Making the Case for Creativity in Content [Podcast Episode]


It’s the word writers, editors, and all content creators fear: BORING. The last thing you want is your boss, your readers, or anyone finding something you created to be quite dull.

, Making the Case for Creativity in Content [Podcast Episode]

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Creativity can’t be compromised when it comes to content creation. (Today’s episode is apparently sponsored by the letter “C.”)

Storytelling + creativity strategist KATHY KLOTZ-GUEST explains how every brand can have compelling content and how marketers can get the buy-in for it.

, Making the Case for Creativity in Content [Podcast Episode]

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In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • The problem with boring B2B content
  • How to make content that isn’t boring
  • How to leverage client feedback to get creative content buy-in
  • Ways to get an appropriate amount of feedback from leadership

Related resources/links:

At the beginning of this episode, I also mentioned our monthly newsletter! Sign up to receive exclusive bonus content and participate in giveaways.


Transcription:

Amanda: Joining me this week is a keynote speaker, storytelling and creativity strategist, improv comedian and the author of Stop Boring Me: How to Create Kick-Ass Marketing Content, Products and Ideas through the Power of Improv, I am so excited to talk to Kathy Klotz-Guest. Thank you so much for being here.

Kathy: Oh my gosh, thank you, Amanda. I’m so excited to talk to you and I’m so excited that you can’t see my awful COVID Geico caveman here.

Amanda: I’m pretty sure everyone’s work wardrobes are just being all donated at this point and we’re all just going to live in sweatpants and hoodies from now on.

Kathy: Oh my God, right? Like, I’m now ordering my personal grooming products from John Deere. Like, I am literally at the Home Depot garden section like, “How much is that lawn mower?”.

Amanda: Oh man, yeah, times are changing. But listen, like I guess sometimes I miss dressing up sometimes, but it’s been so nice to not have to do that daily maintenance and just kind of like start the day; I don’t miss the hassle and the commute.

Kathy: I don’t miss it at all, and isn’t it amazing that we’re at this moment of time where, I don’t know about you, Amanda and your audience, I am having some of the most amazing human conversations because we’re all going through something together and it affects us differently, I don’t want to pretend that we’re all in the same boat. However, we are all in the same storm and I feel like I’m having, forget about what we look like, right? I am having some of the most honest, real human conversations that I’ve ever had, and I think that is something really important.

Amanda: Absolutely. The vulnerability, can I say this word? Vulnerability that people have had, and sharing their experiences, I’ve definitely felt the same way.

Kathy: Yeah, for sure.

Amanda: It’s very powerful.

Kathy: It is, it really is. It’s an honor to just connect at that human level that we’re all experiencing. And so, you know, even if I come on with my COVID hair, and I look like the missing link in the evolutionary chain, people are not judging me for that. But there’s something real not showing up as you are, and I think that’s really such an important marketing lesson, you know, for all of us at this time.

Amanda: It is. It’s something that’s so easy to not do, and I think it’s been a big reminder of that for people because they’re experiencing it in their personal lives and they see how impactful it is just for them personally. It’s like, “Oh, yeah, I guess this applies as well, in business.”, it’s all about, still people interacting with each other.

Kathy: Still people, still humans facing uncertainty and doubt and, like not even sure if like, you know, we just got the memo that our son’s school may not open in the fall, and we don’t know, there’s so much uncertainty and I think there’s just a humanity in connecting at that level of honesty.

Amanda: Yeah. And, you know, I think some of those things, talking about authenticity and sincerity, these are all types of things that are harder to measure and that’s some of what we’re going to talk about today. We’re talking about creativity but I think a lot of these words that get thrown around a lot, you know, like, “You need to be authoritative, you need to be authentic.”, they’re all so true but it’s harder to kind of explain how successful you’re being at that or to measure that. So, I’m excited today to talk about like how we can make the case at our jobs for people creative and like, using your personality in your content.

Kathy: Yes, yes. I’m excited too. It’s so important. And yeah, how do you measure authenticity?

Amanda: I know.

Kathy: How do you measure all that? That’s such a big, big question.

Amanda: Yeah. So, I think I’ve seen that you have said that one of the biggest problems with content, or at least B2B content, but maybe all content is that it’s boring. Why do you think that’s the biggest problem?

Kathy: I think, you know, it’s really a symptom of something bigger, which is, we are thinking about things in a very transactional way. We’re thinking about how to short circuit humanity to get to the sale. It’s sort of like if I meet you at a bar, and I’m like, “Hey, want to come home with me?”, it’s like, “Whoa buddy, whoa, buy me a drink. Let’s talk first.”. And I think, I really believe that marketing got to a place unfortunately where, because it was B2B, we bought into this nonsense that well, “It’s all, you know, 24/7, it’s all about the product, it’s all about business, it’s all about whatever.”, and what a bunch of nonsense. I mean, you know, I can tell you in over two decades of doing improv, it’s always about the human experience, always, always; it’s never not been about that. And I think what ends up happening is, too many people got the horrible memo, the awful memo, that, you know, to get to the sale, they had to do an end run around people’s humanity. And in fact, that is not the shortcut, that is the long cut. Because if we forget to acknowledge the humanity of other people, we’re just, it’s going to take us like three, four times, five times as long to close, and to get to that transaction. So, I think, what I want people to understand is that, boring is a symptom of a transactional mindset.

Amanda: Yeah. So, what about if you are talking to somebody who works in B2B, and they’re like, “It’s just a tool that we’re trying to sell. Like, it’s not exciting. How do we make something like this not boring?”.

Kathy: Yeah. Oh my gosh. So, boring is, I totally get it. First of all, I get it, I hear you; there’s a lot of boring industries out there, boring, boring, boring. You know, B2B, blah to boring, it’s like, I get it. The thing we always have to remember is, it’s never about the product, it’s never– because you’re making it about– the first, I think, assumption and the first erroneous assumption is in marketing, we’re making it about the product. It’s never about the product, it’s about what the product can do for somebody. Now, I don’t believe in like, making up stories that are false just to sell something. However, you know, like it’s funny, I had a sheet manufacturer. Yes, you heard right, manufacturer come to me that I did business with, they came to me like, “Well, we offer sheets. What’s exciting about sheets?”, and I was like, “It’s not about the sheets, think about what sheets represent. They represent comfort, sleep, a little something, something going on, right? Sheets are where other things happen so, let’s make the story about life. Now, what does it mean? What about the thread count? What about like, give me a story about how the sheets were manufactured. If the sheets could talk, what personality would they have? Like, let’s think about the bigger story. If you literally make things about the product, you will fail because what we’re missing is, people don’t care about sheets, however, sheets are where all– the bedroom is where all these things happen; it’s where intimate conversations happen, it’s where pillow talk happens, it’s where we digest at the end of the day with our partner and we tell our partner everything we’re thinking. Let’s go from the things that happen there and talk about that. That’s how you make sheets exciting.”. So, I think it’s really about, the short answer here and the long answer is, I think Amanda making it about the bigger thing that happens there, not about the thing. And this is very much like an improv stage, if you and I were talking about sheets, the scene would be so boring, nobody would give a crap. But what if, while we were talking about sheets and folding sheets, and because you know, nobody ever knows how to fold those damn fitted sheets, my God, nobody knows.

Amanda: I still have no idea.

Kathy: I would die trying to put on a fitted sheet, my husband would stop looking for me, just stop, he would be like, “I don’t know.”. So, if we could just have fun and admit the silly things that people do while they’re folding sheets or doing laundry or talking, you know what I mean? What are the things that people are doing? Well, they’re talking about life, it’s never about the sheets. So, once they got that understanding, they started doing some really fun content.

Amanda: We have a similar approach at Fractl, and the way we have to explain it to people sometimes, because a lot of people want to stay on brand, they don’t understand when you deviate from the actual product or service, how it’s going to appeal to people. And we talk about it as, we sometimes called tangential content, it’s like, it’s still relevant, but we’re trying to tap into the emotional side, like you were saying. Like, how do you feel? Like, what situations are related to this product or service and what does that bring up in you emotionally? Those are the things that people are going to connect with, rather like, you said the thread count of the sheet.

Kathy: Nobody cares, but what if the thread count was like, I don’t know, what window into like this whole party or something like that? Yeah.

Amanda: So, do you have examples of, since you’ve worked with a lot of people on this, you know, people come to you and they say, “We know that our content is not up to snuff, like please help us make this more interesting.”, do you have an example of when something went from boring to interesting? Like, what kind of change happened? You know, the sheet sounds like it’s a good hypothetical example, do you have other examples of how that can actually be done?

Kathy: I do. And these are, I just want to be clear that like the sheet example was my client. Here’s an example, not my client, I wish, but I think what they did was genius. So, Caterpillar, if your audience is familiar with Caterpillar, it’s industrial machinery. Like, if I say industrial machinery, you all would be like fast asleep, right? I’d be like, “Let’s talk about industrial machinery.”, you’d be like, “Let’s not and let’s go get a drink.”, because ain’t nobody talking about that stuff. Hey, to your friends, “Hey, you know what this party. None of us party like a caterpillar heavy industrial machinery product.”. So, what they did was so fun, what they did was, they recognized that, “Who cares? That’s not a relevant brand. But how do we bring it into a modern age and make it relevant?”, what they did is they actually staged these like, you know like monster truck rally stuff? It was so over the top, goofy and funny. So, they staged these tractor races and industrial machine races between Caterpillar like machines and they have these races and they video these and they create a series of like races with industrial machinery and like, you could bet on who was going to win. And they created these videos to just bring this idea of racing and winning and like, you know, NASCAR and monster truck rallies into the modern age. I thought that was so clever because they got that, a, wasn’t about the machinery, nobody cares. What they got is that, people love racing, people love the thrill of excitement, people love you know, doubling down and betting on like, “Who’s going to win?”, and they got that and so, they made it an emotional kind of fun like thing, and you know, you could bet in advance, go, “All right, all right, who thinks Machine A is going to win?”, like a robotics jam. And so, they made it a fun, fun thing? Who would have thunk, right?

Another great example is banks. There’s a bank in the UK that I was talking to, and I did something similar for a UK Credit Union. But this particular UK bank, they recognized that a lot of their customers were in their 50’s, you know, their average customer was a little bit removed from financial literacy skills because they had a pretty literate base and yet, they realized that they needed to reach out to millennial money. If they wanted to grow their deposits, they had to reach out to millennial money. And they realized a lot of kids in their early 20’s don’t have financial literacy skills. So, they started creating like pop up books, downloadable coloring books, gamified like contests to where you could win like 200 dollars in a bank deposit, in a CD if you won the contest. So, they started doing these really just colorful, fun, gamified things to advance financial literacy and they were like a stuffy, like UK bank.

Amanda: And that’s a great example of, they identified a target audience. It wasn’t just that they made their content fun, it was strategic.

Kathy: Yes, it was strategic, that’s a really important point. Thank you for saying that. They didn’t just, fun for fun’s sake doesn’t work. And I love fun, I’m an improviser. However, they had an audience, to your point, Amanda, they had an audience, they knew their audience, they knew what they needed and what they found was that a lot of millennials, in their survey, that would graduate with like liberal arts degrees were very sophisticated but not necessarily financially savvy. So, they created a really strategic way to reach out to them but not in a preachy way, in a fun way, because millennials, I mean, let’s face it, we all love fun. But millennials, you know, need to be reached out to in a way, that’s not the way that they would reach out to boomers.

Amanda: So, I would imagine that if you’re the person who identifies this need, say you see the segment you want to appeal to and you’re going to take a total turn in the type of content you’re creating, you’re going to go from kind of this straightforward content to, “We’re going to have these contests and make it more interesting.”, that there might be pushback to ideas like that. Have you seen that type of pushback happen? First of all, like when you’re consulting with people, do you see people just get kind of nervous when you suggest that?

Kathy: Oh, I see people break out in sweats. And I always say that’s how I know I’m doing my job right, Amanda, I make people very uncomfortable; that’s what I’m doing right. Because if I’m not making you uncomfortable, it means I’m playing it safe. And part of what improv is about is, creating a safe space to experiment, we have to have some safe spaces. And yet, part of what I know about storytelling and emotional resonance and things that move people to take action is we have to take some risks and we have to take what we do, and present it in a non-boring way. And so, the burden, think about boring, boring is a tax and either you’re going to pay it, or your audience is going to pay it. So, either you do the work to make it unboring, or you can do the boring stuff that everybody else does, and guess what? Now the tax is being shifted to your audience and think about how much stuff that they’re seeing on a daily basis on social media. Do you think for one minute, they’re going to pay that boring tax? Hell no, they’re not going to do it, they don’t have to anymore. So, you can take that attitude, and so, one of the ways that I work with teams and I see it a lot, there is resistance but I think it’s really important to create a safe space where we explore ideas, we also acknowledge that the way you’ve been doing it feels safe to you, because it’s all you’ve ever done. Safe is a blind spot. It doesn’t mean that somebody else’s new idea is wrong, it’s just you’ve been doing it the same way, and it’s safe, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. So, there’s no wrong or right, let’s explore.

The other thing that I find is that, go get user data. So, with a couple of my clients, I worked with marketing to go get user data. So, in one case, we took an idea, a concept, and we went to our ideal customers, the customers always designed for your ideal audience, went to the ideal audience that had– that were the most profitable and said, “What do you think about this new program or this new campaign we’re thinking of doing?”, and they loved it. So, we designed, based on that, we took that back to marketing, to the marketing powers and said, “Look, we’ve already vetted this, and here’s what they loved about it.”, and that’s sometimes can help. So, what I would say to you is, if they don’t accept that, you know, marketing doesn’t listen to you, yes, and they should, that’s a whole other thing. But when in doubt, go get client feedback, valuable client feedback, because when your valuable clients are saying, you know, “We like that idea. We like that idea.”, it’s harder for all the conservative groups in your company to then shoot that idea down.

Amanda: You’re basically getting buy in from other people before getting the leadership buy in.

Kathy: 100%. The other thing to do is, that’s client side, the other thing to do is, make sure that you limit the feedback internally, but do get some level of leadership buy in, do say, “Hey, we’re coming up with this idea, and we want you to be a part of it. So, rather than you ratify it after, how about you bake– you add your ingredients to it. What do you think?”. And when they feel included, you’ll find that the resistance shield gets lower.

Amanda: To really balance, right? Like, I think some people worry about getting too much feedback or input.

Kathy: They do, you got to limit it. Like, let’s just be honest. Like, if you go into a room of like all like lawyers and stuff, can we just say that nothing good happens there? You know they’re going to go to the like the most conservative viewpoint on the planet so, limit it because creativity by committee really sucks.

Amanda: How– do you have any examples of how you’ve limited it? Like, when you say that, how can you frame the conversation to be like, “This is the amount of people that–“.

Kathy: Yes, here’s what I would do, what I have done personally is gone to maybe the head of engineering or the head of like marketing, the head of product, the head of CX, which is silly because CX is everybody’s job, but let’s just say for example here, that we’ve got different departments. Go to the head that is most impacted by it and see if you can get by in on certain things. What that means is this, you may not be able to say yes to everything they want, that doesn’t matter. Improv is about, “Yes, and.”, “Yes, and how can I build on your ideas and include some of them? Yes, and thank you. You gave me seven things; we can’t do all seven. Yes, and we can do three of those seven. So, yes, and we’re going to do three of those things.”. Now, that person in that department feels heard, and they feel involved. So, you can bet when that project is up for being rolled out, they think, “You know what? I fit into that project now, I am emotionally invested in seeing that product succeed.”.

Amanda: And it sounds like as the creative person, sorry. It sounds like as the creative person, you have to be willing to make some of those changes. Like, you can’t go into it being like, “This is steadfastly what’s going to happen.”.

Kathy: You cannot. The thing about creativity is, it’s a collaborative pursuit, I’ll say that again, you can have your ideas, but this is where thinking like an improviser really helps. Improv is fundamentally about, “Yes, and.”, it’s listening, it’s, “Yes, anding, how can I build on an idea you said?”. You know, maybe I decided I wanted a coloring book, and you said, “Well, I want an app.”, and my yes, and is, “Okay. Yes, and we’ll make a coloring book. And yes, we’ll make an app where people can upload a picture and we’ll make a coloring book of that picture in the app.”. Yes, and, is about bridging to ideas and making them a collaborative effort. And it’s important and here’s why it’s important, because much like improvisers on a stage and I’ve been doing improv for almost 25 years, what it’s taught me is that, when we say, “Yes, and.”, and to other people’s ideas, and we include other people’s ideas, even if it’s just, they say 10 things Amanda and all we can agree on is one, find the one thing that you can include and move forward. Because what it does is, it builds a whole army of people that went, “You know what? I fit into that idea now, I’m emotionally invested and want that idea to succeed.”.

Amanda: Rather than showing up later with an idea they’ve never heard of and it being–

Kathy: Exactly, oh my God. And that is exactly the difference, that is so important to understand is when you do it later, it’s buy in, when you do it earlier, it’s baked in. And you baked in will kick buy in’s ass every time because, “Now, I fit into that process and it’s partly my idea, and my team had to say, and now because of that, I feel like I want to do everything I can to make that idea succeed.”, and that is huge. That is so huge.

Amanda: You talked about building a safe space for that creativity, how can somebody at a company, whether you’re talking about marketing for that brand, or you work with clients, like how can you build that kind of safe space?

Kathy: Yes. So, building a safe space requires work, it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s the kind of thing where, if you’re familiar with the concept of psychological safety, that’s what we’re talking about here. It’s this idea of all right, when we’re in this brainstorming, or we’re this meeting mode or we’re in this creativity, free form mode, all ideas have to be honored. And here’s what it means, it means creating that place where it doesn’t mean every idea has merit, it doesn’t mean every idea is viable, that’s not the point. The point is, every idea is welcome to be surfaced and then, we will later go and evaluate those ideas for viability. Just because you hear an idea from a friend doesn’t mean it’s viable. However, it doesn’t mean it’s not viable and so, creating a safe space where people can kind of just, you know, come up with crazy ideas. If you don’t– if crazy ideas aren’t welcome, you’re not going to get to the good stuff. You want to get to the good stuff? You got to welcome the really, really crazy ass ideas first. And most companies are wired for the safe ideas, and it’s the wrong way to think. What we need to do is know that in a safe container, I can come up with a crazy ass, what we call a loon shot or a loon shot idea, which is crazy, and we can totally then take that idea and kind of maybe kind of anchor it down a little bit into something that works. But it’s so much easier to anchor down a really crazy idea than it is to take a safe idea and make it work. You want those ideas so; you’re going to have to create a container where it’s safe to be able to do that kind of thinking. And that doesn’t happen unless everybody agrees that, “Look, this is what we’re going to do.”. There’s no, “Yes, butting.”, there’s no telling somebody their ideas sucks, there’s no shitting on an idea, there’s no crapping on an idea, there’s no like, laughing at an idea; all ideas are viable until we go and do the work later. And you really have to, it takes a lot of discipline, it takes people really sticking to that to make it work.

Amanda: I’d imagine if there was even one person in that meeting who was judging that it would tear the whole thing down.

Kathy: You know how it is, the minute somebody goes, “Oh, yes, but that will never work.”, or, “Yes, but…”, no, the minute we go to that place, ideas shut down and that kills it, man. So, you got to be very– really everybody has to stick to that, and the minute somebody does that, they’re out, or maybe you have a swear jar and they put money in it, or maybe they have to do something silly. So, there’s not shaming the person, but maybe there’s some kind of consequence, where, you know, that way, everybody sees that their ideas are equal, and equally valid until proven otherwise, and there’s a safe space to think crazy. You can’t get to really good ideas, if you cannot make it safe for the crazy out of the box ideas.

Amanda: Right. Because if we can all just come up with brilliant ideas immediately, marketing wouldn’t be as hard as it is.

Kathy: We would if we knew it was safe, but how many times do we hold back because we know that like, Nancy over there is going to be like, “Man, I don’t like that idea.”, and you’re like, “Shut it, Nancy.”, or Bob, or whatever, and all it takes is one person to kill the creativity in the room.

Amanda: Oh, yeah. That’s a big blow to your ego, somebody just calls you out in front of people like that’s a terrible idea.

Kathy: It’s terrible and it kills creativity, it kills the mood, it says, “This isn’t safe here.”, and the only way crazy ideas flourish is to 100% make it safe. So, if you say it’s safe here, and somebody does that, there’s consequences, make it fun. I don’t believe in shaming, but like we’ve had, like, people have to leave the room and run like three laps around the meeting room, or putting $5 into the pizza jar, or something fun and not like punitive, but something where they got the point.

Amanda: Right. You sent the message.

Kathy: Send the message, and then they get it. And then they go, “Gosh, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to.”, and it’s all in fun, nobody’s shamed, but they get the point. Because without that safe space be really honored, you’re never going to get the good stuff and you’ve got to like, on an improv stage, “Yes, and. Yes, and.”, doesn’t mean you have to build the idea, it means that while we’re in this room together, incubating, we’re going to honor everybody’s ideas; super important.

Amanda: It really is. So, there’s a question I asked at the end of every episode and it’s when people want to get buy in, so, in this case, if you’re that content creator, or somebody who has this, even if it’s a bigger idea, like a really creative strategy, if you’re the marketer, and you’re going to get by in, we’ve already talked about a bit about how to get that buy in, but what are the biggest mistakes that people make when they take on that endeavor? It sounds like one of them is to just not get anybody’s buy in, and then show up to this meeting and introduce it to everybody for the first time. But is there anything else you can think of that it’s like a common or big mistake that you’ve seen made?

Kathy: Yeah, I think that is the biggest one is, you know, when it’s already near done launch, and we talked about that. I think the other thing is to assume, we assume that the idea is fully baked, and even when we get people’s buy in and baked in, you know, early on, we got to get people’s, you know, we still have to be open to the naysayers, and we have to be ready for that. I think the biggest thing is, we think if we even get buy in early, early during the gestation cycle, that there won’t be any opposition later. It lowers opposition however; it doesn’t mean that you won’t have somebody later. So, here’s the thing that I see too many people do is, they give up, they go, “Okay, well, somebody has come forward said it won’t work.”. Hold it to the fire in a very, very– don’t give up on your idea. Here’s the thing, “All right, I hear Bob that you don’t like X, Y, and Z. Well, what about A, B, and C? So, what if we then take this idea, and then worry about X, Y, Z later, but if we all agree that A, B, C is the right thing to do, let’s figure out how to make that work now.”. So, what I mean is that, we assume that it’s all or nothing, we make the all or nothing mistake. But ideas don’t always work that way, sometimes we can parse an idea into parts and we can agree on some things and if we can find agreement on even part of the idea then move those things that you agree on forward. But too many people give up and just throw out the whole idea because one person said, “Well I don’t like it.”.

Amanda: Well then, maybe, is it possible that if you get part of it bought in and you actually execute part of it and it goes well, you have less to get buy in for after that?

Kathy: Exactly. So, anytime you can vet in advance or you can get baked in in advance and buy in early, the other part is find a way, even if you get resistance late, find– hold people to the fire, “What specifically do you disagree with?”. Don’t give up on your idea. Hold the people who disagree accountable. Here’s what we give up on, the minute there’s resistance people go, “Oh, okay.”, no, hold the people who are resisting, it’s hard to do, you can do it respectfully and say, “All right Bob. I get it, you don’t like this. Can you tell me specifically what parts you object to and why?”. Because what that does is, it shifts the burden to them and you may find out that it’s not the whole idea they’re willing to disagree with, and you can move forward on some parts of it.

Amanda: I like that, getting that elaboration and understanding exactly what it is.

Kathy: Exactly. It shouldn’t be an all or nothing proposition, rarely is it ever, it’s just that we never hold people to the fire, and in a good way, not in a mean-spirited way. But if we do it in a really honest way, we can learn, we can iterate, we can usually unpack an idea and move forward on some part of it. So, don’t give up on– don’t think of it as an all or nothing, don’t think of it that way.

Amanda: Yeah. I love that. The other question I always ask is, knowing the objective of the show, do you have recommendations on who should be future guests?

Kathy: Future guests? Oh, my goodness. I probably do, I do, I’m just not thinking of anybody right now.

Amanda: Totally fine, no worries.

Kathy: I’m sure I will, I’m sure I totally will, give me a minute, I will, my brain’s a little bit. I will totally do that. I think there’s probably some guests that can help you challenge the assumptions that we’re making.

Amanda: It’s so funny, Kathy, because this interview overall and the concepts we’re talking about today reminded me of something, I think Ann Handley said, one of the conferences I was at about, like, marketers don’t just want, or people, excuse me, people don’t want to just buy from or work with those that they trust, but they want to work with those that they like. And I think a lot of what you’re talking about, like being creative and having humor in your content, and being relatable, is about that dimension of, “I just enjoy this.”, doesn’t matter if it’s B2B, and I’ve very much enjoyed having you on the show, and it’s just a testament to that. It’s like, you can come back anytime Kathy, I’d love to talk to you again. Like, that’s the impression you make and if that’s what your content does, then you can, I feel like you can just see how that would be beneficial.

Kathy: Well, I appreciate that, same with you. No, I love what you’re doing, I think it’s so important, I think you have- it really is, I’ve always had a belief that it’s really about people, and if we just stop making it about the thing, and that comes from improv. The improv stage, it’s like if two people are in a bowling scene and I teach improv too, as well, I teach it in the pure form, as well as what we call applied. So, I help my marketing team client’s figure this out, but I also teach at my theater and, you know, this is a lot like life. If you’ve got two people in a bowling scene, and you watched as an audience member, do you even care if they talk about the pins and the ball? No, but what if you watched a bowling scene with two friends and they were talking about their life and they were talking about their marriages and their kids while they bowled, there’s no difference to marketing. When we make a transactional about the thing, nobody cares, when we suddenly realize that in the context of using the product, people have lives, they have cares, they have uncertainties, they’re so scared with COVID, and, you know, there’s these beautiful social justice movements that are happening and people are being held accountable for not just saying Black Lives Matters, but actually having black people in product marketing and in, you know, product development and all these places where their voice matters. And we can remember that all humans share the same fears and triumphs and hopes for their lives, then that’s when it gets good; that’s when things get real. And we can get out of this talking about the product mentality, that’s transactional, and we got to get out from the transactional to the transformational is where change happens and that is about life and being human.

Amanda: That is an excellent way to wrap up the show. Thank you so much for joining me Kathy.

Kathy: My pleasure, Amanda. Thank you.


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