A weekly new home marketing podcast for home builders and developers. Each week Kevin Oakley, Andrew Peek, Jackie Lipinski, Julie Jarnagin, and other team members from Do You Convert will break down the headlines, share best practices and stories from the front line, and perform a deep dive on a relevant marketing topic. We’re here to help you – not to sell you!
Jen
I was going to tell you about my permanent eyebrow.
Andrew
Motorcycle gang. There's so much going on here. What is happening? Let me get my cup of coffee and some popcorn.
Kevin
And I'm highly uncomfortable. I have COVID. I don't know how long I can hang in on this episode, so continue.
Andrew
But you have a special strain of COVID.
Jen
Let's get this going. Don't talk too much. Done.
Andrew
Some good news to go over.
Jen
Yeah. So update on Andrew and I, we climbed to the top of the motorcycle gang ladder again.
Kevin
You're amongst people already? Yeah. Your husband, Andrew.
Jen
Oh, yes, yes, yes. Sorry. Andrew.
Andrew
The other team who just released her book, her husband is Kevin, so it's really confusing.
Jen
Oh, okay. Let me let me clarify. My husband, Andrew and I.
Andrew
Mr. Barkan?
Jen
Yes. Mr. Barkan climbed to the top of the motorcycle club rankings.
Kevin
Have to whack someone.
Jen
With that happen? How do you. I can't. I can't. Well, I guess I could discuss it now that I'm no longer in the club.
Andrew
You're in finance for the FBI?
Kevin
Yeah, sure.
Jen
We both ended up becoming presidents of our respective clubs.
Andrew
It sounds like you said yes to everything.
Jen
And like, it was a whole election. We were voted in. Was like that was a whole thing.
Andrew
No fraud.
Jen
You know, But both being super competitive, you know, once you reach the top, it's like, all right, you know, what's next? And, you know, it was just becoming, was just becoming a lot. And there was contrary to what a lot of people might think, there was some drama and some stuff that, you know, we just like to relax. There's too much drama.
Jen
Yeah, We were just like, you know, we'd rather go, like, play golf and do a bowling league on Wednesday night. So that's what we have decided to do. So we have left.
Andrew
I support that.
Jen
We did not get what's it called, You know, we weren't kicked out. We weren't we weren't stomach punch. Clearly not your stomach punch.
Kevin
Yeah.
Jen
Senator Punched. Senator punched is you know, if you if you're put out bad.
Kevin
But it's called.
Andrew
So.
Jen
We were not put out that we, we gracefully left and yeah we're just having a good time now I'll have to worry about.
Kevin
It. Cut.
Andrew
Cut. Any. Not saying it was the negative thing but yeah I'm all for like if that's not bringing you anything positive.
Jen
It wasn't bringing too much joy, right? It was because even people that sounds.
Andrew
Yeah, but like.
Jen
Yeah it was.
Andrew
Up I have come time.
Jen
So now I'm I'm doing a golf league.
Andrew
That might sound bowling's more frustrating to me golfing.
Jen
Well, you know, I definitely have to talk to myself like, you know, this is just practice. Although I am on a team and we do have a leaderboard and, you know, I'm challenging myself to get better every week.
Andrew
Prediction in 2024 is that might be gone. Golfing is just frustrating. So hard Sport is hard.
Kevin
Is the international show in Vegas again next year? I think it is.
Andrew
It to make us All.
Kevin
Right we'll um whatever day is the lightest we'll just go on the wind course.
Jen
But still.
Kevin
Have a.
Andrew
Sister Three holes. That's plenty.
Kevin
Now, you got to do it. At least.
Jen
Not well.
Andrew
We could do.
Jen
Kevin. Are you good? Do you golf?
Kevin
Of course I do. I, I, I used to be good ish. I mean, if you get under 100 and you don't play very often, that's.
Jen
Yeah, that's.
Andrew
Good. 100 for the first four. The first nine.
Kevin
Yeah. No I, me. Yeah. My old, my old boss was really big on golfing and my rule was, I mean, golf is both expensive and time consuming. So when you're in your early thirties and you have four kids, so like, I'm only golfing when I can do it for work during work hours. So now that no one that I work with basically is like, Hey, Kevin, let's go golfing.
Kevin
I don't golf. I do top golf now.
Andrew
Topgolf sounds.
Jen
Better. I love Topgolf Yeah.
Andrew
I just never got into golfing, but it might have been that. Like, I just very quickly realized to be good at this, I need X amount of swings per week at like each, you know, whatever. But they putting mid range whatever the heck the thing is short game.
Jen
Kevin I'm gonna hold you to this or they're doing.
Kevin
Golf. Yeah no, we should get them. Get yes. I don't know what eight.
Andrew
I'll click on the.
Kevin
Six eight foursomes and we'll, we'll just do a little thing. Yeah.
Andrew
Thursday. What is his speaking schedule. But Yeah. Thursday morning. Thursday afternoon.
Kevin
Hour. Yeah.
Andrew
Okay. As long as it doesn't, it's.
Kevin
A, it's a, it's a nice little course. There they have.
Jen
Oh yeah. I'm sure I seen.
Andrew
From like the window, you know, bunch of players up like oh it looks nice out.
Jen
There. It'll do, it'll do.
Andrew
They'll do it Will do.
Kevin
Yeah. All right.
Andrew
What a life.
Jen
We have too. We were talking about new home stuff now.
Kevin
Yeah, Yeah, I want to, I want to talk a little bit about Nepal, but that's what that's what story time is for, I guess. All right, let's go. Welcome to episode 296. I'm Kevin Oakley. And with me today is Andrew Peek and Jen Barkin. Yeah, Jen finally stopped standing us up. It's been, what, three months since you've been?
Kevin
No, sir. I was getting hate mail. Like, what's going on? Where's Jen?
Jen
It hasn't been that long ago.
Andrew
Two months.
Kevin
I think. Jessie on my list. Yeah. Someone. Fact check. Jen has not been back.
Jen
I was traveling some.
Kevin
You've been busy, Michael Austin. And, you know, traveling and speaking.
Jen
And I think I was visiting a client.
Kevin
Yeah, we don't have those.
Jen
So that's a part. Your partner. You're working? Oh, I was visiting a partner. You're working?
Kevin
Oh, I love it. All right, story time. Let's go. And Jen.
Jen
Oh, I get to go first.
Kevin
Yes.
Jen
Oh, I love this story time because So my son, Sam, you guys, I.
Kevin
Saw this before.
Jen
Yes. So he came to me in the spring, actually, and was like, I think I'm interested in real estate. So really, he'll like, yeah, you know, I really am interested in this. And I said, okay like easy.
Kevin
Money industry I everyone.
Jen
Oh, he's like, you know.
Andrew
He's like, real.
Jen
Yeah, he's like I said, like selling like, like what are million dollar listing? Like what's, what part of it is in.
Andrew
News on Netflix. Yeah.
Jen
Yeah. He's like, I don't know, just all of it. And I said, Okay. So a couple months went by. He came home from college and he was like, came to me again and said, You know, I am really interested in. And I said, okay, well, let's see if there's any builders in our area that are doing any sort of summer internship.
Jen
I don't know. Let's just check and see. Called some friends said, Hey, what's going on? And I said, Yeah. And so I said, okay, Sam, I'm stepping out this is all on you. I'm making the introduction. Now don't embarrass me. Yeah, you know. Yeah. And I even said that to our partner, You know, I was like, Hey, you know, this this is, this is on you and him, and you figure it out.
Jen
Anyway, fast forward. He's been doing this now for a couple of months. He loves it. He comes home and is like talking about he's like, Oh man, this is awesome. Like, I could totally do this. He's like, memorize the stuff on the website. He's memorized the plans. He's talking about pricing. He's like, Hey, these this one couple came and they were just lovely and they wanted this home and I, I got them to get the larger home because why not go for the larger home?
Jen
And he's like talking all this stuff and I'm just like, man, that is so refreshing. I mean, he is like, he came in my office the other day and sat down is like, Let's talk about lasso CRM. Like, what.
Andrew
Did I create happened here?
Jen
I'm like, okay, tell me. And then he's like, you know, let's call the online sales appointments and, you know, and it's just it just reminded me one, like, I'll take any day, I'll take somebody who is an experience but is passionate, is excited, is hungry to learn. You know that energy is I mean, that's that's just that's what it's all about.
Jen
That's what it's all about. And so, you know, they're paying them whatever this internship pay is, Right? Is nothing. But he is just he's just so excited. He's just there to learn. And, you know, as we see saying about us, because we're doing we're helping a lot of our partners hire right now. And the question is always like, do I look for this experienced person that's out there that's been in real estate or and I'm like, No, like, you don't need that.
Jen
We can teach them how to be an online sales specialist and teach them how to be a salesperson. You can teach them all those things, but you can't teach that, you know, that excitement and hunger and drive and that you have when you're brand new. So, you know, I've always, you know, Kevin and I have talked about this.
Jen
I've always been a big advocate of, hey, look at college, you know, college and intern, you know, get a college intern, right? Bring them up, mold them, you know, get them in and teach them and bring them.
Kevin
You don't have to be like the nice internship company like you. You can you can pay them and you can just pay them, you know? You know, they're I'm sorry. And they come out right again. I do have covered folks, so bear with me. I'm also way more excited to be here than my voice sounds. But there are folks who craft internships and like my my niece has been in some where you hear what she's done and she didn't really do anything.
Kevin
Like they almost crafted like an internship experience, like a Disney made an internship and you're like, okay, but there is no skill learned or like work done. It was just like, Yeah, us. We have an intern. Yay! Intern. They like our company. Yeah, you don't you don't have to have that pressure again. I always go back to one internship.
Kevin
I had for the summer. All I my job was to scan in slides of pictures that have been taken all over the world and categorize them. That's all I did.
Andrew
That's science.
Kevin
And technology back then sucked so badly that you'd hit the button and it would not scan in five slides at a time. And it took almost an hour. And so I would hit the button once an hour and then read a John Grisham book and then plug in, you know, everything that was in in each picture so they could have a searchable archive of all these images.
Kevin
It was not like that experience isn't going on TikTok or Instagram reels. Mm hmm. But it's it's a job that needed to be done. So I just think a lot of people don't create an internship position because you're like, I don't think I have something cool enough from the work on or some special big project like just tell them to go sweep out the houses under construction if you want to.
Jen
Right?
Andrew
Right. I had the right my internship was opposite. It was for the American Red Cross in Tallahassee where I'm with the school. And they were setting up their I forgot their command center for when hurricanes came. They had this massive grant from something like 100 something computers. And I worked alongside the guy who actually knew what he was doing.
Andrew
I didn't know. So we set up a hundred stations we like, I don't know the word is, but deployed each desktop from like a server, like all this cool stuff. And then it taught me I hated that type of job. So I was like, This is done with cool. It looks good on a resume, but on my own, right?
Jen
But it's yeah, it's a good way for you to figure out what you like and what you don't like, right?
Andrew
Sam had sales experience before That didn't work at Footlocker, right?
Jen
Oh, Footlocker.
Andrew
Man, did you lean on that? I'm sure. Especially now that and during his because it's really.
Jen
The course needed.
Andrew
Sales and sales or just selling something different.
Jen
Yes it is.
Kevin
You should sell the coolest thing possible, which is a house like I think that's probably like you can you can geek out about details of a shoe, I'm sure. But I mean, the average individual you're trying to sell to probably only wants to hear about three of the 72 things you think are cool. Whereas if like if he likes differential demonstration and like the like if he like, sells, I don't know, like, why would you not want to sell a house?
Andrew
Would be better.
Jen
Hey, he told me.
Andrew
That are drugs.
Jen
He told me last week that.
Kevin
You don't have to sell drugs.
Andrew
Just pharmaceutical.
Jen
Last week, that this feels very natural to him and he's.
Kevin
Cool.
Jen
He's just super excited. So, yeah, mean, I'm really happy for him.
Kevin
That's great. Mm hmm.
Andrew
Andrew Yeah, mine's a quick one, so summer's almost over, actually, when you listen to this. Yeah. Be around the first day of school for our kiddos. We have a middle schooler this year. Why in the world, like, I feel like.
Jen
Hold on to your mom.
Andrew
Like, Oh, I'm so old now. I got, like, you'll see me at the summit. Like, you're like me. And what's this gray stuff coming into Andrew's beard.
Jen
Looking like what happened to Mike.
Andrew
Love? Yeah, Looking like mini Mike over there.
Kevin
Where has he been? Doing his hair for a long time then, or what? What's that.
Jen
About? No.
Kevin
Suddenly stopped dying.
Jen
Teenagers, teenagers. And then it just style goes gray. Okay, so just crazy.
Kevin
There's this one Thanksgiving. I remember my my mom to stop diner hair and she went from like, I didn't know she was dying, her hair. And then all these.
Jen
You were like.
Kevin
Wow. It's like, Whoa.
Andrew
Mom, my mom's not listening. That would be her. My mother did.
Jen
She pointed out like mom with the help.
Kevin
Yeah. I mean, I'm her son, so I can say whatever I want, right? I'm just like, Mom.
Jen
Oh, my gosh.
Kevin
I did. It wasn't a bad look. It was just shocking. It was like, Mom, what happened? And she's like, so silly.
Jen
Mom, that was me. During COVID, are you going to do.
Kevin
With.
00:14:08:16 - 00:14:11:04
Andrew
What's happening here? Here's the employee handbook.
Kevin
It looks distinguished. I've always wondered why people dye their hair like that, but I mean, yeah.
Jen
Oh, man, I don't think I could go through the growing out stage. That would be.
Kevin
Yes. Okay. Anytime we start talking about anything related to fashion, I become highly uncomfortable. So let's move on.
Andrew
So back to this. So kids start school next week. So summer's been, you know, summer is is a blessing. Get to see the kids face more often. But it's also like, oh, my goodness, can you working from home like, can you, like, be consistent with your schedule me talking to the kids because like, hey, it's it's breakfast time.
Andrew
Can you help me out my kiddos it's 1;30. Like, what are you talking about? Like, what day is almost over? It's happening then. So I'm like, okay. CUOMO Adjustment schedules. So this week I've flopped around my schedule. Usually get up in the morning. There's a point to the story and like I go straight to the gym since my birthday was April.
Andrew
So I'm like, I'm just not feeling that like getting up and going there and like, oh my goodness, like not fun. But I do like just wake up at that time naturally, like without alarm, like 435. I'm just, I'm awake. So this week I'm like, I'm a try. Just working for a couple of hours until like what would be seven or seven when I would have to next week get the kids ready.
Andrew
It's been nice. My I forget how nice those times are where like, no one can talk to me even though I can at times ignore or like delay a response, an email or slack if it's not emergency or if it's something that isn't bottlenecking someone else. Like, okay, I could get to that at like 430 or 440.
Kevin
Five.
Jen
Minutes from June.
Andrew
Six from Jen when she's asking weird questions, how to help spot and other stuff like that.
Kevin
You got to get around. To fact.
Andrew
I could all get that, get that later. But it's been so I'm kind of like gaining 2 hours of work time, which is amazing. And then, you know, kids leave earlier because my oldest is in middle school, so they're out of the house by 740. I'm like, This is great. So it's like 40 minutes to get them ready.
Andrew
So I'm like, I'm gaining almost like two and a half hours of time with this new schedule that have It's nice, it's beautiful. I love it. So I don't again, working from.
Kevin
Home or I there's a couple of things. They're like. Andrew One is.
Andrew
Like, I think be more productive.
Kevin
Shifting your schedules, even if it's the same amount of time. In this case, you're gaining some time, but even if it's the same amount of time, a shift is helpful in lots of ways. It just gets you out of a rut.
Andrew
Oh, for sure.
Kevin
You know, it can potentially change or create the opportunity for change of many things just by making that change in any schedule. The second thing I love is the chaos that it creates for everyone else in your life. Trying to figure out what your new schedule is. It's like a fun little extra game within the game. Like my old when I was actually working for real companies.
Kevin
Oh, that's a joke. It's a joke. We always are. Like, I was like, I guess we're a real company now.
Andrew
At 20 so.
Kevin
Much I would always tell different people, different days that I was getting back from vacation, like my boss knew the real day, but I would always tell three different dates. No one really knew when I was coming back and it was just awesome because you're back for like a full 24 hours before the whole company would realize you're back and you could catch up.
Kevin
But just changing your schedule means that other people have to become aware that your schedule has changed and that gives you it's the same advantage of people who live on the West Coast have like they send us, who live on the East Coast, things to do, and we're always behind. Like they leave the office and are like and 5:00 their time, they're like, there you go.
Kevin
And we wake up and we've got this thing to do, you know? So it's it's kind of just there is an advantage to getting up earlier. So because you are always ahead.
Andrew
Yeah, yeah. Agreed. And what I needed it for is like one not not of right but just as far as like when you work from home I see the same. There's my window, there's like if I don't leave the house like that. So to get is that like it's. I feel like I'm going crazy. So you need a change of environment.
Andrew
So this changes that up for me. Like, oh, it's dark outside. Cool. This feels this feels different enough for me. And now I could shift like, all right, here's these must do's are in the morning now versus later. Prior to this, I'm like, okay, we'll get to that. Next thing you know, it's 4:00. I have to do these other things that are build a partner.
Andrew
Work has to get done. So this is like, okay, cool, those things will have to get done anyways. Like I'm not stop a monday until they're done. But here's this other set of things that really have to be done but can kind of be kicked out. Is this.
Kevin
You mean you're going to become no longer a night person or wait, there's worse because I remember some.
Jen
Of morning never been a night.
Kevin
That's right. Yeah, that's right. I just.
Andrew
Remember just like adjusting my morning until your.
Kevin
Phrase. Yeah, well, you're one of the first people I ever worked with who said something like. Like I just go to bed. When I go to bed, like, I can't stay up and keep working, but I'll wear I'll wake up as early as I need to, and it's no big deal.
Andrew
I get up at three.
Kevin
To.
Andrew
Do it, whereas.
Jen
I'm like, I'll work till like.
Kevin
I'll just not sleep.
Jen
Yeah, Yeah.
Andrew
Because in my mind, like, ardern's be done it. Let's say there's something crazy as far as schedule. Like either stay up late until one to do it and it's due the next day at 8 a.m. or just get up at three and you have from 3 to 8. Like it's kind of the same thing.
Jen
What's your natural wake up time given.
Kevin
Natural probably is 6:45. Okay.
Jen
See? Yeah. So like weekend, like if you don't have to get up, you're so waking up and getting up.
Kevin
It's like still waking up around then. And then I usually unsuccessfully try to tell myself to go back to sleep on the weekend. Yeah. Yeah.
Jen
But you don't.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andrew
We are. We were on our vacation like a couple weeks ago. We had a couple of crazy nights. We're out to like two or three in the morning because, like, why not? Even then, I'd wake up at, like, 7:30.
Jen
How did you do that?
Andrew
Well, of course, that day I, like, took a nap later. They. But I'm like, I'm awake. Like when the world like, let's get some breakfast, Let's go. That's crazy. What do you got?
Kevin
My story time. So I went to Nepal last week and that's a nine hour and 45 minute time change. Well, you can. Wow. I have to look up on Wikipedia. Why? It's 45 minutes and not a full hour. Something about the the meridian of every country determines which time zone is supposed to be in. The meridian is the exact center of the country.
Kevin
And then that put too many of the population in a like, you know, I have two time zones in a country as small as Nepal. Anyway so the exact other half of the world. And yeah, what I really wanted to talk about today is just the absolute fun. It is as a curious individual who loves how human psychology works to be dropped in a new culture that you have no exposure to a language you have no hope of understanding.
Kevin
Like when we when we go to Guatemala and I don't speak Spanish, great. But, you know, I know how to say good morning. I know how to say where it's bathroom, like 50 common phrases and I kind of authenticator.
Jen
Yeah, yeah.
Kevin
You're like your mouth moves in, like similar motions.
Jen
Yeah.
Kevin
And so I'm like, I'm going to I want to like, in Nepali, I want to learn how to say like, Hi, how are you doing? And it's like, so da da da. I can't. I give up. I can't. I just tried to use Google Translate. We had translators with us, but like people watching is always a fun thing.
Kevin
People watching in that culture you have no connection to at all is wild and in it like just sensory overload. It was so much fun to try to orient yourself to that, and I think it was just a really good exercise of what marketers should always be doing in relationship to our customers of you can't just make assumptions, you can't not be curious, not be interested, you can't ever think, you know, But in this case, it was all like whether you wanted to pretend that you were comfortable and understood, you didn't.
Kevin
You were. You were starting out at zero. But I was with a couple other folks all week, and they never they never call it like they were there for a whole week. And they're still like, What did he say? Like our translator who's speaking English, They're still just like, What? I can't understand what he's saying or what is happening.
Kevin
And I found myself, I think just because that natural curiosity and body language and and context of for whatever reason, by like Wednesday, I'm like, I know what's going on. I don't I don't really know what's going on. But like, like this one, this one.
Jen
Lady comfortable with the uncomfortable like you were, you started to get like okay with the.
Kevin
Well, you're just you're I think it's also just learning which is my favorite thing in the world to do is to learn. So I'm I'm just constantly absorbing and and trying to translate that and how does it all, how do all the pieces fit together. And so this one example is we were in a remote village and this woman, there's a gentleman there and this wasn't what we did all the time, but find out that the guy is depressed and the wife and all the families there and the wife just starts going off like like my wife would, which helps.
Kevin
So, so she just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And she's making hand motions and I'm like, she's really mad at her husband because she wants to talk and be expressive. And he holds everything in and she doesn't understand why he can't just talk and be like and connect with her. I understood nothing of what she was saying, but I was like, I recognize that.
Kevin
And so what I'm the things I tell people is going to Nepal taught me to look at someone's eyes. His eyes are the same everywhere. And I think that's the other thing anyway. Anyway, I don't even know what the context of all this is, other than the insanely serious.
Jen
Yeah.
Kevin
And attentive. I think that's the other thing. Like in art school, when I would take studio classes, the first thing they teach you to do in drawing class is your connecting your eye with your hand. Most people don't look to see the actual thing we're abstracting. We're like, Oh, that's a bird. And you don't actually look at all the intricate details of the bird.
Kevin
You're just like, this is a bird. My brain says that birds are shaped like this, so let's draw this thing like no, just as your eye moves, move your hand. It's that same kind of connection that it's just especially refreshing when you do not get in a rut, but you start to over assume or you think you've got something down.
Kevin
You start paying attention and that's when you miss the market shifts or the consumer shifts for each. And we have the advantage of what we do. It is an advantage. We don't try to hide it working with so many different companies in so many different places, we're kind of always in this mode of like we're having to take what the builder is bringing to the call or what the data says, and we're abstracted away from it because we don't live in Iowa or California or wherever.
Kevin
So we can pick up those same cues. And it was just a really cool experience and maybe made me realize that like we have to keep being curious and attentive all the time.
Jen
Oh my gosh.
Kevin
Excel.
Jen
I love what you're saying. I love what you're saying because, you know, I take that and I think about it for online sales and I talk to them all the time about like, how do you active listen, you have to be curious and ask questions like if you're doing all the talking, you're not learning anything about them. Like if you were there in Nepal, like.
Kevin
Yeah.
Jen
You were observing, you were active listening, you were not.
Kevin
In a rush. I didn't have a choice. I couldn't talk. So that's all I could do was but like, take it in, right?
Jen
You know, you know, in online channels. I tell them all the time, like, ask questions, repeat back to people when they tell you something that helps you learn and connect with them more. Right. Don't interrupt. I love that And that.
Kevin
And then the the really like final connection piece of was interesting is how they use Tik tok there. Tik Tok in Nepal is not a performance art or even a storytelling art the way it is here. It's so prevalent and used by everyone for everything that everyone would want selfies or group pictures with us because we look strange to them, right?
Kevin
And so they're like, Hey, let's get a picture. It's get a picture. And someone would take a couple of pictures and then someone would be holding up the phone like this. John And they would they would just turn this and we're like, Hi, my girl. She's she's an every day. Every day is are you going to take the picture?
Kevin
They're just recording a Tik tok with no sound, no nothing. It's just going to get posted as here is this group of people standing, which I mean, maybe that stuff gets made and it just doesn't hit the algorithm in the U.S.. Tik Tok. But it was just like saying, yeah, it was. It was different. And so it was a blast.
Kevin
I would always get out of your comfort zone.
Jen
I loved your pictures.
Kevin
I mean.
Jen
Your pictures, you know, like just came into life. You know, as I was looking at images, they're just awesome.
Andrew
Did you did you bring for pictures?
Kevin
What equipment? Yeah. Are we talking nerd talk? Okay, So just like.
Andrew
Okay. Oh, no. All right.
Jen
I got to go now.
Kevin
Okay.
Andrew
Not this kind of work. I got to.
Jen
Go. Oh, I got to guess.
Kevin
No, no, this is it. Because we are an auto show.
Andrew
Like, I knew it had to be simple as far as insta go.
Kevin
Three. Okay, so it looks like a GoPro. It does here. And there. But the thing is, the camera pops out and so you can use a screen still see what you're recording, but I could inconspicuously it comes with a magnetic chest mount. So like Iron Man, that is so I could just record up to 45 minutes with it just stuck right here.
Kevin
No one even really looked at it. It it's.
Andrew
Completely it doesn't look like a camera.
Kevin
And it's and it's magnetic. So you can also just stick it on any metal object you find. So you're riding a tutu. Can you want to get a cool camera angle you just put in? It sucks on the side of the vehicle and you're driving down the Nepali highway at 40 kilometers an hour with bikes. And you know, it's just well, it's a.
Jen
It's the most interesting thing. You ate.
Kevin
Oh, wow. So. TOLLEY Well, yeah, by yoga, they really love their yogurt. So they like fermented yogurt with they grow mangoes there. That was interesting.
Andrew
Mangoes. So they're like almost tropical weather. But then there was a.
Kevin
Hot.
Andrew
Nepal is wherever it is, right? That's right.
Kevin
Yes. I so I'm going to add to my LinkedIn profile that, you know, climbed on it. I climbed Mount Everest because we were in the foothills of Mount Everest. I never saw it when I was on the ground. I didn't see it from the air that was really cool. But wow, even though I was right in front of it, it's so tall and there's other tall mountains in front of it.
Kevin
You can't see it. Yeah. So there is lots of cameras, lots of gear. Maybe that's a separate blog post.
Jen
But very cool.
Kevin
Yeah. All right, on to the news first up from Spark, TerraCom. This one's called An Employee's Guide to building a personal brand. And an article, of course, is great. That's why we pick it. But I'm just going to skip down to the personal brand rules for employees. Yeah, that's Prince's. This is really interesting. So if you're feeling stuck, consider these guardrails.
Kevin
Everyone, please. Like the number of times that these guardrails have been avoided by people in this industry, or just people generally that that we all know. Like, please don't do that.
Andrew
I can I can name those. I'm not naming names.
Kevin
Don't name names, but be mindful of your role within your company. You might not be the company spokesperson. You're your own spokesperson. Don't say or do anything. You wouldn't do it. Work. Give yourself topic guardrails. That's interesting in that yes, similar to what I think we mentioned before, Mark Davidson had to say and will say at the summit is, you know, you can't have a brand unless you are restrictive like this concept.
Kevin
I'm going to be my full self. Your full self is too complex to be a brand. And that's why personal branding is tough in that if you if you decide you're going to talk a little bit of everything, fewer people will connect with that with your personal brand because you're just all over the place. And those are people who know you and just like you.
Kevin
For you, that's fine by giving yourself topic, guardrails will improve your audience growth and and your sanity. And then when in doubt, stick with what you know. Hmm.
Andrew
Great. I like it. I wish I could add another one because someone on our team. I don't want to. I'd want to. I won't say the full story, but, like, she's like, look at this garbage. And it was a salesperson posting. They made their own graphic using the brand's logo, the company's logo now. And it was just terrible.
Andrew
It was just awful. The fans were wrong, like, but they put it look like the brand made it. And so then that should be another one. And they're like proper use of branding guidelines, which is of course nerdier. But like, I mean, the person there, I think they're not being incentivized, but they're being encouraged to like use their own social media to like get referrals and sales and whatnot.
Andrew
But like, oh my goodness, like it'd be better if they just took an iPhone photo, honestly, without any branding because then they throw the logo on there. It's like, Oh, what is this garbage? Then it looks like the brand is like kind of messy. Oh, that's an idea.
Jen
That's really a great article.
Kevin
It is.
Andrew
There's so much and it's written by an employee at Spark. Toro I believe 90% sure. So I'm like, This is even better.
Kevin
Yes. Well, I really like this is a good piece lifted from the article. Don't don't say I want to focus on my personal brand because that's crunchy and icky. Just saying it out loud. Instead, try saying I want to create leverage for myself. I want to make it easier to network with other people, and I want my ideas to serve as a magnet for the people and opportunities I want to attract.
Kevin
And I think that's what, you know, people are naturally connectors for and and go proactively networking. Or if you want to have a good network, you have to find reasons to draw people to you. And I like that definition a lot better of a great, you know, the algorithms do the work for you and that's why the topics do really matter what you decide you want to talk about.
Kevin
If you're going to talk about gardening one day and sales the next, unless gardening was an analogy for sales, it's confusing even to the algorithms to know who should see this content. And and once all the gardeners start interacting with your content, you might get de-emphasize to people who are interested in sales related content. So that's another way to I don't think it's covered in the article, but just also think that you're trying to make sure that the algorithms understand what your personal brand is as well.
Kevin
And air quotes. Great.
Jen
That makes sense.
Andrew
Yeah, I think set in other ways they hyperfocus.
Jen
Yeah you're yeah.
Andrew
Yeah I think that was I forgot his name on Instagram. He is like here's how the algorithm works and it's all what we assume. If people engage with your content, they'll see it more often. If they don't engage with your content by engage, it isn't just like a comment. If they're watching it and their screen time, they'll see your stories more often.
Andrew
If it's a story. So if you're all over the place, then the outdoor algorithm would be like, I don't know who to show this to. Now, the 50 people that really liked it don't like you anymore. Maybe the next batch of people will. Who knows?
Kevin
Yeah, well, everyone famously. You know, you're not supposed to put. If you want better reach on LinkedIn. Do not put the link in. Your post has to be a link in the comments. Why? Because like all social networks, LinkedIn doesn't want people leaving. They want people staying. And so this is again, some where friction should exist between sales and marketing.
Kevin
When salespeople come up with bad ideas or have bad habits, you know, it's no different than when social media first came around. Everyone was like, Well, you got to put their phone number and our hours on the post. Like, I don't know if you remember that, like early Facebook, like.
Jen
Yeah.
Kevin
How are people going to know what to do if you don't give them your phone number, give them more hours and put the physical address of the location and say, come see us today when no one wants to interact with that garbage content again we're having. You have to negotiate with the algorithms. And the algorithms have their own motives and their own things are trying to achieve.
Kevin
They don't want people leaving. And so how weird does it feel to post a piece of content or a clip of a piece of content and not say, Click here to go see the whole thing, or click here to learn more. Every sales person in the world would be like these Marketers don't know what they're doing. The marketers are like, If you want the biggest reach possible, we can't do that thing that you really want to do.
Kevin
You've got to be patient. Yeah, well, that's that's hard. Kevin It is. It's hard for marketers to.
Jen
Who in the organization responsible for like if you see sales doing something that is against this person's operating guidelines.
Kevin
Their online sales coach, and that's that's who's in charge. Jen That's how much a conversation.
Andrew
As Jen.
Kevin
That's good. That's a that's a that's really mean.
Andrew
Who should be in charge of that.
Jen
Serious like.
Kevin
Well.
Andrew
Because it needs to be someone you can't say no to in my opinion. Like you cannot go against that person.
Jen
That marketing leadership. Is it sales leadership?
Kevin
Listen to me. This is one of the rules. I mean, if you're we're going to big companies then and this isn't a hard question because let's be honest, the larger your company gets, people generally are more okay with being jerks to each other when necessary. Right? You're just like, hey, you're you're doing this wrong. Stop it. I've seen 40 other people on this email, right?
Kevin
That that's what you do in a big company in a in a medium or small size company. It shouldn't matter who the person is or the title. Right. And I think the bigger thing is the technique of saying, what are you trying to accomplish? And that's that's that's how you always get people to be great teammates, is you don't say, stop doing that.
Kevin
I can't believe you used our logo inappropriately, you know, Don't you understand? We have brand standards. Look at this demerits for you. You just say, what do you what are you trying to do? How can we help?
Jen
Yeah, let me help you. I was going to say, that's.
00:37:20:23 - 00:37:31:00
Kevin
That's. Can we help you? Yeah. Agreed. Oh, you want people to engage with your content over time? Okay, then.
Jen
Not like to.
Kevin
Comment. We're not going to say, well.
Andrew
Today I want them to call today.
Kevin
Okay. That that's actually a great role play. So you want them to call you John, right? Let's do this. Yeah. Yeah, I'll call you. Okay. So no one wants to call someone they don't know and aren't sure yet if they even are interested in what you have to offer. And the little slice we're giving them doesn't have enough context.
Kevin
So what we have to do is go a couple steps before the call. What would be the thing that in the consumer's mind you think would happen before they choose to call you? What else would you like them to do if they're not going to call you today? What's the thing that would lead them to calling you that you'd like them to do?
Jen
I'd like them to look at my website and get some information.
Kevin
There we go. So, yeah, you're just you're helping them understand that we can get to where you want to go.
Jen
I just wanna recall me.
Kevin
We can't skip those steps.
Jen
No, it seems to be. I say that, you know, I'm not trying to be, but. But this is. This is what happens, right? Is just put my number on there. Just, you know, I want to talk to, you know, and.
Kevin
And and honestly, I think a lot of this goes back on marketers not looking far enough into the future. Again, we all can time travel just pull out a calendar and you can transport yourself into the end of next month. Right. Like so if the salesperson is is crying on the phone saying, I just want him to call me because they only have one cell in on a sales goal of three and they've only had four appointments the entire month.
Kevin
That's shame on shame on everyone. Managers, marketers, operations folks who's been monitoring the data, knowing this person has no chance in hell of hitting their sales goal. And why do we let them just, you know, like like look around like a a lost a lost fish in a fishbowl until the day before. And in a moment of panic, say, I just need people to call me buy a house today.
Kevin
Today. All right. Next up from Zillow's media room, Zillow and Redfin announce a partnership to help buyers and homebuilders connect. This is a this is a big win win win all around for everyone. I think So. Basically, the the content for new construction will come from Zillow's content library. They'll be syndicating the content through to Redfin and in particular because Redfin's had new construction content on it for a while, it's going to be adding the community pages and some of the additional product features that Zillow has created for the new construction product over the last several years.
Kevin
So Redfin gets better content to display to all of Redfin's users that they don't have to worry about building and maintaining. That comes through through Zillow. Zillow gets additional exposure for new construction listings on Redfin, which short story short, when another syndication site kind of similarly imploded a while ago. I'm going to get hate mail just for mentioning that.
Kevin
But, you know, something happened out there in the world and several builders that we work with just said choosing not to work with a syndication partner anymore. But they were feeding data to Redfin and they were they were not concerned about kind of the core product. They were concerned about my homes won't show up on Redfin the way I want.
Kevin
So Redfin has always been surprising. It's a great website, it's a great user experience. But even folks who aren't in typical Redfin markets really covet the Redfin audience. And so that so it's a win for Zillow and for Redfin and a win for marketers who use Zillow to to promote those listings. So there's not it's not very often where you see an announcement.
Kevin
You're like kind of like who won? Who lost in this announcement? I don't think anyone lost anything on Wednesday.
Andrew
No, no one losing on this call.
Kevin
Next up from builder online dot com came okay new do they not own builder magazine dot com is there a different URL? Am I the only one who wonders this? Come on builder. Anyway, new home sales dipped 2.5% in June. Sales slid slightly month over month, but are up 23.8% year over year according to the census. So down new home sales volume down 2.5% June compared to May, but year over year up 23%.
Kevin
Isn't that.
Andrew
Interesting? If they were to say new home sales up 23.8% would be like one. The world's happening as far as like the buyer perception on that versus demand. They're like, oh, the sky is falling, Prices will be super low soon, but you said opposite people like, oh my goodness, I better get some urgency, like it's getting more expensive out there or whatever, maybe.
Jen
But while even just like looking at.
Andrew
The story, you want.
Jen
Numbers, you know, like it's in line with that. Like our our builder partners, like I'm just looking at averages and what we saw an increase in appointment to the sale and the been Q2 and looking at 2022 sales averages and 2023 sales averages it's up.
Kevin
Yeah. And July for most people, you know the first week with the holiday and lots of people traveling slower but the me in the back half of July who it's cranking the number of people who are just like we hit half of our sales goal in the last four days of the month and really continuing into August and rates taking higher.
Kevin
Are higher rates starting to become like a a good thing for new construction? You could argue like they have been, but I wonder if it's even more so making it better because builders have these I mean, there's more value like 5% as a bought down interest rate is kind of like like I'm I'm desensitized to it. I mean the average consumer isn't.
Jen
It seems that.
Kevin
Stuff up but.
Andrew
I thought I saw someone with a 3.9 the other day.
Kevin
Yeah. These are 30 year fixed mortgage.
Andrew
So I was thinking.
Jen
Well, we'll pay for your refinancing, too.
Kevin
Mm hmm.
Jen
So, like, so know, this.
Kevin
Is from Ali Wolf, the chief economist is on to both. Supply and demand are down for housing. Given higher interest rates, today's housing market is all about finding the right buyer for the right home at the right price. And that's a challenge compared to the resale market, though new home builders are doing a better job working with consumers and are gaining market share.
Andrew
Yeah, we had that Kevin article. He sent a few of us.
Kevin
Mm hmm.
Andrew
Builders have to build, Builders build. That's what they do. So they have to sell compared to resale. It's. It's realtors. Realtors gonna sell now. Realtors will sell when they have the opportunity with a listing to sell. But, you know, builders are making the market. I don't if that makes any sense. What I just said the realtors there between the transaction but no one's forcing a seller a homeowner me to list the home.
Andrew
But builders are like, we have to sell. We have a company we have revenue to. Great. And so we'll make it work. And that's where that's where I take the higher interest rates are pushing more people to builders.
Kevin
What's the.
Jen
I mean, the home buyers that are out there have to move and.
Kevin
Move.
Jen
New home builders are getting this getting those buyers because there's nothing else on the market. So.
Kevin
Yeah, is it is it Kesha who sings the song that has the lyrics like Don't Stop.
Andrew
That's for sure. Kesha Yeah.
Jen
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very good.
Kevin
Kevin Good job. Here's the only thing that makes me nervous. This is our next article is also from Builder Online Spec Strategy Drives Record due to Home closings and revenue for Meritage Homes. Listen, there's Really only two options for builders right now. If you want to maintain velocity, the number of units that you are selling in a year, you are building more specs and that strategy works until it doesn't.
Kevin
But I feel like the whole industry is singing this song of of just please don't stop market because if you get caught and whenever this happens and it always does happen, it's going to be a double whammy because at the same time, all of these specs will need to be urgently sold by builders. The the used market will return at that exact same moment.
Kevin
And I someone I don't have it for this this show but we'll try to get it for next week. Someone just did a survey that found that like one out of every four or five homeowners plans to sell their home they live in in the next like three years.
Jen
So that makes total sense to me because.
Kevin
Terrifying.
Jen
I know, but.
Kevin
I wouldn't live through. Okay.
Jen
I know. But I just think that maybe I misunderstood what you're saying, but I just think that there was a lot of people who bought during the pandemic, like as a, you know, and didn't really buy what they wanted. Just bought some.
Kevin
Sell.
Andrew
Because of lack of supply. Like, I need a home.
Jen
Like, yeah, like I don't care or you know, there was just limited and whatever and I think there's going to be a lot of people that are like, I want to move now like I don't this isn't my forever home. I just needed something. I bought it and.
Kevin
I think it was a zonder data report that I saw. Zonda owns Builder magazine as well that showed that I think it was Indianapolis Market and they showed the the START data for spec spec of the inventory in Indianapolis and it had come way down from the peak in January, February of this year, I think. And the question was like, are builders going to replace that?
Kevin
And the top ten builders who are building inventory, pedal the metal like Meritage on our as famously said, we're just going to keep building. D.R. Horton, of course, is going to keep building. And so they are going to gain market share as long as as long as they have that strategy, because a lot of the smaller private builders are like, I mean, we'll keep doing some inventory, but we're not going to go as extreme as we have been because we're concerned about the fourth quarter or where things might go.
Kevin
So don't stop, let it rock. What's the D.J. play that song tonight? What? I don't know. The lyrics, that song.
Jen
Well, let's just forget it.
Andrew
Oh, I have an interruption. Maybe this won't replace Thanks article, but it's random. There's a community that built a spec so this is they built spec townhomes. They did not presale.
Kevin
And that's what I'm saying. It's very common now. Everyone's like, we don't need to be.
Andrew
Location.
Kevin
To build specs.
Andrew
Like I'm like, why would they not pre-sell like am I brand? I'm like, they would have the whole thing would been sold because.
Kevin
They want to maximize their costs and profit margin. I want to know to the penny what so they can maximize and.
Jen
They're creating certainty.
Kevin
They are creating certainty. They're truly building certainty and in profit margin and their theory, which is currently correct, is that every month they don't sell it, it will become worth more. Yeah, right. Right now, values are going up again. Interesting. But that's my point.
Andrew
Another marketing. That's terrible. So like there's there's maybe that seems much more intelligent but the market I'm like, oh my gosh.
Kevin
Like no, I mean, it all makes sense. There's reasons why, but I'm just telling you that, that some projects like that are financed with debt, that it's on a razor's edge like they have to get those units sold within like 45 days of them being done or the whole thing will go under the bank, will repossess it, turn it around, sell off the parts.
Kevin
And most likely that won't happen. But at some point it will for.
Jen
Sounds very scary.
Kevin
I'm not trying to be scary. I mean, looks like we're probably in on it. Like we're going to be selling more or less. I think just.
Jen
More like to create certainty for the builder, but it also creates certainty for the buyer because you know sometimes the pre sell, right? Then it's like, well it's hard to envision what that will be, what will be going on.
Kevin
Right.
Andrew
To you know we went for Kesha we'll go to Billy Joel. Honesty is such a lonely word. So that's all Kevin's doing. He's been the most honest. Here we go. But his name.
Kevin
Sometimes it's things you don't want to know, by the way, here, Like, you know, like sometimes owners are like, You don't need to tell us all that. Like, just let us live in our.
Andrew
Live our life.
Kevin
All right, Last article for the week from The Guardian, the Everything app, Why Elon Musk wants X to be a WeChat for the West. So we chat is not WhatsApp. First of all, I've had several conversations. People like I use WeChat all the time and I'm like, What do you do on WeChat thinking they're going to talk about these other things that the Super app can do and they're like, I text people from other countries.
Kevin
I'm like, That's WhatsApp. That's a different.
Andrew
Facebook.
Kevin
They're an app also green color. But this idea of a super app and Zillow wants to be a super app for real estate, what does that mean that that means they want multiple use cases for the Zillow operate. Now what do you do? You Zillow on the Zillow app, you make a connection and then a lot of that stuff after that connection goes offline or on other websites that they own, like dot loop, they want to bring everything within one app.
Kevin
So imagine if like and I don't think this is what they've said and probably is a terrible idea, but imagine you're in the process of buying or selling a home and at some point you're using the Zillow up so much that just says like, hey, for $50 during the entire course of you buying or selling, you could do everything here.
Kevin
It would keep track of everything for you, all the paperwork here, all the pictures, all the comments, all the discussions, everything is contained in this one app and this archived experience for 50 bucks. Like I would do that and sign me up. Yeah, just.
Andrew
I mean, it's only 30 bucks.
Kevin
But I'm evens try and so Twitter is dead or we're moving on to x but he wants x to be like WeChat meaning get ready for I mean people were immediately asking like, okay, if Twitter is not Twitter, is it still called a tweet? You still retweet? Do you X? What do you what is what's all the lingo?
Kevin
And he's basically saying, look, Twitter was acquired by X Corp both to ensure freedom of speech. That's a question mark. I feel like I have to say that even though I think generally he is trying to do that as an accelerator for X, the Everything app. This is not simply a company renaming itself, but doing the same thing.
Kevin
Twitter made sense when was this hundred 40 characters going back and forth? But he wants you to be able to buy, sell, play games, do whatever you want to do is basically well, WeChat, for those of you who are familiar with WeChat and other countries like it is, it is the Internet. It's like 80, 85% of all Web traffic in some Southeast Asian countries goes through WeChat.
Andrew
Wouldn't that be.
Kevin
It's Facebook combined with Spotify.
Andrew
Kind of like government policy, really influences that.
Jen
I don't know their use.
Andrew
I mean, this is like now we're outside of scope of what I know like, like China, right?
Kevin
Like, yeah, but WeChat is also used, I believe in like Brazil and I mean, so it's it's not a communist plot is like, like we want to see.
Andrew
We're going there that we're going to have to talk about next week. Let's do that.
Jen
Oh, can I come back?
Kevin
Maybe there's a comment. I don't know.
Andrew
I don't know. I'm just thinking like is it's popular and what seems to be more restricted or I've never been to other countries culturally, but like people like, oh, this country is amazing. Like, their culture is so much different than our culture. Like, we are.
Kevin
Like, well, I think like the underdog there is still like to try to keep to try to keep Jen from falling asleep on us.
Jen
Now I am I'm thinking about this. I don't.
Kevin
Know. Do you use Snapchat at all with your kids? So I.
Jen
I have, but I'm not on there regularly. No, I'm not in the habit.
Kevin
I used to be. If you use Snapchat I think is has one of the worst UI like user interfaces. Intentionally so. Intentionally so to make it hard for old people to catch on rap crappy.
Jen
Really.
Kevin
So if you know you know think about how again matter rolled out threads you want to get on threads you got to know how to type and you click this weird ticket thing and the thing spins around. You get access right. It was a this is intentionally like strange or difficult to get to. You can use Snapchat for years like I did and not know that there is some core functionality that every all the kids are using.
Kevin
Yeah, once you know it's there and you're like, Oh, of course you just click this over here and now you can see where all your friends are and you can do this thing and that thing. I think WeChat, it just, it's like this never ending spiral of like catching. All my friends are here, I'm all connected. If I want to play a game or order food or watch a movie or like, it's just all in all in one one spot and it's to my bank account and my credit card.
Jen
And and I guess the the old lady in me does have like I would be hesitant to add everything connected I guess is what I'm saying.
Kevin
Like what? Yeah, well.
Jen
I don't know if I would.
Kevin
Want. That's why I think you want. So what does the island have going for him? Yes. Tesla. If X becomes the way to gain access to or control your Tesla and he's like, forget the Tesla app, it's now part of X. You want to get access to your car, you're going to X. Oh, and by the way, you can also communicate with people and follow Ashton Kutcher and, you know, do this and do that.
Kevin
All in the same place. Yeah, but the history of the US has generally been that things don't. What's the word I'm looking for? Converge? Things generally don't converge the way we expect them to where like like you could back in the eighties or the early nineties you could get a really nice boom box I android you know what a boom boxes.
Kevin
Yeah Have you seen that movie say anything?
Andrew
Oh I don't if I'd seen a movie but I definitely had a.
Jen
Oh my gosh.
Andrew
So anything that was probably Gen might have graduated high school when I came out I was 49.
Kevin
You know you've got you've got the Boombox, which has a tape player, has the radio, it has.
Andrew
Like standing with it.
Kevin
A lot of things on one. Yeah. But rack systems were the deal. Like if you were really into audio you had a rack system because each component was exponentially better or higher quality or whatever. And so the idea is you're going to converge. And we do have convergence in the phone for a lot of things in our life, but almost everything else that we tend to go towards specialized tasks for an object, even though it could like go in your kitchen.
Kevin
Alton Brown I got I got this thing from when I saw him in person autograph. I mean, I love it, but one of his rules is like nothing in my kitchen can only do one thing. Everything. My kitchen has to have three purposes. I mean, for I don't like you could you could have a bazillion gadgets that all do one thing.
Kevin
True.
Jen
Because then you have less and it's more efficient is what you're saying.
Kevin
Yeah, but that's not generally where, like, our stuff obsessed culture goes. We're like.
Andrew
We were like premium.
Kevin
The we'll get the doodad that does the one thing like super amazing I use it twice and then throw it away.
Andrew
I feel like this only will work if there's either acquisition of like Venmo or Cash app or they partnered together. Somehow we're then it's like enough people that fit the right of.
Jen
Five didn't say Spotify.
Kevin
So yeah, I don't know if anyone cares that we're still talking about this really, But like, where did he on come from? PayPal.
Jen
We lost everybody, everybody on space.
Kevin
Ellen Ellen came from PayPal, so it's not it would not be weird to be like, Hey, PayPal's struggling excuse me, PayPal is struggling as a corporation. Let's just acquire them. Let's roll them into X. Hey, let's grab a Spotify now. I've got music I made. You know, Spotify has as much video content on it. Now. There's no no.
Kevin
Like, if you if you want to try to control your you want to try to control your eight year old screen time when you're thinking, well, but he likes listening to his kids music on Spotify now. Now there's like entire playlists that are just YouTube videos on Spotify for you to watch.
Andrew
Yeah, sounds sounds like someone got their iPad taken away after that.
Kevin
Yeah, they did. Yeah.
Andrew
I'm sure that's like a sounds like our house.
Kevin
Oh, goodness. All right, let's go to favorites and get the heck out of here. Do we have favorites? I can go first if you're if you need a second.
Jen
You my favorite thing right now is are my new Hoka walking shoes.
Kevin
Oh, interesting.
Jen
Do you guys have. Yes, it is. Yeah, It's okay. They're super kind of like clumsy looking.
Andrew
I mean, I ask Olivia on her team if they're okay to wear or not.
Jen
She's hot. I think Olivia would have.
Andrew
This.
Jen
Detector. I think Olivia would approve.
Kevin
We did ask everyone on the marketing team today who owns Crocs. There are only two people who raise their hand, so they own crocs for themselves. They're back, And I think they're also good style.
Andrew
People ask us out, Does Sam have crocs?
Jen
Absolutely.
Andrew
And I see where socks with them.
Jen
Absolutely.
Kevin
Absolutely is. It's Dr. Seuss socks with Crocs.
Andrew
He prefers Nike socks with.
Kevin
Locks.
Andrew
Nike other like that, like there.
Kevin
Are. All right, cool. So you got shoes, Andrew what about you?
Andrew
Meaning favorites. I've had a because my new schedule so I wake up, I drink coffee in the morning which coffee would be hit or miss? But most of the we get our coffee. I still love my Nespresso machine. Oh, but here's the thing. I'm like, What is this on the counter? I thought I was making a mess on the counter.
Andrew
I think it's broken like something's leaking out of the bottom. It's just like, Oh, I'm like, I.
Jen
And then it's like a little thin thing, like.
Andrew
Kevin Well, the spin thing called different, different budget category, but I think they might be a longer I'm.
Jen
Over here in the kitchen.
Kevin
My PR Oh, when you have to buy those pod things for you.
Andrew
That's what I made this. This was like a dollar 20. I think the spent thing might actually in six months like pay for it.
Kevin
The spend does use more coffee in the process. I think because it so it seems to consume whole being coffee at a faster rate than you would expect per cup.
Andrew
So I have to do my I'll throw it in Excel but it's good analysis. So what happens.
Kevin
Oh I'm going to go with closing clothing to Jen, which is a shocker for Kevin. Yes, but cool. Q hl I think is how you pronounce company. And then there's another one called Howitzer. I think it's like a monkey. But their shirts that I got going to Nepal because it's 120 degrees in the sun, 105 in the shade.
Kevin
And so it's these shirts that are made out of essentially bathing suit material. And I'm wearing one now and it feels great and like, you can sweat like a pig. And then five.
Jen
Minutes later, a fever, covered fever. Yes.
Kevin
No, I love it.
Andrew
I'll take it.
Kevin
They they don't wrinkle. They're just like a perfect shirt for summer, which is almost over. Sadly. Very cool. All right.
Andrew
Well, the favorites.
Kevin
That'll do it for this week. We'll see you next time, everyone.
Jen
Thanks, guys.
Kevin
Yeah, Bye bye.
