Michael F. Schein is the founder and CEO of MicroFame Media, a renowned marketing and strategy agency. With a passion for storytelling and marketing, Schein has established himself as a leading authority in crafting compelling narratives for businesses and individuals alike.
His expertise extends into the psychology of successful marketing, showcased in his book "The Hype Handbook: 12 Indispensable Success Secrets From the World's Greatest Propagandists, Self-Promoters, Cult Leaders, Mischief Makers, and Boundary Breakers". In this book, Schein explores the tactics used by influential historical figures and applies them to modern-day marketing and branding strategies.
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Introduction to the episode
(00:00 - 01:36)
Alex Shevelenko: Welcome to Experience-Focused Leaders Podcast with Michael F Schein, who is the author of The Hype Handbook and the founder of MicroFame Media. Michael, I am a fan of your book and reached out because you are really an opinion leader of what it takes to create momentum for a good cause.
I know “hype” is a strong and sometimes loaded word in the marketing language. But what your book does is tell a great set of stories from innovators in business, media culture and religion — how they've used certain skills and techniques to tell really compelling stories to move audiences toward their ideas.
In our podcast, we obviously are thrilled to take in great innovations from across various sectors and mediums, and apply them to how you move important and challenging ideas forward. So I'd love you to tell us a little bit more about yourself, and your backstory. We'll dig into the book and what you're building with your agency a bit after that. Tell us the Michael F Schein story, please.
About Michael Schein
I was a writer before I was anything else. In fact, I never wanted to go into business. I happen to like being in business now, but it was the opposite of what I wanted to do.
We looked at rock managers, our favorite rock stars and, you know, cult leaders and things like that, people we were interested in. So I said, “What if I took that approach? What if I started not marketing myself but hyping myself?"
(01:36 - 05:49)
Michael Schein: Well, thank you, Alex.Thank you for these very kind words, especially about the book. I was a writer before I was anything else. In fact, I never wanted to go into business. I happen to like being in business now, but it was the opposite of what I wanted to do.
It struck me as very boring. I wanted to be a novelist for a long time, and then I got really interested in music, more or less the songwriting and performance aspect. I really thought of myself as creative.
And I think back then, when I was a kid, everyone was starting bands. Now, all the young kids are starting startups. But, back then, I don't think business was seen as a mechanism for being creative.
It was seen as what your dad did, you know, something that people did — they went to work.
I guess the short story is that path, in a way, took me to where I am. When I graduated college, I shocked and dismayed my parents by telling them that I was going to go to New York and change rock, and they were not pleased. I went to the city of Pennsylvania. They were proud of me.
AS: But by the way, I was very jealous of all the English majors and the creative work that they were doing. So, I'm very proud of what you've done as well.
MS: Well, I was jealous of the Wharton people because I was, as I saw it, going to graduate and get a job for very little money if I got one. And the Wharton people were going to be rich at 22. That was how I saw it at the time. But it just wasn't for me.
So anyway, I started a band, and everyone was like, “What are you doing with your life?” And the end of that story was we didn't get famous. But I think we did better than anyone ever expected, considering that I'm not a very good guitar player, and that's not me being humble. But I got together with guys who were better than me.
We were very theatrical, we used to always say that we would hype up the shows. For example, we talked our way on to Showtime at the Apollo because we knew we would be booed off, and that would get attention.
So long story short. That ended, I got a corporate job, and I started to do well there. But after I had learned it all, I became an adult, I became a business person. By year eight, I had a pretty good position there and was making nice money, but I hated it. I was very bored. I just didn't see what I was doing with my skills.
So I left to become a freelance copywriter, you know, someone who wrote marketing copy. And I figured, because I'm a good writer, that I would do well. The people who did hire me liked me, but I could not get business. I mean, ironically, I had no idea how to market or sell, and I was a real student. I took online and offline courses, but I couldn't crack it. I learned search engine optimization, early social media, and funnels. I was just losing all my money, and I was ready to get a job.
And then I walked past the club that we used to have a residency at, and I remembered how good I was back then at marketing. But we never thought of it as marketing.
We looked at rock managers, our favorite rock stars and, you know, cult leaders and things like that, people we were interested in. So I said, “What if I took that approach? What if I started not marketing myself but hyping myself?
I did that, and since I've been talking for a while, I won't tell you exactly what we did. But from there, it was a very short line to having a successful copywriting practice that turned into an agency that turned into the book. Then, I became a business person. I run my own company helping other people use that method to draw attention to themselves and accomplish their goals.
From inspiration to entrepreneurship
Now, even though I'm not a rock star or a novelist, I love what I do every day because it comes out of my personality traits.
(05:49 - 09:20)
AS: That's an amazing story, and I could connect on a couple of levels. It’s really interesting that you did find a creative way to help folks because you're inspiring creativity in the others as well as your playbooks. It comes out in your book about going back to some things that are authentically you in your journey as sources for how you stand out, and what makes you different.
And actually, one of the things that I've noted about your book that really resonated with me, and I started to ask questions like, “What was my journey like? What drew me as a kid to become an entrepreneur and do ambitious things?” And I started doing an inventory of what I'd read and what I was paying attention to. I grew up in the USSR, in Ukraine.
Then, I started realizing that I probably read every book written by Jules Verne, who's a science fiction writer, and all of a sudden, everything made sense. When I was 30, I did this around-the-world trip, and I was always inspired by folks that are taking on these ambitious projects and missions.
I think when you start working on your project, you probably know a pain that is very real for you, but it actually goes back to the roots of who you are. What was your shape, how are you rebelling against your parents? And maybe that's a plug for The Rolling Stone story. I think that's one of my favorite ones from the book, and how they position themselves.
MS: Oh, you mean Andrew Gold? Even before I get into that, I want to say that I think that is important. I mean, the business that I kind of fell into between the band and what I do now was a business that ran contact centers.
So, customer service call centers worked for very big companies. When I was there, they were large. Now, they're gigantic. I did well there. I did a good job, I worked hard and climbed the ranks. But I remember I got a raise and a bonus on the same day because I solved a big problem and worked around the clock for like three months. I met my girlfriend at the time for dinner and said in this depressed voice, “I got a raise and a bonus,” and she's like, “That's great.” And I'm like, “I'm the biggest loser in the world.” She's like, “What do you mean?” “Because this is the opposite of what I ever wanted to do, and now it's going to be that much harder to leave.” Now, even though I'm not a rock star or a novelist, I love what I do every day because it comes out of my personality traits.
Finding the authentic self and unlocking limitations
I think it's up to us as individuals to find what inspires us, find people like yourself that make us think differently, find new tools that unlock our limitations as creatives and communicators.
(09:20 - 12:22)
AS: Well, just to double-click on that. For instance, some people are in a corporate role, they do have family obligations and other things. But they are drawn to creating, connecting with people, and unleashing a little bit of those original instincts. I focus a lot on B2B marketers — they wanted to be storytellers and creators of visual experiences.
And we see them in my startup, we see that they're stuck doing the same old stuff that's been done for 20 years, and they feel locked into that. I think it's up to us as individuals to find what inspires us, find people like yourself that make us think differently, find new tools that unlock our limitations as creatives and communicators.
MS: I agree. I think that in corporations, most of us work for other people. I worked for other people for a long time. Most of us work in corporations, and I think corporations can be a wonderful vehicle for having an amazing career. I think when it was more that I fell into what I was doing, without really making a conscious choice. I did try to make it my own and worked with some wonderful people. But there wasn't a lot of room in that environment because it really is an environment that does things a certain way, and it's like an arbitrage opportunity between what you're paying out.
I just realized that there was no room for me to do that there. It wasn't what I had originally set out to do, and I didn't want to start my own business. In fact, originally, I was going to try to get a job in a creative agency. This was many years ago, but I couldn't because I didn't have a book, which is what they call a portfolio, because I had been in the call center world for the last 10 years. So I had to create my own.
So, should I tell that Stone story?
AS: Yeah, the audience is building on there, and there are on their tiptoes.
About The Rolling Stones
(12:22 - 16:20)
MS: Well, this is almost the opposite of being your authentic self, but actually like twisting reality. So, you know, things aren't black-and-white. But The Rolling Stones, when they started, the Beatles were working-class guys, and when they [the Beatles] started out, they wore leather jackets, and they were like greasers — they ate, smoked, and cursed on stage. Their manager who saw them play was this guy Brian Epstein. I didn't talk about this part in the book, but he thought they were great. He saw how excited the kids were. He was from a wealthy family. He put them in suits and told them to bow after every song, stop smoking on stage, and all of that stuff. He basically took the energy of a working-class rock and roll band and polished them up for general consumption. That was The Beatles magic.
So, one of the guys who worked for Brian Epstein was this young kid, really a teenager in 1918, named Andrew Lu Oldham. He learned about hype promotion. And then he saw a band one night, a blues band called The Rolling Stones. Now, the funny thing about The Rolling Stones is that Mick Jagger, the singer, was very much middle class. His dad introduced basketball to the United Kingdom, and there are old videos you can see, he used to go on television, and you can see a little kid Mick Jagger, in part of his films. It's really funny if you look it up.
But he went to the London School of Economics, which is like Wharton in Britain. So, they just got up, played, and Andrew Loog Oldham said, “You know, there's already The Beatles. We need an anti-Beatles. The parents used to hate rock and roll, but now they like The Beatles. They think they're charming. What if we made a villain to the Beatles? A band everyone could hate.” So he told these middle-class kids, “Leave your jackets at home to show up to interviews and the clothing that you slept in.” They became every parent's nightmare, and the funny thing is they started to live up to the role. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards became notorious bad boys with drug problems, but they were pretending to be something to fill a role and then matching it. There are a lot of lessons there, but in regards to this, sometimes a little bit of theater is important.
I don't know if they needed to go as far as they did in their personal lives. There were some health problems that occurred and some problems with the law, depending on how you feel about that. But I think that understanding that you can play with people's perceptions is one. There can be some playfulness and some fun in that. You can say The Rolling Stones were liars, but they weren't liars. They delivered a lot of pleasure to a lot of people.
AS: They certainly became committed.
MS: The Beatles did crazy things behind the scenes. They would invite journalists to partake in certain debaucheries with them. So the journalists would never tell on them, you know what I mean? They would never report that. If the Stones did one bad thing, the manager would promote it everywhere.
Takes from Salesforce and Basecamp on Market Differentiation
But what the guys at Salesforce did, Jason Fried in particular, is he's constantly blogging, writing books, and making videos on how work is too complex. He says if you have a team that's regularly working weekends, you should punish them because they're not efficient enough and you don't have good systems. So, instead of saying, “We're better than Salesforce,” he said, “We are for simplicity at work.
(16:20 - 19:40)
AS: This is a really interesting example. I think, back to what are some situations where some of the tools in your playbook could be used. So this is sort of an up-and-coming company, right? Sort of challenging the market leader, right? And they're not gonna go head to head, they need to appeal to a different audience or persona that is in need of whatever it is that they're offering.
Have you seen the examples in modern-day world, whether it's technology companies or other folks selling something innovative, bringing something innovative to the market where they're carving out the positioning for themselves based on what's already in the market?
MS: Yeah, as you were talking, a pretty perfect example comes to mind. You can tell me what you think about this, but let's consider Salesforce. Salesforce created a whole new market segment. Before Salesforce, there was no cloud-based CRM.
Salesforce invented something that solved a very major problem. You know, you used to spend 10 years building Rolodex on your computer. Then, when you moved to a new operating system, the whole thing got erased. You couldn't bring it over, right? That changed, and so they became dominant, they have skyscrapers with their name on them in a very short period of time. They're a multibillion-dollar company.
Now there's a company called Basecamp that also has CRM.
So they could have done what all the other Liverpool and London bands did. They could have competed directly with Salesforce. They could have said we're just as good as Salesforce. That's what Gerry and the Pacemakers did. That's what all of these bands that you hardly even remember anymore did.
But instead, they [Basecamp] took The Rolling Stones approach. They said there's already Salesforce. Salesforce is the gorilla, Salesforce has everything. Salesforce is complicated. Salesforce has 300 different things you can do on it. You need a consultant to help you with Salesforce because it's so robust.
But what the guys at Salesforce did, Jason Fried in particular, is he's constantly blogging, writing books, and making videos on how work is too complex. He says if you have a team that's regularly working weekends, you should punish them because they're not efficient enough and you don't have good systems. So, instead of saying, “We're better than Salesforce,” he said, “We are for simplicity at work.
Guess what? Their tool only does five things. They do what Salesforce does, but they're a completely stripped-down version. They took what could have been a negative and turned it into a complete positive.
So I use Basecamp because I don't need all that crazy stuff. I'm The Rolling Stones fan or the anti-Salesforce. They're not for everybody.
Basecamp's unique view on growth
(19:40 - 26:24)
AS: I love the story. I have an insider knowledge of this a little bit. When I was attending Stanford Business School for my NBA, I created an internship for myself at Salesforce and started consulting.
So which supports your thesis, actually, is that Salesforce itself at that time was not the behemoth that we know, right? Their enemy was the complex kind of mega monster, sort of the traditional enterprise software. Sibo got acquired by Oracle, and, you know, the Salesforce positioning was, “We're easy to use, you could sign up, you don't need to have a huge team.” Back at the time, it was sort of their original product growth strategy.
But every enterprise software company eventually realizes that the bigger you want to grow, the more ambitious you are, the more you need to become.
MS: That's where Basecamp does a really unique. You can tell me if I'm I'm wrong, but they did what every company does when their biggest clients say, “We need this and this functionality,” they just add it.
But Basecamp says, “When your clients tell you to add features, say to them, “Thank you very much. But no, go somewhere else.” And as a result, they've made small, they've burned their boats. They basically said, “We're always gonna be the simple tool, and we will turn people down.” You know what I mean?
And they're not trying to be huge. So like The Rolling Stones, we're never gonna be The Beatles. They don't do harmonies the way The Beatles do, they don't do complex stuff. They're a rock and roll band, and that's the thing.
They tried doing the hippie thing for a minute, but it failed. So they went back to rock and roll.
AS: This is a really interesting discussion, right?
The thing I respect about Salesforce is they kept doing that strategy. Even at the beginning, I was sitting next to their creative director, who was painting this “no software” thing that they've created. If you look up the history of Salesforce, that had this “no software” logo. And, of course, they were selling software, they were just selling it in a new cloud-based way. That positioned them as not just an alternative to the CRM, which is a very narrow space, but it really positioned them to create a new category at the time of software.
That was at a company called SuccessFactors later, which was one of the second or third original cloud pioneers. We were borrowing that challenge.
They created a new category. I think they are probably the real masters of hype to some degree because whenever there is a new trend in the market — if it's social, it's gonna be social, if it's AI, it's gonna be AI — I think there's just been a very clear way where they would ride whatever is the new thing in the market without losing the essence, which is still being focused on the country.
MS: I agree with you in a huge way, and it's funny. Not to beat the dead horse, but that's exactly what I'm about to do. The Beatles and Stones. Comparison is completely apt, whatever your tastes are. The Beatles are the greatest rock band of all time, and they did everything. There's an argument to be made that they invented heavy metal with the song Helter Skelter. They invented soft rock with Yesterday, they invented psychedelic rock. They did it all. They were Salesforce.
Their albums still outsell any band in the world. The Rolling Stones could have tried to be The Beatles. Everyone else tried to be The Beatles. Most of those bands don't exist anymore. I've seen interviews with Mick Jagger where he says the Beatles were the best.
So, what did they do? They became the anti-Beatles. They specialized in one thing — gritty, dirty, sexy rock and roll, that's all they do. If The Beatles were resurrected from the dead and they somehow did a reunion tour, the world would shut down. There'd be 6 million people at that concert.
Lessons from Andy Warhol and Gary Vaynerchuk
To make it easier for people to digest, I put it into categories. I saw the same 12 categories repeat over and over again, whether it was a religious cult, Richard Branson, Martin Luther King, The Rolling Stones manager, or Alice Cooper. I would see these same patterns repeat. I really let the research guide the process, and some are internal, external, or about relationship building, but you see the same themes over and over again.
(26:24 - 36:08)
AS: So let's shift mediums. There's a pretty famous avant-garde artist. We have his pictures probably in an average office right now. I'm talking about Andy Warhol. Everybody who loves art knows who he is.
MS: I'm really obsessed with Andy Warhol. He's one of the few avant-garde artists who always celebrated and embraced commercialism and business, and they never butted heads, they always kind of meshed together.
He became big in the sixties, but he was already older, he was already middle age. And what people don't realize is that he was, in the fifties, the biggest commercial illustrator in the country. I didn't talk about that in the book, but he did drawings before they did a lot of photography in magazines.
He did drawings for shoe companies, etc., etc. And he used a certain technique — blotted ink. He was rich, but he came from a very poor background. He came from Pittsburgh. But when he switched over to fine art, the reason he was able to do the galleries was he had the money.
He lived in Brownstone in Manhattan, and the way he made that happen, he was like the consummate Uber networker. He would always come into commercial illustrators with his portfolio, and he would keep an ear out for the secretary, which is what they called an assistant at the time.
If she mentioned she liked a certain kind of bakery, baked goods, he would bring it for them and things like that. So they always pushed him to the front of the line, and he used that later in his interview magazine.
But the thing about him was he was a misfit. I mean, he didn't fit in very well in high school. He had acne and very pale skin. He started balding extremely early and was very skinny. The other thing is he was gay and, in the forties when he was a kid, being gay was illegal.
But he said, “Well, ok, I've got these insecurities, these things that people consider weaknesses. Can I flip them? Can I find the strength buried in the weakness?
So take his balding head. Just at 22 years old, he had a ring around the head and looked like an older guy than he was. He got this glaringly obvious silver wig, and he's still known for that, right? With his pale face, he became like a creature of the night. And being gay, he had this circle around him, which was very unusual at the time for very openly gay people. At that time, they were called transvestites, which they now would call trans people. They would go with him into fancy restaurants. And it made him a press curiosity.
With his skinniness, he had a very distinctive punk rock-emulated clothing style that accentuated that.
And artists weren't supposed to be commercial, right? Before him, it was the abstract expressionist period, and they lived in the cold water flats. It was all about being against the commercial society. And what did he do? He used his commercial background, he painted camp soup cans and celebrities.
Now we think of that as the norm. But that's because he did that. And artists hated him. They were like, “What are you, are you an ad man? Are you part of the bourgeoisie?” as they called it. So the press would interview him.
Oh, he was also very quiet. He was extremely shy, and socially anxious. The press would interview him, and they would say, why are you painting soup cans? And he would say in this quiet little voice, “Because I like soup,” and they would pick apart — what does he mean?
I think the lesson there is that a lot of us talk about this concept of personal brand. We struggle so much with how to do that. You see all of these people there with their Lamborghinis that are usually rented and flashing the dollars.
Despite the fact that it's in my mind a little bit annoying, it also is what everybody does. What if, instead, you made a list of all of the things that you're insecure about? What if you feel that you're too much of a people-pleaser? What if you feel that you steer away from conflict? What if you feel that you're not that, you're a shabby dresser and have never quite cracked it? And then what if you ask yourself, “How can I creatively find the strength in that weakness?
Look at Gary Vaynerchuk. How did he make his name? It was with Wine Library TV. So what did he do? He happened to know wine because it was the family business. But before him, wine people were fancy, they wore tuxedos and spoke about notes of Elderberry. Now he could have said to himself, “Oh gosh, I'm really not suited for the family business.” He’s from Queens. He's from Belarus, but he grew up in Queens, he has a strong accent, he likes football, and he never shaves quite properly. He's got like a five o'clock shadow by two o'clock, you know, and he wears schlubby clothing. But he made that his thing.
He became the wine guy for every man he curses. He wears his slobby clothing on purpose. He doesn't shave. He says, “This wine tastes like Captain Crunch,” instead of saying Elderberry. And now you have a whole market of people who identify with that. He's democratized wine, and he made a multimillion-dollar business out of that.
If you're thinking to yourself, “How can schlubby clothing ever be a strength?” Well, there you go. It's a total strength for Gary Danner, the guy's worth millions, and he still wears $10 jets sweatshirts.
AS: It sounds like there's a mix of strategies that you're outlining. Some of them are looking at what's in the market out there and seeing where there are openings. Another one in parallel is like looking within yourself and finding what either you already are or what you aspire to be. I’m sure there's a lot more to these. But those are the two themes we covered so far.
MS: I think you hit the nail on the head.
Things are complicated. This idea that you can do four sales funnels and a LinkedIn campaign, and that's going to get you business, really doesn't work. I mean, all of this stuff is about human psychology, and it may be about how we react in groups or how we respond internally.
I read hundreds of biographies of ‘hype artists’, whether they are cult leaders, rock managers, or propaganda artists. I also read papers on mass psychology. Then did lots of experiments for both businesses and clients. I see that the same patterns repeat over and over again. Different content, different context, but some of the stuff was turning weaknesses into strengths over and over again.
To make it easier for people to digest, I put it into categories. I saw the same 12 categories repeat over and over again, whether it was a religious cult, Richard Branson, Martin Luther King, The Rolling Stones manager, or Alice Cooper. I would see these same patterns repeat. I really let the research guide the process, and some are internal, external, or about relationship building, but you see the same themes over and over again.
Themes relevant to create an experience
That's what hype at its best is. People think of hype as conning people, and if you're deceiving people, you're doing the wrong thing. What I think of hype, in my definition, is creating an experience. It's about adding color to the world.
(36:08 - 41:25)
AS: So, what are the themes you think are particularly relevant to folks that want to create an experience? The theme of the podcast is creating different types of experiences, could be digital or not. So how would you highlight some of the experiences, techniques, and tactics that you've used successfully?
MS: I think, in one way or another, they're all about creating experiences.
That's what hype at its best is. People think of hype as conning people, and if you're deceiving people, you're doing the wrong thing. What I think of hype, in my definition, is creating an experience. It's about adding color to the world.
For example, the first strategy in the book is called “Make War Not Love”, and what that means is essentially being against ideas instead of for ideas. Another one is theatricality, which can mean creating a huge event where you worry about every detail and create an experience.
AS: Should we uncover what's underneath for the purposes of the audience?
MS: Another one is building a secret society, which you wouldn't think is experience. If you want your growth to seem grassroots, you always have to have well-placed people behind the scenes who can make things happen quickly for you.
Let's say you're starting a piece of content. What people do wrong is they just put it out in the world and hope that the social media fairies will bring people to them. You have to be thinking of how to nurture relationships with people who already have really big followings, who will be a champion of your content. If one person like that champions your content, you might pick up 10,000 listeners or readers in a week.
The idea is that the content itself is not enough, you can have the best work product in the world, the best business, the best articles, and without the theater, without all the rest of it, it doesn't go very far unless you're lucky.
AS: This is so near and dear to our hearts. Some of the more substantive and well thought ideas that tackle the topics that are hugely relevant for the world are communicated in arguably the worst part of the plane.
MS: I'm in business to fix that because I would see it over and over again. I would see these amazing substantive things falling flat. Then quite frankly, I would see empty garbage, selling al this stuff. And I asked myself, “Is it because the empty garbage is better?” And I would say, “No, those people are just better. They've cracked the puzzle to communicate this stuff properly and drum up a lot of energy.” And then I asked myself, “Well, can you do it for the good stuff?” And you can. It's like the classical musician who doesn't want to downgrade themselves by marketing themselves.
Unveiling the path to growth
The right tactics and the right technology are a wonderful accelerator.
(41:25 - 43:00)
AS: It feels like you're a brother from another mother. It must be the head connection because, for us, it's so fascinating, and you're focusing on the storytelling component of this, obviously, with the agency, we're focusing a little bit more on the tactic that integrates various types of storytelling. But I think they're aligned fundamentally because, as your book actually points out, it's not like a one-trick pony, right? There're different patterns, there are different mediums. You need to align them, but you never get to a great outcome with just one strategy. As you said, it's a number of adjustments that a powerful communicator gets their message across versus just one-trick pony.
MS: The right tactics and the right technology are a wonderful accelerator. There have been people who have used these strategies on papyrus. I mean, the ancient poem was propaganda, but it was really slow. I mean, it took a long time for that stuff to get out into the world of Christianity. It took 300 years for that thing to get any traction. Scientology took 20 years, and the next religion is gonna take six months because the communication methods are so much more sophisticated now.
About AI-driven spread and Elon Musk
And what Elon Musk did, I think, was so cool. He made Tesla ostensibly good for the environment. Although there's doubt, that was the idea. It looks great, but also it was extremely expensive. Now, why would he price the car out of the range of normal people? Because the richest people bought it. Celebrities bought it. It became a status symbol.
(43:00 - 50:28)
AS: Well, let's talk about a couple of relevant themes. One is about the AI-driven spread. And then another one, probably one of the founders of OpenAI, who's not happy anymore, is Elon Musk, who's spreading innovation and, as we discussed last time, at an unprecedented pace across different sectors. So let's deconstruct. Let's focus on the obvious genius of what Elon Musk did.
MS: With a lot of these super genius billionaires, when they become really big and they start making decisions that are questionable, you see, sometimes it's OK effect where you're good in one area that extends to every area.
That's like that Greek myth of Icarus flying too close to the sun and the wings melting. But maybe he knows what he's doing, it's hard to say. What I will say is that I think, in some ways, he's more of a hype genius than a genius genius.
I mean, he didn't come up with the technology for Tesla, right? He bought that company.
I remember a member of my family, an older person who's like an old hippie, had an electric car, like 15 years ago, called Leaf, and it was ugly. I was visiting them, and I had to drive. It looked like a square, and I had to drive from Huntington Beach to Burbank at exactly 50 miles an hour or below on the California freeway.
So I was looking for trucks to drive behind because the thing was gonna die if I went any faster than that. It was like only goofy hippies who drove those cars. It was like eating your broccoli — you didn't do it because it was sexy, cool, or fun. You did it because you were helping the environment and doing the right thing, but it was like taking your medicine.
And what Elon Musk did, I think, was so cool. He made Tesla ostensibly good for the environment. Although there's doubt, that was the idea. It looks great, but also it was extremely expensive. Now, why would he price the car out of the range of normal people? Because the richest people bought it. Celebrities bought it. It became a status symbol.
So then, when he came out with a version that was lower priced, everyone bought it. The same people who would have bought BMWs, Cadillacs, or Mercedes now are showing that they've made it by buying a Tesla. It's no longer about “Look at me, I'm such a good little environmentalist.” People buy Teslas instead of Porsches.
He basically got the world to consider electric cars, environmentalist cars, the ultimate status symbol. And that's just brilliant hype. It seems like he planned that out like a chess game, and it was a 10-year strategy.
Ideas for marketers who were too centric on products rather than distrubution steps
One idea is you have this really sophisticated product with new features. What if you send a print invitation, a gold leaf inviting them to the unveiling? And you keep it really vague, not of a product but of a new development in the tech world, and you have a banquet, these people show up, you give them access, and they're the only people in the world who have it and you keep it kind of a secret as people gossip.
(43:00 - 50:28)
AS: Coming back to Salesforce. We saw almost the same pattern. When I was in Salesforce, they were picking each market size, right? Whether it's very large enterprises, mid-size or small, they're picking really well-known brands.
Later, I worked as one of the first marketers at SuccessFactors. We started really focusing on telling stories about the types of customers that we had, that were really innovative. And we did a lot more trying to bring the story of what we're doing for those organizations to life.
Now in my own startup, we actually started working with Salesforce. We started working with Accenture, which is kind of the Disneyland of B2B companies, right? This is back to examples of what you could be doing in B2B companies in the B2B world.
This is a very tactical leverage strategy right before your first followers will determine what else happens with you in the market. Do you have other ideas like that for marketers and folks who are historically been too centric on products and not thinking through all the distribution steps?
MS: I think the classic ‘invite only’ approach is really good. I know this was a consumer technology, but I think it holds for B2B.
Facebook is now seen as the old lady social media platform. But in the beginning, you had to go to an Ivy League school to be in Facebook, and then it was that you had to have “.edu”. You had to go to college, and they kept expanding it outward until “the masses” wanted to be like the Ivy League school.
One idea is you have this really sophisticated product with new features. What if you send a print invitation, a gold leaf inviting them to the unveiling? And you keep it really vague, not of a product but of a new development in the tech world, and you have a banquet, these people show up, you give them access, and they're the only people in the world who have it and you keep it kind of a secret as people gossip.
It's that idea of a secret club that everyone wants to join. Everyone wants to be in the exclusive country club. Everyone wants to know what a Mormon Temple looks like before it's consecrated. Here's the dirty little secret. It looks exactly the same once they put the blessing on it, but everyone will drive around to go see what it looks like before they close it off to the public. So there's a scarcity symbol, the sort of exclusiveness.
Types of literature that are influential for bridging concepts across diverse disciplines
(50:28 - 55:40)
AS: What kind of literature influenced you? I think for somebody like me who is curious about this, we've always been kind of applying behavioral neuroscience to our products. You've written a book that brings these ideas in a very concrete way from different disciplines.
MS: It's a great question, and, as a writer, I am a big reader in general. It's funny, I can trace exactly where the idea for the book came from. It came from my relationship with another book. I was reading a book called The Crowd by Gustave Le Bon. It's an old book. It’s French. It’s not hard to read, it's from 1898, but it was the first book on Crowd psychology. This guy saw the Paris Commune basically burn Paris to the ground.
In the beginning, they had a reason for it, but by the end, they were just burning things for no reason, and he couldn't understand it. So we just dug into how crowds behave, and it's amazing how much he got right.
I was on a business trip. It was when Trump was going against 17 people, and no one thought he would win. He was considered a joke. He was a game show host. I mean, he was known as the apprentice and a casino guy.
No one thought he would win, I didn't think he would win. I was reading this book, and it said things like, “Crowds are huge followers of vague statements that are visual and tell vague declaratory sentences.” And he's like, “Make America great again.”
Crowds are always for people who incite anger and pick fights. Crowds are always attracted to prestige. When prestige is not available, money is an excellent sub.
I'm reading this, and I'm watching Trump acting like no politician who's ever acted. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, this guy's gonna win.” I remember coming home to people and like, “I've been reading this book, and this guy is doing all of this stuff,” and they're like, “God, come on, give me a break.” And then he won.
This book, The Crowd by Gustave Le Bon, really kicked off my thinking. But this was written before there was even radio. And now this guy is on television, the biggest long-shot victory in the history of American politics. This guy [Gustave Le Bon] predicted the thing. So I thought that was amazing.
Then the books by Edward Bernays. He was the father of PR. He has one book called Propaganda, which he saw as a positive thing until he renamed it Public Relations after the war. So, anyone who's in PR, you know what your industry was originally called. He also has one called Crystallizing Public Opinion.
There's a book called Pranksters by Ken Mcleod, which is not, in any way, a business book, but it's about people who have used pranks to change history. It's a really great book.
There's a more recent book called Status and Culture that explains some of the stuff we were talking about with Tesla. How people always try subconsciously to increase their status by latching on to arbitrary things that people in a higher status use. So the idea is that if someone is a millionaire and buys a $300,000 car without even knowing it, that becomes his aspirational status. Then, when they ever make one that you can buy for the price of a Nissan, the people on the higher status are gonna move on to something else because it'll become cheesy.
The Beatles got their haircuts, and their ball cuts based on these existentialists in Germany. They came to the US, and everyone thought it was crazy, it was corrupting the youth.
So then the youth started wearing it. They became the highest-status people in the world by the seventies, everyone had hair like that. I remember I used to see The Beatles, and my mom would say that they have long hair, and I would say, “They don't have long hair.” Their hair was like to their ears. All my friends had that haircut, every little kid had that haircut in 1983.
Mainstream is this thing that was so dangerous. So it's that Trickle-Down Effect, right?
How to reduce the 'risk of adoption'
Look at Martin Luther King's speeches. What he did so effectively that, honestly, modern progressives don't do very well at all. What was a very radical idea for the United States? It shouldn't be, but it was ‘integration’ in the language of America. We're gonna deliver the promise of the country's institution.
(57:05 - 1:01:22)
AS: Like is if it's too new and too radical, and you start yelling, “We are gonna revolutionize this, we're gonna disrupt this.” Sometimes those things don't work nearly as well.
MS: It's always number two, it's always the second up to bat who makes all the money. The innovator doesn't make the money, right? I think what we see is that you need to be novel yet familiar at the same time to reduce this ‘risk of adoption’.
AS: As marketers, we apply this as we think about developing products. What are you seeing is people that are sort of, “I'm trying to disrupt things, I'm trying to create change, create something out of nothing.”
But how to root it back to what people already know? So the change is not very scary.
MS: I talk about this a lot in the book and what I say is, “Well, here's what hype artists do. If something is not actually that novel, if the amount of novelty is really small, that's when you have to make it flashy.”
I use the example of Simons, the self-help business leader guy. There are a lot of good things that can be said about him. Originality is not one of them. He has this new book, The Infinite Game. It is a repackaged version of another book, and he even admits that, I mean, there's nothing original about it. Nothing great. But he uses all kind of ear and eye candy.
He talks about dopamine and epinephrine, circles, and grids. He uses this scientific lingo to overcomplicate because that makes it seem like it has weight when something is new. People don't like change, right? Your cortisol levels go up because, in nature, sudden change is dangerous.
Religions do this. They use this term, “give the little babies their milk before you give them their meat.” If you try to go up to someone and say, “Hey, I have something that's gonna change your life! It's about aliens who live on the lip of a volcano who came down 20,000 years ago and implanted negative thoughts in your brain.”
You would call the mental word. You would call the police. But that's Scientology, that's not how they do it. They start off with positive thinking stuff. They say, “Hey, do this assessment. It looks just like a Myers-Briggs personality assessment. Oh, we can help you out. You know, read this book. It teaches you to define words that you don't understand. It teaches you personal growth.” And then you get a little more into it and a little more into it, and a little more, and before you know it, you're believing in aliens on the lip of a volcano, whether that's true or not, I don't know.
Every religion seems weird — burning bushes, people coming back from the dead... I'm not saying any if it's true or false. I'm just saying it's all strange to someone who hasn't encountered it. It's all very novel. And so they ease you in because you have a threshold in your brain that can take tiny phases.
Look at Martin Luther King's speeches. What he did so effectively that, honestly, modern progressives don't do very well at all. What was a very radical idea for the United States? It shouldn't be, but it was ‘integration’ in the language of America. We're gonna deliver the promise of the country's institution.
He wrapped it in a language that Americans are very culturally familiar with versus overthrow, like, ‘defund the police’ is the worst marketing because people are comfortable with the police. If they had said, “Bring back, serve, and protect”, that would have been a much better approach.
We need police who serve and protect the way they say they're gonna do instead of dismantling all of the police. Well, that failed very badly.
The Crucial Role of Language and Framing in Shaping and Propelling Ideas
It's one way to get people to buy in. I mean, if you can do it by yourself. If you've created a brand new technology that has the power to change the world, but people don't understand it— I don't know, Blockchain. No one understands it. Everyone is talking about it, but there hasn't been a big innovation yet because it's not wrapped in reality.
(1:01:22 - 1:02:59)
AS: So the language and the framing for the big important ideas of our time is almost the leading indicator of whether those ideas have hacked. I think there are just additional moments, but if the framing is wrong, right? Even though there's so much momentum and support for some of those ideas, if the idea is not packaged correctly, it will not stick.
MS: It's one way to get people to buy in. I mean, if you can do it by yourself. If you've created a brand new technology that has the power to change the world, but people don't understand it— I don't know, Blockchain. No one understands it. Everyone is talking about it, but there hasn't been a big innovation yet because it's not wrapped in reality.
Crypto is a little better because it's based on money. But even that has some inherent problems, but people understand that better.
The metaverse. We'll see what happens with Zuckerberg. I don't think people get it. They understood it was based on a freshman Facebook. You go to college, and they have a Facebook. That's where that word comes from. It's a list of people that you can get to know, people get the metaphors.
They're gonna reinvent the world with cartoon characters, no one gets it.
About the adoption of ChatGPT narrative
So is ChatGPT changing the world? Or is it Pokemon Go? I'm not sure. This isn't my hidden way of saying it's not gonna soar, but I mean, I've given it some tasks, and it didn't impress me that much. Other people are saying it really impressed them, but also, they've been talking about AI for 30 years, you know. I mean, it's not really rapid adoption.
(1:02:59 - 1:06:18)
AS: One of the things that's gotten the wild adoption is the ChatGPT narrative, right? How people are understanding the interface? What do you think is the secret behind this? Is it just that the technology came together with the right experience level to make it work — we just launch our chat that allows you to digest your book. You could have a conversation with your book using the chat. But if we did this two years ago with a different interface, I think it might not have worked nearly as well.
MS: I mean, is it really rapidly adopted, or are just people playing with it? That's what we need to know.
I remember when that Pokemon Go thing came out, and everyone did it, and everyone was saying alter, you know, “AR,” right? If Augmented Reality was gonna be, there wasn't gonna be video games anymore. Everything was gonna be AR, and I have never seen it was the weirdest thing. It was like cultural amnesia: every single person I know did that thing for three weeks, and then they never touched it again. And there's never been a popular AR thing since.
So is ChatGPT changing the world? Or is it Pokemon Go?
I'm not sure. This isn't my hidden way of saying it's not gonna soar, but I mean, I've given it some tasks, and it didn't impress me that much. Other people are saying it really impressed them, but also, they've been talking about AI for 30 years, you know. I mean, it's not really rapid adoption.
There was the movie The Lawnmower Man in 1990 that was about virtual reality and robots that talk to you. There was Terminator from 1984 and all of this stuff. I think part of it is that it's a good tool, but part of it is people want it just like they wanted to go to the moon.
People find it exciting, they find it science-fiction. But what are the use cases? Has anyone made a lot of money from it yet? Has it changed the world in any real way? I don't know.
AS: So, for somebody who is a scholar of hype, you're remaining healthily skeptical.
MS: Then again, I have to admit, I walked into an Apple, into computer store, when the first Macbooks came out, the new ones, the ones when Steve Jobs came back, and I remember looking at my translucent color. I remember saying to my friends, “You know, that thing looks really cool, but it's never gonna do well.”
And my friend said, “Why?” I said, “That doesn't have a floppy drive. How you gonna get your stuff off the computer?” So, take what I say with a grain of salt when it comes to technology predictions.
Potential guest of the podcast
(1:06:18 - 1:09:07)
AS: Well, Michael, I love this conversation. I love the richness of examples from all works of life: arts and music, visual communications, and business. This has been super interesting on a human level, intellectual level, and business level.
Who would you recommend that we invite to have this type of exciting conversation in another episode of the podcast? Who could have inspired you?
MS: There're a lot of people, but there's one guy who comes to mind. It's a guy named Blaine Gray Boyce. He was my cousin's best friend when they were like 13, and I was eight. I really looked up to them because they were badasses. They were always being told by their teachers that they didn't live up to their potential.
So the guy finally lived up to his potential and became this very successful video game entrepreneur. He’s done a million other kinds of businesses. He's a really creative thinker. Always on any new field that's happening. He’s also just an awesome guy. So he'd be great.
AS: Amazing. We'll try, we'll see if we can, if he wants to join us.
MS: And if you need an introduction, I'm happy to make it. He’s a friend of mine.
AS: Amazing, Michael. Once again, thank you. Everybody, do connect with Michael, MicroFame media founder, and the author of the Hype Handbook. Michael, what's the best way to get a hold of you if people want to connect and learn more about what you can do for them?
MS: Well, if you go to the form on microfamemedia.com, I'll see any email that comes through there. I make sure the emails cross my desk. The best way to find out about my ideas is to go to Amazon or wherever you get books, type in ‘The Handbook’, and check it out. And if you type my name michaelfschein.com into the URL, that's my site, and that reaches me directly as well.
AS: Amazing. I listened to the audiobook version and decided to listen to parts of it again because I needed to digest some of those ideas, which is a great sign. This is a high-value book, Michael, thank you again. Delighted to have you on and hope you connect with some of our audience members as well.
MS: Thanks, Alex. This was so much fun. I really appreciate it.
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