Beat Startup Competition With Narrative-Led Growth | Joe Daniels | The Buyer's Journey

so I started a new video series called the buyer Journey where I chat with marketers high level operators and Founders all within the B2B SAS industry revolving around the modern B2B buyers Journey so how to stand out when competition is at an alltime high how startups can remove friction from the buyer Journey which is now a competitive disadvantage and then how to efficiently grow rather than this wasteful spending that the entire SAS industry was built upon over the last decade so this episode I'm with Joe Daniels he helps startups with narrative L growth future episodes are going to be posted on a new YouTube channel which I've Linked In the description so if you like my content here please go to go subscribe to me there um I'm still going to be posting more personal content on this channel don't worry um but yeah I'll stop talking now and go to the episode all right we're live so today I'm joined by Joe the the founder at an agency called Spiel we were just discussing the the best way to pronounce that got it right um so my understanding is you you work with early stage startups helping them well not necessarily early stage but startups um helping them take more market share through narrative Le growth which is interesting it's not something I've heard before and I think we can dig into precisely what that means but is there anything you'd like to add to that intro Joe and also it just be good to get a quick background uh on yourself yeah no thanks for having me on um yeah so that I mean that was all very accurate and the pronunciation was spot on which is good um so yeah a bit about me so yeah I launched shiel earlier this year so it's quite young in its infancy still um prior to that I worked at a agency called trial and we did positioning and messaging for other agencies and consultancies if that makes sense it's kind of meta in that sense so like a marketing agency might come to Tre and be like oh you know there's there's loads of marketing agencies out there how do we stand out from the rest of them and so our job at Tre was to to figure out how to help them do that and the initial sort of Playbook that we had was all based around niching because that was kind of the advice that everyone would give right is like pick a niche go all in on that Niche and you'll win it and what we found was I think mostly As a result of the p pic that uh a lot of agencies were like well I don't want to Niche because what if I'd niched into um you know tourism and travel for example well then we'd be screwed right now so so what happened was that as agency Founders became less and less interested in niching we were like well what's what are some other ways that they can stand out and be different and one of the things that you know me and uh my boss at the time Roland kind of co-created together with this concept of positioning around a narrative and that narrative for an ageny generally was sort of along the lines of what's your philosophy or approach or point of view um and that seems to work pretty well in the agency world and when I left treel I was like oh you know my my roots were back in SAS that was where I sort of first started my career and I was like maybe I should go back there with the armed with this new kind of narrative knowledge and and see if it works for SAS because you know B2B SAS especially and agencies are very much the same business model really it's just one done with people one done with with software um so yeah so then I started Spiel and um here I am talking about talking about narrative uh for B2B SS got it interesting so so you know I I run an agency I mean I'm I'm kind of phasing it out um but I've I've had an agency over the last two years or so and so I'm very familiar with that space I'm also very familiar with the SAS industry because I've I've worked in the SAS industry and I work with SAS companies um I'm just interested to know like what do you what business do you think is harder to make stand out like agencies or SAS companies I'm interested to hear your perspective on that honestly it's it's I think they both both Industries have the same underlying problem right which is that there's a lot of them there's a lot of competition out there way more than there's ever been before because in the agency world it's now easier than ever to start an agency I mean it's not I mean as we both know it's not easy but it's the barrier to entry is lower right like it's it's easier to get started and just sort of set it up and get running with it and it be at a Onan operation and so on and the barrier to entry for SAS is also lower now that you've got all the no code platforms that you can build a product with AI now coming into The Fray as well like it's again the barrier to entry to even start to start building ass SAS products is lower and what that means is ultimately there's more and more products or agencies that do solve the same problems and I think even even if you Niche down now the problem is that Niche is still probably being served by at least two or three other competitors or that or like it's it's such a it's kind of what I call like a a false Niche where it's like oh I've niched into sports brands but actually that's just because you've decided to do it for sports brands like there's nothing about you that means you should do it for sports brands do you see what I mean it's almost like a you've chosen it arbitrarily and actually that niching isn't an advantage there like you know if I want if I'm a sports brand I want to know why I should choose you specifically and if it's just oh well because I I like sports and decided to n to sports friends that's not really a valid reason to pick you right so so in terms of standing out I think I think the hard part I suppose with agencies is that it's very people-based right like it is about the people and so when you start talking about differentiators in terms of your people it can instantly sound quite fluffy and a bit sort of you know not very tangible and so I think the challenge there is how do you take what's essentially kind of like a fluffy personable thing and turn it into like an actual tangible advantage and reason to choose your agency and then on the flip side with SAS it's almost got like the opposite problem right which is that which is that it's very tangible often it's very much like oh these are our products features and capabilities this is what it does but it's like well so do all these other products right they all have the same functionality they all have the same features they're all basically the same product so then the challenge becomes how can you almost add that fluffy layer and obviously you doesn't want to be fluffy but how do you add that layer of difference to something that's at heart the same and that's really for me where the narrative side came in which is if you have a narrative around built around your product and a clear sort of point of view on the category that your product sits in well that instantly gives you an edge and gives you something to talk about other than o product ases XY and Z if that makes sense yeah yeah no no yeah I I was just interested to hear that because my view is that the agency space is super super super crowded because you know yeah I mean you don't there's really no setup costs you can get a website for free in the UK you can create a company for 15 pound and it takes 15 minutes um you know you don't even need a website to be honest um and it's really just monetizing your skills whereas software you know you need a product but again we are getting to that point where that's also I wouldn't call it easy but it's it's it's it's becoming quicker um and so I was just interested to your thoughts on that so sorry was you going to say I think what I think yeah no no it's all right I think I think the difference as well and is what we're seeing is like historically I suppose with SAS there was that barrier to entry of if you know for example me I'm not a developer I can't code it would be really hard for me to build a product historically but actually now if I wanted to I could probably go and couble together some kind of I let's say a CRM using no code platforms and stuff and sort of after a few weeks probably kind of have a functioning product right and so you know short it's not going to be the best product in the world because it's cuz I'm doing it but but like it it's that barrier to entry I think is lower and so yeah it's not easy but it's definitely easier than it ever has been and I assume is only going to get easier as time goes on yeah for sure no I completely agree with that so I guess what is narrative L growth then you know typically um you know I'm I'm personally you like you maybe see through my content and stuff I like labeling things I like Packaging things cuz I think it makes um them more attractive it also enables you to develop a narrative around that thing so I'm interested to hear in your eyes what is narrative Le growth you know what's the mission behind it and yeah we can kind of dig into it from there yeah cool so I think I suppose the best way to start is to almost talk about why I think it's needed and I think it it stems from the conversation that we've just had about how it's easier than ever you know the barriers to entry are lower for you know if we talk about specifically B2B SAS but anyone can now kind of Cobble together a B2B SAS product and generally speaking I think if you go into any kind of category and any kind of Market there's going to be multiple players in that market and the the past advice for maybe the past 10 years or so has basically all been around the whole like you know there's a lot of like product Le growth movement out there right and and product Le growth is really good when it comes to that kind of convincing them that your product is good you know I mean it's like it's like oh I get to try it out free trial premium products you know all of those tactics that are taken for granted now obviously like were you know we created around 10 years ago I think and what happens is is now people assume that that means they can just build the the product and it will kind of sell itself and that's I think a bit a trap I call it the plg Trap that people fall into which is that actually it only works if you're the only product solving that spe that problem right if you're the only CRM in the world well great yeah just show people what it does and they'll go oh I need this but that's no longer the case you know it maybe used to be the case that you could kind of create a one-of A- kind products but it's virtually impossible now to do that or if you have you still have to then educate people on you know what it is and how and like why they even need it right so so what I figured was instead of you know the the sort of common messaging advice and positioning advice and so on right now which is be very clear and show what your product does and people will choose it based on that it's more well how can we engage the buyers in a way that isn't selling the product and the reason for that is buyers don't really trust sales and that's always always probably been the case but it's getting worse there seems to be a bigger gap between buyers and sellers than ever as I'm sure you know and so instantly if you're like going to pitch in your products mode then the buyers oh you know you just I've seen this all before I've seen these you've got five websites sell be on the same functionality like it's like why do I how do I choose you know is the is the ultimate question and unless you want to compete on price which which obviously you shouldn't then you need to compete on something else and so at the heart of narrative L growth is this idea of having a a narrative and a category point of view and they're both kind of interchangeable they're both two sides of the same coin and essentially the the core principle is that you sell people in on that you sell people in on your point of view and if they buy into your point of view then they'll automatically be bought into your product because your product is how you bring that point of view to life if that makes sense so um you know as an example if uh a good example is a company called comma I don't know you've heard of them um they have like this whole go to network thing right and so you know they recently published this whole Playbook where it was like oh you know the sales development rep that's evolve it should evolve into a network development rep they basically put forward their point of view and actually most of their marketing if not all is focused on communicating that narrative and that point of view and the idea is people either go know this is just a load of nonsense load of rubbish I don't don't like this at all it's wrong and therefore would never have been a good customer in the first place for for their product and so it filters out the bad ones who already disagree with you but also it means that people like myself for example like will read and engage this and go oh this is really cool I'm now talking about it on on this podcast right and and and spreading the word almost of their narrative and their point of view and if I decide oh well actually I need to really work on my go to network stuff obviously coma is going to be the product that used to do that it would be weird to to engage with all of this and then go right what who's going to help me with that because because I already know right comort are going to help me with that so I think it's all about owning a a place in people's minds but also in people's hearts because it's kind of a movement it's kind of an emotional resonance thing that goes on and therefore the product kind of sells itself is really the logic behind it um so yeah I just information at you no no it's good this is this is good and you know something I think deeply about a lot um there's there's loads of resources out there on on stuff like this like for example uh Eugene Schwarz uh kind of OG copywriter Advertiser he talks about um Market sophistication um and in like in so basically in the beginning stages if you're like the first product to Market you can do what the hell you want because you're the first product right it's like you know the first um Fitness coach right you know you know they could just they owned the market they could get whoever they wanted but then you know as more competitors enter the market well then it's like you need to introduce something new it's like okay well I'll help you get fitter through my my I don't know my My vup Method right so they introduce like a new method and then more competitors enter the market but that at the last stage of sophistication he talks through that the best way to to win is through identification identify with your Market being the only thing for them like you know just really really identifying with like a small group of people or a specific group of people rather than being this all-in-one solution um you become uh identified with this movement or whatever um so that's a really good resource on that also Russell Brunson talks about it a lot in his um expert Secrets book as well about creating a movement you know you look at any um person of authority whether it be political whether it be military um you know they've basically if you look at what they've done is they' they've essentially created movements whether it be for good sometimes it's for bad things um but it's all about having a story and identifying with people even to the to the like to give a real specific example like in America the red hat that says magger or make America great again like people ident with that and they become part of a tribe so like this is all really deeply um resonating with me for sure um really good and I think um yeah sorry go no no no no go ahead go ahead yeah and I was just going to say I think I think the politics parallels are really interesting thing you know we've just had the election over here in England right and um and I think as a marketer I can't help but kind of almost watch from like a distant point of view as the events unfold and be like oh why are they doing that how have they positioned themselves how is that party campaigned and like it's it's very much like almost like a marketing hot bed of activity for like a good couple of months here and and I think when you look you know this is a very sort of very Niche thing so if you have listening to this and and you're not in England it probably means nothing but like when you look at say the green party and Reform Party who are two very small parties over here I think one of the reasons reform did really well in terms of the votes despite being so young is that they have quite a clear narrative like do I agree with it no but like it it it's objectively a very strong case that they put forward it's very tangible it's very much like vote for us because we believe in this thing it's very concrete it's easy for people to understand and go either either I I align with it or either I don't whereas when you look at you know the bigger parties like labor and conservatives it's actually kind of hard that they've got so many different things going on that it's hard to say with absolute conviction oh this party stands for this do you know what I mean and so I think I think the rise of parties like reform and green who have also had their best election is partly because of how people now want to believe in something and St and stand up and align themselves with something but it's it's hard to do that if your message is muddled and you're sort of spanning different narratives at once whereas if you a smaller and have one clear narrative one clear story that you're selling it's easier for people to buy into it I think so a good a good parallel yeah so what um there there's a few books on this so something Russell Brunson talks about in his book expert Secrets is that you want to have rather than having what he calls an improvement offer which would be you know okay we're cheaper or we're better um or you know we have one more feature than our competitors rather than being an improvement offer try to create an entirely new opportunity so I I actually reached out to Mac and complimented in on on that ndr Playbook because that's what they've done is you know they've they've basically created this entire new um opportunity rather than saying like oh you know our products a bit better than this product or we're cheaper or whatever they've created like an entirely new opportunity and that's what people want people don't want just something marginally better um because there's also at psychological level to to to go after an improvement after it offer it involves you accepting that you were doing something wrong and we never like to accept that um we're wrong and so we want an entirely new opportunity um I think there's a book out there I haven't read it yet where it's about basically creating a new category rather than competing in an existing competitive market um just try to create your own which is obviously what drift did in like 2015 16 um yeah I could geek out about the stuff but I'm interested yeah I'm I'm interested to hear like what what um what are the steps to creating a good narrative like you know I think it's clear the the problem um you know we we've talked about the solution which is creating a narrative but how do you actually create a good one yeah so it's hard for status there a lot it's uh it's it's funny because I do I have like a process and a framework that I work through with clients or or attempts to work through with clients what inevitably happens is it all gets derailed and it's just kind of this weird conversation debate discussion argument thing that happens and and somehow out of that is birthed this this narrative but I think I think there is some fundamental kind of building blocks that I suppose you need um how you get to them can obviously vary basically from time to time um but I think you know the first thing to realize uh is a bit of a mindset shift I think when a lot of people think about storytelling for their business they they make their products the hero you know they're like oh we're the hero because we've got all these capabilities look at us and it's like well no that's should have been case the hero should be your buyers your customers they're the ones that are on this journey they're the ones that have this problem your job is to essentially be their sidekick right so I always make the Luke Skywalker Yoda comparison like their Luke Skywalker your Yoda sort of sitting on their back going oh go that way and um I think the first thing to do is Define who that hero is and the more specific you can get the the stronger generally your narrative will be because obviously if you're talking to to multiple different types of people it's hard to find that unifying thread that sort of ties them all together it is possible but it's a lot harder um so I mean a good example of one where it is possible is like um wants which is like a new suite of products launched by the guys at 37 signals their whole thing is essentially anti soft anti-as right like it's like oh actually let's go back to oneoff payments where you own it sort of thing and it's as if they've invented it when actually you know it's old it's like the old way doing it but like but what they're doing is actually that's a story that's a narrative that unifies all kinds of buyers within SAS right like you know if you you could take someone from customer success at a small startup and someone from marketing at a massive Enterprise cul company and actually both might share that view right so so you can have these kind of macro level narratives and it can work it's it's harder but you can do it um but it is harder which is why I generally suggest sort of you know not niching per se but at least narrowing down who that person is that you're talking to um and the type of company they work for with it being a B2B sort of thing um but I also think don't over complicate it you know sometimes you have these personas that go into like immaculate detail about how many kids they've got and like what what like they cut their lawn to and stuff like that and it's like that doesn't matter right like it so so I think very much just kind of like who is this person what company do they work for and then the big thing is really what are they trying to achieve that they currently can't achieve or are finding it hard to achieve and that's kind of building block number one building block number two is is the the villain of the story and this again can take a few different forms depending on depend on where you're at and where your categories at and so on and so one common type of villain would be like what I call the status so it's like what what the vill the villain is essentially the current way of doing things and you're essentially saying yeah you know that like that doesn't work for x y and Zed and like you said you have to be careful not to be like you're doing it wrong it's more generally as an industry we've got this wrong and we've LED you down the wrong path so now let's kind of redirect you down the right path and um you know it could be so as simple as you're currently using spreadsheets if we go back to the CRM example imagining that crms didn't exist it could be like you're currently using a spreadsheet to track all of this data on you know your on your potential customers well actually we've got a CRM that does that all for you automatically it's like so the villain there is essentially the old way which is a spreadsheet right so it's he kind of fighting against the outdated way of doing it but you could also pick a villain which pick a fight which is like a direct competitor if you really wanted to do that like it's again it's riskier tends to work well if you're picking a fight with like a massive competitor you know kind of like a David versus Goliath story because you're probably so small but that Goliath would be like it doesn't even matter right like they're going to ignore you whereas if you pick someone York size they might fight back right that becomes a bit more brutal um and so a good example of that is butter docks uh which I'm sure you might have seen everyone's talking about butter at the moment but they have this whole thing which is they've picked a with Google Docs specifically and their whole homepage is basically why Google Docs is bad and why butter docs is better um so yeah the villain could be another tool specifically another company specifically or and this is where the category point R viw comes in it could be like a concept sort of fighting against a concept that that everyone's kind of taken for granted and you're sort of flipping it around and going why do we do that and that's where coma comes in as the example is is almost like well we've all taken it for granted that salespeople need to just do a load of cold Outreach and play the numbers game and they've done well why is that though and then so they're challenging that kind of category norm and going well what if there's a different way um that for me is generally the strongest play because it it's that's really what gets the movement going it's harder to start a movement that's like oh we're anti- Google Docs you know like you can but like it's it's harder to to get that kind of momentum behind I suppose um so that's the second building block the third building block and this is the important bit is is where is how your product solves that problem because I think it's easy to go down this narrative storytelling route and kind of make it be a bit again a bit fluffy and sort of talk about oh this is our vision this is our mission this is the you know the Founder's origin story it's like none of that actually really matters so much they might be influencing the narrative but really it's kind of it needs to call back to your product because if it doesn't well then no one's going to know what your product does Forever them right so like it still has to tie into your product and I think this is where I I call it the superpower and it's where you've taken that that problem that villain and you've gone well this is how we solve it this is how our product solves it specifically and what it means is instead of just doing a whole feature jump thing you're focusing on One Core capability One Core solution that your product offers and that kind of then wraps the story up it's kind of that three promp approach you know you've got number one is your hero your customer and they're trying to achieve something number two is why they can't currently achieve it or they can but it's a lot more effort for example than than than it should be and number three is how to overcome that obstacle that villain with the help of your Sidekick which is the the product they're the kind of three main building blocks I would say if I had to summarize them of what your narrative should have yeah love that love that yeah very um tactical and I completely agree with it I think the especially with the the the sort of enemy I call them like common enemies things that you can throw stones at together rather than cuz yeah you never want to pick apart your target audience because they'll take it personal um but you want to create these common enemies and yeah it could just be like the old way of doing things you know that the current workflows they have the tools maybe they've just been taught the the wrong things um so I think a key part and I believe you talk about this in your own messaging are those points of views that you have that sort of Link back up to your narrative so obviously how you know you can create your narrative and um you can do these workshops but you need to bring that narrative to your market right you need to communicate it to your market and I think a key part of that are your points of views now something I'm interested to hear your thoughts on how you can develop the point those points of views because I think this is really um a challenging part because I feel like your points of views are a function of your insights on the market you know rolling up your sleeves uncovering those problems you know deep insights about your target audience really that the clearer you are on those things the better your points of views are because if you sort of try to take the shortcut then your points of views just aren't really going to be unique they're just going to you know kind of blend in with everything else and so I'm interested to hear your thoughts on like the point of view side of things and how that sort of translates to say your website messaging or you know your content marketing yeah so I mean I think your spot on which is like I think I think you have to have a very deep knowledge and understanding of the category you're in the industry you're in to to be able to have an actually useful point of view on it you know like I like I could probably I know to use I know as an example Sports Marketing again right like I could I could probably come up with a point of view on Sports Marketing but chances are people that have been in that industry for five to 10 years would tell me that that yeah that's just everyone knows that you're just stating the obvious and I think it's a it it's just to go off of a tangent it's a problem I see of a lot of thought leadership content which is that a lot of the time it's not really thought leadership it's just thoughts that other people have had and you're also repeating right which which is fine but it's not leadership and I think that leadership side is what having that that's where the point of view comes in is it's almost what are you contributing that's new to this to this world that that you know maybe some people have said but not enough that it's common knowledge kind of thing and it and it's it comes for me from being completely immersed in that world and it's why when I do this work with clients it has to really come from the founder or co-founders like it generally they are the most knowledgeable about a their product because they you know invented it in the first place but also chances are they've lived in this world a lot longer than other people that the company have like they they were obviously you know at the birth of their product chances are they created that product because they saw some kind of opportunity some kind of Gap in the market it's not you know it's quite rare for someone to go oh that that crm's doing really well let's make the exact same products that's like you know people do sure but like generally speaking they've gone oh that crm's really good but if we tweak it a bit it would work even better for the construction industry and so they've already kind of started started to adopt that point of view they've just never fully explored it and so often when I work with clients it's almost I call it like founder therapy where like they they kind of have the answers in their head they kind of know ultimately what that opportunity was that they spotted what the therefore what the problem was that wasn't being solved and that's kind of the the building blocks of that point of view it's kind of like it's hard to come with a formula for something like it because it's kind of you know abstract but it's kind of like what's what's something that hasn't been solved in this industry that we're solving that's the kind of heart of the narrative but also it's the heart of the point of view which is well our point of view is that this is bad and that this thing is good right like it's that kind of again that good versus bad sort of dichotomy and it's I think you know to go back to the to Mac's example of conso his point of view is that outbound sales is isn't very effective because it's cold it's cold Outreach you know you don't know these people you're talking to strangers he's then found data to back up that point of view which is also really important because otherwise it is just your opinion if you can back it up in some way that's really useful and then he's gone the flip side of that point of view is We Believe firmly that the way forward is with your go to network uh Power and so you can see that you know way that that the the villain of the narrative is kind of the seed of the point of view if that makes sense um I don't know if that answered your question yeah no it did it did no this is good um so ah I had uh a question there about yeah that's it so you you mentioned something important there which is I think data you know whenever you're trying to make an argument which I think in my opinion that's what you're trying to do with a narrative you're trying to change beliefs or you're trying yeah you're trying to influence beliefs and so therefore you have to make an argument and I think what makes a solid argument is data and so when working with these companies do they sort of you know have to go away and do some homework I.E qualitative research speaking with customers and their Market or are they sort of expected to to to already bring that to the conversation like how do you ensure that that these narratives that you're helping these compan develop are actually um you know built upon data rather than I guess opinions or assumptions yeah no it's a really good point I think I think you need both right is is the key as well and I think this is again another sort of trap that that people fall into is that they often think if I just throw a load of stats at people then they'll go yeah cool that makes sense or they'll go well if we don't use any stats and just tell a story people will like it really you need both you know like you you need you need the data but you need the narrative to bring it to life and I think you know anyone that works in kind of the data science world would would tell you the same in terms of the more specific questions I think I don't do much research myself I will do some I will you know do some a lot of like desk research and I can speak to to customers I do find it it's often better to speak to prospects rather than customers because the customers are often a bit they've almost been biased by the fact that they've bought your product and used your products ideally if you can speak to to prospects that's even better um generally what I find is the founders all like do know it they just sometimes need the validation of speaking to these people to to back it up but actually more often than not they're completely aligned they do know this stuff it's just that they've never actually necessarily got it out of their heads and down onto the onto the paper so to speak and so yes there's some research involved I think the stats research is almost better and I think you know if you can do that yourself that puts you in a really strong position so you know if you can provide if you can do your own research and do your own surveys and so on and gather that data yourself that's also quite a strong play to be like well hey you can publish it you can repurpose it in various ways in like a white paper and so on you can use that as content to sort of prove the narrative that you're Tak to Market um but also it means that you're you know in control of how that data is gathered and the questions you ask and you know you can obviously you don't want to influence the answers but you at least have a better understanding ultimately a better understanding of your customers comes out of that work um so it's definitely worth doing and there are other people that I bring I can bring in who are experts at that because yeah I'm not an expert at that I end up waffling on about stuff of people and never get to the point um so yeah there are people that come in that do that who are better than me um if they don't want to do it themselves um but there's a lot of research often out there anyway if it's a if it is a crowded Market which generally is where my work helps the most then actually there's probably a lot of research out there already if you do some digging and sort of just play some stats and papers and stuff out there already that you can that you can use um but for sure it's definitely an important part and I think even if even if you never publish those stats or use those stats anyway so like my my website for example goes quite stat heavy at the start like it's very much when I introduce the problem I'm like look here's three eye openening stats that you should really read because that's going to help you understand what I'm talking about but you don't have to do that right you could use the stats internally to be like Val to validate your thinking like you know we are right here like because you need that confidence too like it's not just about it's not just about them believing in it it's about you believ in it internally as a company and having everyone aligned and on board and and if data is the best way to do it internally but not externally then that's obviously still useful um yeah no like it love it love it um all right so bringing this to a to a close I'm I'm interested to so OB see you you specifically focus on the area of like messaging and and narrative right but you know given the current state we're in in the SAS industry you know barrier to entry is lowering to create a software product which means more competitors are flood in the market what else do you think startups or you know even maybe more mature SAS companies can be doing to to Really um be a bit more bias Central and and help them stand out in in this competitive market what else do you think they could be doing do you have any like opinions on that I think there's a couple of other you know movements so to speak other lead growth movements um that I think align quite nicely with what I do and I think you know a big one which isn't that new now is the whole founder Le stuff which is make your founder you know the or or Founders the figurehead of of what you're saying and so sure it's improved if you've got your narrative and point of view but even if you haven't even if it's just using your founder to Market your products the old fashioned way that's still better than the company marketing it it's still a lot more personable they it's people follow people not companies you know it's like you know especially on LinkedIn you see a LinkedIn page for a company might basically have like a handful of followers and it's probably the employees whereas the founder might have tens of thousands and it's like well you may as well use that right you may as well use that audience that that person's built up so I think founder Le is definitely a big way to to help stand out because even if you're selling the exact same thing your founder is a different person and so yes it's a surface level difference it's not key to the the product but like it is our difference you know it is still something you can lean into is their personality um if they've got one which which they don't always suppose um and then the other one is audience Leed which uh a friend of mine called Rob Carpenter he's really big on he'd prob we speaking to actually uh if you haven't already and um he was at butter dos funly enough um and has left to start his own agency and he's all about co-creating the content and marketing assets with your audience and involving them in it in the creation of it so it's a mix of you know user generated content is obviously an example of that but also like we just mentioned with the reports and surveys and you know white papers and stuff bringing them in and helping and having them create stuff butter dos has a big template creation thing going on so like you you know reach out to people and they ask them oh I really like this framework you've got do you want to make a template for butter docks it just helps people Market butter docks because you know so like I'm doing a template for them for example once it's done I'll share share it I'll be like oh guys you should check out this on butter docks I've essentially just done marketing for butter docks for free and it's more believable because it comes from someone in an authentic point of view so I think that audience Le approach plays really nicely as well and I think both of those are underpinned in my opinion by The Narrative stuff but like even if you don't do the narrative side it's still a useful sort of strategy and tactic to to take forward I think so I think both of those interesting yeah personally looked into too much but I definitely oh sorry talked over you there um disconnection um but the the second thing you talked through there I don't know I don't know if there's a technical term for that maybe co- marketing or customer marketing but I like that uh it's not something I've looked into too much I'm definitely going to look into that a bit more um so this conversation's been super valuable learning all about narratives if if people want to learn more about you if they want to collaborate with you you know where do you suggest they go uh good question I mean essentially uh I have kind of three things I've got my website which kind of gives you the Bare Bones of what I do um you've probably got spoilers from this episode if you've listened to so so you probably don't need to see that as much uh then my league 10 is where I'm probably most active I you know post on there a lot probably too much um spend half my half my life on LinkedIn now um so that's a good place to reach me and uh I do also have h a newsletter that um where I basically talk about this stuff in as much detail as I want because it's my newsletter so um yeah there's you can see that uh there's a link to that on my website which is um shiel do agency um so yeah I guess that's the the first point of going to um yeah awesome all right well thanks Joe appreciate your time thank you so much