Episode Transcript
Don Mock
All right. Episode 135 we’re back, and we’re back with a special guest, Tim. I’m not even gonna try to pronounce your last name
Tim Klinedinst
Yeah, nobody should. I don’t even like it, but you know, Smith and Jones were taken.
Don Mock
Yeah, yeah. How do you how do you say your last name?
Tim Klinedinst
It’s, Klinedinst. So when I tell people I’m like, think of Calvin Klein est but I get clandestine clinquist, yeah.
Don Mock
Here’s the good news about, I mean, my last name is Mock. Obviously, it’s not hard to if you spell it correctly. People know how to say it, but I get Mac a lot. I don’t know why. Like, there’s a lot of types Mac, right? But it’s you will know immediately if it’s a telemarketer calling you when they say, Hey, can I speak to Tim? And then they just butcher it, yeah, you know what I mean. So it’s like, click, might as well hang up, right? Yeah. So
Tim Klinedinst
when I was in basic training, they’d be like, trainee click club, like, yeah, here, sir,
Don Mock
Yeah. Hilarious, substitute teacher, right? I have no clue what’s going on, all right. Well, Tim is a client of ours so we have a special guest client, and Tim is, well, what do you want? How do you even want to describe what you do? I mean, we’ve worked together for a few years now, right, specifically in the land of poultry, I’ll say that, and then I’ll leave it up to you if you want to discuss company names or things like that, or whatever, you know, but because the internet never forgets, yeah, yeah. But Tim’s a marketing extraordinaire. We’ve done a lot of fun, super cool projects together. We were literally just talking about a just talking about a great campaign that we ran at the end of last year, right? Digital campaign, let’s fire that baby back up again this year. And Tim is in town for a trade show, I believe so, right?
Tim Klinedinst
Yeah, I’m actually on a world tour right now. I call it, you know, I went on a trip back in March, but I was gone every week with my counterpart, and we called it the eras tour, because we were home maybe, like seven days tops the whole month
Don Mock
But, but tradition, you don’t travel a ton, do you? Or is travel back?
Tim Klinedinst
I’ve traveled. I’ve probably since I started in July of 23 this is probably trip number 30
Don Mock
Oh, my Lord
Tim Klinedinst
It’s a lot of travel is usually not that way, but we were so driven, yeah, everything we wanted to accomplish, that we are out. If we weren’t out trying to change the world, we were out getting knowledge on how to change the world.
Don Mock
I love that. I love that answer, yeah, yeah. And you were just in Charlotte, and now you’re in town in Atlanta for a show, and then you’re staying overnight, and then you’re flying back, I think, right?
Tim Klinedinst
Hopefully good weather back home. I want to golf.
Don Mock
Yeah, you’re a big golfer? All right, everybody here in the office is a golfer, but me so but Tim and I also do share a love of baseball. Every time we talk about every time we jump on the phone, we probably do, if it’s a 10 minute call, I’d say it’s probably two minutes of work and then at least eight minutes of sports. Is that a correct statement?
Tim Klinedinst
That’s probably right.
Don Mock
But the truth is, is that we are bitter rivals, my friend, even though we love each other, we are mortal enemies, because I am a San Francisco Giants guy and Tim is a Dodger fan
Tim Klinedinst
Go blue, which I want to get back at you this year. So we took a couple of your folks.
Don Mock
I know. Well, Snell was not. Snell didn’t really work out for us. Yeah, and we all kind of knew it was going to be a one a one year thing anyway. You know what I am shocked about, if I may, we’re not even gonna talk about work at all here, but I am shocked when pitchers want to leave San Francisco, and I am a biased San Francisco fan, because that is absolutely a pitchers ballpark, right? I can understand, oh, judge doesn’t want to come to San Francisco because you might have less homers and things like that. You know the vanity of statistics in baseball, right? Because baseball is so statistical driven, right? But a pitcher like, man, you know, wouldn’t you want to pitch in a pitcher friendly ballpark? It’s weird, exactly. So, yeah, but yeah, the Dodgers, man, you guys are loaded. You guys are loaded, and you’re never not going to be loaded.
Tim Klinedinst
I haven’t been able to keep up the last couple of weeks, but I saw we got him, yeah, and then it’s gonna be a beastly team. You know what I my dad will call me, and he’ll be like, Oh, he’s a pirates fan. And he’s like, hey, you know, this is ridiculous. He lives in Long Beach, maybe, like, dodgers suck, and they get all these people, and it’s not fair. I’m like, yeah. I mean, change the rules on cap
Don Mock
well, but the Dodgers are changing the rules with all of the prorated contracts. Yeah, I think Cuyler in the office, he’s a big brace fan, and he’s worked on a bunch of stuff with with you before. You know? He was telling me earlier the other day that, like, some of these deals too, are, again, back loaded or pro rated contracts, which I don’t, you know, I don’t know, so I haven’t really dug into it too much. So yeah,
Tim Klinedinst
it’ll be, it’ll be interesting. I think it’s gonna be a good year, I mean, but now you know how it is. So in football, you had mahomes get 500 million, yeah? And now everybody’s inflated and everybody’s getting something. I mean, look at offensive lineman. The amount they’re getting.
Don Mock
Well, if you’re a left tackle, you’re good. If you’re a guard, you’re screwed,
Tim Klinedinst
Yeah. But baseball is the same thing, yeah. you give a Ohtani 700 million, mostly deferred, and now everybody wants.. everybody’s getting paid now, so it’ll just continue to inflate. And I imagine at some point it will affect how many people can go to a game. I went to a few Dodgers games this year, and I was like, ah, you know, it’s gonna be crazy expensive to buy a ticket. To buy a ticket, yeah, I went out to Dodger Stadium. Yeah. I’m like, This is gonna be expensive year. And surprisingly, it wasn’t bad, but I don’t think it’s hit yet.
Don Mock
What’s a Dodger dog cost now? 15 bucks?
Tim Klinedinst
I’ve never bought one there. But I’ll tell you, a beer costs almost 20.
Don Mock
Oh, Lord, I’m not surprised by that at all. Yeah, so, well, what’s interesting too, is baseball, isn’t they’re not, they’re not all collected like football is, you know, I mean football, it’s all spread together. It’s true. You could almost make the argument in socialism, because it’s everyone, you know, they all share everything together. It doesn’t matter who sells more jersey’s or not or whatever. It’s all just, it all goes in the pot, you know. But baseball is still fragmented between the haves and have nots. I mean, you have your own local television deals. I mean, football gets all the money because of, you know, television contracts and things like that. And then all that is spread out evenly across the 30 some odd teams, right? Baseball ‘s not like that. So your poor dad and the pirates, like, they have to make their money off of parking, off of, you know, hot dogs
Tim Klinedinst
And Paul Skenes, he says they create the players that go out to other teams to succeed.
Don Mock
They’re like a, they’re like a top flight farm team, yeah, you know, but I did for your dad. I think I read McCutchen ‘s coming back, but I could be wrong. I’ve got a really good pal, Ben. He grew up in Pittsburgh, and he’s a big fan.
Tim Klinedinst
So let me tell you a story about the pirates and my dad. We lived in El Monte growing up, okay, and in first grade. My dad went to a Dodgers game. They played the pirates, okay? And he said, or I guess my mom got tickets for them. They went. My dad was in the Air Force recruiting there. Yeah, okay, so we’re in bed because, you know, it’s late, yeah, they go out there. And this is back when, like, players would come out and sign things for you.
Don Mock
Yeah, this the 80s? is that we’re talking about?
Tim Klinedinst
Yeah, okay, yeah, It was probably 85 okay, yeah. And he catches a home run, and this is back, like, at whatever point it was, Barry Bonds Bobby Bonilla, all these people on the team, and he catches a ball, and after the game they’re all out signing it. He gets everybody to sign this ball, including the manager, and brings it home. I’m already in bed,
Don Mock
dude, how bad ass your dad catches a Home run, and then everybody signs the ball.
Tim Klinedinst
Everybody, like, that ball would probably be worth a decent amount now,
Don Mock
Several 100 nickels, if he still had it, uh oh, that’s foreshadowing what’s to come. What happened?
Tim Klinedinst
So I wake up to go to school. My mom ‘s getting us ready. I see this ball. She tells me what happened. Okay, and it’s Show and Tell at school that day. and I’m like, I’m just gonna take this ball, okay?
Don Mock
And you didn’t ask your dad?
Tim Klinedinst
no, he was asleep because they got home late. And so I’m like, I’ll take this ball to school in LA to show and tell we didn’t even make it to lunch. It was already stolen out of my cubby. So my dad still does not like to talk about that day he owned that ball for less than 12 hours.
Don Mock
Don’t send your dad this podcast. Oh, my God, that poor guy. Okay, so you get home, so by lunchtime, you realize it’s gone. Where’s the ball? Where’s the ball? Okay. Do we have just an unbelievable sense of dread going home, like I have to go home and tell my dad I lost the ball or whatever.
Tim Klinedinst
I have to go home and I’m gonna tell my mom, Im gonna let her tell my dad
Don Mock
Oh now hiding under the bed
Tim Klinedinst
He never made a comment to me. He was a man of very small words, back then and still, but he never even had a conversation with me. My mom said he was devastated, yeah, which is why we don’t talk about the ball now, okay, it’s just one of the things. So when I saw Baby Ruth, I’m like, Oh, I know what that feels like.
Don Mock
Has it ever, has it ever come up? I mean, in the last… it never comes up. It’s just we don’t talk. About this ever
Tim Klinedinst
No, it’s not a thing we talk about.
Don Mock
Oh, my God, okay, that is, that’s brutal, dude, yeah, but I can’t imagine, like, the terror of going home and having to admit, like, I’m gonna call it epic failure, dude. Like, like, unbelievable, systemic breakdown, failure on every level, yeah, Wrath of My dad. Yeah. That
Tim Klinedinst
was, I mean, we lived in LA, so we had a lot of things stolen. Our house broken into, a bunch things like that. So, you know, just like that was probably the beginning stolen, right?
Don Mock
Shoul’ve moved to San Francisco, I’m just kidding
Tim Klinedinst
I had a book, yeah, I had a lot of baseball cards. Okay, I still have some at home, probably not worth anything, but I kept them for my son. Yeah, you can give them to whoever later. Yeah, because I had Roberto Clemente’s that my Dad got. Those got stolen too, different time, yeah. But I had a Giants book, and they had all the Giants players in like 91-90 to 91 had them all in this book, stolen, but maybe that was for the best.
Don Mock
Well Will Clark, I’m sure, was on that team. Kevin Mitchell, yeah, you know, those are good teams. The Giants were good as we’re good back then too.
Tim Klinedinst
We lived up at Travis Air Force Base at that time, so we were only, like, 40 minutes from San Francisco. And you know, I liked having that book, somebody gave me the Giants book. Don’t know who it was. But I was like, Oh, well, I have this. I might as well collect them
Don Mock
Yeah, I went to so many giants games. My aunt Jane was a season ticket holder, really, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. She was a season ticket holder from the from the minute they moved from New York, you know, the very first year, right? So, and she had tickets right behind home. Played 13 rows back. She was on TV like
Tim Klinedinst
New York because she had defector?
Don Mock
No, no, she’s, she’s, she’s from San Francisco. She was born and raised in San Francisco. But when the Giants move with the Dodgers, right, when both of those teams left New York and moved to California, she got season tickets right, and then she had season tickets all through my youth. Same for the Niners too. But for the Giants, I never had a ticket. I would just take the train in. I’d meet her at candlestick, or I’d meet her at when I was in high school and stuff, which now it’s called Oracle, or whatever but she knew everybody who worked there. She knew all the, all the ushers. She knew all of the the scouts that were back there Oh, it was amazing. And so she’d be like, ah, Harold, like, this is my grandson. Let him in. Blah, blah, blah. But, you know, and so I’d go in there, and I’d sit back behind home, home. It was incredible. Yeah. Oh, it was so much fun. 9er’s games. I used to go with her. You had to get a ticket for that. I mean, she couldn’t sneak me in, or some of that. But I’ve got, you’re talking about the book. I’ve got these crazy old photo albums, unfortunately, Aunt Jane ‘s past since now, but I’ve got all these old albums of her, like, Polaroids and stuff of like, booster trips, like in the 70s and the 80s and stuff. And it’s like, oh, here’s when we followed, you know, Willie Mays around for his 500th home run. And then here’s when we followed him around for his 600th home run, you know. And here’s the ticket stubs, like, all this crazy, crazy old like, Giants memorabilia. And I’ve got all these balls there’s, I’m like, I don’t know who half these people are, you know, you can’t read any, you know. Or it’s personalized, like a Jane bar, you know what? You know? I’m like, Oh, my God, it’s so funny. I’ve got a randy cross, was a great 49 or shifting gears real quick. And I’ve got a, I’ve got one of those practice balls signed by him his rookie year, you know. And I’m like, that’s cool. But like, Who wants a who wants a randy cross? You know? I mean, it was the center, right? It was a center for all those teams, you know, that won the Super Bowl, the four Super Bowls with Montana. And it’s like, you know, it’s cool, personal memento, but it’s like, what do I do with these? You know,
Tim Klinedinst
when I was growing up, so I would we lived for a very short time. We lived in at Travis Air Force Base. My dad was stationed there. Yeah, and then he went over to the Philippines and Mount Pinatubo blue. And then we would move back to LA while he was stuck out there.
Don Mock
Okay, did you move out there with him at all? Did you spend any time out there in the Philippines?
Tim Klinedinst
No, So we lived there maybe two years. We moved from LA up there. Did that as soon as that blew and we couldn’t get in touch. My mom moved us back to LA,
Don Mock
okay, but he grew up in Pittsburg. As to why
Tim Klinedinst
No, he grew up he was from El Monte
Don Mock
Really? Why was he a pirates fan?
Tim Klinedinst
I have no idea.
Don Mock
Okay, just Clemente well, clearly baseball is a sore spot, yeah,
Tim Klinedinst
well, he’s a Cowboys fan too.
Don Mock
I can’t be friends with you guys. I mean, cowboys 9ers,
Tim Klinedinst
I didn’t want to be a Cowboys fan. I’m not a Cowboys fan.
Don Mock
Okay, thank God,
Tim Klinedinst
although I think Dak Prescotts probably need to move on, yeah, yeah, if they want to do something, yeah, I’m so my dad became, or he was always, a cowboy boys fan, and when they were winning the Super Bowls, like, I don’t want to be a Cowboys fan, yeah? And that’s when the Jaguars expanded, okay, with the Panthers,
Don Mock
that was mid 90s. Yeah,
Tim Klinedinst
I’ll be a Jaguar fan and Raiders, because they were. Los Angeles Raiders when I was there. So you know you were rams or your Raiders? Yeah, so I’m accustomed to losing, okay. In fact, I’m so glad that I found fantasy football, because the only reason to watch football for me anymore, yeah, you we get all the Chiefs games. Yeah, they’re fun to watch. Sure, sure, I
Don Mock
don’t know. Man, we were talking in the office about because we just had the championship games here. Like the chiefs are kind of running, I mean, I’m not qualified to say this, but it’s very reminiscent of the early 2000s patriots team of like, they’re boring as hell to watch. You know, it’s seven yard passes at a maximum, you know what I mean, it’s, it’s mostly dink and Don. It’s a dink and Don thing, you know. And, you know, against buffalo, right? They’ve got the rookie guy out there, you know, he’s, he’s nine yards off the receiver at the line of scrimmage, and then he’s already running backwards before the player worthy, yeah, exactly, right. And it’s like, that was dude imagining. I’m, like, Stop, they just throw five yard passes, and then it’s his first time. Like, like, and, hey, it’s effective. It works. I mean, I get it, but like, man, is it boring as hell to watch. I think
Tim Klinedinst
I think what we’re seeing in the NFL right now is defense, defense is bigger than offense. Defense is winning games these days.
Don Mock
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, my, I mean, my youth was filled with 9ers winning Super Bowls, you know. And now that I’m adults, we’ve lost three Super Bowls in a row, and my kids are crying after the zero. It’s a disaster.
Tim Klinedinst
burning down. You know, when I was but living there in at Travis, yeah, which is, like, back Ville Fairfield, yeah, that’s when the A ‘s were in their prime. Oh, dude. And I thought as a kid, I was like, oh, whoever wins this game goes to play the A’s, yeah, in the World Series, like, the A’s are this team that they’re just always there, yeah? And, and I really thought I’m like, Oh, the A’s are the team that everybody has to go play when the seasons at the end? Yeah,
Don Mock
it’s funny, man. Those Those late 80s, early 90s a ‘s teams with Tony La Russa as a manager. And you had, you had Ricky Henderson, you had the cobra, Dave Parker, I mean, those picture, they had Dave Stewart on the mound. So intimidating was Bob Welch, you know, Eckers Lee was the closer, you know, like, but they only won one World Series. They’re like the Braves of the 90s. You know, they kept getting through Boston. Couldn’t beat them. You know, they’d always beat Boston in the playoffs. And remember, there was no, like, wild card there? Yeah, it was like, there weren’t a lot of playoff games, and then they would just get to the World Series and then lose it. The only time they won is when they beat my giants in the earthquake series, The Battle of the day 89
Don Mock
That was a wild time, living out there was a wild time
Don Mock
to bring this back to an aunt Jane moment, you know, she had, she, she always had a white Cadillac, you know, God love her. She had this white Cadillac, and then she had this bumper sticker, which clearly she put on, and she should not have, because it was crooked, wrinkled, the whole like, Oh no, you know, this beautiful Cadillac, and you stuck this damn bumper sticker on it, and it was, I sat in the rumble seat in Candlestick Park, you know, like, like, because she was, yeah, the World Series game, you know, so funny.
Tim Klinedinst
So, gosh, it was a that was a crazy time. My dad was like, yelling at me. Apparently, I wasn’t there. I was out riding my bike or doing something. I was probably carrying a stereo on my shoulder
Don Mock
Ok boombox Love it. Hellion, destroying the neighborhood again
Tim Klinedinst
exactly. And he thought I was standing behind the vehicle, rocking his vehicle while he was washing it, yeah, which, you know, my dad was like, Don’t step in oil, don’t.
Don Mock
He’s an Air Force guy. And then, shocker, you went in the Air Force. I’m sure there’s a story there. You don’t have to say, you don’t have to share that.
Tim Klinedinst
No, it’s fine. Yeah, you know what? It segues into marketing later.
Don Mock
Well, let’s, you know, sports. Let’s pivot into because, gosh, I think we spent 18 minutes not talking about marketing, which is totally fine, because, yeah, this is great.
Tim Klinedinst
We knew this was gonna be longer. So if you do 10 minutes, and we’re spending eight talking about baseball
Don Mock
Tim, I’ve got all day
Tim Klinedinst
Can we have all this time? we have to also get that same percentage out of it.
Don Mock
Okay, let’s do it all right. Well, we’ll pivot to whatever you want to share, you know what I mean, like so it doesn’t have to be a retrospective of your career or whatever, but, I’d love to sort of hear your take on what, maybe working with agencies, or working with a firm like us, you know, or just, I don’t know, just whatever you want to share, that type of thing. Just chill.
Tim Klinedinst
Well, my background began getting kicked out of high school my first high school,
Don Mock
no way. really?
Tim Klinedinst
My first senior year.
Don Mock
Okay, we are going deep.
Tim Klinedinst
Yeah, I was a troublemaker
Don Mock
Okay, so you did rebel. A little. I was joking
Tim Klinedinst
No, I did. You know, growing up in
Don Mock
This is like a stereotype, dude. This is like, my dad ‘s in the Air Force, too many rules I’m gonna break them.
Tim Klinedinst
Yeah. No, I just, you know, hanging out with the wrong people. Doing all that. Got kicked out of school, my first senior year, And then my mom, I was like, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. My mom moved me to live with my aunt Jane. Okay, wow, yeah. And while I was there this summer
Don Mock
I can’t even imagine leaving California and moving to Arkansas yeah,
Tim Klinedinst
was different for sure it’s a culture
Don Mock
well, back then too, again, there’s no like, once you know it’s, I try to explain this to my kids, and it’s like, if you left, like you’re gone, like you might as well have died, like there’s no internet, there’s like, no one’s making long distance phone calls, no to their friends, no one’s writing letters, you know, like, there’s no but, I mean, no, AOL, I mean, if it’s like, it’s like you’re gone, poof, like, out of the system. Like, you know,
Tim Klinedinst
it’s so crazy to see movies now where you look back and you’re, I mean, COVID, if that happened to us in the 80s, we just die. Because you can’t talk to anybody with your long cord, talking to your friend, your parent, get off the phone.
Don Mock
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So you moved for the senior year to Arkansas.
Tim Klinedinst
Moved there, was doing my GED, and decided, you know, I’ll just go back to school for a year, yeah, and finish this thing out. So I finished and graduated in 2007 99 okay? And my dad had retired that year, so I decided, oh, you know what? I feel patriotic, and I honestly had nothing else going, so I went ahead and joined the the Air Force.
Don Mock
Okay, that’s cool.
Tim Klinedinst
Got stationed in Alaska for my first one, sat back and hoped that I can make it through the six years I signed up for no wars or anything
Don Mock
six years is what? Wow. Okay, why do I have four years in my mind?
Tim Klinedinst
I did the six. The six gave me extra rank. Okay, starting out, so yeah, I was like, well, maybe I won’t get into any wars or anything. And then a year and a half 9/11 happens a year and a half in. And then it’s just, you know, it’s a blur, yeah, six hour notice to go to some country and, oh, my God. And one time we were eating in an Applebee’s. And they called and I had to change in the bathroom and get dropped off at the joint mobility complex, and I was gone. Poof. You know, we are an Airlines plane, and we land in the dark, and, of course, the screens Come on. Welcome to Hawaii, yeah, but we’re in Korea. So
Don Mock
what? Oh my god.
Tim Klinedinst
Yeah, so we fast forward all the way to getting out of the military 16 years.
Don Mock
So, Can I, can I interject though and say, like, is it, was it just a lot of logistical stuff, or, like, Air Force? Like, what did you do in the Air Force? I mean, it’s probably too long of a question.
Tim Klinedinst
I was a personnel so my time job was more like, like, HR, admin type stuff
Don Mock
yeah, managing personnel and, you know, I mean, like, the business of people, got it, got it
Tim Klinedinst
My wartime job was casualty and accountability for the most part. Okay, so I went to Cuba, did the detainee thing?
Don Mock
Oh, wow, dude, this is intense
Tim Klinedinst
when I first took them in. Did Japan, Korea, Kuwait, the border of Iraq, convoy. So you kind of just do whatever you have to do. I mean, even before my first deployment, they didn’t have enough police. Okay, on the base security forces, yeah. So I got pulled from my career field. Spent almost a year doing that really.
Don Mock
MP oh wow
Tim Klinedinst
got pulled back into my career field and deployed. Yeah, okay, so a little bit of everything, yeah, time.
Don Mock
It’s kind of interesting in a strange way.
Tim Klinedinst
Yeah, I worked as an inspector general, so I was pulled up to work for the Wing Commander. So if you look at a base, that’d be like your CEO, yes, yeah. And what I would do is any congressional complaints that came in help the IG, which the actual Inspector General, yeah, with investigating those, wow. And then also learning up people’s jobs in other units so that I go and inspect them to see, yeah, are they doing their program? Got to help them fix it. Went to ROTC.
Don Mock
Well, I think what’s interesting about this is definitely like learning on the fly, not necessarily doing what you thought you were going to do, and having to pivot, right? You know what I mean? And that is an interesting skill set, too. As a I mean, I don’t want to correlate the military to marketing that’s a stretch, you know, but sometimes you have to follow the data. Sometimes you have to follow the people. Sometimes you have to follow what the market conditions are, you know, you can have everything set and ready to go to launch a product, and then, oh yeah, 9/11 like, anything can happen. Oh, COVID happened. You know what I mean, we all have to pivot and things like that,
Tim Klinedinst
Or a product change. I mean, if I look back in my career, I was telling somebody recently, I said I sat in a room at basic training in the what’s called the military personnel flight, or it used to be, and watch this guy sitting in his blues, a senior airbn three, so he’s young. Uh, typing on the computer and doing all stuff. And I had to go in there and say what job I wanted, yeah, because the first job they gave me was, I thought I was doing, like, fiber optics and stuff. It was climbing poles. I was gonna be a pole guy, okay? And they have you go out and they clamp you in
Don Mock
for what to like, to like, run infrastructure, like wires and stuff.
Tim Klinedinst
Civil Engineering, they clamp you in to see if you could do it, and they have you go to, like, the fourth step and hang backwards with your, yeah, your arms off. Now, if I did that, now I wouldn’t care, yeah, the time you’re in a training environment, yeah, you’re scared all the time. Yeah, you’re worried you’re gonna get kicked out or whatnot, yeah. But then they want you to go up to the top, and then they want you to let go so that the clamp catches you somewhere along the way down. Yeah?
Don Mock
So you got used to, like, if an accident happened, if you slept, if something happened, or whether or whatever,
Tim Klinedinst
I made it to the fourth step, and I said, I’m not doing that. I’m out. So then they send me over there, and they’re like, Okay, well, the only jobs we have for your security forces, which my dad was a cop his whole career, is like, I do not want you to be in security forces, which I end up doing anyways. Loved it. Yeah, and combat controller. I’m like, Okay, so I’m not hanging off this thing backwards, off the fourth thing, but you want me to go be a special operator?
Don Mock
was about to say, Man, that’s quite a pivot, right there, you know?
Tim Klinedinst
So I did get to train with those guys towards the end of my career, and it was a blast. Yeah, I was also doing all my CrossFit competition
Don Mock
You eat a bag of chips and go run five miles. No problem.
Tim Klinedinst
Yeah, it wasn’t anything. But I went. My last assignment was ROTC at the University of Arkansas, and I had cadets, and I was able to teach them classes, but mostly I ran all the programs that They got them from the day they walk in the door to the day they commission, okay? And then I got some fun perks, like going out special tactic, around with them, and then teaching combative so I taught ground fighting, And I was just do that 10 hours a day
Don Mock
That’s all leadership. That’s awesome.
Tim Klinedinst
Yeah, it was a great time.
Don Mock
All right? You spent six years in there, and then you get out, and how do you end up in marketing? Like, how does that happen?
Tim Klinedinst
Yeah, I had a cadet come in my office once in he walks in the office and he’s like, Hey, I need you to print this and this and blah, blah. So I think you need to step out that door and try that again and I don’t know who you’re talking to, yeah, yeah, but you need to go out and try that again. And he walks in, he’s like, Hey, Sergeant K, sorry about that. May I get this print? I said, Why did you do that, man? And he’s like, Well, you know the commander, we had a we had a missile commander. Okay, some of those guys, not all of them, some of those guys are they just think they’re the best thing to ever happen in the world. And he said, Oh yeah. He he said that, you know, we’re going to be officers, and we’ll be over you guys. And yeah, the officers get degrees, and the the enlisted don’t. I said, well, first of all, 84% of the Air Force is enlisted. Okay, do not piss an enlisted person off. Yeah, you know, you’ll see these officers who will piss off their crew chiefs for the plane, and they’ll break the plane. I worked in and you did not piss off that guy. Yeah.
Don Mock
Don’t rub people the wrong way, especially not people that you need, yeah,
Tim Klinedinst
especially the people who you know work on your plane. Yeah. And I said, And of that, 84% 51% of them have degrees, I didn’t have my degree at that time, but it fueled me to go get it. So I went and got my Associates for the Air Force. I got a business management degree in business, And then I got bored that year, so I knew I always wanted to do marketing, so I went back and got a bachelor’s, marketing, okay. And at that point, I said, You know what? I’m gonna go out and try something different. I read a Simon sinek’s book.
Don Mock
Love Simon Sinek we use him in some new bizz Like the why? Yeah.
Tim Klinedinst
Well, that’s the book I read. It was on the Chief of Staff reading list, granted, nobody follows it, but I really believed in that servant leadership, and I had heard about Donnie Smith, and reading the stuff that a friend of mine who worked there would send me, just send me crazy,
Don Mock
because you’re back in Arkansas at this time.
Tim Klinedinst
Yeah, I’m still there, so I got there in April of 2010 and never left, okay, but I got out in November of 15. But I said, You know what? And people thought, you’re crazy. Yeah, you’re gonna get out five years before it’s like, yeah, they want to move me to Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio to work a call center, yeah, and then deploy me for a year. Yeah? I was like, I’m done doing that. My wife was active duty. She had a brain aneurysm. she’s good now, but
Don Mock
yeah, you have a lot of stuff going on.
Tim Klinedinst
We jut have a young kid, and I’m just, I’m over it all, I’ve already traveled enough, yeah, yeah. So I said I’m gonna play my hand, I’m gonna go out and do this, yeah, and I’m gonna be at or better than where I would have been if I stayed in. Yeah? Luckily, I did that. I’ll tell you, it’s really hard for veterans to get out, yeah, and find a job, because people just. Think you blow shit up all day and that’s not what we do. Like, there are professionals with skill sets. I think that’s what it is. Don’t worry about the job. Worry about the fact that this person ‘s adaptive
Don Mock
Well like I said about the pivoting. I mean, I don’t, you know, I’m never been in the military. Don’t have a military family background, but I’ve always joked that the military. The United States military is the greatest logistical organization in the world. It’s like, you need to get 300,000 people from here to there and build a whole city done. You know, you need to get this to that, all that kind of stuff like, that’s, you know, if you think FedEx is good at logistics or bad at logistics, it’s like the government, you know, the military knows how to do all these different things.
Tim Klinedinst
Probably the only person better than the military. Is Chick fil A.
Don Mock
but, but there is definitely, I don’t want to say a stigma that’s the wrong word, of like, the specialized nature of potentially military jobs. And how does that translate to, you know, a general workforce, I guess you know. So, yeah, I mean, that’s, we’re not breaking new ground talking about that
Tim Klinedinst
Well, I was able to see behind the veil, yeah, because I bothered Tyson every day, yeah, trying to get in there. Hired me. You know, I went on terminal leave side, 90 days where I was getting paid from the military. I mean, those are all my PTO days, yeah? And I’m like, I’m gonna get a job. I’m gonna double dip. Yeah? Heard about this double dip. Amazing. Yeah. Here I am, Christmas Eve, driving over one of our I can just visualize driving over one of the junction bridges and thinking it’s Christmas Eve. I’ve been on unemployment for two months. Like, I really need to get jobs. My phone rang and on Christmas Eve, on Christmas Eve, and the hiring manager for that recruiting job called and said, Hey, I just wanted to let you know, before Christmas we’re offering you the job and after the
Don Mock
Christmas miracle. Tim, I love it.
Tim Klinedinst
Yeah. So went to work doing industrial maintenance. Okay, nobody knew what it was. Well, they knew what it was, but nobody recruited for it. Learned the job pretty quick. Yeah, wanted to put my best foot forward on how do we do something different than we’re not doing? Work with the Department of Labor. Created the first registered apprenticeship program for a manufacturer Then wanted to understand Ammonia refrigeration, because those guys are real. You know, there’s 7000 jobs open every day for Ammonia refrigeration and 700 looking, yeah, so it is a tight field. And those guys. I mean, there’s a group called the ammonia mafia, if you guys know who you are, you know who you are
Tim Klinedinst
this is a whole thing. I have no idea about oh my god
Tim Klinedinst
But they don’t talk to like Ammonia is a very tight knit community. Okay, so I went and got my certified Ammonia refrigeration operator certification.
Don Mock
Okay did you
Tim Klinedinst
Didn’t get the tattoo, and I’ve actually never even touched Ammonia system, okay, but I had a great respect for Yeah, it was not easy. I mean, I studied for five months, okay, on every science thing I had for this test, just so I could understand who we were looking at. Also, I could say, I have my k row so people would talk to me, yeah. And then I can hire the best that we could get.
Don Mock
Yeah, you’re in the club, you’ve done your due diligence, you’re, you know, you’re trusted, you’re vetted, but you’re not. Yeah, I get it.
Tim Klinedinst
Well, this segues into the marketing.
Don Mock
Yeah, I’m wondering, this is the longest How did we get into marketing story ever But I love it, dude. I’m here for it.
Tim Klinedinst
I wanted to be in marketing, and I heard it is the toughest position to get in the company.
Don Mock
Okay, so that’s interesting.
Tim Klinedinst
I did all that, and then there was shopper marketing, yeah? And I looked at the requirements on the job, and I’m trying to figure out, like, what don’t I know? Yeah, what gaps do I have? And then who do I know in the company who works in that area, yeah, who can help teach me some of these things? And as they’re teaching me, they’re talking to the hiring manager at the time got it and helping me out by talking to them like, Hey, we’ve got this spot. Because the girl who worked in the spot I ended up taking it was open for nine months went to lunch and never showed back up. She mailed her computer apparently
Don Mock
Okay, I’m out. Yeah, done here.
Tim Klinedinst
So I, long story short, I move over to shopper marketing. I finally get in, study it up, okay, learn it work on some big accounts, yeah? And then get tapped to go over to channel development. Okay? Like, the point is here, it gets started all the way back in basic training, yeah, looking at that senior I’m in saying, I want to get this job. Yeah, so I did personnel on purpose, because I said, What do I want to do when I’m done? Yeah, I want to be in a business space. Yeah, absolutely. Plan to stay in 16 years, yeah, six and get out. Yeah, but like, this is what I want to do. So going into marketing and having these skill sets and always wanting to learn, I think, has been good, because I enjoy marketing. Yeah, I would say that when Megan and I were working together, yeah, she was extremely creative, yeah, and I was and she was probably strength and creativity, and then secondary was, like, analytics, yeah, I was strong in analytics and still like creativity.
Don Mock
Well, one of the things I was gonna say, I was gonna jump in at the end of this here, I’ll jump in now, is that one of the things I really appreciate about working together is that there is this nebulous, I don’t want to say cloud, but there is a nebulous cloud in marketing sometimes, of people’s subjectivity, right? Of I like orange and I hate green and this and that, and there’s no like, it’s like, hey, hey, we’re creating all this stuff for you, for your business, but at the end of the day, our client might actually not be the target audience, right? And they inject exactly, potentially, some subjectivity and lack of analytics into the decision making process. And we’ll raise our hand to be like, Hey, this is a bad idea. Like, don’t do this. And like, why are you asking? You know, like, so for non sophisticated clients, sometimes some subjectivity and personal likes get in the way, right, as opposed to what the numbers are. But Tim, you bring, like a great, I don’t want to say a military analytic background, but like a logical process driven decision making that removes a lot of the analytics. And it truly is, ah, this is the best, you know, system or metrics, in order to measure are these things working, and then A, B, testing X, Y, Z, you know what I mean? Like, it’s a constant process of driving that funnel of unknownness right into, like, here’s actionable data that we can actually use, right? Yeah, which is a rarity. I don’t want to say it’s a rarity, but it is kind of a rarity for some of our clients, some of our clients, it’s just kind of, or the industry, is you just kind of do what you do, because that’s the way you’ve always done it. Yes, like, Oh, I like that one. And I was like, Okay, that’s great. I mean, it’s important that you like it, yeah. But that’s not the only decision criteria, you know, you know what I mean, so, but you bring the lovely analytic aspect to things, right? Which I think it’s
Tim Klinedinst
I mean, well, first of all, I believe that if I’m coming there is a book who wrote it, Ken Blanchard. None of us is as smart as all of us, okay? And I take that. I mean, the book is great. It’s written like a parable, okay, but I like that, because if I’m coming to you to get your help, yeah. I mean, part of it might be that I need graphic design, sure, but if I’m coming to you for creativity and coming for your help, then I’m gonna be open to anything. Yeah, I know what needs to be accomplished. Yeah. On my side, yeah. The client side, I know I need to get this and I need to update this, sure. But then at that point, coming over to you to any vendor that I use, yeah, like, even the packaging group I was just with, yeah, hey, you’re the subject matter expert, yeah? Like, here’s what I do. Know has to be there, yeah? And here’s kind of the idea, but I’m not gonna drive the whole thing,
Don Mock
yeah, but you guys know the secret sauce on how this works. I need you to bring your expertise and your thunder to this project.
Tim Klinedinst
I mean, in marketing, especially in in what I do with poultry
Don Mock
Well, that’s what makes you awesome. That’s why you’re on the podcast.
Tim Klinedinst
Thank you. It doesn’t start until the product actually hits. I mean, I, I’ll help. You know, the sales team, yeah, we put a tool kit together, so to speak, for them to go out and market that if we’re not with them, But Megan sent me something the other day, and it was, I thought it was really good. I don’t know where she got it, but it said marketing is like asking the person on a date. Branding is why they accept it and it’s true, my job doesn’t even start until things hit the shelf.
Don Mock
It’s so funny you say that because we’ve actually talked in the podcast before about how we will live with something for six months, three months, maybe a year, maybe longer. Right with our clients, right before anyone ‘s even seen it, before it’s even gone out the door. And clients tend to sour on their own brands and communication strategy far sooner than they should, because they’ve been living with it for a year before anyone else has lived with it, right? And it’s like, oh, it’s been a year. It’s time to change everything. And it’s like, whoa, wait a minute. Like, yeah, you launched a year ago, but you only went into these two or three markets. You’re just getting traction over here, you’re just growing over there, and you already want to change things. It’s like, it’s like Coca Cola changes the can every two every two years, because they’re never going to change the formulation again, because they have to change your packaging. Doritos will change the packaging. But like, those are ubiquitous products that are in every single place, everywhere. Right? They have a calendar of, you know, our liquor stores, or whatever, they have a calendar, a seasonality of when they refresh, but when you just launch something brand new, or you’re trying, you know, like, you can’t refresh it that soon. You know what I mean, you can’t start changing things that soon. It’s interesting.
Tim
If you think about those products like you said, you have taki ‘s, you have Doritos, you have beverages, things like that. Those things have such a brand following,brand loyalty. I mean, some people drink. They don’t even know why they do. They just know that they like that brand and everything else is bad growing up, I we ate Foster Farms. Yes, what they had in California.
Don Mock
Same with me. It’s all foster farms
Tim
We moved to Arkansas. I was like, where’s the Foster Farms? This must not be really good stuff, because I’d never seen it. So you have a brand loyalty and a brand following those things. Why do I wear Nike Jordans and I don’t wear Adidas?
Don Mock
Dude what am I wearing right now? three stripes, baby.
Tim
All respect. But it’s because of, it’s because of that, that brand loyalty, yeah, yeah, it’s and it comes from marketing. What I try to tell people sometimes is, there’s marketing all around you. Everything is marketing. You don’t make decisions because you’re just making the decision. Most of the time. You’re making it because of something that that you have been taught, social media is a great example of that. Now, I mean, just Yeah, constant, constant, It doesn’t even have to be about a product, you see the same kind of message over and over. It starts to change your consideration set. But to your point, people like Coca Cola can change the can. They can do all that stuff, and people are still going to trust that
Don Mock
just tinker in the margins. They, you know, they’re not doing full scale total re, you know, re imagination. It’s just tinkering in the margins because they have to do something, because it’s been two years.
Tim
Remember the clear Pepsi? that went on for a minute. And, you know, from what I read on, that it didn’t go super well, because that was a drastic change.
Don Mock
Yeah, well, Tropicana, we’ve talked about it before, but remember when Tropicana dumped the orange with the straw? You know. And then, shocker, their sales plummeted because nobody could find their their carton of orange juice anymore. You know that type of thing.
Tim
Well, I mean, if you think about chicken, you can’t do so to your point making big changes, yeah? If I make a big change to my product, then somebody ‘s gonna think, like, let’s say I changed the logo, if you don’t market that correctly, then the consumer thinks, oh, they change the logo. The formula must have changed.
Don Mock
We counsel a lot of our clients too on evolution versus revolution, right? And you want to avoid sharp confusion, right? Because you said, Oh, why do I wear Nike Jordans? Why do I wear Adidas? What, you know, a lot of times it’s, it kind of boils down to, you know, I buy the blue bag, you know, and you buy the red bag, you know. And all of a sudden, if you change, if you change everything too much, bring it back to sports, right? If you go, you know, full revolution is Tampa Bay Buccaneers, right? They were the they were the creamsicle with the pirate with the thing, and then they dumped all their colors, dumped their logo, did the pirate flag with the skull and the pewter, and so, you know, that’s a full reimagination versus, like, evolution of the Arizona Cardinals, which they just made the cardinal a little bit meaner. Yeah, you know what I mean, they made his eye a little bit meaner, or gave him an eyebrow. You know, it’s not like or Detroit Lions. They finally added a little bit of illustration into the silhouette of the lion. Well, they didn’t change every
Tim
maybe the Riders need to change something
Don Mock
now, the Raiders are one of the only teams. I think they are the only team that’s never changed their logo
Tim
You know, maybe they never changed your logo because Something else will change.
Don Mock
I appreciate the Raiders, but I’m not a big Raiders fan. Yeah, you know what I mean? And I kind of, you know, I mean, obviously my favorite football player ever, Jerry Rice, went over to the raiders and, you know, they lost that Super Bowl and whatnot. But so I love the Raiders, you know. But I’m also, like, a who cares, like, whatever you know, so, but yeah, to your point, like, you know, shopper confusion can be very detrimental if you don’t explain the rationale to your consumers as to why you’re doing what you’re doing, you know? So, yeah, I mean, I agree with you
Tim
I like what you said. People pivot too early
Don Mock
And, well, clients, I think pivot too early because, because we think about it and we live it and we breathe it every single day. But consumers don’t. They just dip in and dip out, and it’s like, oh, it’s your primary job. You were working on this eight hours a day. You know, 40 hours a week. You know what I mean, like, month after month, right? But consumers are only like, five seconds a month, maybe, oh, I went to the grocery store and I bought this.
Tim
I think they you know, as a client and a manufacturer, I do believe in holding off, like, yeah, just because you see one number, or, let’s say you have a product and you have a leaker, and everything ‘s been going fine, yeah, all of a sudden there’s this one leaking thing. It sort of makes a comment. It’s not something to jump on.
Don Mock
It’s not panic in the street.
Tim
It’s, oh my gosh. We’ve run 20,000 of these, and one of them leaked. Yeah, let’s change something, yeah. And so that’s my example with with the marketing launch, having launched plenty of innovation, it takes time, yeah? The other part, it takes money,
Don Mock
but we’re not patient anymore. That’s part of the problem is, we’re not patient anymore, yeah? Well, and I tell clients this all the time in terms of like, Hey, if you want to go straight to consumer, that’s the most expensive thing you can possibly do. It’s much easier to be a B to B or a wholesale manufacture, where it’s like, I drop off 50 boxes of this to one client, versus, oh, now I need to sell 50 boxes of this to 50 different people, right? Exactly. But, oh, I have no understanding or history of that in my organization, because I’ve always been a B to B, you know, manufacturer or a private label or whatever like that. It’s like, whoa, whoa. You don’t have the team on your side of the fence. You don’t have the knowledge on your side of the fence, and you certainly don’t have the budget for, you know, a lot of I mean, advertising ‘s changed, and marketing ‘s changed so much over the past 30 years, right?
Tim
Probably changed since we’ve been doing this,
Don Mock
yeah, but the cardinal tenant of consistency and reach, reach and frequency, right? It’s like, you can’t just blow a bunch of money on one day and run one print app somewhat, you know, like you have to be there when they’re ready for their consideration set to make a decision, right?
Tim
So seasonality is really good for that, yeah, you know. So I went to a meeting once with one of our sales folks to see a customer, yeah, that customers like, hey, you know, we can’t take this, this whole bird product. It’s too big, yeah, and it won’t sell really well for our customers and they said, Okay, well, what if we work, you know, sales talking, what if we work on getting the bird smaller and with this that, and that’s where I think that sales and marketing are puzzles pieces, you put together, because we’re in the room and they’re saying that, and sales is doing a great job at sales is doing, but the marketers hearing something different
Don Mock
totally different.
Tim
And so I speak up. I say, Have you guys ever, it’s around November. Have you guys ever done any promotion with this? like, actual marketing promotion. They said, Well, we do trade promotions. I said, not just the dollar off. I said, tapping into the right things. I said, so, like, friends giving, that’s big now, and when it comes to a whole bird, most people don’t know. I mean, I didn’t even know till last year, because I didn’t bother with it. But we have somebody who makes recipes for us, yeah, and they made three or four recipes on this whole bird. So last Thanksgiving, I cooked all of them.
Don Mock
Yeah, nice.
Tim
But you have to show the consumer how they can do it. So you could show them this bird. And then you promote friends giving, and these small occasions and how this bird, it fits that and then here are the recipes that help you do that. Yeah? Totally. Like, try this recipe. It’s fun. This is easy, yeah, once you show them how you educate them, yeah, now they know, oh, friends giving is coming up. This brand has recipes for me, I think I’ll try that. And they’d never done that, so that’s a and so we did it, and it’s been very successful. But that again,
Don Mock
having the partnership,
Tim
having the partnership in the room. Listen, you want me to go in and sell something you’re gonna be disappointed with what I walk out with it’s not My jam, yeah. But hearing those things, and trying to bring it in. But I think that, you know, if I were to say to marketers, always be learning, yeah, always be like, if there’s conferences you can go to, I’m doing a lot of AI right now, yeah, just because that’s what’s coming up, sure.
Don Mock
We can’t get rid of it, even though it’s, you know,
Tim
Well, and I went to a path to purchase thing, and the guy said, AI is not going to take your job. The person who knows how to use it is going to take your job and it’s true. I mean, I showed my son who can’t learn anything from a parent because he’s gonna be 15 this week, sure, sure.
Don Mock
that happens, buddy, yeah,
Tim
yeah. So he’s like, dad I know everything
Don Mock
Yeah when you’re 15, you’re the smartest person on the planet, yeah, it’s really I know. Yeah, I know. It’s like, No, you don’t know, dude, I’m telling you this anyway.
Tim
Well we pull up chat GPT And I’m working on, like, okay, Noah, let me, you know, let’s go through this thing, whatever he gave me. And I said, Okay, I could do that. Boo Boo Boo Boo Boo Boo, yep. And because that’s the sound the chat GPT, and he’s like, Oh, wow. And I said, You know what? I think, I think this. And I typed this thing in and did it, and it even defined it more. And he’s like, Oh, wow. I didn’t even know it was all that. I’m like, Yeah, you shut this and these, you would hear that, yeah. But I think that that’s something we get complacent sometimes. I think that
Don Mock
from a marketing perspective,
Tim
from a marketing perspective, especially working in a corporation, yeah, especially a layers, a shared like an IPO, you get so bogged down with doing a lot, yeah, but you have to be learning Yeah, because if you don’t, you don’t know what’s coming up. You don’t know what the next thing. Is, yeah, great. And so you should always be doing it so that you could be on the cutting edge of what the next marketing thing could be.
Don Mock
Well, plus, like, if you think about, like, horizontal rows of generations, if we were to take generations and put them in bars, you know, we’ll always be stuck in our bar, right? But our bar is going to level up and there’s going to be multiple bars underneath, right eventually. And it’s we can’t always continue to just keep doing what we’ve always been doing because it worked for us.
Tim
It’s like the AI thing.
Don Mock
Different things are going to occur
Tim
If you don’t do this. That’s fine, because somebody else is going to do it. Yeah? So you’re either going to get on it or you’re not going to get on Yeah. And when we look at, you know, so generations changing by technology. So generations are getting shorter now you’re, I mean, we’ve got 350 billion in purchasing power, Gen Z, and not all Gen Z ‘s purchasing it, but we’re already talking about alpha because technology is changing so much, so are they. So it’s more important than ever to understand what your consumer wants, yeah, what matters to them And we have a lot of, my opinion, Tim ‘s opinion, we have a lot of misinformation running around out there too, but that also,
Don Mock
I think that’s fact, I don’t think that’s, you know, your opinion. It is factual
Tim
but that changes the opinion too, yeah, if one person, again, I said earlier, off, off the podcast here. But three people, happy people tell three unhappy people tell 3000 And it doesn’t have to be true.
Don Mock
My wife, I always joke, my wife was a college professor for for a number of years, and it was there were, and then there was the beginning of this rate, my professor website, like, call it the glass door or whatever.
Tim
I did sign up for a couple classes. After looking at that, yeah.
Don Mock
And it was like, Well, hold on a second here, you know, like, happy students don’t go and write amazing reviews for again, this is pre Google reviews. And also, you know, only the miserable go and complain about things, you know what I mean. And it’s kind of like, that’s where, that’s what, that’s what Twitter customer service was, call it, seven years ago, right? Yep, you know, my flights been a lot, you know, like, it was like, no one’s like, Oh man, I just had the greatest experience at the grocery store with Checkout customer such. And, you know, like, like, you just kind of go amongst your day, right?
Tim
you’re expecting it
Don Mock
yeah, exactly. So, you know, you have a great interaction, you tell the three people in your family, but you have a bad interaction, you put it online, you know, and you sink everybody’s whatever, and then boom, that that piece of negative news is out there for
Tim
that’s where you’re I think your branding has to be good, yeah, branding, the brand gap. I couldn’t even say that guy ‘s last name ‘s like mine, what a brand is a gut feeling, yeah, yeah. Gut feeling about, it’s why you buy it.
Don Mock
Well, there’s, there’s Malcolm Gladwell wrote that book because we’re talking about books Blink, right? And it was, have you read that one? Yeah, well, but there’s a whole thing in there about, how do I’m gonna bastardize this whole thing? But it was kind of like what we’re talking about, how all decisions made in the world are for you are emotional decisions, and then you immediately rationalize the that emotional decision with facts. So like, oh, I want to buy that car. You want to buy that car because you like that car, because it looks cool, because of whatever. Then you go, and you go, okay, hey, it’s got EPA this, and it’s got this good mileage, and it’s got leather, right? You know? Like, yeah, you fast pace out, right? And there’s, there’s another chapter too, about, like, how do you know art historians know what’s a fake versus, remember that? And it’s like, they walk in and they go, boom, that’s fake, right? And then they go, and they make the list of, like, you know, you rationalize it, right? Yeah. So there’s definitely something to
Tim
the art of thinking without thinking
Don Mock
Yeah. It’s, you just know it, yeah, but it’s the emotional impact immediacy and brands have the ability to do that. I mean, a brand is the internalized sum of all parts of experience. You know, it’s not just the Starbucks cup of coffee. It’s the experience of Starbucks, and you mentioned Chick fil A earlier. It’s the My pleasure. It’s, you know, it’s everything else outside of just the sandwich itself. Yeah, if that makes sense
Tim
you think about Starbucks like when they, you know, Starbucks started out as the peak quad. That’s what it was called, because it was three English majors. If I, you know, I remember this from my master’s marketing class, three English majors, they go on the hippie trail, they go back. They want to make a place for coffee, but they don’t have seating. They just have, like, you can buy coffee supplies and get a cup of coffee. You leave, yeah. And it was called the Pequod after Moby Dick, okay? And they said, probably not a good name, yeah. So they changed it to Starbuck, yeah. And had the siren you know, originally a siren
Don Mock
two tails, right? I think
Tim
then you have boobs with nipples and areolas. And they said, probably not a good idea
Don Mock
I thought it was great. I love it.
Tim
But then they bring Howard Schultz in. Howard Schultz says, I envision a third space you have work in Home, so the first and second space. But what about a space where people come and have coffee and they talk to each other, they work, yeah? And you can be in the third space and interact in it, meaning you and I sit down with a conversation, or, like a lot of us do, I need to go work somewhere, and I want to work somewhere else. I’m going to put headphones in. I’m gonna go to the third space, but not interact in it, and then that changed coffee. Now you have coffee places popping up all over. Now it’s ubiquitous. I think that the kegger for coffee is going down, actually, over the next four years,
Don Mock
I mean, gosh. I mean, if you’ve been to a Starbucks with them, it’s like seven bucks for a cup of coffee I mean, there is a point where it’s like
Tim
You gotta stop. Well, then you go to a special coffee stop, and it’s different.
Don Mock
Yeah, we thought three bucks was expensive for a cup of coffee.
Tim
I think People are going for the experience. Yeah, you see these places.
Don Mock
But that defines what we’re talking about in terms of branding. That’s the branding aspect of it, or brand loyalty, like you said
Tim
I went to BRASH this morning. Shout out to BRASH, great coffee. The idea was cool, the concept of having, like, a conic ‘s box or freight box, and you build this thing out. Yeah, it’s just, that’s what people are doing now. But I don’t even know where we got onto this conversation
Don Mock
Here’s what it is. Tim, it’s never stop learning and never stop evolving. Is what it was.
Tim
And I talked about earlier, I was talking about brands, and I said, you know, there are a lot of companies out there, if you’re listening,
Don Mock
Oh, they’re listening Tim, 10s of people are listening.
Tim
Heck yeah. We’re changing the world, yeah?
Don Mock
Hey, one person at a time, baby.
Tim
Well, Malcolm Gladwell, tipping point, you just need the right person, yeah. Taylor Swift, if you’re listening, I need you to promote this, but thinking about
Don Mock
interject more keywords. Tim, keep saying keywords.
Tim
Swiftie. so you take a PlayStation, and I gave you this example, and you go into a Best Buy, and you take a PlayStation 6 box and you make it up. And there’s no PlayStation 6, but you make one and you stick it on a pedestal in the door in Rogers, Arkansas. Shout out. that picture.
Don Mock
Yeah, someone ‘s gonna snap that, put it on there, whatever.
Tim
Yeah, in one day, yeah. But they still put 10s of millions of dollars towards their branding.
Don Mock
For a five year old product, exactly, yeah. For a five year old product, they’re still spending 10s of millions of dollars globally, you know, yeah. So
Tim
I think that you have to be consistent. I think that as a marketer, the best thing you can do, especially if you’re trying to get into marketing, is to continue to learn, continue to understand consumers can continue to it’s not even just about the consumer. Yeah, you need to watch the behavior, but you need to see what’s going on economically, yeah, how things are changing. Yeah, in my world, I have to look at what inflation is doing.
Don Mock
Yeah, you can’t be just vertically siloed in your in your closet. You got to look holistically on who’s next door
Tim
And you have to be patient, yeah, yeah.
Don Mock
So it’s hard to tell clients that, but it’s cool that you’re a client and you understand that, which is great. But Tim, this is awesome conversation. We’ve been rocking and rocking. This might be the longest podcast we’ve ever recorded,
Tim
history making right now
Don Mock
yeah, quite honestly, which is still a badass. All right, so we should probably wrap it up at some point here, but so I got one random question for you at the end, I can’t remember, we used to have clients on and I’d ask them a question.
Don Mock
Yeah, I’ve never been a fan of Pez. Is that what you’re gonna ask me?
Don Mock
Pez? no, no, but I’m okay with that. Pez are chalky and yeah, you know, have you watched Silo on Apple TV?
Tim
I’ve not
Don Mock
because there’s a Pez reference in there. Okay, anyway, all right, we’ll end on this one. What’s your favorite brand? I’m putting you on the hot seat, so I’ll sit here and bow on here for a minute.
Tim
I guess it depends on what is is, what category?
Don Mock
There’s no wrong answer to this. Doesn’t matter. Just like, what? Because you mentioned I love, you know, Adidas, or, you know, this, that
Tim
I’m gonna spit a couple of them out, if it’s wine, because I love wine,
Don Mock
Oh you’re a wine guy
Tim
Sommelier is Dow out of past the Robles, because it’s just a great wine. It’s again, branding, that’s where I’m from so I love it, shoes. I like a lot of Nike’s, I have a lot of Jordans, I have more shoes than I should have.
Don Mock
That’s all right, are you a sneaker head?
Tim
I am
Don Mock
okay. Do you buy two pairs? Save one? okay, you wear them
Tim
No, I wear all mine. I have a 2017 SB concept, high don that is the ugly sweater, okay, and that I don’t wear Christmas ugly sweaters. I wear all black, and throw those shoes on to speak for themselves.
Don Mock
That’s cool. Bad ass. I love that.
Tim
Brands like that. I like a lot of different things, yeah, so golf, taylormade, a lot. Taylormade
Don Mock
All right, well, dude, this has been awesome, man. Thanks for spending a bunch of time. Just chatting. If anybody wants to drop you a note, do you want to shout out your contact info or whatever?
Tim
That’s fine. Here’s my phone number.
Don Mock
No, I mean, I guess I can look you up on LinkedIn, right? You’re on LinkedIn.
Tim
LinkedIn, and Timothy Klinedinst, K, L, I N, E, D, I N, S, T, or shoot me an email at censoredthought@gmail.com C, E, N, S O, R, D, E, D, T, H O, U, G, H T, I’m censored and I have a thought@gmail.com.
Don Mock
I love it. Well, Tim, thanks dude. Super appreciate it.
Tim
Yeah, fun.
Don Mock
Next time you’re in Atlanta, let’s do it again.
Tim
For sure.
Don Mock
All right, we’ll play the outro music.
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