Drive local growth as a hospitality hero

Justin Ulrich
That’s right. That’s right.

Michael Beck
Love it. Absolutely love it. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. Really excited to be here. Love a lot of what you’re doing on the show and what you’re trying to accomplish in the community. So thank you.

Justin Ulrich
Of course, of course. I appreciate you jumping on. Not only am I a big Marvel fan as well, but, you know, we’ve been connected for, you know, quite a few months now, met a while back and figured, you know, hey, there’s a potential to partner together on some things and help co-collaborate and some marketing efforts. 

But I love your background. You know, maybe you could take us through a little bit of your background and how you got to where you are now and then touch a little bit on Popcorn GTM and what you guys do over there.

Michael Beck
Yeah, when people say background, I started thinking about the background, but absolutely. So, yeah, I’ve been doing this for a while. You said 20 years. There’s a whole mix of things that happened in there, but for about 30 years, I’ve been active as a professional. After leaving the US army, went to culinary school for a little while after I got out with my army college fund. 

And I absolutely, absolutely love the food world. I love everything to do with hospitality. The need to serve. Right. I think I was on a podcast not too long ago and we were talking about that, and it’s really, it almost is a selfish need for us. You know, the hospitality people out there, we do it because we like to help people. We like to feel good about helping people. Right? And that’s something. I’m a people pleaser. I love to put smiles on faces and I like to solve problems. 

And so after I got done with culinary school, I joined up with a guy named Kareem Hamaui. We started a production company called Innovative Productions. It was a small catering company, but in California, catering is never just catering. We ended up getting roped into the Century City Bar Association, which is the hub of all entertainment law in LA. 

And so we were doing all their functions and by merit of that business we did with them, we did a good job. And next thing we know, creative artists tapped us on the shoulder and said, hey, can you do all of our big events, like the Oscar parties and after parties? And at that, after that point, now we’re talking about, you know, jousting segues between Matt Damon and other celebrities where they’re doing things like, I see, I saw stuff I never thought I’d see, right? 

Yeah, absolutely. Super fun. Paparazzi on the other side of the wall. Every person you’ve ever seen before you’ve ever wanted to talk to. Pretty cool stuff. And then there’s an economic downturn, and I sold off my client list, and I wasn’t making the same money I was, and the work just didn’t seem to be worth it the same way. And I took a pause, and then somewhere along the way, I had a reset, and I found myself on monster.com and I ran into a company called Altimetrics. And it was my first software job in hospitality. 

And it was just a mix of different skill sets, right, that twisted road we all take. And so, you know, I love food. I also am a nerd. So I build my own computers every other year, just something I like to do. And technology has always been a thing for me. In the military, I was a tech guy. And so now it combined my two passions, technology and food, right? And, God, how can you lose with that. 

Fred Lafrank gave a speech at PAR a couple of years ago at a PAR Conference, and he talked about the concept of ikigai, right, finding the things that you love to do, things that will bring value to the world and the things you can make money at that intersection. This is it. And so that’s kind of how we got there. So, yeah. 

And then, you know, I spent the majority of my career at Restaurant Magic software. Product was data central, the back office, about eight years there. And we did our job so well that they, some people came and bought the company. So PAR swooped in and bought us up. And I stuck on for about a year and a half. And I learned a lot in those part years, too, because there’s a big difference between a scrappy startup company and corporate, right? 

So I learned things like, it’s not how big your forecast is, how accurately you forecast, and a lot of different things that the MBAs came that brought along with them. So. And then after that, I, you know, I moved on and did the Mary Poppins, as I often say, and was trying to find other children I could help or the job that would give me the same kind of satisfaction I did with the team we were working on. And so, yeah, that led then, three or four years later, to Popcorn GTM.

Justin Ulrich
Very cool. And what is it that Popcorn GTM does?

Michael Beck
Well, I guess you would say just in kind of the three pillars here is we focus on sales and revenue operations, looking at everything that goes into creating a more effective sales machine, all the processes, infrastructure, how you equip up your sales team with what messages to get out there, as opposed to them tinkering and figuring it out every time they try to make an outreach. Right. 

Partnerships. And so the other. One of the other pillars is partnerships, meaning that when you have a new company or somebody bringing their product to the world, you might know a lot about this, but how do they know who to talk to and connect with and really accelerate their journey? By the neural networks that we all kind of natively have after 15, 20, 30 years in this industry. Right. 

And actually, when we surrendered to each other last NRA, we were in the process of taking two of our clients around Nomad Go and Akira and introducing them to all the right people at the end of that show, the funny thing they both said to us, something very similar, was, we couldn’t have done that in three or four years on our own. You could even pointed them at us, and we wouldn’t have the same conversation. 

So our job in the world is to accelerate things. And then the underlying pillar all this is marketing, which is, you know, something near and dear to your heart. Right? And so if we get the message down, if we equip sales with that message, if we have a cohesive brand story to tell, things start to pop. 

And the whole idea behind Popcorn, which was around before I came along, Paul, my business partner, had a company called Popcorn Marketing Group. But I love the idea. Right? Popcorn is a kernel, and it is inert, and there’s nothing going on there, but there’s a huge amount of potential with the right energy and light and focus and…

Justin Ulrich
Butter.

Michael Beck
I love butter. Or even cheddar powder if we want to talk money. But, yes. Yeah, it just pops. And then if everybody in the team is in the same camp and thinking the same way and reading off the same sheet of music, now they become magnifying glasses on that kernel, which amplify that popping even faster and bigger. Hopefully that gave you an answer.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, no, I think that’s great. What are some things that you think you know from a marketing standpoint move the needle? Whether you’re talking about, you know, if it’s in the restaurant space for local operator or it could be a brand, you know, there’s some things that, that kind of fall in the purview of what Popcorn GTM does on the digital side. So what are some of those things that you think are impactful from a marketing standpoint?

Michael Beck
Oh gosh. I mean there’s a lot right. If we’re talking on B2B, it’s all about community building. Right?

The way you are, the way Zack Oates is, the way Shawn Walchef does. We’re building communities around us so we can, one, have a tribe that now thinks the way we do and looks at the world the same way and that we want to do business with and two, that we start sharing all these great ideas and best practices. 

We are as a community and restaurants, we’re so great at bringing people along for the journey. The ones that get it right, then you have that whoever’s in the corner being whatever and they’re on the outside looking and go oh there’s such a click. We were clicked because we click together. Right. 

For brands though, you know if we think about restaurants, they are part of the community right? They are inarguably a part of the community. They eat there. It’s in their community and their children work there right. And, so I think the ones that do it right build a real sense of community around them. 

I was just talking with a peer of ours today, Zerrick Pearson over at Five Guys. And something that really surprised me is…oh sorry, my voice got Zerrick Pearson at Five Guys. Yes. There you go.

Justin Ulrich
There you go.

Michael Beck
And what surprised me is well it shouldn’t have surprised me. I just didn’t know it. And he shared this with me today cause he’s really super passionate about big brothers. Finding bigs for littles out there that dont have the right guidance where theres no data around or somebody to influence on a positive sense and give mentors. And so Five Guys is a real commitment to that and Zerk has a personal attachment to that as well. 

And I think that is probably one of the anchors that surprised me most because its probably one of the most impactful things I’ve heard. They’re not just worried about making revenue and getting a good name out there, they’re actually changing people’s lives at the source. They’re working with kids and they’re making things better. I think that is absolutely massive.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah 100%.

Michael Beck
Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
You think about, like, having a service mindset or a giving mindset. Whether you’re in any type of business or any aspect of your life, you know, you wil build relationships and build trust that is unmatched, I think, in being developed in any other way. When you get in the trenches with folks and you form those bonds, those people will be part of your community and support you for years and years to come, because they’ll never forget how you made them feel. 

And people do business with people. You say that all the time. And if you make them feel great and make them feel like they can trust you and feel like, you know, you care and you’re willing to put in, you know, the sweat to help them succeed, they’ll always be there to support you.

Michael Beck
Yeah. Yeah, it really is. You know, you said it best. You know, we’re in the people business. All of us are in the people business. Every one of us. It’s so funny how detached companies can get from the one thing that we all operate on, which is people. You know, it’s so absolutely important. 

And when we think about the communities we serve and the impacts that these brands have, that’s where people gather. That’s where they spend time. It’s so. And I feel like it’s like this is probably preaching the choir because most of the people listening, like, yeah, this is why we do it, you know, so. 

No, I think they do a really good job of it. I think that there’s a real difference now in the way that people are doing business, though. It used to be, hey, I’m here to sell you a burger. And now it feels more like, okay, we’re here to share a vision of the world that’s inclusive of opportunities and great experiences and great food. It’s different. It’s not just this transactional thing.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, it seems pre-Covid. I think there was a strong sense of hospitality within the industry, and once Covid hit, it shook a lot of things up, and for a time there, it became a little bit more transactional, and I think a lot of people would agree with that. 

And now it’s getting back to yeah, getting back to the roots and understanding. Like, hey, we got to get back to where we were with regards to hospitality and providing great service and great experience and really being in the business of people as opposed to, you know, just trying to survive from a revenue standpoint.

Michael Beck
Yeah. If we’re talking about, like, I’m in a little bit of a different position than some of your other guests that are actually brand operators or, you know, with the brand. But if we look at, you know, some of our peers, like Jeremy Julian, what’s he doing? 

I owe him a big thank you, by the way. I’ll say it to Jeremy out loud if you’re watching, is that our first podcast was the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. Now, somebody could argue that Jeremy has that so he can have a voice and be out there and talk and be like, he’s now a celebrity. My wife’s like, oh, my God. I hear Jeremy on the phone. He’s coming over. You know, it’s like, this is Jeremy. Come on.

Justin Ulrich
I do love that guy.

Michael Beck
Yeah. And he’s just the sweetest, nicest, most genuine guy you’ll ever meet. He’s a man of faith. He’s a family man. He’s the things that you want and people you want to work with. Right. But what Jeremy really does it for is he’s trying to give others a shot. I have a platform you can speak on here and get your message out, much like you’re doing, right, is that you’re giving somebody an opportunity to share their message. 

And hopefully the people watching on will go, I like that. I’d like to be part of that in some way, shape, or form. And I think that’s also powerful. You know, the Ashwin Kumlani‘s with the walk-in-talks. I think that’s a really interesting way to present yourself. 

I think Sean Nugent of New Gentech does a fantastic job of positioning his company in local markets, you know, and he’s both a restaurateur and a technologist. And I don’t know if you’ve ever met him, but he’s somebody I really encourage you get to know if you don’t.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Jeremy, he’s one of the first that also had me on his podcast, which was awesome of him. He was our, I think, he was episode three for us.

Michael Beck
Oh, wow.

Justin Ulrich
Maybe. Maybe four or five. Actually. I think Troy Hooper was episode three, but he was one that, you know, I had familiarity with him from a previous role over at Avero years ago, and I knew that he was just the type of person that he is and extremely knowledgeable as well, and knew that he could have great insights from all the content and stuff he was pushing on LinkedIn. 

So I’m like, we’d love to have you on. Without batting a lash, he said, yeah, I’d love to come on your show. For me, it was great, because when you’re getting started doing something like this, like a podcast or any sort of outreach channel or mechanism that you put in place, it’s tough. It takes a lot of reps to get good at it. And this is going to be probably episode 48 to 50, something like that.

Michael Beck
Oh, wow.

Justin Ulrich
And we’re still learning. I don’t stammer through as much as I used to, and there’s a lot fewer edits, which is great. But when you get the reps, it’s extremely helpful to being successful at what you’re doing. But having someone up front to help guide you. He jumped on a call. He and others like Shawn Walchef and Zack Oates and them jumped out. I had multiple calls with these guys and they, hey, this is what you should be using for equipment, or this is what you should be using. 

Just giving the guidance. That type of approach applies in any type of business. So whether you’re in restaurant or real estate or mortgage or insurance or franchise, whatever it might be, when you’re building these communities, like we mentioned, you know, establishing that rapport, building that trust, I now will turn around and sing Jeremy’s praises to anyone that I can. Right. 

Whether it’s through this vehicle or it’s through conversation of someone who needs some help implementing new technologies within their establishments. He’s my go-to for that type of thing, because…

Michael Beck
He brokered trust. Yeah, absolutely love that.

Justin Ulrich
A rising tide raises all ships. If you’ve listened to other episodes, I say it all the time. Because I wholeheartedly believe it. Yeah. If you give, and whether you’re doing this to your community, highlighting community, heroes, whatever it might be, if you give to others and help them to succeed, eventually it’ll come back to you in more ways than you would ever considered or…

Michael Beck
Yeah, I think that’s just the golden rule. Right? Just comes back to you, you know, you don’t need to dim somebody else’s light to shine all these things that it’s just doing good business. It’s just being good people at the end of the day.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, for sure. Funny coming from the most powerful flex ever with all that marvel gear in the background.

Michael Beck
It’s not my fault. It’s in the room I happen to be talking from.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, your wife said, if you’re going to buy all this stuff, you’re going to stay in that room.

Michael Beck
We don’t want to talk about what my wife said. Literally, our anniversary is yesterday of four years, and…

Justin Ulrich
Oh, congrats. 

Michael Beck
Thank you. Thank you. I found my person, right? And one of the things she says in a very firm, fair, and friendly tone is, if any of more of this stuff migrates its way downstairs, I might migrate out of the house. I’m like, okay, it’ll stay up here, I promise. So, yeah, I think we all have some kind of hobby that our wife goes, you know, maybe, I don’t know. I’m a wacky guy. 

The funny thing is, a couple of months ago, we had a, what they call the home tour. You know, sometimes they select a house in the neighborhood and they. So we had 400 people come through here, and they had docents on every floor to, like, guide them through the house. And I was up here as my own docent, and I’d listen to what people would say and they wouldn’t know I was the owner. 

And they’re like, and the first, the most common question is, what does this guy do? The second most common statement was a husband talking to a wife going, see, I’m not that bad. Whatever his thing was, this wasn’t that bad. Right. And so I think I helped some guys out there inadvertently.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, for sure. Can you zoom out? Is it possible to zoom out?

Michael Beck
Yeah I think so.

Justin Ulrich
For those who are listening, he’s in a room that’s filled with the most Marvel memorabilia I’ve ever seen in one room in my life. It’s like a museum.

Michael Beck
There’s more that way. That’s even crazier. And there’s a whole Star wars section the other direction. The reality is, it’s the room of a serial killer. Oh, it really is. I’ll put some context around so you guys, your audience doesn’t think I’m actually not a serial killer.

Justin Ulrich
Not a serial serial killer.

Michael Beck
Yeah. So actually it’s right here. So several years ago, I’m on the road. My son forgets I’m on the road. Those kids are prone to do. Where are you? I’m like, I told you I was leaving. And so I’m in a different market. He’s like, hey, when you get back, we were at GameStop a couple, you know, a couple days before he left, and we’re going to get this Cartman wizard thing. I’m like. 

He goes, can you get it when we get back? I said, tell you what, if I get this deal, I’ll buy it and I’ll bring it home with me. And that started something. So every time I got the deal, I would get something to measure it with the size of the deal. So there’s some Dairy Queen over there. There’s some Taco Bell over there. There’s a little bit of that. Everything has a meaning in some way, shape, or form. Somebody along the way once told me, nobody will ever give you a trophy for being away from your family. Right.

Justin Ulrich
That’s true. So you buy one.

Michael Beck
So I gave myself a trophy, and now my son and I curate this room that we enjoy. And so, yeah, it’s funny, you know, I was working remote well before COVID came along, and so I started doing some things like this just to make it interesting for me to be stuck in this room. If people ask me, what do you do for a living? I said, I’m an astronaut in training. What do you mean? 

Well, I’m alone all day long, and at the end of the day, I’m still here. This is before I met my wife. I was single, so I just kind of lived in this pod. And so now it makes a little more sense. Something energizing, or whatever you want to call it. And the unconscious themes here, all about heroism and the underdog and, you know, fighting the good fight and all that. I just hope one day, Night at the Museum doesn’t happen.

Justin Ulrich
You do have a fair amount of villains within the room.

Michael Beck
Oh, yeah. It would be. It would be an interesting. It would be an interesting thing. I think this is all gang up on me, though.

Justin Ulrich
That’s hilarious. Well, how many pieces do you have?

Michael Beck
Well, over a thousand.

Justin Ulrich
That’s wild.

Michael Beck
The evaluation right now would get me shot by any accountant.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, we don’t have to talk about that on air.

Michael Beck
Polite people don’t do that.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah.

Michael Beck
Let me go back to my tight shot where we can pretend I’m an executive and a professional.

Justin Ulrich
Well, while we’re on the. While we’re on the topic of Marvel, I thought it would be cool to drop you into AI and maybe come up with an image of you as a hero.

Michael Beck
Oh, lord, I will take that. I think it’s fantastic. I love it. I love it. You got me kind of nomad captain with a little bit of scruff. I’m on it. I get to keep that. Are we going to pass this around the fire to the other people that have been getting these?

Justin Ulrich
I will. Yeah, we’ll definitely share it on social. For those who are listening, it’s a shot of Michael as Captain America. But I couldn’t stop there because, I don’t know, you’re such a Marvel fan.

Michael Beck
Am I all the Avengers?

Justin Ulrich
I wish I didn’t have that much time.

Michael Beck
What did you do?

Justin Ulrich
I wanted to throw you in as Wolverine because to me, he’s one of the baddest heroes.

Michael Beck
Yeah, I like that one. I like that. I also, I look a little bit like Scott Eastwood.

Justin Ulrich
I had one picture to go off of to try to do a face swap, so I did the best I could.

Michael Beck
I think you did great. Was it, what’d you do that with? Was it actually reface or?

Justin Ulrich
I use Midjourney to do it.

Michael Beck
Oh, yeah.

Justin Ulrich
It’s called Face Swapper. It’s an app that layers into Discord there, but…

Michael Beck
Nice. Now I know it. Now I’m definitely going to go play around with that. And you will be getting one. Yes. On it.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, for sure. So before we head out, you mentioned a couple of folks you gave some shout outs. Do you have any other shout outs of individuals or companies you think are doing their local marketing or just marketing really well, yeah.

Michael Beck
So one of the things that we have the benefit of at Popcorn is that we get to talk to new technology that are coming out of the pipe. Right. It’s like all this great stuff around AI, XR, and VR. XR, for those who don’t know, is the umbrella of extended reality. It’s all the things that have to do with virtual reality and augmented and all that is spatial and what have you. 

One of the ones that really, I think is interesting for this audience in particular, there’s a, one of our clients is called Akira. And Akira was looking for a real utility, like real utility with AI. And a couple of, you know, a couple of years ago, when you asked somebody what, what the strategy for the business was all is about, it was all about your IT strategy. Right. And now the questions are, well, what’s our AI strategy? And most, most companies don’t even know what to do with it yet. What’s our AI strategy? I don’t know. Well, I heard we need some.

Justin Ulrich
Okay, we need some AI.

Michael Beck
We need a hot cup of AI in here. 

Justin Ulrich
Sprinkles of AI on it. 

Michael Beck
Salt Bae that AI, right? But nobody knows what to do with it. It all sounds good. First thing we had, first thing you did with Chat GPT, is what? Write a letter to somebody or have it create a form. Right?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah.

Michael Beck
And so what the folks over at Akira did is, uh, they’re a power couple that they, they’ve, they’ve done some software before, had a great exit, and they said, what are we going to do to help restaurants get their arms around feedback. Right. And there’s a lot of ways to go about it. Some people do it amazingly well already, right? We’ve already talked about one of them. 

And so, but what Akira thought around this is that, well, what if I had a thousand locations? Can a human being actually stay on top of all those actual written reviews? Not the pluses or minuses, the actual context. Right. How do you do that? 

And they were looking at one of the big sandwich chains out there, and it turns out that the sandwich chain has an analyst that’s at the top, and they pull in all this data and they give that back to the executive team. They go, look, here’s our NP’s and here’s our reviews. And guess what? None of it makes it to the field. How does that help at all? 

Right, here, here’s my highly paid analyst. It costs a lot of money. It’s going to go to the executive team, who’s going to look at this and go, oh, let’s do something with this, and we’ll do some training in the field to update it. But I think the reality is if I’m ticked off about something, I probably want to hear back pretty soon. If I’m ticked off about it, I’m going to find every person I can to let them know that one I wasn’t heard, and that the brand doesn’t care. Right. 

And so what they say is that their AI sits over all this and it will monitor every review, language-wise, what’s going on. It’ll pull out reoccurring themes and say, hey, listen, this is an ongoing problem across all our brands. Let’s do something about that. And the thing I think that’s really special about what they did is they made it in a way that you can just talk to your data, not writing the thing, not a query. 

Think about it in this context. Hey, Akira, how are my stores doing today? You’re doing well. You have two stores that are now below the three three on your rating review. Can you get the managers on the line for me? Can you also present this information to me until the problem solves itself? And then, by the way, what’s the recommended course of action?

Justin Ulrich
That’s pretty cool.

Michael Beck
And it does the responses so you don’t have to wait on somebody to give a response. It knows the response to give. And when there’s common themes, it’s going to surface that and let you know that you have a problem across the brand without having to have the analysts do it right. That’s powerful.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. Instantaneously, too.

Michael Beck
A long time ago, when I was. A long time, really long time ago, when I was at Restaurant Magic, we kept saying the same thing over and over again. Operators are not analysts. They’re not data scientists. They’re people that are trying to create fantastic experiences, and they don’t have the time to sit there and figure out what it’s trying to tell me. Just tell me what I need to do and I’ll go do that. Right?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, yeah.

Michael Beck
And so it helps with all of that and so less time to worry about, not analyze it. And here’s what you need to do. That’s it. There’s no graphs. Here are the things that you need to do, and here’s how you’re going to resolve it, and here’s how I can track it and take care of it. I think that’s a fantastic approach. So among the people that we work with, I think that that is something that is actually a utility that has real practical application that will change some things.

Justin Ulrich
That’s very cool. Do you have any other, any restaurant brands out there that you think stick out to you from marketing standpoint? Like you’ve seen a post or a campaign or something like that where you’re like, oh, that was incredible.

Michael Beck
Well, I mean, I always love Wendy’s trolley version of things. You know, they went the opposite where everybody’s very sugar and sweet. I’m a big fan of pattern interrupt. Yeah, right. Don’t be like everybody else. So I do think Wendy’s does something really fun with it.

Justin Ulrich
I think when I think of something like, like an instant similar is during the Super Bowl, if you remember those Dunkin Donuts.

Michael Beck
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Justin Ulrich
Those were hilarious.

Michael Beck
The Ben Affleck stuff.

Justin Ulrich
Yes. The fact that they took it a step further and sold swag, like, you could buy the clothing and it sold out like that. I mean, that was genius marketing.

Michael Beck
Oh, yeah. It’s all connected. Right. I think, you know, Devour is doing some interesting stuff that they’re working towards. Right. I don’t know if anybody knows about Devour, the NFT, the online ordering platform. And I think that the idea of marrying NFTs to a brand is formidable. I think, again, the word utility comes up, like, what’s really practical with it, but you can do some really cool stuff, whether it be access, whether it be something that is uniquely yours. Right. 

Whether it’s…I can take that into a video game and make it an actual item that I own. Like, when I was a. When I was? I still play all the time. I’m not gonna lie to the world here, right. But I used to play World of Warcraft quite a bit. And in that game, you could earn a sword, right? And that sword, actually, you could go on eBay and sell it for real world thousand dollars. It’s that hard to get. So that means it actually has intrinsic value, you know? And essentially, that was an NFT before NFTs were NFTs.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah.

Michael Beck
Right. So we can make these items that exist in video games that I could actually use. I could have my Burger King grenade launcher that only a few of us in the world have. And when I happen to go to Burger King, I can. I can say, I can flash that and get a discount on my stuff, too. So I have something this baller, an epic weapon that only a few people have that launches burger grenades.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah.

Michael Beck
Massive amounts of advertising utility. And I get a discount on top of it. I think that’s where we’re going.

Justin Ulrich
It’s a cool platform.

Michael Beck
Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
I should have. I need to have Tammy on the show.

Michael Beck
Yeah. She would do great here. She’s absolutely awesome.

Justin Ulrich
It’s happening. Tammy Billings. I’m coming for you.

Michael Beck
We’re calling you out. I’m gonna say it. We’re coming for you, Tammy. All right. Or we could do a little bit. And now. Wait, let me get. And now from the future. Not that one. And now from the future, Justin Ulrich.

Justin Ulrich
It sounds like a world war two. Like propaganda video.

Michael Beck
Yeah. Our boys are marching off to war. Look, Timmy’s doing his job.

Justin Ulrich
All right?

Michael Beck
I’ll never be invited back, but I’ll be memorable. That’s all. It’s all good.

Justin Ulrich
I literally laughed more in this episode than any other. Geoff Alexander had me crackin’ up. But this is a good one.

Michael Beck
Good. Well, yeah, that guy is. Yes, yes. That or the next I’d be worried about what’s gonna happen in that vein. 

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. I feel like if I hit 88 miles an hour, I’m gone. If you see me vanish, you know what happened?

Michael Beck
Well, don’t stand on any toilets. Otherwise you’re gonna have the moment. For those that don’t know, Doc Brown was standing on a toilet, fell and hit his head on the way down.

I think I got one back there somewhere.

Justin Ulrich
Actually, that’s hilarious.

Michael Beck
Actually you brought it up on.

Justin Ulrich
Well, it looks like Michael’s running across the room right now. He’s running away.

Michael Beck
He’s running away folks in the middle of the podcast and just does this. But he’s got the sports almanac.

Justin Ulrich
Oh, my goodness. The bachelor future almanac.

Michael Beck
Yeah. Welcome to an orthodox guest number one.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, perfect. Well, it was. It was a ton of fun having you on. Before I let you go. How can folks follow you? Follow your podcast?

Michael Beck
Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
Follow Popcorn GTM.

Michael Beck
Thank you. Well, you can find us on our website, popcorngtm.com. right. You can find us on LinkedIn. Same name. You can find me. I’m Michael Beck, and our podcast is called the Morning Ram. Morning Ram. I can’t talk. The Morning, Ralph. Morning, Sam show. And we drop it every Wednesday. We record on Fridays. 

The show actually came from the background between Paul and I. He was my biggest, competitor for eight years. And Ralph and Sam are the sheepdog and the coyote from Looney Tunes that would kick the crap out of each other every day. But at the end of the night, they punch out, evening, Ralph. Evening, Sam. And they would always be cordial, and that’s us. So, yeah.

Justin Ulrich
That’s awesome. Well, I know that you had one of, we talked about it already, with one of my favorite people in the industry, Jeremy Julian was, I think, episode two or three for you.

Michael Beck
Yep, fairly. He was. Our first order on our third one is our show.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. Well, yeah, if you’re looking for another podcast, check that one out. Give Michael a follow. Popcorn GTM. Check him out as well. Michael, thanks again for coming on. It was a ton of fun having you in the lab, my friend.

Michael Beck
Absolutely. Anytime. We’d love to have you on ours at some point, too. And if you guys are, the audience is going to be at FS Tech or at the Prosper Forum. We’ll be there. And I’d love to run into you and have a conversation.

Justin Ulrich
I’m there. Yeah, let’s do it.

Michael Beck
Yeah, let’s do it.

Justin Ulrich
All right.

Michael Beck
Maybe we’ll go live from there. Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
So maybe that’d be cool.

Michael Beck
All right. Hey, Justin, thank you so much, man. Absolutely. Anybody named after a band like Metallica’s got to be good. So.

Justin Ulrich
That’s right. All right. We’ll see ya.

Michael Beck
All right, take care. Thank you. And thank you, everybody. Bye.

Justin Ulrich
As always, thanks for joining us in the Local Marketing Lab. This podcast was sponsored by Evocalize. To learn more about how Evocalize can help you grow your business, visit evocalize.com. 

If you learned something from today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook @Evocalize. That’s Evocalize and on X at Evocalize. 

And remember, keep innovating and testing new things. You’ll never know what connects with your customers best unless you try. Until next time. Thanks for listening.