How to Reduce Taxes and Build Real Wealth

How to Reduce Taxes and Build Real Wealth written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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Episode Overview

What if the biggest professional disappointment of your life was actually the foundation for your long-term wealth strategy?

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews Jack Ojo, founder of Ojo Wealth Strategies, one of the nation’s largest tax-focused wealth management firms. Before building a nationally recognized firm, Jack was a top-rated minor league baseball umpire on the verge of the Major Leagues.

After an unexpected release ended his umpiring career, Jack reinvented himself through education, discipline, and a relentless focus on tax strategy and client service. Today, he helps business owners and high-income professionals minimize taxes, maximize retirement savings, and protect against worst-case financial scenarios.

This conversation explores career resilience, proactive tax planning, retirement strategies, and the overlooked wealth-building tools most entrepreneurs ignore.

About Jack Ojo

Jack Ojo is the founder and lead advisor of Ojo Wealth Strategies, a nationally recognized tax-focused wealth management firm. He holds multiple professional designations, including CPA, CFP, and a Master’s in Taxation.

Before entering wealth management, Jack was a highly rated minor league baseball umpire, advancing to AAA and earning the Joe Ryan Award as the top minor league umpiring prospect. After his baseball career ended unexpectedly, he redirected his discipline into education, earning advanced credentials and building a firm focused on proactive tax reduction and long-term wealth preservation.

He is also the author of Too Smart to Be an Umpire, a book chronicling his journey from professional sports to financial advisory leadership.

Key Takeaways for Entrepreneurs and Business Owners

1. Your Biggest Expense Is Income Tax

Most business owners know what they owe in taxes but do not realize how much control they actually have. Tax planning should be proactive and strategic, not a once-a-year event.

2. Defined Benefit Pension Plans Are Massively Underused

High-income sole proprietors and small business owners can potentially write off hundreds of thousands of dollars annually through properly structured defined benefit plans.

This is one of the most overlooked strategies in small business tax planning.

3. Entity Structure Matters

• Over 100K to 150K income? An S-corp may reduce Social Security tax exposure.
• Under 20K income? A sole proprietorship may be sufficient.
• Compensation structure and reasonable salary must be defensible in an audit.

4. Documentation Wins Audits

Whether deducting vehicles, mileage, or home office expenses, documentation is critical.

• Use mileage tracking apps.
• Track business use consistently.
• Avoid aggressive deductions that cannot be defended as reasonable.

5. Banner Year? Buy Smart and Deduct Strategically

If revenue exceeds expectations:

• Consider Section 179 deductions for equipment purchases.
• Evaluate vehicles over 6,000 pounds for accelerated depreciation.
• Make strategic investments before year-end.

6. Bad Year? Consider Roth Conversions

A low-income year can be an opportunity to convert traditional IRA assets to a Roth IRA at lower tax rates, positioning yourself for long-term tax-free growth.

7. 401(k) Plans Are Essential

For most Americans earning under 400K to 500K annually, maxing out a 401(k) is one of the smartest wealth-building moves available.

• Immediate tax reduction
• Long-term compounded growth
• Predictable retirement income structure
• Potential seven-figure balances at retirement

8. Putting Children on Payroll Can Be Strategic

If structured correctly:

• Children working in a sole proprietorship can earn income free from Social Security tax.
• Income can be redirected into 529 plans.
• Proper documentation and legitimate work are essential.

9. Spouses on Payroll Create Double Retirement Power

When a spouse legitimately works in the business:

• Two retirement accounts can be funded.
• Social Security benefits increase.
• Long-term household wealth improves significantly.

10. Protect Against Worst-Case Scenarios

Jack’s firm grew 400 percent after the 2008 financial crisis because clients were prepared. Wealth strategy is not just about growth. It is about resilience.

Great Moments from the Episode

• 00:01 The Big Reframe: Sometimes the career setback you are replaying becomes the wealth strategy that makes you unstoppable.
• 01:00 From AAA Umpire to Financial Advisor: Jack shares how his near-Major League umpiring career ended and how he redirected his focus into education and credentials.
• 03:30 Poverty in the Minor Leagues: A candid look at the financial realities of minor league baseball.
• 05:35 The Honesty Factor: How umpiring shaped Jack’s approach to trust and client service.
• 07:00 Your Largest Expense Is Income Tax: Why most business owners underestimate their ability to control tax liability.
• 10:45 Handling a Surprise Banner Year: Strategies to reduce tax impact when revenue spikes unexpectedly.
• 11:15 Turning a Bad Year Into an Opportunity: Using Roth conversions strategically during income downturns.
• 13:30 Vehicle Deductions and Documentation: Where business use becomes defensible and where it becomes risky.
• 17:00 Why 401(k)s Are Essential: A strong defense of retirement plans for business owners and employees alike.
• 18:54 Paying Your Kids Through the Business: A practical look at compliant, strategic payroll for children.

Watch The Full Episode On Youtube:

Memorable Quotes

Everybody knows what they owe or what their refund is, but they do not realize how much control they actually have over that number.

If you are a pig with deductions, you are going to get slaughtered.

If you are not maxing out your 401(k), you are making a mistake.

Final Thoughts

Jack Ojo’s story proves that career disappointment can become the foundation for financial mastery. His journey from AAA umpire to nationally recognized tax strategist underscores a powerful truth.

Discipline, education, and proactive tax planning create long-term wealth.

For entrepreneurs, this episode is a reminder that taxes are not just an annual event. They are a strategic lever that, when handled correctly, can transform your financial future.

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:01.936)

What if the career setback you're still replaying is actually the best wealth strategy you'll ever stumble into because it forces you to build new skills, new discipline, and maybe a new plan that finally makes you unstoppable. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Jack Oujo. He's the founder and lead advisor of Oujo Wealth Strategies, one of the nation's largest tax

focused wealth management firms. holds multiple professional designations, including a whole bunch of letters and a master's in taxation. But before starting the firm, he was a major league baseball umpire advancing to AAA and winning the Joe Ryan Award as the highest rated minor league umpiring prospect. But today we're going to talk about both his journey and his new book, Two Smart

to be an umpire. So Jack, welcome to the show.

Jack D. Oujo (01:00.182)

Thanks, John. It's a pleasure to be with you today.

John Jantsch (01:02.332)

All right, so the first question we just need to get out of the way is, what do you think of the rule change on balls and strikes this year that's going to go to the majors?

Jack D. Oujo (01:13.038)

I am actually in favor of it. And the reason why I'm in favor of it is because you've had, you have three boxes on the TV, one from the home team, one from the visiting team, and they're normally set by some intern that works there. It's not the actual strike zone, by the way. You have the one from Major League Baseball and the human being. So let's get one right.

John Jantsch (01:15.003)

Yeah?

John Jantsch (01:28.104)

is that right?

John Jantsch (01:32.368)

Yeah, yeah. Do you feel umpires feel that way too? Because again, I know they're going to they're going to test it with here we're to do the whole show on this. I know they're going to test it with you know, only get a couple challenges. But you know, every batter thinks it's a ball and every pitcher thinks it's a strike. So

Jack D. Oujo (01:42.382)

Sure.

Jack D. Oujo (01:49.87)

I was going over with one major league umpire, his retirement plan. was in his late fifties. And I told him he was financially independent, was working because he wanted to. said, how much longer do you want to go? And he goes, Oh, a few more years, Jack, till I'm 59. He goes, they bring in the electronic strike zone. goes, I'll go till I'm 79. Won't be under any pressure, nothing along those lines. So I think they like it. creates more jobs.

It makes the job less valuable in my view. Why do you need to pay somebody $400,000 a year when you have a phone that can get the pictures right? So it's like anything else in our society, AI, you'd be taking away another job.

John Jantsch (02:24.794)

Yeah. Yeah. All right. So let's talk a little bit about your journey. had, I mean, you, while it sounds like you loved umpiring, it was a bit of a career disappointment. So how did you turn that into where you are today?

Jack D. Oujo (02:41.346)

Well, yeah, during the eight years I was in the minor leagues, I was smart enough, no pun intended, to work in the off seasons as an accountant. I had good accounting jobs in New York City, and so I was gaining experience.

And when I got my release, I was surprised because I was on the verge of the major leagues and there was, I write about it too smart to be an umpire. But nevertheless, I decided to focus on getting as much education as I could. I didn't know where it would lead, but I was so hurt from the baseball experience that I'd work nine to five.

And then at night, I spent the next four years getting my CPA, CFP, master's in taxation, securities and insurance license, not knowing where it would lead. And so that was the focus, getting education and try to reinvent myself from the ground up.

John Jantsch (03:21.03)

Mm.

John Jantsch (03:31.526)

So, I mean, did you look at it then as that's plan B? I don't know what plan B looks like, but that's plan B.

Jack D. Oujo (03:39.768)

Plan B was always a career in public accounting, but as I was in public accounting, I realized how boring that was. You your professional baseball umpired 30,000 people in the stands and I found myself counting hats one day verifying an inventory. so that's how I transferred into wealth management.

John Jantsch (03:58.11)

it is a, is a minor league umpire in particular not paid enough for that to be their full-time job. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you're getting on the buses with them, huh? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, so you, so most of them were doing like you were, another gig, which was, some mechanic work, right? Tax prep.

Jack D. Oujo (04:04.032)

It's poverty. It's an absolute disgrace. And that goes for the players too. Managers. We drive our own cars. We drive our own transportation. It's even worse than people think. Yeah, it's bad.

Jack D. Oujo (04:23.798)

In my case, was accounting work. A lot of people in baseball work for UPS, it seemed, in the off seasons. But unless you had the resources from family, which most people did not, you had to find something to do once the season ended.

John Jantsch (04:35.958)

I, when I was in high school, a friend of mine worked at, worked for the Royals as a clubhouse attendant. and, so every now and then I got to fill in and do that. And one of my favorite things to do was bring the, the after game meal to the umpires because it always slipped me five bucks or something. so even in poverty, they were taking care of the little guy. So.

Jack D. Oujo (04:57.482)

Absolutely, The manager of the Padres now, I don't know why his name escapes me, but he was actually our clubby in Charlotte in double A and actually rose to become a major league manager, current manager of the Padres.

John Jantsch (05:11.378)

wow. That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. So now fast forward a bit. You've built one of the nation's largest tax focused wealth firms. Talk a little bit about, I mean, was there a secret sauce? Was there an approach to client relationships? Did your past kind of really guide you? What was your, what do you attribute to your success, I guess?

Jack D. Oujo (05:35.082)

I think people like the honesty and I think that's from the umpire in me. I don't know if they think I'm the brightest bulb, but they know they can trust me. And after going through the baseball experience, I did believe in protecting against worst case scenarios. When the terrorist attack took place in 2001, if you remember back then, the thinking was, will there be another attack? It's a question of when.

John Jantsch (05:39.43)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (06:00.016)

Mm-hmm.

Jack D. Oujo (06:00.202)

And I prepared my clients for worst case scenarios. When 2008 hit, they were prepared, although I didn't know what a reverse credit default swap was at the time. And the business really prospered, like went to a whole nother level after 2008, growing by 400%. But I think just emphasizing client service, a four seasons type of service with clients was probably.

John Jantsch (06:24.828)

So I'm sure that you are very aware of this. Certainly a lot of business owners that we work with, tax planning means giving their stuff at the end of the year to their accountant, as opposed to anything that would be proactive. What's the biggest misconception you hear from clients, especially businesses, when it comes to taxes and wealth planning?

Jack D. Oujo (06:47.256)

Sure, when I meet with a client for the first time, I always ask them what their biggest expense is and they say their mortgage and I go, no, isn't. And they argue with me until I explain to them it's their income tax. Everybody knows their refund or what they owe, but they don't know they have much greater control over that expense than they think. I think people also think that wealthy people don't pay taxes when they do. And arranging your affairs,

to reduce your taxes in a way that's consistent with your goals and objectives is critical for clients. again, maximizing retirement accounts, having a side hustle, I think helps employees. But arranging your affairs to pay the least possible tax in a way consistent with your goals is important.

John Jantsch (07:32.432)

So do you want to get into the nitty gritty on that a little bit? mean, are there specific things, again, a lot of our listeners are entrepreneurs, small business owners. Are there things that you just consistently see they're not doing or that they clearly could or need to stop doing or they could do better?

Jack D. Oujo (07:51.906)

Well, one huge idea, if you're dealing with a sole proprietor with no employees or few employees that makes a lot of money, they ought to consider a defined benefit pension plan. We've had clients that have million dollar incomes that we're able to get five or $600,000 write-offs by having defined benefit plans. So figuring out the best pension plan for yourself is critical for a business owner. The second thing would be entity structure.

John Jantsch (08:02.118)

Mm-hmm.

Jack D. Oujo (08:17.068)

Should you be an S-corp, LLC, what have you? Should you have your children on the payroll and things along those lines? What type of accounting method you should have, cash or accrual, to get into the nuts and bolts of those things. But again, realizing you want to make as much money as possible.

John Jantsch (08:17.146)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (08:22.459)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (08:30.972)

Well, I yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, are there, again, I know that people are in different situations, but when somebody came to you with a blank slate and said, what should my entity be? know, should I have a 401k? I mean, what is kind of your standard advice?

Jack D. Oujo (08:48.014)

Yeah, I think if your income is over $100,000, $150,000 a year, you should be an S corporation because you can play around with what reasonable compensation is and be able to avoid social security taxes. If you're making under $20,000 a year, just being a sole proprietor is fine. But you can avoid a lot of taxes just with a single 401k plan, things along those lines. So it depends.

John Jantsch (09:06.533)

Mm-hmm.

Jack D. Oujo (09:15.374)

over when you get over $200,000, then we could have some fun with other types of pension plans. And if you're in a service business, you should probably never be an accrual based taxpayer because your payables are going to be greater than what your receivables are. So again, it's not one size fits all.

John Jantsch (09:37.616)

Yeah, sure, sure, sure. So are there what people might call creative or lesser known deductions or credits that you see people are really not even aware of or certainly are underutilized?

Jack D. Oujo (09:52.97)

I'm just harping on these pension plans again. I hate to say it, but they're missed by everybody. They're missed. And the timing of income at the end of the year, being able to postpone receipts, things along those lines. There isn't a magic thing. A lot of loopholes have been closed. What used to be pretty cool in the 70s and 80s, they're gone now. again, those are the things you have to look at. Start with pension plans and then we can talk after that.

John Jantsch (09:55.014)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (10:21.958)

So I work with lot of entrepreneurs that end up having really great year, really bad year, really banner year. It seems to be kind of up and down. And so a lot of them come to the end of the year and it was like, crap, we've had a banner year this year, which is great, but I'm an S corp and now I'm going to get a giant tax bill. What are some things that people can do when they have more revenue than expected?

Jack D. Oujo (10:46.84)

Well, you're looking to buy equipment and take a big section 179 deduction. So if you have a big income, example, you could buy a vehicle. it's over 6,000 pounds, you can write, off a very large vehicle. I would look at things that you want to buy for your business and that you can write off in one year would probably be the biggest thing. On the other hand, have you ever really lousy year where you actually lost money for the year on a personal basis? And we've done this for many clients is looking to do Roth conversions.

John Jantsch (10:51.036)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (11:16.144)

Mm-hmm.

Jack D. Oujo (11:16.238)

where you're taking your IRA, you're paying taxes on it, it never gets taxed again, and you're kind of creating income where there isn't any that exists and utilizing that negative opportunity for something positive for the old age version of yourself.

John Jantsch (11:30.714)

Yeah, another hot topic that I run across a lot is, especially for owners, obviously, is salary versus distributions. You know, you have a lot of people giving the advice of, pay yourself just enough that the IRS thinks that's OK, and then distribute, because you're going to save on some taxes. Is it that cut and dried?

Jack D. Oujo (11:50.188)

No, not at all. The tax system is always going to be complicated because we derive our income in different ways. I've represented clients in many audits over the year. You're trying to sell a reasonable person on what is reasonable in this situation. So you have to pay yourself a quote unquote reasonable salary.

John Jantsch (12:05.725)

Alright.

Jack D. Oujo (12:11.214)

So if you made $100,000 for the year and paid yourself $10,000, most people would say that's BS, that's not correct. But if you paid yourself 40 or 50,000, $50,000 in distributions, now you could kind of make a case that that's reasonable. So again, it depends on the situation. There's people, you you don't want to be a pig with this stuff. I found the IRS auditors.

John Jantsch (12:33.607)

Mm-hmm.

Jack D. Oujo (12:37.174)

to be very reasonable people, believe it or not. You can always get one that's an exception, but most of the time they're trying to be reasonable. And most times you can settle these things in minutes, quite frankly. If you're a pig, you're gonna get slaughtered, know, that's the way I see

John Jantsch (12:49.959)

Yeah.

So talk a little, I know this might be a little dry, make it, try to make it sexy if you can for me, but depreciation, equipment purchases, like you're talking about vehicles. So let's say, this probably is gonna verge on the pig, but let's say somebody buys a recreational type of vehicle, $100,000 conversion van type of thing, and they also own a business. Where's the line on...

Are they using that for business? Are they not using that for business? Where does that get a little fuzzy?

Jack D. Oujo (13:30.11)

If you're using your car and your business, again, we have to sell this reasonable person that we're using this for business and painting a sign on the side of it is not, you you're going to fly with not the IRS is playing a game of where does this number come from? How many miles did you drive? And there's, there's apps that I use one called mileage IQ, and you don't have to think about it. So they're looking for how many miles did you drive and improve it?

John Jantsch (13:39.975)

you

John Jantsch (13:50.695)

Mm.

John Jantsch (13:55.965)

Yeah.

Jack D. Oujo (13:56.142)

And if you have this documentation, you're starting to sell the auditor that these things are real. So again, if the vehicle's over 6,000 pounds, you write the whole thing off in one year. And then I would strongly advise people to use some kind of documentation tool. Mileage IQ is excellent. If you're lazy and don't do that, then having your oil changed at the of the year where you could document odometer readings.

John Jantsch (14:20.925)

All

Jack D. Oujo (14:25.026)

That would be a good thing to do, but you're playing a game of documentation, I found, with the office. As long as you can document things and, again, sell a reasonable person on things, you're going to be okay. That's the line.

John Jantsch (14:29.241)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John Jantsch (14:38.917)

Have you seen a lot of organizations have distributed workforce these days? So people working out of their homes in 15 states. What does that do for the business entity tax picture? And then also, what does it do for the individual? So if an individual is employed, they have to keep an office to say, I mean, is that a deduction for that individual?

Jack D. Oujo (15:00.248)

Sure, the way I would do that if they want to be smart about it, if they can get with their employer, they can change their compensation structure around so that part of this is salary and part of it is a direct employee business expense. So if your office is in New York City and you work in Idaho, let's say.

you make $100,000 a year, you could restructure your salary. So $15,000 of it is reimbursement for office expenses, non-taxable to the person and item, deductible for the employer. then again, I use an app called Domicile 365 because I spend most of my time in Florida and some of it in New Jersey. So if I was examined by New Jersey, this app tracks me every 15 minutes.

John Jantsch (15:30.007)

I see,

Jack D. Oujo (15:47.574)

and I attached a summary to my New Jersey return. I report New Jersey income, but only for the days that I worked in New Jersey. So again, this documentation game comes in the play, but structure, I advise the umpires and Major League Baseball to do this, to try to restructure their salary so part of its expense reimburses.

John Jantsch (16:03.847)

Yeah. Would health insurance fall into that category? Let's say somebody gets their spouse is they're able to get on their spouse's plan, but it's $300, you know, to add, could the employer pay that and actually deduct that? And that would be pre-tax or not.

Jack D. Oujo (16:18.221)

The could use some sort of section 125 plan or if there's a high deductible plan, something along those lines could be a win for the employee and the employer. In my business, I've had high deductible medical plans and I contributed money to our employees HSA accounts that they could take with them. It was not a use it or lose it feature. And that was good for both me and for them.

John Jantsch (16:27.421)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (16:44.411)

Yeah. Where do you fall on 401k? they, I, again, I know it's people probably trying to sell another tool, but I see a lot of, I'd see a lot of people kind of bashing 401k's as not a great business tool or not a great employee tool.

Jack D. Oujo (17:01.396)

Anybody that bashes 401Ks you should run away from, like the place with non-fire. For people, it's one good thing that Jimmy Carter did as president was put in the 401K plans. Sorry to say that, but...

Everybody should make almost everybody should make maximum use of 401k plans where they're missed by people is a lot of times I've seen us two spouses working where one person makes big money and another one has some sort of part-time job and they have this mental accounting on money They should both be utilizing maxing out 401k plans because I found that a lot of people in America when they go to retire end up with a paid-off mortgage Which I'm a huge fan of by the way I'm a big believer in paying off your mortgage when reasonable to do so I have

John Jantsch (17:28.775)

Mm-hmm.

Jack D. Oujo (17:45.168)

haven't had a mortgage on my house in 25 years. But they come in with these 401k plans that are seven figures and then they live off of them. They up and downsize their home and they have more money to play with. But that's the, for most Americans that make under $400,000 a year, $500,000 a year, you're crazy not to max out your 401k plans. And my three adult children, I preach that to them and I'm glad they listen to me on it. go, max it out, max it out, max it out.

John Jantsch (17:53.445)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jack D. Oujo (18:15.088)

reducing, in my opinion, your largest expense, which is your income tax. You're cutting that down and building up this lump sum of capital you need to retire. And this business that you have large taxes and retirement is also a bunch of malarkey. You know, the tax rate under $90,000 is 12%. You have $3 million in your IRA take out 4 % a year, 120 grand. You got 90,000 at 12 % and the $30,000 standard deduction. How is that wrong? that's

John Jantsch (18:19.314)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:32.39)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (18:42.172)

Yeah.

Jack D. Oujo (18:43.692)

That's how I feel, very strong mistake.

John Jantsch (18:44.869)

Yeah, well, so talk to talk one more time about employer putting children or spouses on the payroll, because I think that's a that's something that a lot of people overlook as well.

Jack D. Oujo (18:54.798)

Sure. First of all, children can only be on the payroll if you're a sole proprietor or a single member, LLC, if you want to avoid payroll taxes on them. And they have to do work and it should be documented. But if you pay your child that works in the business $10,000, let's say, you avoid all the social security taxes.

John Jantsch (19:07.549)

Okay, yeah, right. Yeah.

Jack D. Oujo (19:19.086)

They get taxed at that rate, which is hardly anything. And then you put that in your 529 plan. So the regular business owner that goes, I make too much money for any child aid. That's your own loophole to get, you you probably save three to $4,000 just having your kid on a payroll for $10,000.

John Jantsch (19:23.975)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:36.605)

And you're giving them money that you would have probably given them anyway, right?

Jack D. Oujo (19:41.431)

My kids were on the payroll for a long time. I remember my son, is my youngest, who's now 30 years of age when he was four years old. My wife got a letter from Social Security saying, here, Mr. Financial Advisor.

Social Security wants to know what my son Matthew did for work. And I said, my son worked on the shredding machine in the office. He stuffed envelopes and he told everybody at his preschool what his father did for a living, which significantly resulted in new business and sent them in and never heard from them again. know, but he did work in the business, you know, the question of what is it worth? know, the tax law for a millionaire is the same for a poor person. And you make that argument.

John Jantsch (20:10.267)

Ha ha.

John Jantsch (20:16.071)

Yeah. Yeah.

Jack D. Oujo (20:23.726)

My son modeled for the firm brochure. How is his modeling different than somebody else? Unless you're the laws for them and not for me. So that are the arguments you could make there. But again, you have to, you can't put them on the payroll for $100,000 for you.

John Jantsch (20:23.869)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (20:37.775)

Yeah, well, I will say, you know, for a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, spouse, particularly a spouse that is doesn't have another career outside the home. mean, they're there. I guarantee it. They're working.

Jack D. Oujo (20:51.864)

My spouse, my wife Eileen has been on the payroll for 30 years, always maxing out the 401k plan and she could tell anybody what she did because she did work in the office and work very hard. But it's two pension plans, one for me, one for her and now they're telephone.

John Jantsch (21:00.369)

Yep. Yep.

Well, and, she contributed to social security, I suspect. Right. So she's going to get a social security check that she wasn't going to get otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, for those of you that, like it, when we talk about AI and marketing and creative things, I'm sorry, we had to get down into the weeds on, on another really important, as you said, the biggest expense for a lot of businesses or certainly a lot of business owners. Jack, before we let you go,

Jack D. Oujo (21:07.63)

Yes, also.

Jack D. Oujo (21:12.302)

100 % absolutely correct.

John Jantsch (21:33.495)

Is there some place you'd invite people to find out more about your work, find out about too smart to be an umpire?

Jack D. Oujo (21:40.076)

Yeah, there's a website, TooSmartToBeAnUmpire.com. They can go on Amazon and read all the reviews that are on Amazon right now. I'm thrilled. I'm a first time author. So when TooSmartToBeAnUmpire came out, I wasn't sure I was going to go over. And it's borderline bestseller list right now. So there's a website, TooSmartToBeAnUmpire.com and also Ojo Wealth Strategies, which I'm the founder of. People can check out that website. Jason Gordon and Anthony Sandimerski are running the firm now.

Jason's 35 and he's worked in my office since he was 16 years old. So they're well credentialed and great guys, so that's where they can find out.

John Jantsch (22:16.605)

Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Jack D. Oujo (22:22.242)

Thanks, John.

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Rethinking Workflows in the Age of AI

Rethinking Workflows in the Age of AI written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Episode

Episode Overview

AI is moving fast, but most organizations weren’t built for that kind of speed. In this episode, John Jantsch talks with Stephen Wunker, Managing Director of New Markets Advisors and author of AI and the Octopus Organization: Building the Super Intelligent Firm.
They unpack why “adding AI” to existing processes is not the win, and why the winners will redesign how decisions, learning, and accountability work.

Using the octopus as a metaphor, distributed brains connected by a coordinating nerve ring—Wunker explains how AI can enable distributed intelligence across teams while maintaining contextual alignment through data, governance, and culture. The conversation dives into “golden workflows,” the danger of unmanaged pilots, and how organizations can move from incremental improvements to
true workflow transformation.

About Stephen Wunker

Stephen Wunker is the Managing Director of New Markets Advisors, where he has advised hundreds of organizations on growth, innovation, and new market strategy. He is the author of AI and the Octopus Organization: Building the Super Intelligent Firm, focused on helping companies redesign operations and decision systems to capture the full value of AI.

Key Takeaways

1) AI is not just better software

• Incremental upgrades (e.g., swapping interfaces for chatbots) help, but the real gain comes from redesigning workflows end-to-end.
• Think: turning a 21-step process into 3 steps—possibly different steps—not just automating a single task.

2) The Octopus Organization enables distributed intelligence

• Like an octopus’ arms sensing and acting independently, AI can push decisions closer to where work happens.
• Alignment comes from shared context: connected data, governance, and coordination mechanisms.

3) Stop running “900 pilots”

• Uncoordinated AI experimentation is distracting and risky.
• Build a repeatable way to assess, measure, and either scale or kill pilots.

4) Use the ABC approach

• A: AI-fy the present (within guidelines).
• B: Become great at experimentation (hypotheses, pre/post measures, learning loops).
• C: Create the future (rethink a few high-impact workflows to become “lighthouses”).

5) Focus on “golden workflows”

• Pick the few workflows that drive the most time, cost, or strategic value—and redesign those first.
• Examples discussed: campaign planning, internal announcements, service-line marketing messaging.

6) The three hearts: analytical, agile, aligned

• Analytical: data-driven decision-making.
• Agile: ability to adapt quickly (often hardest for larger firms).
• Aligned: shared purpose and emotional coherence during disruption.

7) AI supercharges collaboration

• The “super intelligent firm” is less about super-human AI and more about AI improving human collaboration and coordination.
• Right information to the right people at the right time elevates firm-wide intelligence.

Great Moments (Timestamps)

• 00:01 Why most organizations aren’t built for AI speed
• 01:17 The octopus metaphor: nine brains and distributed intelligence
• 02:44 The real unlock: redesign workflows, not just interfaces
• 03:53 Risks and requirements: data quality, human-in-the-loop, and decision boundaries
• 05:25 The danger of scattered usage: “no brain, no guardrails, no retention”
• 06:41 ABC framework: AI-fy the present, experiment well, create the future
• 09:33 Campaign planning: cutting cycles with real-time prototyping and shared context
• 10:24 Golden workflows: prioritize what matters most
• 12:16 The three hearts: analytical, agile, aligned
• 15:29 What “super intelligent firm” really means: collaboration amplified
• 16:29 Iteration at scale: personalization and massive variant testing
• 17:16 Octopus principles for a 20-person firm vs. a 200-person firm
• 17:45 Electricity analogy: the assembly-line moment requires rethinking work
• 19:17 A practical starting point: align AI with strategic priorities
• 20:14 Where to find the book and connect

Catch the Full Episode on Youtube

Memorable Quotes

“The real unlock comes from rethinking the system of work and the workflows.”

“The era of having 900 pilots… is unsustainable.”

“Where firms get their intelligence is through collaboration of people.”

“AI has the potential to supercharge that collaboration by making sure the right information goes to the right people at the right time.”

Resources Mentioned

• AI and the Octopus Organization: Building the Super Intelligent Firm — Stephen Wunker (available on Amazon)
• Book site: AIandtheOctopus.com
• Connect: Stephen Wunker on LinkedIn

 

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:01.749)

AI is moving fast. No question about that. But I think the biggest challenge for a lot of organizations is they just weren't built for this kind of speed. My guest today says the winners won't just adopt AI, they'll redesign how decisions, learning and accountability work. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Stephen Wunker. He's the managing director of New Market Markets Advisors, where he's advised

hundreds of organizations on growth, innovation, and new market strategy. He's also the author of a book we're going to talk about today, AI and the Octopus Organization, Building the Super Intelligent Firm. So Steve, welcome to the show.

Steve Wunker (00:48.078)

Thanks for having me on.

John Jantsch (00:50.051)

All right. So it seems like I start here, long time listeners know I always start with titles, words and titles. So I think when you suggested this show, I think the thing that got my attention probably is for a lot of people, it's just the word octopus. It's a metaphor that's used a lot in business. So what's the simplest way for you to explain an octopus organization?

Steve Wunker (01:17.582)

So an octopus has a biology that is weird for us humans. It's very unusual in the animal kingdom in general. It has nine brains, one in its central head and one for each of its arms.

which means each arm can sense and think and act independently. And yet all those brains are interconnected with the nerve ring. So they don't need to route everything through the central brain, but they can sort of coordinate semi-autonomously with complete contextual awareness. And it's a great metaphor for how an AI infused organization is to operate with distributed intelligence, a lot of local sensing and acting, and yet

John Jantsch (01:31.488)

Thank

Steve Wunker (02:01.473)

with complete contextual awareness. So we developed that model in detail as a guideline for how organizations should adapt to really make the most out of AI.

John Jantsch (02:14.499)

So I'm seeing a lot of organizations, especially we work with a lot of small to mid-sized businesses that really are not compartmentalized necessarily like larger organizations might be. And I get the feeling that they look at AI as like software. It's like, this is just a better version of Word, you know, or something like that. So what do you, I'm curious if you're encountering that as well, or if you see that as a clear sign that they're not thinking about this distributed intelligence.

Steve Wunker (02:44.749)

John, I'm seeing it all over the place. Small organizations, certainly large enterprises. I was with 100 product managers earlier this week in Denver talking to a group there. And they were reporting it even in their software companies. They were getting a lot of requests for these very incremental improvements. And all that is nice, but the real unlock comes from rethinking the system of work and the workflows, not through swapping some

regular interface with an open text box for a natural language chatbot. No, it comes through taking your 21-step process and making it three steps, albeit maybe three different steps.

John Jantsch (03:29.411)

Yeah, or automating the handoff between those steps, right? Yeah. So the idea, at least as I sense it from you, the idea of the eight arms is that we're pushing decisions out in a lot of cases, decentralizing. Where's the risk in that? Where does that break down? What role does data play in making that happen?

Steve Wunker (03:32.076)

Yes.

Steve Wunker (03:53.355)

look, you need to have decent data in order to make decent decisions. So that's certainly one.

John Jantsch (03:55.799)

Right? Yeah.

Steve Wunker (03:58.955)

People need to know how far they can go. You also probably don't want to take a human entirely out of the process. But let me give you an example of how to do this in a marketing situation. We worked recently with the marketing department of a major health system and they wanted to infuse AI in what they did. So one issue they would have is that they would work with the different service lines in a hospital trying to create a marketing message for them.

but often the service lines didn't even know themselves what their marketing messages should be. So for the lower priority stuff, it's like the Urology department wants to do some brochure about their services. They were able to put into very simple AI system queries and a sort of interactive process to help Urology come to that messaging itself, to draft messaging for it, help them create the output. And then the human can get involved.

John Jantsch (04:31.659)

Sure. Right.

Steve Wunker (04:58.849)

and say, well, how about we do this or we're not quite aligned with the brand value, so we need to go in this direction. But it took out so much of the work that marketing was spending on this relatively low priority task. And actually it was better for the people in urology as well, that they didn't have to go back and forth and back and forth over period of weeks. They could do it all with the self-service engine.

John Jantsch (05:13.613)

Yeah, yeah. Right.

John Jantsch (05:25.091)

So one of the things that we've also encountered is a lot of, you know, as organizations, especially if there's not like a leadership mandate for AI, a lot of organizations have various people that have said, well, I can figure out chat GPT, you know, and so they're using it to kind of do their work better, but there's no real central guardrails. There's no brain, there's no retention even of, you know, what they've built. I mean, how do you build a system that is, that starts, of course, from leadership? And I know part...

part of the answer is going to be buy in from leadership. But how do you build something that has the guardrails that we're going to speak like the brand, we're not going to use the wrong language. So that if you have all these people in various departments or various locations even using the tools, how do you set the guardrails up?

Steve Wunker (06:11.787)

Yeah, the era of having 900 pilots, I hope, is drawing to a close. They are distracting. They are dangerous. Yeah, maybe they got people comfortable with AI, but it is unsustainable. So look, you need to have a common data foundation with some data quality. So definitely invest in having decent quality data, ideally some sort of data lake or other system to provide that free flow of information throughout the organization. There needs to be some governance guidelines and governance process.

John Jantsch (06:14.947)

Right.

John Jantsch (06:23.873)

Right.

Steve Wunker (06:41.711)

on how AI should and should not be used. But then there also needs to be a mechanism to assess these pilots that are still going to occur. look, we have a three-step system, ABC. A, AIFI the present. You want to go AIFI what you're doing now?

Great, let's make sure it's within guidelines, but go do it. B, become great at experimentation. So what's actually your hypothesis? What are you measuring pre and post? What did you learn? How do you kill pilots that aren't working? And then C, which too few organizations are doing, is create the future. So for a handful of things, you can't do it for everything all at once.

John Jantsch (07:18.027)

Mm-hmm.

Steve Wunker (07:21.803)

but in a handful of golden workflows, as we call them, what can you do to really rethink what you're doing and make those sort of a lighthouse for the rest of the organization. Do that in a half dozen situations and then move on to the next half dozen and the next half dozen.

John Jantsch (07:40.367)

So I want to come back to golden workflows, because I want you to explain that. I will say another thing that we encounter a lot is that people are just applying AI to maybe a process that's non-existent or broken, as opposed to, you know, I always tell people start with workflows first and then use AI, you know, to automate them. Don't tell AI, create me a workflow for this. How do you work with organizations where they really need to

I think I said at the beginning, they really need to rethink how they even do workflows, how they even serve their clients.

Steve Wunker (08:16.397)

So you need to understand what your starting point is and where all the disconnects. But then don't just think about what might we automate. You want to think about what humans shouldn't be doing because AI could do it better. What won't they do because it's just too time consuming but it would be valuable. And what can't they do because it's just overwhelming in the amount of detail.

John Jantsch (08:19.095)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (08:39.629)

Wait, you forgot what they hate to do. That's one of my favorites.

Steve Wunker (08:42.861)

Yes, maybe that should be an it shouldn't do as well. yeah, look, so anyway, we have the can't show quote. And when you do that, then you can really rethink, okay, with AI, what makes what does this make possible? So we did this recently, another marketing department in campaign planning, and they would spend about half a year planning campaigns for people in the business, because there'd be infinite going back and forth, back and forth, and then they have to go to the agency.

John Jantsch (09:07.971)

Hmm.

Steve Wunker (09:12.709)

and all these disconnects and nobody quite knows what they want and you go through iteration after iteration, we were able to use those principles and come up with a system that was about half the time. Could actually be a lot less, but there's still going to be some human indecision that you have to account for. But by just...

John Jantsch (09:30.433)

Mm. Yeah.

Steve Wunker (09:33.717)

reducing the number of cycling because you can real-time prototype stuff, get real decisions made right away, make sure everybody has context of what happened in the prior meeting so you eliminate a lot of those disconnects. You could do it in half the time. Now you can't re-engineer every process all at once, but you can do it in some of those golden workflows like that one.

John Jantsch (09:55.908)

So again, you're going back to the golden workflow. You're saying that's basically, know, a lot of times when, people bought into this whole idea of systems, they would try to systemize everything and just get overwhelmed because there were 740 systems and 723 of them didn't matter. So as a golden workflow in your vernacular, kind of like what's, what's a real impact one that we absolutely have to get right.

Steve Wunker (10:24.609)

Right, looked, mean, campaign planning was a great example because there was real money being spent and a lot of time. There would be others, same marketing department, with press releases or even internal announcements about what was going on. People would go back and forth and back and forth. And I mean, it was a huge sink of time and you had about 40 people just doing internal communications. So.

John Jantsch (10:27.639)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (10:37.1)

Hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (10:49.891)

And 28 of them were attorneys though, right?

Steve Wunker (10:54.437)

Well, I mean, so you do need levels of scrutiny, right? You cannot just think we're going to replace humans with AI. It doesn't work that way. But you do want those people focused on the highest use of their skills and not helping people make decisions that AI would probably help them make even better than a human consultation. So, I mean, we're not seeing a tremendous amount of displacement of humans with AI. There's some, in particular in things like call centers or whatever.

John Jantsch (11:01.291)

Right. Yeah.

John Jantsch (11:13.857)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (11:23.265)

Right, right.

Steve Wunker (11:23.501)

But more, it's just ensuring that people can focus on the best use of their skills. That's where the real productivity gains are.

John Jantsch (11:31.555)

I suspect I wouldn't study to be a paralegal right now though either probably.

Steve Wunker (11:36.725)

No, that will, yeah, that one is already played out, right? So, and it's an example, right? Auditors, there are some others that are really threatened, but that's a minority of what most white collar jobs are.

John Jantsch (11:45.793)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what we're finding, and especially in knowledge work, that what it's doing is not displacing people, but it is asking them to do their job differently. You know, to maybe manage AI as opposed to do the stuff that AI is now capable of doing. You started talking about the eight brains. I think I recall, don't.

Doesn't an octopus have three hearts also? So, so how does that metaphor, how does that metaphor come into play for you?

Steve Wunker (12:16.141)

It does indeed. And that is another chapter of the book.

So an octopus has different hearts for different purposes. And similarly, a company needs to have different operating modes as it enters this very dynamic period of AI-led disruption, also many other disruptions too. So we talk about the analytical heart.

which most companies are already pretty good at. The agile heart, which the bigger the company is, the worse it typically is at agility normally. And then the aligned heart of how do you make sure that people understand the common purpose and where people are going, particularly when there's gonna be just a lot of turmoil in the workplace. And there is with the entry of AI. Being attuned to those emotional cadences in an organization is gonna be really, really important.

John Jantsch (12:47.639)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (13:02.071)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (13:09.347)

I mean, would that, could you break that down almost department wise? mean, or not even department, but function wise? Like that what I just heard you describing sounded like culture.

Steve Wunker (13:21.709)

It is, yes, and culture is incredibly important. We also have another chapter on emotion and the cultural side of change. Look, we think about culture sort of like a brick wall. The culture is the mortar in a brick wall. It is almost invisible.

but it gives the whole thing shape and coherence. But you start a brick wall with the bricks, which are the hard levers of management control, the way you select people and incent them and measure them, the way you allocate resources around an organization. If you don't have that right, you could put up all the posters you want on the walls. It's not going to change a thing. So get the bricks right, and then definitely think about the culture, but don't just think about it as some isolated thing. It's not.

John Jantsch (13:39.896)

Yes.

John Jantsch (13:55.799)

Yes.

John Jantsch (14:00.085)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (14:09.847)

I like that because unfortunately you do see some examples of performative culture that then doesn't really deliver when you shine a light on what the company is actually doing. I think also in the subtitle you have the term super intelligent firm. What's a super intelligent firm mean in terms of human terms maybe?

Steve Wunker (14:34.413)

So there's a fallacy out there that AI is going to approach general intelligence, so being just like a human, or super intelligent, just like a human, but even more so. And that is based on providing a very human model to a machine. We evolved to who we are because we needed to escape the saber-toothed tiger. So we had to be good at a lot of stuff. But machines don't. They need to be good at just a handful of things.

John Jantsch (14:52.419)

Thanks

Right. Yeah.

Steve Wunker (15:01.429)

So the super intelligent firm isn't necessarily super intelligent AI. Where firms get their intelligence, where organizations get their intelligence, is through collaboration of people. It's not just through brute force processing capability. If we want to say who has the most neurons, well, an antio wins that contest. So humans can do something which octopuses can't, which is collaborate. And that's how we build civilizations and cities.

John Jantsch (15:12.428)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (15:21.852)

Hehehehe

John Jantsch (15:27.299)

Yeah. All right.

Steve Wunker (15:29.779)

AI has the potential to supercharge that collaboration by making sure the right information goes to the right people at the right time. And it's that use of AI that actually enhances our humanness that is the most high potential use of AI because that makes us then superintelligence as firms, as organizations.

John Jantsch (15:51.107)

So one of the things I tell people, because I think a lot of, especially in marketing, a lot of people's first reaction was, look how much faster I can do stuff. And while there is a bit of truth to that, I think it's not very interesting to just produce more content. What I think is really interesting is I can iterate 200 versions of something in about the same time it took me to do one. And I think that's where the learning, because we all know that we're just guessing sometimes in marketing.

by being able to test faster and experiment faster. That's where we're going to not just produce more, we're gonna produce better and we're gonna produce more personalized.

Steve Wunker (16:29.325)

I wrote a Forbes profile about a year ago on a company called Movable Inc. that provides email software to companies like LL Bean and Victoria's Secret. LL Bean can run a million different variants of an email. Literally a million different variants.

John Jantsch (16:33.859)

Mmm.

John Jantsch (16:39.203)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (16:43.778)

Yep.

Steve Wunker (16:46.241)

And of course it's A-B testing and it's determining what's best, but it's also using that to be just super personalized in ways that we could never do as human beings. But you know, this is all possible now. So yes, we have to embrace that.

John Jantsch (17:00.418)

Yes.

So what would you, how does an octopus move look like for like a 20 person firm as opposed to say a 200 person?

Steve Wunker (17:16.161)

You know, the principles are actually often the same. The maladies may be different. Right? The 200 person, 2000 person, there's a lot of discoordination and siloing. Hopefully in 20 person it's not. But you still need to think about for your prioritized workflows, the things you really want to focus on, how do those principles of moving action closer to the suction cups on the tentacle, right? To the coal face.

John Jantsch (17:28.856)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:43.201)

Mm-hmm.

Steve Wunker (17:45.645)

does that look for you? What does AI enable in terms of what humans shouldn't be doing or can't be doing or just won't be doing because it's a poor use of their time? How would you really fundamentally rethink things? We talk a little bit about when electricity came. Initially, operators of factories swapped out their steam-powered machines for electric machines. And this is sort of equivalent to what we're doing now. And that was nice.

But it actually took 35 years for the big unlock to come, which was the assembly line. And the assembly line could not happen without electrification. But it was that that unleashed the productivity, because it was a fundamental rethinking of how work was done. So we don't have 35 years this time, but we need that equivalent of thinking about what's the equivalent of an assembly line for our companies.

John Jantsch (18:15.043)

Thanks

John Jantsch (18:29.321)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:35.619)

So if a CEO company founders listening and they want to like start adopting this, obviously they need to get a copy of the book first. Do you also work with, do you come in and work with organizations to install this? Yeah. So, yeah, okay. So if somebody was listening then and they said, okay, what's my 30 day plan? I mean, do you typically, I'm sure it starts with an assessment, but do you also typically, are there things that you often test?

Steve Wunker (18:49.597)

That's my day job, yes.

John Jantsch (19:03.925)

almost right off the bat? Are there things that you tell them to stop doing right off the bat? And again, every instance is different, but are there some common things that you find?

Steve Wunker (19:17.037)

So it has to relate to your strategic priorities.

So AI can be better, faster, and cheaper all at once, but to some degree there is a trade-off. So what are you actually hoping to achieve? And how does that fit in with your objectives? What is impeding that today? And then let's overlay that on where AI can be particularly useful. So we're not just coming in with a hammer looking for nails, but we're trying to understand what are the different priorities in the organization.

John Jantsch (19:31.779)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (19:50.147)

You

Steve Wunker (19:50.831)

And then based upon a handful of things that we can really focus on, let's figure out how to redo that. Sometimes it starts all the way with the value proposition, but it can also just be very internal process oriented as well.

John Jantsch (20:04.387)

Well, again, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there someplace you would invite people to connect with you, find out more about your work, and obviously find out more about AI and the octopus organization?

Steve Wunker (20:14.925)

Sure, you can find the book on Amazon. The website for the book is AIandtheoctopus.com and that is actually a subdomain of our company New Market Advisors. Also, connect with me on LinkedIn. Feel free to write me. I do answer my emails. So, send me a DM and I'll get back to you.

John Jantsch (20:34.719)

Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you stop by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road, Steve.

Steve Wunker (20:40.481)

My pleasure John.

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Selling Outcomes Instead of Services

Selling Outcomes Instead of Services written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

 

Episode Overview

Joe Pine, co-founder of Strategic Horizons and author of The Experience Economy, returns to discuss his new book, The Transformation Economy: Guiding Customers to Achieve Their Aspirations. The conversation breaks down the shift from staging memorable experiences to guiding customers through meaningful change, where customers invest time for compounding benefits, and businesses are accountable for outcomes.

Guest Bio

Joe Pine is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, and management advisor. He co-founded
Strategic Horizons LLP and is best known for coining the term “The Experience Economy.”
Joe advises organizations on creating new forms of economic value through experiences and transformations. His latest book, The Transformation Economy, focuses on guiding customers to achieve lasting aspirations rather than short-term satisfaction.

Key Topics Covered

• What the Transformation Economy is and why it follows the Experience Economy
• The difference between time well spent and time well invested
• Why transformation is not marketing language, but an economic offering
• How B2B companies can design and deliver transformations
• Productizing transformation without commoditizing it
• The role of AI in diagnosis, coaching, and sustained change
• Pricing for outcomes instead of activities or time
• Why guarantees act as catalytic mechanisms for transformation
• Marketing as an “invitational transformation” and identity change
• First steps small businesses can take toward transformation-based offerings

Catch the full episode:

 

Key Takeaways

1. Transformation is the next level of economic value. Businesses evolve from commodities to goods, services, experiences, and now transformations—where customers pay to become someone new.
2. Experiences are the raw material for transformation. Experiences create memories; transformations create lasting change and compound future benefits.
3. You cannot change customers—only guide them. Customers transform themselves. Businesses act as guides, coaches, counselors, or navigators.
4. B2B transformation is often easier than B2C. Businesses buy offerings as a means to an end; uncovering the true aspiration unlocks transformation opportunities.
5. Outcome-based pricing changes everything. Transformations require charging for outcomes, often supported by guarantees that align incentives.
6. AI enables scalable personalization. AI can support diagnosis, coaching, and follow-through—helping productize transformation at scale.
7. Marketing can invite identity change. Great marketing experiences help customers move from “I use this” to “I am this.”
8. Follow-through determines success. Sustaining change is often more valuable than achieving the initial result.

Great Moments & Timestamps

• 00:03 – “The real premium left is helping customers become someone new.”
• 01:04 – Joe Pine defines the Transformation Economy in 60 seconds
• 02:03 – The difference between time well spent and time well invested
• 04:02 – Why companies must become guides, not sellers
• 05:21 – How even insurance companies can deliver transformation
• 07:13 – Trauma as a catalyst for transformation
• 10:58 – Can transformation be productized?
• 11:05 – The role of AI in scalable transformation
• 13:16 – Why outcomes change pricing and guarantees
• 17:13 – Marketing experiences as invitational transformations
• 19:37 – First steps businesses can take toward transformation

Inspiring Quotes

“With experiences, you provide time well spent. With transformations, you provide time well invested.”

— Joe Pine

“You don’t change customers. Customers change themselves. You guide them.”

— Joe Pine

“If you promise an outcome, you need to charge for the outcome.”

— Joe Pine

“Advertising is a phoniness-generating machine if it gets ahead of operational reality.”

— Joe Pine

Resources & Links

• Book: The Transformation Economy: Guiding Customers to Achieve Their Aspirations
• Website: StrategicHorizons.com
• LinkedIn: Joe Pine

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:03.394)

Most businesses today are still trying to sell better features or even better experiences. Joe Pine says the real premium, maybe the only premium left is helping customers become someone new. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Joe Pine. He's a bestselling author, keynote speaker and management advisor who co-founded Strategic Horizons. He's best known for coining the term the experience economy. I wrote a book.

by that name was on this show as well. We're going to talk today about his new book, The Transformation Economy, Guiding Customers to Achieve Their Aspirations. So Joe, welcome back to the show.

Joe Pine (00:45.659)

Thanks, John. It's a pleasure to be with you again.

John Jantsch (00:47.976)

So let's just get the terminology out of the way. You've developed, you've defined, should say, helped to find some economic arrows before. If somebody said, Joe, what's this transformation economy? You got 60 seconds. What would you say?

Joe Pine (01:04.827)

Well, would say that it's the transformations are the next level of value that beyond experiences, we've gone from a grand economy based off commodities to industrial economy based off goods to a service economy. Then we shifted into an experience economy. And now we're in a transformation economy where companies can use experiences as the raw material to guide people to change, to help them achieve their aspirations to become who they want to become.

John Jantsch (01:30.542)

So this is more than just new marketing language. This is not like messaging. mean, you actually have to have something to transform somebody,

Joe Pine (01:37.991)

Yes, yes, it's not marketing language at all. If it is, then you're overhyping what you have. No, it's about your economic offerings. It's about what you, what you offer, what you sell, and then what you do for your customers.

John Jantsch (01:41.578)

Hahaha.

Yep.

John Jantsch (01:53.518)

So what would be a simple way for a company to test the difference between a memorable experience, which you talked about earlier, and real transformation?

Joe Pine (02:03.399)

Well, the basic issue is does it last? Right? Does it last with an experience? What you're providing is time well spent. When people value the time they spend with you and it ends up in a memory and write in that memory needs to last over time. But of course it tends to dissipate over time with transformations. What you're providing is time well invested. The people are investing their time with you in a way that's going to yield compound dividends in the future, uh, by becoming a better person in, in some way. So that's the.

lasting part that it's about the outcome, the aspiration that you do achieve through generally not one life changing experience, generally a series of experiences.

John Jantsch (02:44.066)

Yeah, stages, almost. So while we kind of kidded that this is not just marketing speak, I mean, there probably is some new language a company, especially if they realize, hey, we do cause transformations. I mean, do we need to describe our company in different terms?

Joe Pine (03:02.405)

Well, yes, but some of the terms are big and scary. know, transformation is a big and scary term. I talk about four different types of transformation. One of them is metamorphosis because there's no other word for it. And it's a big and scary term, but there are lot of other kinds of aspirations that on a smaller scale than just changing core levels of identity. So you do need to figure out what are the best ways to talk about it for you. one is on like aspiration isn't as big.

John Jantsch (03:07.032)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (03:13.494)

Yeah.

Joe Pine (03:32.329)

And then people say, okay, I get that as sort of a progression of bigger and bigger that you're doing. You can talk about about change, obviously, and, and, and outcomes, right? I think that's the big thing. It's like, it's like, what are your aspirations? What's the outcome you want out of us working together? And how can we help you achieve that outcome? And another word is guide, you know, the, economic function you,

John Jantsch (03:35.021)

Yeah, yeah.

Joe Pine (04:02.259)

you extract commodities, you make goods, you deliver services, you stage experiences, but you guide transformations. You're their guide, their coach, their expert, their counselor, their navigator, their advocate, whatever the right term is for you, I figured that out. What is our function? What are we doing for you that guides them?

John Jantsch (04:09.836)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (04:24.098)

So this doesn't really discriminate between B2B and B2C, right? mean, somebody could easily say, well, I'm a weight loss coach. It's clear the transformation I cause, right? But what about a B2B company? Are there B2B companies that can of stake that claim as well?

Joe Pine (04:32.133)

Right? Obviously transformation. Right.

Joe Pine (04:40.783)

Absolutely. And in many ways, it's sort of easier to think about with B2B.

because recognize that if you sell to another business, that business doesn't really want your offering. Sorry to tell you. It's a means to an end, right? And what's the end to what you're offering as a means. And you may have to ask, you know, why do you want this? Why do you have to ask five whys as the old manufacturing slogan was until you get down to some core aspiration. And then now how can we help you achieve that aspiration and ideally subsume our current offerings into into that.

John Jantsch (05:16.078)

All right, but Joe, we're a commodity business. mean, nobody wants what we sell. We sell insurance. How are we crossing transformation?

Joe Pine (05:21.607)

All right.

Oh, it's easy. Easy. So, so people do in fact want insurance. mean, if they're smart, right? It's like, I'm a full believer in catastrophic insurance, right? I don't, you know, shouldn't need to do it for every visit of the doctors. Well, my wife says, man, I had to pay a copay. I'm like, it's okay. It's okay. We got the money for that. But if something catastrophic happens, we're in trouble. So an easy way to think about it, services experiences, transformations, insurer, usher, insurer.

John Jantsch (05:29.473)

Yeah

John Jantsch (05:34.866)

Right.

Joe Pine (05:53.864)

All right, so insure basically means something bad happens, we pay you money. And that's how most insurance companies view it, right? As a mere service. offshore means something bad happens, we make you feel better about it, we treat your emotions as well as your actual needs, we think of you at least as a whole person, as opposed to a mere claimant.

And then ensure is well, how about we, how about we make the bad things not happen? How about we work with you to make you a better driver, particularly your kids, a better driver as they are learning. People are very, very interested in that. or how do, how about we bring you back to whole? So, so that you, can't prevent all catastrophes. We can help you and, know, in, and driving, we can help you in looking at your home and finding all the fire hazards and things like that and so forth. but you can't prevent everything. So, but what we do is that we will ensure.

John Jantsch (06:19.029)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (06:25.282)

Yeah.

Joe Pine (06:43.613)

sure you get back to whole we will ensure that this is not a long lasting devastating trauma in your life. if and many insurance companies are for real, you know, I got cancer, would need insurance, I gave a car accident, I, you know, my total that I'm, it's a trauma. And one of the things I discovered in my research is that a lot of aspirations actually come from trauma. And trauma tends to be that metamorphosis, where you're you're immediately transformed, right? You're not you're in your doctor's office, they

John Jantsch (07:07.623)

Mmm, yes.

Joe Pine (07:13.523)

say, I've got bad news, you've got cancer. And you don't hear anything, you don't hear any other words for the next five, 10 minutes of them talking, because you now identify as a person with cancer, right? And that's traumatic. So what the doctor needs to do, but not doctors alone, it's not just about medicine, is to bring you back is to heal you from the cancer, but also to change that identity as someone who has recovered from cancer, or is a person who had cancer in the past.

John Jantsch (07:19.63)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (07:39.406)

Yeah, it's interesting. think I've seen a movie where they did that exact scene, right? The doctor's telling him that and then goes on and everything becomes muffled after that. Exactly. Yeah. So I think that's a well-known example.

Why is this showing up now in your view?

Joe Pine (08:01.715)

Well, it's so all of the economic offerings have always been around, right? They're not a new offer. It's just newly identified and where where they become a predominant part of the economy. And so there's a number of reasons why transformations now

One of my fundamental reasons is surprisingly, it's because we make so much money now. We have so much abundance now that we want goods and services to be commoditized. We bought the lowest possible price and the greatest possible convenience in order to spend our hard earned money and our hard earned time on the experiences and the transformations that we value. it's the time because we make so money that our time actually has so much more worth. If you think about it, right? When you, when you know, you're, you're a high school student and you're making, you know,

12 bucks an hour at a part time job.

You know, skipping that to go hang out with the friends or go to a football game, whatever is not that big a deal, right? But you were making hundreds of thousands of dollars and now you want to, have to go to the grocery store. Well, you could measure that as a measure. I'd like hundreds of dollars just to go to the grocery store, right? At some level of income. our time is much more precious than it was in the past. And so we want those experiences to fill that time with time well spent. And then, and then we increasingly recognize that, experiences change us. mean, they're the only things that ever change us. We're all.

John Jantsch (09:20.194)

Mm-hmm.

Joe Pine (09:21.531)

the product of our experiences. so, and so recognizing what are these experiences doing to me? And how might it even become better at the things that I want to spend my time at, whether that's family relationships, whether that's golfing, whether you know, and at work as well, a of those coaches we hire for work and so forth, right? All of that matters much more than it did in the past.

John Jantsch (09:45.304)

So talk to me a little bit about customers who are experiencing this. Do you see people actually seeking companies that are going to be more transformative, or do you actually see some resistance as well? Because it's like, wait a minute, I'm in my lawn mode. I don't want to metamorphosis.

Joe Pine (10:04.367)

Right, right. There is some resistance. But there's all, you if you know the hero's journey, you heard of that, right? There's this stage, which is the refusal of the call. Right. And it may be, well, I don't have enough time to do it. And like you said, maybe I don't, this isn't the right company for it, right? They may be offering it, but it's not the right company for me. And so you need to find out who that is. You need to be present when they, when they're ready to go on, on that adventure and, and, and, and be with them to be their guide.

John Jantsch (10:11.893)

Right, right, sure, sure, of course.

Right, right, right, right.

John Jantsch (10:30.285)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (10:37.134)

And I'm sure that this is going to be one of those, depends on the company or what they're doing. do you see people, mean, this feels like transformation feels like you, especially in a service means that you have this totally bespoke white glove approach that is different for everyone. But I want to productize transformation. Is that possible?

Joe Pine (10:58.383)

Yes, it is possible. And I'll tell you what's going to make it possible. And that's AI. Right.

John Jantsch (11:02.964)

I was gonna, that's on the list. Okay.

Joe Pine (11:05.059)

Well, I'm going to take it back. Yes, you use the word productize. I say you can't commoditize transformations, but you can productize them. So I'm doing that myself. Right. So I just came out with the Transformation Economy, Guiding Customers to Achieve Their Aspirations book. Right. You can hire me to speak. You can hire me to do a workshop. You actually hire me to work with you to create, to transform your business, to help you transform your customers. But I productize it into a book for $32. Right. Why? Because I want to reach a lot of people.

John Jantsch (11:11.213)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (11:21.368)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (11:32.77)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Pine (11:34.953)

and have them do things even without my involvement. But then also we just came out with the transformation toolkit. We'll take the ideas and frameworks in there and be able to work on them even without my help. It's a $495 offering, but it's a lot cheaper than hiring me personally to be there. And so that's productization. then again, AI will be particularly unique. I think of transformations as three stages. Diagnosis, who is this customer, where do want to become? Then you design the set of experiences, not

John Jantsch (11:51.308)

Mm-hmm.

Joe Pine (12:04.973)

that monotonically increase, always regress as well as progress, you have to sense and respond to what's going on. And then you achieve your aspiration, you have to have follow through, which is ensure again, ensure that transformation takes hold that is sustained through time. What a lot of companies do is say, okay, you got it, you lost your 30 pounds, bye, you know, no, no, no, no, no, right, because then they, they go back, right. So that follow through is most important. That's where AI can help a lot because one of things that turns out that AI is really good at is counseling.

John Jantsch (12:22.188)

Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Pine (12:34.759)

is coaching right and and it's just really good at that and i mean yes there's reason a lot of reason to have a human connection and everything and i'm a big believer in human connection but in between you can have ai providing tips and inspiration and counseling as you go in between your your human visits or virtual calls with with a coach a counselor a guide again right i think it's going be very good at that to customize into your needs at the moment

John Jantsch (12:35.192)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (13:01.452)

What happens to stuff like pricing models, guarantees, risk sharing? If we're promising something that's an outcome for somebody that's unique to them, what does that do to all the normal kind of models of business?

Joe Pine (13:16.645)

Yeah, well, it does change things. If you promise an outcome, you need to charge for the outcome. Right. So, so that is what you charge with services, you charge for activities with experiences for time, with transformations, you charge for outcomes. And the paradox of course, is that while you want to charge an outcome and the most prevalent way I've seen is with a transformation guarantee.

John Jantsch (13:19.075)

Yeah.

Right.

Joe Pine (13:39.291)

that you get some or all of your fees back if you don't get to achieve your aspiration. But the paradox is that you can't actually guarantee it because because customers change themselves. Right. You can't change customers. As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make a drink. But what a guarantee is is is one, it knows that your customer, what I like to say is your aspirant, you know, services have clients, experiences, gas transformations have aspirants that they know your

John Jantsch (13:39.767)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (13:47.083)

Right,

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

Right, right,

John Jantsch (14:02.786)

Mm-hmm.

Joe Pine (14:09.225)

in it, right? That they know you're putting your money where your mouth is. They know you've got risk in it. And it's not just a high profit margin thing that you're doing. But it's also then a catalytic mechanism that says that, hey, I have to do everything it takes to to transform that customer, or I'm not going to make money, right? Even if you're only charging for a portion that you that's all profit that you're charging for. And so you then start to do things differently, you approach things differently, you have different processes and so forth.

John Jantsch (14:30.422)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Joe Pine (14:39.181)

to help ensure that that transformation occurs and then ideally that it sustains through time.

John Jantsch (14:46.51)

So you answered half of what I was going to ask now is, what should leaders measure to know? I mean, first off, have to know, you have to have the signs, right? Yes, transformation is happening to this person or this business. But then you also probably have to have some way to collect data on that, right? I mean, I know it sounds really simple, but a lot of people don't have that loop.

Joe Pine (14:50.139)

you

Joe Pine (14:57.819)

Right. Yes.

Joe Pine (15:06.032)

Yes.

Joe Pine (15:10.331)

Right. Some guarantees are purely qualitative. Right. It's like, did we do what we said we do? Did you do? Did you get out of it? You what? Right.

John Jantsch (15:16.066)

Right, right, right. Right.

Joe Pine (15:18.439)

Others are quantitative. Some of them are, but are sort of very easy to measure. For example, I know, you know, Texas State Technical College in Waco, Texas offers a tuition guarantee. If you graduate and don't get a job within four months or six months, you're you get your tuition back. Very easy. One thing we got to measure. Others, it's like, well, to what extent did I did I lower my costs or did I increase my market cap? If you're a B2B, to what extent have I improved my handicap?

John Jantsch (15:37.774)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (15:46.124)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Pine (15:48.573)

that's easy to measure, but my tennis game, there's no measurement for tennis, you know, how much you've improved. So it can be very difficult in those situations.

John Jantsch (15:52.706)

Yeah.

All right, so I'm going to come back to marketing. know you're trying to lead me away from it, but I'm coming back to I'm coming back to messaging. So if if before I've been saying, here's what you're buying, and now I'm going to say, here's what you're going to become. Don't I need another message?

Joe Pine (16:01.121)

Hahaha

Joe Pine (16:11.324)

Right.

Yes. I mean, yes, you do need a mother message. You need to make sure this is true in all cases, but especially to in transformations, you need to make sure that your marketing doesn't get ahead of the actuality, right? Something we talked about in our book on authenticity. cause because where we say, basically, not basically we say advertising is a phoniness generating machine. Cause you can't help but, but exaggerate what your, what your offering really is when you advertise. But in terms of the, of the promotion of it, you need to make it sort of clear.

John Jantsch (16:15.278)

Okay.

John Jantsch (16:24.142)

Yes.

John Jantsch (16:36.558)

Sure. Yeah. Yep.

Joe Pine (16:43.523)

what they are getting out of it. And they say, you know, all branding is a promise, right? So it's a promise of an outcome. So yes, make that promise. Be sure you can first operationally do it.

but make that promise. The guarantee makes it then easy to be able to sell that promise. Another marketing thing I'll give you, John, as I got a little box in there on what I'm now calling after Bob Rogers, a friend that gave the term to me, invitational transformations that we can do with marketing to create an invitational transformation. the biggest way to see it is what I call marketing experiences. Think about things like the, the Guinness storehouse in Dublin, the Heideken experience in Amsterdam.

John Jantsch (16:58.37)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:13.422)

Hmm.

John Jantsch (17:24.088)

Yeah, yes.

Joe Pine (17:24.905)

the Johnny Walker Princess Street experience in in Edinburgh and each of those are marketing experience. There is actually I can talk about the world of Coca-Cola to get into non-alcoholic drinks but yeah no it's all there's Ferrari World you know Volkswagen, Jadu Stad, there's there's all tons of these. But need to be there's the Tomahawk Experience Center for Case Construction Company in Wisconsin.

John Jantsch (17:30.36)

Seems to be theme there, Joe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Harley probably has something. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Pine (17:49.841)

and, and on the consumer side, all those ones I mentioned are admission fees experiences. They're actually, turn marketing from a cost center into a profit center because they get, they get customers to pay them to sell to them, to get them to drink more Guinness or Heineken or whiskey or whatever it might be. Right.

John Jantsch (17:58.808)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (18:05.058)

Buy the hat, yeah.

Joe Pine (18:07.036)

But also what Bob Rogers who designed Guinness Storehouse, Heineken Experience and Johnny Walker's Princess Tree and World of Coca-Cola, think at BRC Imagination Arts. He told me he likes to think of them as invitational transformations. I'm inviting you to come in and immerse yourselves in my brand. Well, first my category, whether it's whiskey or beer or what. I immerse myself in my cat, yourself in my category, and then in my brand. And I'm going to show you what a wonderful category it is. I'm going show you how wonderful we are as a brand. I'm going to let

you experience my products, right with tasting and so forth, or at case it's driving all the earth moving equipment. And knowing that the more if you get customers to experience your product, chances they buy it go up. But if they buy it, then they may begin to identify, know, I didn't like whiskey before, but but I like whiskey. I am a whiskey drinker. Right? That's a transformation. When you say I am X, I am a whiskey drinker, right? That's a transformation. They may go further and say, I'm a Johnny

John Jantsch (18:40.888)

Mm-hmm

John Jantsch (19:01.082)

Yes.

Joe Pine (19:06.89)

walker whiskey drinker, right? Now you identify with the brand. And that's big. That's where you can become what my friend Eddie, you can call super consumers that that don't just buy more from you, they tell everybody about it, and they convert other people into consumers. And if you create a great experience, all of that is as possible. Right, exactly. And that's so that's what marketing should be thinking about, not a cost center, a profit center by creating experiences where people can identify with your brand.

John Jantsch (19:16.75)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (19:26.284)

Yeah, they get the tattoo, right?

John Jantsch (19:37.006)

All right. So if you're a small business and you want to take the first step this week, where do get started? What's a simple, I know you have an audit process, think three, I think it's three questions. What's something that they could run on? I thought it was, it was like something about like, what's the aspiration or what's the transformation they're seeking? I thought I read that somewhere, but any rate, how would somebody look into their business and say, what, how can we think about our current offering?

Joe Pine (19:49.736)

I wonder what those three questions are, I'm sorry.

Joe Pine (20:00.978)

Right.

Joe Pine (20:04.678)

Right. So one, think of your current offering as a means to an end and figure out what that end is. Right. So it can be a very generic. I like to think of it as from two statements from where to what you're from, what to what B2B from who to who B2C what, who are your customers and what do they aspire to become? You get a very generic statement. You need to recognize when you get down to the individual aspirant, that there may be differences that you have to take into account.

John Jantsch (20:08.77)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John Jantsch (20:29.208)

Yeah.

Joe Pine (20:30.184)

but you know a fitness center generically we we we we transform people from flabby to fit right now

John Jantsch (20:36.685)

Mm-hmm.

Joe Pine (20:39.016)

think about what you do today, how fit does it actually make them? And how do you ensure that they make their fitness goal? What are their fitness aspiration on an individual basis and so forth? With with healthcare, it might be from sick to well, right? Okay, well, that can differ for everybody and what they want. But generally, you know, it's not about treating the sickness, it's about becoming what having well being, right? And how do you create that well being beyond the again, the medical things that you do? If it's a financial, you're a financial

advisor or an accountant, right? Recognize that that they're not buying your services because they want your services. It's because they want to have a better business and accounting helps them have a better business. Or if you're a B2C financial advisor, it's not about the money. It's a means to an end. It's about they want to retire well, they want to create a college fund, they want to build a second home in Florida or Arizona or whatever. And so one of the only example in the book that I

John Jantsch (21:19.31)

Mm-hmm.

Joe Pine (21:39.09)

talk about like five times is a company based here in Minnesota, where I live, called Simpliny that provides a transformation platform to wealth advisors.

John Jantsch (21:48.674)

Hmph. Hmph.

Joe Pine (21:49.916)

So the fake and it's focused on the life and legacy. love that term, the life and legacy of what the, what the end client wants as opposed to just the money and provides a wonderful system for them. Be able to do that. They call it, what do they call it? it's advice at the, at the speed of conversation because you, you say, well, I'm thinking about this and instantly your plan changes and say, well, this is what it be if you wanted to do that. Right. This increases your chances of having the money you want to retirement and leaving the legacy that you want.

John Jantsch (21:59.8)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (22:10.723)

Mm.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Joe Pine (22:19.86)

when you die or it decreases it by this much. Can I live with that that much? Yeah, I can live with that chance. So let's go.

John Jantsch (22:27.054)

One of the things that I think is going to be a side effect from people reading your book is if somebody has already decided, yes, I want to do this from two, I think we do this from two, they're probably going to also then start saying, what's going to have to happen to make sure that we're doing that? We need a better onboarding. We need a better check-in system. We need better follow through. So we start improving every bit of the business, don't

Joe Pine (22:46.172)

Right.

Joe Pine (22:52.648)

Yes, and that's where that charging for outcomes becomes that Cadillac mechanism. Now, how do we go about doing this and ensuring that they get the aspirations achieved that they want? You need to think also about the customizing aspect of that. All of this relates to my first book on mass customization, about efficiently serving customers uniquely. So you can think about, there transformation platforms out there that I can use? And there are many. I know many in education, for example, Echo360. These are all mentioned in the book.

John Jantsch (22:57.356)

Yeah.

Joe Pine (23:22.602)

in coaching, there's better up, which is a great transformation platform.

and others that you can use. And how do I modularize my offerings so that I can do different things at different times based on how I'm sensing responding to what my client is feeling right now, what they're going through right now, where they are on that transformation journey. so design that journey. I have one in the book modeled after the hero's journey that takes you through all the steps that you need to do. And in particular, have the diagnosis, have the set of experiences, have the follow through. Don't think you're

John Jantsch (23:47.256)

Mm-hmm.

Joe Pine (23:56.346)

done once they say I've changed right you know how they got to sustain that change

John Jantsch (23:58.823)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Awesome. Well, Joe, it was great having you back. Spending a few minutes with you. Where do you want to invite people to connect with you or find out more about the transformation economy and ways that they can apply it?

Joe Pine (24:12.41)

You can always connect with me on LinkedIn at Joe Pine. And then our website is strategic horizons with an S strategic horizons.com. We actually have a page dedicated called slash integration about how you can take these ideas and integrate them into your business and includes all the different offerings we have, including the toolkit and one-on-one coaching and then speeches and workshops and whatnot.

John Jantsch (24:37.418)

Awesome. Again, great visiting with you. Another amazing work and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Joe Pine (24:44.985)

I appreciate that. I'd love to.

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