the strategic direction. It says, hey, the puck is going to be there. That’s where we want to skate to. It’s called GPS system because you always know where you are and where you’re going. Then on each side of that triangle, there are smaller elements in the middle of the line. And they are insights.
ideal client, and solutions. These three represent what I call the IC triad. And they are the system that commercializes intellectual capital. Then at the heart, in the very center of the triangle, is an element called cultural DNA. This is the grit system.
This sets the limiter, if you will, on what a firm can do culturally. And we talked a little bit about that on the last episode when we talked about the BS of PS. So connecting each of these elements are bi-directional arrows. And every element touches another element.
Jeff (11:30.617)
And this is why I chose the molecule is they are so independent, or independent, interdependent. I wish they were independent. They are so interdependent. If one underperforms, they all underperform. It’s that simple. It’s just like a molecule. If you take an atom out of it, it’s going to change the complexity of the
Jason Mlicki (11:42.572)
a easier.
Jeff (11:58.489)
And then the final thing, and this is, this is most important in my mind, because we’re, we’re talking about a framework designed to produce a result. And that result, right, is revenue growth, profitable revenue growth. That’s a given. This model is designed to drive brand preference because brand preference is the precursor, I think.
to revenue growth and particularly profitable revenue growth. So each side has a brand preference driver. And you’ve heard me say what those are time and time again. They are expertise, they are results, and they are Simpatico.
Those are represented by particular strategy, whether it’s marketing strategy, sales strategy, or delivery strategy. And we can talk more about how those get produced as we talk about the systems, but we’ll go really deep on those in episode three, where we talk about how do you operationalize this framework to drive growth.
Jason Mlicki (13:14.392)
Sorry. 13 minutes making note of that, by the way.
Jason Mlicki (13:25.216)
Okay, so I think what’s really neat about this framework and the systems underlying it is that each system maps directly to each of the three core growth hurdles, growth challenges. And so let’s look at each one because ultimately there’s a direct relationship. for instance,
the BS of PS, you talk about all the cultural limitations that are inherent in a firm that make it difficult to grow. The grit system is designed to attack that problem and solve for it. So let’s look at each system independently and talk about, you know, how the system works to help a firm’s leaders overcome those three specific growth hurdles. And let’s start, I’d like to start with the grit system. I’d like to start from the inside out.
Jeff (14:19.643)
Okay. Grit says, yeah, it’s to me, it’s the most important system because it is the limiter on what you can do from a go-to-market perspective, but also, you know, how you approach approach growth and the many issues that you will face as a firm.
Jason Mlicki (14:20.642)
which sits in the middle, sits at the heart.
Jeff (14:48.301)
and hence the word grit. Each system is driven by a virtue, kind of a cultural value or characteristic that if you don’t have it, you’re not going to maximize the performance of the system. And the grit system virtue is fortitude. I’ve written blog posts on this. I feel like firms give up too early.
and don’t fight through. And the firms that have grit, that have fortitude, that perform when things don’t go right are the ones that are successful. So I think that’s an important element of it. Second.
Jason Mlicki (15:34.062)
Can we pause at 15 minutes for one second? The ebook says magnanimity. Magnanimity.
Jeff (15:44.13)
that’s right. That’s right. The IC is fortitude.
Shoot, when did I start?
Jason Mlicki (15:53.326)
Oh, I don’t know exactly. Somewhere between 13 and 15. Because at 13 I stopped to slurp a drink.
Jeff (16:01.265)
Okay.
Jason Mlicki (16:06.754)
Although I like Fortitude for grit, be honest. When you talked about it, like, yeah, that’s where it actually kind of makes more sense it belongs there.
Jeff (16:13.509)
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so how do we jump back in here?
Jason Mlicki (16:18.254)
Let’s just take it from the top on the grid system basically and just have you reopen on the grid system. So I’ll set it up here. Okay, so we’ll start at 1630 again roughly. So let’s look at each one of these three systems individually because they make up the framework and each system essentially is mapped to these three core.
growth hurdles inside of firms. And I wanna start with the heart of the framework with the GRIT system, which sits at the very center. It’s connected to this BSFPS challenge that firms face. So take us through what’s inside that system and what it’s about.
Jeff (17:04.209)
So the grit system is the most important system, I think, in the whole framework because it will be the limiter or enabler on what a firm can do from a go-to-market perspective. If your culture does not reward innovation and penalizes risk-taking,
Chances are you are not gonna be a thought leader.
Therefore a thought leader go to market strategy is eliminated for you. You need to emphasize either sales or quality of delivery. It puts you at a disadvantage, but you can be successful with that. But the thing that I do with clients and what I try to do as a CMO,
is to understand the culture and kind of like jujitsu, work within the cultural restraints. Every firm has its flavor of BS of PS, as we talked about. It’s recognizing and owning what it is. And I talk about this concept of showing up as your best selves. And it’s critical for a firm to understand who it is.
and what it looks like when it’s firing on all cylinders and its people are delivering the maximum value and the maximum engagement for its people. So I coined that term best selves. And when you understand that,
Jeff (18:57.393)
The goal is to go out and find the clients that allow you to show up as your best self. And we’ll talk a little more about that when we talk about ideal client, but it’s about aligning your best selves with a client that we call ideal client who values that value that you’re providing as your best self.
Jason Mlicki (19:25.902)
You’ve talked about this notion of best selves for a long time. And the first time I heard it, kind of scratched my head. like, I don’t even know what to do with that. Seemed kind of silly. And the more…
Jeff (19:35.569)
That seems to be a theme. That seems to be a theme today.
Jason Mlicki (19:38.67)
Yeah, it is a theme today. It is a theme always. But the more I’ve actually, I’ve even applied it in some of our client work. so I’ve kind of co-opted it, I guess. And I really like it. I like it a lot. And what I like about it is it’s sort of, it really just drives the heart of what makes you great. Like what makes us great? Like, and when are we great? And so it’s not just about understanding what’s great about the firm, but it’s also when are we at our
at our best and what is it, what has to be in place for that to happen. And so we’ve used that a lot. And I think it’s a really good way of looking at things because it’s easy to understand too. mean, a lot of firms, it’s hard to unpack all these strategic elements and it’s not something that leaders do frequently for themselves. They do it for clients and not for themselves. So, okay. Let’s jump into the second system then. And the second system, I…
Jeff (20:37.659)
the GPS system.
Jason Mlicki (20:39.224)
the GPS system, thank you, because I kind of lost track of the order on myself. Let’s talk about the GPS system, because this is really about the performance envelope. It’s about recognizing which parts of the offering are facing competitive pressure, commoditization threats, and which ones are emerging and growing and sort of constantly staying at the frontier of offerings, I guess. So talk us through this system.
Jeff (21:10.051)
In its simplest form, it’s as Wayne Gretzky says, you know, identifying where the puck is going to be, you know, good hockey players skate to where the puck is great hockey players skate to where the puck is going to be. And the GPS system is all about setting strategic direction and, you don’t have to be perfect, but you have to say, Hey,
Here’s where we’re going. Here’s where we think the market is going and how we want to align with it. And then making sure that the organization is aligned to deliver that. And it makes the decisions about what we pursue or don’t pursue much easier because in the BS of PS, strategic decisions are hard. So to a degree, can engineer
some of those decisions out by picking that strategic target, it’s Streamline’s decision making. It also allows you to be much smarter about investment choices and whether those investment choices are in new capabilities, whether you grow them or acquire them that are going to open up new markets for you.
You need to have a plan to do that. You can’t be willy-nilly. And in most firms, I think would say they do that. I have seen very few that do it effectively. They may say, Hey, here’s our people strategy, but it’s more focused on the core because HR and recruiting and training is all set up around the core, not the periphery. And you need to look no.
further than AI, right? For sure. So to give you little example of what this looks like, I had a client that worked in the transportation and logistics industry. Phenomenal, phenomenal thought leaders, very aggressive, very smart, driven people, former Accenture people, as a matter of fact. And they…
Jeff (23:35.131)
pretty much owned a transportation and logistic market for FreightTech. But the CEO said, we can’t stay here. We have got to move beyond this or we’re never going to hit these really aggressive targets. They wanted to be a hundred million dollar company. And he said, where we really need to get to is supply chain. Well, they didn’t have any capabilities or
credibility in supply chain beyond the transportation and logistics dimension of the transportation or of that supply chain. So what they had to do is lay out, you know, five year plan. Here are the capabilities we’re going to add in terms of the technology expertise we’re going to know. Here are the industries and the strategies that we’re going to attack these industries.
First, we’re moving into manufacturing. We’re going to enter it this way. Then we’re going to expand to this next system and then this next system. So there was a progression that was laid out for them. So their capabilities, their thought leadership all moved in that direction of where the puck was going to be. And they started taking more risk around the thought leadership and
opinions as well. And the account management plan changed, right? They started developing approaches to go to non-transportation companies. So there’s a lot more in that, but that’s the type of GPS decisions that get made and activated in this framework.
Jason Mlicki (25:24.3)
And just to set people’s bearings again, if you come back to this framework, the framework is, it looks like a molecule at the heart is the cultural DNA and the growth positioning system that Jeff just talked about is the three outer nodes of the triangle, market focus capabilities and brand. And I think your example is a good one because as you listen to you talk about it, you can sort of unpack it in your brain. It’s like, well, okay.
How did the markets need to expand? How do the capabilities need to change? Who do they need to hire? You your notion of brand, you always talk about brand relevance. It’s like, well, what is, where do we have to show up from a thought leadership perspective, as you said, for the brand to be seen as relevant in this broader supply chain space relative to where it’s coming from. So it’s like just all the discussions that have to happen around along those three dimensions for the firm to make the leap from where it was.
transportation to where it wanted to be in supply chain. So strategic investments that needed to be made over time. all right, so in the interest of time, let’s unpack the third system. So the third system then tackles the thinker-cellar-doer dynamic and the siloed nature of that really more than anything. I don’t want people to think that having thinker-cellars and doers is a bad thing. That’s critical.
but it’s the siloed nature of the three of them that can be a problem. let’s talk about this third system, the IC triad system.
Jeff (26:57.285)
This system is where the rubber hits the road. It’s where you operationalize everything. If the GPS is saying, here’s where the puck is going to be, this is the skates and the sticks and the skating part of that metaphor. How do we get there? And generally,
what you see in this system with the thinker-cellar dynamic where the person is the product, the salesperson, and R &D, there’s inefficiency in that in and of itself. But generally, those disciplines fall into sales, marketing, and delivery in some form. And it gets really confusing.
What the IC triad does is puts the structure in place that allows alignment of those thinker sellers and doers through the sales, marketing and delivery functions. And I say that sales, marketing and delivery functions because that’s the traditional way of thinking about it. And I think it’s
It’s, it’s valid. I don’t know how much longer that will be valid with, with AI, informing thinkers, sellers, and doers. And if you want to understand what I’m talking about, I’d encourage you to go back and listen to, the podcast we did with smart technologies that blew up their sales and marketing functions and created what they called the commercial engine. No.
Jason Mlicki (28:43.79)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff (28:52.197)
What did they call it? Yeah. Unified commercial engine. That’s what this kind of represents. It’s an alignment around the client, the ideal client, not your solutions. And this, this system is really about how you develop and commercialize intellectual capital. That’s why it’s called the
Jason Mlicki (28:52.64)
Unified commercial engineer.
Jeff (29:22.101)
I see triad and how you commercialize it. And it’s really important to understand in my model, I subscribe very strongly to Bob Boudet’s model around what intellectual capital is and what its purpose is for. And that is not just demand generation and producing thought leadership, but supply creation.
as well. The refining and developing of new solutions and those have to work in conjunction with one another.
Jason Mlicki (30:02.99)
Yeah, I think that that’s what makes this IC triad, nah, that’s the wrong word. I was gonna say importance, I mean, but it’s, it’s its connection to solutions. And where I see firms come up short consistently is they think of thought leadership as a marketing activity that’s done by marketers to give the firm something to say.
And they don’t really think deeply about what their, point of view they’re developing should manifest itself as a differentiated solution that a client can only get from them. And, when you connect that third node, you know, you, normally the node is ideal client insights. It’s all marketers talk about is what are our ideal, who are our ideal clients? What are their issues? How do we solve them? What’s right about that? And that’s the, that’s the, that’s kind of the end, the end of the whole conversation.
And so it’s adding that third no that makes this, I guess that actually turns it into a real system. Otherwise it’s not a system. It’s just a activity. And so maybe that’s the essence of the whole thing is that you have to connect that. We had a call with a brand new client, by the way, last week was the first call, first input call we’ve done with the subject matter expert for the firm. And it was really interesting because the call starts out with, says, well, I already wrote all this, so I don’t know why we’re here.
Jeff (31:30.183)
Hahaha!
Jason Mlicki (31:30.19)
And he’d written a bunch of articles. Anyway, we spend some time helping him think through kind of like, cause we felt like he had under defined the problem, like he had jumped to the solutions too quickly. And as we started to unpack the problem more deeply, all of sudden we actually came up with a different way of thinking about the problem.
Jeff (31:42.927)
Imagine that.
Jason Mlicki (31:54.862)
that actually then all of a sudden got him excited because he suddenly realized he was like, oh, I could actually build like a framework around this. And that framework could actually be a sales tool that I use to go in and have conversations with my clients that shows them where their, company falls on these various dimensions. And all of a sudden it was like a light bulbs were going off for the guy. It was like, suddenly he, for the first time recognized kind of like, Oh, this thought leadership stuff they’re asking me to do can actually connect back to my daily.
habits a little bit. My daily work, in this case, as a seller. So he’s kind of, you know, thinker-seller, right? But it was interesting to watch it unfold kind of real time. It’s like, So anyway.
Jeff (32:38.929)
Well, you said something really important there, Jason. And I think that example is an excellent one. You know, one of the thinker, seller, doer dynamic where the thinker says, hey, I have it all figured out. Who are you to question me and waste my time? You know, I should be working with a client. But marketing, I’ll call you marketing, is adding strategic value as a thinker there.
So I think that’s number one of how marketing should be performing, but doesn’t. And then the second thing is you said he reached a conclusion that he could make a framework. I would argue that you cannot have an effective IC triad without a framework and a firm wide framework that unifies all of your intellectual capital.
When you look at a lot of firms, they’ll have, you know, kind of line of business perspective models. or they may have, you know, change management methodologies or, or, you know, audit methodology types of things, but they don’t have an all encompassing brand building framework. And that is critical.
And if you want an excellent example, I, again, I’ll go back to Accenture and their high performance. It was the brand message, high performance delivered, but it was born out of a framework of how they looked at and measured and delivered high performance. So you could go to Accenture’s website, if you will, and you see a high performance accounting function, high performance marketing.
Right? High performance, you know, sales in this industry. It all went through a high performance framework. And most firms don’t have that because of the BSPS. They can’t reconcile it.
Jason Mlicki (34:47.41)
Yeah, it’s interesting because we always talk about we call that a master point of view. So you’re the firm needs to have a master point of view that governs how they see the world at the highest level. And most firms of any scale, if they’ve got, you know, multiple practices that maybe serve multiple industries or have different sets of capabilities, don’t have it. In fact, we find most of those firms, they struggle to create like
practice specific points of view. So there’s not even a point of view for each individual practice. When really what you need to have is this master overarching worldview that everything ladders up to and inside of. And it’s sort of a bi-directional thing. I think that the larger firm gets, the harder it becomes, because it’s really hard for them to come up with an all-encompassing point of view like high performance, because it is so simplistic and so straightforward. And yet it’s critical.
Because if you don’t have it, then it’s sort of like, what’s the point of these practices coexisting in one firm? Might as split them apart. Like there’s no point in them being together. I’ve said that a lot through the years and people get really angry. I’m like, why do you have seven practices that are all disparate from each other? Why don’t you split them into seven firms? And they give me all these arguments and that’s fine. That’s fine. get it. get it. get it. But, know, look at the street, look at what happens on Wall Street. This stuff gets split apart all the time. You know?
Jeff (35:53.521)
That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right.
Jeff (36:14.534)
Yeah.
Jason Mlicki (36:15.04)
and for very good reasons. So if you can’t make a compelling case for why these practices need to coexist, then they probably shouldn’t.
Jeff (36:23.365)
Right, that goes back to what was it, the 70s? Growth strategy was all conglomerates, right? You just acquired a bunch of companies under a holding company name and, you know, they thought that was the way to go. It wasn’t, because a specialist always wins.
Jason Mlicki (36:37.26)
Yeah. And they spent the last 50 years tearing them apart, right? One of the other things I love about that conversation, this is really off topic, but is this notion that the valuation goes, the valuation of the diversified corporation goes to its least valuable asset. So if you have like a high growth AI enabled service inside of a firm with a really
low performing, commoditized offering, the valuation of AI firm gets dragged, AI’s practice gets dragged down to the value of the core. So essentially, you’re killing yourself if that’s what you’ve got. And so if you can’t make a cabling case for these things to coexist, shouldn’t, which is way off topic. But anyway, all right, let’s,
Jeff (37:26.193)
So you said something, so we can bring this to a close. You said every firm needs a firm-wide point of view. The IC triad is designed to develop that firm-wide point of view. And the reason is this IC triad is the driver for
Jason Mlicki (37:29.942)
Yeah, yeah, that’s where I want to get.
Jeff (37:54.905)
the individual brand preference drivers. So when you think about insights that marketing owns, its role, its purpose is to demonstrate expertise and build relevance in the market focus. So it’s always closing the gap, creating permission to play. That’s marketing’s role, primary role.
The doers and sellers contribute to that, but insights are designed to move the permission to play in the markets where the puck is going to be. The solutions or delivery is responsible for demonstrating results of producing
the desired results that our ideal client wants. Because you can demonstrate expertise, but if you haven’t applied it in the real world to give clients an ROI, you’re just an academic. That’s why the results are so important. Delivery owns that. They need to deliver on the brand promise. And then the third one, the ideal client sits on the sales side of the
molecular triangle and its responsibility is developing Simpatico. Now that’s not to say that sales is the only people are the only people that have relationships with the client, but they’re the primary driver of it. We demonstrate Simpatico in our insights when we’re communicating expertise, but the primary driver is sales. So in order for all these systems to work,
together, they need to be aligned with one another so that there’s a synergy that exists in producing those three brand drivers. Because brand preference defines winning because it makes it easier, faster, more profitable to sell. So the systems are set up to overcome the issues.
Jeff (40:21.935)
But ultimately, they do that in order to develop brand preference and deliver those brand drivers.
Jason Mlicki (40:29.504)
Yeah, I think we talked about brand preference as the ultimate measure when we talked about measuring marketing a couple of episodes ago. And I love it. I love that notion of that lens, that idea that if you just focus on that one thing, you will succeed.
Well, let’s take it to wrap. So I would encourage listeners to download the ebook. I think it’s really helpful. We talked about you’re probably going to create a one pager of the framework itself that they can download as well, which I think is also helpful. should have said that at the onset because it’s helpful to look at this while you’re talking through it because it helps you see how these things all fit together. So for the last episode in the trilogy,
you know, Luke is going to conquer the empire once and for all. no, they keep coming back. But no, no, Yeah. We’re actually, we’re going to, we’re going to really spend all of our, our time in this third episode on the IC, IC framework is that, you know, that’s where the IC. Try it, sorry. because that’s, think you opened it with the phrase, that’s where the rubber hits the road. That’s really where all this stuff gets manifested and where, you know,
Jeff (41:23.857)
The king is going to return.
Jeff (41:36.145)
Try it.
Jason Mlicki (41:46.334)
My guess is the firms are spending most of their time as in that system. So, all right, man. Thanks for taking us through this. Excited to do the final episode next week.
Jeff (42:01.745)
See you, buddy.
Jason Mlicki (42:02.904)
Cool, see ya.
