Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: When your end users are actually super influential to your buyer, even if they're not in the conversation, they're not on that sales call, and your buyer isn't necessarily, like, talking to you about them. Like brand is doing sneaky work for you in the background in that way.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Yo, Mike check. What's up, everybody? You're listening to the street pricing podcast, the only show where proven SaaS leaders share their mindset and mistakes in pricing. So we can all stop guessing and start growing. Enjoy. Subscribe, and tell a friend.
Let's break it down with your host and sought after Slayer of bad pricing, Marcos Rivera.
[00:00:37] Speaker C: What's up? And welcome to the Street Pricing podcast. I'm Marcos Rivera, author, founder and entrepreneur. And today is a special episode. Cause I have two guests today. So that's double the action, double the fun, double the lessons for everybody, right? So today I have Shannon Deep and I have Kevin Lee, co founders of Bonfire. Guys, welcome to the show.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Thank you. Thanks for having us.
[00:01:00] Speaker C: No, this is going to be exciting because I love the dynamic when there's an extra person just to add a little maybe dimension of debate sometimes just to get that nice sensation of, well, this is one way and this is another way. And which way is better? We'll all have to decide for ourselves. Right? I wanted to give you a chance to tell everybody a little bit about you and what you do. Maybe. Shannon, we start with you.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Hi, everyone. So nice to meet you. I am Shannon, and as Marco said, I am the co founder of Bonfire. Bonfire is a brand and marketing consultancy, and we primarily work with early stage startups. Angel seed stage up through series B is kind of our wheelhouse, helping them tell their story in the most compelling way through differentiated brand messaging, positioning, and overall storytelling.
[00:01:47] Speaker D: I'm Kevin. I have the pleasure of working with Shannon at Bonfire. We've also worked together at tech companies over the past few years. We both have tech backgrounds, but we also came into tech from kind of some different spaces, too. So I'm a journalist turned marketer. Shannon was in the arts before turning into the digital marketing space, was also in the agency world for coming in house. And so we have broad and diverse experience across a lot of things that are relevant and irrelevant to marketing, which I think makes the marketing even better.
Super.
[00:02:17] Speaker C: Well said, Kevin. And listen, I am a bit jealous and in awe because I love creatives, even from ux, all the way to brand and marketing folks. Folks that could see things that other folks can't see. I think that's a very powerful thing and it helps unlock your thinking and your mind. And, you know, in the tech space, let's just face it, right? It's not unnatural to get very structured and, you know, put some boundaries around your thinking. And so I love the fact that you could help us step out of that. So today I am looking forward to getting street with you guys. Are you guys ready?
[00:02:48] Speaker D: We're ready.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Extremely.
[00:02:50] Speaker C: All right, so quick roadmap for everybody here who's listening. This show is formatted after the book, street pricing. So we're going to do this in three different parts. We're going to go with rewind, which is, let's talk about a story in the past about pricing monetization growth that you can tell us. And we want to hear the struggle and the success. So don't hold back on that one. Then we're going to bring it to today, the present. We're going to hit play and talk about what's working today. And I really want to dig a little deeper into how brand maybe influences your pricing and packaging. That's going to be a big one. And then we'll talk about future. Where are things going with brand and pricing? You guys ready for all that?
[00:03:25] Speaker A: Sounds good.
[00:03:25] Speaker C: Terrific. Terrific. All right, guys, so let's start off with a story from your past. Let's unpack a little bit of what happened in, in pricing or growth monetization, and we'll give it to you to take it away.
[00:03:37] Speaker D: Yeah, that sounds good. So Shannon and I met at Oyster, which is a b two B tech company that is in the global employment space. And so we help companies hire people from anywhere in the world. And we also engaged with you, Marcos, through Oyster, and did a pricing and packaging project together. And the kind of the context around this is oyster was in a very competitive position, like we had. We were going up against companies like deal and Remote.com that had hundreds of millions in funding. We were fortunate to get quite a bit in funding also, but it was a very deep and competitive space at the moment. And so pricing was a way that we wanted to differentiate and a way that we wanted to obviously capture as much value and grow as quickly as we could, but also to use pricing as a lever in addition to the other brand levers that we were pulling to differentiate ourselves and to stand out in a very competitive space. And so some of the interesting, I guess, characteristics of pricing for us at Oyster was that we had this kind of dichotomy between wanting to be perceived as a really premium brand, but wanting to be priced in a way that we could win deals and have people kind of open up the top of the funnel for us and get people in the door. I mean, that was a frictionful, intense period of time, like where we were trying to do both things. And like Shannon led brand and editorial at Oyster, I was leading marketing at Oyster. And so the two of us were very cognizant of that friction. On the pricing side, we were also, like, trying to weigh all the inputs from finance and from sales and from the CEO. And it was just a really, a really complex situation to work within. We had a decent pricing foundation. We were very cost based and competitor based. When we started out our pricing model, we wanted to switch to more of a value based model. We felt like what we were charging was not indicative of the value that we were actually providing for folks. And there was more willingness to pay out there, so we thought we could go higher with the prices. At the same time, our competitors were also going pretty high with prices too. And so it ended up being a really. There were just so many different factors at play for us. And I think the ultimate learning and lesson for me was a lot around the brand piece. Brand does influence what pricing should be. Pricing influences how your brand is perceived. You cannot separate the two. And the pressure for us to be perceived as a premium product, as like a mandate from the CEO, versus the pressure to price ourselves competitively so that we could win deals, ended up being something that, I don't know, maybe led to pricing being a more arduous process than we envisioned. Maybe. It's always arduous. I'm sure it is to a certain degree. But that was, that was the reason why it was for us.
[00:06:19] Speaker C: Yeah, it takes work. Kevin, I want to hit on a couple things, because there's. I'm just thinking of all of the SaaS folks out there, the operators, the entrepreneurs who talk about this dichotomy. We talk about this bit of a friction between wanting to signal like we're premium, our stuff is better than their stuff or what you're doing. Absolutely. But the idea here is how do we then keep that top of funnel open and bring folks in? There's a natural psychology that a lot of people think about, which is, okay, the higher price usually associates with that higher premium value brand. You think of all of the major labels that are out there, but I think there's a bit of a balance in how you can frame that and still be welcoming and open to. To bringing in that traffic that you want while still communicating the right brand. This is going to be really interesting on how you guys made that or created that balancing act.
[00:07:11] Speaker D: Absolutely. And I think it ended up being less about us as a premium brand. And, Shannon, let me know if you disagree. I don't think that was kind of the brand ideal we ended up aiming for. I think we ended up aiming for more of a relatable brand, a more authentic brand. And I think we were able to then bring that into pricing. Bye. You know, we very visibly talked about the customer experience that you would receive at oyster and the value of how that's baked into pricing. We talked about some of the features and some of the way we go about global employment that might be unique and more relatable and authentic. And of course, that's baked into pricing as well, versus, yeah, we're the most expensive, the most premium. I think we took a different angle with brand that everyone felt okay with and kind of helped, I guess, assuage some of the fears around that pricing.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: Friction, the brand perception, or what we really set out to create was a couple words come to mind. Human, democratic, and high touch. And I think the human and the like high touch often gets associated with. With premium. Right. You know, you know that if there's a person associated with your account, you. You're going to pay more for like, that person's time and expertise. But I think we, especially in comparison to our competitors, if you looked at like our trustpilot reviews or like feedback that we were getting, it's that because we were seen as like the friendlier human forward option. And because our design and our copy really elevated the human experience, we got it. The premium idea, through your having real experts be attentive to you and you're getting better customer service. And so I think that was like a big dimension of our premium perception was like, there are real people here. It's not just like a nameless algorithm that's like putting you through a pipeline.
[00:09:04] Speaker C: I actually love that a lot. And my mind is going a mile a minute just listening to you just in those last few words. Because it's not about, we're a premium, right. Because premium is sort of associated with other things. Right. And I think the idea here is the premium perception, or maybe thinking of a proxy for the premium perception, try to say that five times fast. But the idea is the premium is actually signaling other things. I'm going to take care of you. You're going to get what you want. There's a high likelihood that you're going to do this without a lot of pain. There's a lot of other things. When you talked about human or high touch or friendly human forward, that tells me we're going to listen to you. We got you. We're going to get, you know, get you to the other side or whatever it is, which maybe what they is what they really want as a client, not necessarily just premium. Right. I think it's the other stuff that associate with premium. That's a big shift in my mind. I think for a lot of folks listening too, that's key.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. I think anytime you can dimensionalize what premium means, it just makes it way more concrete. The value is much more concrete in the mind of your customer.
[00:10:11] Speaker D: And I think what we ended up doing is we were priced pretty similarly to our competition, but their justification for price was probably more around technology and functionality. And our justification for price and the premium feel was more around the service. We talked a lot about concierge and white glove treatment and that type of idea. The Disneyland feeling of coming into a platform and being taken care of in that way. If we couldn't compete on the functionality and software side because we didn't have, have the money to go and hire as many engineers as quickly as others, then we could compete on the service side and the experience side. So I think that's where we ended up finding that balance.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: We also had a really great impact narrative. Oyster was really committed to doing good in the world and bringing opportunity, democratizing opportunity for emerging talent markets. And we had like solid numbers and good research that we were happy to publicize about. Hey, here's like, the total dollar flow into emerging markets. Like, here's how many team members that we have in emerging markets who are able to have jobs that pay higher than their local salaries thanks to their ability to work remotely through oyster. And so another kind of like, to dimensionalize the idea of premium even more, there was that kind of like, it's doing good. Like oyster is, is doing something that has a positive impact in the world. And so I don't think our customers were like, literally thinking, oh, I'm kind of like giving to a charitable cause or anything like that, but it didn't go that far. But I think the knowledge that oyster was a company that cared about positive impact, it almost makes you mind the price less or you understand the price a little bit more.
[00:12:00] Speaker C: Yeah. So you're not as, you're not so focused or fixated on it, I guess when you're working with that type of brand and also just thinking about the do good, I think is another fantastic thing, too, because it also blends well with authenticity. But it just, you know, hey, these are, it's a good company who's going to do good by me, and then more good will happen just with working with them. And so it's all good, like all around. And so it just kind of puts pricing over to the side, maybe a little corner by itself, because you're really, you're not buying oyster because of the price. Like, that's not the real attractor here. It's really all the things around it and what the brand represents and what you want to get out of that. So I think that's a very powerful mind shift, right? Because I think a lot of folks maybe over index on just pricing. This is me, the pricing guy, saying this, right, over index on just pricing, where there's actually more in the minds of that buyer than just the price point. So take us home. Like how did you said you were maybe trying to stay close enough to the competition, I think from a price perspective, right. You weren't getting too crazy?
[00:13:03] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. So we ended up being very competitive relative to deal, relative to remote.com dot, I think. I'm not sure where the price has landed today even, but still, I think the whole space is pretty consistent with what we're offering. The services itself that we were doing, global employment have become relatively commoditized. And so it does become a bit more of a competitive pricing play still. I think we all kind of realized that the value based pricing ended up in the same general spot, since all of us were offering the same stuff. And so we then had to, to your point, Marcos, and to Shannon's point, like, differentiate more on the brand side of things, make people feel comfortable to pay.
The price was not the deciding factor. The brand was the deciding factor. The differentiation was the deciding factor. And price was more of a table stakes, like, are we in the same ballpark? Great, then let's go and win deals and win hearts and minds on the brand side. So we ended up shipping a very ultimately a competitive based pricing model that was pinned on value research, but was not dramatically different than what else is in the market.
[00:14:04] Speaker C: Cool. And that was on purpose. And that's the thing about pricing, on purpose, I think is really key here. You said, listen, let's just not make this a major part of the conversation. Let's just stay within realm. And again, if you were ten x the price of the competitor, that it'll come up and catch a lot of raised eyebrows. But there's always two things when it comes to somebody buying anything, it's really what am I paying and what am I getting for what I'm paying?
You focus more on what I'm getting versus what I'm paying. And I think that's a big lesson for everybody listening too, is that, hey, if you feel like from a competitive pressure perspective, there's 45 other companies just like you, it's getting really tougher to stand out, et cetera. A pricey model that is within realm. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with keeping it simple, removing any friction, like all those key things. But what you get for what you pay and putting a lot more energy into that could pay off in big dividends. So I think that's big benefit for everybody.
[00:14:56] Speaker D: I think one of the benefits from going through that exercise was, this sounds silly, but like, appealing to internal stakeholders of like, no, we're actually not leaving money on the table. It's okay to still be priced competitively. I think there's a lot of that internal debate, at least an oyster there was around pricing. Like, are we doing the best we can for the business with this? So going through the exercise was super helpful because, yes, we have the research and numbers to prove it, but then also we have a plan moving forward of how we're going to take this price and still win based on the brand differentiation we're going forward with.
[00:15:27] Speaker C: Yeah, and you guys, I mean, that's still win too. So there had to be some proof that it worked to some degree, right? Either win rates went up or something went up. And so could you share, like what happened when you decided to double down on the brand and really get your messaging crisp, but leave the pricing kind of in a more competitive basis?
What happened? I'm sure it was good, otherwise the executives would have threw it out.
[00:15:49] Speaker D: Yeah, I think it was good. I can maybe mention a bit about the sales measurement piece that I think was a useful metric to understand how all these different factors ended up influencing deals. So we ended up using a methodology called buyer purchasing criteria, where you're essentially listening to sales calls and while the reps on the sales calls are documenting what are the reasons, what are the criteria people are coming into the call and using for their buying decision? So are they coming into the call talking a lot about price? Are they coming in? Talking about this feature is important to them? Are they talking about the purpose and the mission and the impact and the brand is important to them? And then we're able to quantify this mostly qualitative insight and feedback. Into a way that we can measure it and move forward. And so one of the learnings there, like price always comes up as something that people have as a criterion. So if we can check that box, we're either not super expensive so as to exclude ourselves and we're not so cheap as to cause questions of around quality. So we were able to check that box. And then really a lot of the times we would see that brand piece come in. People either come into us having already that bias for us in the market, or they would know something about us from the brand side or be interested to learn, to learn more because of the brand piece. And so pricing was almost like a table stakes, check the box. And so that was success for us in that way. It wasn't a, we weren't losing deals because of it then the brand side was where we found that we were actually winning the deals on the differentiation.
[00:17:12] Speaker C: Got it. And you were able to measure that and bring that in. Shannon, did you see that too?
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I was going to say the thing that we always knew is that we were punching above our weight in whatever room that we were in. And so I think more so than like, and I was not incredibly close to this work. But rather than saying like, oh, where our win rates are going way up, it was, are we even in the conversation? Are we able to get into the mix as a relatively new, relatively smaller player? And so I think that's what we saw a lot of success with as well, is just are we able to have a seat at the table and be considered at this very early stage? And we were. And so that was really exciting for us to kind of be part of the conversation really early in the company's history.
[00:18:01] Speaker C: Yeah, that is a major thing because oftentimes, the sooner the better. Right. And time is absolutely money in every respect. So I think that that's fantastic for everybody listening here, like these big lessons. And sometimes it's not easy, really to step back and think about, like, hey, is our story right? Is our positioning right? Do people, when they look at us, do they think the things we want them to think? And so on. So I think that's, I think, a big one for folks to maybe step back and make sure that that story is really resonating. Team, I want to take a quick pause here to ask you for a huge favor that will mean a lot to me. Please review and share the show. Share it with your team, your friends, your peers. Not only will it help them stop the guesswork in pricing, but it'll also help you and increase the chances that you'll take action and change for yourself. All right, much love. Now back to the show. I want to take us from the past now to the present. And I want to talk about. You already started it, so I can't help myself. I want to talk about brand and pricing and how these two things seemingly are intrinsically related to each other. Inseparably related, I would say. How do you view brand and pricing? Let's start with just that opener.
[00:19:15] Speaker D: I can start with an anecdote that I, Shanna has probably heard me say thousands of times. I forget where I first heard it. But essentially one of the ways that I think about that relationship is that an RFP, a request for proposal, a typical process that people follow in the B two B space. An RFP is just a logical justification for an emotional decision that you've already made. And so I think where brand comes in is that brand is the piece that is causing you to have that emotional decision. And then the pricing piece and the packaging piece and the features and all those different checkboxes become the logical justification for the brand piece that it's kind of already won your heart over. So it's kind of that heart versus mind mentality. And Shannon and I love to start with the heart, and we think the heart is kind of what wins ultimately.
[00:20:02] Speaker C: Right on, Shannon, you completely agree with that? I see you nodding.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: Yeah, no, definitely. I completely agree. It makes me think, too, of I worked at a cybersecurity company called Dashlane for about four years as well in their marketing and creative department. And you know something? That brand also really helps influence is the sort of hidden buyers of your product, especially if you're talking about B two B SaaS. Often your buyers aren't your end users, and your end users care about different things than your buyers care about. And so Dashlane is a password manager. And I think it is still the most intuitive, user friendly, most beautiful, best designed out of our competition. And when you're talking about our buyer, was it managers? And so our buyer is thinking about specs, they're thinking about integrations, they're thinking about SoC two compliance. They're thinking about all these things that me as like the editorial director and the marketing department, I don't care at all about those things. I care if Dashlane is going to ruin my workflow because it's popping up or it's doing something buggy or it's making my chrome crash or whatever. And so something that brand also really helps with and like, and you cannot underestimate the power of how miserable that it person's life is going to be if everyone at the company hates the thing that they just shipped to the whole company. Right. And it's, you know, it's not just cybersecurity. Stuff like this applies to all SAS software. They're the end user and the buyer, not the same person. And so if they don't want to hear it all day long on slack, and if I as the end user have an emotional attachment to something like, like if somebody, sorry, Microsoft, if somebody tried to give me teams instead of slack, I would riot. Right?
[00:21:56] Speaker C: And so me too.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: People have these and that's a brand decision. Like, yes, of course, like the functionality is slightly different, but it's a brand decision. And so when your end users are actually super influential to your buyer, even if they're not in the conversation, they're not on that sales call and your buyer isn't necessarily like talking to you about them. Like brand is doing sneaky work for you in the background in that way.
[00:22:20] Speaker C: I love the passion coming through, by the way. You just took like four shots like at Microsoft, those other folks. But sorry, it was good. I mean, listen, you're right. Actually I don't, I'd love to argue with you, but I can't. Right. I think there are really some key things in there. The user versus the buyer. I also found that it's interesting because that perception of intuitiveness. Listen, I'm a customer of dash. I actually use dashlane. So I know. Exactly. I've tried other solutions. I tried them so much easier to get rolling. And so I'm smiling because you're just explaining the whole journey I went through in picking up that piece of cybersecurity software. But nonetheless. Kevin, do you want to add to this to Shannon and her key points? My rant, they were good.
[00:23:06] Speaker D: It was a great. Yeah. I hope Microsoft isn't the sponsor of the podcast.
I'm with her. I think the, I mean, the theme that I take away from that, and I think Shannon, I believe deeply, is that you're ultimately selling to people like the b two B versus b two c. Like line in the sand. There's really, there shouldn't be a line in the sand because I think so many b two b marketing strategies, potentially even pricing strategies, like the whole thing feels so, is often taken to be so removed from b two c tactics. But we have found that b two C is as effective, if not way more effective in the B two B space. Partially because not as many people are doing it or open to it. They want to run the typical B two B playbooks. But then also, like, at the end of the day, you are selling to a consumer who is used to making purchasing decisions by being sold to using B two C strategies. And so, for instance, at oyster, we talk about like, impact and mission and vision as a really strong lever for our business. That is something you see in the B two C world. A lot like people are purchasing Patagonia because they love Patagonia's message and what they stand for. And there's so many more examples of that in the b two C, the direct to consumer space. But those things apply just as well into b two B. I think it permeates all the way through pricing, like the ease of use, all these different aspects. We can take these B two C approaches, apply them to b two B, think differently about it, and still be really, really effective.
[00:24:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't think the line needs to be that big. I think we put it there for artificial reasons. I wonder what you said really resonates because I always say, if humans are buying from other humans, you always have to pay attention to hearts and minds because I get a lot of, I'm in these conversations all the time about, well, gee, Marcos, AI is going to price everything and everything will be AI driven and it'll be AI selling to Aihdem. And I do think that there would be some role AI would play in pricing and other fun stuff, but still think you can't take the human out, at least not yet or the foreseeable future.
[00:25:04] Speaker D: Right?
[00:25:04] Speaker C: And so I think the, I can't remember the stat, but there was somebody who told me that when folks make buying decisions, there's a rational and emotional component, and we tend to make the decision with the emotional side and then justify that decision with the rational side. I might be butchering it, but that's kind of what he told me. And I think you're hitting on all the right things. And so the brand can really drive a lot of that emotional side. We shouldn't ignore it. I think it's a very straight front and center thing that we should address as part of the whole message and how we go to market and all those things. And then the rational side, again, just don't do anything stupid on the pricing side. Just make sure it's clean, it's easy, it's simple, within ranges and all those things. At least if I were listening to you guys just coming off the streets, that's a message I would take away. Right? Or am I missing something?
[00:25:52] Speaker A: I think that's really well said. I think no one, no one is as rational as they think they are. Everybody needs therapy, and no one is as rational as they think they are. Sorry. And I, and, like, I don't think that that's, it's not a bad thing because it can inform how you better communicate and how you influence at your organizations. And, like, I mean, I remember I was presenting some creative idea to a CEO, and I remember him saying, I don't really like creative ideas after I had already heard this same person talk about how much he loved art and film and tv. And I just, there's like, there's so much of that, like, we want to pretend that we are professional robots and that when we, like, sign on for the day that we are making decisions, like, only with, like, the left side of our brainstor, and it's just not true.
And so it's hard as marketers to convince people that that's not true and to, like, kind of let us cook, you know, like, we know what we're doing. Like, that is how brand marketing works. It will always work that way. And in the, in this kind of, like, era of, you know, the market conditions causing a lot of, like, resource scarcity and things like that at organizations, there's a lot of just bias toward measurement. And because brand is something that it's quite difficult to measure consistently or measure in a way that you can put in an Excel spreadsheet and give to your CFO, there's suspicion around, is brand worth the money? And I think it's, I don't know. This is my soapbox that I get on of. Like, hey, if I can convince one person out there that brand really is valuable in ways that maybe you can't measure, and that's okay. I don't know. Everybody just has to have a little bit of faith, I think, in brand.
[00:27:43] Speaker C: Oh, man, I couldn't agree more. All these crazy humanoids out there, these professional robots who all need therapy, according to you, which is great, we're all nuts at the end of the day. But I love it because there's a, you're right, there's a bias towards, you know, you get a lot of literature on, you got to measure stuff. It doesn't get measured, doesn't get done, and where's the data? And you got to be data driven and all these things, right? And so it's like, all right, well, let's be, you know, let's live in a world of excel and not live in the world of emotion. And the way I think about things is that you can't, I feel like you can do both. I think you can measure stuff and frankly, like that actually can support some of the emotional pieces and vice versa. So I think it's not either or. It could be an and, and I think that's if I can catch some of the, some of the shots you're firing in that one. I think, I think there is an opportunity for both to live in some kind of harmony anyway.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Totally. I think something that I really admired about Kevin working with him and something that he does to this day is he talks a lot about Brand Roi and like really makes a concerted effort at the organizations that we work with to kind of bridge the gap between like what are, what are the big, almost like philosophical things that we're doing and then how, like what are the ways that you can put numbers on those? How can you measure them even if you're not, you know, if it's not tied to pipeline? Exactly. Like what are things that you can measure that are related to branding? Kevin is really good at setting up that kind of infrastructure.
[00:29:10] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:29:10] Speaker C: Which, which earlier in the point with Oyster and just thinking about a little bit of what folks were saying as they were coming in and buying, I love it. And I think that that's again, an area I think is often overlooked. And I'm sensitive to that stuff because I feel like pricing is often overlooked too. So I really major shout out to you guys. I want to do one more thing and look ahead just for a quick second, which is the future of brand. And the landscape does shift around and change a little bit. Again, companies that over the last couple of years have been really leaning on, hey, we got to measure every penny profit and they're tightening their belts and then afraid to spend money on anything. But then also the power of messaging and storytelling and standing out. And of course I mentioned AI a few minutes ago. So where do you see brand going here in the next, call it three years or so. It's hard to predict out five, but maybe the next two, three years, I.
[00:30:02] Speaker D: Think there's a good appetite for it or a growing appetite for it. I think one of the things that, one of the bets maybe Shannon and I are making with bonfire is that brand marketing will become as important and as appreciated as the other disciplines of marketing, like product marketing and growth marketing. Like if she and I can play any small role in helping that happen, that would feel amazing to us. And I think in order for that to happen, there does need to be a bit more of that embrace of the emotional side. There does need to be a bit more education around, oh, you actually can measure all this brand stuff. It's not just long term pie in the sky wishful thinking. I think there is signs that we're moving in that direction and maybe like super slowly and painfully and it'll take a bit to get there. But I think there's so many examples of successful businesses today that are winning because of brand. And I think that winning term, I don't know, love the term winning because that means someone has to lose. But like winning is important for CEO's and the people who are holding the budgets and the resources and the people enabling brand marketing and creative marketing to happen. So I think the more that we can almost like brand brand to these folks and win over their hearts, I think that might need to be the roadmap for brand in the next few years.
[00:31:17] Speaker C: Yeah, that's fantastic. Shannon, any thoughts from you on that?
[00:31:21] Speaker A: Yeah, when you mentioned AI, something that I think about, like whenever I'm doom scrolling TikTok or Instagram videos and like consuming little miniature think pieces about AI and the role of AI in creative industries, marketing being one, I think that there will be, and we're seeing it already, an increasing suspicion and mistrust of a lot of information that you see a lot of interactions that people are having with customer service or over email or chatbots or things because people are thinking, is this AI? Is this just a robot that I'm like typing my deepest, darkest secrets into? Like, is there actually a human on the other side of this? And so when we talk about brand and like something that we care a lot about at bonfire and something we talk a lot to our clients about, is bringing creativity to the forefront, because creativity is a mark of humanity. And so if people are, if consumers are increasingly, if buyers are increasingly suspicious of your marketing and they don't want to engage with it because it's probably written by chat GPT, and people can tell, like, trust me, people can tell, then being more creative is a way to cut through that and to say, no, no, no, there are real people behind this, which means that when you have a problem, when you need something, there will be someone who can respond to you and you're not just going to get a chat. GPT hallucinated answer that has nothing to do with reality.
[00:32:49] Speaker C: Dang. Yes indeed, Mike, drop on that one too. So look, creativity is the mark of humanity. Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I think it's true. It's absolutely true. And you guys have really brought a lot for our SaaS community to think about today. I want to get human just one more time towards the end because I love this part of my show, because I really get to understand a little bit more about you. So I'm going to ask you guys to reveal your favorite jam of all times. The music jam, the song that you can put on over and over again, and then you sing along with puts you in a great mood. Whatever it is, I want to know, what is that jam and why?
[00:33:28] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:33:29] Speaker C: Yeah, I know. I know I put you guys on the spot, but it does reveal a lot about you. So I'm curious, who wants to go first? Kevin?
[00:33:38] Speaker D: I can go first. Yeah. And so have a very wide range of jams that I can go to. So I picked one just out of my Spotify here that I hope resonates. It's from. It's a playlist from the documentary series the Last Dance, which was about the 1990s Chicago Bulls.
[00:33:54] Speaker C: Chicago Bulls. Yeah, I know.
[00:33:56] Speaker D: And it's full of nineties hip hop, and I just. It takes me back to a place where I just. It's a very happy place. And so some songs from that. Can I kick it by a tribe called Quest? Yeah, I wish by Skilo. Step into a world by KRS one. And I got it made by special ed. There's many others on the list, but that's. That's a few highlights.
[00:34:20] Speaker C: Kevin, you shot right at me, man. I got it made by special ed was the first hip hop song that I actually sang along. And I remember sitting in my. In my room trying to remember, like, listening to the radio and then, like, recording with a cassette tape, like, the song, so I could learn the lyrics and impress my friends at school, like, I was a little kid, so that I got it made by special ed. Know it word for word, man. So high five to you on that one. You know, nineties hip hop all over my book. So big time for you there, Shannon. Did you come up with one?
[00:34:52] Speaker A: I also had two answers. One was my, like, appealing to the younger me who would always, like, shout out the lyrics of build me up, buttercup by the foundations. Like, for some reason, that song just had, like, a stranglehold on my group of friends. And whenever it would come on at, like, school dances and stuff, like, everyone just like, like, why do you build me up, buttercup? You know, it was just like, I don't know. The perfect thing to just like, scream out on the dance floor when you were 13 or whatever. But then I also have this theater kid background, and so I gotta pick a musical theater song that just always hits, which is one day more from Les Miserables, which a very dorky, nerdy thing to choose. But, like, you get a group of theater kids together, guaranteed they know every word. Guaranteed they will just kind of naturally fall into the different solos and people will be singing their hearts out as they march into, like, a, a deadly skirmish with the french government in the, like, 1820s or whatever that was.
[00:35:58] Speaker C: So, you know, so from, from. So from french warfare and then moving on to, you know, can I kick it all the way? Very different. You guys work together every day. Is that how it goes?
[00:36:12] Speaker D: Go figure.
[00:36:13] Speaker C: You guys probably compliment all on each other. That's fantastic, guys. Well, listen, thanks for being good sports and giving me your top hits. And believe it, it actually gets, gave me a little bit of a window into you, more so than even in the last 2030 minutes we've been chatting. So, guys, I really want to thank you again for coming on the show. And the SAS community here thanks you as well. You really gave them a few things to think about, you know, from brand to pricing to do I need therapy? I don't know. Right. But all these key things, you probably got them thinking. So I would love for you to come back someday. Would you be open to doing that?
[00:36:48] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:36:49] Speaker C: Awesome, guys. Awesome. Well, we're happy to have you here today, guys. That's Shannon Deep and Kevin Lee from bonfire. They help companies figure out that brand, which, that storytelling, that messaging. Really critically important to how you position yourselves out there in the marketplace. And if you're having trouble, you know, folks aren't seeing you for who you are, you might need some help there. All right, guys, so really the big thing today is take these lessons, go to Monday, figure out how you want to apply some of these things. Learn forward. All right, you want to move away from that guesswork. And remember, you want to stop guessing and start growing. Until next time, thank you and much.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: Love for listening to the street pricing podcast with Marcos Rivera. We hope you enjoyed this episode and don't forget to like and subscribe. If you want to learn more about capturing value, pick up a copy of street pricing on Amazon. Until next time.
