---
title: "Why Your Niche Isn't Niche Enough"
episode: 90
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Gary Frazier"
guest_title: "Former Chair, Department of Marketing (USC Marshall)"
date_published: 2026-07-08
date_modified: 2026-07-22
duration: 00:47:23
word_count: 6706
topics: ["brand-positioning", "gtm-strategy", "demand-generation", "sales-leadership", "enterprise-sales"]
canonical_url: https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/gary-frazier-niche-brand-positioning/
source: "LeanScale Podcast Knowledge Hub — https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# Why Your Niche Isn't Niche Enough — Full Transcript

> Episode 90 of The LeanScale Podcast, with Gary Frazier.
> Published July 8, 2026 · 00:47:23 · 6,706 words.
> Machine-transcribed and **not diarized** — speaker attribution is inferred, so verify
> attribution against the audio before quoting a specific person.
> Structured breakdown: https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/gary-frazier-niche-brand-positioning/

## 00:00 — Cold open + intro

**[0:00]** (logo whooshing) Today on the show, I'm joined by Gary Frazier, former chair of the Department of Marketing at USC's Marshall School of Business, where he led the department twice across three decades and the author of an extensive body of work spanning channels, brand equity, and Salesforce management with publishers like Cambridge University and Springer Nature. Gary's latest book, Marketing and Channel Management for Low Brand Equity Firms, makes the case that most small companies are losing their market before they ever get a fair shot because they're chasing segments that are five orders of magnitude too broad.

**[0:43]** With decades of consulting work behind him and a front row seat to how the marketing discipline has drifted from business judgment toward pure analytics, Gary brings a perspective that is both academically rigorous and refreshingly direct about what is actually broken. In this episode, we get into why niche is almost never niche enough, why the modern multi-layered sales org is on its way out and why the C-suite no longer trusts the CMO. If you're building a brand without a household name, hiring sales leadership, or trying to figure out where marketing actually belongs in your org, this episode is for you. Gary, you've argued that most small companies

**[1:25]** make the same fatal mistake. They pick a segment that looks like it's targeted but is actually millions of people deep. What's the moment a founder should realize they've defined their market way too broadly? - I think the true test, Anthony, is the level of brand awareness to a significant number of people in the target actually know the brand. Unfortunately, for most businesses, their brand equity, the value of the brand in the marketplace is zilch, and they have little brand awareness. - And in order to start developing that brand awareness, what is the sequence that they should follow? Do you recommend getting even more niche,

**[2:16]** and how do they know if it's specific enough? - Well, that's a great question. I don't really have a great answer to that. Let me give you an example though. I have a good friend who has a small manufacturing company, women's clothing in the Los Angeles area. And like most small clothing manufacturers, he targets the junior market, the so-called junior market, and that is women 18 to 34 who like to dress trendy, like to look young. If they like to look, price is not really the issue. And some world famous brands like Dior, Chanel, Prada, they can get away with that. But most small clothing manufacturers, the retailer knows, no one knows who the brand is,

## 02:36 — The brand-awareness test for whether your niche is too broad

**[3:14]** what the brand is, who they are. And so in order to survive, these clothing manufacturers will sell clothing that the retail buyer or the professional buyer likes, but they will put their own store label in the clothing, on the blouse, on the swimming suit. And even if women like the look and buy the garment, they think it's from boot born. And so your brand never gets exposure. And you can limp along a while like that, maybe survive if you're good at business and efficiency and keeping your employees happy and having good looks, having good designs, but it's not a way to really go. It's way too broad. So what should a clothing manufacturer like that do?

## 04:08 — The "junior market" trap — and the sorority strategy that fixes it

**[4:10]** Well, they think they're targeting. They think out of the whole market, going after the junior market is the answer, but that's millions of women worldwide. No one knows who they are. So instead, if you're in LA, target sorority members at UCLA and USC, Irvine perhaps, visit their house, go for a dinner, show some of your garments with your label, have some, give some clothing to the presidents or some of the leaders of the sororities, have them wear your clothing. Slowly develop awareness and positive brand associations where they think, hey, this is a great look. I like the fabric. I like the way it looks on me.

**[4:59]** Once you've built up brand awareness and that niche, then maybe go for sororities in Arizona or the Southwest, or maybe throughout the United States or maybe even worldwide at some point and build slowly awareness. Then once you've reached brand equity in that narrow niche, expand to the next niche, maybe women's cheerleaders, maybe young women attorneys, maybe young grade school teachers with some overlap in the segments and then do the same thing, build awareness and brand associations and brand image, brand relevance, brand equity in that segment too. The problem with what I'm recommending is it takes time and patience

**[5:51]** and most entrepreneurs don't have the patience. They don't have the knowledge, unfortunately. - Well, I worked very close with a group called Radian Capital. Their managing director, he always says, run your business as if you're gonna own it forever. Or else you will. And that last part's the warning. Hey, if you're not making these long-term bets, if you don't have the patience, then you're not really gonna build anything of significance. And I think what you're describing, it's relevant in any market. We see it in software as well. People think, hey, I'm targeting B2B software as a service companies. And that's such a broad term as well.

**[6:32]** - So broad, so broad. And it's gonna influence how you allocate your marketing and sales capital because you want those dollars, especially if you're new, to go towards the people who have the absolute highest propensity to buy. You don't wanna waste any of those resources on people who might be kind of interested. It's people who think your product is a no-brainer for them. - I agree. You know, what I know now, it's based upon consulting over 40, 50 years. And I've learned so much from the managers I've worked with and they forgave my immaturity and lack of foresight. I've been an expert witness in over 120 legal cases on marketing strategy and channels.

## 07:05 — Run your business like you'll own it forever

**[7:19]** I learned from the attorneys. So much of what I know about practically what you have to do to run a business, I can't take credit for it. And by the way, I don't, I highly respect every small business owner. It takes courage, courage I never had. But they lack the knowledge and often the patience. And you never turn down a sale. I mean, if you go after juniors, even if they don't know your brand, if they buy your good and you have some revenue coming in, great, but you still have to focus on brand awareness with a narrow group and then build on that over time. That's really what you have to do. - Yeah, and I've gone through

**[8:06]** the entrepreneurship journey myself and it is very difficult to say no to a sale, but I think it's one thing if it's coming inbound and you're like, okay, yeah, we can serve you. You came to us, we're gonna serve you. I'm not gonna turn it away in early days. - Of course, of course. - But it doesn't mean I'm writing my messaging for that person. It doesn't mean I'm going to those events. It doesn't mean I'm building the product for that particular person in general. I'm still seeking my tier one ideal customer and just being reactive if those opportunities come in. - Yeah, and you see the key underlying what I'm saying

**[8:41]** is knowledge of how customers in the niche buy. So if you target, and I hope I'm not beating this example into the ground, I likely am, I usually do, but if you target sorority members and you meet with them and talk with them and observe how they make buying decisions and where they buy and what attributes they consider, fabric quality, look, design, price, you get to know deeply how they make their buying decisions and you can take that knowledge to the bank. You can take it to your designers. You can take it to your fabric suppliers and you begin producing products that are more geared directly to them and they'll love you for it and you'll love them

**[9:30]** because you'll make money over time.

**[9:35]** - That's right, secret to success, taking care of your customers. I think a lot of people stray away from that thinking, oh, I'm going after a bigger TAM, so there's more opportunity. It's like, no, the riches are in the niches. So if you can find the right group of people, that'll really resonate. And then they'll sell your product for you in kind of the tertiary markets. - Oh, they sure will, they sure will. And social media are so important today, especially to younger people, millennials, Gen Z. If you can get some spokespeople, I forget the term, but online influencers, to talk to their audience about your product,

**[10:21]** oh, that's a God sound, that really helps. - And it's very difficult to know which influencers to go get, especially like the micro nano influencers, unless you know exactly who you're looking for. - I agree completely. - On the same topic, I think something a lot of companies struggle with, especially now, the founders, especially if you've raised capital and you're really trying to grow as quickly as possible, they're under intense pressure to attribute every single dollar of marketing investment to the return. And I think a byproduct of that is, there ends up being an over investment in demand and a significant under investment in brand.

## 10:45 — The riches are in the niches

**[11:10]** Are you seeing the same thing in your experience? And if so, what guidance do you have anybody navigating that scenario? - Oh, that's a great question. You see, people don't understand marketing. They don't define it similarly. I mean, there's, if 200 people got together and defined what marketing is, you get 200 different definitions. But to me, marketing is getting the message out to your target market. And earlier you asked a great question, how do you know when a niche is small enough? I really can't answer that. But market research is very important. Contacts with customers who have purchased your product, develop a brand loyalty program,

**[11:57]** develop points and send people to keep buying your product over time, keep in touch with them, follow suit. And you'll know if a niche is the right size, if you begin to develop significant brand awareness. You know, I simplify things too much, I think, Anthony. But to me, the most important part of any company being successful is developing brand equity in the marketplace. And it starts with brand awareness. It's really difficult to achieve brand awareness. I mean, this is a complex world. I mean, I know so little about so many things. I do trivia quizzes and unless the topics are marketing channels of distribution and baseball,

## 12:32 — Why founders overinvest in demand and underinvest in brand

**[12:50]** which I follow quite a lot, I'm at a loss. I just don't know anything. And you're bombarded with messages. You're bombarded with now worldwide brands. No human has a big enough brain to comprehend everything thrown away. You just don't develop cognitive recognition of it. So what I'm saying is very, very difficult, but focus on awareness of your brand with the people you are seeking as customers. If you do that, that's the start of being truly successful. If you don't achieve it, I hope you have a rich uncle, so.

**[13:34]** - Absolutely. Do you have any, and it's okay if not, but do you have any framework for knowing if you're investing enough in brand? Is it a percentage of marketing budget, percentage of sales? It may not scale linearly with your growth, but is there some guidance to know, okay, I'm doing enough investment in brand, or oh my goodness, maybe spending too much on brand and need to shift to demand. How does a founder or CMO judge what they should be doing

**[14:07]** with their marketing budget? - That's a really tough question. My first reaction is take, and by the way, I have enough money, I wrote this book not to make money, but just to spread my knowledge and help people. It's a book by Springer Nature, authored by myself. You alluded to it before. Marketing and channel management for low brand equity firms, principles for financial success. In that book, I developed 21 marketing and channel principles that I believe they sort of build on each other, and again, life's complex. I didn't start out searching for 21. I was hoping to keep it more simple than that, but I would start there, and I would look at the book.

**[15:02]** You may think, oh, Fraser's crazy, or that doesn't make sense. I've heard that many times, but I really think, Anthony, to answer your question. See, again, I simplify. To me, building brand, building demand, they're one in the same. They're not much different. They shouldn't be different. So I really think that you have to have the knowledge on your marketing effort and on your channel development, organization coordination. You have to really be careful in following the right guidelines or principles. And then once you do, and I would say, again, being simplistic, whatever access money you have that you can spend, put everything

## 15:37 — How do you know if you're investing enough in brand?

**[15:51]** into implementing those 21 principles that I developed in the book. And then if you have something left over, well, hey, go to Vegas and have fun, but I really do think that having the right guidelines, having the right principles is really, really important. I was listening to the radio this morning and I heard a song by the grateful dad, "Bricks on the Wall," and one of the refrains, "Teacher, stay away from me," or something like that. Man, I hate that song. I really think the key to success, and I'm too old now, I'm 74, but the key to success is education. The key to success is knowledge. The key to success is shutting out all the, sorry, bullshit,

**[16:40]** and focusing on what really is important. And that's really difficult. - It's even more difficult, I think, as you mentioned, the noise of every single channel of people trying to get their brain in front of you, people trying to get their position in front of you, whatever it is, it's really hard to separate the signal from the noise and then follow something. So I'm absolutely with you. On the book, I think, I love how you lay it out. It's very practical and a methodical approach to go through. Of the 21 principles, curious in your experience, which one do you see companies really violating the most?

**[17:29]** - The principle, first principle in the book, the one we started with, most companies target way too many customers. You're chasing too many customers. Narrow that focus. And the whole objective must be brand awareness. Build up knowledge of your brand, and that's not easy. - That's great guidance, great guidance. Moving to how these teams are structured. So outside of the brand and marketing awareness, then moving in down the funnel to your sales team, I think one thing we've seen, especially the Salesforce era sales playbook, Salesforce to CRM, we saw all of these hyper-segmented roles, having the SDR, moving to the new business AE,

**[18:26]** moving to the sales engineer, moving to the closing AE, moving to the customer success manager and the account manager. And you have all of these specialized teams. It feels like the pendulum is swinging to a more general role and flatter structure. Any insights on as to why that move is happening and what firms should be learning from this trend as well? - Let me digress a bit. I was in my heyday when I was younger and it used to be salespeople were the primary way consumers and professional buyers would learn about brands. Now, many consumers, professional buyers, they'll self-select. They don't need salespeople. They'll make their own buying decisions

## 18:58 — Principle \#1: most companies are chasing too many customers

**[19:17]** on what car to buy or what computer monitor to go after. And so just think of all the ways that customers can get information today. They can do a search in AI. They can look at online generated content. Many consumers will buy a product and experience it and then post online what they feel about the brand. Websites have a tremendous amount of information now. I still remember when I used to hand write my papers and hand them to a secretary and they'd type them up and I'd have to proofread and give it back to the secretary. I mean, I'm ancient. But just think of how consumers now get information on brand.

## 20:01 — From SDR-AE-CSM pyramids to flat sales orgs

**[20:11]** Think of how many customers don't even need a salesperson anymore. Now, does that mean I'm anti-sales? No, I just finished the Salesforce Management textbook for Cambridge University Press. It's gonna be published soon for MBA students and undergraduates taking an elective in Salesforce Management. And I'm really enthusiastic about the whole sales area and sales managers. But you have to take a unique approach today. If you take a standard approach, a salesperson who doesn't know a lot about product or the customer, they'll make a sales call to a customer

**[20:56]** and exchange information the customer already knows. And then the customer will say, why did I waste time today? I mean, I know all that already from doing searches on my own, my own independent research. So the key today to be a successful salesperson, that's why you're seeing some companies seek people trained in chemistry or biology or engineering. You have to have unique knowledge, knowledge that the customer, the consumer, the professional buyer cannot get except for you. And then they'll be excited, then they'll be impressed. Then if you know their needs and pain points and you show them this product based on this unique knowledge

**[21:41]** is going to resolve those needs better than any other product at the price, they're going to just be so delighted with you, it's unbelievable. So to get more directly to your question, I think in the future, it's hard to argue against IBM and in B2B, B2B is a little different than B2C. You still see a lot of specialization in IBM and sales, although they're rethinking that too. I mean, just think you have a technical specialist and a logistics specialist and a customer success manager and the main salesperson, even B2B professional buyers sometimes, they just say, hey, this is taking too much time, it's too complex.

**[22:24]** They would like it simplified with one salesperson having more knowledge and responsibility and some technical background as well and a knowledge of order processing and all of that, where one person can basically provide you the solution. Consumers are certainly looking for that when they need you as salesperson for insurance or maybe an automobile. Hyundai is selling automobiles on amazon.com right now, so we'll see where that goes, that's amazing. But I think, especially for smaller companies, but even for larger companies, you know these huge sales organizations with senior sales managers and regional sales managers

## 22:52 — Why salespeople need knowledge customers can't get elsewhere

**[23:10]** and field sales managers and 20 types of salespeople, that's just too expensive, it's too complex, it's too time consuming. So I believe there is a move, as you suggested, to flatter organizations. Sorry, my students, but I'd say, companies should hire experienced salespeople. They shouldn't spend as much time hiring students, young students right out of college who think they might want to get in sales. And then, give them the world. Don't restrict them to a single sales territory. One of my best friends works for him, or said he spends dealership. He sells Mercedes Benz cars all over the world. I mean, he's one of the best salespeople I've ever seen.

**[23:53]** So I think that a key to success in the future is one, knowing your customer, knowing your niche, knowing how they make decisions, knowing what needs resolution. Have your salesperson give unique knowledge that cannot be gained from any other place. And then, give a lot of authority to your salespeople. Give them responsibility. Don't have all these layers of sales managers where they're checking the temperature of the salesperson every day. Just have a very simple sales management structure and get more responsibility that sells people and make sure they have that knowledge of the customer and that unique delivery. I think that's the key.

**[24:43]** - I'd like to double click on one of the things you mentioned because it's a pretty intense view to say, hey, give each of your salespeople the world to go sell into. - Yeah. - And I'm curious. - Yeah. (laughs) 'Cause I come from a world where I ran GTM operations. A big part of the role is, okay, let's carve out the territories, whether we're putting people in industries or carving them into geographies that they own. How, on the operations side, how do you recommend managing, let's say maybe I'll give you a straw man company, company that has 50 sales reps, handful of products to sell maybe in a B2B setting.

## 25:20 — Experienced reps, more authority, fewer layers

**[25:27]** How would you recommend setting up the rules of engagement for an environment like that? - Well, yeah, I may have went a little extreme there, no territories. I'm a big fan of sales territories. - I like it because I think a lot of times territories can be really restrictive. You have your best reps sitting in. They're only allowed to play in this box when they could be closing big deals elsewhere. So I like the idealism of it. I'm just wondering how to translate that into, okay, how do we make sure, who gets to call dibs on which account? - Yeah, I hear you, I hear you. I probably went too extreme, I often do that. A big part of any successful company

**[26:10]** is how they allocate and decide on sales territories. And it all gets back to the targeting decision, who's the customer, who you're going after. If you're going after too many customers and you assign territories to make sure you get market coverage of all those customers in those 50 territories with your 50 salespeople, well, if you're not targeting the right customer, the territories are just based on weak ground, quicksand. So you have to really make sure, given your market position, given your brand equity, given your brand awareness, those factors will influence the territories that you set up. I agree with you, Anthony, totally,

**[27:01]** that the best part of having a good sales territory structure is that the market coverage at those territories is really good. And you never want a customer to feel like they're alone or lonely, that's the worst thing in the world. But again, I go back to the fact, I think some smaller companies, they probably divide the world up into too many territories and they may try to hire and seek some salespeople who are not proven at doing a great job, when they might be better off hiring fewer salespeople, more experienced salespeople, and giving greater autonomy to them in terms of finding customers rather than being too restricted by the territory.

**[27:52]** But it's a fine line. I'm glad I'm a retired professor. If I were a senior sales manager trying to make some of these calls, oh my goodness, they're difficult. - Well, you're dealing with a difficult personality type too and also people where their livelihood depends on having a good territory, so. - Yeah. - But I like the idea of lowering the restrictions, giving your A plus players a little bit more room to breathe and play and get creative with who they go after and target. Because I have definitely seen too restrictive of territories where you just have salespeople trapped. And maybe like the niches conversation we were having before, it's obvious,

**[28:35]** it's gonna be a spectrum of where you should land, but maybe err on the side of being less restrictive with your territories. - And some companies do a great job of designing territories and not all territories are created equal. I mean, for your best top performing salespeople, you assign them the best territories with the most sales potential with the best customers. And so you start beginning people off with the weaker territories. Montana, where they have to drive to Yellowstone or something, and they have to prove themselves. So there's different levels of territories based upon whether you're a beginning salesperson, a mid-tier salesperson,

**[29:18]** or a top performing experienced salesperson. A lot of the companies really get it right. I mean, there's a lot of work and thought from brighter people than I in setting up a good sales territory structure, that's for sure. - Yeah. During our prep session and prep calls, we were talking a lot about how marketing, ever since maybe 2000, that's when you pegged the shift started to happen. That marketing started to significantly lose its influence within organizations and you saw it in the academic sector as well. I'm curious why you think that is and maybe just walk us through what you've seen happen over the past 20, 25 years for marketing teams.

**[30:05]** - Okay, I'll start at the university level, which I know most about after being a chair of the marketing department at USC in the early 90s and in the mid teens of this century. It used to be that marketing professors had specialties in one of three areas, marketing management, consumer behavior, or analytical modeling. And around 2000 or so, roughly, the most prestigious university started mainly hiring marketing professors with specialties in buyer behavior or analytics. And the marketing management people like me were sort of left by the wayside. What that has done at the university level in marketing departments is it means

## 30:06 — Tiering territories by rep seniority

**[30:58]** bread and butter marketing courses are often taught by what we call clinicals, business people who teach in the evenings, make a little extra money. And the leading marketing faculty, the tenured faculty, they don't know that much about business. And some are anti-business. And so what that does is it produces marketing emphasis graduates, MBAs, undergraduates. It sort of leaves them a little bit constrained in terms of their understanding of the business world. Then you leap to the marketing managers themselves. And I believe a lot of top management people and finance founders, CEO, they question the practical experience of marketing managers.

## 31:36 — Why marketing lost its influence after 2000

**[31:53]** And most marketing managers have never had profit and lost responsibility. And so from a budget point of view, are you gonna give a lot of money to a senior marketing manager who is bright and experienced, but perhaps not grounded in the financials as much as I should be? And I think that's a major reason why a lot of surveys of managers shows from top consulting companies that they're disillusioned and don't trust marketing managers as much as I used to. And that's why many companies, they've sort of relegated marketing to, oh, do some advertising, come up with some promotions, do some market research, take a good ad agency,

**[32:49]** but they really limit the magnitude of the job for what a marketing manager does. I have a good friend of mine, Dave Stewart, who's retired as well. He lives in Nashville and I. We're writing a marketing management book. And part of our motivation is to simply try to defend marketing in a way and indicate, hey, let's give marketing people more experience and profit and loss. Let's make sure they understand the financials. Let's trust them with insights on product, pricing, distribution, promotion, give them more budget, see what they can do, let them prove themselves. I think marketing could have a big resurrection in the future, Anthony, but right now,

**[33:45]** I'm sort of distressed.

**[33:49]** I fell in love with marketing in 1973. I took a marketing course at Bemidji State University and went there to play baseball and be close to home. He, McCarthy, developed the four P's of marketing, the four P framework, product, price, place, promotion. I just fell in love with marketing. And then I graduated from Bemidji State University in 1975, recession. I needed money, didn't have much. And Indiana University had this DBA program where if they accepted you in it, you'd teach a marketing course to undergraduates each semester and earn some livelihood. I grabbed at the chance and somehow got accepted and received my degree in '79.

## 34:22 — Why the C-suite stopped trusting the CMO

**[34:40]** I mean, I know this is a long winded explanation, but I love marketing and I adore it and I've thrived in it.

**[34:50]** And to see the demise of marketing, so to speak, at the university level with what we're not doing for our students, and to see the status of marketing management in so many companies, it makes me sad to be honest with you. I think there's hope, I think there's hope. - I think there is too, especially the trend of, because what has stepped in its place as sales leadership and a lot of these companies, the chief revenue officer owns sales, they have more of a sales background and pedigree, they'll sometimes loop in marketing underneath them. And I think what is happening is more buyers can find what they need through LLM, through search,

**[35:39]** they can make the decisions for themselves and the outbound targeting stuff is not working as much, so you really have to invest even more in brand and attracting people to your brand. And I think the keys to success will be more marketing tactics than sales tactics in this next era that we're entering into, which I would assume would lead to CMOs within organizations more leading the charge on the go-to-market side of the business. - I would hope so. And by the way, most companies, rightfully so, the marketing departments are separate from the sales departments, and you have senior marketing managers and senior sales managers.

**[36:25]** Most companies today, the senior sales managers have so much more clout and power than the marketing managers, it isn't even funny. But from a theory point of view, sales is part of marketing. And so I would like to see the reverse where marketing managers are given the status and the budget to really do a lot for their companies, starting with developing the brand and have the sales managers and marketing managers intertwined, working closely together to take the brand to market. And of course, other functional areas, you have to have, you see, business is too complex. I'm glad I'm just a simple retired professor, frankly.

**[37:09]** You have to have finance, accounting, operations, logistics, customer service, sales support, marketing, sales. All those functional areas have to work together. You have to be synergistic. You know, there's, you have to really collaborate. Intra firm communication and coordination, so important. I think that can happen. And some of the best firms, I mean, I'm impressed by what Cadillac is doing now in targeting younger consumers, because they found the average age of their loyal customer is simply too old, younger than me, but simply too old. I'm so impressed always by IBM. Although I may, I think they may specialize sales a little too much.

## 37:32 — Marketing's comeback era in the age of AI

**[37:56]** I think on the whole, they're just wonderful company. You see some amazing companies, both B2C, B2B. You know, we live in a good age, life is complex, but there are still some shining stars that we can be happy about. - Yeah, I think so too. I think so too. We're at the beginning of that pendulum leaning back to the marketing practice, which I'm excited for, 'cause I think there's a lot of art in that practice as well. I was hoping we can dive into, this might be a personal topic for me. So I have three kids, I have another one on the way. I am thinking about the role of higher education,

**[38:43]** both in business and just in society as a whole. I know it's a big question, but I would really love your perspective on where higher education fits, because there's so much noise about, oh, you can learn anything with AI, or you can learn anything by logging into the right YouTube channels, and you can just learn anything you want by going online and figuring it out for yourself. We don't need education, we don't need these institutions. My gut's telling me that's wrong, but I would love your perspective on that topic, 'cause it's such a big one, especially for people in the tech industry too, who are building up a lot of those motifs.

**[39:26]** - Right, I'm a huge fan of education, formal education. I think there's a certain argument to be made that when you're too young, you're simply lack the maturity to really be entrusted with major decisions. I think getting a four-year degree, it's not only what you learn in the classroom, it's what you learn about yourself outside the classroom as you date, as you bingle, as you socialize, as you drink, as you abuse drugs. Sorry, but- - That's part of the experience.

**[40:01]** - There are a lot of ways you can learn, and you have great examples of people like Michael Dell, who created a tremendous company without a lot of formal education, but I think for most people going to a great university, not a trade school, maybe start there, but get a four-year degree, learn about a topic, and what topic? Boy, I don't know, my son is graduating with an undergraduate degree from USC in engineering, but with AI now, and with engineers from Stanford, Berkeley, other top schools, USC, having a very difficult time getting a job right now, because AI is doing so much of what new highers used to do. Now, I can't tell you what to focus on.

**[40:51]** You have to love what you do. You have to love what you learn. You have to adore your classes, but whether it's biology, medicine, chemistry, the law, whatever the area, get an education, get steeped in knowledge, be a specialist, hard to be a generalist anymore, just too much knowledge out there, and then take that specialty to the bank as you progress through life. But really, in my opinion, a lot of people try to make their mark in the world prematurely when they're not prepared to. They're too young, they think they know what they're doing, they really don't, and so I would always argue to your three children and you're one in the way.

## 41:25 — The case for formal higher education

**[41:37]** You're a productive guy. I would argue, get an education. Even if you think you don't need it, you'll need it. - Is there anything you think the education system, and I think probably where people have an issue with it is, I rarely hear people shouldn't go to high school. People shouldn't go to elementary school. I rarely hear that argument, and I think what starts to make people question is the level of investment and how much it costs. Is there anything you think higher education institutions need to do differently to adapt to the new world? - Well, I think it's very, very important that every school at a university and every department at a university,

**[42:25]** they study what their graduates need to know to be successful in the world, and make sure that through the design of their courses, that the people teaching the courses and the content of their courses are truly outstanding. I think there's always any department, any school, any university, there's always some dregs. There are always some people teaching courses that probably shouldn't be teaching, and it's not necessarily about teacher ratings either. I mean, you can smile and dance a lot, and your content may not be really helping the students. You might get great teacher ratings, but hopefully you get good ratings, but also share a lot of content.

**[43:12]** That's where I would go, and I was department chairman at USC a couple different times. I always tried to spend a lot of time getting to know what was happening in the marketing world, what courses we needed to teach to be practical, what people we needed to hire and retain to deliver in the classroom for our students. I think every department, in every school, at every university could do a better job of that, and you're hitting me at a bad time. I just wrote a $41,000 check to USC for my son's tuition last semester, so I guess I could get into reduced tuition. (laughing) Yeah, now it's starting to feel like, I don't know,

**[43:59]** before it made sense, but, oh, that's perfect. Well, you're really putting your money where your opinion is, and I appreciate that. No, and I think that's right. I think what people tend to not realize too is when you're entering the world at that vulnerable age, you don't know what you don't know, so I think getting exposed to different topics and figuring out what you like and what you don't like, because you haven't even been exposed to it, so there's a whole aspect of discovery that I think happens throughout the process, and if I'm using my own example, my undergrad was biochemistry, which I realized maybe three quarters of the way through

**[44:45]** that it wasn't something I really wanted to study, but I was already close, so I'm just gonna brute force it and finish it, and I learned a lot, I learned how to learn, and I got exposed to all kinds of things, but I also realized, okay, this isn't really what I wanna pour my heart and soul into, and then later I went to business school, got executive MBA, and that was just fun. I enjoyed every single moment of it. I enjoyed the classes, I enjoyed the projects, I enjoyed the conversations with my classmates, and really, really enjoyed every aspect of it, so I think just getting exposed to things and then realizing, oh, I do really love these things,

## 44:57 — What universities need to do differently

**[45:26]** and I don't really click with this type of domain or industry, it just takes going on the journey for a little bit to figure that out, and I think it's tough to do it on your own. I don't think you would figure it out by forcing yourself to watch YouTube videos and certain topics, you'd have to be unbelievably disciplined in order to go through that type of process. - Right, no, you touched on something that I didn't talk about before and that is learning from your fellow classmates.

**[45:56]** Formal education, is it for everyone? Maybe not, but I think everyone must do two things. Learn from your mistakes and learn from your successes. Don't resent yourself for your mistakes. We all make far too many of them, but learn from them. Successes are rarer, but learn from your success too. And if you put that mentality together with a formal education, you're gonna hit the ground running, in my opinion. - I think that's really, really sage advice and I appreciate you sharing that. - Sure. - Gary, thank you so much for sharing everything. I think this is really coming at a unique time in history, advent of AI, I think businesses are restructuring,

**[46:43]** that pendulum feels like it's swinging a little bit from sales having the influence to marketing having the influence. And I think it's so cool to hear your perspective on all of these topics when you've built your career that decades of experience in this subject. And on the personal note, I really appreciate your perspective on higher education's role in business and in society as a whole and that journey that people are going through at a vulnerable time in their life. Yeah, and I just really appreciate everything you shared and I can't wait to share this with our audience. - Well, thank you, I've enjoyed it.