The #1 reason mid-market B2B startups fail — Lindsay Tjepkema names what nobody says out loud

Mid-market B2B startups often fail because they lack clarity on their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and fail to pressure test it against an ever-changing market. Lindsay Tjepkema emphasizes that defining the broad target account (ICP) is only the first step; you must also clearly identify the specific decision-maker (Buyer Persona) inside that account to drive real pipeline generation. To build a truly human-centric brand, founders must resist the temptation of "easy buttons" like mass AI automation or copy-pasting the playbooks of iconic companies. Instead of trying to force busy founders to write thought leadership, marketing teams should record founders talking about their vision and the market, capturing their authentic voice to repurpose across multiple channels. Ultimately, long-term success requires painful honesty and listening to the market. Whether diagnosing the root cause of churn or aligning the disparate goals of founders and investors, establishing clear expectations is crucial. A misalignment of just one degree early on can lead a company miles away from its intended destination.

Discussed in this episode

The crucial difference between an Ideal Customer Profile (the target account) and a Buyer Persona (the actual decision-maker).
Why founders need to constantly pressure test their messaging and target audience because the market is always evolving.
How to overcome the "I can't" mindset by protecting the original founder vision and cutting through head trash via daily journaling.
The fallacy of relying on an AI "easy button" to spam thousands of prospects instead of building a human-centric brand.
Why copy-pasting another successful company's playbook is a guaranteed path to mediocrity rather than market dominance.
The tactical approach of recording a founder's natural conversations to easily create authentic thought leadership content.
How to listen to the market's feedback on churn to objectively determine if you have a product or a pricing problem.
The "one degree off" airplane analogy highlighting how tiny stakeholder misalignments lead to entirely different business outcomes.

Episode highlights

0:00 — Welcome and defining the human-centric brand
2:30 — The difference between ICP and Buyer Persona
5:15 — Why you must constantly pressure test your messaging
9:00 — Shifting the founder mindset from I can't to I can
12:45 — Journaling to cut out founder head trash
16:20 — Extracting founder content without making them write
20:10 — Resisting the AI easy button and copy-paste playbooks
24:00 — Listening to the market about churn and product feedback
27:30 — The one degree off airplane analogy for alignment
30:00 — Rapid fire questions and closing thoughts

Key takeaways

Pressure test your ICP constantly because the market is always changing.
Your Buyer Persona is the specific decision-maker, not just your target account.
Record founders talking to easily capture authentic thought leadership content.
Iconic companies don't copy other playbooks; they write their own.
Align investor and founder expectations early to avoid going off course.

Transcript

Welcome back to another episode of the Bridge the Gap podcast powered by Revenue Reimagine. We have a special guest with us today. We have Lindsey Chepche who is a three-time founder, 20-year B2B marketer, who now helps founders grow their businesses through story, thought leadership in building authentic human-centric brands. That is not mass emails, that is not just cold dialing, spraying and praying, that is being authentic and building a human-centric brand, which we're going to talk about today.

We don't have AI Dale here. We have real human Dale here today. Lindsey, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

I didn't tell you that I'm actually AI now, so cool. I like it. Spoiler, plot twist. All right.

Do we have to prompt you properly to get the right answer? Yes, please. Okay. Dale, this is your test.

What is the AI prompt? This is tough, this is tough. Lindsey, thanks for joining us. Um amazing resume and I love the human-centric brand part of it.

Um a lot of a lot of our founders and customers and companies that we're talking to like they're struggling with top of funnel and we call it like stabilization because we're kind of like identifying their ICP, their buying persona, their value proposition. Of those three, where do you believe the customers are failing the most and what are a couple of things they can do to like change it up today? Okay, give me those three that you listed again. Ideal customer profile.

Ideal customer profile, buying persona and value proposition. Oh, goodness. Okay, well, I mean, obviously, it can fall apart with any of those. But I think it all if you don't have your who figured out, what are you doing?

Um then you're your you're going to be lost if you're trying to build something for everyone. If you don't have your you know, the way that you phrase it, your ICP figured out. I think that's where it all starts. Yeah, it's So, we talk about that a lot, right?

ICP, what is the proper ICP? Who are you selling to? And I think a lot of people certainly that we see and I'm curious your thoughts, confuse your ICP in your BP. Your ideal customer profile and your buyer persona are two very different things, at least in my opinion.

Are they different to you, and if so, what are the differences? Um, I don't know if I'd say they're very different, but I think it's important to call them out. So, ideal customer, like I would always say, here's who we're talking to. Like here's our total addressable market.

Here's who could buy from us and be very, very happy. Um and then if you're talking about ideal customer profile, that's a little bubble within it saying, but ideally, the ones that we're building for specifically, the one that this is absolutely designed for, um is are these people. And I think your buyer persona is, okay, within any any one who does buy from us, this is who's making the buyer decision, um, which might not be the user, which might not be the person who initially finds you, um, but they're the one who's actually going to be buying. That's the way I think of it.

So I'm I'm loving this this part of it and one of the things that we've been asking a lot of guests and not really founders or or the people that are running it, but how often should people be pressure testing this ICP, buying persona, value proposition? Because I can tell you in the past, it's been like, I don't know, a couple years, seems fine. Couple years seems fine. I mean, maybe if you're like Eli Lily or something, like you're like a massive company.

Um, but especially for startups if you're talking about growing, it's going to it's going to change, it's going to evolve. I mean, let's say even your company stays completely the same. No pivots, no bumps in the road. Look how much just the world has changed the last few years.

My word. I mean, like while I was a founder of a venture backed company, we were we went through a pandemic and like everything from how we buy, what we buy, where we work, like it all changed. So, the answer to your question in my mind is constant. Um, I was talking to somebody yesterday about the same kind of thing and she was talking about like, how often should you like think about brand?

How often should you talk about messaging? How often should you talk about like ICP and pressure testing things? And it's like, think if you as a human being only like thought that you could just think about your personality one time, go figure it out and just be like, that's done. I'm going to go live my life now.

I figured out my personality. Like you're constantly getting feedback. You're constantly, um, responding to how the world is interacting with you. And as as a leader, you're going that much further to actually get intentional about it.

Monthly, quarterly, yearly to say like, you know, I'm reflecting on what the world is telling me. The same exact thing goes for your business. You've got to be constantly taking feedback and understanding how those people that you are designing your business for are responding to what you're putting out there. Adam, you have to change your personality.

Is that Yeah. That's what I get out of that conversation. It it I I I do. Lindsey, let me ask you a question.

So I I want to tie this to I can't. Um, a lot of founders when it comes to changing their ICP, letting go that CRO who hasn't helped close a deal in six months because they're afraid that, you know, something is better than nothing, scratching a product that just isn't performing. Um, a lot of times we're talking with founders and we hear the word, I can't. I can't do that.

I can't make this change. Um, I know you have very strong feelings on the word I can't. Um, talk to us about how and why founders should shift their mind to I can versus I can't. Wow, it's almost like you teed this up because I have a show called, actually, I can.

I I may be the one of the two of us that does a little bit of show prep. Well, I appreciate it very much. Um, okay. So, my my whole thought process there is that as as a as anyone, as a human being, but I think especially my experience as a founder and talking to and working with a lot of founders is that as your business scales, you and your business grows, your job changes so much all the time.

And there's unless you've actually been there, you you don't you might think you understand, but you don't. The pressure, the amount of pressure on you to to to figure things out and and in all of the voices, not only in your head, which seem to multiply, but also around you. All of the you should do this, you need to do that, don't do that to your point. Like you absolutely can't do that.

Um, if you're not careful, will completely dilute that magical vision that started everything in the first place. And so, to me, this whole, actually I can, conversation that I've started is like, what what got you here was something that is nothing short of magical. Founders are crazy. No.

Founders are are a little crazy. You have to be, right? You have to be. And it's it's you're an adventurer and you're you're you're not risk averse, you're a risk taker and and you're a dreamer.

Like that's what that's what got you here in the first place. And if you listen to all the real or perceived voices that tell you you can't do something, you're going to be just like everybody else. At like best-case scenario is mediocrity. So, you've got to really, really protect that that vision and surround yourself with people, um, and affirmations and just self-grounding to be like, this is what we're doing and you know what?

That's all good advice. I'm going to pick and choose what I actually absorb and and real and make myself believe that, actually, I can see this thing through. I love it. It's amazing.

Yeah, this when you were saying that, it reminds me of, um, Eric Thomas. He's got that mantra, I would, I can, I will, I must. And it was like, that was like kind of going through my head as you were saying that. Um, as a as someone that's building an organ a company, um, when they get these pieces of like doubt in their mind, what's a couple of things they can do to like get the doubt out of their mind?

Like what are things like actionable things that they might be able to do? Okay. So, this this is where we get kind of woo-woo, but it's not woo-woo because it matters. Um, I think the worst thing you can do is just keep moving forward and not not pay attention to it because again, you'll dilute the magic.

Um, so, to me, it's journaling. It's ironically, I have mine right here. And I have like hundreds of notebooks behind me. Because when you um let's see, uh, there's a book called The Artist's Way.

Even if you're not an artist, even if you don't think you're creative, it's really important because it talks about the importance of of journaling. Three pages a day. Handwritten. Doesn't matter.

Nobody sees them. There's no format. There's no magical way to do it. But it it forces you to check in with yourself.

It forces you to to tap into that that magical founder vision that the concerns, um, to to talk yourself through the challenges that you're facing. Because we know this like more more often than not, you already have what it takes. You already know the answer. There's just head trash or other people's voices in the way.

So, one, journaling, every single day. It, you know, whether you want to spend five minutes or three hours, every single day will help you to see the patterns and actually listen to yourself. And then, two, is surround yourself with with good people, which is so much easier said than done. Um, people who don't have their own motives and their own agendas for what you're doing with your business, but that really are there to listen to you and to support you and will hear you out and just kind of ask you the tough questions about what you're doing.

So many people don't ask the tough questions and it it's funny. So we this morning we're on the on the phone with a VC firm out of um the UK. And I think one of the things that we really honed in on and Dale can gut check me here, but that I I feel they appreciated is we are going to come in and ask the tough questions. There's a lot of people who are just going to show up and be like, oh, you're doing this.

Let's do a little tweak of that. And like your team's perfect and everything's wonderful and here's your pretty slide deck and like if that's who you want, like I would rather walk away from that business. Um because my ethos at the end of the day is like we want to extend your runway and decrease your burn. And I can't do that by blowing smoke up your ass, pardon my French.

We have to be very honest with one another. But you work with a lot of founders um as well. How many of them really want to answer those tough questions and how do you shift the ones who don't to understand that they really need to if they want to get where they're going to get? Mm.

I think most of them somewhere in there really want to. I think the only ones who don't, 99% of the time, they're afraid. I mean, it that's the thing is that there's so many voices around. There's so much pressure that and they feel like they've there's this perception that they're in so deep that they can't possibly, you know, switch tracks or, you know, cuz if they have to answer the tough questions themselves, they've got to go start tough conversations with somebody else.

Whether that's you use the example of like letting go of that chief sales officer that just isn't performing, or maybe standing up to the VC that they desperately need money from, but they know it's not going to work, or their board that's kind of pushing them around. It's they know they know they want to answer the tough questions. They don't feel like they can. And so, to answer your question about how do you get them there, I think it's it's helping them to again, tap into that like what got you here in the first place?

Like this is about so much more than that tough conversation. And and your that vision that you believed in enough to start this whole thing, deserves to have you get through the mud. Like, you got to believe in that. And I think most people that I work with will get there.

Sometimes it just takes a little bit more time. And then it's like on the other side, it's like, gosh, I wish I had done this sooner. Every time. Right.

Right. That I do. One of the things Yeah. What what are the things that you talk about is developing a personal brand for the founder and um creating this thought leadership space, like this this movement.

Um, we talk about this a lot with our clients because we we talk about if you want to ever get to a repeatable stage in your go-to-market, you have to have somebody like people have to find you, they have to understand, they have to have awareness of what you do, what your ethos is, why you started it. Like a lot of questions I like to ask sometimes, like, what's your origin story? Like, what, you know, why did this thing come up? When you start pushing this button, cuz we struggle with this all the time with our founders, some of them will take it on, but I'd say 90% of them are like, I don't want to do LinkedIn.

I don't want to do social media. I don't have time to write content. Like, what do you say to those people and like, how do you convert them? Let's face it, y'all.

Hiring sales talent is a real pain in the ass. Getting A players is key to bridging your go-to market gap, but it's harder than ever. If you're not actively engaging passive talent, you don't stand a damn chance. That's why at Revenue Reimagined, we trust our partners at Pursuit to help our clients find the best talent fast.

If you're looking to strengthen your sales team, go check them out at Pursuit Sales Solutions.com. People buy from people. That's why companies who invest in meaningful connections win.

The best part, gifting doesn't have to be expensive to drive results. Just thoughtful. Sendoso's intelligent gifting platform is designed to boost personalized engagement throughout the entire sales process. Trust me, I led sales for a Sendoso competitor and I could tell you, no one does gifting better than Sendoso.

If you're looking for a proven way to win and retain more customers, visit Sendoso.com. I run into that a lot too. There's um, there's a lot of people uh who don't who feel like it's it's braggy and like, oh, I don't want to go talk about myself and it's like, no, your business needs you to.

You're the only one who can tell these stories. You're the only one. Like. You're the only one.

Um, okay. So, how do I get them to come around? To me, it's actually something really tactical because, um, yeah, most founders don't have time. Um, to sit down and write create a blog or to spend 10 hours a week in LinkedIn.

Like they just don't. Um, so, to me, something tactically that's worked for years and actually led to me starting Cassed was record it. Record it. Like founders spend so much time talking.

Record it. Get somebody to I I do a lot of things where it's like, I'll talk we'll talk and then we'll take me out of the conversation and we'll get you. And then that's stuff that you can share and that you can use and that you can repurpose and that we can turn into stuff. You don't need to become a Pulitzer Prize winning writer.

You don't need to become LinkedIn famous, like with your posts. You just need to find a way to capture and share your thoughts because they matter. They are they're the only thing in a super noisy crazy space that the market is turning into. Your voice and everything that you guys just said about like your unique perspective and your stories, that's the only differentiator you actually have.

And so, take that, capture it, talk to some of your customers and maybe that turns into a podcast. Maybe that turns into YouTube stuff. Maybe no one ever sees the videos, but that's a really easy, efficient, and effective way to get started. Well, and I think so I I love all that and I the way I like to describe it with founders sometimes is like, well, if you don't do this and you want top of funnel, like you're not going to get there.

Like, no one else will tell that story like you do. And so, if you believe one of your problems is top of funnel, here's a solution. Whether you want to take that solution or not is completely up to you. I will not force you, but you're saying one thing, but you're doing another.

Like Talk is cheap. Talk is cheap and I think with the advent of AI, um and especially how prevalent it's becoming, everyone feels that there's just this magic button, right? They could just all do the exact same thing. And Lindsey, I'm going to read a quote um that you sent when we specifically said, you know, what is a topic that's really important to you because it it speaks to this, you know, at its core.

Businesses don't achieve long-term success by doing what everyone else is doing and hitting the AI button. They transcend by seeing brave, established, by being brave, establishing human connections and holding space for creativity. There is no growth hack or tech stack for success. You have to get brave brave and audacious and human.

How do you as a founder or someone who coaches founders, how do you get people to resist the urge to hit that easy button and go say, I'm going to go send out 10,000 emails this week and, you know, we're going to get a 0.1 response rate and like, that's good enough, man, because, man, we can book two meetings. But we pissed off 9,998 other people. Yeah, exactly.

Um, okay. So, I think that there's the the people that I work with already start kind of have that foundation of knowing that that's probably not the way. Like, early in discovery conversations if people are like, yeah, but what's the ROI? When like when you do when we work on this and I do a LinkedIn post, how many sales am I going to get?

I'm like, we're probably not a fit. So, but the people that I work with and um that do are like, okay, but like AI, like we can AI this. I'm like, well, there are certain ways that you can use AI, for sure, that we can make this whole thing more efficient and be a lot more like effective and um and do some really cool things and really maximize our time. But what I do is I point to I have a conversation I'm like, tell me about the most iconic brands you can think of.

Like Salesforce, Hubspot, like Apple, right? Some of the new up and coming, like Drift and all the cool things that they did when they came on the scene and created this cult like crowd from a chatbot. No, they got purchased by salesloft. That's a whole other story.

RIP Drift brand. But um, and then we talk about it and say, okay, name tell me tell me the brands that you think are really iconic. And then I ask him, I'm like, do you think did they get to where they are by following someone else's playbook? Like did they do what everybody else that came before them did and they were just really, really good at executing someone else's playbook?

Are they still around? No, they wrote their own. And so is that like so what are you going to do? Are you going to get really, really, really good at AI prompts?

And that's how you're going to become an iconic brand? Are you going to like chase down the are you going to be the one person who finds a magical playbook from some other brand and you're just going to be like, be super good at implementing it. And that's how you're going to become a billion dollar business. Like But that last one that you just said, listen, I I shit on consultants all the time.

Um and we actually don't use the word consultants, but this is the exact reason because and founders are doing it too. Dale's smiling cuz he knows exactly what I'm going to say. The 1995 playbook, $1,995 playbook that I used at company one, two, and three, is not going to work at company four. They're Listen, our playbook certainly have a structure, don't get me wrong.

But there is no playbook that is plug and play. Boom, boom, Lindsey. Here's my playbook. I used at Revenue Reimagine.

Use it and it's going to go scale your business. Founders need to understand the same thing. You can't copy Outreach's playbook, Salesloft's playbook, Gong's playbook. You're not Gong.

It ain't going to work. Right. Thank you so much for saying that. Because there are there are obviously things that you can pull from.

There are things that I do. I mean, like I especially now that I'm I'm I'm working with a client. I'm not like working for a brand. I'm not just like thinking it's like, oh, I had to turn around and be like, how do I package this up in a way that other people can understand other than me just coming in and being like, I don't know, we're going to do stuff and it's going to be great.

Like I you have to like have a way you can talk about it. But the thing is is that it's it's it's not one size fits all. And here's here's the thing. Is that people want to see and want to know how working with a consultant, a fractional, an advisor, somebody is going how it's going to go.

They want to know what the product is. They want to know what the beginning, middle, end is going to be like. And so the more structured the sale is of like, here's the playbook. Here's how we're going to get started.

It's going to take X number of days and then here's an example of the blueprint that I'm going to get to you. That feels good to buy. But you have to ask yourself, who's going to benefit from this? It's it's the person selling the thing that they made it really easy to buy.

It's so as as the person who's buying the thing, you've got to ask ask the tough questions and say, like, how are you going to customize this to me? Like how does this how does this framework adjust? How do you how do you toggle it to different scenarios? Because certainly I've got a lot of nuances that are a whole lot different than your existing clients and like, how does this flex to fit?

And Well, and back to the conversation we had earlier, like if you're modifying your GTM strategy, call it every three months, you're pressure testing it. So, if Gong had built out a playbook or someone built out a playbook, you're only pressure testing it maybe a year ago. Like that's not and what stage were they in and like there's a lot of variables and dimensions in that conversation or strategy that you are not taking into account. Yeah.

And so, you know, when you're when you're trying that's why we don't just give strategy. That's why we have to execute because our philosophy is, we'll we can give you a process, we can give you messaging, we can build out the best process, but until we go pressure test against the market, like the market's never wrong. Like the market's always going to give you feedback if you listen to it. And you always are going to have to iterate over that feedback.

And so, like when we get that question, like what's our ROI, how are we going to do it? It's like, well, how many iterations are we going to have through the process because we're not going to get it right the first time. Even though we've done it a lot of times, the success the success is in the journey and not the end result. Yeah.

And there's so many variables, you know, that you're going to have to adjust for along the way. The the market will tell you is so true, not just in new sales, but I was having this conversation with a founder the other day who's struggling really, really, really bad with churn and leaky bucket. Um, they're a a small to medium-sized business. Um, call it $150-ish per month.

Um, annual contract, uh but allows people to bill monthly. So, they always get this, well, Lindsey, even though I have six months left on my contract, I dropped from five people to four people, um so I need to reduce the seat. Yeah. Now, that's a whole separate conversation about what to do.

But when you see people churning at the end of their term and not renewing, what's the market telling you? Generally speaking, I'm a big believer and I had another founder who said this to me yesterday, if we're building a product that's so good that people love it and can't imagine running their X business without it, they are not going to churn. Now, you're going to have out of business churn, like you're going to have certain things that happen. But when people start leaving you en masse for a competitor, you have to be willing to say, we we have a fundamental problem.

Is it a pricing problem or is it a product problem? But it's a problem at the end of the day. Um, the market will tell you what your problems are, whether you are looking at top of funnel, whether you are looking at mid-bottom of funnel, or whether you are looking at renewal and post-close. The problem is most people don't want to listen to the market.

And I find, and I'm curious if you see this as well, um, a lot of founders take their product very personally, which is great. That's what makes them amazing founders. But it's almost like, oh my god, you're you're you're you're telling me my kid is ugly. I'm not telling you your kid's ugly.

Your your kid is fantastic. Um, but your kid needs to, you know, go to a little bit of training or something to get a little bit better. You you running across that? Does does it help?

Yeah. Yeah, of course, of course. And I think, um, it goes for founders, it also goes for investors. Um, anyone who has skin in the game.

And I think that getting everyone aligned to listen to the market together and hear the same thing and then be like, are we all hearing the same thing? Can we make sure we're all hearing the same thing? Is so much easier said than done because, yeah, the founder, it's it's their baby. I've I've been there.

I've felt it. Um, and investors and other other stakeholders literally have invested in it and and need to see a return. And so, it's I actually had an investor tell me one time, like, Lindsey, you have to remember, our priorities are not aligned. And that like just smacked me in the face and I was like, What do you mean?

Like, we all want to see this succeed, but succeed meant something different to me as like wanting to see the vision through and like carry forth this vision versus an investor that was like, no, I need to see a return. Like, no matter what that return looks like. And so, I yeah, I think that listening to the market, obviously, that that is truth. And, um, doing we were talking about how often do you pressure test it, yet another reason to do that as often as possible as possible and make sure that all the stakeholders around the literal or virtual table are aligned on what the market is saying.

So, how how do you do that from a Sorry, Dale, from a super tactical, super actionable point, how do you pressure test anything as a founder? Like whether it's messaging, whether it's product, like what what can a founder who's listening to this right now walk away and go pressure test one thing? What's the one thing they should go pressure test right now? Um, goodness.

Talk to your customers. I mean, So amazing how many don't, but I dive. I know. I know.

I think, yeah, especially there are lots of different founder personas and I think some it's it's more natural than others, but you you have to. You have to. And not just the happy ones. Um, especially not like the ones that don't like it very much.

Yeah, you'll get in an echo chamber and you won't be able to uh decipher what's real, what's not real. You know, one of the one of the interesting things that I find, whether it's working with your board, investors, or just the people in your organization and what we do with a lot of the companies we work with. Like, you have to establish expectations. Yeah.

And make sure that the expectations are the same. You just talked about what success Like, we all want to be successful. Great. Success means different for you like you want to potentially like Casted.

You probably wanted it to get to a point of selling the company. What the profit margin on that or what the return on that may not have been what when if you got funding on it was what the investors wanted for success. Like if you get a 5X return, maybe that's success for you, but not success for the investor that said I wanted 10X return on my money, right? So, aligning those expectations and getting like pure definitions, not like, okay, we all want to be successful.

But how do we So, I always say, set those expectations early and often, make sure they're time-bound, they're measurable, like everyone knows what they are. And then, um visit them or revisit them, like almost weekly. Like because that 1% off that you get on a weekly basis, over a quarter, could have you like so far off base that is really hard to recover. And then you got to do unnatural things in the business to recover to that place.

Yeah. Yeah. I actually, it's kind of a side, but in support of your like one decision like can one percent. I was uh in a talk that I gave last week.

I was talking about these one degree, one degree decisions. And a plane that takes off in San Francisco headed for Washington DC. If it is off course by one degree when it takes off. Just one.

Um, by the time it gets over LA, it'll be off course by just six miles. Just just six miles. Just six miles, right? Just six miles.

Ultimately, it will land in Baltimore. Which is not Washington DC. Safe landing, which especially these days is a great it's a great outcome. I I'm flying on Friday.

Dale and I are flying next week, yeah. We like safe landings. I'm ironically, I'm going to Baltimore in a couple weeks, so I'm there with you. But um if I'm on that plane if I'm on that plane, I'm going to be like, cool, Baltimore seems lovely, but I needed to go to Washington DC.

So, yes, you're right. Aligning on expectations of like where where is this plane going? Um again, easier said than done, probably easier within your executive leadership team and throughout your organization than it ultimately is with sometimes with your board and your investors because those goal posts can change and they can shift. Um, but the least you can do is have alignment of what good looks like, what success looks like on a regular basis within your organization.

Easier said than done. And with that, uh, we are just about at time, but we we wouldn't be who we are if we didn't throw some rapid fire your way. Um, so, 10 words or less. Uh, we may have had someone yesterday who probably went 654 words on one of these questions.

Um, so, 10 words or less. Good thing no one knows when we actually record these. Um, early bird or night owl? Early bird.

How early? I get up at 4:55. Oh, okay, that's early. You win.

There we go, Lindsey. You win. Um, if you weren't in tech, what other profession would you be in? Um, I and just be magically successful?

Interior design. Nice. Nice. Favorite guilty pleasure snack?

My wife's interior designer, she loves it. Favorite and she's good too. Favorite guilty pleasure snack? Uh, um, ice cream, which I can't have dairy anymore, which is really lame.

And so like a good Yeah. non-dairy ice cream is a big treat. What what's the most used work emoji in your work chats? The shrug.

No. We don't use a lot of emoji in ours, but we tend we tend to text much more than we slack. Um, what's the one thing you do to unwind after a particularly long stressful day? Mm, I have the three best kids and my husband's amazing.

So I live with the four greatest dudes on the planet. And so just time they still snuggle up with me even though they're like teen pre-teen. That's awesome. Yeah.

Just all piled up on the couch. I I have a 13-year-old, he cuddled with me last night. It's uh it's very rare that he's like, Dad, can we just hang out and watch TV? And like, I love it.

Yes, right now. What do you want to watch? Here's the remote. Let me drop whatever I'm doing.

Running to the couch. Yeah, yeah. That's me. Let's uh let's wrap this up.

Dream vacation destination. Oh. Um, Scotland. Have you been?

Scotland. I have. Nice. Awesome.

It's amazing. First place that came to mind was Scotland. Nice. Lindsey, thank you so much for joining the show.

Thanks for sharing your insights. Where can people find you and learn more about what you're doing? Feel free to shamelessly plug your podcast. Okay.

All right, this is when you give me the tickets to my dream vacation, right? Just after we stop recording. Just Scotland. Okay, um I'm super active on uh LinkedIn.

So if you can figure out how to spell my name, you can find me there. Um and then humanbrandswin.com is a website where I'm constantly changing how I talk about what I do. Lindseychep.

com talks about speaking and and how I do that. And then my show, as you mentioned, is actuallyican.show. I love it.

Lindsey, thank you so much. Have an awesome day. You too. Thank you.