Marketing to Mindstates: Behavior Design for DTC eCommerce With Will Leach

Will Leach is the Founder of Mindstate Group, a behavioral research and brand consultancy that specializes in identifying the unconscious factors driving consumer behavior. As the world’s leading expert on subconscious mindstate research, he works with innovative brands to uncover actionable consumer insights. Will is also the best-selling author of Marketing to Mindstates and is a Behavioral Design Instructor at the Texas A&M Human Behavior Lab.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[4:30] Will Leach shares the premise of his book Marketing to Mindstates
[6:28] What are mindstates, and how can you market to them?
[16:53] How to study consumer behavior
[23:29] The role of round- and sharp-edged images on the subconscious mind
[32:00] Brand versus customer voices: sustaining consumer interest beyond the brand
[38:46] Will talks about the two decision-making systems
[42:13] How behavioral psychology and framing impact marketing strategies
[52:05] Practical examples of behavioral marketing from Marketing to Mindstates
[102:55] Why some brands struggle with rapid growth
[105:10] Will’s experience as a member of Al Gore’s secret service team
[111:58] The personal story behind Will's most cherished item: an American flag from his grandfather's funeral

In this episode…

Have you ever been captivated by an ad that seemed to read your mind or wondered why certain products make their way into your shopping cart almost without thought? Behavioral psychology plays a huge role in consumer purchasing decisions. So how can you leverage psychological mindstates in your marketing?

According to passionate behavioral marketer Will Leach, mindstates are emotional motivations that make consumers susceptible to influence. In these moments, they’re more likely to make rash, subconscious decisions that satisfy demands. Marketers can leverage these mindstates to influence purchasing decisions and drive brand awareness. Behavioral marketing techniques include employing visual cues to increase your ads’ stopping rate and developing a frame of reference to give your product a competitive edge. However, these strategies only capture short-term attention. To sustain brand loyalty, you must shift from emotional allure to demonstrating your products’ rational benefits.

In this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris converses with Will Leach, the Founder of Mindstate Group, about the practical applications of behavioral marketing. Will talks about the influence of the environment on purchasing decisions, how brands can harness psychological cues to create persuasive marketing campaigns, and why brands struggle with rapid growth.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Quotable Moments

"If you can speak not in your brand voice but in your customer's voice, you'll be the most successful."
"Your system one brain is processing at about 11 million bits per second, and your rational brain is about 40 bits per second."
"He who owns or she who owns the anchor or the frame owns value."
"The best way you can target somebody in that mindstate is to have the creative that talks about that mindstate."
"Nostalgia in advertising can bring somebody back and bring that emotional arousal."

Action Steps

Incorporate behavioral science into your marketing strategy to align with consumer mindsets better: Leverage this approach to communicate more intuitively with consumers.
Analyze the context in which your product or service is used to gain insights into consumer behavior: This provides a deeper understanding of how to fit your brand into the consumer's life.
Practice differentiating between your emotional responses and objective facts during decision-making: This will help you avoid spirals of self-doubt and stay grounded in truth.
Experiment with environmental cues and design choices to influence consumer behavior: Tap into subconscious processing to draw in customers.
Use framing effects to control how your product or service is perceived relative to competitors: Own the judgment of value by presenting your brand against a carefully chosen frame of reference.

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance-driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:00

Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now let's get started with the show. Hey everyone.

William Harris 0:14

I'm William Harris. I'm the founder and CEO of Elumynt and the host of the Up Arrow Podcast, where I feature the best minds in e-commerce to help you scale from 10 million to 100 100 million and beyond, as well as help you up barrel your business and your personal life. Excited about the guests that I have here today. Will Leach. Will is the founder and CEO of Mindstate Group, a behavioral market research and brand consultancy, and he's the best selling author of Marketing to Mindstates, A Practical Guide to applying behavioral design to research and marketing. Will is also a behavioral design instructor at SMU Cox School of Business, BLC and the Texas A and M human behavior lab. With over 25 years of experience in behavioral insights, Will is widely regarded as the world's leading expert on subconscious mind state research, and consults with today's most innovative businesses to grow their brands using behavioral science and, well, I gotta tell you, I have the book here. This book is incredible. So by the way, I've read it. I've actually I have a signed copy. Make sure here, this is your

Will Leach 1:12

and that's an original book, you know, because I have the updated version with a different title that one day could actually bring your kids all the way through college, if you hold on to it, you never

William Harris 1:20

know I love it. But before I get too much into this, I want to read what Pam Forbis, the SVP of consumer experience at the Walt Disney Studios, had to say about it, because I think that she sums up very well about how great this book is. This is what she said. She said for the first time decades of behavioral and psychological decision making theories are illuminated and come to life in a practical, approachable Application Guide. Will's deep expertise and years of experience, testing, succeeding, failing and learning come together in an easy to read practical guide. You will finish this book completely rethinking your research marketing and go to market approaches. Only history will tell, but this book could quite likely start a new era in marketing. This is a must read for any consumer centric business leader, including GMs, marketers, researchers, finance and strategy leaders. It's an incredible quote to have, and I'm very excited to have

Will Leach 2:14

thanks for having me. Will I really appreciate it? Yeah, she's gone on to become a chief marketing officer over at Pernod Ricard right now. So yeah, so maybe she's used a few of these ideas there, over there, but thank you very much for having me. It's I can't wait to talk

William Harris 2:28

to you all about this stuff. Yeah, I want to give a shout out also to the Sarah Levinger for making this introduction. She's an incredible ad creator using psychology. She's a good friend, former guest on the up arrow podcast. So thank you very much Sarah for making good. Sarah, uh, okay, so today we're going to be talking about marketing to mind states, behavior design for DTC e-commerce with the author himself. Will Leach, um, D to C. You know what's interesting? I haven't thought about this till just right this second. I don't say DTC like it's written like that. I say d to c, I almost say d to c more than I say d to c, but we write d to c. Anyways, we're going to be talking about that. But before we do, I want to talk about our sponsor real quick. This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Eumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e-commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we've helped 13 of our customers get acquired, with the largest one selling for nearly 800,000,001 that i pod recently. You can learn more on our website@element.com which is spelled Elumynt.com that said, like I said, Okay, we're talking about mind states for e-commerce, Marketing to Mindstates for T, S, E, e-commerce. I like this book a lot. I've told you this many times. I've already bought another one for a friend and shipped it to him because I liked it so much. But you published this book in in 2018 it was revised in 2021 we're several years later from the original and even a couple more from the revision. And one thing that's funny, and you and I were talking about this before. There are sometimes things that I have written and I've I don't have a book yet. I've got a lot of articles on entrepreneur and Fast Company, and sometimes somebody will come to me and say something, and they're like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Nah, I don't agree with that. And they're like, Well, you wrote it. I'm like, Well, I've changed my mind. Are there things in this book that you would say, You know what? I didn't include that here, or maybe I changed my mind here. Are there one or two things that you would call out to like, Hey, this is kind of like the new change that I would recommend? Yeah.

Will Leach 4:30

You know, one thing that comes to mind is when I was kind of building this book and I was looking at different social sciences, one of the social sciences that I chose not to focus on was culture anthropology. And the rationale at the time was the idea that, you know, understanding how culture impacts the way we view the world and the messaging that we gravitate towards. I thought, well, that's probably going to be solved by talking about people's goals, and we'll talk about goal theory later on. I. And so I just said, it's just gonna be psychology, so I'm gonna capture all that culture anthropology into psychology. And I was sitting at a I was sitting at a conference one time next to a culture anthropologist. She had read the book, and she had said, you know, I love your book, but I think you it was a huge outage in that you didn't capture anything about culture. And we all know that culture is so important. And I kind of looked her for a second. And, you know, the normal thing you want to do is defend your thinking, right? Hey, this is my thinking. If you want to go write a book, you know, screw you. But she was really smart. And I sat there and go, You know what, you're right. I literally cycle You're right. You should probably go, like, figure that out. Go put culture anthropology into it, because I didn't study it at all. And that was really, honestly, when I think about it. William, it wasn't that I consciously thought about culture anthropology and chose not to. I wasn't an expert in it. I didn't really know it, and if I was going to go and learn about it, that took me another two years before I could publish the book. So that's one thing I thought about thinking, You know what? Probably I should have included something like that. But then when you include culture anthropology, and then should you include evolutionary psychology, there's all sorts. You can go down rabbit hole,

William Harris 6:02

absolutely, yeah, the book can only be so long. We'll look for, you know, the, you know, eighth, ninth, yeah, that's right, versions of these books, right? Okay, so let's talk about this psychological mind state. You talked about this. It's not a profile. It's more like a moment in time, thoughts, wants, needs, and these changes the moment based on a couple of factors. Tell me a little bit. Little bit more about like, for those who are maybe haven't read the book cult like, what is the mind state? What do you mean? Yeah. So

Will Leach 6:28

think about this. If, if you've ever been to Vegas or an intense music experience, or maybe if you've ridden a bike or gone on a long bike ride or triathlon or marathons, you know, there, there are these emotional moments that feel like you are just swept in the moment, like Vegas. So a mind state, think of it this way. It's an emotional a point, I guess, of emotional arousal, you would know it is a hot state. A lot of people talk about hot states, and when you're in one of these mind states, you're much more susceptible to influence because you're using emotions to make your decision. It's called system one processing. So a mind state is a moment in time and what's happening at a deep psychological level in these moments that influences your wants, your needs, your preferences, your desires, your beliefs, all these things. So I like think about these is a mind state is less around your personal psychology and much more, how you interact with the world in specific moments of time.

William Harris 7:26

So what are some of these mind states that we tend to be?

Will Leach 7:29

Yeah, so let's just break up what a mind state is. A mind state is composed of four different factors, right? The first one are your goals in the moment. So some of you guys may know this as jobs to be done. So just understanding what are your goals in a moment. Next after that would be what motivates you to reach that goal in the moment. Looking at motivational psychology, the third thing is something called regulatory fit theory, but basically it's you approach your goals either in a risk adverse kind of way. We call it cautious, but technically it's called prevention, regulatory focus, or you do something you're in an optimistic state of mind, like you want to maximize good things and gains, or they would call that promotion regulatory focus. And then lastly, behavioral economics, 101, are these shortcuts that you make at a subconscious level to make decisions fast and easy and more enjoyable. So a mind state is technically the two middle boxes, it is your motivation in a moment of time. And do you approach that motivational state optimistically or cautiously? So what you may find is that you're in the optimistic achievement mind state, meaning you are seeking to be more successful as it relates to a particular decision. Another one could be cautious belonging mind state where you are seeking to eliminate anything that would cause stress in a relationship. So based upon these psychological mind states, I would message very differently to somebody, so that when that message hits them, it just feels intuitive. It just feels natural. And I think the point I try to make across, I make in the book, is intuitive. Marketing is the most successful marketing because it's like hearing your own voice. So if you can speak not in your brand voice, but in your customer's voice, and they hear the kind of the way you talk, you're using the emotions that they feel, and you're using these very specifically in these moments of time, it'll feel natural. And in a world where you know you make 35,000 decisions every day, the number one decision you make is not to decide. So how can I keep you focused on messaging? So so that it so you take some sort of an action. Make it intuitive. Make it psychologically intuitive.

William Harris 9:37

So one of the things that we run into in performance marketing when we're looking at ads, is which ad did the best this in this actually kills me. I don't love this, but a lot of times then, you know, everybody will look it's like, okay, well, ad a did better than ad B, and so we're gonna just remove ADB, and we're gonna do everything all add a across the account, kind of thing. And this is I'm I'm really reducing this down to the most basic. Basic idea, but one of the things that I've always been a big proponent of is what we call creative diversity. And maybe I have one that's marketing to one group mind state, maybe another that's marketing to a different mind state. I have some that are videos. I have some that are static ads. I have some that are across the board in different ways, and while one might perform better on average, the other one is still necessary, because the other person wasn't going to react to that other ad. Would you agree with this? Disagree with this? Are there? Can you only go after so many mind states before it just becomes you're just saying the same your message is being washed away? Or, yeah, no,

Will Leach 10:37

I agree with what you just said, and I hate but this is a reality. There are journey maps, right? We have journeys. And I know these. You know, we've been doing journey mapping for a long time, and I think there's a lot of people that have not been very successful in journey mapping, because, frankly, it's freaking really difficult to message to different points in somebody's journey. But the fact of the matter is, there are journeys. And I think one thing that we do, and actually you, you actually touched into this. I don't know if, if you meant to. A lot of times we on the brand side, think of the journey starts with when you hit my landing page, right? That's not where the journey actually started. Wasn't even close to that. The things the really, really where the journey started was the moment your customer was not in alignment with their goals, that first part of my model goals, so they're not aligned with their goal. They have an aspirational goal they saw. They're like, You know what? And this is hitting my Facebook feed right now. Is Dad bod. It's all over my Facebook feed, and I'm looking at, like, all these solutions and things like that. I have more ads on fasting and lots of supplements and and the fact matter is that if you would have put that ad to me, you know, maybe two months ago, I probably I would just scroll past it. No doubt, somehow, an algorithm somewhere figured out that I've been looking at my weight. I think it's got the sensor in my, in my in my scale, I don't know, but I'm getting hit by them. That's the importance of understanding when I was not aligned with my goals. I think we talked about this. I used to do triathlons and and I look at myself now and I don't feel like that triathlete anymore. So my point is, is that the mind state that I'm under when when I am not aligned with that goal, is a different mind state than I would be at your landing page on the Facebook ad one is speaking to me about the problem, and maybe that's really important, but frankly, when I get to your landing page, let's say, let's say, if you're speaking to me and I'm I think I need to fast. I'm making it up. Actually, I'm not making it up. I think I need to fast. Great, sure. So I'm gonna go fast. I may be in what's called the cautious security mind state, meaning I seek to negate risks because I'm worried about my safety, because what I've been taught to eat three square meals a day, and carbs are great things like that. So in that moment, you could message to me, saying, fasting is really going to be safe for you. You just met the requirements for me to go to your landing page. So I go to your landing page. You've met that requirement. Okay, you told me fasting is at least healthy. Now I'm on your landing page, and maybe that mind state shifts to optimistic achievement. I just used it. I desire more success. I want to make sure that if I start this thing, I'm gonna go in a fast, that it's not gonna make me miserable. And actually, you can help me if you started with your Facebook ad talking about optimistic success or optimistic achievement, I don't think it would have been as useful it honestly would, because you didn't meet the bare requirements of am I is this safe? Is it safe for me to do? That's why journey mapping matters a lot, and then talking to a mind state is so much more important than talking about your brand. And it drives me insane that so many brands out there talk about themselves, and it's so natural because I was on Sun Chips, and I drink that Sun Chips Kool Aid, and I did it many, many times in my professional career. But if you are not speaking to your customers mind state or their voice, in their voice, you're never going to be as successful as you would it just, you just won't

William Harris 14:02

Sure, yeah, well, I have to say, from here, you still look good. You've got the unreal clothes on there, which I don't know if you know, they're from Minnesota. So Michael B Jordan, from Minnesota. Love

Will Leach 14:12

that brand, man. I love that brand, shorts, everything. Yeah? So thank you. I get more compliments on this. I thought for sure you're gonna say you're wearing it too, because I get more compliments on

William Harris 14:21

this brand. Yeah, I love it. Well, I just wear, I wear my logo, right? Like typical brand or whatever. Maybe I just need to get some unreal stuff. But So the interesting thing that you just called out, though about marketing to the mind states in about how the algorithm picked up on that, this is one of the things that I think people missed so much about what Facebook is doing, and even Google and a lot of the other algorithms right now, they have so much contextual awareness about the mind state that you are in that it's way better than when we used to say, find a look alike audience, or even if we said, hey, I'm looking for somebody that's interested in XYZ. Like, yeah, those, all of those things were fine. And a lot of those ad a lot of those ad groups and things like that have gone away. There's a lot of things we just can't target by anymore, but Facebook still has that information about you. Facebook still knows the things that you are doing and texting and whatever, right like, like, they're still very much aware of that mindset that you're in, and so they can make that determination if you have the right ad and so this is where I want to make sure I call this out for anybody listening, the best way that you can target somebody in that mind state, because Facebook's going to pick up on that for them, is to have the creative that talks about that mind state. And so they understand the context you have. They can read the language very well in your ad. They know about the landing page that you're sending it to and what that landing page is talking about. They understand very much of the context of the actual video that you have in there as well. Like it is so good at this, and that's why it does that organically very well, and showing you the things right, organically. So when you're paying for it, it knows, hey, this person's in this mindset. You have this ad that's talking about this mindset. I will pair these two together, and it will be very, very successful. You're right, yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that you were talking about was, Stop messaging to people, start messaging to these moments in time. And it makes me think of string theory. It's almost like these things that are kind of like connected a little bit, but you were talking about before, it's like, let's just even go basics. Are you hungry or not? Like, like, it's not necessarily a mindset. Let's say, let's call it a stomach state, right? Um, you've done a lot of work with this on, uh, things that I would almost say, like, you paved the way for what I almost call, like, the 90s that I grew up with, like, every, every gas station, and the way that things were organized and set up, it was, like, a lot of those stuff that you went into it. Can you tell me more about just maybe, some of the tests that you did that you felt were the most impactful to, I don't know, shaping the way we think about even how we're marketing to people when they walk into a gas station or to a growth

Will Leach 16:53

let's talk about this. So for those you don't know, I ran consumer insights for free to lay for many, many years in what's called shopper insight. So basically studying shopping behavior, and one of my favorite roles was convenience stores. So imagine a conveni store at gas station. Guys, it is a circus at a psychological level, like it's got all these great lights, it's got beer and vices like cigarettes and condoms, it's got candy, and it's this amazing place, especially for guys, and it was so much fun to do research inside convenience stores, because Convenience stores are great at taking the average guy and when they're in that moment that's you're just talking about, right? Well, context, you take an attitudinal segmentation and you bring that person, somebody who meets an attuned segment, and you bring them into the carnival of what most Convenience stores are with slushies and all ice cream. Anything you know about that person attitudinally, generally goes away. And it's like it's such a vice for so many people. So one of the first studies I did in this space, and I got really interested in behavioral design was a very to me, feels basic, but at the time, it opened my eyes to the power of some of the topics we were talking about. Here's the idea, back when dollar menus were really big, we're not in that area anymore, 99 cents for a hot dog. You jump on that right now, right? It's hard to do, but at the time, you could get two hot dogs for 99 cents and in most convenience stores, imagine, at the same time, if you go down the Frito Lay aisle, and I was running, you know, Frito Lay products. I'm looking at that aisle a bag of chips. We're going to run you $1.29 so if you're a Gen X, you're, you know, let's say, let's say, you know, you're using the convenience store for lunch, you can get two hot dogs for under the price of a bag of chips, and that was smoking us in terms of, like, of our sales. Sure. So what do we do? Can we lower prices to, you know, two bags for $1 No, it would kill our algorithm. There's no way we could do that. But what was happening was I needed to at least drive people into the aisle. And how do I do that? Right? How do I get people to go down the aisle when the convenience store has messaging above the hot dog area saying two hot dogs for 99 cents. So I read this study that basically says that if you are exposed to blinking lights, blinking lights, pretty much people hate blinking lights. You know, yellow lights, red lights, there's a literally bad, bad things with a blinking light, unless it's white, and if it's a white blinking light, for whatever reason, I didn't understand the psychology behind it, but white blinking lights does not create a neurological avoidance reaction. It creates a drawn reaction. You actually are drawn towards white blinking lights. So I don't know what I'm doing. And I thought to myself, Wow, so you're telling me, I can grab somebody's attention with a white blinking light, and I could get somebody to at least go towards the light. The most basic thing I ever did I went to a Kinko is this, how long ago was there's Kinkos back then went to a Kinko's and I created what's called a shelf strip, but basically it's a strip of paper that is underneath the the. The Doritos. In fact, it was under Doritos, and I created this, this test where it said something like, beat hunger, eat Doritos. It's in the book. But in the middle of that, I actually had a blinking white light that was in like the Doritos logo. It's called, it's called a sound clip. And I had a blinking white light, and we actually had a relationship with a small convenience store that was not just north of Dallas, Texas, and they said, Hey, if you we told them, if we can do this experiment in your store, then we'll give you some, a free hot dog roller. In fact, is what we did. We gave them, we bought a hot dog roller, and we started doing a bunch of experiments. It's one of the experiments, and it drew significant amount of people inside of the store. Now, if I would have taken a random sample of 100 shoppers and I asked them, hey, what makes you go into an aisle and do you think a white light on it? There's no way people are like, That's so stupid. That's not gonna ever grab my attention. It's so dumb. The fact of the matter is, these things matter, and what I was doing is I was tapping into, first the white light that drew people to the signage, right? So that has nothing really to do with the mindset that was just like, get to the signage. But here's what I did. I understood that, like you just said, when somebody goes in for a hot or two hot dogs for $1 Guess what? They're probably hungry, right? So what do I have to do on a messaging I need to alleviate that concern. So I said, beat hunger, optimistic achievement, beat like that. That's a motivational drive to beat and then I had hunger, okay? Then I was something, you know, eat Doritos or whatever. So I basically tapped into that motivational state of success. I want to beat hunger, and I was able to drive significant amount of free to lay sales. And then the funny thing in the book, I think is I tried to do it on multiple shelf strips, and it failed. It actually drew more people to eat other other things, other snacks. So the point of this stuff is, experimentation is a big deal. Sometimes you can overdo it. If you find success on one thing, you sometimes are excited to start generating four or five different of those things so you can get more and more success from a psychological perspective, using the same thing again and again and again actually implodes your success. So that was something I learned in that experiment as well.

William Harris 22:08

I love it like you said. It's basically like programming the human brain. The human brain is programmed to act in certain ways and certain things for the general cognition, and it's precognition

Will Leach 22:18

like this. Stuff happens in the first 1/20 of a second from second from a neuroscientif, from a neuroscience perspective. So if you understood that before they even registered what you messaged, that you could create an attraction using a white light. Like, why wouldn't you do that? Like, why wouldn't you do that? Because you've got to get that little bit, that little element nailed before they even bring cognition meaning they start thinking. So these things matter. We just don't get taught these things in school, but it's sitting in academia,

William Harris 22:47

right, right? So, okay, precognition, and you brought this up here just a little bit ago, we make what, 35,000 decisions a day, so the subconscious is very important to that, because most of those decisions we're making without realizing that we're making these decisions, and then the rational brain seems to basically kind of confirm, oh, this is why I made that decision. We're actually thinking that we made a decision on purpose, but it may have been that we made it without it. One of the examples that you gave of this in your book is about rounded edges. Oh yeah, okay, what? So take me through what was going on with rounded edges and how this applies to the subconscious.

Will Leach 23:29

So there is a principle out there in the neuroscience world called oblique orientation versus Cardinal orientation. And the way, actually I explain this is an example, and we can actually do this live if you wanted to. Will do you want do the example, the watch example, you wanna try it? Okay? Do it so you guys are listening live, or you're driving or whatever, don't do this. But if you're sitting on a Stairmaster or whatever you're working out, here's all I want you to do. I want you to open up your phone, any browser that's out there, and I just want you to type in the word watches. That's it. Any browser doesn't matter to me. And let's say, if you have a favorite Watch out there, swatch watch, Rolex, whatever, you could type that in there too, as well. But just type in the word watches and search on the watches and then pull up your images. There's a couple of images.

William Harris 24:19

Oh, you can't see. LL, if you're

Will Leach 24:21

doing this at home, we all have different images right now. Start scrolling through the images. Start scrolling through the images. And if you are watching this later on, of course, think in your mind, what is something that you see that is familiar? It's the same across all these different pictures, something that just keeps coming up again and again and

William Harris 24:42

again. Yeah. And I know the answer because I read the book, but it's basically like, 1010,

Will Leach 24:47

3610 or 936 1010, so there's this idea that you're like, Well, why would it be 1010 like, why is it that it be 1010 like, why does that come up again and again and again? And there's an article. I read years ago from The New Yorker, I think, or New York Times, and it basically talked about this concept called oblique orientation and Cardinal orientation. And here's the concept, things that are natural that kind of have oblique orientations, rounded images, sorry, are natural in our environment, right? So think leaves trees, those things have oblique orientations. Your microphone has an oblique orientation. There's there aren't harsh edges. Then you have something called Cardinal orientations. Those are all the things in life that have sharp edges, like the corner of a book, right? And we have those things in our environment as well. Now, what happens is, from a neurological perspective, there is actually an automatic avoidance response to a cardinal orientation to a corner. So let's go back to the 10 or 936, 10 or 936, why did that matter? What we found out, or what's been happening since 1910, and it talks all about this in the book, is that when watch companies or advertisers who are putting watches and clocks when they when they put the time of 10 or 936 there's a bump in sales, a positive bump in sales, and it's pretty consistent. And you're like thinking yourself right now, what the hell does 10 or 936 have to do with a bump in sales? Here's the idea. Think about 10 or 936 I'm going to imagine it. If you think about the clock hands at that time, it almost looks like a rounded edge, right there. It's not a sharp edge. It's not nine o'clock. It's not six o'clock, a sharp line. It's rounded 1009, 1009, 1010, 10. What the neuroscientists would tell you is that you are actually drawn towards Cardinal orientations. I know I'm using big words, your eye will pick up corners faster and easier than you will something that's oblique in nature. So you're like, What the hell does that do with selling more watches? If, let's say, for instance, you're looking at advertisement, or you're back in 1940 and you're going and looking for watch as you're walking down the street, and you, all of a sudden, you see a display of watches on a storefront, and you looked at a bunch of watches that said six o'clock or 9pm It's very Cardinal. There's a sharp angle there between nine o'clock and six o'clock on those two hands. Then you're going to look at that and go, Oh, it's nine o'clock, but if the time was 1009, 36 and there's like, it's not so easy to pick up. You're more likely to stop and engage. Why? Because you can't read the time as easily. That is an example of using Cardinal orientation or oblique orientation to capture your attention, because it's slightly harder then you're gonna say, okay, great. So what does that have to do with aisles? Imagine going down the grocery store. In the vast majority of grocery stores, when you think about going into the aisle, there's a sharp edge. There's a sharp edge. So you're able to capture visually that sharp edge, sharp in fact, it looks like metal most of the time, so your eye picks up on that metal sharp edge very quickly. And what have we learned from the day we were like, able to learn from our mothers and we're toddlers. What do you do about corners? Like, what do you do with corners? You avoid them, right? That's why we put padding on top of tables. We avoid corners. In fact, even think about even as a girl, you was like, look around the corner. You never know. Like, corners are bad things in horror movies, etc. So we had neuroscientists on staff, and we realized that sharp corners are one, visually, we pick them up, and secondly, we're taught to avoid them. So what does that? How does that impact people going down aisles? Actually impacts quite a bit, because what happens is, if you're free flowing, you're not really thinking, and you're just kind of browsing shopping, and you see a corner, you come out of that mind state, and also you're like, Oh, I got to avoid that. And that could cause you to not keep shopping. It could cause you to look at your your list and decide not to shop. So here's what we did at Frito Lay we actually spent millions of dollars creating end caps, or the parts of an aisle just before you get in. It's called an end cap curved. We actually, we spent tons of money to curb people. When we found tons and tons of testing nationwide, was that when you created curves, people flew down the aisle. They kind of went with it's almost like wayfinding in an airport, right? People would go around that corner and there was less people stopping to look down the aisle. They just flowed with it. Again, it's such a small little thing because you're thinking like, what would that do? But if you understand, if you understand from neuroscience the importance of rounded angles versus sharp angles, the point for you would be, if you want to capture somebody's attention, use a sharp angle, no doubt about it, like that that captures visually, biologically, the human eye. If you want somebody to keep browsing, you may want to use curved angles. So some of these sciences can help actually drive people to a site, or actually go and actually continue with your site. So imagine a call to action button right like rounded call to actions versus corners. On your call to actions, you could actually make the case that to draw attention to your call to action, you want sharp corners, but to get somebody to click it, you could also make the case that maybe you want rounded corners because a sharp angle. All creates an avoidance response.

William Harris 30:03

Interesting. So you brought me to the idea of thumb stop ratio that we use in ads, and I'll get to that one in a second. But I was looking at the hands on the clock, and they also kind of look like a smiley face, right? Like the inverse of this would be like 620 I feel like that's a frowning face, and I feel like it wouldn't have as much impact, still sharp corner, but now with a psychological totally

Will Leach 30:23

makes sense to me. You could actually say that that would be, that would be worse, right? Because a smiley face somehow makes me feel I'm bad. I my students say that all the time. They'll say, they'll basically say, it's a smiley face like that. Could be it. I don't think really, anybody knows, honestly, but all these components together, whether you associate a happy face and it's oblique, that's even better, right? You get two little nudges at the same time.

William Harris 30:44

Totally. So thumb stop ratio. The way we look at this is basically, you know, as people are scrolling through, me scrolling through, how do you get them to stop, right? That's their thumb stop. It's like, oh, okay, I want to look at this. And to your point, we've seen, let's just say this oblique approach used, let's just say, abused on a lot of social media ads lately, because right now, the trend is to use something that has nothing to do with your ad, but it just catches your attention, and then you lean into it, but it's still beautiful. I love it, and I An example would be somebody maybe is like throwing a body out a window, and you can't help but look, and it's like, then you see that body, like, it's actually not that body from like, a clip or something. And then it's like, then they slide into the back of a truck, and now they're in the back of the truck. Hey, come on down to our truck store where you can buy our truck, right? And it's brilliant, because you're you can't help, like, rubberneck, like looking at an accident, or whatever this is. But it's almost kind of that idea of, like, this oblique thing, that this thing that we should almost avoid, that we have to take notice of, and then that leads into this. Now, some people can feel duped by that. It's a little obvious in some of those, but it's also I appreciate that we're using this to figure out, how do you, first and foremost, your job, the number one job of your ad is to stop them from scrolling. They could actually start to watch it,

Will Leach 32:00

you know, it brings an idea to me, and you've actually solved an issue that I may not talk about this idea anymore. So I think about the idea of, how do you grab somebody's attention and then create persuasion? Right? That's, that's my whole, my whole, my old company does this, and I like to equate this idea. And this is why, actually, I was talking to William about this idea of brand voice versus customer. Versus customer voice, and it bugs me, because brands will create ads in to do their story and their brand voice. And it bugs me from a behavioral psychology perspective, but you just actually solved it for me. So I say this, imagine you're at a party, you're at a dinner party, and there's all these 100 100 people in this dinner party, and you're walking around and hear all these voices. That is today's advertising, right? And in fact, the people are rushing in. There's more and more people, more and more people, and hear all these voices. Now, something will capture attention sometimes, and sometimes it's the cackle of somebody who's laugh has a funny laugh. It'll grab your attention, right? Or somebody drops a glass that, to me, is the first part of your ad where makes no sense. Something grabs my attention. It's sexy, it's funny, and that's useful in grabbing attention, no doubt about it. The second voice you hear that breaks out of the clutter, breaks out of that of of that kind of, uh, that noise would be your friend. Let's say, if you have a friend, you hear that voice and it'll grab your attention, right? And that's kind of like, I think, a brand that you like, right? Like, if you hear that brand like, oh, that's the brand voice, Oh, you. It'll capture attention, no doubt about it. But the number one voice that will always grab your attention every day of the week is whose voice. It's your voice. Like you hear it in your mind all the time. It's constantly in mind, the mannerisms, the way you talk, you use too many adjectives, run on sentence, like I do, that fits and that you will hear that again and again and again. So I always tell people, if you want to capture somebody's attention, speak not about your company or your brand voice, capture your customer's voice, because that's the one that are interrupt, interrupt them, and they'll actually persuade them, right? Because it's they're hearing their voice. Same idea you go to the bar, if you see that that person who dropped their wine glass, or they're really funny, or whatever, you look at what they've drank at the bar and like, Okay, your friends at the bar. Brand voice, you may be persuaded a little bit, but how am I going to be the most persuasive voice is me at the bar saying, I want a logger before I ever got to that bar, and all of a sudden I hear that voice, and I order a logger, what you did was you made the connection for the first time. For me, because I'm not in your world, is that you can actually have that first voice, that one that just grabs your attention, but if you can map that back into, finally, your customer's voice, you can grab that attention and then become the most persuasive you can be by by talking in in the voice or the mind stays away, I think about it, of your customer. So anyways, I was always like, don't be, don't be the person that you know tries to grab people's attention using sex or, or, I'm sorry, only those things, because that's not going to get you. I mean, you will get sales because you grab. People's attention, no doubt about it. But if you can map that to your customer's voice and hopefully do it in a brand centric way, I'm totally on brand. If you can marry those three things, I don't know how you could not succeed in marketing. I really don't understand if you can't link your brand voice to your customer's voice and write in that way. I think that might be, that might be my new book. I don't know. I've never heard anybody talk about that. Well, seriously, I always I want to write down, I think I might. We'll give you, we'll give you some kind of acknowledgement, huh?

William Harris 35:28

So it reminds me, even you know, this idea of just capturing that initial attention. I shortly after college, I had a job where I was going to, like, three, four trade shows a month. Basically every week I was in a different state doing a trade show. And so capturing attention is a big thing there, too, right where everybody's walking down the aisles, and I never thought about the sharp corners thing, but maybe there's something that I could use there. But there are a couple of tactics that we would use to get grab attention. One, you mentioned the laugh we did have, what we called the CEO laugh, and so me and couple like the, you know, sales director, whatever, we'd sit there, and just the most boisterous lab you could think of, and people's heads would turn and okay, you had their attention at least a little bit. Now that one worked, okay, but the one that worked the best was we would just have iPads. And while you're not supposed to step outside of the trade show booth and bring people in, right like, that's kind of like a taboo thing, people get mad at you if you do too much, but you stick your arm out there pretty easily. And so we'd have an iPad, and what we did was we printed, this was a SaaS company software. We printed basically the dashboard of what that looks like on the background of the of the trade show booth. We'd stick our hands out there as you're walking by us, simply sticking our hands in front of you as you're walking by gets your attention, because you're just you don't want to run into this kind of thing. So we got there, it's like, Hey, have you seen this? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, you show them something, you're like, actually, this would be a lot better if I show you on a bigger screen. So the iPad was completely a decoy. We just kind of pull them back then into where we have this big dashboard. And it's like, now you've all the way back in this booth, and it worked. It worked fairly well to your point of capturing the attention and then drawing them in with something. Let

Will Leach 37:03

me link this so you remind me of a podcast I listened to called ideas, a startup. It's great podcast, but the host talks about trade show booths, and he said the number one greatest marketing he's ever seen was when he was at exactly a trade show booth. And here's what they did at the trade show. And I thought this is brilliant. You know, like you said, normally you have a big showcase of, here's my computer, here's some kind of what's going on in the background. Here's what my company does. What this company did. He goes, there were massive amounts of people lined up to come to the booth. Is all they did was they had the brand name or logo at the top of the booth. It was a black, I guess, Booth, or whatever, black backdrop, and it said, we can significantly help these people. And had envelopes and with the person's first and last name, so they must have done a little bit of research to say, and it just had like 20 people. But they like these people. We know we want to make sure that they know about us. And so what it did was, in his view, it caused people to go, am I on that list? Like, I want to be significantly helped. And so he said he made this equation. It's almost like, when you're in high school and you're like, Did you Did he? Did I make the baseball team? You're going to the list going, am I on? Am I on? It was this massive amount of people, when they found it was them, like, I've got it, I've got the envelope. And that was, I always thought to myself, My gosh, they weren't talking about themselves. All they were doing was saying we can significantly help these people. If you're not on the list, we don't want to talk to want to talk to you. No crazy. I love it. I love that. I

William Harris 38:25

love it. So I love that. We were talking about 35,000 decisions, and you talked about, there's system one and system two, system one, overriding, system two. And you alluded to this a little bit. I'd want you to explain that a little bit more here, because then I have some thoughts about that. So what do you mean by system one, overriding system two, whatever

Will Leach 38:46

you just don't know. We all, every one of us, have two systems that we use to make every decision, all those 35,000 decisions. One is called system one, and one is called system two. System one are all the things that you're doing at the non conscious level. It's your emotions, your feelings, etc. System two is the rational part of the brain that's trying to justify things. It's looking for rational arguments, data, etc. So this is kind of new. That's not new. Everyone's kind of known this for many, many years. Oh, okay, it's it's left brain versus right brain. It's emotion versus rational. That's actually not the biggest part of that's important for you thinking about system one, system two. What you just said well, is the really important part is that that subconscious is much more influential on all of your decision making, like you do not make. There's no way you can make a decision if you're not using emotion. There's lots of studies on this, on people with brain damage that can't make decisions because the emotional part of their amygdala was damaged. So you cannot make a decision. If you have no emotions, like people, you'll be paralyzed. Now you can make a decision when you don't think of rational things people do in Vegas, they get married all the time, right? Like we've all done that, sure. So the point. Thing for you to realize is that these two decision making systems matter a lot in all, in all your decisions. But how much more important and how much more powerful your system two, I'm sorry, your system one is your non conscious the way to think about it is your system. One is processing at about 11 million bits per second, 11 million bits per second, and your rational brain is about 40 bits per second. So that's how much more powerful and big and overwhelming your non conscious is. That's why the whole point of the book is to market to the subconscious, because the subconscious, you better do it, because it's so much more

William Harris 40:35

impactful. I think this is kind of the idea of, you know, trust your gut, where a lot of times, a lot of us maybe think of this as, like, this very ethereal thing, but your gut is actually wildly intelligent. Your gut, or your system, one thinking here, it's wildly intelligent. It's, let's just say, you know, 1000s and 1000s of years of learning things, it can also be led astray. And I think we could talk about that too, but there is a lot to be said where, if you, let's just say, I don't know if you can do this if you could train your gut to be more appropriate, to do a better job. And there are probably some heuristics that we'll talk about that can allow you to do a better job of recognizing when it's going down the wrong path, but being able to trust your gut on certain things, I think there's a lot of calculation that was involved in that gut making that decision that you're not aware of the best

Will Leach 41:22

marketers and creatives and artists know deep down inside, maybe not rationally, but they just know they're right, and they can't explain it. And it's it's your system, one that is learned over repetition, that this works, but you don't realize why, but you know it, but you know, it works. The very, very best artists and creatives out there are using their system, one to make massive fortunes for other companies. All science has done is starting to put a model behind all those great gut feelings that people like you have. That's all it's doing.

William Harris 41:56

I love it. We were talking about behavioral psychology and framing and how that can maybe sound scary. Tell me a little bit more about behavioral psychology and framing, what that means and why some people look at it as scary. But why? Yeah, it's

Will Leach 42:13

not. Because all these things that we talk about, we use big words in behavioral sciences, right? Regulatory fit theory and hyperbolic discounting. I think we just did oblique orientations and Cardinal orientations. And it can be really intimidating, right? Because I'm not, I'm not a PhD. And so even in the in my book, I wrote this kind of the very first, I guess, is the first quote that you have here. I said this book is for those who don't give a damn about behavioral science and really just want to design better marketing that gets people to listen, care and act so science has made this stuff very, very difficult because we pay academics so much money to use big words to sound like they're smart. One of those ideas is called framing effects. But if you if we just take a step back and realize that you cannot make a judgment without what's called an anchor with you. For you to know that something's pretty, you must compare it to something else. For you to know that somebody's rich, you must compare that to somebody else. To know that somebody's small, you must compare that to somebody else. You can't make a judgment without a frame of reference. So framing effects is literally just you as a marketer to understand that when you're going to talk about anything that your customer needs to know have a frame of reference, they have to have a frame reference. And if they don't, if you don't give them a frame of reference, they're going to make it up. I'm doing a project right now around value, around store brands, and if you, as you can imagine, right now with inflation, a lot of store brands and private labels are doing really, really well. So why is that? Well, because people are going into grocery stores and they're looking at private label prices and without a frame of reference, they're looking at that price versus a name brand that's a frame of reference, and like, oh gosh, this is lower. So they're creating value in their mind, saying this is a cheaper product. But think about DiGiorno. I love DiGiorno Pizza. It's uh, because here's what they did. If you compare DiGiorno pizzas inside of a Walmart, inside of the frozen food, you know, frozen pizza area, you will frame up your decision around DiGiorno, high price, by the way, frozen pizza versus Elios, which I grew up on, the cheapest pizza possible. It gave me burns on my face. It's terrible, right, but it's half the price. What did de Jonno do? They didn't try to convince you by saying, Oh no, but our ingredients are better. We have we have better quality pepperoni. We give you more pepperoni slices. And like per Preece. So many people fall down the trap of trying to convince you that you're higher quality, better quality, by talking about how good you are. But DiGiorno didn't want to get on the path. Here's what they did. They go, don't compare us to those frozen pizzas. Compare us to delivery. They just created a new frame of reference, saying we're not delivery. We're DiGiorno. And all of a sudden, DiGiorno versus versus delivery is a very lower price, high value product, and that that Elios pizza that burned my chin when I was a kid, I'm not going to eat that. That's crap food. Framing effects is just one of those things that you can do. It's so important to understand you can control how you're framed. It's something you have access to. You have access to, you can at least try to control that, versus just leaving it up to whatever your customer feels. So framing effects is really important. Now we do that through optimistic versus cautious. We use our framing effects there. But there are many, many different ways of frame your job as, I think, as a marketer, is to think to yourself, he who owns or she who owns the anchor or the frame owns value. Like, if you can show your customers, compare us to this, you own all judgment. You know how to frame up your features in a way that you're advantaged or whatever. So I tell my brand clients all the time, like, do the best job. The best thing you can do is figure out how to frame up your company, or frame of your features versus something that is that you control. I guess

William Harris 46:08

I this isn't a perfect example, but it reminds me a little bit about what Burger King did. And from what I understand, what I remember reading in our marketing textbook in college was their their go to market strategy was, we're going to put a Burger King right next to every McDonald's. It was a brilliant strategy, because you're already in that frame of mind. Now you're already in that mindset of, I want to go get some fast food and I want a burger. So here's Now another option. You didn't have any other option now you do. And so they frame themselves as, you know, I don't know if they frame themselves as cheaper, different, better. I don't remember the context of how they frame themselves, but just, we're right next to there. We're gonna frame ourselves against that versus against home cooking. They didn't have to frame themselves against cooking at home. Just, hey, we're another option right here for this. Well, then

Will Leach 46:49

let me build on that, right? So, so then, so then, how do I frame myself against McDonald's? I could do price right, and me, I don't know you're right on the pricing, but link back when I was a kid, it was flame broiled. Similar to how you cook at home. If this is where you're going, is that where you're going? Right? I could, I could go home and I could do this, or I could just kind of get a very similar meal, my home meal at Burger King, which is flame broiled Burger King, right? That's on some sort of a pan. That's, that's, that's, or, I'm sorry, McDonald's, right? So I wonder if that's, that's a great way of thinking about framing, right? Okay, that makes total sense. Like, why? Why do you want to deal with your own grill? Just go home with our with Burger King, and it's gonna taste like dad's, you know, great burgers.

William Harris 47:29

Sure. Yeah, yeah. Um, I'm trying to think about this. I had a thought about rocks in the crocs ad, and I don't know why I wrote it down under this, so maybe, maybe, if I just shared it'll make sense on why I wrote it under these. This bullet point. Do you remember there was a crocs ad not that long ago where they basically took the crocs and then added, like, the most iconic 90s fonts with, like, you know, all kinds of like, I don't know, like, I don't know, like, the different colors, whatever it felt like you were using, like, almost. What was it like, Print Shop Pro or something like that, from, from the 90s, and like they, that's what they did. It wasn't like a graphic artist, and I thought the ads were just brilliant. They even used phrases and everything like that. That had to do with my childhood. How is like, let's just say nostalgia. Where like, where does that play into this from like, a frame of mind state.

Will Leach 48:27

We use nostalgia a lot. So there is a motivation of the nine that we talk about that drive the vast majority of human behavior, called engagement. Engagement is great for music. It's great for the entertainment industries, scented oils, all that stuff. But the idea here is that it's a desire to feel captivated. So you can feel captivated by a moment of levity and excitement or sometimes a moment of relaxation, but people desire it's one of the core nine human motivations. Is a desire for engagement. We have brands, and we work with, you know, big, big CPG brands, and those brands have been around serial brands, maybe Captain Crunch or whatever, have been around for many, many, many decades. And one way to one grab somebody's attention, but create that emotional arousal that we talked about, that get some somebody reach their goals, is nostalgia. So what probably they're doing right is when you see those fonts, it takes you back to a moment of probably levity when things are simpler in life, when you have these memories most people have, you know they think positively for the most part, about their past experiences. So you use nostalgia for advertising that can bring somebody back and bring that emotional arousal, then all you're really trying to do is keep that emotional arousal and that feeling of levity that they probably wouldn't even recognize consciously to keep looking at that ad. And then what your true and probably do is associating that feeling to crocs, which is they weren't even were they even around? Like there's no way, right? If they were, nobody knew, right? So that's probably what they're doing. It's they're trying to associate their brand with these moments of like levity. And that was so simple, and oh my god, it's so much. Fun when I was in high school or whatever, and they're creating those associations. So the next time you feel the moment that you want engagement or the moment of levity, and you could be at a restaurant, you could be not even thinking about shoes, and technically, because you created that association again and again and again and again, that crocs would come to mind. It sounds ridiculous, guys, but that is all synapses happening between that emotion that I felt, I like, I remember when I was a kid, and then crocs. So if they kept doing it, frankly, it could, I don't see why they would. But technically, you could create that association. And then crocs are associated with engagement, which, if you're a shoe brand, right, the next time, like, that's huge. Like most shoe brands are, we're high quality, or we look great. That's a steam motivation, but it's very differentiated. Saying, no, no, we give you moment of levity or engagement, it would be very differentiating, right?

William Harris 50:52

Well, and then every time I listen to a song that I loved when I was in, you know, junior high, it's like, okay, great. That takes me back now. Or, like, I eat a snack that I had that, right? It's like, to the point maybe I'm starting to think about cracks. I'm like, You know what? Man, I do need to get a pair. And let

Will Leach 51:05

me build on this. So we shouldn't go, well, I'll go there memories. So memories, don't think of a memory, guys out there as like, this filing cabinet that you open up and you go back in 1991 when I was a senior, or whatever, when I was 2009 when I was a senior, and you pull out a memory. That's not how memories work. Memories are recreated every time you're trying to think back. So what you just said, William, you hear music. All the things that you've associated with that song come to mind. Now, you may not be conscious, but all of them come to mind at subconscious level. What if what you're really doing is you're incorporating crocs into those memories, because people re create memories, and if you eventually associate crocs with that song, you I'm not kidding you here, technically, you could start remembering when, oh my god, remember when I tripped on my crocs, when I was at the Kent, when I was doing that, the keg party, and Croc invented, yeah, memories work that way, right? So, so if you do that over time, you can associate a brand that didn't even exist with that memory.

William Harris 52:05

No doubt about it, I like that. Okay, I want to get into a couple of other examples. There are a couple examples that you had in the book that I really appreciated, Pepsi. There was the idea of going with joy. Why do you think Joy was the word that they landed on instead of happiness?

Will Leach 52:27

I think it was a what's the word? I want to say it was an accident. So, or maybe it wasn't remember. We're talking about intuition. So when Pepsi made that massively huge different campaign, you know, years ago, but it was, it was massive amount of associating Pepsi with joy. Well, first off, they probably can't do it with happiness, because Coca Cola owns happiness like they own happiness here. So let's get away from that joy. My guess is somebody somewhere, some designer, some creative copywriter, whoever thought to themselves, they did a lot of thinking, and they went off in the woods and they thought, and they went on walks, and all the things that great creatives do. And they said, I think we want to use the word joy now, from my perspective, from a behavioral psychology perspective, when you make a choice like that, there's actually real reasons why you should use joy or not use joy. It's called motivational psychology. There are specific feelings that are associated with core motivations. So for instance, if we'll go back to the motivation, engagement. We just talked about beverages, food. It's all about engagement. People use these things to get a moment of relaxation or like a moment of excitement. Now, did you know that there are very specific emotions that people desire when they want to feel engagement, that motivation? They're very specific. Joy is not one of them. Joy is a different emotion that goes to another motivation. So if I was in that room, and I wasn't, but if I was in that room, I would have asked the question, why Joy? Why not happiness? Why not pride? Why not excitement? There's all sorts of cool emotions we could use. And if that person said, Well, it's because I think that joy is really going to drive sales of Pepsi, I would probably say, from a behavioral psychology perspective, I don't see that happening. Why? Because I know it doesn't match to that motivation, that is the engagement motivation. Now, was it wildly successful? It was, was it, from a behavioral psychology perspective, aligned perfectly? No. Was it really well done? Yeah, it was. Did they spend millions and millions of dollars of creating an association with Pepsi and joy, they sure did. From my perspective, you could spend less if you were to match back the correct emotion that fits under the engagement motivation. You could spend less because it would make it would make natural. You wouldn't have tried to convince me that Pepsi should be about joy. Like you could have used the emotion that naturally fits with Pepsi, and you probably could have gotten more for

William Harris 55:06

your spend. Quick tangent on that. What about joy for B to B? So our our motto element, is to amplify joy through profitable business growth. And I chose Joy very intentionally for that. And my reasoning for that is there are times in business we're not necessarily happy, uh, there it's stressful or whatever, but you can still find joy even when you're not happy, right? And so I was intentional about that. Um, what about the mind state of of B to B, people that I'm working with, other e-commerce owners, things like that, is joy a better spot there you're like, No joy, still not probably the

Will Leach 55:37

right of that. So let's say if you're doing you're talking a bunch of these business owners, and they kept telling you again and again. And again that you know, what I really want, what I really truly desire, is for my firm to be successful so I can sell it. They're more talking about success, success. I would tell you that joy doesn't naturally map back to the achievement motivation. However, if they're telling you stories and as you're learning more about their business, you're talking about those highs and lows, which I felt I've had really bad lows in my business, and also some amazing highs. But that's that what gives them that kind of like, the reason why I'm a business owner is not necessary to sell. It's the journey. Then what you did is, right? It's the joy. Because you're what you want as a business owner, is more of these peaks in your experience. And yeah, you're gonna go through those. And if you could associate like, Hey, we're gonna give you more peaks. If I look at my business over the long term, that's probably more aligned with my values, then I'm looking to get in and sell four or five years, buddy. Get me in there if that, if that was your customer, well, I would tell you you shouldn't be talking about that as much as you should be talking about success, power, those types of words. So maybe you hit on something like,

William Harris 56:41

right? That's really good long term, yeah, maybe. And maybe that, maybe that drives the right type of customer for what we want, right? So that could be there was another one that I liked about Purina with objective based reasoning,

Will Leach 56:53

yeah. So I did some work from Purina years ago, and we did a massive piece of research for him. Because if you're Purina in the last couple of years, think about Blue Buffalo. Oh, there's a Science Diet. There's all these competitors that they didn't have even 10 years ago. Like, imagine, for 100 years you're Purina, you really didn't have much competition when it comes to dog food or cat food, right? It was pretty much all Purina and a bunch of small brands, well, a decade ago, a bunch of higher quality organic brands, you know, just much better quality brands, were starting to become more popular. And Purina, we're talking about nostalgia, right? Purina is highly associated with kind of the farmers you see that logo, a lot of people are like, Yeah, that's right. It's like, like, it's 100 year old brand. So the idea was, we did a piece of research to understand kind of what are those associations that people have at a non conscious level of the Purina brand. And as you would imagine, Purina is associated with Alpo, and especially for people who love their dogs and their cats, it doesn't have the greatest, greatest equity, right? It now is good equity in terms of, it's been around forever, it's reliable. It's not going anywhere, like, you know, things like that. So we were in a meeting, and we were talking about some ads, and I was telling I was showing them the research results, and the research results at the time were very much focused on this idea that the associations they have don't align very well with the what people want now, which is high quality, smaller brands. Because Purina used to be owned by Nestle, I don't know who's owned by them. Now, it's all about like a machine, you know, all the all the crazy things, like they grind up horses. All crazy people have these associations with that brand for 100 years. And so as I'm in this meeting, I'm talking about this, we're looking at their creative and somebody had said, the case, yeah, but this looks so good. Like showing like, like it was a backdrop of a farm, and it had this dog eating by the barn. It was a red barn. All these great things. And the person in the room was saying, this is really, really good ad. And I made the case that is a subjective feeling. What you just said is subjective, like somebody down the road, or some person next to me could have a very, very different feeling. And when you're valuing or in your evaluating ads based on subjective feelings, who wins? It's a CMO, it's a person who's the most in charge. It's the business owner. It's a CMO, it's the head of marketing, and it's their feelings. What I was trying to explain is I know, based upon the research that we did, that the motivation that you have, or that you believe you're expressing in that creative is not aligned with the motivation we have. And what I'm trying to, just to give them the tools, is understanding that there is an objective way of looking at ads, and I know it's not as sexy guys as now, it's not as fun, but imagine if you had a blueprint of all these different things from a psychological perspective that you should be looking for in your ads. And I do that. I'm like, I'm looking for things like, Are you showing the. Couple of people in the background. Are you putting a close up view on the on the on the food, or is it broader perspective, looking at the backdrop of the sky behind it? But if you had a checklist, and you knew from a psychological perspective, check I did that, check I did this. Oh, this one. I didn't do I didn't do that, you could have a good discussion. You say, Well, why didn't you show the dog eating the food? Why'd you have the dog jumping, you know, buy the barn. And sometimes the reason why they did that is actually really cool. The creative person came up with a great idea. I'm like on, you know what? That makes total sense. I would do the same thing. But if you don't have a reasoning, if you didn't take that in consideration, I'm gonna go back to the objective point of view, which is based upon the science and the research. So what I try to do with my book is give you somebody in the creative field, the marketing world, objective criteria to look at ads through. And when in doubt, go with your gut. Go with what you think makes sense. But if there is no gut feel, if you don't really know, why wouldn't you use science to make a judgment call and kind of lean in your in one way or another?

William Harris 1:01:00

Yeah, I think that's wildly helpful. And, you know, I've got that bookmarked right. Here is the for me. It's like page 178 it's the heuristics, which I've really appreciated looking at too, and because not just the decision making that they have within creating the ads, but on the landing pages, on the branding, and even just in personal decision making, like, you know, whether or not your dad bought stuff or whatever, right? But it's like all the decision making great point

Will Leach 1:01:24

will because the book is called marketing to mind states, but it could have easily been called parenting to mind states, managing by mind states, selling to mind states. It's all just using what we know about psychology to make better decisions.

William Harris 1:01:35

And I love that. I want to get into a little bit about who is Will Leach the part that I call, you know, how you're up and rowing the other parts of your life before I do though, I have one other question that kind of popped in my mind, and I might be taking this off base, so if it is just tell me past or whatever. But are you familiar with the prime drink? Prime? Yeah, I

Will Leach 1:01:55

actually know it's the CMO over there.

William Harris 1:01:59

Okay, Wild Growth, like over 200 million in their first year, right? And like, just exploded, but then they're, you know, basically selling for pennies now. And it's one of those things where it's like, this wild growth, and then this equally massive drop off. From your perspective, I see this in brands that happen for other reasons, for other reasons as well. Another brand that I think has done a good job with this, with this rapid growth, is Stanley mugs, where, you know the difference being, they're, they're 100 year old company, and so they can, they can weather the storm of this peak growth and still be a good company. Whereas prime, I feel like, from what I've seen, struggled. Why do you think some brands struggle to switch into that? We got that initial excitement, we got you to buy into it, but now getting you to sustain as a customer. Yeah,

Will Leach 1:02:55

where was the breakdown like? You know, there could be 1000 reasons, distribution issues, pricing, issues, all that stuff, I would tell you, maybe, from my perspective, would be what got you there doesn't necessarily keep you there, meaning that I could probably use some good behavioral psychology, mind state marketing to grab your attention and get that trial. In fact, getting somebody to try something is actually not that hard. You can do all sorts of things to do. I mean, just drop it almost to $0 and somebody will try. So trial is not hard to get. Getting this first sales don't matter. And so I think brands sometimes they hit on something, they do something really funny in their creative they hit on a cultural trend. They do something that's amazing, that grabs their attention and gets people to try. And most of these people may love the experience too, right? Well, they know it's great, but there is a difference between getting somebody to try your product and bringing it into a ritual and making it to where it's core to your identity, it's core to who you are. And so I think what happens is brands don't shift from doing something that's exciting and new and different to get people to try to becoming more relevant in that person's life, to where they'll go back again and again and again. Restaurants do the restaurants are horrible at this. They can new restaurant grabs a ton of people at first, and then you see so many restaurants die out in year two. It's because they're really good because of where they're placed. They have a cool menu. They get some initial social press, and you'll try them even if the experience is perfect. By the way, you have the perfect experience, the chances of your customers coming back are like only 30% and you could be they would rate you a 10 out of 10. So getting somebody to try you again and again is different messaging. I would, I would suggest that digging into helping you or your customers reach their aspirational goals, as opposed to entertaining them or being funny or unique or innovation or whatever is long term, what brands have to shift? And a lot of brands just fail to do that. They kind of do what they did before and do it in a new and exciting way. And so what they're churning customers people are leaving, but they're hoping to get new customers to fill in that, that that leaky bucket and that leaky that get. Bigger and bigger, until eventually they die out. Yeah, and

William Harris 1:05:01

I think that's a problem that we see in a lot of the DTC spaces. They come up with very innovative things, but they sometimes struggle to make that transition into like this brand that you're you're completely virtual. You talked about this even in the book, you brought back a memory of like cereal and how you were trying to figure out how to get serial like, to understand what was going on in the actual life of them. I'm doing a terrible job with this. But do you remember what the part I'm talking about, like, the research that you guys did? Yeah, or maybe not. There's, there's something that you guys were doing where you actually went into people's homes and watched what they were doing.

Will Leach 1:05:38

You remember the shame that the idea of shame is that the idea, I think

William Harris 1:05:43

that was it, yeah, where it's like, you watch, like, how, where does this fit in their life? And it's like, oh, they do this, or they do this, yeah,

Will Leach 1:05:48

so the best research, so I do a ton of research in people's homes or watching them shop, etc, and the best research you can do is in context, right? Because we just talked about that context matters so much, right? I know that not everyone can do it. But if I was to ask you this around home storage, and I was asking you what's important at home storage, you would say, Oh, well, it's got to be big, and it has to have a lock on the top, and it has to be clear so I can see in the bin. And all those things are great, but they're not differentiating, by the way, like that makes you not different at all. So what we do is we say, well, let's go figure out why home storage is so needed and so important in people's lives. And we went to somebody's home in the Midwest, and she was showing us her closet, and you know, it's just she's like, oh gosh, look at my closet. And this is where I would love a home storage where I could, I could put my shoes. And at first, the conversation is going really well, and all of a sudden, you could tell she starts kind of like, scratching a little bit, and you could tell she started getting uncomfortable, and it's just us, like, it's like, maybe, well, granted, we have a camera with us, right? But we have like, three people with us. We're asking more. And also she starts, like, kind of, like, tearing up a bit. And this was she was explaining to us why her closet was so messy, and she's like, Oh, well, you know, usually not this, I'm so embarrassed. And also she goes down this and she's just talking to us, and we're not asking her any questions. And she starts almost, almost shaking. She's just crying. And in that moment, she says to her, she tells us, I'm so embarrassed. Like, what does it say about me as a wife? What does it say about me that I can't keep my closet in a respectable as almost, she said it because there's just so much stuff all over the place. All the clothes are crammed there's shoes all over the place. And what that moment did for us, and I remember telling the brand team we took off later on, I said, guys, the next time you want to look at yourself in the mirror and understand what you're what you're doing, your job is not to provide home solutions. It's not that's silly. Anyone can do that. Your job is to lower the amount of shame she feels in the moment when she's looking at her closet. She kept saying, Look at what kind of a mom I am. Look at the kind of wife I am. She was feeling shame in that moment because she had stuff in her closet in a world where there's all those types of things happening, right? Well, like, if you could just eliminate somebody's, you know, increase their self image a little bit. That's what's important like in life. And so in that story, I talk about, oh my gosh, we never would have gotten that if we weren't in the closet with her. If we just would have done a survey and said, what's important you with home storage, you would have said, Oh, it's got to be about this size, gotta be about this price, or whatever. So you build around people's, you know, a desire to not feel shame. You'll take that brand into anything you can. Take that brand in cosmetics. You could. Cosmetics. You could take that brand into gyms, like you could if you could associate we're the company that helps you not feel bad about yourself. And it sounds, it sounds kind of weird to think, but if an iconic brand can do that, and this is by most capturing those moments where you realize how your product fits into somebody's life, and that's not just like a solution. It's not a job to be done. It is helping her become her best aspirational self. We captured that moment on serendipitously, right? We didn't know that that was going to happen, but it changed everything we did after that project.

William Harris 1:08:52

Okay? So that said, I want to get into who is will each and the first story that I want to start off with is I understand that you you were part of the, like, the Secret Service Team or something for Al Gore. That's a new one. What's going on?

Will Leach 1:09:10

So I was a dummy in high school. I can't believe I graduated. I laugh. I'm pretty sure that I didn't graduate in high school. I think they just kicked me out. So I joined the military and but I was in the military, I found myself, I had some really good officers who just saw something in me and took me under their wing. And in that, in that experience, I was actually ended up being assigned to Al Gore's presidential Secret Service detail. Now, to be fair, I wasn't the guy with, I wasn't the guy with, like the holster and the weapon. I was on what's called the communication staff. So imagine, before Al Gore would go anywhere, I would have to go to the event, set up the communications and make sure that you know, the wires were plugged in, right. But technically, I was assigned to a secret service detail. Now that being said, I never actually did it, because they wanted me to sign a four year commitment. And even though I'd live in Washington. See, I was like, I don't think I want to give the army another four years, but that was it. So I saw the sheet of paper where I was assigned. I had the White House Communications Agency, the whole thing. So, yeah, for so I tell my kid I was once in the Secret Service, though, technically, I guess it was like, it's like being a cook in the Secret Service. Yeah, I was in the Secret Service, but I was just making pancakes. You

William Harris 1:10:20

know, I love it. That's great. And here's the thing, I know that this story is truthful, because from what I understand, you like that little one handed cut there, from what I understand, you have a poker tell, oh, God, what is your poker tell? Yeah. So

Will Leach 1:10:32

it's embarrassing to say, but I don't know that I do this, and it'll be funny to go back on this video and see if I did this. But I when I don't agree with something that's being said, or if I start getting anxious, I'll actually start scratching my head. Now, usually I'll lean back, if you guys can't see maybe on the YouTube, I guess you'll see it, but I'll start scratching my head, and what'll happen is, especially over in this side, I'll start getting blood. And so my wife can tell whether I'm being really stressful, because in the middle of the night or when I wake up, there'll be blood staining inside my pillow. See me in a meeting, if you ever hire me, and you see me like scratching my head, you can damn well guarantee, and I don't realize I'm doing it, that I don't agree with what you're saying, or I'm trying to figure out a way to, like, get me get out of this conversation. So I'm the worst poker player, because when I'm uncomfortable, you know, I'd have a bad hand, because you'll start seeing blood trickling down my head. So I don't know if, I don't know if I have any, right now, I must be in a good mood. Usually I don't. Either, I don't either. The other day I had one really bad in the back here, and there's blood coming down. So anyways, it's embarrassing. It's a very bad tell.

William Harris 1:11:33

Well, I appreciate just the honesty then, right? So that way I know if we were in the same room, yeah, if you were in the room, then I would say, okay, good. Will you have something else to say here? Please speak out. That's right. I like doing a little bit of show and tell. And from what I understand, that American flag in the background is not just any old American flag. There's a little bit

Will Leach 1:11:58

more of a Yeah, there was, I'm no different than lots of people out there. I was in from a broken home, and my grandparents raised four young kids when my mom was trying to work on the side and and keep us together as a family. So my grandfather was, was, was definitely my father figure growing up, and in the back when he when he passed away, that's the flag that was that was on his his coffin. So, yeah, it means, like everything me, I'm the man I am today because of the decisions he made when in retirement, right? He retired, and all of a sudden he has to take care of him and my grandmother, you know, four young kids, age, you know, two to six, basically. So, yep, that's, that's his flag,

William Harris 1:12:35

fly proudly. So why? Why was he so impactful to you? What's the memory about him that you feel like really shaped you to be, yeah.

Will Leach 1:12:42

So he was a man, so he was blind, um, you know, as he got older, he was blind and he he couldn't drive, because, you know, when blind people can't drive, that's not good. He, he had to stop working, right? Um, so there are a lot of limitations to the kind of what he could do to be to experience, kind of my everyday life. But what he did, I was the youngest of four, and I didn't have a like, I don't remember my dad growing up, so he had to step in as the father figure. The other ones are a little bit older, so they kind of knew my dad a little bit. I had no memories of my dad. And so when I moved to South Florida, he he didn't. I could tell he treated me differently than my older brothers and sisters, because I think he realized that I needed more nurturance. I needed more love and like touching and so, because I just didn't have that. And so, so I can remember him tickling me and grabbing me and tickling me where he wouldn't do that to the other ones, and they're not that much older, right? It's not like they're 15, like they're a year or two older, but I think he realized that I needed something different, because I know father figure, and so for because he could have been very easily, I'll be the disciplinarian, right? I'm the grandfather and be the disciplinarian. And instead, I think He adjusted his parenting for me, because he knew I needed, like touch, right? Because I just didn't have a father to do that. So that's my guess.

William Harris 1:13:59

I like that. There's a good quote that you live by when we were talking about this, don't give the enemy a seat at the table. Yeah, so

Will Leach 1:14:08

I'm reading a book, and it's this book here. Actually, I have it. I keep it here on my desk from Louie Giglio, I guess can't see it. Yeah, I know Louie Giglio, amazing. It's the first book I've read, but I got to read more, because some of the stuff that he does, I have been unfamiliar with them, but it's a book he calls don't give the enemy to see the table. So I'm Christian, my faith means so much to me. And even if you're not Christian, even if you're not a Christian, this book would be really valuable, because what it does is it talks about how you can go down spirals of self doubt and you don't believe in yourself, and I'm so stupid. And we all have that. I have it too, and recently I've had it even more. So this book has been really good about helping me understand, least from a biblical perspective, to be careful about that. And it really comes down to we all, um, if you guys, you guys have heard this, this, it's Psalm 23, four, and most of you guys have heard it even. If you're not into the Bible, you probably already says, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me. Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. We've all heard that before, right? But the next, the next verse, verse five, is, You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint me with oil. My cup overflows the idea of, don't give your enemy to see the table is in the Bible, it says that God is setting up a table amongst your enemies. So if you know that God loves you so much that you're going to be at your table, he's going to be sitting with you at your table, even though your enemies are around when you go down these pathways of, Why is the world so tough on me, or why is this issue? Why am I being why are people attacking me? We have different attackers, right? But if you realize that God was with you, he sits there with you, and he made this to where you he's going to be with you during these times when you feel like you're being attacked, like he must love you a lot, right? So even if you're not into the Bible, maybe you're not a Christian. This helps me understand, at least from a Christian perspective, he's with me, even if you didn't believe that, you would sit there and think to yourself, wow. Don't give the enemy a seat at the table. Don't let your thoughts get out of hand where you start thinking that you're not the perfect version of yourself. You truly are. You are everything that God wants you to be. So this book has been really good when I when I go down the path of like, I'm stupid, or, how could I said that I'm like, actually, I'm not stupid at all. I'm not, don't that's not a good thought, and so it gets you out of your own head. So it's a great book. Louis Giglio. Giglio, I'm pronouncing that right? Louie Giglio really helps him psychologically.

William Harris 1:16:38

I love Louis, so I saw him in person on the passion tour with David Crowder, way, way, way, years back, I want to say I was in college, and he's always had some really good ways analogies of bringing things like that home. I do like what you're talking about with this. Don't give an enemy a seat at the table. I see this with my kids, and I'm sure you do as well, where they'll say like, oh, I'm I suck at math or whatever, and it's like, wait a minute, no. And we call them out, it's like, no, that is a lie. Right? Now, I would say that's a lie from Satan. But like you said, even if you're not spiritual or biblical, then it's like, you just, it's a lie. The truth is, like, you're capable of much more than that, um, and being able to call that out, there's another verse, you know, the truth will set you free. And I think, from from a Christian perspective, I'd say we believe that it's the truth of salvation that will set you free from sin, and I also think that it's literally the truth that sets you free. And many of the things that you have, like psychologically going on that is frustrating you or bothering you, it is because of an error in your thinking. There is something that you are not thinking correctly, irrespective of sin that you just need to get those lies removed from. Let me build

Will Leach 1:17:48

on this. We talked about system one and system two, right? So I have a little sheet of paper here on my desk that says, what is true in this moment? Is it emotion? Because sometimes what you do is remember that system one is so much more powerful that subconscious. I'm not good, I'm not smart. How can I been angry? Why'd I raise my voice? That's all emotion. If you would take a second, I'll look at this thing, what's true in this moment, and you'll look at things. I do this when, if you're a small business owner, sometimes you'll feel like, Oh my gosh. Am I gonna make it like, am I gonna make payroll? Right? You're in this terrible you're at this place. I'm gonna say, what's true, like, Am I like, am I gonna have to go get another job? Am I gonna have to go to Walmart? What is true and what's emotional? And then I'll go, what's true, and I'll go get my finances. I go, actually, you know what? I'm getting nervous, but I actually have enough to get me to the next thing. You're using your system to your rational brain, because you're not letting the emotional moment in that of that time, take you down that dark spiral. So that is another which we equate it to our system with Sister two. You make every decision, even your decision to say, I'm not so smart, I'm stupid. How could I raise my voice to my wife or whatever? Realize that there is the moment where you say, let's be more rational. Think about what's really happening in the moment. And most times you're gonna realize that, oh, you know what, I'm way making this a much bigger deal than really happens from you and I. That's Satan talking to us, right? That's Satan. For other people, it's like I'm just getting emotional. Let me just be more rational. Look at the facts, and I can take a calm a moment of a piece and go, it's not that bad. So maybe, maybe that all ties it up really nicely. System one, system two, with what we were talking about.

William Harris 1:19:22

Well, when, when I first read system one and system two, all I thought about was when Paul said, the things that I want to do, I don't do, the things that I don't want to do, I do. Right? We've all been there before, and it's like that is just that idea of that's kind of why I said almost training your system one, or using your rational mind to think through that. So I want to hit on one more Louis Giglio thing, just because I don't hear his name brought up as often as I used to, and I really like him. There's one thing that he said that I really appreciate, which is, let's think about the moon and the sun. The sun is essentially just a ball of dirt, and its job is to basically sit in the way of the Sun in such a way that it just reflects the light of the sun on. To the earth and us as human beings. We were created from the dirt, from the dust of the earth, and our job is essentially to sit in the glory of the sun, S O n and reflect His light and glory onto this love. That's such a brilliant wish, I

Will Leach 1:20:17

could think that way. Point right?

William Harris 1:20:20

Yes, he's got such well. And you do we asked, I asked you, you do a little bit. I asked you, what makes you magical? And you said, your ability to connect.

Will Leach 1:20:28

Yeah, no, that's what God gave me. I think I've always been like I was the guy who loved macroeconomics, who could understand that, if a revolution was happening in Thailand, how that could impact potato prices? No, in Zimbabwe, you just do that. And that's created. My model was I literally just was reading book after book and making connections. So I think that is, uh, that's my superpower. I guess his is, you know, coming being profound and thinking about dirt and us as Christians, and mine is connecting dots that otherwise don't feel like they connect, but they actually do. There's, there's a purpose behind all this stuff, right, right? Well, there's a purpose behind all 100%

William Harris 1:21:02

the last question here, because I know we got to wrap up here. Will William Bill Billy Willard Willis, lots of names. Why do you go by Will

Will Leach 1:21:18

so interesting fact that if I was going, if I was a girl, my name would have been will Ma, so that would have been a tough, tough. It was a family name, so that would have been tough, but I would have, I would have persevered will. I don't remember why I go by will, except there was a nickname that was given to me, and I grew up will until I was a senior in high school, and I went through this just before my senior year in high school. I was like, I don't want to be will anymore. I'll be different. So I came to school and your teacher asks you what your name is. And they said, William. And I said, Oh, my name is Bill. And I remember how quickly my friends in the classroom these names not bill or whatever. So it has been will ever since, unless I was in trouble. So my grandfather, if I did something really, really wrong, it was William John leech. But every other, every other person, calls me Will I it's stuck, because I actually thought of myself. Is that a professional name? But I never got around. I will say that there's fewer wills than Williams, so I feel like it's a little bit different. But, uh, yeah, if I'm in trouble, it's William, and if I'm not, if you're my friend, you're gonna call me will

William Harris 1:22:21

nice. I love it. If people wanted to work with you, connect with you, follow you. What's the best way for them? Yeah, you

Will Leach 1:22:29

know, the best thing is, I'm on LinkedIn. A lot. I do webinars on LinkedIn. I've got lots of articles on LinkedIn. So Will Leach on LinkedIn, and then mindstategroup.com I've got, like, resources, papers written, all this stuff, hopefully really easy to do, really easy to learn. So if you go to mindstategroup.com you can learn all about the book and the sciences and and anything else you want to learn about behavioral science. It's probably going to

William Harris 1:22:55

be in those two areas. Yeah, and I'll go ahead and give one more plug for the book too. I've got the old version, but here's a new version. It's the red one. There you go. I can't. There's more valuable. Will? Yeah, I can't. I can't recommend it enough. It is absolutely transformational, and I'm glad that I got to read it. Will I really appreciate talking to you and learning from you today, and you sharing

Will Leach 1:23:15

your time with Thank you, William, anytime this is a great experience. I

William Harris 1:23:19

appreciate you. Thank you everyone for joining in hope you have a great rest of your day.

Will Leach 1:23:24

Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

‍