The Wonder Sauce of Branding | John Sampogna

Episode Topics:

• Discover why brand storytelling beats short-term ad hacks every time.
  
• Learn how AI is changing marketing — and how to use it without losing your voice.
  
• Hear how Wonder Sauce went from a random URL to a powerhouse creative agency.
  
• Get real-world advice for entrepreneurs who want lasting brand impact.
  
• Understand the future of full-service marketing (and why siloed strategies are dying).

 

Rick Jordan  

What’s shakin’? Hey, I’m Rick Jordan, and today we’re going all in. All right, everybody wants to get in the world of digital marketing, but you know what? Everyone’s thinking that they can just throw some ads up and then all of a sudden, you’re successful. That’s not the case. I hope you know that, and it’s not overnight either. Today, we’re going to talk to my guest, who has worked with amazing, incredible brands like Samsung’s Brookfield subway. Everybody knows these names, right? You know, even has been featured on media outlets like CNBC, medium, Yahoo, Digiday. You know, all of these amazing accolades and just locations where he showed up and shared his knowledge. But you know what? They got nothing on that, because today he’s on all in and I’m happy to welcome John. What’s up? You’re gonna have to pronounce your last name. I should have asked you this, bro, Sampogna. Antonia, that’s awesome.

 

John Sampogna  

Yeah, it gets everyone. I got a lot of Sampogna. But yes, Antonio,

 

Rick Jordan  

I’m glad I asked you to do that. Man, that’s awesome. Dude, it’s good. It’s good to have you on because I mean this, I hope I didn’t even name your company, because your company is like the best, right? It’s a wonder, sauce. Dude, where does that name come from? That is my first question.

 

John Sampogna  

Dude, it’s such a random story, so good. That makes it fun business like 1213, years ago, it was a URL that we owned that we had a bunch of random URLs that we bought.

 

Rick Jordan  

Did you do the same thing? Like one time I bought my butt is huge.com, I’m not kidding.

 

John Sampogna  

It was as simple as that. Like you would have an idea, and you would just search it on GoDaddy or something and buy it if it if it was available with no intention of starting a business. And our our chief creative officer at the time he he was hosting his work before wonder sauce on wonder sauce calm because someone had his name, so it was just hosted there as a joke. And you would point people to it if they need to see his work. And we eventually started freelancing under the name wonder sauce, because we thought we could charge more money. Yeah, that we had a company, and then we actually launched the business. We just kind of, like, didn’t think about it and called it that. And we had people saying, like, right away, that’s such a terrible name. You’re never gonna amount to anything. People are gonna take you seriously. And we were like, That’s fine. It’s cool and and then it was good. It’s been great, because, like, a dozen years later, people still love it. And whether you don’t like the name or love it, it’s a people don’t forget it, weird puns and stuff that come out of it itself.

 

Rick Jordan  

Dude, look at like Twitter, right? I mean, I know it’s x now, but what kind of a name is Twitter? You know, Twitter, tweet? What? I mean, whatever. He just so many things can come from that, you know, but wonder shot, dude, it’s awesome. I heard my assistant gave me the name today. I was like, Are you kidding me? I’m like, that’s, that’s awesome. Like, no, it’s so cool. Because, I mean, this is important part of branding too. I mean, we’re going to talk about digital marketing today, which is that, of course, but it’s like, the way I’ve always framed up marketing versus branding is, branding is your message and marketing is the way of delivering that message. Yeah, that’s that simple, but a name very much can convey what that message is, yeah. And it’s cool, because this is a pattern interrupt, dude. It stopped me, like, I stopped walking through the office with the studio. Like, I stopped like, wonder sauce, Whoa.

 

John Sampogna  

Yeah and I always think that if you talk about branding, it’s like, if you’re the name of your company is water sauce, and your work is sloppy, you’re not serious anymore, you’re inconsistent and everything like that. It’s kind of a joke. But if you balance a somewhat goofy and whimsical name with great results, being on time, showing up, being consistent. It’s a cool vibe you can set. So, yeah, I do think that, like, the line is fine when you set a name.

 

Rick Jordan  

Right on. Yeah, I worked with a company one time for ads. They were called lemonade stand, you know. And they work specifically with, I think they’re out of San Diego. They’re out of So Cal. I know that, you know, they, long story short, we didn’t get the results we were looking at, but I always thought the name was actually pretty fantastic too. You know, a great brand, yeah, really cool. Same thing. Maybe you’ll look them up. Now, I don’t know, you know, good people there too, brother, really good people there. It’s a but that’s important to know too. Maybe this is a great point to kick into a conversation, because I started it out this way, right with my intro to you, and you’re so brilliant at this, you are the genius here. So please educate me and all of our listeners. I’ve noticed, you know, depending on not so much the agency, but maybe it could be the campaign, or whatever. A lot of people think they’re just going to throw up ads, you know, and throw it into a funnel, you know, or some kind of conversion tactic, and all of a sudden we’re just going to sit back and let the let the money roll in, you know, clearly, I mean, in simplistic terms, I don’t think everybody actually, truly 100% buys into that fallacy at the same time, it always kicks in the back of your head like, Oh, this is all I need to do. You. Not true, right? 

 

John Sampogna  

Yeah. Ah, god, that is such a loaded question, because you can take it in so many directions, but that’s why it’s interesting. I think the cool thing about where we are now with marketing is we’re at a bit of an inflection point. I think that even a little pre covid, definitely like through it and then coming out of it. I think a lot of brands and marketers were living in this performance marketing, direct response world where they became trained that I put x amount of dollars into meta and Google, and then money comes immediately out. Yeah, everyone wants to immediately start talking about, well, what’s your cost per acquisition? What’s your Return on Ad spent? And those are really valuable channels that work, but they’re incredibly expensive and competitive, and I feel like brands have lost sight of how important it is to actually build a brand and tell a story, and to have something that will live without a spend behind it, because it’s not sustainable for small businesses or even scaling businesses, to have every one of their core messages be supported by something paid. And everyone’s always talking about like, how do you drive earned media? How do you go viral all that stuff, right? And there’s no formula to that, yeah, I’ll tell you one thing. The only way to do it is to build a brand platform and to stand for something and to get your organization comfortable with the idea of testing and putting a lot of interesting messaging out there to see what resonates with customers. And that doesn’t cost any money if you’re doing it correctly. And then the stuff that’s working you, plus you start to put money behind but I think right now, we’re, we’re in this kind of like phase of evolution, and people are afraid to depart from what’s, quote, working, because they don’t want their like, weekly Analytics report and to show any type of, like, strain from the norm. But I like, you know, old school, traditional brand building, I think it still really works.

 

Rick Jordan  

I’m with you, brother, yeah. I mean, it’s a good point, right? And we can disclose something here. It’s like, you know, outside unless, like, I actually don’t know how you got booked on the show, because I’ve got a team that does that, right? And you probably have a team, or you hired an agent to find the awesome shows, right? So thanks for coming on my awesome show. I’ll say that way, but, but to be on here, it’s like there’s no money exchanging hats, you know. And this is a part of that storytelling that you’re talking about, you know. And over the years, it’s like even the show, I’ve built it up, it’s become a big part of my brand. A lot of big reasons why I’ve been on such big nationwide media like news nation, you know, Newsmax cheddar, all of that is because they’ve checked out my other content that I have out there, like the show and everything else you know. So it’s part of that storytelling you’re talking about. And this right here, I would encourage anybody to do, you know. And still, to this day, it doesn’t matter that how big the show is, and especially it doesn’t matter how small the show is, dude, I’ll guess that almost anything. 

 

John Sampogna  

Yeah, exactly. And it’s like looking at it beyond the immediacy of any monetary gain. And I think that is where as great as performance marketing, and all these platforms are targeting the right people and getting them to be into your brand and maybe buy something. It’s trained us in this immediacy culture, which is not great from a marketing standpoint. It’s not sustainable. So like, if we were expect, I was expecting them to come on the show, and if we had a good conversation out waiting around all night for like, Where’s my money? Why aren’t the brand sitting me out immediately? Like, what was the point of this? Yeah, it’s obviously the wrong way of going about building a personal brand, or any type of brand.

 

Rick Jordan  

Yep, I feel you, man. Yeah, it’s a it happens that way too. And you can see the you can see the effects I’ve said before. It’s like, we’re talking about brand building here, but then feeling the effects that you’re talking about come from the brand building through marketing. And I’ve said that before, the brand building and marketing is not something that you necessarily see. It’s something that you feel. So when you when you get that call, and it’s not because it’ll come looks like, I fully believe that I’ve gotten them right, guessing other shows. I’ve gotten them, or going on the news, I’ve gotten them, but it’s like, six months later, eight months later. Long lead. Yeah, right on, right on, man, that’s cool, dude. So yeah, a little bit about you, you know, because the one thing I don’t see on here, which is kind of sad, it’s like, where did you come from? You know? Because somebody just doesn’t wake up one day and be like, I’m gonna tell stories for a living or help others tell stories.

 

John Sampogna  

Yeah, my though, my background is, I grew up in New York. I wanted to do music. I didn’t really know what that meant. Like, whether I wanted to play music professionally or I really wanted to work at a label and scout. Bands, yeah, and what I realized that that wasn’t what I thought it was in my mind. A bunch of my friends like when we were about 20 years old, 21 just randomly happened to be developers, designers, creatives that were working at agencies, freelancing, working full time. And I remember one of my buddies was like, you know, you would be pretty good at doing this type of stuff. I don’t know what you would do, but you’d be good at it. I think so. And I remember, like, one night, you know, God is, like, 20 years ago, I was just looking at companies on the internet, and I started applying to random positions. But I wasn’t doing it through, like, open roles or anything like that. I was like, finding companies I thought was was interesting and cool, and then writing them emails. I only think I attached the resume. I was just basically like, why I think what they’re doing is cool, some work I thought was interesting. And it was like streaming conscious, authentic weirdness, yeah. And I remember that night, I’m, like, out at a bar, and I get a response from a recruiter at like, 10pm eastern time, so that it was for a job in LA and it was for the executive assistant to the CEO of, like, a large, 400 person digital shop. And, you know, I ended up meeting him. We hit it off. Sure, took the job, and I never really wanted to be an assistant or thought about that, but I thought it was a cool way in, and it was amazing. I spent eight months as his assistant. I got to like listening to all his meetings and reading emails, and I really learned the agency business from the top, and I never really wanted to be the best manager, strategist, producer, creative. So I never really aspired to be, like, a job, a role at an agency. I was just like, fascinated with the structure of a business. I kind of fell in love with and then, yeah, I kind of did a bunch of jobs and kicked around for a while, doing, you know, different agency roles at two different places, before eventually deciding to do it myself with with some friends.

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s awesome, man. So you just, I love what you if I can rewind a sec, because, I mean, you even got me thinking like that is frickin brilliant, because you’re it’s in essence, a cold email campaign, extremely manual what you were doing, but it was a cold email campaign. Just looking it’s like this might be an interesting place to work. If I track what you’re saying, I’m going to go look them up and I’m telling them the things I like and don’t like about their marketing and their storytelling. Right now that’s a way to just like dude, just like Wonder sauce. That’s a pattern interrupt. Nobody gets those kinds of emails.

 

John Sampogna  

To this day. I feel like, you know, whenever I speak to kids at different like ad programs at colleges, and they always ask, like, how do I get into the business and everything like that, I always say, like, in a world where it’s a quantity, it feels like like, whether it’s all the like, indeed, LinkedIn making it so easy to apply to like, a million jobs a day. It’s like, maybe don’t do that. Maybe apply to like five jobs a day that you actually really want and learn the companies and the clients they work with, the people that work there, and send them something that doesn’t feel cut and paste. And I promise you, your response rate will be higher than what you they’re seeing by just going into the abyss of indeed or LinkedIn. And nothing against the platforms. But if you make those platforms really easy to, you know, apply, I have to imagine the other side of that platform. It’s really easy to skip over the applicants. So, yeah, it’s kind of like a double edged sword.

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s cool, man. I love that. The where do you start with something like that? So I mean, I love that you’re speaking to kids too, because it’s a dude I go way back to, you know, I think, like when I was 18, and I feel like it’s a crazy time in life, because you’re expected to all of a sudden, within like, a matter of three months, make your mind up what you’re going to do for the rest of your life, and at the same time, potentially incur a whole shit ton of debt away, you know. So something like that. It’s like, I love that you’re speaking to kids in that crucial moment in life, you know, to be like, Hey, you don’t have to have it all figured out right now, I still don’t have it figured out, dude, I’m with you. It’s so with you on that I’m already thinking, it’s like, well, what am I going to do in five years? You know, I just took a company public. It’s like, what’s going to happen in five years? Am I still going to want to do this? You know? It’s a I love that approach too, because it’s like, who knows? Because what you have, I think, can evolve to what I have, can evolve into whatever the next phase of life is for us, something that grabs our interest in that moment too. Yeah, definitely, dude. I love that. So where does somebody start with, with the storytelling? Because I’m hearing you, and you’re really talking about, like, let the cream rise to the top, you know, rather than, you know, like, focusing on the whole drink or whatever, you know, let it rise to the top, so that you’re sitting above everybody else with some of these, you know. Some might be like, Hey, give me the best gimmick. But that’s not what you’re talking about. You’re not talking about a gimmick. And. You’re talking about authenticity, from what I hear. But where do you start with that dude?

 

John Sampogna  

Yeah, I mean, I have to say, like, the obvious disclaimer that every brand is different, every industry is different. But I think at the end of the day, you know, the most obvious place to start is the the audience that you’re going after. Who are they and what are they doing? I like to be as specific as possible. And when someone says, No, this is a mass play. It’s for people 18 to 50, and it’s all walks of life, and blah, blah, blah, I’m like, okay.

 

Rick Jordan  

We’re marketing. So Motrin.

 

John Sampogna  

Yeah, exactly. So I do think like having a really good understanding of your your target audience, and like what they’re currently doing and consuming. So like, where are they spending time consuming media and entertainment? What are they doing for leisure, all that stuff. So you have your persona, your archetype, figured out, when you have that figured out, that’s kind of step one, I think step two, it’s like having a long, honest look at your business and your product or service that you’re selling. And I like to always ask people like, look, is this a product story or a brand story? And a product story meaning like, this is something that is either new to market, that doesn’t exist, and the story we’re telling is that exactly, or the product is basically better than what currently exists, and you can literally articulate why it’s better, and there’s some sort of claim or testimonial to back up that that’s actually true. So like, that’s the product story. And then there’s a brand story, where it’s basically not a commodity, but you can buy this product or a number of things that are just like it, and we almost have to build, you know, build something together that resonates with this audience, that is more around the messaging, the tone, the look and feel and all of that, like romantic aspect. And, you know, something can live somewhere in the middle. But I think at the end of the day, like, if you can lean in one direction, it really helps, because we’re trying to get to, like, a product benefit, or a brand benefit, something that we can basically use to tie to the audience, where we’re saying, like, biggest pain point is this that the audience has, and our product benefit is here, so the message has To connect between the two. Yeah. Then we’re able to, like, kind of, like, double down our focus. And I think getting copywriters, creators, any type of creative focused, is so crucial. So the more specific we’re able to be around the product, its benefits, and who we’re going after in terms of the audience, is really the best way of to start, like, crafting a brand story.

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s awesome. Now, you mentioned something too, which got my brain thinking we I wanted to hit this with you today, and I think it’s a good segue into that. You mentioned the word copywriter too, of course, because you’re assembling the team around, especially if it’s a brand story, yeah, yeah, dude, AI, right? Because everything that everybody sees, it’s like, copywriters are going out of business. You know? It’s like, even my, my, I’ve got plenty of lawyers being a public company, and my my corporate counsel, is like, yeah, AI is gonna replace most lawyers. I’m like, dude, even litigators. He’s like, especially litigators. I’m like, No way. I’m like, I can say, like, here’s me a dude with a public cyber security company, right? I’m like, there’s no like, because I’ve got the creative side, dude, we’re doing right now, right? Yeah, I’m not a normal cyber dude. I love content. I love creativity. I started as a musician, also, right when I was five. Dude played on stages, you know, all over the country, in front of 1000s of people. So I’ve got that side of my brain working too. The the AI portion of this, especially the lawyers. He’s like, Yeah, I’m like, What about transaction lawyers? I’m like, because they could easily write business contracts, no problem, you know. And then it’s like interfacing almost, with a human but I don’t know about litigators, because that’s where I see, like, the creativity. He’s like, absolutely litigators. His point, and I want, I want to draw this parallel, or if you can help me draw this parallel today, he’s like, absolutely litigators, because that’s the creativity portion of it. He goes and litigators that are not using AI are going to go out of business. Their firm is going to shut its doors. The ones that actually stay in business are not the ones necessarily being replaced by AI. They are the ones that have learned to use it the best to make them the best at what they’re doing. Is that a parallel to marketing copywriting.

 

John Sampogna  

100%, I feel like, you know, the law example, I’ve heard that well before. It’s good because, you know, having dealt with lawyers now for 20 years, it’s like, you know, there’s the conversation where it’s the high value conversation that you’re getting $1,000 an hour, half hour, whatever it is you’re talking in the phone with someone, and then after that, like, someone’s got to write it up. And that process takes hours and it racks up a bill. If that could be done in a fraction of the time, that’s great conversation where you know you’re having a nuanced discussion around details with the lawyer on the phone. It’s harder to commoditize that, and I feel like the same parallels could be had with elements of. We do from a marketing standpoint, yes, like, there will be massive areas of our business, you know, that will be sped up and commoditized, and that’s already been happening for years. I mean, I don’t think this is any different than, like, the 80s with, like, the advent of the computer where, you know, one day you’d show up and there was a stack of memos on your desk, and you had to respond to the memos and mail them out or message them over to people that happened and that made it instantaneous. And obviously things like like social media and content creation became incredibly easy to do over the last 10 years. I think that, like AI, is the next logical progression of all that, and truly creative people that have perspective and can tie, like, the weirdness of, you know, something they learned from doing, like an automotive account 10 years ago to a consumer packaged goods deliverable, like even they’re gonna come up with a cool idea. And if it takes them five minutes to come up with the idea, and then, you know, another five minutes to have aI generate, you know, 50 versions of that idea that they can then spend time looking through and finding the best, you know, two to three they really like, and then making them better. That’s amazing. Yeah, better. But I think that, like, if people think you’re just going to be able to spit in a lazy prompt and get a result out, that’s going to replace a copywriter that’s not going to be a saying like but, yeah, like many businesses do, will be largely commoditized, but that’s just the speed of tech, and that happens all the time. 

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s a good point there, too, because the way you’ve described it, you know, it’s almost like you start, you’re starting with the prompt, and as you’re saying that, I’m starting to recognize that I’m doing some of these things, you know, to you’re describing, it’s like a copywriter or, you know, even a lawyer, will go in and enter something into AI, you know, spend five minutes thinking about a five minutes, and it’s going to generate this response, but then it gives you, like, 30 different versions. And then the Wonder sauce on top of it is that human being that goes in and then tweaks it with all the feeling and the creativity. It’s almost like that’s still going to be at the end, but it accelerated their process to get to a point, dude, I’ve done that too. I will literally say it’s like, You Are My Social Media Manager. Like, this is a problem, right? I put it into a mode, a persona, and then I’ll be like, give me 30 examples are 30 options of blank. Here’s some source content material, and then it spits out 30. And I will, I’ll pick like, three, and I’ll be like, Oh, that’s cool. Or start to combine some of these examples a little bit, and we, like, tweak this up, because I need to add some of my own personal phrasing in there, right? And that dude is the Wonder sauce on top of it all as a human being.

 

John Sampogna  

Yeah. And it’s funny. Like, I feel like everyone has their own personal use cases and ways of using it right now, and it’s like everyone’s keeping it a secret. For some reason it’s funny.

 

Rick Jordan  

They’re not. They’re selling their secret, dude, like, $97 here’s my funnel, by the way, I used AI to write my funnel. By the way, I used AI to write this ad.

 

John Sampogna  

Well, we’re doing this, this executive summit in a few weeks for some of our people at water sauce. And one of my like, ice breaker questions is we’re gonna go around the room and basically say, like, what is, what do you use AI for most consistently that no one knows about? Oh, that’s awesome. I’m trying to do is really just normalize the practice that it’s okay to use it in all aspects of your job, as long as you’re using it responsibly, you’re not stealing you’re not ultimately doing things that are putting our clients or our business at risk. But I do think it’s super important that people get fluid using the technology and not afraid of it, especially people that, like the copywriter was the best example, because it’s most obvious, you know, thing that is threatened. So I think, like, we want our contributors to be using it, and I think encouraging them to use it as crucial.

 

Rick Jordan  

Right on well, even for a brand story, right? So we hired some new SDRs, and I love that we got on the AI topic today when it comes to telling the story, you know, because even SDRs cold callers, right? The work for me, they’re telling a story in the scripts that they’re using. They are telling a story of the brand, when, when they pick up the phone and they make these dials, you know, I used multiple llms, multiple large language models for this. You know, I did. I actually use chat GPT to research data, because it was better at researching data and going on and finding statistics about the industry and pain points of specific verticals of clients who want to start like you said, know your audience, right? That was my very first step in developing these scripts for them. Then I moved it over to Claude. Have you used Claude yet? I’m not. Yeah, dude, it’s awesome. It’s actually better at the copywriting side. Okay? And what’s cool is you can create projects in there. I’m glad we went this way, because I’ve never talked about this on the show before. Now everybody’s gonna say this episode and play it and play it like a million times. This is good content, bro. You can create a project, but what I do is I use chat GBT for the research, and created maybe eight or nine different documents, and then I uploaded those into a project with within Claude. And then from there. It combines them all together so it keeps it in its own like sandbox container, using AI as it is. But then this is additional training that I’ve developed from research and statistics that I used a different AI for and plugged it in here. So anytime I need to write something, it uses that data point in order to actually write the scripts. And then I combined it. I uploaded a PDF, no joke, of the way of the wolf from Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of Wall Street. So now it’s writing the scripts in that style using my data, because it’s all contained in this project. It’s freaking awesome. I could see you using it, dude to where you could actually take a customer, you have a client, get all the data for their brand story and everything else, and everything else, and then plug it in into a project within Claude, and then add some existing material that you’ve used already, you know.

 

John Sampogna  

Yeah, we we use, it’s like, called a rag. It’s basically like, you’re taking, you’re using a large language model, but then what’s sitting in front of it is a set of, like, closed data, yeah, could be like, all proprietary wonder sauce information around our existing our proposals, our point of view on different things, whatever, like, it’s closed box, right? And it allows you to basically, like, use the beauty of Jedi, but in a more controlled data sense. So you’re getting work that is inspired by things you’ve already done and said, versus just like the ether of everything that’s ever existed on that topic and things you may not believe or have to fact check and everything like that. So yeah, that’s cool, man, I’ll have to check it out.

 

Rick Jordan  

Yeah, it’s pretty awesome. Brother, I’m glad you’re using it that way too. You’re pretty much doing what a lot of organizations are taking advantage of now too, is they’re taking their own internal data sets, yeah? And then they’re adding to, you know, they’re using that, you know, it’s something that’s proprietary to you, but then enhancing the large language model as it is, which then becomes unique to your company. Yep, that’s awesome, dude, very cool. Yeah, super cool. This is a great combo. I’m loving it, dude. So what’s next for Wonder sauce? Where do you see this going?

 

John Sampogna  

Yeah, I mean, so we’re based in New York. We’re about 100 people, and the business is split between three key focus areas. We do a lot of content creation and campaign development, which is what we’re talking about largely here the next part is that really, we do a lot of media buying, so everything from, you know, social, search, TV out of home, digital out of home, CTV, all that stuff. And then we also do a lot of like building tech. So we build and design e commerce, experiences, websites, mobile applications. And we’re even building, you know, stuff in the AI space. So it’s kind of like three different businesses that are jammed together. And our whole vision, which is very unpopular in the in the agency space, is that the future of agencies is full service. And I want people that are full funnel marketers thinking about our brands so people are comfortable thinking about everything from brand awareness through consideration and conversion, everyone everything from creative and content to media and acquisition, all the way through like infrastructure and technology. Because I believe that customer journeys right now and the way consumers experience things, it’s all so dynamic and fluid. And there’s no single entry point to a business. So you need to be an expert in user experience one moment, and then an expert in like media and trends another moment, and then the next. You have to be great at like content development and ultimately delivering something that’s engagement. So we are continuity. Yeah, we’re trying to be like a consultant to businesses that can actually across the entire journey. So it’s been an ambitious kind of 10 plus year crusading we’ve been on. And it’s, it’s, it’s really bearing fruit, because a lot of our our brands right now are, are kind of like taking advantage of multiple aspects of our service, and it’s been, it’s been fun. So I think looking into next year and into the future, it’s, it’s obviously like seeing what the impact of all this emerging tech is going to do to the broader, you know, advertising services model, and then ultimately figuring out which high value services will matter most to us and our clients, and just doubling down on that stuff.

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s awesome. And, I mean, we started the show before we were talking in the in the Digital Green Room about, you know, yeah, the show’s about entrepreneurship and and continuing to build a business. What you just described man is evolution, because you said it’s been 10 years. 10 years, you know, you’ve been on this mission for 10 years, and you’ve seen the evolutions in your industry, but you haven’t stayed stagnant, because, I mean your industry, I’ve seen it. I mean, I can, I can affirm you right now. Every component is typically siloed, you know, and you have to have one agency do. The x right? Ads, you have to have another agency doing traditional media ad buys, another one doing Ott, you know, just across the board, another one doing the creative that might even feed it into some of those other ones, you know. But the evolution is what, what makes well, it makes entrepreneurship fun. It also makes you survive and then even thrive. Otherwise you just die if you stay how you were 10 years ago. 

 

John Sampogna  

100%, like our only constant has always been changed, yeah. And I think that, you know, I think that the model I described, it works really well for businesses that spend, like all in, you know, two to $10 million yeah, you can go higher than that, but on your own marketing every year, and it just doesn’t make sense to manage three or four parties. It really doesn’t. And I think that when you could find a lead agency to I mean, even if it means bringing in people different firms from time to time, you need a lead partner that you trust and you can work with against your biggest business goals. And that is what we believe to be the most crucial thing in terms of scaling businesses. I don’t want to be, you know, managing a website and focused on conversion rate, managing a media plan and focused on lowering the CPMs, or, you know, Luering the CPA, and then, you know, working on your creative campaign. I want the ultimate goal to be whatever it is, and to have all those tactics and efforts to be leveling into that goal. And if it’s not working, then you know who to blame, and it is working, then that’s great, but to me, like that’s that’s such a crucial part of where the internet is going right now, because I don’t think the consumer knows where Instagram and tick tock start and where a brand’s website ends.

 

Rick Jordan  

Right on, or even if there’s gonna be a tick tock three months from now, yeah, for sure, that was a little political plug in. But seriously, who knows? I mean, who knows what’s gonna happen? You know, the threats out there.

 

John Sampogna  

it’s, definitely a threat. 

 

Rick Jordan  

Yep, right on. I love it, brother, dude, you were clearly extremely wise and knowledgeable, and I’m sure you’ve taken your hard lumps over the years to get them. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with everybody today, dude, thanks for coming on. Oh, man, it’s been a pleasure. Yeah, right on. I feel you. I think everybody needs hair like you. I might think about growing mine on right now, or they got the fade going. Yep, I love it. Sweet brother John, we can find you a wonder sauce.com, right? Where can we find you personally? Are you out there? Are you one of the marketers? This is interesting. I just talked with somebody today that’s in marketing and brand, but he’s like, I don’t have a website. I’m really not on social. I’m like, I talk to so many brand storytellers that are that way, you know, and that’s like, part of it. I don’t know if you you’re the same or not, but, but I’ve seen so many they’re like, Yeah, I don’t have you do obviously wonder, wonder sauce, right? But it’s like, personally, they’re nowhere except the company.

 

John Sampogna  

Then you can check me out, like, on LinkedIn. I’m fairly active there, very cool. My old website as well. But yeah, LinkedIn and wondersauce.com best place to find.

 

Rick Jordan  

Awesome. Brother John, thanks for coming on, my man. I appreciate you.

 

John Sampogna  

Thanks so much. Take care.