The LeanScale Podcast · Episode 10

How to Identify Your Company's Inner Core Value

Thomas Miller on the inner core, the value triangle, and why RevOps needs plumbers and poets

Tom Miller · Author of 'Call Your Shots'; former CRO, Emailage · Emailage Hosted by Anthony Enrico
Published Updated 00:13:49 10 min read 1,921 words
Brand & Positioning GTM Strategy Pricing & Packaging Revenue Operations
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Executive Summary

The one-paragraph brief, extended

Why this conversation matters — and who should spend the hour.

In part two of a four-part series with brand strategist Thomas Miller, the conversation turns to a deceptively simple question every founder and marketer keeps getting wrong: what is the single element of value your company actually delivers, and is it functional or emotional? Tom's argument is that value is not something you ship — it's something the customer perceives. The nuts and bolts of what you do to earn that perception matter far less than how the customer ends up feeling about the exchange. He makes the case using LeanScale itself as a live case study, which grounds an abstract branding conversation in a concrete B2B services business.

Tom's central construct is the 'inner core' — the one element of value that is unique and special to you, which he also calls your superpower. The data, he says, is clear: that single core element can represent as much as 70% of perceived value. If you don't lead with it and stack the other elements of value beneath it correctly, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul — muddying the waters instead of revealing your value to its fullest extent. Borrowing a line from Kellogg's MBA program, he frames the marketer's primary job as lowering the cost of customer thinking, and warns that layering feature-on-feature and benefit-on-benefit, as if more is more, actually dilutes the few unique elements that carry the brand.

The tactical heart of the episode is the value triangle: three ways the human subconscious perceives value — functional, emotional, and economic. Tom ties it to jobs-to-be-done theory and outcome-driven innovation: products are tools customers hire to get a job done, and the nature of that job (sawing a two-by-four versus being entertained at a film) dictates whether functional or emotional value dominates. He has come to replace 'economic' value with the idea of 'worthiness' — the is-this-worth-it calculus your brain runs, whether it's a $5 saw used once or a $50 saw a carpenter will keep for twenty years. Whichever element wins, the brain stacks it as the primary driver — again, up to 70% of the perception.

Applied to RevOps, this reframes how a category most people treat as pure plumbing should actually position itself. Tom's metaphor — 'plumbers and poets' — captures it: yes, RevOps has to instrument, maintain, and run the data-collection apparatus and extract and visualize the data (the plumbing), but the differentiated, high-order value is turning that data into a board-level performance narrative (the poetry). His own experience as a LeanScale customer makes the point: he leaned on the team not to do plumbing he didn't want to do, but for the air cover and confidence to deliver a complex 90-day performance narrative to his board. Confidence, he notes, is a powerful emotion — and it, not the plumbing, was the value.

Who should listen: founders and CEOs deciding what promise of impact to lead with, marketing and product-marketing leaders untangling the siloes between product, features, and positioning, and RevOps and revenue leaders who have defaulted into selling a functional capability when their real value is emotional. The takeaway is a mental model for finding your inner core, choosing your primary value type deliberately, and communicating a promise of impact the market can perceive without having to work for it.

Key Takeaways

9 things worth stealing

The load-bearing ideas, each with the business implication and who should care.

01

Value is perceived, not delivered

Tom's opening reframe is that a customer's value isn't the sum of the functional things you do — it's the way they feel about the outcome. As a LeanScale customer, he did not perceive the value as 'plumbing I paid someone to do'; he perceived it as confidence and air cover in front of his board. The functional work created that feeling, but the feeling is what he actually bought.

Why it matters: Audit where your value is being perceived, not just what you deliver. It changes how you talk to customers and prospects, and it often reveals that the emotional outcome — not the feature list — is the real product.

FoundersMarketing LeadersRevenue Executives
02

Find your inner core — the one superpower worth ~70% of perceived value

Tom calls the single element of value that's unique and special to you the 'inner core' or superpower. He cites data that one core element can account for as much as 70% of perceived value. Most companies never define it, then wonder why their positioning feels diffuse.

Why it matters: Isolate the one thing you're uniquely great at, lead with it, and stack every other element of value underneath it. If you don't, you're not making progress toward revealing your value — you're muddying the waters.

FoundersMarketing Leaders
03

Choose your primary value type from the value triangle

Humans subconsciously perceive value along three dimensions — functional, emotional, and economic. Any value exchange stacks one of them as primary. Sawing a two-by-four is a functional job; being entertained at a film is emotional. The brain almost never treats all three equally.

Why it matters: Decide deliberately which dimension your primary promise of impact leads with. Defaulting into 'we're a highly functional capability' when your customers actually buy confidence and trust is a positioning error.

Marketing LeadersFoundersRevenue Executives
04

More is not more — lower the cost of customer thinking

Borrowing from Kellogg's MBA program, Tom says the marketer's primary job is to lower the cost of customer thinking. Companies layer feature on feature and benefit on benefit as if more is more, but it never is — the additions dilute the few unique elements that actually carry the brand.

Why it matters: Subtract before you add. Concentrate the message on the core element rather than accumulating features, so a buyer can grasp your value without doing expensive mental work.

Marketing LeadersFounders
05

Products are tools hired to get a job done

Tom grounds the value triangle in jobs-to-be-done theory and outcome-driven innovation: products are tools that help customers get jobs done. Whether a buyer acquires the tool depends on the calculus of what job they're trying to do and how functional or emotional that job is.

Why it matters: Define the specific job your customer is hiring you for, then build your promise of impact around that job's true nature — not around your feature roadmap.

FoundersMarketing Leaders
06

Economic value is really 'worthiness'

Tom has moved away from framing the third leg as 'economic value' and toward 'worthiness' — the is-this-worth-it judgment your brain runs. A $5 saw used once feels worth it; a carpenter buying a $50 saw for twenty years wants the tool that makes them feel most capable in their trade. Price connects to how the object makes you feel.

Why it matters: Price and packaging are not just economic levers — they signal worthiness and shape emotional perception. Position around the worth the customer expects to extract, not just the cost.

FoundersRevenue ExecutivesMarketing Leaders
07

RevOps is plumbers and poets

Tom's metaphor for RevOps: the plumbing is instrumenting, maintaining, running, extracting, and visualizing the data; the poetry is interpreting that data into a performance narrative. Both are required, but the poetry is the high-order value. A prior outsourced provider of his 'were good plumbers, but they couldn't spell poetry' — they couldn't turn data into a board narrative.

Why it matters: If you deliver or buy RevOps, don't stop at the plumbing. The differentiated value is the narrative on top of the data — that's what separates a commodity provider from a trusted partner.

RevOps LeadersRevenue Executives
08

Even a functional category like RevOps sells on emotion

RevOps carries an obvious functional promise, so it's easy to default into selling it as plumbing. But Tom — and Anthony, agreeing — note that most LeanScale customers say they work with the team because they trust them, feel confident, and feel the team is invested in their business. The functional work backs it up, but confidence is the emotion being bought.

Why it matters: Categories that look purely functional still win or lose on emotional value. Lead your positioning with the trust and confidence you create and treat the functional delivery as the proof, not the pitch.

RevOps LeadersRevenue ExecutivesFounders
09

Understanding value is upstream and cross-functional

Tom points out that the concepts that determine perceived value live upstream from where the marketer sits — the marketer doesn't build the products or own features and benefits, and product, product marketing, and marketing are usually siloed. Without understanding the connective tissue 'from innovation to cash,' the odds of stumbling onto the perfect promise of impact are almost zero.

Why it matters: Treat positioning as a cross-functional exercise spanning product, product marketing, and go-to-market. Map the full path from innovation to cash so the promise of impact is engineered, not lucky.

FoundersMarketing LeadersRevOps Leaders
Frameworks Discussed

5 named models

Every framework Jimmy names, defined and time-stamped.

The Inner Core (Your Superpower)

03:58

The single element of value that is most strongly connected to your brand — unique and special to you. Tom also calls it your superpower, and cites data that it can represent as much as 70% of perceived value.

Lead with the inner core and stack the other critical elements of value beneath it in the right order. Fail to meet it, and you rob Peter to pay Paul — muddying your value instead of revealing it to its fullest extent.

The Value Triangle (Functional / Emotional / Economic)

07:27

A triangle whose three sides are the ways humans subconsciously perceive value: functional, emotional, and economic. In any value exchange the brain stacks one element as primary — up to ~70% of the perception.

Draw the triangle and label the sides. A highly functional job (sawing wood) leans functional; being entertained leans emotional. Tom has reframed the economic leg as 'worthiness' — the is-this-worth-it calculus that ultimately becomes the essence of the brand.

Jobs to Be Done + Outcome-Driven Innovation

09:15

Products are tools that help customers get jobs done. Whether a customer acquires a tool depends on the job they're trying to do and how functional or emotional that job is.

Tom uses jobs-to-be-done theory and outcome-driven innovation to explain which leg of the value triangle dominates. A $5 saw for one cut versus a $50 saw for a carpenter's trade produces different emotional outcomes from the same functional job.

Lower the Cost of Customer Thinking

04:37

A maxim Tom credits to Kellogg's MBA program: the primary job of a marketer is to lower the cost of customer thinking. Adding feature on feature or benefit on benefit dilutes rather than compounds perceived value.

More is not more. Because perceived value is contained in a few unique elements, piling on additions makes the buyer work harder and weakens the message. Concentrate on the inner core so value is easy to grasp.

Plumbers and Poets

12:00

Tom's metaphor for RevOps: the 'plumbing' is instrumenting, maintaining, running, extracting, and visualizing the data; the 'poetry' is interpreting that data into a performance narrative. The combination is the value.

Execute on the plumbing, then execute on the poetry to construct the narrative. Tom cites a former outsourced RevOps provider who were 'good plumbers but couldn't spell poetry' — they could not turn data into a board-level performance narrative, which is exactly what separates a trusted partner.

Best Quotes

12 lines worth clipping

Pulled verbatim. Copy or share any of them.

“It was the way I felt about your service, which became more important than the nuts and bolts of how you were achieving this data-constructed narrative.”
Tom Miller 03:20
“That single element of value you can create that's unique and special to you — I sometimes call it the superpower — often represents as much as 70% of perceived value.”
Tom Miller 03:58
“The primary job of a marketer is to lower the cost of customer thinking.”
Tom Miller 04:37
“We layer feature on top of feature or benefit on top of benefit, as if more is more, but it never is. It dilutes the overall perceived value.”
Tom Miller 04:37
“You're giving me essentially the air cover I needed to help the entire executive team and board have confidence in what we were describing. And confidence is a really powerful emotion.”
Tom Miller 02:30
“Products are tools to help customers get jobs done.”
Tom Miller 09:15
“What your brain is largely saying is, hey, is this thing going to be worth it to me?”
Tom Miller 11:27
“I like to use the term plumbers and poets, because that's how I think of RevOps.”
Tom Miller 12:00
“They were good plumbers, but they couldn't spell poetry with all the letters and all the vowels — they simply did not know how to take the data and construct a performance narrative around it.”
Tom Miller 12:54
“What's the high-order bit here? How will the market perceive my promise of impact? And should I lead with these functional promises or should I lead with these emotional promises?”
Tom Miller 12:54
“Most of our customers would say they work with us because they trust us, because we give them confidence, because they feel like we're invested in their business.”
Anthony Enrico 06:44
“Changing the idea of understanding where your value is being perceived is really powerful and completely changes your perspective of how you communicate to customers.”
Anthony Enrico 07:27
Practical Advice

What should you actually do?

The playbook, split by the seat you sit in.

Founders

  • Name your inner core out loud: the single element of value that's unique and special to you. If you can't articulate it, you can't lead with it — and it may be worth up to 70% of how the market perceives you.
  • Decide whether your primary promise of impact is functional, emotional, or a matter of worthiness, and lead with that. Don't default into 'we're a highly functional capability' if customers actually buy confidence.
  • Engineer positioning from innovation to cash across product, product marketing, and marketing. The odds of stumbling onto the perfect promise of impact by luck are almost zero.

Marketing Leaders

  • Lower the cost of customer thinking — subtract before you add. Layering feature-on-feature and benefit-on-benefit dilutes the few unique elements that carry the brand.
  • Use the value triangle as a working tool: label functional, emotional, and economic, then identify which one your buyer's brain stacks as primary and build the message around it.
  • Frame products as tools hired for a job. Anchor the promise of impact to the specific job and its emotional stakes, not to a feature list.

RevOps Leaders

  • Be plumbers and poets. Instrument, maintain, and run the data apparatus, but treat the performance narrative on top of the data as the high-order value — it's what separates you from a commodity provider.
  • Position on the emotion you create. Even a functional category wins on trust and confidence; make that the pitch and let the functional delivery be the proof.
  • Tie your work to what your buyer must defend — a board-level performance narrative every 90 days is air cover, and air cover is the value your sponsor is really buying.

Revenue Executives

  • Audit where your value is actually perceived versus what you deliver — the gap is usually the emotional outcome (confidence, air cover) that your functional work quietly produces.
  • When you evaluate a services partner, test the poetry, not just the plumbing: can they turn raw data into a narrative that survives a board conversation?
Operations Takeaways

By function

The same conversation, filtered for RevOps, pipeline/marketing ops, and customer ops.

Revenue Operations

  • Plumbers and poets. RevOps must both run the data apparatus (plumbing) and interpret data into a performance narrative (poetry); the narrative is the differentiated, high-order value.
  • Sell the emotion. A functional-looking category still wins on trust and confidence. Position RevOps on the air cover and confidence it creates, with functional delivery as the proof.
  • Narrative beats plumbing. A provider that can't turn data into a board-ready narrative is a commodity. The performance narrative is what a sponsor actually leans on.
  • Know your perceived value. Customers buy RevOps because they trust you and feel you're invested — not because you'll do plumbing they don't want to do. Communicate accordingly.
Metrics Mentioned

The numbers, with context

~70%
Inner-core share of perceived value

Tom's data point: a single unique element of value (the superpower/inner core) can represent as much as 70% of how a buyer perceives value.

Every 90 days
Board performance cadence

As a LeanScale customer, Tom had to deliver a complex performance narrative to his board every 90 days — the confidence to do so was the value he bought.

$5 saw vs. $50 saw
Worthiness calculus (illustrative)

Tom's example of the is-it-worth-it judgment: a $5 saw for one cut versus a $50 saw a carpenter keeps for 20 years — same functional job, different emotional outcome.

Entities

Companies, people & tools mentioned

Auto-extracted and linked into the knowledge graph.

Companies

LeanScaleGTM Operations

Used throughout as the live case study. Tom, a former LeanScale customer, argues its perceived value was emotional — trust, confidence, and 'air cover' for his board performance narrative — not the functional 'plumbing' of RevOps-as-a-service.

00:57 · 01:44 · 12:00Company →

People

Tom Millerguest

Author of 'Call Your Shots' and a veteran go-to-market operator (multiple IPOs, buy- and sell-side M&A); Anthony Enrico's former CRO at Emailage.

Author of 'Call Your Shots'; former CRO, EmailageProfile →
Anthony Enricohost

Co-founder of LeanScale and host of The LeanScale Podcast.

Co-FounderProfile →

Tools & software

Methodologies referenced Jobs to Be DoneOutcome-Driven Innovation
Related LeanScale Services

Where this shows up in the work

Fractional RevOps

Embedded, field-facing RevOps leadership and execution — the operator model Jimmy describes, delivered as a service.

The whole episode dissects how LeanScale's RevOps-as-a-service value is perceived — the 'plumbers and poets' model of embedded RevOps LeanScale delivers.

Forecasting & ARR Definition

Define a raise-worthy ARR and build a reliable consumption forecast across finance, data science, and go-to-market.

Tom's core example is turning raw data into a board-level performance narrative every 90 days — the reporting and ARR-narrative work that lives closest to forecasting.

Frequently Asked Questions

Straight answers

Generated from the conversation, marked up for search and AI extraction.

What is a company's 'inner core' or superpower?

The inner core, or superpower, is the single element of value that is unique and special to your company and most strongly connected to your brand. Brand strategist Thomas Miller argues this one element can represent as much as 70% of perceived value, so you should lead with it and stack every other element of value beneath it rather than diluting it with additions.

What is the value triangle of functional, emotional, and economic value?

The value triangle is a model of the three ways the human subconscious perceives value in any exchange: functional (does it do the job), emotional (how it makes you feel), and economic. Thomas Miller reframes the economic leg as 'worthiness' — the is-this-worth-it judgment your brain runs. In any exchange the brain stacks one of the three as the primary driver, often up to 70% of the perception.

How much of perceived value comes from a single element?

According to Thomas Miller, one unique core element of value — your superpower or inner core — can account for as much as 70% of how a customer perceives your value. That's why concentrating on and leading with that single element matters more than accumulating features and benefits.

What does 'lower the cost of customer thinking' mean?

It's a maxim Thomas Miller credits to Kellogg's MBA program: the marketer's primary job is to make it easier, not harder, for a customer to understand your value. Layering feature on feature and benefit on benefit — 'as if more is more' — actually dilutes the few unique elements that carry the brand, so the discipline is to subtract and concentrate on the core.

How does jobs-to-be-done relate to defining your value?

Jobs-to-be-done theory says products are tools customers hire to get a job done. Thomas Miller uses it, with outcome-driven innovation, to decide which type of value dominates: a highly functional job (sawing a board) leans on functional value, while an experiential job (being entertained) leans emotional. Understanding the true job tells you which promise of impact to lead with.

What does 'plumbers and poets' mean for RevOps?

It's Thomas Miller's metaphor for RevOps: the 'plumbing' is instrumenting, maintaining, running, extracting, and visualizing the data, while the 'poetry' is interpreting that data into a performance narrative. Both are required, but the poetry — the narrative on top of the data — is the high-order, differentiated value. A provider who can only do plumbing can't turn data into a board-level story.

Why does a functional service like RevOps still sell on emotion?

Because value is perceived, not just delivered. Even though RevOps has an obvious functional promise, customers describe choosing a partner because they trust them, feel confident, and feel the partner is invested in their business. The functional work backs it up, but the emotional outcome — confidence and air cover — is what the buyer is really purchasing.

Timeline

Jump through the conversation

Click any chapter to open it in the transcript.

00:00Cold open: value is perceived, not delivered 00:27Welcome to The LeanScale Podcast 00:57RevOps as a case study: functional vs. perceived value 02:30Air cover and confidence: the board performance narrative 03:58The inner core: your superpower and the 70% rule 04:37Lower the cost of customer thinking 07:27The value triangle: functional, emotional, economic 09:15Jobs to be done: products are tools 10:46From economic value to worthiness 12:00Plumbers and poets: the RevOps combo
Full Transcript

The whole conversation

Broken into chapters, searchable, verbatim from the audio. Speakers inferred (not diarized).

Transcript as markdown ↓ Whole episode as markdown ↓
00:00Cold open: value is perceived, not delivered

0:00 Your value was being perceived by me. You did a lot of functional things to achieve that status, but ultimately it was the way I felt about your service, which became more important than the nuts and bolts of how you were achieving, you know, this data-constructed narrative.

00:27Welcome to The LeanScale Podcast

0:27 Welcome to The LeanScale Podcast where we talk about everything RevOps. Thank you for listening.

00:57RevOps as a case study: functional vs. perceived value

0:57 We talked about this just in conversations about those things as it relates to LeanScale. What is your primary promise of impact? Is it based on perceived value in the category of emotional value, or is it more in the category of functional value? These are real questions. I think LeanScale is like a great case study for some of these questions because you guys are largely selling RevOps as a service. It's easy to default into, you know, this idea that, hey, this is just a highly functional capability. Let's allow or pay someone to do all this plumbing that

1:44 we don't want to do. But that's not really what RevOps as a service. That's, you know, I became a customer of LeanScale. That's not how I perceived your value. I perceived your value because I believed I could lean on you guys to help me achieve my objectives as an executive to communicate the narrative behind the performance discussion that I had to deliver every 90 days to a board, which was really complex, which was really sort of bottled up in a million different collections of data points, which could only be revealed if you could take those raw elements of data and turn

02:30Air cover and confidence: the board performance narrative

2:30 them into, you know, a well-constructed performance narrative that would make sense at the board level. And so you're giving me essentially the error cover I needed to help the entire executive team and board have confidence in what we were describing as the performance narrative of the company. And confidence is a really powerful emotion, right? Now, you did a million functional things to help reach that phase or that stage of the development of how your value was being perceived by me. You did a lot of functional things to achieve that status, but ultimately

3:20 it was the way I felt about your service, which became more important than the nuts and bolts of how you were achieving, you know, this data-constructed narrative. And it's amazing to me, you know, I have a lot of friends throughout technology. It's always amazing to me to look at content and to look at websites or to just have conversations with engineering or product or marketing or executive teams. And to see this sort of vacuum that exists in this understanding of in my terms, what I call the inner core, like it's the element of value that's most strongly

03:58The inner core: your superpower and the 70% rule

3:58 connected to your brand. The data is pretty clear that that single element of value you can create that's unique and special to you. I sometimes call it the superpower often represents as much as 70% of perceived value. And so if you're not meeting with that element and you're not stacking the other critical elements of value underneath it the right way, you're sort of robbing Peter to pay Paul, you're not actually making progress towards a strategy which says, hey, let's reveal our value for its fullest extent. You're actually muddying the waters. And I love the expression.

04:37Lower the cost of customer thinking

4:37 This came from Kellogg, the MBA program at Northwestern, where they said the primary job of a marketer is to lower the cost of customer thinking. And far too often, you know, we layer feature on top of feature or benefit on top of benefit, as if more is more, but it never is. It dilutes the overall perceived value, which is contained in these few unique elements. And, you know, like, you just have to be trained to understand that if the goal is to create a value exchange event, and if you're really endeavoring to maximize the chance of that occurring, then you have to understand these concepts that are upstream from where the

5:22 marketer lives, because the marketer doesn't build the products, the marketer typically doesn't own, you know, the idea of features and benefits, you know, so you have product teams and product marketing teams, and often, all this stuff is siloed off. And until you start to understand the connective tissue between all of it, you know, the idea that you're just going to get lucky and stumble upon the perfect promise of impact, it's like almost impossible. And so that's kind of been my experience of why, you know, I think everyone has this innate desire, you know, to say, hey,

6:01 I'm a shot caller or to be a high performer. But in isolation, none of us can achieve this without this connected understanding from, you know, I sometimes refer to it from innovation to cash through the full spectrum. If we don't understand how it all goes together, the chance that will create a maximum outcome is very, very low. Makes a lot of sense. And that was, even though you and I had worked together, and I have seen you use these concepts in other companies before, thinking about it from the perspective of LeanScale was still tough to do in practice.

6:44 Because RevOps does have that functional promise. But you're right, most of our customers, most of the people that we work with, would say they work with us because they trust us because we have a level of competence they need, because we give them confidence, because they feel like we're invested in their business. Of course, we back it up with all the functional aspects, but changing the idea of understanding where your value is being perceived is really, really powerful and completely changes your perspective of how you communicate to customers, how you communicate to potential customers. I think something that would be really helpful for

07:27The value triangle: functional, emotional, economic

7:27 people who are listening, I know you have three ways humans perceive value. And you pick one of them as your main core. Could you walk us through the three ways to perceive value? Well, I learned it as this thing called the value triangle. So simply draw a triangle on one line of the triangle, draw the word functional on the other line, draw the word emotional on the third line, draw the word economic. So your brain, humans are not really almost in control of this. This is what your subconscious does. If you think about anything you bought, you know, and maybe if something is

8:20 so inconsequential value from a value exchange event, meaning, you know, you got fast food, you're not really thinking about that, the idea of whether you intend to, whether the exchange of value was worth it, but, you know, maybe you do like if it's Chipotle and the chips and guac are another $3.50 and your brain's doing the calculus a little bit. And so the way it works is, you know, there's this idea that any time values exchange, what you're exchanging is your currency for a tool. Right. And so in my framework, I talk a lot about this innovation framework called outcome driven

09:15Jobs to be done: products are tools

9:15 innovation and another framework called jobs to be done theory. And it simply says that products are tools to help customers get jobs done. Now, the key to whether or not you will acquire a tool to help you get a job done is this combination of this calculus that goes on inside your mind about, hey, what job am I trying to get done? Is it largely a functional job? Right? Am I trying to saw a two by four and a half? That's a highly functional job versus, you know, I want to be entertained at a film, you know, so how's it going to make me feel? Those would be two extreme ends

9:52 of the spectrum of contemplating a tool in this case of saw versus a film at a theater to create the outcome of being entertained. Now, either way, you know, your brain will stack the primary element as the most important, occupying as much as 70% of how you'll perceive that value. So that's the that's that's really the first idea. The second idea is there's always the idea of how this thing is going to make me feel. And sometimes the way it's going to make you feel has connectivity to the price of the object. And if you're buying an object, like if all I had to do is cut one piece of wood and never use that saw again, I'm going to probably buy

10:46From economic value to worthiness

10:46 the cheapest tool to get the job done and feel pretty good about it. If I'm a carpenter and I need a saw that I'm going to have for the next 20 years, I'm going to really probably try to buy the saw that makes me feel like I have the best possible tool in my hand so I can effectively execute my trade. And so there are two outcomes, emotional outcomes that ultimately get derived between this balancing effect of functional value, emotional value. And I've sort of gotten away from this concept of economic value and replaced it with the concept of worthiness. And so what your

11:27 brain is largely saying, hey, is this thing going to be worth it to me? If I buy this $5 saw and cut the piece of wood once, hey, that sounds like a pretty good deal. It's worth it to me. Or I'm going to buy this $50 saw because I'm going to use it for 20 years because I'm a carpenter. That seems worth it to me. Or I'm going to go see this film and invest these three hours of my life because my favorite celebrities are in the film. That seems worth it to me. And so that balancing is what ultimately becomes the essence of your brand. Like in the case of Lean Scale, we talked about this

12:00Plumbers and poets: the RevOps combo

12:00 balancing between, I like to use the term plumbers and poets because that's how I think of RevOps. You don't have to instrument all this data collection apparatus. All has to get instrumented, maintained, and run. And then the data's got to get extracted. It's got to get visualized. But ultimately, it's got to get interpreted into a narrative. And that's what's that sort of combo effect of, hey, let's execute on the plumbing and then let's execute on the poetry to construct it into the narrative. And you know, that's one of the highest value features of Lean Scale, in my

12:54 opinion. That's what separates you guys. Because I actually was at the last company I did, we were using an outsourced RevOps company. And they were good plumbers, but they couldn't spell poetry. With all the letters and all the vowels, they simply did not know how to take the data and construct a performance narrative around it. And so you have to think about that as the CEO of Lean Scale. Like what's the high order bid here? How will the market perceive my promise of impact? And should I lead with these functional promises or should I lead with these emotional promises?

13:35 Thank you for listening to this episode. If you like the discussion, please like, share, and subscribe to wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss a new episode.