Pod Insights Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips Should You Run Your Marketing Team From Home Or From An Office?, Stop Trying To Measure Everything, A/B Testing At Its Finest, Google Lens Coming To YouTube Shorts About this episode In this episode #2983, Eric Siu and Neil Patel discuss handling negative feedback on social media, the shift in remote work dynamics, and how AI is reshaping workforce structures. They highlight the engagement value of negative headlines and explore innovations in commerce through tools like Google Lens and YouTube Shorts. The conversation underscores how adapting to feedback and technology can drive growth. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES (00:00) Navigating Negative Feedback on Social Media (02:57) The Evolution of Remote Work and Team Dynamics (06:12) The Impact of AI on Workforce Structure (08:58) Understanding Engagement: The Power of Negative Headlines (11:55) Innovations in Commerce: Google Lens and YouTube Shorts To suggest a topic, go to https://www.marketingschool.io. For more content from Eric and Neil, check out Eric’s Leveling Up with Eric Siu YouTube channel and Neil’s Neil Patel YouTube channel. Connect with Us: Single Grain << Eric's ad agency NP Digital << Neil’s ad agency X @neilpatel, @ericosiu Instagram @neilpatel, @ericosiu Drop Us a Review If You Enjoyed the Episode!
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Finding customer information shouldn't mean digging through emails, call notes, and spreadsheets. HubSpot Starter Plan brings all of those details together, so it's easier to track what's happening with every deal and what to do next. It pulls information from calls and emails. Then it gets to work, logging and summarizing them. Right after your call ends, HubSpot pulls next steps from your call notes and drafts suggested follow-ups. And it stays up to date for you, so you can build demand, win more deals, and spend less time on repetitive work. Your records, insights, and next steps are ready for you to act on. And you don't have to miss a beat searching for any of it. Try the Starter Plan for $10 a month. Learn more at hubspot.com.
0:35 Speaker 00 By the way, one thing you guys don't want to do, I just have my LinkedIn pulled up on the left side. And there's always this one guy that comments something negative on my posts. And I'm just like, if you're gonna keep doing that, just why do you even follow me? Just don't, just shut up, just don't talk, like, why waste the space? And I'm just, that is not a good way to build a relationship, if that's what you're trying to do.
0:55 Speaker 01 Dude, that's a terrible way to build a relationship.
0:57 Speaker 00 I'm sure it happens to you all the time.
0:59 Speaker 01 It does, but some way, I like some of the negative ones.
1:02 Speaker 00 Actually, that's funny, because Neil, I actually called you out from your original blog post, and that's how we established our relationship.
1:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, dude.
1:08 Speaker 00 I was more so asking a question, so.
1:10 Speaker 01 I got called out by this guy named Remy recently. And AI summarized it right here.
1:16 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:16 Speaker 01 It's an email, says, "Neil Potton announced the importance of aligning SEO with seasonal demand. Remy criticized the email's outdated content, but Neil stated that traditional SEO still performs well in certain cases." Neil announced that he would resume control of emails. The summary's a little bit off, but I sent an email talking about seasonal SEO campaigns. And seasonal SEO campaigns still work, like, there is Christmas searches, there are summer searches. And the person pretty much said, "This is outdated and tone deaf with all the Google updates with AI reviews and stuff like that." I responded back with, "We're still seeing traditional SEO, like seasonal SEO, work really well. And we have, like, real analytics in real time of driving results."
2:00 Speaker 01 Right? And I'm like, I should have probably included the stats, but I'm like, it still works. And then I I looped in my team so they can see it because my team's writing the emails. And then I emailed them back, literally within an hour. And I said, I thought about your email a bit more. They could be better. Even if it was seasonal, my team could have shown our internal data that showcases this. They did it. I will work on taking back over emails and start something uh next week. So then he pretty much said, exactly. If I'd seen the data in this email, I would have questioned it less. With that said, showcasing seasonal data from 2024 before AI took over might not convince me that there's opportunity in 2025. Uh, and then he goes on a little bit more. I didn't respond back to it because there's some parts I disagree because there's seasonal data
2:43 Speaker 01 and things like winter when AI overviews were here for winter sales, like for snowboarding gear and stuff like that. And we see it doing really well. I don't care to combat back and forth, but when you get negative feedback, it's a great way to improve. Most people don't want to leave negative feedback. How else?
3:03 Speaker 00 I think negative feedback is fine. Constructive criticism is fine, but when you're just trolling, it's stupid.
3:09 Speaker 01 That's a problem with LinkedIn. Unless you're very positive on the employee, like people should have Fridays off. If you say people should have Fridays off, everyone's gonna love you. If you get a hater or two, all the people who want Friday off are gonna comment and just tear that other person apart.
3:23 Speaker 00 Dude, that's when I posted something in December saying, sorry, guys, you're coming back to the office. And I got a million impressions because everyone started going like nuts in the comments.
3:31 Speaker 01 What what do they say in the comments?
3:33 Speaker 00 They're like, no, that's not true. That's the old way of doing it, blah, blah. And I knew this response was all gonna be like that. But I'm just like, hey, guys, like, sorry, behind the scenes, a lot of people are just getting called back. And this is what it's gonna be like because, you know, I think we've seen both remote work and we've seen hybrid and we've seen in office. And if like I Jamie Dimon said this really well from the the CEO of Chase, JP Morgan. He's like, look, I'm a fan of remote work that works, but just for us, it doesn't work. Right. And I think that's the case for a lot of founders and that's just how it is. So, um, but anyway, a lot of people got mad at me. So.
4:06 Speaker 01 Are you gonna have more people come back to the office in 2025 outside of your WeWork that you just you've had for a few?
4:11 Speaker 00 I think for LA, and I love that WeWork, by the way, but in, we don't have many people in LA. It's just my, my CTO and I, right? And so, but I think as we start to bring in, bring on more engineers, he wants them in the office. And I think for salespeople, we probably want them in office together as well. I think for, oh, this is gonna go back to, you have a topic on this. Marketers, I might want to be in the office with me as well, like internal marketers.
4:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, I can see that.
4:35 Speaker 00 How about for you?
4:36 Speaker 01 I'm okay with remote work. I work really well with our marketing team remotely. Sometimes they make some errors and it just pisses me off. Like I just, I fume. Even if it's small, I don't know why, because it's like if this, some of these little things are off, what else could be off? And I just want everything fixed without having to micromanage. And my team overall is really good and I don't have to deal really with too many little things. But I would say once, actually not more than once, probably like three times a year, I start nitpicking new things. And it's typically when we start hiring more and more people and the team grows. People don't always follow the same standards. It doesn't matter what training material you give. But then, once you get them in line and you tell them what's wrong and you give them the critiques, ends up being fixed.
5:21 Speaker 01 My problem is as a manager, I don't like giving the critiques. I just expect people to do it the way I want from day one without any training.
5:29 Speaker 00 Like to read your mind. So that's what AI is gonna be good for.
5:31 Speaker 01 And I know that's a lot to ask, um, but we come and say, well, if someone can just get what we're looking for right away. Cause we don't have the time to train everyone up. Um, but I don't think we're gonna force the office. I just, for us, before we had office locations and we would have people come into the office because we would hire around there. It's too hard for us at this point because once COVID hit, we started hiring so much virtually.
5:56 Speaker 00 You can't, you can't undo that. It's hard.
5:58 Speaker 01 Too hard.
5:59 Speaker 00 And we have good people. My, my philosophy is if you're exceptional, we'll hire. You from wherever in the world, but not everyone is exceptional. And then with the AI, the AI bar is raising it for us, right? So we might just only hire exceptional people in any way. So that's kind of my philosophy on it and it's changing over time, dude. Cause I believe companies aren't going to need nearly as many people as they had in the past. So we'll see.
6:20 Speaker 01 So internally, the way we see a marketing organization currently, it's like a pyramid. Right? You have your CEO on the top, then upper management, then the management below and mid level. Then the people underneath that and it keeps going. It's like a pyramid with your interns and junior people at the very bottom. Because of AI, we see the pyramid flipped upside down. With the point being at the bottom and the base, you won't have a total. Your total count of people will be smaller, but percentage wise, you'll have a lot more leaders, strategists, people who are really amazing, like the A players. And then you're going to have B players. And then when it looks like C, D, F players, you're going to have less and less of them. Because AI can replace those people a lot easier than they can replace the A and B players.
7:04 Speaker 00 Yep. Yep. So I'm excited for that. Let me show you something that I think, I think you'll, I want to get your reaction on this one. So this is Tim Solo again, posting this, this tweet from Jason Freed.
7:16 Speaker 01 From thirty seven signals?
7:18 Speaker 00 Yeah.
7:18 Speaker 01 We increased base camp trial to pain conversion by thirty percent and we don't know how, or even want to know how.
7:24 Speaker 00 And so look at Tim, what Tim Solo says.
7:27 Speaker 01 Great idea, question, do it, move on. Why spend time measuring and debating how exactly that idea performed? When you can spend time implementing a brand new idea.
7:36 Speaker 00 All right, go ahead.
7:37 Speaker 01 Like Jason Freed, if it's up thirty percent, I agree. You don't have to keep stressing on it. If it goes down, you better understand that it went down and you better either revert the change or understand why it went down. So then that way you don't make that mistake again. If something did go up, I don't think you should obsess about it. You should ideally try to understand why something went up. So that way you can replicate that and get more of that lift or scenario.
8:03 Speaker 00 I just don't want people to misinterpret this to think that you don't need to measure. This is still, you need to measure everything. And if it does go wrong, you need to have the ability to ask why? Because saying we won't measure it is abdicating your responsibilities.
8:15 Speaker 01 Yes, and I think Jason Freed, I talked to him on the phone a few times. I don't know him at all, but I have talked to him on the phone a few times over, you know, probably like five to 10 years ago. It was a long time ago. He probably doesn't even remember. The guy is a smart entrepreneur. He does look at things as an analytical way. I know he put that statement out there, but I bet you his team does look at things on what caused lifts, why, and how can we get more of it?
8:42 Speaker 00 Yeah, for sure. Frictionless Growth Marketing hosted by Sonya Thompson is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Frictionless Growth Marketing hosted by Sonya Thompson shows how modern brands grow by removing the friction in their marketing and customer experience that pushes customers away every single day, often without leaders even realizing it. Each episode delivers practical insights, real brand examples, and conversations with marketing leaders, showing brands how to win with the new rules of growth, identity-driven marketing, cultural relevance, and frictionless customer experiences. Listen to Frictionless Growth Marketing wherever you get your podcasts. Speaking of testing, I have this one over here, too. This one is, here, check this out, check this out. Here, I'm gonna, I'm gonna share and then you read what's happening
9:26 Speaker 00 on the screen over here. All right, do you see this?
9:28 Speaker 01 I do. You want me to read it?
9:32 Speaker 00 Yep.
9:32 Speaker 01 Sugar is good for you. And do you want me to read the view count, too, or no?
9:37 Speaker 00 Okay, so here, I'll, I'll give it to you at high level. So this guy Chandler Primus Pumentum says, ladies and gentlemen, I give you A B testing at its finest. So the first A B test here is sugar is good for you. Okay, 16K views on Twitter. Then the other one is sugar is bad for you. Okay, 30K views. So double the views, right? Here's the second one. Protein is the cure to cancer. 12K views. The next one right after, protein gives you cancer. 57K. Okay, so let's just say that's a 5X, right? The, the last A B test here is eat less protein. 13K views. Eat more protein, 5300 views. So that, let's just call that a little less than triple.
10:16 Speaker 01 Whoa, protein gives you cancer, has 354 hearts. There's no data. He's just randomly putting out stuff on purpose for A B tests. I don't think he's trying to create false information. I think he's just trying to run an A B test and see what gets engagement and what doesn't. But it's crazy how someone could just put out a statement like protein gives you cancer and 354 people heart it and they like it.
10:42 Speaker 01 I'm not saying it does or doesn't. I think you just put that out there for the sake of it.
10:46 Speaker 00 Yep. Look, notice how negative view versions get way more views in comparison than positive. And by the way, like when we do this on on our YouTube sometimes, like whenever I say website traffic is dead or SU is dead. Like all the like that get the videos start to take off way faster, right? So it's I think it's a human condition. Like people talk about, you know, you know what schneidenfreud is?
11:06 Speaker 01 No, never heard of it.
11:07 Speaker 00 Should I before is when you get pleasure into watching someone else's suffering, right? This is like a German phrase, right? But I think when you look at the headlines from CNN, right? Why do they call it the crisis news network? Cause it's a lot of negative news that gets your attention. It's not the positive stuff that gets you. It's the negative stuff. Cause I think that's just how we're wired.
11:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, my wife doesn't like watching the news because she's saying it's too negative.
11:27 Speaker 00 It's true. It's true, but that like people know that that's what.
11:31 Speaker 01 I like watching it and I want to hear all the bad stuff, not just the good stuff. I don't want to suffer, but I like hearing the bad stuff because I know reality.
11:39 Speaker 00 Yeah, well, you're I mean, you're entertained by it and most people are entertained by this stuff. And most people also don't have much to do with their lives, right? And so that's why it's it's a they say if it if it bleeds, it leads.
11:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, I can see that.
11:52 Speaker 00 Yeah, anyway, we got time for one more.
11:56 Speaker 01 All right, so let's talk about Google Lens. Did you see what they're doing with YouTube Shorts now?
12:03 Speaker 00 No, I did not see much this week.
12:05 Speaker 01 All right, totally understandable. So with Google Lens, everyone already knows you can take out your phone. You could take a picture of something and you know, Google and the app has like this little camera thing. I think it's next to URL depends on your app or your phone. You're pretty much loading Google Lens. But they're doing something interesting with YouTube Shorts. So we all watch a lot of short format content, but they're tying in the experience together now, which I think this is going to generate companies a lot of revenue in the long run. And again, attribution is going to become harder because of this. But if you're watching a short, you can click on like a lens icon, circle up that part of the image or the video that you want to know more about. It will show you what that is and all about it.
12:49 Speaker 00 And you can buy it.
12:50 Speaker 01 You can buy it or do whatever you want. I think this is going to be a huge game changing thing in commerce. Cause a lot of people buy stuff that celebrities wear. You agree with this, right? They're like, they're trend setters. If Justin Bieber is wearing Crocs and he did help blow up Crocs, I know they're already a big company, but he made it cool for, you know, people who wear Crocs. You can sort of just circle what he's his shoes or his sweater. And then boom, it takes you to a site, you can go to buy it, but man, I'm wearing the same shoes that Justin Bieber is. That's going to get you a lot of sales. And then is it attributed to Justin Bieber? Is it attributed because of Google Lens and you're now allowed to easily see what shoes he's wearing? Like, who's it attributed by? But um, or what's causing the actual conversion?
13:33 Speaker 01 And I think this is a really cool feature that'll change commerce. I bet you over time Instagram, Meta, TikTok and some of the other players will copy this feature.
13:42 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think it's a good start. I think it's a bad user experience because the fact that you have to pause it and then lens it or whatever. I think what's going to happen in the future is like, you're just going to be, it's going to be able to, if you want to identify, you kind of just tap for a second and pause it and it'll like, show tags and the price tag and you just buy it right there. That's going to make it a lot more seamless and it's higher conversion rates for everyone.
14:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, in the long run, I don't think anyone wants to really circle.
14:03 Speaker 00 All right, so that is it for today, guys. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe. And that being said, we will see you tomorrow.
Previous How We Keep A Positive Mindset When Things Are Rocky Economically, AI Has Killed Informational Content For SEO Next How Losing Someone Can Completely Reshape You In Business, Chaos Is Always Present In Business. You Choose Who Absorbs It Page updated November 7, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
