Jesse has a whole list of pain points and annoyances in the world of marketing that we just had to explore. He gives a great perspective as our Chief Creative Officer and VP.
Ingredients
If you love the flavor of black licorice then this is the cocktail for you. A nice balance of gin, cherry, lime and licorice flavors blend together into one refreshing drink! Here's how you can make it yourself:
Rich: Hey there. Welcome back to Cocktails, Tangents And Answers. Almost stumbled that, but it is the name of our podcast. I am one of your hosts, Rich Mackey. I'm
Catelin: Your other host, Catelin Drey.
Rich: And I guess if we screw that up a little bit, people know that we record these each time, right?
Catelin: It's every time. We come to you live recorded. Recorded live in front of no audience.
Rich: But we have a small audience today. We got a couple of our guests are sitting behind us being very, very quiet.
Catelin: So quiet.
Rich: Super sensitive microphones. So today our episode is things Jesse Hates. This is going to be a series that we-
Catelin: It's a long list, folks, I got to tell you.
Rich: It's going to be a 90 minute episode. Buckle up. No, it won't. It'll be the standard half hour.
Catelin: It's limited to the marketing industry, things that Jesse doesn't like.
Rich: True. We do get some of the things he doesn't like in the general world as well, but we're going to keep this limited to marketing. So everybody's got an opinion. Jesse's our creative director, and he'll be joining us to talk about all those things. And a little spin, Catelin and I are both going to stick around to chat with Jesse.
Catelin: Yes.
Rich: Instead of just me wandering off and letting Catelin take care of it. So I think since this is a something that someone hates episode and I may not hate all the things Jesse does. We'll see.
Catelin: Right? We're going to find out.
Rich: We'll find out. But I have our cocktail for this episode. I know Catelin's already like, "Please just take this one away."
Catelin: It's so gross.
Rich: So this cocktail originally originated at the Detroit Athletic Club, as I learned from a Twitter follower-
Catelin: Such history.
Rich: And it's called The Last Word. And it is-
Catelin: I just need to interject also. I think it's really funny that you love this cocktail so much because of the name also. And I'll just leave it at that and then you could tell me what's in it.
Rich: Except you won't leave it at that because when I say something you'll come back and I don't know, have the last word.
Catelin: Sometimes for us it's a race though.
Rich: Kind of, sometimes.
Catelin: Right?
Rich: It just depends. I mean, I think as I get older I tend to just let other people have the last word more often. I just don't care.
Catelin: You've chosen which hills.
Rich: Oh yeah, I know my hills. And if I'm running up that hill and ready to die, you might just want to back off.
Catelin: Right. It's time for you to-
Rich: All right, so The Last Word, it is equal parts lime juice, not an issue with Catelin.
Catelin: Nope.
Rich: Loves the lime juice.
Catelin: Into it.
Rich: Gin, which Catelin-
Catelin: Here for it. Yes.
Rich: It's her fault that I'm drinking gin. Her and her in-house bartender slash spouse.
Catelin: Yes.
Rich: He has been wonderful with the gin cocktails and I'm like, "Okay, maybe I'll just drink them." Then the third piece is Maraschino Liqueur, also-
Catelin: Also In.
Rich: Totally fired-
Catelin: Sign me up.
Rich: And here's where things go sideways for Catelin.
Catelin: South. So terrible.
Rich: Green Chartreuse.
Catelin: Nope. Do not endorse.
Rich: So if you've never had Chartreuse, the best thing is if you like black licorice, you'll probably like Chartreuse. If you do not black licorice, and hearing me say that just makes you want to go... you would not like Chartreuse. So the thing about this one though, the way I do it, for one cocktail, it's generally an ounce, an ounce, an ounce, an ounce. So it's a four ounce cocktail, which is normal, I think.
Catelin: Standard, yeah.
Rich: The Chartreuse is only one fourth of the drink. So the Maraschino Liqueur cuts it...
Catelin: It's fourth too much.
Rich: ... a little bit. But the lime juice really changes it. I'm going to get you to drink one of these-
Catelin: You might have to blindfold me and I still then might not trust you. I don't know. I gave the Chartreuse like a little sniff and I think I might be able to get over it. But the principle of the anise flavor is, that's one bridge too far. I can't do it.
Rich: So it's something that Catelin might have a taste of, is what I'm hearing. But that if you're in a bar that is never going to cross your lips to order.
Catelin: No, would not be it. I don't even know if I would take it for free in a bar. If somebody would be like, "We have this extra thing," I'd be like, "That's okay, you can give it to someone else."
Rich: Well, I mean, you'll save a little bit of money, although as I understand, I know what you bourbon collection looks like and whiskey.
Catelin: Yeah. We're not worried about saving money on cocktails.
Rich: But Chartreuse alone, I mean the bottle was $55. I was like, holy cow.
Catelin: Can I just tell you though that like $55 at my house is a steal for any-
Rich: Well, that's like if you get into my husband's bourbons and things. $55 is like, "Oh, that's a reasonably price, that's such an affordable whiskey."
Catelin: Right? I'm really thrilled that my husband has started toying with liqueurs and rum because the MSRP on rum is so much lower. You can get a really baller rum for 60 bucks. I'm like, "Sign us up. Well take three."
Rich: Yeah, absolutely. A really great black strap is not going to set you back that much. That's funny. I mean, it's probably at the point where putting that in your gas tank might be more efficient than paying for gas these days.
Catelin: We'll just walk.
Rich: So yeah. So anyway, The Last Word, I like it. I had one the other night, I made it for myself. The fun thing is it's almost like this iridescent yellowish green. So it's a really pretty drink.
Catelin: It's pretty.
Rich: Especially if you put it in a cut crystal glass. Because then you get the light reflecting off and everything. Kind of learning that the glass does matter for a drink, especially a colored drink.
Catelin: Yeah. I feel like I see it in a Nick & Nora glass, the little small tasters. Am I making that up? Did I invent that?
Rich: I mean, the one I saw that this person on Twitter had was in a goblet, and it was not a four ounce drink. It was like 12 ounce.
Catelin: It was 16 ounces.
Rich: When I read it, oh, it had a name for what you're supposed to put it in. I put it in a coupe glass because almost everything I drink now goes in a coupe glass.
Catelin: Oh, coupe glasses.
Rich: We got 12 ounce coupe glasses and...
Catelin: I'm sorry.
Rich: ... could not be happier. Yeah, they're wonderful.
Catelin: So it's like a one cocktail limit at the-
Rich: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But you don't have to get up and refill, so you load it up, settle in for your movie, and you're good to go. Until you have to get up and go do something.
Catelin: Right. You just roll to the...
Rich: Pretty much.
Catelin: ... next activity.
Rich: Be in a recliner-
Catelin: Like 12 ounce coupe glass.
Rich: Is it? Maybe it's only 10. I know it's more than eight because we looked at them. Because we have some six ounce martini glasses, and that just was not enough.
Catelin: I just don't like a martini glass. It's so hard to drink from.
Rich: And a Margarita glass, the same thing. I love the shape. It's very fun. But stuff just goes everywhere.
Catelin: Yeah, it's not an economical table to mouth-
Rich: Yeah. I want a margarita on the rocks in a highball glass. That's fine. I'm good with that. All right. So curious if any of Chartreuse fans are out there. It's new to me. This is, I think the very first time I've ever had it. But we did buy it and I had to look up whether it needed to be the yellow or the green. And then learned that the only difference is one is yellow and one is green, which doesn't change the flavor of anything.
Catelin: I have so many questions about that. I need a Chartreuse expert to tell me why we have two colors that are the same thing, just different color.
Rich: I'll bet it's just because of the color the drink needs to be for some weird reason. Or maybe it's a regional thing. I don't know.
Catelin: I'm going to look into this.
Rich: It's made by monks, we learned. So-
Catelin: Yeah, in France or something?
Rich: Somewhere.
Catelin: Yeah, yeah.
Rich: Yeah. Zach's nodding his head. He's our producer. So he's done his research, so that's good. All right. So I know nothing about what Jesse hates for this episode. I know some things he hates, of course, [inaudible 00:07:53], over five years. So I'm pretty good with some things. But this will be a fun episode. And hopefully you guys enjoy breaking the format a little bit and pulling that up. So I think with that we'll get him in here and find out what Jesse hates in the marketing world.
Rich: All right. Thanks for sticking with us to learn things Jesse hates. We do have Jesse here with us. Hello, Jesse.
Jesse: Hey, how's it going?
Rich: And Catelin's here on my side as well.
Catelin: We are ready. This going to be so great.
Rich: So, just a little warning, I know we've had some swears in earlier episodes. This is a rant episode, so there might be some swears.
Catelin: Some swears.
Rich: Maybe a few F bombs dropping here and there.
Jesse: I'll try to control those.
Catelin: No promises.
Jesse: No promises.
Rich: Yeah. We'll see how that goes. But basically these episodes will probably burn through the whole team at one point here on what our pet peeves are, what kind of things we hate. But we will also do the opposite side of it. What do we really love, what's working well, what's inspirational for us. We just decided to start with a rant instead of inspiration. And I guess that says something about our culture, but that's another episode.
Catelin: I think the gestures widely, everybody deserves a rant at this point in the universe. We all deserve just a little bit of valve release-
Jesse: Venting is therapeutic.
Catelin: Yeah, exactly.
Rich: It actually is. And it's very healthy. You could lower your blood pressure by venting. Bottling, everything up inside is not good for you.
Jesse: It's just fun to joke about.
Catelin: Right. In a similar vein, swearing, it's a little dopamine hit, which-
Rich: It's also a sign of intelligence.
Catelin: We're very smart. Yeah.
Rich: I am so smart, it's ridiculous.
Catelin: Jessie, tell us first, give me a 15 second overview, maybe longer than 15 seconds. You've worked here for a long time. Who are you? How did you get here?
Jesse: So I'm the creative director here. I actually started as an intern.
Catelin: Jesse is the ultimate Antidote 71 success story.
Rich: Yeah.
Jesse: I like to joke that I was an intern and then just never left. And they had no choice to keep me around.
Rich: We tried. He was a contractor for a while, so no benefits and just sort of, if there's work, you get paid. If there's not work, you go home.
Jesse: Yep. And I was dumb enough to stick around through.
Rich: Yeah, you stick through all that. And then we're like, we might as well just hire him.
Catelin: We should just keep him. How many name iterations have you been through? Because you are pre Rich, even like you-
Jesse: By a little bit. Yeah. But that was all intern. Just the one from, just to Antidote 71.
Catelin: Okay. I see. I felt like there were more than that. Okay.
Rich: No, that one stuck around for quite a while before we did the rebrand in 2016. Yes. Trying to think way back.
Catelin: So when was that?
Rich: I know, I know. It seems so long ago. As we hire people who were like, we haven't hired anybody born in 2000 or 2001-
Catelin: We haven't hit 2000 yet.
Rich: Close. We've been really close. We haven a 99 I think.
Jesse: A few I think.
Catelin: Yeah. Yeah.
Rich: So that-
Jesse: The next one's coming.
Catelin: It's going to be really-
Rich: Yeah. I love telling people that I went to college, I graduated college in 1994, and having them go, "I wasn't born yet." It's like, "Okay, good. Thank you."
Catelin: I lovingly call them children. They're so wonderful and enthusiastic. I know it's not nice. I know it's not nice, but I'm like, they're just sweet babies and-
Jesse: You should hear what they call you.
Catelin: Right. I'm like that grandma over there in the corner, she doesn't know anything.
Rich: Well, we'll get to that in one of their episodes. What do you hate about being called a child?
Catelin: But so at one point of them said like, "Oh, you're the same age as my parents", right? And you were like, "I think I have to die now."
Rich: That was actually somebody in an interview and then followed up to try to save themselves with, "No, no, no. My mom's super young." And I'm like, "Just stop talking. Just stop. Just shh."
Jesse: Maybe that's why I'm stuck around so long. I've never compared Rich to my parents.
Rich: Well it's because you're a 75 year old-
Catelin: I was just going to say, Jesse is our resident crusty old man on the inside. So youthful and it just charming and-
Rich: Very modern design and staying up on things, but inside-
Catelin: On the inside he is 77 and get off my lawn.
Jesse: I'll own that. We don't know.
Catelin: It comes from a place of love.
Rich: Oh my goodness, my goodness. And Jesse's not a Chartreuse drinker either. He likes a good whiskey or bourbon though. Yeah.
Catelin: I want to know. I know, but I don't know if I know marketing things that you hate. I know the get off my lawn hatred of things.
Rich: I know a few. There's been several that came up recently that I'm curious if they're on your list. Do you want to just get into it?
Catelin: I think so. I think we just start us off.
Jesse: Okay.
Rich: What do you think?
Jesse: Number one is design fluff.
Catelin: Can you say more about what that, tell me what that is.
Rich: It's not marshmallow fluff because that's fantastic.
Jesse: That's way better. This is, and it's not so much client facing. It's a lot of agency to agency justifying creative choices for the sake of just justifying them. Sometimes it gets a little long.
Catelin: So we made this choice because of X and Y and Z, and those aren't even related to the end product? Is that-
Jesse: Yeah. They're trying to get way too philosophical about it. And just-
Catelin: Sure.
Rich: We named our colors. Is that fluff?
Jesse: I think that's in good fun.
Rich: It ties to our culture and it's in good fun. So I think saying, "Here's our three page essay on why we chose yellow for this," instead of, "I like yellow."
Jesse: Yeah. I think anytime you get over a few paragraphs talking about any one thing in particular, you're kind of patting your own ego at that point. Just-
Catelin: We did a great job.
Jesse: Yup. So over justifying things might be a better-
Rich: Instead of, "This looks good, that's why we did it."
Jesse: This makes sense for our clients.
Catelin: Sometimes that's all it needs to be is like, this is the right visual choice and that's why we picked it.
Jesse: Yeah. I think at the very root of it's just over complicating something that doesn't necessarily need to be over complicated.
Rich: And I think that's one thing that I like about your style is you're an illustrator kind of at heart. Give you a pencil and a piece of paper and you're going to sketch like nobody's business. And I think that that simplicity on the start helps. It kind of flows through most of your design work that you do. And that's I think what I like about that. And you're not really justifying it. You're like, "This is what my hand did with the pencil and therefore this is what I'm doing in Illustrator," or in Photoshop or whatever you're working in. And that's the way it's going.
Catelin: It's un-fussy. Which-
Rich: Yes.
Catelin: I mean.
Rich: Un-fussy. fussy design would be something Jesse hates, that same thing.
Jesse: Get rid of it. Don't need it.
Rich: I do want to say in fairness on our colors also, some of them are actually the color-
Catelin: He's going to write four paragraphs.
Rich: No, we've actually got, I think it's just a couple sentences in our brand book about-
Jesse: Yeah. I don't even know if it's that, maybe though. [inaudible 00:15:21]
Catelin: Navigator navy or navigation navy?
Rich: It's not that. That was a former client.
Catelin: Oops. I haven't studied our brand guidelines in a really long time.
Rich: So it's invigorate orange is our primary orange, invigorate orange. So they've got some, the Navy has a name and the green has a name. But yeah, you can check out the brand book. It's on the server.
Catelin: I probably should do that.
Rich: All right. Enough on that. What'd you got next?
Jesse: Oh this is, I don't know if I should even say this one but I'm going to.
Catelin: Oh, I can't wait. Is a hot take.
Jesse: Agency specific, positioning themselves as overly quirky just for the sake of being quirky or different or odd. I think everybody does it to the point where you're just doing it to fit in at this point and you're not as different as you think you are.
Rich: So basically we're all weird. Shut the fuck up.
Jesse: Yeah. Yeah. We even have the headline on our website, we're weird.
Catelin: But I am different.
Jesse: Just a little bit of a rant on that.
Rich: That was weird noise coming out of my throat there. But I think that it kind of goes along with your design fluff really close.
Jesse: Yeah.
Rich: Where it's just like, it's that trying too hard. Just be who you are. Our biggest thing, when we talk to clients, we use very plain language. We're very much like we are on this podcast, this is just who we are. But a lot of it is, do we want to drink with them? Do we want to have dinner with them? Could we just chat and laugh and drink? Not, well we're experts in, I don't think we've ever said we're experts in anything.
Catelin: [inaudible 00:16:48] my skin itch.
Rich: Especially not in print on our website or anything. Now somebody's going to go find it there. Send a screenshot, we'll take it out.
Catelin: You could dial into the way back website machine and-
Rich: The whole industry tries too hard sometimes. And most of what we do is actually pretty simple. You just have to do it.
Catelin: I asked this question the other day in the office; how much of it is the creative brain where you're like, "But I'm good enough at what I do,"? Because I have this as a photographer where I'm like, "Please just like me and pay me money to do. Look at how good at this I am. I promise, I'll-". You know what I mean? Where it's, we're just trying so hard to justify, the creative piece of people's brains when they're like, I'm trying so hard to justify the amount of money I'm charging and look at how fun and talented and... How much of that is-
Rich: I think there's some of it that we must have this weird, quirky, fun backstory because we're-
Catelin: We are storytellers.
Rich: And we did try a backstory with Antidote 71. We've never actually published it. It was a load of crap and fake. And maybe that's why we just never ever move forward-
Catelin: We did not drink our own Kool-Aid on that.
Rich: We didn't that. So, back to your photographer question though because, so here's the difference there, because I've seen your work and I've seen you sell to people and you don't really sell.
Catelin: Because it makes me want to throw up. I hate it.
Rich: You would never be like, "I'm an amazing photographer. I've done 562 maternity portraits. You should hire me." What you do is, "Hey, here's like four samples of stuff I did recently." And people go, "Oh my God, those are great." And you're like "Great, this is my price." And they say, "Okay wonderful, because I want stuff like that." And then you deliver stuff like that. Your work actually tells the story for you. And I feel like I'm stepping on Jesse's podcast now.
Catelin: But I just wonder-
Jesse: Podcast.
Catelin: Yeah. I just wonder if in that weird, different, we're trying so hard to separate or differentiate, or it's like that-
Jesse: It's the point where when everybody is doing that, that's not a differentiator anymore.
Rich: Yeah, correct.
Jesse: Yeah. But I get the-
Catelin: You know what I mean? How do we figure out what the point of difference is when everyone is-
Jesse: And it was probably a momentum swing from everybody being very, for lack of a better term, stuck up and businessy and corporate. And I think it swung way too far the other way. So we need to find a-
Rich: Maybe essentially we're the boring ad agency, but we do good work. Here's some of it. If you like it, hire us.
Jesse: That's pretty straightforward.
Rich: It seems a little bit lack-
Catelin: The copy will write Itself.
Jesse: I mean, it will.
Rich: Interesting. I think that you're right. And I think that's the same when we're doing work for clients. And that's part of why we do competitive reviews is if everybody else is saying the same thing as you are...
Catelin: Why would you say, yeah-
Rich: ... why would you say it too? No, no, no. We've got to dig deeper. We've got to find something else. And agencies are the worst at marketing themselves. So my guess is it's easy to find that quirky back story and just push it. Interesting. This could be a 90 minute episode.
Catelin: Right? We're going to be here all day. I'm ready. Sign me up.
Jesse: A few quotes or things that people say that is just a automatic buzz in my head and an alarm going off, print is dead. I don't agree with it.
Catelin: What do you want to print? Is like-
Jesse: I think there's always going to be a place for printed stuff. So it's never going to die as much as some people want it to.
Rich: Yeah. I mean we printed our benefits book. There's no reason that couldn't have been-
Catelin: Because It's beautiful.
Rich: It's an experience. So there's no reason that couldn't have just been a digital PDF that we send to somebody. But I don't even know if you knew this, but I think our most recent hire got it in our interview, because we had extras. But otherwise I mail it to somebody when they accept, I have their address now through the HR system, I actually put it in an envelope with a little handwritten note and send it to them because it's an experience. And touching that thing is still good.
Catelin: There is-
Jesse: Especially when everything is on screen. I mean you scroll through anything, it feels the same in your hand. Whether it's a website, an app or anything.
Rich: Soft touch paper of our-
Jesse: Soft touch, there's embossed things. I think even as more stuff goes to that, that's going to be an even bigger impact with some of that.
Rich: Yeah. I think you've just got to find the right time to actually physically print something. But it can absolutely make sense. I would agree with that. And newspapers dead. Well, it's not dead yet. Radio's dead. It's not dead yet. TV didn't kill radio. Podcasting is just talk radio.
Catelin: It's just new. It's new old radio. Yeah.
Jesse: Does everybody need a brochure? No, absolutely not. But saying it's completely dead is just not true.
Rich: Well, and I think a great one in that is the thank you note. And I remember in the middle of the COVID, and we'll probably get this later or early on since we're two years into it now, basically, right? Since we [inaudible 00:21:52].
Catelin: What flat circle?
Rich: I hit a point where I just missed all of you and so I just sat down and hand wrote everybody a note and dropped them. I bought a bunch of stamps and people were like, "Send mail, save the USPS."
Catelin: Yeah. Right?
Rich: I'll send some mail and just sent everybody notes because unique to you and kind of like, "Hey, I'm missing you."
Catelin: They had custom quotes. Yeah, I remember. Yeah.
Rich: I had those note cards printed because they've all got a quote on the back that's from somebody that speaks to me in some way. And I did try to match the quote a little bit to your personality and what I wrote. That's a really good example of when printed makes sense. It's a really great way to do it. I mean a printed thank you note is so much better than an email.
Catelin: It is. The tangibility of those things just elevates the experience too. That little extra is so valuable, especially when everything is screens, right?
Rich: Yup. But if you're going to do print, make it look great and do it well. And you may have a reason for it. Yeah.
Jesse: Don't make the trash that some, like a window sticker that somebody sticks in your car that just goes right into the trash. That's pointless.
Rich: Or make an invitation in Word and just print it, fold it, stick it in an envelope. No, no, no, no.
Catelin: I am such a paper snob. Yeah. I love it.
Jesse: Too much white space.
Rich: That is a thing?
Jesse: Too much white space-
Rich: That's not a thing.
Jesse: Yeah.
Rich: No.
Jesse: Yeah. When somebody says that, another just alarm is going off in my head. And I don't know really where it comes from. I don't know why people have a need to just fill every inch of something with something. Think-
Rich: I don't know.
Catelin: I know we've had conversations with clients before where they're like, "Can we add this and can we add this and can we add this?" And it's like, if you put all of that stuff in there, if everything is important, then nothing is important. And you have to give an opportunity to take a breath and digest and comprehend before you can move on to the next thing.
Rich: Yeah. White space helps guide your eye. It draws you in. I think that's-
Jesse: That's a tough one.
Catelin: That's tough.
Rich: And I know that, and we've had clients who've said, "I want to fill every single thing." And basically before we get into any design, we need to talk them down off of that pedestal or hill and just be like, "You don't want to die here. Trust me. It's a bad place to die." And we've been successful sometimes. Sometimes we haven't been. But we've passed on projects where it's just a clutter full of everything because it's not going to communicate right. And it's not going to do what they want and then it'll be our fault. But it can't be full. Gosh, these are good. I'm liking these.
Jesse: Well, I can keep going.
Catelin: We're only a third of the way through.
Jesse: Worthless meetings.
Catelin: Oh this is my favorite one.
Jesse: Yeah. I think everybody can join me in on this one. They have to have a purpose. There has to be some kind of, like Catelin would say, action item.
Catelin: I need it. I was just going to say, I was like, I love an action item. What did we spend the last 30 minutes doing? What are we going to do when we leave here? Because if it's just like we all sat on this screen or in this room and-
Rich: I mean, give us 30 minutes of a wasted meeting, we can give you another podcast.
Catelin: Right? I know. And I'll be the first to tell you that I love to sit around and chit chat. But if that's not the purpose-
Rich: And we have a little bit of that in our meetings. I think our meetings have gotten, they've gotten shorter, I've noticed. We can even run through all of the current projects-
Catelin: Alyssa is the efficiency queen.
Rich: She's fantastic.
Catelin: She's not here to mess around.
Rich: That is a future episode, Alyssa talking to us about efficiency and dealing with people like me, and getting me to do things efficiently.
Catelin: Write it in Mackey, write it in.
Rich: Roll it out. I think that's a really good one. So I worked someplace, a very large company, and our department and other departments did not like this. And I personally did this. If we came to a meeting and there was no agenda, I left. If we came to a meeting and I looked at the agenda and I had nothing to do with the agenda, and they just wanted me there for whatever reason, I left.
Jesse: I can get behind that.
Rich: And the first-
Catelin: He was going to become our agenda police.
Rich: The first couple of times I did it, people were calling my boss. And he was great, he supported me. And he's like, "Well why did you need him there?" And they're like, "Well, we just really wanted him in the room." And he's like, "That's a stupid reason. He's got work to do. If you have a question for him or you need him for something, then-"
Catelin: Send an email.
Rich: Right. Oh the meeting, that could be an email. So many.
Jesse: Yeah, same thing.
Catelin: Yeah. Have you seen that there's a couple of people that I follow that they, the progression of 2020, "This meeting could have been an email," and then 2021 was, "This meeting could have been a Team's message or a Slack message." And then 2022 is like, "This meeting should have been a thought that stayed in your head."
Rich: There's been some of those.
Catelin: Oh man, what are we even doing here? Get me out.
Rich: So, I want to make sure we get to one on your list because I know there's a design tool that well people, I'm going to use air quotes, design tool, that people use. And I see it bolded over there on your notes.
Jesse: Yeah, it is bold.
Catelin: It is bold.
Jesse: I guess these two, can kind of, they pretty much tie into one. It's Canva, the death of me, and design experience. I think they go hand in hand because one of them thinks that they can use Canva-
Catelin: As design experience?
Rich: Oh.
Jesse: Here I see the purpose of it, so I don't want to rag on it too much, and I don't want to be an asshole.
Catelin: It has a place in time. But coming to an agency and saying, "I have design experience," when it's Microsoft Paint, it's like the 2020s version of Microsoft Paint.
Rich: Right? "I'm great websites. I did two on Wix."
Catelin: "I made website in Squarespace." And it's like, ah.
Rich: Yeah, they have their purpose, I think for small companies...
Jesse: Absolutely.
Rich: ... can't afford agency, can't afford staff. They're great. I think Canva when it started as a way to make social graphics was fantastic. But the whole, go in there and be like, design your logo. And it's just a bunch of pre chosen stuff that you just put your words on. That's not-
Jesse: Yeah, it's really okay, yeah. Here I guess I could have phrase that a little bit better. It's Canva in place of an agency or a marketing professional, I think is what gets me. It's like, "Oh, I don't need graphic design. I've got Canva."
Rich: Well-
Catelin: I think where you run into problems though is intellectual property or what do you own from Canva, if not nothing. Yeah.
Rich: Well, I've lost my train of thought. Well that was a tangent I didn't expect today. Just completely lost my train of thought. And we won't edit that out because why would we? It's funny. But yeah, that's a rough one. Oh I remember what it was. I told people-
Jesse: Just give him a sec.
Rich: So I started two businesses now and I run businesses, business owner, and I get you've got overhead and you've got cost and things. But part of me is like, okay, so you have somebody who's like, "I want to just use Canva for a logo for my retail store." You're leasing retail space, which is more expensive than office space. You've got inventory, you presumably bought a cash register at some point, or you're using Square or whatever, which is great. Contactless payments and all that. You've invested in this business. And where you're going to actually stop the investment...
Catelin: Is the actual identity.
Rich: ... spending Like five, six, $10,000 for a logo and your identity. No. Get something a hundred percent original to you. You've cut off your investment at exactly the wrong spot. That's not a place where you go cheap. Now, if you're an independent artist who's doing it as a hobby and you want a logo, yeah I can get where you might not want to spend thousands of dollars on it. But even then there are other places you can get a cheaper logo and better logo that you own than Canva.
Catelin: It's like Fiver or something.
Rich: Not Fiver, Jesus.
Catelin: Not Fiver. What's the other one? Thumbtack?
Rich: LogoGround is one. You end up paying three to $700 for a logo that-
Jesse: Those are unique.
Rich: They are. And when you buy it-
Catelin: Then you buy it, you own it.
Jesse: You buy it.
Catelin: Yeah.
Rich: You get all the vector files, everything. So yeah, that is a rough one. Also, Canva is never going to be a sponsor now, so that's fine. I think we'll live with that.
Jesse: So sad. Oh, let's see what else?
Catelin: Yeah, what else-
Rich: Is there more on your list?
Jesse: Oh yeah, there's plenty.
Catelin: So I just was going to say, one of the things that I know Jesse hates outside of marketing and agency work is cold pizza. And I just found this out-
Rich: What?
Catelin: I know. I said the same thing.
Jesse: No, I will eat-
Catelin: Oh, this is the backtrack of all backtracks. Because yesterday you were like, "Cold pizza is garbage. I will never."
Jesse: No, it is garbage. I think me and Riley were in the same boat is that if it was there and that was the only thing that we had to eat, there was no way to heat it...
Catelin: There's no microwave.
Jesse: ... we'll eat it. But if it's between that and something that's hot or literally anything else.
Rich: So I had leftover Godfather's taco pizza, and I learned that if you order it without the lettuce, because if you order it with the lettuce, you just can't save it.
Jesse: No.
Rich: But everything else without the lettuce, one, it's really good. It's like this amazing pizza, because the taco sauce and everything. I know-
Catelin: That is my father-in-laws favorite.
Rich: But I had leftover and I had three pieces. So I put two of them in the toaster oven. And while they were toasting, I ate the third piece cold because I was hungry.
Catelin: Desperation.
Rich: So when I started eating solid food and when I was three and four, we lived in New Mexico. We lived in New Mexico. And so one of the things you do there though, it's like you have a leftover burrito for breakfast. You have your leftover enchiladas for breakfast. But you don't heat them. So enchiladas cold, which is honestly just sort of a rolled up pizza cold, it's a sauce and-
Catelin: Yeah, A sauce and a meat.
Rich: I See you're recoiling on that, but you'll do the cold pizza.
Catelin: I don't know. It's different. It seems different to me.
Rich: Yeah, it was weird. But I don't know. I can eat cold enchiladas and I'm fine with it. It's very odd. And I don't recommend it to anybody necessarily, but I like them.
Catelin: So when you say for breakfast, I'm picturing you with a bowl of cold enchilada, like pouring milk over the top and being like, "Breakfast, delicious."
Rich: No, it's just a small little square enchiladas on a plate with a fork, just eating it like you would. It's just not hot.
Catelin: I think that's on my hate list. I don't think-
Rich: Yeah, I think-
Jesse: Welcome to the hot side.
Rich: We should get to a foods we hate at some point and maybe just do five minutes-
Catelin: We don't have enough time.
Rich: Mean, but there's a lot of food we like though.
Catelin: That's true.
Jesse: Yeah. That list would be longer.
Catelin: That's true. Yeah.
Rich: All right.
Catelin: What's your last, do you have a coup de grâce?
Rich: What's the one you can just send us off with?
Jesse: Oh geez.
Rich: Which one's going to spark the emails?
Jesse: I guess this ties in nicely with what we do. Ugly lead gen.
Catelin: Yeah.
Rich: Oh Jesus. Yes. Well, I've used that since you and I had that conversation about lead gen doesn't have to be ugly. I've used that in so many pitches that we've done, and just talking to so many people. And everybody gets it. Everybody's like, "Oh yeah, direct mail's always ugly and email's always ugly."
Catelin: But it's because it's the thing where it's like everything is important, where they're just trying to throw as much, instead of having a well defined message and a call to action that's very succinct. It's like, well let's just shotgun method and see what sticks. It's like-
Jesse: How big do I have to make this button to make people click on it? Smaller. Smaller.
Catelin: People know how to run the internet now.
Rich: Yeah. Button doesn't need to be full width and six inches tall. We'll find it. Put it on the left, put it on the right, put in the center, whatever works for your design. I actually a good left justified button, especially if the paragraph above it is. I don't know, it's just one of my things that I enjoy.
Catelin: But I think that goes back to white space too. You can play...
Rich: Oh yeah, yeah.
Catelin: ... guide your people where you want them to go.
Rich: And I think with lead gen, you do get into a lot of, "Well, I've got so much to say, I have to jam it in. I don't want this email to be really long." And it's like, the answer to that is cut some of your content. Maybe that email is four emails-
Catelin: Or make your funnel a little bit longer. You know what I mean? Spread that out a little bit. Instead of making them drink from the fire hose, take it back a little bit.
Rich: One thought per email is a great place to start and then give the designer time to work on.
Jesse: Yeah. Yeah. I like that, drinking out of the fire hose is just a great phrase.
Catelin: It's very illustrative.
Jesse: It's so true. So yeah, that would probably be mine. Because I really like one of the questions that we've started asking for websites is, what is the one thing that you want a user to see on this page? And just cut it down. And we're not having them look at five, six different things.
Catelin: Well, and it also kind of acts like a north star too, where when we get to the point where we want to add back all this stuff, it's like, nope. Remember at the beginning of this process when you told us what was important to you and we've been designing around that thing and working towards that thing. Don't lose sight of that. And remember what you said was important to you and we're trying to-
Jesse: And it's more effective like that.
Catelin: Yeah. Yeah.
Rich: Well, how much do you hate it when somebody tries to put three things in the one thing you want people to do? We don't let them do it, right?
Jesse: Yeah.
Catelin: You said one.
Rich: It's like, no, you can't fill in three things. You've got to get back to one. And I think that the interesting thing about that is obviously a page can have more opportunities than one thing. But what is that important thing? We're going to make sure people-
Jesse: One of them has to be on the top of the page.
Rich: Yeah. It's got to be above the fold or it's got to be the first thing they come to. It can't be, "Well, I want them to subscribe to my blog, and follow me on social, and fill out a form." Nope. Pick one. What's most important to you? Is the form most important, capturing that lead? Or is it really subscribing to the blog because then you've got them on an ongoing basis. So yeah, that's a great one. Ugly lead gen is just so bad and I just delete it. I get so many bad emails and things. It's just like-
Jesse: Well, and it's really not that hard to just make it look a little bit better. I mean a little bit more time in some of those things and it would be great. And how much harder could that work for them?
Rich: Yeah. And I would argue that we don't charge clients anymore for good looking leg gen that works hard, than, and other agencies charge them for ugly lead gen that probably doesn't work as hard. Our rates aren't that much different. It's not like we charge a premium to make it look good. We just want everything to look good.
Jesse: It's just part of the job as far as we're concerned.
Rich: That's kind of why we're here. Well cool. I mean that's a great list of things you hate. We didn't go too far down a rabbit hole with anything. There were just only a couple of swears. I think that was good.
Jesse: I held back.
Rich: Just organic. Don't hold back. This is entertainment.
Catelin: I think just the swears.
Rich: But yeah, that's fantastic. I can't wait to continue this series with more of the team, and also get to the things people love. I think that's-
Jesse: Yeah, maybe that's-
Catelin: Is there one thing, I'm going to put you on the spot. Is there one thing that you really love? What is it-
Jesse: About marketing?
Catelin: Yeah. A marketing trend, not even necessarily a trend. Or a design thing that's happening right now that you're like into that.
Rich: Wow, that's a really on the spot.
Jesse: No kidding.
Catelin: I'm sorry. But I'm not sorry.
Jesse: Maybe just not like a trend or anything like that, but just marketing in particular and kind of why I got into it, I guess, is just helping. Using what I can do really well and what the team does really well and helping other businesses grow and hit their goals is why we do it.
Catelin: Yeah. Yeah. We're all just here to help.
Rich: Excellent. Yeah, I think that's an episode.
Catelin: We did it.
Jesse: Cool. Thanks for having me.
Rich: Thanks for coming.
Catelin: Thank you.
Jesse: This week's quick tip is that it's okay to vent and sometimes say the things that you hate. So go ahead, might make you feel better.
Rich: That's it for another episode of Cocktails, Tangents And Answers.
Catelin: We hope it was as much fun to listen to as it was to make.
Rich: You can find me on Twitter or Instagram at @richmackey. I try not to make it too difficult. It's just my name. And you can find our agency at @Antidote_71. That's A-N-T-I-D-O-T-E, underscore 71 on Twitter and Instagram as well.
Catelin: And you can find me at home sipping a craft cocktail prepared by my in-home bartender. It's my husband.
Rich: We'll be back with another episode every other week and a whole new cocktail recipe, plenty more tangents and of course answers to those pressing marketing questions.
Catelin: And if you'd like to send us a question, you can go to ctapodcast.live to send us an email.
Rich: Or you can call our hotline at (402) 718-9971 and leave us a voicemail. Your questions might be used for future episodes of the podcast.
Catelin: For now, like and subscribe and tune in next time.