From action figures as vanity projects to archetypes as marketing shortcuts, we explore why being recognisable isn’t the same as being authentic (and why your time might be better spent collaborating than creating AI versions of yourself in blister packs).
In Person, we discover why songwriters and business folk alike benefit from fresh eyes that ask the right questions, revealing how collaboration creates outcomes greater than the sum of their parts.
Principles explores whether archetypes offer genuine strategic value for businesses or simply provide convenient shortcuts to avoid the hard work of authentic brand development.
Problems exposes dubious attempts to charge for Google indexing services that should always be free, reminding us that snake oil salespeople are always finding new bottles.
And in Perspicacity, we examine the peculiar trend of executives creating AI-generated action figures of themselves, highlighting the troubling difference between what we can do and what we should do.
Are we creating meaningful content or just chasing dopamine? Get ready to take notes.
Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes
02:00 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.
When Another Set of Eyes Asks the Perfect Question
What can business owners learn from musical collaborations? Quite a lot, it seems. Drawing from an anecdote about a young composer seeking feedback from a musical theatre legend from Econtalk episode Weep, Shudder, Die: The Secret of Opera Revealed (with Dana Gioia), we discover the power of the perfect question at the right moment.
The story features a nervous student bravely presenting a rock opera-style composition based on Ayn Rand’s “Anthem” to a renowned composer. After the impressive performance, rather than offering generic praise or criticism, the master simply asks: “In that instrumental section—what will be happening on stage?” This deceptively simple question opens up entirely new dimensions of thinking.
Steve and David explore how this mirrors their experiences in business mentoring, where often it’s not expertise but rather fresh perspective that catalyses breakthroughs. “It’s that wise old head asking that little bit… What are your characters doing on stage at that time?” Steve notes, highlighting how external viewpoints can illuminate blind spots we’ve developed through overexposure to our own work.
The conversation reveals a particularly Australian challenge: our tendency toward isolation in small business compared to more collaborative approaches in other entrepreneurial cultures. “In the place that’s meant to be fixated on rugged individualism, there’s a heck of a lot more trying to socialise, connect, and just add value in the ferment of enthusiasm,” David observes about American business culture.
12:00 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.
Archetypes as Branding Shortcuts – Compass or Crutch?
When Jane McCarthy’s work on feminine archetypes in branding enters the conversation, both hosts approach with healthy scepticism while remaining open to potential value. “I think archetypes are such a double-edged thing,” David reflects, cutting to the heart of the matter: “It’s nice to be recognisable, but if you’re recognisable as an archetype, are you necessarily being recognised as you?”
The discussion reveals that archetypes might function best as internal navigational tools rather than external identities. McCarthy’s concept of a “hometown hostess” archetype, as quoted from Marketing Over Coffee episode, The Goddess Guide To Branding, demonstrates how these frameworks provide shorthand for brand behaviour – a “true north” that teams can understand even when founders or consultants aren’t present.
This sparks reflection on the mindset behind effective branding: not just selecting colours or crafting taglines, but establishing behavioural patterns that guide decision-making. “Every time you see it, it reinforces quickly… how it is to be on track when you are representing the brand, when you are living as the brand,” Steve explains.
The hosts conclude that archetypes might complement rather than replace frameworks like StoryBrand, potentially offering valuable shortcuts when they help teams stay aligned with founding principles. The key insight emerges: an archetype without a story lacks context, while a story without consistent character lacks coherence.
25:00 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.
The Elaborate Con of Charging for Free Services
The dubious email promising to “add your domain to Google Search Index” for a fee provides a perfect case study in digital snake oil. “Here’s someone paying for something that’s free,” Steve observes, breaking down the scam’s mechanics with mounting exasperation.
The discussion exposes how predatory services exploit knowledge gaps among business owners, charging for basic services that Google offers freely through Search Console. The investigation reveals increasingly troubling details – from fake customer service numbers to overly broad privacy policies designed to capture personal information for resale.
Between Steve’s detective work and David’s sardonic commentary (“They’re such a lovely bunch of people!”), the segment delivers practical information while reinforcing the importance of digital literacy in modern business.
30:00 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past.
The Curious Case of Executive Action Figures
When AI-generated images of business people as action figures became a brief LinkedIn trend, our hosts couldn’t resist creating their own mockup – not to join the trend, but to examine what this peculiar fascination reveals about modern business culture. “The first person who did this, hats off to them. It was a fun idea… Now every human and their dog seems to be doing this. There’s nothing compelling, novel or surprising about it,” Steve observes, cutting to the heart of mindless trend-following.
This seemingly harmless diversion becomes a window into larger questions about authentic engagement versus dopamine-driven content creation. David doesn’t mince words: “We’ve got this billion-dollar platform… And what do we do with it? Copy a trend to go, ‘Well, I can do that too, so I must be the same as everyone else.'” The uncomfortable truth emerges – we’re spending valuable business time pursuing digital validation rather than creating genuine value.
The conversation turns to the question of professional integrity when Steve notes these action figures make the creator the hero, violating a core marketing principle: “It’s enshrining the wrong way of looking at the world. We are not the heroes.” This links perfectly to their StoryBrand discussions – when business people waste time creating self-glorifying toys instead of solving customer problems, they’ve fundamentally lost their way.
The segment evolves through Dave Diamond’s blistering critique of LinkedIn culture: “I came for opportunity. I stayed for the dopamine.” This provocative take sparks consideration of whether social platforms encourage meaningful professional connection or simply engineered addiction masquerading as networking. Are we creating valuable content or just chasing the next hit of validation?
The hosts close with a candid reminder that their reflection is as much self-directed as outward-facing: “We are talking to ourselves as much as everyone—we’re thinking out loud.” The value lies in the regular realignment with purpose, stepping back from algorithmic pursuits to reconnect with the authentic motivation behind our work. The action figure trend serves as the perfect metaphor – are we building businesses of substance, or just playing with toys?
Transcript This transcript was generated using Descript.
A Machine-Generated Transcript – Beware Errors
TAMP S06E05
[00:00:00] Caitlin Davis: Talking about marketing is a podcast for business owners and leaders. Produced by my dad, Steve Davis and his colleague talked about marketing David Olney, in which they explore marketing through the lens of their own four Ps person, principles, problems, and pers. Yes, you heard that correctly. Apart from their love of words, they really love helping people, so they hope this podcast will become a trusted companion On your journey in business,
[00:00:39] Steve Davis: Spider-Man was tied down to a big pile of rocks, and the flames were getting closer and closer. I was there, David. I was the one who tied down my Spider-Man toy and set the newspaper around him on fire so that I could then rescue him in the action sequence that my imagination was, you know, making real.
[00:01:03] Did you ever venture into these dark arts of these action figure toys with real world consequences?
[00:01:09] David Olney: I tended to be the child who looked after them fairly carefully and tried to keep them away from my small cousins who had a terrible tendency to wanna see what would happen if you pulled their under legs off.
[00:01:22] So I was normally protecting them from torture.
[00:01:25] Steve Davis: So what about all these chat GPT created blister packs of action figures in business seats. My goodness. What would your little cousins do to them?
[00:01:37] David Olney: Well, I think the thing I would be thinking at the time is, ah, it’s just like a, my artist trying to get out of a glass box.
[00:01:43] I’m so glad I can’t hear them.
[00:01:49] Caitlin Davis: Our four Ps, number one person, the aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly. That is what each of us is here for. Oscar Wilde
[00:02:06] Steve Davis: David, I’ve often walked down this street before, but the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before I. And all of a sudden, I’m several stories high when I walk down the street where you live.
[00:02:18] David Olney: I, I like song lyrics, but I’m wondering when this goes really sideways.
[00:02:23] Steve Davis: Well, that’s from, uh, one of my favorite musicals.
[00:02:26] My Fair Lady. Uh, it’s, well it was one of my earliest favorite musicals. Uh, obviously it’s since been eclipsed by many others, but, but you see this whole love is why my ears pricked up when there was a. An episode of one of my other favorite podcasts, which is called Econ Talk, in which Russ Roberts, the host, interviewed Dana Joyer, Dana’s a poet, and a librettist.
[00:02:51] That’s the person who writes the lyrics for. Operas in particular, and it was a wonderful thing. Dana’s got a book called Weep Shutter Joy on Opera and poetry. It’s a fantastic chat if you’ve got the same bent that I have that loves that sort of stuff. It was really good. But um. What drew my attention to it is there’s a wonderful anecdote that I think we can all learn from that Russ Roberts actually shares in the chat in which a famous, um, person responsible for creating musicals.
[00:03:28] Came to talk to his university class, which was a university class in which, um, the art students were learning how to create, not, not operas so much, but musicals, actual musical productions. Um, let’s have a listen to the story.
[00:03:48] Russ Roberts: So we’re sitting there and everybody’s in awe of this man because he’s such a giant talent. And, and the, these are the most musical loving. Students at I Eastman, right? So he says, um, okay. He said, uh, you are all writing musicals, right? And I’m thinking, well, not exactly, but I’d written a song or two in my time.
[00:04:07] And they all nodded. And he said, let’s, uh, I’d like someone to stand up and, and come perform one of their songs. And a terrible silence, of course, descended on the room. No one wanted to be the person to go first. So finally some guy stood up and said, I’ll, I’ll go. And he said, what’s the tell me about the musical?
[00:04:26] And he said, well, it’s a musical, uh, of Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem. And I thought, well, this is not gonna go well. It’s gonna be a disaster. It’s not really much of a musical. I. Idea. Yeah, it’s not gonna work. And I’m feeling bad for this kid and I’m, you know, I’m 26 or 27 or 28 and this kid’s 20 or 19, whatever he is.
[00:04:50] And he, and so stress says, go ahead. So the kid sits down and he’s at the piano and he pounds out the most exhilarating rock opera style, uh, song about. Freedom from oppression. He’s playing this song and all of us in the crowd are in our jaws are dropped. Right. Because the, the, the brilliance of the song is so extraordinary and we’re so happy for him ’cause he hasn’t made it full of himself.
[00:05:17] Yeah. But we’re, I’m also looking at Straus and I’m thinking, well if the first song is this good, what’s he gonna possibly, I mean, he can’t just say, that was wonderful. Who’s next? He’s gotta say, you know, so. He finishes and we go nuts the cream. We applaud him tremendously ’cause of his courage and the quality of it.
[00:05:39] And Strau sits there for a few seconds and he said, you know, in that section where you were playing the instrumental and, um, not singing, he says, yeah, he said, what’s gonna be happening on stage when that’s going on? And the kid went, oh yeah. And that was the beginning of, that was the tiny glimpse I saw of that collaborative process of one person holding the other accountable.
[00:06:14] Steve Davis: Have that wise old head, ask that little bit where it was just music. What are your characters doing on stage at that time? Oh, um, um. It’s that to me David is really important as Russ. Um, notes the power of collaboration when you’ve got a composer and a librettist in that situation where you’ve got two people putting heads together to come up with, um, ideas and do problem solving within your business.
[00:06:48] It’s more than one plus one equals two. It’s easy sometimes to forget this. How do we start unpacking this from a person perspective? David, what thoughts do you bring to the table? Being inspired by what we see in the musical world?
[00:07:05] David Olney: The interesting thing with this is it reminds me of being at the Conservatorium and studying composition, and we only ever had a couple of weeks on, you know, how a composer and a librettist could work together.
[00:07:17] And one of the silliest things about the assessment we did. Is we gotta mark each. So we didn’t get our ability to work together marked. We got our ability to do our half marked. So it meant we competed with each other and didn’t make something collaborative than was better than neither of us could have done on our own.
[00:07:39] And it’s such a terrible thing that people carry away from school and university. This idea that even when you’re working in a team. It’s somehow about the mark you’re gonna get, not about how if you all work together, you could get something better. And it’s the difference I see between Australia and the US here.
[00:07:58] It seems to me in small business, a lot more people are more isolated than people in the us. People just seem to find each other and just talk things out just to hear what someone else would say and maybe decide they can work together. But ironically. In the place that’s meant to be fixated on rugged individualism.
[00:08:18] There’s a heck of a lot more trying to socialize, connect, and just add value in the ferment of enthusiasm.
[00:08:26] Steve Davis: That’s interesting because that’s the macro version of this collaboration or lack thereof. Here in Australia, you run a small business and you don’t tend to have that open sharing with other people running bears.
[00:08:40] But at the micro level, internally. I guess the thing that would create that horrible. Chemistry and situation that you explained at the conservatory, which I think you’re right. I mean, Rogers and Hammerstein, how do you give them an individual Mark Leonard McCartney, mark? Yeah, it’s, it’s the sum of what they do together.
[00:09:01] It’s how they’ve smoothed each other’s rough patches, maybe left some rough patches in on purpose internally for a small business. I guess the only wild card here would be ego. Raising its head and people wanting to make sure that when your enterprise does something, that they get their credit. I guess that’s the chemistry, isn’t it?
[00:09:27] David Olney: Certainly. Ego’s a big part, and I think the other thing I suspect is so often here, you start something on your own and by the time you want help or you’re willing to open up and talk to anyone, you’re so deep down the experience rabbit hole. I said, how do you find someone who can understand the way you talk about the thing you are now more or less an expert at?
[00:09:51] So if you find someone to talk to, one of two things can happen. Either they don’t feel confident to give you advice because they can hear your expertise and don’t want to mislead you, or you’ve gone so deep down the rabbit hole, you can’t listen to a generalist anymore because you think your problem is specific.
[00:10:10] And in both cases. I, I think it’s better that the other person just says, Hey, you’re an expert. I care, and here’s what I think make of it what you will, but let’s talk it through and see if I can spark in you the next step or the next solution that maybe you wouldn’t have come up on your own or this fast.
[00:10:31] Steve Davis: I wonder if one way I, I, I think that’s an important point about feeling a bit overwhelmed by sensing other person’s expertise on this particular project, but I wonder if spending enough time to acknowledge the input. Of others can smooth that out and help us claim the chemistry of two or three heads working together.
[00:10:52] David Olney: Absolutely. I think the big thing to learn when working with others is they’re not trying to tell you what to do. They’re giving you ideas you could do, and if we’re genuinely going to work together, most people. Don’t want to dominate and go my way or the highway. They want us to, you know, to look further ahead, look further off the road, pay more attention to what’s possible.
[00:11:19] So realistically, if you can hear other people as we could look over here, doesn’t mean you have to go there forever. But if you don’t explore it, how do you know if there’s something good there or not?
[00:11:31] Steve Davis: Alright, well hopefully there’s something, uh, useful just to take stock on that for all of us personally in how we interact with others.
[00:11:39] And yeah, hopefully the outcome will be good. Just you wait, David Olney, just you. Wait, I’m not gonna tap dance.
[00:11:52] Caitlin Davis: Our four Ps. Number two principles. You can never be overdressed or overeducated, Oscar Wilde.
[00:12:07] Steve Davis: David, if you are going to be a God archetypally speaking, what would you be? What would be your characteristics?
[00:12:17] David Olney: Oh, having read too many of Christian Cameron’s, you know, novels about the ancient world setting, you know, the wars between the Greeks and the Persians, uh, have to be some sort of ancient God that throws lightning around and makes storms.
[00:12:33] That sounds like fun.
[00:12:36] Steve Davis: I think I’d like to be someone who. Can see what the other people are thinking. And there’s also a trickster, there’s a a little blend there just to use that. For good and to take the, the heat out of conflict so people can move forward. I think that, I dunno if there is such a God, um, or an archetype of that ilk, but this whole thing came up because I was listening to an episode of Marketing Over Coffee.
[00:13:05] There was an interview with Jane McCarthy, who’s been working in feminine archetypes in business for a while now. She just put out a book blueprint for building an abundant and authentic feminine brand. I. And it was interesting, I, I started listening. With an open mind and putting to one side some, I wouldn’t say it’s antipathy.
[00:13:27] I have towards this latching onto archetypes in the business sense, it’s more, there’s some skepticism because it’s got the, the vibe of. A trend or a fad that people in business can latch onto? I dunno. Do you have any preconceived notions about the melding of archetypes with business?
[00:13:52] David Olney: I think archetypes are such a double-edged thing.
[00:13:54] At one level, we want to make sure we are comprehensible, and one way to be comprehensible is to, you know, assume characteristics similar to an archetype that’s easily recognized. So it’s nice to be recognizable, but also if you’re recognizable as an archetype, are you necessarily being recognized as you?
[00:14:13] So I, despite having read Jung and found this stuff on archetypes in my masters of strategic communications, interesting. Tend to go, yeah, it’s nice to understand, but I would much rather help someone. Find their own voice and be a bit like an archetype. Be recognizable, but also very definitely themselves.
[00:14:37] Steve Davis: Yes. I think where some of my, um, uh, skepticism with a lowercase s is just herald intention here is, uh, we haven’t defined them, but the little definition I’ve just found is that these archetypes, um. Jung, I guess, is one of the best known people who, who named these in his analytical psychology. They have a, a universality.
[00:15:02] Um, these characteristics are meant to transcend cultural boundaries. They appear in myths, in dreams in art, and you’ve got. Examples like the hero, the mother, the trickster, there’s a psychological function. Uh, they shape instincts. They shape the emotions and behaviors, and then there’s abstract forms.
[00:15:21] They’re not fixed. But they’re dynamic tendencies to organize around particular patterns. Like the mother complex emerges from the mother archetype and it’s that riggle room, which lets anyone hang up a shingle to say, Hey, I can do business archetypes because there is no black or white. There is all that plasticity.
[00:15:42] Mm. That to one side, I think. There was an interesting point in the conversation when a coin dropped for me. Let’s have a listen to what Jane was saying.
[00:15:55] Jane McCarthy: And so how is everyone gonna come to something that they can understand? And that’s why I love the archetype because for example, I came to an archetype. I like to start with the goddesses, but then I come to something that I think can be understood even if you don’t know that system. So for example, um.
[00:16:11] I think I did something like with hometown hostess, and it’s like you kind of get who a hometown hostess is. You understand the warmth behind that. You understand the salt of the earth, nature behind that energy. You understand the hospitality. And so when we give a character to our brand, then you can feel the energy.
[00:16:36] And that’s what I want with anyone who is. I’m not gonna be around to help with all of the marketing campaigns year after year. And so we need the true north that everyone can understand. And I do think it’s a deep unlock when you get to the heart and the soul or the soul character, um, of the brand in a way that anyone can understand because it’s archetypal, which is a universal language.
[00:17:06] Steve Davis: I think that’s a really valuable. Insight that doing some work to hone what an archetype might be for a business is really, as part of their branding, really amounts to some shorthand, uh, that of what the brand stands for, what the brand’s instinct is, how it might react in situations. It’s, it’s a shortcut to get into the zone quickly.
[00:17:34] I feel there’s great value in that. I don’t think archetypes are the only way by a long shot of finding that, um, that point. I mean, we work with the StoryBrand framework, which brings the, uh, the structure that Hollywood. And other storytellers, uh, bring to putting a story together and that really helps keep a brand on track in being itself when you’re creating content.
[00:18:04] Um, there’s purely reflecting on brands in relation to the wants and needs of ideal customers. I mean, there’s lots of piles to the top of this same mountain, but to me, David, I think the principle at stake here is you go a couple of steps back. The mindset. When people start thinking about brand and branding can often just be the right choice of colors that they like the tagline that seems to sum up what they think they want to stand for.
[00:18:37] But really if we approach branding from a point of view, and there’d be a couple of different aspects to this, but one internally is. Every time you see it, um, it reinforces quickly bang, just like that, how it is to be on track when you are representing the brand, when you are living as the brand. I think if we started and worked in that environment, there are many other aspects to a brand, but this would have enduring value ’cause as Jane said, the consultant can’t be with you forever.
[00:19:09] You’ve gotta be able to carry this on and have it as a true north, a compass quickly back to, oh, I’m about to answer the phone. This is how I do that in the, uh, authenticity of this brand. I’m about to make a choice between a new product. This is how our brand might react. Uh, I feel there’s some value there.
[00:19:28] And I think that fundamental mindset is sometimes overlooked, but could be helpful.
[00:19:34] David Olney: Absolutely. It’s a case of the long view. Of what brand can mean, what would you do in all sorts of situations? And again, I think this is one of the reasons we decided that StoryBrand is such a good tool because it doesn’t just look at the characteristics of a a person or an organization.
[00:19:51] In one instance, it tries to show how they’re gonna behave over an extended period of time doing multiple things. And it’s easier for people to understand that long view. They may not want to spend the time to learn the long view, but it’s in the long view that you better understand what you’re part of or what you’re interacting with.
[00:20:12] You know, I keep thinking as we’re talking about this now in Sarah Wynn Williams book about Facebook, you know, when she gets there and it’s all the signs of move fast and break stuff. Yeah. That’s what you tell your people. That’s what they do. They move fast and they broke society and they broke teenage mental health.
[00:20:30] Yay. There was truth in it. But when something is so small and so shallow and so potentially dangerous, do we really want, you know, branding to be able to reduce to something so shallow and sharp? I, I think we want something more. We want something that people can grab hold of and understand how to behave in multiple situations, and to be able to then compare how they understand being a part of the organization to, well, how do the clients understand the organization?
[00:21:03] Have we got a symmetry between how we behave and how we are perceived? And if you haven’t got that, what does that mean?
[00:21:10] Steve Davis: And that’s probably where an archetype does have some enduring value, because it’s a magnet that can attract people from different, uh, understandings, different roles towards the one thing, like when she talked about the, um, the hospitable, uh, the hometown.
[00:21:31] Um. That you can quickly understand that without having to read 700 sheets of a brand exposition.
[00:21:42] David Olney: Mm. But if you drop an archetype into a story, it all makes so much more sense, so much more quickly. ’cause we are, the archetype is behaving as we would expect them to. And the story makes sense and. You know, maybe it’s the combination of the two really that helps us understand the world around us in quick snapshots.
[00:22:03] What’s the archetype? What’s the story? Do the two things resonate as related and coherent? And if I do, we’re probably pretty comfortable.
[00:22:12] Steve Davis: Yes. And where they lock together is the archetype would be where we are as the guide on behalf of the journey. Hmm. Is what we do is how we think resonant with our understanding of the archetype.
[00:22:25] I mean, the hero is still the customer. That’s the one we’re trying to serve. Yeah. That, that would be how they would lock together.
[00:22:33] David Olney: Hmm. And simple things like a guide helps you work out what to do. A guy doesn’t tell you what to do. Because you’re on your hero journey. So there’s so many things here where the link between the story and the archetype is very important.
[00:22:48] Steve Davis: So I think it means that if someone’s got an interest in understanding and archetypes, that it can work in a complimentary nature to the StoryBrand framework and vice versa. It’s, it’s just an extra layer of detail that has some power, and the power is. That instantly knowing which direction you’re going, it’s that coming back we, we all need as humans, the cha, the opportunity every now and then could be daily, weekly, monthly, whatever to take stock, reset, refocus, move on, and archetype is one of those ways of polarizing our thinking.
[00:23:23] David Olney: I think my takeaway from this, Steve, is that you can know who you are, but it’s only in interacting. With the people around you and the situation that you’ll see if what you think you are and how you function actually are coherent and in how people respond, you will see I. Whether you’re going to be able to move forward and take people forward with you.
[00:23:49] So in reality, think through who you are and what you want to be. But until you actually apply it with other people in a situation, you won’t know whether it stands up to the complexity of doing business, interacting with strangers, making friends, growing relationships, developing how you interact with new clients, all the things that make life both interesting and a bit scary.
[00:24:12] Steve Davis: And my takeaway is, Jane McCarthy does say in other parts of the interview how often the brand founder, when you’re working with small business, the archetype that matches them. And their inspiration is very much the archetype of the business entity, which aligns with, uh, we, we talked about Simon Squibb in.
[00:24:32] Recent episodes about what your dream is that made you start this? I think we’re seeing it all converge together, is we’re just trying to stay true to that original fire that’s burning and hopefully that works well with what the market is ready for and ready to, um, react with and reward
[00:24:58] Caitlin Davis: our four Ps. Number three, problems. I asked the question for the best reason possible. Simple curiosity. Oscar Wilde
[00:25:12] Steve Davis: in the problem segment. I have yet another from the mailbag of bizarre emails that probably work but shouldn’t. David,
[00:25:22] David Olney: it is certainly a bizarre
[00:25:23] Steve Davis: bag full of bizarre emails. Yes. This one, uh, came in with the headline search engine index and it said, hello for your website to be displayed in searches. Your domain needs to be indexed in the Google search Index.
[00:25:39] Okay? Yes it does. That’s how Google works. Um, to add your domain to Google Search Index now, please visit, um, search register.info. Instantly I thought two things. One, here’s someone paying for something that’s free, and B, they’re weaving just a little bit of truth into a whole lot of snake oil that they’re ready to just trap you in their world if you are gullible enough.
[00:26:08] So let’s just break this apart. I actually went to the website, David, just to take a snoop because first of all, to get your website. Into Google, for example. It’s very complicated, David. You publish your website, you put it in the world. It’s seriously at the base level. Google spiders are scouring the web.
[00:26:32] They’ll find it. Now, we don’t leave it like that. We do give it a nudge. There’s a wonderful tool called Google Search Console when you, which is free, when you connect your website to that, um, upload it site map, et cetera, you also have the option of asking Google directly, can you please come and index my site?
[00:26:52] And it will guarantee that it gets there. So that’s all free, and that’s something that should just be a, a basic thing that all web developers do on your behalf. Uh, but then when we went there, I was smelling a rat, but my goodness, you’ve got, it’s just a one page, uh, squeeze page as they call it, in that horrible part of, uh, the, um, entrepreneurial word.
[00:27:18] I hate the term squeeze page, but it’s got. A big phone number at the top to speak with one of our domain name specialists, call plus four, then blah blah. Turns out that is actually a fake number. It looked meant to look, um, official, but it’s not. They’ve come up in AI with a crest of, or crest, um, as just with a search register.
[00:27:41] That’s the name of their company, and what they want is your name of the company, your email address, and your domain name. And then it’s got, it’ll put it into Google, Microsoft, Bing, and Yahoo. Yahoo. Yes. Uh, register website. And it’s already pret ticked that you agree to their search register terms and policies, which you have to agree to.
[00:28:07] And in essence, they’re just going to pollute your Inca, your, uh, inbox with. All sorts of things. They’re talking about page rank, which Google talked about dismantling many years ago. They’re just, it’s a whole lot of old fashioned SEO stuff. It’s a cheap attempt to get your details so they can be sold or just parmel you with spam.
[00:28:33] David Olney: David, when will these things end? Uh, in about the year 4,239. I’m gonna hold you to that. Yep. If we’re still around, then, then, then there’s a bigger problem.
[00:28:45] Steve Davis: Just before we move on, I just clicked on the privacy policy on that page, and one of the sections is how your information is used. It says, this information you provide us upon registration for services and products listed on our site post in public areas of the site, or placed in Habel database.
[00:29:03] I’ve never heard the word before, Habel. Mm-hmm. Uh, will be accessed, used and stored by others around the world. We, we use commercially reasonable practices to provide a safe, secure environment by limiting access to our database to authorized persons with whom we are in a contractual relationship, but cannot guarantee that unauthorized parties will not gain access.
[00:29:24] We also cannot control how authorized persons store or transfer information downloaded from the database, so you should ensure that you do not post sensitive information to our site. We use the information we collect about you to deliver the products and services we offer and to operate and improve our site.
[00:29:40] Our services may include display of personalized content and advertising. We may use your information to contact you about site updates, conduct surveys, or information and service related communications, including important security updates. In other words, you’re signing over your soul,
[00:29:55] David Olney: Hey, but at least you didn’t put your naked photos up.
[00:30:03] Caitlin Davis: Our four Ps. Number four per sy. The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it. Oscar Wilde.
[00:30:17] Steve Davis: What do you think would be the reaction, David, if some little kids this Christmas unwrapped. A present under the Christmas tree and there in a big shiny plastic box were the David Olney, Steve Davis action Figure Toys Complete with a wardrobe of suits, with microphones, with espresso cups and espresso machines.
[00:30:44] Do you reckon that would make their day and change their life for the better?
[00:30:49] David Olney: Sadly not. I think it would be one of those occasions where we would have to grab the present from them. Go, no, no, no, not for you, for us. Come over here, have some $50 bills. Now quietly go away and don’t tell your parents we stole your Prezi.
[00:31:05] Steve Davis: Because I, I have shared, uh, a mockup thanks to chat, GPT of, uh, something based on the Barbie kit where you’ve got a Barbie doll and then there’s a big, uh, handle carrying case which opens up and you’ve got all her different, a coutre, more all her, uh, dresses, can, bags, et cetera. Outers obviously. Geared slightly differently with all the podcasting material and brand material we have, but I did it because it’s a trend that started on LinkedIn and it’s like.
[00:31:37] You know, that awkward uncle who’s trying to be cool at the party. It, uh, people that are using chat GBT to make an action figure of themselves wrapped in a blister pack with, you know, uh, typically they have a, a cell phone, a coffee mug, and something else as the accessories. The first person who did this hats off to them.
[00:31:58] It was a fun idea. Second person. Interesting. Now every human and their dog seems to be doing this. There’s nothing compelling, novel or surprising about it. It’s just a wallowing in busy work with very little benefit. Am I being too cynical?
[00:32:21] David Olney: No, it’s, it’s kind of sad more than anything. Because it’s not creative.
[00:32:27] Once the first few people have done it, and you’re on this platform where you could say something meaningful about your day, about things you’re learning and things you’re doing, things you wanna learn, things you’d like to talk about, things you’d like to know how other people feel or think about them.
[00:32:45] And instead of doing anything creative. Or meaningful or educational, it’s, oh, we’ve got this billion dollar platform and we’ve got time we could probably spend doing something else. And what do we do with it? Copy a trend to go, well, I can do that too, so I must be the same as everyone else. Whereas if you actually think what being the same as everyone else means in this context, it means I wasted 15 minutes of my life.
[00:33:13] Making myself look like a toy that you could buy it two, you know, for $2.
[00:33:19] Steve Davis: I think that’s the short answer to that. It is. It’s the uninspiring aspect of it. It’s
[00:33:25] David Olney: that perfect word. It’s uninspired.
[00:33:28] Steve Davis: It also just harking back to the previous conversation earlier in this episode and before when we talked about the StoryBrand framework, it’s making you the hero.
[00:33:38] Instead of your customers, and so it is just enshrining. This, I mean, it’s fun. There’s a novelty and there’s fun in doing it. Don’t get me wrong. But there are things we can do and things we should do. And I interviewed, uh, associate professor Basian Yamas from Adelaide University, um, a few weeks ago for the Adelaide Show talking about the fake news that dire wolves had actually been de extincted.
[00:34:06] And he said, look, scientists are gonna want to pursue something like, some things like this, but there’s a line between what we can do and what we should do. And I think this fits into that nicely. I, I don’t. Unless there’s a really strong reason for doing it, it’s just enshrining the wrong way of looking at the world.
[00:34:23] We are not the heroes.
[00:34:25] David Olney: I’ve already turned this around. Listeners, here’s your challenge. Take the image that Steve just put up of the two of us as action figures in our purple suits and create a chat GPT image where you put our action figures to use to achieve something that you need to do. Like stir your coffee with one of us.
[00:34:49] Butter your bread with one of us. Poke the thing under the couch with one of us. There are many, many things you could do that would be more creative than the people who came before us.
[00:35:02] Steve Davis: Just leave our clothes on, please. That’s all I ask.
[00:35:05] David Olney: Yeah, pr. Well, I thought they were molded on, dude. We’re in trouble. If they’re not molded on, they’re not molded on, they’re You swap
[00:35:11] Steve Davis: them.
[00:35:11] That’s why there’s a wardrobe.
[00:35:13] David Olney: Yeah. Yeah. But I thought he put the other suits over the suit. That never comes off. No.
[00:35:19] Steve Davis: That’s the risk I was willing to take. Um, oh dear. And the fact that this is a. Uncle at the party trend. It’s come from LinkedIn, the cardigan wearing social network. Um, oh, sorry. Either one end is cardigan, wearing the other one.
[00:35:33] This has really tight chinos with no socks. Um, you’ve got this world and I just happen to see this wonderful reflection from Dave Diamond reflecting about LinkedIn and look where we use LinkedIn to some degree. But I, I liked his post and I think there’s a few points that we can get from this in per sy where we are thinking about how we, um, think about what we do, how we reflect on things.
[00:36:01] We’ve already talked about the toy figures, but here’s Dave taking a deeper reflection on LinkedIn, of which the toy figures were a symptom. He said, this platform broke me. I came for opportunity. I stayed for the dopamine. I regret everything. Three weeks on LinkedIn and I finally understand spiritual decay.
[00:36:21] One, I could have spent this time learning actual shit on X or Reddit. Instead, I’ve been feeding the algorithm and posting AI prompts like they’re gonna save the world. I. Two. Everyone’s crying about AI taking jobs. Let’s be honest. You’re giving yours away while posting 10 ways to optimize your LinkedIn profile.
[00:36:40] You’re not growing. You’re just part of the noise. Three. LinkedIn’s a bloody circus. The winners aren’t grinding. They’re selling the dream of a hustle that doesn’t exist. Everyone else is pretending to be a fractional COO while the rest actually try to work. Four. Got a few good leads actually, but for every one of those, there are at least 17 people selling recycled bullshit.
[00:37:02] Uh, same growth strategy from 2010 wrapped in this year’s SEO keywords. Five. The real work isn’t in posts or prompts. It’s in the kind that makes you sweat fail and still show up. The grind isn’t the content, it’s what actually happens when the feed goes dark. Six. And also, honestly, the only people who feel real and legit here are the ones outta work here looking, being honest, and they’d crush it if someone gave them a shot.
[00:37:29] And seven. But hey, that’s cool. Keep chasing the algorithm. Keep hustling for likes and dopamine when real growths in the trenches and not your pretty Canva carousels
[00:37:40] David Olney: someone had a bad day, but essentially, other than talking about X is somewhere you could learn something. Most of the rest of it is fairly accurate that, you know, we just keep looking at social media platforms that occasionally are so useful to people and go.
[00:37:58] How we get so lost, it’s that we are not willing to say meaningful things or we’re not willing to share meaningful things, or we are not willing to be vulnerable to find out what other people think and know I. There’s some pretty big questions behind his frustration.
[00:38:16] Steve Davis: I do like the fact that he keeps referring to the fact that he came for opportunity and he stayed for the dopamine ’cause.
[00:38:23] There is a dopamine hit that we know that the designers of all these social sites have created. To have that little red marker pop up and say, oh, someone’s commented, someone’s liked, that’s a dopamine hit. And which explains why If there’s a trend for easy. Content you can shuffle out like the action toy figures.
[00:38:45] Well, people are doing that in pursuit of finding that dopamine hit. That is what they’re trying to achieve with that, and I think he’s nailed that aspect of it. There’s also the chance, of course, that if we dwell too much on the cynicism, well what do we end up doing? But I think we talked about this. If it wasn’t the last episode, it was one before our.
[00:39:08] A challenge is to reflect on what’s true to us, what’s true to the archetype of us in what we’re putting out there in the world, and would we be proud if our children or colleagues or parents we’re doing the same? I think that’s where this lands for me in what does this say about how we think about what we do?
[00:39:28] Well, it says, are we just being true to ourselves in this space?
[00:39:32] David Olney: The thing that just popped into my head. And you know, language warning here, audience, David Grabber’s, famous book Bullshit Jobs. If more of people’s days was meaningful or they were connecting with people during their workday, would they be sitting there happily coming up with the next mindless Canva carousel for LinkedIn?
[00:39:53] Like it’s kind of sad that David Grabber is probably right. There’s a very big proportion of jobs. People don’t know why they’re doing them. Don’t think it would make any difference if they didn’t do them and kind of prove they don’t need to be done by spending such a big chunk of their day on social media.
[00:40:10] So I think really LinkedIn posts like this or a reason to reflect on why am I at work today. If it’s just to earn money to keep your head above water, that’s still a totally legitimate reason. But most of us have found the career we are in or changed careers for work to be a little bit more than just getting enough money to survive the day.
[00:40:34] And if we are doing something that’s a bit more than just surviving the day, then please talk about that. ’cause that’s the inspiration that we all need to keep looking for that. And keep looking for more of that and keep working at ways to share that inspiration so other people find going to work more rewarding.
[00:40:53] Steve Davis: And that’s just reinforces the fact. I keep saying this, I mean it, we don’t do this podcast to sit on a mountain and look down and, and throw bolts at people that we are talking to ourselves as much as everyone we’re thinking out loud. And to me the value in doing this is, this very conversation is a reminder to myself to make sure.
[00:41:13] That if I get out of calibration with the, that why, the dream behind what I’m doing, the thing that satisfies me about what I do, we need to just take this moment to take that deep breath and do some realignment and this chat. It’s just one of those and we didn’t have to wrap it in a blister pack.
[00:41:29] David Olney: Nope.
[00:41:30] But still look over your shoulder for the Thunderbolt ’cause. I really wanna Chuck one.
[00:41:34] Caitlin Davis: Thank you for listening to talking about marketing. If you enjoyed it, please leave a rating or a review in your favorite podcast app and if you found it helpful, please share it with others. Steve and David always welcome your comments and questions, so send them to [email protected].
[00:41:55] And finally, the last word to Oscar Wilde. There’s only one thing worse than being talked about and that’s not being talked about.