Funnel Reboot

Glenn Schmelzle
Funnel Reboot

A show giving you better insight into your funnel, so your marketing can be even better. New content weekly, geared for operations-minded marketers.

  1. Deeper Clarity - Better Results, with Nilufer Erdebil

    11/04/2024

    Deeper Clarity - Better Results, with Nilufer Erdebil

    Episode 209 When it comes to initiatives humans undertake, we only need to look at a few to see how they can fail spectacularly. One example:  The iconic Sydney Opera House came from a competition won by a young Danish Architect. The board who’d commissioned him to build it was told it would be completed by 1963, but things were so chaotic and so behind schedule, he had to be fired. It is truly a marvel of design, but it’s a posterchild for poor projects because it didn’t open until 1973.    Another example: Out of a desire to research high-energy particles and potentially solve the fundamental  of physics, the US Government set out to build the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC). A site in Texas was chosen, but after 6 years they had only tunneled a fraction of the 88 kilometres, when the project was cancelled at a cost of $2B.   A last example: In 1998 NASA’s Mars Climate Observer travelled about 200M miles and was about to start researching the red planet. But the software setting its orbital altitude had been given imperial units instead of metric. This error in the code made it come in too steep, destroying the $328M probe.    These failures are so huge, it’s bound to bring out our inner cynic. It’s natural to pose questions of those leading the projects, like: “what were they thinking?”   I don’t scoff at the people who headed these projects, because I experienced something in my youth that showed me how humans sabotage missions. When I was 15 I attended a camp that took us through exercises to cultivate teamwork. I thought I knew what teamwork was; I was not prepared for what awaited. Two twenty-something Senior Counselors named Leo & Bob were in charge of it. We left the camp which was in rural New York State and drove in a van a few hours away. The van crossed into Pennsylvania, left the highway for a sideroad, then onto a dirt road and finally to a clearing somewhere in the backwoods. It was early afternoon by the time Leo dropped us off, leaving 4 of us and Bob to calmly walk for about 30 minutes, and we stopped to relax in a clearing in the forest. At that point, Bob stood facing us and told us about this simple exercise we were about to do. He said, 'you are stranded in a forest a few miles from a stationary van which contains food and medical provisions. You have to locate the help, which will signal its location by a horn-blast every 15 minutes until sundown. You’ll succeed in your mission if you reach the van by then. He didn’t tell us what would happen if we didn’t. All of this seemed doable, until Bob said one of your team is incapacitated due  an injury.' and then he closed his eyes, fell to the ground, and didn't say a word. I’s hard to be to say what the next couple of hours was like, as we tried to find the van,  carrying this 180lb man through the brush. Suddenly, it became important to recall the way we’d come, or how to lash branches together to form a stretcher, or whom among us should decide which way we should go. Each time we heard the horn, we felt a bit more exhausted and acted a bit more panicked, knowing that the horn-blasts would stop and we'd resort to screaming in the dark. The way we interacted with each other in every way, from rational to tense to hysterical. At several points in the day, I was convinced we'd never get to the van. But by some miracle we reached the van just before sunset. Each of us had time during the trip back to reflect on how we worked as a team. I no longer wonder why people have difficulty collaborating on projects, especially as the stakes get higher.  My guest also believes it’s our fault that projects fail as they do, and she’s got principles she teaches that make everyone clear on the task we’re all undertaking, significantly improving odds of success.  She is founder and CEO of Spring2 Innovation, is an award-winning design thinking and innovation expert, as well as a TEDx and TEC/Vistage speaker. With over 25 years of experience, she has driven innovation in telecommunications, application development, program management, and IT, helping public and private organizations shape strategy, drive change, and launch new products and services. Let’s go now to speak with Nilufer Erdebil.   Chapter Timestamps 0:00:00 Intro 00:06:38 Welcome Nilufer 00:10:16 Poor design in showers and on projects 00:20:12 customers' unspoken needs 00:25:07 PSA 00:25:40 Devoting more of our time to communicating 00:28:49 Mistakes stemming from bad Workflows 00:37:39 Is our UX as disorienting to customers  as a foreign language? 00:43:12 AI's potential role 00:47:55 About Nilufer, book Links to everything mentioned in the show are on the Funnel Reboot site's page for this episode.

    49 min
  2. The Data Storyteller's Handbook, with Kat Greenbrook

    10/20/2024

    The Data Storyteller's Handbook, with Kat Greenbrook

    Episode 208 People resist change. They only stop resisting when they’re convinced the change is needed. They’re only convinced change is needed when they grasp the truth. The best way to present them the truth is with data.    You might think that what works on people is a dry statistical presentation of the data in all its Indisputable, inscrutable glory.  Nope. Those avoiding change give themselves offramps by arguing about your data. History shows that to persuade people to take an action, it takes taking them through data in a way that grabs them emotionally. Some examples include: Florence Nightingale, 1854 Al Gore, 2006 Princess Diana, 1997   Numbers prove, but a story compels. This has so much to do with marketing. Here’s why. To do what we do, our bosses / clients must be convinced in how our work is yielding results. That is the core of every story that a marketing presentation tells.  Our guest is a Data Storyteller. After graduating from Massey University in 2002, she moved into data analytics. She earned a digital design degree in 2015, combining her design and analytics skills, which led her to specialize in data storytelling. In 2016, she founded Rogue Penguin, a company focused on bridging analytics and business operations.  She now leads workshops for professionals in data science, marketing, and design. And she’s the author of “the data storytelling handbook” Let’s go to New Zealand to speak with Kat Greenbrook   Chapter Timestamps 0:00:00      Intro 00:05:48    Welcome Kat 00:07:45    when data storytelling is needed 00:09:00    two ways of communicating data 00:13:55    Data stories improve communication between groups 00:26:38    PSA 00:27:18    Canvas for making time stories 00:30:05    making visuals relevant to the business 00:33:19    How to present when you only have part of story 00:39:06    Conserving data-ink 00:43:00    More you show - the less you contrast 00:48:20    Getting the book or contacting Kat Links to everything mentioned in the show are on the Funnel Reboot site's page for this episode.

    50 min
  3. The Smart Advertising Book, with Dan White

    10/04/2024

    The Smart Advertising Book, with Dan White

    Episode 207 Those of you who know me outside of this podcast, know that if I’m doing anything that involves advertising, whether it be in a classroom or a consulting setting, I think of ads as a complicated puzzle that is never fully solved. While it may not have a predictable outcome, there are a few key principles about it that are always true. I’ve picked up these lessons one at a time, either by studying competitors or through the brands that entrusted me to run their ads—sometimes through painful trial and error. The models and principles that emerge from this process become a valuable piece of baseline knowledge, allowing you to make case-by-case decisions. However, it's hard to pass these insights along to others. They're often too abstract, and the examples become stale and dated as campaigns retire. Does this mean anyone wanting to adopt this perspective on advertising must go through the same process I did? Not necessarily. Thanks to someone with a gift for brevity and illustration, these principles have been distilled into a book. As I leaf through its pages, I’m delighted to see many concepts I’ve known given clear shape and an easy-to-remember form. Our guest graduated from Cambridge University with a Masters of Arts. He has worked in marketing, market research and brand consultancy for 30 years. He uses imaginative visuals to bring marketing concepts to life.  He’s one of the nicest authors I’ve had on, and he’s back on this show for a third time. Let’s go to England to speak with Dan White. Timestamps/Chapters: 0:00:00      Intro 00:02:27 Welcome Dan 00:04:40 Oldest known advertisement 00:09:18 Uber's clever transit ad 00:11:15 Positive and negative impacts of ads 00:22:47 using advertising to build brand asset 00:23:49 PSA 00:30:46 Many ways ads can tell a story 00:33:19 How brain perceives messages 00:37:43 Learning about ads through metaphor 00:45:45 Getting the book or contacting Dan   For links to the people, products or concepts mentioned in the show, head to episode 207’s shownotes page on the Funnel Reboot website.

    47 min
  4. Causal Artificial Intelligence, with John Thompson

    09/16/2024

    Causal Artificial Intelligence, with John Thompson

    Episode 206 There’s no denying that ChatGPT and other GenerativeAI’s do  amazing things. Extrapolating how far they’ve come in 3 years, many can get carried away with thinking GenerativeAI will lead to machines reaching General and even Super Intelligence. We’re impressed by how clever they sound, and we’re tempted to believe that they’ll chew through problems just like the most expert humans do.  But according to many AI experts, this isn’t what’s going to happen.   The difference between what GenerativeAI can do and what humans can do is actually quite stark. Everything that it gives you has to be proofed and fact-checked.  The reason why is embedded in how they work. It uses a LLM to crawl the vast repository of human writing and multimedia on the web. It gobbles them up and chops them all up until they’re word salad. When you give it a prompt, it measures what words it’s usually seen accompanying your words, then spits back what usually comes next in those sequences.  The output IS very impressive, so impressive that when one of these was being tested in 2022 by a Google Engineer with a Masters in Computer Science named Blake Lemoine, became convinced that he was talking with an intelligence that he characterized as having sentience. He spoke to Newsweek about it, saying:   “During my conversations with the chatbot, some of which I published on my blog, I came to the conclusion that the AI could be sentient due to the emotions that it expressed reliably and in the right context. It wasn't just spouting words.”  All the same, GenerativeAI shouldn’t be confused with what humans do. Take a published scientific article written by a human. How they would have started is not by hammering their keyboard until all the words came out, they likely started by asking a “what if”, building a hypothesis that makes inferences about something,  and they would have chained this together with reasoning by  others, leading to experimentation, which proved/disproved the original thought. The output of all that is what’s written in the article. Although GenerativeAI seems smart, you would too if you skipped all the cognitive steps that had happened prior to the finished work. This doesn’t mean General Artificial Intelligence is doomed. It means there’s more than one branch of AI - each is good at solving different kinds of problems. One branch called Causal AI doesn't just look for patterns, but instead figures out what causes things to happen  by building a model of something in the real world. That  distinguishes it from GenerativeAI, and it’s what enables this type of AI to  recommend decisions that rival the smartest humans. The types of decisions extend into business areas like marketing, making things run more efficiently, and delivering more value and ROI. My guest is the Global Head of AI at (EY) Ernst & Young, having also been an analytics executive at Gartner and CSL Behring and graduating from DePaul with an MBA.  He has written five  books. His 2024 book is about the branch of AI technology we don’t hear very much about, Causal AI. So let’s go to Chicago now to speak with John Thompson.   Chapter Timestamps 0:00:00 Intro 00:04:36 Welcome John 00:09:05 drawbacks with current Generative AI 00:16:09 problems causal AI is a good fit for 00:22:47 Way Generative AI can help with causal 00:26:50 PSA 00:28:08 How DAGs help in modeling 00:38:36 what is Causal Discovery 00:47:52 contacting John; checking out his books   Links to everything mentioned in the show are on the Funnel Reboot site's page for this episode.

    50 min
  5. Present Beyond Measure, with Lea Pica

    08/25/2024

    Present Beyond Measure, with Lea Pica

    Episode 204 Eyes are important. Each of us puts heavy weight on our vision when forming a mental model of the world around us.Seeing is believing. This is so important in business, almost every time people meet, some visual tool guides the discussion - this practically essential object is a presentation, specifically a data presentation. But knowing what we know about our visual senses, creating something that’s tuned for people’s minds…as well as their hearts, takes combining neuroscience, storytelling, emotion, persuasion, design and effective communication.  That’s a lot to know, but our guest can help you do it. For over a decade, she’s helped those in the digital marketing and web analytics communities transform their  presentations from snoozefests into experiences that inspire action She’s a workshop leader and keynote speaker. We’re going to talk about the book she came out with in 2024 “Present Beyond Measure.”  Let’s go south of NYC to the Jersey shore to talk with Lea Pica.   Links to everything mentioned in the show are on the Funnel Reboot site's page for this episode.   Chapter Timestamps: 0:00:00   Intro 00:04:23 Welcome Lea Pica 00:09:42 know the stakeholders you are presenting to 00:18:04 Building meeting's name around message 00:32:14 PSA 00:33:07 Parsing your content into digestible-sized ideas 00:40:08 using story arc structure to make slides 00:48:05 keeping data accurate in graphs 01:01:27 Listener-exclusive offer by Lea   Links to everything mentioned in the show are on the Funnel Reboot site's page for this episode.

    1h 2m
  6. Greenlighting your marketing strategy with a winning deck, with Shea Cole

    08/18/2024

    Greenlighting your marketing strategy with a winning deck, with Shea Cole

    Episode 203:  How many words does a message need to be for it to be useful? Would you believe under 35 words, or under 160 characters? Here are some examples: Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address: “We cannot dedicate. We cannot consecrate we cannot hallow this ground. The world will little note nor long. Remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”  Suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst declared, “We are here not because we are law-breakers; we are here in our efforts to become law-makers.” Henry David Thoreau, in his book Walden, on experiencing Nature should be accessible to all, regardless of social or economic status. “The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode”.  JFK “the goal, before this decade is out, [is] of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.” Pierre Trudeau: proposed in 1967 that Canada should decriminalize homosexuality. He said “The view we take is, there's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” Hilary Clinton 2008  when she lost out to Barack Obama for the nomination to run for president said "we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time," but added proudly, "it's got about 18 million cracks in it," a tally of her primary votes. Having heard those, you’ll agree that this is doable.  Someone who believes a concise strategy is what it takes to lead people  What’s more, she believes we must show them this learned skill so they can craft their strategies and develop into leaders themselves.  Our guest is storyteller, a framework-maker, a brand-builder, who talks about strategy, communication skills, and how to forge your own path. She is the CMO for a security technology firm called Field Effect. Shea Cole is a wife and mom and  a 2024 Recipient Ottawa’s top 40 under forty.   Timestamps/Chapters: 00:00:00 Intro 00:04:23 Welcome Shea Cole 00:11:27 Build deck & meeting around vision 00:18:04 Slide 1 00:29:20 PSA 00:30:00 Slides 2 through 6 00:36:25 Adding parts that turn strategy into dollars 00:46:06 Contacting Shea   Links to everything mentioned in the show are on the Funnel Reboot site's page for this episode.

    47 min
  7. Prompt Engineering, with Mike Taylor

    08/11/2024

    Prompt Engineering, with Mike Taylor

    Episode 202 One of the most famous western philosophers of all time is GWF Hegel. He influenced other thinkers like Karl Marx, Soren Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre. He lectured at the universities of Jena, heidelberg and from 1818 until 1831, at Berlin. As a matter of fact, his lectures there drew students from all over campus, to the point that the belltower at the University would sound its bell to announce the start of Hegel’s lectures People may have flocked to hear him, but that doesn’t mean they understood Hegel. One student who went on to write a biography of him was Karl Rosenkranz, who said “His lectures were not clear and systematic presentations, but profound expositions of the inner movement of concepts, which often raised more questions than they answered”…..in another part, he said “The students often complained that Hegel was difficult to understand.” Many moons ago, I was a Political Science major, in which I had to take a philosophy course that covered Hegel - I had the toughest time understanding him and Hegel still confuses me  to this day. I read & re-read his words, but I don’t get what he’s saying.  Same with Superintelligent AI like ChatGPT - when we ask it questions, there always seems to be a randomness factor. Sometimes it gives you amazing results, while other times it leaves you scratching your head at its hallucinations…its stupidity.  If you have this problem, it might not be the AI—it might be your prompts! There are hacks to how you craft them - and this has given rise to a whole field - prompt engineering.  Our guest co-founded a 50 person marketing agency called Ladder. He has designed courses on LinkedIn Learning & Udemy that 350,000 people have taken. And he was a very early user of Large Language Models - the brains behind Generative AI.  In 2023 he came on Ep 168 of this show for the book “Marketing Memetics.” In 2024 he came out with an O’Reilly book titled: Prompt Engineering for Generative AI. Let’s go to Liverpool, England to talk with Mike Taylor.   Chapter Timestamps 0:00:00 Intro 00:03:28 Welcome Mike 00:11:27 Expressing all that's needed for a GPT to produce good response 00:20:24 Using AI context window 00:34:48 PSA 00:35:26 Training GPT on proprietary data 00:41:19 Agentic use of GPT 00:47:52 Training GPT for writing   For links to all people, products and concepts mentioned, go to Episode 202’s shownotes page.

    59 min

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A show giving you better insight into your funnel, so your marketing can be even better. New content weekly, geared for operations-minded marketers.

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