Sharon Mostyn Talks Marketing Budgets, AFTA, ChatGPT and AI

Transcript

Dave 0:00
Welcome to the agency balanced podcast season two. I am so so excited to bring an amazing guest to you today. Sharon Marston Sharon, welcome.

Sharon 0:12
Thank you. I’m so excited to be here.

Dave 0:15
Sharon has an incredible, incredible bio and background I, we’re gonna have, we’re gonna have fun here for the next I don’t know, however long we’re gonna talk. We’re gonna talk. Sharon has founded the Moston Marketing Group. You’re a Google partner agency really specializing in measuring, optimizing for marketing and advertising, both on the b2b b2c nonprofit. And what I like the aft A, the agency for the agency, I love that I’m gonna we’re gonna dig really into that experience with web analytics, social media, paid search, SEO, email, messaging, and leveraging optimization throughout that journey. So wow, we’re gonna we’re gonna come back to your bio, because I want to dig into all the things I’ve looked at your LinkedIn profile, you got a lot going on girl. I’m gonna hit you right out of the gate with a with a with a question. So I know you attend a lot of events, and you’re on other podcasts. And you’re, you’re in it every single day. So can you share with our listeners, one thing right now, one thing that you’re seeing in our industry, that just has taken you by surprise, or shocks you.

Sharon 1:35
So the thing that has taken me by surprise recently, is the easy acceptance of AI. And not just from the whole computers are taking over the world perspective. But also because, you know, there’s so many things, and so many things that need to be optimized, and that needs to be reviewed, it really isn’t necessarily the quick and easy solution that so many people see it, you know, you have to build a really good query to get any sort of decent result. When you get that result, you need to fact check it because there have been any number of examples where AI has pretty much made up the results, you know, things like, you know, chat GPT, for example, stopped learning in 2020 to 2021. And so anything that’s current events, you know, if you want to talk about the Tony Award winners for 2023, or the 20, Tony Award nominees, all of that information is not in there. And so it could make it up. And you could be in a lot of trouble by using just kind of straight out. And then not only do you have to fact check it now you have to make it sound like it’s coming from a real person rather than a Wikipedia entry. So AI is the the big surprise to me that everybody’s really just like, all in on AI. Right off the bat.

Dave 3:02
Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up. Because I mean, AI has been around for a while now. It’s been around forever. But what we’re doing with it is different, right? I think we’ve seen what we saw in the pandemic, 10 years of acceleration in a year’s time in the tech. What I’ve saw happen in the first quarter of this year was like two acts that like the speed in which we’re moving. There’s a couple things right like that, for me that comes to mind. And I want to ask you about some of these. One is like privacy, right? And the like, holy crap, we got to slow down here. And like, like you said, about fact checking and making sure that we’re, we’re doing this in a responsible way, I think so. My advice right out of the gate is slow down what you’re doing with it to like, be purposeful. I mean, I think there’s a place for it, right? I don’t think it’s going to, it’s going to it’s not going to eliminate us as humans. I just saw a study where they went head to head with like a chat GPT versus an accountant in the finance world. They both took the the accounting exam for like the CPA, and the the human had passed with like a 74. I think you need to see, and then the, AI bot failed. So they’re not replacing us, you know, they’re not, you know, the days have not yet. So But talk about that a little bit deeper about privacy, and because I care about that a lot like security, privacy, you know, what, what have you seen? What can you share more about that?

Sharon 4:31
So GDPR in Europe is, you know, is still kind of the de facto standard, if you will, but if you look not only now as California have their privacy policies and you know, regulations in place, but there are at least five other states that within 2023 have some sort of privacy policy regulations that are going to end impact us, I think it’s going to be a challenge from, from a marketers perspective, to make sure that, you know, everywhere, you know, your everywhere your marketing, you’re following those guidelines. And I think, you know, similar to other, you know, other situations, you’re gonna have to kind of find the the most strict in those areas that you’re marketing and go from there. There’s also been a huge in the healthcare in the healthcare industries, there’s been a huge gap, like you said, hockey stick influx of HIPAA regulations and how HIPAA is tracking in Google Analytics, you know, with the GA four transition, that was supposed to help. But some of the some of the legal opinions that I’m seeing, really are saying, We don’t like we don’t trust Google at all. So that’s a scary one. And you know that there are a lot of companies that will be impacted by that.

Dave 6:09
So if I’m out there, I’m listening to this. And I’m like, having an Oh, crap moment. And I know some of this stuff, and maybe I don’t know, some of this stuff as a listener, how do they I mean, other than just Googling it? Is this where you come in your your group comes in to help companies? Or how can they? How can they learn more about this, this what’s going on?

Sharon 6:30
So I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t play one on TV. But I do, you know, based on what we’re seeing with other clients, and it’s, you know, it’s not just marketing master marketing group, it’s, it’s any trusted advisor that has experience in your industry, with your, you know, with your target audiences, in your geographic locale that can help with with things like that. But you know, but yes, we, you know, we do provide guidance, or recommendations based on what we’ve seen other clients implement. And you know, and we, you know, we we preface it all with, we are not lawyers, and, and you need to check with your legal counsel, because, you know, the same way as marketers, some are a little bit more free flowing than others. Lawyers are the same way, some are a bit more conservative than others. And depending on the industry, you may really need one of those conservative legal opinions.

Dave 7:31
That’s great advice. Yeah. If you’re not working with legal counsel, or you haven’t in a while it’s good. It’s good to touch base with him, you know, maybe who, who you’re using as your lawyer, if they’re part of a firm, that your point of contact may have helped you with maybe like contracts or something like that, that this might not even be in their realm. But ask them I bet you somebody in their firm, has, has dealt with this already can point you in the right direction. So that’s great. That’s really great advice. You said something there that I that I started a LinkedIn post yesterday. And this is the way I write and I create videos, like I’ll just write it, or I’ll record it, and then I won’t publish it for a little bit. I’ll go like walk around, and I’m like, let’s make sure that this is sounding okay. And after I reread this post, that I it was a rant, and I was like I need to I can’t post this. This is just a rant. No one wants to hear Dave Snyder ranting about something. And it’s about email. Take Take a guess. Over Under 25,000 unread emails in my inbox?

Sharon 8:34
Oh, I would hope under But nope, twice

Dave 8:38
that. Nope, twice that 47,000 unread emails I have. I get so many emails in a given day, to the point where I’m almost ready to just, I’m done with email, I’m not going to use email anymore. If you know me and want to get in touch with you, you will. Alright. I’m probably won’t cut off email. But what has bothered me with email is two things. I want to circle back to the AI thing because some of the emails I get, oh, they sparked by interest, that person’s name. Maybe the subject line is just custom enough, though, that it’s not out of the box. But then I read the email and it’s purely like generated. It’s using automation. It’s so poorly put together, or it feels so dated. Like they wrote it a couple years ago. And it’s like set it and forget it that drives me bonkers bonkers. But here’s the bigger thing. You talked about GDPR and these regulations of what’s going on. How is it that companies are still emailing me that I’ve never contacted that I’ve never opted in? That I’ve never reached out to for legitimate business consent. How are they doing this? How are they reaching me?

Sharon 9:55
So that’s a can spam compliance if you’re in the US or castle if you’re in the income Uh, and basically, what they’re doing is they’re working around loopholes. And the loophole is that you can contact someone general guidelines or once with a list that you know, that you’ve acquired, whether that’s at a trade show or you know, through other nefarious means, maybe AI. But, you know, if you, you know, if you the way that the can spam laws and with email laws are written, it says you have to do some of these things, you have to identify that it is an advertisement, you have to give a physical address, not a PO Box, a physical address, you have to give them an option to opt out, all of those things that you have to do in order to be can spam compliant, don’t necessarily mean that they can’t email you, it just means that they have to give you that option. Now, if you respond to those emails, then they’ll put you on another list that gives you all else. And hopefully, that’s a large part of the 40,000 Plus emails that you have unread. But you know, and the crazy thing is that we don’t just see it in email, we see it in social media as well, especially on platforms like LinkedIn, where people can message you and say, Hey, like, hey, like, I saw that you’re hiring. I haven’t hired a day in Monster marketing history. So So don’t tell me that you saw that I’m hiring, you know, same type of thing on on, you know, Facebook, and Instagram and things like that, where people commenting on your posts, and they’re like, oh, like, here’s the, you know, I follow everything that you post, and I really am excited by it. And and you know, that they’re just spares that because they’ve posted the same thing on 57 things that you’ve you know, that you’ve created. And you know, that if you look at other people’s, they’re doing the same thing. They’re, you know, they’re spammers, they’re nefarious. And, you know, there’s, it’s tough to really get rid of them, whether it’s in your email inbox, or in your social media, or really any other channel at this point.

Dave 12:24
Yeah, there’s just so much that’s clogging up the works right now. So if you’re listening, don’t be one of those people clogging up the works. Because I will block you, I will not click anything, I will unsubscribe it, I’ll do my hardest to block you. Or I just, I just don’t even I don’t even the problem with that though. The problem with that is when I do get important emails, sometimes I miss them. Sometimes I miss them. So that that that becomes, you know, part of the part of the problem, that it’s interesting, you brought up about the social because I have been seeing that as well, not just on LinkedIn. I mean, LinkedIn is horrible with within mail. And what I’ve tried to do, personally, because, you know, for sales when I’m doing cold outreach, and that’s one of the things that I’ve really been doing is a lot of cold, is I really take the white glove approach, and I try to make it as personable as possible whether it’s sending a personal video, or it’s not even coming out of the gates, guns blazing, trying to sell. It’s, it’s just trying to humanize the conversation. So I think if you’re using AI, you really got to think that think about that. And just when you think you’ve, you’ve got it all figured out, test it, roll it out slowly. There was a client, I’m sorry, not a client, a prospect, a prospect that we were speaking to that it was having difficult difficulty with deliverability. And they were doing all the wrong things. They were doing these things where they didn’t slowly test it. I mean, they fired up their email programs. I’m not gonna say the systems are who they are, but like they fired it up. And they were like sending like a million emails right out of the gate, like right out of the gate. Like, come on, you got to warm up your domain, you got to warm up your IP, you got to like go through this motion and test things. So it’s really important from a compliance from a privacy. Getting lawyers involved. It’s it’s really important. It really is. But thanks for sharing some of the social stuff. How does that play into like, the difference between like, the paid side of it, so you’re involved in the paid correct paid search? Yeah. How does that how does that play into like the spam Enos of it, like, I know, like, you know, obviously, we’re all trained. We all have trained eyes. Now if we see something that’s sponsored or whatever, but do you do you see any problems with the paid side of things with with kind of spamming us or what we’re talking about with AI or anything like that?

Sharon 14:52
So, from a pizza pay perspective, one of the things one of the positive things that I’m seeing AI help with It is if you build the query, right, you can use AI to generate headlines and descriptions, for example, in Google ads, or Microsoft ads, and create, you know, 100 of them, or 50 of them, or 25 of them, and then narrow them down based on what you think would be resonating, you know, the whole idea behind Google’s or any search engines. But you know, we’re a Google partner. So I’ll use Google as an example. But the whole idea behind the Google bidding process is that it uses AI and has used AI for years to determine which ad it thinks will perform better, and serve that one at a higher, you know, at a higher position. So it’s, you know, it really is, there are positive AI things too. But, you know, I think that from a, from a paid perspective, we see less spam, because they have to pay for it. And if you know, if they’re not paying for it, then you know, if it’s not working for them, then they’re not paying for it.

Dave 16:12
Ya know, now that’s, that’s good. That’s the way I see AI really helping as well, I the way I kind of like summarize what’s what’s going on right now how you can apply it is like, one yet summarization used AI to help summarize what you’re doing to help maybe draft some things to use it to help with the quick repeatable tasks that you’re doing over and over and over again, there you go, a great example, bid management or, you know, what, what’s outperforming A B testing, you know, use the better, right. The other cool thing is, with analytics, I’m really seeing a lot of our software partners, one last SalesLoft, we’re we’re using, they’re just rolling out a new dashboard called rhythm. And from a sales perspective, what they’re doing is they’re they’re putting all of your to dues in this dashboard, you need to follow up with this person, this one’s red hot, this one needs an email, this one needs a LinkedIn touch, whatever it might be, but it’s using AI based off of past data to say that this is your best next step to engage with this prospect. So it’s using AI and that what it’s doing is prioritizing, and I’ve always talked about prioritization is your superpower. So if you can use AI to prioritize, and that frees up an hour more of your day, to do things like help clients sell more, do more of the things that you want to use your brain power to do versus using AI? Absolutely, go for it and use it.

Sharon 17:44
definitely agree. That’s, you know, that speaks to the balance of the good and the evil in AI, the balance of the AI and the humanization in marketing, because, you know, even though it generates that list of all of these, you know, options for you know, for testing, you’ve got to make that determination as a as an a human as to what’s going to resonate best with your audience, you’ve got to make that resin that that, you know, that specific decision on prioritization to say, you know, what, AI thinks that this is my next best step, but I’ve, you know, based on my experience with this person in the past, or based on, you know, based on my experience with people like this, they’re less likely to respond to an email than they are to a text message or phone call or whatever. You know, I have one client who specifically said, like, don’t text me, he’s like, if like, if you want my attention, he’s like, call me send me an email, I may or may not be able to check my email. He’s like, but do not text me and that like that’s based you know, so if the AI says, you know, kind of the next step in the cadence is, you know, first we email that we text them we this, you know, based on what I know of this individual, you know, that human balance, then you know, I’m skipping that step.

Dave 19:10
Yeah, communication is understanding how people want to communicate is now more than ever important. You know, I just talked about me breaking through with you breaking through my email, texting for me I’m like, Okay, it’s like a fine line for me in texting like, like we gotta we gotta like have a good rhythm before you can start like just texting me if you come out of the gate cold like texting me a bit Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You’ve you’ve crossed the line my Amazon account has not been suspended you cannot be spared. That’s good stuff. So I want to dig a little bit more in your background because you just I just reading over your stuff. I’m just like, mind blown. So 30 plus years doing this now. You’ve you’ve you, weren’t you? Hell? about b2b and b2c, and nonprofits, like the whole gamut, like, talk to me about the differences there, maybe what you’re seeing kind of given the whole economy shift right now, like, if you can kind of share on differences and maybe how the tactics and some of the services differ from point to point, or maybe they don’t.

Sharon 20:20
So I think it’s really more from the perspective of the size of the business. So small, medium business versus enterprise clients, whether it’s b2b, b2c or nonprofits, I think that there are different challenges that those SMBs the small medium businesses are facing right now, you know, as the economy gets bigger, has bigger issues that are going to impact those small and medium businesses, more and small and medium nonprofits more immediately, quicker than they are, you know, on an enterprise level. And so that’s kind of where we’re seeing the biggest changes right now is, you know, is is we’re seeing that that initial curve of spending drops in the small to medium businesses, but enterprise keep spending, you know, so it really, that I think, you know, when when COVID hit, we saw everybody, there was a flurry of information, everybody wanted to, you know, we need to send out an email and put some kind of banner up on our website and, and send out something on our social media, and then everything kind of fell off the cliff. And that was kind of across the board. We were very fortunate in that we had a client who was a global turnaround restructuring company, and they recognized as you know, as the COVID experience started to linger on that there were going to be a lot of companies needing their services. So they, you know, they ramped right up and said, you know, give us everything you got, but we really talked to all of our clients then about how to do all of those things that they’ve been putting off for years, you know, every time you talk to a business owner, and they say, If only I had time to start a blog, revamp my marketing, strategy, redesign my website, all of those things, you know, like we are, you know, our recommendations to them were, now’s the time, you have the time. And I think that we’re, we’re kind of almost at the opposite end of that, in that everybody is so focused on I’ve got to make money right now I’ve got to, you know, I’ve got to get all the squirrel all the money away that I can, you know, in case something happens in case something goes bad. And so I think that there’s is almost a frantic pace to, you know, to marketing right now in the small media business, to really make sure that you’re doing all the right things. And that’s kind of where performance marketing comes in. And that measurements of you know, what’s working, what’s not working, let’s, you know, drop everything off that is not is not as effective as other channels as other creatives as other everything. So I think that’s kind of what we’re seeing right now, across the small medium business. Like I said, enterprise level clients, they’re really they’re continuing to do what they’ve done in the past. And, and they’re really not it, at least in our experience. We’re not seeing them hesitate.

Dave 23:45
Okay. So we talked in the beginning about, you know, what a shock to you. We talked a little bit about privacy, we talked about email, we talked about paid all those all those good things. I mean, talk to me a little bit. So you do some traditional Right? Or do you still do still do any traditional like, like TV media or anything like that direct mail,

Sharon 24:03
my background is direct response marketing. So I spent 20 years in the direct response television agency, the idea behind direct response is that there’s always a call to action, do it today, call now come in to our website, visit our stores, there’s always some form of measurement, how many people actually did what we asked them to do? And then there’s always some form of optimization. So what worked? What didn’t, you know, how are we making it better? So I want to make her said 100 years ago, maybe even more than that, at this point. 50% of my marketing works. I just don’t know which 50%. And basically, the idea behind direct response is we measure it and we tell you, which 50% is working and how we’re going to make that work better. And we tell you which 50% isn’t working, and how we’re going to make that work. And so that like I said 20 years ago was done via TV because we didn’t have On the internet the way that we did. So with that background, I do occasionally still get requests for TV. There are situations that like Ott, or over the top, where you layer digital targeting onto traditional TV, in order to find your target audience in order to measure things like that. So there are opportunities there to combine that online and offline. We do still occasionally for clients do TV, radio, print, direct mail, billboards, we’ve even done bus ads. So it really is finding that right target audience for you know, whoever the client is, sometimes they’re more offline than they are online.

Dave 25:43
Yeah, that’s really important. If you have your ICP defined and I’m sharing with with our clients right now and prospects that I talked to, I’m like, if you haven’t revised your ICP in a while, now’s the time to do it. A lot has changed over the last couple of years. And even the last six months, your ideal customer profile who you’re selling to your persona, you know, we have in our segment, I mean, you know, manufacturers and I’m talking to a lot of manufacturers are taking this time right now this opportunity, where they’re like, hey, sales are pretty good. We don’t need to be focused on inbound, outbound, but let’s operationally get better. So that when we when it comes time, maybe in 2024, when we do need to market that we will be ready. So I am I am seeing a lot of you know, companies be smart about this, this time saying, hey, let’s let’s get some of our tech stack, right, let’s get get our website in a good spot. Now’s the time to do it work our smart acre, we’re investing in productizing some things too, which is really exciting. But the point is, don’t forget about some of those traditional media’s I think we’ve we’ve layered in some some direct mail, we’ve layered in some, especially for high touch outbound things that are going on right now. If you can crack like I shouldn’t. So am I sending it to the office? Or is it their home office, just send it to the office, it will route to the correct person. But the beauty of that that can still be tracked, right, like, you know, you can request a signature, and you can get the signature make sure that it was found. And there’s there’s a lot of tricks, you know, around that. So, very interesting, very interesting stuff. Let’s, let’s switch gears a little bit here. Okay, we’re about balance here. You mentioned it about balancing AI. And but I would love to learn from you a little bit. And everything that you got going on? How do you find balance? Like what is what do you believe in balance? Do you think that there’s balanced? Like, what do you do? What can you share with our listeners about balance,

Sharon 27:38
to balance? So I think it for me, from from the perspective of balance, you know, I, I try and find time to spend with friends and family to spend with my husband and the kids, our grandson, and future grandbaby. You know, that, to me is kind of my important balance time. And I try and turn off at least one day a week, whether that’s a Saturday, Sunday, you know, whatever, try and turn off as much as I possibly can, you know, put the phone away, and, you know, be in the moment and enjoy that balance. Now, what that means is sometimes I’m working 1214 hour days to accommodate that balance. But you know, it’s worth it. To me, it really is, because I think that the balance between work and home life is often in different stages in your life is often skewed one way or another. And, you know, as you know, as I’ve gotten a little bit older and and, you know, recognized that and I’ve seen some examples where people who, you know, work 24/7 until they, you know, get to a certain point where they keel over their desk, and, you know, that’s, that’s not the way I want my balance to go. I think that, you know, there needs to be a balance there. It’s tough as a as a mostly solopreneur to, you know, to have that balance because I don’t have the executive level staff that can come in and say, hey, you know, you know, here’s, here’s what’s going to happen while Sharon’s away. It really does kind of all come down to me. But with that said, I did take a couple of days, over the last couple of weeks to to take a nice trip with my husband, and that really refreshed and renewed my drive for the business. My you know, my thought process sometimes you know, you just need to step back from a project in order for the solution to come to you i And so there were certainly times where I grabbed the phone and was like, Oh my gosh, like I had this idea. And you know, did it stop me from dolphin whale and turtle watching? Not so much?

Dave 30:14
Oh, that sounds amazing. Yeah, it is, it is good, he’s good to to, to make sure you change the scenery around you, especially if you’re in a remote home work from home environment. Like yesterday I worked in three different places just driving around, outside inside, in a busy area, I made sure I had my noise canceling headphones for the busy area, but it was good it was I got a lot done. And I like the unplugging too sometimes like we get, like we get just sucked into, like the digital devices and like I use my iPad a lot when I’m on the road and around but I’ll sometimes I won’t connect to Wi Fi. And that won’t get me sucked into the the apps that I’m using my email. And I could just write some things. Some that you talked about, you know, making sure that you’re finding things to enjoy your family and prioritizing them first. Retirement Age is 67 life and life expectancy is 78. So we’re working 50 years to maybe enjoy 11. This, I’m reading this this is what this is what I came across my social fee, I think is on LinkedIn, start enjoying life now. No one is guaranteed tomorrow. So I just I think that’s really important. Whatever phase that you’re that you’re in, you got to make sure you’re prioritizing enjoyment. Because if you’re not then then you’re I talked about this in an earlier episode. It’s like you have to work so many hours in a week, and then you’re left with so much to sleep and then you’re left with so much for your whatever personal time, family time, whatever, right? But if you’re not putting that some of that stuff first and you’re not doing some things that can be really difficult. So I’m glad you shared some of that with me.

Sharon 32:05
Sleep is overrated.

Dave 32:07
Overrated. I really like sleep, but but I like a good sleep. I don’t need like a gazillion hours. Like, I’m good with like a seven. Like if I get seven hours of solid. That’s,

Sharon 32:22
that’s good when

Dave 32:24
Yeah, I’m not up for I don’t like working. Like for me, I like me personally, I’m a little different. So like, I would rather work a little bit every day, just like a little bit and then do other things. And that’s probably because I’m like, I’m kind of like the not even on on like coffee, like I’m all over the place. I like to like, do a little this and then move on to that. And then I’ll get really focused on something. But versus like, if I have to power through like 12 hours and stuff. Oh, that that’s straight that’s draining on me that that really hurts. That really hurts. What, um, what’s coming up for you? Kind of as you’re looking into the middle of the year, the second half of the year, have you been to some some events? Talk about, you know, have you been able to do some online stuff. I I’ve seen a lot of events come back this year, I’ve been able to go to some live, which I think has been kind of almost like I was pinching myself I’m like crowds still a little smaller event but like it’s like back to quote unquote normal? What have you been seeing? Or what do you have anything coming up that you think is worthwhile that you can share?

Sharon 33:36
Um, so I actually just did an online webinar this morning on brand versus performance marketing, which was an interesting one, and you can get the, kind of the replay of that. But from a from an in person perspective, I am speaking in a couple of events, I just did one there was like a Brand Builder type event. And by Brand Builder, I mean performance in brand. And then I’ve got another one coming up in in June out in California, where we’re gonna be talking about franchises and how that franchise marketing is different than, you know, kind of the corporate focus. More local SEO and local marketing type situation. I found Google business profile is going to play a huge part of that, because the reviews and Google business profile, go into your you know, into your SEO value. And you know, when you look at the map pack, you see you know this one has five star rating with 20 Reviews and this one has five star rating with one review which one do I pick things like that. Then later on in the year for for the nonprofits, nonprofit clients. I’ll be attending the Maryland profits annual conference, they actually had an in person event last fall. And it was to your point it was a little bit a little bit quieter, but it was still, surprisingly, pretty full. And so I think that I think, like you said, the in person events, people are tired of being home by themselves. And, and they want to they want to network they want to meet with people in person. I think that, you know, in Florida, we saw a lot less of, of the big events, but we did still have a lot of smaller events in person. And I think that that’s going to continue and maybe even get bigger, you know, some of the some of the events that I’m hearing about this year, it seems like I’m not hearing about events until kind of the last minute. So I don’t know if it’s because they’re afraid that people are not going to attend. And so they’re not really pushing until the last minute. But I think that, you know, from at least from my perspective, the conferences that I’m hearing about that that seems to be well attended, and that seem to be getting rave reviews this year, so far, have been things that I’ve only heard about at the last minute. And and I’m definitely making, making plans for 2024 to attend some of them.

Dave 36:31
Yeah, I think it’s great. I mean, if you can get out there and still do it, and you don’t have to do what I’ve seen some of the bigger events have gotten, the duration has gotten smaller. So they’ve shortened up kind of the let’s let’s kind of get you know, people that maybe don’t want to be spending two or three days at with us maybe a day and a half is plenty. And then you can just do a single overnight. There’s still some some really great events out there. You know, in our world Sastra is a great event Sastra annual, I’ll put a link to all these and Sharon please share some of these, we’ll drop some links in the description. And on agency balance.com on your on your profile there we can we can share some of these if you want to attend inbound up in Boston is really is great. They’re they’re doing that again this year. Actually, it’s going on this week at Salesforce has a lot of free events, too. So just check, if you’re, you know, in near a big city to think New York is this week. So you can you can go to a big event for free. At least the attendant like you have to pony up the stay in the travel. But if you can do that, and I think networking is great, like one of the events that I just was at that I one of the missions I had was just to do that was the network. And you know, what I came well prepared was I made this cool little QR code thing that I put on the back of my nametag. So rather than handing out business cards, I just have my QR code. And if I flip it around, and they scan it, and then they can connect with me on LinkedIn, if they want, they can add my V card, or they can book a meeting with me three little buttons right from their phone. So I that was really, really cool. It’s a cool little neat little trick that you can do. You can get a free QR code reader out there, you can just send it to a page. If you have some meeting booking software, it makes things even easier. But yeah, networking was really was was one of my main things and you get to meet a lot of different people and see what’s just put yourself out there.

Sharon 38:35
Exactly, exactly. You mentioned Salesforce. And you know, that’s traditionally a b2b focus. One of the other really great events that from a b2b perspective that I’ve attended in the past and will probably likely attend this year is the marketing profs b2b conference. They do a great job and have some really dynamic speakers. So I think that’s a another good conference to try and get to.

Dave 39:03
Great stuff. Yeah, we have a ton of that as well. Absolutely recommend that put all the links in the scription. What can we put a bow on? Let’s let’s end this what can we put a bowl on right now? So we talked about like, what are we seeing right now? Far, like far this out that you can see what what is going to be like a game changer or something that you’re seeing that? You know, maybe could be a disruptor in the industry? Is it continuing with AI is are we going to see like a difference? Is that going to be the thing for right now? What What’s your thoughts? Final thoughts?

Sharon 39:36
I think that’s going to be the thing for right now. I think AI is going to be a game changer for for good or for bad to have companies all over the country and all over the world clamoring for AI, you know, activity. And I think that that’s that’s going to be For at least the short term, you know where it’s going to be, I think, you know, combining that with privacy, combining that with, you know, with regulation, whether it’s, you know, local, regional, national, international, whatever industry wide regulation, that’s going to be, that’s going to be a lot of big changes in the next year or so.

Dave 40:26
Well, it’s been an absolute pleasure, Sharon, can you remind our listeners how they can get in touch with you?

Sharon 40:32
Sure. It’s Mostyn marketing.com. And just fill out the form. We’re happy to happy to connect.

Dave 40:41
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Have yourself a beautiful day and thanks for coming on the agency balance.

Sharon 40:46
Thanks, Dave. It was a pleasure being here and I hope you have lots of downloads in your in your upcoming sessions.