Jason Mlicki (00:02.067)
Jeff, I believe, believe you’ve brought us another wonderful guest today. So I want to thank you for that. And I I I feel like you you do a really good job of finding us really interesting people to talk to. And today’s guest is is is is gonna be amazing. So so Matt Zucker is with us today. Matt has served as the creative leader for some of the world’s leading agencies, including Ogilv1, Razorfish, and Omnicom.

Currently he is the CMO of the global strategy and creative firm Profit, where he leads a team focused on building the firm’s positioning as the uncommon growth company. And Matt, you actually came to us kind of kind of kind of through the podcast. So I think you listened to one of our episodes and reached out and said, Hey, you know, I I I really like that. And and then we we kind of connected that way. So maybe, maybe you or Jeff could could well first off, Matt, welcome to the show.

Mat Zucker (00:56.807)
thanks so much. Thanks so much. Yeah, no, I I think when you when you like something you hear, you should probably tell the people that did it. I just find it’s it’s polite. It’s also a good networking strategy. I tell young people this all the time for their careers. I’m like, who talks about what you’re interested in? Tell them. We don’t always know when we’re on a show like what what people think. We’re we’re s we’re craving feedback and I’m an egomaniac, so I crave it more than anyone. So I try to give it as well.

Jason Mlicki (01:07.656)
Yeah.

Jason Mlicki (01:22.676)
Yeah, well, we appreciate that. And and and and but but anyway, it prompted a conversation between the three of us around belief. You had written a piece around belief and this idea that professional services firms are are are now selling belief. they’re not selling a a product or a service, they’re they’re selling belief. So so talk to us about that. What do you what do you mean by that? Yeah, that’s why I kind of said, you know, what we’re opening with belief here. So what what does that mean?

Mat Zucker (01:51.653)
Yeah, so from my context, I led the marketing strategy practice at Profit for for a year. So I was helping clients and now I’m our act, you know, I’m our CMO, so I’m doing our head of marketing. So I’m kind of thinking about how to market the firm. And for for me, I wouldn’t say we’re not marketing product at all, because a lot of consulting firms and professional services firms need to commoditize what they do. Like it’s it’s it’s a thing that’s going on. What I’m saying is that it’s it’s it’s far not enough, and neither is expertise.

If anything, my my my villain in all this is trust. So for me, if you want to define belief, belief is sort of the con like the con in this context. It’s the client’s conviction that your firm could deliver an outcome that there’s not necessarily evidence for. It’s actually kind of religious. I don’t know if you’re religious or not, but there’s this it’s cause there’s this leap. And

Think of these three different like pieces. There’s the

Direction. I I believe this firm understands where we need to go. Right. So this is like super intellectual, it comes out of your thought leadership, your your insight. You get my industry. You get my industry. What’s that gonna happen? Right. There’s direction. There is capability, which is at the foundation of a lot of stuff. So I’m sure we’re gonna talk more about capability. Like these people are competent and they can get us there.

This historically has come from case studies, relevant case studies. And those aren’t completely untrue, but there’s room for a new a new a new proof, a new proof that has to exist that you can get us somewhere because it’s ex experiential. I think it’s also like how you show up in the room, the people. Like I think it’s also like what you’re like. I think people like to work with certain people. it could be the way you work too, which we can talk about too, because I think that’s been a real that’s been a differentiator for us.

Mat Zucker (03:48.975)
Not just the what, but the how. I think it is a a great weapon, not for everybody, but for for us it’s been very, very powerful too. And then there’s this like very super personal, like instinctive, intuitive thing is like, I’m gonna stake my rep like I’m gonna put my reputation on the line for this, right? I’m not gonna get fired for this. I’m gonna get promoted for this. And this is like super emotional, but it’s also like super political inside an organization because you’ve got all these other buyers and stuff. And and so you’ve gotta so for me, belief is.

is I know is is is is where it’s gonna go, conviction. You can do this conviction and y personal stake thing. It’s it’s more of a a gut a gut instinct, if that makes sense.

Jason Mlicki (04:34.896)
You know, I want to jump back for a second. I’m sorry, Jeff. I because you said something that actually struck me as really you really almost profound. Was that yeah, well, I’m looking for the right words, but you you basically said at that opening of that sequence, you basically said, as a buyer, I’m making a leap of faith that you can solve this problem, but you sort of implied that it had not been solved before.

Mat Zucker (04:45.988)
Only almost.

Jeff McKay (04:48.216)
Yeah.

Jason Mlicki (05:04.296)
That you know, there are certain problems that professional services firms and consulting firms solve all the time, right? You know, we’ve done this sale, we’ve done a gazillion Salesforce implementations. Here’s 50 case studies on our on our Salesforce implementations. And there were certain problems that have never really been solved. and it that’s kind of what you were implying. I want you to get dive into that, that, that juxtaposition of the two.

Mat Zucker (05:21.764)
Yeah, there’s both. There’s both. There’s w

Yeah, okay. Well well, first of all, you’re hired for problems that had been solved before. But what’s new, what’s new is the way you got there last time is not going to get you there this time. So there there requires a belief to to solve even yesterday’s problem in a new way. But there’s plenty of problems also that are just new and interesting and new white space. We went through this during the digital transformation, right? Like, you know, twice. so this is this is not we’ve been here before where there’s a whole set of opportunities.

that didn’t exist before, as well as ways of doing it. But I would argue belief is needed for for for almost any kind of assignment that comes in the in the door in two thousand twenty six in the head.

Jeff McKay (06:07.032)
Jason, it’s interesting that that you jumped on that. The thing that jumped out at me, Matt, and I think I heard you correctly when you said this, is that trust is the villain. What do you mean by that?

Mat Zucker (06:22.342)
So I guess everyone just uses trust. And I think I’ve built so many brand strategies with the word trust in them. And you know, I work in insurance a lot. And it’s so it’s true. Like trust is important. It’s just that trust is yesterday. Trust is coming out of I’ve done this before and there’s stuff and it’s fine. It’s just it’s not trust might get you in the room and get you on the short list. But it’s not gonna win. You forward the future.

Is is it and and and belief to belief is a is a layer on top of or an additional thing in addition to trust. They’re they’re not necessarily the same thing. Belief is like a a more active step f step forward. I just I just think it’s it’s I mean I like having a villa villain, so it’s for me trust trust is it. It’s just it’s it’s the past.

Jason Mlicki (07:15.476)
What I like about what you said, I mean, you you kind of laid out a couple things. One is like expertise isn’t enough. So you’re not selling expertise because everybody that’s in the room has expertise, or they wouldn’t be there in the first place. Trust is the next layer where again the same thing holds that, you know, if I’m letting you in the door, I’m a senior decision maker at a large corporation. If I let you in the door, I trust you on some level, most likely.

So now to your point, the s point of separation is now I gotta believe. I have to believe that you can take me where I wanna go. And if I don’t believe you can

Mat Zucker (07:53.445)
Yeah, and you can deal with whatever happens in month two, because things change, right? So wisdom, we talk about wisdom sometimes as this ingredient that that AI may not have yet. it might have a little bit of experien express expertise and it’ll acquire experience, but wisdom is sort of human. Wisdom is kind of a, you know, a magic sauce, obviously that helps you pivot or know where I’m going, or, you know, and I I kinda trust you to like make some decisions or I take you into the boardroom with me. I don’t just take you in a boardroom because you’re an expert.

‘Cause you could be like a schmigegi and look terrible and embarrass me. I’ll take you into the boardroom because I trust you, but also also I believe that no matter what comes up, and things will, the unexpected, you’re you’re gonna help me handle it. So to me that’s belief.

Jason Mlicki (08:41.842)
You know, the other thing that struck me, Matt, as you were talking, Jeff, I was alluding back to our conversation with Matt Dixon. And what we talked about in one of those discussions when we had him on was the recognition that loyalty is in decline. Right. So my point being that increasingly, cl to back to your comments about trust, Matt, that, you know,

Jeff McKay (08:59.181)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Mlicki (09:07.39)
Yeah, the trust is there, but I’m less likely to bu buy again. In fact, there’s there’s there’s evidence that that executive decision makers actually feel an obligation to look for new providers for new partners, new firms out of sort of like their mandate to the to the broader organization that I can’t just keep buying from the same firms I’ve always bought from.

Mat Zucker (09:30.439)
That’s a really good point. Because a lot of our winning strategy in some ways, some we win a lot, especially in new areas where we we haven’t been as as deep, you know, like as as you know, we’re like super deep in brand, right? But when we go into growth strategy and business strategy, sometimes we win not because we’re the most trusted, because they already have some friend, but they kind of hate working with them or they hate the way they work, or they hate or there’s somebody asks them to what else is out there, what else is out there? And so we’re you’re a challenger.

Jason Mlicki (09:51.284)
Ha ha.

Mat Zucker (09:59.907)
So if you if you’re the incumbent, you’ve trust. If you’re the challenger, you need some trust just to like get on the list, but you’re not going to win on trust. You definitely have to win on some kind of belief about how you work or what you show up with or your idea or something.

Jason Mlicki (10:21.566)
I like it. Okay. Now I got a little lost in the thread there. And I want you to, you may be re I may be asking you to repeat yourself. And if I am, I apologize. But how how do we actually how do we actually build belief? Like what what do we do? I mean, I know there’s you threw out a few things, but I kind of want you to kind of walk us through your thought process on how do I get a client to believe that I can take them where they want to go.

Mat Zucker (10:49.188)
Yeah. Well I I made a list ’cause that’s what I do.

Jason Mlicki (10:51.742)
Yeah. No, that’s great. Exactly what I want. Exactly what I need.

Mat Zucker (10:54.918)
Okay, so and so like most professional services firm, we publish a lot of IP. And so you’re you’re putting out IP, you still want it to be fact based and research based. but you know, I I think it has to be forward looking, right? Even even the business leader’s uncommon growth book playbook, which we just published like two weeks ago, is has got like a whole thing on on future back and future back innovation and how we believe going forward is is really important. So so your your IP has to be forward looking.

It still needs to be rooted in in in some kind of data. otherwise it’s just kind of a prediction, right? It’s it’s kind of light lightweight. You can’t really take take that into the boardroom. So even our forward looking research, we ground it in some in some proprietary data we we have done in the past, but we make the leap. You know, we it’s almost like using you know, benchmarks. Like benchmarks are fine, but benchmarks are only half the story. You have to do predictive modeling and scenario planning. Although if you only do benchmarks, you only get optimization like it doesn’t work. Like benchmarks are

are are not that helpful or or semi-helpful. so forward looking. The second thing is I think how you show up, we’ve been talking a lot about this is when we go to meetings, you instead of just the case studies, which you might want to do, and you or that might be in a submission to get you the credential in the room. But in the room, and maybe I know this from advertising, like you show up with an idea, right? Or you show up with client zero is a big topic right now, where you’ve got to use your own sauce.

So if you’re gonna talk about AI, you need to show them what you did for yourself. So we’re like the AI optimization I’m doing for profit, we’ll use as a case study to show other clients that because we do that. if you’re we show clients all the time our our proprietary platform or called Maya, our AI platform, that they’re we show them both that they’re gonna get access to it, that they’re gonna use it, and then some of them wanna build, we help them build their own, you know, like figure out their own.

So it’s it’s kind of like a little bit more of a demo. You’re showing up to demo ideas. I don’t think we’ll get to the like ad agencies do that torturous pitch type process where they bring ideas forward and business things. I kinda hope we don’t go there because that’s a little ridiculous and that’s been really painful for that that that part of the industry. I come from that and they’re trying to shake that. the free their free work thing. But I I do think how you show up is is is different with the proof of con the proof of

Mat Zucker (13:19.302)
concept that that builds belief, not just trust. And then, you know, I don’t know, grab some of their data, do a scan. I think you do something with with their stuff to show that you you get them. And those create a lot of belief generating activities when you play around. You can be really humble, like, look, we grab this, I’m not even sure how accurate it is, but if it’s true, if it’s true, this is what we think it’ll tell us. And we see three different directions you could go.

And these could be interesting choices for you. What do you think? Have you already done that? And I so I think there’s a very humble way to use client data or or something like it to be able to play with in the room. But it’s it’s it’s the live demo feel. And I think that bit builds belief, not just trust.

Jason Mlicki (14:07.018)
So really it’s sound I’m I’m gonna cluster it into three things. There there’s there’s there’s still IP, there’s still thought leadership, and and and you might tuck case studies in underneath that because i if they’re publicly available anyway, because they’re both demonstrating both an ability to solve the types of problems the clients might face and they’re demonstrating a forward th looking approach to things. the second thing is is is is it’s how you show up in the room.

Mat Zucker (14:12.88)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Jason Mlicki (14:37.214)
You know, and and then the third thing, I guess, you know, along along lines of that is also bringing fresh ideas. You know, Jeff, what you always talk about this idea that like new is new to me, right? So if you show up with something new to me, that’s valuable. I think the bar has been raised a little bit, especially particularly for experts, in the sense of like, because you can come up to speed pretty quickly on just about any industry, any company, any situation, any business problem that when you come in the door.

And you show up, you better show up with more than I can get off a chat GPT if you’re an expert on something. and if you can’t, then I then my belief probably declines as a buyer right now, if I had to guess. I don’t know. Would you agree? Or you think I’m wrong?

Mat Zucker (15:23.044)
Yeah, I mean I I think that’s that’s right on. And now you’re making me think of a fourth thing, which is sort of the language we use. which has always been sort of true. Like you gotta but now with with this new world, you’re also you know, we learned a lot in search that people search for keywords and and but the long tail phrases which have become the queries. Speaking the language of of the client and the and and and the customer has always been important, but I think it’s it’s really gonna be more important because if

If half your discovery is through the LLMs, then you need to speak what the robots are looking for too, not just you know and there’s a whole structural thing you have to do on the back end to connect the dots, like the way even we build our sites is is is different. But I’m not I’m not sure that’s a belief issue as much of an access visibility issue. So maybe that’s not as important to this.

Jason Mlicki (16:19.038)
Well, I think it’s both, actually. I I I would, you know, I was gonna say where I thought you were gonna go and you didn’t go was the the I always talk about you there’s certain firms that they look like an outsider in the room when they’re trying to talk to a client of a certain type. And you see this, I’ll pick on the accounting firms for a second. You see this in accounting firms a lot, where if you go to their websites, let’s say, and they and you go to their industry pages, because they all have industry pages, they sound like an outsider.

Offering an opinion about what’s going on in the sector. They don’t sound like someone inside the sector that really gets it. And I as a buyer, if I were in one of those sectors, if I went to that page, I would be turned off because I’d be like, Well, you’re you don’t really know what’s going on. You just sort of act like you’re trying to demonstrate you do, but you don’t really. and you can and and buyers can see through that. And I feel like that bar has been raised where it’s kind of like you know.

Mat Zucker (16:57.488)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Jason Mlicki (17:12.424)
that’s the best you’ve got. All you can do is kind of opine what’s happening around the sector, then you you kind of get you kind of get pushed out the door pretty quick. And and and there’d be no belief there. So I I don’t I don’t I have no belief that you can get me where I want to go because that there’s just no evidence that you can really understand you know what I face as a as a decision maker. so you agree with that or no?

Mat Zucker (17:40.321)
yeah, I think that’s that that’s right on too. It’s also making me think about the individuals, you know, and that they they they’ve been in your shoes or they’ve been through this before. And here’s how they never how well you have to get to know them. You did that episode on on personal branding, and you know, I think that’s still pretty, pretty relevant. I think the challenge now is personal branding has to be cohesive because of the new environment we’re operating in. So you have to have both, you need the the the cohesive brand.

brand so the robots know who’s part of what pe and people still being themselves so they’re p credible. But it’s all gotta add up. So it’s a it’s kind of a complicated puzzle.

Jason Mlicki (18:20.169)
It is.

Jeff McKay (18:20.684)
Yeah. Welcome to Professional Services. Welcome to Professional Services. It’s it takes such sophisticated sales marketing and and delivery. I I wanna revisit the how you show up. One of the things that I talk to my clients about is showing up as your best self. this this we are who we are and we need to find

Mat Zucker (18:23.377)
Ha ha ha.

Jason Mlicki (18:23.424)
Okay.

Jeff McKay (18:50.158)
Clients and environments that allow us to show up so that we are best selves in delivering work. What advice would you give to firms who are trying to think through this incredible element of belief about how you show up in the room? is this something

you know, that I really control or is it something that I just am?

Mat Zucker (19:26.342)
I mean, you have to be yourself, obviously. So if you’re a stuffed shirt, then you’re a stuffed shirt. maybe you should bring someone interesting. I think there’s just things to amplify, whatever you dis you know. So we don’t just talk about differentiation, we talk about relevance. Like how are we relevant to your need? Not just no not just are we interesting. Like we’re the uncommon growth company. So we’re a challenger. We’re gonna look for other ways to do things, we’re gonna look for alternative routes, we’re gonna s you know, we’re gonna say the old playbook doesn’t work.

But that’s not enough to have you believe. I think you’ve got to like like that. And if you’re not really like that, it’s a little tricky because it’s like, well, is the need there? Do you need a more conservative approach? Well, we can be that too, but maybe it’s different people that are in the room. So I think casting is is important. I think you gotta bring in the people that are gonna work on the project. I think you know, no one wants the bait and switch, even if you can’t promise everyone.

I think love and passion goes a long way. Like if you research someone’s problem and think of different ideas, that helps. I I think showing up in the room with demos instead of just forty page decks shows a humility and a c collaboration. One thing that really struck me coming over from advertising to consulting was I would I used to take the brief, go away and come back with an answer or two and I was right or wrong. And here it’s a very collaborative, like we’re gonna do this together.

You know, I know I know some firms have their way of doing things, but we’re like, I don’t know, we’re in this with you. We’ve got some methodologies and we’re gonna not we’re gonna use something different if it doesn’t work for you. but it’s about doing it with you, not not at you. and I think that goes a long way regardless of of who you are. But you st you still have to be your be yourself. I mean I you know, if I put on too suit like a tie, like I don’t look like myself, but if I I could wear a a jacket.

Jason Mlicki (21:19.422)
Yeah, I I’m only la thinking about what you just said, and it’s totally true. Ad agencies try to keep purposely keep the client at arm’s length, right? Try to keep them out of the sauce. because if they get in the sauce, they’re gonna muck it up. We’ve got too many cooks in the sh in the sauce, right? As they say. and consulting firms are kind of the opposite. It’s like, well, we actually want them to be as involved as we can. we want to collaborate. We want to, I mean we’re, you know, frequently, you know, big firms that we’re embedded, we’re working on site.

you know, so it’s very much part of the culture. get to a minimum viable product or whatever, you know, right? it’s interesting. I I I wanna I want you to talk about something else. There’s a couple other things you wrote about that there was an article I we’ve alluded to this a couple times and we’ll include it in the show notes. There was a article you wrote that fostered a lot of this conversation for us. And I wanna talk about something you said in there that I thought was really interesting because

Jason Mlicki (22:21.588)
Well there’s two other pieces of that. One is about the need to build belief earlier in the buying pri cycle. The idea that we that like we you have to earn that belief much sooner than maybe you needed to in the past. Talk to us a little bit about that. What what what what are the indicators that that’s true to you and what what are the implications of it?

Mat Zucker (22:43.706)
Well you you’ve probably seen the research from I think it was like LinkedIn and some of the consulting firms, but it was KPMG. They do a lot around, you know, sh shadow buyers and the buying circles. I mean there’s a lot there’s a lot out there. Gardner does it too. And that there’s more buyers than just the one you know. So you’ve got a job to do with some other people that you’re gonna eventually hopefully meet. And if they don’t know you, you’re not gonna win. So there’s something earlier to do

And that’s less around belief, that’s just around trust, right? Just baseline like brand recognition. I’ve heard of them before.

Mat Zucker (23:21.882)
You probably need to push it further. So you you need an advocate in the room and probably more than one that believes you. And then you need a whole bunch of other people that trust you. You’re not gonna get everyone to

But as we all know, the decision process is happening earlier and people are getting filtered out much earlier, especially if they’re using the LLMs, but even in in traditional search, which is getting, you with the AI overviews, you know, you’re still getting even word of mouth, like how people hear about you. They’re only hearing about a another. So you’ve got a lot of work to do a lot earlier with building not just credibility, but that kind of di differentiation. So the Uncommon Growth Company for us was a way of saying.

Hey, you want like it’s not just competing to to do slightly better version than who you have. It’s do you want a different way of looking at it? Do you want something different way? Like which is we think is very appealing. At least in many cases, maybe not in every, but you can’t you can’t do everything. so that’s so I I think you need it earlier to to stick out. And what we’re learning about how everything works, the ecosystem works, is that all these other pieces.

are are are connecting much earlier in the in in the in the process and you can just lose and win earlier. This happened when search started too. I think it’s just an e extension of that too. The tricky thing with belief earlier is that I mean belief is a relationship, right? So you you may not trust that I know the future in the first meeting. So I gotta start working at it much earlier and show you different ways I’ve done it and which ways I’m predicting. And that’s where like LinkedIn conversations or published columns and op-eds and things like that or speeches.

you know, make things interesting. It’s like, I want that, I want that, I’m interested. I want to hear more about that. So as much as the speeding the purchase process can speed up because people make decisions faster, you also have to do a lot more earlier, I think, to if you want to build a layer of emotion, trust, or the capa those capability directions I mentioned earlier. and not just not just the the Forrester ranking that you’re on the landscape.

Jeff McKay (25:28.226)
Man, you used words like belief, love, passion. this this sounds like almost spiritual and very much emotional. which is so foreign to professional services, but real. But I I mean really because

Jason Mlicki (25:50.901)
Ha ha ha.

No, it’s true, that’s why I’m laughing.

Jeff McKay (25:54.083)
The firms are full of rational people talking about rational stories. And now you’re proposing something that is quite irrational, if you will, emotional. visceral is probably the better word. because belief takes faith, doesn’t it?

Mat Zucker (26:21.444)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it takes faith that you’re gonna get me where I’m going, that you can solve the problem, that you’ll make me look good. There’s ego in it, that if things change or you’ll help me fi fix it. because there’s unknowns. I think everyone admits, even with known product, even things you’ve done ten times. Right, like if you’ve done if you’ve gone to if you’ve been to three companies and done three brand transformations.

And then you have one tomorrow. It’s a different world, right? So it’s gonna be it’s gonna look different the way you do it. So even though it should be a playbook, it there’s a new playbook. so so I think I think it is emotive. I think there are some rational elements within it that you’ve done this before, you know what it would do. You can show up in the room, you can put on a sport coat. so I think there are rational beats. I think it’s completely emotional, but it definitely has that spiritual leap of faith.

to to to do the to do what hasn’t been done before or to do what’s been done before in a new way.

Jeff McKay (27:27.288)
So if I’m a if I’m a consultant and I’m listening to this conversation, or I’m a managing partner, because I think there’s there’s an individual response and then there’s a collective firm response that a managing partner might drive. If I’m an individual consultant listening to Matt Zucker talk about belief and that I’m so I’m selling belief.

What do I have to do differently than what I’m doing today?

Mat Zucker (28:03.312)
So I would look at your stuff, like what you’re bringing in the room and how you talk. And it’s probably mostly right. Like you’re probably proving the trust and expertise argument. I think you ask yourself is what can I do?

What are the unknowns? The way the market’s gonna go, the way the culture’s going, the way the business is going, the way technology’s changing. What can I do to show if things change in three months, I’m ready? Or how can I talk about how we’ve been doing it differently rather than the same? Be a little more transparent, probably too, and be a little more humble. I I think you have to be more transparent. Just like you’re elevating, you know, more younger people that are more savvy about technology.

You should also you can be more transparent about how you do something. so yeah, I think there’s subtle changes to how you show up and and what you share. I think adding in some content that’s predictive is probably a smart move. I think we’re onto something with future back, not just backward looking. I think a lot of the consultancies and firms, I don’t I don’t know about the accounting firms, also show up with a lot of history. And I think history is probably fifty percent of the answer. What’s the other fi what’s the other fifty percent? Bring it.

Jason Mlicki (29:17.896)
Well, to your point, I I you know the vast majority of consulting spend is about realizing a d a desired future state. I want a different reality than the one that I have right now in almost every situation. It’s why you’re making the buy. Yet firms show up talking about everything that they’ve done in the last ten years. So they spend a whole bunch of energy looking backwards.

Mat Zucker (29:47.173)
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I would add one more thing actually is also the execution. I think we spend so much time on the strategy and the insight, which is great, and that’s what you get probably paid for the premium. But I think a lot of consulting firms and other kinds of professional services firms need to also show up with more of the execution. Whether you’re gonna do it or not, actually demonstrate the knowledge that like and the way you’re gonna do this is XYZ. Like basically here’s the here’s the roadmap and here’s the reality. Because I think

I think people have got a lot of PowerPoint thrown at them. And I think the action, the actionability and this the w we call it speed to impact, the rush, the urgency is very paramount. I mean, look, we we acquired a firm and we do full end to end now, including media. So when we talk about creative transformation or brand transformation, we can actually tell you how much you should spend, where you should spend it, what you should do, whether you use us or not, to to execute it. But I think execution is it’s funny, when I came from agencies.

Everyone up here like was thinking like there’s strategy and execution. And I’m like, how naive are you? There’s strategy in execution, first of all. And and also strategy’s like the smallest part of it. Execution is the biggest part of it. It’s the biggest pain point. It’s the organizations. The mo it’s much more money. so I I think having some savvy around how how you’re gonna do this should take up more than a slide in the deck.

Jeff McKay (31:13.57)
Yeah. And and I think that’s that’s so true today with AI, because there are so many unknowns. there are so many possibilities as well. so I I think that’s a great point.

Mat Zucker (31:31.59)
Yeah, and that’s where partners help, right? You can say, look, there’s different people you can use to help you execute us or other people, and here’s how to do it. Here’s the ecosystem required to to get it. And it is urgent. Like you gotta you gotta get some betas out fast. We can’t really time is not on everyone’s side. So y you y sp speed quality matters still, of course, but speed speed’s kind of paramount.

Jeff McKay (31:55.961)
So if that’s the case, what would you tell our listeners today, if you could do just one thing to get the ball rolling on selling belief, what would you have them do?

Mat Zucker (32:08.006)
I would do so so ch Chansu, our chief digital officer, who’s also kind of my ball. I followed him from Mom to come. Here. He’s like he encouraged me to come into consulting. He’s been advocating for partners to show up at meetings. And I don’t know if he’s saying don’t don’t bring a deck, but like he’s like bring a demo. Show them show them our platform, show them a model. And it’s it’s pretty like, you know, we’ll see how many people do it, but I think it’s really exciting. And I’ve seen him do it, and it makes a big difference with the clients. They want to see stuff.

They want to see behind the curtain. And you can use your own stuff as as client zero as as the example. So I’m sure you can you know, you can’t really sometimes you can’t show other clients stuff. But so that that’s the one thing I would do is is show up differently, show them something, and don’t don’t lecture at people but put do to it do it with them and and see what happens. You might get a more provocative conversation. And a faster a faster sale.

Jason Mlicki (33:00.276)
Yeah, that makes sense.

Jeff McKay (33:00.962)
Hmm, that’ll perk up people’s ears.

Mat Zucker (33:02.906)
Yeah, yeah. Matt Matt Matt Zucker promises faster sales.

Jason Mlicki (33:08.554)
All right, well then let’s a couple a couple quick things I wanted to ask you. One is w what do you want to tell us about the uncommon growth company? You know, just in general. Like what do you want to tell us about profit? What do you want to tell us about that that phrase? what would you like us to know about about profit and as it relates to your to the way you’re positioning

Mat Zucker (33:29.456)
We we’ve talked about uncommon growth and the promise to help clients unl unlock that for a long time. Only in the last two years did we declare ourselves the uncommon growth company or the down. And it was a kind of a way to align everything we’re doing. And of course, like you said, we have to define what we mean by that. And it’s it’s not just exponential growth. We’re not and I don’t know if you can promise exponential growth, but you can say it is high impact growth.

that is that is sustainable, meaning year after year. So it’s not just a quick burst. And it’s not not optimization. That’s the enemy. So it’s it’s hot it’s it’s growth that is sustainable. That is a little more human, however you want to take that, like it’s a little more interesting. It’s less robotic. Doesn’t mean robot robots won’t help you do it. It’s actionable, meaning speed to impact. You can it’s like you can get in market and and you’ll you’ll sense it.

And so we kind of developed this definition. And it was a way to guide people to look for alternative routes to things, an interest in creative problem solving that’s still pragmatic and insight driven. And then we researched a couple hundred companies and looked at who had exponential growth patterns over a couple years. This was our research about a year and a half ago, called Uncommon Growth and Uncommon Times. And we did a whole campaign in the Wall Street Journal about it.

And what we found was the what the levers were that you would want to pull behind those companies that that that that fit the that the definition worked and that what were the elements that they would do, which is like around customer transicity, pervasive innovation, and you know, there was a couple elements that work. We had some good examples. So that was great, because then we could say, okay, how do you now, and that’s why we released the new playbook, the business leaders.

Uncommon growth playback. So, how do you do that? So we’ve identified the five shifts you got to make. And then here’s how, you know, here’s the things you might go to. So be be super practical, that emphasis on kind of execution, like I mentioned, the the how. So uncommon growth has a has a broad definition, but it’s rooted in being able to maintain it. Kind of ex it is kind of exponential, but you don’t want to promise exponential.

Mat Zucker (35:56.559)
And it’s also like highly actionable rather than theoretical.

Jason Mlicki (36:03.4)
I like it. All right. and then two last things. One is tell us about your your your podcast. So you you you you host your own podcast. So so let’s take a moment to to plug the podcast.

Mat Zucker (36:16.678)
This is the most important thing you’ll hear the show.

Jason Mlicki (36:18.92)
Ha ha ha.

Mat Zucker (36:21.584)
So I got into podcasting because I was I did radio commercials because no one wanted to give me TV. So I got into radio early on. I got into the first wave of podcasting. So I’ve been a podcast addict during all its waves. So it’s finally here. I have two podcasts. One is City It, about moving from the city to the Hudson Valley to the country. So City Boy moves to the country and it’s more of a a a travel, like encouraging people to to go more rural. to give up on your on your craven urban lives and come see cows and sheep and goats.

And then the second one is more relevant, probably to this audience. It’s called Rising. It’s about marketing careers and media and innovation careers. Profit co-sponsors it with our agency that’s a friend of ours called Direct Agents, my buddy Josh Boaz. DirectAgence is a great acquisition agency and media agency. and we we we basically interview people about their career trajectories. We’ve done some CMOs and some senior folks, but we’re kind of most interested in

the next level down, those that are still rising, like the number twos. So if listeners have, and we can go outside marketing a little bit, if you’ve got any suggestions on some amazing people who are number two rather than number one, I think we’d be very interested because we we think of them as our future clients, but we’re also really interested in what they’re going through. but we’ll take a CMO or a a a CFO if we can if we can get one. But I think there’s a lot of podcasts out there for that. So this is a little bit better of a niche.

Jason Mlicki (37:46.046)
Like it. And if someone wants to find you, how can they find you?

Mat Zucker (37:51.982)
I guess LinkedIn like everyone, although I’m really into Substack right now. And I’m surprised this didn’t come up on your personal branding thing, is that a lot of people are developing Substacks for their personal branding. And there’s interesting some people are even pulling off LinkedIn or using them both in differently. So I have a Substack newsletter called Sugar and Spice, which I cover a mix of marketing, moving to the memoir moving to the Hudson Valley and mem and memoir, three M’s. So it’s about a third a third marketing oriented. So Substack or LinkedIn I would use. I’m not really on Twitter anymore.

Jason Mlicki (38:00.727)
yeah.

Mat Zucker (38:20.794)
I’m use I’m trying to blue sky, are you? I’m trying to use it. Yeah. Yeah, I don’t know, that’s why I’m alone.

Jason Mlicki (38:27.422)
I highly doubt that.

Jeff McKay (38:30.99)
But when your sugar and spice and everything nice, so

Mat Zucker (38:34.365)
Yeah.

Jason Mlicki (38:36.874)
Well, I really enjoyed this. It was very thought provoking. I really like the way you’re sort of challenging some I’ll just say challenging some some cultural norms of professional services that have existed for a long time and and asking people to think a little more deeply about what it is they’re actually selling and and how they’re going to market.

And interesting, and I enjoyed it very much. So Matt, thanks for joining us, and and then also thanks for listening. I appreciate it.

Mat Zucker (39:08.056)
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I’ll I’ll keep listening.

Jason Mlicki (39:11.188)
Ha ha ha.