Latest / Cutting Through with Natasha Plowman / Cutting Through with Aaron Berger

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Cutting Through with Aaron Berger · Cutting Through with Natasha Plowman

• 0:16
  Welcome to Cutting Through with Me, Natasha Ploughman.
• 0:19
  Today I'm joined by Aaron Berger who's going to talk to us about
• 0:23
  all things startups and scale UPS.
• 0:26
  Aaron is APR professional from way back and has worked with
• 0:31
  companies like Ketchum as well as IBM and other tech companies.
• 0:35
  So his absolute focus has always been around tech and now he's
• 0:39
  using their expertise for startups.
• 0:41
  So we're going to talk today about how what he does really
• 0:45
  cuts through the noise, helping his clients get famous and get
• 0:50
  money, which is the main thing. So handing over to you and give
• 0:53
  us some whistle stop to what makes you tick and who you are.
• 0:56
  What makes me tick and who I am. Well, again, that was a
• 0:59
  wonderful intro. First off, thank you so much for
• 1:01
  having me on the podcast. I'm very excited to be here.
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  As mentioned, I am the Co founder and principal at AM
• 1:07
  Partners and as you mentioned, we are really a boutique
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  communications consulting firm that works with a variety of
• 1:15
  different startups from seed all the way really to pre IPO.
• 1:19
  You know, typically our, our really sweet spot is that seed
• 1:23
  Series A, series B range, but really can help across all of
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  the different kind of areas that these startups play in and and
• 1:31
  how they evolve and change is always an interesting problem
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  for PR. Before we go on, OK, yeah, now,
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  yeah, people in startup world like to kind of give different
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  kind of descriptions of different things in different
• 1:42
  states of startup land. So give me a really brief and
• 1:47
  give our list as a really brief overview of what you mean when
• 1:50
  you say series, AB, et cetera. Yes.
• 1:53
  So essentially when you're a startup, you have a variety of
• 1:56
  different funding or capital levels that you kind of get to.
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  And when you launch the company, you are typically at a seed
• 2:03
  stage company. It is something that's just the
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  initial round of capital that investors, VCs, Angel investors
• 2:09
  will put into the company that basically says this is a really
• 2:12
  good idea that we want to get behind.
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  As you kind of create the company and you go to market and
• 2:19
  you showcase product market fit, you consistently raise more and
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  more capital based off of the different metrics that you're
• 2:25
  hitting based off of growth needs, based off of kind of the
• 2:28
  revenue that you've been bringing in based off of profit.
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  Some people don't need to raise again after seed if they
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  suddenly, you know, hit the jackpot and they're seeing a
• 2:37
  huge amount of money come in and that revenue was allowing them
• 2:39
  to scale on their own. But typically based off of the
• 2:42
  scaling and, and how fast lot of these companies do look to
• 2:45
  scale, they take in kind of round after round of capital and
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  each of those rounds have a different term, which is why
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  it's Series A, series B, series C And you know, it kind of can
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  go as many series as you'd like. You see series D, series G's,
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  it's just a term that they, you know, the startup world kind of
• 3:05
  uses to, to highlight where they are as a company.
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  And, and again, the idea is each of these stages or you know,
• 3:13
  series, the revenue gets bigger and your valuation increases
• 3:17
  with the revenue as well. This is an area that I really
• 3:20
  want to get into and talk about. And because the whole notion of
• 3:24
  when you're on your path to profitability and we hear about
• 3:27
  different scale ups and different companies who, you
• 3:30
  know, they're valued at a certain amount of money, but
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  they're not profitable. And so they are kind of you
• 3:34
  churning through loads of capital and money.
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  But I suppose your focus to kind of make them famous is to help
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  them get to that. One part is to get the right
• 3:42
  capital, but the other part is to get them on that Holy Grail
• 3:45
  of being self sufficient and profitable I suppose.
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  And that's really where the visibility comes in.
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  You know, one of the things that we often questions about is do
• 3:54
  we really need PR at this moment?
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  And the truth is we'll have long conversations with founders and
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  have, you know, those conversations will sometimes
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  lead to, yes, now is the right time for you to do PR.
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  And there are other times when it's that we say, no, you don't
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  really need PR right now. You're so heavily focused on
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  sales, you're so heavily focused on, you know, kind of trying to
• 4:15
  scale the business right now. You you don't have the ability
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  to really focus on PR and that partnership because you're
• 4:21
  working directly with the executive team.
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  You're often to working directly with the CEO and Co founder who
• 4:26
  is typically been selling to investors.
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  Shifting them into externally facing PR mode is both the
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  challenge. It's both why I like to do this
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  a lot because it's always very interesting working with them.
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  But you see a real kind of tangible value to all of the
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  work that you're doing. And when it clicks and they
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  understand, OK, now I really understand what PR is and the
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  value. That's that's kind of why I keep
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  doing it. I guess you kind of like going
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  back to that kind of initial question of what makes me tick.
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  I think it's probably a thing a lot of PR people would say makes
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  them tick, but it's, it's not understanding the difference
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  between PR marketing and sales. And there have been many, many,
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  there have been many instances where there is a level of
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  education, especially with some of these companies where you
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  really have to differentiate. Look, if you want sale, this is
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  what you should be focused on, at investing on.
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  And if you want PR, this is what we can do for you.
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  And these are the moments where it makes the most sense.
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  I mean, honestly, when we start to get to Series C companies,
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  sometimes, as I've mentioned, they're so focused on sales
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  enablement because they figured out their product market fit,
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  but they don't kind of have that level of announcements or sort
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  of the product announcements that are coming out on a
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  consistent basis like a public company would or even the later
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  stage startup would that I sometimes say, look, you don't
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  really need PR right now. You just need to focus on
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  scaling your sales team. And when you've done that, come
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  back to us and we're happy to continue the conversation.
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  But right now, because you're so focused on something else in
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  this world, it doesn't make sense for you to invest right
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  now. NPR.
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  Yeah. So paint me a picture.
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  And I know we're not going to talk like names of companies and
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  a lot of people wouldn't know them if unless they're in that
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  world, but let's paint a picture of where it kind of all fits in
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  together. So like what the company's doing
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  and what the founders like and what they're asking it from you,
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  that makes that ship work. I mean, where to really begin
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  with that question, because it's a big, it's a big question.
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  It is a big question. One of the things that I say is
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  it's always good to start PR as early as possible.
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  I know I just gave that sort of mid size Series C company that's
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  raised, you know, let's say $100 million and has a valuation of,
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  you know, in the, you know, hundreds of millions, if not
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  billions at that point. Again, those are for some of the
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  really successful startups, but a lot of the startups I've seen
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  that work the best are ones that started that Cedar Series A
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  stage and start to figure out what that narrative really looks
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  like for the external facing audience.
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  It allows them because they've just gone out and they've raised
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  money, They've done the investor deck, they've done the pitch
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  deck, and there's been interest from the investors.
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  But at that stage, they don't usually have a whole lot of
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  customers and they need to reach customers and consumers from a
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  visibility point that is a very different type of language than
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  they've been used to talking to investors around.
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  They can still convey what the idea is, but why they're doing
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  it, what the differentiators are in a marketplace that is
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  investing in a lot of different seed stage companies and how
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  they can really go to market. That then allows them to
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  differentiate themselves and people to really get very
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  quickly, Oh, this is something that I might want to use or oh,
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  I understand what this real value proposition and
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  differentiator is of this company is a very different type
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  of language that they are they are getting used to.
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  So, you know, we always will work with them on that kind of
• 7:59
  initial narrative that they sometimes know about because
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  they've been coming from bigger companies sometimes don't really
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  know what that is for. And it allows us to really sit
• 8:07
  down with them and get to the why about why they started this
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  company, why this company should matter, why this should matter
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  to the to customers. And that kind of initial, early
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  stage infrastructure building allows them to then have the
• 8:21
  infrastructure as they continue to grow.
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  So, you know, I always say, the sooner you can get in and you
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  can really understand what PR is and build it, then you can use
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  it as a tool throughout the different stages of growth as
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  opposed to coming in much later and just investing in sales or
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  just investing in marketing and then say, oh, well, now we need
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  PR because we don't really have people who know who we are.
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  We're doing great from a business perspective, but we
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  want to get more visibility for our company, you know, just from
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  an external, you know, customer or consumer or media perspective
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  to elevate our executives. And they don't have any of the
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  infrastructure. And then it can take even longer
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  to start to build all of that because they're much more
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  complex and much more kind of matrixed and, and larger
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  organisation at that stage. So you you can scale with them
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  if you start early, but it's very hard to come in and then
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  build from scratch once they get much bigger.
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  And I think, I mean, that's the, the beauty of the, the world
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  that we call PR. There are so many elements to
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  it. And it's the, it's, it is the
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  narrative, it's the storytelling.
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  It's making, it's making people famous.
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  But it's not just media relations.
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  And I think what you're and that's the really important
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  thing that we're saying that you're you're talking about here
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  is media relations is a vehicle, a tactic, a channel that helps
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  you get famous with the right audiences.
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  But those building blocks are really developing a great
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  narrative and story need to can start at any time.
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  And is that consistency of of knowing the audiences you need
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  to reach and interact with? I suppose is is that the art of
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  what you do is that you really start pinpointing them and
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  having the expertise of knowing where they are and.
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  It's one of the first questions we always ask when we start
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  working with a client. We say, what audiences do you
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  really want to work? Do you really want to reach
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  because especially for these companies, they're, they can't
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  reach every single audience. So sometimes it says, what is
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  the goal with this TR? Is it to get more customers?
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  Is it to get your next round of investing?
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  Because the publications that the venture capital market is
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  going to be reading are very different than the publications
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  that, let's say the, you know, person who is buying the car is
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  reading or the traditional financial bankers are reading.
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  Those guys are reading one type of, you know, very trade focused
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  or, you know, traditional Business Media where the venture
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  capitalists may be, you know, on social more, they may be reading
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  much more about what's going on on TechCrunch.
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  They have their kind of typical, you know, I don't want to call
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  them tech trades because they're bigger than tech trades, but
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  they very much have the publications that they're kind
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  of looking at from, OK, where is the market going?
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  And if you can insert your client into that, it can
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  actually lead to greater awareness amongst that community
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  and much greater actually, we've seen it help lead to additional
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  rounds of investment just purely from a visibility standpoint.
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  So it's a really important component.
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  I say if you just want to get famous and probably not the guy
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  to do that for you, but if you want to raise visibility, you
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  have a couple moments where we can really elevate you with the
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  audiences that you do want to reach that Hopefully then you
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  see ongoing momentum not just now, but you know over the
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  course of the next year or two and you kind of can be out there
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  in the marketplace in a different way that that you may
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  not even be aware of is possible at this stage.
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  And. I suppose what's really
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  important is going back to like the title of this whole podcast,
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  which is cutting through and, and really is about cutting
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  through the noise and cutting through the range of information
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  that's out there. So and PR is a real opportunity
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  to to cut through, but we are also noise making.
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  So how do you have those tough conversations with clients when
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  and you know they want to be made famous and it's not right
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  and it's just about their own ego to get them.
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  I'm not saying these are necessarily your clients, but
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  I'm sure it's people that you're aware of in the the tech world
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  where it's more about ego than actually driving growth or
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  driving revenue for the business.
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  There's always, there's always an ego component.
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  I'm laughing because because it's like, Oh yeah, oh, if if
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  someone says all I want to do is drive, you know, revenue and
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  customers, yes, like, of course, that is the most important part
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  of this. They don't.
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  You won't have a business if you don't drive revenue and
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  customers. We know a few startups where it
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  wasn't about revenue and customers, it really was about
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  ego. But we can go there or not if
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  you'd like. I I will.
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  Say there was. If you.
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  If you. Look back at 2021, there may
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  have been a little bit more ego driven communications versus now
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  where there does have to be a bit more.
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  I think product market fit especially these days.
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  But you know I will, I will be as blunt as I possibly can.
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  If you're just doing it for your own ego, you will get lost in
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  the noise because you won't actually be able to
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  differentiate the product at the end of the day or why you're
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  doing it. I mean, look, there are people
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  who are really good at social media.
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  There are people who are really good at elevating themselves as
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  a brand if that's what they want.
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  We, we are pretty, we can realise we kind of get to that
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  point pretty quickly. I mean, we always have opt outs
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  in any sort of agreements that we make.
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  Because if it starts to turn into this is just an ego driven
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  PR play, we will actually take a step back and say, look, this
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  isn't really what we want to be doing.
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  I think that ultimately, especially, especially in this
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  world, you just have to keep your convictions about you
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  because you know, and you, you have honest, transparent, open
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  conversations and you know, there are there's nothing wrong
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  with elevating yourself as an individual, especially as a
• 13:52
  founder and CEO there. I, I see absolutely nothing
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  wrong with it. And that isn't tactic that
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  likely works for many, many people.
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  We try to do it in the way that while we want to elevate the
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  individual and we always have a founder story when we work with
• 14:07
  these companies, right, Because that is important.
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  Why did they start the company? What is the thing that they're
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  trying to solve? That is a component to the, the
• 14:14
  business story as much as anything.
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  But there still needs to be a business, a business component
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  to this. There still has to be a why does
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  this product matter at the end of the day, not just why does
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  the person matter? And I think if you can marry
• 14:27
  those two, you just have a stronger, more compelling story,
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  you know, from the beginning. Again, like especially in the
• 14:33
  beginning, yes, the founder matters.
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  There's there's no way around it.
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  It really does matter. But you kind of got to figure
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  out how to marry those two in the right way.
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  And then there's other founders who have built businesses and
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  raised lots of money and they're doing this almost as their
• 14:45
  second and third company, which that becomes a little bit of a
• 14:48
  different thing because then you're, you are trading somewhat
• 14:51
  on the name and the success of that founder.
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  But again, you still have to marry it to why are they doing
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  what they're doing now? And why does it work in in the
• 15:00
  current environment? And what is the value at the end
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  of the day for for that end user?
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  I'd love to kind of shift around the culture of kind of startups
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  and where do you think that's changing at the moment?
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  Obviously access to capital is is getting limited in some
• 15:14
  areas. You know, we are in a time of
• 15:17
  great disruption for a lot of companies.
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  So, and the founder LED stories can often talk about like the,
• 15:23
  the culture in in those particular businesses can be
• 15:26
  quite difficult for some people to work in.
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  That makes them quite a closed group.
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  So do you see crystal ball or not?
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  Do you see this environment starting to change a lot more
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  because of the current climate we're in?
• 15:41
  I promise this is not an opt out answer, but I truly don't know.
• 15:45
  And there are certain years where I can kind of look at the
• 15:48
  marketplace and say, okay, this seems to be where the money,
• 15:51
  like when the AI boom happened, it was very obvious that like
• 15:54
  that's where the focus was going to be.
• 15:57
  And it's, we're still seeing, you know, plenty of dollars
• 16:00
  start flowing into that. At some point that will die down
• 16:04
  and there will be a washout just because that always happens in
• 16:07
  this environment, right? Like the, the investments that
• 16:09
  have come in these these firms are going to need to see who's
• 16:13
  going to succeed and who's going to fail.
• 16:14
  And that's just the nature of this business, right?
• 16:17
  So, you know, I'm preparing for when that does start to slow up.
• 16:24
  But across the board, we're still seeing a lot of new
• 16:29
  companies starting to raise money.
• 16:32
  We're seeing, you know, companies that have found
• 16:35
  product market fit really thriving.
• 16:39
  To be perfectly honest, it's sort of like some of that wash
• 16:41
  out that happened in 2023. The companies that did survive
• 16:46
  that you know, are starting to grow quite rapidly.
• 16:49
  And then you know, some of the IP OS this year, you look at
• 16:52
  circle, you look at Chime, I do a lot of work in the financial
• 16:56
  technology marketplace. So like built just, you know,
• 16:59
  raised a tonne of money at a $10 billion valuation.
• 17:03
  You know, I'm pretty bullish on where vertical finance is going.
• 17:06
  That's a concept. It's essentially products being
• 17:09
  created that have highly specialised niches for consumers
• 17:14
  who are kind of looking for lifestyle brands or things that
• 17:17
  are more aligned to what they are really spending their money
• 17:20
  on on a day to day basis. You know, we're seeing new
• 17:22
  digital payment methods come to the marketplace.
• 17:26
  So there's a lot of things that are happening, not just an AI
• 17:30
  either. I mean, yes, AI is obviously
• 17:32
  becoming something that everybody's going to be focused
• 17:36
  on and needs to figure out how to implement a lot of these
• 17:38
  systems. But, you know, there's other
• 17:41
  technology company, even climate tech, which might seem
• 17:45
  counterintuitive to what's going on in the world on some level.
• 17:48
  It's not the. World's other than America.
• 17:49
  I know you know that we are still operating and recognising
• 17:53
  that the world is changing, unlike you know, what's
• 17:56
  happening in your country. But we don't need to go down
• 17:58
  that that that route as well. The world is still changing in
• 18:01
  our country, just not sure how, but it's, it's so again, look,
• 18:10
  I'm, I'm always worried about this happening.
• 18:13
  I went through 2022 when money just froze up and we had to
• 18:18
  figure out kind of where we were going to go and strategize in
• 18:21
  2023. But again, right now I'm not,
• 18:25
  I'm, I'm seeing a little bit more hesitance in investing,
• 18:31
  especially over the last 3-4 months.
• 18:33
  People are starting to say we need to conserve runway.
• 18:35
  But I don't know if that's because capital isn't coming in
• 18:38
  or people are just anxious about the world and are uncertain
• 18:42
  about kind of what the economy will look like in six months.
• 18:47
  So we're just sort of, I mean, in some ways stocking up for if
• 18:53
  things do take a turn. So yeah, it's it's all to be
• 18:57
  said right now. I'm not worried, but I'm
• 19:01
  cautious is what I would so. Is, you know, and that's again
• 19:05
  where the power of communications and PR
• 19:09
  professionally professionals are, is because they can look at
• 19:13
  the external world, look at the lay of the land and how things
• 19:17
  are operating and then connect those dots back into what the
• 19:20
  options and opportunities might be for a different company.
• 19:22
  So, you know, it is useful to have that eye on the wider
• 19:26
  market. But you know, as we all know,
• 19:29
  you know, there's the right rules of businesses, there's
• 19:32
  they like some kind of certainty and that just doesn't exist at
• 19:34
  the moment in any sense, correct?
• 19:36
  Correct. I will say the one area that
• 19:38
  does make me anxious is the media because I don't know where
• 19:41
  that is going. And I think that there is
• 19:45
  definitely some kind of a new model at play given the, you
• 19:49
  know, especially in the States, so many of these journalists are
• 19:53
  going independent with Substack. There are massive amounts of
• 19:56
  influential journalists who are just kind of writing newsletters
• 20:00
  and, you know, experts in their field who some have multiple
• 20:04
  jobs. They're not trained as as
• 20:06
  journalists and and those people are.
• 20:09
  In some ways dominating some of these conversations.
• 20:11
  So where we've really had to shift some of our strategy and
• 20:16
  and thinking is, OK, what does modern communications look like
• 20:20
  and how do we, especially for some of these smaller companies
• 20:25
  insert ourselves in just a day to day conversation that's
• 20:28
  happening but not happening through the old traditional
• 20:31
  channels. Those will still be a component
• 20:33
  of this. But you know, how do we really
• 20:35
  work with some of these newer, more independent, I mean, you
• 20:39
  really can't call them publications that are?
• 20:42
  Regulated in the same way either No, they're not They're not.
• 20:47
  That's really interesting because this is a conversation
• 20:49
  I've had with a couple of people is that, you know, particularly
• 20:51
  with the, when PR focuses on media relations, you know, the
• 20:54
  media is just a channel. It's a channel to reach a
• 20:57
  certain audience. And we know this.
• 20:58
  I'm not telling you something you don't know, obviously, but
• 21:00
  it's but the, but recognising the audience and where they're
• 21:04
  getting information from, which is, you know, a whole different
• 21:08
  other channels is so important. It just sounds like, you know,
• 21:11
  recognising the change in the media is going to be incredibly
• 21:13
  important. But I'm, I'm interested a bit
• 21:15
  more on, you know, how, you know, how is this a blip that
• 21:19
  we're going to go through with, you know, trusted media sources
• 21:23
  Are we you know, who owns that information?
• 21:25
  I mean, we've seen already with a lot of the, the kind of the
• 21:28
  various social media platforms. So you kind of own the algorithm
• 21:31
  and own who sees what, how we're going to kind of cut through
• 21:34
  some of those decisions that are made that we can't control.
• 21:38
  And is this just about being more being more targeted, or
• 21:41
  being or diversifying your comms a lot more?
• 21:45
  I don't think it's a blip. I think, I think that maybe
• 21:52
  there was some hope that was a blip a couple years ago.
• 21:55
  I'll just share a quick anecdote that I, I just will remember.
• 21:59
  I remember very distinctly as I, I was doing a workshop for an
• 22:03
  accelerator that that I do some work for and I was talking to
• 22:06
  all the different founders who were there.
• 22:08
  And I asked them because I asked us a lot.
• 22:12
  What is, what is your top source of news?
• 22:15
  And I would say 98% of them, maybe there's one who didn't say
• 22:20
  this, but they said it, it was Twitter at the time, but they
• 22:24
  said Twitter, LinkedIn, Meta. And none of those are, those
• 22:28
  are, those are publications. Those are not, not news
• 22:31
  publications. Those are essentially services
• 22:36
  that people are disseminating information from.
• 22:39
  So it sort of made me go back and think, OK, how do I work
• 22:43
  with my clients to ensure that I'm looking at those almost like
• 22:47
  a newswire, and what are the types of communications that
• 22:51
  are? I can't control the algorithm,
• 22:53
  but you know, how do we work a little bit better on looking at
• 22:58
  those as real distribution channels?
• 22:59
  Less so X now for obvious reasons, but you know, LinkedIn
• 23:03
  with the decline of X, LinkedIn has sort of gone through the
• 23:07
  roof, I would say, in a lot of the ways that they are
• 23:09
  disseminating information now. And how do we adjust and shift
• 23:13
  based off of where people are consuming?
• 23:16
  I mean, do I love that that's where everybody's getting their
• 23:18
  news? No, but is it happening?
• 23:20
  Yes. And I think that's reality.
• 23:23
  And it's my job to, you know, to the name of this podcast cutting
• 23:27
  through. It's to my job to figure out how
• 23:29
  to cut through that noise. And, you know, you still need to
• 23:33
  work with journalists and traditional media, but they're
• 23:35
  all figuring this out too. They're all trying to figure out
• 23:38
  how do we drive more engagement and users.
• 23:41
  And that becomes really, I think just a diversifying of the types
• 23:48
  of people who are talking about the, the news that you have is
• 23:53
  really, really important. And that's just across the
• 23:57
  board. And I mean, even, you know,
• 23:59
  there's certain, I can't remember who said it, but I
• 24:00
  remember reading something about the last election or, or
• 24:03
  something along those lines and basically someone saying like,
• 24:05
  we don't really know how the news works now.
• 24:08
  And I think we all like to say we know exactly how it works,
• 24:13
  but we try to diversify our strategies as much as we can
• 24:17
  through individuals and traditional and podcasts and,
• 24:22
  you know, even conference content and, you know, even some
• 24:26
  paid, right? Because paid's just as
• 24:27
  important. And, and that's becoming more
• 24:29
  prevalent too. And if we can figure that out
• 24:31
  and we try four or five different things, like then we
• 24:34
  can go back after six months and look at the behind the scenes
• 24:37
  metrics of like, OK, what actually led to conversion?
• 24:40
  What were people actually looking at here and and readjust
• 24:43
  our strategies based purely off of what those numbers that that
• 24:47
  my client is seeing as? So there's a lot of adjusting
• 24:51
  and, you know, testing and learning for the first three to
• 24:54
  six months of an engagement. And you know, and I think it's
• 24:58
  really interesting because I think the the world that you
• 25:01
  operate in with tech and startups in particular is, is
• 25:04
  will be at the forefront a lot of these adjustments and changes
• 25:07
  because they are getting information in different ways.
• 25:10
  And I suppose we always assume that they're going to be more
• 25:12
  early adopters of different technology or formats that we've
• 25:16
  always had. So it's been a really
• 25:18
  interesting conversation having on cutting through.
• 25:22
  Yeah, You don't mind me saying one last thing about that
• 25:24
  because I just think like it's sort of when I started, when I
• 25:27
  went out on my own, right, I, my job at IBM was really to drive
• 25:30
  earned media. And when I started on my own,
• 25:32
  that was really what the business focus was.
• 25:34
  And it's still a focus. But I would say over the last
• 25:37
  six years, you know, we very much have realised if we're
• 25:41
  going to stay in business, we can't just be in earned media
• 25:43
  shop. There's just no way that that's
• 25:45
  going to survive. At the end of the day, whatever
• 25:46
  you you think earned is, but the traditional earned media will
• 25:49
  get you placements in the top tier media only will work for so
• 25:55
  long because they're simply are not enough journalists to meet
• 25:59
  the demands of what the clients want.
• 26:02
  There's just not the same ecosystem.
• 26:03
  And it's always great to land a story in the Wall Street
• 26:06
  Journal, but that is a blip for 48 hours now.
• 26:09
  And it's a great thing to hold up.
• 26:11
  But you know, then it's the next week and it's OK.
• 26:13
  Now, what are we going to be doing and how are we going to
• 26:15
  keep that Trump beat going? And you have to figure out the
• 26:19
  right strategies for that. And it's not just traditional
• 26:22
  the traditional version of earned media anymore, in my
• 26:25
  mind. Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 26:26
  And I think that's the really important part of having a mix
• 26:28
  of mix of channels, mix of levers.
• 26:30
  And this is where I suppose the old peso model like, you know,
• 26:33
  paid, earned social comes into a time even more.
• 26:37
  And it doesn't mean it's a trade off or an either or.
• 26:40
  It's the mix and it's the different tactics that we need
• 26:43
  to use. But what it sounds like is that
• 26:45
  you guys are really, you know, living in the dream of cutting
• 26:48
  through that noise where you can.
• 26:50
  So thank you very much for coming on and talking to me.
• 26:52
  I think the, the, the understanding of where the tech
• 26:56
  world is going and how it's adapting and adjusting in a time
• 27:00
  of flux for everyone. And also just hearing, hearing
• 27:05
  you speak that we need to be constantly on our toes and
• 27:08
  flexible and adaptable to the channels that we use, the
• 27:10
  stories we use, and working with clients to make sure that they
• 27:14
  understand and know that that's how they will get the cut
• 27:17
  through, that they want to get to the audiences they need to
• 27:20
  reach. So thank you so much for coming
• 27:23
  on to Cutting Through. And this was Aaron Berger from
• 27:25
  AM Partners. If of course, if you're in the
• 27:28
  tech world, get in touch with him because he can make you
• 27:30
  famous. Thank you.
• 27:32
  We'll do our best. Thank you.
• 27:33
  It's been a lot of fun. I I.
• 27:36
  Truly, I truly appreciate that. So I know it's been great.
• 27:39
  Thank you again for having me on.
• 27:41
  And yeah, this was a really fun conversation.
• 27:44
  Truly awesome. Thank you.