How to Leverage Cognitive Biases & Be Un-Ignorable with Katelyn Bourgoin

On this episode, Katelyn breaks down her favorite cognitive biases, her secret to high quality content + consistency, and her recent big “aha” moment within her own business. While I also give the backstory on where my love of analogies comes from and the next step in my own career.

In this Episode of Brand Intentionally with Friends:

• Breaking Down Katelyn Bourgoin’s Impressive Stats and What Makes Her Un-Ignorable
• The Halo Effect: How First Impressions and Assumptions Impact Your Business
• How to Utilize the Labor Illusion to Help Customers Realize Your Efforts
• The Pratfall Effect: Your Flaws Have An Unexpected Benefit
• The Dilemma of Memetic Desire and How it Plays into Impostor Syndrome
• Katelyn Bourgoin’s Transformative Realization (The Illusion of the Soloprenuer Dream)
• The Secret to Why We Buy’s Quality & Consistency
• Garett Southerton’s Career Vision Beyond Social Media
• How We Suffer the Same Problem of a King aka Solomon’s Paradox
• The Self-Fulfilling Prophecies of the Galatia Effect
• How Too Many Choices Leads to Inaction with the Netflix Effect
• How Making Music Translated into Content that Relates
• The Intentional Shift that transformed Katelyn Bourgoin’s Business
• The Hidden Gem of Humility to Connect with your Audience

Don’t miss this episode filled with geeky brainy tips and a walk through our entrepreneurial journeys.

Watch the episode below, join the conversation, and check below for the transcript and relevant links.

Links & Shownotes

Mentioned in the Episode

• Podcast Music by Chris “Casanova” Togafau
• The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B Cialdini PhD
• Wanting by Luke Burgis
• Contagious by Jonah Berger

Connect with Katelyn Bourgoin

• Katelyn Bourgoin on X
• Katelyn Bourgoin on LinkedIn
• Why We Buy Newsletter
• The Un-Ignorable Challenge

Transcript

• Click to Expand Season 2, Episode 1 Transcript

  Garett Southerton [00:00:00]:

  Back with season 2 of Brand Intentionally Friends, and we got 6 episodes with 6 phenomenal entrepreneurs. And we’re gonna be diving deep into their brands, their mindsets, and what makes them intentionally different. And before we start that off, I wanna thank everyone who’s shown love for the 1st season and really made this a reality. Also, special shout out to my producer Casanova, who really hooked me up with the intro music for this season. So kick back and get ready to dig deep on this episode of Brand Intentionally with Friends. Now we’re kicking it off with a multidisciplinary entrepreneur who’s amassed crazy filing, but even more impressively stayed humble as her business grew. She has found in her own terms within her business, sharing geeky analogies and cognitive biases that’ll give you goosebumps. She’s the founder of Customer Encamp, the brilliant mind behind the Why We Buy newsletter and the cocreator of the Un-Ignorable Challenge.

  Garett Southerton [00:00:52]:

  She is Caitlin Burgoyne.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:00:53]:

  Hello. I’m so excited to be here.

  Garett Southerton [00:00:56]:

  I’m so excited to have you here. So how are you doing?

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:00:58]:

  I’m doing good. I’m doing good. It’s a beautiful day here, and I am, working on some new stuff. So I’m feeling in a good mojo.

  Garett Southerton [00:01:06]:

  Why don’t we tell everybody a little bit about yourself?

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:01:08]:

  So I guess if we wanna kinda start at the, like, more current stuff, I’m a multi kind of, like, time entrepreneur. Currently, my focus is on building a small media company with also have a personal brand cohort based challenge, which is how you and I actually first got to connect called Un-Ignorable. And so those are kind of the 2 big parts of my of my business. But, essentially, I’m a marketer by trade who’s really nerdy about understanding Buyers, because if you don’t, you can’t be a good marketer. And so it’s become something I was just always really passionate and nerdy about, and then I’ve really just built my business around being able to explore that passion.

  Garett Southerton [00:01:51]:

  I really love that, like, you make what can traditionally be very boardroom marketing, right, PowerPoints, everything. And you make those, and you turn it into fun. And I think that’s really what connected me to you because, like, I’ve been doing this for a long time too. So I don’t really get caught up in, like, you know, gimmicks and tactics and all that. And when I finally, like, found you, I I don’t remember. I was on Twitter, obviously. You’re the queen of Twitter. Right? And I saw a tweet from you.

  Garett Southerton [00:02:14]:

  It was an analogy. I don’t remember specifically which One, because immediately after that, I started going through your Twitter, and I was just, like, reading everything. And I’m like, oh, wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. This is how I think. This is how I talk.

  Garett Southerton [00:02:25]:

  Like, in my everyday life, I use analogies for everything, whether it’s to describe how I feel or to be funny. It’s just kind of who I am, and, like, that really connected with me. And then when I got the email about Un-Ignorable, I was like, you know what? This person Got me drawn in that quickly to them. I wanna see what it’s about.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:02:43]:

  Oh, that’s a basic.

  Garett Southerton [00:02:44]:

  The rest is history. Right? But yeah. So it’s really cool, and I think what’s Really great is that, like, 120,000 followers on Twitter. Right?

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:02:51]:

  Just today, I made a 120,000. Yesterday, it was 100 and 19,900. I’ve been creeping up there, so it was like today we’re recording this.

  Garett Southerton [00:02:59]:

  That’s really awesome. Right? And then, also, 55,000 on Why We Buy, your newsletter.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:03:05]:

  Mhmm.

  Garett Southerton [00:03:05]:

  Which I read every week religiously. It’s the only newsletter that I read religiously when I get it. Tuesday morning, when I get it, I’m like, alright. I need to see the next analogy. I need to see the next thing that’s going on. It’s my thing. I also saw you tweeted that you made almost half $1,000,000 for the year so far in revenue?

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:03:22]:

  So not quite half a 1000000, but I just checked my banks. I’m actually not that good at keeping track of all this stuff. But, as of, a couple days ago, I’m up to, like, 400 and, 57,000.

  Garett Southerton [00:03:34]:

  That’s amazing.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:03:35]:

  And I’m waiting on some deposits from sponsors. So by the end of the month, I should have hit my annual goals. My goal for the year was 500. But I

  Garett Southerton [00:03:43]:

  think you’re gonna hit that.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:03:45]:

  So I’m pretty excited. And my hope is that now I have to set a bigger goal for next year.

  Garett Southerton [00:03:50]:

  So is the business right now largely sponsorship based? Is that how a lot of it comes in? Or

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:03:55]:

  There’s really 3 parts, kind of 3 spokes, and 2 of them are much bigger than the third. So the newsletter probably generates around 300,000.

  Garett Southerton [00:04:04]:

  Okay.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:04:05]:

  The Un-Ignorable is generating about 200, 250. And then I have these on demand Products. One’s called my Clarity called Cheat Sheets, and the other one is the Golden Nugget Review Mining System, both of which help you to kind of, like, understand your better through primary research.

  Garett Southerton [00:04:22]:

  Those are through customer cam.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:04:23]:

  They are. Yeah. They are.

  Garett Southerton [00:04:24]:

  Yeah.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:04:25]:

  And those generate about a 100 k between the 2. So that is kind of the 3 spokes. I do a few, like, paid strategy calls, but I don’t accept very many. I do a few live workshops for clients that I had from years ago, and that used to be the core of my business, but I don’t look for new workshop clients. So those are kind of the main thing.

  Garett Southerton [00:04:46]:

  I feel a 100% on that. So earlier, we were talking before this, and I did a lot of web design back in the day. Even from back then, I have a few clients where, you know, I still help them maintain their website. Yeah. We add, like, new landing pages and stuff like that, but I don’t actively seek that out because that’s not where I’m at anymore. And same with strategy calls, I try to stick more to, like, the holistic brand approach rather than just little pieces here or there because I find, like, that’s what works best.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:05:11]:

  Oh, it’s so critical to start with that strong foundation too. Right? And depending on where the where brands at, I’m sure with your Clients like it’s something that I’ve been talking about a little bit with the newsletter because the newsletter space, as some of your listeners might know, is really interesting and, like, hype y right now, but that also means it’s become really Competitive. And I don’t think you could win just on content. Like, content is obviously the most important aspect of having the right content for your readers. But I think that, really, you need to build a moat. And for a lot of newsletters, that moat is gonna be brand.

  Garett Southerton [00:05:40]:

  Mhmm.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:05:41]:

  But something that we didn’t do, Like, you know, up until recently, I wasn’t invest I wasn’t thinking of the newsletter as much of a business. It was kind of like a channel that we were using to market our own stuff. And then in the last, I’d say, year, I’ve recognized, you know, this is an actual business, and I need to start treating it like 1. So It

  Garett Southerton [00:05:59]:

  grew into its own, like, thing.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:06:00]:

  Yeah.

  Garett Southerton [00:06:01]:

  But that’s how the best businesses are made, right, where it’s, like, organically, it comes like you didn’t sit out and say, hey. I’m gonna try and make $1,000,000 off of newsletter. You actually were trying to promote other things while still creating an impact, and then it kind of just snowballed into what it is, which It’s beautiful, I think.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:06:16]:

  Well, I appreciate that. Like, it’s funny because, like, I said that I was working on some new stuff. Like, right now, I’m working on a new masterclass called Un-Ignorable Newsletters.

  Garett Southerton [00:06:24]:

  Okay.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:06:24]:

  I’ve been thinking through how it came to be and, like, you know, how can I extrapolate what I’ve done And share that so other people can create their own Un-Ignorable newsletters? And it’s interesting because, like, I never Started thinking, oh, I’m gonna build a media company. I started thinking Mhmm. I wanna get more clients for my consulting and my workshop, but I stood the audience that I was creating for, and I understood how to create a piece of content that would be this Episodic thing that they wanted to open every week.

  Garett Southerton [00:06:56]:

  Oh, we do.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:06:57]:

  Yeah. Well, I appreciate each and every one of you. It’s been fun to watch because it’s like one of those things where you’re really kind of thoughtful about who you’re serving and what you’re trying to accomplish for them, what you’re trying to help them get done, And it leads to creating something that’s a lot fun.

  Garett Southerton [00:07:14]:

  That’s great. I mean, it’s important that you have fun with it. Right? I try to diversify my business. Like, I love, you know, Doing the whole holistic brand approach, and, you know, we start from the scratch, and we do, you know, a workshop. We we create the visuals. And if it does lead into, you know, web design and and content marketing, then we get there too. But at the same time, I can’t just do that specifically day in, day out. Otherwise, It feels like a 9 to 5.

  Garett Southerton [00:07:36]:

  Mhmm. So, like, you know, I try to do the photography thing too, and I try to, you know, spread my eggs in all the baskets just to not get stale.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:07:44]:

  I love that. I think it’s smart too because at the end of the day, like, what you’re recognizing is that, like, yeah, you’re known for the branding side. But you recognize that once you get that put in place for people, they’re gonna need to kinda pull that thread through the rest of their business. Right?

  Garett Southerton [00:07:57]:

  Yeah. So, Actually, what’s crazy is I’ve had a local client, Soupedan Nas. We did everything in the brand, right, from Mhmm. The visuals to strategy, website, everything, and even copyright, which we don’t usually do. And at one point, we need photos for the website, and he just wanted stock photos. And I’m like Mhmm. This isn’t gonna go well. Like, I mean, why don’t we just hire a local photographer? And he’s like, I really don’t wanna hire somebody else.

  Garett Southerton [00:08:21]:

  I don’t have the time to really go to them. I don’t trust that they’re gonna do it. And I’m like, you know what? I’ll do it then. You know? I mean Amazing. Photography has been a hobby for me. So I have all the equipment and everything, but I usually take, like, you know, landscape or I like to go birding. You know? I take pictures of birds in the air, and everything catch great shots.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:08:37]:

  Oh, really? That’s a cool hobby.

  Garett Southerton [00:08:38]:

  You know? And as a hobby wise, it’s been great. You know? I sell some prints sometimes. I I’ve been in galleries and stuff like that, but I’ve never did it, like, part of my core business. Mhmm. So we did this whole branding, but then we we did the photo shoot and directed it. And they’re a valet company, so we had the Ferraris and the Bentleys.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:08:54]:

  Amazing.

  Garett Southerton [00:08:55]:

  We took all these pictures, and they came out amazing. And we’re like, maybe we should run a side brand photography business now. Mhmm. You know? Keep it fun and creative and help the local people because, like, nobody’s really doing that well out here.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:09:08]:

  I think there’s so many entrepreneurs who are good at the thing that they’re good at, and, you know, they don’t wanna learn photography. And it doesn’t make sense to deploy photography. You know, entrepreneurs being good the things they’re good at. Right? Like, it’s like not everyone wants to learn how to take good photos, and photos are such critical part of the brand. So for you

  Garett Southerton [00:09:26]:

  Yeah.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:09:26]:

  To put all of this work and effort and thought and creativity into this brand and then have them slap some, like, stock photos in or terrible photos they took themselves.

  Garett Southerton [00:09:37]:

  I think that people, like, they miss the point. Like, you know, obviously, having your content game is really important. Right? You know? You have to have your content pillars. You have to, you know, really tap into your audience and know that. But then they throw away the visual side of it, and it’s like Oh, okay. It’s it’s like showing up to a wedding in a tracksuit. Like, you spent all this time. You you got the right gift.

  Garett Southerton [00:09:58]:

  You planned it. You’re you’re going in style. You’re going in a nice limo. You got the hotel.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:10:02]:

  Mhmm.

  Garett Southerton [00:10:02]:

  But then you you show up in the tracksuit, and it’s like, oh.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:10:05]:

  Oh, it’s a Great analogy. See, Garett, you’re the analogy king.

  Garett Southerton [00:10:08]:

  It’s the analogies that get us.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:10:09]:

  I think for some people, they just don’t have the aesthetic eye And don’t realize how the signals that they’re sending. One of the newsletters we wrote about in the past was around the halo effect, Right? Which is this idea that we judge people very unfairly in many ways on one characteristic based on other characteristics. So somebody who is tall is more likely to be assumed to potentially be a good leader. Now that to being tall has nothing to do with your leadership skills, Yet our brains do this because it’s the way that we’re wired. Mhmm. Design’s a big part of that. Right?

  Garett Southerton [00:10:46]:

  Yeah.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:10:46]:

  People talk about first impressions. Like, when you show up to a job interview, if you look Polished and put together. Mhmm. Say you’re an accountant. Well, are they gonna assume that you’re gonna be more detail focused on the numbers, that your work is gonna be more, you know, more intense, and they shouldn’t, conflate those things. Right? Because just because you’re dressed really well Doesn’t mean you’re a good accountant.

  Garett Southerton [00:11:08]:

  No. Not at all.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:11:09]:

  But we do that. We do that because of the halo effect. So design is this lever that a lot of people don’t recognize How it impacts them. And it is particularly important if the types of people that you sell to care about Imagery and status. It’s like so you think about a ballet service, like your example. Like, their customers care about what they look like, So they don’t wanna hire.

  Garett Southerton [00:11:35]:

  Exactly. It’s high end Hamptons Valet, so they’re not just that, you know, random backyard barbecues valet. They’re valeting for celebrities, and Mhmm. You know, their families. So they have to look tip top shape.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:11:46]:

  Exactly.

  Garett Southerton [00:11:47]:

  And I think, like, going back to what you said about the halo effect, like, a lot of people when they start their brand. You know, they missed the design part, and Mhmm. They’re trying to sell, you know, 3, 4, or $5,000 packages. And they look like they have clip art as a logo or a default Canva template that everybody uses, because everybody uses the same template if you come from Canva.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:12:06]:

  Yep. No. It’s very true.

  Garett Southerton [00:12:08]:

  And you’re like, I mean, the next person has that. Why am I gonna give you $5,000? Mhmm. Yep. They could be the greatest person in the world to do whatever they do. Yep. It’s appearance, though, unfortunately.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:12:20]:

  Yep. It’s very true. And then it kinda goes to the other extreme Where if you’re somebody like Paul Graham, for instance, who’s like this, you know, famous, famous, tech investor, I think, Like, you know, creator of YC. I think if you go to his personal website, only somebody with the type of status that he has could get away with this. There’s no CSS. It’s like white it’s like it looks like it’s a website straight from, like, the early nineties, but, also, that’s kind of telling a story 2. Right? It’s like, I’m so important that I don’t even need to think about the aesthetics of my brand Because people will read my words. And so he’s almost kind of created a brand by an anti brand.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:13:02]:

  Exactly. Right? Exactly. And so I think that people just They don’t necessarily always think about how important all these pieces are to tie together and how they’re gonna be perceived. And perception is massive, especially if you’re a service that’s Selling through the Internet, which is all of us.

  Garett Southerton [00:13:17]:

  Exactly.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:13:18]:

  The way that we perceive that that first impression in the web design world, they’ll talk about, like, you know, that 8 second test, which Which is, like, if somebody gets to your website, in 8 seconds, they’re forming an opinion. They’re deciding.

  Garett Southerton [00:13:29]:

  Within 7 seconds, they have the whole opinion. Just on your first line, Your headline alone, they’re out if they don’t like it.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:13:36]:

  There was a Microsoft study years ago. I referenced that in one of our workshops from before, and that was absolutely it. Like, within that For 7 seconds, they’re deciding, and they’ll bounce if if it’s not compelling.

  Garett Southerton [00:13:47]:

  Percent.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:13:47]:

  So you don’t have time to mess around.

  Garett Southerton [00:13:49]:

  I mean or if the page even It’s too long. Right?

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:13:52]:

  Mhmm.

  Garett Southerton [00:13:52]:

  How many visits do you go on? It’s like 20 seconds to load, and it’s like Mhmm. I come from a web developing background, and I’ll be like, no. I can’t do this. My time my time too much. 20 seconds is nothing, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s everything.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:14:03]:

  It is everything. It’s very interesting, but there are rare cases where taking longer can actually be better. One of the things that we talked about in a previous issue of the newsletter was the labor illusion. And so you might have read this one, but it’s very neat. You probably see this. If you go to a travel website let’s say you’re looking for the best, ticket prices on an airplane. Right? When you go to the travel website, If they instantly load the results, you’re not as satisfied as if for a few seconds or, like, you know, a second, you see them kind of like Scanning all the different, flight all the different airlines and then choosing like, you think that more work went into processing that result, and you actually are more satisfied with the what’s presented to you than if they instantly show you the result. But that is rare.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:14:50]:

  It’s rare. Most of us want it right away. We don’t wanna wait. We don’t want things loading.

  Garett Southerton [00:14:55]:

  But I think transferring that to So, like, a business perspective also Mhmm. Is like when I offer packages. Right? I don’t just tell you what it is. I tell you how much hours go into it Even though it’s not hourly done, but I give you the approximate things so then you know that, like, hey. I’m not just opening, you know, Canva or Photoshop Mhmm. Opening a template, picking colors, and giving them to you. You know that 40 hours of research is going into this project before you get what you want.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:15:20]:

  I love that.

  Garett Southerton [00:15:21]:

  That’s a great way to use that.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:15:22]:

  And that’s a piece that a lot of Designers skip. Mhmm. There’s a lot of great design that doesn’t convert because the design team doesn’t spend any time trying to Understand the audience.

  Garett Southerton [00:15:32]:

  It’s not just about being pretty. Yeah. Like, one of my favorite things that you’ve went over was the IKEA effect. Right? Mhmm. Where people, they get, like, this attachment from being part of the product and building the product, and they feel, like, deeply connected to that. Mhmm. That’s beautiful. Like, what’s one of your other favorite?

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:15:49]:

  My Favorite there’s 2 that are my favorite of all time. For anybody who’s listening who’s not familiar with why we buy and kinda like what we do, we share what are, like, fire psychology Concepts. And in the behavioral science world, a lot of what we share are considered to be cognitive biases or heuristics. And a cognitive bias is basically like a little shortcut that your brain will take. Like, why would you value something more if you had a hand in making it at the IKEA Factory? Mhmm. It doesn’t make sense. So there’s a bit of a bias there. It’s kind of considered to be an error in thinking sometimes.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:16:20]:

  There’s a number of these. There’s a lot of behavioral scientists sharing different work and some of them kind of overlap and be a bit confusing. There are 2 that stand out for me. 1 is this concept called the pratfall effect. So we actually like things more When they’re imperfect or flawed in a way. So a great example of this is they did this study, and they had job applicants go into an interview And they looked, you know, they looked all dressed up. They looked, you know, professional. But in the interview, they were giving great answers, very competent.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:16:51]:

  They clearly weren’t a, you know, a dubs. But in the interview, some of them would, by mistake, spilled coffee of themselves. So, like, you know, an error any of us could make. You go to grab something, your finger falls. And afterwards, they had the interviewers rate them on how much they liked them. And the ones who made that little mistake We’re actually just considered to be more likable than the ones who didn’t sell coffee on themselves.

  Garett Southerton [00:17:18]:

  They’re not so perfect.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:17:19]:

  Yeah. Exactly. It’s counterintuitive. Right? But I think at the end of the day, we recognize as humans that we’re all, you know, Flawed in small ways. None of, like you know, it it depends what you think of as the ideal. But I think we find things that have imperfections To be more relatable, because we’re all imperfect.

  Garett Southerton [00:17:38]:

  I think that’s why, like, people, like, when in this era, people are, like, really real about things. They show their behind the scenes day to day life. And, you know, I battle with mental health sometimes like a lot of entrepreneurs do. And when I share something like that, hey. I’m not posting this week because I need a break, or I’m taking a little summer sabbatical. I know that type of stuff resonates with people so much, and I get messages from people who want to see how I’m doing. And then Mhmm. Down the line, like, that forges our relationship closer because they see that I’m not just you know, I might have the perfect setup.

  Garett Southerton [00:18:09]:

  I might look great on video Mhmm. Have great content, but the fact that they see that there’s a human behind it

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:18:15]:

  Critical. Right?

  Garett Southerton [00:18:15]:

  I think that kinda ties into that.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:18:17]:

  There’s a great book that, we just did a kind of, like, mini email challenge on, and it’s called Presuasion. And it’s written by Robert Cialdini, who’s The author of Influence, which is one of kind of the most read books on, behavioral science and, like, psychology and how to be more influential. But this is one of his other books, and he talks about what it takes to be likable. Right? Because, like, a lot goes into persuasion, like, aside from what you actually say. Like, what you say is persuasive. But everything happens and what Say before you actually try to make a pitch and, like, get somebody to buy, that’s also incredibly persuasive. And one of the big factors that, like, makes somebody more persuasive is that they’re likable. And guess what goes into making somebody likable? We like people who are more like us.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:19:03]:

  Is that a shocker to any of us? No. It’s it’s mate it’s human nature. Right. Like, we grew up in like, our ancestors, like, evolved in tribes, and you Had to decide who you were going to trust, and you needed to lean on each other for survival. And therefore, the people who you perceive to be more like you, they seem more trustworthy. And so we like people more when they’re like us, and we are imperfect. We are flawed. You know, I also battle with mental health issues.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:19:32]:

  And so for me, when I see somebody who seems to have all their shit together, never shows any weaknesses, Never acknowledges to any challenges. They’re just always winning. That’s also something I can relate to. Right? It’s not relatable. No.

  Garett Southerton [00:19:46]:

  I agree.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:19:46]:

  There’s lots of times I’m not winning. And so I think that it’s important. That’s why I love the crack ball effect. That was one that really stood out to me. True for, like, typos. Right? Like, we’re all perfectionist. Like, you might send an email with a typo, and you’re gonna go, oh my god. I can’t believe it.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:19:59]:

  Everyone’s gonna think I’m an idiot. And in reality, they like you more, because they probably sent an email out with a typo too. Yeah.

  Garett Southerton [00:20:05]:

  They reply like, oh, it happened to me too. Don’t worry about it. Yeah. Like, I get anxiety when people are too perfect, so I’m being honest. Mhmm. That’s one of the reasons, like, I have this love hate relationship with Instagram.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:20:14]:

  Mhmm. Me too.

  Garett Southerton [00:20:15]:

  I go on and, you know, there’s a lot of great content, a lot of great creators, a lot of great friends I’ve met through there. But, like, when you go, like, on the Explore page or Even your feed now because algorithm. Right? You get, like, all these people who are pretending to be so perfect in every aspect of their life. And then I think about myself. I’m like, oh, I don’t got my shit together like this. I thought I had my shit together, but I don’t have my shit together. And then I get anxiety, and then I have to, like, close out the app, and I’m done with social for the day. I have to be done or Mhmm.

  Garett Southerton [00:20:43]:

  That’s it.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:20:43]:

  I personally I’ve I, you know, I apologize to any listeners who love Instagram. It is my least favorite place to hang out on the Internet. It is fine. It’s like it’s designed to make you compare yourselves to other people.

  Garett Southerton [00:20:55]:

  No. I I completely agree.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:20:56]:

  And the other thing that it does is something that I haven’t written about yet, but I’m going to. There’s this terrific book everybody should read. It’s called Wanting by Luke Bridges. And what he gets into is this concept that was new to me, but makes total sense when you hear it, and it’s called mimetic desire. So oftentimes, people, We don’t really know what we want, and so we decide what we want by mirroring and mimicking what it looks like other people want. And I think that Instagram is a massive amplifier of that. If you look at design trends, right, like, how does it happen that, like, you know, 15 years ago, everybody’s kitchen looked like this. And then slowly, slowly, slowly now everyone’s kitchen’s white.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:21:41]:

  Does everybody love white kitchens? Not necessarily. But there’s a mimetic desire. Right? Like, we see the white kitchen. We go, oh, they all seem to love that white kitchen. Maybe I should have a white kitchen.

  Garett Southerton [00:21:50]:

  Like the white picket fence like dream.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:21:53]:

  A 100%. Right? And so the interesting thing about Mimetic Desire is that if you’re not careful, You can end up pursuing things that you think you want and then get them and realize they don’t make you happy. And for me, there is kind of this Uh-huh moment that’s happened to me in the last year where I had been under the belief that after having had a branding agency years ago and having a fairly large team, Then having a tech company and having a fairly large team that I did not want to have a team again. I wanna just do a business Where I could be a solopreneur, maybe I work with a couple of, like, you know, amazing contractors or freelancers, but I did not wanna hire any employees. I thought that that’s what I wanted. And it also coincided with the kind of, like, the growth in popularity of my friend Justin Welch, who’s a big proponent of this idea of solopreneurship. And so I’m looking at what Justin’s talking. They’re like, yeah.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:22:50]:

  Yeah. That’s what I want. That’s what I want. Like, I don’t want employees again. I want I want this. And Then when I partnered up with, the demand curve team to create an ignorable, there was this moment for me. I was like, No. Wait.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:23:03]:

  I don’t wanna be a solopreneur. Like, I love having a team. I just want partners and not employees. You know, I wanna work with partners instead of employees, and that’s what I actually want. And so I realized I kind of, like, reflected now. I was like, I bought into this whole thing even though In all the years of being an entrepreneur, I’ve been an entrepreneur for almost, like, well, 13 years now. Like, in all those years, I remember Looking at friends of mine who had awesome cofounders, they had this really great partnership, and kind of like envying that. Because, like, I’d been a, like, a solo founder in most of my ventures And ending that.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:23:40]:

  And then once it was funny because I reflected back and I was like, actually, like, I’ve always wanted a partner, But I talked myself into the solopreneur dream because I’d seen so many other people talking about it. I’d seen so many other people saying that that’s what they wanted. And I think that Instagram really amplifies that mimetic desire. You see, everyone has a small dog now. I must want a small dog. Right? Like, everyone’s got the same haircut. I probably want that haircut. And the reality is you need to stop yourself, and you really need to root in and ask yourself deeper questions because oftentimes, the path to get to what you want is not the path that you think it is if you’re not really Asking yourself those those deeper questions.

  Garett Southerton [00:24:28]:

  Yeah. I I love that, and I had no idea, like, that was, like, a whole theory. But thinking about that as you’re talking, that sounds like it’s the root of, like, imposter syndrome. Mhmm. And it’s like, oh, well, this person. Know? So, like and then we get there. And like you said, then we’re burnt out because we we did all this shit to get to this one spot and realized we don’t even want it.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:24:49]:

  Happens all the time. Right? Mhmm. I was watching, it’s a Netflix series. I think it’s called Untold. It’s like untold stories, different folks. And there’s one on, What’s his name? Logan Paul’s younger brother. He’s, like, an amazing

  Garett Southerton [00:25:02]:

  Jake Paul.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:25:03]:

  Jake Paul. Yeah. He was sharing his story. And, like, for most people like, you know, a lot of people, especially When he was coming up on YouTube, like, they they dream about the life that he was able to create.

  Garett Southerton [00:25:14]:

  Mhmm.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:25:14]:

  And he, as a YouTuber, Was ridiculously unhappy. He didn’t like himself. You know, you get to the very top of this thing, and you keep chasing and chasing. You know, him and his he said, like, him and his brother were competing on views, and They were competing on Mhmm. Who got the best sponsors and who made the most money. And, ultimately, at the end of the day, it all felt really hollow and not and it didn’t drive a lot of happiness. And I think that this is so one of the things that Luke, Burgess talks about in his book is ways to find what he calls your thick desires. And your thick desires for you are the things that you actually want, the things that actually make you happy.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:25:51]:

  And for me, one thing that is that, like, you know, I really desire to feel supported and understood, And I really value getting to collaborate and brainstorm and create, and I don’t like doing it alone. And yet I had convinced myself that this was the story of what I wanted, and this was the the company I was gonna build, and here were all the This is why. Without really digging into the surface and looking at what I really want. So Mimetic Desire, interesting interesting concept. Great. You know, Wanting is a very good book worth Reading.

  Garett Southerton [00:26:26]:

  I mean, I think I’m gonna have to order that as soon as we’re done now.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:26:28]:

  It’s super good.

  Garett Southerton [00:26:29]:

  So, like, aside from, like, obviously partnering now with other companies, is there, like, certain changes that this has led you to go down for your business.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:26:36]:

  Yeah. For me, what it looks at is, like so with Why We Buy, that’s just for me. I’ve had, like, I’ve had an amazing contract writer who’s worked for a long time on it.

  Garett Southerton [00:26:44]:

  EVA. Correct?

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:26:44]:

  Yes. EVA. Yeah. Amazing. I have a incredible VA who does a lot of the behind the scenes work on stuff. And I just brought on another really great guy who’s helping me. But I’m now looking for a partner for Why we buy? Like, somebody to come in and kind of, like, more operational, like, head of content role. And Mhmm.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:27:04]:

  I don’t think I would have had that awareness that that’s what I wanted Unless I would have had the opportunity to build on ignorable with the demand curve team, because I was still very much in this path of, like, you know, like, Solopreneurship is what I want. So it is affecting me in that way. And what I’m recognizing on myself is that I don’t want to build Why We Buy as this kind of, like, 1 person media brand. Like, I want to I wanna have a partner in it. I want us to build this little kind of, like, mini empire together, and I think that that’s gonna make me a lot happier in the long run. So I’ve got this great partnership with, Neil on the demand curve team, and now I have, a person in mind that we’re kind of, like, in early discussions for who what that would look like on the why we buy

  Garett Southerton [00:27:45]:

  That’s awesome. So like I said before, you’re killing it between Twitter, the newsletter. The content is always, like, the highest quality, but yet it’s also super consistent. How are you able to keep it that high of quality while still being that much as a solopreneur. You know what I mean?

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:28:03]:

  Well, there’s kind of like 3 spokes there. So the newsletter, I like, you know, Eva has been hugely valuable on the newsletter. She’s been working with me for almost over a year. We’re actually gonna be parting ways, And I’m as I’m looking at this next, as I’m chatting with somebody who’s coming on as a partner, but she’s been working on it for a long time. And so we had a very clear and working format and structure. When she came on, we knew exactly what every issue looked like. We’ve been doing it for 2 years already, so we had really clear guidelines of this is what goes into each issue. Here’s the length that we want each Like, you know, each section to be, here’s the type of examples that we wanna give.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:28:46]:

  And so having that format is a huge time saver. And one of the things I’m working on like, you know, let me explain it in the new masterclass on, newsletters is if you look at your favorite newsletters, They all use a format. 1st, sometimes it’s very obvious. Sometimes it’s less obvious.

  Garett Southerton [00:29:03]:

  Yeah. A 100%.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:29:04]:

  Like James Clear, his three two one newsletter, Same format every time. I think it’s, like, 3 tweets, 2 ideas, 1

  Garett Southerton [00:29:11]:

  And one thing I really like or something like that.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:29:13]:

  Yeah. Always the same, though. Right? So all he needs to do When he sits down to read his newsletter, James is genius, but all he needs to do is basically look at his last week on Twitter and go, what were my top three Tweets. Okay. Those are the ones I’m gonna put in. And, you know, what are 2 ideas that I found interesting this week? I’m sure it’s just got this running list. And, you know, what’s something that I’ve that I think my readers would enjoy? And so he he sits down to write, and there’s not a blank page. There’s a canvas With the paint the numbers.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:29:40]:

  Right?

  Garett Southerton [00:29:40]:

  So instead of starting from scratch, you’re starting from a jump point.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:29:43]:

  Exactly. I feel like that’s like, people need to create. When it comes to content, You’ll start to develop these kind of, like, formats and, like, content shells over time that you use again and again. So with our newsletter, we have a very specific one. I’d say that we got Lucky. And not that we got lucky. My friend, Stu, and I, we we worked on the original newsletter together. It, you know, it hasn’t evolved much From the original.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:30:08]:

  It’s there’s some things that we’ve changed, but, really, we had such clarity around what that first version was going to be that we put it out and it worked. And that’s not that’s not that’s rare. That does not mean very often.

  Garett Southerton [00:30:22]:

  But that also probably comes from your background of, like, the other side of the business, like, knowing your audience deeply.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:30:27]:

  I would I would argue that’s a competitive advantage that I have, and it’s one that I continue to invest in. Like, it’s so important. And then when on the social side of things, there’s a few kind of, like, content Templates and formats that I always return to. So when we go to plug our newsletter, I’ll usually plug it the day before it’s gonna go out and the day of. I always start it with, like, the same the same format. It’s, again, like, just fill in the blanks. I’ve got this format where I share, like, a geeky brain tip, Which is around understanding, like, some little nugget of buyer science. And I I can go to that format and use it again and again.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:31:04]:

  I Scour Twitter to look for these really cool visual tweets. Sometimes you’ll see just, like, amazing things that people make out of text. Like, it’ll look like this, like, person holding a globe in their hand, and it’s made out of dashes and dots. Like, I’ll find those, and I’ll save them, and I’ll use those. So, like, I think when it comes to the content side of things, it’s really it’s a lot of experimentation, understanding your audience, Understanding what people pay attention to, which is what we really focus on in the Un-Ignorable challenge, and then Playing. Right? Finding your voice, finding what your content resonates with, putting out more and more content, and seeing what’s getting traction.

  Garett Southerton [00:31:46]:

  Yeah.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:31:47]:

  The thing that I say oftentimes about building an audience is that clarity will come from engagement, not thought. Like, So many people spend all their time thinking about, like, well, what should my niche be? And, you know, what should, like, Really obsessing about, like, all of the kind of, like, strategic stuff, and you need to think about that. But at the end of the day, you don’t decide. The audience decides. Right?

  Garett Southerton [00:32:13]:

  Definitely.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:32:14]:

  Like, you get to guide it. You can think of it like a ship. Right? You can change this direction of the sale If you wanna go this way but if your audience isn’t interested in that, it’s like you’re blowing up the gale in front of you. You’re not gonna go very far. So you need to think about where you want things to go and then also recognize that you need to listen to the feedback of the audience Because they’re gonna help you evolve. Yeah. When I started on Twitter, I was very focused on Talking about customer discovery, which is a concept from the, you know, start up world. And most of the people that I was talking to We’re working in high growth, like, start ups, primarily SaaS companies.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:32:56]:

  That’s where I started. And I was like, that’s who I’m gonna talk to. And that was because it was strategic based on the type of business I was trying to build at the time. But over time, as I learned more about what I got excited about writing about And as I listened to the audience and what they were resonating with, it began shifting. And I started focusing on marketing And then more understanding customers, not just customer discovery, which is as part of the product development process. And then I started pushing more towards the buyer psychology. So is this this slow evolution again? Like, you know, you’re tilting the sales and going in a direction.

  Garett Southerton [00:33:30]:

  So it’s like you put those hours in before it became an overnight success. It wasn’t just like, boom, I woke up, and I have a 120,000 followers on Twitter.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:33:38]:

  Yeah. That’s not that is not what happened. Yeah. It’s it’s it was a progression, And it’s almost always that way for everyone. Mhmm. You know, many of my friends who have built successful businesses off the backs of kind of an audience, Most of them, there was no overnight success. And most of them, if you were to look at where they started and what they’re doing today And ask them to kind of go back through their journey. You’re gonna see a big evolution and focus and message and But that’s part of the journey because you need to find what resonates with people.

  Garett Southerton [00:34:12]:

  I agree. I I found that in my own journey because, like, almost everybody that does branding, right, They start at the same point of, like, trying to go over the foundation, who, what, why, or they go to archetypes. Right? Mhmm. I fucking hate archetypes. Types. It’s trying to put a business and your community into a box. Mhmm. And I don’t agree with it.

  Garett Southerton [00:34:28]:

  That’s why I came up with the whole intentional branding side of, like, Focus on the value. Focus on the why. Focus on why you’re doing this beyond the money because everybody wants money. We all need money. Mhmm. We can’t survive without it. Mhmm. So that’s, like, where I came with that funder to go back to that.

  Garett Southerton [00:34:43]:

  I’m not used to building a business on social. I built my business before social existed.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:34:47]:

  And the thing about being, you know, being great at what you do is that I had a branding agency myself years ago. I never had any social presence, and I didn’t need one because most of my work came in through referrals. Right?

  Garett Southerton [00:34:58]:

  Exactly.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:34:59]:

  There’s nothing wrong with Prioritize client work over building your audience in the short term, but you’re wise to recognize the opportunity it presents for your long term.

  Garett Southerton [00:35:10]:

  Exactly. Yeah. And I’m at that point in my career where, like you, like, you know, how you discovered you wanted a partner and, you know, you’re doing that. So I’m at that point where I discovered, I still love this. I’m still gonna keep doing this, but I want to grow to a point where Kind of like Al Simone or Gary Vee where Mhmm. They create content to help people, and they release things to help people, and they do it for nothing because they wanna do it. Like, they don’t have to do it. And they work with bigger partners, and they work you know, their business is a whole another thing than what you see on social media.

  Garett Southerton [00:35:45]:

  Yeah. And that’s kind of the point where I can also then turn around and focus on creating content, whether it’s on YouTube or Instagram or podcasts like this where I can actually reach those people who can’t afford yet to work with me.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:35:57]:

  Mhmm.

  Garett Southerton [00:35:58]:

  It’s not just about the money for me. That’s just what what the industry has become. Right? Mhmm. And I still want to help those people who are still trying to figure it out, and I don’t wanna be on calls all day either. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, like, I’m getting to that impasse where, you know, my big thing is is I don’t care about my follower account. Right? I mean, I think it’s great when you build it in a mass, but

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:36:16]:

  It’s not a it’s not a critical, like, metric for So many people, and we talk about this a lot in Un-Ignorable. Like, you know, if you focus on the wrong things, you end up with you know, attention is Fine. But you what you really wanna do is build intent with the right audience.

  Garett Southerton [00:36:31]:

  Exactly.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:36:31]:

  That should be the goal of anybody who’s trying. When it comes to personal branding, building an audience, it’s about Creating intention with the people who are the best fit customers for you, and that’s really what matters.

  Garett Southerton [00:36:43]:

  Yeah. Exactly. Like, I don’t care about my follower account. Right? Like, Early on in Twitter, you know, I had 5,000 followers, like, right out the bat, kinda. And that’s cool, but it did nothing for my business. Like you said, like, a branding agency, like, you have your business. I do a great job at 1 client, and I got 4 more out the door. You what I mean? I don’t even need to do a launch Mhmm.

  Garett Southerton [00:37:04]:

  To get things. Like, I have done it for, you know, just for the sake of doing it, but, like, I don’t need to do that. Mhmm. So it’s not about that for me. It’s more so that now I need this follower account that I don’t really care about the number. But to get to that next level, I kinda need that number for the larger clientele to see that, and then let me help other people.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:37:25]:

  It helps with authority. Absolutely. Authority matters. Right? Like, we jump to conclusions far too quickly. Yeah. Just because somebody has a large audience on social media does not mean that they are proficient at what they do Or that they are giving good advice.

  Garett Southerton [00:37:40]:

  It doesn’t go to you because, you know, you have you have the large funneling and you have a successful business. But most of the people that I do end up working with now, they have a 150,000 followers, and they have 0 in sales.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:37:53]:

  This is the secret that nobody really talks about. It’s getting discussed a bit more now. We, you know, we talked about it a lot as we were building on because I was seeing this trend particularly on Twitter, which is where I’m most active. I’m building an audience on LinkedIn too. But, I recommend to everyone who’s listening, like, focus on 1 channel in the beginning because it’s Way too much work to try to do too.

  Garett Southerton [00:38:12]:

  Yeah. Of course.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:38:12]:

  But, you know, it took me years to build up my Twitter audience. Now I can do LinkedIn for you. Start with 1. But a number of folks Who have very large audiences on Twitter do not have much money coming into Mhmm. From their audience Because they focused more on the size of the audience and therefore put out a lot of what we would call, like, you know, top of funnel, generic, You know, content that was interesting, but interesting to a large swath of people, and they never really positioned themselves as an expert in the things that mattered To the audience that they wanted to sell to. And so they ended up with this massive audience and no real idea around how To convert that into sustainable income.

  Garett Southerton [00:38:57]:

  Exactly.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:38:57]:

  And that’s a mistake. And that’s one of the things that we wanna help people to avoid at Un-Ignorable. We talk a lot about attention is not intent.

  Garett Southerton [00:39:04]:

  Exactly. Meanwhile, I’m over here. If we’re talking about Instagram, I have a 1,000 followers, and yet I’m killing it. You know what I mean? I’m I’m booked out all year. Mhmm. It’s like that necessary evil that I have to kinda grow into, and that that’s kind of where I’m at in my own journey.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:39:18]:

  I like where you’re Where you are with how you’re thinking about it though, because I think that you obviously understand. The number doesn’t matter from the dollars in your bank account Perspective? No. The number matters as a kind of, like, reference check depending on what it is you’re doing. Right? Like, if I were trying to create a program around building an audience and I had 10 followers, it would be a real Mhmm. If you’re trying to sell a fitness, like, program and you are In terrible shape. Right? That’s a problem. Like so you have to think about what does the projection that you’re giving through your kind of, like, social content Actually represent what makes sense for your business.

  Garett Southerton [00:40:03]:

  It’s the ultimate vibe, Chad.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:40:05]:

  Totally. Totally. And so for some People, depending on where they’re going with things, it’s more important than it is for others. There are plenty of millionaires and multimillionaires who still have an egg picture on Twitter. Like, they’ve never made any

  Garett Southerton [00:40:18]:

  And nobody knows their name at all.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:40:20]:

  Yeah. Yeah. Which is kind of a great dream too. Because, like, as much as it’s great having an audience, it’d be really nice not to meet an audience and to still have a massive business.

  Garett Southerton [00:40:30]:

  So going back, though, your 2nd favorite principle

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:40:34]:

  Yes. So my 2nd favorite principle, I would say, it’s not so much of a I wouldn’t say that it’s a, cognitive bias is more of a concept, but it’s really relevant to a lot of what we’ve been talking about. It’s called Solomon’s paradox.

  Garett Southerton [00:40:46]:

  Mhmm.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:40:46]:

  As a person who works with clients and those branding work. Have you ever felt like you get annoyed when it’s like, I can look at that client, and I can learn about their customers, and I can so clearly see the vision or what I’m gonna create for them. And then you sit down into your own stuff, and you’re like, ah.

  Garett Southerton [00:41:03]:

  100%.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:41:04]:

  That is Solomon’s paradox. So it’s based on king Solomon, who’s this Famous ruler, and he was apparently considered to be the wisest man in the realm. Right? The wisest man in the kingdom. People go to him with their problems, And he could immediately figure out the best solution. And yet, in his own life, he would toil over What seemed to others to be kind of, like, simple simple decisions, and we all do that. And so Solomon’s paradox was this really freeing concept we’re gonna learn about. Because as a, you know, consultant for many years and an agency owner, there’s a shame that comes along with feeling like you’re not doing for yourself What you’re telling your clients to do or what you can do so easily for others. Yeah.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:41:46]:

  And I recognize that it was very, like it was like a relief because I was like, oh, this isn’t just I’m an imposter. I’m actually not as good at this thing as I think I am or, like, you know, that I can’t even do this for myself, so how good could I be? This is a theme. This is a like, you know, it’s a challenge that a lot of it’s a block for a lot of people. And so I’d say that that’s the concept that I really Love. And when we wrote our newsletter on Solomon’s Paradox, that was the one that, of all the issues we’ve said, got the most replies. So I think people just were able to breathe out and go, Oh, I’m not alone.

  Garett Southerton [00:42:23]:

  Like, thank god it’s not just me.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:42:25]:

  Yeah. Why is it that I can write incredible copy for my clients. Mhmm. And I look at my landing page and my headline, and I hate it. Like Mhmm. And it’s because it’s much easier. My friend Louie Grania has this great saying. I it’s not his saying.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:42:39]:

  I first heard him say it. It’s this idea that you can’t read the label from inside the bottle. Mhmm. And I was like, yes.

  Garett Southerton [00:42:45]:

  That’s great.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:42:45]:

  That’s it. Right?

  Garett Southerton [00:42:46]:

  Yeah. Yeah. Fun fact that it actually took me, like, a year to get my own you know, obviously, by hand logo, And it took me a year to really figure out the exact type. Mhmm. Like, you know, I have a book book filled of each letter just to get the right type that I wanted. Mhmm. And it’s funny, like, meanwhile, like, you know, somebody will contact me tomorrow, and I have 10 ideas already ready to go that move with their audience and everything because that’s, you know, part of what we do.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:43:12]:

  An important reminder for people that this is why you hire outside of your of your company. Right?

  Garett Southerton [00:43:17]:

  Yeah.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:43:18]:

  Even Neil and I, like, We help each other to, like, you know, build their personal brand, to figure out how to position themselves and frame themselves. And after our 1st cohort about Ignorable, Neil said he’s like, you know, he’s like, I feel kind of, like, shitty. He’s like, we’re helping people figure out their LinkedIn bios, and he’s like, I don’t feel like mine’s very good. And I was like, it’s because of Solomon’s Paradox. So, like, we jumped on a call together, and we, like, workshopped it together. And then he walked away with something he felt a lot better with. But I I needed the same thing from him. Right? Like, I think that we oftentimes were ashamed to ask for help in areas where we feel like we should be experts, And you can’t do your own stuff the same way that you can help others.

  Garett Southerton [00:43:58]:

  I feel like that’s why so many people don’t invest in coaching or We’re learning. Mhmm. Last year, I hired a brand coach, and I felt a little bit shame because, like, I’m like, I’m a branding expert, and I just hired a brand coach.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:44:10]:

  Solomon’s paradox is your it’s your redemption. Right?

  Garett Southerton [00:44:13]:

  Yeah. And then but I saw, like, where he was at. Right? And I’m like, that’s where I wanna get to.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:44:18]:

  Tell me what your Experience. Do you feel like at the end of the day, he was able to get you to a place you couldn’t get to on your own?

  Garett Southerton [00:44:23]:

  Yeah. I mean, I feel like I really honed in my, you know, whole intentional message a more. Mhmm. It’s just been an eye opening experience completely.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:44:30]:

  I think that’s another thing around our own limiting beliefs. And, you know, if we’re talking about, like, you know, behavioral science stuff that I find delightful. Another one is the glacier effect or it’s sometimes called the Pygmalion effect, Which is this idea that if whether we believe we can do something or we believe we can’t do something, we’re right. Right? Like, we set these beliefs out. And If we don’t believe in ourselves, we might see that there’s a, you know, a solution that would be perfect to help us overcome our problem. Like, let’s say that Somebody joins that ignorable or they wanna join that ignorable and everything about it sounds great. But if they don’t believe in themselves, They’re not gonna join because they they have this limited belief. It’s like, you know, they might be able to teach other people how to do this, but I’m not gonna be good.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:45:16]:

  Right. I’m gonna struggle.

  Garett Southerton [00:45:17]:

  Self fulfilling prophecies. Exactly.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:45:19]:

  And so I think that it’s often really important for us To identify those lemonade beliefs Yeah. Alex Hormozi. He said this thing that was really poignant as he always says. He’s very he’s very, Direct and, like, poignant in the word the words that he uses. And he said something around, solve rich people problems. Because the reality is the difference between the output is probably not different. Right? Like, if you’re designing a logo for Puma Versus designing a logo for, like, you know, the shoe store down the street. Like, your process might not look that much different.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:45:55]:

  What will look very different is your invoice. Like, Puma, you can charge Puma a whole lot more. But to get to the stage where Puma’s hiring you, That personal brand is a is a massive catalyst. It’s a massive part of it.

  Garett Southerton [00:46:08]:

  A 100%. Yeah. One of my favorite psychological theories when it comes to design is something that you wrote about, not Not recently, but you wrote about a few months ago called Hicks’ Law. Yes. Yep. I call that the Netflix effect. Mhmm. Picture, you know, me and my wife, we had a long day.

  Garett Southerton [00:46:22]:

  We wanna Watch a new show. We sit down. We turn on Netflix, and we browse and we browse. Next thing you know, 30 minutes pass by. We’re both overwhelmed, and we’re like, fuck it. Let’s just watch Disney plus then. Mhmm. And we turn it off and go and never come back to Netflix again until there’s something we specifically know we want, and it happens every single time.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:46:44]:

  Amazing.

  Garett Southerton [00:46:44]:

  When it comes to design, so many people, they wanna shove 10 things in one frame. You know? In your viewport on your website alone, like, they have, like, 6 buttons. You know? It it’s just too much, and it’s overwhelming. And I think that’s, like, one of the things that I always have to go back to and and keep workshopping through people with that. Mhmm.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:47:01]:

  So,

  Garett Southerton [00:47:01]:

  like, be really intentional about what your action is that you want people to take.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:47:05]:

  It’s a great point because I think that oftentimes, We are afraid that if we don’t share all the things

  Garett Southerton [00:47:11]:

  Mhmm.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:47:12]:

  We’re gonna miss out, and that comes at a loss aversion. Right? Like, we don’t wanna miss out on opportunities, And we don’t wanna lose the opportunities. And the reality is you there’s a lot more to gain from being You know, simplifying the customer experience, simplifying the ask. It’s something that I think every business, it’s a work in progress. Yeah.

  Garett Southerton [00:47:34]:

  Of course.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:47:35]:

  Even as I think about un ignorable. Like, in the space of, like, content, like online courses and Training for many, many years, like, a big, like, selling point that people would put on their websites was, like, 70 hours of training content. And for me, I would always see that. My eyes would glaze over, and I’d be like, that’s a nightmare.

  Garett Southerton [00:47:56]:

  Yeah. I’d be like, no. Please not.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:47:57]:

  Like, why do you think that that’s a selling point? Like, for me, How do you get somebody the outcome that they want in the shortest amount of time possible with the least amount of effort? And so Even, like, even as we look at, like, you know, next cohort and how things are changing, for me, it’s always about trimming away. What can you get rid of? Like, they’re like you probably heard Design saying, you know, like, it’s not done when there’s nothing else to add. It’s done when there’s nothing left to take away.

  Garett Southerton [00:48:23]:

  White space is essential to to let things breathe. They don’t let people breathe, you know, design aspect wise.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:48:28]:

  Well, which is why I think people love Apple stuff. Right? People love Volkswagen stuff, all that classic design. It was they were so good at using the negative space that what they did show made such a big impact.

  Garett Southerton [00:48:40]:

  I think that’s what it goes down to. Like, if you if you have one thing that you deliver and I know you’ll deliver it so exceptionally well. They’re gonna wanna go into everything. It’s

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:48:47]:

  an important message for people because, like, the other thing people do when it comes to selling their products Is that, like, this is very common where you just wanna show everything everything you’ve got. Right? Because I wanna sell something, so I’m gonna show them all the things. But oftentimes, you probably have that one thing That is going to be relevant and exciting to the majority of customers. If you can get them to kinda commit to that thing, Then down the road, you can introduce them to these other things that you might have. Right? And people are afraid to do that. They’d much rather show that they’ve Got, like, you know, 90 different options. Mhmm.

  Garett Southerton [00:49:20]:

  All all the eggs in every basket.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:49:22]:

  Mhmm.

  Garett Southerton [00:49:22]:

  Going back to, like, our whole analogy thing. Right? Because that’s where we really connect. Where did it come from that you got into that whole geeky side of it?

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:49:31]:

  On the buyer psychology side of things, and, like, what made me geek The 1st introduction to it, I’d say, was, a book by Jonah Berger, and it’s called Contagious. Yeah.

  Garett Southerton [00:49:42]:

  Great book.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:49:43]:

  Yeah. I’m reading his new book called Magic Words, which is also very, very good. But I read Contagious when it first came out. I think it was back in, like, 2000 2006. I can’t remember. It was like I was in early probably 2000 oh, it’s 2013, I think. But I had just started, you know, I just started my 1st marketing business. I didn’t study marketing.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:50:01]:

  I didn’t have a background in it. I had a background in PR, but marketing was what I was gravitated towards. And I discovered that it broke down, like, why People share things, why things go viral. And for me, it was like the floodgates open. And I was like, oh my god. There’s this entire world Of understanding people that is so much more important than the stuff I was paying attention to. Right? Like, I was, like, You know, I was trying to, like, make myself feel like a marketer, and I was still looking up, like, all the best ads of all time. And, like, I was try like, I was all about, like, creating, like, really sexy, like, you know, content and, like, Uh-huh.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:50:36]:

  Really sexy brands.

  Garett Southerton [00:50:37]:

  It’s part of the trap.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:50:38]:

  Yeah. It’s a total it and it was a total trap. This whole idea that, like, really what matters is understanding like, you know, if I found if I loved the, you know, the Volkswagen aesthetic, dig down and understand, like, What about that is compelling to someone like me? And what are they doing, and how are they doing it? And so that was really my first kind of Foray, I guess, into the geeky side of understanding human behavior.

  Garett Southerton [00:51:07]:

  Yeah.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:51:07]:

  I, you know, continued to read books on, like, you know, Psychology, like but I didn’t really geek out on it until I decided to start the newsletter. I say this all the time. Like, I wasn’t an expert on this stuff at all. I was just somebody who’s interested. I was just interested in it, and I understood what I was doing with my, consultancy and my workshops. It was all around helping people to understand their customers. And so I didn’t want to create a newsletter on doing research because that would be boring as hell to people.

  Garett Southerton [00:51:35]:

  Yeah. Definitely.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:51:36]:

  And that’s what we did at our agency because that’s super important. But I knew people didn’t wanna open that newsletter every week. And so I was like, how what are other ways that people can better understand customers? Like, we help them through primary research. But the type of people we wanna attract, they’re probably people who wanna understand their customers. They’re probably looking for, you know, other solutions. So, like, what if you thought about it, like, how can you understand people more broadly? Ah, behavioral science. So it really was back in 2012 that I first got interested, but it wasn’t until 2020, 8 years later, that I actually was like, I wanna start learning more about this and, like, start sharing what I’m learning through the newsletter, and it just

  Garett Southerton [00:52:15]:

  So then how did the, like, the storytelling and the analogy part come to? Like, is that just, like, who you are, or is that just, like, kinda something you reverse engineered through, like, all your marketing days.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:52:24]:

  I think that if you want somebody to remember something, it’s always better when it’s wrapped in a story. Right? Like, we don’t remember facts. We remember narratives.

  Garett Southerton [00:52:30]:

  I agree.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:52:31]:

  And so that’s when I learned about through psychology. And so studying this stuff, it was like, If I want to share something with people and have them understand it, then I need to explain it to them in a way that’s visceral and clear. And I’m all about examples too, right, and all of the content that I create. Like, people you can tell somebody all the stuff we’ve been talking about. We talk about, like, Hicks’ Law and what you said about the Netflix effect. Like, people that immediately go, oh, I get it. I get it. Right? Yeah.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:53:01]:

  Exactly. And that’s it. You wanna take people as quickly as Possible from a you should care about this and then make them go, oh, I get why I should care about this. And the fastest way to do that is sort of analysis.

  Garett Southerton [00:53:15]:

  Yeah. No. I agree. And I think for me, where it comes from is, like, you know, we talked about this earlier. You know, I had another season in my life where I was really into music. I was in the music scene. I was an audio engineer. I wrote music.

  Garett Southerton [00:53:26]:

  I produced music, everything. And I know you’re a hip hop fan. I saw it on Twitter. You bought your son the ABCs of rap.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:53:34]:

  It’s crazy how fast he learned all But

  Garett Southerton [00:53:36]:

  What I like though is a twist that we haven’t mentioned is in a lot of your content. You sometimes put, like, lyrics to songs and, like, you’d twist it towards your message, and I love that. I mean, that’s probably just the hip hop fan type thing, but I love that. But in hip hop, right, Being a fan, you know that it’s about making people experience things that they might not have been able to live through themselves. Right? Mhmm. And if I just tell you, hey. I had to sell this to make it alive, that doesn’t work as much as if I do a metaphor and make you feel like, hey. You ever been hungry and not feeling this and you know what I mean? Like, so if you put things together like that, it kinda goes.

  Garett Southerton [00:54:16]:

  And from a very early age, I, you know, I was Always listen to hip hop music, and that was just my thing. And I think, like, when I transitioned into that myself and I went to a writing perspective, You kind of, like, get used to just speaking in metaphors and similes. And I think, like, it’s just being able to to be myself and add that hip hop background into it without having to make music.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:54:39]:

  Yeah. I love that. I think that people want to see the whole person. Right? Mhmm. And we’re, again, we’re gonna gravitate towards people who share our vibe. You know, your vibe, like, dictates your tribe. And It’s just the way it works. And so when you try to put yourself into when you do what you think you’re supposed to do, right, And it’s not really authentic to you.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:55:04]:

  It’s not gonna be very much fun. And you’re not gonna attract the right people, and it’s gonna feel like work. And, You know, we all work hard enough in our day to day life. We don’t wanna have to work hard on our yeah.

  Garett Southerton [00:55:16]:

  So you know that my whole thing is about being intentional intentionality. And through your journey. You know, there’s been start ups. There’s been branding agencies. Where in it for you Was the one intentional shift that changed everything? That’s

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:55:30]:

  an excellent question. I would say that the intentional shift started when I started my like, you know, my My current company looks different than it did in the beginning. You know, I never started the newsletter with the intention of growing into what it was. Like, I’d ignore what was a surprise that happened last year. But when I started customer camp and I started working on the type of work I’m doing now, I looked at somebody who at the time was just Like, you know, I consider to be, like, a guru. And now I’ve been blessed not to get back to spend time with that person. Like, you know, we were on a trip in Italy together, and I’m just they’re just as smart as you think they’ll be. It’s April Dunford.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:56:04]:

  April Dunford is an amazing Mhmm. Expert on positioning. And I looked at what April had done with their business. She’s a marketer, and I remember seeing her speak. She’d come to speak in in Halifax, in an event I was at, And I was just blown away by her. She’s so brilliant. But the thing that I thought was absolutely brilliant was that as a marketer, I always felt this tension Of chasing trends. Right? It’s like, okay, what’s the new channel? Like, what’s the new tactic? What’s working now? And what I thought April did that was so genius was positioning as this foundational thing that always matters in marketing.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:56:42]:

  And it doesn’t matter whether you are talking about, you know, evolutions in AI or new channels or new trends or whatever. Like, positioning is always gonna be important. It’s always going to be central to effective marketing. And how to do it well is this, like, forever thing. So I started thinking about as I was trying to decide what I was gonna do as a business because I had Closed down my tech company. I previously had a branding agency. I knew I wanted to do training or do something more scalable than kind of like just a service based business, But I didn’t know what I wanted to focus on. I started off when I was doing all this content on, like, building funnels and stuff, and those were kind of, like, trendy at the time.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:57:25]:

  But I had no heart in it, and I wasn’t excited about it. And then I saw what April was doing and it pulled me back and I said, Instead of looking at at trends and what’s changing and feeling like I’m always feeling behind, what if I focused on what doesn’t change? And that’s people. Right? Understanding your customer is always gonna be central to the success of a business, a business and more specifically, you know, to marketing. And so that was, I’d say, the intentional choice I made when I started the my path that I’m on now, Which was I’m gonna focus on what doesn’t change, and I’m going to focus on understanding customers because there’s many different ways you can do that. There’s many different paths to get to that outcome. But foundationally, it’s the most critical thing, and there’s a lot I can do with that concept. And I’d say that that was the thing that I wish I would have done in other businesses. I wish I would have been more thoughtful, But I think you have to make a lot of mistakes to to learn from them.

  Garett Southerton [00:58:28]:

  Without a doubt.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:58:28]:

  But that, I’d say, would be an intentional thing.

  Garett Southerton [00:58:30]:

  Thank you so much, Kate. I’ve had a blast.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:58:32]:

  Me too, Garett. This has been so much Fun.

  Garett Southerton [00:58:34]:

  Where can people find you and learn how to work with you?

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:58:36]:

  So the best way to find me is on Twitter, and I’m at Kate Borr, so k a t e b o u r. And that’s where I spend a lot of time. So, like, come there, strike up a conversation. You can find a link to, like, whatever projects are kind of, like, my Priorities of the time through there, and that’s the best way to get in touch.

  Garett Southerton [00:58:56]:

  And I wanna also say that even though you have amassed this amazing following, that you’re still personal enough that you do actually reach out to everybody or mostly everybody who’s not just, you know, pitching you. You Interact with people when you talk to them and you show them things and learn from them and everything else. And I think that’s really great, and it’s it’s also really important to keep, like, that bit of humility in you no matter how big you get. It’s

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:59:17]:

  It’s fun. I get to meet so many cool people. Like, I’ve like, I there’s nothing that has made my you know, that’s built my business And also helped me as much as as getting to connect with amazing people through Twitter. And selfishly, It’s also great for understanding your customers better. Right? If you’re just posting and leaving, look at all of what you’re missing in terms of insights. So it’s also, You know, if you wanna justify spending time chatting with brand and people on the Internet, just tell yourself you’re doing customer research.

  Garett Southerton [00:59:48]:

  I think that’s a little hidden nugget for people that they weren’t expecting at the end.

  Katelyn Bourgoin [00:59:53]:

  For sure.

  Garett Southerton [00:59:54]:

  Woah. There are so many different nuggets in this episode that can give your business a psychological advantage, but do remember to use them ethically. And a huge thank you, Caitlin, for being my guest on this episode. Make sure you check our newsletter. It is a must read. Also, don’t forget to go to Garett.TV so you can subscribe and get the latest episodes. And remember, brand intention.