Unlocking Differentiation: How to Make Your Investment Strategy Stand Out

Moderator 1: Welcome to the Rainmaker Podcast with your host, Gui Costin. The goal of this podcast is to give listeners a unique look into sales strategies from top industry executives. We introduce you to the heads of sales and heads of distribution, who will help you understand the inner workings of the successful sales organizations from philosophy to execution. This podcast is essential for sales professionals seeking wisdom from the best in the field. If you're not familiar with Dakota and their Dakota Rainmaker content, please check out dakota.com to learn more about their services.

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Gui Costin: What is up, everybody. It's Gui Costin, Founder and CEO of Dakota. Welcome to the latest edition of The Rainmaker Podcast. I'm so excited to be joined by Mark Levy. Mark Levy is founder of Levy innovation, a differentiation strategy firm whose big sexy ideas have reached hundreds of millions worldwide. He's advised CEOs, major brands, Harvard leaders and prominent thought leaders like Simon Sinek. Mark's TEDx Talk, Using the Obvious to Stand Out in Life and Business, has been watched over a million times. He's written for the New York Times and has authored several books, including Accidental Genius, published in 11 languages and has been a bestseller in multiple formats. Mark, welcome.

Mark Levy: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Gui Costin: So, everyone, this is a very different guest, to use your terminology than we've ever had before. Mark and I met just a couple of weeks ago down in Boston. I happened to be up in New Hampshire, and it was at a seminar, and we got to chatting, and he said, hey, I live in New Hope, right?

Mark Levy: That's right.

Gui Costin: But he has a very different background, but it's very relevant to the investment business. And so, most of you who are listening today are in the distribution business, sales, and marketing, for investment firms, right, so raising capital, and differentiation better the whole thing. You're an expert, and we're going to get into your background but on differentiation. So, before we get going, I just want you to why I invited Mark on, and what I think the value that he can bring to all fund raisers as we're thinking about positioning our strategies where the big word today is the D word. We're going to talk a lot about differentiation, and Mark has a huge background in that. So that is your career, 25 years, so get into it. Could you give us just a little background on you and your career?

Mark Levy: Sure. So, I'm a differentiation expert. I differentiate organizations, brands, and thought leaders around a big, sexy idea, a differentiating idea, the idea that's going to make them known throughout their entire marketplace, or sometimes even throughout the entire world. So it's what's the thing that's going to make you stand out, and then how do you talk about it clearly and engagingly, so in pitches, in conversation from the stage, in your marketing and so forth, so that anyone who hears that idea and falls in love with that idea has to seek you out, because you're the one who embodies that idea. You represent that idea in people's minds. If they tried to get that point of differentiation from another firm other than you, they would be getting a weak diet version of the idea, a stinky, flat version of the idea. So, for full potency, they have to come to you. And so, I've done this on the biggest stages possible. So, I've spoken at companies, Google and Adobe and Amazon or American Express and so forth. But what I'm really known for is I tend to work with people as individuals. So, some of the people that you've heard of who I've worked with, Simon Sinek of Start with Why fame or the head of strategy of the Harvard Business School, the former head of the strategy unit or so forth. So, it's places where they want to stand out in a way where they're all charismatic individuals, but they have to come up with an idea that's so important to people that people will talk about it even when they're not around, even when they're not in the room.

Gui Costin: Right. So, let's unpack this a little bit because one of the biggest topics here is different versus better. So, in the investment business there's always a comparison to another investment strategy. It doesn't matter what it is, right? You're always being compared to someone. They're always having to choose one of two, one of three, one of five, one of 10. So, it's all about differentiation, but a lot of people talk about better. But if you think about our world and you think about Warren Buffett, who has a story in the same way, Carl Icahn, these iconic investors, but they have actually mastered exactly what you're saying. So, this is very relevant if we just start to think about the investment world, even though it's a little more opaque and not as commercial, but there are many, many investors out there that are big brand names that adhere to one big idea. Could you just talk about what is the difference between different versus better and why?

Mark Levy: Right. So, the idea of being better, when you create a brand around just being better, what you're already doing is playing into what already exists. Better just means a degree further than what exists. And then it usually just becomes opinion. When you're better, you're marketing and so forth, calls up images of your competitors and so forth, because you have to show who you're better than. So being better is always not a great place to play. So being different-- the thing about being different, I always talk to my clients, one of the best ways of being different, so that you create your own category, is that you need to look at things illogically, because often when people try to differentiate, they come up with a weak point of differentiation. It's not interesting to anyone, and that's because they're differentiating against what already exists in the world.

Gui Costin: OK. So, let's talk about because Chris Lochhead, one of my favorite guys, category of one.

Mark Levy: Sure.

Gui Costin: Right. I always focus on that, whether it's the Rainmaker Podcast that we're doing right now, Dakota Live, Dakota Marketplace, Dakota Cocktails, we have all these categories of one. We're truly on our own. We're the only one in the category and a database built by fundraisers for fundraisers category of one. Dakota Cocktails, networking events, free hottest spot in any town across the country, category of one. Can you talk about-- because we also have an investment firm that we've worked with for 19 years, Edgewood Management, 22 stocks, OK, category of one. No one else has that concentrated with 22. It never goes 21 or 23, really intense rigor. So, we've experienced that. So, it is possible to create a category of one. How would you recommend people go about thinking about creating a category of one?

Mark Levy: Well, the first thing that they need to do is they need to write down every assumption that people have about their field or about their business, that you list assumptions that people have walking in even without even knowing you. And then you look at each assumption one by one, and you ask, why does that assumption need to be there? What if we actually turn that assumption on its head? What if we did the exact opposite of that assumption? So, this is brainstorming stuff. What would our business look like? What would we do for clients that are different, right? You have to take that kind of extreme look, as you know with all these categories of one. I mean, I'm talking to someone, an expert yourself at doing this. In order to differentiate properly, when you're brainstorming have to go extreme. So, an example, and I think I first read about this from Seth Godin, who I love as well. So, Seth talks about that you should find a micro audience, perhaps even an audience of one. This is an exercise. It's, like, who is the premier person who you want to impress? And then how could you overwhelm them? The key word is overwhelming them. Designing a business that's exactly for them, where, if you executed upon this business for them, they would say, oh my God, I cannot believe that he exists. This is crazy. I can't believe I found someone who so perfectly would be able to execute for me. So, it's that idea of getting very specific about who your very best client would be, and then throw out all logic and just say, what are all the way that we could overwhelm them, where they would just think we were the greatest thing in the world.

Gui Costin: So, one pro tip that I like to give to our audience, if you will, and I did this in 2006, and I do it for every firm that we work for, because we are a third-party marketer, so we're always taking on new investment strategies. So, I said, if you want to figure out the different simply ask the portfolio manager this question, what motivates you and gets you excited to get out of bed every day and come to the office? So, if you think about the investment business, the talent goes up and down the elevator every day. We hear a lot of gobbledygook and all the talk about investments that don't really make sense, but when you ask that question, they bring out the passion, the excitement, and what really motivates them. And then they start to get in what makes us different. And so that's worked extremely well. So, for instance, in 2006, when I started Edgewood Management, I asked Alan Breed, Alan, what is your investment strategy? And he goes, yeah, I'm not going to go there. OK. But I'm going to ask you one question, Gui. I said, what's that? He goes, the S&P 500. If you could pick one company to be your family business, what would it be? And I was like; well, that Visa looks pretty good. It's a duopoly. It has high and recurring revenue, generates a lot of cash, great management team, high and increasing margins, online payments back then were growing and growing and growing. He goes yes; those are the characteristics. So, we just want to own 22 of those and diversified.

Mark Levy: Oh, there you go.

Gui Costin: Bingo. Is that not the easiest thing to understand? So basically 22 super high-quality companies that you would want to have be your family business. And so, it is very, very possible in the investment business, as opaque as it is to create very differentiated positioning and marketing category of one.

Mark Levy: And I love what it is you're saying. Also, no, though, because I've been doing this for 25 years. Often people can answer questions like that right away. Not everyone can.

Gui Costin: Yeah.

Mark Levy: It's because they're too tight. They don't really what it is they should be saying. They haven't thought about it in that way. So, to me, it's very important that when you're speaking to people, when you're trying to come up with this point of differentiation, that you get them off their normal ways of thinking. You have to ask them-- so, for instance, I just had a TEDx Talk done over a million views, and it's really about using the obvious to stand out in life and business. And it's because of this idea. The key word there is obvious and obviousness.

Gui Costin: Tell us what does that mean to you?

Mark Levy: Yeah. In business, and I can even tell you a story about it that would be very relevant for everyone, so people often think that their point of differentiation needs to be something spectacular that human beings have never thought of before in the world. That is absolutely not the case. As a matter of fact, the place to start would be for looking at the obvious. So quick story, and I tell this in the TEDx. It's a story that I learned. There's a book from 100 odd years ago by a guy named Claude Hopkins, famous advertising man at the time. So, this was the Hopkins story. Hopkins got a call from the head of the Schlitz Brewery, and the Head of the Schlitz brewery, said Mr. Hopkins, there are five big breweries in the United States. And on that list of five, we're number five. We're in last place. We need your help, Claude Hopkins said, I promise I can help you, but in order to help you, I'm going to have to tour your brewery. Schlitz said, you're not going to find anything if you tour a brewery, but if that's a condition of hiring you, it's easy. You're in Michigan. We're in Milwaukee. Just hop on a train, remember early 20th century, and come here, and we'll give you a tour. And Hopkins did just that, and what he saw at the Schlitz brewery astonished him. So, we're talking about beer. This is for financial services too. So, the first thing they showed him in the Schlitz Brewery was an artesian well 3,000 feet deep. The reason why they went that deep, Schlitz said, was they wanted to make the purest beer on earth, so they needed to start with the purest water on earth. Too close to the surface, too many impurities, so they went 3,000 feet deep. By the way, artesian well means that pure water was shooting out of the earth like a geyser. And Hopkins was very impressed, and then they showed him a machine that steam cleaned every bottle four separate times before they'd pour the beer into it. So, if the beer was pure, they didn't want to introduce impurities in the bottling, so four times would steam. And then they showed him under lock and key in a vault, that it had taken Schlitz Brewers 1,200 experiments to create. It was the single mother yeast cell. It was the single cell that Schlitz brewers and the Schlitz hierarchy created, that it had the master flavor. So, every bottle of Schlitz beer that ever had been made was influenced by this thing, and every bottle Schlitz that ever would be made was influenced by this thing. And Hopkins was standing right there, right by it, and he was freaking out. And he said, oh my God, this place is a wonderland. Why aren't you telling people about all these wonders I don't understand? And the head of Schlitz said, Mr. Hopkins, I told you wouldn't understand, and obviously, you don't understand. This place is not a wonderland. These things are not wonders. This is how you brew beer. This is how we brew beer, and this is how our four other competitors. We all do everything identically. So, what we're doing here at Schlitz is nothing special. What we're doing is very ordinary. And Claude Hopkins, the famous advertising man, said, well, that well may be, but the public doesn't about any of this. So, Hopkins proceeded to write a series of advertisements detailing every single thing he saw, the 3,000-foot artesian well, the machine that cleaned the bottles four times, the 1,200 experiments and more. And they ran them in The Saturday Evening Post and so forth. And in less than a year, Schlitz went from being number five, last place, to being neck and neck, at least for number one. So, to me, the moral of that story, and I have used this technique, I've worked with thousands of companies. It is what is ordinary to you may be extraordinary to your marketplace if they only knew about it.

Gui Costin: So, what I just heard right there is a story. OK. And every investment strategy does have a story. And if you can get the story and figure out what the story is, and what makes you different, that to me is what I just heard, is you just told me a story that Schlitz, the advertising agency, and he figured out the story, but the Schlitz thought the story was ordinary, right? When I sit down, and I look at an investment strategy, there's always a story. That's what I said. The guy gets up in the morning. The woman gets up in the morning. Why did he come to work? There's a story about why? Right now, you're Simon Sinek and why? So maybe you want to share with us how you got Simon Sinek off the ground, if you will, with the concept of why? But I always come back to that. There's always a story about an investment strategy. It's just done you take the time to figure out what the story is?

Mark Levy: Well, can I ask you, what is the story? When you say there's always a story in an investment strategy, what might the stories be about?

Gui Costin: The stories are always about your process, right? How you've gotten to where you are today. And that's what differentiates you, right? But a lot of people don't sit down and think about how they do things, right? They just do things. Just like you said, we just do things, right? We're ordinary. We just do things. But an outsider comes in, and we're looking at a hedge fund right now to go work with, and my goodness, what a story they have. But they had a teeny, little bump in the road, that is, and everyone would look at that as a negative. It's the greatest positive ever, because it wasn't catastrophic. It was a little bump in the road. It would have caused them to do is-- it caused them to change one of their processes around where they saw exposures in the portfolio, right? And then they changed that. And now, they've had three years of numbers to support how well the changes have been enacted. And even though they had a 27-year track record, 27 years of doing this, four years ago, they said a little bump in the road, like I said, not catastrophic, but definitely not where they want to be. Well, that's good news, bad news. That turned out to be good news, that bump in the road versus bad news. And that is the story. It created an inflection point, right? Because they made changes, and then there was changes have now born out with spectacular numbers, not just performance but how they get to the performance. So, to me, right there, you got that story, right? The story is great from 27 years, had a blip on the road four years ago, knew they needed to make some changes, made some changes, and then the past three years, not just in the actual performance number and how they get to the performance completely flipped.

Mark Levy: Right. So, a few things that you're saying there that really, I adore. So, one of them is where you talked about a blip in the road and so forth. It is incredibly important to identify these anomalies, these surprises that happen, both good and bad. Because when you're talking, like, in that story, it was fantastic, and it was the blip in the road that pulled people in to listen to. It's like, oh, what I expected to happen was not happening. So, what happened because of that? So, one of the things that I do with clients all the time is, first, in order to find this point of differentiation, we look at what is painfully obvious to them, just that you'd almost be embarrassed to tell me about it, because remember, what's obvious to you may not be obvious to other people. So, it's what's painfully, just embarrassingly obvious. And then in the work that you're doing, what surprises people? Like when you first started doing this work, what was it that surprised you? When you talk to new employees or new clients, what surprises them? Because surprises are where the action is. Surprises means that expectations were defeated. You were supposed to go one way, and you went another way. And so now everyone is going to be paying attention. As a matter of fact, I was once asked, someone once asked me on LinkedIn, they said, what's your favorite differentiation strategy? It was with some question like that. And I said, if I only had one minute to differentiate someone, let's say, they were about to go on stage, and we only had a minute, and I would ask them, I'd say, what's the most genuinely surprising thing about your work? I would hang everything on surprise. And I would say, OK, lead with that point of differentiation. Maybe the surprise is how you started the business. Maybe the surprise is how you overcame some obstacle. Maybe the surprise is a piece of philosophy that people wouldn't expect. So, surprise is a huge thing. Another huge thing in order to find differentiation, and this is something that, again, you're an incredible expert at is, when you think about your business, just instantly go to what stories come to mind when I think about my business. Story is the golden key to unlocking everything important at what you're doing. Because stories are how human beings make meaning of life. Things happen to us, and some things we just ignore, and other things we take in, and we incorporate them into a story, and we hang on to those stories. So, I'll put it differently. If you think about your business and you start to think about all the stories that come to mind, you're probably remembering those stories, even if some of them seem very minor, like, who cares about this. You're probably remembering these stories because they have something important within them. Otherwise, you wouldn't remember them, or at least, this is the game that you should play. You should take every story, crack it open, and say, what's important? What's the lesson here? What's the idea here? Why I remember this and not just flush it? Why did it even come to me?

Gui Costin: All right, so I'd like to hear your comments on this.

Mark Levy: Yes.

Gui Costin: OK, so every investment strategy has a story.

Mark Levy: Yes.

Gui Costin: Everyone listening to this podcast and listening to your thoughts works for an investment firm typically and raises money.

Mark Levy: Right.

Gui Costin: OK. So, they have to face off against what we call gatekeepers or due diligence analysts. You're never selling to the end buyer. You're always selling to somebody who's selling to an investment committee or selling to their boss, who then has to sell to an investment committee, then has to sell to the client. So, the most important thing is, this is what I want you to comment on, people don't remember numbers, and we're in a numbers business. And our business is all numbers and numbers and numbers. Now, there's a story to the numbers. OK. But people remember stories. So, you have to be able to tell a story that someone can remember. Why? Because when you leave the office and they walk down the hallway to one of their partners or their boss, their CIO, whomever, hey, who was that guy. Gui, and what do they do? Oh, it's great. He works for Edgewood Management. They manage a 22 stock, high-quality, large cap growth portfolio, because I told the story that was very memorable. So, comment on that because I think at the end of the day, we have to be telling stories that are repeatable, because we never sell to the end buyer, ever. We're always selling to somebody that sells to someone else. Now, in the rare circumstance, the only exception there would be potentially if you're selling directly to a financial advisor. OK, the financial advisor, you're not selling to the client, you're telling the financial advisor, who has the high net worth individual that he might, or she might, have to convince them to, hey, this is something we would want to invest in, but you have to inform the financial advisor of the story so they can tell the story to their client. So, storytelling is everything in investment business.

Mark Levy: So, the first thing that people need to understand is what constitutes a story, right? Because everyone knows that stories are very important, but a story can be a longish case study. That can be a story, but it can also be in a line. Like the famous Steve Jobs, 1,000 songs in your pocket, or was it 10,000 songs in your pocket? That, to me, constitutes a story that's saying, oh, you're going to be able to carry your very favorite stuff around with you. So, what it is that you need to do, where you have to get around gatekeepers. So, the first thing that I do in situations like that, I research the heck out of the person who I'm going to be speaking to. If I'm able to. Sometimes there's situations where I can't, but whenever it is that I'm calling upon a company, I've probably done hours of research. I watched videos of them speaking. I've looked at their tweets or whatever you want to call them. I've done all these things. So, I have all these different facts about who they are. And particularly, I try to get things about even the gatekeeper, if I can. And when I go in, I almost invariably just talk about something that I know is important to them. And then I talk about how I have something that's potentially can go a little further than that, if that makes sense. I know I'm being very general because we're not talking about a specific company, but to put it differently, anytime someone's pitching I always rest on something-- you need to go in talking about them. It's how their life is going to be different. This is so key. When people try to differentiate, they almost always try to make it about how they're going to stand out, like, how good they are, how good their business is, and so forth. It's almost always how are your clients. How's their life going to be different even after you've left.

Gui Costin: Right. So, if you're a master storyteller, as I always talk about in my book, that's the job, is you have to be this master storyteller. I always think about if you have practiced and worked really hard on your investment story, and you're able to tell a story, you want to be able to make the person that's listening, the gatekeeper or the due diligence analyst, look great. OK, so if you can tell a story about your strategy that they can absorb, because what they want to be able to do is take the idea to their boss, to their CIO, to their investment committee, to their client and tell a great story. Hey, I found this really interesting investment strategy that's different, and let me explain why? And if you say that story, because stories can be remembered, not numbers, the goal is to make your due diligence look good in front of their boss. But that requires, like, we're in a consultative sale business. We're an education business. But really what that all means, they're all just stories that you're telling.

Mark Levy: Well, related to what you're saying, how do you find what stories to tell?

Gui Costin: When I think of an investment strategy?

Mark Levy: Yes.

Gui Costin: Right. I always just think about what is different about how we approach the world? What is the--

Mark Levy: Right. And I apologize I don't mean to step on you, but it's the idea. This is so key for everyone listening. It's that they can't how you think. So, you need to tell them how you think.

Gui Costin: Yes.

Mark Levy: That is the key among all keys. They can't see into your mind, so you need to give them an X-ray of your mind.

Gui Costin: Yes. I just want to agree with you because I not only not so much believe that I always tell everyone, and then I have to caveat it, like, you need to tell your listener what they want to hear. You need to tell them-- because you should ahead of time what they want to hear, and then you tell them the story of what they want to hear. You're not brown nosing them. You're telling them exactly what they need to hear and what they want to hear.

Mark Levy: Because you know that much about them.

Gui Costin: Well, you should know. I mean, if you've been in our business six months or even a year, right, and you break down or to use what you've been saying, just start with the end in mind. What would the perfect pitch look like? If you were telling a story to due diligence analyst and you know what they're looking for, then put it in the words that would make them get very excited. I always say at the end of the day, if you were marketing an athlete, you're not going to sit there with Nike and tell them all the mistakes this woman makes-- this man makes. You're not going to say all the-- you're going to tell them what they want to hear, all the attributes that are going to make the brand look good if they associate themselves with this individual athlete, right? And, of course, that's the easiest way to think about it. You're not going to represent a supermodel and tell all the stuff that she does horribly, right? You're going to talk about all of her strengths, right? Meaning my point is-- but that's where the practice part comes in. It requires so much thinking, like you were saying, like the practice and the thinking and the thinking about what makes you different. What is the story? Does the story completely connect? It might bring up some questions, but the story doesn't like to hit a brick wall after every turn. That's sequential. It all makes sense. It all comes together. But that takes practice. That takes a lot of thinking ahead of time. And then once you do that, and then you start telling the story, and you see how people react to the story, then you learn. You got to face live pitching.

Mark Levy: Right. You're practicing in front of people--

Gui Costin: Yes.

Mark Levy: --in doing that. That's the only way to do it. As you're saying it, you have to be very studied in the pitch. But to go back to this idea of giving people an X-ray, which is what you do, giving people an X-ray of how you're thinking because they can't know-- see someone might make some amazing investment, and someone listening might just think it's luck. So, you need to let them know here's the situation. Here's what the problem was in the situation. I came in. I looked at x, y, and z and then I saw something that no one else was seeing. I saw this, and because of this, we did this. And here was the result.

Gui Costin: That's beautiful.

Mark Levy: Right. So, thank you so much. So, it's the whole idea of saying, here's the situation, and you have to say what it is you did in a small way. People don't really care. But I did my due diligence. I looked at this and this and this, and then I saw something that it's just no one was paying attention to, and it was this. And that's what we based our strategy on. And then people go, oh my god. I have to hire this guy because I don't know if I would get thinking like that from anyone else.

Gui Costin: So, no, and I love that. And so, what we started off talking about was the high level, hey, here's the strategy, right? Now, what you've delved into, which is beautiful, because we talk about this and encourage all of our customers to do quarterly conference calls and quarterly webinars. And within that webinar, we coach them to pick, just like you just did, a particular investment that they've made and tell the story of why they made the investment and drop back to the bigger concept of the bigger strategy, and how it has insight into our investment process, right? So now you're going at the top telling the story of how we invest to then telling a specific story on a quarterly basis of your best idea that you've just put in the portfolio and why and tell the story around that as it relates then back to the process. So, both are-- one, is a macro story, right? One's a micro story, but still, it's storytelling and people-- And then it's very hard to get away with, in the investment business, a story that's incongruent. You know what I mean, because they'll call you out there. They're professionals at calling you out. But if the story actually makes sense, they might want clarification. But if you've done your homework and you've really practiced and studied why we went about this and how it relates to our broader strategy, that's how you win people over, because then they start to be more and more convinced on the education they're receiving from you around the story.

Mark Levy: Right. It's like when we used to learn math in the old days, it's shown your work. So, you want to show them, oh, we came up with this amazing thing. And here's my work that proves I earned the right to tell this story. You want to earn the right to do it. And the interesting thing about what you do with your quarterly meetings and having people articulate what their philosophy was or their strategy or their approach to the deal that they made is that you're helping to develop greater efficacy in them, because now suddenly they're learning strategies that they may have used inherently, but never really thought about explicitly. So, the fact that they have to articulate what it is that they did, I would argue other people now gain the power of understanding those strategies and judgments. But even the person talking who used it gains extra power, saying, oh, that's right, I did that. I'm going to use that strategy again, whereas they may not have thought about it. So, I applaud you for doing something that brilliant. I love it.

Gui Costin: No, it's fun. And Mark, so as we're closing out one final question, because I do want you to be able to tell everyone where they can find you, because I strongly believe in differentiation. OK. Different versus better. Every investment strategy has a story. It does potentially require some coaching because people can get so close to it. So, encouraging them-- so before we get there though, just closing thoughts on just how important in a world today that's so noisy, the investment business is so crazy competitive, how important it is to be so thoughtful about your investment story as you're talking to potential investors.

Mark Levy: So, you could argue that differentiation, as important as it always was, differentiation was created in the 19th century to sell soap because, right, when soap had a blue streak, one soap was soap on a rope, so you wouldn't lose it in the tub. One soap was peppermint, so you'd wake up. One soap was lavender, so you'd go to sleep and so forth. That's how differentiation was created. It's really with information becoming so commoditized, the most important thing in the world now, you could argue, is differentiation because you have to stand out from your story, and you have to show people that you're the right person to use this information, right? If the information is commoditized, then the only thing that really can be differentiated is you and how you work with the information to come up with something extraordinary for them. Because the raw materials, they could get anywhere, but without the differentiation like why they would use anyone. So that's your differentiation. Your differentiation as to hammer that home.

Gui Costin: So, as we close out, we sell some minds in terms of the people, the men and women, that we work with, brilliant investors, brilliant thinkers, a little bit more, of course, successful because they have a very analytical mind, not as abstract. And a lot of times what it takes because it takes a little coaching session to actually bring the story out because they might not think, like you said, what's obvious is boring. That's not really different. And why it could require a coach when you're dealing with people who are really deeply analytical minds, which make them such successful investors. So, the question Mark for you is, how can people find if they want to talk to you?

Mark Levy: I appreciate it. Well, if I may just--

Gui Costin: Yeah.

Mark Levy: And I'll answer that. But what I would argue is you sometimes have to go to such boringness in studying your business that something remarkable appears from within. You don't want to share the boringness with your client or so, because they won't sit still for that. But it's looking through the insanely boring that you identify something that is just going to blow people away. So again, I'm Marc Levy, and so my site is levyinnovation.com. That's L-E-V-Y innovation.com. And there you have my phone number my email. Everything's there.

Gui Costin: Well, I'm so glad that we met down in Boston, such a blast from here up in Boston. I love the way that you think. It is everything in marketing, not better, different, right? It's such a big deal. I can't thank you enough for being on the podcast. This has been a real treat.

Mark Levy: Thank you so much.

Gui Costin: You got it, Mark. All right, thanks. All right, everyone, that's a wrap. One of the most unique Rainmaker interviews that we've had. A very differentiated human being here in Mark, reach out to him. Mark Levy, levyinnovation.com. And with that, we'll see you in the next Rainmaker Podcast.

Moderator 1: You can find this episode and others on Spotify, Apple, or your favorite podcast platform. We are also available on YouTube if you prefer to watch while you listen. If you would like to check up on past episodes, check out our website dakota.com. Finally, if you like what you're hearing and seeing, please be sure to like, follow, and share these episodes. We welcome all your feedback as well. Thank you for investing your time with Dakota.

Gui Costin: Hey, thanks so much for joining Rainmaker Podcast. Hope you enjoyed the show, enjoyed the interview. I know loved it. And hey, if you wake up in the morning and you raise money for an investment firm, you do cold outreach, whether you're a sales leader or salesperson, and you don't about Dakota Marketplace, we would love to show it to you. It's world class. It's used by over 880 investment firms and over 3,600 individual salespeople. To learn more, go to dakota.com and click on a free trial.