Gamify Business Tavern Tales Episode 21- Mark Stern- The Artifact Crafter

GB Tavern Tales Episode 21- Mark Stern- The Artifact Crafter: The Magic Pixels Can't Replicate

When was the last time you remembered a Dropbox link? A WeTransfer notification? A PDF invoice?

These digital moments vanish into the ether the moment they arrive. But a beautifully crafted package? A thoughtfully designed unboxing experience? That becomes an artifact — something a client holds in their hands, shows to their friends, maybe even displays on a shelf years later.

Tonight at the Tavern, Mark Stern pulls up a chair to share the forgotten magic of physical touchpoints in a world drowning in digital noise.

Mark is the founder of Custom Box Agency, where he helps brands transform forgettable digital transactions into physical experiences that clients actually remember. He's a former Deloitte strategy consultant with a Duke MBA who traded corporate clarity for entrepreneurial creation. He's been featured in Joey Coleman's book Never Lose an Employee Again, recognized as a Forbes Next 1,000 Entrepreneur, and serves as a mentor at SXSW.

But here's why Mark's wisdom matters for creative entrepreneurs: you don't need a massive budget to create memorable moments. Whether you're a photographer delivering prints, a designer presenting a brand identity, or a maker shipping your creations — there are touchpoints in your client journey where a little intentionality transforms a transaction into a treasure. Something they keep. Something they show others. Something that turns a one-time client into a lifelong champion.

In a world where everyone else is shouting into the digital void, sometimes the most powerful move is to put something real into someone's hands.

🎲 Business is an adventure. Don't be an NPC.

Connect with Mark Stern: 🌐 https://customboxagency.com/

Connect with Paul Pape: 🌐 https://gamifybusiness.com 🔗 https://linkedin.com/in/paulpape

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome, fellow adventurer, to Gamify Business Tavern Tales, a place to discover the roads less traveled on your creative journey. Welcome back to the Tavern, fellow adventurers. I'm Paul Pape, your barkeep and game master. So tonight we have a craftsman who understands something most adventurers in our digital age have forgotten. In a world of invisible transactions and forgettable emails, physical objects carry a magic that pixels simply cannot replicate. So think about it. When was the last time you remembered a Dropbox link or a WeTransfer notification, a PDF invoice? These digital moments vanish into the ether the moment that they arrive. But a beautifully crafted package, a thoughtfully designed unboxing experience, that becomes an artifact. Something a client holds in their hands, shows all their friends, maybe even displays on the shelf years later. Mark Stern is the artifact crafter. As the founder of Custom Box Agency, Mark has spent years helping brands transform forgettable digital transactions into physical experiences that clients actually remember. He's a former Deloitte strategy consultant with a Duke MBA who traded corporate clarity for entrepreneurial creation. He's been featured in Joey Coleman's book, Never Lose an Employee Again, recognized as a Forbes Next 1000 entrepreneur, and serves as a mentor at South by Southwest. But here's why Mark is pulling up a chair at this tavern tonight. The magic he teaches isn't just for big brands and massive budgets. Creative entrepreneurs, photographers, designers, makers, and artists can use these same principles to turn their deliverables into legendary artifacts that transform one-time clients into lifelong champions. In a world where everyone else is shouting into the digital void, sometimes the most powerful move is to put something real into someone's hands. Mark, welcome to the tavern. What is the most memorable artifact that you've ever helped create?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

You're putting me on the spot. It's so funny because this is so my art and I love it all. By the way, I freaking love that welcome. So thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here. But I it like, oh my God, there's so many. But right now, one of the ones that I'm so excited about is one of my own products. And for years I didn't have a product until a mentor looked at me and was like, You're doing these for everyone else. Like, why aren't you doing it for yourself? And um, the artifact that we brought to life, I'm looking to see if I have one near me. I can see it over there, is this concept called 57 hats, which is just a simple exercise to say, as a business owner, small or big, do you know how many hats you're wearing? And imagine having this interactive experience using, for me, one of my favorite modalities is cards. And we essentially just broke down a business into five departments. The cards represent different roles in each of the five departments: marketing, sales, operations, um, finance, and delivery. And you can literally sit down and go through the exercise to determine how many hats you're wearing. And just by knowing that, now we can have a conversation of should you do this, delegate it or delete it, and um really shape, okay, I didn't know this was a role, but now I know that it's a role. Can AI replace this or can I outsource this to someone else? So there's just so much magic that you could just take a physical product and the tangibility and movability, it's a whole different. I love how you framed physical, because we are physical. Um, and and for us, it's all about experience design. Um, so how do I enhance that experience more than just what you see and what you hear with an online platform, but the physical nature of it? I think that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

This is gonna be a lot of fun. So we live in an age where most transactions are invisible. So files are sent through links, invoices emailed, work delivered through platforms that leave no trace. At some point, you obviously realize that there was power being left on the table. So, what made you see that physical touch points were the missing magic most businesses had abandoned?

SPEAKER_01 3:56

You know, it's so funny that it's such a good question. And where it started for me is uh when I left corporate America to become an entrepreneur and I was such a lost soul trying to figure out how to navigate this crazy adventure of entrepreneurship that we play. And my biggest pet peeve would be I would buy these programs or join coaching programs. And it felt like they were making it way too hard for me to get started. And so if you ask me for a perfect example to print something out or print out that, you know, 300-page workbook, you're assuming I have a printer, it has ink, it has paper, it's hooked to my computer. After I do all of it, it's organized. And there's all these little obstacles that we put up into preventing our customers from being successful. When the reality is, if you just sent me the workbook, one, they don't cost a lot of money. Uh, and two, you literally eliminated all those obstacles that if one of those went wrong, I get in this mindset of someday um I'll get to it. And the idea of someday, someday eventually never happens. And so the whole thing is I think business owners or entrepreneurs make it way too hard for their clients to be set up for success or their customers. But if I send you what you need out of the gates, I can give you an action plan that's well curated and thought through. I can set you up for that adventure that you're about to embark on with me. And I know as a mentor or a coach, you have all the tools you need because I sent them to you. It fundamentally changes the nature of the conversation of someday to now you have what you need to do. Just pull out your pen and get started. And the other element of this is I mean, it's physical. We are human. Um, when you see, say, like we experience life through the senses, it's really a big thing. It's a dynamic nature of the sense of touch, taste, and smell aren't things you're gonna get on a digital experience as easily. And so this is kind of where how do you take the experience to the next level? Think about Disney World, think about all the big brands out there who really get experience. It's not just tapping into one or two senses, it's truly activating everything and physical can do that.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yeah, that's beautiful. And I love that you brought up tomorrow's problems. I I think that's something that a lot of creative entrepreneurs are constantly dealing with because we always one feel overwhelmed by the amount of work that we have to do. So we're like, that's tomorrow, Paul's problem. Yeah. And it's it's you know, tomorrow never comes. So it's like I I am one of those people that if I have a client ask me for something, I'm like, you need to give me a deadline. Because if you don't, if you do, oh, whenever you can get to it, that isn't that's when I'm dead. You know, I'll never get to it. You know, you've got to tell me when that happens. So I love that, I love that for you. And you brought up the Disney World one. My wife and I, we got married, we were gifted a uh Disney World vacation for our honeymoon. And so we went down there. Uh, well, we got there, and my wife was so mad. She was so mad. And I'm like, what are you so angry about? She's like, they're pumping in cookie smell, like the vanilla smell for the experience. And she's like, it it makes me so mad because now I'm hungry, but I don't really want cooking. You know, it's like this whole thing. It's like she she's tapped into it. She's a costume designer, and so we're both very artsy people, and so she's like, she understood what was happening, but at the same time, it like it angered her more than like made her feel happy to be in the happiest place on. So I just think that's funny that that was your experience there.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

And it's totally so I used to live in Chicago and there's Garrett's popcorn. I don't know if you're familiar with Garrett's popcorn. Oh, yeah. And there was one down the street from where I used to live, and like I'm like feeling great, and then you get that whiff of Garrett's and that salty, sweet Chicago mix of cheddar mixed with caramel popcorn. Oh, it gets me every time. And if I connect through O'Hare for travel, like I'm a sucker to it. And it's like I don't need this. Nope. But I want it. No.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

But you're trained, you're trained, and that's the thing is like we talk about humans as being, you know, like we are individuals, right? It's like, no, we are trainable animals just like everyone else, which is why your business is so successful. Because that tangibility, that ability, like uh when I'm designing something, smell plays a large part into a lot of what I do. I love tangibility, but smell on top of it really brings you over the edge. So, like if I'm unboxing doing an unboxing, I want that first waft to be like groundbreak. Like, this is what I'm like, if I'm sending something that is from the world of Warcraft, I always put some dried leaves or something in the box so that when they open it, they get it kind of get that like that earthy smell that comes with it. Ah, and it's and I think it's it's one of those things that, like you mentioned, it's overlooked. It really truly is. And as animals, that's what we're tuned to do. And so this glass interference that we have with all these digital experiences that that that window pane we're having to look through to be able to experience life, it is missing something. It's totally lacking.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

It's so good. And sense of smell is something that is so much fun to play with as well. Um, because we've had experiences we built out that you can get engineered a scratch and snuff, and there's a nostalgia that comes with something like that that people want to lean in and do. It's more than just here's a book, right? Here's a thing, um, here's another login. And so the interaction, the interaction to like we had an experience, and this is where sense of smell really came to life to me, is that somebody had a box that they wanted a little thing of mints in there, and we had these beautiful branded mints as part of the experience. What I did not know is that the box trapped the mint smell. So when they opened it, you had this incredible sense of like smell that got activated, which then you know, we had a client in the cookie space was like, Can we have a smell of freshly baked cookies? And like smell, there certain smells are amazing, certain smells are very synthetic, so you gotta really test it out. But like the power of activating the sense of smell was not something we thought of initially, but now it's one of those things of saying, How can we add this as an element that has that it feels like something different and special that was curated for this experience?

SPEAKER_00 9:35

That's that's brilliant. I love that the the new car smell is something that we always like. Ooh, new car smell. We don't understand it's the outgassing of all these plastics and stuff that is inside your car. It's like all these toxic, noxious fumes, and it's like, ooh, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

It's like yeah, and there's also um men typically love the smell of gasoline. Yep. Um, so it's just funny, all these smells that you're just like, they're not good in terms of how they got engineered, but we like them.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

We do, we do. So so you've run over a hundred experiential campaigns. So when a client receives something physical, something thoughtfully crafted, instead of just another digital notification, what actually changes? What happens in that moment that a Dropbox link can never recreate?

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Such a good question, too. Like, so thank you for this. Um, when we think about curating an experience, one of the things that we anchor on before we ever get into the build of the experience is the simple idea of what does success look like. So I need to have a like a definition for success. And by success, it needs to be a binary that when I achieve success, it's without a shadow of a doubt that I've completed this part of the journey. And what I mean by that is I know when I go to college at the end of the journey is a diploma. It's easy to say when I have a diploma, did you complete college? The answer is yes or no. Um, if I have a black belt and I'm in taekwondo, it's the same thing. If you're in Boy Scouts or Cub Scouts, if you're an Eagle Scout, there's a journey, but you know what success looks like because we have a success metric. A lot of businesses do not do a good job defining success. And the problem when you don't define success is you don't know when you've achieved success. So this is kind of where like we have to be able to guide our customer on what success is. Um, I, when I was crossing over 39 to 40, um, I got up to 250 pounds during COVID. And then between 39 and 40, like went through this little midlife crisis of like, is this who I want to be as I transition into my 40s? And um found a coach who is six-pack CEO. He helps men who are CEOs lean out to a six-pack. It's a very simple yes or no. Do you have a six-pack? Yes or no? And so success is a clearly defined metric. So any experience, we anchor on what is success, and then we go back to onboarding. How am I preparing you for the journey? Because anytime you play a game, you learn the rules. Or like the thing that video games do so brilliantly is they teach you how to navigate the controller and the experience and they kind of walk you through it before you get to the final boss that has like, are you putting all your skills to the test? And so, in the same capacity of a box experience, anchor on success, go back to onboarding. Am I preparing you for the journey? Have I defined a clear journey? Because if I break down my business into phases, phase one, two, three, four, five, if you go from phase one to phase two, I know without a shadow of a doubt you've gone through a transformation and you're one step closer to the ending, which is where we define, you know, the final boss, beat the final boss and achieve the result as to why you started this in the first place. So all these gaming mechanisms, any box experience, I have to have those as table space stakes. Otherwise, what we're not trying to do is swag. We joke and say swag means stuff without a goal. If there's no intentionality, there's no connection and experience, it's literally just stuff. And I don't want to just send you stuff. I need to send you things that aid on the journey that you're about to go on. So that's why I want people to feel, you know, one of the things that we do, it's very common is if you know that this experience has five phases, we may have an envelope for phase one, two, three, four, and five. We're going to have a journey map that may have places that badges you can earn as you go through the journey. So when you complete phase one and open the phase two envelope, you may have the phase one badge that you peel off and stick on the game dashboard. And it's part of the satisfaction of knowing that you are one step closer. So I want it to feel like an intentional experience, but I don't want it to feel like everything else. So that's kind of where the new opportunity really comes in. And here's the other thing: what's old is new again. Analog is more relevant now in this age of AI than it could ever be. And so, how do you want to differentiate? Well, there's too much digital content out there that I look at and now say, is this real? Have you watched videos? Is it real? And when you see this rise of AI, it's this rise of digital distrust. We don't trust everything that we see. We are hesitant. The cool thing about sending a physical product is it's real. There's no question, is it real? And it's a point of differentiation that I think is just going to get more relevant and more powerful. And we can break down that in a thousand different ways. So I I feel like this is why, like when I saw when we were going to have this session together, Paul, I'm like, oh my gosh, you were so my people.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Like it's it's it's brilliant. Um, first off, whenever I do any of my Gamify business section uh sessions, especially workshops, they get trading cards, they get gold stars. Oh god. Just because they're like, and and the thing is they wear them with with honor because of course you do. You know, who doesn't want a gold star sticker these days? I mean, I still do. I'm 50 years old. I still want a gold star sticker.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Stickers are brilliant, any age. Uh, there's so much you can say about stickers, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

So, and also talking about the the un the unboxing, the tangible nature of things, one of the biggest jobs that I ever did as Santa for nerds was uh creating custom engagement ring boxes. And that's because there was a it's a moment in someone's life that typically doesn't have a tangible that goes with it. But I create that my wife says I make memories tangible, and I love that idea.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

So I saw examples of your ring boxes. They are insane, they are so good. Like they are so good that I was like looking at these going, you made these? How did you make these? Like they are phenomenal.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Appreciate that. Yeah. So a lot of creative entrepreneurs listening right now are thinking, hey, this all sounds amazing, but I'm a solopreneur. I don't have custom box agency budget. So for the freelance photographer, the independent designer, or the maker shipping handmade products, how do they create memorable physical experiences without a massive treasury? Where should they start?

SPEAKER_01 15:39

And here's the thing is that like people have this story in their head that I need every aspect of the box and the full box experience printed and it needs to be this. And what I would say is, especially if you're getting started or you're a solo, give yourself permission. It's okay to give yourself permission that if it's not part, like what I would tell you to do is think about the journey that your customers are going on. And even if you don't have the ability to create a custom workbook, like the ones that you have behind you, or a custom manual or anything like that, it's okay. Um, give yourself permission. The biggest thing is the intentionality of the experience. What are the things that they would need? And even if it's things that are unbranded, sourced from Amazon in an unbranded box. The fact that you took the time to think about how I can make this easier for them is a step in the right direction. So this is kind of where I'd say if you are new, you're a solopreneur, um, not a large team, not a large budget, you have permission to do something that is accessible in budget. But the things I would tell you to do is really think about what does success look like. And if I was to say, you know, uh it the I use Spartan race as an example. I love to do Spartan races. I love to get muddy. It was not something I didn't until later on in life because I never thought I could do it ever. Um, but it was one of those things that if Spartan told me, like, you need to do all these obstacles, but by the way, you have to bring the equipment to complete the obstacles, I would never do it. But everything was there and ready to go. And this is kind of the thing I would think about is if you have experiences, none of this needs to break the bank. You may be able to curate an experience with just creativity, leverage Chat GPT to be like, how can I do this on a budget? Leverage any AI. They're a brilliant source for brainstorming. But that would be the biggest thing is get out of your own way, understand that not everything needs to be custom, um, but just the fact that you're taking the time to curate an experience. Um, and it can even be something small that's like a ritual. Like we've had people that have leveraged seed paper. If you've ever seen a seed paper, it's a card that has seeds embedded in it that you can write on and plant it, and the seeds would actually grow. You can get unbranded seed paper and lead them through an experience that is I want you to write down your hopes and dreams, plant and let it grow. I want you to write down the things that are holding you back in life and watch as it transforms into like the things that were holding you back are no longer there, and now there's new life that's being bred into them. Thinking about story doesn't need to break the bank. You can easily create an experience just being creative and you know, being intentional. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

That was awesome. So you have a framework called, and I love this, jewels, tools, and rules for driving customer transformation.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

This is so good.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Yeah. So break that down for us. If a creative entrepreneur wanted to apply that thinking to how they deliver their work, what are the jewels, the tools, and the rules that they should be thinking about?

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Oh my God. I love that you honed in on this, by the way. I don't even know how like where you came across this or if this was something we sent to you. I don't even know. Um your customer is on, or your client or your squire, whatever you want to call them, they're on a journey to a jewel. Jewel is a physical representation of an outcome. So I can be like, we just had the Super Bowl this past weekend. Um, what's the ultimate goal that all these NFL players are going for? I would say the jewel is the ring. It's the Super Bowl ring. And so it's a physical representation that when you have it, it's undeniable that I have achieved this result. So if we're all on a journey towards the jewel, it could be I'm in Taekwondo, I'm a white belt, my goal is the black belt. Um, so all the decolor belts that you're getting on the journey pursuit, those are all different jewels. Um, and so that's kind of like this idea of what a jewel is it's the thing that you're striving for. I've defined what success looks like for you to strive for. It is our responsibility as entrepreneurs or business owners, um, or as trusted guides to give them the tools, which is what do you need um to be set up for success as you embark on the journey to the jewel. This is why I love physical boxes. Like, this is why these box experiences are really powerful, because I sent you the tools you need. The last element of this is how do you navigate this experience? And this is about setting the rules. Rules are what like what I don't want is somebody buys your program and somehow there's this jumble mess of whatever the interpreting how they should go through this experience. And then you see them at the end, they're like, look at what I created, and you're like, How did you get there? Rules are about minimizing chaos, it's about um taking chaos out of the equation and like defining the rules of it. So if you're the game master, the game maker of this experience, you want rules because anytime you play a game, board game, um, any type of game, video game, there's always rules that navigate how to do this. And a simple example would be imagine playing Monopoly and rolling the dice and thinking that you can go left or right on the game board. It fundamentally changes the nature of the game. And there's a chance that chaos pursues. If you play chess with checkers' rules, chaos will pursue. So the whole idea of this is your customer's on a journey to the jewel. We need to provide them with the tools and set the rules of the experience. And in doing so, we can minimize that chaos and give them that pathway to really help them understand how to navigate success. So that's that's essentially what the framework is for.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

I love that you said you said something that I I emphasize so much in my in my coaching is that your jewel, like you gave the white belt to black belt, that's a that's a destination, but it's sometimes so far. I mean, that's that's years of training, hard training for years and years and years. But I love the fact that you're like, you go step by step and you get a jewel for every step along the way. And it's those little tiny rewards that we're gifting ourselves for accomplishing specific feats in a specific order or on the on the journey towards the end goal that is so important for clients to really understand is that it's it's not just about that destination. You know, we say it's it's about the journey along the way, but it's about these milestones and not forgetting them and to celebrate them by either giving yourself a jewel or giving yourself something to say, I have that's what the gold star stickers are for. You know, it's like, hey, I did something, I'm proud of it, and I want to express that in a way. And that tangibility, I think, is awesome. So great.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Can I add one thing to what you just said? And this is just to add to the strategy of everything that you just said. The best part about a jewel is how do you Increase lifetime value, or how do we continue to retain customers? You introduce the next jewel. That's it. Because after you've achieved the jewel, if if we stop enhancing it or introducing the next step or the next way we could support them, we are truly stopping lifetime value because they've already achieved everything. The game is over. But the reality is you could say that the goal of this journey is to achieve this jewel. How do I extend lifetime value? You introduce the next quest. You introduce the next journey to the next jewel. And that's something that a lot of business owners forget about is that they think they sell the thing, but the reality is there's a universe you've built. And I want to make sure that they understand early on in the game that um there's a whole nother universe that when they achieve success, there's more ways that we can help them. And so that's a big thing here is that if you have the next jewel ready to go, you know, this is the there's all different tiers after you get the black belt. The game just keeps going because the second the game ends, you're stopping lifetime value.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

I think that's a perfect segue into this next question. So I want to go deeper than just packaging. So for creative entrepreneurs, the deliverable might be a brand identity or a photo gallery, a finished illustration or a custom piece. Where are the overlooked moments in that client journey where a physical touch point could transform the entire relationship? And what are most creatives missing? I think we touched on this just a little bit just a moment ago, but can you expand on that?

SPEAKER_01 23:24

I can, and I have an answer. Um it's all around intentionality and being intentional. So let's talk about intentionality. And again, I'm a very like intentional around stop sending swag. Like there's a role that swag can play. I'm not against swag. We do tons of swag, um, but we do joke and say it means stuff without a goal for a reason because if you have no connection or community, it's stuff and stuff gets left in the hotel room, stuff gets donated to goodwill, stuff gets thrown out. So when we think about experience, think about how we can be more intentional. Here's examples, especially leveraging packaging. And I'm gonna try and make these really brief. Four different categories. One is things that you can reference and remember. So think about a book. When you get a book, you don't read a book and throw it out, you typically read it and put it on a bookshelf. So I already know that there's a habit of people saving books and putting them on bookshelf. This is exactly why a lot of our boxes are the size of a book. We're going to brand the spine because if I brand the spine, I want you to see it there. There's an element of this to say, I actually want to take up real estate in your house. And I say reference and remember is there's other things that fit in this category. I know that, like family albums, your grandmother's recipe book. There are things that have that element that we never throw out. So there's a whole way of saying, why is it that we save this? to think about the experience. Another category is play and replay. Things with replayability or repeatability are things that you will save. So think about a board game. You don't play Monopoly once and then throw it out. The container holds the experience that you can revisit again and again. Uh, my parents just moved out of my childhood home. My dad still has his vinyl records and his eight check tapes and all those cassette tapes of Tony Robinson, you name it, but he has no means, he has no cassette tape player. Why is it that we save these things? My parents gave me my CD wallet when I was in high school and stored all my CDs from the 90s in it. And it was the same thing is that why can't I get rid of this? And this is why I still have my original Nintendo and Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 game sets, even though the technology doesn't even hook to the back of my TV anymore. The replayability is something that is really powerful. So when we engineer that, imagine creating an experience as a business owner that if you went through it today and then you went through it, and I told you, you're going to change. I want you to go through this experience again in six months because things are going to change. It keeps you top of mind, but also may have a different result. So thinking about replayability. The last two categories um, recognize and wear. Anything you put someone's name on, why is it when I graduate college or grad school, you get a diploma? It's a piece of paper. But that piece of paper we save for the rest of our lives. There's houses all over America that have T-ball trophies from their kids, even though they're empty nesters when they were three years old, but we keep it. So the power of recognizing and seeing people is something that people save in the last category, which is my favorite of them all: collect and complete. The power of collecting something, the inherent nature of collection. I want to save and I want to keep playing the game until I get all the pieces. So there's something about beanie babies or pogs or baseball cards that we just can't get rid of, despite the fact that Beanie Babies like prime error has far past us. And the other example I give is my father and I, when the US launched a new quarter for every state, we had the coin board. I still do. We literally collected every single quarter, but we were never going to throw it out until we collected every piece. And now that we've collected every piece, it's the same thing. So when you start to think about this, what's a way I can engineer that anyone could do? I may send you a box and say, this is box one of three. And to collect box two of three and three of three, you got to keep playing the game. And if you stop playing the game, then you can't collect those pieces. So this is kind of where my head goes with your question, which is just around intentionality is game-changing because a lot of people don't take the time to think, how can I be more intentional about the experiences that we create? And intentionality can be engineered just based on the simple things of what do you already naturally save? That's it.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

I think that's brilliant. And a lot of uh artists that I know who are trying to get into things like uh Ko-Fi or Patreon, and they have to have like something that they deliver every single month. They miss out, they're like, Oh, I gotta create a new thing this month. And it's like, no, you just need to create the next thing. Like, like pre-plan this, and then and then what happens is that everyone will want to collect those hard-to-get collectibles from when they weren't there, you know, and to go back, is there a way that I can get that? And then those can create a sense of markup, they can create a sense of urgency. So you're like, oh, these are I have a client that I'm like, you need to start vaulting your stuff because they had everything in there on their client, and they're like, oh, it's all available all the time. I'm like, no, nobody wants it then because it's always there. So vault your stuff to make that sense of urgency that I need to have this because it's gonna go in the vault. They'll take it out of the vault in six months, but they don't need to know, you know, it's like it's important.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

This is also why limited edition is really powerful, is because everything on earth, there's a finite number of it for physical products. The shirt I'm wearing, this water bottle, your hand towel that you have, there's a finite number. The only thing is marketers came together to say, oh, there's only 20,000 units of this, there's only 500 units of this. And so we've had experiences that we built out that literally when we launched 57 hats, there's a gold seal that says founders edition, and there's only a thousand of it. So we wanted the urgency and scarcity, and there's pride that your customer takes to say, I have a founder's edition, or I remember following that YouTube subs um influencer when they only had 10,000 leads. And so playing up those elements, people take pride in where they came and entered and joined you on the journey. And so there's ways you can engineer that to produce a coin that's a limited edition custom coin, does it not cost a lot of money? But for the person, this becomes this emblem again, um, recognize and wear or collection. Like these are now getting into two of the four themes that um people want that coin because they wanted to say that I have this thing that other people may or may not have. I was there at a moment when.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

That's right. My kids uh are really big into uh uh video games, and so is my mom. My mom actually stopped smoking by playing video games, one very particular video game, which was called Skylanders. And I don't know if you remember that one. Yes, but Skylanders they had the collectible figures, and every figure that you got got to be inside the game. And we call my oldest son Hector the Collector. His name is not Hector, but we call him Hector the Collector because he had to have them all. And my mom is the same way. So I like when we're talking about this type of thing, people think, oh, that's a young person thing. That's it, and it's not, it bridges every age. I mean, Hummels are collected by ancient people for a reason. I mean, there's there are things that touch us in our soul that we're like, oh, I have to have every single one of these. And they and it almost becomes compulsive. Um, and that's just an easy way, a simple way for somebody to create something and then build up this this desire, this need within your customers to want to continually come back. So yeah, you're right. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Could not agree more. Oh my gosh, like I'm like you, me and a white boy, Paul, like we can't. That's okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Yeah, absolutely. We'll need to do this. Um, so you talk about bridging physical experiences back to digital engagement. So the artifact isn't just a dead-end moment, it opens a door. How does that work? How can a creative entrepreneur design a physical touch point that actually drives the next step in the relationship?

SPEAKER_01 30:42

It's it's such a great question, again. Um, but here's what it is like a big thing when we think about our formula inside a box, um, especially so we say boxes can be one of three different types of campaigns. It could be acquisition, which is how people discover you to buying your products and services. A very different way I'd set up that campaign uh or that quest. Onboarding and delivery is the second category. This is probably the most common. You bought my coaching program, you hired me, my agency, um, you uh hired me as your lawyer, whatever it may be. And this is about the onboarding experience. I'm your realtor, so I'm guiding you through the journey you're about to go on. Retention's the third one. Retention heavily falls with recognition, or it's the next journey. This is the whole box two of three and three of three, introducing the next quest of it. Um, so there's three different ways to do it. Um, but to your question, when we think about like the formula, especially for an onboarding and delivery box, delivering the experience you just bought, welcome note, getting started guide, a journey map, a one-pager that you can hang up on the wall that literally breaks down the step by step of the journey that they're about to embark on with you. Um, and then all the other things are what are tools and resources do they need set up for success? So it's not uncommon that if there's a phase that there's five phases in this journey, there may be five envelopes that literally, when you earn the right to break open envelope number one, it has an action card that literally has all of the elements to complete that part of the journey. And when we look at every phase, you need to define what is the phase, what is the outcome you can expect, and what does success look like. We call it a trigger. So when I hit that mark at that phase, I know I'm ready to advance to the next phase without a shadow of a doubt. And so that's part of what we look at is I want to get you in momentum. And um from a gamification standpoint, there could be a badge that you peel off that you earn when you complete that phase and stick it on your journey map. So you can feel the momentum of earning these pieces or these badges as you go through it. So that's a lot of what we look like look at at the experience is can I make sure I've given you everything you need out of the gates so you are set up for success for the journey? If we need to build a workbook, we'll build a custom workbook. Um, we'll build anything. But this is a lot of what we look at as we go through that experience is I want to know without a shadow of a doubt, there's a clear pathway, clear game board. Um, otherwise, if there's not, again, chaos could pursue because you're like, how are you navigating this? So that's kind of where it's up to us to really define what success looks like for those people. That's what we look for like for in the box. So that formula is exactly what we do with any experience. And if I can't think of a clear journey, there's a good chance that it's there's a piece of your business that is not clear, which may be indicative to your customer as well, because I'm not seeing how the pieces come together to get this result. So we either need to take a step back, or if it's nothing, then it kind of feels like a swag box because it's just stuff in a box. So that's where it's like preparing you for the adventure.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

I love that preparing for the adventure that very much ties into the theme here. Uh, I think that's that's it's so important for for people. Uh, like I did a weight loss journey myself uh back during the pandemic, actually. Uh, because I had also ballooned up and I'm like, nope, gotta lose a lot of this. And um we've all been there, right? Uh but the the the thing that I I found the most challenging was that I didn't have a I didn't have a coach. It was just me. And I was trying my best to stay motivated, but there were no milestones, there were no checkpoints, there were no gold star stickers that I could give myself. It really, I really needed that outside influence to say, you're doing, you're doing well, you're doing a good job, you're do, you're getting to where you need to be. And I think that, oh, I actually ask that question. Do you find that it is easier for a person, a client or a customer to be led? Or do you feel that more people are like, no, I can I I want to engineer this on my own. I want to get to where I'm getting on my own without the interference.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Do you feel I and lead can be hands-on or hands-off, is what I want to say. Because I can build an experience that can be self-guided, but also work in group coaching, but also work on one-on-one. And the difference is that you're having someone hold you more or less accountable depending on which level that you're at. I'm a believer that if you left me to my graces, it's gonna be the same thing. And I'll tell you this with my so I got up to 250 pounds during COVID. I was gaining weight because I was like, the gyms are closed, and so there's nothing else to do, I'm gonna watch Survivor. Um, which I didn't know. Survivor was like season 41, and now they're at season 50 now. It's crazy. Um, but like I um, if you left me to my vices, it's easy for me to get in someday or think I know what I'm doing. And the lesson that I learned through this transformation journey that I went through um physically, uh, because now I'm in the 160s, um, big change when you were at 250s down to 160s, um, big shift in identity was I thought I knew how to be healthy. And the reality is I don't know what I don't know. And so that's kind of where it's like I needed someone to call me out. And here's the other thing is so much of how we navigate life is through the beliefs that we have. And you may have bad stories in that you believe are true. And that was so true for me in my late 30s. Was there was things that I justified because I believed the story to be true. And it wasn't until I started the journey and leaned on other people to provide support, um, or like accepted that I I may not be as smart as I know when it comes to being healthy and humbling myself. That if you told me at the beginning of the journey that I could be six-pack lean because that's what this program is designed to do, I would have said you lost your mind. And when he told me he wanted me in the 160s, as coach I worked with, I in my mind, I just was like, I want to be in the 180s. But I got down to the 180s, and then I was like, actually, he may be right. And like the momentum, there's magic in momentum that I needed momentum. And now when I look back, I'm like, I've come so far that there's a lot that I know I can do, but I also like someone yelling at me because if they don't yell at me and they they ask you, can like, are you okay with us being a little bit more harsh? I need that, but I recognize that about me. Um, but I I think though that like it's so easy to get trapped into I know what to do. I so humbled myself when I realized like I didn't know how to be healthy, which I can say like now in my 40s. Um, what a blessing it was to wake up and have someone show me. And here's the last thing I'll say. I believe that other people hold the keys to your success, which means if I live in my own head, um, there's times that I've had conversations with someone and it felt like they just reached out with a key and went click. And all of a sudden, oh my God, I see things differently. And so if other people hold the keys to my success, it's probably true that I hold the keys to other people's success too. It goes both ways. And those casual encounters where you just humble yourself are some of the most powerful things. I don't know if that made any sense. But it's like as you go on your quest, like there are people that may unlock things that you just can't see until you see it. And once you see it, you can't unsee it.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

I mean, there's always gonna be that wizened guy in a cave that's gonna hand you a sword that says, you know, you take this, go outside, you need, you know. But the other thing is, is I think a lot of people on their journey don't remember or recall that in this, like I like to say it's on a ruler. So if we take here, I've got one right here. So you're on a ruler here. If you're here in the middle and you're always gonna be here in the middle, walking backwards, there we go. So you're always gonna be in the middle, no matter how the the road moves, you're dead here. There's always somebody ahead that you're trying to be, but there's always these people behind you that are trying to be you. And that's where your nuggets of wisdom come in handy is that we're like, oh, we're on this journey. I'm just a three steps ahead of you, but I've been where you're at. And so I know how to help you navigate these areas. I may not be where I want to be because there's that person up in front of me that I'm trying to attain because I see that they've reached a goal further that I would like to get to. But we always forget that because we're on this treadmill of life in our own journey. And I think that we we need to be reminded of that. And I think your analogy was was beautiful. It sometimes you need to be yelled at. Sometimes you need that outside motivation to really push you to that next limit because you're always going to hit these walls or these insurmountable tasks that you don't, or something, you know, sometimes it's nice to be given a cheat code. You're like, I've been struggling on this level forever. If somebody could give me a cheat code to get through this, it would just make my life so much easier. And then I would enjoy what I'm doing again. It's because there's that frustration and not being able to move past something. I hit 180 and I was like, I was there for months. I was like, there was nothing I could do to crack that 180. And I'm like, God, I want, I want to get lower. And and it wasn't until somebody's like, What are you, what exactly are you doing here? And I'm like, oh, it's totally keto, you know, it's all this. And they're like, try, try getting out of keto for a little bit. Try, try some vegetables, try something else for a second to kind of shock your body and then get back into it. And I was like, Okay, sure, whatever. And it did, it worked. I'm like, okay, so we're starting moving down again. I didn't plateau, I kept moving, but it was that was that obstacle I couldn't personally get past. So I needed to be able to move it a different way, and getting that outside getting yelled at by somebody else is one of the thing that made it happen.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

So such a good story. I love that story. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

All right, so unfortunately, we got to wrap it up because we're we're at about that time. So if there are listeners out there who would like to get in touch with you, where can they find you, Mark?

SPEAKER_01 40:04

Oh, no, thank you for asking. Um, uh, you can always go to customboxagency.com and you can kind of see some of our work come to life and just schedule a free consultation. We love to learn what you are doing. We're not here to ever steer people in the wrong direction. So, even just meeting with a member of our team, if there's something we can support you on, if we can guide you in the right direction, our goal is that this is such a crazy game we play. Like, how do we make it easier for you? So, our intentions are just whatever's best for you. So, reach out to our team. You can always reach out um and follow us on LinkedIn or Facebook. You can reach out and message me directly if you want to, but I just love learning what people do. And this is why, Paul, I was so excited about connecting with you because I was like, uh, this is someone that speaks my language, and so you could just see how much we nerd out to this stuff. So I always learn love learning what people are doing in this game. So that's what I would say. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

And so that, fellow adventurers, is the art of the artifact crafter. I want to thank Mark for pulling up a chair tonight and reminding us of something we've forgotten in our rush to digitize everything. Physical objects carry magic. In a world where everyone is screaming into the digital void, more emails, more notifications, more forgettable noise, sometimes the most powerful move is to put something real into someone's hands. So here's what I want you to take away from tonight's guest. You don't need a massive budget to create memorable moments. Whether you're a photographer delivering prints, a designer presenting a brand identity, or a maker shipping your creation, there are touch points in your client journey where a little intentionality transforms a transaction into an artifact, something they keep, something they show others, something that turns them from a one-time client into a lifelong champion. So if Mark's message resonated with you, I'll have all of his links in the show notes, including Custom Box Agency, if you want to explore what's possible. So until next time, remember business is an adventure. Don't be an NPC. Thank you.