Detailed Notes
In Part 2 of our conversation with Kevin Adelsberger, owner of Adelsberger Marketing, we explore how to refine your brand and stay authentic in a fast-changing world.
From branding and marketing fundamentals to the impact of AI on creative industries, Kevin shares practical advice for small businesses and entrepreneurs building lasting brands.
🎙 Topics include: • Why color psychology is overrated in branding • How fonts and messaging define your identity • Keeping your message steady while your website evolves • Marketing basics for beginners and non-marketers • Learning from competitors without copying • The growing role of AI in marketing and creativity
💡 Key takeaway: Authenticity and consistency still matter most — technology can enhance your work, but trust is what builds your brand.
📘 Watch or listen to more episodes of Building Better Developers: https://develpreneur.com/building-on-the-foundation-branding-and-marketing-fundamentals/
🔗 Connect with Kevin Adelsberger: Website: https://kadelsberger.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kadelsberger/
#Branding #Marketing #Business #AIMarketing #BuildingBetterDevelopers
Transcript Text
[Music] Not son of a [Â __Â ] [Â __Â ] Oh, >> recorded that list. >> Gosh. Bonus material everybody. I clicked I hit record. Okay. Sharing bonus material here for everybody. This is take like 18. We had a great interview which you're going to see and we I didn't hit record. Luckily, there's so many recording devices out there today. We got the recording anyways. So now we had to go back and we have to do some additional recording like around that kind of stuff. And on our first try, which was phenomenal. It was my best intro ever. I guarantee you. But it was also Michael's worst. So we like we decided, all right, I saved him from that. I didn't hit record. This is like this is we're going to have to work on this because this is like this is now because this is like too many times that I've done this. I'm gonna have to like smack my hand every time. Uh, I'm going to just send this automatically to to record again just like I should everything else. All right, that being said, you guys get all kind of you get the uh blooper bonus material this time around and we are going to kick off uh the part two of the Kevin Adlesberger interview and uh hopefully we'll have perfected our intro by now with a little t dos uno. Hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season of building better foundations. We are the building better developers podcast also known as developer. Actually we were developer first and then we became building better developers. That's its own story. You can check that out elsewhere. I happen to be Rob Broadhead one of the founders of developer. Also the founder of RB consulting where we are is often referred to often referred to as a boutique consulting company. We do it consulting. We do technology but basically what we do is we sit down with you help you understand your business and become your technology partner. We help you work through things like licenses and vendors and what is it that you need to do your business and what's available to help you do it better. How to leverage technology in the best possible way. We sit down with you. We walk through your processes, your procedures. We look at ways through simplification, integration, automation, innovation to help you build a roadmap to be better today and better positioned for growth and success in the future. Check us out at rb-sns.com. Also, we have a free Insta assessment. Basically, Insta being about 10 minutes. Sit down, answer a few questions, and you can get a nice little guideline, a little road map, like a really simple, you know, road map of like this is roughly where you are. Here are some things you need to do. Uh, check that out at matrix.rb-sns.com. Good thing, bad thing. I get to change it up this time because the bad thing for those of you on the podcast, the rest of you that are the YouTubers already know this, but uh I have managed to not be able to hit the record button way too often lately. And while we're in the midst of a really busy time and we really don't need to spend this extra time on this, I am managing to burn time that we don't have. So, smack myself on the wrist. H is just not, you know, not very good. That's my bad thing. The good thing is we get better every single time we do it. The more we practice this, the more we redo it, the better. And as I'm thinking about this, there's also another podcast that I am on that we're doing the same thing. I think we've recorded like six or seven times and we're about to do another one at some point and hopefully we'll have that perfected, but that one's a little different. Also very different is my co-host and he's going to go ahead and introduce himself. Thanks, Rob. Hey, everyone. My name is Michael Malage. I'm one of the co-founders, Building Better Developers, also known as Developer. I'm also the owner of Envision QA, where we help businesses struggling with software. We help you take back control of your software. This could be software that you have had custommade or even cookie cutter software that you bought over the shelf. We find too often that businesses struggle with inappropriate software or software that just doesn't meet their needs. And you could find yourself in the situation where you try to do something, it doesn't work for you, and you end up building these processes to make the software work for you, not the other way around. That's where Envision QA comes in. We help combine the quality of testdriven development and we sit down and walk through the user stories with you and your team to figure out how the software really needs to work to meet your business needs. And then we build that custom solution or find the right software for you. So check this out at envisionqa.com. Good thing bad thing. Oh, go ahead. >> No, I was I forgot. I was like jumping right ahead. I'm sorry. Good thing, bad thing. >> Uh bad thing. My co-host likes to not hit the record button and interrupt me. No. Um good thing, bad thing. Uh good thing the weather's changing. It's getting nice and cool out there. Starting to really enjoy the season. Uh bad thing it is my seasonal allergy time of the year. So, I'm struggling with allergies a little bit, but thank goodness for Zerek included. >> Well, the reason I keep jumping ahead and stepping on Michael's toes today and because I I guess I'm going to use that as an excuse for not hitting the record button as well, is because I really enjoyed this conversation with Kevin. So, we're going to jump right into part two, picking up right where we left off with our interview with Kevin Edlesberger. We're going to talk about marketing and we're going to even ask the question that nobody wants to be asked anymore because it gets asked way too often. We'll let you like wait with baited a breath for that one to happen. Here we go back to our interview with Kevin. >> So, is there and and sort of continuing on that um I guess because there's a couple ways I guess I'll go this way. Is I've seen a lot of stuff on the psychology of like you know colors and there's some fonts and some stuff like that. Um, is that something that you that you see that you regularly, you know, as a regularly creating brands and and stuff like that? Is that something that that comes to mind a lot or is a little more of a like ah that's yeah, that's got its place, but really there are there are other >> color psychology is is largely I think not real. Um, I would argue that most times color psychology is not real. Now there may be a few instances where there might be some wisdom to take place. Um but uh and I can't think of a good example here right now but like uh there may be a certain color that's a problem for your industry. Like you may not want um a certain color because it has a connotation within your industry but like certain colors making people feel a certain way. You can find examples of every counter version of that. Um, honestly, Google color theory logos and you'll find just images and you'll see all sorts of charts of every successful brand that does and does not match their brand colors. Uh, the color theory beyond them. Um, fonts are a little bit different. Um, fonts can set a set a tone for a type of communication. Um, and so, uh, color could be used in a way like that, but fonts for sure will. Um, and so whether it's a handlettered or um a saraf font or a sans saraf font, um, there's a lot of different meaning that you can pull from this is very formal, this is informal, this is fun, this is serious, this is techy. A lot of that can really come through in the font. Um, and so I would say that that way. Um, thinking about the brand, thinking about the overall messaging is more important than necessarily the color uh, or the font. Um because if you want to be like a fun crazy brand and uh you have a Sarah font and a one color logo and and not a lot of fun like no messaging around it, you are then you've got that disconnect there. Um and uh no amount of color is going to or no like no there's not like a a color that's going to set people off the wrong way about that. Now with that guys, particularly now as we talk about message and because a lot of, you know, especially as a when you're side hustling and you're a technology person, you're probably going to be like, you know, fidgeting with your technology and your website and stuff like that on a regular basis. uh especially these days I know a lot I' I've run into many people and even business owners that are um they're hooked on like some of the metrics and stuff like that particular when you look at like you know Google's Google ads and Google words and and all of the different ways that you can evaluate your site. Is there a um how do you how do you feel about people that are regularly tweaking, you know, making those adjustments and and doing those those changes? And by regularly is I'm sort of throwing that out to you is like what is is there a good like is there a good time of like okay do this, let it bake in and then reset and then you know continue or should you leave stuff more continuous? Should you do little adjustments on the side? What are your thoughts on that? As sort of as evolving, especially from a refining point of view, evolving and refining your message and your your content. >> I ideally once you've got your message dialed in and styled in like your main like elevator pitch, your oneliner who you are as a company, ideally that's dialed in pretty quickly and it may evolve over time, but it's not going to be m it's not going to be super regular things. Now, there are things that you could look at every month or every week um on your website to try to make revisions on improvements. Uh a lot of that has to do with the number of people that are coming to your site. And so, I would imagine most people are not having enough traffic to make any really good decisions off of data every day. Um you know, Disney, sure, ESPN, yeah, uh Amazon by the hour, I'm sure. Um, but like for most of us and the rest of the world, you know, once a day is probably too much, but once a month might be a better uh looking point or once a quarter might be a better looking point. Um, I I actually usually see the problem on the other side. Um, where people are never looking at their website after they launch it. um and it's out ofd and not relevant and uh and oh by the way their Google the API on their Google maps is broken and it's been broken for 6 months and nobody said anything to you about it. Um or your contact form is broken and and nobody's mentioned it to you. Um and so that's the bigger issue I see. Um the other side of that going back to that ch every changing it every day. Uh my question would be is like do you not have um like client work to be working on that like you're doing instead of check changing your website every day. Uh and then you know because when we think about uh when we think about fundamentals of marketing we I break marketing into two categories. There's inbound marketing and outbound marketing. Okay. So inbound marketing is all the things that you are ready to be found. So you you have the website, you've got your brand, you've got your messaging, you've got your products, you've got your website set up. So if someone comes to find you, they figure out whether they want to do business with you. Once you've got that set up, you should be able to like check it periodically to make sure it's working and then spend your time doing more outbound stuff. So networking and um writing blogs and and interacting with other people so that you can get business coming in um and and figuring out how to manage that time between those things is important. But um you know we don't make changes to our website every day. I'll say that. >> So kind of taking this continuing this thread a little bit. So, as like a someone is building their business or expanding from the hustle to the business, what are some tips or tools that you could >> suggest for marketing noviceses or people that really don't have any clue on where to begin. You know, they may not know what a marketing like a salesunnel is. They may not even know what like an email uh you know, email cluster is. uh or Mailchimp, things like that. You know, where is a good place for people to start? >> Yeah. Um this is one of my favorite books to tell people to start at is Story Brand by Donald Miller. Um there's a new version of this out. I have not read the new version, so I can't tell you if it's any good. Uh and he does a great job of helping you understand a lot about marketing that's really good. Uh, another book I'd recommend is um, Entree Leadership by Dave Ramsey. He has uh, a whole section about marketing and a lot of other good business fundamentals in here too. Um, and so it's like a really light grade MBA. Um, and then a more advanced book I'd recommend is uh, this is Blair Ensing, but everybody who's in business and the consultative cell could enjoy it. It's called The Four Conversations. uh and it's about the four conversations to sell things and he's got some really good thoughts that are not just marketing agency. He consults marketing agencies, but it could be really adjacent to I think everybody who has a business that's a consultative sale like us. We have that in common, I would say. Um that we're not just like here's your car wash, you know, here's uh here's your car. It's like let's figure out the problem, create a solution, and then work towards that solution. that's kind of like we we all do that in this on this podcast. Um he talks about a lot about how to market that in this four conversations book. So I think it's a really good one as well. Um those are some places to look. Uh we also we also have a lot of content on our website that's about uh marketing fundamentals that can be found as well. Um but if I was to um actually when I was getting ready for this I um pulled up notes from a talk that I did about marketing fundamentals. Um the first thing is understanding who you are. So like what do you bring to market? Um how you bring it to market and what makes you different. What are your competitive advantages? Making sure you have those lined up. And then uh a couple of um lightning round things. Does your visual brand is it consistent? Can you use it in multiple places? uh do you have a oneliner that kind of talks about what problem you solve and who you solve it for? So for example, we wrote one for an HR company that said uh um we turn human resources into human capital. Um I believe is how we worded it. Uh and the reason behind that was like everybody hates HR. I don't know that I've ever met anybody that likes HR unless you work in HR. uh human capital has a better ring to it and it's like instead of human resources as uh it's it's an investable thing over here in capital. Um we uh do you have the website? Who's the website for? Is it for you or is it for your customer? Does it answer all your customer's questions? Uh and then um you know does it avoid using stock photos? like stock photos for a lot of places like it's a dead giveaway that they might not be a legitimate entity. There are circumstances where it makes a ton of sense. I know that. Uh but we encourage people to do that as little as possible because it helps build trust with people like these are real people doing a real thing. Uh and they're not afraid to show their faces. Um and uh and that because I always like to see leadership on people's websites as well. Um because if you're not afraid to tell me who you are, I'm less concerned about doing business with you. Um if you're trying to hide who you are, it makes me question why you would want to hide who you are. Um so it's interesting. I kind of want to go back to like that second one you talked about where you know figuring out your business and marketing to your customers and that and when you're trying to figure out marketing and growing your business, how do you how would you suggest that people look at their competition? How do you figure out what the competition is doing and how they're doing it right? But not so much steal it. You know, sometimes you can steal their techniques, but you don't want to necessarily steal their branding outright because you get into copyright and that. How can you kind of look around and see what people are doing and utilize that without getting in trouble? >> Uh well, you know, um artists steal, I think is the uh um the phrase. So um you know, I think there's a good amount healthy part of competition where you take other people's ideas and make them better. Um, yeah, you don't want to steal someone's logo and try to like deceive people that you are that company, right? Um, but, uh, being aware of what some of your com your competitors are doing, uh, is a good thing. I would actually encourage, uh, um, I'm a part of a couple of groups of other agency owners where we're not in direct competition with one another, excuse me, because of industry focus or geography. Um, and it is a very worthwhile time to get together with those folks to hear about what's working for them, what's not working for them, so that I can learn and steal things without feeling bad about it. >> Um, >> I like that. So, how did you find out about that or how can people look for something like that within their particular niche or industry? >> Yeah, there's a lot of owners groups of different things. Um, so I joined the Bureau of Digital uh is uh was the first one that I joined and it's just uh it's a several thousand agency owners uh from across the world. And uh and so if you're in an an industry that's been around for a while, I would bet if you Googled uh industry groups or ownership groups, you would find people that would have wisdom to share. And they like it when you share wisdom, too. And so it's like kind of a two-way street where they, you know, you contribute, other people contribute, and everybody wins. >> Very nice, >> Rob. >> So, we'll go with the the one that everybody has hot on their top, you know, top of their mind these days. So, what do you think about AI in the world of marketing and and how people are >> 43 minutes in, Rob, you ruined the interview. >> I know. I wanted to wait till the end. So, everybody else is like, "Okay, check. I'm out of here. Let's face it, we get this all the time too. So, >> yeah, I threw up a little bit. Repeat your question again for me. >> What are your thoughts on it? It's like because I know there are some people out there like it's like in everything people are like AI is going to like eliminate marketing. You're never going to have to worry about it again because it's going to do all that stuff. >> Um, and then even I guess the stuff a little bit probably which is I think the >> which is an interesting area to get into I think is the generation of content as well. Now, there's like the complete from scratch, you know, stuff that's been around for a while where these things just go out and they just like, you know, pull stuff in. So, you've got essentially fake content that you're using to, you know, make your site look more, >> you know, or your company bigger than it is. But then there's also some where it's it's using it like like more like a grammar or something like that where it's really it's like it's word smithing your your way into it and your message. Yeah. >> So, what are your thoughts on it? Like is there a place for it or where do you see a place for it? >> Yeah. Let me start really big picture. Uh I think this is the downfall of society. Uh I might be overstating just a little bit but like I mean there is certainly a component where there's a huge class of people whose incomes have been generated through developing creative things whether that's software or video or marketing that is getting cut off at the knees right now. And let's say every one of those developers who bought a nice sports car when they got their raise, will they be able to afford that sports car in 2 years and some AI company that's doing it for a third of the cost? Will they ever be able to afford a sports car? Right? And so uh and then and then what's to stop me in 6 months from just using the latest version of Lovable or whatever to write the software for myself that I only have to pay Lovable for and not some AI guy who made the software that replaced the other software, right? And so there's like this shell game that's happening right now and there's going to be a lot of bleeding in the economy before it's all over. My estimation. Okay. The other thing that's hanging out there um is I think there's so many legal questions still about ownership and rights and access. Um I think it's going to be really hard to put that genie back in the bottle. Uh and and if like if it goes to Supreme Court, the Supreme Court says, you know, AI doesn't there's nothing that you can produce that's not been used use copyright material. So, like we're all you're all open to illegal liability or um nothing can be trademarked that was created with AI touching it and then everybody can steal everything. Uh either way, there's like huge downsides to all those things. That all being said, um I would be a fool if I wasn't trying to utilize it in my business right now. Um and so, uh I've got to think through ways to use that locally now. So those are some big broad statements to get more practical. I mean AI slop is a great terminology. I'm glad that that term has come into the public consciousness along with uh clanker as a as a derogatory term for AI tools. Um I like both of those. Um we we are trying to find wise ways to implement it uh around our company all the time. like we have a meeting every Monday to look at latest AI tools and like can we practically put this into use um and uh we've had a lot less implementation than we thought we would have at this point honestly um and and maybe that's just us but I think I've seen a lot of statistics I've seen some statistics on the harvest Harvard Business Review that said the same thing is like people are spending money to implement AI but it's not doing what they want it to do and so um so I think there's a a gap to go still Our view in the company is we want it to assist us to do our work better um and more efficiently. It's not replacing anybody. Um mostly uh like we have used it for voice over and so like that's one less check that I have to write to a voiceover artist. Uh which I'm not excited about like but the client's budget wasn't going to allow for it anyway or the timeline wasn't going to allow for it anyway. And so, um, so like there's a video in my area that has a woman's voice on it that was actually me that was, uh, AI modified to sound like a female's voice, um, as the narration on the video. And, uh, uh, I could have paid someone to do that. Uh, but time and budget didn't allow, so we did it as with the computer. So, that's a very real practical like that was money that did not go to a contractor. because we had the AI tool available that I could do it with. Now we're trying to do that as little as possible. there's certain circumstances. Um but uh so like we're uh we had a website we were working on recently and the client was being difficult about getting us answers on stuff. Uh which if you know if you've ever built a website for anybody that's like the day ends and why, right? Um but uh and so I was like, hey, let's just let's take what we know. Let's work with AI, help it build out the content. We proofed it and improved it and worked on it. Uh, and then presented it to the client and worked on that was an easier start to work with with the client in an industry that we're not super knowledgeable about. That's a that's a easier starting place for the client to review instead of having them to regurgitate everything about their their industry to us. So, it's a it's a there's good and bad. Um, I think it's the phrase I've been using is it's de democratizing creativity. Um, so for example, I mean from a developer side, like I had an idea for a piece of software. Nothing complic I mean software is complicated period, but like nothing crazy like we're not going to run a business off of it. It's just like a tool to show a thing. And in 30 minutes with um can't remember which one I used. I used one of those the AI software tools um Replet I think like I had a like a a working prototype and it cost me $5. And so like the it's democratizing those skills. So like you guys may not be illustrators but like you can get um chat GPT or Gemini or whatever to to do that for you now. And um so I think when we get those big legal questions answered that's going to be a lot of things that happens. But yeah, it's uh it's an interesting future and I'm I'm not really sure what my job looks like in 10 years, honestly. >> Well, good. That's sort of what we're seeing and it's, you know, it it's essentially I think it's part for the course. you know, you get technology and then people go nuts and they're like, oh, we're going to use this and it's going to replace everything and this is, you know, how we're going to do and then it settles down and then we get into like, okay, here's how I think way back, you know, this is it goes back a bit when when Google started out and you had you were able to Google stuff and that's sort of the to me that's been part of that progression is you were able to go find stuff, but then also you you always knew that it was, you know, you had to take that with a grain of salt and I guess even now I hear that the young kids these days that's like if you're if you're telling something that's BS, they'll they'll say, well, that's AI. So, if you're like, you know, hey, I met, you know, I wrote on a dragon to work today, they'll be like, oh, that's AI. And so, it's I think it's it is becoming the good news is that I think it's becoming >> just like you said, you can see fiber, you know, logos and stuff like that. I think people are starting to recognize that like, you know, they're questioning everything, which has is probably not a bad thing anyways. And then they're starting to get a feel for like, oh wow, this is, you know, this is probably AI. This is maybe AI. >> Well, it's October 7th today. And so last week, I feel like we crossed the line with the new Sora where it can make things that look real enough that we can no longer believe everything that we watched on TV. I mean, uh, I'm a big sports fan. I don't know if you guys are sports fans, but there's a guy who used to be the quarterback for the New York Jets named March Sanchez. and he got stabbed this weekend, which might have been his fault. Sounds like he started a fight. Anywh who, but there's security footage of him walking drunk and I was like, "Hey, Sora came out 7 days ago. I could have faked this with Mark Sanchez." Like, I could have He's famous enough. His image is everywhere. We could have faked this video of his security camera, him walking drunk. The world that the the world has changed and I don't think we've fully identified that yet. Are you guys using AI in any practical applications? I guess I can ask can I ask you guys a question? I guess I don't know. >> Well, yeah, but as I mean for myself and Michael can answer differently, but I have been casually working with my team on it. similar I guess to what you guys did there is that we've been working for oh at least the last year um you know about finding ways to help it help us solve problems much more as like a really as like a search tool and stuff like that or in particularly because yes in in software development there are a lot of problems that have been solved a hundred times before so you can find a good example and you can basically say okay let's take this and and move forward uh but it's been uh it's definitely had a lot of challenge challenges in it because it does stuff its way and if you don't know what you're asking you're going to it's I I had a conversation with a guy about a week ago that's an AI was deep in AI and he said you know he he said the best way to think of it as AI is like a an interior level or maybe tops a mid-level employee and getting them to do something for you and it really resonated with me because that's it is it's like you have to be very specific you really have to know your domain that you're working with it to get the kind of answers out that you need and you know it will we found it for I I use it as a thinking outside of the box actually is a lot of times you'll throw a question at it and it'll give you an answer that is completely different. We did a whole season of development. Last season we took every topic from a prior season and we threw it into AI and say give us some things to talk about and yeah >> it you know it it hit some stuff that we did. Sometimes it it went in a completely different you know direction. But sure >> uh it is definitely to me it's something that say you have to be playing around with it. You have to be working with it and figure out how it's going to fit into specifically something like this. Well, we're creating you know source code. creating content and and you are creating new stuff >> but then you can build off of other stuff which is all AI is. It's it's not going to create anything new. It's just going to mix and match what already existed. >> One of my favorite questions to ask it is what am I not thinking about or how should I think about this differently? So like I'll I'll write a thing and a plan or whatever and I'll feed it the plan and be like how can I improve this? What should I think about you know that and it it's been very helpful actually. >> Yeah. The biggest thing is Go ahead Rob. I was just it really is especially if you can take it in steps. Um I found that it's very effective for that way. We we actually planned a trip to Europe uh and how we did it based on with conversations with AI and we took we started big and then worked it down to step by step by step by step and got some really great answers along the way because it's yeah it is it's along the way saying okay well how about what if I look at just this can I let's take it outside of the context of everything else or there's some other ways to look at it Michael >> yeah so one of the biggest benefits I've seen to it given that you know yes I'm a software company we build software but I'm also heavily testing focused and one of the biggest things I've seen with AI is if you put in like a system requirements and say give me all the listed edge cases give me you know kind of define what it is I should be testing and then from there you can kind of ask it more you can flush out ideas you can think about oh I missed this edge case or I didn't think about this >> and then ultimately the other thing is And I know people joke about this, you know, people over 40 using it as their Google. Really, from a software development perspective, it's not bad to use AI for your Google because sometimes it's going to give you >> like, hey, uh, this is how I would approach this or, hey, maybe this is a programming language you should look at. And so you then go to Google and you start with more refined Google searches. It kind of is the kickstarter to get you where you want to go with Google instead of going through all the fluff and all, you know, trying to scroll through all the pages to figure out what it is that you want. >> That makes a lot of sense. >> We are we're running up on time. I want to thank you so much for the time that you've given us. This has been great. We've like gone all over the place and you have joined us uh on the on the journey. I Before you leave though, I do want to you know what I want to just throw out to you. What is the best way for people to get a hold of you if somebody's like, I like this guy. I like where he's going. if he can make my company better. >> Yeah. Uh uh Carrier Pigeon smoke signals are usually pretty efficient. Uh no, uh you can uh keep up with us on LinkedIn I think would be a great place if you're wanting just to kind of see what we're working on would be a great place to do that. Um find me on LinkedIn, Kevin Adlesberger. I'm sure you'll know how to spell that the first time that you hear it. And then uh kevin addlesbergermarketing.com is a great email for >> Excellent. And I I will second that. Yeah, I follow you on LinkedIn and you guys have some great stories, some of the things you guys have been doing. It's been fun watching from a distance and living vicariously through you guys a little bit and some of those things going. So, thank you so much for your time. Uh, we're going to let you go and uh like I said, we'll uh we'll get this out everybody. Uh, you know, everybody's standing and applauding right now. If you guys can just quiet back down so we can let Kevin leave the room. He's got places to go cuz he's an important person. We will be back with you guys episode. That's right. You got you got many messes to create. >> That's right. That's right. So, thank you guys for having me. It was a It was a really good conversation. I'll see you later. >> Thanks a lot, Kevin. >> Thanks again, Kevin. >> And that will wrap up the conversation with Kevin. Uh, I want to thank him. Really appreciate his time and all of the work that he did. Uh especially because I actually I have literally done I think oh like it's about a hundred interviews at this point and this is the first time that I did not record it the first time around as far as I remember. I don't remember ever doing this before. Uh if I mentioned it then you guys can leave a note something in the comments and say, "Hey, you did that one time before." And I'll be like, "Okay, crap. Now I've done it twice." Uh that really hurts my percentage too from like 99% to 98. But now I have to do like another thousand or whatever to get it up close to anything useful. That being said, thank you for Kevin for your time. We appreciate it. Hopefully you appreciate it. As always, this is really what's interesting to me is every time I have an interview, I feel like if you guys get half out of it what I do, then it is more than worth your time. It has been a, you know, great time. Uh, he was a great guest. Who knows, we may try to have him back on again because he's just one of those guys that's got a lot of information and he enjoys doing it. He really enjoys doing what he loves doing what he does. I will say we love it when we get email from you. So shoot us an email at [email protected] and let us know your thoughts. Give us some feedback, positive, negative, however it is. Or if you don't like email, who doesn't like email? If you don't like email, then you can leave us comments on anywhere that you see the podcast. You can out there on the developer channel on YouTube. Uh also check out the YouTube developer channel. There's a lot of other stuff besides these. We I I was out there the other day doing some stuff and I was like, "Wow, we've got a lot of content and material out there crossing a lot of different areas." You can also uh follow us at developer onx and we have a Facebook page for those of you guys and gals that are over whatever it is now over a hundred years old or whatever the people that use Facebook like like me. Uh there's the development page. That being said, I want to thank you so much for your time. Thank Kevin again for his time. We appreciate what he's done for us. We appreciate what you are doing for us. Go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time. So, bonus material thoughts on the Kevin interview. So, little disclaimer, we have worked with Kevin before with developer. Um, back when I was actually Mash Consulting, I I ran into Kevin uh through the co-starter program here and the codes like a wei work thing and a lot of the things that Kevin touched on were really good topics and clear uh marketing ideas that really applied to all forms of business. It could be startups. It could be side hustles. It can be, you know, running your business. And I really want to check out some of those books he mentioned. Uh those were really good tips. Um I liked his little bit of the uh his thoughts on AI and where it's going from our discussion uh in this part two of that. And even going back to part one, all the foundational stuff he talked about, it's really key. And I've seen that many times where a lot of the stuff he talks about may seem common sense, but a lot of times we don't think about that, especially as a startup. You're really focused on your idea. Hopefully, you're focused on that mission and your why. But if you're not, we talk about this all the time. You really need to understand the why. And that really flows into the why gives you how what you're doing and then you really can kind of focus your marketing or your pitch around that and build your marketing around that which will help you build your business. >> Yeah, I think that's one goes back to, you know, Kevin really likes what he's doing. He's really good at it. um he really does a great job of of blending the things you need to do to get out there and you know get eyeballs and things like that which is all of the marketing you know related stuff but also how to like tell a story and to do it in a the best word I can think of it in a genuine way so it's not just you know like you know Sunday Sunday buy this car here and that car there you know it's not the like in your face you know kinds of advertising or anything like that it's it's really more about like it is it's more about like finding a way to connect to you know the people that you're working with and uh I I really appreciate that he's yeah he's spent some time with us and has we've had several conversations about developing our itself and how we position it and uh things of that nature that are you know very useful to us have been you know given us some great thoughts uh great ideas uh and hopefully you got some of those you guys got some of those as well during this uh episode uh he's he's really just yeah he is exactly the same uh in person as he is uh I think his personality came across a lot here. He's exactly the same in real life. So if you guys work with him, you will experience the same Kevin that you you got on the podcast. Um other than that, I think like yeah, the AI stuff is uh always interesting is is what people think of it and and where it goes because everybody's got probably two or three opinions on it because none of us want to hedge our we all want to hedge our bets basically. were like, "It could go here, it could go there." We, you know, we want to be able to at least say, "Well, we were at least we weren't completely wrong on it." Um, but there's a lot of stuff there and and he is is an he is in an area that I I know people that have lost jobs that are in marketing and design and that because of AI because people are like, "Oh, we can do it all right now with with AI." And then you see people with like 18 fingers um you know or like the stuff that now you see all over social media where it's like hey here's the preview for this new movie that doesn't exist and you know some of them are are comical that it like it almost looks good like I will share this and then we will wrap this one up is that I saw one for the three amigos. It was a It's supposed to be Three Amigos part two and they've got a picture of the Three Amigos which this is an older movie and I don't it was Martin Short and um I'm trying to think of the other couple the other two guys that were in there. Um shoot now I totally lost their names. But the funny thing was is that one of them they had a picture of the three one of them was actually his picture and the other two were people that I don't even know who those people were. They had nothing to do with it. And if you looked at all at any of the things other than the title, it was text just slammed on top of it. It was just like it looked like somebody took a bunch of text and just like pasted it on top on top on top on top. Uh and it's like, "Yeah, you guys did a horrible job." Like you got one like one name right and the names were all wrong. They were like all over the Oh, Chvy Chase was one of them. And they had the names all wrong. They were all mixed up for the actors. Um, it was just like it that's the kind of crap we're going to see. It's like some of the AI is out there and but it's also just unworkable, you know? It's like you there's a lot of it that's crap just like the code that we get generated sometimes is sometimes it's pretty good. A lot of times like more often than not I have to say wait I need you to do this or I need you to do that or if I keep it small enough I'm just like you know what forget it. I'll do it myself. Um that's just how it goes. That being said >> now now I will throw this out though. Um, you know, with that being said, uh, Kevin is very open. So, if you have any marketing questions or need some advice, uh, check him out on the links and that that we'll provide. Uh, he is more than willing to, uh, he is very open and he is very approachable. So, if you got questions, shoot him a question, you know, or shoot us a question. He will be more than happy to help you. All right, that that'll be the last bonus material I'll throw out there is like I've I've done this with so many people that are that we've interviewed and some of them are very busy, very professional people. I don't think I have run across any of them that have not at least given me some sort of response with emails and stuff like that. And the people I've talked to that have sent them something said, "Yeah, they responded. They are, yes, they're on a podcast and they're podcast famous and all that kind of stuff, but they are accessible." Uh, and especially when they say, "Hey, reach out to me this way." Reach out to them that way. if you have questions, if they, you know, if you can help them out, if they can help you out, um, that is just, that's how the world works these days. And it also works by us getting back to work. So, thank you guys for all your time. You're appreciate all that you guys have done and hanging out with us. We are not done. We are continuing. I think we're going to dive right back into yet another uh interview. We will get back around to some foundational stuff from our point of view. Uh, but you guys are probably tired of listening to us anyways. So, we're getting some fresh voices in and we're going to keep on doing that for a while because honestly, that is a lot of fun for us as well. We've always had great interviews and discussions. Go out there and have yourself a good one and uh don't hold your breath too much. But we will be back for another episode. Until then, have yourself a great day, great week, great month, great fourth quarter and sinus and allergy season. Talk to you next time. [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
Not
son of a [Â __Â ] [Â __Â ] Oh,
>> recorded that list.
>> Gosh. Bonus material everybody. I
clicked I hit record.
Okay. Sharing bonus material here for
everybody. This is take like 18. We had
a great interview which you're going to
see and
we I didn't hit record. Luckily, there's
so many recording devices out there
today. We got the recording anyways. So
now we had to go back and we have to do
some additional recording like around
that kind of stuff. And on our first
try, which was phenomenal. It was my
best intro ever. I guarantee you. But it
was also Michael's worst. So we like we
decided, all right, I saved him from
that. I didn't hit record.
This is like this is we're going to have
to work on this because this is like
this is now because this is like too
many times that I've done this. I'm
gonna have to like smack my hand every
time. Uh, I'm going to just send this
automatically to to record again just
like I should everything else. All
right, that being said, you guys get all
kind of you get the uh blooper bonus
material this time around and we are
going to kick off uh the part two of the
Kevin Adlesberger interview and uh
hopefully we'll have perfected our intro
by now with a little t dos uno. Hello
and welcome back. We are continuing our
season of building better foundations.
We are the building better developers
podcast also known as developer.
Actually we were developer first and
then we became building better
developers. That's its own story. You
can check that out elsewhere. I happen
to be Rob Broadhead one of the founders
of developer. Also the founder of RB
consulting where we are is often
referred to often referred to as a
boutique consulting company. We do it
consulting. We do technology but
basically what we do is we sit down with
you help you understand your business
and become your technology partner. We
help you work through things like
licenses and vendors and what is it that
you need to do your business and what's
available to help you do it better. How
to leverage technology in the best
possible way. We sit down with you. We
walk through your processes, your
procedures. We look at ways through
simplification, integration, automation,
innovation to help you build a roadmap
to be better today and better positioned
for growth and success in the future.
Check us out at rb-sns.com.
Also, we have a free Insta assessment.
Basically, Insta being about 10 minutes.
Sit down, answer a few questions, and
you can get a nice little guideline, a
little road map, like a really simple,
you know, road map of like this is
roughly where you are. Here are some
things you need to do. Uh, check that
out at matrix.rb-sns.com.
Good thing, bad thing. I get to change
it up this time because the bad thing
for those of you on the podcast, the
rest of you that are the YouTubers
already know this, but uh I have managed
to not be able to hit the record button
way too often lately. And while we're in
the midst of a really busy time and we
really don't need to spend this extra
time on this, I am managing to burn time
that we don't have. So, smack myself on
the wrist. H is just not, you know, not
very good. That's my bad thing. The good
thing is we get better every single time
we do it. The more we practice this, the
more we redo it, the better. And as I'm
thinking about this, there's also
another podcast that I am on that we're
doing the same thing. I think we've
recorded like six or seven times and
we're about to do another one at some
point and hopefully we'll have that
perfected, but that one's a little
different. Also very different is my
co-host and he's going to go ahead and
introduce himself.
Thanks, Rob.
Hey, everyone. My name is Michael
Malage. I'm one of the co-founders,
Building Better Developers, also known
as Developer. I'm also the owner of
Envision QA, where we help businesses
struggling with software. We help you
take back control of your software. This
could be software that you have had
custommade or even cookie cutter
software that you bought over the shelf.
We find too often that businesses
struggle with inappropriate software or
software that just doesn't meet their
needs. And you could find yourself in
the situation where you try to do
something, it doesn't work for you, and
you end up building these processes to
make the software work for you, not the
other way around. That's where Envision
QA comes in. We help combine the quality
of testdriven development and we sit
down and walk through the user stories
with you and your team to figure out how
the software really needs to work to
meet your business needs. And then we
build that custom solution or find the
right software for you. So check this
out at envisionqa.com.
Good thing bad thing. Oh, go ahead.
>> No, I was I forgot. I was like jumping
right ahead. I'm sorry. Good thing, bad
thing.
>> Uh bad thing. My co-host likes to not
hit the record button and interrupt me.
No. Um good thing, bad thing. Uh good
thing the weather's changing. It's
getting nice and cool out there.
Starting to really enjoy the season. Uh
bad thing it is my seasonal allergy time
of the year. So, I'm struggling with
allergies a little bit, but thank
goodness for Zerek included.
>> Well, the reason I keep jumping ahead
and stepping on Michael's toes today and
because I I guess I'm going to use that
as an excuse for not hitting the record
button as well, is because I really
enjoyed this conversation with Kevin.
So, we're going to jump right into part
two, picking up right where we left off
with our interview with Kevin
Edlesberger. We're going to talk about
marketing and we're going to even ask
the question that nobody wants to be
asked anymore because it gets asked way
too often.
We'll let you like wait with baited a
breath for that one to happen. Here we
go back to our interview with Kevin.
>> So, is there and and sort of continuing
on that um I guess because there's a
couple ways I guess I'll go this way. Is
I've seen a lot of stuff on the
psychology of like you know colors and
there's some fonts and some stuff like
that. Um, is that something that you
that you see that you regularly, you
know, as a regularly creating brands and
and stuff like that? Is that something
that that comes to mind a lot or is a
little more of a like ah that's yeah,
that's got its place, but really there
are there are other
>> color psychology is is largely I think
not real. Um, I would argue that most
times color psychology is not real. Now
there may be a few instances where there
might be some wisdom to take place. Um
but uh and I can't think of a good
example here right now but like uh there
may be a certain color that's a problem
for your industry. Like you may not want
um a certain color because it has a
connotation within your industry but
like certain colors making people feel a
certain way. You can find examples of
every counter version of that. Um,
honestly, Google color theory logos and
you'll find just images and you'll see
all sorts of charts of every successful
brand that does and does not match their
brand colors. Uh, the color theory
beyond them. Um, fonts are a little bit
different. Um, fonts can set a set a
tone for a type of communication. Um,
and so, uh, color could be used in a way
like that, but fonts for sure will. Um,
and so whether it's a handlettered or um
a saraf font or a sans saraf font, um,
there's a lot of different meaning that
you can pull from this is very formal,
this is informal, this is fun, this is
serious, this is techy. A lot of that
can really come through in the font. Um,
and so I would say that that way. Um,
thinking about the brand, thinking about
the overall messaging is more important
than necessarily the color uh, or the
font. Um because if you want to be like
a fun crazy brand and uh you have a
Sarah font and a one color logo and and
not a lot of fun like no messaging
around it, you are then you've got that
disconnect there. Um and uh no amount of
color is going to or no like no there's
not like a a color that's going to set
people off the wrong way about that.
Now with that guys, particularly now as
we talk about message and because a lot
of, you know, especially as a when
you're side hustling and you're a
technology person, you're probably going
to be like, you know, fidgeting with
your technology and your website and
stuff like that on a regular basis. uh
especially these days I know a lot I'
I've run into many people and even
business owners that are um they're
hooked on like some of the metrics and
stuff like that particular when you look
at like you know Google's Google ads and
Google words and and all of the
different ways that you can evaluate
your site. Is there a um
how do you how do you feel about people
that are regularly
tweaking, you know, making those
adjustments and and doing those those
changes? And by regularly is I'm sort of
throwing that out to you is like what is
is there a good like is there a good
time of like okay do this, let it bake
in and then reset and then you know
continue or should you leave stuff more
continuous? Should you do little
adjustments on the side? What are your
thoughts on that? As sort of as
evolving, especially from a refining
point of view, evolving and refining
your message and your your content.
>> I ideally once you've got your message
dialed in and styled in like your main
like elevator pitch, your oneliner
who you are as a company, ideally that's
dialed in pretty quickly and it may
evolve over time, but it's not going to
be m it's not going to be super regular
things. Now, there are things that you
could look at every month or every week
um on your website to try to make
revisions on improvements. Uh a lot of
that has to do with the number of people
that are coming to your site. And so, I
would imagine most people are not having
enough traffic to make any really good
decisions off of data every day. Um you
know, Disney, sure, ESPN, yeah, uh
Amazon by the hour, I'm sure. Um, but
like for most of us and the rest of the
world, you know, once a day is probably
too much, but once a month might be a
better uh looking point or once a
quarter might be a better looking point.
Um, I I actually usually see the problem
on the other side. Um, where people are
never looking at their website after
they launch it. um and it's out ofd and
not relevant and uh and oh by the way
their Google the API on their Google
maps is broken and it's been broken for
6 months and nobody said anything to you
about it. Um or your contact form is
broken and and nobody's mentioned it to
you. Um and so that's the bigger issue I
see. Um the other side of that going
back to that ch every changing it every
day. Uh my question would be is like do
you not have um like client work to be
working on that like you're doing
instead of check changing your website
every day. Uh and then you know because
when we think about
uh when we think about fundamentals of
marketing we I break marketing into two
categories. There's inbound marketing
and outbound marketing. Okay. So inbound
marketing is all the things that you are
ready to be found. So you you have the
website, you've got your brand, you've
got your messaging, you've got your
products, you've got your website set
up. So if someone comes to find you,
they figure out whether they want to do
business with you. Once you've got that
set up, you should be able to like check
it periodically to make sure it's
working and then spend your time doing
more outbound stuff. So networking and
um writing blogs and and interacting
with other people so that you can get
business coming in um and and figuring
out how to manage that time between
those things is important. But um you
know we don't make changes to our
website every day. I'll say that.
>> So kind of taking this continuing this
thread a little bit. So, as
like a someone is building their
business or expanding from the hustle to
the business, what are some tips or
tools that you could
>> suggest for marketing noviceses or
people that really don't have any clue
on where to begin. You know, they may
not know what a marketing like a
salesunnel is. They may not even know
what like an email uh you know, email
cluster is. uh or Mailchimp, things like
that. You know, where is a good place
for people to start?
>> Yeah. Um this is one of my favorite
books to tell people to start at is
Story Brand by Donald Miller. Um there's
a new version of this out. I have not
read the new version, so I can't tell
you if it's any good. Uh and he does a
great job of helping you understand a
lot about marketing that's really good.
Uh, another book I'd recommend
is um, Entree Leadership by Dave Ramsey.
He has uh, a whole section about
marketing and a lot of other good
business fundamentals in here too. Um,
and so it's like a really light grade
MBA. Um, and then a more advanced book
I'd recommend is uh, this is Blair
Ensing,
but everybody who's in business and the
consultative cell could enjoy it. It's
called The Four Conversations. uh and
it's about the four conversations to
sell things and he's got some really
good thoughts that are not just
marketing agency. He consults marketing
agencies, but it could be really
adjacent to I think everybody who has a
business that's a consultative sale like
us. We have that in common, I would say.
Um that we're not just like here's your
car wash, you know, here's uh here's
your car. It's like let's figure out the
problem, create a solution, and then
work towards that solution. that's kind
of like we we all do that in this on
this podcast. Um he talks about a lot
about how to market that in this four
conversations book. So I think it's a
really good one as well. Um
those are some places to look. Uh we
also we also have a lot of content on
our website that's about uh marketing
fundamentals that can be found as well.
Um but if I was to um actually when I
was getting ready for this I um pulled
up notes from a talk that I did about
marketing fundamentals. Um the first
thing is understanding who you are. So
like what do you bring to market? Um how
you bring it to market and what makes
you different. What are your competitive
advantages? Making sure you have those
lined up. And then uh a couple of um
lightning round things. Does your visual
brand is it consistent? Can you use it
in multiple places? uh do you have a
oneliner that kind of talks about what
problem you solve and who you solve it
for? So for example, we wrote one for an
HR company that said uh um we turn human
resources
into human capital.
Um I believe is how we worded it. Uh and
the reason behind that was like
everybody hates HR. I don't know that
I've ever met anybody that likes HR
unless you work in HR.
uh human capital has a better ring to it
and it's like instead of human resources
as uh it's it's an investable thing over
here in capital. Um
we uh do you have the website? Who's the
website for? Is it for you or is it for
your customer? Does it answer all your
customer's questions? Uh and then um you
know does it avoid using stock photos?
like stock photos for a lot of places
like it's a dead giveaway that they
might not be a legitimate entity. There
are circumstances where it makes a ton
of sense. I know that. Uh but we
encourage people to do that as little as
possible because it helps build trust
with people like these are real people
doing a real thing. Uh and they're not
afraid to show their faces. Um and uh
and that because I always like to see
leadership on people's websites as well.
Um because if you're not afraid to tell
me who you are, I'm less concerned about
doing business with you. Um if you're
trying to hide who you are, it makes me
question why you would want to hide who
you are. Um
so it's interesting. I kind of want to
go back to like that second one you
talked about where you know figuring out
your business and marketing to your
customers and that and when you're
trying to figure out marketing and
growing your business, how do you how
would you suggest that people look at
their competition? How do you figure out
what the competition is doing and how
they're doing it right? But not so much
steal it. You know, sometimes you can
steal their techniques, but you don't
want to necessarily steal their branding
outright because you get into copyright
and that. How can you kind of look
around and see what people are doing and
utilize that without getting in trouble?
>> Uh well, you know, um artists steal, I
think is the uh um the phrase. So um you
know, I think there's a good amount
healthy part of competition where you
take other people's ideas and make them
better. Um, yeah, you don't want to
steal someone's logo and try to like
deceive people that you are that
company, right?
Um, but, uh, being aware of what some of
your com your competitors are doing, uh,
is a good thing. I would actually
encourage, uh, um, I'm a part of a
couple of groups of other agency owners
where we're not in direct competition
with one another, excuse me, because of
industry focus or geography. Um, and it
is a very worthwhile time to get
together with those folks to hear about
what's working for them, what's not
working for them, so that I can learn
and steal things without feeling bad
about it.
>> Um,
>> I like that. So, how did you find out
about that or how can people look for
something like that within their
particular niche or industry?
>> Yeah, there's a lot of owners groups of
different things. Um, so I joined the
Bureau of Digital uh is uh was the first
one that I joined and it's just uh it's
a several thousand agency owners uh from
across the world. And uh and so if
you're in an an industry that's been
around for a while, I would bet if you
Googled uh industry groups or ownership
groups, you would find people that would
have wisdom to share. And they like it
when you share wisdom, too. And so it's
like kind of a two-way street where
they, you know, you contribute, other
people contribute, and everybody wins.
>> Very nice,
>> Rob.
>> So, we'll go with the the one that
everybody has hot on their top, you
know, top of their mind these days. So,
what do you think about AI in the world
of marketing and and how people are
>> 43 minutes in, Rob, you ruined the
interview.
>> I know. I wanted to wait till the end.
So, everybody else is like, "Okay,
check. I'm out of here.
Let's face it, we get this all the time
too. So,
>> yeah, I threw up a little bit. Repeat
your question again for me.
>> What are your thoughts on it? It's like
because I know there are some people out
there like it's like in everything
people are like AI is going to like
eliminate marketing. You're never going
to have to worry about it again because
it's going to do all that stuff.
>> Um, and then even I guess the stuff a
little bit probably which is I think the
>> which is an interesting area to get into
I think is the generation of content as
well. Now, there's like the complete
from scratch, you know, stuff that's
been around for a while where these
things just go out and they just like,
you know, pull stuff in. So, you've got
essentially fake content that you're
using to, you know, make your site look
more,
>> you know, or your company bigger than it
is. But then there's also some where
it's it's using it like like more like a
grammar or something like that where
it's really it's like it's word smithing
your your way into it and your message.
Yeah.
>> So, what are your thoughts on it? Like
is there a place for it or where do you
see a place for it?
>> Yeah.
Let me start really big picture. Uh I
think this is the downfall of society.
Uh
I might be overstating just a little bit
but like I mean there is certainly a
component where there's a huge class of
people whose incomes have been generated
through developing creative things
whether that's software or video or
marketing that is getting cut off at the
knees right now. And let's say every one
of those developers who bought a nice
sports car when they got their raise,
will they be able to afford that sports
car in 2 years and some AI company
that's doing it for a third of the cost?
Will they ever be able to afford a
sports car? Right? And so uh and then
and then what's to stop me in 6 months
from just using the latest version of
Lovable or whatever to write the
software for myself that I only have to
pay Lovable for and not some AI guy who
made the software that replaced the
other software, right? And so there's
like this shell game that's happening
right now and there's going to be a lot
of bleeding in the economy before it's
all over. My estimation. Okay. The other
thing that's hanging out there um is I
think there's so many legal questions
still about ownership and rights and
access. Um I think it's going to be
really hard to put that genie back in
the bottle. Uh and and if like if it
goes to Supreme Court, the Supreme Court
says, you know, AI doesn't there's
nothing that you can produce that's not
been used use copyright material. So,
like we're all you're all open to
illegal liability or um nothing can be
trademarked that was created with AI
touching it and then everybody can steal
everything. Uh either way, there's like
huge downsides to all those things. That
all being said, um I would be a fool if
I wasn't trying to utilize it in my
business right now. Um and so, uh I've
got to think through ways to use that
locally now.
So those are some big broad statements
to get more practical.
I mean AI slop is a great terminology.
I'm glad that that term has come into
the public consciousness along with uh
clanker as a as a derogatory term for AI
tools. Um I like both of those. Um we we
are trying to find wise ways to
implement it uh around our company all
the time. like we have a meeting every
Monday to look at latest AI tools and
like can we practically put this into
use um and uh we've had a lot less
implementation than we thought we would
have at this point honestly um and and
maybe that's just us but I think I've
seen a lot of statistics I've seen some
statistics on the harvest Harvard
Business Review that said the same thing
is like people are spending money to
implement AI but it's not doing what
they want it to do and so um so I think
there's a a gap to go still Our view in
the company is we want it to assist us
to do our work better um and more
efficiently. It's not replacing anybody.
Um
mostly uh like we have used it for voice
over and so like that's one less check
that I have to write to a voiceover
artist. Uh which I'm not excited about
like but the client's budget wasn't
going to allow for it anyway or the
timeline wasn't going to allow for it
anyway. And so, um, so like there's a
video in my area that has a woman's
voice on it that was actually me that
was, uh, AI modified to sound like a
female's voice, um, as the narration on
the video. And, uh, uh, I could have
paid someone to do that. Uh, but time
and budget didn't allow, so we did it as
with the computer. So, that's a very
real practical like that was money that
did not go to a contractor.
because we had the AI tool available
that I could do it with. Now we're
trying to do that as little as possible.
there's certain circumstances. Um but uh
so like we're uh we had a website we
were working on recently and the client
was being difficult about getting us
answers on stuff. Uh which if you know
if you've ever built a website for
anybody that's like the day ends and
why, right? Um but uh and so I was like,
hey, let's just let's take what we know.
Let's work with AI, help it build out
the content. We proofed it and improved
it and worked on it. Uh, and then
presented it to the client and worked on
that was an easier start to work with
with the client in an industry that
we're not super knowledgeable about.
That's a that's a easier starting place
for the client to review instead of
having them to regurgitate everything
about their their industry to us. So,
it's a it's a there's good and bad. Um,
I think it's the phrase I've been using
is it's de democratizing creativity. Um,
so for example, I mean from a developer
side, like I had an idea for a piece of
software.
Nothing complic I mean software is
complicated period, but like nothing
crazy like we're not going to run a
business off of it. It's just like a
tool to show a thing. And in 30 minutes
with um can't remember which one I used.
I used one of those the AI software
tools um Replet I think like I had a
like a a working prototype and it cost
me $5. And so like the it's
democratizing those skills. So like you
guys may not be illustrators but like
you can get um chat GPT or Gemini or
whatever to to do that for you now. And
um so I think when we get those big
legal questions answered that's going to
be a lot of things that happens. But
yeah, it's uh it's an interesting future
and I'm I'm not really sure what my job
looks like in 10 years, honestly.
>> Well, good. That's sort of what we're
seeing and it's, you know, it it's
essentially I think it's part for the
course. you know, you get technology and
then people go nuts and they're like,
oh, we're going to use this and it's
going to replace everything and this is,
you know, how we're going to do and then
it settles down and then we get into
like, okay, here's how I think way back,
you know, this is it goes back a bit
when when Google started out and you had
you were able to Google stuff and that's
sort of the to me that's been part of
that progression is you were able to go
find stuff, but then also you you always
knew that it was, you know, you had to
take that with a grain of salt and I
guess even now I hear that the young
kids these days that's like if you're if
you're telling something that's BS,
they'll they'll say, well, that's AI.
So, if you're like, you know, hey, I
met, you know, I wrote on a dragon to
work today, they'll be like, oh, that's
AI. And so, it's I think it's it is
becoming the good news is that I think
it's becoming
>> just like you said, you can see fiber,
you know, logos and stuff like that. I
think people are starting to recognize
that like, you know, they're questioning
everything, which has is probably not a
bad thing anyways. And then they're
starting to get a feel for like, oh wow,
this is, you know, this is probably AI.
This is maybe AI.
>> Well, it's October 7th today. And so
last week, I feel like we crossed the
line with the new Sora where it can make
things that look real enough that we can
no longer believe everything that we
watched on TV. I mean, uh, I'm a big
sports fan. I don't know if you guys are
sports fans, but there's a guy who used
to be the quarterback for the New York
Jets named March Sanchez. and he got
stabbed this weekend, which might have
been his fault. Sounds like he started a
fight. Anywh who, but there's security
footage of him walking drunk and I was
like, "Hey, Sora came out 7 days ago. I
could have faked this with Mark
Sanchez." Like, I could have He's famous
enough. His image is everywhere. We
could have faked this video of his
security camera, him walking drunk. The
world that the the world has changed and
I don't think we've fully identified
that yet. Are you guys using AI in any
practical applications? I guess I can
ask can I ask you guys a question? I
guess I don't know.
>> Well, yeah, but as I mean for myself and
Michael can answer differently, but I
have been
casually working with my team on it.
similar I guess to what you guys did
there is that we've been working for
oh at least the last year um you know
about finding ways to help it help us
solve problems much more as like a
really as like a search tool and stuff
like that or in particularly because yes
in in software development there are a
lot of problems that have been solved a
hundred times before so you can find a
good example and you can basically say
okay let's take this and and move
forward uh but it's been uh it's
definitely had a lot of challenge
challenges in it because it does stuff
its way and if you don't know what
you're asking you're going to it's I I
had a conversation with a guy about a
week ago that's an AI was deep in AI and
he said you know he he said the best way
to think of it as AI is like a an
interior level or maybe tops a mid-level
employee and getting them to do
something for you and it really
resonated with me because that's it is
it's like you have to be very specific
you really have to know your domain that
you're working with it to get the kind
of answers out that you need and you
know it will we found it for I I use it
as a thinking outside of the box
actually is a lot of times you'll throw
a question at it and it'll give you an
answer that is completely different. We
did a whole season of development. Last
season we took every topic from a prior
season and we threw it into AI and say
give us some things to talk about and
yeah
>> it you know it it hit some stuff that we
did. Sometimes it it went in a
completely different you know direction.
But sure
>> uh it is
definitely to me it's something that say
you have to be playing around with it.
You have to be working with it and
figure out how it's going to fit into
specifically something like this. Well,
we're creating you know source code.
creating content and and you are
creating new stuff
>> but then you can build off of other
stuff which is all AI is. It's it's not
going to create anything new. It's just
going to mix and match what already
existed.
>> One of my favorite questions to ask it
is what am I not thinking about or how
should I think about this differently?
So like I'll I'll write a thing and a
plan or whatever and I'll feed it the
plan and be like how can I improve this?
What should I think about you know that
and it it's been very helpful actually.
>> Yeah. The biggest thing is Go ahead Rob.
I was just it really is especially if
you can take it in steps. Um I found
that it's very effective for that way.
We we actually planned a trip to Europe
uh and how we did it based on with
conversations with AI and we took we
started big and then worked it down to
step by step by step by step and got
some really great answers along the way
because it's yeah it is it's along the
way saying okay well how about what if I
look at just this can I let's take it
outside of the context of everything
else or there's some other ways to look
at it Michael
>> yeah so one of the biggest benefits I've
seen to it given that you know yes I'm a
software company we build software but
I'm also heavily testing focused and one
of the biggest things I've seen with AI
is if you put in like a system
requirements and say give me all the
listed edge cases give me you know kind
of define what it is I should be testing
and then from there you can kind of ask
it more you can flush out ideas you can
think about oh I missed this edge case
or I didn't think about this
>> and then ultimately the other thing is
And I know people joke about this, you
know, people over 40 using it as their
Google. Really, from a software
development perspective, it's not bad to
use AI for your Google because sometimes
it's going to give you
>> like, hey, uh, this is how I would
approach this or, hey, maybe this is a
programming language you should look at.
And so you then go to Google and you
start with more refined Google searches.
It kind of is the kickstarter to get you
where you want to go with Google instead
of going through all the fluff and all,
you know, trying to scroll through all
the pages to figure out what it is that
you want.
>> That makes a lot of sense.
>> We are we're running up on time. I want
to thank you so much for the time that
you've given us. This has been great.
We've like gone all over the place and
you have joined us uh on the on the
journey. I Before you leave though, I do
want to you know what I want to just
throw out to you. What is the best way
for people to get a hold of you if
somebody's like, I like this guy. I like
where he's going. if he can make my
company better.
>> Yeah. Uh uh Carrier Pigeon smoke signals
are usually pretty efficient. Uh
no, uh you can uh keep up with us on
LinkedIn I think would be a great place
if you're wanting just to kind of see
what we're working on would be a great
place to do that. Um find me on
LinkedIn, Kevin Adlesberger. I'm sure
you'll know how to spell that the first
time that you hear it. And then uh kevin
addlesbergermarketing.com is a great
email for
>> Excellent. And I I will second that.
Yeah, I follow you on LinkedIn and you
guys have some great stories, some of
the things you guys have been doing.
It's been fun watching from a distance
and living vicariously through you guys
a little bit and some of those things
going. So, thank you so much for your
time. Uh, we're going to let you go and
uh like I said, we'll uh we'll get this
out everybody. Uh, you know, everybody's
standing and applauding right now. If
you guys can just quiet back down so we
can let Kevin leave the room. He's got
places to go cuz he's an important
person. We will be back with you guys
episode. That's right. You got you got
many messes to create.
>> That's right. That's right. So, thank
you guys for having me. It was a It was
a really good conversation. I'll see you
later.
>> Thanks a lot, Kevin.
>> Thanks again, Kevin.
>> And that will wrap up the conversation
with Kevin. Uh, I want to thank him.
Really appreciate his time and all of
the work that he did. Uh especially
because I actually I have literally done
I think oh like it's about a hundred
interviews at this point and this is the
first time that I did not record it the
first time around as far as I remember.
I don't remember ever doing this before.
Uh if I mentioned it then you guys can
leave a note something in the comments
and say, "Hey, you did that one time
before." And I'll be like, "Okay, crap.
Now I've done it twice." Uh that really
hurts my percentage too from like 99% to
98. But now I have to do like another
thousand or whatever to get it up close
to anything useful. That being said,
thank you for Kevin for your time. We
appreciate it. Hopefully you appreciate
it. As always, this is really what's
interesting to me is every time I have
an interview, I feel like if you guys
get half out of it what I do, then it is
more than worth your time. It has been
a, you know, great time. Uh, he was a
great guest. Who knows, we may try to
have him back on again because he's just
one of those guys that's got a lot of
information and he enjoys doing it. He
really enjoys doing what he loves doing
what he does.
I will say we love it when we get email
from you. So shoot us an email at
[email protected] and let us know
your thoughts. Give us some feedback,
positive, negative, however it is. Or if
you don't like email, who doesn't like
email? If you don't like email, then you
can leave us comments on anywhere that
you see the podcast. You can out there
on the developer channel on YouTube. Uh
also check out the YouTube developer
channel. There's a lot of other stuff
besides these. We I I was out there the
other day doing some stuff and I was
like, "Wow, we've got a lot of content
and material out there crossing a lot of
different areas." You can also uh follow
us at developer onx and we have a
Facebook page for those of you guys and
gals that are over whatever it is now
over a hundred years old or whatever the
people that use Facebook like like me.
Uh there's the development page. That
being said, I want to thank you so much
for your time. Thank Kevin again for his
time. We appreciate what he's done for
us. We appreciate what you are doing for
us. Go out there and have yourself a
great day, a great week, and we will
talk to you next time.
So, bonus material thoughts on the Kevin
interview.
So,
little disclaimer, we have worked with
Kevin before with developer. Um, back
when I was actually Mash Consulting, I I
ran into Kevin uh through the co-starter
program here and the codes like a wei
work thing and a lot of the things that
Kevin touched on
were really good topics and clear uh
marketing ideas that really applied to
all forms of business. It could be
startups. It could be side hustles. It
can be, you know, running your business.
And I really want to check out some of
those books he mentioned. Uh those were
really good tips. Um I liked his little
bit of the uh his thoughts on AI and
where it's going from our discussion uh
in this part two of that. And even going
back to part one, all the foundational
stuff he talked about, it's really key.
And I've seen that many times
where
a lot of the stuff he talks about may
seem common sense, but a lot of times we
don't think about that, especially as a
startup. You're really focused on your
idea. Hopefully, you're focused on that
mission and your why. But if you're not,
we talk about this all the time. You
really need to understand the why. And
that really flows into the why gives you
how what you're doing and then you
really can kind of focus your marketing
or your pitch around that and build your
marketing around that which will help
you build your business.
>> Yeah, I think that's
one goes back to, you know, Kevin really
likes what he's doing. He's really good
at it. um he really does a great job of
of
blending the things you need to do to
get out there and you know get eyeballs
and things like that which is all of the
marketing you know related stuff but
also how to like tell a story and to do
it in a the best word I can think of it
in a genuine way so it's not just you
know like you know Sunday Sunday buy
this car here and that car there you
know it's not the like in your face you
know kinds of advertising or anything
like that it's it's really more about
like it is it's more about like finding
a way to connect to you know the people
that you're working with and uh I I
really appreciate that he's yeah he's
spent some time with us and has we've
had several conversations about
developing our itself and how we
position it and uh things of that nature
that are you know very useful to us have
been you know given us some great
thoughts uh great ideas uh and hopefully
you got some of those you guys got some
of those as well during this uh episode
uh he's he's really just yeah he is
exactly the same uh in person as he is
uh I think his personality came across a
lot here. He's exactly the same in real
life. So if you guys work with him, you
will experience the same Kevin that you
you got on the podcast. Um other than
that, I think like yeah, the AI stuff is
uh always interesting is is what people
think of it and and where it goes
because everybody's got probably two or
three opinions on it because none of us
want to hedge our we all want to hedge
our bets basically. were like, "It could
go here, it could go there." We, you
know, we want to be able to at least
say, "Well, we were at least we weren't
completely wrong on it." Um, but there's
a lot of stuff there and and he is is an
he is in an area that I I know people
that have lost jobs that are in
marketing and design and that because of
AI because people are like, "Oh, we can
do it all right now with with AI." And
then you see people with like 18 fingers
um you know or like the stuff that now
you see all over social media where it's
like hey here's the preview for this new
movie that doesn't exist and you know
some of them are are comical that it
like it almost looks good like I will
share this and then we will wrap this
one up is that I saw one for the three
amigos. It was a It's supposed to be
Three Amigos part two and they've got a
picture of the Three Amigos which this
is an older movie and I don't it was
Martin Short and um
I'm trying to think of the other couple
the other two guys that were in there.
Um shoot now I totally lost their names.
But the funny thing was is that one of
them they had a picture of the three one
of them was actually his picture and the
other two were people that I don't even
know who those people were. They had
nothing to do with it. And if you looked
at all at any of the things other than
the title, it was text just slammed on
top of it. It was just like it looked
like somebody took a bunch of text and
just like pasted it on top on top on top
on top. Uh and it's like, "Yeah, you
guys did a horrible job." Like you got
one like one name right and the names
were all wrong. They were like all over
the Oh, Chvy Chase was one of them. And
they had the names all wrong. They were
all mixed up for the actors. Um, it was
just like it that's the kind of crap
we're going to see. It's like some of
the AI is out there and but it's also
just unworkable, you know? It's like you
there's a lot of it that's crap just
like the code that we get generated
sometimes is sometimes it's pretty good.
A lot of times like more often than not
I have to say wait I need you to do this
or I need you to do that or if I keep it
small enough I'm just like you know what
forget it. I'll do it myself. Um that's
just how it goes. That being said
>> now now I will throw this out though.
Um, you know, with that being said, uh,
Kevin is very open. So, if you have any
marketing questions or need some advice,
uh, check him out on the links and that
that we'll provide. Uh, he is more than
willing to, uh, he is very open and he
is very approachable. So, if you got
questions, shoot him a question, you
know, or shoot us a question. He will be
more than happy to help you. All right,
that that'll be the last bonus material
I'll throw out there is like I've I've
done this with so many people that are
that we've interviewed and some of them
are very busy, very professional people.
I don't think I have run across any of
them that have not at least given me
some sort of response with emails and
stuff like that. And the people I've
talked to that have sent them something
said, "Yeah, they responded. They are,
yes, they're on a podcast and they're
podcast famous and all that kind of
stuff, but they are accessible." Uh, and
especially when they say, "Hey, reach
out to me this way." Reach out to them
that way. if you have questions, if
they, you know, if you can help them
out, if they can help you out, um, that
is just, that's how the world works
these days. And it also works by us
getting back to work. So, thank you guys
for all your time. You're appreciate all
that you guys have done and hanging out
with us. We are not done. We are
continuing. I think we're going to dive
right back into yet another uh
interview. We will get back around to
some foundational stuff from our point
of view. Uh, but you guys are probably
tired of listening to us anyways. So,
we're getting some fresh voices in and
we're going to keep on doing that for a
while because honestly, that is a lot of
fun for us as well. We've always had
great interviews and discussions. Go out
there and have yourself a good one and
uh don't hold your breath too much. But
we will be back for another episode.
Until then, have yourself a great day,
great week, great month, great fourth
quarter and sinus and allergy season.
Talk to you next time.
[Music]