Presenting yourself as a creative product vs. creative service

In this episode, co-hosts Douglas Duvall of Motif Media and Eric Wing of Darby Digital dive into the challenges of referrals, client interactions, and the potential shift from service-based to product-based business models. They explore how positioning their creative businesses as distinct products can provide more value, clarity, and differentiation in the marketplace.

Video version: https://youtu.be/N3xYBLZMeuk

📌 Topics Covered: referral challenges, business positioning, product vs service model, AI technology, creative business strategies, client billing systems, professional growth, equipment investment, branding

📢 Key Takeaways: Product positioning, automated billing, business evolution, AI exploration, client expectations, professional boundaries, strategic differentiation, continuous learning

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🔗 Connect with Us:

Douglas Duvall

motifmedia.com for high-end video production.

Eric Wing

withdarby.com for digital marketing and web development services.

Transcript

0:06

Welcome to Creative context today, Episode 20, a little bit of a milestone. A good portion of podcasts don't make it past episode 10. Ah, the beats you go, we're continuing to roll. We're gonna carry a conversation we started to have before we hit recording over to here, and I recently got a referral from someone, and the individual looking to work with me was a little bit impatient and hostiles, the wrong word, but irritated, irritated with how long things might take and what they might cost, and so on and so forth. So I was just sharing with Eric, like it did get under my skin a little bit, because the person is a similar age to me, and it just felt like a little like, Yo, you're not my boss. I don't owe you anything. Yeah, I'm talking to you because of a friend in the meeting. All in all, is about seven minutes. So if everybody goes their own ways, there's really no collateral damage or waste of time. Referrals, referrals can be tricky, and we did a whole episode on this early on. I think it's actually called Creative referrals, right? But you know, they're the reason why I think they're tricky. Is exactly your situation. It gets sticky because, well, first of all, you were telling me off air that it was referral from a buddy of yours. There wasn't a reply all. You had no idea that he replied. And your buddy's like, How come you haven't reached out? Blah, blah, blah. And you know the there's like an accountability piece when someone you knows puts their neck out on the line and says, Hey, you should talk to Eric. You should talk to Doug. They do the thing you need, and I recommend them, right? That's the neck on the line, right? And so we're sort of charged with there's a sort of protocol, and if you've never freelanced or done creative work, or doesn't even have to be in the creative industries, but this, there's a, there's like a nuance to referrals that it's really about, almost, if for nothing else, going through the motions of reaching out to the person, even if You you're not quite certain that's a good fit, because you're doing it for your friend. And so in your situation, yeah, not only did you have all that complication in the beginning, but then the person was sort of dismissive and not valuing your time, not on the call, but your estimate of how long you think it might take to do the to do the job, and kind of scoffing at that. But I think what's interesting about what you said is, prior to, prior to coming on, is how AI couldn't get him to where he wanted to go. So now he's reaching out to a human so right, there is a clue that you know, they've already gone pretty far down the road of Not, not wanting to hire somebody, and now here comes you, right? So you were really in a tough spot there all around. Yeah, it's like I said I was seven minutes of my time. Like, it's not a it's not a big deal in the in the grand scheme of things. But I this particular person who made the referral, like, I don't want to let them down. I'm not trying to make them look bad. Yeah, I appreciate them greatly. So it's not like, yeah, it's like, everything started off on the wrong foot, unbeknownst to me. So yeah, yeah. Is a weird spot to me, but yeah, it reminds me of a not entirely the same, but along the same vein of sort of, you know, and I actually have not received a referral from this person since, and it probably has something to do with what I'm about to say, but I was given a referral to a pretty prominent law firm. They operate in Boston, and I want to say Rhode Island, or maybe they were in Rhode Island, but they also operate in Boston, or whatever. But they they were dissatisfied with their agency, on record like their their their Google ads, basically were advertising agency they were displeased with. And so we were queued up to speak with them, and in order to uncover what the, what the what was some hype like, in order to create, like, a theory around what might be going wrong with their advertising, we needed access to a lot of stuff, and we needed to do it in a way that didn't alarm the current agent. See that something was going on, right? It's a very tricky situation, but all through the process, the person that I was that was working with was so was so afraid to alarm the current agency that we couldn't, we could basically reached a stalemate right now. This is after weeks of digging and a lot of time put in without any any compensation. It was just basically it would have been a whale for us to get that account. So we put a lot of work into it. But eventually we just started circling the circling around and around and around without being able to do anything. And it got to the point where it's, I got the impression that they had no intention of changing their agency. They wanted to get ideas to present to that agency to make it better without so it's a whole thing. And once I realized that, I, well, it was that and other things. But I, you know, I closed. I'm like, You know what this is? You know, good luck. This isn't going to work for us. Blah, blah, blah, and now, but now I'm stuck seeing the the person that referred me to him on a weekly basis in the networking group, right? And so I know he said, Yeah, I understand, no problem. But you know, there really hasn't been any traction on anything since then, so likely the two of them spoke behind the scenes, and, you know, there was some frustration that was perhaps mentioned or whatever. But that's the trick. Is, like, should I have just continued to go through and push through after realizing, because of the reputation I have with a person that referred me, or do I go with my business sense and just do what I think is right? And I know it's like the seesaw, right? And that, you know, that comes to mind. That's a kind of a recent example from this past winter. But, um, but anyway, yeah, so we love referrals, but referrals can be tricky sometimes, you know, yeah, I think, I think you can't, you know, whatever you want to call it, gut check, spider sense, what you just said, business sense, like, I feel like whenever you fight that or go against that, it's just you're, you're setting yourself up for trouble, yeah, or failure. And, you know, my spider sense was tingling, so to speak, like if I push forward with this, it's just, I'm not going to make money. It's just going to cost me money and time and headache, yeah, and the same for the the potential client, it's going to cost them time, money and headache. They're not going to be probably happy with it, because they're looking for something they can plug a text prompt into and get exactly what they want. Yeah, that was their, like, you said, that was what they're looking to do to begin with, yeah? So working with me is not gonna, you know, scratch that itch. So, yeah, it's a, yeah, it's a stick. Sticky is the good word. Sticky is a good word for it, yeah. And I think you're bringing to mind also this idea that, you know, we both worked in the corporate environment, and we know, we know that, yes, sometimes work comes home with you, right? Like that's a reality. But in granted, there's no blanket statement from one of my Bucha. What I'm about to say, but I would venture to guess that for the most part, those in a nine to five job, they do leave the job at the job, pick it up again on the next day. But in our world, you know, and I think any business owner that's listening to this also, regardless of being creative or not, it's sometimes difficult for that, for just to leave it at the office. Sometimes the house is the office. Sometimes, you know, it becomes a, I don't know, it becomes like a, like a ear worm that just kind of stays with you, even when you leave. So a situation like that, or the one that I gave, for an example, those that was weighing on me for days. I'd wake up with it. I'd kind of carry with me through the day. Whenever I was not distracted, my mind was would default to it. So it's when what triggered me to mention this is when you said that. You know, it's, yeah, it was seven minutes of my time, but I would have lost on the call, but I would have lost money on the on the gig. Just note, just with your, your spider senses, right? Your spidey senses, and that emotional turmoil that that is draining. And there's really no price tag you can put on that, in my opinion. And so I think when you get to the stage of career as a creative that we are, I think this is one of the values, I think the wisdom in these situations, because the younger version of us, I would say, would probably Chase both of those examples and just keep chasing. It and make it work. Just make it work and lose money. But, you know what, I have a portfolio piece, or maybe they'll give me a review the things we've talked about in the past on the show, actually, but, but kudos to you for for seeing that and pulling back and, you know, protecting your bottom line, but also protecting your sort of, your mind, your mindset at the same time, yeah. I mean, it's a tricky balance, because at the end of the day, we we're here to make money, and what's the difference if it's this person or that person? But sometimes other people have a way of and whether it's intentional or not, some people just have a way of getting under your skin. Yeah, and sort of seeping into that, seeping through that separation of work and private life. And I'd say all of my clients sort of ping pong in my head, you know, on a weekend, like, Oh, I'm like a note for that from Monday. You know, that was a good idea for this person, and that's a good idea for this podcast and so on and so forth. Like they're all sort of up there, yeah? And I don't want to sort of give anybody rent free space in my head that isn't going to be a true partner. Yeah. I guess that's good they're just looking for, they're just looking for a service. I was on the modern craftsman podcast, or I'm gonna be. So this comes out tonight, Wednesday night, Thursday morning, Sunday, and Sunday, I'll be on the modern craftsman mostly promoting the show, nice but, but we talked, they talked a lot about Nick and Nick schifr, Tyler grace. They talked a lot about Nick's a Nick's a builder and his builders. He's like, I'm shifting from being a service to providing a product. You know, he's, he's building this, this home called 45 white oak that is, uh, it's, technically, you'd call it a speculative build, but it's really much more than that. It's beyond a custom home, okay? And he's making it as a product. So you're buying an NS builders product. You're not hiring NS builders to make something as a service. You're buying this home as a product, much like Porsche makes a product, right? It's not a custom piece. When you go to buy a GT three, or whatever, the you know, the the racing car there, you're buying a product, yeah. So he's very much intentionally, and that's one of his favorite buzzwords, intentionally. I make fun of him for it. I count it. When he says it in videos, that's funny, but he's intentionally making a switch to making a product. And they, they kind of push back on me. We're talking about all sorts of things about like, motif needs to be making products, not being a service provider. And I, I, I guess I didn't look I've heard them talk about that a lot, but I've never sort of thought about it in a sense for myself, it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, yeah, it does. Instead of sort of chasing these things, being a service provider, come to me and I'm going to give you a product, is, I think everybody kind of wins in that sense, because, like, this is my product. If you don't like it, go get another one. Yes, when you come to us, you're coming to us for this. And I kind of like that change of mindset. I like it too. It's funny, because I was doing, I was driving earlier this morning, I was thinking about how I had this idea back in the day, and I saw somehow I abandoned it to start publishing all of our prices on our website. And that was a those kind of starting to lean in that direction, because if you, if you try to price services, it's difficult, right? Because it's like custom this amount of time for that, blah, blah, blah, right? But if you, if you go through an exercise of putting prices on your website or even, like a rate sheet, or just putting prices available for someone to see, you have to almost think in terms of packages and products and and whatnot, because, or tiers because otherwise, how do you quantify what the person's buying, right? Like for me to just put SEO on the website. SEO is X number of dollars per month, but for what type of website you know? So instead reorganizing it to be the SEO startup package, right? You have brand new website. You buy this package. And so it's really cool that you mentioned that today. And I don't know what my opinion is on it, like service or product, but I see the value in that for sure. And I think as a consumer, it can be refreshing too, where you just you. It takes a lot of the decision making out of the scenario, yeah? Because if, yeah, I'm trying to think of a good a good comparison, but like when you go to buy a Nike sneaker, there's an expectation I'm going to pay a premium. Maybe it's not necessarily a premium product, and you know how that product is made. I'm not getting into that, but I'm just saying Nike, because it's someone you're all image. Everyone who's just heard that has got a Nike shoe in their head and a Nike ad they like and all that. There's when you hear that that resonates, right? Yeah. So like, if you go to buy a Nike shoe, there's an expectation. So I guess, sort of switching to that sort of model, you're not paying someone hourly to make Nike shoe or to make a Porsche, and at the end of the day, I'm not making a Porsche or Nike shoe. It's not a physical, tangible thing, but it is a thing. It is an asset. It lives on a hard drive. It takes up space somewhere, yep. So it is a thing. So I want when you hear, Oh, I hired motif, it's like, I want that to be a resonating thing. Like, this is an expectation. When you hire my motif, product, you're going to get. And since that conversation last night, I've kind of haven't stopped thinking about it. So, yeah, I got a lot of my on my mind, on that front for sure. Yeah, I love it. I love it. I think, I think it's a differentiation approach to where you know, if you put motif next to another firm that does similar work, beautiful website, awesome, awesome work examples, reviews, etc, if you just put them side by side and everything almost matches up perfectly. What's the where's the contrast? Where is there enough contrast for that potential customer to pick one over the other? Right? And our friend Michael barbarita, who we should have on the show. He, he, he will always go back to differentiation. It's always differentiation. And I think product selling if you position or differentiation and positioning, but if you're positioning motif as a product, and then the branding, everything is wrapped around that to communicate the value versus the the other company that's selling by the hour, just doing service based stuff. You're right? It doesn't seem as tight. It doesn't seem as I don't know if valuable is the right word, right? And I can say the same thing about my company. There's, there's agents, like I said, before I can throw in, I can throw a stone to like three others down Mass Ave from me right now, right? And so, yeah, positioning, positioning of services, and positioning of products, I think that's smart. That's, I mean, there's a reason why NS builders are NS builders, right? The innovative thinking like this, yeah. And another thing I sort of picked up on this is outside of what we're talking about. And it's actually something you do as talking to my accounting team about it this past weekend, we we use you for SEO, motif, media.com, and I don't I get an invoice, but like, we're on a recurring thing, so, like, money automatically goes to you every month, and I'm like, Why isn't this happening for all our podcasts, like our retainer work? Why isn't it just automatically? Why is it an invoice? And we have to track people down, and, you know, why is this not just being, like, a Netflix subscription, right? I used you as a reference. Like, I know it's coming out every month, and it just happens. Eric and his team don't have to track me down. It just happens automatically, yeah, because we know it's coming. Like, my clients know it's coming, yeah? So, like, let's set it up like that. And I guess we've, we've are in the process now of getting it set up like that. Yeah, that's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. We're not there 100% on all of our clients. It does save a lot of headache. It's just, I just so happened to have to reach out to a client yesterday who refuses to put a credit card no file, and she slips months behind sometimes, but, but, yeah, when it's all in place. It's it's a really nice thing. And I have a good example of this, which is so we, something I don't talk a lot about on the show, is we do website hosting as well. In fact, we're spinning up a new brand called rexby tech.com and it's going to be where our website hosting domain we're. Domain registrations and some other services on that. But we, we recently sold a hosting account for for Rex B Tech, and then I followed up into someone I know. So it's not an exact like, you know, I know the guy, but whatever he this has happened in the past, too, where we did all the transferring. We got him set up on this email, did all this, did all the things, got him onto the platform. And then, you know, it's been weeks and there's been no, there's no, been no payment. And now what gets me a little prickly on this is when someone like, Oh, I thought I was just like a net 30, net, you know, net 60 or something. I'm thinking to myself, you would never say that to GoDaddy, right, right? No, right. So it's not his fault. It's my fault. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't handle the situation properly, because I should have, you can't do anything with GoDaddy or network solutions or Bluehost, any of these hosting companies. You have to literally create an account and put a credit card on file, and then you can do business with them. But if your credit card expires, you can't do business with them anymore. And so it was a real sort of like wake up call in, in along the vein of what you were just talking about there, but, but, yeah, it's, yeah, it comes down to our, you know, business systems. But also it comes down to like, how do we, how do we position those systems to to a customer, so that they they don't see us as just like, oh, that's, that's Eric over at at Darby, you know, he's a cool guy. I can pay him whenever, versus, oh, that's, uh, that's Darby digital, you know, in order to do business with them, like, it's no different than doing business with a national brand, a local brand, national brand, same idea, right? But it's on, it's on me to get it to that point. But it was just kind of an eye opener. And I was just like, it happened again. Like, this is not the first time that this has happened where, you know, they're like, Oh, whatever. And I'm like, Well, you wouldn't be that way with a larger company, you know, sure, but, yeah, yeah. I think also, while you're setting it up, I don't know how I think you use QuickBooks, but yeah, do you know if they have the ability one thing that our we're in the midst of moving over to ODU for all of our accounting, all of our everything, and one of the reasons is because we'll, we're frequently, we'll have questions from clients saying, Hey, can I log in somewhere and see my credit card or, like, you know, see my past invoices, or anything like that. My answer is no currently. So just a little like little bug in your ear, maybe while you're setting that up, something to consider, if that's possible with your tools, that's a good question. I don't know. Such a don't know, I know, yeah, and I'm, there's a lot of things. I'm not a fan of QuickBooks. That's a good question. It's just like, because imagine, and this is like, I don't want to go down the tangent on like getting paid, but I think it's probably valuable for for people that are just starting their business or looking to to professionalize it in the ways that we're talking is, if you're, if your process is is such that part of your onboarding requires someone to click a link, create an account, add their payment information, do those things, it instantly puts you in the same space as a national brand, where that's just the expectation, right? And so, yeah, you touched on something I've been thinking a lot about because because of that scenario I just gave you, but yeah, like that a lot though, that, like, idea of, like, all right, you got to fill this out, because I'm actually at a similar point with a client, and it, it's no fault of her, it's fault of mine. Like, we're just out of sync, and we're just trying to get set up and rolling with a podcast. And I'm like, I just there because usually, like, I think she's, she's kind of, she's super scheduled, so she only checks her she seems to email me at the same time of day, or text me at the same time of day every time. And it's like, I don't know, it's like, usually after five. So I'm like, I'm into full, full dad mode at that point. So it just like, we're kind of like out of sync or whatever, but like, I'm used to, like when I send a text virtually getting an instant response from the vast majority of my clients. So things sort of move very quickly. So to kind of be in this, like, weird holding path. Pattern of like, all right? Well, it might not be 12 hours, or it might be 20 hours before I get a response. It's kind of just got us in this weird spot. But we're kind of, we're meeting and getting back in sync, but anyway. But I like that idea of like, if I had something like that in place where, like, they have to go in fill out this thing, credit cards on file. Billing has begun. Now we're good, yeah, now I can put my headspace around these questions she's asking and whatnot, and put time into it. So, like, I think that's definitely something I gotta implement. Yeah, and I think this, like, repositioning is a product versus service. Like a service, it's like something that's so replaceable, right? Like, you hire so and so to trim your bushes. It's like, oh, they like, we asked them to come on Monday. They don't get here to Wednesday. We need to find a new find a new Bush, like a new Bush trimmer, whereas, like, if you're hiring a a landscape company that's kind of presented themselves as, like this white glove, you know, within we respond within 12 hours whatever, like you're you've hired a product, yes, like, as opposed to just someone with the name on a truck or whatever. I don't know, yeah, maybe I'm not, not the best analogy. I guess, yeah, it's good. Yeah, it, it's like, you're the example of, like the bush trimmer, if it's if it's a product, you've likely purchased a package. I think that's one of the that's one of the things between service. I mean service. You have service packages too. But from a product standpoint, I think it starts with it would be difficult to replace the the hedge trimmer, because if you replace him, you're also going to lose all these other things that come with it, right? And I think that's what you're getting at, is, oh, they also have, like, part of our, part of our, our product with, with the landscaping company, is that each fall they'll clean the gutters. It's just included, you know, we don't to think about that, right? It's that sort of thing versus it's more difficult to find a company that will, that will provide a product that will fit right back into that scenario. It's easier to just replace someone that trims the hedges. I totally get it. Example, yeah, yeah. And like, the person who trims the hedges more than likely can clean the gutters, right, yeah? But you got to tell them, and maybe double, triple, remind them, you know, I mean, to get it done. Yeah, right, yeah. Because he's like, wait a minute, I usually better get out of here in like, 15 minutes. Now I have to be here for an hour. Like, it's gonna be difficult, yeah? So, yeah, it's, ultimately, it could be the exact, to your point, could be the exact same person, but in a way where the the drain, the gutter cleaning, they it's, it's presented as like a throw in, but really you're, they are paying for it somewhere within that, within that package, right? Maybe it's $5 $5 a month. And then in the fall, he spends two hours at the property. It's already really kind of been paid for throughout the rest of the year, but it's baked into the product. So yeah, let's turn this to the client's perspective. So like, from the client's perspective, they come to work with Darby or motif, and it's like, I want them to be, like, it's something they almost can brag about, you know, as opposed to being, oh, I hired a videographer. I hired motif, yeah, they do NS builders video. They're doing my video now, yeah, you know, like, you know, I mean, and I think maybe there's, we've had a little of that, but I don't think it's, I don't think we've positioned ourselves in the best way to take advantage of that. Yeah, yeah, you're getting into, you're getting into branding now you're getting into like, yeah, no, it's good. That's, that's the mushrooming of it. I think what we're talking about is some of the foundational elements of like, how are we positioning? Okay, we're gonna position as our product instead of a service. Okay, how do we make that clear? And then, how do we then use that as our advantage in all of our marketing language, right? And, yeah, no, totally. It makes sense that that would be that's, I think, when, when companies are around, like the size of ours, I think that's usually that next step where you've heard the expression like, too big to fail, that type of thing. I think, I think there's two ways to get there. There's on the smaller on the smaller level, maybe I can't speak to your company, but for mom. Nine, we've just built this inertia from doing the things we do for so many years. So it's not like we can't fail, but it's just like we've got a lot of buoyancy, right? Just being established however, I could walk, you know, I could walk in any direction, in any town, in any place, and say, Hey, do you know who Darby, did you live? No one will ever know who we are, right? And I think that's the next leap is, is building the reputation, building the brand exposure, to the degree that people you know, not necessarily a household name, but maybe, like within certain industries, it's, it's that way, right? Right? So, yeah, it's an evolution, I think, certainly, yeah, shifting my mindset. I think I have to sit down with you. I love this stuff. Yeah, it's the next question. That's the next step. Yeah, I stopped in my office, and it's off to Michael's office. And I think you'll have everything a side note, I guess we'll bring we'll put this on the podcast. I think people want to hear it. My setup here, this little studio, we're sort of setting up for the ability to do two people in person studio for modern craftsman, cool. So we're gonna have three cameras, all new, like, overhead lighting that's, like, controllable from, like an iPad, nice. And, like, have a nice little setup. So at some point, if that, once that's done, you got to come in and we'll do one in person in that setup. Yeah? So I don't, I don't have a timetable on that. We're talking about equipment right now, so it's probably a couple months away, but it's, it's gonna be cool. Yeah, congratulations. That's super that's, I think, I think just with our conversations, I do admire how much reinvesting into the business that you guys do. It seems, seems to be quite a bit. Yeah, I think this, this would actually be more of a like, essentially, modern craftsman is paying for it. But I think it's, I think we're gonna effectively split it, you know, it's like, it's half, there's half motifs. And motif would have the ability to, like, take it on location. And obviously, I'd take it on location for modern craftsman, but, yeah, we in video that's like, you don't have a ton of overhead. Your initial overhead comes from equipment which could take you X amount of years to pay off, and then it's probably at that point time to buy new equipment, right, right? So that there's, there's very little consumables, you know, gaffer tape, cables here and there little little items for consumables, but it's, it's usually the gear, and when there is a purchase, it's 500 1015 105, grand, you know? So they're bigger purchases, yeah, but you kind of have to be continuing to invest in new gear and update things to kind of stay, stay in the loop Absolutely. Yeah, I think, I think my setup here, that you helped me with, was like 2500 maybe something like that. Yeah, the camera, the camera body, is about 900 the lens was 400 and, yeah, yeah, it's probably just under that, yeah, somewhere around with all the stuff, mounts and stuff. But it's a like, I like, you use, I know you use it for like, your zoom meetings and stuff too, right? Yeah, I don't use the microphone, but I use everything else, the camera and the lights. And then people are probably like, wow. Why does your image look so good? Yeah, yeah. More than once, they're like, Wow, you're so clear. Because sometimes I'll work from my home office, and it's not nearly the same, and then they'll see me the next meeting here, and they're just like, you're like, HD today, what's going on? Yeah? But, but yeah. My biggest thing is the lighting. I I have bad lighting at the house and good lighting here, so if I have an important meeting, I'll come to the office specifically for the lighting. I guess I could just buy another couple of lights and put them on my desk at home, but I haven't thought of doing that yet. Yeah, lighting helps. And then camera position. The issue with your laptop is your laptop screens usually angled, yeah, so you want that, you want your laptop screen to be kind of flat, right? I know it's hard to angle. I'm looking myself in reverse. So usually, if you, if you don't have an external camera, get some books to put on your desk to get that camera so your head's almost at the top of the frame, but not. Of quiet and keep your camera, your laptop screen flat, yeah, at a 90 degree angle, yeah, that'll help a lot. And then it's lighting. And look, a webcam is only gonna get you so far. It's not a high fidelity camera. They're just kind of think of how thin your laptop, right, like in there, yeah, jammed in there. But as we kind of wrap up here, any, any, we kind of touched on a lot of different stuff today. Yeah, cool. I like today a lot. So there's probably not any closing, closing thoughts. But is there anything you you're checking out you got coming up you want to talk about, yeah, next week, I'm doing doing an AI it's SEO and SEO plus AI Summit, like a three day, a three day thing, like nine to three every day, for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and it's all an effort to just continue our education around what's going on with AI, what how it affects our business, and how we can make our our strategies with clients, better. And you know, it's a lot of fun, too. And I was telling you a little bit earlier about I'm dabbling more in automations as well. So those are the two, I think, for my business and staying relevant into the near future, I'm targeting a few areas to speaking of positioning and packaging and product and whatnot, and the AI and automation is a big part of that. And so I've been investing a lot of time and money, and have a conference in Chicago coming up in June. And so really just all in on embracing these technologies. Otherwise I have this just like pit in my stomach about becoming irrelevant, right with the with the work that we're doing right now. So, so, yeah, big thing for me is, like finding extra space in my brain for all this new information, you know, old dog, new tricks. I'm gonna give it a shot. Yeah, yeah. Well, I know we had, we had Eric tomorrow on two weeks ago now, yeah, and I know he kind of sighed when we said we brought up AI. And he's like, I feel like I have this conversation all the time. And it's true, but Gary V had a clip the other day. It's like, no matter how exhausted you are about talking about AI, you cannot stick your head in the sand about it. Yeah, you need to be, you need to be understanding it and learning it and staying on top of it. And I just he, I feel like he totally encapsulated it in that statement. Like, as exhausted as you are talking about it, you it's just, yeah, you can't stick your head in the sand on it. Yeah, I started to play with runway. I don't know if you're familiar, I don't know that one. So it's, it's really around video generation, like you could put an image, like a sample image, in, and it can generate video from a photo, and wow, it's, it's interesting. It's not, it's not the to the extent I've used it, it's nothing insane, but I know there's been some like films that have been entered in film festivals that have particularly on the animation side, because you can give it some like, texture boundaries and like, if it presents like three or four different options, you can sort of Take the the DNA, or like, a code reference to the one you like, and use that as like the reference point for everything you make going forward. And wow, at the highest end, speaking of products, at the highest end product, you could literally get access to frames, okay? So you can change frames, if it's for like, an animation. So there is some, like, really cool stuff happening in it. And what we did with it, or what I did with it this weekend, is I put some, I put some renders of a home in it, and had it like, animate the renders a little bit. So I put 10, eight images in. 80% of them, the videos that made weren't great, but 20% I used, like, oh, it made kind of an interesting like, it made the room 3d so based on the image, like it did, like a little pan on the render, and it's two of them, it really worked out, like it looked really good, and the others did some wacky, wild looking stuff that just wasn't a fit. But yeah, no, starting to, starting to mess around with the image generation stuff, a little more Video, Video generation specifically. I mean, kudos to you, because I think we can go back. To, like, episode one, two or three, or somewhere in there, and you were like, I'm not so sure. Maybe I could use it sometime in the future, blah, blah, blah. There you are, like, six months later, or whatever, and you put it, you just used it in a with a client product. So congratulations. That's awesome. My brother reached out yesterday saying, I've decided to start using AI, and it's freaky. And I'm like, Dude, you are so behind you. Have no idea how behind you. He's almost as old, he's 40, he's almost as old as I am. So he's gonna have to spend a few weekends catching up here. Yeah, yeah. He's probably gonna go the other side of the pendulum, right? He's gonna be like, messaging you every other day about, did you try this? Did you try this? Yeah, be awesome. And if AI creates a new way to bond with my brother, then, yeah, we always use something else. So yeah, well, you guys can find us creative context. Podcasts, wherever you search podcasts, creative context, podcast on YouTube, and creative context underscore on Instagram, and of course, creative context.net feel like I've said that too much creative context, but thank you for stopping by if you've gotten this far, give us a follow on Instagram. If you've gotten this far, we appreciate it, and we will see you next week. You