Dissecting Disruption | Geoff Cottrill

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The word disruption gets thrown around in the commerce world more than a ‘hot-potato’ at a pre-school; but what does it actually mean? In the last episode of the Commerce Chefs summer series, Kyle and Tom sit down with Geoff Cottrill in a fascinating unaired conversation. This titan of marketing and former SVP at Converse and Starbucks breaks down disruption and discusses the unlocked benefits it holds for your brand. They discuss what the future of branding really looks like, how new marketing leadership can either enhance or diminish your brand value, and the utmost importance of creating long-lasting relationships with your customers.

Learn more about our guest:

Geoff Cottrill, Former CMO & Marketing exec at Converse, Coca-Cola & Starbucks

Transcript

Tom: Welcome to Commerce Chefs, a quirky and thought-provoking show for a future-focused commerce leaders. We're going to pit the world's most brilliant, inspiring and driven DTC visionaries, the Commerce Chefs with riveting questions to uncover their secret ingredients at the intersection of passion, performance and leadership in practice. 

Kyle: For the past decade, we've led teams of designers, strategists and digital wizards at one of the leading eComm agencies in the country to help brave brands become enduring classics. 

Tom: And we're here to indefinitely borrow the strategies and pro tips that will make us all better leaders and make the brands we lead better too. 

Kyle: Now that we're officially finished our first season, we've decided to spice things up a little bit over the summer for your listening enjoyment. 

Tom: Every two weeks we're releasing some of our favourite interviews from season one, but in long form so we can share even more delicious insights with you. 

Kyle: The secret good stuff that you didn't get to hear. So listen in. Grab a marg-ear-ita.

Tom: No, no, that's awful. Awful sounding and probably tasting, too. 

Kyle: OK, OK. Grab a daiq-eair-i. Enjoy some easy, breezy listening by the poolside with your favorite podcast hosts and let us know what you think and the reviews section. So, Tom, this is sadly the last episode of our summer interview series. Where does the time go? 

Tom: They just they just grow up so fast. 

Kyle: They really do. So we're closing out the season with an incredible episode featuring Geoff Cottrill, former exec of Converse, Starbucks, Coca-Cola and even the Grammy Foundation. Geoff was featured in our sixth episode, Interrupting Disruptors, and he's been referred to as the Tony Hawk of Marketing. 

Tom: Kyle, you you were the one that referred to him as that. 

Kyle: Yes, yes, I did. 

Tom: Geoff generously took the time to talk to these two goofballs about what disruption truly is, what that means for the future of brands, and how leaders can cultivate meaningful, long lasting relationships between their customers and their products. 

Kyle: We can't wait to kickflip this interview off. 

Tom: Kyle, nobody calls him that. 

Geoff: My name is Geoff Cottrill, I am a lifelong serial marketer. I've worked at places like Proctor &, Gamble, Coca-Cola, Starbucks. I was the CMO at Converse for a while and I've spent a lot of time in the agency world as well. 

Tom: I love it. No big deal. You probably haven't heard of these companies, but we'll make sure to put it in the show notes and serial entrepreneur with an S, not the edible kind. 

Geoff: Right, right, right. Serial marketer not a cereal marketer. 

Geoff: Maybe the only haven't sold yet. 

Tom: Happy to help. Happy to help. So on the topic of disruption, it's a big one. We have a belief around, disruption, maybe not being the actual point. A belief that it is a tool or a a result of what comes from truly trying to change something that needs to be changed. And it can be small, it can be big, there's there's lots of different ways and scales that this can can come to life. But that disruption maybe isn't the point. It's it's not the destination and maybe even a belief that it can actually be a distraction if that's the thing that you're looking to do and not the change on the other end. So maybe it's right. Maybe it's wrong. Who's to say? But from your perspective and your very tenured experience, what's the difference between disruption and differentiation? 

Geoff: I have had conversations hundreds of times with people that I've worked with over the years and I've said in meetings, what is our goal? And oftentimes some will say was six percent growth and I will always say six percent growth as a result. That's not our goal. Our goal is to understand our consumers and to serve them with the products we make in meaningful ways. That's our goal. Our result should be six percent. So I think the same thing applies to the idea of disruption. Disruption for disruption sake is, I think, oftentimes a waste of time. I think disruption. Yeah, you're right. Disruption is the result. And it's funny when you use the word disruption. It automatically paints the picture of destruction. And those are two different words. But people think disruption means I'm going to destroy whatever is in front of me and I'm going to redo the whole thing. Disruption is not necessarily destruction. So I often find when people use that word, they're confusing it with something else. So the difference between disruption and differentiation, I think is differentiation is, you know, when you're in the marketplace with a product or service and got a discernible difference between you and your competitor, there's something unique about your product or your product offering. Maybe it's your customer service could be differentiated from your competition. Disruption is thinking about potentially a brand new way to serve your consumers in a way that hasn't been done before. A way to surprise your consumers potentially, and also a way potentially to drive costs out of your business. You know, disruption doesn't always have to be consumer facing. It can be a different way to go to market or a different way to to create your products and your go to market strategies. So I think I think there are two very different things 

Kyle: In that kind of going back to the destruction connotation that comes with disruption like. How do you think that disruption kind of gets associated so much with destruction or this like what goes on there? Why do we associate with that? 

Geoff: I don't really know. It's funny. I had a I'm not going to talk about specific companies or specific jobs today, but I worked I worked at a big company and I was brought in with the brief that we need you to disrupt the way we do things. We need you to do the kinds of things that you did at your other place. So I was like, that sounds amazing. So then I came in and started to push, not to disrupt for disruption purposes, but to start to push on ways of thinking and trying. Hey, we thought about it this way. Do you realize other companies and other brands do it this way? I was met with, well, we want you to disrupt things, but that's not the way we do things. We do it this way and is an incredible, like, eye opening experience for me, because I was like I thought you wanted to disrupt the way you're doing things to find new ways. Yeah. Yeah, we do. But, you know, we can't not that like that. We can't change this, this or this. It's funny. It's a funny thing that people think, oh, my gosh, you're going to destroy everything that I've worked so hard to build. And that's not the case at all. It's sometimes a fresh set of eyes or the same team pulling back and having a fresh look and reframing an opportunity can lead to massive disruption right in in the world. But it doesn't have to be throw everything you've been doing out. It just could be do everything you're doing better in a slightly different way and maybe get a much better result. 

Tom: That's sort of going back to our thesis are our thoughts around. It is like there are scales of disruption. There are making incremental improvements on something that disrupts what the expectations were before. And there's whole market shifts like you see once in a generation or once in a decade with with your Apples and your Teslas, where they're absolutely flipping the script in a very defined and accepted market, a way of doing things. So if we have this this scale of monumental industry or world changing disruption to what we were able to do this process or this particular feature in our product better, why is disruption then so glamorized? Because one seems really mundane, like that's that's the key and model of business is to do better. And then the other is to change the world. So why is it so glamorized and if disruption demands change? Why do we try to run towards it, if really and if we're honest with ourselves, we're all afraid of change and what's going to be required to make that happen in the first place? 

Geoff: Yeah, disruption is only glamorous when it works, right? First and foremost, and oftentimes I think disruption associated in the marketplace is often driven by ego. A lot of times people come into a new place and you know and, you know, I fortunately did not make that mistake when I came to Converse many years ago named at the CMO. You know, the mission was to get this thing going. And I came in and thought, well, I could be that dumb CMO that fires the agency and tells the team I need a new team. And I was like, no, that would be the wrong way to disrupt this place. The right way would be to disrupt it from the inside with the people that already know what they're doing and to go from there. So I think it's often disruption can often be ego driven. 

Kyle: With such a fascinating I didn't think about that with the ego driven disruption. What's the connection between ego and disruption? 

Geoff: Well, to me, I think the CMO is the most disposable senior executive in the company. Right? They're the ones that change the chairs the most. I mean, it's true. You have a bad quarter. It couldn't be anybody's fault, but the marketing must have been horrible. You have a great quarter and our product is amazing. Right? So, you know, a lot of times people come in, you're on the clock as a CMO. You know, you're told by your recruiter you're not going to be there very long. So a lot of them come in and try to make a name for themselves immediately and to disrupt the way they're thinking and have a completely different point of view of what's already been done. And I think a lot of that's driven by ego to try to prove themselves versus really stepping back and taking yourself out of it and putting the consumer back in the front and thinking about ways, new ways to serve and to connect with them, you know, 

Tom: Yeah, I think that focus that that long game, that understanding of that's got to be an important part of the equation in when it for when it goes right, when you when you can still keep the lens and the focus on and you're looking to make the people you're looking to serve and the outcome you want, that's got to be a core component of success at any scale of disruption. 

Geoff: Yeah, I think I think so. And particularly in existing companies like when you're coming into an existing company. Well, I like to think about like Uber rides in New York City all the time. Right. And I remember being way up on the Upper West Side one day for a meeting and it was like five o'clock. And I needed to get to the Lower East Side and like one hundred cabs drove past me and I was standing in the street flagging them down and they'd slow down. Where are you going? And I'm like, Lower East Side up my shift change. Not going to pick you up. And I'm thinking there are thousands of taxis right now and I need a ride. I have money in my pocket. I'm willing to pay you if you will take me there, but they wouldn't stop. So I have to imagine that the guy who founded Uber was went through a similar situation. Look at all these cars. Look at all these people like there's got to be a better way, so that kind of disruption, because there's nothing in front of it, there's no history behind like that business, you can come in and get something from a completely different angle. So to me, that's rare, right? That's rare disruption in your everyday business. You're typically at a company that's been there for a while. They've got their their practices in place. They've got their product in place. They've got their idea and core concept in place and it becomes a little bit more difficult. So you do need the degrees of disruption, small, medium, large. And sometimes disruption is a series of a lot of little things, not just one giant thing. 

Kyle: We see a lot of founders that maybe have the opportunity to still start fresh and come with that framing however they want to see it, but can get so focused on the disruption when they're not kind of chasing the level of capital that Uber was aiming to bring disruption. And so you kind of get sidetracked if you like. I think I can disrupt everything, but it's like the game you're in actually isn't Uber level. So like what kind of thoughts would you give to someone who, like, you know, like I am in the Uber game because, like, this is my founding this company, but. But you're not like, what do you what are your thoughts on that? 

Geoff: Well, again, I think if you get too focused on the disruption itself and don't pay attention to the fundamentals of what your business is or what it could be, there's a lot of disruptors that have come in place. There's a lot of tech startups that get all this amazing attention. And then when you really dig in, they don't make any money and they don't necessarily have a long term ranged ability to make money. And you're like, wow, that's an amazing disruption. But like, no one's going to pay for it. So, like, that's not really a big idea. Just because you can doesn't mean you should, sometimes. It shouldn't. It shouldn't prevent us from still trying. But you do. If you're in business or you're trying to build the business, you have to have a business model, not just a good idea. 

Tom: Yeah. So let's just repeat that. You have to have a good business model, not just a good idea. There is a difference between noise and change. And change requires the long game, you you don't yeah, you might get a lot of attention and you could probably speak to this, but there's a lot of companies, there's a lot of brands, there's a lot of people that are very good at making noise and simple ways to well, if everybody's zigging we're going to zag, that's disruption. Mic drop. And then it all goes away. So what's missing, what's missing in that? 

Geoff: Again, I think if you're not finding interesting ways to serve your market, whether it's business to business or business to consumer, you have to find ways to serve your marketplace, your consumers, your customers in unique ways. If you can find new products to do that through innovation and through disruption, then go for it. But if you don't have a core idea that's compelling that a customer or a consumer is going to pay for, then it is just noise. And you do see a lot of these startups, you know, some of them are amazing and they put maybe maybe their idea isn't a full idea. Maybe their idea fits into a different idea and it makes that different idea even bigger. And, you know, that's that's certainly interesting. But a lot of times the noise like I don't even honestly, I don't read the trade publications about marketing and advertising because 90 percent of it is noise. I've been a marketer my whole life. Nothing to me is more boring than talking about marketing with a marketing person. It's just like I just like that interest because we have so many buzzwords and we chase each other. We follow each other. There's very little unique and independent thinking, which is why you don't see a lot of disruption, because we're all reading the trades. There's a new buzz word and all of a sudden we're, you know, we're is transparency at one point, then it was a branded content, then it was digital, you know, and it's like all of a sudden there's conferences around buzzwords and you're like, wow, how do we get here? There's no disruption here. It's just people following each other and talking to themselves. 

Kyle: If you think then the best disruptive ideas or innovation comes from kind of turning off and just being with your own thoughts and your own approach to how to serve better and how to build a better product.

Geoff: Turn off the noise and get your team around the table and like, push everything on the floor and just push it on the floor, push it out of the way and think, OK, you know, is there a better way? Are we doing it? Are we doing the best we can? Like I said, disruption might be your business model. You might have the same face to the consumer in the same product. But behind the scenes, the way the machine runs might be completely different and that might help you make more money. You know, my favorite disruptor in the marketplace today is Nike. And I don't mean like they come in and bang the symbols and disrupt the world like I mean, like their products disrupt, like they will make a product and know when they make it that this product is probably not going to be the same as it is now. Two years from now, it's going to be better and it's always going to be completely different or it's just going to go away. And that takes massive courage. And that is, to me, a very disruptive mindset. You know, a lot of companies have a product. We're never going to change it. No. Nike's not afraid. They're not afraid to fundamentally change a product and say, you know what, we're not going to sell that anymore to you. This is our new thing. And, you know, you follow it. At least I do have been trained by them to follow it. It's great. And I love it. I love it because it makes me feel like there's constantly change. And, you know, they had a saying they're innovate or die and they never sat still. And I think from a mindset standpoint, you could apply that to almost any company. But most companies don't think that way. Therefore, you don't see the disruption, the level of disruption that maybe they could get to. 

Tom: Innovate or die? I honestly like it strong. I think a lot of people have heard it or, you know, they they say that phrase a lot. I would venture a guess. I would bet five dollars, maybe seven, that most people don't actually know, though, what that means to follow through with and essentially what Nike's approaches and and what you're saying when disruption really works or when it's a true result of the change you're looking to make, is that we need to be our biggest competitor. We need to work to put ourselves out of business and improve on that everyday.

Geoff: Yes, I think that's right. I think if you sit still too long, the other people will come in to your marketplace and do better than you will, that you can't, you know, you might be the best at what you do, but like, you know, you need to continue to train and continue to practice and continue to get better if you want to maintain and continue to be the best. I mean, the best athletes in the world are only the best athletes in the world for a very short period of time because another athlete then becomes the best athlete in the world. Right. And, you know, there's father time issues in there, but the same thing really applies in business. And again, back to the thing I love about Nike is, you know, they will say there is no finish line. And we really think about what that means, you're like, wow, that's amazing, like that is unlimited opportunity for us to have a road always in front of us that we can continue to become better and better and better. And to me, that's inspiring. But I don't see that kind of inspiration in so many different companies. I hear them talking about disruption, but it's mainly for disruption sake or to get headlines or to get they are from, you know, to get the cover of Ad Age or Adweek or whatever, like, you know, stuff super boring to me. 

Tom: The other big thing had mentioned was there's a fear of disruption because people think that it can mean or is equated to destruction. I want to know your thoughts on whether there might be another kind of fear at play, especially for those that that really do have a focus on the impact and the result and the change that they're looking to make, do you think that there's an element of fear because they they might actually be afraid that they they could succeed? 

Geoff: Then it goes back to a great idea without a business plan is just a great idea. I mean, yeah, I don't know that people maybe people are afraid of of succeeding. I think people are often afraid of what could be what will be by I mean. Building a successful career is built on failure. It's built on your failures. It's not built on your successes. It's built on what you learn from how you fail. Then success becomes something that you get or you achieve. But it's only because of the failures. 

Kyle: How do you think I'll frame this in, like art and artists seem to kind of like live in that almost like purity of like I'm pursuing bringing my art to the world, not always and then often in kind of marketing or design or whatever it is like. We take it to the other end of the spectrum where it's like it's it's got to serve a commercial purpose, and often we'll even talk about that history of like, you know, commercial art and that kind of stuff. And I guess the question is like, what do we need to kind of continue to take from that? 

Geoff: I think you really have to care about your consumer and what you're making and what you're serving. And I think you have to be brave in your ideas. I think sometimes you just have to believe in what it is you're doing. I'll give you a quick example. When I was interviewing for my role at Converse, Nike owns Converse and and I went to Beaverton. I interviewed with several executives from Nike, and I was just blown away at every one of that. But one guy asked me he was a former head of marketing for the company years ago. And he said, I want to just have one question for you. Have have you ever gone all the way? And I thought, well, that's a weird question, that's a very weird question. That's almost inappropriate. But he said and he stopped and he said, you know what I mean? He said, have you ever believed in something so much that you're willing to put it all on the line and quit if they wouldn't let you do it? And in that moment, I was like, you know, there's only one answer and that's the truth. And the truth was all over my face. And I still get goosebumps when I talk about the story is I was like, oh, my God, I've never I've never done that before. I've actually never believed in something so much that I would risk it all. Oh, my God. And I said to him, I never have. I'm so embarrassed, but I tell you what, if I if I get this job, I promised you that I will. And he was like, good, because you're going to need to. And I've learned that lesson. And a lot of the disruption and things that we did will because we found a couple of ideas that we really, really believed in. And we were not going to let people say that's not the way we do things. We were going to do new and different things. And as a result, you know, the team that I was fortunate enough to work on and work with, you know, we did amazing things together because we we saw a new we saw a different world from how other brands were marketing and engaging with consumers. So that question in that interview changed my life in terms of the way I think about like and sometimes you just got to believe in what you're doing. And, you know, the founders, the crazy founders of all the amazing companies that we talk about, they were like, I see a better way. I'm going to do it this way. So I think more marketers honestly need to believe in making making their products better, making the consumer experience better. I think a lot of people in marketing are just, you know, they write the brief and then sign the check and they don't really get in deep enough to they don't want to take the risk to to try to really drive some some disruption. 

Kyle: And to just go back to your earlier point about when someone came to you and said six percent a goal and say that's not, that's the result not goal. It's especially in like marketing and growth. And there's so clear results that I think it's almost like we're kind of like afraid to look at the real goal because it's so much easier to look at growth as if it's like actually believe in what you're doing.

Geoff: Yeah, no, it's it's and you have to think about that, because if your goal is six percent growth and there are mechanical things you're going to do when you run your business, certain levers you're going to pull to make sure you hit that six percent. Would you rather have a 70 percent margin on a product you sell once? Or a 12 percent margin on something you're going to sell someone for the next 20 years? But in the financial world, will, we'll just look at your quarterly results are pushing very, very hard on your quarterly results versus a much longer term view. So, yeah, I could sell six percent all day long, but I might not be in business next year. If I don't do it the right way, if I do it the right way, I might get eight percent because like I found something in there that like I thought about before, because I was willing to push it and to do different things. Certainly try to I need to make sure I deliver my six percent because that's how I'm going to be evaluated. But that's should never be my goal. If that's my goal, then I'm like, it's a pretty empty place. If there's there's no inspiration in six percent growth, there's inspiration in the idea of like, how do we do this better? How do we make consumers like how do we serve them in a new way, how we surprised them. And, you know, and oftentimes marketers don't look around their office, you know, or their vacation that they just took to the Caribbean. They don't realize the consumers that they serve paid for that. And we often forget that we should be grateful for our consumers. And if you have a sense of of gratitude towards your consumers, then you're going to disrupt in ways that benefit them first, and that will benefit you second. I mean, you know, if you were walking down the street and you ran into one of your consumers and you saw them every day at the same time walking down the same street, and every single time you saw that person, you said to that person, hey, you want to buy this? They'd be like, what, hey, by this what hey, do you want to buy this? And I did that four days in a row. The next day you're taking a different street because you walk. You want to make sure you're not going to run into me, because all I'm doing is asking you if you want to buy something from me. Right. And it's back it's back to Nike back Nike. Nike had this amazing epiphany at one point that wasn't there. But like I can imagine, being in the room used to be about, hey, do you want to buy some running shoes? You want to buy some running shoes? And the consumer would say, I just bought some yesterday and I know, but you want to buy some running shoes. But no, I don't. I just told you, I bought some yesterday. I don't need another pair today. And one day they said, hey, let's go running. Right here, the Nike plus app, the Nike running club, hey, you know what, let's go running and they added value between the purchases. And to me, that's disruption. Disruption is like the disrupting the constant conversation I'm having with you about asking you to buy something for me. And suddenly I'm saying, hey, look, I know why you bought the running shoes. Why don't we go running? Why don't I add some utility and help you, like, realize your potential and I'll run along with you. And then the next time you're ready for shoes, maybe you'll buy them from me. And to me, that's disruption. But it's magic because it just just turns the conversation just ever so slightly. But it becomes so much more meaningful for me, the consumer, because now I think you care about me and understand me and want to help me. You want to be useful. So I buy buy around and I do I, I do. I continue to on a daily basis. 

Tom: And maybe maybe this is too far. But I think that the difference is it just like you said before and I think it was actually like Christopher Plummer said this, but if you get into acting to be famous, you probably won't be. 

Geoff: That's right. 

Tom: It sounds like you can say the same thing that that example you said about walking down the street, it seems completely absurd. But I bet if anybody listening really looks at their tactical breakdown of their email marketing or their ads or whatever, whatever channel they're using, that's exactly how they're approaching the interactions with their customers or potential customers. Instead of just figuring out how they can care for them, get to why they would be interested in the first place and then journey together. 

Geoff: Yeah, I try to carry these marketing principles with me that have served me well over the years. The first one is celebrate your consumer, not yourself. Cool, easy to say, not easy to do, second, useful. OK, that's a big one, and then the third one was something we called own don't rent, meaning create your own marketing platforms. You know, don't borrow other people's equity, create your own things. Your own things that you can, you know, like a Nike plus or Nike running club. Those are their assets. They built us. They didn't borrow those. They built them. And then the fourth was when it comes to people, it was about understanding diversity and celebrating the differences in people, not the similarities. Right. The brands brands often find if we distill it all down to what makes us all the same, that somehow we're all the same, but we're not. We're all different. And that's what's so beautiful about the world. So those four things, having principles of how you choose to think about how you're going to engage with the consumers can lead to massive disruption because you're thinking differently. And it's not just about you getting up in the morning saying, my brand is amazing and dammit, people are going to buy it. I'm going to make them buy it. I'm going to scream at them until they buy more of it. And, you know, the world has moved on. Nobody is waiting for you. YouTube. Yeah. You're not going to disrupt the world by another branded YouTube video. You're going to disrupt the world by actually carrying a little bit more about the people that you want to buy things from you. 

Kyle: You think that disruption starts within yourself then within your team? 

Geoff: I think disruption starts with with the idea of freedom. It's the idea of just freeing up for just a second the way you do things. The good news is the way you do things, you're doing them already. This is what bit like we're like, hey, we're growing. This is amazing, right? So don't screw that up, but then take a minute to be like, OK, but what what could we be? What could  we do? And I think oftentimes we don't take that time to be like, all right, let's just free ourselves from what happened yesterday and think about what we could be tomorrow. 

Tom: It is fascinating. Yeah, we are. I'll speak vulnerably and personally. We are obsessed with past results. And that's that's really all results are an outcome of something that's already happened. It's done. Yeah. And yet we what we focus so much time and attention and energy on focusing on the past instead of results are important still, we but like you said earlier, if we can't learn from them, if those mistakes are successes, which here are interchangeable, if that's not something we can learn from because we should always be postured and positioned towards the future. Then we're not that tool of disruption, that outcome. It's not ever going to happen anyway. 

Geoff: Totally, if my father would have taught me how to drive a car by just looking in the rearview mirror, I never would have gotten a driver's license. You know, but I mean, think about it. Like running a business is much like driving a car. If you spend too much time looking in the rearview mirror, you're going to miss the scenery in front of you or you're going to hit something in front of you that you didn't see. So, yes, there's there's a there's a time and place to look back to make sure that, like, you know, what's behind you is OK and good. And you know. OK. I've done that right. But you still got to look forward. And I think we oftentimes spend too much time looking back. And we missed the turn to make to get to the great place. We just keep going down the same old rough. 

Tom: Let's take the next couple of minutes, then let's focus on the future. Let's leverage the experience that you have, Geoff, here. For the founders out there for the for the brands that are that are looking for that freedom, that truly have that care. If disruption happens, great. But they know what they want for those people. What's some advice you have in terms of the the mindset, what words of wisdom could you give or insight could you give that says like this is what you're in for and, you know, go for it? 

Geoff: Well, first and foremost, say what is holding you back from caring? Like, really caring, like if you're in a business, what is holding you back from deeply caring about the people that you're trying to sell things to or the people that you're trying to buy things? So if you let go for just a minute and like, put them first and I know it's easy to say I'll put the consumer first, but, you know, like, no, but actually, you're not in business unless somebody buy something from you like this. Simple as that. If that doesn't happen, you don't have a business. But you have to believe in your ideas. You have to believe that there's a better way and sometimes there isn't a better way. But if you don't have a belief and hope that there could be a better way, then you'll never know. So I'd rather try to find a better way and fail. Then I would just keep doing what I'm doing. And then suddenly one day I wake up and someone's come in and taken my marketplace away from me because, like, I just didn't see it. I just didn't see what could be. So, yeah, we look, we got to we only off to deliver six percent like I get it. Or five percent or three percent or twenty five percent. I get it. I get it. And it's easy for me to push that aside. You know, people will say, oh, that's easy for you to say. And I'm like, well it's not actually easy for me to say because at the end of day I still get evaluated on whether or not I grew a business or not. But I think there's a better way. I think there's a more fun way. I think there's a more interesting way. And I think disruption is what happens during your journey to find more interesting ways to make things, sell things, connect with people, do whatever services experiences are the products that you make. So why be boring? And, you know, do what's always been done if someone's writing a book about your company's history. Right? You know, I worked at a company that was one hundred and thirty years old, one of the greatest brands in the world. And, you know, we would often say to ourselves in rooms like when they add to this book someday, these years, what are they going to say? Are they going to say you're here to here nothing happened, OK? Are they going to say to you from X to Y they didn't screw it up? OK, amazing. Are they going to say we don't even know what happened between your X and your Y  because, like, nothing really changed, like, cool, if that's the way we want to be remembered. Amazing. Cool. We didn't screw it up. That's sometimes the objective. But like, if you have an opportunity and you know, there's a blank page, you know, what are you going to do? And I said the my last maybe my last thing, but it's a CMO. You're going to get fired. It's 100 percent guaranteed you're going to get fired. So in fact, let me see if I've got this in my book. I think I wrote it. That's what I did, I wrote it in this book, so I keep notebooks and on the last page. On the bottom, it says you're fired. So I know how the book ends. I know how the book ends. The ending of the book is two words, and it says you're fired and like, oh, I wrote it down literally, but look at all of these blank pages between where I am now and you're fired. So I can either, like, have this book back to look on Sunday with a whole bunch of blank pages or a whole bunch pages you just wrote down what happened last week. Or I could have a whole bunch of really interesting stuff in here that may or may not have changed the world, but either way I'm going to get fired. So I can sit and still I can sit and wait for him to come get me. Or like I could try to care in a new way and try some new things and fail. Either way, doesn't matter. The last two words are, you're fired. And, you know, just like any great baseball coach, football coach, they'll get fired and it's all good. And once you accept that, it's it's incredibly empowering to know how it's going to end and then not have fear at that conversation like, oh, is this today? Oh, amazing, great. I'm off to do something else now. But I think having that kind of a mindset gets you in a position to say, all right, I got a pen in my hand and a blank sheet of paper have an opportunity to write something, so why don't we go ahead and write something, you know? And that to me leads to things like disruption and not necessarily things like destruction. I go back to ego. Ego leads, I think, to destruction and faith and hope and care and passion can lead to disruption and disruption can often be a wonderful thing. 

Tom: And isn't isn't that what life's all about you? We have those same two words at the end of our book. What we write on the pages of the middle. That's our choice. That's that's the story we get to write. And that's a that's a very deep and existential be the end but but why not. Pull it up to the highest possible point and purpose. So go write your book, everybody. 

Geoff: Yeah. If you want to disrupt if you want to be known as a disruptor, start with caring, start with empathy, start with passion and go. Just go. 

Kyle: That's so good. Also, I'm not saying that you have to do this, Geoff, but I think your book is just called You're Fired and it's a bunch of blank pages in the last page says you're fired.

Tom: Four ninety nine dollars. 

Tom: With all little stick figure drawings in the middle, like a little doodles. I wrote down a bunch of really look what I did yesterday during a conference call like I do, I do smiley faces. But the day before I had all kinds of great ideas. Right? And they're all you're not going to make the novel, but the end of the book is going to end the same. I'm telling you, dude. And it's it's alright. Sorry. 

Kyle: It's so good, so so helpful, even just like on a personal, like such a great way to start today. So thank you. 

Tom: Yeah, of course, man, I'm honored to do these kinds of things. And I really appreciate. And like I said, I heard I heard one of your episodes. And I love the way you guys talk to each other and banter between clips. So I just thought it was. I love that. And then I was like, I would love to do that. I would love to be on that. I'm honored to to have been asked. I really do. I'm grateful for these kinds of opportunities and the opportunity to meet new people and to have a conversation like this. So I want to say thank you. 

Tom: The honor. The honor is ours, Geoff. It was an absolute blast. More more insightful than I know how to articulate right now. 

Tom: Disruption is a result, not a goal. And in Geoff's eyes, the goal is to serve your customers in meaningful ways, which should push your results forward. Disruption for disruption's sake is just a waste of time. 

Kyle: Yet most business leaders associate disruption with destruction breaking what we have now versus bringing a new perspective or reframing the way things are done. 

Tom: It's about you being your biggest competitor, constantly working to improve on what you currently have. 

Kyle: Tony. I mean Geoff, thank you for sharing your recipes for success with us. 

Kyle: Thanks for listening to our summer interview series of Commerce Chefs. We'll be back with our official second season on October 14. 

Tom: We hope you found this series helpful and gained some new ideas to make the brands you lead even better.

Kyle: If you're looking for even more insights and recipes for success make sure to follow us on Social at Commerce Chefs.

Tom: And remember to join the Commerce Chefs community launching this fall. 

Kyle: Save your spot and join our CommerceChefs.com/community. 

Tom: Lastly, if you like this episode and you want to support us, make sure to hit the subscribe button and leave us a five star rating and review. Oh, you know, you want to. And until next time, this has been a dash of Tom. 

Kyle: And a pinch Kyle and a dash of Geoff. 

Tom: No, Kyle, it's a dash of Tom. 

Kyle: I know. I ran out of measurements. So maybe we should go metric. 

Tom: We'll be cooking with you on October 14th.