Erik Eustice - Of The Sea - Podcast Strategy, Challenges and Who's the Bigger #?@%! - Episode 36

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Erik Eustice, Marketing Captain of Of The Sea,  is the interviewee in the latest episode of the Smarter Business Podcast. In this video, Erik discusses his podcast, the strategy and challenges he encountered, being authentic as well as a look inside who the bigger #?@%! is in his podcast, him or Matt. 


Learn more about Of The Sea here:
https://ofthesea.com


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Transcript

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(gentle music) - Welcome to this episode of the Smarter Business podcast. This is a podcast where we like to talk to business professionals who are doing interesting things with video. If you like what you hear today, you find things interesting, please subscribe, share, review this podcast, it's available on YouTube and all of the major podcasting platforms. Today's guest is Erik Eustice of Of The Sea Marketing. Do you do that on purpose with the name to make it like a little harder to intro of, Of The Sea? - No, no. I struggle with that when I have to write it out, sometimes I have to, because I try not to do that, the double of, so that it actually is unintentionally more challenging, but it's the downside that we accept because of all the upsides of the name, I think, so. - It is a great name and Erik, I will give you a chance to introduce yourself and you can spin right into introducing Of The Sea if you'd like as well. - Yeah, sure. Thanks Neil, for asking me to be on the podcast. Yeah, so I'm Erik Eustice, Marketing Captain is the term that I go by because when you start your own business, you can call yourself kind of whatever you want. And I'm not serious enough of an individual to call myself founder, partner, CEO, whatever, you know, all fine titles by the way, if that's your title, but I just didn't think it fit for me. So I started Of The Sea, we are pushing up against 11 years. We are a, I'd say a small advertising agency. I tell people that we build brands and advertising campaigns that demand undivided attention, that pleasantly defy expectations, and that create valuable encounters and conversations for our clients. So I haven't always done Of The Sea. I worked in media before this. I was an account executive. I was creating and managing advertising campaigns for a group of radio stations here in West New York. And I did that for about five years and really learned a lot about marketing and advertising through that. My official schooling is actually in photography. Don't do a lot of photography these days, other than the iPhone photography of, you know, my children in my life, but kind of just parlayed those things, had a good mentor over at Entercom, that media company, Steve Fortunato, who saw my ability to write and create, and really helped me, I think, apply that. And anyway, yeah, so that's where we're at now. It's myself and three other individuals in downtown Buffalo, and yeah, we're having fun. - Awesome. Yeah, and I'll echo the fact that your campaigns and so on, you know, you definitely focus on creating a different voice for your clients, which I think is incredibly important compared to just hearing another radio ad or seeing another ad on line or whatever it is. I think that you all do an incredible job with that, so- - Thank you, appreciate that. - Yeah, yeah, no problem. And if you had to boil down what you do to one sentence, I'm going to say that you already kind of said that, right, so... - Yeah, It's that whole demand attention, defy expectations. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, exactly. And create encounters, yeah. - So we'll pass over that, very well rehearsed, by the way, that you had that sentence ready to go, right. Good for networking meetings- - It took me a long time, even though I do this, because you know, it's like, it's hard just to do for yourself. It took me a long time to get to that one sentence. Yeah, that's actually a recent phenomenon, probably in the last year and a half or so. - Do you want to do it again just for fun? - Nah. Thanks for the chance though. We'll leave them wanting more. (crosstalk) - You have to rewind this podcast if you want to hear it again, awesome. But everybody check out Of The Sea. It is a great local agency here in Buffalo. And because I didn't get a good segue there, we're going right to the notes here and we're going to start talking vidwheel Creator Network. So part of the reason that I asked you on the podcast today is this month is video podcast month on the vidwheel Creator Network. You and Matt from Renowned Creative recently started a podcast earlier this year. Do you want to kind of talk about the concept behind the podcast and what you all are doing there? - Yeah, yeah. Thanks, yeah. It's called Erik and Matt Like Ads. My co-host Matt Zelasko. Yeah, he's actually of a competing, I guess we're friendly, but you know, friendly competitors, but competing advertising agency here in Buffalo. And when we decided to do the podcast, we barely knew each other. We had had a couple encounters previously and knew some of the same people, I think generally had an awareness of each other, and some moderate degree of respect for each other's approaches, but we didn't really know a ton about each other. And I checked LinkedIn one day and there's a message from Matt in LinkedIn asking me if I would like to co-host a podcast about advertising. I thought, well, there's a shady idea, yeah. Let's do this, right? You know, thinking on paper for all the reasons you say no to that, I'm like, yeah, let's say yes to that. It turns out that Matt had just had a couple pops at lunch that day, and so he didn't have the inhibitions to stop himself from sending that message. And I'm glad that he did. So we actually joke about that. So that's, yeah, that's true. That's how some of these things do occur. Right, so if you're thinking, well, this must have been a really strategic, you know, kind of decision. No, no, it completely was in the moment and slightly influenced by beer, I think. - Alcohol-induced podcast, excellent. Well, and so, he was an admirer from afar then, do you think? Was he kind of a secret admirer type? He saw what you're doing on LinkedIn, and he ... - You know what? Knowing Matt as well as I know now, I'd say, yeah, he was a bit of a sycophant, you know, he was trying to start the Erik Eustice Fan Club, you know, membership one. So yeah, I think he just seen some of the stuff that I was, you know, the way I was engaging, you know, my persona, we do this for our clients, right. Is create, you know, these personality frameworks. And you gotta know if a brand, you know, you think of a brand is if it were a person, it would have personality traits. So like I've have applied that to Of The Sea, and naturally they kind of blend with what my traits are. And so, on LinkedIn, I've got this, you know, hopeless romantic ad nerd, smart ass kind of like combination of things going on. So that's how I show up on LinkedIn, all right. So I'm usually doing one or two to three of those kind of things when I'm posting, commenting, replying. And so, I think he was mildly entertained by it, but also he saw my take on advertising, my take on brand, my take on identity, and I didn't realize until we started getting to know each other better in planning the podcast that we really, we agree on not all things, but a lot of things. Like in our business, I feel like that's a little rare that we would have that much in common because everyone kind of has their own take and theories on things. So we thought that was pretty refreshing and I think that's how we really hit it off. And I kind of had a sense that he was a bit of an instigator, bit of a smart ass, kind of poking the bear to see what would happen in his content. So I think that's kind of what initially I think attracted us to each other. - Yeah, excellent. And it's got, you two both have some good chemistry on there. They're very entertaining episodes for anybody who, you know, wants to check them out. I feel like the best way to do them, are they just video? That's the only place I've seen them is on YouTube or- - Yeah, we thought about doing audio, and then we realized that we're really showing, so it's Erik and Matt Like Ads. So we're basically reviewing an ad, usually a famous ad, a well-known ad, could be, you know, from way back when, could be contemporary. They're pretty much TV video ads, right? So it's hard to really make that work well through audio, we had a plan to do an audio version of it and we realized this probably works best in video. So it's on YouTube and we primarily distribute through through LinkedIn, and that's something again, we're going to be working on as we roll into season two next year. - Yeah, and so as a traditional audio person, you just explained why video, are you more comfortable on video? Like the format that you two have or would you have, you know, I guess preferred reviewing a radio commercials or something like that? - Oh, I'm very comfortable. I mean, like to me, the creative is the creative, and well, yeah, I think radio advertising is terribly effective and cost effective for a lot of local businesses. Television also uses, while it has the visual component, it's also a Sonic medium, and so it's also very emotive, and you know, so to me, you know, print, they all work. They're all good. It's just a matter of like, you know, what's your strategy and how do you use those tools effectively? So I'm very comfortable on a camera. Growing up, people would tell me, and this definitely went to my head, Erik, you know, you should, have you ever thought about acting? Have you ever thought about acting? I never actually, other than like a play Fest, my senior year of high school, I never really got into it, but I've always kind of liked entertaining people. You know, like I don't mind, you know, ask anyone who knows me, I don't mind being the center of attention. And so, like getting in front of a camera, I've always felt comfortable with doing that. So doing, I wasn't intimidated, but we coach some of our clients to try to create video and do things. And they do, whether it's in front of a camera or just like our radio clients that, you know, are in front of a mic having to voice those things, it can be very intimidating for people. And I didn't choose this, just for some reason, I'm not, it's just, I don't know, it just comes, it just comes to me, so. - Yeah, yeah. And that's an important aspect obviously, to creating content the way you are. So that's yeah, that's an important piece. That's something we talk about a lot in the Creator Network, is getting over that initial hump, right? And every time you do it, it gets a little bit easier, as our last podcast guest put it, you get a little bit better, it doesn't get easier, but you get a little bit better at it and it feels easier, and it's, it's a... - That's a good way to look at it. - It's a good cycle to get into. So you did bring up in there strategy and earlier on you talked about maybe not necessarily having a strategy, did you, after you all got together on this podcast, kind of develop a strategy for going forward? Or was it just like, let's try it, see what happens. You both have the resources, you know, as agencies to kind of give it a shot and see if the chemistry is good, see if you build a following and go from there. So what was the approach? - Yeah, so there wasn't like a strategy of like where we were like, we really need to do a podcast. It was a, it would be fun to do a podcast. And then once that decision was made, it was like, okay, we probably should plan this thing. We probably should structure it and figure out what is this thing? Why would anyone want to watch it? You know, what's the dynamic going to be? You know, like we got this co-host model where our guest is the ad, right? So we don't necessarily have like a third party coming in where we're interviewing, we're really doing the banter kind of thing around the ad itself. And so for us, we're like what were our reasons for doing it? We wanted to have fun, for sure. We wanted to do something that would challenge us. This was definitely way more difficult and complicated, though it's a simple idea. And you shouldn't like psych yourself out about doing it because it's a lot easier to do than I think people think, but it is also more complicated than you might think when you're just like, oh yeah, how hard could that be? You kind of said earlier, you know, pre show, you know, people see these things and when they're well done, they just look so like simple and natural, but there's a lot that goes into making it look simple and natural. So we did plan it out to kind of figure out like what would kind of be the arc of each episode? How would it flow? We had this like really silly notion that we could keep these things to like 15 to 20 minutes. And there's like, and everyone that knows us completely just laughed their ass off because they're like, there's no way Erik and or Matt are going to keep anything to 15 to 20 minutes. And we have not yet been able to do that. But we wanted to have fun. We wanted to challenge ourselves. We wanted to, you know, be able to, I guess, you know, create some content that would help show a little bit of our personality, help to, you know, engage our network and grow our network, and also show that we know what we're talking about when it comes to the craft of advertising. It's what we do. We want to do more of it for a long time, right? So this is definitely a marketing strategy for us. It wasn't the primary reason for doing it. I can't say that either of us have any like clients or like, you know, direct kind of relationships, business relationships, as a result of it at this point, we've been doing it for less than a year. We launched it in, crap, April, and we started talking about it in like February. And we met once a week, every week, through Zoom just to plan it out. And then finally just picked a day and said, this is the day that we're going to record. And it was, it was a little nerve wracking. And even though I feel like this is kind of like a natural thing for me to do, I was super nervous about it. And the first episode was a little rough going, but you know, you did it, to your point, we did it. And then we're like, okay, great. The second one was like a completely different experience. I felt like I owned the thing. And every one after that just got stronger and stronger. - Yeah, it's incredible. Even if you're pretty well accomplished, right? And like you said, you know, kind of being able to speak to the camera, or on mic, or anything like that. I had a similar experience when I went live on LinkedIn a couple of months ago, like that fir-, it's different enough that the nerves come back, and then you push through it and you know, it gets less intimidating as you go forward. But, out of your response there, I've got a few questions. I'll see if I can get them all, all in straight here. Number one is, so like, we talk a lot about, I always tell people the easiest way to create content is to talk to somebody smarter than you, which is what I'm doing right now, and then record it. Done, content. - Sure, sure, sure. We'll have a 25 minutes of content when we're all done here, and then, you know, you can hack it up into smaller bits. Do you, I know you're doing the co-host type thing, so it's probably both you and Matt thinking, you know, that they're chatting with somebody else, but it probably makes it that much easier, right? It'd be a lot harder to go on and monologue about that ad versus having that banter with Matt. I guess that's less of a question, - Agreed. - And more of a ... - No, no, you're a hundred percent, two things, because there's accountability to make sure that it gets done. You have a date, right? Someone's expecting you, it's like working with a personal trainer, right? Like you have a running partner, someone's expecting you to be there, right? So it's, you can't make an excuse for why you can't get to it this week, you know? Though summer got in our way and we had a little bit of that going on, but that affected both of us. And then yeah, like, and then it's just, yeah, because you might blank on something, or you know, they've got something to say, or you know, you're maybe not quite on, but they're totally on this week, you know? And then you feed off of that. So having a partner in it, yeah, it's I think infinitely easier to accomplish, yeah. - That's actually, I love that point. Like the accountability partner aspect of it, you can't underwrite, right? You don't want to let somebody else down. On that same note, we talked before, before we started recording here about some of the challenges, and one of them was maybe just scheduling, right? When you have two busy professionals, you hit summer, there's kid stuff, there's vacation, that kind of getting both people on the same schedule is one challenge. What are some of the other challenges that you faced starting up with this? - Well, I think there's the, you know, there's the, what are you going to call it? There's some of the planning stuff, right? Like what are you going to call it? You know, you got to create, you know, and we have the resources internally, you know, us both being agencies, but you've got, you know, some graphic design stuff. What's it going to look like, you know? What's the visual style going to be? You know, how are you, you get the format of it, I guess. So that was part of it. But you got to, you just, you slog through that stuff and just get it done. I think the sharing it, you know, as much as, you know, you think you're good at what you do, there's always that like, well, will people like this? Are they going to like me? Like, was I, did I good, did I do a good job at that, you know? So there's the sharing it and hoping that people are going to enjoy it and try not to look at well, how many views did we, you know, because right now, like we don't get a lot of views and we make a joke out of it like that almost every episode, we kind of try to bring out that the fact that the only two people probably watching are our mothers, right? You know, so like, and when you've got eight views on a video, it's like, you know, maybe they both watched it a few times from different devices with different IP addresses. I don't know. You know? So there's a little bit of that, right? Like confidence, you know, and sharing it, putting it out there when you have it, we try to have opinions, you know, in some of the stuff that we've talked about in the ads, like what's cool about advertising is it doesn't exist in a vacuum, it's a product of culture. And you know, so depending on the time when an ad was produced, you have what was going on at that time, the context of that. And then you have like, what's going on now. And so we actually have watched some ads that were either explicitly dealing with cultural issues or were not explicitly dealing with them, but because of what's happening in our culture now, it became relevant. And so, when you start to talk about those things, and there's different opinions on those, and you try not to, you try to do it in a respectful way that just really has the conversation rather than trying to pigeonhole something. There is always the like, because everyone's really super sensitive, you know, it's like, okay, are we going to, you know? So it's just some of that, like where, where are the lines, you know, where do you like, so you have honest, provocative, opinionated conversation that's still respectful, and is, because we're still trying to discuss ads, right? Like we're not trying to make this like a political thing. And I think we were successful in that, but I think there's some of it. So depending on what your subject matter is or what the format is, like, there could be some challenges of knowing where the lines are and making sure that you stay within them, you know? - Well, and yeah, I mean, that is, that's always a balancing act, right? And because, you know, I think you deal with that in an agency setup too, right? Like if you're not making some people dislike you, or maybe not agreeing with your message, then like, are you making anybody really agree with it too, right? You don't want to be too beige about the whole thing, I guess is maybe... - No, you're right, I agree with that, for sure. - Yeah, so I guess on that note, I watched this last one and your ad that you discussed was a great one. Do you remember it? The yeah, yeah, Coleman Sweeney. - Coleman (beep) Sweeny, yeah, yeah, yeah. World's biggest (beep), yeah. - So A, that it was incredible. I hadn't seen that before, but that was the, the discussion was great. But one of the things I wanted to ask that I didn't put in the notes, so it wouldn't ruin the surprise, right? There was some discussion about who the big (beep) was between you and Matt. He is not here to defend himself. Do you want to let everybody know who it is? - Oh, it's me, it's definitely me. Why, if you watch enough of the episodes, I think it'd be pretty clear. Like I'm far pettier than he is. I ride him a lot harder than he rides me. Definitely, I talk over him all the time. But this is part of like the persona, right? I tried that time doing that. And when I'm in a meeting with a client, I don't steamroll them. But when I'm on the podcast with Matt, I steamroll him hard. - And you got the whiskey there, like it all kind of fits, right? Stronger drinks, stronger opinions. It works, it works. - Yeah, well you know, that was the one where he was drinking a Truly, right? - (laughs) Yeah, it was a White Claw, or Truly, or something, yeah. - I mean, come on, he's asking, whatever, he's asking for it. I mean, come on. I mean, I love the guy. I love Matt, man. I love you, you know I love you. And I think if you want to drink a Truly, you should drink that. I celebrate that, but I'm absolutely going to bust your balls for it, for sure. - Would you recommend next time, maybe he pours it into a cup and then nobody would know. - Or maybe like a sippy cup. (Neil laughs) Yeah, it's a great idea. - Perhaps. - No, he had, like here's the thing, like he used to be, he's drink, you know, and it's not like we're drinking in every episode. We usually do these on Friday afternoons, so that's kind of like our excuse for doing that. And usually he's drinking whiskey, or a respectable beer, or something like that, so. - Okay, well, yeah, not in the Sweeny episode, so. - No, no, no, no, no. And I really love that you brought that up, thank you. - Yeah, well, I wanted to give you a chance, right, unimpeded to kind of talk about that. Okay, so one other thing that I was going to come back to, like from a technical standpoint, you all just record through Zoom, right? - Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we use Zoom, yep. - Oh, is there any post-production or anything, I guess is the...? - Yeah, so we Zoom that. Matt handles the, you know, getting that file over to a gentlemen, Patrick, who does our editing for us. And so he'll like clean it up the best he sees fit. He'll put the animated intro in. He'll, you know, do a little outro thing. Usually we have some outtakes that are at the end of each episode, so he'll toss those on the back. And then we'll send it over. I'll take a look at it. So part of what I do is I watch each episode, and I'm taking notes, I'm looking for like timestamps of just completely cut this, cut that, you know, here, there, little things. And then I'll also give him a list of vignettes. So we want to have maybe like three or four vignettes, maybe two for each of Matt and I, then that's what we're sharing on LinkedIn, right? So that's that 30 minute-ish kind of, you know, clip. And then, and then we've got the full episode. So, you know, I create some of those notes, Matt takes those and uses those in the YouTube description. And so that's pretty much, yeah, it's pretty run and gun. Our setup is, you know, is pretty basic. You know, I am using a Yeti microphone, but what you can't see is I have my laptop propped up on a cardboard box, so that it's just a little bit higher. So that's how high tech we're doing this thing. Yeah, I'm using a cardboard box, people. - So, I do consulting for a lot of this type of, you know, remote shooting and video. And I actually recommend the cardboard box. I just put out a- - [Erik] Really? - Yes. (laughs) Books or cardboard boxes, the last training I put out, I put them both as options, so you're right on it, man. - Oh, man, cool. - You're right on it. - Cool. - All right, so I've got one more question on the podcast, which is, do you consider it now a success? Or is it kind of getting there? Like, are there positive signs, that look you're going into season two? That's a good sign. - Yeah, thanks. Yeah, so I would say, yeah, it's just, in some ways it's a success, of course it's always like, what do you define success as? We're doing it, it happened, all right? Yeah, there's a lot of podcasts out there, but still most people aren't doing them, all right. So I think it's a success that we're doing it. We're having fun, and that to me is a success. We're getting sharper at our craft as a result of this. I'm learning a ton, and so that I'd say is a success. And we're getting it out there too, right? So it is being distributed. Yeah, we don't have, like on YouTube, we don't have a ton of views. There's probably some best practice type stuff that we're looking into that we could be doing differently. And we could take it more seriously, to be honest with you. Like, it's kind of was like a, Hey, we'll do it. We'll show up on a Friday afternoon. We know the episode that we're, or the ad we're going to review, and we'll have done a little research, maybe taking some notes, but you know, I think that they could be, I appreciate you saying that they're entertaining, and fun to watch. I think we can be better at it though. We can have more of a structure, which is something we just talked about in our planning meeting last Friday for episode, or for season two, exactly more of a tighter kind of formula for the episodes, which we think will still accomplish all of the objectives. But we think we might actually be able to get this down into half the amount of time that it's taken us to do them. And I think that would be helpful for getting more people to watch them and watch them through. So we're definitely still learning as we go. So I think there's things to improve about it and probably things that I don't even realize yet, but I would say, yeah, it's a success. We're happy with where it's at. - Nice, and yeah, I mean those vignettes and everything that you use and put on LinkedIn, I don't know if you are, I didn't see them on YouTube, but put them there and have them link back to full episodes as well (indistinct). - Good point, it never occurred to me. Yeah, we were just using them as the teasers to kind of get people over there. So you're right. That's a good point. I'm going to actually write that down. - Yeah, it's just a little more consumable, right, for your average viewer, so awesome. - Yeah, thank you, thank you. - All right, so we're on to one, I use one question that ties between every episode of this, it's called the Smarter Business podcast, so I ask what is one thing that you've done to make your, or a client's business, smarter? This is kind of the business advice portion. - Sure, this is, this might sound like a, like a complete setup, but it's take people's advice, is the thing that I think, for me, has made the biggest difference, and I'm really even more committed to now in my business. While I was always open to the advice of others, and sought mentorship, and certain things, I think I did get to the place where I kind of, you kind of get a level of success, and you kind of, you become okay with that, and you maybe close in a little bit, and you just kind of like, keep your head down, and you keep doing what you're doing. And you're less, not that you're not open to it though, you're just not looking for it as much, perhaps, at least for me, all right? And so, that you can only do that for so long before things start to kind of like crowd around you and you realize this isn't really, you know, I'm not having as much fun. You know, like this is, it's working, but like where is this leading to? So, yeah, I would say it's, you know, taking the advice of other people. I've recently chosen to develop an advisory board for Of The Sea. So I have some consultants that are working with me in various capacities, and I said, you know, it'd be great if we actually worked as a team directly and had some regular communication and meetings, and we're going into doing some strategic planning as a result of that. And I can see already the difference that that's making for us, and the difference that is going to continue to make as we grow into who I think we can become. So that would be it. - That's, that's excellent. That is great advice, right? You can't get to a point where you think you know it all, right? And you know, it's going to be this way and all that. If you're open to input, yeah, it's always a good thing. So that's, I love that, that's a good one. And I always ask in any interview I do, including these ones, just one last open-ended question, which is, is there anything else, right? Like sometimes our conversation's knocked a point loose. Sometimes there's nothing there. So, do you have any last thoughts before we shut down? - Sure, I got one more. And I think it ties into our approach to the podcast, it ties into our approach to Of The Sea, to doing the work that we do for our clients, but also of how we kind of, you know, see ourselves and present ourselves. It's being yourself. And I know this sounds like such a cliche, but like, that's what we're doing with the podcast. I think that's what makes it, you know, entertaining because like, well, yeah, I'm doing a little bit of a persona. Like that really is just kind of like an embellished version of myself, and it's the same thing with Matt. And the more that I've been willing to kind of trust who I am and to kind of just be that, things have gotten better, right? And I feel like our success is been richer as a result of that, professionally and personally, a lot of things in personal life, I think are true there. So just like an encouragement, because people that are watching this might be thinking about, okay, well, I've got my own initiative, I have a podcast, or I'm starting a podcast, or I have a business or whatever, and I know we already know this, but I think there's a lot of things that we know, but that we don't always like really like live by, you know? And I think that the more I've lived by that kind of rule of, you know, being myself, things have only gotten better, so. - Yeah, and that's especially prevalent right now, right? And kind of at the forefront for a lot of people. There's an emphasis on authenticity that I think is like a really exciting shift. Because we got to see your cat run through the Zoom meeting for the last year. And, you know, you get to see the inside of people's homes, and like everything's a little less polished. There's a little less of, you know, you get to put on the business mask, and a little more of like, Hey, this is me. You were ahead of the curve on that maybe, but you know, - It's just the middle child syndrome. It was just me trying to get attention, I think. But no, but it is, it is arranged. So like what really separates you, right? Like, so if you're gonna do a podcast, don't do your version of your favorite podcast, or someone else's podcast, or what you think a podcast is supposed to be. Like, you're creating the advertising. Like the only thing that separates our clients, it's like, yeah, they're really good at what they do, but they're just doing the same thing that other people are doing. You can choose other people. Why would you choose them? You would choose them because it's them. But if you don't know who they are really, then they're just people who do that thing, right, so? - Yeah. - That's why I think where it's like, we don't need more of people just doing things that other people already do. We need you to do your version of the thing that only you could do, right? And I know I'm not the person that has invented that idea. It's just, that really resonates to me. And I can say that it works, right? - Yeah, and now, you know, I've had a conversation along those lines very often where like a lot of people are worried about competition, other things like that. If you truly are putting yourself out there in a way that people choose you because you're you, or because you do something a little bit differently, like you eliminate the whole concept of like, well, this guy does that too, right? So yeah. - Yes, yes. - You eliminate competition, unless you're selling a commodity, I guess, but you know, you have to do what you have to do. Exactly, which is not what we're in. It's not what we're talking about, you know, but yeah, A hundred percent, yeah. - But that's, I think that's an awesome place to end. It's been great chatting with you, Erik. Thank you for taking the time to talk to our audience and give us some insights on your podcast and advertising in general. To all of you who tuned in, thank you for watching or listening this podcast. Subscribe, review, and share if you like any of what you heard, and that'll do it. We used to always shake hands in studios, we'll do the Zoom wave. - Yeah, yeah. Yeah exactly, well thanks. I'm grateful for the opportunity, Neil, thanks again. - Yeah, thank you. (gentle music)